As Josh Marshall has detailled, there's only one party doing this illegal form. True robocalls are done by all, but they identify who they are at the beginning. The Republican robocall was designed to make it seem like a call from the Democratic candidate by doing the following: first they announced that they had info about the Democratic candidate, then a pause, THEN went into the smear, and FINALLY announced the source. If you only heard the name then hung up at the pause, you would have gotten a return call, sometimes up to 18 times in a row.
This is a deceptive GOP smear tactic designed to make the opponent look like he or she was doing the harassment. The negative message is just a fig leaf. That is why it is illegal, and the people responsible deserve to be punished.
Reliability isn't the issue as much as exposure: after all, bank vaults offer better security, but some documents you'd rather entrust to your private safe instead of having to contact the bank every time, no matter how secure.
I think the biggest problem/complaint people have against net storage versus local storage is the ability of others to access the data. There are some things you trust to store outside of your home like money, since the bank guarantees better security with tight access controls. They have a history of less risk than a more personal solution. It makes sense to trust them rather than your mattress.
Online info storage, though, more resembles a train station locker. Sure, you may be the only one with the safe combination, but it's stored in a public place and you really don't know how easy it is to pick the lock. And since the location experiences a lot of traffic passing through, you don't know who could be eavesdropping/reading over your shoulder.
I think that web-based tools will migrate more to personal/intranet versions for this reason. I can run my LAMP tools on my PowerBook and access them locally, and in fact I already do this. Companies would love to use (for example) Google's office tools on their own servers, and not have to trust Google all the time. It's all about controlling who has a copy of the data, about maintaining privacy/secrecy.
Ah, but do you also wear the rest of the style? I find that black turtlenecks and berets are necessary to complete the look. Bongos and little round sunglasses are optional.
That describes part of why I stayed in Bavaria. This January I'm going to apply for German citizenship, and though it means losing my US citizenship I feel good about becoming more active in the community where I live. I'm already in the local SPD political party, and with a little luck will actually be a candidate in the next local elections.
It has less to do with not loving America, but loving the community where I live and wanting to play anactive role.
If there's one lesson to be learned form the past of computer labs, it's that whatever the kids are learning in school will have little resemblance to what is available when they sit down at their first job. Windows 95 was more like Apple's System 7 than it resembled Windows 3.11. I find that a mix of operating systems is best to teaching how to use computers, and that those who learned just one OS are often thrown for a loop when confronted with a major update.
Linux does seem better suited to computer lab environments as opposed to Windows. The sandbox approach and the emphasis on experimentation encourage pupils to explore on their own. Windows is good for prefab programmes, so it also has its place on at least one or two of the machines. Ideally the school should add a Mac or two to the mix, but beggars can't be choosers.
I'm kinda curious as to how you calculated your prices, other than running with the lazy meme of how to compare prices. But what really threw me was your lauding the eSATA interface, something I've only heard nasty things about, especially about how it isn't hot-swappable and a real pain to connect/disconnect. Pray tell, where can you get a professional videocamera with eSATA but not Firewire?
The lack of a card reader may seem a pain, but those are slots in the case that could admit dust/dirt, as well as taking up real estate inside the case. Considering what they pack in there and how much care is given to make the layout not interfere with ventilation, I have no problem getting an el cheapo external cardreader.
Next time you critique the Apple laptops, though, I suggest you get rid of that huge chip on your shoulder. Your antagonism towards Apple is pretty blatant.
This isn't as uncommon as you might think. My wife still uses our Power Mac 8600 for her office work long after I moved my web design to a G4 computer. I bought it in 1997, and so far it's still working fine for the intended tasks.
My wife even resisted an upgrade to a Mac Mini or a laptop, because she's familiar with the old machine. So, er, I guess it will remain in operation until the parts begin to die.
I have never seen Seinfeld. Chances are a large part of Slashdot hasn't seen it either, despite its popularity in the USA. Slashdot is a global thingamabob, y'know.
It does seem to be a problem, though, that a catchphrase or inside joke is assumed to be globally known. It is also a problem that typed messages lose a lot of nuance. Calling him dumbass for not knowing the inside joke is simply, well, silly.
Would you punish a glassblower who sells bottles because people use them to make Molotov cocktails?
Would you punish the postal service because somebody sent defaming letters?
Would you punish Adobe because a terrorist organisation found it easy to use Photoshop to make its propaganda?
