It's not the format per se. Safari on the mac pops them open in a new tab for me as quickly as opening a standard web-page, which is quick. You should look at other options for PDF's, and I think you'd have a different view of them.
Webkit is an Open Source component included with, and utilized by, the shipping version of Mac OS, which can be removed and replaced, or rewritten or remodeled in whatever manner the user requires (whether that user is the IT manager of a large installed base or a one-man developer's shop like myself who loves to tweak for whatever arcane performance enhancements can be had). The IE rendering engine and related code is (according to MS) an integral, interwoven thread of code vital to the operation of a monolithic, proprietary operating system it is illegal to tamper with under the terms of the EULA and, according to MS testimony under oath, this relevant code is to be considered in substance as identical to the operating system itself, the removal or revision of which would cause irreparable harm to the product in question (MS Windows).
"Actually, come to think of it, I have no idea how come religion (specifically, christianism) is so powerful in such a developped country as the USA..."
The possession of property has nothing to do with enlightenment, for an individual or for a culture. The twin myths of material progress = spiritual or intellectual enoblement (each fallacy possessed in its own way by both Capitalism and Communism) is also indicated in your surprise at this state of affairs. And there are some analyses (not mine necessarily) that would suggest since the USA is the richest country on the planet, it would necessarily be the stupidest. "To eat & sleep well does not make one civilised....".
Consumer responses in product surveys are as insightful (or not, rather) as the articles written about them. And from the article: "Apple needs a new high-end device that works really well and looks really cool...". So of course that means Apple is finished -- since when have they ever done that?
Really I think, the issue isn't what MS has come up with to compete (if Zune is the best they can do even for the moment, I'm not inspired) but the overall likelyhood that, round-of-competition for round-of-competition, Apple will have that increment that, on a product v. product basis, keeps them on top. In other words, if the basis of comparision is purely product, Apple is pretty much always going to win. What will make the difference (and is the only thing that every has) are ancillary issues such as licensing and compatibility. Until Apple looses those advantages or they become a disadvantage for Apple, the iPod will remain on top, if even marginally.
If there was ever a need for moving Mod points to +6 level it's the parent-post.
Increasing the level of technology involved in any endeavor increases exponentially the human interventions involved, which increases the possibility that errors can be accidently introduced, which makes it possible to introduce errors intentionally, which (if even short of gaming the result) can call into question an entire district's reported results, and when seen already that the Supreme Court doesn't want us to waste time on verifying the exactitudes of such a small number of votes, regardless of how major that impact might be....
Technology doesn't muck thinks up. Technology makes it possible for people to muck things up and get away with it. (Speaking as another software developer).
Can we forsee some "pranksters" running around trying to figure out the frequency on cop guns?
That's not bad. Imagine though being able to disable the firing of any number of weapons in any given circumstance; say, a SWAT team in a hostage/terrorist standoff, etc. For certain reasons I'd imagine that this technology would never be applied to law enforcement.
Now imagine that SWAT team (or any law enforcement team) being able to disable any civilian weapon at will....
Finite9 is dead-on right (and his post should be modded up) -- reading through nearly all the posts in this topic I'm dismayed by how little Creative Commons is understood (and how much copyright in general is misunderstood). I follow the issue very closely because I'm a professional writer (both within the industry as a technical writer and as an author of fiction) and have written code for commercial distribution (nowadays I limit my engineering efforts to open source projects) and it's a part of my professional duty and responsibility to know and understand copyright and licensing. It should be everyone's, and assuming that a goodly share of Slashdot are also contributors to the culture or to the industry in some way or another, this manifest degree of misunderstanding bodes ill for everyone. It's no wonder that those who would abuse our rights for their own profit have been so flagrant in their abuses, and successful in their attempts. For better or worse this is not the 18th Century anymore (nor are we still 18 year olds if you know what I mean) and smug ignorance is no adequate defense against the real IP thieves.
"What would be far more useful would be a way to tag Creative Commons documents in web pages, and then if some search engine (Google? please?) would explicitly label Creative Commons results as such..."
