Actors are only human, and there are real-life considerations for them too. For example, Richard Dean Anderson quit Stargate to spend more time with his daughter. Sometimes, things happen, and people have to leave. Sometimes, people grow tired, or get burnt out. They might even die in the middle of a project. Again, despite the fact that we might glorify them, actors are only human.
It's really the biggest challenge to telling a lengthy story through such a medium. Even animated films rely on actors for character voices, though an actor leaving isn't nearly as bad when only the voice matters (think Jim Henson). That's why those daytime soap operas are constantly killing off old characters and introducing new ones. And why the best movies are the short ones that tell short stories (think of the short films that accompany every pixar flick). On the other hand, storytelling through a written medium can go on forever, in some cases even after the storyteller from whom the story originated is dead. Comics come to mind, but even with something like Star Wars, the story can be extended indefinitely in novel form. Good luck trying to get Harrison Ford to play Han Solo again though.
Five years is a long time. Ten is even longer. The larger the main cast, the less likely it is for the whole cast to be able to commit to something for so much time.
It's more than that. Legislation evolves over time. As society progresses technologically and socially, new laws come into place to hinder or advance the effects that are undersirable or desirable respectively. The issue is that while laws work best when black and white, reality is not so black and white, and in order for laws to remain humane, they have to address each of the known gray areas. As society progresses, these gray areas change. And so many of these new pieces of legislation merely specify new special cases in existing laws. Sometimes, it makes things currently illegal legal, and other times, it makes things currently legal illegal.
So to continue the analogy, every are the law deals with is a function that returns a number of some sort. Sometimes, legislation adds new functions or removes old ones. Other times, it puts in new special cases or removes parts of old ones inside an existing function. All variables are either passed in or declared at the top of the function, the number of variables are set in stone, and each statement must be atomic.
Since some of the most contentious functions are also the oldest in the system, imagine trying to refactor something that's perhaps several hundred thousand lines long. Yes, controlled substances is a relatively new function, but the ones that deal with privacy, property, and the like have existed as code since the kernel was first compiled.
It should be noted that special interest groups contribute greatly to the complexity of any function they touch.
On the contrary. They procured a way to easily get the VUK's. VUK's could be said to be unique to each movie. So once one VUK is found for one movie, the movie is cracked.
It's also more brute-force that what you're referring to as round 1. Essentially, backup software will need to store a database of known VUK's and try to match the disc in the drive with the right VUK. Kind of like anti-virus software. As the library of discs grow, the size of the database grows, eventually to the point where finding the right VUK will take a significant amount of time.
From my limited knowledge of the subject matter, I think there's only one key used in the algorithm missing. Once that key is found, it can be plugged into the algorithm, and every disc will be copyable. And that, I believe, is the holy grail the guys at the doom9 forum is looking for. The key that's been going around is one step in this direction in that it's a key that can be used for a group of discs. But it can be revoked. I think the key that's missing cannot be revoked without a massive hardware recall.
Some shop opens up somewhere selling a particular kind of desert and becomes successful. The tapioca drinks come to mind. But each shop has its own drinks that come with tapioca. And even though they're the same in name (mango tea with tapioca or whatnot), they don't taste quite the same. And so some will go to one shop, and others will go to another, depending on taste.
Now, if putting tapioca into a drink was patented, that'd mean only one store would sell it. Eventually, the locals would be so sick of the same stuff and paying the exhuberant prices (which the drinks really did debut at) that nobody except the tourists would drink it, and the store would quickly go out of business, thus ending the tapioca drink business for the next 15 or so years....
They've made cheap, inexpensive knockoffs. Most are pure garbage, but they cost next to nothing and provide some level of the functionality found in the expensive foreign product. Some people may even be fooled into thinking they've purchased the real thing. Actually, since most manufacturing happens in China nowadays, their "cheap, inexpensive knockoffs" differ from the brand name things only in that the knockoffs are cheaper. Heck, it might even come packaged the exact same way. When it comes to fashion, yes, the knockoffs aren't made in Italy or something so their quality isn't quite as good, but even the high-end consumer products are made from Hong Kong or Singapore nowadays, so the knockoffs from China would probably be of only slightly lower quality. As for the custom stuff, I'll bet that there's someone in China who's as good as the best tailor in Europe, but who charges maybe 1% of the price. Only, China's so damn big, finding that person will be really, really difficult.
The Taiwan government isn't an American-styled democracy. Say that when it becomes a two-party system whose primary differences stem from the different special interests groups. That's pretty much been American democracy since the last of the founding fathers died. And no, calling people from Taiwan Chinese is not insulting. Taiwan government considers its territory Zhongguo, and by extension, the people who live under it are Zhongguoren, which pretty much translates into Chinese. Unless you're referring to being Taiwanese as one might refer to being Fujianese or Cantonese. But I fail to see why that would be relevant..
But you do bring up an interesting point:
it also discourages long-term and large-scale R&D Some might around such things would be better off left for the government to handle. Probably through grants to researchers or such, as exists already. That way, the big things go straight into public domain, and the little innovations, maybe built on top of those big things, come from the private sector.
