As much as GeoHot put himself in this whole legal mess, with his publicity-seeking and taunting of Sony, it's asinine of Sony to go after his YouTube viewers and commenters. I guarantee that 99.9% of the viewers are just bystanders who wanted to see what all the fuss is about. He created the content and put the video up, people who simply clicked "play" did nothing wrong. In fact, YouTube holds more guilt than all of them simply for making it available.
Isn't it wonderful? that we, in today's age, have people actually proud of their own ignorance. Simply magnificent.
There's a vast difference between "being proud of one's own ignorance" and "understanding what one's needs are".
I have a MacBook Pro. I love it. I just want to get down to business, not masturbate with shell scripts and config files to boost my sense of self worth. That's not saying that I don't understand how a computer functions, far from it, but rather that I don't feel the need to incorporate needlessly complex things into my daily life.
But anyway, when the time comes to fuck around, I can open-up the terminal on here and access a certified UNIX environment...
Apple is what was wrong about the last decade. They produced mass-marketed shiny for consumers.
Putting aside the decades-old "Apple makes products for morons" talking point, god forbid a company produce something consumers want.
Your type would probably be happy living on an isolated planet where everything is Linux-based and only runs on a command line, every function requires ten steps to perform, and all your MP3 players have tiny one-line LCDs and songs are navigated by repeatedly clicking on a d-pad.
The analogy doesn't matter. His motivation doesn't matter either. (I'm actually *for* hacking your own hardware.) The guy could have avoided all this trouble if he'd either kept it to himself or his close circle of friends, or went the anonymous route.
Instead, he chose to show off and tell the whole world "LOOK WHAT I DID!"
He knew exactly who he was messing with, but decided to go full retard anyway.
If someone sells you something, and takes it back, that doesn't entitle you to break into their house *and* give a copy of the key to everyone on the street.
Of course, he could have gotten away with breaking into their house if he'd just kept his mouth shut. Or gone anonymous. The problem is that he had to stand on his soapbox and declare to the world how cool he was that he'd broken in, and give them the tools to do so as well. He didn't do any damage himself, but he directly enabled tons of not-so-ethical hoodlums to go in and do plenty of damage.
It doesn't matter what his motivation was. Basically, his ego fucked himself in this case.
Such a browser could not run correctly on a free operating system...
Forget the "Free Operating System" for a sec. 99% of people use a non-free operating system. Should we forget streamlining for those people because a few FOSS people don't like the idea?
The advantage of this is that it would allow FREE browsers, like Firefox, to support needed codecs without having to besmirch themselves with non-free (icky!) code.
Hardware is not "bricked" unless there is absolutely no way to get it running again, short of completely replacing some critical hardware component. But now it seems "bricked" is just synonymous with "I can't get it to boot".
I've gotta agree 100% with that. What does editing family photos, on your home PC, have to do with "the cloud" at all?
It's all a shallow effort to weld a Microsoft brand to an up-and-coming buzzword. They want the public to think "Windows" when they hear "the cloud". It doesn't matter how valid the association actually is as long as there's an association.
"Today the entire scenario seems to be playing out again in the mobile market."
Yes, and no.
Yes, the vast array of manufacturers producing Android phones will soon overcome Apple's iPhone. There is no doubt about that. However, the stakes aren't nearly the same as they were.
In the original PC wars, different platforms were fundamentally incompatible with each other. The stakes were all-in. Their applications had different data formats and their hardware read different media formats. Networking was rare, and somewhat cumbersome. There was no simple way of getting data between each of different platforms. I clearly remember the hoops I had to jump through to get a simple text file from a Windows 3.1 machine over to a Mac System 6 machine. If everyone you knew, in business or personally, went to one platform, there was great incentive for you to follow them to that platform. Otherwise, you were essentially a pariah.
Now everything important is interoperable. All of these devices work with the same internet technologies (Flash aside). All of your photos, videos (except for this WebM nonsense), and documents can be read and worked with on virtually any platform. If you can't easily transfer your files physically, you can easily send them over the net. Being on a different platform than your friend or business associate is not nearly the same roadblock it used to be, so there's plenty of room for alternative platforms, suited to different tastes and needs, to flourish.
