Re:i dont' think the "geek factor" is the real bar
on
Can GnuPG Deliver?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
> Uh, think 9/11. Think "encryption is only used for terrorism and illegal pornography." > Think "there's a ph@t defense contract in it for you if you make that product go away."
*Exactly*. This isn't the first, either--far more suspicious was the untimely death of the ZKS' Freedom Network, which the respected founder insisted was planned before 9/11, but which was never announced until a a short time after 9/11 and which left users with practically no advance notice. One suspects that either the founders of the Freedom network got a good talking to with some sticks and carrots, or they got worried that theyr network was or could be used by terrorists, and shut it down out of "conscience." A rebuttal was even posted here on/., but it will *always* look suspicious due to both timing and unbelievably short notice.
Encryption for the masses is exactly what the U.S. government doesn't want, because it would render their unbelievably involved Carnivore/Echelon/UKUSA electronic eavesdropping network useless if we all started seamlessly using PGP or encrypting all our traffic through Freedom servers.
It is, however, the only way we can guarantee our Constitutional rights to privacy and freedom of expression in the electronic aether. It will always be trivial to the dedicated criminal or terrorist to communicate covertly over the Net, no matter how many carnivorous hubs may be weeding through traffic. It's the little guys caught in the crossfire we have to worry about--the kind of guys who are posted about every couple of weeks on/., who get busted for writing anti-globalization websites or for other minor matters.
Face it: governments *always* want more power, and when unchecked they take it. That's why our system was deliberately created with a lot of checks and balances to impose a sort of "gridlock" to prevent sudden sweeping changes to governmental authority. 9/11 removed those deliberate obstacles and got everyone working together to impinge our freedoms with USA/PATRIOT and the FBI's larger scope for its surveillance projects and busts. People really need to start considering getting encryption integrated into everything they can, seamlessly, before they're no longer allowed to. Don't think it couldn't happen--the likelihood of the Court allowing various limited encryption bans does have a correlation with the number of people using encryption...
> ICANN's scope is the DNS system, upon which WWW, MAIL, NEWS, and everything else on the net currently relies.
Umm, that's the point.
He who controls DNS exercises immense influence on the Net, particularly the WWW. Giving control of the DNS system to delegates directly appointed by governments is a recipe for fostering censorship in the interests of those respective governments.
I.e., if DNS were in the hands of representatives appointed by governments, and some given websites were to be deemed undesirable--delete their DNS entries, and they go away. Poof. The instant DNS is controlled by governments, is the instant they begin implementing a system to instantly pull the DNS entries of websites which are "dangerous" and "patently offensive." Governments hardly ever agree on anything, but you can bet they'd agree to some deal-brokering--you support the "delisting" of our seditious sites, I'll support the delisting of yours.
USENET isn't as vulnerable because of its architecture. You can't just "delist" one newsgroup the same way you can delist one website.
If the ICANN higher-ups have their way and hand over the reigns to government-appointed reps, I guarantee you governments will take the opportunity to at least consider using their control of DNS to enable censorship.
> it is needlessly wasteful now that we have hundreds of thousands of NNTP > servers, it is just not necessary to have that level of redundancy to route > arround censorship.
I disagree entirely. Never underestimate the government's ability to stretch censorship to new levels.
Unless the very way NNTP servers operate is to gulp down and pass on each article for each newsgroup, the government would easily target those servers that spcifically carried groups or posts it doesn't like.
Pressure for news providers to drop certain groups began several years ago when the Vacco busts of people trading in child pornography led a news service to be criminally charged for the content of some groups and led other news servers in that state and elsewhere to drop gcertain groups thanks to their content. The charged news service took a plea even though they clearly would have won at trial or on appeal by claiming common carrier status, but hey, nobody wants to be the expensive test case.
Some may not see the problem with news servers being coerced by the government to drop those particular groups thanks to their contents, but the principle it sets is horrid. Certain "content owners" have of late been threatening to use the DMCA as a club to get news servers to drop groups which share TV shows and other such copyrighted material. If groups were more "localized" to a set of specific servers, or articles were localized to their originating servers, that would make it exceptionally easy for the DMCA to be used to require the "closure" of groups or removal of articles from USENET.
Furthermore, in this time of anti-terrrorist hysteria, the government has gotten away with the USA/PATRIOT mess already and is continually making some questionable choices. If it finds a newsgroup dedicated to dissent, or more spcifically dedicated to anti-globalism, for example, it cannot easily dstroy such a group because of the nature of USENET--the damage would be routed around by servers in other countries, even if every U.S. server could be forced to remove a group or article (not that they could be).
However, if the architecture of USENET were redesigned to localize groups or articles to subsets of servers--the likelihood of a government censoring USENET speech is magnified considerably.
It is the redundant architecture of USENET which will keep it free of censorship long after the WWW has been tamed--as it will be. Just look at the broiling mess within ICANN over officials trying to hand control of the WWW over to government-appointed reps. Eventually something like that will happen, and governments will cooperate with each other to make censorship in their mutual interests easier. Thanks to the architcture and nature of USENET, it will remain free and uncensored long after the WWW has fallen to censorship.
Well, once every few hours would be great. But I'll settle for an average of once a week.:-)
> How much chocolade cake?
Just enough to make me not want any more chocolate cake.
> How much beer and wine can you possibly take?
About 12 glasses a night if I'm out at a bar socially, but more likely 1-2 glasses of wine a day. 1 to 2 glasses a day is actually a healthy amount from a medical standpoint, and may lessen the risk of heart problems according to some studies.
> And... (tada!;) Does It Really Make You Happy?
Absolutely! I lead *exactly* the life I want. I wouldn't trade anything I have for anything I don't. I absolutely love being able to enjoy the delectations of fine cuisine of whatever type I'm hungry for. I love having a huge Porterhouse if that's what I want, or 2 orders of Portobello Ravioli from Olive Garden if that's what I crave, or just a supersize order of McDonalds french fries and a Bacon Cheeseburger if that's what I'm in the mood for. I very much enjoy it because food and sex stimulate the senses in similar ways, and it's something we're supposed to enjoy and savor. Why would we have such an incredible ability gauge such subtleties in the tastes and textures of our foods, if we aren't meant to delight in them?
> It's amazing how much happier you can be without all that.
Well, it's amazing if *you* can be happy without all of that, but I wouldn't be. It's also amazing how some people deign to tell others that they're not happy, when they're *perfectly* happy.
> Did you need all that artificial stimuli when you were a child?
What artificial stimuli? Sex? Food? Alcohol? Cigars? Those, my friend, are *natural* stimuli. Not only do they occur in nature, but they're as old as recorded history. Let's skip sex and call that one pretty much self-evident--it is, after all, the underlying biological motivation for every species which reproduces sexually. So, let's go to food.
Food intake would seem to be a simple biological function. However, humans have a sense of taste that's a lot more refined than it needs to be to just be able to differentiate poisonous foods from safe ones. If that were all eating is about, we'd only need 2 flavors--good and yuck. But instead we can discern nearly infinite complex gradations and valuations of taste and texture of food. Moreover, we can be hungry for certain foods regardless of their nutritional value. Sometimes you just really want a banana, or chocolate, or bread, or pickles, or any number of things. If it were a simple biological function we'd just be hungry and eat stuff that doesn't taste bad until we're no longer hungry, or maybe we'd have more primitive cravings for sugary or bitter or salty in order to help the body get the kind of food that has the nutrients it wants. But it doesn't work like that. Our taste and hunger system is a lot more complex than it needs to be, and that leads to enjoyment and pleasure which is above and beyond what would be required for biological necessity. Clearly, food intake is supposed to be a pleasure, not just a simple biological function.
As for alcohol, there's a running debate amongst archaelogists and anthropologists and the like as to what came first, bread or beer. Some say bread was first and beer was discovered when some bread got wet and fermented. Many others say beer was first because it's easier to make than bread, since there's no baking step--people probably used to just collect and eat raw grains long before bread was invented, and one day some of those raw or crushed grains being stored got wet and fermented and beer was discovered when someone drank that fermented mush. I think the beer first argument is most persuasive, since it's the simplest. Either way, people found it incredibly enjoyable to drink and it's far older than recorded history. Wine was probably discovered in a similar manner after some grapes got crushed and became fermented, and is also older than recorded history. It does something people have always liked, and while alcohol itself is burnt quickly by the body and has no real nutritional value, it's social value is inestimable. How many couplings, friendships, great songs and literature, all throughout history, owe a great deal to the lubricity of drink? I'm sure we all owe several ancestors in our various chains of ancestry to an excess drink or two, and the role of alcohol as inspiration for great art and literature through its action on the imagination is well documented. Without the Boar's Head tavern, Shakespeare would probably have been a mediocre writer; without his addiction to absinthe, van Gog could never have unleashed his incredible paintings. The effects of alcohol are at least as positive as they are negative, and have contributed so much to our culture. It is not only something which is naturally enjoyed, it is a valuable and largely unsung component of most of the best of our arts and literature.
Cigars are much the same as alcohol. Western cultures were not so big into smoking things directly, although various forms of incense have served the same purpose in the West again since prehistory. Certain things smell good or produce physiological or psychological effects when inhaled, and in the ancient world many types of incense were meant to be inhaled deeply and not just savored for their scent. Myrrh, for instance, was often either inhaled deeply just as we do today with tobaccos, or mixed with wine, to produce an intoxicated sedation in the smoker or drinker. In Native American cultures things were usually smoked more diretly, hence the use of pipes and cigars which we European conquerors adopted as well, along with one of the natives' favorit weeds for smoking, tobacco. Tobacco is today marred by the malefactions of the cigarette industry and its cancerous possibilities, but once again it has contributed immeasurably to both the West and the Native Americans from whom we adopted it. It was used in ceremonies not unlike the "vision quests" associated with the Southwestern Indians and harder drugs like peyote, but more commonly it was a relaxing social occasion and remains so to this day. A good cigar or pipe, to an enthusiast such as myself, is an aid to conversation and relaxation. In a famous quip Mark Twain was confronted by an anti-smoking zealot who said (something like) "Mr. Clemens, whatever shall you do when you go to Heaven and you cannot smoke your dreadful cigars?" To which he replied, "Madam, if I cannot enjoy my cigars in Heaven I shall not go there." If the effects produced by smoking were not enjoyable, people wouldn't do it--this is all the more true about all-tobacco cigars and pipes, since they introduce less nicotine and in a more gradual way than modern cigarettes, which have been refined in such a way as to increas effective nicotene yield and decrease absorbtion times. In any event, the smoking of tobacco (which modern cigarettes really aren't--in fact the additives to tobacco are probably more cancer-inducing than the tobacco is) has been enjoyed in the West for nearly five centuries, and added to our culture in much the same way as alcohol has--could Mark Twain have written the same way were it not for his long chatting and thinking sessions under the subtle influence of his cigars? Could Hemingway have written the same without ever-present cigarettes? Could Churchill have been so level-headed and calm through the world's worst crisis, without the calming influence of the cigars he smoked literally from morning until bedtime, even in the bath?
> No, but somehow as we grow older we forget our naturalness and joy.
All those things are natural, and all were discovered in prehistory and have been enjoyed since then. Smoking and drinking alcohol and enjoying food and especially enjoying sex--since it is *the* ultimate biological imperative--are all natural, enjoyable, beautiful parts of life. What life do we have without them? No enjoyment of sex, enjoyment of food, enjoyment of drink and smoke--not much of a life.
And by the way, children by nature touch themselves in a sexual manner, which is why most children have to be taught and socialized by parents not to touch their own genitals. It's natural, and even 4 or 5 year olds naturally touch their sexual parts because it feels good, until they're socialized not to. Puritanical types hate when that is pointed out, but ask anyone with developmental psychology knowledge about it and they'll tell you it's quite common and normal for young kids to touch themselves sexually until taught and constrained not to. They'd progress much more quickly into exploring sexuality with other children in their peer groups, too, were it not for social constructs against it.
Guess what? Kids also like food. They enjoy food as much as adults do. They may not savor and appreciate the subtleties of taste and texture like adults can, but they surely enjoy it and they naturally gravitate towards foods which are not necessarily "healthy" because of their tastes.
As for drink, in many cultures--the ones not based on Puritanism or strictest Islam, that is--it is customary for children to be allowed small diluted quantities of wine and such. It is as much an enjoyment and mood-enhancer for them as it is for us, and if you ever visited parts of France and Spain you'd see children as young as five being allowed a cup of diluted wine with dinner.
So what's all that bull about "naturalness and joy"? The naturalness and joy in life comes from enjoying these simple pleasures of sex and food and drink, as well as play and other pleasures.
> We become dependent on stuff that in reality makes us sick, depressed and dull.
I'm not dependent on anything. I do however enjoy everything, freely and without either Puritan or postmodern apology. I do not get sick, depressed, or dull because of life's pleasures. You seem to have the incredibly unfortunate misconception that the pleasures dear Nature gave us are opiates, lulling us into a ho-hum existence. Opiates are unfortunate highly addictive, and their users more often than not spiral downwards into an existence totally dependant on the opiate and causing one to lay listless all day until one withers away. Food, sex, drink, and smoke are not the same--almost all users lives are enhanced, not diminished, and a relative very few have an addiction to these things ruin their lives. Instead, for most people they are simple pleasures and enhancements, enriching their lives and, as I pointed out, greatly enriching their art and our culture.
> Ie, how come Sports is so popular among fat, beer-drinking males?
I think they're popular with most people. I'm not one of them, and indeed most of us geeks--fat and beer-drinking as we may be--are not among that number, except for one or two we may play non-competitively for fun and enjoyment. The same sort of fun and enjoyment we get from all the other great stuff: play, sex, food, drink, intellectual stimulation. Enjoying them all is natural, normal, and *truly* healthy, unlike an obsession over looking thin which is largely owed to our fucked-up media portrayal of body image.
> It's incredible the lengths people will go to without realizing it is because of crushed dreams and spoiled play.
That may be true of the blue-collar working class--but that's very fw of Slashdot's readership here. Most of us geeks are white-collar upper-working-class, which is very different and which is largely rsponsible for our perennial weight "problems." When you're blue-collar you usually work with your body and get a fair amount of exercise in the natural course of things. When you're white-collar and work with your mind, especially if you mostly sit in front of a computer screen, you don't get much exerise in the naural course of things. So it's natural for geek types to pudge out a bit.
The people you describe are the poor who drown their sorrows in drink to a great excess, and in opiates and hard drugs and other things, to avoid facing harsh realities. That just isn't most people on/., my friend. Most of our only sorrows come from poor body image caused by the media, and sometimes from social stigmas from looking or acting different; other than that, geeks usually have very nice, fulfilling, successful lives. If geeks could get over the poor body image problem--let's face it, it's natural for us to be "overweight" because o0f the type of work we do--and start using their great resources to curb the media's overuse of unnatural body types, instead of to enroll in boot camps and similar modern "fat farms", the world and all our lives would be much better. Feminists always bemoan how unnaturally thin women on TV, in movies and magazines, make girls' lives and self-images difficult to deal with, leading to unnatural dieting and even anorexia. It's entirely true. What doesn't get mentioned is that boys are subject to the ame thing, only we internalize it much more and don't discuss it. It's probably one of the reasons the teenage suicide rate in the U.S. is 10 times for boys what it is for girls--we internalize these issues more, and that includes unfair body image expectations. As one example out of billions, I was so upset over a recent commercial intend to keep kids from talking with online sexual predators--everyone in it was lan, many of them unnaturally so like most TV characters; the only fat person was the leering child molester. Perfect! What a way to teach kids "fat=bad." Bah, do these people think? "fat" by today's standards is *far* moe natural than what most of the media characters are.
I enjoy my body, and I don't bemoan its girth. I celebrate it. It's normal and natural. As I aid, I love the way my Homer Simpson-like belly jiggles when a girl fucks me from on top. It feels wonderful. It feels natural. I wouldn't trad my body for a thinner one, no indeed, and we need to teach people to be happy with their normal, natural bodies, which are the esult of whatever their levels of natural physical activity and food intake. Why dislike it, instead of accepting the natural course? I love the natural course. I am a natural, normal person, and my ideas ae natural and normal. Yourse seem constrained and unnatural and weird postmodernist claptrap. Nothing personal, but I have a much happier and healthier outlook on life, as well as a very natural and healthy life.
Pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye...
on
Chase the Rabbits
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Okay, before anyone mods this down, a little further down I get back to the "body image" notions brought up in the linked journals.
Former as in still in her early 20s former. 5'9, 110 pounds, a body that puts Kate Moss' at the top of her career a few years ago to shame because it still has all the right curves to it. And, only a profesional call girl could be so skilled in the arts of sex.;-) Best $250 an hour full service "physical therapy" you can get...
You can find any type of girl you want at lots of different price points and service levels at thebigdoggie.net. Just click on the board for the city or state you want, and read up. The message boards can be searched for past reviews of a girl once you get an idea of who you might want. A small membership fee gets access to "members' boards" and a review database, but I've never gotten a membership because once you learn the ropes you can find all you need on the public boards. Obviously, if you're in or near a big city you're in luck, but if you live in the boon docks or the Midwest you may have no one great nearby. There are a ton of escort ads on Eros Guides, but you need to research the girls on TBD first to see who's legitimate because many are scammers.
I do a lot of travelling and the best cities for finding terrific escorts are either of the big cities in California, any big Florida city, DC, and Chicago. New York City's top escorts are usually more expensive, which is why I usually don't visit them. I've also been to the Moonlite BunnyRanch in Nevada, where it's legal, and it was way overpriced. My favorite city to stay in on business is DC, because they have a lot of beautiful young escorts down there at generally lower rates--if you ever visit there, you must visit Samantha or Eve at Tori's Secret. I was in DC a month ago, and saw both of them. Eve is also a former runway model, and all the girls look better than their pics at Tori's because their photographer is an idiot.
I've never understood why prostitution should be illegal if it's conducted safely and discreetly, like escorting is. Streetwalking is a public nuisance--but some low-key ads and some internet websites used to bring consenting adults together isn't harming anyone; it's a public service, making for happier, healthier people. Even Bonobo monkeys engage in the trade of resources for sex. It's natural. Sex independent of interpersonal relationships can be a fungible service just like any other.
I'm a big fat geek who's traded long hours of work and his formerly less ample figure for copious amounts of money, and I use that money to really enjoy my life. I don't mind being fat. It isn't keeping me from doing anything I'd enjoy otherwise, and I'm not either wasting my time (subjective judgement, of course--some enjoy exercise) doing a lot of exercise (more work IMHO), or cutting out my cigars and fattening foods and alcohols, just to lose a few pounds and keep it lost.
Some people have to be thin to feel okay about themselves, but I'm here to say: bollocks. I like my fat white body. I love how it feels to my hands and the hands of others. I love how my fat jiggles when I'm getting a really good fucking with the girl on top. Why should I care if some people don't think I look good? Ideas of beauty have been mutable for most of human history. The Greeks and Romans loved hard bodies, and so do we. But a couple centuries ago in Europe being pale and flabby was considered beautiful because it was a sign of wealth and class, and in prehistory fertility idols were made in the shape of really big fat women. Rubens' women would be considered fat today. Marilyn Monroe was considered the hottest woman alive forty or fifty years ago, but she wore about a size 12, which today would make her a bit on the chunky side.
So, I'm not missing out on anything. I've got all of life's pleasures and enjoy them guilt-free, no petty worries about calories or weight or whatnot. Whenever I'm single I just buy sex the same way one buys any other service, and whenever I find a girl I like who's interested in a lot more than current notions of what most people think "looks good" that's great too. To quote *Pulp Fiction*, "It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye are seldom the same."
Love your fat geeky bodies, guys. They may not look how a lot of people think they should look, but that's just modern jock-driven elitist aesthetics. They feel good, and that's what really matters.
On the other hand, ever notice how almost all of the world's oldest people always say they smoked like chimneys and drank like fish and lived to a ripe old age anyway?;-) The current oldest living person is that Japanese woman who thanked rice-wine for her longevity. The guy who runs the cigar shop down the street from me is a Cuban expatriate who's 78, looks and acts like a healthy 50, and smoked cigars all day every day from the time he was 11 until his 60s when he gave it up because it was affecting his ability to breathe easily, and so he switched to snuff.
Yeah, I know, on the average people who "live healthy" will live longer. My philosophy is--ah, so what. Why do I want to be 90 anyway? I'll take 55 really good years of wine, women and song over 80 of running and bottled water. Give me pastries! Give me fine cuisine loaded with heavy creams and cheeses and red meats! Give me hand-rolled cigars! Give me Chateau d'Yquem when I can afford it and a cheap 5-liter box when I can't! And being a bit soft and pale may not look so great to the contemporary eye, but it's pleasing when touched nonetheless. I personally love the feeling when my big Homer Simpson tummy starts jiggling as a hot young lady pounds into me like a jackhammer. And when I can't find a hot young woman who wants to sleep with me, well, that's where http://www.bigdoggie.net comes in.:-o Most of us have or will have great jobs that pay well--what's the use of that, if we aren't going to use it to enjoy all of life's pleasures?
I've got a full humidor, a few bottles of last fall's Beaujolais Nouveau in the fridge, and I'm still practically glowing from my appointment yesterday with a former runway model the likes of whom most thin athletic people will never get to enjoy in the sack--and she does things most girlfriends and wives won't do! So, if lots of exercise and healthy living turns you on, great, enjoy it. But it certainly isn't the only way to enjoy life to its fullest, thank you. I have exactly the life I want, and I'd take it over 20 extra years of a less indulgent one.:-)
I've seen Firewire HDs in action, and they are SLOW by comparison. My standard ATA-66 or ATA-100 5400RPM IDE drives are speed demons by comparison, let alone my 7200 RPM IDE drive. The fact is that the Firewire interface cannot compete, because of the time it takes to translate from Firewire to IDE since there are in fact no drives that natively speak 1394.
In practical terms this can result in *up to* about 500 KB (yes, big B) per second transfer speed difference in several parts of the drive's transfer curve. The most optimistic transfer speed chart I found on a quick search was the one at http://www.digit-life.com/articles/fireware/ which shows a close general match between the 1394 and IDE transfer graphs, but the Firewire graph still shows a lot of erratic activity which in real use would add up to very significant margins when transferring large amounts of data or incurring a lot of random accesses with a lot of small transfers of data. And this is the *most favorable* graph for Firewire I found; a few were less than stellar. And, bear in mind that these lags are very cumulative--transferring from one 1394-to-IDE drive to another might incur unnecessary penalties of up to 1 MBps in places. I routinely deal with multi-gigabyte transfers, and that is unacceptable since it can be avoided by using a native IDE/ATA transfer or, better yet, SCSI--and now, Serial ATA.
In addition, there's alays a danger when you translate from one protocol to another, particularly if it's needless in the first place. Haven't you known people who've b0rked data when transferring it to a Firewire HD? I have. Different enclosures=different chipsets=different drivers=different amounts of maturity, whereas the ATA standards are always--well--standardized and in common usage by the time people start buying their new drives and upgrade cards or new mobos. I've even known a friend who added a new Firewire drive to his B&W G3 Mac and managed to ruin some transferred data, and Macs are bred for Firewire. Problem was, his spiffy new VST (IIRC) external 1394 drive required 3rd-party drivers at the time, and OOPS! who knows what went wrong, but something did.
Could something go wrong with a standard ATA or Serial ATA transfer? Of course. I fell prey to IDE data corruption last year from the dreaded KT-133/SB Live!/BIOS bug. But the probability of data corruption is lessened because it's such a well-accepted standard by the time it gets into the wild, whereas Firewire drive enclosures are still the Wild West in comparison.
And the reason you can forget about native Firewire drives ever becoming mainstream is that manufacturers wouldn't want the expense--nor would consumers. It's cheaper in the long term to just invent Serial ATA than it would be to commoditize either SCSI or Firwire, with their more generalized and extensive and hence more expensive controllers for each drive. Firewire and SCSI devices have to be "smart," with a lot of decisions made in the device itself. ATA, and now Serial ATA, devices can be relatively "dumb", with most of the work being done at the main controller. The cost difference would probably add about $50 retail to the cost of each drive--Mac fanatics have been dealing with that because they overpay for everything, but PC folk wouldn't stand for it. We want big, fast, reliable--*and* inexpensive, and neither Firewire nor SCSI can really do all of that for hard drives.
Time has proven, though, that IDE/ATA/and soon (if all goes well) Serial-ATA can. Why pay %50 more per drive, when the cost of quality Maxtor/Seagate/etc. drives is getting so ridiculously low that that would add 50% to the cost of a low-end drive or 25% to the cost of a high-end drive, for no gain in HD performance? The only performance improvement would be a significant reduction in CPU usage, but that's not an issue on consumer-level and low-end workstation/server machines which are now well into the GHz+ range--and servers and high-end workstations would be running proven SCSI anyway.
Just my opinion, though. Firewire drives have their place--in Macs.;-) Us real commodity computer users will almost always use cheaper ATA or more proven SCSI, depending on our needs.
I'd like you to *try* to identify me. You can't. You'd discover that I post with the Chasing Amy nic only to/. and to USENET groups. This is the nic I started using when I came to do research in groups like news://alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen , where I read and still read the text posts (and *only* the text, no binaries). As such, I've never given any *real* information about myself which could reveal my true identity, because a lot of people would be upset at anyone even for just reading text in such a group.
So, it's ironic that you're getting uptight about me mentioning how attractive Natalie Portman was even at a very young age.;-) The guys in p-t and similar groups would just...well, agree.:-o
Admitting that underage people can sometimes be attractive, and actually wanting to touch them, are two very different things. By nature we're meant to find Natalie Portman to be quite attractive, even when she was 12--because in primeval times she would have made a wonderful mate, and in primeval times you'd want to snap them up fairly young, so that she'd bond with you by having you as her first sexual partner and so when she becomes fertile you can be pretty sure the baby is really yours. We're by nature meant to find nubile budding young girls like Natalie Portman at the time she did *Leon* to be sexually attractive. Modern social constructs try to overwrite nature and tell us not to be attracted to them--but on some level we still, even if only on rare occasions, are. It's just natural, and looking and touching are two very different things. I'm far healthier than a prude who thinks it's wrong to be attracted to a budding adolescent girl, because I acknowledge nature and choose to ignore it, rather than refuse to acknowledge it and repress it under social programming.
So, exactly why should I choose to keep a comment about Natalie's inherent cuteness and fuckability off a public board? We'd all be much more sexually healthy if we dropped the Puritan "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" crap. And it isn't even evil--it's just natural programming tha's no longer socially viable.
If we were in any other age but this one, you too would acknowledge the fuckability of the adolescent Natalie Portman.:-)
> As for Natalie, I'm still wondering what happened to her after The Professional.
Yeah, she was quite fuckable in *The Professional*, wasn't she? Especially in the *Leon* extended cut. Mmmm, jailbait. Tastes like chicken...;-)
But seriously, I didn't think her acting was that bad in TPM--it's just that the script called for a wooned "regal" performance. I can just imagine Lucas directing her into mediocrity: "No, Natalie, say it with less feeling this time. You're a Queen who doesn't know the common people yet, which is why you pretend to be one of them to learn. But right now you're aloof, so act like you're Queen Victoria trying to hold it in after being given a laxative."
In contrast most of her other recent performances have been great, like in *Where the Heart Is*. Oh, and in those topless pictures the paparazzi got of her at the beach. Her performance in those was good, too.;-)
Isn't it obvious that the reason he wants to keep his relay open is so that his cypherpunk friends can send less-traceable e-mails? A noble goal, even though it has unfortunate side-effects regarding spam and this new virus.
In this day and age of government snooping, Carnivore, shutting down anti-globalization websites, justifying mass surveillance of all citizens under the rubric of anti-terrorism, and the other atrocities reported every damn day on/., surely the hypocrites here can retract their heads from their asses long enough to see the adantages of a static open relay for helping to safeguard the privacy of e-mails. Does it have unwanted side effects? Yeah. Freedom always does.
Look, let's be frank here: spammers will always find open relays in Asia. Always. China's recent baby steps forward notwithstanding, you know that this is true. This is part of the spammer's job. If spammers couldn't find open relays, they'd just purchase ISP accounts, start flooding out of their own servers, and move on when they get cut off. They sometimes do it now, even though open relays aren't hard to find.
Toad, on the other hand, is just a way for the privacy conscious to have a little conrol over how their e-mail gets routed without having to work like a spammer to keep up-to-date lists of Asian relays. It's just an added layer of obfuscation. Shutting it down won't curb spam or viruses, it'll just take away a privacy tool.
Most likely the graphics board is going to be aimed at the arcade hardware and home entertainment industry market, not the home user. The article is short on information, but don't you think if a card geared toward consumers were being demoed on Feb. 22, that we'd have heard press about it now?
This card most likely has nothing to do with the home segment at all. It will be marketed toard third-party arcade and home entertainment vendors, as well as used for Sega's and Namco's arcade hardware needs. Believe it or not, a lot of the bigger arcade games these days are powered by basically PC's with powerful graphics boards, like the ones of Quantum3D. Heck, 3Dfx got its start with arcade graphics chips, and the Voodoo 2 powered more than just PC's--arcade games as well.
So, I'd bet that this is not the least bit geared towards the end user.
I mean, it's kind of like those little guys on that Escher endless stairway suddenly deciding to put down their loads and build a stairay that goes someplace, before they continue. Quite unexpected...
> he is trying to fight the total user experience war - something MS can't
> do unless it wants to start making boxes.
This is the problem for Apple--once MS starts making "the whole widget" and doing it right, there's no longer any reason to buy an Apple unless you're a crusty graphics designer who uses one out of loyalty to his experiences with Apple. Everyone else, including computer-stupid Grandma, will just buy the MS widget. After all, it'll be just as easy and integrated as an iMac, have guaranteed interoperability, and come with a seemingly great deal on integrated MSN internet access and network support. The iMac will only win, on paper, in the looks department, and only narrowly.
See, Microsoft has been planning this for years, albeit with some retarded stops and starts. Why else would they buy WebTV? They thought they could turn it into the Digital Hub which Apple is just recently beginning to talk about. Gates may not be a nice guy, but he's a brilliant businessman. He was hip to this digital hb business when he bought WebTV, it's just that he soon realized that was entirely the wrong platform. This is pretty obvious from the fact that WebTV support was coded into Windows 98, but nothing was ever rally done with it.
So, instead of building up WebTV into a PC, Gates has started with the PC and is stripping it down to its essentials. Xbox is a trial run for this. Microsoft has essentially just mass-produced its own PC, only the software is stripped down to just play games. Yet it's clear from.Net and Hailstorm and MSN that MS is thinking in the larger sense of thinner clients and fatter servers--in essence, the perfect paradigm if you want to manufacture a PC with a very, very long shelf-life, since the server will do most of the actual computing and storage for the client.
Xbox is a trial run and proof of concept that MS can be a hardware company. Their next hardware release will be a beefed-up Xbox with a keyboard and mouse and an optional LCD, unless they get inspired by the new iMac and integrate the LCD into the package. It'll play Xbox games on insertion, but the default desktop will have pretty and simple with an MSN Internet icon, a My Documents folder, and icons for word processing and whatever functions neatly provided by the MSN/.Net subscription. All popular Windows-compatible pieces of hardware, like MP3 players and camcorders and such, will have integrated support through simplified software inspired by Apple's designs.
This is clearly the next step for Microsoft, which has been afraid of its software losing marketshare and has wanted to enter the real hardware business for years, at least ever since the abortive WebTV purchase. Microsoft is in a unique position to integrate its software and its.Net and Hailstorm into a simple box that will ensure Microsoft's dominance for a few more decades. It's a lot harder to replace an infrastructure of all-in-one, whole widgets, than it is to replace an OS. Microsoft is afraid that other OSes, like Linux, might advance to the point where x86 vendors start using them instead of Win32. That is no longer an isue if Microsoft becomes a dominant hardware vendor.
The hints have been there for a long time. Xbox is a trial run. The real hardware, Microsoft's x86 PC with proprietary bits, will be here as soon as Microsoft is happy with its.Net infrastructure.
