Mornington Crescent is a game that's been played for about thirty years on a radio show in the UK, "I'm Sorry, I haven't a Clue". You move around the London Underground, and the first person to reach Mornington Crescent wins.
The thing is - it's a complete spoof. There is no real game. People umm and ahh for a while, before making deep insightful moves like "Baker Street", "Oxford Circus" all the while arguing the supposed rules. The post I replied to sounded just like one of those fake arguments. "Well see, all the diagonals are open but we're playing Circus amendments of 1973, so Finsbury Park to Victoria counts treble". Utterly meaningless, just like the "Well, it's a Thursday so today we like Sony but it's also the 4th day of the month so we don't like them, except on alternative blue moons of which this is number four so..." etc.
Hope that helps. Here's a link to the original, utterly daft 'game'. It looks like they're playing something, but I assure you they're not. The link.
>>hy would an industry alliance need to define a standard to share an MP3?
Well how about for automatic media file discovery and interoperability between appliances?
At the time of writing this comment, so far yours is the only one that seems to understand what is being discussed. To elaborate on the point:
OK, I have an MP3 file sitting on my hard disc. Your connecting device needs to know:
That another device is available which understands the same protocol
That the other device contains music
That the music contained is this particular MP3 file
That the MP3 file is allowed to be copied over
Without industry-supported protocols, that's impossible. Think UDDI, or as the parent suggested Apple's Rendevouz wrapper. These are the kind of things under discussion - merely having an MP3 on some device doesn't automatically make it available to another device.
Why Microsoft hasn't sued them out of business? Sony succesfully sued Bleem out of business...
Microsoft don't make PC system hardware. Sony sued for emulation of their entire platform, to which they own the copyright. Microsoft 'just' make the OS, which as you point out would still need to be legally aquired. Consequently, there's no basis for a case.
Well, in my opinion anyway. And yes, I'm ignoring all the MS-branded input devices...
You can run linux in vmware in windows in vmware in linux in vmware in windows....
But not so with Virtual PC. Try running Virtual PC for Windows inside, err..., Virtual PC for Windows and you get the message: "Cannot run a virtual machine inside a virtual machine. You had to try, didn't you?"
It isn't, you know. I'm not going to compare it to other electronic devices, I'm going to compare it to its competitor - a piece of paper.
Paper has resolutions the IIIxe, or my PDF-based Powerbook for that matter, can't dream of. Paper's anti-aliased fonts are superb, unless you include my handwriting of course. Paper doesn't dim the screen to save batteries. Text on paper can be read in bright light. Paper is faster to boot as well, though admittedly the search times are longer.
No - I'm afraid legibility is one area that print is still miles ahead in.
It's Safari 1.0 I'm most interested in. Any news on whether they'll include a 'block image from server' function, allow your homepage to be a group of tabs and also add proper keyboard navigation of controls (eg. drop-downs)?
I like Safari because it is quite pretty. Nevertheless, there's no ignoring the fact it currently does less than the Gecko-derived browsers so it hasn't quite done enough to become my default browser yet.
It's within RH's remit to ask for audits of their supply of services. That's what I said was reasonable. What I stated was unreasonable was their demand that you couldn't install the product, as that violates GPL.
Because you signed it, knowing what the agreement was. It's within RedHat's remit to ask for it, and you agreed with their requirement. You're free to take your business elsewhere if you don't like it.
The other restriction seems to try to claim precedence over existing licenses however, namely the GPL. That's unreasonable.
Specifically, here are the clauses he's bringing to attention (reproduced from the article):
"If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then
Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each
additional Installed Server."
Pardon? I can't install the product without purchasing additional services from RedHat...?
"During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter,
Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's
facilities and records from time to time in order to verify
Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement"
OK - so Red Hat can come in and check I'm not claiming their services for more installations than they authorised their services for. Entirely reasonable. However, "terms and conditions of this Agreement" include the contentious point above, which is certainly not agreeable to.
Not being a RedHat Enterprise customer, I don't have a copy of the license to hand. To any that do: is the term 'Installed Server' defined anywhere? If so, what is the definition please? If it's just a server with an installation of the code on it, then there would appear to be a problem. If the definition is along the lines of 'a server with an installation for which services are also being claimed', then there would appear to be no problem.
The movie taught us that "The Matrix" was a system of machines that enslave and delude the human race for their own ends. But what really is The Matrix in our world?
It's a film. A piece of fluff entertainment, 'borrowing' rather heavily from deeper sources to add some pseudo-weight to it. Not unlike Star Wars and the Jedi.
Don't take this stuff too seriously. It simply doesn't stand up as a basis for living the rest of your life by.
Many educated people have still not heard of it. Why?
Because education is not necessarily to do with computing. I know some highly educated people who would stare at me blankly if I showed them a regexp, for example. Why? Because it's not their domain of knowledge. They, in turn, could perform the same trick on me.
