I'd quibble with that $30. Sony might well sell the add-on at cost, or even a loss, in order to build the market.
The DRM nonsense is a bigger issue. It is, in fact, the reason I've tended to avoid Sony products, ever since discovering that my Sony laptop tried to specify what OSs I could install on it.
Way back in 1972, when he was first appointed to the court, Rehnquist was one of its most conservative Justices. He quickly became close friends with William O. Douglas, who was far and away the most liberal Justice. The friendship was obviously motivated in part by a mutual need to bridge their ideological gap so they could work together to make law that people on both sides could live with.
Nowadays, Washington is dominated by a self-righteous Us-And-Them mentality that makes such friendships impossible. The Supreme Court is sort of resistant to this, but is still pretty bad. And we're all suffering for it.
Go back and read it yourself. He had a LiveJournal account already. That somebody upgraded the free LJ account to a paid account. He already had an LJ account before then.
A Linux developer is organizing volunteers for a public 'web station' project to assist Hurricane Katrina victims.
Craigslist has a dozen different people "organizing volunteers" for web sites to help Katrina victims. As if nobody else could have thought of it. At best, all these sites will confuse people and repeat each others efforts. At worse, they'll hinder each other.
Most of what needs to be done is dreary and low-tech: helping load trucks, sorting blankets, etc. So if you want to help, call up the Salvation Army or the Red Cross and offer your time.
Massivewinners.com is slashdotted. But this sounds like the same guy who owns mgno.com. And he got a front page Slashdot story just yesterday. For no obvious reason, he likes people to link redirects like mgno.com or massivewinners.com/mgno, instead of linking his LiveJournal direct.
Incidentally, a key part of good writing is expressing yourself clearly and precisely. For example, "Tell me what's wrong with my writing," does not mean the same thing as "Don't criticize my writing or I'll pull a world-class tantrum."
The sound bite mentality is a symptom, not the disease. Most people are capable of understanding complex issues if you motivate them to try. Problem is, they get a lot of demotivation. Politicians and pundits find it easy to build a following by encouraging people to be intellectually lazy. All environmental issues are "invented" by "tree huggers" and "the liberal media". End of discussion.
Great Ozone Debate? There's no debate -- just an exchange of insults.
No, there's no font issue. The EPS file displays fine in Ghostscript and other Postscript renderers. The problem is that Adobe changed the way AI breaks EPS files into discrete user-manipulable entities.
When people say "open format", they usually refer to documenting the details of the format. (Or, as with XML, using a format that's self-documenting.) Now, that does save a lot of work, but it doesn't address a much harder problem. Namely: OK, you've got the data, now how do you use it?
Classic example: sharing MS Word files with other word processors. The problem isn't getting at the data in.DOC format (not an easy problem, but one that was solved years ago). The problem is rendering Word formatting using the conventions of other word processors. As anybody who's tried to import complex Word documents into Open Office will testify, that's a problem that's a long way from being solved -- if it ever is.
I've been working on a project for an organization that has a bunch of certificates created in Adobe Illustrator 6. The files are saved in EPS format, which belongs to Adobe, but is very well documented. So accessing the files should be a snap, right? Wrong. I have Adobe Illustrator 11 (better known as Illustrator CS), which uses completely different conventions for creating an EPS file. It can read the old files OK -- but it horribly mungs the formatting. Somebody's going to have to sit down and undo all that munging, which will be a day or two of work. Then we can make the simple change (inserting a new signature), that's the only change we want to make!
So true openness has more to it than knowing what all the bits and bytes do. It's making sure that all the different design teams for different products that use the format (or the same product at different times!) are on the same page when it comes to the fine details.
I pretty much agree with the opinions you state. ("Reasonable
men adjust themselves to their environment.
Unreasonable men attempt to change their environment to
suit themselves. Therefore all progress is the work of unreasonable men." George Bernard Shaw.)
But I'm afraid my comment was pure sarcasm. Somebody who insists that they're taking a moral stand by refusing to "dress up" is just exercising their ego. Not all battles are worth fighting.
Slashdot Mirror
The DRM nonsense is a bigger issue. It is, in fact, the reason I've tended to avoid Sony products, ever since discovering that my Sony laptop tried to specify what OSs I could install on it.
Or we could just figure out a way to live together.
And I thought my sex life was pathetic!
It's bad enough being a language nazi, the least you can do is check that your point hasn't already been made. Especially when it's stupid.
Legislatures make statute law. Courts make case law.
Nowadays, Washington is dominated by a self-righteous Us-And-Them mentality that makes such friendships impossible. The Supreme Court is sort of resistant to this, but is still pretty bad. And we're all suffering for it.
Mambo! Joomla! Sis ra ra! Ginko farly! Iss bata!
Go back and read it yourself. He had a LiveJournal account already. That somebody upgraded the free LJ account to a paid account. He already had an LJ account before then.
Most of what needs to be done is dreary and low-tech: helping load trucks, sorting blankets, etc. So if you want to help, call up the Salvation Army or the Red Cross and offer your time.
Massivewinners.com is slashdotted. But this sounds like the same guy who owns mgno.com. And he got a front page Slashdot story just yesterday. For no obvious reason, he likes people to link redirects like mgno.com or massivewinners.com/mgno, instead of linking his LiveJournal direct.
Check out RoboForm. Snarfs up passwords, automatically enters them for you. Passwords can be saved to Palm, PocketPC, or USB key. Supports Firefox.
Also for understatement.
What makes my comment a sound bite? The way I summarized my opinion in a cute little package? I think there's more to soundbiting than that.
Jeez, talk about irony. You don't respond to my assertion ("proof" is your terminology), you just attack me. What did I just say?
Incidentally, a key part of good writing is expressing yourself clearly and precisely. For example, "Tell me what's wrong with my writing," does not mean the same thing as "Don't criticize my writing or I'll pull a world-class tantrum."
Great Ozone Debate? There's no debate -- just an exchange of insults.
No, there's no font issue. The EPS file displays fine in Ghostscript and other Postscript renderers. The problem is that Adobe changed the way AI breaks EPS files into discrete user-manipulable entities.
Classic example: sharing MS Word files with other word processors. The problem isn't getting at the data in .DOC format (not an easy problem, but one that was solved years ago). The problem is rendering Word formatting using the conventions of other word processors. As anybody who's tried to import complex Word documents into Open Office will testify, that's a problem that's a long way from being solved -- if it ever is.
I've been working on a project for an organization that has a bunch of certificates created in Adobe Illustrator 6. The files are saved in EPS format, which belongs to Adobe, but is very well documented. So accessing the files should be a snap, right? Wrong. I have Adobe Illustrator 11 (better known as Illustrator CS), which uses completely different conventions for creating an EPS file. It can read the old files OK -- but it horribly mungs the formatting. Somebody's going to have to sit down and undo all that munging, which will be a day or two of work. Then we can make the simple change (inserting a new signature), that's the only change we want to make!
So true openness has more to it than knowing what all the bits and bytes do. It's making sure that all the different design teams for different products that use the format (or the same product at different times!) are on the same page when it comes to the fine details.
I pretty much agree with the opinions you state. ("Reasonable men adjust themselves to their environment. Unreasonable men attempt to change their environment to suit themselves. Therefore all progress is the work of unreasonable men." George Bernard Shaw.) But I'm afraid my comment was pure sarcasm. Somebody who insists that they're taking a moral stand by refusing to "dress up" is just exercising their ego. Not all battles are worth fighting.
So you do have time for me? But to talk, not to listen...
I'm not a bike person (too uncoordinated), but when I think of "bicycles" and "commuting", I think folding bicycles.