I mean, without source code, how could you hack the OS to do clustering a-la Beowulf? Yeah, sure, you can do distributed apps (like SETI@Home), but that's not the same thing.
The date on the M$ "CCTP" website is over a year old... but this is the first I've heard of it. Why hasn't M$ been marketing this? I mean, the fact that it doesn't even work (if that is the case) has never stopped them in the past, eh?;-)
One of the key issues in the abortion debate is, at what stage of development does a foetus become viable outside the mother's womb? If there were an option to effectively give up your zygote for adoption in the 5th or 6th week of pregnancy...
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, but it's an interesting (if somewhat creepy) thought.
There's no need to force the government to change software platforms, at least not if defeating M$'s monopoly is the goal. But as long as the government requires that bids/tenders/etc be submitted in closed file formats, they enforce a monopoloy for the vendors of such formats.
You're right, forcing a change of platforms would be expensive and slow. But how tough would it be for Pres.Bush to sign an executive order that all government offices should change their default Save format to RTF?...and that correspondence will henceforth only be accepted in open formats? Legacy documents can still be opened and used, staff don't have to re-train... just stop forcing the rest of us to pay the Microsoft Tax in order to do business with our own damn governmnet!
Envvironment as public security...
on
Monsanto and PCBs
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, that's where I part ways with the standard LP party line. I think the environment is a public good... or perhaps more precisely, an aspect of public security. As such, it should be protected by laws enforced by police or some other governmnet agency. And I think this viewpoint is entirely compatible with the core Libertarian philosophy. But since the Constitution doesn't specifically grant such powers to the federal government, the task of environmental protection should be left to the several states. (The federal EPA could set standards and provide services, but leave enforcement to the states.)
Of course, many Libertarians would oppose enforcement at the state level too. I would not.
I think the Libertarian argument would be that pollution is a crime because it harms the person/property of the victims (including, in this case, the State of Alabama) without informed consent. As such, there is no need to outlaw specific actions or substances, since there is already ample recourse in law to prosecute and punish harmful actions.
However, that doesn't mean there is absolutely no role for the EPA, or a similar agency. Libertarians recognize the need for police to defend against damage to the community from crime... they just wish the police didn't have to waste time arresting "consensual criminals" like prostitutes and drug users.
Prosecuting criminal investigations in the environmental arena requires expertise not normally found in the local cop-shop. So the EPA can have a valid role, even for Libertarians. However, most would prefer that the agency be slimmed down quite a bit, and/or perhaps merged with the "normal" police forces.
Sure, there are extreme elements in the LP, just like anywhere else. And many of these call for the outright dissolution of the EPA and other such agencies. But that doesn't mean they represent the mainstream of the movement, nor does the party platform seem to call for such action.
There are dozens of schemes for entering Chinese text on a QWERTY keyboard. Some are simple tree lookups based on phonetics... type in the letters "ji" and the numeral "1" (for the tone marker) and you get a list of the most common characters with that pronunciation (machine, chicken, table, etc...) from which you choose the one you want.
There are other systems where you type keystrokes which map to character elements, such as individual brush-strokes or radicals, which helps sort through the list. Most people use the phonetic methods, since they're easier to learn, but "professional" typists are trained in the other methods because they're faster if you've got the skill to use them.
Even with the phonetic systems, you can type most characters with 5 or 6 keystrokes. Intelligent "context sensitive" systems make it even easier...
unless you propose to teach the entire population pinyin
Most of the population already do know pinyin. It's the phonetic transcription system used in Chinese schools to teach little Chinese kids how to read and write. The literacy rate (hard to judge accurately in a police state) is listed by the CIA World Factbook as 81%.
BTW, they have nowhere NEAR a million symbols in Chinese. Some estimates range as high as 80,000 but the average college grad only knows about 6~8 thousand. Basic literacy is considered to be 3,000 or so...
That said, I agree with the general attitude that the article is way off-base. It's going to be a LONG time before Chinese "takes over" the 'net!
? = di (ordinal prefix)
? = yi (one)
? = gang (post, as in "position" or "job")
What you want is (I think) di-yi kan (publish) or perhaps di-yi yan (word)... Anyone else know for sure?
