Yeah, but why do people insist on having a command line and a GUI as seperate concepts with a wall between them?
Why can't I type in a CLI command and get GUI output? Or make a GUI selection of spacially proximate icons and then add to it with regular expressions from the keyboard?
Both are exceptionally useful, but neither one is as good alone as both could be together.
I wish that I had the time to agree with you, but I have to get back to my email. Evidently I'm required to manually flip pixels on and off since that's the kind of thing that users need to know about in order to use computers.
In truth, I think that learning about computers is useful only insofar as it's useful for some other pursuit. That pursuit _could_ be something else about computers, but generally it's not going to be. I really wish that we'd design cheap, rugged, simple computers for children and then proceed to spend some time from kindegarten through high school teaching them how to program and the kind of thinking that involves, basic electronics, etc.
Because then we might actually _raise the bar_ of what constitutes general knowledge, and people wouldn't mind writing tiny programs because they would let them do even more of whatever work they were really interested in. Computers have the ability to become prostheses of the human mind in the way that literacy already is. (which was much bemoaned long ago for impairing the development of memory)
A lot of that involves wrapping up boring repetitive problems into well-known solutions so that a minimum of programming knowledge is necessary, but generally it involves cultivating the attitude that these boxes are tools that any one can and ought to be able to reconfigure to suit their own needs, either alone or in collaboration.
Anyway, can't we do both? Bringing the FCC into it for broadcasters is fine, but they can't regulate DVDs for example. And permitting a company like Sony to both own movie and record studios _and_ sell devices for which recording and copying is impossible to protect their other interests smacks of monopoly leveraging to me.
True - OTOH, there's an alternative. Deny or revoke copyrights for any work that is so 'published.' Either the holders will fall into line or they'll trust in themselves and be screwed the second someone, somehow, breaks their system. (even by just pointing the old camcorder)
There's a similar practice already in place for patent abuse.
Additionally, let me point out that Fair Use is not a postive law. Fair Use is a judicial doctrine dating back to IIRC the early-mid 19th century. Congress didn't recognize it unti very recently, and _it_didn't_matter_.
Congress can certainly create statutory exceptions to copyright, and they can likely be quite arbitrary. Music in analog format can be indiscrimently copied. Movies - even on DVD - can be partially copied if the snip is for certain types of purposes. (e.g. criticism, scholarly works)
But even if Congress claimed that no fair uses were legal, and even named a number of them, such a law would be unconstitutional - the Fair Use exceptions exist regardless of what the law is, until you start mucking with the Constitution itself. It's nice to have it recgonized, and maybe even expanded, but these aren't things that can legally be taken away.
He started the Mac project and introduced Apple to the concept of GUIs. He went to Canon and brought out a word processor that's generally agreed upon to have been very nice indeed.
So, what precisely is he not doing about things? In the end, with both him and Tog and others, someone's got to listen to them and follow their advice - neither have the ability or inclination to code a whole fully-featured UI themselves. At least they remain influential. I know I'm paying attention in my own projects, insofar as I can.
I've heard that the Canon Cat sold great, it was just the prize in a war between various divisions in the company, and was killed off due to politics.
OTOH, it would not have been particularly expandable into any kind of general purpose computer. But hey - no one buys lots of things that are good ideas, it doesn't invalidate them.
This is true - however, Congress' powers of copyright are clearly ennumerated. Perhaps there might be a case made that were they not, they might fall under the necessary and proper clause. (though given the presence of the First Amendment, who could say)
However, the entire potential breadth of Congress' copyright powers is known. There is a lot of activity around the edges, but there are big hard limits as well.
Congress could not, for example, legally levy taxes, curtail freedom of religion, deny due process, etc. without enabling acts - and it may not have the power to do so. Agreeing to a treaty is quite a different beast than abiding by it, and while the former may be possible it doesn't guarantee that the latter is. Honestly, has the constitutionality of that aspect of the Berne Convention you mention even been tested?
Congress could certainly claim that it was exercising commerce powers in attempting to have soldiers quartered in civilian homes (home tax - put up one soldier) but that doesn't make it so.
