I think these SLAPP lawsuits are worrysome in that they create a chilling effect on peoples ability to candidly express their views. Now, if your view consist of "These guys are dicks!" then you might have some libel issues, unless you can be specific about what sort of dicks they are and back it up with evidence.
But honestly, we're talking about a day-trader message board here, right? I think this kind of "insider information" (accurate or not) is exactly what they should be facilitating. I used to live in Lower Manhattan, and if you go to any wall street bar you'll hear much more unvarnished and opinionated statements being made about potential investments. Of course, that's bar-talk and this is an online posting, but it seems to me that saying a company's management if full of it (even if you use creative langure) aught not to bring legal action.
Of course, when you bruise a wealthy, powerful executive's ego, especially if you do it by hitting a little too close to home, you're liable (no put intended) to see some blowback.
Well, the flaimbait tag is there, and I don't want to start anything. But I have to respond to a little of the FUD...
Gnutella is horrible. The design just sucks and honestly i could have come up with a better design for a network.
That's classic negative argumentation for you there, and I for one am tired of hearing that kind of comments from everyone (this extends out of the tech realm and into all walks of life, BTW). "Product XXX is bad. I could do better in my garage." I encourage you to do so then. Join a development list and contribute your comments on better network design. These efforts need all the help they can get.
Gnutella is horrible, theres no security (or maybe they finally fixed this?) meaning anyone can see your IP.
That's not really a "security hole" in my estimation. Anyone serving you a webpage can see your IP. That information is out there. Remember the mantra: "Security through obscruity is no security at all." Rather than trying to hide your IP address, it's incumbent on you not to leave that IP wide open to exploitation. That's security. Just my $0.02.
Two things kind of bugged me about this article. One was the authors seeming expectation of an OS cutomized to his tastes out of the box. The other is his strange (in light of the previous) unwillingness to invest any effort in trying to adjust the UI preferences to suit tastes. For instance:
Miracle! Noticed "Customize Toolbar" option in Finder
And the like. "One True Way"... It reminds me of trying to deal with older engineers who have solidifed their ways of doing things and are unwilling to seriously consider input.
I've been using OSX for about 9 months. Every time I've had an issue/wish with it, I've gone directly to the apple forums, maxoshints and others (stepwise.org is a real gem). There's no mention of seeing outside help until day 9.
Reminds me of psychology readings about brain chrystalization...
...they'd sell the client for 5 bucks if it meant that they could still control Office, the server market, and the zillions of other markets that their OS monopoly lets them crush....
That depends on how much of that lost revenue they'd be able to replace by being able to "crush" those other markets. The real question is not how much of a PCs cost is M$ profit, but how much revenue M$ generates from windows licenses
At the moment, M$ is loosing money hand over fist trying to establish themselves in the Gaming Console, Handheld/Mobile and online services markets. Collectively, they've challenged the international top-dawg in each of these arenas (Sony, Palm/Nokia, AOL/TW) with no track record of success in any of them.
Moreover, they are trying to make a transition from a products (packaged software) company to a services (software-as-service, online services, etc) company, a feat few if any corporations have acheived without significant restructuring and loss of market share.
Even if they manage to gain a foothold in all of these new markets (don't count on it) or manage dominate one of them (even less likely), they will be unable to completely replace their current steady stream of revenue from Windows licenses. And if the price crunch were to hit before they managed to find another revenue stream... poof! No profits means no company.
I don't know if it's my non-typical slashdot lifestyle, but I use my bike as my primary means of transportation. I live in Brooklyn, but affairs call me into the city nearly every day, so I end up biking about 6 to 12 miles 5 days a week. This would be a great secondary (albeit fringe) application for a handheld.
As for the breakage issue, I've been riding in Manhattan traffic for over 2 years now, and I've only had one accident so far. I've broken a lot more things by just dropping my backpack than I have wrecking my bike.
Finally, I think this could be the tool for messengers. I've done a bit of it and my roomate paid rent for a while pulling tags. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful bike messenger is not speed, its knowing where you're going and knowing how to get around the inside of buildings you make deliveries to. This would make a great on-board asset for professional messengers as it would allow them to share routes, both on the street and in buildings.
