> One theory says that the name came from "gorilla" > + "kujira" (=whale), but that was thought up after > the fact.
According to the textbook "A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla(tm) Series" by David Kalat, the initial idea for Godzilla started out being a mutated octopus. Then it was designated simply with the letter "G" for giant. Finally, the name "Gojira" (derived as you said) was suggested to Tomoyuki Tanaka (the G producer from 1954-1995) and he approved it. Before the fact.
The mutated octopus did get to guest star in "King Kong vs. Godzilla", but only in a minor role. The actor (a real octopus in a tank) was eaten after his performance.
> The real origin of the name is the "Gojira" > legend from Otojima, an island near Japan.
Yee, do you ever have that mangled! The island's name was "Oo too" ("Oo shima" on modern maps, "oo" means a long "o") English name would be "Big Island". The island is part of Japan, and the gatekeeper to the Sagami Sea. Godzilla has to pass it on the way to Tokyo Bay. Mount Mihara, in which Godzilla was imprisoned from 1984 to 1989, is located on the island.
The Gojira legend was in the movie "Gojira". I don't know if that part was based on reality (except for the "exorcism" appearing to be a Shinto ceremony). However, the Japanese religion of Shito does have a god of fire whose birth destroyed his mother. That god's name is Kagu-tsuchi. In "Mothra vs. Godzilla", the Infant Island chieftain refered to the hydrogen bomb a "godly fire".
Kagu-tsuchi has a younger half sister, the goddess of the sun born of the sea, who taught her people how to cultivate rice and weave silk (created from the cocoons of the silk moth), Queen of the gods, to whom the Japanese people pray yearly for peace and happiness: Amaterasu omi kami => Mothra.
He also has an even younger half brother, the chaotic god of storms, thrower of temper tantrums, associated with multi-headed dragons, causer of grief to his big sister: Susa no oo => King Ghidora.
If you've ever been to one in Japan (or read about them in G-fan), you'd know that when Toho puts on a display of Godzilla props in a department store in Japan, an essential ingredient, the first exhibit, is almost always a small Shinto shrine to the Dreaded God of the atom: Godzilla.
Yes, Virginia. There is a real Godzilla. There is a real King Ghidora. But thankfully, there is also a very real Mothra!
"Compassionate Sun, Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra!" Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
> "Mothra" describes that the chracter is based on a > moth.
Indeed. The name originates from "mosu" (Japanese mangling of English "moth") plus "lah" (Malaysian particle for emphasis, rendered in Japanese and English as "ra").
> Is the name "Godzilla" entirely made up or does > it actually mean something.
It's actually the nickname of a crew member of the original Godzilla movie. "Go" comes from the English "gorilla". "Jira" is from the Japanese word for "whale". "Jira" is rendered in the English title as "dzilla". "Zilla" is imitative of their trademark, but since Godzilla's name in Japanese is not "Gozira", I'm not sure how much grounds they have. I'm also not sure if either the Japanese or American versions of the movie "Gojira" have entered the public domain yet, as some Godzilla movies have.
Appealing to Mothra is quite correct. She has as long a history of hating this type of behavior as Toho has of practicing it. As GMK once again proved, the Godzilla series is dependant on her for its survival. Since Toho bases its monsters on real deities (Mothra is based on Amaterasu omi kami, Japan's great Sun Goddess), one may have some expectation of getting some help out of them. Godzilla himself might be of some help, since he has recently been giving nods to open source in his movies.
Time to sing some Mothra songs.
"Compassionate Sun, Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra!" Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
(That another AC wrote:) >> You can't really know what a program is *doing* >> if you can't see its source.
> What a bunch of bullshit propoganda. You are no > better than Microsoft. 99.9% of computer users > wouldn't know what the program was doing if they > did see the source. They are relying on losers > like you to convince that a program is free of > trojans and spyware. Why would anybody trust you > when you are an obvious zealot.
Governments have security departments (like the FBI, CIA, etc.). These departments have their own computer specialists who would be the ones looking at the code (and if you want to call an employee of the CIA a "loser", you better hope the CIA is not monitoring Slashdot). I don't think the code would absolutely have to be open source, but governmental auditors should have access to the source so they can verify that the program does not present a risk to national security. Of course there should be measures (NDAs?) to prevent the government auditor from quitting their job and using the information they gleaned from a product they audited to start their own company and profit from it.
Windows XP is a product that should *not* (IMHO) be used by governments (or any sensitive uses such as some research, hospital critical care, etc.) because of recent changes to its EULA. The changes pretty much stipulate that Microsoft can change anything on the computer running Windows XP, and if it breaks something, tough. No government with any sense will let a private company in another country, a country they might be at war with sometime in the future, to dictate the contents of their computers or make any changes they want. There are plenty of non-governmental uses of computers where the software and contents of the hard drive have to be under the strict control of the owners and users of the computer.
And no one wants to wake up to a Millenium prompt (http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Millenn ium/mgoals.html see "What would such a system be like?") to find that their computer has been sucked into a private distributed network, especially a government. After all, Millenium may have reallocated all of the US government's top secret documents to a hard drive in mainland China. Or perhaps Iraq...
Sound like science fiction? Only a research project? Perhaps. But the distributed net that came with Kazaa is fact. The XP EULA changes,.Net, Palladium, SQL Server as the file system in Longhorn, all pave the way for Microsoft's Millenium.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
> Well, Steve Job is also Chairman & CEO of Pixar > Animation Studios, which has an exclusive Feature > Film Agreement and Co-Production Agreement with > Disney for at least its next three motion > pictures. And Disney is a major member of the > MPAA. So...
Yes, and Jobs and Disney are not getting along. Pixar wants to break new ground and explore new territory. Disney wants cookie cutter sequels of Toy Story to rake in the dough. Things between them are so bad that Eisner, Disney's president, actually called Apple's "Rip, Mix, and Burn" campaign the promotion of piracy, in front of a Senate committee.
Pixar isn't a movie studio, with all the associated distribution channels. It is a 3D animation studio. It only does CGI.
Jobs has already come out against the RIAA's mad schemes at the Grammys. The article is right: this is a fight for Apple's survival (and the computer industry's). It is Jobs job to defend Apple.
Where Apple goes, the industry follows. After Jobs speech at the Grammys, Gateway joined in on the "Rip, Mix, and Burn" refrain. If Apple spoke up, they wouldn't stand alone for long.
Of course, Apple wouldn't stand alone at all. Its two biggest fans would certainly be with them on this one, especially since one has hated Hollywood for all of her forty-one years (something about her fairies being captured and her people massacred;).
"No one's going to die, mister. Mothra's going to come and save us."
Taiki Goto, "Mothra", December 14, 1996
(Released in Japan days before Apple's surprise announcement of the return of Steve Jobs.
Mothra and Godzilla are both big Mac fans, since at least 1993.)
> Get real... corporations need to make money. They > PAY all of us honest hard-working folk. I don't > know why all of you *NIX folks are so anti-MS,
Yes, corporations need to make money. But they don't need to engage in terror marketing, bullying, and above all, breaking the law (of which Microsoft has been found guilty in a court of law).
> so anti-AOL,
My main beef with AOL/TW is the Time Warner part of the equation. The portion of that that participates in the movie and music industries follows the time honored tradition of greedy sharks that enslave the artists, and milk and now criminalize its customers.
> anti-corp...
I can't speak for the rest of Slashdot, but I'm not personally against corporations per se. I love Apple. As I see it, a corporation has these duties:
1) To the shareholders: to make money to make a good return on their investment. Shareholders own the company.
2) To the employees: to treat them fairly and try to keep ye old paycheck from bouncing. Without employees, the corporation can't do much.
3) To the customers: to offer good products, good prices, and good service. Customers are golden, without them, the corporation doesn't make money. They are expensive to replace, so every reasonable, fair, and law-abiding effort should be made to keep them, and keep them happy, so they come back for more.
4) To their community: the corporation must obey all laws and pay all taxes. It is good PR to do some charitable work.
> Without the MSes of the world, where would > modern home computing be today?
There was home computing before Microsoft. Do Apple and Commodore ring a bell? There would be a much freer market with far more choices. After all, most of our choices were killed off by Microsoft.
Then a funny thing happened. Many people got fed up with Microsoft's evil ways, and so many of those choices are suddenly back. And they brought new friends...;)
> Corps are greedy and out to make money, period.
There is nothing wrong with being "out to make money", if the customer feels they got their money's worth. My idea of a greedy corporation is one that takes without giving back value. Microsoft's "unearned income" is a good example. That is money they exhorted out of their customers for stuff they had already paid for (their lovely new licensing scheme).
Prosperous corporation with happy stockholders, happy employees, satisfied customers and proud community => good.
Greedy corporation with unhappy stockholders (somebody's not paying dividends and the stock is down), unhappy employees (now what are those stock options worth?), mad customers (you want me to pay another $$$ to keep this buggy piece of BSOD working?!?), and irate community (doesn't pay income tax, doesn't bother with laws,...) => Microsoft.
> If you want a centralized, free-everything > society, ask the folks in Russia how communism > worked out for them.
The free-everything folk bug me too, especially the Mac ones. I've gotten very tired of trying to explain that charging fair prices for good products does not make Apple evil.
> so don't come crying when the feds bust MS down > so bad that they fold it up and move abroad and > you lose your job.
The feds probably won't bust Microsoft. Nope, Microsoft's greatest foe is their own much-abused customers. The tide has turned against them; the market demands competition. Conveniently, the compitition is rising from the dead and coming out of the woodwork.
Microsoft can be easily broken up, without the governments help. Just let Microsoft make their customers mad enough to leave, and call the pieces "Apple", "Linux", "Mozilla", "Corel", etc.
Godzilla 2000, the Dreaded God! The battle for Earth's future has begun! The future Millenium threatens. Godzilla cannot be assimilated. By Millenium who would embrace, extend! (From my lyrics to Godzilla's theme from "Godzilla 2000 Millennium")
I tried the thoughtcrime.org test with the browsers I keep around under OS X. Here are my results:
Mozilla 1.0: passed (the others are right, the error message could be more user friendly, but it worked)
Chimera 0.4.0: failed (no SSL options in Preferences, also an early version without many features)
Omniweb 4.1 (v422): failed (SSL options in Preferences)
iCab Preview 2.8.1: failed (no SSL options in Preferences)
By "failed", I mean displayed the web page with no error messages (which I presume is the test). Some of those that failed don't appear to provide SSL support in the first place.
OmniWeb doesn't have much excuse though, it appears to have SSL support, and it is not a beta.
