I've had this thought for a while, about what can be done about spam, and I have a couple of ideas for the/. community.
1) Legislate so that merhandise sold using spam cannot legally demand payment (eg via visa/mastercard). Puts alot of pain onto these companies, but also would make it quite unattractive to sell stuff this way if you knew that the money you got could be reclaimed if it was demonstrated that you used spam as an advertising medium
2) Employ teams of people to respond to SPAM (at a government level). SPAM works because they get a low return rate, but the people who do respond actually buy stuff. Thats what keeps it all going. If we made it so that a decent percentage of the replies were time wasters, the average company would suddenly have to employ lots of resources to deal with false responses. In effect, it would spam them. Suddenly its no longer as cheap to advertise this way.
Just a couple of thoughts, but I'd love to see what the/. community thinks of these, or if anyone else has any ideas on what to do about spam. (And I don't mean better filters by this).
Jesus do you people ever get tired of re-hashing the power consumption issue? As someone who needs the power at what ever cost I welcome these bad boys. Pentium M is a great desktop core, but I need pure speed.
Well, get used to it. Intel has realised that the GHz war has ended. They have hit the limit of speed, at least as far as clock speed goes.
This doesn't mean the end of processor speed increases, but most further increases will have to come via other ways - increasing the cache size and increasing parallelism with multicore cpu's
Essentially, expect an exponential increase in the number of CPU cores.
So, get used to it, you are going to have parallelism in a big way, and the issue of heat per CPU isn't going to go away in a hurry - it will be the limiting factor on speed for a while yet.
No argument with me there. Its always dangerous posting problems with *nix on/. but that is on topic in this thread. And I would not be saying that I think there is a significantly better alternative overall. However, a few vendors have put some nice additions onto *nix (eg apple with its UI) which does suggest areas where there might be room for improvement. (Not that you will ever find a single perfect user interface for everyone - some subset will always want a different functionality for some reason)
Its hard to pinpoint anything specific that is broken with unix as a whole.
But there are lots of subsystems that aren't exactly perfect.
Examples that come to mind: *File permissions only go to user/group/others rather than individuals, and poor record locking on network shares. Lack of automounting as an intrinsic feature of the operating system.
*Windowing subsystems that network, but cant handle 3d networked graphics effectively, or support the more advanced hardware features of graphics chips locally particulaly well.
*Software packaging systems that develop conflicts. (Probably more of a linux problem, actually)
- I am aware that all of these have workarounds or are being worked on -
The kernel of most unix's (and, for that matter linux) are fairly well tuned to a variety of things, although they are subject to a number of internal revisions to try and do better multi tasking & multiple processor scaling, for example.
Where these systems will probably fail the most is when the underlying hardware changes alot - for example handling larger memory spaces and file systems, or perhaps even moving to whole new processes (eg., code morphing cpu's such as transmeta's, asynchronous cpu's). These designs are quite radically different and we have developed down a specific cpu/memory/harddrive model so far that its quite difficult to look at major changes, as they aren't as easily supported by the operating systems.
Just my 2c, and from a fairly casual observer status - it would be interesting to hear what the main developers think on all of this.
"*whimper* All right, so the Earth is round, and it and all the other lumpy rocks revolve around the Sun, and it's all really old, and humans are a lot like apes... but, um, see, there's all this little stuff you scientists haven't quite figured out yet about the specifics, and sometimes you argue about it, and THAT'S ABSOLUTE PROOF OF THAT GOD EXISTS AND HE WANTS YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS _____ (insert your preferred version of a frequently mistranslated, politically loaded anthology of folktales here) SAYS!"
Actually, I don't think you can prove it either way. Any god worth his salt could have planted all the evidence s/he wanted to lead the infidel's to any conclusion they wanted, using a scientific method. I mean, its about faith, isn't it?
On the other hand, any sufficiently advanced technology could do things which could not be explained by scientific method (as it is currently known). You know, stuff like people rising from the dead, turning water into wine, whatever.
If god doesn't exist (of course, you will never know that for sure...) then we might, one day, rise to the point where there is no technology that can fool us into concluding falsely that he does exist. But short of a scientific evidence that god does exist - which would probably require a very high level of science to be 100% certain you weren't mistaking your proof from just some undiscovered new law of nature - its going to remain an article of faith.
So, even if something materialises in front of you and says he is your god, you have to be a little circumspect about it all.
What is sad, to my mind, is if you have the faith that God exists, is how easily that faith is bent. There isn't any reason not to believe in god - we all use heuristics in day to day life that don't match with science or "common sense" (like buying lottery tickets, smoking cigarettes). Even if you don't believe in god, there are exceptionally good reasons to support such faiths. Most religions provide a fairly good set of rules for how to live as a civilised society. But this sort of stuff seems to get bent by an extreme few, and that is the dangerous side of faith.
I mean, if God wants to level a few buildings, s/he has a quite few more effective options than a few kilolitres of ignited aviation fluid.
