Why sell 100M/sec for ~$20 a month into the home when you can sell it for ~$200 a month to a business.
Simple. There are many, many more people than businesses.
Let's say you have two buildings of roughly equal size. One is an apartment complex with, say, 200 apartments. The other is a corporation with 200 offices.
You can sell access to the corporation and get about $200/month at the standard business rate. Or you can sell it to the complex. Assuming only a fifth of the tenants sign up, you have about $800/month (40 people * $20). Furthermore, in reality more than a fifth will sign up; it'll be more like a third at least (that's 67 people, give or take) which nets you $1340/month.
Which looks like a better investment to you? ----------
Excuse me, but I wasn't being anti-intellectual at all. I'm an intellectual myself; geeks are pretty much by definition. What I am against is over-pretentious writing, something which seems to afflict us more and more as time goes by, and is one of the things that gives us a bad name. There is simply no need to make one's writing unnecessarily wordy, with no real purpose to it. Many do it to make themselves sound smarter, but it often has the opposite effect. ----------
My one complaint about the paper is that it's really poorly written. The author isn't bashing the idea of ease of use (indeed, he's advocating it, though not in its present form), but he himself needlessly complicates the text in what seems to be an effort to make himself sound smarter. Case in point: the comparison of current GUI theories to Marxism, and the outright strange rant on the "gender" of GUI's and iMacs. It really detracts from the piece. He should have just plain said what he wanted to say.
Anyway, the guy does bring up more than a few valid points. It's refreshing to see someone who realizes that ease of use and power are not necessarily tradeoffs, though for this to be so you need to put some real thought into your interfaces. What he's detracting is the mindless drive towards making interfaces ever-"easier" when in fact all it's doing is making machines harder to learn. He's pushing, it seems, for more standardization in any given system's GUI, and more consistency.
This is a Good Thing to see. Sadly, no one's gotten it right, recently. Apple can't even keep their own interfaces straight (in addition to their absurd belief that customization hinders consistency); look at AppleWorks 6, QuickTime 4 (OSX player), Sherlock 2, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro for a examples of that. These are their five most recent apps, and not one has an interface that matches with the operating system, or even each other. FCP's windows don't look like standard Mac windows (indeed, they look more like Windows), iMovie doesn't use windows at all, AW6 looks nothing like its predecessors, QT4/OSX only bears a superficial resemblance to the OS9 version (though admittedly the OSX interface is much improved), and Sherlock just plain doesn't look like anything.
Mind you, Windows isn't any better at this. Every app they put out breaks their interface standards, often adding totally new curveballs that they don't even let other programmers do for several months afterwards.
Gnome/KDE... an interesting pair. At this point in time, they've actually managed to keep their "official" app set consistent (particularly Helix Gnome, which has gone beyond the official app set but keeps their own stuff consistent). KDE goes further, by squeezing many non-Qt apps into its own mold, making these apps at least look (though rarely feel) similar to KDE's own.
The fact is, ease of use is a Good Thing; even this guy agrees. But when people try deviating from interface standards with no good reason, they only hinder things. At least, that looks like what this guy is trying to say (tough to read through the haze of "look how smart I am" crap). ----------
There's a very odd mix of cluefulness and cluelessness in this brief.
Some of the things here are dead-on. The AHRA was never intended for something like this, that is for certain. And certainly, many of Napster's users are engaging in copyright infringement (whether or not Napster should be held liable for that is arguable, but it's also not the point of this post).
However, it goes on to say a few strange things. First, that copying an MP3 is not "making an audio recording." This is, in a word, absurd. While it is true that no audio plays when you copy a file, the fact remains that the mechanisms used in copying an MP3 from one disk to another are, for all intents and purposes, identical to those used in copying audio from one DAT to another This can be very easily demonstrated. Furthermore, no one disputes that MP3's contain audio (Wrapster notwithstanding, and even then they contain audio of a sort). Since DAT-to-DAT is considered making an audio recording, it is unfair to apply a double-standard by saying that copying an MP3 is not. Does this make it right or legal? Not in and of itself. But it is what it is.
Second, it claims that a hard disk is not an audio recording device. This in and of itself is basically true. However, they say it's not an audio recording device because AHRA excludes devices on which computer programs are stored. However, it's quite possible to have a hard drive containing only MP3s; I don't doubt that many Slashdotters have just such a setup. What is the disk, then?
I'm not trying to say the article is pointless. It raises several good points about AHRA and the fact that Napster shouldn't be using this to defend itself (neither should it be responsible for the actions of its users, but that's for another post). But some of the reasons they're giving for it are just plain dumb. ----------
Nautilus is certainly a fine tool, and a very good copy of Microsoft's IE-integrated file manager. But even the best copies of a bad interface are still bad interfaces. There is no need for quite a few of Nautilus' features. Foremost among these if the integrated Web browser (Konqueror is guilty of this too). A file manager is for managing files. A Web browser is for viewing files. To integrate the two is to create confusion, because you have the same app doing entirely different things (remember the OSX Dock, both an app launcher and task switcher? Same basic problem, though the purposes it serves are different).
Gnome doesn't need The App That Does Everything (neither does KDE, for that matter). All that does is lead to bloat, redundant apps on a system, and confusion for new users.
The Win/IE filemanager does have a few strengths, but these can be gained without bloating the filemanager itself. For example, the ability to show file information in a sidebar, rather than pulling up a new window for it. OSX's Finder can do this without the need to throw a browser in. The ability to navigate a filesystem using buttons in the toolbar is a Good Thing (particularly if you use only one window for file browsing), but you don't need a whole browser to do that (OSX's Finder, however, does this one very poorly; just a Back button which runs totally counter to the column-view paradigm).
I'm not trying to bash Gnome or KDE. I'm just pointing out that they're making quite a few of the same interface mistakes Microsoft made, and it'll only hurt them in the end. ----------
I love the hypocrisy you see in out government, particularly the law enforcement, sometimes. It's so sad that the FBI isn't satisfied with fair, lawful means of doing their job (which is, mind you, law enforcement, not crime prevention).
