...posted warnings with his links - stuff like: The links here are provided as examples and evidence of online music piracy. If you are not a member of the recording industry or conducting an investigation, you shouldn't be using these...:)
"the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"
Only because they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. They have done EVERYTHING in their power to prevent even the LEGAL downloading of material. In addition, they have used their might to stop or at least slow down acceptance of new media devices. I need only point to such debacles as:
- The Cassette tape - The DAT/Cassette DAT - The CD-R - The digital MP3 player (remember when they tried to stop those?) - The Napster ruling - Internet Radio
Etc... In short, they hate any technology they do not have 110% control over. If the music industry thought they could charge by the minute, they would.
The problem I'm seeing here is consistency on a different level. Sure, I have no beef with keeping things in the same PHYSICAL location - I'm talking about the UI here. The different styles clash and while perhaps not confusing, seem out of place and amateurish.
The taskbar issue is not something that can be easily solved - this is a Windows closed-source kind of thing.
I can't express it here properly, but what I'd like to see is have the taskbar maintain its same size (which is variable by the user), and have the program tasks stack vertically within it. Like this:
Program Program Program Program
Instead of:
Program Program Program Program
In this simple way you could have twice as many tasks showing their longnames without truncation (well, beyond reasonable font limitations). This is the sort of thing I wish I could've seen. What Longhorn has shown me so far has already been done on excellent Linux distros like Linspire and Mandriva as well as Mac's OSX. Shouldn't Microsoft (and their customers) be getting that innovation MS keeps talking about?
You know Apple's not the only PC manufacturer that's been pushy. Dell has been dropping hints about using AMD for some time now and you can believe that everytime they do, Intel gets to shell out for another advertising campaign or something. I mean, how much 'testing' does Dell have to do to magically realize (like everyone else has) that AMD has the upper hand in most performance areas? I say that Dell merely does this to get more consessions from Intel.
But look at it this way. Intel knows that Dell secretly fears Apple in it's space. What this is REALLY all about is Intel getting more leverage. I can just hear it...
INTEL: "Oh? What's this Dell? You want to use AMD? Ok, then I guess you won't need this advertising spiff more than Apple will..."
Intel is the real winner in this scenario, not Apple, although I have no doubt that Apple will thrive regardless.
At least to me, there's a few rather obvious things wrong with these screenshots. Remembering that this is a beta and that this list might change, I'm just saying what is on my mind about this.
1) Take a look at the 'Computer Management' window and you begin to understand just how little has actually changed concerning the UI. It's almost like you're running it in a Windows XP emulator frame as it retains the old window controls inside the new fancy ones. Is this the way older programs will look?
2) The screenshot with the drive listing is intriguing. I like the colored progress bars representing drive space - but why is the CD-ROM in red? Because you can't write to it? Doesn't red strike you as being a color that should indicate that something is wrong?
3) The taskbar - it's soooo 1990's. What did I expect? Oh. I dunno. Maybe a better way to express when you have 5 programs open at once. Most displays today start at 1024X768. It seems to me that it should be possible to manipulate the size of the tasks listed rather than make them entirely unreadable. Minor, yes, but then this is supposed to be the 'next best thing' from MS.
I sure hope there's more to this than simply cosmetic changes. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it, but so far I have to say that 3rd party enhancements to XP seem to have more originality.
It IS all about the hydrogen - always has been. Whether we've used wood, coal or oil to get at it, the primary source of energy has always been hydrogen.
Oil has the highest concentration of hydrogen, second only to hydrogen itself! It's rapid and predictable release of energy is why we use it for so many things. Hydrogen itself is the next logical step, but storage is a problem and until that gets completely solved to everyone's satisfaction, we're not going to see a total conversion to it.
I think what we will see is a diversification of our energy needs - more individualized solar, more wind (here in PA there's a LOT of those projects going on), more nuke (Thorium), more coal (clean coal tech), etc.
What would certainly accelerate this is a better battery. Better battery tech, or some type of electrical energy storage is the holy grail as far as personal transportation is concerned.
I keep hearing about this 'great environmental consequence' to Alaska but have never seen real numbers on it.
