If "Big Brother" cared enough about you to track you, they would bring up your credit/debit card purchases and find everything about you that an RFID tag would tell them.
agreed. terrible "review". out of touch with its "budget" title. no mention of OS/software at all.
Yeah. They did mention something about not using Linux because they didn't want ext3fs or reiserfs on their disks (or something like that). ah, shoot...here's the quote.
This is also the reason Linux was not a good choice for our system -- it doesn't make sense to put XFS/ext3/ReiserFS drives into a USB2.0/Firewire external box.
So it sounds vaguely to me like they've got 4x250MB drives with no RAID, an ill thought out backup system and probably running Wintendos because it's a more stable game^H^H^H^Hserver operating system... Then they wrote this article to justify it.
After you've closed the book, the heros ride off into the sunset, etc., you have to reopen the book and say, "oh by the way..." in order to create a sequel. This is horrible, and very common.
You have, for the most part, described the nature of a sequel, but that's not what makes a sequel bad.
Sequels usually come after a hit. Hits are usually hits because they have something 'interesting' or novel. All too often what will happen is that the sequel will focus on what made the original novel. This locks the authors down and often prevents the kind of artistic freedom that led to the original novelty.
Even worse yet, when a studio goes to 'design' a sequel, what they seem to do is go out and ask audience members what they remembered most about a movie and then go out and build a sequel with more of that. Since most movie goers fall to some interesting bit of special effects, this means that sequels are often top-heavy with special effects. The studios forget that, in the original, the special effects supported a good story. Instead what you end up with is a mediocre story supporting ovarabundant special effects (or whatever was most memorable about the first installment).
I've had a reasonably eventful life with many episodes. Some could be split into groups (e.g. My live Fantasy RolePlaying Vs. my Environmenal/social escapades) distinct enough that the only thing in common is me. Stories within the groups would gain aid from the knowledge of each other, and would thus classify as {pre,se}quels to each other. Nonetheless, each one of those stories could stand alone as it's own story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
To end that long ramble, I think that the thing which makes for bad sequels is that -- once hollywood gets it's claws too deeply in, they tend to lose their true 'heart'. If a story can keep it's heart in spite of hollywood, then it has some real hope of staying good. Otherwise it's likely to be just more drek -- with, or without the 'sequel' label.
The end of the story is the end of the story. The end of a good story should bring some level of completion to the matter at hand. The problem with sequels is not intrinsicly about them being sequels. It lies more in the way that hollywood etc. use them.
People liked the first one, they'll like this one
It has a recognized name, it doesn't have to be as good to sell.
They want to have another sequel, so they explicitly don't wrap up the loose ends this time.
If as much care went into the crafting of sequels as went into the originals, the quality would be the same. Unfortunately, the threshold is lower, and so therefore so is the average quality of the product. At it's heart Hollywood isn't abuut art. It's about product. Some artists simply manage to fit real art inbetween the dollar signs from time to time.
Making a sequel to a finished story is usually a terrible idea.
Yeah, right. They got married. You really wanna call that the end of the story?
A friend of mine made a comment about
one of the books he wrote:
"Most people expect the hero to go on a quest, free the princess, marry her and live happily ever after... I did that in the first 2 chapters, so that I could get on with the real story.
This basicly means, you don't want to pay as long as you get the "service" from the company. That means, as long as you can USE the tool... as long as it helps you to make profit, or have fun... you dont want to pay?
Where the hell did I say that?
May people (me included) realize that Free (as in freedom) software is not free (as in cheap), and are willing to pay for service and support and/or even just pay to support the original software developer(s).
Re:Linux users are cheap
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I pity companies who try to sell software to people like me who are addicted to free (as in beer) software.
I pity the companies who tried to develop Linux software using Kylix and are now orphaned. I'd say that this is the reason why Linux users try to avoid non-free (as in slavery) software.
If Kylix were free (as in freedom) software, at least the users who still wanted to use it would have the option of paying for a team to continue support and upkeep. Now they're a SOL if they need anything fixed/canged.
Damn! No mod points left. If they hadn't expired yesterday, I'd have modded you up.
This does explain the real reason why they had the simultaneous release -- They wanted to get as many people as possible to watch the first showing before the reviews made it 'into the wild'.
That award goes to "[modifying the source code] was discredited decades ago". WTF? How, by whom, and most importantly why was "modifying source code" discredited?....
Don't you know????
Real men patch live binaries
None of this source code bullshit for me... I eat, breathe and sleep raw machine code. If there's a security hole in IIS that Microsoft is refusing to fix, I can start up BASIC, do a couple hundred POKE statements, and all's well and good.
Source code is for WHUSSES! (You pansy source-coder.)