Here's my challenge to the FBI. You trumpet so loudly that the innocent have nothing to hide (an unconstitutional assertion on which to base this system, by the way, since it implies presumption of guilt until innocence is proven). Very well; prove that you really believe this. If Carnivore, or whatever else you may call it, really is such an innocent system, then don't hide it. Let us see the source. After all, if it really only does what you say it will, then there's nothing to worry about, no? And who knows; maybe there are security bugs that you don't see yet; surely you'd want people in positions to help you fix the bugs to see them, wouldn't you? ----------
The statement "information wants to be free" is a true one. However, thanks to the rather poor word choice concerning the last word in the statement, it seems nobody really understands it.
Napster users don't get it. They somehow get this idea that "free" means "zero-cost," and while that may be true in the dictionary it isn't true in the context of this statement.
The author of this article, though, is guilty of precisely the same thing. He isn't stealing music, but he still doesn't get the idea that the "free" in "information wants to be free" has precisely nothing whatsoever to do with cost.
And worse off, almost none of the Slashdotters are getting it either; every post I've seen in favor of this article is still making that exact same error. I suppose it's somewhat understandable; all Open-Source software, at least as we know it today, has been zero-cost. However, that doesn't mean it has to be. We've had software that was "speech and beer" and software that's "beer but not speech." Why could there not be software that was "speech but not beer"?
I think it's possible. No one seems to have tried it yet, but I don't think it's an impossible task. Cross-model software isn't entirely new; look at Id, which tends to release its software under a combined shareware/commercial model (get the demo for free, get the rest of the game -noting that the engine itself is absolutely identical- upon registration). If this can be done with "beer but not speech" as one of the models, it would seem sensible that "speech but not beer" might also be possible. Id hasn't tried that yet, but I don't see them as being entirely averse to trying it a few years down the road.
It's certainly a possibility. The question is, who will be the first to try? Do we really want it to be, say, perhaps Microsoft, who could take the idea, run with it, and then try to claim credit as the real "innovators" of the Open-Source movement as the people who made it profitable (untrue, of course, but they could say it and people would believe them)? I don't think so. ----------
In and of itself, this is not a Bad Thing. Ratings were not created to keep games out of the hands of kids. Quite the opposite, actually; ratings were created in recognition of the fact that some kids are mature enough to handle violent games, while at the same time recognizing that some are not. Ratings, as they were originally intended, provide a way for kids who are mature enough to still get the games... but only if they can prove it, as evidenced by the fact that an adult will vouch for that maturity by being the one to actually purchase the game. That is something I can support; it's not a threat to free speech in and of itself. Ideally, it keeps the games out of the hands of kids who really shouldn't be seeing this stuff, while still letting those who can handle the game's subject matter do so.
The problem is that lazy parents will use this as a crutch. Rather than actually carry out their responsibilities as parents by taking (or, if need be, making) time with their kids and getting involved, will simply go along with the post-Columbine hysteria and say kids can't play any of those games. It's an insult to the intelligence of a lot of kids, but it's simply a sad fact that many parents shirk their responsibilities today.
So in the end, I can't support the carding. I don't remember when the last time was that I shopped at K-Mart or Wal-Mart, but I won't be anytime soon, I know that. ----------
Look, it's a great thing that Qt is going GPL. Once that's out, the whole licensing issue with KDE will finally be over, resolved, kaput, done for, and however else you want to put it.
But it's a shame that Troll was forced into this. Let's face it; Troll wouldn't be GPL'ing Qt if it weren't for the KDE licensing issues. And those issues would never have existed if the KDE developers would have just swallowed their pride, admitted they made a small error in their licensing, and included one measly Section 10 Exception (which the GPL explicitly allows developers to do). Implicit permission is not enough; it won't stand up in a court if the need arises (and given our current litigous society it's suicide not to take that into condiseration). That exception wouldn't have taken up more than a paragraph, and could have been added to KDE with little more than a shell script. They would have had to contact developers, yes, but assuming they keep decent records (and they must, considering how long the project has survived at that size) that wouldn't be difficult (and no developer would have denied permission to add the clause; it makes no sense to do that).
But no, the KDE guys had to prove how macho they were by refusing to give in, and so Troll had to change Qt's license when the licensing issues were never their fault to begin with. And they're still trying to prove it with this last tirade. I know this article will probably be modded down as flamebait for saying that, but I'm just calling it like I see it.
Geez; KDE developers may call Gnome developers arrogant, and in all fairness they are. But it's nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black; if this doesn't prove that the other side isn't just as bad then I don't know what would. ----------
...namely, it's not yet practical. It may not be for a long time.
One, people talk about accented characters as being harder to recognize when spoken. While this is true, there's another problem, and one that's a lot tougher: there is no standard way to type these characters. On a Mac it's done one way (fairly intuitive, based on the character over which a given mark most frequently appears), on Windows it's done another way (an unnecessarily difficult process involving a four-digit keycode), and on Linux/Unix it's still another (I don't even know how it's done there).
Part of the reason the keyboard works so well is that it's at least semi-standardized; for the basic Roman character set I can move across platforms effortlessly. But when you start throwing diactiricals into the mix, I'm lost when I move from platform to platform. We need to solve that problem before we can even think of putting such characters in URL's. Can it be done? I think so.
Now, there's the problem of CJK characters in URL's. First of all, most computers aren't even capable of recognizing these without special software. As a result, the characters come out as a sequence of ASCII chars which if you're really lucky might all be printable. If you're not so lucky, the characters won't even be printable, or they'll be indistinguishable from one another so you still don't know what to type.
The answer here? Unicode (specifically UTF-8) helps, but many computers still don't support Unicode. Even in the case of those that do, I doubt there are any fonts which support every single character in the CJK set yet (remember, the Chinese character set in particular is truly vast; a two-byte encoding system is still insufficient for encoding all the possible characters). While all current operating systems can banage Unicode, many people are unable or unwilling to upgrade to current technology, and that's going to be a huge barrier to overcome (it may even prove insurmountable).
Supporting all the world's languages in URL's is a Good Thing. However, we have more than a few problems that we have to get through before we can accomplish that goal. The resources currently being spent on this project would be better spent solving those problems first. ----------
Shouldn't assume no one will need help either; that's outright irresponsible.
The fact is, more users will need help than not for most situations. This isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. It's only responsible to set up the software to help the newbies by default, with an option to take off the "training wheels" for expert users.
