This means they cracked the open-source model. Think for a second: do you really think the government would grant approval to something they haven't already cracked and compromised?
Your dvd copy won't deteriorate the way your vhs one will.
Some people have better sound equipment hooked up to their computers than to their TVs and would benefit from this assuming they don't already have a vcr hooked up to the computer yet.
As if John is going to have any trouble selling these things. People will buy them. Myriads of people will buy them. People will buy anything that he has so much as sneezed on, which is not to say that he doesn't produce amazingly rendered 3d snot. Selling it a couple days before Xmas won't hurt his sales any, as it means a few more people are going to have to make a last-minute trip, which is common around Xmas, and that doesn't even account for the people who already got it via mailorder.
Remember, we're talking about people who respond to Carmack's posts like this, thereby appropriately earning responses like this. And that's just when he posts to slashdot, much less comes out with an actual product that they can pay money for. Products like his just don't need marketing anymore, with such an enormous fanbase.
Lots of these stories have been getting posted lately. It looks like it's time to call for a new article heading on slashdot: "Shafted by The Man.
Just look at the parallels between this paper-computing article and the article posted yesterday about the 'scientist' making hydrinos:
Both hope to revolutionize the industry
Both claim to be suppressed by the establishment who fear being obsoleted by the new technology
Both need that little kick in the pocket book to get things rolling (albeit, one has that financial backing and the other is still seeking it).
It's a common enough type of story, and unfortunately most variations are indistinguishable regarding whether it's for real or just a scam. Now all we need is a spiffy icon.
Like I said before, look under television (except I got the date wrong: it should be December 14). But you're right in that they're idiots and reposted it today. It's quite amuzing how/. and memepool play off each other like this, reposting each other's content which was originally ripped off from each other. Tuesday Dec 14, 1999 A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (the 70's), someone greenlighted one of the most horrible creations ever to deface the boob tube: the Star Wars Holiday Special. This review maybe makes it sound like it's so bad it's good, and in some ways, I guess it is, but in most other ways, it's sort of like putting live hornets in your ass. to Television by faisal
At the turn of the century, physicists figured they had everything pretty much wrapped up and all the interesting problems solved. Then along came relativity, quantum mechanics, innumerable new particles, nuclear energy, and everything else under the sun.
Enormous strides will be made in the next fifty years, but the perennial human need to think "But this time, we'll get it right" is probably again misplaced.
Tie him up and throw him in the lake. If he sinks, then he was a scientist and you should mourn his loss by naming a highway after him. If he floats, then he's a loon who weighs as much as a duck and is made of wood, and therefore you can build a bridge out of him, which was the point all along.
This talk of how lowering the average IQ of linux users by providing easier installs is both mistaken, and more importantly, misses the point: on linux, the morons are powerless to harm you.
In windoze land, morons can be malicious by releasing viruses and blindly financing MS's efforts to prop up it stock at the expense of humanity.
In linux land, however, all morons can do is provide a greater installed linux base that will get the attention of companies porting their hardware and software. The dominant culture of releasing quality software rather than crap is inherent in the open-source model and is not going anywhere. There is not a finite amount of development out there that we shouldn't squander on the point-and-drool crowd -- they can be incorporated into society with full suffrage and few complications. Even if such accomadations become the default, there will always be the underlying tools and flags for those with the power to wield them. If you don't want to run their software, then go ahead and don't. There'll always be slackware or something like it for people like you.
And if you won't even let them install the thing, how are they supposed to be converted and turn from their luser ways? How many of today's electrical engineers got their start assembling redboxes from schematics they downloaded off the local phreaking bbs? You will some day reap the benefits of others' charity, and you won't be any the better off for being an elitist fool.
If you don't have any money and aren't interested in personally extracting some from the person violating your copyright, you might be able to sign your collection rights over to a company or agency with the money and time to pursue this (sort've like doing it on contingency, except they get %100 and you get the satisfaction of having the violation stopped). It helps if the violation actually concerns a piece of software that's known to be worth something. The Caldera/DRDos lawsuit comes to mind.
You might even go as far as to ask the violator's competitors about whether they'd like to get in on the legal escapades (since they'll probably want to do anything to tear their rival down). But for that to work, your own software will have to be in a separate market from theirs, since they won't want to tear their rival down only to prop you up even further.
