Interesting. If one is not old enough to be legally bound by a contract or license agreement (i.e.; the GPL), how can one legally incorporate and file for an IPO?
1) If Company X sequences the genes that cause Alzheimer's. Even if they can't patent it, they're under no obligation to share that information. This give's them a headstart in developing a treatment. If another company wants to develop a treatment, let them spend their own money, or wait for the HGP.
2) Assuming they develop a cure, the cure is still patentable, just like conventional medications, but still allows other companies to develop alternate treatments.
The problem is when agencies start "re-interpreting" laws and regulations. I've seen wireless microphones on sale in magazines for decades and nobody cared. (does Radio Shack still carry its wireless microphone kit?)
Suddenly, they might be used for "surreptitious intercept", suddenly there are armed raids on honest businesses. No notice. No warning. No "these devices are illegal per Title 18 USC, Section 2512, please remove them from your catalog".
I have no objection with the Feds enforcing the law, I do object to a lack of due process and common sense.
If I were a cynic, I might point out that budget time is coming up in Washington, and it doesn't hurt to show effective your agency is with a few high-profile raids. (and it's much safer if you can be sure your targets are unarmed)
...would be to print out the source code to DeCSS (and neatly bind it, if possible) like they did with the PGP code. It might illustrate more clearly to the judge that the censorship of non-copyrighted material is a violation of first amendment rights.
The judge will probably be highly intelligent, but non-technical. Having a concrete, readable example of what they're trying to censor may help put things in perspective, and bring out the first amendment issues (which I'm sure the corporate lawyers are going to try to gloss over).
> Sony sells its minidisc almost completely on the basis of its ability to make copies. Every > single commercial i've seen for the minidisc consists of nothing but the people making copies > of minidiscs.
Ummm, I believe when you buy a minidisk, the copyright fee (right-to-copy fee?) is part of the price of the disk.
> Phillips is currently selling a standalone CD writer that makes exact copies of CDs, and does > nothing else. They boast about this in their commercials.
My understanding is that these standalone CD writers will only record on CD-R blanks with some special code on them. Of course these blanks cost more because, like minidisks, the copyright fee is part of the price of the disk. As far as I know, though I haven't tried it, you can't use regular (computer) CD-R blanks in a standalone machine.
So go ahead, make a copy on a minidisk or standalone CD writer, make a hundred copies, RIAA doesn't care, they get their money up front. I am mildly curious how they reimburse the artists though.
to name a few. Unfortunately the big companies that afford to self-fund a project like this are severely risk-adverse and the small companies can't get enough investment capital. Maybe someone can figure out how to cross an internet IPO with Rotary Rocket.
In my crazier moments, I imagine Bill Gates wanting to diversify his investments by dropping a few hundred million on two or three of the more promising small companies (LOL).
Define "fixed". Sorry, but that's important, if you can't define "fixed", you can literally spend forever "fixing" things.
> In the short time it would take to stabalise Africa,...
Define "short". In colonial days, things were bad, but at least stable. Since the british and europians left, things have been going downhill. (ok, not everywhere, but in many places, especially the interior)
And define "stablized". The quickest way to stabilize africa would be to recolonize it. Yep, things were bad then, but it was stable. But that's cultural imperialism. Can't have that, can we.
To truly "fix" things is going to take generations of education and hard work to undo the damage there and nobody can do it for them. You can't just ship in some grain and pay off their debts and call it fixed.
Sorry, I wish it was that easy, but the rest of mankind have their own lives to live too.
I guess I'm a little dense this morning (and I'm not into ICQ/chat progs and swapping MP3 files) so I have a couple questions...
Several people have mentioned security problems. I'm curious what kind of security problems are involved here? (The only one I can see is the programmer losing control over his protocol, but as I said, I'm a little dense this morning.)
Given that there are security problems, how should they be addressed? Offhand (and not having taken a close look at Napster), the biggest problem I can imagine is there seems to be only one master server for Napster clients, I would imagine a hierarchical arrangement of a few master servers and sub-master servers, similar to Gamespy, would be more efficient (but that's more a performance issue).