It does encourage information protection, which is nothing new. Its been done for several millenia in China now. In most cases, only the designated heir gets the complete knowledge of the predecessor. This means things easily get lost when people take knowledge to their grave. On the other hand, it encourages the non-heirs to make their own paths, which encourages progress, and eventually rediscovery.
Progress comes about in a slower, more round-about way, but there is progress nonetheless. As opposed to shooting upwards quickly and eventually come crashing back down.
The thing about copyright and patents is that it encourages progress and innovation. But I think what the founding fathers didn't realize is that survival itself encourages progress and innovation. Though I suspect the traditions of asian countries provided the kick needed to go from "damn, my stuff is being stolen and they're doing it better!" to "I'm going to one up those thieves by stealing their improvements and making it better!" instead of "Aw crap, I think I'll just give up."
Re:Read it! That was taken way out of context.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
You can't use google or the interview with google as a bargaining chip at all. I don't think you can even say that you're interviewing with another company if that interview you refer to is with google. However, this only applies after you've signed the NDA. Which means before you sign it, you can say and do whatever the hell you want. Which means in the unlikely even that you haven't signed the NDA yet when google makes you the offer, you can still use the offer as a bargaining chip. Of course, google might not hire you afterwards if they find out, but that's another story.
It also appears that you're correct that the NDA stipulates only that you can't use google for publicity purposes. The text can be read like this:
...issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter...mentioning or implying the name of Google This is why I hate reading contracts. It's even more confusing than reading Hegel.
I'd imagine that people happy with their mac would be less likely to bother steve jobs with tech support requests; they'd be too busy actually using it. Which means, of course, that the faster tech support gets their job done and the more satisfied the customer is with tech support's job, the less likely they're going to go to Steve Jobs for help.
The smart thing to do would be to critically re-evaluate the tech support process--look over the procedures for handling such and other related cases, and make the appropriate changes to those procedures to ensure that this situation doesn't happen to anyone else in the future. That way, people wouldn't have a reason to flood Jobs' inbox with support questions.
Only in sports drinks is the glucose content of HFCS higher than that of in sucrose.
The wikipedia article also mentions that the most common sweetener for processed foods and soft drinks is HFCS 55 (55/45), which isn't much greater in fructose content than the 50/50 of sucrose. However, they don't mention whether HFCS 90 or HFCS 55 is cheaper to process, which would make that the more prevalent variety. Regardless, it's safe to assume that HFCS foods have more fructose than if they were to have used sugar instead.
I'm not disagreeing that obesity is a result of eating too much and exercising too little. But what we eat also contributes to our health. And consuming large amounts of HFCS through processed foods doesn't help.
I believe there are analog masters too that can be resampled at 24bit. And if not, just release the ones that have been mastered at 24bit with a 24bit option. But provide that option.
The only way to eventually make money off IP without DRM (and even with) in the digital age is to offer value-added services.
For example, watching a movie on the big screen over watching it at home. Going out with friends, maybe have dinner before or after, perhaps a drink (before or after). People do this already. Perhaps that's why the MPAA isn't nearly as concerned about piracy, with some rare exceptions.
For music, there's nothing like actually going to a concert. So instead of using CD's to make money, use CD's as a marketing loss-leader, and use concerts for revenue. Oh wait, that's what musicians do now anyway. The RIAA is the one making money off CD's. Now the reason why the RIAA is so aggressive comes to light. The RIAA doesn't actually have a business if every music artist suddenly all went independent.
Internet-downloaded copies are so much more convenient that the real things. Have you bought a DVD recently? Have you seen the hoops you have to jump through just to watch the damn thing? First there's the region compatibility issue. Then, if you can get the damn thing to play, there's the paid advertisements that you can't skip. Why spend $20 for all that when I can wait 5 hours for a 4GB download to finish, 20 minutes for the extraction and burn, and watch the movie. The biggest problem would be burning a coaster. And, I can watch it on any computer without being afraid of it being hijacked by autorun software loaded on the DVD. Which means I can bring it to family functions where the only DVD player is a computer running Windows XP MCE.
As for music, I'm a big fan of buying CD's, but if I can't rip it onto my music player of choice in the format of my choice, I'm going to download it. And save the hassle of buying the CD altogether. Well, that would be true if I listened to anything other than Classical. As such, I don't really have much of a choice in the matter, as the sound quality still is audible on my sound system at home.
Yes, so it is far more convenient.
Now for literature, I'm actually all for buying the book. I can't stand reading books off an electronic display. I like my bookmarks and actually having a book in my hand (and getting high off the glue--you know that's a nice value-added service right there;) ). Nor can I stand audiobooks. I'm sure most people feel the same way when it comes to the printed medium.
As a sibling post has said, the relationship cuts both ways. Eliminate the cheap goods from China, and the US economey pretty much collapses. Especially if China suddenly kicks all the US companies out. The US companies would never be able to compete internationally without their manufacturing in China.
