Time to stock up on some Penguins. Man, I love those things... crunch three or four and it's the same caffeine as a cup of coffee, and your breath is freshened too!
I think you need to rethink. Other than idea of a mentally retarded man getting smarter, the two films have absolutely nothing in common.
Flowers for Algernon (or the movie Charly which followed the plot amazingly well, a rarity in the SF movie world) is a realistic tragedy about a mentally retarded man who volunteers for an experiment, becomes a genius, then painfully has to watch his own bright new mind revert to retardation. It's well-plotted, character-driven, and highly believable, thoroughly deserving of the awards heaped upon it.
Lawnmower Man (the movie, which bears no resemblance to the print story other than they're both examples of King at his laziest) is a tale of a mentally retarded man who somehow (never mind how, exactly) becomes a god in virtual reality and never reverts. The plot is lame and largely designed to justify CGI budget, the characters are cardboard cutouts, and it's about as believable as Tron.
Same story? Not even close. Phenomenon is much closer, if you want a more recent flick than Charly.
Very good point, but your own post implicates the lawyers too. Basically, the lawyer gets 1/3 of whatever is recovered. (That is why you see those "you don't pay if you don't win" television commercials for lawyers.)
What does this encourage? Dishonest PLAINTIFFS, not dishonest lawyers. The system thereby encourages both dishonest plaintiffs and dishonest lawyers. Both have something to gain from unnecessary suits, as long as they think they canwin, regardless of whether they should bring suit in the first place).
I agree, but for different reasons. Compression ratio is important, sure, and whether it's lossy or lossless is important. It pales pretty rapidly in comparison to portability, though.
I have pictures of the cutest toddler on Planet Earth. I have about 1000 aunts and uncles (each the center of another distribution network) and 20000 cousins to send those pictures to. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) What do you suppose is the proportion between the number of Sky's relatives who can decode a jpg file, and the number who can decode a png file?
That's BBC-America, and not only does it get the dregs of BBC reruns, it has advertisements too. It was the single biggest disappointment of my cable package.
Good point! You're right, when I use a mouse to move a little arrow onto a particular spot on the screen and press the button, I often forget that I'm using a machine.
Of course, I'm not a programmer, so I don't associate pressing buttons with machines; usually when I press buttons I'm interacting with another human being.
I have discovered a clue, though; when you push a machine's buttons it doesn't usually slap you!;-)
In essence it isn't. As long as the thing makes installation easy, I don't much care if it's GUI or CLI. A menu-based text interface would be fine by me. What I don't want is to have to work out what obscure text switches I need to use to install something.
On the other hand, I like text. Most people migrating from Windows probably fear the command line. (I don't have any evidence to back this up, but that's my impression.) There's no logical difference between a well-designed text-based installer and a well-designed graphical installer, but for some people there is a psychological one.
This is exactly why I feel ISPs should be "common carriers" under the law, like the phone companies and package delivery services.
When a primary means of communication is left to private enterprise, the most politically (NOT technologically or even monetarily, though superiority in those modes would certainly help) efficient ends up owning the customers' means of speech. It's happening more and more rapidly now, too.
The end result is that whoever owns your means of communications effectively controls your speech.
Sure, even if all ISPs end up in the hands of an oligopoly of two or three huge companies people can still use letters, word of mouth and other nonelectronic means of communication. People can still stand on a soapbox in Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London, UK last time I checked, but it's not terribly effective unless you can get the TV cameras in.
It's all too possible, in a time of rapid change in the media of communication and rapid mergers in business, for free speech to be shut out of a primary channel. Leaving ISPs to the control of market forces won't kill free speech, no, but making them common carriers would do yeoman work toward increasing it.
You hit the nail on the head. What else is there to say? I'm a newcomer to Linux, and at the moment a graphical installer would be of great benefit to me.
I have to admit, though, there's an unholy fascination about the command line interface... I like the option of getting down amongst the gears; one of the things I hated most about the evolution of Windows 95 and onward was that the DOS command line was becoming less and less useful. (Had I known about Unix I wouldn't have cared for the original DOS so much, but that's another issue!;)
Option is the operative word, though; give me a nice wizard for when I'm in a hurry, but don't take away the command line versions. Sometimes it pays to be able to go primitive!
This bit gave me pause: Together, the nub and coprocessor are designed to encrypt data in such a way that no other combination of nub and coprocessor would be able to decrypt it. Change a single bit of code or move the data to another computer, and it is unreadable. This is the core of Palladium, according to Strongin and Peter Biddle, a Microsoft product unit manager leading Palladium's development.
So if a single bit in a huge program like MS Office becomes corrupted, your system will refuse to run it? It's a little too easy to crash today's bloated programs as it is. Palladium, if it operates this way, would make them much, much more fragile; an otherwise insignificant transcription error, one which would normally cause no problems or perhaps just cripple some tiny functionality, would kill the whole program, or render a file unusable. Customers should love that.
