Tivo has recently introduced a new "feature" to brand the shows for the networks. For example, some of the shows it tapes for me have a peacock icon next to them, in an attempt to make sure people know what channel it came from. I wonder if the 12 percent was measured before or after that change.
Of course, even that doesn't exactly do wonders. First off, I don't even remember who the hell the peacock is (CBS? NBC?). Furthermore, I don't care. I tell Tivo to record shows that I've heard are good. When I want to watch live TV (never), I browse the show names. The only reason I want to know which network shows what is so I can understand all the jokes about UPN.
Will channels as a brand die? It's possible, but I doubt the brands were ever as strong as they'd like to think. It's the content, stupid.
I'm fairly sure it was intended tongue in cheek. Let's grab the entire quotation here:
The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws.... The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network."
He's a telecommunications consultant. He knows that, for example, the Internet is NOT a business-- and is in fact a lot closer to a government-sponsored network. The "hippie anarchists" bit reeks strongly of sarcasm, but the real kicker is the failure to "comply with basic economic laws"-- what are you going to do, give it a ticket?
I think Thomas Nolle probably understands the 'Net fairly well, and made a funny, scathing indictment of business complaints about the internet that went right over the reporter's head.
But if everyone plays video games except you, then you'll be the maladjusted one.
You: "Hello, good sir. How are you this fine day?"
hax0r1: "whatx0r?"
hax0r2: "what j00 say!?"
hax0r1: "I will own j00000!!!"
You: "Um... excuse me. Do you speak English?"
hax0r3: "Let's g0. This l00z3r doesn't speak 1337."
Agreed. However, I think they would ban all of the internet cafes right now if they thought it would be in their best interest. They view it as a way to make China larger on the world stage, however. For example, given recent hack contests, viruses, and whatnot, we know that the Chinese can be script kiddies just like us. I'm going to be a little depressed if China does end up ruling the world, and you're taken in for "reeducation" if you don't sp34k 1337. That would sux0r.
Your attempt at playing devil's advocate, while admirable, is a real stretch.
First of all, the article didn't say WHY the 2000 (out of 58000) Internet cafés had been shut down. For all we know, it could be because they used pirated software.
Give me a break. No one, not even the Chinese government, denies that they squelch speech. It's central to their idea of government. According to the article, the Shanghai daily says 59 cafes had operations suspended for "rectification and improvement". That's the standard line, which generally means some people will confess and renounce their past actions and beliefs, and the appropriate personnel will be employed to monitor them in the future (for their own good, of course).
Yeah? Well, the Echolon system and the NSA and CIA closely monitor *ALL* electronic traffic in search for buzzwords such as bomb, C4, Bill Clinton etc.
It's an entirely different thing-- I know, I've seen what it's like for an internet company to do business there. Want to set up a web service there? Maybe, say, a free home page service? Sure, no problem! All content must be saved to a staging server first, where censors check it before it goes live. People signing up for accounts must provide accurate information, so that in the event objectionable content is found, they can be tracked down for-- wait for it-- "rectification and improvement".
Could we get a little less US propaganda in the news and a little more of the ACTUAL facts. I'd like to know FACTS about why these Internet cafés were shut down. I don't doubt that it had to do with censorship but I didn't see any facts in the story.
We seem to find the story remarkable for different reasons. I'm surprised that they even bothered reporting it, in the midst of continued repression of various religious groups including Falun Gong, their new death squads (oh, sorry-- drug police), and continued restatement that they will not back off any of these oppressive measures-- which seem to all make them even more attractive to the WTO.
The only thing remotely interesting about this article is that some rather ill-informed politicians use the cafes as an example that China is opening up, that trade with them is working, that we should include them without any condemnation as a fabulous member of the world community. Well, there's one less example for them. But then, even that one was wearing thin in the face of thousands of people executed right before they were chosen to host the 2008 Olympics.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm not anti-China. I'm for all the people being unjustly detained for stating beliefs contradictory to the approved dogma. I'm for the hundreds of thousands of people relocated to make way for the 3 Gorges Damn, and the millions who will be killed if the damn (which is built on a fault line) breaks. It just seems clear to me, though, that if you are for the Chinese people, you have to be quite upset with their government right now. It's gone downhill since Tienenmien Square.
I certainly agree-- there's a lot of room for improving UI, and there's often some irrational resistance from the computer-savvy crowd. After watching my parents attempt to use Windows 98, I realized computers are still pretty much unusable for most people. (Side note: it's pretty much a complete falsehood that MS Windows is easy to use. Mac is the only OS that I've seen beginners use successfully.)
