Many appliances have a "do not use until reading manual" sticker which could almost be considered a EULA, as it has the warning and precautions.
That cold be a legal defense. "Your honor, the plaintiff clearly removed the sticker, thereby agreeing that they had read the precautions on the Spaceballs Flame Thrower..."
but, just like Microsoft (and anyone else who ever gave anything they produced to schools) they are being accused of the underhanded business practice of getting people to use your equipment, and then hoping they will buy some for themselves when the time comes.
Oh my god, you're a functional business! You Bastards!!
And all 1966 Corvettes were designed with the intent that you would be using high-octane fuel and NOS in them years later, right?
Technology is moving much faster than the auto industry. If we tested everything in computers as well as cars (imagine piles of twisted, bent cases at the crash test sites...) they would run in more extreme temperatures, be half as likely to crash, all use the same software no matter the vendor, and we would be at all of 66 MHz right now.
Maybe it wasn't a glitch so much as it was a test of the system to see if it would work.
Cablevision isn't stupid - they can see the coming of the DRM Age, and a quick test to see how many people were affected by it now will help them guage the response when DRM is required.
If John Bobbit and the subsequent "Not Guilty" verdict against Lorena, who admitted to the crime, are any indication, this technology may become important in the future...
GM has spent over a billion dollars on this design. They can sell this where no other car can go right now. Think about China; no gasoline infrastructure in most of the country, and no reason to put one in. But if a car that costs less, has a higher utility value, can power your house, and requires less maintenance is available, more Chinese will buy it. That's a market with a huge possibility for growth.
And what do you do when everyone hass the wonderful 15-year fuel-cell car? You build something better while the competition is still reeling from your advances.
The problem with your logic is that much of the innovation is a backlash against/breaking with the standard.
Apple incorporated a number of additional features over time that were tweaks. The Menubar clock, the Apple-delete command, the Launcher, Spring-loaded folders, Internet Settings, Stickies, PPP support - All of these were available as add-ons before Apple incorporated them. They were made because people wanted something the standard didn't offer.
Microsoft responded by adding many of these same features to their OS.
On a side-bit, Apple did this mostly by purchasing the software from the makers, Microsoft wrote their own versions and prevented competitors from being used (e.g. The Windows XP Personal Firewall).
Without a standard against which to work, innovation is much slower. The people at PARC with made the first GUI did so roughly (brute force rendering, etc) and apple took their standard and crafted something else. Microsoft followed in Suit. And Linux GUIs are based heavily on Windows (Call it what you want, it's a Start Button).
If the desktop environments were less concerned with getting the greatest share of users in Linux and more concerned with:
A) Standards B) Interoperability
the Linux GUI market would be a better place.
What the hell happened to standards? Everything else has a damn standard, why not the interface?! I'm not saying the standard should outline The Interface, but it should make it easy for users to switch from one to another. Yes, there are different environments which different GUIs are better and worse for. But that doesn't mean that they can' be similar enough to not have a "transition period" for those who aren't familiar.
Maybe we should be building a common interface with functional subsets that could be switched easily - same feeling but different format for various uses. Gaming, Graphics, Business, Children, etc. Of course, this would require a few things:
1) People willing to work together and not just argue. 2) Developers who are willing to sacrifice some control for better function. 3) A Damn Miracle.
Exactly. RedHat isn't taking away your ability to choose. If you want something to be different, change it. In the meantime, All the people who need standards to survive int he computer world can enjoy a little more of Linux than they could before.
Here's a bad computer-car analogy. If the Microsoft car has a steering wheel, and the Linux car has a numeric keypad (which undoubtably can do more), most people couldn't drive the Linux car.
RedHat is trying to push the Desktop Linux by making different GUIs work the same. This is known as "standards."
The real issue here is while there was a display manager that became the standard, these should have been something on interface design long ago.
We live in a world of standards, and yet the one thing that needs the most standardization is the one thing people push to have the least.
Quite a few people have written asking if I was going to post a wallpaper commerating September 11, 2001. The answer is yes, and no. Those of you who have been visiting my gallery for a while might remember that September 11 is my birthday (I won't blame you if you've forgotten), and that I've always posted a new wallpaper on my birthday.
I'm going to try to have something new this year as well (I'll be 31), but I'm pretty sure it won't be related to last year's terrorist attacks. Those who desire such commemorative materials will not have far to look, I'm sure. Personally, I think it is time we move forward and I would rather work to that end.
I remember the coverage from September 11. I didn't get to see much on TV, because I was at work. They let everyone who wanted to go home out that day. I worked in a quiet business park, and I just walked around it for hours - not knowing what to do.
Many people said things, but the best words I heard were from Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, from the first episode they aired after the attack.
