I would think this could open some doors for Firefox to replace IE in many Windows environments.
Firefox already adheres to standards better than IE, has a more rubust, and secure environment, and arguably provides a superior user experience to IE, and yet IE lives on... So why would some (arguably nice) DHTML addons make a difference?
I think the situation's kinda like this: Those who care, and/or are "in the know" are already using Firefox.
The rest of the users still left on IE either
Don't care (lazyness, "not my pc", whatever)
Are too intimidated by technology to go outside the little box they've created for themselves
Think IE's still the better browser
I suspect the bulk of the switchers have already switched, and the rest either will not switch until either their OS of choice changes (OSX anyone?), or they are faced with a computer-oriented crime which makes them paranoid about using IE (be it identity theft, stolen cc info, whatever)
So while IBM's gift is a "nice to have", I don't see it making a huge difference in the lives of the average IE user. Not at the moment, at least.
They acknowledged in an SEC filing that a lawsuit from Apple would potentially be very damaging to the companies bottom line, as it accepts that a court might not agree that the reverse-engineering is legal.
That statement alone's damaging IMHO, as now when they continue pushing this technology, Apple can come back in a year (when it might actually be turning some form of profit for them) and sue saying "You clearly understood that this was wrong over a year ago, and yet you continued to break ther law for your own gains".
I mean, WTF?? That's a business plan?
Re:Do they have legal access to the BeOS source co
on
Ars Technica on Zeta 1.0
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There has been some speculation in the past that yellowTab does not have legal access, if any access at all, to the BeOS source code. They apparently wouldn't confirm nor deny that when asked. Has the situation changed recently? Have they made a final statement about their possession of said source code?
The last time I raised this question, someone pointed out that they're claiming to have overcome the 1GB limitation, which to some at least seems to indicate that they have control of the kernels source.
But I've not seen anything official from Zeta to indicate this. Just BeOS fanboys...
Seriously, where is that Yakov Smirfnoff wannabe? I finally get used to seeing the same lame joke over and over on every thread, and suddenly he's gone!
Damn Russians! Get us hooked on their lame assed humor, and boom! Suddenly they pull the Gorbachev out from under us...
Seriously, this is one of the same arguements from those who don't believe we ever visited the moon: The cosmic rays would kill you.
It's an interesting theory, but also one which must be answered before long term/distance space travel will be possible. Or even short term travel, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed.
Normal people don't get up in the morning and wonder how they can steal or trick someone.
This isn't sticking up for the criminal element, but normal people also don't get up daily thinking about how they're going to thwart the criminal element today.
It's that kind of pre-judgement which makes it hell for all of us legitimate consumers these days: Everyone assumes that you're a criminal, and it's up to you to prove otherwise. these days it's the opposite of the old viewpoint of "innocent till proven guilty".
Admittedly, this guy's going to have a different viewpoint since he deals with criminals on a daily basis, but to break it down as "blindly as "These people aren't normal" shows an incredible misinterpretation of people.
Yes, there are thiefs and criminals out there, but there are also people who make honest mistakes, and there are lots of people on ebay who just don't have the people skills neccesary to resolve disputes.
'We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet.'"
"When I want to tweak and hack, I can do so to my hearts content. But when I need to work, it's ready to go, no tweaking needed".
I'm paraphrasing someone else's observations, but it's always stuck with me, and it describes why I decided to plop down money on a dual G5 about 1.5 years ago. While I still like to hack Linux on occasion, or try to squeeze a few more cycles out of my box, I don't have to just to do everyday things.
In fact, what also made me see the light was realizing how many hours I'd spend tweaking together a Linux distro, or an XP installation, just to get it the way I wanted it. I multiplied that by the hourly rate I charge others to work on their PC's, and immediately realized that I'd be time and therefore money ahead by getting a Mac and just having it work.
Was "How long until some of our enemies get ahold of one of these things and turn it on either our own troops, or on innocent civilians".
The biggest problem with developing better weapons is that eventually other countries will also have them, either by stealing our plans & building one, or by just stealing one of the weapons & reverse engineering it. History shows that this will eventually happen, it's just a matter of how long till this happens...
For instance... Is this a DRM'd copy that's being pushed, does it tie us to a Windows Media player, or can an OSX or Linux user also just point their browser at the correct IP, and watch this also.
For that matter, how do they limit this to the test rollout group? Is there a login, or do they restrict by IP, or what? What keeps my TV-lovin' ass from watching this up here in the boonies? (aka Michigan)
The biggest question it raises, as far as someone like m'self goes, who cannot get this, is how this will impact the entertainment industry's current attack on bit torrent TV-oritented sites. If I can't get this (free w/cable subscription) service, why can't I download the content off a torrent site?
I mean... I'm already paying an outrageously expensive cable bill each month, in addition to my cable-internet bill, so why shouldn't I be able to watch such things on my PC? The obvious reason is that the big media companies want to control who sees what, and when they do, just like the RIAA and MPAA have been trying to do for years.
But money-wise, I don't see much of a problem here. I'm paying the same fee's that these guys are, I have the option of recording a show for later viewing, or for personal backup (either via my VCR, or my PVR), so why shouldn't I be able to view what I want to watch, when I want to watch it?
The fact that of the matter is, that while I think this is a huge step forward, as far as big corporate thinking goes, I think this removes just about every arguement that they have against TV-rips torrent-style.
