After reading the letter, make sure to scroll through all of the signatures at the bottom. If you haven't yet done so this year, open up your check book and contribute to your favorite of these organizations. These consumer organizations can only continue to push the FTC if we support them.
It's sick to believe that violence is the right retaliation. Violence begets violence. We don't want this to escalate into a war. Blowing the shit out of the people who we believe to be the cause of this tragedy will only add fuel to the fire: others with similar views will only hate the U.S. more. Instead of one small radical group, we might see small governments trying to launch terrorist attacks against the U.S. No matter how enraged we are about these attacks, we're not going to fix anything by sending missles to the middle east.
We're all afraid of what can happen now that (previously not-so-)public records are easy to access. I don't want people that I meet to be able to discover my entire life's history. Think about the impact this might have on getting a job. "Sorry, you're a great candidate, but we don't want to hire you because we did a public records search and found that you have 17 unpaid Boston parking tickets."
Then again... U.S. society is gradually becoming less and less formal. Many people don't wear suits to work. Many issues which used to be taboo (sex, divorce, drugs) are more openly discussed. But, we're still quick to criticize people who have faults. Could making public information more readily available finally relax this high-view stereotype that we have? We're already progressing in that direction. Clinton wasn't stoned after his affair was publicized. Bush was elected president even though he had a serious drinking problem when he was young.
With public records being easily accessible, we're going to have to get used to everyone having a "history." But, society does change with time. This is just another transition that society needs to go through. Sci-fi writers (e.g. Spielberg/Kubrik in A.I.) try to make us believe that people are static---they don't change with technology. But, they do. Aren't cars, planes and *nuclear missles* a bit more society-altering than a robotic boy? In some ways, this change will be great. It will allow us to discover when people have a seriously dangerous history (e.g. mass murder, millions of $$$ in credit card fraud, etc.). It will also bring our society to accepting things that normal people do (e.g. drinking in college, smoking pot, not paying parking tickets, etc.). We're all human. We make mistakes sometimes. We also occasionally just like to enjoy life and not think too much the future consequences of our actions.
Anyway, making public records easy-to-access may seem like a terrible thing. But, they are public records. If someone *really* wanted to know your birthday & address, they would have been able to find it. Making them easily accessible helps those who don't have the time to search through all of the records. And, it will (hopefully) inject some much needed humanity into our society.
Bingo. The guy who wrote the Tech Review article doesn't seem to get it. The fact that we have such disparity is a good thing. Those who are good at science/engineering are given the tools and opportunities to accel without limits. Those who have a drive in a different field get the chance to push forward in that field. Would the UCal students actually learn anything if you forced them to take a Bio, Chem and Physics class? Those who don't like the science classes won't even remember their professors' names by the time they graduate.
My wife is Russian. Russian secondary schools are superb. When she moved to the U.S., she was in 8th grade. Her Russian math classes dealt with Trig & introductory Calc. Her U.S. classes were basic Algebra. She was solving linear equations when my elementary school was doing multiplication tables. And yet, Russia is politically and economically more backwards than some third world countries. Many countries such as Russia push their kids to learn math, science, music, literature, etc. It's wonderful. I wish I would have had a more solid secondary school education. I had to take college math courses while I was in high school just to keep myself interested. My HS Physics class was an utter joke. But, does having a super secondary education get you anywhere? It's a nice thing to have, but it's only marginally helpful in the job market. A physics PhD won't get you a job if you don't know how to write a resume and have no personal skills. In the "Real World" it's usually more important to know how to effectively manage 7 diverse individuals than to be able to recite elements 91-98 of the Periodic table. But, no secondary school will teach you effective business skills.
In a sense, it's great that the American education system lets you out on your own at an early age. If you care, you learn from early on that you have to be the driver if you want to succeed. You can't expect others to set milestones for you forever. You also learn that there's more to life than rote memory and solving equations. Everyone wants American kids to know more because we live in one of the best countries in the world. We find it insulting that Indian high school graduates know more math than nearly all of our college graduates. Is this *really* something we should find insulting? Our country is getting along just fine. Even though most people in our country are "stupid," we embrace technology perfectly fine. It doesn't take that much effort to make technology usable by the masses. Oh, and even though some people think that technical jobs require a brain the size of Einstein, they don't. Sure, you have to know some things and have an interest in technical stuff, but it doesn't take all that much know-how to write code or to be a DSL technician.
