...from my experience, far more imaginative and progressive sci-fi gets passed on regularly...
So you take a cheap shot at some sci fi that we can see in the theaters and compare it to stuff that is unavailable for reasons that seem to be related to your vastly superior intelligence? If you have something in mind that is in your opinion actually superior and deserves everyone's attention then please share the information. I think there are some stories by Vernor Vinge that are much better science fiction than Firefly but they are only available as books. I don't even know if they'd make good movies.
The point is that Firefly was overlooked when it was bungled by Fox and there are many people who will appreciate hearing that others are interested in the movie that is soon to be released. Rather than the relentless TV ads, Serenity has the benefit of actual fans which probably is annoying to professionals who know how this sort of promotion is supposed to work.
Why does Apple sue folks who port iTunes over to Pocket PC?
You keep repeating this as though you have something very specific in mind. Would you mind sharing it with the rest of us so we'll also know what you are talking about? I don't think anyone else can make sense of what you might mean when you use the phrase: port iTunes over to PocketPC. The product iTunes is an application that Apple created (well at least the PC version of it). They have the source code for it. I don't see how anyone would be in a position to port it to anything else besides Apple since no one else has the design/source code.
Do you mean someone took the design, tried to create a PocketPC version based on that visible design and Apple tried to supress that product?
C'mon, let's at least pretend we're being consistent here
I may have left the impression I was speaking about Microsoft specifically. I didn't mean to give that impression. I expect Apple to do something equivalent at some point. My point is that if the features of Longhorn/Tiger prove to be sufficient for a time capsule platform then Tiger has the virtue of one less hobbling feature.
At some point I continue to assume we will have enough power in the hardware and features in the OS so updates will be like yearly updates in automobiles, i.e. not exactly crucial. As long as Moore's Law continues to be valid I suppose that is a false assumption.
Why would I care whether it runs on Intel hardware?
For this particular purpose it does not matter whether Tiger runs on a machine with an Intel or PwerPC processor. In fact with the prospect of people unloading their high end PowerPC Macs on eBay I suppose the advantage might be with PowerPC.
The point is that if you want newer OS features, like Spotlight, but don't want others like the down rezzing monitor then Tiger is an option. If you want it to handle high definition content you either have to get a very high end PowerPC or the new Intel chips.
I think we are talking about rear guard actions here. Eventually everyone will have to deal with this sort of attack on the consumer (upgrade or watch us render your equipment unusable!). In that context Mac OS X in the form of Tiger already has many of the features that will be introduced with Longhorn. It is also designed to run on Intel hardware and it does not have this particular insidious feature.
Part of a strategy of dealing with these attacks is to find a sufficiently advanced platform and simply don't upgrade it.
What nonsense! Sounds like the sort of presentation that must be made before selling media companies the sort of snake oil we've been seeing. If you had said there are tools that can be used to try to address the issue of the analog hole I wouldn't disagree. When you claim the problem has been solved and it is only a matter of buying a little more legislation it is time to object.
The issues here are often more social than technical and don't depend crucially on specific technical factors. Cryptography is getting an undeserved reputation for being ineffectual because some yahoos insist on using it as a tool in a situation where it simply isn't appropriate. Watermarking seems to be heading for the same fate. In this case the thugs involved are trying to use threats against academics and others who survey the situation and point out how it fails to address the needs.
Excuse me but if you knew a bit more history you might see beyond your knee jerk anti-slashdot smugness. Many years ago a former Apple engineer started a company that promised to bring the web to standard TV users and the product was called WebTV. It was solidly engineered and designed. It made a big splash in the market and was acquired by Microsoft for quite a chunk of money.
I don't know why they emphasize some product that did not leave Microsoft's lab but WebTV sold in the millions and they got a lot of experience with that market. If the PC market had not seen the steady lowering of price there might have been a market for WebTV but as others have observed the limitations of NTSC (and SECAM and PAL) are unyielding. A company that makes a commitment to that doomed technology in China or elsewhere is taking on an absurd burden. Even the console market is migrating to HDTV with the next generation of products.