At the same time, China has numerous other buyers. Europe, Australia, other countries in Asia, including S. Korea and Japan. Japan and Korea still make their own electronics, but a lot of their other goods are manufactured in China. I believe even their car companies have plants there...
Microsoft has very rarely been at the forefront of technology. They bill themselves as such, but that's just marketing doublespeak. What Microsoft does is waits for other companies to take the risks and introduce new ideas into the market. Then, when it sees a chance of profitability, it jumps into that segment. Now, being the 700lb gorilla, Microsoft pretty much squashes the competition. IE anyone? Or better yet, Office? Which only makes it stronger.
What Microsoft does bring to the table is improvement over what exists. And of course it does though. Microsoft tends to start with generation 2 and up design, while the guys who initially implemented the idea have to deal with backwards compatibility and their existing design limitations. Once Microsoft has established this technical superiority, it can pretty much pump as many resources into getting its product adopted as necessary. Embrace, extend--next comes extinguish.
And that's why I'm very wary of using.NET and now Silverlight. Microsoft is opening some of the source, but it also has the ability and right (copyright) to close the source at any point in time. Or, close the source of subsequent versions, or even updates, etc. I wouldn't trust Adobe either, but Adobe isn't the 700lb gorilla, it is the underdog, and as such, it is limited in the underhand tactics it can use. Either way though, competition is ever a good thing, so long as it continues to exist.
Oh, and the reason why Google remains dominant today is because of the server-side nature of search, and because Google keeps its search and advertising algorithms secret. That, and it keeps its employees very happy so that Microsoft can't steal them away.
The even more interesting thing is that most of these countries listed don't trade primarily with the US. Their major trading partners are Russia and/or China, and to a lesser extent, member of the EU...
I don't think this list is anything more than political posturing...
A domain name change can take longer. Especially if sites that linked there are updated infrequently. A site that I occasionally drop by is still in Google hell after more than a year. Granted, it wasn't designed with google in mind in the first place, but it is a prominent site for its topic matter, and was in the top 3 search results prior to the domain name change.
As for what this site is, I'm not going to say, as this might have been an intentional, or at least, desirable consequence for the webmaster.
A friend of mine in high school broke a mercury thermometer. The mercury spilt into a small vial of water (the thermometer was stuck inside the vial). He dropped the vial onto the floor, and then knelt down in the resulting pool to clean it up. Needless to say, he got a nice dose of that mercury from the broken thermometer onto his pants and into his body.
Three years later, he flunked out of one of the two most prestigious public high schools in New York City....
Oh yeah, did I mention that this friend of mine wasn't too bright to begin with anyway?
There's a reason why the courts mandate "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." It's because without the whole truth, the implications drawn without the missing pieces could be quite damning. For the example mentioned in the article, I'd speculate that the carpet or the room itself was already contaminated. It could be contamination from manufacturing, either the materials used to make the carpet, or the materials used to make other parts of the room. Or perhaps the girl had a home chem lab in her room. Or, it could be an overreaction...like what happened to GP.
I'm surprised parent isn't modded +5. GP's post is indicative of an overreaction, and even more so, indicative of why these articles are irresponsible. It's one thing to have a thermometer-full of enter an infant or toddler's body. It's another thing to have a miniscule amount in an adult's, or for that matter, a miniscule amount in a child. This fearmongering only causes overreactions, which besides being unnecessarily inconvenient, also is unnecessarily costly. That money is wasted, and could be better spent on something more productive, like school supplies and sites with actual mercury contamination.
The "stream of technical glitches" described in the article, albeit overstressed, is pointing at something that should worry us: If the software market is going towards online services, where data is centralized and 1 server down means 1,000 users down - what strategic steps do we take in order to protect our users and our data? Online and offline storage, as usual. Traditionally (ha! as if computers have been around long enough!), important data from your machine is backed up to an alternative medium, and then depending on how important it is, shipped offsite and stored in a secure location.
The interesting thing is, with data now being online, except for the most important pieces of information (which probably shouldn't be online in the first place), there's really no need for an offsite backup. The online data is the offsite backup. Or vice versa, your local copy is now the "offsite" backup.
What google should (and has started to, I think) do is provide synchronization tools. This way, both the online and the offline copies can constitute as the "backup" depending on whether one or the other dies. Google doesn't need to offer an offline version of the product, just something capable of retrieving and managing a user's online data. POP3 access to gmail seems like a great first step. As well, the ability to download docs. But that ability should be expanded upon to the point where it can be automated, scheduled, etc.
And this can be expanded to everything a typical user might deem important...pictures and home movies, misc. files, application settings, registries, heck, even whole systems. Heh, want to log into to windows from anywhere, and have it work exactly like you'd set it up to at home?
Third parties need to concentrate their power within a state or two to get into the federal level. Ten seats in Cali's state legislature, ten in New York, ten in Texas won't get that party anywhere. Now, having a decent number of a state's seats might get the party a few seats in the house of reps. Having half of the state's seats might even get the party a spot in the senate.