MySpace is a container, a nonjudgemental tool. It is similar to an arts and crafts workshop, where anybody can use the tools. The workshop managers can attempt to supervise and prevent abuse of their "equipment" and their "display cases", but even in the real world supervisors can't be everywhere.
Seriously, the Camino project is another example of how variant code above the Gecko rendering engine can strengthen instead of weaken the core project. Camino was written to give Mac OS X users a more "Mac-like" version that utilises more of the Cocoa toolbox, Mac OS X-specific things like the keychain and so on. I use it on my Mac instead of Firefox since it plays nice with all of my other Mac programmes.
I always thought Firefox was (initially) only intended to be a demonstration of the Gecko renderer without the other Mozilla programmes. To the best of my knowledge there were always third party variations to the Big Three (Firebird/Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape Navigator). As long as the core Gecko rendering code remains common I don't see a problem.
So to the best of my knowledge there are three main rendering engines out there: Microsoft's, Gecko and Web Kit/KHTML. Microsoft had a totally different one that they developed for IE5/Mac, but that project is dead.
The issue here is that USA diplomats tried to lobby on behalf of a company, and that this lobbying is suspected of not being in the interests of the USA but of a wealthy friend of the current political rulers. It was so ham-handed that it was ineffectual, and even backfired.
Come to think of it, it might be that the ham-handedness was on purpose, the diplomatic corps' way of rebelling at such a partisan order. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual diplomats charged with perfoming the lobbying subtly sabotaged the effort, but I also doubt that they would be so brazen. It would violate their own code of honour.
I read the original comment, with a snarky reference to "Madame Guillotine", but his following comments indicate only your success in convincing him that he advocated murder. You were quite clever in getting him to defend a strawman, and for that bit of trickery I salute you.
Still, nobody comes off clean in this little semantic war. It has veered offtopic.
Equating "warfare" with "murder" just doesn't make sense, especially to a bunch of geeks. Look at the quote in the title of my comment: how often did you hear that on television (or if you're old enough, in the theater)? I don't recall the protagonist ever actually killing the enemy in his declared war, instead going for painful humiliation. War nowadays in common usage means a conflict where you want the other side to surrender (unless you're a politician declaring war on poverty, drugs or terror).
How many were killed in the cola wars? When Microsoft declared war against Netscape, how many Netscape employees were killed? Or are you just trying to show that your analogies really are bad and thus disarm them preemptively?
Seriously, that's one of the few Hollywood movies to have respected the speed of sound in gunfights (esp. the ambush scene). Then again, Micheal Mann also tries to atone for his earlier sins in Miami Vice by making the reports from the pistols less foleyed.
I think you mean a Swiss conglomerate. They ain't German, snookums.
Apropos Germany, Wal-Mart has given up for good its attempts to penetrate the cutthroat market there. They had the whole "American interloper" going against them, strong worker protection laws that hamstrung them and a niche that was already filled with homegrown discount chains. As I understand it, there are other EU countries where they haven't had the success they wanted.
I think the defeat they suffered in Germany has made them paranoid, thus the preemptive attack on Apple. Amazon's Unbox system isn't as easy to slam due to the more draconic terms in Amazon's DRM and the fact that Amazon is partnered with Target. Attacking Amazon would be attacking a rival who would all too eagerly sell those titles that Wal-Mart drops.
Rather, Apple is adamant in stating that SecureWorks never contacted them. This is important because SecureWorks tried to make it look like they told Apple, but Apple leaned on them to hush it up.
I'm with John Gruber of Daring Fireball on this: my money is on Apple telling the truth. The risks of them getting spanked should it be a lie are too high, and the number of times security companies pull stunts to drum up business doesn't look good for SecureWorks.
Um, how would this show that? The Zune uses a different DRM, but it's still DRM. I've found the DRM used by Apple more palatable in its terms and in its structure, since it uses the Fraunhofer MPEG-4's DRM layer instead of an in-house solution. Apple also is constantly fighting the big music houses that want to charge higher prices and make FairPlay more restrictive.
But yes, DRM is bad for society and bad for consumers. I would even go so far as to say that it's bad for artists. That's why I call DRM Data Restriction Methods instead of what the media cartels want to call it.
Please re-read what I said, as I wanted to remind people that Apple could cut prices even further before they lose money per unit. Microsoft is starting with a loss, since they need to soak up the initial production costs as well. If they are banking on their music store to recoup the loss, then they may be in for a nasty shock.
