Sorry, this was another article at the same place with a similar title. Read down into the article a ways and realized me error. Apologies to all who bothered to click thru.
The reality of TV watching is that there is very little worth seeing more than twice.
True, but then again I am planning to buy all of the DVD sets of the Star Trek: The Next Generation coming out this year... and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine DVD sets coming out next year. If someone would rather get these off of broadcast/cable TV for Random Access viewing, it would certainly be a cheaper way to go!
...so long as it was free otherwise. Problem is, I doubt it would remain effectively in place for long. It would only be a matter of time until someone (probably a Slashdot reader) programmed something to "block" the banner ads. Since that would increase the speed of downloads, many folks would use it and thus your profitability would plummet. Likewise, AOL IM chatters would be using your network WITHOUT accessing HTML pages which you could inserts ads into. It is unlikely this business model would last long.
You'd think if they were making the space program the center of their marketting campaign, that they would repackage the stuff into one of those plastic squeeze-bottles that astronauts use to imbibe while in zero-gee. I can see the newest teen craze now - drink Pepsi from a squirt bottle, while dressed in your moon boots, while executing a skateboarding move that effectively duplicates zero-gee conditions for 1/100th of a second!
And of course one side of your psychology always has to throw in the hyper-suspicious thought.
What if Apple is doing this to boost sales of Macs in the 4th Quarter/Christmas Season ("Quick, buy as many TiBooks as we can NOW, because starting next week they won't boot MacOS 9!"). It would be one way to increase the bottom line and make the company appear more profitable without having to resort to Enron type accounting illegalities.
Not saying I think this is true, but you have to wonder.
The problem is not necesarily WANTING to stay with MacOS 9, but HAVING to stay with MacOS 9. A friend of mind helps a small newspaper with their Mac network and just FINALLY convinced his boss to begin moving to MacOS X as a pilot program. He prepared a plan that has the company taking THREE YEARS to move to MacOS X, with the first computers not going over until January 2003. This move by Apple will be a serious shock to that company.
Keep in mind that not all apps are MacOS X compliant... even thru the Classic layer (i.e. Quark). And small businesses do not necesarily have the cash to make a jump like this right away. Chances are this initiative will have this small business not buying new Macs, but doing a lot more shopping on eBay for used Macs in the year 2003.
This technology sounds like the kind of thing which could greatly add to the convergence of devices that clutter the electronic life. You could extend convergence not only as a Smartphone but have in one device (though perhaps not simultaneously): 1. Cell phone 2. Computing power (PDA) 3. FRS radio device 4. 802.11x network device 5. Police scanner 6. Television reciever 7. etc.
Have you been approached by police departments, FedEx, etc. to develop devices to allow their people to do more stuff in fewer packages?
At times like this when it appears a trend is forming to cancel highly-rated shows like Farscape and Witchblade on cable, you have to wonder if there was a network study somewhere which claimed that Sci Fi was "out" or "on the want" and everyone is trying to get ahead of the curve. TV execs always seem to be trying to get ahead of the curve (rather than sticking with what works), which seems to leave us with fewer and fewer old, popular, and unique shows and more and more shows stamped from the same cloth.
How many of us want to hear "Error: Slot A should be inserted into slot B, not into dowel X" every time we try to put together a kitchen cabinet? I know some of my "best" work has included some errors that actually helped the overall design for *MY* use.
What times in your life have the RIAA helped you in your career and/or artistry? How has this organization been a positive force in your life?
(Seems to me that this organization can not only exist to deny P2Pers. It existed before Napster, et. al. and thus provided some service to artists, even if peripherally.)
Do creationists realise that their beliefs are really only a USA phenomenon? I've not seem much evidence of creationism anywhere else in the "first world".
As someone who considers himself, if not a creationist at least a skeptic about evolution, I was not aware of how Europeans see the issue. Is the difference cultural or philosophical? i.e. Is the lack of a phenomenon reflective of the protestant/evangelical movement in the USA or is it due to some element of philosophy unique to the American mind?
