Actually, if I recall correctly from my Middle Eastern History course, it's from Al-Kwarezmi, a brilliant Arabian mathematician during the time most of Europe was struggling with the Dark Ages.
Also, I'd disagree that this is what the French are doing. We are Anglicizing various words (or hearing native speakers say them right and then completely mangling them, or just writing them down the way we think they sound) and adding them to our language. They are not making the word "email" more French, they are saying it's prohibited in certain areas, and you must use a completely different word instead (I don't think "courriel" sounds much like "email", except, perhaps, for the "l").
The important point is not so much that Microsoft exists and is evil, but that having everyone using any single OS is dangerous, whether that is Windows, Mac OS, Red Hat, BeOS, or any other. The fact that Windows is on nearly every machine in the world is dangerous. If someone writes a virus/worm/trojan/whatever that replicates invisibly, resists antivirus software, and waits silently for a critical mass, then wipes the computers clean all at once, that could cause serious economic damage.
I realize that such an event is somewhat unlikely, but I doubt it's impossible. And the fact that all these computers are the same makes it possible. So he's not attacking Microsoft for itself, but for the monopoly they have.
???????
What the heck are you talking about?
Darwin, the core of OS X, is open source.
WebCore, the core of Safari, is also open source.
How the heck does OS X not being open source have any relation to the fact that WebCore is? No, he's not mistaken. You're just a troll, and a strange and random one at that.
Rrrghhh...you've just been anti-Mac trolling all over the place today, haven't you, brett?
As far as IE 5.2 ported to OS X, I can't comment on that, as I dont see a reason nowdays to use a Mac over PC anymore..Mac is almost a dead bird.
Just because you no longer see a reason to use Mac over PC doesn't mean no one else does. Hate to break it to you, but your opinion isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. I don't see a reason to use PC over Mac, but that doesn't make PC a "dead bird."
There are other players/formats like DivX blows away Quicktime hands down
Quicktime is not a format. DivX is not a player. What you are probably thinking of is the Sorenson codecs, which are the ones that get the.mov extension, but they are not Quicktime. I'd rather use Sorenson than DivX, for encoding or playback, because there are so many different things out there calling themselves DivX that it can be pretty hard to figure out which I should be using. I'll admit that Quicktime may not be the best player in the world, though. I have had trouble with it on the Windows side (yes, I've used Windows, even though I'm an avid Mac user).
How can IE be eclipsed by Mozilla and Safari...
Well, see, that's the question (at least the Safari part). Ask Microsoft that, 'cause that's their stated reason for discontinuing development on IE. It does seem pretty weak, doesn't it?
the company that has traditionally released the least amount of info about thier OS/ROMS/etc.
Apple has always shied from releasing information about their hardware (including ROMs), because they are primarily a hardware company. For this reason, when they tried the Great Clone Experiment, it nearly killed them. This is not to say that they don't make software. They make software to sell their hardware. They make some of the sleekest and best software I've ever seen (in my opinion, anyway). And they have nothing like the track record of keeping APIs secret that M$ does.
I dont see any business sense any more because Mac is becoming such a small niche of the computer world.
Huh?? From what I can see, Mac use is growing, not shrinking. I know that I can't tell about the whole country/worldI'm just saying what I can see from where I sit. And I never pay much attention to the market share numbers various places put outfirst of all, how are they measuring it? Often, it's in new computers bought, and Macs last a long time (thus meaning that the same Mac can be in active use long after it's bought). Second of all, I've seen, within a month, numbers ranging from 2% to 10% and everything in between.
As you can see, I have not modded you down, because a) I have no mod points, and b) I believe in giving sensible arguments to silly trolls, and saving my mod points for modding up.
We're not allowed to mod the TV so it doesn't interfere with radio waves of other frequencies. We *do* own our hardware, and as far as I know, though I'm hardly a lawyer, there's nothing inherently illegal about modchips. It's just the government's new policy of considering any electronic device that could be used to commit a crime as an illegal thing. Dunno about you, but it makes me really mad. I just hope that when W leaves office, we'll get our rights back.
This is true: Motorola has, over the past couple of years, been moving their focus more and more away from Apple, and desktop systems in general, to focus on the embedded market. It is largely because of this that this year's last models of PowerMacs (that is, the ones that will come out late this year) will sport IBM PowerPC 970 chips. IBM won't be leaving the desktop/server market anytime soon, and it looks like they are now forming a partnership with Apple that will benefit them both. (How weird is that? IBM and Apple...)
Proof of this lies no further than the upcoming FFX-2, a sequel to FFX staring a John Woo-style gun toting Yuna wearing hot pants with two scantilly clad female companions. What's this about Square still pushing story in the FF series?