Under march, you'll be reminded of Eric S Raymond's "Take My Job, Please" essay fiasco. If you go and reread it, as I did, you'll notice the following text at the bottom as one of the qualifications ESR said was necessary to have his job:
"You'll need to be financially secure enough not to need to have a regular job. (This one will give you some perks but no pay.)"
Especially not $36 million. No sir, I wouldn't call that pay. That one's definitely a perk.
It's not as though lots of people are getting linux preinstalled on their OEMed purchases and get home and realize they'd rather be using a MS operating system.
Anyone who knows how to install it will know how to uninstall it. It'd be much more helpful for them to post some better documentation for installing Windows itself. It's not as though that's a walk in the park. But then, they never were quite as willing to improve their own products as they were to tear down their competitors'.
They knew all along that cludging standards and implementing their own half-assed versions would make it more difficult for the end-user, but they did it anyway for the same reason all software companies make their own proprietary file formats, etc. They wanted to lock the end-user into using only Netscape. Yes, some of it had to do with general coding laziness, and some of it had to do with not wanting to have to wait for the various international bodies to shove stuff through committee and release a spec, but most of it was classic monopoly-building strategy.
What they didn't count on was MS coming along and being better at this game. MS and monopolies -- you'd think they could've seen it coming.
Just listen to the dishonorable senator from the state of North Carolina, Jesse Helms, who in 1995 argued for the cutting of Federal AIDS funding in as much as AIDS is a problem only facing "people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts".
And then there are plenty of other idiots espousing similar views, like Bob Enyart ("Gay stands for Got AIDS Yet?") and Fred Phelps (of godhatesfags.com fame, who leads protests at the funerals of people who die of AIDS).
Your other points are equally bogus, but I already fed another troll today. Look for an earlier post called "you depress me".
There are large numbers of people who are still virgins and who have AIDS, much less being non-monogamous. They're called congenital victims of their mother's AIDS, or haemophiliacs, or other victims of tainted blood transfusions. The daughter of someone I know got HIV from a transfusion during cancer surgery when she was 1 year old.
And even that doesn't exhaust the list of people who are not non-monogamous and who have HIV. They're called spouses of people who practice unsafe extra-marital sex and contract HIV. Under your system of belief, there is still the presence of sin, but it is not that victim's sin that causes the suffering; for he/she is innocent.
And even that doesn't exhaust the list, but you can do the rest as a personal homework assignment from me to you.
The only difference is that, if it's a privately owned forum, then it doesn't implicate the 1st amendment or the 14th amendment which only apply to government actions. Don't mislead yourself by thinking it's anything other than censorship; for you are silencing someone's expression solely on the content of that expression.
Any discussion of children must recognize the (usually silly) notion that children are not afforded full constitutional rights in this country. Even the government may sometimes take actions concerning children that would be unconstitutional if taken concerning adults. You are committing a gross error if you try to extrapolate from the former to the latter.
And there is a constitutional right to privacy located in the 5th and 14th amendments. That right, however, does not encompass the right not to be offended. Don't try to kid yourself otherwise.
Please, Zhirinovsky, we don't want to see you hurt yourself or others. We miss the old days when you didn't come home from the Duma in the middle of the night and urinate on the living room floor. There are people who can help you -- they've helped themselves and they've helped others before you. We have a book we want you to read. You don't have to do it if you don't want, but all the same we hope you'll do it. We love you. And little Sasha wants some help assasinating rival political opponents. Who will teach him if you don't? Please, if you won't do it for yourself, do it for us.
"Most harmful of all is the message that Verisign's buy-outs have conveyed to every company with the potential to innovate in the securities industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, Thawte, Compaq, Microsoft, and others, Verisign has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense finances to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Verisign's digital-certificates products. Verisign's past success in hurting such transactions and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and orders that exhibit the potential to undermine Verisign. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit customers never occur for the sole reason that they do not jive with Verisign's vision."
Heck, I don't weigh that much less than that. Neither do a bunch of my friends. Maybe we should get together and beat up on Verisign and steal its lunch-money.
These companies really have to learn that it's not that impressive if they weigh only slightly more than the average American male. Even if America is a chronically obese nation.
