You probably can't sue them back. I did some browsing around when the code was first released and when it was yanked. Proprietary code was leaked so DeCSS wasn't really a feat of reverse engineering. In an attempt to make things legit somebody went through the effort of rewriting the code. Unfortunately any such attempt by anybody who has had access to the code results in... tainted code.
In order to legally reverse engineer something a clean room approach has to be taken, otherwise you're plaguerising and not reverse engineering.
This is pretty well documented in courts by the early days of cloning the IBM PC BIOS. IBM really wanted to nail Phoenix technologies (I think it was Phoenix, its been quite a while and I was pretty young) but Phoenix was pretty smart. They had two groups of engineers, one group who would characterize what results they saw from a BIOS and would explain it for the second group of engineers. The second group of engineers had the task of coding.
If the code was truly reverse engineered the lawsuit would probably still happen but it would have a lot less teeth. They could point at any patented technology but not trade secrets.
b) Now, open source projects will be able to export without review, but RSA will not collect any money from these projects.
I'm not sure what you mean here, I may have misinterpreted you. The way I did interpret it is that open source projects can export RSA encryption and RSA won't collect their licensing fees or royalties.
That would be incorrect. You can't export RSA from the US, Open Source or not, since RSA is protected by patent. RSA chooses to charge a fee for the use of the technology so it isn't Open Source. RSA isn't ours to export. If we did do the simple job of writing an Open Source implementation (from the US) and exporting it we would be in violation of patent infringmenet and somebody would get sued.
This is rather odd. It seems to tilt the balance in favour of Open Source implementations. Proprietary closed source implementations are limited to a maximum of 64 bit key length. As a lot of people know this is weak encryption for a lot of applications.
I don't see any such restriction for Open Source though. As long as the code "isn't subject to an express agreement for the payment of a licensing fee or royalty for for commercial production or sale of any product developed using the source code can, without review, be released from "EI" controls and exported and reexported under License Exception TSU."
The without review portion is important. I fully expect that even with the constraint of 64 bit key length that certain three letter acronyms will require some sort of back door. Either explicity or by insertion of weakness into the algorithms.
"Review and classification are not required for foreign made products using this source code." This is important as well, not only can it be exported but foreigners can use this code in their products.
There is a gotcha however. Once this free code is compiled into a commercial binary it would seem to fall under clause 2, which would indicate a 64 bit key length restriction. This is pretty easy to fix though, at least for a commercially packaged Linux. Distribute software with hooks that can make use of the encryption software but at the same time don't distribute binary implementations of the Open Source encryption code. Do however provide the source code. As part of the installation process a compile takes place and compiles the source code (remember, there are no restrictions on exporting source code as long as there is no requirement for fees), moves the shared library into its proper location and voila, you've got strong encryption without ever having shipped a binary.
The other option is to have an overseas finishing/distributor operation, ship them the distribution sans encryption binaries. They build the binaries, build the non-US package and handle overseas distribution.
Metrowerks has already been working on MacOS X compilers. They will be there first (other than Apple with GNU based compilers).
An infinitely more likely scenario is that Motorola who now owns Metrowerks didn't see any financial incentive to pursuing a Linux IDE. Motorola bought Metrowerks mostly because of their compilers for the embedded market, something that Motorola dominates. A secondary reason would be their PowerPC support but the MacOS market is small compared to their embedded market. The number of Linux users who would actually purchase the IDE is probably insignificant compared to even the MacOS market.
Re:Does the GPL prevent companies from enslaving u
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New CTO at Red Hat
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RedHat or can only distribute the application or source, they can't really dominate it unless you allow them to. In order to allow RedHat to dominate an application that has been GPL'd you as the 'owner' of the work would have to grant them a different license agreement.
As part of the GPL whoever distributes the binary has to distribute the source and there is no way for them to prevent anybody else from distributing the binaries or source. They also can't make an enhanced version unless they release the source and binaries equally unencumbered. Any GPL stuff that RedHat has is available from some variant of ftp.redhat.com for the effort of downloading.
Again you as the owner of the code in question can grant a waver to RedHat but you would have to explicitly do this. You could grant RedHat (or any other company) the rights to modify and release in a binary only format and restrict from redistribution OpenVerse Visual Chat+ or whatever. In this manner you could enable RedHat to dominate a package by allowing them to release a closed source fee base package that only works on RedHat linux and so on.
