A great developer did a full engine for Flashback in SDL, it's called REminiscence, and it even supports the MOD files from the Amiga version. His version works out of the box on Windows and Linux/BSD/etc..
I also ported the same program to Mac OS X so while it's not trivial to get the data files, it's at least playable on all major platforms.
If the DOJ is so keen to use this law to acquire journalist's sources regarding Lamo, why are they not doing the same thing to figure out who exposed Joseph Wilson's CIA wife?
I suppose that the "threat" of hackers requires more jurisprudence then the violation of a federal statute designed to ensure national security.
(For those unaware of the story; "someone" in the white house exposed the CIA credentials of the wife of the man who revealed the lack of uranium purchases by Saddam, check out this link for details. )
I'm not exactly holding my breath to see if Ashcroft subpoena's Novak's notes regarding THAT incident.
You're talking about two different things, and so-called "Voodoo Economics" has very little to do with this topic at all. That's a Reagan-era term for supply-side economics and deals primarily with fiscal policy.
Technology on the CONSUMER end is improving, but if technology on the SUPPLIER end does not improve at the same pace, you have an increasing cost industry and consequently higher prices.
Any imbalance between cost of production and cost to consumers in the market would normally result in price shifts.
Video game companies are losing money because the cost of doing business has increased while market prices have not. As costs go up, firms will leave the market resulting in an increasingly diminished supply causing prices to go up and so on.
In the long run, without major improvements on the supply side, the industry would collapse; at least that is what generally accepted microeconomics principles would predict.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
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BSA IDC FUD
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· Score: 1
(English: After this, therefore because of this.)
How can anyone conclude anything from this? You could say: "High piracy results in a weak IT sector" or you could say "A strong IT sector results in low piracy"
Both are completely valid conclusions to draw, and neither means anything in a void.
Microsoft was successful in preventing an implementation of the ASF file format from being used by virtualdub. This seems to be a parallel issue, since both ASF and WMA are patented.
Ok, I have just one request. Someone hack these things to support Canada. It still boggles the mind that while TIVO supports the UK, they ignore Canada. I mean, it's more than just igloos and hockey up here, eh?
In all seriousness, this is the machine (more so than the TIVO) that seems to be the perfect machine to "fake" guide support on. Unlike the TIVO which dials up and grabs guides from TIVO, the ReplayTV can use your broadband connection. If someone could figure out the host (ideally the hostname) that it connects to, we could trick it into going to a substitute host, grabbing the listing there.
Yeah, I'm simplifying it slightly. For one, who knows what format the data is in. And whether it uses some sort of encryption. However, unlike TIVO, ReplayTV doesn't sell subscriptions, so they'd have no financial interest in protecting the guide format.
(By the way, if anyone can confirm this, my theory about the lack of TIVO and ReplayTV support in Canada is that it's due to the rather strict Canadian privacy laws, and rules around Canadian Content.)
Sorry Jon, I typically don't jump on the Katz-bashing, but today, I'm dumbfounded by this article.
1. How much market share does BMW have? Do you think that they have 4.5% of the world's market? I doubt it. Does it matter? Would I buy a BMW instead of a Ford? Definitely.
2. Steve Jobs knows exactly what he's doing. Do you think trying to trump Microsoft on making a commodity OS is the way to go? No, that job is already taken.
3. Take this example. I decide to open a store in a mall. There is a Walmart there already. Do I:
a) Build a gigantic department store and try to compete with Walmart?
b) Do I build a speciality store wherein I can attract a strong, loyal niche market, and make my money rather than getting crushed
I think Steve gets it fine. So do I, so do a good chunk of the posters thus far. But apparently, you don't get it.
If Microsoft is smart, they'll ignore this. Why? Well, they're losing around $150 USD per console, and they make the money from the games. If you buy your own high end PC, pay full sticker, and then buy their games, you're saving them money, and they're still getting their cut from the development fees for the game.
Best of all, since no method for copying DVD games exists (well, not for under $5,000) it's not like piracy will be the issue.
By the way, for those of you who think Apple Superdrive or the HP DVD+RW machine will help, think again; they don't have a capacity to store most of the XBox games; as they only support 4.7gb DVDs, and the majority of XBox games are dual-layered (i.e. 8gb+)
Re:same DVD-General drive? Yes, why not?
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New iMac Announced
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· Score: 1, Troll
I suppose at $600.00 it should provide identical equipment to a $10,000.00 DVD studio? What about the fact that most DVDs are mastered to DLT tape before publishing? It's not quite the same as the GM system for data and music CDs.