Most coders seem to sometimes forget that we have a responsibility to our users to make the software as easy to use and learn as we possibly can. When we don't do this, we're screwing the vast majority of our users over big time. ----------
GNUstep, from what I can gather, seems to have been keeping up with the Cocoa API changes.
Note that this is *only* Cocoa, not Carbon. So you have to use the Cocoa API to make an app that'll run on GNUstep. But if you're careful to do this, it just might be possible. ----------
The real reason why they are doing this is to punch 3dfx back for their (nearly as ridiculous) lawsuit against nVidia over multitexturing.
If that were the case, I don't think they would have waited this long.
Besides which, this isn't "nearly" as ridiculous. Have you seen the patents nVidia is claiming 3Dfx infringed? "System for accelerating the display of graphics" is one. "System for accelerating the transfer of graphic images" is another. In other words, nVidia's claiming ownership of the very concept of hardware graphics acceleration. Now that is ridiculous. 3Dfx's suit was ridiculous too, mind you, but it's got nothing on this. ----------
I didn't say NVidia couldn't compete. I said they seem to think they can't compete. Why? I don't know; they make good cards. But from what I could gather, they're suing based on the concept of a 2D/3D combined acceleration card. That's an abuse if I've ever heard of one.
They must think they can't compete, or they wouldn't stoop to dirty tricks like this. This does beg the question of why they don't seem to think they can compete. I can't answer that. But I doubt they would stoop this low if they didn't have to; it's very bad PR. ----------
MacOS as we know it is certainly a doomed cause; Apple has said as much (though Steve only ever admitted that bit grudgingly).
However, OSX makes things more interesting. All but one of Linux's strengths (the missing one being that Linux is totally open, where only the core of OSX its), and only one of Linux's weaknesses (that being the Unix base, which necessarily degrades ease of use significantly).
I've got OSX DP4 myself (legitimetely, I might add). Still rough around the edges, and definitely not ready for release, but with all the makings of a viable contender. Linux won't be displacing MacOS anytime soon. Rather, I believe the two will continue to erode M$ marketshare (yes, MacOS marketshare is growing too) until we have three operating systems competing - and I mean really competing; not the usual "you're alize because Billy wants you to" crap that MacOS deriders insist is happenning.
Interesting question: once Windows has to actually compete on its merits, rather than relying on its monopoly, how long do you think it'll last? ----------
This is just plain playing dirty. NVidia can't compete with their chips (or, at the very least, they think they can't), so instead they'll abuse their patent to drive 3Dfx out of the marketplace?
Their claim's somewhat less flimsy than Amazon's claim to one-click shopping. At least this patent sort of deals with a physical device (a 3D card) rather than a written work (computer code, source or object). But this is still a case where the government granted a patent which was simply too broad. ----------
The GPL limits freedoms by preventing content creators in cooperative works from deciding the terms on which their individual contribution may be used.
So it forces you to play by the rules if you want to be on the team. And the problem with that is... what?
One could also say that it limits your ability to freely distribute GPL'd works.
The Free World License is hypocrisy itself on paper; a license can't be Open-Source if it's under a discriminatory license.
But this does lead to an interesting point: what if someone were to port this to Darwin? Darwin itself is Open-Source. However, if it runs on Darwin, then it should also run on OSX (the core of which is Darwin). But OSX isn't entirely Open-Source, only the core. However, one could say (and actually argue fairly well) that Darwin is really the operating system, and "OSX" is just Apple's value-added stuff on top of it. So is an OSX port legal or not?
Just something to think about. ----------
An interesting idea...
on
TigerCloning
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· Score: 3
But I very much doubt this will work. The reason: there's only one tiger that can provide suitable DNA.
The problem with this is that you can clone the tiger as many times as you like, but they all have identical DNA. That's what cloning is. For starters, that makes them all the same gender, but even if you overcome that barrier you still have inbreeding taken to its most extreme level. That would be even more destructive to the species than the unrestricted hunting of the past was.
You could try engineering genetic drift into the species, perhaps, but there are two problems with that. First, expense. You'd have to make literally hundreds of clones, all of them different, to recreate the species at a viable level. Second, you have to map out the genome to do this reliably, and for that you need multiple specimens (which the scientists don't have). So all you can do is more or less blind guesswork (or at the least, really myopic guesswork).
Then there's the woolly mammoth experiments, where they want to reconstruct the species by interbreeding clones with elephants. Again, interesting, but if you take this route have you really recreated the species, or just a fairly good facsimile? You've created something that looks like a mammoth, and maybe even acts like one to the best we can figure out, but is it really a mammoth?
Yes, it'd be a nice idea to bring back extinct species, particularly the ones for which humanity is to blame for their extinction. But the fact is, there are things that, once done, just plain can't be undone. It's a shame, but everything, even science, has limits (maybe those limits are really, really high, but they exist all the same).
Finnaly, you can be correct about these mini ice ages and that we are coming out of one. But both man made global warming and coming out of a mini ice age can be true at the same time. You can be skiing down hill and then turn on a jet pack to go faster.
Nice, but your anbalogy is inappropriate. While it is true that man is contributing to global warming, even the most rabid environmentalists don't believe that humans alone could cause a shift in global climate this rapid. Perhaps I should remind you that even the most alarmist estimates only predicted, if I'm not mistaken, a one-degree shift worldwide over the next fifty years. Also consider that on average this summer has actually been cooler than they've been in the recent past. The storms seem to have come much more frequently and are more severe, but temperature has as a rule not been the problem.
Yes, the Earth is getting warmer. And yes, there is cause for alarm; I heard that most of the coral in the Caribbean has died out already, not directly due to man but due to shifts in ocean temperature. But how much of the blame do we hold? Some, for sure. But all of it? We may have the power to wreck the world as we know it, but short of a nuclear war we can't do it that quickly, and I don't remember hearing about any nuclear strikes recently. ----------
This will be interesting. The thing is, while there are still better apps, Microsoft's non-Windows offerings are actually respectable. Still not the best out there, mind you, but still leaps and bounds better than their Windows counterparts.