> Well, maybe not a pirate, but it's illegal anyways
Nope, software license agreements still have yet to hold up in any Court case in the U.S., despite a few kinks so far and UCITA. I seriously doubt the Court is going to completely invalidate the doctrines of First Sale and Fair Use so thoroughly. Personally, I live in a state with a good track record of reasonable decisions in favor of consumers' rights, where no Court is going to say a person can't use something he's bought and paid for.
Not to mention thousands of people are breaking Apple's licensing agreements already by using OS 8.x on 68k emulators. Apple may not like Fair Use, but it's still there. And there are no "trade secrets" involved, which was the deciding factor in the DVD DeCSS case.
Apple can tell you a lot of things are illegal, but it doesn't make it so. A classic example is their hounding of rumor sites for posting images of upcoming Mac products--it's a clear-cut First Amendment right to post them, what with that pesky freedom of the press clause and all. Unlike the flimsy thread the DVD-CCA hung the DeCSS case on--that it was a trade secret--Apple couldn't claim the same thing since they're images of products which they don't intend to keep a secret. Apple just bullies the small sites into taking them down, since a rumor site can't stand up for its rights. You can't typically fully assert your rights without money in our unfortunate system.
Point being, the license agreement means nothing in this instance. You can't give up your legal rights by clicking on a dialogue box. It's much like those signs at pools that say "Swim at Own Risk"--you can still sue the pool's owner if something happens to you and his pool was at fault.
Of course, I'm just a thinker, not a lawyer or hacker. Cum grano salis, et alia...
> Don't even try to go there. Ensured obsolescence has always worked much better for Microsoft, and by extension, Intel, than for Apple.
I think that's totally mistaken. Apple sells, as Steve likes to point out time and again, "the whole widget." Therefore, Apple has direct profit to be made by obsoleting their own hardware as quickly as possible. Even in Mac-rabid forums like MacSlash there are plenty of Mac users willing to acknowledge that Apple's OS doesn't ever seem to support hardware older than 2-3 years very well compared to what it could.
For example, at Macslash I recently read a complaint that OS X only half-heartedly and barely supports a top-of-the-line beige G3 that was quite expensive and touted at the time by Apple itself as being the Mac of the future with a long lifetime ahead of it, and yes Apple promised buyers that it would be supported by the next-gen operating environment. So, this particular user pointed out that despite its ATI card Apple refused to provide an accelerated graphics driver support for it, so that OS X redraws like crap. Apple provided very broken ADB support so that he couldn't use any of the stuff that came from Apple with the beige G3 when he bought it, so Apple told him to get a Firewire card and new peripherals. He replaced a drive with another Apple drive and it refused to work, so Apple told him to just get an IDE card since they never put real full SCSI support into OS X.
You see, Apple made a promise to people who bought top-of-the-line beige G3's for a very hefty sum that they would be supported by the new OS, and that their G3's would have long useful lifespans. Even their ad copy said so. That was a half-truth, at best. Just a few months later those beige G3's were obsoleted by the newer, cheaper, faster, fruity ones we all know and love, and are now known as "Old World" (i.e., unsupported) hardware.
Apple's behavior in this example shows a fundamental lack of respect for its buyers. Those Old World G3's had built-in obsolescence and yet continued to be touted as prime new machines right up until the New World rollout. Why? Because Apple is going to make a lot of profit every time a user upgrades his Mac, so there's every reason to make that be as soon as possible.
Other specific examples abound. How about the very expensive 68k lines Apple continued to sell and push the Hell out of right as they were ready to roll out PPC and obsolete the fuck out of them? How about all the machines--some of them just a couple years old--that went completely unsupported after System 7.5.5, which is why Apple just went ahead and put that OS release up on its Website for users of those systems to download, since they'd never be supported again? How about the TAM [Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh], whose special wow features that got people to pay ungodly sums of money for this beautiful limited edition hardware soon were completely unsupported in any new versions of the OS (after 8.5 or 8.6, can't recall exactly) despite the fact that coding support for its little buttons and doo-dads would have taken a single programmer all of a day?
How about the Wallstreet (I think that's the right one, going from memory) PowerBook G3, an arm and a leg in its day and now can't even run OS X despite the fact that even cheap older iBooks--which cost a lot less--can? Going back into the mysts of time, remember the overpriced, and soon outpowered IIfx, with its notorious lack of compatibility with sooooo much hardware?
Apple just doesn't care about supporting a product at all any longer than it has to, since the user will come back and buy new hardware. This is in stark contrast to Microsoft which, for all its numerous faults, tries to support every piece of hardware it can right in the OS. Pick any random PC, and if it's got enough RAM in it and the processor is fast enough (the requirement is very low for 98SE and Me, but a bit more for WinXP since it's so different) the odds are either WinMe or WinXP will boot on it without any problems, and that furthermore almost all of the hardware will be supported "out-of-the-box" despite the fact that there are hundreds of different makers--and if it isn't supported instantly, it's going to be something nonessential, and a driver file download will make it work. Microsoft even wanted to write its own new drivers for the Voodoo cards for WindowsXP after 3dfx went under, since there were so many Voodoo users out there, but nVidia (picker of the 3dfx corpse) wouldn't let them use the source code for the existing drivers, plus a few bits were licensed from others. But the point is, as evil as Microsoft is in some ways, they were actually prepared to write drivers for an obsoleted and bankrupt hardware company's products so that they'd work well enough under their new OS, since so many users were out there.
Apple has never done anything remotely similar. Whereas Microsoft deliberately tries to include support for every piece of hardware they can, even if it's old and obsolete or weird or rare, even though they don't make the hardware and have no control over its hundreds of makers, Apple does exactly the opposite. Apple has total control over all the core hardware and a lot of the other hardware, and yet they don't make any effort to support older hardware a moment longer than they think they need to. For Apple, it's just about trying to make things just obsolete enough to induce a full system upgrade in a neat 2-3 year timeframe. That's because Apple gets money directly from the hardware and Microsoft doesn't. Apple always wants you to buy new hardware; Microsoft wants you to buy new software. So it's in MS's best interests to support as much hardware as possible. It's in Apple's financial interests to support as little hardware as possible.
This is why I was able to install Win98SE recently on an ancient Packard-Bell piece of junk from 1990-1993 or so, and it detected all the hardware correctly and loaded all the right drivers--even for the cheesy video and audio chips I'd never even heard of. I could have easily installed WinME on it instead using the switch to remove the minimum requirements during install, but WinME's "extra features" (which I dislike, but which are well-geared toward stupid home users) would have slowed the old beast down. I can even install WinXP on some very old hardware if I wanted to--it would run slow, but it would run. The point is, the hardware support is there, inbuilt, despite astounding variety of core components and makers in the x86 world. But with only one maker of core components in the Mac world, the hardware support is not there.
Built-in obsolescence, indeed. MS is guilty of bloat and mediocre to poor coding--but not of deliberate and calculated failure to support hardware just to get people to buy more. that's Apple's MO.
No, I run Amiga games on an emulator, but that's about as close as I'll ever come to to touching an Amiga.:-) So, as an Amiga user yourself, I must ask why anyone would still be using one today? I'm sure there's a valid reason. Enlighten, please.
I can't say how talented he is when it comes to programming for the Amiga, but I can say that he's proven himself when it comes to programming emulators for the x86 PC. His Fusion emulator was way ahead of anything else out at the time. It's outdated now, even though it still has better support for more of the MacOS's features than Derek Mihocka's overpriced and underfeatured SoftMac (which still, AFAIK, doesn't do more than 256 color mode). Now the GPL'd Basilisk II is by far the best 68k Mac emulator, but years ago Fusion was the only full-featured 68k Mac emulator out there.
Now, however, Jim Drew is going around telling a lot of people in public emulation forums that his product will be ready for Macworld Tokyo in 2 months. He said he might even preview it sooner. So either he's really close to releasing this product, or he's gone utterly insane.
Of course, again, which one remains to be seen.;-) But I have a feeling Drew isn't utterly insane, so he's probably got his product ready.
Macworld Tokyo will tell the tale. I'm sure we all can't wait.;-)
I ought to just point out that I may be mistaken on some of the details, since this is still an unreleased product and no one I know has seen it yet. For example, the card might be processor-only with no onboard RAM, in which case it likely wouldn't be able to be quite as fast as a real iMac due to the latency. No one outside the project and its beta testers knows specifics yet. The Mac emulation community has just been informed about it and teased about its features, but the man behind the product is respected and so something like this is definitely going to be released at Macworld Tokyo, though we can't be sure about its specifics.
I just wanted to point it out because some of the details may be off the mark, although several things like the pricing information and the fact that it should be able to run whatever an iMac can run came directly from the developer's own postings to forums.
But it's clear that with a real G3 processor on a PCI card to act as the CPU of the iMac emulator, and a GHz+ Athlon or P!!!/4 processor to emulate other functions, and with the gobs of DDR SDRAM memory available cheap these days, an x86 box should definitely be able to handle anything a G3 iMac can if the emulation portion of a package is well coded.
I for one look forward to seeing it, and if it runs OS X and at least moderately well, buying it.
Dude, I'm not a moron. It's a lower layer of a multi-layered system, between the Mach microkernel and the upper layers of the OS and its APIs and its Quartz engine.
This is why I said "let's say Apple decides to add things into the upper layers in the near future that only work on G4's..."--because I recognize that they could, though I find it unlikely.
> Secondly, its sounds like hella vapor.
I explained in my first post the several reasons why it *most likely* isn't. First, the man behind it is a respected programmer who wrote the first complete and functional 68k Mac emulator for the PC, Fusion. Second, the company already released its software to run Mac OS on Amigas with PPC cards over a year ago, and licensed it to Blittersoft, and has been working on this ever since with the Amiga code as starting point. Third, the man behind it is going around to all the Mac emulation and convergence forums dropping droll hints about the product and drumming up expectations in the community for a Macworld Tokyo release. So either a respected individual has morphed into the Bitboys or he's going to release a big product he's excited about at Macworld Tokyo.
> (also what the hell does iMac-based emulation mean?)
It means that his emulator will be based around emulating an iMac.
> The problem with iMacs (at least the older CRT ones) is that the Boot ROM is on the Processor card.
Yes, which makes little difference since the boot ROM no longer actually does much. Unlike in the old 68k days, it's pretty much "Hi OS, I am a boot ROM. Bye." And that's that. And OS X doesn't even need a boot ROM--remember, Darwin.
> Therefore to act like an iMac, they're going to have to have some form of the Boot ROM on this card.
Not at all. They could devise their own original code that tells the OS it's a boot ROM, when it isn't. At least one existing Mac emulator already does this, mimicking the ROM's functions while not actually using any of Apple's proprietary code. But as I said, thanks to Darwin a boot ROM wouldn't be necessary to run OS X.
Also, there are some commercial 68k Mac emulators that have been sold for a long while which come with simple utilities for dumping a ROM image from a real live Mac. The pretense is that if you have an old Mac you no longer use, you have the right to use an image of the ROM for other purposes. Fair Use. Of course, few people actually use those included ROM extraction utilities on Macs they don't intend to use--instead they just download ROM images off USENET or the Web. But the company making the software can't be held responsible, because they provided a perfectly legal way for you to use your own Mac ROM.
Since this product doesn't target Mac users--it targets a certain enthusiast segment of the PC crowd--anyone likely to buy it already knows where to download an iMac ROM. They're out there as we speak, and have been ever since a few months after iMacs were released.
In addition, Apple has released updates on its website that actually have Open Firmware updates embedded in them.
> I find it hard to believe that Apple would let this company just put anything like that near a Wintel PC
Again, they have zero legal recourse as long as the company either bypasses the ROM by using their own original code, or includes an original utility for dumping your own legal copy of your own legal ROM from your own iMac. The company that makes a product can't be held responsible if some users pirate iMac ROMs, since they will have provided a legitimate means for users to obtain legal ROMs from their own hardware. As I said, existing products have successfully taken both approaches, althout I must say that no existing product is as good as the GPL'd Basilisk II.
And either way, OS X could be made to boot on it without a ROM at all thanks to the Darwin layer.
But since I know the product will support the older MacOS's, and can't be sure yet whether it'll support OS X right off the bat, I rather suspect the programmer has just bypassed the necessity for the ROM through creative coding, since at leat one emulator already does so.
> (not to mention the fact that they're a product 2 months from a pretty major hardware release and nobody's seen it in action yet).
That's usually how giddy master programmers are about their major products they've spent years developing. Mr. Drew probably isnt giving deatails because he's having fun building up expectation. He probably wants to play Steve Jobs for a Day and surprise everyone with his new baby. At least, this is what I would gather from what I've been reading him say in the emulation forums. He's always coy and cryptic in a playful sort of way, rather than the "oh no my product sucks" sort of way.
We'll know at Macworld Tokyo whether his product lives up to the expectations he's helped fuel. If it runs OS X at any decent speed--not even full speed of a real iMac--those who'd think about buying such a card/emulator combo would be impressed enough. If it runs OS X at about the full speed of an iMac, we'll be very, very impressed and happy with it. If it only runs OS 9, we'll be disappointed but hopeful that OS X can still be made to work with it with a little Darwin-hacking.
Not at all. That's the beauty of having Darwin as open-source--people have already gotten OS X to run on unsupported hardware, including G3 and G4 upgrade cards, by adding support. That's why I can't see what could stand in the way of OS X working on one of these PCI card/emulator solutions.
But let's say Apple decides to add things into the upper layers in the near future that only work on G4's--entirely unlikely for several reasons, but for the sake of the argument let's assume so--the latest version of Mac OS X already has a much better performance and is better optimized than the first releases, and it's entirely unlikely that software makers will make any apps that will only run on a new G4-only version of the OS and not on the current version. That seems extraordinarily unlikely.
Plus, even though Apple is the worst company in history when it comes to screwing over their recent buyers (only slightly exaggerating) by obsoleting their hardware with no support, they're not about to screw over every single person who bought a G3 iMac just recently, and who will continue to buy them new until stocks run dry--at least not til 2 years or so after they bought their Macs.
So, *if* the card lives up to what has been implied, a buyer can expect to be able to run any version of MacOS released for at least another year and half or two. And even if Apple *does* really screw over all its iMac and G3 tower customers, which is unlikely since they're selling G3 iMacs this minute at Apple stores, who cares? Running the latest version of OS X should be enough for anyone for a while.
And there's nothing preventing a G4 card, either. G4 upgrade cards are already rampant in the Mac community.
Again, no one has seen this product in action yet, so I can't say anything for certain about it. But as for what's been recently implied by its tight-lipped author, Jim Drew was recently asked in an emulation forum what software and OSes it would support, and his coy reply was [paraphrasing] "It's an iMac-based emulation. What can an iMac run?"
There's a lot of promise if this product is pulled off right. It'll be the closest thing to a unified, all-in-one solution for PC and Mac in one box since many years ago when Apple had their DOS/Windows card option of a 66MHz 486 card with 16MB RAM back when a 486-66 with 16MB was actually a decent PC. VirtualPC on a Mac doesn't really cut it for convergence because the one strong point of Windows (since Office and such run on Mac) is its huge gaming compatibilty, but you need real hardware with graphics acceleration to play most decent newer games. But if you can have a good x86 rig with Windows for gaming, Linux for real work, and Mac OS X for work, interoperability, and eyecandy, all in one box--that is, as Cartman would say, hellasweet. And all without buying overpriced Mac hardware which Steve will obsolete all too soon. $349.99 for this PPC card package, that I can use with all my standard x86 hardware? $800 for a G3 iMac? I know which one I'd put my money on, since (I presume) they'd both be obsoleted about the same time.
Why? Because if all goes well At MacWorld Tokyo the product I've been waiting for for a year is supposed to be demoed and released. It's Microcode Solutions' hardware-assisted PowerPC emulation for x86 PCs. http://www.microcode-solutions.com/home.htm
Some people are very happy with the new iMac announcement. Some are waiting for the G4 Tower speed bump that should be announced at the next expo. But all of us MacOS lovers who defected to the Dark Side over the years for one reason or another might be made happy by the little PCI card and software package that should be released soon.