For the record, it also doesn't support more than 90 minutes of video per disc. This isn't the holy grail of consumer video recording; but it's a convenient, powerful way to preserve your own video.
Euro for Debian
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The Euro
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· Score: 2, Informative
I think it should be noted that this is the first 2.5.x release that actually forks away from the 2.4 (2.5.0 was just a 2.4 kernel in disguise) so this is an event... this is the first new tree since 2.3 closed.
In that sense, this is a big deal. Of course, posting all the 2.3.x announcements would be excessive.
Just for a point of comparison... how does this differ from the Apple SuperDrive DVD writer (you've seen the ads) which is included in high end Powermacs? According to Apple's website the SuperDrive is a DVD-R drive, which I was told, couldn't write DVD-Video... so how are they accomplishing it?
While main of you correctly point out the lack of network support in this, let's be honest here, the majority of users want a fast, pretty desktop. This would be the way to do it.
Applications are not a problem; both GTK and QT have abstracted the window drawing from the widget set (GDK for GTK) so someone could potentially relink (not necessarily rebuild, if the symbol tables stay the same) their apps and have a wealth of stuff to choose from.
I like the network transparancy in X, but what is to keep you from running X for remote applications, and using DirectFB for your desktop? X is nice, but it's filled with lowest-common denominator decisions, and the majority of people polled (cough) want to run with things like alpha blending, anti-aliasing, and windowed 3D. X supports them, but not without a lot of pain.
So, if you want to use X, you could potentially keep it; if you want DirectFB, you can use all your GTK/QT apps (theoretically) Why rain on someones parade when both crowds could potentially win here?
I wasn't going to comment, but I just loved this one line:
The bill is being motivated by motion picture and television studios that seek to end piracy of their movies and other forms of entertainment. Curiously, these studios also happen to be among Hollings' top campaign contributors, as noted by Newsforge reporter Dan Berkes.
(Emphasis mine)
"Curiously" is an understatement. Apparently in America you can buy anything.
On a related note, does anyone find it strange the commiting a crime against a corporation is worse that a crime against another individual?
Lest we forget, SSH communications is a commercial vendor, most of which have a notorious reputation for discounting the severity of vunerabilities. Sorry guys, but I'd have a lot more faith in hearing Theo from OpenBSD talk about security implications than a company that sells the "sizzle" of security (albeit with a decent product)
When's the last time you heard a major vendor acknowledge a severe hole was actually severe. They have to worry about the lawsuits, and anything they say could be used in a class action, so while this particular threat isn't outright horrifying, it's likely worse than the spin it's getting from ssh.com.
My girlfriend and I found it outright the funniest, and most outright clever movie in a summer full of duds. But... I'm a big Kevin Smith fan, and I've got all his flicks on DVD, so I wonder how the movie would be recieved by a Smith Virgin.
Jason Mewes actually carries this movie, which is remarkable, since I think no one was more surprised than him that it went so well. He's hardly the mainstream movie star like Affleck or Jason Lee.
Also, while 'movie parody movies' have been a subgenre for ever (see: Scary Movie to Naked Gun) there hasn't been one done well in ages. This one is both bang on in it's attacks on those movies, but it's obviously done with love and respect, which makes it all the more clever.
At it's core, it's a road trip movie, which, since Capra invented the genre, has always proven to be a treat; the potential for unpredictable characters and situation is hard to exceed, and Kevin Smith handles it admirably.
All in all, after a summer full of disappointments (see: A.I. Kiss of the Dragon, Evolution, et al.) this was refreshing, fun and Smith's most inside joke, and simultaneously, most accessible movie yet.
If you have some patience for a seemingly offensive movie - but with a lot of heart - you couldn't do better this summer.
As someone who spends a lot of time hiring (yes, I'm a manager) I really have to disagree. The problem isn't finding "programmers" i.e. people who write classes all day, and regurgitate the algorithms they memorized in college, but finding what I like to call "Developers;" that is, people who think, who see a big picture. My staff is compromised entirely of thinkers, and it's a small team. We have a hire rate of around 25% of interviewees, and that's generous.
Nothing against polytechnical schools, but universities seem to produce "thinkers" not just "doers" It's all well and good to be able to write code when you're given explicit direction, pseudo-code, etc, but a real "Developer" just needs a "goal" There is definitely a shortage of highly motivated, problem solvers, not a shortage of code monkeys.