Take Internet Explorer, for example (before I begin, let me state for the record that I'm a Mozilla guy myself). We all know about the latest round of Embracing And Extending done in IE5.5/Windows. However, currently IE5/Mac is quite nice. It's very close to full CSS1 compliance (it's not quite there, as they claim, but the only non-compliance I've seen yet is thay they don't support all the border types around boxes). The standards-compliance is second only to Mozilla's. It's fairly stable (it crashes me more than Netscape does, but not as much as the latest Mozilla builds; then again Mozilla is still in-development software so that's forgivable).
Even Office is actually usable on MacOS (and I use Office/Windows quite often, so I'm familiar with the usability nightmares on that platform), though I still prefer AppleWorks. OE's not bad, though I prefer PowerMail, and so on and so forth.
Why is this the case? You'd think that if the lowly porting teams could make decent software, the mammoth WIndows development teams could do even better. My personal view is that the ports are better because they don't have an OS monopoly to leverage, so they know they have to make software that would actually stand a chance in a competition based on merit. Contrast this with the Windows development team, which we already know makes a poor product (I work with developing Windows every day, and there are parts of that OS that I could have done designed better back in high school, and implemented not long afterward).
So the ports to Linux just might work out. I'm willing to withhold judgement until I see the stuff, anyway. I doubt that Microsoft is trying to sabotage Linux; they're merely hedging their bets. Office is their major moneymaker, and if Windows dies (and I doubt it's got ten years left, not after the DOJ rulling) they need to have Office on whichever platform wins the ensuing chaos. As MacOS and Linux are the two biggest contenders, they need Office on both, just in case. ----------
Strange how changes in the situation can occur. Usually it's Apple suing other companies for ripping off their designs (most notably ther iMac's in recent years).
But they were never this bad. At least an iMac has a distinctive design. But a cube?! Cobalt's insane if they think they can win this.
Besides which, if anyone does have a trademark on a cube-shaped case, it's NeXT. And Apple bought NeXT, so the trademark would be theirs now, I would think. Apple could countersue if they wanted to get really stupid about it. I hope they don't, but they might be able to.
And my point is that the idea that the government always does the fair and honest thing is, at best, extremely naive. Law enforcement does unconstitutional things every day in their zeal to catch criminals before they commit any crimes; this isn't even a secret. If they are allowed any power that can be abused, they can and do abuse it. Are they evil? I doubt it.
But their job is not to prevent crime. There is exactly one person whose job it is to prevent crime: yourself, and you do that job by committing crime. Law enforcement is there to apprehend those who are delinquent in that duty. It is not to catch people who have yet to do anything wrong.
But they've forgotten this. We always hear about how they want to wiretap without warrants; the only reason they could possibly want such a power is if they were going to exercise it.
How is this so certain? To answer that, let's use another issue: mandatory Internet filtering, as seen in China, Australia, and a few other places. I don't like Internet porn, and I don't peruse it. But I'm a vehement opponent of mandated filtering, because I believe that those who want to view such things, while I might not agree with them, ought to be able to view it. I don't want to block filtering because I want to see porn; I want to block it because I think that anyone who wants to see it should.
But this isn't how the FBI does this. Are they defenging the people's sacred right to wiretap when they ask for such authority? No; they don't want the people wiretapping. They want that power only for themselves. That means, logically, that they must want to use it (assuming they aren't already). If no one has the power to do something, you don't think anyone else should have that power, but you don't want to use that power eigher, then to spend who knows how much money fighting to get it is absolutely pointless.
There are a lot of bad people out there. Most deserve prison; they don't deserve freedom. If law enforcement is restricted to fair and reasonable means of apprehending them, more of them will keep the freedom they forefieted by breaking the law. But I am not going to sacrifice my freedom just to deprive a felon of his. I don't think anyone who's really thought about this would truly be willing to do so.
...but if they need to use it to catch child molestors and their like, I think we should all be willing to give up a little freedom.
As Benjamin Franklin put it, those who would give up essential freedoms in exchange for security neither have nor deserve either. Yes, limiting law enforcement to catching criminals by fair, honest, lawful means will mean that fewer criminals will be caught. Big deal; I would much rather a million criminals have undeserved freedom than for two hundred million to lose the freedom they do deserve.
Think of the bad people they can stop, not the fact that someone might accidentally read about your dinner plans.
But they can't stop all bad people. Anyone who thinks they can is outright deluded; there is no wayy to stop all suffering, because the only surefire way to stop the suffering of the few will cause the suffering of billions more. Crime is a horrible thing, but it is far, far preferable to a police state.
For that matter, I doubt you honestly believe what you are saying. Or if you are, why don't you carry a Webcam around everywhere you go? Let everyone in the world see every single thing you do, hear every single thing you say, and so forth for the rest of your life. My guess is, you'd think I was insane for suggesting that. But when law enforcement suggests it, you jump for joy. That's hypocrisy at its finest.
I'm all for catching criminals. But I will not sacrifice my own freedom simply to deprive a criminal of his, no matter how much he may deserve it. That's a price no sane person who's really sat down and thought about these issues is willing to pay, and for a good reason.
Honest question: what have you seen? There is crappy anime out there. A lot of crappy anime. But, as with any medium, there are also some true gems.
The reason many of us like anime, I believe, is that these gems are more numerous than in other mediums. Furthermore, the people who create anime have more artisticf freedom than filmmakers in the US, both because they seem remarkably free of the corporatist pop culture we find here and the fact that they don't have a religious right to smack them upside the head if they don't do something which fits in said group's narrow definition of morality, which they would want to enforce on others.
Several times in the past I've spoken about how the US is the only nation in the world which guarantees free speech. I hold to that statement. But the more I look at the situation, there are few nations who need that guarantee more than the US. Think about it: freedom of speech (criticism on established groups), freedom of religion (need I say more), freedom of the press (or, to put it in a more modern light, the media), and freedom of assembly (almost any non-religious, non-corporate group nowadays). We have extremely powerful groups here in the US who would take that all away, groups who are, if not absent, at least much weaker elsewhere. So powerful, in fact, that really the only thing that stops these groups from having their way with our rights is a 220-year-old document (they don't have the majority required to fairly influence politics, but they do have the influence to do it anyway). While we may have the freest speech of any nation that purports to have it, that right is also in more danger in the US than in any other nation which currently claims to have it.
