I always like when higher-than-thou's make this point, it tickles me in a way. This guy falls into an especially large trap since the whole point of his post is that one method of delivery is better than another method.
TV, books, radio, newspapers, magazines, email, forums, websites... they are all media. They are all information. Only the delivery method is different. It isn't the delivery method that is the problem.
A typical one hour TV show has roughly 40 minutes of content you want, and 20 minutes of content you don't want.
That's a pretty damn crappy ratio of "content" to "garbage", IMHO.
If the *only* way to watch TV was to endure the commercials... then I'd never watch a single show. It is a poor value.
Tivo and MythTV both increase the value dramatically.
And... you don't need any "Tivo like" technology to skip the crap in printed media.
For the web, there is noscript.
Again, "value" has nothing to do with the delivery method... but rather what is being delivered... and how to get the parts you actually want.
Since TV is of little value to begin with, analog with no possibility of DRM seems to me to be the perfect value choice. (I certainly could not justify spending more for my TV than I do for my computer monitor, which I spend way more time in front of)
Tell the advertisers for those program that you're really currious about their support NBC in using the broadcast flag. And how would I know who the advertisers are?
Oh, wait...
Doesn't having to deal with the advertisers of a product you don't/won't use kind of defeat the purpose of recording the program to skip the ads of a product you don't/won't use?
How do you like those non-OTA HD channels? Since TV is of little value to begin with, analog with no possibility of DRM seems to me to be the perfect value choice. (I certainly could not justify spending more for my TV than I do for my computer monitor, which I spend way more time in front of)
And, I'll take a regular analog tv that can be watched at my leisure over the clearest signal possible if the price is that I have no control of the content... thank you very much.
P.S. I have IPTV (in rural northern Minnesota... go figure). Myth records directly from the network, digital all the way.
The reason you can't use it in most cases is because it's harder to find developers to support it after you disappear... But... as a consultant... that is one reason to use it!
We are about to come full circle in the conversation.
The cost is not minimal for existing web pages, that's the whole damn point. While something is under development, it's absolutely trivial to insert one line of code. It adds next-to-no effort to the process. Once something is no longer under development, however, it may not be that easy. If there's someone already there who can maintain the site, then it's easy, but it's not so easy if that isn't the case. At the very least (and I'm sure that someone would want to do it in a more complicated way than this), it involves hiring someone to make that change to the template. If the site doesn't have an easy way to change it in one spot, it involves even more work. I agree whole heartedly.
Now, as someone that built my pages to the standard... why should I have to revisit each and every one of them to add a meta tag to tell IE8 to render the page properly?
It is ALWAYS much cheaper to make a tiny modification to a project which is underway than to hire someone just to do that modification, because although it takes only 5 minutes of work, the guy who did it will happily charge a full hour of labor for the occasion. A developer on an active project will still charge the full hour, but those other 55 minutes will be filled with useful work, not dead space. The future isn't the issue.
At the end of the day, some group of web developers will have to go back and fix some web pages to get them to work with IE8. Either those that followed the standards, or those that used hacks to support IE.
Those that followed the standards will have to do it to signal to IE8 that their page is to be rendered following the standards if a meta tag is needed to send this signal to IE8.
Or... a meta tag could be used to signal to IE8 that it should render in "legacy" mode for people that used IE specific hacks to get current versions of IE to work.
I believe the "cost" should be born by those who specifically elected in the past to support IE.
And, nothing special should be needed for a browser that (finally) works properly.
However, in this case, the cost to society is ~0, because all that it requires is to add one freaking tag to the template of every web site which is built from now on. I think it is interesting that you insist that the cost is minimal while also insisting that those that supported IE in the past should not be the one's to bear said cost.
I'm pretty sure the number of pages created in the past will be much smaller than the number of pages created in the future. So, it seems to me that the "cost" should be paid by those people that created the non-compliant web pages. Let them add a meta tag to tell IE8 to work in IE7 "standards" mode.
IE8 should work in "real standards compliant" mode by default... without needing yet another hack to make it so.
If I were a web developer, I'd be jumping for joy at this, not bitching that it's a punishment. Ah... I'm starting to see what the problem is here.
The developers who made pages which have "IE mode" did what they had to do, because they understood that reality was not like they wanted it to be, and they had to adjust to it. Then they should have absolutely no problem having to go back to fix it.
The point is, they are the ones that decided to specifically support IE with their hacks. There is no reason now to punish people that didn't and don't want to do that.
If MS wants to create hacks for their browsers, then those hacks should be targeted at the people that care about their browser... not the rest of the web.