Sorry, I can't supply the GB codes, as I don't have xcin on this machine. And, after multiple tries, I can't get Slashcode to accept your originals (cut-n-pasted) without converting them to question marks. (How'd you do that?)
DOJ lawsuits aside, the government could drive a stake through the heart of M$'s monopoly tomorrow by simply declaring that, henceforth, the US Gov't will no longer accept any communication in a closed/proprietary file format. This would force all who deal with the gov't to learn what that "Save As" option in the File menu is for, and lower the barrier for all non-M$ software.
Why the gov't has never thought of this is a question for the conspiracy theorists... My question to you, Dr. Lessig, is: what are the chances of forcing the gov't to adopt such a policy, based on the notion of transparency in government, freedom of information, etc.. If the gov't stores any of its public records in proprietary file formats, this effectively grants a monopoly to whichever vendor created the format, and forces the public to pay a "Microsoft Tax" in order to view "public" documents. Are there any legal precedents for forcing "openness" on the government?
Anyone else bothered by the lack of mainstream media coverage before these laws got passed? Readers of/., K5, poliglut.org, et.al. knew about them when it mattered, and many of us fired off emails and faxes to our congress-critters about it... but there was almost ZERO coverage on CNN and ilk when there was still time to do something about it. Now that the laws are on the books, suddenly we have a slew of talking-heads shows bemoaning the loss of freedom. Was this intentional?...or am I just being paranoid?
I've been looking here for a post that mentions the first thing that struck me about this... There are two stories on/. today, dealing with opposite sides of the same issue: this one here, and the Pop-Under Deception story that immediately preceeds it.
On the one hand, we argue that "the settings on my computer ought to enjoy legal protection as private property: Changing them without my
permission (such as adjusting my home page, or whatnot) should constitute assault or trespass." On the other hand, we argue that it's wrong for the government to legislate the same "protection" for a school's computer. Is this a paradox?
The "information age" brings up all kinds of problems like this, as society learns to deal with the unique nature of information, and as "information" (decoupled from material goods) becomes more and more important in the economy and life in general.
As others have pointed out, there are already plenty of laws in place that deal with "defacing" public property, like schools. And a website (or other computer-based system) is most certainly the "property" of the owner.
The problem comes when you try to "ban" Pop-Up (or -Under) ads. They are part of the content you requested from whatever URL you clicked on. Sure, they are an *unwanted* part, but there's no denying that if you hadn't clicked on that URL, you wouldn't have gotten the Pop-Up...
If you don't like ads, stick to websites that don't use them. (Duh!) And complain loudly to the site *owners* about the annoyance when you do find them. Don't complain to the SysAdmin, it surely wasn't his/her policy in the first place! Complain to the PR, sales, and service departments -- they have the power to change things, but they never will, as long as they figure most people will keep putting up with it.
Legislation is a crude and clumsy tool to use for a job like this. We've got way too many crude and clumsy laws on the books already.
Use your power of speech, while you still have the right to...
On the advertising bit, I wonder why we haven't seen more "talking" product displays in supermarkets. The technology's been there for decades, how come it isn't being used more widely already? Is there a cultural aversion to it? (I hope so!) Or is it considered ineffective because we're too used to tuning things out?
If that's the case, then having a sound that is "clinically proven effective" at turning heads might be seen as a magic ad-bullet. Bummer! But I agree with the folks who point out how easily we learn to tune out all kinds of noises, like car alarms, etc.. I think people will quickly learn to overcome the "itch to twitch" this sound is supposed to induce. And, in the end, if the "broadband" sound really is easier to locate, it will end up being useful in a lot of ways, as the article describes...
Now I just gotta find an MP3 of this thing so I can get an idea of how "bad" it really is...
When I get points, I sniff around to use them, and try to use them judiciously, but mostly they just expire on me before I've spent them.
When I get points, I try to wait until I can catch a story that (a) I find interesting, and (b) was posted recently enough that there are only a few-dozen posts. Then I just look for posts that catch my eye for one reason or another, and try to spend my 5 points judiciously... and in a way that (I hope) will help others to focus in on the highlights more easily.
For my tastes,/. discussions develop far too quickly. I prefer the more relaxed pace of newsgroups, where you can take some time to draft a coherent thread. Around here, if you don't get in on the first hundred posts, you get lost in the noise... moderation notwithstanding...
