Comment Re:Imagine that (Score 1) 333
Comment Re:Developing countries, not US (Score 1) 620
Comment Re:Don't forget consoles! (Score 1) 1200
No it's not. There is a VLIW-like processor made by Intel, and it's the Itanium processor (well, Itanium 2 nowadays). It is not a "pure" VLIW processor though, as it is both VLIW and superscalar. VLIW instructions have a fixed size (in the case of the Itanium, each bundle/long word can feature as much as three instructions, although two is the average). On the other hand, x86 processors have really two parts: one which I would call a "front-end", which receives the CISC instruction. Its only purpose is to decode them, and decompose them into micro-operations/micro-instructions. The latter are the "RISC-like" instructions which are really executed and fill the pipeline.
Comment Re:What's wrong with this article (Score 1) 828
This is a shame, because the interview does address this issue through questions from the journalist.
Comment Re:Copyright is an arbitrary social convention (Score 1) 438
Copyright was a legal construct the printers (not the writers!) lobbied for in order to increase their profits
I know how the "copyright" equivalent was created in the late 1700s in France. Beaumarchais was tired of printers and publishers ripping him off. He created the "author's right" (which is slightly different from the copyright US and UK countries use) to be protected against publishers and printers who would sell his work without giving him a cut of the profits. When it came to public execution of his plays however, he had no problem, because he felt a play should be... well, played, and that it somehow belongs to the public.
Later on, this right given to authors to control how they want their work to be distributed became more and more distorted.
Comment Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score 1) 252
Comment Re:renting content (Score 1) 221
Disclaimer: I really think DRM stinks.
But even then, you can't compare an era when people just couldn't copy a record, and thus had to buy it, with ours where everyone can copy almost everything, as long as it exists digitally. DRM are needed not because of (lack of) talent from some artists; they are needed because without them, movie and record companies can't make more money. By having digital equipment, by being able to produce one's own music/film/whatever, the value of a work of art decreases, which is quite a problem when your job is to make money off it.