Be careful. Science has shown that magnets can cause several serious side-effects in laboratory rats.
Dr. Igor Kreturs: "We placed several rats on large five pound magnets for several days. On top of each rats we placed another five pound magnet. In a very short time all of the test subjects developed respiratory problems and motor skill deficiencies. Eventually, every subject died."
So, make sure you limit your magentic exposure.
(No rats were harmed in the construction of this post.)
What I really need is something that will harness the energy of this incessant tapping. Give me some dummy keys or something that I can tap on and I think I could run the entire floor.
Apparently it burns alot of calories so why not put it to other uses too?
Don't think of it as purchasing a piece of technology. Think of it as renting a spot on the technology curve. In order to stay in that spot on the curve, you need to keep shelling out rent money. Break down the cost of your current VCR over the entire time you have owned it. Probably pennies a day.
Not an entirely pleasant point of view, but it helps me deal with the fact that every PC I buy is obsolete in 6 months. (Obsolete in the sense that I can no longer play all of the cool network-based games that my other friends have moved onto.)
"A Mercedes-Benz is ridiculously over-priced, so by your thinking its cool to just bust in to the dealers lot and take as many as I want?"
Be careful of this analogy because it easily falls apart. When you steal a Mercedes from the dealer then the dealer can no longer sell that car. You have done much more than deprive him of a potential sale... you've also deprived him of the goods he is selling.
I will say this one more time: "Physical property _cannot_ be compared to intellectual property." Period. End of story.
Does that make it right to steal someone elses intellectual property? That's a topic for another debate.
The only way to compare with your analogy would be if you could make an exact duplicate of a Mercedes-Benz for free without costing the owner a dime. Would that be bad? Maybe. Would Mercedes-Benz still be able to get away with charging so much for a car? Probably not.
They would have to sell service instead of product.
"Create something yourself some time and you'll understand."
I have but I don't. Personally, I don't create music to sell it. I create it because I enjoy it. That is my right. Don't assume that anyone that creates something for themselves will automatically agree with you.
All generalizations are wrong. Err... except that one?
It isn't really fair to poke fun at a movie that was directed at children considering that one of the reasons we adults liked the originals so much was because they were directed at us when we where children.
I also have to comment on the midi-chlorians argument. Everyone is always complaining about this without looking for any depth. The first time I saw TPM they bothered me a bit. The second time I saw the movie I got an entirely different impression. I viewed it as cruft in the jedi system much like the beaurocracy in the senate.
The jedi have become so complacent that all but the wisest of them feels that they can "measure" someone's force ability with a blood test. I think this is a sign of the decay of the jedi.
So far the biggest whole that I've found, that can't be easily explained by an attempt at some literary depth, is the fact that the droids (C3PO for sure at least) later have no recollection of Tatooine despite having been their previously. Hopefully, this will be "repaired" in the next two movies.
When I go back and watch "A New Hope", I'm really amazed at how much back story was revealed through subtle hints.
I use NT here at work. The NT crowd I know constantly kids/picks on the Win 9x crowd about their OS. Here it's mostly for fun because the users don't really have a choice.
So, it does happen, but not to the Linux distro extremes.
Is it reproduction if GeoCities uses more than one server? Is it reproduction if GeoCities uses some sort of cache? Is it reproduction if GeoCities modifies the content as it is "published"?
In each case, it can be argued logically both ways.
If you were a group of lawyers for a large corporation would you want to trust the courts to decide the answers to those questions?
"That's like saying 'I'm an author and I don't want the publisher to print numerous copies of my book and sell them.'"
That's exactly like what it's saying. If I want the publisher to publish my book then I have to let them have certain publication rights. If I don't like the rights they ask for then I don't have to let them publish my book.
Yahoo's biggest mistake (from a legal standpoint) was not giving users an easy way out.
From a commerce point of view, the publishing rights will be renegotiated until they are favorable enough that people will still use them to publish good content. Yahoo! is within their rights to do this. We may not like it, but free web pages on GeoCities are not a special right granted to everyone online. They just needed to give current content providers a way to easily walk away.
