With the names of such heavyweights as Arnold and lightweights like Gary Coleman (no pun intended - well, all right, it was), do you honestly hope to win, or are making a Ralph Nader like point in forcing certain issues and ideas into the public's eye?
On the one hand - this is not a bad idea. Who's ever sent a package for an eBay sale or to your relatives or a business - and had to make sure it was there?
So no - I don't think this is a bad idea.
As long as it is voluntary. Nobody should be forced to identify themselves in the mail. I still believe that a working democracy absolutely depends on anominity - the ability to state your opinions without worrying about government/oppressive majority/violent minority acting against you.
Would I use it? Eh - depends on what I was sending. But I believe that it is important to keep the ability to allow anonymous mailing available, and make this tracking system on "opt-in" only - not a "mandatory for all" solution.
But then again - that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
We're off - to see the courts, We're leaving sense behind, To save, the G-N-U.... Our law blazers!
Subpeona fly like distant stars, We will litigate way far, Showing code that should be ours Who knows what IP we'll find?
We must - be strong and brave! RMS - our souls will save! If we don't - in a few years - Linux servers, will dissappear!
Our law blazers!
Or - ah, something like that. If nothing else, we can hope for Space Cruiser Yamato to open up the Wave Gun on SCO headquarters. I would pay money so see that.
On the one side, I can understand the Governments position:
Thou Shalt Not have Unlicensed Radio Transmitters.
This is important, because if just anybody set up shop, soon the radio waves would be a mess of people just putting stuff out, and nobody could hear the station they wanted too - just the one with the biggest pen- ah, broadcast antennae.
On the other hand, I think the range of this thing is - what - 10 to 30 feet? Watch out, Britian! Those pirate radios will be able to be heard from the other room! Anarchy and chaos as Julie tries to dance to Nsync while Dad's got his iPod broadcasting the Spice Girls in the other room! Mum - you'd best be keeping that "Black Mages" heavy metal to yourself!
This seems more like an issue of someone in beurocracy[SIC] getting a bug up their ass and not using common sense more than anything else.
There are some things about this that I like - the cooling systems look interesting, and as someone who's looking upgrade my old Win98 Game Box (that's about all Windows is used for with me these days), I can consider it.
But the encryption doesn't sell me, because it's really a limited use.
Assuming the machine is being used, and they is inside so you can access your data. You install an old version of Linux with an unpatched SSH client, and somebody root kits you. The encryption won't help you here - after all, the key is already used on the box so the motherboard can talk to the hard drive.
The only time encryption would be useful is when:
a) Somebody steals/appropriates the computer, and doesn't get the key. You destroy the key, and if this is a court case, you make sure there are no backups they can restore from.
b) that's about it.
I like the idea of encryption being on a laptop hard drive, and there's a USB key for it (I'm hoping the 10.3 version of OS X's user directory encryption is not just password/passphrase enabled, but lets you use a CD-Key, or something onto the Keychain file and you can be anal and put the Keychain file onto a USB key so it has to be inserted for the home directory to wirk). A laptop is more likely to be stolen and credit cards/passwords/sensitive company information (and if you're like me and work for a company who does Defense department contracts, that can be a big deal).
Otherwise, I'm not sure I fully see the "average" home use of this motherboard to protect from the RIAA finding out what files you have over the Internet, since the hard drive is already being decrypted to give that data over the network. Like I said earlier, it's only use is if the RIAA gets a court order, and you throw the key into the garbage diposal. (Which might get you held up in contempt of court or some such, and then you'll have to hope that Abit doesn't have a backup key of their own floating in their system somewhere.)
I could just be missing the point of the encryption other than a "gee whiz" feature - but that's just me.
Something I've observed between Sony and Nintendo.
Playstation 2:
Plays DVD movies Plays Audio CDs Plays games
Gamecube:
Plays games
There are people who think that part of the reason why the Gamecube hasn't been doing so well is that it doesn't fill multiple niches. And after a *lot* of thought - I have to agree. If you're going to pay $150 for a game system, or $199 for a game/dvd player/cd player - which will you go for? I've often told people who ask me which console is the "best" that:
Playstation 2 has the most games. Xbox has the nicest looking games. Gamecube has the best games.
But - that's not enough. And if you look at the PSP versus Gameboy Advance, notice an interesting trend:
PSP:
Plays games 1.8 G cartridge - could play MPEG-4 movies (more than enough space for that + subtitle/language track at MPEG-4) Plays music (again - at 1.8 G, more than enough space) 802.11 - can play games via network, possibly Internet Playstation 2 graphics - I'll say "Playstation 1.5", which means that we could get Final Fantasy VII on the PSP (would not surprise me as a "launch title" - that would ensure a million sales right there), or Suikoden I & II Collectors PSP game
Gameboy Advance:
Plays games
Sony's may be more expensive, but if they get the price at around $150 (yeah, I'm stretching, but you never know), and if they start to offer movies, I can see myself getting one. Perfect for riding the train, flying on a long plane flight (and I don't have to pay the annoying $5 for a set of headphones), I can be sitting in the living room while my wife watches TV, my kids are playing at my feet, and I'm weeping as Aerith gets killed again. (Hey - I'm a sensitive guy!)
What will be interesting to see is what "other uses" Sony has for the PSP. Nintendo's "Connectivity" between the GBA/Gamecube has been pretty good at times (Zelda being the best, and at least the Metroid additions were worth buying both games). If Sony can play up the memory stick issue, you could have a game you could have 2 copies of - one for the road, when you get home, stick in the memory stick and play on the "big screen".
At least it's competition - and most of you know how much I like to see that happen.
First, let me preface this by saying that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
I started to worry a bit more about my health when I hit 30 a few short months ago. I've been blessed with a decent matabilism, but even a good burn rate can't help you when you sit on the ass 12 hours a day between home/work/stuff.