True, they could come back with "most torrent content has had the commercials removed, and that's how we make our money", but that's no longer viable... I just saw a study this week reporting that like 80+% of all PVR users forward over commercials alrady, and who's to say if you're sittingin' front of your PC through the commercials anyway, much less sitting in front of yout TV during this period...
But the one that intrigues me the most is the fact that I share a keyboard between a Mac and a PC using Synergy, and the keys aren't mapped identically between both machines. This would be very handy to have my keyboard visually show me what's what, dependant upon which computer has the keyboards focus at that time.
Not to mention that I'm a shortcut junkie, and a visual kinda guy... This has "productivity increase" written all over it!
But the bad news is that the keyboard appears to be just a prototype at this point. Hopefully demand will quickly bring it to market soon! (preferably at less than $200 - It looks kinda expensive). There's a rather good thread on it over at digg, from earlier today.
Exactly what I was thinking... This should be handled just like print material: Once you put it out for public consumption, it remains available to the public.
And we all know that if this particular lawsuit is succesful, there'll be tons of other companies and organizations trying to cover up their past.
I'm guessing that the Church of Scientology will probably be at the front of that line...
...But it sure does seem to me like they have a lot more problems these days than in years gone past. Is it that they're getting getting better at discovering the problems, or are we just hearing more about it now due to the increase in news options we have today, or is timing coloring my memory, and I'm glossing over a lot of "oops's" tha have occured in the past?
Don't get me wrong, NASA's had more than their share of ups and downs, including some several notable tradgedies whichi resulted in loss of life, but it seems like through the late 80's, and into the 90's, NASA had a lot more success's than they have lately, as far as manned missions go.
People were zipping into space via the Shuttles, space-based experiments seemed to become almost standard reading material. In particular I remember reading about experiements growing things in space, and the effects that zero gravity was having on the plants. Or so I remember...
Nowadays when I hear about NASA and manned missions, it seems like it's usually for a failure, or yet another setback or problem with the shuttle. Granted, the media focus's on failure much more than success, but it seems like there's been a lot more setbacks in recent year than success's.
Or is this a case of me simply glossing over the problems of previous years, and they've been fairly common all along?
Because watching a machine play pre-programmed music is every bit as cool as watching a talented individual spontaneously express him/herself.
Whoever thinks that machines are going to replace musicians has never picked up an instrument, nor been truly touched by the beauty of music.
But I can see these robots reproducing the hits that (real) musicians write...
On a side note, the description of this machine in the articles blurb strongly reminds me of the Devil in Futurama when he challenged Fry to a fiddle playing contest. 8)=
Slashdot has this amazing new technology called "Search"... Perhaps some of the editors should begin searching before posting.
For that matter, perhaps the moderators should be a bit more forgiving to the people pointing out the fact that this is a dupe - Modding down everyone as redundant is almost laughable, as the entire (re)post is redundant.
Wow, way to distort the truth while at the same time displaying a complete distrust of government.
Distrust? No... more of a good ol' honest look at how these decisions can impact us. The people making 6+ figure salaries, making these decisions down in DC don't have to worry about a lot of this... The average guy who lives on $20-$45k a year, on the other hand, has much to fear with these decisions.
Your take seems to be a insanely optimistic one. One could even argue an uninformed one... It's good to know that Washington's spin doctors still have an impact. Let's take a quick look, shall we?
The ruling had issue with the intent of the developers, not the technology. The development showed an intent to distribute protected media. If Henry Ford first introduced the "car" as a device for running over pedestrians, it wouldn't have been legal either.
Can you show me a paid, legit press release by any P2P program that states "Download me and you too can steal movies and music!"? No... That doesn't exist. However now the big bad media companies can file lawsuit after lawsuit trying to show that this was in fact what the creators had in mind when releasing the software. And who has more money? The struggling developer who has no relationship to, and no profits from his work being used for illegal purposes, or the companies who are raking in millions of dollars monthly?
The answer's obvious to these guys: Keep suiing until the little guy's out of money and out of business. Then move on to the next until they're gone. Eventually, people will stop innovating here in the US after seeing this happen time and time again. However outside the US (and beyond the reach of these laws & decisions), innovation and progress will continue taking place. Who loses here in the long run?
This may come to a shock to you, but I don't think that people who make a career of law enforcement are in league with your sister's ex to allow her to be murdered so they can grab a Krispy Kreme. The REAL issue here is that the US is such a litigious society that no matter how well a civil servant performs their duties, someone will look for a payday by filing a law suit. What do they have to loose?
So because some lawyers abuse the system, the answer it to remove all responsibility from those who are paid to protect us? Come on... You can't be serious that you think this is a good thing, do you? Your tax dollars are paying these guys salary's, and your point of view seems to be "It's ok if they don't actually do anything when I'm in danger. they don't know me, and I can understand their fear of being sued"
It's truly scary that you don't see a problem with this! Our tax dollars are being spent on police forces to protect us. It's not a job that just exists... These people are there for a reason, and are being paid to protect those who pay their salaries: Us!
Restraining orders aren't just handed out on a whim either. They're typically only given to people who are in danger, and here you are saying "But it's ok if the cops don't protect them because some ambulance chaser might try to make a buck off it". We definately don't agree here my friend....
I'll give you another, more personal example of how this type of legislation impacts people:
In my state, they passed a law a few years ago putting a very low cap on what monies can be won from a doctor in a malpractice suit, largely due to the same reasons you outline for cops not having to protect us: Some people try and take advantage of the system via frivilous lawsuits. At the time, this sounded like a good idea to me too.
