Having read the Anarchist's Cookbook, I'd say anyone actually attempting to use the "recipes" to make explosives should be considered suicidal rather than terrorist.
In the process we forget the mere possession of a book doesn't necessarily mean we're attempting to do what's written in it.
Wow, I just protested against a government policy, they better put me in jail before I kill someone.
The *point* of the demonstration is to show that there is an area of the brain that is trivial to stimulate and which causes "connection to the sacred". What it shows is that religious experience is hardwired into us. It is not learned and it is not a mystical thing. It is a physical part of the brain.
We knew this for the longest time ever. The beginnings of a religion foundation and superstitious behavior has been seen in animals, not just monkeys, not just mammals even, but even birds and reptiles. No I don't mean reptiles have their own religion, but still observing stimuli & trying to work out a ritual on how and why the stimuli occurred happens with all animals.
It's to the learning process what alchemy is to chemistry. Means, it's quite quite off, but allows us to work out and improve out understanding of the world around us, at which point alchemy becomes useless (except for some people who prefer simple pretty ideas versus reality).
If the person who's stimulated would be never exposed to religion, he's not perceive gods, but general confusion. The fact we snap to perceiving what we less understand when there's a rod in our brain doesn't have anything to do with religious experience.
I read some long time ago about people "feeling presence of deity or cosmic bliss" while taking drugs, or orgasming. Yea I know.. Still, shows any kind of euphoria brings us back to this experience, and it's nothing to do with religion.
It's just the thing our brain feels like when it's totally off course. And this is why cults usually try to tilt us of course and put thus in this condition. I suppose not quite what God or whoever supposedly watches over us intended.
What "massive rewrite" [..] The main differences between DX9 and DX10 are new shaders and getting rid of all the legacy capability bits, neither of which has any dependency on the operating system or driver model.
Oh you missed the part about the rewritten API and Object Model? Or about the new kernel mode / userspace mode separation of the GUI (DX10 does, in fact, depend on new kernel features)? Did you also miss the fact DX10 GPU's can natively multithread? Or that they can use virtual memory?
Now, whether you can get it on XP or not: port enough of the Vista bits back and you can get everything in XP, you can in fact just slap XP label on Vista and call it a day.
Whether Microsoft should do that is another issue. It's perfectly legitimate of them to put major efforts on their new OS. I'll be happy if they, however, are quicker next time with the stability/security fixes on their legacy OS. I've been waiting for XP SP3 forever.
You're missing the real significance to this. They are back porting features from Vista!!! That's removing the incentive for migration from XP to VISTA on features alone. Considering the historic business model they have used, this is reason for further thought.
I've been thinking the same thing, and still, I don't know if pressure alone made them backport Vista features. People just want the patches rolled up in a SP. Vista security features was unexpected move.
Put this next to the toned down Vista campaign.
I have the feeling Microsoft are fully aware of the problems of Vista, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see them gradually backporting the better accepted core/security Vista features to XP until they arrive at a slimmer Vista, and throwing away or redoing the ill mouthed Vista features (such as the current allow/deny security model which often asks the wrong questions and doesn't learn, or clarify the source of the action).
If only they realized this, they wouldn't waste 5 years on grand vision ideas and arriving at an OS that's basically worse than the sum of its parts.
Vista: the spare parts OS. Backport and reuse as needed.
so now those viruses that morph and encrypt themselves to prevent detection... we can't search for the little bit of code at the start that decrypts them because they'll just use a nice convenient windows API.
The cryptographic API-s in Windows, just like the cryptographic API-s in OSX and Linux, are used for hashing and crypoting data using industry standard algorithms.
This is what IE uses for SSL sessions, for example.
Let me ask you something: why do you have to speak about things you have no clue about and make a fool of yourself in front of us? Yes, actually by spreading moronic FUD, you make people listen less to legitimate worries about the Windows OS.
Worth nothing that 6 of your 12 top apps are in fact part of a single suite: Adobe Creative Suite.
In fact I just posted 5 min ago, if Adobe would release CS for Linux, I'll definitely try moving there. It's all I need (and Eclipse, but it's already cross platform).
Adobe's current strategy is to present itself as a strong alternative to Microsoft, by releasing almost all of their software on multiple platforms. Unfortunately it's a catch22 since there are almost no designers on Linux, hence CS is Mac and Win only.