Your analogy about government bail-outs is a poor one, too, considering Microsoft isn't an institution of the people, for the good of the people. The analogy is valid. The people making the decision that lead to the mess should be the ones bearing the price to fix the mess.
IF MS were to change the way pages rendered with existing doctypes, millions of pages could/would render differently requiring businesses and individuals across the world to either re-vamp their websites or at least change the existing doctype to a new name that referred to the old rendering style. Sounds like just the medicine they need for creating browser specific web pages.
In other news, many Americans against government bailout of mortgage companies that made bad loans...
Your idea of a hobbyist is someone that lives in a single pc household? With no ability to deal with installing an OS on a computer that didn't come with an optical drive?
Wow...
FTR, you did not describe a hobbyist... you described a neophyte. (at least you did in the post I originally replied to)
And, I don't take exception to the term 'hobbyist' either. Especially since I make a damn nice living off of my hobby! (There is a reason I have all these computers surrounding me. At least that is what I tell the tax guy...)
The guy who spent 200 bucks on a PC is going to have another machine to get another distro from and put it on a USB drive? Don't forget that the target community for this is going to be a single PC household. This PC is mostly for the new PC owner with a handful of hobbyist thrown in. OK, show of hands... how many people here would consider buying one?
I would, and I definitely don't fit the profile of the "target market" you are describing.
Hell, I almost have enough computers to put one computer in every room in my house... and at these prices would most likely reach the point of one in each room. (minus bathrooms and utility rooms... tho I do carry a nokia 770 into some of those rooms)
That is what you do with a COMMODITY... you buy them by the shit load...
I think there is a market for this kind of machine, but trying to pigeon hole the "target market" will fail because it is too dispersed to be defined.
For this particular box, I'm thinking of ripping out the hard drive and replacing it with a CF card and setting up a "terminal" that loads from my home server... for my kids to use. (think LTSP) Also thinking of a nice little myth box for my other two TVs that don't currently have one...
This is a silly idea. A 1TB networked disk is less than $300 (LaCie 1TB Big Disk Gigabit Ethernet Disk) and is plug and play to Windows, Linux and Macs. You might want to look a bit closer before using that with Linux if you have files with the same name (different case) in a directory... I'm betting that thing doesn't use a case sensitive file system.
This US citizen is very very happy to be in Canada and working on living there the rest of my life.
Well, this US citizen is very happy you're in Canada, too, and sincerely hopes you stay there. Now if we could just get all the religious people to go where they are supposed to go... this would be a pretty nice place!
But to state that one cannot upgrade software in KnoppMyth is dead wrong. I'll vouch for that!
I just did a fresh install of knoppmyth yesterday (in preparation of your impending release of the next version), followed by an 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade'.
I had to hold the lirc stuff due to two packages wanting to replace the same file... but other than that, no problems at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Because if it gets put in a Mac or Windows machine... that means I don't have the disk.
And, it will most likely look "empty" and get formatted.
Which is exactly what I want to happen when I lose that puppy!
(And my UID is 1000 on all my boxes)
Or how does your NoScript block text ads?
Well, either I'm lucky... or the ads are pulled in by javascript.
I just pulled the page again to double check, and I don't see any ads.
Which is pretty much what I always get unless the ad is a part of the html from the page I pull... because there is nothing else allowed.
Looking at the page source I see something from Google AdSense, among others... but they are all on my black list.
Sad economic truth: Free articles aren't free. 12 pages = 12 advert refreshes.
There are adds on those pages?
NoScript for the win!
My first reading of the title:
First reviews of the MSI Wind Powered Laptop
Let's just say I'm extremely lucky. I do contract programming and system administration from home.
;-)
All Linux based.
Good work if you can get it...
I always like when higher-than-thou's make this point, it tickles me in a way. This guy falls into an especially large trap since the whole point of his post is that one method of delivery is better than another method.
TV, books, radio, newspapers, magazines, email, forums, websites... they are all media. They are all information. Only the delivery method is different. It isn't the delivery method that is the problem.
A typical one hour TV show has roughly 40 minutes of content you want, and 20 minutes of content you don't want.
That's a pretty damn crappy ratio of "content" to "garbage", IMHO.
If the *only* way to watch TV was to endure the commercials... then I'd never watch a single show. It is a poor value.
Tivo and MythTV both increase the value dramatically.
And... you don't need any "Tivo like" technology to skip the crap in printed media.
For the web, there is noscript.
Again, "value" has nothing to do with the delivery method... but rather what is being delivered... and how to get the parts you actually want.
There are quite a few people who agree with you.
