The unfortunate part of this review is that they don't seem to do actual tests on specs themselves. They reported that the Eee PC has a processor clocked at 900 Mhz. This is a lie. The Eee PC does have a 900 Mhz Process; but, the FSB has been clocked down to 70 Mhz. This puts the processor at 630 Mhz. The system has been specially configured to misreport the clock speed. This is well known on the forums at "www.eeeuser.com". Also, the wireless connectivity is poor. The system also misreports percentages. This is most easily tested using Linux. Often the Eee PC reports 100% while other distributions will report about 70% or so. It's rather unfortunate that Asus took this step. Personally, I love my Eee PC. Though, it could really sue some modding. Also, it's troublesome that Asus was so deceitful with their tactics. The original wasn't even completely open-source. A lot of the ACPI had to be implemented through trial and error and some reverse engineering. I think there are still one or two features left to implement on even the most well-developed distributions for it. Though, I'm too lazy to go double-check this. : ) Also the original kernel was compiled to not allow more than 1 gig of RAM to be seen. This is easily fixed with a recompile. Again, it's rather unfortunate that Asus prefers to view this as an appliance rather than a laptop.
Or, perhaps airplanes? Seriously, imagine being able to transport goods and people for next to nothing. Shipping costs would go down. Flight costs would go down. The world of e-commerce would become very popular. Trains would be capable of traveling faster and for a cheaper cost. There's so much that could be done with this. Although, nuclear submarines might be a different story. What of the breeder reactor?
Your first paragraph speaks quite loudly. I had forgotten about the other products. T-shirts are a good one. Also, I've purchased CDs at concerts just to have the artist sign it. A good example of this was when I was at the Texas Renaissance Festival. There is a band consisting of one member who plays a carillon. The show was free. He played five or six songs, if I recall properly. It was such an amazing experience that I used what remaining cash I had on hand to purchase two of his albums. Of course, I got him to sign both. I've also seen his CDs in the houses of other people. For the record, his band was named Cast In Bronze. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have good stories about free music that caused them to purchase something that directly supported the artist.
Also, I rather agree with your idea as to how copyright was originally implemented. It's difficult to profit off of something that is reproducible. At least, it used to be. Copyright law exists to allow artists and creators an amount of time to profit off of their work. This is strange, though. Few researchers continue profiting off of their work throughout their lifetimes. One could argue that researching is an art, though. I might be biased in this regard; but, it seems unfair for one party to be able to continuously profit off of work that they've done once while another party must continue working through their life in order to continue profiting. Don't get me wrong. I understand the idea of investing and profiting off of an investment. Though, one could hardly consider producing art to be an investment. Art is not something that is to be managed. It is something to be distributed. Therein lies the key difference.
An example that might stretch too far for most involves feudal Japan. The Japanese used to view the merchant class as the lowest class in their caste system. The reason being because they profited off of the work of others while doing very little work themselves. This can extend to today's modern band. Certainly, writing songs is difficult. So is learning to play them well. That's not what this is getting at, though. The act of recording an album and profiting off of it for hundreds of thousands of dollars is what I think is wrong. I can't say that I'm capable of respecting any band for profiting off of that. I will, on the other hand, respect them for doing concerts and selling merchandise. They're being paid for tangible products and providing a service. Though, when one purchases an album, they're only purchasing the physical medium coupled with the right to listen to the songs on the album. They've never actually purchased the music.
