Doubleclick may be perfectly happy to issue a press release "apologizing" and keep right on doing business as usual.
Which is why many of us have elected to employ the nuclear option (FireFox + AdBlock Plus + NoScript) instead of dealing with crap like this. I really don't give a damn about doubleclick or any of their double talk (pun intended). How many more people will choose the nuclear option after reading articles like this? We shall see.
They could take any old sap and make him into a star
So they edited the auditions, did anyone think that they weren't going to do that or that Simon and his cohorts would personally hear every last one of the tens of thousands of contestants who tried out? Please, its a television show not an completely objective process for selecting the very best singer on Earth. For example, they call the winners of the NBA Championships the "world champions" but does that mean that there isn't a better group of basketball players anywhere on the planet? Of course not.
As for making any old sap into a star, suckage is suckage whether you make it far in the show or not. No amount of promotion or hype was going to make Sanjaya the winner of the show. You might argue that the winners of some seasons are better than others but that is really unavoidable, there are too many variables in the whole process for that not to happen, but you would be hard pressed to claim that the winners are just any old untalented saps whom the producers wanted to make into the "winners". They have mostly been good to excellent IMHO. Perhaps you disagree, but really would you rather have the Idol system, flawed though it may be, or the MAFIAA picking the winners with no public input, except when it comes time to sell music, whatsoever?
isn't the various Idol shows to be found in North America and abroad the ultimate expression of that
IMHO that is not entirely the case. In fact, compared to the "new" material that the "professional" artists are putting out in the MAFIAA label system these days, shows like Pop Idol and American Idol are a breath of fresh air. These shows actually do find and select some talented new vocalists from among the general populations (the diamonds in the rough if you will) who would never have gotten exposure otherwise under the marketing driven, make anyone sound good in the studio, craptastic MAFIAA label system. Consider the following:
1) The contestants are selected in a grueling process of elimination where actual performance is judged brutally by judges, like Simon who doesn't pull punches when the performance is sub-par, without regard to favoritism, who the contestant is connected with, or crap like that but rather solely upon whether or not, in the opinion of the judges, the contestant could earn the best return on their (Simon's) money if they sign them for a recording contract. Now, admittedly the audience sometimes votes for bad contestants just to make some trouble, but everyone knows that they are still bad so in the end it doesn't really matter that much for who wins the competition.
2) At almost every stage the contestants get to choose what songs they are going to sing and although the choices are sometimes limited to the catalog of a particular guest professional artist or genre there are generally plenty of potential song choices for each contestant.
I particularly like it when professionals make a guest appearance on the show and end up sounding worse then the talented young contestants. They invariably invite the comparison just by appearing on the show. In fact, I don't understand why some professionals appear on the show, it only highlights the fact that they are over the hill or even worse that they were never as talented as some of the up and coming contestants...a potentially bad career move for them.
Frankly, I don't much care for pop style music, but there have been some really good female African American Jazz style vocalists on the show who sound great when they sing the old standards from the likes of Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
My point is that contrary to contributing to the problem of mediocre music, shows like American Idol, could potentially be the antidote to no-talent bands and the crap that has come out of the marketing driven "promotion" of sub-par "artists" by the MAFIAA labels. It is really hard to hide the fact that you suck when you have to sing live in front of a studio and television audience straight into the mike with no second takes, remixing, or other studio tricks. In such situations the real talent tends to come forward while the hacks leave in disgrace (or hopefully don't even make it onto the show in the first place).
One person (my elderly neighbor) uses it to email her kids and grandkids. What's wrong with that?
Well for starters, when the RIAA subpoenas your ISP and files a lawsuit against you for filesharing your name is going to be the one that comes up or even worse when the three letter agency shows up at your door you are going to have to explain to their satisfaction what the situation is and even if you do manage to convince them, if you cannot tell them who is responsible then they are going to bust you anyway. If you are running an open wireless network then you are playing with fire...it is up to you, but watch out that you don't get burned.
I'm curious if they'll be able to see the Apollo landing sites.
The optics package is probably not large enough to resolve to the required level of detail (unless that was a specific mission goal for them). Perhaps someone with more time and inclination could break out the old college physics textbook, flip to the optics section, and calculate the size of the lens necessary to spot a 3m^2 object from an orbital altitude of sixty miles?