Think ahead a few years and a wireless connection would let dispatch download the next pickup or drop directly to the messenger's onboard computer. It would make them work a lot more like UPS or fedex.
Re:This still won't work!
on
Peek-a-Boo(ty)
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I hate to say it, but this system simply isn't ready yet. They have not come up with a technically sound solution.
And they never will. Why? Because the problem they are attempting to solve is not a purely techincal one. Censorship is a political issue (e.g. involves people, not just machines) and as such demands a political component to it's resolution.
The merit of the program sits on the notion that repressive countries cannot afford to blockade the internet wholesale in order to control access to the proxy network. Ergo the success of the project is based on enough people in non-firewalled countries participating. And this doesn't just mean a lot of p2p proxy nodes, it also means a lot of people publishing a list of gateways.
Much like in the world of warez, the massive proliferation of information would make it difficult if not impossible for the censoring agent not only to keep up with the number of IPs that serve as proxy nodes, but also to keep up with the number of websites that point to potential gateways.
Look, this is a software project designed to break the laws of repressive countries. As such, it will never be a "technical solution" to the problem. At best (and this is what I think they're going for) it is a technical aid in the struggle for freedom. I say cheers to them.
b[see his arguement. He's going to jail because of his opinion that it was ok to crack into other people's pages, deface them and try to attack army computers.
I don't believe that's his argument. In fact, I'm a little dissappointed by the way people have missed the whole point of this event here.
Look, there are thousands of script kiddie type people out there doing this sort of thing. Some of them kids, some of them bored/abbarent IT folks, some of them anarchist webmasters.
The issue is selective enforcement.
Why is it that African Americans get stopped for more traffic violations than White People? Why is it that poor people get busted and go down for years on drug charges when private school students do the same things (to greater excess, I've seen it) and face no law-enforcement threat? Why is it that this guy went down and not the guys who DOS'ed Bill Gibson's site?
This, I believe is the real issue. The gov't doesn't care about the DoS stuff as much as they care about getting rid of the website. And, FYI, bomb-making instructions are protected speech.
In Stephen Hawking's Cambridge Lectures, he points out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a statistical, rather than absolute, law.
Point taken. However, in spite of the cooler link in the original post, the machine proposed would be more in violation of the first law of thermodynamics (energy is neither created nor distroyed) than the second.
Actually, I aughtta start a website for the first law. It think it's cooler than the second and explains a lot more about the universe. First law vs second law flame war anyone?
Cheers to squaresoft for taking the art of storytelling in the medium of (console) videogames to another level. They made significant quantum leaps at every platform level:
FFI was something truely original in terms of gameplay design for the NES
Chrono Trigger (which I'm currently playing again via the sweet fruits of emulation) took that gameplay design to it's peak with the most ambitious story (the only possible competition on the 16-bit platform is from Phansasy Star).
FFVII made the PS, and it showed everyone that 3d graphics and cd-quality audio can be more than eye/ear candy.
Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.
Secondly, gaming just doesn't have much potential as a mainstream spectator sport.
I think if you take a longer view on things, this might not be the case. Sure videogames are changing rapidly, but not as rapidly as they used to. The interface paradigm of the FPS is almost static, and the real advances are in nuances like physics, maps, and teamplay options.
Give it 10 years, when 90% of the 18-30 year old male market will have at least spent a few hours with Doom (if not a few months with Quake Team Arena 7 - Tournament Edition), and you'll have an audience that can appriciate gaming as a sport. It's just a matter of cultural penetration.
I think you'll see videogames becoming more and more dissimilar as they become more and more advances forms of entertainment. Some lending themselves more to high-energy televization, others lending themselves to "history channel"-esque retrospectives.
As the art and science of the whole affair matures, games driven by storytelling (RPGs, esp MMORPGs) will capture one audience in one way, while strategy diven games (Starcraft, Civilization, et al) will capture another, and action games (i.e. FPS) will capture a third.
If a critical mass of people become involved enough in a form of entertainment, someone will capitalize on that cultural circumstance by creating celeberties and rituals. It's a process as old as humanity.
I have to say, in spite of a slight learning curve, the GIMP and AbiWord are almost as good as Photoshop and MSWord.