There is; on the web badge code, the following (or, depending on the license, something similar) is encapsulated:
I vary between fruit juices early in the morning (not punches or such, just unadulterated juices, which are easy to find & cheaper usually, and most specifically the tart ones, cranberry, grapefruit, etc.); a cup of coffee in the am and then for and after lunch iced tea (unsweetened, no lemon) for the caffeine; V8 Juice (vegetable juice cocktail, a couple cans during the day) and icewater with lemon twist (alot of this for hydration especially in the summer. If you need more caffeine add a cup more of the coffee after lunch; but you really don't need that much caffeine; you'll find the good nutrients in the rest of what you drink give you plenty of clear-headed energy, and moderate your appetite as well. It may seem a lot of trouble at first to maintain a variety in your liquid diet and it does at first but quickly becomes easy to manage. It is certainly healthier, and makes the occasional sugary ice cold very fizzy soda extra refreshing.
I'm always skeptical of blanket prescriptions for health care, or for what IT can and cannot do in the macroeconomic sense to solve a problem. For example, "the government 'has estimated that health IT can add $140 billion a year to the productivity of the $2 trillion health care industry.'" Is that indeed added to the 'productivity' of the industry, or is that added to the cost? The Dell implementation looks innovative (to a degree) and hopefully for them (and their employeees) will show a benefit; but I can already hear the chorus of those who have fought against real reform in the healthcare industry saying that the best solution is throw more IT at the problem. IT has never really worked any better than the proverbial money we used to throw.
They aren't really the music industry, after all - they are the "distributing plastic discs" industry. With online purchasing dead they would hope people might buy plastic discs again.
And that bears repeating. Since when did we start calling them "The Music Industry" anyway? Used to be, we referred to them as "The Recording Industry". Music isn't an industry per se, it is (or was) an art form. Surely it's indicative of the way the argument has been framed in the favor of the RIAA that we mispeak so easily -- to the denigration of the true artists involved (the real producers of the 'product') and the false elevation of the RIAA to a privileged status of ownership.
But I realize that to frame the "IP" argument in real terms (who really owns the work that's produced?) would laid bare more of the recording industries darkside than just the spurious lawsuits against consumer "pirates". And again it comes back to Copyright -- imagine for a moment, in a sane Copyright regime; that I, as the musical artist, possessed only the original exclusivity originally envisioned by the Framers -- then only that limited term could be contracted to a distributor/licensee of the work. After all, you can't legally sell what you don't own.
Imagine then, a marketplace where musicians couldn't sell their souls for a recording contract (or be required to) because (if by 'souls' we mean the absurd "lifetime plus x years" of rights) they don't possess such rights in the first place. One could sell the extent of one's (reasonable) rights (say, 5 years?) which is close enough to the existing shelf life of the product in the industries marketing cycle anyway. After that, anyone could record and market the music (or a version of it) but, then, so could the artist themselves (John Fogerty, anyone?) or the fans themselves (ala Phish, the Dead, etc. or in fact the situation that is slowly being obtained sub rosa...). Of course Lessig's been saying somewhat the same all this time as well, in terms of how a reasonable regime would act in furtherance of the arts and of culture. Imagine the ramifications of it. Information may or may not want to be free, but culture certainly does, and will work to free itself of restraint by nature.
Their business is distribution - yet they want to continue to exist even when distribution is no longer necessary, or at least what minor amount is necessary is now handled by the customer.
What the recording industry is contending with now is the tendency of society to organize itself along such a more reasonable and natural (and much more efficient) mode of operation. That is real enterprise at work. The RIAA (and the MPAA et al.) are attempting through monopolism (a kind of state-assisted terrorism in this case) to maintain an artificial marketplace that technology and culture are conspiring to transcend. Personally, my money is on the latter agents of economic evolution. And the fact that it's all devolved into the hands of attorneys and accountants shows how close the end is near for this so-called "industry".
Even though this particular story is local to the Wisconsin statehouse, it will be interesting to see what actual language ends up in their bill. If done well this could make an excellent template for us to push out to our own state and federal legislators. We've gotta start somewhere with a serious effort to regulate this into openness.
...us poor Windows users are left with everything else....
You realize, that Mac users have access to everything else as well, but we aren't limited to it.
