the quantum issues only come into play as you approach the size limit of the semi-conductor material. At 90nm its not a problem and I don't see them suggesting smaller die sizes, just stacking for shorter relays. This would effectively push the current tech to its limit. Its a creative way to wring the last possible gasp of performance out of good ole silicon.
Industrial designers are like Architects: they design something idiotic, then let an Engineer figure out how to make it work in a useful way.
whoa whoa whoa buddy. Back up a bit. Not to get defensive here, but this is a totally falacious statement. Its regrettable that the current high profile architects are to some extent rediculous devotees to the "big blob" school of arch, but I assure you thats not how we operate on the whole. Architects, like all designers, are trained to identify a need and conceptualize and useful way to fill that void. (look instead at MVRDV, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, or Diller Scoffidio and Renfro)
This keyboard fills a void magnificently well and throws in the kind of visual verve that makes people pay attention. In fact, like many great designs, it fills a void we didn't really think of as a void until we saw it. This will be the ipod of keyboards when it comes out at that just-expensive-enough pricepoint.
Engineers "make is work in a useful way" because thats their job. Thats what engineers do. They take a problem and attack it analytically. They break it down into do-able pieces and then build it back up. Without the designer thinking creatively from the top-down and the engineer coming at it analytically from the bottom up things like ipods and nikes and ray-bans and ferraris and optimus keyboards would not be possible.
Leave it to the engineer and you get beige box, suburban office park, opressively uniform ugliness (but its cheap). Leave it to the architect/designer and you get uncomfortable "modern" furniture, difficult to use products, wacky, not-in-my-backyard buildings whose maintenance costs are through the roof.
Cooperate and beautiful things emerge (google maps!).
I guess for me it boils down to how much is added by the "new" artist's work. Some of the re-mixes I've heard come pretty darned close to ripoffs.
Where do you draw the line though? What you are describing as a rip-off would probably be more accurately described a "cover" but still, when is it an artist riffing on a song to put their own creative stamp on it and when is it coyly alluding to the themes in another work? The line may not be very distinct.
Also people often use the example of classical artists borrowing themes as an homage to a respected musician. This is an outdated analogy. Modern culture places a huge premium (perhaps too large)on originality, or at least feigning originality. Every other song on the radio sounds like exactly the same post-post-grunge/hardcore bullshit but if you ask any of the artists they all think they are being fiercly independant ond original even when they are just parroting each other.
My point is, I have not yet seen any evidence of a "remix culture." There have been techno remixes of songs like magic carpet ride forever (that particular song came out like five years ago) and there have been punk covers of songs for ages as well, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes being particularly guilty of heighnous crimes agains classic songs. But I don't see anyone using other peoples' work to forge creative new art.
Can I get some examples? Does anyone know of a solid band who does this? Am I being overly simplistic/missing something?
The fact that his computer probably took advantage of the signal by default, that he did not elect to use that signal, the computer just finds it does all the work behind the scenes, should be enough to get him off. The computer is sending data and "accessing" it without express authorization whether the user tells it to or not. It would be like walking down the street and automatically appearing in each unlocked house you did not elect not to enter (to add another metaphor to the flurry).
If I run accross a forum that requires a login, I'm more than likely not going to take the time to create a login, just so I can participate.
Therein lies the real benefit. It essentially means that you are automatically a member of a whole community of forums, or at least trusted enough to leave comments.
But I would imagine you'd still need a new unique account to take full advantage of most sites. You can't have a/. blog for "The guy from xyz.com"
The biggest stumbling block to Mac OS X 10.4 on the desktop is that it is not pre-loaded by computer manufacturers such as Dell.
The average user would do just as well with Mac OS X 10.4 pre-loaded as they do with Windows pre-loaded. Add to that the lack of viruses and spyware and any productivity lost due to being in unfamiliar territory would possibly be more than made up for by the less-attacked environment (Mac OS X 10.4).
