So basically, what has happened, I gather, is that computers have gotten so powerful that now we can split up one "hardware unit" (a PC) into serveral virtual units, with different levels of connection (or none at all) between these virtual units.
I think this is an awesome way to run a web browser - just destroy the virtual machine every time you are done browsing and you greatly minimize infection possibilities.
Thanks for the post, it gives me some insight into what virtualization is. But I'm still confused about what it actually does. I read this entry over on wikipedia:
>A RealNetworks vice president voiced a few inflammatory opinions during >LinuxWorld Boston last Tuesday. The RealNetworks rep in question, Jeff Ayars, >said that Linux as a consumer platform would be dead unless DRM capabilities >are built into the OS itself.
What arrogance! In fact, his real concern he probably that Linux could become the PREFERRED consumer platform if it ISN'T burdened down with DRM!
"But analysts said Cingular is concerned that offering Wi-Fi calls inside a home could hurt its parent companies' landline businesses.
Plus, there's the question of how to charge customers, who might expect free calls.
"Pricing is always an issue," said Cingular spokesman Ritch Blasi. "Who's network are you going to be using, and do you share minutes?... People might expect that because they're calling on a Wi-Fi that they're paying for a broadband connection into their home already."
Yeah, of course they are concerned! Of course I will expect that if I'm calling on my own broadband connection it should be free! I think it's crazy that I have to pay Vonage $27 a month to plug me into the POTS network. Do you think I'm going to subscribe to another phone service that will charge me another $27 to do the same thing? No thanks.
I just cancelled both of our cell phones. It was a lot easier to "get unplugged" than I thought it would be. But I was paying $80/month for 2 cell phones, $55/month for cable internet, and $27/month for Vonage. That's $162/month for communications, and that is insane. With the price of gas what it is, I'm having to make choices, and voice communications rank last in my priorities, with broadband internet being highest.
My next "cell phone", if I ever get one again, will be one that hooks into whatever free network is open and works off of my Vonage account.
>But here is the deal.... We are not looking for people to help administer our systems. That is relatively easy to do, >particularly with operating systems like OS X. You have to be bright and willing to work on *new* problems particularly >those dealing with data management and visualization. Many comp-sci students want to go create games and there is a >market for that, but where the technology for games really comes from is basic science research dealing with real-world problems. >And in fact, some games and game engines are now being applied to real world problems.
And here is why there are less and less folks going into Computer Science. Basically, you are going to have to be willing to invest similarly in your education to be, say, a medical doctor or a lawyer. But on top of that, you will need to be among the very best and talented in the field. And you'd better be able to keep up with the lightning-fast pace of the evolution of the technology, because miss one step and you will find yourself watching your job becoming "relatively easy to do" and leave for overseas.
It feels to me like you have to be a real-life Wesley Crusher to have some level of certainty of success in computer science. How many people think they can live up to that? Not many. And so they go into law or business to manage and wage intellectual property war for the few Wesley Crushers that bubble to the top.
>This is a common charge coming from conservatives, and I've always been puzzled by it.
I think this has played a large role in why liberals have been losing elections - they are so out of touch with the perceived differences between "liberal" and "conservative" that they don't realize how liberal they are really being perceived as being.
I consider myself a conservative, and I purposely listen to NPR every day to and from work to hear what "the other side" thinks.
If you can't sense the definite overall liberal bent to NPR perhaps you have been sheltering yourself from more conservative viewpoints.
>Block out essential time, feel free to decline or propose a new time, and deal with the fact that some of the time you'll have to go to a meeting you don't want to.
When I started recording TV shows with my computer, my first thought was to burn them to DVD.
I found this to be tedious and unreliable.
First, burning takes forever. On my AMD 64 3200+ Athalon it takes hours to burn, say, an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well. In my older RCA DVD player the DVD plays for about 2 minutes, then the picture pixelates and freezes, and the sound continues to play for a while longer before it dies completely. On my el-cheapo $48 Walmart DVD player they seem to play a bit better, sometimes.
After poking around a bit on online forums I found it's really an art to figure out all the optimal settings to burn a DVD that has some chance of playing in any given player.
Personally, I've given up on burning my own DVDs. I'm saving up for one of those Hauppage multimedia center thingies that you hook up to your network and it goes and gets the file off of your PC and plays it on your TV.
I just need a bigger hard drive!:)
Steve
P.S. - I do think this new distribution method for movies still sucks. It's too expensive for an inferior product.
I think the kiosk idea is a good way to start introducing computers to a society where they are an oddity.
