The main application of this XML-referencing-to-binary-attachments is SOAP, and that means web services.
In other words, you can simplify your God-help-me-XML-handling-and-parsing-code into something maybe 10% simpler. This means leaving the binary stuff OUT OF THE XML PARSER, putting it into the upper levels or processing. Cleaner, faster.
Also, it helps adaptive compression (gzip) by tightening up the textual data - remember web services are about information transfer, not storage.
"As a good-will gesture, EA has cooperated with our demands and released two groups of hostages, who obviously seemed overexhausted to deliver inferior products. The hostages are currently under rehabilitation (read as: Finding a better job). Due to the fact that this good-will gesture resulted in profits for the company, EA decided that it will release more groups of hostages in the course of the year. Maybe they're not so bad after all.
Hey, what's this? Anonymous Coward? Let's see who's hiding behind that mask! (removes mask from Anonymous Coward) *GASP* It's some guy hired by EA! "Yes, and if you hadn't unmasked me, i'd probably had been successful at shutting up those meddling kids!"
People who want to record your face won't be using these cameras, or probably using modded ones so they can record everything. Expect pedophiles to use these on the parks with children playing.
This "auto-censoring" technology will be probably sold to the common people, who then will have NO possible way of picturing the faces of say abusive police officers.
On my winxp desktop (hypothetical user interface):
Click (or even hover) on a desktop icon entitled "Games". A small window pops up just below (or above) the icon, showing other icons. I click on one, and i start playing solitaire.
More or less the same thing could be done on the start menu. But instead of the 1,000 programs, i get a bar of categories (created when I installed a program). I click -or hover - on one, and a menu of icons pops up.
Windows 3.x had something similar, but more cumbersome. It was called Program Manager. It was more or less easy, with the exception that (IIRC) you couldn't stack groups inside other groups. Major design flaw.
And now we're stuck with this huge popup menu with no categories whatsoever (arts, multimedia, music, games, utils) but about 100 of different applications fighting for desktop space.
With a minimum investment, we could have a very user-friendly interface. Why can't they do that instead of spending $2 million?
of say, $30, i bet they wouldn't NEED to combat piracy at all.
But frankly, I think Microsoft has WAY TOO MUCH MONEY in their hands to have an excuse for their completely incompetent security in their software. Will more money make their development more efficient? I don't think so.
I'd hate to say it, but maybe this is also our fault for choosing NOT to participate in politics. I feel as if the geek community was some kind of Amish guys in their computer farms, and then wham. Here comes the government and there you go. (Funny, didn't that happen to the hobbits in the shire, too?)
As much as you dislike it, you guys should start participating. Get organized, talk to the candidates, tell them about the patent problem.
The internet has grown, we can use this to our advantage. Start groups named "no software patents in [your city here]", maybe sign up at meetup.com, etc.
Because if all we do is rant about boo-hoo mommy the big bad guy patented my ideas, you're not getting anywhere.
I don't live in the US, but many of you do. And you better hurry because things are only getting worse.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
Believe it or not, the Neverwinter Nights game was useful for me! Well just a *tiny* bit of it, but very important.
There was this part where you had to investigate a crime, interrogate the suspects and witnesses, and show your case to the jury.
As a freedom-of-information fan, i always thought everyone needed to know most of the information, but in the game i realized that hiding some information (to present the "best image") was more important than sharing the whole truth. This made me realize that I needed to analyze people more carefully:
* Try to talk about things they like. If you don't know about them, ask so they'll share what they enjoy and what they know. * Don't be too pushy and confrontational. A friendly smile can be much more powerful than a whip. However, be firm when someone disobeys. * Make your "employees" appreciate you and have you in a high esteem. * Find out what they like doing most, so they'll be more efficient at what they do. * Don't fall for the "more hours = more product". Instead follow the "a happy employee is a productive employee".
As a geek, you can find your "natural inclination" to optimize stuff useful. Just don't expect it to work flawlessly. Employees are humans, and we make mistakes, too!
This is because the graphics card market depends on vast amounts of R&D and producing a product that is technically superior to everything else out there. Essentially being continually ahead of the game as your competitiors try to catch up.
I'll probably be modded down for this (as redundant lol), but I'll just explain to you. The inner workings can be kept as secret as you want. But the SPECS (like the API) have to be public.
