In North Korea's case though, it's not like the citizens have any money that they'd spend on anything via the Internet though.
Personally, I have always thought North Korea would be the one to jump on and promote internet piracy and illegal pornography much like they sell heroin and conterfeit super dollars.
But I don't think they have caught on to that yet... But I wouldn't be suprised if they did.
It would be something that the RIAA nor the US government could get at either.
Pro: You have a lot of high end computers. Con: You've shown how Western society values electronics more than charity/equity.
Stop posting on Slashdot and join the International Youth Core then!
But seriously, buying electronics actually helps these people because it sends jobs to places like India and China. Wheras if the electronics industry did not exist, then they'd be unable to feed themselves and be stuck with living on meager charity handouts.
Don't forget that the entertainment industry is BUILT on selling people the same crap over and over again...
True, but this is because of the habbits of the baby boomers were used to... There was no way for them to copy their vinyl to 8 track and then to CD.
Secondly, there style of music kind of died a while back and since they have no new artists to be on the lookout for so they have incentive to buy that "super enhanced remaster" version of the Beatles for the 32nd time.
Wheras the younger 80s/90s generation was used to buying CDs and then making mix tapes so they could play in their cars and then this whole MP3 things.
Being more ADD the younger generation tends to buy new music and only once because it isn't a big deal anymore like it was in the 60s and 70s... And keep in mind that younger generation person may never listen to that song ever again!
To make matters worse, there have been studies that support the fact that pregnant women stressed by all these gadgets/technology, are more likely to have kids with severe mental or psychotic problems.
To be fair, it is just evolution in action.
All the mental and psychotic kids won't be able to become successful and become utter failures because they can't hold a job... And die off making the world a better place.
Then only children who can adapt to the gadgets will be able to get successful jobs in engineering and science!
But umm... Quick question... Are psychotic people allowed to run for office? Or perhaps have jobs as middle managment?
I'm sure Vista would be easier for anyone who has never used a computer, but just to find something as simple as the Run may aggrivate or at least make the seasoned Windows vetern go on a safari hunt or a quick Google groups search to see how to turn the new interface off for a clasic mode.
The problem people have spent time learning where things are, but when you change them it causes aggrivation of having to relearn it all over again.
Get over the language games and talk about the actual issue.
It is a language game because that is how it is handled in our courts of law!!
If you steal a CD from a store it is a criminal offense and this is tried in a criminal court.
If you copyright infringe a Mp3 you download it is a civil offense and this is tried in a criminal court.
If you go into a civil court an tell the judge "That man stole my song!" the judge will laugh and your lawyer will weep. Why is this so hard to understand?
Laws are 100% about words and interpretation of language.
What the RIAA and others are trying to do is win a war of the words by making society see copyright infringement as akin to eating babies. Its more on the lines of evading taxes... Which by some accounts people see as not evil or evil as going into someone's house and stealing money.
The only people who absolutely know that a video contains copyrighted materials are the copyright owners and in this case they have made the identification, YouTube have removed the content and the world is as it should be.
Not to mention if the copyright owners have or have not released their works to public domain.
Well I'm sure someone put their own music that they had rights to on Napster to share with the world. I suppose the problem was that more people put up files they didn't have right to.
A single anecdote proves nothing; I can attest to three XP machines that I personally use that are perfectly clean and have been for serveral years.
But thats still an anecdote!
Really, if you want to see annecdotal evidence... Talk to the people work at a computer store, an ISP, or do corporate support which have thousands of computers under them.
From what I've seen WinXP with all its latest patches, hardware firewalls, anti-virus, best user behavior, and appropriate permissions will keep it clean.
However, before WinXP SP1... It was less secure than a Win98 box because of DCOM exploits...
Remember the viruses that would infect a brand new WinXP box in less than 10 minutes as soon as you connected it to the internet? Even if the user just logged in and stared at the pretty windows desktop background the entire time?