Now for the hard part. Once the third party gets enough seats in the senate in enough states (at least a quarter of the red and a quarter of the blue states), it might even be feasible to run for the presidency. But premature attempts will only make that third party lose support, as the candidate from the "other" side will win and everyone will blame the third party (look what happened after Nader). It's hard because we all know some schmuck is going to run anyway, and maybe pick up a few states here or there, just enough to ruin it for either the D or R, but not enough to actually get the presidency.
this policy must be seen as a business decision Since when was a university a business? I thought they were non-profits?
<rant> The goal of a true higher education institute is not to make money. It is not to expand or grow as an organization. The goal of a higher education institute is to promote education, scholarship, academics. It is to educate the next generation. It is to ensure the freedom of ideas and the freedom of the creation thereof. It is to advance the existing collective knowledge. That is the purpose of a university.
Now, granted, there are monetary issues involved. Professors have to be paid a decent salary and given decent benefits. Facilities have to be present and maintained, and occasionally replaced. Resources have to be managed. But money is only a means to an end; universities serve knowledge first and foremost. And when there's a conflict between money and knowledge, knowledge should always end up on top.
Describing an action by a university with business terms or with the word 'business' itself is a gross violation of the spirit of a higher education institute. </rant>
Regardless of whether this was or was not a so-called 'business' decision (as reality is that more and more universities are becoming businesses these days), from a business standpoint or from an academic, it is still a poor decision. From an academic standpoint, banning p2p is a restriction of the application of new knowledge and a restriction upon the mechanism by which existing knowledge is dispersed, even if very little meaningful knowledge gets transmitted through p2p. From a business standpoint, banning p2p makes the school less attractive, which only means that the number of applicants or the quality thereof, will go down. That means the level and amount of research goes down, which means fewer grants and patents, and that means less money.
What they do, except perhaps with more of a music slant. Like offering discounts to equipment/promotional resources or pairing producers with singers, etc. If done right, it could theoretically completely replace what the RIAA does. RIAA members owning a good chunk of the major media outlets does present a challenge to the organizers of such a union, the RIAA could be driven to extinction by this alone even without the internet.
Add the internet as a viable alternative promotion channel to more traditional forms of media, and it might actually fly.
Ironic thing is, this model would bring the music industry far closer to a free market than one that involves the RIAA. That is, assuming the union leaders aren't eventually corrupted by the money. After all, the music industry is huge.
The tunnel will be entirely within the north american plate. Someone below mentioned connecting vancouver island and the mainland. There's a reason why there isn't an existing physical connection between the island and the mainland, and neither money nor politics has anything to do with it. Vancouver Island, I believe, sits on the pacific plate, while as we all know, mainland is on the north american plate. Now that project would be quite infeasible, and dangerous to boot.
I think if this were true, more species than bees would be affected.
While the article is likely biased against cell phones and their usage, geomagnetic reversal does not explain everything. In particular, why this does not affect other species whose navigation appears to be dependent on the planet's magnetism. That, and why this is a spreading phenomenon, not one that suddenly happens to every honeybee worldwide. After all, changes in the magnetic field should affect the whole planet simultaneously and largely equally.
3) Your code blew up, and you meant it to blow up, and it's clearly not exploitable.
Since you are not coding specifically for your application to crash (Or I hope not) surely there can be no 3.
What happens when you know that an error has occurred, but you don't know why? You know something bad has happened, but what it is exactly is beyond you. Maybe you didn't forsee that a certain exception would get thrown in a particular block of code. Perhaps you added some code or started calling something existing already that threw a new exception. It could be something that until you've actually seen it happen, you wouldn't even imagine that it was possible, much less know how to compensate for it.
Yes, that's poor design. But complex, multi-threaded programs are rarely cut and dry--especially those the size of MS Word. And it's always good to have a catch all at the very bottom of complex try blocks. Perhaps these crashes were the result of the app hitting that last resort.
Yeah, the guy shouldn't have blew the security researchers off. Comments like that, while are realistic, are terrible for PR. What the MS rep should have said was that they were looking into it, but that because the app is crashing, it's a low security risk and there's no need for alarm. Something to that effect. A comment to the effect of it not being a bug or it being a part of the design, is flaimbait.
You're missing 2 important things here related to convenience, the primary selling point of all mp3 players.
First, people want the totality of their collection (or at least their favorites) on the device at once. Plain and simple. No one knows for certain what they will want to listen to for the rest of the day. So in the morning, they might be feeling R&B, but by the end of the day, it's, classical. The topic of music might come up in a conversation, and to have all the songs being mentioned at the touch of a button would be extremely convenient. Thus, people want as much of their collection on one device as possible. Neither does anyone want to shuffle songs around between the PC and iPod every so often just to get a bit of variety. It's vastly inconvenient to do so. The shuffle sells less than the nano which sells less than the regular ipod for a reason.