You mean right wing opponents, surely. Deng was the one advocating radical reform hence left
wing, his opponents were the conservatives hence right wing.
FYI, in Chinese politics, the "Leftists" are referred to as "conservative" while "Rightists" (like Deng Xiaoping in the 70s) are considered "liberal". The "conservatism" refers to preserving the Maoist status-quo against the ravages of reform-minded Capitalist-Roaders like Deng...
The "problems" referred to in the
original post (which I was referring to in the segment you quoted) were multitasking and stability -- both of which Linux has in spades.
As for the "hardware upgrade treadmill", you're right of course....sorta like saying cars are an "incompatible" upgrade from horsecarts.;-)
Still, when an OS company changes its flagship product over to a completely new platform, casting aside millions of potential legacy-hardware-owning customers, it's bound to raise eyebrows.
I don't know how tightly OSX is bound to this hardware platform (though they say Darwin runs on x86 now), but it seems like it ought to be possible to get at least some form of it running on these "slightly older" machines the author is talking about. (But of course, that would bring up a Windoze-like "balkanization" of the OS, too.)
I agree the author of the article is a little out-there, but he does make some good points, I think.
Intel's x86 architecture is primarily flawed due to it's support of legacy crap. MSFT's operating systems were largely unstable due to supporting legacy 16-bit applications as well as shitty third party drivers.
Good point. (If legacy support "flaws" are really what's holding up the 1GHz Pentiums, rather than fab problems, component density, or all the other things that commonly delay chip rollouts.)
Still, the decision to include such support was Intel's in the first place. Presumably, they see some value to doing this (eg: the increased market-share from backward compatibility) or else they wouldn't have done it.
Yet when these companies make a clean break and design a new architecture that works better, people like you start to scream about how they are gouging the consumer by not supporting all sorts of brain dead legacy crap
I never said anything about price gouging, though the author certainly seemed to. But even when they do make a clean break, they still can't meet their own release dates, despite the fact that they're no longer bogged down with legacy support.
I think it boils down to a question of whether you value compatibility or technical superiority more. Both have their advantages -- and their place -- certainly.
I think the author believes that, for the consumer market at least, compatibility is the better choice. In fact, the author seems to view this as almost a moral imperative!
I wouldn't go that far, myself. But I do think it makes sense from a marketing/business point of view. Compatibility-> Larger software market-> $$$
This makes a bit less BIZ sense, however, if the software (OS) vendor is also the hardware maker... That makes me wonder if Apple isn't doing this just to sell more shiny new boxes.
Personally, I really don't care much about Apple in general. My own experience with OSX(Server) thus far has not filled me with great expectations. And neither does Apple's (or MSFT's, for that matter) track-record with delivering "innovations" in OS design...
I just wish Adobe (and all the other creators of really cool commercial software) would start supporting Linux. Then I wouldn't have to worry about MSFT and Apple anymore at all... and neither would they!
I don't remember him ever bitching that MSFT's and Apple's actions are bad because they make emulation difficult. On the contrary, he's already got a working prototype of the thing, which has been demoed at several shows already.
The point (I believe) was that those actions are bad because they constitute a hardware upgrade treadmill that breaks compatibility and limits choice.
His mentioning the fact that you can't emulate a 1GHz OS on a 500MHz Celeron is merely emphasizing the fact that OSs which require herculean hardware are going to have a very limited market share... for both native installations and for emulation. Not wanting to jump on that bandwagon of limited market share sounds like good business sense to me.
Of course, one could argue that the lemmings will continue to chase the light at the end of the treadmill -- as they have done in the past with horrifying reliability -- and that there will be significant market share... at least for the OS manufacturers. But in terms of "business sense", I'd go for the open-ended, backward compatible market, and take advantage of all that legacy hardware -- whose owners can probably afford to purchase an OS upgrade (or emulation software) a lot more easily than a whole new high-end system.
