Whoa. Jon Katz is pushing for a stronger rating system?
I don't think he's arguing for a stronger rating system so much, but if we must have a rating system, why not one that more accurately reflects what is actually likely to harm children, rather than one that reflects what offends the MPAA ratings board?
Personally, I've always thought they should use a multiple 1-10 ratings scale, e.g.:
this suggestion is so polyanna, i'm willing to use my real name and take the karma hit and say so. are you aware that we comprise about.03% of the electronics buying populace and the other 99.73% don't even *
know* about sdmi let alone care?
Once the industry starts trying to push it down people's collective throats, people will care. Remember DivX?
Don't forget that at the time BeOS was ported to the Mac platform, Apple was licensing MacOS to a number of other companies (StarMax, PowerComputing, and so on) and there were lots of plans for an open PowerPC Architecture (PReP, CHRP, etc). It was only some time after BeOS was ported that apple slammed the door on all the Mac clone licensees and went back to its proprietary little world.
Also don't forget that the BeOS originally ran on Be's BeBox, which was in many way similar to a PowerMac. Thus the port wasn't terribly difficult to do (I believe they had the basic functionality ported to the PowerMac architecture within a few days of starting the port)
Sun hasn't done anything at all about this, they just completely ignore the issue as far as I've seen.
Maybe I'm just an overly idealistic Slashdot weenie, but I don't see a problem here. In my humble opinion, a user should be able to decompile and examine any code that will be running on his/her machine. Otherwise, every time you run a program, you are trusting the safety and security of your computer, your data, and your network to a pig-in-a-poke.
Dateline April 1, 2003
MEDIA CORPORATIONS ANNOUNCE PRICE CUTS
Secure Media Systems Credited for lower prices
Most major media corporations announced today that they would be slashing their prices on Compact Discs, DVDs, and pay-per-view downloadable media this week due to the success of Microsoft's DRM technology and other secure content-delivery systems.
"Without pirates eating up a portion of our profits anymore, we no longer need to charge a premium to our paying customers" said Heidi Rosen, CEO of Global Music Marketing Consortium Conglomerates, Inc. "And since our customers no longer have any choice about where to obtain their music, we felt lowering prices to reflect our costs plus a reasonable markup was the only decent thing to do."
Spokesmen for other media concerns echoed Rosen's remarks, saying that "in our field, customers always come first. If we weren't delivering the highest quality content to our customers at the lowest possible price, we just wouldn't feel like good people. I mean, how would we sleep at night? There are certain industries where they might feel that just because they have a captive audience, they can get away with charging high prices--check out the price of a beer at a football game, for example. But here at Sony RCA Time Warner AOL McDonald's Corporation, we aren't in it for the money. We do what we do because we love the work."
(Note: As a result of the new content price cuts, MS-Slashdot news has billed your MasterCard only $6.95 for reading this article, instead of the regular $9.95 rights fee)
Why would artifically un-aged people oppress their descendants?
Why do many states and counties impose term limits on their politicians? They do it because an incumbent politician can become so powerful and so entrenched that it becomes impossible for any other candidates to compete.
Now think of death a sort of "term limit" for everybody... remove the term limit and the immortal people will begin to accumulate wealth, knowledge, and experience without limit.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but a healthy 400-year-old will probably have a number of advantages over your average 20-year old.
Even if we discovered life on Europa it most likely wouldn't be sentient, much less intelligent. It's all very interesting but as long as there are better uses for the money, (feeding the poor or lowering taxes not just moon bases) we shouldn't be throwing it away.
When Linux's code is open, it is a security bonus.
What bloody idiotic hypocrisy! You people should make up your minds.
What are you talking about? Any OS, when it source code is first exposed to the eyes of the masses, will become less secure for a short time (as security holes are found), and then more secure in the long run (as the holes are fixed). So for Microsoft, opening the source would be first a threat, then a bonus later on. Since Linux's source has always been open, there is no threat stage to go through; it's all bonus by now.