Suffice to say, back then WinXP was pretty bad for security back in 2001... Which is why people are so concerned about Vista. Most of us who have experience with handling hundreds if not thousands of desktops will wait it out til we have a service pack or two before switching.
True, but... Unless you are running a server or some type of database program, what does the average user do to write the same files over and over again?
If you have a vast image, mpg, and video collection then you aren't over writing the same data over itself but saving once as a new file.
Personally, I'm a pig when it comes to cleaning up files, so I never delete anything.
It is technically feasible to have a 60gb flash iPod... But it would cost $5,000.
However, I think Apple will do away with hard drive iPods slowly. This from last Christmas sease they have gone from 4gb to 8gb and I would suspect they'll have a 16gb version in 2007.
So if this trend continues at its current rate (which we won't know for sure since Samsung could find a way to make more memory cheaper with more factories or it runs into problem getting that much memory into a small form factor) we'll most likley see a 64gb Nano in 2009.
Personally... I'd like a extremely small MacBook with no internal CD-Rom or HDD to cut down on the weight and run everything on flash memory.
This is of course barring large iron metorites or collision with large space bodies and of course a passing of another solor system or galaxy in the meantime.
So if man went away tomorrow... Life would be peachy for nature for a while, but then it would die by itself due to reasons far beyond non-intelligents life control (unless dolphins evolve into space faring creatures on their own)
So nature has to put up with man for a while to we figure out how to get off this rock... Or get used to not being around in a few billion years.
Re:The problem with wireless devices...
on
USB To Go Wireless
·
· Score: 1
They don't put the toothbrush in a hold, but just put it on a outcropping part that leaves the tooth brush freestanding.
I don't see why you couldn't have a doc for your mouse and keyboard like this. Heck... Just make a mouse pad that is a recharging station.
Re:The problem with wireless devices...
on
USB To Go Wireless
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
These two nations don't seem all that different to me.
Given the choice to live in a Secular Fascist nation and a Religious Theocracy... I would choose the Secular Fascist mostly because they tend to be more concerned about keeping power and making themselves wealthy than what I am up to as long as I'm not planning to overthrow them.
Doesn't mean they might get paranoid one night and haul me away to a gulag because my name happened to match someone on a dissenter list, but I don't have to worry about them enforcing crazy beliefs in whatever god they have to appease at the moment and their desire to save my soul... Even if it includes beating me in public and then hanging me from a crane.
So yeah... They are both bad, but forcing someone to follow a religion is an extreme is a whole lot worse than making them fall in line with the governments economic policy.
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. In 50 years, through GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robotics) we won't be dealing with natural evolution.
People would simply use gene therapy to make themselves more attractive or just do away with the human body all together and sit inside a robot like Ghost in the Shell.
Most people see evolutionary trends as something that will be the same tomorrow as it will be in 1,000 years. As technology and the standards of living has shown us, evolution is getting throw out their door for (dare I say it) intelligent design by man himself (no God involved here!)
As the plastic surgery and weight loss industries will tell you... There is a market for changing ones body. Technology advances will only amplify this.
The problem with Second Life is that there is no direction unless you happen to know about something or stuble across it.
From my understanding, there is a Quake like arena in which you can attack each other with weapons and there is a RPG in the works somewhere.
There are some art projects going around with some rather interesting devices and vehicles...
I once stumbled across this user made Japanese Castle that was breathtaking... But from my own personal experience there is no direction unless you know someone else who knows or you read forums or just spend hours exploring... Which most of us don't really have the time to do.
I say, put up or shut up. If you don't like what the RIAA does, if you think labels only offer music that sucks, if DVDs are overpriced or you don't like the "new release-newer release with extras" cycle, don't respond by taking their product on your own terms.
Let me remind you of what the spirit of copyright is according to the US Constitution
An author's exclusive right to his creation is mandated in the US Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, also known as the Intellectual Property Clause, which also gives Congress the power to enact statutes: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
I'm all for copyright and paying Authors and creators their due, but DRM violates the spirit of copyright because it has no time limitation.
