I was a good kid. But that's not really true. There was a moral ambiguity. My dad brought home an Apple ][+ in 1978 - and I was hooked. As soon as I discovered copy protection, I became disturbed. Why could a friend have a game and we couldn't share? I'd already started learning BASIC and 6502 machine language; but it didn't take me long to figure out how to "copy" something that wasn't meant to be copied. Disk duplication software was unreliable. Removal of the protection was the only way. And who did it really hurt...
Some people pirated software. They collected it like baseball cards. Along comes an awkward teenager. All of a sudden, he has purpose and is "popular." Trading and playing software becomes less interesting than removal of protection. And notoriety does wonders for ego.
You get an aliases. Alien, MicroMuncher, Optimus Prime and the Evil Sock... just to name a few (all the same person.) And the art and science of computing starts being applied to your evil deeds. It also leeds you to competition with other aliases that become friends; MicroManiac, and the Saint to name a couple. Removing protection isn't good enough. Things need to work exactly like the original. Something that fits on a disk (with potentially a foreign OS) must now be reduced to a file. And it must save high scores, or get you to the next level. Self loading software of minimum size. And then the glorious splash page! The fun of graphic arts and animation; sometimes the quality of which is better than the games its plastered over.
For example... Dan Gorlin writes Airheart. A truly revolutionary game. And a revoluationary protection scheme. 18 sectors - and too much data to put on a single disk. What is a cracker to do? Re-write the OS to support block compression of course on a standard 16 sector format.
Then a brutal realization as you enter adulthood. What if someone did that to you? Every excuse you had to copy or crack is recognized as an excuse. You feel bad. You wish you had written games instead of breaking them. You even go so far as to seek forgiveness from people who were truly exceptional. To create - that is the best you can do.
Every time I see the old monikers I feel like crap. Going over asimov and noting the only reason certain software survives because YOU did something immoral - its like a WALL OF SHAME. I hang my head and punish myself a little more. I have nothing but reverance for the 8-bit pioneers and gaming gods.
...and back in the mid 90 we had lots of research to show that the cost of copy protection rises geometrically where the cost to remove copy protection rises linearly. Restated; the more effort we put in to protection cost us much, much more than the cost (and time) to break. This was software copy protection, but the parallels to DRM and such are the same. Anything protected can be unprotected - and when you couple it with studies that show protection doesn't impact (or negatively impacts) consumer choice... it isn't economically viable. People who buy, buy. People who try, buy. Those that steal will steal regardless.
Ok, so video games makes kids fat, but if parents didn't throw McBurgers at them infront of their TVs/computers to keep them "occupied", where would we be? "Give 'em what they want to shut them up" is the best way to avoid active parenting, lack of child care, or any other excuse not to be involved with your own kids. (And its hard - I have two young kids - and its exhausting trying to keep them occupied.)
There are lots of environmental conditions that can discourage decomposition. Cold, pressure, alkalinity, acidity, salinity, [lack of] humidity, etc. Think of bogs and bitumen (tar pits).
You have fallen to the Apple PReng machine! In 1995 Apple said the Mac would be the best Java development platform at WWDC. Repeated in 1996. Yes, pre-Jobs/OSX, but subsequently Apple would put ONE developer on Java/JDK ports, a position oddly they found hard to staff (heck, they asked me), and as I understand it, this under-resourcing of Java development has continued to this very day.
(I used the be a MacOS developer by day, and then became a Java developer by day. I continued through Rhapsody development and finally threw in the towel with 10.1.)
Are there no stories about boy wizards with currious pasts? The wonderful thing about JKR's writing is that there is nothing new. Absolutely everything in there is borrowed. However she is an execellent plagiarist in that she weaves all these things together in an entertaining fashion. And there is well marketted hype.
How many stories use latin or faux latin for spells? How many stories have trolls, goblins, werewolves, and griffins? How many stories have cloaks of invisibility (or rings)?
I think this already happens. When you do a whois, which is usually the first thing in registering a domain, a variety of authorities are queried. Now - I don't know which one - but one of them is naughty and camping starts. There have been 3 occassions where I have run whois through netsol where within 24 hours the domain went from avail to camped (by studiomobile - a net 'research' company.) I think it is more than a coincidence.