I get the feeling there must be more to the story than meets the eye here. If this woman had been paralyzed for 20 years, wouldn't her muscles be atrophied? Even if you repaired the nerve damage, it seems to me she wouldn't have just been able to get up and walk, at least without a lot of restorative therapy.
Is there something I'm missing here?
Yes, if you read the article she is walking with a frame. Still, she is improving alot faster than the medical staff expected.
Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.
I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.
This is an interesting turnaround. Because if you feel that way about an iPod, and a lot of people do, then you suddenly realise that in one area having an apple computer will be better. In fact, the area which apple excels in (no pun intended) is the iLife series. I have a friend who bought a powerbook solely for iMovie/iDVD, and others for GarageBand.
What it says is - as a PC user, if you like this stuff, you will always be on the back foot getting this stuff. Sure, it will come to the PC eventually (as the iPod did), but it will still be a second rate port. The best example of this at the moment is the iPod photo, and how they had to mangle in the photo support into iTunes for the PC users. But it still won't be as good as iPhoto.
And the likely hood that Apple will drop their platform and become a PC software vendor? Close to zero - they are a hardware company.
So, if you like using technology for most multimedia stuff, which includes music players such as the iPod (or airport express for the home music center) your choice is this:
Get a mac, or become a late adopter as stuff filters through to the PC. Sure, you will get games and business software first on a PC. But if you like playing music more, the most popular music player is the iPod (based on sales), and that will drive you to buying an apple computer first.
I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.
Sure, assuming you're willing to give up the plethora of applications you've grown dependent on.
My short answer got modded down, perhaps rightly so. So I'll give the long answer.
I tried both linux (which was ok for alot of stuff but had some problems with a couple of issues and my wife never took to it) and then OSX (Which works exceptionally well).
I do live in a mixed environment - I have to use windows (98!) for work, and I write code for this using VB and VBA. I manage a couple of small microsoft databases for my work environment because it gets things done. Not alot of choice there.
I do all of that at home, in a virtual environment, on my powerbook. And it goes without saying that I don't use the virtual box to connect to the internet directly - I do all of that from my mail and firefox apps on OSX.
So, for me, I didn't give up the stuff I was dependent on. My emulated box is about the same speed as the hardware I have to work with at work - its slow, but so are the work computers anyway.
Your mileage may vary.
On the other hand, doesn't the huge amount of discussion in this slashdot article answer the question anyway - That for many people, there are not enough good tools to prevent spyware from taking over their machine. For these people, using OSX (or a well configured linux desktop) will probably help alot, and they aren't usually the power user that has specific windows apps that they have to have.
So the long answer: Spyware is out there everwhere, and it destabilises millions of users computers. It takes alot of hard work and a large IT department to stop this happening. There aren't enough tools to really stop it effectively in all cases. For many people, switching to an alternative OS would be the best solution. For those who are forced to use windows, hopefully you know enough about the real world to not get spyware, because the windows security model and the current tools available won't stop the typical dumb user from having problems.
my suggestion? find another same model printer that does this, then DUPLICATE PRECISELY these yellow dots in your final image... two sets, should--- well, supply reasonable doubt at least...
Thinking about it, adding in a speckled yellow pattern as part of your printing algorithm would work - it would just take a little knowledge of what they print.
Does anyone know if the pattern gets printed even on white space? Printing a "blank" page should reveal the pattern and allow a suitable overlay that would stuff up the recognition algorithms.
It's imporant to consider that web-based storage of information won't become viable for information other than the odd picture and written document until current internet connections get drasticly faster and more reliable overall.
Of course, a web based word processor with a gig of storage at the back end might make a few people interested - its not that different from a gMail app when you think about it.
Optimist's response: Maybe they were waiting for their activation code. Pessimist's response: They knowingly stole it. Realist's response: Even Microsoft has no use for MS Sound Editor.
The question it rasises is how much other stuff is in windows that has IP violations? The answer is: Nobody knows. Probably not even MS know, and a nobody else is in a position to analyse it. By the time it gets found and publicised, its been in the operating system for a long time.
How can he say FF is not a threat if he hasn't even downloaded and installed it?
Well, clearly it isn't.
At least to him:)
Be happy that some people in M$ still don't see it as a threat. If everyone in M$ thought that firefox was going to destroy their desktop dominance for the browser... it might get a little tougher for mozilla.org.
It's three mouse clicks, or, if you change your hardware *a lot*, it's a two-minute call to Microsoft.
Well, I change my hardware alot. Perhaps you dont. I was hit with this stuff 4 years ago first (and last) time.
The fact that you have never done anything require reactivation doesn't mean that others don't. Look outside your own box for a second.
1: Is this the first time you've activated Windows (say no) 2: May I ask why you are reactivating Windows (say a virus) 3: How many computers is this copy of Windows installed on (say one)
Well, maybe that is what you get asked. I got asked my address, and alot of other information that I refused to give. Maybe its different in the US.
