The scientific method is based around the belief that under the exact same circumstances, phenomena are repeatable. There is no way that you can prove that, 100% of the time, the exact same circumstances will produce the exact same thing. We just take it on belief that because they always have, they always will. I say that's a pretty sound belief system, but at its base, science is based on a kind of faith.
That's a great point, that I think should be addressed (it has a bit, with some free-online journals, but nothing major). In the world of digital publishing, why do journals cost thousands of dollars a year. Its certainly not in costs, academics pay the journals to defray the cost of publishing, and editors and referees generally get only an honorarium, if anything.
Sure, the company needs to get some money to cover the costs of printing, distribution, and other things, plus the associations that sponsor the journal want some money to help hold conferences, but why, oh why, must they price journals so expensively that many colleges can't even afford them?
Ever since they introduced Google Scholar, I've been wanting something like this for my university. For those of you who don't know, finding articles on a subject can be a pain in the ass, as subjects are indexed on several different systems (depending on subject, date, and journal). None of them, not one, has a decent interface or gets results that are as good as google. Google scholar lets you search through academic texts, but its limited to what's available, usually working papers or pre-published drafts. If there is some way that google could team up with Academic printers to index as many journals and texts as possible, this would make everyone's life a lot better.
I think this is a great start, There's incredible profit here too, universities spend millions for catalogue systems. If I could use one interface to search for books, chapters, and articles on a subject, I could spend more time actually learning, and less time looking at the same damn "no results" page on GeoWeb. Grrrr.
This is a common misconception. Only nobles, or people who had something to gain through marriage, married politically. And even then, they would often have a long-term mistress or the male equivalent.
In the middle ages, cannon law specificly said that a girl over 12 or a boy over 14 could marry who ever they like, without the consent of the parents. Most of the time, it didn't matter; you married someone in your village and stayed there all your life. The parents could suggest someone, but the choice lay on the child. Most people chose based on love, and not political considerations. Hell, I'm writing a paper on this right now, if you want a cite check out Barbara Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound chapter 13!
Even when a king had a harem, he usually had a favored wife or mistress. There are plenty of stories in Chinese and Persian history of kings who totally ignored their harem for one life whom they loved too. Of course, this often resulted in the downfall of a dynasty, so take that for what you will.
There is Grass (and if you're looking for an OS X version, there is one).
However, GRASS is about as easy to use as Linux was 8 years ago. Its mostly command line driven, with most of the interesting features (DEM models, buffers, raster calculations) being hidden in either half a dozen menus or obscure CLI commands.
On the other hand, ArcMap, the industry standard, costs tens of thousands of dollars, and is about as easy to use, so you can take your pick.
I'm not saying that Windows was the best operating system out there, or the first one to target consumers instead of research. I'm just saying that it was the most popular. Because it was the most popular, it allowed the consumer level PC market grow to the point to which scale economies start to kick in. Improved manufacturing techniques are one reason for the reason why we can get computers for 500 dollars now a days, the other reason is that many of the fixed costs of hardware production, the production plants, research and development, and so forth, can be spread over a larger number of units sold.
Like I said before (but this time with research) Neal Stephenson wrote in "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line" (P.90) "Really the only way to make hardware cheap is to punch out an incredible number of copies of it, so that the unit cost eventually drops. For reasons already explained, Apple had no desire to see the cost of hardware drop. The only reason Torvalds had cheap hardware was Microsoft"
True, but none of them took off. Computers only became affordable to most people when there was a large enough market created. Its an economy of scale thing, once production reaches a certain level, things become cheeper to make as fixed costs are spread out over many units.
With the introduction of Windows, a GUI based operating system that could be installed on non-apple computers, people could start using computers with out lots of training.
I think the issue that you see if a cause/effect thing. I maintain that Windows was the cause of the rise of cheep PCs, while you (I think) think that Windows was the response to the availability of cheep computers. Unfortunately, I'm to lazy to do the research on to which it actually is.
Neal Stephenson, in his essay "In the Beginning...Was the Command Line" makes an interesting point that without Microsoft, there wouldn't have been cheep, commodity computers because there would never have been a market for the personal computer.
Not saying that Microsoft is good, only that they opened the world of cheep computing to the general public.
I was at that screening too (sweet lord, the line warped around an entire city block!), and I really have to agree with this review. The animation was amazing, possibly a bit to good for something that amounts to a hour and a half discussion on the philosophy of the soul. While I didn't have a clue what was going on when I was watching it, now that I think about it, I think it get what it was talking about. Its definitely something I'll have to see several more times.