Now, Congress can certainly claim that copyrights held abroad are valid in those countries, or that posession of a copyright abroad which could be granted in the US is automatically granted if not already taken. But they can't favor foreigners within the domain of the US; I really don't see how they could possibly claim to legitimately do so.
Many nations have state religions, prohibitions on posession of firearms, restrictions on the freedom of the press, lack due process or emenient domain - to claim that Congress can permit such policies here pretty much flies in the face of the federal government being limited at all; why were a House or a Supreme Court even established if they could be so easily circumvented? The answer could only be that they cannot in fact be circumvented, despite poor wording or lack of prescience among the framers. Their intent in the fundemental shape of our government was pretty clear, I think.
Treaties are pretty clearly not intended to have the force of law unless enabling laws are passed normally by Congress. Otherwise we'd have a situation whereby the President and 2/3 of the Senate could make law without the input of the House. (even - gasp - in the case of a treaty which required appropriations)
Additionally, Congress is prohibited from recognizing foreign copyrights on the terms that they exist in in their native countries, perhaps unless they were predicated on the same foundation as our own laws. A foreign copyright that was perpetual, did not allow US judicially recognized fair uses, was not initially granted to the author or did not exist for the purpose of promoting the progress of the arts can't be recognized here. There's no power to do so, since those are the only terms upon which they may be recognized. A US copyright could be granted, but it would be no different than any other US copyright, just held by a foreign party. That doesn't sound to me like what is being proposed.
Although many lower courts seem to have difficulty with properly interpreting this body of law (siding with business interests that are totally besides the point anyway) I'd be amazed if this could actually take place.
Oh, but then again I forgot that our government is rather corrupt these days. Silly me.
Personally, I enjoyed ColorIt! on the Mac for some time in the early-mid 90's. But my needs outgrew it -- when I got to use layers in Photoshop I didn't look back.
And what's really weird are those people who use vacuum tubes to display information on one of the glass sides! I've even heard of people who use tubes like that more or less all by themselves without any significant computer at all. Strange, man, strange.
Perhaps you should do more reading. Antitrust laws were not developed to deal with phone companies. (the biggest of which dealt with the threat by permitting exceptional levels of governmental regulation; something MS is not willing to do either)
And in fact, MS, by virtue of the degree of power that they have are in a crapload of hot water. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand and one options besides MS, what matters is the relative influence and control that MS wields. It needn't be absolute to count. (in fact, there were a number of very, very small independent phone companies that competed with ATT back in the day; ATT was required to let them interconnect)
I concur. Were I in business for myself - not likely to happen, however - I would much rather work towards producing a good environment (used here in a more general sense than actual ecology) to be in.
Competition is good for everyone, so I wouldn't want to achieve a monopoly. It's nice to have a polity that isn't controlled by an elite few so it would stay out of politics, or encourage involvement by real people while not dictating policies. A healthy ecology is desirable, so measures would be taken to minimize harmful effects over the short and long terms.
In short - my goals are to create a good society and world in which to live, and any business would just be one more element towards achieving that. Personal riches or power don't factor into it except as means to some other end, and they're so potentially dangerous that I'd want to handle them carefully.
That said, I doubt it would work out well unless a significant number of other people operated under similar principles. That it's fragile however, doesn't invalidate it.
Companies aren't really people. Why shouldn't there be a double standard?
The goal is not to have an internally consistant and ruthlessly logical system, it is to have a society that is good to live in. If that means having no, or very limited copyrights and having highly (but equally, to keep things fair) regulated companies, then I'd be all for it.
Man, I _wish_ the Jews controlled the world. Maybe then I could get a better job. Sadly, it's got a lot more to do with the rich and powerful, and me, I'm not one of them.
Oh, they still have to be earned alright. Congress has just set the bar extremely (and possibly unconstitutionally) low.
You may wish to check out the list of things that cannot be copyrighted: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html Remember of course, that Congress could eliminate copyrights on anything at all tomorrow if they wanted to. (through the normal process of lawmaking)
Besides which, if you hadn't noticed my.sig, I disclaim copyrights on my posts. They go to the public domain as soon as they're fixed.
Copyrights have to be earned, and they need not apply to everyone in all ways. If it were felt by Congress to promote the progress of the arts to have copyrights not apply to the sharing of files by individuals for no compensation, copyrights just wouldn't apply.