Also, it means that I am dependent on microsoft giving out the activation code. Which the might not if MS decides to force an upgrade on me.
For example, if in 20 years, I want to run this operating system in a virtual box (because I like my retro games, or whatever), and microsoft no longer does windows (for whatever reason), do I have orphaned software? Will microsoft release the activation code generators when it end of life's windows 2000? I think not - then never have for anything else that they have dropped support for.
Its the principle of the matter that bugs me, plus the hassle factor.
In other cases, crippled software at a lower price point helps keep users paying SOMETHING to Microsoft rather than moving to a free alternative (witness Windows XP Starter Edition, available soon in countries like Russia, Thailand, and Malaysia).
I don't suppose that microsoft cares that they don't supply this version of the OS to first world countries. I think in Australia its probably legal to import it.
The issues here being two fold:
1) Running only 1-3 applications is very limiting normally (the crippleware on Starter Edition does this) but would be fine for people who run windows stuff in an emulator(virtual PC on apple, vmware for linux) or under wine. If your native OS is linux, you probably don't need to run 50 apps in windows, just one or two that do something that you are having trouble doing in linux.
2) Effectively, by saying that the starter edition cannot be available in certain countries, they are exerting a fairly monopolistic approach to price fixing.
I don't mind seeing them selling legit software to the third world cheaply. I do mind that they refuse to sell it also in the first world as a tactic to reduce your choices and force you to purchase a more expensive verion in the first world.
This sort of opportunistic price fixing borders on illegal in many countries.
Validation isn't locking any genuinely licensed users out of any content
Perhaps not, but it was product activation that pushed me away from windows. I have legit copies of windows from 95 to xp. Once the activation stuff started, I started to look at linux. The hassle of having to reactivate my hardware when I changed things really bugged me. I know that someone is going to post how this isn't really a problem, you can change lots of hardware before failing activation, etc. From my perspective, it was the end of the road for microsoft. I don't ever want to be dependent on having to phone up anyone in the middle of the night (once was enough) and get asked stupid questions in order to prove I had a real copy, and get logged on a M$ database.
I vowed not to do it again, and I didn't. Initially I never installed a copy of windows, etc, until I had acquired a cracked copy first (I still bought the legit licence), but I also started to look around. I now use linux and mac's but I'm not ever going down an activation type pathway ever again.
So whose problem is this? Well, actually, not mine. Its microsoft's problem, because they aren't getting any more money out of me, and I've gotten a few people interested in mac's as well.
So no, I didn't get locked out of microsoft software. But even moving part way that way was too much for me.
Really? I don't have to fake my User Agent on OS X, Linux, or Windows (and needless to say am not using IE), and I maybe run into compatibility issues on 1 out of 1000 sites? (It's been probably something like 6 months at this point - and minor layout issues don't count).
I wouldn't say that ID faking is the *only* option.
Agreed.
However the original post stated that if people couldn't get into a site, they would switch to IE. My comment was that if you are a mac user, switching to IE isn't a good option (since M$ withdrew IE for the mac quite a while ago), therefore faking an ID string is alot more attractive.
Slashdot users to the contrary - I can't believe that any significant number of reported "IE users" are actually Firefox or Opera users that are spoofing their browser's identifier. Most people follow the path of least resistance. If they can't get into a site with Firefox, they'll switch to IE.
Unless they are apple users, of course.
Since M$ withdrew IE suport, faking your ID is the only option on a Mac
To get a patent requires that you fully disclose the workings of your innovation. Then, if your patent is worthwhile, you will be able to license it out and make way more money from it than you could personally
That is how patents are supposed to work. But they can be used in other ways. For example, when Viagra was invented (Choose any new drug here instead if you like) do you think that the pharmaceutical company licenced it to anyone else? No, of course not. That would be stupid. They keep it to themselves and licence it to no one else. There is no doubt that this behaviour maximises drug company profits alot more than licensing it out - and that is why drug companies almost never license out a new drug. If you think I am wrong on this point fee free to write to any major drug company and explain to them how they can improve their revenues by licensing the new drugs that they have just invented.
And many software companies collect patents now as a defensive measure because the only thing that can stop a company (say microsoft, could be anyone) from closing you down if you infringe a patent is if you have a patent on something they do too. Then you can make a cross-license aggreement to not sue each other.
To my mind, a free market is about maximising profits on the supply side. A free market company will do what it can to make the most money per widget. And that makes a monopoly situation very attractive. So patents, which give a monopoly, don't foster innovation in the short term (until they expire), they are just an improved form of open trade secret where you can sue your competitors if they start doing what you do.
"And some people don't know that they are commiting a crime - Taping your TV show's to watch later is a crime in some countries (like Australia)" it is? since when? o.O
Since we introduced copyright laws. There is no fair use provision in Australia.
That argument is crazy, if you don't mind my sayin'.
No, I don't mind you saying. I'm presenting my point of view (as someone who works in a mixed public/private healthcare system in Australia). You get to make your own mind up.
