I suppose unissued credit card number would be one that poses as a valid number. You can't just write 16 random numbers but they have to have a correct checksum(was this the last number?). What the uses for this would be, I don't know. I'd suppose that nowadays everyone wanting a valid credit card number has the capability to actually authorize it before granting any services..
Oh come on.. How many people remember an article from a year ago? How many(percentage) of the current (active) readers were around a year ago? Yes, duplicating something from last week or maybe even two months ago is a screw-up but for something that was last reported over six months ago.. why not?
I read slashdot very frequently. On a slow day I might load the front page over half a dozen times but still out of the recent duplicates I noticed only one or two. Good stories deserve to be reported more than once! (unless it has already become obsolete)
It seems almost like someone has created a script that automatically compares a posted story to the old ones and once a match is found posts a response accusing the staff of incompetence. Grow up.. There are so many new readers that can bring new arguments to the topics. Maybe it wasn't even dealt with proprely the last time..
"But mom, I just had ice cream six months ago? Can't I have something else? - Shut up and eat!..or go to your room and stay there."
Rain gutter is actually terribly optimistic. This fiber might be (for its likely efficiency) more like a rain gutter from a 30-year-old house that hasn't been maintained. Sure it's rusty and full of holes but you still get *some brown* water at the end of the pipe..
Uh.. So let me get this straight.. Instead of putting the high efficiency LEDs in front of the car in the first place you want to only expose these fibers to LEDs and then direct the remainder (maybe 10%, if you're lucky) in the form of a colored light to the front of the car?
With regards to "fiber plumbing" you'd be better of actually reading the article before posting. It is fairly clearly stated that these fibers produce only a single color(a wavelength) of light whereas white light is a combination of several colors in right proportions. And were not even talking about trying to recreate natural(sun) looking light, which is a lot more difficult.
These fibers don't transfer light in the purest sense. Light(photons) hits the side of the fiber and excites electrons. Shortly afterwards these electrons lose their excited stage but instead of releasing their energy(new photon) as light outside the fiber they release it inside the fiber. This is called fluoresence, btw. The fiber seems to be a normal fiber-optical fiber with all the properties that come with it(little loss with light transfer). Thus the end result is that you transform your ambient light into one dull color(could you live in a neon-pink room?).
Yup, and one must remember that the process of creating light is *extremely* lossy(LEDs have the best ratio, though). Combine this with transfer losses from the sources to the fibers and losses in the fibers and it does start to seem extremely stupid... And yes.. my choice of equipment for exploring a cave definetly would be a laptop and a flashlight. e-mail is so much more convienient in pitch black deep cave exploration then say walkie talkie. I mean, people spend weeks in these caves and stuff and just cant live without email..
Hrmph.. Disregarding the current world champion altogether? Yes, the finn had his share of mishappenings this year but to think that Mika Hakkinen is not going to be a top contender in the upcoming years is just wrong...
I doubt there is much of an encryption involved(maybe something comparable to cuecat). This unit is not particularily powerful(cpu) and just handling the mpeg-2 streams is going to be enough. Scanning the harddrive for mpeg2-headers might be a good start or if there is a simple encryption algorithm involved looking for regular patterns(the forementioned headers). Maybe I'll have a look after buying one soon. Tivo has standard mpeg-2 encoding and decoding-chips(I wish someone would make an affordable pci-card with these). Any additional compression would be futile. And why would tivo send legal letters? You bought the hardware, it is yours to do whatever you please! Only thing they might have a case on is if someone actually disassembled the programs running the box(those not covered by GPL).
How about you dig a twenty feet deep grave and bury yourself into it? In your solitarity you can repeat the following mantra until you run out of oxygen: Undefended patents do not revert to public domain only trademarks... Undefended patents do not...etc..
This has been on slashdot so many times.. They should make a collection of common mistatements and their refutals and force people to read it before being able to submit.. at least some people..
Re:You can't ambush somebody with a contract.
on
CueCat At It Again
·
· Score: 2
Where did he say that he was from the fucked up US of A? Besides no one is going to come after a single dmca violation(circumventing a copy protection method) and since it is being done constantly on windows why not linux too..
You try to have 10million cd's shipped around the world, stored and then sold to customers. Now tell me that this isn't going to cost a considerable amount of money. Material costs are fairly small, less than 10% of the purchase price. Probably about 1$ including everything(cd, cover, case, leaflets) but it is still something.
Now take this all away and the record company is probably making about 8-10$/cd(of course you still have advertisement, design and all that crap that cuts their profit down a lot but just the change of medium involved).
Now if I was offered a chance to download cd's for 8$ and had the proper connection I'd probably go for it. 10$ or more and I would just driver to the record store and pay a little extra to get the whole enchilada..