So here are my own tips that have kept me pretty good so far:
Eating Habits
Eat more meals a day, smaller amounts. Between 4 and 6 is good. Instead of taking that lunch break and loading up on tons of stuff that just leaves you sluggish, keep some food at your desk. And try to keep it to good stuff. A veggie platter is good with ranch dressing or something like that, maybe even a meat tray with mustards, I like sardines in mustard/tomato sauce with saltines off and on (which is why my coworkers are glad I have my own office).
My personal adage for food is that it's better to eat a bit of something that tastes good, rather than a lot of something that tastes bad. Fats and oils are not the pure enemy - as long as you do it in moderation. I think Jon what's-his-name from Good Eats had a good point back in a slashdot interview when me mentioned people don't eat fats, then they get hungry later. Good point. So veggies good, dressing with veggies good, meat good - don't just have junk food.
And I'm sorry - but loose the beer. I don't drink it myself, but that's because I think it tastes like shit. At least cut down, go lite beer - whatever. It's a lot of calories you don't need.
Exercise
Again, I have my own office, so about the chime of every hour I'll stop, do some pushups/situps, and go back. Not a lot, but just enough to get the heart pumping a bit. After work, I am again blessed to have a gym right on the campus I work at, so I can hit the treadmill for 30 minutes before I grab my stuff and go home.
If you can't do that, then do what I did at my last job - squeeze it in. Park at the farthest point you can so you have to walk into/out of work. If there's public transportation you can use, do that - if you have to drive all the way in, then park far. Believe it or not, but my last job I parked about a good block oway.
When you go to lunch, don't drive there, walk to it. You know that Jared guy? I don't think he got thin off of the Subways, it was the fact he walked back and forth from the Subway to work every day. Never, never, never use the elevator or escalators - always the stairs. Make less phone calls to co-workers if you can - get up, go walk to them.
Now, I know some people will say "But - I'm a telemarketer/I can't get up/some other excuse". Bullshit. There's always something you can do.
You don't have to change your whole lifestyle, but if your health is important and you want to be more when you're in your retirement than a rotting bag of bones, you have to make the time now. And it's not much - studies I've seen show 30 minutes a day is the rule, but it doesn't always have to be consecutive. A few minutes going up the stairs to a meeting, a little bit walking down the block to your car, maybe you buy an Eyetoy (I had a reader who loved hers - the boxing/kung fu games alone should get a good sweat) and play with that, or a Dance Dance Revolution pad for parties. And I will kill for a set of the official Sambe De Amigo maracas - not the cheap ass rip offs. Whatever.
I'm no Richard Simmons (I like women too much), and I'm no Arnold, but I've been able to stay fit enough for wild monkey sex with my wife. I could probably even cut out the treadmill if my family was down here with me just running after my son when he steals my Gameboy Advance SP.
Anyway, that's my take. These may not work for you, and I'm no expert, but hopefully these help.
I say "good". No, I probably won't use it - I can't play the WMV files, and I own an iPod anyway. Yes, I use the Apple iTunes store - and I've spent more money there than I have in years on music (though, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have gotten the Steve Martin CD for my long drive).
But this is good because of competition. I expect it will do fairly well - people will check it out and buy some stuff, some won't check "between the lines" about the CD burning and such. Will it do as well as the iTunes store? Maybe - maybe not.
But if starts making money at all, it's competition. Apple will be spurred to work faster to get iTunes for Windows out, and to work harder with other MP3 companies to include AAC codecs. Which will spur Buy to change it's licensing (or its negotiations with companies holding the music licenses), and maybe later on, all music will be burnable to your own CD. (I'm not sure how many handhelds you can put it on - my assumption is "infinite", but I haven't seen the small print - I don't run Internet Explorer). Which will perhaps prompt Apple to cut prices, maybe rise the computer amount you can license your songs on from 3 to 5.
And round and round the competition game goes.
CDBaby is about to become a front end for independent musicians (where's spell check when I need it) who want to get onto iTunes - $40 to start, then CDBaby takes 9% of the profit, the musicians get the rest.
Which, if that takes off in any way, may change some of the dynamics of the music business. Oh, hardly a lot - most people still get their music in the stores so big music companies doing the promotion/advertising/distributing will hold most of the cards, but if it changes by as much as 10%, that's huge - and could lead to better contracts for musicians. Which might make the music companies compete for more fair, balanced contracts.
And around and around goes the wheel of competition.
It's all about competition. I love that word. "Compete". Makes things better through a struggle. "Compete fairly" are better words, of course, which is why there are governments about to smack things down when they get to monopoly status, because at that point, competition is lost.
And who knows? In a year, we could have tons of online music. People will discover what contracts work and what don't, and things may change for the better.
Part of the problem, as people have mentioned, is that the screen is simply too fscking small. Too small to do really look at data (address books, etc), too small for input (stylis or not) - just too small.
It almost seems to me that we need to wait until we have an interface that can be built on the fly - say, a hologram idea.
Now, let's pretend that this actually works, and, a la Star Trek style, ignore the science: you have a flat pane of the watch that normally tells time. At the touch of a button, an interface appears over the watch that is about the same size of a standard PDA screen. It is able to sense the location of objects moving over it, so you could "touch" the images with your fingers, "scroll" through the address book, read an e-book (though you might want to move the watch for that to make it more comfortable, etc). You would have to allow the user to shift the display (so if you're driving, you can make it stay "upright" as you look into your address book before smacking into the car ahead of you because you didn't have your eyes on the road).
If you wanted to be really cool, you could let the user lay the watch flat, and "expand" the interface into a whole desktop complete with "keyboard" so they could type, use their fingers as pointer devices, etc. (We are of course pretending that the watch's electronics are so small and heat efficient they don't burn a hole in your wrist/desk to compute all of this information).