At first I didn't see any harm or problem with LawNet as long as it boiled down to an agreement between countries to assist in tracking down internet based crime. This would mean that if the appropriate level of law enforcement in the US contacted the appropriate level of law enforcement in some other country a channel would be cleared for the rapid finding of facts, gathering of evidence and so on. Then I started thinking of the current state of extradition between countries. Extradition has been denied in serious crimes against people such as kidnapping or murder. The chances of any real cooperation in light of this would appear to be nil.
Second of all as far as the government goes for protecting privacy in actuallity it is against privacy, or at least against meaningful privacy. If they were in favour of privacy there would be no encryption restrictions, or if there were encryption restrictions it would be against snake oil encryption. My bet is that this stance won't change until the lack of strong encryption enables a third party to intercept and decode a message which from the governments point of view should have been kept private. Either that or perhaps a real war where letters exchanged with people back home might be intercepted and reveal information valuable to the enemy.
Technology is moving too quickly for an authentication scheme like this. Relatively soon it will be possible to do a lot of potentially abusive things in real time. Just insert this information into the bit stream of a compromised camera before the signature is generated.
I totally agree. I think in Canadian high schools, you are required to take some sort of class on "reading media" (any Canadians care to comment?). We could really use something like this is the US. That really goes into the category of learning to think for yourself, which our school system most definatly does not support. Those in power certainly don't want a bunch of young people becoming politically concious.
It's been a while (12 years I think) since I graduated but, when I was there, there was no such course. I did take a sociology course which did talk about such things but it wasn't required.
This is probably correct. Did Sorensen approach Apple and ask or did they hide behind this clause? The real question is "without the provision would Sorensen have released its Codec in any form"? Given the lack of any of their other IP being freely available I think the answer is no.
The Caldera settlement is implicit acknowledgement by Microsoft that they conspired to detroy a competitor by illegal means, and that no court in the land would reasonably believe otherwise.
The settlement is not an admission of guilt. It's an out of court settlement. Guilty or not Microsoft avoiding the possibility of a guilty ruling. Things like this happen all the time. How many "out of court" settlements do you hear about over frivilous lawsuits? In those cases the companies definately aren't admitting guilt. They're just avoiding the expense and possible investor backlash over a lengthly trial. Wall street will probably look at this more favourably than damaging. Sure, maybe they would have won the case eventually but having the case against them represents uncertainty.
The Temp ruling is an explicit statement that Microsoft discriminated against temporary hires in a way that exceeded any reasonable bounds.
This is correct.
IMHO, if you put someone on a factory floor, or behind a computer, you are saying they make a valuable contribution to the company. Otherwise, you wouldn't need the position, and they wouldn't be there. If a temp and a full-time employee are doing the same work, under the same conditions, and the employee is getting significantly better compensation, the company is basically saying to the temp "yes, you're doing stuff worth a damn sight more than we're giving you, and we're willing to pay other people for it, but we're legally allowed to treat -you- like dirt, and it keeps our accountants happy if we do."
This is incorrect. I was a contractor, I quit contracting because I didn't like being a contractor. As a contractor I was payed considerably more than a regular employee but I was not eligible for employee perks. I couldn't get in on stock options or reduced stock pricing and so on. I knew this when I signed on. The people who contracted for Microsoft knew this as well or they were stupid. Stupidity should not be rewarded. As an employee you're taking some risk in that part of your wages are based on the success of the company. Maybe the company does well and those 10,000 stock options will be worth a million dollars. Maybe the company goes bust and they're not worth the paper they're printed on. As a contractor you're saying you want the cold hard cash up front.
I've always felt that when grade schools try to introduce students to the news paper in grade four or so they should also teach them the power of critical thinking. This would of course go against the normal school systems agenda, so I doubt it'll ever happen. An interesting exercise is to pick a few articles in the newspaper, especially if they are on something people typically have an opinion about, and seperate cold hard facts from the reporters opinion or interpretation. Maybe use two colours of highlighter to dilinieate fact v.s. opinion. Tally it up. Even in situations where you are supposed to be getting a report on something you'll find a great deal of opinion interjected.