When the card designers keep their specs secret, it's not about competition. It's possibly about having some contract with Microsoft etc, so only Windows can have decent drivers. Otherwise it seems illogical that they would hide this stuff.
In summary, there's nothing wrong about having open specs.
Everyone know that, sure, BT is great to share Linux distros, but in actuality, it will be used to share mp3s, divx rips, and pr0n.
Just as there are a few people using the internet for legitimate purposes when the vast majority of the bandwidth is to... quote: "share mp3s, divx rips, and pr0n."
Considering how much I dislike watching movies on a monitor, I doubt there are many people out there interested in downloading movies instead of renting or buying.
Maybe you won't think the same after realizing that for a small 2 hours download you can watch the latest episode (fansubbed) of Xenosaga: the anime series.
Movie downloads may not be really popular, but the anime market shows promise. Unfortunately I don't think it can be legitimized due to the marginally-legal status of fansubs.
Newflash: The Internet is also used by pedophiles. Wow. Shocking. (/sarcasm)
The Internet, as a communications medium, is just another scenery for all kinds of human behavior, from charity to crime. We have to yet see any place on earth that isn't vulnerable to crimes of any kind.
people will invent an audio recorder that mimics a high-res monitor or a speaker. Expect to see "build your own video recorder with spare monitor parts and a little electronics".
So much for DRM. The *AA People are so busy working to solve "the piracy problem", that they fail to see it's not the real problem. The prohibitive prices on their merchandise is the REAL problem.
Slashdot Mirror
For those who didn't RTFA:
The main application of this XML-referencing-to-binary-attachments is SOAP, and that means web services.
In other words, you can simplify your God-help-me-XML-handling-and-parsing-code into something maybe 10% simpler. This means leaving the binary stuff OUT OF THE XML PARSER, putting it into the upper levels or processing. Cleaner, faster.
Also, it helps adaptive compression (gzip) by tightening up the textual data - remember web services are about information transfer, not storage.
China, OR freedom of information. I'm sorry :(
Which of the candidates in the recent US presidential elections were against software patents?
I don't know, but that's your job. Besides I wasn't talking about the president. I was talking about the congressmen and senators.
What a disappointment. I thought it would be something like this.
Let me rephrase TFA:
"As a good-will gesture, EA has cooperated with our demands and released two groups of hostages, who obviously seemed overexhausted to deliver inferior products. The hostages are currently under rehabilitation (read as: Finding a better job). Due to the fact that this good-will gesture resulted in profits for the company, EA decided that it will release more groups of hostages in the course of the year. Maybe they're not so bad after all.
And here's Mike with the weather."
Please disengage this childish and silly crusade.
Hey, what's this? Anonymous Coward? Let's see who's hiding behind that mask!
(removes mask from Anonymous Coward)
*GASP* It's some guy hired by EA!
"Yes, and if you hadn't unmasked me, i'd probably had been successful at shutting up those meddling kids!"
Another case solved!
In half of all the cases, it's the friendly relatives, neighbors and friends who steal the identity of the victim
Hey!!! I didn't order a collection of XXX-videos - now wait a minute...
SCOTT!!!!!
It's called baghead. 100% GUARANTEED*!!.
*Doesn't cover situations of high wind. Avoid use near candles or fire. Patent pending.
People who want to record your face won't be using these cameras, or probably using modded ones so they can record everything. Expect pedophiles to use these on the parks with children playing.
This "auto-censoring" technology will be probably sold to the common people, who then will have NO possible way of picturing the faces of say abusive police officers.
Worst of both worlds, heh?
On my winxp desktop (hypothetical user interface):
Click (or even hover) on a desktop icon entitled "Games". A small window pops up just below (or above) the icon, showing other icons. I click on one, and i start playing solitaire.
More or less the same thing could be done on the start menu. But instead of the 1,000 programs, i get a bar of categories (created when I installed a program). I click -or hover - on one, and a menu of icons pops up.
Windows 3.x had something similar, but more cumbersome. It was called Program Manager. It was more or less easy, with the exception that (IIRC) you couldn't stack groups inside other groups. Major design flaw.
And now we're stuck with this huge popup menu with no categories whatsoever (arts, multimedia, music, games, utils) but about 100 of different applications fighting for desktop space.
With a minimum investment, we could have a very user-friendly interface. Why can't they do that instead of spending $2 million?
Wouldn't you rather say... spoonfeeding?
