There was only one problem: all the tame foxes had a big white streak down their back, ruining the pelt. They two traits were related somehow, even though you wouldn't think it.
Computing devices seem to be following that same general curve...becoming more specialized, embedded, and specific-to-task (one example: console games vs. gaming PCs). Given this inexorable movement away from the general-purpose to the application-specific, I'd have to guess that the end-to-end model will be excercising progressively more dominance in the market as time passes.
{sarcasm} That certainly explains the popularity of WebTV boxes and "internet appliances". Why use an over-powered, general-purpose computer to surf the net when you can use a specialized end-to-end device. {/sarcasm}
4) There's rumours of spyware (and frankly the fourth one applies to virtual[ly] all closed source software that doesn't come from MS or Apple).
Why exclude MS and Apple? In fact, I'd be more suspicious of software from MS or Apple spying on me since they have intimate access to undocumented holes in the respective operating systems. All other apps trying to "phone home" should be caught by your firewall.
Many of these studies also leave off the fact that the "byproduct" of producing ethanol from corn is also valuable . . . That leaves behind a protein rich by-product that is then added to corn and other feed used for raising cattle.
Damn, I was hoping the byproduct would be bourbon. Save the planet, drink more Jack Daniels.
Why would anyone pay almost as much for a drm'd file than a dvd?
I can think of a few reasons (unfortunately Warner Bros does not appear to be implementing any of them):
The DRMed file is released before the DVD
The DRMed file is in a high resolution format
The cost of the download is refunded if you decide to buy the physical DVD
You get a rebate for seeding the file to others
The DRMed file contains additional content not available on DVD
There's lots of things they could do to add value to the downloaded file (even with DRM) but the whole scheme seems to be set up with the intention to fail so they can say "we tried, but people just want to steal from us".
WiMax is a good alternative for rural areas that aren't already served with broadband access. Those folks would be willing to put up with the expense/uglyness/non-portability of a dish.
I'm sure SanFrancisco is already well served with cable and DSL options for homeowners. The people interested in free WiFi access are people on-the-go (laptops, handhelds, etc) and those who can't afford broadband. In both cases, WiFi is the way to go, since the client-side hardware is both portable and low-cost.
They were also rebroadcasting Canadian networks so if the American networks hadn't shut them down the Canadian networks would have (the CBC had already started legal action against them, but iCrave folded before it could be pursued).
Besides, they had few sponsers and would have self-destructed when the dot com bubble popped in 2000.
Personally, I don't think iCrave was doing anything wrong. They rebroadcast signals that were received free over-the-air (either commercial-based or public broadcasting) in Toronto (the American signals were violating Canadian air-space). They did not remove the commercials from the signal (just had their own ads on the webpage, outside the streaming video window). If anything, they added value to the network's signal by beaming them to a wider audience (the big TV networks are only now, 7 years later, figuring out that putting their programming on the web is a good thing).
That would be relevant, *IF* it was the US. It was a NATO attack, run by england's general, using english pilots. And just to top it off, it was an accident that it happened. That's hardly proof that even Europe/England don't "worry" about such things.
1) The US is a member of NATO.
2) Although the commander of the NATO operation was British, the plane that made the attack was a US Air Force F15E manned by an American Air Force pilot and weapons officer.
3) Amnesty International's investigation determined that NATO had not taken sufficient precautionary measures to ensure there was no civilian traffic in the vicinity of the bridge before launching the attack and even worse, sped up the video of the attack released to the press to make it appear more unavoidable than it was. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/060700-02.ht m
I'd like to think the fans had something to do with it http://www.originaltrilogy.com/. Of course, the many fan-produced DVD transfers of the laser disc version floating around the net could also have something to do with it as well.
So, the claim that poverty is irrelevant is at the very least shortsighted and naive, though it is more probably just plain moronic.
The claim is not the poverty is irrelevant to health, but that poverty is irrelevant TO THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY. Yes, the study even says that rich Americans are healthier in general than poor Americans, but that is compensated for statistically and doesn't explain why rich Brits are healther than rich Americans.