I don't have a serious problem with that - I find it impossible to believe that the current system of copyright laws is actually fulfilling its Constitutionally mandated function.
And remember, copyrights are only sensibly applicable to works that have been published - that is, deliberately made available to the public.
OTOH, I have an expectation of privacy regarding my personal information. Amazon may know what books I've bought from them, but I have never desired them to tell anyone else, for any reason. Only the government, armed with a warrant from a court with relevant jurisdiction ought to be able to violate that privacy.
Although I find them inelegant and would prefer to avoid them, double standards are perfectly reasonable, provided that they function to aid society, and do not impose harm on it. I don't know about you, but the society that I would like best relies chiefly on people, and imposes restrictions on the government, which in turn imposes restrictions on businesses.
It's important not to be wedded to any one system, but to instead favor a goal, though you still want to be careful about how you get there. Certainly if a decidedly better political system than our present one were devised, I'd want to implement it; if a better economic system than a carefully muzzled capitalism were thought up, I'd be all for it. I admit that we're doing okay, but we clearly have a lot of room for improvement, and my sympathies lie with living, breathing people more than anything else.
The Internet was never designed to resist nuclear attack. Hell, it has problems with backhoes. The RAND study regarding decentralized command and control networks is a remarkable display of parallel thinking, but it had relatively little to do with the ARPANet. Go read some good histories of the net... 'Where Wizards Stay Up Late' is a good starting point.
Gaming? Gaming? What makes you think that they're going after gaming _alone_?
Honestly if there's one thing that MS loves to do, it's leveraging their monopolies in favor of each other. And if there's one thing that they're deathly afraid of it's any possible threat to their monopolies. Even the crappy hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean.
The XBox is just getting into the door as a game console. That's not the real point though.
The point is that there is an effective floor on the price of PC's at around $400 - the point at which the cost of the OS becomes a serious liability. Rather than drop prices, and permit computers to become as cheap as dirt, MS would prefer to firmly fix that floor in place, before low-end dealers are ever capable of using free (beer) OSes. It's fairly typical monopolistic behavior.
MS has no such costs for the OS, and no desire to permit them to come to a head for others. So they'll just combine the desired features of a home PC into their own box:
*Gaming (obvious)
*Internet (MSN, IE, WebTV, broadband)
*Light office apps (Office.Net over IE)
Thanks to not having to spend money for software on a per-unit basis, the hardware can be somewhat better than everyone else's at the same final cost. (Xbox is expected to be ~$300-400)
Also maybe add a few bonuses, such as video recording (heavily locked up at the behest of big business) a la Ultimate TV as well as DVD playback.
They already have most of the pieces, now they're just going to put them together and essentially restrict the open PC market to everyone that makes sufficiently high end hardware that they don't compete with MS. It's a pretty good strategy, though chock full of the kind of evil we've all come to expect from MS.
Oh certainly. The mouse is not an intuitive device in the least. (Star Trek IV even made that point) However, it is at least easy to get used to once you know the basic idea.
Incidentally, the mouse tails _did_ originally point towards the user. It was probably inconvenient or something b/c a few years later the modern position of the tail at the front had been pretty much established. A picture of the original mouse (1 button no less;) can be found here: http://www.bootstrap.org/history/photos/img0001.jp g
And man, you don't want to know about some of the other alternatives devised for pointing on the screen.... Be grateful that they never got out of the lab.
Re:I can picture it now....
on
Cracking OSX
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· Score: 1
No, I got the joke - I just tried to insert some more humor by criticizing the UI that presented the joke.... guess it didn't work.
(been usin' Macs since '86, hate OS X with a passion)
Re:I can picture it now....
on
Cracking OSX
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· Score: 1
What an incredibly useless dialog though. If there's no choice, a dialog is too much to present. The little yellow note dialogs are so much better for this sort of thing, you know.;)
Well they rather need to work with the infrastructure guys, what with.net around the corner. Especially as xbox is a thinly-veiled attempt at cornering the low-end pc market and console market. (gaming + ms's webtv + ms's ultimate tv + ms's ie + ms's office via.net for ~$400 with monthly charges)
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Yeah, but why do people insist on having a command line and a GUI as seperate concepts with a wall between them?
