Wikileaks.org is the main domain name and has not been shut down. No access to information has been lost, except to the tiny minority of people who were only using wikileaks.de and don't know how to use a search engine.
Also, don't forget that they practically gave away XP to netbook makers. They aren't profiting off netbooks, they are struggling to hold their monopoly.
Yes, obviously. They currently spend the money on a server anyway, so this wouldn't be some huge change. Instead of a couple dozen devoted servers sending files at 200 kb/sec, they could have a dozen servers permanently seeding 1000s of files each. With some overlap, the whole system would be automatically distributed and redundant.
The biggest benefit to the company would be the ability to decrease the peak bandwidth for the rare cases a popular file is uploaded. The peer cloud would get huge right when they need it to, and then when downloads trickle down the servers and and few remaining seeders could fill the tiny demand.
The biggest problem I see is that once a file is being seeded by a bunch of other people, it's hard to justify charging for extra speed because it's out of the company's control. The company can still charge extra for downloading a file earlier than free users, and it can still make the free user wait 60 seconds to start the torrent download.
Yes, I realize that, but that's the inconvenience I am referring to. Obtaining a copy isn't cheap (15 dollars on their site http://www.quake.com/games/wolfenstein/wolf3d/index.php?game_section=buy), Steam is a hassle and will load your computer with software, and the process of moving WAD files is semi-technical.
It's possible, but doesn't exactly compete with Apple Store's downloading the whole package over the air.
But remember that the levels and sprites/sounds aren't free - to legally port it with the game intact, you would need to somehow acquire all this data and plug it into the code. Basically, you would need ID's blessing, or you would severely inconvenience the users.
Yes, I agree. I learned the scientific method at an early age (independently of school), and I am very thankful for that.
But the problem is scientific theory does not support many other theories of how species formed. Every currently valid theory is some take on the basic concepts of evolution. You can (and should) teach the weaknesses of evolution, but this argument, in the USA, is usually framed in the context of simultaneously teaching other, non-scientific theories. "Intelligent design" and its ilk have no scientific basis and don't belong in science classes.
"Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt"
From what I can tell, kids hate pretty much every change facebook ever makes. Sure, it's uncool to not use facebook nowadays, but loving everything about facebook is probably even less cool. Everyone knows it's a site run by suits.
"you could give it multiple goals to strive toward, and then give it some degree of randomness in which goal it chooses to pursue. Victory vs. pain-avoidance, attack vs. finding time to recover, etc."
That strategy would still create bot-like behavior; programmed correctly, a bot will find an "ideal" solution to a constrained problem. This isn't how humans work. Humans aren't just random number generators attached to optimizers. In fact, the score function of the typical game engine (like chess) works almost exactly as you describe and often creates very un-human like behavior. I believe many first-person shooter bots also use similar goals to poor results.
"So, Johnathan, what did you do today?' Oh, nothing really. I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else's money!" and "Oh, and nobody buy Stoam. It's bad mojo, and they'll probably cease to exist, now that their wallet is $12M lighter. http://www.stoam.com/."
He was clearly show-boating for his tweeter fans, even if in jest. Therefore, I do think there is a chance that he "felt a need to agree to a spectacular verdict to impress the people reading his posts."
While it is sucks that there may have to be a retrial, the important of impartial justice supersedes the inconvenience.
No, I don't work with audio for a living - I use my headphones in an office. It's a quiet office, so it's not to drown out the sound; instead, it's so I can blast my music without annoying everyone else.
My setup is 595s plugged into a pa2v2 amp plugged into my Zune.
I was trying to decide between the HD-555s and 595s about two years ago. I went with the 595s, and I'm confident I made the right decision (for myself). At the time, I had only the reviews for the two, with a pretty consistent conclusion: the two are very similar. Pretty much same comfort level, and maybe 10% better sound. For double the price.
So why were the 595s the correct decision for me? Because I use my headphones for about 4 hours a work day, 50 weeks a year. At 1000 listening hours a year, I expect to get *at least* 5,000 hours out of these headphones, probably more. Worst case, that's like three cents an hour.
Frankly, even if I could only subconsciously detect the difference between the 555s and 595s, the 80 extra dollars I spent on my headphones are virtually nothing compared to the peace-of-mind that I didn't skimp on something I use so much.
I'm not an audiophile, but if you can't tell the difference between the 202s and 555s+ you definitely aren't one either. I own the 595s and the 202s and there is a huge difference. The 202s are good, but not "good enough" for people who want something better. And no, those people aren't necessarily snobs.