Well last December, just before Xmas, my Grandmother was placed in a nursing home for rehabilitation prior to moving in with my parents. This is a lady who was 84, had been living on her own for many years, and who was fully alert, and healthy prior to a problem with falling. & balance. She was expected to be rehabilitated in several weeks, and was
1. Innovation and development of Internet products in America has been stifled, and the future of such products thrown into doubt by the Supreme Courts decisions. Why develop a better Bit Torrent (or whatever) in this country, when you can now be taken to court by very deep pocketed companies who have nothing better to do that sue you into bankruptcy, based on this ruling?
2. The Supreme Court has also managed to further protect the bacon by making it so that cops can't be sued based on how poorly they enforce, or fail to protect people with restraining orders. So, for existence, your sister gets a restraining order against her ex-husband, and as she's on the phone calling for help, as the cops haven't responded to her first two calls, her ex shoots her.
Well... You can no longer blame the cops for this, which IMHO makes restraining orders completely useless. If there's no ramifications to them when they don't enforce these orders, what's the point in having them? There's now 0 incentive for cops to drop their donuts and do their duty, when it comes to victims of stalking and such. What are you going to do about it? Can't sue them into doing their job... Might as well buy a gun and protect yourself if you're in such a position, as there's no guarantee that a restraining order will help in any way.
Of course, if you're rich, and have the influence to affect future police funding, and/or influence public opinion, you're almost guaranteed that the cops will be very vigilant in protecting you. It's the average person who loses out here.
3. Cable companies no longer have to share their lines. On one hand this may mean more services from them for slightly less money. On the more realistic side, it means less options for you, the consumer, if the cable company decides to go the other way and raise your rates. Ain't it funny how so many of the decisions since Bush took office favor big business, and lock out the little guys?
4. Reporters can no longer protect their sources due to anotehr ruling today. They can, but they'll face jail time. In the long run this'll mean less people will come forward with info on wrongdoing's, which means big money gets away with more illegal activities....
5. And finally, let's not forget last weeks shit ruling wherein Walmart, Target, and any other retailer now can, or at least has the potential to take your house and land away from your in order to build more stores, in order to make themselves richer.
Yes, you'll be compensated if this happens, but that does nothing to help those who don't want to be displaced. It also means that any compensation received is at a government-set level. The same government who gives all kinds of tax breaks an incentives to such business's to get them to move into your neighborhood in the 1st place.
Seriously... Dickhead Bush and his money-mongering ilk are taking away our freedoms and liberties, not to mention our loved ones via his vendetta against Iraq, while he and his cronies grow fatter and richer.
I'm not one to really point fingers and go on about politics, but America is quickly losing everything that made us a superpower. At this rate, we will soon have a very rich, ruling elite, while the average person lives in rented propertys supporting them. Meanwhile tomorrows technological advances, and the money and power that goes with such things, will be coming from places such as China and India, which coincidentally are becoming superpowers due to all the money and business we're giving them.
In essence, we are funding our own demise, while the Bush's, and the Walmarts of the world kick back and fund more laws which limit our freedoms, while expanding their interests. Sad times indeed...
People with trades will always be in demand. In fact, I'd throw "auto mechanic" into that list too
You don't know what you're talking about (dog)dude - I have a lot of friends in the auto industry, from muffler rats to import auto mechanics, and the entire industry's going into a slump. I recently had a friend quit his day job to do part time work out of his fathers garage because there's a bigger opportunity for income there than there is at an established, corporately owned auto shop!
Add to that the fact that GM and Ford are having a ton of problems -To the point wherein they're considering asking the Feds to allow them to not pay retiree benefits! This isn't future benefits for current employees we're talking about here, this is benefits that have been earned through years of hard work by existing retirees.
How'd you like to be 70, looking forward to spending your remaining years with family and friends, only to find out you have to now work at Walmart in order to pay your utility bills?
While I will agree that there will always be some demand for skilled trades workers, it's nowhere near the levels that you're implying, and there's already a huge glut of unemployed trade workers, from mechanics to construction workers.
It almost sounds like you're doing Lazy-Boy financial planning here... Get out in the real world and see how well some of the people working in these careers you're suggesting are doing in todays economy. It ain't great, let me tell ya
The best career you've shown is nursing, but the hours and stress required for such a job is beyond what a lot of people want to do. The pay, while good, isn't that great for the requirements of the job (lotsa hours!). Teaching's similar to this... Lotsa hours, lotsa regulations and rules which have grown up due to our politically-correct-obsessed society, and all this for not much more than your average burger flipper makes down to McD's.
People should stop developing with JavaScript. How many of us have it disabled in our browsers? It's nothing but trouble.
Wow! What a well thought out idea! Let's take it to the next level...
People should also stop using IE. It's proven to be full of security holes. But of course this is largely due to it's integration w/the underlying OS, so people should probablty also stop using Windows.
For that matter, the problems are all found in the same place: On the Intenet, so people should just stop using the Internet too. It's nothing but trouble.
But then again, the Internet's more or less only accessible with computers anyway, so let's chuck the computers while we're at it.
Really... People who make such blanket statements about Javascript, without really understanding what it is, it's pro's, as well as its cons, is really getting old. I'm surprised this wasn't followed up with a paragraph about how evil cookies are, and how they should all be disabled.
