"I am quite sure there are some people out there who used Alpha-based workstations back when Digital made them."
Yeah, at work. Apple's slant is that this is the first one oriented for the home. Hence the term personal computer. Pity the story submitter didn't get the details straight.
"Make the distinction between "I don't like what you're offering me so I'm going somewhere else" and "I don't like your prices so I'm going to steal from you."
1.) Copyright violation != Stealing. The RIAA would be in a world of financial ruin of a significant percentage of the people downloading Mp3s were not buying music.
2.) It's hard for people to find moral objections to downloading MP3s when the RIAA won't even consider selling anything but over-priced, crap-filled albums. It gets even harder to feel sorry for them when they do not guarantee satisfaction. Once you've opened a CD, you've bought it. You don't even know what's on it when you buy it. "Open your mouth and close your eyes..."
You could call it stealing if the RIAA had created an on-line music service and people flocked to p2p to skip the cost. I wouldn't mind that. But the truth of the matter is, Mp3s are not about saving money. If they were, then why would people spend $400 for an iPod? You could buy a LOT of CD's for the cost of that machine. What about Apple's iTunes service? Why aren't sales drastically dipping?
The Game Industry has got it pretty well worked out. Yeah, you can't take a game back if you don't like it. (Although that policy seems to be dissolving away...) You can try it out by downloading the demo. In the console arena, you can go rent the games at Blockbuster. On top of all that, games cost $50, considerably more than a DVD or CD. Yet, P2P isn't in the Game Industry's sights. Gee? Why is that? Maybe because they're treating customers fairly?
... is to provide the customers with what they want, as opposed to forcing them to get it on their own. Copyright laws should not be enforced to protect an organization from having to alter their dying business model.
"If he would have said "no LEGITIMATE use of DeCSS," you would be right." -- That's what I thought I had read. But you're right, he was talking about CSS. Sorry about that. I'm a bonehead sometimes.
"the TRUTH is that there is no LEGITIMATE use of CSS on the first place"
Hi. I have a few DVDs I'd like to watch while I go on my business trip next week. My laptop doesn't have a DVD driver. Are you telling me I don't have a legitimate reason to decrypt the discs so I can dump them to my laptop for private viewing?
"Sounds like a new Dell Profit Center to me...What with a new $80 shipping and handling charge for warranty repairs."
Is this a recent development? Back in December I bought a Dell laptop. In January, the screen went out. I called Dell, and two days later I recieved a box to ship the laptop back to Dell. I sent it back out on a Friday and on Monday I had a working laptop. No fees no nothin.
"You have just rendered Greylisting pretty useless by making it open source."
Not necessarily true. The concept is what makes the process work, not the code itself.
However, I do agree that the original revision of the code will be likely be thwarted. By knowing how the code makes decisions, you can probably discover a way to alter your output to change the condition. Once somebody successfully does that, though, the code will evolve.
"Space.com has a story reporting that the communications antenna on SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) has been acting up for two weeks, and as of 3PM ET Thursday was not functioning properly."
The last thing they saw was the outline of a Winnebago...
"I'm totally stoked about the possibilities of Digital Cinema, but my one big gripe is that there is no discussion of going to a higher framerate."
I doubt the movie makes are that interested in 60fps video. Lots of TV shows today (mainly dramas) are recorded at 24 fps because it looks more dramatic. It's an artistic choice. 60fps looks like a sitcom.
It's kind of strange really. I saw a thing about That 70's Show that went through some of the events throughout the series. They showed a clip of when Eric and Donna broke up. This time, though, it was running at 24 fps instead of 60. It looked like I was watching 90210! The lower frame rate made it look more like a dead serious scene. At the original 60fps, it looked more light hearted.
Wish I could explain the psychology behind it, but I'm still trying to settle on a theory there. The idea that I've been working on is that 60 fps looks like you're watching something as it happens, but the slower 24fps looks like you're watching something in the past, like the memory has been a little degraded. Could that be it?
