Moving to Canada looks better and better every day...
Unfortunately, I hear that they don't want us. Can't say that I blame them...they probably don't want a huge influx of apathy moving north to ruin THEIR government, too...
(Not intended as flamebait...just a lament on the apparent state of the 'sheeple' of the US [as opposed to those of us in the US who actually DO care...])
Wonder what it would take to get rid of the Electoral College?
...not to mention any other Bad Laws(tm) that might be in danger of being "pushed" on the rest of the world by US Government, inc.
This kind of thing DOES affect the rest of the world, although indirectly at first. I sincerely, and with some embarassment at our government here in the US, hope the rest of the world can help us.
Get involved with your respective governments, and make sure THEY understand what's going on. Make sure they don't implement similar laws. Further, encourage them to put pressure on US Government, inc., to stop restricting YOUR rights to legally purchase and use goods (such as DVD's) from the US. For example, New Zealand, I hear, has outlawed the "region encoding" of DVD's. Can we get more countries to do the same? If enough countries ignore region encoding, the reason for having it becomes moot.
I'm thoroughly saddened and disgusted to even feel compelled to post a message like this, but as too much of the US apparently doesn't care about it's rights, my only hope seems to be that the rest of the world cares about THEIR rights...
I was under the impression that Libertarians favor a very small government, and this means more of a hands-off role with business.
Yes, particularly things like "Don't support the giving of special legal rights to corporations" and "Don't throw wads of taxpayer cash at already-wealthy corporations" and so on.
Believe it or not, it often seems to me that government involvement in business is usually to the benefit of Big Business. For example, the DMCA seems most certainly to be a misuse of government power to support Big Business to me. If the government hadn't gotten involved with business by creating the DMCA, I'd have been much happier.
And, finally, and sadly, The US Government is in essence (and perhaps literally as well) one of the biggest corporations in the world! Do you REALLY believe that taking power away from the second, third, fourth (etc.) largest corporations...and then giving all of that power to the largest US corporation (the Federal Government) would be a good thing????
In my opinion, the US Government is already a gigantic bludgeon used to beat down "little people" (and smaller businesses). I am not the least bit comfortable with having it get any bigger.
Is there any advantage in playing around with PHP?
This part I think I can safely say "yes" to. I've not played with mod_perl specifically, but having done some work with both PERL and PHP (caveat: I'm nowhere near an "expert" with either one!), PHP seems to have a better 'feel' (subjectively) working with web-interface stuff than PERL does, though it (PHP) seems fairly similar to PERL in style and syntax.
Mind you, I'd definitely put myself in the "advanced beginner" ("Beginning intermediate?") category as a coder in PERL or PHP, so more experienced coders may have a different view.
(On yet another hand - to any fellow amateurs reading these posts: PHP definitely seems less complex than PERL [which obviously means it's a bit more limited, too] but has a similar style, so it might make a good adjunct to PERL studies...)
Any more experienced coders out there agree? Or am I nucking futs?
Under IP law if we don't PROTECT our IP, we loose any remedies under law to PROTECT our IP.
Other than the spelling error, ('lose' is spelled with one 'o'), this is a fact that we in the open-source/'geek hobbyist' community understand all too well - and protecting our IP is exactly what we are doing here.
Specifically, we are fighting an intense battle to protect our rights to develop and maintain our own intellects. We do this, in part, by studying how things work, and finding novel new uses for them. This often does involve reverse-engineering, which, as has been pointed out many times, is still generally considered a real legal right...even in many parts of the United States, despite what some people seem to think.
You (Digital Convergence inc.) have added yourself to the sadly growing list of corporate bullies who have been working hard to infringe on our rights to our own intellects (occasionally while insulting them at the same time) by trying to besiege us with laywers, and undermine us with lobbyists.
"Any professional and serious developer will understand the following:" (as you say)
Since we cannot afford a platoon of lawyers and lobbyists to defend our intellectual rights for us, we have to do it ourselves. Many of us choose to maintain these rights be using them. For example, generous developers have exercised their intellects to develop a means to play DVD's on Linux, BSD, and, presumably, BeOS, OS/2, (and who knows what other operating systems), not 'steal DVD movies' (for which purpose there are far simpler means - e.g. 'bit for bit' copying), but to develop and maintain their own intellects and skills, and to maintain their right to make fair use of property that they have legally aquired, and then they've released the results of their research so that others can gain practical knowledge from them as well. Others have devised file-sharing protocols (e.g. 'napster', freenet, etc.), studied file formats, and so on, for similar reasons. They and the results of their experiments and research are a valuable intellectual asset to us.
