The release of gambas IS great news, however, simply 'cause now we can reply to the endless "there is no simple RAD solution under linux" rants with "then use gambas, you fool!"
BZZZZZZZZT. Wrong!
The rant was "there is no simple cross-platform RAD solution".
Um... consider me too optimistic, but I think that by 2038 all desktop computers will use Linux or a derivative (or who knows, an open-sourced Windows clone). Anyway, we'll all be using 64 (or even 128) bits CPUs, don't you think?
Open source will take care of the 2038 bug... I hope ^^;; )
I rolled on the floor laughing at those stupid white men fearing that there would be power shortages due to the Y2K bug. Come on, what's Y2K having to do with the hydroelectrical plants? It's just turbines and "primitive" electric distribution systems.
Ah... glorious days. I laughed even more when I saw on the news that people started collecting food for their shelters... oh boy! Bring me my popcorn. X-D
On related news, check out RFC 2550 about the Y10K disaster that is looming above us. ...and here's Mike with the weather.
And what's this have to do with the article anyway?
I added it to the article summary because there's ALWAYS some moron who never R's TFA and always yells "hindemburg! hindemburg!" on every/. article that mentions "hydrogen energy". I just got sick tired of it.
So, the Hindemburg anti-basher was added by "your friendly neighbor Spy der Mann":)
OK Since I'm the one who submitted the article, please allow me to clarify some logical errors in your statements.
So, in order to have a large-scale hydrogen "economy", you need an alternate power source to make all that hydrogen in the first place.
News for you. Hydrogen is not "made". It's extracted. OK, putting the word jokes aside, I understand that what you mean is that *PURE* hydrogen is not found *NATURALLY* on Earth.
So we need an ALTERNATIVE power source to obtain it. So what? Electricity is not energy either! It's a bunch of electrons and possitive ions waiting for us to mix them together. We use turbines in dams to produce it. (kynetic energy -> electrical energy). We need engines (kynetic->chemical) to take out the oil from the deposits below Earth.
Didn't you study physics in high school? Just climbing some stairs transforms the kinetic energy you use to move, into "potential energy". And by falling you turn it into kinetic energy, too. And guess what, we're made of protons,electrons and neutrons, and all of these are made of quantums, which are discrete packets of *energy*.
EVERYTHING's energy, dude! So what's the mystery if hydrogen needs some alternate energy to be extracted from water or other compounds? Don't forget your thermodynamics lessons from college. All engines do is transforming one form of energy into another. And since no engine is 100% efficient, then we have what is known as "entropy", which constantly is increased across the universe.
So, what power source can we have to extract pure H2 from other materials? Well, we can have, for example, solar power.
Hydrogen can be built *instantly* with some electrolysis (either chemically or solar powered). I did it myself at home when i was a kid. You put these water-filled tubes in a bucket (upside down),insert the electrodes, add some acid as catalyst, and plug the wires into a battery. Voila! Oxygen in one, hydrogen in the other. Now Try making oil from wood with your chemistry kit.
The H2-generating process is sub-optimal right now (as was the vacuum tube in the 70's to act as a current switch), but technology always improves with time. And don't forget that big companies like Shell are investing millions of dollars into research.
The point with using hydrogen, is that:
a) It's combustible and can produce energy when reacting chemically with other elements/compounds. b) Unlike fossil fuels, it doesn't require millions of years to be produced/extracted/whatever. c) It's clean, it doesn't produce CO2 when burned.
Did you RTFA by the way? How do you think fossil fuels are made? Plants transformed H2O + CO2 + SOLAR POWER + nutrients into wood (and O2 as a byproduct). And these with time were transformed into hydrocarbons. Which consist of long hydrogen and carbon chains (not to be confused with carbohydrates - sugars -, which have oxygen in them).
The real energy in hydrocarbons is stored in the chemical bonds between the carbon and hydrogen atoms. By burning them, the combustion process releases these bonds. O2 + (long chains of C + H) ---> H2O + CO2. See? There's the hydrogen, and the C. What we're wanting to do, is get the carbon out of the equation. O2 + 2H2 ---> 2 H2O.
So, is hydrogen economy all that far-fetched? No, it isn't! We've been using hydrogen in our cars for a lot of time. The problem is that we're also using carbon.
Frankly, I'm amazed why your post was moderated as "insightful" (someone MOD it as overrated, please!). More mysterious than the universe is the human ignorance.
P.S. If this post is modded up, please do so as "informative".
You don't sit in front of your computer monitor along with your wife and kids to watch a divx movie on your media player. Generally divx users are 20-30 yo's, or even kids who downloaded the latest anime episode.
So who gets the benefit of a downloaded movie? ONE person per family. If the movie wasn't good, the guy wouldn't watch it along with his g/f, wife, kids/friends/etc.
So what does this mean: "Try before you buy". Simple. Here I'd be questioned: "Oh come on, what person watches a movie TWICE"? Ask the starwars fans who watched "Star wars: A new hope" the day it came out in theaters. They watched it once. Twice. Even 20 times.
So, if a movie is REALLY WORTH it, I'm sure people would actually purchase the DVD or go to the theaters, even if they already watched the downloaded thing. Why? Because the movie DESERVES IT.
