well, there are several different ways autoplay can infect a machine. if you have it so that USB drives prompt you for the action to take each time, then you're protected from the autoplay program running upon drive attachment (in pre-Vista versions of Windows you can also hold [shift] when you insert a disc or attach a flash drive to disable autoplay.) but there's still the danger that the user might double-click on the attached device in My Computer, which will still execute the autoplay program if there is one.
i mean, most people are used to just double-clicking on a removable volume to browse its contents. i know i am. so even if you have autoplay set to prompt the user, if you try to open up the volume in this way you'll still be infected. so it's best to disable autoplay completely or get into the habit of right clicking on removable volumes to browse their contents rather than double-clicking or hitting enter, which will simply execute the default action.
of course, the situation isn't helped by the fact that there's no easy way for users to change autplay behavior except to use TweakUI, which doesn't come with Windows.
if it's already known to be such a problem, then why does Microsoft continue to enable autoplay by default in Windows? it's annoying enough to have autoplay applications pop up on the screen every time you insert a CD, but with USB flash drives it's just plain reckless.
USB storage devices are today's floppy disks. people use them to move files between computers, and a single device may get plugged into dozens of computers. so a lot of trojans/malware now detect when a removable drive is connected to the computer and automatically infect the drive and create an autorun.inf file so that the next computer that the thumbdrive/digital camera/iPod/PSP/etc. gets connected to will be infected as well.
yet most Windows users seem completely oblivious to this danger. and with the proliferation of USB storage devices this problem will just get worst. at the very least users should be prompted before executing an autoplay program.
this time it seems like it was the vendor's screwup, which is very rare, but it's very easy for someone to have a clean USB stick, then plug it into an infected PC and unknowingly get a trojan written to the USB stick.
i recently had close call myself when i took my PSP to work and plugged it into a workstation (i had some utilities and e-books saved on the memory stick). when i got home and plugged the PSP into my desktop, i noticed the PSP memory stick was displayed with an odd icon in My Computer. so i looked at the root directory and found a suspicious.exe file that i hadn't placed there, which was also referenced by a new autorun.inf file.
with thumbdrives, external hard drives, portable media players, and other flash memory devices becoming increasingly common, i expect more and more malware writers will exploit them as an infection vector, especially as autoplay is usually enabled by default on Windows systems. the only reason i had autoplay disabled was because i found it annoying, and that's the only reason i lucked out.
why would anyone purchase that to hack? that's the opposite of a hobbyist device--no keyboard/mouse input, no open hardware or software specifications, no tuner cards, no video encoding capabilities, no networking capabilities, and no hardware expansion slots to add those capabilities.
if you want a low-cost pre-built set-top box with just basic media capabilities, then sure that thing will probably do the job. but there are much better options out there IMO. the Neuros OSD for example is much more attractive to tinkerers and hobbyists. it's about $50 more than the WD TV, but its open source linux-based platform, video input & MPEG-4 encoding capabilities, networking capabilities, DSP hardware-acceleration, and support for PMPs like the PSP and iPod are worth it IMO.
plus, the hardware specs are publicly available, which is very helpful when hacking/modifying a device. i can't even find a shred of info on what kind of processor or hardware platform the WD TV is built on. that's hardly a hacker-friendly product.
why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:
built-in HDTV encoder
hardware-accelerated MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV9 decoding
up to 1080i playback
dual monitor support
video de-blocking
adaptive de-interlacing
VIA VT1708A High Definition Audio Codec / VIA Vinyl HD Audio
VIA UniChrome Pro Graphics Core / Chromotion video engine
integrated V-RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1, and JBOD (SATA) support
lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:
processor speeds of 533/800/1000MHz
max. thermal design power consumption of 6/8/10W
VIA UniChrome Pro
MPEG2 decoder: VLD, IDCT and Motion Compensation
MPEG4 decoder: ASP Level 5 and GMC
Dual Independent Display Support
display resolution: 1920 x 1440
alpha blending
scaling
video capture port
PiP support
oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.