Maybe we should all grow up and realize that having a big IQ isn't everything...
If we want companies to accept open source, we can't scream bloody murder when someone tries to take part in the market economy. The fact that Sunspire developed much of the game in the open is cool. There's nothing wrong with them moving on to closed-source development to polish off the game and sell it.
Version 0.61 is released under the GNU license and is freely available. If you want development to continue in the open, all you have to do is to download the source, and develop! You'll need to change the name and possibly use your own graphics, but there's nothing stopping you from releasing a Tux Racer-like game using the Tux Racer 0.61 code!
And some people wonder why not many companies develop code in the open when *this* is the sort of response that they get when they try to make money off the software!
Uh.... No. The Alpha was a RISC design. It used simple instructions and a long pipeline so that the amount needed to be done each clock was very little. This allowed them to ramp up the clock speed. For a while, the Alpha had the highest clock speed of any processor (I remember 866Mhz Alphas while Intel was still working in the 300-400Mhz range).
The Intel is more of a mixed design---some instructions are complex, but the pipeline on Intel chips is long. As with the Alphas, very little is done per clock cycle, so they've been able to push up the clock speed. Intel has lots of $$$, so it hasn't been difficult for them to achieve very high clock speed levels.
Btw, does anyone know what the current Alpha clock speed is?
The CISC philosophy, which Sun adopts, is to have fewer clocks, but to get more done each clock. CISC designs don't need such a long pipeline and hence aren't as susceptible to branch mis-predictions. However, the higher Mhz processoros usually still win since they have long pipelines which allow many smaller operations to be done simultaneously. It might take 20 clocks to finish an instruction, but an instruction completes almost every clock. (Comp. Sci. professors like to use a "laundry" analogy.) Branches ("if," "while," "goto" in code) can be deadly, but only if the processor guesses the wrong branch to take. Fortunately for Intel and others that adopt the long-pipeline philosophy, simple algorithms can predict the correct branch with very high accuracy (99.9%+). Hence, long-pipeline chips tend to get stuff done faster than CISC-minded models.
Naive Bayes is a damn good text classifier that has already proven to be a good spam identifier. The problem is that no such automated classifier system will ever be able to get rid of most spam without throwing away a few non-spam messages too. It's a fact of life.
Btw, check out
http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/spam/
to read about someone's efforts to get rid of spam via a slew of techniques, including an automated classification system (Naive Bayes).
The fact of the matter is that, no matter how difficult we try to make it to send out mass, unsolicited e-mail, it will always be a cheap form of advertisement. Compared with other forms, spam is cheap and easily automatable. With little effort and cost, I can send spam to millions of unique individuals. The core function of the computer is automation. Technology is blind. You can't get the computer to automate most forms of communication without allowing the automation of unsolicited advertisement.
Since we can't increase the technological costs of spam, the only good way to make spam more costly to the sender is to regulate it. The govt. should require that all spam have "[SPAM]" in the subject line, with additional labels for spam that advertises stuff that's inappropriate for certain groups of individuals (PORN, GOATSEX, etc.). Furthermore, the govt. should impose stiff fines and penalties for violators ($$$ & jail time, maybe even the chair?).
It's nice to think that you can fix everything with technology. Over time, everyone comes to the realization that government is there for a reason; it's a necessary evil that does, on occasion, make the world a better place.
Jason
CmdrTaco's DNA sounds like winword.exe
on
Protein Music
·
· Score: 1
I've always liked yyyymmdd version numbers. Then, not only are all version numbers equally boring, but you can always tell how many days (months (years)) it's been since the last Mozilla release:)
First comment is that you'd be best sticking to a standard essay format, such as the five paragraph essay (intro, 3 main ideas, conclusion), rather than writing more-or-less freeform as you are.
I see a distinct introduction and conclusion, but neither exhibits a solid thematic direction. Try writing each middle paragraph with one thought in mind where the purpose of that paragraph is to convince your reader of that thought.
Second comment is that your arguments need cohesion and strong support. What is this essay about? Is it a short history of the Internet? Is it a rant on rant on corporations that track your every move? Or, is it an argument that the Internet is the next major selling medium? You need a core focus to which all of your core paragraphs provide support.