Okay, that is just plain BS. Not the Yuna-in-hot-pants part, I know that's true: the part where having scantily clad characters automatically means there's no plot. There's no reason whatsoever to suppose that Square is giving up their tradition of making excellent games and deciding to go the Tomb Raider route. in fact, if you'd actually been paying attention to any FFX-2 news, you'd know that Square has released quite a bit about the plot. No, I'm not going to say here--for one thing, it would be spoilers, and for another, get off your butt (figuratively speaking, of course;-) and find it yourself! (I'd try Playonline.com if you can read Japanese)
I don't have any problem with FFX-2 so far except the way Square has chosen to market it--by releasing the material they have in the order that they have, they have immediately alienated people like you, who for some reason believe they can judge the merits of an entire game on its very first PR poster releases. Please. I'm not that psychic, and neither are you. I've got enough sense to know to wait for the reviews to come out to judge the game, but I'm already eager to see it: for one thing, it sounds like we'll have the freedom of the second half of FFVI (airship, explore whole world) from just about the beginning. That's pretty neat, don't you think?
Do think a little before the next time you start spouting off whatever rhetoric you hear online.
I think you, and several other, are quite missing the point. If you don't believe in any God, fine, don't say a prayer. Yes, a scientific answer is important to prevent a repetition. But I think that no scientific solution can do much now for the 7 people who were on Columbia, so I, too, will be saying a prayer for them.
Sigh. First of all, I was being somewhat facetious with my choice of words. I suppose a better word choice might have been selfish, since I consider it selfish to keep a work they no longer own bound by their encryption schemes (or whatever they use to keep it locked up).
And all I meant was that they should make a version freely (at least as in speech, and not expensively) available in such a format that anyone, regardless of OS, hardware or creed can access it. For a book, the most sensible is a plain text file. For a movie, I agree that it's trickier. Maybe they can just set the copy-protection to expire somehow (if it's digital, it shouldn't be hard). But I don't consider the onus upon me to figure out how to do it; and even if it's not easy for people (eg, a large download, the bandwidth for which they must pay for), once one person gets it it can be distributed more easily, and changed, etc., as much as people want, forever.
So, basically, don't be so quick to jump at a single word, and I don't expect them to do everything for me, just not require us to break their copy-protection to get at the work once it's out of copyright.
This works perfectly for the type of work you describe: works created by individuals, which would enter the public domain when their creator dies.
Unfortunately, that's not the sticking point, currently. A lot of important works are created not by any individual, but by corporations. And a corporation can't, in a useful sense, die. They can go out of business...but their assets are usually bought by another company in such a case, and those assets would likely include any copyrights. Also, most (or at least many) works created by individuals today are quickly (and at least semi-forcibly) transferred to companies--publishing companies, record labels, media conglomerates, whatever. That means that not only does the work not directly benefit the creator (counting royalties as being indirect, as they come through the company), but it will continue to be hoarded by the company long after the creator is dead (in most cases).
Whew! I talk too much, don't I? I'll leave you alone now;-)
Dan Aris
Re:So let me get this straight...
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Copyright Rumblings
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Which means its illegal to break, attempt to break, or describe possible methods to break Digital Rights Infringement technologies. Which, in turn, effectively gives them indefinite-term copyrights.
Not that I like the DMCA or such evilness...but I don't think this is true. It seems to me that if such a compromise were to happen, after the 28 years, they would no longer be able to enforce the DMCA on things that went out of copyright...since (correct me if I'm wrong, IANAL) it's designed to prohibit violations of, well, copyright. Thus, once something's out of copyright, which it will eventually be, it will be perfectly legal for anyone to go at it with whatever tools they want (if the ex-copyright-holders are evil and don't release it in the clear).
The best way to "adjust" MSFT "way of business" is to hurt them fairly. Sell a better product.
I beg your pardon, but I (and many others) am of the firm opinion that such a product has been in existence since 1984--namely, the Macintosh and its OS. I realize that this will most likely provoke a torrent of "no you idiot Windows is better" knee-jerk responses (though probably with worse spelling), but I think that even Microsoft, in their (nonexistent) honest moments would have to agree that the MacOS is a better product than Windows. For one thing, they keep stealing from it (up to and including the name--what is the "X" in "XP" for, anyway?). Also note: I made no claim that it is the better option for all, or even any, customers, merely that it is a better product. It happens to be my opinion that it is the better option, and various studies have shown that it increases worker satisfaction and productivity, and has a lower total cost of ownership.
I'm afraid my point kind of got lost in there; sorry. The point is that selling a superior product isn't the answer, because they already have a corner on the market. It is no longer possible to really affect Microsoft through the free market system, because there is no free market there. The only recourse we have left is to attempt to punish them for the many illegal actions they have taken, and many other actions that violate the spirit of the law, if not the letter.
Dan Aris
Not so! Bujold is published electronically!
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War of Honor
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· Score: 2, Informative
You can download most of the Vorkosigan series (I'm not sure how many, or which ones) from www.fictionwise.com. She also puts sample chapters on the Baen site, and in one of those places is the first 11 chapters of The Curse of Chalion (if you haven't read it yet, you really need to!).
That's rather unfair. Mac OS X has legitimate reasons to use X--first, because it's the 10th full version of the Macintosh system software, and the Roman numeral for 10 is (*gasp*) X. It is, in fact, also built on a *nix-ish framework, that can, in fact, run X (it comes with XDarwin!). M$'s XP and X-box are completely different--simply leveraging the marketing of the letter X as being "cool", and perhaps as being associated with this great OS.