Heck, just open your wallet and look at your fiat currency. Why does so many dollars buy you so much gold? Because someone, somewhere decided "Here is a piece of paper. It's worth a lot." Why are certain pieces of artwork worth so much at auction? Because someone, somewhere, decided "Here is a painting. It's worth a lot."
I myself take some personal comfort in thinking of WebTV as a bit of dadaist expression.
NY has a long and proud tradition of alienating businesses by severely taxing and regulating them until they flee to neighboring states. If NY has a claim to being "Centre Of The Universe", then it's only from a combination of having the UN, a bunch of kick-ass cultural institutions like museums and Broadway, and Wall Street.
Besides, Microsoft is located in Redmond, WA, and not NY. Do you really see Billy Gates waking up tomorrow and saying to himself: "You know, we really got some curteous service from those swell folk over there in New York. I think it's time we left Redmond and my friends in Boeing and moved cross-country so we can be closer to Riker's Island."
Or at least he wouldn't say it without downing a few strong ones first. Stay tuned for his New Year's eve celebration, I suppose.
It's just one more milestone in the mainstreaming of Linux, and people like to hark those milestones with fanfare. Linux is officially big enough for a company selling it to split its stock.
And besides, there are legitimate reasons for splitting one's stock: avoiding the impression of overvalue, reducing the violent swings in value that correspond to changes of a few percentage points, increasing the pool of stockholders to broaden the holdings, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
This means they cracked the open-source model. Think for a second: do you really think the government would grant approval to something they haven't already cracked and compromised?
I know I'm not the only one who is thinking this, 'cause I sure gots lots of good slashdot friends to back me up on this one. And if you question their logic, they might pour grits down your pants.
Your dvd copy won't deteriorate the way your vhs one will.
Some people have better sound equipment hooked up to their computers than to their TVs and would benefit from this assuming they don't already have a vcr hooked up to the computer yet.
Hack value speaks for itself.
As if John is going to have any trouble selling these things. People will buy them. Myriads of people will buy them. People will buy anything that he has so much as sneezed on, which is not to say that he doesn't produce amazingly rendered 3d snot. Selling it a couple days before Xmas won't hurt his sales any, as it means a few more people are going to have to make a last-minute trip, which is common around Xmas, and that doesn't even account for the people who already got it via mailorder.
Remember, we're talking about people who respond to Carmack's posts like this, thereby appropriately earning responses like this. And that's just when he posts to slashdot, much less comes out with an actual product that they can pay money for. Products like his just don't need marketing anymore, with such an enormous fanbase.
Just look at the parallels between this paper-computing article and the article posted yesterday about the 'scientist' making hydrinos:
Both hope to revolutionize the industry
Both claim to be suppressed by the establishment who fear being obsoleted by the new technology
Both need that little kick in the pocket book to get things rolling (albeit, one has that financial backing and the other is still seeking it).
It's a common enough type of story, and unfortunately most variations are indistinguishable regarding whether it's for real or just a scam. Now all we need is a spiffy icon.
Like I said before, look under television (except I got the date wrong: it should be December 14). But you're right in that they're idiots and reposted it today. It's quite amuzing how /. and memepool play off each other like this, reposting each other's content which was originally ripped off from each other.
Tuesday Dec 14, 1999
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (the 70's), someone greenlighted one of the most
horrible creations ever to deface the boob tube: the Star Wars Holiday Special. This review
maybe makes it sound like it's so bad it's good, and in some ways, I guess it is, but in most
other ways, it's sort of like putting live hornets in your ass.
to Television by faisal
A transcript of the whole thing can be found here. You can read it while you're waiting for the clips posted by dieman to download.
BTW, this was posted on memepool back on December 13, but I guess some people must have missed it.
At the turn of the century, physicists figured they had everything pretty much wrapped up and all the interesting problems solved. Then along came relativity, quantum mechanics, innumerable new particles, nuclear energy, and everything else under the sun.
Enormous strides will be made in the next fifty years, but the perennial human need to think "But this time, we'll get it right" is probably again misplaced.
Tie him up and throw him in the lake. If he sinks, then he was a scientist and you should mourn his loss by naming a highway after him. If he floats, then he's a loon who weighs as much as a duck and is made of wood, and therefore you can build a bridge out of him, which was the point all along.