One this I did love, and this isn't a spoiler so don't worry, was this little throw away line about infusing the 'ghosts,' or souls of these hordes of seagulls with a certain kind of joy. I just thought that was absolutely fabulous. Don't know why.
So, to summarize, if you don't have ADD or its hyperactive cousin ADHD, like the first one, or just like Basset Hounds, check this movie out. If not, well there's always I, Robot.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to take issue with the idea that teachers don't need a specialized teaching degree.
Think back to your college days. There you had a class taught by a person with a terminal degree in the subject. Often (depending on where you go, I'm going a giant research university, so this happens often), they would be on of the world's leading experts in a particular field, having studied the subject intensely and done original research. They are some of the smartest people in the world.
However, you may have learned little or nothing or felt unchallenged because that person, while they can name off all the concepts and details of a subject off the top of their head, cannot pass that information on to you.
Teaching is more than just lecturing and writing names, dates, or formulas on a board. That's why you need professionals who have graduate degrees in education to teach children. Depending on a grade, its even more important than knowledge of the subject (do you really need someone with a masters in History teaching a second grade social studies class?)
A degree in teaching teachers the person how best to transmit information to children of different ages, how to adapt to different learners, and how to best relate to children to get them to love school.
Sure, for advanced level high school math, science, and english programs its probably necessary to have a teacher who majored in the topic their teaching, and of course a language teacher needs to be fluent in the language their they're teaching, but we need to remember that there's more to teaching than just writing facts on the board,
Oh, two more things. its NEA and as far as I know (mother is a teacher, but I could be wrong) most schools now require a teaching certificate that can only be gained by having a post grad degree in education.
When a bartender asks for ID he is doing so because the law requires him to certify legal age. He is not required to check your ID, he is only required to check your ID if you order a drink, and you are free not to order one. (It is a myth that those who are under the legal drinking age cannot legally go into a bar. Think about all the restaraunts and diners that serve alchohol. No problemo. Some bars refuse entry to those underage because it makes life simpler for them, and because many local law enforcement agencies don't understand this point themselves. Some bars I know only card on the weekend and the rest of week only card when a drink is actually ordered. There's no accounting for the behavior of people).
This isn't exactly true. Many states have different requirements for bars and restaurants for a liquor license. Often, because you can still smoke in bars in many states, the bars are required to keep people under smoking or drinking age out. Also, because the states aren't dumb enough to think that under-age kids won't try to get by the card-when-you-drink policy during busy hours, the state takes the easy way out and requires carding at the door. And, also, as you mentioned, to avoid fines, bars themselves might proactively card to keep out minors.
So, to summarize, if you're over 19, save time and come to Toronto. The Duke of Glouster on Young and Glouster is the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to.
2 - Copies of the student's work submitted to the service were kept and included into its database...students had no say in the future use of their work, they either had to give up rights to it in favor of the service (so they could add it to their database and use it to make money) or refuse, not use the service and get zero.
This is very true. We use the same service at my school, University of Toronto, and I have the same problem with it. I have nothing against checking students for plagiarism using an automated method, I do have problems giving my paper to a for profit company for no compinsation.
The real problem is that by giving them the paper, I lose all control over it. I read over turnitin.com's legal agreement, and it promises that they'll never use my paper, but they also say they can change the terms when ever they want and I never have the right to get my papers back. If they wanted to next year, they could cease to be a anti-plagerism firm and because a paper mill, and there's really nothing I can do about it I would be fine with turning my paper in if one of two things happened. The first is that they simply compensate me in some way. It could be a free grammar or syntax check when I add my paper to the database, it could be an actual cash payment, or hell, it could be a free hat or tee-shirt. I'm a college student, I need free swag! The second is for them to retain an escrow service to destroy their databases if they ever go out of business. This would ensure that if the company goes bottom up, my IP is protected.
I actually told my prof about my concerns, and his only reply was to tell me to choose between taking the class (which I need to do) and running my papers through the system. I wish I had the balls to do what this kid in McGill did, but I want to go to grad school, and thus need to suck up to profs. Such is the magic of academia I suppose.
You have to ask yourself, what's the point of this club? Is it a place for people to meet and talk? Hang out after school and kill time? Learn something? Community service?
