Um, from what I heard, CES is on its last elbows anyway, so how is that likely to effect others? The world of technology and business has a short memory for failed enterprises.
The head of IT at my sons school (here in the UK) recently told me of their irritation at being told they had to use Microsoft only software for their network and teaching. The result was a network that was a nightmare to keep secure (you try and keeping hundreds of enthusiastic kids from finding ways round microsoft security), and poor quality teaching tools. Had he had his way there would be a linux sever running the network and email, XP classroom machines (not linux just yet), openoffice, and python in the programming classes.
As it is they have windows server, Exchange, MSoffice, Dreamweaver (after a successful revolt against frontpage), and VB.
Why are "substantial mental improvements" worthless? Anything that improves the condition of the patients is probably worthwhile.
I spent five years working with Alzheimers clients, and I see two sides to this. For the family it's often that their relative loses an awareness of them which is the worst part.
But I've seen clients who retained some memory of their family begging them in brief moments of lucidity to forget about them. It's heart breaking. Sometimes I thought the clients with little or no recollection of family had an easier time.
On the other hand, improving quality of life in any way can make the client with memory loss have a much improved life, even if they can't recall much or anything about their family. I spent a *lot* of time focused on this, and it can be done in a great many cases. A drug that improved mental abilities need not do too much to assist with this.
If I'm to be brutal though, the best way I found of improving quality of life for my clients, sometimes massively, was getting them off the often sickening amounts of anti psychotics and other mental straight jackets they had been prescribed by clueless fuckwit doctors prior to coming under my care.
That problem needs to be addressed first in my opinion.
I guess in any (truly) democratic country file-sharing and similar attitudes regarding "intellectual property" should be legal.
Well no, sorry.
While I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that prosecuting people as criminals for doing it is bad, it still isn't a 'good' thing to do.
What chance is there for the small businessman whose product can be shared for nothing by thousands the day after release? I speak here of the indie games developer. Want to hurt them? I sure don't, but if filesharing gets totally legalised, people will think anything on the net is theres for the taking, which is *entirely* wrong.
I speak here as just such a small businessman, wondering if I can safely go for an internet based distribution model, I have no recourse if my product is widely pirated, I'm just screwed. Try considering that if you're talking about a product that's taken years to develop...
The answer is a newer distribution model, and a parking ticket fine type system if you get caught being a bit naughty (which is the most 'realistic' description for a person at home downloading a movie or mp3 if reality is to be applied).
I have no idea yet what such a model would be, but I am considering it. I would *never* prosecute anyone for stealing my stuff, but I might send a 'you've disappointed me, and obviously don't value my work' letter.
The fact that it is possible to burn to an inconvenient physical format an then rip to a DRM free format does not make iTunes DRM free
There is no difference whatsoever between a ripped mp3 file from iTunes, and a ripped mp3 from an album. I know, I've tried it. Same goes for Audible actually, but I didn't mention that because it's not music.
The purpose of DRM is to restrict what you can do with the music, but iTunes have never tried to restrict what you do with the music once you own it, just the original file you download, and that only because they were forced to. It is in their interest for you to rip it, because then you might have other copies on another iPod, as I do.
No-ones doubting that Apple was first, but for Sony to do this is a big thing indeed. They're a dinosour, and one of the worst DRM offenders (just having DRM isn't as bad as those darn silly rootkits), so if they have finally got the message, that's a sign of good things to come.
Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD. If you just want to use the iPod alone, there's no need. This in built burn to cd option hasn't been the case for other DRM schemes that I know of.
Try as I might, I can't hear any difference to a track I've burned to CD and encoded as mp3. Aac has its advantages (aside from the drm everyone mutters about), I do like the bookmark feature.
Sure, when the 160Gb wore out. My current 40gb iPod is several years old, and finally starting to have issues. As long as that's still working I won't get the 160Gb either.
if they did that a lot of the mobile phone networks would go out of business pretty fast. They over estimated the extent to which they could fool people into believing that the mobile phone was a device that needs replacing every few months, now all they have is phone charges and huge debts to service from license purchases.