Dishonest people misreport their income all the time. Honest people don't. Even prostitutes and drug dealers that report their income in Canada are a-ok (as Revenue Canada is bound by privacy legislation.) But this seems like a gross misuse of RC time and resources. Monitoring eBay to find fraud is likely less fruitful than comparing spending vs reported income. If buddy's credit report shows him having a $2M mortgage and reporting income of less than $50k/yr, chances are something is up.
Won't happen. Canada is not a high tech Mecca because the revenue is primarily based on primary industries (o&g, forestry, agriculture.) So unless you want a real boring IT job, don't expect the homecommings and the migrations.
Many of my buddies went to Silicon Valley in the 90s. They all have those magic $900k 100 year mortgages. Its hard to walk away when you're locked in to the area and the lifestyle.
[The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.]... [No one knows how much shoddy research is out there.]
I'm not sure what the point of this article is besides fear mongering. The goal of most scientific research is to prove a set of assertions - and sure this set may not be fully encompassing or comprehensive - but you've got a model and you try see what fits - and its not always exact.
Take for example the recent debacle/wrt Steve McIntyre and climateaudit.org. The point was "NASA's stats and calcs are wrong." This started an anti-global warming fiesta and many neoconservatives/anti-Dole hopped on the bandwagon to discount, rather than disprove, McIntyre's findings. NASA Hansen responded with http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/realdeal.16aug20074.pdf pointing out that the error was insignificant in overall trending and a correction was posted. But very little media attention was given to that.
So now I see a new wave of WSJ luddites missing the point.
(Oh please tag this as a troll, I've bashed WSJ again.)
Uh, yes, I am insisting its sabotage. Because Walt misrepresents himself and his intention. Because this is a bad example of "is linux ready for mainstream". All OS have issues.
And sure, I get defensive, but I don't you are any more open minded or unbiased (or compromising) then I am.
Ok; premise was "Is Linux Desktop ready for average Joe?" What does Waltman do - review an untuned version of linux for the software. Sabotage? Yes.
And I'm so far from a Linux zealot I can't tell you... Home office; W2K 4 installs, XP 2 installs, MacOS X 1 install, MacOS classic, 2 installs, Linux (nee Mandrake distro) 1 install... I use everything; I'm a zealot of nothing. But thanks for the label! In the last few weeks I've been tagged as a MacOS zealot, a Linux zealot, and a C++ zealot. Did I put anywhere in my message anything to show I'm a fan of linux, or did I question Waltman's journalism?
He's not claiming to be an average user, he's attempting to evaluate it from their perspective.
Isn't this Dell's issue? Even under Windows, Dell tunes their OEM install. Well, what does Free mean to you Walt? And if there were, then it would be in violation of MPEG licensing. Good call Walt.
All red herrings.
He's not evaluating Linux, or even Ubuntu, in some abstract sense to see if it's "ready for the desktop". He's trying to determine whether Joe Schmoe could go out and buy one of these computers instead of the version with Windows.
So it doesn't matter why something doesn't work, whether it's because Dell set it up wrong, or there's an issue of Free software, or whatever, the point is it doesn't work. (Or works poorly.)
How are they red herrings? Yes, he is claiming to be evaluating this from the point of view of an average user... but he is not an average user, nor do I believe based on his previous articles is he capable of putting on another hat. And he IS evaluating Unbutu/Dell to make his decision of "ready for the desktop." My counterpoint is that ANY correctly configured Linux distribution for the hardware can rival commercial operating systems for the average user.
Thanks for discounting my points tho - you'd be a good politician.
This column is written for mainstream, nontechie users of digital technology. These folks aren't necessarily novices, and they aren't afraid of computers. They also aren't stupid. They simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible. Isn't this a contradiction?
So, I have steered away from recommending Linux, the free computer operating system that is the darling of many techies and IT managers, and a challenger to Microsoft's dominant Windows and Apple's resurgent Macintosh operating system, OS X. Linux, which runs on the same hardware as Windows, has always required much more technical expertise and a yen for tinkering than average users possess. Isn't this biased and patronizing? And is there proof of the last claim? I can set up most Linux distros such that a user needs no knowledge at all of Unix. How is that different from OS X?