"I got mod points and for the life of me I wanted to mod this your post "Overrated" 'cuz I thought it was "Funny.""
I made a joke about grilling chicken once. It was sarcastically modded as flamebait. Heh. I bet that guy hit the submit button and thought to himself "I made a funny!"
" it's not like these are slashdot authenticated headlines or the editors wrote them, submitters write them"
Fair point. You're right. However, the big point of what I was saying is that it's hard to take the Commmunity's complaints seriously when most of what they bring up is fiction.
" can you name any on which M$ has been aquited? ANY?"
Well, Microsoft wasn't found guilty of creating a monopoly, just maintaining it after the fact. Is that an acquittal? Not in the technical sense, however ppl cry wolf that MS is doing things like entering the game market with the XBOX in order to enforce their OS monopoly.
I could probably think of more examples, but the truth is that your point doesn't affect what I've said in the slightest. They're were not found guilty of every little thing they're accused of.
"...A couple of years ago, Slashdot had a story titled "Microsoft throws Sony out of CeBit".
Provacative, it catches the reader... nice headline.
'...But wait, a few people read the story. '
Uh, yeah. Did you just come here for the headlines?"
I don't see what's so insightful about this post. It's okay to use a deceptive headline as long as it catches the reader? It's okay to fill the Slashdot article with lies and just expect the readers to read the linked article and discover the truth?
I wouldn't be as bothered by this sentiment if the servers that Slashdot links to didn't routinely go down.
"Thus the spec DEFINES what is correct for HTML. unilateral extensions to standards make the standard lose its force. "
No, making a spec that invites different interpretations makes the standard lose it's force. Unilateral extensions don't break the code, they evolve it. As long as it's an extension and not a change, then it's hard to imagine that any real harm can be done. It's possible I suppose. I'll think about that a bit. (in other words, I'm considering what you're saying.)
" Now a spec might not be the best thing ever, but that's why standards evolve."
Standards evolve when an idea is interesting and implemented well enough that others can adopt it. It doesn't matter if WC3 develops that standard or if Microsoft does. I'll concede that there is a danger if MS decides that they don't want people to know how the interpretation of the markup works, however reverse engineering a format that solely draws bitmaps and text on the screen makes that an unlikely circumstance. If HTML actually caused calculations etc to happen, then you'd be absolutely correct that only the WC3 should make changes to it.
" the only thing is that a lot of sites don't. one time I went to a site that continually gave me alerts to use IE."
Hey, I'm an Opera user, I hear ya. At the same time, though, it really shows how bad browsers are at rendering HTML. They can either follow in the WC3's footsteps, or they can follow in Microsoft's footsteps. Either way, it should just work. It doesn't. Sounds like a bad spec to me. Give MS some credit. If other browsers worked just like the de-facto standard IE works, then there'd be no need for the "IE only" lockouts.
" p.s. who were the mods that modded this insightful? this is nice ignorance"
Ignorance is when you don't listen to what others are saying and learn from it. I don't care if you agree or disagree with me. However, if somebody else saw some insight into what I was saying, then maybe you should consider that somebody else saw something in my post that you didn't. Who's being ignorant now?
" If you don't want to upgrade glibc or your OS, then feel free to compile Mozilla yourself or wait for your distro or someone else to make a build that works there."
You stumbled into his point. Granted, you don't necessarily have to pay for the updates, but you still need to keep up with them in order to keep the new software coming. Not everybody has the ability to download new ISOs, and not everybody has the ability to manually update what's needed.
"MS created a browser that allowed developers to be lazy and use very convuluted code."
Funny, we call that "fault tolerance".
" MSIE trys to say, 'look, i think i know what this guy is trying to say, so I'll try to do it'."
That's what it should do. If this type of code is human writable with no errors to speak of, then you can't expect the writer of the HTML to know there's an error there. So the best thing to do is make the browser as friendly as possible with the code. Sorry, I'm not faulting MS for working as well with bad code as it does. That's not a sin.
