Actually, it's not obvious. The XBox 360 for instance is also cheaper, and not getting as much buzz at the moment. (Perhaps just because it isn't 'new' at the moment, but also because it isn't as 'different' as the Wii is.)
Yes, the Wii is cheaper, and yes it is sucessful, but is it sucessful just because it is cheaper? I sincerly doubt it. I think Sony and Nintendo intentionally aimed for different target audiences, and Sony found out that the audience they targeted at didn't exist in the numbers they thought existed. Now they will have to scramble to market a product to an audience it is not designed for. Meanwhile, Nintendo judged their market quite well.
Ratings, if done well, mean that you have better information on what content is in games and can therefore use your common sense better. I have no objections to that use of ratings: As a consumer's guide to help people know what is in each game, so they can make their own choices.
Unfortunately, that's not how ratings are often used and 'sold'.
Hmm, I'd be careful with the word 'rely' here. Open Source software will only work as long as someone maintains it. Many an Open Source project has fallen by the wayside. I understand that someone COULD still be maintaining it because the source is available, but you mentioned a scenario where a company was just a user of the software.
A company can reply upon it, because if needed they can maintain it (or pay someone to do so), at least long enough to migrate at their own pace. It is reliable because it is not going to be cut off because of someone else's whim or mistake. (Which proprietary software could be.)
And yes, OSS isn't always the best choice for a particular situation. But it does have a set of advantages that are often overlooked and undervalued.
...Or, alternatively, you can get a lot of applications that are designed to work to common standards and are easy to modify to your needs.
As for support: There are a number of companies that sell Open Source software support. In fact, that is the main business model of Red Hat (and, largely, of IBM's custom services...)
It is actually easier to do what you describe in Open Source software: They have a desire/need to be interoperable, and there is usually competing projects for any problem domain. You can therefore choose which specific tools work best at any point in the toolchain. Contrast this to proprietary software, which usually is only fully interoperable with other products from the same company.
Better yet: What if your industry isn't computer-related. Computers then are just a tool to help you support your actual business. Open Source then means that you can rely on the software working in the future, for as long as you need it to (not just as long as the company who wrote it finds it profitable), and that you can switch computer support services whenever a better deal comes along. You don't care if it is closed or not: You just want it to work. Now and in the future.
Ok, explain what a web site is to me. A complete, accurate, and comprehensive definition.
I bet I can shoot holes in at least your first attempt. If he knew the 'casual use definition' but realized this case depended on an exact technical definition, even a fairly experienced internet user would probably want to turn to experts.
And if people are converting to greyscale, then you just throw in pixel noise in different colors. Humans, again, will sort out the irrelevent colors and see the letters, but the computer would have to trace them as part of the OCR.
Yeah, but: Moving the Palm cradle is a major pain (the wires aren't designed to plug in and out easily) and it is sold for when you don't want to move it. (The Palm doesn't come with a cradle after all, just the two cables; power and sync. The cradle comes with two more.)
So, this is not designed to be unplugged, and the lights mean nothing. Heck, if they came on when the PDA was plugged in properly they'd be useful, but as they are...
I don't mind the useful ones, the ones that have some meaning... The only one in my room that really bugs me is the light on the Palm cradle. If it turned on when the PDA was in the cradle, or changed color when it finished charging or something, that would be different. But it just comes on when you've pluged in the power cord. (Which you don't even have to do, though then the PDA won't charge...) If it had been left off it would be fine. And it's not even in someplace you can tape over easily.
But a data light on the router, or the power light on something you turn on and off, those are relevent data.
Just to add to this: The habit of washing your hands after going to the bathroom has nothing to do with needing to clean off residue from going to the bathroom. The primary reason it was originally encouraged was because people weren't washing up on a daily basis, at all. As a public hygine issue it was decided to encourage people to wash their hands regualary, and bathrooms normally have running water, so that was a good time to do it. (People do use them every day, and the resources for washing were avalible.)
This is not to say you don't need to wash your hands after wiping your ass. But most people would do that anyway: They'll smell that they need to wash that off. The original public hygene campain that created 'wash your hands when you leave the bathroom' was unrelated to that, and was during the Renaissance, when medicine was re-discovered in Europe.