It's beginning to look like Mozilla is the only one on the ball here.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are." Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
Oh, dearie me, what shall we do with half our government in jail for illegal file sharing?;)
ZDNet posted an interesting opinion piece back in July about how we should quit using P2P now that the Senate has. Check it out here:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/m ai n/0,14179,2874687,00.html
The part that interested me most was this quote:
>> The Senate, which is now crafting legislation >> that would further restrict the illegal sharing >> of copyrighted works over networks, was >> apparently a hotbed of illegal file sharing and >> other peer-to-peer (P2P) networking activity. >> >> Last week, the Senate Sergeant at Arms clamped >> down, and cut off all P2P networking within the >> Senate. The reason? Such networking practices >> were a security risk, and they were being used >> to violate copyright laws.
As they say, "our tax money at work". The senators involved (it does not name names, but gives the idea that such activities were widespread) were not only breaking the law, they were using our tax money to do it. If you check the various news stories, at least two movies were illegally downloaded and watched by the senators during Senate hearings on legislation such as the Hollings bill. One of the videos was pirated by a senator, the other by the President of Disney.
If these congresspersons are correct (some of the ones asking for the FBI's "help" were senators), shouldn't the FBI take care of the most widely publicized cases first, the ones with easy proof, that involved public money?
After all, they are the ones who think this is such a henious crime that we have to pull the FBI off of child kidnapping cases and the "War on Terror" to deal with it.
Me, I think the FBI has better things to do than bother with people sampling music before a purchase and freeloading kids who wouldn't or couldn't pay for a CD anyway. But then our senators are the ones with all the file-sharing experience, not little old me. Surely they know better.;)
"Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
Torahata "Mothra vs. Godzilla"
> The RIAA are quickly making their way to the top > of the hate list for any free thinking individual.
The American recording and movie industries were on the top of Mothra's hate list 41 years ago. Of course you might not know that, because Hollywood censored out her more thundering condemnations when they brought her first movie to America. In retaliation, Mothra swiped the yacht of an "American film producer" in 1966 and gave it, as a "gift from the gods", to a small group of people and sent them to rescue her people being kept as slaves by a group of terrorists. Darn, they censored that part out too.:b
> Does anyone know whether their appeal opens up > the possibility for other groups to argue that > the rates are too high??
There is a bill before Congress now, the "Internet Radio Fairness Act", that would address that problem. Support that.
> I have such difficulty imagining what the > high-ups at RIAA are thinking. Crushing > diversity and turning broadcasters against them > isn't going to help even them one single bit.
They are greedy sharks on a feeding frenzy. Thinking about the future isn't their strong suit. Crushing any perceived threat and milking the artists and public for all they are worth is about the most thinking they can manage.
> The only option right now is for brave > broadcasters to practise civil disobedience and > find ways to continue broadcasting.
You sure do know Mothra's ways of non-violence!:)
The problem is, we need to replace the whole greedy recording industry with a set of small businesses that serve the artists by providing recording services, CD preproducting services, and web services. Put the artists in the driver's seat controlling their own songs, and use the independent record stores and internet broadcasters to get the music to the public. Let the public decide what it likes. One should be able to do all of that with reasonable priced CDs, everyone making a nice little profit and the artists still getting more than they do now.
That isn't going to work, unless the artists do a bit of civil disobedience on their own. They are going to have to leave the illusionary security of the record labels and take control of their own songs and their own careers. Instead of bankrupting themselves in slavery to a label in the false hope of becoming the rare multi-million dollar star, they are going to have to stand on their own, and settle for the rewarding hobby, nice income or very nice income their talent and the public's interest affords them. But they will at least be able to sing their songs or play their music anytime they want to without some record exec slapping them with a lawsuit for copyright violation and breach of contract.
> Support your favourite internet radio station!
And those artists already brave enough to take control of their own music!
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming." From the song Hollywood was too chicken to let you hear: "Infant Girl" from the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
Basically, the US Congress wants, is counting on, proceeds from the sale of digital spectrum. They need it to balance the budget in 2006. That is the only reason they dictated the move to DTV in 2006 in the first place.
Every other story on Slashdot about draconian measures put on DTV (even that bane of the computer industry, the Hollings bill) is the result of the MPAA's panic over their loss of control over their content. It seems Congress neglected to ask their permission to switch the country over to all digital. Of course they want to place the responsibility, cost, and burden of maintaining that control on everybody else (cable operators, broadcasters, manufacturers and the end user). The FCC is struggling under a barrage of conflicting requirements, and is expected to miraculously sort it all out by 2006 to everyone's satisfaction.
So when 2006 rolls around, either we have DTV with all sorts of draconian restrictions that the US citizens will hate (causing the great Couch-Potato Riots of 2006), or the US Congress will have a massive budgetary shortfall that may make them unable to run the country.
Boy, I'm looking forward to that almost as much as I did Y2K.:(
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra! Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
> But.NET is a beautiful thing. It's Java with > Microsoft's blessing.
Wow! After years of trying to destroy Java, Microsoft has created a Java knock off as its way of "blessing" Java. I'm sure Sun is just thrilled.
> but let's face it folks: Microsoft can take this > concept much farther than Sun ever could, and it > will use its OS monopoly to do so.
Then why can't Microsoft make the best desktop version of Java. That honor (and so much more) goes to Apple, not Microsoft. Microsoft couldn't even play nicely with Java, so Sun took it away and now Microsoft has to make imitation Java to run its Millenium on.
>.NET is also great news for users of non-Windows > platforms.
Why would we want that nasty old vaporware when we can have.Mac?;)
> Visual Studio is now Visual Studio.NET. All the > i386 binaries and Win32 calls in your standard > Windows application will be replaced with > bytecode and.NET class library and > Windows.Forms calls.
Which is why the development system for business for the next 5 years will be Visual Studio 6.0. Look around, companies can barely stay afloat. When are they going to have the money and time to rewrite all their inhouse apps or retrain their people?
> This is a good thing for Linux users. This is a > good thing for Mac users. This is a good thing > for everyone.
And when the "Millenium" boot screen appears, call Godzilla and run for the hills!
> If MS sees mono as a threat, they could pull out > the lawyers, I admit. But I believe that mono > will ultimately prevail.
If MS pulls out the lawyers, you are sunk. If they don't, you will be helping them acheive even more market dominance, and destroying the independence that Linux and Mac have mostly enjoyed.
> Just don't badmouth the ability to eventually > run Visual Studio.NET under UNIX with Mono. > That's nothing to laugh at.
No, you are right, Mono isn't funny. It is pretty sad though, that bright Linux developers would go help Linux's greatest enemy defeat it.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
> I do not understand the difficulty that some > people have defining terrorism. Terrorism is the > deliberate killing or injuring (or attempted > killing or injuring) of non-combatants in order to > further a political goal. (Note that all military > goals are political.)
That is a very narrow definition. "Deliberate killing or injuring" is just the means some use to achieve a state of terror. "Political" is just one kind of goal. The important part of the definition, the one you leave out, is the word "terror".
Simply put, "terrorism" is the use of terror. Period.
Al Quada used airplanes as bombs to induce terror on 9/11.
A certain government has been using fear of what the Al Quada might do to induce terror to take away the constitutional rights and freedoms of its citizens since 9/11.
Microsoft has been using fear of an audit to do terror marketing before and after 9/11.
My compassion for the unfortunate victims of one form of terror does not lessen my compassion for the victims of other forms of terror. Terror is terror. It is a form of cruelty and base bullying. It is beyond belief and beneath contempt that anyone would use the fear of others (let alone the suffering and death of others) to achieve their selfish ends. For the oppressed, I do have compassion, but there are better ways than murder. For the rest, grow up!
For those who want to stop the reign of the King of Terror:
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger. When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..." Belabera "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
> Has anyone really tried to determine how > effective junk snail mail is? I have a hard time > believing that there is much return on investment > for junk snail mail.
Unless it is a huge mailing and you are a big name, respected company, it probably isn't effective. The most effective would be from stores about their sales, if they include coupons. I have a friend who had a small business and did a small, very targeted mailing. It really wasn't worth the cost to mail it, let alone the price of the list of names.
> Another form of advertising that sucks is > adverts for popcorn and coke at a movie theatre. > Why do they do that? How effective could it > possibly be?
That is to get you to the snack bar, and it probably really pays off in increasing the theatre's profits. Then again, it only costs them what it takes to actually produce the ad, and it may be the chain, not the individual theatre, that produces the ad.
For the most part though, advertising is a big racket. I tried it with my company a couple years ago, and it was money down the drain.
What really works, on and off the internet, is press releases. If you have a story to tell about your company, some news that people would want to read about, you write a press release. Mind you, it has to be real news, any stupid advertisement is going to get trashed by a competent editor. You can then fax that to various newspapers and submit it to news web sites.
A Slashdot story submission is an informal sort of press release (for "news for nerds, stuff that matters"). Does it drive real traffic? Witness the Slashdot Effect! Any company that has news of *real* interest to slashdotters that either wants to sell us something, or get our traffic, would be far better off submitting that cool story to Slashdot than paying for all those popup ads.
So if press releases are so great, why doesn't AOL ditch popup ads entirely? Because anyone can write a press release (that can actually write well that is). There is no money to be made, unlike popup ads. Unfortunately, AOL and everyone else in business today seems to have forgotten that they are in business to sell to or provide a service to their customers. Annoy those customers, send them away, and you are out of business.
That is, if you are lucky enough to get customers in the first place. That isn't even a certainty in the business world.:(
"Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
Torahata "Mothra vs. Godzilla"
> Heres a good example.. > > A year from now Microsoft releases Windows Media > 99x and Announces that its totally incompatible > with any other media player, So they AUTO > UPGRADE YOUR MACHINE MY REMOVING ALL OTHER MEDIA > PLAYERS BUT THERES... > > Now while this example may seem beyond realistic > at this point in time.. THIS IS THE POWER THAT > THERE EULA GRANTS THEM..
That's an example, supported by the Media Player EULA and the MSN EULA. But it doesn't go nearly far enough.
Remember Kazaa and the distributed net they created on their user's machines? Remember Juno and others who have played the same game? Those were small time trial runs. Microsoft has intended to do their own distributed net, Millenium, for years.
Read: http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn /Millenni um/mgoals.html (Especially "What would such a system be like?")
http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/ (Loo k under "Previous Projects".)
In the Japanese movie "Godzilla 2000 Millenium" are two scenes that are very disturbing. They were removed from the American version ("Godzilla 2000") by a supposedly clueless distributor. Toho had apparently gotten wind of Microsoft's research project and decided to make it into a villainous monster alien (seeing as how Toho and Godzilla love Macs).
Scene 1: Shinoda (head of the Godzilla Prediction Network and our hero/Mac user) had just finished getting information about the alien from three heroic open source MAME servers. He prepares to leave, and turns back to the computer monitors, just in time to see the Millenium boot screen appear on all of them.