The media has also been guilty of image manipulation before. One of the popular magazines was caught during the OJ Simpson trial. They doctored up a picture of Simpson and gave him a couple days beard growth, darkened shadows to make him appear more menacing and so on. They were definately trying to manipulate the public. It was done to sell more magazines but it was done at the expense of the publics perception of Simpson.
Watch any interview on TV, most of the cutaway shots to the reporter are done after the fact. Often the questions are reshot later to give the reporter a heightened air of professionalism. Have you ever contrasted the way a reporter speaks to the way the typical person speaks? Some of it is professionalism but a lot of it is a cheat on the part of the producers.
So, this is nothing new. It's reprehensible but you shouldn't trust the media any less over it. You should always be looking for the hidden angle which is the only way you'll be able to form your own opinions.
Well, you'll never ever get Sorensen from Apple. It's not there's to give, it's a technology they license from Sorensen. As for why they don't build a Linux QuickTime client it would be that they don't see any return on the investment at this point in time. There also may be licensing reasons. You usually license a technology for a given market. So Apple licenses Sorensen for MacOS (obviously) and Windows (for additional market share)
I think that if the right person or persons made an actual business case to Apple that may change, especially in light of the fact that they're going to have to port it to run over their BSD based MacOS X anyway.
Also - as an aside, what's up with the "call for prices". Does market value really fluctuate that much from day to day?
I saw this site the last time it was on slashdot and did a repeat of what I did last time I saw it. I looked for any of their cases via the popular computer hardware search engines I know of. The result then, as now is that nobody sells the actual cases.
The "call for prices" is probably because they don't manufacture enough to have any constancy in prices or availability or possibly even a sane price.
What influence does Wozniak have over whether the carbon UI or any other Apple proprietary stuff is Open Sourced? Apple isn't his company and he isn't even an employee of Apple. He may still be a stock holder but that doesn't entitle him to run the company as he sees fit, if he would even support Open Source in that manner. Steve basically said that the allure of Open Source software in his eyes was the ability to not support the big players.
Maybe Apple will Open Source the UI, but I doubt it very much, I don't see how they'd be a viable company if they gave away everything and the stock holders would thus react rather violently.
I think a better opportunity would be for Apple to make QuickTime available under Linux even if its via the LGPL (they don't own the Codecs which are the merit of QuickTime, they're owned by Sorensen, the parts which Apple does own, which is basically the file format which surrounds the data is as far as I know publically available)
I think we've got the graphic... the penguin. It's visually appealing, simple and insites curiousity. One of these under a clear arcrylic cover would look great and would provide a meme that points at Linux.
I'm not sure whether this product implies that Intel is eager for Microsoft competition. One thing to keep in mind is that at 300 dollars there is not a lot of overhead to pay for a Windows operating system. Another is that this device as described is relatively single purpose. Not being able to run Microsoft Office isn't a factor.
Intel can be OS agnostic, from their point of view who cares what OS runs as long as it runs on an Intel chip.
Good point, I hadn't looked at it in terms of market share. If they sell some insane number of them then it does increase Linux market share whether the average consumer knows it or not.
This could be a really useful device, ground breaking even, the first true internet appliance. If Intel is good at marketing (and they are) they'll aim these squarely at the segment of the population who doesn't really need or want a computer but who may be convinced of the utility of browsing the web.
Consider that a couple years ago I bought my dad (73 years old now) a computer. It was a Macintosh and despite my worries its probably the most used gift he's ever received. He writes email, browses the web and plays a few games. He's even managed to use google to find stuff I've written and other things he finds interesting. I'm actually pretty impressed seeing as this was his first exposure to a computer.
My mom on the other hand has no real desire to use it. I've shown her a few things which interest her but she can't overcome the concept that she'd be "a computer user". I bet I could buy her one of these though and she'd use it a lot. It's got a regular phone so it is fine in the kitchen or whatever it is you call the area where we typically have dinner. If by default (or through a single click) it hooked up to the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes she'd use it a lot. Add in some more links for other interests (quilting or needle point or whatever) and she'd use it even more.
Eventually I'm sure she'd outgrow it and start using my dad's computer. That's fine. In a lot of cases despite this device being sold in a garage sale for 10 bucks within a year its still a win for Intel. They buy a new computer with... an Intel processor.
I don't see this as a big win for Linux. My mom (or my dad) isn't going to run and buy an Intel box to run Linux on. Sorry, Linux just isn't applicable here at this point in time. Linux just enabled Intel to sell these boxes at a really low price point.