My then-girlfriend-now-wife put herself back through college a few years ago, to become a qualified dispensing optician. The first year I could keep up with her courswork easily without going to the classes - fairly simple algebra/geometry plus a bit of jargon learning to do. The second year, I had to study the books carefully to give her any help. The third year? Forget it, I was way out of my depth.
Being highly educated doesn't necessarily equate to being interested in computing.
I'm a new OS X user, having received my Powerbook on Wednesday night with the primary purpose of using it for multimedia.
I'm importing video as we speak, and iMovie has already crashed on me. True, the circumstances were both unusual and my fault - I tripped on cable, knocking it out of the camera. However, that should bring up a "Cannot commincate with camera" error, not suddendly bomb out.
Consumers have been fed a steady diet of new gizmo's and gadgets...
But MS's cash cows are not for consumers, they're for corporates. You have not been the intended end user of Windows for quite a long time, rather your company has.
MS's lifestyle Apple-a-like offerings with XP actually made businesses far more suspicious of buying it, rather than attracting them.
I've had professors request that you ask for consent before recording a lecture. The reason being that once in the past he discovered tapes of his lectures were being sold without his knowledge.
Now that's reasonable. Stating the expectations up front seems fine to me, particularly when you can also state the reason for those expectations. The poster I was responding to said that a professor simply ripped out a tape with nothing else said - that's entirely unreasonable in my opinion.
I've seen a professor pull a tape out of a student's cassette before, because the student was recording without obtaining consent. Needless to say, that's not a good way to make a first impression in college.
I agree. That professor has just made an appalling impression on me.
The professor should remember who they're working for. I used to use a dictaphone when I was at university (during 1990/93). Had a professor ripped the tape out of a lecture he was being paid to provide, serious words would have been had. This stuff is not their private copyright ready to sell into their latest book (and yes, we had a few "now you must buy my book"-types kicking about), it is a lecture designed to help my education. If I could record it for later note-taking, during the lecture I could just sit and listen. This approach helped me a lot.
Computers? Well, the computer I had at the time was an Atari ST, though part way through this made way for a Mac LC. I wrote my final project on that Mac - a MIDI-based music teaching package. Laptops were dreamland in terms of price, and probably the most common student machine would have been the Amiga A500. That's the most common machine - it wasn't especially common at all to have your own then.
it is nice to see recognition given to one of the most expressive and best acted roles in recent films.
Perhaps, but the definitive Gollum is that voiced by Peter Woodthorpe in the still definitive BBC radio version. Anyone who is interested in The Lord of the Rings, but hasn't heard this version, should really do themselves a favour and check it out.
Semi-interestingly, Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo in the films, is cast as Frodo here. Co-incidence? I doubt it. I rather suspect that t'old Mr Jackson has heard this version too.
I know at least two people who bought Caldera stock around IPO time because it was a Linux company....So what's this about "rights" of the shareholders?
Far back in the mists of time I was playing a game of Rifts. Our set of merceneries' mission was to destroy a company's board by breaking into the building during the AGM and destroying things. To do this, we got a big budget from our hirers to buy weapons with.
I didn't use the budget for weapons. I used it to buy shares. No infiltration necessary - just walk into the AGM as a genuine shareowner. Surprised the Gamemaster quite a bit - he'd simply never thought of that approach.
If there are people with SCO shares who are unhappy with how things are going, then they should vote! They should make contact with the board and express their opinion. Remember - whatever the board members think, the board is working for the shareholders and not the other way round. If they protest directly to the board and they're in the majority, the board would have to stop.
With Caldera/SCO's current action, they've ended up as pawns in a game to attack Linux -- not at all the reason they invested their dollars in the beginning. They have decided to sell out as a result of the SCO action...
...and who have they sold those shares to? People who want to support Linux or people who are taking a punt on the buy-out game? Selling shares in SCO because you want to support Linux is a poor move at this moment in time. If there's a financial motive - fine, up to you. But 'to support Linux'? The only buyers of those shares will be people who think that SCO might win.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:What's that other Internet Explorer thing again
on
Mozilla 1.4 RC1
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
He actually explained to us what Mozilla is on Slashdot. Priceless. =)
You know, these days I need it explained to me what Mozilla is. Are they talking about the full Mozilla suite with the chat/mail/news thingy, or are they talking about just the browser?
I realise 'just the browser' is referred to as Firebird, but the website says the long term aim is to name it 'Mozilla browser'. Which no-one will use, and which will be immediately shortened to simply 'Mozilla'.
I appreciate that you were making a joke, so I don't want this to come across as a missing-the-humour post, but I just thought it was worth mentioning that name 'Mozilla' on its own is getting increasingly confusing these days.
Wouldn't it be a problem if a price crash made your house worth less than your mortgate (negative equity)?