Currently we x86 users are limited to running OS 8.x on 68k Mac emulators, the best of which is the GPL'ed Basilisk II. This works great for playing older Mac games (there are a lot of great ones never ported to Windows or Linux) and using any 68k-compatible Mac apps for a great level of interoperability, or just the cool factor of running so many OSes off one machine. It runs blazing fast with 68k code--but the obvious problem is that anything remotely recent is PPC-only, and OS 9 and OS X are far out of reach.
But the PPC emulator to be introduced at Macworld Tokyo will change all that. To MacOS, it will be indistinguishable from a real iMac. A cheap software-only version will be made available, but it won't run all the newest stuff; the jewel in the crown will be the hardware-assisted version, which will have a real, fast G3 processor and RAM on a PCI card. It should run anything an iMac will run and at native speeds or better (depending on processor).
Any OS 9.x operating system will run full-speed on it and it's very likely that OS X will be made to run on it too, although by all reports OS X on an older model iMac is no speed demon.
Since the Mac's VirtualPC has run all the latest Windows OSes for some time, it's only fair that PC users should finally be able to run the latest Mac OSes, OS X in particular. And with this G3 and RAM card, running the MacOS on an equipped x86 box will be a lot smoother than the Mac's current all-software VPC emulation of x86.
Before dismissing it as vaporous, the Microcode Solutions website may be Spartan, but the man behind it coded the first fully functional 68k Mac emulator for x86, Fusion, and has already released a rudimentary PPC Mac emulator for old Amigas equipped with PPC cards, through Blittersoft.
To some this won't mean much. But personally, I've always loved the MacOS, ever since I used System 7 many a year ago. But I didn't want to be locked into expensive proprietary hardware, or not be able to run Windows games. But if all goes well at Macworld Tokyo, a properly equipped PC may now be able to run Linux, Windows, and even OS X if the G3/RAM card and emulator are purchased. If there's demand, maybe the emulator software part of the package could be ported to x86 Linux.
It will be interesting indeed to see if Microcode Solutions comes through at Macworld Tokyo, and it'll be even more interesting to gauge the reaction of Macworld attendees if they see OS X running well on a PC. And that is very likely, since Jim Drew has been talking about his new product and answering questions about it on all the Mac-related emulation sites and forums, and even gave out pricing information--$349.95 for the fully-functional package with the PPC card, or $49.95 for the cheapo software-only emulator that will be far more limited in its abilities. $349.95 (plus OS purchase price, because you're not a pirate) to run OS X at native iMac speeds on a commodity "Wintel" box, with all its advantages, sounds pretty damn good.
And before any zealots start modding this down, it's valid news about an upcoming Mac expo, which definitely seems to be related to this thread. I may have defected to the Dark Side, but I still want all that creamy Mac goodnes. Having your cake and eating it too might be possible in a month and a half.;-)
I know looks are subjective, but there are some basic principles of aesthetics. Most people will agree that something gorgeous is at least attractive, or that something heinous is at least unattractive. And this flat-paneled thingie is pretty heinous.
I say this as someone who has liked Apple's aesthetics a lot. Visuals do mean something to me, which is why I chose my PC case based on both functionality and aesthetics. The original iMac had a great aesthetic--it was different and new, and yet it could blend in pretty seamlessly in almost any environment. It wouldn't look out of place in your living room or home office whether the decor were ultra-modern or quite old-fashioned. It looked at home in offices and schools and computer labs. And it looked good doing it.
But this flat-paneled monstrosity looks like a refugee from the movie *2001: A Space Odyssey*. In other words, it looks like a 1960's conception of a futuristic 21st century design. Looking at that film now, it's a wonderful film, but all the design elements look so conspicuous as to be almost laughable. And so does this new flat-panel presumed iMac. Whereas the old iMac dsign took a few moments to get used to but then blended right in naturally as if the design were obvious, this thing will always look conspicuously out of place unless your decor is 60's ultra-modern. I can't picture this is an old-fashioned office at all. And aesthetically, it just isn't attractive. It's an LCD on a stalk with a clunky base. It looks rather like a ladies' cosmetic mirror, actually--from the 60s.
And the flaws are functional, too. An awful lot of iMacs go into the educational sector--but not these. Why? Because, with the small LCD and smallish base and the mobility of the swiveling stalk, one of these could easily be slipped into a backpack or duffel bag. Public schools won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Libraries won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. College labs won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Basically, anything fairly public would be a bad place to put these things. It's a laptop on a stick. It's just begging to get stolen. And it kinda ruins the whole aesthetic--not that it was a good one in the first place--when such public places as do buy them start putting big ugly bicycle chains around the stalks.
What does this ugly, gangly design have that others don't? It offers greater mobility for swiveling your LCD screen since it's attached to that weird stalk instead of to the base just as most (far better looking) rumor site concept art had it. Now, even though half a dozen Mac zealots and one or two PC guys who are a lot closer to their computers than any average home users are, are going to dispute this, the fact is that most people sit their monitors (or iMacs) where they want them, adjust once, and leave everything be. Even in multi-user environments, tilting the monitor a little takes half a second and is even easy for a young kid--I just nudged my gigantic 20 inch CRT monitor around with ease, and it's a lot more heavy and bulky and crowded on all sides than most monitors will ever be. There's just not a need for the average user to have a swiveling stalk, which will only contribute to people thinking it looks really stupid. I think this is a case of Apple having graphic designers in mind more than home users and average guys and educational institutions--which is a mistake since graphics professionals are more likely to shell out for the extra horsepower of a more expensive Mac, not an iMac. The design here is just very, very poorly targeted to its demographic. Average home users--the bread and butter of the iMac market segment--are going to think this thing looks ugly.
What they should have done instead of this gangly monstrosity is to use the Cube design, but for the new LCD iMac. It was a gorgeous, award-winning design. Many, many people said they would have bought it if they could afford it. Instead of plopping an LCD atop a stick attached to an oversized AirPort unit (which is what this new design looks like), Apple should have redesigned the Cube, packaged it with an LCD monitor, and that should have been the new flat panel iMac. It's not quite as integrated as connecting the central unit to the LCD with a stick, but methinks even the most lame of home users know how to stick a wire from the LCD into the Cube. If they were too dumb to even do that, then how could they even plug in their modem wire from an old iMac to the wall plate?
Yes, the Cube design should have been harvested for Apple's new LCD iMac. Everyone loved it. The design was practically universally praised, (except the mould lines) and the only reason it didn't succeed was that it was priced way above the iMacs but very close to the full, powerful G4 towers. Opinion is clearly mixed at best on this new thingie, however. a Cube with LCD design for the new iMac would still be compact and relatively light and hence suffer from the same "stealability" factor which I mentioned may deter public schools and such from upgrading to the new iStalks, but at least it wouldn't look ugly and stick out in almost any decor, it would look gorgeous and complement any environment. Either way, if public schools and libraries upgrade to a newer lighter iMac, they'll have to chain them down with a vengeance whereas the old iMac was better suited thanks to its CRT bulk and heft. Flat panels in general are a poor choice for such environments thanks to stealability and the relative ease of damaging an LCD's more delicate screen.
At any rate, I think I've made it obvious that while I liked the old iMac design and the G4 Cube design and even the Apple tower designs, I hate this new "iStalk" design. It truly looks like a piece of set dressing from *2001: A Space Odyssey*, and hence just too bizarre to fit in here in the real world. The primary advantage of having the LCD on the swiveling stalk, ease of moving the screen, is also an advantage few of the iMac's target demographic will really use--oh, and it also makes the LCD prone to get repositioned too frequently for comfort, if you're the type of person who likes to get his monitor or TV just-so.
And finally--it wouldn't take a clumsy person to knock one of these off a desk and break it; it would only take a quick accidental arm movement. I'm sure the base is extra-sturdy with just this in mind, but you just know several people will knock these things down by accidentally hitting the LCDs.
My final, final word: Yep, Apple should have just put the Cube together with an LCD monitor and branded it the new imac, instead of creating this ugly beast. the Cube had aesthetic splendor, while this is aesthetic squalor...
Please disregard my pleadings about finding a better copy of Cat Power's hauntingly beautiful song "Darling Said Sir". My latest Google search (and I've been looking on Google of and on every few months for a while) finally turned up the fact that the Headlights single was rereleased on 7 inch on 7/27/01.
Forgive my off-topic barbaric yawp, but YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! !!!!!!
I just ordered one. YOU SHOULD TO! Do it. You know you want to. http://www.allegro-music.com/online_catalog.asp?sk u_tag=DBCM957
Of course, now I need to actually buy a turntable. If you're willing to risk a weenie or two modding you as off-topic, any turntable recommendations in the $300 or less range?
> Any copy of Darling Said Sir is going to be scratchy... It was only released on vinyl.
I know, but unfortunately the only copy I could find was pretty much mostly scratches. It sounded like the record was pretty scratched up before the person who encoded it encoded it.
It made me sad to hear such an incredible, emotional song in such a poor copy. I've been trying to find a used copy of that record, *Headlights*, but to no avail. If I were to find one, the first thing I'd do is buy a brand new high quality turntable, and the second thing I'd do would be to encode the whole album song by song into lossless format for future use, and -r3mix LAME MP3 for distribution over the Net since it's out of print anyway. Then I'd upload it anywhere and everywhere where it could fit in. As you can see, I was pretty impressed with Cat Power in general, and "Darling Said Sir" in particular. It's just so damn emotional--the strange upbeat but sad instrumentals, and the sweet plaintive voice...
I'm still hoping it will find its way onto a new CD sometime in the future, but unfortunately with the industry the way it is, that's unlikeley. There's no motivation or profit in it, which is sad because there are so many indie bands like Cat Power that deserve to be listened to a lot more than the corporate machine cloned bands that succeed today.
Come to think of it, when I had Napster at my beck and call I downloaded a lot of music (for a 56k guy, that is--if only I had my cable uplink back then!). But I also bothered to go out and buy CDs, something I seldom did before and haven't done since.
When I had Napster, I logged into its chatrooms, talked with people, and got pointers on what to listen to. Then I downloaded a few songs, listened--and if I liked I often went out and bought a CD. That's how I got intorduced to music like Cat Power and P.J. Harvey. But even when I could find > 160kbps MP3s of their songs, I still often wanted the better sound and the liner notes and images of the CDs.
A trip to Best Buy to pick up some blank CDs or a new PCI card or game often led to a new CD purchase, too. But not any more. I don't get introduced to new music I really like, since MTV is 99% kiddie-pop or shitty rapcrap, VH1 is 90% stuff I heard 10 years ago, and nowhere else is there in my area to get into music and explore.
I think that's what the RIAA bitches don't understand. The piracy angle is insignificant if the side-channels it creates get millions of people to be more enthusiastic about music and let them find the kind of music they really want. You see, it turns a largely indifferent market--and let's face it, unless you're a child or young adult into the MTV sort of demographic, the odds are you're pretty indifferent about music and only buy it on occasion--into the same sort of excited MTV-kiddiez who rush out to buy the latest NSYNC crapola, only about a far broader range of music. For every Britney Spears lover who downloads her whole new album at 128kbps instead of buying the CD, there are several people who sample a few dozen tracks and then get inspired to buy a CD or two when they never would have bought one before.
That's exactly the sort of person I met in the Napster chatrooms quite often. I mean, if they were still in print I'd buy every Cat Power album ever recorded, all thanks to someone at the Napster forums, and I know there are lots of others who'd say the same about an artist they never would have known but for online "piracy."
Incidentally, if anyone can point me to a copy of Cat Power's "Darling Said Sir" from one of her old out of print singles, I NEED THAT SONG. I can't find it, not even in online record stores, and only have a very bad and scratchy MP3 of it at 128kbps. I had to mention it beause I've been searching for sooooo long.
Anyway, I think the nail has been hit right on the head. All those increased record sales pre-Napster shutdown were due to ordinary people becoming excited music lovers and buying music they never would have known about before. The decline in music sales ever since has been due to the fact that no real replacement for Napster's community exists yet--no place with an easy interface that anyone and everyone can log into, with integrated chat functions and real ease of finding almost anything at almost any bitrate. I've tried stuff like Limewire, WinMX, Kazaa/Morpheus--each has fatal flaws. Some lack Napster's nice integrated chat communities. Some only find crappy 128k music and won't let you limit your seaches to better quality stuff. Some is too hard for an average guy to use. Some are just too obscure with too few users. Some never provide stable connections when you try to make a transfer.
In short, nothing is what Napster was. If the recording industry were to be beaten within an inch of its life with a clue-stick, it would realize that what it needs to do is just remake Napster exactly like it was, with open MP3 and OGG file formats freely allowed, with a reasonable subscription fee to be doled out to artists and labels according to number of downloads for each song. If it were a reasonable flat monthly fee and the file formats were open and unencumbered, most old Napster users and a bunch more would jump on it--as I said, the other file trading networks just aren't as good, with all the features and ease and connectivity Napster had. And most people would continue to buy CDs, and just as before a lot of non-CD-buyers would become CD buyers thanks to the music they're introduced to. Let's face it: a real album still usually offers something an MP3 doesn't. Tangibility. Pictures. Notes and information about the band and the album production. Show-off-ability--easier to point a friend to an album on the shelf and tell him how great it is, than to point him to your hard drives.
Not that I like the RIAA, but they could have easily consolidated their power over the industry into the next millennium by embracing Napster and working with it toward a fee-based licensing regime. Instead, by fighting the new media, and trying to impose control under their own unnatural terms, they're pissing away their power and influence. Stupid, stupid RIAA.
Currently, I don't have a floppy drive at all in my PC. I was thinking exactly like you are when I built it without a floppy. But, I need to go get one anyway.
I didn't think I'd need a floppy because today's standard is CD. If I need to send someone files on physical media, I've got a CD-RW for that. If I get new software or new hardware with driver media, it'll be on CD. Great.
But just a few years ago things were still being put on floppies. And that's my problem. See, I went to install the latest drivers for a used P II system I bought for a family member, and they were only available as disk images. Okay, there are tools which can decompress them, like WinImage. That's fine for getting the drivers out of the image. Annoying that it just isn't zipped like normal people would do, but workable.
However, software disk images are another matter if they're in some weird self-floppy-writing format, which does sometimes happen. I have a lot of older software, mostly games, ("abandonware" sites mostly--call it piracy if you want, but I think we should preserve our gaming heritage, and if something is no longer retailed at all, I find no harm in archiving and occasionally playing it) on disk images in a dozen different formats. It's a big pain in the ass to deal with when you have to get around writing them to floppy, whereas you could write them on a floppy in no time if you actually had a floppy drive.
That problem is increased since I'm using VMWare and a trial copy of VirtualPC for Windows. I wanted to run a free (legally, too) copy of DR-DOS I got, but it's in a disk image format, and as far as I can tell--I'm not *completely* familiar with the programs, so maybe one or both have this function and I haven't found it--both VMWare and VirtualPC need to install an OS from media (unless you buy one of their retail "packs") and you can't just copy the DOS files from your HD into the virtual PC's HD.
So, it would be much easier if I just broke down and bought a floppy drive. Which I did, actually, but being a geek I thought it would be cool to get one of those old combo 3 1/2 inch and 5 1/14 inch drives that a couple of companies used to make, if I had to hook up a floppy. I bought one on eBay since they don't make 'em any more--but it arrived DOA, dammit. That of course is just a side rant.:-)
But anyway, I'll probably end up buying a shiny new 3 1/2 inch floppy drive just to deal with disk images. Dammit.
As a side note, I use and love Daemon Tools. Whenever I buy a new game with CD-check protection and can't find a simple way or crack to disable it, or if a new game I buy has CDA sound tracks, I can just make an image of the CD and a batch file to mount it in Daemon Tools before running the game. Very handy--no CD swapping, ever, which will be especially useful when I get around to building an ultimate arcade PC and an arcade cab around it. Daemon Tools is basically a free implementation of a Virtual CD program. I just wish there were a Virtual Floppy program that worked the same way, so that software and driver disk images could be easily and seamlessly written to a virtual floppy drive and then just as easily copied back onto the HD and zipped up in a standard archive if desired. That would be PERFECT for what I currently need a floppy for, and for all such "legacy" uses of floppy drives.
It's times like this when I wish I could code anything other than HTML.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
> Uh, think 9/11. Think "encryption is only used for terrorism and illegal pornography."
