TiVo negotiated nothing. They're just incorporating the technology to automatically convert the video they record into a format that the iPod supports (which is completely open - simply MPEG-4 video that fits within certain dimensions). A nice feature, but they didn't require or receive Apple's cooperation.
The Web Standards Project took it upon themselves to create a "pseudo-certification" of sorts with their Acid Test. Word of mouth elevated the test's standing as a legitimate benchmark for browser compliance.
Browser makers responded in various ways. Opera and Microsoft have both essentially dismissed the Acid2 test as unnecessary, preferring instead to focus on their own priorities. Mozilla has been come pretty close to passing the test all along, but I believe that they give some thought to eventually passing it perfectly. Apple got right on the ball with their Safari browser, and within a year they released a version that passes the Acid2 test.
So your idea is sound. In this case, not everyone got on board, but the fact that even one major browser maker made passing the test a goal means it was useful. If a stronger, more official certification were offered, it might even get the other players to participate. Unfortunately, the most likely source for a certification like this would be Microsoft, and who wants to match their standards?
That's something that I, and I imagine the GP poster, agree with. Sunday school isn't a place for politics or science lessons, especially when the teachers are not well-educated in the subject. I would suggest that he take that up with the church leaders rather than confront them about the specific objections he has with the teaching.
I am personally often annoyed by preachers or Sunday School teachers who spend their lessons trying to "arm" me with arguments against teachings they believe are unbiblical. Don't tell me what the Bible doesn't say. Tell me what it does say, and trust me to figure out the rest.
However, I stand by my original set of questions. "Don't rock the boat" may seem like a cop-out, but harmony among believers is actually a Biblical directive (see the 2nd chapter of Acts and most of Paul's letters). Heresy must be confronted head-on, but disagreement within possible scriptural interpretations is not a noble cause for fighting amongst Christians.
As a Christian, perhaps correcting your fellow believers about evolutionary biology shouldn't be your highest priority. There are reasons to divide a church, but the presence of differing opinions about science education is not one of them. Ask yourself the following questions:
Do the people in this church love God? Do they believe in their salvation through the death of Jesus Christ? Do they practice the teachings of Christ by loving one another and serving those less fortunate than themselves?
If not, these are issues that need to be addressed before you even start thinking about debating evolution with them. Without the above principles, your church is not a Christian church, and you've got problems.
If yes, will debating evolutionary biology with the people of your church help them to become better disciples of Jesus Christ? Will challenging the notion of "irreducible complexity" further the mission of the church on earth?
These are questions you must answer for yourself about your own church. Your priorities must be your own, but I know that were I in your place, I would not let a question that I consider tangential to the teachings of Jesus Christ introduce strife between believers.
I understand your frustration, but you aren't making sense.
The one great thing about the x86 platform was that we could put what operating system we wanted on it. You can't run Solaris on it. Until recently (and still, legally speaking) you coulnd't put OS X on it. Apple isn't changing anything there. They aren't doing a darn thing to your existing x86 box, and the x86 boxes that they sell will happily run any operating system that you want. Their restrictions are software restrictions, and have no effect on the hardware that runs the new OS.
Apple is bringing to the x86 world that it is okay to lock consumers into your own brand of hardware. This is not the direction we need to go. Bah. Your criticism is nothing new, and it isn't specific to the x86 world. Apple has always restricted its OS to its own hardware, except for the brief period where they allowed clones. The move to x86 is not some insidous plot to force their business strategy on everyone else, and it won't change the way Linux or even Microsoft products operate.
After what Apple did to the original Mac clone makers it makes one wonder how anyone can excuse them. As an Apple shareholder, I most certainly can excuse them. The decision to open up their business to other vendors was theirs to make, and so was the decision to close it again. As a responsible business, they could not continue to hemorrage money just because it makes them look nice and "open" (even though only officially licensed clone makers could produce computers that ran MacOS).
Perhaps its just "correct" to continue to excuse their obviously monopolistic activities... When you make a claim like "obviously monopolistic", you are assuming that nobody could observe their actions and disagree that they are a monopoly. However, many people do disagree, and the burden of proof is on you to provide examples of monopolistic behavior and back that up with informed references to U.S. and global anti-trust laws. I believe that you cannot, and should therefore stop wasting your time writing rants like this. Come to think of it, I should stop wasting my time responding to rants like this.