Let's just say that in the two years they'd been in business before I went in, they'd never even made a "security copy". It was about as close to an actual, legitimate, by-the-book backup as they were going to get.
When you're in school and need cash, you're not that picky about where you work. Especially if the location is conveniently located in the nicest part of town.
But anyway, these guys didn't listen to a thing I said about anything. They didn't have an actual IT guy, and I was only needed on-call. It was a total IT fiasco. Every computer in the place had local admin rights, due to their shitty software (all it did was link to a database on the server... but it wouldn't run without local admin rights), basically allowing interns to run rampant in Windows XP, which itself was never updated, and the "custom built" server itself had a window in the side of it. I managed to fix a bunch of things, but I swear, it was like trying to rebuild Afghanistan... without a budget.
At a small company I used to work for ("used to" being the key phrase here), the bosses, who both insisted on full admin rights, had a bit of a difference with each other. One of the bosses came in one Saturday night, killed the backup (they never took my advice of having multiple backups, including one off-site), and ran off with the server.
I tried recovering the backup, but he did a remarkable job in killing it.
The company didn't exist for more than a week after that.
Personally, as a Canadian, I enjoy the surreal British humour alongside the "proper" humour. Stuff like Monty Python and The Mighty Boosh get equal laughs as Yes Prime Minister and The IT Crowd.
To disown the surreal and silly just because it goes against a standard is idiocy. Some of the most memorable and revolutionary things were purposefully done against the standard, very much so for art and music too. Monty Python laid the groundwork for generations of comedians. (Especially Canadian comedians.)
Slashdot Mirror
As much as GeoHot put himself in this whole legal mess, with his publicity-seeking and taunting of Sony, it's asinine of Sony to go after his YouTube viewers and commenters. I guarantee that 99.9% of the viewers are just bystanders who wanted to see what all the fuss is about. He created the content and put the video up, people who simply clicked "play" did nothing wrong. In fact, YouTube holds more guilt than all of them simply for making it available.
He could have bought Windows.
(*Runs for cover.*)
The market for the last 50 years has been dominated by devices that weren't intentionally crippled by their vendors.
There's lots of markets. Which market, exactly, do you speak of?
Isn't it wonderful? that we, in today's age, have people actually proud of their own ignorance. Simply magnificent.
There's a vast difference between "being proud of one's own ignorance" and "understanding what one's needs are".
I have a MacBook Pro. I love it. I just want to get down to business, not masturbate with shell scripts and config files to boost my sense of self worth. That's not saying that I don't understand how a computer functions, far from it, but rather that I don't feel the need to incorporate needlessly complex things into my daily life.
But anyway, when the time comes to fuck around, I can open-up the terminal on here and access a certified UNIX environment...
Apple is what was wrong about the last decade. They produced mass-marketed shiny for consumers.
Putting aside the decades-old "Apple makes products for morons" talking point, god forbid a company produce something consumers want.
Your type would probably be happy living on an isolated planet where everything is Linux-based and only runs on a command line, every function requires ten steps to perform, and all your MP3 players have tiny one-line LCDs and songs are navigated by repeatedly clicking on a d-pad.
Then NBCU will try to sue the guy who figured out how to bypass the ads, and Slashdot will boycott NBCU's channels because they're "as evil as Sony".
If a mother bear knocks over your garbage can, you don't go into the woods alone and steal its cub.
The analogy doesn't matter. His motivation doesn't matter either. (I'm actually *for* hacking your own hardware.) The guy could have avoided all this trouble if he'd either kept it to himself or his close circle of friends, or went the anonymous route.
Instead, he chose to show off and tell the whole world "LOOK WHAT I DID!"
He knew exactly who he was messing with, but decided to go full retard anyway.
If someone sells you something, and takes it back, that doesn't entitle you to break into their house *and* give a copy of the key to everyone on the street.
Of course, he could have gotten away with breaking into their house if he'd just kept his mouth shut. Or gone anonymous. The problem is that he had to stand on his soapbox and declare to the world how cool he was that he'd broken in, and give them the tools to do so as well. He didn't do any damage himself, but he directly enabled tons of not-so-ethical hoodlums to go in and do plenty of damage.
It doesn't matter what his motivation was. Basically, his ego fucked himself in this case.
Are you sure you're not confusing "Mormon" with "Moron".