Last year I tried making an Open Source Pumpkin Pie, but I ran into a problem.
It seems that once somebody used a slice^H^H^H^H^Hmodule, nobody else seemed interested in the 'derivative product'.
If the GPL just requires one to make source code available to people who you specifically distribute the binaries to, registration seems a reasonable step to take to make sure only actual customers download it from you. If nothing else, this is reasonable since it cuts down on bandwidth consumption.
A big 'depends' here. If everybody that they've ever given a copy of the binaries to has also been given (or offered) the source code at the same time/place, then they're in the clear there. On the other hand, if they've ever given peope binary-only copies then they have to make the corresponding sources available to anybody for the next 3 years. If they found code that they considered to be theirs and improperly included (by someone else), then they're probably allowed to remove that code, but they'd have to change their binaries to be consistent with those changes.
If they're restricting distribution of new versions of their code to specific people but still including source code and GPL rights to that
source code then all's well.
If they're distributing 'their' code as part of Linux and limiting redistribution of "their" code (with or without identifying it), then their ass is still legal grass.
If they're distributing Linux with (or without) their code and limiting redistribution of the whole thing, then it's open season.
How do these people make any money at all Never mind 1.5 million dollars.
Send me $50.00 and I'll explain it to you.
Now, if you spent even 0.5 seconds thinking about that, then you're
starting to get into range.
Remember that these people work off of statistics. Regular scams, that take in $20-100 each only need 1/20,000 emails to catch a sucker to win. Nigerian scams make more money, so they really only need to catch someone with something like 1 in a couple million emails.
Now, if you don't think that there's anyboy with money who isn't willing to throw it someplace stupid go check out how SCO's stock is doing. Then think back to the dotcom boom when people were puting out business plans that essentially said "We're going to buy goods and sell them on the internet below cost", and still managed to get $5Million is seed capital.
If that doesn't work, there was the (brain-dead) secretary who thought that her boss would be so proud of her if she managed to make $6M with a 'simple' investment of $5,000. By the time the company auditors caught up with her she was in over her head to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Of course, once you get someone like this, then you can really turn up the screws....
Dear Sir:
I'm a private investigator who has been looking into some shady dealings by a Mr. Mubaque in Nigeria. In investigating his crimes, I have determined that he has suckered you to the tune of $20,0000. Be aware that you are probably one of hundreds that he has scammed like this but I have only been able to determine the identity of you and 5 others.
I am very close to collecting enough evidence to put this bastard behind bars and recover the money he has scammed. My current investigations indicate that he has at least $8million in 12 bank accounts spread around the world. A successful prosecution against him would allow us to recover about 2/3 of this ammount ($5.3million). half of this ammount would be split between his victims and half ($2.65Million) would go to us as the principle investigators
Unfortunately, we are running short of funds to complete our investigation. Thus we come to you with this proposition:
If you would agree to support us in our investigation, we would be willing to share the reward with you on an equitable basis. After subtracting costs, we would be willing to share 1/3 (apx $700,000) with you as a benefactor.
This income would be completely legitimate, and we believe that we could put it under your control in a completely tax-free manner. If you are interested in this proposal please write me back. A very rapid response is needed, or we will lose our trail.
It used to be (back when patents were rare) that when a company had a pending patent application would put "Patent Pending" on their products and applications.
One of the biggest (current) problems with patents is the 'ambush' issue... After something has been in use for years, someone suddenly jumps up and says "We were just assignae a patent for that".
If people had been aware of the patent application, they would have been able to either (1) use another method, or (2) file a notice with the PTO about prior art/obviousness to prevent the application from being awarded.
I'd suggest that Patent rules require someone who is applying for a patent to put a patent pending mark on their products which have patents pending and (a hotlink to) a discription of the patent and it's application number. That would allow people to respond intelligently to the application now, rather than after 5 years of entrenched use, and an entreched patent award.
IF everything GPL is declared PD then any SCO-owned software (Including UNIX code) in the Linux software that SCO is still distributing is also PD. This would include their own disputed code.
In other words the Linux licenses that SCO has been making a big thing of for the last 6 months would be entirely unnecessary. If, on the other hand, the GPL proves to be valid, then SCO is liable for statutory damages on the GPL software that they're still distributing. It gets a bit more interesting, though..
Because Linux is a potpourri of various people's programs, EACH copyright owner would be able to sue SCO for EACH copy of their program that SCO distributed. At the lower end of the statutory awards ($750) and presuming (let's be nice) 200 separate programs in each Linux compilation we're looking at statutory damages of $150,000 per download. At the upper end of the scale ($30K/violation) , we're looking at $6Million per ISO.