However who knows if this might not change. They've announced a Linux version of their Flash development IDE (Eclipse plugin, Flex), and that's starting to ever so slightly affect the designer crowd, which typically would use Flex and Flash Authoring in combination for modern Flash projects.
Adobe has more power to put Linux on the map of desktop operating systems more than all current Linux distros combined.
Nothing that Apple does is terribly hard to copy, but oddly, NOT A SINGLE COMPETITOR ever seems to actually "get" what Apple is really doing.
Why is it that nobody but Apple seems to understand that too many features actually BREAK a product and reduce it to a tiny minority appeal (yes, looking at the slashdot crowd here)?
How come people keep hacking iPhone if they want less features? Is it possible you also don't get what Apple buyers like in Apple? At least you're pretty good at repeating their marketing messages.
I won't go into the whole tirade, since it's been repeated plenty of times.
Apple has built a very strong brand. Grab a random sample of Apple news items in the media and replace Apple, with, say, Nokia. You'll be thinking "wtf is this news?". Well the news in all those items isn't the news itself. It's that its Apple.
Apple is certainly good at sending a clear message and making easy to use (and easy to market!) devices, but they're by no means the only ones. iPhones-like mobiles existed before Apple did them. Many of them were pretty elegant and easy to use. But people will want an iPhone clone only now, since Apple made it a legitimate form factor and model to go for.
At Microsoft, they're really good though. You gotta give them that. They're really, REALLY good.
Play everyone on the market like pawns. I wish I met the well spoken, kind gentlemen show explained both the people in SCO and Novell, why they had to do what did, so they accepted their scenario as inevitable and Microsoft was looking for their best interest.
Imagine what it will be to have that one guy in your company, pulling the strings around and making magic happen.
Only months from now, the other companies competing on the cellphone market will release their brand new iPhone clones (Nokia, looking at you).
What is the iPhone? It's just a phone with nice easy interface on a large touchscreen. It's not terribly hard to copy, nor is it illegal.
If Apple decided not to sell in France and other countries because it can't have 100% exclusivity with one provider, the other companies will fill their niche just fine. The only loser is Apple themselves.
I find it very hard to believe that Apple Legal did not see this coming.
also- from the link, the "5 year exclusivity agreement with AT&T" is only for US Distribution.
God knows how they didn't see it coming, but yes, it's US exclusivity, so that's a poor excuse. It's not above Apple to blame it on their partners when they screw up though.
Why iTunes has DRM? Content producers wanted it! Why is iPhone locked to third party apps? Cingular wanted it!
Now if they don't release in France, it'll be Cingular again (AT&T that is). I suspect AT&T doesn't give a s**t about France and the few gray import units that may result from this.
The big problem is Steve Jobs is control freak, he has to control the full experience, and make maximum money out of it.
On one hand that's commendable and because of Steve Jobs Apple is what it is today. On the other hand that's sad and because of Steve Jobs Apple is what it is today.
They'll just lose the market in big part of Europe while they're fidgeting with little deals with local service providers.
Don't forget, Nokia, LG and SE are working on iPhone clones as we speak. And those will be open to all providers. Apple is missing their chance.
$4.2 X 50,000 = $210,000. Is that even enough to make this system worth the trouble for the networks?
How much do you think they will make to air it with commercials on TV?
Of course it's worth it, the internet delivery system scales to fit demand, whatever it is. And don't forget that's just for France. Imagine if they start distributing in the entire EU and let viral information spread so people know they have the option.
Also if they made only $210,000 on this first attempt, don't forget the price is abnormally high, and this stifles purchases for no good reason but greed (well, and possibly they WANTED to sell less since they can't meet greater demand on their experimental/beta setup).
But out of (they say) 1,5 million illegal downloads next to the 50k legal ones, let's say 30% of those would rent the DRM version if it was consistently easy and fast to download, high quality, and just 50 eurocents (USD 0.7066).
0.7066*(50,000 + 500,000) = 388,630;
So, we dropped the price 6 times, and earned nearly twice more money. Not bad. This doesn't even take into account the many people who don't pirate, but will order since it's easy, convenient and affordable.
I can not understand why if they face dropping TV viewership and dropping DVD sales, supposedly because of illegal digital downloads (free), when they decide to go for digital downloads, they price them sky high.
