I don't know, man. I use Konfabulator and this is probably a little more theft than innovation on Apple's part. On the one hand, we'll have to wait to see how Dashboard works out to know how similar the two systems are (frankly, the little video they have on apple.com doesn't look as smooth as Konfabulator), but basing it on JavaScript and calling them Widgets is... disingenuous. Coming from Apple, you'd think it'd be based on AppleScript and the objects would be called... um... iApps or something.
Also, Apple DOES have a history of buying up and using innovative 3rd-party extensions. The best example is probably WindowShade, which was a 3rd party CDEV until Apple bought it and rolled it right into the OS. At first, I thought that's what Apple had done with Konfabulator (like what Apple SHOULD do with LaunchBar and PathFinder).
In the end I'm glad this kind of functionality will make it to all of Apple's users, but it WOULD be nice if there were a tradition of Apple recognizing existing quality implementations of good ideas by buying, improving, and distributing them. Don't you think?
wasn't the opposite of that argument the one which was used to extend licensing to software (as opposed to selling)? I mean, the fact that we license software instead of purchasing it was a legal distinction originally based on the fact that a lawyer convinced a judge that a user "copies" the software from disk to memory when the software is run. That's my recollection anyway.
Frankly I feel like your naivete is a bit disingenuous bit since you say you haven't gotten it before, I'll explain it:
Here's the theory: as consumers, we benefit from competition in the marketplace; and therefore we have laws which help us preserve competition. You have to accept that lemma before the rest of the argument works. The reason it is wrong for Microsoft to move into certian new subfields of the software market is because of the crushing blow such a move tends to cause to competition in the subfield.
When Microsoft moves into a new subfield, there are two forces which tend to eliminate the competition which we would otherwise enjoy: first, Microsoft has huge dominance in so many other subfields, people may feel forced to follow them in the new subfield, even if they were previously using a different product; and second, because (depending on your perception) Microsoft uses shady tactics to force their customers into exclusive agreements and contracts. Our courts seem to be divided on whether or not Microsoft is actually in violation of our laws, but many of us believe they are in violation of our common desire to have competition in the software market work in our common favor (which, we claim, it currently does not).
Furthermore, software is not a unique industry. At least here in America, we have a tradition of compelling market players to play nice with eachother (sometimes, anyway). A recent example that comes to mind is forcing auto manufacturers to share their computer codes with mechanics shops -- because we don't feel like it is fair for the car manufacturer to monopolize the repair market, too. We also compelled AT&T to allow other companies to run signals over their networks, since it was unreasonable to have each company build a whole nation's telephone infrastructure.
That's it in a nut shell. The argument only works, though, if you buy the idea that the market should work for the benefit of all consumers. Needless to say, I buy it.
That's exactly what the GPL is. When I install software, I look for the GPL EULA. In fact, it's the only EULA I've ever read, and most certainly the only one I fully understand. No, I've read the BSD EULA, too.
You hit the indignant nonconformist voice right-on, while still aligning yourself with the readers by giving a shout out to indy music (even saying that your tastes will "futher shift" to indy music -- a subtle reminder that you are already cool); and by predicting a timely and deserved demise for the "Music Industry".
I had to subtract points for failing to put the blame specifically on the RIAA as an organization (an oversight on your part, I'm sure). Also, you signed off with "totally disgusted", which I feel is a little weak; you might have concluded with a pithy reference to SCO or perhaps by linking music industry fat-cats with terrorism. I'm looking for some zing in the wrap-up, and you just don't have it.
I rate that... maybe, seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, one being the least Karma Whore, ten being being the most.
Seriously, it's TOTALLY ASTOUNDING that anyone would choose DVD-A as an acronym for ANYTHING, after the movie Orgazmo (and, to a lesser extent, South Park) brought the D.V.D.A. porn lingo to public light. Certain acronyms can only have one meaning, no matter how you try to use them: KKK, USA... and, most assuredly, DVDA.
Did the acronyms ADVD or DAD even occur to them (I suppose DAD is probably stupid, too, like DVDA).
Somewhat coincidentally, an hour ago I read the last few pages of Carnegie's other, not-quite-so-famous book, "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living". The title says it all. I'm not a worrier but I liked "How To Win Friends" when I read it years ago, so I picked this other book up. It's also a good read, for even the non-worrier I suppose but especially for anyone who goes home angry or wound up at the end of the day. It's three hundred and fifty pages of ways to just let it go...
but yet again, his testimony would temper the argument that the Big Bag Overcommercialized Clear Channel Crap Station is moving in on the Little Guy Playing Local Music In The Spirit of Brotherhood and Harmony, which i can see being made in the forums. He's just pointing out that Seattle isn't losing NPR or thoughtful selections on the local college station -- that perhaps the change of radio stations will not be a detriment to the community.