It seems from many of the responses that this is already the way computers and the internet are accessible in many developing countries.
I think the kiosk idea is good because it provides a centralized location for maintenance and support of the devices. The target audience won't be able to maintain their systems initially.
Back in the 80's when the Walkman was all the rage, I think I got one for a birthday or something. I used it a couple of times and then it, too, went into the dustbin of seldom-used things.
I just don't have the opportunity to really use something like an iPod. When I'm in the car, I turn on the CD player. When I'm at work, I very very seldom listen to music and when I do have the urge I just let my desktop PC play the tunesfor me. When I'm not at work or driving to or from it, I'm doing activities that don't really avail themselves to or require headphones.
I suppose it might be cool to have a large digital device to store my music on to play in my car, but I wasn't impressed with the quality of the FM transmitter used in my XM radio, and I don't feel like trying to figure out how to hard-wire it into the radio. I just have a handfull of RW CDs that I keep re-burning with different tunes for the car.
Now that I think of it, the single biggest place I listen to music is in my car. Is there a good car stereo system with built-in support for the iPod? Something where I can just plug in a jack and go? Ideally, I'd like a "hole" in my dashboard the size of my iPod where I just stick in the iPod and it plays.
> Just like drug addicts! > >Oh, wait, that doesnt work.
The difference is, you can destroy your life through drug addiction, lose everything, and still satisfy your addiction. You can be completely homeless, go steal something or trade sex for drugs to get a quick high.
But I think it would be a lot harder to lose everything (meaning everything you need to consistently play WOW - a home, a computer, broadband access, and a subscription) and then do something quick and dirty to satisfy your WOW addiction. I don't think you can go steal a car stereo or two and set yourself up to play WOW again for any length of time.
In other words, it doesn't take a stable life situation to be able to sustain a drug addiction. I think it takes a significantly more stable life situation to be able to sustain an online gaming addiction.
Playing WOW costs money. I don't know if there is a fee to actually/play/ WOW, but certainly you have to have pay to have a place to stay, pay for electricity, and pay for internet access.
If WOW becomes a problem so that you lose your job, and income, eventually you will lose the means to play WOW. Self-solving problem.
Harsh way to solve an addiction, but in the end, it will solve itself. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start back up.
>And once one dedicated copier puts something on the file sharing nets...
I wonder how far off we are from the day when the "internet" content can be actively monitored. Already we are hearing rumblings about how P2P traffic can be easily identified and QOSed as desired. Or how the file sharing networks get infiltrated.
I wonder how far off we are from the day when pirated content, the sender, and receiver are identified in nanoseconds and calls routed to the appropriate local law enforcement agencies?
I guess I'm a luddite, but I have never been a fan of "managed email services". I don't want filtering, and I don't want to leave my messages on someone else's server.
All I want is a data pipe, please. Don't filter my content, just give me a pipe with as much speed as I can pay for.
I don't use email filters because I don't trust them to not block important content. When one email address starts to attract spam, I just delete it and create a new one. I put an auto-responder on the old account that says, "To my friends: this account has attracted too much spam - please contact me offline for my new email address". Within a month, everyone important has my new email. I do this ritual about once every six months.
If I didn't have to give out my email address for every damn thing on the web I could go a lot longer.
Mr Dada- your implication is clear- and I question the intelligence of anyone who posts that kind of threat on a public board. The FCC, like any gov't organizations, can overstep its bounds. And if you don't like it, it can be changed with your vote.
While I don't think it's time to break out the rifles just yet, just remember this:
The only difference between patriots and a criminals is which side wins.
The Founding Fathers were all criminals - until they won.
Don't assume that your vote will be meaningfull forever.
Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.gov
Yes, the FairTax is fair, and in fact, much fairer than the income tax. Wealthy people spend more money than other individuals. They buy expensive cars, big houses, and yachts. They buy filet mignon instead of hamburger, fine wine instead of beer, designer dresses and expensive jewelry. The FairTax taxes them on these purchases. If, however, they use their money to build job-creating factories, finance research and development to create new products, or fund charitable activities (all of which help improve the standard of living of others), then those activities are not taxed.
"Is the 23% FairTax higher or lower when compared to the income taxes people pay today?
Most people are paying that much or more today - much of it is just hidden from view. The income tax bracket most people fall into is 15 percent, and all wage earners pay 7.65 percent in payroll taxes. That's 23 percent right there, without taking into account the 7.65 percent employer matching! On top of that, you have to add in all of the hidden taxes embedded in the price of everything you buy, from goods (averaging 22 percent) to services (averaging 25 percent).