That'd eat into their $60M war chest like a school of piranha.
Sure, there will be information in the weekly paper, when it comes out in a few days...:)
I take it nobody mentioned to you that your copy of the newspaper is a pile of ash?
Actually, so is your front porch.
If I'm not there in 5 minutes to deliver the evacuation order, leave without me.
(Here, in BC, the Governer general gave some medals this weekend to a group of firefighters -- including one who had his own home go up in flames while he was fighting the fires elsewhere).
Slashdot Mirror
I recently wrote a short story about combining RFID and credit card info. Short, sweet and to the point.
RFID says what you have, credit cards say what you bought. The two together can have a certain Big-Brother synergy.
Actually, the battery is now believed to be much, much older.
</A>
Please do be so kind as to wrap URL references in the appropriate HTML....
Yeah. They did mention something about not using Linux because they didn't want ext3fs or reiserfs on their disks (or something like that). ah, shoot.. .here's the quote.
So it sounds vaguely to me like they've got 4x250MB drives with no RAID, an ill thought out backup system and probably running Wintendos because it's a more stable game^H^H^H^Hserver operating system... Then they wrote this article to justify it.You have, for the most part, described the nature of a sequel, but that's not what makes a sequel bad.
Sequels usually come after a hit. Hits are usually hits because they have something 'interesting' or novel. All too often what will happen is that the sequel will focus on what made the original novel. This locks the authors down and often prevents the kind of artistic freedom that led to the original novelty.
Even worse yet, when a studio goes to 'design' a sequel, what they seem to do is go out and ask audience members what they remembered most about a movie and then go out and build a sequel with more of that. Since most movie goers fall to some interesting bit of special effects, this means that sequels are often top-heavy with special effects. The studios forget that, in the original, the special effects supported a good story. Instead what you end up with is a mediocre story supporting ovarabundant special effects (or whatever was most memorable about the first installment).
I've had a reasonably eventful life with many episodes. Some could be split into groups (e.g. My live Fantasy RolePlaying Vs. my Environmenal/social escapades) distinct enough that the only thing in common is me. Stories within the groups would gain aid from the knowledge of each other, and would thus classify as {pre,se}quels to each other. Nonetheless, each one of those stories could stand alone as it's own story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
To end that long ramble, I think that the thing which makes for bad sequels is that -- once hollywood gets it's claws too deeply in, they tend to lose their true 'heart'. If a story can keep it's heart in spite of hollywood, then it has some real hope of staying good. Otherwise it's likely to be just more drek -- with, or without the 'sequel' label.
- People liked the first one, they'll like this one
- It has a recognized name, it doesn't have to be as good to sell.
- They want to have another sequel, so they explicitly don't wrap up the loose ends this time.
If as much care went into the crafting of sequels as went into the originals, the quality would be the same. Unfortunately, the threshold is lower, and so therefore so is the average quality of the product. At it's heart Hollywood isn't abuut art. It's about product. Some artists simply manage to fit real art inbetween the dollar signs from time to time.Yeah, right. They got married. You really wanna call that the end of the story?
A friend of mine made a comment about one of the books he wrote:
"Most people expect the hero to go on a quest, free the princess, marry her and live happily ever after... I did that in the first 2 chapters, so that I could get on with the real story.
If the company becomes NoSE, then they should rename it COLD Linux --- "It runs no matter what you don."
Where the hell did I say that?
May people (me included) realize that Free (as in freedom) software is not free (as in cheap), and are willing to pay for service and support and/or even just pay to support the original software developer(s).
I pity the companies who tried to develop Linux software using Kylix and are now orphaned. I'd say that this is the reason why Linux users try to avoid non-free (as in slavery) software.
If Kylix were free (as in freedom) software, at least the users who still wanted to use it would have the option of paying for a team to continue support and upkeep. Now they're a SOL if they need anything fixed/canged.
OK, McVeigh, let's roll!
I guess this would make Arnie a moderate, because I get the sense that he'd be happy to do it two women at a time.
Now imagine Timothy McVeigh in the control room of this system....
Obviously, you're not a terrorist.
Oh silly me. Why didn't I think of that??? The last thing a suicide bomber would want would be to end up in jail after he blows himself up.
That's 12.52 light hours.... or to put it in Internet terms:
a 9.0e8 ms ping time.
Not a good place to put a quake server.
This does explain the real reason why they had the simultaneous release -- They wanted to get as many people as possible to watch the first showing before the reviews made it 'into the wild'.
Don't you know????
Real men patch live binaries
None of this source code bullshit for me... I eat, breathe and sleep raw machine code. If there's a security hole in IIS that Microsoft is refusing to fix, I can start up BASIC, do a couple hundred POKE statements, and all's well and good.