However, it's also important that we exercise some caution in implementing the fixes. A lot of the resistance from the technophiles comes from fear that they're going to take away the good stuff, and make the computer actually harder for a techie to use. For example, here are responses to the terminal window, from the study: "Oh, is this DOS?" (P3)
"Is this for programming?" (P8)
"[this is] a scary window with a black background, I'd have to type in some kind of code." (P9)
What this means, of course, is that we need to keep this window out of reach of the newbies, or at least give them some easy help about it. What some UI designers construe this to mean, however, is that they need to make it very hard for anyone to get to, or remove it altogether. The latest MS app trend, for example, is to put these stupid down arrows in the menus, and take away most of the options. It takes me longer to access menu items, and the first few times I didn't even know what the hell was going on. Make it easier for the novices, sure, but don't make it harder for the regulars!
It's extremely encouraging that studies like this are being done. Even if you don't care about the newbie crowd, admit it: you use a lot of programs that are a lot more of a pain in the ass than they should be. Here's to hoping for a better Gnome, and hoping that better apps in general will follow.
First off, to respond to allegations that the movie will "at least break even": it will probably lose money. Meaning, Square will be richer because of it, but that money will simply magically appear in their bank account-- anyone foolish enough to ask for a share of the profits will, of course, be told that the movie lost millions. Now, on to the topic.
I saw this bit on ps2.ign.com: This world, like Tidus', is threatened by the encroaching power of Sin. Sin is, at this point, a somewhat nebulous concept. Sin is an invisible force. Yet Sin is also a gigantic hideous black-hole thing that launches black spawning horrors that our heroes have to battle.
A lot of FF fans think, as do I, that the villains have just been going down hill. FF7 was one of the best not just because the pacing was good and the game mechanic was fun, but because Sephiroth was an interesting villain. He was evil, he did brutal things, and he made you chase him as he gloated. And, of course, he had a bit of motivation for all of that. The villains in 8 and 9, however, more or less sucked. We had a jealous guy from another planet, and some evil witch or something-- I don't remember because I really didn't care. There sure as hell better be someone cool behind this whole Sin thing, and they'd better make an appearance before disc 235.
One brief note of optimism, however, which I'm sure we'll all be thankful for (from the same article): The speedier battle system in FFX looks as if it may tidy up some complaints about the persistence of random battles.
Protests are ineffective, if not counter-productive, in most cases.
As attractive as this statement is to me (I'd rather be at work on Monday), don't you feel any compulsion to post at least a small amount of evidence when making a statement that contradicts prevailing opinion? I see no reason to believe this statement at all. While there are many examples of effective protests (60's civil rights movement; also, the WTO protests brought the issue to a much larger audience), I can't think of a single counter-productive, non-violent protest. And I'm really not concerned about a bunch of hackers getting violent with the police.
Ah, I'm starting to understand your position now.:) I still disagree completely with your first statement-- I use Java programs on a regular basis that run on 1.1. Stock stuff, game applets, homestead.com, etc.. MS's VM still kicks enough ass to support. Do I wish they'd been able to make a 1.2VM? Sure, if they had removed all of the WFC bullshit. Do I think they would have ever done that? Hell, no.
Here I'm talking about the new language features Microsoft added to Java back in 97/98. These are delegates, multicast delegates and J/Direct. These WERE good LANGUAGE EXTENSIONS for Java.
Mmmmmm, J/Direct. Unfortunately, it's really not very cross-platform. Now, sure, you're going to be calling into native code, so your app won't be "write once, run anywhere" regardless. But at least if I use RNI (Sun's is RNI, right, not JNI? Not that it matters.), I don't have to modify my Java for the Linux version. Still, I will admit to a bit of a love affair with J/Direct. Or at least a lack of hate affair, after dealing with those other ridiculous kludges.
Like any other plugin (e.g. flash), IE will prompt you to download the VM if you do happen to find a site that still uses Java.
A 10 meg inclusion with a 1 gig install is no big deal. Over a 56K modem, it's enough of a deterrent that major commercial sites won't take the risk of losing a potential viewer.
The real root of this issue isn't theoretical for me. I'm working on a very large Java app. I want it to be cross-platform, and it needs to have minimal barrier to use-- that means, in most cases, no VM download. So regardless of what court cases went on, or whose extensions were easier to use, etc. etc., one thing is very obvious with this announcement: Microsoft just made my job a whole lot harder. They didn't have to do it, and they really pissed me off.
