I'd say it's social engineering, or possibly economics, not technology. There isn't much in the GPL that could not be applied to computing 30 years ago, or collaborative text authorship 100 years ago.
The GPL issue is possibly the first really large-scale one that the computer geek community has to address that is not simply technology-led, it's led by ideology and/or conscience.
Similarly, my company policy of filling software licencses out with "Anybody", "Anywhere" in the the Name and Company fields to ensure our legal right to resell, coupled with MSN doing stupid things with defaults once lumbered us with the email address anybody@msn.com - you wouldn't believe the incomprehensible complaints that get sent there by the technologically challenged!
What is illegal, and wrong is abusing a monopoly position to obtain dominance in another area.
This is why Microsoft are being penalised (for example when they gave IE away for free in order to kill off Netscape) and Google, who are not abusing their monopoly are not being penalised.
Apple (Records) isn't a publically traded company, and a lot of it's value is in the practically infinite possiblities for suing Apple (computers) over and over and over. The current owners would only profit by selling it for more than they can get out of Apple (computers) for the rest of the life of the universe, and Apple (computers) would only profit by buying it for less than that. I think the only way out is for Apple to give in to the legions of the misinformed and call itself 'Macintosh'
eBay must know they are on very shakey ground. Setting up an internet auction site isn't difficult, eBay isn't a very friendly site, and it's coupled with the least loved payment system imaginable.
The only thing that keeps eBay from crashing an buring is that nobody else has the billion war chest needed to undercut them, out-advertise them and otherwise build up a significant userbase... until Google floated.
eBay simply cannot risk annoying Google by locking out their payment system. All Google has to do is say the word 'googleauctions' in a press release to wipe billions off eBay's stock price.
The article references patent number US2006015812. The USPTO site says that number does not exist, and a search for the word "Emoticon" in patents gives 14 hits, none of them matching the story... and a few of them arguably providing prior art!
If so then the police should also give equal attention to investigating the possibility that the fatal crash was connected with cows. It's about as relevant.
What is is hard to see, looking at those numbers, is why Disney's stock value is $50Bn and Pixar's is $7Bn.
This deal must make some sort of sense to both parties though, so it wouldn't surprise me if what's actually happening here is that the Pixar people will do the movies and the Disney people will do the part of the business that they do best: theme parks and retail stores.
Presumably because Intel desperately want market share, and will do deals to get it, epecially in 4% chunks like Apple has - it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Apple was getting their CPUs at or below cost. Apple's decision to rule out AMD and future IBM chips clearly isn't an engineering one, so it must be a financial one.
Indeed - I've practically given up submitting stories to Slashdot after having one of my sumbissions mauled this way, it brings my reputatiom as a web designer into disrepute to have my name credited as author of something full of these 'random phrase' links.
Yes, I'd have that entire sentence hyperlinked. While you rarely see it done, I can't think of any good reason that it would be a no-no.
I agree about avoiding consecutive links, but the original poster's sentence construction forces it. Rephrasing the sentence to read "...Geekery Times is Reporitng..." to avoid it would be good editorial practice in my opinion.
I see no harm in including extra links that some readers my find useful, such as a link to the Geekery Times homepage. I quite often look at an organisaton referred to by acronym in a slashdot article and think 'who?', and would follow such direct links to homepages to find out (before going to the article) if they were provided.
Microsoft has recently moved into the antivirus software market by bundling "Windows Security Center" with SP2. To my untrained eye, this appears to be exactly the same sort of illegal monopoly abuse that Microsoft has been convicted of in the media player market and the browser market. Can you explain to me why it's not?
I fix the hyper text on the vast majority of submissions. People link the word 'Here' or 'Article' or 'CNN' and I find that very frustrating.
Has it ever occured to you that the reason the 'vast majority of submissions' do this is beacuse it's right and you are wrong?
The correct way to link to CNN is (unsurprisingly) to link the word CNN, not pick some random adjective in the story, and the correct way to link to the relevant article is to link the word 'article'.