OK, #1, how do you know that his computer's bad? Maybe his TV's just even better. And, #2, do you define "bad" as "doesn't have a huge screen and incredible speakers"? I sure don't. I would say that having those things would be a big bonus, but it's silly to say that one's computer is bad because one's television is better for watching movies. I mean, what the heck's a TV for, after all?
Also, just because your computer is big, has good speakers, and is in a comfortable location doesn't mean that everyone has your fortune. I imagine there are more people (and more Mac owners) who use their TV as their primary media viewing station than their computer.
Wow. I'm not sure where to begin. How about "government supporter." If you mean that I support the administration of George W. Bush, if you'd read my post, it would have been at least implied that I am very strongly against him. If you mean, however, that I am not an anarchist, and support having a government, well, then yeah, I'm a government supporter. Does not being an anarchist make me evil?
Your analogy with vegetables is somewhat off the mark. It has no basis in existing law, common sense, or any sort of benefit to people, while finding Microsoft to be an illegal monopoly was part of laws that, in theory, protect consumers from unscrupulous companies. My point in using the word "illegal" was simply to be specific; they were a monopoly long before they were found to be such in the courts. And I have, perhaps, a somewhat narrower definition of "monopoly" than you do, and I don't insist that you agree to it. My definition is that in order to not be a monopoly, there must not only be competition, but there must be some reasonable chance of that competition ousting the company in question from the #1 spot. That doesn't mean that they have to be less that 1% apart in market share or anything, but I think that having 90% or more qualifies them as a monopoly under this definition. BTW, I fully expect a response along the lines of "so we can define monopoly however we want;" however, I feel that this is a reasonable definition. As I said, though, I don't insist that you agree, I just want you to see where I'm coming from.
I would say that the problem isn't that people aren't interested in alternatives; the majority either don't care, or truly don't understand that "computer" is not synonymous with "Windows". (I've done tech support; I promise, these people really exist)
As far as "wrong" practices, things they've done have been quite illegal, and found to be so in court. They have also, though it's less advertised, by both them and the government you love so much, done even more interesting things with their finances than Enron. I'm afraid I don't know where to find proof, so if you don't believe me, I can't back it up. And finally, when a company is found to be an illegal monopoly, doing the same things that every other company on the planet does suddenly is not permitted--many activities that fight competition, normal for normal businesses, are illegal for monopolies.
Oh, and I also disagree about the "better products" thing, but that's pure opinion, and I don't expect to convince anyone on that.
Thank you for some stimulating discussion,
Dan Aris
I have better things to do than hate a company because it's "big".
I beg your pardon, but please give us a little more credit. Those of us who are against M$ on moral grounds object not simply because they are "big", but because they are an illegal monopoly who have used unscrupulous, illegal, and incredibly wrong practices to drive competitors out of the market and will do anything to increase market share. Only their incredible good fortune in GWB coming to office when he did saved them from suffering serious--but deserved--consequences from their reprehensible practices. I will never give M$ any of my money, and I will do my best to be sure no one else does, until they can demonstrate that they have changed. To me, this is not a luxury, it is a moral duty. I will boycott any company that is willfully and deliberately doing wrong that I know of, and urge others to do the same.
There was an interview on NPR the other day about this very thing, and the man they were talking to was a scientist who studies mountain glaciers (I believe; I don't remember his name or precisely what he did).
First of all, he did say that this is something that has happened before, and, taking only this as evidence, it would seem to be simply a natural cyclical process. However, he also said that this is not the only place this is happening. No, that doesn't mean the polar icecaps are melting, but other mountain glaciers all over the world are, little by little, getting smaller. This, to him (a scientist who studies exactly the things that are the best indicators of global warming), says incontrovertibly that global warming is real and is beginning to have serious effects.
I happen to agree with you; I have yet to see a Linux distro that will really work sensibly right out of the box (though I admit I haven't been looking too hard). However, the issue at hand here isn't purely "Linux vs M$", though many people on both sides are trying to make it so. The real issue is that the DoI has removed the choice to use Linux--or a Mac, if they want to use a Mac (I'm using one, and I love it), or whatever other OS they want. I fully understand the support issues involved in dealing with multiple OSes; I've worked closely with people who have to deal with that. However, it is my firm belief that it is better to allow people to use what fits their needs best than to lock everyone into one thing just because it's M$--or, for that matter, Linux, or anything else. Of course, what really hinders this is the interoperability issue, and that is at the heart of why M$ is such a bad choice--and why they make themselves appear to be such a good one. They make their software all integrate very well, and accept any format from other software, thus making it easy to switch to Microsoft--but only the plain text format is any good at exporting to other software, making it very painful and difficult to switch to anything else once you're locked in. And then, of course, they can do whatever they want, since it is at least apparently more expensive to switch to anything else than to stick to Microsoft's "solutions."
The real problem comes when, someday, the government decides that Microsoft is, in fact, an illegal monopoly (oh, wait...they already did), and to actually really do something about it, like mandate government boycotts of their software, and maybe make them play nice with other companies, and maybe even the *gasp* public. At that point, they will find that it takes vast resources to convert all their old Microsoft-format documents into formats that other software can reasonably read (and I'm not just talking Word, here; what about databases and spreadsheets and such?).