Apple and MSFT have specifically rewritten their new Operating Systems to target the problems that
have been leveled at them in the past (multitasking in Apple's case, instability in MSFT's case) and
did not and should not have considered whether the improvements to their Operating Systems
suddenly make emulation software more difficult to write
Personally, I'd like to know why these two huge companies (with greater resources than a lot of smaller countries) can't make an OS that solves these "problems" without requiring a hardware platform that costs more than any car I've ever owned!
If you could maintain a number of "fake" accounts, you could collect a lot of data, just by yourself. A small group of people with software designed to use multiple accounts (perhaps with a mix of IP-spoofing to keep the Amazon servers from getting wise) to collect a broad range of price quotes could do it. (Sorry for the convoluted syntax.)
As for the lawsuits... that's a tougher nut to crack...
Reminds me of the beard salesman in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"...
In a way, this is sort of a backhanded way to "haggle" the price. By giving different prices to different people who don't know each other, it's sorta like a "single-blind" test to zero-in on the exact price where demand/sales/etc all balance out to maximize profits.
Trouble is, now that the cat's out of the bag, we'll soon see an "Amazon-Price-Watch" website appear, by which the "people who don't know each other" can trade info.
Now, if this could be done in secret (ie: Amazon doesn't know about it) then those "people" could basically pull a sorta "social-engineering" hack to drive Amazon's prices down.
Drop by where I live and take a look around. Heroin is basicly legal in small quantities.
Needles are free for the asking. So far this year there have been over 180 fatal OD
from heroin alone. There are yong kids hooking for drug money.
Dude... I sorta assumed, since you seem to be able to write, that you could also read as well...
Could it be that you've never heard about the fact that the vast majority of OD cases are the direct result of unknown purity/strength of the drug?...caused by the fact that -- as long as the trade is under-ground -- there is no regulation or oversight of the quality/production/purity of the drug?
As someone else pointed out, "De-facto legal is not legal. The distribution is still controlled by violent gangs and treatment is still out of reach of most..."
But let's look at it from the other end... With 180 OD cases this year alone (in your neighborhood alone!) do you really think that the current methodology of criminalization, interdicion, and incarceration is working?
The USA now has over 2 million people in jail... half of whom are non-violent drug offenders. Yet the government's own stats tell us that over 80% of high school students still find drugs "easy" to get, even after 20 years of the Drug War.
How long does it take? How much money? How many lives must be ruined by 5-year mandatory jail sentences for simple posession? How much more FAILURE do you need before you realize that the current approach DOES NOT WORK???
Jesus K. Rist... are you still using Windoze too?
Making drugs legal won't fix the problem and killing the dealers seems to be the only
solution that has any hope of working.
Um... excuse me, but we've been killing and jailing dealers for DECADES and yet the price of most drugs has dropped, while purity and availability have both increased. Please explain to me how this scenario fits with the definition of "working".
If you'd spent even 5 minutes looking at CSDP.ORG, as I suggested, maybe you'd learn something...
I suppose I'm getting in on this discussion too late to be noticed, but just for the record...
You said:
I agree with you that drug users are not 'victims' by default, but the people in the
periphery who suffer from users and traffickers are certainly 'victims' by your definition.
This is a common misconception. Let's be clear about this. The "victims on the periphery" you described are victims of the war on drugs rather than the drugs themselves.
To wit: The child caught in the crossfire of a turf-war between rival drug-dealing gangs would not have been shot if the drug trade (now 8% of world GDP!) were legal and well-regulated! (In that case, users would buy from the local apothecary, and the gangs would not be involved at all.)
The addict would also fare a LOT better under a legalized drug-trade. He/she would be assured of well-regulated purity and strength. (All the standard laws and regs about foodstuffs -- labeling and such -- would apply to drugs as well.)
Prices would plummet (heroin sells for US$90/kg in Afghanistan -- jumps to US$250,000 on the "street" in the USA). If a junkie can get a week's worth of "fixes" for a few bocks, he can support his habit *easily* with a part-time job at McDonald's... No more mugging and petty theft to support an artificially price-inflated habit...
Legal drug outlets would be a prime location for folks like 12-step programs and treatment centers to distribute *truthful* information on how to minimize the dangers of use, and how to get help when your "dalliance" turns into an addiction.
Drug abuse is a PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE, damnit! Don't make a CRIME out of it!!! It's inefficient, futile, and destructive...