So, to reiterate, I think I can safely say that we will continue to defend OUR intellectual property rights vigorously from knee-jerk reactions like this, as it is the best means we have to counter the lawyers, lobbyists, and money that you have to attack those rights with.
Should you and corporations with similar outlooks come to your collective senses, I'm confident you will find that a more friendly and rational relationship with generous open-source developers and hobbyists will profit you greatly.
Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, or distribute the:CueCat reader.
Just one catch - I never agreed to any license. I never even SAW any license. I merely walked into Radio Shack and asked for a barcode reader, which was then handed to me along with a catalog.
If I put a "license agreement" up in the form of posters stapled to local telephone poles, should I be allowed to sue anyone who breaks it somewhere else in the country?
Mp3Board Sues AOL, which may (God forbid!) own Time/Warner soon
Don't you see?
They've invented Peer-To-Peer Lawsuits!
Now all we need for poetic justice is some good anti-silly-lawsuit legislation, and perhaps we can get a class-action-suit going against Congress for creating this lawsuit-sharing technology...
They kill two birds with one stone with just one rumour; firstly they scare off any potential OfficeApp competition
Yup. There goes StarOffice, KOffice, and Corel.
This is EXACTLY what happened to the KDE project when all of the talk about big-name backers of Gnome came up. They just folded up and disappeared. I sure miss them...:-)
But seriously - There's some merit to the argument, but I think MS Office ('MS IntelliActiveDirectDancingPaperclip 2000'?) has far less 'real' hold than you give it credit for. What I tend to see is that people who aren't using Linux already ASSUME that because there's no MS Office for Linux, there must be nothing. As Linux adoption picks up on the desktop, and people start getting computers pre-installed with StarOffice or KOffice or whatever, the stranglehold the MS Office sometimes seems to have on the market will fade away, I think.
It already is - but at least now they won't have to 'dual-boot'...
The real fun is in watching Linux Jihaders as they see thier perfect OS become just another commodity in the mass market ocean.
Bah.
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Windows Media Player for Linux. Not because I actually LIKE it, but for two reasons:
I'll be able to get stuff off of those obnoxious sites that only offer Quicktime or Windows Media files
Once it's available for Linux coders to use, somebody's BOUND to get disgusted with it, reverse-engineer it, and create a free alternative at some point
That's how I see it, anyway. Having an already-existing version of a program doesn't seem to discourage anyone from writing their own anyway if they think their way is better (and as a result, for example, we now have XMMS and Freeamp [and kmp3 and....] to choose from.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Oh, yes, and could you please do something about your.sig? I don't know why, but it makes my jaw hurt...
(From the interview) Ralph is also hacking on MNG over Ogg
Does this mean potential for cartoon "Music Videos" and or other animation with Ogg Vorbis?
If OGG can keep sound and cartoon video synchronized better than Flash (which, at least on Linux, seems prone to getting out of sync), I'm definitely interested. I imagine "content authoring" tools for "Mng over Ogg" would end up more readily available and less expensive than ones for Flash.
Obviously, as someone who's always been jealous of people who have the skills and talents to do animation, I'd LOVE to get some inexpensive, open tools to play with.
Or am I getting my hopes up too quickly and/or misinterpreting this comment?
The "tabbed widgets" in question are the little separated 'toolboxes' with multiple menus in them, that the software user 'tabs' through to get to different sets of options, right?
While, admittedly, I can't think of any specific examples being used, this does strike me as a pretty obvious (potentially) "nifty feature" that can be implemented on a web page with frames and forms. Not to mention Java applets, and who knows what else.
Perhaps adobe would like to file a preemptive lawsuit against W3C for participating in generating a standard that allows patent infringement.
"Obviously" current versions of HTML and Java, while they have some, isolated, legitimate use, are just tools designed to promote illegal patent infringement. (Hey, that same basic argument was enough to get Napster AND 2600 Magazine into court on two separate trials...)
Or, better still, perhaps a class-action lawsuit against software companies who hold software patents. While some of these patents have some isolated legitimate uses, they are OBVIOUSLY primarily tools to facilitate illegal harassment of others with lawsuits.