Slashdot Mirror
Why sell 100M/sec for ~$20 a month into the home when you can sell it for ~$200 a month to a business.
Simple. There are many, many more people than businesses.
Let's say you have two buildings of roughly equal size. One is an apartment complex with, say, 200 apartments. The other is a corporation with 200 offices.
You can sell access to the corporation and get about $200/month at the standard business rate. Or you can sell it to the complex. Assuming only a fifth of the tenants sign up, you have about $800/month (40 people * $20). Furthermore, in reality more than a fifth will sign up; it'll be more like a third at least (that's 67 people, give or take) which nets you $1340/month.
Which looks like a better investment to you?
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Excuse me, but I wasn't being anti-intellectual at all. I'm an intellectual myself; geeks are pretty much by definition. What I am against is over-pretentious writing, something which seems to afflict us more and more as time goes by, and is one of the things that gives us a bad name. There is simply no need to make one's writing unnecessarily wordy, with no real purpose to it. Many do it to make themselves sound smarter, but it often has the opposite effect.
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My one complaint about the paper is that it's really poorly written. The author isn't bashing the idea of ease of use (indeed, he's advocating it, though not in its present form), but he himself needlessly complicates the text in what seems to be an effort to make himself sound smarter. Case in point: the comparison of current GUI theories to Marxism, and the outright strange rant on the "gender" of GUI's and iMacs. It really detracts from the piece. He should have just plain said what he wanted to say.
Anyway, the guy does bring up more than a few valid points. It's refreshing to see someone who realizes that ease of use and power are not necessarily tradeoffs, though for this to be so you need to put some real thought into your interfaces. What he's detracting is the mindless drive towards making interfaces ever-"easier" when in fact all it's doing is making machines harder to learn. He's pushing, it seems, for more standardization in any given system's GUI, and more consistency.
This is a Good Thing to see. Sadly, no one's gotten it right, recently. Apple can't even keep their own interfaces straight (in addition to their absurd belief that customization hinders consistency); look at AppleWorks 6, QuickTime 4 (OSX player), Sherlock 2, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro for a examples of that. These are their five most recent apps, and not one has an interface that matches with the operating system, or even each other. FCP's windows don't look like standard Mac windows (indeed, they look more like Windows), iMovie doesn't use windows at all, AW6 looks nothing like its predecessors, QT4/OSX only bears a superficial resemblance to the OS9 version (though admittedly the OSX interface is much improved), and Sherlock just plain doesn't look like anything.
Mind you, Windows isn't any better at this. Every app they put out breaks their interface standards, often adding totally new curveballs that they don't even let other programmers do for several months afterwards.
Gnome/KDE... an interesting pair. At this point in time, they've actually managed to keep their "official" app set consistent (particularly Helix Gnome, which has gone beyond the official app set but keeps their own stuff consistent). KDE goes further, by squeezing many non-Qt apps into its own mold, making these apps at least look (though rarely feel) similar to KDE's own.
The fact is, ease of use is a Good Thing; even this guy agrees. But when people try deviating from interface standards with no good reason, they only hinder things. At least, that looks like what this guy is trying to say (tough to read through the haze of "look how smart I am" crap).
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There's a very odd mix of cluefulness and cluelessness in this brief.
Some of the things here are dead-on. The AHRA was never intended for something like this, that is for certain. And certainly, many of Napster's users are engaging in copyright infringement (whether or not Napster should be held liable for that is arguable, but it's also not the point of this post).
However, it goes on to say a few strange things. First, that copying an MP3 is not "making an audio recording." This is, in a word, absurd. While it is true that no audio plays when you copy a file, the fact remains that the mechanisms used in copying an MP3 from one disk to another are, for all intents and purposes, identical to those used in copying audio from one DAT to another This can be very easily demonstrated. Furthermore, no one disputes that MP3's contain audio (Wrapster notwithstanding, and even then they contain audio of a sort). Since DAT-to-DAT is considered making an audio recording, it is unfair to apply a double-standard by saying that copying an MP3 is not. Does this make it right or legal? Not in and of itself. But it is what it is.
Second, it claims that a hard disk is not an audio recording device. This in and of itself is basically true. However, they say it's not an audio recording device because AHRA excludes devices on which computer programs are stored. However, it's quite possible to have a hard drive containing only MP3s; I don't doubt that many Slashdotters have just such a setup. What is the disk, then?
I'm not trying to say the article is pointless. It raises several good points about AHRA and the fact that Napster shouldn't be using this to defend itself (neither should it be responsible for the actions of its users, but that's for another post). But some of the reasons they're giving for it are just plain dumb.
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Nautilus is certainly a fine tool, and a very good copy of Microsoft's IE-integrated file manager. But even the best copies of a bad interface are still bad interfaces. There is no need for quite a few of Nautilus' features. Foremost among these if the integrated Web browser (Konqueror is guilty of this too). A file manager is for managing files. A Web browser is for viewing files. To integrate the two is to create confusion, because you have the same app doing entirely different things (remember the OSX Dock, both an app launcher and task switcher? Same basic problem, though the purposes it serves are different).
Gnome doesn't need The App That Does Everything (neither does KDE, for that matter). All that does is lead to bloat, redundant apps on a system, and confusion for new users.
The Win/IE filemanager does have a few strengths, but these can be gained without bloating the filemanager itself. For example, the ability to show file information in a sidebar, rather than pulling up a new window for it. OSX's Finder can do this without the need to throw a browser in. The ability to navigate a filesystem using buttons in the toolbar is a Good Thing (particularly if you use only one window for file browsing), but you don't need a whole browser to do that (OSX's Finder, however, does this one very poorly; just a Back button which runs totally counter to the column-view paradigm).
I'm not trying to bash Gnome or KDE. I'm just pointing out that they're making quite a few of the same interface mistakes Microsoft made, and it'll only hurt them in the end.
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I love the hypocrisy you see in out government, particularly the law enforcement, sometimes. It's so sad that the FBI isn't satisfied with fair, lawful means of doing their job (which is, mind you, law enforcement, not crime prevention).