Also, many of your arguments are weak. You say, "many companies have also found that selling ads can
replace charging for their services." I've found the current impression to be that companies cannot survive on advertisement alone. Anyway, is this a bad thing? In many cases, including your first sentence, "the internet was supposed to be free, free from external control, free from
corporate influence, free from your identity," you imply that advertising is bad, yet much of your essay merely talks about how Internet advertising has changed, not how it is destroying privacy or eliminating freedom.
Third comment is that you should use spelling and grammar sentences: wevsites is not a word and, "due to low bandwidth and a limited amount of online sales," is not a sentence.
Good luck with the rewrite. Even the best writers edit their work many, many times before they consider their work to be of publishable quality.
That article was a cool mini-history of the past 15 years of the gaming world, but it didn't much live up to its title. Sony won its seat as top dog by making game development easy and by promoting PS1 games. With PS2, "the emphasis was on the platform, not the titles." Also, according to Robert, game companies are losing money. My questions:
- Is emphasizing the platform really such a terrible thing when the platform is the best thing out there? - What game companies are losing money? Could this have anything to do with the supply of PS2s being not totally smooth? Such problems usually plague a new system. The game companies will be making money soon enough.
And finally...
- How are MS and Nintendo going to "open a can of whoop-ass on Sony's empire?"
Nintendo has been promoting games and developers like it. That doesn't mean that it will instantly become a success. Being as good as the PS2 won't convince millions of gamers to switch. Also, Nintendo did a good job of beating a half-dead opponent (Atari), but their performance against other contenders (Sega, Sony) has been less than stellar. Nintendo can attract the younger crowd with Mario and Pokemon, but they don't have the bait to attract the elders.
And then there's MS, which has great experience with PC games, but none with console/video games. Will the XBox venture work for MS? Not likely.
When was the last time MS did something right on their first try? Anyone remember actually Word 1 or IE 1? MS learns quickly and improves upon their past mistakes, but it usually takes a while for them to catch on. First impressions mean a lot in the gaming industry. Also, MS relies on its dominance, and intimate knowledge of the OS for its success. If the XBox successfully makes it out of the gate w/o major hiccups, we're likely to see some cool games from MS. However, the XBox won't get far without help from 3rd party developers. What would Nintendo have been without Capcom and SquareSoft? MS is notoriously bad at working well with others; MS loves having total control. MS will probably put together a nice game development platform, but I can see them ticking off a lot of developers through licensing agreements and payment arrangements. If they don't make it easy and simple like Sony did for the PS1, they'll end up being the only supporters of the XBox game library. Even if you do hate Sony, don't put your bets on MS "revolutionizing" the video game industry.
Sony may not have a strangle-hold on the video gaming world, but they have solid footing which isn't likely to crumble soon. And, with the current field of contenders as it is, they'll have to make some serious mistakes before falling from their perch.
Utilizing computational power is NOT computer science. Designing processors is computer science (and computer engineering). Designing computationally efficient algorithms is computer science. Analyzing algorithm complexity is computer science. It's hilarious that so many people equate computer science to "using computers." It's like equating "hacking" and "cracking."
Computer science (and computer engineering) lays the foundations for other fields to effectively use computers. Where would physicists and biologists be if significant time and effort had never been invested in developing programming languages, communication protocols and designing processors?
Anyway, that NYT article is just plain silly. The Larry Ellison quote tops it off. I'll agree that much of the computing industry is boring, but computer science is an academic field and it'll be a l--o--n--g time before CS begins to get boring. Go ask good 'ol George Johnson what he thinks of Artificial Intelligence...
I browsed through the legal request and didn't find anything directly suggesting that the RIAA wants to not pay lyricists. Could someone post the excerpt that pertains to this?
The RIAA is being overly possesive of its rights and its precedent to protect the copyrights of musicians and lyricists. However, it's babyish to demand that they move into the modern, digital age on anything but their own terms. The legal request that they've submitted is a signal that they are finally realizing that the Internet is a viable distribution medium, but they're being very cautious about it. They want to make the move on their own terms and they don't want to make any major mistakes while entering this "new" distribution medium. They don't want to do anything that would cause them to unintentionally give up their copyright ownership. If an action of theirs is construed as placing copyrighted works in the public domain, they may lose their ownership of (or control over) the copyright. Also, they could get into serious legal/financial trouble if they start distributing music and it is later found that are required to pay more royalties than they thought they would have needed to.