Of course, this assumes that it's still illegal anywhere to harass with lawsuits. People who have the money to do this sort of thing also have a lot of money to buy politicians and lobbyists with.
does that mean that those of us who download Linux (and the license) are excluded from their cacluation?
Yes, it does.
I've been wanting to see, somewhere, a good estimate of how many actual users of Linux, *BSD, *nix, Windows, MacOS, etc. there are. I figure Linux users must have passed the number of MacOS users by now, for example, considering that probably at least "more than half" of Linux installations weren't "shipped" as Linux machines, but as either Windows machines or assembled from parts (as every one of the Linux boxes I've built are) and therefore CAN'T be included as "shipments" or in "revenue".
Hey, now there's a new poll topic for Slashdot:
How many installations of Linux, on average, do you get out of one Linux CD?
1
2
3-5
5-10
11-25
26-50
Too many to count
Hey, what about BSD?
I have cable/DSL, so I just download a new one every time
"There are three kinds of people in the world...
Those who can count, and those who can't."
Wasn't this the same guy that, some time ago, had the "I managed to scrounge up one disgruntled employee somewhere who says Linux sucks, therefore it does" article?
1 - Spam should be outlawed, while source code is speech
There's a HUGE difference between "being allowed to say something" and "being forced to hear someone say something." Even freakish neo-nazi extremists have the right to SAY whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they have the right to stand outside my window and make ME listen to them saying it. Spam amounts to forcing, tricking,or otherwise causing someone to see an advertisement that they may not have wanted to.
2 - Music is just bits, and should not afforded any protection, yet again, source code is a constitutional right.
The fact that this attitude isn't really hypocritical either is less cut-and-dried than the first one, but here goes: In the case of both the music and the source code here, the 'right' being claimed is that "I have it, and I should be allowed to look at it as closely as I want, all the way down to source code". Since the 'bits' in the case of music amounts to the 'source code' of the mp3/ogg file, I see nothing hypocritical about this at all.
..Ah, but what about fiddling with those genes post-conception?
It's WAY easier to modify the genes of a single cell than to get an entire mass of cells to accept the same modification.
The "genetic therapy" trials that that have gone on involve getting just enough cells to accept and express the gene (two separate problems, both siginificant) to produce some substance or other that the body lacks. Theoretically, then, you could design extra genes to make, say, growth hormone (that don't respond as well to the signals that normally turn off production when the 'normal' level of the hormone is reached) - but then you have to deal with the variable amount of the gene that will be expressed - will the baby be essentially normal, or a severe acromegaly victim?
No, I think 'whole body' genetic therapies will ALWAYS be limited to "getting the body to make just enough of a substance that is completely missing from it to keep the host from suffering severe disease". Cosmetically (as another poster mentioned), you could do things like increase melanin production (or, conversely, produce 'antisense' RNA that inhibits melanin production), but then again, it'd still be hard to keep from getting a "mottled" effect. (Plus, if the government funded any of the research, we might have to listen to Al Gore telling us he invented black people:-) )
Now, vat-grown tailored ORGANS, on the other hand, make an interesting possibility. There you might run into some mild abuses - imagine a tailored liver that produces extra alcohol dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, to be used as a replacement liver for a chronic alcoholic. Then again, though, there's the issue of expense. Insurance may cover the liver replacement surgery, but probably not the premium cost of a "special order" liver.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the usual panicky arguments about parents getting together at a clinic to meet with a genetics specialist to start their own private Master Race(tm) are completely silly.
While this type of clinical treatment, when it finally becomes available (if ever) will be a legitimate and wonderful thing for, say, couples with infertility problems or severe heritable genetic disorders who want to have children, I just do not see how:
Making an appointment
Listening to a specialist drone on for a couple of hours (at $100+/hour) to give advice and recommendations
Making and appointment for the actual procedure
(The Male) Going behind a curtain with a cup
Making another appointment to come back in a week after the sample has been subjected to whatever genetic adjustment processes are available
(The Female) Getting up on a cold table so that strangers in lab coats can, uh, put things in you
Making ANOTHER appointment to see if the insemination 'took'
Repeating the last four steps if it didn't
Paying Wads of Cash for each step of the way
Will EVER replace the more traditional method:
In.
Out.
Repeat as necessary.
Which is much less expensive and lots more fun for the couple. Joe Sixpack is dead!
