Google's slim design is certainly a major advantage and I agree that MS would find it tough to resist a "content" rich page, with lots of adverts and links (AKA fluff). Unfortunately it's not a web page I'm worried about.
It's when the next version of IE has an integrated default search bar - the only thing leaner and meaner than a clean webpage and something the average user is unlikely to remove. Of course removal might not even be an option. From the sounds of it they will probably integrate it right into the OS as the default "find files" function as well as internet search, and maybe even use it for find/replace in Office.
They will probably try to justify that this is not an abuse of their monopoly because it's "such a useful innovation for the consumer" and that it's "just an extension of what we've been doing for years with find files and allowing searches from the address location (URL) field".
I bet they will even try to force out Google's great search toolbar by eliminating compatibility with such add-ins - under the pretense of helping consumers to avoid the various spyware and parasite programs like Bonzi Buddy and Huntbar.
Filling a legitimate need in their system is what makes their position so powerful. I would love to have this kind of integrated search functionality in Windows. Of course, I want it from someone like Google, but most users probably don't care.
cite your source please. And how exactly would the US benefit from this? Such a pipeline would presumably connect Russian oil to the Indian ocean. Sounds like they would benefit not the US. Either way, never heard of it.
There is a widely covered and debated theory that such a pipeline, along with a desire to increase US influence with neighbouring (oil rich) former soviet republics, formed part of the motivation to invade Afganistan.
Such a pipeline has been proposed by a number of US oil companies, including a group involving Unocal in '97, although they cancelled this project due to issues related to lack of co-operation from the Taliban and later accusations of terrorism. The project has since been reprised by the Afgani government and a multi-national group, although Unocal was continuing to disavow any planned involvement.
This has been widely covered in the mainstream press since the conflict began (and also picked up and elaborated on by a number of the "kookier" ones). While I generally agree with your original post that US wars fought primarily over oil are the exception rather than the rule, and while it may be questionable that oil formed the major motivation for this war, the stability of regional energy supplies was definitely one of the key policy considerations that would have been factored in by the US administration then and now.
"Four out of five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, and almost half receive spam linking to pornographic materials."
This only tells me that one out of five children do not have an e-mail account, and that nearly half of all children are able to use spamassassin much better than I can.
TiVo users are probably more representative of the most attractive demographic segments - those with relatively high levels of disposable income and/or a propensity to spend their disposable income on expensive toys like TiVo. This, combined with the kind of fairly extensive macro demographic data that can be culled from the zip codes makes for very attractive viewership data for analysis (even if it is aggregate and mainly for a certain niche).
Or you can sell space plane kit plans for $20 a pop by placing "tiny" ads in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Not that you need to win to do that...
Can't find the original story I read, but I remember that Lucent once tried to sue a number of former employees who left to join Cisco. IIRC the judge laughed the suit out of court partly due to the fact that he found Lucent's technology to be so far behind Cisco's at the time that he couldn't see any chance of Cisco actually being able to use any of Lucent's obsolete "secrets".
The best reference to the case I could find just mentions that the judge couldn't find any injury to Lucent but also that he found fault the management practices that caused them to leave in the first place. I'm not sure what happened on appeal.
Do you really think that if films came out at the same time on DVD as on the screen that many people would still go to the theater?
Yes. You'd certainly lose some and it would also depend on the type of movie, but many people would continue to go to the theatre. You'd probably even add others who have seen it on the small screen and now want to experience the big show. The net might be lower, but many people would still go.
Most of the people I know who regularly go to the movies treat it as a social event with their friends or families, usually deciding to go out even before picking which movie they are going to see. Another good case is the latest Matrix movie. Most of the people I know who waited in line to see it on opening were also the very same people who regularly download most of the films they watch at home. For them, the DVD and the film were released on the essentially same day but they were the ones that helped make it such a success on opening day.
On the other hand, there are some who actually prefer watching certain movies on the smaller screen. But very often these are the lower budget, lower effect type movies that don't need the same level of box office to be successful. In the future, production technology will improve to further reduce the costs for many of these movies so that this category might even include some homemade films. So some of the best movies might be produced by near amateurs who don't need or use the Hollywood distribution channels, but I expect that the more expensive and visually oriented films will always find a strong market in the movie houses to make their investments worthwhile even if they can't make anything in the home market anymore.
