That's true, but your average businessperson in retail doesn't have the time to learn database and analysis software. Excel is easy to use, which is why it's so popular with that kind of person.
My point is that people in other companies aren't going to stop using Excel (and its macros), so the idea that it's not a big concern if one company switches to an OSS equivalent and can't read files from outside their organization is wrong.
Quite a few people have absolutely no interest in complex spreadsheet macros: giving, recieving or creating. You're simply describing an artifical problem.
IMO it depends on the type of company. In my experience, retail-oriented businesses rely heavily on spreadsheets with macros.
Streaming OGG Vorbis on mainstream websites, or on any site for that matter that asks the user to "download something else" will force users away. In short, never gonna happen, stick with the proven market leaders.
I switched from mp3 to ogg for my website, and out of ~1000 unique users/week, I've received two or three emails where people had trouble.
I can see WM as being about on par (end-user wise) with Vorbis, but Real? Come on. Realaudio still sounds straight out of 1995. RealPlayer/One is incredibly buggy (how can installing a media player manage to destabilize an entire NT4 or 2k system?!), it's full of ads, and user control of content is very limited.
Besides, Vorbis is free. That's already managed to convince a number of game companies to use it as the compression standard in their products (e.g. Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2 for the PC).
In the early 80s, Americans were getting jacked so much on gasoline prices that people preferred manual transmissions because it was possible to get slightly better fuel economy.
Even Emperor Dubyah knows that he would be unpopular if he were to let that sort of situation emerge again.
I don't buy it. If such a device could be made for $150, there would be an epidemic of their use, just because 76.7% of dorks have been quoted as thinking that "EMP weapons are rad."*
I would be a shiny quarter that this is some kind of hack guide about taking apart a microwave oven and building a directed energy weapon out of that (which I've seen books about before). Even putting aside the problems with making sure you don't cook yourself, you'd need a long extension cord to be using it away from home.
I read the article, and it specifically talks about business owners. Individuals don't get that tax break.
It is incredibly easy to start a "small business" with yourself as the only employee. A friend of mine did this to get access to things like tax writeoffs for car rentals.
This is a manufacturing process though, so we're using terms from chemistry, not biology. This is evidenced by the use of the term "inorganic" as opposed to "non-organic."
What kind of life are we talking here? Do they kill animals to create these displays? Damn, I know some people think it's stupid, but I'm a vegetarian.
One does have to wonder though if connecting previously sheltered cultures, like Sherpas who rarely leave their home area, or small tribes in South America, will encourage them to join the rest of the world.
According to my sociology-minor roommate when I was at university, that's literally what happens to small sheltered cultures. However, because they don't have any pricy exports, they end up changing from a functional non-technical culture into one that expends most of its efforts trying to get its hands on the trinkets they see Westerners with. The result is that their society is basically converted into a theme park for people with more money than them.
I'd be interested in the feedback from admins who've worked at other LARGE corporations - I'm talking thousands of desktops here, not ten or twenty.
IMO a true "Admin" in a large-scale corporation never sees end-users' desktops.
However, I did part-time work as a PC tech for my company (several thousand workstations). I disliked some of the configurations I saw, but I realize that having their PCs set up that way makes the users happier, and therefore more productive.
I was only in front of their screens for an hour at the most. They have to use them all day. Who has more priority re: what they look like?
I can see the wisdom in disallowing installation of unapproved apps (apparently Hotbar caused us a bunch of problem after I stopped the PC tech work, for example), but cosmetic aspects should be up to the user. Assuming they don't mind losing them the next time their system is reimaged, of course.
But it doesnt have superior drivers! Surely games would be released for Linux and all the gamers start to use Linux for games if it did have.
I think it's more an ease of support issue.
Publishers have enough trouble walking people through Windows installs and troubleshooting conflicts with the four supported versions of that OS (98/ME/2k/XP).
Can you imagine the hassle of - over the phone or email - trying to figure out what was causing the problem when your customer could be using any Linux distribution, with any number of possible configurations? "Sorry sir, it looks like you didn't enable a function the game requires in the kernel. You're going to need to recompile it."
When I want to play a game, it's *for fun*. I don't want to have to futz around with config files and length install processes. Windows is bad enough WRT this, and the vast majority of customers are just not technically-inclined enough for the added complexity of Linux.
Personally I'm finding I prefer consoles more and more every day, other than the ability to take high-res screenshots.
A) The document you link to describes a derivative work as "a work that is based on (or derived from) one or more already existing works," and gives the example of "[a] Television drama (based on a novel)." That sounds like a pretty fair description of re-enacting Treasure Island in space.