It may have to do with the fact that my father was diagnosed with brain cancer when I was 9 and finally died when I was 20 (he was about 40), but I have never been able to understand the mindset of "I must set a plan TODAY in order to achieve in 30 years." And don't get me wrong, I have been challenged often enough and desired to be able to provide that kind of long-term vision - especially in interviews for jobs.
But the reality is that no one really knows what tomorrow brings and it is the small decisions today which make the BIG differences tomorrow. In college, could I have planned to be a Business Analyst? NO! I did not know one existed. But by making the right small choices in life - finishing the things I loved in college, following advice of friends in jobs, working hard at the jobs I had, treating people right, keeping my eyes on God, etc. - I wound up in a very good place.
Is it the place I planned to be? No. I am still unmarried and have not yet written the great American novel. But I have few regrets.
I guess my point is: Feel free to plan, but never forsake now for the far-flung future and never take the low road now assuming you will get back to the high road later. You may not be around to get to your vision in 30 years.
My understanding is not that the StarOffice story was materially WRONG, but that it was a bit distorted.
Essentially, Star and Apple programmers have been working with the OpenOffice developers on getting out a version of OpenOffice (which the original reporter confused with StarOffice, the commercial version of OpenOffice) for MacOS X. But it is still under the aegis of OpenOffice and will be a called OpenOffice and will not be sold by Sun. It was never an official Sun-sponsored initiative and no one was given a paid position to support a MacOS X version. But Sun employees did some work, Apple employees did some work, and the StarOffice team provided informational help on the structure of OpenOffice, when asked.
This distorted reporting has spawned a lot of scathing commentary on all sides. Shows that having the right facts in the wrong order can be as bad as having the wrong facts, as far as the community is concerned.
Re:Might he be onto something?
on
GUIs for Everyone
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
While I get suspicious when I read someone telling me that the way to improve a GUI is to make it more "pleasurable" (aesthetics is not a universal value, as shown in this discussion), I have to agree that things are not where they should be. Windows is certainly not the way. Apple/MacOS is better, but despite the fact that many say it "gets out of your way and lets you work", there are still many areas of the GUI where you have to read the programmer's mind to figure out what to do.
If we are looking for a new paradigm, perhaps we should examine Watson by Karellia
and the new Sherlock 3 by Apple
which is essentially a clone of Watson.
These new paradigms of web browsing try to present information in the form which is best, rather than trying to sublimate it to whatever fractured HTML presents it on the Web. The result is a fast and efficient means to find exactly the information you need.
Maybe a next-gen GUI could use a similar idea and provide seamless ways to present the information you want to view or work with, without a desktop. Are you working on a text file? Automatically move into a word processor-like relationship. Are you viewing an image? Automatically move into a image viewing/manipulations relationship. If these different "relationships" could be placed into the OS in a way that they seamlessly interact, it might provide a way to interact with pure data, rather than simply shuffling around icons on a desktop.
Random idea. Course, if you were to do this right, it would require even more integration than Microsoft or Apple have done with their packaged apps. Every function would have to, in some way, be plugged into the OS. Is that better or worse than what we have now?
Linux is maturing and it is maturing well. Linux is a POWER operating system just like BSD that is never intended for the masses and will never be for the masses... Think about this linux lovers. (I am one of them BTW! Microsoft free for 4 years now) do you want your beloved OS to be diluted down to a microsoft level?
I think this makes a good point and highlights a split in the Linux community that not every insider seems to recognize. Maybe as an outsider (Mac-user at home, Win2K at work), I can make the point.
The Linux community, as I see it, is broken into two factions:
The Linux Purist Faction: This faction likes Linux as it is and wants to keep the things which make it strong around without significant concessions to converts. This group likes the fact that Linux is cryptic and something which requires significant time to understand, because this process weeds out those who aren't serious about using Linux (as opposed to any other system).