Better yet, let's all tune in to the radio station. We'll have so many radios tuned in that we'll crash their transmitter tower. Think of it: a distributed denial-of-radio attack.
Personally, I agree with you that using your own words more than once is acceptable -- hell, maybe even commendable (laziness is a virtue, right?). Furthermore, it might seem that re-using an old essay (or paragraph thereof) does not meet your dictionary definitoin of "plagiarizing".
However, I know that at my alma mater, we were explicitly told when we matriculated that using your own work a second time was plagiarism under the school's definition (the definition actually said it was okay to use a paper a second time if you got the permission of the professors of both classes in which the paper was used).
So trying to say the school is dumb because they don't conform to your dictionary's definition of a pretty complex legal and ethical issue is a little ingenuous and ignores the fact that this kid may have -- in fact, likely did -- break not only the stated rules but the established standards of collegiate honesty.
you don't consider a spaceship to be flying? flying thru space? i'd say i do. i looked it up in the dictionary and the first definition supports your view of the word, but the fifth definition indicates that spacecraft fly.
point of order: i highly doubt any of the **EXTREMIST FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC TERRORISTS** "kicked back a beer or two" ever, especially with their friends.
seriously. i wondered about that, too. what does his hair have to do with it? are these FBI-CIA agents stuck in 1955 or something? and the article made it seem like this UT Watch organization is some wacko revolutionary group, which (i looked them up) doesn't sound quite right.
but then again, the article was written after an interview with the kid, right, so you'd expect the article to focus on the same questions the kid found most absurd.
"every time"? isn't this the first time you've ever heard of a FOIA request resulting in an investigation? it is mine. aren't there tens or hundreds of thousands of FOIA requests filed every year? i think there are.
hey, i'm a hippie liberal like the rest of you, and i love the FOIA, and i hate the FBI and the CIA, and i think their investigations are evil and all that, but:
when it comes to supercrimes -- crimes where more than a handful of lives are on the line, crimes like terrorism -- we don't actually want to wait UNTIL there has been a CRIME committed. that's the whole point: we WANT the FBI to figure it out when a guy whose five best friends are all terrorists, who is taking flying lessons but doesn't want to learn how to land the plane, who is buying cross-country tickets at the same time with seven terrorist buddies, is planning something sinister.
i think it's good that this made the news, so we don't start getting crazy FBI-CIA-NSA investigations for everything a little offcenter, but in this particular instance i don't think there is anything to cry foul about.
well, Apple has been talking about Restore From Memory since way way way back, in the OS 8 or 9 days. sounds simple to me -- when you shut down, write the memory contents to disk, and read them back in when you start up -- but of course clearly it is not simple. maybe someday. it's supposed to improve startup times, too, which i would be happy for (except that i almost never shut down my computer).
i don't know if i personally would want a system of simply starting all the same applications -- i think i'd rather the clean-slate feeling of a newly rebooted system.
golden toilet paper, maybe not, but there are some complaints that Jobs makes a little too much money and has a few too many fringe benefits. i'm just sayin'.
i think apple should do a hybrid Expose and Virtual Desktops solution. i'd like to have potentially infinite desktop space, which i could scroll around with some way and zoom in and out on. virtual desktops are like eight (or however many) desktops next to eachother, but i want one bigass desktop with some smart ways to interact with it.
that's interesting. i agree with you, except you seem to be starting with the assumption that a release every year is on some level "too often". i don't agree with that at all. "release early release often" doesn't precisely apply to polished commercial operating systems, but if apple implements a new feature i want access to it sooner, not later. if they could release fairly major updates more often, i'd like that.
i do think there has been a problem with charging too much for upgrades in the past, though. you know, okay, so ten-point-three was a pretty major upgrade with some great features, but it wasn't an ENTIRELY NEW OS. it really drives the pirate fervor, in my estimation.
i like that idea, but it's the same idea that was widely derided on slashdot when Microsoft was/is thinking about it. i guess it's a little different than renting software because you get to keep using the last updated version even after your n years.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know, man. I use Konfabulator and this is probably a little more theft than innovation on Apple's part. On the one hand, we'll have to wait to see how Dashboard works out to know how similar the two systems are (frankly, the little video they have on apple.com doesn't look as smooth as Konfabulator), but basing it on JavaScript and calling them Widgets is... disingenuous. Coming from Apple, you'd think it'd be based on AppleScript and the objects would be called... um... iApps or something.