As to selling our oil to Japan, well... They need it, and we need their stuff too. It's called trade.
The 'big energy companies' do have their place as they have standardized how we get our energy needs. You cannot replace the infrastructure overnight no matter how 'simple' or 'cheap' the solution. At least this administration has taken the first steps - the previous one? Hmmmm....
I've lived in Amish country now for some 17 years. When I was younger, I wondered about their community and what the deal was with their shunning of technology. After talking to a lot of my co-workers about it (many of whom were Old Order), the local bishop showed up on a lunch hour to help 'get me straight'.
According to the bishop, the primary reason for avoiding technology had to do with 'idle hands'. Anything that takes them away from the community or their families is considered 'not good' and there really didn't have to be a specific reason for a bishop to disallow something.
BUT... As much as the Amish outwardly show compliance, the truth is that many of them push the boundries with things like cell phones, solar cell recharging units (some roof-sized panels used to recharge batteries for electicity at night), and even computers. Clearly the letter of the law and the spirit of it are two different things.
In later years I worked for a small computer store in Ephrata. We catered to the Amish and Mennonite communities as they are often VERY wealthy and shrewd business people (uneducated does not mean stupid), and if the technology is considered necessary, they will not hesitate using it. In most instances, we would end up selling a computer to a farmer who used it for their milking machines or keeping track of finances, or in one instance, an egg counting machine that ran Windows NT!
One fine day however, we had a rather nervous looking young man come by on his bike and purchased (in cash) a brand new, top of the line, Acer laptop. Upon leaving he put the laptop in the cardboard box on the back of his bike, covered it up, and rode off.
A few days later a buggy pulls up and its this poor fellow and his bishop. The bishop appologized for his parishner's mistake and asked politely if he could get a refund. All this, and the purchaser never looked up once. Of course we gave him one - our relations with the local community demanded that, but I sure felt sorry for that kid.
Matching advertising dollars in combination with cheap processor pricing is what keeps Dell in Intel's camp. Those little Intel jingles you hear at the end of every Dell ad on TV tell you that Intel fronted a LOT of the cash to put that ad on the air.
Since Dell is the only exclusiive Intel PC manufacturer, you can bet that Intel is cutting quite a few deals with them. Every once in a while, Dell makes noises about using AMD, and then they shut up. Apparently they are phishing for more $$ from Intel. I wonder if Intel's deal with Apple is a subtle warning to Dell.
Basically, there is no such thing as an unbreakable lock. Personally, I don't believe there is such a thing as an unbreakable machine. A determined hacker (especially kids who have all the time in the world and think outside the box), WILL get in somewhere you don't want them to eventually. I've come to accept that reasonable security is all you can hope for.
Whenever stories like this come out there's always a horde of Slashdotter's to decry how the security (and those who implemented it) sucked. And that's fine, I understand the mentality, but you folks should understand the types who work in schools.
Many Tech Coords were or ARE teachers themselves with little or no experience in the security/networking field. For instance, before me this school didn't even HAVE a TC - it was just a cadre of willing teachers (the HORROR!)
" Disabling Orwellian monitoring crap is not evil; it's an heroic act.."
Are you talking about monitoring or control? There is a difference.
For instance, in my labs we do not allow the students to use IM, PtoP, or other non-academic/network destructive programs. If we did, the result would be that students would be sneaking IM chats during class time or taking all of what little Internet bandwidth we have.
Is controlling their use of our resources Orwellian, or a reasonable response? What happened up in Kutztown had more to do with the students modifying the PROGRAM control software than some sort of Goldsteinian revolt.
We have a situation where a privately held parking area (near an airport) is being seized by the city because they want to 'maximize tax revenue'. Two problems here:
1) Maybe if their own on-site parking were cheaper (or at least offered curbside-type service), they COULD compete fairly.
2) There is PLENTY of tax revenue being generated by the property - but because of the weird way PA tax works, a lot of that goes to schools. So it's not so much a tax revenue increase as it is a shift from the local school to the state.
