I think the issue is that they can't decide what it's supposed to kill. It's an iPod that acts as a cell phone, digital camera, Gameboy, universal remote, garage door opener, GPS unit, all while running off wireless power!
I disagree. How many "hobbyists" would be willing to shell out the cash for a proprietary toolkit? True, the documentation is likely to be better and you can probably get 'trial' or 'personal' versions for free, but there will come that inevitable moment when said hobbyist says to himself "I've got a pretty cool little app here, maybe I should release it." What's he going to do then? Spend $100 for a QT license* so that he can give the world his free tool?
On a related note; how many hobby developers do you think are writing web applications in Coldfusion? Not many! Why? Because they're all using PHP or Ruby; tools that leave them free to work (and release!) without any financial cost.
Admittedly, these are both bad examples, since QT has been free for most platforms for quite a while, and both PHP and Ruby have excellent documentation. But still, you get my point.
After EA's recent acquisition of WAR, It's nice to see some non-WoW MMORPGS getting some attention. There may yet be hope for those of us trapped in Azeroth...
If you like gaming for gaming's sake (not just to pass the time a la MS Solitaire) then it doesn't matter if you only play half an hour a day or 3 hours a day.
Stop, pause, and think about that. Let's try an analogy, shall we? I like sex for sex's sake. Does it matter to me if I have sex once a day or seven times a day?
_______________ /...............\
| Final Fantasy |
| I, II, III,.. |
| IV, V, VI,... |
| VII, VIII,... |
| IX, X, XI,... |
|..And........ |
| XII!......... |
\_______________/
No wonder they won't do it, the ink alone would drive them bankrupt!
"Yep. Oblivion was pretty sweet, and you can bet that folks here at Microsoft noticed! In fact, we thought the game was so awesome that we've decided to send as many Windows PCs as possible through our own 'Gate of Oblivion', ensuring that, should you ever find yourself in an alternate plane of existence, you'll be able to find a PC that you can use! Of course, to do this we're going to have to remove those PCs from this plane of existence -- Just wait till you see how we do it!"
Meanwhile, somewhere in Paradise:
"The computer...does not belong! It is not of this world! Here, you will find only Linux! Windows came from Linux! Bruhahaha!"
So, Linear algebra, Algebraic structures, and Sigma algebra aren't legitimate classes? Hmm. I'm all for drug testing everyone who's not a math major; anyone taking college algebra doesn't have enough free time to drink...
For years, I've found it astounding the amount of discrimination modern kids face. At school, their civil rights are limited; High school students are subject to what, if placed in any other context, would be blatantly illegal search and seizure. Federal law required that internet access at public high schools (and, for that matter, at public libraries) to be filtered for inappropriate content.
This is really no different. Many Americans were furious to discover that the NSA had recently obtained their cell phone records, yet how many EFF members will raise a complaint against this system? None. Why? Because it's OK to discriminate against kids & students.
Think about it. Afraid your kids will be negatively influenced by some content on the internet? Were you warped by exposure to foul language, racism, and pornography when you were in high school? I bet I know the answer to both of those questions, and I bet they're not the same.
I'm sitting here reading the comments, and I'm thinking: "maybe this isn't such a bad thing." I mean, it's going to be bad for the U.S. -- that's inevitable. But there's a (admittedly slim) possibility that Europe could learn a lesson from our mistake, and we could see a shift in the balance of technological power. The European software industry isn't half as noteworthy as its American counterpart -- let's see where they are after 10 years of neutral internet, while the U.S. is held back by premium services.
Sigh. And so ends freedom on the Internet *for American citizens*. The Internet isn't solely an American thing, you know. This could signal the end of America's dominance in the technology. Hail free Europe!
1)bandwidth is already plentiful; we're talking about hypothetical harms here. (For the record, I actually downgraded my broadband a few months ago, with absolutely no complaints).
Bandwidth is plentiful at the moment because the Internet is over-provisioned. Remember the 90's, when everyone and their dog was laying fiber across the country? Remember what happened right after all those cables got laid? So basically, we're working with an Internet that's been set up to handle far more traffic than is actually generated. Right now, that's a good thing, but the telecoms aren't increasing the capacity of the Internet at anything near the rate that the demand for that capacity is growing. In 10-20 years, we'll be right back where we were 10 years ago, and those 'toll lanes' are going to really mean something.
