The main thing wrong with his reasoning is that in rough economic times, companies are going to be looking for a better value. OSS is a better value. Even if you have to pay for developers to get what you need, that's a one time cost and you get to keep the source code.
Another point worth making is that if unemployment goes up, that just means there's a lot more developers out there with free time, and motivation to put something new on their resumes.
Exactly. In a hard economic time, where is everybody getting this money to buy MORE closed-source software and pay for blog subscriptions? I can't think of a single blog I'd pay for now, and I'm doing fairly well. I'm certainly not going to start paying for that stuff if I lose my job.
He also mentions CNN's iReporter program. If times are so tough, why would CNN suddenly start paying all these amateurs to write stories? I certainly seems logical that in a bad economy companies would rely more heavily on free software and content.
"The revolutionary iPhone is a fully integrated telephone and Internet device with a built-in touch screen to bring the world of the Internet into your home or office with the touch of your finger. It includes exclusive services and all the most popular telephone features like caller ID and call blocking, along with an Internet dial-up using PPP and e-mail access with multi-user mailboxes.
What can you do with an iPhone?
Send and receive e-mail
Make phone calls
Shop online
Surf the Internet
Read the news
Check the weather
Review sports statistics
Access movie information
Trade stocks
Bank online
And all of this can be accessed with the touch of your finger, while talking on the iPhone."
Yeah, TFA confirms a history of disciplinary action and mentions that management had been "trying" to fire him for some time.
Who knows if these are biased reports from angry and embarrassed management, though.
Of course I'd like to see DRM disappear. Short of that, companies should at least be required to offer the means to crack their DRM should they ever deactivate their servers.
Oh they do. In the email sent out by Microsoft, it recommends burning your files to audio cd and (presumably) re-ripping them. Seriously.
For me, one of the most memorable (certainly not the most dangerous or biggest injury inflicted, just memorable) was when my parents were gone and I managed to set fire to the surface of a large jarred candle. Mind you, once all of the wax in a candle is melted and the surface has actually caught fire, water is a bad idea. The wax boils and begins shooting flaming wax balls out. Then the glass shatters. Major bummer and hard to explain when the parents notice the huge charred area on the porch.
I did this exact same thing as a kid, right down to the water and flaming wax balls. Only difference is I did it in my grandparents bathroom, and instead had to explain a charred and wax-covered sink and vanity.
I agree. I've had pretty good luck with the following method: Give all form fields (or at least the email address field) gibberish names. Then create an input called "email", and hide it with CSS. (I also include a message in case someone has CSS turned off for some reason). A human user won't fill in the 'email' field, but a bot will. The processing script then ignores (or better yet, redirects) when it sees that the 'email' field is filled in. Example:
<form> <label for="asf">Name:</label><input type="text" name="asf"/> <div style="display:none"> LEAVE THIS FIELD BLANK!! <input type="text" name="email"/> </div> </form>
No more style attributes on any element.
*blink*
Idiocy. Abso-fucking-lute idiocy.
This by itself nearly renders in-browser dhtml applications (ajax or no) non-complaint and broken.
Without RTFA to know exactly what you're referring to, I assume the solution would be to use something like:
No it doesn't! More important than having a cool UI is adhering to current UI standards and doing things the way users expect them. Exactly. One of the (several) reasons I can't stand using Internet Explorer 7 is the 'new and improved' UI that puts the stop and refresh buttons on the right side of the address bar. I'm not sure what drove that decision, but I am continually mousing over to the left side of the address bar (where they are on every other browser). I wish I could just not use it, but unfortunately web design/development requires testing in IE7, and a lot of page refreshes as things are tweaked.
This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.
In an interesting related article, William Salatan of Slate.com asks "If steroids are cheating, why isn't LASIK?", since many pro athletes are having the surgery to give them an unnaturally keen vision of 20/15 or even 20/10.
On the republican side: If McCain can beat Romney in MI, Romney will be against the ropes and will likely have to consider withdrawing from the race, as it'd be an embarressing defeat. I keep hearing this sort of thing about Romney. Sure, it might be embarrassing to not win a state where he has such history, but he's hardly out of the race and isn't likely to be bowing out any time soon. The fact remains that in both Iowa and NH, he came in a close second, and is currently in first place in delegates won.
