As demonstrated by the people who brought us Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise, which is thus far following on the coattails of Voyager. And of course, what kind of crack was being smoked when Jar Jar was created?
It's sad when a franchise is used and abused and stripped to the lowest common denominator.
Darn... now I have to watch movies with my DVD player. Oh, the agony! (Give me a break...)
But really... DRM is something I'm glad it isn't on my Mac. Restrictions like that keep me *away* from Windows and steer my preference to MacOS X and Linux/*BSD.
But doesn't "Digital Rights Management" sound nice and happy? My guess is Joe average consumer hears that and go "Ooo, my rights are being protected online! I want that!" Anyway that's what popped into my mind when I saw that option in WMP, but I know better.;)
I block spam using DNS blacklists on my mail server. I'm probably not the only one.
"But," you say to me, "local filters are much better because you might not lose legit email!" I ask you: why should my mail server accept their stupid junk and waste my bandwidth just to filter it out later?
I don't want to my server to accept it. I want it bounced outright with a nice little bounce message. In a happy shiny world, I'm hoping these SMTP rejects will send a message to someone out there. It probably doesn't make a difference, but I can dream.
Yes; some legit email has been blocked. In both cases I'm aware of, the person contacted me through a hotmail account and brought it to my attention. I altered my blocking policy at that point.
I'm open to any options out there for filtering/blocking that does not require me to download it and then filter it. If I wanted to just filter my mail, I can do that using my amazing human brain (better than any spam filter out there, I assure you) and click "delete" on the spams. But I want it rejected outright from known sources.
So until a better option comes along, that's the way it is.
There's also the c2it service, which is part of Citibank. They don't seem as free-wheeling as PayPal (They have limits on how much money you can transfer around), and they don't charge stupid percentage fees to accept money from credit cards! They will, of course, charge you for international transfers, but so does my bank if I deposit a check drawn on Canadian dollars.
On the other hand, when someone sends me money, it gets transferred to my real bank account. But the no-fees transactions of c2it are nice. That's how a real credit card works anyway, right? (Pay in full, no fees, pay partial and there's a finance charge.)
Don't pretend PayPal is a bank. It isn't. Get a real bank account, transfer it out of PayPal, and keep the money in there.
Why risk being shafted by PayPal? Use another service like c2it, and if someone wants to deal with you, then they have to get an account with them too.
Apple is making a poor argument according to this statement:
"In its defense, Apple has good reasons for preventing interface hacks. One of the major selling points of OS X is its stability, and changes to the underlying system undermine that. Previous versions of the Mac OS could be enormously flaky thanks to extensions that altered basic operating system behavior."
As a long time Mac user from the days of unprotected memory and crashes that brought down the entire system, it was quite annoying when a little crash f'd up the entire system. Stability improved as the development of the MacOS marched forward, but crashes before 10.x could still kill everything.
Enter MacOS X. It's damn stable. Aside from a kernel panic, crashing applications don't take everything with them. If anything, I'm more apt to mess around with my Mac now that I don't have to worry about it as much. So the SystemUIServer thread dies; big whoop, it spawns itself again. Still having a problem? Relaunch the Finder. But usually what'll happen is the tweak (like a menu item addition) itself will just die and leave everything else alone.
However, on the other side of the coin, I'd be a really annoyed Apple tech support guy if I had to answer calls from people installing tweaks that caused problems and didn't know what they were doing.
Again, however, the stability argument really loses its weight under MacOS X. Apple is just being a pain in the ass with this one because they don't like the idea of someone messing with their oh-so-pretty Aqua interface.
This may seem trivial, but when I went looking for something to replace my aging LinuxPPC box (a Power Computing clone), the two biggest deciding factors for me were:
1) Low cost
2) A 3U rack mount case
The first point can be questionable and debated, but the second one was a slam dunk for the x86 platform. I ended up with a Socket A ATX board running an AMD offering. Cost? Minus the case, the whole computer was around $450. I could build two of these things for the price of a single new iMac, and and two $280 rack cases for the price of a single G4 tower.
Now, if that cheap ($100 ballpark) PPC board were out there and the chips cost the same as the x86 stuff, we'd have a whole different story here.
Here's the deal I see. First, we don't have the infrastructure, which is covered by other posts here. Second, all of the extra power-sapping stuff we have in cars these days.
Power windows. Air conditioning. Heat. Power seats. Power steering. High power audio systems. Need I go on? People love their cars, people like to drive and commute. Do you really think everyone wants to give up their gas engine, which runs things like your A/C compressor and power steering hydraulics, in favor of an electric-only car that doesn't have any power to spare for air conditioning? I don't think so.