Perhaps if movie companies had to make sure that they recouped all their lost money in less than 10 years they would stop paying artists the exorbidant salaries they do
But here's the fucked up part, a movie is considered a failure if it doesn't recoup its cost in the first few weeks. Add DVD sales and a movie is going to make 90% of the money they can hope to wring out of it in 2 years max. And I would suspect thats a long estimate.
So why the hell do they need 90 years to sit on these thing!!!
so what happens when your wife gets a little too enamored with Mr. Big Schlong and starts eschewing yours?
"traditional" big media and Gnutella style P2P just don't mix. "The rest of the album" that you're talking about will be right there with the authorized files, ripe for the taking.
That doesn't mean that P2P is bad for the industry though. I think it increases interest in and consumption of recorded music, digital or not. I think its likely that more people will buy CDs as a dividend.
Or maybe the sale of CDs will be relegated to collectors (like me). You have to admit that there is something satisfying about having that disk, especially if its an artist you love. Get more creative with the packaging (for god sake ditch the flimsy jewel cases, try http://jewelboxing.com/ instead) and add some value and there will always be a market for recordings. I love walking into an indy record store, chatting up the scruffy pierced dude behind the counter and walking out with two cds that I can play for my friends. Downloading just isn't the same.
What you say is reasonably true but more any more often people are not being fed their information major media. Memes like copyleft are spreading virally to larger segments of the population (whoa, buzzwords). And with a few influential, free thinking outlets like the economist it won't be long before this picks up steam. there are, after all, almost 900,000 members to/., just look at my ID.
It certainly is. It has been mentioned before on Slashdot (I can't recall the link, but it was the last time talk of the death of M$ came up) but Microsoft has the recources and brains to create high quality software, they just don't (usually). They are far too caught up in being some kind of cultural juggernaut. Now that others (apple, google) have shown that they can be much more savvy without the overwhelming bloat I believe they may indeed be on their way, not to irrelivance, but out of OS dominance.
I think the best we can hope for is that microsoft will start developing crossplatform apps that perform the way they are capable of making them perform. Apps like the Office suite are actually pretty good software. The UI is pretty good, they have become better at making it intuitive and placing features where they are likely to be used and it does everything you could need it to do. With little prior knowledge of Excel I am able to open a complex spreadsheet and take advantage of perhaps half of its features.
so please, PLEASE GOD, let M$ get out of the OS business and into the software business.
I believe Google wins this one. they caught the domain change while yahoo displays the now defunct site. Interesting considering twingine.com doesn't seem have the string "yahoohoogle" anywhere in it, not even in the source.
In a word, yes. But I don't think Starbucks is going to be operating one of these. While there are shops that offer free wireless just to get people in and buying coffee (or whatever they sell) at three miles radius its likely users won't even know where the base station is. Businesses with hotspot signs in the window won't have much incentive to move beyond good old 802.11g.
the 'n' variety seems better suited to muni-wifi.
Just because we think words like "democracy" and "freedom" are standard and acceptable doesn't mean any other country has to. Personally, I think the Chinese government should relax the censorship. But I'm not Chinese, so I don't have much say in the matter.
neither do the Chinese.
Is there any reason why we should not be outraged? Is there any reason why we should not hold other countries to certain basic standards? Is there any reason why certain values which we hold to be fundamental should not be universal?
We have grown *far* too lethargic on these fronts, even here in the U.S., where security nad morality have trumped liberty again and again. We prattle on selfishly about petty moral issues like gay marriage while we let our civil liberties get pushed under the rug.
Dell may not have apple's meticulous brand control fetish (of which I am a helpless if willing victim) but they're as into their brand as anyone. They aren't going to just fence someone elses branded hardware.
Apple is a hardware company, as has been said a thousand times before. They succeed because they have been able to capitolize on the intangible, irrational side of consumer behavior. They know that people don't pay for features, or variety, or choice. What really makes people shell out is sex. Sexy hardware, sexy software, all rolled into one orgasmic bundle. They hate the banal, and once you sell OSX to a commodity PC maker thats what you get. Just another computer running just another OS.
I don't think its nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. The location, local or remote, could be part of the searchable metadata for the file. If you have remote flagged for your search then it will preclude local results.
