The world would surely be a more attractive, sleeker and stylish place. And it would be a more expensive one; Jobs' signature product is the Cube hooked up to a 22" Cinema Display: The $4,500 PC (down from $5,700 at introduction).
I dunno. With my current income, I frankly much prefer Steve's world. But when I was just starting out, perhaps living in Bill's world was better than having no computers at all.
But I still hated it, and ran off to Linux as soon as I could.
I'd love to see an Aqua xemacs that could use the gorgeous Quartz font rendering instead of the usual hideous X fonts.
I tried Tenon Xtools, and it sort of worked (there were enough issues it was actually barely usable), but what it did more than anything is taunt me. "Aqua has pretty fonts and you can't use them! See these utterly horrid fonts! Ha Ha!".
The OmniWeb browser on MacOS X has a very nice feature, enabled by default, which simply disables all pop-up windows. You can disable all pop-ups, or disable only pop-ups that are not the result of you manually clicking on a link.
Unfortunately, OmniWeb's JavaScript support is lacking in other areas, but that feature is brilliant, and their text display is the cleanest I've ever seen in any program. Linux users should get MacOS X just to rest their bad font weary eyes:-).
(1) There are going to be millions of these things; if they can be attacked successfully, they will be, no matter what the platform.
And, more importantly,
(2) If it were a question of Rogers making its own box, I'd agree with you (subject to argument (1) above). But as it happens, it's looking like a choice between Linux and Microsoft.
(2) If this is so, Linux is a great deal simpler than MS stuff, and is likely to be harder to attack. Looks at the MS web server attacks being posted almost daily - they are all ancilliary functions of the server that are left open by default. Because MS stuff is almost infinitely complex, it's nearly infinitely vunerable.
By going with Linux, which starts simple and builds itself up in layers (i.e. X, etc), you can (at least on paper) stay with minimal complexity, and that's going to mean minimal support expense and minimal vunerability.
Not that people won't try to get in, and not that they won't get in. But it should be easier to fix and deal with in general than the equivalent Windows product.
I checked out a whole bunch of fuzzy pictures of what looks like a rather drab neighborhood, but couldn't find anything about how they did it or how much it cost.
I can hardly blame them for being self-congratulatory in tone - they deserve it, surely - but some explanation of how they did it seems to be in order for those of us who would just love to do likewise.
As others have quite rightly said, the fact that their server survives a slashdotting is pretty impressive. I see they even have video! Now is that cheeky or what, even if the Linux system I have at work can't handle it:-(.
So tell me, how was this done? What's the history? Something like JWZ's DNA Lounge chronicle would seem to be in order, and I couldn't find it. Can some kind soul point me to that?
Thanks.
D
(who lives in Los Angeles and is stuck with iDSL:-( ). ----
People educated in the IBM culture tend to be bureaucrats. Have you ever seen RPG code? It looks like some kind of primitive assembly language, but it's still in use in many shops.
This has not created a high-productivity programming culture. But there is an upside: the work that finally gets produced tends to be of high quality, and IBM AS/400 types are highly intolerant of bugs that would generate shrugs of the shoulder in the Windows world.
I actually tried an AS/400 but got discouraged by the vertical learning curve - you literally have to understand how the whole incredibly complex system fits together before you can write 'Hello World'.
I have a sneaking admiration for people with that kind of patience. But it certainly goes a long way towards explaining why the IBM group was a lot less productive; it's probably cultural, just as higher productivity in Linux versus Windows is.
Realtor.com is an exceptionally poorly designed web site in my opinion.
I've found that one of the most useful things to do is find a few streets you really like and search for homes on that street. Morro Drive in Woodland Hills is a nice example, as is Rambla Pacifico in Malibu. You can then visit the area and find similar streets (i.e. Castlewood Drive in Malibu). ZipRealty.com, as I said in another response, is excellent in finding things like this.
If you're a compulsive researcher like me, you'll certainly find it quite enjoyable to check through the listings. Remember, you're blowing a lot of money for this house; you really should spend some extra time to find one that suits your taste. From what I have heard, all but the best realtors around find this quite difficult.
... as opposed to the kind of boring place anyone can find and buy.
Check out the pictures of houses in your price range. Write down the addresses of homes whose pictures appeal to you. Be sure to be on the alert for neighborhood characteristics (trees, ocean views, etc) that might be in common with a number of houses.