The theory is they want it to fail so they can keep making use of their existing broadcast and distribution infrastructure.
I have a simpler theory. They're just greedy f**ks who have no clue whatsoever.
That's ok though. Independent content will in the next years start approaching commercial quality, and then those big studios are completely screwed.
With 24 hours after the US episodes they're probably 23 hours behind the pirates.
Uhmm, are you telling me you'd rather pirate it rather than wait 24 hours? Jesus.
Delays are a big problem when the series/movie come 6 months to full year after US release (or even more). That has made me pirate within days after US release.
But 24 hours. What will you think of to say if they start releasing it at the same minute?
Except that the military is an extremely technologically-oriented branch, and spending on it helps to improve our society's technology. Look at all the incredible inventions from WW2 that now make our lives easier.
This is in contrast to spending on the welfare state, which is technologically-averse, and more specialized in political screeching, as well as staging public unrest. Now that's an example of taxpayer dollars shooting taxpayers in the foot.
Your contrast is wrong. US has no money for welfare or military development, they should just stop the insane spending.
Even if it wasn't the case, your two alternatives are poor. Taxes could be reduced and this money can be left in the private sector, which is very technologically-oriented as well.
And as a difference from Stealth plane making, the inventions there are directly targeted for civil purposes. The WII inventions being usable for civil technologies was a side effect. Only a small fraction of them were reusable in there.
Further more during the war most of those technologies were secret. How do you imagine US economy taking advantage of something top secret. It should be out in the public, and even exportable.
Also: social welfare reduces crime and provides additional stability for developing business in the country.
I'm happy there are still people out there thinking it's all as simple as "military heps technology, welfare kills it", the world must be a very simple place for you. Reality is really harsh though.
I hope they DO build a better plane. if nothing else, it motivates us to create a yet better one, thereby ensuring more jobs, etc.. Technology gets better with competition (as do prices usually)
Those jobs are basically paid by your taxes and subsidized by your kids in the near future.
Creating even more jobs in the US military is in fact the best example yet I've seen for the phrase "shooting yourself in the foot". You need to figure out which you need more: have some fun shooting, or your foot.
US being in heavy deficit and debt, they should concentrate on producing stuff they can sell and lay off the military pissing contest for the time being.
Let's say things like they are. Even if Japanese were the worst plane builders in the world, they'd not sleep, eat, and would beat themselves bleeding, rebuilding the damn plane until it's better than the US one.
Call me when they create the cell to which the artificially created DNA will be inserted to, from scratch.
You'll be waiting for this call forever. The structure even of a single cell is immensely complex. I mean, we share over 50% DNA with *plants*. Half of our DNA is just the "core OS" for running a live organism. It's not a small thing.
Scientists won't start building cells from scratch, they'll just tweak existing ones more and more while they understand the exact mechanisms completely.
You'll be long dead before we see fully artificial, rebuilt from scratch cells.
I gotta ask you though. What % of code rewrite would you accept on an existing organism, before you call it artificial life.
1%? That amount of changes could turn a monkey into man, or man into monkey.
5%? They could start with a cat, and end with a dolphin.
Interesting question. If a genetic sequence is invented and patented by scientist, could a natural mutation in a human being leading to the same sequence lead to patent infringement?
I guess the answer is pending, and so is the patent reform to shape it.
We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.
So ok, first 3 steps were:
1. figure out there's such a thing as "genetic code" 2. read genetic code 3. write genetic code
There are two more steps:
4. write some genetic code that results in something sensible 5. write some genetic code that results in something sensible, and that's useful for us
Arguably steps 4 and 5 are the hardest possible steps for us to conquer:) At some point I suspect scientists will realize it's impossible to keep tinkering at things on the gene-by-gene level.
We'll see "genetic frameworks" with reusable piece that have well known behavior, and genetical development kits that simulate assemblies' features and behavior much faster than doing full-blown atom-by-atom simulation.
Genetical programming will be born:)
But, oh damn, forget my wild dreams, back to Earth: let's make some drugs and bio-weapons!
I would challenge the assertion that entering the design parameters and working out which is the best result isn't proof of the origin of the species suggested by Darwin.
In such a big discussion, you'll often hear idiotic claims by both sides.
You know, it's kinda like the people attacking Microsoft on Slashdot. Even if Microsoft has real issues, people would rather opt for tired cliches and bullshit arguments, since it's easier.