Off-topic (but as long as I'm blathering), is there a Linux version or clone of Gamespy.
Exactly the problem Walt was trying to solve. A lot of science looks dull and boring, the problem is how can be made to look entertaining. I'm not sure how to solve it, but most science museums seem to survive ok, some even flourish.
I suppose programming is similar. It's probably boring to watch, say, John Carmack program, but plenty of people follow his progress and are waiting for the end result.:-)
I understand they do (did?) quite a bit of hydroponic research at EPCOT and they grow much (most?) of the fresh vegetables they use hydroponicaly. I believe you can (could?) visit the greenhouses if you wish. So maybe Walt's inspiration wasn't completely lost.
As I understand it, EPCOT was literally to be a community of tomorrow; scientists, engineers, etc. living and working on the premises, AND be entertaining at the same time.
After Walt died, I guess they removed most of the living and working parts and left the entertainment.
Not that it's not impressive, but it's not quite what Walt was trying to achieve.
On a related note, I've read that the much maligned Jerry Pournelle has also said that Walt Disney wanted EPCOT to be a place where regular people could watch real science being done. Dr. Pournelle was one of a number of writers, engineers, and scientists who were consulted by Walt regarding the details.
> Unless the cause of the lack of food is something acute (a drought, a short-term political unrest), a food > drop will be useless; they'll be hungry again a few days later.
That's why I said I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen. They may not have a tomorrow, they are dying today, they may be dead by the time the planes can land, reload, and come back to drop food.
The more I think about it, the more I think this question is designed to be more thought-provoking than answerable.
Consider, the professor is a sci-fi writer, thought-provoking is his job. He just taught a semester course on encryption, digital signatures, IPV6, etc, etc. Perhaps this question is to warn his students about technological-hubris, the tendency to believe there is a technological solution to every problem.
Of course, I don't think he'd mind if someone actually came up with a feasible answer.:-)
Yes, if the situation was less dire, a solar-powered webpad is potentally very useful. Even better if it had a human teacher attached.
Arrrgh, and why does the preview button delete all my tags!!!
> Unless the cause of the lack of food is something acute (a drought, a short-term political unrest), a food > drop will be useless; they'll be hungry again a few days later. That's why I said I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen. They may not have a tomorrow, they are dying today, they may be dead by the time the planes can land, reload, and come back to drop food. The more I think about it, the more I think this question is designed to be more thought-provoking than answerable. Consider, the professor is a sci-fi writer, thought-provoking is his job. He just taught a semester course on encryption, digital signatures, IPV6, etc, etc. Perhaps this question is to warn his students about technological-hubris, the tendency to believe there is a technological solution to every problem. Of course, I don't think he'd mind if someone actually came up with a feasible answer.:-) Yes, if the situation was less dire, a solar-powered webpad is potentally very useful. Even better if it had a human teacher attached.
I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen to illustrate a point. These people are dying, they have no food, period. Giving them a webpad isn't going to change that (a couple pounds of rice and powered milk would be infinitely more useful).
One way of looking at the question (and there are several (damn that's a good question)) is as a cautionary tale. The moral being something like, "sometimes technology isn't enough".
Now, in a less dire situation, as you point out, a solar-powered webpad might be more useful. In question 11, as stated, it's useless.
I don't know, but I think that that question is deeper than you think. My first thought was that you can be a citizen of the most powerful nation on earth, pull down a six-figure salary, be full of good will and good intentions, donate to all the "right" causes, but sometimes you have to accept you can't do a freaking thing to help another person no matter how much you want to.
Feeling guilty about it is optional.
Admittedly, a solar-power web browser is kind'a useless in this situation.
Arrrgh! Release millions of line of obfuscated bloatware?!?!
Force Microsoft to document all their APIs, external and internal. All new APIs must be documented and released within, say, 5 business days. So competitors can write to a documented spec.
> So essentially, only 128 UNIQUE entities can make software or hardware decoders.
IIRC there are 400 unique keys. Aside from that, you're correct.
> I'm guessing it also costs a whole lotta money to actually GET one of these keys.