One point you missed though: despite the long hours and few vacation days in the US, there are more Americans in poverty now in real terms than at any time since the Great Depression. For tens of millions of Americans, despite all the work they are still dirt poor. This is for several reasons: {long rant snipped}
While poverty in America is certainly a problem, it's irrelavant to this study. TFA (and even the summary) note that the study results compensate for income, education, age, race and gender. Thus there is some other cause for Americans being sicker than the British.
MS even does the RIAA one better -- because the point is that we're dinosaurs who are using Microsoft's old products. They trash us, and they trash their own software!
And let's not forget the Windows XP print ads that show a BSOD with the tag line "never see this again". But I guess it's a problem for advertisers when your only real competition is your own former products.
Maybe new TVs come standard with S-Video now, but as I said a low-end VGA monitor would be just as cheap and offer at least double the resolution.
But you can't watch TV on it (not without an expensive TV-to-VGA box anyway). If you can only afford to buy one, you buy the one that can do both. Kinda like the old days with the Commodore 64, it was a good way to get your parents to buy you a TV for your room.
Where does this all end? Gattica had the nifty system of checking DNA for everything...will the Police officer someday just ask for a strand of hair?
Even using DNA for identity checking is not infalible. I watched an interesting documentary last night on Chimerism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerism. One poor woman almost had her children taken away from her by the state because multiple DNA tests said they weren't hers. Turns out she had a very rare disorder called chimerism and had more than one set of DNA. It may not be as rare as once thought since some people have no visible symptoms and more cases are turning up now that DNA testing is more common.
From TFA:
There's no particular necessity that the brain would form in the head--that's again a product of convenience, since more sensory organs were located in the front of the animal, and induced an enlargement of the local part of the nervous system to cope with their input.
So let's meddle again, and instead put the brain somewhere near the middle of the animal. In that position, it can be better protected by the mass of bone and muscle in the chest, and also be more conveniently located relative to the heart and circulatory system. It changes our head from a bulbous housing for a crucial, delicate organ, all poised on a fragile stalk of a neck, to a flexible sensory and feeding apparatus.
This "improvement" of moving the brain from the head to the chest cavity is (IMHO) based on a faulty premise; that it would be better protected. The brain floats in a liquid suspension enclosed in thick bone container (the skull). It is without a doubt the most heavily protected of our internal organs. The organs in the chest cavity are protected only a thin latice of bones (the rib cage). Take a visit to the emergency room and you'll see far more accident victims with broken ribs and internal bleeding than you will broken skulls and brain damage. I suppose you could put a skull-like enclosure around the entire chest cavity like a turtle's shell, but that would increase the weight of the creature and limit mobility (Aesop aside, the hare usually wins).
How about lobbying Netcraft to, say, better track and determine which domains are parked, versus 'real'? It shouldn't be too hard. Some regexs, bayesian stuff, and then they could differentiate servers with 'real' content
If you develop this filter that can separate real web sites from 'parked' sites (AKA link farms), please give it to Google. I'm tired of my top 10 search results being peppered with link farms.
I've been saying TV stations should do this exact thing for years. You want to stop "piracy" of your shows? Put them online for free. Show the ads; we know you've gotta make money.
I'm sure they've wanted to do it for years. The problem has always been the local affiliates. The advertising on a primetime network show consists of two parts; national advertising (sold by the network), and local advertising (sold by the affiliates). Streaming it over the web essentially cuts out the local affiliates. I guess things have finally reached the point where the networks are more afraid of losing all their advertising (to both piracy and legitimate sources like paid downloads and DVD sales) then they are of pissing off the locals affiliates.
Software is especially precarious in this way. I don't need the master recording of a song to be able to distribute and change that song, but if I don't have the source to a program, all I can do is distribute a binary. I think this is a very important and fundamental issue with copyright law that Congress has not fully thought through.