This is plain wrong folks. Gov't should not be in the business of putting people out of business. I understand what the Supremes are saying (it's in the state's hands), but to me, they could've done a better job. Think about this: Places like churches or privately held public areas (like some parks) could simply be seized and developed with no input and no real way to appeal.
PA needs the referrendum NOW! This sort of shit goes on all the time and no matter who's in office (R) or (D), it doesn't matter.
1) That DLP set was $3000 only a year ago. It instantly went from unattainable to possible - if things continue scaling like this, Big Screens will only continue to trickle down in affordability.
2) With most big league cable systems now, slap a Cablecard into your device and you're off. On my setup you switch between TV/DVD/Game with the 'source' button and that's it. That's NOTHING compared to the way cable systems used to be (although some still are).
- Big Screen TV's are getting affordable. I just bought a brand new 46" DLP set for only $1800 - and now it's even lower. It surely won't be long before TV's this size are below $1000.
- The technology is now easy to use/hook-up, readily accessible, and affordable. Back in the days of Laserdisc this wasn't the case.
It doesn't take much to get that theatre experience at home now - and thanks to Netflix, you don't even have to go out of your way to get a DVD to watch. It's true - I've only been to the theatre once this year - care to guess what I saw?:)
At least not in his traditional review/preview sense. It was simply a news item story - strictly right column stuff. It was a press release - like all the press releases they put there. It was the submitter's fault for making it sound like it was some sort of Tom-style throwdown.
Don't you? An 8 billion dollar trade deficit, oil prices skyrocketing with soaring China demand, theirs is the fastest growing economy... All this and yet, NOTHING has changed about the way they govern.
How long will it be until they start dictating terms to the U.S.? Like the money we give to terrorists who happily sell us more oil, I think we're funding our own doom.
...for the amount of days it will take crackers to get this running on other non-Apple hardware. Personally, my bet is that they'll have this licked in less than a month.
Hitler operated the same exact way - asking for one thing and then demanding another when that was granted.
You know the music industry up there shouldn't be able to have things both ways. If they want to put a stop to legal file sharing then those micropayments for every CD-R and CD-writer should be eliminated also. Like the U.S., Canada has built their own copywrite prison and it will take a major legislative act to right things again.
So THAT'S your objection! But that's just it, it's not all about 'surviving' so much as 'surviving well' or 'surviving better'. Whatever gave you the impression that I was somehow equating humans with lower forms of life?
True, we do tend to follow the same basic rules of nature but I don't mean that we're all exactly the same and never implied so.
"...if you don't live in the jungle wresling with big cats for your dinner you are relieing on the social nature of your fellow humans."
Which is evolutionary also. After all, we're not exactly apes on the ground anymore. Of course we have a highly evolved social structure which benefits from our more advanced brains. It's really funny how you and a few others object so strenuously to that 'will' word. I've been equated in other discussions as a 'bible-thumper' simply because I chose that word (which I still feel is appropriate). Would it feel better if everytime I talked about this I'd say 'evolutionary process' or 'natural selection'? Isn't this really a matter of you being personally discomfitted by the use of a single word, than that way I mean it?
Again, the 'will' of nature, as I perceive it, is simply a term I use to describe a process that is ongoing. I don't think of nature as some sort of diety or supernatural conscious effort. But there are things that the evolutionary process has brought us to that has led us to where we are now. And those things ARE universal and are proven to exist. You might not think of that process as a 'force' but I do - at least in terms of referrence.
Come, you treat the concept of 'will' as a conscious thing. It's the terminology that bothers you? I used 'will' as a force or a drive. Do you not believe that this drive to weed out and improve (conscious or unconscious) exists as a force in nature?
It is merely a point of view and for me, easier to explain the colder underlying concepts. It's like referring to an aircraft as 'she' even though I know an airplane has no gender. Stop being so literal.
Slashdot Mirror
...posted warnings with his links - stuff like: The links here are provided as examples and evidence of online music piracy. If you are not a member of the recording industry or conducting an investigation, you shouldn't be using these... :)
"the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"
Only because they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. They have done EVERYTHING in their power to prevent even the LEGAL downloading of material. In addition, they have used their might to stop or at least slow down acceptance of new media devices. I need only point to such debacles as:
- The Cassette tape
- The DAT/Cassette DAT
- The CD-R
- The digital MP3 player (remember when they tried to stop those?)
