I'm a LinuxPPC user, but I don't pretend to think that people buy Macs to run Linux on them.
99.99% of the people who buy Macs do so because of the MacOS. That's the 'carrot' that Apple uses to prompt people to buy Macs (they are a hardware company, but use the OS to differentiate their product).
In this case, I don't think Apple should bother - this isn't nearly as blatant a copycat design as the others (which were complete ripoffs in my opinion, and deserving what whatever they got).
Him having no name says little about him, but you not having one could say volumes about you.
Either way, it's obvious that this is all based on a vendetta you (or whichever AC posted the original reply) have against him. His posts don't seem terribly insightful, and the non-breaking spaces are annoying as hell, but this doesn't mean he's a troll or karma whore (aren't those usually mutually exclusive?).
Whatever. It's not like his original post was inflammatory or anything. I seriously hope you don't follow people in order to toss around witless insults whenever they post anything...
Erm, you don't, I guess. I'm sure you aren't losing any sleep over it though.
The point is, an Anonymous Coward can say whatever they want without their name being attached to their Insightful Post/Troll/Flame. My name is unimportant - what is important is that generally if a bunch of posts are made under the same name, that person is taking credit or blame for their content. An AC can do whatever they want without any fear of retribution or history.
--- Those who run the business have the choice whether or not to offer that kind of job. ---
Right, and I blame them too. A little further in my post, I mention that MCI lost a customer. The person they had call me only lost a single 'sale'. If I had the opportunity, I'd rather remove the idiot who thought of using telemarketing in the first place from his position than the person who made the call.
--- People who take the job need the money. ---
That's not an excuse.
First, there are no shortage of "shit jobs" out there, and I doubt they pay any worse than telemarketing.
Second, if you're not making much money, at the very least you can have respectability. Calling people up and disturbing them in their homes looking for a sale is far beneath working at McDonalds or a similar establishment - and as far as I know, _they_ are almost always hiring.
If I wanted their service or product, I can damn well look for it myself.
--- Yes, but for some strange reason you may fail to comprehend, some people find that feeding themselves and their family takes priority over that. ---
This is based on the assumption that the only jobs out there are for telemarketers. I would venture a guess and say that telemarketing is a VERY small minority of the total number of jobs out there - even the low paying ones.
Those who call have the choice whether or not the take the job. People need to learn personal responsibility for their own actions.
Either way, I try to be a bit more clever about it. They're used to getting yelled at, but not from a nice person trying to make a point.
Just tell the caller that you don't have the time to to learn more about their product, but would be more than happy to call them at their home for more details. They're usually taken aback by this, at which point you can ask "What, you mean you don't like people you don't even know calling you at home? Why not?".
Another fun thing to do is to ask them tons of questions and let them go through their spiel for as long as you can, and then say "no thanks" after they've wasted a half hour or so.
I really don't mind the people so much until they start using really annoying pressure tactics, don't take "no" for an answer, or start reading from an uninspired script as soon as I answer the phone. Stupid stupid stupid.
Yet another fun thing to do is to somehow warp the conversation so that you're trying to sell THEM on something. Say, "no thanks, but I have an opportunity for you!" and go into a big spiel about something they should buy. Have a nice lengthy script all written out if at all possible beforehand. I almost sold one soliciter on a low-cost web hosting plan that way (she took it so well, I actually ordered Caller ID from here).
Last but not least, just ask them for their web address and state that you want to do your research. Of course, all these people care about is their commission, so they'll try to talk you out of it. One woman (working for MCI) hung up on me when I insisted that I liked to do my research first. I was even nice about it. Now, MCI has permanently lost a potential customer. Go figure.
As the person at a web host (dreamhost.com) who deals with it, it does cost. Some spammers abuse our resources so much, we have no choice but to cancel their accounts (this is our policy - immediate cancellation w/o refund). Load on our servers increases, it interferes with legitimate user processes, and so on.
