I think recharging through *AirPort* would be a good idea. I wonder what would happen when your cat walked through the wireless electrical stream, though.
It is a very prominent, recurring theme: the irritating "high-and-mighty" in Slashdot users always end up being Anonymous Cowards, and indeed, a coward is this guy.
Those with insecurities about their own standing -- in this realm of geeks mind you -- always end up ripping on the fourteen year olds (young ones in general) who have this tendency to be a hell of a lot smarter than the Cowards ripping on them.;)
Frankly, this world would probably be a lot better with more intelligent "fourteen year old casual opinions". Once we all get older, we start to get nastier and more competitive with our peers. When you're fourteen, everything's new, you can look at everything objectively.
Just my two cents. And to the frightened man behind the screen, who doesn't even have the confidence to display his name on his opinions (but has plenty of confidence in knocking on youth in the one place where they can come to avoid age discrimination) -- well, your "x-year-old casual opinion" doesn't matter, period. At least "Chasing Amy" had the self-awareness to post his name.
Coward.
Keep your intuitions strong and your determination high, our geek youth -- really, most of us respect the intelligent and hard-working ones, we've all been there at one point. No one seems to respect the power that an intelligent young techhead can bring, especially in high schools and the workforce, where being young and geeky means constant taunts and rejection. Bump that.
Best wishes,
Ryan
P.S. My instincts tell me, judging from your very vague retort and your incorrect statements, that you have no professional experience in Photoshop, either. You just wanted a victim to pass off your insecurities onto. If I purchase a brand new integer version, say upgrading from 5 to 6, I'm sure as hell going to want some good new features outside of "colour management" and "UI tweaks". I would expect those smaller changes would be done in a half-step upgrade, ala Photoshop 5.5.
You missed one thing. They didn't show this part so they could maintain the PG-13 rating, but you know they would have appended this to the code on behalf of all our human abductees.
From the Physics department here at the University of Colorado, I consider myself lucky to work with folks like Dr. Weiman (one of the Nobel recipients) and others in the field, and congratulate all the Nobel winners for this year.
On that note, you can read all about Bose-Einstein Condensate and more at Physics 2000, our award-winning interactive journey through modern physics! The site is here:
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000
Our Bose-Einstein Condensate section is one of the most popular, check it out and learn more!
Ryan Bruels
Technical Consultant
Physics 2000
Center for Integrated Plasma Studies
University of Colorado, Boulder
First off, the theme absolutely must go. Not the intro itself, I thought the video was perfect for the theme, but the song -- jeez, at least they could use that song from all the previews ("Wherever You Will Go", by the Calling). Preferably, orchestrated.
Secondly, yeah, Jolene Blalock was hot, but um, NO KIDDING!! You don't even need to read (heh) the go-change-yer-pants Maxim article to know that. But didn't anyone else think Hoshi was gorgeous? Pretty smile, perky 'tude...
On a related note, Hoshi and Phlox will have the most potential as characters, I think, I really liked 'em. The rest will have to prove themselves to me, their acting was mediocre, but I think this comes with the territory when you get a group of actors together on a new show for the first time.
In any case...I think I'll watch this more than I did Voyager; much as I loved the characters on Voyager (and for them I'll miss the series), it turned into a soap opera. Even with Seven -- and by the way, I think I'm the only male that really didn't find her all that attractive.:P
What everyone is forgetting to mention is that with satellite radio, you are getting digital quality. Which means, many hundred times better than standard FM radio, infinitely better than AM radio, and for me, relativistically better (a new definition I will make up, defined as "infinitely better accelerated to nearly the speed of light") than sitting at home, downloading songs (which are somtimes downloaded just to find they're encoded badly), making playlists, and spending $2.00 on a quality music CD from Memorex.
The quality itself will also be higher than a CD typically, because:
a.) we're using CD-R(W) drives to burn them, not a professional disc mastering systems, and
b.) most of us are going from MP3 compression onto the CD, where we lose -- and people who complain you can't hear it don't have the same phat audio system I do <g> -- noticable quality.
Oh, and by the way -- my Alpine deck is XM-ready, so I can go home and make CDs/playlists/et. al if I want, and still plug into the XM system.
So, when XM reaches my area, SIGN ME UP! There will be some channels with commercials, aye, the new stuff that will be formatted like an FM station; but there will be tens of others that won't, rather like DirectTV's digital music stations.
This is a perfect story about the rise and fall of the Dot-Com Revolution (isn't that a class here at CU now?). Look at the percentage of the students in that article who dropped out, and not only joined the Gold Rush, but started their own companies!