The short version: BSD: Anyone can use your code, any way they want, as long as they mention your name. GPL: Anyone can use your code, as long as they mention your name and allow others to use the code as you have let them use it. LGPL: Same as GPL, but with some exceptions allowing others not to be bound to your licence if they don't actually touch your code in their project, but just use it.
Other licenses have variations on the above. In general I think most people should stick to one of those three, if for no other reason than to stop the confusion.
Pick the philosophy you like the best. That is the main point.
You don't need the servers to run the program and print out your returns. (Well, mostly.) You need their servers to file electronically. That is what I expect brought down their servers: people attempting to file their returns.
And, when that wasn't working, I expect a fair number of people just printed and mailed in their returns.
As has been said, Congress can pass an illegal law if it wants to, and it will be struck down by the courts.
The mechanisms in place to prevent them from passing the same law again are twofold: One, the people should vote out anyone that stupid. (Ok, so that one's unlikely.) Two, the courts can use previous rulings as precident on similar cases, so all you have to do is point out that the reason that the previous law was illegal is also valid on this law, and the courts will overturn the new law. If the new law is close enough to the old, this will happen in the first court that sees a case on the law, so the effort is futile.
This does not prevent Congress from passing laws that are close to the old law, but are specifically designed to not fall to the same reasoning. That happens all the time.
That depends on the strain of malaria contracted, and even then it is in dispute. (It is hard to tell if certain froms of malaria are cured or just dormant without removing your liver and dissecting it...)
This would do more than just prevent it, though: It has the potential to erradicate it: Malaria only spreads via mosquitos, and it needs a certain 'resident infected population' to remain viable in an area. If a large enough percentage of mosquitos don't transmit it, less people will be infected, and the desease could just die out from being unable to spread.
From what I see they are being careful: testing in contained environments the new mosquitos' reaction to various situations. This could be a very good thing...
Actually, if you want to be technical, 'corn' and 'grain' are roughly synonims, and 'maize' is the correct name for this specific type of corn. Just like 'wheat' is the correct name for a different type of corn...
(This is why you'll find references to 'corn' in European texts predating Columbus: it is being used in the general sense.)
Nobody eats corn as it was created by nature: All the variaties of corn in use today are the result of a centuries-long selective-breeding program.
Genetic engenerring just speeds up the process a lot. Not that we shouldn't be careful: There are dangers in modifying foods, and the amount of change has a direct bearing on the amount of danger.
Just don't claim that 'non-GM' corn is 'as nature intended'. It just took humans longer to modify it.
This is just one idiot columnist, with a poor track record of predicting Apple's decisions, saying what he thinks Apple should do.
Of course, if Apple had listened to him in the past they'd either be another PC manufacutrer, or just plain bankrupt.
My tag for this article is 'makingstuffup'. That's all he's doing. Don't attach anything in this article to Apple, as if they support, endorce, or have even considered it. They haven't, as far as we know.
It's like the honor system at work on the copiers. Each page is $.05us for personal copies. You keep track of how many pages you copy and then pay accounting. See, that's exactly how not to do it: The system there is exactly the same for 'non-honorable' and 'honorable' actions, except that there are several extra (and complicated) steps for the 'honorable' actions.
You are making people work to be honorable. A few will, but not many.
Invert the system: Make people enter a code for every work-related copy (department or project, or something) and give them a personal code for personal copies. Make the personal codes shorter. (Specific to the copiers they are most likely to use.) Then you'll see people pay for the copies.
(Of course, it probably wouldn't be worth it in lost productivity and complaints, but that's not the issue we are discussing.)
To get the honor system to work, they need to make it very easy to buy music. Easier than finding it for free. People will sill 'borrow' from friends, but if it is easy enough to find and buy music through them, then most people won't make the effort to find it for a lower price.
I've seen it several places: I'll refer you to the bottom section of the Wikipedia article on FairPlay which mentions it.
And, yes, we could. In fact, that was how it was found out: someone was sniffing the packets to reverse-engineer the protocol, and realized that the music stream was unencrypted.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's not obvious. The XBox 360 for instance is also cheaper, and not getting as much buzz at the moment. (Perhaps just because it isn't 'new' at the moment, but also because it isn't as 'different' as the Wii is.)