A user-friendly, economically viable alternative, actively supported by both the industry (in the widest sense -- by this I mean the indies as well as the RIAA goons) and consumers should be a welcome thing, regardless of platform.
(We should also assume that, not being a Mac user, you haven't used the Apple Music Store -- so your satisfaction with the existing services should be taken on spec, as it were.)
InDesign really does deserve to take over at this point...agreed. I've already made the switch and once I got used to a slightly different workflow my productivity has improved. Since I'm already intimately familiar (so to speak) with the general Adobe interface it was easy to switch, and overall, it's more comfortable than the Quark interface. Quark users really ought to give it a try.
After all, imagine going in the other direction....
This news seems to be in keeping with the gathering tedency of reactions I've seen -- it does put Hillary Rosen's announce retirement into an interesting light. I think now would be a great time for a serious, concerted and public stand from a united group of civil and cyber liberties groups. At the very least everyone who is on the consumer side of the issues should be making common-cause together. I think the momentum is with us, and not the RIAA.
This sounds like a collection which will become more valuable as more people have access to the actual content of the collections.
Yes, this is an excellent example of the theory that information becomes more valuable the more it is disseminated, and more people discover it, and find value in it. Well said.
there is no (nor should there be any) law against getting into really sweetheart deals at the expense of the other party....
Three scenarios:
1. Your beloved wife dies, and you are paid her life insurance to compensate. You are rich, but miserable.
2. You have grown disenchanted with your marriage, and murder your wife for the insurance money.
3. You actively seek out rich women to marry and murder.
Now, business contracts with such terms as Sendo/MS implemented exist to obtain, if necessary, in worst cases, a situation similar to the First scenario. On the face of the evidence, MS operated according to the Second, and may additionally (upon examination) be shown to have operating along the lines of the Third.
This is not business as usual -- unless you are, say, an Enron executive. And it's a really bad time for MS to be proven of that ilk in court...
Slashdot Mirror
It's not the format per se. Safari on the mac pops them open in a new tab for me as quickly as opening a standard web-page, which is quick. You should look at other options for PDF's, and I think you'd have a different view of them.
Webkit is an Open Source component included with, and utilized by, the shipping version of Mac OS, which can be removed and replaced, or rewritten or remodeled in whatever manner the user requires (whether that user is the IT manager of a large installed base or a one-man developer's shop like myself who loves to tweak for whatever arcane performance enhancements can be had). The IE rendering engine and related code is (according to MS) an integral, interwoven thread of code vital to the operation of a monolithic, proprietary operating system it is illegal to tamper with under the terms of the EULA and, according to MS testimony under oath, this relevant code is to be considered in substance as identical to the operating system itself, the removal or revision of which would cause irreparable harm to the product in question (MS Windows).
Very different.
The possession of property has nothing to do with enlightenment, for an individual or for a culture. The twin myths of material progress = spiritual or intellectual enoblement (each fallacy possessed in its own way by both Capitalism and Communism) is also indicated in your surprise at this state of affairs. And there are some analyses (not mine necessarily) that would suggest since the USA is the richest country on the planet, it would necessarily be the stupidest. "To eat & sleep well does not make one civilised....".
Really I think, the issue isn't what MS has come up with to compete (if Zune is the best they can do even for the moment, I'm not inspired) but the overall likelyhood that, round-of-competition for round-of-competition, Apple will have that increment that, on a product v. product basis, keeps them on top. In other words, if the basis of comparision is purely product, Apple is pretty much always going to win. What will make the difference (and is the only thing that every has) are ancillary issues such as licensing and compatibility. Until Apple looses those advantages or they become a disadvantage for Apple, the iPod will remain on top, if even marginally.
If there was ever a need for moving Mod points to +6 level it's the parent-post. Increasing the level of technology involved in any endeavor increases exponentially the human interventions involved, which increases the possibility that errors can be accidently introduced, which makes it possible to introduce errors intentionally, which (if even short of gaming the result) can call into question an entire district's reported results, and when seen already that the Supreme Court doesn't want us to waste time on verifying the exactitudes of such a small number of votes, regardless of how major that impact might be.... Technology doesn't muck thinks up. Technology makes it possible for people to muck things up and get away with it. (Speaking as another software developer).