An opportunistic hospital that charged emergency patients an exorbitant amount would find that, aside from those very emergency patients, it had no business. If I had been charged like that during a time when I was helpless, I know I'd go well out of my way to avoid ever paying them for anything in the future. And thus, the "invisible hand" of the market would force them out of business, leaving only the hospitals who don't use such shady practices. See? Nothing beyond free market necessary.
I would like to think its that simple, and certainly things like the internet do equalise the relationship between health providers and consumers. However, I can assure you that health care requires more than a free market.
The original inventors of the obstetric forceps were the Chamberlen family, back around 1650. They kept the invention a secret for 50 years by using the instrument within a black box. No I'm not making this up: See this link During that 50 year period thousands of women died horrible deaths from prolonged labour and exhaustion. The family did well however.
This isn't so different from what we see today in patent laws, which most people on./ think are crazy (myself included).
But by free market principles, if a company invents a better process, great, more profit for them. In health care you want to publish this stuff to remove your monopoly. Status and respect aren't economically rational goals, but its better to be famous for publishing something in a medical journal (for your competitors to use freely) than get rich exploiting a secret.
I really believe that health care (particularly when it relates to emergencies, psyciatric illness and other areas when judgement is impaired) should not be driven by market forces, at least in any society that wants to call itself civilised.
Crime for crime's sake? Any psychologist will tell you there is no such thing. After all, crime is risky. Why make a risk if there is no gain? There is always some reason, even if it's small or obscure.
That assumes that the person has a reason. Or has reason. 1% of the world's population gets mania, a similar percentage schizophrenia, 20% get depressed, and there are other conditions which aren't well defined yet in terms of population incidence or effect (eg post traumatic stress disorder).
Yet in some studies, 50% of prison populations have major psychiatric disorders. You could say that these were crimes committed in sane periods (certainly, the judges did say that), but you cant get around the number of "criminals" that have a history of major psychiatric disorders.
Then there is the "sociopathic" personality, which can be born that way or become that way with certain brain injuries. People who just can't feel or see things from another person's perspective. Humans do this alot as a survival tactic - how else do you drive a tank around Iraq and shoot at people and not want to suicide? You do it for the greater good, or whatever, maybe. But you still sit in relative safety and point weapons of minor distruction (like your cannon) at real people who will feel pain or die. Its a trait most of us have, and it has survival value.
But some people just are like this all the time. So they are good on the battle field, and never get stress disorders from hurting others.
Doesn't mean that they are all homicidal maniac's - in fact many of them are just nasty people, and we have all met a few of them. Self centred. Whatever. You see actors play that role on most soapies - the office bitch type of role - and its based on real life personalities who aren't that uncommon. We have all met them.
Some people don't percieve risk the same way you do, either. Some people have to jump out of airplanes with parachutes just to feel alive.
And some people don't know that they are commiting a crime - Taping your TV show's to watch later is a crime in some countries (like Australia).
In essence - its not that simple. There are lots of reasons for crime, lots of motiviations, and lots of times where the person didn't really understand the risk/reward relationship for crime the same way you do.
This is actually how the free market SHOULD work! There is a need for a service and you have an ability and so do others... so the boss hires the person that will do it for the best quality/price ratio. However now with the minimum wage laws it doesn't work that way. The government now tells employers how much a job is worth.
Yes, but its isn't how health care should necessarily work.
I'll give you one example. It friday night, 10 pm and you get a call to deal with someone vomiting up large quantities of blood in a more distant hospital in a major metro area.
Now the question - How much should that person pay based on free market principles?
For the record, I charged him the medicare rebate (Australian medicare) - no $ gap at all. But I was entitled to charge any amount I saw fit for my services. I suspect I could have charged $2000 or more as the price for my labour. And he could, of course, ring around for a better price if he wanted to do. Except he is vomiting up rather alot of blood at the time, and may have trouble securing the expertise required in the 30 or so minutes he would have left to live
I mean - I burst a hot water pipe last week - the plubmers considered that an emergency call - but I just turned off the hot water and waited for the pumber to show. That is sort of approximating a more free market situation.
Health care is not the same - people need to see an expert just to find out what is wrong. In other words, the supplier generates the demand! This knocks almost all the free market stuff out before you start.
That is why health care is so tightly regulated - because the deal society has struck that certain people get privlidges and paid well, but have obligations, including behaving ethically and having on call rosters.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had this thought for a while, about what can be done about spam, and I have a couple of ideas for the /. community.
/. community thinks of these, or if anyone else has any ideas on what to do about spam. (And I don't mean better filters by this).
1) Legislate so that merhandise sold using spam cannot legally demand payment (eg via visa/mastercard). Puts alot of pain onto these companies, but also would make it quite unattractive to sell stuff this way if you knew that the money you got could be reclaimed if it was demonstrated that you used spam as an advertising medium
2) Employ teams of people to respond to SPAM (at a government level). SPAM works because they get a low return rate, but the people who do respond actually buy stuff. Thats what keeps it all going. If we made it so that a decent percentage of the replies were time wasters, the average company would suddenly have to employ lots of resources to deal with false responses. In effect, it would spam them. Suddenly its no longer as cheap to advertise this way.