There are different circumstances and whether there should be any regulations depends on the circumstances.
If I'm working at home by choice then what I use is up to me and if it causes me harm then its my own fault. However it might be in my employers best interest to spring for the Henry Miller Aeron chair, an ergonmicly sane desk and send me to a physiotherapist to learn a few exercises to keep my body working. If I'm not able to work then that effects the company.
If I'm required to work at home, whether due to mismanagement I'm required to work extra hours or its in the job description then the company should be responsible.
It's either unenforcible or extremely abusable though. Either the legislation will have no teeth and can be safely ignored or people who change jobs frequently (say a contractor) will be able to furnish their homes in nice new ergonmic furniture.
This is an outrageously stupid and dangerous idea. This is even worse than the ticket quotas which state and local police use to pad their operating budgets. I drive a lot and I've often witnessed the police creating a dangerous situation in order to generate funds: Traffic is moving along, above the speed limit, but there are good distances between any pair of cars. Lots of stopping distance. Usually cars don't drive side by side so there is adequate room for an emergency lane change if the need were to arise. Local cops hide out and ticket a few people. Everybody slows down to the speed limit.
They're safer, they're moving slower right? Wrong. Absolutely 100% wrong. Traffic bunches up and people end up driving bumper to bumper. People get claustorphobic, frustrated and belligerent. Thank you officer, you just created an accident waiting to happen.
Tickets for speed violations should be abolished for public safety. Use the catch all unsafe driving as a deterrent for... unsafe driving. If traffic is moving at 55 miles per hour and somebody is weaving in and out at 95 then nail them. If traffic is moving at 95 miles per hour and somebody is driving in the fast lane, white knuckled and furious that everybody is passing him as he's driving 45 miles per hour, nail him. He's an unsafe driver.
The police won't be able to nail people with unsafe driving for going over the speed limit. People's insurance would go through the roof, they'd lose their licenses and the elected officials who support handing out unsafe driving citations for speed violations would be crucified (rightfully so) in the next election.
Uri Geller isn't a spoon-bending psychic. He's a money grubbing charlatan who has tried to employ the same tactics as the Scientologists (lawsuits anyone?) against his detractors, albeit with less success. He's now jumped on the new age bandwagon and his latest snake-oil are crystals and tapes on how to develop your ESP and other psychic abilities.
Suing over the Pokemon card is just another attempt of his to get rich quick. He might be on to something but I doubt it. The Pokemon card could probably be defended as a parody of Uri Geller, a public figure.
Click here. Professional skeptic, James Randi (also a shameless self promoter, but hey, at least its for a better cause) has debunked Geller in a book. He's also challenged him to perform his feats of telekinesis under controlled circumstances for a million dollar prize. Given he loves publicity and will do anything for a buck his refusal to compete for the prize speaks volumes about his credibility.
If you could be freed from any management influences and had the desire to design a new machine, what would the features be? I'm not interested in processor speeds or scads of memory and whatnot, but more in what innovations you'd like to see.
No, but you do have to work at the company IPOing, or be an institutional, or be a source contributor, or close to the investment bank, to get at-the-opening share prices, right?
VAlinux shares were offered on E*trade. The demand for shares far outweighed their availibility to provide them. A random draw was made to decide who gets to buy. To qualify for this you could not work for the company being IPO'd, work for the investment house or be family etc. If you got the letter, i.e., you actually contributed to Open Source in some meaningful way, you had a much better chance.
You don't need to be rich to get in on an IPO, of course it doesn't hurt.
Open an account at an online broker, I've got one at E*Trade, and every pay check put in a small percentage of your paycheck. When you put away money upfront its less painful then trying to come up with a wad of cash for the next big thing.
A money market account at E*Trade pays a pretty respectable interest rate. A lot better than my traditional bank and it has free checking. If I ever need to raid it I just write a check.
Re:Can't move funds into Etrade quick enough.
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VA Reprices Again
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Get a percentage of your paycheck deposited to E*trade (or whatever online broker you are signed up with). It's more painless to deposit money off the top than trying to scrounge up money at the last minute. The E*trade money market actually gives a fairly decent interest rate and has free chequing. It's a much better than my local bank.
There will be other "can't miss" IPO's and in the mean time you're forcing yourself to save money. This is never a bad thing.