Ok, I have to respond to some of the folks here who believe that "Don't run Outlook" is an option. Well, pray tell, what should I do if I'm on a corporate Exchange server? With no other option? It's all well and good to suggest things, but the fact is, if the Exchange Admin won't use LDAP, you're out of luck, and quite stuck.
That said, the SP2 release of Office/Outlook prevents anything from accessing your address book, and will pop up a confirmation. It doesn't prevent idiots from opening the attachments, but it does create some thought beforehand.
I can appreciate the idealism of using Linux for everything (I'm a Debian developer for god's sake) but for my job, I have to use Outlook, so I do, because I like my job, and I'm not going to quit because of that minor inconvenience.
I suppose this qualifies as a rant, and possibly will be modded to "Flamebait" or "Troll" but let's try and tolerate some dissent on this board for a change.
While I don't disagree that MS may strongarm people, it's important to note that Office XP is already out, and works fine under Windows 9X/ME and Windows 2K. As for the bundling Java issue, as an earlier poster pointed out, up till now, MS was shipping something based on 1.1, not the 1.4 from Sun. At least this way, developers won't be stuck catering to the lowest common Java version, maybe we'll see some apps using the new performance and features of 1.4. I suppose I'm being idealistic here...
This is the same business model that content providers (i.e. TV Stations) have been using for years with cable providers. It seems quite good (for the content providers and the cable companies), but the catch is, of course, that instead of having lot's of content, you only get the content approved by the company. If this takes off, we could end up with "10000 sites and nothing's on!", not unlike the current dilemma with TV...
With all due respect to Mr. Young, there really is no such thing as free market coexisting with IP laws. IP laws are not designed to free the market but to restrict its freedom. So we are left in a quandary: how does a free society finance scientific research without IP restrictions on its freedom? How do programmers, artists, etc.. make a living if they cannot live off their work?
The purpose of IP laws was to provide the 'small' entrepreneur a way to succeed against the large ones. If I invent a remarkable (simple) product in my basement, and it becomes fabulously successful, without copyright or IP, what prevents MegaCorp X from cloning my product, selling it cheaper (since they can afford to) and wiping me out of business?
I mean, the real goal was to keep small inventors and artists from turning into free R&D labs for big companies.
(Of course, this point has been spectacularly missed in the US with corp-favouring laws like the DCMA being passed.)
You'd be better off buying T-Shirts, going to their shows, or sending them a donation. CD sales result in little in the way of tangible money. Your $18 resulted in less than 3-5% going to the artist... if he/she is lucky. (Independent labels are usually better, but you mentioned two bands on a major label) For CD sales to provide any real financial benefit, the record would have had to been recorded cheaply, marketed spectacularly (but cheaply) and sold insanely well.
We should probably be careful, after the government's reaction to protestors at Kent State, during the war, how long before they start sending out the national guard to shoot crackers.
This might be an alarmist reaction, but the government is far more terrified of crackers than they ever were of hippies. What happens when you back a person with a gun into a metaphorical corner?
(Offtopic: Everytime an American brings up Tianamen square, someone should remind them of Kent state, and how the US reacted to student protesters)
Journalists have a habit of marching out with words like "Death" and "Failure" in the hopes that their misuse of language will earn them more readers.
(I guess getting linked by Slashdot accomplished just that.)
Death is a bit of an exaggeration. The general purpose nature of the PC is exactly what will ensure it's longetivity. Sure, a dedicated $800 MP3 machine sounds good, but a general purpose machine can provide that, dedicated NAT and firewalling, a 'vcr' using a TV tuner and software, and much more.
The general public likes appliances, their is no doubt there, but if you think that the average technology-focused individual is going to give up the machine he can tinker with, then you'd be mistaken.
Plus, my father may have a TiVO, and a DSS machine, but he still uses his PC to write letters, e-mail and browse the web. Find me one dedicated appliance that can do that and has any sort of discernable market share.
Quite frankly, the PC is here to stay. Read this comment again in five years, and let me know if I was right. (You'll likely be writing it from an AMD running at 10ghz, but it'll be a PC all right)
Slashdot Mirror
A great developer did a full engine for Flashback in SDL, it's called REminiscence, and it even supports the MOD files from the Amiga version. His version works out of the box on Windows and Linux/BSD/etc.. I also ported the same program to Mac OS X so while it's not trivial to get the data files, it's at least playable on all major platforms.
