True, you wouldn't buy a Mac *just* to game... but that doesn't mean that it isn't a perfectly feasible gaming platform...
1) 2 processors running at 1.42Ghz each isn't that far behind a 3Ghz single processor - providing the software is written to take advantage of it (Doom / Quake traditionally is)
2) Games generally make a lot of use of MMX / SIMD instructions - G4's velocity engine is great for these tasks!
3) 3D games don't necessarily make that much use of the CPU anyway - 3D hardware performance is more relevant.
And don't forget that price differences are often overstated - sure, you can get some cheap PC hardware with superficially good specs, but there is usually some compromise in there. The fewer compromises you are prepared to put up with, the more you pay. You want a recognisable brand, and / or purchase in a store, you pay more. You want a machine with a 'solid' damped case, low noise fans, etc. you pay more.
And wasn't it first demoed on a Mac? It would be surprising if it didn't come out on PC (Windows AND Linux), and Mac...
Although yes, the Xbox may well be the only console that gets it...
But with the (superficial?) similarity with a Mac, it probably wouldn't be a big task to port it to Gamecube... given that it would have likely only been out on the Xbox (console wise) anyway, wouldn't it actually be more valuable to Nintendo to convince id to do a Gamecube port - even non-exclusive - to boost it's fledglingly online strategy?
1) Doesn't particularly bother me... theoretically, it's not much different from having a widget on screen... and if it annoys me, I just pick it up and drag it off to the side so only a tiny, tiny fragment is visible...
2) But then you can lay the same argument against any tool... you could even say the same about a web browser, or even an OS... the more widgets, websites or applications, the more inherent value there is, and the more that can be earned by the publisher of the hosting environment, browser, or OS, without them doing anything in particular... they may only be making use of existing standards, and putting together a 'simple' framework for others to make use of, but it is their work, and they are entitled to benefit from it... if you think it's a worthwhile thing for the community, but they are charging too much for it, then develop your own version...
Although I do agree about retaining the rights to your own widgets... I'm not sure what the license specifies, but then you are free to not use it if you disagree with the terms...
3. JavaScript - maybe they want to appeal to website designers, who may already know JavaScript, but not Applescript... maybe they want the freedom to port the framework to other OSes at a later stage, and have existing widgets work (as much as possible)
Konfabulator is a desktop tool... there is the ability to make it talk to web servers, and parse the results returned... potentially, you could end up with quite sophisticated widgets that talk to web services, and have some degree of interactivity....Net is a top-to-bottom solution....Net gives you the ability to write web services, not just call on them. On the client side, it allows creation of heavy-weight applications. However, writing even small desktop utilities (in.Net) requires a reasonable amount of programming savvy...
So no, this isn't a lot like what.Net is trying to do... they cater for complete different markets... however, there may be some overlap in certain areas...
I totally agree that the current widgets in the gallery are not particularly useful - and nothing to make me want to buy it...
But the value of Konfabulator is not in those widgets... the value is in what might come in the future. The value is in what *you* write for yourself...
As an example, a colleague of mine has written his own widget for monitoring/restarting web servers...
What is special about it? Nothing much... What does it enable? People with some scripting skills, but not the ability to write Cocoa apps, an easy way of creating small pieces of functionality that are useful to them (if no-one else). What's better about it than a cocoa app? It allows many different pieces of functionality to be hosted in it. It allows creativity. It is an app with components, rather than a multitude of apps eating up menu / dock space.
No, there may not be any immediate value for you yet. There isn't for me. But Konfabulator should not be judged on what it is... you should keep an open mind to see what it can become.
Presumably (and in fact hinted by the word 'official'), to actually be able to do this - at least at the logistical level - you would need to have full consent of the artists / labels concerned... in other words, the CD sales would contribute to the artists / labels income, and they would in fact be *legal*...
Any ability to put out a legal CD of a concert - particularly in such a short time frame - will reduce the likelihood of anyone making an illegal recording...
