This junk it'll be sending up is damn near useless. They want to see how well the electronics hold up in space... for a few days before re-entry, with no ability to query them, and just a very short message sent (on repeat?) via radio?
IMO, I'd rather rent a timeslice on something even a tad more advanced. Long term goal is more interesting, and I realize the first launch is mostly proof-of-concept, but that's an expensive proof for something that can obviously be done. I'd be nice if the larger donations got better kicksat boards at least.
It wouldn't surprise me if there are other projects out there he could team up with that would love to do some swarm robotics up there that wouldn't cost a whole lot more for the individual parts, but could at least make use of there being 100-1000 of them in near proximity in space.
Further off on a tangent.... I was kinda hoping to see a cheaper launch vehicle for microsats. Maybe a combo of weather balloon and rocket that goes off once it hits near-max-height?
I'm all for the big brother fear posts about Google getting evil, but this isn't the time. Twitter ended their agreement with Google for a real time feed; other realtime/news sites have been threatening blocking Google; then they get upset when Google says fuck it, introduces their own service, and integrates it.
What's next? NYT blocks Google indexers and then complains when they don't show up in the top of the search results?
The social sites have had users data locked up long enough. It's due time they provide API's to users, aggregators, and others. Google seems to want to include as much of this other stuff as it can in its search results... they're not the bottleneck, nor the slippery slope here.
This is just more of the same. I was really hoping that, with Vizio being a big flatscreen maker, they'd just be slapping a PC on the back of them.
Many big LCD TV's these days have built in network media stuff (netflix, hulu plus, pandora, and loads of more minor players), so they've got some computing guts in them already. I was hoping they'd just up the power a little and bring out an integrated webtv type thing on 55"+ screens, and include a keyboard. If it ran like a real PC, they could even skirt the hulu plus issues (and similar from other providers) since it could be considered a PC. Toss in external storage device support (USB3 + gigabit network) and it'd be a winner.
But no... it's just another all-in-one monitor and another (likely underpowered) laptop. I wonder if the 27" model will at least have more than 1920x1280 resolution (ie. 2560x1600)?
At 00:25 - 00:26, for some strange reason, the news lady says "It's an Airbus jet" very quickly. I don't think the word "Boeing" is even mentioned in the video, yet it is regarding a Boeing 737. Simple slip up? Seems very odd to me.
Bump... I was going to post this if I couldn't find someone else saying it. Unfortunately it's an AC.
I have a studio apt and was using my 30" monitor as a TV. It's not g/f friendly though, and I've wanted a projector for a long time. When I broke down and got one, I went the 3d route. I paid less than I would for a big LCD, and got a 120" screen, 720p 3d projector, and it looks amazing. Accessories are a pain - had to get a 3d converter box cause the projector doesn't do native HDMI 1.4, so the box takes that and spits out the right signal for the projector, and had to buy glasses, but got really good ones that cost way less than the common bestbuy ones (ultra-clear brand for $55 a pop).
PS3 games in 3d looks amazing. 3d bluray and downloadable movies on PS3 look awesome. The problem is content - Avatar isn't even out on 3d bluray (unless you get it through special offer with the purchase of specific panasonic sets), and even PS3 3d game selection is very limited. On the 3d game front, I was VERY disappointed when got some for their 3d and co-op or head-to-head features, and found out you can't do both at the same time - split screen takes more PS3 cpu power, and so does 3d, so you get one or the other. Cars 2 PS3 game in 3d with 4 people split screen on a 120" screen is really really fun though:-)
In the end, I don't think it was worth it, but I personally love watching 3d movies as does the g/f (even if they're mostly kids movies). My home setup looks as good or better than the theater (cause your really immersed at the right distance from the screen, and it's big enough to do that), plus I can pause whenever I want and drink/eat what I like. The whole setup was still less than a grand, and that's in the ballpark for nice big tv's these days, and it takes up far less space when it's not being used, so it's a win for me.
They're pretty common, though I doubt they'll do much to throw off the facial recognition unless you use an abnormal stud (it's commonly just 2 small balls).
Why must we constantly let bullshit pass just because it's the only way to let anything pass at all? We either shutdown or we accept three or four lines of bullshit for every line of decency.
There's no need for line item veto, and it puts too much power in a presidents hand. The answer is to shutdown until congress submits a more reasonable bill. Ideally, IMO, a bill that is specifically targeted at a specific item with as little extra as possible and no riders. If they want to pass crazy riders, pass them in the clear on their own. If there's not enough bandwidth to get them all through, good! It should be a bottleneck, and we should not have too many changes in a term. And any bill passed should be clear and readable by most voters - there are ones that go through now that congress members themselves have admitted that they were not able to read the entire thing before voting on it, and that's just stupid.
I'm almost certain that nearly everyone that's even a little involved in IT has had the idea mentioned in the summary. This isn't a new thought, and I believe it hasn't been done because we all keep deciding in the end that it'd cause more harm than good (or may have bad/legal repercussions the good guys aren't willing to deal with).... but it sure is tempting.
I'm all for them giving it a go. If designed right, it'd reduce the number of virus-laden machines and leave no additional vector for infection:
* work like a vulnerability scanner * if you find something, exploit it, close the hole, and leave it be * also attempt to detect other virus' and, if possible, close them down. * report unfixable stuff to somewhere else, where network admins can kick the box offline
You wouldn't get everything, and you're bound to cause some colatteral damage, but I'd bet it'd help clean up the mess quite a bit. Assuming it only scans from a set block of IP's, it'd also be easy to "opt out" of it by blocking it at your firewall. If you don't have one in this day and age and your window box is directly connected to the net, you have no business being online without a babysitter.