Bottom line is, you can never convince someone who's on the extreme side of a discussion. Bigger question is: why bother. It's enough to convince the less biased people to go check the facts for themselves, and you can still make a difference.
A friend of mine once told me that this is actually an intended result of patents. Note that a patent applies to a specific way of arriving at something, not the something itself. So, the idea is that if the something is desirable, others will go out of their way to find alternative ways to arrive at something. Some of these might be better than the original. Or new somethings may be encountered along the way (inventions tend to happen by accident, yada yada). Whatever the case, patents foster innovation...in this case, by shutting the door on using what is already known to work.
Interesting theory, it does hold some water I must admit.
However when the patent is overly broad as most are, the workarounds are often artificial and not better than the original invention, but worse.
A simple example from IT since it's what I know: when EOLAS sued Microsoft for "automatic invocation of plugins in a browser", Microsoft did what? Implemented workaround that required either JavaScript enabled, or the user to click every single control to "activate it".
This is not superior solution.
Another example: people claim the upcoming SSE4 extensions in the new Intel processors are useless. They can be used to accelerate a bit some codecs, but we already have software-only algorithms that work faster than SSE4.
Why do we need specialized hardware that works than software? Since the software algo is patented. Again, worse solution.
So all in all, we should keep it simple: give patent owners 4-5 years to work their devices and then let it to the public. In the modern world 4-5 years should be plenty of time to gain foot on the market. If it's not, then you're incompetent product manufacturer, and releasing the patent to the public ensures someone better than you will implement your invention.
Not to mention is softens the issue of "patent trolls" which often sue 7-8 years into a patent being used by the victim, so the victim has no chance of opting out, or walking out with smaller charges.
Sure. However, when a theory gives rise to predictions that turn out to be false, that certainly undermines that theory. One of the most heard predictions of neodarwinism, at least as understood by the masses, is that the appendix is vestigal. This study, along with the other studies it references, to my mind constitutes adequate proof that the appendix is NOT vestigal. Therefore neodariwnism, at least as understood by the masses, is a highly flawed theory.
All this obviously says nothing whatsoever about ID or creationism.
Neodawinism suggest vestigal organs may exist in an organism. It doesn't suggest if we don't know the function of an organ, it's vestigal. You don't interpret this properly.
Plus, this study in fact says this organ played a role before, and in modern society it has no function. Some people are born *without* appendix and live to pass this onto their kids, since appendix is no longer needed organ.
"Using computational trial-and-error allowed a Stanford team to come up with a patent-free WiFi antenna. Patent rules are tricky to formulate as self-interest dictates that the claim is as general as possible. Patent fences effectively can build a substantive competitive barrier to markets. Using evolutionary tactics may be a way to legally and ethically bypass these roadblocks."
Two problems:
1. For the past 10+ years I keep seeing various articles talking about evolution design and they are all about antennas and simple analogue circuit designs. Antennas are certainly susceptible to evolutionary design, but if we'll be driving the industry forward we'll need to throw lots of R&D to develop evolutionary design algos that can design something more complex. My point is, it's hugely promising, but it's still not here in a big way.
2. The bigger problem, and which is what caused my exclamation in the title: there's no way to avoid overly broad patents. Evolutionary designs in fact often arrive at designs that match exactly various patents. Which means, when your super computer arrives at a working design, you still need to go through all the tedious work of verifying it's not patented, and if it is, start the algo again and hope for the best.
And the limit for rerunning the algo plenty of times to get patent-free design is the same such as manual design: we don't have infinite time, and the solutions to a problem are sometimes finite, and not that many.
I think patents should be left in place, but their running period should be shortened. The industry is developing at such an amazing pace that we make more progress in an year, than what took 10 years before. The original lawmakers never intended their law to run unmodified in such circumstances.
Slashdot Mirror
Having read the Anarchist's Cookbook, I'd say anyone actually attempting to use the "recipes" to make explosives should be considered suicidal rather than terrorist.
In the process we forget the mere possession of a book doesn't necessarily mean we're attempting to do what's written in it.
Wow, I just protested against a government policy, they better put me in jail before I kill someone.
The *point* of the demonstration is to show that there is an area of the brain that is trivial to stimulate and which causes "connection to the sacred". What it shows is that religious experience is hardwired into us. It is not learned and it is not a mystical thing. It is a physical part of the brain.
