We can't go more compact because we are such car addicts. There would be no place to drive and park. In my parents' town, they have been expanding and are overwhelmed with traffic, but they're not really very compact. To have a compact town, many people would have to agree to walk rather than drive.
Of course bands are holding onto their copyrights. It makes economic sense for them to do so. Despite all the file sharing, recording labels are still pulling in big money, and are influencing our government heavily. The system benefits certain people and so it tends to self-perpetuate.
However, there is already so much good music that a music listener can hardly keep up with it all. If a person wants to own many of the classics, they have to pay thousands of dollars for works made decades in the past. Most people can't afford that, and so they miss out on appreciating those works. Also, culture is impeded when people are not able to reuse music in other works such as videos and remixes.
A culture in which people can listen to, learn from, and build off of previous musical works at no cost would be vastly more creatively productive. The great majority of people would benefit, and we would see more new music, not less. Those who wanted to turn their music into a profit source would just need to be more creative. We have full time bloggers who give away their words, so why not full time online music makers?
Proof that there would be no shortage of new music if copyright expired? Myspace.com. Any large city's music scene. Many of those bands are hoping to make it big, but they also know the chances are slim. And yet, they make music anyway. There are plenty of motivations for making music besides the opportunity to sell physical copies of your recorded sounds.
If we as a society can have every piece of music ever recorded freely available to every person, that is such a huge benefit that it seems to dwarf other considerations.
Music will always be created by those with a drive to do so, even if they can't sell the recordings. The copyright system has given certain artists more resources, but it has also created the ugly monster known as the music industry. Setting copyright aside will put artists on more even terms, making them compete for attention based on the quality of their work rather than depending on marketing muscle. Those who do gain fame will find ways to profit other than from selling recordings.
Saying if you don't tour you don't deserve to be paid for your music is ridiculous.
If you want to paid, provide something to people that is in limited supply. Digital music is infinite in supply. Current laws create an artificial scarcity, but that is no longer something that benefits society, and I believe those laws will not last.
XTC has not toured for over 10 years. So you think people should just be able to take their music because they don't tour?
Perhaps if copying their music freely was legal, they wouldn't be so heavily marketed, and other bands with comparable talent and less money would be able to compete for fame.
Copyright is not for the benefit of artists. It is for the benefit of society at large. It is to encourage the creation of new works, so that everyone has music to enjoy. We've reached the point where the supply is virtually limitless. If copyright was no longer valid, there would be no shortage of new bands and recordings. Therefore society at large benefits most from the right to freely copy music.
Besides touring, I think bands should retain rights to profit. They can sell tshirts and special edition recordings of their music, as well as sell CDs for any profit they can get from those people who want physical media. This creates avenues for the listeners to support the band even if they can't see them live.
Knowing NASA? They do some pretty amazing work, actually. The money that paid salaries IS lost, from the perspective of advancing science. The hardware is specialized and will be unlikely to be reuseable, so that money is lost too. It's lost unless we finish what was started.
If it costs $500 million more to finish this mission, then it must be worth it. It was worth it for three times that much. What else should we do, start a different $1.5 billion project that could also go over budget? If your new $15,000 car takes on $5,000 of damage, you fix it. You don't junk it.
I can give you the results of the investigation right now. Cost estimating billion dollar projects is impossible. Period.
I hope that we can apply that lesson to future projects. We can create a ranged budget, rather than just picking an optimistic number. We can structure contracts such that contractors and project managers are motivated to keep costs low, but without so much pressure that they cut corners. Budget increases should be examined to determine if they were due to mistakes or legitimate challenges. We should continually weed out those who don't deliver and promote those who do.
Hopefully, some of this is already taking place. I suppose there's always going to be budget trouble due to the political nature of the funding.
It will be easy for Hulu and other sites to block this TiVo from skipping commercials. If it comes down to it they can switch to their own proprietary streaming software, though hopefully it won't become a DRM mess.