He was actually the one criticizing the MS VM. I, on the other hand, have been arguing for its inclusion-- I prefer the much smaller memory footprint and increased speed in consumer apps that it has over the bloated, server-oriented Sun VM. If you're still concerned that preferring an MS product over a Sun one makes me anti-MS, you'll have to enlighten me.
I was going to write a well-reasoned response to this, but decided I'd just selectively quote, and the total absurdity of the post would show through. It's just more amusing that way.
Hardly anything java works nowdays in Microsoft's VM.
Everyone knows that Microsoft's language additions to Java were good.
The reason there's no JVM included with Windows XP is due to terms of a settlement between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Basically, Sun told them not to do it.
This is horseshit flamebait, and you know it (and I know it, and I'm responding-- sigh). As pretty much everyone here knows, MS first attempted to kill Java by adding a lot of proprietary, Windows-only extensions. They hoped that by turning it into a platform-specific language, it would either become useless, or another Windows-only option. Sun sued MS, telling them to cut that shit out. They won, but MS can continue to distribute the VM for another 7 years or so. Additionally, they can bundle other VMs with their OS.
Now that MS's first attempt to kill Java has failed, they're coming in with another two-pronged attack. They're introducing C#, which is pitched to be just like Java, only easier, better, faster, and makes toast. And they're removing Java, meaning that anyone distributing a Java app needs to distribute instructions on how to waste half an hour downloading the latest VM.
MS even admits it's for "business reasons", which is the last resort after finding absolutely no way to say this is good for the consumer. If they want to bundle a Java VM with their OS, they have many options.
The higher court merely sent the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. It did NOT issue a ruling on whether the patent was valid, only that the lower court should reconsider its original ruling.
This, also, is misleading. The lower court didn't declare the patent invalid-- it said that it applied only to sales from kiosks and such. And when a higher court tells a lower one to "reconsider", it doesn't just say, "hmm, you should take another look at that". It gives its grounds for disagreement, and provides guidelines that the lower court should follow. In this case, it said that the lower court had interpreted the patent too narrowly.
Any patent defense has two strategies - first, you can get the patent declared invalid, and second, you claim that you aren't infringing. This case applies only to the first. There's plenty of battle left ahead on the second point.
Precisely the opposite, in fact. The lower court's ruling was that the patent applied to kiosks, and hence the companies involved weren't infringing. The higher court said the patent should be broader than that. If that holds, then there will be a huge argument over the validity of that patent, with a huge opportunity for prior art.
Hmm, did you happen to read this page? That's where they specifically say that they "request that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate whether these companies are violating federal prohibitions against deceptive acts or practices (1) by inserting advertisements in search engine results without clear and conspicuous disclosure that the ads are ads. This concealment may mislead search engine users to believe that search results are based on relevancy alone, not marketing ploys."
For those who can't be bothered to read the links directly from the news posting, here's a little translation of the whole bit: Commercial Alert would like the FTC to investigate whether current methods of paid placement are deceptive to consumers, and whether that deception is strong enough for FTC intervention.
Don't think they could be intentionally misleading people? I've met people who didn't know the "click here to optimize your internet connection!" button was an ad the first time they saw it. I've also met people who have a hard time distinguishing between icons in their web browser and icons on the web page. This is much more subtle than either of those examples.
Don't think this is something the FTC would bother intervening in? The complaint has a little section entitled "The FTC Has Repeatedly Sought to Stop Companies From Concealing That Their Ads Are Ads", in which they argue that point as well.
It's a very simple three point argument, summarized with bold headings above each of the points. So there's my simple pitch for reading the complaint. I think you'll find it interesting and informative, and it will take less time to read than it's taken you to get this far.
To get back to the initial post, suffice it to say that the Commercial Alert complaint is obviously not asserting that paying search engines for targeted advertisements is wrong.
"'Many of them believe, for example, that if you buy a CD, you buy the right to share it.'
*Sigh* Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't."
The real problem is that the original quotation was given without context. You assume that she was referring to "share" in the sense of copy, but what if she actually meant share? Then I most certainly have that right! There is no law in the U.S. or the U.K. that would actually prohibit me from loaning my copy of Atari Teenage Riot to my friend. Similarly, I CAN give my copy of Fallout to someone else if I'm done with it (even stronger, I can sell it-- at least in the U.S.).
This is all part of a rather evil redefinition of terminology to suit corporate needs. Copying became equal to stealing, and now sharing is becoming equal to copying. We now have people who think sharing is stealing. What kind of fucked up world is that?
