Actually GNU might be the worlds first truly free and secular religion.
I would argue that this somewhat dubious distinction belongs to political parties.
This does, however, illustrate an important trend. Increasingly, we are seeing the internet become an extremely influential promotional venue for music. Unlike most other big areas, this one is fairly independent of the RIAA. In the short term, this will likely only effect songs controlled by the major labels. In the long term, however, having such a large independent promotional outlet is extremely important for breaking the RIAA's stranglehold on music. We may not see any successful internet only songs in 2007, but we will see the groundwork laid that enables them to happen in the future.
Spore looks very interesting, but I'm a bit worried it will be like Black & White -- great concept, flawed implementation.
That's always a possibility, but so far Will Wright has been pretty good at delivering a good solid game. Peter Molyneux, on the other hand, has had a ton of "good concept, flawed execution" games. If anyone could be trusted to make this game work, it's Will Wright.
I certainly hope it works out, anyways. It's by far the most interesting game on that list for me. Other than that, Supreme Commander, Bioshock, and Half-Life 2 ep. 2 are the only games on the list I am at all excited about.
He didn't threaten anyone. He just implied (to someone who apparently did like to implicitly threaten people) that any threats of violence were unlikely to be successful.
Personally, I doubt we will see them become all that widespread until at least 2008. We will probably see them become a lot more common than they are now, but they aren't really ready to become widespread yet.
To be fair, it isn't unreasonable to say that there is a difference between executing a convicted killer and killing an innocent person. As I see it, the only real issue should be the question of when one actually "becomes a person". If they are, in fact, a person at conception, then I don't see how you can support abortion and still be against captial punishment. However, it is far from clear how we should define personhood. Still, it seems to me that it is very reasonable to consider the life of an innocent person more worthy of protection than a criminal.
No matter what your thoughs on this, however, it seems clear that we should do everything in our power to ensure that the innocent are not put to death.
Seriously - one of them starts with "I am 14, and I know this is a true story..." -- WTF?
That one is listed as unconfirmed. I do agree that it looks really fake, and probably shouldn't even be on that page without a lot better confirmation, though.
This definition has been in use before longhorn was even announced, and has included such products as Half-Life 2 and OSX. To say that using the term this way is political requires a blatant disregard for the reality of the situation.
Patents expire after 20 years. You might disagree with that particular timeframe, but it is undeniable that the monopoly IS only granted for a limited time.
This sort of surveillance wouldn't be tolerated unless there was a fair amount of public support(or apathy). I don't see that it would be all that hard to find enough engineers to do the project.
I never seem to have mod points when I really need them.
I agree completely. Heck, wasn't one of the biggest complaints people had about the patriot act was the way it allowed the government to look into your library records.
Now if that species had adapted to being eaten by humans by evolving to be less... edible... then it would have survived.
Actually, the opposite is pretty much true. As far as evolutionary strategies go, being a species that humans like to eat has proven quite successful. Look at wheat or corn, for example. Humans clear vast tracts of land for the sole purpose of allowing these species to propagate. Chickens, cows, pigs, etc are all doing very good in evolutionary terms because we like to eat them. Maybe the dodo should have become more edible, rather than less.
I agree completely. Personally, I'm not really bothered that much by ads. For better or worse, they are the price we pay for all the free content we have acces to. That said, the ads should not distract me from the content I'm trying to look at. When it comes to adblock, I tend to let things go as much as possibly, but if something starts blinking at me, makes sounds I haven't asked it to make, or takes up part of the screen I'm trying to look at, then the entire domain for that ad is getting blocked. So far it seems to work pretty well.
While some of the things in the article are the same over the top promises we've been hearing for years, there are a couple appealing things about these houses. The best thing, in my opinion, was using power lines for networking so that all your appliances can be controlled remotely. While one might not care whether the fridge could tell whether their yogurt is spoiled, I could easily see situations where it would be nice to be able to remotely check the current temperature, settings, etc. This sort of thing alone would be a hugely useful change from where we are at now.
Sure, these chips aren't all that efficient in and of themselves, but the thing that makes them usefull is that they can easily and conveniently convert the waste heat from other applications. If chips like these were used along with existing power plants, for example, they could potentially make use of that waste heat to improve the overall efficiancy.
Not really. In fact, I'd say that it is worse. It still rewards those who lower the standard for grades, but it also punishes honest teachers who give a fair grading system. If students go from a class with easy A's to a real class, the students who get A's will almost certainly have gotten them last year. In addition, there will now be a bunch who didn't earn an A, but due to lax standards were able to earn one last year. According to what you propose, the teacher who actually grades their students would appear underperforming.
Well. Judging by most of the comments, people mostly agree that this isn't Sony's fault. I'm not sure how that equals being "anxious to pile as much shit on Sony as possible."
I hope it's better than the people who smashed the 360. They set up a tent and waited (I think for several days) to get one, but then smashed it in a mostly empty parting lot. Seriously, it would have been funny if there were a bunch of people in line or something, but the way they did it just ended up being lame.