In fact, I'll promote AbiWord over MSWord becasue it doesn't do a kazillion things for me that I don't want it to do (e.g. making lists, capitalizing words, etc) and does correct the usual bonehead errors (e.g. 'teh' instead of 'the').
In any event, I don't think this is actually as big a -real- problem as it is a perceved problem. If someone got started using the GIMP, I think they'd find that photoshop is counter-intuative and lacking in certain features (e.g. easy to modify script-fu).
This kind of argument has a lot more to do with user's prior experience (cultural barriers) than actual feature sets (technical barriers).
I should add a big "USER FRIENDLY DOCUMENTATION" to my previous post.
I started geeting into this stuff about 2 years ago, and I'm naturally a technical guy. The documentation currently has a terrible 80/20 problem: 80% of it is...
Poorly written
Assumes you know things without telling you it assumes you know them
Was written by academics for academics (little practical value)
Or all of the above
Most often, documentation is an afterthought to a coding project. This is not a good way to get novice users to get to use the software, because those writing the docs are too intimately involved with the project and usually burnt out to the max.
The biggest obstable to widespread Linux adoption is not its actual difficulty to use, but perception that it's for geeks only. An idiot proof installer would be good, but evangelests and PR that speaks to average users is perhaps the single most important thing standing in the way of more pervasive acceptance.
I understand how the general attitude that "you've got to know how to use a computer to use a computer" gets bred. I used to work 1-800-support. But that won't cut it on the public image tip.
GNU/Linux needs salespeople. Jeez, I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. The barriers are 90% cultural at this point....
You're right! It's a big evil conspiracy! Posting links to...
You realize I wasn't saying the organization itself or our nations involvement in it was a secret. I was making the point that how someone becomes representative to this organization is not public information. Nor are its proceedings, which are all held behind closed doors.
And I really hate to hoist your by your own petard, but, it seems that some people withing the USTR agree [ustr.gov]. I might also point out that this information came to light after December 3rd 1999, which is a nice concidence, don'tcha think?
You know what else is a corporate conspiracy? The CIA!
Not quite. The director of the CIA is a presidentially appointed position that undergoes a similar ratification process as cabenet appointments and abassadors. The CIA director is in theory ultimitely responsible for all actions of the CIA.
...Clueless uninformed opinions. Vague hints of nebulous corporate conspiracies.
It fascinates me that any anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-consumption post I make is almost always taken to be a conspiracy. I don't think theres anything of the sort going on, unless you'd call a country club a conspiracy. It's just business as usual on the global scale.
What would be really nice would be if they could force M$ to release their file type definitions (or *cough* adopt some open standard). This would allow existing office/productivity software (e.g. Abiword, GNUmbers) to easily interoperate with Word, Excel, et al.
This would let me work with clients who are M$ based much easier than I do now.
or the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.
Please explain then the preponderance of US-based corporate affiliates and other representatives at these summits. Anyway, you're skirting the issue: who from the US appoints US representatives to the WTO and by what process? Where are there checks or balances? Who is accountable? I don't think you can answer because this information is not publicly available. I imagine that even if you know, you're not allowed to tell.
In the case of a UN (or any other) ambassador the protocol for appointment is laid out in our laws (i.e. anyone can see how it's done) and requires open senate hearings public has access to. This is clearly not the case with the WTO.
The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots
I have to take issue again. Were you there among the "majority of WTO protesters" or did you rely on (hostile) mainstream media coverage to make your assessment?
False dichotomy between "people who have created something" and "people who have never created anything". EVERYONE creates stuff.
Fabuous point! You're completely correct. The problem, at least in America, is that most people don't think of themselves as creating anything, so they don't put much thought behind it. Hence the abundance of human feces (everyone makes that!), garbage (the inevitable castoff of consumer products), and poorly parented children.
Until people wake up and realize that they are fully engaged in their lives and cultures whether they like it or not, this is unlikely to change course. Of course, the prevailing cultural trope is one that conditions the individual to distance themselves from any creative acts and simply consume consume consume. It's what I call the "cultural-industrial complex".
If you take a kinda zen balance view on life, we're way out of whack on the creation/consumption ying-yang. I mean, people work their asses off for what? To buy things that then they have to work more to pay off. And in the end are they satisfied? No, because they just need to buy that one extra thing to get there....