Thus, the issue is really one of choice, and of having to worry about the future, when no software that exists will be able to read a Word or Access document created today--but documents with open formats will be easy to read. However, someday, Linux will be ready for the desktop, and then it wouldn't be terribly unreasonable to mandate, if not an all-Linux department, then at least an all-open department (with the choice of any open OS).
This post seems to capture another of the problems we (liberals, techies, etc) have at the moment--the automatic assumption that if any Democratic Congressperson has somewhat less-than-desirable views, the Democrats will still vote for him, because he's a Democrat--or will turn Republican, because the Democrats have turned Evil.
No!
You know, there is a difference between "Liberal" and "Democrat". The former is an ideological leaning; the latter is a political party affiliation. My family (VERY liberal) has voted for a Republican Congressman for many years. Why? Because he has a long record of helping education and the environment, etc. Similarly, if a bill is brought up by a Democrat that tries to curtail my freedoms (like this one), I will vote against it; and if a Democrat is owned by the big corporations (or is in other ways more conservative than another candidate), and I have any control over it, I will vote against him.
Be careful with your labels.
Dan Aris
Re:Just to argue with one point...
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 1
As far as twisting your arguments... thanks for the complement:-) Actually, I did indeed think you were for the whole nine yards of campaign reform, not just prohibitions on giving money to candidates. This colored my response... so consider my previous post a response to that position. I think I showed pretty well that the overall campaign reform we just put in place is a serious violation of the meaning and intent of the first amendment.
Well, I do have difficulty justifying preventing corporations from taking out campaign ads. However, it seems that you do not hold one of the views that I mentioned: that corporations do not qualify for free speech. With that provision, I think that you could reasonably ban corp-sponsored ads.
Prohibiting those people from buying political speech just because they do it through a corporation is IMHO a violation of either their free speech rights or their freedom of association rights - take you pick!
I don't think I quite buy this, but I do agree that there's nothing stopping the people who make up a corporation from getting together with money that they, as the corporation, have agreed to set aside, and buying an ad without the company's official sponsorship. That said, however, I believe that if the people (ie, the stockholders) were asked about it, they wouldn't want their money (as it is partly their money) being spent on campaign ads. It isn't the people who get to decide what money gets spent on campaign contributions, and it wouldn't be the people who got to decide what money got spent on campaign ads: it is, and would be, the C*Os & various upper management--the ones who really benefit from the legislation they buy. I think that if the shareholders got a say, there wouldn't be so much of such corruption now.
Another possible solution would be to prevent them from spending money directly to the candidates, and classify ads/parties/etc supporting the candidate as gifts to the candidate, with, perhaps, a total limit not on what one can give to him/her, but on what s/he can receive from everyone combined.
I guess it's difficult, if you believe that corporations' free speech is protected, but if you don't, it's much harder for them to find a convincing argument.
Dan Aris
Re:Just to argue with one point...
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 1
It's possible that I didn't make myself clear enough, or that you're just missing my point.
I did NOT mean that I thought that they should not be allowed to have and express views. What I meant was that corporations and people should not be allowed to GIVE MONEY to political candidates/parties. Note: I said NOTHING about politically motivated groups (Sierra Club, etc), which I think it's great to give money TO--but, yes, because of my principles, I don't think they should be able to give money to candidates either, however much I support their aims.
But wait... maybe you just want to remove free speech from corporations... What *is* a corporation? It is a voluntary association of people (shareholders and employees). You are going to prevent these people from spending *their* money to make political speech?
A corporation is not an entity or person in its own right (at least this is what I believe; I admit I'm not sure what the law says). Thus, the corporation cannot spend the money on political candidates, and they are also not included in the guarantee of freedom of speech. I also believe that the people should not be able to give their money to the candidates. What I believe should happen is something similar to this: each candidate with a certain qualification (ie, # of people sign petition for their candidacy, something like that) gets $X to spend on their campaign, which comes from taxes. (Yes, I support raising taxes, for a lot of things, for a lot of reasons...but that's another argument.) The qualification is to make sure that you don't just get every Joe Schmoe who wants a buck and a spotlight saying "Hey, I'm a candidate, give me money, too!". They cannot supplement this with personal funds, nor can anyone raise the amount they have. It is all even and government-supplied.
I realize that anyone who has a problem with "big government" is going to have a lot of problems with my idea, and also that it would need refinements to deal with corruption, etc. However, I think it would bring control of our country much more under our control--everyone's control, equally. It would make candidates much more answerable to the people they represent, and thus much more likely to support their interests, rather than needing huge amounts of money to get re-elected and thus being answerable to the corporations & multi-millionaires who give them that money.
Whew! I usually don't post this much. BTW, you're pretty good at taking my arguments and twisting them so that they don't say anything like what I meant, then shooting them down by trying to make me into a hypocrite. I admire that skill; if I had it, I might try it on you, but since I don't, I'll have to rely on my (limited) skill at actually putting forward sensible arguments.
Dan Aris
Just to argue with one point...
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 1
Amazingly, many of those who make the most fuss about how we should enforce the first amendment are also fans of campaign finance "reform." And yet those very reforms IMHO violate the specific intent and wording of the First Amendment.