The problem with the US isn't a lack of rights. The problem is that our freedoms are decreasing. If this trend were to continue, we would have a lot of problems, but our overall state at the present isn't all that bad.
Except that those are terrible metaphors. If I watch them on youtube, it doesn't take anything away from other people. If I were to go to a store an shoplift a DVD, that would be theft. What we are talking about, however, is not theft.
To look at your examples, I would have no problem if someone decided to make a copy of a Lexus, a laptop, or a Gucci purse. Yes, the copying is a lot harder than it is for a digital file, but if someone did it then more power to them. Regardless of whether copyright infringement is right or wrong, it is not theft.
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Actually GNU might be the worlds first truly free and secular religion. I would argue that this somewhat dubious distinction belongs to political parties.
This does, however, illustrate an important trend. Increasingly, we are seeing the internet become an extremely influential promotional venue for music. Unlike most other big areas, this one is fairly independent of the RIAA. In the short term, this will likely only effect songs controlled by the major labels. In the long term, however, having such a large independent promotional outlet is extremely important for breaking the RIAA's stranglehold on music. We may not see any successful internet only songs in 2007, but we will see the groundwork laid that enables them to happen in the future.
He didn't threaten anyone. He just implied (to someone who apparently did like to implicitly threaten people) that any threats of violence were unlikely to be successful.
Personally, I doubt we will see them become all that widespread until at least 2008. We will probably see them become a lot more common than they are now, but they aren't really ready to become widespread yet.
To be fair, it isn't unreasonable to say that there is a difference between executing a convicted killer and killing an innocent person. As I see it, the only real issue should be the question of when one actually "becomes a person". If they are, in fact, a person at conception, then I don't see how you can support abortion and still be against captial punishment. However, it is far from clear how we should define personhood. Still, it seems to me that it is very reasonable to consider the life of an innocent person more worthy of protection than a criminal.
No matter what your thoughs on this, however, it seems clear that we should do everything in our power to ensure that the innocent are not put to death.
This definition has been in use before longhorn was even announced, and has included such products as Half-Life 2 and OSX. To say that using the term this way is political requires a blatant disregard for the reality of the situation.
Patents expire after 20 years. You might disagree with that particular timeframe, but it is undeniable that the monopoly IS only granted for a limited time.
This sort of surveillance wouldn't be tolerated unless there was a fair amount of public support(or apathy). I don't see that it would be all that hard to find enough engineers to do the project.
I never seem to have mod points when I really need them. I agree completely. Heck, wasn't one of the biggest complaints people had about the patriot act was the way it allowed the government to look into your library records.
Come on, this is Slashdot. You're the only one who's even read the article.
Not to mention that they never came out with that flamethrower they were advertising. Those lying jerks.
I suppose we could always switch over to trucks. Then we'd have plenty of tubes to go around.
I agree completely. Personally, I'm not really bothered that much by ads. For better or worse, they are the price we pay for all the free content we have acces to. That said, the ads should not distract me from the content I'm trying to look at. When it comes to adblock, I tend to let things go as much as possibly, but if something starts blinking at me, makes sounds I haven't asked it to make, or takes up part of the screen I'm trying to look at, then the entire domain for that ad is getting blocked. So far it seems to work pretty well.
While some of the things in the article are the same over the top promises we've been hearing for years, there are a couple appealing things about these houses. The best thing, in my opinion, was using power lines for networking so that all your appliances can be controlled remotely. While one might not care whether the fridge could tell whether their yogurt is spoiled, I could easily see situations where it would be nice to be able to remotely check the current temperature, settings, etc. This sort of thing alone would be a hugely useful change from where we are at now.
Sure, these chips aren't all that efficient in and of themselves, but the thing that makes them usefull is that they can easily and conveniently convert the waste heat from other applications. If chips like these were used along with existing power plants, for example, they could potentially make use of that waste heat to improve the overall efficiancy.
Well. Judging by most of the comments, people mostly agree that this isn't Sony's fault. I'm not sure how that equals being "anxious to pile as much shit on Sony as possible."
Yes, although the article claims that ballast will be able to last around a month before needing to be refilled.
I hope it's better than the people who smashed the 360. They set up a tent and waited (I think for several days) to get one, but then smashed it in a mostly empty parting lot. Seriously, it would have been funny if there were a bunch of people in line or something, but the way they did it just ended up being lame.
The problem with the US isn't a lack of rights. The problem is that our freedoms are decreasing. If this trend were to continue, we would have a lot of problems, but our overall state at the present isn't all that bad.
Like others have said, it wouldn't be all that hard for him to have done it anonymously, but he shouldn't have to in the first place.
Except that those are terrible metaphors. If I watch them on youtube, it doesn't take anything away from other people. If I were to go to a store an shoplift a DVD, that would be theft. What we are talking about, however, is not theft. To look at your examples, I would have no problem if someone decided to make a copy of a Lexus, a laptop, or a Gucci purse. Yes, the copying is a lot harder than it is for a digital file, but if someone did it then more power to them. Regardless of whether copyright infringement is right or wrong, it is not theft.