Now, in a desperate attempt to get back on topic...;-) Another poster in this thread notes that banning DeCSS is like banning crowbars because they "might" be used to break into houses... sorta like banning drugs because they "might" lead "some" users into the hell-hole of addiction.
Just as drug abuse is a public-health issue, illegal copying of IP is a social issue.
The suits (MPAA/RIAA/etc) made a BIG mistake by calling out the legal pit-bulls first, instead of looking for ways to embrace the new technology and shape the emerging "online ethics" by appealing to the users/abusers, offering incentives, mounting a flashy (and *friendly*) ad campaign, etc...
The fact that the MPAA/RIAA are not raking in BILLION$ from all this "illegal" copying is their own damn fault. Fsck 'em!
RMS comments on "forgivness" struck me more as a LEGAL statement than a MORAL statement.
I agree. When I read the editorial yesterday, I thought -- for RMS -- it was unusually civil and even forthcoming.
People here are actually pissed off because he said "go gnomes" at the end. KeeeeRIST on a minibike!! Can't the guy cheer for his own team?
He said there were still some stray bits of code that needed to be explicitly "forgiven" just to make sure all of KDE is 100% spic-and-span GPL... Nitpicky? Sure. (But this is RMS, after all... is anyone surprised?)
The KDE folks dispute the amount of "questionable" code, and vow to replace it with their own. Good for them.
Either way, it looks as though the path is now clear for everyone to quit bitching about this IDIOTIC war between Gnome and KDE, and get back to the business of WorldDomination[tm]...
Slashdot Mirror
The date on the M$ "CCTP" website is over a year old... but this is the first I've heard of it. Why hasn't M$ been marketing this? I mean, the fact that it doesn't even work (if that is the case) has never stopped them in the past, eh? ;-)
Has anyone tried this thing?
--jrd
I'm not saying it's likely to happen, but it's an interesting (if somewhat creepy) thought.
--jrd
You're right, forcing a change of platforms would be expensive and slow. But how tough would it be for Pres.Bush to sign an executive order that all government offices should change their default Save format to RTF? ...and that correspondence will henceforth only be accepted in open formats? Legacy documents can still be opened and used, staff don't have to re-train... just stop forcing the rest of us to pay the Microsoft Tax in order to do business with our own damn governmnet!
This is The Real Microsoft Killer.
--jrd
Of course, many Libertarians would oppose enforcement at the state level too. I would not.
Whatever...
--jrd
Mea culpa...
--jrd
However, that doesn't mean there is absolutely no role for the EPA, or a similar agency. Libertarians recognize the need for police to defend against damage to the community from crime... they just wish the police didn't have to waste time arresting "consensual criminals" like prostitutes and drug users.
Prosecuting criminal investigations in the environmental arena requires expertise not normally found in the local cop-shop. So the EPA can have a valid role, even for Libertarians. However, most would prefer that the agency be slimmed down quite a bit, and/or perhaps merged with the "normal" police forces.
Sure, there are extreme elements in the LP, just like anywhere else. And many of these call for the outright dissolution of the EPA and other such agencies. But that doesn't mean they represent the mainstream of the movement, nor does the party platform seem to call for such action.
--jrd
There are other systems where you type keystrokes which map to character elements, such as individual brush-strokes or radicals, which helps sort through the list. Most people use the phonetic methods, since they're easier to learn, but "professional" typists are trained in the other methods because they're faster if you've got the skill to use them.
Even with the phonetic systems, you can type most characters with 5 or 6 keystrokes. Intelligent "context sensitive" systems make it even easier...
--jrd
Most of the population already do know pinyin. It's the phonetic transcription system used in Chinese schools to teach little Chinese kids how to read and write. The literacy rate (hard to judge accurately in a police state) is listed by the CIA World Factbook as 81%.
BTW, they have nowhere NEAR a million symbols in Chinese. Some estimates range as high as 80,000 but the average college grad only knows about 6~8 thousand. Basic literacy is considered to be 3,000 or so...
That said, I agree with the general attitude that the article is way off-base. It's going to be a LONG time before Chinese "takes over" the 'net!
--jrd
? = yi (one)
? = gang (post, as in "position" or "job")
What you want is (I think) di-yi kan (publish) or perhaps di-yi yan (word)... Anyone else know for sure?