/., but it will *always* look suspicious due to both timing and unbelievably short notice.
/., who get busted for writing anti-globalization websites or for other minor matters.
> Think "there's a ph@t defense contract in it for you if you make that product go away."
*Exactly*. This isn't the first, either--far more suspicious was the untimely death of the ZKS' Freedom Network, which the respected founder insisted was planned before 9/11, but which was never announced until a a short time after 9/11 and which left users with practically no advance notice. One suspects that either the founders of the Freedom network got a good talking to with some sticks and carrots, or they got worried that theyr network was or could be used by terrorists, and shut it down out of "conscience." A rebuttal was even posted here on
Encryption for the masses is exactly what the U.S. government doesn't want, because it would render their unbelievably involved Carnivore/Echelon/UKUSA electronic eavesdropping network useless if we all started seamlessly using PGP or encrypting all our traffic through Freedom servers.
It is, however, the only way we can guarantee our Constitutional rights to privacy and freedom of expression in the electronic aether. It will always be trivial to the dedicated criminal or terrorist to communicate covertly over the Net, no matter how many carnivorous hubs may be weeding through traffic. It's the little guys caught in the crossfire we have to worry about--the kind of guys who are posted about every couple of weeks on
Face it: governments *always* want more power, and when unchecked they take it. That's why our system was deliberately created with a lot of checks and balances to impose a sort of "gridlock" to prevent sudden sweeping changes to governmental authority. 9/11 removed those deliberate obstacles and got everyone working together to impinge our freedoms with USA/PATRIOT and the FBI's larger scope for its surveillance projects and busts. People really need to start considering getting encryption integrated into everything they can, seamlessly, before they're no longer allowed to. Don't think it couldn't happen--the likelihood of the Court allowing various limited encryption bans does have a correlation with the number of people using encryption...
> ICANN's scope is the DNS system, upon which WWW, MAIL, NEWS, and everything else on the net currently relies.
Umm, that's the point.
He who controls DNS exercises immense influence on the Net, particularly the WWW. Giving control of the DNS system to delegates directly appointed by governments is a recipe for fostering censorship in the interests of those respective governments.
I.e., if DNS were in the hands of representatives appointed by governments, and some given websites were to be deemed undesirable--delete their DNS entries, and they go away. Poof. The instant DNS is controlled by governments, is the instant they begin implementing a system to instantly pull the DNS entries of websites which are "dangerous" and "patently offensive." Governments hardly ever agree on anything, but you can bet they'd agree to some deal-brokering--you support the "delisting" of our seditious sites, I'll support the delisting of yours.
USENET isn't as vulnerable because of its architecture. You can't just "delist" one newsgroup the same way you can delist one website.
If the ICANN higher-ups have their way and hand over the reigns to government-appointed reps, I guarantee you governments will take the opportunity to at least consider using their control of DNS to enable censorship.
> it is needlessly wasteful now that we have hundreds of thousands of NNTP
> servers, it is just not necessary to have that level of redundancy to route
> arround censorship.
I disagree entirely. Never underestimate the government's ability to stretch censorship to new levels.
Unless the very way NNTP servers operate is to gulp down and pass on each article for each newsgroup, the government would easily target those servers that spcifically carried groups or posts it doesn't like.
Pressure for news providers to drop certain groups began several years ago when the Vacco busts of people trading in child pornography led a news service to be criminally charged for the content of some groups and led other news servers in that state and elsewhere to drop gcertain groups thanks to their content. The charged news service took a plea even though they clearly would have won at trial or on appeal by claiming common carrier status, but hey, nobody wants to be the expensive test case.
Some may not see the problem with news servers being coerced by the government to drop those particular groups thanks to their contents, but the principle it sets is horrid. Certain "content owners" have of late been threatening to use the DMCA as a club to get news servers to drop groups which share TV shows and other such copyrighted material. If groups were more "localized" to a set of specific servers, or articles were localized to their originating servers, that would make it exceptionally easy for the DMCA to be used to require the "closure" of groups or removal of articles from USENET.
Furthermore, in this time of anti-terrrorist hysteria, the government has gotten away with the USA/PATRIOT mess already and is continually making some questionable choices. If it finds a newsgroup dedicated to dissent, or more spcifically dedicated to anti-globalism, for example, it cannot easily dstroy such a group because of the nature of USENET--the damage would be routed around by servers in other countries, even if every U.S. server could be forced to remove a group or article (not that they could be).
However, if the architecture of USENET were redesigned to localize groups or articles to subsets of servers--the likelihood of a government censoring USENET speech is magnified considerably.
It is the redundant architecture of USENET which will keep it free of censorship long after the WWW has been tamed--as it will be. Just look at the broiling mess within ICANN over officials trying to hand control of the WWW over to government-appointed reps. Eventually something like that will happen, and governments will cooperate with each other to make censorship in their mutual interests easier. Thanks to the architcture and nature of USENET, it will remain free and uncensored long after the WWW has fallen to censorship.
Just my 2 pence, though...
> How much sex can you want?
:-)
;) Does It Really Make You Happy?
/., my friend. Most of our only sorrows come from poor body image caused by the media, and sometimes from social stigmas from looking or acting different; other than that, geeks usually have very nice, fulfilling, successful lives. If geeks could get over the poor body image problem--let's face it, it's natural for us to be "overweight" because o0f the type of work we do--and start using their great resources to curb the media's overuse of unnatural body types, instead of to enroll in boot camps and similar modern "fat farms", the world and all our lives would be much better. Feminists always bemoan how unnaturally thin women on TV, in movies and magazines, make girls' lives and self-images difficult to deal with, leading to unnatural dieting and even anorexia. It's entirely true. What doesn't get mentioned is that boys are subject to the ame thing, only we internalize it much more and don't discuss it. It's probably one of the reasons the teenage suicide rate in the U.S. is 10 times for boys what it is for girls--we internalize these issues more, and that includes unfair body image expectations. As one example out of billions, I was so upset over a recent commercial intend to keep kids from talking with online sexual predators--everyone in it was lan, many of them unnaturally so like most TV characters; the only fat person was the leering child molester. Perfect! What a way to teach kids "fat=bad." Bah, do these people think? "fat" by today's standards is *far* moe natural than what most of the media characters are.
Well, once every few hours would be great. But I'll settle for an average of once a week.
> How much chocolade cake?
Just enough to make me not want any more chocolate cake.
> How much beer and wine can you possibly take?
About 12 glasses a night if I'm out at a bar socially, but more likely 1-2 glasses of wine a day. 1 to 2 glasses a day is actually a healthy amount from a medical standpoint, and may lessen the risk of heart problems according to some studies.
> And... (tada!
Absolutely! I lead *exactly* the life I want. I wouldn't trade anything I have for anything I don't. I absolutely love being able to enjoy the delectations of fine cuisine of whatever type I'm hungry for. I love having a huge Porterhouse if that's what I want, or 2 orders of Portobello Ravioli from Olive Garden if that's what I crave, or just a supersize order of McDonalds french fries and a Bacon Cheeseburger if that's what I'm in the mood for. I very much enjoy it because food and sex stimulate the senses in similar ways, and it's something we're supposed to enjoy and savor. Why would we have such an incredible ability gauge such subtleties in the tastes and textures of our foods, if we aren't meant to delight in them?
> It's amazing how much happier you can be without all that.
Well, it's amazing if *you* can be happy without all of that, but I wouldn't be. It's also amazing how some people deign to tell others that they're not happy, when they're *perfectly* happy.
> Did you need all that artificial stimuli when you were a child?
What artificial stimuli? Sex? Food? Alcohol? Cigars? Those, my friend, are *natural* stimuli. Not only do they occur in nature, but they're as old as recorded history. Let's skip sex and call that one pretty much self-evident--it is, after all, the underlying biological motivation for every species which reproduces sexually. So, let's go to food.
Food intake would seem to be a simple biological function. However, humans have a sense of taste that's a lot more refined than it needs to be to just be able to differentiate poisonous foods from safe ones. If that were all eating is about, we'd only need 2 flavors--good and yuck. But instead we can discern nearly infinite complex gradations and valuations of taste and texture of food. Moreover, we can be hungry for certain foods regardless of their nutritional value. Sometimes you just really want a banana, or chocolate, or bread, or pickles, or any number of things. If it were a simple biological function we'd just be hungry and eat stuff that doesn't taste bad until we're no longer hungry, or maybe we'd have more primitive cravings for sugary or bitter or salty in order to help the body get the kind of food that has the nutrients it wants. But it doesn't work like that. Our taste and hunger system is a lot more complex than it needs to be, and that leads to enjoyment and pleasure which is above and beyond what would be required for biological necessity. Clearly, food intake is supposed to be a pleasure, not just a simple biological function.
As for alcohol, there's a running debate amongst archaelogists and anthropologists and the like as to what came first, bread or beer. Some say bread was first and beer was discovered when some bread got wet and fermented. Many others say beer was first because it's easier to make than bread, since there's no baking step--people probably used to just collect and eat raw grains long before bread was invented, and one day some of those raw or crushed grains being stored got wet and fermented and beer was discovered when someone drank that fermented mush. I think the beer first argument is most persuasive, since it's the simplest. Either way, people found it incredibly enjoyable to drink and it's far older than recorded history. Wine was probably discovered in a similar manner after some grapes got crushed and became fermented, and is also older than recorded history. It does something people have always liked, and while alcohol itself is burnt quickly by the body and has no real nutritional value, it's social value is inestimable. How many couplings, friendships, great songs and literature, all throughout history, owe a great deal to the lubricity of drink? I'm sure we all owe several ancestors in our various chains of ancestry to an excess drink or two, and the role of alcohol as inspiration for great art and literature through its action on the imagination is well documented. Without the Boar's Head tavern, Shakespeare would probably have been a mediocre writer; without his addiction to absinthe, van Gog could never have unleashed his incredible paintings. The effects of alcohol are at least as positive as they are negative, and have contributed so much to our culture. It is not only something which is naturally enjoyed, it is a valuable and largely unsung component of most of the best of our arts and literature.
Cigars are much the same as alcohol. Western cultures were not so big into smoking things directly, although various forms of incense have served the same purpose in the West again since prehistory. Certain things smell good or produce physiological or psychological effects when inhaled, and in the ancient world many types of incense were meant to be inhaled deeply and not just savored for their scent. Myrrh, for instance, was often either inhaled deeply just as we do today with tobaccos, or mixed with wine, to produce an intoxicated sedation in the smoker or drinker. In Native American cultures things were usually smoked more diretly, hence the use of pipes and cigars which we European conquerors adopted as well, along with one of the natives' favorit weeds for smoking, tobacco. Tobacco is today marred by the malefactions of the cigarette industry and its cancerous possibilities, but once again it has contributed immeasurably to both the West and the Native Americans from whom we adopted it. It was used in ceremonies not unlike the "vision quests" associated with the Southwestern Indians and harder drugs like peyote, but more commonly it was a relaxing social occasion and remains so to this day. A good cigar or pipe, to an enthusiast such as myself, is an aid to conversation and relaxation. In a famous quip Mark Twain was confronted by an anti-smoking zealot who said (something like) "Mr. Clemens, whatever shall you do when you go to Heaven and you cannot smoke your dreadful cigars?" To which he replied, "Madam, if I cannot enjoy my cigars in Heaven I shall not go there." If the effects produced by smoking were not enjoyable, people wouldn't do it--this is all the more true about all-tobacco cigars and pipes, since they introduce less nicotine and in a more gradual way than modern cigarettes, which have been refined in such a way as to increas effective nicotene yield and decrease absorbtion times. In any event, the smoking of tobacco (which modern cigarettes really aren't--in fact the additives to tobacco are probably more cancer-inducing than the tobacco is) has been enjoyed in the West for nearly five centuries, and added to our culture in much the same way as alcohol has--could Mark Twain have written the same way were it not for his long chatting and thinking sessions under the subtle influence of his cigars? Could Hemingway have written the same without ever-present cigarettes? Could Churchill have been so level-headed and calm through the world's worst crisis, without the calming influence of the cigars he smoked literally from morning until bedtime, even in the bath?
> No, but somehow as we grow older we forget our naturalness and joy.
All those things are natural, and all were discovered in prehistory and have been enjoyed since then. Smoking and drinking alcohol and enjoying food and especially enjoying sex--since it is *the* ultimate biological imperative--are all natural, enjoyable, beautiful parts of life. What life do we have without them? No enjoyment of sex, enjoyment of food, enjoyment of drink and smoke--not much of a life.
And by the way, children by nature touch themselves in a sexual manner, which is why most children have to be taught and socialized by parents not to touch their own genitals. It's natural, and even 4 or 5 year olds naturally touch their sexual parts because it feels good, until they're socialized not to. Puritanical types hate when that is pointed out, but ask anyone with developmental psychology knowledge about it and they'll tell you it's quite common and normal for young kids to touch themselves sexually until taught and constrained not to. They'd progress much more quickly into exploring sexuality with other children in their peer groups, too, were it not for social constructs against it.
Guess what? Kids also like food. They enjoy food as much as adults do. They may not savor and appreciate the subtleties of taste and texture like adults can, but they surely enjoy it and they naturally gravitate towards foods which are not necessarily "healthy" because of their tastes.
As for drink, in many cultures--the ones not based on Puritanism or strictest Islam, that is--it is customary for children to be allowed small diluted quantities of wine and such. It is as much an enjoyment and mood-enhancer for them as it is for us, and if you ever visited parts of France and Spain you'd see children as young as five being allowed a cup of diluted wine with dinner.
So what's all that bull about "naturalness and joy"? The naturalness and joy in life comes from enjoying these simple pleasures of sex and food and drink, as well as play and other pleasures.
> We become dependent on stuff that in reality makes us sick, depressed and dull.
I'm not dependent on anything. I do however enjoy everything, freely and without either Puritan or postmodern apology. I do not get sick, depressed, or dull because of life's pleasures. You seem to have the incredibly unfortunate misconception that the pleasures dear Nature gave us are opiates, lulling us into a ho-hum existence. Opiates are unfortunate highly addictive, and their users more often than not spiral downwards into an existence totally dependant on the opiate and causing one to lay listless all day until one withers away. Food, sex, drink, and smoke are not the same--almost all users lives are enhanced, not diminished, and a relative very few have an addiction to these things ruin their lives. Instead, for most people they are simple pleasures and enhancements, enriching their lives and, as I pointed out, greatly enriching their art and our culture.
> Ie, how come Sports is so popular among fat, beer-drinking males?
I think they're popular with most people. I'm not one of them, and indeed most of us geeks--fat and beer-drinking as we may be--are not among that number, except for one or two we may play non-competitively for fun and enjoyment. The same sort of fun and enjoyment we get from all the other great stuff: play, sex, food, drink, intellectual stimulation. Enjoying them all is natural, normal, and *truly* healthy, unlike an obsession over looking thin which is largely owed to our fucked-up media portrayal of body image.
> It's incredible the lengths people will go to without realizing it is because of crushed dreams and spoiled play.
That may be true of the blue-collar working class--but that's very fw of Slashdot's readership here. Most of us geeks are white-collar upper-working-class, which is very different and which is largely rsponsible for our perennial weight "problems." When you're blue-collar you usually work with your body and get a fair amount of exercise in the natural course of things. When you're white-collar and work with your mind, especially if you mostly sit in front of a computer screen, you don't get much exerise in the naural course of things. So it's natural for geek types to pudge out a bit.
The people you describe are the poor who drown their sorrows in drink to a great excess, and in opiates and hard drugs and other things, to avoid facing harsh realities. That just isn't most people on
I enjoy my body, and I don't bemoan its girth. I celebrate it. It's normal and natural. As I aid, I love the way my Homer Simpson-like belly jiggles when a girl fucks me from on top. It feels wonderful. It feels natural. I wouldn't trad my body for a thinner one, no indeed, and we need to teach people to be happy with their normal, natural bodies, which are the esult of whatever their levels of natural physical activity and food intake. Why dislike it, instead of accepting the natural course? I love the natural course. I am a natural, normal person, and my ideas ae natural and normal. Yourse seem constrained and unnatural and weird postmodernist claptrap. Nothing personal, but I have a much happier and healthier outlook on life, as well as a very natural and healthy life.