Honestly, my only concern would be scope and slippery-slope. If they operate like a virus and spread from machine to machine and install resident software, and that software keeps doing stuff, then it'd be trivial for them (or someone else) to turn it into something worse - keylog everyone for the gov't; remove software you don't agree with (ex. tor); use it as an attack platform against other countries; etc. If it's not installing anything, but just closing obvious holes, I don't have a problem with that.
It's very very very little more complicated. He issued a statement specifically stating that he didn't like it, but then signed it in anyway. If no one stands up to "the f**ked up federal legislature", then it'll just continue to get worse.
I mean, yay, he says stuff I agree with (for the most part), but if he's not going to act on that, then it doesn't mean shit. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he's not even trying to hide the fact that he's not doing what he says. He might as well be fully supporting it because that's the end result - he'll be out of there in 1-5 years, and the decisions he's making will stick around long after that.
He didn't make a contraption that would generate seed like Monsanto's and sell it to others without paying a royalty to Monsanto.
That's not what the patent is for.
But that's the only part that, IMO, should be covered.
People are allowed to look at patents, and make those things for their own personal use.
This wasn't for personal use. He planted 1000 acres and intended to use the properties of the seed to reduce his (commercial) costs. The patent is for making use of the gene (by exploiting the traits that result from it), not for splicing genes into a new seed.
IMNAL, but in most cases, I don't believe you can patent the use of a thing. Ex. you can't patent how I use a Mickey Mouse figure after I own one. I'm betting the patent is probably phrased some other way that wound up in this legal grey area and ended up in Monsanto's favor. But your phrase exemplifies my frustration with this case - it's really about the "use" of something he physically owns (I believe the argument is that he doesn't "own" the genes, so he's not allowed to use them... and that's where I think it's ridiculous. Monsanto could sue the neighbor for not controlling his crop, or take responsibility for the inadequacy of their product to not cross pollinate).
He had physical stuff on land he owned, and did all the physical work himself to make use of that stuff (seed).
If you don't mind, let's get absurd for just a sec. Let's envision a RepRap-like machine: it digs through the soil, extracts metals, and manufactures farm equipment, which can include manufacturing a copy of itself. This process is patented. Now let's say that one of these machines is owned by a neighbor, and inadvertently crosses a fence, digs into this guy's soil, and produces a copy of itself on this guy's land, before ending up back on the other side of the fence. Does he "own" this new machine? Is he free to start using it to produce other farm equipment, thereby reducing his costs, without paying a license fee for making commercial use of a patented process?
Yes, he owns it. It's made from his land by something that trespassed on his property. If I go to your house, take apart your garage or kitchen et.al., then build a tree house in one of your trees, who owns it? I'd concede that I may still own any trademarks in use on that tree house and/or the copyright for it's blueprints, but you own the physical thing and can do whatever you want with it on your property at that point.
And yes, he should be free to product other farm equipment using his new machine. He should not be allowed to use copywritten plans for new parts and machines, but if he can feed in some plans of his own, buy plans (like buying round-up to spray his crops), or buy 3rd party plans to feed into the machine, I see no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to use it however he sees fit.
Where the courts may come down on this, I don't really care. To me, there's a very very very clear line here - if someone jacks with my stuff on my property, I'm keeping and using the results however I please. More-so, I'd be in the right to seek retribution/damages from whatever they did to my property.
I'm actually fine with the more common Monsanto lawsuits. To quote Wikipedia, "The usual claim involves violation of a technology agreement that prohibits farmers from saving seed from one season's crop to plant the next, a common farming practice." That sounds silly, but the purchasers agreed to it and then violated their agreement. Schmeiser had no such agreement with Monsanto.
I agree with most of your sentiment here, but Schmeiser wasn't exactly innocent of wrongdoing there
I am very familiar with the case. On this point, we'll have to agree to disagree. He had physical stuff on land he owned, and did all the physical work himself to make use of that stuff (seed). He didn't steal any physical thing. He didn't make a contraption that would generate seed like Monsanto's and sell it to others without paying a royalty to Monsanto. IMO, he did nothing wrong and, if anything, he was harmed by his crops being cross pollinated with tainted seed.
People are allowed to look at patents, and make those things for their own personal use. That's part of why the patent system exists - the disclosure and spread of knowledge. They're also allowed to make changes to those designs (again, for their own personal use). If they try to sell or distribute that thing, then they run afoul of patent infringement. Arguably, he is selling his crop. However, AFAIK, he didn't sell the seed or go into business competing with Monsanto.
FWIW, I put as much blame on our legal system as I do on Monsanto.
There's really no difference so long as they adhere to the "if we only have one digital 'copy', then only one person can have it checked out via overdrive at a time". In the past, they only bought the books people actually read anyway (no library has a library of congress size collection of books, and they even sell off their old books to make room quite often).
I'm always amazed that libraries have stayed around as long as they have; very thankful for that, but still amazed. If libraries didn't exist right now, and someone was trying to start some, I'd imagine publishers would be just as scared, even though it means a whole lot of book sales to the libraries, a handy distributed archive for free, and a bunch more potential readers (ex. people that might not have the cash on hand to buy a bunch of books now, but might later on, or even people that simply lack the physical space at home to store them).
Forget this being bad for publishers for a second... ebooks could be very very bad for libraries in general. As long as Overdrive has the copies, there's no need for the libraries themselves (there's still a need for the money to buy the ebooks, but that could get diverted from the libraries to overdrive or similar).
