Difference between "Theme" and "Message
on
Altered Carbon
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· Score: 5, Interesting
These issues are all raised subtly, this is no sermonizing sociology text masquerading as a novel.
goodness.
There are few things as annoying as reading a book with a friggin' message, which is usually what I feel like I'm getting with a Micheal Crichton (watch out - genetics can be bad! Uh - oh - beware time travel in the wrong hands! Whoops!).
Now, I can deal with a theme, like what you get from watching a Miyazaki flick like "Spirited Away".
I've often felt that most technology (notice the word "most", not "all" - the jury is still out on the usefulness of gas chambers and "Boong-Ga Boong-Ga") is neither good or evil - it's all in how its used.
Like in this case. Is it wrong to download your personality into a computer or another body so you can live "forever"? Depends on the circumstances, and it looks like the author is letting humanity's response to it play out what's good and bad about it, and where it can be used and abused.
Anyway, sounds like an interesting book - I think I've seen it on PeanutPress.com, so maybe I'll have something else to read since I finished with Potter the day it came out;).
Here's a question out there with all these "small, cheap machines" being talked about.
I'd like to get a small computer that I'd only use once a month on Gameday with my friends. All I really care about is that it has a good enough processor for playing Medal of Honor/1942/Warcraft III/etc.
All I really give a crap about is the AGP slot - I figure I stick 512 MB of RAM, have a "decent" processor, and 50% of the cost is the ATI/Nvidia "cool slick 128 MB piece of hot stuff" inside.
Who's got an answer for a gamer on the move and on the cheap?
I agree with you - which I why I added Rule 3. Not every employee can get by with a Celery 500. Not every employee can use OpenOffice alone - so you have to be flexible, and sometimes say "Yup - we do need spend the money - deal with it."
I think part of the problem is there's too many "gimme because it's cool!" going on. I've seen upper managers do it so they get the coolest new laptop, just because somebody else just happened to get one. After a bit of that, people start looking at any IT expenditure as another "expensive toy" that needs to be reviewed to infinity. (Which drove me crazy as the CEO could get a new $3500 laptop, but I couldn't spend $2500 on a new server, and the latter would effect more than 1 person. I never did get a good explanation....)
Over time, and working with places that (frankly) spent far too much fscking money on useless crap, I've boiled down IT to three things:
1. We provide access to data to those who need it. 2. We deny access to data to those who do not need it. 3. We increase the efficiency of access to the data in compliance with rules 1 and 2.
That's it. Now, I'm not saying computers shouldn't be used for entertainment, etc - but in the workplace, those are the 3 things that IT should be focusing on.
When I recieved requests for "Well, we need a bigger computer here!", I bring up the three rules above. Does it increase access to the data that much better? Would another alternative work?
It's not about being "cheap" - sometimes you have to spend money to do things. But an IT staff should be going out to their customers (aka - the business they work for) and saying "All right, what do you need access to. What do you do in your day? Do you fill out the same data over and over again? What can we automate for you so you're spending more time on things the computer can be dealing with? Is there a way to give you better access to your information without compromising security?"
The more you involve users (and their managers) in the Three Rules of IT, the more they come to see IT as an asset - not just an expenditure.
In the end, I consider IT to be the janitors of data. They don't make the crap - but if they weren't there to keep it neat and clean and organized, the business would go to shit in a real hurry.
That's just my view - I know, I could be wrong about it. But it's served me pretty well.
I can't see this as being anything as a "good thing".
Used to be, the reason why you bought Netware was to do thse these things:
1. File Server. 2. Print Server. 3. Administration of 1 and 2.
For a long time, Novell had the best of 1 and 2 - and with their directory services, they weren't matched. I loved using Novell's admin tools. They were usually easy enough to get in and do what you want, and powerful enough to do all sorts of other things. You could set up rights, trickle them down or stop trickling, take care of email stuff - right there in one nice interface. Sure, it wasn't perfect - but compared to the compeition....
The problem came with Linux, and people realized "Hm - do I need to spend this much for a file/print server?" They web server offerings in my humble opinion stank, and I never really liked Groupwise that much. It could do a lot of cool things, but other simple things that I would have expected were beyond it's grasp.
So I see this as a Very Good Thing for Novell. In a way, they can be like Apple, only for the Server world on Linux. Apple's OS X's strength is that you can do all the cool Unix stuff you want - without having to do anything Unix-y to get it to work. You can crawl under the hood if you like or just sit at the dashboard.
I'm browsing through the Novell offering, and here's what I'm hoping for:
1. A kick-ass admin tool like thier old NWAdmin.exe tool. Start making plugins for things like Sendmail, Postfix, Apache - whatever. Go ahead and charge for the plugins so we can just sit back and go "click, click, click" and get stuff done rather that going "Hey - what was the setting in Apache for turning on directory indexing!" (Yes, I know what it is, thank you, move on.) Sure - there's stuff like Webmin that can do this, but Novell's Admin tool was still (IMHO) cooler. And with drag and drop, the directory style layout, and being able to click on a user and get all info right there would be most excellent.
