Don't get too excited folks. At the levels GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) can be expressed in the tissues of non-indogenous organisms (that is, non-jellyfish organisms), and at the efficiency it works fluorescently in those organisms, GFP only glows green under Ultra-Violet light.
In other words, if you just turn off the light, these mice aren't going to be growing. The authors of the article could have at least done a little bit of research, and thus been able to say "under UV light" rather than "under a certain kind of light".
Also note that this is nothing new. GFP has been put into tobacco plants, which subsequently allows their vascular structure to be easily determined under UV light (actaully, the tobacco plant had luciferase, an enzyme expressed in lightning bugs which allows them to glow). It is also used in every biology lab for studying organisms. You fuse GFP with your favorite protein, then you can track your favorite protein in cells via a UV microscrope.
Less known is that there other fluorescent proteins aside from GFP. As mentioned before, there is also luciferase. There's also Yellow Fluorescent Proein (YFP), enhanced Yellow Fluorescent Protein (EYFP), and Red Fluorescent Protein (RFP), among others. This is very useful for biologists because it allows us to track different proteins in a cell at the same time, by creating fusion proteins.
Yes, blacklists aren't perfect. But if you do what it takes to plug up obvious security holes in your service, you can get off of them; it may take time, but the volunteers who run these things need to verify that you have plugged up a hole, or that your service was always secure. I'm sure there are a lot of people added to blackhole lists who shouldn't be there, because some mistake was made. At the same time, I think the vast vast majority of people griping about being unfairly placed on a blackhole list are just people who don't understand the technical security flaws in their system.
Prime example is this idiot author. I'm not security expert -- in fact, I (gasp) don't even know how to set up a server. But I can recognize a security hole as big and obvious as the one his system has. If all someone has to do is forge a from address in the header to use your system for their e-mail without authorization, your system is completely insecure. This author displays his complete ignorance when he says, "the system was doing what it was supposed to do". Every system does what its supposed to do, and that's depends on how it was programmed by the programmers and set up by the administrator. That doesn't necessarily mean every system is doing things the right way.
That this story was posted on/. makes me wonder about CmdrTaco. Taco, don't you read these articles at all? Or don't you even know that this is a security hole so big and obvious that even MS could have recognized it and plugged it up?
At the very least, your service should request password and user-name verification. IP-address verification possibly, if you don't want to allow your users to be able to access it from any remote location. Someone needs to slap this author with the clue-stick. He fell off the a 300ft high dumb tree and hit every branch on the way down.
The author does, however, make two interesting points, though these are hardly news. (1) It takes forever (i.e., weeks) to get off a blackhole list; this is understandable, since these things are run by volunteers, and it takes time to verify. (2) Blackhole lists are used by spammers, which allows them to slam any domain on the list. This is something which needs to be fixed. I think this is that rare case where security through obscurity works. The only people who should know all the domain names on a blacklist are those running it. People running domain-names that have been placed on a blacklist should be notified so they can fix it, and if they want notify the public. But because these blackhole lists are available for anyone to see, spammers use them and effectively DoS those who are on the list, making their life difficult.
Oh yea, almost forgot. The title of this post is "Legal action needed," because I think laws are needed to deal with this problem. Spamming might not be particularly profitable, but its also not at all unprofitable; theoretically, it probably wouldn't even cost a cent to send spam to everyone on earth with an internet connection. Thus, spammers will continue spamming, because they have no reason not to. Even if only one out of a thousand people actually buy something from that "make your dick bigger by jilking" spam, it still amounts to something worthwhile for the spammer.
They will never stop unless there is a strong cost associated with spam. So what I propose is tagging very high high fines onto any spammer -- millions of dollars. Enough to bankrupt an individual and keep him in debt for a long time, or enough to send a company into Chapter 11. I'll admit that we won't catch many spammers; maybe 1 out of a 1,000. But when you can't catch most people who do something and punish them accordingly, the way to stop an activity is to say we'll punish anyone caught inordinately.
I strongly disagree with the misguided notion that somehow dealing with our spam-problem violates the principles the internet was founded on. This is just an example of community action to deal with a problem.
The anonymity that the net gives us is valuable because it allows those who have controversial opinions to speak privately; because it allows those who have inordinate interests (i.e., occult or pornography) to pursue them in privacy without fear of public scrutiny; because it allows us to share information though P2P networks without fear of a slap-down from the RIAA. No useful purpose is served by spammers using annonymity; it neither promotes a public good, nor facilitates them in excercising their rights; rather, it facilitates them in doing harm to the public and violating the rights of others. The community is dealing with that problem in many ways.
One of them is blackholes. Crude, but somewhat effective. Simplest method. It is valuable not so much because of the spam that it blocks, but because of the action it forces service providers to take -- securing their systems against spammers.
Another is bayesian filtering, as was recently mentioned on/. This method can effectively be used to filter out messages which are spam based on the headers, via user input; i.e., the user tells the program via the header, "this is spam, that isn't". The program then analyzes the characteristics of the header and modifies previous assumptions accordingly. Think of it as going to Las Vegas and flipping a coin. If you flip the coin 100 times and you get 51 heads and 49 tails, do you conclude that the coin is unfair? Depends. You have a previous assumption about how reputable the casino is; if you think its unreputable, maybe you think the coin is unfair; if you think its reputable, you probably think its fair. What if you flip the coin 100 times and you get 2 heads and 98 tails? Then your first impression is that the coin is unfair; the evidence strongly overwhelms your previous assumption that the coin was fair, so you modify your hypothesis. But if you then flip the coin another million times and you get 500,001 heads and 499,999 thousand tails, you probably conclude that the coin is fair, despite your first impression. Same thing goes on with e-mail.
Another method -- one I prefer -- is simply blocking any messages from those whom you don't have in your address book or on your "accepted senders list". This effectively blocks out all spam. You have to, however, keep an updated list of accepted e-mail addresses.
There are many others.
No method is perfect. My method blocks all spam, but also will block anything from anyone who I don't have on my accepted senders list; so I have to be vigilant in maintaining such a list. Bayesian methods effectively have no false positives or false negatives, so are pretty damn good. The primary usefulness of blackhole lists is making services secure their systems.
My point is, it is IMMORAL to make a business out of publicly funded research.
I give less than a flying fuck about how well journal businesses do. What I care about is the privitization of public information, which is what is happening.
"A lot" of information being freely available isn't good enough. Any information that was produced with the aid of public money (taxpayer's money) must be made freely available by law.
The internet companies you speak of weren't taking information produced by gov't money and publishing it. They were producing that information themselves, thus had the right to do whatever they want with it. The information you publish is produced because of taxpayer's dollars. The public has the right to be able to freely access that information.
What it comes down to is that the public is paying for something twice. This is immoral.