The time it takes to deal with this, plus the cost of bandwidth and server load, is passed on to our customers. They pay for someone else's 'free' advertising.
Then, there's the other side of the coin. The ISP who has to receive the spam passes on the exact same costs to _their_ customers. It's a bad thing all around, except for the spammer.
This isn't even mentioning the time the recipient has to spend sorting through it all, the fact that children receive the exact same porn spam, that it's illegal in some places, and that it legitimizes the practice.
In the end, these people are forging headers and are usually blatantly breaking the rules that their provider lays down. I don't have any sympathy for the creeps, and wouldn't mind if certain terrible things happen to them.
--- It will be published electronically. It'll be run either on Slashdot, or it'll be in some downloadable format. Its just not out yet, so chill out for a few weeks;) ---
...still have a complaint? Sounds to me like you'll be able to get it online by the time the book is available - of course, the use is limited online as the people who need to see it will be offline, primarily.
This is all good stuff, but is it innovative? It's not that commercial/proprietary companies didn't know the benefits of open standards, it's that they didn't care to use them (usually so that they can ensure lock-in).
This is almost the same thing as if an oil company developed a super-efficient electric car and then buried the research, only to have someone else do the same thing. It's not innovative the second time around, but it arguably helps people more.
That said, this is something that people should demand of commercial vendors. Open-standards, even with closed-source software, are very useful indeed. Just not terribly innovative.
Really, the only main innovation that open-source software has brought to the table that I can see is the open-source aspect. It's a good development for many uses, but it's not a (technological) innovation, really.
GCC is fine and good, but it still isn't what I'd call an innovation. It's a compiler implementation - no matter what the quality is, it's still not innovative in the strict sense.
Innovation is doing something that nobody has done before, or at the least deviating widely from the norm in the implementation in such a way that is non-obvious to others working on similar projects. Whatever the very first compiler was would be considered innovative, but I don't really see GCC as being so itself.
And don't forget the fact that they threw out good usability/UI design principles out the door.
I have hope, but I'm not holding my breath. When someone is beta, you can't really judge it too much - but you can judge the priorities the developers hold, and those working on Mozilla have got it WAY off. I'd much rather they had just given up on the Mac than embarassed themselves with the non-native UI.
Um, what innovations of the open-source community?
Seriously, this is 100% not a troll. From what I've seen, the open-source community usually seems content with reimplementing features from other operating systems (often superior to the software they are copying).
But innovation? Not really. People throw that term around far too loosely. Seriously - What major open-source innovation has Be capitalized on?
I'm pretty sure that wasn't a maze, but rather a long straight hallway with several force-fields of some sort. I'm guessing they were some sort of blast shield or something to keep fire/radiation out.
What gets me is how retarded this whole thing about 'racism' is. Yeah, Jar Jar had an accent. Some people say it sounds Jamaican, but I don't see it. For the sake of argument, we'll say that it was meant to sound like that.
Then you've got the Trade Federation, with their strange accents. These I could see as having been based on Mandarin or something.
These characters are either considered 'bad/evil', or 'foolish/stupid'.
So what?
In the original trilogy, how did all of Vader's henchmen speak? In a very clear British accent. They were considered bad/evil type people. How did C3P0 speak? Something like a British butler, and he was the fool throughout the series. All of the 'good guys' more or less spoke with normal American accents - not exactly unexpected, given that these were American movies.
Why isn't anyone complaining about the unfair treatment of the British in the original trilogy? Because they are apparently fair game according to the PC crowd, and the British actually have a sense of humor and didn't care.
People seem intent on turning anything into a racial issue. Give me a break - there are plenty of cases of real racism and injustice out there to go after, you don't need to make them up.
While I like skins as much as the next guy, I have some serious problems with some projects which are using them as a replacement for good UI design.
For example, Mozilla. For months myself and others had been providing dozens of reasons to implement native UI widgets instead of the hacked up bitmaps they are currently going with. Reasons?