I got the impression that the worry wasn't so much that our idiots in the US Gov't (regardless of political party, my cynical opinion is that nearly all of them are money-and-power-grubbing bastards who really don't care about the rest of us, except as tools and sources of tax income) might decide to pry into/intefere with internet traffic to the extent that it makes enough of the rest of the world nervous enough to try to find ways to route amongst themselves without packets going to/from/through the US.
Mind you, I don't know that this kind of "internet boycott" is any more feasible or likely than "shutting off" the internet, but it's something to think about.
It occurs to me that, whatever whining and crying the MPAA and RIAA engage in, legal precedent should already exist to "protect" the new DivX video encoding.
Fundamentally, I see no difference between making a cassette copy of a legally owned CD (or making MP3's from it, for that matter) to listen to in my car (or on my computer), and making a DivX copy of my VHS or DVD movie to watch on my computer.
Is there any reason this wouldn't apply? Is there any legitimate claim the MPAA can make to render DivX illegal? (I worry about that these things, since these days we have "law sieges" instead of lawsuits. The plaintiff gathers an army of lawyers and PR personnel marches against the defendant, who has to close up the metaphorical gates and wait it out with what lawyers and PR personnel they can. Whoever can keep the money going to their troops the longest wins [usually]. Scary.) Joe Sixpack is dead!
"Basically we're using technology to give copyright owners a secure way to use viral distribution without losing copyright protection," said Bales.
(Emphasis added).
"Hey, cool! It looks like AppleSoup is hosting a porno movie! Something called 'ILoveYou'...."
"Oh, man. I don't feel so good. I think I just caught a bad case of Battlefield Earth from that unprotected contact with AppleSoup..."
The possibilities are limitless! And the irony of modern pop-crap spreading unstoppably like a metaphorical disease is just too much... Incidentally, does the name "AppleSoup" imply that all of the video will be in Quicktime only?....
Oh what, Windows only, you say? Cough. I don't pay money to reboot.
Diablo II seems to be high on the list of games that Linux users want to see ported, and that Loki wants to port. I'd certainly buy this game if it were ported to Linux. Heck, I'm still trying (off and on) to get the original Diablo to run under WINE. Anybody heard any juicy rumors about possible ports?
If an organization devoted to parody is non-profit, why shouldn't they be allowed to have a.org?
Did PETA even at least ASK "hey, could you at least put a link on your main page that says 'if you're looking for 'People for Ethical Treatment of Animals' instead, click here'"?
HOW the heck do we wrest control of the world back from the litigious boogerheads that seem to be running it now??????
On a side note, I've been told that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution aren't ordinary 'amendments' - they were already on the Constitution when it was ratified by the states - and therefore if it can be proved that any of those amendments have been removed or repealed (including, obviously, that pesky 'freedom of speech' one), that the union is dissolved. Anybody know if this is true?
Obviously, it's time to run out and register whitehouse.gov.com, senate.gov.org, house.gov.org, and uscourts.gov.com...
This is the most disturbing precedent I've seen in the last...oh...day or so (in a long string of a few years of disturbing precedents).
I find myself feeling more and more frustrated at trying to come up with something to DO about where we're going, and the handbasket we're going there in...
``We injected olive oil into the brains of rats and found we could facilitate GAP-43 phosphorylation,'' he said. ``In dietary studies, corn oil was especially useful in facilitating memory.'
Researcher:"Okay, hold still, I'm going to inject olive oil into your head."
Human Subject:"OUCH! That hurt! And it made my brain feel all squishy! I don't want to be in this experiment any more!"
This is at least one thing that the antitrust case should prevent. Windows, Inc. will not be allowed to bundle Microsoft applications (such as Microsoft Messenger) as part of the operating system...
I don't see why Microsoft OS inc. couldn't, however, license the 'amazing' new 'IntelliActiveDirectMessageX' application from 'Microsoft Apps, inc.', and then include it anyway.
Quite simply, I think it'll take proliferation of an open standard/protocol to fix any monopolization of this 'market', just as with so many others.
I'll have to concur with the assessment of Konquerer...for the moment.
It IS still a bit flaky. However, it is mostly useable, it seems to render pages as fast or faster than the last Mozilla that I tried, and it's pretty darn amazing for something that seemed to sort of appear out of nowhere (at least, to those of us not involved in development) and rapidly reach the point where it is about as usable as the several-year-old Mozilla project. At this rate, I'll hopefully be able to switch entirely from netscape/communicator to Konquerer/KMail Real Soon Now.