Ah... but I *do* own a TV. A very nice one in fact. It is the biggest direct view analog (glass) TV made at the time I bought it.But, being a programmer... I have even nicer monitors.
Oh, wait...
Doesn't having to deal with the advertisers of a product you don't/won't use kind of defeat the purpose of recording the program to skip the ads of a product you don't/won't use?
And, I'll take a regular analog tv that can be watched at my leisure over the clearest signal possible if the price is that I have no control of the content... thank you very much.
P.S. I have IPTV (in rural northern Minnesota... go figure). Myth records directly from the network, digital all the way.
Of course someone was going to shoot the damn thing!
I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Now, as someone that built my pages to the standard... why should I have to revisit each and every one of them to add a meta tag to tell IE8 to render the page properly? It is ALWAYS much cheaper to make a tiny modification to a project which is underway than to hire someone just to do that modification, because although it takes only 5 minutes of work, the guy who did it will happily charge a full hour of labor for the occasion. A developer on an active project will still charge the full hour, but those other 55 minutes will be filled with useful work, not dead space. The future isn't the issue.
At the end of the day, some group of web developers will have to go back and fix some web pages to get them to work with IE8. Either those that followed the standards, or those that used hacks to support IE.
Those that followed the standards will have to do it to signal to IE8 that their page is to be rendered following the standards if a meta tag is needed to send this signal to IE8.
Or... a meta tag could be used to signal to IE8 that it should render in "legacy" mode for people that used IE specific hacks to get current versions of IE to work.
I believe the "cost" should be born by those who specifically elected in the past to support IE.
And, nothing special should be needed for a browser that (finally) works properly.
I'm pretty sure the number of pages created in the past will be much smaller than the number of pages created in the future. So, it seems to me that the "cost" should be paid by those people that created the non-compliant web pages. Let them add a meta tag to tell IE8 to work in IE7 "standards" mode.
IE8 should work in "real standards compliant" mode by default... without needing yet another hack to make it so. If I were a web developer, I'd be jumping for joy at this, not bitching that it's a punishment. Ah... I'm starting to see what the problem is here.
The point is, they are the ones that decided to specifically support IE with their hacks. There is no reason now to punish people that didn't and don't want to do that.
If MS wants to create hacks for their browsers, then those hacks should be targeted at the people that care about their browser... not the rest of the web. Your analogy about government bail-outs is a poor one, too, considering Microsoft isn't an institution of the people, for the good of the people. The analogy is valid. The people making the decision that lead to the mess should be the ones bearing the price to fix the mess.
Not everyone else.
Great.
Now you'll have to create TWO pages... one for IE7 and one for IE8.
Wanna bet people say something along the lines of: Why develope for IE8 when it will render my IE7 page perfectly BY DEFAULT.
I think they have it backwards... add the meta tag if you want the browser to go into "broken IE" mode.
In other news, many Americans against government bailout of mortgage companies that made bad loans...
Your idea of a hobbyist is someone that lives in a single pc household? With no ability to deal with installing an OS on a computer that didn't come with an optical drive?
:-)
Wow...
FTR, you did not describe a hobbyist... you described a neophyte. (at least you did in the post I originally replied to)
And, I don't take exception to the term 'hobbyist' either. Especially since I make a damn nice living off of my hobby! (There is a reason I have all these computers surrounding me. At least that is what I tell the tax guy...)
I would, and I definitely don't fit the profile of the "target market" you are describing.
Hell, I almost have enough computers to put one computer in every room in my house... and at these prices would most likely reach the point of one in each room. (minus bathrooms and utility rooms... tho I do carry a nokia 770 into some of those rooms)
That is what you do with a COMMODITY... you buy them by the shit load...
I think there is a market for this kind of machine, but trying to pigeon hole the "target market" will fail because it is too dispersed to be defined.
For this particular box, I'm thinking of ripping out the hard drive and replacing it with a CF card and setting up a "terminal" that loads from my home server... for my kids to use. (think LTSP) Also thinking of a nice little myth box for my other two TVs that don't currently have one...
So... that pretty much makes them "official" partners in the "war on terror".
Does that mean that they will now be considered legitimate targets in this "war" now?
So, bombing communications infrastructure would no longer be "terrorism" but rather "honest" war making...
Well, this US citizen is very happy you're in Canada, too, and sincerely hopes you stay there. Now if we could just get all the religious people to go where they are supposed to go... this would be a pretty nice place!
;-)
I just did a fresh install of knoppmyth yesterday (in preparation of your impending release of the next version), followed by an 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade'.
I had to hold the lirc stuff due to two packages wanting to replace the same file... but other than that, no problems at all.