If the DOJ is so keen to use this law to acquire journalist's sources regarding Lamo, why are they not doing the same thing to figure out who exposed Joseph Wilson's CIA wife?
I suppose that the "threat" of hackers requires more jurisprudence then the violation of a federal statute designed to ensure national security.
(For those unaware of the story; "someone" in the white house exposed the CIA credentials of the wife of the man who revealed the lack of uranium purchases by Saddam, check out this link for details. )
I'm not exactly holding my breath to see if Ashcroft subpoena's Novak's notes regarding THAT incident.
You're talking about two different things, and so-called "Voodoo Economics" has very little to do with this topic at all. That's a Reagan-era term for supply-side economics and deals primarily with fiscal policy.
Technology on the CONSUMER end is improving, but if technology on the SUPPLIER end does not improve at the same pace, you have an increasing cost industry and consequently higher prices.
Any imbalance between cost of production and cost to consumers in the market would normally result in price shifts.
Video game companies are losing money because the cost of doing business has increased while market prices have not. As costs go up, firms will leave the market resulting in an increasingly diminished supply causing prices to go up and so on.
In the long run, without major improvements on the supply side, the industry would collapse; at least that is what generally accepted microeconomics principles would predict.
(English: After this, therefore because of this.)
How can anyone conclude anything from this? You could say: "High piracy results in a weak IT sector" or you could say "A strong IT sector results in low piracy"
Both are completely valid conclusions to draw, and neither means anything in a void.
Correlation, meet causation.
Microsoft was successful in preventing an implementation of the ASF file format from being used by virtualdub. This seems to be a parallel issue, since both ASF and WMA are patented.
Ok, I have just one request. Someone hack these things to support Canada. It still boggles the mind that while TIVO supports the UK, they ignore Canada. I mean, it's more than just igloos and hockey up here, eh?
In all seriousness, this is the machine (more so than the TIVO) that seems to be the perfect machine to "fake" guide support on. Unlike the TIVO which dials up and grabs guides from TIVO, the ReplayTV can use your broadband connection. If someone could figure out the host (ideally the hostname) that it connects to, we could trick it into going to a substitute host, grabbing the listing there.
Yeah, I'm simplifying it slightly. For one, who knows what format the data is in. And whether it uses some sort of encryption. However, unlike TIVO, ReplayTV doesn't sell subscriptions, so they'd have no financial interest in protecting the guide format.
(By the way, if anyone can confirm this, my theory about the lack of TIVO and ReplayTV support in Canada is that it's due to the rather strict Canadian privacy laws, and rules around Canadian Content.)
Sorry Jon, I typically don't jump on the Katz-bashing, but today, I'm dumbfounded by this article.
1. How much market share does BMW have? Do you think that they have 4.5% of the world's market? I doubt it. Does it matter? Would I buy a BMW instead of a Ford? Definitely.
2. Steve Jobs knows exactly what he's doing. Do you think trying to trump Microsoft on making a commodity OS is the way to go? No, that job is already taken.
3. Take this example. I decide to open a store in a mall. There is a Walmart there already. Do I:
a) Build a gigantic department store and try to compete with Walmart?
b) Do I build a speciality store wherein I can attract a strong, loyal niche market, and make my money rather than getting crushed
I think Steve gets it fine. So do I, so do a good chunk of the posters thus far. But apparently, you don't get it.
If Microsoft is smart, they'll ignore this. Why? Well, they're losing around $150 USD per console, and they make the money from the games. If you buy your own high end PC, pay full sticker, and then buy their games, you're saving them money, and they're still getting their cut from the development fees for the game.
Best of all, since no method for copying DVD games exists (well, not for under $5,000) it's not like piracy will be the issue.
By the way, for those of you who think Apple Superdrive or the HP DVD+RW machine will help, think again; they don't have a capacity to store most of the XBox games; as they only support 4.7gb DVDs, and the majority of XBox games are dual-layered (i.e. 8gb+)
I suppose at $600.00 it should provide identical equipment to a $10,000.00 DVD studio? What about the fact that most DVDs are mastered to DLT tape before publishing? It's not quite the same as the GM system for data and music CDs.
For the record, it also doesn't support more than 90 minutes of video per disc. This isn't the holy grail of consumer video recording; but it's a convenient, powerful way to preserve your own video.