no, voice and landlines are different. this is basically like if you were shipping a package to someone and you "piggybacked" a message onto the delivery by writing a note on the actual box. the surface area of the box is going to be there whether you write that extra message on it or not, and it doesn't cost FedEx or USPS anything extra to deliver a box with writing on it. as long as you're paying for the box/shipping, you really shouldn't have to pay for the text you write on the package.
the article is talking about actual bandwidth usage, not the bandwidth potential of the existing infrastructure. yes, the infrastructure is going to be there whether you use it or not, but it's there because of all the voice traffic we send/receive. consumers are charged minutely or per-message rates because, presumably, these activities increase network usage. but sending SMS doesn't increase network usage as it's recycled bandwidth.
but even if SMS activity used more network resources, it should not cost anywhere near what we're being charged for them today. it's only because the telecoms have a monopoly/oligopoly that they're able to charge these outrageous rates. frankly, it would be more efficient if simply build a national open wireless infrastructure. text messages could be sent/received for free using open standards like e-mail or XMPP. voice calls could be made independent of carriers/telecoms using VoIP. this would also foster innovation and technological progress as people would be free to develop new applications/technologies using the wireless network.
well, according to the articles and images, these touch netbooks have swivel/foldable displays like tablet PCs. so it'd be no different from the way you hold a pen/pencil when taking notes or drawing. and being netbook-sized, you'd be able to easily hold them in one hand like a book while holding the stylus in the other.
besides, unless you're gaming, doing graphic design, or performing some other task that requires constant pointing device input (like taking notes by hand), you wouldn't really need to keep the stylus against the screen that often. some kind of scroll wheel on the side of the netbook would probably suffice for reading web pages or ebooks.
personally, i think a netbook sized tablet PC would be great to have. the swiveling touchscreen makes it perfect for reading e-books. and for what other e-book readers cost, you'd also be getting full wi-fi, web browsing, and multimedia capabilities.
or you could just hold the screen in your hand the same way you hold a book when reading at a desk. unless you're holding the netbook up to your chest, it shouldn't be that uncomfortable of a posture.
and actually, the proper viewing angle for close work is downward at a 40 degree angle, allowing your eyes to focus better on objects near you.
you're missing the point. these non-inventions should never have been granted in the first place. that is what needs to be reformed about the current system.
things like file previews are currently patentable, and it's within the patent holder's rights to sue. whether you think it's contrary to the intent of the system or not, it's how the system works. right now the USPTO is wasting millions of dollars of tax payers' money each year by granting patents on trivial/obvious software features, which inevitably leads to frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls--who often win.
just look at the case between Creative and Apple regarding file menus. the only thing that's different this time is that the defendants have much more legal muscle than the claimant (which is a separate problem with the legal system). so even if Cygnus loses this suit, that doesn't mean that when a corporate juggernaut like Apple/Microsoft file similar claims of patent infringement that they will lose.
what does perpetual motion have to do with it? here in Southern California the monthly gas bill is around $12-30 per month (closer to $30 in the winter when the heater is on) for a 2-bedroom apartment. and according Google 40 NIS is $10.44932 USD. so it's really not all that revolutionary in terms of cost.
i'm not say that this technology can't be vaporware, but i don't see any "perpetual motion"-type pseudoscience indicated by the article. though, i do think if that he wants to help people he should make the ingredients public. if no one knows how to recreate this technology, then how is anyone supposed to use it or benefit from it?
well, i also watched the Sci-Fi series The Lost Room and thought it was pretty good for a TV mini-series, but that doesn't put it at the same quality as a feature film.
i'm not saying all TV series are bad; but, generally speaking, films get more funding and have higher production values--yes, even compared to HBO and BBC shows (which i agree are superb). also, if you're referring to Space Odyssey: The Robot Pioneers/Voyage to the Planets(2004), they are more accurately labeled as a documentary or docu-drama than a true serial/drama. and while docu-dramas like Space Odyssey and Walking with Dinosaurs are excellent, they're still not quite on the same level as, say, IMAX feature films like Deep Sea 3D or Roving Mars (i watched both of those on DVD, so it's not just the IMAX screen).