This thing is best used for hard to find cd's. Especially the ones not being made anymore. Those you could easily charge a premium for and you'd probably get the customers too. In addition to this offer reasonably priced (8usd) regular cd's and you have a business.
I suppose that when purchasing music online you'd have to enter a valid address etc. information. Now if music that has been watermarked ends up going around the web they'll be coming after you..
An empty cd with a case - 1$
Glossy paper - 80 cents
Ink - 1$
Music - 14$
Time you spent putting it together - priceless
Should pretty much sum it up.. Used pretty much normal retail prices when buying in bulk(like I tend to do with these). Maybe train some chimpansees and make it worth the time?
Yup.. I did something like that on a little smaller scale too. Sears Hardware had really easy to use wire-tubes that attach to the wall with an adhesive surface. Fits a cat5 wire easily and took about 20-30mins to set up with all the planning. This was only for a 30ft piece though.. I had to go through 4 changes of directions(3 of which were corners) but the connecting pieces one could buy made the job really easy. Currently going next to the floor and up a corner it is virtually invisible.
You're wrong. That only applies to trademarks. Patent is yours to do whatever you please with it and you can enforce it as selectively as you want. A trademark violation however.. If you don't defend that it's gone. Trademark is lot more abstract though(just a name) so it is understandable. So repeat after me: You cannot lose your patent by not enforcing it!
Instead of responding to each reply separately I'll just reply to myself..
With regards to the microsoft case.. Some people were clearly breaking the law with their postings. I didn't follow the end result of the discussion(as there is so much stuff coming up on slashdot anyway) but microsoft would have definetly had a case with some of the posters. Anyone know of the eventual outcome?
The difference between this and the microsoft case is that there was no direct ruling on the matter immediately before the offense. Given all the heat microsoft was taking at the time I'm sure their legal department had other things to worry about. And document in question was a semi-open freely downloadable thing with a questionable license-agreement that could be bypassed. Copyright was still violated, however.
With the current ruling on the decss matter you're essentially breaking the law with your links. It is illegal as of the date of that ruling to link to the code. What is even worse that this is enforced by the infamous dmca that seems to give digital content providers unlimited control. Regardless of the eventual outcome should a case be brought up right now with the current legal precedents there would be no doubt of the winner. I sincerely hope that this ruling will be challenged and overturned but you have to live with it for now...
Slashdot being a web-site hosting an illegal link and getting sued for it is not what I want to see. Yes I'm all for the freedom of speech, first amendment and all that stuff but slashdot being governed by the very same laws that prohibit this link could involve it with a lawsuit. Not a very nice thing to do. I think that slashdot would eventually be considered to be responsible of the illegal stuff that gets posted here. Yes, it does say that comments are owned by the posters but involve enough financial interest and a clause like that doesn't mean a thing. If someone posted kiddieporn as their comment do you think that it wouldn't be taken down asap? Then in light of the recent legal precedings what is different with this? That we know that it should be right doesn't change the fact that it isn't. I'm not saying that it compares to in any way to the kiddie porn example, but the end result after a legal process would be the same.
So why jeopardise your favourite website. To prove that you have the balls to post illegal stuff. Go do that in anonymously in usenet(that could be considered a mere carrier) or post instructions on how to search for decss from but why directly brake the laws that affect slashdot(there are always ways around them)? If you really need to have a link to decss then do it on your own site. I'm definetly all for the freedom of linking but if fighting for it results in financial damage to a third party because of my deliberate illegal actions involving that third party in the matter then something is wrong..
I think that you've just done the stupidest thing you could have done. You're involving the entire slashdot community with something that has been determined to be illegal in a court of law. Most likely slashdot will receive a c&d-letter and your post will have to be removed.
The preceding rant is in no way intended to indicate that I approve with way things are going with decss(I strongly disapprove) but involving slashdot with it is unexcusable and while removing your posts they should probably consider removing your username also..
Uh.. Think about it this way: SPECIFIC method and SPECIFIC apparatus for accelerating the rendering of images. You cannot patent ideas, only implementations. With all the financial interest involved this patent cannot be too broad or everyone else would be challenging it.
FM-radio channel has generally a 200khz bandwidth(in u.s.) reserved to it. It is going to use lot less, but this is to prevent interference between stations. Stereo pilot is at 19khz if i'm not terribly mistaken. All frequencies higher than 18khz or so are filtered out(so that they don't mess with stereo carrier). 40khz bandwidth is a good estimate..