Yes, they will if they listen to NPR regularly. They covered this story on Morning Edition last week. When a computer-related story gets to NPR, it must be getting around. The average NPR listener is assumed to be intelligent, but not necessarily computer-literate.
If Linus Torvalds says "Linux is better than Windows", that means very little: of course he thinks that, and nobody really thinks twice when he says so. But if Bill Gates were to say the same thing, then it would be an incredibly significant statement...
This only holds true for vague, relative and subjective statements like the one in your example.
A better example would be if Linus Torvalds said "I ran a test that demonstrates Linux booting 25% faster than Windows on the same hardware," and Bill Gates responded with "My tests show that Windows boots 15% faster than Linux on the same hardware."
Yes, both speakers have motives that are worth questioning But the proper response is not to dismiss both claims because of the speakers' biases but rather to take a closer look at their methods and their results. If you find problems with their tests, then you can dismiss their results. If not, then you must accept the results and attempt to reconcile them with any conflicting data you have encountered.
It doesn't matter how reputable the source is. You should always check their research before you accept their claims as conclusive.
So you think that spammers are manually browsing web pages and writing down usernames to try as hotmail addresses? I doubt it; spammers tend to be much more automated when they can get away with it. More likely, spammers are generating random lists of addresses by combining dictionary words, knowing that just about every combination is in use by hotmail users. Unless I want to use a random password generator to create my e-mail address, I'm vulnerable. That's not my fault or Microsoft's, but I've personally (YMMV) found their spam filter to be insufficient to deal with the quantity of spam that hotmail addresses receive.
Can't say for sure whether gmail is still better, but I predict that it will be. Why? Because I got spam messages in my hotmail account before I even used it for anything, while gmail does a stellar job of filtering out the junk in my inbox.
They can make the user interface as nifty as they like, but it won't solve the problem of why I stopped using Hotmail in the first place.
Oh, thank you for the fresh new perspective. The unsolicited and completely subjective review of a complete stranger is always enlightening, especially in the context of a discussion that isn't really about whether or not anyone liked Ender's Game.
So kudos and congratulations for being so fashionable. I'm glad to know that you were cool enough to disrespect a popular author before everyone else was. Let me guess... you also listened to the Shins before they sold out, right?
It's become fashionable in the last few years for geeks to bash on Orson Scott Card, especially those who disagree with his worldview. My theory is that it gives them geek cred to say "I'm so morally pure that I'm not afraid to tear down one of my past idols when he disagrees with me." It's quite cliche by now to read the three following statements in any online O.S.C. discussion:
1.) "Orson Scott Card is a great writer. Too bad he's such a nut."
2.) "I used to love Orson Scott Card until I read some of his political essays. Now I refuse to read anything he writes."
3.) "Orson Scott Card is overrated. I've never thought he was any good. No, really!"
Frankly, it's tiresome, and it's rare to find anyone who will take on his point of view with a real argument before dismissing him outright. The essay about "Innocent Genocide" that's floating around this discussion is an unusually intelligent exception, and even that spends its time trying to prove that Card is saying something specific without refuting it in any meaningful way. It's taken as a given that once Card's "true" meaning is known, the reader will automatically reject that meaning as false or dangerous.
Personally, I think Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass, but I don't pop up in/. discussions about the man to say "Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass! He's never been that good of a writer, and you should all dismiss everything he writes without thinking about it critically." It's not germane to the discussion, and worse, it's not even intelligent.
...i can hear the guys at Microsoft developing an ulcer!
Yeah, but with their development process, it will be at least 3 years before Ulcer Vista (TM) sees the light of day. By the time it's finally released, it will lack the much lauded "WinPeptic" feature set that they're hyping today, and it will just be playing catch-up to Apple's iReflux (TM), a component of the Indigestion X (TM) system.
Okay, but by that rationale, the software developers never agreed that their software would be error free, or that they would take responsibility for any damages caused by failure of the software (except in cases where there is an explicit contract).
You can't have it both ways. Either there is an implied (or explicit) agreement that comes with a software purchase, or there isn't. If you as a consumer reject your half of the agreement, what responsibility does the developer have to uphold theirs?