The User Base Faction: This faction wants Linux to become the OS of choice in the world. Some are also ferverently anti-MS, some are simply ferverently pro-Linux. This group loves Linux because of some level of uniqueness, but is willing to conceed some of Linux's percieved strengths (infinite customizability, different look and feel, etc.) in order to win additional marketshare or at least mindshare. Their ideal system is one which they can hand over to their grandmother to use for all of her everyday work.
Lycorix and Lindows are both aimed at the second group. They want to increase marketshare at all costs and as such, want to reduce the barrier to entry to nil. The first group is more supported by Gentoo and the other distros which can be compiled at install time in all ways to be precisely alligned to your specific setup. Most distros try to please both factions equally.
Which faction is right? Neither and both, probably. MacOS X taught the Mac-heads like me that change is good in an effort to increase marketshare, but that it is important not to surrender the essentials. Of course, all of life is a balancing act and no two people agree on the right balance. But if you can find it, it is a holy grail. Don't be too quick to blast efforts like Lycorix. They may be too far on one side, but in the end, they may move the middle and give Linux a direction which benefits both sides of the aisle.
With all of these fears about our being able to view a show without the ads that pay for it, I have to wonder how long it will be until some advertiser simply completely funds a show with omnipresent product placement. Under this kind of structure, the advertiser needs not worry about the show being displayed anywhere without the money-generating ads, because they are imbedded into the show.
For example: FRIENDS brought to you by Coca-Cola
Openning shot of the whole cast chatting in a new Soda Bar, having rejected Central Perk
Joey is no longer a Soap Star, but now a spokesman for Coca-Cola and part of the plot each week are the shenanigans surrounding the commercial shoot he is involved with
Racheal is managing a new line of fashion clothes with the Coco-Cola logo on them
Monica runs a restaurant which makes a point each week or pointing out that they only sell genuine Coca-Cola products
Ross is involved with an archeological dig, having left paleontology behind, which proves the ancient Incas lived to over 100 years old because of the home-made cola they brewed and drank every day
Chandler makes witty, sarcastic references about other soft-drink companies, without every actually mentioning their names.
Tell me now, is this idea funny or terrifyingly close to reality?
One point many of the posts so far have ignored is the fact that some of these programmers may not really be so bad, they may just have a different working style from you. My own personal style for creativity is to absorb information en masse for a period of time and then output a mass of stuff in a very short period of time. For my coworkers who spec, diagram, and plan out each microstep of their work, it can sometimes seem like I am doing nothing. They feel they have pages 1 thru 7 of their spec complete and I have nothing. Then suddenly three days later I am done and they are only on page 10.
The critical thing to manage different working styles is to clearly communicate your expectations. If your coders see a general project plan, they may well assume that the milestones you have set are "guidelines" and not requirements. If so, they will instead be aiming at whatever they consider to be the drop-dead milestones. But if you clearly get across that every milestone must be met then each person can manage his/her own working style appropriately... even if they may have to come to you and explain that the deadlines you have set will not work for them.
That is my 2 cents. It is also possible you just have an unmotivated, unskilled team and all of this "work style" stuff I am saying is irrelevant. But I find too many managers (both newbies and veterans) assume people are identical plug-in replacements which work the same way they do. Humans just don't work that way.
Then I read this interview and began to begin to sense that my brain was about to explode. Guess I need to ratchet down my self assessment and get some Tylenol for the headache!
One of the "exceptions" listed to the immunity (i.e. if this condition is tripped, then they ARE liable) is:
(C) causes economic loss of more than $50 per impairment to the property of the affected file trader, other than economic loss involving computer files or data made available through a publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network that contains works which the owner has exclusive rights granted under section 106;
So if you managed to place the files in question on a server which also had some commercial purpose (say, hosting images for an eBay auction) might this trip the $50 limit and allow prosecution or civil action? I am only the son of a lawyer and not one myself, but this seems like a low threshhold for such a bill
I am sure this will be modded down as the response to a zero-rated post, but hey why not?:-)
Economics is not the study of money. It is the study of the flow of resources and value through a system. Early economic systems had nothing being sold - things were given or traded, and in some gift-based cultures you got nothing tangible in return. OpenSource has a definite economic structure and flow of resources - they follow the interest.