That's not bad. Imagine though being able to disable the firing of any number of weapons in any given circumstance; say, a SWAT team in a hostage/terrorist standoff, etc. For certain reasons I'd imagine that this technology would never be applied to law enforcement.
Now imagine that SWAT team (or any law enforcement team) being able to disable any civilian weapon at will....
Hmm, wonder what the NRA has to say about this.
Finite9 is dead-on right (and his post should be modded up) -- reading through nearly all the posts in this topic I'm dismayed by how little Creative Commons is understood (and how much copyright in general is misunderstood). I follow the issue very closely because I'm a professional writer (both within the industry as a technical writer and as an author of fiction) and have written code for commercial distribution (nowadays I limit my engineering efforts to open source projects) and it's a part of my professional duty and responsibility to know and understand copyright and licensing. It should be everyone's, and assuming that a goodly share of Slashdot are also contributors to the culture or to the industry in some way or another, this manifest degree of misunderstanding bodes ill for everyone. It's no wonder that those who would abuse our rights for their own profit have been so flagrant in their abuses, and successful in their attempts. For better or worse this is not the 18th Century anymore (nor are we still 18 year olds if you know what I mean) and smug ignorance is no adequate defense against the real IP thieves.
"What would be far more useful would be a way to tag Creative Commons documents in web pages, and then if some search engine (Google? please?) would explicitly label Creative Commons results as such..."
x -ns#">/ by/2.5/" />/ 2.5/">i on" />t ion" />t ion" />v eWorks" /> />
There is; on the web badge code, the following (or, depending on the license, something similar) is encapsulated:
<rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-synta
<Work rdf:about="">
<license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses
</Work>
<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by
<requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribut
<permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduc
<permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribu
<permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Derivati
<requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"
</License>
</rdf:RDF>
It's up to the browser/search engine/application as to what is done with it.
I vary between fruit juices early in the morning (not punches or such, just unadulterated juices, which are easy to find & cheaper usually, and most specifically the tart ones, cranberry, grapefruit, etc.); a cup of coffee in the am and then for and after lunch iced tea (unsweetened, no lemon) for the caffeine; V8 Juice (vegetable juice cocktail, a couple cans during the day) and icewater with lemon twist (alot of this for hydration especially in the summer. If you need more caffeine add a cup more of the coffee after lunch; but you really don't need that much caffeine; you'll find the good nutrients in the rest of what you drink give you plenty of clear-headed energy, and moderate your appetite as well. It may seem a lot of trouble at first to maintain a variety in your liquid diet and it does at first but quickly becomes easy to manage. It is certainly healthier, and makes the occasional sugary ice cold very fizzy soda extra refreshing.
I'm always skeptical of blanket prescriptions for health care, or for what IT can and cannot do in the macroeconomic sense to solve a problem. For example, "the government 'has estimated that health IT can add $140 billion a year to the productivity of the $2 trillion health care industry.'" Is that indeed added to the 'productivity' of the industry, or is that added to the cost? The Dell implementation looks innovative (to a degree) and hopefully for them (and their employeees) will show a benefit; but I can already hear the chorus of those who have fought against real reform in the healthcare industry saying that the best solution is throw more IT at the problem. IT has never really worked any better than the proverbial money we used to throw.
They aren't really the music industry, after all - they are the "distributing plastic discs" industry. With online purchasing dead they would hope people might buy plastic discs again.
And that bears repeating. Since when did we start calling them "The Music Industry" anyway? Used to be, we referred to them as "The Recording Industry". Music isn't an industry per se, it is (or was) an art form. Surely it's indicative of the way the argument has been framed in the favor of the RIAA that we mispeak so easily -- to the denigration of the true artists involved (the real producers of the 'product') and the false elevation of the RIAA to a privileged status of ownership.
But I realize that to frame the "IP" argument in real terms (who really owns the work that's produced?) would laid bare more of the recording industries darkside than just the spurious lawsuits against consumer "pirates". And again it comes back to Copyright -- imagine for a moment, in a sane Copyright regime; that I, as the musical artist, possessed only the original exclusivity originally envisioned by the Framers -- then only that limited term could be contracted to a distributor/licensee of the work. After all, you can't legally sell what you don't own.