Amen! I have a lock on my mailbox, and not only does it stop unsrupulous people from stealing my mail, it also prevents the mailman from delivering any more bills. It's win-win!
Is there some reason that in your post and every other post rebutting the GP, Thomas Jefferson gets to speak for all of the founding fathers? And are his personal correspondences somehow the equivalent of the consensus reached by the Constitutional Convention, which took months to agree on the precise wording of the U.S. Constitution?
Jefferson was smart, but he wasn't all-knowing. There were other influential people who played major roles in the founding of this nation who - *gasp!* - disagreed with him on many points.
Nobody is talking about censorship here, as many others have pointed out. The creation of the.xxx domain does not benefit the average internet user. It would be legally impossible to force porn sites to use.xxx instead of.com, so it is useless for filtering. It only benefits registrars monetarily and porn site operators politically.
What many people fail to understand is that there is a difference between allowing free speech and legitimizing what is said. How would you feel if ICANN decided to add a.hate domain for use by white supremecists, homophobes, and jihadists? Assuming that the sites aren't breaking any laws, you still don't want to legitimize them by giving them their own sandbox to play in.
A lot of Americans feel the same about porn on the internet. It's there, it's legal, and most people take a "live and let live" attitude towards it, but they draw the line at creating special privileges for the porn industry that other industries don't have.
Just so you know, invoking the name of Cindy (not Casey) Sheehan is not a very good way to strengthen your credibility. People who are already opposed to the war like her. People who aren't see her as an opportunist who is exploiting the death of her son (who, it appears, probably supported the war) to grab the spotlight and lash out at Bush.
You may respect her, but she won't help you win an argument.
Are there any wars that aren't "wars of aggression"? Isn't all war wasteful? You obviously don't believe that the war in which the U.S. is currently engaged is worth the money we spend on it, but it's not as though the administration invaded Iraq just because they enjoy that kind of thing.
War is dangerous and expensive, but the U.S. doesn't go to war unless it intends to do something very important (note that I say "intends", not necessarily "succeeds"). Given that fact, the importance of the goal justifies the cost in dollars to the supporters of the objective.
Heck, it's pretty expensive to even have a military! Why not dismantle the whole thing and save a bundle? And arresting criminals costs us millions of dollars and the lives of many policemen every year. It's high time we stopped wasting these resources!
Slashdot Mirror
TiVo negotiated nothing. They're just incorporating the technology to automatically convert the video they record into a format that the iPod supports (which is completely open - simply MPEG-4 video that fits within certain dimensions). A nice feature, but they didn't require or receive Apple's cooperation.
The Web Standards Project took it upon themselves to create a "pseudo-certification" of sorts with their Acid Test. Word of mouth elevated the test's standing as a legitimate benchmark for browser compliance.
Browser makers responded in various ways. Opera and Microsoft have both essentially dismissed the Acid2 test as unnecessary, preferring instead to focus on their own priorities. Mozilla has been come pretty close to passing the test all along, but I believe that they give some thought to eventually passing it perfectly. Apple got right on the ball with their Safari browser, and within a year they released a version that passes the Acid2 test.
So your idea is sound. In this case, not everyone got on board, but the fact that even one major browser maker made passing the test a goal means it was useful. If a stronger, more official certification were offered, it might even get the other players to participate. Unfortunately, the most likely source for a certification like this would be Microsoft, and who wants to match their standards?
That's something that I, and I imagine the GP poster, agree with. Sunday school isn't a place for politics or science lessons, especially when the teachers are not well-educated in the subject. I would suggest that he take that up with the church leaders rather than confront them about the specific objections he has with the teaching.
I am personally often annoyed by preachers or Sunday School teachers who spend their lessons trying to "arm" me with arguments against teachings they believe are unbiblical. Don't tell me what the Bible doesn't say. Tell me what it does say, and trust me to figure out the rest.
However, I stand by my original set of questions. "Don't rock the boat" may seem like a cop-out, but harmony among believers is actually a Biblical directive (see the 2nd chapter of Acts and most of Paul's letters). Heresy must be confronted head-on, but disagreement within possible scriptural interpretations is not a noble cause for fighting amongst Christians.
These are questions you must answer for yourself about your own church. Your priorities must be your own, but I know that were I in your place, I would not let a question that I consider tangential to the teachings of Jesus Christ introduce strife between believers.