They have many more assets to worry about than does Napster. It's easy to do something like Napster did when you essentially have nothing to lose. Anyway, let's hope that this legal request is a sign that the RIAA will soon be distributing music over the Internet in a reasonable fashion. I wouldn't bet on it anytime soon, but at least there is hope.
Copyright IS the real issue here, but the issue isn't at all realted to the possible copyrights on PDF files. The real copyright of concern is Noonberg's copyright. According to the GPL, it would be illegal (in addition to unethical and rude) to change xpdf and distribute it under that name without Noonberg's permission. i.e. the GPL gives you distributing rights, but it does NOT give you the right to use the xpdf name without permission from Noonberg. By distributing the modified xpdf, Debian would be including something that looked very much like xpdf, but does not have Noonberg's approval. Hence, it would violate his copyright.
Of course, there would be nothing wrong with distributing the xpdf code under a modified name (since then there is no copyright violation and the GPL allows such distribution).
The xpdf case is a simple one. Changing the xpdf code without Noonburg's permission and including it in the Debian distribution (without chaning the package and binary name) violates Noonburg's copyright. Noonburg seems to have a firm position on the permission settings, so I doubt he will agree to releasing a version of xpdf that does not honor those bits. Trying to have xpdf changed in the Debian distribution is both rude and unethical.
However, since xpdf is GPL'd, it would be perfectly reasonable to take xpdf, change the name (pdfview?), modify the code concerning permission settings and release that code under the modified name (with the GPL license). Debian could then include both packages and the user would be allowed to choose between the two programs.
I personally find Noonberg's stance quite reasonable. It's easy to think that "information wants to be free" and that copyright is an age-old idea that should be abolished, but copyright is an idea that is thoroughly ingrained in our society and is an important idea to maintain both for the sake of our ethics and our economy. Unlike programming, most people do not produce works of art and engineering just because they feel like it. Copyright helps to encourage the production of useful commodities and enforces at least a small degree of ethics in the business world.
Do you honestly think the first course of action this guy would take would be to send an e-mail to a semi-public mailing list? Of course not, as he said, he has contacted those who initiated openssh. Apparently, they have refused to change the name, so he's doing what he can to avoid getting lawyers involved. SSH is *his* trademark and he has a right to protect that trademark.
He must actively defend his trademark and he must send out notices and take legal action "quickly," but the definition of "quickly" can depend heavily on the circumstances. If someone started a national advertising campaign for openssh, he would need to react within a few months or weeks in order to not lose his copyright due to inaction. However, for a case where an infringement is lesser known and less publicly known, I'm sure judges generally allow for a longer period of time before action must be taken. If Tatu sent out notices to the main openssh developers shortly after he learned of openssh, then I think it is very safe to assume that he would win any copyright battle in court.
Before 0.6, I was pretty pissy about Mozilla. Every release I tried showed numerous bugs for even the most basic browsing. 0.6 was a major step up. I could browse most of the web without constant problems. The only major hole was SSL support for checking financial accounts and buying stuff. 0.6 also had the tendency to crash occasionally.
I'm quite happy with the 0.7 release. No need to go back to Netscrape 4.7x any longer. Moz 0.7 has all the same functionality, is significantly faster, much "cleaner" and crashes a hell of a lot less.
I guess one could complain about 0.7 not having Java support, but I learned to live w/o Java support after using Netscrape on Linux for so long...:)
Soon, it may essentially be impossible to write code under the MS platform. That is, unless you own and use the only approved MS compiler suite. MS will decide that allowing other compiler companies to produce the MS signature is just too risky and hence when the MS OS no longer executes anything that isn't MS signed, all other compiler companies will be "out of luck." How's that for screwing the competition?
Slashdot Mirror
Does MS own all operating systems in existence? Why else would you need a legal agreement from MS to install Linux? :-)
Jason
From the sounds of it, Opera 6.0 TP3 is a much more stable browser than Moz 0.9.8. It's also *much* faster. Jason
After reading the letter, make sure to scroll through all of the signatures at the bottom. If you haven't yet done so this year, open up your check book and contribute to your favorite of these organizations. These consumer organizations can only continue to push the FTC if we support them.