Physically visit the houses you like. If the neighborhood still looks appealing, go back to the real estate listings and look for more homes on those streets. (Ziprealty.com, which I recommend, makes this easy).
This may be better suited to dreamers like me than people who actually want to buy homes now, but if you do it for a while it will give you a good feel for the market, probably better than all but a handful of realtors. Then you can visit realtors with a well-informed perspective.
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ is my amusing take on the Los Angeles real estate market of a year or so ago. Sad to say, things have changed for buyers: They have gotten worse:-(.
Each LCD pixel is a physical object which can be either on or off.
With a CRT, an electron gun sprays electrons on to a screen, and they are moved magnetically to the right position. So there is no physical object that corresponds to a display pixel. This means that you can theoretically have an unlimited number of resolutions on a CRT.
With a LCD, each pixel is a physical dot, so there is really only one "correct" radiation for a LCD. Some LCDs can "fake" this resolution better than others - my (well, the company bought it for me) spiffy new SGI 1600SW LCD does a pretty good job at 800x600 and 1280x1024, even though its native resolution if 1600x1024. But try a cheap laptop screen sometime - look at the console text and you'll see that it's often difficult to read due to poor quality at lower resolutions.
Other than games (which are not within my area of interest), I see no reason to want to change a LCD monitor to a lower resolution.
I have a home DVD player. It's attached to my NTSC television set via a S-Video cable. It sure looks a lot better than shaky DVD played off a puny computer screen.
I can understand that it's a nice feature for a laptop, but it doesn't strike me as something that should be among the top ten gripes about an OS.
After going through four different video cards trying to get my (well, my company's) spiffy new SGI 1600SW monitor to work properly at full resolution on a Linux PC, I'm starting to think Apple's lack of hardware choice is a blessing, not a curse.
By the way, the root password is easily enabled and works great on my MacOS X installation.
You're right about sluggishness in the interface, but quite honestly it's so much prettier than X-Windows I don't really care. And when Linux was in the same stage of development as MacOS X was now, I remember griping about pretty darn poor GUI performance.
This is exactly why MacOS X won c|net's shootout. It was loads easier to install, supported almost all hardware likely to be used with a Mac, and had a high-quality suite of Internet tools installed. Thus, it was much more like an appliance than W2k.
I would say Apple is to be praised for this, since it's what the bulk of the public wants and needs.
Unfortunately, the bulk of the public wants things real cheap, but, well, you can't have everything:-(.
Not a bad metaphor considering how dismal VHS is. It may be a standard, but do you want to watch VHS more than you absolutely have to?
I have moved almost all my home computing to MacOS X. I run Photoshop in Classic, and once you get past the lengthly startup, it works fine. The bundled Mail is very nice, and the OmniWeb browser is my preferred way of surfing regardless of platform.
I would like to see a fully working xemacs, but other than that, I'm extremely happy with MacOS X. True, it's not perfectly fast all the time, but I love the aesthetic experience and accept that life is a bunch of tradeoffs.
If you really want to understand NT in depth, there's about as much to learn, sadly. If not more.
Linux has improved enormously in how much you need to learn or not learn in order to use it effectively. But we're really talking about MacOS X, and in the case of X, most users (including me) agree that you don't need abstruse Unix knowledge to run it. It won't hurt if you want to probe into its guts, but you don't have to do that unless you want to.
You are probably right that lack of knowledge and prejudice are very real reasons why people hate Windows 2000.
However, you shoot yourself in the foot here. You should not have to read a 300-page tome about the operating system before installing it for the first time.
Granted, scripted installs are great if you're setting up 500 machines at once. But someone who just wants to get their single unit up and running shouldn't have to learn a scripting language to do a routine installation easily. They probably can't, anyway; how do you write the script if you don't have an OS already on your computer?
I'm sorry; if the default installation routine is too clumsy and cumbersome, it's Microsoft's fault, and Microsoft should fix it. End of story.
This was exactly what I was planning to say, but with 300-odd responses already, I'm not surprised someone beat me to it:-).
They are going to say that because the squiggly lines are not links, they are not modifying anything. The HTML source is unchanged; they are not tampering with anyone's copyright.
I don't know if I buy that one. I for one wouldn't like to see my site mutilated like this. Of course the proper response from MS is "use the Meta tag, then". I will. But that doesn't lessen the slimy nature of this.