That someone might come up with an invention independently is one of the good reasons that patents (and theoretically copyrights) have limited terms.
In exchange for sharing the description of an innovation with everyone (by describing it publically in a patent) the right to that innovation is temporarily taken away from everyone else - even if they independently think it up themselves. IP "ownership" is not a fundamental right that is given up at the end of a term - it is really a denial of public rights that is tolerated only in order to encourage more rapid disclosure of innovations, even though most innovations (and probably all useful ones) would eventually be thought of, developed, and shared by someone else.
It's actually hard to think of any useful innovations that would'nt have been thought of and developed within 10-20 years after the initially disclosed invention (or usually much less). I think the only real exceptions are the ones that actually prove the rule - either broad, speculative, but revolutionary patents that launch a field well before anyone else was even thinking about it, or perhaps patents for innovations like drugs that still require significant capital and time before commercialization. These types of patent disclosures can help to accelerate the attention of other researchers and engineers, since such a patent might not be in force for very long by the time the innovation (and derivatives) actually hit the market.
If someone's parents and grandparents all had blonde hair, but they themselves were born with brown hair (due to a mutation, not due to a recessive gene or the milkman), then their children might then carry on that gene but it doesn't necessarily mean that their cousins kids will ever have brown hair.
Similarly, if closely related species are in direct competition with each other for scarce resources such as food and habitat then natural selection might cause one to survive at the expense of the other one becoming extinct. But if they are geographically separated, their different traits don't have any significant advantages, or if they find different (non-competitive or competitive but sustainable) ecological niches then there's nothing stopping them from co-existing.
Re:It doesn't matter, the damage is done
on
What if SCO is Right?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The point has been brought to the board rooms, and I don't know see what it can do other than hurt the cause.
I disagree entirely. If SCO wins, closed source loses and open source wins.
SCO has sued IBM and given them an ultimatum that threatens to cut off the closed source AIX licence from IBM and possibly from their entire installed base of users as well. While it may be unlikely that SCO could (or would) pull the plug on these systems, the possibility has certainly been raised.
In doing so, SCO has reminded managers and boards that their dependence on third party closed source programs exposes them to a certain level of risk. In the past, firms could reduce this liability by writing their own software, purchasing the source code, or through carefully worded contracts. But SCO has made it clear to industry that even perpetual and irrevocable contracts like the one between IBM and SCO aren't bulletproof. Linux and other open source programs represent a compelling alternative for these companies looking to reduce their exposure to the SCO's of the world.
And so what if the Linux kernel has some of their proprietary code in it? Simply point out the offending code and the community will build a work-around. While the corporate world sits waiting years for proprietary bug fixes that never come, a quick and effective solution by the community will help deflate a major fear about open source.
So, if the community steps up to the challenge by promoting the benefits of open code and by demonstrating the effectiveness of the distributed developer base, the SCO lawsuit could become the poster boy case for open source. And the case for open source is made even stronger if SCO wins their case. And either way, SCO is a dead duck.
The iLoo, WAS a real idea, not a hoax as previously stated. However, MS's PR department fscked it up, and announced it as a hoax.
Microsoft may have screwed this one up with some really poor internal communications and overzealous PR reps, but the media also has to take some blame for some really poor journalism.
While a few MS reps did try to spin things as "an April Fool's joke", the story with the widest circulation (and it's still being published in some papers as late as today) was the one with the "hoax" headline attached to a story that made it clear that it was NOT a hoax, but was simply an overhyped pilot project. Of course all the editorials and TV news programs simply read the misleading headline about a "hoax" without reading the rest of story and turned this into an even bigger story, while most Slashdot comments seemed to pick out the obvious discrepancies right away.
Slashdot readers may be criticized for not always reading the stories but at least they seem to do much better than the mass media in this respect. That the media will continue to spin this story over the next couple of days is almost as sad, irresponsible, and scary as the recently exposed fraudulent NYT reporter.
Cheers to your comment and to most of the replies as well. I guess we're all just preaching to the choir, but here's my two cents anyway.