Slashdot Mirror
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You probably can't sue them back. I did some browsing around when the code was first released and when it was yanked. Proprietary code was leaked so DeCSS wasn't really a feat of reverse engineering. In an attempt to make things legit somebody went through the effort of rewriting the code. Unfortunately any such attempt by anybody who has had access to the code results in... tainted code.
In order to legally reverse engineer something a clean room approach has to be taken, otherwise you're plaguerising and not reverse engineering.
This is pretty well documented in courts by the early days of cloning the IBM PC BIOS. IBM really wanted to nail Phoenix technologies (I think it was Phoenix, its been quite a while and I was pretty young) but Phoenix was pretty smart. They had two groups of engineers, one group who would characterize what results they saw from a BIOS and would explain it for the second group of engineers. The second group of engineers had the task of coding.
If the code was truly reverse engineered the lawsuit would probably still happen but it would have a lot less teeth. They could point at any patented technology but not trade secrets.
b) Now, open source projects will be able to export without review, but RSA will not collect any money from these projects.
I'm not sure what you mean here, I may have misinterpreted you. The way I did interpret it is that open source projects can export RSA encryption and RSA won't collect their licensing fees or royalties.
That would be incorrect. You can't export RSA from the US, Open Source or not, since RSA is protected by patent. RSA chooses to charge a fee for the use of the technology so it isn't Open Source. RSA isn't ours to export. If we did do the simple job of writing an Open Source implementation (from the US) and exporting it we would be in violation of patent infringmenet and somebody would get sued.
This is rather odd. It seems to tilt the balance in favour of Open Source implementations. Proprietary closed source implementations are limited to a maximum of 64 bit key length. As a lot of people know this is weak encryption for a lot of applications.
I don't see any such restriction for Open Source though. As long as the code "isn't subject to an express agreement for the payment of a licensing fee or royalty for for commercial production or sale of any product developed using the source code can, without review, be released from "EI" controls and exported and reexported under License Exception TSU."
The without review portion is important. I fully expect that even with the constraint of 64 bit key length that certain three letter acronyms will require some sort of back door. Either explicity or by insertion of weakness into the algorithms.
"Review and classification are not required for foreign made products using this source code." This is important as well, not only can it be exported but foreigners can use this code in their products.
There is a gotcha however. Once this free code is compiled into a commercial binary it would seem to fall under clause 2, which would indicate a 64 bit key length restriction. This is pretty easy to fix though, at least for a commercially packaged Linux. Distribute software with hooks that can make use of the encryption software but at the same time don't distribute binary implementations of the Open Source encryption code. Do however provide the source code. As part of the installation process a compile takes place and compiles the source code (remember, there are no restrictions on exporting source code as long as there is no requirement for fees), moves the shared library into its proper location and voila, you've got strong encryption without ever having shipped a binary.
The other option is to have an overseas finishing/distributor operation, ship them the distribution sans encryption binaries. They build the binaries, build the non-US package and handle overseas distribution.
Metrowerks has already been working on MacOS X compilers. They will be there first (other than Apple with GNU based compilers).
An infinitely more likely scenario is that Motorola who now owns Metrowerks didn't see any financial incentive to pursuing a Linux IDE. Motorola bought Metrowerks mostly because of their compilers for the embedded market, something that Motorola dominates. A secondary reason would be their PowerPC support but the MacOS market is small compared to their embedded market. The number of Linux users who would actually purchase the IDE is probably insignificant compared to even the MacOS market.
RedHat or can only distribute the application or source, they can't really dominate it unless you allow them to. In order to allow RedHat to dominate an application that has been GPL'd you as the 'owner' of the work would have to grant them a different license agreement.
As part of the GPL whoever distributes the binary has to distribute the source and there is no way for them to prevent anybody else from distributing the binaries or source. They also can't make an enhanced version unless they release the source and binaries equally unencumbered. Any GPL stuff that RedHat has is available from some variant of ftp.redhat.com for the effort of downloading.
Again you as the owner of the code in question can grant a waver to RedHat but you would have to explicitly do this. You could grant RedHat (or any other company) the rights to modify and release in a binary only format and restrict from redistribution OpenVerse Visual Chat+ or whatever. In this manner you could enable RedHat to dominate a package by allowing them to release a closed source fee base package that only works on RedHat linux and so on.