Jason
and it's called the EFF. Do we need another lobby organization?
Jason
It's sick to believe that violence is the right retaliation. Violence begets violence. We don't want this to escalate into a war. Blowing the shit out of the people who we believe to be the cause of this tragedy will only add fuel to the fire: others with similar views will only hate the U.S. more. Instead of one small radical group, we might see small governments trying to launch terrorist attacks against the U.S. No matter how enraged we are about these attacks, we're not going to fix anything by sending missles to the middle east.
Jason
We're all afraid of what can happen now that (previously not-so-)public records are easy to access. I don't want people that I meet to be able to discover my entire life's history. Think about the impact this might have on getting a job. "Sorry, you're a great candidate, but we don't want to hire you because we did a public records search and found that you have 17 unpaid Boston parking tickets."
Then again... U.S. society is gradually becoming less and less formal. Many people don't wear suits to work. Many issues which used to be taboo (sex, divorce, drugs) are more openly discussed. But, we're still quick to criticize people who have faults. Could making public information more readily available finally relax this high-view stereotype that we have? We're already progressing in that direction. Clinton wasn't stoned after his affair was publicized. Bush was elected president even though he had a serious drinking problem when he was young.
With public records being easily accessible, we're going to have to get used to everyone having a "history." But, society does change with time. This is just another transition that society needs to go through. Sci-fi writers (e.g. Spielberg/Kubrik in A.I.) try to make us believe that people are static---they don't change with technology. But, they do. Aren't cars, planes and *nuclear missles* a bit more society-altering than a robotic boy? In some ways, this change will be great. It will allow us to discover when people have a seriously dangerous history (e.g. mass murder, millions of $$$ in credit card fraud, etc.). It will also bring our society to accepting things that normal people do (e.g. drinking in college, smoking pot, not paying parking tickets, etc.). We're all human. We make mistakes sometimes. We also occasionally just like to enjoy life and not think too much the future consequences of our actions.
Anyway, making public records easy-to-access may seem like a terrible thing. But, they are public records. If someone *really* wanted to know your birthday & address, they would have been able to find it. Making them easily accessible helps those who don't have the time to search through all of the records. And, it will (hopefully) inject some much needed humanity into our society.
Jason
Bingo. The guy who wrote the Tech Review article doesn't seem to get it. The fact that we have such disparity is a good thing. Those who are good at science/engineering are given the tools and opportunities to accel without limits. Those who have a drive in a different field get the chance to push forward in that field. Would the UCal students actually learn anything if you forced them to take a Bio, Chem and Physics class? Those who don't like the science classes won't even remember their professors' names by the time they graduate.
My wife is Russian. Russian secondary schools are superb. When she moved to the U.S., she was in 8th grade. Her Russian math classes dealt with Trig & introductory Calc. Her U.S. classes were basic Algebra. She was solving linear equations when my elementary school was doing multiplication tables. And yet, Russia is politically and economically more backwards than some third world countries. Many countries such as Russia push their kids to learn math, science, music, literature, etc. It's wonderful. I wish I would have had a more solid secondary school education. I had to take college math courses while I was in high school just to keep myself interested. My HS Physics class was an utter joke. But, does having a super secondary education get you anywhere? It's a nice thing to have, but it's only marginally helpful in the job market. A physics PhD won't get you a job if you don't know how to write a resume and have no personal skills. In the "Real World" it's usually more important to know how to effectively manage 7 diverse individuals than to be able to recite elements 91-98 of the Periodic table. But, no secondary school will teach you effective business skills.
In a sense, it's great that the American education system lets you out on your own at an early age. If you care, you learn from early on that you have to be the driver if you want to succeed. You can't expect others to set milestones for you forever. You also learn that there's more to life than rote memory and solving equations. Everyone wants American kids to know more because we live in one of the best countries in the world. We find it insulting that Indian high school graduates know more math than nearly all of our college graduates. Is this *really* something we should find insulting? Our country is getting along just fine. Even though most people in our country are "stupid," we embrace technology perfectly fine. It doesn't take that much effort to make technology usable by the masses. Oh, and even though some people think that technical jobs require a brain the size of Einstein, they don't. Sure, you have to know some things and have an interest in technical stuff, but it doesn't take all that much know-how to write code or to be a DSL technician.