I second this proposition. Some people would say that I'm crazy for believing that copyright, in its current form, is hurting society. I say that they're crazy for realizing that supply and demand doesn't affect digital media. Supply is infinite. The prices should then be set accordingly, right? Wrong, We're starting to approach an information overload. The amount of media that exists is growing too quickly for the market to adjust accordingly. Why are we still required to pay fifteen dollars for a CD? The actual product is not worth that much. Do I even need to mention the fact that most CDs have a small collection of good songs on them? It's not the consumer that sets the prices when it comes to copyrighted materials, it's the companies. We currently have two majors oligopolies in this country. The members of the RIAA and the MPAA are what form these. The (please pardon this term) mafiaa are controlling and setting prices in such a way that is detrimental to the circulation of media. It should also be mentioned that very few artists will suffer in the slightest from a situation in which music is freely distributable . I suspect that many artists would benefit from it. Especially the lesser known artists. Has anyone forgotten about concerts? These people are performers. What do performers do best besides, well, perform? I will admit that there are some artists who create in such a manner as to disallow for performances. These would be the only ones I can think of that would be damaged at all by this. Although, these ones could still find jobs in other areas. For instance, making music for various companies that require music for a particular reason. Or perhaps allow the music to be freely downloadable from an ad-based site? Even so, it would help more artists than it would hurt, in the end. Then again, who am I to know these things? It's everyone else that has to see the world like this. So, someone give me a damn good argument. : )
You obviously seemed to miss the general size of Texas. Ever been to Houston? Religion isn't quite as prominent in many regions of Texas as many would like to believe. : ) I know you're joking; but, us Texans have pride. Please try to keep the misconceptions to a minimum.
I'd argue that the DS has plenty of good homebrew as well. : ) Not to mention many other portable devices out there. PDAs are a good start. I'm sure price is a big part of all of this; yet, you pay a little more for a little more flexibility. The DS makes a really nifty devices, what with the touch-screen. Should I bring up some Nokia products as well?
Why not just use GRUB? Who needs that proprietary Bootcamp crap? It's a fancy name for a bootloader. Apple seems to be feeding the general market something old and they think it's something new. Only Apple seems to have the marketing capabilities to make ancient technologies sound amazing and shiny. Then again, I might be bitter from hearing people say "But, you can install Windows on it!". I simply reply to them that they're paying too much for hardware.
Amen! I was running a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB before purchasing my Geforce 7600 GS 512 MB. The Radeon gave me nothing but trouble under Ubuntu! I managed to get it to work for a short while; but, it messed up Compiz Fusion and once I got Compiz Fusion to work, I lost the ability to render OpenGL. Now, I can't even render OpenGL with my new card under that installation. I'm running off of a 20 GB harddrive now and the card works flawlessly. : ) Let's just hope that nVidia will open up their specs, too.
Hmm, I never thought about it like that. Your post certainly holds a lot of value. I'd like to thank you for the insight. : ) You deserve that +5 Informative.
Your idea of "instantly" is confusing. Albeit, physics makes for an amazing computer; the problem lies in constructing the algorithm. Take, for example. a bunch of beads sitting on a counter. Each of these beads is connect by many strings of various lengths. Treat each bead as a waypoint and each string as the length between each waypoint. If I were to take two random beads and pull on them until one of the series of strings became taught, the first set to become taught is automatically the shortest path. Of course, it's best to assume that each string lacks the ability to produce resistance and is infinitesimally small. This system can scale to an infinite number of dimensions and can also allow for the idea of wormholes. It completely lacks a coordinate system as it doesn't need one. Essentially, it's a perfect waypoint-based pathfinding algorithm. The problem is, though, one has to reconstruct it each time. To reclarify my point, physics makes a stupendously efficient computer; but, lacks the programmability of logic-based circuitry.
You can patent a process on how to build an engine and then go on to publish a copyrighted work that thoroughly describes how to build the engine. I fail to see any validity in your argument.
This seems to be an interesting concept. It appears that this is a question of relativity. Certainly you're not damaging the economy; but, if you're not doing what you can to help it, you might as well be damaging it. Progress is what keeps things flowing; why would you want to stop that?