I don't think Apple expected the iPod to be as dominant as it turned out to be. But their initial pricing strategy of selling just the device has payed off. I hate printers that sell for cheap and then extort usurious prices for refills, and I hate game consoles that sell the console for cheap just to jack up the price of the individual games. I don't want to pay high followup costs, just give me the device and let me tinker with it as I choose.
Yeah, the iTMS was famous for giving Apple such a small cut of the price that Apple claimed they were barely covering maintenance costs. Apple sells the iPod for a profit, and treats the store as an extra that encourages iPod sales. That means Apple is making enough of a profit that they could cut their margins again once the Zune hits the shelves, forcing Microsoft into a ruinous price war.
Another thing to remember is that Microsoft needs a LOT of marketing to get this thing into the public mindset. Apple already is there, and the creative types like Apple so much they perform product placement without Apple even having to ask.
I just had a wicked, wicked idea: if the new games part wakes enough interest in customers, Apple could start muscling into the GameBoy/PSP territory with an iPod-compatible portable game system. Imagine if they let you not only play games purchased from the iTunes store, but also play DRM-free games written by fellow gamers! Since Apples's strategy is to make money off of the machine and not the software, I could see them doing this.
One can only hope that Microsoft will take the double hit of setting a loss-price, and also of not moving enough units to threaten Apple. Instead, they may end up cannibalising the WMA market.
I see this as turning out like Apple's disastrous clone experiment, where the clone sales took away from Apple itself without expanding the Macintosh market any.
As for why this is in the Apple section, I guess it's because of the whole "iPod killer" leitmotif. Slashdot needs a section for handheld gadgets from MP3 players to PDA's, really.
In a sense, I think this is why the discussion is rather weak. It's not so much the music that is the indulged pleasure here, but social and sexual things. It's easier to loudly proclaim your love of bondage when you're just words on a screen to people you may never meet. The risk of it blowing up in your face seem lower.
The internet lowers the barrier, as it really is less stressful to check out that naughty website from your home PC than it is to sneak a look at that smut mag in the convenience store, much less buy it. Online, there's enough "free" content that even the stress of purchasing, of parting with your cash isn't felt. It's the old story of being invisible, of not having to face consequences.
Now, please note that I don't want to imply that there aren't any consequences, but I do want to say that we aren't as aware of the possibility of consequences. Online, we get more of a *sense* that there will be no consequences. We don't see the clerk, we don't see the other people millling around, ready to click their tongues in disapproval.
DISCLAIMER: I tried to read TFA, but was rebuffed by a dumb, dumb firewall that blocks the WSJ but not Slashdot. *shrug*
I think you missed his point, namely that devices made for use with Apple computers have less of a driver issue. Not so much the sound cards as much as extra hard drives, printers, scanners and the like.
Now I can frely admit that oftentimes products need drivers installed (my last personal case was getting the new Canon network printer up and running), but those installations are almost always painless. The way Apple defines the I/O means that I have yet to come upon a conflict between peripheral drivers. Back in the old days of System 7 to Mac OS 9, I would encounter conflicts between system extensions, but those weren't peripheral-related. So far I haven't had that happen under Mac OS X.
So in between the two extremes, the truth is that Apple can use a lot of commodity peripherals and storage devices without special drivers, and the setup is less complicated than with either Windows or Linux.
A lot of this is based on ancient history. New York's Tammany Hall, the old pre-Nixon "Dixiecrats", (the original) Mayor Daley's machinery in Chicago, and so on. These stories are pretty well known, but from previous generations. Very often they have no connection to the current crop.
Still, the "Democrats are corrupt" storyline has had several generations to build, meaning that it was ingrained and easy to invoke without having to provide proof. It doesn't make it right, and it's dishonest to claim that, but that's how the Authoritarians work.
I think Revolution has solved most of the "worthy successor" criteria, the last being that it has to gain popularity. It would be wicked cool if Apple and other OEM's could preinstall it, but the fact that it has to be bought and that you have to find it and install it has to be overcome first. I may get this for my daughter, though. It may prove to be the "gateway drug" I've been looking for.
SuperCard is also promising, but limited to Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. The starting price is also pretty steep, indicating that they're not trying to get hobbyists.
Slashdot Mirror
Shame prevents you from doing something you consider wrong.