Oh, and slightly off-topic: ..difficult to master for Joe sixpack developer..
ARGH! To the hell of his choice with "Joe Sixpack"! I certainly wouldn't want to use any software developed by this mythical figure, who, it is said, still hasn't figured out things like the "any" key, how to accomplish anything that isn't an icon on his Windows 98SE 'desktop', how to program his VCR, or even what he's voting for!
I'll take software developed by "Dexter Tapedglasses" over "Joe Sixpack" any day! Joe Sixpack is dead!
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, I hear that they don't want us. Can't say that I blame them...they probably don't want a huge influx of apathy moving north to ruin THEIR government, too...
(Not intended as flamebait...just a lament on the apparent state of the 'sheeple' of the US [as opposed to those of us in the US who actually DO care...])
Wonder what it would take to get rid of the Electoral College?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
...not to mention any other Bad Laws(tm) that might be in danger of being "pushed" on the rest of the world by US Government, inc.
This kind of thing DOES affect the rest of the world, although indirectly at first. I sincerely, and with some embarassment at our government here in the US, hope the rest of the world can help us.
Get involved with your respective governments, and make sure THEY understand what's going on. Make sure they don't implement similar laws. Further, encourage them to put pressure on US Government, inc., to stop restricting YOUR rights to legally purchase and use goods (such as DVD's) from the US. For example, New Zealand, I hear, has outlawed the "region encoding" of DVD's. Can we get more countries to do the same? If enough countries ignore region encoding, the reason for having it becomes moot.
I'm thoroughly saddened and disgusted to even feel compelled to post a message like this, but as too much of the US apparently doesn't care about it's rights, my only hope seems to be that the rest of the world cares about THEIR rights...
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Yes, particularly things like "Don't support the giving of special legal rights to corporations" and "Don't throw wads of taxpayer cash at already-wealthy corporations" and so on.
Believe it or not, it often seems to me that government involvement in business is usually to the benefit of Big Business. For example, the DMCA seems most certainly to be a misuse of government power to support Big Business to me. If the government hadn't gotten involved with business by creating the DMCA, I'd have been much happier.
And, finally, and sadly, The US Government is in essence (and perhaps literally as well) one of the biggest corporations in the world! Do you REALLY believe that taking power away from the second, third, fourth (etc.) largest corporations...and then giving all of that power to the largest US corporation (the Federal Government) would be a good thing???? In my opinion, the US Government is already a gigantic bludgeon used to beat down "little people" (and smaller businesses). I am not the least bit comfortable with having it get any bigger.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
This part I think I can safely say "yes" to. I've not played with mod_perl specifically, but having done some work with both PERL and PHP (caveat: I'm nowhere near an "expert" with either one!), PHP seems to have a better 'feel' (subjectively) working with web-interface stuff than PERL does, though it (PHP) seems fairly similar to PERL in style and syntax.
Mind you, I'd definitely put myself in the "advanced beginner" ("Beginning intermediate?") category as a coder in PERL or PHP, so more experienced coders may have a different view.
(On yet another hand - to any fellow amateurs reading these posts: PHP definitely seems less complex than PERL [which obviously means it's a bit more limited, too] but has a similar style, so it might make a good adjunct to PERL studies...)
Any more experienced coders out there agree? Or am I nucking futs?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Other than the spelling error, ('lose' is spelled with one 'o'), this is a fact that we in the open-source/'geek hobbyist' community understand all too well - and protecting our IP is exactly what we are doing here.
Specifically, we are fighting an intense battle to protect our rights to develop and maintain our own intellects. We do this, in part, by studying how things work, and finding novel new uses for them. This often does involve reverse-engineering, which, as has been pointed out many times, is still generally considered a real legal right...even in many parts of the United States, despite what some people seem to think.
You (Digital Convergence inc.) have added yourself to the sadly growing list of corporate bullies who have been working hard to infringe on our rights to our own intellects (occasionally while insulting them at the same time) by trying to besiege us with laywers, and undermine us with lobbyists.