It's a sick cycle, and most people are totally unaware that it's going on.
The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.
Where do you get off? I find your sweeping generalizations to be both offensively cynical and incorrect! I mean, do you actually know any artists? Meet me, I'm an artist. I mostly subsist on ramen noodles and mac and cheese. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be rich. Please don't tell me I don't exist: my ego might not handle it. (BTW: this is also how a lot of hacker artists lives, e.g. RMS)
It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those who have never created anything and only want to use someone else's work for their own profit.
Ahem... "True invention is a myth. All art is theft -- without reference and past things nothing can be created." -- Malcolm Garrett (artist, designer, look it up)
The problem with the late trend in copyright/IP law is that it cuts out fair use, and makes the creative process one that is fraught with legality and opportunities to litigate. This is not a Good Thing. Litigation is one of the most wasteful, culture-destroying thigns in the world. As Shakespeare said, first thing to we do, we kill all the lawyers. Step one towards utopia, man.
Very good question. However, I think you're rather unlikely to get a good answer. For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling. Members are "appointed" through some transnational process, but that process is non-public and appears to differ from member state to member state.
This was actually part of the impetus for the (in)faimous Seattle WTO protests. I remember a couple of my west-coast dwelling friend's professors encouraging everyone to go (i.e. no bad marks for missing class) to promote openness and accountability in government.
The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.
Of course, maybe you like corporate sponsors and think that sort of thing is how the world aughtta work. Hey, takes all kinds.
The thing is: no one has ever come for White Anglo Saxan Protestants, and no one ever will!
Faimous last words, cracka.
1) Back in the days of Martin Luther, there were many many bloody wars between protestants and catholics.
2) Discrimination against WASPs was the reason de etra for the Mayflower and co.
3) The Nazis were pretty hot to get Great Britan, a WASPey country if there ever was one.
4) While it is true that WASPs have never been interned, Protestantism isn't all that old. Give it a century or two.
They great wheel is turning: everyone gets a turn on the rack until we learn to really take care of each other.
Nor did anyone quite expect the speed of the transition from capitalism to corporatism, an era in which global corporations acquire media, commerce and popular culture; control copyright and intellectual property; and become the primary funders and corrupters of the political system.
A couple things. This is not really a new phenomina. Does the term "millitary industrial complex" ring a bell. Same process.
More importantly, the recent trend of "corporatism" is unlikely to go on much longer. Already you can see the rise of the independent professional, the enterprising individual. I know a lot of corportate people who got their first taste of enterprise and freedom at some now defunct.com, and none of them want to go back.
One associate of mine said he'd have to get a pre-frontal lobotomy before taking another corporate job. Backlash is on the way.
The truth is that corporations are beureaucratic. And because they don't have even the limited accountability/transparency of governments, they tend to be the most inefficient beureucracies around. They waste so much money and time it's rediculous.
And another thing... What's up with all the pessemism? All the "you can't change people" and "people are going to be consumers no matter what". Come on, people: Cynicism isn't cool. Maybe it's fun to pretend when your a teenager so you can feel grown up, but in real life it's stupid. It doesn't get you anywhere.
People are not by nature consumers. It's just the current situation. Instead of sniping and whining, why don't we try and improve?
Try constructing positive arguments: don't just argue against something without arguing for something else.
The amazing thing at the end of the day, no matter what Ashcroft w/ Congress has done, I feel no loss in liberty. No evil corporation is holding me down. Jack booted thugs haven't beat down my door or surrounded my place of worship with tanks and set it on fire. I have no fear to speak my mind....
Ahem...
In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left t speak up.
It is not right to compromise the civil liberties of foreign nationals just because they're not citizens. I live in New York City too, bub, and if that's the kind of stuff that makes you feel safe, you've got some therapy to do.
Does anyone know what kind of sillicon they're planning on throwing into their phones? I read a while (6 months or so) back about some ericson engineers who complained that they could get the throughput (the bandwidth) happening, but they kept melting the phone chassis because the processor was too hot.
You'd need some fairly muscular processing to do video replay, etc... and small phones don't really ventilate well, especially inside my pocket.