Morality enables you to do something you consider wrong, because you're working for a Higher Purpose.
As Josh Marshall has detailled, there's only one party doing this illegal form. True robocalls are done by all, but they identify who they are at the beginning. The Republican robocall was designed to make it seem like a call from the Democratic candidate by doing the following: first they announced that they had info about the Democratic candidate, then a pause, THEN went into the smear, and FINALLY announced the source. If you only heard the name then hung up at the pause, you would have gotten a return call, sometimes up to 18 times in a row.
This is a deceptive GOP smear tactic designed to make the opponent look like he or she was doing the harassment. The negative message is just a fig leaf. That is why it is illegal, and the people responsible deserve to be punished.
Reliability isn't the issue as much as exposure: after all, bank vaults offer better security, but some documents you'd rather entrust to your private safe instead of having to contact the bank every time, no matter how secure.
I think the biggest problem/complaint people have against net storage versus local storage is the ability of others to access the data. There are some things you trust to store outside of your home like money, since the bank guarantees better security with tight access controls. They have a history of less risk than a more personal solution. It makes sense to trust them rather than your mattress.
Online info storage, though, more resembles a train station locker. Sure, you may be the only one with the safe combination, but it's stored in a public place and you really don't know how easy it is to pick the lock. And since the location experiences a lot of traffic passing through, you don't know who could be eavesdropping/reading over your shoulder.
I think that web-based tools will migrate more to personal/intranet versions for this reason. I can run my LAMP tools on my PowerBook and access them locally, and in fact I already do this. Companies would love to use (for example) Google's office tools on their own servers, and not have to trust Google all the time. It's all about controlling who has a copy of the data, about maintaining privacy/secrecy.
Ah, but do you also wear the rest of the style? I find that black turtlenecks and berets are necessary to complete the look. Bongos and little round sunglasses are optional.
That describes part of why I stayed in Bavaria. This January I'm going to apply for German citizenship, and though it means losing my US citizenship I feel good about becoming more active in the community where I live. I'm already in the local SPD political party, and with a little luck will actually be a candidate in the next local elections.
It has less to do with not loving America, but loving the community where I live and wanting to play anactive role.
If there's one lesson to be learned form the past of computer labs, it's that whatever the kids are learning in school will have little resemblance to what is available when they sit down at their first job. Windows 95 was more like Apple's System 7 than it resembled Windows 3.11. I find that a mix of operating systems is best to teaching how to use computers, and that those who learned just one OS are often thrown for a loop when confronted with a major update.
Linux does seem better suited to computer lab environments as opposed to Windows. The sandbox approach and the emphasis on experimentation encourage pupils to explore on their own. Windows is good for prefab programmes, so it also has its place on at least one or two of the machines. Ideally the school should add a Mac or two to the mix, but beggars can't be choosers.
I'm kinda curious as to how you calculated your prices, other than running with the lazy meme of how to compare prices. But what really threw me was your lauding the eSATA interface, something I've only heard nasty things about, especially about how it isn't hot-swappable and a real pain to connect/disconnect. Pray tell, where can you get a professional videocamera with eSATA but not Firewire?
The lack of a card reader may seem a pain, but those are slots in the case that could admit dust/dirt, as well as taking up real estate inside the case. Considering what they pack in there and how much care is given to make the layout not interfere with ventilation, I have no problem getting an el cheapo external cardreader.
Next time you critique the Apple laptops, though, I suggest you get rid of that huge chip on your shoulder. Your antagonism towards Apple is pretty blatant.
This isn't as uncommon as you might think. My wife still uses our Power Mac 8600 for her office work long after I moved my web design to a G4 computer. I bought it in 1997, and so far it's still working fine for the intended tasks.
My wife even resisted an upgrade to a Mac Mini or a laptop, because she's familiar with the old machine. So, er, I guess it will remain in operation until the parts begin to die.
I have never seen Seinfeld. Chances are a large part of Slashdot hasn't seen it either, despite its popularity in the USA. Slashdot is a global thingamabob, y'know.
It does seem to be a problem, though, that a catchphrase or inside joke is assumed to be globally known. It is also a problem that typed messages lose a lot of nuance. Calling him dumbass for not knowing the inside joke is simply, well, silly.
Would you punish a glassblower who sells bottles because people use them to make Molotov cocktails?
Would you punish the postal service because somebody sent defaming letters?