The public pays for the salaries of the professors who do peer review. The public pays for the research. Thus, the results should be available to the public free of any additional cost.
Short of top secret technology, that which the public pays for should be available to the public for free. Period.
It is immoral to ask the public to fund research with their tax dollars and then ask them to pay for it again if they want to see its results, via subscription costs.
Journals such as Science seem to think that this is some crazy idea, that what the public pays for should be made freely available to the public. They also try to say its impossible, since there are costs involved in what journals provide, which is essentially peer review. Please. Don't tell me it costs $500 dollars for top researchers to read a paper and offer criticism. That can be done for free.
What's needed is to set up an organization of reputable scientists willing to offer peer review to papers submitted; the organization would have some sort of signature verifying that their members reviewed a paper and deemed it publication-worthy. Then the organization would publish the paper on-line for free. Pretty simple.
In the meantime, government action is needed to mandate that all papers eventually be made free to the public; perhaps six months after initial publication, perhaps 1 year.
At any rate, nothing justifies asking the public to pay for something twice.
You and others like you who've cried about the potential instability of adding mny TLDs have never proven nor shown your point.
Its just a bunch of hogwash you made up to keep create an artificial and unnecessary scarcity on the net.
Even if we decide to keep ICANN, it shouldn't be run by the current set of crooks who run it. People like Vint Cerf and Stuart Lynn are crooks on par former executives of Enron and Global Crossing.
People I trust to do the right thing on ICANN include people like:
Karl Auerbach Lawrence Lessig Richard Stallman Bruce Perens and other recognized members of the Open Source / Free Software communities, or of the EFF.
Not true - you are still in violation of the patent, but Thomson has said that they will not enforce it in this case. Whether or not you believe that they will continue to selectively enforce the patent is another matter.
Actually, they have said that their royalty rates are free for non-commercial (free-of-charge) use. Thus, you aren't violating their patent.
Sour-grape'd complainer has a point
on
Mr Anti-Google
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Though this guy is clearly a case of very very sour grapes, he does have a point. I'm not saying that his crappy page should be ranked higher on Google. As people who've been to his page and searched for Richard Nixon have noted, his page doesn't even display relevant information about Richard Nixon.
Some interesting points, however, are that Google's page ranking system will discriminate against newer websites, and will favor commercial websites over non-commercial ones. Regarding discrimination against new sites, this partially makes sense. Why should a site just created yesterday have equal footage with one's that have been around for years? Sites should have to be proven.
However, there is a rather unfortunate catch 21 here, in that in order for a site to be proven as an "important site" to Google, it must be seen by searchers and linked to. The odds of that are slim if a site is ranked lowly. This means that if a new site comes up which is superior to/. for technical news, it will probably take a long time for it to be ranked above/. on Google, even though its superior. Why? Because people can't link to what people can't see.
As a solution for this catch-22, I propose that Google have two additional "shaded boxes" underneath the "sponsors" boxes: one for random sites, and another one for "up and coming sites". This allows sites which are up and coming to climb to their rightful place, and gives sites a chance to be recognized.
Furthermore, I suggest that Google's ranking system be revised. Ranking pages partially by link-to's is a good idea. But ultimately, the best thing is to rank based on user opinion, which means sites ranked higher by Google's users would show up earlier in searches.
As for commercial sites being ranked higher than non-commercial one's, I think that's where Google's link-based ranking results are flawed. Corporate sites will have more links to them by "more important" sites than Non-Corporate sites, even if they aren't as good. This is a problem that needs to be solved.
As for this particular whiner, its obvious he just has a case of sour grapes. He wants his website on Rumpsfeld to come up before the official government website? Please. Earth to whiner, earth to whiner: your site isn't that good.
If you GPL a MP3-player program, which includes the patented MP3 technology, and offer the program free of charge, there is no issue for you. You are not in violation of the patent.
It is also not your concern, regarding the royalties on any copies sold. That is the concern of the person who decides to alter your GPL'ed program and sell it for money under the GPL.
Also, remember that this patent is not applicable in every nation. So offer the program from a nation where this patent is not granted, or which does not recognize the patent. Then the conflict is a non-issue.
Furthermore, lets remember that this will be a non-issue in a few years anyways (remember, patents exist for some 20 years). I believe that the patent on MP3-technology is due to run out soon.
Another solution for people who want to release code under the GPL -- keep the patented technology "at an arms length" from the GPL'ed code. Offer it as one package, but your MP3 program "call" the patented MP3-software. Create a separate licence for the patent software, identical to the GPL, except having terms requiring that redistribution be free of charge. Simple.
That is not to absolve Thompson of any responsibility. He and Fraunhofer allowed the public to be deceived, and waited until the format was popular to speak publicly about its patents and enforce them. This was a clearly designed plan -- once they saw MP3 becoming popular -- to trap people. They realized it was getting popular, but decided to refrain from enforcing or mentioning its patent terms; this way, it would become more and more popular without any inhibitions. Then when it was popular and ubiquitous, many MP3-players depending on it, they decided to close the trap. Had they enforced and publicized the patent issue from the beginning, MP3 never would have become popular, and a format like OGG-VORBIS would have been developed a long time ago as a replacement.
There should be some requirement by the government that if companies don't enforce their patents, they lose them, similarly to trademarks. Otherwise, companies just wait for many people to be in violation of their IP, then sue.
25 years copyright protection on software and music? That's nuts. Copyrights should at most exist long enough to give the creator of the material enough motivation to continue innovating; that is, they should certainly not last beyond profitability.
What your saying in supporting 25 years of software protection is that Microsoft will still be profiting from Windows 95 in 2020. That's simply daft.
Similarly, do you really think that Britney Spears latest album will be significantly profitable 25 years from now (I'm a big fan of hers, but I doubt it).
As for the no extensions, that's fine with me. But different types of copyrighted material should be protected by copyright for different periods of time. Software items which are big sellers today won't even be at the computer markets in 5 years. Similarly with most music albums in 10 years. Books tend to have a longer life-span. The point is that different types of material drop off in profitability at different rates (either "going out of style" or becoming "obsolte" at different rates).
As for your enthusiasm for no patents, I believe it is misplaced. If patents are eliminated, corporations will simply hide their latest innovations (i.e., trade secrets), meaning that the exact same wheel may be reinvented dozens of times. Perhaps a more lax standard for prior art should be used; however, after a patent is accepted, any prior art should invalidate it, and challenging patents should be easy and cheap, allowing anyone to do it.
Aside from prior art, there are some things which simply should not be patentable. Ideas obtained by biopiracy should not be patentable. Life-forms should not be patentable. Business methods should not be patentable. Etc.
The DMCA is not a compromise. It is a free-for-all for IP interests.
There have been no compromises on the Intellectual Property issue since the beginning of 1900.
IP laws favor IP-owners more and more, and the public good less and less. There has never been a change in IP-laws which favors the public.