The real enemy here is not piracy... but freaking poor quality overhyped movies with pre-paid (as opposed to impartial) reviews.
The movie producers are committing FRAUD by telling us the movies ARE WORTH seeing, when they're not. Same with videogames. I remember playing FFX-2... and I could compare my feelings with a girl who didn't achieve climax on her most expected date. "What? This is it? WTF?" Same with Robotech: Invasion (79 bucks thrown to the trash, man!) and Spider Man for the PS2.
So, MPAA and associates: Want more profit? Make better products, and stop complaining.
Addendum: Maybe the MPAA is actually whining because they CAN'T FOOL the public with hype (Pearl Harbor, anyone?), and people won't purchase bad movies DVD's or go to the theaters if the "evil pirates" already review the movie and say it SUCKS. And _HERE_ is the profit loss. In any case, this reinforces my opinion:
I remember the old times of the commodore 64 when the floppy disks (less than 180K per disk - wow) had copy protection.. that could be circumvented by good disc copying programs.
These programs were made to BACK UP your software and games.
And then with the PC came the dongles and all that stuff.
But a very good scheme that worked, was the "registration card" that you filled in and put in your mailbox, and then you received the crtificate that the program was all yours.
Add that to the CD key, and voila.
regarding movies, etc... the movies could be watermarked with the serial number, etc - in a way that whenever the movie got redistributed due to piracy, the original owner could be sued. But then what if it's an anonymous buyer? More privacy issues appear (insert tinfoil hats references here).
The lesson: hardware Copy protection NEVER WORKED AND IT NEVER WILL. The Movie industry will just have to coexist with piracy. It's a "fact of life".
Remember that income comes from: a) Movie tickets, b) Merchandising (mousepads, t-shirts, etc). c) DVD sales are a "plus". And it's only _THIS_ issue that you're complaining about.
Don't want pirates? Don't sell your movies. And stop whining about your "profit loss". You STILL earn profit, don't you? Then shut up and enjoy your money.
From the article: What I do see happening is that open-source desktop applications are going to be appearing on practically every Windows desktop in the next three years.
What _I_ want to see happening is cross-platform RAD tools appearing on practically every developer's Windows and Linux desktops in the next year. _THEN_ we'll see open-source desktop apps appearing on practically every Windows and Linux desktop in the next three to five years.
he'll take it home and be pissed off he only got a laptop.
Yeah, but you're in trouble when he realizes a simple fact:
1 laptop = LOTS of pizzas!!!
So he starts thinking of ways to enjoy this "free prize":
a) He sells it and gets an extra money for pizzas b) He steals your passwords, credit card numbers, and orders a pizza with your account (keep the change, you filthy animal). Of course he gets in trouble because he ordered the pizza with "extra anchovies". c) He calls you and asks for a reward for "finding a laptop that some guy dropped" d) He calls you and asks for a delicious quantity of money "if you want to keep your data alive and healthy. And don't call the cops" e) b) and c) f) b) and d) g) He backs up your porn folder and sets up a paid website using your credit card, to earn more money. h) He backs up all your data and starts blackmailing you when he finds out that besides a porn folder, you also have online dates, AND you're married. i) He finds out that you're involved in some illegal activity, and he asks for the double. In case you want to kill him, he published all this data in his personal internet harddrive, and sets up a script to publish all of it on his blog if he doesn't cancel it in 14 days. j) Instead he blackmails your g/f and asks her to pose naked for him, or else he'll tell your wife. THEN he uses your credit card to setup a website, giving away the video of your g/f AND publishing your name (just because he felt like it!). k) He gives the laptop (with wireless internet) to a hacker friend of his, and do all kinds of nasty illegal stuff. l) Among the nasty illegal stuff, he defaces the PowerPizza website, mentioning how they made money with the laptop they stole thinking it was a pizza. m) He writes all these experiences in his blog and the Hollywood guys buy him the script for "Home alone 4: Pizza Powered". n) All of the above. The possibilities are endless!
Lesson: DON'T use the powerpizza box. It's not worth it.
Let's use the popular informal definition of blog. A web log maintained by only one person about something he likes.
We should state the difference between blogs, forums and normal webpages... a blog has a log structure/layout, and is sorted by date. In contrast,/. is sorted by categories, and doesn't have a visible calendar to see the previous entries (you have to get inside the "archive").
Now if we go to the/. users' journals, well we enter a fuzzy gray area.
Regarding the signal/noise ratio, perhaps google should add a "blog" category into their search.
Tell me something Herr der Mann, do you feel extra-brave, today? Good Christ, forget relativist morality, hypocrites have sucked ass since time immemorial.
OK I'm gonna risk myself for this one as "offtopic", but I think that keeping things clear is worth it.
a) I chose this nickname because I liked the word game. It fits my personality. b) I got myself a/. account so I could build a reputation with my posts. (READ MY KARMA). All slashdot users are anonymous to a certain extent. But don't you ever dare to mix up "anonymous with hidden e-mail account" with "anonymous coward".
c) I'm NOT a moral relativist. If you read my posts, you'd realize that. d) The person who criticized the article in the post that i answered, wasn't after the article, but instead spoke about Wired "as a whole", so to speak. I find that unfair. And I do speak about the errors in the article, in another post. Some of my observations could be labelled as inaccurate, but that's what the posting system is for. If my posts get answered with some insight or information, then i'm satisfied.