Here's my challenge to the FBI. You trumpet so loudly that the innocent have nothing to hide (an unconstitutional assertion on which to base this system, by the way, since it implies presumption of guilt until innocence is proven). Very well; prove that you really believe this. If Carnivore, or whatever else you may call it, really is such an innocent system, then don't hide it. Let us see the source. After all, if it really only does what you say it will, then there's nothing to worry about, no? And who knows; maybe there are security bugs that you don't see yet; surely you'd want people in positions to help you fix the bugs to see them, wouldn't you?
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The problem is that nobody gets it.
The statement "information wants to be free" is a true one. However, thanks to the rather poor word choice concerning the last word in the statement, it seems nobody really understands it.
Napster users don't get it. They somehow get this idea that "free" means "zero-cost," and while that may be true in the dictionary it isn't true in the context of this statement.
The author of this article, though, is guilty of precisely the same thing. He isn't stealing music, but he still doesn't get the idea that the "free" in "information wants to be free" has precisely nothing whatsoever to do with cost.
And worse off, almost none of the Slashdotters are getting it either; every post I've seen in favor of this article is still making that exact same error. I suppose it's somewhat understandable; all Open-Source software, at least as we know it today, has been zero-cost. However, that doesn't mean it has to be. We've had software that was "speech and beer" and software that's "beer but not speech." Why could there not be software that was "speech but not beer"?
I think it's possible. No one seems to have tried it yet, but I don't think it's an impossible task. Cross-model software isn't entirely new; look at Id, which tends to release its software under a combined shareware/commercial model (get the demo for free, get the rest of the game -noting that the engine itself is absolutely identical- upon registration). If this can be done with "beer but not speech" as one of the models, it would seem sensible that "speech but not beer" might also be possible. Id hasn't tried that yet, but I don't see them as being entirely averse to trying it a few years down the road.
It's certainly a possibility. The question is, who will be the first to try? Do we really want it to be, say, perhaps Microsoft, who could take the idea, run with it, and then try to claim credit as the real "innovators" of the Open-Source movement as the people who made it profitable (untrue, of course, but they could say it and people would believe them)? I don't think so.
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In and of itself, this is not a Bad Thing. Ratings were not created to keep games out of the hands of kids. Quite the opposite, actually; ratings were created in recognition of the fact that some kids are mature enough to handle violent games, while at the same time recognizing that some are not. Ratings, as they were originally intended, provide a way for kids who are mature enough to still get the games... but only if they can prove it, as evidenced by the fact that an adult will vouch for that maturity by being the one to actually purchase the game. That is something I can support; it's not a threat to free speech in and of itself. Ideally, it keeps the games out of the hands of kids who really shouldn't be seeing this stuff, while still letting those who can handle the game's subject matter do so.
The problem is that lazy parents will use this as a crutch. Rather than actually carry out their responsibilities as parents by taking (or, if need be, making) time with their kids and getting involved, will simply go along with the post-Columbine hysteria and say kids can't play any of those games. It's an insult to the intelligence of a lot of kids, but it's simply a sad fact that many parents shirk their responsibilities today.
So in the end, I can't support the carding. I don't remember when the last time was that I shopped at K-Mart or Wal-Mart, but I won't be anytime soon, I know that.
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Look, it's a great thing that Qt is going GPL. Once that's out, the whole licensing issue with KDE will finally be over, resolved, kaput, done for, and however else you want to put it.
But it's a shame that Troll was forced into this. Let's face it; Troll wouldn't be GPL'ing Qt if it weren't for the KDE licensing issues. And those issues would never have existed if the KDE developers would have just swallowed their pride, admitted they made a small error in their licensing, and included one measly Section 10 Exception (which the GPL explicitly allows developers to do). Implicit permission is not enough; it won't stand up in a court if the need arises (and given our current litigous society it's suicide not to take that into condiseration). That exception wouldn't have taken up more than a paragraph, and could have been added to KDE with little more than a shell script. They would have had to contact developers, yes, but assuming they keep decent records (and they must, considering how long the project has survived at that size) that wouldn't be difficult (and no developer would have denied permission to add the clause; it makes no sense to do that).
But no, the KDE guys had to prove how macho they were by refusing to give in, and so Troll had to change Qt's license when the licensing issues were never their fault to begin with. And they're still trying to prove it with this last tirade. I know this article will probably be modded down as flamebait for saying that, but I'm just calling it like I see it.
Geez; KDE developers may call Gnome developers arrogant, and in all fairness they are. But it's nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black; if this doesn't prove that the other side isn't just as bad then I don't know what would.
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...namely, it's not yet practical. It may not be for a long time.
One, people talk about accented characters as being harder to recognize when spoken. While this is true, there's another problem, and one that's a lot tougher: there is no standard way to type these characters. On a Mac it's done one way (fairly intuitive, based on the character over which a given mark most frequently appears), on Windows it's done another way (an unnecessarily difficult process involving a four-digit keycode), and on Linux/Unix it's still another (I don't even know how it's done there).
Part of the reason the keyboard works so well is that it's at least semi-standardized; for the basic Roman character set I can move across platforms effortlessly. But when you start throwing diactiricals into the mix, I'm lost when I move from platform to platform. We need to solve that problem before we can even think of putting such characters in URL's. Can it be done? I think so.
Now, there's the problem of CJK characters in URL's. First of all, most computers aren't even capable of recognizing these without special software. As a result, the characters come out as a sequence of ASCII chars which if you're really lucky might all be printable. If you're not so lucky, the characters won't even be printable, or they'll be indistinguishable from one another so you still don't know what to type.
The answer here? Unicode (specifically UTF-8) helps, but many computers still don't support Unicode. Even in the case of those that do, I doubt there are any fonts which support every single character in the CJK set yet (remember, the Chinese character set in particular is truly vast; a two-byte encoding system is still insufficient for encoding all the possible characters). While all current operating systems can banage Unicode, many people are unable or unwilling to upgrade to current technology, and that's going to be a huge barrier to overcome (it may even prove insurmountable).
Supporting all the world's languages in URL's is a Good Thing. However, we have more than a few problems that we have to get through before we can accomplish that goal. The resources currently being spent on this project would be better spent solving those problems first.
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Shouldn't assume no one will need help either; that's outright irresponsible.