Why can't I type in a CLI command and get GUI output? Or make a GUI selection of spacially proximate icons and then add to it with regular expressions from the keyboard?
Both are exceptionally useful, but neither one is as good alone as both could be together.
I wish that I had the time to agree with you, but I have to get back to my email. Evidently I'm required to manually flip pixels on and off since that's the kind of thing that users need to know about in order to use computers.
In truth, I think that learning about computers is useful only insofar as it's useful for some other pursuit. That pursuit _could_ be something else about computers, but generally it's not going to be. I really wish that we'd design cheap, rugged, simple computers for children and then proceed to spend some time from kindegarten through high school teaching them how to program and the kind of thinking that involves, basic electronics, etc.
Because then we might actually _raise the bar_ of what constitutes general knowledge, and people wouldn't mind writing tiny programs because they would let them do even more of whatever work they were really interested in. Computers have the ability to become prostheses of the human mind in the way that literacy already is. (which was much bemoaned long ago for impairing the development of memory)
A lot of that involves wrapping up boring repetitive problems into well-known solutions so that a minimum of programming knowledge is necessary, but generally it involves cultivating the attitude that these boxes are tools that any one can and ought to be able to reconfigure to suit their own needs, either alone or in collaboration.
Barnes is a good writer.
Anyway, can't we do both? Bringing the FCC into it for broadcasters is fine, but they can't regulate DVDs for example. And permitting a company like Sony to both own movie and record studios _and_ sell devices for which recording and copying is impossible to protect their other interests smacks of monopoly leveraging to me.
True - OTOH, there's an alternative. Deny or revoke copyrights for any work that is so 'published.' Either the holders will fall into line or they'll trust in themselves and be screwed the second someone, somehow, breaks their system. (even by just pointing the old camcorder)
There's a similar practice already in place for patent abuse.
I seem to believe that the punishment involved bad 80's haircuts ;)
I did rather enjoy their typewriter keyboards however. One of these days I'll pick up an old Remington or something and make one....
Additionally, let me point out that Fair Use is not a postive law. Fair Use is a judicial doctrine dating back to IIRC the early-mid 19th century. Congress didn't recognize it unti very recently, and _it_didn't_matter_.
Congress can certainly create statutory exceptions to copyright, and they can likely be quite arbitrary. Music in analog format can be indiscrimently copied. Movies - even on DVD - can be partially copied if the snip is for certain types of purposes. (e.g. criticism, scholarly works)
But even if Congress claimed that no fair uses were legal, and even named a number of them, such a law would be unconstitutional - the Fair Use exceptions exist regardless of what the law is, until you start mucking with the Constitution itself. It's nice to have it recgonized, and maybe even expanded, but these aren't things that can legally be taken away.
He started the Mac project and introduced Apple to the concept of GUIs. He went to Canon and brought out a word processor that's generally agreed upon to have been very nice indeed.
So, what precisely is he not doing about things? In the end, with both him and Tog and others, someone's got to listen to them and follow their advice - neither have the ability or inclination to code a whole fully-featured UI themselves. At least they remain influential. I know I'm paying attention in my own projects, insofar as I can.
I've heard that the Canon Cat sold great, it was just the prize in a war between various divisions in the company, and was killed off due to politics.
OTOH, it would not have been particularly expandable into any kind of general purpose computer. But hey - no one buys lots of things that are good ideas, it doesn't invalidate them.
This is true - however, Congress' powers of copyright are clearly ennumerated. Perhaps there might be a case made that were they not, they might fall under the necessary and proper clause. (though given the presence of the First Amendment, who could say)
However, the entire potential breadth of Congress' copyright powers is known. There is a lot of activity around the edges, but there are big hard limits as well.
Congress could not, for example, legally levy taxes, curtail freedom of religion, deny due process, etc. without enabling acts - and it may not have the power to do so. Agreeing to a treaty is quite a different beast than abiding by it, and while the former may be possible it doesn't guarantee that the latter is. Honestly, has the constitutionality of that aspect of the Berne Convention you mention even been tested?
Congress could certainly claim that it was exercising commerce powers in attempting to have soldiers quartered in civilian homes (home tax - put up one soldier) but that doesn't make it so.