Sorry, I can't supply the GB codes, as I don't have xcin on this machine. And, after multiple tries, I can't get Slashcode to accept your originals (cut-n-pasted) without converting them to question marks. (How'd you do that?)
--jrd
Why the gov't has never thought of this is a question for the conspiracy theorists... My question to you, Dr. Lessig, is: what are the chances of forcing the gov't to adopt such a policy, based on the notion of transparency in government, freedom of information, etc.. If the gov't stores any of its public records in proprietary file formats, this effectively grants a monopoly to whichever vendor created the format, and forces the public to pay a "Microsoft Tax" in order to view "public" documents. Are there any legal precedents for forcing "openness" on the government?
--jrd
--jrd
On the one hand, we argue that "the settings on my computer ought to enjoy legal protection as private property: Changing them without my permission (such as adjusting my home page, or whatnot) should constitute assault or trespass." On the other hand, we argue that it's wrong for the government to legislate the same "protection" for a school's computer. Is this a paradox?
The "information age" brings up all kinds of problems like this, as society learns to deal with the unique nature of information, and as "information" (decoupled from material goods) becomes more and more important in the economy and life in general.
As others have pointed out, there are already plenty of laws in place that deal with "defacing" public property, like schools. And a website (or other computer-based system) is most certainly the "property" of the owner.
The problem comes when you try to "ban" Pop-Up (or -Under) ads. They are part of the content you requested from whatever URL you clicked on. Sure, they are an *unwanted* part, but there's no denying that if you hadn't clicked on that URL, you wouldn't have gotten the Pop-Up...
If you don't like ads, stick to websites that don't use them. (Duh!) And complain loudly to the site *owners* about the annoyance when you do find them. Don't complain to the SysAdmin, it surely wasn't his/her policy in the first place! Complain to the PR, sales, and service departments -- they have the power to change things, but they never will, as long as they figure most people will keep putting up with it.
Legislation is a crude and clumsy tool to use for a job like this. We've got way too many crude and clumsy laws on the books already.
Use your power of speech, while you still have the right to...
--jrd
I was thinking exactly the same thing. ;-)
On the advertising bit, I wonder why we haven't seen more "talking" product displays in supermarkets. The technology's been there for decades, how come it isn't being used more widely already? Is there a cultural aversion to it? (I hope so!) Or is it considered ineffective because we're too used to tuning things out?
If that's the case, then having a sound that is "clinically proven effective" at turning heads might be seen as a magic ad-bullet. Bummer! But I agree with the folks who point out how easily we learn to tune out all kinds of noises, like car alarms, etc.. I think people will quickly learn to overcome the "itch to twitch" this sound is supposed to induce. And, in the end, if the "broadband" sound really is easier to locate, it will end up being useful in a lot of ways, as the article describes...
Now I just gotta find an MP3 of this thing so I can get an idea of how "bad" it really is...
--jrd
When I get points, I try to wait until I can catch a story that (a) I find interesting, and (b) was posted recently enough that there are only a few-dozen posts. Then I just look for posts that catch my eye for one reason or another, and try to spend my 5 points judiciously... and in a way that (I hope) will help others to focus in on the highlights more easily.
For my tastes, /. discussions develop far too quickly. I prefer the more relaxed pace of newsgroups, where you can take some time to draft a coherent thread. Around here, if you don't get in on the first hundred posts, you get lost in the noise... moderation notwithstanding...
Whatever...
Back to lurk-mode...
--jrd
FYI, in Chinese politics, the "Leftists" are referred to as "conservative" while "Rightists" (like Deng Xiaoping in the 70s) are considered "liberal". The "conservatism" refers to preserving the Maoist status-quo against the ravages of reform-minded Capitalist-Roaders like Deng...
--jrd
MacOSX:
only runs on Macs
costs money
As you put it so well... "Duh!"
--jrd
Why did you choose that quote to illustrate it?
The "problems" referred to in the original post (which I was referring to in the segment you quoted) were multitasking and stability -- both of which Linux has in spades.
