This is not a problem with the existence of forward and backwards buttons, it's an issue with their implementation. With Safari, I can hit back, then hit forward and still have the text I entered in this text box remain here when I get back.
Yep, same in Firefox. In fact, Internet Explorer is the only browser I know of where this is not the case. And after all these years, I have to say that anyone still using Internet Explorer, when they don't absolutely have to, frankly deserves all the pain they get from it.
Actually, most machines run Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP with the "classic" theme. In all of these cases the start menu is offset from the corner by a few pixels, making a quick movement to the corner useless.
But why would you want to take your hands off the keyboard and reach over to your mouse and drag the cursor all the way to the corner of the screen to open the start menu, when every keyboard manufactured in the last five years has had a special button, right next to the space bar, which is dedicated to having the same effect?
And even if like me you use an ancient keyboard because you can't stand the Windows key, I still suspect that the old-school "Ctrl+Escape" is significantly more efficient than using the mouse.
Also, unlike systems like MacOS and many Linux systems, the menus are hooked to the window,
That doesn't really bother me, because it's much quicker just to press that little "Alt" key when I want a menu than it is to use the mouse.
and even when maximized, the upper left and right corners of the screen don't do anything at all.
Bullshit. The upper right corner of the screen closes the active window, and the upper left corner opens a menu which can be used to demaximise or minimise the active window. Of course, this has only been true for about ten or fifteen years now, so I'm not really surprised you haven't discovered it yet.
I wish Microsoft would fix their most fundamental user interface problem: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever steal my input directed to one window and start providing it to another.
What version of Windows are you using? 98?
I'm only running 2000 (not even XP), and I have no idea what this rant of yours is supposed to refer to. When a background window wants to pop up a message, it does not steal the focus - all that happens is that its icon on the taskbar flashes a few times, to tell me that the application wants attention. I keep doing what I'm doing, without any interruptions, and when I have a moment, I go and look to see what happened, and then - only then - the box appears with that application's message.
So, uh, whatever it is you're on about, it looks like they fixed it about six years ago. I'm sorry you're still having problems, but I really don't think it can be Microsoft's fault.
Really? To me, it smacks of capitalism. Why? Well, most capitalist countries have taxes on blank media now, specifically to "pay artists" for the IP that it is assumed you will use those CD-Rs to copy. Yet nobody accuses the RIAA of communism!
If you can't reliably depend upon CSS to render a dashed line on a border, why do you even provide it?
Do share: just how do you propose to get a blind user's screen reader to render a dashed line on a border?
Wait, wasn't that what you meant? Oh dear, it looks like you're going to have to concede that you don't actually want CSS to guarantee anything of the sort, doesn't it?
Two completely compliant browsers can give you a different picture, depending on their choice to implement optional components.
Oh lord, you're not another of these clueless people who think that the idea of CSS is to make sure sites look identical everywhere, are you?
The fact that two completely compliant browsers can produce totally different results is a feature. You might want your website to have green text on a red background in letters five pixels high, but if I'm nearsighted and colourblind, I damn well don't want my browser to render it that way! As a less extreme example, you might want your site to be laid out in three vertical columns, but if I'm browsing it on a mobile phone, I sure won't object if my browser decides to render it as one column instead.
Pixel-identical rendering? You can keep it. I want to use fonts I can read, colours I can stand, layouts I can navigate. CSS lets me do all that just by providing my own stylesheet. You know, I'm really not terribly unhappy with that.
Besides, does any browser meet all of the W3C standards flawlessly?
Of course there isn't, and nobody's pretending there is. But standards-compliance is analogue, not digital. No browser is fully standards-compliant - but most of them are a hell of a lot closer than IE.
Using the fact that no browser is perfect as an excuse for not even trying to make your site standards-compliant (or worse, for designing for IE only) is a bit like saying "why lock up thieves and murderers, everyone's broken some law or other!"
But the fact is that thieves and murderers are not on the same level as people who occasionally exceed a speed limit by 5 mph. And IE's brazen disregard for basic elements even of CSS1, a ten-year old standard, is not on the same level as Opera's failure to implement a few minor features.
Actually it's very unlikely I'll be able to play DOS games 100 years from now - because, going by current life expectancies, I'll probably have been dead for about 40 years.
Nor is it certain I'll be able to play DOS games tomorrow. Who's to say I won't be hit by a bus?
Nor is it certain that I won't be able to play HL2 in 15 years. Where is your proof? Why do you assume the servers will ever be switched off? Why do you assume that, in the case where the servers are switched off, Valve won't release a patch removing the phone-home requirement? Why do you assume that even if Satan himself takes over Valve and forces them to turn off the servers and destroy the authentication code, that even then, enhanced computing techniques, perhaps quantum computers, won't allow us to crack the encryption trivially?
Come to that, I have loads of old games that I want to play but can't - and the reason isn't that they're encrypted, or that my hardware's broken, but simply that the pressures of adult life mean I don't have time to play all my old games.
Seems to me that it's not the GP that hates rational discussion. It's you that insists on reducing everything to absolute worst-case scenarios and refusing to acknowledge that the DRM on HL2 is not, in fact, a significant restriction of anyone's rights.