This technology I'm sure is about 15-20 years off, but I think that's what you would need to allow something that small to have an interface worth using.
Of course, this is just a "pull the idea out of my ass" concept - I could be totally wrong as to whether this would be useful or not.
In the case of Munich, as the USA article points out, it's the fact that the city is replacing desktops.
To Microsoft, this is the Kiss of Death. They really only make a huge profit off of two items:
Desktop OS - the so called "Microsoft Tax" that is the reason why when I go to dell.com (well, not that I would, I'd go here instead for my Unix needs), I can't get a $100 price discount on a new computer by having it be "naked".
Microsoft Office
Other than these two, they don't make a lot of money on other stuff. Oh, some on server licenses, but a pittance compared to Desktop OS sales and Microsoft Office. The Xbox is losing money, I haven't heard anything profitable about their cable investments, and their games division (with the exception of the Xbox) is doing decently.
But the two things that keeps them with that $35 billion in cash is Desktop OS and Office. And Munich basically said "no" to both of them, so they would have the ability to upgrade when Munich wanted, not when Microsoft wanted.
And that's been Microsoft's winning business edge for years. We'll sell you Windows 98 - and in 3 years, you'll have to get Windows 2000 if you want to be able to do stuff with your vendors, your co-workers - you'll have to put it onto your machine at home if you plan on taking work home and doing stuff there.
Munich just got off the Wheel of Upgrades. Now you wonder how many employees will feel they have to upgrade their home computers? How many employees (espeically managers) will go to the IT department and say "Hey, I got a laptop - make it so I can do the same stuff I do here in the office on the road", and they walk out with a SUSE installed machine.
There's still some things they'll have to do on the Desktop end to make things as easy to use as the Windows world, and I trust that will be part of what Suse and IBM were just paid for.
But this is a major step for Linux in business, and Linux on the desktop. And what can Microsoft do about it, other than really compete for the first time on something other than forced installation upgrades?
For the record, I don't think Microsoft is "evil", but I do think they haven't had a real challenge in business because of their predatory business practices. I think it's great they're having a real competitor. Costs will go down, products on both sides will get better, and it someday I might be able to migrate back from OS X over to Linux - once it provides the same ease of use with Unix power I get from OS X.
And competition with Microsoft is just the thing it needs to get itself there. I'm patient - I'll say another 5 to 10 years before I have what I want.
But Munich is a good start.
Oh, and this is all just my opinion - I could be wrong.
But between being wisked away while standing on Tokyo Tower to another dimension, having to get Giant Monster insurance, dealing with being either attacked or defended by pretty magical schoolgirls, and of course the nearly daily alien invasions and city-wide explosions with dueling robots - I'm just not so sure it's worth it.
We can draw analogies to specific items (such as I did, about the USSR propoganda), without generalizing the whole thing.
If I had said "Microsoft is like the Nazi party - they round up Linux users and rip out their teeth while not giving them painkiller" - that would have been innappropriate and silly.
If I had said "Microsoft is like the Nazi party - they make sure that nobody is elected except for their own, and if they can't buy them out, they push them out of existance" - that might have been a bit overkill and harsh, but it would have been no less wrong.
So - take a breath. There you go - In goes the sunshine, and Out goes the rainclouds. There - don't we feel better?
I think after all I've seen, that's the biggest point, and the biggest reason why using Windows really stuck in my craw (well, other than crashing, being less efficient than Unix, crashing, not letting me do what I wanted unlike Unix systems, etc).
It was that it usually didn't matter what you did - if Microsoft put it in your face, the people would use it.
People don't start their browser - they start the Internet. They'll tell you so - they click on the icon marked "Internet" and off they go. They don't use a document editor, they use Word, and if they use Wordperfect they'll usually say "Wordperfect", though in the back of their head they'll say "that thing I use for editing typed stuff".
Mac users (and I'm one of them - recent convert, thank you for asking) use Safari because it's there.
My fear for Google is that people will say "I'll just google that", and type in a search string into their little browser bar, and be taken right to MSN search.
Microsoft: Hey, what's the problem with that? We're not a monopoly, after all!
Me: Yes, you are. Just stop pretending otherwise, please. While there are millions who honestly don't give a flying fuck, I do. This is no different than in the old USSR when there were two telivision channels - Channel 1 was propoganda, Channel 2 was a guy telling you "Hey, go back to Channel 2. There's nothing else here."
That's the only reason why I wish OS X would come to the i386 platform.
(I'm going to pause here because I know the screams of people foaming at the mouth. "Apple will never do it! They're addicted to hardware!" "If they did, Microsoft would do to Apple what they did to BeOS and threaten computer manufacturers to never let it on their systems".
I know - it will never happen, and that's why I use the term "wish".)
Or my hopes that as more businesses turn to Linux based solutions for the business and start putting it on the desktops to save themselves hordes of money rather than paying another huge Microsoft Enterprise Licensing fee, that more businesses will start being able to say "Well, the cost of making Microsoft angry is now less than putting Dell Linux on a system - so let's do that." (Of course, that will mean that somebody will have to do for Linux what Apple did for it's BSD based subsystem - oh, and make it easier to play games on Linux than it was trying to get Quake II installed.
I'm going to pause here again for more foaming at the mouth people telling me it was easy to get Quake II running on a Red Hat system if only I remember to compile support for something somewhere. I know, I'm an idiot, I bask in your knowledge and lay be belly and bar it at you to acknowledge your greatness. Feel better? I never got Quake II to really run on Linux, so I gave up and installed it on a Windows machine. Thanks for playing.)
I'm waiting and watching the future, so we'll have to see what it does.
My point? Browsers don't matter. Office suites don't matter. OS doesn't matter. What matters is that the user can sit down and do their shit (whatever particular shit that happens to be), and not think about how they do their shit. Once that happens, businesses can just change out the parts that the users need to get the cheapest/most efficient/most effective shit making stuff.