OTOH, sitcoms like The Office and animated series like Aqua Teen Hunger Force--each episode of which is only ~11 min.--are a perfect fit for TV broadcast. that's because production values aren't that important in comedies, and animated series are relatively cheap to make these days. it also doesn't take half a decade to write a decent comedy story, whereas serious (fiction/non-documental) dramas are more difficult to write in a short period of time, since they tend to be more plot-based and demand greater literary ability to write.
to break it down further, a 2-hour feature film costs on average ~$102.9 million to make, meaning that the average mainstream film gets about a $50 million budget for each hour of content shot. compare that with a TV series, which generally gets about $1 (sitcom) to $1.5 (drama) million per episode.
i know replying to yourself is bad form, but i forgot to link to this video of Bruce Perens talking about how he got started with Linux & FOSS (he once worked at Pixar) and why he continues to be involved. i think the video provides some great insight into the kind of person Bruce is and the mentality a lot of FOSS authors/contributors share.
avoiding propaganda by being completely ignorant about the world around you might work if you move to a remote area in the woods/mountains, becoming a hermit/recluse and never speak or listen to anyone ever again. but anyone with some degree of social contact with other people will inevitably be influenced and socialized with the dominant world view of their cultural environment.
the solution isn't voluntary ignorance, which is not only detrimental but also quite dangerous (it increases one's likelihood of being manipulated into embracing dangerous ideologies, since they have no other reference points to assess the ideology with). on the other hand, by taking a more proactive approach and seeking out knowledge for yourself (rather than passively absorbing whatever hegemonic influences surround you), you can account for inherent biases by reading a diverse variety of news sources, ranging from the domestic mainstream media to international and/or independent news sources. thus, by exposing yourself to a wide range of perspectives and opinions, you can consciously assess/analyze/filter the information you consume and make up your own mind.
it also helps to understand sociology, history, logic, philosophy, psychology, etc., which of course doesn't happen if you bury your head in the sand.
Bruce Perens was well-known in the open source community as the project leader of Debian and for founding the Open Source Initiative (and creating the Open Source Definition) long before his 2-year stint at HP.
and i don't recall Perens or any other open source leader ever claiming that Linux was a 'sure thing.' though pretty much every major system vendor (HP, Lenovo, IBM, Dell, Apple, etc.) today has a Linux division or is involved with FOSS in some way--a situation which Perens has played no small part in creating.
except that Arrested Development only had 2 complete seasons. it was canceled during the middle of the 3rd season--hence, "after" only 2 seasons.
and as i stated, i was giving my personal opinion. you might find American Idol 'absolutely worth watching' for all i care. that doesn't mean it's a quality programming.
take part in Christian-American culture? hah, that's a good one...
or maybe it's all the Christians (including those non-American 'copycats') who are lying to themselves, pretending they're not celebrating a pagan holiday (a Roman festival mixed with elements of Yule-tide) and practicing a syncretic religion based primarily on Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and Mystery cults, with its mythology heavily borrowed from pre-Judeo-Christian cultures like the Sumerians/Babylonians, ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, etc.
of course, what American Christians celebrate today (including the image of Santa Claus popularized by Coca-Cola) has more to do consumerism than any religious tradition. so, basically, if you think Christmas is about Christianity, and that Christianity is about Christianity, then you're living a lie within a lie.
from those photos it doesn't seem like it's that badly damaged. you know, if you went back with some duct-tape and superglue...
but seriously, a magnesium chassis you say? why don't you take it out to the desert and set it on fire like people used to do with old magnesium Volkswagen engines.