What I'd like to see if for commercials to be optional. Say that NBC takes in 25 cents from advertisers when a viewer watches a 30 minute show. Give the user an option to create an account, enter a credit card, and turn commercials off. Every show watched would be added to the account, with the card being charged every so often. If a user doesn't want to pay, they could accept ads. They might turn off ads for their favorite drama, but accept ads for a comedy they are watching while folding laundry.
Just to clarify, the rover is not $2 billion over budget, which is the impression I got from the summary. It is $500 million over its $1.5 billion budget, and part of that is due to inflation.
If we try to delay the launch, the delay will cost us an extra $300 million. If we cancel the launch, we just spent $2 billion on nothing, and the science it was meant to do remains undone. This shouldn't be a hard decision:
1. Pony up and get this thing launched. 2. Investigate how this happened so we can avoid overruns like this in the future.
There have been major problems on Earth ever since there has been civilization. If we waited to go exploring and discovering until we eliminated war, poverty, crime, and pollution, we would never go anywhere. We'd also miss out on the chance to learn things which could help us to deal with those problems more effectively.
Besides, this is a false dichotomy. We don't need to visit Mars OR save Earth. Earth is more essential, but if we are able we should do both.
This is a great point. So, what is the new method? How will we be confirming our humanity and good will to various websites in 5-10 years? There must be some Slashdot readers with insights.
I think it will have to do with building a reputation. Between my gmail account and my slashdot account, I can demonstrate that I am a real person with a history of not spamming or trolling (much.) There needs to be some way for a third website to check with gmail and slashdot to confirm this.
This opens up other problems, though. How does one establish their reputation if they have no web history? And what if a website unfairly reports you as behaving badly - would your reputation be trashed? Would you lose access to your accounts?
Alternately, you could look at Windows' style of window management as a design decision by Microsoft. Yes, it was a poor design decision, but Gimp can't do anything about that. What Gimp can do is to make a minor change in order to improve usability within the Windows environment. Windows expects an application to group its windows together rather than depending on the window manager. Is that so hard to work around?
What would be ideal doesn't deal with reality. If I bring my laptop to Europe, I don't say "ideally I should be able to plug this into the wall socket just like I do at home," and then grin as I try to jam it into the 220V socket. I accept reality and buy an adapter.
You may be correct according to some ideal theory of window management. But in practice, having all those separate GIMP windows is horrible.
Here's what happens to me: I'm working on a website and I realize I need to modify some images. So I fire up Gimp and open 3 different files. I now have five new items on my task bar. (I'm at work so I'm on a Windows machine.) When I switch to my other applications and then back to the Gimp, I have to go hunting for the right set of windows. I have to guess which of the three open files I was editing last, since they are all scrunched up little boxes on the task bar. Once I find it, I have to manually bring the two main Gimp windows to the forefront.
If it were all in one window, I'd just alt-tab to the Gimp and I could instantly continue where I left off.
I don't want to take away the multi-window style for those who do prefer it. Couldn't we just have a checkbox in the settings? "Gather all Gimp interfaces into a single window." The application could look identical, it would just operate inside a big box. Everybody wins, no?
The core Roku software will be open source, but applications such as the streaming service from Netflix will still have proprietary DRM code. You won't be able to build your own Roku equivalent box, or stream Netflix movies onto your Linux watch.
I believe the point of this is to make it easier for other video providers to work with the Roku player, which seems like a wise move for Roku.
Hopefully we'll move towards the point where any service (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) works with any box (Roku, PS3, Xbox, etc.) This would be easy to accomplish if not for the DRM monkey wrench.
The election has been rigged - not by the media, not by the two controlling parties, but by the constitution - to ensure that only two parties will remain at the forefront. It is simple mathematics and human nature. Few people are willing to cast a vote which they know will be merely symbolic.
To change this fact, it will take more than getting more publicity to the other candidates. It will take more than a few people voting for third parties. It requires a change to our voting system, something along the lines of Ranked Pairs or Range Voting, which allows people to express their preferences for less popular candidates without nullifying their impact on the election.
