As with a large percentage of individuals on Slashdot, I tend to immediately notice the technical issues FIRST and the other issues SECOND.;)
Of course I don't think a 'No Fly' database is a good idea. But if you're going to implement such a thing, you should probably *at least* do it the RIGHT way, don'tcha think?
That algorithm is so fundamentally broken as to be practically useless for anything but as an aid in simple searches. Why anyone would use soundex in a mission critical application designed to positively identify individuals is beyond me. What, was the 'No Fly' database written by 1st year comp sci major or something? Sheesh.
Woz was never exactly 'pushed out' of the company. He's been an Apple employee and has received a (his words) small salary since the founding of the company.
The fact is that Woz didn't like the direction that Jobs was taking -- he never liked the Macintosh. He wanted the company to further develop the Apple ][ archicture, which actually was quite extensible. The Apple IIgs, introduced in 1986, had a 16-bit processor, multiphonic sound, and 640x200 graphics capability. It was also the first machine introduced to use LSI (large scale integration), a chip designed by Woz called the Integrated Woz Machine.
It was one of the first multimedia computers. Although the Amiga still majorly kicked its ass in the multimedia department, it had more multimedia capabilities than anything else (excluding the Amiga of course) out at the time, including the Macintosh.
All-in-all it was a machine ahead of its time.
Unfortunately, Apple never took the IIgs seriously, instead viewing it as a means of bridging the gap between Apple II and Macintosh enthusiasts. Most Apple II people never saw eye-to-eye with Apple on the Mac's closed architecture (including me) and ended up buying so-called 'IBM compatible' machines.
Actually, contrary to popular belief, it is possible for a GPL software package to be used commercially. Lots of packages are released under a dual licensing arrangement, including Qt and Mozilla.
As Linus Torvalds said, "He who writes the code picks the license." Why whine about it?
Unusual Fire or Explosion Hazard: WHEN HEATED TO DECOMPO,EMITS TOXIC FUMES OF NITROUS OXIDES & OTHER HAZARDOUS MATLS;CAN REACT VIGOROUSLY W/OXIDIZING MATLS.SEVERE(BUREAU OF MINES EXPLO HAZ RATINGS)AS DUST.
Please. The place lists Dearborn, MI as well, which is conveniently bordered by steel plants and oil refineries. Parts of Dearborn are also very very crime-ridden. Don't get me wrong, some parts of Dearborn are very nice, but I wouldn't exactly list it as one of the top 100 places to live.
My mistake for not pointing this out: the original agreement doens't mention transfer of copyrights, so this amendment is supposedly proof that the copyright was transferred by implication.
The wording of amendment is also screwy. Look at this thing from the news.com.com.com.com article:
The amendment changes the intellectual property that wasn't sold to the Santa Cruz Operation. It was modified to exclude from transfer "all copyrights and trademarks, except for the copyrights and trademarks owned by Novell as of the date of the agreement, required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of Unix and UnixWare technologies
(emphasis mine). That's not very clear at all. In fact that's got to be about the most vague and convoluted proof of copyright transfer that has ever existed.
Of course if they didn't register this 'transfer' (assuming it's legit) with the copyright office, then they basically can't claim statutory damages under the law. Which is probably why they're going at it from a trade secret and breach of contract standpoint rather than a copyright standpoint.
Which of course any judge worth his salt is going to see right through that thinly veiled attempt at hiding the fact that they never registered the copyright.
Of course, none of this matters if SCO failed to mitigate their own damages by producing Caldera OpenLinux and IBM lawyers have the brains to bring this up in court. (Of course they will...IBM doesn't exactly hire lackeys for attorneys;)
Was an IEEE standard. It's been withdrawn. Besides -- name 3 other machines NOT produced by Apple that is NOT an Apple clone that uses NUBus. I bet you can't name one. Just because something is an IEEE standard doesn't mean it's an industry standard.
Face it, Macs were very, very proprietary until the PowerMacs appeared with their PCI buses, AGP video, and standardization on USB, firewire and ethernet.
So stop competing on price and start offering a good, high quality, reliable service that people will pay a little more for.
You're starting to think like Microsoft now.