[Just for reference it would be more accurate to assume an NTSC set presents 320 x 240 pixels rather than 640 x 480 when trying to make comparisons with computer monitors.]
their civilizations reached The Singularity and therefore they stopped doing things which would make us notice them?
Yep, that is a fair way to paraphrase what I wrote. Another would be that something fundamental changes rather than continuing incremental change. My own unpopular inclination is that we really are unique (or possibly first) in the galaxy. That allows me to assume that if there is a singularity event in our future it will not be as profound as it would otherwise have to be.
Another possibility to be considered is the alien RIAA/MPAA factor. After a fairly short interval (~50 years) all transmissions are encrypted and appear to be random noise because we have not paid our galactic cable/satellite bill. So we only get a narrow 50 year window to eavesdrop on galactic neighbors who develop transmission capabilities. But if quantum computers really are in our near term future that adds another factor (followed by quantum cryptography and so forth).
The Singularity is a rather blatantly Rapture for science/geeks
That comment is complete BS. Whereas Rapture is a fabrication created out of essentially nothing, the singularity is an attempted explanation for what we observe (or more accurately what we don't observe). It is an elaboration of the Fermi paradox.
There is a strong inclination to assume we are not unique and that there must have been others like us at different places and times. But given the 5+ billion years and the immense number of potential planets if we are not unique then the numbers are likely to be huge. The paradox that Enrico Fermi observed is the lack of unambiguous evidence for all those advanced civilizations. The technical means are there and we have been scanning for them. Given the pace of change and our own extrapolated potential it is difficult to conceive how no civilization has spread through the galaxy. The Singularity is a rational attempt to keep the hypothesis that we are not utterly unique.
If some sort of fundamental change occurs as DNA based self replicating nanomachines attain consciousness and technical achievements that we see around the corner, then that might account for the continuing negative results of SETI. If you don't posit our galactic uniqueness I don't see how else you can account for how empty we find the world (or more specifically our galaxy). Just to throw in two random examples of time scale we have gone from no ability to fly (other than plumetting) to shooting a probe into a comet in less than a century and from the abacus to quantum computing (RSN) in less than a century. Compare that to billions of years. It is just too damn quiet out there.
Yes, I do feel better now. I've been a customer of Keyhole for a while and despite the slight frustration of having to use a Windows client program my experience is that they are a first rate company and still are after acquisition by Google. The product has improved a significant amount since the acquisition and there is every reason to believe the improvements will continue.
As a result I feel compelled to defend it from what seems to me to be unfair attacks. I am patiently awaiting a Mac OS X client but I understand that it is a tricky business making promises about pending improvements. We live in a very litigious society where "no good deed goes unpunished".
I am not concerned that Keyhole has been acquired by Google. Since I had noticed that Microsoft has been in the process of moving toward this market I had been concerned that Microsoft might have been planning to innovate Keyhole out of existence. That is no longer an issue since Google is not so easily brushed aside. Someday when Google's actions have warranted a reassessment of their character it might make things appear more complicated. But for now it's all good.
...they will provide people who desire higher quality images that at $20 a month
Naw, the price is $20 per year (I'm a subscriber). For Google Earth Pro it is $400 per year which is bit more than $33 per month. I think the only difference in resolution when you are printing, not onscreen.
Without the Linux community, Google would never have gotten off the ground as a company. (Just calculate what 4000 windows or commercial unix servers + licences cost, and ask yourself if a startup company can afford that), so it would be nice to see them giving back to the community by producing a Linux version.
Arghhh, is the supply of clueless people inexhaustable? Google did not start this project. The company keyhole.com created this service and made their money by selling it to real estate agents, news reporting services and others. It only made sense for them to concentrate their efforts on a platform that gave them a chance of making money so they could continue developing it. They had the good fortune of being acquired by Google before Microsoft could innovate them out of their market.