OpenDoc is a fairly restrictive format in terms of what you can do with it. . . . It's just not the OO.o format, and I'm getting slightly bored of people getting the two confused.
Guess what? I'm getting slightly bored of people making verifiably false claims, and even more bored of clueless moderators modding them up for it.
Beginning with version 2.0 OpenOffice.org uses the open standard OASIS OpenDocument XML format as the default file format.
So do pray enlighten me: exactly how is OpenDocument not the OpenOffice.org format?
Oh, the other guy who replied to you suggested that there's another format (called OpenDoc not OpenDocument), which may well be what you have in mind. In that case, you are completely off-topic, because the format Massachusetts are thinking of using is OpenDocument. Which is to say, the format which is used by new versions of OpenOffice.org.
And people on Freenet do not swap material which is under copyright?
What's wrong with swapping material which is under copyright? I've had a BitTorrent client open all week, with my upload speed pretty much maxxed out. I've been distributing copyrighted material with it. And I haven't broken a single law. Because - get this - the stuff I'm distributing is stuff I either own or have permission to distribute.
You're an idiot if you listen to the RIAA/MPAA's lies about how "distributing copyright material is illegal". It's only illegal if you don't have permission. The RIAA want you to think that copyright is a "special" thing that only "artists" get, and you - the consumer - must fear, like an ancient pagan cringing before the idol of his god. But that's bullshit.
Copyright is a simple concept that naturally applies to any creative endeavour. Including anything you or I create. And if you or I create something, and we want to distribute it over the Internet, then it makes sense to use P2P networks. At which point we are using P2P to distribute copyright material - and yet we are not breaking any laws.
Don't listen to the RIAA/MPAA's lies. Copyright != illegal to distribute. Copyright == illegal to distribute without permission. Two little words that make a world of difference.
Freenet is just another P2P application, and since people have nothing to share except other peoples material, it will be used to do just that.
Maybe that applies to some people. Like you, I assume - you wouldn't say a thing like that unless it applied to you. But some of us create things ourselves, you know? And having done that, miraculously we have things to share that are our own. And we use P2P to share them.
If you walk into a store and steal anything, you get arrested (some call this bad luck!), and you will get some punishments. What is different here?
The difference is that theft is always illegal. Whereas sharing copyright material is only illegal if you are also infringing the copyright in that material. Which can easily be avoided by either creating the material yourself, or getting the permission of the copyright holder to distribute it - at which point (am I repeating myself here?) you can share it over a P2P network without breaking any laws.
It is not your digital right to exchange copyrighted material at all.
Whoa, you're saying I don't have the right to use the computer I own Internet connection I leased to transfer the material I created?
Fuck that. I'll thank you not to tell me to throw away my right to freedom of speech, if that's quite okay with you. It is my freedom that's on the line if P2P networks ever actually get made illegal, and I do care about my freedom.
Go after the people who are infringing copyrights, please. And leave those of us alone who are distributing copyright material entirely legally, because we own the fucking copyrights.
I got asked last week to find some details for the boss on a new "digital paper" product that got debuted at the Aichi Expo. After fifteen minutes of fruitless banging away at Google with the obvious Japanese search terms (including the exact name of the product!), I found the company's press release in English on the first I'm Feeling Lucky, and then clicked the "Japanese" button at the top of their interface.
Really. Might I enquire exactly what search terms you used in Japanese?
The reason I ask is that googling for "Aichi-banpaku denshi-peepaa" (in Japanese, obviously) brings up the press release I assume you're referring to as the very first result.
There's a proverb about the appropriate allocation of blame between poor workmen and their tools, isn't there? How does it go now...
If you try and make your care go faster or whatever, or want to paint racing stripes on it, it doesn't affect the car manufacturers in anyway.
Nonsense. If, as a result of a dangerous engine hack, (modded) Fords started to explode on every street corner, you think Ford's share price wouldn't fall?
Modifying your Blu-ray player to play region locked discs or pirated discs however, has a (imaginary or real, not the point of this post) negative influence for the people selling movies.
Wait, you're saying that whether the effect is imaginary or real is irrelevant for your point? Whoa. So if Ford's lawyers stood up and said that painting racing stripes on your car would attract the attention of hostile aliens from Saturn, suddenly it would be reasonable for them to object to you painting them, because they had an (imaginary or real, not the point of this post) explanation for why it was bad?
This isn't like adding a new motor to the disc drive to make the disc spin faster, its modding it to do something illegal.
Except that everyone I know has removed the region coding from their DVD player, and not one of them owns a single pirated disk. Instead, they own a lot of perfectly legal and legitimate disks that they have purchased at the full retail price. Just from countries they happen not to live in. So, no - in my experience, modding DVD players is not done to do something illegal. The act of modding itself may have been illegal under the DMCA or local equivalents, but that's the only law anyone I know has broken. They certainly haven't stolen any movies...
Problem is that at least in Fort Wayne, Indiana, mass transit does not run after 9 PM on weekdays, after 6 PM on Saturdays, or at all on Sundays or holidays.
Well, maybe if it wasn't chronically underfunded, they'd be able to afford to keep it running all the time, and even to add extra routes, more frequent services, and lower ticket prices?