"Any professional and serious developer will understand the following:" (as you say)
Since we cannot afford a platoon of lawyers and lobbyists to defend our intellectual rights for us, we have to do it ourselves. Many of us choose to maintain these rights be using them. For example, generous developers have exercised their intellects to develop a means to play DVD's on Linux, BSD, and, presumably, BeOS, OS/2, (and who knows what other operating systems), not 'steal DVD movies' (for which purpose there are far simpler means - e.g. 'bit for bit' copying), but to develop and maintain their own intellects and skills, and to maintain their right to make fair use of property that they have legally aquired, and then they've released the results of their research so that others can gain practical knowledge from them as well. Others have devised file-sharing protocols (e.g. 'napster', freenet, etc.), studied file formats, and so on, for similar reasons. They and the results of their experiments and research are a valuable intellectual asset to us.
So, to reiterate, I think I can safely say that we will continue to defend OUR intellectual property rights vigorously from knee-jerk reactions like this, as it is the best means we have to counter the lawyers, lobbyists, and money that you have to attack those rights with.
Should you and corporations with similar outlooks come to your collective senses, I'm confident you will find that a more friendly and rational relationship with generous open-source developers and hobbyists will profit you greatly.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Just one catch - I never agreed to any license. I never even SAW any license. I merely walked into Radio Shack and asked for a barcode reader, which was then handed to me along with a catalog.
If I put a "license agreement" up in the form of posters stapled to local telephone poles, should I be allowed to sue anyone who breaks it somewhere else in the country?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
No, I'm serious - look at it this way:
- RIAA (including Time/Warner) Sues Mp3Board
- Mp3Board Sues AOL, which may (God forbid!) own Time/Warner soon
Don't you see?They've invented Peer-To-Peer Lawsuits!
Now all we need for poetic justice is some good anti-silly-lawsuit legislation, and perhaps we can get a class-action-suit going against Congress for creating this lawsuit-sharing technology...
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Yup. There goes StarOffice, KOffice, and Corel. :-)
This is EXACTLY what happened to the KDE project when all of the talk about big-name backers of Gnome came up. They just folded up and disappeared. I sure miss them...
But seriously - There's some merit to the argument, but I think MS Office ('MS IntelliActiveDirectDancingPaperclip 2000'?) has far less 'real' hold than you give it credit for. What I tend to see is that people who aren't using Linux already ASSUME that because there's no MS Office for Linux, there must be nothing. As Linux adoption picks up on the desktop, and people start getting computers pre-installed with StarOffice or KOffice or whatever, the stranglehold the MS Office sometimes seems to have on the market will fade away, I think.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
It already is - but at least now they won't have to 'dual-boot'...
The real fun is in watching Linux Jihaders as they see thier perfect OS become just another commodity in the mass market ocean.
Bah.
Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Windows Media Player for Linux. Not because I actually LIKE it, but for two reasons:
- I'll be able to get stuff off of those obnoxious sites that only offer Quicktime or Windows Media files
- Once it's available for Linux coders to use, somebody's BOUND to get disgusted with it, reverse-engineer it, and create a free alternative at some point
That's how I see it, anyway. Having an already-existing version of a program doesn't seem to discourage anyone from writing their own anyway if they think their way is better (and as a result, for example, we now have XMMS and Freeamp [and kmp3 and....] to choose from.Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! .sig? I don't know why, but it makes my jaw hurt...
Oh, yes, and could you please do something about your
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Ralph is also hacking on MNG over Ogg
Does this mean potential for cartoon "Music Videos" and or other animation with Ogg Vorbis?
If OGG can keep sound and cartoon video synchronized better than Flash (which, at least on Linux, seems prone to getting out of sync), I'm definitely interested. I imagine "content authoring" tools for "Mng over Ogg" would end up more readily available and less expensive than ones for Flash.
Obviously, as someone who's always been jealous of people who have the skills and talents to do animation, I'd LOVE to get some inexpensive, open tools to play with.
Or am I getting my hopes up too quickly and/or misinterpreting this comment?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Let me see if I understand the situation here...
The "tabbed widgets" in question are the little separated 'toolboxes' with multiple menus in them, that the software user 'tabs' through to get to different sets of options, right?
While, admittedly, I can't think of any specific examples being used, this does strike me as a pretty obvious (potentially) "nifty feature" that can be implemented on a web page with frames and forms. Not to mention Java applets, and who knows what else.
Perhaps adobe would like to file a preemptive lawsuit against W3C for participating in generating a standard that allows patent infringement.
"Obviously" current versions of HTML and Java, while they have some, isolated, legitimate use, are just tools designed to promote illegal patent infringement. (Hey, that same basic argument was enough to get Napster AND 2600 Magazine into court on two separate trials...)