Also, Apple DOES have a history of buying up and using innovative 3rd-party extensions. The best example is probably WindowShade, which was a 3rd party CDEV until Apple bought it and rolled it right into the OS. At first, I thought that's what Apple had done with Konfabulator (like what Apple SHOULD do with LaunchBar and PathFinder).
In the end I'm glad this kind of functionality will make it to all of Apple's users, but it WOULD be nice if there were a tradition of Apple recognizing existing quality implementations of good ideas by buying, improving, and distributing them. Don't you think?
wasn't the opposite of that argument the one which was used to extend licensing to software (as opposed to selling)? I mean, the fact that we license software instead of purchasing it was a legal distinction originally based on the fact that a lawyer convinced a judge that a user "copies" the software from disk to memory when the software is run. That's my recollection anyway.
Frankly I feel like your naivete is a bit disingenuous bit since you say you haven't gotten it before, I'll explain it:
Here's the theory: as consumers, we benefit from competition in the marketplace; and therefore we have laws which help us preserve competition. You have to accept that lemma before the rest of the argument works. The reason it is wrong for Microsoft to move into certian new subfields of the software market is because of the crushing blow such a move tends to cause to competition in the subfield.
When Microsoft moves into a new subfield, there are two forces which tend to eliminate the competition which we would otherwise enjoy: first, Microsoft has huge dominance in so many other subfields, people may feel forced to follow them in the new subfield, even if they were previously using a different product; and second, because (depending on your perception) Microsoft uses shady tactics to force their customers into exclusive agreements and contracts. Our courts seem to be divided on whether or not Microsoft is actually in violation of our laws, but many of us believe they are in violation of our common desire to have competition in the software market work in our common favor (which, we claim, it currently does not).
Furthermore, software is not a unique industry. At least here in America, we have a tradition of compelling market players to play nice with eachother (sometimes, anyway). A recent example that comes to mind is forcing auto manufacturers to share their computer codes with mechanics shops -- because we don't feel like it is fair for the car manufacturer to monopolize the repair market, too. We also compelled AT&T to allow other companies to run signals over their networks, since it was unreasonable to have each company build a whole nation's telephone infrastructure.
That's it in a nut shell. The argument only works, though, if you buy the idea that the market should work for the benefit of all consumers. Needless to say, I buy it.
That's exactly what the GPL is. When I install software, I look for the GPL EULA. In fact, it's the only EULA I've ever read, and most certainly the only one I fully understand. No, I've read the BSD EULA, too.
Not bad.
You hit the indignant nonconformist voice right-on, while still aligning yourself with the readers by giving a shout out to indy music (even saying that your tastes will "futher shift" to indy music -- a subtle reminder that you are already cool); and by predicting a timely and deserved demise for the "Music Industry".
I had to subtract points for failing to put the blame specifically on the RIAA as an organization (an oversight on your part, I'm sure). Also, you signed off with "totally disgusted", which I feel is a little weak; you might have concluded with a pithy reference to SCO or perhaps by linking music industry fat-cats with terrorism. I'm looking for some zing in the wrap-up, and you just don't have it.
I rate that... maybe, seven or eight on a scale of one to ten, one being the least Karma Whore, ten being being the most.
Seriously, it's TOTALLY ASTOUNDING that anyone would choose DVD-A as an acronym for ANYTHING, after the movie Orgazmo (and, to a lesser extent, South Park) brought the D.V.D.A. porn lingo to public light. Certain acronyms can only have one meaning, no matter how you try to use them: KKK, USA... and, most assuredly, DVDA.
Did the acronyms ADVD or DAD even occur to them (I suppose DAD is probably stupid, too, like DVDA).
Somewhat coincidentally, an hour ago I read the last few pages of Carnegie's other, not-quite-so-famous book, "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living". The title says it all. I'm not a worrier but I liked "How To Win Friends" when I read it years ago, so I picked this other book up. It's also a good read, for even the non-worrier I suppose but especially for anyone who goes home angry or wound up at the end of the day. It's three hundred and fifty pages of ways to just let it go...
but yet again, his testimony would temper the argument that the Big Bag Overcommercialized Clear Channel Crap Station is moving in on the Little Guy Playing Local Music In The Spirit of Brotherhood and Harmony, which i can see being made in the forums. He's just pointing out that Seattle isn't losing NPR or thoughtful selections on the local college station -- that perhaps the change of radio stations will not be a detriment to the community.
the upper class folks in your neighborhood listen to country music? shit, dude, i'm sorry for you.