If there is any subsystem which prevents aPalladium from being so draconian (I can't see any way to do that, but then I'm not a Microsoft boffin), then that's a vulnerability to be exploited, and the supposed benefit to consumers is compromised from the start.
Roughly, free as in beer means it doesn't cost money; free as in speech means without restrictions on copying, quoting or altering to create derivative works.
Others have explained it better than I have. Try this link: free software
In "A Deepness in the Sky" Vernor Vinge uses seconds throughout the novel. If he wants to refer to a little over a quarter hour it's one kilosecond, a megasecond comes to about eleven and a half days, an Earth year is about 31.5 megaseconds... I found it actually quite easy to convert in my head by the end of the novel.
I'm sure I haven't said everything here, but it's a start. Critique it, mention what I left out, improve my presentation... then send your own letter. As the parent said, the more polite, informed letters they get, the better.
Dear TA Workshop administrators,
Your announcement inviting public comment on this issue is not well served by the lack of a form to do so. If you truly want the public's input it would help if there was a clear means for doing so. I offer this observation in the hope that future meetings of this type will have such forms available to aid the public in commenting effectively.
I will unfortunately not be able to attend the workshop as a public citizen, but I would like to submit this comment:
DRM is a flawed concept at base, since it treats all users of a technology as potential criminals. Furthermore, it will be difficult to the point of impossibility to implement DRM in any way which will not infringe on legal fair uses such as making backups, producing legal derivative works such as parodies and criticism, and reverse engineering for use on alternative platforms.
I am therefore opposed to legal support for DRM implementation. Such support would be a disservice to the public, stifling legal innovations, raising the prices of consumer devices without any concomitant benefit to said consumer, and benefitting only entrenched oligopolies such as the RIAA and MPAA by protecting outdated business models.
No other reaction from the US Government is necessary or appropriate. Absent legislation to force this flawed concept upon the public, I believe that DRM will die a well-deserved death at the hands of the free market.
Mostly true, but just to add a level of pedantry the kettles were normally made of tin. They would blacken if you didn't clean them after heating them on a wood or peat fire, so a blackened kettle was considered a sign of a sloppy housekeeper. So the joke is as you said, only more so; the pot calling a sooty (but shiny underneath) kettle black was actually black all the way through.
Mum doesn't care about this computer stuff, but kitchenware is another story...;)
The site mslinux.org clearly contains multiple copyright infringements of Microsoft's content. I have contacted Microsoft notifying them of this; with any luck mslinux.org will be down within a week. And no, I'm not kidding.
It's also clearly a parody, Elmer. Parody and satire are protected speech.
Do they have some really great legal maneuver so unstoppable that they're confident enough to rely on it? Or do they plan on making the next version of Office depend on some weird crypto chain that only Genuine Microsoft Windows can authenticate?
Yes and Yes. The first is Fritz Hollings's DTBC... DTC... DT... oh you know the one I mean.
(I'm so glad I live in South Carolina, just so I can vote for whoever is running against that idiot. The bill itself is bad enough, but making me type that abbreviation out every time I write a letter to the editor is adding injury [carpal tunnel] to insult.)
The second is apparently a "feature" of Palladium.
Slashdot Mirror
Time to stock up on some Penguins. Man, I love those things... crunch three or four and it's the same caffeine as a cup of coffee, and your breath is freshened too!
Flowers for Algernon (or the movie Charly which followed the plot amazingly well, a rarity in the SF movie world) is a realistic tragedy about a mentally retarded man who volunteers for an experiment, becomes a genius, then painfully has to watch his own bright new mind revert to retardation. It's well-plotted, character-driven, and highly believable, thoroughly deserving of the awards heaped upon it.
Lawnmower Man (the movie, which bears no resemblance to the print story other than they're both examples of King at his laziest) is a tale of a mentally retarded man who somehow (never mind how, exactly) becomes a god in virtual reality and never reverts. The plot is lame and largely designed to justify CGI budget, the characters are cardboard cutouts, and it's about as believable as Tron.
Same story? Not even close. Phenomenon is much closer, if you want a more recent flick than Charly.
So a tort attorney has to accept any case that walks in the door? I don't believe it.
Me-five. Just because.
Very good point, but your own post implicates the lawyers too. Basically, the lawyer gets 1/3 of whatever is recovered. (That is why you see those "you don't pay if you don't win" television commercials for lawyers.) What does this encourage? Dishonest PLAINTIFFS, not dishonest lawyers. The system thereby encourages both dishonest plaintiffs and dishonest lawyers. Both have something to gain from unnecessary suits, as long as they think they canwin, regardless of whether they should bring suit in the first place).
Funny, someone just posted a pic for comparison in both formats, and my web browser here at work (IE5) picked up the jpg but not the png.
Still a lousy trick on Forgent's part, though.