Personally, I think the requirement that ebooks only be checked out 26 (or whatever) times before they have to buy another copy is just ridiculous! I'll concede that restricting each copy to only be used by one person at a time is an understandable correlation to the current physical world, but even that is 100% arbitrarily imposed. Unless society allows things to become extremely draconian and Fahrenheit 451 -ish then, at some point, ebooks and mp3's are almost certainly going to be freely available to all (maybe after some tax to support the storage and bandwidth)... there's simply no technical reason to prevent that.
It's the printing press all over again, and the world will adapt (er... the world at large will drag the small minority that are part of the publishing industry along kicking and screaming the whole way). If I were in print, I'd be scared too - they're going to go the way of monks handwriting bibles eventually.
The real question is how the authors will get paid. If we did have a universal system that had all ebooks freely available, then I'd suspect all other ebook distribution would damn near stop (including giving your friend a copy of your ebook, since they could just go get it themselves for free). If that happens, then we'll have very solid stats on downloads per-title. That could be used to pay the authors. Number of music tracks owned per-person is certainly much higher now than it was in the days of LP's and tapes. Number of books owned is likely to go the same route. Thus, authors could be paid a very small amount per download of their book, and still make approximately what they make today.... we'd just have to get that money into that system somehow (tax?). This is probably a good 20years off still before it gets anywhere near that point... in the meantime, I expect a lot of fighting/kicking/screaming/drm/laws/etc from the industry.
Not that it's anywhere near a cure-all answer, but Amazon let's you try a sample chapter or two of every ebook they have. That's been enough for me to figure out if I want to buy it or not, and I often do buy it (even though I disagree w/ the DRM and immediately make my own backups).
People tend to be very good at predicting what others will likely do, but we're crap at understanding the motivation of those actions, and this is a perfect example.
You're assuming people would be choosing because they're scared of the effects of GM food (and I'm assuming that's your assumption, and you'll probably correct me).
For me, I don't want to support Monsanto if at all possible. I think it's absolute bullshit that a farmer can have his crop infested with Monsanto "product" from a neighboring farm, and then get sued when he uses it. And yes, I think there needs to be patent reform, copyright reform, trademark reform, etc, but I also won't actively support a company that abuses those systems.
Requiring a label ain't so bad (we could be pushing to limit it's use or outlaw it the way they've done with smoking, for instance, which I also feel should be ones choice but should be correctly labeled), and it leaves the choice to the individual. If past labeling enforcement is any indicator, it won't change a damn thing in the larger scale of things (think McDonalds - you can now see exactly how awful their fries are and, surprisingly to me, how relatively good their nuggets are... but they're still selling millions).
I predict that the sheeple hysteria will have little to no effect on the purchasing numbers should producers be required to label GM foods. Ya know why? Cause those people have already moved to the "Organic" trend.
I've happily moved to Clementine, which "is inspired by Amarok 1.4". Wikipedia says it's a port of Amarok 1.4 to the Qt 4 framework and GStreamer framework. To me, it seems like the way Amarok *should* have gone.
I'll second the Cory Doctorow. I've greatly enjoyed everything he's written, and it's all (or nearly all) under Creative Commons license, and you can get it all from craphound.com (his site). They're surprisingly re-readable too (there's plenty of authors I'd NEVER read a second time).
Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" series is terrific as well. One of the few authors I've actually paid for all the books (meaning, I paid for the first, and liked it so much I kept buying the rest of the series... most of the time, I'll buy one or two from an author, and not find it worth it to buy more of them. I had high expectations for the Ringworld series; bought two of them, and it just wasn't keeping my interest).
Anything Douglas Adams wrote is great too. Very enjoyable to read.
Disclaimer: I haven't used the build that lacks the status bar yet, so I'm not familiar with how it looks/works.
I can say I do want to see it all the time. I understand the steps that a browser goes through to get and render a page, and I greatly appreciate seeing what it's working on. Is it a DNS lookup, or is it transferring data (possibly a large chunk)? And also seeing the source (ex. when loading slashdot, I see the steps that are getting ads, which is often the slowest part of the transaction but, thankfully, happens after the page content has arrived and is rendering... so I know I can ignore the fact that the page hasn't finished loading if it's just getting ads now).
I also have a complex DNS setup at home, so seeing when that is hanging helps a lot. (I forward DNS queries for several domains to one of several servers at work over multiple VPNs... they're non-standard (host.name.companyname without any.com etc), and the company consists of about 100 subsidiaries that have been bought up and barely merged over the years, and almost all of them have their own name server and/or AD system. Most users work in an office for one of the subsidiaries, so they just use that one local DNS server that's handed to them via DHCP. On the other hand, I'm a developer that works from home, so I have to use them all, and I also don't want my personal use queries hitting their servers, since this is also my personal computer).
I dislike the way Chromes status bar works because it's too distracting. Our eyes pick up peripheral movement very very well, so that popover always grabs my eyes for an instant. It's annoying. I prefer a fixed bar, because I can then choose to look at it when I want, and the info is always readily available if I want to see it. The black text changing on a grey background does not cause as harsh of a visual change, so my eyes don't instantly pop there when it changes, and that's a good thing (IMO).
No comment on their quality, but their advertised packages don't come close to meeting the very basic requirements of the post.
10 Gig disk space + 150 Gig bandwidth @ $8.95/mo 40 Gig disk space + 300 Gid bandwidth @ $25.95/mo Dedicated server with 500 Gig disk and 10 Mbps unmetered bandwidth @ $115.95/mo
Sorry, but how's he supposed to get 500 Gig of data up on any of those? Even the dedicated server lacks enough space (OS will chew some up).
