There is no "school" right to free speech. There is no right to free speech on the job.
In essence, I agree with you. But it is right for a school or place of employment to limit your free expression not only when you're in school or on the job, but also when you're off campus or off duty?
In my family, the school's right to decide what my child should not say or do will end as soon as he or she walks in my front door after school. If Junior wants to maintain a webpage from home, it's MY duty and responsibility to ensure my child's safety. Not the school's.
I guess you missed the last round of product announcements from Apple?
The new iMac G5's ship with a bundled remote control, and a media shell called "Front Row" that bears more than a passing resemblance to the interfaces of Tivo, XP Media Center, and the like.
All that's missing from the equation is TV tuner support. There's one or two OEMs that sell external tuners for the Mac, but they key moment will come when Apple throws their support behind an internal, integrated solution. And to those who think that won't happen soon: were you also confident that Macs would never migrate to x86, and that iPods would never get video support?
The contrast between Microsoft and Apple's product strategies is noticeable. Microsoft rushed to market with a decent but inelegant system, and refines it little by little each year. Apple has taken its time getting their initial product out there, but the extra care they take is readily noticeable in the useability.
The biggest issue with media centers is a very practical one: tuning.
The second biggest issue is pretty much the same: volume.
I have my XP MCE PC connected to a home theater system via SP/DIF digital. Alas, the XPMCE volume controls only work on the PC master volume, and then only if the output is PCM audio. So if I'm watching a DVD or something with a surround soundtrack, the volume controls don't do anything.
Nor does the 'IR blaster' hack do any good. The IR transmitter only works for changing channels on set-top boxes. There's no provision for end-users to program it to serve other purposes, or for remapping the remote keys to other functions, that I'm aware of.
In the end, I have to keep two remotes handy at all times; the Media Center remote, and the home theater receiver remote. What is this, 1985? Give me a universal device already.
Okay, he wants to remove red eye? He's going to have to tell the program where to remove the red eye from.
I'm guessing if the user presses the big "Remove Red Eye" button, he wants to remove the red eye from the EYES of the people in the picture currently being viewed. And with a good enough detection algorithm, the user shouldn't have to explain to the program what an eye is.
He wants to crop the photo? Is the program supposed to know how?
Again, the user will probably give clues. Like, if he click-drags the mouse diagonally across part of the photo, he might be trying to select the area for a cropped photo.
What does he expect? A miracle? Artificial intelligence?
Obviously not the first, but why not a little bit of the second?
Well, when a database application is such that 99% of its time is spent handling SELECT queries, and especially against a fairly flat and simple table layout, the need for stored procedures and triggers doesn't come up all that often.
Browsing the settings, to find the key you want, would be a lot harder.
What's so difficult about:
$Monad$ C: $Monad$ CD \REGISTRY
(at this point, a window with an adorable animated puppy will pop up and ask you 'It looks like you're trying to browse the Registry. Do you want to launch Registry Editor? [YES][OK]'. Then you just go from there.)
Moreover, Xbox360 only includs a noraml DVD drive on the initial release so Microsoft can always switch sides.
If by that you mean "Microsoft's THIRD-generation console will have whichever format emerges victorious", I agree.
Microsoft would be making a mistake if they decide to upgrade the 360's hardware halfway through the product cycle. There are two scenarios that could result from this move -- either developers will continue to target the older hardware, in which case everyone who developed and bought the new HW will have wasted their money, or developers will switch to targeting the new HW, in which case everyone is forced to upgrade or see their system lose almost all of its value. Neither is a shrewd business move.
Consoles are not meant to be upgradeable. If the Sega CD wasn't proof enough of that, the Sega 32X must have been.
Dude. What's with your hate-on for the teaching profession?
Some teachers are more competent than others, sure, but your comments are a slap in the face to my friends who are teachers, who ARE underpaid, who DO have to purchase school supplies out of pocket.
This also has nothing to do with the article, so we should both be modded off-topic.
There are the iPod, iPod nano and iPod shuffle. It just so happens that the biggest ones also play video.
