You know, the whole situation with MSN trying to make it so that it no longer works with third party clients anymore sucks. It better not work! I like Fire. MSN doesn't have the necessary features which I'd prefer the most. Its logging system, for example, is shit. The Mac OS X client, on quit, pops up an annoying dialog to ask whether or not you'd want to save the conversation. Well, of course I do. That's why logging was enabled. Grr. And another thing, MSN does not recognize my wheel mouse. What the heck? I hate standard scrolling now that I can just wheel up and down. Any app that lacks the ability for such a, now-a-days, basic and simple feature is broken, in my view.
Here's an example of the messed up logging formatting: Date Time From To Message 7/17/2003 19:09:15 Me (@) some-one-else (@) hi! 7/17/2003 19:09:15 Me (@) some-one-else (@) how are you? 7/17/2003 19:09:15 (@) some-one-else (@) Me I am great! and you?!
Now, that's in a table - so it should be obvious why copy and paste is officially screwed up. Seeing the person the message was sent TO right before the message can definitely be confusing as it looks like they sent it instead What's the point of saying it's to any certain person in any case?
Now, even if I finally find a way to fix the whole auto-logging on problem, there are times that I just want to check who's on... not necessarily chat - yet. So, it would definitely be nice to be able to log in with "Appear Offline" until otherwise selected.
What a blessing. Now when new users say what service they're using, "Netscape" can be a valid answer. Uhm . .. Unless they're using the "Netscape" browser with another service.
On a somewhat related sidenote, I recall that certain NeXT machines (such as the one I own) came with keyboards that had no capslock key. How was it implemented then? By invoking Command Shift. A little light would turn on, and the shift served also as the caps key. Talk about good engineering and saving space. It really makes sense to do it that way.
Players can always flip the switch or pull the plug on a game that has ceased being fun. The image of a frustrated player upending the checkerboard contains an important truth: there is nothing in the rules of checkers to keep both players in their chairs. Joshua: Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.
I would propose a form of Draconian copy protection to ensure that the game is distributed on a one-to-one basis with the physical media. Perhaps a hardware card would come with the game to allow playability. This is to ensure that each account is, in fact, legit.
Secondly, paid accounts. This is to maintain the server and to create an incentive to remain a decent citizen of the game world. You screw up, and your account is terminated, no refunds and no way of getting back.
Third, a moderation system. For the most part, what's used on Slashdot seems to find the comments worth reading while weeding out the poor ones. It works quite well. I think something akin to how that is done here could be applied in a game world.
Fourth, focus adventure games on exploration rather than combat. My particular favorite concept of any game of late is Uru: Ages beyond MYST. I'm not a fan of MMORPGs. In fact, if and when I do by this game, I'll play the online single player version. However, to those who do like cooperative gaming, the idea of having multiple persons to solve a single puzzle and infinite worlds to explore has a certain appeal.
It's such a radical concept. I really hope people don't fuck up others' suspension of disbelief by posting cracks and cheats and walkthroughs, during gameplay. A game like Uru requires one to be fully immersed in the world. The puzzles of the Myst series were challenging, creative, and unique. That one game pretty much launched an entire genre of clones.
Fifth, on the topic of suspension of disbelief. Let us consider the grammar of a certain portion of gamers. "stfu n00b! i ownzored j00." Let's say the scope of the game is a medieval battlefield (all hypothetical). The characters in question are knights. I seriously doubt any knight spoke in 1337. That creates a problem. How believable is a world where the language and customs of that world have not been assimilated by the players therein? Not very.
Which leads to a game that could use adaptive latent semantic analysis on a player's messages. It would intelligently consider word pairs to find the emotional content of the message. stfu n00b would become [insulting command][insulting generic noun] (generically). i ownzored j00 i [claim to victory] you. With parsing of course.
The game could then substitute this with "Silence, thou swine. I hath claimed glorious victory over thine own." Or something of similar meaning. The point being that it would create language in the tradition of the game's historical and social context.
Sixth, culture, tradition. What makes a novel by Tolkien so rich? It's the history, and the traditions of each race. The Hobbits, for example live a life of peace and quiet, performing simple agricultural labors. The elves are stealthy and live in a woodland realm. The dwarves delve deep under the Earth and, being created by a God of a somewhat rebellious nature, have ever been in conflict with the elves. Point being, there's traditions and uniqueness to each race.