Scene 2: Katagiri (head of the CCI and our human villain/Windows user) has just set off his bombs in an attempt to destroy the alien. Unscratched and unimpressed, the alien causes every computer monitor and television screen to display these words in multiple languages:
Then the alien blasts the skyscraper it is perched on to bits. At that point there is only one power that can stop it: Godzilla.
Don't let Microsoft get to that point in the real world.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
Re:You're assuming too much
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Pedersen wrote:
> Once Linux satisfies my video editing needs, all > Windows partitions are gone. Hmmm, maybe it's time > for me to start researching that a bit better.
The best (and now probably the cheapest) digital video editing system I ever used was iMovie 2 on a Snow iMac. You can pick a 500mhz (the same one I have) one up on EBay these days for a bit over $200. Use that for video editing, and blow away those Windows partitions. That way you can have the little iMac's hard drive dedicated to video editing, and still have your entire PC hard drive for Linux. If the iMac has OS 9 on it, and you want to use as much open source as possible, later versions of iMovie will work with OS X.
Just a suggestion.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are." Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
> Isn't the Apple motto: > > "Just let us do the thinking"
Nope. It's "Think Different" and "Easier on a Mac".
> Mac users seem to enjoy being told what to do.
I don't. If I did, I'd sign up on the good ship Millenium captained by Bill Gates. (Which is due to be sunk by Godzilla any day now.;)
> When Steve Jobs says Jump, they ask how high > shall I jump. In this case its off the sinking > ship known as Mac OS 9.x
Nope. Steve has just wisely decided to keep Apple afloat by supporting only newer OS's for newer hardware. OS 9 will continue to happily run on your existing hardware (which you don't have to pay a dime to Apple to keep and keep running) until your existing hardware stops running.
If OS 9 is what you need or prefer, I wish you joy of it, and I'll try not to get too much dust in your eye as I race past in my new Jaguar. If you plan on keeping OS 9 for much longer, I'd suggest the purchase of some driving goggles, though.
> I wonder if he will prevent booting to Debian > while he's there.
I have a suspicion that Debian will run on Macs longer than it will run on PCs. You might want to check with Microsoft on the details of Palladium's boot sequence.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are." Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
Nope, usually free with new hardware, or free downloads. Occasionally Apple has charged for them, but even then it is less than $50.
> with.mac,
The money you pay for.mac goes for the 100mb of web space, backup and antivirus software, and web services. I know one company, Hostway, that will charge you more a month ($8.95/mo Hostway, vs. Apple's $8.33/mo) for a mere 5mb of web space.
> and you PAY for the OS.
Of course you pay for an OS that took millions of dollars to develope and millions more to upgrade. Especially with an OS that is far beyond Microsoft's next 2-5 years of vaporware. Then again, you pay for a lot of things of value, especially when they are in a store in a box with a price tag on it. That even goes for boxed sets of Linux OS and software.
> And you PAY for the hardware,
Um, yeah. Name one place that gives you free computers.
> more than you would for x86 hardware of greater > value,
That is seriously debatable. X86 hardware is of far lesser quality. I don't care if they put a 15 gigahertz sticker on a PC, if my G4 800 megahertz iMac out runs it, it is still slower. Apple's industrial design is so much better that it is a comparison between fresh Apples and fresh cow pies.
The problem stems from one source: Microsoft. Every year, Microsoft sets the specs for the PC world. Aside from the color of the case (and warps in its shape), the individual makers have little to no leeway in innovating the hardware. Fortunately, Microsoft does have one source of innovation: copying Apple.;)
> and you PAY more for the same apps Windows users > get.
Get what? Get for free?!? I would hardly dignify with the term "application" the crap that Microsoft bundles with Windows and forces down the user's throat.
If you mean apps the Windows user pays for, most applications are the same price regardless of platform.
There is one exception: Microsoft's Office X is more expensive than Office XP Standard. Feel free to complain about that one: to Microsoft.
> And you PAY shipping since you have to order > them all online, since no stores carry mac > stuff.
That is so not true. Here in St. Louis Missouri (in the midwest US) you can at least get boxed versions of OS X at CompUSA. We have a Mac Store, which if you can get a sales person who is actually interested in selling something, you can actually buy some stuff there. Next month we should be getting our own Apple Store (woo hoo!).
I've never had to resort to mail order for an Apple OS upgrade. In fact I plan to get Jaguar at a local store to thank them for carrying Mac stuff.
> And Apple's OS X performance is sluggish on most > computers,
It might be a wee bit on my older Macs, but I don't really notice it on my G4 iMac.
> which is why people want Jaguar. They want what > they were promised in the beginning. A useable > system.
Sorry, but I've had a beautiful, usable system since March 24, 2001. I've had a great system since 10.1 came out. On August 24th, I plan to have the most advanced system on the planet. Where have you been?
> We NEED Quartz Extreme, and that is why 99% of > people want Jaguar. Apple knows we all need it, > so they took this chance to charge for it and > rake in the green.
Quartz Extreme is a new technology that takes advantage of a new generation of video hardware. OS X.1.x is about as fast as the older generation of hardware can get. Apple is not ripping you off here. There is no conspiracy or deep exploitation plot going on here. Just a little something called "a new idea to make OS X better".
Besides I imagine more than 1% of those buying Jaguar will be buying it for all the other new and revolutionary technologies it contains.
> Amazon offered a discount, and found that > EVERYONE who would buy Jaguar would buy it from > them.
Not everyone. Certainly not me:
1) I've been burned too many times trying to preorder stuff from Amazon.
2) I'd rather pay full price and reward Apple for a good job.
3) I'd also rather buy local to thank my local retailers. If you don't support them, they go bye-bye.
> We're all pissed off at Apple's high pricing, > but we need Quartz Extreme. Just that. Nothing > else in Jaguar matters to me.
Well, that is your loss, as Jaguar has a lot to offer.
Have you checked to make sure your hardware even supports Quartz Extreme?
> God knows I'm gonna find a way to uninstall > iChat the minute I get Jaguar loaded. I don't > want a chat program, don't force one on me, or > build it into my OS, slowing down my work apps!
Now you are confusing Apple with Microsoft. iApps are easy to uninstall, and the OS doesn't depend on their presence. I don't use iPhoto (don't need it with Photoshop 7) either.
> stealing Watson (thus crippling a third-party > mac vendor), etc.
Sherlock 3 probably went into development the moment Sherlock 2 was released. It may have even been on the drawing board before Sherlock 2 came out. It is my understanding Watson was developed after Sherlock 2's release, copied Sherlock's GUI, derived from Sherlock's name, and used libraries and functionality Sherlock provided on the back end. If that is true, what we have here is an unfortunate coincedence of parallel development , with Watson dependant on Sherlock from the start. Since Watson's reason for existence is to fill in on Sherlock's feature set, their next version should be to see what Sherlock 3 left out, and provide the same sort of complement they provided for Sherlock 2.
> They're copying Microsoft's one true innovation > - their legal department's BS tactics and total > lack of respect for the user base.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that. You are talking about a company that put their people to work overtime, on a weekend, to fix a bad bug in a *free* iApp. Then they offered to pay to have the damage the bug caused fixed. That is how it *should* be, how Microsoft *never* does it.
Yes, their legal department does make a pain of itself. But it frequently is because they have to defend their trademarks, or risk loosing their very valuable brand identity. Apple doesn't make the laws in the US, but it does have to follow them, whether it likes them or not.
Look at your OS X screen. Do you have files on your desktop? Does a menu appear when you click the Apple logo? Those things would be impossible if Apple didn't listen to its customers.
> And they are falling for the BS of putting the > shareholders before the customers, which works > in the short term, but in the long term, > customers are what pay the bills.
Every company with shareholders has a legal obligation to those shareholders in the US. The shareholders own the company, after all. But no company can fulfill that obligation that ignores its customers. I don't know how Apple does in regards to the shareholders (I don't own stock at the moment, though I've been thinking about buying), but as a customer I am very satisfied and happy.
Long term vs. short term: Apple is and has been for the past few years playing for the long term. Every version of OS X, every store opening, every hardware or software advance has been a building block for the future. Apple is very carefully getting itself in position. When the economy surges upward, Apple is going to surge with it. Poor Microsoft won't even know what hit them.;)
> And I don't want to get hooked on > subscriptionware. We have it at work for a CAD > program, and it's a pain in the ass. Give me > good old outright ownership any day of the week.
Fine. Buy an XServe, get a T1 line, get a copy of Web Objects, and set up your own web server with email and the works. You've got outright ownership for a few measly grand (except the T1 line, a monthly charge you probably can't afford). Me, I'd rather pay $8.33 a month, and let Apple worry about supporting the server and paying to hook it up to the internet.
> Apple needs to wake up and become decent people > again.
I think they are decent now. And Apple is night and day different from Microsoft.
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected a charred Apple sapling ("Mosura" 1996). On December 14, 2001, Mothra returned to see its fruit ("Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Ghidora: Daikaiju Soukougeki"). OS X: the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.
> If you're looking for One nation under God, I > suggest that you move to Iran.
Besides, the US is one nation under Godzilla. Or it will be, once the Dreaded God gets done filming "Godzilla X Mechagodzilla" (http://www.godzilla.co.jp/) and notices we are going through with the Yucca Mountain stupidity after he put his foot down on the matter June 14th.
What happened June 14th you ask? Twin earthquakes, one near Yucca Mountain, one in Ibaraki (the region of Japan that Tokai is in). The message is clear: Repeat the stupidity that caused Japan's worst nuclear accident at Tokai, and suffer the same fate.
And to get back on subject, you wouldn't want to put this on a network with Macs once Jaguar gets out. The next time a user goes to print, up comes the list (courtesy of Rendevous):
MIS printer 1 MIS printer 2 Dreamcast Auto-Cracker Accounting printer 1...
Kinda hard to hide, even if it is little and cheap.;)
Sonora:"New Godzilla reading. He's moving inward toward Tokai." Shinoda: "The nuclear plants, I knew it. Sonora: "Afraid so." Yuki: "Well, that's just lovely. Another Chernobyl." "Godzilla 2000" (US version dialog)
> All the features you've described could > theoretically be added to IE by replacing the IE > COM object with one that extends the existing one, > and/or using proxy servers.
Okay, you go explain to the average user what COM objects and proxy servers are. I know, but I'd still rather just select an option from a preferences screen than go to all that trouble. With Mozilla and other browsers I can just do that. So much for Microsoft's much vaunted "ease of use".
> And newsgroup readers really shouldn't be an > integral part of your web browser (note that OE > is a separate program to IE) whatever anyone > claims.
Usenet is a more integral part of the Internet than even the web is. It was there first (I know, I made my first posts back around 1990). If a product called "Internet Explorer" can't explore all of the Internet, what possible good is it?