Let's be fair, though: Some lazy page writers might see this as a godsend and if there was a meta tag to ENABLE it, it might actually get used. Depends on the quality of the links more than anything.
Microsoft.NET is probably the biggest threat here, because it ties things together in a Microsoft-centric way. However, their ability to make this fly is going to be entirely dependent on whether they can make the technology work well enough to run reliably, and whether people can trust them.
Microsoft has a long history of releasing stuff before it's ready, and that may well be fatal when it comes to.NET.
I personally would not want a centralized exchange to have my credit card number, even if it did make it more convenient for me to order stuff. See, it would also make it more convenient for people to steal my credit card number. Could you imagine a clever CGI exploit that combined a password cracking program with an automated login to.NET to let anyone hack into the system and buy stuff without your knowledge or permission? Of course you could.
For an alternative perspective on.NET, see Lincoln Spector's Microsoft NYET column. An exerpt:
Microsoft no longer believes in private ownership of software. Office ICU will be the first product released under Microsoft's new EXTended ORdinary restituTION (EXTORTION) policy. Rather than buying the program outright, you will pay Microsoft a monthly fee for the right to not have your files destroyed. Microsoft will even give you a percentage of any income it makes off its copyright on your creative work.
For the rest, visit:
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/2006,3,7,1, 06 01,01.html
D
----
Re:cross-os is nothing new.
on
GIMP And OS X
·
· Score: 2
Last time I looked, Photoshop for SGI was something like two versions behind. I don't think it's in active development anymore, alas.
Porting to OSX is going to be relatively minor changes from older MacOS version, not a port from an existing Unix version.
D
----
Re:What we really need is a kernel story
on
Just For Fun
·
· Score: 2
Bill Gates' books, though, were about his own visions, not about his life. If my memory serves, there was darn little about how he grew up and started Microsoft and much more about how the wired systems of the future would function.
Bill Gates wouldn't write a book like this (if the comments on it are reasonably accurate). His books are about his ideas, not himself.
His books are also quite dull and not recommended unless you're into pretentious businessspeak.
I actually thought Mostly Harmless showed him at the top of his form in quality of writing terms.
I loved the book -- until the end. The end was a bit of a problem; a tragic outcome seems somehow incompatible with the spirit of the series. I mean, here you are laughing your head off and all of a sudden everyone dies, in all universes, for ever and ever.
Oops.
I would really prefer to think that Arthur and Fenchurch were somehow reunited on a planet far, far away from anywhere. I think the problem was that Adams couldn't figure out a way to end the series and eliminate the constant cries for new stuff.
Oddly enough, the ex is a vegetarian, gets faintly nauseous when any form of meat is mentioned, but still goes gaga over the fries - even though she knows about the beef essence part.
Just in case you haven't noticed, you can almost exactly correlate countries that start wars with countries that are poor and desperate. Iraq is an excellent example; they saw easy pickings in Kuwait and figured invading would solve their economic problems in one stroke. North Korea is always threatening the South with similar things. Being interested in war nowadays is a sign of weakness, not strength.
The question to ask about McDonald's is what they replaced: Often something much worse, such as the restaurant selling Mystery Food where they don't clean the grill. McDonald's created minimum standards more effective than any government fiat.
With so many better options available nowadays, even in fast food, I'm really not sure why McDonald's is still in business. My ex girlfriend offers a clue: She hates the company, loves their fries - and insisted I pick some up when she had fry cravings.
So I guess there is some merit to the place, despite its status as a cultural whipping boy.
Of course I can't stand the food personally, but, well, that's why we have a free market.
But Stephen King would not post his latest bestseller on USENET, and neither would you. Anything you're willing to share using USENET is a free contribution you are not expecting to be paid for.
If that's not so, then the whole world tilts on its axis and USENET archives cannot exist anymore. Surely this is a bad thing?
That was a really good list; I was on it, and as I remember he worked really hard on it and deserved the rights he's upset about not having.
Read his message more carefully, and you'll understand exactly why he should have added similar terms of service.