For those of you lucky enough to be running Debian, it was announced yesterday that Euro support is available. The announcement is here: http://www.debian.org/News/2001/20011231p ort/
And the HOWTO is here: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-euro-sup
I think it should be noted that this is the first 2.5.x release that actually forks away from the 2.4 (2.5.0 was just a 2.4 kernel in disguise) so this is an event... this is the first new tree since 2.3 closed.
In that sense, this is a big deal. Of course, posting all the 2.3.x announcements would be excessive.
Just for a point of comparison... how does this differ from the Apple SuperDrive DVD writer (you've seen the ads) which is included in high end Powermacs? According to Apple's website the SuperDrive is a DVD-R drive, which I was told, couldn't write DVD-Video... so how are they accomplishing it?
While main of you correctly point out the lack of network support in this, let's be honest here, the majority of users want a fast, pretty desktop. This would be the way to do it.
Applications are not a problem; both GTK and QT have abstracted the window drawing from the widget set (GDK for GTK) so someone could potentially relink (not necessarily rebuild, if the symbol tables stay the same) their apps and have a wealth of stuff to choose from.
I like the network transparancy in X, but what is to keep you from running X for remote applications, and using DirectFB for your desktop? X is nice, but it's filled with lowest-common denominator decisions, and the majority of people polled (cough) want to run with things like alpha blending, anti-aliasing, and windowed 3D. X supports them, but not without a lot of pain.
So, if you want to use X, you could potentially keep it; if you want DirectFB, you can use all your GTK/QT apps (theoretically) Why rain on someones parade when both crowds could potentially win here?
I agree this is an annoying bug, but to paraphrase a coversation between the comic book guy and Bart:
Comic Guy: Worst kernel EVER
Bart: Why do you get to complain? They've given you thousands of hours of entertainment for free?
Comic Guy:As a loyal [user], they owe me.
Admittedly, I'm probably off the actual text by a bit here, the point remain. Try not to be the Comic Book Guy when Linus makes one mistake.
The bill is being motivated by motion picture and television studios that seek to end piracy of their movies and other forms of entertainment. Curiously, these studios also happen to be among Hollings' top campaign contributors, as noted by Newsforge reporter Dan Berkes.
(Emphasis mine)
"Curiously" is an understatement. Apparently in America you can buy anything.
On a related note, does anyone find it strange the commiting a crime against a corporation is worse that a crime against another individual?
Violate the DMCA - 25 Years w/o parole
Kill someone - 20 Years, parole after 6-8
Lest we forget, SSH communications is a commercial vendor, most of which have a notorious reputation for discounting the severity of vunerabilities. Sorry guys, but I'd have a lot more faith in hearing Theo from OpenBSD talk about security implications than a company that sells the "sizzle" of security (albeit with a decent product)
When's the last time you heard a major vendor acknowledge a severe hole was actually severe. They have to worry about the lawsuits, and anything they say could be used in a class action, so while this particular threat isn't outright horrifying, it's likely worse than the spin it's getting from ssh.com.
My girlfriend and I found it outright the funniest, and most outright clever movie in a summer full of duds. But... I'm a big Kevin Smith fan, and I've got all his flicks on DVD, so I wonder how the movie would be recieved by a Smith Virgin.
Jason Mewes actually carries this movie, which is remarkable, since I think no one was more surprised than him that it went so well. He's hardly the mainstream movie star like Affleck or Jason Lee.
Also, while 'movie parody movies' have been a subgenre for ever (see: Scary Movie to Naked Gun) there hasn't been one done well in ages. This one is both bang on in it's attacks on those movies, but it's obviously done with love and respect, which makes it all the more clever.
At it's core, it's a road trip movie, which, since Capra invented the genre, has always proven to be a treat; the potential for unpredictable characters and situation is hard to exceed, and Kevin Smith handles it admirably.
All in all, after a summer full of disappointments (see: A.I. Kiss of the Dragon, Evolution, et al.) this was refreshing, fun and Smith's most inside joke, and simultaneously, most accessible movie yet.
If you have some patience for a seemingly offensive movie - but with a lot of heart - you couldn't do better this summer.
As someone who spends a lot of time hiring (yes, I'm a manager) I really have to disagree. The problem isn't finding "programmers" i.e. people who write classes all day, and regurgitate the algorithms they memorized in college, but finding what I like to call "Developers;" that is, people who think, who see a big picture. My staff is compromised entirely of thinkers, and it's a small team. We have a hire rate of around 25% of interviewees, and that's generous.