> so they had to tack everything in they could to > please people.
That's right. Microsoft made Internet Explorer to please Microsoft. The people made Mozilla to please people.
> As for the other features, the fact that no-one > has done it yet indicates that there is very > little demand for these extra features.
If there is so little demand, how come Mozilla and Netscape are gaining market share over IE?
The browser wars are back!
What happens when you embrace and extend Godzilla? Nuclear heartburn! See "Godzilla 2000" (released in Japan as "Godzilla 2000 Millennium") for details.
> The scary thing is that you really do think you > understand why Free is important.
I said I "knew the issues". I never claimed to subscribe to the one, right, and only "understanding" of Free Software (complete with secret handshake and free decoder ring).;)
I'll spell it out for you:
A programmer that is freely choosing to release a totally new piece of software (one with no prior GPL oblligations) under the GPL is making a gift out of a spirit of generousity.
That same programmer who is forced to release his code under the GPL (because Free is the only choice allowed) is performing a meaningless action under duress.
That same programmer who is forced to not release his code under the GPL (because Microsoft conquered the world) is performing a meaningless action under duress.
To me, the freedom of the original programmer is as important as the freedoms of those who maintain or recycle code. To preserve that freedom, a variety of ways to release code (Free or free, open or closed, shareware, etc.) should be maintained so the programmer has that choice. Some choices may be more successful than others (depending on what the programmer deems success), but that is the users' choice.
I also believe in the freedom of humans, not bits.
> Its that sort of "understanding" which has given > us the exact problem of the "Destruction of > Microsoft" crowd that concerns me so much.
Okay, I will admit that over the years I've racked up enough anger at Microsoft that watching Godzilla stomp them flat would have a certain appeal.;)
But what I really want to see stopped is Microsoft's monopolies (since the mean company uses them like a club to batter and bully everyone else), their "competition is a bloody death match" attitude, their mistreatment of OEMs, partners, customers, and just about everybody else, and, of course, their run away bug problem. Knock them down to say, 40 percent of the market, teach them to play nicely and make good products, and I wouldn't mind having them around.
Look at Apple and Sun. They both make UNIX workstations and servers. But they play together so nicely here of late. First Sun helps Apple get a great Java going on OS X. Then Apple comes up with a way to speed up the JVM and gives it to Sun. Now Apple has volunteered to help the Open Office project port to OS X and Sun is complimenting Apple on how nicely they do GUIs. See, that is how it should be. Both companies still sell their hardware, and the product of their cooperation benefits everyone.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are." Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
> Free software doesn't go away. As long as the > source code is out there and people have an active > interest in it, marketshare is an extraneous issue
Just how many people are going to have an active interest in it, if it won't run on new hardware or is illegal to own, refer to, or use?
Microsoft creates the specs for PC hardware, which others build. Microsoft spent three times the amount on campaign contributions in 2000 than Enron did. If you have paid any attention to any of the ravings of their various VPs over the last couple years, you'd know they hate the GPL with a fiery passion (words like "cancer" and "unAmerican" come to mind).
I'm not saying Microsoft is going to succeed. But you are going to have a fight on your hands. Don't just assume that free software will always be safe, or you risk loosing your cherished freedom.
Don't let this happen:
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world. And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it." Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
> The majority of you have never known a day of > hardship, want, hunger..never wondered if the cold > was going to kill you at 3 in the morning because > you didn't have a roof overhead, etc.
Perhaps not. But that doesn't mean that one cannot be compassionate, uphold ideals, or stand up to tyrants.
Then again, I don't see the fat, greedy sharks you are so eager to defend, being all that needy either.
> And yet you whine like little bitches about the > DCMA and the MPAA like you're so fucking > oppressed.
Do you own a Sharpie felt tip pen? Under the DMCA, it is an illegal copyright circumvention device. Welcome to your jail cell, and enjoy that oppressed feeling.
The DMCA is a ridiculous law that turns innocent citizens into criminals. It is the act of copyright violation (say selling a thousand pirated copies of a CD) that should be punished, not the owning of felt tip pens, or the producing of software so the blind can read eBooks.
> The majority of your bitching, ESPECIALLY when > it comes to the RIAA, has nothing to do with > free speech or human rights, it has to do with > you being pissed that someone out their is > making you pay for something.
Some Slashdotters may be that way. As for me, I paid $60 for a legal copy of a 2 disk Japanese soundtrack (and boy have I gotten my money's worth!). What I hate about the RIAA is that my money for a CD would go to greedy sharks, not to the hardworking artists, who those sharks want to make wage slaves out of (and if they could, would not pay at all). It is the artists who should hold the copyrights, and the artists who should get the lion's share of the profits.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming." From the song "Infant Girl" in the Japanese version of Mothra (1961).
> He shouldn't put himself in legal trouble. That > just more money that lawyers are able to pocket.
It's called civil disobedience. By publicly violating the law and accepting the consequences (arrest, trial, possible jail time), he would have painted a much more vivid picture for the people on just how unfair and stupid this law is. If he was really careful on how he did it, he might have created just the test case that is needed to get the DMCA declared unconstitutional.
> Just post it up everywhere on those free web > hosting services, and just get Google to cache > it. There, the cat's out of the box and the > lawyers have no one to go after. Everyone wins.
You are missing the point by several light years. This isn't about the thing he was going to present. It is about protesting, and possibly stopping, a stupid and unjust law.
Besides, if he did as you suggest, the law might still catch up to him, more privately. If it didn't, it could still take Google and the free web hosting service to court for DMCA violations.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." "Mosura", 1961
> It isn't about destroying Microsoft! Think about > it; we destroy Microsoft and replace them with > Apple. Another closed system!
Apple is no longer a closed system. They have a proprietary GUI, true, but how is that different from a Linux distributor bundling in their proprietary software? The core of the OS, Darwin, is open source, BSD license. But from the way they treat it, you'd think they thought it was GPLed (actually, there is a GNU-Darwin too, if you'd rather run that). Apple has gotten open enough hardware wise that you can take the FAT32 drive from your PC and put it in a G4 tower, and the Mac can read it.
Also, I highly doubt anyone (not even Apple) intends for Apple to take over Microsoft's monopoly. Apple is meant to show you Linux types how to get to the desktop, and give you time to get there. As long as Apple+Linux+others gets over 50% of the desktop, and Microsoft gets a life, I will be happy.
> All we will have done is swapped the "Microsoft > Tax" and all that comes with it, for an "Apple > Tax", and the same all over again (See.mac Say > no more).
The "Microsoft Tax" refers to paying for Windows on a new PC that you want to run Linux on. Apple throws their OS on a new Mac for free. You pay for the hardware you get, and if you want to run Linux on it, Apple doesn't mind at all.
> Free Software is about having freedom; the > freedom to use your software as you see fit, and > the freedom to modify that software to fit your > needs. Its not about destroying commericalism, > simply because you think they have too much > money.
If Microsoft has their way, you won't have the freedom to use or modify your software as you see fit. You won't even have the freedom to choose Free Software. This isn't about commercialism, it is about keeping a company from becoming the absolute ruler of all computers. You want freedom? Destroy or at least weaken the tyrant that wants to take it away!
> That would simply be a secondary, a side effect, > if you will.
We don't have time for side effects. If Microsoft had their way, the GPL would be gone tomorrow. Get on the desktop, get in the trenches, and start fighting for your freedom now!
> So yes, take a Macintosh user out to lunch; and > then try to get them to understand the issues > surrounding the use of Free software.
This was written on a G4 iMac running OS X, using Mozilla. Emacs was running in the background (I've been an Emacs user since 1990 when I first read the GPL).
Some of us know the issues surrounding the use of Free and Open Source software far better than you think.
Godzilla 2000, the Dreaded God! The battle for Earth's future has begun! The future Millenium threatens. (From my lyrics to Godzilla's theme from "Godzilla 2000 Millenium")
> Airborne lasers can kill anyone they want! > Airborne lasers kill people ALL the time and don't > even think twice about it.
And you, of course, have absolutely no compassion for any innocents they (and their pilots) kill or blind? If an airborne laser was used to take down a terrorist hijacked plane in your vicinity (one of the more benign uses I could think of), you wouldn't mind being one of the thousands in your city blinded?
> I heard that there was this airborne laser who > was flying around in the sky. And when some bird > crapped on it the airborne laser killed the > whole flock.
If you read the article, you'd realize they are not allowed to start flying around until 2015. They do need to be built first, you know.
> My friend Mark said that he saw an airborne > laser totally evaporate some dog just because > the dog opened a window.
I don't think your friend Mark was entirely truthful with you. I mean, the DOG opened a window?!?
Besides, the last time Mothra caught someone trying to kill a dog ("Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monster All-out Attack"), she saved the dog and drowned them. I don't think an airborne laser ought to go there.
> And that's what I call REAL Ultimate > Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What I call real ultimate power is when Armored Mothra sliced and diced the King of Terror before kicking his can for him. A 30 centimeter laser doesn't even come close to a nuke.
> If you don't believe that airborne lasers have > REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right > now or they will chop your head off!!!
Gee, airborne lasers are so immature!;)
Besides, a 30 centimeter diameter beam is not precise enough to chop a human's head off.
> Q: I heard that airborne lasers are always cruel > or mean. What's their problem? > A: Whoever told you that is a total liar. Just > like other lasers, airborne lasers can be mean > OR totally awesome.
A surgical laser can at least heal a person. A 30 centimeter airborne laser can only kill or maim ( equals "be mean"). They are only awesome in a Godzilla movie, which is where they should stay.
> (Ask Mark if you don't believe me.)
Sorry, Mark already proved unreliable on the dog issue.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity." "Mosura", 1961
Slashdot Mirror
BJH wrote:
> One theory says that the name came from "gorilla"
> + "kujira" (=whale), but that was thought up after
> the fact.
According to the textbook "A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla(tm) Series" by David Kalat, the initial idea for Godzilla started out being a mutated octopus. Then it was designated simply with the letter "G" for giant. Finally, the name "Gojira" (derived as you said) was suggested to Tomoyuki Tanaka (the G producer from 1954-1995) and he approved it. Before the fact.
The mutated octopus did get to guest star in "King Kong vs. Godzilla", but only in a minor role. The actor (a real octopus in a tank) was eaten after his performance.
> The real origin of the name is the "Gojira"
> legend from Otojima, an island near Japan.
Yee, do you ever have that mangled! The island's name was "Oo too" ("Oo shima" on modern maps, "oo" means a long "o") English name would be "Big Island". The island is part of Japan, and the gatekeeper to the Sagami Sea. Godzilla has to pass it on the way to Tokyo Bay. Mount Mihara, in which Godzilla was imprisoned from 1984 to 1989, is located on the island.