Google has owned keyhole for a short time but they immediately lowered prices, offered credits to existing users and are now making it available for free. Still, people find reasons to bitch. Unbelievable!
(For those who could use a clue I assembled a Windows box specifically for HDTV and games and happily added Keyhole when I discovered it about a year ago. I would much rather have everything on my Mac OS X box but reality dictates otherwise. Having one Windows box can be very convenient.)
...These people need to get on the net by any means necessary...
Why? I can understand why an individual might feel some urgency about gaining access but this prevalent attitude puzzles me. Why must everyone else share this particular consumer behavior? I would agree that widespread availability could be of interest to anyone but I don't see why everyone must share the same priorities. After all, internet use is not much different from cable TV since both are mainly about recreation.
In other words I think it is mainly a private good not a public good. It makes sense for people to have mainly as a result of their own perception of its benefits versus the cost.
Pretty much all of copyright law can be summed up like this:
If you produce a work, you have exclusive right to decide who else gets to use that work.
Congratulations! You've just served up a hot steaming cup of FUD. Offer that as your summary of copyright law and you would get your deserved failing grade.
The imperial right which you attribute to the person who produces a work only extends until that work is published. Then all sorts of things happen which depend on the specific nature of the work.
For instance if the work is an audio recording then you cannot forbid a radio station from playing it. That station pays a fee but it is not directly to the producer and it does not need to seek any sort of clearance for the right to play it. If the work is a composition then peformers can pay a standard fee to perform the work. Again the producer has no magical powers to pick and choose who is allowed to perform the work.
If a game publishing company no longer sells a particular title but you find someone who owns a copy you can buy that copy. It has been repeatedly established in court that after selling a copyrighted work it can be resold regardless of the wishes of the publisher.
Now comes the tricky part that could theoretically be resolved in court. Assuming you have legitimately purchased a game title either new or used. Could you claim the right to play it on an emulator rather than the original equipment? Well, audio CD publishers have seen their rights limited in the Roxio decision that established that owners of CD's had the right to alter (compress) and transfer the content of the CD to an MP3 player without seeking the permission of the original publisher. I don't think it would be a difficult stretch to claim this is analogous to playing older game titles on an emulator.
Of course I am assuming the consumer has purchased a copy of the game rather than just downloading it. Maybe that makes the argument less than entirely compelling but even if I agree that the original poster was engaging in wishful thinking I still think it is important to maintain some sense of reality about how much is conferred by copyright law. It is not a blank check (yet).
Well, you are obviously the expert about what you meant. When I read:
... use your influence to bring another player into the market that won't compete on price and destroy your bottom line.
Anyone with half a brain can see that having expensive OSX fill...
I thought you meant that OS X wouldn't compete on price with XP. My observation is that OS X is priced less than XP when purchased at a store so I was trying to correct the impression your comments left (from my reading). I have tried desktop Linux on both Macs and PCs and have found the experience less than compelling. I have better things to do with my time than trying to clean up and correct other people's mistakes and deal with their variety of ideas how basic interaction should be handled.
"Native"? On Macintosh, what exactly the fuck does that even mean anymore?
An application developed in Objective C using Apple standard frameworks and managed with XCode. If all that is true about a product then porting to Intel requires about a half dozen mouse clicks and compiling to a fat binary target. In other words NextStep is native Macintosh.
For those who have not kept track, what used to be native Macintosh is now soon to be largely abandoned legacy but that does not mean there is not something that constitutes currently native Macintosh.
...Anyone with half a brain can see that having expensive OSX...
Where did you get the peculiar notion that OS X is expensive compared to Windows XP? Go to your local retailer, look at the prices and then figure out which way the greater than sign points. Don't look at a crippled version of XP and keep in mind the actually useful apps that come with OS X.