And whilst there may be piracy of the official concert CD, which will undoubtedly incur the wrath of the RIAA, there will presumably be sufficient revenue generated to make it worthwhile...
The argument is irrelevant... the number of machines a person uses is not the same as the bandwidth they use...
As you say, the bandwidth hogs are those using P2P file sharing - I don't suppose they all have multiple machines, do they?
If greater bandwidth use costs you more, then the only fair way to pass that cost on is to meter bandwidth.
IMHO, the only reason a telco / ISP should be interested in whether an internet connection is being shared, is to stop multiple households from sharing a single connection.
According to the article, Betamax had at least as many movies to rent, price was comparable to VHS etc... in other words, when they started out, the non-technical aspects were more or less 50-50 between Betamax and VHS...
So if the 'whole product' argument applied, surely Betamax would have won, as it *also* offered technical superiority?
That means that something had to tip the balance in favour of VHS that wasn't mentioned in the article... and once it had enough market share, Betamax was always going to struggle, as regardless of the 'real whole product', the 'perceived whole product' will always be somewhat less...
What exactly has market share got to do with Sony's decision? (Or rather, why should we consider it odd because of the current market share?)
How many have been sold in the past is not as relevant as how many will be sold in the future. A basic 15" LCD can be bought so cheaply these days, what market is there for 15" / 17" CRTs - especially 'premium' models that Sony produce?
Whilst publishing details of a case may increase a newspapers circulation, the paper would still have a healthy circulation without it - there are many other reasons for purchasing a paper, ie. general reports for your area, country, etc...
And whilst it depends on the quality of the site / reporting, the first place you tend to go on the internet for news is a provider in your own country, for much the same reasons...
It's kind of the difference between a push / pull mechanism... very few people live in isolation, so a well publicised story in the national media gets 'pushed' on to most of the population...
The internet is much more of a 'pull' scenario - you actively have to go out and find the news story, probably breaking your normal 'routine' to do so... how many people really go to those lengths? And where they do, they probably have too much of an interest in the case to be useful jurors anyway...
Regardless, even with a largely computer-literate population, there simply isn't the same problem of pervasiveness when the story can only be found on foreign news sites.
Actually, the open source status (or more accurately, not) of the internet explorer code is rather irrelevant to the development of windows browsers...
The rendering engine in IE is a component - you can embed it into other applications... theoretically at least, you can build your own rich browsing experience around it as you see fit (as evidenced by the MSN browser vs. IE)... exactly what hooks are available to you, and therefore how rich an experience you can create, I am not familiar with...
The 'big issue' with IE source is not one of how you can re-use the layout engine, but one of not being able to fix any bugs that exist, or to extend it's basic functionality (ie. more complete implementation of standards).
Mozilla was created as an alternative? Do you really think they would mind being the only alternative?
Besides which, the browser is so much more than the page layout engine... IMHO, it would be *good* to have a single layout engine - one place to focus all the development work, everyone keeps up to date with the standards, and - most importantly - only one engine with which to be compatible...
One layout engine (eg. Gecko) does not mean one browser - there is a lot of room for value-adding, and blending the right level of features vs. bloat... as can be witnessed by there being at least four different browsers based on the Gecko engine on Windows alone...
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that it is in Apple's interests for it to be as easy and painless for people to switch from PC's to Macs... and that includes the software costs...
That doesn't necessarily mean heavily subsidising the cost of the (third-party) software, but they are in a position to work with the software vendors to try and at least secure OEM pricing for bundling software with new Macs, or special cross-grade pricing...
When using Windows, I never bothered with tabbed browsing - there was no point, as I effectively had it with the taskbar anyway...
However, now I use MacOS X, tabbed browsing has really become useful... there are many times / reasons why I want to have multiple pages open - switching between windows within an application is a bit of a pain (ie. going into the 'Windows' menu, then selecting the window I want)... much easier with tabs - just click the tab you want...