Make it Java based so I don't have to run it off of Windows. (What the hell was up with that, anyway? I could never figure out why Novell couldn't make an Admin tool for their servers that didn't run on Windows - granted, the last Novell I really used was Netware 5, so don't sue me if things have changed.)
2. You can have multiple Linux servers out there, and instead of trying to figure out your LDAP settings and that, just install the software, start the admin, and say "These Directory users have these rights on this box on this directory" - click, click, click - you're done, have a nice day. This was something promised with eDirectory, but I'd like to see it really hardcore delivered.
With this, merge the strength of Linux's "no license fee" with Novell's admin/directory tools. I want to have a server I can throw 5, 500, 50000 users on and not worry about licensing - and I just pay Novell for the user interface and tools. I can even see paying Novell like their mass server license - I pay for how many concurrent users I have on the system, unlimited servers. (So, for example, I can have 500 servers out there, and if I only need a 5 user license, I just pay Novell once for 5 users to administrate the boxes.)
I think if Novell plays their cards right and goes for the "administrate, authenticate, and authorize" bit for Linux services, they can work with Linux to make a lot of money, and make Linux so Admin Friendly as to keep pushing that other desktop/server OS out of the market.
Of course, I could be wrong. But... isn't it nice to dream....
Well, my membranes have been delicate for years, but that hasn't stopped me from taking them on the road. I just remind to protect them the same way I protect my floppies from viruses: wrap them in plastic.
At least - not yet. I just don't have a reason too.
Specs look great. The only thing that might change my mind is a port of these 4 very, very important productivity applications:
Half-Life 2 - used to train new employees in how to survive a natural accident. Doom III - used to train marines how to survive an unnatural accident. Deus Ex II - used to inform people on the use of nanotechnology. Thief III - a history lesson on how Victorian England might have evolved if magic was real and steam-driven robots worked.
Obviously, these very important production apps would require the power that the P970 can bring. (Oh, I'm sure they'd run on my current G4 867/Geforce 4 MX, but who wants to take a chance?)
Personally, I have no problem checking out Kate Winslett naked in "Titantic" - it was probably the only good part of the movie for me.
But if somebody else wants to buy the movie and edit it to remove those parts, that should be their right as owners of their own property.
This case goes to the issue of what do you own. Do you own the DVD and the movie contents inside, to modify as you please? If that is the case, if you purchase a full version of the movie, the artist/producer/copyright holders all get their money, are you not allowed to then take it to some other third party to edit out scenes you don't like? Or if you are a third party dealer, can you buy the movie, edit it, and sell the edited versions with the same profit going back to the original copyright holders (for example, you include the original DVD, and for an extra $5 - $10 dollars you can get the PG version as a separate disk that says "Edited by John's Prude Company".
What if you want to make dance remixes of a song? Can you buy the CD, take it into a professional DJ, and have him give you a CD with the music you bought with the various other remixed music inside?
So while the issue is rather silly - (Oh, No! A Utah Mormon might see a breast or hear the F-Word! Runnnn!), the central idea of ownership is far from it.
Of course, (as Dennis Miller was oft to say), I could be wrong.
Who had a Microsoft rep in the office proposing the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.
So my friend said "All right - let's have a test. I'm going to have Google look for this search string that deals with Microsoft technical information - and I'll have the Microsoft technical page do the same thing. And we'll see who has the most accurate and fastest results."
"But - but that's not a fair contest!" the Microsoft rep told him.
"No," my friend said, "It's not, because Google just returned the results for its entire current storage of the Internet, and the Micorosft Technet search engine is...still looking."
Should Google be worried? Naturally - always be paranoid about competition. The best thing it can do is keep going to businesses and say "What do you need to look up?" and figure out how to make their system work for them. "You want to search emails super fast? You have tons of documents you need to search through?"
To be honest, Microsoft has not succeeded very well outside the operating systems - look at handhelds, cable access - MSNBC is doing all right, but I attribute that to the NBC rather than the MS part of it.
Google has a lot of brand name, it has proven, cheap, realiable technology that is getting better. As long as they keep that edge, keep pushing the envelope, keep talking to businesses/consumers and find out what they want and deliver on it, MS will be left with YAMSP (Yet Another Money Sucking Project).
Of course, I could be wrong. But based on my Safari and Mozilla browser searching Google and my non-Geek wife actually using the words "I'll just Google that later", I'm not too worried.
OK, after thinking about it, here's my take on the thing.
1. There is a part of me that likes the idea of "If you don't comply with the Open Standards, then part of your profit from your sale will go to finance a community that will." As it says, it levels the playing field. What would happen if the Open Office folks suddenly had $5 million to hire programmers and work on making Open Office better? How long until everybody supported XML based document formats that were all truly interchangable?