No, only half like Microsoft. Microsoft stopped competing on price a long time ago, but never started offering good, high quality, reliable products or services. They never had to.
After all, a lot of viruses/worms can be avoided if users had sane computer habits, such as never opening executables from an email, but your average computer user doesn't know and Symantec doesn't want him/her to know.
Nor are they likely ever to know, honestly. My aunt, whom I characterize as a typical computer user, ran Windows 95 on her box for a long time. One day she was cleaning out her hard drive (because she's insane about organization) and saw two folders named 'Windows' and 'Program Files' on her C: drive, decided she didn't need any folders called 'Windows' or 'Program Files' and proceeded to delete them both.
Needless to say she called me and said <whine>"my computer doesn't work"</whine;> and when she explained what she did I had a very hard time keeping myself from ROFLMAOing.;)
Anyways, my point is that the average computer user is REALLY *that* dumb and that's the thing that's going to keep worms and viruses around for quite sometime to come, regardless of how well operating systems are built, regardless of what Symantec or McAfee do, etc.
Also, on the 'non-proprietary stuff', Macs used to be virtually 100% proprietary -- proprietary networking (AppleTalk), proprietary slots (Apple Bus), proprietary keyboard and mouse (ADB), even Apple's implementation of SCSI was proprietary at one time.
"The first thing anyone did when showing off their Apple was pull off the cover and expose its innards, the pcboard, the expansion slots. "
Which you can still do today. First thing I did when I got my PowerMac home was open it and look at what was inside.
The hardware is still based on standards - standard SCSI & EIDE hard drives and CDROM drives; standard interfaces; standard PCI slots; AGP graphics slots; standard USB & FireWire connectors.
Today, yes you can do that. But we old timers (heh) remember when you had to have a special tool to take apart a Macintosh. Opening the case by other than authorized service people was considered a violation of the terms of your warranty.
Calling Jobs a suit isn't exactly correct. As I stated elsewhere, Woz had all the engineering talent, but Jobs was more than a suit. First off, Jobs was quite tech savvy in his own right. And his business accumen was sharp. But Jobs was a *visionary* not a suit. He was never a "buttoned down" guy. One thing Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews point out in their unauthorized biography of Bill Gates is the stark contrast that the Microsoft people noticed between IBM, which was all button-down pinstripe suits, and Apple, which was a bunch of Berkley grads with long hair and Birkenstocks.
Microsoft was *never* very innovative (they acquired everything they have achieved either through outright purchasing it or through theft), but Apple was quite the innovator. And a lot of that innovation can be directly attributed to Jobs and his 'reality distortion field' that would make people honestly believe they could do things that were impossible -- and they did.
Exactly. Apple couldn't have ever existed without both of them. Woz lacked the vision and business saavy that Jobs had, and Jobs lacked the patience and engineering skills that Woz had. But put the two together and you have a company that went from some guys garage to multibillion dollar international corporation. That's pretty impressive in and of itself, really.;)
Some stuff still works (like the free buffets at bars for those who order drinks, especially in hotel restauruants), but other stuff in this book is a bit out of date. For instance, supermarkets now use clear plastic bags for produce, most jars now have 'tamper-resistant' packaging, putting your own pricetag on doesn't work anyway because most cashiers have barcode scanners now (although bringing your own *barcodes* on adhesive labels might work for some things)...
Re:steal this comment!
on
Steal This Idea
·
· Score: 2, Funny
steal this comment! (Score:2) by sweeney37 (325921) * on 12:03 PM June 5th, 2003 (#6124520) geez, what's with all the theft in book reviews as of recent?
Mike
Theft is rampant in these parts.
Re:Please be precise: the correct name is
on
C&W Bails Out
·
· Score: 4, Funny
You left some out: GE/Viacom/Disney/Microsoft/AOL/TW/Fox/MPAA/RIAA
Slashdot Mirror
As with a large percentage of individuals on Slashdot, I tend to immediately notice the technical issues FIRST and the other issues SECOND. ;)
Of course I don't think a 'No Fly' database is a good idea. But if you're going to implement such a thing, you should probably *at least* do it the RIGHT way, don'tcha think?