Good evening and welcome to "The Daily Show." We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City. There is no other way really to start this show than to ask you at home the question that we've asked the audience here tonight and that we've asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is, "Are you okay?" We pray that you are and that your family is. I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host. TV is nothing, if not redundant. So, I apologize for that. It's something that unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move onto the business of making you laugh, which we really haven't been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone's checked in already, I know we're late. I'm sure we're getting in right under the wire before the cast of "Survivor" offers their insight into what to do in these situations.
They said to get back to work. There were no jobs available for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying, which I would have gladly taken. So I came back here. Tonight's show is obviously not a regular show. We looked through the vaults, we found some clips that we thought might make you smile, which is really what's necessary, I think, right about now. A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say?" I mean, what a terrible thing to have to do. I don't see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does see it that way. The show in general, we feel like is a privilege. Just even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks, which is really what we do. We sit in the back and we throw spitballs, but never forgetting the fact that is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. This is a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds as though it goes without saying - but that's really what this whole situation is about. It's the difference between closed and open. It's the difference between free and burden and we don't take that for granted here by any stretch of the imagination and our show has changed. I don't doubt that. What it's become, I don't know. "Subliminable" is not a punch line anymore. One day it will become that again, and Lord willing, it will become that again because that means we have ridden out the storm.
But the main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be. Not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country. But we've had an unenduring pain here - an unendurable pain. I wanted to tell you why I grieve, but why I don't despair...I'm sorry. Luckily we can edit this. One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass...When I was five, he was shot. Here's what I remember about it. I was in a school in Trenton. They shut the lights off and we got to sit under our desks and we thought that was really cool and they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there was rioting, but we didn't know that. We just thought that "My god. We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese." That's what I remember about it. That was a tremendous test of this country's fabric and this country's had many tests before that and after that.
The reason I don't despair is because this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream. Whatever barriers we've put up are gone even if it's momentary. We're judging people by not the color of their skin but the content of their character. You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They've gotten together and their extraordinary guile...and their wit and their skill." It's a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets rebuilding. That's extraordinary. That's why we've already won. It's light. It's democracy. We've already won. They can't shut that down. They live in chaos and chaos...it can't sustain itself. It never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying.
The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center and now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that.
So we're going to take a break and I'm going to stop slobbering on myself and on the desk. We're going to get back to this. It's gonna be fun and funny and it's going to be the same as it was and I thank you. We'll be right back.
Apple went even farther with MacOS X. While a file may be associated with a primary program, it can also have a list of programs that register the file type. This way, you can open that.JPG in Internet Explorer, Preview, Photoshop, or anything else that told the OS it handles JPEGs.
You may need a TCP/IP stack loaded to access iSCSI right now, but if it's an important adoption factor, how long do you think it would be until a NIC comes out with TCP/IP built-in, allowing the card to handle the communication for booting iSCSI?
FireWire is really a good solution for the One Port To Connect Them All.
Keyboards & Mice may be hard to find right now, but you can plug anything in with FireWire. As mentioned all those devices will work with FireWire, but one is missing: Monitors. They aren't commonly used, but televisions and monitors can accept FireWire signals. Some video monitors accept FireWire connections from cameras (Sony makes them, I believe). If the computer had particularly low power requirements, even the power cable could be FireWire... not likely, though.:)
There are many problems with DRM as is stands now. To really make it work, and work well, we need a few things:
Frist, we need a standard (preferably open) file format that supports DRM. Without this we are locked into the player du jour.
Next, DRM needs to be reasonable. There's obviously no way to connext to a huge database if you have no Internet connection. While the RIAA may want total control, DRM solutions should err on the side of the individual. If no Internet connection is available, the computer should take new files as owned and perhaps even allow a number of files to be shared. Streaming should be expressly allowed.
Finally, we have to change our own minds. Too many of us don't realize that freedom comes at the cost of responsibility. The freedom to be able to download media comes with the responsibilty to pay those, no matter how much we dislike their business practices, who provided us with same. Until most of us are willing to accept this, we will never make peace with the RIAA
Slashdot Mirror
Everything has a EULA, these days.
Many appliances have a "do not use until reading manual" sticker which could almost be considered a EULA, as it has the warning and precautions.
That cold be a legal defense. "Your honor, the plaintiff clearly removed the sticker, thereby agreeing that they had read the precautions on the Spaceballs Flame Thrower..."
2.0 may seem like a big mark, but it isn't until it reached 3.1 that it will really be considered a productive business tool.
but, just like Microsoft (and anyone else who ever gave anything they produced to schools) they are being accused of the underhanded business practice of getting people to use your equipment, and then hoping they will buy some for themselves when the time comes.
Oh my god, you're a functional business!