Actually, I would make the argument that OpenSource-type movements are only really possible in an already mature and vibrant economy. Could OpenSource have evolved without this strange commodity we call "free time?" Most of human history was involved with very few activities: eating, sleeping, reproducing, fighting, and running away from things try to kill you. Only in the last few centuries have societies evolved with "free time" built into them. Once you have free time, you have time to think about what you "enjoy." Once you know what you enjoy and some extra wealth lying around (either in the form of time, currency, or resources), then you can pursue the things you enjoy. Only in this final state can OpenSource (as it exists today) really work and thrive.
Funny, if my hypothesis is correct, OpenSource is not some anti-American (or anti-Liberal Capitalist Democratic Republic, for those of you outside of the USA) conspiracy, but rather a natural outgrowth of our society.
I've been doing a review of a number of CMS projects for a small business website I am building. As I understand them, here is the list of some that I have found:
Slash: The code behind Slashdot. Uses PERL as its underlying technology and is built on Linux. Requires Apache.
Zope: Commercial Open Source software which uses Python as its code base. Good support and training available, but the community appears to be
lacking.
phpNuke: Underlies a lot of the free weblogs on the net at this time. Built on PHP coding and requires Apache. Some personality issues here, but a strong product.
PostNuke: Underlies many sites on the web, including both commercial and amatuer. An off-shoot of phpNuke, so built on PHP coding and requires Apache. VERY good project management and a solid timeline. Some recent deaths at the project have placed the team under stress.
phpSlash: A PHP port of the Slash system (one of the older ones, and as such is built on PHP coding. Seems solid, but lacks many of the modern features of slash.
There are many others, including (but not limited to): Nope, Druphal, KorWebLog, etc. This is still a crowded marketplace and people are trying to reinvent the wheel here often. Check out this site and do a search on CMS to get an idea of the diversity.
Best advice from my limited experience so far:
Decide which language best fits the way you program (Perl and PHP have roots in C/C++, Python is more like Basic)
Decide what features are drop-dead critical for your site (i.e. comment system, moderation system, workflow management, shopping cart)
Decide if you want commercial support if something goes wrong
Decide how much you want to spend (even if you do not spend on a system, you will wind up with costs for hosting, books, training, etc.)
In the end, I think I have decided on PostNuke. But your choice may be very different.
Keep in mind that the selling point here is NOT just a PVR. If all you want is a PVR, it would be just as good to invest in a Tivo or ReplayTV unit which is dedicated and, as you say, provides higher-quality video. This is also a VCR replacement by providing a cheap way to both record programs in a PVR-style and then save them to a cheap disk-based media. With this unit and Toast, you can easily record your favorite Simpsons episodes, then burn then to a VCD for playing on your DVD player. It makes it sort of a poor-man's DVD recorder (since component DVD recorders are still in the $1000+ range).
This is why my brother is looking hard at buying an EyeTV. Course, he could also look for a solution with a DVD-burner built into it and a MPEG-2 encoder card, but that costs a lot more than the $200 he would be spending to add this to his exiting iMac + External DVD-burner setup.
This is just wierd. I read the patent and agree that it appears to say just what the poster days, though I am only the son of a lawyer and not one myself
This is an on-going thread in Slashdot which appears to be uncovering important info. Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, this was another article at the same place with a similar title. Read down into the article a ways and realized me error. Apologies to all who bothered to click thru.
Cached copy from my google search
My two cents.
You'd think if they were making the space program the center of their marketting campaign, that they would repackage the stuff into one of those plastic squeeze-bottles that astronauts use to imbibe while in zero-gee. I can see the newest teen craze now - drink Pepsi from a squirt bottle, while dressed in your moon boots, while executing a skateboarding move that effectively duplicates zero-gee conditions for 1/100th of a second!