The last time IP-laws were balanced was when they were first created, and copyright terms lasted 14 years. Since then, copyright terms have been extended repeatedly and retro-actively, to life + 75 years. The effect is that copyright terms are infinite, because every time something is about to become public domain, a new law is passed retro-actively extending the terms of copyrights.
This is wrong. When the government retro-actively extends the terms of copyrights (or other IP), it is a VIOLATING a contract made with the people of the United States. The contract was that we would pay for this content for so many years and support the authors rights with our money, in exachange for it falling into the public domain after a specified number of years.
Retroactive laws are, in all cases, immoral and unconstitutional.
Here's what I propose for IP terms:
Patents -- 10 years max. The power of patents is to be reigned in, such that they can't be used in overly broad ways. All general patents are to be denied. All patents offering minor variations of already existing technologies are to be denied. All patents where there was prior art are to be denied. It is both the government's and the patenter's responsibility to search rigorously for prior art. The patenter should have to prove that there was no prior art. If a patent is granted and prior art is later shown, the patent-holder is to be held liable.
Copyrights -- again, the bredth of copyrights is to be reigned in, and the scope reduced.
* Software -- 5 years initial. An additional # of years may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 5th year / profit in 1st years) * 5 years.
* Music -- 10 years initial. An additional # of yeas may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 10th year / profit in 1st years) * 10 years
* Movies -- 20 years initial. An additional # of years may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 20th year / profit in 1st years) * 20 years
* Books -- 30 years initial. An additional # of yeas may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 30th year / profit in 1st years) * 30 years.
Trademarks -- trademarks are a different story from other forms of IP. I do not think that their length should be changed. What should, however, be changed is their scope. They should be reigned in. Trademarks should only apply to the particular area in which they were registered, and should need to be very unique to be registered.
The technology itself is fine, and potentially beneficial, if properly and very narrowly used. It could accomplish a lot of good. But any good it could accomplish would be obliterated by the vast rights violations that would take place if it was mis-used.
In other words, this technology should be controlled by courts, which would grant access to government agencies to use it (i.e., by giving a temporary pass for limited purposes) for very specific and targetted purposes, when warranted by probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
But if we fear this kind of technology and want to outlaw it off-hand, declaring the technology evil, then we're no better than the RIAA/MPAA, who want to ban technologies (DVD-R(W), DVD-RAM, CD-RW, CD-R, P2P, etc) simply because they *can* be used for illegal purposes.
Contrary, I think it's because it works and works well. Good support is important, of course, but why would anybody go with the product that has good support and is defunct.
Yes, I agree it works and works well.
However, some people seem to be saying that it is one of the most stable distributions, which is not true. It is more stable and solid than other major commercial distributions like Caldera, SuSe, TurboLinux, and Corel Linux. It is not, however, more stable and solid than some traditional Linux distributions like Debian and Slackware.
No it isn't. People like RedHat because they know RedHat won't do things like include journaling filesystems that aren't ready for primetime use just to appease someone like you. Quite frankly I think SuSE and Mandrake suck. They seem too Amiga-ish in their approach, and that I think is going come back and bite them in the ass just it did Commodore. Whatever RedHat does, I don't see them making the kinds of mistakes Commodore and Atari did. That may piss off people like you,but who really gives a shit?
Firstly, I think that insulting Amiga is not wise. Amiga was a great system -- revolutionary. It was the best consumer product at the time.
Secondly, RedHat certainly doesn't include features that aren't ready for prime-time as does SuSe and Mandrake. But it also isn't as much of a rock of stability and security as are distros like Debian and Slackware. So, that doesn't explain why its so popular.
And my answer to this question -- is RedHat the MS of Linux -- is a resounding NO.
RedHat may not be perfect. There are some trademark issues, and it isn't perfectly devout in the OSS / FS philosophy. But they are pretty strong in their OSS / FS philosophy.
There are some other minor moral issues. In terms of morality for a software developing organization, Debian has one of the best standards in their Social Contract. RedHat doesn't quite live up to that, but they are pretty damn good. They are certainly a far far cry from MS.
There are other technical issues that make me prefer Debian over RedHat (namely, Debian's superiority in terms of stability/security, and lack of bloat, and superior performance). However, these are not moral issues; and the moral issues which one can criticize RedHat for are rather minor.
Put another way, Debian, FSF, OSI, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc., are like the Ghandi's, Mother Teresa's, Mandela's, and ML King's of the software world. MS is like the Hitler of the software world. Would you really place RedHat in MS' category? Granted, they don't belong in the saint category either; but perhaps an appropriate analogy would be Winston Churchill.
Demanding gamers drive the high end consumer computer market? Gee, that's fucking amazing. I thought those people who just load up Mozilla and OpenOffice were the one's who were creating the demand for GeForce 4 Ti4600's and Radeon 9700 Pro's, along with 2+GHz Intel/AMD chips, and 4+GB of RDRAM/DDR-RAM.
Really? Ya don't say. Next, they'll be telling us that the Hollywood follks who make movies like Jurassic Park drive the high end systems in the professional world. And that the people who sequence the human genome drive the high end in supercomputers. That's unbeleivable.
Seriously, I thought that the average user who browses websites needed all that power to handle the pop-up ads. Or that your avg. hormonal male needed that much power to look at porn.
Next thing they'll be telling us that avid downloarders of music, movies, and porn are what's driving the high end in broadband connections.
I really don't get what's so great about these Wolfenstein/Doom/Unreal/Quake games. I mean, its all so repetitive. Same kill the baddies, destroy everything scenario every time. And it, of course, feels completely unrealistic because a computer is trying to emulate the motions/actions of a real person in first perspective, which is next to impossible to do.
I really don't see why more people don't try out vehicular shooter games like Descent and Freespace, which feel realistic because your flying a ship, not moving a person, which means that collisions feel much more real (a real bump or knock). Also, they're alot more challenging and you're given a lot more freedom, as you can move in all different directions.
How many times do we have to get the same old shoot-em-dead, destroy everything that moves, kill everything, watch stuff bleed and blow up guts all over the place type games like Doom? These are really the same games, but just with face-lifts.
Do yourself a favor, try a game that doesn't involve mindlessly killing everything in sight. Try out Descent (1-3) or Tomb Raider (1-6), or Resident Evil, or (if you can emulate the GameCube using gCubix) Eternal Darkness. Might also be interested in games like "Of Light and Darkness".
I'm not saying that the latest releases of Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein are bad games. They're great games. Only problem is they are unoriginal -- they were preceeded by many very similar games before them. And they don't really evolve from the previous versions, except in terms of graphics/sound/physics. The game-play is pretty much the same, with few wrinkles added.
Much as some ads are annoying, they still serve a purpose. They help the station generate revenue, which ultimately reduces the amount of money you have to pay.