This is only valid if you make the specious argument that money == speech. It does NOT. The other main specious argument is that corporations are people, which they are also not. I don't care if a corporation or person makes public statements supporting candidates, so long as they can not give any money to the government except at tax time and when they're fined. I will be very happy when the rich/corporations are no longer running the country and the rule is no longer "$1, One Vote".
I seriously wonder how long it will be before someone attempts coming out with a copy protection that turns out to be the ultimate "security through obscurity"--the data simply cannot be read. Because, of course, this is the only way to be sure it cannot be pirated (and not even necessarily then!).
I'm an author and a filmmaker, I've worked with the MPAA, I've seen my work pirated, I've heard studio heads freak out about the fact that their product is available on the Internet three weeks before theatrical release.
First of all, let me say that I am in no way affiliated with anyone in the industry, and, as such, am basing my comments entirely upon what I have been able to glean from other people's accounts. Thus, if anything I say is incorrect, please feel free to correct me--I am always looking for a better understanding of this subject.
I don't think any of us here will disagree that piracy happens, and, to individuals such as yourself, it might truly be a problem. However, our two main gripes are 1) they're going about fighting it in all the wrong ways, and 2) the amount of money actually lost to the RIAA through piracy is so small as to be insignificant (to them; if any of us actually got that amount of money it would probably make us very happy), and, from what I can tell, only a very tiny fraction of that would get back to the artists/movie makers/etc.
To address these points more fully:
1) Yes, the piracy happens, and digital piracy happens, but by far the biggest piracy is analog. Most of the problem isn't people ripping a DVD of a movie and distributing that (though it happens); the problem you mentioned, movies appearing early, is usually accomplished by some insider (or semi-insider) leaking it; they have access to the original source material, so none of this would stop them from copying it. The other problem is that they are assuming the consumers are all thieves, and thus punishing everyone for the sins of a few. What they could be doing instead is looking for better ways to make buying the product attractive (like dropping prices or something).
2) The RIAA/MPAA talk about numbers of pirated copies sold in a certain period (side note: how the heck do they even know? Do the pirates tell them??), and take those, with the amounts they would have been paid, had all those copies been bought from them, and come up with an amount that they call the amount of money they've lost to piracy during that period. The first problem with this is that, if they had not bought the pirated copies, most of those people would not have bought anything from the RIAA/MPAA. Then, even if those numbers were correct, I think they could afford it. How much do they spend on campaign contributions a year? I would bet that it's at least as much. And, of course, the "poor artists" who are being robbed by the "evil pirates" would get very little of the money.
Once again, if any of this information is inaccurate, please do not be offended; instead, simply tell me what I've gotten wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Algorithm: From "algorism". Different spelling.
Actually, if I recall correctly from my Middle Eastern History course, it's from Al-Kwarezmi, a brilliant Arabian mathematician during the time most of Europe was struggling with the Dark Ages.
Also, I'd disagree that this is what the French are doing. We are Anglicizing various words (or hearing native speakers say them right and then completely mangling them, or just writing them down the way we think they sound) and adding them to our language. They are not making the word "email" more French, they are saying it's prohibited in certain areas, and you must use a completely different word instead (I don't think "courriel" sounds much like "email", except, perhaps, for the "l").
Dan Aris
The important point is not so much that Microsoft exists and is evil, but that having everyone using any single OS is dangerous, whether that is Windows, Mac OS, Red Hat, BeOS, or any other. The fact that Windows is on nearly every machine in the world is dangerous. If someone writes a virus/worm/trojan/whatever that replicates invisibly, resists antivirus software, and waits silently for a critical mass, then wipes the computers clean all at once, that could cause serious economic damage.
I realize that such an event is somewhat unlikely, but I doubt it's impossible. And the fact that all these computers are the same makes it possible. So he's not attacking Microsoft for itself, but for the monopoly they have.
Dan Aris
???????
What the heck are you talking about?
Darwin, the core of OS X, is open source.
WebCore, the core of Safari, is also open source.
How the heck does OS X not being open source have any relation to the fact that WebCore is? No, he's not mistaken. You're just a troll, and a strange and random one at that.
Dan Aris
As far as IE 5.2 ported to OS X, I can't comment on that, as I dont see a reason nowdays to use a Mac over PC anymore..Mac is almost a dead bird.
Just because you no longer see a reason to use Mac over PC doesn't mean no one else does. Hate to break it to you, but your opinion isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. I don't see a reason to use PC over Mac, but that doesn't make PC a "dead bird."
There are other players/formats like DivX blows away Quicktime hands down
Quicktime is not a format. DivX is not a player. What you are probably thinking of is the Sorenson codecs, which are the ones that get the .mov extension, but they are not Quicktime. I'd rather use Sorenson than DivX, for encoding or playback, because there are so many different things out there calling themselves DivX that it can be pretty hard to figure out which I should be using. I'll admit that Quicktime may not be the best player in the world, though. I have had trouble with it on the Windows side (yes, I've used Windows, even though I'm an avid Mac user).
How can IE be eclipsed by Mozilla and Safari...