Effective tax rates vs. stated tax rates Because the 23-percent FairTax would not be imposed on necessities, an individual spending $28,808 would pay an effective tax rate of only 15.6 percent, not 23 percent. That same individual will pay 17.3 percent of his or her income to federal taxes under current law."
"Does the FairTax rate need to be much higher to be revenue neutral?
The proper tax rate has been carefully worked out; 23 percent does the job of: (1) raising the same amount of federal funds as are raised by the current system, (2) paying the universal rebate, and (3) paying the collection fees to retailers and state governments. Unlike some other proposals, this rate has been independently confirmed by several different, non-partisan institutions across the country. Detailed calculations are available from FairTax.org."
Money is a commodity like anything else. The more of it person A has, the less of it person B can have. There's no way around it. If money was not finite then it would have no value. Just remember that economics is simple. If there are two dollars in the economy today, and I have $1.50, it doesn't matter how hard you work, or how much you invest, or how much of anything you do, you cannot make more than 50 cents. The more of the pie the wealthy get, the less of the pie you can have. End of story.
Your entire premise is based on the assumption that it is not possible to create wealth, which is untrue.
Let us suppose that you have $1.50, and I have the other $.50 in our $2.00 world. Suppose I take my $.50 and I give it to someone else in exchange for some wood, which I carve into a figurine worth $5. Suddenly, I just grew our financial world by $3. And if the "authorities" refuse to print more money to account for this growth, soon people will start paying me with something else besides dollars to aquire my goods, like, say, bartering.
Slashdot Mirror
So basically, what has happened, I gather, is that computers have gotten so powerful that now we can split up one "hardware unit" (a PC) into serveral virtual units, with different levels of connection (or none at all) between these virtual units.
I think this is an awesome way to run a web browser - just destroy the virtual machine every time you are done browsing and you greatly minimize infection possibilities.
Steve
Thanks for the post, it gives me some insight into what virtualization is. But I'm still confused about what it actually does. I read this entry over on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
Does virtualization basically run multiple OSes on one box? Make one computer appear to be 2, or 3, or n?
Steve
Any EULA longer than about 2 sentences means, "Please bend over now."
I never read them.
I'm going to use the software when I want, however I want, and your EULA is just an annoyance that I have to see how fast I can click through.
Steve
These games will continue until eventually, all traffic will be encrypted. Then you are going to see caps placed on bandwidth usage.
Steve
>A RealNetworks vice president voiced a few inflammatory opinions during
>LinuxWorld Boston last Tuesday. The RealNetworks rep in question, Jeff Ayars,
>said that Linux as a consumer platform would be dead unless DRM capabilities
>are built into the OS itself.
What arrogance! In fact, his real concern he probably that Linux could become the PREFERRED consumer platform if it ISN'T burdened down with DRM!
Steve
From TFA:
... People might expect that because they're calling on a Wi-Fi that they're paying for a broadband connection into their home already."
"But analysts said Cingular is concerned that offering Wi-Fi calls inside a home could hurt its parent companies' landline businesses.
Plus, there's the question of how to charge customers, who might expect free calls.
"Pricing is always an issue," said Cingular spokesman Ritch Blasi. "Who's network are you going to be using, and do you share minutes?
Yeah, of course they are concerned! Of course I will expect that if I'm calling on my own broadband connection it should be free! I think it's crazy that I have to pay Vonage $27 a month to plug me into the POTS network. Do you think I'm going to subscribe to another phone service that will charge me another $27 to do the same thing? No thanks.
I just cancelled both of our cell phones. It was a lot easier to "get unplugged" than I thought it would be. But I was paying $80/month for 2 cell phones, $55/month for cable internet, and $27/month for Vonage. That's $162/month for communications, and that is insane. With the price of gas what it is, I'm having to make choices, and voice communications rank last in my priorities, with broadband internet being highest.
My next "cell phone", if I ever get one again, will be one that hooks into whatever free network is open and works off of my Vonage account.
Steve
>But here is the deal.... We are not looking for people to help administer our systems. That is relatively easy to do,
>particularly with operating systems like OS X. You have to be bright and willing to work on *new* problems particularly
>those dealing with data management and visualization. Many comp-sci students want to go create games and there is a
>market for that, but where the technology for games really comes from is basic science research dealing with real-world problems.
>And in fact, some games and game engines are now being applied to real world problems.