On the other hand they could bill it as a combination tool. "It's a cell phone, a portable video-on-demand device, and a hand warmer
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent point. Here's a link that has some summary coverage. This is such corporate BS!
I think these SLAPP lawsuits are worrysome in that they create a chilling effect on peoples ability to candidly express their views. Now, if your view consist of "These guys are dicks!" then you might have some libel issues, unless you can be specific about what sort of dicks they are and back it up with evidence.
But honestly, we're talking about a day-trader message board here, right? I think this kind of "insider information" (accurate or not) is exactly what they should be facilitating. I used to live in Lower Manhattan, and if you go to any wall street bar you'll hear much more unvarnished and opinionated statements being made about potential investments. Of course, that's bar-talk and this is an online posting, but it seems to me that saying a company's management if full of it (even if you use creative langure) aught not to bring legal action.
Of course, when you bruise a wealthy, powerful executive's ego, especially if you do it by hitting a little too close to home, you're liable (no put intended) to see some blowback.
Well, the flaimbait tag is there, and I don't want to start anything. But I have to respond to a little of the FUD...
Gnutella is horrible. The design just sucks and honestly i could have come up with a better design for a network.
That's classic negative argumentation for you there, and I for one am tired of hearing that kind of comments from everyone (this extends out of the tech realm and into all walks of life, BTW). "Product XXX is bad. I could do better in my garage." I encourage you to do so then. Join a development list and contribute your comments on better network design. These efforts need all the help they can get.
Gnutella is horrible, theres no security (or maybe they finally fixed this?) meaning anyone can see your IP.
That's not really a "security hole" in my estimation. Anyone serving you a webpage can see your IP. That information is out there. Remember the mantra: "Security through obscruity is no security at all." Rather than trying to hide your IP address, it's incumbent on you not to leave that IP wide open to exploitation. That's security. Just my $0.02.
Two things kind of bugged me about this article. One was the authors seeming expectation of an OS cutomized to his tastes out of the box. The other is his strange (in light of the previous) unwillingness to invest any effort in trying to adjust the UI preferences to suit tastes. For instance:
Miracle! Noticed "Customize Toolbar" option in Finder
And the like. "One True Way"... It reminds me of trying to deal with older engineers who have solidifed their ways of doing things and are unwilling to seriously consider input.
I've been using OSX for about 9 months. Every time I've had an issue/wish with it, I've gone directly to the apple forums, maxoshints and others (stepwise.org is a real gem). There's no mention of seeing outside help until day 9.
Reminds me of psychology readings about brain chrystalization...
...they'd sell the client for 5 bucks if it meant that they could still control Office, the server market, and the zillions of other markets that their OS monopoly lets them crush....
That depends on how much of that lost revenue they'd be able to replace by being able to "crush" those other markets. The real question is not how much of a PCs cost is M$ profit, but how much revenue M$ generates from windows licenses
At the moment, M$ is loosing money hand over fist trying to establish themselves in the Gaming Console, Handheld/Mobile and online services markets. Collectively, they've challenged the international top-dawg in each of these arenas (Sony, Palm/Nokia, AOL/TW) with no track record of success in any of them.
Moreover, they are trying to make a transition from a products (packaged software) company to a services (software-as-service, online services, etc) company, a feat few if any corporations have acheived without significant restructuring and loss of market share.
Even if they manage to gain a foothold in all of these new markets (don't count on it) or manage dominate one of them (even less likely), they will be unable to completely replace their current steady stream of revenue from Windows licenses. And if the price crunch were to hit before they managed to find another revenue stream... poof! No profits means no company.
thanks!
I just want to live post little-grande San Francisco ala William Gibson's Virtual Light.
Sigh... to be a legitimate bohemain.
I don't know if it's my non-typical slashdot lifestyle, but I use my bike as my primary means of transportation. I live in Brooklyn, but affairs call me into the city nearly every day, so I end up biking about 6 to 12 miles 5 days a week. This would be a great secondary (albeit fringe) application for a handheld.
As for the breakage issue, I've been riding in Manhattan traffic for over 2 years now, and I've only had one accident so far. I've broken a lot more things by just dropping my backpack than I have wrecking my bike.