This makes a good deal of sense out of the 15 minute poll time. You go to hulu.com and start watching your show. After 15 minutes, 2/3's of the way through, it suddenly becomes choppy and unwatchable. After this happens to you several times, you become reluctant to start watching any online shows because you don't want to miss the conclusions.
As a result, you reason that you'd better not cancel your $70/month premium cable package. Comcast gets that money from you, and continues to get the full price for your network service even though you've stopped using much of it.
The Killer Feature I am hoping for: Lowered total cost of ownership
I don't have any interest in spending $500 to $1000 per year for a data plan on top of the usual voice plan, just so I can check my email while I wait for the dentist. It should be possible to offer an Android based phone with a data and voice plan that is the same as a basic phone's voice plan, or even less. I would make many of my calls from home anyway, so those can be routed over wi-fi, thus greatly reducing my usage of the cellular network.
This phone is not delivering this feature, but I am hoping another Android phone will. I'm not holding my breath though, because I know the last thing any American cell phone company wants to do is to compete on price.
The fraction that answers "yes" can be discounted as idiots, since it was not a yes/no question. And the question was not pointless. I was addressing it to people who would be starting companies or helping to run them. They can choose how they want to run their company, regardless of what other people at other companies may decide to do.
At my local Blockbuster, I was disappointed to see only about 30 BD selections. Then I realized I was in the new releases section, and that there was an entire extra section of BD with about 100-200 more movies. I don't know if I have a better Blockbuster than you, or if you just missed the section like I almost did.
Anyway, at > $5 for a rental I won't be back. Netflix has me covered.
Meg Whitman, the prime architect of its demise, baled a rich woman some time back.
That is a fascinating financial strategy. Did she use a standard hay baler, or did she bale the woman by hand? Did the woman survive? Did Meg Whitman face any legal penalties for this?
Forget my job, I'm just gonna bale me a rich woman!
Slashdot Mirror
We can't go more compact because we are such car addicts. There would be no place to drive and park. In my parents' town, they have been expanding and are overwhelmed with traffic, but they're not really very compact. To have a compact town, many people would have to agree to walk rather than drive.
Of course bands are holding onto their copyrights. It makes economic sense for them to do so. Despite all the file sharing, recording labels are still pulling in big money, and are influencing our government heavily. The system benefits certain people and so it tends to self-perpetuate.
However, there is already so much good music that a music listener can hardly keep up with it all. If a person wants to own many of the classics, they have to pay thousands of dollars for works made decades in the past. Most people can't afford that, and so they miss out on appreciating those works. Also, culture is impeded when people are not able to reuse music in other works such as videos and remixes.
A culture in which people can listen to, learn from, and build off of previous musical works at no cost would be vastly more creatively productive. The great majority of people would benefit, and we would see more new music, not less. Those who wanted to turn their music into a profit source would just need to be more creative. We have full time bloggers who give away their words, so why not full time online music makers?
Proof that there would be no shortage of new music if copyright expired? Myspace.com. Any large city's music scene. Many of those bands are hoping to make it big, but they also know the chances are slim. And yet, they make music anyway. There are plenty of motivations for making music besides the opportunity to sell physical copies of your recorded sounds.
If we as a society can have every piece of music ever recorded freely available to every person, that is such a huge benefit that it seems to dwarf other considerations.
Music will always be created by those with a drive to do so, even if they can't sell the recordings. The copyright system has given certain artists more resources, but it has also created the ugly monster known as the music industry. Setting copyright aside will put artists on more even terms, making them compete for attention based on the quality of their work rather than depending on marketing muscle. Those who do gain fame will find ways to profit other than from selling recordings.
If you want to paid, provide something to people that is in limited supply. Digital music is infinite in supply. Current laws create an artificial scarcity, but that is no longer something that benefits society, and I believe those laws will not last.
Perhaps if copying their music freely was legal, they wouldn't be so heavily marketed, and other bands with comparable talent and less money would be able to compete for fame.
Copyright is not for the benefit of artists. It is for the benefit of society at large. It is to encourage the creation of new works, so that everyone has music to enjoy. We've reached the point where the supply is virtually limitless. If copyright was no longer valid, there would be no shortage of new bands and recordings. Therefore society at large benefits most from the right to freely copy music.