Unfortunately I can't post everything about everything in one single thread. Too many different ideas in one single place is just a mess. That's what threads were for. Of course, you didn't read my other posts. Click on my link, and read.
e) If hypocricy "sucks ass", cynism is a double hypocricy. I have respect for neither of them.
(Even more offtopic: Frankly I would like a personal messaging system on/., but oh well)
It all started with a C64. I remember typing my first program: 10 PRINT "[CTRL-2]This is my [CTRL-3]F[CTRL-4]I[CTRL-5]R[CTRL-6]S[CTRL-7]T[what ever] program"
Sorta hello-world, but with colors:) Then my dad began purchasing RUN magazine. It had these cool programs that you could type (and with automatic PROOFREADER (TM)!), and then save them. Voila! Instant games!
Then I learned the basics of machine language programming (i was 10 by then), and I remember cracking the strip poker images ^^;;;. XOR encryption, heheheh. *AHEM* anyway...
Then I remember this "bulletin boards" thingy. There was one game written in TurboPascal. There I learned to use the ";" thingy to end lines.
The rest is history.
So I could recommend you using anything related games to teach the kids. Hey there's this Adventure Game toolkit... could work.
From the linked article: ...and I think it proves that something has gone very, very wrong in Redmond.
Yeah, it's called Microsoft.:)
UML is *NOT* Documentation!
on
How Do You Use UML?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
UML should be used to DESIGN your programs. After all it's "Unified *MODELLING* Language", not "Unified nifty diagrams documenting language".
Lack of previous (even on-paper) design is what makes programs buggy. When you code first, doing the UML diagrams is useless. Why? Because when you find out the structure of your code and see possible improvements, you realize that it's too late to make any changes, due to compatibility problems, etc etc etc.
Look at what happened to the Lazarus project. it's been on "pre-beta" for more than 6 years, and they 're still telling me it's too early to make an UML diagram because "the structures change too much". (WTF?!?!? If I want to cooperate in a project, the least i can ask for is the UML diagrams so i can focus on where to help, not navigate among the millions of lines of code!)
Maybe if they sell you the ticket "and for an extra $15 get the DVD!" it would be a heck-of-a deal. And the DVD would be a "special limited edition" with autograph or something, and the later DVD's would be "normal". Yeah, that'd be cool:)
I agree with you, but I also have another perspective.
The whole bulk of piracy done in here is not DVD bootlegs, or even ripped online stuff. It's cheap VCD's recoded versions of the movies, available for $5. Some are even recorded at the theaters (you can see the shadows of people walking).
Frankly, how many people download ripped & divx-encoded versions of a movie, if they can just purchase the thing (either legally or illegally) and put it on their DVD or VCD player? (cheap chinese VCD players are sold at local markets, too - and I DONT mean supermarkets, but common cheap markets with low-profile merchants).
Taking into account that nerds who spent hours in front of the monitor, are a minority of the global population, the MPAA shouldn't worry about online distribution of the movies. The "complete DVD ISO" downloads usually take _HOURS_ to download. Who will download 4.5 or even 8 gigs of a ripped DVD? come on! IMHO it's much more convenient to go to the store and purchase the thing. I can purchase Shrek 2 at my local walmart for $21.95, and a VCD rip for $5.00 with the merchants near the subway.
(A very different thing is legally purchasing anime episodes with prohibitive prices, specially if you don't live in the US).
Maybe what the MPAA fears is that the next generation of DVD players will be DivX enabled. But I bet it won't be until 5 years when these babies get mass marketed, and only THEN common people will start downloading divx rips of their favorite movies.
So, if purchasing the actual DVD from a local retailer (or a copy from a black market merchant) is much easier than movie piracy, what the heck are the MPAA complaining about? Are online groups REALLY the ones they should be going after?
Now *THAT* (blaming income loss on online piracy) is what I call a "load of bullshit".
You're confusing "mistakes" and "exaggerations" with "complete load of lies". AFAIK, the term "bullshit", and the phrase "load of bullshit" is used for lies, FUD, and similar stuff. Not for "inaccuracies" and "errors".
Example: Frankly I don't believe the "broken down as gibberish" stuff... if it meant breaking it down as BASE64 posts on usenet:P IMHO this article is just a badly-phrased summarization of the longer wired article we saw yesterday (which personally I did enjoy reading).
I've done a few reencoding of *unlicensed* (read as: legal) anime episodes (fansubs), just to test the capabilities of Divx and xvid (we saw a/. article on that yesterday, didn't we?). If you think ripping a movie from DVD or whatever is EASY, you're completely off track. Rippers see themselves as ARTISTS. They want to achieve perfection: Practically null visual defects while achieving the most compression. They tweak the codec, possibly adding postprocessing filters to get rid of blocking artifacts (due to MPEG2 compression) in the original DVD, etc (I won't talk about anime fansubbers here, but I think the same criteria applies).
So yes, they're organized. Yes, they meet in private chat sessions. Yes, they do rip dvd's.
Another fact: Pirated DVD's are *obviously* cheaper than original DVD's (otherwise people wouldn't buy them). So I don't think one of these rippers would buy an original - unless it's a title they *love*, and want to immortalize themselves by ripping it and distributing it.