As for the "hardware upgrade treadmill", you're right of course. ...sorta like saying cars are an "incompatible" upgrade from horsecarts. ;-)
Still, when an OS company changes its flagship product over to a completely new platform, casting aside millions of potential legacy-hardware-owning customers, it's bound to raise eyebrows.
I don't know how tightly OSX is bound to this hardware platform (though they say Darwin runs on x86 now), but it seems like it ought to be possible to get at least some form of it running on these "slightly older" machines the author is talking about. (But of course, that would bring up a Windoze-like "balkanization" of the OS, too.)
I agree the author of the article is a little out-there, but he does make some good points, I think.
YMMV...
--jrd
Good point. (If legacy support "flaws" are really what's holding up the 1GHz Pentiums, rather than fab problems, component density, or all the other things that commonly delay chip rollouts.)
Still, the decision to include such support was Intel's in the first place. Presumably, they see some value to doing this (eg: the increased market-share from backward compatibility) or else they wouldn't have done it.
I never said anything about price gouging, though the author certainly seemed to. But even when they do make a clean break, they still can't meet their own release dates, despite the fact that they're no longer bogged down with legacy support.
I think it boils down to a question of whether you value compatibility or technical superiority more. Both have their advantages -- and their place -- certainly.
I think the author believes that, for the consumer market at least, compatibility is the better choice. In fact, the author seems to view this as almost a moral imperative!
I wouldn't go that far, myself. But I do think it makes sense from a marketing/business point of view. Compatibility-> Larger software market-> $$$
This makes a bit less BIZ sense, however, if the software (OS) vendor is also the hardware maker... That makes me wonder if Apple isn't doing this just to sell more shiny new boxes.
Personally, I really don't care much about Apple in general. My own experience with OSX(Server) thus far has not filled me with great expectations. And neither does Apple's (or MSFT's, for that matter) track-record with delivering "innovations" in OS design...
I just wish Adobe (and all the other creators of really cool commercial software) would start supporting Linux. Then I wouldn't have to worry about MSFT and Apple anymore at all... and neither would they!
--jrd
I don't remember him ever bitching that MSFT's and Apple's actions are bad because they make emulation difficult. On the contrary, he's already got a working prototype of the thing, which has been demoed at several shows already.
The point (I believe) was that those actions are bad because they constitute a hardware upgrade treadmill that breaks compatibility and limits choice.
His mentioning the fact that you can't emulate a 1GHz OS on a 500MHz Celeron is merely emphasizing the fact that OSs which require herculean hardware are going to have a very limited market share... for both native installations and for emulation. Not wanting to jump on that bandwagon of limited market share sounds like good business sense to me.
Of course, one could argue that the lemmings will continue to chase the light at the end of the treadmill -- as they have done in the past with horrifying reliability -- and that there will be significant market share... at least for the OS manufacturers. But in terms of "business sense", I'd go for the open-ended, backward compatible market, and take advantage of all that legacy hardware -- whose owners can probably afford to purchase an OS upgrade (or emulation software) a lot more easily than a whole new high-end system.
Personally, I'd like to know why these two huge companies (with greater resources than a lot of smaller countries) can't make an OS that solves these "problems" without requiring a hardware platform that costs more than any car I've ever owned!
Hell, Linux can do it...
I need an aspirin...
--jrd
That got me thinking about automation...
If you could maintain a number of "fake" accounts, you could collect a lot of data, just by yourself. A small group of people with software designed to use multiple accounts (perhaps with a mix of IP-spoofing to keep the Amazon servers from getting wise) to collect a broad range of price quotes could do it. (Sorry for the convoluted syntax.)
As for the lawsuits... that's a tougher nut to crack...
--jrd
Thanks, I needed a good laugh...
Reminds me of the beard salesman in Monty Python's "Life of Brian"...
In a way, this is sort of a backhanded way to "haggle" the price. By giving different prices to different people who don't know each other, it's sorta like a "single-blind" test to zero-in on the exact price where demand/sales/etc all balance out to maximize profits.
Trouble is, now that the cat's out of the bag, we'll soon see an "Amazon-Price-Watch" website appear, by which the "people who don't know each other" can trade info.
Now, if this could be done in secret (ie: Amazon doesn't know about it) then those "people" could basically pull a sorta "social-engineering" hack to drive Amazon's prices down.