I formed a fencing club is my school, nothing much, it wasn't even a team, we just met once a week and killed time till we had to leave. The point of it wasn't to really be good at fencing, it was just fun to stab people repeatedly.
High Schoolers already take enough classes, they really don't want to stay after school so they can hear a lecture on the differences between free and Free. Make it interesting, make it fun, and end every meeting with a LAN game.
While I love Bebop, my biggest problem with this movie is that it was just one long episode. It didn't really do anything new or exciting, they just relied on the tried and true Bebop formula, Spike being cooler then Jesus, good fight scenes, good action scenes, and kick ass music (see the movie for the music if anything, Yoko Kanno is a goddess.)
That being said, most anime movies based on TV shows aren't usually that good. Escaflone the movie was fairly bad, and the Eva movies will never, ever, see a US theatrical release. However, Bebop was still a decent movie, and some of the scenes, such as the last fight scenes with the fireworks and butterflies, just demand being scene in a theater.
I think this attack was planned to do the least amount of damage. It was launched basicly on a late Friday night early Saturday morrning if we assume that the attacker either was on the eastern seaboard of the US or was thinking in that mindset. It was after a large majority of the internet's population was out of work, and on a weekend when most people woudn't be working at the office (super bowl weekend.) While this did a whole lot of damage, its timing stopped most of the major damage. Imagin if this started on 11 AM on a Tuesday
Its interesting that in this case, it was consumners, the artical mentiones a vending company and various other consumers that sued microsoft for price fixing, and not the states suing microsoft for anti-trust violations. This might be an interesting route to go if the State's case somehow gets dismissed or otherwised redered void.
It would be interesting to see how this would work in other states, but it would be difficult seeing as the case was based on state, not federal, law.
Its not the idea of a patent which is bad, registering with the government for the express purpose of protecting your idea for a limited amount of time is great, it helps foster innovation and otherwise makes life a little easer to live.
However, you'll notice that Edison only patented his idea of passing electricity though a special filament in order to make light. He did not patent the idea of making light. He patented the idea for a phonograph which could reproduce sounds encoded on a wax cilender. He did not patent the idea of recording and playing back music.
Not that its that simplistic, but many times it comes off that they are evil. Its a fact that Microsoft hires the best talent, unfortuently, Mircrosofts goals are such that it gets wasted. They want to dominate every feild that they are in, first it was OS's, were they destyoed with legal suits any competitots, like Dr. Dos if memory servers me correctly. Then it was with the broweser wars, we saw what happened with netscape. Now it is with servers, and they just started a massive PR campaign to discredit Unix. Soon there will be something with the X-box. I'm sure ofther people can suggest other tactics which MS has used in the past.
Instead of destroying their compeitors using marketing technequies, they should make better products. Want more pepole to use your server softwear, make it better. Want people to stop defecting to OSX or Linux, make a better OS.
It sounds simplistic, but stop expanding your market intrests, concentrate in what you have allready, if you need to spin off divsions like your games and mousepads which seemed like a good idea at the time, but now do nothing for you. Use the resorces they you have freed up to improve your products. I would have no problem using MS products if they were good, and microsoft didn't engage in practeses which I do not aprove.
And yah, take a clue from open source develpment, I'm not saying that you should post the code for Windows XP on the site, but the best way to have softwear improved is to GPL it!
As far as I can tell, Anime is good because it is simply better. There are probly a million reason why there are no comparable shows in America to eva (a series with big robots attacking eachother, but it is so perfect in every way) or Kare Kano (a sappy teen romance show were the animated characters out act any real actor in America) as shows as insanely funny as FLCL (A show where robots comes out of a young boys head. Don't ask:). Look at Cowboy Bebop> , these shows are better acted, have actual contining story lines, and have some of the best scripting in the world, all things that American TV is lacking. Can you imagen a show like Seral Experiments Lain (were a girl discoveres her identy as a man-made god [maybe, its a compicated show] while in The Wird) could ever be made in America, it is just to groundbraking to be considered in America.
Doubt me, just sign on to Morphious or your favorite file transfer program and check out one of the titles I've just mentioned. Or go to anipike and just serf. Yes there are many good American TV shows, West Wing, Invader Zim, Family Guy (oh wait) Futurama (darn) and the Simpsons (well it was good for a time), but they are in the minority. For every one of them, there are a dozen Darma and Gregs.
I won't lie, there are a whole lot of bad anime titles, but the reason why we see so many good titles over here is that none of the bad stuff gets sent over the pond, just like only the best titles get to Japan, its like a big filter.