Jeremy
As long as your game engine can feed the video card at 30fps and you can do real-time video (de)/compression, what next?
more polygons per frame, of course... and higher resolution images.... hardware NURBS.... real-time ray tracing.... don't worry, there are plenty of ways to use the eztra CPU cycles!
I would personally like to see this $29.95 fee (or whatever the price eventually is) included in the price of new computers as a 'deposit'. When it comes time to recycle your old machine, you then get your deposit back. This would give people a cash incentive to recycle, rather than just dumping their machine in the trash.
This has nothing to do with fonts. "Type handling" refers to standard C, Javam C++ etc. language types.
Huh? I thought they were talking about the handling of file types (e.g. jpg, gif, zip, etc). This would make more sense, since we're talking about an OS here and not a programming language. Anyway, that's another thing BeOS does better than anyone else;^)
The problem with #2 (which sounds good on the surface) is that how do you know thta your NT machines never communicated with Redmond and sent them something unique like your NIC's ID or your
hard drive's ID or at very least your IP address
Anyone else see the eerie similarities between Windows and, say, QAZ?
Have you ever considered that they weren't doing any work that morning? It's a great excuse for users to perpetuate the myth of the unstable operating system... So which operating system bears the brunt of the blame? Well, it'll be the one that workers use.
The above reasoning is a good example of Microsoft thinking IMHO.... problem: users are complaining about the O/S freezing up. diagnosis: the users are lazy liars.
With any luck, it is that attitude which will cause their downfall some day.
Have someone (say, in Russia) read through the code for 'interesting' insights (such as how their undocumented protocols work, how they break competitor's products, how to work around some horrible bug, etc). That person (who you never talk to directly) then posts this info to a web page. You come along and read the web page. You've never looked at the Microsoft source code, but now you know the things you wanted/needed to know. Can you be held liable for that? I hope not?
...what in the hell would hackers want with Microsoft's plans?
It would be interesting if someone looked through the source code and found evidence of dirty tricks (e.g. code to deliberately disable a competitor's product, etc) and published it (with some sort of proof of existence, I'm not sure how that would work)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think he's arguing for a stronger rating system so much, but if we must have a rating system, why not one that more accurately reflects what is actually likely to harm children, rather than one that reflects what offends the MPAA ratings board?
Personally, I've always thought they should use a multiple 1-10 ratings scale, e.g.:
Hannibal
Language: 6/10
Violence: 10/10
Sexual Content: 7/10
Product Placement: 2/10
Recycled Content: 5/10
Summary Rating: 30/50
Once the industry starts trying to push it down people's collective throats, people will care. Remember DivX?
Also don't forget that the BeOS originally ran on Be's BeBox, which was in many way similar to a PowerMac. Thus the port wasn't terribly difficult to do (I believe they had the basic functionality ported to the PowerMac architecture within a few days of starting the port)
Sun hasn't done anything at all about this, they just completely ignore the issue as far as I've seen.
Maybe I'm just an overly idealistic Slashdot weenie, but I don't see a problem here. In my humble opinion, a user should be able to decompile and examine any code that will be running on his/her machine. Otherwise, every time you run a program, you are trusting the safety and security of your computer, your data, and your network to a pig-in-a-poke.