So what should happen is people should have choices between ad-supported stations and ones for which they have to pay extra.
Granted, ad-supported stations will face (pretty much) insurmountable difficulty with new technologies which allow people to skip over ad sections. The solution to this is to make ads people are interested in -- targetted advertisement.
This means more than just breaking people down into groups; i.e., everyone who watches FOX NEWS must be interested in The Wall Street Journal, so we'll put advertisements for it there. What's needed is for targetted advertisement depending on the person. A person's machine monitors what shows (s)he watches, and a person inputs information on what type of products he'd be interested in, and can rate ads...this can allow a system in their device (w/o any privacy concerns, b/c it'd all be in their device) to target ads to them.
"If you don't like it, fix it" is not a productive way to think about a program. Most people aren't programmers, but yet can understand what would make a UI better.
As for Sys Prefs > General > Place scroll arros > At top and bottom, that's NOT what I'm talking about. It is good that Apple has up and down arrows at the bottom of the scroll column. It would better if they ALSO had up/down arrows at the top -- that is, two sets of up/down arrows, one at the top, one at the bottom.
As for the Apple menu, there is a program that gives you an Apple menu in OSX. The point is, Apple shouldn't have gotten rid of that good feature.
The idea of making a new UI is to take many steps forwards, and none backwards.
Not to me, and not to most serious users. I find them useless and annoying. Why do I need to know if an application is loading? I double clicked on the button, so I know its loading.
A bouncing icon indicated that a program is launching, or wants your attention. Not a prompt. You can change this to a flashing arrow in System Prefs.
Thanks for the tip, though I doubt it'll pan out. Alot of tips I receive for control panel configurations don't work on my version of OSX, because I don't see those options available. Even so, why do I need this "feature"?? What practical purpose does it serve. None. If I double click on a program, I know its loading. I don't need the computer to tell me that.
I don't think you are really running OS X; I think you've played with it briefly.
I use it on an almost daily basis to do phylogenetic work at a university, and have my own account, which is customized (i.e., I have a traditional Apple menu, and can access the OSX Apple menu by CONTROL-clicking).
Dude, c'mon! Yer killin me! Apple Menu -> Dock -> Turn Magnification Off.
Yes, I know. I have magnification turned off. My other suggestion was the eliminate the animation effect, which can NOT be done in Aqua. That is, if I had magnification on, I'd want it to instantly go from the small version of the icon to the large version, not have a gradual animation.
You can put it on the left or right, if that's what you mean, but notice that your monitor is wider than it is high - that means the icons will be smaller in this config.
That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is that as you load more applications on the dock, the icons get smaller. Rather than having this as a mandatory feature (which it is), I'd like to be able to create a progression in which three ways of handling additional applications would be used: (1) Scale icons until they are ##x## pixels; (2) Start expanding the dock horizontally (if its along the left/right side of the screen), so it has two columns of icons, not just one; (3) Start making the dock scroll up/scroll down, so that I can move the mouse above a scroll up/down arrow and scroll up or down on the dock, like a menu (i.e., some icons disappear off the top of the screen, and I can get to them by clicking/hovering over an up/down arrow).
A better solution would be to create a larger icon right next to that appicon on the dock, with the name of the application beneath it.
Huh?
Lets say your dock has very small icons on it, 24x24. My solution to make them more readable, is that when you move the mouse over a small icon, a large icon pops up next to it (to the right of it, if the dock is on the left side of the screen), with the name of the applicaion underneath the large icon.
See, this is what I'm talking about. It does appear instantly. It does this on the lowliest beige G3. Everything I've seen.
From what I've seen, the text of the appicon appears slightly after you move your mouse over it, maybe 50-100ms after. It should appear the very next frame that your computer screen can display it.
One should be able to completely disable zooming. Most users prefer instantaneous reactions to their commands, and don't care to see the progression of a window "travelling" from point A to point B. Just do it at the speed of light.
*sigh* Yes! You can turn it all off! Really!
No, you can't turn off animation completely. I want to turn off all animation. When I minimize an applicaion, I want it to go to its appicon instantly, not "quickly" with a nifty animation, as is you can specify by the scaling (as opposed to genie) effect. Everyone I've talked to who uses OSX says there's no way to completely turn off animation, only to keep it to a minimum.
What most power users want is a way to turn off all of these useless fancy features.
Firstly, most people download particular songs they like. They might like one or two songs from a group. For example, I like "Hey Baby" and "Keep on Dancin" by No Doubt. I don't like any of their other songs. There's no way in hell I'd go out there and actually buy a full CD by them. So I download the two songs I like. This doesn't hurt the industry because I'm downloading things I wouldn't have bought in the first place.
Similarly for most people the vast majority of the time.
Also, lets not forget, that there was NO EFFECT -- NONE WHAT-SO-EVER -- observed in CD sales until the recession begin. NONE. So, gee, I wonder what's really causing this downturn in sales.
The economies in a recession, does the RIAA really expect people to buy as many CD's? DVD's are becoming more and more popular and commonplace, as are computer games, and game-consoles...does the RIAA really think that teens will still buy as many CD's, even with all the competition offering vastly superior value? Descent 3 and Descent 2 each go for 10 bucks from Amazon.com. That means you could buy both of them for the same price as ONE CD. Now, you decide. What's better, Descent 3 and Descent 2, games from which you can get months of enjoyment from in single-player mode, years in multi-player, or a single CD, which you can get maybe an hours worth of enjoyment out of? Tomb Raider 5, 4, and 3 sell for 20 bucks a piece from Amazon.com, while Tomb Raider 1 and 2 go for around 10. Any of these would be be better than having a music CD. The latest greatest game that I like -- Eternal Darkness sells for 50 bucks from Amazon.com, 32 bucks used. Again, a better deal than a music CD.
Jurassic Park and The Lost World sell for 24 bucks a piece off of Amazon.com. Much better value than any music CD I've seen. Jaws is also available for 24 bucks, along with many other great movies.
So, competition from outside the music world BLOWS music CD's away in terms of value.
The updates in 10.2 are things which should have been in previous versions anyways.
Don't charge us extra because you took out good features then had to program to put them back, or because you put out a buggy product. $120 dollars (on top of the $120 we already paid for the first OSX) is an outrageous price to ask for adding things which should have been there in the first place, or fixing things which should have been fixed in the first place. Analagous to MS' Win98SE ==> WinME change. Certainly doesn't justify the price tag.
Open up two or more finder folder windows. Then press APPLE-~. It will NOT switch between the various finder windows; rather, it will bring up a Finder pop-up window asking you which directory you'd like to go to.
Slashdot Mirror
EOM
Don't get too excited folks. At the levels GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) can be expressed in the tissues of non-indogenous organisms (that is, non-jellyfish organisms), and at the efficiency it works fluorescently in those organisms, GFP only glows green under Ultra-Violet light.