Sounds great, yea?
So in 15 years AT&T will be making money hand over fist by providing premium services at a higher cost. Then they'll realize that in order to maintain the quality of those premium services, they're going to have to lay a new cable between New York and Dallas. What kind of traffic do you think is going to be routed over that cable? Over every bit of capacity added to the internet starting today?
This isn't going to be a problem right now. This is going to be a problem in 20 years, which is why it's so important that we stop it now, and why it's so hard to explain to the average person why you can't pay more for more reliable internet service.
I take it you're a member of the first 1000?
on
DRM and Democracy
·
· Score: 1
I'm seeing a lot of Slashdot comments suggesting that the Harvard researchers aren't going to get very far because the U.S. government is going to shut them down. There is no legislation (at the moment!) to support such an action; In the recent controversy over government regulation of stem cell research, Congress passed a law which denies federal funding to researchers who use artificially fertilized embryos to produce stem cell lines.
The article specifically mentions that Harvard is doing this with private funding. They're home free; I wish 'em luck.
It's not so much the appearance of a whole bunch of new technologies (CSS, XML, HTML, and Javascript, which you point out are nothing new to anyone!), but a change in the mindset of web developers. Historically, the Web is a collection of documents; "Web 2.0" developers focus on creating applications within the same framework. It all comes down to your design goal: Creating a document, however attractive and hyperlinked it may be, is totally Web 1.0. But creating an application, like the oft-mentioned Google Maps, is "Web 2.0".
Sure. Yea. But it makes us open-source religinuts look a bit silly, touting our "secure browser" when CNET (which has a very questionably technical readerbase) and others run stories like this. Argh. I'm just going to hit the first IE-phile who uses this little bug in an argument.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the issue is that they can't decide what it's supposed to kill. It's an iPod that acts as a cell phone, digital camera, Gameboy, universal remote, garage door opener, GPS unit, all while running off wireless power!
I'm calling it a Fry's Killer.
I disagree. How many "hobbyists" would be willing to shell out the cash for a proprietary toolkit? True, the documentation is likely to be better and you can probably get 'trial' or 'personal' versions for free, but there will come that inevitable moment when said hobbyist says to himself "I've got a pretty cool little app here, maybe I should release it." What's he going to do then? Spend $100 for a QT license* so that he can give the world his free tool?
On a related note; how many hobby developers do you think are writing web applications in Coldfusion? Not many! Why? Because they're all using PHP or Ruby; tools that leave them free to work (and release!) without any financial cost.
Admittedly, these are both bad examples, since QT has been free for most platforms for quite a while, and both PHP and Ruby have excellent documentation. But still, you get my point.
I'm mildly offended. "Stephen Hawking asks the internet a question." Since when is Yahoo "the internet?"
As far as I'm concerned, this should have been an "Ask Slashdot", not a Yahoo answers post...
After EA's recent acquisition of WAR, It's nice to see some non-WoW MMORPGS getting some attention. There may yet be hope for those of us trapped in Azeroth...
Stop, pause, and think about that. Let's try an analogy, shall we? I like sex for sex's sake. Does it matter to me if I have sex once a day or seven times a day?
I think so, yes.
Dear God, did I just compare gaming to sex?
Show me a game where I can have fun and make some progress in a 15-minute increment, and I'll show you Solitaire.
Just try playing WoW for 15 minutes, and see how much you can do...
"No, I think we'll let Delta Force handle this one."
Seriously, though -- why does it matter?
The article is surrounded AMD advertisements! Sublety is clearly not a strong point for BusinessWeek...
_______________
/...............\ ..And........ |
| Final Fantasy |
| I, II, III,.. |
| IV, V, VI,... |
| VII, VIII,... |
| IX, X, XI,... |
|
| XII!......... |
\_______________/
No wonder they won't do it, the ink alone would drive them bankrupt!
Redmond:
"Yep. Oblivion was pretty sweet, and you can bet that folks here at Microsoft noticed! In fact, we thought the game was so awesome that we've decided to send as many Windows PCs as possible through our own 'Gate of Oblivion', ensuring that, should you ever find yourself in an alternate plane of existence, you'll be able to find a PC that you can use! Of course, to do this we're going to have to remove those PCs from this plane of existence -- Just wait till you see how we do it!"
