And this is, like, my biggest problem listening to a lot of kids today, you know? Like, they don't have a clue, like, how to to actually, like, describe something. You know? It's like they, like, assume you like, somehow, automatically know what they mean. And that you've, like, been there. Ya know?
Given those kind of assumptions, I tend to doubt the majority of them could accurately describe a thought, emotion, person, or place if their lives depended upon it. Certainly not well enough to form a descriptive paragraph. And it's been proven time and again that if you don't have the words for somethiing, you can't wrap your head around it mentally, nor think about it coherently.
Agreed, in that the article epitomizes bias with a capital B. The system is enabling users to --selectively-- lock MS/Adobe documents on notebooks, which after all, have a rather high theft rate.
And it "records" fingerprints. Oh my. Of course, many systems of this type only record data points and are unable to reconstruct the fingerprint from those points. This could be of that type, though I doubt the author would admit it. Even so, please explain to me how recording the fingerprint of someone who's trying to gain unauthorized access to MY secure data is a bad thing?
Fundamentally, the author is spinning each point to "prove" his agenda. Personally, what I gain primarily from this article is that Information Week's editorial standards are lower than I thought...
Several sites have compared the MacBook Pro to comparable systems by others, and by the time you add in the software, video, and all the other bells and whistles the Mac is about $100 more. (Actually, given the thin, creaky, plastic eggshells that enclose most other notebooks on the market, I'd still argue about "comparable".)
If quality, elegance and industrial design had no value, people wouldn't buy BMW's and Mercedes...
Yes, as my current computer is running a multi-button Logitech using Apple's drivers. And in fact, they even sell a multi-button mouse. (Mighty Mouse) Though you are right, there should be a school...
"If I have bought a retail copy of Mac OS X 10.4..."
Check the box. You bought an upgrade to an existing copy of MacOS/OS X, not a full copy. Apple doesn't sell full copies of OS X, only upgrades. As such, does your Pegasos box already have OS X running on it? MacOS 9? Didn't think so.
Wow. In your rambling discourse you pretty much managed to tag all of your pet peeves, except perhaps for "W" and the obligitory MS bash. I'm sure their omission was accidental, however.
And I don't want to say your arguments don't support your conclusion, but... your arguments don't support your conclusions. First, I think you're rather dramatically overstating the amount of penetration, and by extension, the impact, of OSS. What percentage of how many boxes run Linux, again?
Second, do you think IBM, to pick an example, is into OSS for their health? Or do you think, just maybe, they believe they'll make up lost software sales in service, maintenance, and support, and in the hardware needed to deploy those solutions? It could just be me, but since they're still in the game, I suspect that they have to numbers to back up those beliefs.
Third, and while we're on the subject, your thesis totally ignores any productivity and time-to-market gains generated by deploying OSS solutions. To paraphrase an old saying, people don't want web servers, they want leads, prospects, and sales. So what OSS does do is not "lose money", but increase it, by providing smaller companies with tools and technologies and services formerly reserved to the Fortune 1000 crowd.
That being the case, I think we can safely ignore the rest of your rant and their supposed macro-economic implications.
Depends on your definition of "integrated". iBackup is available to.Mac members, integrates with iDisk for offsite/online backups, and digs into the OS to backup bookmarks, contacts, and other hidden settings.
Walk into your local bookstore and look around. Now tell me what percentage of those tens of thousands of titles do you think is a "winner" that will stay in print and that the author will be able to milk for the rest of their lives? (Hint: 5% is way, way too high.)
And some people can win the lottery too. The vast majority of us, however do not. Most of the authors in that store will do well if they're able to make their car payments. Even when one does hit, such arguments ALWAYS seem to ignore the amount of time, training, effort, and skill involved it took to get to that point in the first place.
The bottom line is the for every King or Clancy there are 100,000 other writers who just get by. Same for musicians. But your line is that we need to demolish the system because someone has the potential to hit the Powerball.