That algorithm is so fundamentally broken as to be practically useless for anything but as an aid in simple searches. Why anyone would use soundex in a mission critical application designed to positively identify individuals is beyond me. What, was the 'No Fly' database written by 1st year comp sci major or something? Sheesh.
Woz was never exactly 'pushed out' of the company. He's been an Apple employee and has received a (his words) small salary since the founding of the company.
The fact is that Woz didn't like the direction that Jobs was taking -- he never liked the Macintosh. He wanted the company to further develop the Apple ][ archicture, which actually was quite extensible. The Apple IIgs, introduced in 1986, had a 16-bit processor, multiphonic sound, and 640x200 graphics capability. It was also the first machine introduced to use LSI (large scale integration), a chip designed by Woz called the Integrated Woz Machine.
It was one of the first multimedia computers. Although the Amiga still majorly kicked its ass in the multimedia department, it had more multimedia capabilities than anything else (excluding the Amiga of course) out at the time, including the Macintosh.
All-in-all it was a machine ahead of its time.
Unfortunately, Apple never took the IIgs seriously, instead viewing it as a means of bridging the gap between Apple II and Macintosh enthusiasts. Most Apple II people never saw eye-to-eye with Apple on the Mac's closed architecture (including me) and ended up buying so-called 'IBM compatible' machines.
Actually, contrary to popular belief, it is possible for a GPL software package to be used commercially. Lots of packages are released under a dual licensing arrangement, including Qt and Mozilla.
As Linus Torvalds said, "He who writes the code picks the license." Why whine about it?
Hehehe.... NO! It's not dangerous at ALL!
Please. The place lists Dearborn, MI as well, which is conveniently bordered by steel plants and oil refineries. Parts of Dearborn are also very very crime-ridden. Don't get me wrong, some parts of Dearborn are very nice, but I wouldn't exactly list it as one of the top 100 places to live.
That's great. It proves that Steve Jobs was a programmer (software hacker), not an electronics engineer (hardware hacker).
My mistake for not pointing this out: the original agreement doens't mention transfer of copyrights, so this amendment is supposedly proof that the copyright was transferred by implication.
Very fishy.
The wording of amendment is also screwy. Look at this thing from the news.com.com.com.com article:
;)
The amendment changes the intellectual property that wasn't sold to the Santa Cruz Operation. It was modified to exclude from transfer "all copyrights and trademarks, except for the copyrights and trademarks owned by Novell as of the date of the agreement, required for SCO to exercise its rights with respect to the acquisition of Unix and UnixWare technologies
(emphasis mine). That's not very clear at all. In fact that's got to be about the most vague and convoluted proof of copyright transfer that has ever existed.
Of course if they didn't register this 'transfer' (assuming it's legit) with the copyright office, then they basically can't claim statutory damages under the law. Which is probably why they're going at it from a trade secret and breach of contract standpoint rather than a copyright standpoint.
Which of course any judge worth his salt is going to see right through that thinly veiled attempt at hiding the fact that they never registered the copyright.
Of course, none of this matters if SCO failed to mitigate their own damages by producing Caldera OpenLinux and IBM lawyers have the brains to bring this up in court. (Of course they will...IBM doesn't exactly hire lackeys for attorneys
NUBus is an IEEE standard
Was an IEEE standard. It's been withdrawn. Besides -- name 3 other machines NOT produced by Apple that is NOT an Apple clone that uses NUBus. I bet you can't name one. Just because something is an IEEE standard doesn't mean it's an industry standard.
Face it, Macs were very, very proprietary until the PowerMacs appeared with their PCI buses, AGP video, and standardization on USB, firewire and ethernet.
So stop competing on price and start offering a good, high quality, reliable service that people will pay a little more for.
You're starting to think like Microsoft now.
No, only half like Microsoft. Microsoft stopped competing on price a long time ago, but never started offering good, high quality, reliable products or services. They never had to.
*sigh* It was a metaphor.
After all, a lot of viruses/worms can be avoided if users had sane computer habits, such as never opening executables from an email, but your average computer user doesn't know and Symantec doesn't want him/her to know.