So is the article a "load of bullshit"? I don't think so. Irrelevant? Probably, we all (or at least those of us old enough to have used irc at a time) know such warez invite-only channels do exist.
And yes, I know Wired isn't "news for know-it-all uber-geeks who already know how things are done". It's a good article for common people. Let's not forget that.
If what the wired guys say isn't true, at least it's completely logical. Now if you say that the wired article is a lie, can you tell me when and how did they lie? Can you give us the facts if you know so much?
Oh, by the way. You're planning to discredit a Wired Article by signing as "anonymous coward"? Yeah, right.
MPEG4 specification provided some tools for somewhat a "universal" codec.
The profiles are the "Simple profile" and the one DivX and similars use, is the "advanced simple profile". Don't go in the other profiles which talk about sprites yadda yadda because nobody has been able to do such thing (yet).
So yes, so far all advances are adjustments into "how much can we push the mpeg4 advanced simple profile" to do better compression, while still retaining compatibility with the decoder.
A revolution into coding would be to use other wavelets transformations, perhaps using some AI, or neural networks for the textures, etc etc. But don't expect such thing to appear in 5 or even 10 years.
Oh please! Don't tell me that you don't know all the populist stuff and media censorship going on in Venezuela? The journalists threatened? His constant use of conspiracy theories to say that he is a hero and such?
If you can't see the similarities between Chavez and Bush, then you're F'ing blind. They look like clones, for Gandhi's sake! Just because he hates the US, doesn't make him a hero. Stalin also hated the US. DOH.
I've been following nanotrends for a while, and I'm sure some ppl will agree with me: While nanotech discoveries are going amazingly fast, the research is also awfully slow.... I've read some technologies "will be available from 5 to ten years". I tend to compare nanotech with the electronics in the 70's. But don't think it'll go as fast... the transistor triggered a huge advance, but all advances are based upon this element. Nanotech is too wide. What's holding nanotech is the manufacturing methods. It's not "ok we know how this works in theory but we need 5 years to build the infrastructure". No, instead it's like "ok how the heck can we make this work?". A single discovery required to speed up nano-researc usually takes about 6 months... and we need LOTS, LOTS of them to actually see something.
Here are some of my observations regarding nanotech development:
a) There needs to be a "factory stage" for nanotech production methods, and this is the part that is slow. We're still in the "test tube nanochemistry" stage.
b) Nanobots are WAY, but WAY too far. Most of the nanotech being developed right now are passive constructs (nanotubes, etc). And people are still having problems on how to attach them together.
Add to that the toxicity studies, the 2 to 5 years tests in rats, monkeys, etc... I give them 40 to 50 years when practical (still specialized, non-reprogrammable) nanobots are really out. (The logic will have to be hard-coded, there's no other way when you're dealing with nanoscale. Artificial nanobot-based "cells"? Hmmm now that's a possibility, but not short or mid-term. Maybe in 30 years there'll be a slashdot story on "the first artificial cell manufactured" or something. And it will say "the technology will take from 10 to 20 years to be produced in mass scale".
c) Electroactive muscle enhancers? Hmmm I don't think so. I tend to favor the "Artificial limbs", tho. With the recent discovery of elastic metal compounds, I do see that in 10 to 20 years practical implementations of artificial muscles will become a reality. There goes practical prosthetics. But I bet they'll be suboptimal in comparison with human muscles. Or maybe more efficient, but not to the point of the "6 million dollar man".
On the other hand, mech-styled armors (a-la "Bublegum crisis") may become a reality... but even in 30 years, i bet they'll still be experimental, and part of government projects.
d) One thing I'm inclined to believe in are brain-machine interfaces. But I wouldn't count on "drawing images with the brain"... at least not until 70 years.
e) What I do think is that there will be enormous advances in genomics. What I call the "cold chip era" will come, allowing people to mass manufacture 3D-layered cpu's (not 2D as we have right now), with near-superconductivity efficiency (if not optical). Maybe spintronics will be the base of all logic.
This will enable great speed in the genomic research. Along with nanotech, we'll see machines which will clone organs and such.
Oh yeah, don't forget the neural bypass surgeries, I'm sure they'll take about 48 hours for a complete recovery.
f) Combining d) and e), maybe we'll see hyper-reality robots in military applications, controlled by remote control, with brain interfaces. The guy will see what's going in his environment (maybe with connections to the optical nerve, maybe with just 3d goggles or something) and he'll do the moving, etc. I'm also sure that there will be some sort of neural disease associated with VR... brain overload maybe?
In conclusion, to see all the advances predicted in the article, I think it's much safer to speak of 50 years or more.
From what I see, president Hugo Chavez has a deep hatred towards the U.S. And he sees any american company as a threat to his government. In other words, his move towards open source is not to be seen as something "defending the rights of the people", but rather as an instrument of pressure.
Frankly I don't care what happens with software on Venezuela... I just want the guy out.
Slashdot Mirror
The release of gambas IS great news, however, simply 'cause now we can reply to the endless "there is no simple RAD solution under linux" rants with "then use gambas, you fool!"
BZZZZZZZZT. Wrong!
The rant was "there is no simple cross-platform RAD solution".
Try again.