Sawfish was one of my absolute favorite window managers of all time! I fought with the gnome desktop env to get sawfish back in place on my box for years after they made the metacity switch, and only recently gave up (was just starting up a gnome-panel on login, and considering that my desktop env - no desktop icon manager thing either). Now with gnome 3 sprouting up everywhere, it's looking like LXDE, XFCE, or going back to sawfish.
If you haven't mucked with customizing sawfish (which is super easy to do via the gui), I'd suggest giving it a try. My favorite thing was being able to change the window decorations based on numerous window attribute matches - like all xterms get one style/color of border, and other stuff gets something else, etc... made it very easy to visually spot classes of apps, and allowed me to put thicker window borders on stuff I'd regularly resize (ex. gimp windows; easier to mouse grab) and minimal borders on things I don't need to muck with (ex. IM windows).
Keybindings and configurable actions were very sweet too, and could be set to specific scenarios (when mouse is over desktop, do this thing, but when mouse is over window, do something else, etc, including basing that on window classes so shortcuts could be app-specific).
Given you're forbidden to record them, and assuming "a significant enhancement in the amount of information you remember when you involve more senses", it seems perfectly reasonable then to use an audio recording device with limited range mic and repeat every word your professor says into said mic:-)
Yet no reasonable person thinks that recording a movie from the theater is legal.
Your definition of reasonable is not the same as mine then.
Redistributing the recorded movie - sure, I'll agree. It's blatant copyright infringement. If you don't believe in copyright, then you won't believe this is wrong, but I'm personally ok with this level of copyright protection (not allowing others to distribute copies of ones work that was just released - there should be some time limit on that though, and the current time limit is, IMO and many others, way too large).
But recording an event for your own personal enjoyment later... I think there are some legal grey areas here, and I'm personally ok with it. I've never done so cause the quality from the equipment I have would be awful, but there are a couple times I wish I had done it so I could remind myself of the event. For example, at a comedy club, and I can't remember the jokes correctly the next day... wish I had recorded the audio, even if it was shitty, so I could remember those, and I don't see any moral issue with it, and I believe it is still a contested area of copyright law.
Nitpicking now, but the GP never said anything about legality, nor did they say anything about video. The legality of recording a movie from a theater has some similarities, but it's a very different topic.
I agree with your sentiment, but I thought it interesting how easily this paragraph could be run through sed and be just as valid as what you said...
This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right? Corporations are made up of people - often the same people they do business with, and who live right alongside customers of that corporation. And any corporation without the interests of its customers (the people) at heart is not going to remain in business long, barring government force (e.g., granted monopoly status, or restrictive regulations which raise barriers to entry into a market.)
This would explain the massive proliferation of governments whose sole purpose is murdering innocent civilians, right? Governments are made up of people - often the same people they govern, and who live right alongside citizens of that government. And any government without the interests of its constituents (the people) at heart is not going to remain in power long, barring corporate contributions (e.g. a well funded dictatorship, or oppressive actions which raise barriers to entry for a new political party.):-)
What *I* would argue is that corporations and the US government are in bed with each other and are trying to undermine BOTH the free market and the democracy. The false dichotomy here, and between rebpulican/democrat etc, serve well to keep most people distracted from the fact that they are one and the same. I'm not proposing no government and/or no big companies... but I am all for small government and small companies and less corporate influence on the government and less government contributions to corporations. The one area I would like to see an increase in regulation is on imports - I'm all for making (for example) Chinese goods cost as much once they're on our soil as they would cost to make them here (via tarriffs, etc), which would actually support the growth of new/small companies here and increase jobs here as they would be able to compete.
Adobe Flash was like having another proprietary browser inside the browser.
Which is one of the few things that made it *good*.
I despise proprietary stuff, but HTML5 is an open floodgate allowing Mozilla/Google/Apple/Microsoft/Opera/etc to implement whatever bits of it they like just about however they like and add on whatever extra stuff they want... especially considering it's an evolving standard. I remember how that went from the Netscape/IE battle days, and it's not pretty.
At least with Flash (and, btw, I don't develop/design in it or even own it - besides my ancient copy of Flash3), there was a stable target specification (specified via codification - code can be a spec, see The Design of Design). Whatever you made in Flash worked in (nearly) ALL browsers exactly because it basically did everything inside itself.
IMO, this is one of the dumbest things Adobe has ever done, even if it will end up saving me hours of battery life a day:-)
Sure, go ahead... that's an easy answer, since the question started with "One cool feature I used on KMail years ago...".
Bounce has legit purposes. The only reason you don't see it in many other clients is the pompous philosophy that UI's should completely remove features that might cause any confusion to any one of the users. It's extremely simple to implement, so that's not why it isn't there. It's been in mail clients of old, so they have actively had to do something in order to remove it (it's lack of presence cost developer time, not used it). It's one of those things that should show up when someone selects the "show advanced options" checkbox, but that's not trendy.
IMO, they should call up Redmond and find out what their recommended way of doing this is. If users don't ask for the features they want, how is the provider supposed to know their user base? Granted, I doubt there'd be enough requests to warrant adding "bounce" back to the main Outlook UI, but maybe there's a registry flag they could toggle? (again, why do people keep dropping the advanced options from the UI? Gnome/Unity/Ubuntu, I'm looking at you!)
Slashdot Mirror
This junk it'll be sending up is damn near useless. They want to see how well the electronics hold up in space... for a few days before re-entry, with no ability to query them, and just a very short message sent (on repeat?) via radio?