Lately, however, I've received a steady stream of emails from readers urging me to take a look at a variant of Linux called Ubuntu, which, these folks claimed, is finally polished enough for a mainstream user to handle. My interest increased when Dell began to sell a few computer models preloaded with Ubuntu instead of Windows. Translation: I'm going to stomp all over you so stop bugging me.
I've been testing one of those Dell Ubuntu computers, a laptop called the Inspiron 1420N. I evaluated it strictly from the point of view of an average user, someone who wouldn't want to enter text commands, hunt the Web for drivers and enabling software, or learn a whole new user interface. I focused on Ubuntu and the software programs that come bundled with it, not on the hardware, which is a pretty typical Dell laptop. How can he claim to be something he's not?
My verdict: Even in the relatively slick Ubuntu variation, Linux is still too rough around the edges for the vast majority of computer users. While Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X, it is full of little complications and hassles that will quickly frustrate most people who just want to use their computers, not maintain or tweak them. Again, lets enumerate what those are Walt? We'll get to those later.
Before every passionate Linux fan attacks that conclusion, let me note that even the folks who make and sell Ubuntu agree with it. Mark Shuttleworth, the South African-born founder of the Ubuntu project, told me this week that "it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market." And Dell's Web site for its Ubuntu computers warns that these machines are for "for advanced users and tech enthusiasts." What does where he comes from have anything to do with it?
So, what do I mean when I say Ubuntu is too rough around the edges for average users? Here are some examples. Yeah here comes some steaming piles of rational!
There is no control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works, and I found it so sensitive that I was constantly launching programs and opening windows accidentally by touching the thing. Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded. Isn't this Dell's issue? Even under Windows, Dell tunes their OEM install.
When I tried to play common audio and video files, such as MP3 songs, I was told I had to first download special files called codecs that are built into Windows and Mac computers. I was warned that some of these codecs might be "bad" or "ugly." Well, what does Free mean to you Walt?
To get the computer to recognize my Kodak camera and Apple iPod, I had to reboot it several times. When it did find the iPod, it wasn't able to synchronize with it. Playing videos was a bad experience, with lots of flickering and freezing. Oh, and there's no built-in software for playing commercial DVDs. And if there were, then it would be in violation of MPEG licensing. Good call Walt.
Not at all; the link refers to a posting by J.C. Roberts (http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/jcr/) ? and I'm currious what is fact over shit flinging.
Slashdot Mirror
I was a good kid. But that's not really true. There was a moral ambiguity. My dad brought home an Apple ][+ in 1978 - and I was hooked. As soon as I discovered copy protection, I became disturbed. Why could a friend have a game and we couldn't share? I'd already started learning BASIC and 6502 machine language; but it didn't take me long to figure out how to "copy" something that wasn't meant to be copied. Disk duplication software was unreliable. Removal of the protection was the only way. And who did it really hurt...
Some people pirated software. They collected it like baseball cards. Along comes an awkward teenager. All of a sudden, he has purpose and is "popular." Trading and playing software becomes less interesting than removal of protection. And notoriety does wonders for ego.
You get an aliases. Alien, MicroMuncher, Optimus Prime and the Evil Sock... just to name a few (all the same person.) And the art and science of computing starts being applied to your evil deeds. It also leeds you to competition with other aliases that become friends; MicroManiac, and the Saint to name a couple. Removing protection isn't good enough. Things need to work exactly like the original. Something that fits on a disk (with potentially a foreign OS) must now be reduced to a file. And it must save high scores, or get you to the next level. Self loading software of minimum size. And then the glorious splash page! The fun of graphic arts and animation; sometimes the quality of which is better than the games its plastered over.
For example... Dan Gorlin writes Airheart. A truly revolutionary game. And a revoluationary protection scheme. 18 sectors - and too much data to put on a single disk. What is a cracker to do? Re-write the OS to support block compression of course on a standard 16 sector format.
Then a brutal realization as you enter adulthood. What if someone did that to you? Every excuse you had to copy or crack is recognized as an excuse. You feel bad. You wish you had written games instead of breaking them. You even go so far as to seek forgiveness from people who were truly exceptional. To create - that is the best you can do.
Every time I see the old monikers I feel like crap. Going over asimov and noting the only reason certain software survives because YOU did something immoral - its like a WALL OF SHAME. I hang my head and punish myself a little more. I have nothing but reverance for the 8-bit pioneers and gaming gods.