Your electric car doesn't create enough heat to heat a car they way we currently do it, and certainly not enough to run enectric heaters, which just plain suck down an encredible amount of power. Is there enough electricity to spare for power windows? Headlights, if you're driving at night a lot? No, and no again. These cars don't appeal to the general population because of these nice touches, options, and luxuries that we like to have in our cars. However, a fuel cell that puts off a good amount of power could run all kinds of electric compressors, pumps, and whatnot like a modern vehicle. Or a hybird engine that kicks in when the extra power is needed for whatever reason.
It's the V-10 engines that are killing us, not the I-4's and smaller. The Insight uses an I-3 engine, and only has a curb weight of 1878 pounds. Here in America, we're on an SUV craze, with bigger vehicles that weigh more and demand bigger engines to move a 6000 pound vehicle. Give me a 2400 pound Focus with an I-4; less power required to move the thing, uses less gas than a V-10. Think about how much less gas wold be used if there were only cars. 30 MPG is better than 12, even if it isn't a hybird's 60.
Give us a car that's exactly the same as today's cars in every way except in what's under the hood. Give us our climate control and a million power accessories. Build the infrastructure that we need to run a hydrogen based fuel cell vehicle, or more hybird vehicles. Give us the option of having a hybird engine for no extra cost over a gas engine, or better yet, a discount on the total price for choosing hybird over gas only. People will then start to see these cars as real alternatives, not some toy car lacking major features. But electric-only just isn't any kind of serious alternative to gas engines.
Or maybe not, just because a car isn't a big-ass SUV, which is today's vehicle of choice. Get more people to drive a car first.
The average idiot that I end up on the phone with at work will always, always, pick pretty pictures first. And yes, that seems to be what Apple has done with the MacOS X interface. Too bad... Functionality and stability seem to take a back seat to the graphical appeal of a GUI as we progress.
Every "serious" computer user I know hates the MacOS. Granted: They don't attempt to appeal to serious users.
A "serious" computer user would not be so blind or nearsighted to be a platform bigot. A.K.A., a troll. Real computer users would recognize that every platform has its advantages and shortcomings. In an ideal world, we'd have something that includes the best of all worlds and none of the crap. Alas, this isn't an ideal world.
The way the world of computers is going now, they are becoming more accessable to the extreme newbie; in fact, companies are pushing sales at the newbie. And why did they buy their computer? Because it was "cute" (iMac) or came in a box that looked like a cow.
Think about it: does anyone honestly think any alternative platform can make a dent in something that has a prettier interface or nifty graphics? And I consider "alternative" to mean anything except Windows. If the goal is to take over from Windows, you gotta think of who your target audiance is going to be. X, while it's great, still isn't as clean as the MacOS interface. And why? Probably because a small army of programmers/developers/etc. who were paid large sums of money have put years into developing and refining the MacOS with a fine-toothed comb. X hardly has the same kind of 24/7 drive behind it that could make it a lot more robust than it currently is.
What it'll take is for a group to sit down, and rewrite everything from scratch, but that doesn't really seem realistic. But that's exactly what Apple did with MacOS X. They took what was learned from previous versions, and discarded all of the junk that didn't work. Yes, in the end, it will have its own problems and a whole new set of whatever to deal with and worry about, but essentialy, MacOS X is BSD with an Apple developed GUI.
Personally, I prefer my Linux boxen to be command line based. I find I can get more things done than in a GUI. But for GUI purposes, I prefer the MacOS (yes, flame me...) over Windows any day. GNOME still has a way to go before a Linux box will become my OS of choice. Until then, I'll live with Linux and the Mac side by side, since they both offer their own advantages over the other.
But for those players that support CD-RW, that isn't an issue. Just stick your CD-RW disc back in your computer, add your new songs (or delete the ones you're tired of), and away you go. After all, these basically are first-generation players that are bound to be improved on when/if they catch on big time. Look at how far the DVD player has come since it was introduced.
Come to think of it, this is probably the only real use I can think of wanting a CD-RW for. Wouldn't CD-RW and CD MP3 players be a kick-ass combination?
Slashdot Mirror
>If this is an "excellent" sc-fi show nowadays,
>then I fear the entire genre has gone to hell
>and back. This show was pure crap.
What would you call a good sci-fi show these days? (Serious question.)
~Seth
>You CAN have too much of a good thing
As demonstrated by the people who brought us Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise, which is thus far following on the coattails of Voyager. And of course, what kind of crack was being smoked when Jar Jar was created?
It's sad when a franchise is used and abused and stripped to the lowest common denominator.
~Seth
Ah, another small mind. =)
Not all Mac users may have the DVD, either. But then again, maybe they do, because of stupid moves like this.