Second, and this applies only to those who have the appropriate technical knowhow, anyone who rips mp3's will rip them at whatever bit rate they think will be best for the speakers at HOME. After all, it's pointless to have a consolidated music collection if you still have to play the good version from a CD. Nobody's going to rerip a bunch of 192k or 256k mp3's just to carry around, regardless of how much space they have. Now, those who don't rip their songs are at the mercy of iTMS. But they're definitely not going to rerip their songs at a lower bit rate just because they've suddenly run out of room on their mp3 player after a year or two of use.
You might not mind constantly swapping songs to and from your iPod. And you might not mind ripping and storing (due to reason #1) every song in your collection a second time just to save space. But I certainly mind. And I know most people who buy the iPod for the convenience and/or style will, at least for the former reason.
Agreed. What's to stop someone from releasing the source code to their cheating program? That way, all people would have to do is add their own text string into code somewhere, and the hash of the resulting binary would be completely different.
Slashdot Mirror
Actors are only human, and there are real-life considerations for them too. For example, Richard Dean Anderson quit Stargate to spend more time with his daughter. Sometimes, things happen, and people have to leave. Sometimes, people grow tired, or get burnt out. They might even die in the middle of a project. Again, despite the fact that we might glorify them, actors are only human.
It's really the biggest challenge to telling a lengthy story through such a medium. Even animated films rely on actors for character voices, though an actor leaving isn't nearly as bad when only the voice matters (think Jim Henson). That's why those daytime soap operas are constantly killing off old characters and introducing new ones. And why the best movies are the short ones that tell short stories (think of the short films that accompany every pixar flick). On the other hand, storytelling through a written medium can go on forever, in some cases even after the storyteller from whom the story originated is dead. Comics come to mind, but even with something like Star Wars, the story can be extended indefinitely in novel form. Good luck trying to get Harrison Ford to play Han Solo again though.
Five years is a long time. Ten is even longer. The larger the main cast, the less likely it is for the whole cast to be able to commit to something for so much time.
It's more than that. Legislation evolves over time. As society progresses technologically and socially, new laws come into place to hinder or advance the effects that are undersirable or desirable respectively. The issue is that while laws work best when black and white, reality is not so black and white, and in order for laws to remain humane, they have to address each of the known gray areas. As society progresses, these gray areas change. And so many of these new pieces of legislation merely specify new special cases in existing laws. Sometimes, it makes things currently illegal legal, and other times, it makes things currently legal illegal.
So to continue the analogy, every are the law deals with is a function that returns a number of some sort. Sometimes, legislation adds new functions or removes old ones. Other times, it puts in new special cases or removes parts of old ones inside an existing function. All variables are either passed in or declared at the top of the function, the number of variables are set in stone, and each statement must be atomic.
Since some of the most contentious functions are also the oldest in the system, imagine trying to refactor something that's perhaps several hundred thousand lines long. Yes, controlled substances is a relatively new function, but the ones that deal with privacy, property, and the like have existed as code since the kernel was first compiled.
It should be noted that special interest groups contribute greatly to the complexity of any function they touch.
On the contrary. They procured a way to easily get the VUK's. VUK's could be said to be unique to each movie. So once one VUK is found for one movie, the movie is cracked.
It's also more brute-force that what you're referring to as round 1. Essentially, backup software will need to store a database of known VUK's and try to match the disc in the drive with the right VUK. Kind of like anti-virus software. As the library of discs grow, the size of the database grows, eventually to the point where finding the right VUK will take a significant amount of time.
From my limited knowledge of the subject matter, I think there's only one key used in the algorithm missing. Once that key is found, it can be plugged into the algorithm, and every disc will be copyable. And that, I believe, is the holy grail the guys at the doom9 forum is looking for. The key that's been going around is one step in this direction in that it's a key that can be used for a group of discs. But it can be revoked. I think the key that's missing cannot be revoked without a massive hardware recall.
Now, if putting tapioca into a drink was patented, that'd mean only one store would sell it. Eventually, the locals would be so sick of the same stuff and paying the exhuberant prices (which the drinks really did debut at) that nobody except the tourists would drink it, and the store would quickly go out of business, thus ending the tapioca drink business for the next 15 or so years.... They've made cheap, inexpensive knockoffs. Most are pure garbage, but they cost next to nothing and provide some level of the functionality found in the expensive foreign product. Some people may even be fooled into thinking they've purchased the real thing. Actually, since most manufacturing happens in China nowadays, their "cheap, inexpensive knockoffs" differ from the brand name things only in that the knockoffs are cheaper. Heck, it might even come packaged the exact same way. When it comes to fashion, yes, the knockoffs aren't made in Italy or something so their quality isn't quite as good, but even the high-end consumer products are made from Hong Kong or Singapore nowadays, so the knockoffs from China would probably be of only slightly lower quality. As for the custom stuff, I'll bet that there's someone in China who's as good as the best tailor in Europe, but who charges maybe 1% of the price. Only, China's so damn big, finding that person will be really, really difficult.
But you do bring up an interesting point: it also discourages long-term and large-scale R&D Some might around such things would be better off left for the government to handle. Probably through grants to researchers or such, as exists already. That way, the big things go straight into public domain, and the little innovations, maybe built on top of those big things, come from the private sector.