Today's world may be way too obsessive about terms of service and the like, and there are about a billion clauses that are most likely too extreme to pass through a court. Sadly, that doesn't mean at least basic terms are not necessary. There are, after all, about a billion lawyers out there, and settling a dispute is extraordinarily expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
The world would surely be a more attractive, sleeker and stylish place. And it would be a more expensive one; Jobs' signature product is the Cube hooked up to a 22" Cinema Display: The $4,500 PC (down from $5,700 at introduction).
I dunno. With my current income, I frankly much prefer Steve's world. But when I was just starting out, perhaps living in Bill's world was better than having no computers at all.
But I still hated it, and ran off to Linux as soon as I could.
D
----
I'd love to see an Aqua xemacs that could use the gorgeous Quartz font rendering instead of the usual hideous X fonts.
I tried Tenon Xtools, and it sort of worked (there were enough issues it was actually barely usable), but what it did more than anything is taunt me. "Aqua has pretty fonts and you can't use them! See these utterly horrid fonts! Ha Ha!".
Anyone know if such a project is being worked on?
D
----
Perhaps the best news, though, is that
http://www.google.com/windows/
doesn't work. Great job!
D
----
The OmniWeb browser on MacOS X has a very nice feature, enabled by default, which simply disables all pop-up windows. You can disable all pop-ups, or disable only pop-ups that are not the result of you manually clicking on a link.
:-).
Unfortunately, OmniWeb's JavaScript support is lacking in other areas, but that feature is brilliant, and their text display is the cleanest I've ever seen in any program. Linux users should get MacOS X just to rest their bad font weary eyes
D
----
A couple of good answers to this one:
(1) There are going to be millions of these things; if they can be attacked successfully, they will be, no matter what the platform.
And, more importantly,
(2) If it were a question of Rogers making its own box, I'd agree with you (subject to argument (1) above). But as it happens, it's looking like a choice between Linux and Microsoft.
(2) If this is so, Linux is a great deal simpler than MS stuff, and is likely to be harder to attack. Looks at the MS web server attacks being posted almost daily - they are all ancilliary functions of the server that are left open by default. Because MS stuff is almost infinitely complex, it's nearly infinitely vunerable.
By going with Linux, which starts simple and builds itself up in layers (i.e. X, etc), you can (at least on paper) stay with minimal complexity, and that's going to mean minimal support expense and minimal vunerability.
Not that people won't try to get in, and not that they won't get in. But it should be easier to fix and deal with in general than the equivalent Windows product.
Hope that helps.
D
----
I checked out a whole bunch of fuzzy pictures of what looks like a rather drab neighborhood, but couldn't find anything about how they did it or how much it cost.
:-(.
:-( ).
I can hardly blame them for being self-congratulatory in tone - they deserve it, surely - but some explanation of how they did it seems to be in order for those of us who would just love to do likewise.
As others have quite rightly said, the fact that their server survives a slashdotting is pretty impressive. I see they even have video! Now is that cheeky or what, even if the Linux system I have at work can't handle it
So tell me, how was this done? What's the history? Something like JWZ's DNA Lounge chronicle would seem to be in order, and I couldn't find it. Can some kind soul point me to that?
Thanks.
D
(who lives in Los Angeles and is stuck with iDSL
----
People educated in the IBM culture tend to be bureaucrats. Have you ever seen RPG code? It looks like some kind of primitive assembly language, but it's still in use in many shops.
This has not created a high-productivity programming culture. But there is an upside: the work that finally gets produced tends to be of high quality, and IBM AS/400 types are highly intolerant of bugs that would generate shrugs of the shoulder in the Windows world.
I actually tried an AS/400 but got discouraged by the vertical learning curve - you literally have to understand how the whole incredibly complex system fits together before you can write 'Hello World'.
I have a sneaking admiration for people with that kind of patience. But it certainly goes a long way towards explaining why the IBM group was a lot less productive; it's probably cultural, just as higher productivity in Linux versus Windows is.
D
----
Realtor.com is an exceptionally poorly designed web site in my opinion.
I've found that one of the most useful things to do is find a few streets you really like and search for homes on that street. Morro Drive in Woodland Hills is a nice example, as is Rambla Pacifico in Malibu. You can then visit the area and find similar streets (i.e. Castlewood Drive in Malibu). ZipRealty.com, as I said in another response, is excellent in finding things like this.
If you're a compulsive researcher like me, you'll certainly find it quite enjoyable to check through the listings. Remember, you're blowing a lot of money for this house; you really should spend some extra time to find one that suits your taste. From what I have heard, all but the best realtors around find this quite difficult.