Maybe we should all grow up and realize that having a big IQ isn't everything...
Jason
If we want companies to accept open source, we can't scream bloody murder when someone tries to take part in the market economy. The fact that Sunspire developed much of the game in the open is cool. There's nothing wrong with them moving on to closed-source development to polish off the game and sell it.
Version 0.61 is released under the GNU license and is freely available. If you want development to continue in the open, all you have to do is to download the source, and develop! You'll need to change the name and possibly use your own graphics, but there's nothing stopping you from releasing a Tux Racer-like game using the Tux Racer 0.61 code!
And some people wonder why not many companies develop code in the open when *this* is the sort of response that they get when they try to make money off the software!
Jason
Uh.... No. The Alpha was a RISC design. It used simple instructions and a long pipeline so that the amount needed to be done each clock was very little. This allowed them to ramp up the clock speed. For a while, the Alpha had the highest clock speed of any processor (I remember 866Mhz Alphas while Intel was still working in the 300-400Mhz range).
The Intel is more of a mixed design---some instructions are complex, but the pipeline on Intel chips is long. As with the Alphas, very little is done per clock cycle, so they've been able to push up the clock speed. Intel has lots of $$$, so it hasn't been difficult for them to achieve very high clock speed levels.
Btw, does anyone know what the current Alpha clock speed is?
The CISC philosophy, which Sun adopts, is to have fewer clocks, but to get more done each clock. CISC designs don't need such a long pipeline and hence aren't as susceptible to branch mis-predictions. However, the higher Mhz processoros usually still win since they have long pipelines which allow many smaller operations to be done simultaneously. It might take 20 clocks to finish an instruction, but an instruction completes almost every clock. (Comp. Sci. professors like to use a "laundry" analogy.) Branches ("if," "while," "goto" in code) can be deadly, but only if the processor guesses the wrong branch to take. Fortunately for Intel and others that adopt the long-pipeline philosophy, simple algorithms can predict the correct branch with very high accuracy (99.9%+). Hence, long-pipeline chips tend to get stuff done faster than CISC-minded models.
Jason
Naive Bayes is a damn good text classifier that has already proven to be a good spam identifier. The problem is that no such automated classifier system will ever be able to get rid of most spam without throwing away a few non-spam messages too. It's a fact of life.
Btw, check out
http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/spam/
to read about someone's efforts to get rid of spam via a slew of techniques, including an automated classification system (Naive Bayes).
Jason
The fact of the matter is that, no matter how difficult we try to make it to send out mass, unsolicited e-mail, it will always be a cheap form of advertisement. Compared with other forms, spam is cheap and easily automatable. With little effort and cost, I can send spam to millions of unique individuals. The core function of the computer is automation. Technology is blind. You can't get the computer to automate most forms of communication without allowing the automation of unsolicited advertisement.
Since we can't increase the technological costs of spam, the only good way to make spam more costly to the sender is to regulate it. The govt. should require that all spam have "[SPAM]" in the subject line, with additional labels for spam that advertises stuff that's inappropriate for certain groups of individuals (PORN, GOATSEX, etc.). Furthermore, the govt. should impose stiff fines and penalties for violators ($$$ & jail time, maybe even the chair?).
It's nice to think that you can fix everything with technology. Over time, everyone comes to the realization that government is there for a reason; it's a necessary evil that does, on occasion, make the world a better place.
Jason
You heard it here first!
All it really does is make the User-Agent header useless. Maybe we'll soon see a new HTTP header, Real-User-Agent :)
Jason
I've always liked yyyymmdd version numbers. Then, not only are all version numbers equally boring, but you can always tell how many days (months (years)) it's been since the last Mozilla release :)
Jason
First comment is that you'd be best sticking to a standard essay format, such as the five paragraph essay (intro, 3 main ideas, conclusion), rather than writing more-or-less freeform as you are. I see a distinct introduction and conclusion, but neither exhibits a solid thematic direction. Try writing each middle paragraph with one thought in mind where the purpose of that paragraph is to convince your reader of that thought.