Okay, before anyone mods this down, a little further down I get back to the "body image" notions brought up in the linked journals.
;-) Best $250 an hour full service "physical therapy" you can get...
Former as in still in her early 20s former. 5'9, 110 pounds, a body that puts Kate Moss' at the top of her career a few years ago to shame because it still has all the right curves to it. And, only a profesional call girl could be so skilled in the arts of sex.
You can find any type of girl you want at lots of different price points and service levels at thebigdoggie.net. Just click on the board for the city or state you want, and read up. The message boards can be searched for past reviews of a girl once you get an idea of who you might want. A small membership fee gets access to "members' boards" and a review database, but I've never gotten a membership because once you learn the ropes you can find all you need on the public boards. Obviously, if you're in or near a big city you're in luck, but if you live in the boon docks or the Midwest you may have no one great nearby. There are a ton of escort ads on Eros Guides, but you need to research the girls on TBD first to see who's legitimate because many are scammers.
I do a lot of travelling and the best cities for finding terrific escorts are either of the big cities in California, any big Florida city, DC, and Chicago. New York City's top escorts are usually more expensive, which is why I usually don't visit them. I've also been to the Moonlite BunnyRanch in Nevada, where it's legal, and it was way overpriced. My favorite city to stay in on business is DC, because they have a lot of beautiful young escorts down there at generally lower rates--if you ever visit there, you must visit Samantha or Eve at Tori's Secret. I was in DC a month ago, and saw both of them. Eve is also a former runway model, and all the girls look better than their pics at Tori's because their photographer is an idiot.
I've never understood why prostitution should be illegal if it's conducted safely and discreetly, like escorting is. Streetwalking is a public nuisance--but some low-key ads and some internet websites used to bring consenting adults together isn't harming anyone; it's a public service, making for happier, healthier people. Even Bonobo monkeys engage in the trade of resources for sex. It's natural. Sex independent of interpersonal relationships can be a fungible service just like any other.
I'm a big fat geek who's traded long hours of work and his formerly less ample figure for copious amounts of money, and I use that money to really enjoy my life. I don't mind being fat. It isn't keeping me from doing anything I'd enjoy otherwise, and I'm not either wasting my time (subjective judgement, of course--some enjoy exercise) doing a lot of exercise (more work IMHO), or cutting out my cigars and fattening foods and alcohols, just to lose a few pounds and keep it lost.
Some people have to be thin to feel okay about themselves, but I'm here to say: bollocks. I like my fat white body. I love how it feels to my hands and the hands of others. I love how my fat jiggles when I'm getting a really good fucking with the girl on top. Why should I care if some people don't think I look good? Ideas of beauty have been mutable for most of human history. The Greeks and Romans loved hard bodies, and so do we. But a couple centuries ago in Europe being pale and flabby was considered beautiful because it was a sign of wealth and class, and in prehistory fertility idols were made in the shape of really big fat women. Rubens' women would be considered fat today. Marilyn Monroe was considered the hottest woman alive forty or fifty years ago, but she wore about a size 12, which today would make her a bit on the chunky side.
So, I'm not missing out on anything. I've got all of life's pleasures and enjoy them guilt-free, no petty worries about calories or weight or whatnot. Whenever I'm single I just buy sex the same way one buys any other service, and whenever I find a girl I like who's interested in a lot more than current notions of what most people think "looks good" that's great too. To quote *Pulp Fiction*, "It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye are seldom the same."
Love your fat geeky bodies, guys. They may not look how a lot of people think they should look, but that's just modern jock-driven elitist aesthetics. They feel good, and that's what really matters.
On the other hand, ever notice how almost all of the world's oldest people always say they smoked like chimneys and drank like fish and lived to a ripe old age anyway? ;-) The current oldest living person is that Japanese woman who thanked rice-wine for her longevity. The guy who runs the cigar shop down the street from me is a Cuban expatriate who's 78, looks and acts like a healthy 50, and smoked cigars all day every day from the time he was 11 until his 60s when he gave it up because it was affecting his ability to breathe easily, and so he switched to snuff.
:-o Most of us have or will have great jobs that pay well--what's the use of that, if we aren't going to use it to enjoy all of life's pleasures?
:-)
Yeah, I know, on the average people who "live healthy" will live longer. My philosophy is--ah, so what. Why do I want to be 90 anyway? I'll take 55 really good years of wine, women and song over 80 of running and bottled water. Give me pastries! Give me fine cuisine loaded with heavy creams and cheeses and red meats! Give me hand-rolled cigars! Give me Chateau d'Yquem when I can afford it and a cheap 5-liter box when I can't! And being a bit soft and pale may not look so great to the contemporary eye, but it's pleasing when touched nonetheless. I personally love the feeling when my big Homer Simpson tummy starts jiggling as a hot young lady pounds into me like a jackhammer. And when I can't find a hot young woman who wants to sleep with me, well, that's where http://www.bigdoggie.net comes in.
I've got a full humidor, a few bottles of last fall's Beaujolais Nouveau in the fridge, and I'm still practically glowing from my appointment yesterday with a former runway model the likes of whom most thin athletic people will never get to enjoy in the sack--and she does things most girlfriends and wives won't do! So, if lots of exercise and healthy living turns you on, great, enjoy it. But it certainly isn't the only way to enjoy life to its fullest, thank you. I have exactly the life I want, and I'd take it over 20 extra years of a less indulgent one.
I've seen Firewire HDs in action, and they are SLOW by comparison. My standard ATA-66 or ATA-100 5400RPM IDE drives are speed demons by comparison, let alone my 7200 RPM IDE drive. The fact is that the Firewire interface cannot compete, because of the time it takes to translate from Firewire to IDE since there are in fact no drives that natively speak 1394.
;-) Us real commodity computer users will almost always use cheaper ATA or more proven SCSI, depending on our needs.
In practical terms this can result in *up to* about 500 KB (yes, big B) per second transfer speed difference in several parts of the drive's transfer curve. The most optimistic transfer speed chart I found on a quick search was the one at http://www.digit-life.com/articles/fireware/ which shows a close general match between the 1394 and IDE transfer graphs, but the Firewire graph still shows a lot of erratic activity which in real use would add up to very significant margins when transferring large amounts of data or incurring a lot of random accesses with a lot of small transfers of data. And this is the *most favorable* graph for Firewire I found; a few were less than stellar. And, bear in mind that these lags are very cumulative--transferring from one 1394-to-IDE drive to another might incur unnecessary penalties of up to 1 MBps in places. I routinely deal with multi-gigabyte transfers, and that is unacceptable since it can be avoided by using a native IDE/ATA transfer or, better yet, SCSI--and now, Serial ATA.
In addition, there's alays a danger when you translate from one protocol to another, particularly if it's needless in the first place. Haven't you known people who've b0rked data when transferring it to a Firewire HD? I have. Different enclosures=different chipsets=different drivers=different amounts of maturity, whereas the ATA standards are always--well--standardized and in common usage by the time people start buying their new drives and upgrade cards or new mobos. I've even known a friend who added a new Firewire drive to his B&W G3 Mac and managed to ruin some transferred data, and Macs are bred for Firewire. Problem was, his spiffy new VST (IIRC) external 1394 drive required 3rd-party drivers at the time, and OOPS! who knows what went wrong, but something did.
Could something go wrong with a standard ATA or Serial ATA transfer? Of course. I fell prey to IDE data corruption last year from the dreaded KT-133/SB Live!/BIOS bug. But the probability of data corruption is lessened because it's such a well-accepted standard by the time it gets into the wild, whereas Firewire drive enclosures are still the Wild West in comparison.
And the reason you can forget about native Firewire drives ever becoming mainstream is that manufacturers wouldn't want the expense--nor would consumers. It's cheaper in the long term to just invent Serial ATA than it would be to commoditize either SCSI or Firwire, with their more generalized and extensive and hence more expensive controllers for each drive. Firewire and SCSI devices have to be "smart," with a lot of decisions made in the device itself. ATA, and now Serial ATA, devices can be relatively "dumb", with most of the work being done at the main controller. The cost difference would probably add about $50 retail to the cost of each drive--Mac fanatics have been dealing with that because they overpay for everything, but PC folk wouldn't stand for it. We want big, fast, reliable--*and* inexpensive, and neither Firewire nor SCSI can really do all of that for hard drives.
Time has proven, though, that IDE/ATA/and soon (if all goes well) Serial-ATA can. Why pay %50 more per drive, when the cost of quality Maxtor/Seagate/etc. drives is getting so ridiculously low that that would add 50% to the cost of a low-end drive or 25% to the cost of a high-end drive, for no gain in HD performance? The only performance improvement would be a significant reduction in CPU usage, but that's not an issue on consumer-level and low-end workstation/server machines which are now well into the GHz+ range--and servers and high-end workstations would be running proven SCSI anyway.
Just my opinion, though. Firewire drives have their place--in Macs.
I'd like you to *try* to identify me. You can't. You'd discover that I post with the Chasing Amy nic only to /. and to USENET groups. This is the nic I started using when I came to do research in groups like news://alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen , where I read and still read the text posts (and *only* the text, no binaries). As such, I've never given any *real* information about myself which could reveal my true identity, because a lot of people would be upset at anyone even for just reading text in such a group.
;-) The guys in p-t and similar groups would just...well, agree. :-o
:-)
So, it's ironic that you're getting uptight about me mentioning how attractive Natalie Portman was even at a very young age.
Admitting that underage people can sometimes be attractive, and actually wanting to touch them, are two very different things. By nature we're meant to find Natalie Portman to be quite attractive, even when she was 12--because in primeval times she would have made a wonderful mate, and in primeval times you'd want to snap them up fairly young, so that she'd bond with you by having you as her first sexual partner and so when she becomes fertile you can be pretty sure the baby is really yours. We're by nature meant to find nubile budding young girls like Natalie Portman at the time she did *Leon* to be sexually attractive. Modern social constructs try to overwrite nature and tell us not to be attracted to them--but on some level we still, even if only on rare occasions, are. It's just natural, and looking and touching are two very different things. I'm far healthier than a prude who thinks it's wrong to be attracted to a budding adolescent girl, because I acknowledge nature and choose to ignore it, rather than refuse to acknowledge it and repress it under social programming.
So, exactly why should I choose to keep a comment about Natalie's inherent cuteness and fuckability off a public board? We'd all be much more sexually healthy if we dropped the Puritan "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" crap. And it isn't even evil--it's just natural programming tha's no longer socially viable.
If we were in any other age but this one, you too would acknowledge the fuckability of the adolescent Natalie Portman.
> As for Natalie, I'm still wondering what happened to her after The Professional.
;-)
;-)
Yeah, she was quite fuckable in *The Professional*, wasn't she? Especially in the *Leon* extended cut. Mmmm, jailbait. Tastes like chicken...
But seriously, I didn't think her acting was that bad in TPM--it's just that the script called for a wooned "regal" performance. I can just imagine Lucas directing her into mediocrity: "No, Natalie, say it with less feeling this time. You're a Queen who doesn't know the common people yet, which is why you pretend to be one of them to learn. But right now you're aloof, so act like you're Queen Victoria trying to hold it in after being given a laxative."
In contrast most of her other recent performances have been great, like in *Where the Heart Is*. Oh, and in those topless pictures the paparazzi got of her at the beach. Her performance in those was good, too.
Isn't it obvious that the reason he wants to keep his relay open is so that his cypherpunk friends can send less-traceable e-mails? A noble goal, even though it has unfortunate side-effects regarding spam and this new virus.
/., surely the hypocrites here can retract their heads from their asses long enough to see the adantages of a static open relay for helping to safeguard the privacy of e-mails. Does it have unwanted side effects? Yeah. Freedom always does.
In this day and age of government snooping, Carnivore, shutting down anti-globalization websites, justifying mass surveillance of all citizens under the rubric of anti-terrorism, and the other atrocities reported every damn day on
Look, let's be frank here: spammers will always find open relays in Asia. Always. China's recent baby steps forward notwithstanding, you know that this is true. This is part of the spammer's job. If spammers couldn't find open relays, they'd just purchase ISP accounts, start flooding out of their own servers, and move on when they get cut off. They sometimes do it now, even though open relays aren't hard to find.
Toad, on the other hand, is just a way for the privacy conscious to have a little conrol over how their e-mail gets routed without having to work like a spammer to keep up-to-date lists of Asian relays. It's just an added layer of obfuscation. Shutting it down won't curb spam or viruses, it'll just take away a privacy tool.
Most likely the graphics board is going to be aimed at the arcade hardware and home entertainment industry market, not the home user. The article is short on information, but don't you think if a card geared toward consumers were being demoed on Feb. 22, that we'd have heard press about it now?
This card most likely has nothing to do with the home segment at all. It will be marketed toard third-party arcade and home entertainment vendors, as well as used for Sega's and Namco's arcade hardware needs. Believe it or not, a lot of the bigger arcade games these days are powered by basically PC's with powerful graphics boards, like the ones of Quantum3D. Heck, 3Dfx got its start with arcade graphics chips, and the Voodoo 2 powered more than just PC's--arcade games as well.
So, I'd bet that this is not the least bit geared towards the end user.
I mean, it's kind of like those little guys on that Escher endless stairway suddenly deciding to put down their loads and build a stairay that goes someplace, before they continue. Quite unexpected...
> he is trying to fight the total user experience war - something MS can't
.Net and Hailstorm and MSN that MS is thinking in the larger sense of thinner clients and fatter servers--in essence, the perfect paradigm if you want to manufacture a PC with a very, very long shelf-life, since the server will do most of the actual computing and storage for the client.
.Net and Hailstorm into a simple box that will ensure Microsoft's dominance for a few more decades. It's a lot harder to replace an infrastructure of all-in-one, whole widgets, than it is to replace an OS. Microsoft is afraid that other OSes, like Linux, might advance to the point where x86 vendors start using them instead of Win32. That is no longer an isue if Microsoft becomes a dominant hardware vendor.
.Net infrastructure.
> do unless it wants to start making boxes.
This is the problem for Apple--once MS starts making "the whole widget" and doing it right, there's no longer any reason to buy an Apple unless you're a crusty graphics designer who uses one out of loyalty to his experiences with Apple. Everyone else, including computer-stupid Grandma, will just buy the MS widget. After all, it'll be just as easy and integrated as an iMac, have guaranteed interoperability, and come with a seemingly great deal on integrated MSN internet access and network support. The iMac will only win, on paper, in the looks department, and only narrowly.
See, Microsoft has been planning this for years, albeit with some retarded stops and starts. Why else would they buy WebTV? They thought they could turn it into the Digital Hub which Apple is just recently beginning to talk about. Gates may not be a nice guy, but he's a brilliant businessman. He was hip to this digital hb business when he bought WebTV, it's just that he soon realized that was entirely the wrong platform. This is pretty obvious from the fact that WebTV support was coded into Windows 98, but nothing was ever rally done with it.
So, instead of building up WebTV into a PC, Gates has started with the PC and is stripping it down to its essentials. Xbox is a trial run for this. Microsoft has essentially just mass-produced its own PC, only the software is stripped down to just play games. Yet it's clear from
Xbox is a trial run and proof of concept that MS can be a hardware company. Their next hardware release will be a beefed-up Xbox with a keyboard and mouse and an optional LCD, unless they get inspired by the new iMac and integrate the LCD into the package. It'll play Xbox games on insertion, but the default desktop will have pretty and simple with an MSN Internet icon, a My Documents folder, and icons for word processing and whatever functions neatly provided by the MSN/.Net subscription. All popular Windows-compatible pieces of hardware, like MP3 players and camcorders and such, will have integrated support through simplified software inspired by Apple's designs.
This is clearly the next step for Microsoft, which has been afraid of its software losing marketshare and has wanted to enter the real hardware business for years, at least ever since the abortive WebTV purchase. Microsoft is in a unique position to integrate its software and its
The hints have been there for a long time. Xbox is a trial run. The real hardware, Microsoft's x86 PC with proprietary bits, will be here as soon as Microsoft is happy with its
> Well, maybe not a pirate, but it's illegal anyways
Nope, software license agreements still have yet to hold up in any Court case in the U.S., despite a few kinks so far and UCITA. I seriously doubt the Court is going to completely invalidate the doctrines of First Sale and Fair Use so thoroughly. Personally, I live in a state with a good track record of reasonable decisions in favor of consumers' rights, where no Court is going to say a person can't use something he's bought and paid for.
