I hate the fact that your post has been up for an hour and is only at +3 instead of +5. What is wrong with slashdot mods? I guess they prefer conspiracy theories
Yeah, right. We all know that The Man is paying you to say that. Bad karma, dude!
These apps are priced to be treated like that. It's a return to the PD and shareware library ethos of old (old? I mean late 80s/early 90s). I remember paying a buck or two for a disk with a raft of simple, mostly awful Commadore Amiga games. Fred Fish anyone?
Remember that the "buck or two" you paid was ostensibly for the media, copying service and other work by the person who ran the PD/shareware "library" service- nothing more.
Generally none of that money went to the people who actually wrote the software; registering shareware was a different process. (*)
The modern equivalent might be paying for the cost of running a library/download site and the download bandwidth itsef, though even allowing for the fact that modern downloads are much larger, the cost is way lower; in part because separate media and manual work on the part of the site owner are no longer required.
(*) Though IIRC later on there were some services that licensed titles through existing PD/shareware libraries. Similar deal, but the disks were sold at a higher price that included a contribution to the author of the software.
I love whens someone has a replicated DB as a "backup". I like to say okay.. "Drop table users". And then it dawns on them that the drop command would replicate....;)
Damn, I knew that I shouldn't have recommended Ma.gnolia to little Bobby Tables.
Serves them right for demanding users register with their full name, though.
My cat [..] wrote a fairly extensive message using notepad as well that same session, but I couldn't read it. Guess xer wewnunpoxcwerwbwyty is only understandable to cats.
Well, if your cat agrees to a contract, it doesn't mean you have agreed to it, hence you are not authorized to use the software. The pen on the other hand, has no free will (try disproving that in court),
The court would probably (in more legalistic language) tell you to **** off and stop wasting their time with pseudo-legalistic intellectual wankery that had nothing to do with the case anyway.
so it acts as a medium through which your will is enforced. Please go back to taking a class in critical thinking.
Good luck using that as the basis of a legal argument in court. You're seriously saying that *legally* having the cat click the button instead of the pen would made a difference because the cat had "free will" (despite the fact it doesn't- and never could- understand contracts and arguably has no free will in that respect, and also that the *intent* to get it to do that was yours)?
In fact, it's not just that this is a stupid legal argument. It's that it's a stupid argument full stop for the exact same reasons. "Critical thinking", my arse.
Correct, it doesn't need a signature. However, some proof of a 'meeting of the minds' is required. A click-wrap agreement doesn't necessarily provide this.
In which case the EULA was invalid regardless of whether you clicked it or you coerced the cat into clicking it.
However, assuming it was, if anyone seriously thinks that having the cat click the button would make a blind bit of difference in court, they're an idiot. The law for the most part doesn't operate remotely like a stupidly pedantic Slashdot argument (*), and this *is* the law we're discussing.
IANAL and I don't claim to know exactly why the alleged legal argument behind this device would be thrown out of course, but I'm pretty sure that it would- probably because (as others have suggested) you had deliberate intent to click the button and hence "agree" to the EULA.
(*) Yes, the law can be manipulated by stupid pedantry, but pedantry involving of laws and legal rulings, not stupid pseudo-logical bullshit up-their-own-arse arguments involving sub-intellectual drivel about the free will of animate and inanimate objects, etc.
Bearing in mind that most TVs built in the past 20 years (at least) suppress the sound and picture if no signal is received, did they display simulated static?
Ah, I get nostalgic for that hissing static noise my parents' TV used to make when there were no transmissions. Oh, no... hang on, I don't- it was bloody horrible:)
Oh yeah. Thing is, the Americans have basically gone straight from their original analogue colour system to a digital one that can support HD. Many boxes can receive these HD signals and output them as an analogue-compatible standard-def, so no-one's being forced to upgrade when they don't want to, but there's no need for a separate SD system either.