I'm not certain about the following speculation but I think we have to consider the possibility that Dell is big enough (and possibly pissed enough about competition from XBox 360) to make decisions that are independent of Microsoft and its wishes.
find som real grey goo making nanotech to protest.
I'm not in sympathy with these or similar protesters but I think it should be noted that if one did find some grey goo to protest it would already be too late.
For one thing - the Software Vendors (Adobe in particular) will not put up with another migration. The migration to OpenStep was a non-starter for them...
It was a non-starter for a few of them three or four years ago. Besides the Finder what major application is Carbon based at this point? Apple seems to always be involved in migration of one sort or another and has always made a big effort to ease the transition.
This is not a huge boon to Linux. It is just another example of how Apple, which was supposed to die over twenty years ago, continues to avoid that fate by re-inventing itself.
The reason Indiana looks like it does in the photo is that the entire state is mapped in high resolution. The same is true of Missouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts. In general the data sets vary in resolution for various places on Earth with large cities and even not so large cities in the US being shown in much greater detail. Before Keyhole was acquired by Google there tended to be an update about once a month with more places available in higher resolution.
It seems likely that essentially all of the Earth will be available in what we consider high resolution eventually. Anyone who has had an opportunity to use Google Earth would not ask why it is more useful than Google Maps. Being able to browse smoothly and effortlessly with personal bookmarks for repeated reference is the sort of thing that makes computers and broadband connections actually useful. For once the experience is meeting the challenge of our expectations.
You managed to take an article from a London-based news agency, written in Tokyo, based on an outrageous claim from a Japanese company and referencing only other Japanese companies... and use it to bash the US.
Yep, that was my take on the posting as well. However, although I think he meant to bash the US I think his aim was off. The Roomba, besides being a real product and not just hot air, happens to have first rate design and software. An example of a useful product and not just fanboy technology for its own sake. For instance, consider AIBO. It may be a cool toy but damn it is expensive.
It is difficult to express forcefully enough how tiresome your little pious pronouncements are. Something like "Blow it out your a**", comes to mind. I've got karma to burn so this seems like a sufficiently good cause.
Burt Rutan has actually put a human being in space But honestly, who cares? What do you think that has to do with NASA's mission? Manned space flight is a side show that has been maintained to entertain the masses who weren't entertained anyhow. It has almost nothing to doing space science, which is NASA's strength. I enjoy Star Trek and find it diverting occasionaly in a dramatic sense, but it is FANTASY. It is about as realistic as Lord of the Rings.
When Burt Rutan does a successful robotic mission to Mars, give me a call. Or when he blasts a probe into a comet I'll take note of it. Maybe a fly by of Saturn's moons. Then there is the passing of Voyager (NASA's not Roddenberry's) into a new region of interstellar space. The list goes on for quite a while with nothing more to register on Rutan's side of the ledger. It is a shame you choose to expose him to such a comparison when I'm certain he would not be so foolish himself. I mean no disrespect for Mr Rutan as what he accomplished is admirable. But to compare NASA unfavorably to his effort requires a remarkable level of cluelessness.
I agree with your assessment of the relative virtues of a movie theater. I think it is almost comical that there are news stories about the horrors facing George Lucas because of the pirating of his movie. Meanwhile he is earning the biggest return in history during the opening of the film. Do they show any trace of irony? Not that I have noticed. I think it is entirely possible that even if there were unlimited file sharing there might not be any significant change in how the movie business operates.
I live near Minneapolis where theater is doing fine as it also is in many other places. No one is stopping you from attending theatrical performances. It is also worth noting that although early movies were not much different from a recorded theatrical performance, that has not been true for decades.
One possible outcome might be the end of big budget movies which might not spell the end of civilization. However, copyright law is there to try to preserve motivation for creating, even if it is something that you (or I) might not approve.
I'm all in favor of decriminalizing copyright infringement (which has only recently been criminalized in any significant way) but I don't think we should be dishonest about possible consequences and costs.