If DRM expired in Author's life span + 99 years then I'm ok with it, but it technologically impossible. Therefore it violates the principal of public domain and the constitutions authors goal of seeing that authors get their due, but society and culture benefit from their works.
When you throw DRM into the equation it removes this part of the bargain. If someone violates your intellectual property... Then take them to court in accordance to the law. DRM simply takes the law and culture into their own hands and give nothing back to society.
This is the real problem with DRM.
All we can do now is hope our ancestors can legally and have the technical means to remove copyrights in a century or two with public domain works.
On a side note, DRM also restricts independent artists and authors who are locked out of certain medium devices without being having their material approved by some central source. Luckily, most devices today still allow content creation using non-signed material.
Otherwise, we'd have centralized groups telling who is going to get their DRM certificate and who is denied based on if their content is approved or not.
I own a small record label myself (see my link). Personally, I found it amusing that one of our bands actually made it on Piratebay. Heck... We are getting free publicity.
We are putting together a MP3 website to sell songs through PayPal just because otherwise we'd hav eto deal with Apple's DRM and most of don't like the idea of giving Newscorporation any money through Myspace.
Maybe I'm taking you too literally here, but remember that no fuel cell system aimed at the mass market take pure hydrogen as an input, mainly because of it's inherent danger (think Hindenburg).
Gasoline is more dangerous than hydrogen gas due to fact when gasoline spills it doesn't evaporate as fast as hydrogen.
Slashdot Mirror
In North Korea's case though, it's not like the citizens have any money that they'd spend on anything via the Internet though.
Personally, I have always thought North Korea would be the one to jump on and promote internet piracy and illegal pornography much like they sell heroin and conterfeit super dollars.
But I don't think they have caught on to that yet... But I wouldn't be suprised if they did.
It would be something that the RIAA nor the US government could get at either.
Pro: You have a lot of high end computers.
Con: You've shown how Western society values electronics more than charity/equity.
Stop posting on Slashdot and join the International Youth Core then!
But seriously, buying electronics actually helps these people because it sends jobs to places like India and China. Wheras if the electronics industry did not exist, then they'd be unable to feed themselves and be stuck with living on meager charity handouts.
Where do you meet people who want to trade music anyway!?
Used to be the used Record Store.
Of course they threw me out for trading CDRs of Spice Girls.
To be fair, it wasn't the fact I was selling CDRs that got me barred.
Don't forget that the entertainment industry is BUILT on selling people the same crap over and over again...
True, but this is because of the habbits of the baby boomers were used to... There was no way for them to copy their vinyl to 8 track and then to CD.
Secondly, there style of music kind of died a while back and since they have no new artists to be on the lookout for so they have incentive to buy that "super enhanced remaster" version of the Beatles for the 32nd time.
Wheras the younger 80s/90s generation was used to buying CDs and then making mix tapes so they could play in their cars and then this whole MP3 things.
Being more ADD the younger generation tends to buy new music and only once because it isn't a big deal anymore like it was in the 60s and 70s... And keep in mind that younger generation person may never listen to that song ever again!
Not that I listen to Spice Girls anymore...
To make matters worse, there have been studies that support the fact that pregnant women stressed by all these gadgets/technology, are more likely to have kids with severe mental or psychotic problems.
To be fair, it is just evolution in action.
All the mental and psychotic kids won't be able to become successful and become utter failures because they can't hold a job... And die off making the world a better place.
Then only children who can adapt to the gadgets will be able to get successful jobs in engineering and science!
But umm... Quick question... Are psychotic people allowed to run for office? Or perhaps have jobs as middle managment?
Hrmm... I think I see a flaw in this plan.
I'm sure Vista would be easier for anyone who has never used a computer, but just to find something as simple as the Run may aggrivate or at least make the seasoned Windows vetern go on a safari hunt or a quick Google groups search to see how to turn the new interface off for a clasic mode.