Now, Congress can certainly claim that copyrights held abroad are valid in those countries, or that posession of a copyright abroad which could be granted in the US is automatically granted if not already taken. But they can't favor foreigners within the domain of the US; I really don't see how they could possibly claim to legitimately do so.
Many nations have state religions, prohibitions on posession of firearms, restrictions on the freedom of the press, lack due process or emenient domain - to claim that Congress can permit such policies here pretty much flies in the face of the federal government being limited at all; why were a House or a Supreme Court even established if they could be so easily circumvented? The answer could only be that they cannot in fact be circumvented, despite poor wording or lack of prescience among the framers. Their intent in the fundemental shape of our government was pretty clear, I think.
How precisely could this be accomplished?
Treaties are pretty clearly not intended to have the force of law unless enabling laws are passed normally by Congress. Otherwise we'd have a situation whereby the President and 2/3 of the Senate could make law without the input of the House. (even - gasp - in the case of a treaty which required appropriations)
Additionally, Congress is prohibited from recognizing foreign copyrights on the terms that they exist in in their native countries, perhaps unless they were predicated on the same foundation as our own laws. A foreign copyright that was perpetual, did not allow US judicially recognized fair uses, was not initially granted to the author or did not exist for the purpose of promoting the progress of the arts can't be recognized here. There's no power to do so, since those are the only terms upon which they may be recognized. A US copyright could be granted, but it would be no different than any other US copyright, just held by a foreign party. That doesn't sound to me like what is being proposed.
Although many lower courts seem to have difficulty with properly interpreting this body of law (siding with business interests that are totally besides the point anyway) I'd be amazed if this could actually take place.
Oh, but then again I forgot that our government is rather corrupt these days. Silly me.
Personally, I enjoyed ColorIt! on the Mac for some time in the early-mid 90's. But my needs outgrew it -- when I got to use layers in Photoshop I didn't look back.
And what's really weird are those people who use vacuum tubes to display information on one of the glass sides! I've even heard of people who use tubes like that more or less all by themselves without any significant computer at all. Strange, man, strange.
Perhaps you should do more reading. Antitrust laws were not developed to deal with phone companies. (the biggest of which dealt with the threat by permitting exceptional levels of governmental regulation; something MS is not willing to do either)
And in fact, MS, by virtue of the degree of power that they have are in a crapload of hot water. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand and one options besides MS, what matters is the relative influence and control that MS wields. It needn't be absolute to count. (in fact, there were a number of very, very small independent phone companies that competed with ATT back in the day; ATT was required to let them interconnect)
I concur. Were I in business for myself - not likely to happen, however - I would much rather work towards producing a good environment (used here in a more general sense than actual ecology) to be in.
Competition is good for everyone, so I wouldn't want to achieve a monopoly. It's nice to have a polity that isn't controlled by an elite few so it would stay out of politics, or encourage involvement by real people while not dictating policies. A healthy ecology is desirable, so measures would be taken to minimize harmful effects over the short and long terms.
In short - my goals are to create a good society and world in which to live, and any business would just be one more element towards achieving that. Personal riches or power don't factor into it except as means to some other end, and they're so potentially dangerous that I'd want to handle them carefully.
That said, I doubt it would work out well unless a significant number of other people operated under similar principles. That it's fragile however, doesn't invalidate it.
Companies aren't really people. Why shouldn't there be a double standard?
The goal is not to have an internally consistant and ruthlessly logical system, it is to have a society that is good to live in. If that means having no, or very limited copyrights and having highly (but equally, to keep things fair) regulated companies, then I'd be all for it.
The meanings are the same in the US. It was just a case of bad spelling.
Man, I _wish_ the Jews controlled the world. Maybe then I could get a better job. Sadly, it's got a lot more to do with the rich and powerful, and me, I'm not one of them.
Oh, they still have to be earned alright. Congress has just set the bar extremely (and possibly unconstitutionally) low.
.sig, I disclaim copyrights on my posts. They go to the public domain as soon as they're fixed.