When that day is truly, completly realized - then it will be Microsoft who is in the shit, because they'll have to truly, honestly compete. Not just put up whatever shit they want and expect me to swallow it.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
But already, there's no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks I'm going to use this.
First, I'm somebody who likes to play the games. No problem there. I even like to play the PC games (FPS belongs on the PC - why I'm waiting for Halo OS X before playing it).
But I also have a job, two kids, a wife who likes the wild monkey sex at times - and every so often, I have to travel.
So for me, I might take my PS2/Gamecube/GBA on the road (I'd take the Xbox, but it would bring my luggage over the weight limit....), or plug a game into the laptop (my Powerbook plays Max Payne and such pretty surprisingly well).
But I can't imagine paying for a mothly service for a game I don't own, can't touch for myself, maybe sell later like I would a book or a CD. (Agh - RIAA lawyers - run!) I'm odd that way - I need that sense of ownership, that I can go to my little library and just pull it out whenever I want and play, not wait for the downloads/reinstalls (since it may be years until I replay an old classic, like Deus Ex or Wasteland or Fallout - you get the drill).
The system must also require a bandwidth connection, and while I'm sure they won't download the entire game to the hard drive (which, seeing as more games (aka [sarcasm]Baldur's Gate III: 20 CD's and counting[/sarcasm]....)), they'll still have to stream it. And I have other things I can be doing with my bandwidth.
I'm not saying it's a horrible idea for everybody - just not for me. For others, I could be wrong.
Who wants a Beowulf cluster gets a bitch slapping.
Though I am thinking a really big Quake server. Weren't there some maps in Quake 2 that could support 200 people at once? That's almost enough for MMRPG work. Hm....
From what I've seen, Freenet is not about "trading files". Oh, that's a part of it, to be sure, and perhaps what it's built around.
But Freenet is about freedom of information. How many times did Clarke have to repeat that? It's a way for a person in China to be able to say to someone else "Maybe it's just me, but our government is less a socialistic ideal and more a dictatorship." It's a way for a teenager to say "I think I'm pregnant, but where I live I'll be stigmatized if I have an abortion, or even look for one - what information is there for me?" It's even a way for a programmer to say "You know, I've got this idea for a cryptography system, but some people in certain businesses might sue me if I even talk about it (whether it's legal or not) - so here's a way to present the information without getting myself in trouble."
That is what Freenet is about - not trading music, or movies, or the like. Yes, it can be used like that - the same way a car can be used to run someone over. Last time I checked, though, most people are just using their cars to get stuff Point A to Point B.
I think the gentleman from the RIAA either didn't get the point - or didn't care (and I believe the latter). In his mind, privacy is not important - though I'd agree with Mr. Clarke. Anonymous exchange of information is important in a democracy. It allows people to speak without fear of reprisal. Without it, people would be terrified to vote for fear their enemies would hunt them down and chop off their limbs. (I had a roommate who was so irritated that Clinton the first time, he wanted to go down the street and beat up people he discovered had voted for him. I was grateful for "secret ballots" at this time.
When I saw "Sinbad" I was starting to think about the comic. No wonder it would take so many Linux servers to render the man. (Yes, he's funny - but man, I wouldn't want him sitting in my lap.)
1. Since the filesystem is journaled by default, can you turn it off later for a speed increase, or is this part of Panther's necessary tweaks?
2. The searching system - does it maintain some sort of small database in the background to keep things fast, or just start off with a "find" style command?
3. Right now, you can't seem to drag documents onto the Application Icons on the left side to have them open automatically - any chance of that changing?
Otherwise, the OS is looking pretty good. I still spend most of my time in either a development tool or the command line, so I'm not that big into Finder and the like. (A good old ~/do[TAB]/pro[TAB] gets me to my ~/Documents/Projects folder quite fast enough).
But I do like the idea of when you select an icon, the entire square around it highlights. I've had too many times I've selected image files, and since OS X makes little thumbnail images of the picture the icon symbol, sometimes it's hard to tell if you've selected it or not (especially if the picture is already composed of dark shades).
And labels - I never used OS 9 before (I'm a Linux2OSX convert), so I never got the big deal. But if they're bright and noticable like that, I can see using them to color code my personal/work/Gameforms.com stuff for quick picking.
The one thing I'm curious to look into is the Xcode development program - from the preview, it looks pretty quick and useful. Think Secret doesn't cover that here, and probably won't, but the Xcode is the #1 thing I'd like to play with.
I'd also like to see the "auto-encrypt your Home directory" talked about. From a security standpoint, I'd like to know just how that works, how much processor power it takes up in the background (hm - explains why we may need a G5, ne?). I have a group of guys at the place I work at who are into Penetration Testing, and they're thinking about going OS X - and this Encrypted Home Directory system might be useful to them. (Especially if you can tell the OS what other directories other than/User/username to encrypt.)
I'm downloading now - but after trying out Netscape 7.1 for OS X, the speed is almost up there with Safari.
Jaw, meet the floor.
Well done to the Mozilla team. I'm going to play around with it for a bit and see what happens. It probably won't replace my Safari right away, but I always like trying things out and having my mind changed if its better.
So does bring new meaning to Airport Extreme? Will I now have to worry that every time I walk past a Mac user, I'm about to appear on some Internet site in my birthday suit?
Slashdot Mirror
With the names of such heavyweights as Arnold and lightweights like Gary Coleman (no pun intended - well, all right, it was), do you honestly hope to win, or are making a Ralph Nader like point in forcing certain issues and ideas into the public's eye?
On the one hand - this is not a bad idea. Who's ever sent a package for an eBay sale or to your relatives or a business - and had to make sure it was there?
So no - I don't think this is a bad idea.
As long as it is voluntary. Nobody should be forced to identify themselves in the mail. I still believe that a working democracy absolutely depends on anominity - the ability to state your opinions without worrying about government/oppressive majority/violent minority acting against you.