Is hitting the link to the e-mails page. All of those people that didn't know it was a joke and are _really_ into this sort of thing. How long before life imitates art.
Maybe we should organize a field trip to go through their "that will never work" idea room. I'm sure we could find a use for some of the stuff in there.
It's not really a wintel bias that has that point of view.
One of the benefits that Linux advocates like to promote is that there is a strong internet community that is willing to help work out problems both in the software and setup/installation. Just let someone say that they think Linux is too hard to setup and you'll have fifty people e-mailing them with help and scripts, etc., etc..
However, if the potential user sees that this community is hostile then they will think twice before switching.
Actually, I think that the people who send flames like these don't want Linux to gather a large following. They would rather that it remain some obscure hacker toy. These are the same people who make statements like, "I used to really like XXX band until everyone started listening to them."
I often wonder if it's the cell phone or just the type of people that would willingly use a cell phone while driving. Perhaps the fact that they don't see it as a distraction means that they don't pay that much attention in the first place.
So the cell phone only makes it worse.
I don't like to use the phone in the car because I'm too busy driving to pay attention to what they are saying. I do feel that my driving performance probably doesn't suffer much while I'm using my cell phone, but that's only because I'm not really listening. So why bother using it, right? Exactly.
I also get similar distractions from deep conversations. I try to avoid those while driving also, but at least in those cases the other person is right there and can also judge the current traffic situation.
The thing I _really_ don't get is how people can manage to read and drive at the same time. Not only does their driving suffer severely, but how can you enjoy a book that way. Why do two things extremely poorly when you could be attempting to save your life?
Sometimes I find the desktop "shift" to be too disorienting for some things. It also doesn't adequately address the "browsing the web while keeping track of various compiles" problem.
I also nest netscape windows like crazy. 20 was probably an exageration... most of them are minimized. I like to leave the main page up and just open alternate windows to view the links. That way I can bring the main page forward and continue reading it as the other page loads.
I know my personal style is a little wierd, but I've wanted windows that I can lift the edge of for years and years. Long before it was even remotely feasible.
At a minimum, I would like to be able to grab the edge of a window and lift it up on end to see what's underneath. This could be done with a separate mouse button or something.
I leave about 20 windows open on a given desktop sometimes. It would be really useful for quick peeks. Also, a wide window at an angle might still be readable/editable and could co-exist side-by-side with another. I know all of these issues are managable in other ways, but it would still be cool...
In a word, nothing. (BTW, read the _whole_ article. It becomes easier to not hear B. Gates' voice reading it as you go along.)
It is a truely desperate effort on Microsoft's part to use this kind of material as a defense. It could backfire on them. These three companies are only going through with these deals because of Microsoft's dominance. And in the end, their plans could amount to nothing more than pipe dreams.
Most of the quoted documents were apparently written by Sun. I am a Java advocate, but I'll be the first to tell you that Sun inappropriately likes to see their plight on a mythic scale. I equate some of their comments to those chain-letter type of e-mails that run around the internet comparing MS to a dragon, or a car, or a giant spider, etc.. When I was an OS/2 user (duck) I used to see these types of e-mails all the time. And we OS/2 users always held onto the belief that some day our OS would beat the evil MS. We knew it wasn't true, but that's what faith is all about.
Alot of the triad's plans sound similarly dream-like. I do think that Java will become more wide-spread but you have to have a pretty faithful imagination to think it will dominate the desktop. (Nothing would please me more but I still have a few OS/2 pains where those muscles are.) There other plans are just that. Plans. Add 50 cents and you might be able to buy a cup of coffee. Only time will tell how much they succeed.
Fortunately, the Judge in the trial seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. He seems to be able to recognize smoke and mirrors when he sees it. Still, only time will tell if they succeed.
However, if MS does make it through this trial completely unscathed then I don't think the triads plans amount to anything.