" But languages shouldn't need to be guessed at. There has to be one spec and it should be consise and unequivicable. "
I agree with that.
"That's what the W3C gives us. Can the W3C improve on it's spec, yes. It will listen from imput across the industry."
I don't necessarily agree with you here, though. Let's pretend for a second that MS doesn't have an interest in being the only force out there on the web. Microsoft, who makes a browser, and wants to make the web as exciting as possible, is a good force to have in the market to get new ideas past. If not MS, then at least somebody (Apple maybe?) who's motivated to get new things going and keep the standard in development. Now, reality says that MS really isn't the company we want there for external reasons. Don't confuse my point with wanting MS to be the defining body. I don't. I would prefer the standard be developed by somebody who directly benefits from the features that work and don't work.
" Why single them out, when are are others on the board?"
Slashdot sensationalism. Unfortunately, I don't think the community realizes how much credibility they lose every time they post these stupid anti-MS tainted articles. I've followed Slashdot for a while now, and the basic conclusion that I've come to is that if it says MS, then the information's in error. If others realize that pattern, then Slashdot's voice won't be heard when MS does do something really really bad. It's like the Boy who Cried Wolf.
"It sounds like whomever came up with this idea was possibly "on speed"."
The Slashteam decided that Funny and Overrated were causing too much of a distinction. People want to read the Funny posts and not the Overrated ones. As a result, they changed Overrated to +5, Funny. In order to alert the users to the difference between the two moderations, you have to read the content and figure out if it's Funny or Overrated.
Slashdot Mirror
"I am quite sure there are some people out there who used Alpha-based workstations back when Digital made them."
Yeah, at work. Apple's slant is that this is the first one oriented for the home. Hence the term personal computer. Pity the story submitter didn't get the details straight.
"Make the distinction between "I don't like what you're offering me so I'm going somewhere else" and "I don't like your prices so I'm going to steal from you."
1.) Copyright violation != Stealing. The RIAA would be in a world of financial ruin of a significant percentage of the people downloading Mp3s were not buying music.
2.) It's hard for people to find moral objections to downloading MP3s when the RIAA won't even consider selling anything but over-priced, crap-filled albums. It gets even harder to feel sorry for them when they do not guarantee satisfaction. Once you've opened a CD, you've bought it. You don't even know what's on it when you buy it. "Open your mouth and close your eyes..."
You could call it stealing if the RIAA had created an on-line music service and people flocked to p2p to skip the cost. I wouldn't mind that. But the truth of the matter is, Mp3s are not about saving money. If they were, then why would people spend $400 for an iPod? You could buy a LOT of CD's for the cost of that machine. What about Apple's iTunes service? Why aren't sales drastically dipping?
The Game Industry has got it pretty well worked out. Yeah, you can't take a game back if you don't like it. (Although that policy seems to be dissolving away...) You can try it out by downloading the demo. In the console arena, you can go rent the games at Blockbuster. On top of all that, games cost $50, considerably more than a DVD or CD. Yet, P2P isn't in the Game Industry's sights. Gee? Why is that? Maybe because they're treating customers fairly?
"But the scary part is that that statement is the absolute truth. Look at all the people that sign up for MSN, AOL, and own Windoze Boxes."
Look at all the Slashdot users who run Linux for the sake of being cool here. It's pretty well marketed here.
I'm still amazed that Mac isn't more popular than it is.
"Well, we know it wasn't Incdows. The Incas were MUCH more advanced."
It had to be Windows. No other OS runs on a Tablet PC!
... is to provide the customers with what they want, as opposed to forcing them to get it on their own. Copyright laws should not be enforced to protect an organization from having to alter their dying business model.
"the TRUTH is that there is no LEGITIMATE use of CSS on the first place"
Oops. I mistakenly read this as "no legitimate use for DeCSS", not CSS. I apologize for making a stink about it. I wasn't paying enough attention.