They can't raise gas taxes because people don't have any alternative means of transport. And they can't provide alternative means of transport because there aren't funds available. Wait a minute, I think I might just be able to see a possible solution!
I pay tips with cash whenever possible, so there's no way for the management to track it.
God YES. If you want the money to go to the staff who you're trying to reward with your tip, you give them cash, and do it quietly. If you just want to line their managers' pockets even further, go ahead and use your card.
See this if you don't believe me. Federal minimum wage is about $5/hr, except for employees who receive tips, in which case the employer can cut the "direct" wage as low as two fucking dollars an hour. They have to actually pay them the $5/hour, of course, but by making $3 of each $5 come out of tips, they basically make sure that the employee isn't actually going to benefit at all from your generosity - unless you're an unusually high tipper, they're just going to get $5/hr whether you tip them or not.
Nice one, government. Way to motivate low earners.
No, ripping off someone else's copyrighted work and reimplementing it in another medium (flash) doesn't give you any (copy-)rights on the result.
That depends on what you do, actually. If you copy any of their work (graphics, music, etc.), then you are infringing copyright. If on the other hand you reimplement the thing from scratch, draw all your own artwork that only resembles theirs in the sense that any picture of a burger will look like a burger, write your own music, and basically just reproduce the game without copying anything but the basic idea, then actually you do have all the copyright on it, and there's not a thing they can do to stop you.
Copyright protects an implementation, not an idea.
If someday you feel bored and decide to reimplement Monopoly(TM) into flash and put it on your website, I can guarantee you'll get sued out of existence.
That depends how you do it, actually. If you produce anything with "opoly" in its name you'll certainly get attention from lawyers, but that will be because you may be infringing on trademark rights in the "Monopoly" name. If you produce something that has identical rules, you may possibly be sued for that, because IIRC an exact set of game rules can be copyrighted.
But if you produce a game that merely happens to involve moving counters round the edge of a board, whereon are depicted various properties, which can be purchased by the first player to land on each thus requiring subsequent players to make a payment to that player upon landing on that square, then you're in the clear. It could even look and play essentially identically to Monopoly(r). As long as you didn't call it Foobaropoly, and the rules weren't actually identical.
Because copyright protects an implementation, not an idea.
And the actual patents on Monopoly(r), which protected the actual idea, must have expired about 60 years ago.
Or you could just get WinRar. Free upgrades and a better format to boot.
And if all you need is to be able to read RAR archives, then you can download free-as-in-beer extraction programs for most major platforms here. There's even source code available.*
People are welcome not to like WinRAR for being a proprietary product using proprietary algorithms, but nobody can complain that RAR archives are inaccessible to them.
* Under a slightly restrictive license, but it's still source code.
Look around for the author and read other stuff by him, Paul Thurrott is a well-known MS shill.
Sorry, no. I'm not going to go out and dig around looking for evidence to support someone else's argument. The burden of proof is with the accuser.
If he's a well-known shill - which he may be, for all I know, though this particular article looks pretty balanced to me - then you must have plenty of evidence at your fingertips. Perhaps you'd care to share some of it, instead of making us play guessing games?
I've always wondered, if you've got Acrobat on your system, would Stallman want you to call it Adobe/GNU/Linux?
No, he would want you to remove it immediately and install a free PDF reader instead. Or, preferably, to stop using formats like PDF altogether in favour of something that's not so tied to a particular proprietary implementation.:P
That aside, the point is that the average "Linux" distribution does rely on a GNU foundation in a way that it doesn't rely on X, or Gnome, or KDE, or TeX, or any of the other major software packages that people like to cite when arguing against the GNU/prefix. You can run the Linux kernel without any of those, and a lot of people do. But it's pretty difficult to get a Linux kernel at all without using the GNU compiler collection, and it's pretty unusual to use Linux without the GNU userland.
Sure, you could try to compile the kernel with Intel's compiler instead, if you only want to run it on x86. And you could replace most or all of the GNU userland with the BSD equivalents, or with another alternative such as BusyBox. But firstly, most people don't; and secondly, RMS doesn't insist that such systems be called GNU/Linux anyway. The fact is that the Linux system, in its best-known configuration - the one configuration that RMS demands people refer to as GNU/Linux - is fundamentally reliant on the work of the many collaborators in the GNU project.
It's true that "GNU/Linux" is ugly, and it's true that hardly anyone uses that name, and it's even true that RMS appears to be obsessed with this minor issue well beyond the bounds of what's reasonable. But you can't deny that he has a valid point - even if, like most people, you choose to reject the conclusion he draws from it.
i always thought that was what the mute button did. or did you want it specifically for browser stuff only?
Sometimes I want my browser to play sounds - web radio, for example. But I only want it to play sounds that I've explicitly told it to play. I don't want sounds from adverts, and I don't want the crappy background music that some idiots insist on adding to their pages.
In other words, what I really want is the audio equivalent of popup blocking...
However there are several alternatives to buying a $50,000 car. There are precious few to be had from the content companies. Here's an real example. I want to watch the last series of Babylon 5.