2. The big issue. Who the hell gets to decide on what the "Open Standard" we like is? Oh, sure, everybody's got documents/spreadsheets in XML - but suppose we decide that some display feature available in one Open Source Office system is the "standard Open Document" and the other isn't? I've seen companies all the time declare they follow "Open" standards - when they control it lock, stock and barrel. (It's Open because you can bitch about it in public.)
3. I don't mind seeing Government Money go into research grants that can then be used to finannce open source projects to fulfill XYZ needs, and the code/research being put under the GPL so everybody can use it (we're not going into a "Governments should GPL everything/no, they should BSD everything here - it's an example, thank you, move on").
4. If they truly want to penalize a business for using proprietary standards, stop buying their stuff. You'll be amazed how quickly a business goes from "Well, we need to do everything under Novell eDirectory because Government Office XYZ does it" to "Well, Government Office ABC says 'no more proprietary', and they've stated LDAP is the standard now - so code to that." Trickle down from there - the companies that support government follow it, so the companies that support those companies follow it, and on down the line.
So while the idea does make me go "Oh, yet - take money from the rich and give to the poor", I think there's better ways of going about it than "All your base [code] are belong to use!"
That is just sick and wrong - thanks for the info, AC. I'll make a note of that to tell people - even if it says "Compact Disc" on it, make sure it has the logo. And watch out for Radiohead outside of the US.
(Though I don't think I've ever listened to their music. Time for an iTunes Store check;) ).
If technology firms like Sony and Microsoft have their way, songs and movies will expire after a single play -- unless you pay the copyright holder their due.
I did - when I bought the friggin' CD!
I know - after all, everybody who uses MP3's and their iPod stole the music, right? Everybody who clicks the little "Rip" button on their computer to store their music CD collection so they can listen to any song, when they want, only got it from some Gnutella site, correct? Any movie in DiVX format isn't there so you can have a media player storing backups of your movies onto your computer so you can watch them when you want and keep your DVD's shiny and new for all time - no, you must be planning on letting the rest of the world download the movies illegally.
OK. I'm calm. My personal response has been simple: don't buy things in this format. Tell others about the format and what to watch out for (like "Does it have the official CD logo on it?"). When I talk to government officials, telling them "You know, if somebody wants to make a self-destructing DVD/unrippable CD - more power to them, that's they're right. But they damn well better be putting a logo on their product that says so in advance so I can choose to reward or punish them with my own buying power."
Yeah, I use the iTunes store - sure, it has DRM, but doesn't go outrageously overboard, because at least it gets the idea that I buy the music, I own it - so if I want to burn it to CD or transfer it to 2 different iPods so my wife and I can listen to our music in the car, that's my right to do so.
But did "rental" music services ever get my dime? Nope - and see what's happening to them. I predict they'll be gone in another 5 years (except for the last holdouts sponsored by major corporations who won't see the light of day - like how the Minidisk finally exited stage left for 99% of the music consumers, the 3DO vanished, and like the original DIVX standard did).
If technology firms like Sony and Microsoft have their way, songs and movies will expire after a single play -- unless you pay the copyright holder their due.
Yeah - spin another one, folks. Try, try again until you buy the clue.
I think the big issue in question is all "future sales of AIX". That's the kicker - if IBM can't make new sales of the product, that will be as damaging to their reputation and product line as anything else out there.
That is, of course, unless a judge does something like this:
Judge: So, um, SCO, you're claiming IBM stole your code, right?
SCO: Yes, and we will defend our intellectual property to the ends of the earth, to the moon and back, to the universe -
Judge: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, can we see this source code?
SCO: Um, well, if we showed it to you, you might steal it as well.
Judge: Huh?
SCO: You're in it too - we know it! How much did IBM pay you to betray us?
Judge: Are you on drugs? I just want to see the supposed code theft -
SCO: Master betrayed us! No - Judge is our friend! Nobody's our friend!
My biggest worry isn't the "Nyah - so we'll show you our stuff as required by law but charge so much for it - nyah", but the way they've gone back to buying/threatening anybody who might compete with them.
Take the whole Virtual PC thing. I switch from Linux to OS X on the desktop, and get all excited about Virtual PC - now for those few Windows Apps I *need* to run (like Sharkport for my PS2, Ultima VII in DOS mode - you know, the important stuff), I can have that.
Then - Microsoft buys Connectix. OK, I say. Then RealPC announces "We're comin' back - and better!" I see light at the end of the tunnel. If RealPC can do its "direct hardware technology" right, I could even play Half-Life I (and hope that HL2 gets ported to OS X) in a Virtual Window (yes, I'm sure I'd have to grab more RAM, but it's the *potential* of the idea).
Nope - MS is sueing them now too.