- The Napster ruling
- Internet Radio
Etc... In short, they hate any technology they do not have 110% control over. If the music industry thought they could charge by the minute, they would.
The problem I'm seeing here is consistency on a different level. Sure, I have no beef with keeping things in the same PHYSICAL location - I'm talking about the UI here. The different styles clash and while perhaps not confusing, seem out of place and amateurish.
The taskbar issue is not something that can be easily solved - this is a Windows closed-source kind of thing.
I can't express it here properly, but what I'd like to see is have the taskbar maintain its same size (which is variable by the user), and have the program tasks stack vertically within it. Like this:
Program Program
Program Program
Instead of:
Program Program Program Program
In this simple way you could have twice as many tasks showing their longnames without truncation (well, beyond reasonable font limitations). This is the sort of thing I wish I could've seen. What Longhorn has shown me so far has already been done on excellent Linux distros like Linspire and Mandriva as well as Mac's OSX. Shouldn't Microsoft (and their customers) be getting that innovation MS keeps talking about?
You know Apple's not the only PC manufacturer that's been pushy. Dell has been dropping hints about using AMD for some time now and you can believe that everytime they do, Intel gets to shell out for another advertising campaign or something. I mean, how much 'testing' does Dell have to do to magically realize (like everyone else has) that AMD has the upper hand in most performance areas? I say that Dell merely does this to get more consessions from Intel.
But look at it this way. Intel knows that Dell secretly fears Apple in it's space. What this is REALLY all about is Intel getting more leverage. I can just hear it...
INTEL: "Oh? What's this Dell? You want to use AMD? Ok, then I guess you won't need this advertising spiff more than Apple will..."
Intel is the real winner in this scenario, not Apple, although I have no doubt that Apple will thrive regardless.
At least to me, there's a few rather obvious things wrong with these screenshots. Remembering that this is a beta and that this list might change, I'm just saying what is on my mind about this.
1) Take a look at the 'Computer Management' window and you begin to understand just how little has actually changed concerning the UI. It's almost like you're running it in a Windows XP emulator frame as it retains the old window controls inside the new fancy ones. Is this the way older programs will look?
2) The screenshot with the drive listing is intriguing. I like the colored progress bars representing drive space - but why is the CD-ROM in red? Because you can't write to it? Doesn't red strike you as being a color that should indicate that something is wrong?
3) The taskbar - it's soooo 1990's. What did I expect? Oh. I dunno. Maybe a better way to express when you have 5 programs open at once. Most displays today start at 1024X768. It seems to me that it should be possible to manipulate the size of the tasks listed rather than make them entirely unreadable. Minor, yes, but then this is supposed to be the 'next best thing' from MS.
I sure hope there's more to this than simply cosmetic changes. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it, but so far I have to say that 3rd party enhancements to XP seem to have more originality.
If you contribute code to the GPL, you have to realize that it might just be used by an asshole like this guy.
Of course it could also be used by terrorists, rightist wackjobs, leftist pinkos, separtist paritsans, guerilla insurgents and the North Koreans.
So think twice before contributing to projects like Freeciv or EMACS...
It IS all about the hydrogen - always has been. Whether we've used wood, coal or oil to get at it, the primary source of energy has always been hydrogen.
Oil has the highest concentration of hydrogen, second only to hydrogen itself! It's rapid and predictable release of energy is why we use it for so many things. Hydrogen itself is the next logical step, but storage is a problem and until that gets completely solved to everyone's satisfaction, we're not going to see a total conversion to it.
I think what we will see is a diversification of our energy needs - more individualized solar, more wind (here in PA there's a LOT of those projects going on), more nuke (Thorium), more coal (clean coal tech), etc.
What would certainly accelerate this is a better battery. Better battery tech, or some type of electrical energy storage is the holy grail as far as personal transportation is concerned.
