This reminds me of when Real stopped some guys from making a RealVideo/Audio VCR. Surely what Real did was illegal, but since no politician quite understands the technology and no real defense was made we lost our chance to record Real broadcasts.
We could always create a black list of companies who do not live up to their promise. Maybe even some sort of Linux Compatible software registery where Linux compatible stuff can be listed and people give their feedback.
Being devils advocate I would like to mention a few things:
France really isn't a country that has a right to cry foul over anything. Using their nuclear weapons research as an example, France simply wants to stall the progress of others until they can catch up. How long was it before they finally halted nuclear testing???
Nor is the USA, but it still does. If I remember rightly the French asked the USA for the necesary information that would have made the nuclear tests unnecessary, but the USA refused - nice to see NATO members sharing info;-)
The French are also sensitive about their language for the same reasons. When there is a perfectly good English word for something, they must wait until a suitable French word can be used in its place.
As if a big noise isn't made about spanish words leaking into American English!
At the end of the day the USA is in no position to complain about the French and vice versa - they are as bad as each other. They are both defending their national pride.
In countries that have decided to use GSM exclusively, such in Europe and Asia, there is no such problem. Since there is only one standard for mobile phones, you don't have multiple bands being taken up by competing mobile phone standards.
I reckon it is about time that the USA standardised on GSM and freed up the other bands. It would help everybody - both consumer and corporate.
From hunting around a bit it appears that the International Telecommunication Union is responsible for international issues on radio frequencies, they are part of the UN. The downer for their web site, is that you have to pay to access the publications!
The specs say that it is Psion compatible. Reading further it would seem the OS is EPOC (see on the PDA's page) and therefore I would assume that it is compatible in the sense that you can beam information between the two devices.
Actually it is only the end consumer who pays the VAT. Companies in the middle get to claim it back. In Europe you only pay tax once on any product. Second hand good are not taxed.
Dolphins are simply a higher life form poking fun at us wee humans. With the right frequency emited from their head they can create a worm hole to an ocean on any other planet. That's how they got away from Earth in time. Or maybe the Vogon's simply had a soft place for these dolphins and gave them a helping hand.
There maybe plenty of "anti-piracy" tricks in the Microsoft packaging, but most of those could easily be applied to a DVD style box. I have even seen a system where a hologram can be placed on the CD so that you could tell the difference between the ligitimate version and the copy.
I still believe that there should be display package and a purchase package - display package being overly large, with no product in it and the purchase package being of a reasonable size.
Sure, but I don't think any software company is going to accept anything smaller either. I believe every country needs to pass a law limiting the size of software packaging.
Maybe there should be two boxes: the one for the shelf, so that you can look at the pretty pictures and then the actual product box, which would simply be a DVD style box, with the product in it, that you ask for at the counter.
I can remeber at one point I ordered a copt of Metrowerks Codewarrior from some mail order firm and I was surprised at the shipping packaging. The product from Metrowerks was in a CD box, nothing over-packaged there, where the over packaging occurred was in the packaging used for shipping: a 30cm x 40cm x 40cm box, just for a CD !!!!
Anything to unify the development of the two desktop environments is a great thing. This way developers can concentrate on making software that runs on everyones desktop of choice, be it KDE or Gnome. One element that attracts me to Bonobo is that it does not rely on an API which is not 100% in the open & free software domain.
One small step for a group of developers, one great leap for all developers.
Sure Shaft probably sold more tickets at the box office, but this is also partly due to the fact that most people still imagine animated films as being kids' films. I must admit I walked into the expecting to be met by a storm of kids, how wrong I was given that the minimum age the audience must of been around 22.
Animated films, especially in the US, don't get much respect and although the Titan A.E.'s story line was as predictable as any other Hollywood film it showed that there is potential in animated films. Also, being an animated film I didn't feel let down with the fact that certain aspects looked like they had been done on a computer - not something I could have said for Star Wars episode 1.
Or in most movies these days. I tend to go to the cinema expecting everything to be bad, so anything that isn't totally crap isn't too bad. Moral of the story: those with low expectations will see a lot of great things;-)
The strength of Bungie for many Mac users is that it is one company that will treat the Mac as a primary release platform, something that can't be said for most game companies. Being a die hard Mac user, I am apprehensive as to whether this commitement will remain, or whether this a tactic to take the Mac out of Bungie's equation?
It was amongst the first CD-ROM games, but it was the first that was worth buying. I can remember other games at the time that simply tried filling the CDs with a lot of junk, simply to say that it needed a CD.
While you are first person, these tend to be at the seat of a vehicle. First-person tends to refer to the idea of being able to walk around on your own to feet. I suppose you could call the others first-vehicle games.
If the game is going to work, then the puzzles will have to be modified, otherwise the only selling factor will be "gee wiz it's in 3D", which is not sufficient to get the necessary sales. The new version interests me, though the quality will have to be maintained and there will need to be slight differences to make it feel worth re-exploring.
BTW: Myst 3 is out, though it has been done by the guys who made the Journey Man Project ( Presto Studios ). There is a website: http://www.myst3.com/
I don't know the motives either way. If DarthBobo's explanation is the real one, the they could have unplugged the computer keyboards and put a notice next to the iMacs reading: 'Out of use for the duration of the exhibit' - and maybe adding a note where an alternative terminal could be found.
Or maybe there is some twisted logic going on here. In order to be able to critisize the film you actually have to see it - so anyone who hasn't seen it yet will rush out to see it. Is this contest sponsored by the church of $cientlogy by any chance?