The Gojira legend was in the movie "Gojira". I don't know if that part was based on reality (except for the "exorcism" appearing to be a Shinto ceremony). However, the Japanese religion of Shito does have a god of fire whose birth destroyed his mother. That god's name is Kagu-tsuchi. In "Mothra vs. Godzilla", the Infant Island chieftain refered to the hydrogen bomb a "godly fire".
Kagu-tsuchi has a younger half sister, the goddess of the sun born of the sea, who taught her people how to cultivate rice and weave silk (created from the cocoons of the silk moth), Queen of the gods, to whom the Japanese people pray yearly for peace and happiness: Amaterasu omi kami => Mothra.
He also has an even younger half brother, the chaotic god of storms, thrower of temper tantrums, associated with multi-headed dragons, causer of grief to his big sister: Susa no oo => King Ghidora.
If you've ever been to one in Japan (or read about them in G-fan), you'd know that when Toho puts on a display of Godzilla props in a department store in Japan, an essential ingredient, the first exhibit, is almost always a small Shinto shrine to the Dreaded God of the atom: Godzilla.
Yes, Virginia. There is a real Godzilla. There is a real King Ghidora. But thankfully, there is also a very real Mothra!
"Compassionate Sun, Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra!"
Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
mpe wrote:
(that endoboy wrote:)
>> mothra will protect us.
> "Mothra" describes that the chracter is based on a
> moth.
Indeed. The name originates from "mosu" (Japanese mangling of English "moth") plus "lah" (Malaysian particle for emphasis, rendered in Japanese and English as "ra").
> Is the name "Godzilla" entirely made up or does
> it actually mean something.
It's actually the nickname of a crew member of the original Godzilla movie. "Go" comes from the English "gorilla". "Jira" is from the Japanese word for "whale". "Jira" is rendered in the English title as "dzilla". "Zilla" is imitative of their trademark, but since Godzilla's name in Japanese is not "Gozira", I'm not sure how much grounds they have. I'm also not sure if either the Japanese or American versions of the movie "Gojira" have entered the public domain yet, as some Godzilla movies have.
Appealing to Mothra is quite correct. She has as long a history of hating this type of behavior as Toho has of practicing it. As GMK once again proved, the Godzilla series is dependant on her for its survival. Since Toho bases its monsters on real deities (Mothra is based on Amaterasu omi kami, Japan's great Sun Goddess), one may have some expectation of getting some help out of them. Godzilla himself might be of some help, since he has recently been giving nods to open source in his movies.
Time to sing some Mothra songs.
"Compassionate Sun, Sun Goddess, Great Mothra! Great Mothra! Mothra!"
Japanese language "Mothra's Song", "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep"
An AC wrote:
n ium/mgoals.html
.Net, Palladium, SQL Server as the file system in Longhorn, all pave the way for Microsoft's Millenium.
(That another AC wrote:)
>> You can't really know what a program is *doing*
>> if you can't see its source.
> What a bunch of bullshit propoganda. You are no
> better than Microsoft. 99.9% of computer users
> wouldn't know what the program was doing if they
> did see the source. They are relying on losers
> like you to convince that a program is free of
> trojans and spyware. Why would anybody trust you
> when you are an obvious zealot.
Governments have security departments (like the FBI, CIA, etc.). These departments have their own computer specialists who would be the ones looking at the code (and if you want to call an employee of the CIA a "loser", you better hope the CIA is not monitoring Slashdot). I don't think the code would absolutely have to be open source, but governmental auditors should have access to the source so they can verify that the program does not present a risk to national security. Of course there should be measures (NDAs?) to prevent the government auditor from quitting their job and using the information they gleaned from a product they audited to start their own company and profit from it.
Windows XP is a product that should *not* (IMHO) be used by governments (or any sensitive uses such as some research, hospital critical care, etc.) because of recent changes to its EULA. The changes pretty much stipulate that Microsoft can change anything on the computer running Windows XP, and if it breaks something, tough. No government with any sense will let a private company in another country, a country they might be at war with sometime in the future, to dictate the contents of their computers or make any changes they want. There are plenty of non-governmental uses of computers where the software and contents of the hard drive have to be under the strict control of the owners and users of the computer.
And no one wants to wake up to a Millenium prompt (http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Millen
see "What would such a system be like?") to find that their computer has been sucked into a private distributed network, especially a government. After all, Millenium may have reallocated all of the US government's top secret documents to a hard drive in mainland China. Or perhaps Iraq...
Sound like science fiction? Only a research project? Perhaps. But the distributed net that came with Kazaa is fact. The XP EULA changes,
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
tajan wrote:
...
;).
> Well, Steve Job is also Chairman & CEO of Pixar
> Animation Studios, which has an exclusive Feature
> Film Agreement and Co-Production Agreement with
> Disney for at least its next three motion
> pictures. And Disney is a major member of the
> MPAA. So
Yes, and Jobs and Disney are not getting along. Pixar wants to break new ground and explore new territory. Disney wants cookie cutter sequels of Toy Story to rake in the dough. Things between them are so bad that Eisner, Disney's president, actually called Apple's "Rip, Mix, and Burn" campaign the promotion of piracy, in front of a Senate committee.
Pixar isn't a movie studio, with all the associated distribution channels. It is a 3D animation studio. It only does CGI.
Jobs has already come out against the RIAA's mad schemes at the Grammys. The article is right: this is a fight for Apple's survival (and the computer industry's). It is Jobs job to defend Apple.
Where Apple goes, the industry follows. After Jobs speech at the Grammys, Gateway joined in on the "Rip, Mix, and Burn" refrain. If Apple spoke up, they wouldn't stand alone for long.
Of course, Apple wouldn't stand alone at all. Its two biggest fans would certainly be with them on this one, especially since one has hated Hollywood for all of her forty-one years (something about her fairies being captured and her people massacred
"No one's going to die, mister. Mothra's going to come and save us."
Taiki Goto, "Mothra", December 14, 1996
(Released in Japan days before Apple's surprise announcement of the return of Steve Jobs.
Mothra and Godzilla are both big Mac fans, since at least 1993.)
An AC wrote:
;)
...) => Microsoft.
> Get real... corporations need to make money. They
> PAY all of us honest hard-working folk. I don't
> know why all of you *NIX folks are so anti-MS,
Yes, corporations need to make money. But they don't need to engage in terror marketing, bullying, and above all, breaking the law (of which Microsoft has been found guilty in a court of law).
> so anti-AOL,
My main beef with AOL/TW is the Time Warner part of the equation. The portion of that that participates in the movie and music industries follows the time honored tradition of greedy sharks that enslave the artists, and milk and now criminalize its customers.
> anti-corp...
I can't speak for the rest of Slashdot, but I'm not personally against corporations per se. I love Apple. As I see it, a corporation has these duties:
1) To the shareholders: to make money to make a good return on their investment. Shareholders own the company.
2) To the employees: to treat them fairly and try to keep ye old paycheck from bouncing. Without employees, the corporation can't do much.
3) To the customers: to offer good products, good prices, and good service. Customers are golden, without them, the corporation doesn't make money. They are expensive to replace, so every reasonable, fair, and law-abiding effort should be made to keep them, and keep them happy, so they come back for more.
4) To their community: the corporation must obey all laws and pay all taxes. It is good PR to do some charitable work.
> Without the MSes of the world, where would
> modern home computing be today?
There was home computing before Microsoft. Do Apple and Commodore ring a bell? There would be a much freer market with far more choices. After all, most of our choices were killed off by Microsoft.
Then a funny thing happened. Many people got fed up with Microsoft's evil ways, and so many of those choices are suddenly back. And they brought new friends...
> Corps are greedy and out to make money, period.
There is nothing wrong with being "out to make money", if the customer feels they got their money's worth. My idea of a greedy corporation is one that takes without giving back value. Microsoft's "unearned income" is a good example. That is money they exhorted out of their customers for stuff they had already paid for (their lovely new licensing scheme).
Prosperous corporation with happy stockholders, happy employees, satisfied customers and proud community => good.
Greedy corporation with unhappy stockholders (somebody's not paying dividends and the stock is down), unhappy employees (now what are those stock options worth?), mad customers (you want me to pay another $$$ to keep this buggy piece of BSOD working?!?), and irate community (doesn't pay income tax, doesn't bother with laws,
> If you want a centralized, free-everything
> society, ask the folks in Russia how communism
> worked out for them.
The free-everything folk bug me too, especially the Mac ones. I've gotten very tired of trying to explain that charging fair prices for good products does not make Apple evil.
> so don't come crying when the feds bust MS down
> so bad that they fold it up and move abroad and
> you lose your job.
The feds probably won't bust Microsoft. Nope, Microsoft's greatest foe is their own much-abused customers. The tide has turned against them; the market demands competition. Conveniently, the compitition is rising from the dead and coming out of the woodwork.
Microsoft can be easily broken up, without the governments help. Just let Microsoft make their customers mad enough to leave, and call the pieces "Apple", "Linux", "Mozilla", "Corel", etc.
Godzilla 2000, the Dreaded God! The battle for Earth's future has begun!
The future Millenium threatens.
Godzilla cannot be assimilated. By Millenium who would embrace, extend!
(From my lyrics to Godzilla's theme from "Godzilla 2000 Millennium")
I tried the thoughtcrime.org test with the browsers I keep around under OS X. Here are my results:
Mozilla 1.0: passed (the others are right, the error message could be more user friendly, but it worked)
Chimera 0.4.0: failed (no SSL options in Preferences, also an early version without many features)
Omniweb 4.1 (v422): failed (SSL options in Preferences)
iCab Preview 2.8.1: failed (no SSL options in Preferences)
By "failed", I mean displayed the web page with no error messages (which I presume is the test). Some of those that failed don't appear to provide SSL support in the first place.
OmniWeb doesn't have much excuse though, it appears to have SSL support, and it is not a beta.
It's beginning to look like Mozilla is the only one on the ball here.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
Oh, dearie me, what shall we do with half our government in jail for illegal file sharing? ;)
m ai n/0,14179,2874687,00.html
;)
ZDNet posted an interesting opinion piece back in July about how we should quit using P2P now that the Senate has. Check it out here:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/
The part that interested me most was this quote:
>> The Senate, which is now crafting legislation
>> that would further restrict the illegal sharing
>> of copyrighted works over networks, was
>> apparently a hotbed of illegal file sharing and
>> other peer-to-peer (P2P) networking activity.
>>
>> Last week, the Senate Sergeant at Arms clamped
>> down, and cut off all P2P networking within the
>> Senate. The reason? Such networking practices
>> were a security risk, and they were being used
>> to violate copyright laws.
