Much as I dislike them, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft has always looked a little too much like the government getting nervous with MS's cash reserves.
Uhh.... I'm nervous about MS's cash reserves. Actually... any corporation that giant (including AOLTW) should give us all pause about the amount of money they can throw at anything. I'd much rather the government have the money than MS, but I guess AOLTW will have to do (considering simply the justice-for-predatory-business-practices concept.) Until someone wakes up at the FCC that is.
Remember... Your tax money in the early 80's helped give rise to the ARPA/NSFNET. Your money blown on MS-DOS 3.3 helped give rise to Windows 3.
The gov't doesn't like entities it can't push around.
Citizens should be able to push the Government around, corporations should not.
And "free-market" (ie, battle-of-the-corner-Quik-E-Marts) concepts notwithstanding, Citzens alone can't do much to push around a trans-national corporation. Governments can.
Uhhh... AOL client software works perfectly fine on classic MacOS (though without IE 5.1 integration), and they've released a decent beta of a version for OS X.
It is unfair to compare the perceived quality of projects on Sourceforge by people that had an itch to scratch... with paid professionals at some computer manufacturer.
The comment regarding Sourceforge projects wasn't intended as a slight against those authors per se... I just wanted to bring an example of something that is within our power to change and improve upon. (As opposed to lamenting the poor wording in any number of MS products...)
The better ones usually have an active community of developers AND users that provide feedback and improvements.
This interview touches on a few concepts that I think today's geeks (and many of yesterday's geeks too) are no longer in touch with.
Quality. Art. The "soul" of a machine.
There is something to be said for the amount of sheer human effort put in to designing a product like this. A Quality product shines in it's attention to human-machine interaction, but is a result of "inner beauty". For those of you who haven't programmed using Cocoa or haven't messed around much with OS X or actually seen and used a recent iMac in person, there's no substitute for the tangible results of Apple's years of dedication.
When I use Mac OS X, I can *feel* that somewhere in Cupertino there's an English major who was losing sleep at nights trying to make the text in the dialog boxes as clear and understandable as possible. When was the last time you felt that way about the latest d/l off of sourceforge?
The subject/object duality is something that premeates the "geek world" - I beg of the programmers and techs out there try to move beyond it. Apple's certainly tried to.
(I'd post more, but I haven't had my coffee yet... )
Re:YES ! Now just a few more shows ...
on
Star Trek TNG DVDs
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· Score: 2
I would pay damn good money if they ever released Max Headroom DVD's....
Re:Months TNG DVDs will be released (OT)
on
Star Trek TNG DVDs
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· Score: 2
Season 5 *was* definitely one of the best seasons, (though I think you missed Darmok on that list:) )...
.. But my all-time favorite episode had to have been "Frame of Mind." (When Riker is convinced he's going insane.) I loved the surreal ones - and that one definitely takes the cake for that label!
...and using a program that I think was called "FreeType" (or was it "Fred"?) for word processing, though I'm not sure.
You're probably thinking of FrEdWriter.... which, I believe, stood for Free Educational Writer. More info on this great program can be found here.
I remember typing papers up on that in 5th grade.... and being all happy that we'd gotten the latest version of ProDOS. Every once in a while I get a FrEdWriter flashback when I'm using pico... heh.
Yay.. okay, so I'm not the only one who thinks the environment of Max Headroom is eerily premeniscient. =)
Seriously, the world could do some good for itself if it sat down and studied the world that was created for that story. Far too many things from that show are easily possible today (or in a few years).
And really, the method of having a single roving reporter/cameraman like that is very exciting:)
Okay.. so this is slightly off topic. (I think Cartoon Network is doing the right thing in remaining sensitive to current events. Would you rather have them not give a damn about what's going on in the world and play it anyway because they paid for the rights of it? Would you rather CNN et al played commercials every 15 minutes on Tuesday? At least this shows the mega-corporations aren't thinking ONLY about profit any more.)