Even as a very young kid I remember always actively seeking out the seemingly more "adult" fare. And I think there's good evidence of this approach consistently working, beyond just the many cartoon examples. Think of the Muppets or even live action programs like 3-2-1 Contact. These shows were populated by adults or (slightly) older kids that made you feel like you were "cool" for watching something that seemed to be targeted at people above your age.
I laugh sometimes when I look back at old shows at just how young their casts were, in contrast to my impression of them being so much older and maturer. It seems pretty clear that many of the most successful (and memorable) of these shows purposefully casted actors that were a couple (or more) years older than their target audience. By not pandering they also provided a certain depth to the story line and made you feel like you were in on a secret. Not only did this approach seem to work commercially but I think it also helped to boost confidence levels and contributed to general education much better than programs targeted at narrow age-based niches.
I'll treat creationists ideas with respect as soon as they agree that my creationist theory is as valid as theirs: "Joe the giant turtle barfed up the universe last week. He can vomit anything."
Awesome theory. You really need to put together one of those kooky coalitions that try to convince school boards to add their "theories" to the science curriculum.
Not if you only used it locally, as part of the claim is via a network.
What is a network anyway? So many of these patents are old technologies simply implemented over a "network" but they rarely define what that means except that they try to apply it as broadly as possible. What about a bus connecting a CPU to peripherals? While this might not apply to the case at hand, when patent holder do try to extend the original meaning of a described network to include everything from a proprietary set of terminals, to a LAN, to the Internet, couldn't it also work against them if defendants broadly defined buses, printer connections, and multi-processor systems, etc. as sorts of networks that could provide prior art? That is "the prior art devices were always networked - the networks were just on a physically small scale or 1:1 vs. n:m".
Right on. Not only is the RIAA asking universities to accomplish something (strict monitoring and complete control over of the use of their networks) that is technically and financally impossible, and morally and academically unsound, but they are also making it clear that any amount of helpful cooperation will result exposure to liability for any and all actions taken by users.
I hope that university officals and lawyers will finally realize they only have two ultimate choices: fight the RIAA or entirely shut down their computer networks and ban all electronic devices from students. Simply ignoring the issue or trying to help are not long term options and will only expose them to greater liability.
I would love to see a series of full page ads by America's universities taking the RIAA to task. They could get all the major hardware manufacturers and electronic retailers to sign-on. These ads would simply let America know that you can't stop sharing without entirely shutting down or limiting your access to the networks. And then they would ask America whether having RIAA lawyers shut down the internet and e-mail to stop people from sharing the music they love with their friends and families is worth shutting down the American education system and economy.
Than use a different search engine. You are not entitled to use Google. Google is not around to serve you.
Actually, as one of their many target customers they ARE in business to serve me (and they usually do a great job of it too). I'm sure anyone at Google would agree.
The people who think that we shouldn't complain because Google is a private business need to get a bit of a clue about free market capitalism.
In a free market based society the best alternative is usually not to go out and start your own competitive business or even to simply stop using an otherwise good service whenever you disagree with one of their policies or have a bad experience (although you're certainly free to do either or both of these but its usually to your own disadvantage if the service/product is otherwise fine).
An equally valid alternative is to voice your concerns to the company as an individual or a community like we're doing here. At the very least, a responsible company should listen to your concerns and a surprisingly large number actually will make changes based on user suggestions or outcries. If you're a fan of Google and you don't like whatever policy they seem to have - I'm sure they would be happy to hear that feedback through forums like Slashdot, direct communications, and the media.
Whether they do anything about it is up to them, and you can decide what to do based on how they handle the issue, but its pretty weak to suggest that stories, complaints, and suggestions are not a valid way of participating in a free market. Part of the reason why Google has such a great product is that they HAVE responded (and anticipated) to criticisms in the past (and I expect them to continue or they will risk losing their customers).
Not exactly a surplus store, but you can find great functional and non-functional aerospace related stuff at the huge "flymarket" held at the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) Airventure Airshow in Oshkosh, WI during the last week of July every year (July 29th to August 4th this year).
It's also a great chance to visit the world's largest airshow (and busiest airport for one week a year) with nearly 1 million attendees and thousands of aircraft. The EAA also hosts a number of other events each year across the US that probably have smaller fleamarkets for used and surplus items.