It does encourage information protection, which is nothing new. Its been done for several millenia in China now. In most cases, only the designated heir gets the complete knowledge of the predecessor. This means things easily get lost when people take knowledge to their grave. On the other hand, it encourages the non-heirs to make their own paths, which encourages progress, and eventually rediscovery.
Progress comes about in a slower, more round-about way, but there is progress nonetheless. As opposed to shooting upwards quickly and eventually come crashing back down.
The thing about copyright and patents is that it encourages progress and innovation. But I think what the founding fathers didn't realize is that survival itself encourages progress and innovation. Though I suspect the traditions of asian countries provided the kick needed to go from "damn, my stuff is being stolen and they're doing it better!" to "I'm going to one up those thieves by stealing their improvements and making it better!" instead of "Aw crap, I think I'll just give up."
It also appears that you're correct that the NDA stipulates only that you can't use google for publicity purposes. The text can be read like this:
...issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity or other matter...mentioning or implying the name of Google This is why I hate reading contracts. It's even more confusing than reading Hegel.I'd imagine that people happy with their mac would be less likely to bother steve jobs with tech support requests; they'd be too busy actually using it. Which means, of course, that the faster tech support gets their job done and the more satisfied the customer is with tech support's job, the less likely they're going to go to Steve Jobs for help.
The smart thing to do would be to critically re-evaluate the tech support process--look over the procedures for handling such and other related cases, and make the appropriate changes to those procedures to ensure that this situation doesn't happen to anyone else in the future. That way, people wouldn't have a reason to flood Jobs' inbox with support questions.
Sucrose is 50/50 fructose and glucose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
y rup
HFCS in foods is largely 90/10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_s
Only in sports drinks is the glucose content of HFCS higher than that of in sucrose.
The wikipedia article also mentions that the most common sweetener for processed foods and soft drinks is HFCS 55 (55/45), which isn't much greater in fructose content than the 50/50 of sucrose. However, they don't mention whether HFCS 90 or HFCS 55 is cheaper to process, which would make that the more prevalent variety. Regardless, it's safe to assume that HFCS foods have more fructose than if they were to have used sugar instead.
I'm not disagreeing that obesity is a result of eating too much and exercising too little. But what we eat also contributes to our health. And consuming large amounts of HFCS through processed foods doesn't help.
I believe there are analog masters too that can be resampled at 24bit. And if not, just release the ones that have been mastered at 24bit with a 24bit option. But provide that option.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_unite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankin
The only way to eventually make money off IP without DRM (and even with) in the digital age is to offer value-added services.
;) ). Nor can I stand audiobooks. I'm sure most people feel the same way when it comes to the printed medium.
For example, watching a movie on the big screen over watching it at home. Going out with friends, maybe have dinner before or after, perhaps a drink (before or after). People do this already. Perhaps that's why the MPAA isn't nearly as concerned about piracy, with some rare exceptions.
For music, there's nothing like actually going to a concert. So instead of using CD's to make money, use CD's as a marketing loss-leader, and use concerts for revenue. Oh wait, that's what musicians do now anyway. The RIAA is the one making money off CD's. Now the reason why the RIAA is so aggressive comes to light. The RIAA doesn't actually have a business if every music artist suddenly all went independent.
Internet-downloaded copies are so much more convenient that the real things. Have you bought a DVD recently? Have you seen the hoops you have to jump through just to watch the damn thing? First there's the region compatibility issue. Then, if you can get the damn thing to play, there's the paid advertisements that you can't skip. Why spend $20 for all that when I can wait 5 hours for a 4GB download to finish, 20 minutes for the extraction and burn, and watch the movie. The biggest problem would be burning a coaster. And, I can watch it on any computer without being afraid of it being hijacked by autorun software loaded on the DVD. Which means I can bring it to family functions where the only DVD player is a computer running Windows XP MCE.
As for music, I'm a big fan of buying CD's, but if I can't rip it onto my music player of choice in the format of my choice, I'm going to download it. And save the hassle of buying the CD altogether. Well, that would be true if I listened to anything other than Classical. As such, I don't really have much of a choice in the matter, as the sound quality still is audible on my sound system at home.
Yes, so it is far more convenient.
Now for literature, I'm actually all for buying the book. I can't stand reading books off an electronic display. I like my bookmarks and actually having a book in my hand (and getting high off the glue--you know that's a nice value-added service right there
As a sibling post has said, the relationship cuts both ways. Eliminate the cheap goods from China, and the US economey pretty much collapses. Especially if China suddenly kicks all the US companies out. The US companies would never be able to compete internationally without their manufacturing in China.
At the same time, China has numerous other buyers. Europe, Australia, other countries in Asia, including S. Korea and Japan. Japan and Korea still make their own electronics, but a lot of their other goods are manufactured in China. I believe even their car companies have plants there...