MS's "downfall" would have to come from another direction. And I won't hold my breath.
Because it is not an OS monopoly. They are attempting to compete with MicroSoft by making dependencies irrelevant. They may sound evil when they talk about how they're going to do it, but consider who they are up against.
In any case, in the long run, a "monopoly" built on platform independence is still better than one that thrives on platform dependence.
Besides, companies have been trying these strategies against MS for a long time. I don't think this one would look as good as it does if it weren't for the fact that MS is currently in trial and on their best behavior.
Sorry to pick your post to comment on, but it illustrated the point I want to make better than some others.
So quick are we to judge a plot hole as an error. We see an inconsistency like you've pointed out above, and automatically assume that it's wrong. What if it is just a significant fact?
I'll admit that I have a little bias here because I read the TPM book that's out right now. (I read it right before seeing the movie a second time.)
In the book, Qui-Gon understands that the queen must be exceptionally wise to have been elected at such a young age. Perhaps this is an important plot element. Perhaps it is a sign that the people of Naboo are above ageism and can look at qualities for what they are. Maybe on Naboo people mature faster.
Who knows? The point is that I think we are too quick to judge an inconsistency as a hole.
They are both in Virgina. Sorry I wasn't a little clearer. I meant to point out that AOL actually resides in the same state as the person filing the suit.
This is an important point in Virginia since VA has stricter laws on this sort of things than most other states. In another state, this all would have been a slam dunk. In VA, we needed that extra little AOL being in VA thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Be careful. Science has shown that magnets can cause several serious side-effects in laboratory rats.
Dr. Igor Kreturs:
"We placed several rats on large five pound magnets for several days. On top of each rats we placed another five pound magnet. In a very short time all of the test subjects developed respiratory problems and motor skill deficiencies. Eventually, every subject died."
So, make sure you limit your magentic exposure.
(No rats were harmed in the construction of this post.)
What I really need is something that will harness the energy of this incessant tapping. Give me some dummy keys or something that I can tap on and I think I could run the entire floor.
Apparently it burns alot of calories so why not put it to other uses too?
Don't think of it as purchasing a piece of technology. Think of it as renting a spot on the technology curve. In order to stay in that spot on the curve, you need to keep shelling out rent money. Break down the cost of your current VCR over the entire time you have owned it. Probably pennies a day.
Not an entirely pleasant point of view, but it helps me deal with the fact that every PC I buy is obsolete in 6 months. (Obsolete in the sense that I can no longer play all of the cool network-based games that my other friends have moved onto.)
"A Mercedes-Benz is ridiculously over-priced, so by your thinking its cool to just bust in to the dealers lot and take as many as I want?"
Be careful of this analogy because it easily falls apart. When you steal a Mercedes from the dealer then the dealer can no longer sell that car. You have done much more than deprive him of a potential sale... you've also deprived him of the goods he is selling.
I will say this one more time: "Physical property _cannot_ be compared to intellectual property." Period. End of story.
Does that make it right to steal someone elses intellectual property? That's a topic for another debate.
The only way to compare with your analogy would be if you could make an exact duplicate of a Mercedes-Benz for free without costing the owner a dime. Would that be bad? Maybe. Would Mercedes-Benz still be able to get away with charging so much for a car? Probably not.
They would have to sell service instead of product.
"Create something yourself some time and you'll understand."
I have but I don't. Personally, I don't create music to sell it. I create it because I enjoy it. That is my right. Don't assume that anyone that creates something for themselves will automatically agree with you.
All generalizations are wrong. Err... except that one?
It isn't really fair to poke fun at a movie that was directed at children considering that one of the reasons we adults liked the originals so much was because they were directed at us when we where children.
I also have to comment on the midi-chlorians argument. Everyone is always complaining about this without looking for any depth. The first time I saw TPM they bothered me a bit. The second time I saw the movie I got an entirely different impression. I viewed it as cruft in the jedi system much like the beaurocracy in the senate.