Um... consider me too optimistic, but I think that by 2038 all desktop computers will use Linux or a derivative (or who knows, an open-sourced Windows clone). Anyway, we'll all be using 64 (or even 128) bits CPUs, don't you think?
Open source will take care of the 2038 bug... I hope ^^;; )
I rolled on the floor laughing at those stupid white men fearing that there would be power shortages due to the Y2K bug. Come on, what's Y2K having to do with the hydroelectrical plants? It's just turbines and "primitive" electric distribution systems.
...and here's Mike with the weather.
Ah... glorious days. I laughed even more when I saw on the news that people started collecting food for their shelters... oh boy! Bring me my popcorn. X-D
On related news, check out RFC 2550 about the Y10K disaster that is looming above us.
And what's this have to do with the article anyway?
/. article that mentions "hydrogen energy". I just got sick tired of it.
:)
I added it to the article summary because there's ALWAYS some moron who never R's TFA and always yells "hindemburg! hindemburg!" on every
So, the Hindemburg anti-basher was added by "your friendly neighbor Spy der Mann"
OK Since I'm the one who submitted the article, please allow me to clarify some logical errors in your statements.
,insert the electrodes, add some acid as catalyst, and plug the wires into a battery. Voila! Oxygen in one, hydrogen in the other. Now Try making oil from wood with your chemistry kit.
So, in order to have a large-scale hydrogen "economy", you need an alternate power source to make all that hydrogen in the first place.
News for you. Hydrogen is not "made". It's extracted. OK, putting the word jokes aside, I understand that what you mean is that *PURE* hydrogen is not found *NATURALLY* on Earth.
So we need an ALTERNATIVE power source to obtain it. So what? Electricity is not energy either! It's a bunch of electrons and possitive ions waiting for us to mix them together. We use turbines in dams to produce it. (kynetic energy -> electrical energy). We need engines (kynetic->chemical) to take out the oil from the deposits below Earth.
Didn't you study physics in high school? Just climbing some stairs transforms the kinetic energy you use to move, into "potential energy". And by falling you turn it into kinetic energy, too. And guess what, we're made of protons,electrons and neutrons, and all of these are made of quantums, which are discrete packets of *energy*.
EVERYTHING's energy, dude! So what's the mystery if hydrogen needs some alternate energy to be extracted from water or other compounds? Don't forget your thermodynamics lessons from college. All engines do is transforming one form of energy into another. And since no engine is 100% efficient, then we have what is known as "entropy", which constantly is increased across the universe.
So, what power source can we have to extract pure H2 from other materials? Well, we can have, for example, solar power.
Hydrogen can be built *instantly* with some electrolysis (either chemically or solar powered). I did it myself at home when i was a kid. You put these water-filled tubes in a bucket (upside down)
The H2-generating process is sub-optimal right now (as was the vacuum tube in the 70's to act as a current switch), but technology always improves with time. And don't forget that big companies like Shell are investing millions of dollars into research.
The point with using hydrogen, is that:
a) It's combustible and can produce energy when reacting chemically with other elements/compounds.
b) Unlike fossil fuels, it doesn't require millions of years to be produced/extracted/whatever.
c) It's clean, it doesn't produce CO2 when burned.
Did you RTFA by the way? How do you think fossil fuels are made? Plants transformed H2O + CO2 + SOLAR POWER + nutrients into wood (and O2 as a byproduct). And these with time were transformed into hydrocarbons. Which consist of long hydrogen and carbon chains (not to be confused with carbohydrates - sugars -, which have oxygen in them).
The real energy in hydrocarbons is stored in the chemical bonds between the carbon and hydrogen atoms. By burning them, the combustion process releases these bonds. O2 + (long chains of C + H) ---> H2O + CO2. See? There's the hydrogen, and the C. What we're wanting to do, is get the carbon out of the equation. O2 + 2H2 ---> 2 H2O.
So, is hydrogen economy all that far-fetched? No, it isn't! We've been using hydrogen in our cars for a lot of time. The problem is that we're also using carbon.
Frankly, I'm amazed why your post was moderated as "insightful" (someone MOD it as overrated, please!). More mysterious than the universe is the human ignorance.
P.S. If this post is modded up, please do so as "informative".
There's something we've forgot.
You don't sit in front of your computer monitor along with your wife and kids to watch a divx movie on your media player. Generally divx users are 20-30 yo's, or even kids who downloaded the latest anime episode.
So who gets the benefit of a downloaded movie? ONE person per family. If the movie wasn't good, the guy wouldn't watch it along with his g/f, wife, kids/friends/etc.
So what does this mean: "Try before you buy". Simple. Here I'd be questioned: "Oh come on, what person watches a movie TWICE"? Ask the starwars fans who watched "Star wars: A new hope" the day it came out in theaters. They watched it once. Twice. Even 20 times.
So, if a movie is REALLY WORTH it, I'm sure people would actually purchase the DVD or go to the theaters, even if they already watched the downloaded thing. Why? Because the movie DESERVES IT.
The real enemy here is not piracy... but freaking poor quality overhyped movies with pre-paid (as opposed to impartial) reviews.
The movie producers are committing FRAUD by telling us the movies ARE WORTH seeing, when they're not. Same with videogames. I remember playing FFX-2... and I could compare my feelings with a girl who didn't achieve climax on her most expected date. "What? This is it? WTF?" Same with Robotech: Invasion (79 bucks thrown to the trash, man!) and Spider Man for the PS2.