Um, if you want a $50,000 car, there is no alternative to buying it. All the alternatives - a cheaper car, buses, trains, hitch-hiking - involve not having a $50,000 car. Therefore, despite your nonsensical claim to the contrary, there are also plenty of legal alternatives to buying the last series of Babylon 5, of which the simplest is watching something else instead. You don't need a $50,000 car to get around: so if you don't want to pay $50,000, you can still get around by some other means. Similarly, you don't need Babylon 5 to be entertained: so if you don't want to pay for a box set, you can still get entertained by other means. Why is this concept so difficult for you to understand?
Leaving aside the technical differences between copyright infringement and theft, I really don't see how your attitude is any different from the attitude of a thief: you want something, you don't want to pay for it, so you decide to obtain it illegally instead. Or "steal it", as most people say.
there's http://www.colinux.org/, a port of linux to WinNT 5.x. . . . you can run ELF format linux/x86 binaries on windows with it.
No you can't. The only binary that CoLinux itself runs is the Linux kernel itself, which it actually runs kind of alongside Windows rather than in it: you then run Linux binaries in Linux itself.
As far as any programs you actually run are concerned, the situation is basically identical to having two computers side by side, networked together. Want a Linux shell? You get it by sshing across a virtual network into the virtual Linux box. Want Linux GUI programs on your Windows desktop? You do it by running a Windows X server and launching the Linux applications "remotely".
Look at it in terms of the problem the software solves, and it's clear that CoLinux is much more similar to a "headless VMware" than to anything like WINE.
Re:...the same features we delivered seven years a
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Windows 95 Turns 10
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The *ix command line is what I miss most when I use Windows systems (which is most of the time, currently).
Don't complain, then - install one! There is no reason whatsoever why using Windows has to be an exercise in command-line deprivation, since complete and usable Unix-like command-line environments have been available for years now.
Personally I use Cygwin, because it's a very complete Linux-style environment with all the GNU tools and other goodies I'm used to from Linux. But even if your PHBs won't allow that nasty open-source stuff on company computers, I don't see what they could possibly have against Microsoft(r) Windows(r) Services for UNIX(r), which is an official and fully supported Microsoft product. And also free.
Cringely's comment is absolutely correct. "Much of the rest of the world" does EXACTLY what he said, as he said.
If you don't want to be taken for an ignorant, arrogant flamer yourself, you would be well advised to make some basic effort to substantiate your assertions. "Much of the rest of the world" implies a significant proportion of the world, or possibly even a majority. Would you kindly (a) clarify exactly what proportion you are talking about and how significant the infringement is in economic terms, and (b) back up your clarification with some form of verifiable fact?
For example, "much of the rest of the world" clearly does not include Europe, Canada, or Oceania, where I think it goes without saying that patent protection is comparable to the USA. It also appears not to include China, where (for example) Chinese courtsregularly rulein favour of foreign companies. I admit I haven't bothered to check how well India is doing, but I haven't heard its regime is notoriously lax.
In any case, North America-Europe-Oceania-China covers most of the world's major economies. It's hard to describe what's left as "much of the world" in an economically significant sense.
In fact, the only high-profile cases of any country apparently condoning patent infringement that I can think of would be the handful of instances where a third-world nation has attempted to manufacture generic versions of patented drugs. Note that while this is clearly in violation of international treaties, its actual economic impact is questionable, since (a) the nations in question are not typically profitable markets at present, and the scope for growth is uncertain, and (b) the companies in question often manage to resolve the issue admirably by offering genuine drugs at heavy discounts.
I am truly impressed at your ability to take a single throwaway statement and build on it a strawman of anti-Americanism. However, the fact is that Cringely's article is as poorly researched as ever, it contains no data to support his assertions, and many of his accusations - such as the one you are supporting so vociferously - are at best misleading and at worst plain trolling.
Who's the ignorant, arrogant flamer?
Probably Cringely. Unless you had your own eye on that cap?
You do not need windows to play games. You may need windows to play games designed to run on Windows though. But if you're dumping windows, you no longer have a need for those games.
In other words, "if you don't have any need for Windows, you no longer have any need for Windows". Very profound, I'm sure.
Clue time: anyone citing Windows games as a reason for sticking with Windows probably thinks they still have a need for those games. So, uh, what was your point again?
I'm not supporting Redmond or any of the companies that butter their bread using that damnable product.
Good grief, I can hear the froth bubbling around your mouth from here. Get a grip, man. Windows is not the work of the devil: it's an operating system. Possibly not the best operating system in the world, but not in any way evil. Look, I use it all day and never once have I smelt sulphur or heard the screams of the damned coming from my computer speakers. It hasn't even murdered my family yet. All in all, it's doing pretty well for something you seem to view as the embodiment of Antichrist.
I'm also interested to know how you manage to survive while not supporting any company that uses Windows. For example, that pretty much rules out buying food from anyone apart from the Amish.
It's limited to the books that the library has chosen to stock.
Heard of this thing called an "inter-library loan"? It's this cunning system whereby you can ask to borrow pretty much any book, and they'll find a library that does have a copy and borrow it for you.
As long as the book you want's in English and was published after 1850 or so, you'll get it without any problems at all. For older stuff you may have to make special arrangements with university libraries, or just work from a modern edition; I don't know about foreign-language materials, but I imagine something can usually be arranged.