You Bastards!!
And all 1966 Corvettes were designed with the intent that you would be using high-octane fuel and NOS in them years later, right?
Technology is moving much faster than the auto industry. If we tested everything in computers as well as cars (imagine piles of twisted, bent cases at the crash test sites...) they would run in more extreme temperatures, be half as likely to crash, all use the same software no matter the vendor, and we would be at all of 66 MHz right now.
Maybe it wasn't a glitch so much as it was a test of the system to see if it would work.
Cablevision isn't stupid - they can see the coming of the DRM Age, and a quick test to see how many people were affected by it now will help them guage the response when DRM is required.
It has FireWire & USB - there are plenty of video input devices out there.
If John Bobbit and the subsequent "Not Guilty" verdict against Lorena, who admitted to the crime, are any indication, this technology may become important in the future...
It takes more energy to produce fossil fuels than we get out of them, too.
We were just lucky they come pre-made.
GM has spent over a billion dollars on this design. They can sell this where no other car can go right now. Think about China; no gasoline infrastructure in most of the country, and no reason to put one in. But if a car that costs less, has a higher utility value, can power your house, and requires less maintenance is available, more Chinese will buy it. That's a market with a huge possibility for growth.
And what do you do when everyone hass the wonderful 15-year fuel-cell car? You build something better while the competition is still reeling from your advances.
Say what you will, but when someone tweaks the sports-car model and you can go from 0-300 in 6 seconds, you'll want one too.
Hrm.. Lots of parallels...
Windows are a definate must.
Lights - also good.
Cooling systems are a plus.
Display Panel - I should hope.
Tool-less access doors, wireless communications, quadrophonic sound...
Hey, cars have had all this stuff for years! When did computers fall so far behind?!
The problem with your logic is that much of the innovation is a backlash against/breaking with the standard.
Apple incorporated a number of additional features over time that were tweaks. The Menubar clock, the Apple-delete command, the Launcher, Spring-loaded folders, Internet Settings, Stickies, PPP support - All of these were available as add-ons before Apple incorporated them. They were made because people wanted something the standard didn't offer.
Microsoft responded by adding many of these same features to their OS.
On a side-bit, Apple did this mostly by purchasing the software from the makers, Microsoft wrote their own versions and prevented competitors from being used (e.g. The Windows XP Personal Firewall).
Without a standard against which to work, innovation is much slower. The people at PARC with made the first GUI did so roughly (brute force rendering, etc) and apple took their standard and crafted something else. Microsoft followed in Suit. And Linux GUIs are based heavily on Windows (Call it what you want, it's a Start Button).
I know this will make people scream.
If the desktop environments were less concerned with getting the greatest share of users in Linux and more concerned with:
A) Standards
B) Interoperability
the Linux GUI market would be a better place.
What the hell happened to standards? Everything else has a damn standard, why not the interface?! I'm not saying the standard should outline The Interface, but it should make it easy for users to switch from one to another. Yes, there are different environments which different GUIs are better and worse for. But that doesn't mean that they can' be similar enough to not have a "transition period" for those who aren't familiar.
Maybe we should be building a common interface with functional subsets that could be switched easily - same feeling but different format for various uses. Gaming, Graphics, Business, Children, etc. Of course, this would require a few things:
1) People willing to work together and not just argue.
2) Developers who are willing to sacrifice some control for better function.
3) A Damn Miracle.
--
Well, I'm done.
Maybe it's my connection, but it seems that the screenshots were slashdotted.
Exactly. RedHat isn't taking away your ability to choose. If you want something to be different, change it. In the meantime, All the people who need standards to survive int he computer world can enjoy a little more of Linux than they could before.
Here's a bad computer-car analogy. If the Microsoft car has a steering wheel, and the Linux car has a numeric keypad (which undoubtably can do more), most people couldn't drive the Linux car.
RedHat is trying to push the Desktop Linux by making different GUIs work the same. This is known as "standards."
The real issue here is while there was a display manager that became the standard, these should have been something on interface design long ago.
We live in a world of standards, and yet the one thing that needs the most standardization is the one thing people push to have the least.
Free the GUI!
What's to prevent someone from buying a bottle of acetone and unsealing the thing, then gluing it back together when they are done?
I liked the words of Ryan Bliss, creator of Digital Blasphemy.
Quite a few people have written asking if I was going to post a wallpaper commerating September 11, 2001. The answer is yes, and no. Those of you who have been visiting my gallery for a while might remember that September 11 is my birthday (I won't blame you if you've forgotten), and that I've always posted a new wallpaper on my birthday.
I'm going to try to have something new this year as well (I'll be 31), but I'm pretty sure it won't be related to last year's terrorist attacks. Those who desire such commemorative materials will not have far to look, I'm sure. Personally, I think it is time we move forward and I would rather work to that end.