And here is why there are less and less folks going into Computer Science. Basically, you are going to have to be willing to invest similarly in your education to be, say, a medical doctor or a lawyer. But on top of that, you will need to be among the very best and talented in the field. And you'd better be able to keep up with the lightning-fast pace of the evolution of the technology, because miss one step and you will find yourself watching your job becoming "relatively easy to do" and leave for overseas.
It feels to me like you have to be a real-life Wesley Crusher to have some level of certainty of success in computer science. How many people think they can live up to that? Not many. And so they go into law or business to manage and wage intellectual property war for the few Wesley Crushers that bubble to the top.
Steve
If you start charging for Podcasts they will instantly be availble for free elsewhere.
Steve
>This is a common charge coming from conservatives, and I've always been puzzled by it.
I think this has played a large role in why liberals have been losing elections - they are so out of touch with the perceived differences between "liberal" and "conservative" that they don't realize how liberal they are really being perceived as being.
I consider myself a conservative, and I purposely listen to NPR every day to and from work to hear what "the other side" thinks.
If you can't sense the definite overall liberal bent to NPR perhaps you have been sheltering yourself from more conservative viewpoints.
Steve
>Block out essential time, feel free to decline or propose a new time, and deal with the fact that some of the time you'll have to go to a meeting you don't want to.
You hit the nail on the head.
Steve
When I started recording TV shows with my computer, my first thought was to burn them to DVD.
:)
I found this to be tedious and unreliable.
First, burning takes forever. On my AMD 64 3200+ Athalon it takes hours to burn, say, an episode of Battlestar Galactica.
Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well. In my older RCA DVD player the DVD plays for about 2 minutes, then the picture pixelates and freezes, and the sound continues to play for a while longer before it dies completely. On my el-cheapo $48 Walmart DVD player they seem to play a bit better, sometimes.
After poking around a bit on online forums I found it's really an art to figure out all the optimal settings to burn a DVD that has some chance of playing in any given player.
Personally, I've given up on burning my own DVDs. I'm saving up for one of those Hauppage multimedia center thingies that you hook up to your network and it goes and gets the file off of your PC and plays it on your TV.
I just need a bigger hard drive!
Steve
P.S. - I do think this new distribution method for movies still sucks. It's too expensive for an inferior product.
I think the kiosk idea is a good way to start introducing computers to a society where they are an oddity.
It seems from many of the responses that this is already the way computers and the internet are accessible in many developing countries.
I think the kiosk idea is good because it provides a centralized location for maintenance and support of the devices. The target audience won't be able to maintain their systems initially.
Steve
I don't get the iPod.
Back in the 80's when the Walkman was all the rage, I think I got one for a birthday or something. I used it a couple of times and then it, too, went into the dustbin of seldom-used things.
I just don't have the opportunity to really use something like an iPod. When I'm in the car, I turn on the CD player. When I'm at work, I very very seldom listen to music and when I do have the urge I just let my desktop PC play the tunesfor me. When I'm not at work or driving to or from it, I'm doing activities that don't really avail themselves to or require headphones.
I suppose it might be cool to have a large digital device to store my music on to play in my car, but I wasn't impressed with the quality of the FM transmitter used in my XM radio, and I don't feel like trying to figure out how to hard-wire it into the radio. I just have a handfull of RW CDs that I keep re-burning with different tunes for the car.
Now that I think of it, the single biggest place I listen to music is in my car. Is there a good car stereo system with built-in support for the iPod? Something where I can just plug in a jack and go? Ideally, I'd like a "hole" in my dashboard the size of my iPod where I just stick in the iPod and it plays.
Steve
>Personally, I'm happy having the shows right here on a hard drive in my home.
Exactly. As I've said before, I've never cottoned to having my email stored on someone else's server, either.
Just give me the PIPE, man! I don't need, want, or trust any of your "services" to manage the data for me. I can do that myself, thank you very much.
Steve
And people wonder why kids are forsaking CS degrees for management...
Steve
> Just like drug addicts!
>
>Oh, wait, that doesnt work.
The difference is, you can destroy your life through drug addiction, lose everything, and still satisfy your addiction. You can be completely homeless, go steal something or trade sex for drugs to get a quick high.
But I think it would be a lot harder to lose everything (meaning everything you need to consistently play WOW - a home, a computer, broadband access, and a subscription) and then do something quick and dirty to satisfy your WOW addiction. I don't think you can go steal a car stereo or two and set yourself up to play WOW again for any length of time.
In other words, it doesn't take a stable life situation to be able to sustain a drug addiction. I think it takes a significantly more stable life situation to be able to sustain an online gaming addiction.