Pedant.
There needs to be SOME way to distinguish between the new iPods, which have video capability, and older revisions of the same hardware, which don't. I see no problem with using the ad hoc term "video iPod" for this purpose. It's even different from the official Apple product names (like iPod photo and iPod mini) in that the modifier is at the front, not the end.
The non-techies (think English majors, graphic design artists, etc.) found the Mac systems easier and more intuitive to use
I think a large part of this was that Apple was much quicker to embrace GUIs and WYSIWYG display contexts, which is of course a big deal to visual thinkers like artists and layout designers. Sure, Windows 1.0 came out only a year after the Macintosh, and standalone graphical apps on top of DOS were around even before that, but it wasn't until about 1990 or so that Windows sessions didn't always look butt-ugly.
The matching algorithm takes nearly 1/3 of a second on a 100MHz ARM9. That's a noticeable lag, and it will be even more noticeable on slower or weaker processors, which is just about all of the phones on the market now.
(For comparison, the Nintendo DS's main CPU is an ARM9, but it runs at only 67MHz.)
Apart from the potential problems that could arise from false negatives and false positives, it's just too slow to perform acceptably yet.
By ultimately giving your money to HP anyway, you truly showed them how much it matters whether they offer custom build options for power users like yourself.
Many many software companies based their products on the existance of Windows, does MS have the authority to ask for a cut of the sales?!!
Many many software companies based their products on the existance of BSD-licensed software, do the author(s) of that software have the authority to demand compensation in the form of retaining a copyright notice?
If Apple doesn't do the engineering for accessories or the manufacturing - I see NO reason they should receive the profits?!?
If the accessories are being sold specifically as being for the iPod, odds are real good that they either leverage elements of Apple's industrial design (ie, translucent white plastic and scroll wheels) or elements of Apple's technical design (ie, the control protocol for the iPod expansion port). If that's the case, I think it's reasonable to expect a cut.
In other news, gasoline is still cheaper in the United States than in most of the world. It's all a question of cultural priorities. Americans as a whole prefer to travel on a freeway than on a fiberoptic cable.
I'm not sure how having slower, more expensive broadband access has stifled the United States, either. Aren't American companies still innovating at a rate comparable or superior to those in countries where TCP packets are too cheap to meter?
Why not tone down the rhetoric and give him the type of attention he deserves, which is NONE whatsoever?
Because if he were to succeed in getting what he wants, it would be a threat some of the fundamental freedoms I hold dear.
Ignoring a threat is not the same as dealing with it. And Jack Thompson's goals and tactics need to have the metaphorical mudhole stomped into them before they have a chance to do any real damage.
pretty humbling to see the man who is largely responsible for the invention of the internet.
Ahem. World Wide Web != Internet.
I don't think you can even give him all the credit for the "killer app" that brought the Internet mainstream. Before the Mosaic devs extended the HTML standard to support inline images, it was just another hypertext system comparable to Gopher or WAIS.
Doesn't anyone care that our politicians accept bribes (aka; campaign donations) to pass laws that are against the interest public interest (ie; the people the politicians are supposed to represent)?
Obviously the telecom companies don't sell their viewpoints as being "against the public interest".
Creating an environment where only private companies may provide internet service is not against the public interest. It "supports local economies". It "minimizes government intrustion into private matters". It "creates jobs".
Now, completely doing away with the registry? Impossible.
How about if they retained the API for interacting with the Registry, but changed the backend storage mechanisms to something more sensible and extensible?
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There is no "school" right to free speech. There is no right to free speech on the job.
In essence, I agree with you. But it is right for a school or place of employment to limit your free expression not only when you're in school or on the job, but also when you're off campus or off duty?
In my family, the school's right to decide what my child should not say or do will end as soon as he or she walks in my front door after school. If Junior wants to maintain a webpage from home, it's MY duty and responsibility to ensure my child's safety. Not the school's.
I just wish Apple would produce a media center
I guess you missed the last round of product announcements from Apple?