This annual gathering of aviation "hackers" is definitely worth the drive and even better if you can fly in!
Great joke, but my theory remains that the EV1 may yet (positively) define the future of GM and that pulling the plug like this has always been part of their plan - and not because of some oil and automotive industry co-conspiracy to keep electric vehicles of the market forever.
You'll notice that the EV1 and other first generation automotive technologies like the first hybrids are almost always small, ugly, and generally impractical (but very expensive) vehicles with very little appeal to the masses. These vehicles are purposely marketed to appeal ONLY to the early adoptors (usually geeks and hobbyist types with relatively large disposable incomes).
These clunky vehicles are simply beta versions and their drivers are simply beta testers that are being used to work out the bugs prior to the first release. The automakers never expect to make a cent off these individual cars and programs, but set the prices sufficiently high (and limit the features) to scare off the average joe and to recoup a (minor) percentage of their R&D costs.
Limiting the availability of these beta units to a small group of enthusiasts allows automakers to understand the technical and (perhaps more importantly) the behavioral issues associated with the various innovations WITHOUT turning off the mass market due to the known and expected bugs and limitations. Removing these products from the market is the same as removing support for a beta program once the real deal has been released. Cost and liability may be factors, but the real issue is removing the association of electric/hybrid/fuel-cell vehicle with some sort of early generation and experimental toy.
Many of the lessons learned from the introduction and road-testing of the EV1 have led and will continue to lead into the eventual (hopefully) mass marketing of more promising technologies such as hybrid vehicles and fuel cells. While it is a total shame that GM is treating their EV1 innovators the way they are, this probably has much more to do with very poor PR and Legal advice than a reflection of their commitment to alternative energy.
I've already advocated instead of boycotting Amazon.com , boycott software Patents that the USPTO agrees to.
I agree. I think we should all stop buying software patents. Also, while we should still use Amazon we must never use Amazon's one-click process - sure it might add 5 minutes to your day, but it will surely piss them off.
Seriously though - while I might agree with not boycotting Amazon, please explain what you mean by boycotting software patents without boycotting the companies that employ them.
My point is simply that some distributions (e.g. Debian) make some things easier and others (e.g. Mandrake) make other things easier. And (slightly offtopic for this thread) the problem that's keeping Linux off the desktop is that Joe User needs it to be easy across the board and Windows does all of these things much better than any Linux distribution.
Completely agree with you that a successful desktop Linux will need to be good across the board, but it also shouldn't try to do everything Windows does as good or better as Windows or even try to do everything Windows does.
A successful desktop competitor to Windows will need to do everything the user wants, but without the extreme bloat of Windows. Sure, Linux provides power features, but even these should be relatively simple and usually hidden in a mass market consumer version.
Based on the level of tech knowledge exhibited by the average tech reporter (pretty low) I'd guess that "built-in" probably just means that it comes pre-loaded with standard plug-ins. Especially when it's cited in an article that seems so impressed that "Other special aspects of his browser are the fact that access to 120 Internet search engines..." - a rather useless/annoying feature that's standard in any run-of-the-mill adware/spyware package or by visiting one of those squatter's website's with all the pop-up ads (searching dmoz 115 times isn't going to help anyone...).
The claim that it's 100 to 500% faster is probably accurate in some sense, but compared to what? An old version of Netscape or Explorer? And on what kind of set-up? You can probably see that kind of variation in a single browser installation just by changing to different options and settings or by closing other windows or background applications. Personally, I often find myself switching between browsers depending on what seems to be working better on a particular day or on a particular network or machine.
On the other hand, he does sound like he's a bright kid with a good future, but probably one that just took Mozilla and turned it into snazzy looking bloatware with a bunch of extra features. Or, perhaps an even brighter kid who did the same thing from "scratch" with a lot of cutting and pasting (of his own work and from existing programs and libraries) to end up "writing" so many lines of code.
Slashdot Mirror
Google's slim design is certainly a major advantage and I agree that MS would find it tough to resist a "content" rich page, with lots of adverts and links (AKA fluff). Unfortunately it's not a web page I'm worried about.