- Non-native UIs are generally slower than native ones, for whatever reason. I guess this could be fixed with enough work.
- The 'look' of the UI is not consistant with the rest of the OS for those who choose not to use themes. Most people, believe it or not, will probably never switch their theme - or want to. Why should their browser stick out like a sore thumb?
- If the look matches, the 'feel' usually does not. This is more important than it may appear to be at first. Something as subtle as how hierarchial menus are handled will often annoy or frustrate even advanced users.
- Using non-native widgets (basically, bitmaps) often stops system-wide skin/theme programs from working. Your non-standard look and feel is rendered internally inconsistant.
- Using non-native widgets is usually done so that less effort is needed to go cross-platform. Laziness. Do you want your Linux or MacOS program to behave like a Windows one, or vice versa?
In the end, I have rarely/never seen a non-native interface, outside of the occasional game, that didn't look like a really ugly port.
After much time conversing with the Mozilla folks, who presented a laundry list of reasons for the UI that were refuted time and time again by myself and others, the truth came out: AOL is giving these guys very little in the way of a budget to make an acceptable cross-platform browser. The way it was explained, we'd only end up with a Windows version if they DIDN'T go this route due to funding shortages. I fully blame AOL management for this.
However, I still feel it is a mistake. Already reviews have been very mixed, even for a beta quality release (Netscape 6). It's not the obvious bugs and performance issues that bug me, but the so-called 'features' that appear very poorly thought-out from the start. Some of it is very very cool, but without a decent UI design, it's not looking good.
I just hate to see AOL/Netscape's internal politics breaking the browser before it ever had a chance. If only Mozilla were truly 100% autonomous...
It's good to see at least a few established artists supported consumer rights. I'm definately not a fan of Public Enemy's music (industrial/electronica is more my style), but I can at least respect the message.
There are other artists, though, that have wised up to the benefits of MP3. A few, like SMG have really embraced it. Dumping a brain-dead label and going independant isn't easy, but it's inspiring to know that the music is still flowing.
Good stuff, too, if you like the funky side of industrial.
What's really funny is, these days many of the larger artists could easily go independant and do well for themselves. If Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, or Pig were to go off on their own, their fans wouldn't forget them.
Quite possibly in video production, but I highly doubt that they do in video playback/consumption. RealPlayer and MS Media Player together put up quite a bit of challenge when it comes to marketshare.
Apple may edge them out somewhat, but certainly not by 8X.
--- Anyone ever find themselves wondering why Xerox didint flat out sue the shit out of Apple in the 80's? ---
Um, Xerox got paid with Apple stock.
And I recall that Xerox did sue them - it had something to do with not getting as much money as they wanted or something.
--- Embrace OSS? Apple has sued for Look and Feel issues several times ---
Spend a few million developing a unique user interface and see how much you like someone copying it bit for bit. If Apple releases something to the open-source community, it should be on their terms. It is a gift, nothing more.
I just don't see why people think free code is a right, when it is very much a privilege. When a company gives something like that away, they are basically providing thousands of man-hours of work free to the community. It's their technology, and their right to keep some of it for themselves.
That's how companies stay in business, you know. Don't blame Apple if they've finally learned how not to make stupid business decisions.
Slashdot Mirror
Be used to use it all the time.
Hence the 'BeBox'.
I've heard it elsewhere as well.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
I'm a LinuxPPC user, but I don't pretend to think that people buy Macs to run Linux on them.
99.99% of the people who buy Macs do so because of the MacOS. That's the 'carrot' that Apple uses to prompt people to buy Macs (they are a hardware company, but use the OS to differentiate their product).
In this case, I don't think Apple should bother - this isn't nearly as blatant a copycat design as the others (which were complete ripoffs in my opinion, and deserving what whatever they got).
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Him having no name says little about him, but you not having one could say volumes about you.