C) According to this page "Any person who uses a trademark in connection with goods or services in a way that is likely to cause confusion is an infringer." In our hypothetical non-Disney release of out-of-copyright works, I don't believe Mickey would be a problem, as long as the publisher clearly indicated that they were not Disney. For an example, look at the generic medications at a drugstore that say "Compare to Robitussin," and have the trademark information for the holder of the Robitussin mark at the bottom.
First, a derivative work can only be created by the original artist or someone they give permission to.
So Disney got permission from Robert Louis Stevenson to make Treasure Planet?
Second, the copyright on the original movies may expire but not on the artwork of the characters as long as Disney keeps using and changing them.
What's your point? All that means is that it's okay to use the older image and derivations of it, but not the newer one(s).
Finally, Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, are also trademarked and therefore can never be used as long as Disney continues to maintain that Trademark. Trademarks never expire on their own accord.
Jim's beef with the PCI-SIG is that they didn't have the courtesy to contact him before resorting to lawyers.
The vast majority of people don't care anymore unless they get a letter from (a) lawyer(s). They may have assumed incorrectly in this case, but IMO the PCI-SIG was just cutting to the chase.
I've never in the history of my using RealPlayers put in an actual email
I'm at a loss as to why anyone would put in their real email address.
In general I only use my real address when I have to - e.g. there is some kind of automated email exchange to verify that it's really yours.
The only problem I've run into is when I mistakenly clicked on the "I want to download RealOne with 10-day trial of blah blah blah" option instead of the free player one*, and kept getting the message that billg@microsoft.com was already a member, and I'd have to enter the password for that account to continue.
* Normally I don't install Real products at all because they've caused me system stability issues, but I needed to view a Realvideo file for some research for my website.
This niftly little bribery-fueled pseudo-democracy will probably stay in place until the next asteroid impact.
Somebody could always start up a PayPal donation fund to purchase a fusion bomb. I'm sure there are a few parts of the former USSR that would be willing to sell one off.
I had a bunch of letters ready to go to mine a month or so ago (this was about a seperate issue). On the day I was going to mail them, I read that they had all just voted for a pay raise for themselves, at a time when thousands of their constituents are losing their jobs or facing pay cuts.
The Senate and the House don't care about what their constituents think, unless it's something that *so many* people are concerned with that it will threaten their chances of re-election. IMO this will not qualify.
it would help many ill-informed people if you would please state your source for this information.
One of the easiest ways to verify his status as a jerk is to read pretty much any biography of Tesla.
Tesla invented a ton of technologies that we use everyday, like AC electricity and flourescent lighting. Because he wasn't the greatest businessperson, many of them were stolen by people like Edison (who he worked for briefly).
Most people think of Edison as a great inventor. I think of him as a thief who was so bent on discrediting Tesla's AC electricity in favour of his own DC that he used it to electrocute a bunch of animals to death on film.
to see the stuff I'm sharing on my university's internal Direct Connect hub
There really needs to be a moratorium on the use of the words "direct" and "connect" in the names of software products.
I think I've read about this particular software before, but OTOH I work with software that uses a gateway tool called Direct Connect, a transfer tool called Connect:Direct, and I see billboards for cellphones that have Direct Connect as a feature buzzword. Or is it Connect Direct?
AOL was not an internet company until long after the internet became a sensation.
AOL was certainly the first major "easy to use" ISP that I saw. I signed up for my first dial access account (on a local ISP) in 1992, and I still remember when AOL users started flooding online.
Prodigy? Compuserve? GEnie? Fidonet? Thousands of amateur BBSes?
None of these provided a friendly, graphical UI for internet use.
I'm not a fan of AOL, but I can certainly see why they were able to sign so many people up. When they came online, pretty much everything else was text UI-based. AOL users had a GUI several years before I did.
he should tattoo the barcode on his hand... kinda like a "fingerprint"
If this worked, it wouldn't for long.
I've got my SSN tattooed as a barcode on my forearm. It's just for looks, since even if by some miracle the artist was able to make the lines as razor-straight as they need to be, the change in size of your muscles and skin over time would distort it enough to make it non-machine-readable.
The last time I went to the dentist, one of the assistants saw my tattoo and told me a long story about her son who was in the US special forces. Apparently they'd had some kind of plan to use them as replacements for dog tags, but ditched it in favour of implanted microchips like you can get for pets, since there's a lot less hassle involved. Obviously I can't confirm the truth of that though.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, but your average businessperson in retail doesn't have the time to learn database and analysis software. Excel is easy to use, which is why it's so popular with that kind of person.
My point is that people in other companies aren't going to stop using Excel (and its macros), so the idea that it's not a big concern if one company switches to an OSS equivalent and can't read files from outside their organization is wrong.
Quite a few people have absolutely no interest in complex spreadsheet macros: giving, recieving or creating. You're simply describing an artifical problem.
IMO it depends on the type of company. In my experience, retail-oriented businesses rely heavily on spreadsheets with macros.