Further, the really scary thing about Firefox, from Microsoft's perspective, is not just that it breaks up their monopoly on the web, but more importantly that it's open source, and if too many users -- ordinary end users, not IT geeks -- start using and liking open source software, that could have implications beyond just the web browser market. I mean, if an open source web browser became the cool thing everyone had to use, then another open source application (an office suite, for example) could potentially do the same, and *that* outcome could directly cost Microsoft a lot of money. This isn't so much of an issue with Opera.
I think this is a very valid point. A couple years ago I got my parents using Firefox. Just recently I suggested installing Ubuntu on their box. Initially they were really apprehensive, having assumed that one simply couldn't run a computer without Windows. Their positive experience with Firefox made it easy to explain to them that it was free open-source software "just like Firefox," allowing me to get them off of windows. Same with OpenOffice.
The fact is, speaking as a European, nobody outside the US gives a damn about US laws. In fact, we find attempts like this to assert themselves legally, to be rather lame and sad. It's just hot air and rhetoric for the voters back home I guess
Close. It's a lot of hot air and rhetoric for the lobbyists and financiers back home.
Slashdot Mirror
Trickle Up Economics?
Bending is my middle name. Bender Bending Rodriguez.
Not to mention the fact that iTunes doesn't (as far as I know) supply free content.
The main thing wrong with his reasoning is that in rough economic times, companies are going to be looking for a better value. OSS is a better value. Even if you have to pay for developers to get what you need, that's a one time cost and you get to keep the source code.
Another point worth making is that if unemployment goes up, that just means there's a lot more developers out there with free time, and motivation to put something new on their resumes.
Exactly. In a hard economic time, where is everybody getting this money to buy MORE closed-source software and pay for blog subscriptions? I can't think of a single blog I'd pay for now, and I'm doing fairly well. I'm certainly not going to start paying for that stuff if I lose my job.
He also mentions CNN's iReporter program. If times are so tough, why would CNN suddenly start paying all these amateurs to write stories? I certainly seems logical that in a bad economy companies would rely more heavily on free software and content.
A search for "iPhone" turned this up: http://web.archive.org/web/20010207002902/www.uioa.com/productcatalog/
Here's the description:
"The revolutionary iPhone is a fully integrated telephone and Internet device with a built-in touch screen to bring the world of the Internet into your home or office with the touch of your finger. It includes exclusive services and all the most popular telephone features like caller ID and call blocking, along with an Internet dial-up using PPP and e-mail access with multi-user mailboxes.
What can you do with an iPhone?
And all of this can be accessed with the touch of your finger, while talking on the iPhone."
Sound familiar? Apparently this was the 2001 iPhone.
Yeah, TFA confirms a history of disciplinary action and mentions that management had been "trying" to fire him for some time. Who knows if these are biased reports from angry and embarrassed management, though.
Of course I'd like to see DRM disappear. Short of that, companies should at least be required to offer the means to crack their DRM should they ever deactivate their servers.
Oh they do. In the email sent out by Microsoft, it recommends burning your files to audio cd and (presumably) re-ripping them. Seriously.I agree. I've had pretty good luck with the following method: Give all form fields (or at least the email address field) gibberish names. Then create an input called "email", and hide it with CSS. (I also include a message in case someone has CSS turned off for some reason). A human user won't fill in the 'email' field, but a bot will. The processing script then ignores (or better yet, redirects) when it sees that the 'email' field is filled in. Example:
Then in the processing script:
Certainly not fool-proof, but it's worked pretty well for me, and I avoid the CAPTCHA headache entirely.
Without RTFA to know exactly what you're referring to, I assume the solution would be to use something like:
document.getElementById('id').className = 'style1';instead of
document.getElementById('id').style.color = '#ffffff';Well, this won't be happening for Olympic athletes, at least. Just today there was news that a double-amputee sprinter has been barred from competing in the Beijing olympics because his prosthetics give him an unfair advantage over 'able-bodied' sprinters. From the article: "[Scientists] found that Pistorius was able to run at the same speed as able bodied runners on about a quarter less energy."
In an interesting related article, William Salatan of Slate.com asks "If steroids are cheating, why isn't LASIK?", since many pro athletes are having the surgery to give them an unnaturally keen vision of 20/15 or even 20/10.
The Discovery Channel's website has a pretty neat and informative Flash presentation on the Yellowstone hotspot.