Buzz Out Loud 820: Stupid cloud

Richard Stallman says anyone who puts their data in the cloud is stupid. Cooley thinks he's right about some things, but finds other parts of his statement stupid. Find out which is which. We also get into a discussion of why exactly the House of Representatives' Web site went down. Cooley doesn't buy any of it. Actually Brian's pretty cranky today. You'll enjoy it.
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EPISODE 820

Stallman rejects cloud computing
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080930-why-stallman-is-wrong-when-he-calls-cloud-computing-stupid.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

House Web site overwhelmed by e-mails
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10054346-38.html

RealNetworks files suit against Hollywood over realDVD
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/30/realnetworks-files-suit-against-hollywood-over-realdvd/

http://www.download.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=dvd%20ripper&searchtype=downloads&tag=mncol;rbxcdl.2.a.1

Meanwhile Amazon had some Adobe Flash problems and was giving away movies
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080929-adobe-amazon-point-fingers-over-video-ripping-exploit.html

U.K. spy agency looking for a few good Facebook users
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080929-uk-spy-agency-looking-for-a-few-good-facebook-users.html

MI6 terror photos, data accidentally sold on eBay
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/slashdot/eqWf/~3/AM–AiheNPg/article.pl

AMD’s 45nm Shanghai enters production, next stops are Deneb, Istanbul
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/30/amds-45nm-shanghai-enters-production-next-stops-are-deneb-ist/

The 25 most influential people on the Web
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0929_most_influential/1.htm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10054281-36.html

VOICEMAIL
Doug in Culver City
Trick for burning without CDs

RogueTess
In defense of men using EeePCs

Anonymous
Zune is DRM-free (mostly)

E-MAIL

OK, two (three?) things.

About Spore, did you see: http://xkcd.com/480/, very funny. No need to buy Spore!

Secondly, the comments in various episodes about turning off the DRM servers...Games get patches, right? Well, when the game is 5 years old and people want to still play, just release a patch. Didn’t that happen with another game (also discussed on BOL previously) where the DRM was bunk and the developer actually released a community-created patch to strip the DRM? Few people will be playing it then and piracy wouldn’t be as rampant on a 5-10-year-old game.

For music, they just die because they are built into the files…but this could apply as well. Look at DRM-stripping programs for iTunes, etc. Walmart (from Ep. 819) could just release/e-mail a bit of software that looks in a folder and runs the program to strip the DRM and it’s done. If the labels are OK with them coming out and saying, "Hey burn to CD and re-rip," why not just allow them to strip?

Erick the Satellite Guy.

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Hi Buzz Crew -

I’d like to throw some ice water on the idea that a 250GB cap from Comcast should be enough for the average user. I just listened to the Real Deal episode on Bandwidth Caps (plug!) where the size of a “downloadable game these days” was guessed at 1GB.

I just purchased Call of Duty 4 over Steam and downloaded all 10 Gigabytes of it. 1/25th of my monthly stipend gone. Guess what? The install went awry and I had to redownload the game, which thankfully Steam easily allows you to do. 20GB later… BAM…. 1/12 of my monthly allotment gone. One-twelfth…. just downloading a game.

We’re doomed.

Love the show!
Fraggle

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JaMoTo & Guest

In Ep. 799 you talked about the 100-flavor Coca-cola soda fountain (http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/29/coca-cola-readying-100-flavor-soda-fountains/). Here are a few quick updates:
There a 100 flavor-cartridge bays--not 100 flavors.
The syrup is very unstable and must be kept at a specific temperature and must be agitated to keep from EXPLODING.
Carbon is added separately to the water, allowing for non-carbonated drinks such as Gatorade.
The image on Engadget is confirmed. The freestanding fountain features a touch screen.
The machine is so complex that the company making the inside of the device makes and designs medical equipment.

The project has just been completed and is now into production. Hopefully to be seen early 2009.
Sam
Melbourne, Australia

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Hi,
I kept laughing through Buzz Out Loud 818: The Zipless Squirt as you discussed “College bookstores turning to kiosks to stem e-textbook tide” and how they do not understand how to save themselves and all the things they should consider.
They are already history; they just do not know it yet.

My son just started his second year at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County), which is a totally wireless zone with Internet everywhere.

Other than the first books that we purchased on the Internet for his first semester, he has not purchased books.

Since everything at the school is online, there is an online community for swapping books without going through the bookstore.

Two of his computer science teachers give the books they wrote away in PDF form--the professors figured they were paid to be there and present the material in a form needed/understood by the students.
In his current Java class, the teacher refered the students to sun’s JavaDocs and the Sun Tutorials at http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/. Their IDE is eclipse.
Similar story in his C class, GNU GCC complier and my 20-year-old copy of K&R C, the oldest copy in the class!

For his reading assignments in English Literature, he found the books in text form at the Gutenburg project http://www.gutenberg.org or MP3s for his iPod also at the Gutenburg project.

As for teaming with Amazon, it has already happened. We purchased his first books through Abe Books (http://www.abebooks.com), “used”. They are now owned by Amazon, who has always had a very good used book market. Read http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/shelfari-and-librarything-awkward-bookends-to-abebooks-amazon-deal/

Now, I admit he is a programmer, as am I, and we tend to go to the Web before going to the store.
But where the geeks (and engineers) tread the world eventually follows.

luv the show,
Kent -> State of the Ark programmer -> 37 years of coding excellence!