Well, see, that's the question (at least the Safari part). Ask Microsoft that, 'cause that's their stated reason for discontinuing development on IE. It does seem pretty weak, doesn't it?
the company that has traditionally released the least amount of info about thier OS/ROMS/etc.
Apple has always shied from releasing information about their hardware (including ROMs), because they are primarily a hardware company. For this reason, when they tried the Great Clone Experiment, it nearly killed them. This is not to say that they don't make software. They make software to sell their hardware. They make some of the sleekest and best software I've ever seen (in my opinion, anyway). And they have nothing like the track record of keeping APIs secret that M$ does.
I dont see any business sense any more because Mac is becoming such a small niche of the computer world.
Huh?? From what I can see, Mac use is growing, not shrinking. I know that I can't tell about the whole country/worldI'm just saying what I can see from where I sit. And I never pay much attention to the market share numbers various places put outfirst of all, how are they measuring it? Often, it's in new computers bought, and Macs last a long time (thus meaning that the same Mac can be in active use long after it's bought). Second of all, I've seen, within a month, numbers ranging from 2% to 10% and everything in between.
As you can see, I have not modded you down, because a) I have no mod points, and b) I believe in giving sensible arguments to silly trolls, and saving my mod points for modding up.
Dan Aris
We're not allowed to mod the TV so it doesn't interfere with radio waves of other frequencies. We *do* own our hardware, and as far as I know, though I'm hardly a lawyer, there's nothing inherently illegal about modchips. It's just the government's new policy of considering any electronic device that could be used to commit a crime as an illegal thing. Dunno about you, but it makes me really mad. I just hope that when W leaves office, we'll get our rights back.
Dan Aris
This is true: Motorola has, over the past couple of years, been moving their focus more and more away from Apple, and desktop systems in general, to focus on the embedded market. It is largely because of this that this year's last models of PowerMacs (that is, the ones that will come out late this year) will sport IBM PowerPC 970 chips. IBM won't be leaving the desktop/server market anytime soon, and it looks like they are now forming a partnership with Apple that will benefit them both. (How weird is that? IBM and Apple...)
Dan Aris
I don't have any problem with FFX-2 so far except the way Square has chosen to market it--by releasing the material they have in the order that they have, they have immediately alienated people like you, who for some reason believe they can judge the merits of an entire game on its very first PR poster releases. Please. I'm not that psychic, and neither are you. I've got enough sense to know to wait for the reviews to come out to judge the game, but I'm already eager to see it: for one thing, it sounds like we'll have the freedom of the second half of FFVI (airship, explore whole world) from just about the beginning. That's pretty neat, don't you think?
Do think a little before the next time you start spouting off whatever rhetoric you hear online.
Dan Aris
I think you, and several other, are quite missing the point. If you don't believe in any God, fine, don't say a prayer. Yes, a scientific answer is important to prevent a repetition. But I think that no scientific solution can do much now for the 7 people who were on Columbia, so I, too, will be saying a prayer for them.
Dan Aris
Sigh. First of all, I was being somewhat facetious with my choice of words. I suppose a better word choice might have been selfish, since I consider it selfish to keep a work they no longer own bound by their encryption schemes (or whatever they use to keep it locked up).
And all I meant was that they should make a version freely (at least as in speech, and not expensively) available in such a format that anyone, regardless of OS, hardware or creed can access it. For a book, the most sensible is a plain text file. For a movie, I agree that it's trickier. Maybe they can just set the copy-protection to expire somehow (if it's digital, it shouldn't be hard). But I don't consider the onus upon me to figure out how to do it; and even if it's not easy for people (eg, a large download, the bandwidth for which they must pay for), once one person gets it it can be distributed more easily, and changed, etc., as much as people want, forever.
So, basically, don't be so quick to jump at a single word, and I don't expect them to do everything for me, just not require us to break their copy-protection to get at the work once it's out of copyright.
Dan Aris
This works perfectly for the type of work you describe: works created by individuals, which would enter the public domain when their creator dies.
;-)
Unfortunately, that's not the sticking point, currently. A lot of important works are created not by any individual, but by corporations. And a corporation can't, in a useful sense, die. They can go out of business...but their assets are usually bought by another company in such a case, and those assets would likely include any copyrights. Also, most (or at least many) works created by individuals today are quickly (and at least semi-forcibly) transferred to companies--publishing companies, record labels, media conglomerates, whatever. That means that not only does the work not directly benefit the creator (counting royalties as being indirect, as they come through the company), but it will continue to be hoarded by the company long after the creator is dead (in most cases).
Whew! I talk too much, don't I? I'll leave you alone now
Dan Aris
Dan Aris
I'm afraid my point kind of got lost in there; sorry. The point is that selling a superior product isn't the answer, because they already have a corner on the market. It is no longer possible to really affect Microsoft through the free market system, because there is no free market there. The only recourse we have left is to attempt to punish them for the many illegal actions they have taken, and many other actions that violate the spirit of the law, if not the letter.
Dan Aris
You can download most of the Vorkosigan series (I'm not sure how many, or which ones) from www.fictionwise.com. She also puts sample chapters on the Baen site, and in one of those places is the first 11 chapters of The Curse of Chalion (if you haven't read it yet, you really need to!).