How is that to be adapted to give a game world depth? How does one make a person behave like an elf or a dwarf, etc.? Perhaps, before character creation a brief survey is given to match the personality of the player to a character that would best reflect an extension of that personality. Someone with a love for solitude and nature, for example, might be assigned an elf. Gold, metal, working with hands - a dwarf, et al.
These are the things I believe would most immediately improve multiplayer gaming.
For some reason, the idea of Microsoft having a psychologist and studying language just gives me a picture of a scene from 1984 where the Newspeak dictionary is being discussed.
Apple Computer should simply buy out Apple Records to shut these leeches up. No settlements, no wasting time with their incessant, anti-progressive legislation and laws. Just, buy them out.
This is ridiculously too frivilous and an obvious attempt at money, rather than a sincere desire to protect one's business.
If not bought out, Apple Computer could give this bloody company free representation on the iTMS.
No one is going to buy into a new browser, period, unless it is small, and there is a noticable benefit in using it. Ideally, it'd be integrated into a software update feature of the OS. If not, I suppose the time has come to re-enact the banners. Firebird, for Windows is the best bet. While, on the Mac, I'm betting on Omniweb (if only they'd make it free).
Oh, yes. I've found what I consider to be my favorite OS X theme in Milk. It's white. It's elegant. It's simple. It reminds me of the iHardware color schemes. Very, very sexy. And, it gets rid of Aqua's most loathed, in my view, feature - Pin Stripes. Anyhow, Milk can be found here. Assuming one has duality, which I believe the site provides a link, it makes for a very attractive UI.
I was watching the streaming video, over 56k, and one of the few parts I could actually hear was - "It takes a little while longer to negotiate with France." - Steve Jobs, during iChat AV demo with Jean Marie in Paris. It works on so many levels.
... Three packages for the Mac users under the sun... And one metapackage to find them, and in the darkness bind them. In the land of shell, where the shadows lie.
Hi, my name is "Bob". I am from Microsoft. You may not know me that well, but I'm your friend. I'll make computing easier for you by turning it into an animated storybook interface. Want to be my friend? Oh, you don't? Here, I'll just go sit on this shelf and... err... gather dust.
This comes down to a battle between paper and the physical vs. fonts and the digital. In every practical sense, paper should be dead. Resource costs alone, for example, should have greatly tightened the noosed about the neck of this obsolete form of communication. The article contends that a pen is readily available and doesn't require batteries. However, a pen is not a resource of replenishable means. In other words, modern pens run out of ink, much as batteries run out of "juice". However, most batteries are rechargable. A PDA is also readily available. Anyhow, that's my brief two cents. Death to paper.
Time Magazine Interview with Tim Berners Lee, unfortunately, a preview to a for-pay full article. If anyone knows where the full article is, for free, let me know. In any event, in this article, TBL - creator of the web - discusses what his greatest fear for it would be. In other words, what would harm the web most? His answer: A "split" internet. Browser A is best used for this site, browser B is best for this one. DRM, thus, is technology that will do - as most of us are no doubt aware - more harm than good. It DESTROYS the ubiquitous nature of how one SHOULD be allowed to access online content. Time, ironically, has designed their site to be used with Browsers X and Y (Netscape and IE).
I'm not sure if this counts for odd window sizing and such with non-straight curves, but I use an app called 'Photostickies' http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 10949 for doing some weird screen effects including keying out parts, etc. And this acts as a window which can play with transitions if you have multiple pictures loaded (probably not a movie, but animation in a non-standard window, etc.). OS X has all of this (as we well know) but it's not in too much active use. Photostickies is fun, but hardly practical. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to layer random objects on top of windows for no reasons. Like, I'll have two pictures of my hand (background / the palm - and - foreground / fingers) to layer on a window so it looks as though my hand is grabbing the frame of the window. Etc. Yeah. Just a little curiosity program I thought I'd mention.
How about one takes the same filters used in advanced email processing (adaptive latent semantic analysis) which analyze word-pairs, and using these pairs, can determine contextual meaning of such phrases as "d00d! I Own... ugh" well, that atrocity and it could "Tolkien-ify" it. Human: A fair battle, and I congratulate you on allowing such a just victory, good sir.
Okay, maybe I'm not getting the NB factor right. (Nobility) = how noble a character is. But, it's something worth exploring. I think for suspension of disbelief to fully happen, one has to act as if one truely is the character. And that means, for the most part, none of this haxx0r shit.
Excellent. I'm tired of all these silly RPG's, shoot 'em ups, etc. I've been hoping for the release of Mudpie (Myst 4) for quite some time now, and hoping this... "infinite world" concept will breathe new life into a rather redundant industry.