Or, better still, perhaps a class-action lawsuit against software companies who hold software patents. While some of these patents have some isolated legitimate uses, they are OBVIOUSLY primarily tools to facilitate illegal harassment of others with lawsuits.
Of course, this assumes that it's still illegal anywhere to harass with lawsuits. People who have the money to do this sort of thing also have a lot of money to buy politicians and lobbyists with.
(Me? Cynical? Whatever gave you that idea?)
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Yes, it does.
I've been wanting to see, somewhere, a good estimate of how many actual users of Linux, *BSD, *nix, Windows, MacOS, etc. there are.
I figure Linux users must have passed the number of MacOS users by now, for example, considering that probably at least "more than half" of Linux installations weren't "shipped" as Linux machines, but as either Windows machines or assembled from parts (as every one of the Linux boxes I've built are) and therefore CAN'T be included as "shipments" or in "revenue".
Hey, now there's a new poll topic for Slashdot:
How many installations of Linux, on average, do you get out of one Linux CD?
- 1
- 2
- 3-5
- 5-10
- 11-25
- 26-50
- Too many to count
- Hey, what about BSD?
- I have cable/DSL, so I just download a new one every time
- Duh....
Hey, just a thought....Joe Sixpack is dead!
Those who can count, and those who can't."
Wasn't this the same guy that, some time ago, had the "I managed to scrounge up one disgruntled employee somewhere who says Linux sucks, therefore it does" article?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
1 - Spam should be outlawed, while source code is speech
There's a HUGE difference between "being allowed to say something" and "being forced to hear someone say something."
Even freakish neo-nazi extremists have the right to SAY whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they have the right to stand outside my window and make ME listen to them saying it. Spam amounts to forcing, tricking,or otherwise causing someone to see an advertisement that they may not have wanted to.
2 - Music is just bits, and should not afforded any protection, yet again, source code is a constitutional right.
The fact that this attitude isn't really hypocritical either is less cut-and-dried than the first one, but here goes:
In the case of both the music and the source code here, the 'right' being claimed is that "I have it, and I should be allowed to look at it as closely as I want, all the way down to source code". Since the 'bits' in the case of music amounts to the 'source code' of the mp3/ogg file, I see nothing hypocritical about this at all.
But, then, that's just me.
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It's WAY easier to modify the genes of a single cell than to get an entire mass of cells to accept the same modification.
The "genetic therapy" trials that that have gone on involve getting just enough cells to accept and express the gene (two separate problems, both siginificant) to produce some substance or other that the body lacks. Theoretically, then, you could design extra genes to make, say, growth hormone (that don't respond as well to the signals that normally turn off production when the 'normal' level of the hormone is reached) - but then you have to deal with the variable amount of the gene that will be expressed - will the baby be essentially normal, or a severe acromegaly victim?
No, I think 'whole body' genetic therapies will ALWAYS be limited to "getting the body to make just enough of a substance that is completely missing from it to keep the host from suffering severe disease". Cosmetically (as another poster mentioned), you could do things like increase melanin production (or, conversely, produce 'antisense' RNA that inhibits melanin production), but then again, it'd still be hard to keep from getting a "mottled" effect. (Plus, if the government funded any of the research, we might have to listen to Al Gore telling us he invented black people :-) )
Now, vat-grown tailored ORGANS, on the other hand, make an interesting possibility. There you might run into some mild abuses - imagine a tailored liver that produces extra alcohol dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, to be used as a replacement liver for a chronic alcoholic. Then again, though, there's the issue of expense. Insurance may cover the liver replacement surgery, but probably not the premium cost of a "special order" liver.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the usual panicky arguments about parents getting together at a clinic to meet with a genetics specialist to start their own private Master Race(tm) are completely silly.
While this type of clinical treatment, when it finally becomes available (if ever) will be a legitimate and wonderful thing for, say, couples with infertility problems or severe heritable genetic disorders who want to have children, I just do not see how:
Will EVER replace the more traditional method:
- In.
- Out.
- Repeat as necessary.
Which is much less expensive and lots more fun for the couple.Joe Sixpack is dead!
I got the impression that the worry wasn't so much that our idiots in the US Gov't (regardless of political party, my cynical opinion is that nearly all of them are money-and-power-grubbing bastards who really don't care about the rest of us, except as tools and sources of tax income) might decide to pry into/intefere with internet traffic to the extent that it makes enough of the rest of the world nervous enough to try to find ways to route amongst themselves without packets going to/from/through the US.