This is one thing that I have never understood about countries which try to limit speech and especially criticism of the government. What is gained by shutting down dissent with the power of force? Do they actually believe that the rest of the world doesn't know what is going on anyway? Heck, even the dimmest rural Chinese citizen knows well the failings of the system (probably from bitter personal experience). Is their system or argument so weak that it cannot stand up in an honest debate? These countries should stop quashing dissent with the gun and instead fight the battle of ideas in an open and public debate. What are they so afraid of? If they believe so strongly that their system is the best then why not put their money where their mouth is so to speak?
Misdemeanor perhaps, but making it a felony for the people playing is more than a little over kill.
Yes, but then your political opponents could accuse you of being "soft on crime" and you don't want to be "soft on crime" do you? So you vote to lock them up and throw away the key because the constituents want blood and the online gamblers are not enough a voting block to make a difference.
Armor is not the really the solution either. Invariably it is impossible to armor every area of the ship or even critical areas equally or enough to counter the more accurate targeting of modern missiles and torpedoes which can be set to detonate directly under the keel or hit the weak points in the superstructure (or anywhere else they might be). If the ship has even one weak area (which it invariably will) then it can always be sunk eventually by hitting the weak point or the chink in the armor so to speak. Armor also makes the ship slower, reduces the amount of payload that the ship can carry, and makes the ship less maneuverable (i.e. increases momentum and the amount of energy required to change directions).
The MS Office implementation (i.e. personalized menus) is annoying because it hides options on a per item basis when it would be better to hide items on a per toolbar basis. For example, if I rarely use the drawing options in Word, then it may be appropriate to exclude the drawing toolbar from the default collection. However, if I go looking for the drawing toolbar then I should find it with all of the options intact and available. The problem is not hiding in general, but rather the granularity of the hiding.
but doesn't necessarily help with the prevention of bad laws in the first place
The EFF also engages in lobbying, as do the professional lobbying firms hired by the MAFIAA and other corporations, only this time the lobbying is being done on behalf of the people. In fact, I have contributed several hundred dollars to them over the years to support just these types of activities. It is an unfortunate truth in American society that if you want good laws (or a better defense against bad ones) then you have to engage in lobbying and counter lobbying. It is not an option to merely stand on the sidelines (as even Microsoft found out with the antitrust cases), you have to actively protect your interests against those who are trying to take away your rights and subjugate you to their interests. If your lawmakers are only hearing the story from one side (i.e. the MAFIAA and other corporations) then don't be surprised when you lose the battle by default (i.e. forfeit).
The EFF regularly sends out alerts and bulletins concerning pending legislation with opportunities to contact your representatives and make your views known. If you want to get involved then check out the EFF: Effector Newsletter and stay informed.
The Sony DRM Rootkit case should server as a useful template for litigation so the answer is yes, provided that somebody can actually show damages (i.e. borked computer, identity theft, etc.) based upon a known exploit of the safe disc driver, but once again the lawyers will get 90% of the money with the remaining 10% divided among millions of claimants in the form of $0.20 checks issued to those who will provide their name and address (which will subsequently be sold for marketing purposes). The only consolation that consumers would get is the knowledge that Macrovision took a hit to the wallet but probably not a knockout blow (settlements tend to be lower than the amounts that can be had for litigating a case to its conclusion, albeit at greater risk to all parties).
Yeah yeah the US cell phone market really sucks dirt, but that is not anything new. The advantage that countries like Korea and Japan have is that compared to the US they are geographically small. It takes less investment to cover someone wherever they might like to make a call in Korea or Japan as opposed to having that same person covered, with excellent call quality, from anywhere in the US that they might want to make calls. The advantage that China had, and still has for the most part, is that until recently there really wasn't much there. They could install new technologies fast because there was no existing infrastructure to speak of. It is much easier to do a bang up job and quickly when you can start with a relatively clean slate. Now contrast that to the United States where there is massive existing infrastructure and regulations to be dealt with. Now, I know that this cannot completely explain the horrible cell service here in the United States, Europe (which has similar infrastructure and regulation issues, but somewhat less size) has better service as well. I am still holding out hope that something good will come from the 700 mhz spectrum auction, but more likely is that telco monopolies, cough...verizon...cough, will buy up the spectrum just to keep it out of the hands of sharper competitors like Google and halt or delay the roleout of newer better services while they squeeze the American public for a few more decades to recover their investments in the existing technologies.
BTW: That same 450 minutes that you get for $8 in China costs me 5 times that much here in the United States...sigh at least we can still say whatever we want in this country, even if it is monitored and recorded for data mining and generation of the no-fly list.