Second comment is that your arguments need cohesion and strong support. What is this essay about? Is it a short history of the Internet? Is it a rant on rant on corporations that track your every move? Or, is it an argument that the Internet is the next major selling medium? You need a core focus to which all of your core paragraphs provide support. Also, many of your arguments are weak. You say, "many companies have also found that selling ads can replace charging for their services." I've found the current impression to be that companies cannot survive on advertisement alone. Anyway, is this a bad thing? In many cases, including your first sentence, "the internet was supposed to be free, free from external control, free from corporate influence, free from your identity," you imply that advertising is bad, yet much of your essay merely talks about how Internet advertising has changed, not how it is destroying privacy or eliminating freedom.
Third comment is that you should use spelling and grammar sentences: wevsites is not a word and, "due to low bandwidth and a limited amount of online sales," is not a sentence.
Good luck with the rewrite. Even the best writers edit their work many, many times before they consider their work to be of publishable quality.
Jason
That article was a cool mini-history of the past 15 years of the gaming world, but it didn't much live up to its title. Sony won its seat as top dog by making game development easy and by promoting PS1 games. With PS2, "the emphasis was on the platform, not the titles." Also, according to Robert, game companies are losing money. My questions:
- Is emphasizing the platform really such a terrible thing when the platform is the best thing out there?
- What game companies are losing money? Could this have anything to do with the supply of PS2s being not totally smooth? Such problems usually plague a new system. The game companies will be making money soon enough.
And finally...
- How are MS and Nintendo going to "open a can of whoop-ass on Sony's empire?"
Nintendo has been promoting games and developers like it. That doesn't mean that it will instantly become a success. Being as good as the PS2 won't convince millions of gamers to switch. Also, Nintendo did a good job of beating a half-dead opponent (Atari), but their performance against other contenders (Sega, Sony) has been less than stellar. Nintendo can attract the younger crowd with Mario and Pokemon, but they don't have the bait to attract the elders.
And then there's MS, which has great experience with PC games, but none with console/video games. Will the XBox venture work for MS? Not likely.
When was the last time MS did something right on their first try? Anyone remember actually Word 1 or IE 1? MS learns quickly and improves upon their past mistakes, but it usually takes a while for them to catch on. First impressions mean a lot in the gaming industry. Also, MS relies on its dominance, and intimate knowledge of the OS for its success. If the XBox successfully makes it out of the gate w/o major hiccups, we're likely to see some cool games from MS. However, the XBox won't get far without help from 3rd party developers. What would Nintendo have been without Capcom and SquareSoft? MS is notoriously bad at working well with others; MS loves having total control. MS will probably put together a nice game development platform, but I can see them ticking off a lot of developers through licensing agreements and payment arrangements. If they don't make it easy and simple like Sony did for the PS1, they'll end up being the only supporters of the XBox game library. Even if you do hate Sony, don't put your bets on MS "revolutionizing" the video game industry.
Sony may not have a strangle-hold on the video gaming world, but they have solid footing which isn't likely to crumble soon. And, with the current field of contenders as it is, they'll have to make some serious mistakes before falling from their perch.
Jason
Utilizing computational power is NOT computer science. Designing processors is computer science (and computer engineering). Designing computationally efficient algorithms is computer science. Analyzing algorithm complexity is computer science. It's hilarious that so many people equate computer science to "using computers." It's like equating "hacking" and "cracking."
Computer science (and computer engineering) lays the foundations for other fields to effectively use computers. Where would physicists and biologists be if significant time and effort had never been invested in developing programming languages, communication protocols and designing processors?
Anyway, that NYT article is just plain silly. The Larry Ellison quote tops it off. I'll agree that much of the computing industry is boring, but computer science is an academic field and it'll be a l--o--n--g time before CS begins to get boring. Go ask good 'ol George Johnson what he thinks of Artificial Intelligence...
Jason
I browsed through the legal request and didn't find anything directly suggesting that the RIAA wants to not pay lyricists. Could someone post the excerpt that pertains to this?
The RIAA is being overly possesive of its rights and its precedent to protect the copyrights of musicians and lyricists. However, it's babyish to demand that they move into the modern, digital age on anything but their own terms. The legal request that they've submitted is a signal that they are finally realizing that the Internet is a viable distribution medium, but they're being very cautious about it. They want to make the move on their own terms and they don't want to make any major mistakes while entering this "new" distribution medium. They don't want to do anything that would cause them to unintentionally give up their copyright ownership. If an action of theirs is construed as placing copyrighted works in the public domain, they may lose their ownership of (or control over) the copyright. Also, they could get into serious legal/financial trouble if they start distributing music and it is later found that are required to pay more royalties than they thought they would have needed to.