I think a lesson in world geography (you know, the 200 or so countries outside the US and that the US has not bombed) and political views (outside of the opinions of faux news) would be appropriate
I could have replied to any of the "you're wrong/a bigot/unaware/uneducated" replies that have been posted in reply to my comments, but I've chosen yours... No special reason other than yours was one of the least insulting replies (Gotta love those one-line "You're a XXX" replies that/. breeds)
While I can understand everyone's knee jerk reaction, I think that y'all are the ones in the dark about this kinda stuff. I've included some links for your reading pleasure. If you're really bored, you might try this sparkling new service called "Google", and type in something like "India anti-american". You'll find a lot more than the few that I've provided.
Not that these links are comprehensive of the entire situation, but they should provide you with enough reading material to show you that I'm not labeling all Indian people as anti-American, nor am I saying that everyone in the Middle east is out to get us. I'm simply pointing out that India, and a lot of the countries we outsource to, are not the USA-lovin' countries that you are assuming they are.
If you want to prove me wrong, drape yourself with an "I love America" T-shirt, and go walking down the streets of these countries, and send me some pictures. If you come out unscathed, then you have my apologies.
Title says it all... Outsourcing sucks, and it doesn't surprise me that these same people, who can't speak English, and who don't really care about good customer service, are also thieves.
Why we outsource our personal information to countries where the anti-American sentiment is extremely high is beyond me.
I'd really love to see a comparison on how often illegal activities such as this happen, and how much money is lost due to poor customer assistance, vs. the savings offered by outsourcing.
What's the incentive to port an app when you can tell the user to run it under these applications?
Well, for one thing Mac users are fanatical about the look/feel/integration of the entire OS. This is largely why such cool technologies as Fink, and Darwin ports haven't taken over more on the Mac: The look and feel isn't the same as native OSX apps. The GUI/widgets are different, they don't share data off the clipboard in the same way that the Mac does. They don't support standard OSX keyboard commands, instead defaulting to the same shortcuts and such as their x86 counterparts.
Another great example is Open Office - It's no longer being ported due to the low number of users. Instead, NeoOffice was born from the ashes of OO, and is rapidly gaining in popularity due to it's native look/feel, and it's overall integration as a native OSX app.
Running Windows apps under OSX (emulated, or via a virtual pc, such as vmware)will meet some people's needs (read this as potential switchers), but the diehard Mac users will still demand native apps, and an OSX look/feel.
Further, Apple has said, it wont stop people from putting Windows on their Macs, which I think is a mistake. Don't have that specific application? Boot into Windows or run it via emulation
I disagree... There's a helluva lot more apps written for Windows than there is for OSX. And a lot of the apps for Windows duplicate a lot of the other Windows apps that are out there. There's a lot of very similar programs, doing very similar things on the Windows end of things. I personally like to find the best tool for a job, when the need arises. On the Windows end, this means constantly evaluating a lot of different, but similar programs to find which meets my needs/wants the best, and there's constantly more apps coming out that need to be evaluated.
On the Mac end, there's fewer programs, but they're usually of a much higher caliber, and they're way more integrated with the OS look/feel than Windows apps typlically are. As opposed to you, I think that once Windows users start checking out OSX and seenig what can be done w/it, these same people will begin looking for native apps to replace their Windows apps, rather than running them emulated, or rebooting into Windows. Keyboard shortcuts are a great example! Will the average switcher want to remember all the OSX commands, in addition to all the Windows ones, or will they just prefer to memorize one set of commands for all apps? I personally think it'll be the latter, but time will tell.
One quick note about the above: The one app that I use regularly on Windows, which has no Mac counterpart yet is Homesite! There is no Mac editor that will allow me to highlight code the way that Homesite will. Specifically, I'm referring to letting me mod the foreground AND the background colors, based on code syntax. Very disapointing, and I'm a very visual guy, and being able to do this is very important to me. Dreamweaver MX allows me to do this, but it comes with so much bloat that I really hate to use it when all's I really need is a decent editor. If BBEdit allowed me to do this, my life would be much happier! But I digress...
A few die hard companies make Linux games, for instance, but very few. That's the future: A widespread OS with no nifty applications.
I think the difference here is the number and type of users. Linux users tend to be few in numbers (compared to OSX and Windows users - Although that is slowly changing), and of a much geekier variety than the average Windows user (I'm not counting the users of very dumbed down Linux distros, such as Linspire and such... These people are typically the point-and-click, email and web users types, and never stray too much from these basic tasks.). Several companies have tried to make a living out of writing native ports of Windows games for Linux, and you know what? They al
I had the same thought as the original poster when it was first announced that the Soviets would be launching this... They have a lot of "oops's" over there.
Dunno if it's the vodka, or the Chechnyan terrorists, or the depressing prospects, but the Soviets seem to have a lot of large scale failures when it comes to these kinds of things.
So does NASA, or whoever, get an insurance policy when they sign up Russians to launch something like this? Something that will guarantee some form of reimbursement when/if a launch failed?
And if not, what prevents the Russions from just pocketing the monies they have been given, launching some dud rocket up a few hundred feet before dropping it into the ocean, and then saying "Sorry, but your launch failed, and you have nothing to show for it. Thanks for the money, BTW - We hope to do business again with you soon"?
Not that the infamous Russion integrity and low-crime nature would ever allow for something like this to happen, but still my curiosity was peaked when I heard this launch failed.
Slashdot Mirror
but hopefully enough to severely reduce the number of stupid people in the country.
So basically you're planning on turning the Bible Belt into a wild animal sanctuary?
I'm down with that! 8)=
Firefox already adheres to standards better than IE, has a more rubust, and secure environment, and arguably provides a superior user experience to IE, and yet IE lives on... So why would some (arguably nice) DHTML addons make a difference?
