The ones that imply, for instance, that Microsoft software helps children become creative musicians, when Microsoft doesn't have any music creation applications.
The truth is we are trying to change the way media rights are handled.
A very noble cause, I hope you people manage! And maybe the music business can follow, there is a lot of reform needed out there. But I have a question as well, how do you make sure no 'stolen' or other kind of crap comes on your servers? Must be a lot of work to keep a clean creative commons site, or am I wrong?
Can you give some links about the summer of code nightmares you refer to? I probably missed it on slashdot, and even the dupe:) I tried to search for negative remarks on summer of code, but couldn't find any (maybe because I searched via google?;) ).
You are forgetting the millions of users outside america and europe who just don't have the money to buy windows legally. Remember the $1 per copy 'amnesty' microsoft had for indonesia? That was only for the government, but think of all the other small businesses and individuals out there. They want these people to use pirated copies more than to use something non-Microsoft. If WGA would kill all pirated copies, it would get clear that whole countries can also have working PCs without Microsoft. That would bad publicity, much worse than the news that WGA is not really working (what did we expect of that, anyway).
you're now modded offtopic, but I guess you actually hit the point.
Why shouldn't the researcher (or anyone else for that matter) lie to get the thing he wants if he sees that it works for any huge (governmental) operation. E.g.: lie about WMDs in some country and get a backup for your own military plans. Pushing through your corporate plan to outsource thousands of jobs (or to ease layoff regulation) because it's good for the economy.
People get away and get huge rewards for talking bullshit everywhere. I agree that it shouldn't happen, but then why these double standards? If you want to jail the scientists, then also jail the politicians, CEOs, etc. that just plainly lie for their multimilion dollar goals.
Ah, ok that also explains the huge SUVs they have there then:) Anyway, I probably miss the right comparison, because I am mostly used to the roads in the Netherlands that look & ride like someone just steam-ironed them:)
Indeed, germany has now actually both a good urban connection system, local trains everywhere, combined with a long-distance system with their 200-300 kmh ICE trains, which is competitive with traveling by airplain for cities that are, say, 6 hours apart. Airplane is of course faster, but for trains you don't have the checkin etc etc.
Pricing is a bit of a trouble, though, often the cheap airlines are way cheaper than the train, but if you're lucky you can get decently priced train tickets.
Hoho, did you ever drive on the autobahn? I do it regularly, and the shape of most of the 'autobahns' is pretty bad. Lots of potholes, sometimes concrete plates instead of a real paved road, etc. Furthermore, the amount of 'baustellen' (construction works) are huge, and the german goverment does have some getting the money for all this together.
But your main point is correct, the flexible speeds are probably a very good invention, even though theoretically a traffic jam is more likely to happen on a place where cars drive speeds that are more different. But maybe theory is wrong here, as the german autobahns seem less traffic-jam prone than the dutch highways, which are all in perfect conditions, have carefully regulated speeds, but are almost continuously jammed. And the amount of traffic accidents in germany are decreasing every year, even though cars get faster and the streets busier. Maybe all the new steering-control technology (very much promoted in germany) is doing the trick here, but personally I feel that everyone driving at the same speed makes you sloppy, and you get more nervous overtaking someone if you can do it with only a 2 kmh speed difference instead of just getting it over with as fast as possible.
Furthermore it just kicks ass to speed with 180 kmh from one place to the other:)
Yeah, thank the world for the patent system!!! I am already so excited for the moment microsoft's 'IsNot' patent (2005) will expire, I'll be eager to use the directions mentioned in it to create my own free program! I guess it's only 19 years still, but I can wait.
Or wasn't there this patent which says I can open/buy stuff by clicking one, two (2004), three times with a mouse, or whatever. Using a progress bar in an application (1990). Really, in one or two decades will see a big leap forward in computer technology, all thanks to the patent system! But what are we supposed to do in the meantime, without the rights to use all these technologies? Back to our terminals, of which the patents from 86 are expiring now?
Woops, missed a HD-DVD there, sorry. Oh, and probably you won't even be able to get many DVD's at the videostore as well. The transition from DVD to HD-DVD is so much easier than from VHS to DVD, you only have to make an automized program and enough computer time and the whole videocollection of a supplier can be reformatted. It will be a smooth and fast transition. Those with an 'old' DVD player will just be screwed when the suppliers switch to DVD-only, but hey, they're used to being screwed anyway, so why should anyone care?
Learning from history? I will repeat part of his last paragraph:
DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and they feel that DVD is the answer.
small update from my part:
HD-DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and they feel that HD-DVD is the answer.
Conclusion: in 3-4 years we will all have HD-DVD systems. You will hardly be able to buy the DVD format anymore.
So with this immense amount of money concentrated at his funds, I don't think any of it will go to the OLPC project. The monopoly story all over again, this time in charity?