Transmission rate is still dependant on the information theory(bandwidth and the more power you put out, the better transmission rates you can expect, square power and rate doubles, double bandwidth and rate doubles). Could still improve the transmission rate of telephone line by improving the s/n-ratio(putting out more power) but benefits would be small compared to the cost..
FM-broadcasts are much more powerful than your average telephone conversation and s/n-ratio could be made better thus improving transmission rates. Increased bandwidth does have a bigger impact, however. Would probably want to use frequency bands over 1ghz where a bandwidth of 500khz-1mhz is obtainable..
You can stuff as many carriers you want into a bandwidth but limiting factor is going to be the modulating frequency which is going to appear on the both sides of the carrier(could suppress one). you don't want interference..
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose unissued credit card number would be one that poses as a valid number. You can't just write 16 random numbers but they have to have a correct checksum(was this the last number?). What the uses for this would be, I don't know. I'd suppose that nowadays everyone wanting a valid credit card number has the capability to actually authorize it before granting any services..
I read slashdot very frequently. On a slow day I might load the front page over half a dozen times but still out of the recent duplicates I noticed only one or two. Good stories deserve to be reported more than once! (unless it has already become obsolete)
It seems almost like someone has created a script that automatically compares a posted story to the old ones and once a match is found posts a response accusing the staff of incompetence. Grow up.. There are so many new readers that can bring new arguments to the topics. Maybe it wasn't even dealt with proprely the last time..
"But mom, I just had ice cream six months ago? Can't I have something else? - Shut up and eat! ..or go to your room and stay there."
You get to pick the color of rust but the amount of holes is still unknown..
Rain gutter is actually terribly optimistic. This fiber might be (for its likely efficiency) more like a rain gutter from a 30-year-old house that hasn't been maintained. Sure it's rusty and full of holes but you still get *some brown* water at the end of the pipe..
With regards to "fiber plumbing" you'd be better of actually reading the article before posting. It is fairly clearly stated that these fibers produce only a single color(a wavelength) of light whereas white light is a combination of several colors in right proportions. And were not even talking about trying to recreate natural(sun) looking light, which is a lot more difficult.
These fibers don't transfer light in the purest sense. Light(photons) hits the side of the fiber and excites electrons. Shortly afterwards these electrons lose their excited stage but instead of releasing their energy(new photon) as light outside the fiber they release it inside the fiber. This is called fluoresence, btw. The fiber seems to be a normal fiber-optical fiber with all the properties that come with it(little loss with light transfer). Thus the end result is that you transform your ambient light into one dull color(could you live in a neon-pink room?).
Yup, and one must remember that the process of creating light is *extremely* lossy(LEDs have the best ratio, though). Combine this with transfer losses from the sources to the fibers and losses in the fibers and it does start to seem extremely stupid... And yes.. my choice of equipment for exploring a cave definetly would be a laptop and a flashlight. e-mail is so much more convienient in pitch black deep cave exploration then say walkie talkie. I mean, people spend weeks in these caves and stuff and just cant live without email..
I know, but he is still officially the world champion..
Just my biased thought...
Or, in the worst case, two dead children..
I doubt there is much of an encryption involved(maybe something comparable to cuecat). This unit is not particularily powerful(cpu) and just handling the mpeg-2 streams is going to be enough. Scanning the harddrive for mpeg2-headers might be a good start or if there is a simple encryption algorithm involved looking for regular patterns(the forementioned headers). Maybe I'll have a look after buying one soon. Tivo has standard mpeg-2 encoding and decoding-chips(I wish someone would make an affordable pci-card with these). Any additional compression would be futile. And why would tivo send legal letters? You bought the hardware, it is yours to do whatever you please! Only thing they might have a case on is if someone actually disassembled the programs running the box(those not covered by GPL).
This has been on slashdot so many times.. They should make a collection of common mistatements and their refutals and force people to read it before being able to submit.. at least some people..
Now if your sister had mailed her dog to you...
Where did he say that he was from the fucked up US of A? Besides no one is going to come after a single dmca violation(circumventing a copy protection method) and since it is being done constantly on windows why not linux too..
You try to have 10million cd's shipped around the world, stored and then sold to customers. Now tell me that this isn't going to cost a considerable amount of money. Material costs are fairly small, less than 10% of the purchase price. Probably about 1$ including everything(cd, cover, case, leaflets) but it is still something.
Now take this all away and the record company is probably making about 8-10$/cd(of course you still have advertisement, design and all that crap that cuts their profit down a lot but just the change of medium involved).
Now if I was offered a chance to download cd's for 8$ and had the proper connection I'd probably go for it. 10$ or more and I would just driver to the record store and pay a little extra to get the whole enchilada..