I think the situation's kinda like this: Those who care, and/or are "in the know" are already using Firefox.
The rest of the users still left on IE either
- Don't care (lazyness, "not my pc", whatever)
- Are too intimidated by technology to go outside the little box they've created for themselves
- Think IE's still the better browser
I suspect the bulk of the switchers have already switched, and the rest either will not switch until either their OS of choice changes (OSX anyone?), or they are faced with a computer-oriented crime which makes them paranoid about using IE (be it identity theft, stolen cc info, whatever)So while IBM's gift is a "nice to have", I don't see it making a huge difference in the lives of the average IE user. Not at the moment, at least.
... So why are they doing it?
They acknowledged in an SEC filing that a lawsuit from Apple would potentially be very damaging to the companies bottom line, as it accepts that a court might not agree that the reverse-engineering is legal.
That statement alone's damaging IMHO, as now when they continue pushing this technology, Apple can come back in a year (when it might actually be turning some form of profit for them) and sue saying "You clearly understood that this was wrong over a year ago, and yet you continued to break ther law for your own gains".
I mean, WTF?? That's a business plan?
There has been some speculation in the past that yellowTab does not have legal access, if any access at all, to the BeOS source code. They apparently wouldn't confirm nor deny that when asked. Has the situation changed recently? Have they made a final statement about their possession of said source code?
The last time I raised this question, someone pointed out that they're claiming to have overcome the 1GB limitation, which to some at least seems to indicate that they have control of the kernels source.
But I've not seen anything official from Zeta to indicate this. Just BeOS fanboys...
"In Soviet Union, Gentoo compiles you!"
Seriously, where is that Yakov Smirfnoff wannabe? I finally get used to seeing the same lame joke over and over on every thread, and suddenly he's gone!
Damn Russians! Get us hooked on their lame assed humor, and boom! Suddenly they pull the Gorbachev out from under us...
Seriously, this is one of the same arguements from those who don't believe we ever visited the moon: The cosmic rays would kill you.
It's an interesting theory, but also one which must be answered before long term/distance space travel will be possible. Or even short term travel, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed.
Normal people don't get up in the morning and wonder how they can steal or trick someone.
This isn't sticking up for the criminal element, but normal people also don't get up daily thinking about how they're going to thwart the criminal element today.
It's that kind of pre-judgement which makes it hell for all of us legitimate consumers these days: Everyone assumes that you're a criminal, and it's up to you to prove otherwise. these days it's the opposite of the old viewpoint of "innocent till proven guilty".
Admittedly, this guy's going to have a different viewpoint since he deals with criminals on a daily basis, but to break it down as "blindly as "These people aren't normal" shows an incredible misinterpretation of people.
Yes, there are thiefs and criminals out there, but there are also people who make honest mistakes, and there are lots of people on ebay who just don't have the people skills neccesary to resolve disputes.
It's still up for me... Sounds like a "user error"
'We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet.'"
So where's he been living for the last 5 years?
"When I want to tweak and hack, I can do so to my hearts content. But when I need to work, it's ready to go, no tweaking needed".
I'm paraphrasing someone else's observations, but it's always stuck with me, and it describes why I decided to plop down money on a dual G5 about 1.5 years ago. While I still like to hack Linux on occasion, or try to squeeze a few more cycles out of my box, I don't have to just to do everyday things.
In fact, what also made me see the light was realizing how many hours I'd spend tweaking together a Linux distro, or an XP installation, just to get it the way I wanted it. I multiplied that by the hourly rate I charge others to work on their PC's, and immediately realized that I'd be time and therefore money ahead by getting a Mac and just having it work.
Was "How long until some of our enemies get ahold of one of these things and turn it on either our own troops, or on innocent civilians".
The biggest problem with developing better weapons is that eventually other countries will also have them, either by stealing our plans & building one, or by just stealing one of the weapons & reverse engineering it. History shows that this will eventually happen, it's just a matter of how long till this happens...
For instance... Is this a DRM'd copy that's being pushed, does it tie us to a Windows Media player, or can an OSX or Linux user also just point their browser at the correct IP, and watch this also.
For that matter, how do they limit this to the test rollout group? Is there a login, or do they restrict by IP, or what? What keeps my TV-lovin' ass from watching this up here in the boonies? (aka Michigan)
The biggest question it raises, as far as someone like m'self goes, who cannot get this, is how this will impact the entertainment industry's current attack on bit torrent TV-oritented sites. If I can't get this (free w/cable subscription) service, why can't I download the content off a torrent site?
I mean... I'm already paying an outrageously expensive cable bill each month, in addition to my cable-internet bill, so why shouldn't I be able to watch such things on my PC? The obvious reason is that the big media companies want to control who sees what, and when they do, just like the RIAA and MPAA have been trying to do for years.
But money-wise, I don't see much of a problem here. I'm paying the same fee's that these guys are, I have the option of recording a show for later viewing, or for personal backup (either via my VCR, or my PVR), so why shouldn't I be able to view what I want to watch, when I want to watch it?
The fact that of the matter is, that while I think this is a huge step forward, as far as big corporate thinking goes, I think this removes just about every arguement that they have against TV-rips torrent-style.
True, they could come back with "most torrent content has had the commercials removed, and that's how we make our money", but that's no longer viable... I just saw a study this week reporting that like 80+% of all PVR users forward over commercials alrady, and who's to say if you're sittingin' front of your PC through the commercials anyway, much less sitting in front of yout TV during this period...