Would I use it? Eh - depends on what I was sending. But I believe that it is important to keep the ability to allow anonymous mailing available, and make this tracking system on "opt-in" only - not a "mandatory for all" solution.
But then again - that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
(Set to the tune of Starblazers)
We're off - to see the courts,
We're leaving sense behind,
To save, the G-N-U....
Our law blazers!
Subpeona fly like distant stars,
We will litigate way far,
Showing code that should be ours
Who knows what IP we'll find?
We must - be strong and brave!
RMS - our souls will save!
If we don't - in a few years -
Linux servers, will dissappear!
Our law blazers!
Or - ah, something like that. If nothing else, we can hope for Space Cruiser Yamato to open up the Wave Gun on SCO headquarters. I would pay money so see that.
Ah - no. I don't know who "Erhmm" is. I was writing the exact noise I made when I read that article.
First I went "Er - what?"
Then I went "Ah - why?"
Then then I went "Hm - this is stupid."
Sorry if anyone thought I was picking on somebody who just happens to have a name like my auditory exclamations.
On the one side, I can understand the Governments position:
Thou Shalt Not have Unlicensed Radio Transmitters.
This is important, because if just anybody set up shop, soon the radio waves would be a mess of people just putting stuff out, and nobody could hear the station they wanted too - just the one with the biggest pen- ah, broadcast antennae.
On the other hand, I think the range of this thing is - what - 10 to 30 feet? Watch out, Britian! Those pirate radios will be able to be heard from the other room! Anarchy and chaos as Julie tries to dance to Nsync while Dad's got his iPod broadcasting the Spice Girls in the other room! Mum - you'd best be keeping that "Black Mages" heavy metal to yourself!
This seems more like an issue of someone in beurocracy[SIC] getting a bug up their ass and not using common sense more than anything else.
And teach people HOW NOT TO SHOUT.
I'd include more, but the LAMENESS FILTER piped up.
There are some things about this that I like - the cooling systems look interesting, and as someone who's looking upgrade my old Win98 Game Box (that's about all Windows is used for with me these days), I can consider it.
But the encryption doesn't sell me, because it's really a limited use.
Assuming the machine is being used, and they is inside so you can access your data. You install an old version of Linux with an unpatched SSH client, and somebody root kits you. The encryption won't help you here - after all, the key is already used on the box so the motherboard can talk to the hard drive.
The only time encryption would be useful is when:
a) Somebody steals/appropriates the computer, and doesn't get the key. You destroy the key, and if this is a court case, you make sure there are no backups they can restore from.
b) that's about it.
I like the idea of encryption being on a laptop hard drive, and there's a USB key for it (I'm hoping the 10.3 version of OS X's user directory encryption is not just password/passphrase enabled, but lets you use a CD-Key, or something onto the Keychain file and you can be anal and put the Keychain file onto a USB key so it has to be inserted for the home directory to wirk). A laptop is more likely to be stolen and credit cards/passwords/sensitive company information (and if you're like me and work for a company who does Defense department contracts, that can be a big deal).
Otherwise, I'm not sure I fully see the "average" home use of this motherboard to protect from the RIAA finding out what files you have over the Internet, since the hard drive is already being decrypted to give that data over the network. Like I said earlier, it's only use is if the RIAA gets a court order, and you throw the key into the garbage diposal. (Which might get you held up in contempt of court or some such, and then you'll have to hope that Abit doesn't have a backup key of their own floating in their system somewhere.)
I could just be missing the point of the encryption other than a "gee whiz" feature - but that's just me.
Something I've observed between Sony and Nintendo.
Playstation 2:
Plays DVD movies
Plays Audio CDs
Plays games
Gamecube:
Plays games
There are people who think that part of the reason why the Gamecube hasn't been doing so well is that it doesn't fill multiple niches. And after a *lot* of thought - I have to agree. If you're going to pay $150 for a game system, or $199 for a game/dvd player/cd player - which will you go for? I've often told people who ask me which console is the "best" that:
Playstation 2 has the most games.
Xbox has the nicest looking games.
Gamecube has the best games.
But - that's not enough. And if you look at the PSP versus Gameboy Advance, notice an interesting trend:
PSP:
Plays games
1.8 G cartridge - could play MPEG-4 movies (more than enough space for that + subtitle/language track at MPEG-4)
Plays music (again - at 1.8 G, more than enough space)
802.11 - can play games via network, possibly Internet
Playstation 2 graphics - I'll say "Playstation 1.5", which means that we could get Final Fantasy VII on the PSP (would not surprise me as a "launch title" - that would ensure a million sales right there), or Suikoden I & II Collectors PSP game
Gameboy Advance:
Plays games
Sony's may be more expensive, but if they get the price at around $150 (yeah, I'm stretching, but you never know), and if they start to offer movies, I can see myself getting one. Perfect for riding the train, flying on a long plane flight (and I don't have to pay the annoying $5 for a set of headphones), I can be sitting in the living room while my wife watches TV, my kids are playing at my feet, and I'm weeping as Aerith gets killed again. (Hey - I'm a sensitive guy!)
What will be interesting to see is what "other uses" Sony has for the PSP. Nintendo's "Connectivity" between the GBA/Gamecube has been pretty good at times (Zelda being the best, and at least the Metroid additions were worth buying both games). If Sony can play up the memory stick issue, you could have a game you could have 2 copies of - one for the road, when you get home, stick in the memory stick and play on the "big screen".
At least it's competition - and most of you know how much I like to see that happen.
Alton Brown - damn, now I feel like a jackass. Thanks, Lish for the link - somebody with points mod this fine man up ;).
First, let me preface this by saying that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.