Finally, I think this could be the tool for messengers. I've done a bit of it and my roomate paid rent for a while pulling tags. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful bike messenger is not speed, its knowing where you're going and knowing how to get around the inside of buildings you make deliveries to. This would make a great on-board asset for professional messengers as it would allow them to share routes, both on the street and in buildings.
Think ahead a few years and a wireless connection would let dispatch download the next pickup or drop directly to the messenger's onboard computer. It would make them work a lot more like UPS or fedex.
I hate to say it, but this system simply isn't ready yet. They have not come up with a technically sound solution.
And they never will. Why? Because the problem they are attempting to solve is not a purely techincal one. Censorship is a political issue (e.g. involves people, not just machines) and as such demands a political component to it's resolution.
The merit of the program sits on the notion that repressive countries cannot afford to blockade the internet wholesale in order to control access to the proxy network. Ergo the success of the project is based on enough people in non-firewalled countries participating. And this doesn't just mean a lot of p2p proxy nodes, it also means a lot of people publishing a list of gateways.
Much like in the world of warez, the massive proliferation of information would make it difficult if not impossible for the censoring agent not only to keep up with the number of IPs that serve as proxy nodes, but also to keep up with the number of websites that point to potential gateways.
Look, this is a software project designed to break the laws of repressive countries. As such, it will never be a "technical solution" to the problem. At best (and this is what I think they're going for) it is a technical aid in the struggle for freedom. I say cheers to them.
b[see his arguement. He's going to jail because of his opinion that it was ok to crack into other people's pages, deface them and try to attack army computers.
I don't believe that's his argument. In fact, I'm a little dissappointed by the way people have missed the whole point of this event here.
Look, there are thousands of script kiddie type people out there doing this sort of thing. Some of them kids, some of them bored/abbarent IT folks, some of them anarchist webmasters.
The issue is selective enforcement.
Why is it that African Americans get stopped for more traffic violations than White People? Why is it that poor people get busted and go down for years on drug charges when private school students do the same things (to greater excess, I've seen it) and face no law-enforcement threat? Why is it that this guy went down and not the guys who DOS'ed Bill Gibson's site?
This, I believe is the real issue. The gov't doesn't care about the DoS stuff as much as they care about getting rid of the website. And, FYI, bomb-making instructions are protected speech.
In Stephen Hawking's Cambridge Lectures, he points out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a statistical, rather than absolute, law.
Point taken. However, in spite of the cooler link in the original post, the machine proposed would be more in violation of the first law of thermodynamics (energy is neither created nor distroyed) than the second.
Actually, I aughtta start a website for the first law. It think it's cooler than the second and explains a lot more about the universe. First law vs second law flame war anyone?
Cheers to squaresoft for taking the art of storytelling in the medium of (console) videogames to another level. They made significant quantum leaps at every platform level:
Now for the important stuff. Anyone know if they plan to do another FF Tactics-style game? That was the bomb.
Secondly, gaming just doesn't have much potential as a mainstream spectator sport.
I think if you take a longer view on things, this might not be the case. Sure videogames are changing rapidly, but not as rapidly as they used to. The interface paradigm of the FPS is almost static, and the real advances are in nuances like physics, maps, and teamplay options.
Give it 10 years, when 90% of the 18-30 year old male market will have at least spent a few hours with Doom (if not a few months with Quake Team Arena 7 - Tournament Edition), and you'll have an audience that can appriciate gaming as a sport. It's just a matter of cultural penetration.
I think you'll see videogames becoming more and more dissimilar as they become more and more advances forms of entertainment. Some lending themselves more to high-energy televization, others lending themselves to "history channel"-esque retrospectives.
As the art and science of the whole affair matures, games driven by storytelling (RPGs, esp MMORPGs) will capture one audience in one way, while strategy diven games (Starcraft, Civilization, et al) will capture another, and action games (i.e. FPS) will capture a third.
If a critical mass of people become involved enough in a form of entertainment, someone will capitalize on that cultural circumstance by creating celeberties and rituals. It's a process as old as humanity.
I'm talking serious productivity applications.
I have to say, in spite of a slight learning curve, the GIMP and AbiWord are almost as good as Photoshop and MSWord.