We knew this for the longest time ever. The beginnings of a religion foundation and superstitious behavior has been seen in animals, not just monkeys, not just mammals even, but even birds and reptiles. No I don't mean reptiles have their own religion, but still observing stimuli & trying to work out a ritual on how and why the stimuli occurred happens with all animals.
It's to the learning process what alchemy is to chemistry. Means, it's quite quite off, but allows us to work out and improve out understanding of the world around us, at which point alchemy becomes useless (except for some people who prefer simple pretty ideas versus reality).
If the person who's stimulated would be never exposed to religion, he's not perceive gods, but general confusion. The fact we snap to perceiving what we less understand when there's a rod in our brain doesn't have anything to do with religious experience.
I read some long time ago about people "feeling presence of deity or cosmic bliss" while taking drugs, or orgasming. Yea I know.. Still, shows any kind of euphoria brings us back to this experience, and it's nothing to do with religion.
It's just the thing our brain feels like when it's totally off course. And this is why cults usually try to tilt us of course and put thus in this condition. I suppose not quite what God or whoever supposedly watches over us intended.
What "massive rewrite" [..] The main differences between DX9 and DX10 are new shaders and getting rid of all the legacy capability bits, neither of which has any dependency on the operating system or driver model.
Oh you missed the part about the rewritten API and Object Model?
Or about the new kernel mode / userspace mode separation of the GUI (DX10 does, in fact, depend on new kernel features)?
Did you also miss the fact DX10 GPU's can natively multithread?
Or that they can use virtual memory?
Now, whether you can get it on XP or not: port enough of the Vista bits back and you can get everything in XP, you can in fact just slap XP label on Vista and call it a day.
Whether Microsoft should do that is another issue. It's perfectly legitimate of them to put major efforts on their new OS. I'll be happy if they, however, are quicker next time with the stability/security fixes on their legacy OS. I've been waiting for XP SP3 forever.
You're missing the real significance to this. They are back porting features from Vista!!! That's removing the incentive for migration from XP to VISTA on features alone. Considering the historic business model they have used, this is reason for further thought.
I've been thinking the same thing, and still, I don't know if pressure alone made them backport Vista features. People just want the patches rolled up in a SP. Vista security features was unexpected move.
Put this next to the toned down Vista campaign.
I have the feeling Microsoft are fully aware of the problems of Vista, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see them gradually backporting the better accepted core/security Vista features to XP until they arrive at a slimmer Vista, and throwing away or redoing the ill mouthed Vista features (such as the current allow/deny security model which often asks the wrong questions and doesn't learn, or clarify the source of the action).
If only they realized this, they wouldn't waste 5 years on grand vision ideas and arriving at an OS that's basically worse than the sum of its parts.
Vista: the spare parts OS. Backport and reuse as needed.
so now those viruses that morph and encrypt themselves to prevent detection ... we can't search for the little bit of code at the start that decrypts them because they'll just use a nice convenient windows API.
The cryptographic API-s in Windows, just like the cryptographic API-s in OSX and Linux, are used for hashing and crypoting data using industry standard algorithms.
This is what IE uses for SSL sessions, for example.
Let me ask you something: why do you have to speak about things you have no clue about and make a fool of yourself in front of us? Yes, actually by spreading moronic FUD, you make people listen less to legitimate worries about the Windows OS.
1. Photoshop
2. Ilustrator
3. InDesign
4. MSOffice suite
5. FinalCutPro
6. Ableton Live
7. Propellorheads Reason
8. Soundtrack
9. iDVD
10. Flash
11. Dreamweaver
12. Contribute
Worth nothing that 6 of your 12 top apps are in fact part of a single suite: Adobe Creative Suite.
In fact I just posted 5 min ago, if Adobe would release CS for Linux, I'll definitely try moving there. It's all I need (and Eclipse, but it's already cross platform).
Adobe's current strategy is to present itself as a strong alternative to Microsoft, by releasing almost all of their software on multiple platforms. Unfortunately it's a catch22 since there are almost no designers on Linux, hence CS is Mac and Win only.
However who knows if this might not change. They've announced a Linux version of their Flash development IDE (Eclipse plugin, Flex), and that's starting to ever so slightly affect the designer crowd, which typically would use Flex and Flash Authoring in combination for modern Flash projects.