Want shoving? Install winxp and start browsing the web.
of say, $30, i bet they wouldn't NEED to combat piracy at all.
But frankly, I think Microsoft has WAY TOO MUCH MONEY in their hands to have an excuse for their completely incompetent security in their software. Will more money make their development more efficient? I don't think so.
Oh man, this could happen only in America, baby!
I'd hate to say it, but maybe this is also our fault for choosing NOT to participate in politics. I feel as if the geek community was some kind of Amish guys in their computer farms, and then wham. Here comes the government and there you go. (Funny, didn't that happen to the hobbits in the shire, too?)
As much as you dislike it, you guys should start participating. Get organized, talk to the candidates, tell them about the patent problem.
The internet has grown, we can use this to our advantage. Start groups named "no software patents in [your city here]", maybe sign up at meetup.com, etc.
Because if all we do is rant about boo-hoo mommy the big bad guy patented my ideas, you're not getting anywhere.
I don't live in the US, but many of you do. And you better hurry because things are only getting worse.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
a "write once, compile everywhere".
Believe it or not, the Neverwinter Nights game was useful for me! Well just a *tiny* bit of it, but very important.
There was this part where you had to investigate a crime, interrogate the suspects and witnesses, and show your case to the jury.
As a freedom-of-information fan, i always thought everyone needed to know most of the information, but in the game i realized that hiding some information (to present the "best image") was more important than sharing the whole truth. This made me realize that I needed to analyze people more carefully:
* Try to talk about things they like. If you don't know about them, ask so they'll share what they enjoy and what they know.
* Don't be too pushy and confrontational. A friendly smile can be much more powerful than a whip. However, be firm when someone disobeys.
* Make your "employees" appreciate you and have you in a high esteem.
* Find out what they like doing most, so they'll be more efficient at what they do.
* Don't fall for the "more hours = more product". Instead follow the "a happy employee is a productive employee".
As a geek, you can find your "natural inclination" to optimize stuff useful. Just don't expect it to work flawlessly. Employees are humans, and we make mistakes, too!
This is because the graphics card market depends on vast amounts of R&D and producing a product that is technically superior to everything else out there. Essentially being continually ahead of the game as your competitiors try to catch up.
I'll probably be modded down for this (as redundant lol), but I'll just explain to you. The inner workings can be kept as secret as you want. But the SPECS (like the API) have to be public.
When the card designers keep their specs secret, it's not about competition. It's possibly about having some contract with Microsoft etc, so only Windows can have decent drivers. Otherwise it seems illogical that they would hide this stuff.
In summary, there's nothing wrong about having open specs.
People can't read usenet because they don't have free access to newsgroups servers. At least it happened in my case.
:(
I used to connect to a server in my college, but they got it restricted
Everyone know that, sure, BT is great to share Linux distros, but in actuality, it will be used to share mp3s, divx rips, and pr0n.
Just as there are a few people using the internet for legitimate purposes when the vast majority of the bandwidth is to... quote: "share mp3s, divx rips, and pr0n."
Should we ban the internet instead?
Considering how much I dislike watching movies on a monitor, I doubt there are many people out there interested in downloading movies instead of renting or buying.
Maybe you won't think the same after realizing that for a small 2 hours download you can watch the latest episode (fansubbed) of Xenosaga: the anime series.
Movie downloads may not be really popular, but the anime market shows promise. Unfortunately I don't think it can be legitimized due to the marginally-legal status of fansubs.
Monopoly.
Walmart.
Lower prices? You bet. Competition? I doubt so.
Just because Microsoft has the resources to lower prices on their product (dumping, anyone?), doesn't make it better for the industry.
Newflash: The Internet is also used by pedophiles. Wow. Shocking. (/sarcasm)
The Internet, as a communications medium, is just another scenery for all kinds of human behavior, from charity to crime. We have to yet see any place on earth that isn't vulnerable to crimes of any kind.
that "whis-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-whis-k-whis-k" is the rotary equivalent of 911? Am I the only one who got it? Just a thought.
people will invent an audio recorder that mimics a high-res monitor or a speaker. Expect to see "build your own video recorder with spare monitor parts and a little electronics".
So much for DRM. The *AA People are so busy working to solve "the piracy problem", that they fail to see it's not the real problem. The prohibitive prices on their merchandise is the REAL problem.
1. End the war on Iraq. That should give us enough budget.
Microsoft programmers might be watching... (eek!)