Either way, it's obvious that this is all based on a vendetta you (or whichever AC posted the original reply) have against him. His posts don't seem terribly insightful, and the non-breaking spaces are annoying as hell, but this doesn't mean he's a troll or karma whore (aren't those usually mutually exclusive?).
Whatever. It's not like his original post was inflammatory or anything. I seriously hope you don't follow people in order to toss around witless insults whenever they post anything...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
How do you know I'm Jeff?
Erm, you don't, I guess. I'm sure you aren't losing any sleep over it though.
The point is, an Anonymous Coward can say whatever they want without their name being attached to their Insightful Post/Troll/Flame. My name is unimportant - what is important is that generally if a bunch of posts are made under the same name, that person is taking credit or blame for their content. An AC can do whatever they want without any fear of retribution or history.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Hrm. A guy with a name versus an overly-critical Anon. Coward. Are you so sure that he is the one making an idiot of himself...?
If you'll look through his User Info, you'll notice that he has a posting history devoid of trolls and First Posts. How do you stack up?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
---
Those who run the business have the choice whether or not to offer that kind of job.
---
Right, and I blame them too. A little further in my post, I mention that MCI lost a customer. The person they had call me only lost a single 'sale'. If I had the opportunity, I'd rather remove the idiot who thought of using telemarketing in the first place from his position than the person who made the call.
---
People who take the job need the money.
---
That's not an excuse.
First, there are no shortage of "shit jobs" out there, and I doubt they pay any worse than telemarketing.
Second, if you're not making much money, at the very least you can have respectability. Calling people up and disturbing them in their homes looking for a sale is far beneath working at McDonalds or a similar establishment - and as far as I know, _they_ are almost always hiring.
If I wanted their service or product, I can damn well look for it myself.
---
Yes, but for some strange reason you may fail to comprehend, some people find that feeding themselves and their family takes priority over that.
---
This is based on the assumption that the only jobs out there are for telemarketers. I would venture a guess and say that telemarketing is a VERY small minority of the total number of jobs out there - even the low paying ones.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Those who call have the choice whether or not the take the job. People need to learn personal responsibility for their own actions.
Either way, I try to be a bit more clever about it. They're used to getting yelled at, but not from a nice person trying to make a point.
Just tell the caller that you don't have the time to to learn more about their product, but would be more than happy to call them at their home for more details. They're usually taken aback by this, at which point you can ask "What, you mean you don't like people you don't even know calling you at home? Why not?".
Another fun thing to do is to ask them tons of questions and let them go through their spiel for as long as you can, and then say "no thanks" after they've wasted a half hour or so.
I really don't mind the people so much until they start using really annoying pressure tactics, don't take "no" for an answer, or start reading from an uninspired script as soon as I answer the phone. Stupid stupid stupid.
Yet another fun thing to do is to somehow warp the conversation so that you're trying to sell THEM on something. Say, "no thanks, but I have an opportunity for you!" and go into a big spiel about something they should buy. Have a nice lengthy script all written out if at all possible beforehand. I almost sold one soliciter on a low-cost web hosting plan that way (she took it so well, I actually ordered Caller ID from here).
Last but not least, just ask them for their web address and state that you want to do your research. Of course, all these people care about is their commission, so they'll try to talk you out of it. One woman (working for MCI) hung up on me when I insisted that I liked to do my research first. I was even nice about it. Now, MCI has permanently lost a potential customer. Go figure.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
As the person at a web host (dreamhost.com) who deals with it, it does cost. Some spammers abuse our resources so much, we have no choice but to cancel their accounts (this is our policy - immediate cancellation w/o refund). Load on our servers increases, it interferes with legitimate user processes, and so on.
The time it takes to deal with this, plus the cost of bandwidth and server load, is passed on to our customers. They pay for someone else's 'free' advertising.
Then, there's the other side of the coin. The ISP who has to receive the spam passes on the exact same costs to _their_ customers. It's a bad thing all around, except for the spammer.