;)
Nor are they likely ever to know, honestly. My aunt, whom I characterize as a typical computer user, ran Windows 95 on her box for a long time. One day she was cleaning out her hard drive (because she's insane about organization) and saw two folders named 'Windows' and 'Program Files' on her C: drive, decided she didn't need any folders called 'Windows' or 'Program Files' and proceeded to delete them both.
Needless to say she called me and said <whine>"my computer doesn't work"</whine;> and when she explained what she did I had a very hard time keeping myself from ROFLMAOing.
Anyways, my point is that the average computer user is REALLY *that* dumb and that's the thing that's going to keep worms and viruses around for quite sometime to come, regardless of how well operating systems are built, regardless of what Symantec or McAfee do, etc.
Besides, I'd bet most of the people who read the magazine didn't read that disassembly you referenced.
;)
I think the poster's implication is more what you confirm here: Wired is a wannabe rag.
Also, on the 'non-proprietary stuff', Macs used to be virtually 100% proprietary -- proprietary networking (AppleTalk), proprietary slots (Apple Bus), proprietary keyboard and mouse (ADB), even Apple's implementation of SCSI was proprietary at one time.
"The first thing anyone did when showing off their Apple was pull off the cover and expose its innards, the pcboard, the expansion slots. "
Which you can still do today. First thing I did when I got my PowerMac home was open it and look at what was inside.
The hardware is still based on standards - standard SCSI & EIDE hard drives and CDROM drives; standard interfaces; standard PCI slots; AGP graphics slots; standard USB & FireWire connectors.
Today, yes you can do that. But we old timers (heh) remember when you had to have a special tool to take apart a Macintosh. Opening the case by other than authorized service people was considered a violation of the terms of your warranty.
Calling Jobs a suit isn't exactly correct. As I stated elsewhere, Woz had all the engineering talent, but Jobs was more than a suit. First off, Jobs was quite tech savvy in his own right. And his business accumen was sharp. But Jobs was a *visionary* not a suit. He was never a "buttoned down" guy. One thing Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews point out in their unauthorized biography of Bill Gates is the stark contrast that the Microsoft people noticed between IBM, which was all button-down pinstripe suits, and Apple, which was a bunch of Berkley grads with long hair and Birkenstocks.
Microsoft was *never* very innovative (they acquired everything they have achieved either through outright purchasing it or through theft), but Apple was quite the innovator. And a lot of that innovation can be directly attributed to Jobs and his 'reality distortion field' that would make people honestly believe they could do things that were impossible -- and they did.
Exactly. Apple couldn't have ever existed without both of them. Woz lacked the vision and business saavy that Jobs had, and Jobs lacked the patience and engineering skills that Woz had. But put the two together and you have a company that went from some guys garage to multibillion dollar international corporation. That's pretty impressive in and of itself, really. ;)
Also, I believe the Amiga corp produced the Amiga, that had some designers in common with Atari, and the Commodore.
;)
Ermmm...it was the Commodore Amiga. It had a Commie logo on it. Amiga Corp. came later after Commodore went under.
And I can't remember if it was that Atari ripped off Commodore or Commodore ripped off Atari, but SOMEONE ripped off SOMEONE.
I knew that. I was just checking to see if you knew that. ;)
How about this? Is this fileshareing? ;)
Oh yeah, what are they gonna do? Come and arrest me?
BRB, someone's knocking on my doo..&)DFF *& &FEfew8afujewa8iop9u
NO CARRIER
Some stuff still works (like the free buffets at bars for those who order drinks, especially in hotel restauruants), but other stuff in this book is a bit out of date. For instance, supermarkets now use clear plastic bags for produce, most jars now have 'tamper-resistant' packaging, putting your own pricetag on doesn't work anyway because most cashiers have barcode scanners now (although bringing your own *barcodes* on adhesive labels might work for some things)...
steal this comment! (Score:2)
by sweeney37 (325921) * on 12:03 PM June 5th, 2003 (#6124520)
geez, what's with all the theft in book reviews as of recent?
Mike
Theft is rampant in these parts.
You left some out: GE/Viacom/Disney/Microsoft/AOL/TW/Fox/MPAA/RIAA