It was a fun time, one I was sad to miss as I was leaving high school and starting college. I should start another revolution. Lemme get back to you on that.
The only solution, of course, is to use another method of stopping the drunk driver. When the ethyl vapors are detected by the fuel cell system, the car would violently detonate, vaporizing the occupant and spreading debris over a quarter-mile.
Why? Because that would be awesome.
Ryan
Hopefully, just a demo.
on
The New Zelda
·
· Score: 1
My heart and soul tell me that this is just a demo of the cartoon-ish shading abilities of the GameCube, among others. Cartooning, unlike more realistic polygon animation (ala Majora's Mask, if you can call that realism) is required to be sharper and crisper than its three-dimensional counterpart. With a lack of depth, one must make up for it with bold colors, elegant curves, and no blemishes that can be excused in three-dimensional texture mapping.
With the success and the ingenuity of both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, I think Nintendo would be taking a major step back in designing their new game around a two-dimensional(ish) character system. The Legend of Zelda games have always been the test of Nintendo's gaming hardware -- games like Super Mario Bros. (and its many variants) have always been the more cartoony, appeal-to-the-kids-and-the-nostalgics releases from Nintendo.
So, that's what I think. I really do, in my optimistic thinking, think this was just an appease-the-crowd showing of some of the new features of the GameCube. Hopefully the new Zelda game will hold true to the series by creating fantastic new worlds and engulfing the user in a more realistic, storybook fantasy world. Leave the cartoons to Mario and his pals.
No, no... not a Ford Pinto. He did actually replace it with a functional machine (unlike the Pinto). But it is like ripping the core out of a Dodge Viper, and slapping say, a Dodge Neon in there.
Why?
You must be mistaken.
on
Case Tweaking
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yucky Mac hardware? Like what, the oh, RAM? Hmm... no, that's standard PC133. Oh, the hard drive. No, shit, that's ATA. DVD-ROM? ATAPI. Hm.
Perhaps you mean the 128-bit-path PowerPC 7400, which has this terrible tendency to rock the Pentium right off the scale. Or the board, with its firewire interfaces, Gigabit ethernet, and 802.11 capabilities?
Nope, don't see any yuckiness there. Now why you would spend your time and money on violating a really great machine to put a sub-par low-tech x86 box in there is absolutely beyond me. I would love to have that kinda extra time and money. And you probably put Windows on there, for Pete's sake.
Now, I'm no biased Mac fanatic, I'll look at all the sides (and I merrily use Linux), but... why destroy an awesome machine like that? Why?
I'm not too keen on the 802.11 systems; what are the security implications of having a widespread, cross-city wireless network like that? Wireless networks are certainly less secure than point-to-point fiber connections, but how *much* less secure is my question. Input appreciated, this interests me as I will likely be researching and entering the 802.11 world shortly here.
Your hostility would best be taken out on that farm animal in which you have been spotted with so often. Yeesh.
This would be the reason they call them anonymous cowards. Folks who can dish all these nasty comments out but hide behind a curtain of anonymity are but the most spineless cowards of them all.
The Ice Man. A new glimpse into humanity's ancient past. An inspiration for the future and a beacon of light in today's darkness of crime and violence.
"...scientists discovered an arrowhead beneath the Iceman's upper left shoulder and concluded that he died in pain and bled extensively..."
This type of situation happened in October here at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We had our seemingly annual fall riots here -- and they do roll around at least once or twice a year; one especially destructive riot had the images of some of the [drunk] rioters posted on the CUPD web site.
This created quite a furor in the local campus newspaper (like every other issue in Boulder), and if I remember correctly, most of those pictured were brought into custody.
A violation of our rights? I don't know. Most of the pictures were submitted from people who were there, no doubt hoping to leech some kind of recognition or reward for their actions. Personally I like to sit back and watch Darwin point his finger at the not-so-fittest, it's very amusing.
As long as the police aren't mounting cameras hidden behind trees in the trouble centers (centralized on the University Hill), I don't think there's much in the way of protection against this. The photographers were valid witnesses to a valid crime, and thus are holding evidence in their hands. It's not any form of covert surveillance.
And my word of advice to the rioters: damn, guys -- try not to look so drunk...
Someone needs to revamp the current DNS system. It's rather a pain in the ass, slow, and really wouldn't be terribly hard to make a lot more efficient...
Slashdot: the one forum I hoped I would never have to read the phrase "hamster tushies."