In fact, I'll promote AbiWord over MSWord becasue it doesn't do a kazillion things for me that I don't want it to do (e.g. making lists, capitalizing words, etc) and does correct the usual bonehead errors (e.g. 'teh' instead of 'the').
In any event, I don't think this is actually as big a -real- problem as it is a perceved problem. If someone got started using the GIMP, I think they'd find that photoshop is counter-intuative and lacking in certain features (e.g. easy to modify script-fu).
This kind of argument has a lot more to do with user's prior experience (cultural barriers) than actual feature sets (technical barriers).
I started geeting into this stuff about 2 years ago, and I'm naturally a technical guy. The documentation currently has a terrible 80/20 problem: 80% of it is...
Most often, documentation is an afterthought to a coding project. This is not a good way to get novice users to get to use the software, because those writing the docs are too intimately involved with the project and usually burnt out to the max.
The biggest obstable to widespread Linux adoption is not its actual difficulty to use, but perception that it's for geeks only. An idiot proof installer would be good, but evangelests and PR that speaks to average users is perhaps the single most important thing standing in the way of more pervasive acceptance.
I understand how the general attitude that "you've got to know how to use a computer to use a computer" gets bred. I used to work 1-800-support. But that won't cut it on the public image tip.
GNU/Linux needs salespeople. Jeez, I can't believe I just wrote that, but it's true. The barriers are 90% cultural at this point....
You're right! It's a big evil conspiracy! Posting links to...
...Clueless uninformed opinions. Vague hints of nebulous corporate conspiracies.
You realize I wasn't saying the organization itself or our nations involvement in it was a secret. I was making the point that how someone becomes representative to this organization is not public information. Nor are its proceedings, which are all held behind closed doors.
And I really hate to hoist your by your own petard, but, it seems that some people withing the USTR agree [ustr.gov]. I might also point out that this information came to light after December 3rd 1999, which is a nice concidence, don'tcha think?
You know what else is a corporate conspiracy? The CIA!
Not quite. The director of the CIA is a presidentially appointed position that undergoes a similar ratification process as cabenet appointments and abassadors. The CIA director is in theory ultimitely responsible for all actions of the CIA.
It fascinates me that any anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-consumption post I make is almost always taken to be a conspiracy. I don't think theres anything of the sort going on, unless you'd call a country club a conspiracy. It's just business as usual on the global scale.
What would be really nice would be if they could force M$ to release their file type definitions (or *cough* adopt some open standard). This would allow existing office/productivity software (e.g. Abiword, GNUmbers) to easily interoperate with Word, Excel, et al.
This would let me work with clients who are M$ based much easier than I do now.
or the purpose of the meetings, individual member states appoint representatives to represent them. True, each member state uses its own mechanism to appoint the representatives - which also depends on the level of the conference. Some countries send their ministers (secretaries of state) for the relevant areas while other countries send other higher or lower ranking officials.
Please explain then the preponderance of US-based corporate affiliates and other representatives at these summits. Anyway, you're skirting the issue: who from the US appoints US representatives to the WTO and by what process? Where are there checks or balances? Who is accountable? I don't think you can answer because this information is not publicly available. I imagine that even if you know, you're not allowed to tell.
In the case of a UN (or any other) ambassador the protocol for appointment is laid out in our laws (i.e. anyone can see how it's done) and requires open senate hearings public has access to. This is clearly not the case with the WTO.
The majority of the WTO protesters were clueless idiots
I have to take issue again. Were you there among the "majority of WTO protesters" or did you rely on (hostile) mainstream media coverage to make your assessment?
False dichotomy between "people who have created something" and "people who have never created anything". EVERYONE creates stuff.
Fabuous point! You're completely correct. The problem, at least in America, is that most people don't think of themselves as creating anything, so they don't put much thought behind it. Hence the abundance of human feces (everyone makes that!), garbage (the inevitable castoff of consumer products), and poorly parented children.
Until people wake up and realize that they are fully engaged in their lives and cultures whether they like it or not, this is unlikely to change course. Of course, the prevailing cultural trope is one that conditions the individual to distance themselves from any creative acts and simply consume consume consume. It's what I call the "cultural-industrial complex".