In fact, I would be quite happy to see tabs implemented for document windows in all apps...
These adverts are not just annoying - they are deceptive... they are trying to get people to click them by making them think there is something wrong with their computer - when in many cases this simply isn't true...
And even in the cases where the advert isn't deceptive, most of the time they still contain objectionable content - ie. they are adverts for porn or gambling sites... (remember that it could be a minor that is seeing this)...
Besides which, the way they work is objectionable - if the internet is referred to as the 'information superhighway', then how about a motoring analogy... a pop-up banner would be somewhat equivalent to someone bringing your car to halt / diverting it down a different road, just for the purpose that you see a particular roadside banner... would you want that to be illegal or not?
As for your comment about babies crying / cell phones... well, you can't do much about babies, but laws *are* being drawn up to stop the use of cell phones in public places - ie. cinemas... so if that is what you want to equate pop-up adverts to, then maybe a precedent is already being set...
Always good to see pro-consumer reports and studies, even if they won't do much good (or are rather pointless)...
I am a total believer in having the freedom to make fair use of a purchase, even if it might have a small cost associated with it - however, what really is the point of such a survey...
You could probably find a reasonable percentage of people that think they should have a 'nuclear deterrent' for protecting their own property, doesn't mean that it should or would happen!!!
Let's think about this for a minute... if I remember the URL that was used to access a particular resource, and just type it in again at a later date (or even just recall a stored bookmark), am I hacking the site, just because the link I used originally may not exist any more?
Hell, if I just type a domain name into the browser, am I considered to be hacking the site (because it may not be indexed by the search engines yet, etc.)?
The internet is a 'public' network... (in terms of ability to access resources, not necessarily in the ownership of the material found there)...
It is easy enough to 'secure' data (at least in a trivial sense), and the responsibility has to be on the 'publisher' to make a reasonable attempt to protect data that they do not wish to be generally available... not linking to a resource does not constitute a reasonable attempt.
If "they're so reliable and cheap, you won't need a warranty anyway", why do the manufacturers need to reduce the warranty period to 1-year?
If it is 'so reliable' that it will last 5-years, and it is 'so cheap' that you would buy a new one rather than get it serviced, then what does it cost the manufacturer to offer a 5-year warranty instead of 1?
If the manufacturer needs to reduce costs, then IMHO, they have too many units failing between 1 and 5-years of it's life...
On that basis, I would rather spend a little bit more on a drive that does come with a 3 or 5 year warranty, as it is a bit more likely to last the 3 or 5 years (otherwise the manufacturer wouldn't be able to afford to do it).
Why bother with this new PC, when you can buy a laptop?
Let's face it, the specs *are* that of a laptop (it's even got a 'mobility' graphics chip!!!)...
Sure, it's a bit more environmentally friendly, but if you are that concerned, you would be living up a tree - where the laptop would be far more practical!!!
I just don't see why you would buy a laptop in a desktop case, when you could just buy the laptop **
(** you could argue that the iMac is equivalent to a Powerbook, but there is a big difference - the price... for the same cost of the NEC machine you can buy a *better* specced laptop...)
"One wonders if they should instead be supporting OEone and making it scream"
Absolutely not... I think you'll find the hint is in the name LINDOWSos - ie. it's meant to be like Windows, for people who are kind of familiar with Windows, who sort of want to be compatible with Windows but don't want to pay for Windows...
In terms of acceptance, it is important for Linux that someone provides that - although there is always Lycoris (who arguably do it better as well!)....
OEone is an interesting concept, and it would be great for someone to pick it up and run with it, but I don't think that should be Lindows...
"Two of the tracks are free from any DRM, but for the two that are DRM-enabled, you have to activate the right to listen to them (up to four times), by accessing a central server via the net."