Better yet, let's all tune in to the radio station. We'll have so many radios tuned in that we'll crash their transmitter tower. Think of it: a distributed denial-of-radio attack.
(oh, wait)
disingenuous, i mean
Personally, I agree with you that using your own words more than once is acceptable -- hell, maybe even commendable (laziness is a virtue, right?). Furthermore, it might seem that re-using an old essay (or paragraph thereof) does not meet your dictionary definitoin of "plagiarizing".
However, I know that at my alma mater, we were explicitly told when we matriculated that using your own work a second time was plagiarism under the school's definition (the definition actually said it was okay to use a paper a second time if you got the permission of the professors of both classes in which the paper was used).
So trying to say the school is dumb because they don't conform to your dictionary's definition of a pretty complex legal and ethical issue is a little ingenuous and ignores the fact that this kid may have -- in fact, likely did -- break not only the stated rules but the established standards of collegiate honesty.
don't you mean it's what you did to postpone the sex?
you don't consider a spaceship to be flying? flying thru space? i'd say i do. i looked it up in the dictionary and the first definition supports your view of the word, but the fifth definition indicates that spacecraft fly.
y ?b ook=Dictionary&va=fly
http://www.meriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionar
it could go either way i guess.
you seem to have all the answers. please don't go into the spam buisiness, unless you already are. ;-)
Just remember: it's not that Microsoft thinks it can get away with breaking the law; rather, Microsoft realizes it can get away with breaking the law.
point of order: i highly doubt any of the **EXTREMIST FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC TERRORISTS** "kicked back a beer or two" ever, especially with their friends.
seriously. i wondered about that, too. what does his hair have to do with it? are these FBI-CIA agents stuck in 1955 or something? and the article made it seem like this UT Watch organization is some wacko revolutionary group, which (i looked them up) doesn't sound quite right.
but then again, the article was written after an interview with the kid, right, so you'd expect the article to focus on the same questions the kid found most absurd.
"every time"? isn't this the first time you've ever heard of a FOIA request resulting in an investigation? it is mine. aren't there tens or hundreds of thousands of FOIA requests filed every year? i think there are.
hey, i'm a hippie liberal like the rest of you, and i love the FOIA, and i hate the FBI and the CIA, and i think their investigations are evil and all that, but:
when it comes to supercrimes -- crimes where more than a handful of lives are on the line, crimes like terrorism -- we don't actually want to wait UNTIL there has been a CRIME committed. that's the whole point: we WANT the FBI to figure it out when a guy whose five best friends are all terrorists, who is taking flying lessons but doesn't want to learn how to land the plane, who is buying cross-country tickets at the same time with seven terrorist buddies, is planning something sinister.
i think it's good that this made the news, so we don't start getting crazy FBI-CIA-NSA investigations for everything a little offcenter, but in this particular instance i don't think there is anything to cry foul about.
well, Apple has been talking about Restore From Memory since way way way back, in the OS 8 or 9 days. sounds simple to me -- when you shut down, write the memory contents to disk, and read them back in when you start up -- but of course clearly it is not simple. maybe someday. it's supposed to improve startup times, too, which i would be happy for (except that i almost never shut down my computer).
i don't know if i personally would want a system of simply starting all the same applications -- i think i'd rather the clean-slate feeling of a newly rebooted system.
golden toilet paper, maybe not, but there are some complaints that Jobs makes a little too much money and has a few too many fringe benefits. i'm just sayin'.
i think apple should do a hybrid Expose and Virtual Desktops solution. i'd like to have potentially infinite desktop space, which i could scroll around with some way and zoom in and out on. virtual desktops are like eight (or however many) desktops next to eachother, but i want one bigass desktop with some smart ways to interact with it.
that's interesting. i agree with you, except you seem to be starting with the assumption that a release every year is on some level "too often". i don't agree with that at all. "release early release often" doesn't precisely apply to polished commercial operating systems, but if apple implements a new feature i want access to it sooner, not later. if they could release fairly major updates more often, i'd like that.
i do think there has been a problem with charging too much for upgrades in the past, though. you know, okay, so ten-point-three was a pretty major upgrade with some great features, but it wasn't an ENTIRELY NEW OS. it really drives the pirate fervor, in my estimation.
i like that idea, but it's the same idea that was widely derided on slashdot when Microsoft was/is thinking about it. i guess it's a little different than renting software because you get to keep using the last updated version even after your n years.