Basically, Hollywood stands a good chance of coming out as a better group because of this. In the last 10 years, as the cultural decadence and decline of America took hold, Hollywood has been pandering to America's baser instincts at the expense of good old-fashioned American story-telling.
Moveis have gotten more and more bland, formulaic, and irrelevent to the modern world in the past decade than ever before. The mind-numbing parade of pure crap putout by America's entertainment complex and soaked up by America's pop culture like a kid whose parents are willing to offer him nothing but candy to eat was causing serious damage to America's psyche and attitude.
While I am deeply sorry for those who lost family members and loved ones in these horrible attacks, there is at least a little bit of a silver lining in this all. America seems to have sobered up from its drunken cultural stupor and re-discovered what's REALLY important in life. If they terrorists had waited another 10 years, I wonder if American society would be watching TRL, Survivor 12, or watching a bland violence-sex-gross-out-comedy movie to care. (Facetious)
Hopefully America will keep the unifying and sobered spirit it has re-discovered in the aftermath for some time to come. Parents having honest discussions with their children about issues of morality, crime rates in NY at their lowest levels in the history of the city (common enemy), young people not blindly assuming the world owes them something, but being cognisant of their own morality.
Hell, if the last traces of the ugly racism popping up against Arab-American can be eradicated.... America stands a great chance to come out of this a more responsible, more caring, more serious, more compassionate, more focused, more dedicated, and more selfless nation.
The point? Hopefully Hollywood will follow and put out entertainment that's more meaningful than another episode of Friends, a pointless prurient movie about sex and violence, or another dumb series about beautiful young 20-somethings whining about nothing.
Some will recall Hypertalk, for example, as the language the original Myst game was programmed in. Only some will recall, however, inasmuch as it never got terribly far off the ground. Other natural languages haven't faired much better.
Umm.. what about AppleScript? It was based on many of the same elements and ideas of HyperTalk, but extended to a system-wide metaphor. In fact, with Apple's OSA (Open Scripting Architecture), AppleScript has gotten to be pretty darn useful.
Apple's probably got the best implementation of a natural language parser around right now. With the right extensions and coding, it could serve very easily as a great meta-language for programming.
As others have posted here, for legal purposes a corporation is an "entity" - that's what "incorporate" means... "to form or embody"
Therefore, it makes logical sense that something that is created entirely by the State can be killed by the State (lets thank god 1984 isn't here yet, when the State starts making babies, the same logic will apply =( ).
Note that a corporate death penalty can be taken to mean a couple of different things. For example, if Microsoft lost its case and was sentanced to death, does that mean:
Microsoft and all its subsidaries have their charters revoked and are auctioned off?
Microsoft as a holding company is dissolved and all of its subsidaries are now free, independant entities (wow - kind of like when a slaveholder died in the pre-Civil War south?), or
title to all of the above falls back to the State, which can do any of the above as it pleases (as in the case of a person who dies, doesn't have any dependants or relatives living, and leaves no will.
A similar but unrelated question is "when should the corporate veil be pierced for investors in a corporation that commits criminal acts?" Shouldn't the investors/shareholders - who are the OWNERS be held responsible for the actions of the organization they are a part of? People would THINK a lot more on Wall Street if they were, and perhaps the mindless and ruthless actions of Transnational Corporations would be help back somewhat if the investors knew they would be liable (criminally or civily) for them...
Hmm.. another question, should/could Firestone or Ford be charged with murder? Manslaughter? If proven that they had knowledge of the fatal consequences of their actions and as a corporation did nothing about it - perhaps. Also... cigarette companies? Can they be charged with murder, since they're aware as a company that they are more or less responsible for thousands of deaths each year? Makes me wonder if Florida is a death penalty state...
So yeah, they should be treated exactly as people. =)
With that $100 M investment they made, they shouldn't have the same supply/quality problems other companies have been having...
Smart move, Apple. Once again, they lead the industry into Bold New Worlds... 4 years from now LCD screens will be pretty much standard =)
Do government agencies typically need to fill out such paperwork for other instances? Could they have been rejected and sent back to the moon?