I am not an expert in 3drd-world charity, but I think that the critiques given to this project really are short-sighted. Of course a laptop with some form of internet connection can help the 3rd world. Just don't see it as "3rd world consists only of poor people sitting and waiting for water", I just guess they'll do anything they can to get a little bit forward, and if this consists of communicating in a smart way to find, sell or buy stuff, why not? I know several people from "2nd" world countries, and they really can get somewhere with their internet access, you have a presence/access to the world!
Most students will by a laptop anyway, even those that are not required to have one by the school. Even the ones that want to spend only a limited amount of money. Why? Because when you move, you don't have to carry around all those loose parts, etc. etc. Because when you want to watch a dvd, you can just do that wherever you want, and a lot of campuses have WiFi everywhere, so you can do some homework during lunch in the canteen.
I don't really see those people ever buying a desktop again.
The cost factor isn't that big anymore. Students often get discounts and you can get a decent laptop (if you go for celeron M instead of pentium M) for about 700 euro, a dell desktop can be around 500, but if you want a flatscreen you'll go into the same price direction as the laptop.
In any case, it shows: SCO hits the wrong spot once again.
Who in his sane mind would want a gas-sucking car during a period where gas prices are going up and don't seem to have reached their peak just yet. Why, instead of appointing one $100.000 car to one developer, don't they just offer to lease a Prius or other hybrid to every developer?
I guess they don't even want to hire sane developers, just the ones who get tricked into something easily. And then everything starts to make sense again...
Hmm, but you can already use it from within Gaim, Miranda or even bitlbee, can you? So what's new then? This is a real question, I always wondered how come these programs can use the code if it's not really open. Trillian seems to pay some of the IM providers for using their interface, but the other ones clearly can't (and shouldn't!!!) I'm glad with it, in any case, bitlbee saves my IM'ing life!
It's for the children stupid!!! How long until this is used to collect even more information on the citizen of our US? Land of the free and home of the brave indeed...
I'm surprised they didn't mention terrorism here... Maybe the ol' terrorism has already worn out, just like communism.
So... it must be to fight people that download music from the internet!!! Go get the bastards.
I am also pretty happy with this, it goes into the stream of locking in everything. Ok, it wasn't their IP to begin with, but they could reason that their uploading interface or whatever is their own property and sharing stuff after uploading is therefore a breach etc. etc.
Good thing there are companies around that still know that you're there for your users, and not the other way around!
Your comment makes a lot of sense. Any system that is open for abuse will have to be abused, and if you don't do it, someone else does. The big bad ones out there have just the same amount of problems as the smaller ones.
Think Eolas and IE, RIM and Blackberry (these were no nice guys at well), probably many more examples out there.
Apparently this bothers some enough to just make an end to this neverending story (even though the big ones have bigger legal departments and cash reserves to win from the little ones). As long as it will end in a fair way, good for everyone. But that will be up to the Wisdom of Congress, which is not per se a good sign.
Actually there's even more behind this. If the EU might overcome the software patent battle at some point and just drop the whole nonsense, the US will be in a big disadvantage as far as the advancement of software is concerned. This will mean big big bucks of losses.
Slashdot Mirror
I beg to differ.
P.S. Some explanation on how that was made can be found here.
A very noble cause, I hope you people manage! And maybe the music business can follow, there is a lot of reform needed out there. But I have a question as well, how do you make sure no 'stolen' or other kind of crap comes on your servers? Must be a lot of work to keep a clean creative commons site, or am I wrong?
Can you give some links about the summer of code nightmares you refer to? I probably missed it on slashdot, and even the dupe :) I tried to search for negative remarks on summer of code, but couldn't find any (maybe because I searched via google? ;) ).
Hi, I'm currently a fundee, but where can I apply to a position of funder? Sounds like a nice job to me! ;)
You are forgetting the millions of users outside america and europe who just don't have the money to buy windows legally. Remember the $1 per copy 'amnesty' microsoft had for indonesia? That was only for the government, but think of all the other small businesses and individuals out there. They want these people to use pirated copies more than to use something non-Microsoft. If WGA would kill all pirated copies, it would get clear that whole countries can also have working PCs without Microsoft. That would bad publicity, much worse than the news that WGA is not really working (what did we expect of that, anyway).
Why shouldn't the researcher (or anyone else for that matter) lie to get the thing he wants if he sees that it works for any huge (governmental) operation. E.g.: lie about WMDs in some country and get a backup for your own military plans. Pushing through your corporate plan to outsource thousands of jobs (or to ease layoff regulation) because it's good for the economy.
People get away and get huge rewards for talking bullshit everywhere. I agree that it shouldn't happen, but then why these double standards? If you want to jail the scientists, then also jail the politicians, CEOs, etc. that just plainly lie for their multimilion dollar goals.
yo mr anon. Nice one, I'd mod you up if I had points...
yes, and hopefully it will finally block the children from attacking us!
insert 'they probably are running their website on it' joke here
Just so everyone will flush and wash their hands!
http://217.160.138.71/portal/index.php?page=10
As you can see, most projects are in mathematics, but there are enough categories to interest everyone.