Who said we had to reach Europa quickly. I don't know the dynamics and physics of space travel, but why not send this device on at a slower speed, but still considerable, to save fuel on stopping it? Or maybe some internal belt fires to provide a force to counteract inertia. I'm not sure. It'd be some kind of device that rotates counterwise to the direction the ship is traveling in. Ahh, screw it, I don't know what I'm talking about.
I was just reading that and thinking of all the radiation bombarded underwater Frenchmen, and Englishmen and at least the paleness becomes explainable...:D But, in truth, that was highly amusing.
This was a very biased article. I only read the article itself, granted, and did not click any of the links therein. However, he is constantly complaining about the Mac having fewer VERTICAL market applications - such as that iNews, or whatever it was. The funny thing is, Apple created (NeXT created) Cocoa for just that purpose! Vertical market business applications. It has expanded since, of course.
He never actually seems to have USED the Mac. And what I mean by that is, he never really points out what's unique about it. Right then and there, there's bias. How? Simple, he babbles about how unique the PC's vertical market applications are a holdback for Apple, and yet he doesn't mention that the Mac has applications not available on the PC, et al.
I found it particularly interesting that he gave a MS app - "How can Apple throw in this painfully slow browser, Internet Explorer for Mac 5.2, on the iBook, or any other Mac? This is the company that gives you a solid office suite in AppleWorks, a killer video editor in iMovie, iTunes for your music, iPhoto, a free DVD player, and a rock-solid open operating system." A negative review. In fact, the Safari negative reviews can only help Apple - consider this article's only true function as a Safari Bug report by someone unable to diagnose the bugs.
My friend, Virtual PC does run BeOS. However, that said, there is a major bug. I can do everything with it, except type; it hangs on keyboard input. That said, I get a 16 bit 1200 x 1600 display for BeOS with the ability to run any application natively installed on the OS, plus some downloads which I used shared disks to transfer into Be.
I should take out the word "small" shouldn't I? Okay, let's do that. The sentence reads "only a portion of users can access...". Anyways, the point is not in the numbers but in the fact that one company should NOT have complete control over any public medium. It's the same idea behind limiting any form of power.
I'd like to talk on a particular pet peeve of mine: the concept of ownership and creation. I've probably mentioned this subject before, but it's just something that's on my mind a lot. Copyright is a flawed concept.
First off, I believe that almost every work draws upon references to previous works. If a work cannot stand entirely on its own (in other words, there was nothing from which it was inspired) I would allow copyright. Otherwise, those sources - even if it's just one line of text - should be compensated. I mean, in truth, it was their idea which the author, musician, artist, et al. was using. However, said creationist somehow can claim a complete dictatorship over said content.
Secondly, in order for the continuation of learning, we need to be able to draw upon reference without fear of charge. Imagine a poor institution that, due to copyright, could have had the needed information to cure a major disease. But, they couldn't afford that work, that reference. Suddenly, lives are lost.
Third, enforcement of copyright. The ways that I have seen to support this concept are nothing short of illegal. We go from blocking a for-pay service that customers subscribe to, all the way down to what amounts to digital vandalism. I want nothing to do with an idea that has to be protected by such methods.
Fourth, proprietary content. This is a big one. What I create - here - should be readable anywhere, by anyone, on any system that has sufficient resources to view it. Like a web page. I hate those stupid "best viewed with x-browser" buttons. They bespeak bad web design. They tell me someone is not using the right (standards-based) HTML tags. Tim Berners Lee's, creator of the Web, greatest fear was that someone would create a technology to split the web - in other words make it so that only a small portion of users can access certain bits of content. Microsoft has been trying this. They will continue until they feel they have gained sufficient control over what should be an open technology.
Fifth, ridiculous ownership terms. Disney has, through legislation, extended the copyright on some of its animated characters. I totally disagree with this legislation. First off, a copyrighted work shall remain copyrighted only for the lifetime of its creator, if at all. Those who were not involved in the creation of the work, such as descendants, employees, students, or anyone else not having acting in a manner to bring a work in to existence, shall have no claim to royalties. After the death of the last living creator of a copyrighted work, said work becomes public domain.
Slashdot Mirror
Encountered only two problems.
First, CodeTek Virtual Desktop seems to be incompatable with Panther; it crashes every open app when running.
Second, Duality (a skin changer) fails. However, Panther's UI is somewhat similar to the UI I had the system skinned to, anyhow (Milk).