Microsoft has very rarely been at the forefront of technology. They bill themselves as such, but that's just marketing doublespeak. What Microsoft does is waits for other companies to take the risks and introduce new ideas into the market. Then, when it sees a chance of profitability, it jumps into that segment. Now, being the 700lb gorilla, Microsoft pretty much squashes the competition. IE anyone? Or better yet, Office? Which only makes it stronger.
.NET and now Silverlight. Microsoft is opening some of the source, but it also has the ability and right (copyright) to close the source at any point in time. Or, close the source of subsequent versions, or even updates, etc. I wouldn't trust Adobe either, but Adobe isn't the 700lb gorilla, it is the underdog, and as such, it is limited in the underhand tactics it can use. Either way though, competition is ever a good thing, so long as it continues to exist.
What Microsoft does bring to the table is improvement over what exists. And of course it does though. Microsoft tends to start with generation 2 and up design, while the guys who initially implemented the idea have to deal with backwards compatibility and their existing design limitations. Once Microsoft has established this technical superiority, it can pretty much pump as many resources into getting its product adopted as necessary. Embrace, extend--next comes extinguish.
And that's why I'm very wary of using
Oh, and the reason why Google remains dominant today is because of the server-side nature of search, and because Google keeps its search and advertising algorithms secret. That, and it keeps its employees very happy so that Microsoft can't steal them away.
The even more interesting thing is that most of these countries listed don't trade primarily with the US. Their major trading partners are Russia and/or China, and to a lesser extent, member of the EU...
I don't think this list is anything more than political posturing...
A domain name change can take longer. Especially if sites that linked there are updated infrequently. A site that I occasionally drop by is still in Google hell after more than a year. Granted, it wasn't designed with google in mind in the first place, but it is a prominent site for its topic matter, and was in the top 3 search results prior to the domain name change.
As for what this site is, I'm not going to say, as this might have been an intentional, or at least, desirable consequence for the webmaster.
A friend of mine in high school broke a mercury thermometer. The mercury spilt into a small vial of water (the thermometer was stuck inside the vial). He dropped the vial onto the floor, and then knelt down in the resulting pool to clean it up. Needless to say, he got a nice dose of that mercury from the broken thermometer onto his pants and into his body.
...
Three years later, he flunked out of one of the two most prestigious public high schools in New York City.
Oh yeah, did I mention that this friend of mine wasn't too bright to begin with anyway?
There's a reason why the courts mandate "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." It's because without the whole truth, the implications drawn without the missing pieces could be quite damning. For the example mentioned in the article, I'd speculate that the carpet or the room itself was already contaminated. It could be contamination from manufacturing, either the materials used to make the carpet, or the materials used to make other parts of the room. Or perhaps the girl had a home chem lab in her room. Or, it could be an overreaction...like what happened to GP.
I'm surprised parent isn't modded +5. GP's post is indicative of an overreaction, and even more so, indicative of why these articles are irresponsible. It's one thing to have a thermometer-full of enter an infant or toddler's body. It's another thing to have a miniscule amount in an adult's, or for that matter, a miniscule amount in a child. This fearmongering only causes overreactions, which besides being unnecessarily inconvenient, also is unnecessarily costly. That money is wasted, and could be better spent on something more productive, like school supplies and sites with actual mercury contamination.
The interesting thing is, with data now being online, except for the most important pieces of information (which probably shouldn't be online in the first place), there's really no need for an offsite backup. The online data is the offsite backup. Or vice versa, your local copy is now the "offsite" backup.
What google should (and has started to, I think) do is provide synchronization tools. This way, both the online and the offline copies can constitute as the "backup" depending on whether one or the other dies. Google doesn't need to offer an offline version of the product, just something capable of retrieving and managing a user's online data. POP3 access to gmail seems like a great first step. As well, the ability to download docs. But that ability should be expanded upon to the point where it can be automated, scheduled, etc.
And this can be expanded to everything a typical user might deem important...pictures and home movies, misc. files, application settings, registries, heck, even whole systems. Heh, want to log into to windows from anywhere, and have it work exactly like you'd set it up to at home?
Talk about taking over the world...
Third parties need to concentrate their power within a state or two to get into the federal level. Ten seats in Cali's state legislature, ten in New York, ten in Texas won't get that party anywhere. Now, having a decent number of a state's seats might get the party a few seats in the house of reps. Having half of the state's seats might even get the party a spot in the senate.
Now for the hard part. Once the third party gets enough seats in the senate in enough states (at least a quarter of the red and a quarter of the blue states), it might even be feasible to run for the presidency. But premature attempts will only make that third party lose support, as the candidate from the "other" side will win and everyone will blame the third party (look what happened after Nader). It's hard because we all know some schmuck is going to run anyway, and maybe pick up a few states here or there, just enough to ruin it for either the D or R, but not enough to actually get the presidency.
<rant>
The goal of a true higher education institute is not to make money. It is not to expand or grow as an organization. The goal of a higher education institute is to promote education, scholarship, academics. It is to educate the next generation. It is to ensure the freedom of ideas and the freedom of the creation thereof. It is to advance the existing collective knowledge. That is the purpose of a university.