In other words, if you just turn off the light, these mice aren't going to be growing. The authors of the article could have at least done a little bit of research, and thus been able to say "under UV light" rather than "under a certain kind of light".
Also note that this is nothing new. GFP has been put into tobacco plants, which subsequently allows their vascular structure to be easily determined under UV light (actaully, the tobacco plant had luciferase, an enzyme expressed in lightning bugs which allows them to glow). It is also used in every biology lab for studying organisms. You fuse GFP with your favorite protein, then you can track your favorite protein in cells via a UV microscrope.
Less known is that there other fluorescent proteins aside from GFP. As mentioned before, there is also luciferase. There's also Yellow Fluorescent Proein (YFP), enhanced Yellow Fluorescent Protein (EYFP), and Red Fluorescent Protein (RFP), among others. This is very useful for biologists because it allows us to track different proteins in a cell at the same time, by creating fusion proteins.
Yes, blacklists aren't perfect. But if you do what it takes to plug up obvious security holes in your service, you can get off of them; it may take time, but the volunteers who run these things need to verify that you have plugged up a hole, or that your service was always secure. I'm sure there are a lot of people added to blackhole lists who shouldn't be there, because some mistake was made. At the same time, I think the vast vast majority of people griping about being unfairly placed on a blackhole list are just people who don't understand the technical security flaws in their system.
/. makes me wonder about CmdrTaco. Taco, don't you read these articles at all? Or don't you even know that this is a security hole so big and obvious that even MS could have recognized it and plugged it up?
/. This method can effectively be used to filter out messages which are spam based on the headers, via user input; i.e., the user tells the program via the header, "this is spam, that isn't". The program then analyzes the characteristics of the header and modifies previous assumptions accordingly. Think of it as going to Las Vegas and flipping a coin. If you flip the coin 100 times and you get 51 heads and 49 tails, do you conclude that the coin is unfair? Depends. You have a previous assumption about how reputable the casino is; if you think its unreputable, maybe you think the coin is unfair; if you think its reputable, you probably think its fair. What if you flip the coin 100 times and you get 2 heads and 98 tails? Then your first impression is that the coin is unfair; the evidence strongly overwhelms your previous assumption that the coin was fair, so you modify your hypothesis. But if you then flip the coin another million times and you get 500,001 heads and 499,999 thousand tails, you probably conclude that the coin is fair, despite your first impression. Same thing goes on with e-mail.
Prime example is this idiot author. I'm not security expert -- in fact, I (gasp) don't even know how to set up a server. But I can recognize a security hole as big and obvious as the one his system has. If all someone has to do is forge a from address in the header to use your system for their e-mail without authorization, your system is completely insecure. This author displays his complete ignorance when he says, "the system was doing what it was supposed to do". Every system does what its supposed to do, and that's depends on how it was programmed by the programmers and set up by the administrator. That doesn't necessarily mean every system is doing things the right way.
That this story was posted on
At the very least, your service should request password and user-name verification. IP-address verification possibly, if you don't want to allow your users to be able to access it from any remote location. Someone needs to slap this author with the clue-stick. He fell off the a 300ft high dumb tree and hit every branch on the way down.
The author does, however, make two interesting points, though these are hardly news. (1) It takes forever (i.e., weeks) to get off a blackhole list; this is understandable, since these things are run by volunteers, and it takes time to verify. (2) Blackhole lists are used by spammers, which allows them to slam any domain on the list. This is something which needs to be fixed. I think this is that rare case where security through obscurity works. The only people who should know all the domain names on a blacklist are those running it. People running domain-names that have been placed on a blacklist should be notified so they can fix it, and if they want notify the public. But because these blackhole lists are available for anyone to see, spammers use them and effectively DoS those who are on the list, making their life difficult.
Oh yea, almost forgot. The title of this post is "Legal action needed," because I think laws are needed to deal with this problem. Spamming might not be particularly profitable, but its also not at all unprofitable; theoretically, it probably wouldn't even cost a cent to send spam to everyone on earth with an internet connection. Thus, spammers will continue spamming, because they have no reason not to. Even if only one out of a thousand people actually buy something from that "make your dick bigger by jilking" spam, it still amounts to something worthwhile for the spammer.
They will never stop unless there is a strong cost associated with spam. So what I propose is tagging very high high fines onto any spammer -- millions of dollars. Enough to bankrupt an individual and keep him in debt for a long time, or enough to send a company into Chapter 11. I'll admit that we won't catch many spammers; maybe 1 out of a 1,000. But when you can't catch most people who do something and punish them accordingly, the way to stop an activity is to say we'll punish anyone caught inordinately.
I strongly disagree with the misguided notion that somehow dealing with our spam-problem violates the principles the internet was founded on. This is just an example of community action to deal with a problem.
The anonymity that the net gives us is valuable because it allows those who have controversial opinions to speak privately; because it allows those who have inordinate interests (i.e., occult or pornography) to pursue them in privacy without fear of public scrutiny; because it allows us to share information though P2P networks without fear of a slap-down from the RIAA. No useful purpose is served by spammers using annonymity; it neither promotes a public good, nor facilitates them in excercising their rights; rather, it facilitates them in doing harm to the public and violating the rights of others. The community is dealing with that problem in many ways.
One of them is blackholes. Crude, but somewhat effective. Simplest method. It is valuable not so much because of the spam that it blocks, but because of the action it forces service providers to take -- securing their systems against spammers.
Another is bayesian filtering, as was recently mentioned on
Another method -- one I prefer -- is simply blocking any messages from those whom you don't have in your address book or on your "accepted senders list". This effectively blocks out all spam. You have to, however, keep an updated list of accepted e-mail addresses.
There are many others.
No method is perfect. My method blocks all spam, but also will block anything from anyone who I don't have on my accepted senders list; so I have to be vigilant in maintaining such a list. Bayesian methods effectively have no false positives or false negatives, so are pretty damn good. The primary usefulness of blackhole lists is making services secure their systems.
My point is, it is IMMORAL to make a business out of publicly funded research.
I give less than a flying fuck about how well journal businesses do. What I care about is the privitization of public information, which is what is happening.
"A lot" of information being freely available isn't good enough. Any information that was produced with the aid of public money (taxpayer's money) must be made freely available by law.
The internet companies you speak of weren't taking information produced by gov't money and publishing it. They were producing that information themselves, thus had the right to do whatever they want with it. The information you publish is produced because of taxpayer's dollars. The public has the right to be able to freely access that information.
Stop trying to justify your immoral practices.
What it comes down to is that the public is paying for something twice. This is immoral.
The public pays for the salaries of the professors who do peer review. The public pays for the research. Thus, the results should be available to the public free of any additional cost.
Short of top secret technology, that which the public pays for should be available to the public for free. Period.