I don't know how you can cram that entire graphic novel into a 2-hour movie.
you don't need to. you can always make as many sequels as you need. just look at LotR.
as i understand it, Watchmen consists of only 12 standard comic books. and the hardcover release is listed on Amazon as having only 436 pages. it's not inconceivable that they could adapt the comic into a trilogy or quadrilogy/tetralogy. an adaptation doesn't have to be a word-for-word screen translation of the original work. otherwise, how would you ever adapt a comic book series like Ghost in the Shell, which spans across 3 volumes and totaling 834 pages? or how about Akira, which spans 6 volumes, each of which being anywhere from 288 pages to 440 pages?
full-length films generally have higher production values than TV series. you just don't get the same budget or writing & acting quality on TV. frankly, a well-produced film adaptation stands a much better chance of being good (and doing justice to its source material) than a TV series.
personally, i don't even think there's anything worth watching on TV outside of documentary shows (Horizon, Air Crash Investigations, Seconds to Disaster, Nova, Mythbusters, etc.). comedy is about the only fiction genre with decent quality programming on TV, and most of those are animated series like Futurama, American Dad, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, South Park, etc. the last truly great non-animated TV series i saw was Arrested Development, but that canceled after only 2 seasons.
i guess it all depends on how resilient VHS is as a storage medium. the format has been used for over three decades. billions of VHS cassettes have been manufactured and sold. there have been millions of video titles released to VHS only. many documentaries, cult films, instructional videos, etc. were never re-released on DVD.
i imagine it will take quite a while for all those VHS titles to be ripped/converted to digital format before they're lost forever. we'll probably continue to see new VHS-rips popping up on BitTorrent sites for another decade or so if the cassettes themselves hold out for that long.
so should TV commercials have been patented because before TV was invented "advertising on TV" was a very radical concept?
Amazon didn't invent e-commerce. they only popularized it. and even if they had been the first to implement one-click check out, it's still not a patentable non-trivial/obvious invention.
if businesses are allowed to patent trivial features like saving a customer's credit card information, then you risk destroying the software development industry. within a few years any software development firm would have to license 99% of all of their products' features because everything from autosave to file menus would have been "pretty unbelievable" at some point in time.
why must they draw obvious parallels between 'amateur genetic engineers' and 'amateur software developers' & 'amateur computer engineers'?
the article also doesn't claim that every garage-based startup is going to be wildly successful. they're merely pointing out that we're now in an age where genetic engineering can be performed by amateurs in their garage, which means a lot more people are going to delve into the field of biotechnology.
according to hitwise blog traffic comprises only 1.19% of all internet traffic in the UK, and the percentage for the US may be even lower since the market share of blog sites is 1.09% in the UK and 0.73% in the US.
so, saying "blogs = the internet" is not very accurate. monitoring blog sites would be far easier than trying to monitor the 6.2 billion overseas phone calls Americans make each year. unlike the voice data from phone calls, it's far easier to sift through the text data that constitutes most blog traffic. blogs are specifically designed to be easily monitored for updates with technologies like web feeds (RSS & Atom) which allow for easy syndication by encoding semantic information into the serialized data.
additionally, a very robust searching/indexing infrastructure is already in place on the web. there are even blog-specific search engines like Technorati. blogs are a means of publishing & broadcasting information on the web in an easily searchable format. in contrast, phone calls are a form of private 2-way communication.
true. i don't think any of the mainstream distros are truly "ugly" out of the box, but you have to admit, they don't quite have the same level of polish as OS X or Vista (or even XP in some cases).
i think part of the problem is that FOSS has primarily been a software movement. so while there are a lot of world class programmers contributing to the FOSS movement, there's far less aesthetic/design expertise to go around in the FOSS community.
it's well known that both Apple and Microsoft spend huge amounts of money polishing the look and feel of their operating systems--for instance, recruiting visual interface designers with masters degrees in interactive media design, conducting focus groups to fine-tune the aesthetics and user experience (down to the tone of the language used in system messages), defining an extensive set of human interface guidelines for developers, contracting interactive design firms to create system icons, and even hiring world-famous musicians/composers like Brian Eno to create system sounds, etc.
this kind of attention to detail towards aesthetics just doesn't exist within the Linux development community because the lack of contributors with professional visual arts/design/music backgrounds.