The problem people have spent time learning where things are, but when you change them it causes aggrivation of having to relearn it all over again.
Get over the language games and talk about the actual issue.
It is a language game because that is how it is handled in our courts of law!!
If you steal a CD from a store it is a criminal offense and this is tried in a criminal court.
If you copyright infringe a Mp3 you download it is a civil offense and this is tried in a criminal court.
If you go into a civil court an tell the judge "That man stole my song!" the judge will laugh and your lawyer will weep. Why is this so hard to understand?
Laws are 100% about words and interpretation of language.
What the RIAA and others are trying to do is win a war of the words by making society see copyright infringement as akin to eating babies. Its more on the lines of evading taxes... Which by some accounts people see as not evil or evil as going into someone's house and stealing money.
We'd have better luck if we just banded together and formed a Non-Profit organization that sole purpose was to award prizes to robotic contents.
If everyone that reads Slashdot donated $10 to this organization, they'd have a great deal of money to award people.
The only people who absolutely know that a video contains copyrighted materials are the copyright owners and in this case they have made the identification, YouTube have removed the content and the world is as it should be.
Not to mention if the copyright owners have or have not released their works to public domain.
In what bizarro universe did this happen?
Well I'm sure someone put their own music that they had rights to on Napster to share with the world. I suppose the problem was that more people put up files they didn't have right to.
A single anecdote proves nothing; I can attest to three XP machines that I personally use that are perfectly clean and have been for serveral years.
But thats still an anecdote!
Really, if you want to see annecdotal evidence... Talk to the people work at a computer store, an ISP, or do corporate support which have thousands of computers under them.
From what I've seen WinXP with all its latest patches, hardware firewalls, anti-virus, best user behavior, and appropriate permissions will keep it clean.
However, before WinXP SP1... It was less secure than a Win98 box because of DCOM exploits...
Remember the viruses that would infect a brand new WinXP box in less than 10 minutes as soon as you connected it to the internet? Even if the user just logged in and stared at the pretty windows desktop background the entire time?
Suffice to say, back then WinXP was pretty bad for security back in 2001... Which is why people are so concerned about Vista. Most of us who have experience with handling hundreds if not thousands of desktops will wait it out til we have a service pack or two before switching.
True, but... Unless you are running a server or some type of database program, what does the average user do to write the same files over and over again?
If you have a vast image, mpg, and video collection then you aren't over writing the same data over itself but saving once as a new file.
Personally, I'm a pig when it comes to cleaning up files, so I never delete anything.
It is technically feasible to have a 60gb flash iPod... But it would cost $5,000.
However, I think Apple will do away with hard drive iPods slowly. This from last Christmas sease they have gone from 4gb to 8gb and I would suspect they'll have a 16gb version in 2007.
So if this trend continues at its current rate (which we won't know for sure since Samsung could find a way to make more memory cheaper with more factories or it runs into problem getting that much memory into a small form factor) we'll most likley see a 64gb Nano in 2009.
Personally... I'd like a extremely small MacBook with no internal CD-Rom or HDD to cut down on the weight and run everything on flash memory.
Just have your friendly GM go into the MMOG and magically make Gold just for the government.
Might be a problem with inflation if those IRS agents decide to buy mounts.
In 1.5 billion years the sun will start to grow into a red giant and solar winds winds will strip the Earth of its atmosphere.
Then in about 5 billion years after that, the sun will have consumed the Earth and whatever life remains on it.
(Source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sun_Life.png
This is of course barring large iron metorites or collision with large space bodies and of course a passing of another solor system or galaxy in the meantime.
So if man went away tomorrow... Life would be peachy for nature for a while, but then it would die by itself due to reasons far beyond non-intelligents life control (unless dolphins evolve into space faring creatures on their own)
So nature has to put up with man for a while to we figure out how to get off this rock... Or get used to not being around in a few billion years.
They don't put the toothbrush in a hold, but just put it on a outcropping part that leaves the tooth brush freestanding.