This talk of how lowering the average IQ of linux users by providing easier installs is both mistaken, and more importantly, misses the point: on linux, the morons are powerless to harm you.
In windoze land, morons can be malicious by releasing viruses and blindly financing MS's efforts to prop up it stock at the expense of humanity.
In linux land, however, all morons can do is provide a greater installed linux base that will get the attention of companies porting their hardware and software. The dominant culture of releasing quality software rather than crap is inherent in the open-source model and is not going anywhere. There is not a finite amount of development out there that we shouldn't squander on the point-and-drool crowd -- they can be incorporated into society with full suffrage and few complications. Even if such accomadations become the default, there will always be the underlying tools and flags for those with the power to wield them. If you don't want to run their software, then go ahead and don't. There'll always be slackware or something like it for people like you.
And if you won't even let them install the thing, how are they supposed to be converted and turn from their luser ways? How many of today's electrical engineers got their start assembling redboxes from schematics they downloaded off the local phreaking bbs? You will some day reap the benefits of others' charity, and you won't be any the better off for being an elitist fool.
For an interesting perspective on police != protection, you might read Dial 911 and Die, which was put together by the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Even if you're not ESR with a tallit and sidelocks, you might be interested.
PS, moderators, a post's pro-firearms content is insufficient cause for moderating it down.
If you don't have any money and aren't interested in personally extracting some from the person violating your copyright, you might be able to sign your collection rights over to a company or agency with the money and time to pursue this (sort've like doing it on contingency, except they get %100 and you get the satisfaction of having the violation stopped). It helps if the violation actually concerns a piece of software that's known to be worth something. The Caldera/DRDos lawsuit comes to mind.
You might even go as far as to ask the violator's competitors about whether they'd like to get in on the legal escapades (since they'll probably want to do anything to tear their rival down). But for that to work, your own software will have to be in a separate market from theirs, since they won't want to tear their rival down only to prop you up even further.
Under march, you'll be reminded of Eric S Raymond's "Take My Job, Please" essay fiasco. If you go and reread it, as I did, you'll notice the following text at the bottom as one of the qualifications ESR said was necessary to have his job:
"You'll need to be financially secure enough not to need to have a regular job. (This one will give you some perks but no pay.)"
Especially not $36 million. No sir, I wouldn't call that pay. That one's definitely a perk.
It's not as though lots of people are getting linux preinstalled on their OEMed purchases and get home and realize they'd rather be using a MS operating system.
Anyone who knows how to install it will know how to uninstall it. It'd be much more helpful for them to post some better documentation for installing Windows itself. It's not as though that's a walk in the park. But then, they never were quite as willing to improve their own products as they were to tear down their competitors'.
IIRC, nothing has passed yet.
Back at the end of July, RMS wrote up some details about the pending legislation (a good read on the matter).
If I'm wrong, then something on this page at eff.org will probably make it plain.
They knew all along that cludging standards and implementing their own half-assed versions would make it more difficult for the end-user, but they did it anyway for the same reason all software companies make their own proprietary file formats, etc. They wanted to lock the end-user into using only Netscape. Yes, some of it had to do with general coding laziness, and some of it had to do with not wanting to have to wait for the various international bodies to shove stuff through committee and release a spec, but most of it was classic monopoly-building strategy.
What they didn't count on was MS coming along and being better at this game. MS and monopolies -- you'd think they could've seen it coming.
Just listen to the dishonorable senator from the state of North Carolina, Jesse Helms, who in 1995 argued for the cutting of Federal AIDS funding in as much as AIDS is a problem only facing "people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts".
And then there are plenty of other idiots espousing similar views, like Bob Enyart ("Gay stands for Got AIDS Yet?") and Fred Phelps (of godhatesfags.com fame, who leads protests at the funerals of people who die of AIDS).
Your other points are equally bogus, but I already fed another troll today. Look for an earlier post called "you depress me".
There are large numbers of people who are still virgins and who have AIDS, much less being non-monogamous. They're called congenital victims of their mother's AIDS, or haemophiliacs, or other victims of tainted blood transfusions. The daughter of someone I know got HIV from a transfusion during cancer surgery when she was 1 year old.