Just a couple of thoughts, but I'd love to see what the
Michael
Jesus do you people ever get tired of re-hashing the power consumption issue? As someone who needs the power at what ever cost I welcome these bad boys. Pentium M is a great desktop core, but I need pure speed.
Well, get used to it. Intel has realised that the GHz war has ended. They have hit the limit of speed, at least as far as clock speed goes.
This doesn't mean the end of processor speed increases, but most further increases will have to come via other ways - increasing the cache size and increasing parallelism with multicore cpu's
The original article was on
Slashdot and links to Dr Dobbs Journal
Essentially, expect an exponential increase in the number of CPU cores.
So, get used to it, you are going to have parallelism in a big way, and the issue of heat per CPU isn't going to go away in a hurry - it will be the limiting factor on speed for a while yet.
My 2c
Michael
No it isn't perfect, but it sucks less.
/. but that is on topic in this thread. And I would not be saying that I think there is a significantly better alternative overall. However, a few vendors have put some nice additions onto *nix (eg apple with its UI) which does suggest areas where there might be room for improvement. (Not that you will ever find a single perfect user interface for everyone - some subset will always want a different functionality for some reason)
No argument with me there. Its always dangerous posting problems with *nix on
Michael
Its hard to pinpoint anything specific that is broken with unix as a whole.
But there are lots of subsystems that aren't exactly perfect.
Examples that come to mind:
*File permissions only go to user/group/others rather than individuals, and poor record locking on network shares. Lack of automounting as an intrinsic feature of the operating system.
*Windowing subsystems that network, but cant handle 3d networked graphics effectively, or support the more advanced hardware features of graphics chips locally particulaly well.
*Software packaging systems that develop conflicts. (Probably more of a linux problem, actually)
- I am aware that all of these have workarounds or are being worked on -
The kernel of most unix's (and, for that matter linux) are fairly well tuned to a variety of things, although they are subject to a number of internal revisions to try and do better multi tasking & multiple processor scaling, for example.
Where these systems will probably fail the most is when the underlying hardware changes alot - for example handling larger memory spaces and file systems, or perhaps even moving to whole new processes (eg., code morphing cpu's such as transmeta's, asynchronous cpu's). These designs are quite radically different and we have developed down a specific cpu/memory/harddrive model so far that its quite difficult to look at major changes, as they aren't as easily supported by the operating systems.
Just my 2c, and from a fairly casual observer status - it would be interesting to hear what the main developers think on all of this.
Michael
"*whimper* All right, so the Earth is round, and it and all the other lumpy rocks revolve around the Sun, and it's all really old, and humans are a lot like apes ... but, um, see, there's all this little stuff you scientists haven't quite figured out yet about the specifics, and sometimes you argue about it, and THAT'S ABSOLUTE PROOF OF THAT GOD EXISTS AND HE WANTS YOU TO DO EXACTLY AS _____ (insert your preferred version of a frequently mistranslated, politically loaded anthology of folktales here) SAYS!"
Actually, I don't think you can prove it either way. Any god worth his salt could have planted all the evidence s/he wanted to lead the infidel's to any conclusion they wanted, using a scientific method. I mean, its about faith, isn't it?
On the other hand, any sufficiently advanced technology could do things which could not be explained by scientific method (as it is currently known). You know, stuff like people rising from the dead, turning water into wine, whatever.
If god doesn't exist (of course, you will never know that for sure...) then we might, one day, rise to the point where there is no technology that can fool us into concluding falsely that he does exist. But short of a scientific evidence that god does exist - which would probably require a very high level of science to be 100% certain you weren't mistaking your proof from just some undiscovered new law of nature - its going to remain an article of faith.
So, even if something materialises in front of you and says he is your god, you have to be a little circumspect about it all.
What is sad, to my mind, is if you have the faith that God exists, is how easily that faith is bent. There isn't any reason not to believe in god - we all use heuristics in day to day life that don't match with science or "common sense" (like buying lottery tickets, smoking cigarettes). Even if you don't believe in god, there are exceptionally good reasons to support such faiths. Most religions provide a fairly good set of rules for how to live as a civilised society. But this sort of stuff seems to get bent by an extreme few, and that is the dangerous side of faith.
I mean, if God wants to level a few buildings, s/he has a quite few more effective options than a few kilolitres of ignited aviation fluid.
My 2c
Michael
I get the feeling there must be more to the story than meets the eye here. If this woman had been paralyzed for 20 years, wouldn't her muscles be atrophied? Even if you repaired the nerve damage, it seems to me she wouldn't have just been able to get up and walk, at least without a lot of restorative therapy.
Is there something I'm missing here?
Yes, if you read the article she is walking with a frame. Still, she is improving alot faster than the medical staff expected.
Michael
Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.
I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.