Exactly. Google will do the profitable thing, which is to stay with Mozilla. It doesn't matter that Chrome now exists; Firefox most likely generates more revenue for Google than Mozilla makes from all sources combined.
There is nothing stopping Chrome and Google's deal with Mozilla from coexisting. As long as all web browsers lead to Google's search engine, Google will be happy. It is Internet Explorer they want to destroy. And they have been successful, Chrome apparently is stealing more users from IE (http://www.inquisitr.com/3031/chrome-internet-explorer/)
Notice that I said "I think the app store should be virtually open." I am simply arguing as devil's advocate, and pointing out why it makes sense for Apple. My argument isn't even directly applicable to the iPhone, because the iPhone wouldn't give an app access to everything.
IMO, I rightfully point out that there is some benefit to the additional security - but I'll agree with you that the benefit is not worth the gain.
It's not so much about low quality apps as potential maliciousness. A device that is always connected to the internet could be very damaging. Imagine the power a malicious software developer would have if he had access to everything - GPS, voice conversations, text messages, browser history, etc. A virus on the iPhone would be bad for the Apple name.
While I think the app store should be virtually open, I like the fact that Apple vouches for everything that goes through it.
So the lighting is captured by the camera, not an algorithm - how then, do you *remove* lighting for shadows? Or change the lighting when light-emitting objects move?
This seems like a step backwards from truly immersive worlds, where one can interact with the world and it interacts back. My prediction is that this line of research will lead to some cool proof-of-concept games (under a killing moon is still one of my favorite games of all time), but will ultimately be a dead end. We have the technology to do better than this for games.
"According to the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), the fees would generate $4.8 billion over the next 10 years."
So, that's (on average) 480 million dollars per year for all carriers in the US. Assuming there are 180 million active cell phones in the US (accurate as of 2005), this is $2.70 per phone per year, or 23 cents a month. I think the total of hidden (read: fake) subcharges added to my bill are well over 23 cents a month. In other words, this charge really isn't noteworthy.
I don't know the specifics, but my only concern is that it will prevent small carrier from entering the market.
"We looked all over the shop for a plan or carrier that'd offer preventive stuff. Discounted gym memberships, exercise programs, whatever"
I think you misunderstand what preventive health care means. If you want to get in shape, go outside and jog.
Preventive health care means getting physicals and getting checked for cancer before it spreads. These things should all be free/cheap under any decent health care program
You are correct that all CDs have some basic automatic error correction, but that isn't what Clarious is saying. Data CDs DO have an extra layer of redundancy error checking beyond what audio CDs offer.
Audio CDs don't need as much error protection because they can extrapolate their way through errors. In fact, they had to do this back in the day because CD players didn't have buffers and the processing power to go back after an error and "fix" it. Instead, if there is an error, it just interpolates the lost frame by averaging the frames around it. This creates a problem for audiophiles, because while a damaged CD may play just fine, it won't sound perfect.
Your logic extends to health care too: when it's not universal, the rich tend to get better care than the poor. Should we stop treating the rich? And "non-cosmetic Eugenics", when it is mainstream, will probably be considered health care just as much as a sonograph is today. In fact, I would assume this; if we could spend 1000 dollars now to avoid a health ailment that will cost 50,000 dollars to treat in the future, I'm sure insurance/universal health care would gladly pay for it. They love preventive stuff like that.
If you blame Microsoft and Sony, how do you explain the fact that they both sell more games per console than the Wii? The fact is, Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, Sony) have created highly successful consoles that target gaming enthusiasts, a devoted high-spending market. These people don't want 30 dollar games, because 30 dollar games have lackluster graphics, short/boring plots, and bugs; games today are high production, high quality, which many consider a good thing. Gaming enthusiasts used to spend 10 dollars an hour at the arcade in the 1990s - to them, 60 dollars to keep an arcade quality game is a bargain.
There is no point in comparing the Wii and Xbox/PS3, but I hear a common misconception that the Wii is somehow superior to the other systems. Most people I know with Wiis threw them back in their closets after they got bored with the Wii sports/play games and handful of decent non-novelty games. The Xbox 360, which is selling for nearly 100 dollars less than the Wii at this point, still has a constant flow of high quality games.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikileaks.org is the main domain name and has not been shut down. No access to information has been lost, except to the tiny minority of people who were only using wikileaks.de and don't know how to use a search engine.
It's a very minor form of censorship, but I think this story is a red herring to more important censorship stories like this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Potential_future_Australian_censorship
I read about this story on Wikileak's site (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Germany_muzzles_Wikileaks)
This seems like Germany improperly suspending a domain name, but I don't think they are censoring any information in this move.