Yes - that's the final trap of course. I'm lucky enough that it's unlikely to happen to me, but if you bought a couple of months before the crash began...
Actually, it already is affecting my thinking. There are certain houses that I won't buy at the moment, because I believe they will soon be worth less than I paid for them.
It's a fairly short-term view though - five years or so tops? In the long run, property in the UK always goes up and rarely comes down. The trouble is that inflation used to be higher, so your wages went up more and the real value of your mortgage decreased over time. That no longer occurs, for the moment.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is - it's a complete spoof. There is no real game. People umm and ahh for a while, before making deep insightful moves like "Baker Street", "Oxford Circus" all the while arguing the supposed rules. The post I replied to sounded just like one of those fake arguments. "Well see, all the diagonals are open but we're playing Circus amendments of 1973, so Finsbury Park to Victoria counts treble". Utterly meaningless, just like the "Well, it's a Thursday so today we like Sony but it's also the 4th day of the month so we don't like them, except on alternative blue moons of which this is number four so..." etc.
Hope that helps. Here's a link to the original, utterly daft 'game'. It looks like they're playing something, but I assure you they're not. The link.
Cheers,
Ian
Well how about for automatic media file discovery and interoperability between appliances?
At the time of writing this comment, so far yours is the only one that seems to understand what is being discussed. To elaborate on the point:
OK, I have an MP3 file sitting on my hard disc. Your connecting device needs to know:
Without industry-supported protocols, that's impossible. Think UDDI, or as the parent suggested Apple's Rendevouz wrapper. These are the kind of things under discussion - merely having an MP3 on some device doesn't automatically make it available to another device.
Cheers,
Ian
That was just the dialogue.
More seriously, I also saw Episode II in the same location, and noticed exactly the same thing. The whole thing look 'flat' somehow.
Cheers,
Ian
Mornington Crescent!
Cheers,
Ian
Microsoft don't make PC system hardware. Sony sued for emulation of their entire platform, to which they own the copyright. Microsoft 'just' make the OS, which as you point out would still need to be legally aquired. Consequently, there's no basis for a case.
Well, in my opinion anyway. And yes, I'm ignoring all the MS-branded input devices...
Cheers,
Ian
But not so with Virtual PC. Try running Virtual PC for Windows inside, err..., Virtual PC for Windows and you get the message: "Cannot run a virtual machine inside a virtual machine. You had to try, didn't you?"
Cheers,
Ian
It isn't, you know. I'm not going to compare it to other electronic devices, I'm going to compare it to its competitor - a piece of paper.
Paper has resolutions the IIIxe, or my PDF-based Powerbook for that matter, can't dream of. Paper's anti-aliased fonts are superb, unless you include my handwriting of course. Paper doesn't dim the screen to save batteries. Text on paper can be read in bright light. Paper is faster to boot as well, though admittedly the search times are longer.
No - I'm afraid legibility is one area that print is still miles ahead in.
Cheers,
Ian
I like Safari because it is quite pretty. Nevertheless, there's no ignoring the fact it currently does less than the Gecko-derived browsers so it hasn't quite done enough to become my default browser yet.
Cheers,
Ian
Re-read the post.
It's within RH's remit to ask for audits of their supply of services. That's what I said was reasonable. What I stated was unreasonable was their demand that you couldn't install the product, as that violates GPL.
Cheers,
Ian
Because you signed it, knowing what the agreement was. It's within RedHat's remit to ask for it, and you agreed with their requirement. You're free to take your business elsewhere if you don't like it.
The other restriction seems to try to claim precedence over existing licenses however, namely the GPL. That's unreasonable.
Cheers,
Ian
Pardon? I can't install the product without purchasing additional services from RedHat...?
OK - so Red Hat can come in and check I'm not claiming their services for more installations than they authorised their services for. Entirely reasonable. However, "terms and conditions of this Agreement" include the contentious point above, which is certainly not agreeable to.
Not being a RedHat Enterprise customer, I don't have a copy of the license to hand. To any that do: is the term 'Installed Server' defined anywhere? If so, what is the definition please? If it's just a server with an installation of the code on it, then there would appear to be a problem. If the definition is along the lines of 'a server with an installation for which services are also being claimed', then there would appear to be no problem.
Anyone able to clarify that?
Cheers,
Ian
It's a film. A piece of fluff entertainment, 'borrowing' rather heavily from deeper sources to add some pseudo-weight to it. Not unlike Star Wars and the Jedi.
Don't take this stuff too seriously. It simply doesn't stand up as a basis for living the rest of your life by.
Cheers,
Ian
Open. The standard.
Cheers,
Ian
Because education is not necessarily to do with computing. I know some highly educated people who would stare at me blankly if I showed them a regexp, for example. Why? Because it's not their domain of knowledge. They, in turn, could perform the same trick on me.