Yes, the Wii is cheaper, and yes it is sucessful, but is it sucessful just because it is cheaper? I sincerly doubt it. I think Sony and Nintendo intentionally aimed for different target audiences, and Sony found out that the audience they targeted at didn't exist in the numbers they thought existed. Now they will have to scramble to market a product to an audience it is not designed for. Meanwhile, Nintendo judged their market quite well.
I tried hard to avoid it, but it just wouldn't let me do anything without it's help...
Clippy.
Ratings, if done well, mean that you have better information on what content is in games and can therefore use your common sense better. I have no objections to that use of ratings: As a consumer's guide to help people know what is in each game, so they can make their own choices.
Unfortunately, that's not how ratings are often used and 'sold'.
Hmm, I'd be careful with the word 'rely' here. Open Source software will only work as long as someone maintains it. Many an Open Source project has fallen by the wayside. I understand that someone COULD still be maintaining it because the source is available, but you mentioned a scenario where a company was just a user of the software.
A company can reply upon it, because if needed they can maintain it (or pay someone to do so), at least long enough to migrate at their own pace. It is reliable because it is not going to be cut off because of someone else's whim or mistake. (Which proprietary software could be.)And yes, OSS isn't always the best choice for a particular situation. But it does have a set of advantages that are often overlooked and undervalued.
...Or, alternatively, you can get a lot of applications that are designed to work to common standards and are easy to modify to your needs.
As for support: There are a number of companies that sell Open Source software support. In fact, that is the main business model of Red Hat (and, largely, of IBM's custom services...)
It is actually easier to do what you describe in Open Source software: They have a desire/need to be interoperable, and there is usually competing projects for any problem domain. You can therefore choose which specific tools work best at any point in the toolchain. Contrast this to proprietary software, which usually is only fully interoperable with other products from the same company.
Better yet: What if your industry isn't computer-related. Computers then are just a tool to help you support your actual business. Open Source then means that you can rely on the software working in the future, for as long as you need it to (not just as long as the company who wrote it finds it profitable), and that you can switch computer support services whenever a better deal comes along. You don't care if it is closed or not: You just want it to work. Now and in the future.
And Open Source is better for that.
Ok, explain what a web site is to me. A complete, accurate, and comprehensive definition.
I bet I can shoot holes in at least your first attempt. If he knew the 'casual use definition' but realized this case depended on an exact technical definition, even a fairly experienced internet user would probably want to turn to experts.
And if people are converting to greyscale, then you just throw in pixel noise in different colors. Humans, again, will sort out the irrelevent colors and see the letters, but the computer would have to trace them as part of the OCR.
Yeah, but: Moving the Palm cradle is a major pain (the wires aren't designed to plug in and out easily) and it is sold for when you don't want to move it. (The Palm doesn't come with a cradle after all, just the two cables; power and sync. The cradle comes with two more.)
So, this is not designed to be unplugged, and the lights mean nothing. Heck, if they came on when the PDA was plugged in properly they'd be useful, but as they are...
I don't mind the useful ones, the ones that have some meaning... The only one in my room that really bugs me is the light on the Palm cradle. If it turned on when the PDA was in the cradle, or changed color when it finished charging or something, that would be different. But it just comes on when you've pluged in the power cord. (Which you don't even have to do, though then the PDA won't charge...) If it had been left off it would be fine. And it's not even in someplace you can tape over easily.
But a data light on the router, or the power light on something you turn on and off, those are relevent data.
Just to add to this: The habit of washing your hands after going to the bathroom has nothing to do with needing to clean off residue from going to the bathroom. The primary reason it was originally encouraged was because people weren't washing up on a daily basis, at all. As a public hygine issue it was decided to encourage people to wash their hands regualary, and bathrooms normally have running water, so that was a good time to do it. (People do use them every day, and the resources for washing were avalible.)
This is not to say you don't need to wash your hands after wiping your ass. But most people would do that anyway: They'll smell that they need to wash that off. The original public hygene campain that created 'wash your hands when you leave the bathroom' was unrelated to that, and was during the Renaissance, when medicine was re-discovered in Europe.