So, you have a CD, that you can 'activate' up to four times... now this isn't such a big deal for a free promotional CD (it's kind of reasonable for the circumstances) - but what if you had bought the CD?
Machine crashes, upgrades, etc. - you can easily find cases where you would legitimately exceed an activation limit...
When are these companies going to learn / be told that customers are *not* criminals, and should not be treated as such?
When I worked in a shop, we were always told 'the customer is always right'... nowadays, it seems to be that we're being told 'the customer is always a right thieving bastard'...
Hmm... not sure what to make of what I would *like* to see happen, but technically, I can certainly accept that this is currently an illegal practise - they are making an unauthorised derivative work, which breaks copyright law...
My problem with deciding what I would like to happen, is that to a large extent, I agree with Hollywood - I'm against censorship in general... but siding with Hollywood could set a dangerous precedent for other cases that could be considered broadly similar...
However, there is one thing we should all consider - who says that cutting out the sexual / violent material to create a sanitised 'family friendly' version makes a film that is 'better for us'... context is a *very* important thing to consider... removing a violent scene can completely change the morality of a film... what would you rather have your kids see - a film that makes a bank robbery seem like a fun day out, or one that shows how truly horrific war can be?
Or at least, encourage vendors to make better use of the existing ones?
SMTP works well as a basic mail delivery protocol, but as it stands (or at least in it's current implementations), it is doing nothing to combat the problem of unwanted emails...
Laws against unsolicited email are all very well, but they mean nothing if you can't track the sender of the message...
Even with the currently existing standards, more can be done to authenticate original messages...
1) Checking that the IP address of the sending machine is consistent with the domain of the 'from' email.
2) Querying the originating mail server to see if a mailbox exists for the sender of the email...
Whilst as things stand, you may not want to automatically delete / reject these messages, they could at least be flagged as being dubious...
A better definition and implementation of best practises - even within the current standards - will go a long way to reducing the level of 'unsolicited' email to at least 'semi-legitimate' business SPAM, which can be tracked and held accountable.
Slashdot Mirror
Yawn... back to these arguments?
True, you wouldn't buy a Mac *just* to game... but that doesn't mean that it isn't a perfectly feasible gaming platform...
1) 2 processors running at 1.42Ghz each isn't that far behind a 3Ghz single processor - providing the software is written to take advantage of it (Doom / Quake traditionally is)
2) Games generally make a lot of use of MMX / SIMD instructions - G4's velocity engine is great for these tasks!
3) 3D games don't necessarily make that much use of the CPU anyway - 3D hardware performance is more relevant.
And don't forget that price differences are often overstated - sure, you can get some cheap PC hardware with superficially good specs, but there is usually some compromise in there. The fewer compromises you are prepared to put up with, the more you pay. You want a recognisable brand, and / or purchase in a store, you pay more. You want a machine with a 'solid' damped case, low noise fans, etc. you pay more.
"It would still come out on PC"
And wasn't it first demoed on a Mac? It would be surprising if it didn't come out on PC (Windows AND Linux), and Mac...
Although yes, the Xbox may well be the only console that gets it...
But with the (superficial?) similarity with a Mac, it probably wouldn't be a big task to port it to Gamecube... given that it would have likely only been out on the Xbox (console wise) anyway, wouldn't it actually be more valuable to Nintendo to convince id to do a Gamecube port - even non-exclusive - to boost it's fledglingly online strategy?
In answer to your points:
1) Doesn't particularly bother me... theoretically, it's not much different from having a widget on screen... and if it annoys me, I just pick it up and drag it off to the side so only a tiny, tiny fragment is visible...
2) But then you can lay the same argument against any tool... you could even say the same about a web browser, or even an OS... the more widgets, websites or applications, the more inherent value there is, and the more that can be earned by the publisher of the hosting environment, browser, or OS, without them doing anything in particular... they may only be making use of existing standards, and putting together a 'simple' framework for others to make use of, but it is their work, and they are entitled to benefit from it... if you think it's a worthwhile thing for the community, but they are charging too much for it, then develop your own version...