If you take a kinda zen balance view on life, we're way out of whack on the creation/consumption ying-yang. I mean, people work their asses off for what? To buy things that then they have to work more to pay off. And in the end are they satisfied? No, because they just need to buy that one extra thing to get there....
It's a sick cycle, and most people are totally unaware that it's going on.
The idea of a starving artist or musician who creates for the love of art or music is a lie. Everyone dreams of being famous and profiting from their works.
Where do you get off? I find your sweeping generalizations to be both offensively cynical and incorrect! I mean, do you actually know any artists? Meet me, I'm an artist. I mostly subsist on ramen noodles and mac and cheese. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be rich. Please don't tell me I don't exist: my ego might not handle it. (BTW: this is also how a lot of hacker artists lives, e.g. RMS)
It seems the only people who advocate getting rid of intellectual property protections are those who have never created anything and only want to use someone else's work for their own profit.
Ahem... "True invention is a myth. All art is theft -- without reference and past things nothing can be created." -- Malcolm Garrett (artist, designer, look it up)
The problem with the late trend in copyright/IP law is that it cuts out fair use, and makes the creative process one that is fraught with legality and opportunities to litigate. This is not a Good Thing. Litigation is one of the most wasteful, culture-destroying thigns in the world. As Shakespeare said, first thing to we do, we kill all the lawyers. Step one towards utopia, man.
Very good question. However, I think you're rather unlikely to get a good answer. For instance, you could ask the same of the WTO. No one knows. No one's telling. Members are "appointed" through some transnational process, but that process is non-public and appears to differ from member state to member state.
This was actually part of the impetus for the (in)faimous Seattle WTO protests. I remember a couple of my west-coast dwelling friend's professors encouraging everyone to go (i.e. no bad marks for missing class) to promote openness and accountability in government.
The WTO and WIPO are (very influiential) non-governmental organizations. That's the problem at the moment: they're really accountable to no one other then their fat-cat corporate sponsors.
Of course, maybe you like corporate sponsors and think that sort of thing is how the world aughtta work. Hey, takes all kinds.
Faimous last words, cracka.
1) Back in the days of Martin Luther, there were many many bloody wars between protestants and catholics.
2) Discrimination against WASPs was the reason de etra for the Mayflower and co.
3) The Nazis were pretty hot to get Great Britan, a WASPey country if there ever was one.
4) While it is true that WASPs have never been interned, Protestantism isn't all that old. Give it a century or two.
They great wheel is turning: everyone gets a turn on the rack until we learn to really take care of each other.
A couple things. This is not really a new phenomina. Does the term "millitary industrial complex" ring a bell. Same process.
More importantly, the recent trend of "corporatism" is unlikely to go on much longer. Already you can see the rise of the independent professional, the enterprising individual. I know a lot of corportate people who got their first taste of enterprise and freedom at some now defunct
One associate of mine said he'd have to get a pre-frontal lobotomy before taking another corporate job. Backlash is on the way.
The truth is that corporations are beureaucratic. And because they don't have even the limited accountability/transparency of governments, they tend to be the most inefficient beureucracies around. They waste so much money and time it's rediculous.
And another thing...
What's up with all the pessemism? All the "you can't change people" and "people are going to be consumers no matter what". Come on, people: Cynicism isn't cool. Maybe it's fun to pretend when your a teenager so you can feel grown up, but in real life it's stupid. It doesn't get you anywhere.
People are not by nature consumers. It's just the current situation. Instead of sniping and whining, why don't we try and improve?
Try constructing positive arguments: don't just argue against something without arguing for something else.
Ahem...
In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left t speak up.
It is not right to compromise the civil liberties of foreign nationals just because they're not citizens. I live in New York City too, bub, and if that's the kind of stuff that makes you feel safe, you've got some therapy to do.
Does anyone know what kind of sillicon they're planning on throwing into their phones? I read a while (6 months or so) back about some ericson engineers who complained that they could get the throughput (the bandwidth) happening, but they kept melting the phone chassis because the processor was too hot.
You'd need some fairly muscular processing to do video replay, etc... and small phones don't really ventilate well, especially inside my pocket.
On the other hand they could bill it as a combination tool. "It's a cell phone, a portable video-on-demand device, and a hand warmer