"If he would have said "no LEGITIMATE use of DeCSS," you would be right." -- That's what I thought I had read. But you're right, he was talking about CSS. Sorry about that. I'm a bonehead sometimes.
"the TRUTH is that there is no LEGITIMATE use of CSS on the first place"
Hi. I have a few DVDs I'd like to watch while I go on my business trip next week. My laptop doesn't have a DVD driver. Are you telling me I don't have a legitimate reason to decrypt the discs so I can dump them to my laptop for private viewing?
"Sounds like a new Dell Profit Center to me...What with a new $80 shipping and handling charge for warranty repairs."
Is this a recent development? Back in December I bought a Dell laptop. In January, the screen went out. I called Dell, and two days later I recieved a box to ship the laptop back to Dell. I sent it back out on a Friday and on Monday I had a working laptop. No fees no nothin.
Are you just being sarcastic?
Afterall, my laptop has extra batteries. Although if the power was out for a reaaally long time...
"You have just rendered Greylisting pretty useless by making it open source."
Not necessarily true. The concept is what makes the process work, not the code itself.
However, I do agree that the original revision of the code will be likely be thwarted. By knowing how the code makes decisions, you can probably discover a way to alter your output to change the condition. Once somebody successfully does that, though, the code will evolve.
..until body parts become upgradable.
"I just stopped the elevator doors from closing!"
"Space.com has a story reporting that the communications antenna on SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) has been acting up for two weeks, and as of 3PM ET Thursday was not functioning properly."
The last thing they saw was the outline of a Winnebago...
"I'm totally stoked about the possibilities of Digital Cinema, but my one big gripe is that there is no discussion of going to a higher framerate."
I doubt the movie makes are that interested in 60fps video. Lots of TV shows today (mainly dramas) are recorded at 24 fps because it looks more dramatic. It's an artistic choice. 60fps looks like a sitcom.
It's kind of strange really. I saw a thing about That 70's Show that went through some of the events throughout the series. They showed a clip of when Eric and Donna broke up. This time, though, it was running at 24 fps instead of 60. It looked like I was watching 90210! The lower frame rate made it look more like a dead serious scene. At the original 60fps, it looked more light hearted.
Wish I could explain the psychology behind it, but I'm still trying to settle on a theory there. The idea that I've been working on is that 60 fps looks like you're watching something as it happens, but the slower 24fps looks like you're watching something in the past, like the memory has been a little degraded. Could that be it?
"I got mod points and for the life of me I wanted to mod this your post "Overrated" 'cuz I thought it was "Funny.""
I made a joke about grilling chicken once. It was sarcastically modded as flamebait. Heh. I bet that guy hit the submit button and thought to himself "I made a funny!"
" it's not like these are slashdot authenticated headlines or the editors wrote them, submitters write them"
Fair point. You're right. However, the big point of what I was saying is that it's hard to take the Commmunity's complaints seriously when most of what they bring up is fiction.
" can you name any on which M$ has been aquited? ANY?"
Well, Microsoft wasn't found guilty of creating a monopoly, just maintaining it after the fact. Is that an acquittal? Not in the technical sense, however ppl cry wolf that MS is doing things like entering the game market with the XBOX in order to enforce their OS monopoly.
I could probably think of more examples, but the truth is that your point doesn't affect what I've said in the slightest. They're were not found guilty of every little thing they're accused of.
I don't see what's so insightful about this post. It's okay to use a deceptive headline as long as it catches the reader? It's okay to fill the Slashdot article with lies and just expect the readers to read the linked article and discover the truth?
I wouldn't be as bothered by this sentiment if the servers that Slashdot links to didn't routinely go down.
"Thus the spec DEFINES what is correct for HTML. unilateral extensions to standards make the standard lose its force. "
No, making a spec that invites different interpretations makes the standard lose it's force. Unilateral extensions don't break the code, they evolve it. As long as it's an extension and not a change, then it's hard to imagine that any real harm can be done. It's possible I suppose. I'll think about that a bit. (in other words, I'm considering what you're saying.)