That's the part that worries me - the buyiing/sueing of companies who even *look* like they might do something that MS wants (remember how they tried to buy Quicken, and at least that one was nixed?). At least during the DOJ trial they *tried* to act nice - but now that it's over, it back to the Bad Old Days of either buying somebody out, locking them out, or sueing them into oblivion.
Patience, I tell myself. Someday, maybe 50 years from now when MS is just another fair player in the market, this will all be looked backed upon and laughed, like Standard Oil and AT&T. Patience.
I think Verisign is suddenly realizing that "Oh - you mean we, as the people who hold onto the domain names, actually have a responsibility to protect our clients against fraud? I mean - what's up with that? Do you go after a bank if somebody writes a whole lot of checks in your name and only offers them a social security card as ID but no picture identification?
"What? You do? Well, that's just UnAmerican - if businesses are held up to a standard of laws - what? They usually are? Well, shit on me! Who knew!
"Obviously, this means the end of the Internet, then. Who ever took responsibility for what happened on the Internet?" [/tongue_in_cheek]
1. That the 970's are being produced, but so far, there's still small numbers, so either only folks at the Developer's Conference will first crack, or you'll have to wait for a bit of time before you can actually get your hands on one (kind of like when the 12" and 17" first started shipping).
2. The major OS Upgrade to 64 bits will happen in a few more months - either way, I expect that OS 10.3 will cost another $50 - $100 (depending on how they do it).
3. The G3 iBook line will be slowly phased out, and replaced with G4 based systems.
4. Dual processor systems by Christmas or so.
5. iTunes for Windows sooner than we thought.
6. Somewhere in this timeframe, new Xserves will start to appear with the 970 chip and the 64-bit server operating system (which should be interesting for folks running "big ass" database/graphical rendering farms.
So either way, I'd say we'll "see" the devices, a few "first adopters" will play with them, pass judgement, Ars Techana [SIC] will write a big ass article on them, and "everybody else" will pick them up later.
Hopefully somebody can convince Valve that Half Life 2 would really run rather nicely on these boxes so I don't have to spend money upgrading my old Wintel Game Box.
I'm a bit of both. I like to watch anime from time to time, so I'll go to Netflix, select the stuff I've heard about and want to watch. Then I watch it, decide if I like it, and mail it back for the next one.
Most local video stores don't have that selection, or they don't have that one arty-fartsy film I actually care about seeing "someday".
Local for the new "ultra hot" stuff or just looking for something to watch with my wife, Netflix for the stuff I already know I'd like to see "someday".
The reason why I've used Netflix (well, until recently, but that's because I've moved and don't know where I'm going end up for a bit) is so check out some anime, watch it, and return it, rather than spending $20 a pop.
I'd be surprised if Walmart went out of their way to stock titles like that - though, with their buying power, I might be surprised.
Either way, I likes compitition - because then I win.
It's the lack of a standard that I think the real problem is.
A few years back, I remember the rumors of a standard Windows Scripting Language that would be to Windows 9x systems what bat was to DOS. (I haven't power used Windows in years except to run games on, so forgive my ignorance.)
But the biggest issue with this would be what language? Do you make it uber simple like bat, which could do some interesting scripting things but no real programs? Do you let people actually make up some "interpreted language" programs (like BASIC) so they can do some things, then deal with the headaches from users messing up their systems (or, worse, the viruses that would span if the language actually let you do "stuff" with it - Windows has enough problems with Office macros running amuck in the world without adding more headache).
And what kind of language? Visual Basic is still around, but I don't know of any serious programmers who really use it hard core - it's more for very small, internal apps (yes, there are visual basic apps out there, but last I checked, nobody's programming Doom III in Visual Basic, move on). So would you build it in C, C++, C#, Java, Perl, Python, Pascal - as soon as you do, there's another group of people (even inside the company making this "Basic scripting language") who have thier own near religious ferver regarding how it should work.
Odds are, it's just easier to go out, get yourself the Java SDK and notepad/Cygwin and Perl/Python, and go from there.
Oh, and you can get a keyboard for the Gamecube. I'm not sure if they're selling in the US yet, but they're mainly used for Phantasy Star Online addicts. (Though I would not mind a "Typing of the Dead II" - that game kicked ass.)
I was responding to the "Why you may have to switch to FreeBSD instead of Linux because of SCO" the original poster was intimating, not the "OS X is better then FreeBSD - nyah!" that I think you were picking up on.
I can't pull it off the top of my head, but I noticed an album (classical music, I believe) with 5 tracks on it for $4.95 or some such.
There are also quite a bit more. Getting Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen is around $80 for the whole damn thing, and earlier I picked up Handel: L'allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderato for $29.95.
I've started to force myself *not* to log into the iTunes store - I keep eyes the Domingo/Sara Brightman/Bochelli music and my credit card starts to smolder.
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There are few things as annoying as reading a book with a friggin' message, which is usually what I feel like I'm getting with a Micheal Crichton (watch out - genetics can be bad! Uh - oh - beware time travel in the wrong hands! Whoops!).