Well, in a manner of speaking, he does work in marketing. He is pitching his sales strategy to his customers who buy into it by supporting him, continuing to approve of his policies, and ultimately keep him in power. I am not certain, but if I had to guess I would say that the unique and opaque culture of the Chinese government bureaucracy, complete with back room deals, shifting political allegiances, corruption, the gulag, and all the intrigues that accompany any non-representative government, whether it be an oriental despotism like the Byzantine Empire or a modern scientific socialism like China (at least officially), is a major contributing factor in the copious amount of nauseating and pompous bullshit bingo which emerges in these quinquennal (occuring once every five years) meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies (I think that is what they call themselves). Compared with these guys, the US presidential candidates are downright honest, frank, and forthcoming.
The add-on model is superior from a design perspective because it allows easy incremental updates, progressive additions of features which remain nicely separated from the main browser (ala the Chain of Responsibility AND Strategy Design Patterns) in a layered stack, and it allows third party developers, who may have good ideas (no one person has a monopoly on good ideas or features), an easy and structured access to the rendering stack with convenient hooks and opportunities to handle events and modify output accordingly. Now granted, as a developer my needs and wants with regard to a browser are probably more extensive than the average Joe, but how does Opera compare with a fairly typical setup of Firefox with addons?
A common group of addons is: AdBlock Plus, NoScript, Greasemonkey, and CustomizeGoogle for example. Does Opera have support for all of those features "baked in"? I doubt it.
I actually think that CSS was the right direction to go with the future of layout in HTML, even in hindsight. It could be better yes, but the core functionality is there and generally likeable. The few known problems should be addressed within the context of CSS instead of ditching CSS and HTML and starting over. The XHTML push is also a good idea, brings a rigor and formality that was lacking in older versions of HTML. The way out of this is to continue improving the existing standards slowly, logically, and methodically and only ditching them, finally, when we have a *very* good reason to do so. The approaches are pretty sound, it is mostly a few quirks in the languages and lots of quirks in the browser rendering engines that have contributed to the perception that they system, as it stands today, is completely broken when in fact it is actually pretty good, all things considered. Could it be better? Yes, but the way to get there is to improve and build on top of existing standards, not ditch everything and start over. The layered approach has been shown time and again through extensive experience to be the right approach in network design, now we just have to get the details right.
but you never see mention of it in the "real world," and this article is part of that trend. Why?
because the add-ons for Firefox are simply too good to pass up. The rest of the population doesn't know about either Opera or Firefox and just uses the pre-installed IE on their Windows machine. Seriously though, the add-ons for Firefox add a TON of value to the Mozilla platform. Is there anything like the range and quality of available add-ons for Opera? I don't know, but I would bet the answer is probably no.
While it might seem that Adobe would make a good acquisition for Apple there are several factors weighing against it IMHO. First, the price for Adobe, now that it includes the assets of the former Macromedia combined with the many successful core Adobe products, would be very high indeed for Apple. Apple might do better by reserving such a large chunk of their available investment capital, assuming that they could finance the purchase (haven't checked the respective balance sheets of the companies, but Yahoo Finance could probably get someone a ballpark estimate if they were interested), for internal R&D, improvements to their core products, OSX Leopard for example, and especially their profitable iPhone and iPod hardware sales and services which brings up the second and main point:
The iPhone, iPod, and iTunes angles are so profitable for Apple that it would be hard to justify NOT investing the maximum available capital or the last available profitable investment dollar (where marginal return exceeds marginal cost of investing one more dollar) into the expanding entertainment hardware and media business. The opportunity cost of buying Adobe instead of or at the expense of continued investment in the profitable iPhone, iPod, and iTunes markets may simply be too high, even though Adobe might be a good fit for Apple at least conceptually, to justify.
Disclaimer: I am neither an Apple nor an Adobe shareholder and I have no personal financial interest in either company.
I like Ron Paul too, but lets face it, he is unelectable. It is an unfortunate truth that the politician with the best or even good ideas is rarely elected solely or even mostly on the merits of those ideas, but rather what the public thinks of his podium speaking skills, packaged sound bites (carefully packaged so that the "average" voter draws the "correct" conclusions from them), and physical appearance (i.e. nice suit + seven (7) fold silk tie, sharp facial features, and $400.00 plus hair cut...preferably done while idling the jet on the tarmac). The debates are more like political Kabuki theater organized for the party faithful then genuine debates. The questions are sometimes alright, but for the most part the candidates retreat to their sound bites or dodge the questions, or else the questions are soft peddled or pre-screened from a pool submitted by the public (so there are no surprises) by the "moderators" making the "debates" a fairly meaningless exercise.