It is immoral to ask the public to fund research with their tax dollars and then ask them to pay for it again if they want to see its results, via subscription costs.
Journals such as Science seem to think that this is some crazy idea, that what the public pays for should be made freely available to the public. They also try to say its impossible, since there are costs involved in what journals provide, which is essentially peer review. Please. Don't tell me it costs $500 dollars for top researchers to read a paper and offer criticism. That can be done for free.
What's needed is to set up an organization of reputable scientists willing to offer peer review to papers submitted; the organization would have some sort of signature verifying that their members reviewed a paper and deemed it publication-worthy. Then the organization would publish the paper on-line for free. Pretty simple.
In the meantime, government action is needed to mandate that all papers eventually be made free to the public; perhaps six months after initial publication, perhaps 1 year.
At any rate, nothing justifies asking the public to pay for something twice.
Tea, sure, whatever.
You and others like you who've cried about the potential instability of adding mny TLDs have never proven nor shown your point.
Its just a bunch of hogwash you made up to keep create an artificial and unnecessary scarcity on the net.
Even if we decide to keep ICANN, it shouldn't be run by the current set of crooks who run it. People like Vint Cerf and Stuart Lynn are crooks on par former executives of Enron and Global Crossing.
People I trust to do the right thing on ICANN include people like:
Karl Auerbach
Lawrence Lessig
Richard Stallman
Bruce Perens
and other recognized members of the Open Source / Free Software communities, or of the EFF.
Not true - you are still in violation of the patent, but Thomson has said that they will not enforce it in this case. Whether or not you believe that they will continue to selectively enforce the patent is another matter.
Actually, they have said that their royalty rates are free for non-commercial (free-of-charge) use. Thus, you aren't violating their patent.
Though this guy is clearly a case of very very sour grapes, he does have a point. I'm not saying that his crappy page should be ranked higher on Google. As people who've been to his page and searched for Richard Nixon have noted, his page doesn't even display relevant information about Richard Nixon.
/. for technical news, it will probably take a long time for it to be ranked above /. on Google, even though its superior. Why? Because people can't link to what people can't see.
Some interesting points, however, are that Google's page ranking system will discriminate against newer websites, and will favor commercial websites over non-commercial ones. Regarding discrimination against new sites, this partially makes sense. Why should a site just created yesterday have equal footage with one's that have been around for years? Sites should have to be proven.
However, there is a rather unfortunate catch 21 here, in that in order for a site to be proven as an "important site" to Google, it must be seen by searchers and linked to. The odds of that are slim if a site is ranked lowly. This means that if a new site comes up which is superior to
As a solution for this catch-22, I propose that Google have two additional "shaded boxes" underneath the "sponsors" boxes: one for random sites, and another one for "up and coming sites". This allows sites which are up and coming to climb to their rightful place, and gives sites a chance to be recognized.
Furthermore, I suggest that Google's ranking system be revised. Ranking pages partially by link-to's is a good idea. But ultimately, the best thing is to rank based on user opinion, which means sites ranked higher by Google's users would show up earlier in searches.
As for commercial sites being ranked higher than non-commercial one's, I think that's where Google's link-based ranking results are flawed. Corporate sites will have more links to them by "more important" sites than Non-Corporate sites, even if they aren't as good. This is a problem that needs to be solved.
As for this particular whiner, its obvious he just has a case of sour grapes. He wants his website on Rumpsfeld to come up before the official government website? Please. Earth to whiner, earth to whiner: your site isn't that good.
If you GPL a MP3-player program, which includes the patented MP3 technology, and offer the program free of charge, there is no issue for you. You are not in violation of the patent.
It is also not your concern, regarding the royalties on any copies sold. That is the concern of the person who decides to alter your GPL'ed program and sell it for money under the GPL.
Also, remember that this patent is not applicable in every nation. So offer the program from a nation where this patent is not granted, or which does not recognize the patent. Then the conflict is a non-issue.
Furthermore, lets remember that this will be a non-issue in a few years anyways (remember, patents exist for some 20 years). I believe that the patent on MP3-technology is due to run out soon.
Another solution for people who want to release code under the GPL -- keep the patented technology "at an arms length" from the GPL'ed code. Offer it as one package, but your MP3 program "call" the patented MP3-software. Create a separate licence for the patent software, identical to the GPL, except having terms requiring that redistribution be free of charge. Simple.
That is not to absolve Thompson of any responsibility. He and Fraunhofer allowed the public to be deceived, and waited until the format was popular to speak publicly about its patents and enforce them. This was a clearly designed plan -- once they saw MP3 becoming popular -- to trap people. They realized it was getting popular, but decided to refrain from enforcing or mentioning its patent terms; this way, it would become more and more popular without any inhibitions. Then when it was popular and ubiquitous, many MP3-players depending on it, they decided to close the trap. Had they enforced and publicized the patent issue from the beginning, MP3 never would have become popular, and a format like OGG-VORBIS would have been developed a long time ago as a replacement.
There should be some requirement by the government that if companies don't enforce their patents, they lose them, similarly to trademarks. Otherwise, companies just wait for many people to be in violation of their IP, then sue.
25 years copyright protection on software and music? That's nuts. Copyrights should at most exist long enough to give the creator of the material enough motivation to continue innovating; that is, they should certainly not last beyond profitability.
What your saying in supporting 25 years of software protection is that Microsoft will still be profiting from Windows 95 in 2020. That's simply daft.
Similarly, do you really think that Britney Spears latest album will be significantly profitable 25 years from now (I'm a big fan of hers, but I doubt it).
As for the no extensions, that's fine with me. But different types of copyrighted material should be protected by copyright for different periods of time. Software items which are big sellers today won't even be at the computer markets in 5 years. Similarly with most music albums in 10 years. Books tend to have a longer life-span. The point is that different types of material drop off in profitability at different rates (either "going out of style" or becoming "obsolte" at different rates).
As for your enthusiasm for no patents, I believe it is misplaced. If patents are eliminated, corporations will simply hide their latest innovations (i.e., trade secrets), meaning that the exact same wheel may be reinvented dozens of times. Perhaps a more lax standard for prior art should be used; however, after a patent is accepted, any prior art should invalidate it, and challenging patents should be easy and cheap, allowing anyone to do it.
Aside from prior art, there are some things which simply should not be patentable. Ideas obtained by biopiracy should not be patentable. Life-forms should not be patentable. Business methods should not be patentable. Etc.
The DMCA is not a compromise. It is a free-for-all for IP interests.
There have been no compromises on the Intellectual Property issue since the beginning of 1900.
IP laws favor IP-owners more and more, and the public good less and less. There has never been a change in IP-laws which favors the public.