Would you punish Adobe because a terrorist organisation found it easy to use Photoshop to make its propaganda?
MySpace is a container, a nonjudgemental tool. It is similar to an arts and crafts workshop, where anybody can use the tools. The workshop managers can attempt to supervise and prevent abuse of their "equipment" and their "display cases", but even in the real world supervisors can't be everywhere.
Seriously, the Camino project is another example of how variant code above the Gecko rendering engine can strengthen instead of weaken the core project. Camino was written to give Mac OS X users a more "Mac-like" version that utilises more of the Cocoa toolbox, Mac OS X-specific things like the keychain and so on. I use it on my Mac instead of Firefox since it plays nice with all of my other Mac programmes.
I always thought Firefox was (initially) only intended to be a demonstration of the Gecko renderer without the other Mozilla programmes. To the best of my knowledge there were always third party variations to the Big Three (Firebird/Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape Navigator). As long as the core Gecko rendering code remains common I don't see a problem.
So to the best of my knowledge there are three main rendering engines out there: Microsoft's, Gecko and Web Kit/KHTML. Microsoft had a totally different one that they developed for IE5/Mac, but that project is dead.
The issue here is that USA diplomats tried to lobby on behalf of a company, and that this lobbying is suspected of not being in the interests of the USA but of a wealthy friend of the current political rulers. It was so ham-handed that it was ineffectual, and even backfired.
Come to think of it, it might be that the ham-handedness was on purpose, the diplomatic corps' way of rebelling at such a partisan order. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual diplomats charged with perfoming the lobbying subtly sabotaged the effort, but I also doubt that they would be so brazen. It would violate their own code of honour.
I read the original comment, with a snarky reference to "Madame Guillotine", but his following comments indicate only your success in convincing him that he advocated murder. You were quite clever in getting him to defend a strawman, and for that bit of trickery I salute you.
Still, nobody comes off clean in this little semantic war. It has veered offtopic.
Equating "warfare" with "murder" just doesn't make sense, especially to a bunch of geeks. Look at the quote in the title of my comment: how often did you hear that on television (or if you're old enough, in the theater)? I don't recall the protagonist ever actually killing the enemy in his declared war, instead going for painful humiliation. War nowadays in common usage means a conflict where you want the other side to surrender (unless you're a politician declaring war on poverty, drugs or terror).
How many were killed in the cola wars? When Microsoft declared war against Netscape, how many Netscape employees were killed? Or are you just trying to show that your analogies really are bad and thus disarm them preemptively?
Seriously, that's one of the few Hollywood movies to have respected the speed of sound in gunfights (esp. the ambush scene). Then again, Micheal Mann also tries to atone for his earlier sins in Miami Vice by making the reports from the pistols less foleyed.
I think you mean a Swiss conglomerate. They ain't German, snookums.
Apropos Germany, Wal-Mart has given up for good its attempts to penetrate the cutthroat market there. They had the whole "American interloper" going against them, strong worker protection laws that hamstrung them and a niche that was already filled with homegrown discount chains. As I understand it, there are other EU countries where they haven't had the success they wanted.
I think the defeat they suffered in Germany has made them paranoid, thus the preemptive attack on Apple. Amazon's Unbox system isn't as easy to slam due to the more draconic terms in Amazon's DRM and the fact that Amazon is partnered with Target. Attacking Amazon would be attacking a rival who would all too eagerly sell those titles that Wal-Mart drops.
Rather, Apple is adamant in stating that SecureWorks never contacted them. This is important because SecureWorks tried to make it look like they told Apple, but Apple leaned on them to hush it up.
I'm with John Gruber of Daring Fireball on this: my money is on Apple telling the truth. The risks of them getting spanked should it be a lie are too high, and the number of times security companies pull stunts to drum up business doesn't look good for SecureWorks.
Um, how would this show that? The Zune uses a different DRM, but it's still DRM. I've found the DRM used by Apple more palatable in its terms and in its structure, since it uses the Fraunhofer MPEG-4's DRM layer instead of an in-house solution. Apple also is constantly fighting the big music houses that want to charge higher prices and make FairPlay more restrictive.
But yes, DRM is bad for society and bad for consumers. I would even go so far as to say that it's bad for artists. That's why I call DRM Data Restriction Methods instead of what the media cartels want to call it.