I keep hearing about this 'great environmental consequence' to Alaska but have never seen real numbers on it.
As to selling our oil to Japan, well... They need it, and we need their stuff too. It's called trade.
The 'big energy companies' do have their place as they have standardized how we get our energy needs. You cannot replace the infrastructure overnight no matter how 'simple' or 'cheap' the solution. At least this administration has taken the first steps - the previous one? Hmmmm....
I've lived in Amish country now for some 17 years. When I was younger, I wondered about their community and what the deal was with their shunning of technology. After talking to a lot of my co-workers about it (many of whom were Old Order), the local bishop showed up on a lunch hour to help 'get me straight'.
According to the bishop, the primary reason for avoiding technology had to do with 'idle hands'. Anything that takes them away from the community or their families is considered 'not good' and there really didn't have to be a specific reason for a bishop to disallow something.
BUT... As much as the Amish outwardly show compliance, the truth is that many of them push the boundries with things like cell phones, solar cell recharging units (some roof-sized panels used to recharge batteries for electicity at night), and even computers. Clearly the letter of the law and the spirit of it are two different things.
In later years I worked for a small computer store in Ephrata. We catered to the Amish and Mennonite communities as they are often VERY wealthy and shrewd business people (uneducated does not mean stupid), and if the technology is considered necessary, they will not hesitate using it. In most instances, we would end up selling a computer to a farmer who used it for their milking machines or keeping track of finances, or in one instance, an egg counting machine that ran Windows NT!
One fine day however, we had a rather nervous looking young man come by on his bike and purchased (in cash) a brand new, top of the line, Acer laptop. Upon leaving he put the laptop in the cardboard box on the back of his bike, covered it up, and rode off.
A few days later a buggy pulls up and its this poor fellow and his bishop. The bishop appologized for his parishner's mistake and asked politely if he could get a refund. All this, and the purchaser never looked up once. Of course we gave him one - our relations with the local community demanded that, but I sure felt sorry for that kid.
I think a flamewar is in order - Vi/EMACS style!
Matching advertising dollars in combination with cheap processor pricing is what keeps Dell in Intel's camp. Those little Intel jingles you hear at the end of every Dell ad on TV tell you that Intel fronted a LOT of the cash to put that ad on the air.
Since Dell is the only exclusiive Intel PC manufacturer, you can bet that Intel is cutting quite a few deals with them. Every once in a while, Dell makes noises about using AMD, and then they shut up. Apparently they are phishing for more $$ from Intel. I wonder if Intel's deal with Apple is a subtle warning to Dell.
Basically, there is no such thing as an unbreakable lock. Personally, I don't believe there is such a thing as an unbreakable machine. A determined hacker (especially kids who have all the time in the world and think outside the box), WILL get in somewhere you don't want them to eventually. I've come to accept that reasonable security is all you can hope for.
Whenever stories like this come out there's always a horde of Slashdotter's to decry how the security (and those who implemented it) sucked. And that's fine, I understand the mentality, but you folks should understand the types who work in schools.
Many Tech Coords were or ARE teachers themselves with little or no experience in the security/networking field. For instance, before me this school didn't even HAVE a TC - it was just a cadre of willing teachers (the HORROR!)
" Disabling Orwellian monitoring crap is not evil; it's an heroic act.."
Are you talking about monitoring or control? There is a difference.
For instance, in my labs we do not allow the students to use IM, PtoP, or other non-academic/network destructive programs. If we did, the result would be that students would be sneaking IM chats during class time or taking all of what little Internet bandwidth we have.
Is controlling their use of our resources Orwellian, or a reasonable response? What happened up in Kutztown had more to do with the students modifying the PROGRAM control software than some sort of Goldsteinian revolt.
We have a situation where a privately held parking area (near an airport) is being seized by the city because they want to 'maximize tax revenue'. Two problems here:
1) Maybe if their own on-site parking were cheaper (or at least offered curbside-type service), they COULD compete fairly.
2) There is PLENTY of tax revenue being generated by the property - but because of the weird way PA tax works, a lot of that goes to schools. So it's not so much a tax revenue increase as it is a shift from the local school to the state.