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well, there are several different ways autoplay can infect a machine. if you have it so that USB drives prompt you for the action to take each time, then you're protected from the autoplay program running upon drive attachment (in pre-Vista versions of Windows you can also hold [shift] when you insert a disc or attach a flash drive to disable autoplay.) but there's still the danger that the user might double-click on the attached device in My Computer, which will still execute the autoplay program if there is one.
i mean, most people are used to just double-clicking on a removable volume to browse its contents. i know i am. so even if you have autoplay set to prompt the user, if you try to open up the volume in this way you'll still be infected. so it's best to disable autoplay completely or get into the habit of right clicking on removable volumes to browse their contents rather than double-clicking or hitting enter, which will simply execute the default action.
of course, the situation isn't helped by the fact that there's no easy way for users to change autplay behavior except to use TweakUI, which doesn't come with Windows.
if it's already known to be such a problem, then why does Microsoft continue to enable autoplay by default in Windows? it's annoying enough to have autoplay applications pop up on the screen every time you insert a CD, but with USB flash drives it's just plain reckless.
USB storage devices are today's floppy disks. people use them to move files between computers, and a single device may get plugged into dozens of computers. so a lot of trojans/malware now detect when a removable drive is connected to the computer and automatically infect the drive and create an autorun.inf file so that the next computer that the thumbdrive/digital camera/iPod/PSP/etc. gets connected to will be infected as well.
yet most Windows users seem completely oblivious to this danger. and with the proliferation of USB storage devices this problem will just get worst. at the very least users should be prompted before executing an autoplay program.
this time it seems like it was the vendor's screwup, which is very rare, but it's very easy for someone to have a clean USB stick, then plug it into an infected PC and unknowingly get a trojan written to the USB stick.
i recently had close call myself when i took my PSP to work and plugged it into a workstation (i had some utilities and e-books saved on the memory stick). when i got home and plugged the PSP into my desktop, i noticed the PSP memory stick was displayed with an odd icon in My Computer. so i looked at the root directory and found a suspicious .exe file that i hadn't placed there, which was also referenced by a new autorun.inf file.
with thumbdrives, external hard drives, portable media players, and other flash memory devices becoming increasingly common, i expect more and more malware writers will exploit them as an infection vector, especially as autoplay is usually enabled by default on Windows systems. the only reason i had autoplay disabled was because i found it annoying, and that's the only reason i lucked out.
why would anyone purchase that to hack? that's the opposite of a hobbyist device--no keyboard/mouse input, no open hardware or software specifications, no tuner cards, no video encoding capabilities, no networking capabilities, and no hardware expansion slots to add those capabilities.
if you want a low-cost pre-built set-top box with just basic media capabilities, then sure that thing will probably do the job. but there are much better options out there IMO. the Neuros OSD for example is much more attractive to tinkerers and hobbyists. it's about $50 more than the WD TV, but its open source linux-based platform, video input & MPEG-4 encoding capabilities, networking capabilities, DSP hardware-acceleration, and support for PMPs like the PSP and iPod are worth it IMO.
plus, the hardware specs are publicly available, which is very helpful when hacking/modifying a device. i can't even find a shred of info on what kind of processor or hardware platform the WD TV is built on. that's hardly a hacker-friendly product.
why a netbook? if it's going to be a HTPC then why get something designed for portability? having a tiny 9" screen is also kinda pointless when the system's plugged into a TV. a low-power VIA C7 processor paired with VIA's EPIA NX Nano-ITX motherboard would be far more suited for a media center PC or set-top box. the EPIA NX comes with the CX700M IGP chipset and features:
alternatively, you could get the VIA C3 or the 7.5 watt fanless VIA Eden processor + CN400 chipset, which use even less power and still has:
lastly, there's the VIA CoreFusion Processor Platform, which is also based on the C3 Nehemiah core. the VIA Luke configuration features:
oh, and VIA's Green Computing Initiative means all of their new processors and motherboards are RoHS compliant, and many of there products are also lead-free. so not only are you reducing your energy footprint on top of getting a cooler/quieter-running system, but the manufacturing process is also more environmentally friendly.