Now, I can deal with a theme, like what you get from watching a Miyazaki flick like "Spirited Away".
I've often felt that most technology (notice the word "most", not "all" - the jury is still out on the usefulness of gas chambers and "Boong-Ga Boong-Ga") is neither good or evil - it's all in how its used.
Like in this case. Is it wrong to download your personality into a computer or another body so you can live "forever"? Depends on the circumstances, and it looks like the author is letting humanity's response to it play out what's good and bad about it, and where it can be used and abused.
Anyway, sounds like an interesting book - I think I've seen it on PeanutPress.com, so maybe I'll have something else to read since I finished with Potter the day it came out
Here's a question out there with all these "small, cheap machines" being talked about.
I'd like to get a small computer that I'd only use once a month on Gameday with my friends. All I really care about is that it has a good enough processor for playing Medal of Honor/1942/Warcraft III/etc.
All I really give a crap about is the AGP slot - I figure I stick 512 MB of RAM, have a "decent" processor, and 50% of the cost is the ATI/Nvidia "cool slick 128 MB piece of hot stuff" inside.
Who's got an answer for a gamer on the move and on the cheap?
I agree with you - which I why I added Rule 3. Not every employee can get by with a Celery 500. Not every employee can use OpenOffice alone - so you have to be flexible, and sometimes say "Yup - we do need spend the money - deal with it."
I think part of the problem is there's too many "gimme because it's cool!" going on. I've seen upper managers do it so they get the coolest new laptop, just because somebody else just happened to get one. After a bit of that, people start looking at any IT expenditure as another "expensive toy" that needs to be reviewed to infinity. (Which drove me crazy as the CEO could get a new $3500 laptop, but I couldn't spend $2500 on a new server, and the latter would effect more than 1 person. I never did get a good explanation....)
Over time, and working with places that (frankly) spent far too much fscking money on useless crap, I've boiled down IT to three things:
1. We provide access to data to those who need it.
2. We deny access to data to those who do not need it.
3. We increase the efficiency of access to the data in compliance with rules 1 and 2.
That's it. Now, I'm not saying computers shouldn't be used for entertainment, etc - but in the workplace, those are the 3 things that IT should be focusing on.
When I recieved requests for "Well, we need a bigger computer here!", I bring up the three rules above. Does it increase access to the data that much better? Would another alternative work?
It's not about being "cheap" - sometimes you have to spend money to do things. But an IT staff should be going out to their customers (aka - the business they work for) and saying "All right, what do you need access to. What do you do in your day? Do you fill out the same data over and over again? What can we automate for you so you're spending more time on things the computer can be dealing with? Is there a way to give you better access to your information without compromising security?"
The more you involve users (and their managers) in the Three Rules of IT, the more they come to see IT as an asset - not just an expenditure.
In the end, I consider IT to be the janitors of data. They don't make the crap - but if they weren't there to keep it neat and clean and organized, the business would go to shit in a real hurry.
That's just my view - I know, I could be wrong about it. But it's served me pretty well.
I can't see this as being anything as a "good thing".
Used to be, the reason why you bought Netware was to do thse these things:
1. File Server.
2. Print Server.
3. Administration of 1 and 2.
For a long time, Novell had the best of 1 and 2 - and with their directory services, they weren't matched. I loved using Novell's admin tools. They were usually easy enough to get in and do what you want, and powerful enough to do all sorts of other things. You could set up rights, trickle them down or stop trickling, take care of email stuff - right there in one nice interface. Sure, it wasn't perfect - but compared to the compeition....
The problem came with Linux, and people realized "Hm - do I need to spend this much for a file/print server?" They web server offerings in my humble opinion stank, and I never really liked Groupwise that much. It could do a lot of cool things, but other simple things that I would have expected were beyond it's grasp.
So I see this as a Very Good Thing for Novell. In a way, they can be like Apple, only for the Server world on Linux. Apple's OS X's strength is that you can do all the cool Unix stuff you want - without having to do anything Unix-y to get it to work. You can crawl under the hood if you like or just sit at the dashboard.
I'm browsing through the Novell offering, and here's what I'm hoping for:
1. A kick-ass admin tool like thier old NWAdmin.exe tool. Start making plugins for things like Sendmail, Postfix, Apache - whatever. Go ahead and charge for the plugins so we can just sit back and go "click, click, click" and get stuff done rather that going "Hey - what was the setting in Apache for turning on directory indexing!" (Yes, I know what it is, thank you, move on.) Sure - there's stuff like Webmin that can do this, but Novell's Admin tool was still (IMHO) cooler. And with drag and drop, the directory style layout, and being able to click on a user and get all info right there would be most excellent.
Make it Java based so I don't have to run it off of Windows. (What the hell was up with that, anyway? I could never figure out why Novell couldn't make an Admin tool for their servers that didn't run on Windows - granted, the last Novell I really used was Netware 5, so don't sue me if things have changed.)