I remember the coverage from September 11. I didn't get to see much on TV, because I was at work. They let everyone who wanted to go home out that day. I worked in a quiet business park, and I just walked around it for hours - not knowing what to do.
Many people said things, but the best words I heard were from Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, from the first episode they aired after the attack.
Read Jon's Speech
Good evening and welcome to "The Daily Show." We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City. There is no other way really to start this show than to ask you at home the question that we've asked the audience here tonight and that we've asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is, "Are you okay?" We pray that you are and that your family is. I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host. TV is nothing, if not redundant. So, I apologize for that. It's something that unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move onto the business of making you laugh, which we really haven't been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone's checked in already, I know we're late. I'm sure we're getting in right under the wire before the cast of "Survivor" offers their insight into what to do in these situations.
They said to get back to work. There were no jobs available for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying, which I would have gladly taken. So I came back here. Tonight's show is obviously not a regular show. We looked through the vaults, we found some clips that we thought might make you smile, which is really what's necessary, I think, right about now. A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say?" I mean, what a terrible thing to have to do. I don't see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does see it that way. The show in general, we feel like is a privilege. Just even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks, which is really what we do. We sit in the back and we throw spitballs, but never forgetting the fact that is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. This is a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds as though it goes without saying - but that's really what this whole situation is about. It's the difference between closed and open. It's the difference between free and burden and we don't take that for granted here by any stretch of the imagination and our show has changed. I don't doubt that. What it's become, I don't know. "Subliminable" is not a punch line anymore. One day it will become that again, and Lord willing, it will become that again because that means we have ridden out the storm.
But the main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be. Not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country. But we've had an unenduring pain here - an unendurable pain. I wanted to tell you why I grieve, but why I don't despair...I'm sorry. Luckily we can edit this. One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass...When I was five, he was shot. Here's what I remember about it. I was in a school in Trenton. They shut the lights off and we got to sit under our desks and we thought that was really cool and they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there was rioting, but we didn't know that. We just thought that "My god. We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese." That's what I remember about it. That was a tremendous test of this country's fabric and this country's had many tests before that and after that.
The reason I don't despair is because this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream. Whatever barriers we've put up are gone even if it's momentary. We're judging people by not the color of their skin but the content of their character. You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They've gotten together and their extraordinary guile...and their wit and their skill." It's a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets rebuilding. That's extraordinary. That's why we've already won. It's light. It's democracy. We've already won. They can't shut that down. They live in chaos and chaos...it can't sustain itself. It never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying.
The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center and now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can't beat that.
So we're going to take a break and I'm going to stop slobbering on myself and on the desk. We're going to get back to this. It's gonna be fun and funny and it's going to be the same as it was and I thank you. We'll be right back.
Leonardo da-Vinci wrote his journal right-to-left.
Do you consider him to fall into one of your groups?
China doesn't have to block it - it's slashdotted.
Apple went even farther with MacOS X. While a file may be associated with a primary program, it can also have a list of programs that register the file type. This way, you can open that .JPG in Internet Explorer, Preview, Photoshop, or anything else that told the OS it handles JPEGs.
You may need a TCP/IP stack loaded to access iSCSI right now, but if it's an important adoption factor, how long do you think it would be until a NIC comes out with TCP/IP built-in, allowing the card to handle the communication for booting iSCSI?
If there is one out there, I'm sure Sun made it.
--
Loading, please wait...
FireWire is really a good solution for the One Port To Connect Them All.
:)
Keyboards & Mice may be hard to find right now, but you can plug anything in with FireWire. As mentioned all those devices will work with FireWire, but one is missing: Monitors. They aren't commonly used, but televisions and monitors can accept FireWire signals. Some video monitors accept FireWire connections from cameras (Sony makes them, I believe). If the computer had particularly low power requirements, even the power cable could be FireWire... not likely, though.
There are many problems with DRM as is stands now. To really make it work, and work well, we need a few things:
Frist, we need a standard (preferably open) file format that supports DRM. Without this we are locked into the player du jour.
Next, DRM needs to be reasonable. There's obviously no way to connext to a huge database if you have no Internet connection. While the RIAA may want total control, DRM solutions should err on the side of the individual. If no Internet connection is available, the computer should take new files as owned and perhaps even allow a number of files to be shared. Streaming should be expressly allowed.
Finally, we have to change our own minds. Too many of us don't realize that freedom comes at the cost of responsibility. The freedom to be able to download media comes with the responsibilty to pay those, no matter how much we dislike their business practices, who provided us with same. Until most of us are willing to accept this, we will never make peace with the RIAA