~Seth
Darn... now I have to watch movies with my DVD player. Oh, the agony! (Give me a break...)
;)
But really... DRM is something I'm glad it isn't on my Mac. Restrictions like that keep me *away* from Windows and steer my preference to MacOS X and Linux/*BSD.
But doesn't "Digital Rights Management" sound nice and happy? My guess is Joe average consumer hears that and go "Ooo, my rights are being protected online! I want that!" Anyway that's what popped into my mind when I saw that option in WMP, but I know better.
~Seth
I block spam using DNS blacklists on my mail server. I'm probably not the only one.
"But," you say to me, "local filters are much better because you might not lose legit email!" I ask you: why should my mail server accept their stupid junk and waste my bandwidth just to filter it out later?
I don't want to my server to accept it. I want it bounced outright with a nice little bounce message. In a happy shiny world, I'm hoping these SMTP rejects will send a message to someone out there. It probably doesn't make a difference, but I can dream.
Yes; some legit email has been blocked. In both cases I'm aware of, the person contacted me through a hotmail account and brought it to my attention. I altered my blocking policy at that point.
I'm open to any options out there for filtering/blocking that does not require me to download it and then filter it. If I wanted to just filter my mail, I can do that using my amazing human brain (better than any spam filter out there, I assure you) and click "delete" on the spams. But I want it rejected outright from known sources.
So until a better option comes along, that's the way it is.
~Seth
West Side!
There's also the c2it service, which is part of Citibank. They don't seem as free-wheeling as PayPal (They have limits on how much money you can transfer around), and they don't charge stupid percentage fees to accept money from credit cards! They will, of course, charge you for international transfers, but so does my bank if I deposit a check drawn on Canadian dollars.
On the other hand, when someone sends me money, it gets transferred to my real bank account. But the no-fees transactions of c2it are nice. That's how a real credit card works anyway, right? (Pay in full, no fees, pay partial and there's a finance charge.)
Don't pretend PayPal is a bank. It isn't. Get a real bank account, transfer it out of PayPal, and keep the money in there.
Why risk being shafted by PayPal? Use another service like c2it, and if someone wants to deal with you, then they have to get an account with them too.
I worked for an ISP once who had their POP in a really ghetto trailer (double wide) in Hawthorne, NV.
Apple is making a poor argument according to this statement:
"In its defense, Apple has good reasons for preventing interface hacks. One of the major selling points of OS X is its stability, and changes to the underlying system undermine that. Previous versions of the Mac OS could be enormously flaky thanks to extensions that altered basic operating system behavior."
As a long time Mac user from the days of unprotected memory and crashes that brought down the entire system, it was quite annoying when a little crash f'd up the entire system. Stability improved as the development of the MacOS marched forward, but crashes before 10.x could still kill everything.
Enter MacOS X. It's damn stable. Aside from a kernel panic, crashing applications don't take everything with them. If anything, I'm more apt to mess around with my Mac now that I don't have to worry about it as much. So the SystemUIServer thread dies; big whoop, it spawns itself again. Still having a problem? Relaunch the Finder. But usually what'll happen is the tweak (like a menu item addition) itself will just die and leave everything else alone.
However, on the other side of the coin, I'd be a really annoyed Apple tech support guy if I had to answer calls from people installing tweaks that caused problems and didn't know what they were doing.
Again, however, the stability argument really loses its weight under MacOS X. Apple is just being a pain in the ass with this one because they don't like the idea of someone messing with their oh-so-pretty Aqua interface.
The problem is the retards who don't put their phone/pager/whatever into a silent mode. They have created the drive for blocking.
Unfortunately, those of us with the intellegence to know how to turn "vibrate" on get punished, too.
Isn't the point of plastics to have some kind of synthetic medium that doesn't degrade? I'd hate to have my ziploc bags falling apart on me.
Yet another alternative to IE on MacOS X is iCab. While still a preview version it works and stuff. You can check it out here.
1) Low cost
2) A 3U rack mount case
The first point can be questionable and debated, but the second one was a slam dunk for the x86 platform. I ended up with a Socket A ATX board running an AMD offering. Cost? Minus the case, the whole computer was around $450. I could build two of these things for the price of a single new iMac, and and two $280 rack cases for the price of a single G4 tower.
Now, if that cheap ($100 ballpark) PPC board were out there and the chips cost the same as the x86 stuff, we'd have a whole different story here.
--
The ATI drivers keep crashing. It's obvious that a crash on my Mac was caused by the ATI drivers because the video sucks until a restart.
I'd buy a 3dfx card in a heartbeat if there were good drivers. Wait, isn't 3dfx making a Mac version of their latest Voodo card?