Adobe has more power to put Linux on the map of desktop operating systems more than all current Linux distros combined.
GAMES GAMES GAMES
Businesses don't run games, nor do many professionals. I loved games but for some reason have not played a game for over 4 years, despite I run XP.
There are plenty of Flash based casual games on the net, and Firefox+Flash9 is supported under Linux.
I'll be more impressed if they port some real designer software to Linux, like Adobe CS3. Do that, and I'm instant Ubuntu convert.
Nothing that Apple does is terribly hard to copy, but oddly, NOT A SINGLE COMPETITOR ever seems to actually "get" what Apple is really doing.
Why is it that nobody but Apple seems to understand that too many features actually BREAK a product and reduce it to a tiny minority appeal (yes, looking at the slashdot crowd here)?
How come people keep hacking iPhone if they want less features? Is it possible you also don't get what Apple buyers like in Apple? At least you're pretty good at repeating their marketing messages.
I won't go into the whole tirade, since it's been repeated plenty of times.
Apple has built a very strong brand. Grab a random sample of Apple news items in the media and replace Apple, with, say, Nokia. You'll be thinking "wtf is this news?". Well the news in all those items isn't the news itself. It's that its Apple.
Apple is certainly good at sending a clear message and making easy to use (and easy to market!) devices, but they're by no means the only ones. iPhones-like mobiles existed before Apple did them. Many of them were pretty elegant and easy to use. But people will want an iPhone clone only now, since Apple made it a legitimate form factor and model to go for.
At Microsoft, they're really good though. You gotta give them that. They're really, REALLY good.
Play everyone on the market like pawns. I wish I met the well spoken, kind gentlemen show explained both the people in SCO and Novell, why they had to do what did, so they accepted their scenario as inevitable and Microsoft was looking for their best interest.
Imagine what it will be to have that one guy in your company, pulling the strings around and making magic happen.
Oh, man.
And they'd still just get nuked.
Really no major countries are going to be able to fight a conventional war ever again due to nuclear weapons.
Are you familiar with M.A.D.
Those nukes will never be used. If they ever ARE used, the launcher is also dead. Never mind if particularly Japan has nuclear weapon or not.
Only months from now, the other companies competing on the cellphone market will release their brand new iPhone clones (Nokia, looking at you).
What is the iPhone? It's just a phone with nice easy interface on a large touchscreen. It's not terribly hard to copy, nor is it illegal.
If Apple decided not to sell in France and other countries because it can't have 100% exclusivity with one provider, the other companies will fill their niche just fine. The only loser is Apple themselves.
I find it very hard to believe that Apple Legal did not see this coming.
also- from the link, the "5 year exclusivity agreement with AT&T" is only for US Distribution.
God knows how they didn't see it coming, but yes, it's US exclusivity, so that's a poor excuse. It's not above Apple to blame it on their partners when they screw up though.
Why iTunes has DRM? Content producers wanted it! Why is iPhone locked to third party apps? Cingular wanted it!
Now if they don't release in France, it'll be Cingular again (AT&T that is). I suspect AT&T doesn't give a s**t about France and the few gray import units that may result from this.
The big problem is Steve Jobs is control freak, he has to control the full experience, and make maximum money out of it.
On one hand that's commendable and because of Steve Jobs Apple is what it is today. On the other hand that's sad and because of Steve Jobs Apple is what it is today.
They'll just lose the market in big part of Europe while they're fidgeting with little deals with local service providers.
Don't forget, Nokia, LG and SE are working on iPhone clones as we speak. And those will be open to all providers. Apple is missing their chance.
$4.2 X 50,000 = $210,000. Is that even enough to make this system worth the trouble for the networks?
How much do you think they will make to air it with commercials on TV?
Of course it's worth it, the internet delivery system scales to fit demand, whatever it is. And don't forget that's just for France. Imagine if they start distributing in the entire EU and let viral information spread so people know they have the option.
Also if they made only $210,000 on this first attempt, don't forget the price is abnormally high, and this stifles purchases for no good reason but greed (well, and possibly they WANTED to sell less since they can't meet greater demand on their experimental/beta setup).
But out of (they say) 1,5 million illegal downloads next to the 50k legal ones, let's say 30% of those would rent the DRM version if it was consistently easy and fast to download, high quality, and just 50 eurocents (USD 0.7066).