That's the idea.:-)
> Talk about stifling development. For all they know, someone out there could be able to make a > player that is somehow optimized, and can decode the data on a 286, but they'll never know, > becouse they don;t have the money to buy a key..
I honestly don't think they care whether they're stifling further development, they're in the business to make a profit. I think it's important to remember that making a profit is not _necessarily_ a bad thing.
> Sony makes Microsoft look like the free software operating system Linux -- as a result, > many developers are unquestionably rooting quietly for X-Box. > > I question the validity of this assessment. The spin of this statement seems to be that not only > is MS the dark horse candidate, but is the bastion of free enterprise in a feudal console > world.
I believe he's only using an analogy. That is, Sony's control over games released for Playstation compared to Microsoft's control over games released for PC is similar to Microsoft's control over it's operating systems compared to Linux. Within that context, it is arguably a valid analogy.
> Tomb Raider is a console game, did okay on the PC, but it came now where near duplicating the > success from the console systems, which is what my point was.
Just a quibble, I believe Tomb Raider came out for PC first and was ported to Playstation, so I'm not sure why you're calling it a console game.
And it did well enough on the PC to have two sequels and with TR 1 and 2 re-released as Gold editions (with extra levels) and Tomb Raider 4 coming out in November. (Talk about milking a game.)
I'm not arguing with your general point, just quibbeling with a detail.
Slashdot Mirror
So, on the plus side, it should be fairly straightforward to write a .ASF/.ASX plugin for Xmms.
.WMA or .NSC format.
On the minus side, most of the interesting stuff seems to be in
This is not a sig.
Interesting. If one is not old enough to be legally bound by a contract or license agreement (i.e.; the GPL), how can one legally incorporate and file for an IPO?
I think you've confused a couple of points.
1) If Company X sequences the genes that cause Alzheimer's. Even if they can't patent it, they're under no obligation to share that information. This give's them a headstart in developing a treatment. If another company wants to develop a treatment, let them spend their own money, or wait for the HGP.
2) Assuming they develop a cure, the cure is still patentable, just like conventional medications, but still allows other companies to develop alternate treatments.
this is not a sig.
Do not use in the bath tub
Do not use while using power tools
Do not use while climbing trees
Do not use while standing on a ladder
Do not use while eating green eggs and ham...
Metaphores are like scabs. If you pick at them, they bleed. :-)
The problem is when agencies start "re-interpreting" laws and regulations. I've seen wireless microphones on sale in magazines for decades and nobody cared. (does Radio Shack still carry its wireless microphone kit?)
Suddenly, they might be used for "surreptitious intercept", suddenly there are armed raids on honest businesses. No notice. No warning. No "these devices are illegal per Title 18 USC, Section 2512, please remove them from your catalog".
I have no objection with the Feds enforcing the law, I do object to a lack of due process and common sense.
If I were a cynic, I might point out that budget time is coming up in Washington, and it doesn't hurt to show effective your agency is with a few high-profile raids. (and it's much safer if you can be sure your targets are unarmed)
...would be to print out the source code to DeCSS (and neatly bind it, if possible) like they did with the PGP code. It might illustrate more clearly to the judge that the censorship of non-copyrighted material is a violation of first amendment rights.
The judge will probably be highly intelligent, but non-technical. Having a concrete, readable example of what they're trying to censor may help put things in perspective, and bring out the first amendment issues (which I'm sure the corporate lawyers are going to try to gloss over).
> Sony sells its minidisc almost completely on the basis of its ability to make copies. Every
> single commercial i've seen for the minidisc consists of nothing but the people making copies
> of minidiscs.
Ummm, I believe when you buy a minidisk, the copyright fee (right-to-copy fee?) is part of the price of the disk.
> Phillips is currently selling a standalone CD writer that makes exact copies of CDs, and does
> nothing else. They boast about this in their commercials.
My understanding is that these standalone CD writers will only record on CD-R blanks with some special code on them. Of course these blanks cost more because, like minidisks, the copyright fee is part of the price of the disk. As far as I know, though I haven't tried it, you can't use regular (computer) CD-R blanks in a standalone machine.