Although I do agree about retaining the rights to your own widgets... I'm not sure what the license specifies, but then you are free to not use it if you disagree with the terms...
3. JavaScript - maybe they want to appeal to website designers, who may already know JavaScript, but not Applescript... maybe they want the freedom to port the framework to other OSes at a later stage, and have existing widgets work (as much as possible)
Konfabulator is a desktop tool... there is the ability to make it talk to web servers, and parse the results returned... potentially, you could end up with quite sophisticated widgets that talk to web services, and have some degree of interactivity...
So no, this isn't a lot like what
I totally agree that the current widgets in the gallery are not particularly useful - and nothing to make me want to buy it...
But the value of Konfabulator is not in those widgets... the value is in what might come in the future. The value is in what *you* write for yourself...
As an example, a colleague of mine has written his own widget for monitoring/restarting web servers...
What is special about it? Nothing much... What does it enable? People with some scripting skills, but not the ability to write Cocoa apps, an easy way of creating small pieces of functionality that are useful to them (if no-one else). What's better about it than a cocoa app? It allows many different pieces of functionality to be hosted in it. It allows creativity. It is an app with components, rather than a multitude of apps eating up menu / dock space.
No, there may not be any immediate value for you yet. There isn't for me. But Konfabulator should not be judged on what it is... you should keep an open mind to see what it can become.
Presumably (and in fact hinted by the word 'official'), to actually be able to do this - at least at the logistical level - you would need to have full consent of the artists / labels concerned... in other words, the CD sales would contribute to the artists / labels income, and they would in fact be *legal*...
Any ability to put out a legal CD of a concert - particularly in such a short time frame - will reduce the likelihood of anyone making an illegal recording...
And whilst there may be piracy of the official concert CD, which will undoubtedly incur the wrath of the RIAA, there will presumably be sufficient revenue generated to make it worthwhile...
The argument is irrelevant... the number of machines a person uses is not the same as the bandwidth they use...
As you say, the bandwidth hogs are those using P2P file sharing - I don't suppose they all have multiple machines, do they?
If greater bandwidth use costs you more, then the only fair way to pass that cost on is to meter bandwidth.
IMHO, the only reason a telco / ISP should be interested in whether an internet connection is being shared, is to stop multiple households from sharing a single connection.
According to the article, Betamax had at least as many movies to rent, price was comparable to VHS etc... in other words, when they started out, the non-technical aspects were more or less 50-50 between Betamax and VHS...
So if the 'whole product' argument applied, surely Betamax would have won, as it *also* offered technical superiority?
That means that something had to tip the balance in favour of VHS that wasn't mentioned in the article... and once it had enough market share, Betamax was always going to struggle, as regardless of the 'real whole product', the 'perceived whole product' will always be somewhat less...
What exactly has market share got to do with Sony's decision? (Or rather, why should we consider it odd because of the current market share?)
How many have been sold in the past is not as relevant as how many will be sold in the future. A basic 15" LCD can be bought so cheaply these days, what market is there for 15" / 17" CRTs - especially 'premium' models that Sony produce?
At least, it need not be an issue...
Whilst publishing details of a case may increase a newspapers circulation, the paper would still have a healthy circulation without it - there are many other reasons for purchasing a paper, ie. general reports for your area, country, etc...
And whilst it depends on the quality of the site / reporting, the first place you tend to go on the internet for news is a provider in your own country, for much the same reasons...
It's kind of the difference between a push / pull mechanism... very few people live in isolation, so a well publicised story in the national media gets 'pushed' on to most of the population...
The internet is much more of a 'pull' scenario - you actively have to go out and find the news story, probably breaking your normal 'routine' to do so... how many people really go to those lengths? And where they do, they probably have too much of an interest in the case to be useful jurors anyway...