0.7066*(50,000 + 500,000) = 388,630;
So, we dropped the price 6 times, and earned nearly twice more money. Not bad.
This doesn't even take into account the many people who don't pirate, but will order since it's easy, convenient and affordable.
I can not understand why if they face dropping TV viewership and dropping DVD sales, supposedly because of illegal digital downloads (free), when they decide to go for digital downloads, they price them sky high.
The theory is they want it to fail so they can keep making use of their existing broadcast and distribution infrastructure.
I have a simpler theory. They're just greedy f**ks who have no clue whatsoever.
That's ok though. Independent content will in the next years start approaching commercial quality, and then those big studios are completely screwed.
With 24 hours after the US episodes they're probably 23 hours behind the pirates.
Uhmm, are you telling me you'd rather pirate it rather than wait 24 hours? Jesus.
Delays are a big problem when the series/movie come 6 months to full year after US release (or even more). That has made me pirate within days after US release.
But 24 hours. What will you think of to say if they start releasing it at the same minute?
Except that the military is an extremely technologically-oriented branch, and spending on it helps to improve our society's technology. Look at all the incredible inventions from WW2 that now make our lives easier.
This is in contrast to spending on the welfare state, which is technologically-averse, and more specialized in political screeching, as well as staging public unrest. Now that's an example of taxpayer dollars shooting taxpayers in the foot.
Your contrast is wrong. US has no money for welfare or military development, they should just stop the insane spending.
Even if it wasn't the case, your two alternatives are poor. Taxes could be reduced and this money can be left in the private sector, which is very technologically-oriented as well.
And as a difference from Stealth plane making, the inventions there are directly targeted for civil purposes. The WII inventions being usable for civil technologies was a side effect. Only a small fraction of them were reusable in there.
Further more during the war most of those technologies were secret. How do you imagine US economy taking advantage of something top secret. It should be out in the public, and even exportable.
Also: social welfare reduces crime and provides additional stability for developing business in the country.
I'm happy there are still people out there thinking it's all as simple as "military heps technology, welfare kills it", the world must be a very simple place for you. Reality is really harsh though.
I hope they DO build a better plane. if nothing else, it motivates us to create a yet better one, thereby ensuring more jobs, etc.. Technology gets better with competition (as do prices usually)
Those jobs are basically paid by your taxes and subsidized by your kids in the near future.
Creating even more jobs in the US military is in fact the best example yet I've seen for the phrase "shooting yourself in the foot". You need to figure out which you need more: have some fun shooting, or your foot.
US being in heavy deficit and debt, they should concentrate on producing stuff they can sell and lay off the military pissing contest for the time being.
Let's say things like they are. Even if Japanese were the worst plane builders in the world, they'd not sleep, eat, and would beat themselves bleeding, rebuilding the damn plane until it's better than the US one.
Call me when they create the cell to which the artificially created DNA will be inserted to, from scratch.
You'll be waiting for this call forever. The structure even of a single cell is immensely complex. I mean, we share over 50% DNA with *plants*. Half of our DNA is just the "core OS" for running a live organism. It's not a small thing.
Scientists won't start building cells from scratch, they'll just tweak existing ones more and more while they understand the exact mechanisms completely.
You'll be long dead before we see fully artificial, rebuilt from scratch cells.
I gotta ask you though. What % of code rewrite would you accept on an existing organism, before you call it artificial life.
1%? That amount of changes could turn a monkey into man, or man into monkey.
5%? They could start with a cat, and end with a dolphin.
Name your numbers.
Patent Pending.
Interesting question. If a genetic sequence is invented and patented by scientist, could a natural mutation in a human being leading to the same sequence lead to patent infringement?
I guess the answer is pending, and so is the patent reform to shape it.
We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.
:) At some point I suspect scientists will realize it's impossible to keep tinkering at things on the gene-by-gene level.
:)
So ok, first 3 steps were:
1. figure out there's such a thing as "genetic code"
2. read genetic code
3. write genetic code
There are two more steps:
4. write some genetic code that results in something sensible
5. write some genetic code that results in something sensible, and that's useful for us
Arguably steps 4 and 5 are the hardest possible steps for us to conquer
We'll see "genetic frameworks" with reusable piece that have well known behavior, and genetical development kits that simulate assemblies' features and behavior much faster than doing full-blown atom-by-atom simulation.