Please re-read what I said, as I wanted to remind people that Apple could cut prices even further before they lose money per unit. Microsoft is starting with a loss, since they need to soak up the initial production costs as well. If they are banking on their music store to recoup the loss, then they may be in for a nasty shock.
I don't think Apple expected the iPod to be as dominant as it turned out to be. But their initial pricing strategy of selling just the device has payed off. I hate printers that sell for cheap and then extort usurious prices for refills, and I hate game consoles that sell the console for cheap just to jack up the price of the individual games. I don't want to pay high followup costs, just give me the device and let me tinker with it as I choose.
Yeah, the iTMS was famous for giving Apple such a small cut of the price that Apple claimed they were barely covering maintenance costs. Apple sells the iPod for a profit, and treats the store as an extra that encourages iPod sales. That means Apple is making enough of a profit that they could cut their margins again once the Zune hits the shelves, forcing Microsoft into a ruinous price war.
Another thing to remember is that Microsoft needs a LOT of marketing to get this thing into the public mindset. Apple already is there, and the creative types like Apple so much they perform product placement without Apple even having to ask.
I just had a wicked, wicked idea: if the new games part wakes enough interest in customers, Apple could start muscling into the GameBoy/PSP territory with an iPod-compatible portable game system. Imagine if they let you not only play games purchased from the iTunes store, but also play DRM-free games written by fellow gamers! Since Apples's strategy is to make money off of the machine and not the software, I could see them doing this.
One can only hope that Microsoft will take the double hit of setting a loss-price, and also of not moving enough units to threaten Apple. Instead, they may end up cannibalising the WMA market.
I see this as turning out like Apple's disastrous clone experiment, where the clone sales took away from Apple itself without expanding the Macintosh market any.
As for why this is in the Apple section, I guess it's because of the whole "iPod killer" leitmotif. Slashdot needs a section for handheld gadgets from MP3 players to PDA's, really.
In a sense, I think this is why the discussion is rather weak. It's not so much the music that is the indulged pleasure here, but social and sexual things. It's easier to loudly proclaim your love of bondage when you're just words on a screen to people you may never meet. The risk of it blowing up in your face seem lower.
The internet lowers the barrier, as it really is less stressful to check out that naughty website from your home PC than it is to sneak a look at that smut mag in the convenience store, much less buy it. Online, there's enough "free" content that even the stress of purchasing, of parting with your cash isn't felt. It's the old story of being invisible, of not having to face consequences.
Now, please note that I don't want to imply that there aren't any consequences, but I do want to say that we aren't as aware of the possibility of consequences. Online, we get more of a *sense* that there will be no consequences. We don't see the clerk, we don't see the other people millling around, ready to click their tongues in disapproval.
DISCLAIMER: I tried to read TFA, but was rebuffed by a dumb, dumb firewall that blocks the WSJ but not Slashdot. *shrug*
I think you missed his point, namely that devices made for use with Apple computers have less of a driver issue. Not so much the sound cards as much as extra hard drives, printers, scanners and the like.
Now I can frely admit that oftentimes products need drivers installed (my last personal case was getting the new Canon network printer up and running), but those installations are almost always painless. The way Apple defines the I/O means that I have yet to come upon a conflict between peripheral drivers. Back in the old days of System 7 to Mac OS 9, I would encounter conflicts between system extensions, but those weren't peripheral-related. So far I haven't had that happen under Mac OS X.
So in between the two extremes, the truth is that Apple can use a lot of commodity peripherals and storage devices without special drivers, and the setup is less complicated than with either Windows or Linux.
A lot of this is based on ancient history. New York's Tammany Hall, the old pre-Nixon "Dixiecrats", (the original) Mayor Daley's machinery in Chicago, and so on. These stories are pretty well known, but from previous generations. Very often they have no connection to the current crop.
Still, the "Democrats are corrupt" storyline has had several generations to build, meaning that it was ingrained and easy to invoke without having to provide proof. It doesn't make it right, and it's dishonest to claim that, but that's how the Authoritarians work.
I think Revolution has solved most of the "worthy successor" criteria, the last being that it has to gain popularity. It would be wicked cool if Apple and other OEM's could preinstall it, but the fact that it has to be bought and that you have to find it and install it has to be overcome first. I may get this for my daughter, though. It may prove to be the "gateway drug" I've been looking for.
SuperCard is also promising, but limited to Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. The starting price is also pretty steep, indicating that they're not trying to get hobbyists.