At first I didn't see any harm or problem with LawNet as long as it boiled down to an agreement between countries to assist in tracking down internet based crime. This would mean that if the appropriate level of law enforcement in the US contacted the appropriate level of law enforcement in some other country a channel would be cleared for the rapid finding of facts, gathering of evidence and so on. Then I started thinking of the current state of extradition between countries. Extradition has been denied in serious crimes against people such as kidnapping or murder. The chances of any real cooperation in light of this would appear to be nil.
Second of all as far as the government goes for protecting privacy in actuallity it is against privacy, or at least against meaningful privacy. If they were in favour of privacy there would be no encryption restrictions, or if there were encryption restrictions it would be against snake oil encryption. My bet is that this stance won't change until the lack of strong encryption enables a third party to intercept and decode a message which from the governments point of view should have been kept private. Either that or perhaps a real war where letters exchanged with people back home might be intercepted and reveal information valuable to the enemy.
Technology is moving too quickly for an authentication scheme like this. Relatively soon it will be possible to do a lot of potentially abusive things in real time. Just insert this information into the bit stream of a compromised camera before the signature is generated.
I totally agree. I think in Canadian high schools, you are required to take some sort of class on "reading media" (any Canadians care to comment?). We could really use something like this is the US. That really goes into the category of learning to think for yourself, which our school system most definatly does not support. Those in power certainly don't want a bunch of young people becoming politically concious.
It's been a while (12 years I think) since I graduated but, when I was there, there was no such course. I did take a sociology course which did talk about such things but it wasn't required.
This is probably correct. Did Sorensen approach Apple and ask or did they hide behind this clause? The real question is "without the provision would Sorensen have released its Codec in any form"? Given the lack of any of their other IP being freely available I think the answer is no.
The Caldera settlement is implicit acknowledgement by Microsoft that they conspired to detroy a competitor by illegal means,
and that no court in the land would reasonably believe otherwise.
The settlement is not an admission of guilt. It's an out of court settlement. Guilty or not Microsoft avoiding the possibility of a guilty ruling. Things like this happen all the time. How many "out of court" settlements do you hear about over frivilous lawsuits? In those cases the companies definately aren't admitting guilt. They're just avoiding the expense and possible investor backlash over a lengthly trial. Wall street will probably look at this more favourably than damaging. Sure, maybe they would have won the case eventually but having the case against them represents uncertainty.
The Temp ruling is an explicit statement that Microsoft discriminated against temporary hires in a way that exceeded any
reasonable bounds.
This is correct.
IMHO, if you put someone on a factory floor, or behind a computer, you are saying they make a valuable contribution to the
company. Otherwise, you wouldn't need the position, and they wouldn't be there. If a temp and a full-time employee are doing
the same work, under the same conditions, and the employee is getting significantly better compensation, the company is
basically saying to the temp "yes, you're doing stuff worth a damn sight more than we're giving you, and we're willing to pay
other people for it, but we're legally allowed to treat -you- like dirt, and it keeps our accountants happy if we do."
This is incorrect. I was a contractor, I quit contracting because I didn't like being a contractor. As a contractor I was payed considerably more than a regular employee but I was not eligible for employee perks. I couldn't get in on stock options or reduced stock pricing and so on. I knew this when I signed on. The people who contracted for Microsoft knew this as well or they were stupid. Stupidity should not be rewarded. As an employee you're taking some risk in that part of your wages are based on the success of the company. Maybe the company does well and those 10,000 stock options will be worth a million dollars. Maybe the company goes bust and they're not worth the paper they're printed on. As a contractor you're saying you want the cold hard cash up front.
I've always felt that when grade schools try to introduce students to the news paper in grade four or so they should also teach them the power of critical thinking. This would of course go against the normal school systems agenda, so I doubt it'll ever happen. An interesting exercise is to pick a few articles in the newspaper, especially if they are on something people typically have an opinion about, and seperate cold hard facts from the reporters opinion or interpretation. Maybe use two colours of highlighter to dilinieate fact v.s. opinion. Tally it up. Even in situations where you are supposed to be getting a report on something you'll find a great deal of opinion interjected.
The media has also been guilty of image manipulation before. One of the popular magazines was caught during the OJ Simpson trial. They doctored up a picture of Simpson and gave him a couple days beard growth, darkened shadows to make him appear more menacing and so on. They were definately trying to manipulate the public. It was done to sell more magazines but it was done at the expense of the publics perception of Simpson.