...and back in the mid 90 we had lots of research to show that the cost of copy protection rises geometrically where the cost to remove copy protection rises linearly. Restated; the more effort we put in to protection cost us much, much more than the cost (and time) to break. This was software copy protection, but the parallels to DRM and such are the same. Anything protected can be unprotected - and when you couple it with studies that show protection doesn't impact (or negatively impacts) consumer choice... it isn't economically viable. People who buy, buy. People who try, buy. Those that steal will steal regardless.
Ok, so video games makes kids fat, but if parents didn't throw McBurgers at them infront of their TVs/computers to keep them "occupied", where would we be? "Give 'em what they want to shut them up" is the best way to avoid active parenting, lack of child care, or any other excuse not to be involved with your own kids. (And its hard - I have two young kids - and its exhausting trying to keep them occupied.)
There are lots of environmental conditions that can discourage decomposition. Cold, pressure, alkalinity, acidity, salinity, [lack of] humidity, etc. Think of bogs and bitumen (tar pits).
You have fallen to the Apple PReng machine! In 1995 Apple said the Mac would be the best Java development platform at WWDC. Repeated in 1996. Yes, pre-Jobs/OSX, but subsequently Apple would put ONE developer on Java/JDK ports, a position oddly they found hard to staff (heck, they asked me), and as I understand it, this under-resourcing of Java development has continued to this very day.
(I used the be a MacOS developer by day, and then became a Java developer by day. I continued through Rhapsody development and finally threw in the towel with 10.1.)
Are there no stories about boy wizards with currious pasts? The wonderful thing about JKR's writing is that there is nothing new. Absolutely everything in there is borrowed. However she is an execellent plagiarist in that she weaves all these things together in an entertaining fashion. And there is well marketted hype.
How many stories use latin or faux latin for spells?
How many stories have trolls, goblins, werewolves, and griffins?
How many stories have cloaks of invisibility (or rings)?
http://www.geocities.com/versetrue/rowling.htm
Anyone else notice the word "ass" directly under the picture of Wil Wheaton?
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~reedsj/monkeys.html
I think this already happens. When you do a whois, which is usually the first thing in registering a domain, a variety of authorities are queried. Now - I don't know which one - but one of them is naughty and camping starts. There have been 3 occassions where I have run whois through netsol where within 24 hours the domain went from avail to camped (by studiomobile - a net 'research' company.) I think it is more than a coincidence.
You missed the part about the solution; eating ones children. :-)
What the hell - are you Canadian or something?
It would only be too cool to see Myth or Marathon franchises revisited.
Agree; maybe some of the RC people are looking for ways to justify being on eBay. ;-)
Oh yeah, offshore accounts are a WAY bigger problem than on-line sales.
Dishonest people misreport their income all the time. Honest people don't. Even prostitutes and drug dealers that report their income in Canada are a-ok (as Revenue Canada is bound by privacy legislation.) But this seems like a gross misuse of RC time and resources. Monitoring eBay to find fraud is likely less fruitful than comparing spending vs reported income. If buddy's credit report shows him having a $2M mortgage and reporting income of less than $50k /yr, chances are something is up.
In the words of Chris Crocker.
Won't happen. Canada is not a high tech Mecca because the revenue is primarily based on primary industries (o&g, forestry, agriculture.) So unless you want a real boring IT job, don't expect the homecommings and the migrations.
Many of my buddies went to Silicon Valley in the 90s. They all have those magic $900k 100 year mortgages. Its hard to walk away when you're locked in to the area and the lifestyle.
correction: "McItnyre's findings" should be "Hansen's findings."
[The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically, he determined.]
[No one knows how much shoddy research is out there.]
I'm not sure what the point of this article is besides fear mongering. The goal of most scientific research is to prove a set of assertions - and sure this set may not be fully encompassing or comprehensive - but you've got a model and you try see what fits - and its not always exact.
Take for example the recent debacle
So now I see a new wave of WSJ luddites missing the point.
(Oh please tag this as a troll, I've bashed WSJ again.)
Uh, yes, I am insisting its sabotage. Because Walt misrepresents himself and his intention. Because this is a bad example of "is linux ready for mainstream". All OS have issues.