Even if copyright terms for software were made shorter (a good idea BTW) that still wouldn't require the creator to release the source code. It wouldn't even require the creator to unlock the copy protection/DRM. It just means that anyone can legally copy and redistribute (even for profit) the original release. Forcing the creator to cough up the source code for something they're no longer going to make money on would be difficult, assuming the source is even still available (I know I'd be hard pressed to find source code for stuff I wrote only 10 years ago).
But wait, it gets even better. What if an old piece of software (lets say King's Quest I) contains music? If the copyright limits for software and music are different, then the one with the longest term will apply (unless the music can be removed from game). This happens even now. I bought a cheapy DVD of the Beverly Hillbillies (poke fun if you must) and the theme song (best part of the show) was removed and replaced with some generic bluegrass fiddle music. I'm guessing DVD distributor paid for the distribution rights for the show but not the music.
Been to a library lately? My local library has been online since before 2003 http://catalogue.halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/ and allows you to add books, CDs and yes DVDs to your personal list, informs you when they are available for pick-up at your local branch, and when you return them they send you the next ones on your list when they're available. Sounds like 'prior art' to me, the only real difference is that the library isn't charging a monthly fee.
To believe that all land animals are decended from a few hundred individual animals on a boat is preposterous. On the other hand, to believe that all life everywhere decended from a single cell in a primordial soup is perfectly logical.
Are theatre owners across the nation members of a union of some sort? Or an association that collectively negotiates with the movie studios?
Most theaters, from small independants to big national chains, are members of the National Association of Theatre Owners. Their web site http://www.natoonline.org/ has some interesting statistics like average ticket prices, box office grosses and admissions over the years.
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I thought cowardly foxes had a yellow streak?
{sarcasm} That certainly explains the popularity of WebTV boxes and "internet appliances". Why use an over-powered, general-purpose computer to surf the net when you can use a specialized end-to-end device. {/sarcasm}
Why exclude MS and Apple? In fact, I'd be more suspicious of software from MS or Apple spying on me since they have intimate access to undocumented holes in the respective operating systems. All other apps trying to "phone home" should be caught by your firewall.
Damn, I was hoping the byproduct would be bourbon. Save the planet, drink more Jack Daniels.
I can think of a few reasons (unfortunately Warner Bros does not appear to be implementing any of them):
There's lots of things they could do to add value to the downloaded file (even with DRM) but the whole scheme seems to be set up with the intention to fail so they can say "we tried, but people just want to steal from us".
I'm sure SanFrancisco is already well served with cable and DSL options for homeowners. The people interested in free WiFi access are people on-the-go (laptops, handhelds, etc) and those who can't afford broadband. In both cases, WiFi is the way to go, since the client-side hardware is both portable and low-cost.
Personally, I don't think iCrave was doing anything wrong. They rebroadcast signals that were received free over-the-air (either commercial-based or public broadcasting) in Toronto (the American signals were violating Canadian air-space). They did not remove the commercials from the signal (just had their own ads on the webpage, outside the streaming video window). If anything, they added value to the network's signal by beaming them to a wider audience (the big TV networks are only now, 7 years later, figuring out that putting their programming on the web is a good thing).
1) The US is a member of NATO.
2) Although the commander of the NATO operation was British, the plane that made the attack was a US Air Force F15E manned by an American Air Force pilot and weapons officer.
3) Amnesty International's investigation determined that NATO had not taken sufficient precautionary measures to ensure there was no civilian traffic in the vicinity of the bridge before launching the attack and even worse, sped up the video of the attack released to the press to make it appear more unavoidable than it was. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/060700-02.ht m
Since when has the US military worried about blowing up a bridge? Even when there is a train full of civilians on it? http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9904/13/nato.attac k.03/ http://indypeer.org/show_file_page.php?file_id=80
I'd like to think the fans had something to do with it http://www.originaltrilogy.com/. Of course, the many fan-produced DVD transfers of the laser disc version floating around the net could also have something to do with it as well.
The claim is not the poverty is irrelevant to health, but that poverty is irrelevant TO THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY. Yes, the study even says that rich Americans are healthier in general than poor Americans, but that is compensated for statistically and doesn't explain why rich Brits are healther than rich Americans.