From a purely theoretical standpoint, I would believe hamster levitation would be a more appropriate use of our time and brainpower. Rather than dealing with the energy drains of kinetic friction, whose combined effect (given the surface contact and total mass of the sheer number of cricetus cricetuses required for locomotion) would likely have devastating effects for both sled and hamsters alike, I believe the correct solution would be the proverbial "Santa's Sleigh" method of locomotion -- or, hamster levitation.
Whether an object will or will not levitate in a magnetic field B (which I will offer as the currently most accessable higher-altitude levitation method) is defined
by the
balance between the magnetic force F = MB and gravity mg = V g where
is the
material density, V is the volume and g = 9.8m/s^2. The magnetic moment
M = (/ 0)VB so
that F = (/0)BVB = (/20)VB^2.
Therefore, the vertical field gradient B^2
required
for levitation has to be larger than 20 g/.
Molecular susceptibilities are
typically 10^-5
for diamagnetics and 10^-3 for paramagnetic materials and, since is most
often a few
g/cm^3, their magnetic levitation requires field gradients ~1000
and 10 T^2/m,
respectively.
Taking l = 10cm as a typical size of high-field magnets
and B^2 ~ B^2/l as an
estimate, we
find that fields of the order of 1 and 10T are sufficient to cause levitation
of para- and
diamagnetics. This result should not come as a surprise because, as we know,
magnetic
fields of less than 0.1T can levitate a superconductor (= -1) and, from the
formulas
above, the magnetic force increases as B^2.
(My thanks to the Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory for that summary, and my utter contempt for Slashdot for not having support for SUP/SUB tags, heh).
So, since we are in our realm of fantasy, let's (somehow, and disregard our generators' mass or add it to our existing sled's mass) generate a magnetic field of approximately (this is a mere brainfart of a guess, the actual number is likely close, but just as likely off by a few units) 15 Teslas/hamster. Yes, this is an extremely high number that is not currently accessable by portable magnetic generation units (that would fit on a dog sled, say); however, one must understand that hamsters (and their corresponding tushies) are NOT naturally ferromagnetic, thus we resort to molecular magnetism, using each hamster as an appropriate diamagnetic object (and requiring an increased B-field to account for it).
This has its advantages, a small number of which I will enumerate here:
1.) Clean levitation. We're not using a gas-powered turbine engine to generate air-resistance-based 'hover' units, simply using the grand power of diamagnetism.
2.) We reduce the direct cold-weather contact that the hamsters have with the earth. Keep in mind, your average dogsled is used in an environment not suited to the short pedals of the common hamster. The rodents would likely disappear under the harsh snow and die of exposure quickly (in addition to making locomotion impossible). Indeed the air-resistance drag against the hamsters would be cold, however this may be circumvented via Gore-Tex brand protective clothing.
3.) The sheer amusement factor of levitating hamsters would not only be a large morale-booster but a potential profit-maker for anyone fool enough to venture into the field.
In conclusion, I insist you don't use hamsters for ground-based dogsled locomotion. If you insist on using members of the Rodentia order to assist in your endeavors, I ask that you help advance the science of diamagnetic levitation and protect the poor little bastards from the harsh northern winters, as well.
As we like to say here at CU, the engineers may only take up 10% of the population, but we drink 50% of the beer.
In my opinion, sure, things like alcohol laws and access to social activities (both of which are in short or just nasty supply in Utah) are very important to where I'd move for a job. When I'm done coding some large project for Iomega, I'm going to want to go out and ingest one or eight strong drinks to forget the workplace for a little while. Not only that, but these laws are indictive of other things such as the lines between church and state (and let's face it, when your state is definitely Mormon in the majority, these lines will be very blurred), government control, fellow citizen's attitudes, et cetera.
Know what I'd recommend? Head east about six hours to the beautiful state of Colorado. We are the microbrew capital of America (i.e., no "Captain Bastard's"-brand beer like in Utah -- no kidding), have an exponentially increasing tech corridor within short drives to the mountains, and dammit, it's FUN out here (also, per the concerns of this person, it's GREAT here.;)
Utah is great to an extent, and I'll certainly head out there once a year to go backpacking, but living there? Nah. Iomega, move your operations out here and you'll get your engineers. We are also one of the more laid-back states, that's for sure. Stay out of Colorado Springs (home of Focus on the Family, which otherwise tarnishes a great city and my former hometown) and your religious, social, and living views won't matter much more than an iota, neither will anyone else's.