2. You can have multiple Linux servers out there, and instead of trying to figure out your LDAP settings and that, just install the software, start the admin, and say "These Directory users have these rights on this box on this directory" - click, click, click - you're done, have a nice day. This was something promised with eDirectory, but I'd like to see it really hardcore delivered.
With this, merge the strength of Linux's "no license fee" with Novell's admin/directory tools. I want to have a server I can throw 5, 500, 50000 users on and not worry about licensing - and I just pay Novell for the user interface and tools. I can even see paying Novell like their mass server license - I pay for how many concurrent users I have on the system, unlimited servers. (So, for example, I can have 500 servers out there, and if I only need a 5 user license, I just pay Novell once for 5 users to administrate the boxes.)
I think if Novell plays their cards right and goes for the "administrate, authenticate, and authorize" bit for Linux services, they can work with Linux to make a lot of money, and make Linux so Admin Friendly as to keep pushing that other desktop/server OS out of the market.
Of course, I could be wrong. But... isn't it nice to dream....
Well, my membranes have been delicate for years, but that hasn't stopped me from taking them on the road. I just remind to protect them the same way I protect my floppies from viruses: wrap them in plastic.
At least - not yet. I just don't have a reason too.
Specs look great. The only thing that might change my mind is a port of these 4 very, very important productivity applications:
Half-Life 2 - used to train new employees in how to survive a natural accident.
Doom III - used to train marines how to survive an unnatural accident.
Deus Ex II - used to inform people on the use of nanotechnology.
Thief III - a history lesson on how Victorian England might have evolved if magic was real and steam-driven robots worked.
Obviously, these very important production apps would require the power that the P970 can bring. (Oh, I'm sure they'd run on my current G4 867/Geforce 4 MX, but who wants to take a chance?)
To the contrary, this is very important.
Personally, I have no problem checking out Kate Winslett naked in "Titantic" - it was probably the only good part of the movie for me.
But if somebody else wants to buy the movie and edit it to remove those parts, that should be their right as owners of their own property.
This case goes to the issue of what do you own. Do you own the DVD and the movie contents inside, to modify as you please? If that is the case, if you purchase a full version of the movie, the artist/producer/copyright holders all get their money, are you not allowed to then take it to some other third party to edit out scenes you don't like? Or if you are a third party dealer, can you buy the movie, edit it, and sell the edited versions with the same profit going back to the original copyright holders (for example, you include the original DVD, and for an extra $5 - $10 dollars you can get the PG version as a separate disk that says "Edited by John's Prude Company".
What if you want to make dance remixes of a song? Can you buy the CD, take it into a professional DJ, and have him give you a CD with the music you bought with the various other remixed music inside?
So while the issue is rather silly - (Oh, No! A Utah Mormon might see a breast or hear the F-Word! Runnnn!), the central idea of ownership is far from it.
Of course, (as Dennis Miller was oft to say), I could be wrong.
Who had a Microsoft rep in the office proposing the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.
So my friend said "All right - let's have a test. I'm going to have Google look for this search string that deals with Microsoft technical information - and I'll have the Microsoft technical page do the same thing. And we'll see who has the most accurate and fastest results."
"But - but that's not a fair contest!" the Microsoft rep told him.
"No," my friend said, "It's not, because Google just returned the results for its entire current storage of the Internet, and the Micorosft Technet search engine is...still looking."
Should Google be worried? Naturally - always be paranoid about competition. The best thing it can do is keep going to businesses and say "What do you need to look up?" and figure out how to make their system work for them. "You want to search emails super fast? You have tons of documents you need to search through?"
To be honest, Microsoft has not succeeded very well outside the operating systems - look at handhelds, cable access - MSNBC is doing all right, but I attribute that to the NBC rather than the MS part of it.
Google has a lot of brand name, it has proven, cheap, realiable technology that is getting better. As long as they keep that edge, keep pushing the envelope, keep talking to businesses/consumers and find out what they want and deliver on it, MS will be left with YAMSP (Yet Another Money Sucking Project).
Of course, I could be wrong. But based on my Safari and Mozilla browser searching Google and my non-Geek wife actually using the words "I'll just Google that later", I'm not too worried.
OK, after thinking about it, here's my take on the thing.
1. There is a part of me that likes the idea of "If you don't comply with the Open Standards, then part of your profit from your sale will go to finance a community that will." As it says, it levels the playing field. What would happen if the Open Office folks suddenly had $5 million to hire programmers and work on making Open Office better? How long until everybody supported XML based document formats that were all truly interchangable?
2. The big issue. Who the hell gets to decide on what the "Open Standard" we like is? Oh, sure, everybody's got documents/spreadsheets in XML - but suppose we decide that some display feature available in one Open Source Office system is the "standard Open Document" and the other isn't? I've seen companies all the time declare they follow "Open" standards - when they control it lock, stock and barrel. (It's Open because you can bitch about it in public.)