What if Apple is doing this to boost sales of Macs in the 4th Quarter/Christmas Season ("Quick, buy as many TiBooks as we can NOW, because starting next week they won't boot MacOS 9!"). It would be one way to increase the bottom line and make the company appear more profitable without having to resort to Enron type accounting illegalities.
Not saying I think this is true, but you have to wonder.
Keep in mind that not all apps are MacOS X compliant... even thru the Classic layer (i.e. Quark). And small businesses do not necesarily have the cash to make a jump like this right away. Chances are this initiative will have this small business not buying new Macs, but doing a lot more shopping on eBay for used Macs in the year 2003.
This technology sounds like the kind of thing which could greatly add to the convergence of devices that clutter the electronic life. You could extend convergence not only as a Smartphone but have in one device (though perhaps not simultaneously):
1. Cell phone
2. Computing power (PDA)
3. FRS radio device
4. 802.11x network device
5. Police scanner
6. Television reciever
7. etc.
Have you been approached by police departments, FedEx, etc. to develop devices to allow their people to do more stuff in fewer packages?
At times like this when it appears a trend is forming to cancel highly-rated shows like Farscape and Witchblade on cable, you have to wonder if there was a network study somewhere which claimed that Sci Fi was "out" or "on the want" and everyone is trying to get ahead of the curve. TV execs always seem to be trying to get ahead of the curve (rather than sticking with what works), which seems to leave us with fewer and fewer old, popular, and unique shows and more and more shows stamped from the same cloth.
Just my 2 cents
(Seems to me that this organization can not only exist to deny P2Pers. It existed before Napster, et. al. and thus provided some service to artists, even if peripherally.)
This is something I'd like to hear more about.
Of course, a truly persistent person or corporation can find a way to tap into any technology, given time and money.
But the reality is that no one really knows what tomorrow brings and it is the small decisions today which make the BIG differences tomorrow. In college, could I have planned to be a Business Analyst? NO! I did not know one existed. But by making the right small choices in life - finishing the things I loved in college, following advice of friends in jobs, working hard at the jobs I had, treating people right, keeping my eyes on God, etc. - I wound up in a very good place.
Is it the place I planned to be? No. I am still unmarried and have not yet written the great American novel. But I have few regrets.
I guess my point is: Feel free to plan, but never forsake now for the far-flung future and never take the low road now assuming you will get back to the high road later. You may not be around to get to your vision in 30 years.
Oh, and for the record, I am 28 now.
Essentially, Star and Apple programmers have been working with the OpenOffice developers on getting out a version of OpenOffice (which the original reporter confused with StarOffice, the commercial version of OpenOffice) for MacOS X. But it is still under the aegis of OpenOffice and will be a called OpenOffice and will not be sold by Sun. It was never an official Sun-sponsored initiative and no one was given a paid position to support a MacOS X version. But Sun employees did some work, Apple employees did some work, and the StarOffice team provided informational help on the structure of OpenOffice, when asked.
This distorted reporting has spawned a lot of scathing commentary on all sides. Shows that having the right facts in the wrong order can be as bad as having the wrong facts, as far as the community is concerned.
If we are looking for a new paradigm, perhaps we should examine Watson by Karellia and the new Sherlock 3 by Apple which is essentially a clone of Watson. These new paradigms of web browsing try to present information in the form which is best, rather than trying to sublimate it to whatever fractured HTML presents it on the Web. The result is a fast and efficient means to find exactly the information you need.
Maybe a next-gen GUI could use a similar idea and provide seamless ways to present the information you want to view or work with, without a desktop. Are you working on a text file? Automatically move into a word processor-like relationship. Are you viewing an image? Automatically move into a image viewing/manipulations relationship. If these different "relationships" could be placed into the OS in a way that they seamlessly interact, it might provide a way to interact with pure data, rather than simply shuffling around icons on a desktop.