IMO, I'd rather rent a timeslice on something even a tad more advanced. Long term goal is more interesting, and I realize the first launch is mostly proof-of-concept, but that's an expensive proof for something that can obviously be done. I'd be nice if the larger donations got better kicksat boards at least.
It wouldn't surprise me if there are other projects out there he could team up with that would love to do some swarm robotics up there that wouldn't cost a whole lot more for the individual parts, but could at least make use of there being 100-1000 of them in near proximity in space.
Further off on a tangent.... I was kinda hoping to see a cheaper launch vehicle for microsats. Maybe a combo of weather balloon and rocket that goes off once it hits near-max-height?
I'm all for the big brother fear posts about Google getting evil, but this isn't the time. Twitter ended their agreement with Google for a real time feed; other realtime/news sites have been threatening blocking Google; then they get upset when Google says fuck it, introduces their own service, and integrates it.
What's next? NYT blocks Google indexers and then complains when they don't show up in the top of the search results?
The social sites have had users data locked up long enough. It's due time they provide API's to users, aggregators, and others. Google seems to want to include as much of this other stuff as it can in its search results... they're not the bottleneck, nor the slippery slope here.
This is just more of the same. I was really hoping that, with Vizio being a big flatscreen maker, they'd just be slapping a PC on the back of them.
Many big LCD TV's these days have built in network media stuff (netflix, hulu plus, pandora, and loads of more minor players), so they've got some computing guts in them already. I was hoping they'd just up the power a little and bring out an integrated webtv type thing on 55"+ screens, and include a keyboard. If it ran like a real PC, they could even skirt the hulu plus issues (and similar from other providers) since it could be considered a PC. Toss in external storage device support (USB3 + gigabit network) and it'd be a winner.
But no... it's just another all-in-one monitor and another (likely underpowered) laptop. I wonder if the 27" model will at least have more than 1920x1280 resolution (ie. 2560x1600)?
Shhh.... Boeing does not do this....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/southwest-airlines-boeing-knew-737-flaw-expect-problem/story?id=13300089#.TwomuU8gifg
At 00:25 - 00:26, for some strange reason, the news lady says "It's an Airbus jet" very quickly. I don't think the word "Boeing" is even mentioned in the video, yet it is regarding a Boeing 737. Simple slip up? Seems very odd to me.
Bump... I was going to post this if I couldn't find someone else saying it. Unfortunately it's an AC.
I have a studio apt and was using my 30" monitor as a TV. It's not g/f friendly though, and I've wanted a projector for a long time. When I broke down and got one, I went the 3d route. I paid less than I would for a big LCD, and got a 120" screen, 720p 3d projector, and it looks amazing. Accessories are a pain - had to get a 3d converter box cause the projector doesn't do native HDMI 1.4, so the box takes that and spits out the right signal for the projector, and had to buy glasses, but got really good ones that cost way less than the common bestbuy ones (ultra-clear brand for $55 a pop).
PS3 games in 3d looks amazing. 3d bluray and downloadable movies on PS3 look awesome. The problem is content - Avatar isn't even out on 3d bluray (unless you get it through special offer with the purchase of specific panasonic sets), and even PS3 3d game selection is very limited. On the 3d game front, I was VERY disappointed when got some for their 3d and co-op or head-to-head features, and found out you can't do both at the same time - split screen takes more PS3 cpu power, and so does 3d, so you get one or the other. Cars 2 PS3 game in 3d with 4 people split screen on a 120" screen is really really fun though :-)
In the end, I don't think it was worth it, but I personally love watching 3d movies as does the g/f (even if they're mostly kids movies). My home setup looks as good or better than the theater (cause your really immersed at the right distance from the screen, and it's big enough to do that), plus I can pause whenever I want and drink/eat what I like. The whole setup was still less than a grand, and that's in the ballpark for nice big tv's these days, and it takes up far less space when it's not being used, so it's a win for me.
Never seen bridge piercings?!? https://www.google.com/search?q=bridge%20piercing&tbm=isch
They're pretty common, though I doubt they'll do much to throw off the facial recognition unless you use an abnormal stud (it's commonly just 2 small balls).
Why must we constantly let bullshit pass just because it's the only way to let anything pass at all? We either shutdown or we accept three or four lines of bullshit for every line of decency.
There's no need for line item veto, and it puts too much power in a presidents hand. The answer is to shutdown until congress submits a more reasonable bill. Ideally, IMO, a bill that is specifically targeted at a specific item with as little extra as possible and no riders. If they want to pass crazy riders, pass them in the clear on their own. If there's not enough bandwidth to get them all through, good! It should be a bottleneck, and we should not have too many changes in a term. And any bill passed should be clear and readable by most voters - there are ones that go through now that congress members themselves have admitted that they were not able to read the entire thing before voting on it, and that's just stupid.
I'm almost certain that nearly everyone that's even a little involved in IT has had the idea mentioned in the summary. This isn't a new thought, and I believe it hasn't been done because we all keep deciding in the end that it'd cause more harm than good (or may have bad/legal repercussions the good guys aren't willing to deal with).... but it sure is tempting.
I'm all for them giving it a go. If designed right, it'd reduce the number of virus-laden machines and leave no additional vector for infection:
* work like a vulnerability scanner
* if you find something, exploit it, close the hole, and leave it be
* also attempt to detect other virus' and, if possible, close them down.
* report unfixable stuff to somewhere else, where network admins can kick the box offline
You wouldn't get everything, and you're bound to cause some colatteral damage, but I'd bet it'd help clean up the mess quite a bit.