Are you insane? If we set our minds to it, we could fuck up the planet in a jiffy. Step 1: make a lot of nukes. Step 2: nuke everything. Result? Roaches and heavy radioactivity.
If we could bring about mass extinction and heavy mutation, what makes you think it'd be "arrogant" to think we could affect the balance of the ecosystem? And if we can, what's unreasonable about thinking burning hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuels might have an impact?
Waited 3 weeks for next credit card bill so I could give them the verification number.
What's that all about? I've been using PayPal for a year, and never done anything with a verification number. It lets me spend a few hundred bucks, at least-- what kind of content were you trying to buy that it was more than your unverified limit?
I'd much rather pay. A lot of sites are going to have to go to a pay model, even just a tiny amount to guarantee interested circulation-- and make more money off of ads.
There are some people, of course, who would rather not pay. Either broke, or they're teens and haven't grabbed RocketCash or somesuch yet. I appreciate the sites that give you a choice. ezboards, for example, allows you to pay to turn off all the ads, which I did. Whether or not the advertising market will ever generate enough revenue to truly support that is an open question.
It's shocking how touchy some non-Americans are being about this story. They glossed over the history of copyright? It's MSNBC, what'd you expect-- a history lesson? It's not about Europe. It's about copyright in the U.S., hence the discussion of the DMCA. Yeah, maybe the writer gets a little nationalistic to make his point. It's still a decent article, despite the occasional manipulative phrase.
Every time a story comes up that says the least bit wrong about Europeans (or, worse-- forgets to mention them), they get in a tizzy. Do we need a warning? "WARNING: this article may contain no flattering commentary about Europe. If you're not American, read at your own risk. Oh, and if you're neither European nor American, you don't count-- even the Europeans don't think you exist."
On a side note-- and this is totally irrelevant, really-- where in the article does the author "rewrite history"? I just ask because you mention it twice.
Art critics are often much more closed-minded than they'd like to admit. There are one or two with vision, and the rest of them follow along with the current "scene". Maybe crosses dipped in piss are popular this year; next year they're passe; the year before they weren't art.
Where a lot of the resistance is coming from, however, is the fact that art involving computers is often commercial. You'll see the same disdain towards commercial art-- people who paint pretty, inoffensive scenes for people to put in their homes. You see it in a lot of bigotry towards movies as an art form-- some justified, some not, but a lot of art critics display some degree of prejudice toward their movie critic counterparts. It's the commercial pressures-- obviously a starving painter isn't in it for the money, whereas Ridley Scott is fairly well off. (Side note: Scott's Bladerunner was actually showing on a television in the middle of an art exhibit at the Louisiana museum in Denmark. Very cool.)
Are people doing things about it? Yes. A friend of mine was originally an art major at Stanford (one of, say, a couple dozen-- not exactly the usual track there), but changed to an individually designed major called Visual Studies in Computer Animation. She and a staff member or two worked fairly hard to squeeze a few bucks worth of computer equipment out of the school (while quad-proc machines were sitting unused in the Gates Building basement, but that's another story). Now there are several classes involving digital art and computer animation. There's also a building/room for SUDAC, Stanford University Digital Art Center. It's fairly tiny and not too well-funded, but it's a start.
For a while, the art department didn't want anything to do with them. I'm not sure what their stance is now, though, since a lot of art students take digital art classes.
Back to the original question, anything can be art if it offers sufficient revelation. It's often difficult to understand why artists, supposedly in pursuit of new insight, are so quick to dismiss a new medium. My guess is that it's because a lot of the early stuff is crap-- using computers for the sake of using computers, and not as a powerful tool for art. A few great things are starting to pop up here and there; I found a few nuggets at the SFMOMA digital art exhibit. A few years from now, I think the evidence will be irrefutable-- digital tools will powerfully change the way we experience art.
Well, yes, they can probably put whatever they want in it. I've seen EULA's that literally say they get your first born. That's not the interesting question. The question is-- what will actually hold up?
EULA's have severe limits. In Vault v. Quaid, it was held that an EULA can't infringe on federally protected consumer rights, such as noninfringing use, reverse engineering, and so on.
I found a rather interesting article dealing with copyright law vs. shrinkwrap licenses here. It's worth reading, since IP and EULA's seem to come up here quite often. It doesn't have an immediate interpretation of the current situation. However, it is evident that typically courts agree with the notion that EULA's cannot be used to artificially block legitimate competition, since that runs entirely counter to the purpose of the copyright laws they're predicated on.