Consider this: I work at an architecture firm on a project which is in its second phase. We still need almost all of the drawings from the first phase, but we need to re-issue them and make certain changes and additions. So we copy all the old drawings into a new folder. Now we have an archival set of the originals and a fresh copy to work on for phase two...fine, perfect.
The problem is that there are many hundreds, maybe thousands of drawings for each building when you factor in the architectural plans, reflected ceiling plans, sections, elevations, details (every screw and nail is drawn), plumbing, it/av, electric, heating and a/c, structural, site surveys, et cetera et cetera.
With metadata searching I can set up smart folder for just it/av plans of the east wing, or just arch plans for the first five floors including only files from the group file server. Or (and I like this most) I could make a folder for certain tasks. I often have to send drawings to our contractors. Certain contractors need to see certain types of drawings. So I create a folder for the lighting guy which has reflected ceiling plans, electrical drawings, and hvac drawings so he can check for conflicts with ductwork. then I can add metadata for when I've sent a particular file to whome. Does contractor X have the latest changes? Search for files sent to X after the date of the change. Or rank files in X's smart folder by date sent (as opposed to date modified, the only currently available criteria) and you've got a complete history of what that contractor has seen.
I currently look at the path to make sure I'm working on new files and not the old ones of the same name, but conflicts of the type you are describing can be easily overcome with smart metadata use (new/old, phase1/phase2, local/remote).
I believe you are missing the point. A tax would not benefit the industry, it would compensate the government for the expenditures incurred in enforcing the strict and complete copyright that the industry is demanding.
In order for something like this to work you have to imagine a return to the original sense of copyright, as the often invoked Founding Fathers layed it down. That is you have to register a work for it to be eligable for copyright protection rather than the automatic "all rights reserved for umpteen years."
This way of you write a poem and someone wants to buy your right to publish it and do so exclusively, they have to pay a little something for the privilege (read: not right) to do so.
Money can still be made distributing non-exclusive material, you just have to add value and spend less time watching your back like a paranoid maniac trying to protect your IP in bad faith.
Slashdot Mirror
the quantum issues only come into play as you approach the size limit of the semi-conductor material. At 90nm its not a problem and I don't see them suggesting smaller die sizes, just stacking for shorter relays. This would effectively push the current tech to its limit. Its a creative way to wring the last possible gasp of performance out of good ole silicon.
whoa whoa whoa buddy. Back up a bit. Not to get defensive here, but this is a totally falacious statement. Its regrettable that the current high profile architects are to some extent rediculous devotees to the "big blob" school of arch, but I assure you thats not how we operate on the whole. Architects, like all designers, are trained to identify a need and conceptualize and useful way to fill that void. (look instead at MVRDV, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, or Diller Scoffidio and Renfro)
This keyboard fills a void magnificently well and throws in the kind of visual verve that makes people pay attention. In fact, like many great designs, it fills a void we didn't really think of as a void until we saw it. This will be the ipod of keyboards when it comes out at that just-expensive-enough pricepoint.
Engineers "make is work in a useful way" because thats their job. Thats what engineers do. They take a problem and attack it analytically. They break it down into do-able pieces and then build it back up. Without the designer thinking creatively from the top-down and the engineer coming at it analytically from the bottom up things like ipods and nikes and ray-bans and ferraris and optimus keyboards would not be possible.
Leave it to the engineer and you get beige box, suburban office park, opressively uniform ugliness (but its cheap). Leave it to the architect/designer and you get uncomfortable "modern" furniture, difficult to use products, wacky, not-in-my-backyard buildings whose maintenance costs are through the roof.
Cooperate and beautiful things emerge (google maps!).
Where do you draw the line though? What you are describing as a rip-off would probably be more accurately described a "cover" but still, when is it an artist riffing on a song to put their own creative stamp on it and when is it coyly alluding to the themes in another work? The line may not be very distinct.