Many assume PPC = Mac, and granted it does, usually. Thus the teenaged platform-war instigators (no, I'm not discriminating against teens, I'm saying most rabid platform-war participants are the lesser brand of teenagers) decide to make some smart-assed comment such as "PPC is an inferior platform."
Rant aside, that's not so bad, the Mac is a great platform in general, but PPC is a very fine processor. RISC architecture has outperformed the usual CISC for years now, and the 750 has some beautiful features on it that make open-source computing downright yummy.
As for the kernel patches, yeah, the other guy was right -- if they suck, they're not going to use them. Are they good? I don't know, I've never done an evaluation but would love to see some input on them. If they are good, then is this some large conspiracy to start a platform war?
Prolly not.
Ryan
Yes, the XEROX team did indeed pioneer the operating system, and indeedely-doo Apple took ah, some creative license in taking that GUI.
But they took that GUI and ran with it. Saying Apple didn't have the king's share in making the graphical user interface what it is today is saying AT&T should get no credit for developing a worldwide telecommunications structure just cuz Graham Bell invented the damn telephone.:P
(Side note: I'll get flames because AT&T didn't develop the whole thing and probably didn't pioneer it, but PLEASE go with the meaning of my example and not the actual focus of)
In any case: if you work long and hard to develop anything, you're going to protect it. And let's be really clear here: Aqua is indeed something unique. There's never been quite a GUI like Aqua, nor would it have been developed given time by another group. It's really quite unique and quite beautiful, and I would sure as heck try to protect it. By having others take it like that, it's not just blatantly copying their work, it's showing off Apple's cool interface before they release it (outside of the beta) on their own time. I would surmise that legal threats on skin developers would go down once OS X is released to the community in its full form. Post-release, the skins will be a form of hero worship versus a form of pre-releasing someone else's look and feel.:)
And for your curiousity, I am an avid Mac user but also an avid open-source advocate and penguin-lover. But I do believe the corporate world has its place, and they're entitled to rights on their creations as much as the next. And you know Apple's not typical corporate. The developers of Aqua are artists, and I know da Vinci would have been pretty damn livid if I painted by own copy (but sans, say, her half-smile) of the Mona Lisa...
Slashdot Mirror
I think recharging through *AirPort* would be a good idea. I wonder what would happen when your cat walked through the wireless electrical stream, though.
Ryan
Yeah, and wait a minute -- FireWire download (10 seconds for a full CD of music or so) versus USB on the Nomad.
;)
Fuck USB.
Ryan
You missed one thing. They didn't show this part so they could maintain the PG-13 rating, but you know they would have appended this to the code on behalf of all our human abductees.
if(shields == 1)
{
shields = 0;
ShowBitmap(JOLLY_ROGER);
probe(alien, anus);
}
ROFL
From the Physics department here at the University of Colorado, I consider myself lucky to work with folks like Dr. Weiman (one of the Nobel recipients) and others in the field, and congratulate all the Nobel winners for this year.
On that note, you can read all about Bose-Einstein Condensate and more at Physics 2000, our award-winning interactive journey through modern physics! The site is here:
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000
Our Bose-Einstein Condensate section is one of the most popular, check it out and learn more!
Ryan Bruels
Technical Consultant
Physics 2000
Center for Integrated Plasma Studies
University of Colorado, Boulder
Dear hippie Earth child,
I'M NOT GOING TO WALK FROM NEW YORK TO LOS ANGELES!
Thank you.
Okay,
:P
First off, the theme absolutely must go. Not the intro itself, I thought the video was perfect for the theme, but the song -- jeez, at least they could use that song from all the previews ("Wherever You Will Go", by the Calling). Preferably, orchestrated.
Secondly, yeah, Jolene Blalock was hot, but um, NO KIDDING!! You don't even need to read (heh) the go-change-yer-pants Maxim article to know that. But didn't anyone else think Hoshi was gorgeous? Pretty smile, perky 'tude...
On a related note, Hoshi and Phlox will have the most potential as characters, I think, I really liked 'em. The rest will have to prove themselves to me, their acting was mediocre, but I think this comes with the territory when you get a group of actors together on a new show for the first time.
In any case...I think I'll watch this more than I did Voyager; much as I loved the characters on Voyager (and for them I'll miss the series), it turned into a soap opera. Even with Seven -- and by the way, I think I'm the only male that really didn't find her all that attractive.
Cheers!
Ryan
This is a perfect story about the rise and fall of the Dot-Com Revolution (isn't that a class here at CU now?). Look at the percentage of the students in that article who dropped out, and not only joined the Gold Rush, but started their own companies!