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Tivo has recently introduced a new "feature" to brand the shows for the networks. For example, some of the shows it tapes for me have a peacock icon next to them, in an attempt to make sure people know what channel it came from. I wonder if the 12 percent was measured before or after that change.
Of course, even that doesn't exactly do wonders. First off, I don't even remember who the hell the peacock is (CBS? NBC?). Furthermore, I don't care. I tell Tivo to record shows that I've heard are good. When I want to watch live TV (never), I browse the show names. The only reason I want to know which network shows what is so I can understand all the jokes about UPN.
Will channels as a brand die? It's possible, but I doubt the brands were ever as strong as they'd like to think. It's the content, stupid.
I'm fairly sure it was intended tongue in cheek. Let's grab the entire quotation here:
The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws.... The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network."
He's a telecommunications consultant. He knows that, for example, the Internet is NOT a business-- and is in fact a lot closer to a government-sponsored network. The "hippie anarchists" bit reeks strongly of sarcasm, but the real kicker is the failure to "comply with basic economic laws"-- what are you going to do, give it a ticket?
I think Thomas Nolle probably understands the 'Net fairly well, and made a funny, scathing indictment of business complaints about the internet that went right over the reporter's head.
Stop being an asshole. There's a huge difference between a strike and blowing up a building. Someone who looks at women isn't a "rapist in training".
But if everyone plays video games except you, then you'll be the maladjusted one.
You: "Hello, good sir. How are you this fine day?"
hax0r1: "whatx0r?"
hax0r2: "what j00 say!?"
hax0r1: "I will own j00000!!!"
You: "Um... excuse me. Do you speak English?"
hax0r3: "Let's g0. This l00z3r doesn't speak 1337."
Agreed. However, I think they would ban all of the internet cafes right now if they thought it would be in their best interest. They view it as a way to make China larger on the world stage, however. For example, given recent hack contests, viruses, and whatnot, we know that the Chinese can be script kiddies just like us. I'm going to be a little depressed if China does end up ruling the world, and you're taken in for "reeducation" if you don't sp34k 1337. That would sux0r.
Your attempt at playing devil's advocate, while admirable, is a real stretch.
First of all, the article didn't say WHY the 2000 (out of 58000) Internet cafés had been shut down. For all we know, it could be because they used pirated software.
Give me a break. No one, not even the Chinese government, denies that they squelch speech. It's central to their idea of government. According to the article, the Shanghai daily says 59 cafes had operations suspended for "rectification and improvement". That's the standard line, which generally means some people will confess and renounce their past actions and beliefs, and the appropriate personnel will be employed to monitor them in the future (for their own good, of course).
Yeah? Well, the Echolon system and the NSA and CIA closely monitor *ALL* electronic traffic in search for buzzwords such as bomb, C4, Bill Clinton etc.
It's an entirely different thing-- I know, I've seen what it's like for an internet company to do business there. Want to set up a web service there? Maybe, say, a free home page service? Sure, no problem! All content must be saved to a staging server first, where censors check it before it goes live. People signing up for accounts must provide accurate information, so that in the event objectionable content is found, they can be tracked down for-- wait for it-- "rectification and improvement".
Could we get a little less US propaganda in the news and a little more of the ACTUAL facts. I'd like to know FACTS about why these Internet cafés were shut down. I don't doubt that it had to do with censorship but I didn't see any facts in the story.
We seem to find the story remarkable for different reasons. I'm surprised that they even bothered reporting it, in the midst of continued repression of various religious groups including Falun Gong, their new death squads (oh, sorry-- drug police), and continued restatement that they will not back off any of these oppressive measures-- which seem to all make them even more attractive to the WTO.
The only thing remotely interesting about this article is that some rather ill-informed politicians use the cafes as an example that China is opening up, that trade with them is working, that we should include them without any condemnation as a fabulous member of the world community. Well, there's one less example for them. But then, even that one was wearing thin in the face of thousands of people executed right before they were chosen to host the 2008 Olympics.
Don't get me wrong-- I'm not anti-China. I'm for all the people being unjustly detained for stating beliefs contradictory to the approved dogma. I'm for the hundreds of thousands of people relocated to make way for the 3 Gorges Damn, and the millions who will be killed if the damn (which is built on a fault line) breaks. It just seems clear to me, though, that if you are for the Chinese people, you have to be quite upset with their government right now. It's gone downhill since Tienenmien Square.
I certainly agree-- there's a lot of room for improving UI, and there's often some irrational resistance from the computer-savvy crowd. After watching my parents attempt to use Windows 98, I realized computers are still pretty much unusable for most people. (Side note: it's pretty much a complete falsehood that MS Windows is easy to use. Mac is the only OS that I've seen beginners use successfully.)