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This is not a problem with the existence of forward and backwards buttons, it's an issue with their implementation. With Safari, I can hit back, then hit forward and still have the text I entered in this text box remain here when I get back.
Yep, same in Firefox. In fact, Internet Explorer is the only browser I know of where this is not the case. And after all these years, I have to say that anyone still using Internet Explorer, when they don't absolutely have to, frankly deserves all the pain they get from it.
Actually, most machines run Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP with the "classic" theme. In all of these cases the start menu is offset from the corner by a few pixels, making a quick movement to the corner useless.
But why would you want to take your hands off the keyboard and reach over to your mouse and drag the cursor all the way to the corner of the screen to open the start menu, when every keyboard manufactured in the last five years has had a special button, right next to the space bar, which is dedicated to having the same effect?
And even if like me you use an ancient keyboard because you can't stand the Windows key, I still suspect that the old-school "Ctrl+Escape" is significantly more efficient than using the mouse.
Also, unlike systems like MacOS and many Linux systems, the menus are hooked to the window,
That doesn't really bother me, because it's much quicker just to press that little "Alt" key when I want a menu than it is to use the mouse.
and even when maximized, the upper left and right corners of the screen don't do anything at all.
Bullshit. The upper right corner of the screen closes the active window, and the upper left corner opens a menu which can be used to demaximise or minimise the active window. Of course, this has only been true for about ten or fifteen years now, so I'm not really surprised you haven't discovered it yet.
I wish Microsoft would fix their most fundamental user interface problem: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever steal my input directed to one window and start providing it to another.
What version of Windows are you using? 98?
I'm only running 2000 (not even XP), and I have no idea what this rant of yours is supposed to refer to. When a background window wants to pop up a message, it does not steal the focus - all that happens is that its icon on the taskbar flashes a few times, to tell me that the application wants attention. I keep doing what I'm doing, without any interruptions, and when I have a moment, I go and look to see what happened, and then - only then - the box appears with that application's message.
So, uh, whatever it is you're on about, it looks like they fixed it about six years ago. I'm sorry you're still having problems, but I really don't think it can be Microsoft's fault.
Specifically, it smacks of communism
Really? To me, it smacks of capitalism. Why? Well, most capitalist countries have taxes on blank media now, specifically to "pay artists" for the IP that it is assumed you will use those CD-Rs to copy. Yet nobody accuses the RIAA of communism!
If you can't reliably depend upon CSS to render a dashed line on a border, why do you even provide it?
Do share: just how do you propose to get a blind user's screen reader to render a dashed line on a border?
Wait, wasn't that what you meant? Oh dear, it looks like you're going to have to concede that you don't actually want CSS to guarantee anything of the sort, doesn't it?
Two completely compliant browsers can give you a different picture, depending on their choice to implement optional components.
Oh lord, you're not another of these clueless people who think that the idea of CSS is to make sure sites look identical everywhere, are you?
The fact that two completely compliant browsers can produce totally different results is a feature. You might want your website to have green text on a red background in letters five pixels high, but if I'm nearsighted and colourblind, I damn well don't want my browser to render it that way! As a less extreme example, you might want your site to be laid out in three vertical columns, but if I'm browsing it on a mobile phone, I sure won't object if my browser decides to render it as one column instead.
Pixel-identical rendering? You can keep it. I want to use fonts I can read, colours I can stand, layouts I can navigate. CSS lets me do all that just by providing my own stylesheet. You know, I'm really not terribly unhappy with that.
Besides, does any browser meet all of the W3C standards flawlessly?
Of course there isn't, and nobody's pretending there is. But standards-compliance is analogue, not digital. No browser is fully standards-compliant - but most of them are a hell of a lot closer than IE.
Using the fact that no browser is perfect as an excuse for not even trying to make your site standards-compliant (or worse, for designing for IE only) is a bit like saying "why lock up thieves and murderers, everyone's broken some law or other!"
But the fact is that thieves and murderers are not on the same level as people who occasionally exceed a speed limit by 5 mph. And IE's brazen disregard for basic elements even of CSS1, a ten-year old standard, is not on the same level as Opera's failure to implement a few minor features.
you can play DOS games 100 years from now
Actually it's very unlikely I'll be able to play DOS games 100 years from now - because, going by current life expectancies, I'll probably have been dead for about 40 years.
Nor is it certain I'll be able to play DOS games tomorrow. Who's to say I won't be hit by a bus?
Nor is it certain that I won't be able to play HL2 in 15 years. Where is your proof? Why do you assume the servers will ever be switched off? Why do you assume that, in the case where the servers are switched off, Valve won't release a patch removing the phone-home requirement? Why do you assume that even if Satan himself takes over Valve and forces them to turn off the servers and destroy the authentication code, that even then, enhanced computing techniques, perhaps quantum computers, won't allow us to crack the encryption trivially?
Come to that, I have loads of old games that I want to play but can't - and the reason isn't that they're encrypted, or that my hardware's broken, but simply that the pressures of adult life mean I don't have time to play all my old games.
Seems to me that it's not the GP that hates rational discussion. It's you that insists on reducing everything to absolute worst-case scenarios and refusing to acknowledge that the DRM on HL2 is not, in fact, a significant restriction of anyone's rights.