--
Here's the deal I see. First, we don't have the infrastructure, which is covered by other posts here. Second, all of the extra power-sapping stuff we have in cars these days.
Power windows. Air conditioning. Heat. Power seats. Power steering. High power audio systems. Need I go on? People love their cars, people like to drive and commute. Do you really think everyone wants to give up their gas engine, which runs things like your A/C compressor and power steering hydraulics, in favor of an electric-only car that doesn't have any power to spare for air conditioning? I don't think so.
Your electric car doesn't create enough heat to heat a car they way we currently do it, and certainly not enough to run enectric heaters, which just plain suck down an encredible amount of power. Is there enough electricity to spare for power windows? Headlights, if you're driving at night a lot? No, and no again. These cars don't appeal to the general population because of these nice touches, options, and luxuries that we like to have in our cars. However, a fuel cell that puts off a good amount of power could run all kinds of electric compressors, pumps, and whatnot like a modern vehicle. Or a hybird engine that kicks in when the extra power is needed for whatever reason.
It's the V-10 engines that are killing us, not the I-4's and smaller. The Insight uses an I-3 engine, and only has a curb weight of 1878 pounds. Here in America, we're on an SUV craze, with bigger vehicles that weigh more and demand bigger engines to move a 6000 pound vehicle. Give me a 2400 pound Focus with an I-4; less power required to move the thing, uses less gas than a V-10. Think about how much less gas wold be used if there were only cars. 30 MPG is better than 12, even if it isn't a hybird's 60.
Give us a car that's exactly the same as today's cars in every way except in what's under the hood. Give us our climate control and a million power accessories. Build the infrastructure that we need to run a hydrogen based fuel cell vehicle, or more hybird vehicles. Give us the option of having a hybird engine for no extra cost over a gas engine, or better yet, a discount on the total price for choosing hybird over gas only. People will then start to see these cars as real alternatives, not some toy car lacking major features. But electric-only just isn't any kind of serious alternative to gas engines.
Or maybe not, just because a car isn't a big-ass SUV, which is today's vehicle of choice. Get more people to drive a car first.
--
--
The average idiot that I end up on the phone with at work will always, always, pick pretty pictures first. And yes, that seems to be what Apple has done with the MacOS X interface. Too bad... Functionality and stability seem to take a back seat to the graphical appeal of a GUI as we progress.
Every "serious" computer user I know hates the MacOS. Granted: They don't attempt to appeal to serious users.
A "serious" computer user would not be so blind or nearsighted to be a platform bigot. A.K.A., a troll. Real computer users would recognize that every platform has its advantages and shortcomings. In an ideal world, we'd have something that includes the best of all worlds and none of the crap. Alas, this isn't an ideal world.
The way the world of computers is going now, they are becoming more accessable to the extreme newbie; in fact, companies are pushing sales at the newbie. And why did they buy their computer? Because it was "cute" (iMac) or came in a box that looked like a cow.
Think about it: does anyone honestly think any alternative platform can make a dent in something that has a prettier interface or nifty graphics? And I consider "alternative" to mean anything except Windows. If the goal is to take over from Windows, you gotta think of who your target audiance is going to be. X, while it's great, still isn't as clean as the MacOS interface. And why? Probably because a small army of programmers/developers/etc. who were paid large sums of money have put years into developing and refining the MacOS with a fine-toothed comb. X hardly has the same kind of 24/7 drive behind it that could make it a lot more robust than it currently is.
What it'll take is for a group to sit down, and rewrite everything from scratch, but that doesn't really seem realistic. But that's exactly what Apple did with MacOS X. They took what was learned from previous versions, and discarded all of the junk that didn't work. Yes, in the end, it will have its own problems and a whole new set of whatever to deal with and worry about, but essentialy, MacOS X is BSD with an Apple developed GUI.
Personally, I prefer my Linux boxen to be command line based. I find I can get more things done than in a GUI. But for GUI purposes, I prefer the MacOS (yes, flame me...) over Windows any day. GNOME still has a way to go before a Linux box will become my OS of choice. Until then, I'll live with Linux and the Mac side by side, since they both offer their own advantages over the other.
--
But for those players that support CD-RW, that isn't an issue. Just stick your CD-RW disc back in your computer, add your new songs (or delete the ones you're tired of), and away you go. After all, these basically are first-generation players that are bound to be improved on when/if they catch on big time. Look at how far the DVD player has come since it was introduced.
Come to think of it, this is probably the only real use I can think of wanting a CD-RW for. Wouldn't CD-RW and CD MP3 players be a kick-ass combination?
--