Yeah... I don't see how this is any different from regular old patent trolls. They are still owning patents with no intention of marketing the products they cover. Why is it worthwhile to give a patent to this company and then license it back from them?
I think the best model that any show has come up with is South Park's. Every episode from every season posted online, full, without commercials. The newest episodes are posted the week after they air.
This policy has encouraged me to watch South Park. And what do you know: I even watch it on TV sometimes. +1 viewership by enlightened understanding of digital distribution.
This is very exciting, not only because of its utility in space, but because of its utility on Earth as well. Particularly in areas with unreliable internet service, delay-tolerant protocols can be extremely helpful for allowing basic connectivity to the outside world. Consider the choice is having no internet communications at all versus waiting a day or two for your email to travel out of your village, onto the passing truck that is caching data, and into the city where it can proceed through a reliable internet connection. DTN is powerful stuff.
It really kills me when people dismiss developments in space programs as being too far removed (no pun intended) from the rest of us to be relevant.
That's a point well taken. The versatility of the Linux kernel demonstrates its technical superiority to Windows in many aspect and I think also speaks to the power of the open source development model.
Still, I think it's important to mention that Microsoft has only in the past couple years started focusing on HPC. Further, since Windows 7 is a desktop OS, and comes from a history of desktop OSes, it seems logical that MSFT would focus on other aspects of the OS rather than on supporting large numbers of cores.
I think it's probably less that they don't have the engineering skill than that they don't have the resources to implement this kind of multicore support and do whatever else they need to. I'm sure the management logic was something along the lines of "256 cores should be enough for most people in our target market for the time being, at least until our next release. And if it becomes apparent users need this sooner, we can reallocate resources to it to make sure it gets done faster." That would seem perfectly logical to me.
This is not Windows HPC, this is Windows 7, their desktop single-user OS. They are completely different; why would you expect a desktop OS to fill the same role as an HPC OS?
I don't think anyone is stupid enough to have missed that the internet is a gigantic communication tool (for more than just porn). Obviously there are people in the military bureaucracy who have never heard of Twitter, and this report is going to be their introduction. What is its purpose? To inform decision makers that it is possible to create or use tools like Twitter to broadcast information point-to-multipoint, and how this capability can be abused by terrorist groups. I am sure that there are people in the Pentagon, due to their age or lack of experience with modern web apps, who have never considered this possibility and it's probably good they are made aware.
Does this mean that someone is going to misinterpret this report to mean Twitter is a terrorist organization? I'm sure (would it really be so bad if it got taken down?:P ), but those people are already beyond help. Does this mean that no one in the Pentagon had ever heard of Twitter? No. Does it mean that fighting Twitter is about to become a priority for the Army? Emphatically, no. What it means is that the Army intelligence service was trying to inform the chain of command about modern applications on the internet and their potential to be used as a weapon. And guess what? That's their job. So I, for one, am glad they are doing it. With full knowledge, I might add, of the past abuses of civil rights that the US intelligence community has committed.
When I worked as a software designer for Big Company, I remember they gave me a kind of cheesy pamphlet describing a day in the life of the target customer for our product, interspersed with market information. I bet to a marketer, everything in there was a "no shit Sherlock" fact, but to me as a developer it was new and valuable information. Same with this, to/.'ers this is a "no shit" idea, but to people whose lives are primarily spent off the internet it would be valuable.
I think my point was that I see value as something not being inherent in the materials to begin with. To me the reshaping IS where value comes from. The ingredients are valuable in as much as they have the ability to meet needs or to be reshaped to meet needs.
There's nothing wrong with the point you're making; I was just pointing out an interesting difference, and I think I understand your argument perfectly well. Whereas you see value as being pre-existing (what I'm referring to as "inherent") I see value as something that is only created. I think it's possible to build an internally consistent belief structure around both of those starting positions. I just thought the differences in our beliefs was interesting enough to warrant some discussion.
When I buy food in a restaurant, the chef adds value to the ingredients by preparing them in a knowledgable way. I find more value in, and am willing to pay more for, a fine dinner than I am for a fish and some vegetables. The end product has more value than its constituent parts because of the valuable skills the chef used to create it.