Assuming it only scans from a set block of IP's, it'd also be easy to "opt out" of it by blocking it at your firewall. If you don't have one in this day and age and your window box is directly connected to the net, you have no business being online without a babysitter.
Honestly, my only concern would be scope and slippery-slope. If they operate like a virus and spread from machine to machine and install resident software, and that software keeps doing stuff, then it'd be trivial for them (or someone else) to turn it into something worse - keylog everyone for the gov't; remove software you don't agree with (ex. tor); use it as an attack platform against other countries; etc. If it's not installing anything, but just closing obvious holes, I don't have a problem with that.
It's very very very little more complicated. He issued a statement specifically stating that he didn't like it, but then signed it in anyway. If no one stands up to "the f**ked up federal legislature", then it'll just continue to get worse.
I mean, yay, he says stuff I agree with (for the most part), but if he's not going to act on that, then it doesn't mean shit. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he's not even trying to hide the fact that he's not doing what he says. He might as well be fully supporting it because that's the end result - he'll be out of there in 1-5 years, and the decisions he's making will stick around long after that.
He didn't make a contraption that would generate seed like Monsanto's and sell it to others without paying a royalty to Monsanto.
That's not what the patent is for.
But that's the only part that, IMO, should be covered.
People are allowed to look at patents, and make those things for their own personal use.
This wasn't for personal use. He planted 1000 acres and intended to use the properties of the seed to reduce his (commercial) costs. The patent is for making use of the gene (by exploiting the traits that result from it), not for splicing genes into a new seed.
IMNAL, but in most cases, I don't believe you can patent the use of a thing. Ex. you can't patent how I use a Mickey Mouse figure after I own one. I'm betting the patent is probably phrased some other way that wound up in this legal grey area and ended up in Monsanto's favor. But your phrase exemplifies my frustration with this case - it's really about the "use" of something he physically owns (I believe the argument is that he doesn't "own" the genes, so he's not allowed to use them... and that's where I think it's ridiculous. Monsanto could sue the neighbor for not controlling his crop, or take responsibility for the inadequacy of their product to not cross pollinate).
He had physical stuff on land he owned, and did all the physical work himself to make use of that stuff (seed).
If you don't mind, let's get absurd for just a sec. Let's envision a RepRap-like machine: it digs through the soil, extracts metals, and manufactures farm equipment, which can include manufacturing a copy of itself. This process is patented. Now let's say that one of these machines is owned by a neighbor, and inadvertently crosses a fence, digs into this guy's soil, and produces a copy of itself on this guy's land, before ending up back on the other side of the fence. Does he "own" this new machine? Is he free to start using it to produce other farm equipment, thereby reducing his costs, without paying a license fee for making commercial use of a patented process?
Yes, he owns it. It's made from his land by something that trespassed on his property. If I go to your house, take apart your garage or kitchen et.al., then build a tree house in one of your trees, who owns it? I'd concede that I may still own any trademarks in use on that tree house and/or the copyright for it's blueprints, but you own the physical thing and can do whatever you want with it on your property at that point.
And yes, he should be free to product other farm equipment using his new machine. He should not be allowed to use copywritten plans for new parts and machines, but if he can feed in some plans of his own, buy plans (like buying round-up to spray his crops), or buy 3rd party plans to feed into the machine, I see no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to use it however he sees fit.
Where the courts may come down on this, I don't really care. To me, there's a very very very clear line here - if someone jacks with my stuff on my property, I'm keeping and using the results however I please. More-so, I'd be in the right to seek retribution/damages from whatever they did to my property.
I'm actually fine with the more common Monsanto lawsuits. To quote Wikipedia, "The usual claim involves violation of a technology agreement that prohibits farmers from saving seed from one season's crop to plant the next, a common farming practice." That sounds silly, but the purchasers agreed to it and then violated their agreement. Schmeiser had no such agreement with Monsanto.
I agree with most of your sentiment here, but Schmeiser wasn't exactly innocent of wrongdoing there
I am very familiar with the case. On this point, we'll have to agree to disagree. He had physical stuff on land he owned, and did all the physical work himself to make use of that stuff (seed). He didn't steal any physical thing. He didn't make a contraption that would generate seed like Monsanto's and sell it to others without paying a royalty to Monsanto. IMO, he did nothing wrong and, if anything, he was harmed by his crops being cross pollinated with tainted seed.
People are allowed to look at patents, and make those things for their own personal use. That's part of why the patent system exists - the disclosure and spread of knowledge. They're also allowed to make changes to those designs (again, for their own personal use). If they try to sell or distribute that thing, then they run afoul of patent infringement. Arguably, he is selling his crop. However, AFAIK, he didn't sell the seed or go into business competing with Monsanto.
FWIW, I put as much blame on our legal system as I do on Monsanto.
There's really no difference so long as they adhere to the "if we only have one digital 'copy', then only one person can have it checked out via overdrive at a time". In the past, they only bought the books people actually read anyway (no library has a library of congress size collection of books, and they even sell off their old books to make room quite often).
I'm always amazed that libraries have stayed around as long as they have; very thankful for that, but still amazed. If libraries didn't exist right now, and someone was trying to start some, I'd imagine publishers would be just as scared, even though it means a whole lot of book sales to the libraries, a handy distributed archive for free, and a bunch more potential readers (ex. people that might not have the cash on hand to buy a bunch of books now, but might later on, or even people that simply lack the physical space at home to store them).
Forget this being bad for publishers for a second... ebooks could be very very bad for libraries in general. As long as Overdrive has the copies, there's no need for the libraries themselves (there's still a need for the money to buy the ebooks, but that could get diverted from the libraries to overdrive or similar).