As they say, "our tax money at work". The senators involved (it does not name names, but gives the idea that such activities were widespread) were not only breaking the law, they were using our tax money to do it. If you check the various news stories, at least two movies were illegally downloaded and watched by the senators during Senate hearings on legislation such as the Hollings bill. One of the videos was pirated by a senator, the other by the President of Disney.
If these congresspersons are correct (some of the ones asking for the FBI's "help" were senators), shouldn't the FBI take care of the most widely publicized cases first, the ones with easy proof, that involved public money?
After all, they are the ones who think this is such a henious crime that we have to pull the FBI off of child kidnapping cases and the "War on Terror" to deal with it.
Me, I think the FBI has better things to do than bother with people sampling music before a purchase and freeloading kids who wouldn't or couldn't pay for a CD anyway. But then our senators are the ones with all the file-sharing experience, not little old me. Surely they know better.
"Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
Torahata "Mothra vs. Godzilla"
Ratface wrote:
:b
:)
> The RIAA are quickly making their way to the top
> of the hate list for any free thinking individual.
The American recording and movie industries were on the top of Mothra's hate list 41 years ago. Of course you might not know that, because Hollywood censored out her more thundering condemnations when they brought her first movie to America. In retaliation, Mothra swiped the yacht of an "American film producer" in 1966 and gave it, as a "gift from the gods", to a small group of people and sent them to rescue her people being kept as slaves by a group of terrorists. Darn, they censored that part out too.
> Does anyone know whether their appeal opens up
> the possibility for other groups to argue that
> the rates are too high??
There is a bill before Congress now, the "Internet Radio Fairness Act", that would address that problem. Support that.
> I have such difficulty imagining what the
> high-ups at RIAA are thinking. Crushing
> diversity and turning broadcasters against them
> isn't going to help even them one single bit.
They are greedy sharks on a feeding frenzy. Thinking about the future isn't their strong suit. Crushing any perceived threat and milking the artists and public for all they are worth is about the most thinking they can manage.
> The only option right now is for brave
> broadcasters to practise civil disobedience and
> find ways to continue broadcasting.
You sure do know Mothra's ways of non-violence!
The problem is, we need to replace the whole greedy recording industry with a set of small businesses that serve the artists by providing recording services, CD preproducting services, and web services. Put the artists in the driver's seat controlling their own songs, and use the independent record stores and internet broadcasters to get the music to the public. Let the public decide what it likes. One should be able to do all of that with reasonable priced CDs, everyone making a nice little profit and the artists still getting more than they do now.
That isn't going to work, unless the artists do a bit of civil disobedience on their own. They are going to have to leave the illusionary security of the record labels and take control of their own songs and their own careers. Instead of bankrupting themselves in slavery to a label in the false hope of becoming the rare multi-million dollar star, they are going to have to stand on their own, and settle for the rewarding hobby, nice income or very nice income their talent and the public's interest affords them. But they will at least be able to sing their songs or play their music anytime they want to without some record exec slapping them with a lawsuit for copyright violation and breach of contract.
> Support your favourite internet radio station!
And those artists already brave enough to take control of their own music!
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song Hollywood was too chicken to let you hear: "Infant Girl" from the Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961).
This shocked me when I read it, but it does make sense. Read:
, 00 .html
:(
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,54332
Basically, the US Congress wants, is counting on, proceeds from the sale of digital spectrum. They need it to balance the budget in 2006. That is the only reason they dictated the move to DTV in 2006 in the first place.
Every other story on Slashdot about draconian measures put on DTV (even that bane of the computer industry, the Hollings bill) is the result of the MPAA's panic over their loss of control over their content. It seems Congress neglected to ask their permission to switch the country over to all digital. Of course they want to place the responsibility, cost, and burden of maintaining that control on everybody else (cable operators, broadcasters, manufacturers and the end user). The FCC is struggling under a barrage of conflicting requirements, and is expected to miraculously sort it all out by 2006 to everyone's satisfaction.
So when 2006 rolls around, either we have DTV with all sorts of draconian restrictions that the US citizens will hate (causing the great Couch-Potato Riots of 2006), or the US Congress will have a massive budgetary shortfall that may make them unable to run the country.
Boy, I'm looking forward to that almost as much as I did Y2K.
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra!
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
An AC wrote:
.NET is a beautiful thing. It's Java with
.NET is also great news for users of non-Windows
.Mac? ;)
.NET class library and
> But
> Microsoft's blessing.
Wow! After years of trying to destroy Java, Microsoft has created a Java knock off as its way of "blessing" Java. I'm sure Sun is just thrilled.
> but let's face it folks: Microsoft can take this
> concept much farther than Sun ever could, and it
> will use its OS monopoly to do so.
Then why can't Microsoft make the best desktop version of Java. That honor (and so much more) goes to Apple, not Microsoft. Microsoft couldn't even play nicely with Java, so Sun took it away and now Microsoft has to make imitation Java to run its Millenium on.
>
> platforms.
Why would we want that nasty old vaporware when we can have
> Visual Studio is now Visual Studio.NET. All the
> i386 binaries and Win32 calls in your standard
> Windows application will be replaced with
> bytecode and
> Windows.Forms calls.
Which is why the development system for business for the next 5 years will be Visual Studio 6.0. Look around, companies can barely stay afloat. When are they going to have the money and time to rewrite all their inhouse apps or retrain their people?
> This is a good thing for Linux users. This is a
> good thing for Mac users. This is a good thing
> for everyone.
And when the "Millenium" boot screen appears, call Godzilla and run for the hills!
> If MS sees mono as a threat, they could pull out
> the lawyers, I admit. But I believe that mono
> will ultimately prevail.
If MS pulls out the lawyers, you are sunk. If they don't, you will be helping them acheive even more market dominance, and destroying the independence that Linux and Mac have mostly enjoyed.
> Just don't badmouth the ability to eventually
> run Visual Studio.NET under UNIX with Mono.
> That's nothing to laugh at.
No, you are right, Mono isn't funny. It is pretty sad though, that bright Linux developers would go help Linux's greatest enemy defeat it.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
medcalf writes:
> I do not understand the difficulty that some
> people have defining terrorism. Terrorism is the
> deliberate killing or injuring (or attempted
> killing or injuring) of non-combatants in order to
> further a political goal. (Note that all military
> goals are political.)
That is a very narrow definition. "Deliberate killing or injuring" is just the means some use to achieve a state of terror. "Political" is just one kind of goal. The important part of the definition, the one you leave out, is the word "terror".
Simply put, "terrorism" is the use of terror. Period.
Al Quada used airplanes as bombs to induce terror on 9/11.
A certain government has been using fear of what the Al Quada might do to induce terror to take away the constitutional rights and freedoms of its citizens since 9/11.
Microsoft has been using fear of an audit to do terror marketing before and after 9/11.
My compassion for the unfortunate victims of one form of terror does not lessen my compassion for the victims of other forms of terror. Terror is terror. It is a form of cruelty and base bullying. It is beyond belief and beneath contempt that anyone would use the fear of others (let alone the suffering and death of others) to achieve their selfish ends. For the oppressed, I do have compassion, but there are better ways than murder. For the rest, grow up!
For those who want to stop the reign of the King of Terror:
"Lola, kindness is not enough, look for the reason of hatred and anger. When you find and understand that, love becomes the strongest power..." Belabera "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"
An AC wrote:
:(
> Has anyone really tried to determine how
> effective junk snail mail is? I have a hard time
> believing that there is much return on investment
> for junk snail mail.
Unless it is a huge mailing and you are a big name, respected company, it probably isn't effective. The most effective would be from stores about their sales, if they include coupons. I have a friend who had a small business and did a small, very targeted mailing. It really wasn't worth the cost to mail it, let alone the price of the list of names.
> Another form of advertising that sucks is
> adverts for popcorn and coke at a movie theatre.
> Why do they do that? How effective could it
> possibly be?
That is to get you to the snack bar, and it probably really pays off in increasing the theatre's profits. Then again, it only costs them what it takes to actually produce the ad, and it may be the chain, not the individual theatre, that produces the ad.
For the most part though, advertising is a big racket. I tried it with my company a couple years ago, and it was money down the drain.
What really works, on and off the internet, is press releases. If you have a story to tell about your company, some news that people would want to read about, you write a press release. Mind you, it has to be real news, any stupid advertisement is going to get trashed by a competent editor. You can then fax that to various newspapers and submit it to news web sites.
A Slashdot story submission is an informal sort of press release (for "news for nerds, stuff that matters"). Does it drive real traffic? Witness the Slashdot Effect! Any company that has news of *real* interest to slashdotters that either wants to sell us something, or get our traffic, would be far better off submitting that cool story to Slashdot than paying for all those popup ads.
So if press releases are so great, why doesn't AOL ditch popup ads entirely? Because anyone can write a press release (that can actually write well that is). There is no money to be made, unlike popup ads. Unfortunately, AOL and everyone else in business today seems to have forgotten that they are in business to sell to or provide a service to their customers. Annoy those customers, send them away, and you are out of business.
That is, if you are lucky enough to get customers in the first place. That isn't even a certainty in the business world.
"Really, gentlemen, if that's the case, let's see the power of attorney given to you by Mothra."
Torahata "Mothra vs. Godzilla"
jaymz168 writes:
0 1/ jaguar.html).
;)
;)
> I love how Mac users think that because their new
> OS is 'based' on Unix it gives them some kinda
> Slashdot street cred.
Actually, it's the FreeBSD 4.4 and GCC 3.1 in Jaguar that would give us that
(http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/08/
And remember, unlike a cute, friendly penguin, a Jaguar can kill a Longhorn. Crunchy!
Windows: "Go talk to my friend, an 800 pound monopoly-abusing gorilla!"
Mac: "And here's my good buddy, the 66,000 ton Godzilla!"
Godzilla: Stomp!
cyberlotnet wrote:
n /Millenni um/mgoals.html
o k under "Previous Projects".)
> Heres a good example..
>
> A year from now Microsoft releases Windows Media
> 99x and Announces that its totally incompatible
> with any other media player, So they AUTO
> UPGRADE YOUR MACHINE MY REMOVING ALL OTHER MEDIA
> PLAYERS BUT THERES...
>
> Now while this example may seem beyond realistic
> at this point in time.. THIS IS THE POWER THAT
> THERE EULA GRANTS THEM..
That's an example, supported by the Media Player EULA and the MSN EULA. But it doesn't go nearly far enough.
Remember Kazaa and the distributed net they created on their user's machines? Remember Juno and others who have played the same game? Those were small time trial runs. Microsoft has intended to do their own distributed net, Millenium, for years.
Read:
http://research.microsoft.com/research/s
(Especially "What would such a system be like?")
http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/
(Lo
In the Japanese movie "Godzilla 2000 Millenium" are two scenes that are very disturbing. They were removed from the American version ("Godzilla 2000") by a supposedly clueless distributor. Toho had apparently gotten wind of Microsoft's research project and decided to make it into a villainous monster alien (seeing as how Toho and Godzilla love Macs).