Source code is for WHUSSES! (You pansy source-coder.)
It seems that once somebody used a slice^H^H^H^H^Hmodule, nobody else seemed interested in the 'derivative product'.
Any pointers?
A big 'depends' here. If everybody that they've ever given a copy of the binaries to has also been given (or offered) the source code at the same time/place, then they're in the clear there. On the other hand, if they've ever given peope binary-only copies then they have to make the corresponding sources available to anybody for the next 3 years. If they found code that they considered to be theirs and improperly included (by someone else), then they're probably allowed to remove that code, but they'd have to change their binaries to be consistent with those changes.
If they're restricting distribution of new versions of their code to specific people but still including source code and GPL rights to that source code then all's well.
If they're distributing 'their' code as part of Linux and limiting redistribution of "their" code (with or without identifying it), then their ass is still legal grass.
If they're distributing Linux with (or without) their code and limiting redistribution of the whole thing, then it's open season.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of .....
(hold on).
Oh, never mind.
Send me $50.00 and I'll explain it to you.
Now, if you spent even 0.5 seconds thinking about that, then you're starting to get into range.
Remember that these people work off of statistics. Regular scams, that take in $20-100 each only need 1/20,000 emails to catch a sucker to win. Nigerian scams make more money, so they really only need to catch someone with something like 1 in a couple million emails.
Now, if you don't think that there's anyboy with money who isn't willing to throw it someplace stupid go check out how SCO's stock is doing. Then think back to the dotcom boom when people were puting out business plans that essentially said "We're going to buy goods and sell them on the internet below cost", and still managed to get $5Million is seed capital.
If that doesn't work, there was the (brain-dead) secretary who thought that her boss would be so proud of her if she managed to make $6M with a 'simple' investment of $5,000. By the time the company auditors caught up with her she was in over her head to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Of course, once you get someone like this, then you can really turn up the screws....
Dear Sir:
I'm a private investigator who has been looking into some shady dealings by a Mr. Mubaque in Nigeria. In investigating his crimes, I have determined that he has suckered you to the tune of $20,0000. Be aware that you are probably one of hundreds that he has scammed like this but I have only been able to determine the identity of you and 5 others.
I am very close to collecting enough evidence to put this bastard behind bars and recover the money he has scammed. My current investigations indicate that he has at least $8million in 12 bank accounts spread around the world. A successful prosecution against him would allow us to recover about 2/3 of this ammount ($5.3million). half of this ammount would be split between his victims and half ($2.65Million) would go to us as the principle investigators
Unfortunately, we are running short of funds to complete our investigation. Thus we come to you with this proposition:
If you would agree to support us in our investigation, we would be willing to share the reward with you on an equitable basis. After subtracting costs, we would be willing to share 1/3 (apx $700,000) with you as a benefactor.
This income would be completely legitimate, and we believe that we could put it under your control in a completely tax-free manner. If you are interested in this proposal please write me back. A very rapid response is needed, or we will lose our trail.
Sincerely.
Ura Looser, Private investigator.
One of the biggest (current) problems with patents is the 'ambush' issue... After something has been in use for years, someone suddenly jumps up and says "We were just assignae a patent for that".
If people had been aware of the patent application, they would have been able to either
(1) use another method, or
(2) file a notice with the PTO about prior art/obviousness to prevent the application from being awarded.
I'd suggest that Patent rules require someone who is applying for a patent to put a patent pending mark on their products which have patents pending and (a hotlink to) a discription of the patent and it's application number. That would allow people to respond intelligently to the application now, rather than after 5 years of entrenched use, and an entreched patent award.
In other words the Linux licenses that SCO has been making a big thing of for the last 6 months would be entirely unnecessary. If, on the other hand, the GPL proves to be valid, then SCO is liable for statutory damages on the GPL software that they're still distributing. It gets a bit more interesting, though..
Because Linux is a potpourri of various people's programs, EACH copyright owner would be able to sue SCO for EACH copy of their program that SCO distributed. At the lower end of the statutory awards ($750) and presuming (let's be nice) 200 separate programs in each Linux compilation we're looking at statutory damages of $150,000 per download. At the upper end of the scale ($30K/violation) , we're looking at $6Million per ISO.
That'd eat into their $60M war chest like a school of piranha.
I take it nobody mentioned to you that your copy of the newspaper is a pile of ash?
Actually, so is your front porch.
If I'm not there in 5 minutes to deliver the evacuation order, leave without me.
(Here, in BC, the Governer general gave some medals this weekend to a group of firefighters -- including one who had his own home go up in flames while he was fighting the fires elsewhere).