The jedi have become so complacent that all but the wisest of them feels that they can "measure" someone's force ability with a blood test. I think this is a sign of the decay of the jedi.
So far the biggest whole that I've found, that can't be easily explained by an attempt at some literary depth, is the fact that the droids (C3PO for sure at least) later have no recollection of Tatooine despite having been their previously. Hopefully, this will be "repaired" in the next two movies.
When I go back and watch "A New Hope", I'm really amazed at how much back story was revealed through subtle hints.
Finland, Finland, Finland....
For those that haven't seen the movie about one thousand times... listen close next time:
Leader yells: "Fetchez la vache!"
Underling whispers: "What?"
Leader annoyingly whispers: "Get the cow!"
The movie works on so many levels. And to think, I actually thought I had found every joke in there up to that point. Never again will I assume...
Reminiscent of the "Dicken's Cider" jokes. Put them together and you'd have quite a combination.
"I really like to have some ice-cold Bawls with my Dicken's Cider."
I use NT here at work. The NT crowd I know constantly kids/picks on the Win 9x crowd about their OS. Here it's mostly for fun because the users don't really have a choice.
So, it does happen, but not to the Linux distro extremes.
The courts are not as clear on this as you are.
Is it reproduction if GeoCities uses more than one server? Is it reproduction if GeoCities uses some sort of cache? Is it reproduction if GeoCities modifies the content as it is "published"?
In each case, it can be argued logically both ways.
If you were a group of lawyers for a large corporation would you want to trust the courts to decide the answers to those questions?
"That's like saying 'I'm an author and I don't want the publisher to print numerous copies of my book and sell them.'"
That's exactly like what it's saying. If I want the publisher to publish my book then I have to let them have certain publication rights. If I don't like the rights they ask for then I don't have to let them publish my book.
Yahoo's biggest mistake (from a legal standpoint) was not giving users an easy way out.
From a commerce point of view, the publishing rights will be renegotiated until they are favorable enough that people will still use them to publish good content. Yahoo! is within their rights to do this. We may not like it, but free web pages on GeoCities are not a special right granted to everyone online. They just needed to give current content providers a way to easily walk away.
Sorry... it was wide open.
Is hitting the link to the e-mails page. All of those people that didn't know it was a joke and are _really_ into this sort of thing. How long before life imitates art.
"Yes, this was an April Fools prank!"
For those of you whose gag reflexes won't let you make it that far.
I want to see where they stuck the human-sized fingers on these poor mice. The image is sort of sadistically funny.
I just felt a disturbance as if thousands of voices suddenly screamed in terror and then were silenced.
Maybe we should organize a field trip to go through their "that will never work" idea room. I'm sure we could find a use for some of the stuff in there.
It's not really a wintel bias that has that point of view.
One of the benefits that Linux advocates like to promote is that there is a strong internet community that is willing to help work out problems both in the software and setup/installation. Just let someone say that they think Linux is too hard to setup and you'll have fifty people e-mailing them with help and scripts, etc., etc..
However, if the potential user sees that this community is hostile then they will think twice before switching.
Actually, I think that the people who send flames like these don't want Linux to gather a large following. They would rather that it remain some obscure hacker toy. These are the same people who make statements like, "I used to really like XXX band until everyone started listening to them."
I often wonder if it's the cell phone or just the type of people that would willingly use a cell phone while driving. Perhaps the fact that they don't see it as a distraction means that they don't pay that much attention in the first place.
So the cell phone only makes it worse.
I don't like to use the phone in the car because I'm too busy driving to pay attention to what they are saying. I do feel that my driving performance probably doesn't suffer much while I'm using my cell phone, but that's only because I'm not really listening. So why bother using it, right? Exactly.
I also get similar distractions from deep conversations. I try to avoid those while driving also, but at least in those cases the other person is right there and can also judge the current traffic situation.