Value is not inherent in anything. Human creativity and ingenuity versus our needs creates value. Iron is not valuable to a stone age society. It becomes highly valuable once they possess the skill to use it in a way that helps meet their needs.
Another example. The hard drive in your computer is more valuable to you than other hard drives or the $30 (approx) it cost to manufacture because it holds data that is presumably important to you on it. So, it is more valuable than its constituent components. And it's not any more valuable to me than another hard drive, because I don't have any interest in the data on it.
So, I humbly disagree that value can't be added to something already existing. I think that nothing has inherent value, and whatever value it does have (financially or otherwise) is placed upon it us. But that's just my philosophical point of view.
And as far as web applications go, I think that's fine. Why should I sell something to you for a fixed price when my costs for providing it are on-going and a function of how much you use it?
A lot of the troubles we face today (proprietary software, DRM, etc) are a result of business plans that rely on scarcity for their product when as we all know digital anything is an infinite resource. It is the hardware, power, etc that are scarce. Once a company starts charging for the scarce part of their application, everything starts to make more sense because the rules of economics apply again.
Selling something up front makes sense for, say, software, since the scarcity of the software stems from the media it's on and the development time that went into it. Once the software is sold, there is no more scarcity. But once Gmail is developed, Google has to keep it running. You're paying for the server farm (the scarce resource).
Of course renting makes no sense for DRM, since you are only obtaining a license when you purchase music. It just doesn't make sense (especially at today's prices) to buy license that costs O(n) that's of equal or less value than a license that costs O(c)?
I think companies *do* get this, but unfortunately in a organizations the user experience coexists with various other concerns, such as the ones we usually think of like legal and marketing, as well as time, technical limitations, dependencies on other parts of the organization, etc.
This was an issue at a company I worked at. We were trying to get the "first run" number of screens on our app down to the bare minimum; not only did we have an argument with legal, we had to rethink the design of other components of our software as well as work with other teams in the company to reduce the amount of user input we needed to get our software going. The PHB in the room said of the original design, "That sucks. I don't want to see this product ship with more than 3 screens for first run."
Everyone gets it, but "simple" is often a hard goal to fulfill, even when you start out with that in mind (as I'm sure you know from any time you've ever built something).
How to not get your story accepted on Slashdot:
(1) Write about the project you want to get started, how you need programmers, and include your contact information.
(2) Get perceived as having a story without broad applicability and/or pandering for help.
(3) Have your story rejected.
(4) No profit or help, same as yesterday.
Doesn't seem like all movies are $15. I looked for Full Metal Jacket and it's $3 to rent and $10 to buy. And, that particular movie, like so many others, isn't available on Hulu.
This is clearly a step in the right direction. I hadn't paid for music for several years before Amazon MP3 came out. I always said I would pay for a service to download that was simple, fair, and appropriately priced. Now, I've purchased four or five albums in the past month. I've been waiting for an equivalent service to be available for videos; maybe this will be the one.
Of course, I'm fortunate in that I have easy access to a Windows box to watch all this on... I guess Linux support is just too much to ask for.:\
I wonder how this will affect Google's relationship with the Mozilla foundation? IIRC, Google is one of Mozilla's primary sources of funding, as they pay for the rights to be the default search engine on Firefox.
Remember that sending an SMS means sending a small amount of asynchronous data, whereas keeping a persistent voice connection open is more resource intensive. I'd reckon that it took you longer to receive SMS messages after Katrina than usual, but nothing you would really notice since, as I said, SMS is a form of asynchronous communication.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah... I don't see how this is any different from regular old patent trolls. They are still owning patents with no intention of marketing the products they cover. Why is it worthwhile to give a patent to this company and then license it back from them?
Shrug, all I know is that when I watch it at my US university, there are no commercials. That would definitely be less awesome if there were.