Now, granted, there are monetary issues involved. Professors have to be paid a decent salary and given decent benefits. Facilities have to be present and maintained, and occasionally replaced. Resources have to be managed. But money is only a means to an end; universities serve knowledge first and foremost. And when there's a conflict between money and knowledge, knowledge should always end up on top.
Describing an action by a university with business terms or with the word 'business' itself is a gross violation of the spirit of a higher education institute.
</rant>
Regardless of whether this was or was not a so-called 'business' decision (as reality is that more and more universities are becoming businesses these days), from a business standpoint or from an academic, it is still a poor decision. From an academic standpoint, banning p2p is a restriction of the application of new knowledge and a restriction upon the mechanism by which existing knowledge is dispersed, even if very little meaningful knowledge gets transmitted through p2p. From a business standpoint, banning p2p makes the school less attractive, which only means that the number of applicants or the quality thereof, will go down. That means the level and amount of research goes down, which means fewer grants and patents, and that means less money.
Not particularly coherent today, so forgive me if not everything makes sense, but I'll take a shot at replying.
http://www.freelancersunion.org/
What they do, except perhaps with more of a music slant. Like offering discounts to equipment/promotional resources or pairing producers with singers, etc. If done right, it could theoretically completely replace what the RIAA does. RIAA members owning a good chunk of the major media outlets does present a challenge to the organizers of such a union, the RIAA could be driven to extinction by this alone even without the internet.
Add the internet as a viable alternative promotion channel to more traditional forms of media, and it might actually fly.
Ironic thing is, this model would bring the music industry far closer to a free market than one that involves the RIAA. That is, assuming the union leaders aren't eventually corrupted by the money. After all, the music industry is huge.
Better yet:a /Plates_tect2_en.svg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8
The tunnel will be entirely within the north american plate. Someone below mentioned connecting vancouver island and the mainland. There's a reason why there isn't an existing physical connection between the island and the mainland, and neither money nor politics has anything to do with it. Vancouver Island, I believe, sits on the pacific plate, while as we all know, mainland is on the north american plate. Now that project would be quite infeasible, and dangerous to boot.
I think if this were true, more species than bees would be affected.
While the article is likely biased against cell phones and their usage, geomagnetic reversal does not explain everything. In particular, why this does not affect other species whose navigation appears to be dependent on the planet's magnetism. That, and why this is a spreading phenomenon, not one that suddenly happens to every honeybee worldwide. After all, changes in the magnetic field should affect the whole planet simultaneously and largely equally.
What happens when you know that an error has occurred, but you don't know why? You know something bad has happened, but what it is exactly is beyond you. Maybe you didn't forsee that a certain exception would get thrown in a particular block of code. Perhaps you added some code or started calling something existing already that threw a new exception. It could be something that until you've actually seen it happen, you wouldn't even imagine that it was possible, much less know how to compensate for it.
Yes, that's poor design. But complex, multi-threaded programs are rarely cut and dry--especially those the size of MS Word. And it's always good to have a catch all at the very bottom of complex try blocks. Perhaps these crashes were the result of the app hitting that last resort.
Yeah, the guy shouldn't have blew the security researchers off. Comments like that, while are realistic, are terrible for PR. What the MS rep should have said was that they were looking into it, but that because the app is crashing, it's a low security risk and there's no need for alarm. Something to that effect. A comment to the effect of it not being a bug or it being a part of the design, is flaimbait.
You're missing 2 important things here related to convenience, the primary selling point of all mp3 players.
First, people want the totality of their collection (or at least their favorites) on the device at once. Plain and simple. No one knows for certain what they will want to listen to for the rest of the day. So in the morning, they might be feeling R&B, but by the end of the day, it's, classical. The topic of music might come up in a conversation, and to have all the songs being mentioned at the touch of a button would be extremely convenient. Thus, people want as much of their collection on one device as possible. Neither does anyone want to shuffle songs around between the PC and iPod every so often just to get a bit of variety. It's vastly inconvenient to do so. The shuffle sells less than the nano which sells less than the regular ipod for a reason.
Second, and this applies only to those who have the appropriate technical knowhow, anyone who rips mp3's will rip them at whatever bit rate they think will be best for the speakers at HOME. After all, it's pointless to have a consolidated music collection if you still have to play the good version from a CD. Nobody's going to rerip a bunch of 192k or 256k mp3's just to carry around, regardless of how much space they have. Now, those who don't rip their songs are at the mercy of iTMS. But they're definitely not going to rerip their songs at a lower bit rate just because they've suddenly run out of room on their mp3 player after a year or two of use.
You might not mind constantly swapping songs to and from your iPod. And you might not mind ripping and storing (due to reason #1) every song in your collection a second time just to save space. But I certainly mind. And I know most people who buy the iPod for the convenience and/or style will, at least for the former reason.
Agreed. What's to stop someone from releasing the source code to their cheating program? That way, all people would have to do is add their own text string into code somewhere, and the hash of the resulting binary would be completely different.