It's when the next version of IE has an integrated default search bar - the only thing leaner and meaner than a clean webpage and something the average user is unlikely to remove. Of course removal might not even be an option. From the sounds of it they will probably integrate it right into the OS as the default "find files" function as well as internet search, and maybe even use it for find/replace in Office.
They will probably try to justify that this is not an abuse of their monopoly because it's "such a useful innovation for the consumer" and that it's "just an extension of what we've been doing for years with find files and allowing searches from the address location (URL) field".
I bet they will even try to force out Google's great search toolbar by eliminating compatibility with such add-ins - under the pretense of helping consumers to avoid the various spyware and parasite programs like Bonzi Buddy and Huntbar.
Filling a legitimate need in their system is what makes their position so powerful. I would love to have this kind of integrated search functionality in Windows. Of course, I want it from someone like Google, but most users probably don't care.
...as the salesperson will probably not know this subtle text difference.
Agreed, but of course, most of the salespeople I've come across would be lucky to know the difference between a parallel port and a serial port.
cite your source please. And how exactly would the US benefit from this? Such a pipeline would presumably connect Russian oil to the Indian ocean. Sounds like they would benefit not the US. Either way, never heard of it.
There is a widely covered and debated theory that such a pipeline, along with a desire to increase US influence with neighbouring (oil rich) former soviet republics, formed part of the motivation to invade Afganistan.
Such a pipeline has been proposed by a number of US oil companies, including a group involving Unocal in '97, although they cancelled this project due to issues related to lack of co-operation from the Taliban and later accusations of terrorism. The project has since been reprised by the Afgani government and a multi-national group, although Unocal was continuing to disavow any planned involvement.
This has been widely covered in the mainstream press since the conflict began (and also picked up and elaborated on by a number of the "kookier" ones). While I generally agree with your original post that US wars fought primarily over oil are the exception rather than the rule, and while it may be questionable that oil formed the major motivation for this war, the stability of regional energy supplies was definitely one of the key policy considerations that would have been factored in by the US administration then and now.
From the article:
"Four out of five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, and almost half receive spam linking to pornographic materials."
This only tells me that one out of five children do not have an e-mail account, and that nearly half of all children are able to use spamassassin much better than I can.
TiVo users are probably more representative of the most attractive demographic segments - those with relatively high levels of disposable income and/or a propensity to spend their disposable income on expensive toys like TiVo. This, combined with the kind of fairly extensive macro demographic data that can be culled from the zip codes makes for very attractive viewership data for analysis (even if it is aggregate and mainly for a certain niche).
Pretty soon we will need a DNS server to translate the postal code into something we can all remember (maybe I should patent this now :)
Alright, but I've got dibs on the patent for using Wi-Fi to access this server.
Or you can sell space plane kit plans for $20 a pop by placing "tiny" ads in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Not that you need to win to do that...
Can't find the original story I read, but I remember that Lucent once tried to sue a number of former employees who left to join Cisco. IIRC the judge laughed the suit out of court partly due to the fact that he found Lucent's technology to be so far behind Cisco's at the time that he couldn't see any chance of Cisco actually being able to use any of Lucent's obsolete "secrets".
The best reference to the case I could find just mentions that the judge couldn't find any injury to Lucent but also that he found fault the management practices that caused them to leave in the first place. I'm not sure what happened on appeal.
Do you really think that if films came out at the same time on DVD as on the screen that many people would still go to the theater?
Yes. You'd certainly lose some and it would also depend on the type of movie, but many people would continue to go to the theatre. You'd probably even add others who have seen it on the small screen and now want to experience the big show. The net might be lower, but many people would still go.
Most of the people I know who regularly go to the movies treat it as a social event with their friends or families, usually deciding to go out even before picking which movie they are going to see. Another good case is the latest Matrix movie. Most of the people I know who waited in line to see it on opening were also the very same people who regularly download most of the films they watch at home. For them, the DVD and the film were released on the essentially same day but they were the ones that helped make it such a success on opening day.
On the other hand, there are some who actually prefer watching certain movies on the smaller screen. But very often these are the lower budget, lower effect type movies that don't need the same level of box office to be successful. In the future, production technology will improve to further reduce the costs for many of these movies so that this category might even include some homemade films. So some of the best movies might be produced by near amateurs who don't need or use the Hollywood distribution channels, but I expect that the more expensive and visually oriented films will always find a strong market in the movie houses to make their investments worthwhile even if they can't make anything in the home market anymore.