So go ahead, make a copy on a minidisk or standalone CD writer, make a hundred copies, RIAA doesn't care, they get their money up front. I am mildly curious how they reimburse the artists though.
They're trying, not enough investment money yet. Checkout:
Rotary Rocket
Kistler Reusable Rocketships
Kelly Space and Technology
to name a few. Unfortunately the big companies that afford to self-fund a project like this are severely risk-adverse and the small companies can't get enough investment capital. Maybe someone can figure out how to cross an internet IPO with Rotary Rocket.
In my crazier moments, I imagine Bill Gates wanting to diversify his investments by dropping a few hundred million on two or three of the more promising small companies (LOL).
Hmmm, off-topic but,...
> No, we need to fix things here first.
Define "fixed". Sorry, but that's important, if you can't define "fixed", you can literally spend forever "fixing" things.
> In the short time it would take to stabalise Africa,...
Define "short". In colonial days, things were bad, but at least stable. Since the british and europians left, things have been going downhill. (ok, not everywhere, but in many places, especially the interior)
And define "stablized". The quickest way to stabilize africa would be to recolonize it. Yep, things were bad then, but it was stable. But that's cultural imperialism. Can't have that, can we.
To truly "fix" things is going to take generations of education and hard work to undo the damage there and nobody can do it for them. You can't just ship in some grain and pay off their debts and call it fixed.
Sorry, I wish it was that easy, but the rest of mankind have their own lives to live too.
Isn't/wasn't there a group working on a secure IRC replacement? If that has a file transfer protocol, it might make a good basis for Nap-like clone.
This is not a sig.
I guess I'm a little dense this morning (and I'm not into ICQ/chat progs and swapping MP3 files) so I have a couple questions...
Several people have mentioned security problems. I'm curious what kind of security problems are involved here? (The only one I can see is the programmer losing control over his protocol, but as I said, I'm a little dense this morning.)
Given that there are security problems, how should they be addressed? Offhand (and not having taken a close look at Napster), the biggest problem I can imagine is there seems to be only one master server for Napster clients, I would imagine a hierarchical arrangement of a few master servers and sub-master servers, similar to Gamespy, would be more efficient (but that's more a performance issue).
Off-topic (but as long as I'm blathering), is there a Linux version or clone of Gamespy.
This is not a sig.
EXPO 2000 HANNOVER Offical Website
Exactly the problem Walt was trying to solve. A lot of science looks dull and boring, the problem is how can be made to look entertaining. I'm not sure how to solve it, but most science museums seem to survive ok, some even flourish.
:-)
I suppose programming is similar. It's probably boring to watch, say, John Carmack program, but plenty of people follow his progress and are waiting for the end result.
I understand they do (did?) quite a bit of hydroponic research at EPCOT and they grow much (most?) of the fresh vegetables they use hydroponicaly. I believe you can (could?) visit the greenhouses if you wish. So maybe Walt's inspiration wasn't completely lost.
As I understand it, EPCOT was literally to be a community of tomorrow; scientists, engineers, etc. living and working on the premises, AND be entertaining at the same time.
After Walt died, I guess they removed most of the living and working parts and left the entertainment.
Not that it's not impressive, but it's not quite what Walt was trying to achieve.
On a related note, I've read that the much maligned Jerry Pournelle has also said that Walt Disney wanted EPCOT to be a place where regular people could watch real science being done. Dr. Pournelle was one of a number of writers, engineers, and scientists who were consulted by Walt regarding the details.
> Unless the cause of the lack of food is something acute (a drought, a short-term political unrest), a food
:-)
> drop will be useless; they'll be hungry again a few days later.
That's why I said I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen. They may not have a tomorrow, they are dying today, they may be dead by the time the planes can land, reload, and come back to drop food.
The more I think about it, the more I think this question is designed to be more thought-provoking than answerable.
Consider, the professor is a sci-fi writer, thought-provoking is his job. He just taught a semester course on encryption, digital signatures, IPV6, etc, etc. Perhaps this question is to warn his students about technological-hubris, the tendency to believe there is a technological solution to every problem.