Dan Aris
That's rather unfair. Mac OS X has legitimate reasons to use X--first, because it's the 10th full version of the Macintosh system software, and the Roman numeral for 10 is (*gasp*) X. It is, in fact, also built on a *nix-ish framework, that can, in fact, run X (it comes with XDarwin!). M$'s XP and X-box are completely different--simply leveraging the marketing of the letter X as being "cool", and perhaps as being associated with this great OS.
Dan Aris
OK, #1, how do you know that his computer's bad? Maybe his TV's just even better. And, #2, do you define "bad" as "doesn't have a huge screen and incredible speakers"? I sure don't. I would say that having those things would be a big bonus, but it's silly to say that one's computer is bad because one's television is better for watching movies. I mean, what the heck's a TV for , after all?
Also, just because your computer is big, has good speakers, and is in a comfortable location doesn't mean that everyone has your fortune. I imagine there are more people (and more Mac owners) who use their TV as their primary media viewing station than their computer.
Just a little dose of perspective...
Dan Aris
Wow. I'm not sure where to begin. How about "government supporter." If you mean that I support the administration of George W. Bush, if you'd read my post, it would have been at least implied that I am very strongly against him. If you mean, however, that I am not an anarchist, and support having a government, well, then yeah, I'm a government supporter. Does not being an anarchist make me evil?
Your analogy with vegetables is somewhat off the mark. It has no basis in existing law, common sense, or any sort of benefit to people, while finding Microsoft to be an illegal monopoly was part of laws that, in theory, protect consumers from unscrupulous companies. My point in using the word "illegal" was simply to be specific; they were a monopoly long before they were found to be such in the courts. And I have, perhaps, a somewhat narrower definition of "monopoly" than you do, and I don't insist that you agree to it. My definition is that in order to not be a monopoly, there must not only be competition, but there must be some reasonable chance of that competition ousting the company in question from the #1 spot. That doesn't mean that they have to be less that 1% apart in market share or anything, but I think that having 90% or more qualifies them as a monopoly under this definition. BTW, I fully expect a response along the lines of "so we can define monopoly however we want;" however, I feel that this is a reasonable definition. As I said, though, I don't insist that you agree, I just want you to see where I'm coming from.
I would say that the problem isn't that people aren't interested in alternatives; the majority either don't care, or truly don't understand that "computer" is not synonymous with "Windows". (I've done tech support; I promise, these people really exist)
As far as "wrong" practices, things they've done have been quite illegal, and found to be so in court. They have also, though it's less advertised, by both them and the government you love so much, done even more interesting things with their finances than Enron. I'm afraid I don't know where to find proof, so if you don't believe me, I can't back it up. And finally, when a company is found to be an illegal monopoly, doing the same things that every other company on the planet does suddenly is not permitted--many activities that fight competition, normal for normal businesses, are illegal for monopolies.
Oh, and I also disagree about the "better products" thing, but that's pure opinion, and I don't expect to convince anyone on that.
Thank you for some stimulating discussion,
Dan Aris
Dan Aris
There was an interview on NPR the other day about this very thing, and the man they were talking to was a scientist who studies mountain glaciers (I believe; I don't remember his name or precisely what he did).
First of all, he did say that this is something that has happened before, and, taking only this as evidence, it would seem to be simply a natural cyclical process.
However, he also said that this is not the only place this is happening. No, that doesn't mean the polar icecaps are melting, but other mountain glaciers all over the world are, little by little, getting smaller. This, to him (a scientist who studies exactly the things that are the best indicators of global warming), says incontrovertibly that global warming is real and is beginning to have serious effects.
Dan Aris
I happen to agree with you; I have yet to see a Linux distro that will really work sensibly right out of the box (though I admit I haven't been looking too hard). However, the issue at hand here isn't purely "Linux vs M$", though many people on both sides are trying to make it so. The real issue is that the DoI has removed the choice to use Linux--or a Mac, if they want to use a Mac (I'm using one, and I love it), or whatever other OS they want. I fully understand the support issues involved in dealing with multiple OSes; I've worked closely with people who have to deal with that. However, it is my firm belief that it is better to allow people to use what fits their needs best than to lock everyone into one thing just because it's M$--or, for that matter, Linux, or anything else.
Of course, what really hinders this is the interoperability issue, and that is at the heart of why M$ is such a bad choice--and why they make themselves appear to be such a good one. They make their software all integrate very well, and accept any format from other software, thus making it easy to switch to Microsoft--but only the plain text format is any good at exporting to other software, making it very painful and difficult to switch to anything else once you're locked in. And then, of course, they can do whatever they want, since it is at least apparently more expensive to switch to anything else than to stick to Microsoft's "solutions."
The real problem comes when, someday, the government decides that Microsoft is, in fact, an illegal monopoly (oh, wait...they already did), and to actually really do something about it, like mandate government boycotts of their software, and maybe make them play nice with other companies, and maybe even the *gasp* public. At that point, they will find that it takes vast resources to convert all their old Microsoft-format documents into formats that other software can reasonably read (and I'm not just talking Word, here; what about databases and spreadsheets and such?).