Slashdot Mirror
...from my experience, far more imaginative and progressive sci-fi gets passed on regularly...
So you take a cheap shot at some sci fi that we can see in the theaters and compare it to stuff that is unavailable for reasons that seem to be related to your vastly superior intelligence? If you have something in mind that is in your opinion actually superior and deserves everyone's attention then please share the information. I think there are some stories by Vernor Vinge that are much better science fiction than Firefly but they are only available as books. I don't even know if they'd make good movies.
The point is that Firefly was overlooked when it was bungled by Fox and there are many people who will appreciate hearing that others are interested in the movie that is soon to be released. Rather than the relentless TV ads, Serenity has the benefit of actual fans which probably is annoying to professionals who know how this sort of promotion is supposed to work.
Why does Apple sue folks who port iTunes over to Pocket PC?
You keep repeating this as though you have something very specific in mind. Would you mind sharing it with the rest of us so we'll also know what you are talking about? I don't think anyone else can make sense of what you might mean when you use the phrase: port iTunes over to PocketPC. The product iTunes is an application that Apple created (well at least the PC version of it). They have the source code for it. I don't see how anyone would be in a position to port it to anything else besides Apple since no one else has the design/source code.
Do you mean someone took the design, tried to create a PocketPC version based on that visible design and Apple tried to supress that product?
C'mon, let's at least pretend we're being consistent here
I may have left the impression I was speaking about Microsoft specifically. I didn't mean to give that impression. I expect Apple to do something equivalent at some point. My point is that if the features of Longhorn/Tiger prove to be sufficient for a time capsule platform then Tiger has the virtue of one less hobbling feature.
At some point I continue to assume we will have enough power in the hardware and features in the OS so updates will be like yearly updates in automobiles, i.e. not exactly crucial. As long as Moore's Law continues to be valid I suppose that is a false assumption.
Why would I care whether it runs on Intel hardware?
For this particular purpose it does not matter whether Tiger runs on a machine with an Intel or PwerPC processor. In fact with the prospect of people unloading their high end PowerPC Macs on eBay I suppose the advantage might be with PowerPC.
The point is that if you want newer OS features, like Spotlight, but don't want others like the down rezzing monitor then Tiger is an option. If you want it to handle high definition content you either have to get a very high end PowerPC or the new Intel chips.
I think we are talking about rear guard actions here. Eventually everyone will have to deal with this sort of attack on the consumer (upgrade or watch us render your equipment unusable!). In that context Mac OS X in the form of Tiger already has many of the features that will be introduced with Longhorn. It is also designed to run on Intel hardware and it does not have this particular insidious feature.
Part of a strategy of dealing with these attacks is to find a sufficiently advanced platform and simply don't upgrade it.
Like I said, the analog hole can be closed.
What nonsense! Sounds like the sort of presentation that must be made before selling media companies the sort of snake oil we've been seeing. If you had said there are tools that can be used to try to address the issue of the analog hole I wouldn't disagree. When you claim the problem has been solved and it is only a matter of buying a little more legislation it is time to object.
The issues here are often more social than technical and don't depend crucially on specific technical factors. Cryptography is getting an undeserved reputation for being ineffectual because some yahoos insist on using it as a tool in a situation where it simply isn't appropriate. Watermarking seems to be heading for the same fate. In this case the thugs involved are trying to use threats against academics and others who survey the situation and point out how it fails to address the needs.
Excuse me but if you knew a bit more history you might see beyond your knee jerk anti-slashdot smugness. Many years ago a former Apple engineer started a company that promised to bring the web to standard TV users and the product was called WebTV. It was solidly engineered and designed. It made a big splash in the market and was acquired by Microsoft for quite a chunk of money.