" Now a spec might not be the best thing ever, but that's why standards evolve."
Standards evolve when an idea is interesting and implemented well enough that others can adopt it. It doesn't matter if WC3 develops that standard or if Microsoft does. I'll concede that there is a danger if MS decides that they don't want people to know how the interpretation of the markup works, however reverse engineering a format that solely draws bitmaps and text on the screen makes that an unlikely circumstance. If HTML actually caused calculations etc to happen, then you'd be absolutely correct that only the WC3 should make changes to it.
" the only thing is that a lot of sites don't. one time I went to a site that continually gave me alerts to use IE."
Hey, I'm an Opera user, I hear ya. At the same time, though, it really shows how bad browsers are at rendering HTML. They can either follow in the WC3's footsteps, or they can follow in Microsoft's footsteps. Either way, it should just work. It doesn't. Sounds like a bad spec to me. Give MS some credit. If other browsers worked just like the de-facto standard IE works, then there'd be no need for the "IE only" lockouts.
" p.s. who were the mods that modded this insightful? this is nice ignorance"
Ignorance is when you don't listen to what others are saying and learn from it. I don't care if you agree or disagree with me. However, if somebody else saw some insight into what I was saying, then maybe you should consider that somebody else saw something in my post that you didn't. Who's being ignorant now?
" If you don't want to upgrade glibc or your OS, then feel free to compile Mozilla yourself or wait for your distro or someone else to make a build that works there."
You stumbled into his point. Granted, you don't necessarily have to pay for the updates, but you still need to keep up with them in order to keep the new software coming. Not everybody has the ability to download new ISOs, and not everybody has the ability to manually update what's needed.
"MS created a browser that allowed developers to be lazy and use very convuluted code."
Funny, we call that "fault tolerance".
" MSIE trys to say, 'look, i think i know what this guy is trying to say, so I'll try to do it'."
That's what it should do. If this type of code is human writable with no errors to speak of, then you can't expect the writer of the HTML to know there's an error there. So the best thing to do is make the browser as friendly as possible with the code. Sorry, I'm not faulting MS for working as well with bad code as it does. That's not a sin.
" But languages shouldn't need to be guessed at. There has to be one spec and it should be consise and unequivicable. "
I agree with that.
"That's what the W3C gives us. Can the W3C improve on it's spec, yes. It will listen from imput across the industry."
I don't necessarily agree with you here, though. Let's pretend for a second that MS doesn't have an interest in being the only force out there on the web. Microsoft, who makes a browser, and wants to make the web as exciting as possible, is a good force to have in the market to get new ideas past. If not MS, then at least somebody (Apple maybe?) who's motivated to get new things going and keep the standard in development. Now, reality says that MS really isn't the company we want there for external reasons. Don't confuse my point with wanting MS to be the defining body. I don't. I would prefer the standard be developed by somebody who directly benefits from the features that work and don't work.
"they will work, just not at USB2.0 speeds?"
Depends on the product. Imagine a CD burner that buffer underruns because the port's not fast enough.
I don't know if that actually happens, but a 40x difference in bandwidth makes it hard to degrade gracefully.
" Why single them out, when are are others on the board?"
Slashdot sensationalism. Unfortunately, I don't think the community realizes how much credibility they lose every time they post these stupid anti-MS tainted articles. I've followed Slashdot for a while now, and the basic conclusion that I've come to is that if it says MS, then the information's in error. If others realize that pattern, then Slashdot's voice won't be heard when MS does do something really really bad. It's like the Boy who Cried Wolf.
.. it's always a great idea if it costs Microsoft money.
"It sounds like whomever came up with this idea was possibly "on speed"."
The Slashteam decided that Funny and Overrated were causing too much of a distinction. People want to read the Funny posts and not the Overrated ones. As a result, they changed Overrated to +5, Funny. In order to alert the users to the difference between the two moderations, you have to read the content and figure out if it's Funny or Overrated.