Random idea. Course, if you were to do this right, it would require even more integration than Microsoft or Apple have done with their packaged apps. Every function would have to, in some way, be plugged into the OS. Is that better or worse than what we have now?
I think this makes a good point and highlights a split in the Linux community that not every insider seems to recognize. Maybe as an outsider (Mac-user at home, Win2K at work), I can make the point.
The Linux community, as I see it, is broken into two factions:
Lycorix and Lindows are both aimed at the second group. They want to increase marketshare at all costs and as such, want to reduce the barrier to entry to nil. The first group is more supported by Gentoo and the other distros which can be compiled at install time in all ways to be precisely alligned to your specific setup. Most distros try to please both factions equally.
Which faction is right? Neither and both, probably. MacOS X taught the Mac-heads like me that change is good in an effort to increase marketshare, but that it is important not to surrender the essentials. Of course, all of life is a balancing act and no two people agree on the right balance. But if you can find it, it is a holy grail. Don't be too quick to blast efforts like Lycorix. They may be too far on one side, but in the end, they may move the middle and give Linux a direction which benefits both sides of the aisle.
For example: FRIENDS brought to you by Coca-Cola
Tell me now, is this idea funny or terrifyingly close to reality?
The critical thing to manage different working styles is to clearly communicate your expectations. If your coders see a general project plan, they may well assume that the milestones you have set are "guidelines" and not requirements. If so, they will instead be aiming at whatever they consider to be the drop-dead milestones. But if you clearly get across that every milestone must be met then each person can manage his/her own working style appropriately... even if they may have to come to you and explain that the deadlines you have set will not work for them.
That is my 2 cents. It is also possible you just have an unmotivated, unskilled team and all of this "work style" stuff I am saying is irrelevant. But I find too many managers (both newbies and veterans) assume people are identical plug-in replacements which work the same way they do. Humans just don't work that way.
Then I read this interview and began to begin to sense that my brain was about to explode. Guess I need to ratchet down my self assessment and get some Tylenol for the headache!
So if you managed to place the files in question on a server which also had some commercial purpose (say, hosting images for an eBay auction) might this trip the $50 limit and allow prosecution or civil action? I am only the son of a lawyer and not one myself, but this seems like a low threshhold for such a bill
Economics is not the study of money. It is the study of the flow of resources and value through a system. Early economic systems had nothing being sold - things were given or traded, and in some gift-based cultures you got nothing tangible in return. OpenSource has a definite economic structure and flow of resources - they follow the interest.
Actually, I would make the argument that OpenSource-type movements are only really possible in an already mature and vibrant economy. Could OpenSource have evolved without this strange commodity we call "free time?" Most of human history was involved with very few activities: eating, sleeping, reproducing, fighting, and running away from things try to kill you. Only in the last few centuries have societies evolved with "free time" built into them. Once you have free time, you have time to think about what you "enjoy." Once you know what you enjoy and some extra wealth lying around (either in the form of time, currency, or resources), then you can pursue the things you enjoy. Only in this final state can OpenSource (as it exists today) really work and thrive.
Funny, if my hypothesis is correct, OpenSource is not some anti-American (or anti-Liberal Capitalist Democratic Republic, for those of you outside of the USA) conspiracy, but rather a natural outgrowth of our society.
There are many others, including (but not limited to): Nope, Druphal, KorWebLog, etc. This is still a crowded marketplace and people are trying to reinvent the wheel here often. Check out this site and do a search on CMS to get an idea of the diversity.
Best advice from my limited experience so far:
In the end, I think I have decided on PostNuke. But your choice may be very different.
This is why my brother is looking hard at buying an EyeTV. Course, he could also look for a solution with a DVD-burner built into it and a MPEG-2 encoder card, but that costs a lot more than the $200 he would be spending to add this to his exiting iMac + External DVD-burner setup.
This is an on-going thread in Slashdot which appears to be uncovering important info. Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?