Sorry another similar project as well I forgot about: http://www.firstmilesolutions.com/
(G^n)P here, that's really cool stuff. The project is called Wizzy Digital Courier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizzy_Digital_Courier
I think the best model that any show has come up with is South Park's. Every episode from every season posted online, full, without commercials. The newest episodes are posted the week after they air.
This policy has encouraged me to watch South Park. And what do you know: I even watch it on TV sometimes. +1 viewership by enlightened understanding of digital distribution.
This is very exciting, not only because of its utility in space, but because of its utility on Earth as well. Particularly in areas with unreliable internet service, delay-tolerant protocols can be extremely helpful for allowing basic connectivity to the outside world. Consider the choice is having no internet communications at all versus waiting a day or two for your email to travel out of your village, onto the passing truck that is caching data, and into the city where it can proceed through a reliable internet connection. DTN is powerful stuff.
It really kills me when people dismiss developments in space programs as being too far removed (no pun intended) from the rest of us to be relevant.
With all due respect I find your sig a bit ironic.
and that rule is rule 34.
That's a point well taken. The versatility of the Linux kernel demonstrates its technical superiority to Windows in many aspect and I think also speaks to the power of the open source development model.
Still, I think it's important to mention that Microsoft has only in the past couple years started focusing on HPC. Further, since Windows 7 is a desktop OS, and comes from a history of desktop OSes, it seems logical that MSFT would focus on other aspects of the OS rather than on supporting large numbers of cores.
I think it's probably less that they don't have the engineering skill than that they don't have the resources to implement this kind of multicore support and do whatever else they need to. I'm sure the management logic was something along the lines of "256 cores should be enough for most people in our target market for the time being, at least until our next release. And if it becomes apparent users need this sooner, we can reallocate resources to it to make sure it gets done faster." That would seem perfectly logical to me.
This is not Windows HPC, this is Windows 7, their desktop single-user OS. They are completely different; why would you expect a desktop OS to fill the same role as an HPC OS?
Are you going to vote for John McCain or are you a Marxist?
We need more posts like this, ones for open discussion. Maybe once every couple weeks for feedback on the site.
I don't think anyone is stupid enough to have missed that the internet is a gigantic communication tool (for more than just porn). Obviously there are people in the military bureaucracy who have never heard of Twitter, and this report is going to be their introduction. What is its purpose? To inform decision makers that it is possible to create or use tools like Twitter to broadcast information point-to-multipoint, and how this capability can be abused by terrorist groups. I am sure that there are people in the Pentagon, due to their age or lack of experience with modern web apps, who have never considered this possibility and it's probably good they are made aware.
:P ), but those people are already beyond help. Does this mean that no one in the Pentagon had ever heard of Twitter? No. Does it mean that fighting Twitter is about to become a priority for the Army? Emphatically, no. What it means is that the Army intelligence service was trying to inform the chain of command about modern applications on the internet and their potential to be used as a weapon. And guess what? That's their job. So I, for one, am glad they are doing it. With full knowledge, I might add, of the past abuses of civil rights that the US intelligence community has committed.
/.'ers this is a "no shit" idea, but to people whose lives are primarily spent off the internet it would be valuable.
Does this mean that someone is going to misinterpret this report to mean Twitter is a terrorist organization? I'm sure (would it really be so bad if it got taken down?
When I worked as a software designer for Big Company, I remember they gave me a kind of cheesy pamphlet describing a day in the life of the target customer for our product, interspersed with market information. I bet to a marketer, everything in there was a "no shit Sherlock" fact, but to me as a developer it was new and valuable information. Same with this, to
Thanks, that was very interesting!
(citation needed)
I don't doubt you, but could you please provide an illustrative example?
I think my point was that I see value as something not being inherent in the materials to begin with. To me the reshaping IS where value comes from. The ingredients are valuable in as much as they have the ability to meet needs or to be reshaped to meet needs.
There's nothing wrong with the point you're making; I was just pointing out an interesting difference, and I think I understand your argument perfectly well. Whereas you see value as being pre-existing (what I'm referring to as "inherent") I see value as something that is only created. I think it's possible to build an internally consistent belief structure around both of those starting positions. I just thought the differences in our beliefs was interesting enough to warrant some discussion.