Whereas in the UK we've had DVB-T (digital terrestrial, "Freeview") in use for around a decade- originally as part of the "ITV Digital" subscription service that went bust and was reused by the government. But it- or at any rate all the existing hardware- doesn't support HD.
And so the PITA is that just as we're *eventually* starting the forced switchover to an SD-only digital system, we're already having to consider another system for the HD transmissions which are inevitably the way of the future. Complete with new hardware.
(Incidentally, what I'd like to know is whether it was always intended from its late-90s beginning that ITV Digital's standard-def digital transmissions would be the UK's digital "standard". Or whether this was only decided upon when they went bankrupt (circa 2002) and the government formed Freeview? If the former, the lack of foresight is almost forgivable; if the latter, less so.)
Having read the FAQ, I found out that not only is this a US centric web site, but more interestingly..... There is a Japanese version of slashdot, slashdot.jp. How cool is that - I think shashdot looks funkier in Japanese!
Ah, but it makes more sense if you view it like this.
Call customer support for assistance. [..] Please do not attempt to solicit help extinguishing your ass from any other source, as this would violate your terms of service.
This stuff has been going on for many years. In the mid-90's PeopleSoft had most if not all of the same clauses in their contracts.
OMFG!!! PeopleSoft were in the ass-on-fire business? No wonder they didn't want people discussing it!
(Oh yeah, and... naughty boy. That's what you get for posting your comment as a "reply" to an unrelated one in order to get a more favourable position:-P )
Notice how engineers overcome noise??? yup... by INCREASING VOLTAGE. If you have any experience with electronics at all, you will agree with me that the only reason is to increase SNR (Signal noise ratio). In this context, noise refers to white noise.
That as may be, who mentioned voltage? You, and you appear to be *assuming* that they'll simply keep everything else the same and drop the voltage of the chip increasing the noise. Assumption.
Even if you want to worship the guy
I already said there wasn't enough information to say whether or not this was a good idea. So why the hell you assumed I would "worship" the guy is unclear.
Oh, hang on.... it's entirely clear. You're one of those people who assumes that criticism of a badly-formulated attack on X implies that the critic supports X. Or else just likes to use that flawed logic as the basis of an attack.
But maybe you're a lawyer or from the sales department. So, the whole peer review rant might not make sense to you.
See, now you're just resorting to poorly-veiled insults. That's not even an ad hominem attack, it's just third-rate name calling. While it says nothing about me, it says a *lot* about you.
One further point; is he/she suggesting that the person should refrain from using *any* open source software that Apple have contributed to, no matter how small that contribution relative to the overall project?
If they persist or attempt to physically prevent you from your examinations of your property (your little plastic box and circuit board), then just shoot them. Don't even give it a second thought.
I find your ideas fascinating and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
That's a theoretical possibility. The problem with that idea- and the reason that Intel won't do it- is that as soon as it's made accessible, people *will* use it and expect "native" RISC code to be as compatible with subsequent x86 chips.
But supposing Intel only chose that architecture with that RISC ISA because it suits their current chip design methods and manufacturing needs. Suppose they are able to move to a moderately or totally different core design, with a different ISA, which is a better choice in future. The way things are now, they just change the CISC->RISC interpreter and things run as before, but a little bit faster.
But if programs have been released that rely on the previous generation's native RISC code, then they'll break on the new chip. (This is already a problem for the x86 line, which has to retain compatibility with countless "seemed like a good idea at the time, but few used it and it was superceded but we have to retain it for compatibility anyway" ideas. This is why you *don't* automatically slap in a feature just because you can.)
Sure, Intel can say "do this at your own risk, it'll break on the next generation", but they'll get the blame anyway when people's programs don't run and users flock to AMD's chip that retains compatibility.
The other possibility is to retain compatibility- either by retaining similar design to the previous generation chip, or by faffing about with emulation or particular instructions, or (getting sillier and adding to design cruft) adding an Old-RISC to New-RISC emulation layer.