So, MPAA and associates: Want more profit? Make better products, and stop complaining.
Addendum: Maybe the MPAA is actually whining because they CAN'T FOOL the public with hype (Pearl Harbor, anyone?), and people won't purchase bad movies DVD's or go to the theaters if the "evil pirates" already review the movie and say it SUCKS. And _HERE_ is the profit loss. In any case, this reinforces my opinion:
Make better products. Period.
I remember the old times of the commodore 64 when the floppy disks (less than 180K per disk - wow) had copy protection.. that could be circumvented by good disc copying programs.
These programs were made to BACK UP your software and games.
And then with the PC came the dongles and all that stuff.
But a very good scheme that worked, was the "registration card" that you filled in and put in your mailbox, and then you received the crtificate that the program was all yours.
Add that to the CD key, and voila.
regarding movies, etc... the movies could be watermarked with the serial number, etc - in a way that whenever the movie got redistributed due to piracy, the original owner could be sued. But then what if it's an anonymous buyer? More privacy issues appear (insert tinfoil hats references here).
The lesson: hardware Copy protection NEVER WORKED AND IT NEVER WILL. The Movie industry will just have to coexist with piracy. It's a "fact of life".
Remember that income comes from: a) Movie tickets, b) Merchandising (mousepads, t-shirts, etc). c) DVD sales are a "plus". And it's only _THIS_ issue that you're complaining about.
Don't want pirates? Don't sell your movies. And stop whining about your "profit loss". You STILL earn profit, don't you? Then shut up and enjoy your money.
From the article:
What I do see happening is that open-source desktop applications are going to be appearing on practically every Windows desktop in the next three years.
What _I_ want to see happening is cross-platform RAD tools appearing on practically every developer's Windows and Linux desktops in the next year. _THEN_ we'll see open-source desktop apps appearing on practically every Windows and Linux desktop in the next three to five years.
O RAD suit developer, where art thou?
he'll take it home and be pissed off he only got a laptop.
Yeah, but you're in trouble when he realizes a simple fact:
1 laptop = LOTS of pizzas!!!
So he starts thinking of ways to enjoy this "free prize":
a) He sells it and gets an extra money for pizzas
b) He steals your passwords, credit card numbers, and orders a pizza with your account (keep the change, you filthy animal). Of course he gets in trouble because he ordered the pizza with "extra anchovies".
c) He calls you and asks for a reward for "finding a laptop that some guy dropped"
d) He calls you and asks for a delicious quantity of money "if you want to keep your data alive and healthy. And don't call the cops"
e) b) and c)
f) b) and d)
g) He backs up your porn folder and sets up a paid website using your credit card, to earn more money.
h) He backs up all your data and starts blackmailing you when he finds out that besides a porn folder, you also have online dates, AND you're married.
i) He finds out that you're involved in some illegal activity, and he asks for the double. In case you want to kill him, he published all this data in his personal internet harddrive, and sets up a script to publish all of it on his blog if he doesn't cancel it in 14 days.
j) Instead he blackmails your g/f and asks her to pose naked for him, or else he'll tell your wife. THEN he uses your credit card to setup a website, giving away the video of your g/f AND publishing your name (just because he felt like it!).
k) He gives the laptop (with wireless internet) to a hacker friend of his, and do all kinds of nasty illegal stuff.
l) Among the nasty illegal stuff, he defaces the PowerPizza website, mentioning how they made money with the laptop they stole thinking it was a pizza.
m) He writes all these experiences in his blog and the Hollywood guys buy him the script for "Home alone 4: Pizza Powered".
n) All of the above. The possibilities are endless!
Lesson: DON'T use the powerpizza box. It's not worth it.
Let's use the popular informal definition of blog.
/. is sorted by categories, and doesn't have a visible calendar to see the previous entries (you have to get inside the "archive").
/. users' journals, well we enter a fuzzy gray area.
A web log maintained by only one person about something he likes.
We should state the difference between blogs, forums and normal webpages... a blog has a log structure/layout, and is sorted by date. In contrast,
Now if we go to the
Regarding the signal/noise ratio, perhaps google should add a "blog" category into their search.
Let me write this on my blog.
Tell me something Herr der Mann, do you feel extra-brave, today? Good Christ, forget relativist morality, hypocrites have sucked ass since time immemorial.
/. account so I could build a reputation with my posts. (READ MY KARMA). All slashdot users are anonymous to a certain extent. But don't you ever dare to mix up "anonymous with hidden e-mail account" with "anonymous coward".
/., but oh well)
OK I'm gonna risk myself for this one as "offtopic", but I think that keeping things clear is worth it.
a) I chose this nickname because I liked the word game. It fits my personality.
b) I got myself a
c) I'm NOT a moral relativist. If you read my posts, you'd realize that.
d) The person who criticized the article in the post that i answered, wasn't after the article, but instead spoke about Wired "as a whole", so to speak. I find that unfair. And I do speak about the errors in the article, in another post. Some of my observations could be labelled as inaccurate, but that's what the posting system is for. If my posts get answered with some insight or information, then i'm satisfied.