However, it's also important that we exercise some caution in implementing the fixes. A lot of the resistance from the technophiles comes from fear that they're going to take away the good stuff, and make the computer actually harder for a techie to use. For example, here are responses to the terminal window, from the study:
"Oh, is this DOS?" (P3)
"Is this for programming?" (P8)
"[this is] a scary window with a black background, I'd have to type in some kind of code." (P9)
What this means, of course, is that we need to keep this window out of reach of the newbies, or at least give them some easy help about it. What some UI designers construe this to mean, however, is that they need to make it very hard for anyone to get to, or remove it altogether. The latest MS app trend, for example, is to put these stupid down arrows in the menus, and take away most of the options. It takes me longer to access menu items, and the first few times I didn't even know what the hell was going on. Make it easier for the novices, sure, but don't make it harder for the regulars!
It's extremely encouraging that studies like this are being done. Even if you don't care about the newbie crowd, admit it: you use a lot of programs that are a lot more of a pain in the ass than they should be. Here's to hoping for a better Gnome, and hoping that better apps in general will follow.
First off, to respond to allegations that the movie will "at least break even": it will probably lose money. Meaning, Square will be richer because of it, but that money will simply magically appear in their bank account-- anyone foolish enough to ask for a share of the profits will, of course, be told that the movie lost millions. Now, on to the topic.
I saw this bit on ps2.ign.com:
This world, like Tidus', is threatened by the encroaching power of Sin. Sin is, at this point, a somewhat nebulous concept. Sin is an invisible force. Yet Sin is also a gigantic hideous black-hole thing that launches black spawning horrors that our heroes have to battle.
A lot of FF fans think, as do I, that the villains have just been going down hill. FF7 was one of the best not just because the pacing was good and the game mechanic was fun, but because Sephiroth was an interesting villain. He was evil, he did brutal things, and he made you chase him as he gloated. And, of course, he had a bit of motivation for all of that. The villains in 8 and 9, however, more or less sucked. We had a jealous guy from another planet, and some evil witch or something-- I don't remember because I really didn't care. There sure as hell better be someone cool behind this whole Sin thing, and they'd better make an appearance before disc 235.
One brief note of optimism, however, which I'm sure we'll all be thankful for (from the same article):
The speedier battle system in FFX looks as if it may tidy up some complaints about the persistence of random battles.
Protests are ineffective, if not counter-productive, in most cases.
As attractive as this statement is to me (I'd rather be at work on Monday), don't you feel any compulsion to post at least a small amount of evidence when making a statement that contradicts prevailing opinion? I see no reason to believe this statement at all. While there are many examples of effective protests (60's civil rights movement; also, the WTO protests brought the issue to a much larger audience), I can't think of a single counter-productive, non-violent protest. And I'm really not concerned about a bunch of hackers getting violent with the police.
Ah, I'm starting to understand your position now. :) I still disagree completely with your first statement-- I use Java programs on a regular basis that run on 1.1. Stock stuff, game applets, homestead.com, etc.. MS's VM still kicks enough ass to support. Do I wish they'd been able to make a 1.2VM? Sure, if they had removed all of the WFC bullshit. Do I think they would have ever done that? Hell, no.
Here I'm talking about the new language features Microsoft added to Java back in 97/98. These are delegates, multicast delegates and J/Direct. These WERE good LANGUAGE EXTENSIONS for Java.
Mmmmmm, J/Direct. Unfortunately, it's really not very cross-platform. Now, sure, you're going to be calling into native code, so your app won't be "write once, run anywhere" regardless. But at least if I use RNI (Sun's is RNI, right, not JNI? Not that it matters.), I don't have to modify my Java for the Linux version. Still, I will admit to a bit of a love affair with J/Direct. Or at least a lack of hate affair, after dealing with those other ridiculous kludges.
Like any other plugin (e.g. flash), IE will prompt you to download the VM if you do happen to find a site that still uses Java.
A 10 meg inclusion with a 1 gig install is no big deal. Over a 56K modem, it's enough of a deterrent that major commercial sites won't take the risk of losing a potential viewer.
The real root of this issue isn't theoretical for me. I'm working on a very large Java app. I want it to be cross-platform, and it needs to have minimal barrier to use-- that means, in most cases, no VM download. So regardless of what court cases went on, or whose extensions were easier to use, etc. etc., one thing is very obvious with this announcement: Microsoft just made my job a whole lot harder. They didn't have to do it, and they really pissed me off.