Personally, I think the requirement that ebooks only be checked out 26 (or whatever) times before they have to buy another copy is just ridiculous! I'll concede that restricting each copy to only be used by one person at a time is an understandable correlation to the current physical world, but even that is 100% arbitrarily imposed. Unless society allows things to become extremely draconian and Fahrenheit 451 -ish then, at some point, ebooks and mp3's are almost certainly going to be freely available to all (maybe after some tax to support the storage and bandwidth)... there's simply no technical reason to prevent that.
It's the printing press all over again, and the world will adapt (er... the world at large will drag the small minority that are part of the publishing industry along kicking and screaming the whole way). If I were in print, I'd be scared too - they're going to go the way of monks handwriting bibles eventually.
The real question is how the authors will get paid. If we did have a universal system that had all ebooks freely available, then I'd suspect all other ebook distribution would damn near stop (including giving your friend a copy of your ebook, since they could just go get it themselves for free). If that happens, then we'll have very solid stats on downloads per-title. That could be used to pay the authors. Number of music tracks owned per-person is certainly much higher now than it was in the days of LP's and tapes. Number of books owned is likely to go the same route. Thus, authors could be paid a very small amount per download of their book, and still make approximately what they make today.... we'd just have to get that money into that system somehow (tax?). This is probably a good 20years off still before it gets anywhere near that point... in the meantime, I expect a lot of fighting/kicking/screaming/drm/laws/etc from the industry.
Not that it's anywhere near a cure-all answer, but Amazon let's you try a sample chapter or two of every ebook they have. That's been enough for me to figure out if I want to buy it or not, and I often do buy it (even though I disagree w/ the DRM and immediately make my own backups).
I burn my tongue every time I eat pizza... I always eat it before it's cool.
People tend to be very good at predicting what others will likely do, but we're crap at understanding the motivation of those actions, and this is a perfect example.
You're assuming people would be choosing because they're scared of the effects of GM food (and I'm assuming that's your assumption, and you'll probably correct me).
For me, I don't want to support Monsanto if at all possible. I think it's absolute bullshit that a farmer can have his crop infested with Monsanto "product" from a neighboring farm, and then get sued when he uses it. And yes, I think there needs to be patent reform, copyright reform, trademark reform, etc, but I also won't actively support a company that abuses those systems.
Requiring a label ain't so bad (we could be pushing to limit it's use or outlaw it the way they've done with smoking, for instance, which I also feel should be ones choice but should be correctly labeled), and it leaves the choice to the individual. If past labeling enforcement is any indicator, it won't change a damn thing in the larger scale of things (think McDonalds - you can now see exactly how awful their fries are and, surprisingly to me, how relatively good their nuggets are... but they're still selling millions).
I predict that the sheeple hysteria will have little to no effect on the purchasing numbers should producers be required to label GM foods. Ya know why? Cause those people have already moved to the "Organic" trend.
I've happily moved to Clementine, which "is inspired by Amarok 1.4". Wikipedia says it's a port of Amarok 1.4 to the Qt 4 framework and GStreamer framework. To me, it seems like the way Amarok *should* have gone.
I'll second the Cory Doctorow. I've greatly enjoyed everything he's written, and it's all (or nearly all) under Creative Commons license, and you can get it all from craphound.com (his site). They're surprisingly re-readable too (there's plenty of authors I'd NEVER read a second time).
Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" series is terrific as well. One of the few authors I've actually paid for all the books (meaning, I paid for the first, and liked it so much I kept buying the rest of the series... most of the time, I'll buy one or two from an author, and not find it worth it to buy more of them. I had high expectations for the Ringworld series; bought two of them, and it just wasn't keeping my interest).
Anything Douglas Adams wrote is great too. Very enjoyable to read.
Disclaimer: I haven't used the build that lacks the status bar yet, so I'm not familiar with how it looks/works.
I can say I do want to see it all the time. I understand the steps that a browser goes through to get and render a page, and I greatly appreciate seeing what it's working on. Is it a DNS lookup, or is it transferring data (possibly a large chunk)? And also seeing the source (ex. when loading slashdot, I see the steps that are getting ads, which is often the slowest part of the transaction but, thankfully, happens after the page content has arrived and is rendering... so I know I can ignore the fact that the page hasn't finished loading if it's just getting ads now).
I also have a complex DNS setup at home, so seeing when that is hanging helps a lot. (I forward DNS queries for several domains to one of several servers at work over multiple VPNs... they're non-standard (host.name.companyname without any .com etc), and the company consists of about 100 subsidiaries that have been bought up and barely merged over the years, and almost all of them have their own name server and/or AD system. Most users work in an office for one of the subsidiaries, so they just use that one local DNS server that's handed to them via DHCP. On the other hand, I'm a developer that works from home, so I have to use them all, and I also don't want my personal use queries hitting their servers, since this is also my personal computer).
I dislike the way Chromes status bar works because it's too distracting. Our eyes pick up peripheral movement very very well, so that popover always grabs my eyes for an instant. It's annoying. I prefer a fixed bar, because I can then choose to look at it when I want, and the info is always readily available if I want to see it. The black text changing on a grey background does not cause as harsh of a visual change, so my eyes don't instantly pop there when it changes, and that's a good thing (IMO).
No comment on their quality, but their advertised packages don't come close to meeting the very basic requirements of the post.
10 Gig disk space + 150 Gig bandwidth @ $8.95/mo
40 Gig disk space + 300 Gid bandwidth @ $25.95/mo
Dedicated server with 500 Gig disk and 10 Mbps unmetered bandwidth @ $115.95/mo
Sorry, but how's he supposed to get 500 Gig of data up on any of those? Even the dedicated server lacks enough space (OS will chew some up).