Not to mention thousands of people are breaking Apple's licensing agreements already by using OS 8.x on 68k emulators. Apple may not like Fair Use, but it's still there. And there are no "trade secrets" involved, which was the deciding factor in the DVD DeCSS case.
Apple can tell you a lot of things are illegal, but it doesn't make it so. A classic example is their hounding of rumor sites for posting images of upcoming Mac products--it's a clear-cut First Amendment right to post them, what with that pesky freedom of the press clause and all. Unlike the flimsy thread the DVD-CCA hung the DeCSS case on--that it was a trade secret--Apple couldn't claim the same thing since they're images of products which they don't intend to keep a secret. Apple just bullies the small sites into taking them down, since a rumor site can't stand up for its rights. You can't typically fully assert your rights without money in our unfortunate system.
Point being, the license agreement means nothing in this instance. You can't give up your legal rights by clicking on a dialogue box. It's much like those signs at pools that say "Swim at Own Risk"--you can still sue the pool's owner if something happens to you and his pool was at fault.
Of course, I'm just a thinker, not a lawyer or hacker. Cum grano salis, et alia...
> Don't even try to go there. Ensured obsolescence has always worked much better for Microsoft, and by extension, Intel, than for Apple.
I think that's totally mistaken. Apple sells, as Steve likes to point out time and again, "the whole widget." Therefore, Apple has direct profit to be made by obsoleting their own hardware as quickly as possible. Even in Mac-rabid forums like MacSlash there are plenty of Mac users willing to acknowledge that Apple's OS doesn't ever seem to support hardware older than 2-3 years very well compared to what it could.
For example, at Macslash I recently read a complaint that OS X only half-heartedly and barely supports a top-of-the-line beige G3 that was quite expensive and touted at the time by Apple itself as being the Mac of the future with a long lifetime ahead of it, and yes Apple promised buyers that it would be supported by the next-gen operating environment. So, this particular user pointed out that despite its ATI card Apple refused to provide an accelerated graphics driver support for it, so that OS X redraws like crap. Apple provided very broken ADB support so that he couldn't use any of the stuff that came from Apple with the beige G3 when he bought it, so Apple told him to get a Firewire card and new peripherals. He replaced a drive with another Apple drive and it refused to work, so Apple told him to just get an IDE card since they never put real full SCSI support into OS X.
You see, Apple made a promise to people who bought top-of-the-line beige G3's for a very hefty sum that they would be supported by the new OS, and that their G3's would have long useful lifespans. Even their ad copy said so. That was a half-truth, at best. Just a few months later those beige G3's were obsoleted by the newer, cheaper, faster, fruity ones we all know and love, and are now known as "Old World" (i.e., unsupported) hardware.
Apple's behavior in this example shows a fundamental lack of respect for its buyers. Those Old World G3's had built-in obsolescence and yet continued to be touted as prime new machines right up until the New World rollout. Why? Because Apple is going to make a lot of profit every time a user upgrades his Mac, so there's every reason to make that be as soon as possible.
Other specific examples abound. How about the very expensive 68k lines Apple continued to sell and push the Hell out of right as they were ready to roll out PPC and obsolete the fuck out of them? How about all the machines--some of them just a couple years old--that went completely unsupported after System 7.5.5, which is why Apple just went ahead and put that OS release up on its Website for users of those systems to download, since they'd never be supported again? How about the TAM [Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh], whose special wow features that got people to pay ungodly sums of money for this beautiful limited edition hardware soon were completely unsupported in any new versions of the OS (after 8.5 or 8.6, can't recall exactly) despite the fact that coding support for its little buttons and doo-dads would have taken a single programmer all of a day?
How about the Wallstreet (I think that's the right one, going from memory) PowerBook G3, an arm and a leg in its day and now can't even run OS X despite the fact that even cheap older iBooks--which cost a lot less--can? Going back into the mysts of time, remember the overpriced, and soon outpowered IIfx, with its notorious lack of compatibility with sooooo much hardware?
Apple just doesn't care about supporting a product at all any longer than it has to, since the user will come back and buy new hardware. This is in stark contrast to Microsoft which, for all its numerous faults, tries to support every piece of hardware it can right in the OS. Pick any random PC, and if it's got enough RAM in it and the processor is fast enough (the requirement is very low for 98SE and Me, but a bit more for WinXP since it's so different) the odds are either WinMe or WinXP will boot on it without any problems, and that furthermore almost all of the hardware will be supported "out-of-the-box" despite the fact that there are hundreds of different makers--and if it isn't supported instantly, it's going to be something nonessential, and a driver file download will make it work. Microsoft even wanted to write its own new drivers for the Voodoo cards for WindowsXP after 3dfx went under, since there were so many Voodoo users out there, but nVidia (picker of the 3dfx corpse) wouldn't let them use the source code for the existing drivers, plus a few bits were licensed from others. But the point is, as evil as Microsoft is in some ways, they were actually prepared to write drivers for an obsoleted and bankrupt hardware company's products so that they'd work well enough under their new OS, since so many users were out there.
Apple has never done anything remotely similar. Whereas Microsoft deliberately tries to include support for every piece of hardware they can, even if it's old and obsolete or weird or rare, even though they don't make the hardware and have no control over its hundreds of makers, Apple does exactly the opposite. Apple has total control over all the core hardware and a lot of the other hardware, and yet they don't make any effort to support older hardware a moment longer than they think they need to. For Apple, it's just about trying to make things just obsolete enough to induce a full system upgrade in a neat 2-3 year timeframe. That's because Apple gets money directly from the hardware and Microsoft doesn't. Apple always wants you to buy new hardware; Microsoft wants you to buy new software. So it's in MS's best interests to support as much hardware as possible. It's in Apple's financial interests to support as little hardware as possible.
This is why I was able to install Win98SE recently on an ancient Packard-Bell piece of junk from 1990-1993 or so, and it detected all the hardware correctly and loaded all the right drivers--even for the cheesy video and audio chips I'd never even heard of. I could have easily installed WinME on it instead using the switch to remove the minimum requirements during install, but WinME's "extra features" (which I dislike, but which are well-geared toward stupid home users) would have slowed the old beast down. I can even install WinXP on some very old hardware if I wanted to--it would run slow, but it would run. The point is, the hardware support is there, inbuilt, despite astounding variety of core components and makers in the x86 world. But with only one maker of core components in the Mac world, the hardware support is not there.
Built-in obsolescence, indeed. MS is guilty of bloat and mediocre to poor coding--but not of deliberate and calculated failure to support hardware just to get people to buy more. that's Apple's MO.
> You don't follow the Amiga scene do you?
:-) So, as an Amiga user yourself, I must ask why anyone would still be using one today? I'm sure there's a valid reason. Enlighten, please.
;-) But I have a feeling Drew isn't utterly insane, so he's probably got his product ready.
;-)
No, I run Amiga games on an emulator, but that's about as close as I'll ever come to to touching an Amiga.
I can't say how talented he is when it comes to programming for the Amiga, but I can say that he's proven himself when it comes to programming emulators for the x86 PC. His Fusion emulator was way ahead of anything else out at the time. It's outdated now, even though it still has better support for more of the MacOS's features than Derek Mihocka's overpriced and underfeatured SoftMac (which still, AFAIK, doesn't do more than 256 color mode). Now the GPL'd Basilisk II is by far the best 68k Mac emulator, but years ago Fusion was the only full-featured 68k Mac emulator out there.
Now, however, Jim Drew is going around telling a lot of people in public emulation forums that his product will be ready for Macworld Tokyo in 2 months. He said he might even preview it sooner. So either he's really close to releasing this product, or he's gone utterly insane.
Of course, again, which one remains to be seen.
Macworld Tokyo will tell the tale. I'm sure we all can't wait.
I ought to just point out that I may be mistaken on some of the details, since this is still an unreleased product and no one I know has seen it yet. For example, the card might be processor-only with no onboard RAM, in which case it likely wouldn't be able to be quite as fast as a real iMac due to the latency. No one outside the project and its beta testers knows specifics yet. The Mac emulation community has just been informed about it and teased about its features, but the man behind the product is respected and so something like this is definitely going to be released at Macworld Tokyo, though we can't be sure about its specifics.
I just wanted to point it out because some of the details may be off the mark, although several things like the pricing information and the fact that it should be able to run whatever an iMac can run came directly from the developer's own postings to forums.
But it's clear that with a real G3 processor on a PCI card to act as the CPU of the iMac emulator, and a GHz+ Athlon or P!!!/4 processor to emulate other functions, and with the gobs of DDR SDRAM memory available cheap these days, an x86 box should definitely be able to handle anything a G3 iMac can if the emulation portion of a package is well coded.
I for one look forward to seeing it, and if it runs OS X and at least moderately well, buying it.
> Ok, first off. Darwin !=OS X
;-)
Dude, I'm not a moron. It's a lower layer of a multi-layered system, between the Mach microkernel and the upper layers of the OS and its APIs and its Quartz engine.
This is why I said "let's say Apple decides to add things into the upper layers in the near future that only work on G4's..."--because I recognize that they could, though I find it unlikely.
> Secondly, its sounds like hella vapor.
I explained in my first post the several reasons why it *most likely* isn't. First, the man behind it is a respected programmer who wrote the first complete and functional 68k Mac emulator for the PC, Fusion. Second, the company already released its software to run Mac OS on Amigas with PPC cards over a year ago, and licensed it to Blittersoft, and has been working on this ever since with the Amiga code as starting point. Third, the man behind it is going around to all the Mac emulation and convergence forums dropping droll hints about the product and drumming up expectations in the community for a Macworld Tokyo release. So either a respected individual has morphed into the Bitboys or he's going to release a big product he's excited about at Macworld Tokyo.
> (also what the hell does iMac-based emulation mean?)
It means that his emulator will be based around emulating an iMac.
> The problem with iMacs (at least the older CRT ones) is that the Boot ROM is on the Processor card.
Yes, which makes little difference since the boot ROM no longer actually does much. Unlike in the old 68k days, it's pretty much "Hi OS, I am a boot ROM. Bye." And that's that. And OS X doesn't even need a boot ROM--remember, Darwin.
> Therefore to act like an iMac, they're going to have to have some form of the Boot ROM on this card.
Not at all. They could devise their own original code that tells the OS it's a boot ROM, when it isn't. At least one existing Mac emulator already does this, mimicking the ROM's functions while not actually using any of Apple's proprietary code. But as I said, thanks to Darwin a boot ROM wouldn't be necessary to run OS X.
Also, there are some commercial 68k Mac emulators that have been sold for a long while which come with simple utilities for dumping a ROM image from a real live Mac. The pretense is that if you have an old Mac you no longer use, you have the right to use an image of the ROM for other purposes. Fair Use. Of course, few people actually use those included ROM extraction utilities on Macs they don't intend to use--instead they just download ROM images off USENET or the Web. But the company making the software can't be held responsible, because they provided a perfectly legal way for you to use your own Mac ROM.
Since this product doesn't target Mac users--it targets a certain enthusiast segment of the PC crowd--anyone likely to buy it already knows where to download an iMac ROM. They're out there as we speak, and have been ever since a few months after iMacs were released.
In addition, Apple has released updates on its website that actually have Open Firmware updates embedded in them.
> I find it hard to believe that Apple would let this company just put anything like that near a Wintel PC
Again, they have zero legal recourse as long as the company either bypasses the ROM by using their own original code, or includes an original utility for dumping your own legal copy of your own legal ROM from your own iMac. The company that makes a product can't be held responsible if some users pirate iMac ROMs, since they will have provided a legitimate means for users to obtain legal ROMs from their own hardware. As I said, existing products have successfully taken both approaches, althout I must say that no existing product is as good as the GPL'd Basilisk II.
And either way, OS X could be made to boot on it without a ROM at all thanks to the Darwin layer.
But since I know the product will support the older MacOS's, and can't be sure yet whether it'll support OS X right off the bat, I rather suspect the programmer has just bypassed the necessity for the ROM through creative coding, since at leat one emulator already does so.
> (not to mention the fact that they're a product 2 months from a pretty major hardware release and nobody's seen it in action yet).
That's usually how giddy master programmers are about their major products they've spent years developing. Mr. Drew probably isnt giving deatails because he's having fun building up expectation. He probably wants to play Steve Jobs for a Day and surprise everyone with his new baby. At least, this is what I would gather from what I've been reading him say in the emulation forums. He's always coy and cryptic in a playful sort of way, rather than the "oh no my product sucks" sort of way.
We'll know at Macworld Tokyo whether his product lives up to the expectations he's helped fuel. If it runs OS X at any decent speed--not even full speed of a real iMac--those who'd think about buying such a card/emulator combo would be impressed enough. If it runs OS X at about the full speed of an iMac, we'll be very, very impressed and happy with it. If it only runs OS 9, we'll be disappointed but hopeful that OS X can still be made to work with it with a little Darwin-hacking.
We'll know soon enough
Not at all. That's the beauty of having Darwin as open-source--people have already gotten OS X to run on unsupported hardware, including G3 and G4 upgrade cards, by adding support. That's why I can't see what could stand in the way of OS X working on one of these PCI card/emulator solutions.
But let's say Apple decides to add things into the upper layers in the near future that only work on G4's--entirely unlikely for several reasons, but for the sake of the argument let's assume so--the latest version of Mac OS X already has a much better performance and is better optimized than the first releases, and it's entirely unlikely that software makers will make any apps that will only run on a new G4-only version of the OS and not on the current version. That seems extraordinarily unlikely.
Plus, even though Apple is the worst company in history when it comes to screwing over their recent buyers (only slightly exaggerating) by obsoleting their hardware with no support, they're not about to screw over every single person who bought a G3 iMac just recently, and who will continue to buy them new until stocks run dry--at least not til 2 years or so after they bought their Macs.
So, *if* the card lives up to what has been implied, a buyer can expect to be able to run any version of MacOS released for at least another year and half or two. And even if Apple *does* really screw over all its iMac and G3 tower customers, which is unlikely since they're selling G3 iMacs this minute at Apple stores, who cares? Running the latest version of OS X should be enough for anyone for a while.
And there's nothing preventing a G4 card, either. G4 upgrade cards are already rampant in the Mac community.
Again, no one has seen this product in action yet, so I can't say anything for certain about it. But as for what's been recently implied by its tight-lipped author, Jim Drew was recently asked in an emulation forum what software and OSes it would support, and his coy reply was [paraphrasing] "It's an iMac-based emulation. What can an iMac run?"
There's a lot of promise if this product is pulled off right. It'll be the closest thing to a unified, all-in-one solution for PC and Mac in one box since many years ago when Apple had their DOS/Windows card option of a 66MHz 486 card with 16MB RAM back when a 486-66 with 16MB was actually a decent PC. VirtualPC on a Mac doesn't really cut it for convergence because the one strong point of Windows (since Office and such run on Mac) is its huge gaming compatibilty, but you need real hardware with graphics acceleration to play most decent newer games. But if you can have a good x86 rig with Windows for gaming, Linux for real work, and Mac OS X for work, interoperability, and eyecandy, all in one box--that is, as Cartman would say, hellasweet. And all without buying overpriced Mac hardware which Steve will obsolete all too soon. $349.99 for this PPC card package, that I can use with all my standard x86 hardware? $800 for a G3 iMac? I know which one I'd put my money on, since (I presume) they'd both be obsoleted about the same time.
Why? Because if all goes well At MacWorld Tokyo the product I've been waiting for for a year is supposed to be demoed and released. It's Microcode Solutions' hardware-assisted PowerPC emulation for x86 PCs. http://www.microcode-solutions.com/home.htm
;-)
Some people are very happy with the new iMac announcement. Some are waiting for the G4 Tower speed bump that should be announced at the next expo. But all of us MacOS lovers who defected to the Dark Side over the years for one reason or another might be made happy by the little PCI card and software package that should be released soon.