Worse, because in their case they managed to create something that people actually wanted, valued, and were willing to pay for...
I think he means that such is no longer perceived as the primary route. Is the average American teen more likely to perceive themselves becoming a nuclear physicist... or hitting the big time on American Idol? In the garage working on whatever will create the next Microsoft... or recording their garage band? Landing a college scholarship to become an engineer... or as the next step in getting picked up by the NFL?
Unfortunately, too many of those kids also flunked math, and don't understand that the odds of any one of those things leading to success as being highly unlikely, and that what is likely is that they're about to enjoy a long and unprosperous career in the food service industry.
I also think American business has also, for all intents and purposes, posioned the well. The smart students can still read, and when the news is full of stories about companies closing research divisions and outsourcing the ones they didn't close to India or China they tend to think that maybe, just maybe, there isn't a future in research and technology anymore.
Precisely. I know lot's of people who get home from work and then spend five hours straight watching the tube. Are they addicted? Others spend hours reading? How about them? Hours on the phone gossiping? I have another friend who plays about 12-15 hours of volleyball a week.
Are these people "addicted", or just spending time doing what they enjoy.
Personally, this seems to be yet another case of the media attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill...
If you want to debate nature vs. nurture, I'd say that it's equally probable, especially when history is taken into account, that society (upbringing, church, school) has conditioned them against doing so.
And why would you be dumb enough to buy software for a computer you don't own? I suppose you regualary go out and buy XBox games for your Playstation too...
So what? I can't lay down the bucks for a Mercedes either. Doesn't mean I'm going to go steal one. If someone is that cheap, or broke, use Linux. Just because someone rationalizes that they have a computing "need" doesn't make it suddenly okay to copy whatever they want. Especially when there are free alternatives available.
And I dare say that if they acutally wanted it badly enough, they'd find a way to pay for it, just like I did as a kid when I wanted a new bike. Unfortunately, that means they'd actually have to work for it, and that they can't have it "now", a major drawback to the instant-gratification crowd.
And I think most who do this simply copy what they want not because they don't have the money, but so they can spend their "loot" on other things not so easily stolen.
Actually, I agree with Thomas, one cannot own an "idea". One can not patent the "idea" of a car.
That said, one can patent an invention, a specific design or way to construct a car's engine. While I can't copyright the idea of young wizards at school, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is not an idea, but a specific and concrete implementation of those characters, those places, and those events.
Lot's of people have "ideas". Few actually do the work to implement them. Those who do have the "potential" to be compensated for their time and efforts, and for the risks undertaken.
Let me say that I'm a proponent of fair use, and believe copyright terms should be shortened, not lengthened. That said, I also believe the current system of incentive, while not perfect and while sometimes subject to abuse, works.
As such, I'm not one for overturning the applecart until someone can show me a system that works equally well, and protects the rights of all parties involved, creator and consumer alike.
As a professional writer, commercial software developer, and ex-professional photographer, who's dealt with copyright issues most of his adult life, let me assure you that I am not the one who's "dead wrong".
Any work I create is automatically protected by copyright from the moment of publication. I don't have to ask Congress for "permission", nor wait for permission to be granted.
Should Congress decide to change the law as you suggest, then things would be different. As they have yet to do so, however, your interpretation is at the least, flawed, and at best, meaningless.
"The idea of monopoly rights to specific aspects of objects is neither compatible with a free market..."
Of course it is. I spent time, money, effort, and (hopefully) some skill creating a product. You (the market) decide if said product appears to have value to you, upon which you pay some small portion of the cost of its creation. If enough people buy it, then I (and my investors) win. If you don't, we lose, and you've lost nothing in return.
While the individual "duplication" cost of an item such as a movie is small, the up-front investment can be huge, and the risks great. Who's going to take that risk if there's no corresponding reward?
And what's the alternative? Ask millions of people if they want to see a movie about a couple of gay cowboys, and if so, contribute ten bucks up front? How about a bunch of cowboys in space?