You know, the whole situation with MSN trying to make it so that it no longer works with third party clients anymore sucks. It better not work! I like Fire. MSN doesn't have the necessary features which I'd prefer the most. Its logging system, for example, is shit. The Mac OS X client, on quit, pops up an annoying dialog to ask whether or not you'd want to save the conversation. Well, of course I do. That's why logging was enabled. Grr. And another thing, MSN does not recognize my wheel mouse. What the heck? I hate standard scrolling now that I can just wheel up and down. Any app that lacks the ability for such a, now-a-days, basic and simple feature is broken, in my view.
Here's an example of the messed up logging formatting:
Date Time From To Message
7/17/2003 19:09:15 Me (@) some-one-else (@) hi!
7/17/2003 19:09:15 Me (@) some-one-else (@) how are you?
7/17/2003 19:09:15 (@) some-one-else (@) Me I am great! and you?!
Now, that's in a table - so it should be obvious why copy and paste is officially screwed up. Seeing the person the message was sent TO right before the message can definitely be confusing as it looks like they sent it instead What's the point of saying it's to any certain person in any case?
Now, even if I finally find a way to fix the whole auto-logging on problem, there are times that I just want to check who's on... not necessarily chat - yet. So, it would definitely be nice to be able to log in with "Appear Offline" until otherwise selected.
What a blessing. Now when new users say what service they're using, "Netscape" can be a valid answer. Uhm . . .
Unless they're using the "Netscape" browser with another service.
Oh shades!
Finder issues you do you speak of? I'd be curious to know in what ways you dislike it, just for the sake of seeing directions it might be improved in.
On a somewhat related sidenote, I recall that certain NeXT machines (such as the one I own) came with keyboards that had no capslock key.
How was it implemented then?
By invoking Command Shift. A little light would turn on, and the shift served also as the caps key.
Talk about good engineering and saving space. It really makes sense to do it that way.
Players can always flip the switch or pull the plug on a game that has ceased being fun. The image of a frustrated player upending the checkerboard contains an important truth: there is nothing in the rules of checkers to keep both players in their chairs.
Joshua: Strange game. The only way to win is not to play.
I would propose a form of Draconian copy protection to ensure that the game is distributed on a one-to-one basis with the physical media. Perhaps a hardware card would come with the game to allow playability. This is to ensure that each account is, in fact, legit.
Secondly, paid accounts. This is to maintain the server and to create an incentive to remain a decent citizen of the game world. You screw up, and your account is terminated, no refunds and no way of getting back.
Third, a moderation system. For the most part, what's used on Slashdot seems to find the comments worth reading while weeding out the poor ones. It works quite well. I think something akin to how that is done here could be applied in a game world.
Fourth, focus adventure games on exploration rather than combat. My particular favorite concept of any game of late is Uru: Ages beyond MYST. I'm not a fan of MMORPGs. In fact, if and when I do by this game, I'll play the online single player version. However, to those who do like cooperative gaming, the idea of having multiple persons to solve a single puzzle and infinite worlds to explore has a certain appeal.
It's such a radical concept. I really hope people don't fuck up others' suspension of disbelief by posting cracks and cheats and walkthroughs, during gameplay. A game like Uru requires one to be fully immersed in the world. The puzzles of the Myst series were challenging, creative, and unique. That one game pretty much launched an entire genre of clones.
Fifth, on the topic of suspension of disbelief. Let us consider the grammar of a certain portion of gamers. "stfu n00b! i ownzored j00." Let's say the scope of the game is a medieval battlefield (all hypothetical). The characters in question are knights. I seriously doubt any knight spoke in 1337. That creates a problem. How believable is a world where the language and customs of that world have not been assimilated by the players therein? Not very.
Which leads to a game that could use adaptive latent semantic analysis on a player's messages. It would intelligently consider word pairs to find the emotional content of the message. stfu n00b would become [insulting command][insulting generic noun] (generically). i ownzored j00 i [claim to victory] you. With parsing of course.
The game could then substitute this with "Silence, thou swine. I hath claimed glorious victory over thine own." Or something of similar meaning. The point being that it would create language in the tradition of the game's historical and social context.
Sixth, culture, tradition. What makes a novel by Tolkien so rich? It's the history, and the traditions of each race. The Hobbits, for example live a life of peace and quiet, performing simple agricultural labors. The elves are stealthy and live in a woodland realm. The dwarves delve deep under the Earth and, being created by a God of a somewhat rebellious nature, have ever been in conflict with the elves. Point being, there's traditions and uniqueness to each race.