Mobiles are all but commoditised now. Face it, all phones are pretty much identical. If this were not the case, then why are the major selling points not phone features at all? Cameras mp3 players and external looks? I'm amazed people are fooled into replacing their phones at all, but I know people who avidly follow this faked technology advancement and replace their phones each time something 'new' appears.
Apple have screwed that anyway, by going a whole new way and removing the analogue keyboard completely. That was about the only thing left they could be different over.
Not that I want to buy an iphone. 8Gb? You've got to be kidding, same for the ipod touch, screw that, I want my 160Gb.
I stayed in a library an hour past closing because I didn't noticed while programming on my laptop, and the janitor threaten to call the cops on me if I didn't get out.:)
Well I'd get hassled too if I stayed in the uni library after hours. I'm talking about labs open 24/7 though.
I spent every free evening I had as an undergraduate working till late at night teaching myself the subjects we were learning, and spent every reading week studying. To the extent that a lecturer who caught me in the otherwise empty lab at night told me to get out and get drunk like a normal student.
Social life is important, yes, but after a year of this I was so far ahead of my fellow students that while the course was really hurting for them, I was having the time of my life, and I ended up actually teaching a first year course whilst in my third year.
If you just study what's in the lectures, you'll be, at best, as good as everyone else in that classroom. If you read around the topics and hack code at night, you'll get your head above everyone else when it comes to the job market.
Each of my friends who socialized more than they studied ended up with mediocre to normal degrees. Those who spent a lot of their free time studying and (more importantly perhaps), hacking code for fun, got good degrees, and very nice jobs almost to a man/woman. Not me, I ended up in a four year PHD course, so I have yet to see a fiscal return for my work.
My views may be extreme, but it is possible to go out a bit less, and benefit a great deal from extra study time.
so its more as an alternative to google desktop search then? I thought microsoft already had one of those. Not that I've ever used it, so I can't say how good/bad it is.
Doesn't matter anyway, they can buy all the search engines they want, but Google have mindshare they can't buy. Perhaps they're just worried Google might buy it, or someone else, so they bought it up to keep it away from competition.
I knew a phd student five years ago who was working on a cybernetic spine augmentation thingy which could route past damage. It was quite promising. While I knew him he was waiting for WHO approval for trials.
Then some large corporation offered him $$$ aplenty for the technology, and offered him a very nice post too. I've not heard a thing about his technology since.
I think you'll find that NASA, and all its associated costs, (aside from the flying turkey that is the ISS), take up less than 0.02% of the total US budget. It might be smaller than that, this is from memory, I can't re-find the source, which was a newspaper.
Its a tiny, tiny amount though. The problem is that the space program has always been blown by the political winds. People remember that once, long ago, it did indeed consume vast amounts of cash, and they assume this continues today. NASA then and NASA now are somewhat different however. Back then they were expanding the frontiers of mankind into space, now they spend their time trying to cope with a lowest bidder built shuttle that, far from being a rapid turnaround cheap delivery system, has to be completely rebuilt each time it lands, and has no chance of *ever* matching the stated aims of the project. That it is more expensive to use than the 'old fashioned' rockets it was supposed to replace is just a joke.
Oh yes, and the ISS is at its current altitude not because NASA wanted it so low, but because they wanted to use the shuttle to service it. So now the ISS is in such a low orbit its subject to drag from the atmosphere and has to be boosted back into orbit periodically. This low orbit reduces the useful science that can be done on board considerably.
The coloration of such images is thought of as being as much the artistic expression of the astronomer in question as it is clarification of the image.
The thing is, without coloration, we wouldn't be able to see the various structures. Astronomers probably would, being trained, but not us normal folk. Besides, who wants to look at dull greyscale when you can spice it up with some color? The aim of making the image easier to interpret is achieved, and it looks pretty too.
Well, the/. community may very well provide different readings, points of views, related information and so on. That is not `a collective coming to a cohesive answer', but it can be useful anyways.