This is an interesting turnaround. Because if you feel that way about an iPod, and a lot of people do, then you suddenly realise that in one area having an apple computer will be better. In fact, the area which apple excels in (no pun intended) is the iLife series. I have a friend who bought a powerbook solely for iMovie/iDVD, and others for GarageBand.
What it says is - as a PC user, if you like this stuff, you will always be on the back foot getting this stuff. Sure, it will come to the PC eventually (as the iPod did), but it will still be a second rate port. The best example of this at the moment is the iPod photo, and how they had to mangle in the photo support into iTunes for the PC users. But it still won't be as good as iPhoto.
And the likely hood that Apple will drop their platform and become a PC software vendor? Close to zero - they are a hardware company.
So, if you like using technology for most multimedia stuff, which includes music players such as the iPod (or airport express for the home music center) your choice is this:
Get a mac, or become a late adopter as stuff filters through to the PC. Sure, you will get games and business software first on a PC. But if you like playing music more, the most popular music player is the iPod (based on sales), and that will drive you to buying an apple computer first.
I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.
Michael
Sure, assuming you're willing to give up the plethora of applications you've grown dependent on.
My short answer got modded down, perhaps rightly so. So I'll give the long answer.
I tried both linux (which was ok for alot of stuff but had some problems with a couple of issues and my wife never took to it) and then OSX (Which works exceptionally well).
I do live in a mixed environment - I have to use windows (98!) for work, and I write code for this using VB and VBA. I manage a couple of small microsoft databases for my work environment because it gets things done. Not alot of choice there.
I do all of that at home, in a virtual environment, on my powerbook. And it goes without saying that I don't use the virtual box to connect to the internet directly - I do all of that from my mail and firefox apps on OSX.
So, for me, I didn't give up the stuff I was dependent on. My emulated box is about the same speed as the hardware I have to work with at work - its slow, but so are the work computers anyway.
Your mileage may vary.
On the other hand, doesn't the huge amount of discussion in this slashdot article answer the question anyway - That for many people, there are not enough good tools to prevent spyware from taking over their machine. For these people, using OSX (or a well configured linux desktop) will probably help alot, and they aren't usually the power user that has specific windows apps that they have to have.
So the long answer:
Spyware is out there everwhere, and it destabilises millions of users computers. It takes alot of hard work and a large IT department to stop this happening. There aren't enough tools to really stop it effectively in all cases.
For many people, switching to an alternative OS would be the best solution. For those who are forced to use windows, hopefully you know enough about the real world to not get spyware, because the windows security model and the current tools available won't stop the typical dumb user from having problems.
Michael
I've been using a few different anti spyware tools in parallel because it seems as if there isn't a single tool that can reliable remove all spyware.
Try OSX. Or Linux. Both work very well.
Michael
my suggestion? find another same model printer that does this, then DUPLICATE PRECISELY these yellow dots in your final image... two sets, should--- well, supply reasonable doubt at least...
Thinking about it, adding in a speckled yellow pattern as part of your printing algorithm would work - it would just take a little knowledge of what they print.
Does anyone know if the pattern gets printed even on white space? Printing a "blank" page should reveal the pattern and allow a suitable overlay that would stuff up the recognition algorithms.
Michael
It's imporant to consider that web-based storage of information won't become viable for information other than the odd picture and written document until current internet connections get drasticly faster and more reliable overall.
Of course, a web based word processor with a gig of storage at the back end might make a few people interested - its not that different from a gMail app when you think about it.
Michael
http://www.google.com/linux
http://www.google.
http://www.google.com/bsd
http://www.go
Out of interest I had a look at the size of all the different google icons on those pages:
Clearly demonstrating the bloat of windows. And naturally demonstrating the elegance of apple.
Ok, couldn't resist - Its a joke, bound to offend the both the BSD and linux crowd out there.
Michael
Optimist's response: Maybe they were waiting for their activation code. Pessimist's response: They knowingly stole it. Realist's response: Even Microsoft has no use for MS Sound Editor.
The question it rasises is how much other stuff is in windows that has IP violations? The answer is: Nobody knows. Probably not even MS know, and a nobody else is in a position to analyse it. By the time it gets found and publicised, its been in the operating system for a long time.
Michael
How can he say FF is not a threat if he hasn't even downloaded and installed it?
:)
Well, clearly it isn't.
At least to him
Be happy that some people in M$ still don't see it as a threat. If everyone in M$ thought that firefox was going to destroy their desktop dominance for the browser... it might get a little tougher for mozilla.org.
Better that they don't know.
Michael
What is interesting is that they have said that they are dropping support for real media and quicktime.
Why?
Because of the technical complexity of running multiple streams and getting it all to work.
So its really quite interesting that they are adding a new streaming format at the same time.
Or is their plan to lose windows media player as well?
Michael
It's three mouse clicks, or, if you change your hardware *a lot*, it's a two-minute call to Microsoft.
Well, I change my hardware alot. Perhaps you dont. I was hit with this stuff 4 years ago first (and last) time.