I don't know why they emphasize some product that did not leave Microsoft's lab but WebTV sold in the millions and they got a lot of experience with that market. If the PC market had not seen the steady lowering of price there might have been a market for WebTV but as others have observed the limitations of NTSC (and SECAM and PAL) are unyielding. A company that makes a commitment to that doomed technology in China or elsewhere is taking on an absurd burden. Even the console market is migrating to HDTV with the next generation of products.
[Just for reference it would be more accurate to assume an NTSC set presents 320 x 240 pixels rather than 640 x 480 when trying to make comparisons with computer monitors.]
their civilizations reached The Singularity and therefore they stopped doing things which would make us notice them?
Yep, that is a fair way to paraphrase what I wrote. Another would be that something fundamental changes rather than continuing incremental change. My own unpopular inclination is that we really are unique (or possibly first) in the galaxy. That allows me to assume that if there is a singularity event in our future it will not be as profound as it would otherwise have to be.
Another possibility to be considered is the alien RIAA/MPAA factor. After a fairly short interval (~50 years) all transmissions are encrypted and appear to be random noise because we have not paid our galactic cable/satellite bill. So we only get a narrow 50 year window to eavesdrop on galactic neighbors who develop transmission capabilities. But if quantum computers really are in our near term future that adds another factor (followed by quantum cryptography and so forth).
The Singularity is a rather blatantly Rapture for science/geeks
That comment is complete BS. Whereas Rapture is a fabrication created out of essentially nothing, the singularity is an attempted explanation for what we observe (or more accurately what we don't observe). It is an elaboration of the Fermi paradox.
There is a strong inclination to assume we are not unique and that there must have been others like us at different places and times. But given the 5+ billion years and the immense number of potential planets if we are not unique then the numbers are likely to be huge. The paradox that Enrico Fermi observed is the lack of unambiguous evidence for all those advanced civilizations. The technical means are there and we have been scanning for them. Given the pace of change and our own extrapolated potential it is difficult to conceive how no civilization has spread through the galaxy. The Singularity is a rational attempt to keep the hypothesis that we are not utterly unique.
If some sort of fundamental change occurs as DNA based self replicating nanomachines attain consciousness and technical achievements that we see around the corner, then that might account for the continuing negative results of SETI. If you don't posit our galactic uniqueness I don't see how else you can account for how empty we find the world (or more specifically our galaxy). Just to throw in two random examples of time scale we have gone from no ability to fly (other than plumetting) to shooting a probe into a comet in less than a century and from the abacus to quantum computing (RSN) in less than a century. Compare that to billions of years. It is just too damn quiet out there.
Yes, I do feel better now. I've been a customer of Keyhole for a while and despite the slight frustration of having to use a Windows client program my experience is that they are a first rate company and still are after acquisition by Google. The product has improved a significant amount since the acquisition and there is every reason to believe the improvements will continue.
As a result I feel compelled to defend it from what seems to me to be unfair attacks. I am patiently awaiting a Mac OS X client but I understand that it is a tricky business making promises about pending improvements. We live in a very litigious society where "no good deed goes unpunished".
I am not concerned that Keyhole has been acquired by Google. Since I had noticed that Microsoft has been in the process of moving toward this market I had been concerned that Microsoft might have been planning to innovate Keyhole out of existence. That is no longer an issue since Google is not so easily brushed aside. Someday when Google's actions have warranted a reassessment of their character it might make things appear more complicated. But for now it's all good.
...they will provide people who desire higher quality images that at $20 a month
Naw, the price is $20 per year (I'm a subscriber). For Google Earth Pro it is $400 per year which is bit more than $33 per month. I think the only difference in resolution when you are printing, not onscreen.
Without the Linux community, Google would never have gotten off the ground as a company. (Just calculate what 4000 windows or commercial unix servers + licences cost, and ask yourself if a startup company can afford that), so it would be nice to see them giving back to the community by producing a Linux version.