Meanwhile, somewhere in Paradise:
"The computer...does not belong! It is not of this world! Here, you will find only Linux! Windows came from Linux! Bruhahaha!"
Sounds like a Doctor Who episode I saw last year...
Yea, I know. Just felt this...overwhelming...urge...to be pedantic.
So, Linear algebra, Algebraic structures, and Sigma algebra aren't legitimate classes? Hmm. I'm all for drug testing everyone who's not a math major; anyone taking college algebra doesn't have enough free time to drink...
With that mock-up, they're sure to push their downloads from 10 to 187!
For years, I've found it astounding the amount of discrimination modern kids face. At school, their civil rights are limited; High school students are subject to what, if placed in any other context, would be blatantly illegal search and seizure. Federal law required that internet access at public high schools (and, for that matter, at public libraries) to be filtered for inappropriate content.
This is really no different. Many Americans were furious to discover that the NSA had recently obtained their cell phone records, yet how many EFF members will raise a complaint against this system? None. Why? Because it's OK to discriminate against kids & students.
Think about it. Afraid your kids will be negatively influenced by some content on the internet? Were you warped by exposure to foul language, racism, and pornography when you were in high school? I bet I know the answer to both of those questions, and I bet they're not the same.
Read around on http://www.peacefire.org/. Again, think about it.
Disclaimer: For what it's worth, I'm 20. It's been years since I endured any discimination because of my age.
I'm sitting here reading the comments, and I'm thinking: "maybe this isn't such a bad thing." I mean, it's going to be bad for the U.S. -- that's inevitable. But there's a (admittedly slim) possibility that Europe could learn a lesson from our mistake, and we could see a shift in the balance of technological power. The European software industry isn't half as noteworthy as its American counterpart -- let's see where they are after 10 years of neutral internet, while the U.S. is held back by premium services.
Sigh. And so ends freedom on the Internet *for American citizens*. The Internet isn't solely an American thing, you know. This could signal the end of America's dominance in the technology. Hail free Europe!
Bandwidth is plentiful at the moment because the Internet is over-provisioned. Remember the 90's, when everyone and their dog was laying fiber across the country? Remember what happened right after all those cables got laid? So basically, we're working with an Internet that's been set up to handle far more traffic than is actually generated. Right now, that's a good thing, but the telecoms aren't increasing the capacity of the Internet at anything near the rate that the demand for that capacity is growing. In 10-20 years, we'll be right back where we were 10 years ago, and those 'toll lanes' are going to really mean something.
Sounds great, yea?
So in 15 years AT&T will be making money hand over fist by providing premium services at a higher cost. Then they'll realize that in order to maintain the quality of those premium services, they're going to have to lay a new cable between New York and Dallas. What kind of traffic do you think is going to be routed over that cable? Over every bit of capacity added to the internet starting today?
This isn't going to be a problem right now. This is going to be a problem in 20 years, which is why it's so important that we stop it now, and why it's so hard to explain to the average person why you can't pay more for more reliable internet service.
Hah! So, when do you leave for New Hampshire?
Wait - Where did you find a decent printer? All I've ever seen are cheap printers...I thought they stopped making the decent kind back in the 90's.
I'm seeing a lot of Slashdot comments suggesting that the Harvard researchers aren't going to get very far because the U.S. government is going to shut them down. There is no legislation (at the moment!) to support such an action; In the recent controversy over government regulation of stem cell research, Congress passed a law which denies federal funding to researchers who use artificially fertilized embryos to produce stem cell lines. The article specifically mentions that Harvard is doing this with private funding. They're home free; I wish 'em luck.
It's not so much the appearance of a whole bunch of new technologies (CSS, XML, HTML, and Javascript, which you point out are nothing new to anyone!), but a change in the mindset of web developers. Historically, the Web is a collection of documents; "Web 2.0" developers focus on creating applications within the same framework. It all comes down to your design goal: Creating a document, however attractive and hyperlinked it may be, is totally Web 1.0. But creating an application, like the oft-mentioned Google Maps, is "Web 2.0".
Why install Linux on a dead badger? How else to take advantage of all that bloat...
Sure. Yea. But it makes us open-source religinuts look a bit silly, touting our "secure browser" when CNET (which has a very questionably technical readerbase) and others run stories like this. Argh. I'm just going to hit the first IE-phile who uses this little bug in an argument.