Watch any interview on TV, most of the cutaway shots to the reporter are done after the fact. Often the questions are reshot later to give the reporter a heightened air of professionalism. Have you ever contrasted the way a reporter speaks to the way the typical person speaks? Some of it is professionalism but a lot of it is a cheat on the part of the producers.
So, this is nothing new. It's reprehensible but you shouldn't trust the media any less over it. You should always be looking for the hidden angle which is the only way you'll be able to form your own opinions.
Well, you'll never ever get Sorensen from Apple. It's not there's to give, it's a technology they license from Sorensen. As for why they don't build a Linux QuickTime client it would be that they don't see any return on the investment at this point in time. There also may be licensing reasons. You usually license a technology for a given market. So Apple licenses Sorensen for MacOS (obviously) and Windows (for additional market share)
I think that if the right person or persons made an actual business case to Apple that may change, especially in light of the fact that they're going to have to port it to run over their BSD based MacOS X anyway.
Also - as an aside, what's up with the "call for prices". Does market value really fluctuate that much from day to day?
I saw this site the last time it was on slashdot and did a repeat of what I did last time I saw it. I looked for any of their cases via the popular computer hardware search engines I know of. The result then, as now is that nobody sells the actual cases.
The "call for prices" is probably because they don't manufacture enough to have any constancy in prices or availability or possibly even a sane price.
What influence does Wozniak have over whether the carbon UI or any other Apple proprietary stuff is Open Sourced? Apple isn't his company and he isn't even an employee of Apple. He may still be a stock holder but that doesn't entitle him to run the company as he sees fit, if he would even support Open Source in that manner. Steve basically said that the allure of Open Source software in his eyes was the ability to not support the big players.
Maybe Apple will Open Source the UI, but I doubt it very much, I don't see how they'd be a viable company if they gave away everything and the stock holders would thus react rather violently.
I think a better opportunity would be for Apple to make QuickTime available under Linux even if its via the LGPL (they don't own the Codecs which are the merit of QuickTime, they're owned by Sorensen, the parts which Apple does own, which is basically the file format which surrounds the data is as far as I know publically available)
I think we've got the graphic... the penguin. It's visually appealing, simple and insites curiousity. One of these under a clear arcrylic cover would look great and would provide a meme that points at Linux.
I'm not sure whether this product implies that Intel is eager for Microsoft competition. One thing to keep in mind is that at 300 dollars there is not a lot of overhead to pay for a Windows operating system. Another is that this device as described is relatively single purpose. Not being able to run Microsoft Office isn't a factor.
Intel can be OS agnostic, from their point of view who cares what OS runs as long as it runs on an Intel chip.
Good point, I hadn't looked at it in terms of market share. If they sell some insane number of them then it does increase Linux market share whether the average consumer knows it or not.
This could be a really useful device, ground breaking even, the first true internet appliance. If Intel is good at marketing (and they are) they'll aim these squarely at the segment of the population who doesn't really need or want a computer but who may be convinced of the utility of browsing the web.
Consider that a couple years ago I bought my dad (73 years old now) a computer. It was a Macintosh and despite my worries its probably the most used gift he's ever received. He writes email, browses the web and plays a few games. He's even managed to use google to find stuff I've written and other things he finds interesting. I'm actually pretty impressed seeing as this was his first exposure to a computer.
My mom on the other hand has no real desire to use it. I've shown her a few things which interest her but she can't overcome the concept that she'd be "a computer user". I bet I could buy her one of these though and she'd use it a lot. It's got a regular phone so it is fine in the kitchen or whatever it is you call the area where we typically have dinner. If by default (or through a single click) it hooked up to the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes she'd use it a lot. Add in some more links for other interests (quilting or needle point or whatever) and she'd use it even more.
Eventually I'm sure she'd outgrow it and start using my dad's computer. That's fine. In a lot of cases despite this device being sold in a garage sale for 10 bucks within a year its still a win for Intel. They buy a new computer with... an Intel processor.
I don't see this as a big win for Linux. My mom (or my dad) isn't going to run and buy an Intel box to run Linux on. Sorry, Linux just isn't applicable here at this point in time. Linux just enabled Intel to sell these boxes at a really low price point.