The fact that you have never done anything require reactivation doesn't mean that others don't. Look outside your own box for a second.
1: Is this the first time you've activated Windows (say no)
2: May I ask why you are reactivating Windows (say a virus)
3: How many computers is this copy of Windows installed on (say one)
Well, maybe that is what you get asked. I got asked my address, and alot of other information that I refused to give. Maybe its different in the US.
Also, it means that I am dependent on microsoft giving out the activation code. Which the might not if MS decides to force an upgrade on me.
For example, if in 20 years, I want to run this operating system in a virtual box (because I like my retro games, or whatever), and microsoft no longer does windows (for whatever reason), do I have orphaned software? Will microsoft release the activation code generators when it end of life's windows 2000? I think not - then never have for anything else that they have dropped support for.
Its the principle of the matter that bugs me, plus the hassle factor.
Michael
In other cases, crippled software at a lower price point helps keep users paying SOMETHING to Microsoft rather than moving to a free alternative (witness Windows XP Starter Edition, available soon in countries like Russia, Thailand, and Malaysia).
I don't suppose that microsoft cares that they don't supply this version of the OS to first world countries. I think in Australia its probably legal to import it.
The issues here being two fold:
1) Running only 1-3 applications is very limiting normally (the crippleware on Starter Edition does this) but would be fine for people who run windows stuff in an emulator(virtual PC on apple, vmware for linux) or under wine. If your native OS is linux, you probably don't need to run 50 apps in windows, just one or two that do something that you are having trouble doing in linux.
2) Effectively, by saying that the starter edition cannot be available in certain countries, they are exerting a fairly monopolistic approach to price fixing.
I don't mind seeing them selling legit software to the third world cheaply. I do mind that they refuse to sell it also in the first world as a tactic to reduce your choices and force you to purchase a more expensive verion in the first world.
This sort of opportunistic price fixing borders on illegal in many countries.
Michael
Validation isn't locking any genuinely licensed users out of any content
Perhaps not, but it was product activation that pushed me away from windows. I have legit copies of windows from 95 to xp. Once the activation stuff started, I started to look at linux. The hassle of having to reactivate my hardware when I changed things really bugged me. I know that someone is going to post how this isn't really a problem, you can change lots of hardware before failing activation, etc. From my perspective, it was the end of the road for microsoft. I don't ever want to be dependent on having to phone up anyone in the middle of the night (once was enough) and get asked stupid questions in order to prove I had a real copy, and get logged on a M$ database.
I vowed not to do it again, and I didn't. Initially I never installed a copy of windows, etc, until I had acquired a cracked copy first (I still bought the legit licence), but I also started to look around. I now use linux and mac's but I'm not ever going down an activation type pathway ever again.
So whose problem is this? Well, actually, not mine. Its microsoft's problem, because they aren't getting any more money out of me, and I've gotten a few people interested in mac's as well.
So no, I didn't get locked out of microsoft software. But even moving part way that way was too much for me.
My 2c worth
Michael
Really? I don't have to fake my User Agent on OS X, Linux, or Windows (and needless to say am not using IE), and I maybe run into compatibility issues on 1 out of 1000 sites? (It's been probably something like 6 months at this point - and minor layout issues don't count).
I wouldn't say that ID faking is the *only* option.
Agreed.
However the original post stated that if people couldn't get into a site, they would switch to IE. My comment was that if you are a mac user, switching to IE isn't a good option (since M$ withdrew IE for the mac quite a while ago), therefore faking an ID string is alot more attractive.
Michael
Slashdot users to the contrary - I can't believe that any significant number of reported "IE users" are actually Firefox or Opera users that are spoofing their browser's identifier. Most people follow the path of least resistance. If they can't get into a site with Firefox, they'll switch to IE.
Unless they are apple users, of course.
Since M$ withdrew IE suport, faking your ID is the only option on a Mac
Michael
To get a patent requires that you fully disclose the workings of your innovation. Then, if your patent is worthwhile, you will be able to license it out and make way more money from it than you could personally
That is how patents are supposed to work. But they can be used in other ways. For example, when Viagra was invented (Choose any new drug here instead if you like) do you think that the pharmaceutical company licenced it to anyone else? No, of course not. That would be stupid. They keep it to themselves and licence it to no one else. There is no doubt that this behaviour maximises drug company profits alot more than licensing it out - and that is why drug companies almost never license out a new drug. If you think I am wrong on this point fee free to write to any major drug company and explain to them how they can improve their revenues by licensing the new drugs that they have just invented.
And many software companies collect patents now as a defensive measure because the only thing that can stop a company (say microsoft, could be anyone) from closing you down if you infringe a patent is if you have a patent on something they do too. Then you can make a cross-license aggreement to not sue each other.
To my mind, a free market is about maximising profits on the supply side. A free market company will do what it can to make the most money per widget. And that makes a monopoly situation very attractive. So patents, which give a monopoly, don't foster innovation in the short term (until they expire), they are just an improved form of open trade secret where you can sue your competitors if they start doing what you do.