Unfortunately I can't post everything about everything in one single thread. Too many different ideas in one single place is just a mess. That's what threads were for. Of course, you didn't read my other posts. Click on my link, and read.
e) If hypocricy "sucks ass", cynism is a double hypocricy. I have respect for neither of them.
(Even more offtopic: Frankly I would like a personal messaging system on
i.e. Divx/OGG/etc-enabled DVD players? That would REALLY hit the market.
It all started with a C64. I remember typing my first program:t ever] program"
:) Then my dad began purchasing RUN magazine. It had these cool programs that you could type (and with automatic PROOFREADER (TM)!), and then save them. Voila! Instant games!
10 PRINT "[CTRL-2]This is my [CTRL-3]F[CTRL-4]I[CTRL-5]R[CTRL-6]S[CTRL-7]T[wha
Sorta hello-world, but with colors
Then I learned the basics of machine language programming (i was 10 by then), and I remember cracking the strip poker images ^^;;;. XOR encryption, heheheh. *AHEM* anyway...
Then I remember this "bulletin boards" thingy. There was one game written in TurboPascal. There I learned to use the ";" thingy to end lines.
The rest is history.
So I could recommend you using anything related games to teach the kids. Hey there's this Adventure Game toolkit... could work.
I remember learning a bit of Logo in the old days. I liked it because of the turtle, it looked cute lol. Anyway here's the deal:
Introduce them to Flash and Actionscript (Use advanced mode!)
In other words, make Flash the new "LOGO". Teach them to program mini-games using Flash (like "punch the monkey!" stuff).
You could also teach them basic HTML. It's easy when you start with the basics.
Don't teach them chat, or web browsing. They ALREADY know that =P
From the linked article:
...and I think it proves that something has gone very, very wrong in Redmond.
:)
Yeah, it's called Microsoft.
UML should be used to DESIGN your programs. After all it's "Unified *MODELLING* Language", not "Unified nifty diagrams documenting language".
Lack of previous (even on-paper) design is what makes programs buggy. When you code first, doing the UML diagrams is useless. Why? Because when you find out the structure of your code and see possible improvements, you realize that it's too late to make any changes, due to compatibility problems, etc etc etc.
Look at what happened to the Lazarus project. it's been on "pre-beta" for more than 6 years, and they 're still telling me it's too early to make an UML diagram because "the structures change too much". (WTF?!?!? If I want to cooperate in a project, the least i can ask for is the UML diagrams so i can focus on where to help, not navigate among the millions of lines of code!)
Follow my advise. Design first, code afterwards.
Maybe if they sell you the ticket "and for an extra $15 get the DVD!" it would be a heck-of-a deal. And the DVD would be a "special limited edition" with autograph or something, and the later DVD's would be "normal". Yeah, that'd be cool :)
I agree with you, but I also have another perspective.
The whole bulk of piracy done in here is not DVD bootlegs, or even ripped online stuff. It's cheap VCD's recoded versions of the movies, available for $5. Some are even recorded at the theaters (you can see the shadows of people walking).
Frankly, how many people download ripped & divx-encoded versions of a movie, if they can just purchase the thing (either legally or illegally) and put it on their DVD or VCD player? (cheap chinese VCD players are sold at local markets, too - and I DONT mean supermarkets, but common cheap markets with low-profile merchants).
Taking into account that nerds who spent hours in front of the monitor, are a minority of the global population, the MPAA shouldn't worry about online distribution of the movies. The "complete DVD ISO" downloads usually take _HOURS_ to download. Who will download 4.5 or even 8 gigs of a ripped DVD? come on! IMHO it's much more convenient to go to the store and purchase the thing. I can purchase Shrek 2 at my local walmart for $21.95, and a VCD rip for $5.00 with the merchants near the subway.
(A very different thing is legally purchasing anime episodes with prohibitive prices, specially if you don't live in the US).
Maybe what the MPAA fears is that the next generation of DVD players will be DivX enabled. But I bet it won't be until 5 years when these babies get mass marketed, and only THEN common people will start downloading divx rips of their favorite movies.
So, if purchasing the actual DVD from a local retailer (or a copy from a black market merchant) is much easier than movie piracy, what the heck are the MPAA complaining about? Are online groups REALLY the ones they should be going after?
Now *THAT* (blaming income loss on online piracy) is what I call a "load of bullshit".
You're confusing "mistakes" and "exaggerations" with "complete load of lies". AFAIK, the term "bullshit", and the phrase "load of bullshit" is used for lies, FUD, and similar stuff. Not for "inaccuracies" and "errors".
:P IMHO this article is just a badly-phrased summarization of the longer wired article we saw yesterday (which personally I did enjoy reading).
/. article on that yesterday, didn't we?). If you think ripping a movie from DVD or whatever is EASY, you're completely off track. Rippers see themselves as ARTISTS. They want to achieve perfection: Practically null visual defects while achieving the most compression. They tweak the codec, possibly adding postprocessing filters to get rid of blocking artifacts (due to MPEG2 compression) in the original DVD, etc (I won't talk about anime fansubbers here, but I think the same criteria applies).
Example: Frankly I don't believe the "broken down as gibberish" stuff... if it meant breaking it down as BASE64 posts on usenet
I've done a few reencoding of *unlicensed* (read as: legal) anime episodes (fansubs), just to test the capabilities of Divx and xvid (we saw a
So yes, they're organized. Yes, they meet in private chat sessions. Yes, they do rip dvd's.