Agree. Most of the examples shown were "Yahoo" with the ability to drag stuff around and edit-in-pace. Wow. Color me... unimpressed.
Take a look at your personal computer's desktop. Do you have every document, email, and application you own open on it, running side-by-side at the same time? No? Then why should I expect the wave of the future to be a personal web page?
Want the future? Extrapolate from an "always-connected" world. Figure servers will increase in power exponentially. Figure the devices we carry will increase in power exponentially.
With all that, the "future" is an oversized web page? Please.
"Digital tech has cut the cost of video and music production to next to nothing..."
Barriers to making independent films and music have been coming down for years now, and I have yet to see the corresponding wave of new and innovative movies, nor a plethora of great music. Same thing goes for digital photography. Its simply allowed the average photographer to take a lot more average pictures.
Your perspective is that there's a ton of creative people out there being "suppressed". My take on the matter, however, is that reduced barriers to entry simply means that quality, as a whole, will be reduced as the less talented struggle to express their visions.
Or to put it another way, "Garage Band" is named that for a reason...
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Given those kind of assumptions, I tend to doubt the majority of them could accurately describe a thought, emotion, person, or place if their lives depended upon it. Certainly not well enough to form a descriptive paragraph. And it's been proven time and again that if you don't have the words for somethiing, you can't wrap your head around it mentally, nor think about it coherently.
Besides, it's just, like, being lazy. You know?
And it "records" fingerprints. Oh my. Of course, many systems of this type only record data points and are unable to reconstruct the fingerprint from those points. This could be of that type, though I doubt the author would admit it. Even so, please explain to me how recording the fingerprint of someone who's trying to gain unauthorized access to MY secure data is a bad thing?
Fundamentally, the author is spinning each point to "prove" his agenda. Personally, what I gain primarily from this article is that Information Week's editorial standards are lower than I thought...
On the one hand, "most people" don't buy BMWs. On the other, they seem to to be not settling for "good enough", paying the premium for the iPod.
If quality, elegance and industrial design had no value, people wouldn't buy BMW's and Mercedes...
Yes, as my current computer is running a multi-button Logitech using Apple's drivers. And in fact, they even sell a multi-button mouse. (Mighty Mouse) Though you are right, there should be a school...
Check the box. You bought an upgrade to an existing copy of MacOS/OS X, not a full copy. Apple doesn't sell full copies of OS X, only upgrades. As such, does your Pegasos box already have OS X running on it? MacOS 9? Didn't think so.
And I don't want to say your arguments don't support your conclusion, but... your arguments don't support your conclusions. First, I think you're rather dramatically overstating the amount of penetration, and by extension, the impact, of OSS. What percentage of how many boxes run Linux, again?
Second, do you think IBM, to pick an example, is into OSS for their health? Or do you think, just maybe, they believe they'll make up lost software sales in service, maintenance, and support, and in the hardware needed to deploy those solutions? It could just be me, but since they're still in the game, I suspect that they have to numbers to back up those beliefs.
Third, and while we're on the subject, your thesis totally ignores any productivity and time-to-market gains generated by deploying OSS solutions. To paraphrase an old saying, people don't want web servers, they want leads, prospects, and sales. So what OSS does do is not "lose money", but increase it, by providing smaller companies with tools and technologies and services formerly reserved to the Fortune 1000 crowd.
That being the case, I think we can safely ignore the rest of your rant and their supposed macro-economic implications.
Depends on your definition of "integrated". iBackup is available to .Mac members, integrates with iDisk for offsite/online backups, and digs into the OS to backup bookmarks, contacts, and other hidden settings.
And some people can win the lottery too. The vast majority of us, however do not. Most of the authors in that store will do well if they're able to make their car payments. Even when one does hit, such arguments ALWAYS seem to ignore the amount of time, training, effort, and skill involved it took to get to that point in the first place.
The bottom line is the for every King or Clancy there are 100,000 other writers who just get by. Same for musicians. But your line is that we need to demolish the system because someone has the potential to hit the Powerball.