They have many more assets to worry about than does Napster. It's easy to do something like Napster did when you essentially have nothing to lose. Anyway, let's hope that this legal request is a sign that the RIAA will soon be distributing music over the Internet in a reasonable fashion. I wouldn't bet on it anytime soon, but at least there is hope.
Jason
Copyright IS the real issue here, but the issue isn't at all realted to the possible copyrights on PDF files. The real copyright of concern is Noonberg's copyright. According to the GPL, it would be illegal (in addition to unethical and rude) to change xpdf and distribute it under that name without Noonberg's permission. i.e. the GPL gives you distributing rights, but it does NOT give you the right to use the xpdf name without permission from Noonberg. By distributing the modified xpdf, Debian would be including something that looked very much like xpdf, but does not have Noonberg's approval. Hence, it would violate his copyright.
Of course, there would be nothing wrong with distributing the xpdf code under a modified name (since then there is no copyright violation and the GPL allows such distribution).
Jason
The xpdf case is a simple one. Changing the xpdf code without Noonburg's permission and including it in the Debian distribution (without chaning the package and binary name) violates Noonburg's copyright. Noonburg seems to have a firm position on the permission settings, so I doubt he will agree to releasing a version of xpdf that does not honor those bits. Trying to have xpdf changed in the Debian distribution is both rude and unethical.
However, since xpdf is GPL'd, it would be perfectly reasonable to take xpdf, change the name (pdfview?), modify the code concerning permission settings and release that code under the modified name (with the GPL license). Debian could then include both packages and the user would be allowed to choose between the two programs.
I personally find Noonberg's stance quite reasonable. It's easy to think that "information wants to be free" and that copyright is an age-old idea that should be abolished, but copyright is an idea that is thoroughly ingrained in our society and is an important idea to maintain both for the sake of our ethics and our economy. Unlike programming, most people do not produce works of art and engineering just because they feel like it. Copyright helps to encourage the production of useful commodities and enforces at least a small degree of ethics in the business world.
Jason
Do you honestly think the first course of action this guy would take would be to send an e-mail to a semi-public mailing list? Of course not, as he said, he has contacted those who initiated openssh. Apparently, they have refused to change the name, so he's doing what he can to avoid getting lawyers involved. SSH is *his* trademark and he has a right to protect that trademark.
He must actively defend his trademark and he must send out notices and take legal action "quickly," but the definition of "quickly" can depend heavily on the circumstances. If someone started a national advertising campaign for openssh, he would need to react within a few months or weeks in order to not lose his copyright due to inaction. However, for a case where an infringement is lesser known and less publicly known, I'm sure judges generally allow for a longer period of time before action must be taken. If Tatu sent out notices to the main openssh developers shortly after he learned of openssh, then I think it is very safe to assume that he would win any copyright battle in court.
Jason
Before 0.6, I was pretty pissy about Mozilla. Every release I tried showed numerous bugs for even the most basic browsing. 0.6 was a major step up. I could browse most of the web without constant problems. The only major hole was SSL support for checking financial accounts and buying stuff. 0.6 also had the tendency to crash occasionally.
:)
I'm quite happy with the 0.7 release. No need to go back to Netscrape 4.7x any longer. Moz 0.7 has all the same functionality, is significantly faster, much "cleaner" and crashes a hell of a lot less.
I guess one could complain about 0.7 not having Java support, but I learned to live w/o Java support after using Netscrape on Linux for so long...
Jason
Soon, it may essentially be impossible to write code under the MS platform. That is, unless you own and use the only approved MS compiler suite. MS will decide that allowing other compiler companies to produce the MS signature is just too risky and hence when the MS OS no longer executes anything that isn't MS signed, all other compiler companies will be "out of luck." How's that for screwing the competition?
Jason
How long will freedevelopers.net last before it files for chapter 11?
A) 1 year
B) 2 months
C) 2-3 weeks
E) 5 days
F) tomorrow
G) 10 minutes from now
H) yesterday
But what if I like the electoral college? There are good reasons to keep it, y'know:
http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm
Jason