I started to worry a bit more about my health when I hit 30 a few short months ago. I've been blessed with a decent matabilism, but even a good burn rate can't help you when you sit on the ass 12 hours a day between home/work/stuff.
So here are my own tips that have kept me pretty good so far:
Eating Habits
Eat more meals a day, smaller amounts. Between 4 and 6 is good. Instead of taking that lunch break and loading up on tons of stuff that just leaves you sluggish, keep some food at your desk. And try to keep it to good stuff. A veggie platter is good with ranch dressing or something like that, maybe even a meat tray with mustards, I like sardines in mustard/tomato sauce with saltines off and on (which is why my coworkers are glad I have my own office).
My personal adage for food is that it's better to eat a bit of something that tastes good, rather than a lot of something that tastes bad. Fats and oils are not the pure enemy - as long as you do it in moderation. I think Jon what's-his-name from Good Eats had a good point back in a slashdot interview when me mentioned people don't eat fats, then they get hungry later. Good point. So veggies good, dressing with veggies good, meat good - don't just have junk food.
And I'm sorry - but loose the beer. I don't drink it myself, but that's because I think it tastes like shit. At least cut down, go lite beer - whatever. It's a lot of calories you don't need.
Exercise
Again, I have my own office, so about the chime of every hour I'll stop, do some pushups/situps, and go back. Not a lot, but just enough to get the heart pumping a bit. After work, I am again blessed to have a gym right on the campus I work at, so I can hit the treadmill for 30 minutes before I grab my stuff and go home.
If you can't do that, then do what I did at my last job - squeeze it in. Park at the farthest point you can so you have to walk into/out of work. If there's public transportation you can use, do that - if you have to drive all the way in, then park far. Believe it or not, but my last job I parked about a good block oway.
When you go to lunch, don't drive there, walk to it. You know that Jared guy? I don't think he got thin off of the Subways, it was the fact he walked back and forth from the Subway to work every day. Never, never, never use the elevator or escalators - always the stairs. Make less phone calls to co-workers if you can - get up, go walk to them.
Now, I know some people will say "But - I'm a telemarketer/I can't get up/some other excuse". Bullshit. There's always something you can do.
You don't have to change your whole lifestyle, but if your health is important and you want to be more when you're in your retirement than a rotting bag of bones, you have to make the time now. And it's not much - studies I've seen show 30 minutes a day is the rule, but it doesn't always have to be consecutive. A few minutes going up the stairs to a meeting, a little bit walking down the block to your car, maybe you buy an Eyetoy (I had a reader who loved hers - the boxing/kung fu games alone should get a good sweat) and play with that, or a Dance Dance Revolution pad for parties. And I will kill for a set of the official Sambe De Amigo maracas - not the cheap ass rip offs. Whatever.
I'm no Richard Simmons (I like women too much), and I'm no Arnold, but I've been able to stay fit enough for wild monkey sex with my wife. I could probably even cut out the treadmill if my family was down here with me just running after my son when he steals my Gameboy Advance SP.
Anyway, that's my take. These may not work for you, and I'm no expert, but hopefully these help.
I say "good". No, I probably won't use it - I can't play the WMV files, and I own an iPod anyway. Yes, I use the Apple iTunes store - and I've spent more money there than I have in years on music (though, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have gotten the Steve Martin CD for my long drive).
But this is good because of competition. I expect it will do fairly well - people will check it out and buy some stuff, some won't check "between the lines" about the CD burning and such. Will it do as well as the iTunes store? Maybe - maybe not.
But if starts making money at all, it's competition. Apple will be spurred to work faster to get iTunes for Windows out, and to work harder with other MP3 companies to include AAC codecs. Which will spur Buy to change it's licensing (or its negotiations with companies holding the music licenses), and maybe later on, all music will be burnable to your own CD. (I'm not sure how many handhelds you can put it on - my assumption is "infinite", but I haven't seen the small print - I don't run Internet Explorer). Which will perhaps prompt Apple to cut prices, maybe rise the computer amount you can license your songs on from 3 to 5.
And round and round the competition game goes.
CDBaby is about to become a front end for independent musicians (where's spell check when I need it) who want to get onto iTunes - $40 to start, then CDBaby takes 9% of the profit, the musicians get the rest.
Which, if that takes off in any way, may change some of the dynamics of the music business. Oh, hardly a lot - most people still get their music in the stores so big music companies doing the promotion/advertising/distributing will hold most of the cards, but if it changes by as much as 10%, that's huge - and could lead to better contracts for musicians. Which might make the music companies compete for more fair, balanced contracts.
And around and around goes the wheel of competition.
It's all about competition. I love that word. "Compete". Makes things better through a struggle. "Compete fairly" are better words, of course, which is why there are governments about to smack things down when they get to monopoly status, because at that point, competition is lost.
And who knows? In a year, we could have tons of online music. People will discover what contracts work and what don't, and things may change for the better.
Or - I could be wrong. But I hope not.
Part of the problem, as people have mentioned, is that the screen is simply too fscking small. Too small to do really look at data (address books, etc), too small for input (stylis or not) - just too small.
It almost seems to me that we need to wait until we have an interface that can be built on the fly - say, a hologram idea.
Now, let's pretend that this actually works, and, a la Star Trek style, ignore the science: you have a flat pane of the watch that normally tells time. At the touch of a button, an interface appears over the watch that is about the same size of a standard PDA screen. It is able to sense the location of objects moving over it, so you could "touch" the images with your fingers, "scroll" through the address book, read an e-book (though you might want to move the watch for that to make it more comfortable, etc). You would have to allow the user to shift the display (so if you're driving, you can make it stay "upright" as you look into your address book before smacking into the car ahead of you because you didn't have your eyes on the road).
If you wanted to be really cool, you could let the user lay the watch flat, and "expand" the interface into a whole desktop complete with "keyboard" so they could type, use their fingers as pointer devices, etc. (We are of course pretending that the watch's electronics are so small and heat efficient they don't burn a hole in your wrist/desk to compute all of this information).