I'm thoroughly fed up with playing 'guess where clicking on this phrase will take me' with Slashdot. Slashdot's policy of strewing links about in a pseudo random way is the reason I have Firefox's status bar on by default.
"I'd guess a good half of story submissions use the word 'here' or 'article' or something equally stupid as their anchor text."
The reason people do this is because it's the right thing to do! I'm constantly annoyed that it's not obvious which link in a story goes to the article being discussed. Slashdot's 'pick words at random' attitude to links is the only reason I have Firefox's staus bar turned on all the time.
Take the recent story about the 'Sony Reader': the phrase "electronic book reader" points not as you would expect to Sony's page for the device, but to to the BBC, "E-Ink Technology" links not to E-Ink, but to Slashdot, "isn't their first attempt" links to Wikipedia. Sony's page on the product isn't linked at all!
...the less it can rely on hype. Can you imagine there being pre-launch hype for Tetris?
What hype there is for innovative next-gen games is centred round the Revolution's controller, presumably because we have scant news on games that will exploit it yet.
If you squint at the enlarged version of the left hand pic from the wired article, you'll get a rather pleasant surprise: it is going to be Mac compatible!
While a huge number of games have Sci Fi plots, a lot of the contenders for the title of 'best' do not. Will they ingore the next tetris/nintendogs/gran turismo/WWII Fps game or will they give the award to something inferior that fits into the right genre?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say it's social engineering, or possibly economics, not technology. There isn't much in the GPL that could not be applied to computing 30 years ago, or collaborative text authorship 100 years ago.
The GPL issue is possibly the first really large-scale one that the computer geek community has to address that is not simply technology-led, it's led by ideology and/or conscience.
When many analysts agree, then they're probably on to something.
Microsoft's payroll, for example.
Similarly, my company policy of filling software licencses out with "Anybody", "Anywhere" in the the Name and Company fields to ensure our legal right to resell, coupled with MSN doing stupid things with defaults once lumbered us with the email address anybody@msn.com - you wouldn't believe the incomprehensible complaints that get sent there by the technologically challenged!
Unless Netcraft confims it!
Monopolies are not illegal, wrong, or persecuted.
What is illegal, and wrong is abusing a monopoly position to obtain dominance in another area.
This is why Microsoft are being penalised (for example when they gave IE away for free in order to kill off Netscape) and Google, who are not abusing their monopoly are not being penalised.
The UK regulators have also taken action on the issue of misleading 3G phone adverts:b lications/complaints_reports/advertising_complaint s/show_complaint.asp-ad_complaint_id=882.html
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_pu
Apple (Records) isn't a publically traded company, and a lot of it's value is in the practically infinite possiblities for suing Apple (computers) over and over and over. The current owners would only profit by selling it for more than they can get out of Apple (computers) for the rest of the life of the universe, and Apple (computers) would only profit by buying it for less than that. I think the only way out is for Apple to give in to the legions of the misinformed and call itself 'Macintosh'
eBay must know they are on very shakey ground. Setting up an internet auction site isn't difficult, eBay isn't a very friendly site, and it's coupled with the least loved payment system imaginable.
The only thing that keeps eBay from crashing an buring is that nobody else has the billion war chest needed to undercut them, out-advertise them and otherwise build up a significant userbase... until Google floated.
eBay simply cannot risk annoying Google by locking out their payment system. All Google has to do is say the word 'googleauctions' in a press release to wipe billions off eBay's stock price.
Hasn't the mountain of discount no-hoper PS2 titles taught the industry to go for quality not quantity?
The article references patent number US2006015812. The USPTO site says that number does not exist, and a search for the word "Emoticon" in patents gives 14 hits, none of them matching the story... and a few of them arguably providing prior art!
it could be perfectly plausible that the kids were already into REAL street racing
Indeed! - QED.
If so then the police should also give equal attention to investigating the possibility that the fatal crash was connected with cows. It's about as relevant.