Michael
"And some people don't know that they are commiting a crime - Taping your TV show's to watch later is a crime in some countries (like Australia)" it is? since when? o.O
Since we introduced copyright laws. There is no fair use provision in Australia.
Michael
That argument is crazy, if you don't mind my sayin'.
./ think are crazy (myself included).
No, I don't mind you saying. I'm presenting my point of view (as someone who works in a mixed public/private healthcare system in Australia). You get to make your own mind up.
An opportunistic hospital that charged emergency patients an exorbitant amount would find that, aside from those very emergency patients, it had no business. If I had been charged like that during a time when I was helpless, I know I'd go well out of my way to avoid ever paying them for anything in the future. And thus, the "invisible hand" of the market would force them out of business, leaving only the hospitals who don't use such shady practices. See? Nothing beyond free market necessary.
I would like to think its that simple, and certainly things like the internet do equalise the relationship between health providers and consumers. However, I can assure you that health care requires more than a free market.
The original inventors of the obstetric forceps were the Chamberlen family, back around 1650. They kept the invention a secret for 50 years by using the instrument within a black box. No I'm not making this up: See this link During that 50 year period thousands of women died horrible deaths from prolonged labour and exhaustion. The family did well however.
This isn't so different from what we see today in patent laws, which most people on
But by free market principles, if a company invents a better process, great, more profit for them. In health care you want to publish this stuff to remove your monopoly. Status and respect aren't economically rational goals, but its better to be famous for publishing something in a medical journal (for your competitors to use freely) than get rich exploiting a secret.
I really believe that health care (particularly when it relates to emergencies, psyciatric illness and other areas when judgement is impaired) should not be driven by market forces, at least in any society that wants to call itself civilised.
Michael
Crime for crime's sake? Any psychologist will tell you there is no such thing. After all, crime is risky. Why make a risk if there is no gain? There is always some reason, even if it's small or obscure.
That assumes that the person has a reason. Or has reason. 1% of the world's population gets mania, a similar percentage schizophrenia, 20% get depressed, and there are other conditions which aren't well defined yet in terms of population incidence or effect (eg post traumatic stress disorder).
Yet in some studies, 50% of prison populations have major psychiatric disorders. You could say that these were crimes committed in sane periods (certainly, the judges did say that), but you cant get around the number of "criminals" that have a history of major psychiatric disorders.
Then there is the "sociopathic" personality, which can be born that way or become that way with certain brain injuries. People who just can't feel or see things from another person's perspective. Humans do this alot as a survival tactic - how else do you drive a tank around Iraq and shoot at people and not want to suicide? You do it for the greater good, or whatever, maybe. But you still sit in relative safety and point weapons of minor distruction (like your cannon) at real people who will feel pain or die. Its a trait most of us have, and it has survival value.
But some people just are like this all the time. So they are good on the battle field, and never get stress disorders from hurting others.
Doesn't mean that they are all homicidal maniac's - in fact many of them are just nasty people, and we have all met a few of them. Self centred. Whatever. You see actors play that role on most soapies - the office bitch type of role - and its based on real life personalities who aren't that uncommon. We have all met them.
Some people don't percieve risk the same way you do, either. Some people have to jump out of airplanes with parachutes just to feel alive.
And some people don't know that they are commiting a crime - Taping your TV show's to watch later is a crime in some countries (like Australia).
In essence - its not that simple. There are lots of reasons for crime, lots of motiviations, and lots of times where the person didn't really understand the risk/reward relationship for crime the same way you do.
Michael
This is actually how the free market SHOULD work! There is a need for a service and you have an ability and so do others... so the boss hires the person that will do it for the best quality/price ratio. However now with the minimum wage laws it doesn't work that way. The government now tells employers how much a job is worth.
Yes, but its isn't how health care should necessarily work.
I'll give you one example. It friday night, 10 pm and you get a call to deal with someone vomiting up large quantities of blood in a more distant hospital in a major metro area.
Now the question - How much should that person pay based on free market principles?
For the record, I charged him the medicare rebate (Australian medicare) - no $ gap at all. But I was entitled to charge any amount I saw fit for my services. I suspect I could have charged $2000 or more as the price for my labour. And he could, of course, ring around for a better price if he wanted to do. Except he is vomiting up rather alot of blood at the time, and may have trouble securing the expertise required in the 30 or so minutes he would have left to live
I mean - I burst a hot water pipe last week - the plubmers considered that an emergency call - but I just turned off the hot water and waited for the pumber to show. That is sort of approximating a more free market situation.
Health care is not the same - people need to see an expert just to find out what is wrong. In other words, the supplier generates the demand! This knocks almost all the free market stuff out before you start.
That is why health care is so tightly regulated - because the deal society has struck that certain people get privlidges and paid well, but have obligations, including behaving ethically and having on call rosters.
Just my 2c worth.
Michael