This technology I'm sure is about 15-20 years off, but I think that's what you would need to allow something that small to have an interface worth using.
Of course, this is just a "pull the idea out of my ass" concept - I could be totally wrong as to whether this would be useful or not.
In the case of Munich, as the USA article points out, it's the fact that the city is replacing desktops.
To Microsoft, this is the Kiss of Death. They really only make a huge profit off of two items:
Desktop OS - the so called "Microsoft Tax" that is the reason why when I go to dell.com (well, not that I would, I'd go here instead for my Unix needs), I can't get a $100 price discount on a new computer by having it be "naked".
Microsoft Office
Other than these two, they don't make a lot of money on other stuff. Oh, some on server licenses, but a pittance compared to Desktop OS sales and Microsoft Office. The Xbox is losing money, I haven't heard anything profitable about their cable investments, and their games division (with the exception of the Xbox) is doing decently.
But the two things that keeps them with that $35 billion in cash is Desktop OS and Office. And Munich basically said "no" to both of them, so they would have the ability to upgrade when Munich wanted, not when Microsoft wanted.
And that's been Microsoft's winning business edge for years. We'll sell you Windows 98 - and in 3 years, you'll have to get Windows 2000 if you want to be able to do stuff with your vendors, your co-workers - you'll have to put it onto your machine at home if you plan on taking work home and doing stuff there.
Munich just got off the Wheel of Upgrades. Now you wonder how many employees will feel they have to upgrade their home computers? How many employees (espeically managers) will go to the IT department and say "Hey, I got a laptop - make it so I can do the same stuff I do here in the office on the road", and they walk out with a SUSE installed machine.
There's still some things they'll have to do on the Desktop end to make things as easy to use as the Windows world, and I trust that will be part of what Suse and IBM were just paid for.
But this is a major step for Linux in business, and Linux on the desktop. And what can Microsoft do about it, other than really compete for the first time on something other than forced installation upgrades?
For the record, I don't think Microsoft is "evil", but I do think they haven't had a real challenge in business because of their predatory business practices. I think it's great they're having a real competitor. Costs will go down, products on both sides will get better, and it someday I might be able to migrate back from OS X over to Linux - once it provides the same ease of use with Unix power I get from OS X.
And competition with Microsoft is just the thing it needs to get itself there. I'm patient - I'll say another 5 to 10 years before I have what I want.
But Munich is a good start.
Oh, and this is all just my opinion - I could be wrong.
But between being wisked away while standing on Tokyo Tower to another dimension, having to get Giant Monster insurance, dealing with being either attacked or defended by pretty magical schoolgirls, and of course the nearly daily alien invasions and city-wide explosions with dueling robots - I'm just not so sure it's worth it.
Then again, 12 Mbits is pretty good. Hm....
Ok - somebody's had a little too much oat bran.
Calm down. Take a breath.
We can draw analogies to specific items (such as I did, about the USSR propoganda), without generalizing the whole thing.
If I had said "Microsoft is like the Nazi party - they round up Linux users and rip out their teeth while not giving them painkiller" - that would have been innappropriate and silly.
If I had said "Microsoft is like the Nazi party - they make sure that nobody is elected except for their own, and if they can't buy them out, they push them out of existance" - that might have been a bit overkill and harsh, but it would have been no less wrong.
So - take a breath. There you go - In goes the sunshine, and Out goes the rainclouds. There - don't we feel better?
There is no browser.
I think after all I've seen, that's the biggest point, and the biggest reason why using Windows really stuck in my craw (well, other than crashing, being less efficient than Unix, crashing, not letting me do what I wanted unlike Unix systems, etc).
It was that it usually didn't matter what you did - if Microsoft put it in your face, the people would use it.
People don't start their browser - they start the Internet. They'll tell you so - they click on the icon marked "Internet" and off they go. They don't use a document editor, they use Word, and if they use Wordperfect they'll usually say "Wordperfect", though in the back of their head they'll say "that thing I use for editing typed stuff".
Mac users (and I'm one of them - recent convert, thank you for asking) use Safari because it's there.
My fear for Google is that people will say "I'll just google that", and type in a search string into their little browser bar, and be taken right to MSN search.
Microsoft: Hey, what's the problem with that? We're not a monopoly, after all!
Me: Yes, you are. Just stop pretending otherwise, please. While there are millions who honestly don't give a flying fuck, I do. This is no different than in the old USSR when there were two telivision channels - Channel 1 was propoganda, Channel 2 was a guy telling you "Hey, go back to Channel 2. There's nothing else here."
That's the only reason why I wish OS X would come to the i386 platform.
(I'm going to pause here because I know the screams of people foaming at the mouth. "Apple will never do it! They're addicted to hardware!" "If they did, Microsoft would do to Apple what they did to BeOS and threaten computer manufacturers to never let it on their systems".
I know - it will never happen, and that's why I use the term "wish".)
Or my hopes that as more businesses turn to Linux based solutions for the business and start putting it on the desktops to save themselves hordes of money rather than paying another huge Microsoft Enterprise Licensing fee, that more businesses will start being able to say "Well, the cost of making Microsoft angry is now less than putting Dell Linux on a system - so let's do that." (Of course, that will mean that somebody will have to do for Linux what Apple did for it's BSD based subsystem - oh, and make it easier to play games on Linux than it was trying to get Quake II installed.
I'm going to pause here again for more foaming at the mouth people telling me it was easy to get Quake II running on a Red Hat system if only I remember to compile support for something somewhere. I know, I'm an idiot, I bask in your knowledge and lay be belly and bar it at you to acknowledge your greatness. Feel better? I never got Quake II to really run on Linux, so I gave up and installed it on a Windows machine. Thanks for playing.)