Provided all you want to know is what would happen in soviet Russia, whether or not you could Beowulf a CC license, and to what extend the poster is an insensitive clod..
the important thing about truecrypt is the concept of 'deniable encryption' -- that encrypted data is indistinguishable from garbage on disk,
Right up to the moment they use an undelete tool on your laptop and find the formerly uninstalled encryption program on your hard drive....
now, if you steg up your precious data, throw it on a deniably crypted filesystem and then write the whole thing to a series of 5" floppies that no border guard is reasonably going to have the equipment to read... well, you should be okay.
Carrying floppy discs? Hello? How many machines use that as standard now, you've got an instant vector to suspicion right there.
Ok, so you use a cd/dvd. Only they might just wonder why empty discs show physical signs of being written to, as any such disc would.
A. You can decrypt the data B. You can go back where you came from
True on both points. But y'know what? here in the UK we're enjoying a deluge of chinese students that used to go to the US before you went all draconian and started assuming everyone was up to no good. Now they inject millions into our economy, specifically universities and the towns that service them. You might want to ask some of your University folk what they think about that..
This sort of behavior reassures the terrorists that they're winning, which they do every time you subject innocent people to suspicion and restrict their movements/rights. In the meantime, those innocent people start thinking they might go elsewhere instead.
On a more personal note, I had been planning a six month to a year long sabbatical in a couple of years time, and I was going to spend it traveling the US. Now I've switched plans to Australia, with a brief spell in New Zealand.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, from what I heard, CES is on its last elbows anyway, so how is that likely to effect others?
The world of technology and business has a short memory for failed enterprises.
Here's a bit of pointless trivia for you.
Whya re we called Limeys by you American types?
Because the Lime was the Anti Scurvy fruit we used when traveling your way.
Why do the Australians call us Pommies?
Because by the time we got there, the limes would have run out, and we restocked our ships with Pomegranates.
The head of IT at my sons school (here in the UK) recently told me of their irritation at being told they had to use Microsoft only software for their network and teaching. The result was a network that was a nightmare to keep secure (you try and keeping hundreds of enthusiastic kids from finding ways round microsoft security), and poor quality teaching tools. Had he had his way there would be a linux sever running the network and email, XP classroom machines (not linux just yet), openoffice, and python in the programming classes.
As it is they have windows server, Exchange, MSoffice, Dreamweaver (after a successful revolt against frontpage), and VB.
I've started teaching my kid myself....
The essence of the web is file sharing, even a web page is a shared file. I'm talking about files that require payment, of which there are many.
Why are "substantial mental improvements" worthless? Anything that improves the condition of the patients is probably worthwhile.
I spent five years working with Alzheimers clients, and I see two sides to this. For the family it's often that their relative loses an awareness of them which is the worst part.
But I've seen clients who retained some memory of their family begging them in brief moments of lucidity to forget about them. It's heart breaking. Sometimes I thought the clients with little or no recollection of family had an easier time.
On the other hand, improving quality of life in any way can make the client with memory loss have a much improved life, even if they can't recall much or anything about their family. I spent a *lot* of time focused on this, and it can be done in a great many cases. A drug that improved mental abilities need not do too much to assist with this.
If I'm to be brutal though, the best way I found of improving quality of life for my clients, sometimes massively, was getting them off the often sickening amounts of anti psychotics and other mental straight jackets they had been prescribed by clueless fuckwit doctors prior to coming under my care.
That problem needs to be addressed first in my opinion.
Are you on crack? A 128kbit AAC is nothing like CD quality.
Was that what I said?
Your assignment for today is to re-read my comment....
I guess in any (truly) democratic country file-sharing and similar attitudes regarding "intellectual property" should be legal.
Well no, sorry.
While I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that prosecuting people as criminals for doing it is bad, it still isn't a 'good' thing to do.
What chance is there for the small businessman whose product can be shared for nothing by thousands the day after release? I speak here of the indie games developer. Want to hurt them? I sure don't, but if filesharing gets totally legalised, people will think anything on the net is theres for the taking, which is *entirely* wrong.