I understand your frustration, but you aren't making sense.
The one great thing about the x86 platform was that we could put what operating system we wanted on it.
You can't run Solaris on it. Until recently (and still, legally speaking) you coulnd't put OS X on it. Apple isn't changing anything there. They aren't doing a darn thing to your existing x86 box, and the x86 boxes that they sell will happily run any operating system that you want. Their restrictions are software restrictions, and have no effect on the hardware that runs the new OS.
Apple is bringing to the x86 world that it is okay to lock consumers into your own brand of hardware. This is not the direction we need to go.
Bah. Your criticism is nothing new, and it isn't specific to the x86 world. Apple has always restricted its OS to its own hardware, except for the brief period where they allowed clones. The move to x86 is not some insidous plot to force their business strategy on everyone else, and it won't change the way Linux or even Microsoft products operate.
After what Apple did to the original Mac clone makers it makes one wonder how anyone can excuse them.
As an Apple shareholder, I most certainly can excuse them. The decision to open up their business to other vendors was theirs to make, and so was the decision to close it again. As a responsible business, they could not continue to hemorrage money just because it makes them look nice and "open" (even though only officially licensed clone makers could produce computers that ran MacOS).
Perhaps its just "correct" to continue to excuse their obviously monopolistic activities...
When you make a claim like "obviously monopolistic", you are assuming that nobody could observe their actions and disagree that they are a monopoly. However, many people do disagree, and the burden of proof is on you to provide examples of monopolistic behavior and back that up with informed references to U.S. and global anti-trust laws. I believe that you cannot, and should therefore stop wasting your time writing rants like this. Come to think of it, I should stop wasting my time responding to rants like this.
Yes, they will if they listen to NPR regularly. They covered this story on Morning Edition last week. When a computer-related story gets to NPR, it must be getting around. The average NPR listener is assumed to be intelligent, but not necessarily computer-literate.
This only holds true for vague, relative and subjective statements like the one in your example.
A better example would be if Linus Torvalds said "I ran a test that demonstrates Linux booting 25% faster than Windows on the same hardware," and Bill Gates responded with "My tests show that Windows boots 15% faster than Linux on the same hardware."
Yes, both speakers have motives that are worth questioning But the proper response is not to dismiss both claims because of the speakers' biases but rather to take a closer look at their methods and their results. If you find problems with their tests, then you can dismiss their results. If not, then you must accept the results and attempt to reconcile them with any conflicting data you have encountered.
It doesn't matter how reputable the source is. You should always check their research before you accept their claims as conclusive.
Freedesktop.org: My, Tango! You certainly do look lovely today!
Tango: Why, thank you! And allow me to say that I find your consistency bold and refreshing!
Freedesktop.org: (blushing) You are too kind!
So you think that spammers are manually browsing web pages and writing down usernames to try as hotmail addresses? I doubt it; spammers tend to be much more automated when they can get away with it. More likely, spammers are generating random lists of addresses by combining dictionary words, knowing that just about every combination is in use by hotmail users. Unless I want to use a random password generator to create my e-mail address, I'm vulnerable. That's not my fault or Microsoft's, but I've personally (YMMV) found their spam filter to be insufficient to deal with the quantity of spam that hotmail addresses receive.
Can't say for sure whether gmail is still better, but I predict that it will be. Why? Because I got spam messages in my hotmail account before I even used it for anything, while gmail does a stellar job of filtering out the junk in my inbox.
They can make the user interface as nifty as they like, but it won't solve the problem of why I stopped using Hotmail in the first place.
Oh, thank you for the fresh new perspective. The unsolicited and completely subjective review of a complete stranger is always enlightening, especially in the context of a discussion that isn't really about whether or not anyone liked Ender's Game.
So kudos and congratulations for being so fashionable. I'm glad to know that you were cool enough to disrespect a popular author before everyone else was. Let me guess... you also listened to the Shins before they sold out, right?
It's become fashionable in the last few years for geeks to bash on Orson Scott Card, especially those who disagree with his worldview. My theory is that it gives them geek cred to say "I'm so morally pure that I'm not afraid to tear down one of my past idols when he disagrees with me." It's quite cliche by now to read the three following statements in any online O.S.C. discussion:
/. discussions about the man to say "Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass! He's never been that good of a writer, and you should all dismiss everything he writes without thinking about it critically." It's not germane to the discussion, and worse, it's not even intelligent.
