Comment Re:Design (Score 1) 314
Because everything was on punched cards (80 characters) and there was only A-Z and 0-9 and it grew from that when we went to screens.
Comment Re:Design (Score 1) 314
Partly true. The Y2K think was to save 2 bytes. I remember a similar problem at the time and saying "2 bytes! are you kidding?" The response was "the app has x number of clients and x number of fields. This will save 2 disk spindles". The wise-ass kid (me) turned around, removed foot from mouth, and solved the problem. Oh and it was COBOL.
Spindles were 100MB to 200MB, big like dishwashers, and cost a gazillion plus your next new born.
Comment Re:Oo, oo, oo! I know! (Score 1) 314
Only if you work for a government.
Comment Re:Run to my openWRT router and look for.. what? (Score 1) 272
A Linux based router with public/private keys would do the trick. Well I guess 'till someone breaks that too. DD-WRT has this ability but, when you do turn it on, it does not disable the user/password thing (last time I looked). A -p or something on the sshd command needs to be added.
Comment private/public keys (Score 1) 272
The commercial routers don't have this option. Um like D-link, Linksys, etc. Unfortunately they are the majority of home/small enterprise routers But this would be the trick to use.
Comment Re:My Generation (Score 1) 278
Yes, agreed. This is all absurd. I think fair usage has to be defined again. I see copies on computers as fair use: photocopies of a NYT article. I would really like to walk aroung the RIAAA offices just to see. Yes I knew 3 A's.
What's on second.
Comment My Generation (Score 1) 278
I did not read this whole thread because there is too much... and this is like arguing religion or politics. Here are my comments anywho.
I take you back about 50 years when mimeograph machine started to make copies and then to photocopiers. I wonder where the photocopy industry (Xerox) would be if we had been this stiff about copyrights in those days. OK so "we" passed "fair usage laws". End of problem.
Do we realise how many times copyright laws are broken in offices today throughout the world? Look around the office. How many photocopies of everthing are there around? Magazines, newspapers, printed copies of web sites. Photocopies of this and that at school. We do this without even thinking. I remember when we made a "Xerox" of something instead of a copy. Technically they are all copyright violations. Oh yeah... "fair usage". Right!
OK so "you" need to invent "fair usage" again.
I do understand the need for copyright as in "I take IP of someone else and sell it for profit" as though it were mine.
To use the analogy above, if I share an electronic copy of a tune with a friend, I am simply making a photocopy of the New York Times front page and giving it to someone so they can read it. Yes, I did deprive the artist of 1 sell but I also did it to the New York Times. No one makes a fuss about the latter not even NYT.
Isn't P2P like photocopying. Bet ya the RIAAAAAAA have copies of things. How many A's in that?
Three strikes? Who's on first?
Sending Secret Messages Via Google's SearchWiki 160
We discussed the advent of Google's SearchWiki when it was introduced a few days back. Now Lauren Weinstein offers a thought experiment in transmitting coded messages using SearchWiki, with a working example encoded into the results of this Google search.
At Atlantic Records, Digital Sales Surpass CDs 273
The NYTimes reports that Atlantic is the first major label to report getting a majority of its revenue from digital sales, not CDs. Analysts say that Atlantic is out in front — the industry as a whole isn't expected to hit the 50% mark until 2011. By 2013, music industry revenues will be 37% down from their 1999 levels (when Napster arrived on the scene), according to Forrester. "'It's not at all clear that digital economics can make up for the drop in physical,' said John Rose, a former executive at EMI ... Instead, the music industry is now hoping to find growth from a variety of other revenue streams it has not always had access to, like concert ticket sales and merchandise from artist tours. ... In virtually all... corners of the media world, executives are fighting to hold onto as much of their old business as possible while transitioning to digital — a difficult process that NBC Universal's chief executive ... has described as 'trading analog dollars for digital pennies.'"
Searching DNA For Relatives Raises Concerns 199
An anonymous reader calls our attention to California's familial searching policy, which looks for genetic ties between culprits and kin. The technique has come to the fore in the last few years, after a Colorado prosecutor pushed the FBI to relax its rules on cross-state searches. "Los Angeles Police Department investigators want to search the state's DNA database again — not for exact matches but for any profiles similar enough to belong to a parent or sibling. The hope is that one of those family members might lead detectives to the killer. This strategy, pioneered in Britain, is poised to become an important crime-fighting tool in the United States. The Los Angeles case will mark the first major use of California's newly approved familial searching policy, the most far-reaching in the nation."
Researchers Claim To Be Able To Determine Political Leaning By How Messy You Are 592
According to a study to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, you can tell someone's political affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Conservatives tend to be neat and liberals love a mess. Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be colorful and full of books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia. Their conservative contemporaries, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials. Their bedrooms and offices are well lit and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags — especially American ones. Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, says these room cues are "behavioral residue." The findings are just the latest in a series of recent attempts to unearth politics in personality, the brain and DNA. I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.
Wearable Motion Capture 91
AnonymousHack writes "Swiss and MIT researchers have developed a wearable kit that will capture your every move for mapping onto a virtual character. It's almost as accurate as the camera-based motion capture used in studios to develop games. The team have recorded people's movements in completely new locations — like driving a car — previously out of reach. There is even a video of it in action."
Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price 459
eldavojohn writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM and has recently issued a verbal offer to major music lables stating that if they are willing to lose the DRM, he'd be willing to raise his 99 cent price for those iTunes songs. These tracks (such as the recent EMI deal) would also have better sound quality & cost about 30 cents more."
Feed News: NetworkWorld: Can an iPod bring down your company? (macworld.com)
Feed Alzheimer's Genetic Roots Explained (sciencedaily.com)
Scientists have long known that individuals with a certain gene are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Now a new study helps explain why this is so. The research has uncovered a molecular mechanism that links the susceptibility gene to the process of Alzheimer's disease onset. The findings may lead to new pathways for development of Alzheimer's therapeutics.
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