You may wish to check out the list of things that cannot be copyrighted: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html Remember of course, that Congress could eliminate copyrights on anything at all tomorrow if they wanted to. (through the normal process of lawmaking)
Besides which, if you hadn't noticed my
Copyrights have to be earned, and they need not apply to everyone in all ways. If it were felt by Congress to promote the progress of the arts to have copyrights not apply to the sharing of files by individuals for no compensation, copyrights just wouldn't apply.
I don't have a serious problem with that - I find it impossible to believe that the current system of copyright laws is actually fulfilling its Constitutionally mandated function.
And remember, copyrights are only sensibly applicable to works that have been published - that is, deliberately made available to the public.
OTOH, I have an expectation of privacy regarding my personal information. Amazon may know what books I've bought from them, but I have never desired them to tell anyone else, for any reason. Only the government, armed with a warrant from a court with relevant jurisdiction ought to be able to violate that privacy.
Although I find them inelegant and would prefer to avoid them, double standards are perfectly reasonable, provided that they function to aid society, and do not impose harm on it. I don't know about you, but the society that I would like best relies chiefly on people, and imposes restrictions on the government, which in turn imposes restrictions on businesses.
It's important not to be wedded to any one system, but to instead favor a goal, though you still want to be careful about how you get there. Certainly if a decidedly better political system than our present one were devised, I'd want to implement it; if a better economic system than a carefully muzzled capitalism were thought up, I'd be all for it. I admit that we're doing okay, but we clearly have a lot of room for improvement, and my sympathies lie with living, breathing people more than anything else.
The Internet was never designed to resist nuclear attack. Hell, it has problems with backhoes. The RAND study regarding decentralized command and control networks is a remarkable display of parallel thinking, but it had relatively little to do with the ARPANet. Go read some good histories of the net... 'Where Wizards Stay Up Late' is a good starting point.
Gaming? Gaming? What makes you think that they're going after gaming _alone_?
Honestly if there's one thing that MS loves to do, it's leveraging their monopolies in favor of each other. And if there's one thing that they're deathly afraid of it's any possible threat to their monopolies. Even the crappy hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean.
The XBox is just getting into the door as a game console. That's not the real point though.
The point is that there is an effective floor on the price of PC's at around $400 - the point at which the cost of the OS becomes a serious liability. Rather than drop prices, and permit computers to become as cheap as dirt, MS would prefer to firmly fix that floor in place, before low-end dealers are ever capable of using free (beer) OSes. It's fairly typical monopolistic behavior.
MS has no such costs for the OS, and no desire to permit them to come to a head for others. So they'll just combine the desired features of a home PC into their own box:
*Gaming (obvious)
*Internet (MSN, IE, WebTV, broadband)
*Light office apps (Office.Net over IE)
Thanks to not having to spend money for software on a per-unit basis, the hardware can be somewhat better than everyone else's at the same final cost. (Xbox is expected to be ~$300-400)
Also maybe add a few bonuses, such as video recording (heavily locked up at the behest of big business) a la Ultimate TV as well as DVD playback.
They already have most of the pieces, now they're just going to put them together and essentially restrict the open PC market to everyone that makes sufficiently high end hardware that they don't compete with MS. It's a pretty good strategy, though chock full of the kind of evil we've all come to expect from MS.
Oh certainly. The mouse is not an intuitive device in the least. (Star Trek IV even made that point) However, it is at least easy to get used to once you know the basic idea.
;) can be found here: http://www.bootstrap.org/history/photos/img0001.jp g
Incidentally, the mouse tails _did_ originally point towards the user. It was probably inconvenient or something b/c a few years later the modern position of the tail at the front had been pretty much established. A picture of the original mouse (1 button no less
And man, you don't want to know about some of the other alternatives devised for pointing on the screen.... Be grateful that they never got out of the lab.
No, I got the joke - I just tried to insert some more humor by criticizing the UI that presented the joke.... guess it didn't work.
(been usin' Macs since '86, hate OS X with a passion)
What an incredibly useless dialog though. If there's no choice, a dialog is too much to present. The little yellow note dialogs are so much better for this sort of thing, you know. ;)
Well they rather need to work with the infrastructure guys, what with .net around the corner. Especially as xbox is a thinly-veiled attempt at cornering the low-end pc market and console market. (gaming + ms's webtv + ms's ultimate tv + ms's ie + ms's office via .net for ~$400 with monthly charges)