It was a fun time, one I was sad to miss as I was leaving high school and starting college. I should start another revolution. Lemme get back to you on that.
The only solution, of course, is to use another method of stopping the drunk driver. When the ethyl vapors are detected by the fuel cell system, the car would violently detonate, vaporizing the occupant and spreading debris over a quarter-mile.
Why? Because that would be awesome.
Ryan
My heart and soul tell me that this is just a demo of the cartoon-ish shading abilities of the GameCube, among others. Cartooning, unlike more realistic polygon animation (ala Majora's Mask, if you can call that realism) is required to be sharper and crisper than its three-dimensional counterpart. With a lack of depth, one must make up for it with bold colors, elegant curves, and no blemishes that can be excused in three-dimensional texture mapping.
With the success and the ingenuity of both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, I think Nintendo would be taking a major step back in designing their new game around a two-dimensional(ish) character system. The Legend of Zelda games have always been the test of Nintendo's gaming hardware -- games like Super Mario Bros. (and its many variants) have always been the more cartoony, appeal-to-the-kids-and-the-nostalgics releases from Nintendo.
So, that's what I think. I really do, in my optimistic thinking, think this was just an appease-the-crowd showing of some of the new features of the GameCube. Hopefully the new Zelda game will hold true to the series by creating fantastic new worlds and engulfing the user in a more realistic, storybook fantasy world. Leave the cartoons to Mario and his pals.
Ryan
No, no... not a Ford Pinto. He did actually replace it with a functional machine (unlike the Pinto). But it is like ripping the core out of a Dodge Viper, and slapping say, a Dodge Neon in there. Why?
Perhaps you mean the 128-bit-path PowerPC 7400, which has this terrible tendency to rock the Pentium right off the scale. Or the board, with its firewire interfaces, Gigabit ethernet, and 802.11 capabilities?
Nope, don't see any yuckiness there. Now why you would spend your time and money on violating a really great machine to put a sub-par low-tech x86 box in there is absolutely beyond me. I would love to have that kinda extra time and money. And you probably put Windows on there, for Pete's sake.
Now, I'm no biased Mac fanatic, I'll look at all the sides (and I merrily use Linux), but... why destroy an awesome machine like that? Why?
I'm not too keen on the 802.11 systems; what are the security implications of having a widespread, cross-city wireless network like that? Wireless networks are certainly less secure than point-to-point fiber connections, but how *much* less secure is my question. Input appreciated, this interests me as I will likely be researching and entering the 802.11 world shortly here.
Thanks,
Ryan
Dear sir,
Your hostility would best be taken out on that farm animal in which you have been spotted with so often. Yeesh.
This would be the reason they call them anonymous cowards. Folks who can dish all these nasty comments out but hide behind a curtain of anonymity are but the most spineless cowards of them all.
The Ice Man. A new glimpse into humanity's ancient past. An inspiration for the future and a beacon of light in today's darkness of crime and violence.
Well, never mind. :P
The probes are getting diverted by CowboyNeal's inverse hyperbolic gravitational shift field.
Ryan
This created quite a furor in the local campus newspaper (like every other issue in Boulder), and if I remember correctly, most of those pictured were brought into custody.
A violation of our rights? I don't know. Most of the pictures were submitted from people who were there, no doubt hoping to leech some kind of recognition or reward for their actions. Personally I like to sit back and watch Darwin point his finger at the not-so-fittest, it's very amusing.
As long as the police aren't mounting cameras hidden behind trees in the trouble centers (centralized on the University Hill), I don't think there's much in the way of protection against this. The photographers were valid witnesses to a valid crime, and thus are holding evidence in their hands. It's not any form of covert surveillance.
And my word of advice to the rioters: damn, guys -- try not to look so drunk...
Ryan Bruels bruels@cs.colorado.edu
Someone needs to revamp the current DNS system. It's rather a pain in the ass, slow, and really wouldn't be terribly hard to make a lot more efficient...
Ryan
Slashdot : the one forum I hoped I would never have to read the phrase "hamster tushies."
From a purely theoretical standpoint, I would believe hamster levitation would be a more appropriate use of our time and brainpower. Rather than dealing with the energy drains of kinetic friction, whose combined effect (given the surface contact and total mass of the sheer number of cricetus cricetuses required for locomotion) would likely have devastating effects for both sled and hamsters alike, I believe the correct solution would be the proverbial "Santa's Sleigh" method of locomotion -- or, hamster levitation.