Basically, yeah... the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service -- ie Customs) has the authority to deport basically *anyone* and has police powers up to 500 miles inland from the US border. If you watch carefully any video of the President's arrival back into the country (as he disembarks off Air Force One or a helicopter) you'll see an official greeting him right at the door. From what I've been told, that's an INS official who has to Officially record and authorize his re-entry to the country.
Just FYI - Macs have comprehensive processor, display, and HDD power management options that work across the board (the same power management software that's in their 5-hr battery life iBooks is in their G4 servers). It's really a rather interesting read at http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1190.htm l
Although it's generally good to keep the HD spinning at all times (for reasons posted above) but there's no reason for a display to be sucking power or for a CPU that's idling (in terms of - is it doing anything for the next 1.5 seconds?) to be running at full power.
Beyond all this though... PC's require a TON more power to run simply thanks to the 10x increase in wattage used by the CPU combined with the power to run the fans to cool everything. Do CA a favor and get a mac:)
If you have a PO Box, or are the only person in your ZIP+4 block, you can often use that as your sole address. (For those of you who don't know or aren't in the US, the USPS has 5 digit ZIP codes which are further broken down with 4 digit extensions. Each extension might refer to a specific block of a street (or a specific side of a block), a floor in a large office building, or some other identifiable mail unit.)
The cool thing is that you use these as your sole adderss in some cases. I sent a letter out with no return address and just the numbers "92115-8055" (my PO Box's ZIP+4) on the front once and it made it just fine...
"We just started streaming MP3 audio under QuickTime using the rtsp protocol. This may be the first MP3 stream on the net that doesn't use http (i.e. a hacked web server like Shoutcast/Icecast). Sounds great so far and is experimental, more neat features to come.
www.hardradio.com/quicktime/hardradio.mov is the url to use to go direct with the QuickTime 4.1 or newer player. (This http-delivered movie delivers our player interface and auto links into the stream) If you are set at the player default of rtsp on port 554 it will come right through to you."
Okay.... I know a solid Dyson sphere has been proven in theory to be unstable, but we don't know if this 17x-Jupiter massive object is actually solid yet, do we?
So who's to say that someone didn't actually try to build one?
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Aieee.... how could you forget about the flagship stamp: Bob?
I can think of no better stamp to use on any "cancellation of service" letter to MS than Bill Gates' alter ego =)
Err... except that that's an Associated Press wire report =) Wasn't even "contributed to" by anyone at MSNBC either...
They probably are taking a lot of time writing whatever stories they put out to ensure that they're at least trying to be balanced.
Much as I dislike them, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft has always looked a little too much like the government getting nervous with MS's cash reserves.
Uhh.... I'm nervous about MS's cash reserves. Actually... any corporation that giant (including AOLTW) should give us all pause about the amount of money they can throw at anything. I'd much rather the government have the money than MS, but I guess AOLTW will have to do (considering simply the justice-for-predatory-business-practices concept.) Until someone wakes up at the FCC that is.
Remember... Your tax money in the early 80's helped give rise to the ARPA/NSFNET. Your money blown on MS-DOS 3.3 helped give rise to Windows 3.
The gov't doesn't like entities it can't push around.
Citizens should be able to push the Government around, corporations should not.
And "free-market" (ie, battle-of-the-corner-Quik-E-Marts) concepts notwithstanding, Citzens alone can't do much to push around a trans-national corporation. Governments can.
Plus, AOL software only runs on Windows...
Uhhh... AOL client software works perfectly fine on classic MacOS (though without IE 5.1 integration), and they've released a decent beta of a version for OS X.
...very simple ... without processes that must keep running to keep them alive...
:)
Sounds like a recipe for stability for a certain OS I've seen discussed around here
It is unfair to compare the perceived quality of projects on Sourceforge by people that had an itch to scratch... with paid professionals at some computer manufacturer.