Of course, I don't think he'd mind if someone actually came up with a feasible answer.
Yes, if the situation was less dire, a solar-powered webpad is potentally very useful. Even better if it had a human teacher attached.
Arrrgh, and why does the preview button delete all my tags!!!
> Unless the cause of the lack of food is something acute (a drought, a short-term political unrest), a food > drop will be useless; they'll be hungry again a few days later. That's why I said I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen. They may not have a tomorrow, they are dying today, they may be dead by the time the planes can land, reload, and come back to drop food. The more I think about it, the more I think this question is designed to be more thought-provoking than answerable. Consider, the professor is a sci-fi writer, thought-provoking is his job. He just taught a semester course on encryption, digital signatures, IPV6, etc, etc. Perhaps this question is to warn his students about technological-hubris, the tendency to believe there is a technological solution to every problem. Of course, I don't think he'd mind if someone actually came up with a feasible answer. :-) Yes, if the situation was less dire, a solar-powered webpad is potentally very useful. Even better if it had a human teacher attached.
I think the choice of a starving mother and daughter was deliberately chosen to illustrate a point. These people are dying, they have no food, period. Giving them a webpad isn't going to change that (a couple pounds of rice and powered milk would be infinitely more useful).
One way of looking at the question (and there are several (damn that's a good question)) is as a cautionary tale. The moral being something like, "sometimes technology isn't enough".
Now, in a less dire situation, as you point out, a solar-powered webpad might be more useful. In question 11, as stated, it's useless.
I don't know, but I think that that question is deeper than you think. My first thought was that you can be a citizen of the most powerful nation on earth, pull down a six-figure salary, be full of good will and good intentions, donate to all the "right" causes, but sometimes you have to accept you can't do a freaking thing to help another person no matter how much you want to.
Feeling guilty about it is optional.
Admittedly, a solar-power web browser is kind'a useless in this situation.
Arrrgh! Release millions of line of obfuscated bloatware?!?!
Force Microsoft to document all their APIs, external and internal. All new APIs must be documented and released within, say, 5 business days. So competitors can write to a documented spec.
Much better than source code release.
> So essentially, only 128 UNIQUE entities can make software or hardware decoders.
:-)
IIRC there are 400 unique keys. Aside from that, you're correct.
> I'm guessing it also costs a whole lotta money to actually GET one of these keys.
That's the idea.
> Talk about stifling development. For all they know, someone out there could be able to make a
> player that is somehow optimized, and can decode the data on a 286, but they'll never know,
> becouse they don;t have the money to buy a key..
I honestly don't think they care whether they're stifling further development, they're in the business to make a profit. I think it's important to remember that making a profit is not _necessarily_ a bad thing.
I wonder if OpenDesk runs on Microsoft's ActiveDesktop? Maybe ActiveDesktop was just ahead of its time.
Another scary thought. If OpenDesk becomes popular, when will the first ActiveDesktop-clone be available for x-windows?
> Sony makes Microsoft look like the free software operating system Linux -- as a result,
> many developers are unquestionably rooting quietly for X-Box.
>
> I question the validity of this assessment. The spin of this statement seems to be that not only
> is MS the dark horse candidate, but is the bastion of free enterprise in a feudal console
> world.
I believe he's only using an analogy. That is, Sony's control over games released for Playstation compared to Microsoft's control over games released for PC is similar to Microsoft's control over it's operating systems compared to Linux. Within that context, it is arguably a valid analogy.
> Tomb Raider is a console game, did okay on the PC, but it came now where near duplicating the
> success from the console systems, which is what my point was.
Just a quibble, I believe Tomb Raider came out for PC first and was ported to Playstation, so I'm not sure why you're calling it a console game.
And it did well enough on the PC to have two sequels and with TR 1 and 2 re-released as Gold editions (with extra levels) and Tomb Raider 4 coming out in November. (Talk about milking a game.)
I'm not arguing with your general point, just quibbeling with a detail.
True, which is why it behooves us nitpickers to correct those 99%. Think of it as job security. :-)