no, voice and landlines are different. this is basically like if you were shipping a package to someone and you "piggybacked" a message onto the delivery by writing a note on the actual box. the surface area of the box is going to be there whether you write that extra message on it or not, and it doesn't cost FedEx or USPS anything extra to deliver a box with writing on it. as long as you're paying for the box/shipping, you really shouldn't have to pay for the text you write on the package.
the article is talking about actual bandwidth usage, not the bandwidth potential of the existing infrastructure. yes, the infrastructure is going to be there whether you use it or not, but it's there because of all the voice traffic we send/receive. consumers are charged minutely or per-message rates because, presumably, these activities increase network usage. but sending SMS doesn't increase network usage as it's recycled bandwidth.
but even if SMS activity used more network resources, it should not cost anywhere near what we're being charged for them today. it's only because the telecoms have a monopoly/oligopoly that they're able to charge these outrageous rates. frankly, it would be more efficient if simply build a national open wireless infrastructure. text messages could be sent/received for free using open standards like e-mail or XMPP. voice calls could be made independent of carriers/telecoms using VoIP. this would also foster innovation and technological progress as people would be free to develop new applications/technologies using the wireless network.
um, if you don't want integrated graphics, you can just get the 790X--it's cheaper.
you might want to get a clue first before ranting off incoherently.
well, according to the articles and images, these touch netbooks have swivel/foldable displays like tablet PCs. so it'd be no different from the way you hold a pen/pencil when taking notes or drawing. and being netbook-sized, you'd be able to easily hold them in one hand like a book while holding the stylus in the other.
besides, unless you're gaming, doing graphic design, or performing some other task that requires constant pointing device input (like taking notes by hand), you wouldn't really need to keep the stylus against the screen that often. some kind of scroll wheel on the side of the netbook would probably suffice for reading web pages or ebooks.
personally, i think a netbook sized tablet PC would be great to have. the swiveling touchscreen makes it perfect for reading e-books. and for what other e-book readers cost, you'd also be getting full wi-fi, web browsing, and multimedia capabilities.
or you could just hold the screen in your hand the same way you hold a book when reading at a desk. unless you're holding the netbook up to your chest, it shouldn't be that uncomfortable of a posture.
and actually, the proper viewing angle for close work is downward at a 40 degree angle, allowing your eyes to focus better on objects near you.
you're missing the point. these non-inventions should never have been granted in the first place. that is what needs to be reformed about the current system.
things like file previews are currently patentable, and it's within the patent holder's rights to sue. whether you think it's contrary to the intent of the system or not, it's how the system works. right now the USPTO is wasting millions of dollars of tax payers' money each year by granting patents on trivial/obvious software features, which inevitably leads to frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls--who often win.
just look at the case between Creative and Apple regarding file menus. the only thing that's different this time is that the defendants have much more legal muscle than the claimant (which is a separate problem with the legal system). so even if Cygnus loses this suit, that doesn't mean that when a corporate juggernaut like Apple/Microsoft file similar claims of patent infringement that they will lose.
what does perpetual motion have to do with it? here in Southern California the monthly gas bill is around $12-30 per month (closer to $30 in the winter when the heater is on) for a 2-bedroom apartment. and according Google 40 NIS is $10.44932 USD. so it's really not all that revolutionary in terms of cost.
i'm not say that this technology can't be vaporware, but i don't see any "perpetual motion"-type pseudoscience indicated by the article. though, i do think if that he wants to help people he should make the ingredients public. if no one knows how to recreate this technology, then how is anyone supposed to use it or benefit from it?
well, i also watched the Sci-Fi series The Lost Room and thought it was pretty good for a TV mini-series, but that doesn't put it at the same quality as a feature film.
i'm not saying all TV series are bad; but, generally speaking, films get more funding and have higher production values--yes, even compared to HBO and BBC shows (which i agree are superb). also, if you're referring to Space Odyssey: The Robot Pioneers/Voyage to the Planets(2004), they are more accurately labeled as a documentary or docu-drama than a true serial/drama. and while docu-dramas like Space Odyssey and Walking with Dinosaurs are excellent, they're still not quite on the same level as, say, IMAX feature films like Deep Sea 3D or Roving Mars (i watched both of those on DVD, so it's not just the IMAX screen).