Bottom line, I suspect that the design of the RISC cores changes in notable ways on every new generation of chip, and Intel are already badly hobbled with having to support the x86's numerous legacy design issues. It'd be stupid if they let one of the ways they got around having to retain the x86's architecture become another of those millstones.
As far as I'm aware, "double" data rate means that it can transfer data on the rising *and* falling edges of the square clock signal. That's why it hasn't gone higher than "double", I assume.
In all honesty, I'm not convinced that MS *ever* really expected people to buy those "Starter Editions" of XP and Vista. I suspect that they were (at best) put out there to be seen to be meeting a need/niche- or that there were more dubious strategic reasons behind putting out something that was likely to fail in favour of people pirating the "real" versions instead.
Often the moped will be tuned to go a lot faster than the legal 30 km/h
How about "If we find out you are doing this, your moped will be taken away and crushed, your license will be removed and you won't be allowed to drive *anything* until you are at least 21"?
The only reason they block is due to the demands of advertisers and/or foreign licensees - if a user works around that block CBS wins an ad view.
That doesn't really apply if someone in Lithuania gets shown an ad for Honest Joe's Motors in Buttfuck, Illinois because the proxy is located near there (or whatever). In fact the ad only benefits the advertiser if it's a truly global brand (and a truly global campaign at that).
I doubt Honest Joe's is going to be amused and would have a good case against CBS if it could be shown that CBS were not taking reasonable action to prevent this.
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, I'm calling your bluff: link to one GeoCities page worth our time.
http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/
Pretty clever... and no clashing-colour or non-scrolling-starfield background in sight!
:-)
At the same time, it's hardly topical and doesn't exactly counter the notion that nothing on GeoCities has been updated since the year 2000...
I hate the fact that your post has been up for an hour and is only at +3 instead of +5. What is wrong with slashdot mods? I guess they prefer conspiracy theories
Yeah, right. We all know that The Man is paying you to say that. Bad karma, dude!
I'm proud to be in the 1% of people who haven't been penetrated by Flash.
Uh.... huh huh huh. Don't deny it, we know you'd let him given the chance! :)
BTW... 99%? That's promiscuous!
These apps are priced to be treated like that. It's a return to the PD and shareware library ethos of old (old? I mean late 80s/early 90s). I remember paying a buck or two for a disk with a raft of simple, mostly awful Commadore Amiga games. Fred Fish anyone?
Remember that the "buck or two" you paid was ostensibly for the media, copying service and other work by the person who ran the PD/shareware "library" service- nothing more.
Generally none of that money went to the people who actually wrote the software; registering shareware was a different process. (*)
The modern equivalent might be paying for the cost of running a library/download site and the download bandwidth itsef, though even allowing for the fact that modern downloads are much larger, the cost is way lower; in part because separate media and manual work on the part of the site owner are no longer required.
(*) Though IIRC later on there were some services that licensed titles through existing PD/shareware libraries. Similar deal, but the disks were sold at a higher price that included a contribution to the author of the software.
on the 'net you can't tell the major corporation from the kid in a garage
On the Internet, nobody knows your backup system is a dog?
I love whens someone has a replicated DB as a "backup". I like to say okay.. "Drop table users". And then it dawns on them that the drop command would replicate.... ;)
Damn, I knew that I shouldn't have recommended Ma.gnolia to little Bobby Tables.
Serves them right for demanding users register with their full name, though.
The Perfect Prediction scam
Never heard of this before, but it's so simple and yet so clever. One of those ideas that's obvious *after* it's been pointed out to you!
My cat [..] wrote a fairly extensive message using notepad as well that same session, but I couldn't read it. Guess xer wewnunpoxcwerwbwyty is only understandable to cats.
Meaningless cat words? Is it the sound you make when you get your sexual organs trapped in something?
Well, if your cat agrees to a contract, it doesn't mean you have agreed to it, hence you are not authorized to use the software. The pen on the other hand, has no free will (try disproving that in court),
The court would probably (in more legalistic language) tell you to **** off and stop wasting their time with pseudo-legalistic intellectual wankery that had nothing to do with the case anyway.
so it acts as a medium through which your will is enforced. Please go back to taking a class in critical thinking.