My then-girlfriend-now-wife put herself back through college a few years ago, to become a qualified dispensing optician. The first year I could keep up with her courswork easily without going to the classes - fairly simple algebra/geometry plus a bit of jargon learning to do. The second year, I had to study the books carefully to give her any help. The third year? Forget it, I was way out of my depth.
Being highly educated doesn't necessarily equate to being interested in computing.
Cheers,
Ian
You weren't drinking enough. My life savings were beyond zero and well into the negative.
So...under this settlement, that means they would pay me, right?
Cheers,
Ian
I'm a new OS X user, having received my Powerbook on Wednesday night with the primary purpose of using it for multimedia.
I'm importing video as we speak, and iMovie has already crashed on me. True, the circumstances were both unusual and my fault - I tripped on cable, knocking it out of the camera. However, that should bring up a "Cannot commincate with camera" error, not suddendly bomb out.
Cheers,
Ian
(enjoying OS X despite above comment)
But MS's cash cows are not for consumers, they're for corporates. You have not been the intended end user of Windows for quite a long time, rather your company has.
MS's lifestyle Apple-a-like offerings with XP actually made businesses far more suspicious of buying it, rather than attracting them.
Cheers,
Ian
Cheers,
Ian (McCall)
Now that's reasonable. Stating the expectations up front seems fine to me, particularly when you can also state the reason for those expectations. The poster I was responding to said that a professor simply ripped out a tape with nothing else said - that's entirely unreasonable in my opinion.
Cheers,
Ian
I agree. That professor has just made an appalling impression on me.
The professor should remember who they're working for. I used to use a dictaphone when I was at university (during 1990/93). Had a professor ripped the tape out of a lecture he was being paid to provide, serious words would have been had. This stuff is not their private copyright ready to sell into their latest book (and yes, we had a few "now you must buy my book"-types kicking about), it is a lecture designed to help my education. If I could record it for later note-taking, during the lecture I could just sit and listen. This approach helped me a lot.
Computers? Well, the computer I had at the time was an Atari ST, though part way through this made way for a Mac LC. I wrote my final project on that Mac - a MIDI-based music teaching package. Laptops were dreamland in terms of price, and probably the most common student machine would have been the Amiga A500. That's the most common machine - it wasn't especially common at all to have your own then.
Cheers,
Ian
Perhaps, but the definitive Gollum is that voiced by Peter Woodthorpe in the still definitive BBC radio version. Anyone who is interested in The Lord of the Rings, but hasn't heard this version, should really do themselves a favour and check it out.
Semi-interestingly, Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo in the films, is cast as Frodo here. Co-incidence? I doubt it. I rather suspect that t'old Mr Jackson has heard this version too.
Cheers,
Ian
Far back in the mists of time I was playing a game of Rifts. Our set of merceneries' mission was to destroy a company's board by breaking into the building during the AGM and destroying things. To do this, we got a big budget from our hirers to buy weapons with.
I didn't use the budget for weapons. I used it to buy shares. No infiltration necessary - just walk into the AGM as a genuine shareowner. Surprised the Gamemaster quite a bit - he'd simply never thought of that approach.
If there are people with SCO shares who are unhappy with how things are going, then they should vote! They should make contact with the board and express their opinion. Remember - whatever the board members think, the board is working for the shareholders and not the other way round. If they protest directly to the board and they're in the majority, the board would have to stop.
With Caldera/SCO's current action, they've ended up as pawns in a game to attack Linux -- not at all the reason they invested their dollars in the beginning. They have decided to sell out as a result of the SCO action...
Cheers,
Ian
You know, these days I need it explained to me what Mozilla is. Are they talking about the full Mozilla suite with the chat/mail/news thingy, or are they talking about just the browser?
I realise 'just the browser' is referred to as Firebird, but the website says the long term aim is to name it 'Mozilla browser'. Which no-one will use, and which will be immediately shortened to simply 'Mozilla'.
I appreciate that you were making a joke, so I don't want this to come across as a missing-the-humour post, but I just thought it was worth mentioning that name 'Mozilla' on its own is getting increasingly confusing these days.
Cheers,
Ian
Not Linux, but you can get KDE 3.1 for it, and run it at the same time as Aqua. The Fink project has the relevant ports.
Cheers,
Ian
(awaiting the arrival of his recently ordered Mac...)
Yes - that's the final trap of course. I'm lucky enough that it's unlikely to happen to me, but if you bought a couple of months before the crash began...
Actually, it already is affecting my thinking. There are certain houses that I won't buy at the moment, because I believe they will soon be worth less than I paid for them.
It's a fairly short-term view though - five years or so tops? In the long run, property in the UK always goes up and rarely comes down. The trouble is that inflation used to be higher, so your wages went up more and the real value of your mortgage decreased over time. That no longer occurs, for the moment.
Cheers,
Ian