How is that to be adapted to give a game world depth? How does one make a person behave like an elf or a dwarf, etc.? Perhaps, before character creation a brief survey is given to match the personality of the player to a character that would best reflect an extension of that personality. Someone with a love for solitude and nature, for example, might be assigned an elf. Gold, metal, working with hands - a dwarf, et al.
These are the things I believe would most immediately improve multiplayer gaming.
... however, their logo seems to be flipping me off.
For some reason, the idea of Microsoft having a psychologist and studying language just gives me a picture of a scene from 1984 where the Newspeak dictionary is being discussed.
Apple Computer should simply buy out Apple Records to shut these leeches up. No settlements, no wasting time with their incessant, anti-progressive legislation and laws. Just, buy them out.
This is ridiculously too frivilous and an obvious attempt at money, rather than a sincere desire to protect one's business.
If not bought out, Apple Computer could give this bloody company free representation on the iTMS.
No one is going to buy into a new browser, period, unless it is small, and there is a noticable benefit in using it. Ideally, it'd be integrated into a software update feature of the OS. If not, I suppose the time has come to re-enact the banners. Firebird, for Windows is the best bet. While, on the Mac, I'm betting on Omniweb (if only they'd make it free).
Oh, yes. I've found what I consider to be my favorite OS X theme in Milk. It's white. It's elegant. It's simple. It reminds me of the iHardware color schemes. Very, very sexy. And, it gets rid of Aqua's most loathed, in my view, feature - Pin Stripes. Anyhow, Milk can be found here. Assuming one has duality, which I believe the site provides a link, it makes for a very attractive UI.
I was watching the streaming video, over 56k, and one of the few parts I could actually hear was -
"It takes a little while longer to negotiate with France." - Steve Jobs, during iChat AV demo with Jean Marie in Paris. It works on so many levels.
... Three packages for the Mac users under the sun ...
And one metapackage to find them, and in the darkness bind them. In the land of shell, where the shadows lie.
Hi, my name is "Bob". I am from Microsoft. You may not know me that well, but I'm your friend. I'll make computing easier for you by turning it into an animated storybook interface. ... err ... gather dust.
Want to be my friend?
Oh, you don't?
Here, I'll just go sit on this shelf and
This comes down to a battle between paper and the physical vs. fonts and the digital. In every practical sense, paper should be dead. Resource costs alone, for example, should have greatly tightened the noosed about the neck of this obsolete form of communication.
The article contends that a pen is readily available and doesn't require batteries. However, a pen is not a resource of replenishable means. In other words, modern pens run out of ink, much as batteries run out of "juice". However, most batteries are rechargable. A PDA is also readily available.
Anyhow, that's my brief two cents. Death to paper.
Time Magazine Interview with Tim Berners Lee, unfortunately, a preview to a for-pay full article. If anyone knows where the full article is, for free, let me know.
In any event, in this article, TBL - creator of the web - discusses what his greatest fear for it would be. In other words, what would harm the web most?
His answer: A "split" internet. Browser A is best used for this site, browser B is best for this one. DRM, thus, is technology that will do - as most of us are no doubt aware - more harm than good. It DESTROYS the ubiquitous nature of how one SHOULD be allowed to access online content. Time, ironically, has designed their site to be used with Browsers X and Y (Netscape and IE).
I'm not sure if this counts for odd window sizing and such with non-straight curves, but I use an app called 'Photostickies' http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 10949 for doing some weird screen effects including keying out parts, etc. And this acts as a window which can play with transitions if you have multiple pictures loaded (probably not a movie, but animation in a non-standard window, etc.). OS X has all of this (as we well know) but it's not in too much active use. Photostickies is fun, but hardly practical. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to layer random objects on top of windows for no reasons. Like, I'll have two pictures of my hand (background / the palm - and - foreground / fingers) to layer on a window so it looks as though my hand is grabbing the frame of the window. Etc.
Yeah. Just a little curiosity program I thought I'd mention.
How about one takes the same filters used in advanced email processing (adaptive latent semantic analysis) which analyze word-pairs, and using these pairs, can determine contextual meaning of such phrases as "d00d! I Own... ugh" well, that atrocity and it could "Tolkien-ify" it.
Human: A fair battle, and I congratulate you on allowing such a just victory, good sir.
Okay, maybe I'm not getting the NB factor right. (Nobility) = how noble a character is. But, it's something worth exploring. I think for suspension of disbelief to fully happen, one has to act as if one truely is the character. And that means, for the most part, none of this haxx0r shit.