While poverty in America is certainly a problem, it's irrelavant to this study. TFA (and even the summary) note that the study results compensate for income, education, age, race and gender. Thus there is some other cause for Americans being sicker than the British.
And let's not forget the Windows XP print ads that show a BSOD with the tag line "never see this again". But I guess it's a problem for advertisers when your only real competition is your own former products.
You would think a Japanese company would want to avoid any connection to WWII.
But you can't watch TV on it (not without an expensive TV-to-VGA box anyway). If you can only afford to buy one, you buy the one that can do both. Kinda like the old days with the Commodore 64, it was a good way to get your parents to buy you a TV for your room.
Even using DNA for identity checking is not infalible. I watched an interesting documentary last night on Chimerism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimerism. One poor woman almost had her children taken away from her by the state because multiple DNA tests said they weren't hers. Turns out she had a very rare disorder called chimerism and had more than one set of DNA. It may not be as rare as once thought since some people have no visible symptoms and more cases are turning up now that DNA testing is more common.
This "improvement" of moving the brain from the head to the chest cavity is (IMHO) based on a faulty premise; that it would be better protected. The brain floats in a liquid suspension enclosed in thick bone container (the skull). It is without a doubt the most heavily protected of our internal organs. The organs in the chest cavity are protected only a thin latice of bones (the rib cage). Take a visit to the emergency room and you'll see far more accident victims with broken ribs and internal bleeding than you will broken skulls and brain damage. I suppose you could put a skull-like enclosure around the entire chest cavity like a turtle's shell, but that would increase the weight of the creature and limit mobility (Aesop aside, the hare usually wins).
If you develop this filter that can separate real web sites from 'parked' sites (AKA link farms), please give it to Google. I'm tired of my top 10 search results being peppered with link farms.
I'm sure they've wanted to do it for years. The problem has always been the local affiliates. The advertising on a primetime network show consists of two parts; national advertising (sold by the network), and local advertising (sold by the affiliates). Streaming it over the web essentially cuts out the local affiliates. I guess things have finally reached the point where the networks are more afraid of losing all their advertising (to both piracy and legitimate sources like paid downloads and DVD sales) then they are of pissing off the locals affiliates.
Even if copyright terms for software were made shorter (a good idea BTW) that still wouldn't require the creator to release the source code. It wouldn't even require the creator to unlock the copy protection/DRM. It just means that anyone can legally copy and redistribute (even for profit) the original release. Forcing the creator to cough up the source code for something they're no longer going to make money on would be difficult, assuming the source is even still available (I know I'd be hard pressed to find source code for stuff I wrote only 10 years ago).
But wait, it gets even better. What if an old piece of software (lets say King's Quest I) contains music? If the copyright limits for software and music are different, then the one with the longest term will apply (unless the music can be removed from game). This happens even now. I bought a cheapy DVD of the Beverly Hillbillies (poke fun if you must) and the theme song (best part of the show) was removed and replaced with some generic bluegrass fiddle music. I'm guessing DVD distributor paid for the distribution rights for the show but not the music.
Been to a library lately? My local library has been online since before 2003 http://catalogue.halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/ and allows you to add books, CDs and yes DVDs to your personal list, informs you when they are available for pick-up at your local branch, and when you return them they send you the next ones on your list when they're available. Sounds like 'prior art' to me, the only real difference is that the library isn't charging a monthly fee.
To believe that all land animals are decended from a few hundred individual animals on a boat is preposterous. On the other hand, to believe that all life everywhere decended from a single cell in a primordial soup is perfectly logical.
My C++ code also falls into a nested hiearchy, but my code is a result of intelligent design (well, design anyway).
Hey, what happened to my recording of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction"?
Most theaters, from small independants to big national chains, are members of the National Association of Theatre Owners. Their web site http://www.natoonline.org/ has some interesting statistics like average ticket prices, box office grosses and admissions over the years.