I think that the point of IMing is not to make a profit, but instead it is instead a service to AOL users. Think about it, most websites change rather infrequently, I get thrugh my daily surfing of 8 or 9 sites in about twenty minutes, but with instent messegeing you get to either talk with your friends or coworkers, or just (if your one of thoes people) randomly talk to people. Think about AOL's user base, I'm sure that IMing is one of the most popular features, and more then a few people use AOL exclusivly for IMing. By providing free cliants, they incress their IMing userbase and make the service better. Sure they have ads, but they're mostly for AOL itsself. So, I see no problem with programs like Trillian, as it just serves to incress the user base.
If it turns out I cannot use my Trillian to access AIM, I think I'm going to have to take drastic action. I will sign onto the AIM clint one more time, just to see who advertises on it. Then, I will write them and tell them as long as they advertise on AIM, I will not buy anything from them. Its that simple, the only reason I can think that AOL blocks other cliants is that they want more ad money. So, the only way I can fight this action is to attack that money. I must say, I love Trillian, its one of the best programs that I've ever used in terms of its usabilty and sheer neat factor. I'm very disapointed at this series of events.
Slashdot Mirror
The scientific method is based around the belief that under the exact same circumstances, phenomena are repeatable. There is no way that you can prove that, 100% of the time, the exact same circumstances will produce the exact same thing. We just take it on belief that because they always have, they always will. I say that's a pretty sound belief system, but at its base, science is based on a kind of faith.
Sure, the company needs to get some money to cover the costs of printing, distribution, and other things, plus the associations that sponsor the journal want some money to help hold conferences, but why, oh why, must they price journals so expensively that many colleges can't even afford them?
I think this is a great start, There's incredible profit here too, universities spend millions for catalogue systems. If I could use one interface to search for books, chapters, and articles on a subject, I could spend more time actually learning, and less time looking at the same damn "no results" page on GeoWeb. Grrrr.
Even when a king had a harem, he usually had a favored wife or mistress. There are plenty of stories in Chinese and Persian history of kings who totally ignored their harem for one life whom they loved too. Of course, this often resulted in the downfall of a dynasty, so take that for what you will.
There is Grass (and if you're looking for an OS X version, there is one).
However, GRASS is about as easy to use as Linux was 8 years ago. Its mostly command line driven, with most of the interesting features (DEM models, buffers, raster calculations) being hidden in either half a dozen menus or obscure CLI commands.
On the other hand, ArcMap, the industry standard, costs tens of thousands of dollars, and is about as easy to use, so you can take your pick.
I'm not saying that Windows was the best operating system out there, or the first one to target consumers instead of research. I'm just saying that it was the most popular. Because it was the most popular, it allowed the consumer level PC market grow to the point to which scale economies start to kick in. Improved manufacturing techniques are one reason for the reason why we can get computers for 500 dollars now a days, the other reason is that many of the fixed costs of hardware production, the production plants, research and development, and so forth, can be spread over a larger number of units sold.
Like I said before (but this time with research) Neal Stephenson wrote in "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line" (P.90) "Really the only way to make hardware cheap is to punch out an incredible number of copies of it, so that the unit cost eventually drops. For reasons already explained, Apple had no desire to see the cost of hardware drop. The only reason Torvalds had cheap hardware was Microsoft"
True, but none of them took off. Computers only became affordable to most people when there was a large enough market created. Its an economy of scale thing, once production reaches a certain level, things become cheeper to make as fixed costs are spread out over many units.
With the introduction of Windows, a GUI based operating system that could be installed on non-apple computers, people could start using computers with out lots of training.
I think the issue that you see if a cause/effect thing. I maintain that Windows was the cause of the rise of cheep PCs, while you (I think) think that Windows was the response to the availability of cheep computers. Unfortunately, I'm to lazy to do the research on to which it actually is.
A computer on every desk?
Neal Stephenson, in his essay "In the Beginning...Was the Command Line" makes an interesting point that without Microsoft, there wouldn't have been cheep, commodity computers because there would never have been a market for the personal computer.
Not saying that Microsoft is good, only that they opened the world of cheep computing to the general public.
VI or EMACS
Yes they are.