I don't see why you couldn't have a doc for your mouse and keyboard like this. Heck... Just make a mouse pad that is a recharging station.
4. Power
*coughs*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power
And
http://www.splashpower.com/
There used to be a cool Wireless transfer microwave kit on ThinkGeek.com but I can't find it anymore...
My room mate has one of those tooth brushes that charges wirelessly which it pretty cool.
These two nations don't seem all that different to me.
Given the choice to live in a Secular Fascist nation and a Religious Theocracy... I would choose the Secular Fascist mostly because they tend to be more concerned about keeping power and making themselves wealthy than what I am up to as long as I'm not planning to overthrow them.
Doesn't mean they might get paranoid one night and haul me away to a gulag because my name happened to match someone on a dissenter list, but I don't have to worry about them enforcing crazy beliefs in whatever god they have to appease at the moment and their desire to save my soul... Even if it includes beating me in public and then hanging me from a crane.
So yeah... They are both bad, but forcing someone to follow a religion is an extreme is a whole lot worse than making them fall in line with the governments economic policy.
Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. In 50 years, through GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robotics) we won't be dealing with natural evolution.
People would simply use gene therapy to make themselves more attractive or just do away with the human body all together and sit inside a robot like Ghost in the Shell.
Most people see evolutionary trends as something that will be the same tomorrow as it will be in 1,000 years. As technology and the standards of living has shown us, evolution is getting throw out their door for (dare I say it) intelligent design by man himself (no God involved here!)
As the plastic surgery and weight loss industries will tell you... There is a market for changing ones body. Technology advances will only amplify this.
What am I missing?
The problem with Second Life is that there is no direction unless you happen to know about something or stuble across it.
From my understanding, there is a Quake like arena in which you can attack each other with weapons and there is a RPG in the works somewhere.
There are some art projects going around with some rather interesting devices and vehicles...
I once stumbled across this user made Japanese Castle that was breathtaking... But from my own personal experience there is no direction unless you know someone else who knows or you read forums or just spend hours exploring... Which most of us don't really have the time to do.
I'm sorry, but only very ignorant people use PayPal.
Eh... If you say so. Most of our foreign T-Shirt orders are paid with pay pal, but to be fair we plan on offering payment by Visa and Google Cash.
Let me remind you of what the spirit of copyright is according to the US Constitution
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
I'm all for copyright and paying Authors and creators their due, but DRM violates the spirit of copyright because it has no time limitation.
If DRM expired in Author's life span + 99 years then I'm ok with it, but it technologically impossible. Therefore it violates the principal of public domain and the constitutions authors goal of seeing that authors get their due, but society and culture benefit from their works.
When you throw DRM into the equation it removes this part of the bargain. If someone violates your intellectual property... Then take them to court in accordance to the law. DRM simply takes the law and culture into their own hands and give nothing back to society.
This is the real problem with DRM.
All we can do now is hope our ancestors can legally and have the technical means to remove copyrights in a century or two with public domain works.
On a side note, DRM also restricts independent artists and authors who are locked out of certain medium devices without being having their material approved by some central source. Luckily, most devices today still allow content creation using non-signed material.
Otherwise, we'd have centralized groups telling who is going to get their DRM certificate and who is denied based on if their content is approved or not.
I own a small record label myself (see my link). Personally, I found it amusing that one of our bands actually made it on Piratebay. Heck... We are getting free publicity.
We are putting together a MP3 website to sell songs through PayPal just because otherwise we'd hav eto deal with Apple's DRM and most of don't like the idea of giving Newscorporation any money through Myspace.
One thing I would like to know is: How the hell are you going to support all those people when the oil runs out?
Soylent Green Bio-diesel?
Maybe I'm taking you too literally here, but remember that no fuel cell system aimed at the mass market take pure hydrogen as an input, mainly because of it's inherent danger (think Hindenburg).
Gasoline is more dangerous than hydrogen gas due to fact when gasoline spills it doesn't evaporate as fast as hydrogen.