I have pictures of the cutest toddler on Planet Earth. I have about 1000 aunts and uncles (each the center of another distribution network) and 20000 cousins to send those pictures to. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) What do you suppose is the proportion between the number of Sky's relatives who can decode a jpg file, and the number who can decode a png file?
Because you don't realize that Mexico consists of United States also?
Perhaps we should rename the continents...
That's BBC-America, and not only does it get the dregs of BBC reruns, it has advertisements too. It was the single biggest disappointment of my cable package.
Of course, I'm not a programmer, so I don't associate pressing buttons with machines; usually when I press buttons I'm interacting with another human being.
I have discovered a clue, though; when you push a machine's buttons it doesn't usually slap you! ;-)
On the other hand, I like text. Most people migrating from Windows probably fear the command line. (I don't have any evidence to back this up, but that's my impression.) There's no logical difference between a well-designed text-based installer and a well-designed graphical installer, but for some people there is a psychological one.
When a primary means of communication is left to private enterprise, the most politically (NOT technologically or even monetarily, though superiority in those modes would certainly help) efficient ends up owning the customers' means of speech. It's happening more and more rapidly now, too.
The end result is that whoever owns your means of communications effectively controls your speech.
Sure, even if all ISPs end up in the hands of an oligopoly of two or three huge companies people can still use letters, word of mouth and other nonelectronic means of communication. People can still stand on a soapbox in Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London, UK last time I checked, but it's not terribly effective unless you can get the TV cameras in.
It's all too possible, in a time of rapid change in the media of communication and rapid mergers in business, for free speech to be shut out of a primary channel. Leaving ISPs to the control of market forces won't kill free speech, no, but making them common carriers would do yeoman work toward increasing it.
I have to admit, though, there's an unholy fascination about the command line interface... I like the option of getting down amongst the gears; one of the things I hated most about the evolution of Windows 95 and onward was that the DOS command line was becoming less and less useful. (Had I known about Unix I wouldn't have cared for the original DOS so much, but that's another issue! ;)
Option is the operative word, though; give me a nice wizard for when I'm in a hurry, but don't take away the command line versions. Sometimes it pays to be able to go primitive!
So if a single bit in a huge program like MS Office becomes corrupted, your system will refuse to run it? It's a little too easy to crash today's bloated programs as it is. Palladium, if it operates this way, would make them much, much more fragile; an otherwise insignificant transcription error, one which would normally cause no problems or perhaps just cripple some tiny functionality, would kill the whole program, or render a file unusable. Customers should love that.
If there is any subsystem which prevents aPalladium from being so draconian (I can't see any way to do that, but then I'm not a Microsoft boffin), then that's a vulnerability to be exploited, and the supposed benefit to consumers is compromised from the start.
Others have explained it better than I have. Try this link: free software
Just be sure you prononce his name correctly!
In "A Deepness in the Sky" Vernor Vinge uses seconds throughout the novel. If he wants to refer to a little over a quarter hour it's one kilosecond, a megasecond comes to about eleven and a half days, an Earth year is about 31.5 megaseconds... I found it actually quite easy to convert in my head by the end of the novel.
Boucher's top contributor was VeriSign? I'm not sure how to feel about that...
Dear TA Workshop administrators,
Your announcement inviting public comment on this issue is not well served by the lack of a form to do so. If you truly want the public's input it would help if there was a clear means for doing so. I offer this observation in the hope that future meetings of this type will have such forms available to aid the public in commenting effectively.
I will unfortunately not be able to attend the workshop as a public citizen, but I would like to submit this comment:
DRM is a flawed concept at base, since it treats all users of a technology as potential criminals. Furthermore, it will be difficult to the point of impossibility to implement DRM in any way which will not infringe on legal fair uses such as making backups, producing legal derivative works such as parodies and criticism, and reverse engineering for use on alternative platforms.
I am therefore opposed to legal support for DRM implementation. Such support would be a disservice to the public, stifling legal innovations, raising the prices of consumer devices without any concomitant benefit to said consumer, and benefitting only entrenched oligopolies such as the RIAA and MPAA by protecting outdated business models.
No other reaction from the US Government is necessary or appropriate. Absent legislation to force this flawed concept upon the public, I believe that DRM will die a well-deserved death at the hands of the free market.
Thank you for your attention,
Brian T. Murtagh
Mum doesn't care about this computer stuff, but kitchenware is another story... ;)
It's also clearly a parody, Elmer. Parody and satire are protected speech.
Yes and Yes. The first is Fritz Hollings's DTBC... DTC... DT... oh you know the one I mean.
(I'm so glad I live in South Carolina, just so I can vote for whoever is running against that idiot. The bill itself is bad enough, but making me type that abbreviation out every time I write a letter to the editor is adding injury [carpal tunnel] to insult.)
The second is apparently a "feature" of Palladium.
Your head only explodes if you are also a scanner. Obviously, you aren't.