3. I don't mind seeing Government Money go into research grants that can then be used to finannce open source projects to fulfill XYZ needs, and the code/research being put under the GPL so everybody can use it (we're not going into a "Governments should GPL everything/no, they should BSD everything here - it's an example, thank you, move on").
4. If they truly want to penalize a business for using proprietary standards, stop buying their stuff. You'll be amazed how quickly a business goes from "Well, we need to do everything under Novell eDirectory because Government Office XYZ does it" to "Well, Government Office ABC says 'no more proprietary', and they've stated LDAP is the standard now - so code to that." Trickle down from there - the companies that support government follow it, so the companies that support those companies follow it, and on down the line.
So while the idea does make me go "Oh, yet - take money from the rich and give to the poor", I think there's better ways of going about it than "All your base [code] are belong to use!"
That is just sick and wrong - thanks for the info, AC. I'll make a note of that to tell people - even if it says "Compact Disc" on it, make sure it has the logo. And watch out for Radiohead outside of the US.
;) ).
(Though I don't think I've ever listened to their music. Time for an iTunes Store check
I did - when I bought the friggin' CD!
I know - after all, everybody who uses MP3's and their iPod stole the music, right? Everybody who clicks the little "Rip" button on their computer to store their music CD collection so they can listen to any song, when they want, only got it from some Gnutella site, correct? Any movie in DiVX format isn't there so you can have a media player storing backups of your movies onto your computer so you can watch them when you want and keep your DVD's shiny and new for all time - no, you must be planning on letting the rest of the world download the movies illegally.
OK. I'm calm. My personal response has been simple: don't buy things in this format. Tell others about the format and what to watch out for (like "Does it have the official CD logo on it?"). When I talk to government officials, telling them "You know, if somebody wants to make a self-destructing DVD/unrippable CD - more power to them, that's they're right. But they damn well better be putting a logo on their product that says so in advance so I can choose to reward or punish them with my own buying power."
Yeah, I use the iTunes store - sure, it has DRM, but doesn't go outrageously overboard, because at least it gets the idea that I buy the music, I own it - so if I want to burn it to CD or transfer it to 2 different iPods so my wife and I can listen to our music in the car, that's my right to do so.
But did "rental" music services ever get my dime? Nope - and see what's happening to them. I predict they'll be gone in another 5 years (except for the last holdouts sponsored by major corporations who won't see the light of day - like how the Minidisk finally exited stage left for 99% of the music consumers, the 3DO vanished, and like the original DIVX standard did).
Yeah - spin another one, folks. Try, try again until you buy the clue.
My apologies - you are right, I am wrong.
If that's the case, that has to be the ballsiest thing I've heard since I tried to make out with my girlfriend with her parents in the room next door.
I think the big issue in question is all "future sales of AIX". That's the kicker - if IBM can't make new sales of the product, that will be as damaging to their reputation and product line as anything else out there.
That is, of course, unless a judge does something like this:
Judge: So, um, SCO, you're claiming IBM stole your code, right?
SCO: Yes, and we will defend our intellectual property to the ends of the earth, to the moon and back, to the universe -
Judge: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, can we see this source code?
SCO: Um, well, if we showed it to you, you might steal it as well.
Judge: Huh?
SCO: You're in it too - we know it! How much did IBM pay you to betray us?
Judge: Are you on drugs? I just want to see the supposed code theft -
SCO: Master betrayed us! No - Judge is our friend! Nobody's our friend!
Judge: Case dismissed.
Microsoft: But - but we licensed the code.
SCO: (Holding legal documents.) Our presssssciousssss....
My biggest worry isn't the "Nyah - so we'll show you our stuff as required by law but charge so much for it - nyah", but the way they've gone back to buying/threatening anybody who might compete with them.
Take the whole Virtual PC thing. I switch from Linux to OS X on the desktop, and get all excited about Virtual PC - now for those few Windows Apps I *need* to run (like Sharkport for my PS2, Ultima VII in DOS mode - you know, the important stuff), I can have that.
Then - Microsoft buys Connectix. OK, I say. Then RealPC announces "We're comin' back - and better!" I see light at the end of the tunnel. If RealPC can do its "direct hardware technology" right, I could even play Half-Life I (and hope that HL2 gets ported to OS X) in a Virtual Window (yes, I'm sure I'd have to grab more RAM, but it's the *potential* of the idea).
Nope - MS is sueing them now too.
That's the part that worries me - the buyiing/sueing of companies who even *look* like they might do something that MS wants (remember how they tried to buy Quicken, and at least that one was nixed?). At least during the DOJ trial they *tried* to act nice - but now that it's over, it back to the Bad Old Days of either buying somebody out, locking them out, or sueing them into oblivion.