And even that doesn't exhaust the list of people who are not non-monogamous and who have HIV. They're called spouses of people who practice unsafe extra-marital sex and contract HIV. Under your system of belief, there is still the presence of sin, but it is not that victim's sin that causes the suffering; for he/she is innocent.
And even that doesn't exhaust the list, but you can do the rest as a personal homework assignment from me to you.
The only difference is that, if it's a privately owned forum, then it doesn't implicate the 1st amendment or the 14th amendment which only apply to government actions. Don't mislead yourself by thinking it's anything other than censorship; for you are silencing someone's expression solely on the content of that expression.
Any discussion of children must recognize the (usually silly) notion that children are not afforded full constitutional rights in this country. Even the government may sometimes take actions concerning children that would be unconstitutional if taken concerning adults. You are committing a gross error if you try to extrapolate from the former to the latter.
And there is a constitutional right to privacy located in the 5th and 14th amendments. That right, however, does not encompass the right not to be offended. Don't try to kid yourself otherwise.
Open letter to Zhirinovsky from his family:
Please, Zhirinovsky, we don't want to see you hurt yourself or others. We miss the old days when you didn't come home from the Duma in the middle of the night and urinate on the living room floor. There are people who can help you -- they've helped themselves and they've helped others before you. We have a book we want you to read. You don't have to do it if you don't want, but all the same we hope you'll do it. We love you. And little Sasha wants some help assasinating rival political opponents. Who will teach him if you don't? Please, if you won't do it for yourself, do it for us.
Tseluyem,
Vasha Sem'ya
"Most harmful of all is the message that Verisign's buy-outs have conveyed to every company with the potential to innovate in the securities industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, Thawte, Compaq, Microsoft, and others, Verisign has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense finances to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Verisign's digital-certificates products. Verisign's past success in hurting such transactions and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and orders that exhibit the potential to undermine Verisign. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit customers never occur for the sole reason that they do not jive with Verisign's vision."
With appologies to Brunchi ng Shuttlecocks.
Heck, I don't weigh that much less than that. Neither do a bunch of my friends. Maybe we should get together and beat up on Verisign and steal its lunch-money.
These companies really have to learn that it's not that impressive if they weigh only slightly more than the average American male. Even if America is a chronically obese nation.
Maybe Microsoft would like to help them out by hooking them up with some of that combination bovine-growth hormone and human-g rowth hormone regimen that's keeping Gates's hair so glossy and thighs so sexy. They'll help make Verisign a man. How do I know this? Try searching Google for "make you a man". Microsoft comes up as #2. Does Judge Jackson know about this?....
Heck, just open your wallet and look at your fiat currency. Why does so many dollars buy you so much gold? Because someone, somewhere decided "Here is a piece of paper. It's worth a lot." Why are certain pieces of artwork worth so much at auction? Because someone, somewhere, decided "Here is a painting. It's worth a lot."
I myself take some personal comfort in thinking of WebTV as a bit of dadaist expression.
NY has a long and proud tradition of alienating businesses by severely taxing and regulating them until they flee to neighboring states. If NY has a claim to being "Centre Of The Universe", then it's only from a combination of having the UN, a bunch of kick-ass cultural institutions like museums and Broadway, and Wall Street.
Besides, Microsoft is located in Redmond, WA, and not NY. Do you really see Billy Gates waking up tomorrow and saying to himself: "You know, we really got some curteous service from those swell folk over there in New York. I think it's time we left Redmond and my friends in Boeing and moved cross-country so we can be closer to Riker's Island."
Or at least he wouldn't say it without downing a few strong ones first. Stay tuned for his New Year's eve celebration, I suppose.
The cynical side of me strongly suspects (e), but in the end I'll probably have to go with:
(f) Microsoft has some idiots on the payroll, and the particular idiots involved are about to get canned.
It's just one more milestone in the mainstreaming of Linux, and people like to hark those milestones with fanfare. Linux is officially big enough for a company selling it to split its stock.
And besides, there are legitimate reasons for splitting one's stock: avoiding the impression of overvalue, reducing the violent swings in value that correspond to changes of a few percentage points, increasing the pool of stockholders to broaden the holdings, etc.