Regardless, even with a largely computer-literate population, there simply isn't the same problem of pervasiveness when the story can only be found on foreign news sites.
Actually, the open source status (or more accurately, not) of the internet explorer code is rather irrelevant to the development of windows browsers...
The rendering engine in IE is a component - you can embed it into other applications... theoretically at least, you can build your own rich browsing experience around it as you see fit (as evidenced by the MSN browser vs. IE)... exactly what hooks are available to you, and therefore how rich an experience you can create, I am not familiar with...
The 'big issue' with IE source is not one of how you can re-use the layout engine, but one of not being able to fix any bugs that exist, or to extend it's basic functionality (ie. more complete implementation of standards).
Mozilla was created as an alternative? Do you really think they would mind being the only alternative?
Besides which, the browser is so much more than the page layout engine... IMHO, it would be *good* to have a single layout engine - one place to focus all the development work, everyone keeps up to date with the standards, and - most importantly - only one engine with which to be compatible...
One layout engine (eg. Gecko) does not mean one browser - there is a lot of room for value-adding, and blending the right level of features vs. bloat... as can be witnessed by there being at least four different browsers based on the Gecko engine on Windows alone...
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that it is in Apple's interests for it to be as easy and painless for people to switch from PC's to Macs... and that includes the software costs...
That doesn't necessarily mean heavily subsidising the cost of the (third-party) software, but they are in a position to work with the software vendors to try and at least secure OEM pricing for bundling software with new Macs, or special cross-grade pricing...
When using Windows, I never bothered with tabbed browsing - there was no point, as I effectively had it with the taskbar anyway...
However, now I use MacOS X, tabbed browsing has really become useful... there are many times / reasons why I want to have multiple pages open - switching between windows within an application is a bit of a pain (ie. going into the 'Windows' menu, then selecting the window I want)... much easier with tabs - just click the tab you want...
In fact, I would be quite happy to see tabs implemented for document windows in all apps...
These adverts are not just annoying - they are deceptive... they are trying to get people to click them by making them think there is something wrong with their computer - when in many cases this simply isn't true...
And even in the cases where the advert isn't deceptive, most of the time they still contain objectionable content - ie. they are adverts for porn or gambling sites... (remember that it could be a minor that is seeing this)...
Besides which, the way they work is objectionable - if the internet is referred to as the 'information superhighway', then how about a motoring analogy... a pop-up banner would be somewhat equivalent to someone bringing your car to halt / diverting it down a different road, just for the purpose that you see a particular roadside banner... would you want that to be illegal or not?
As for your comment about babies crying / cell phones... well, you can't do much about babies, but laws *are* being drawn up to stop the use of cell phones in public places - ie. cinemas... so if that is what you want to equate pop-up adverts to, then maybe a precedent is already being set...
Always good to see pro-consumer reports and studies, even if they won't do much good (or are rather pointless)...
I am a total believer in having the freedom to make fair use of a purchase, even if it might have a small cost associated with it - however, what really is the point of such a survey...
You could probably find a reasonable percentage of people that think they should have a 'nuclear deterrent' for protecting their own property, doesn't mean that it should or would happen!!!
Let's think about this for a minute... if I remember the URL that was used to access a particular resource, and just type it in again at a later date (or even just recall a stored bookmark), am I hacking the site, just because the link I used originally may not exist any more?
Hell, if I just type a domain name into the browser, am I considered to be hacking the site (because it may not be indexed by the search engines yet, etc.)?
The internet is a 'public' network... (in terms of ability to access resources, not necessarily in the ownership of the material found there)...
It is easy enough to 'secure' data (at least in a trivial sense), and the responsibility has to be on the 'publisher' to make a reasonable attempt to protect data that they do not wish to be generally available... not linking to a resource does not constitute a reasonable attempt.
If "they're so reliable and cheap, you won't need a warranty anyway", why do the manufacturers need to reduce the warranty period to 1-year?