Just some info: Pande's most recently published folding@home project concerns the folding of a helix in a nanotube.
Ah, ok that also explains the huge SUVs they have there then :) Anyway, I probably miss the right comparison, because I am mostly used to the roads in the Netherlands that look & ride like someone just steam-ironed them :)
Tom? Are you THE Tom from tomshardware.com? I thought you invented the [next page] hardware [next page] review [next page] system?
Pricing is a bit of a trouble, though, often the cheap airlines are way cheaper than the train, but if you're lucky you can get decently priced train tickets.
But your main point is correct, the flexible speeds are probably a very good invention, even though theoretically a traffic jam is more likely to happen on a place where cars drive speeds that are more different. But maybe theory is wrong here, as the german autobahns seem less traffic-jam prone than the dutch highways, which are all in perfect conditions, have carefully regulated speeds, but are almost continuously jammed. And the amount of traffic accidents in germany are decreasing every year, even though cars get faster and the streets busier. Maybe all the new steering-control technology (very much promoted in germany) is doing the trick here, but personally I feel that everyone driving at the same speed makes you sloppy, and you get more nervous overtaking someone if you can do it with only a 2 kmh speed difference instead of just getting it over with as fast as possible.
Furthermore it just kicks ass to speed with 180 kmh from one place to the other :)
Or wasn't there this patent which says I can open/buy stuff by clicking one, two (2004), three times with a mouse, or whatever. Using a progress bar in an application (1990). Really, in one or two decades will see a big leap forward in computer technology, all thanks to the patent system! But what are we supposed to do in the meantime, without the rights to use all these technologies? Back to our terminals, of which the patents from 86 are expiring now?
Woops, missed a HD-DVD there, sorry. Oh, and probably you won't even be able to get many DVD's at the videostore as well. The transition from DVD to HD-DVD is so much easier than from VHS to DVD, you only have to make an automized program and enough computer time and the whole videocollection of a supplier can be reformatted. It will be a smooth and fast transition. Those with an 'old' DVD player will just be screwed when the suppliers switch to DVD-only, but hey, they're used to being screwed anyway, so why should anyone care?
DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and they feel that DVD is the answer.
small update from my part:
HD-DVD exists only for one reason. Greed. Motion picture studios are always looking for a way to sell the same stuff over and over again and they think DVD is the answer. Electronics giants are always looking for the hot new gadget that will make consumers junk their existing products and they feel that HD-DVD is the answer.
Conclusion: in 3-4 years we will all have HD-DVD systems. You will hardly be able to buy the DVD format anymore.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/16/gates-laptop-micr osoft-cx_po_0316autofacescan06.html
So with this immense amount of money concentrated at his funds, I don't think any of it will go to the OLPC project. The monopoly story all over again, this time in charity?
I am not an expert in 3drd-world charity, but I think that the critiques given to this project really are short-sighted. Of course a laptop with some form of internet connection can help the 3rd world. Just don't see it as "3rd world consists only of poor people sitting and waiting for water", I just guess they'll do anything they can to get a little bit forward, and if this consists of communicating in a smart way to find, sell or buy stuff, why not? I know several people from "2nd" world countries, and they really can get somewhere with their internet access, you have a presence/access to the world!
I don't really see those people ever buying a desktop again.
The cost factor isn't that big anymore. Students often get discounts and you can get a decent laptop (if you go for celeron M instead of pentium M) for about 700 euro, a dell desktop can be around 500, but if you want a flatscreen you'll go into the same price direction as the laptop.
Who in his sane mind would want a gas-sucking car during a period where gas prices are going up and don't seem to have reached their peak just yet. Why, instead of appointing one $100.000 car to one developer, don't they just offer to lease a Prius or other hybrid to every developer?
I guess they don't even want to hire sane developers, just the ones who get tricked into something easily. And then everything starts to make sense again...
Hmm, but you can already use it from within Gaim, Miranda or even bitlbee, can you? So what's new then? This is a real question, I always wondered how come these programs can use the code if it's not really open. Trillian seems to pay some of the IM providers for using their interface, but the other ones clearly can't (and shouldn't!!!) I'm glad with it, in any case, bitlbee saves my IM'ing life!
I'm surprised they didn't mention terrorism here... Maybe the ol' terrorism has already worn out, just like communism.
So... it must be to fight people that download music from the internet!!! Go get the bastards.
Good thing there are companies around that still know that you're there for your users, and not the other way around!
Think Eolas and IE, RIM and Blackberry (these were no nice guys at well), probably many more examples out there.
Apparently this bothers some enough to just make an end to this neverending story (even though the big ones have bigger legal departments and cash reserves to win from the little ones). As long as it will end in a fair way, good for everyone. But that will be up to the Wisdom of Congress, which is not per se a good sign.
Actually there's even more behind this. If the EU might overcome the software patent battle at some point and just drop the whole nonsense, the US will be in a big disadvantage as far as the advancement of software is concerned. This will mean big big bucks of losses.