The fact is, more users will need help than not for most situations. This isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. It's only responsible to set up the software to help the newbies by default, with an option to take off the "training wheels" for expert users.
Most coders seem to sometimes forget that we have a responsibility to our users to make the software as easy to use and learn as we possibly can. When we don't do this, we're screwing the vast majority of our users over big time.
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GNUstep, from what I can gather, seems to have been keeping up with the Cocoa API changes. Note that this is *only* Cocoa, not Carbon. So you have to use the Cocoa API to make an app that'll run on GNUstep. But if you're careful to do this, it just might be possible.
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The real reason why they are doing this is to punch 3dfx back for their (nearly as ridiculous) lawsuit against nVidia over multitexturing.
If that were the case, I don't think they would have waited this long.
Besides which, this isn't "nearly" as ridiculous. Have you seen the patents nVidia is claiming 3Dfx infringed? "System for accelerating the display of graphics" is one. "System for accelerating the transfer of graphic images" is another. In other words, nVidia's claiming ownership of the very concept of hardware graphics acceleration. Now that is ridiculous. 3Dfx's suit was ridiculous too, mind you, but it's got nothing on this.
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I didn't say NVidia couldn't compete. I said they seem to think they can't compete. Why? I don't know; they make good cards. But from what I could gather, they're suing based on the concept of a 2D/3D combined acceleration card. That's an abuse if I've ever heard of one.
They must think they can't compete, or they wouldn't stoop to dirty tricks like this. This does beg the question of why they don't seem to think they can compete. I can't answer that. But I doubt they would stoop this low if they didn't have to; it's very bad PR.
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MacOS as we know it is certainly a doomed cause; Apple has said as much (though Steve only ever admitted that bit grudgingly). However, OSX makes things more interesting. All but one of Linux's strengths (the missing one being that Linux is totally open, where only the core of OSX its), and only one of Linux's weaknesses (that being the Unix base, which necessarily degrades ease of use significantly). I've got OSX DP4 myself (legitimetely, I might add). Still rough around the edges, and definitely not ready for release, but with all the makings of a viable contender. Linux won't be displacing MacOS anytime soon. Rather, I believe the two will continue to erode M$ marketshare (yes, MacOS marketshare is growing too) until we have three operating systems competing - and I mean really competing; not the usual "you're alize because Billy wants you to" crap that MacOS deriders insist is happenning. Interesting question: once Windows has to actually compete on its merits, rather than relying on its monopoly, how long do you think it'll last?
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This is just plain playing dirty. NVidia can't compete with their chips (or, at the very least, they think they can't), so instead they'll abuse their patent to drive 3Dfx out of the marketplace?
Their claim's somewhat less flimsy than Amazon's claim to one-click shopping. At least this patent sort of deals with a physical device (a 3D card) rather than a written work (computer code, source or object). But this is still a case where the government granted a patent which was simply too broad.
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The GPL limits freedoms by preventing content creators in cooperative works from deciding the terms on which their individual contribution may be used.
So it forces you to play by the rules if you want to be on the team. And the problem with that is... what?
One could also say that it limits your ability to freely distribute GPL'd works.
How?
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Fascinating.
The Free World License is hypocrisy itself on paper; a license can't be Open-Source if it's under a discriminatory license.
But this does lead to an interesting point: what if someone were to port this to Darwin? Darwin itself is Open-Source. However, if it runs on Darwin, then it should also run on OSX (the core of which is Darwin). But OSX isn't entirely Open-Source, only the core. However, one could say (and actually argue fairly well) that Darwin is really the operating system, and "OSX" is just Apple's value-added stuff on top of it. So is an OSX port legal or not?
Just something to think about.
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But I very much doubt this will work. The reason: there's only one tiger that can provide suitable DNA.
The problem with this is that you can clone the tiger as many times as you like, but they all have identical DNA. That's what cloning is. For starters, that makes them all the same gender, but even if you overcome that barrier you still have inbreeding taken to its most extreme level. That would be even more destructive to the species than the unrestricted hunting of the past was.
You could try engineering genetic drift into the species, perhaps, but there are two problems with that. First, expense. You'd have to make literally hundreds of clones, all of them different, to recreate the species at a viable level. Second, you have to map out the genome to do this reliably, and for that you need multiple specimens (which the scientists don't have). So all you can do is more or less blind guesswork (or at the least, really myopic guesswork).
Then there's the woolly mammoth experiments, where they want to reconstruct the species by interbreeding clones with elephants. Again, interesting, but if you take this route have you really recreated the species, or just a fairly good facsimile? You've created something that looks like a mammoth, and maybe even acts like one to the best we can figure out, but is it really a mammoth?
Yes, it'd be a nice idea to bring back extinct species, particularly the ones for which humanity is to blame for their extinction. But the fact is, there are things that, once done, just plain can't be undone. It's a shame, but everything, even science, has limits (maybe those limits are really, really high, but they exist all the same).
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Finnaly, you can be correct about these mini ice ages and that we are coming out of one. But both man made global warming and coming out of a mini ice age can be true at the same time. You can be skiing down hill and then turn on a jet pack to go faster.
Nice, but your anbalogy is inappropriate. While it is true that man is contributing to global warming, even the most rabid environmentalists don't believe that humans alone could cause a shift in global climate this rapid. Perhaps I should remind you that even the most alarmist estimates only predicted, if I'm not mistaken, a one-degree shift worldwide over the next fifty years. Also consider that on average this summer has actually been cooler than they've been in the recent past. The storms seem to have come much more frequently and are more severe, but temperature has as a rule not been the problem.
Yes, the Earth is getting warmer. And yes, there is cause for alarm; I heard that most of the coral in the Caribbean has died out already, not directly due to man but due to shifts in ocean temperature. But how much of the blame do we hold? Some, for sure. But all of it? We may have the power to wreck the world as we know it, but short of a nuclear war we can't do it that quickly, and I don't remember hearing about any nuclear strikes recently.
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This will be interesting. The thing is, while there are still better apps, Microsoft's non-Windows offerings are actually respectable. Still not the best out there, mind you, but still leaps and bounds better than their Windows counterparts.