The last time IP-laws were balanced was when they were first created, and copyright terms lasted 14 years. Since then, copyright terms have been extended repeatedly and retro-actively, to life + 75 years. The effect is that copyright terms are infinite, because every time something is about to become public domain, a new law is passed retro-actively extending the terms of copyrights.
This is wrong. When the government retro-actively extends the terms of copyrights (or other IP), it is a VIOLATING a contract made with the people of the United States. The contract was that we would pay for this content for so many years and support the authors rights with our money, in exachange for it falling into the public domain after a specified number of years.
Retroactive laws are, in all cases, immoral and unconstitutional.
Here's what I propose for IP terms:
Patents -- 10 years max. The power of patents is to be reigned in, such that they can't be used in overly broad ways. All general patents are to be denied. All patents offering minor variations of already existing technologies are to be denied. All patents where there was prior art are to be denied. It is both the government's and the patenter's responsibility to search rigorously for prior art. The patenter should have to prove that there was no prior art. If a patent is granted and prior art is later shown, the patent-holder is to be held liable.
Copyrights -- again, the bredth of copyrights is to be reigned in, and the scope reduced.
* Software -- 5 years initial. An additional # of years may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 5th year / profit in 1st years) * 5 years.
* Music -- 10 years initial. An additional # of yeas may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 10th year / profit in 1st years) * 10 years
* Movies -- 20 years initial. An additional # of years may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 20th year / profit in 1st years) * 20 years
* Books -- 30 years initial. An additional # of yeas may be granted. The number of years granted is to be calculated as follows: (profit in 30th year / profit in 1st years) * 30 years.
Trademarks -- trademarks are a different story from other forms of IP. I do not think that their length should be changed. What should, however, be changed is their scope. They should be reigned in. Trademarks should only apply to the particular area in which they were registered, and should need to be very unique to be registered.
The technology itself is fine, and potentially beneficial, if properly and very narrowly used. It could accomplish a lot of good. But any good it could accomplish would be obliterated by the vast rights violations that would take place if it was mis-used.
In other words, this technology should be controlled by courts, which would grant access to government agencies to use it (i.e., by giving a temporary pass for limited purposes) for very specific and targetted purposes, when warranted by probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
But if we fear this kind of technology and want to outlaw it off-hand, declaring the technology evil, then we're no better than the RIAA/MPAA, who want to ban technologies (DVD-R(W), DVD-RAM, CD-RW, CD-R, P2P, etc) simply because they *can* be used for illegal purposes.
Contrary, I think it's because it works and works well. Good support is important, of course, but why would anybody go with the product that has good support and is defunct.
Yes, I agree it works and works well.
However, some people seem to be saying that it is one of the most stable distributions, which is not true. It is more stable and solid than other major commercial distributions like Caldera, SuSe, TurboLinux, and Corel Linux. It is not, however, more stable and solid than some traditional Linux distributions like Debian and Slackware.
No it isn't. People like RedHat because they know RedHat won't do things like include journaling filesystems that aren't ready for primetime use just to appease someone like you. Quite frankly I think SuSE and Mandrake suck. They seem too Amiga-ish in their approach, and that I think is going come back and bite them in the ass just it did Commodore. Whatever RedHat does, I don't see them making the kinds of mistakes Commodore and Atari did. That may piss off people like you,but who really gives a shit?
Firstly, I think that insulting Amiga is not wise. Amiga was a great system -- revolutionary. It was the best consumer product at the time.
Secondly, RedHat certainly doesn't include features that aren't ready for prime-time as does SuSe and Mandrake. But it also isn't as much of a rock of stability and security as are distros like Debian and Slackware. So, that doesn't explain why its so popular.
I think its popular because of support.
I'm an advocate and user of Debian.
And my answer to this question -- is RedHat the MS of Linux -- is a resounding NO.
RedHat may not be perfect. There are some trademark issues, and it isn't perfectly devout in the OSS / FS philosophy. But they are pretty strong in their OSS / FS philosophy.
There are some other minor moral issues. In terms of morality for a software developing organization, Debian has one of the best standards in their Social Contract. RedHat doesn't quite live up to that, but they are pretty damn good. They are certainly a far far cry from MS.
There are other technical issues that make me prefer Debian over RedHat (namely, Debian's superiority in terms of stability/security, and lack of bloat, and superior performance). However, these are not moral issues; and the moral issues which one can criticize RedHat for are rather minor.
Put another way, Debian, FSF, OSI, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc., are like the Ghandi's, Mother Teresa's, Mandela's, and ML King's of the software world. MS is like the Hitler of the software world. Would you really place RedHat in MS' category? Granted, they don't belong in the saint category either; but perhaps an appropriate analogy would be Winston Churchill.
Demanding gamers drive the high end consumer computer market? Gee, that's fucking amazing. I thought those people who just load up Mozilla and OpenOffice were the one's who were creating the demand for GeForce 4 Ti4600's and Radeon 9700 Pro's, along with 2+GHz Intel/AMD chips, and 4+GB of RDRAM/DDR-RAM.
Really? Ya don't say. Next, they'll be telling us that the Hollywood follks who make movies like Jurassic Park drive the high end systems in the professional world. And that the people who sequence the human genome drive the high end in supercomputers. That's unbeleivable.
Seriously, I thought that the average user who browses websites needed all that power to handle the pop-up ads. Or that your avg. hormonal male needed that much power to look at porn.
Next thing they'll be telling us that avid downloarders of music, movies, and porn are what's driving the high end in broadband connections.
Amazing insights from CNN.
I really don't get what's so great about these Wolfenstein/Doom/Unreal/Quake games. I mean, its all so repetitive. Same kill the baddies, destroy everything scenario every time. And it, of course, feels completely unrealistic because a computer is trying to emulate the motions/actions of a real person in first perspective, which is next to impossible to do.
I really don't see why more people don't try out vehicular shooter games like Descent and Freespace, which feel realistic because your flying a ship, not moving a person, which means that collisions feel much more real (a real bump or knock). Also, they're alot more challenging and you're given a lot more freedom, as you can move in all different directions.
How many times do we have to get the same old shoot-em-dead, destroy everything that moves, kill everything, watch stuff bleed and blow up guts all over the place type games like Doom? These are really the same games, but just with face-lifts.
Do yourself a favor, try a game that doesn't involve mindlessly killing everything in sight. Try out Descent (1-3) or Tomb Raider (1-6), or Resident Evil, or (if you can emulate the GameCube using gCubix) Eternal Darkness. Might also be interested in games like "Of Light and Darkness".
I'm not saying that the latest releases of Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein are bad games. They're great games. Only problem is they are unoriginal -- they were preceeded by many very similar games before them. And they don't really evolve from the previous versions, except in terms of graphics/sound/physics. The game-play is pretty much the same, with few wrinkles added.
Much as some ads are annoying, they still serve a purpose. They help the station generate revenue, which ultimately reduces the amount of money you have to pay.