Guess what? I'm getting slightly bored of people making verifiably false claims, and even more bored of clueless moderators modding them up for it.
If I may quote directly from the horse's mouth:So do pray enlighten me: exactly how is OpenDocument not the OpenOffice.org format?
Oh, the other guy who replied to you suggested that there's another format (called OpenDoc not OpenDocument), which may well be what you have in mind. In that case, you are completely off-topic, because the format Massachusetts are thinking of using is OpenDocument. Which is to say, the format which is used by new versions of OpenOffice.org.
And people on Freenet do not swap material which is under copyright?
What's wrong with swapping material which is under copyright? I've had a BitTorrent client open all week, with my upload speed pretty much maxxed out. I've been distributing copyrighted material with it. And I haven't broken a single law. Because - get this - the stuff I'm distributing is stuff I either own or have permission to distribute.
You're an idiot if you listen to the RIAA/MPAA's lies about how "distributing copyright material is illegal". It's only illegal if you don't have permission. The RIAA want you to think that copyright is a "special" thing that only "artists" get, and you - the consumer - must fear, like an ancient pagan cringing before the idol of his god. But that's bullshit.
Copyright is a simple concept that naturally applies to any creative endeavour. Including anything you or I create. And if you or I create something, and we want to distribute it over the Internet, then it makes sense to use P2P networks. At which point we are using P2P to distribute copyright material - and yet we are not breaking any laws.
Don't listen to the RIAA/MPAA's lies. Copyright != illegal to distribute. Copyright == illegal to distribute without permission. Two little words that make a world of difference.
Freenet is just another P2P application, and since people have nothing to share except other peoples material, it will be used to do just that.
Maybe that applies to some people. Like you, I assume - you wouldn't say a thing like that unless it applied to you. But some of us create things ourselves, you know? And having done that, miraculously we have things to share that are our own. And we use P2P to share them.
If you walk into a store and steal anything, you get arrested (some call this bad luck!), and you will get some punishments. What is different here?
The difference is that theft is always illegal. Whereas sharing copyright material is only illegal if you are also infringing the copyright in that material. Which can easily be avoided by either creating the material yourself, or getting the permission of the copyright holder to distribute it - at which point (am I repeating myself here?) you can share it over a P2P network without breaking any laws.
It is not your digital right to exchange copyrighted material at all.
Whoa, you're saying I don't have the right to use the computer I own Internet connection I leased to transfer the material I created?
Fuck that. I'll thank you not to tell me to throw away my right to freedom of speech, if that's quite okay with you. It is my freedom that's on the line if P2P networks ever actually get made illegal, and I do care about my freedom.
Go after the people who are infringing copyrights, please. And leave those of us alone who are distributing copyright material entirely legally, because we own the fucking copyrights.
I got asked last week to find some details for the boss on a new "digital paper" product that got debuted at the Aichi Expo. After fifteen minutes of fruitless banging away at Google with the obvious Japanese search terms (including the exact name of the product!), I found the company's press release in English on the first I'm Feeling Lucky, and then clicked the "Japanese" button at the top of their interface.
Really. Might I enquire exactly what search terms you used in Japanese?
The reason I ask is that googling for "Aichi-banpaku denshi-peepaa" (in Japanese, obviously) brings up the press release I assume you're referring to as the very first result.
There's a proverb about the appropriate allocation of blame between poor workmen and their tools, isn't there? How does it go now...
If you try and make your care go faster or whatever, or want to paint racing stripes on it, it doesn't affect the car manufacturers in anyway.
Nonsense. If, as a result of a dangerous engine hack, (modded) Fords started to explode on every street corner, you think Ford's share price wouldn't fall?
Modifying your Blu-ray player to play region locked discs or pirated discs however, has a (imaginary or real, not the point of this post) negative influence for the people selling movies.
Wait, you're saying that whether the effect is imaginary or real is irrelevant for your point? Whoa. So if Ford's lawyers stood up and said that painting racing stripes on your car would attract the attention of hostile aliens from Saturn, suddenly it would be reasonable for them to object to you painting them, because they had an (imaginary or real, not the point of this post) explanation for why it was bad?
This isn't like adding a new motor to the disc drive to make the disc spin faster, its modding it to do something illegal.
Except that everyone I know has removed the region coding from their DVD player, and not one of them owns a single pirated disk. Instead, they own a lot of perfectly legal and legitimate disks that they have purchased at the full retail price. Just from countries they happen not to live in. So, no - in my experience, modding DVD players is not done to do something illegal. The act of modding itself may have been illegal under the DMCA or local equivalents, but that's the only law anyone I know has broken. They certainly haven't stolen any movies...
Problem is that at least in Fort Wayne, Indiana, mass transit does not run after 9 PM on weekdays, after 6 PM on Saturdays, or at all on Sundays or holidays.
Well, maybe if it wasn't chronically underfunded, they'd be able to afford to keep it running all the time, and even to add extra routes, more frequent services, and lower ticket prices?
They can't raise gas taxes because people don't have any alternative means of transport. And they can't provide alternative means of transport because there aren't funds available. Wait a minute, I think I might just be able to see a possible solution!