Besides touring, I think bands should retain rights to profit. They can sell tshirts and special edition recordings of their music, as well as sell CDs for any profit they can get from those people who want physical media. This creates avenues for the listeners to support the band even if they can't see them live.
If the worm grunters learn about the results of this study, will the technique stop working?
Knowing NASA? They do some pretty amazing work, actually. The money that paid salaries IS lost, from the perspective of advancing science. The hardware is specialized and will be unlikely to be reuseable, so that money is lost too. It's lost unless we finish what was started.
If it costs $500 million more to finish this mission, then it must be worth it. It was worth it for three times that much. What else should we do, start a different $1.5 billion project that could also go over budget? If your new $15,000 car takes on $5,000 of damage, you fix it. You don't junk it.
I hope that we can apply that lesson to future projects. We can create a ranged budget, rather than just picking an optimistic number. We can structure contracts such that contractors and project managers are motivated to keep costs low, but without so much pressure that they cut corners. Budget increases should be examined to determine if they were due to mistakes or legitimate challenges. We should continually weed out those who don't deliver and promote those who do.
Hopefully, some of this is already taking place. I suppose there's always going to be budget trouble due to the political nature of the funding.
It will be easy for Hulu and other sites to block this TiVo from skipping commercials. If it comes down to it they can switch to their own proprietary streaming software, though hopefully it won't become a DRM mess.
What I'd like to see if for commercials to be optional. Say that NBC takes in 25 cents from advertisers when a viewer watches a 30 minute show. Give the user an option to create an account, enter a credit card, and turn commercials off. Every show watched would be added to the account, with the card being charged every so often. If a user doesn't want to pay, they could accept ads. They might turn off ads for their favorite drama, but accept ads for a comedy they are watching while folding laundry.
Just to clarify, the rover is not $2 billion over budget, which is the impression I got from the summary. It is $500 million over its $1.5 billion budget, and part of that is due to inflation.
If we try to delay the launch, the delay will cost us an extra $300 million. If we cancel the launch, we just spent $2 billion on nothing, and the science it was meant to do remains undone. This shouldn't be a hard decision:
1. Pony up and get this thing launched.
2. Investigate how this happened so we can avoid overruns like this in the future.
There have been major problems on Earth ever since there has been civilization. If we waited to go exploring and discovering until we eliminated war, poverty, crime, and pollution, we would never go anywhere. We'd also miss out on the chance to learn things which could help us to deal with those problems more effectively.
Besides, this is a false dichotomy. We don't need to visit Mars OR save Earth. Earth is more essential, but if we are able we should do both.
Fascinating. If the trend continues, here is the size of the flash drive you can get for $10:
2007 = 1 GB
2008 = 5 GB
2009 = 25 GB
2010 = 125 GB
2011 = 625 GB
2012 = 3 TB
2017 = 9 PB
2021 = 1 Exabyte (Or 10,000 Libraries of Congress)
This seems extremely unlikely. The question is when does it break down? 2009? 2012?
This is a great point. So, what is the new method? How will we be confirming our humanity and good will to various websites in 5-10 years? There must be some Slashdot readers with insights.
I think it will have to do with building a reputation. Between my gmail account and my slashdot account, I can demonstrate that I am a real person with a history of not spamming or trolling (much.) There needs to be some way for a third website to check with gmail and slashdot to confirm this.
This opens up other problems, though. How does one establish their reputation if they have no web history? And what if a website unfairly reports you as behaving badly - would your reputation be trashed? Would you lose access to your accounts?
Alternately, you could look at Windows' style of window management as a design decision by Microsoft. Yes, it was a poor design decision, but Gimp can't do anything about that. What Gimp can do is to make a minor change in order to improve usability within the Windows environment. Windows expects an application to group its windows together rather than depending on the window manager. Is that so hard to work around?