Nothing against polytechnical schools, but universities seem to produce "thinkers" not just "doers" It's all well and good to be able to write code when you're given explicit direction, pseudo-code, etc, but a real "Developer" just needs a "goal" There is definitely a shortage of highly motivated, problem solvers, not a shortage of code monkeys.
Ok, I have to respond to some of the folks here who believe that "Don't run Outlook" is an option. Well, pray tell, what should I do if I'm on a corporate Exchange server? With no other option? It's all well and good to suggest things, but the fact is, if the Exchange Admin won't use LDAP, you're out of luck, and quite stuck.
That said, the SP2 release of Office/Outlook prevents anything from accessing your address book, and will pop up a confirmation. It doesn't prevent idiots from opening the attachments, but it does create some thought beforehand.
I can appreciate the idealism of using Linux for everything (I'm a Debian developer for god's sake) but for my job, I have to use Outlook, so I do, because I like my job, and I'm not going to quit because of that minor inconvenience.
I suppose this qualifies as a rant, and possibly will be modded to "Flamebait" or "Troll" but let's try and tolerate some dissent on this board for a change.
>Office XP will only work on Windows XP
While I don't disagree that MS may strongarm people, it's important to note that Office XP is already out, and works fine under Windows 9X/ME and Windows 2K. As for the bundling Java issue, as an earlier poster pointed out, up till now, MS was shipping something based on 1.1, not the 1.4 from Sun. At least this way, developers won't be stuck catering to the lowest common Java version, maybe we'll see some apps using the new performance and features of 1.4. I suppose I'm being idealistic here...
This is the same business model that content providers (i.e. TV Stations) have been using for years with cable providers. It seems quite good (for the content providers and the cable companies), but the catch is, of course, that instead of having lot's of content, you only get the content approved by the company. If this takes off, we could end up with "10000 sites and nothing's on!", not unlike the current dilemma with TV...
With all due respect to Mr. Young, there really is no such thing as free market coexisting with IP laws. IP laws are not designed to free the market but to restrict its freedom. So we are left in a quandary: how does a free society finance scientific research without IP restrictions on its freedom? How do programmers, artists, etc.. make a living if they cannot live off their work?
The purpose of IP laws was to provide the 'small' entrepreneur a way to succeed against the large ones. If I invent a remarkable (simple) product in my basement, and it becomes fabulously successful, without copyright or IP, what prevents MegaCorp X from cloning my product, selling it cheaper (since they can afford to) and wiping me out of business?
I mean, the real goal was to keep small inventors and artists from turning into free R&D labs for big companies.
(Of course, this point has been spectacularly missed in the US with corp-favouring laws like the DCMA being passed.)
You'd be better off buying T-Shirts, going to their shows, or sending them a donation. CD sales result in little in the way of tangible money. Your $18 resulted in less than 3-5% going to the artist... if he/she is lucky. (Independent labels are usually better, but you mentioned two bands on a major label) For CD sales to provide any real financial benefit, the record would have had to been recorded cheaply, marketed spectacularly (but cheaply) and sold insanely well.
We should probably be careful, after the government's reaction to protestors at Kent State, during the war, how long before they start sending out the national guard to shoot crackers.
This might be an alarmist reaction, but the government is far more terrified of crackers than they ever were of hippies. What happens when you back a person with a gun into a metaphorical corner?
(Offtopic: Everytime an American brings up Tianamen square, someone should remind them of Kent state, and how the US reacted to student protesters)
Journalists have a habit of marching out with words like "Death" and "Failure" in the hopes that their misuse of language will earn them more readers.
(I guess getting linked by Slashdot accomplished just that.)
Death is a bit of an exaggeration. The general purpose nature of the PC is exactly what will ensure it's longetivity. Sure, a dedicated $800 MP3 machine sounds good, but a general purpose machine can provide that, dedicated NAT and firewalling, a 'vcr' using a TV tuner and software, and much more.
The general public likes appliances, their is no doubt there, but if you think that the average technology-focused individual is going to give up the machine he can tinker with, then you'd be mistaken.
Plus, my father may have a TiVO, and a DSS machine, but he still uses his PC to write letters, e-mail and browse the web. Find me one dedicated appliance that can do that and has any sort of discernable market share.
Quite frankly, the PC is here to stay. Read this comment again in five years, and let me know if I was right. (You'll likely be writing it from an AMD running at 10ghz, but it'll be a PC all right)