I pay tips with cash whenever possible, so there's no way for the management to track it.
God YES. If you want the money to go to the staff who you're trying to reward with your tip, you give them cash, and do it quietly. If you just want to line their managers' pockets even further, go ahead and use your card.
See this if you don't believe me. Federal minimum wage is about $5/hr, except for employees who receive tips, in which case the employer can cut the "direct" wage as low as two fucking dollars an hour. They have to actually pay them the $5/hour, of course, but by making $3 of each $5 come out of tips, they basically make sure that the employee isn't actually going to benefit at all from your generosity - unless you're an unusually high tipper, they're just going to get $5/hr whether you tip them or not.
Nice one, government. Way to motivate low earners.
No, ripping off someone else's copyrighted work and reimplementing it in another medium (flash) doesn't give you any (copy-)rights on the result.
That depends on what you do, actually. If you copy any of their work (graphics, music, etc.), then you are infringing copyright. If on the other hand you reimplement the thing from scratch, draw all your own artwork that only resembles theirs in the sense that any picture of a burger will look like a burger, write your own music, and basically just reproduce the game without copying anything but the basic idea, then actually you do have all the copyright on it, and there's not a thing they can do to stop you.
Copyright protects an implementation, not an idea.
If someday you feel bored and decide to reimplement Monopoly(TM) into flash and put it on your website, I can guarantee you'll get sued out of existence.
That depends how you do it, actually. If you produce anything with "opoly" in its name you'll certainly get attention from lawyers, but that will be because you may be infringing on trademark rights in the "Monopoly" name. If you produce something that has identical rules, you may possibly be sued for that, because IIRC an exact set of game rules can be copyrighted.
But if you produce a game that merely happens to involve moving counters round the edge of a board, whereon are depicted various properties, which can be purchased by the first player to land on each thus requiring subsequent players to make a payment to that player upon landing on that square, then you're in the clear. It could even look and play essentially identically to Monopoly(r). As long as you didn't call it Foobaropoly, and the rules weren't actually identical.
Because copyright protects an implementation, not an idea.
And the actual patents on Monopoly(r), which protected the actual idea, must have expired about 60 years ago.
Or you could just get WinRar. Free upgrades and a better format to boot.
And if all you need is to be able to read RAR archives, then you can download free-as-in-beer extraction programs for most major platforms here. There's even source code available.*
People are welcome not to like WinRAR for being a proprietary product using proprietary algorithms, but nobody can complain that RAR archives are inaccessible to them.
* Under a slightly restrictive license, but it's still source code.
Look around for the author and read other stuff by him, Paul Thurrott is a well-known MS shill.
Sorry, no. I'm not going to go out and dig around looking for evidence to support someone else's argument. The burden of proof is with the accuser.
If he's a well-known shill - which he may be, for all I know, though this particular article looks pretty balanced to me - then you must have plenty of evidence at your fingertips. Perhaps you'd care to share some of it, instead of making us play guessing games?
Yes, I'm aware this isn't an actual word.
42,000 Google hits suggest that, on the contrary, it is an actual word - just one that some dictionaries haven't noticed yet...
I've always wondered, if you've got Acrobat on your system, would Stallman want you to call it Adobe/GNU/Linux?
:P
No, he would want you to remove it immediately and install a free PDF reader instead. Or, preferably, to stop using formats like PDF altogether in favour of something that's not so tied to a particular proprietary implementation.
That aside, the point is that the average "Linux" distribution does rely on a GNU foundation in a way that it doesn't rely on X, or Gnome, or KDE, or TeX, or any of the other major software packages that people like to cite when arguing against the GNU/prefix. You can run the Linux kernel without any of those, and a lot of people do. But it's pretty difficult to get a Linux kernel at all without using the GNU compiler collection, and it's pretty unusual to use Linux without the GNU userland.
Sure, you could try to compile the kernel with Intel's compiler instead, if you only want to run it on x86. And you could replace most or all of the GNU userland with the BSD equivalents, or with another alternative such as BusyBox. But firstly, most people don't; and secondly, RMS doesn't insist that such systems be called GNU/Linux anyway. The fact is that the Linux system, in its best-known configuration - the one configuration that RMS demands people refer to as GNU/Linux - is fundamentally reliant on the work of the many collaborators in the GNU project.
It's true that "GNU/Linux" is ugly, and it's true that hardly anyone uses that name, and it's even true that RMS appears to be obsessed with this minor issue well beyond the bounds of what's reasonable. But you can't deny that he has a valid point - even if, like most people, you choose to reject the conclusion he draws from it.
i always thought that was what the mute button did. or did you want it specifically for browser stuff only?
Sometimes I want my browser to play sounds - web radio, for example. But I only want it to play sounds that I've explicitly told it to play. I don't want sounds from adverts, and I don't want the crappy background music that some idiots insist on adding to their pages.
In other words, what I really want is the audio equivalent of popup blocking...
However there are several alternatives to buying a $50,000 car. There are precious few to be had from the content companies. Here's an real example. I want to watch the last series of Babylon 5.