And sure, I get defensive, but I don't you are any more open minded or unbiased (or compromising) then I am.
Ok; premise was "Is Linux Desktop ready for average Joe?" What does Waltman do - review an untuned version of linux for the software. Sabotage? Yes.
And I'm so far from a Linux zealot I can't tell you... Home office; W2K 4 installs, XP 2 installs, MacOS X 1 install, MacOS classic, 2 installs, Linux (nee Mandrake distro) 1 install... I use everything; I'm a zealot of nothing. But thanks for the label! In the last few weeks I've been tagged as a MacOS zealot, a Linux zealot, and a C++ zealot. Did I put anywhere in my message anything to show I'm a fan of linux, or did I question Waltman's journalism?
Call me a zealot.
How are they red herrings? Yes, he is claiming to be evaluating this from the point of view of an average user... but he is not an average user, nor do I believe based on his previous articles is he capable of putting on another hat. And he IS evaluating Unbutu/Dell to make his decision of "ready for the desktop." My counterpoint is that ANY correctly configured Linux distribution for the hardware can rival commercial operating systems for the average user.
Thanks for discounting my points tho - you'd be a good politician.
Ha ha. I'm far from a linux zealot; try be not anonymous.
This column is written for mainstream, nontechie users of digital technology. These folks aren't necessarily novices, and they aren't afraid of computers. They also aren't stupid. They simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible.
Isn't this a contradiction?
So, I have steered away from recommending Linux, the free computer operating system that is the darling of many techies and IT managers, and a challenger to Microsoft's dominant Windows and Apple's resurgent Macintosh operating system, OS X. Linux, which runs on the same hardware as Windows, has always required much more technical expertise and a yen for tinkering than average users possess.
Isn't this biased and patronizing? And is there proof of the last claim? I can set up most Linux distros such that a user needs no knowledge at all of Unix. How is that different from OS X?
Lately, however, I've received a steady stream of emails from readers urging me to take a look at a variant of Linux called Ubuntu, which, these folks claimed, is finally polished enough for a mainstream user to handle. My interest increased when Dell began to sell a few computer models preloaded with Ubuntu instead of Windows.
Translation: I'm going to stomp all over you so stop bugging me.
I've been testing one of those Dell Ubuntu computers, a laptop called the Inspiron 1420N. I evaluated it strictly from the point of view of an average user, someone who wouldn't want to enter text commands, hunt the Web for drivers and enabling software, or learn a whole new user interface. I focused on Ubuntu and the software programs that come bundled with it, not on the hardware, which is a pretty typical Dell laptop.
How can he claim to be something he's not?
My verdict: Even in the relatively slick Ubuntu variation, Linux is still too rough around the edges for the vast majority of computer users. While Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X, it is full of little complications and hassles that will quickly frustrate most people who just want to use their computers, not maintain or tweak them.
Again, lets enumerate what those are Walt? We'll get to those later.
Before every passionate Linux fan attacks that conclusion, let me note that even the folks who make and sell Ubuntu agree with it. Mark Shuttleworth, the South African-born founder of the Ubuntu project, told me this week that "it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market." And Dell's Web site for its Ubuntu computers warns that these machines are for "for advanced users and tech enthusiasts."
What does where he comes from have anything to do with it?
So, what do I mean when I say Ubuntu is too rough around the edges for average users? Here are some examples.
Yeah here comes some steaming piles of rational!
There is no control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works, and I found it so sensitive that I was constantly launching programs and opening windows accidentally by touching the thing. Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded.
Isn't this Dell's issue? Even under Windows, Dell tunes their OEM install.
When I tried to play common audio and video files, such as MP3 songs, I was told I had to first download special files called codecs that are built into Windows and Mac computers. I was warned that some of these codecs might be "bad" or "ugly."
Well, what does Free mean to you Walt?
To get the computer to recognize my Kodak camera and Apple iPod, I had to reboot it several times. When it did find the iPod, it wasn't able to synchronize with it. Playing videos was a bad experience, with lots of flickering and freezing. Oh, and there's no built-in software for playing commercial DVDs.
And if there were, then it would be in violation of MPEG licensing. Good call Walt.
The
Not at all; the link refers to a posting by J.C. Roberts (http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/jcr/) ? and I'm currious what is fact over shit flinging.