Slashdot Mirror
The unfortunate part of this review is that they don't seem to do actual tests on specs themselves. They reported that the Eee PC has a processor clocked at 900 Mhz. This is a lie. The Eee PC does have a 900 Mhz Process; but, the FSB has been clocked down to 70 Mhz. This puts the processor at 630 Mhz. The system has been specially configured to misreport the clock speed. This is well known on the forums at "www.eeeuser.com". Also, the wireless connectivity is poor. The system also misreports percentages. This is most easily tested using Linux. Often the Eee PC reports 100% while other distributions will report about 70% or so. It's rather unfortunate that Asus took this step. Personally, I love my Eee PC. Though, it could really sue some modding. Also, it's troublesome that Asus was so deceitful with their tactics. The original wasn't even completely open-source. A lot of the ACPI had to be implemented through trial and error and some reverse engineering. I think there are still one or two features left to implement on even the most well-developed distributions for it. Though, I'm too lazy to go double-check this. : ) Also the original kernel was compiled to not allow more than 1 gig of RAM to be seen. This is easily fixed with a recompile. Again, it's rather unfortunate that Asus prefers to view this as an appliance rather than a laptop.
Is it me, or does "Microsoft Works" immediately sound like an oxymoron? I'm just going to blame the sleep deprivation.
Or, perhaps airplanes? Seriously, imagine being able to transport goods and people for next to nothing. Shipping costs would go down. Flight costs would go down. The world of e-commerce would become very popular. Trains would be capable of traveling faster and for a cheaper cost. There's so much that could be done with this. Although, nuclear submarines might be a different story. What of the breeder reactor?
You're a philosophy major, aren't you?
By reading your message and noticing that you misspelled "yahtknA", I think I violated the DMCA. : ( And now there's a knock at the door...
If they were very attractive and female, yes! : ) Well, even if they weren't, it would still be very amusing.
Speak for yourself. The more kinky Brits I have around, the happier I'll be!
You better be careful. Don't want anyone to bring up Godwin's Law. Oh... wait...
Your first paragraph speaks quite loudly. I had forgotten about the other products. T-shirts are a good one. Also, I've purchased CDs at concerts just to have the artist sign it. A good example of this was when I was at the Texas Renaissance Festival. There is a band consisting of one member who plays a carillon. The show was free. He played five or six songs, if I recall properly. It was such an amazing experience that I used what remaining cash I had on hand to purchase two of his albums. Of course, I got him to sign both. I've also seen his CDs in the houses of other people. For the record, his band was named Cast In Bronze. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who have good stories about free music that caused them to purchase something that directly supported the artist.
Also, I rather agree with your idea as to how copyright was originally implemented. It's difficult to profit off of something that is reproducible. At least, it used to be. Copyright law exists to allow artists and creators an amount of time to profit off of their work. This is strange, though. Few researchers continue profiting off of their work throughout their lifetimes. One could argue that researching is an art, though. I might be biased in this regard; but, it seems unfair for one party to be able to continuously profit off of work that they've done once while another party must continue working through their life in order to continue profiting. Don't get me wrong. I understand the idea of investing and profiting off of an investment. Though, one could hardly consider producing art to be an investment. Art is not something that is to be managed. It is something to be distributed. Therein lies the key difference.
An example that might stretch too far for most involves feudal Japan. The Japanese used to view the merchant class as the lowest class in their caste system. The reason being because they profited off of the work of others while doing very little work themselves. This can extend to today's modern band. Certainly, writing songs is difficult. So is learning to play them well. That's not what this is getting at, though. The act of recording an album and profiting off of it for hundreds of thousands of dollars is what I think is wrong. I can't say that I'm capable of respecting any band for profiting off of that. I will, on the other hand, respect them for doing concerts and selling merchandise. They're being paid for tangible products and providing a service. Though, when one purchases an album, they're only purchasing the physical medium coupled with the right to listen to the songs on the album. They've never actually purchased the music.
I second this proposition. Some people would say that I'm crazy for believing that copyright, in its current form, is hurting society. I say that they're crazy for realizing that supply and demand doesn't affect digital media. Supply is infinite. The prices should then be set accordingly, right? Wrong, We're starting to approach an information overload. The amount of media that exists is growing too quickly for the market to adjust accordingly. Why are we still required to pay fifteen dollars for a CD? The actual product is not worth that much. Do I even need to mention the fact that most CDs have a small collection of good songs on them? It's not the consumer that sets the prices when it comes to copyrighted materials, it's the companies.
We currently have two majors oligopolies in this country. The members of the RIAA and the MPAA are what form these. The (please pardon this term) mafiaa are controlling and setting prices in such a way that is detrimental to the circulation of media.