This isn't even mentioning the time the recipient has to spend sorting through it all, the fact that children receive the exact same porn spam, that it's illegal in some places, and that it legitimizes the practice.
In the end, these people are forging headers and are usually blatantly breaking the rules that their provider lays down. I don't have any sympathy for the creeps, and wouldn't mind if certain terrible things happen to them.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
I tend to agree that 'genius' may be stretching it a bit, but that still doesn't mean that the guy didn't do some cool stuff.
Plus, I imagine the ZIP compression algorhythm has some interesting mathemetics to it.
There are a few people I would classify as genius, though. Woz comes to mind.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Yes, I've heard of that format as well. I believe that no matter how large the content, it can be compressed into the following sentence:
"Geeks are oppressed. Down with corporate America! Hey, what about those Sex Bots?"
Very tight algorhythm, indeed.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Reread the article.
;)
---
It will be published electronically. It'll be run either on Slashdot, or it'll be in some downloadable format. Its just not out yet, so chill out for a few weeks
---
...still have a complaint? Sounds to me like you'll be able to get it online by the time the book is available - of course, the use is limited online as the people who need to see it will be offline, primarily.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
An intuitive interface, to those who grok the Mac way, is a powerful interface.
Of course, there are some of us who prefer a minimalist interface which we can expand as needed with whatever other functionality we require.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
This is all good stuff, but is it innovative? It's not that commercial/proprietary companies didn't know the benefits of open standards, it's that they didn't care to use them (usually so that they can ensure lock-in).
This is almost the same thing as if an oil company developed a super-efficient electric car and then buried the research, only to have someone else do the same thing. It's not innovative the second time around, but it arguably helps people more.
That said, this is something that people should demand of commercial vendors. Open-standards, even with closed-source software, are very useful indeed. Just not terribly innovative.
Really, the only main innovation that open-source software has brought to the table that I can see is the open-source aspect. It's a good development for many uses, but it's not a (technological) innovation, really.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
GCC is fine and good, but it still isn't what I'd call an innovation. It's a compiler implementation - no matter what the quality is, it's still not innovative in the strict sense.
Innovation is doing something that nobody has done before, or at the least deviating widely from the norm in the implementation in such a way that is non-obvious to others working on similar projects. Whatever the very first compiler was would be considered innovative, but I don't really see GCC as being so itself.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
And don't forget the fact that they threw out good usability/UI design principles out the door.
I have hope, but I'm not holding my breath. When someone is beta, you can't really judge it too much - but you can judge the priorities the developers hold, and those working on Mozilla have got it WAY off. I'd much rather they had just given up on the Mac than embarassed themselves with the non-native UI.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Um, what innovations of the open-source community?
Seriously, this is 100% not a troll. From what I've seen, the open-source community usually seems content with reimplementing features from other operating systems (often superior to the software they are copying).
But innovation? Not really. People throw that term around far too loosely. Seriously - What major open-source innovation has Be capitalized on?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Perhaps this will help...
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
I'm pretty sure that wasn't a maze, but rather a long straight hallway with several force-fields of some sort. I'm guessing they were some sort of blast shield or something to keep fire/radiation out.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
What gets me is how retarded this whole thing about 'racism' is. Yeah, Jar Jar had an accent. Some people say it sounds Jamaican, but I don't see it. For the sake of argument, we'll say that it was meant to sound like that.
Then you've got the Trade Federation, with their strange accents. These I could see as having been based on Mandarin or something.
These characters are either considered 'bad/evil', or 'foolish/stupid'.
So what?
In the original trilogy, how did all of Vader's henchmen speak? In a very clear British accent. They were considered bad/evil type people. How did C3P0 speak? Something like a British butler, and he was the fool throughout the series. All of the 'good guys' more or less spoke with normal American accents - not exactly unexpected, given that these were American movies.
Why isn't anyone complaining about the unfair treatment of the British in the original trilogy? Because they are apparently fair game according to the PC crowd, and the British actually have a sense of humor and didn't care.