What would it take to do something like that?
--jrd
Dude... I sorta assumed, since you seem to be able to write, that you could also read as well...
Could it be that you've never heard about the fact that the vast majority of OD cases are the direct result of unknown purity/strength of the drug? ...caused by the fact that -- as long as the trade is under-ground -- there is no regulation or oversight of the quality/production/purity of the drug?
As someone else pointed out, "De-facto legal is not legal. The distribution is still controlled by violent gangs and treatment is still out of reach of most..."
But let's look at it from the other end... With 180 OD cases this year alone (in your neighborhood alone!) do you really think that the current methodology of criminalization, interdicion, and incarceration is working?
The USA now has over 2 million people in jail... half of whom are non-violent drug offenders. Yet the government's own stats tell us that over 80% of high school students still find drugs "easy" to get, even after 20 years of the Drug War.
How long does it take? How much money? How many lives must be ruined by 5-year mandatory jail sentences for simple posession? How much more FAILURE do you need before you realize that the current approach DOES NOT WORK???
Jesus K. Rist... are you still using Windoze too?
Um... excuse me, but we've been killing and jailing dealers for DECADES and yet the price of most drugs has dropped, while purity and availability have both increased. Please explain to me how this scenario fits with the definition of "working".
If you'd spent even 5 minutes looking at CSDP.ORG, as I suggested, maybe you'd learn something...
Please do so.
Cheers,
--jrd
I suppose I'm getting in on this discussion too late to be noticed, but just for the record...
You said:
This is a common misconception. Let's be clear about this. The "victims on the periphery" you described are victims of the war on drugs rather than the drugs themselves.
To wit: The child caught in the crossfire of a turf-war between rival drug-dealing gangs would not have been shot if the drug trade (now 8% of world GDP!) were legal and well-regulated! (In that case, users would buy from the local apothecary, and the gangs would not be involved at all.)
The addict would also fare a LOT better under a legalized drug-trade. He/she would be assured of well-regulated purity and strength. (All the standard laws and regs about foodstuffs -- labeling and such -- would apply to drugs as well.)
Prices would plummet (heroin sells for US$90/kg in Afghanistan -- jumps to US$250,000 on the "street" in the USA). If a junkie can get a week's worth of "fixes" for a few bocks, he can support his habit *easily* with a part-time job at McDonald's... No more mugging and petty theft to support an artificially price-inflated habit...
Legal drug outlets would be a prime location for folks like 12-step programs and treatment centers to distribute *truthful* information on how to minimize the dangers of use, and how to get help when your "dalliance" turns into an addiction.
Drug abuse is a PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE, damnit! Don't make a CRIME out of it!!! It's inefficient, futile, and destructive...
Check out CSDP.org for more info...
Now, in a desperate attempt to get back on topic... ;-) Another poster in this thread notes that banning DeCSS is like banning crowbars because they "might" be used to break into houses... sorta like banning drugs because they "might" lead "some" users into the hell-hole of addiction.
Just as drug abuse is a public-health issue, illegal copying of IP is a social issue.
The suits (MPAA/RIAA/etc) made a BIG mistake by calling out the legal pit-bulls first, instead of looking for ways to embrace the new technology and shape the emerging "online ethics" by appealing to the users/abusers, offering incentives, mounting a flashy (and *friendly*) ad campaign, etc...
The fact that the MPAA/RIAA are not raking in BILLION$ from all this "illegal" copying is their own damn fault. Fsck 'em!
--jrd
I agree. When I read the editorial yesterday, I thought -- for RMS -- it was unusually civil and even forthcoming.
People here are actually pissed off because he said "go gnomes" at the end. KeeeeRIST on a minibike!! Can't the guy cheer for his own team?
He said there were still some stray bits of code that needed to be explicitly "forgiven" just to make sure all of KDE is 100% spic-and-span GPL... Nitpicky? Sure. (But this is RMS, after all... is anyone surprised?)
The KDE folks dispute the amount of "questionable" code, and vow to replace it with their own. Good for them.
Either way, it looks as though the path is now clear for everyone to quit bitching about this IDIOTIC war between Gnome and KDE, and get back to the business of WorldDomination[tm]...
Cheers,
--jrd