The comment regarding Sourceforge projects wasn't intended as a slight against those authors per se... I just wanted to bring an example of something that is within our power to change and improve upon. (As opposed to lamenting the poor wording in any number of MS products...)
The better ones usually have an active community of developers AND users that provide feedback and improvements.
What... and Apple doesn't?
This interview touches on a few concepts that I think today's geeks (and many of yesterday's geeks too) are no longer in touch with.
Quality. Art. The "soul" of a machine.
There is something to be said for the amount of sheer human effort put in to designing a product like this. A Quality product shines in it's attention to human-machine interaction, but is a result of "inner beauty". For those of you who haven't programmed using Cocoa or haven't messed around much with OS X or actually seen and used a recent iMac in person, there's no substitute for the tangible results of Apple's years of dedication.
When I use Mac OS X, I can *feel* that somewhere in Cupertino there's an English major who was losing sleep at nights trying to make the text in the dialog boxes as clear and understandable as possible. When was the last time you felt that way about the latest d/l off of sourceforge?
The subject/object duality is something that premeates the "geek world" - I beg of the programmers and techs out there try to move beyond it. Apple's certainly tried to.
(I'd post more, but I haven't had my coffee yet... )
I would pay damn good money if they ever released Max Headroom DVD's....
Season 5 *was* definitely one of the best seasons, (though I think you missed Darmok on that list :) )...
.. But my all-time favorite episode had to have been "Frame of Mind." (When Riker is convinced he's going insane.) I loved the surreal ones - and that one definitely takes the cake for that label!
I believe it's something like:
4. Quick -- put ads all over your site.
Actually, that brings up an interesting question. Why DID they not include a slot-loading drive with this?
:)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but SuperDrives are available in slot-loading format, right?
Was it price? availability? aesthetics? Or perhaps specfically to prevent people from mounting it upside down?
In a way, they kind of have.
Remember, this is a 15" flat-panel display, it has nearly the effective display area of a 17" CRT monitor.
It may not be a 100% increase to 17, but it's definitely a decent size increase over the old iMac's 15" CRT.
You're probably thinking of FrEdWriter.... which, I believe, stood for Free Educational Writer. More info on this great program can be found here.
I remember typing papers up on that in 5th grade.... and being all happy that we'd gotten the latest version of ProDOS. Every once in a while I get a FrEdWriter flashback when I'm using pico... heh.
okay.. karma trolling here, but I missed this link the first time I read through the article.
Here's Apple's Technote on OS X 10.1 chock full of useful tidbits about what bugs were fixed (lots of 'em).
Yay.. okay, so I'm not the only one who thinks the environment of Max Headroom is eerily premeniscient. =)
:)
Seriously, the world could do some good for itself if it sat down and studied the world that was created for that story. Far too many things from that show are easily possible today (or in a few years).
And really, the method of having a single roving reporter/cameraman like that is very exciting
Okay.. so this is slightly off topic. (I think Cartoon Network is doing the right thing in remaining sensitive to current events. Would you rather have them not give a damn about what's going on in the world and play it anyway because they paid for the rights of it? Would you rather CNN et al played commercials every 15 minutes on Tuesday? At least this shows the mega-corporations aren't thinking ONLY about profit any more.)
Basically, Hollywood stands a good chance of coming out as a better group because of this. In the last 10 years, as the cultural decadence and decline of America took hold, Hollywood has been pandering to America's baser instincts at the expense of good old-fashioned American story-telling.
Moveis have gotten more and more bland, formulaic, and irrelevent to the modern world in the past decade than ever before. The mind-numbing parade of pure crap putout by America's entertainment complex and soaked up by America's pop culture like a kid whose parents are willing to offer him nothing but candy to eat was causing serious damage to America's psyche and attitude.