D
----
Ulp. What costs $50,000 would run you $350,000 in Southern California, and don't even think of Northern.
Nice site, though.
D
----
... as opposed to the kind of boring place anyone can find and buy.
:-(.
Check out the pictures of houses in your price range. Write down the addresses of homes whose pictures appeal to you. Be sure to be on the alert for neighborhood characteristics (trees, ocean views, etc) that might be in common with a number of houses.
Physically visit the houses you like. If the neighborhood still looks appealing, go back to the real estate listings and look for more homes on those streets. (Ziprealty.com, which I recommend, makes this easy).
This may be better suited to dreamers like me than people who actually want to buy homes now, but if you do it for a while it will give you a good feel for the market, probably better than all but a handful of realtors. Then you can visit realtors with a well-informed perspective.
http://www.amazing.com/david/dream-house/ is my amusing take on the Los Angeles real estate market of a year or so ago. Sad to say, things have changed for buyers: They have gotten worse
D
----
They can sort of fake it, but not really.
The reason isn't hard to explain.
Each LCD pixel is a physical object which can be either on or off.
With a CRT, an electron gun sprays electrons on to a screen, and they are moved magnetically to the right position. So there is no physical object that corresponds to a display pixel. This means that you can theoretically have an unlimited number of resolutions on a CRT.
With a LCD, each pixel is a physical dot, so there is really only one "correct" radiation for a LCD. Some LCDs can "fake" this resolution better than others - my (well, the company bought it for me) spiffy new SGI 1600SW LCD does a pretty good job at 800x600 and 1280x1024, even though its native resolution if 1600x1024. But try a cheap laptop screen sometime - look at the console text and you'll see that it's often difficult to read due to poor quality at lower resolutions.
Other than games (which are not within my area of interest), I see no reason to want to change a LCD monitor to a lower resolution.
Hope that helps.
D
----
What the heck is the big deal about DVD, anyway?
I have a home DVD player. It's attached to my NTSC television set via a S-Video cable. It sure looks a lot better than shaky DVD played off a puny computer screen.
I can understand that it's a nice feature for a laptop, but it doesn't strike me as something that should be among the top ten gripes about an OS.
After going through four different video cards trying to get my (well, my company's) spiffy new SGI 1600SW monitor to work properly at full resolution on a Linux PC, I'm starting to think Apple's lack of hardware choice is a blessing, not a curse.
By the way, the root password is easily enabled and works great on my MacOS X installation.
You're right about sluggishness in the interface, but quite honestly it's so much prettier than X-Windows I don't really care. And when Linux was in the same stage of development as MacOS X was now, I remember griping about pretty darn poor GUI performance.
Give it time.
D
----
This is exactly why MacOS X won c|net's shootout. It was loads easier to install, supported almost all hardware likely to be used with a Mac, and had a high-quality suite of Internet tools installed. Thus, it was much more like an appliance than W2k.
:-(.
I would say Apple is to be praised for this, since it's what the bulk of the public wants and needs.
Unfortunately, the bulk of the public wants things real cheap, but, well, you can't have everything
D
----
Not a bad metaphor considering how dismal VHS is. It may be a standard, but do you want to watch VHS more than you absolutely have to?
I have moved almost all my home computing to MacOS X. I run Photoshop in Classic, and once you get past the lengthly startup, it works fine. The bundled Mail is very nice, and the OmniWeb browser is my preferred way of surfing regardless of platform.
I would like to see a fully working xemacs, but other than that, I'm extremely happy with MacOS X. True, it's not perfectly fast all the time, but I love the aesthetic experience and accept that life is a bunch of tradeoffs.
D
----
If you really want to understand NT in depth, there's about as much to learn, sadly. If not more.
Linux has improved enormously in how much you need to learn or not learn in order to use it effectively. But we're really talking about MacOS X, and in the case of X, most users (including me) agree that you don't need abstruse Unix knowledge to run it. It won't hurt if you want to probe into its guts, but you don't have to do that unless you want to.
A clear advance, no?
D
----
You are probably right that lack of knowledge and prejudice are very real reasons why people hate Windows 2000.
However, you shoot yourself in the foot here. You should not have to read a 300-page tome about the operating system before installing it for the first time.