I speak here as just such a small businessman, wondering if I can safely go for an internet based distribution model, I have no recourse if my product is widely pirated, I'm just screwed. Try considering that if you're talking about a product that's taken years to develop...
The answer is a newer distribution model, and a parking ticket fine type system if you get caught being a bit naughty (which is the most 'realistic' description for a person at home downloading a movie or mp3 if reality is to be applied).
I have no idea yet what such a model would be, but I am considering it. I would *never* prosecute anyone for stealing my stuff, but I might send a 'you've disappointed me, and obviously don't value my work' letter.
Terribly sorry old chap, being a bit too british don'cha know.
Fancy a nice cup of tea?
The fact that it is possible to burn to an inconvenient physical format an then rip to a DRM free format does not make iTunes DRM free
There is no difference whatsoever between a ripped mp3 file from iTunes, and a ripped mp3 from an album. I know, I've tried it. Same goes for Audible actually, but I didn't mention that because it's not music.
The purpose of DRM is to restrict what you can do with the music, but iTunes have never tried to restrict what you do with the music once you own it, just the original file you download, and that only because they were forced to. It is in their interest for you to rip it, because then you might have other copies on another iPod, as I do.
No-ones doubting that Apple was first, but for Sony to do this is a big thing indeed. They're a dinosour, and one of the worst DRM offenders (just having DRM isn't as bad as those darn silly rootkits), so if they have finally got the message, that's a sign of good things to come.
Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD. If you just want to use the iPod alone, there's no need. This in built burn to cd option hasn't been the case for other DRM schemes that I know of.
Try as I might, I can't hear any difference to a track I've burned to CD and encoded as mp3. Aac has its advantages (aside from the drm everyone mutters about), I do like the bookmark feature.
Will you trade up for a 300GB?
Sure, when the 160Gb wore out. My current 40gb iPod is several years old, and finally starting to have issues. As long as that's still working I won't get the 160Gb either.
if they did that a lot of the mobile phone networks would go out of business pretty fast. They over estimated the extent to which they could fool people into believing that the mobile phone was a device that needs replacing every few months, now all they have is phone charges and huge debts to service from license purchases.
Mobiles are all but commoditised now. Face it, all phones are pretty much identical. If this were not the case, then why are the major selling points not phone features at all? Cameras mp3 players and external looks? I'm amazed people are fooled into replacing their phones at all, but I know people who avidly follow this faked technology advancement and replace their phones each time something 'new' appears.
Apple have screwed that anyway, by going a whole new way and removing the analogue keyboard completely. That was about the only thing left they could be different over.
Not that I want to buy an iphone. 8Gb? You've got to be kidding, same for the ipod touch, screw that, I want my 160Gb.
I stayed in a library an hour past closing because I didn't noticed while programming on my laptop, and the janitor threaten to call the cops on me if I didn't get out. :)
Well I'd get hassled too if I stayed in the uni library after hours. I'm talking about labs open 24/7 though.
I spent every free evening I had as an undergraduate working till late at night teaching myself the subjects we were learning, and spent every reading week studying. To the extent that a lecturer who caught me in the otherwise empty lab at night told me to get out and get drunk like a normal student.
Social life is important, yes, but after a year of this I was so far ahead of my fellow students that while the course was really hurting for them, I was having the time of my life, and I ended up actually teaching a first year course whilst in my third year.
If you just study what's in the lectures, you'll be, at best, as good as everyone else in that classroom. If you read around the topics and hack code at night, you'll get your head above everyone else when it comes to the job market.
Each of my friends who socialized more than they studied ended up with mediocre to normal degrees. Those who spent a lot of their free time studying and (more importantly perhaps), hacking code for fun, got good degrees, and very nice jobs almost to a man/woman. Not me, I ended up in a four year PHD course, so I have yet to see a fiscal return for my work.
My views may be extreme, but it is possible to go out a bit less, and benefit a great deal from extra study time.
so its more as an alternative to google desktop search then? I thought microsoft already had one of those. Not that I've ever used it, so I can't say how good/bad it is.