Worse, because in their case they managed to create something that people actually wanted, valued, and were willing to pay for...
Let's see: WikiWord and WikiPoint and WikiPencil and WikiDraw and WikiPaint and WikiShop and WikiPage and WikiWeaver and.......
Unfortunately, too many of those kids also flunked math, and don't understand that the odds of any one of those things leading to success as being highly unlikely, and that what is likely is that they're about to enjoy a long and unprosperous career in the food service industry.
I also think American business has also, for all intents and purposes, posioned the well. The smart students can still read, and when the news is full of stories about companies closing research divisions and outsourcing the ones they didn't close to India or China they tend to think that maybe, just maybe, there isn't a future in research and technology anymore.
Forget the speed. The silly things are shipping now, SO WHAT'S THE BATTERY LIFE????
Are these people "addicted", or just spending time doing what they enjoy.
Personally, this seems to be yet another case of the media attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill...
If you want to debate nature vs. nurture, I'd say that it's equally probable, especially when history is taken into account, that society (upbringing, church, school) has conditioned them against doing so.
And why would you be dumb enough to buy software for a computer you don't own? I suppose you regualary go out and buy XBox games for your Playstation too...
And I dare say that if they acutally wanted it badly enough, they'd find a way to pay for it, just like I did as a kid when I wanted a new bike. Unfortunately, that means they'd actually have to work for it, and that they can't have it "now", a major drawback to the instant-gratification crowd.
And I think most who do this simply copy what they want not because they don't have the money, but so they can spend their "loot" on other things not so easily stolen.
That said, one can patent an invention, a specific design or way to construct a car's engine. While I can't copyright the idea of young wizards at school, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is not an idea, but a specific and concrete implementation of those characters, those places, and those events.
Lot's of people have "ideas". Few actually do the work to implement them. Those who do have the "potential" to be compensated for their time and efforts, and for the risks undertaken.
No, it is not.
I can't tell you how exceedingly cogent and well argued that rebuttal was. I bet you were the terror of your debating squad.
As such, I'm not one for overturning the applecart until someone can show me a system that works equally well, and protects the rights of all parties involved, creator and consumer alike.
Any work I create is automatically protected by copyright from the moment of publication. I don't have to ask Congress for "permission", nor wait for permission to be granted.
Should Congress decide to change the law as you suggest, then things would be different. As they have yet to do so, however, your interpretation is at the least, flawed, and at best, meaningless.
Don't worry. There's always Flash...
Of course it is. I spent time, money, effort, and (hopefully) some skill creating a product. You (the market) decide if said product appears to have value to you, upon which you pay some small portion of the cost of its creation. If enough people buy it, then I (and my investors) win. If you don't, we lose, and you've lost nothing in return.
While the individual "duplication" cost of an item such as a movie is small, the up-front investment can be huge, and the risks great. Who's going to take that risk if there's no corresponding reward?
And what's the alternative? Ask millions of people if they want to see a movie about a couple of gay cowboys, and if so, contribute ten bucks up front? How about a bunch of cowboys in space?
Which part of public domain do you not understand?
Take a look at your personal computer's desktop. Do you have every document, email, and application you own open on it, running side-by-side at the same time? No? Then why should I expect the wave of the future to be a personal web page?
Want the future? Extrapolate from an "always-connected" world. Figure servers will increase in power exponentially. Figure the devices we carry will increase in power exponentially.
With all that, the "future" is an oversized web page? Please.
Barriers to making independent films and music have been coming down for years now, and I have yet to see the corresponding wave of new and innovative movies, nor a plethora of great music. Same thing goes for digital photography. Its simply allowed the average photographer to take a lot more average pictures.
Your perspective is that there's a ton of creative people out there being "suppressed". My take on the matter, however, is that reduced barriers to entry simply means that quality, as a whole, will be reduced as the less talented struggle to express their visions.
Or to put it another way, "Garage Band" is named that for a reason...