I don't believe "added value" is a myth.
When I buy food in a restaurant, the chef adds value to the ingredients by preparing them in a knowledgable way. I find more value in, and am willing to pay more for, a fine dinner than I am for a fish and some vegetables. The end product has more value than its constituent parts because of the valuable skills the chef used to create it.
Value is not inherent in anything. Human creativity and ingenuity versus our needs creates value. Iron is not valuable to a stone age society. It becomes highly valuable once they possess the skill to use it in a way that helps meet their needs.
Another example. The hard drive in your computer is more valuable to you than other hard drives or the $30 (approx) it cost to manufacture because it holds data that is presumably important to you on it. So, it is more valuable than its constituent components. And it's not any more valuable to me than another hard drive, because I don't have any interest in the data on it.
So, I humbly disagree that value can't be added to something already existing. I think that nothing has inherent value, and whatever value it does have (financially or otherwise) is placed upon it us. But that's just my philosophical point of view.
And as far as web applications go, I think that's fine. Why should I sell something to you for a fixed price when my costs for providing it are on-going and a function of how much you use it?
A lot of the troubles we face today (proprietary software, DRM, etc) are a result of business plans that rely on scarcity for their product when as we all know digital anything is an infinite resource. It is the hardware, power, etc that are scarce. Once a company starts charging for the scarce part of their application, everything starts to make more sense because the rules of economics apply again.
Selling something up front makes sense for, say, software, since the scarcity of the software stems from the media it's on and the development time that went into it. Once the software is sold, there is no more scarcity. But once Gmail is developed, Google has to keep it running. You're paying for the server farm (the scarce resource).
Of course renting makes no sense for DRM, since you are only obtaining a license when you purchase music. It just doesn't make sense (especially at today's prices) to buy license that costs O(n) that's of equal or less value than a license that costs O(c)?
Wow, this story has no "from the blah-blah dept." tag on there. It is indeed a story of great magnitude.
I think companies *do* get this, but unfortunately in a organizations the user experience coexists with various other concerns, such as the ones we usually think of like legal and marketing, as well as time, technical limitations, dependencies on other parts of the organization, etc.
This was an issue at a company I worked at. We were trying to get the "first run" number of screens on our app down to the bare minimum; not only did we have an argument with legal, we had to rethink the design of other components of our software as well as work with other teams in the company to reduce the amount of user input we needed to get our software going. The PHB in the room said of the original design, "That sucks. I don't want to see this product ship with more than 3 screens for first run."
Everyone gets it, but "simple" is often a hard goal to fulfill, even when you start out with that in mind (as I'm sure you know from any time you've ever built something).
How to not get your story accepted on Slashdot:
(1) Write about the project you want to get started, how you need programmers, and include your contact information.
(2) Get perceived as having a story without broad applicability and/or pandering for help.
(3) Have your story rejected.
(4) No profit or help, same as yesterday.
I thought Slashback was great. Follow-ups to stories? It was at least a better way to continue the discussion than a dupe.
Doesn't seem like all movies are $15. I looked for Full Metal Jacket and it's $3 to rent and $10 to buy. And, that particular movie, like so many others, isn't available on Hulu.
:\
This is clearly a step in the right direction. I hadn't paid for music for several years before Amazon MP3 came out. I always said I would pay for a service to download that was simple, fair, and appropriately priced. Now, I've purchased four or five albums in the past month. I've been waiting for an equivalent service to be available for videos; maybe this will be the one.
Of course, I'm fortunate in that I have easy access to a Windows box to watch all this on... I guess Linux support is just too much to ask for.
I wonder how this will affect Google's relationship with the Mozilla foundation? IIRC, Google is one of Mozilla's primary sources of funding, as they pay for the rights to be the default search engine on Firefox.
Remember that sending an SMS means sending a small amount of asynchronous data, whereas keeping a persistent voice connection open is more resource intensive. I'd reckon that it took you longer to receive SMS messages after Katrina than usual, but nothing you would really notice since, as I said, SMS is a form of asynchronous communication.