Also, don't forget that they practically gave away XP to netbook makers. They aren't profiting off netbooks, they are struggling to hold their monopoly.
Yes, obviously. They currently spend the money on a server anyway, so this wouldn't be some huge change. Instead of a couple dozen devoted servers sending files at 200 kb/sec, they could have a dozen servers permanently seeding 1000s of files each. With some overlap, the whole system would be automatically distributed and redundant.
The biggest benefit to the company would be the ability to decrease the peak bandwidth for the rare cases a popular file is uploaded. The peer cloud would get huge right when they need it to, and then when downloads trickle down the servers and and few remaining seeders could fill the tiny demand.
The biggest problem I see is that once a file is being seeded by a bunch of other people, it's hard to justify charging for extra speed because it's out of the company's control. The company can still charge extra for downloading a file earlier than free users, and it can still make the free user wait 60 seconds to start the torrent download.
Yes, I realize that, but that's the inconvenience I am referring to. Obtaining a copy isn't cheap (15 dollars on their site http://www.quake.com/games/wolfenstein/wolf3d/index.php?game_section=buy), Steam is a hassle and will load your computer with software, and the process of moving WAD files is semi-technical.
It's possible, but doesn't exactly compete with Apple Store's downloading the whole package over the air.
But remember that the levels and sprites/sounds aren't free - to legally port it with the game intact, you would need to somehow acquire all this data and plug it into the code. Basically, you would need ID's blessing, or you would severely inconvenience the users.
Yes, I agree. I learned the scientific method at an early age (independently of school), and I am very thankful for that.
But the problem is scientific theory does not support many other theories of how species formed. Every currently valid theory is some take on the basic concepts of evolution. You can (and should) teach the weaknesses of evolution, but this argument, in the USA, is usually framed in the context of simultaneously teaching other, non-scientific theories. "Intelligent design" and its ilk have no scientific basis and don't belong in science classes.
"GSoC is where Google funds student's to participate in Open Source projects"
Maybe they should fund a class in grammar and spelling first :P
"Sure, it would slow things down and increase their cost, but if they did, it would be "chic" to encrypt"
From what I can tell, kids hate pretty much every change facebook ever makes. Sure, it's uncool to not use facebook nowadays, but loving everything about facebook is probably even less cool. Everyone knows it's a site run by suits.
"you could give it multiple goals to strive toward, and then give it some degree of randomness in which goal it chooses to pursue. Victory vs. pain-avoidance, attack vs. finding time to recover, etc."
That strategy would still create bot-like behavior; programmed correctly, a bot will find an "ideal" solution to a constrained problem. This isn't how humans work. Humans aren't just random number generators attached to optimizers. In fact, the score function of the typical game engine (like chess) works almost exactly as you describe and often creates very un-human like behavior. I believe many first-person shooter bots also use similar goals to poor results.
The lawyers of the defendant are claiming that he was showboating his power, something that's impossible to do with a pad of paper.
He made tweets like:
"So, Johnathan, what did you do today?' Oh, nothing really. I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else's money!"
and
"Oh, and nobody buy Stoam. It's bad mojo, and they'll probably cease to exist, now that their wallet is $12M lighter. http://www.stoam.com/."
He was clearly show-boating for his tweeter fans, even if in jest. Therefore, I do think there is a chance that he "felt a need to agree to a spectacular verdict to impress the people reading his posts."
While it is sucks that there may have to be a retrial, the important of impartial justice supersedes the inconvenience.
No, I don't work with audio for a living - I use my headphones in an office. It's a quiet office, so it's not to drown out the sound; instead, it's so I can blast my music without annoying everyone else.
My setup is 595s plugged into a pa2v2 amp plugged into my Zune.
I was trying to decide between the HD-555s and 595s about two years ago. I went with the 595s, and I'm confident I made the right decision (for myself). At the time, I had only the reviews for the two, with a pretty consistent conclusion: the two are very similar. Pretty much same comfort level, and maybe 10% better sound. For double the price.
So why were the 595s the correct decision for me? Because I use my headphones for about 4 hours a work day, 50 weeks a year. At 1000 listening hours a year, I expect to get *at least* 5,000 hours out of these headphones, probably more. Worst case, that's like three cents an hour.
Frankly, even if I could only subconsciously detect the difference between the 555s and 595s, the 80 extra dollars I spent on my headphones are virtually nothing compared to the peace-of-mind that I didn't skimp on something I use so much.