Streaming OGG Vorbis on mainstream websites, or on any site for that matter that asks the user to "download something else" will force users away. In short, never gonna happen, stick with the proven market leaders.
I switched from mp3 to ogg for my website, and out of ~1000 unique users/week, I've received two or three emails where people had trouble.
I can see WM as being about on par (end-user wise) with Vorbis, but Real? Come on. Realaudio still sounds straight out of 1995. RealPlayer/One is incredibly buggy (how can installing a media player manage to destabilize an entire NT4 or 2k system?!), it's full of ads, and user control of content is very limited.
Besides, Vorbis is free. That's already managed to convince a number of game companies to use it as the compression standard in their products (e.g. Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2 for the PC).
Who cares?
In the early 80s, Americans were getting jacked so much on gasoline prices that people preferred manual transmissions because it was possible to get slightly better fuel economy.
Even Emperor Dubyah knows that he would be unpopular if he were to let that sort of situation emerge again.
EMP "rifle"
I don't buy it. If such a device could be made for $150, there would be an epidemic of their use, just because 76.7% of dorks have been quoted as thinking that "EMP weapons are rad."*
I would be a shiny quarter that this is some kind of hack guide about taking apart a microwave oven and building a directed energy weapon out of that (which I've seen books about before). Even putting aside the problems with making sure you don't cook yourself, you'd need a long extension cord to be using it away from home.
* Okay, I made that up
But come on, what is the US army going to do with a bunch of intact buildings in Iraq?
Set up a puppet government that gives the US a good deal on oil?
I read the article, and it specifically talks about business owners. Individuals don't get that tax break.
It is incredibly easy to start a "small business" with yourself as the only employee. A friend of mine did this to get access to things like tax writeoffs for car rentals.
This is a manufacturing process though, so we're using terms from chemistry, not biology. This is evidenced by the use of the term "inorganic" as opposed to "non-organic."
What kind of life are we talking here? Do they kill animals to create these displays? Damn, I know some people think it's stupid, but I'm a vegetarian.
"Organic" just means "[a] compound... containing Carbon atoms".
This isn't like the blood that's used to make plywood or what have you.
One does have to wonder though if connecting previously sheltered cultures, like Sherpas who rarely leave their home area, or small tribes in South America, will encourage them to join the rest of the world.
According to my sociology-minor roommate when I was at university, that's literally what happens to small sheltered cultures. However, because they don't have any pricy exports, they end up changing from a functional non-technical culture into one that expends most of its efforts trying to get its hands on the trinkets they see Westerners with. The result is that their society is basically converted into a theme park for people with more money than them.
I'd be interested in the feedback from admins who've worked at other LARGE corporations - I'm talking thousands of desktops here, not ten or twenty.
IMO a true "Admin" in a large-scale corporation never sees end-users' desktops.
However, I did part-time work as a PC tech for my company (several thousand workstations). I disliked some of the configurations I saw, but I realize that having their PCs set up that way makes the users happier, and therefore more productive.
I was only in front of their screens for an hour at the most. They have to use them all day. Who has more priority re: what they look like?
I can see the wisdom in disallowing installation of unapproved apps (apparently Hotbar caused us a bunch of problem after I stopped the PC tech work, for example), but cosmetic aspects should be up to the user. Assuming they don't mind losing them the next time their system is reimaged, of course.
The product that the person in the commercial was using is the AT&T EO.
What a pity there was no Michael Jackson endorsement.
But it doesnt have superior drivers! Surely games would be released for Linux and all the gamers start to use Linux for games if it did have.
I think it's more an ease of support issue.
Publishers have enough trouble walking people through Windows installs and troubleshooting conflicts with the four supported versions of that OS (98/ME/2k/XP).
Can you imagine the hassle of - over the phone or email - trying to figure out what was causing the problem when your customer could be using any Linux distribution, with any number of possible configurations? "Sorry sir, it looks like you didn't enable a function the game requires in the kernel. You're going to need to recompile it."
When I want to play a game, it's *for fun*. I don't want to have to futz around with config files and length install processes. Windows is bad enough WRT this, and the vast majority of customers are just not technically-inclined enough for the added complexity of Linux.
Personally I'm finding I prefer consoles more and more every day, other than the ability to take high-res screenshots.
A) The document you link to describes a derivative work as "a work that is based on (or derived from) one or more already existing works," and gives the example of "[a] Television drama (based on a novel)." That sounds like a pretty fair description of re-enacting Treasure Island in space.
C) According to this page "Any person who uses a trademark in connection with goods or services in a way that is likely to cause confusion is an infringer." In our hypothetical non-Disney release of out-of-copyright works, I don't believe Mickey would be a problem, as long as the publisher clearly indicated that they were not Disney. For an example, look at the generic medications at a drugstore that say "Compare to Robitussin," and have the trademark information for the holder of the Robitussin mark at the bottom.