But the one that intrigues me the most is the fact that I share a keyboard between a Mac and a PC using Synergy, and the keys aren't mapped identically between both machines. This would be very handy to have my keyboard visually show me what's what, dependant upon which computer has the keyboards focus at that time.
Not to mention that I'm a shortcut junkie, and a visual kinda guy... This has "productivity increase" written all over it!
But the bad news is that the keyboard appears to be just a prototype at this point. Hopefully demand will quickly bring it to market soon! (preferably at less than $200 - It looks kinda expensive). There's a rather good thread on it over at digg, from earlier today.
Exactly what I was thinking... This should be handled just like print material: Once you put it out for public consumption, it remains available to the public.
And we all know that if this particular lawsuit is succesful, there'll be tons of other companies and organizations trying to cover up their past.
I'm guessing that the Church of Scientology will probably be at the front of that line...
...But it sure does seem to me like they have a lot more problems these days than in years gone past. Is it that they're getting getting better at discovering the problems, or are we just hearing more about it now due to the increase in news options we have today, or is timing coloring my memory, and I'm glossing over a lot of "oops's" tha have occured in the past?
Don't get me wrong, NASA's had more than their share of ups and downs, including some several notable tradgedies whichi resulted in loss of life, but it seems like through the late 80's, and into the 90's, NASA had a lot more success's than they have lately, as far as manned missions go.
People were zipping into space via the Shuttles, space-based experiments seemed to become almost standard reading material. In particular I remember reading about experiements growing things in space, and the effects that zero gravity was having on the plants. Or so I remember...
Nowadays when I hear about NASA and manned missions, it seems like it's usually for a failure, or yet another setback or problem with the shuttle. Granted, the media focus's on failure much more than success, but it seems like there's been a lot more setbacks in recent year than success's.
Or is this a case of me simply glossing over the problems of previous years, and they've been fairly common all along?
Because watching a machine play pre-programmed music is every bit as cool as watching a talented individual spontaneously express him/herself.
Whoever thinks that machines are going to replace musicians has never picked up an instrument, nor been truly touched by the beauty of music.
But I can see these robots reproducing the hits that (real) musicians write...
On a side note, the description of this machine in the articles blurb strongly reminds me of the Devil in Futurama when he challenged Fry to a fiddle playing contest. 8)=
Slashdot has this amazing new technology called "Search"... Perhaps some of the editors should begin searching before posting.
For that matter, perhaps the moderators should be a bit more forgiving to the people pointing out the fact that this is a dupe - Modding down everyone as redundant is almost laughable, as the entire (re)post is redundant.
Wow, way to distort the truth while at the same time displaying a complete distrust of government.
Distrust? No... more of a good ol' honest look at how these decisions can impact us. The people making 6+ figure salaries, making these decisions down in DC don't have to worry about a lot of this... The average guy who lives on $20-$45k a year, on the other hand, has much to fear with these decisions.
Your take seems to be a insanely optimistic one. One could even argue an uninformed one... It's good to know that Washington's spin doctors still have an impact. Let's take a quick look, shall we?
The ruling had issue with the intent of the developers, not the technology. The development showed an intent to distribute protected media. If Henry Ford first introduced the "car" as a device for running over pedestrians, it wouldn't have been legal either.
Can you show me a paid, legit press release by any P2P program that states "Download me and you too can steal movies and music!"? No... That doesn't exist. However now the big bad media companies can file lawsuit after lawsuit trying to show that this was in fact what the creators had in mind when releasing the software. And who has more money? The struggling developer who has no relationship to, and no profits from his work being used for illegal purposes, or the companies who are raking in millions of dollars monthly?
The answer's obvious to these guys: Keep suiing until the little guy's out of money and out of business. Then move on to the next until they're gone. Eventually, people will stop innovating here in the US after seeing this happen time and time again. However outside the US (and beyond the reach of these laws & decisions), innovation and progress will continue taking place. Who loses here in the long run?
This may come to a shock to you, but I don't think that people who make a career of law enforcement are in league with your sister's ex to allow her to be murdered so they can grab a Krispy Kreme. The REAL issue here is that the US is such a litigious society that no matter how well a civil servant performs their duties, someone will look for a payday by filing a law suit. What do they have to loose?
So because some lawyers abuse the system, the answer it to remove all responsibility from those who are paid to protect us? Come on... You can't be serious that you think this is a good thing, do you? Your tax dollars are paying these guys salary's, and your point of view seems to be "It's ok if they don't actually do anything when I'm in danger. they don't know me, and I can understand their fear of being sued"
It's truly scary that you don't see a problem with this! Our tax dollars are being spent on police forces to protect us. It's not a job that just exists... These people are there for a reason, and are being paid to protect those who pay their salaries: Us!
Restraining orders aren't just handed out on a whim either. They're typically only given to people who are in danger, and here you are saying "But it's ok if the cops don't protect them because some ambulance chaser might try to make a buck off it". We definately don't agree here my friend....
I'll give you another, more personal example of how this type of legislation impacts people:
In my state, they passed a law a few years ago putting a very low cap on what monies can be won from a doctor in a malpractice suit, largely due to the same reasons you outline for cops not having to protect us: Some people try and take advantage of the system via frivilous lawsuits. At the time, this sounded like a good idea to me too.