I was at that screening too (sweet lord, the line warped around an entire city block!), and I really have to agree with this review. The animation was amazing, possibly a bit to good for something that amounts to a hour and a half discussion on the philosophy of the soul. While I didn't have a clue what was going on when I was watching it, now that I think about it, I think it get what it was talking about. Its definitely something I'll have to see several more times.
One this I did love, and this isn't a spoiler so don't worry, was this little throw away line about infusing the 'ghosts,' or souls of these hordes of seagulls with a certain kind of joy. I just thought that was absolutely fabulous. Don't know why.
So, to summarize, if you don't have ADD or its hyperactive cousin ADHD, like the first one, or just like Basset Hounds, check this movie out. If not, well there's always I, Robot.
I'm sorry, I'm going to have to take issue with the idea that teachers don't need a specialized teaching degree.
Think back to your college days. There you had a class taught by a person with a terminal degree in the subject. Often (depending on where you go, I'm going a giant research university, so this happens often), they would be on of the world's leading experts in a particular field, having studied the subject intensely and done original research. They are some of the smartest people in the world.
However, you may have learned little or nothing or felt unchallenged because that person, while they can name off all the concepts and details of a subject off the top of their head, cannot pass that information on to you.
Teaching is more than just lecturing and writing names, dates, or formulas on a board. That's why you need professionals who have graduate degrees in education to teach children. Depending on a grade, its even more important than knowledge of the subject (do you really need someone with a masters in History teaching a second grade social studies class?)
A degree in teaching teachers the person how best to transmit information to children of different ages, how to adapt to different learners, and how to best relate to children to get them to love school.
Sure, for advanced level high school math, science, and english programs its probably necessary to have a teacher who majored in the topic their teaching, and of course a language teacher needs to be fluent in the language their they're teaching, but we need to remember that there's more to teaching than just writing facts on the board,
Oh, two more things. its NEA and as far as I know (mother is a teacher, but I could be wrong) most schools now require a teaching certificate that can only be gained by having a post grad degree in education.
This isn't exactly true. Many states have different requirements for bars and restaurants for a liquor license. Often, because you can still smoke in bars in many states, the bars are required to keep people under smoking or drinking age out. Also, because the states aren't dumb enough to think that under-age kids won't try to get by the card-when-you-drink policy during busy hours, the state takes the easy way out and requires carding at the door. And, also, as you mentioned, to avoid fines, bars themselves might proactively card to keep out minors.
So, to summarize, if you're over 19, save time and come to Toronto. The Duke of Glouster on Young and Glouster is the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to.
2 - Copies of the student's work submitted to the service were kept and included into its database...students had no say in the future use of their work, they either had to give up rights to it in favor of the service (so they could add it to their database and use it to make money) or refuse, not use the service and get zero.
This is very true. We use the same service at my school, University of Toronto, and I have the same problem with it. I have nothing against checking students for plagiarism using an automated method, I do have problems giving my paper to a for profit company for no compinsation.
The real problem is that by giving them the paper, I lose all control over it. I read over turnitin.com's legal agreement, and it promises that they'll never use my paper, but they also say they can change the terms when ever they want and I never have the right to get my papers back. If they wanted to next year, they could cease to be a anti-plagerism firm and because a paper mill, and there's really nothing I can do about it
I would be fine with turning my paper in if one of two things happened. The first is that they simply compensate me in some way. It could be a free grammar or syntax check when I add my paper to the database, it could be an actual cash payment, or hell, it could be a free hat or tee-shirt. I'm a college student, I need free swag! The second is for them to retain an escrow service to destroy their databases if they ever go out of business. This would ensure that if the company goes bottom up, my IP is protected.
I actually told my prof about my concerns, and his only reply was to tell me to choose between taking the class (which I need to do) and running my papers through the system. I wish I had the balls to do what this kid in McGill did, but I want to go to grad school, and thus need to suck up to profs. Such is the magic of academia I suppose.
You have to ask yourself, what's the point of this club? Is it a place for people to meet and talk? Hang out after school and kill time? Learn something? Community service?
I formed a fencing club is my school, nothing much, it wasn't even a team, we just met once a week and killed time till we had to leave. The point of it wasn't to really be good at fencing, it was just fun to stab people repeatedly.
High Schoolers already take enough classes, they really don't want to stay after school so they can hear a lecture on the differences between free and Free. Make it interesting, make it fun, and end every meeting with a LAN game.