Arghhh, is the supply of clueless people inexhaustable? Google did not start this project. The company keyhole.com created this service and made their money by selling it to real estate agents, news reporting services and others. It only made sense for them to concentrate their efforts on a platform that gave them a chance of making money so they could continue developing it. They had the good fortune of being acquired by Google before Microsoft could innovate them out of their market.
Google has owned keyhole for a short time but they immediately lowered prices, offered credits to existing users and are now making it available for free. Still, people find reasons to bitch. Unbelievable!
(For those who could use a clue I assembled a Windows box specifically for HDTV and games and happily added Keyhole when I discovered it about a year ago. I would much rather have everything on my Mac OS X box but reality dictates otherwise. Having one Windows box can be very convenient.)
...These people need to get on the net by any means necessary...
Why? I can understand why an individual might feel some urgency about gaining access but this prevalent attitude puzzles me. Why must everyone else share this particular consumer behavior? I would agree that widespread availability could be of interest to anyone but I don't see why everyone must share the same priorities. After all, internet use is not much different from cable TV since both are mainly about recreation.
In other words I think it is mainly a private good not a public good. It makes sense for people to have mainly as a result of their own perception of its benefits versus the cost.
Pretty much all of copyright law can be summed up like this:
If you produce a work, you have exclusive right to decide who else gets to use that work.
Congratulations! You've just served up a hot steaming cup of FUD. Offer that as your summary of copyright law and you would get your deserved failing grade.
The imperial right which you attribute to the person who produces a work only extends until that work is published. Then all sorts of things happen which depend on the specific nature of the work.
For instance if the work is an audio recording then you cannot forbid a radio station from playing it. That station pays a fee but it is not directly to the producer and it does not need to seek any sort of clearance for the right to play it. If the work is a composition then peformers can pay a standard fee to perform the work. Again the producer has no magical powers to pick and choose who is allowed to perform the work.
If a game publishing company no longer sells a particular title but you find someone who owns a copy you can buy that copy. It has been repeatedly established in court that after selling a copyrighted work it can be resold regardless of the wishes of the publisher.
Now comes the tricky part that could theoretically be resolved in court. Assuming you have legitimately purchased a game title either new or used. Could you claim the right to play it on an emulator rather than the original equipment? Well, audio CD publishers have seen their rights limited in the Roxio decision that established that owners of CD's had the right to alter (compress) and transfer the content of the CD to an MP3 player without seeking the permission of the original publisher. I don't think it would be a difficult stretch to claim this is analogous to playing older game titles on an emulator.
Of course I am assuming the consumer has purchased a copy of the game rather than just downloading it. Maybe that makes the argument less than entirely compelling but even if I agree that the original poster was engaging in wishful thinking I still think it is important to maintain some sense of reality about how much is conferred by copyright law. It is not a blank check (yet).
Anyone with half a brain can see that having expensive OSX fill...
I thought you meant that OS X wouldn't compete on price with XP. My observation is that OS X is priced less than XP when purchased at a store so I was trying to correct the impression your comments left (from my reading). I have tried desktop Linux on both Macs and PCs and have found the experience less than compelling. I have better things to do with my time than trying to clean up and correct other people's mistakes and deal with their variety of ideas how basic interaction should be handled.
"Native"?
On Macintosh, what exactly the fuck does that even mean anymore?
An application developed in Objective C using Apple standard frameworks and managed with XCode. If all that is true about a product then porting to Intel requires about a half dozen mouse clicks and compiling to a fat binary target. In other words NextStep is native Macintosh.
For those who have not kept track, what used to be native Macintosh is now soon to be largely abandoned legacy but that does not mean there is not something that constitutes currently native Macintosh.
...Anyone with half a brain can see that having expensive OSX...
Where did you get the peculiar notion that OS X is expensive compared to Windows XP? Go to your local retailer, look at the prices and then figure out which way the greater than sign points. Don't look at a crippled version of XP and keep in mind the actually useful apps that come with OS X.