Thus, the issue is really one of choice, and of having to worry about the future, when no software that exists will be able to read a Word or Access document created today--but documents with open formats will be easy to read. However, someday, Linux will be ready for the desktop, and then it wouldn't be terribly unreasonable to mandate, if not an all-Linux department, then at least an all-open department (with the choice of any open OS).
Dan Aris
This post seems to capture another of the problems we (liberals, techies, etc) have at the moment--the automatic assumption that if any Democratic Congressperson has somewhat less-than-desirable views, the Democrats will still vote for him, because he's a Democrat--or will turn Republican, because the Democrats have turned Evil.
No!
You know, there is a difference between "Liberal" and "Democrat". The former is an ideological leaning; the latter is a political party affiliation. My family (VERY liberal) has voted for a Republican Congressman for many years. Why? Because he has a long record of helping education and the environment, etc. Similarly, if a bill is brought up by a Democrat that tries to curtail my freedoms (like this one), I will vote against it; and if a Democrat is owned by the big corporations (or is in other ways more conservative than another candidate), and I have any control over it, I will vote against him.
Be careful with your labels.
Dan Aris
Another possible solution would be to prevent them from spending money directly to the candidates, and classify ads/parties/etc supporting the candidate as gifts to the candidate, with, perhaps, a total limit not on what one can give to him/her, but on what s/he can receive from everyone combined.
I guess it's difficult, if you believe that corporations' free speech is protected, but if you don't, it's much harder for them to find a convincing argument.
Dan Aris
I did NOT mean that I thought that they should not be allowed to have and express views. What I meant was that corporations and people should not be allowed to GIVE MONEY to political candidates/parties. Note: I said NOTHING about politically motivated groups (Sierra Club, etc), which I think it's great to give money TO--but, yes, because of my principles, I don't think they should be able to give money to candidates either, however much I support their aims.
A corporation is not an entity or person in its own right (at least this is what I believe; I admit I'm not sure what the law says). Thus, the corporation cannot spend the money on political candidates, and they are also not included in the guarantee of freedom of speech. I also believe that the people should not be able to give their money to the candidates. What I believe should happen is something similar to this: each candidate with a certain qualification (ie, # of people sign petition for their candidacy, something like that) gets $X to spend on their campaign, which comes from taxes. (Yes, I support raising taxes, for a lot of things, for a lot of reasons...but that's another argument.) The qualification is to make sure that you don't just get every Joe Schmoe who wants a buck and a spotlight saying "Hey, I'm a candidate, give me money, too!". They cannot supplement this with personal funds, nor can anyone raise the amount they have. It is all even and government-supplied.
I realize that anyone who has a problem with "big government" is going to have a lot of problems with my idea, and also that it would need refinements to deal with corruption, etc. However, I think it would bring control of our country much more under our control--everyone's control, equally. It would make candidates much more answerable to the people they represent, and thus much more likely to support their interests, rather than needing huge amounts of money to get re-elected and thus being answerable to the corporations & multi-millionaires who give them that money.
Whew! I usually don't post this much. BTW, you're pretty good at taking my arguments and twisting them so that they don't say anything like what I meant, then shooting them down by trying to make me into a hypocrite. I admire that skill; if I had it, I might try it on you, but since I don't, I'll have to rely on my (limited) skill at actually putting forward sensible arguments.
Dan Aris
Dan Aris
I seriously wonder how long it will be before someone attempts coming out with a copy protection that turns out to be the ultimate "security through obscurity"--the data simply cannot be read. Because, of course, this is the only way to be sure it cannot be pirated (and not even necessarily then!).
Dan Aris
I don't think any of us here will disagree that piracy happens, and, to individuals such as yourself, it might truly be a problem. However, our two main gripes are 1) they're going about fighting it in all the wrong ways, and 2) the amount of money actually lost to the RIAA through piracy is so small as to be insignificant (to them; if any of us actually got that amount of money it would probably make us very happy), and, from what I can tell, only a very tiny fraction of that would get back to the artists/movie makers/etc.
To address these points more fully:
1) Yes, the piracy happens, and digital piracy happens, but by far the biggest piracy is analog. Most of the problem isn't people ripping a DVD of a movie and distributing that (though it happens); the problem you mentioned, movies appearing early, is usually accomplished by some insider (or semi-insider) leaking it; they have access to the original source material, so none of this would stop them from copying it. The other problem is that they are assuming the consumers are all thieves, and thus punishing everyone for the sins of a few. What they could be doing instead is looking for better ways to make buying the product attractive (like dropping prices or something).
2) The RIAA/MPAA talk about numbers of pirated copies sold in a certain period (side note: how the heck do they even know? Do the pirates tell them??), and take those, with the amounts they would have been paid, had all those copies been bought from them, and come up with an amount that they call the amount of money they've lost to piracy during that period. The first problem with this is that, if they had not bought the pirated copies, most of those people would not have bought anything from the RIAA/MPAA. Then, even if those numbers were correct, I think they could afford it. How much do they spend on campaign contributions a year? I would bet that it's at least as much. And, of course, the "poor artists" who are being robbed by the "evil pirates" would get very little of the money.
Once again, if any of this information is inaccurate, please do not be offended; instead, simply tell me what I've gotten wrong.
Dan Aris