Patience, I tell myself. Someday, maybe 50 years from now when MS is just another fair player in the market, this will all be looked backed upon and laughed, like Standard Oil and AT&T. Patience.
[tongue_in_cheek]
I think Verisign is suddenly realizing that "Oh - you mean we, as the people who hold onto the domain names, actually have a responsibility to protect our clients against fraud? I mean - what's up with that? Do you go after a bank if somebody writes a whole lot of checks in your name and only offers them a social security card as ID but no picture identification?
"What? You do? Well, that's just UnAmerican - if businesses are held up to a standard of laws - what? They usually are? Well, shit on me! Who knew!
"Obviously, this means the end of the Internet, then. Who ever took responsibility for what happened on the Internet?"
[/tongue_in_cheek]
1. That the 970's are being produced, but so far, there's still small numbers, so either only folks at the Developer's Conference will first crack, or you'll have to wait for a bit of time before you can actually get your hands on one (kind of like when the 12" and 17" first started shipping).
2. The major OS Upgrade to 64 bits will happen in a few more months - either way, I expect that OS 10.3 will cost another $50 - $100 (depending on how they do it).
3. The G3 iBook line will be slowly phased out, and replaced with G4 based systems.
4. Dual processor systems by Christmas or so.
5. iTunes for Windows sooner than we thought.
6. Somewhere in this timeframe, new Xserves will start to appear with the 970 chip and the 64-bit server operating system (which should be interesting for folks running "big ass" database/graphical rendering farms.
So either way, I'd say we'll "see" the devices, a few "first adopters" will play with them, pass judgement, Ars Techana [SIC] will write a big ass article on them, and "everybody else" will pick them up later.
Hopefully somebody can convince Valve that Half Life 2 would really run rather nicely on these boxes so I don't have to spend money upgrading my old Wintel Game Box.
So what do I do with my other hand when I'm surfing the Internet?
Oh - wait. Um, nevermind.
I'm a bit of both. I like to watch anime from time to time, so I'll go to Netflix, select the stuff I've heard about and want to watch. Then I watch it, decide if I like it, and mail it back for the next one.
Most local video stores don't have that selection, or they don't have that one arty-fartsy film I actually care about seeing "someday".
Local for the new "ultra hot" stuff or just looking for something to watch with my wife, Netflix for the stuff I already know I'd like to see "someday".
That was part of my thinking.
The reason why I've used Netflix (well, until recently, but that's because I've moved and don't know where I'm going end up for a bit) is so check out some anime, watch it, and return it, rather than spending $20 a pop.
I'd be surprised if Walmart went out of their way to stock titles like that - though, with their buying power, I might be surprised.
Either way, I likes compitition - because then I win.
It's the lack of a standard that I think the real problem is.
A few years back, I remember the rumors of a standard Windows Scripting Language that would be to Windows 9x systems what bat was to DOS. (I haven't power used Windows in years except to run games on, so forgive my ignorance.)
But the biggest issue with this would be what language? Do you make it uber simple like bat, which could do some interesting scripting things but no real programs? Do you let people actually make up some "interpreted language" programs (like BASIC) so they can do some things, then deal with the headaches from users messing up their systems (or, worse, the viruses that would span if the language actually let you do "stuff" with it - Windows has enough problems with Office macros running amuck in the world without adding more headache).
And what kind of language? Visual Basic is still around, but I don't know of any serious programmers who really use it hard core - it's more for very small, internal apps (yes, there are visual basic apps out there, but last I checked, nobody's programming Doom III in Visual Basic, move on). So would you build it in C, C++, C#, Java, Perl, Python, Pascal - as soon as you do, there's another group of people (even inside the company making this "Basic scripting language") who have thier own near religious ferver regarding how it should work.
Odds are, it's just easier to go out, get yourself the Java SDK and notepad/Cygwin and Perl/Python, and go from there.
Oh, and you can get a keyboard for the Gamecube. I'm not sure if they're selling in the US yet, but they're mainly used for Phantasy Star Online addicts. (Though I would not mind a "Typing of the Dead II" - that game kicked ass.)
And if the 970 rumors are right, if they but wait another 30-180 days (depending on who's rumors you believe), they'll be in the perfect position.
Coincidence that Quark is out now, rather than a month ago/two months from now? Oh, probably. But you still wonder....
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I was responding to the "Why you may have to switch to FreeBSD instead of Linux because of SCO" the original poster was intimating, not the "OS X is better then FreeBSD - nyah!" that I think you were picking up on.
Well, I just got another reason for using OS X then....
I can't pull it off the top of my head, but I noticed an album (classical music, I believe) with 5 tracks on it for $4.95 or some such.
There are also quite a bit more. Getting Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen is around $80 for the whole damn thing, and earlier I picked up Handel: L'allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderato for $29.95.
I've started to force myself *not* to log into the iTunes store - I keep eyes the Domingo/Sara Brightman/Bochelli music and my credit card starts to smolder.