There are different circumstances and whether there should be any regulations depends on the circumstances.
If I'm working at home by choice then what I use is up to me and if it causes me harm then its my own fault. However it might be in my employers best interest to spring for the Henry Miller Aeron chair, an ergonmicly sane desk and send me to a physiotherapist to learn a few exercises to keep my body working. If I'm not able to work then that effects the company.
If I'm required to work at home, whether due to mismanagement I'm required to work extra hours or its in the job description then the company should be responsible.
It's either unenforcible or extremely abusable though. Either the legislation will have no teeth and can be safely ignored or people who change jobs frequently (say a contractor) will be able to furnish their homes in nice new ergonmic furniture.
This is an outrageously stupid and dangerous idea. This is even worse than the ticket quotas which state and local police use to pad their operating budgets. I drive a lot and I've often witnessed the police creating a dangerous situation in order to generate funds: Traffic is moving along, above the speed limit, but there are good distances between any pair of cars. Lots of stopping distance. Usually cars don't drive side by side so there is adequate room for an emergency lane change if the need were to arise. Local cops hide out and ticket a few people. Everybody slows down to the speed limit.
They're safer, they're moving slower right? Wrong. Absolutely 100% wrong. Traffic bunches up and people end up driving bumper to bumper. People get claustorphobic, frustrated and belligerent. Thank you officer, you just created an accident waiting to happen.
Tickets for speed violations should be abolished for public safety. Use the catch all unsafe driving as a deterrent for... unsafe driving. If traffic is moving at 55 miles per hour and somebody is weaving in and out at 95 then nail them. If traffic is moving at 95 miles per hour and somebody is driving in the fast lane, white knuckled and furious that everybody is passing him as he's driving 45 miles per hour, nail him. He's an unsafe driver.
The police won't be able to nail people with unsafe driving for going over the speed limit. People's insurance would go through the roof, they'd lose their licenses and the elected officials who support handing out unsafe driving citations for speed violations would be crucified (rightfully so) in the next election.
Uri Geller isn't a spoon-bending psychic. He's a money grubbing charlatan who has tried to employ the same tactics as the Scientologists (lawsuits anyone?) against his detractors, albeit with less success. He's now jumped on the new age bandwagon and his latest snake-oil are crystals and tapes on how to develop your ESP and other psychic abilities.
Suing over the Pokemon card is just another attempt of his to get rich quick. He might be on to something but I doubt it. The Pokemon card could probably be defended as a parody of Uri Geller, a public figure.
Click here. Professional skeptic, James Randi (also a shameless self promoter, but hey, at least its for a better cause) has debunked Geller in a book. He's also challenged him to perform his feats of telekinesis under controlled circumstances for a million dollar prize. Given he loves publicity and will do anything for a buck his refusal to compete for the prize speaks volumes about his credibility.
Steve,
If you could be freed from any management influences and had the desire to design a new machine, what would the features be? I'm not interested in processor speeds or scads of memory and whatnot, but more in what innovations you'd like to see.
No, but you do have to work at the company IPOing, or be an institutional, or be a source contributor, or close to the investment bank, to get at-the-opening share prices, right?
VAlinux shares were offered on E*trade. The demand for shares far outweighed their availibility to provide them. A random draw was made to decide who gets to buy. To qualify for this you could not work for the company being IPO'd, work for the investment house or be family etc. If you got the letter, i.e., you actually contributed to Open Source in some meaningful way, you had a much better chance.
This seems like a scam, to me!!
You seem like a welfare bum to me.
You don't need to be rich to get in on an IPO, of course it doesn't hurt.
Open an account at an online broker, I've got one at E*Trade, and every pay check put in a small percentage of your paycheck. When you put away money upfront its less painful then trying to come up with a wad of cash for the next big thing.
A money market account at E*Trade pays a pretty respectable interest rate. A lot better than my traditional bank and it has free checking. If I ever need to raid it I just write a check.
Get a percentage of your paycheck deposited to E*trade (or whatever online broker you are signed up with). It's more painless to deposit money off the top than trying to scrounge up money at the last minute. The E*trade money market actually gives a fairly decent interest rate and has free chequing. It's a much better than my local bank.
There will be other "can't miss" IPO's and in the mean time you're forcing yourself to save money. This is never a bad thing.