Genetical programming will be born
But, oh damn, forget my wild dreams, back to Earth: let's make some drugs and bio-weapons!
I would challenge the assertion that entering the design parameters and working out which is the best result isn't proof of the origin of the species suggested by Darwin.
In such a big discussion, you'll often hear idiotic claims by both sides.
You know, it's kinda like the people attacking Microsoft on Slashdot. Even if Microsoft has real issues, people would rather opt for tired cliches and bullshit arguments, since it's easier.
Bottom line is, you can never convince someone who's on the extreme side of a discussion. Bigger question is: why bother. It's enough to convince the less biased people to go check the facts for themselves, and you can still make a difference.
A friend of mine once told me that this is actually an intended result of patents. Note that a patent applies to a specific way of arriving at something, not the something itself. So, the idea is that if the something is desirable, others will go out of their way to find alternative ways to arrive at something. Some of these might be better than the original. Or new somethings may be encountered along the way (inventions tend to happen by accident, yada yada). Whatever the case, patents foster innovation...in this case, by shutting the door on using what is already known to work.
Interesting theory, it does hold some water I must admit.
However when the patent is overly broad as most are, the workarounds are often artificial and not better than the original invention, but worse.
A simple example from IT since it's what I know: when EOLAS sued Microsoft for "automatic invocation of plugins in a browser", Microsoft did what? Implemented workaround that required either JavaScript enabled, or the user to click every single control to "activate it".
This is not superior solution.
Another example: people claim the upcoming SSE4 extensions in the new Intel processors are useless. They can be used to accelerate a bit some codecs, but we already have software-only algorithms that work faster than SSE4.
Why do we need specialized hardware that works than software? Since the software algo is patented. Again, worse solution.
So all in all, we should keep it simple: give patent owners 4-5 years to work their devices and then let it to the public. In the modern world 4-5 years should be plenty of time to gain foot on the market. If it's not, then you're incompetent product manufacturer, and releasing the patent to the public ensures someone better than you will implement your invention.
Not to mention is softens the issue of "patent trolls" which often sue 7-8 years into a patent being used by the victim, so the victim has no chance of opting out, or walking out with smaller charges.
Sure. However, when a theory gives rise to predictions that turn out to be false, that certainly undermines that theory. One of the most heard predictions of neodarwinism, at least as understood by the masses, is that the appendix is vestigal. This study, along with the other studies it references, to my mind constitutes adequate proof that the appendix is NOT vestigal. Therefore neodariwnism, at least as understood by the masses, is a highly flawed theory.
All this obviously says nothing whatsoever about ID or creationism.
Neodawinism suggest vestigal organs may exist in an organism. It doesn't suggest if we don't know the function of an organ, it's vestigal. You don't interpret this properly.
Plus, this study in fact says this organ played a role before, and in modern society it has no function. Some people are born *without* appendix and live to pass this onto their kids, since appendix is no longer needed organ.
That's evolution right before your eyes.
"Using computational trial-and-error allowed a Stanford team to come up with a patent-free WiFi antenna. Patent rules are tricky to formulate as self-interest dictates that the claim is as general as possible. Patent fences effectively can build a substantive competitive barrier to markets. Using evolutionary tactics may be a way to legally and ethically bypass these roadblocks."
Two problems:
1. For the past 10+ years I keep seeing various articles talking about evolution design and they are all about antennas and simple analogue circuit designs. Antennas are certainly susceptible to evolutionary design, but if we'll be driving the industry forward we'll need to throw lots of R&D to develop evolutionary design algos that can design something more complex. My point is, it's hugely promising, but it's still not here in a big way.
2. The bigger problem, and which is what caused my exclamation in the title: there's no way to avoid overly broad patents. Evolutionary designs in fact often arrive at designs that match exactly various patents. Which means, when your super computer arrives at a working design, you still need to go through all the tedious work of verifying it's not patented, and if it is, start the algo again and hope for the best.
And the limit for rerunning the algo plenty of times to get patent-free design is the same such as manual design: we don't have infinite time, and the solutions to a problem are sometimes finite, and not that many.
I think patents should be left in place, but their running period should be shortened. The industry is developing at such an amazing pace that we make more progress in an year, than what took 10 years before. The original lawmakers never intended their law to run unmodified in such circumstances.