Remember that in the United States you can sue anybody for anything. The court will take your filing fees and schedule you to be heard on the docket. That doesn't mean that your case won't be thrown out as soon as a judge looks at your filed papers, but the court will take your money and file the papers for you, no matter how frivolous your claims, for review by a judge. That is basically just the way that the system works (there are minor variations between jurisdictions of course, but the rudimentary steps of the litigation process still hold).
They were enhancing the realism of your viewing experience. You see, you felt just like you were at the office again: stress, anger, frustration...it was all there and that after you just got home from being there. What will they think of next?
I like watching these guys squirm as much as the next Slashdotter, but it is an unfortunate truth that the entertainment business spends more time and money on lobbying for bad laws than just about any other industry of similar size. So, we should be concerned that in their death throes some of these companies will lash out and take a few parting shots at our freedoms before they give up the ghost. They use the government and wield the law as a tool to beat the marketplace into submission better and more often than just about any other industry that you could name.
Try leaving feedback on the NBC website sometime. They want so much info it's obvious they plan to spam you or sell it to someone who will.
So use Zucker's contact info when leaving your feedback, maybe they will sell his address to the spammers along with all of the rest of the ones in the database.
Why not give your customers what they want? If Apple is concerned about its "oh so reliable" image (which is almost meaningless if that reliability comes at the price of limiting people to the choice of take it or leave it when it comes to the hardware) then why not simply offer both setups? The guaranteed Apple branded hardware + OS new in the box bundle for the "it just works" crowd and the OS box, perhaps with instructions, and a "good luck" to the crowd that wants that experience and is willing to accept a waiver on the support issue? At least with the iPhone there is a good reason for the lock-in other than Apple protecting its brand (i.e. AT&T is giving them payola for each iPhone sold).
Slashdot Mirror
Doubleclick may be perfectly happy to issue a press release "apologizing" and keep right on doing business as usual.
Which is why many of us have elected to employ the nuclear option (FireFox + AdBlock Plus + NoScript) instead of dealing with crap like this. I really don't give a damn about doubleclick or any of their double talk (pun intended). How many more people will choose the nuclear option after reading articles like this? We shall see.
They could take any old sap and make him into a star
So they edited the auditions, did anyone think that they weren't going to do that or that Simon and his cohorts would personally hear every last one of the tens of thousands of contestants who tried out? Please, its a television show not an completely objective process for selecting the very best singer on Earth. For example, they call the winners of the NBA Championships the "world champions" but does that mean that there isn't a better group of basketball players anywhere on the planet? Of course not.
As for making any old sap into a star, suckage is suckage whether you make it far in the show or not. No amount of promotion or hype was going to make Sanjaya the winner of the show. You might argue that the winners of some seasons are better than others but that is really unavoidable, there are too many variables in the whole process for that not to happen, but you would be hard pressed to claim that the winners are just any old untalented saps whom the producers wanted to make into the "winners". They have mostly been good to excellent IMHO. Perhaps you disagree, but really would you rather have the Idol system, flawed though it may be, or the MAFIAA picking the winners with no public input, except when it comes time to sell music, whatsoever?
isn't the various Idol shows to be found in North America and abroad the ultimate expression of that
IMHO that is not entirely the case. In fact, compared to the "new" material that the "professional" artists are putting out in the MAFIAA label system these days, shows like Pop Idol and American Idol are a breath of fresh air. These shows actually do find and select some talented new vocalists from among the general populations (the diamonds in the rough if you will) who would never have gotten exposure otherwise under the marketing driven, make anyone sound good in the studio, craptastic MAFIAA label system. Consider the following:
1) The contestants are selected in a grueling process of elimination where actual performance is judged brutally by judges, like Simon who doesn't pull punches when the performance is sub-par, without regard to favoritism, who the contestant is connected with, or crap like that but rather solely upon whether or not, in the opinion of the judges, the contestant could earn the best return on their (Simon's) money if they sign them for a recording contract. Now, admittedly the audience sometimes votes for bad contestants just to make some trouble, but everyone knows that they are still bad so in the end it doesn't really matter that much for who wins the competition.