What would be ideal doesn't deal with reality. If I bring my laptop to Europe, I don't say "ideally I should be able to plug this into the wall socket just like I do at home," and then grin as I try to jam it into the 220V socket. I accept reality and buy an adapter.
You may be correct according to some ideal theory of window management. But in practice, having all those separate GIMP windows is horrible.
Here's what happens to me: I'm working on a website and I realize I need to modify some images. So I fire up Gimp and open 3 different files. I now have five new items on my task bar. (I'm at work so I'm on a Windows machine.) When I switch to my other applications and then back to the Gimp, I have to go hunting for the right set of windows. I have to guess which of the three open files I was editing last, since they are all scrunched up little boxes on the task bar. Once I find it, I have to manually bring the two main Gimp windows to the forefront.
If it were all in one window, I'd just alt-tab to the Gimp and I could instantly continue where I left off.
I don't want to take away the multi-window style for those who do prefer it. Couldn't we just have a checkbox in the settings? "Gather all Gimp interfaces into a single window." The application could look identical, it would just operate inside a big box. Everybody wins, no?
The core Roku software will be open source, but applications such as the streaming service from Netflix will still have proprietary DRM code. You won't be able to build your own Roku equivalent box, or stream Netflix movies onto your Linux watch.
I believe the point of this is to make it easier for other video providers to work with the Roku player, which seems like a wise move for Roku.
Hopefully we'll move towards the point where any service (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) works with any box (Roku, PS3, Xbox, etc.) This would be easy to accomplish if not for the DRM monkey wrench.
If you can't see the tsunami, the tsunami can't see you.
The election has been rigged - not by the media, not by the two controlling parties, but by the constitution - to ensure that only two parties will remain at the forefront. It is simple mathematics and human nature. Few people are willing to cast a vote which they know will be merely symbolic.
To change this fact, it will take more than getting more publicity to the other candidates. It will take more than a few people voting for third parties. It requires a change to our voting system, something along the lines of Ranked Pairs or Range Voting, which allows people to express their preferences for less popular candidates without nullifying their impact on the election.
Perhaps this will inspire a new "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercial, with the PC donning a strap-on.
Or not.
This makes a good deal of sense out of the 15 minute poll time. You go to hulu.com and start watching your show. After 15 minutes, 2/3's of the way through, it suddenly becomes choppy and unwatchable. After this happens to you several times, you become reluctant to start watching any online shows because you don't want to miss the conclusions.
As a result, you reason that you'd better not cancel your $70/month premium cable package. Comcast gets that money from you, and continues to get the full price for your network service even though you've stopped using much of it.
The Killer Feature I am hoping for: Lowered total cost of ownership
I don't have any interest in spending $500 to $1000 per year for a data plan on top of the usual voice plan, just so I can check my email while I wait for the dentist. It should be possible to offer an Android based phone with a data and voice plan that is the same as a basic phone's voice plan, or even less. I would make many of my calls from home anyway, so those can be routed over wi-fi, thus greatly reducing my usage of the cellular network.
This phone is not delivering this feature, but I am hoping another Android phone will. I'm not holding my breath though, because I know the last thing any American cell phone company wants to do is to compete on price.
Wouldn't charges of "Playing Darwin" or "Unnatural Selection" be more apropos?
The fraction that answers "yes" can be discounted as idiots, since it was not a yes/no question. And the question was not pointless. I was addressing it to people who would be starting companies or helping to run them. They can choose how they want to run their company, regardless of what other people at other companies may decide to do.
The BBC documentary Galapagos is also gorgeous in Blu Ray. I highly recommend it.
At my local Blockbuster, I was disappointed to see only about 30 BD selections. Then I realized I was in the new releases section, and that there was an entire extra section of BD with about 100-200 more movies. I don't know if I have a better Blockbuster than you, or if you just missed the section like I almost did.
Anyway, at > $5 for a rental I won't be back. Netflix has me covered.
That is a fascinating financial strategy. Did she use a standard hay baler, or did she bale the woman by hand? Did the woman survive? Did Meg Whitman face any legal penalties for this?
Forget my job, I'm just gonna bale me a rich woman!