Doesn't matter anyway, they can buy all the search engines they want, but Google have mindshare they can't buy. Perhaps they're just worried Google might buy it, or someone else, so they bought it up to keep it away from competition.
I recall it was based in Korea is all. I only recall that because it struck me as an odd place for a company to be interested in cybernetics
We've got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there's no doubt about it
We've got to figure out a legal way to do it, there's no doubt about it.
There, fixed it for you.
I knew a phd student five years ago who was working on a cybernetic spine augmentation thingy which could route past damage. It was quite promising. While I knew him he was waiting for WHO approval for trials.
Then some large corporation offered him $$$ aplenty for the technology, and offered him a very nice post too. I've not heard a thing about his technology since.
WTF? 50inch screen with only 10 lumin is going to be SHITTY.
Needs moar lumins?
What is a lumin anyway? Some sort of cross between a loofah and a human?
I think you'll find that NASA, and all its associated costs, (aside from the flying turkey that is the ISS), take up less than 0.02% of the total US budget. It might be smaller than that, this is from memory, I can't re-find the source, which was a newspaper.
Its a tiny, tiny amount though. The problem is that the space program has always been blown by the political winds. People remember that once, long ago, it did indeed consume vast amounts of cash, and they assume this continues today. NASA then and NASA now are somewhat different however. Back then they were expanding the frontiers of mankind into space, now they spend their time trying to cope with a lowest bidder built shuttle that, far from being a rapid turnaround cheap delivery system, has to be completely rebuilt each time it lands, and has no chance of *ever* matching the stated aims of the project. That it is more expensive to use than the 'old fashioned' rockets it was supposed to replace is just a joke.
Oh yes, and the ISS is at its current altitude not because NASA wanted it so low, but because they wanted to use the shuttle to service it. So now the ISS is in such a low orbit its subject to drag from the atmosphere and has to be boosted back into orbit periodically. This low orbit reduces the useful science that can be done on board considerably.
The coloration of such images is thought of as being as much the artistic expression of the astronomer in question as it is clarification of the image.
The thing is, without coloration, we wouldn't be able to see the various structures. Astronomers probably would, being trained, but not us normal folk. Besides, who wants to look at dull greyscale when you can spice it up with some color? The aim of making the image easier to interpret is achieved, and it looks pretty too.
Imagine a Bae.... No! Please! not the spikes!!!
Well, the /. community may very well provide different readings, points of views, related information and so on. That is not `a collective coming to a cohesive answer', but it can be useful anyways.
Provided all you want to know is what would happen in soviet Russia, whether or not you could Beowulf a CC license, and to what extend the poster is an insensitive clod..
the important thing about truecrypt is the concept of 'deniable encryption' -- that encrypted data is indistinguishable from garbage on disk,
Right up to the moment they use an undelete tool on your laptop and find the formerly uninstalled encryption program on your hard drive....
now, if you steg up your precious data, throw it on a deniably crypted filesystem and then write the whole thing to a series of 5" floppies that no border guard is reasonably going to have the equipment to read... well, you should be okay.
Carrying floppy discs? Hello? How many machines use that as standard now, you've got an instant vector to suspicion right there.
Ok, so you use a cd/dvd. Only they might just wonder why empty discs show physical signs of being written to, as any such disc would.
A. You can decrypt the data
B. You can go back where you came from
True on both points. But y'know what? here in the UK we're enjoying a deluge of chinese students that used to go to the US before you went all draconian and started assuming everyone was up to no good.
Now they inject millions into our economy, specifically universities and the towns that service them. You might want to ask some of your University folk what they think about that..
This sort of behavior reassures the terrorists that they're winning, which they do every time you subject innocent people to suspicion and restrict their movements/rights. In the meantime, those innocent people start thinking they might go elsewhere instead.
On a more personal note, I had been planning a six month to a year long sabbatical in a couple of years time, and I was going to spend it traveling the US. Now I've switched plans to Australia, with a brief spell in New Zealand.