Such a browser could not run correctly on a free operating system...
Forget the "Free Operating System" for a sec. 99% of people use a non-free operating system. Should we forget streamlining for those people because a few FOSS people don't like the idea?
The advantage of this is that it would allow FREE browsers, like Firefox, to support needed codecs without having to besmirch themselves with non-free (icky!) code.
I agree. All my mobile phones, 5 of them, have been Nokia. But I'm going to have to look elsewhere for my next phone...
"updating from 10 to 10.1 was $100"
Really?
I remember it being free.
Or you could get ready now, so when they flip the switch you're good to go.
I'd throw "bricked" in there, too.
Hardware is not "bricked" unless there is absolutely no way to get it running again, short of completely replacing some critical hardware component. But now it seems "bricked" is just synonymous with "I can't get it to boot".
I've gotta agree 100% with that. What does editing family photos, on your home PC, have to do with "the cloud" at all?
It's all a shallow effort to weld a Microsoft brand to an up-and-coming buzzword. They want the public to think "Windows" when they hear "the cloud". It doesn't matter how valid the association actually is as long as there's an association.
Kinect is the most innovative product?
By Kinect, you mean the more advanced version of the EyeToy, right?
"Today the entire scenario seems to be playing out again in the mobile market."
Yes, and no.
Yes, the vast array of manufacturers producing Android phones will soon overcome Apple's iPhone. There is no doubt about that. However, the stakes aren't nearly the same as they were.
In the original PC wars, different platforms were fundamentally incompatible with each other. The stakes were all-in. Their applications had different data formats and their hardware read different media formats. Networking was rare, and somewhat cumbersome. There was no simple way of getting data between each of different platforms. I clearly remember the hoops I had to jump through to get a simple text file from a Windows 3.1 machine over to a Mac System 6 machine. If everyone you knew, in business or personally, went to one platform, there was great incentive for you to follow them to that platform. Otherwise, you were essentially a pariah.
Now everything important is interoperable. All of these devices work with the same internet technologies (Flash aside). All of your photos, videos (except for this WebM nonsense), and documents can be read and worked with on virtually any platform. If you can't easily transfer your files physically, you can easily send them over the net. Being on a different platform than your friend or business associate is not nearly the same roadblock it used to be, so there's plenty of room for alternative platforms, suited to different tastes and needs, to flourish.
Let's just say that in the two years they'd been in business before I went in, they'd never even made a "security copy". It was about as close to an actual, legitimate, by-the-book backup as they were going to get.
When you're in school and need cash, you're not that picky about where you work. Especially if the location is conveniently located in the nicest part of town.
But anyway, these guys didn't listen to a thing I said about anything. They didn't have an actual IT guy, and I was only needed on-call. It was a total IT fiasco. Every computer in the place had local admin rights, due to their shitty software (all it did was link to a database on the server... but it wouldn't run without local admin rights), basically allowing interns to run rampant in Windows XP, which itself was never updated, and the "custom built" server itself had a window in the side of it. I managed to fix a bunch of things, but I swear, it was like trying to rebuild Afghanistan... without a budget.
Jobs like that can murder your job confidence.
At a small company I used to work for ("used to" being the key phrase here), the bosses, who both insisted on full admin rights, had a bit of a difference with each other. One of the bosses came in one Saturday night, killed the backup (they never took my advice of having multiple backups, including one off-site), and ran off with the server.
I tried recovering the backup, but he did a remarkable job in killing it.
The company didn't exist for more than a week after that.
Because it's cheaper than outsourcing to India.
Personally, as a Canadian, I enjoy the surreal British humour alongside the "proper" humour. Stuff like Monty Python and The Mighty Boosh get equal laughs as Yes Prime Minister and The IT Crowd.
To disown the surreal and silly just because it goes against a standard is idiocy. Some of the most memorable and revolutionary things were purposefully done against the standard, very much so for art and music too. Monty Python laid the groundwork for generations of comedians. (Especially Canadian comedians.)
Now here's an interesting change of attitude on Slashdot.
With regards to Other Companies: They have too many patents! Patents are evil! Death to the infidels! Grrr!
With regards to Google: Do they have enough patents? Maybe they need more.
"The masses" and "know what they're doing" are two phrases I would be very careful about putting together.