Mind you, I don't know that this kind of "internet boycott" is any more feasible or likely than "shutting off" the internet, but it's something to think about.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Fundamentally, I see no difference between making a cassette copy of a legally owned CD (or making MP3's from it, for that matter) to listen to in my car (or on my computer), and making a DivX copy of my VHS or DVD movie to watch on my computer.
Is there any reason this wouldn't apply? Is there any legitimate claim the MPAA can make to render DivX illegal? (I worry about that these things, since these days we have "law sieges" instead of lawsuits. The plaintiff gathers an army of lawyers and PR personnel marches against the defendant, who has to close up the metaphorical gates and wait it out with what lawyers and PR personnel they can. Whoever can keep the money going to their troops the longest wins [usually]. Scary.)
Joe Sixpack is dead!
"Basically we're using technology to give copyright owners a secure way to use viral distribution without losing copyright protection," said Bales.
(Emphasis added)."Hey, cool! It looks like AppleSoup is hosting a porno movie! Something called 'ILoveYou'...."
"Oh, man. I don't feel so good. I think I just caught a bad case of Battlefield Earth from that unprotected contact with AppleSoup..."
The possibilities are limitless! And the irony of modern pop-crap spreading unstoppably like a metaphorical disease is just too much...
Incidentally, does the name "AppleSoup" imply that all of the video will be in Quicktime only?....
Joe Sixpack is dead!
Diablo II seems to be high on the list of games that Linux users want to see ported, and that Loki wants to port. I'd certainly buy this game if it were ported to Linux. Heck, I'm still trying (off and on) to get the original Diablo to run under WINE. Anybody heard any juicy rumors about possible ports?
Save us, Lokisoft!
Joe Sixpack is dead!
If an organization devoted to parody is non-profit, why shouldn't they be allowed to have a .org?
Did PETA even at least ASK "hey, could you at least put a link on your main page that says 'if you're looking for 'People for Ethical Treatment of Animals' instead, click here'"?
HOW the heck do we wrest control of the world back from the litigious boogerheads that seem to be running it now??????
On a side note, I've been told that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution aren't ordinary 'amendments' - they were already on the Constitution when it was ratified by the states - and therefore if it can be proved that any of those amendments have been removed or repealed (including, obviously, that pesky 'freedom of speech' one), that the union is dissolved. Anybody know if this is true?
Joe Sixpack is dead!
This is the most disturbing precedent I've seen in the last...oh...day or so (in a long string of a few years of disturbing precedents).
I find myself feeling more and more frustrated at trying to come up with something to DO about where we're going, and the handbasket we're going there in...
Joe Sixpack is dead!
``We injected olive oil into the brains of rats and found we could facilitate GAP-43 phosphorylation,'' he said. ``In dietary studies, corn oil was especially useful in facilitating memory.'
Researcher:"Okay, hold still, I'm going to inject olive oil into your head."
Human Subject:"OUCH! That hurt! And it made my brain feel all squishy! I don't want to be in this experiment any more!"
Researcher:"See! You're smarter already!"
Joe Sixpack is dead!
I don't see why Microsoft OS inc. couldn't, however, license the 'amazing' new 'IntelliActiveDirectMessageX' application from 'Microsoft Apps, inc.', and then include it anyway.
Quite simply, I think it'll take proliferation of an open standard/protocol to fix any monopolization of this 'market', just as with so many others.
Joe Sixpack is dead!
It IS still a bit flaky. However, it is mostly useable, it seems to render pages as fast or faster than the last Mozilla that I tried, and it's pretty darn amazing for something that seemed to sort of appear out of nowhere (at least, to those of us not involved in development) and rapidly reach the point where it is about as usable as the several-year-old Mozilla project. At this rate, I'll hopefully be able to switch entirely from netscape/communicator to Konquerer/KMail Real Soon Now.
Oh, and slightly off-topic:
..difficult to master for Joe sixpack developer..
ARGH! To the hell of his choice with "Joe Sixpack"! I certainly wouldn't want to use any software developed by this mythical figure, who, it is said, still hasn't figured out things like the "any" key, how to accomplish anything that isn't an icon on his Windows 98SE 'desktop', how to program his VCR, or even what he's voting for!
I'll take software developed by "Dexter Tapedglasses" over "Joe Sixpack" any day!
Joe Sixpack is dead!