Not that he's worth reading - far from it. His books are poorly written, poorly imagined ravings. However, they have become 'sacred' (and I use the word VERY loosely!) texts for a well known cult. This practically guarantees they will continue to be read in 50 years.
It's very nice to know that if I send someone a word document, they will most likely be able to open it, unlike ten years ago when I had to worry if you had AppleWorks or Word or WordStar or WordPerfect or....
That's only true if you play the MS Upgrade Game!(TM) I used Office95 for years. It did everything I needed, and I didn't want to spend the several hundred (Canadian) dollars to upgrade when I didn't need to. I eventually broke down and upgraded because everyone would send me files in Office97 or Office2000 format and I couldn't read them so I would have to ask for a new copy to be sent in Office95 format.
At one time, Word Perfect was the best word processor, Lotus 123 was the best spread sheet, Quatro Pro was the best personal database
When was Quattro Pro (correct spelling) a database? AFAIK (and I own a copy!) it is a spreadsheet, originally designed to compete with Lotus 1-2-3. The database was Paradox.
If the history of the twentieth century was marked by bloody struggles against totalitarian political power, then the history of the Twenty-first will likely be marked by efforts to curtail the excessive corporate power that grips the United States and is spreading throughout the world.
You mean like the protests in Seattle and, more recently, Quebec?
Big Business has been buying the governments of the U.S.A. and Canada (and Europe? I don't know.) since the 1970s. Weren't large sums of illegal corporate campaign contributions a significant part of the Nixon Watergate coverup? And here in Canada you just have to read "On The Take" by Stevie Cameron to discover how badly Mulroney sold Canada to business interests during the 1980s.
The Public, however, has started to catch on. The so-called "Free Trade" agreements that have been signed over the last 20 years are just another step in the MegaCorps' plans. How else do you explain giving companies the power to sue governments, even (or especially) when a government is doing what it is elected to do - represent the public interest in areas of public safety & health, resource management & preservation, or just preserving its sovreignity. The protesters, for the most part, aren't against trade itself, they are against their elected representatives giving away the right to represent the people who elected them.
The truth was that the american government was given a request by the japanese to begin a peace negotiation process almost a week before the first nuke was dropped on Hiroshima. There is every indication that the japanese government had already decided that it was time to get out of the war and were completely prepared to make real peace.
I hadn't heard this, but it doesn't matter.
The U.S.A., Britain and the Soviets had already signed agreements by this time that *unconditional* surrender was the only acceptable terms of victory. They had no choice but to refuse to negotiate.
Given that the U.S. was already starting to focus on the Soviet Union as the next big threat, and wanted to end the war immediately to prevent the Soviets from gaining too much territory in the East (having seen what the Soviets did in Europe), and also given that a conventional invasion of Japan would have been *extremely* costly in both men and material, and then given that there was a lack of knowledge of the long term consequences of using the bomb (as far as anyone except a few scientists knew, it was just a *really* big bomb) I do not find it at all surprising that the decision was made to drop the bomb. They needed to force Japan into unconditional surrender, and they needed to do it *NOW*
As for dropping the second bomb, while a single bomb would probably have resulted in Japan's surrender eventually, the U.S. was in a hurry because they wanted to preserve American lives (after years of war and propaganda they didn't much care about Japanese lives!) and because they wanted to contain the Soviets while sending them a message. (We have the bomb. We have lots of them. Do not try to push us around or we just might use them on you.)
So, while from one point of view (and with 20/20 hindsight) it can be argued that dropping the bomb was unnecessary, given the lack of understanding of the long term effects of the bomb, and given the political situation of the time, it was inevitable that once created, the bomb would be used.
This entire cd protection scheme goes back to one thing and one thing alone: control. The industry wants to regain the control that they had prior to mp3s and the internet so that they can continue to screw over the consumer.
It's not just the consumer. It's the artist. Don't forget who holds those copyrights - the RIAA does, not the artists. That's what has them running scared.
New paradigms for music distribution using the internet could, by letting the artists market their product directly to their fans via the web, eliminate the RIAA member companies from the distribution channel and return control of their works to the artists since they would now retain the copyright on their works.
(RIAA - product to sell) + (RIAA - copyright royalties) = (RIAA out of business)
Slashdot Mirror
Not that he's worth reading - far from it. His books are poorly written, poorly imagined ravings. However, they have become 'sacred' (and I use the word VERY loosely!) texts for a well known cult. This practically guarantees they will continue to be read in 50 years.
That's only true if you play the MS Upgrade Game!(TM) I used Office95 for years. It did everything I needed, and I didn't want to spend the several hundred (Canadian) dollars to upgrade when I didn't need to. I eventually broke down and upgraded because everyone would send me files in Office97 or Office2000 format and I couldn't read them so I would have to ask for a new copy to be sent in Office95 format.
IceDIver
When was Quattro Pro (correct spelling) a database? AFAIK (and I own a copy!) it is a spreadsheet, originally designed to compete with Lotus 1-2-3. The database was Paradox.
You mean like the protests in Seattle and, more recently, Quebec?
Big Business has been buying the governments of the U.S.A. and Canada (and Europe? I don't know.) since the 1970s. Weren't large sums of illegal corporate campaign contributions a significant part of the Nixon Watergate coverup? And here in Canada you just have to read "On The Take" by Stevie Cameron to discover how badly Mulroney sold Canada to business interests during the 1980s.
The Public, however, has started to catch on. The so-called "Free Trade" agreements that have been signed over the last 20 years are just another step in the MegaCorps' plans. How else do you explain giving companies the power to sue governments, even (or especially) when a government is doing what it is elected to do - represent the public interest in areas of public safety & health, resource management & preservation, or just preserving its sovreignity. The protesters, for the most part, aren't against trade itself, they are against their elected representatives giving away the right to represent the people who elected them.
The struggle has already begun.
I hadn't heard this, but it doesn't matter. The U.S.A., Britain and the Soviets had already signed agreements by this time that *unconditional* surrender was the only acceptable terms of victory. They had no choice but to refuse to negotiate.
Given that the U.S. was already starting to focus on the Soviet Union as the next big threat, and wanted to end the war immediately to prevent the Soviets from gaining too much territory in the East (having seen what the Soviets did in Europe), and also given that a conventional invasion of Japan would have been *extremely* costly in both men and material, and then given that there was a lack of knowledge of the long term consequences of using the bomb (as far as anyone except a few scientists knew, it was just a *really* big bomb) I do not find it at all surprising that the decision was made to drop the bomb. They needed to force Japan into unconditional surrender, and they needed to do it *NOW*
As for dropping the second bomb, while a single bomb would probably have resulted in Japan's surrender eventually, the U.S. was in a hurry because they wanted to preserve American lives (after years of war and propaganda they didn't much care about Japanese lives!) and because they wanted to contain the Soviets while sending them a message. (We have the bomb. We have lots of them. Do not try to push us around or we just might use them on you.)
So, while from one point of view (and with 20/20 hindsight) it can be argued that dropping the bomb was unnecessary, given the lack of understanding of the long term effects of the bomb, and given the political situation of the time, it was inevitable that once created, the bomb would be used.
It's not just the consumer. It's the artist. Don't forget who holds those copyrights - the RIAA does, not the artists. That's what has them running scared.
New paradigms for music distribution using the internet could, by letting the artists market their product directly to their fans via the web, eliminate the RIAA member companies from the distribution channel and return control of their works to the artists since they would now retain the copyright on their works.
(RIAA - product to sell) + (RIAA - copyright royalties) = (RIAA out of business)