It should also be mentioned that very few artists will suffer in the slightest from a situation in which music is freely distributable . I suspect that many artists would benefit from it. Especially the lesser known artists. Has anyone forgotten about concerts? These people are performers. What do performers do best besides, well, perform? I will admit that there are some artists who create in such a manner as to disallow for performances. These would be the only ones I can think of that would be damaged at all by this. Although, these ones could still find jobs in other areas. For instance, making music for various companies that require music for a particular reason. Or perhaps allow the music to be freely downloadable from an ad-based site? Even so, it would help more artists than it would hurt, in the end.
Then again, who am I to know these things? It's everyone else that has to see the world like this. So, someone give me a damn good argument. : )
I'd like the crowd to know that I'm just singin' and dancin' in the rain. : )
You obviously seemed to miss the general size of Texas. Ever been to Houston? Religion isn't quite as prominent in many regions of Texas as many would like to believe. : ) I know you're joking; but, us Texans have pride. Please try to keep the misconceptions to a minimum.
I'm running Final Fantasy 3 on my DS and I'm not noticing an increase in quality. Maybe I should wait for Final Fantasy 7?
I'd argue that the DS has plenty of good homebrew as well. : ) Not to mention many other portable devices out there. PDAs are a good start. I'm sure price is a big part of all of this; yet, you pay a little more for a little more flexibility. The DS makes a really nifty devices, what with the touch-screen. Should I bring up some Nokia products as well?
I fail to see how this isn't, to quote Microsoft, business as usual. :P I 3 Slashdot.
Why not just use GRUB? Who needs that proprietary Bootcamp crap? It's a fancy name for a bootloader. Apple seems to be feeding the general market something old and they think it's something new. Only Apple seems to have the marketing capabilities to make ancient technologies sound amazing and shiny. Then again, I might be bitter from hearing people say "But, you can install Windows on it!". I simply reply to them that they're paying too much for hardware.
But the Superstring Theory hasn't even been proven yet!
Amen! I was running a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB before purchasing my Geforce 7600 GS 512 MB. The Radeon gave me nothing but trouble under Ubuntu! I managed to get it to work for a short while; but, it messed up Compiz Fusion and once I got Compiz Fusion to work, I lost the ability to render OpenGL. Now, I can't even render OpenGL with my new card under that installation. I'm running off of a 20 GB harddrive now and the card works flawlessly. : ) Let's just hope that nVidia will open up their specs, too.
Yeah? Well, I read Slashdot for the articles.
Hmm, I never thought about it like that. Your post certainly holds a lot of value. I'd like to thank you for the insight. : ) You deserve that +5 Informative.
I'm merely pointing out that using electricity traveling down a path is a poor idea for a computer as it lacks decent programmability. : )
Your idea of "instantly" is confusing. Albeit, physics makes for an amazing computer; the problem lies in constructing the algorithm. Take, for example. a bunch of beads sitting on a counter. Each of these beads is connect by many strings of various lengths. Treat each bead as a waypoint and each string as the length between each waypoint. If I were to take two random beads and pull on them until one of the series of strings became taught, the first set to become taught is automatically the shortest path. Of course, it's best to assume that each string lacks the ability to produce resistance and is infinitesimally small. This system can scale to an infinite number of dimensions and can also allow for the idea of wormholes. It completely lacks a coordinate system as it doesn't need one. Essentially, it's a perfect waypoint-based pathfinding algorithm. The problem is, though, one has to reconstruct it each time. To reclarify my point, physics makes a stupendously efficient computer; but, lacks the programmability of logic-based circuitry.
If there was a pun of the year award I think you'd win. : ) Bravo, good sir!
You can patent a process on how to build an engine and then go on to publish a copyrighted work that thoroughly describes how to build the engine. I fail to see any validity in your argument.
This seems to be an interesting concept. It appears that this is a question of relativity. Certainly you're not damaging the economy; but, if you're not doing what you can to help it, you might as well be damaging it. Progress is what keeps things flowing; why would you want to stop that?