2) At almost every stage the contestants get to choose what songs they are going to sing and although the choices are sometimes limited to the catalog of a particular guest professional artist or genre there are generally plenty of potential song choices for each contestant.
I particularly like it when professionals make a guest appearance on the show and end up sounding worse then the talented young contestants. They invariably invite the comparison just by appearing on the show. In fact, I don't understand why some professionals appear on the show, it only highlights the fact that they are over the hill or even worse that they were never as talented as some of the up and coming contestants...a potentially bad career move for them.
Frankly, I don't much care for pop style music, but there have been some really good female African American Jazz style vocalists on the show who sound great when they sing the old standards from the likes of Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
My point is that contrary to contributing to the problem of mediocre music, shows like American Idol, could potentially be the antidote to no-talent bands and the crap that has come out of the marketing driven "promotion" of sub-par "artists" by the MAFIAA labels. It is really hard to hide the fact that you suck when you have to sing live in front of a studio and television audience straight into the mike with no second takes, remixing, or other studio tricks. In such situations the real talent tends to come forward while the hacks leave in disgrace (or hopefully don't even make it onto the show in the first place).
One person (my elderly neighbor) uses it to email her kids and grandkids. What's wrong with that?
Well for starters, when the RIAA subpoenas your ISP and files a lawsuit against you for filesharing your name is going to be the one that comes up or even worse when the three letter agency shows up at your door you are going to have to explain to their satisfaction what the situation is and even if you do manage to convince them, if you cannot tell them who is responsible then they are going to bust you anyway. If you are running an open wireless network then you are playing with fire...it is up to you, but watch out that you don't get burned.
I'm curious if they'll be able to see the Apollo landing sites.
The optics package is probably not large enough to resolve to the required level of detail (unless that was a specific mission goal for them). Perhaps someone with more time and inclination could break out the old college physics textbook, flip to the optics section, and calculate the size of the lens necessary to spot a 3m^2 object from an orbital altitude of sixty miles?
This is one thing that I have never understood about countries which try to limit speech and especially criticism of the government. What is gained by shutting down dissent with the power of force? Do they actually believe that the rest of the world doesn't know what is going on anyway? Heck, even the dimmest rural Chinese citizen knows well the failings of the system (probably from bitter personal experience). Is their system or argument so weak that it cannot stand up in an honest debate? These countries should stop quashing dissent with the gun and instead fight the battle of ideas in an open and public debate. What are they so afraid of? If they believe so strongly that their system is the best then why not put their money where their mouth is so to speak?
Misdemeanor perhaps, but making it a felony for the people playing is more than a little over kill.
Yes, but then your political opponents could accuse you of being "soft on crime" and you don't want to be "soft on crime" do you? So you vote to lock them up and throw away the key because the constituents want blood and the online gamblers are not enough a voting block to make a difference.
Armor is not the really the solution either. Invariably it is impossible to armor every area of the ship or even critical areas equally or enough to counter the more accurate targeting of modern missiles and torpedoes which can be set to detonate directly under the keel or hit the weak points in the superstructure (or anywhere else they might be). If the ship has even one weak area (which it invariably will) then it can always be sunk eventually by hitting the weak point or the chink in the armor so to speak. Armor also makes the ship slower, reduces the amount of payload that the ship can carry, and makes the ship less maneuverable (i.e. increases momentum and the amount of energy required to change directions).
The MS Office implementation (i.e. personalized menus) is annoying because it hides options on a per item basis when it would be better to hide items on a per toolbar basis. For example, if I rarely use the drawing options in Word, then it may be appropriate to exclude the drawing toolbar from the default collection. However, if I go looking for the drawing toolbar then I should find it with all of the options intact and available. The problem is not hiding in general, but rather the granularity of the hiding.
but doesn't necessarily help with the prevention of bad laws in the first place
The EFF also engages in lobbying, as do the professional lobbying firms hired by the MAFIAA and other corporations, only this time the lobbying is being done on behalf of the people. In fact, I have contributed several hundred dollars to them over the years to support just these types of activities. It is an unfortunate truth in American society that if you want good laws (or a better defense against bad ones) then you have to engage in lobbying and counter lobbying. It is not an option to merely stand on the sidelines (as even Microsoft found out with the antitrust cases), you have to actively protect your interests against those who are trying to take away your rights and subjugate you to their interests. If your lawmakers are only hearing the story from one side (i.e. the MAFIAA and other corporations) then don't be surprised when you lose the battle by default (i.e. forfeit).