1.) "Orson Scott Card is a great writer. Too bad he's such a nut."
2.) "I used to love Orson Scott Card until I read some of his political essays. Now I refuse to read anything he writes."
3.) "Orson Scott Card is overrated. I've never thought he was any good. No, really!"
Frankly, it's tiresome, and it's rare to find anyone who will take on his point of view with a real argument before dismissing him outright. The essay about "Innocent Genocide" that's floating around this discussion is an unusually intelligent exception, and even that spends its time trying to prove that Card is saying something specific without refuting it in any meaningful way. It's taken as a given that once Card's "true" meaning is known, the reader will automatically reject that meaning as false or dangerous.
Personally, I think Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass, but I don't pop up in
Yeah, but with their development process, it will be at least 3 years before Ulcer Vista (TM) sees the light of day. By the time it's finally released, it will lack the much lauded "WinPeptic" feature set that they're hyping today, and it will just be playing catch-up to Apple's iReflux (TM), a component of the Indigestion X (TM) system.
And again in 2525... ...if man is still alive.
Okay, but by that rationale, the software developers never agreed that their software would be error free, or that they would take responsibility for any damages caused by failure of the software (except in cases where there is an explicit contract).
You can't have it both ways. Either there is an implied (or explicit) agreement that comes with a software purchase, or there isn't. If you as a consumer reject your half of the agreement, what responsibility does the developer have to uphold theirs?
Amen! I have a lock on my mailbox, and not only does it stop unsrupulous people from stealing my mail, it also prevents the mailman from delivering any more bills. It's win-win!
Is there some reason that in your post and every other post rebutting the GP, Thomas Jefferson gets to speak for all of the founding fathers? And are his personal correspondences somehow the equivalent of the consensus reached by the Constitutional Convention, which took months to agree on the precise wording of the U.S. Constitution?
Jefferson was smart, but he wasn't all-knowing. There were other influential people who played major roles in the founding of this nation who - *gasp!* - disagreed with him on many points.
If he didn't tell anyone about it, he wouldn't be able to defend the process against patent infringement.
At first I read that as "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen From Hell", which sounds like quite the summer blockbuster to me.
Nobody is talking about censorship here, as many others have pointed out. The creation of the .xxx domain does not benefit the average internet user. It would be legally impossible to force porn sites to use .xxx instead of .com, so it is useless for filtering. It only benefits registrars monetarily and porn site operators politically.
.hate domain for use by white supremecists, homophobes, and jihadists? Assuming that the sites aren't breaking any laws, you still don't want to legitimize them by giving them their own sandbox to play in.
What many people fail to understand is that there is a difference between allowing free speech and legitimizing what is said. How would you feel if ICANN decided to add a
A lot of Americans feel the same about porn on the internet. It's there, it's legal, and most people take a "live and let live" attitude towards it, but they draw the line at creating special privileges for the porn industry that other industries don't have.
Just so you know, invoking the name of Cindy (not Casey) Sheehan is not a very good way to strengthen your credibility. People who are already opposed to the war like her. People who aren't see her as an opportunist who is exploiting the death of her son (who, it appears, probably supported the war) to grab the spotlight and lash out at Bush.
You may respect her, but she won't help you win an argument.
Are there any wars that aren't "wars of aggression"? Isn't all war wasteful? You obviously don't believe that the war in which the U.S. is currently engaged is worth the money we spend on it, but it's not as though the administration invaded Iraq just because they enjoy that kind of thing.
War is dangerous and expensive, but the U.S. doesn't go to war unless it intends to do something very important (note that I say "intends", not necessarily "succeeds"). Given that fact, the importance of the goal justifies the cost in dollars to the supporters of the objective.
Heck, it's pretty expensive to even have a military! Why not dismantle the whole thing and save a bundle? And arresting criminals costs us millions of dollars and the lives of many policemen every year. It's high time we stopped wasting these resources!
Yeah, sorry. I don't claim that my jokes are actually funny :-P
Oh, I get it. Kind of like the U.S./Kansas border.
The U.S. what border?