That someone might come up with an invention independently is one of the good reasons that patents (and theoretically copyrights) have limited terms.
In exchange for sharing the description of an innovation with everyone (by describing it publically in a patent) the right to that innovation is temporarily taken away from everyone else - even if they independently think it up themselves. IP "ownership" is not a fundamental right that is given up at the end of a term - it is really a denial of public rights that is tolerated only in order to encourage more rapid disclosure of innovations, even though most innovations (and probably all useful ones) would eventually be thought of, developed, and shared by someone else.
It's actually hard to think of any useful innovations that would'nt have been thought of and developed within 10-20 years after the initially disclosed invention (or usually much less). I think the only real exceptions are the ones that actually prove the rule - either broad, speculative, but revolutionary patents that launch a field well before anyone else was even thinking about it, or perhaps patents for innovations like drugs that still require significant capital and time before commercialization. These types of patent disclosures can help to accelerate the attention of other researchers and engineers, since such a patent might not be in force for very long by the time the innovation (and derivatives) actually hit the market.
Forks in the tree.
If someone's parents and grandparents all had blonde hair, but they themselves were born with brown hair (due to a mutation, not due to a recessive gene or the milkman), then their children might then carry on that gene but it doesn't necessarily mean that their cousins kids will ever have brown hair.
Similarly, if closely related species are in direct competition with each other for scarce resources such as food and habitat then natural selection might cause one to survive at the expense of the other one becoming extinct. But if they are geographically separated, their different traits don't have any significant advantages, or if they find different (non-competitive or competitive but sustainable) ecological niches then there's nothing stopping them from co-existing.
The point has been brought to the board rooms, and I don't know see what it can do other than hurt the cause.
I disagree entirely. If SCO wins, closed source loses and open source wins.
SCO has sued IBM and given them an ultimatum that threatens to cut off the closed source AIX licence from IBM and possibly from their entire installed base of users as well. While it may be unlikely that SCO could (or would) pull the plug on these systems, the possibility has certainly been raised.
In doing so, SCO has reminded managers and boards that their dependence on third party closed source programs exposes them to a certain level of risk. In the past, firms could reduce this liability by writing their own software, purchasing the source code, or through carefully worded contracts. But SCO has made it clear to industry that even perpetual and irrevocable contracts like the one between IBM and SCO aren't bulletproof. Linux and other open source programs represent a compelling alternative for these companies looking to reduce their exposure to the SCO's of the world.
And so what if the Linux kernel has some of their proprietary code in it? Simply point out the offending code and the community will build a work-around. While the corporate world sits waiting years for proprietary bug fixes that never come, a quick and effective solution by the community will help deflate a major fear about open source.
So, if the community steps up to the challenge by promoting the benefits of open code and by demonstrating the effectiveness of the distributed developer base, the SCO lawsuit could become the poster boy case for open source. And the case for open source is made even stronger if SCO wins their case. And either way, SCO is a dead duck.
The iLoo, WAS a real idea, not a hoax as previously stated. However, MS's PR department fscked it up, and announced it as a hoax.
Microsoft may have screwed this one up with some really poor internal communications and overzealous PR reps, but the media also has to take some blame for some really poor journalism.
While a few MS reps did try to spin things as "an April Fool's joke", the story with the widest circulation (and it's still being published in some papers as late as today) was the one with the "hoax" headline attached to a story that made it clear that it was NOT a hoax, but was simply an overhyped pilot project. Of course all the editorials and TV news programs simply read the misleading headline about a "hoax" without reading the rest of story and turned this into an even bigger story, while most Slashdot comments seemed to pick out the obvious discrepancies right away.
Slashdot readers may be criticized for not always reading the stories but at least they seem to do much better than the mass media in this respect. That the media will continue to spin this story over the next couple of days is almost as sad, irresponsible, and scary as the recently exposed fraudulent NYT reporter.
Of course, it's fun to laugh at Microsoft too!
Cheers to your comment and to most of the replies as well. I guess we're all just preaching to the choir, but here's my two cents anyway.