Also people often use the example of classical artists borrowing themes as an homage to a respected musician. This is an outdated analogy. Modern culture places a huge premium (perhaps too large)on originality, or at least feigning originality. Every other song on the radio sounds like exactly the same post-post-grunge/hardcore bullshit but if you ask any of the artists they all think they are being fiercly independant ond original even when they are just parroting each other.
My point is, I have not yet seen any evidence of a "remix culture." There have been techno remixes of songs like magic carpet ride forever (that particular song came out like five years ago) and there have been punk covers of songs for ages as well, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes being particularly guilty of heighnous crimes agains classic songs. But I don't see anyone using other peoples' work to forge creative new art.
Can I get some examples? Does anyone know of a solid band who does this? Am I being overly simplistic/missing something?
According to the wikipedia article already being developed on the topic there are three fatalities.t _explosions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_London_transpor
The fact that his computer probably took advantage of the signal by default, that he did not elect to use that signal, the computer just finds it does all the work behind the scenes, should be enough to get him off. The computer is sending data and "accessing" it without express authorization whether the user tells it to or not. It would be like walking down the street and automatically appearing in each unlocked house you did not elect not to enter (to add another metaphor to the flurry).
Therein lies the real benefit. It essentially means that you are automatically a member of a whole community of forums, or at least trusted enough to leave comments.
But I would imagine you'd still need a new unique account to take full advantage of most sites. You can't have a /. blog for "The guy from xyz.com"
The average user would do just as well with Mac OS X 10.4 pre-loaded as they do with Windows pre-loaded. Add to that the lack of viruses and spyware and any productivity lost due to being in unfamiliar territory would possibly be more than made up for by the less-attacked environment ( Mac OS X 10.4 ).
is it illegal to place generic products next to brand name ones? Isn't that what happens in the cereal isle of every supermaket in the country?
But here's the fucked up part, a movie is considered a failure if it doesn't recoup its cost in the first few weeks. Add DVD sales and a movie is going to make 90% of the money they can hope to wring out of it in 2 years max. And I would suspect thats a long estimate.
So why the hell do they need 90 years to sit on these thing!!!
so what happens when your wife gets a little too enamored with Mr. Big Schlong and starts eschewing yours? "traditional" big media and Gnutella style P2P just don't mix. "The rest of the album" that you're talking about will be right there with the authorized files, ripe for the taking. That doesn't mean that P2P is bad for the industry though. I think it increases interest in and consumption of recorded music, digital or not. I think its likely that more people will buy CDs as a dividend. Or maybe the sale of CDs will be relegated to collectors (like me). You have to admit that there is something satisfying about having that disk, especially if its an artist you love. Get more creative with the packaging (for god sake ditch the flimsy jewel cases, try http://jewelboxing.com/ instead) and add some value and there will always be a market for recordings. I love walking into an indy record store, chatting up the scruffy pierced dude behind the counter and walking out with two cds that I can play for my friends. Downloading just isn't the same.
What you say is reasonably true but more any more often people are not being fed their information major media. Memes like copyleft are spreading virally to larger segments of the population (whoa, buzzwords). And with a few influential, free thinking outlets like the economist it won't be long before this picks up steam. /., just look at my ID.
there are, after all, almost 900,000 members to
whoa, back up a minute. Click fraud? How does this work?
It certainly is. It has been mentioned before on Slashdot (I can't recall the link, but it was the last time talk of the death of M$ came up) but Microsoft has the recources and brains to create high quality software, they just don't (usually). They are far too caught up in being some kind of cultural juggernaut. Now that others (apple, google) have shown that they can be much more savvy without the overwhelming bloat I believe they may indeed be on their way, not to irrelivance, but out of OS dominance. I think the best we can hope for is that microsoft will start developing crossplatform apps that perform the way they are capable of making them perform. Apps like the Office suite are actually pretty good software. The UI is pretty good, they have become better at making it intuitive and placing features where they are likely to be used and it does everything you could need it to do. With little prior knowledge of Excel I am able to open a complex spreadsheet and take advantage of perhaps half of its features. so please, PLEASE GOD, let M$ get out of the OS business and into the software business.