Take Internet Explorer, for example (before I begin, let me state for the record that I'm a Mozilla guy myself). We all know about the latest round of Embracing And Extending done in IE5.5/Windows. However, currently IE5/Mac is quite nice. It's very close to full CSS1 compliance (it's not quite there, as they claim, but the only non-compliance I've seen yet is thay they don't support all the border types around boxes). The standards-compliance is second only to Mozilla's. It's fairly stable (it crashes me more than Netscape does, but not as much as the latest Mozilla builds; then again Mozilla is still in-development software so that's forgivable).
Even Office is actually usable on MacOS (and I use Office/Windows quite often, so I'm familiar with the usability nightmares on that platform), though I still prefer AppleWorks. OE's not bad, though I prefer PowerMail, and so on and so forth.
Why is this the case? You'd think that if the lowly porting teams could make decent software, the mammoth WIndows development teams could do even better. My personal view is that the ports are better because they don't have an OS monopoly to leverage, so they know they have to make software that would actually stand a chance in a competition based on merit. Contrast this with the Windows development team, which we already know makes a poor product (I work with developing Windows every day, and there are parts of that OS that I could have done designed better back in high school, and implemented not long afterward).
So the ports to Linux just might work out. I'm willing to withhold judgement until I see the stuff, anyway. I doubt that Microsoft is trying to sabotage Linux; they're merely hedging their bets. Office is their major moneymaker, and if Windows dies (and I doubt it's got ten years left, not after the DOJ rulling) they need to have Office on whichever platform wins the ensuing chaos. As MacOS and Linux are the two biggest contenders, they need Office on both, just in case.
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Strange how changes in the situation can occur. Usually it's Apple suing other companies for ripping off their designs (most notably ther iMac's in recent years).
But they were never this bad. At least an iMac has a distinctive design. But a cube?! Cobalt's insane if they think they can win this.
Besides which, if anyone does have a trademark on a cube-shaped case, it's NeXT. And Apple bought NeXT, so the trademark would be theirs now, I would think. Apple could countersue if they wanted to get really stupid about it. I hope they don't, but they might be able to.
And my point is that the idea that the government always does the fair and honest thing is, at best, extremely naive. Law enforcement does unconstitutional things every day in their zeal to catch criminals before they commit any crimes; this isn't even a secret. If they are allowed any power that can be abused, they can and do abuse it. Are they evil? I doubt it.
But their job is not to prevent crime. There is exactly one person whose job it is to prevent crime: yourself, and you do that job by committing crime. Law enforcement is there to apprehend those who are delinquent in that duty. It is not to catch people who have yet to do anything wrong.
But they've forgotten this. We always hear about how they want to wiretap without warrants; the only reason they could possibly want such a power is if they were going to exercise it.
How is this so certain? To answer that, let's use another issue: mandatory Internet filtering, as seen in China, Australia, and a few other places. I don't like Internet porn, and I don't peruse it. But I'm a vehement opponent of mandated filtering, because I believe that those who want to view such things, while I might not agree with them, ought to be able to view it. I don't want to block filtering because I want to see porn; I want to block it because I think that anyone who wants to see it should.
But this isn't how the FBI does this. Are they defenging the people's sacred right to wiretap when they ask for such authority? No; they don't want the people wiretapping. They want that power only for themselves. That means, logically, that they must want to use it (assuming they aren't already). If no one has the power to do something, you don't think anyone else should have that power, but you don't want to use that power eigher, then to spend who knows how much money fighting to get it is absolutely pointless.
There are a lot of bad people out there. Most deserve prison; they don't deserve freedom. If law enforcement is restricted to fair and reasonable means of apprehending them, more of them will keep the freedom they forefieted by breaking the law. But I am not going to sacrifice my freedom just to deprive a felon of his. I don't think anyone who's really thought about this would truly be willing to do so.
...but if they need to use it to catch child molestors and their like, I think we should all be willing to give up a little freedom.
As Benjamin Franklin put it, those who would give up essential freedoms in exchange for security neither have nor deserve either. Yes, limiting law enforcement to catching criminals by fair, honest, lawful means will mean that fewer criminals will be caught. Big deal; I would much rather a million criminals have undeserved freedom than for two hundred million to lose the freedom they do deserve.
Think of the bad people they can stop, not the fact that someone might accidentally read about your dinner plans.
But they can't stop all bad people. Anyone who thinks they can is outright deluded; there is no wayy to stop all suffering, because the only surefire way to stop the suffering of the few will cause the suffering of billions more. Crime is a horrible thing, but it is far, far preferable to a police state.
For that matter, I doubt you honestly believe what you are saying. Or if you are, why don't you carry a Webcam around everywhere you go? Let everyone in the world see every single thing you do, hear every single thing you say, and so forth for the rest of your life. My guess is, you'd think I was insane for suggesting that. But when law enforcement suggests it, you jump for joy. That's hypocrisy at its finest.
I'm all for catching criminals. But I will not sacrifice my own freedom simply to deprive a criminal of his, no matter how much he may deserve it. That's a price no sane person who's really sat down and thought about these issues is willing to pay, and for a good reason.
Honest question: what have you seen? There is crappy anime out there. A lot of crappy anime. But, as with any medium, there are also some true gems.
The reason many of us like anime, I believe, is that these gems are more numerous than in other mediums. Furthermore, the people who create anime have more artisticf freedom than filmmakers in the US, both because they seem remarkably free of the corporatist pop culture we find here and the fact that they don't have a religious right to smack them upside the head if they don't do something which fits in said group's narrow definition of morality, which they would want to enforce on others.
Several times in the past I've spoken about how the US is the only nation in the world which guarantees free speech. I hold to that statement. But the more I look at the situation, there are few nations who need that guarantee more than the US. Think about it: freedom of speech (criticism on established groups), freedom of religion (need I say more), freedom of the press (or, to put it in a more modern light, the media), and freedom of assembly (almost any non-religious, non-corporate group nowadays). We have extremely powerful groups here in the US who would take that all away, groups who are, if not absent, at least much weaker elsewhere. So powerful, in fact, that really the only thing that stops these groups from having their way with our rights is a 220-year-old document (they don't have the majority required to fairly influence politics, but they do have the influence to do it anyway). While we may have the freest speech of any nation that purports to have it, that right is also in more danger in the US than in any other nation which currently claims to have it.