While I love Bebop, my biggest problem with this movie is that it was just one long episode. It didn't really do anything new or exciting, they just relied on the tried and true Bebop formula, Spike being cooler then Jesus, good fight scenes, good action scenes, and kick ass music (see the movie for the music if anything, Yoko Kanno is a goddess.)
That being said, most anime movies based on TV shows aren't usually that good. Escaflone the movie was fairly bad, and the Eva movies will never, ever, see a US theatrical release. However, Bebop was still a decent movie, and some of the scenes, such as the last fight scenes with the fireworks and butterflies, just demand being scene in a theater.
I think this attack was planned to do the least amount of damage. It was launched basicly on a late Friday night early Saturday morrning if we assume that the attacker either was on the eastern seaboard of the US or was thinking in that mindset. It was after a large majority of the internet's population was out of work, and on a weekend when most people woudn't be working at the office (super bowl weekend.) While this did a whole lot of damage, its timing stopped most of the major damage. Imagin if this started on 11 AM on a Tuesday
It would be interesting to see how this would work in other states, but it would be difficult seeing as the case was based on state, not federal, law.
However, you'll notice that Edison only patented his idea of passing electricity though a special filament in order to make light. He did not patent the idea of making light. He patented the idea for a phonograph which could reproduce sounds encoded on a wax cilender. He did not patent the idea of recording and playing back music.
Instead of destroying their compeitors using marketing technequies, they should make better products. Want more pepole to use your server softwear, make it better. Want people to stop defecting to OSX or Linux, make a better OS.
It sounds simplistic, but stop expanding your market intrests, concentrate in what you have allready, if you need to spin off divsions like your games and mousepads which seemed like a good idea at the time, but now do nothing for you. Use the resorces they you have freed up to improve your products. I would have no problem using MS products if they were good, and microsoft didn't engage in practeses which I do not aprove.
And yah, take a clue from open source develpment, I'm not saying that you should post the code for Windows XP on the site, but the best way to have softwear improved is to GPL it!
A nucular posture review is required by law. If you want to see the full report check out Defenselink.mil (PDF)
As far as I can tell, Anime is good because it is simply better. There are probly a million reason why there are no comparable shows in America to eva (a series with big robots attacking eachother, but it is so perfect in every way) or Kare Kano (a sappy teen romance show were the animated characters out act any real actor in America) as shows as insanely funny as FLCL (A show where robots comes out of a young boys head. Don't ask :). Look at Cowboy Bebop> , these shows are better acted, have actual contining story lines, and have some of the best scripting in the world, all things that American TV is lacking. Can you imagen a show like Seral Experiments Lain (were a girl discoveres her identy as a man-made god [maybe, its a compicated show] while in The Wird) could ever be made in America, it is just to groundbraking to be considered in America.
Doubt me, just sign on to Morphious or your favorite file transfer program and check out one of the titles I've just mentioned. Or go to anipike and just serf. Yes there are many good American TV shows, West Wing, Invader Zim, Family Guy (oh wait) Futurama (darn) and the Simpsons (well it was good for a time), but they are in the minority. For every one of them, there are a dozen Darma and Gregs.
I won't lie, there are a whole lot of bad anime titles, but the reason why we see so many good titles over here is that none of the bad stuff gets sent over the pond, just like only the best titles get to Japan, its like a big filter.
It'll be interesting to see if more /.ers will support Lary's nat'l ID system if its run off a linux based system, ne?
I think that the point of IMing is not to make a profit, but instead it is instead a service to AOL users. Think about it, most websites change rather infrequently, I get thrugh my daily surfing of 8 or 9 sites in about twenty minutes, but with instent messegeing you get to either talk with your friends or coworkers, or just (if your one of thoes people) randomly talk to people. Think about AOL's user base, I'm sure that IMing is one of the most popular features, and more then a few people use AOL exclusivly for IMing. By providing free cliants, they incress their IMing userbase and make the service better. Sure they have ads, but they're mostly for AOL itsself. So, I see no problem with programs like Trillian, as it just serves to incress the user base.
If it turns out I cannot use my Trillian to access AIM, I think I'm going to have to take drastic action. I will sign onto the AIM clint one more time, just to see who advertises on it. Then, I will write them and tell them as long as they advertise on AIM, I will not buy anything from them. Its that simple, the only reason I can think that AOL blocks other cliants is that they want more ad money. So, the only way I can fight this action is to attack that money. I must say, I love Trillian, its one of the best programs that I've ever used in terms of its usabilty and sheer neat factor. I'm very disapointed at this series of events.