Good luck using that as the basis of a legal argument in court. You're seriously saying that *legally* having the cat click the button instead of the pen would made a difference because the cat had "free will" (despite the fact it doesn't- and never could- understand contracts and arguably has no free will in that respect, and also that the *intent* to get it to do that was yours)?
In fact, it's not just that this is a stupid legal argument. It's that it's a stupid argument full stop for the exact same reasons. "Critical thinking", my arse.
Correct, it doesn't need a signature. However, some proof of a 'meeting of the minds' is required. A click-wrap agreement doesn't necessarily provide this.
In which case the EULA was invalid regardless of whether you clicked it or you coerced the cat into clicking it.
However, assuming it was, if anyone seriously thinks that having the cat click the button would make a blind bit of difference in court, they're an idiot. The law for the most part doesn't operate remotely like a stupidly pedantic Slashdot argument (*), and this *is* the law we're discussing.
IANAL and I don't claim to know exactly why the alleged legal argument behind this device would be thrown out of course, but I'm pretty sure that it would- probably because (as others have suggested) you had deliberate intent to click the button and hence "agree" to the EULA.
(*) Yes, the law can be manipulated by stupid pedantry, but pedantry involving of laws and legal rulings, not stupid pseudo-logical bullshit up-their-own-arse arguments involving sub-intellectual drivel about the free will of animate and inanimate objects, etc.
The instant cut to static was good for a laugh.
Bearing in mind that most TVs built in the past 20 years (at least) suppress the sound and picture if no signal is received, did they display simulated static?
:)
Ah, I get nostalgic for that hissing static noise my parents' TV used to make when there were no transmissions. Oh, no... hang on, I don't- it was bloody horrible
Oh yeah. Thing is, the Americans have basically gone straight from their original analogue colour system to a digital one that can support HD. Many boxes can receive these HD signals and output them as an analogue-compatible standard-def, so no-one's being forced to upgrade when they don't want to, but there's no need for a separate SD system either.
Whereas in the UK we've had DVB-T (digital terrestrial, "Freeview") in use for around a decade- originally as part of the "ITV Digital" subscription service that went bust and was reused by the government. But it- or at any rate all the existing hardware- doesn't support HD.
And so the PITA is that just as we're *eventually* starting the forced switchover to an SD-only digital system, we're already having to consider another system for the HD transmissions which are inevitably the way of the future. Complete with new hardware.
(Incidentally, what I'd like to know is whether it was always intended from its late-90s beginning that ITV Digital's standard-def digital transmissions would be the UK's digital "standard". Or whether this was only decided upon when they went bankrupt (circa 2002) and the government formed Freeview? If the former, the lack of foresight is almost forgivable; if the latter, less so.)
Having read the FAQ, I found out that not only is this a US centric web site, but more interestingly..... There is a Japanese version of slashdot, slashdot.jp. How cool is that - I think shashdot looks funkier in Japanese!
Ah, but it makes more sense if you view it like this.
Erm... then again, maybe not.
my ass is on fire you dick face
Call customer support for assistance. [..] Please do not attempt to solicit help extinguishing your ass from any other source, as this would violate your terms of service.
This stuff has been going on for many years. In the mid-90's PeopleSoft had most if not all of the same clauses in their contracts.
OMFG!!! PeopleSoft were in the ass-on-fire business? No wonder they didn't want people discussing it!
:-P )
(Oh yeah, and... naughty boy. That's what you get for posting your comment as a "reply" to an unrelated one in order to get a more favourable position
Notice how engineers overcome noise??? yup... by INCREASING VOLTAGE. If you have any experience with electronics at all, you will agree with me that the only reason is to increase SNR (Signal noise ratio). In this context, noise refers to white noise.
That as may be, who mentioned voltage? You, and you appear to be *assuming* that they'll simply keep everything else the same and drop the voltage of the chip increasing the noise. Assumption.