The new iMac G5's ship with a bundled remote control, and a media shell called "Front Row" that bears more than a passing resemblance to the interfaces of Tivo, XP Media Center, and the like.
All that's missing from the equation is TV tuner support. There's one or two OEMs that sell external tuners for the Mac, but they key moment will come when Apple throws their support behind an internal, integrated solution. And to those who think that won't happen soon: were you also confident that Macs would never migrate to x86, and that iPods would never get video support?
The contrast between Microsoft and Apple's product strategies is noticeable. Microsoft rushed to market with a decent but inelegant system, and refines it little by little each year. Apple has taken its time getting their initial product out there, but the extra care they take is readily noticeable in the useability.
The biggest issue with media centers is a very practical one: tuning.
The second biggest issue is pretty much the same: volume.
I have my XP MCE PC connected to a home theater system via SP/DIF digital. Alas, the XPMCE volume controls only work on the PC master volume, and then only if the output is PCM audio. So if I'm watching a DVD or something with a surround soundtrack, the volume controls don't do anything.
Nor does the 'IR blaster' hack do any good. The IR transmitter only works for changing channels on set-top boxes. There's no provision for end-users to program it to serve other purposes, or for remapping the remote keys to other functions, that I'm aware of.
In the end, I have to keep two remotes handy at all times; the Media Center remote, and the home theater receiver remote. What is this, 1985? Give me a universal device already.
Okay, he wants to remove red eye? He's going to have to tell the program where to remove the red eye from.
I'm guessing if the user presses the big "Remove Red Eye" button, he wants to remove the red eye from the EYES of the people in the picture currently being viewed. And with a good enough detection algorithm, the user shouldn't have to explain to the program what an eye is.
He wants to crop the photo? Is the program supposed to know how?
Again, the user will probably give clues. Like, if he click-drags the mouse diagonally across part of the photo, he might be trying to select the area for a cropped photo.
What does he expect? A miracle? Artificial intelligence?
Obviously not the first, but why not a little bit of the second?
Well, when a database application is such that 99% of its time is spent handling SELECT queries, and especially against a fairly flat and simple table layout, the need for stored procedures and triggers doesn't come up all that often.
Browsing the settings, to find the key you want, would be a lot harder.
What's so difficult about:
$Monad$ C:
$Monad$ CD \REGISTRY
(at this point, a window with an adorable animated puppy will pop up and ask you 'It looks like you're trying to browse the Registry. Do you want to launch Registry Editor? [YES][OK]'. Then you just go from there.)
Moreover, Xbox360 only includs a noraml DVD drive on the initial release so Microsoft can always switch sides.
If by that you mean "Microsoft's THIRD-generation console will have whichever format emerges victorious", I agree.
Microsoft would be making a mistake if they decide to upgrade the 360's hardware halfway through the product cycle. There are two scenarios that could result from this move -- either developers will continue to target the older hardware, in which case everyone who developed and bought the new HW will have wasted their money, or developers will switch to targeting the new HW, in which case everyone is forced to upgrade or see their system lose almost all of its value. Neither is a shrewd business move.
Consoles are not meant to be upgradeable. If the Sega CD wasn't proof enough of that, the Sega 32X must have been.
Dude. What's with your hate-on for the teaching profession?
Some teachers are more competent than others, sure, but your comments are a slap in the face to my friends who are teachers, who ARE underpaid, who DO have to purchase school supplies out of pocket.
This also has nothing to do with the article, so we should both be modded off-topic.
I mean, making $100,000 and driving a Lambo would probably mean parking it in front of a 1 bedroom apartment
Making $100,000 and driving a Lamborghini would probably mean LIVING in a Lamborghini. And not being able to afford fuel or insurance for it.
Seriously. If there's one group that truly, truly SUCKS at contract negotiations, it's geeks.
Really? I'd have to put "unskilled laborers" above us on the list.
There are the iPod, iPod nano and iPod shuffle. It just so happens that the biggest ones also play video.
Pedant.