The EFF regularly sends out alerts and bulletins concerning pending legislation with opportunities to contact your representatives and make your views known. If you want to get involved then check out the EFF: Effector Newsletter and stay informed.
The Sony DRM Rootkit case should server as a useful template for litigation so the answer is yes, provided that somebody can actually show damages (i.e. borked computer, identity theft, etc.) based upon a known exploit of the safe disc driver, but once again the lawyers will get 90% of the money with the remaining 10% divided among millions of claimants in the form of $0.20 checks issued to those who will provide their name and address (which will subsequently be sold for marketing purposes). The only consolation that consumers would get is the knowledge that Macrovision took a hit to the wallet but probably not a knockout blow (settlements tend to be lower than the amounts that can be had for litigating a case to its conclusion, albeit at greater risk to all parties).
Yeah yeah the US cell phone market really sucks dirt, but that is not anything new. The advantage that countries like Korea and Japan have is that compared to the US they are geographically small. It takes less investment to cover someone wherever they might like to make a call in Korea or Japan as opposed to having that same person covered, with excellent call quality, from anywhere in the US that they might want to make calls. The advantage that China had, and still has for the most part, is that until recently there really wasn't much there. They could install new technologies fast because there was no existing infrastructure to speak of. It is much easier to do a bang up job and quickly when you can start with a relatively clean slate. Now contrast that to the United States where there is massive existing infrastructure and regulations to be dealt with. Now, I know that this cannot completely explain the horrible cell service here in the United States, Europe (which has similar infrastructure and regulation issues, but somewhat less size) has better service as well. I am still holding out hope that something good will come from the 700 mhz spectrum auction, but more likely is that telco monopolies, cough...verizon...cough, will buy up the spectrum just to keep it out of the hands of sharper competitors like Google and halt or delay the roleout of newer better services while they squeeze the American public for a few more decades to recover their investments in the existing technologies.
BTW: That same 450 minutes that you get for $8 in China costs me 5 times that much here in the United States...sigh at least we can still say whatever we want in this country, even if it is monitored and recorded for data mining and generation of the no-fly list.
or Metal Gear...
Sure he doesn't work in marketing?
Well, in a manner of speaking, he does work in marketing. He is pitching his sales strategy to his customers who buy into it by supporting him, continuing to approve of his policies, and ultimately keep him in power. I am not certain, but if I had to guess I would say that the unique and opaque culture of the Chinese government bureaucracy, complete with back room deals, shifting political allegiances, corruption, the gulag, and all the intrigues that accompany any non-representative government, whether it be an oriental despotism like the Byzantine Empire or a modern scientific socialism like China (at least officially), is a major contributing factor in the copious amount of nauseating and pompous bullshit bingo which emerges in these quinquennal (occuring once every five years) meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies (I think that is what they call themselves). Compared with these guys, the US presidential candidates are downright honest, frank, and forthcoming.
The add-on model is superior from a design perspective because it allows easy incremental updates, progressive additions of features which remain nicely separated from the main browser (ala the Chain of Responsibility AND Strategy Design Patterns) in a layered stack, and it allows third party developers, who may have good ideas (no one person has a monopoly on good ideas or features), an easy and structured access to the rendering stack with convenient hooks and opportunities to handle events and modify output accordingly. Now granted, as a developer my needs and wants with regard to a browser are probably more extensive than the average Joe, but how does Opera compare with a fairly typical setup of Firefox with addons?
A common group of addons is: AdBlock Plus, NoScript, Greasemonkey, and CustomizeGoogle for example. Does Opera have support for all of those features "baked in"? I doubt it.
I actually think that CSS was the right direction to go with the future of layout in HTML, even in hindsight. It could be better yes, but the core functionality is there and generally likeable. The few known problems should be addressed within the context of CSS instead of ditching CSS and HTML and starting over. The XHTML push is also a good idea, brings a rigor and formality that was lacking in older versions of HTML. The way out of this is to continue improving the existing standards slowly, logically, and methodically and only ditching them, finally, when we have a *very* good reason to do so. The approaches are pretty sound, it is mostly a few quirks in the languages and lots of quirks in the browser rendering engines that have contributed to the perception that they system, as it stands today, is completely broken when in fact it is actually pretty good, all things considered. Could it be better? Yes, but the way to get there is to improve and build on top of existing standards, not ditch everything and start over. The layered approach has been shown time and again through extensive experience to be the right approach in network design, now we just have to get the details right.
but you never see mention of it in the "real world," and this article is part of that trend. Why?
because the add-ons for Firefox are simply too good to pass up. The rest of the population doesn't know about either Opera or Firefox and just uses the pre-installed IE on their Windows machine. Seriously though, the add-ons for Firefox add a TON of value to the Mozilla platform. Is there anything like the range and quality of available add-ons for Opera? I don't know, but I would bet the answer is probably no.