Even as a very young kid I remember always actively seeking out the seemingly more "adult" fare. And I think there's good evidence of this approach consistently working, beyond just the many cartoon examples. Think of the Muppets or even live action programs like 3-2-1 Contact. These shows were populated by adults or (slightly) older kids that made you feel like you were "cool" for watching something that seemed to be targeted at people above your age.
I laugh sometimes when I look back at old shows at just how young their casts were, in contrast to my impression of them being so much older and maturer. It seems pretty clear that many of the most successful (and memorable) of these shows purposefully casted actors that were a couple (or more) years older than their target audience. By not pandering they also provided a certain depth to the story line and made you feel like you were in on a secret. Not only did this approach seem to work commercially but I think it also helped to boost confidence levels and contributed to general education much better than programs targeted at narrow age-based niches.
Likewise this is part of the problem. If children grew up with widescreen they wouldn't complain when they got older.
;)
Finally, an end to all complaints? Let's support a bill to give a free widescreen plasma to every child
I'll treat creationists ideas with respect as soon as they agree that my creationist theory is as valid as theirs:
"Joe the giant turtle barfed up the universe last week. He can vomit anything."
Awesome theory. You really need to put together one of those kooky coalitions that try to convince school boards to add their "theories" to the science curriculum.
Not if you only used it locally, as part of the claim is via a network.
What is a network anyway? So many of these patents are old technologies simply implemented over a "network" but they rarely define what that means except that they try to apply it as broadly as possible. What about a bus connecting a CPU to peripherals? While this might not apply to the case at hand, when patent holder do try to extend the original meaning of a described network to include everything from a proprietary set of terminals, to a LAN, to the Internet, couldn't it also work against them if defendants broadly defined buses, printer connections, and multi-processor systems, etc. as sorts of networks that could provide prior art? That is "the prior art devices were always networked - the networks were just on a physically small scale or 1:1 vs. n:m".
Right on. Not only is the RIAA asking universities to accomplish something (strict monitoring and complete control over of the use of their networks) that is technically and financally impossible, and morally and academically unsound, but they are also making it clear that any amount of helpful cooperation will result exposure to liability for any and all actions taken by users.
I hope that university officals and lawyers will finally realize they only have two ultimate choices: fight the RIAA or entirely shut down their computer networks and ban all electronic devices from students. Simply ignoring the issue or trying to help are not long term options and will only expose them to greater liability.
I would love to see a series of full page ads by America's universities taking the RIAA to task. They could get all the major hardware manufacturers and electronic retailers to sign-on. These ads would simply let America know that you can't stop sharing without entirely shutting down or limiting your access to the networks. And then they would ask America whether having RIAA lawyers shut down the internet and e-mail to stop people from sharing the music they love with their friends and families is worth shutting down the American education system and economy.
Than use a different search engine. You are not entitled to use Google. Google is not around to serve you.
Actually, as one of their many target customers they ARE in business to serve me (and they usually do a great job of it too). I'm sure anyone at Google would agree.
The people who think that we shouldn't complain because Google is a private business need to get a bit of a clue about free market capitalism.
In a free market based society the best alternative is usually not to go out and start your own competitive business or even to simply stop using an otherwise good service whenever you disagree with one of their policies or have a bad experience (although you're certainly free to do either or both of these but its usually to your own disadvantage if the service/product is otherwise fine).
An equally valid alternative is to voice your concerns to the company as an individual or a community like we're doing here. At the very least, a responsible company should listen to your concerns and a surprisingly large number actually will make changes based on user suggestions or outcries. If you're a fan of Google and you don't like whatever policy they seem to have - I'm sure they would be happy to hear that feedback through forums like Slashdot, direct communications, and the media.
Whether they do anything about it is up to them, and you can decide what to do based on how they handle the issue, but its pretty weak to suggest that stories, complaints, and suggestions are not a valid way of participating in a free market. Part of the reason why Google has such a great product is that they HAVE responded (and anticipated) to criticisms in the past (and I expect them to continue or they will risk losing their customers).
Not exactly a surplus store, but you can find great functional and non-functional aerospace related stuff at the huge "flymarket" held at the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) Airventure Airshow in Oshkosh, WI during the last week of July every year (July 29th to August 4th this year).