Steve
Playing WOW costs money. I don't know if there is a fee to actually /play/ WOW, but certainly you have to have pay to have a place to stay, pay for electricity, and pay for internet access.
If WOW becomes a problem so that you lose your job, and income, eventually you will lose the means to play WOW. Self-solving problem.
Harsh way to solve an addiction, but in the end, it will solve itself. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start back up.
Steve
>And once one dedicated copier puts something on the file sharing nets...
I wonder how far off we are from the day when the "internet" content can be actively monitored. Already we are hearing rumblings about how P2P traffic can be easily identified and QOSed as desired. Or how the file sharing networks get infiltrated.
I wonder how far off we are from the day when pirated content, the sender, and receiver are identified in nanoseconds and calls routed to the appropriate local law enforcement agencies?
Steve
I guess I'm a luddite, but I have never been a fan of "managed email services". I don't want filtering, and I don't want to leave my messages on someone else's server.
All I want is a data pipe, please. Don't filter my content, just give me a pipe with as much speed as I can pay for.
I don't use email filters because I don't trust them to not block important content. When one email address starts to attract spam, I just delete it and create a new one. I put an auto-responder on the old account that says, "To my friends: this account has attracted too much spam - please contact me offline for my new email address". Within a month, everyone important has my new email. I do this ritual about once every six months.
If I didn't have to give out my email address for every damn thing on the web I could go a lot longer.
Steve
Mr Dada- your implication is clear- and I question the intelligence of anyone who posts that kind of threat on a public board. The FCC, like any gov't organizations, can overstep its bounds. And if you don't like it, it can be changed with your vote.
While I don't think it's time to break out the rifles just yet, just remember this:
The only difference between patriots and a criminals is which side wins.
The Founding Fathers were all criminals - until they won.
Don't assume that your vote will be meaningfull forever.
http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
Phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322)
TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Fax: 1-866-418-0232
E-mail: fccinfo@fcc.gov
Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.gov
"Do you know how the orcs came to be? They were elves once." :)
Steve
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.htm l#12
# Is the FairTax fair?
Yes, the FairTax is fair, and in fact, much fairer than the income tax. Wealthy people spend more money than other individuals. They buy expensive cars, big houses, and yachts. They buy filet mignon instead of hamburger, fine wine instead of beer, designer dresses and expensive jewelry. The FairTax taxes them on these purchases. If, however, they use their money to build job-creating factories, finance research and development to create new products, or fund charitable activities (all of which help improve the standard of living of others), then those activities are not taxed.
Steve
I believe these answer your question:
m l#5
m l#6
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
"Is the 23% FairTax higher or lower when compared to the income taxes people pay today?
Most people are paying that much or more today - much of it is just hidden from view. The income tax bracket most people fall into is 15 percent, and all wage earners pay 7.65 percent in payroll taxes. That's 23 percent right there, without taking into account the 7.65 percent employer matching! On top of that, you have to add in all of the hidden taxes embedded in the price of everything you buy, from goods (averaging 22 percent) to services (averaging 25 percent).
Effective tax rates vs. stated tax rates
Because the 23-percent FairTax would not be imposed on necessities, an individual spending $28,808 would pay an effective tax rate of only 15.6 percent, not 23 percent. That same individual will pay 17.3 percent of his or her income to federal taxes under current law."
http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/smart/faq-main.ht
"Does the FairTax rate need to be much higher to be revenue neutral?
The proper tax rate has been carefully worked out; 23 percent does the job of: (1) raising the same amount of federal funds as are raised by the current system, (2) paying the universal rebate, and (3) paying the collection fees to retailers and state governments. Unlike some other proposals, this rate has been independently confirmed by several different, non-partisan institutions across the country. Detailed calculations are available from FairTax.org."
Steve
Money is a commodity like anything else. The more of it person A has, the less of it person B can have. There's no way around it. If money was not finite then it would have no value. Just remember that economics is simple. If there are two dollars in the economy today, and I have $1.50, it doesn't matter how hard you work, or how much you invest, or how much of anything you do, you cannot make more than 50 cents. The more of the pie the wealthy get, the less of the pie you can have. End of story.
Your entire premise is based on the assumption that it is not possible to create wealth, which is untrue.
Let us suppose that you have $1.50, and I have the other $.50 in our $2.00 world. Suppose I take my $.50 and I give it to someone else in exchange for some wood, which I carve into a figurine worth $5. Suddenly, I just grew our financial world by $3. And if the "authorities" refuse to print more money to account for this growth, soon people will start paying me with something else besides dollars to aquire my goods, like, say, bartering.
Steve