Bump this up :-)
Sawfish was one of my absolute favorite window managers of all time! I fought with the gnome desktop env to get sawfish back in place on my box for years after they made the metacity switch, and only recently gave up (was just starting up a gnome-panel on login, and considering that my desktop env - no desktop icon manager thing either). Now with gnome 3 sprouting up everywhere, it's looking like LXDE, XFCE, or going back to sawfish.
If you haven't mucked with customizing sawfish (which is super easy to do via the gui), I'd suggest giving it a try. My favorite thing was being able to change the window decorations based on numerous window attribute matches - like all xterms get one style/color of border, and other stuff gets something else, etc... made it very easy to visually spot classes of apps, and allowed me to put thicker window borders on stuff I'd regularly resize (ex. gimp windows; easier to mouse grab) and minimal borders on things I don't need to muck with (ex. IM windows).
Keybindings and configurable actions were very sweet too, and could be set to specific scenarios (when mouse is over desktop, do this thing, but when mouse is over window, do something else, etc, including basing that on window classes so shortcuts could be app-specific).
Looks like it's still actively developed too. If interested: http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Given you're forbidden to record them, and assuming "a significant enhancement in the amount of information you remember when you involve more senses", it seems perfectly reasonable then to use an audio recording device with limited range mic and repeat every word your professor says into said mic :-)
Yet no reasonable person thinks that recording a movie from the theater is legal.
Your definition of reasonable is not the same as mine then.
Redistributing the recorded movie - sure, I'll agree. It's blatant copyright infringement. If you don't believe in copyright, then you won't believe this is wrong, but I'm personally ok with this level of copyright protection (not allowing others to distribute copies of ones work that was just released - there should be some time limit on that though, and the current time limit is, IMO and many others, way too large).
But recording an event for your own personal enjoyment later... I think there are some legal grey areas here, and I'm personally ok with it. I've never done so cause the quality from the equipment I have would be awful, but there are a couple times I wish I had done it so I could remind myself of the event. For example, at a comedy club, and I can't remember the jokes correctly the next day... wish I had recorded the audio, even if it was shitty, so I could remember those, and I don't see any moral issue with it, and I believe it is still a contested area of copyright law.
Nitpicking now, but the GP never said anything about legality, nor did they say anything about video. The legality of recording a movie from a theater has some similarities, but it's a very different topic.
I agree with your sentiment, but I thought it interesting how easily this paragraph could be run through sed and be just as valid as what you said...
This would explain the massive proliferation of companies whose sole business is murdering innocent civilians, right? Corporations are made up of people - often the same people they do business with, and who live right alongside customers of that corporation. And any corporation without the interests of its customers (the people) at heart is not going to remain in business long, barring government force (e.g., granted monopoly status, or restrictive regulations which raise barriers to entry into a market.)
This would explain the massive proliferation of governments whose sole purpose is murdering innocent civilians, right? Governments are made up of people - often the same people they govern, and who live right alongside citizens of that government. And any government without the interests of its constituents (the people) at heart is not going to remain in power long, barring corporate contributions (e.g. a well funded dictatorship, or oppressive actions which raise barriers to entry for a new political party.) :-)
What *I* would argue is that corporations and the US government are in bed with each other and are trying to undermine BOTH the free market and the democracy. The false dichotomy here, and between rebpulican/democrat etc, serve well to keep most people distracted from the fact that they are one and the same. I'm not proposing no government and/or no big companies... but I am all for small government and small companies and less corporate influence on the government and less government contributions to corporations. The one area I would like to see an increase in regulation is on imports - I'm all for making (for example) Chinese goods cost as much once they're on our soil as they would cost to make them here (via tarriffs, etc), which would actually support the growth of new/small companies here and increase jobs here as they would be able to compete.
Adobe Flash was like having another proprietary browser inside the browser.
Which is one of the few things that made it *good*.
I despise proprietary stuff, but HTML5 is an open floodgate allowing Mozilla/Google/Apple/Microsoft/Opera/etc to implement whatever bits of it they like just about however they like and add on whatever extra stuff they want... especially considering it's an evolving standard. I remember how that went from the Netscape/IE battle days, and it's not pretty.
At least with Flash (and, btw, I don't develop/design in it or even own it - besides my ancient copy of Flash3), there was a stable target specification (specified via codification - code can be a spec, see The Design of Design). Whatever you made in Flash worked in (nearly) ALL browsers exactly because it basically did everything inside itself.
IMO, this is one of the dumbest things Adobe has ever done, even if it will end up saving me hours of battery life a day :-)
Sure, go ahead... that's an easy answer, since the question started with "One cool feature I used on KMail years ago ...".
Bounce has legit purposes. The only reason you don't see it in many other clients is the pompous philosophy that UI's should completely remove features that might cause any confusion to any one of the users. It's extremely simple to implement, so that's not why it isn't there. It's been in mail clients of old, so they have actively had to do something in order to remove it (it's lack of presence cost developer time, not used it). It's one of those things that should show up when someone selects the "show advanced options" checkbox, but that's not trendy.
IMO, they should call up Redmond and find out what their recommended way of doing this is. If users don't ask for the features they want, how is the provider supposed to know their user base? Granted, I doubt there'd be enough requests to warrant adding "bounce" back to the main Outlook UI, but maybe there's a registry flag they could toggle? (again, why do people keep dropping the advanced options from the UI? Gnome/Unity/Ubuntu, I'm looking at you!)