The thing I _really_ don't get is how people can manage to read and drive at the same time. Not only does their driving suffer severely, but how can you enjoy a book that way. Why do two things extremely poorly when you could be attempting to save your life?
Rant over.
Sometimes I find the desktop "shift" to be too disorienting for some things. It also doesn't adequately address the "browsing the web while keeping track of various compiles" problem.
I also nest netscape windows like crazy. 20 was probably an exageration... most of them are minimized. I like to leave the main page up and just open alternate windows to view the links. That way I can bring the main page forward and continue reading it as the other page loads.
I know my personal style is a little wierd, but I've wanted windows that I can lift the edge of for years and years. Long before it was even remotely feasible.
At a minimum, I would like to be able to grab the edge of a window and lift it up on end to see what's underneath. This could be done with a separate mouse button or something.
I leave about 20 windows open on a given desktop sometimes. It would be really useful for quick peeks. Also, a wide window at an angle might still be readable/editable and could co-exist side-by-side with another. I know all of these issues are managable in other ways, but it would still be cool...
I was told once long ago not to carry sharp objects to school. Then they yelled at me when I left my pencil at home.
In a word, nothing. (BTW, read the _whole_ article. It becomes easier to not hear B. Gates' voice reading it as you go along.)
It is a truely desperate effort on Microsoft's part to use this kind of material as a defense. It could backfire on them. These three companies are only going through with these deals because of Microsoft's dominance. And in the end, their plans could amount to nothing more than pipe dreams.
Most of the quoted documents were apparently written by Sun. I am a Java advocate, but I'll be the first to tell you that Sun inappropriately likes to see their plight on a mythic scale. I equate some of their comments to those chain-letter type of e-mails that run around the internet comparing MS to a dragon, or a car, or a giant spider, etc.. When I was an OS/2 user (duck) I used to see these types of e-mails all the time. And we OS/2 users always held onto the belief that some day our OS would beat the evil MS. We knew it wasn't true, but that's what faith is all about.
Alot of the triad's plans sound similarly dream-like. I do think that Java will become more wide-spread but you have to have a pretty faithful imagination to think it will dominate the desktop. (Nothing would please me more but I still have a few OS/2 pains where those muscles are.) There other plans are just that. Plans. Add 50 cents and you might be able to buy a cup of coffee. Only time will tell how much they succeed.
Fortunately, the Judge in the trial seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. He seems to be able to recognize smoke and mirrors when he sees it. Still, only time will tell if they succeed.
However, if MS does make it through this trial completely unscathed then I don't think the triads plans amount to anything.
MS's "downfall" would have to come from another direction. And I won't hold my breath.
Because it is not an OS monopoly. They are attempting to compete with MicroSoft by making dependencies irrelevant. They may sound evil when they talk about how they're going to do it, but consider who they are up against.
In any case, in the long run, a "monopoly" built on platform independence is still better than one that thrives on platform dependence.
Besides, companies have been trying these strategies against MS for a long time. I don't think this one would look as good as it does if it weren't for the fact that MS is currently in trial and on their best behavior.
Sorry to pick your post to comment on, but it illustrated the point I want to make better than some others.
So quick are we to judge a plot hole as an error. We see an inconsistency like you've pointed out above, and automatically assume that it's wrong. What if it is just a significant fact?
I'll admit that I have a little bias here because I read the TPM book that's out right now. (I read it right before seeing the movie a second time.)
In the book, Qui-Gon understands that the queen must be exceptionally wise to have been elected at such a young age. Perhaps this is an important plot element. Perhaps it is a sign that the people of Naboo are above ageism and can look at qualities for what they are. Maybe on Naboo people mature faster.
Who knows? The point is that I think we are too quick to judge an inconsistency as a hole.
They are both in Virgina. Sorry I wasn't a little clearer. I meant to point out that AOL actually resides in the same state as the person filing the suit.
This is an important point in Virginia since VA has stricter laws on this sort of things than most other states. In another state, this all would have been a slam dunk. In VA, we needed that extra little AOL being in VA thing.