It's also a great chance to visit the world's largest airshow (and busiest airport for one week a year) with nearly 1 million attendees and thousands of aircraft. The EAA also hosts a number of other events each year across the US that probably have smaller fleamarkets for used and surplus items.
This annual gathering of aviation "hackers" is definitely worth the drive and even better if you can fly in!
Great joke, but my theory remains that the EV1 may yet (positively) define the future of GM and that pulling the plug like this has always been part of their plan - and not because of some oil and automotive industry co-conspiracy to keep electric vehicles of the market forever.
You'll notice that the EV1 and other first generation automotive technologies like the first hybrids are almost always small, ugly, and generally impractical (but very expensive) vehicles with very little appeal to the masses. These vehicles are purposely marketed to appeal ONLY to the early adoptors (usually geeks and hobbyist types with relatively large disposable incomes).
These clunky vehicles are simply beta versions and their drivers are simply beta testers that are being used to work out the bugs prior to the first release. The automakers never expect to make a cent off these individual cars and programs, but set the prices sufficiently high (and limit the features) to scare off the average joe and to recoup a (minor) percentage of their R&D costs.
Limiting the availability of these beta units to a small group of enthusiasts allows automakers to understand the technical and (perhaps more importantly) the behavioral issues associated with the various innovations WITHOUT turning off the mass market due to the known and expected bugs and limitations. Removing these products from the market is the same as removing support for a beta program once the real deal has been released. Cost and liability may be factors, but the real issue is removing the association of electric/hybrid/fuel-cell vehicle with some sort of early generation and experimental toy.
Many of the lessons learned from the introduction and road-testing of the EV1 have led and will continue to lead into the eventual (hopefully) mass marketing of more promising technologies such as hybrid vehicles and fuel cells. While it is a total shame that GM is treating their EV1 innovators the way they are, this probably has much more to do with very poor PR and Legal advice than a reflection of their commitment to alternative energy.
I've already advocated instead of boycotting Amazon.com , boycott software Patents that the USPTO agrees to.
I agree. I think we should all stop buying software patents. Also, while we should still use Amazon we must never use Amazon's one-click process - sure it might add 5 minutes to your day, but it will surely piss them off.
Seriously though - while I might agree with not boycotting Amazon, please explain what you mean by boycotting software patents without boycotting the companies that employ them.
Hey, I just got back from a date.
With a girl.
My point is simply that some distributions (e.g. Debian) make some things easier and others (e.g. Mandrake) make other things easier. And (slightly offtopic for this thread) the problem that's keeping Linux off the desktop is that Joe User needs it to be easy across the board and Windows does all of these things much better than any Linux distribution.
Completely agree with you that a successful desktop Linux will need to be good across the board, but it also shouldn't try to do everything Windows does as good or better as Windows or even try to do everything Windows does.
A successful desktop competitor to Windows will need to do everything the user wants, but without the extreme bloat of Windows. Sure, Linux provides power features, but even these should be relatively simple and usually hidden in a mass market consumer version.
Based on the level of tech knowledge exhibited by the average tech reporter (pretty low) I'd guess that "built-in" probably just means that it comes pre-loaded with standard plug-ins. Especially when it's cited in an article that seems so impressed that "Other special aspects of his browser are the fact that access to 120 Internet search engines..." - a rather useless/annoying feature that's standard in any run-of-the-mill adware/spyware package or by visiting one of those squatter's website's with all the pop-up ads (searching dmoz 115 times isn't going to help anyone...).
The claim that it's 100 to 500% faster is probably accurate in some sense, but compared to what? An old version of Netscape or Explorer? And on what kind of set-up? You can probably see that kind of variation in a single browser installation just by changing to different options and settings or by closing other windows or background applications. Personally, I often find myself switching between browsers depending on what seems to be working better on a particular day or on a particular network or machine.
On the other hand, he does sound like he's a bright kid with a good future, but probably one that just took Mozilla and turned it into snazzy looking bloatware with a bunch of extra features. Or, perhaps an even brighter kid who did the same thing from "scratch" with a lot of cutting and pasting (of his own work and from existing programs and libraries) to end up "writing" so many lines of code.