So what should happen is people should have choices between ad-supported stations and ones for which they have to pay extra.
Granted, ad-supported stations will face (pretty much) insurmountable difficulty with new technologies which allow people to skip over ad sections. The solution to this is to make ads people are interested in -- targetted advertisement.
This means more than just breaking people down into groups; i.e., everyone who watches FOX NEWS must be interested in The Wall Street Journal, so we'll put advertisements for it there. What's needed is for targetted advertisement depending on the person. A person's machine monitors what shows (s)he watches, and a person inputs information on what type of products he'd be interested in, and can rate ads...this can allow a system in their device (w/o any privacy concerns, b/c it'd all be in their device) to target ads to them.
"If you don't like it, fix it" is not a productive way to think about a program. Most people aren't programmers, but yet can understand what would make a UI better.
As for Sys Prefs > General > Place scroll arros > At top and bottom, that's NOT what I'm talking about. It is good that Apple has up and down arrows at the bottom of the scroll column. It would better if they ALSO had up/down arrows at the top -- that is, two sets of up/down arrows, one at the top, one at the bottom.
As for the Apple menu, there is a program that gives you an Apple menu in OSX. The point is, Apple shouldn't have gotten rid of that good feature.
The idea of making a new UI is to take many steps forwards, and none backwards.
And do you really think X Window is small?
Depends on what you do.
I personally use XDirectFB. If you use that in combination with a good slim WM like pwm, then it is pretty small and very fast.
No, they are useful. Like I said,
Not to me, and not to most serious users. I find them useless and annoying. Why do I need to know if an application is loading? I double clicked on the button, so I know its loading.
A bouncing icon indicated that a program is launching, or wants your attention. Not a prompt. You can change this to a flashing arrow in System Prefs.
Thanks for the tip, though I doubt it'll pan out. Alot of tips I receive for control panel configurations don't work on my version of OSX, because I don't see those options available. Even so, why do I need this "feature"?? What practical purpose does it serve. None. If I double click on a program, I know its loading. I don't need the computer to tell me that.
I don't think you are really running OS X; I think you've played with it briefly.
I use it on an almost daily basis to do phylogenetic work at a university, and have my own account, which is customized (i.e., I have a traditional Apple menu, and can access the OSX Apple menu by CONTROL-clicking).
Dude, c'mon! Yer killin me! Apple Menu -> Dock -> Turn Magnification Off.
Yes, I know. I have magnification turned off. My other suggestion was the eliminate the animation effect, which can NOT be done in Aqua. That is, if I had magnification on, I'd want it to instantly go from the small version of the icon to the large version, not have a gradual animation.
You can put it on the left or right, if that's what you mean, but notice that your monitor is wider than it is high - that means the icons will be smaller in this config.
That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is that as you load more applications on the dock, the icons get smaller. Rather than having this as a mandatory feature (which it is), I'd like to be able to create a progression in which three ways of handling additional applications would be used: (1) Scale icons until they are ##x## pixels; (2) Start expanding the dock horizontally (if its along the left/right side of the screen), so it has two columns of icons, not just one; (3) Start making the dock scroll up/scroll down, so that I can move the mouse above a scroll up/down arrow and scroll up or down on the dock, like a menu (i.e., some icons disappear off the top of the screen, and I can get to them by clicking/hovering over an up/down arrow).
A better solution would be to create a larger icon right next to that appicon on the dock, with the name of the application beneath it.
Huh?
Lets say your dock has very small icons on it, 24x24. My solution to make them more readable, is that when you move the mouse over a small icon, a large icon pops up next to it (to the right of it, if the dock is on the left side of the screen), with the name of the applicaion underneath the large icon.
See, this is what I'm talking about. It does appear instantly. It does this on the lowliest beige G3. Everything I've seen.
From what I've seen, the text of the appicon appears slightly after you move your mouse over it, maybe 50-100ms after. It should appear the very next frame that your computer screen can display it.
One should be able to completely disable zooming. Most users prefer instantaneous reactions to their commands, and don't care to see the progression of a window "travelling" from point A to point B. Just do it at the speed of light.
*sigh* Yes! You can turn it all off! Really!
No, you can't turn off animation completely. I want to turn off all animation. When I minimize an applicaion, I want it to go to its appicon instantly, not "quickly" with a nifty animation, as is you can specify by the scaling (as opposed to genie) effect. Everyone I've talked to who uses OSX says there's no way to completely turn off animation, only to keep it to a minimum.
What most power users want is a way to turn off all of these useless fancy features.
Firstly, most people download particular songs they like. They might like one or two songs from a group. For example, I like "Hey Baby" and "Keep on Dancin" by No Doubt. I don't like any of their other songs. There's no way in hell I'd go out there and actually buy a full CD by them. So I download the two songs I like. This doesn't hurt the industry because I'm downloading things I wouldn't have bought in the first place.
Similarly for most people the vast majority of the time.
Also, lets not forget, that there was NO EFFECT -- NONE WHAT-SO-EVER -- observed in CD sales until the recession begin. NONE. So, gee, I wonder what's really causing this downturn in sales.
The economies in a recession, does the RIAA really expect people to buy as many CD's? DVD's are becoming more and more popular and commonplace, as are computer games, and game-consoles...does the RIAA really think that teens will still buy as many CD's, even with all the competition offering vastly superior value? Descent 3 and Descent 2 each go for 10 bucks from Amazon.com. That means you could buy both of them for the same price as ONE CD. Now, you decide. What's better, Descent 3 and Descent 2, games from which you can get months of enjoyment from in single-player mode, years in multi-player, or a single CD, which you can get maybe an hours worth of enjoyment out of? Tomb Raider 5, 4, and 3 sell for 20 bucks a piece from Amazon.com, while Tomb Raider 1 and 2 go for around 10. Any of these would be be better than having a music CD. The latest greatest game that I like -- Eternal Darkness sells for 50 bucks from Amazon.com, 32 bucks used. Again, a better deal than a music CD.
Jurassic Park and The Lost World sell for 24 bucks a piece off of Amazon.com. Much better value than any music CD I've seen. Jaws is also available for 24 bucks, along with many other great movies.
So, competition from outside the music world BLOWS music CD's away in terms of value.
The updates in 10.2 are things which should have been in previous versions anyways.
Don't charge us extra because you took out good features then had to program to put them back, or because you put out a buggy product. $120 dollars (on top of the $120 we already paid for the first OSX) is an outrageous price to ask for adding things which should have been there in the first place, or fixing things which should have been fixed in the first place. Analagous to MS' Win98SE ==> WinME change. Certainly doesn't justify the price tag.
Open up two or more finder folder windows. Then press APPLE-~. It will NOT switch between the various finder windows; rather, it will bring up a Finder pop-up window asking you which directory you'd like to go to.