Try some Penguin Mints, they'll help with that.
He was actually the one criticizing the MS VM. I, on the other hand, have been arguing for its inclusion-- I prefer the much smaller memory footprint and increased speed in consumer apps that it has over the bloated, server-oriented Sun VM. If you're still concerned that preferring an MS product over a Sun one makes me anti-MS, you'll have to enlighten me.
I was going to write a well-reasoned response to this, but decided I'd just selectively quote, and the total absurdity of the post would show through. It's just more amusing that way.
Hardly anything java works nowdays in Microsoft's VM.
Everyone knows that Microsoft's language additions to Java were good.
I rest my case.
The reason there's no JVM included with Windows XP is due to terms of a settlement between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Basically, Sun told them not to do it.
This is horseshit flamebait, and you know it (and I know it, and I'm responding-- sigh). As pretty much everyone here knows, MS first attempted to kill Java by adding a lot of proprietary, Windows-only extensions. They hoped that by turning it into a platform-specific language, it would either become useless, or another Windows-only option. Sun sued MS, telling them to cut that shit out. They won, but MS can continue to distribute the VM for another 7 years or so. Additionally, they can bundle other VMs with their OS.
Now that MS's first attempt to kill Java has failed, they're coming in with another two-pronged attack. They're introducing C#, which is pitched to be just like Java, only easier, better, faster, and makes toast. And they're removing Java, meaning that anyone distributing a Java app needs to distribute instructions on how to waste half an hour downloading the latest VM.
MS even admits it's for "business reasons", which is the last resort after finding absolutely no way to say this is good for the consumer. If they want to bundle a Java VM with their OS, they have many options.
The higher court merely sent the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. It did NOT issue a ruling on whether the patent was valid, only that the lower court should reconsider its original ruling.
This, also, is misleading. The lower court didn't declare the patent invalid-- it said that it applied only to sales from kiosks and such. And when a higher court tells a lower one to "reconsider", it doesn't just say, "hmm, you should take another look at that". It gives its grounds for disagreement, and provides guidelines that the lower court should follow. In this case, it said that the lower court had interpreted the patent too narrowly.
Any patent defense has two strategies - first, you can get the patent declared invalid, and second, you claim that you aren't infringing. This case applies only to the first. There's plenty of battle left ahead on the second point.
Precisely the opposite, in fact. The lower court's ruling was that the patent applied to kiosks, and hence the companies involved weren't infringing. The higher court said the patent should be broader than that. If that holds, then there will be a huge argument over the validity of that patent, with a huge opportunity for prior art.
For those who can't be bothered to read the links directly from the news posting, here's a little translation of the whole bit:
Commercial Alert would like the FTC to investigate whether current methods of paid placement are deceptive to consumers, and whether that deception is strong enough for FTC intervention.
Don't think they could be intentionally misleading people? I've met people who didn't know the "click here to optimize your internet connection!" button was an ad the first time they saw it. I've also met people who have a hard time distinguishing between icons in their web browser and icons on the web page. This is much more subtle than either of those examples.
Don't think this is something the FTC would bother intervening in? The complaint has a little section entitled "The FTC Has Repeatedly Sought to Stop Companies From Concealing That Their Ads Are Ads", in which they argue that point as well.
It's a very simple three point argument, summarized with bold headings above each of the points. So there's my simple pitch for reading the complaint. I think you'll find it interesting and informative, and it will take less time to read than it's taken you to get this far.
To get back to the initial post, suffice it to say that the Commercial Alert complaint is obviously not asserting that paying search engines for targeted advertisements is wrong.
Sure, I'll bet. I can give my copy of Fallout to someone else, as I'm fortunate to live in a state that's not quite such a blatant sellout.
"'Many of them believe, for example, that if you buy a CD, you buy the right to share it.' *Sigh* Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't."
The real problem is that the original quotation was given without context. You assume that she was referring to "share" in the sense of copy, but what if she actually meant share? Then I most certainly have that right! There is no law in the U.S. or the U.K. that would actually prohibit me from loaning my copy of Atari Teenage Riot to my friend. Similarly, I CAN give my copy of Fallout to someone else if I'm done with it (even stronger, I can sell it-- at least in the U.S.).
This is all part of a rather evil redefinition of terminology to suit corporate needs. Copying became equal to stealing, and now sharing is becoming equal to copying. We now have people who think sharing is stealing. What kind of fucked up world is that?
Are you insane? If we set our minds to it, we could fuck up the planet in a jiffy. Step 1: make a lot of nukes. Step 2: nuke everything. Result? Roaches and heavy radioactivity.