There needs to be SOME way to distinguish between the new iPods, which have video capability, and older revisions of the same hardware, which don't. I see no problem with using the ad hoc term "video iPod" for this purpose. It's even different from the official Apple product names (like iPod photo and iPod mini) in that the modifier is at the front, not the end.
doesn't that, sort of, imply that windows is too difficult to, you know, use?
Yes, but don't you know that there's a positive correlation between "difficulty of use", "worthwhileness of use", and "l33tness"?
Just ask any Linux guru who's responded to a question about how to change display resolution with "RTFX11M, N00B". Harder = better.
The non-techies (think English majors, graphic design artists, etc.) found the Mac systems easier and more intuitive to use
I think a large part of this was that Apple was much quicker to embrace GUIs and WYSIWYG display contexts, which is of course a big deal to visual thinkers like artists and layout designers. Sure, Windows 1.0 came out only a year after the Macintosh, and standalone graphical apps on top of DOS were around even before that, but it wasn't until about 1990 or so that Windows sessions didn't always look butt-ugly.
The matching algorithm takes nearly 1/3 of a second on a 100MHz ARM9. That's a noticeable lag, and it will be even more noticeable on slower or weaker processors, which is just about all of the phones on the market now.
(For comparison, the Nintendo DS's main CPU is an ARM9, but it runs at only 67MHz.)
Apart from the potential problems that could arise from false negatives and false positives, it's just too slow to perform acceptably yet.
By ultimately giving your money to HP anyway, you truly showed them how much it matters whether they offer custom build options for power users like yourself.
Not at all.
Many many software companies based their products on the existance of Windows, does MS have the authority to ask for a cut of the sales?!!
Many many software companies based their products on the existance of BSD-licensed software, do the author(s) of that software have the authority to demand compensation in the form of retaining a copyright notice?
If Apple doesn't do the engineering for accessories or the manufacturing - I see NO reason they should receive the profits?!?
If the accessories are being sold specifically as being for the iPod, odds are real good that they either leverage elements of Apple's industrial design (ie, translucent white plastic and scroll wheels) or elements of Apple's technical design (ie, the control protocol for the iPod expansion port). If that's the case, I think it's reasonable to expect a cut.
In other news, gasoline is still cheaper in the United States than in most of the world. It's all a question of cultural priorities. Americans as a whole prefer to travel on a freeway than on a fiberoptic cable.
I'm not sure how having slower, more expensive broadband access has stifled the United States, either. Aren't American companies still innovating at a rate comparable or superior to those in countries where TCP packets are too cheap to meter?
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: No, of course not.
Why not tone down the rhetoric and give him the type of attention he deserves, which is NONE whatsoever?
Because if he were to succeed in getting what he wants, it would be a threat some of the fundamental freedoms I hold dear.
Ignoring a threat is not the same as dealing with it. And Jack Thompson's goals and tactics need to have the metaphorical mudhole stomped into them before they have a chance to do any real damage.
I just checked and I can't find any missing whales anywhere.
If you could FIND them, they wouldn't be MISSING, would they?
i saw a tim berners-lee there.
Which one? The famous one that directs the W3C?
pretty humbling to see the man who is largely responsible for the invention of the internet.
Ahem. World Wide Web != Internet.
I don't think you can even give him all the credit for the "killer app" that brought the Internet mainstream. Before the Mosaic devs extended the HTML standard to support inline images, it was just another hypertext system comparable to Gopher or WAIS.
Parent poster was not involved in an argument with Thompson; therefore it is not a rhetorical fault to call him names such as "fucking moron".
Doesn't anyone care that our politicians accept bribes (aka; campaign donations) to pass laws that are against the interest public interest (ie; the people the politicians are supposed to represent)?
Obviously the telecom companies don't sell their viewpoints as being "against the public interest".
Creating an environment where only private companies may provide internet service is not against the public interest. It "supports local economies". It "minimizes government intrustion into private matters". It "creates jobs".
Now, completely doing away with the registry? Impossible.
How about if they retained the API for interacting with the Registry, but changed the backend storage mechanisms to something more sensible and extensible?