The short version:
BSD: Anyone can use your code, any way they want, as long as they mention your name.
GPL: Anyone can use your code, as long as they mention your name and allow others to use the code as you have let them use it.
LGPL: Same as GPL, but with some exceptions allowing others not to be bound to your licence if they don't actually touch your code in their project, but just use it.
Other licenses have variations on the above. In general I think most people should stick to one of those three, if for no other reason than to stop the confusion.
Pick the philosophy you like the best. That is the main point.
You don't need the servers to run the program and print out your returns. (Well, mostly.) You need their servers to file electronically. That is what I expect brought down their servers: people attempting to file their returns.
And, when that wasn't working, I expect a fair number of people just printed and mailed in their returns.
Also, if you are not getting a refund, filing on the last day makes fiancial sense, as you can earn interest on your money up until the last day.
(Ok, so only if you don't know that you can post-date your filing, but...)
As has been said, Congress can pass an illegal law if it wants to, and it will be struck down by the courts.
The mechanisms in place to prevent them from passing the same law again are twofold: One, the people should vote out anyone that stupid. (Ok, so that one's unlikely.) Two, the courts can use previous rulings as precident on similar cases, so all you have to do is point out that the reason that the previous law was illegal is also valid on this law, and the courts will overturn the new law. If the new law is close enough to the old, this will happen in the first court that sees a case on the law, so the effort is futile.
This does not prevent Congress from passing laws that are close to the old law, but are specifically designed to not fall to the same reasoning. That happens all the time.
That depends on the strain of malaria contracted, and even then it is in dispute. (It is hard to tell if certain froms of malaria are cured or just dormant without removing your liver and dissecting it...)
This would do more than just prevent it, though: It has the potential to erradicate it: Malaria only spreads via mosquitos, and it needs a certain 'resident infected population' to remain viable in an area. If a large enough percentage of mosquitos don't transmit it, less people will be infected, and the desease could just die out from being unable to spread.
From what I see they are being careful: testing in contained environments the new mosquitos' reaction to various situations. This could be a very good thing...
You are right, let me rephrase: "Just don't claim that 'non-GM' corn is 'as the Flying Spaghetti Monster intended.'"
There. That should be better...
Actually, if you want to be technical, 'corn' and 'grain' are roughly synonims, and 'maize' is the correct name for this specific type of corn. Just like 'wheat' is the correct name for a different type of corn...
(This is why you'll find references to 'corn' in European texts predating Columbus: it is being used in the general sense.)
Nobody eats corn as it was created by nature: All the variaties of corn in use today are the result of a centuries-long selective-breeding program.
Genetic engenerring just speeds up the process a lot. Not that we shouldn't be careful: There are dangers in modifying foods, and the amount of change has a direct bearing on the amount of danger.
Just don't claim that 'non-GM' corn is 'as nature intended'. It just took humans longer to modify it.
My addition: Growl - Notification manager. Free. Supported by enough Mac apps to make you wish they all supported it.
This is just one idiot columnist, with a poor track record of predicting Apple's decisions, saying what he thinks Apple should do.
Of course, if Apple had listened to him in the past they'd either be another PC manufacutrer, or just plain bankrupt.
My tag for this article is 'makingstuffup'. That's all he's doing. Don't attach anything in this article to Apple, as if they support, endorce, or have even considered it. They haven't, as far as we know.
You are making people work to be honorable. A few will, but not many.
Invert the system: Make people enter a code for every work-related copy (department or project, or something) and give them a personal code for personal copies. Make the personal codes shorter. (Specific to the copiers they are most likely to use.) Then you'll see people pay for the copies.
(Of course, it probably wouldn't be worth it in lost productivity and complaints, but that's not the issue we are discussing.)
To get the honor system to work, they need to make it very easy to buy music. Easier than finding it for free. People will sill 'borrow' from friends, but if it is easy enough to find and buy music through them, then most people won't make the effort to find it for a lower price.
I've seen it several places: I'll refer you to the bottom section of the Wikipedia article on FairPlay which mentions it.
And, yes, we could. In fact, that was how it was found out: someone was sniffing the packets to reverse-engineer the protocol, and realized that the music stream was unencrypted.