While it might seem that Adobe would make a good acquisition for Apple there are several factors weighing against it IMHO. First, the price for Adobe, now that it includes the assets of the former Macromedia combined with the many successful core Adobe products, would be very high indeed for Apple. Apple might do better by reserving such a large chunk of their available investment capital, assuming that they could finance the purchase (haven't checked the respective balance sheets of the companies, but Yahoo Finance could probably get someone a ballpark estimate if they were interested), for internal R&D, improvements to their core products, OSX Leopard for example, and especially their profitable iPhone and iPod hardware sales and services which brings up the second and main point:
The iPhone, iPod, and iTunes angles are so profitable for Apple that it would be hard to justify NOT investing the maximum available capital or the last available profitable investment dollar (where marginal return exceeds marginal cost of investing one more dollar) into the expanding entertainment hardware and media business. The opportunity cost of buying Adobe instead of or at the expense of continued investment in the profitable iPhone, iPod, and iTunes markets may simply be too high, even though Adobe might be a good fit for Apple at least conceptually, to justify.
Disclaimer: I am neither an Apple nor an Adobe shareholder and I have no personal financial interest in either company.
Maybe all the students in the dorm could each claim they were the guilty party? ("I'm Sparticus!")
As I recall, the slaves who tried that in the Third Servile War were all killed anyway for their trouble. Perhaps not the best example to follow.
I like Ron Paul too, but lets face it, he is unelectable. It is an unfortunate truth that the politician with the best or even good ideas is rarely elected solely or even mostly on the merits of those ideas, but rather what the public thinks of his podium speaking skills, packaged sound bites (carefully packaged so that the "average" voter draws the "correct" conclusions from them), and physical appearance (i.e. nice suit + seven (7) fold silk tie, sharp facial features, and $400.00 plus hair cut...preferably done while idling the jet on the tarmac). The debates are more like political Kabuki theater organized for the party faithful then genuine debates. The questions are sometimes alright, but for the most part the candidates retreat to their sound bites or dodge the questions, or else the questions are soft peddled or pre-screened from a pool submitted by the public (so there are no surprises) by the "moderators" making the "debates" a fairly meaningless exercise.
Remember that in the United States you can sue anybody for anything. The court will take your filing fees and schedule you to be heard on the docket. That doesn't mean that your case won't be thrown out as soon as a judge looks at your filed papers, but the court will take your money and file the papers for you, no matter how frivolous your claims, for review by a judge. That is basically just the way that the system works (there are minor variations between jurisdictions of course, but the rudimentary steps of the litigation process still hold).
Never again. I was steaming.
They were enhancing the realism of your viewing experience. You see, you felt just like you were at the office again: stress, anger, frustration...it was all there and that after you just got home from being there. What will they think of next?
I like watching these guys squirm as much as the next Slashdotter, but it is an unfortunate truth that the entertainment business spends more time and money on lobbying for bad laws than just about any other industry of similar size. So, we should be concerned that in their death throes some of these companies will lash out and take a few parting shots at our freedoms before they give up the ghost. They use the government and wield the law as a tool to beat the marketplace into submission better and more often than just about any other industry that you could name.
Try leaving feedback on the NBC website sometime. They want so much info it's obvious they plan to spam you or sell it to someone who will.
So use Zucker's contact info when leaving your feedback, maybe they will sell his address to the spammers along with all of the rest of the ones in the database.
Why not give your customers what they want? If Apple is concerned about its "oh so reliable" image (which is almost meaningless if that reliability comes at the price of limiting people to the choice of take it or leave it when it comes to the hardware) then why not simply offer both setups? The guaranteed Apple branded hardware + OS new in the box bundle for the "it just works" crowd and the OS box, perhaps with instructions, and a "good luck" to the crowd that wants that experience and is willing to accept a waiver on the support issue? At least with the iPhone there is a good reason for the lock-in other than Apple protecting its brand (i.e. AT&T is giving them payola for each iPhone sold).