I'm not an audiophile, but if you can't tell the difference between the 202s and 555s+ you definitely aren't one either. I own the 595s and the 202s and there is a huge difference. The 202s are good, but not "good enough" for people who want something better. And no, those people aren't necessarily snobs.
Exactly. Google will do the profitable thing, which is to stay with Mozilla. It doesn't matter that Chrome now exists; Firefox most likely generates more revenue for Google than Mozilla makes from all sources combined.
There is nothing stopping Chrome and Google's deal with Mozilla from coexisting. As long as all web browsers lead to Google's search engine, Google will be happy. It is Internet Explorer they want to destroy. And they have been successful, Chrome apparently is stealing more users from IE (http://www.inquisitr.com/3031/chrome-internet-explorer/)
Notice that I said "I think the app store should be virtually open." I am simply arguing as devil's advocate, and pointing out why it makes sense for Apple. My argument isn't even directly applicable to the iPhone, because the iPhone wouldn't give an app access to everything.
IMO, I rightfully point out that there is some benefit to the additional security - but I'll agree with you that the benefit is not worth the gain.
It's not so much about low quality apps as potential maliciousness. A device that is always connected to the internet could be very damaging. Imagine the power a malicious software developer would have if he had access to everything - GPS, voice conversations, text messages, browser history, etc. A virus on the iPhone would be bad for the Apple name.
While I think the app store should be virtually open, I like the fact that Apple vouches for everything that goes through it.
So the lighting is captured by the camera, not an algorithm - how then, do you *remove* lighting for shadows? Or change the lighting when light-emitting objects move?
This seems like a step backwards from truly immersive worlds, where one can interact with the world and it interacts back. My prediction is that this line of research will lead to some cool proof-of-concept games (under a killing moon is still one of my favorite games of all time), but will ultimately be a dead end. We have the technology to do better than this for games.
Air conditioning can require a lot of energy.
Also, I think winter is the cold, short-day season in both hemispheres, they just happen six months apart.
"According to the OMB (Office of Management and Budget), the fees would generate $4.8 billion over the next 10 years."
So, that's (on average) 480 million dollars per year for all carriers in the US. Assuming there are 180 million active cell phones in the US (accurate as of 2005), this is $2.70 per phone per year, or 23 cents a month. I think the total of hidden (read: fake) subcharges added to my bill are well over 23 cents a month. In other words, this charge really isn't noteworthy.
I don't know the specifics, but my only concern is that it will prevent small carrier from entering the market.
"We looked all over the shop for a plan or carrier that'd offer preventive stuff. Discounted gym memberships, exercise programs, whatever"
I think you misunderstand what preventive health care means. If you want to get in shape, go outside and jog.
Preventive health care means getting physicals and getting checked for cancer before it spreads. These things should all be free/cheap under any decent health care program
You are correct that all CDs have some basic automatic error correction, but that isn't what Clarious is saying. Data CDs DO have an extra layer of redundancy error checking beyond what audio CDs offer.
Audio CDs don't need as much error protection because they can extrapolate their way through errors. In fact, they had to do this back in the day because CD players didn't have buffers and the processing power to go back after an error and "fix" it. Instead, if there is an error, it just interpolates the lost frame by averaging the frames around it. This creates a problem for audiophiles, because while a damaged CD may play just fine, it won't sound perfect.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM#CD-ROM_format
Your logic extends to health care too: when it's not universal, the rich tend to get better care than the poor. Should we stop treating the rich? And "non-cosmetic Eugenics", when it is mainstream, will probably be considered health care just as much as a sonograph is today. In fact, I would assume this; if we could spend 1000 dollars now to avoid a health ailment that will cost 50,000 dollars to treat in the future, I'm sure insurance/universal health care would gladly pay for it. They love preventive stuff like that.
If you blame Microsoft and Sony, how do you explain the fact that they both sell more games per console than the Wii? The fact is, Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, Sony) have created highly successful consoles that target gaming enthusiasts, a devoted high-spending market. These people don't want 30 dollar games, because 30 dollar games have lackluster graphics, short/boring plots, and bugs; games today are high production, high quality, which many consider a good thing. Gaming enthusiasts used to spend 10 dollars an hour at the arcade in the 1990s - to them, 60 dollars to keep an arcade quality game is a bargain.
There is no point in comparing the Wii and Xbox/PS3, but I hear a common misconception that the Wii is somehow superior to the other systems. Most people I know with Wiis threw them back in their closets after they got bored with the Wii sports/play games and handful of decent non-novelty games. The Xbox 360, which is selling for nearly 100 dollars less than the Wii at this point, still has a constant flow of high quality games.