Um, if you want a $50,000 car, there is no alternative to buying it. All the alternatives - a cheaper car, buses, trains, hitch-hiking - involve not having a $50,000 car. Therefore, despite your nonsensical claim to the contrary, there are also plenty of legal alternatives to buying the last series of Babylon 5, of which the simplest is watching something else instead. You don't need a $50,000 car to get around: so if you don't want to pay $50,000, you can still get around by some other means. Similarly, you don't need Babylon 5 to be entertained: so if you don't want to pay for a box set, you can still get entertained by other means. Why is this concept so difficult for you to understand?
Leaving aside the technical differences between copyright infringement and theft, I really don't see how your attitude is any different from the attitude of a thief: you want something, you don't want to pay for it, so you decide to obtain it illegally instead. Or "steal it", as most people say.
there's http://www.colinux.org/, a port of linux to
WinNT 5.x. . . . you can run ELF format linux/x86 binaries on windows with it.
No you can't. The only binary that CoLinux itself runs is the Linux kernel itself, which it actually runs kind of alongside Windows rather than in it: you then run Linux binaries in Linux itself.
As far as any programs you actually run are concerned, the situation is basically identical to having two computers side by side, networked together. Want a Linux shell? You get it by sshing across a virtual network into the virtual Linux box. Want Linux GUI programs on your Windows desktop? You do it by running a Windows X server and launching the Linux applications "remotely".
Look at it in terms of the problem the software solves, and it's clear that CoLinux is much more similar to a "headless VMware" than to anything like WINE.
The *ix command line is what I miss most when I use Windows systems (which is most of the time, currently).
Don't complain, then - install one! There is no reason whatsoever why using Windows has to be an exercise in command-line deprivation, since complete and usable Unix-like command-line environments have been available for years now.
Personally I use Cygwin, because it's a very complete Linux-style environment with all the GNU tools and other goodies I'm used to from Linux. But even if your PHBs won't allow that nasty open-source stuff on company computers, I don't see what they could possibly have against Microsoft(r) Windows(r) Services for UNIX(r), which is an official and fully supported Microsoft product. And also free.
Cringely's comment is absolutely correct. "Much of the rest of the world" does EXACTLY what he said, as he said.
If you don't want to be taken for an ignorant, arrogant flamer yourself, you would be well advised to make some basic effort to substantiate your assertions. "Much of the rest of the world" implies a significant proportion of the world, or possibly even a majority. Would you kindly (a) clarify exactly what proportion you are talking about and how significant the infringement is in economic terms, and (b) back up your clarification with some form of verifiable fact?
For example, "much of the rest of the world" clearly does not include Europe, Canada, or Oceania, where I think it goes without saying that patent protection is comparable to the USA. It also appears not to include China, where (for example) Chinese courts regularly rule in favour of foreign companies. I admit I haven't bothered to check how well India is doing, but I haven't heard its regime is notoriously lax.
In any case, North America-Europe-Oceania-China covers most of the world's major economies. It's hard to describe what's left as "much of the world" in an economically significant sense.
In fact, the only high-profile cases of any country apparently condoning patent infringement that I can think of would be the handful of instances where a third-world nation has attempted to manufacture generic versions of patented drugs. Note that while this is clearly in violation of international treaties, its actual economic impact is questionable, since (a) the nations in question are not typically profitable markets at present, and the scope for growth is uncertain, and (b) the companies in question often manage to resolve the issue admirably by offering genuine drugs at heavy discounts.
I am truly impressed at your ability to take a single throwaway statement and build on it a strawman of anti-Americanism. However, the fact is that Cringely's article is as poorly researched as ever, it contains no data to support his assertions, and many of his accusations - such as the one you are supporting so vociferously - are at best misleading and at worst plain trolling.
Who's the ignorant, arrogant flamer?
Probably Cringely. Unless you had your own eye on that cap?
You do not need windows to play games. You may need windows to play games designed to run on Windows though. But if you're dumping windows, you no longer have a need for those games.
In other words, "if you don't have any need for Windows, you no longer have any need for Windows". Very profound, I'm sure.
Clue time: anyone citing Windows games as a reason for sticking with Windows probably thinks they still have a need for those games. So, uh, what was your point again?
I'm not supporting Redmond or any of the companies that butter their bread using that damnable product.
Good grief, I can hear the froth bubbling around your mouth from here. Get a grip, man. Windows is not the work of the devil: it's an operating system. Possibly not the best operating system in the world, but not in any way evil. Look, I use it all day and never once have I smelt sulphur or heard the screams of the damned coming from my computer speakers. It hasn't even murdered my family yet. All in all, it's doing pretty well for something you seem to view as the embodiment of Antichrist.
I'm also interested to know how you manage to survive while not supporting any company that uses Windows. For example, that pretty much rules out buying food from anyone apart from the Amish.
It's limited to the books that the library has chosen to stock.
Heard of this thing called an "inter-library loan"? It's this cunning system whereby you can ask to borrow pretty much any book, and they'll find a library that does have a copy and borrow it for you.
As long as the book you want's in English and was published after 1850 or so, you'll get it without any problems at all. For older stuff you may have to make special arrangements with university libraries, or just work from a modern edition; I don't know about foreign-language materials, but I imagine something can usually be arranged.