(My thanks to the Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory for that summary, and my utter contempt for Slashdot for not having support for SUP/SUB tags, heh).So, since we are in our realm of fantasy, let's (somehow, and disregard our generators' mass or add it to our existing sled's mass) generate a magnetic field of approximately (this is a mere brainfart of a guess, the actual number is likely close, but just as likely off by a few units) 15 Teslas/hamster. Yes, this is an extremely high number that is not currently accessable by portable magnetic generation units (that would fit on a dog sled, say); however, one must understand that hamsters (and their corresponding tushies) are NOT naturally ferromagnetic, thus we resort to molecular magnetism, using each hamster as an appropriate diamagnetic object (and requiring an increased B-field to account for it).
This has its advantages, a small number of which I will enumerate here:
In conclusion, I insist you don't use hamsters for ground-based dogsled locomotion. If you insist on using members of the Rodentia order to assist in your endeavors, I ask that you help advance the science of diamagnetic levitation and protect the poor little bastards from the harsh northern winters, as well.Ryan Bruels
In my opinion, sure, things like alcohol laws and access to social activities (both of which are in short or just nasty supply in Utah) are very important to where I'd move for a job. When I'm done coding some large project for Iomega, I'm going to want to go out and ingest one or eight strong drinks to forget the workplace for a little while. Not only that, but these laws are indictive of other things such as the lines between church and state (and let's face it, when your state is definitely Mormon in the majority, these lines will be very blurred), government control, fellow citizen's attitudes, et cetera.
Know what I'd recommend? Head east about six hours to the beautiful state of Colorado. We are the microbrew capital of America (i.e., no "Captain Bastard's"-brand beer like in Utah -- no kidding), have an exponentially increasing tech corridor within short drives to the mountains, and dammit, it's FUN out here (also, per the concerns of this person, it's GREAT here. ;)
Utah is great to an extent, and I'll certainly head out there once a year to go backpacking, but living there? Nah. Iomega, move your operations out here and you'll get your engineers. We are also one of the more laid-back states, that's for sure. Stay out of Colorado Springs (home of Focus on the Family, which otherwise tarnishes a great city and my former hometown) and your religious, social, and living views won't matter much more than an iota, neither will anyone else's.
Ryan
Many assume PPC = Mac, and granted it does, usually. Thus the teenaged platform-war instigators (no, I'm not discriminating against teens, I'm saying most rabid platform-war participants are the lesser brand of teenagers) decide to make some smart-assed comment such as "PPC is an inferior platform." Rant aside, that's not so bad, the Mac is a great platform in general, but PPC is a very fine processor. RISC architecture has outperformed the usual CISC for years now, and the 750 has some beautiful features on it that make open-source computing downright yummy. As for the kernel patches, yeah, the other guy was right -- if they suck, they're not going to use them. Are they good? I don't know, I've never done an evaluation but would love to see some input on them. If they are good, then is this some large conspiracy to start a platform war? Prolly not. Ryan
The one place I thought I was safe from the XFL!
Ah well. Frogblast the ventcore.
- Ryan
Yes, the XEROX team did indeed pioneer the operating system, and indeedely-doo Apple took ah, some creative license in taking that GUI.
But they took that GUI and ran with it. Saying Apple didn't have the king's share in making the graphical user interface what it is today is saying AT&T should get no credit for developing a worldwide telecommunications structure just cuz Graham Bell invented the damn telephone.:P
(Side note: I'll get flames because AT&T didn't develop the whole thing and probably didn't pioneer it, but PLEASE go with the meaning of my example and not the actual focus of)
In any case: if you work long and hard to develop anything, you're going to protect it. And let's be really clear here: Aqua is indeed something unique. There's never been quite a GUI like Aqua, nor would it have been developed given time by another group. It's really quite unique and quite beautiful, and I would sure as heck try to protect it. By having others take it like that, it's not just blatantly copying their work, it's showing off Apple's cool interface before they release it (outside of the beta) on their own time. I would surmise that legal threats on skin developers would go down once OS X is released to the community in its full form. Post-release, the skins will be a form of hero worship versus a form of pre-releasing someone else's look and feel. :)
And for your curiousity, I am an avid Mac user but also an avid open-source advocate and penguin-lover. But I do believe the corporate world has its place, and they're entitled to rights on their creations as much as the next. And you know Apple's not typical corporate. The developers of Aqua are artists, and I know da Vinci would have been pretty damn livid if I painted by own copy (but sans, say, her half-smile) of the Mona Lisa...
- Ryan