OTOH, sitcoms like The Office and animated series like Aqua Teen Hunger Force--each episode of which is only ~11 min.--are a perfect fit for TV broadcast. that's because production values aren't that important in comedies, and animated series are relatively cheap to make these days. it also doesn't take half a decade to write a decent comedy story, whereas serious (fiction/non-documental) dramas are more difficult to write in a short period of time, since they tend to be more plot-based and demand greater literary ability to write.
to break it down further, a 2-hour feature film costs on average ~$102.9 million to make, meaning that the average mainstream film gets about a $50 million budget for each hour of content shot. compare that with a TV series, which generally gets about $1 (sitcom) to $1.5 (drama) million per episode.
i know replying to yourself is bad form, but i forgot to link to this video of Bruce Perens talking about how he got started with Linux & FOSS (he once worked at Pixar) and why he continues to be involved. i think the video provides some great insight into the kind of person Bruce is and the mentality a lot of FOSS authors/contributors share.
sure thing: http://slashdot.org/my/logout
so choosing to be uninformed is your solution?
avoiding propaganda by being completely ignorant about the world around you might work if you move to a remote area in the woods/mountains, becoming a hermit/recluse and never speak or listen to anyone ever again. but anyone with some degree of social contact with other people will inevitably be influenced and socialized with the dominant world view of their cultural environment.
the solution isn't voluntary ignorance, which is not only detrimental but also quite dangerous (it increases one's likelihood of being manipulated into embracing dangerous ideologies, since they have no other reference points to assess the ideology with). on the other hand, by taking a more proactive approach and seeking out knowledge for yourself (rather than passively absorbing whatever hegemonic influences surround you), you can account for inherent biases by reading a diverse variety of news sources, ranging from the domestic mainstream media to international and/or independent news sources. thus, by exposing yourself to a wide range of perspectives and opinions, you can consciously assess/analyze/filter the information you consume and make up your own mind.
it also helps to understand sociology, history, logic, philosophy, psychology, etc., which of course doesn't happen if you bury your head in the sand.
Bruce Perens was well-known in the open source community as the project leader of Debian and for founding the Open Source Initiative (and creating the Open Source Definition) long before his 2-year stint at HP.
and i don't recall Perens or any other open source leader ever claiming that Linux was a 'sure thing.' though pretty much every major system vendor (HP, Lenovo, IBM, Dell, Apple, etc.) today has a Linux division or is involved with FOSS in some way--a situation which Perens has played no small part in creating.
except that Arrested Development only had 2 complete seasons. it was canceled during the middle of the 3rd season--hence, "after" only 2 seasons.
and as i stated, i was giving my personal opinion. you might find American Idol 'absolutely worth watching' for all i care. that doesn't mean it's a quality programming.
take part in Christian-American culture? hah, that's a good one...
or maybe it's all the Christians (including those non-American 'copycats') who are lying to themselves, pretending they're not celebrating a pagan holiday (a Roman festival mixed with elements of Yule-tide) and practicing a syncretic religion based primarily on Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and Mystery cults, with its mythology heavily borrowed from pre-Judeo-Christian cultures like the Sumerians/Babylonians, ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, etc.
of course, what American Christians celebrate today (including the image of Santa Claus popularized by Coca-Cola) has more to do consumerism than any religious tradition. so, basically, if you think Christmas is about Christianity, and that Christianity is about Christianity, then you're living a lie within a lie.
from those photos it doesn't seem like it's that badly damaged. you know, if you went back with some duct-tape and superglue...
but seriously, a magnesium chassis you say? why don't you take it out to the desert and set it on fire like people used to do with old magnesium Volkswagen engines.
you don't need to. you can always make as many sequels as you need. just look at LotR.