Scene 1: Shinoda (head of the Godzilla Prediction Network and our hero/Mac user) had just finished getting information about the alien from three heroic open source MAME servers. He prepares to leave, and turns back to the computer monitors, just in time to see the Millenium boot screen appear on all of them.
Scene 2: Katagiri (head of the CCI and our human villain/Windows user) has just set off his bombs in an attempt to destroy the alien. Unscratched and unimpressed, the alien causes every computer monitor and television screen to display these words in multiple languages:
"Earth... Destroy... Erase... Suppression... Dominate... Terror... Prosperity... Oppulence... Oppression... Revolution... Kingdom"
Then the alien blasts the skyscraper it is perched on to bits. At that point there is only one power that can stop it: Godzilla.
Don't let Microsoft get to that point in the real world.
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
Pedersen wrote:
> Once Linux satisfies my video editing needs, all
> Windows partitions are gone. Hmmm, maybe it's time
> for me to start researching that a bit better.
The best (and now probably the cheapest) digital video editing system I ever used was iMovie 2 on a Snow iMac. You can pick a 500mhz (the same one I have) one up on EBay these days for a bit over $200. Use that for video editing, and blow away those Windows partitions. That way you can have the little iMac's hard drive dedicated to video editing, and still have your entire PC hard drive for Linux. If the iMac has OS 9 on it, and you want to use as much open source as possible, later versions of iMovie will work with OS X.
Just a suggestion.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
An AC wrote:
;)
> Isn't the Apple motto:
>
> "Just let us do the thinking"
Nope. It's "Think Different" and "Easier on a Mac".
> Mac users seem to enjoy being told what to do.
I don't. If I did, I'd sign up on the good ship Millenium captained by Bill Gates. (Which is due to be sunk by Godzilla any day now.
> When Steve Jobs says Jump, they ask how high
> shall I jump. In this case its off the sinking
> ship known as Mac OS 9.x
Nope. Steve has just wisely decided to keep Apple afloat by supporting only newer OS's for newer hardware. OS 9 will continue to happily run on your existing hardware (which you don't have to pay a dime to Apple to keep and keep running) until your existing hardware stops running.
If OS 9 is what you need or prefer, I wish you joy of it, and I'll try not to get too much dust in your eye as I race past in my new Jaguar. If you plan on keeping OS 9 for much longer, I'd suggest the purchase of some driving goggles, though.
> I wonder if he will prevent booting to Debian
> while he's there.
I have a suspicion that Debian will run on Macs longer than it will run on PCs. You might want to check with Microsoft on the details of Palladium's boot sequence.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
An AC (Matt) wrote:
.mac,
.mac goes for the 100mb of web space, backup and antivirus software, and web services. I know one company, Hostway, that will charge you more a month ($8.95/mo Hostway, vs. Apple's $8.33/mo) for a mere 5mb of web space.
;)
;)
> No, you PAY for the iApps,
Nope, usually free with new hardware, or free downloads. Occasionally Apple has charged for them, but even then it is less than $50.
> with
The money you pay for
> and you PAY for the OS.
Of course you pay for an OS that took millions of dollars to develope and millions more to upgrade. Especially with an OS that is far beyond Microsoft's next 2-5 years of vaporware. Then again, you pay for a lot of things of value, especially when they are in a store in a box with a price tag on it. That even goes for boxed sets of Linux OS and software.
> And you PAY for the hardware,
Um, yeah. Name one place that gives you free computers.
> more than you would for x86 hardware of greater
> value,
That is seriously debatable. X86 hardware is of far lesser quality. I don't care if they put a 15 gigahertz sticker on a PC, if my G4 800 megahertz iMac out runs it, it is still slower. Apple's industrial design is so much better that it is a comparison between fresh Apples and fresh cow pies.
The problem stems from one source: Microsoft. Every year, Microsoft sets the specs for the PC world. Aside from the color of the case (and warps in its shape), the individual makers have little to no leeway in innovating the hardware. Fortunately, Microsoft does have one source of innovation: copying Apple.
> and you PAY more for the same apps Windows users
> get.
Get what? Get for free?!? I would hardly dignify with the term "application" the crap that Microsoft bundles with Windows and forces down the user's throat.
If you mean apps the Windows user pays for, most applications are the same price regardless of platform.
There is one exception: Microsoft's Office X is more expensive than Office XP Standard. Feel free to complain about that one: to Microsoft.
> And you PAY shipping since you have to order
> them all online, since no stores carry mac
> stuff.
That is so not true. Here in St. Louis Missouri (in the midwest US) you can at least get boxed versions of OS X at CompUSA. We have a Mac Store, which if you can get a sales person who is actually interested in selling something, you can actually buy some stuff there. Next month we should be getting our own Apple Store (woo hoo!).
I've never had to resort to mail order for an Apple OS upgrade. In fact I plan to get Jaguar at a local store to thank them for carrying Mac stuff.
> And Apple's OS X performance is sluggish on most
> computers,
It might be a wee bit on my older Macs, but I don't really notice it on my G4 iMac.
> which is why people want Jaguar. They want what
> they were promised in the beginning. A useable
> system.
Sorry, but I've had a beautiful, usable system since March 24, 2001. I've had a great system since 10.1 came out. On August 24th, I plan to have the most advanced system on the planet. Where have you been?
> We NEED Quartz Extreme, and that is why 99% of
> people want Jaguar. Apple knows we all need it,
> so they took this chance to charge for it and
> rake in the green.
Quartz Extreme is a new technology that takes advantage of a new generation of video hardware. OS X.1.x is about as fast as the older generation of hardware can get. Apple is not ripping you off here. There is no conspiracy or deep exploitation plot going on here. Just a little something called "a new idea to make OS X better".
Besides I imagine more than 1% of those buying Jaguar will be buying it for all the other new and revolutionary technologies it contains.
> Amazon offered a discount, and found that
> EVERYONE who would buy Jaguar would buy it from
> them.
Not everyone. Certainly not me:
1) I've been burned too many times trying to preorder stuff from Amazon.
2) I'd rather pay full price and reward Apple for a good job.
3) I'd also rather buy local to thank my local retailers. If you don't support them, they go bye-bye.
> We're all pissed off at Apple's high pricing,
> but we need Quartz Extreme. Just that. Nothing
> else in Jaguar matters to me.
Well, that is your loss, as Jaguar has a lot to offer.
Have you checked to make sure your hardware even supports Quartz Extreme?
> God knows I'm gonna find a way to uninstall
> iChat the minute I get Jaguar loaded. I don't
> want a chat program, don't force one on me, or
> build it into my OS, slowing down my work apps!
Now you are confusing Apple with Microsoft. iApps are easy to uninstall, and the OS doesn't depend on their presence. I don't use iPhoto (don't need it with Photoshop 7) either.
> stealing Watson (thus crippling a third-party
> mac vendor), etc.
Sherlock 3 probably went into development the moment Sherlock 2 was released. It may have even been on the drawing board before Sherlock 2 came out. It is my understanding Watson was developed after Sherlock 2's release, copied Sherlock's GUI, derived from Sherlock's name, and used libraries and functionality Sherlock provided on the back end. If that is true, what we have here is an unfortunate coincedence of parallel development , with Watson dependant on Sherlock from the start. Since Watson's reason for existence is to fill in on Sherlock's feature set, their next version should be to see what Sherlock 3 left out, and provide the same sort of complement they provided for Sherlock 2.
> They're copying Microsoft's one true innovation
> - their legal department's BS tactics and total
> lack of respect for the user base.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that. You are talking about a company that put their people to work overtime, on a weekend, to fix a bad bug in a *free* iApp. Then they offered to pay to have the damage the bug caused fixed. That is how it *should* be, how Microsoft *never* does it.
Yes, their legal department does make a pain of itself. But it frequently is because they have to defend their trademarks, or risk loosing their very valuable brand identity. Apple doesn't make the laws in the US, but it does have to follow them, whether it likes them or not.
Look at your OS X screen. Do you have files on your desktop? Does a menu appear when you click the Apple logo? Those things would be impossible if Apple didn't listen to its customers.
> And they are falling for the BS of putting the
> shareholders before the customers, which works
> in the short term, but in the long term,
> customers are what pay the bills.
Every company with shareholders has a legal obligation to those shareholders in the US. The shareholders own the company, after all. But no company can fulfill that obligation that ignores its customers. I don't know how Apple does in regards to the shareholders (I don't own stock at the moment, though I've been thinking about buying), but as a customer I am very satisfied and happy.
Long term vs. short term: Apple is and has been for the past few years playing for the long term. Every version of OS X, every store opening, every hardware or software advance has been a building block for the future. Apple is very carefully getting itself in position. When the economy surges upward, Apple is going to surge with it. Poor Microsoft won't even know what hit them.
> And I don't want to get hooked on
> subscriptionware. We have it at work for a CAD
> program, and it's a pain in the ass. Give me
> good old outright ownership any day of the week.
Fine. Buy an XServe, get a T1 line, get a copy of Web Objects, and set up your own web server with email and the works. You've got outright ownership for a few measly grand (except the T1 line, a monthly charge you probably can't afford). Me, I'd rather pay $8.33 a month, and let Apple worry about supporting the server and paying to hook it up to the internet.
> Apple needs to wake up and become decent people
> again.
I think they are decent now. And Apple is night and day different from Microsoft.
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected a charred Apple sapling ("Mosura" 1996).
On December 14, 2001, Mothra returned to see its fruit ("Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Ghidora: Daikaiju Soukougeki").
OS X: the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.
PD writes:
...
;)
> If you're looking for One nation under God, I
> suggest that you move to Iran.
Besides, the US is one nation under Godzilla. Or it will be, once the Dreaded God gets done filming "Godzilla X Mechagodzilla" (http://www.godzilla.co.jp/) and notices we are going through with the Yucca Mountain stupidity after he put his foot down on the matter June 14th.
What happened June 14th you ask? Twin earthquakes, one near Yucca Mountain, one in Ibaraki (the region of Japan that Tokai is in). The message is clear: Repeat the stupidity that caused Japan's worst nuclear accident at Tokai, and suffer the same fate.
And to get back on subject, you wouldn't want to put this on a network with Macs once Jaguar gets out. The next time a user goes to print, up comes the list (courtesy of Rendevous):
MIS printer 1
MIS printer 2
Dreamcast Auto-Cracker
Accounting printer 1
Kinda hard to hide, even if it is little and cheap.
Sonora:"New Godzilla reading. He's moving inward toward Tokai."
Shinoda: "The nuclear plants, I knew it.