Another fact: Pirated DVD's are *obviously* cheaper than original DVD's (otherwise people wouldn't buy them). So I don't think one of these rippers would buy an original - unless it's a title they *love*, and want to immortalize themselves by ripping it and distributing it.
So is the article a "load of bullshit"? I don't think so. Irrelevant? Probably, we all (or at least those of us old enough to have used irc at a time) know such warez invite-only channels do exist.
And yes, I know Wired isn't "news for know-it-all uber-geeks who already know how things are done". It's a good article for common people. Let's not forget that.
If what the wired guys say isn't true, at least it's completely logical. Now if you say that the wired article is a lie, can you tell me when and how did they lie? Can you give us the facts if you know so much?
Oh, by the way. You're planning to discredit a Wired Article by signing as "anonymous coward"? Yeah, right.
MPEG4 specification provided some tools for somewhat a "universal" codec.
The profiles are the "Simple profile" and the one DivX and similars use, is the "advanced simple profile". Don't go in the other profiles which talk about sprites yadda yadda because nobody has been able to do such thing (yet).
So yes, so far all advances are adjustments into "how much can we push the mpeg4 advanced simple profile" to do better compression, while still retaining compatibility with the decoder.
A revolution into coding would be to use other wavelets transformations, perhaps using some AI, or neural networks for the textures, etc etc. But don't expect such thing to appear in 5 or even 10 years.
Oh please! Don't tell me that you don't know all the populist stuff and media censorship going on in Venezuela? The journalists threatened? His constant use of conspiracy theories to say that he is a hero and such?
If you can't see the similarities between Chavez and Bush, then you're F'ing blind. They look like clones, for Gandhi's sake! Just because he hates the US, doesn't make him a hero. Stalin also hated the US. DOH.
I've been following nanotrends for a while, and I'm sure some ppl will agree with me: While nanotech discoveries are going amazingly fast, the research is also awfully slow.... I've read some technologies "will be available from 5 to ten years". I tend to compare nanotech with the electronics in the 70's. But don't think it'll go as fast... the transistor triggered a huge advance, but all advances are based upon this element. Nanotech is too wide. What's holding nanotech is the manufacturing methods. It's not "ok we know how this works in theory but we need 5 years to build the infrastructure". No, instead it's like "ok how the heck can we make this work?". A single discovery required to speed up nano-researc usually takes about 6 months... and we need LOTS, LOTS of them to actually see something.
Here are some of my observations regarding nanotech development:
a) There needs to be a "factory stage" for nanotech production methods, and this is the part that is slow. We're still in the "test tube nanochemistry" stage.
b) Nanobots are WAY, but WAY too far. Most of the nanotech being developed right now are passive constructs (nanotubes, etc). And people are still having problems on how to attach them together.
Add to that the toxicity studies, the 2 to 5 years tests in rats, monkeys, etc... I give them 40 to 50 years when practical (still specialized, non-reprogrammable) nanobots are really out. (The logic will have to be hard-coded, there's no other way when you're dealing with nanoscale. Artificial nanobot-based "cells"? Hmmm now that's a possibility, but not short or mid-term. Maybe in 30 years there'll be a slashdot story on "the first artificial cell manufactured" or something. And it will say "the technology will take from 10 to 20 years to be produced in mass scale".
c) Electroactive muscle enhancers? Hmmm I don't think so. I tend to favor the "Artificial limbs", tho. With the recent discovery of elastic metal compounds, I do see that in 10 to 20 years practical implementations of artificial muscles will become a reality. There goes practical prosthetics. But I bet they'll be suboptimal in comparison with human muscles. Or maybe more efficient, but not to the point of the "6 million dollar man".
On the other hand, mech-styled armors (a-la "Bublegum crisis") may become a reality... but even in 30 years, i bet they'll still be experimental, and part of government projects.
d) One thing I'm inclined to believe in are brain-machine interfaces. But I wouldn't count on "drawing images with the brain"... at least not until 70 years.
e) What I do think is that there will be enormous advances in genomics. What I call the "cold chip era" will come, allowing people to mass manufacture 3D-layered cpu's (not 2D as we have right now), with near-superconductivity efficiency (if not optical). Maybe spintronics will be the base of all logic.
This will enable great speed in the genomic research. Along with nanotech, we'll see machines which will clone organs and such.
Oh yeah, don't forget the neural bypass surgeries, I'm sure they'll take about 48 hours for a complete recovery.
f) Combining d) and e), maybe we'll see hyper-reality robots in military applications, controlled by remote control, with brain interfaces. The guy will see what's going in his environment (maybe with connections to the optical nerve, maybe with just 3d goggles or something) and he'll do the moving, etc. I'm also sure that there will be some sort of neural disease associated with VR... brain overload maybe?
In conclusion, to see all the advances predicted in the article, I think it's much safer to speak of 50 years or more.
From what I see, president Hugo Chavez has a deep hatred towards the U.S. And he sees any american company as a threat to his government. In other words, his move towards open source is not to be seen as something "defending the rights of the people", but rather as an instrument of pressure.
Frankly I don't care what happens with software on Venezuela... I just want the guy out.