as i understand it, Watchmen consists of only 12 standard comic books. and the hardcover release is listed on Amazon as having only 436 pages. it's not inconceivable that they could adapt the comic into a trilogy or quadrilogy/tetralogy. an adaptation doesn't have to be a word-for-word screen translation of the original work. otherwise, how would you ever adapt a comic book series like Ghost in the Shell, which spans across 3 volumes and totaling 834 pages? or how about Akira, which spans 6 volumes, each of which being anywhere from 288 pages to 440 pages?
full-length films generally have higher production values than TV series. you just don't get the same budget or writing & acting quality on TV. frankly, a well-produced film adaptation stands a much better chance of being good (and doing justice to its source material) than a TV series.
personally, i don't even think there's anything worth watching on TV outside of documentary shows (Horizon, Air Crash Investigations, Seconds to Disaster, Nova, Mythbusters, etc.). comedy is about the only fiction genre with decent quality programming on TV, and most of those are animated series like Futurama, American Dad, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, South Park, etc. the last truly great non-animated TV series i saw was Arrested Development, but that canceled after only 2 seasons.
i guess it all depends on how resilient VHS is as a storage medium. the format has been used for over three decades. billions of VHS cassettes have been manufactured and sold. there have been millions of video titles released to VHS only. many documentaries, cult films, instructional videos, etc. were never re-released on DVD.
i imagine it will take quite a while for all those VHS titles to be ripped/converted to digital format before they're lost forever. we'll probably continue to see new VHS-rips popping up on BitTorrent sites for another decade or so if the cassettes themselves hold out for that long.
so should TV commercials have been patented because before TV was invented "advertising on TV" was a very radical concept?
Amazon didn't invent e-commerce. they only popularized it. and even if they had been the first to implement one-click check out, it's still not a patentable non-trivial/obvious invention.
if businesses are allowed to patent trivial features like saving a customer's credit card information, then you risk destroying the software development industry. within a few years any software development firm would have to license 99% of all of their products' features because everything from autosave to file menus would have been "pretty unbelievable" at some point in time.
why must they draw obvious parallels between 'amateur genetic engineers' and 'amateur software developers' & 'amateur computer engineers'?
the article also doesn't claim that every garage-based startup is going to be wildly successful. they're merely pointing out that we're now in an age where genetic engineering can be performed by amateurs in their garage, which means a lot more people are going to delve into the field of biotechnology.
according to hitwise blog traffic comprises only 1.19% of all internet traffic in the UK, and the percentage for the US may be even lower since the market share of blog sites is 1.09% in the UK and 0.73% in the US.
so, saying "blogs = the internet" is not very accurate. monitoring blog sites would be far easier than trying to monitor the 6.2 billion overseas phone calls Americans make each year. unlike the voice data from phone calls, it's far easier to sift through the text data that constitutes most blog traffic. blogs are specifically designed to be easily monitored for updates with technologies like web feeds (RSS & Atom) which allow for easy syndication by encoding semantic information into the serialized data.
additionally, a very robust searching/indexing infrastructure is already in place on the web. there are even blog-specific search engines like Technorati. blogs are a means of publishing & broadcasting information on the web in an easily searchable format. in contrast, phone calls are a form of private 2-way communication.
true. i don't think any of the mainstream distros are truly "ugly" out of the box, but you have to admit, they don't quite have the same level of polish as OS X or Vista (or even XP in some cases).
i think part of the problem is that FOSS has primarily been a software movement. so while there are a lot of world class programmers contributing to the FOSS movement, there's far less aesthetic/design expertise to go around in the FOSS community.
it's well known that both Apple and Microsoft spend huge amounts of money polishing the look and feel of their operating systems--for instance, recruiting visual interface designers with masters degrees in interactive media design, conducting focus groups to fine-tune the aesthetics and user experience (down to the tone of the language used in system messages), defining an extensive set of human interface guidelines for developers, contracting interactive design firms to create system icons, and even hiring world-famous musicians/composers like Brian Eno to create system sounds, etc.
this kind of attention to detail towards aesthetics just doesn't exist within the Linux development community because the lack of contributors with professional visual arts/design/music backgrounds.