One thing that I would like to see is more reference licences, like the GNU licence. Basically a software publisher would include a registered licence that has been validated by a government body to check that it does not violate any rights. These licences would have a registered ID, and anyone can include that registered licence with their product. One advantage of this approach would be that people will usually know better the contents of certain standard licence, than over 200 000 non standard ones. So you could talk about licence:
USA-Commerical-Software-Licence-2000/A
or UN-Commerical-Software-Licence-2000/A (UN: United Nations).
This reminds me of when Real stopped some guys from making a RealVideo/Audio VCR. Surely what Real did was illegal, but since no politician quite understands the technology and no real defense was made we lost our chance to record
Real broadcasts.
Yep, this is probably a little off-topic.
We could always create a black list of companies who do not live up to their promise. Maybe even some sort of Linux Compatible software registery where Linux compatible stuff can be listed and people give their feedback.
France really isn't a country that has a right to cry foul over anything. Using their nuclear weapons research as an example, France simply wants to stall the progress of others until they can catch up. How long was it before they finally halted nuclear testing???
Nor is the USA, but it still does. If I remember rightly the French asked the USA for the necesary information that would have made the nuclear tests unnecessary, but the USA refused - nice to see NATO members sharing info ;-)
The French are also sensitive about their language for the same reasons. When there is a perfectly good English word for something, they must wait until a suitable French word can be used in its place.
As if a big noise isn't made about spanish words leaking into American English!
At the end of the day the USA is in no position to complain about the French and vice versa - they are as bad as each other. They are both defending their national pride.
In countries that have decided to use GSM exclusively, such in Europe and Asia, there is no such problem. Since there is only one standard for mobile phones, you don't have multiple bands being taken up by competing mobile phone standards.
I reckon it is about time that the USA standardised on GSM and freed up the other bands. It would help everybody - both consumer and corporate.
From hunting around a bit it appears that the International Telecommunication Union is responsible for international issues on radio frequencies, they are part of the UN. The downer for their web site, is that you have to pay to access the publications!
The specs say that it is Psion compatible. Reading further it would seem the OS is EPOC (see on the PDA's page) and therefore I would assume that it is compatible in the sense that you can beam information between the two devices.
The device, according the FAQ, uses EPOC. This is the OS used by the Psion PDAs.
Actually it is only the end consumer who pays the VAT. Companies in the middle get to claim it back. In Europe you only pay tax once on any product. Second hand good are not taxed.
This site should answer all your questions: http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/
Dolphins are simply a higher life form poking fun at us wee humans. With the right frequency emited from their head they can create a worm hole to an ocean on any other planet. That's how they got away from Earth in time. Or maybe the Vogon's simply had a soft place for these dolphins and gave them a helping hand.
There maybe plenty of "anti-piracy" tricks in the Microsoft packaging, but most of those could easily be applied to a DVD style box. I have even seen a system where a hologram can be placed on the CD so that you could tell the difference between the ligitimate version and the copy.
I still believe that there should be display package and a purchase package - display package being overly large, with no product in it and the purchase package being of a reasonable size.
Sure, but I don't think any software company is going to accept anything smaller either. I believe every country needs to pass a law limiting the size of software packaging.
Maybe there should be two boxes: the one for the shelf, so that you can look at the pretty pictures and then the actual product box, which would simply be a DVD style box, with the product in it, that you ask for at the counter.
I can remeber at one point I ordered a copt of Metrowerks Codewarrior from some mail order firm and I was surprised at the shipping packaging. The product from Metrowerks was in a CD box, nothing over-packaged there, where the over packaging occurred was in the packaging used for shipping: a 30cm x 40cm x 40cm box, just for a CD !!!!
Anything to unify the development of the two desktop environments is a great thing. This way developers can concentrate on making software that runs on everyones desktop of choice, be it KDE or Gnome. One element that attracts me to Bonobo is that it does not rely on an API which is not 100% in the open & free software domain.
One small step for a group of developers, one great leap for all developers.
Sure Shaft probably sold more tickets at the box office, but this is also partly due to the fact that most people still imagine animated films as being kids' films. I must admit I walked into the expecting to be met by a storm of kids, how wrong I was given that the minimum age the audience must of been around 22.
Animated films, especially in the US, don't get much respect and although the Titan A.E.'s story line was as predictable as any other Hollywood film it showed that there is potential in animated films. Also, being an animated film I didn't feel let down with the fact that certain aspects looked like they had been done on a computer - not something I could have said for Star Wars episode 1.
Or in most movies these days. I tend to go to the cinema expecting everything to be bad, so anything that isn't totally crap isn't too bad. Moral of the story: those with low expectations will see a lot of great things ;-)
The strength of Bungie for many Mac users is that it is one company that will treat the Mac as a primary release platform, something that can't be said for most game companies. Being a die hard Mac user, I am apprehensive as to whether this commitement will remain, or whether this a tactic to take the Mac out of Bungie's equation?
It was amongst the first CD-ROM games, but it was the first that was worth buying. I can remember other games at the time that simply tried filling the CDs with a lot of junk, simply to say that it needed a CD.
While you are first person, these tend to be at the seat of a vehicle. First-person tends to refer to the idea of being able to walk around on your own to feet. I suppose you could call the others first-vehicle games.
BTW: Myst 3 is out, though it has been done by the guys who made the Journey Man Project ( Presto Studios ). There is a website: http://www.myst3.com/
I don't know the motives either way. If DarthBobo's explanation is the real one, the they could have unplugged the computer keyboards and put a notice next to the iMacs reading: 'Out of use for the duration of the exhibit' - and maybe adding a note where an alternative terminal could be found.
Umm, that should be tax haven!
Or maybe there is some twisted logic going on here. In order to be able to critisize the film you actually have to see it - so anyone who hasn't seen it yet will rush out to see it. Is this contest sponsored by the church of $cientlogy by any chance?