Well last December, just before Xmas, my Grandmother was placed in a nursing home for rehabilitation prior to moving in with my parents. This is a lady who was 84, had been living on her own for many years, and who was fully alert, and healthy prior to a problem with falling. & balance. She was expected to be rehabilitated in several weeks, and was
Lessee... In the last 24 hours
1. Innovation and development of Internet products in America has been stifled, and the future of such products thrown into doubt by the Supreme Courts decisions. Why develop a better Bit Torrent (or whatever) in this country, when you can now be taken to court by very deep pocketed companies who have nothing better to do that sue you into bankruptcy, based on this ruling?
2. The Supreme Court has also managed to further protect the bacon by making it so that cops can't be sued based on how poorly they enforce, or fail to protect people with restraining orders. So, for existence, your sister gets a restraining order against her ex-husband, and as she's on the phone calling for help, as the cops haven't responded to her first two calls, her ex shoots her.
Well... You can no longer blame the cops for this, which IMHO makes restraining orders completely useless. If there's no ramifications to them when they don't enforce these orders, what's the point in having them? There's now 0 incentive for cops to drop their donuts and do their duty, when it comes to victims of stalking and such. What are you going to do about it? Can't sue them into doing their job... Might as well buy a gun and protect yourself if you're in such a position, as there's no guarantee that a restraining order will help in any way.
Of course, if you're rich, and have the influence to affect future police funding, and/or influence public opinion, you're almost guaranteed that the cops will be very vigilant in protecting you. It's the average person who loses out here.
3. Cable companies no longer have to share their lines. On one hand this may mean more services from them for slightly less money. On the more realistic side, it means less options for you, the consumer, if the cable company decides to go the other way and raise your rates. Ain't it funny how so many of the decisions since Bush took office favor big business, and lock out the little guys?
4. Reporters can no longer protect their sources due to anotehr ruling today. They can, but they'll face jail time. In the long run this'll mean less people will come forward with info on wrongdoing's, which means big money gets away with more illegal activities....
5. And finally, let's not forget last weeks shit ruling wherein Walmart, Target, and any other retailer now can, or at least has the potential to take your house and land away from your in order to build more stores, in order to make themselves richer.
Yes, you'll be compensated if this happens, but that does nothing to help those who don't want to be displaced. It also means that any compensation received is at a government-set level. The same government who gives all kinds of tax breaks an incentives to such business's to get them to move into your neighborhood in the 1st place.
Seriously... Dickhead Bush and his money-mongering ilk are taking away our freedoms and liberties, not to mention our loved ones via his vendetta against Iraq, while he and his cronies grow fatter and richer.
I'm not one to really point fingers and go on about politics, but America is quickly losing everything that made us a superpower. At this rate, we will soon have a very rich, ruling elite, while the average person lives in rented propertys supporting them. Meanwhile tomorrows technological advances, and the money and power that goes with such things, will be coming from places such as China and India, which coincidentally are becoming superpowers due to all the money and business we're giving them.
In essence, we are funding our own demise, while the Bush's, and the Walmarts of the world kick back and fund more laws which limit our freedoms, while expanding their interests. Sad times indeed...
People with trades will always be in demand. In fact, I'd throw "auto mechanic" into that list too
You don't know what you're talking about (dog)dude - I have a lot of friends in the auto industry, from muffler rats to import auto mechanics, and the entire industry's going into a slump. I recently had a friend quit his day job to do part time work out of his fathers garage because there's a bigger opportunity for income there than there is at an established, corporately owned auto shop!
Add to that the fact that GM and Ford are having a ton of problems -To the point wherein they're considering asking the Feds to allow them to not pay retiree benefits! This isn't future benefits for current employees we're talking about here, this is benefits that have been earned through years of hard work by existing retirees.
How'd you like to be 70, looking forward to spending your remaining years with family and friends, only to find out you have to now work at Walmart in order to pay your utility bills?
While I will agree that there will always be some demand for skilled trades workers, it's nowhere near the levels that you're implying, and there's already a huge glut of unemployed trade workers, from mechanics to construction workers.
It almost sounds like you're doing Lazy-Boy financial planning here... Get out in the real world and see how well some of the people working in these careers you're suggesting are doing in todays economy. It ain't great, let me tell ya
The best career you've shown is nursing, but the hours and stress required for such a job is beyond what a lot of people want to do. The pay, while good, isn't that great for the requirements of the job (lotsa hours!). Teaching's similar to this... Lotsa hours, lotsa regulations and rules which have grown up due to our politically-correct-obsessed society, and all this for not much more than your average burger flipper makes down to McD's.
Sad times indeed...
People should stop developing with JavaScript. How many of us have it disabled in our browsers? It's nothing but trouble.
Wow! What a well thought out idea! Let's take it to the next level...
People should also stop using IE. It's proven to be full of security holes. But of course this is largely due to it's integration w/the underlying OS, so people should probablty also stop using Windows.
For that matter, the problems are all found in the same place: On the Intenet, so people should just stop using the Internet too. It's nothing but trouble.
But then again, the Internet's more or less only accessible with computers anyway, so let's chuck the computers while we're at it.
Really... People who make such blanket statements about Javascript, without really understanding what it is, it's pro's, as well as its cons, is really getting old. I'm surprised this wasn't followed up with a paragraph about how evil cookies are, and how they should all be disabled.