Currently we x86 users are limited to running OS 8.x on 68k Mac emulators, the best of which is the GPL'ed Basilisk II. This works great for playing older Mac games (there are a lot of great ones never ported to Windows or Linux) and using any 68k-compatible Mac apps for a great level of interoperability, or just the cool factor of running so many OSes off one machine. It runs blazing fast with 68k code--but the obvious problem is that anything remotely recent is PPC-only, and OS 9 and OS X are far out of reach.
But the PPC emulator to be introduced at Macworld Tokyo will change all that. To MacOS, it will be indistinguishable from a real iMac. A cheap software-only version will be made available, but it won't run all the newest stuff; the jewel in the crown will be the hardware-assisted version, which will have a real, fast G3 processor and RAM on a PCI card. It should run anything an iMac will run and at native speeds or better (depending on processor).
Any OS 9.x operating system will run full-speed on it and it's very likely that OS X will be made to run on it too, although by all reports OS X on an older model iMac is no speed demon.
Since the Mac's VirtualPC has run all the latest Windows OSes for some time, it's only fair that PC users should finally be able to run the latest Mac OSes, OS X in particular. And with this G3 and RAM card, running the MacOS on an equipped x86 box will be a lot smoother than the Mac's current all-software VPC emulation of x86.
Before dismissing it as vaporous, the Microcode Solutions website may be Spartan, but the man behind it coded the first fully functional 68k Mac emulator for x86, Fusion, and has already released a rudimentary PPC Mac emulator for old Amigas equipped with PPC cards, through Blittersoft.
To some this won't mean much. But personally, I've always loved the MacOS, ever since I used System 7 many a year ago. But I didn't want to be locked into expensive proprietary hardware, or not be able to run Windows games. But if all goes well at Macworld Tokyo, a properly equipped PC may now be able to run Linux, Windows, and even OS X if the G3/RAM card and emulator are purchased. If there's demand, maybe the emulator software part of the package could be ported to x86 Linux.
It will be interesting indeed to see if Microcode Solutions comes through at Macworld Tokyo, and it'll be even more interesting to gauge the reaction of Macworld attendees if they see OS X running well on a PC. And that is very likely, since Jim Drew has been talking about his new product and answering questions about it on all the Mac-related emulation sites and forums, and even gave out pricing information--$349.95 for the fully-functional package with the PPC card, or $49.95 for the cheapo software-only emulator that will be far more limited in its abilities. $349.95 (plus OS purchase price, because you're not a pirate) to run OS X at native iMac speeds on a commodity "Wintel" box, with all its advantages, sounds pretty damn good.
And before any zealots start modding this down, it's valid news about an upcoming Mac expo, which definitely seems to be related to this thread. I may have defected to the Dark Side, but I still want all that creamy Mac goodnes. Having your cake and eating it too might be possible in a month and a half.
I know looks are subjective, but there are some basic principles of aesthetics. Most people will agree that something gorgeous is at least attractive, or that something heinous is at least unattractive. And this flat-paneled thingie is pretty heinous.
I say this as someone who has liked Apple's aesthetics a lot. Visuals do mean something to me, which is why I chose my PC case based on both functionality and aesthetics. The original iMac had a great aesthetic--it was different and new, and yet it could blend in pretty seamlessly in almost any environment. It wouldn't look out of place in your living room or home office whether the decor were ultra-modern or quite old-fashioned. It looked at home in offices and schools and computer labs. And it looked good doing it.
But this flat-paneled monstrosity looks like a refugee from the movie *2001: A Space Odyssey*. In other words, it looks like a 1960's conception of a futuristic 21st century design. Looking at that film now, it's a wonderful film, but all the design elements look so conspicuous as to be almost laughable. And so does this new flat-panel presumed iMac. Whereas the old iMac dsign took a few moments to get used to but then blended right in naturally as if the design were obvious, this thing will always look conspicuously out of place unless your decor is 60's ultra-modern. I can't picture this is an old-fashioned office at all. And aesthetically, it just isn't attractive. It's an LCD on a stalk with a clunky base. It looks rather like a ladies' cosmetic mirror, actually--from the 60s.
And the flaws are functional, too. An awful lot of iMacs go into the educational sector--but not these. Why? Because, with the small LCD and smallish base and the mobility of the swiveling stalk, one of these could easily be slipped into a backpack or duffel bag. Public schools won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Libraries won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. College labs won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Basically, anything fairly public would be a bad place to put these things. It's a laptop on a stick. It's just begging to get stolen. And it kinda ruins the whole aesthetic--not that it was a good one in the first place--when such public places as do buy them start putting big ugly bicycle chains around the stalks.
What does this ugly, gangly design have that others don't? It offers greater mobility for swiveling your LCD screen since it's attached to that weird stalk instead of to the base just as most (far better looking) rumor site concept art had it. Now, even though half a dozen Mac zealots and one or two PC guys who are a lot closer to their computers than any average home users are, are going to dispute this, the fact is that most people sit their monitors (or iMacs) where they want them, adjust once, and leave everything be. Even in multi-user environments, tilting the monitor a little takes half a second and is even easy for a young kid--I just nudged my gigantic 20 inch CRT monitor around with ease, and it's a lot more heavy and bulky and crowded on all sides than most monitors will ever be. There's just not a need for the average user to have a swiveling stalk, which will only contribute to people thinking it looks really stupid. I think this is a case of Apple having graphic designers in mind more than home users and average guys and educational institutions--which is a mistake since graphics professionals are more likely to shell out for the extra horsepower of a more expensive Mac, not an iMac. The design here is just very, very poorly targeted to its demographic. Average home users--the bread and butter of the iMac market segment--are going to think this thing looks ugly.
What they should have done instead of this gangly monstrosity is to use the Cube design, but for the new LCD iMac. It was a gorgeous, award-winning design. Many, many people said they would have bought it if they could afford it. Instead of plopping an LCD atop a stick attached to an oversized AirPort unit (which is what this new design looks like), Apple should have redesigned the Cube, packaged it with an LCD monitor, and that should have been the new flat panel iMac. It's not quite as integrated as connecting the central unit to the LCD with a stick, but methinks even the most lame of home users know how to stick a wire from the LCD into the Cube. If they were too dumb to even do that, then how could they even plug in their modem wire from an old iMac to the wall plate?
Yes, the Cube design should have been harvested for Apple's new LCD iMac. Everyone loved it. The design was practically universally praised, (except the mould lines) and the only reason it didn't succeed was that it was priced way above the iMacs but very close to the full, powerful G4 towers. Opinion is clearly mixed at best on this new thingie, however. a Cube with LCD design for the new iMac would still be compact and relatively light and hence suffer from the same "stealability" factor which I mentioned may deter public schools and such from upgrading to the new iStalks, but at least it wouldn't look ugly and stick out in almost any decor, it would look gorgeous and complement any environment. Either way, if public schools and libraries upgrade to a newer lighter iMac, they'll have to chain them down with a vengeance whereas the old iMac was better suited thanks to its CRT bulk and heft. Flat panels in general are a poor choice for such environments thanks to stealability and the relative ease of damaging an LCD's more delicate screen.
At any rate, I think I've made it obvious that while I liked the old iMac design and the G4 Cube design and even the Apple tower designs, I hate this new "iStalk" design. It truly looks like a piece of set dressing from *2001: A Space Odyssey*, and hence just too bizarre to fit in here in the real world. The primary advantage of having the LCD on the swiveling stalk, ease of moving the screen, is also an advantage few of the iMac's target demographic will really use--oh, and it also makes the LCD prone to get repositioned too frequently for comfort, if you're the type of person who likes to get his monitor or TV just-so.
And finally--it wouldn't take a clumsy person to knock one of these off a desk and break it; it would only take a quick accidental arm movement. I'm sure the base is extra-sturdy with just this in mind, but you just know several people will knock these things down by accidentally hitting the LCDs.
My final, final word: Yep, Apple should have just put the Cube together with an LCD monitor and branded it the new imac, instead of creating this ugly beast. the Cube had aesthetic splendor, while this is aesthetic squalor...
Please disregard my pleadings about finding a better copy of Cat Power's hauntingly beautiful song "Darling Said Sir". My latest Google search (and I've been looking on Google of and on every few months for a while) finally turned up the fact that the Headlights single was rereleased on 7 inch on 7/27/01.
! !!!!!!
k u_tag=DBCM957
Forgive my off-topic barbaric yawp, but YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
I just ordered one. YOU SHOULD TO! Do it. You know you want to. http://www.allegro-music.com/online_catalog.asp?s
Of course, now I need to actually buy a turntable. If you're willing to risk a weenie or two modding you as off-topic, any turntable recommendations in the $300 or less range?
> Any copy of Darling Said Sir is going to be scratchy... It was only released on vinyl.
I know, but unfortunately the only copy I could find was pretty much mostly scratches. It sounded like the record was pretty scratched up before the person who encoded it encoded it.
It made me sad to hear such an incredible, emotional song in such a poor copy. I've been trying to find a used copy of that record, *Headlights*, but to no avail. If I were to find one, the first thing I'd do is buy a brand new high quality turntable, and the second thing I'd do would be to encode the whole album song by song into lossless format for future use, and -r3mix LAME MP3 for distribution over the Net since it's out of print anyway. Then I'd upload it anywhere and everywhere where it could fit in. As you can see, I was pretty impressed with Cat Power in general, and "Darling Said Sir" in particular. It's just so damn emotional--the strange upbeat but sad instrumentals, and the sweet plaintive voice...
I'm still hoping it will find its way onto a new CD sometime in the future, but unfortunately with the industry the way it is, that's unlikeley. There's no motivation or profit in it, which is sad because there are so many indie bands like Cat Power that deserve to be listened to a lot more than the corporate machine cloned bands that succeed today.
Come to think of it, when I had Napster at my beck and call I downloaded a lot of music (for a 56k guy, that is--if only I had my cable uplink back then!). But I also bothered to go out and buy CDs, something I seldom did before and haven't done since.
When I had Napster, I logged into its chatrooms, talked with people, and got pointers on what to listen to. Then I downloaded a few songs, listened--and if I liked I often went out and bought a CD. That's how I got intorduced to music like Cat Power and P.J. Harvey. But even when I could find > 160kbps MP3s of their songs, I still often wanted the better sound and the liner notes and images of the CDs.
A trip to Best Buy to pick up some blank CDs or a new PCI card or game often led to a new CD purchase, too. But not any more. I don't get introduced to new music I really like, since MTV is 99% kiddie-pop or shitty rapcrap, VH1 is 90% stuff I heard 10 years ago, and nowhere else is there in my area to get into music and explore.
I think that's what the RIAA bitches don't understand. The piracy angle is insignificant if the side-channels it creates get millions of people to be more enthusiastic about music and let them find the kind of music they really want. You see, it turns a largely indifferent market--and let's face it, unless you're a child or young adult into the MTV sort of demographic, the odds are you're pretty indifferent about music and only buy it on occasion--into the same sort of excited MTV-kiddiez who rush out to buy the latest NSYNC crapola, only about a far broader range of music. For every Britney Spears lover who downloads her whole new album at 128kbps instead of buying the CD, there are several people who sample a few dozen tracks and then get inspired to buy a CD or two when they never would have bought one before.
That's exactly the sort of person I met in the Napster chatrooms quite often. I mean, if they were still in print I'd buy every Cat Power album ever recorded, all thanks to someone at the Napster forums, and I know there are lots of others who'd say the same about an artist they never would have known but for online "piracy."
Incidentally, if anyone can point me to a copy of Cat Power's "Darling Said Sir" from one of her old out of print singles, I NEED THAT SONG. I can't find it, not even in online record stores, and only have a very bad and scratchy MP3 of it at 128kbps. I had to mention it beause I've been searching for sooooo long.
Anyway, I think the nail has been hit right on the head. All those increased record sales pre-Napster shutdown were due to ordinary people becoming excited music lovers and buying music they never would have known about before. The decline in music sales ever since has been due to the fact that no real replacement for Napster's community exists yet--no place with an easy interface that anyone and everyone can log into, with integrated chat functions and real ease of finding almost anything at almost any bitrate. I've tried stuff like Limewire, WinMX, Kazaa/Morpheus--each has fatal flaws. Some lack Napster's nice integrated chat communities. Some only find crappy 128k music and won't let you limit your seaches to better quality stuff. Some is too hard for an average guy to use. Some are just too obscure with too few users. Some never provide stable connections when you try to make a transfer.
In short, nothing is what Napster was. If the recording industry were to be beaten within an inch of its life with a clue-stick, it would realize that what it needs to do is just remake Napster exactly like it was, with open MP3 and OGG file formats freely allowed, with a reasonable subscription fee to be doled out to artists and labels according to number of downloads for each song. If it were a reasonable flat monthly fee and the file formats were open and unencumbered, most old Napster users and a bunch more would jump on it--as I said, the other file trading networks just aren't as good, with all the features and ease and connectivity Napster had. And most people would continue to buy CDs, and just as before a lot of non-CD-buyers would become CD buyers thanks to the music they're introduced to. Let's face it: a real album still usually offers something an MP3 doesn't. Tangibility. Pictures. Notes and information about the band and the album production. Show-off-ability--easier to point a friend to an album on the shelf and tell him how great it is, than to point him to your hard drives.
Not that I like the RIAA, but they could have easily consolidated their power over the industry into the next millennium by embracing Napster and working with it toward a fee-based licensing regime. Instead, by fighting the new media, and trying to impose control under their own unnatural terms, they're pissing away their power and influence. Stupid, stupid RIAA.
Currently, I don't have a floppy drive at all in my PC. I was thinking exactly like you are when I built it without a floppy. But, I need to go get one anyway.
:-)
;-)
I didn't think I'd need a floppy because today's standard is CD. If I need to send someone files on physical media, I've got a CD-RW for that. If I get new software or new hardware with driver media, it'll be on CD. Great.
But just a few years ago things were still being put on floppies. And that's my problem. See, I went to install the latest drivers for a used P II system I bought for a family member, and they were only available as disk images. Okay, there are tools which can decompress them, like WinImage. That's fine for getting the drivers out of the image. Annoying that it just isn't zipped like normal people would do, but workable.
However, software disk images are another matter if they're in some weird self-floppy-writing format, which does sometimes happen. I have a lot of older software, mostly games, ("abandonware" sites mostly--call it piracy if you want, but I think we should preserve our gaming heritage, and if something is no longer retailed at all, I find no harm in archiving and occasionally playing it) on disk images in a dozen different formats. It's a big pain in the ass to deal with when you have to get around writing them to floppy, whereas you could write them on a floppy in no time if you actually had a floppy drive.
That problem is increased since I'm using VMWare and a trial copy of VirtualPC for Windows. I wanted to run a free (legally, too) copy of DR-DOS I got, but it's in a disk image format, and as far as I can tell--I'm not *completely* familiar with the programs, so maybe one or both have this function and I haven't found it--both VMWare and VirtualPC need to install an OS from media (unless you buy one of their retail "packs") and you can't just copy the DOS files from your HD into the virtual PC's HD.
So, it would be much easier if I just broke down and bought a floppy drive. Which I did, actually, but being a geek I thought it would be cool to get one of those old combo 3 1/2 inch and 5 1/14 inch drives that a couple of companies used to make, if I had to hook up a floppy. I bought one on eBay since they don't make 'em any more--but it arrived DOA, dammit. That of course is just a side rant.
But anyway, I'll probably end up buying a shiny new 3 1/2 inch floppy drive just to deal with disk images. Dammit.
As a side note, I use and love Daemon Tools. Whenever I buy a new game with CD-check protection and can't find a simple way or crack to disable it, or if a new game I buy has CDA sound tracks, I can just make an image of the CD and a batch file to mount it in Daemon Tools before running the game. Very handy--no CD swapping, ever, which will be especially useful when I get around to building an ultimate arcade PC and an arcade cab around it. Daemon Tools is basically a free implementation of a Virtual CD program. I just wish there were a Virtual Floppy program that worked the same way, so that software and driver disk images could be easily and seamlessly written to a virtual floppy drive and then just as easily copied back onto the HD and zipped up in a standard archive if desired. That would be PERFECT for what I currently need a floppy for, and for all such "legacy" uses of floppy drives.
It's times like this when I wish I could code anything other than HTML.