Sonora: "Afraid so."
Yuki: "Well, that's just lovely. Another Chernobyl."
"Godzilla 2000" (US version dialog)
SpatchMonkey wrote:
> All the features you've described could
> theoretically be added to IE by replacing the IE
> COM object with one that extends the existing one,
> and/or using proxy servers.
Okay, you go explain to the average user what COM objects and proxy servers are. I know, but I'd still rather just select an option from a preferences screen than go to all that trouble. With Mozilla and other browsers I can just do that. So much for Microsoft's much vaunted "ease of use".
> And newsgroup readers really shouldn't be an
> integral part of your web browser (note that OE
> is a separate program to IE) whatever anyone
> claims.
Usenet is a more integral part of the Internet than even the web is. It was there first (I know, I made my first posts back around 1990). If a product called "Internet Explorer" can't explore all of the Internet, what possible good is it?
> so they had to tack everything in they could to
> please people.
That's right. Microsoft made Internet Explorer to please Microsoft. The people made Mozilla to please people.
> As for the other features, the fact that no-one
> has done it yet indicates that there is very
> little demand for these extra features.
If there is so little demand, how come Mozilla and Netscape are gaining market share over IE?
The browser wars are back!
What happens when you embrace and extend Godzilla? Nuclear heartburn!
See "Godzilla 2000" (released in Japan as "Godzilla 2000 Millennium") for details.
An AC wrote:
;)
;)
> The scary thing is that you really do think you
> understand why Free is important.
I said I "knew the issues". I never claimed to subscribe to the one, right, and only "understanding" of Free Software (complete with secret handshake and free decoder ring).
I'll spell it out for you:
A programmer that is freely choosing to release a totally new piece of software (one with no prior GPL oblligations) under the GPL is making a gift out of a spirit of generousity.
That same programmer who is forced to release his code under the GPL (because Free is the only choice allowed) is performing a meaningless action under duress.
That same programmer who is forced to not release his code under the GPL (because Microsoft conquered the world) is performing a meaningless action under duress.
To me, the freedom of the original programmer is as important as the freedoms of those who maintain or recycle code. To preserve that freedom, a variety of ways to release code (Free or free, open or closed, shareware, etc.) should be maintained so the programmer has that choice. Some choices may be more successful than others (depending on what the programmer deems success), but that is the users' choice.
I also believe in the freedom of humans, not bits.
> Its that sort of "understanding" which has given
> us the exact problem of the "Destruction of
> Microsoft" crowd that concerns me so much.
Okay, I will admit that over the years I've racked up enough anger at Microsoft that watching Godzilla stomp them flat would have a certain appeal.
But what I really want to see stopped is Microsoft's monopolies (since the mean company uses them like a club to batter and bully everyone else), their "competition is a bloody death match" attitude, their mistreatment of OEMs, partners, customers, and just about everybody else, and, of course, their run away bug problem. Knock them down to say, 40 percent of the market, teach them to play nicely and make good products, and I wouldn't mind having them around.
Look at Apple and Sun. They both make UNIX workstations and servers. But they play together so nicely here of late. First Sun helps Apple get a great Java going on OS X. Then Apple comes up with a way to speed up the JVM and gives it to Sun. Now Apple has volunteered to help the Open Office project port to OS X and Sun is complimenting Apple on how nicely they do GUIs. See, that is how it should be. Both companies still sell their hardware, and the product of their cooperation benefits everyone.
"What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998
Gameboy70 wrote:
> Free software doesn't go away. As long as the
> source code is out there and people have an active
> interest in it, marketshare is an extraneous issue
Just how many people are going to have an active interest in it, if it won't run on new hardware or is illegal to own, refer to, or use?
Microsoft creates the specs for PC hardware, which others build. Microsoft spent three times the amount on campaign contributions in 2000 than Enron did. If you have paid any attention to any of the ravings of their various VPs over the last couple years, you'd know they hate the GPL with a fiery passion (words like "cancer" and "unAmerican" come to mind).
I'm not saying Microsoft is going to succeed. But you are going to have a fight on your hands. Don't just assume that free software will always be safe, or you risk loosing your cherished freedom.
Don't let this happen:
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
An AC wrote:
> The majority of you have never known a day of
> hardship, want, hunger..never wondered if the cold
> was going to kill you at 3 in the morning because
> you didn't have a roof overhead, etc.
Perhaps not. But that doesn't mean that one cannot be compassionate, uphold ideals, or stand up to tyrants.
Then again, I don't see the fat, greedy sharks you are so eager to defend, being all that needy either.
> And yet you whine like little bitches about the
> DCMA and the MPAA like you're so fucking
> oppressed.
Do you own a Sharpie felt tip pen? Under the DMCA, it is an illegal copyright circumvention device. Welcome to your jail cell, and enjoy that oppressed feeling.
The DMCA is a ridiculous law that turns innocent citizens into criminals. It is the act of copyright violation (say selling a thousand pirated copies of a CD) that should be punished, not the owning of felt tip pens, or the producing of software so the blind can read eBooks.
> The majority of your bitching, ESPECIALLY when
> it comes to the RIAA, has nothing to do with
> free speech or human rights, it has to do with
> you being pissed that someone out their is
> making you pay for something.
Some Slashdotters may be that way. As for me, I paid $60 for a legal copy of a 2 disk Japanese soundtrack (and boy have I gotten my money's worth!). What I hate about the RIAA is that my money for a CD would go to greedy sharks, not to the hardworking artists, who those sharks want to make wage slaves out of (and if they could, would not pay at all). It is the artists who should hold the copyrights, and the artists who should get the lion's share of the profits.
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infant Girl" in the Japanese version of Mothra (1961).
purpledinoz wrote:
> He shouldn't put himself in legal trouble. That
> just more money that lawyers are able to pocket.
It's called civil disobedience. By publicly violating the law and accepting the consequences (arrest, trial, possible jail time), he would have painted a much more vivid picture for the people on just how unfair and stupid this law is. If he was really careful on how he did it, he might have created just the test case that is needed to get the DMCA declared unconstitutional.
> Just post it up everywhere on those free web
> hosting services, and just get Google to cache
> it. There, the cat's out of the box and the
> lawyers have no one to go after. Everyone wins.
You are missing the point by several light years. This isn't about the thing he was going to present. It is about protesting, and possibly stopping, a stupid and unjust law.
Besides, if he did as you suggest, the law might still catch up to him, more privately. If it didn't, it could still take Google and the free web hosting service to court for DMCA violations.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961
An AC wrote:
.mac Say
> It isn't about destroying Microsoft! Think about
> it; we destroy Microsoft and replace them with
> Apple. Another closed system!
Apple is no longer a closed system. They have a proprietary GUI, true, but how is that different from a Linux distributor bundling in their proprietary software? The core of the OS, Darwin, is open source, BSD license. But from the way they treat it, you'd think they thought it was GPLed (actually, there is a GNU-Darwin too, if you'd rather run that). Apple has gotten open enough hardware wise that you can take the FAT32 drive from your PC and put it in a G4 tower, and the Mac can read it.
Also, I highly doubt anyone (not even Apple) intends for Apple to take over Microsoft's monopoly. Apple is meant to show you Linux types how to get to the desktop, and give you time to get there. As long as Apple+Linux+others gets over 50% of the desktop, and Microsoft gets a life, I will be happy.
> All we will have done is swapped the "Microsoft
> Tax" and all that comes with it, for an "Apple
> Tax", and the same all over again (See
> no more).
The "Microsoft Tax" refers to paying for Windows on a new PC that you want to run Linux on. Apple throws their OS on a new Mac for free. You pay for the hardware you get, and if you want to run Linux on it, Apple doesn't mind at all.
> Free Software is about having freedom; the
> freedom to use your software as you see fit, and
> the freedom to modify that software to fit your
> needs. Its not about destroying commericalism,
> simply because you think they have too much
> money.
If Microsoft has their way, you won't have the freedom to use or modify your software as you see fit. You won't even have the freedom to choose Free Software. This isn't about commercialism, it is about keeping a company from becoming the absolute ruler of all computers. You want freedom? Destroy or at least weaken the tyrant that wants to take it away!
> That would simply be a secondary, a side effect,
> if you will.
We don't have time for side effects. If Microsoft had their way, the GPL would be gone tomorrow. Get on the desktop, get in the trenches, and start fighting for your freedom now!
> So yes, take a Macintosh user out to lunch; and
> then try to get them to understand the issues
> surrounding the use of Free software.
This was written on a G4 iMac running OS X, using Mozilla. Emacs was running in the background (I've been an Emacs user since 1990 when I first read the GPL).
Some of us know the issues surrounding the use of Free and Open Source software far better than you think.
Godzilla 2000, the Dreaded God!
The battle for Earth's future has begun!
The future Millenium threatens.
(From my lyrics to Godzilla's theme from "Godzilla 2000 Millenium")
An AC calling himself Robert wrote:
;)
> Airborne lasers can kill anyone they want!
> Airborne lasers kill people ALL the time and don't
> even think twice about it.
And you, of course, have absolutely no compassion for any innocents they (and their pilots) kill or blind? If an airborne laser was used to take down a terrorist hijacked plane in your vicinity (one of the more benign uses I could think of), you wouldn't mind being one of the thousands in your city blinded?
> I heard that there was this airborne laser who
> was flying around in the sky. And when some bird
> crapped on it the airborne laser killed the
> whole flock.
If you read the article, you'd realize they are not allowed to start flying around until 2015. They do need to be built first, you know.
> My friend Mark said that he saw an airborne
> laser totally evaporate some dog just because
> the dog opened a window.
I don't think your friend Mark was entirely truthful with you. I mean, the DOG opened a window?!?
Besides, the last time Mothra caught someone trying to kill a dog ("Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora: Giant Monster All-out Attack"), she saved the dog and drowned them. I don't think an airborne laser ought to go there.
> And that's what I call REAL Ultimate
> Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What I call real ultimate power is when Armored Mothra sliced and diced the King of Terror before kicking his can for him. A 30 centimeter laser doesn't even come close to a nuke.
> If you don't believe that airborne lasers have
> REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right
> now or they will chop your head off!!!
Gee, airborne lasers are so immature!
Besides, a 30 centimeter diameter beam is not precise enough to chop a human's head off.
> Q: I heard that airborne lasers are always cruel
> or mean. What's their problem?
> A: Whoever told you that is a total liar. Just
> like other lasers, airborne lasers can be mean
> OR totally awesome.
A surgical laser can at least heal a person. A 30 centimeter airborne laser can only kill or maim ( equals "be mean"). They are only awesome in a Godzilla movie, which is where they should stay.
> (Ask Mark if you don't believe me.)
Sorry, Mark already proved unreliable on the dog issue.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961