I think a lesson in world geography (you know, the 200 or so countries outside the US and that the US has not bombed) and political views (outside of the opinions of faux news) would be appropriate
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I could have replied to any of the "you're wrong/a bigot/unaware/uneducated" replies that have been posted in reply to my comments, but I've chosen yours... No special reason other than yours was one of the least insulting replies (Gotta love those one-line "You're a XXX" replies that
While I can understand everyone's knee jerk reaction, I think that y'all are the ones in the dark about this kinda stuff. I've included some links for your reading pleasure. If you're really bored, you might try this sparkling new service called "Google", and type in something like "India anti-american". You'll find a lot more than the few that I've provided.
Not that these links are comprehensive of the entire situation, but they should provide you with enough reading material to show you that I'm not labeling all Indian people as anti-American, nor am I saying that everyone in the Middle east is out to get us. I'm simply pointing out that India, and a lot of the countries we outsource to, are not the USA-lovin' countries that you are assuming they are.
If you want to prove me wrong, drape yourself with an "I love America" T-shirt, and go walking down the streets of these countries, and send me some pictures. If you come out unscathed, then you have my apologies.
http://www.cnn.com/video/world/2001/10/22/mr.indi
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1411733/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3
http://pd.cpim.org/2003/0330/03302003_protests_re
http://www.getcustoms.com/2004GTC/Articles/ga-200
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0519-06.h
Title says it all... Outsourcing sucks, and it doesn't surprise me that these same people, who can't speak English, and who don't really care about good customer service, are also thieves.
Why we outsource our personal information to countries where the anti-American sentiment is extremely high is beyond me.
I'd really love to see a comparison on how often illegal activities such as this happen, and how much money is lost due to poor customer assistance, vs. the savings offered by outsourcing.
Not trolling, just my thoughts:
Hmmm... Sounds like trolling, but I'll bite.
What's the incentive to port an app when you can tell the user to run it under these applications?
Well, for one thing Mac users are fanatical about the look/feel/integration of the entire OS. This is largely why such cool technologies as Fink, and Darwin ports haven't taken over more on the Mac: The look and feel isn't the same as native OSX apps. The GUI/widgets are different, they don't share data off the clipboard in the same way that the Mac does. They don't support standard OSX keyboard commands, instead defaulting to the same shortcuts and such as their x86 counterparts.
Another great example is Open Office - It's no longer being ported due to the low number of users. Instead, NeoOffice was born from the ashes of OO, and is rapidly gaining in popularity due to it's native look/feel, and it's overall integration as a native OSX app.
Running Windows apps under OSX (emulated, or via a virtual pc, such as vmware)will meet some people's needs (read this as potential switchers), but the diehard Mac users will still demand native apps, and an OSX look/feel.
Further, Apple has said, it wont stop people from putting Windows on their Macs, which I think is a mistake. Don't have that specific application? Boot into Windows or run it via emulation
I disagree... There's a helluva lot more apps written for Windows than there is for OSX. And a lot of the apps for Windows duplicate a lot of the other Windows apps that are out there. There's a lot of very similar programs, doing very similar things on the Windows end of things. I personally like to find the best tool for a job, when the need arises. On the Windows end, this means constantly evaluating a lot of different, but similar programs to find which meets my needs/wants the best, and there's constantly more apps coming out that need to be evaluated.
On the Mac end, there's fewer programs, but they're usually of a much higher caliber, and they're way more integrated with the OS look/feel than Windows apps typlically are. As opposed to you, I think that once Windows users start checking out OSX and seenig what can be done w/it, these same people will begin looking for native apps to replace their Windows apps, rather than running them emulated, or rebooting into Windows. Keyboard shortcuts are a great example! Will the average switcher want to remember all the OSX commands, in addition to all the Windows ones, or will they just prefer to memorize one set of commands for all apps? I personally think it'll be the latter, but time will tell.
One quick note about the above: The one app that I use regularly on Windows, which has no Mac counterpart yet is Homesite! There is no Mac editor that will allow me to highlight code the way that Homesite will. Specifically, I'm referring to letting me mod the foreground AND the background colors, based on code syntax. Very disapointing, and I'm a very visual guy, and being able to do this is very important to me. Dreamweaver MX allows me to do this, but it comes with so much bloat that I really hate to use it when all's I really need is a decent editor. If BBEdit allowed me to do this, my life would be much happier! But I digress...
A few die hard companies make Linux games, for instance, but very few. That's the future: A widespread OS with no nifty applications.
I think the difference here is the number and type of users. Linux users tend to be few in numbers (compared to OSX and Windows users - Although that is slowly changing), and of a much geekier variety than the average Windows user (I'm not counting the users of very dumbed down Linux distros, such as Linspire and such... These people are typically the point-and-click, email and web users types, and never stray too much from these basic tasks.). Several companies have tried to make a living out of writing native ports of Windows games for Linux, and you know what? They al
I had the same thought as the original poster when it was first announced that the Soviets would be launching this... They have a lot of "oops's" over there.
Dunno if it's the vodka, or the Chechnyan terrorists, or the depressing prospects, but the Soviets seem to have a lot of large scale failures when it comes to these kinds of things.
So does NASA, or whoever, get an insurance policy when they sign up Russians to launch something like this? Something that will guarantee some form of reimbursement when/if a launch failed?
And if not, what prevents the Russions from just pocketing the monies they have been given, launching some dud rocket up a few hundred feet before dropping it into the ocean, and then saying "Sorry, but your launch failed, and you have nothing to show for it. Thanks for the money, BTW - We hope to do business again with you soon"?
Not that the infamous Russion integrity and low-crime nature would ever allow for something like this to happen, but still my curiosity was peaked when I heard this launch failed.