This is plain wrong folks. Gov't should not be in the business of putting people out of business. I understand what the Supremes are saying (it's in the state's hands), but to me, they could've done a better job. Think about this: Places like churches or privately held public areas (like some parks) could simply be seized and developed with no input and no real way to appeal.
PA needs the referrendum NOW! This sort of shit goes on all the time and no matter who's in office (R) or (D), it doesn't matter.
1) That DLP set was $3000 only a year ago. It instantly went from unattainable to possible - if things continue scaling like this, Big Screens will only continue to trickle down in affordability.
2) With most big league cable systems now, slap a Cablecard into your device and you're off. On my setup you switch between TV/DVD/Game with the 'source' button and that's it. That's NOTHING compared to the way cable systems used to be (although some still are).
These are other reasons:
:)
- Big Screen TV's are getting affordable. I just bought a brand new 46" DLP set for only $1800 - and now it's even lower. It surely won't be long before TV's this size are below $1000.
- The technology is now easy to use/hook-up, readily accessible, and affordable. Back in the days of Laserdisc this wasn't the case.
It doesn't take much to get that theatre experience at home now - and thanks to Netflix, you don't even have to go out of your way to get a DVD to watch. It's true - I've only been to the theatre once this year - care to guess what I saw?
At least not in his traditional review/preview sense. It was simply a news item story - strictly right column stuff. It was a press release - like all the press releases they put there. It was the submitter's fault for making it sound like it was some sort of Tom-style throwdown.
Don't you? An 8 billion dollar trade deficit, oil prices skyrocketing with soaring China demand, theirs is the fastest growing economy... All this and yet, NOTHING has changed about the way they govern.
How long will it be until they start dictating terms to the U.S.? Like the money we give to terrorists who happily sell us more oil, I think we're funding our own doom.
...for the amount of days it will take crackers to get this running on other non-Apple hardware. Personally, my bet is that they'll have this licked in less than a month.
Of course you're not allowed to KNOW how AdScam is going. All proceedings are closed while they figure out how they're going to get out of this one.
Say what you want about the American court system but that situation's just bullshit!
Hitler operated the same exact way - asking for one thing and then demanding another when that was granted.
You know the music industry up there shouldn't be able to have things both ways. If they want to put a stop to legal file sharing then those micropayments for every CD-R and CD-writer should be eliminated also. Like the U.S., Canada has built their own copywrite prison and it will take a major legislative act to right things again.
So THAT'S your objection! But that's just it, it's not all about 'surviving' so much as 'surviving well' or 'surviving better'. Whatever gave you the impression that I was somehow equating humans with lower forms of life?
True, we do tend to follow the same basic rules of nature but I don't mean that we're all exactly the same and never implied so.
"...if you don't live in the jungle wresling with big cats for your dinner you are relieing on the social nature of your fellow humans."
Which is evolutionary also. After all, we're not exactly apes on the ground anymore. Of course we have a highly evolved social structure which benefits from our more advanced brains. It's really funny how you and a few others object so strenuously to that 'will' word. I've been equated in other discussions as a 'bible-thumper' simply because I chose that word (which I still feel is appropriate). Would it feel better if everytime I talked about this I'd say 'evolutionary process' or 'natural selection'? Isn't this really a matter of you being personally discomfitted by the use of a single word, than that way I mean it?
Again, the 'will' of nature, as I perceive it, is simply a term I use to describe a process that is ongoing. I don't think of nature as some sort of diety or supernatural conscious effort. But there are things that the evolutionary process has brought us to that has led us to where we are now. And those things ARE universal and are proven to exist. You might not think of that process as a 'force' but I do - at least in terms of referrence.
Come, you treat the concept of 'will' as a conscious thing. It's the terminology that bothers you? I used 'will' as a force or a drive. Do you not believe that this drive to weed out and improve (conscious or unconscious) exists as a force in nature?
It is merely a point of view and for me, easier to explain the colder underlying concepts. It's like referring to an aircraft as 'she' even though I know an airplane has no gender. Stop being so literal.
Why not just say, "Unsinkable" instead?