Dateline April 1, 2003 MEDIA CORPORATIONS ANNOUNCE PRICE CUTS Secure Media Systems Credited for lower prices Most major media corporations announced today that they would be slashing their prices on Compact Discs, DVDs, and pay-per-view downloadable media this week due to the success of Microsoft's DRM technology and other secure content-delivery systems. "Without pirates eating up a portion of our profits anymore, we no longer need to charge a premium to our paying customers" said Heidi Rosen, CEO of Global Music Marketing Consortium Conglomerates, Inc. "And since our customers no longer have any choice about where to obtain their music, we felt lowering prices to reflect our costs plus a reasonable markup was the only decent thing to do." Spokesmen for other media concerns echoed Rosen's remarks, saying that "in our field, customers always come first. If we weren't delivering the highest quality content to our customers at the lowest possible price, we just wouldn't feel like good people. I mean, how would we sleep at night? There are certain industries where they might feel that just because they have a captive audience, they can get away with charging high prices--check out the price of a beer at a football game, for example. But here at Sony RCA Time Warner AOL McDonald's Corporation, we aren't in it for the money. We do what we do because we love the work." (Note: As a result of the new content price cuts, MS-Slashdot news has billed your MasterCard only $6.95 for reading this article, instead of the regular $9.95 rights fee)
PaRappa the Rapper and similar are good too.
Why do many states and counties impose term limits on their politicians? They do it because an incumbent politician can become so powerful and so entrenched that it becomes impossible for any other candidates to compete.
Now think of death a sort of "term limit" for everybody... remove the term limit and the immortal people will begin to accumulate wealth, knowledge, and experience without limit.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but a healthy 400-year-old will probably have a number of advantages over your average 20-year old.
(Insert Queen Isabella / Columbus analogy here)
What are you talking about? Any OS, when it source code is first exposed to the eyes of the masses, will become less secure for a short time (as security holes are found), and then more secure in the long run (as the holes are fixed). So for Microsoft, opening the source would be first a threat, then a bonus later on. Since Linux's source has always been open, there is no threat stage to go through; it's all bonus by now. Jeremy
more polygons per frame, of course... and higher resolution images.... hardware NURBS.... real-time ray tracing.... don't worry, there are plenty of ways to use the eztra CPU cycles!
So Saddam is going to make a Beowulf cluster out of PS2s? All right, de-lurk, Mr. Hussein, it's obvious you are a /. reader...
As a BeOS user and developer, I assure you it is the first two.
I would personally like to see this $29.95 fee (or whatever the price eventually is) included in the price of new computers as a 'deposit'. When it comes time to recycle your old machine, you then get your deposit back. This would give people a cash incentive to recycle, rather than just dumping their machine in the trash.
Huh? I thought they were talking about the handling of file types (e.g. jpg, gif, zip, etc). This would make more sense, since we're talking about an OS here and not a programming language. Anyway, that's another thing BeOS does better than anyone else ;^)
God, I can't wait for the election to be over. The campaign ads are going to peoples' heads!
Anyone else see the eerie similarities between Windows and, say, QAZ?
Microsoft isn't doing any checking. It is forcing government employees to do the checking, on their dime.
The above reasoning is a good example of Microsoft thinking IMHO.... problem: users are complaining about the O/S freezing up. diagnosis: the users are lazy liars.
With any luck, it is that attitude which will cause their downfall some day.
The only time I have to fsck on startup is... oh, let's see.... ABSOLUTELY NEVER.
-Jeremy, the gloating BeOS zealot ;^)
Have someone (say, in Russia) read through the code for 'interesting' insights (such as how their undocumented protocols work, how they break competitor's products, how to work around some horrible bug, etc). That person (who you never talk to directly) then posts this info to a web page. You come along and read the web page. You've never looked at the Microsoft source code, but now you know the things you wanted/needed to know. Can you be held liable for that? I hope not?
It would be interesting if someone looked through the source code and found evidence of dirty tricks (e.g. code to deliberately disable a competitor's product, etc) and published it (with some sort of proof of existence, I'm not sure how that would work)
1. Who said anything about teaching children anything? Or is Slashdot a popular site with the kids now?
2. Lighten up.
The "elf bowling" attack works surprisingly well.... -Jeremy
I don't know where you get your ideas about BeOS, but you can download both the BeOS and the dev tools for free.
Torture has been going on for as long as mankind has had laws. It works, and it does serve as an ultimate punishment.
Therefore, let's allow torture.