People seem intent on turning anything into a racial issue. Give me a break - there are plenty of cases of real racism and injustice out there to go after, you don't need to make them up.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
While I like skins as much as the next guy, I have some serious problems with some projects which are using them as a replacement for good UI design.
For example, Mozilla. For months myself and others had been providing dozens of reasons to implement native UI widgets instead of the hacked up bitmaps they are currently going with. Reasons?
- Non-native UIs are generally slower than native ones, for whatever reason. I guess this could be fixed with enough work.
- The 'look' of the UI is not consistant with the rest of the OS for those who choose not to use themes. Most people, believe it or not, will probably never switch their theme - or want to. Why should their browser stick out like a sore thumb?
- If the look matches, the 'feel' usually does not. This is more important than it may appear to be at first. Something as subtle as how hierarchial menus are handled will often annoy or frustrate even advanced users.
- Using non-native widgets (basically, bitmaps) often stops system-wide skin/theme programs from working. Your non-standard look and feel is rendered internally inconsistant.
- Using non-native widgets is usually done so that less effort is needed to go cross-platform. Laziness. Do you want your Linux or MacOS program to behave like a Windows one, or vice versa?
In the end, I have rarely/never seen a non-native interface, outside of the occasional game, that didn't look like a really ugly port.
After much time conversing with the Mozilla folks, who presented a laundry list of reasons for the UI that were refuted time and time again by myself and others, the truth came out: AOL is giving these guys very little in the way of a budget to make an acceptable cross-platform browser. The way it was explained, we'd only end up with a Windows version if they DIDN'T go this route due to funding shortages. I fully blame AOL management for this.
However, I still feel it is a mistake. Already reviews have been very mixed, even for a beta quality release (Netscape 6). It's not the obvious bugs and performance issues that bug me, but the so-called 'features' that appear very poorly thought-out from the start. Some of it is very very cool, but without a decent UI design, it's not looking good.
I just hate to see AOL/Netscape's internal politics breaking the browser before it ever had a chance. If only Mozilla were truly 100% autonomous...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Well, as much as I do like NIN, Nothing Records is still pretty much attached to Interscope, right?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
It's good to see at least a few established artists supported consumer rights. I'm definately not a fan of Public Enemy's music (industrial/electronica is more my style), but I can at least respect the message.
There are other artists, though, that have wised up to the benefits of MP3. A few, like SMG have really embraced it. Dumping a brain-dead label and going independant isn't easy, but it's inspiring to know that the music is still flowing.
Good stuff, too, if you like the funky side of industrial.
What's really funny is, these days many of the larger artists could easily go independant and do well for themselves. If Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, or Pig were to go off on their own, their fans wouldn't forget them.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Quite possibly in video production, but I highly doubt that they do in video playback/consumption. RealPlayer and MS Media Player together put up quite a bit of challenge when it comes to marketshare.
Apple may edge them out somewhat, but certainly not by 8X.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
Then go away. If you have such dislike for Slashdot, and Slashdot obviously has a major dislike toward you, why are you still here?
Trolling, perhaps?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
---
Anyone ever find themselves wondering why Xerox didint flat out sue the shit out of Apple in the 80's?
---
Um, Xerox got paid with Apple stock.
And I recall that Xerox did sue them - it had something to do with not getting as much money as they wanted or something.
---
Embrace OSS? Apple has sued for Look and Feel issues several times
---
Spend a few million developing a unique user interface and see how much you like someone copying it bit for bit. If Apple releases something to the open-source community, it should be on their terms. It is a gift, nothing more.
I just don't see why people think free code is a right, when it is very much a privilege. When a company gives something like that away, they are basically providing thousands of man-hours of work free to the community. It's their technology, and their right to keep some of it for themselves.
That's how companies stay in business, you know. Don't blame Apple if they've finally learned how not to make stupid business decisions.
---
AppleII4VR
---
Ahh, yes. Now I see why you posted this...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)