Indeed I am humbled. Punished againf ro lack of rigor. Slashdotters accept no imitations.
http://twingine.com/search.php?q=yahoohoogle
I believe Google wins this one. they caught the domain change while yahoo displays the now defunct site. Interesting considering twingine.com doesn't seem have the string "yahoohoogle" anywhere in it, not even in the source.
No, not really...http://www.neighbornode.net/
In a word, yes. But I don't think Starbucks is going to be operating one of these. While there are shops that offer free wireless just to get people in and buying coffee (or whatever they sell) at three miles radius its likely users won't even know where the base station is. Businesses with hotspot signs in the window won't have much incentive to move beyond good old 802.11g. the 'n' variety seems better suited to muni-wifi.
neither do the Chinese.
Is there any reason why we should not be outraged? Is there any reason why we should not hold other countries to certain basic standards? Is there any reason why certain values which we hold to be fundamental should not be universal?
We have grown *far* too lethargic on these fronts, even here in the U.S., where security nad morality have trumped liberty again and again. We prattle on selfishly about petty moral issues like gay marriage while we let our civil liberties get pushed under the rug.
Don't be afraid to get pissed!!!
Dell may not have apple's meticulous brand control fetish (of which I am a helpless if willing victim) but they're as into their brand as anyone. They aren't going to just fence someone elses branded hardware. Apple is a hardware company, as has been said a thousand times before. They succeed because they have been able to capitolize on the intangible, irrational side of consumer behavior. They know that people don't pay for features, or variety, or choice. What really makes people shell out is sex. Sexy hardware, sexy software, all rolled into one orgasmic bundle. They hate the banal, and once you sell OSX to a commodity PC maker thats what you get. Just another computer running just another OS.
I don't think its nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. The location, local or remote, could be part of the searchable metadata for the file. If you have remote flagged for your search then it will preclude local results.
Consider this: I work at an architecture firm on a project which is in its second phase. We still need almost all of the drawings from the first phase, but we need to re-issue them and make certain changes and additions. So we copy all the old drawings into a new folder. Now we have an archival set of the originals and a fresh copy to work on for phase two...fine, perfect.
The problem is that there are many hundreds, maybe thousands of drawings for each building when you factor in the architectural plans, reflected ceiling plans, sections, elevations, details (every screw and nail is drawn), plumbing, it/av, electric, heating and a/c, structural, site surveys, et cetera et cetera.
With metadata searching I can set up smart folder for just it/av plans of the east wing, or just arch plans for the first five floors including only files from the group file server. Or (and I like this most) I could make a folder for certain tasks. I often have to send drawings to our contractors. Certain contractors need to see certain types of drawings. So I create a folder for the lighting guy which has reflected ceiling plans, electrical drawings, and hvac drawings so he can check for conflicts with ductwork. then I can add metadata for when I've sent a particular file to whome. Does contractor X have the latest changes? Search for files sent to X after the date of the change. Or rank files in X's smart folder by date sent (as opposed to date modified, the only currently available criteria) and you've got a complete history of what that contractor has seen.
I currently look at the path to make sure I'm working on new files and not the old ones of the same name, but conflicts of the type you are describing can be easily overcome with smart metadata use (new/old, phase1/phase2, local/remote).
Can the fear of a Wine-like VM solution gutting the biz be balanced by faster CPU speeds?
Biz? What biz?
I believe you are missing the point. A tax would not benefit the industry, it would compensate the government for the expenditures incurred in enforcing the strict and complete copyright that the industry is demanding. In order for something like this to work you have to imagine a return to the original sense of copyright, as the often invoked Founding Fathers layed it down. That is you have to register a work for it to be eligable for copyright protection rather than the automatic "all rights reserved for umpteen years." This way of you write a poem and someone wants to buy your right to publish it and do so exclusively, they have to pay a little something for the privilege (read: not right) to do so. Money can still be made distributing non-exclusive material, you just have to add value and spend less time watching your back like a paranoid maniac trying to protect your IP in bad faith.