I'm waiting and watching the future, so we'll have to see what it does.
My point? Browsers don't matter. Office suites don't matter. OS doesn't matter. What matters is that the user can sit down and do their shit (whatever particular shit that happens to be), and not think about how they do their shit. Once that happens, businesses can just change out the parts that the users need to get the cheapest/most efficient/most effective shit making stuff.
When that day is truly, completly realized - then it will be Microsoft who is in the shit, because they'll have to truly, honestly compete. Not just put up whatever shit they want and expect me to swallow it.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
But already, there's no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks I'm going to use this.
First, I'm somebody who likes to play the games. No problem there. I even like to play the PC games (FPS belongs on the PC - why I'm waiting for Halo OS X before playing it).
But I also have a job, two kids, a wife who likes the wild monkey sex at times - and every so often, I have to travel.
So for me, I might take my PS2/Gamecube/GBA on the road (I'd take the Xbox, but it would bring my luggage over the weight limit....), or plug a game into the laptop (my Powerbook plays Max Payne and such pretty surprisingly well).
But I can't imagine paying for a mothly service for a game I don't own, can't touch for myself, maybe sell later like I would a book or a CD. (Agh - RIAA lawyers - run!) I'm odd that way - I need that sense of ownership, that I can go to my little library and just pull it out whenever I want and play, not wait for the downloads/reinstalls (since it may be years until I replay an old classic, like Deus Ex or Wasteland or Fallout - you get the drill).
The system must also require a bandwidth connection, and while I'm sure they won't download the entire game to the hard drive (which, seeing as more games (aka [sarcasm]Baldur's Gate III: 20 CD's and counting[/sarcasm]....)), they'll still have to stream it. And I have other things I can be doing with my bandwidth.
I'm not saying it's a horrible idea for everybody - just not for me. For others, I could be wrong.
I wonder if they could replace them with the unsold Xboxes - I mean, once the "no mod chip needed" hack is working.
Who wants a Beowulf cluster gets a bitch slapping.
Though I am thinking a really big Quake server. Weren't there some maps in Quake 2 that could support 200 people at once? That's almost enough for MMRPG work. Hm....
From what I've seen, Freenet is not about "trading files". Oh, that's a part of it, to be sure, and perhaps what it's built around.
But Freenet is about freedom of information. How many times did Clarke have to repeat that? It's a way for a person in China to be able to say to someone else "Maybe it's just me, but our government is less a socialistic ideal and more a dictatorship." It's a way for a teenager to say "I think I'm pregnant, but where I live I'll be stigmatized if I have an abortion, or even look for one - what information is there for me?" It's even a way for a programmer to say "You know, I've got this idea for a cryptography system, but some people in certain businesses might sue me if I even talk about it (whether it's legal or not) - so here's a way to present the information without getting myself in trouble."
That is what Freenet is about - not trading music, or movies, or the like. Yes, it can be used like that - the same way a car can be used to run someone over. Last time I checked, though, most people are just using their cars to get stuff Point A to Point B.
I think the gentleman from the RIAA either didn't get the point - or didn't care (and I believe the latter). In his mind, privacy is not important - though I'd agree with Mr. Clarke. Anonymous exchange of information is important in a democracy. It allows people to speak without fear of reprisal. Without it, people would be terrified to vote for fear their enemies would hunt them down and chop off their limbs. (I had a roommate who was so irritated that Clinton the first time, he wanted to go down the street and beat up people he discovered had voted for him. I was grateful for "secret ballots" at this time.
Eh - but that's just my take. I could be wrong.
When I saw "Sinbad" I was starting to think about the comic. No wonder it would take so many Linux servers to render the man. (Yes, he's funny - but man, I wouldn't want him sitting in my lap.)
Cool - I'll check out that tip. Thank you.
1. Since the filesystem is journaled by default, can you turn it off later for a speed increase, or is this part of Panther's necessary tweaks?
/User/username to encrypt.)
2. The searching system - does it maintain some sort of small database in the background to keep things fast, or just start off with a "find" style command?
3. Right now, you can't seem to drag documents onto the Application Icons on the left side to have them open automatically - any chance of that changing?
Otherwise, the OS is looking pretty good. I still spend most of my time in either a development tool or the command line, so I'm not that big into Finder and the like. (A good old ~/do[TAB]/pro[TAB] gets me to my ~/Documents/Projects folder quite fast enough).
But I do like the idea of when you select an icon, the entire square around it highlights. I've had too many times I've selected image files, and since OS X makes little thumbnail images of the picture the icon symbol, sometimes it's hard to tell if you've selected it or not (especially if the picture is already composed of dark shades).
And labels - I never used OS 9 before (I'm a Linux2OSX convert), so I never got the big deal. But if they're bright and noticable like that, I can see using them to color code my personal/work/Gameforms.com stuff for quick picking.
The one thing I'm curious to look into is the Xcode development program - from the preview, it looks pretty quick and useful. Think Secret doesn't cover that here, and probably won't, but the Xcode is the #1 thing I'd like to play with.
I'd also like to see the "auto-encrypt your Home directory" talked about. From a security standpoint, I'd like to know just how that works, how much processor power it takes up in the background (hm - explains why we may need a G5, ne?). I have a group of guys at the place I work at who are into Penetration Testing, and they're thinking about going OS X - and this Encrypted Home Directory system might be useful to them. (Especially if you can tell the OS what other directories other than
I have to agree with the speed.
I'm downloading now - but after trying out Netscape 7.1 for OS X, the speed is almost up there with Safari.
Jaw, meet the floor.
Well done to the Mozilla team. I'm going to play around with it for a bit and see what happens. It probably won't replace my Safari right away, but I always like trying things out and having my mind changed if its better.
So does bring new meaning to Airport Extreme? Will I now have to worry that every time I walk past a Mac user, I'm about to appear on some Internet site in my birthday suit?