Granted, scripted installs are great if you're setting up 500 machines at once. But someone who just wants to get their single unit up and running shouldn't have to learn a scripting language to do a routine installation easily. They probably can't, anyway; how do you write the script if you don't have an OS already on your computer?
I'm sorry; if the default installation routine is too clumsy and cumbersome, it's Microsoft's fault, and Microsoft should fix it. End of story.
D
----
This was exactly what I was planning to say, but with 300-odd responses already, I'm not surprised someone beat me to it :-).
They are going to say that because the squiggly lines are not links, they are not modifying anything. The HTML source is unchanged; they are not tampering with anyone's copyright.
I don't know if I buy that one. I for one wouldn't like to see my site mutilated like this. Of course the proper response from MS is "use the Meta tag, then". I will. But that doesn't lessen the slimy nature of this.
Let's be fair, though: Some lazy page writers might see this as a godsend and if there was a meta tag to ENABLE it, it might actually get used. Depends on the quality of the links more than anything.
D
----
Microsoft has a long history of releasing stuff before it's ready, and that may well be fatal when it comes to
I personally would not want a centralized exchange to have my credit card number, even if it did make it more convenient for me to order stuff. See, it would also make it more convenient for people to steal my credit card number. Could you imagine a clever CGI exploit that combined a password cracking program with an automated login to
For an alternative perspective on
For the rest, visit:
http://www.computeruser.com/articles/2006,3,7,1
D
----
Last time I looked, Photoshop for SGI was something like two versions behind. I don't think it's in active development anymore, alas.
Porting to OSX is going to be relatively minor changes from older MacOS version, not a port from an existing Unix version.
D
----
Bill Gates' books, though, were about his own visions, not about his life. If my memory serves, there was darn little about how he grew up and started Microsoft and much more about how the wired systems of the future would function.
Bill Gates wouldn't write a book like this (if the comments on it are reasonably accurate). His books are about his ideas, not himself.
His books are also quite dull and not recommended unless you're into pretentious businessspeak.
D
----
I actually thought Mostly Harmless showed him at the top of his form in quality of writing terms.
I loved the book -- until the end. The end was a bit of a problem; a tragic outcome seems somehow incompatible with the spirit of the series. I mean, here you are laughing your head off and all of a sudden everyone dies, in all universes, for ever and ever.
Oops.
I would really prefer to think that Arthur and Fenchurch were somehow reunited on a planet far, far away from anywhere. I think the problem was that Adams couldn't figure out a way to end the series and eliminate the constant cries for new stuff.
D
----
Curious; let me know your results.
Oddly enough, the ex is a vegetarian, gets faintly nauseous when any form of meat is mentioned, but still goes gaga over the fries - even though she knows about the beef essence part.
D
----
Just in case you haven't noticed, you can almost exactly correlate countries that start wars with countries that are poor and desperate. Iraq is an excellent example; they saw easy pickings in Kuwait and figured invading would solve their economic problems in one stroke. North Korea is always threatening the South with similar things. Being interested in war nowadays is a sign of weakness, not strength.
The question to ask about McDonald's is what they replaced: Often something much worse, such as the restaurant selling Mystery Food where they don't clean the grill. McDonald's created minimum standards more effective than any government fiat.
With so many better options available nowadays, even in fast food, I'm really not sure why McDonald's is still in business. My ex girlfriend offers a clue: She hates the company, loves their fries - and insisted I pick some up when she had fry cravings.
So I guess there is some merit to the place, despite its status as a cultural whipping boy.
Of course I can't stand the food personally, but, well, that's why we have a free market.
D
----
But Stephen King would not post his latest bestseller on USENET, and neither would you. Anything you're willing to share using USENET is a free contribution you are not expecting to be paid for.
If that's not so, then the whole world tilts on its axis and USENET archives cannot exist anymore. Surely this is a bad thing?
D
----
That was a really good list; I was on it, and as I remember he worked really hard on it and deserved the rights he's upset about not having.
Read his message more carefully, and you'll understand exactly why he should have added similar terms of service.
Today's world may be way too obsessive about terms of service and the like, and there are about a billion clauses that are most likely too extreme to pass through a court. Sadly, that doesn't mean at least basic terms are not necessary. There are, after all, about a billion lawyers out there, and settling a dispute is extraordinarily expensive.
D
----