First, a derivative work can only be created by the original artist or someone they give permission to.
So Disney got permission from Robert Louis Stevenson to make Treasure Planet?
Second, the copyright on the original movies may expire but not on the artwork of the characters as long as Disney keeps using and changing them.
What's your point? All that means is that it's okay to use the older image and derivations of it, but not the newer one(s).
Finally, Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, are also trademarked and therefore can never be used as long as Disney continues to maintain that Trademark. Trademarks never expire on their own accord.
The name may be trademarked, but the image isn't.
Jim's beef with the PCI-SIG is that they didn't have the courtesy to contact him before resorting to lawyers.
The vast majority of people don't care anymore unless they get a letter from (a) lawyer(s). They may have assumed incorrectly in this case, but IMO the PCI-SIG was just cutting to the chase.
I've never in the history of my using RealPlayers put in an actual email
I'm at a loss as to why anyone would put in their real email address.
In general I only use my real address when I have to - e.g. there is some kind of automated email exchange to verify that it's really yours.
The only problem I've run into is when I mistakenly clicked on the "I want to download RealOne with 10-day trial of blah blah blah" option instead of the free player one*, and kept getting the message that billg@microsoft.com was already a member, and I'd have to enter the password for that account to continue.
* Normally I don't install Real products at all because they've caused me system stability issues, but I needed to view a Realvideo file for some research for my website.
This niftly little bribery-fueled pseudo-democracy will probably stay in place until the next asteroid impact.
Somebody could always start up a PayPal donation fund to purchase a fusion bomb. I'm sure there are a few parts of the former USSR that would be willing to sell one off.
Only kidding of course, Mr. Ashcroft.
Did you write your senators and congresspersons?
I had a bunch of letters ready to go to mine a month or so ago (this was about a seperate issue). On the day I was going to mail them, I read that they had all just voted for a pay raise for themselves, at a time when thousands of their constituents are losing their jobs or facing pay cuts.
The Senate and the House don't care about what their constituents think, unless it's something that *so many* people are concerned with that it will threaten their chances of re-election. IMO this will not qualify.
it would help many ill-informed people if you would please state your source for this information.
One of the easiest ways to verify his status as a jerk is to read pretty much any biography of Tesla.
Tesla invented a ton of technologies that we use everyday, like AC electricity and flourescent lighting. Because he wasn't the greatest businessperson, many of them were stolen by people like Edison (who he worked for briefly).
Most people think of Edison as a great inventor. I think of him as a thief who was so bent on discrediting Tesla's AC electricity in favour of his own DC that he used it to electrocute a bunch of animals to death on film.
I've seen my uncle do it with "Mail Pouch" tobacco.
That makes sense, actually. If you soak a pack of cigarettes in water, it makes a decent insecticide, because the nicotine is poisonous.
The X-Files used this as the premise for an episode a few years ago.
to see the stuff I'm sharing on my university's internal Direct Connect hub
There really needs to be a moratorium on the use of the words "direct" and "connect" in the names of software products.
I think I've read about this particular software before, but OTOH I work with software that uses a gateway tool called Direct Connect, a transfer tool called Connect:Direct, and I see billboards for cellphones that have Direct Connect as a feature buzzword. Or is it Connect Direct?
+1 bonus pre-emptively removed for being offtopic
AOL was not an internet company until long after the internet became a sensation.
AOL was certainly the first major "easy to use" ISP that I saw. I signed up for my first dial access account (on a local ISP) in 1992, and I still remember when AOL users started flooding online.
Prodigy? Compuserve? GEnie? Fidonet? Thousands of amateur BBSes?
None of these provided a friendly, graphical UI for internet use.
I'm not a fan of AOL, but I can certainly see why they were able to sign so many people up. When they came online, pretty much everything else was text UI-based. AOL users had a GUI several years before I did.
A reasonable dialer/tcp stack and netscape >=3 was more than adequate - gives you email, web and usenet.
I believe the original poster's point was that setting up "a reasonable dialer/tcp stack" back in the day was beyond the skills of the average user.
he should tattoo the barcode on his hand... kinda like a "fingerprint"
If this worked, it wouldn't for long.
I've got my SSN tattooed as a barcode on my forearm. It's just for looks, since even if by some miracle the artist was able to make the lines as razor-straight as they need to be, the change in size of your muscles and skin over time would distort it enough to make it non-machine-readable.
The last time I went to the dentist, one of the assistants saw my tattoo and told me a long story about her son who was in the US special forces. Apparently they'd had some kind of plan to use them as replacements for dog tags, but ditched it in favour of implanted microchips like you can get for pets, since there's a lot less hassle involved. Obviously I can't confirm the truth of that though.