What is is hard to see, looking at those numbers, is why Disney's stock value is $50Bn and Pixar's is $7Bn.
This deal must make some sort of sense to both parties though, so it wouldn't surprise me if what's actually happening here is that the Pixar people will do the movies and the Disney people will do the part of the business that they do best: theme parks and retail stores.
Presumably because Intel desperately want market share, and will do deals to get it, epecially in 4% chunks like Apple has - it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Apple was getting their CPUs at or below cost. Apple's decision to rule out AMD and future IBM chips clearly isn't an engineering one, so it must be a financial one.
Indeed - I've practically given up submitting stories to Slashdot after having one of my sumbissions mauled this way, it brings my reputatiom as a web designer into disrepute to have my name credited as author of something full of these 'random phrase' links.
Well, "Monster Carnival, Angel Rings and The Eye Of Judgment" might be original, but with nothing to go on but titles, it's a bit difficult to tell.
I'm tempted to skip a generation of Gran Turismo, as I fear an early PS3 launch might be the same sort of ealry title rush job that GT3 for PS2 was.
Yes, I'd have that entire sentence hyperlinked. While you rarely see it done, I can't think of any good reason that it would be a no-no.
I agree about avoiding consecutive links, but the original poster's sentence construction forces it. Rephrasing the sentence to read "...Geekery Times is Reporitng..." to avoid it would be good editorial practice in my opinion.
I see no harm in including extra links that some readers my find useful, such as a link to the Geekery Times homepage. I quite often look at an organisaton referred to by acronym in a slashdot article and think 'who?', and would follow such direct links to homepages to find out (before going to the article) if they were provided.
Microsoft has recently moved into the antivirus software market by bundling "Windows Security Center" with SP2. To my untrained eye, this appears to be exactly the same sort of illegal monopoly abuse that Microsoft has been convicted of in the media player market and the browser market. Can you explain to me why it's not?
Very simply, a link should take you to whatever the linked text is.
In your example, 1,2,3 and 4 are all correct, but 5 and 6 are wrong, as they would be taking you to an report, not to the noun highlighted.
My favoured option would be 4, but with a second link to the 'The Geekery Times' home page from the words 'The Geekery Times'.
I fix the hyper text on the vast majority of submissions. People link the word 'Here' or 'Article' or 'CNN' and I find that very frustrating.
Has it ever occured to you that the reason the 'vast majority of submissions' do this is beacuse it's right and you are wrong?
The correct way to link to CNN is (unsurprisingly) to link the word CNN, not pick some random adjective in the story, and the correct way to link to the relevant article is to link the word 'article'.
I'm thoroughly fed up with playing 'guess where clicking on this phrase will take me' with Slashdot. Slashdot's policy of strewing links about in a pseudo random way is the reason I have Firefox's status bar on by default.
"I'd guess a good half of story submissions use the word 'here' or 'article' or something equally stupid as their anchor text."
The reason people do this is because it's the right thing to do! I'm constantly annoyed that it's not obvious which link in a story goes to the article being discussed. Slashdot's 'pick words at random' attitude to links is the only reason I have Firefox's staus bar turned on all the time.
Take the recent story about the 'Sony Reader': the phrase "electronic book reader" points not as you would expect to Sony's page for the device, but to to the BBC, "E-Ink Technology" links not to E-Ink, but to Slashdot, "isn't their first attempt" links to Wikipedia. Sony's page on the product isn't linked at all!
...the less it can rely on hype. Can you imagine there being pre-launch hype for Tetris?
What hype there is for innovative next-gen games is centred round the Revolution's controller, presumably because we have scant news on games that will exploit it yet.
If you squint at the enlarged version of the left hand pic from the wired article, you'll get a rather pleasant surprise: it is going to be Mac compatible!
While a huge number of games have Sci Fi plots, a lot of the contenders for the title of 'best' do not. Will they ingore the next tetris/nintendogs/gran turismo/WWII Fps game or will they give the award to something inferior that fits into the right genre?
Manufacture != Design