If it is 'so reliable' that it will last 5-years, and it is 'so cheap' that you would buy a new one rather than get it serviced, then what does it cost the manufacturer to offer a 5-year warranty instead of 1?
If the manufacturer needs to reduce costs, then IMHO, they have too many units failing between 1 and 5-years of it's life...
On that basis, I would rather spend a little bit more on a drive that does come with a 3 or 5 year warranty, as it is a bit more likely to last the 3 or 5 years (otherwise the manufacturer wouldn't be able to afford to do it).
"There's no equivalent for the versatility of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint."
;-)
So what about MS Office v.X for the Mac? Or is that too good to be considered as merely equivalent?
Why bother with this new PC, when you can buy a laptop?
Let's face it, the specs *are* that of a laptop (it's even got a 'mobility' graphics chip!!!)...
Sure, it's a bit more environmentally friendly, but if you are that concerned, you would be living up a tree - where the laptop would be far more practical!!!
I just don't see why you would buy a laptop in a desktop case, when you could just buy the laptop **
(** you could argue that the iMac is equivalent to a Powerbook, but there is a big difference - the price... for the same cost of the NEC machine you can buy a *better* specced laptop...)
Is this scientific evidence that women consist mostly of gas?
"One wonders if they should instead be supporting OEone and making it scream"
Absolutely not... I think you'll find the hint is in the name LINDOWSos - ie. it's meant to be like Windows, for people who are kind of familiar with Windows, who sort of want to be compatible with Windows but don't want to pay for Windows...
In terms of acceptance, it is important for Linux that someone provides that - although there is always Lycoris (who arguably do it better as well!)....
OEone is an interesting concept, and it would be great for someone to pick it up and run with it, but I don't think that should be Lindows...
"Two of the tracks are free from any DRM, but for the two that are DRM-enabled, you have to activate the right to listen to them (up to four times), by accessing a central server via the net."
So, you have a CD, that you can 'activate' up to four times... now this isn't such a big deal for a free promotional CD (it's kind of reasonable for the circumstances) - but what if you had bought the CD?
Machine crashes, upgrades, etc. - you can easily find cases where you would legitimately exceed an activation limit...
When are these companies going to learn / be told that customers are *not* criminals, and should not be treated as such?
When I worked in a shop, we were always told 'the customer is always right'... nowadays, it seems to be that we're being told 'the customer is always a right thieving bastard'...
Hmm... not sure what to make of what I would *like* to see happen, but technically, I can certainly accept that this is currently an illegal practise - they are making an unauthorised derivative work, which breaks copyright law...
My problem with deciding what I would like to happen, is that to a large extent, I agree with Hollywood - I'm against censorship in general... but siding with Hollywood could set a dangerous precedent for other cases that could be considered broadly similar...
However, there is one thing we should all consider - who says that cutting out the sexual / violent material to create a sanitised 'family friendly' version makes a film that is 'better for us'... context is a *very* important thing to consider... removing a violent scene can completely change the morality of a film... what would you rather have your kids see - a film that makes a bank robbery seem like a fun day out, or one that shows how truly horrific war can be?
Or at least, encourage vendors to make better use of the existing ones? SMTP works well as a basic mail delivery protocol, but as it stands (or at least in it's current implementations), it is doing nothing to combat the problem of unwanted emails... Laws against unsolicited email are all very well, but they mean nothing if you can't track the sender of the message... Even with the currently existing standards, more can be done to authenticate original messages... 1) Checking that the IP address of the sending machine is consistent with the domain of the 'from' email. 2) Querying the originating mail server to see if a mailbox exists for the sender of the email... Whilst as things stand, you may not want to automatically delete / reject these messages, they could at least be flagged as being dubious... A better definition and implementation of best practises - even within the current standards - will go a long way to reducing the level of 'unsolicited' email to at least 'semi-legitimate' business SPAM, which can be tracked and held accountable.