Imagine then, a marketplace where musicians couldn't sell their souls for a recording contract (or be required to) because (if by 'souls' we mean the absurd "lifetime plus x years" of rights) they don't possess such rights in the first place. One could sell the extent of one's (reasonable) rights (say, 5 years?) which is close enough to the existing shelf life of the product in the industries marketing cycle anyway. After that, anyone could record and market the music (or a version of it) but, then, so could the artist themselves (John Fogerty, anyone?) or the fans themselves (ala Phish, the Dead, etc. or in fact the situation that is slowly being obtained sub rosa...). Of course Lessig's been saying somewhat the same all this time as well, in terms of how a reasonable regime would act in furtherance of the arts and of culture. Imagine the ramifications of it. Information may or may not want to be free, but culture certainly does, and will work to free itself of restraint by nature.
Their business is distribution - yet they want to continue to exist even when distribution is no longer necessary, or at least what minor amount is necessary is now handled by the customer.
What the recording industry is contending with now is the tendency of society to organize itself along such a more reasonable and natural (and much more efficient) mode of operation. That is real enterprise at work. The RIAA (and the MPAA et al.) are attempting through monopolism (a kind of state-assisted terrorism in this case) to maintain an artificial marketplace that technology and culture are conspiring to transcend. Personally, my money is on the latter agents of economic evolution. And the fact that it's all devolved into the hands of attorneys and accountants shows how close the end is near for this so-called "industry".
How many blogs require me (as Forbes does) to sign-up and log-in in order to read them?
They left it out there in the wild just long enough to prove how well they could do it.
Even though this particular story is local to the Wisconsin statehouse, it will be interesting to see what actual language ends up in their bill. If done well this could make an excellent template for us to push out to our own state and federal legislators. We've gotta start somewhere with a serious effort to regulate this into openness.
(I'd try to come up with a punchline myself but I've been dream-deprived lately.)
Shouldn't that read "very small shill scripts"?
p.nicelabelstyle {
padding-top : 4pt;
padding-bottom : 5pt;
padding-right : 8pt;
padding-left : 8pt;
font : bold 9pt "Trebuchet MS", Times, serif;
color : white;
background : #660000;
display : inline;
}
apply this to an html or xhtml bit. View it in MSIE on the Window or Mac Platform. View on in Safari, or a Mozilla browser on Mac or Linux platforms.
MS supports CSS like they support PNG graphics.
You realize, that Mac users have access to everything else as well, but we aren't limited to it.
A user-friendly, economically viable alternative, actively supported by both the industry (in the widest sense -- by this I mean the indies as well as the RIAA goons) and consumers should be a welcome thing, regardless of platform.
(We should also assume that, not being a Mac user, you haven't used the Apple Music Store -- so your satisfaction with the existing services should be taken on spec, as it were.)
After all, imagine going in the other direction....
This news seems to be in keeping with the gathering tedency of reactions I've seen -- it does put Hillary Rosen's announce retirement into an interesting light. I think now would be a great time for a serious, concerted and public stand from a united group of civil and cyber liberties groups. At the very least everyone who is on the consumer side of the issues should be making common-cause together. I think the momentum is with us, and not the RIAA.
Yes, this is an excellent example of the theory that information becomes more valuable the more it is disseminated, and more people discover it, and find value in it. Well said.
Three scenarios:
1. Your beloved wife dies, and you are paid her life insurance to compensate. You are rich, but miserable.
2. You have grown disenchanted with your marriage, and murder your wife for the insurance money.
3. You actively seek out rich women to marry and murder.
Now, business contracts with such terms as Sendo/MS implemented exist to obtain, if necessary, in worst cases, a situation similar to the First scenario. On the face of the evidence, MS operated according to the Second, and may additionally (upon examination) be shown to have operating along the lines of the Third.
This is not business as usual -- unless you are, say, an Enron executive. And it's a really bad time for MS to be proven of that ilk in court...
And with UNIX as the engine, it's full speed ahead....
Everything is a sport. We just hand out the Prizes....
Aha! I knew I'd find a use for Unicode someday....