If we could bring about mass extinction and heavy mutation, what makes you think it'd be "arrogant" to think we could affect the balance of the ecosystem? And if we can, what's unreasonable about thinking burning hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuels might have an impact?
Waited 3 weeks for next credit card bill so I could give them the verification number.
What's that all about? I've been using PayPal for a year, and never done anything with a verification number. It lets me spend a few hundred bucks, at least-- what kind of content were you trying to buy that it was more than your unverified limit?
I'd much rather pay. A lot of sites are going to have to go to a pay model, even just a tiny amount to guarantee interested circulation-- and make more money off of ads.
There are some people, of course, who would rather not pay. Either broke, or they're teens and haven't grabbed RocketCash or somesuch yet. I appreciate the sites that give you a choice. ezboards, for example, allows you to pay to turn off all the ads, which I did. Whether or not the advertising market will ever generate enough revenue to truly support that is an open question.
It's shocking how touchy some non-Americans are being about this story. They glossed over the history of copyright? It's MSNBC, what'd you expect-- a history lesson? It's not about Europe. It's about copyright in the U.S., hence the discussion of the DMCA. Yeah, maybe the writer gets a little nationalistic to make his point. It's still a decent article, despite the occasional manipulative phrase.
Every time a story comes up that says the least bit wrong about Europeans (or, worse-- forgets to mention them), they get in a tizzy. Do we need a warning? "WARNING: this article may contain no flattering commentary about Europe. If you're not American, read at your own risk. Oh, and if you're neither European nor American, you don't count-- even the Europeans don't think you exist."
On a side note-- and this is totally irrelevant, really-- where in the article does the author "rewrite history"? I just ask because you mention it twice.
Art critics are often much more closed-minded than they'd like to admit. There are one or two with vision, and the rest of them follow along with the current "scene". Maybe crosses dipped in piss are popular this year; next year they're passe; the year before they weren't art.
Where a lot of the resistance is coming from, however, is the fact that art involving computers is often commercial. You'll see the same disdain towards commercial art-- people who paint pretty, inoffensive scenes for people to put in their homes. You see it in a lot of bigotry towards movies as an art form-- some justified, some not, but a lot of art critics display some degree of prejudice toward their movie critic counterparts. It's the commercial pressures-- obviously a starving painter isn't in it for the money, whereas Ridley Scott is fairly well off. (Side note: Scott's Bladerunner was actually showing on a television in the middle of an art exhibit at the Louisiana museum in Denmark. Very cool.)
Are people doing things about it? Yes. A friend of mine was originally an art major at Stanford (one of, say, a couple dozen-- not exactly the usual track there), but changed to an individually designed major called Visual Studies in Computer Animation. She and a staff member or two worked fairly hard to squeeze a few bucks worth of computer equipment out of the school (while quad-proc machines were sitting unused in the Gates Building basement, but that's another story). Now there are several classes involving digital art and computer animation. There's also a building/room for SUDAC, Stanford University Digital Art Center. It's fairly tiny and not too well-funded, but it's a start.
For a while, the art department didn't want anything to do with them. I'm not sure what their stance is now, though, since a lot of art students take digital art classes.
Back to the original question, anything can be art if it offers sufficient revelation. It's often difficult to understand why artists, supposedly in pursuit of new insight, are so quick to dismiss a new medium. My guess is that it's because a lot of the early stuff is crap-- using computers for the sake of using computers, and not as a powerful tool for art. A few great things are starting to pop up here and there; I found a few nuggets at the SFMOMA digital art exhibit. A few years from now, I think the evidence will be irrefutable-- digital tools will powerfully change the way we experience art.
Could you create a competing television network to NBC, and call it ABC?
Analogies suck.
sqlrob is correct, in his response to your post. I have seen EULA's that literally say they get your first born. I do know what literally means.
Well, yes, they can probably put whatever they want in it. I've seen EULA's that literally say they get your first born. That's not the interesting question. The question is-- what will actually hold up?
EULA's have severe limits. In Vault v. Quaid, it was held that an EULA can't infringe on federally protected consumer rights, such as noninfringing use, reverse engineering, and so on.
I found a rather interesting article dealing with copyright law vs. shrinkwrap licenses here. It's worth reading, since IP and EULA's seem to come up here quite often. It doesn't have an immediate interpretation of the current situation. However, it is evident that typically courts agree with the notion that EULA's cannot be used to artificially block legitimate competition, since that runs entirely counter to the purpose of the copyright laws they're predicated on.