Even if you want to worship the guy
I already said there wasn't enough information to say whether or not this was a good idea. So why the hell you assumed I would "worship" the guy is unclear.
Oh, hang on.... it's entirely clear. You're one of those people who assumes that criticism of a badly-formulated attack on X implies that the critic supports X. Or else just likes to use that flawed logic as the basis of an attack.
But maybe you're a lawyer or from the sales department. So, the whole peer review rant might not make sense to you.
See, now you're just resorting to poorly-veiled insults. That's not even an ad hominem attack, it's just third-rate name calling. While it says nothing about me, it says a *lot* about you.
One further point; is he/she suggesting that the person should refrain from using *any* open source software that Apple have contributed to, no matter how small that contribution relative to the overall project?
If they persist or attempt to physically prevent you from your examinations of your property (your little plastic box and circuit board), then just shoot them. Don't even give it a second thought.
I find your ideas fascinating and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
In the context of this discussion, your username doesn't exactly inspire confidence in your position :)
That's a theoretical possibility. The problem with that idea- and the reason that Intel won't do it- is that as soon as it's made accessible, people *will* use it and expect "native" RISC code to be as compatible with subsequent x86 chips.
But supposing Intel only chose that architecture with that RISC ISA because it suits their current chip design methods and manufacturing needs. Suppose they are able to move to a moderately or totally different core design, with a different ISA, which is a better choice in future. The way things are now, they just change the CISC->RISC interpreter and things run as before, but a little bit faster.
But if programs have been released that rely on the previous generation's native RISC code, then they'll break on the new chip. (This is already a problem for the x86 line, which has to retain compatibility with countless "seemed like a good idea at the time, but few used it and it was superceded but we have to retain it for compatibility anyway" ideas. This is why you *don't* automatically slap in a feature just because you can.)
Sure, Intel can say "do this at your own risk, it'll break on the next generation", but they'll get the blame anyway when people's programs don't run and users flock to AMD's chip that retains compatibility.
The other possibility is to retain compatibility- either by retaining similar design to the previous generation chip, or by faffing about with emulation or particular instructions, or (getting sillier and adding to design cruft) adding an Old-RISC to New-RISC emulation layer.
Bottom line, I suspect that the design of the RISC cores changes in notable ways on every new generation of chip, and Intel are already badly hobbled with having to support the x86's numerous legacy design issues. It'd be stupid if they let one of the ways they got around having to retain the x86's architecture become another of those millstones.
In Soviet Russia, Slashdot slashdots Slashdot!
Yes, but to paraphrase another saying, in Capitalist America it's the other way around.
As far as I'm aware, "double" data rate means that it can transfer data on the rising *and* falling edges of the square clock signal. That's why it hasn't gone higher than "double", I assume.
In all honesty, I'm not convinced that MS *ever* really expected people to buy those "Starter Editions" of XP and Vista. I suspect that they were (at best) put out there to be seen to be meeting a need/niche- or that there were more dubious strategic reasons behind putting out something that was likely to fail in favour of people pirating the "real" versions instead.
Often the moped will be tuned to go a lot faster than the legal 30 km/h
How about "If we find out you are doing this, your moped will be taken away and crushed, your license will be removed and you won't be allowed to drive *anything* until you are at least 21"?
However, the software will be endorsed by Sesame Street and today is brought to you by the letter "/".
I suspect that MS's software is most likely to be brought to you by the letters "F" and "U".
The only reason they block is due to the demands of advertisers and/or foreign licensees - if a user works around that block CBS wins an ad view.
That doesn't really apply if someone in Lithuania gets shown an ad for Honest Joe's Motors in Buttfuck, Illinois because the proxy is located near there (or whatever). In fact the ad only benefits the advertiser if it's a truly global brand (and a truly global campaign at that).
I doubt Honest Joe's is going to be amused and would have a good case against CBS if it could be shown that CBS were not taking reasonable action to prevent this.