I'm not certain about the following speculation but I think we have to consider the possibility that Dell is big enough (and possibly pissed enough about competition from XBox 360) to make decisions that are independent of Microsoft and its wishes.
find som real grey goo making nanotech to protest.
I'm not in sympathy with these or similar protesters but I think it should be noted that if one did find some grey goo to protest it would already be too late.
For one thing - the Software Vendors (Adobe in particular) will not put up with another migration. The migration to OpenStep was a non-starter for them...
It was a non-starter for a few of them three or four years ago. Besides the Finder what major application is Carbon based at this point? Apple seems to always be involved in migration of one sort or another and has always made a big effort to ease the transition.
This is not a huge boon to Linux. It is just another example of how Apple, which was supposed to die over twenty years ago, continues to avoid that fate by re-inventing itself.
The reason Indiana looks like it does in the photo is that the entire state is mapped in high resolution. The same is true of Missouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts. In general the data sets vary in resolution for various places on Earth with large cities and even not so large cities in the US being shown in much greater detail. Before Keyhole was acquired by Google there tended to be an update about once a month with more places available in higher resolution.
It seems likely that essentially all of the Earth will be available in what we consider high resolution eventually. Anyone who has had an opportunity to use Google Earth would not ask why it is more useful than Google Maps. Being able to browse smoothly and effortlessly with personal bookmarks for repeated reference is the sort of thing that makes computers and broadband connections actually useful. For once the experience is meeting the challenge of our expectations.
You managed to take an article from a London-based news agency, written in Tokyo, based on an outrageous claim from a Japanese company and referencing only other Japanese companies... and use it to bash the US.
Yep, that was my take on the posting as well. However, although I think he meant to bash the US I think his aim was off. The Roomba, besides being a real product and not just hot air, happens to have first rate design and software. An example of a useful product and not just fanboy technology for its own sake. For instance, consider AIBO. It may be a cool toy but damn it is expensive.
It is difficult to express forcefully enough how tiresome your little pious pronouncements are. Something like "Blow it out your a**", comes to mind. I've got karma to burn so this seems like a sufficiently good cause.
Burt Rutan has actually put a human being in space
But honestly, who cares? What do you think that has to do with NASA's mission? Manned space flight is a side show that has been maintained to entertain the masses who weren't entertained anyhow. It has almost nothing to doing space science, which is NASA's strength. I enjoy Star Trek and find it diverting occasionaly in a dramatic sense, but it is FANTASY. It is about as realistic as Lord of the Rings.
When Burt Rutan does a successful robotic mission to Mars, give me a call. Or when he blasts a probe into a comet I'll take note of it. Maybe a fly by of Saturn's moons. Then there is the passing of Voyager (NASA's not Roddenberry's) into a new region of interstellar space. The list goes on for quite a while with nothing more to register on Rutan's side of the ledger. It is a shame you choose to expose him to such a comparison when I'm certain he would not be so foolish himself. I mean no disrespect for Mr Rutan as what he accomplished is admirable. But to compare NASA unfavorably to his effort requires a remarkable level of cluelessness.
I agree with your assessment of the relative virtues of a movie theater. I think it is almost comical that there are news stories about the horrors facing George Lucas because of the pirating of his movie. Meanwhile he is earning the biggest return in history during the opening of the film. Do they show any trace of irony? Not that I have noticed. I think it is entirely possible that even if there were unlimited file sharing there might not be any significant change in how the movie business operates.
I live near Minneapolis where theater is doing fine as it also is in many other places. No one is stopping you from attending theatrical performances. It is also worth noting that although early movies were not much different from a recorded theatrical performance, that has not been true for decades.
One possible outcome might be the end of big budget movies which might not spell the end of civilization. However, copyright law is there to try to preserve motivation for creating, even if it is something that you (or I) might not approve.
I'm all in favor of decriminalizing copyright infringement (which has only recently been criminalized in any significant way) but I don't think we should be dishonest about possible consequences and costs.