While I am deeply sorry for those who lost family members and loved ones in these horrible attacks, there is at least a little bit of a silver lining in this all. America seems to have sobered up from its drunken cultural stupor and re-discovered what's REALLY important in life. If they terrorists had waited another 10 years, I wonder if American society would be watching TRL, Survivor 12, or watching a bland violence-sex-gross-out-comedy movie to care. (Facetious)
Hopefully America will keep the unifying and sobered spirit it has re-discovered in the aftermath for some time to come. Parents having honest discussions with their children about issues of morality, crime rates in NY at their lowest levels in the history of the city (common enemy), young people not blindly assuming the world owes them something, but being cognisant of their own morality.
Hell, if the last traces of the ugly racism popping up against Arab-American can be eradicated.... America stands a great chance to come out of this a more responsible, more caring, more serious, more compassionate, more focused, more dedicated, and more selfless nation.
The point? Hopefully Hollywood will follow and put out entertainment that's more meaningful than another episode of Friends, a pointless prurient movie about sex and violence, or another dumb series about beautiful young 20-somethings whining about nothing.
Umm.. what about AppleScript? It was based on many of the same elements and ideas of HyperTalk, but extended to a system-wide metaphor. In fact, with Apple's OSA (Open Scripting Architecture), AppleScript has gotten to be pretty darn useful.
Apple's probably got the best implementation of a natural language parser around right now. With the right extensions and coding, it could serve very easily as a great meta-language for programming.
Therefore, it makes logical sense that something that is created entirely by the State can be killed by the State (lets thank god 1984 isn't here yet, when the State starts making babies, the same logic will apply =( ).
Note that a corporate death penalty can be taken to mean a couple of different things. For example, if Microsoft lost its case and was sentanced to death, does that mean:
A similar but unrelated question is "when should the corporate veil be pierced for investors in a corporation that commits criminal acts?" Shouldn't the investors/shareholders - who are the OWNERS be held responsible for the actions of the organization they are a part of? People would THINK a lot more on Wall Street if they were, and perhaps the mindless and ruthless actions of Transnational Corporations would be help back somewhat if the investors knew they would be liable (criminally or civily) for them...
Hmm.. another question, should/could Firestone or Ford be charged with murder? Manslaughter? If proven that they had knowledge of the fatal consequences of their actions and as a corporation did nothing about it - perhaps. Also... cigarette companies? Can they be charged with murder, since they're aware as a company that they are more or less responsible for thousands of deaths each year? Makes me wonder if Florida is a death penalty state...
So yeah, they should be treated exactly as people. =)
With that $100 M investment they made, they shouldn't have the same supply/quality problems other companies have been having... Smart move, Apple. Once again, they lead the industry into Bold New Worlds... 4 years from now LCD screens will be pretty much standard =)
Basically, yeah... the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service -- ie Customs) has the authority to deport basically *anyone* and has police powers up to 500 miles inland from the US border. If you watch carefully any video of the President's arrival back into the country (as he disembarks off Air Force One or a helicopter) you'll see an official greeting him right at the door. From what I've been told, that's an INS official who has to Officially record and authorize his re-entry to the country.
No one's above the law, I guess =)
Just FYI - Macs have comprehensive processor, display, and HDD power management options that work across the board (the same power management software that's in their 5-hr battery life iBooks is in their G4 servers). It's really a rather interesting read at http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1190.htm l
:)
Although it's generally good to keep the HD spinning at all times (for reasons posted above) but there's no reason for a display to be sucking power or for a CPU that's idling (in terms of - is it doing anything for the next 1.5 seconds?) to be running at full power.
Beyond all this though... PC's require a TON more power to run simply thanks to the 10x increase in wattage used by the CPU combined with the power to run the fans to cool everything. Do CA a favor and get a mac
The cool thing is that you use these as your sole adderss in some cases. I sent a letter out with no return address and just the numbers "92115-8055" (my PO Box's ZIP+4) on the front once and it made it just fine...
Same thing goes for family names:
will often make it as well...
Okay.... I know a solid Dyson sphere has been proven in theory to be unstable, but we don't know if this 17x-Jupiter massive object is actually solid yet, do we? So who's to say that someone didn't actually try to build one?