Excellent. I'm tired of all these silly RPG's, shoot 'em ups, etc. I've been hoping for the release of Mudpie (Myst 4) for quite some time now, and hoping this ... "infinite world" concept will breathe new life into a rather redundant industry.
Who said we had to reach Europa quickly. I don't know the dynamics and physics of space travel, but why not send this device on at a slower speed, but still considerable, to save fuel on stopping it? Or maybe some internal belt fires to provide a force to counteract inertia. I'm not sure. It'd be some kind of device that rotates counterwise to the direction the ship is traveling in.
Ahh, screw it, I don't know what I'm talking about.
I was just reading that and thinking of all the radiation bombarded underwater Frenchmen, and Englishmen and at least the paleness becomes explainable ... :D But, in truth, that was highly amusing.
This was a very biased article. I only read the article itself, granted, and did not click any of the links therein.
However, he is constantly complaining about the Mac having fewer VERTICAL market applications - such as that iNews, or whatever it was. The funny thing is, Apple created (NeXT created) Cocoa for just that purpose! Vertical market business applications. It has expanded since, of course.
He never actually seems to have USED the Mac. And what I mean by that is, he never really points out what's unique about it. Right then and there, there's bias. How? Simple, he babbles about how unique the PC's vertical market applications are a holdback for Apple, and yet he doesn't mention that the Mac has applications not available on the PC, et al.
I found it particularly interesting that he gave a MS app -
"How can Apple throw in this painfully slow browser, Internet Explorer for Mac 5.2, on the iBook, or any other Mac? This is the company that gives you a solid office suite in AppleWorks, a killer video editor in iMovie, iTunes for your music, iPhoto, a free DVD player, and a rock-solid open operating system."
A negative review.
In fact, the Safari negative reviews can only help Apple - consider this article's only true function as a Safari Bug report by someone unable to diagnose the bugs.
My friend, Virtual PC does run BeOS. However, that said, there is a major bug. I can do everything with it, except type; it hangs on keyboard input. That said, I get a 16 bit 1200 x 1600 display for BeOS with the ability to run any application natively installed on the OS, plus some downloads which I used shared disks to transfer into Be.
I should take out the word "small" shouldn't I? Okay, let's do that. The sentence reads "only a portion of users can access ...". Anyways, the point is not in the numbers but in the fact that one company should NOT have complete control over any public medium. It's the same idea behind limiting any form of power.
I'd like to talk on a particular pet peeve of mine: the concept of ownership and creation. I've probably mentioned this subject before, but it's just something that's on my mind a lot. Copyright is a flawed concept.
First off, I believe that almost every work draws upon references to previous works. If a work cannot stand entirely on its own (in other words, there was nothing from which it was inspired) I would allow copyright. Otherwise, those sources - even if it's just one line of text - should be compensated. I mean, in truth, it was their idea which the author, musician, artist, et al. was using. However, said creationist somehow can claim a complete dictatorship over said content.
Secondly, in order for the continuation of learning, we need to be able to draw upon reference without fear of charge. Imagine a poor institution that, due to copyright, could have had the needed information to cure a major disease. But, they couldn't afford that work, that reference. Suddenly, lives are lost.
Third, enforcement of copyright. The ways that I have seen to support this concept are nothing short of illegal. We go from blocking a for-pay service that customers subscribe to, all the way down to what amounts to digital vandalism. I want nothing to do with an idea that has to be protected by such methods.
Fourth, proprietary content. This is a big one. What I create - here - should be readable anywhere, by anyone, on any system that has sufficient resources to view it. Like a web page. I hate those stupid "best viewed with x-browser" buttons. They bespeak bad web design. They tell me someone is not using the right (standards-based) HTML tags. Tim Berners Lee's, creator of the Web, greatest fear was that someone would create a technology to split the web - in other words make it so that only a small portion of users can access certain bits of content. Microsoft has been trying this. They will continue until they feel they have gained sufficient control over what should be an open technology.
Fifth, ridiculous ownership terms. Disney has, through legislation, extended the copyright on some of its animated characters. I totally disagree with this legislation. First off, a copyrighted work shall remain copyrighted only for the lifetime of its creator, if at all. Those who were not involved in the creation of the work, such as descendants, employees, students, or anyone else not having acting in a manner to bring a work in to existence, shall have no claim to royalties. After the death of the last living creator of a copyrighted work, said work becomes public domain.