This thing is best used for hard to find cd's. Especially the ones not being made anymore. Those you could easily charge a premium for and you'd probably get the customers too. In addition to this offer reasonably priced (8usd) regular cd's and you have a business.
I suppose that when purchasing music online you'd have to enter a valid address etc. information. Now if music that has been watermarked ends up going around the web they'll be coming after you..
Glossy paper - 80 cents
Ink - 1$
Music - 14$
Time you spent putting it together - priceless
Should pretty much sum it up.. Used pretty much normal retail prices when buying in bulk(like I tend to do with these). Maybe train some chimpansees and make it worth the time?
Yes, if you are close friends with amd(like kryotech is) and can get processors that don't have the locks.. This is all amd sanctioned..
Yup.. I did something like that on a little smaller scale too. Sears Hardware had really easy to use wire-tubes that attach to the wall with an adhesive surface. Fits a cat5 wire easily and took about 20-30mins to set up with all the planning. This was only for a 30ft piece though.. I had to go through 4 changes of directions(3 of which were corners) but the connecting pieces one could buy made the job really easy. Currently going next to the floor and up a corner it is virtually invisible.
You're wrong. That only applies to trademarks. Patent is yours to do whatever you please with it and you can enforce it as selectively as you want. A trademark violation however.. If you don't defend that it's gone. Trademark is lot more abstract though(just a name) so it is understandable. So repeat after me: You cannot lose your patent by not enforcing it!
With regards to the microsoft case.. Some people were clearly breaking the law with their postings. I didn't follow the end result of the discussion(as there is so much stuff coming up on slashdot anyway) but microsoft would have definetly had a case with some of the posters. Anyone know of the eventual outcome?
The difference between this and the microsoft case is that there was no direct ruling on the matter immediately before the offense. Given all the heat microsoft was taking at the time I'm sure their legal department had other things to worry about. And document in question was a semi-open freely downloadable thing with a questionable license-agreement that could be bypassed. Copyright was still violated, however.
With the current ruling on the decss matter you're essentially breaking the law with your links. It is illegal as of the date of that ruling to link to the code. What is even worse that this is enforced by the infamous dmca that seems to give digital content providers unlimited control. Regardless of the eventual outcome should a case be brought up right now with the current legal precedents there would be no doubt of the winner. I sincerely hope that this ruling will be challenged and overturned but you have to live with it for now...
Slashdot being a web-site hosting an illegal link and getting sued for it is not what I want to see. Yes I'm all for the freedom of speech, first amendment and all that stuff but slashdot being governed by the very same laws that prohibit this link could involve it with a lawsuit. Not a very nice thing to do. I think that slashdot would eventually be considered to be responsible of the illegal stuff that gets posted here. Yes, it does say that comments are owned by the posters but involve enough financial interest and a clause like that doesn't mean a thing. If someone posted kiddieporn as their comment do you think that it wouldn't be taken down asap? Then in light of the recent legal precedings what is different with this? That we know that it should be right doesn't change the fact that it isn't. I'm not saying that it compares to in any way to the kiddie porn example, but the end result after a legal process would be the same.
So why jeopardise your favourite website. To prove that you have the balls to post illegal stuff. Go do that in anonymously in usenet(that could be considered a mere carrier) or post instructions on how to search for decss from but why directly brake the laws that affect slashdot(there are always ways around them)? If you really need to have a link to decss then do it on your own site. I'm definetly all for the freedom of linking but if fighting for it results in financial damage to a third party because of my deliberate illegal actions involving that third party in the matter then something is wrong..
The preceding rant is in no way intended to indicate that I approve with way things are going with decss(I strongly disapprove) but involving slashdot with it is unexcusable and while removing your posts they should probably consider removing your username also..
Uh.. Think about it this way: SPECIFIC method and SPECIFIC apparatus for accelerating the rendering of images. You cannot patent ideas, only implementations. With all the financial interest involved this patent cannot be too broad or everyone else would be challenging it.
Transmission rate is still dependant on the information theory(bandwidth and the more power you put out, the better transmission rates you can expect, square power and rate doubles, double bandwidth and rate doubles). Could still improve the transmission rate of telephone line by improving the s/n-ratio(putting out more power) but benefits would be small compared to the cost..
FM-broadcasts are much more powerful than your average telephone conversation and s/n-ratio could be made better thus improving transmission rates. Increased bandwidth does have a bigger impact, however. Would probably want to use frequency bands over 1ghz where a bandwidth of 500khz-1mhz is obtainable..
You can stuff as many carriers you want into a bandwidth but limiting factor is going to be the modulating frequency which is going to appear on the both sides of the carrier(could suppress one). you don't want interference..
I was always under the impression that RISC meant reduced instruction set computing and cisc complex instruction set computing..