MS isn't the power house that they once were. They're more like the obese ex-college football star that thinks they're still the big fast hunk they once were
Just saw my first full length film in 3D, and I don't need that in my house. It just doesn't add that much to the viewing experience. I'll be skipping blu-ray.
Why one man's opinion gets a mod-up to *3, Informative on Slashdot remains a mystery to me.
Avatar grossed $1 Billion US Dollars in eighteen days. Up delivered a very respectable $293 million.
I'll take that as evidence the 3D experience does matter.
Laws were meant to keep people from harming one another. "sexting" harms no one.
That assumes that the sender and receiver are playing by the same rules - and the communication is genuinely private.
Not being intercepted and exploited by others.
You have a problem is one of the parties a minor and the other an adult. You have a problem if the text or images are being shared or broadcast without consent.
we have kind of a "feel free to use the internet as you wish" policy. This actually works out quite well. They basically say "hey, if you end up doing illegal stuff, you're screwed, otherwise we don't care as long as you get to do your work."
I have to say this makes me itch a little.
The president of our school board made his departure when his racist and sexist e-mail attachments became publicly known.
Not quite so damning to your organization as when an immense stash of child porn is found on your corporate servers. But it will do for a start.
The call from the Bishop. The Eye-Witness News truck out front.
The correct extension of the principle of respecting other's values is "we should respect the wishes of the people of local countries". The people are not synonymous with their government....
But neither are they necessarily in sympathy with other governments and other cultures.
Particularly when outsiders try to ignore or evade local laws and traditions.
The libertarian geek can look a lot like a cultural imperialist - hell-bent on imposing his own beliefs and values on everyone.
This means that the only OS and browser numbers being tracked are those from users who specifically visit those member sites, which include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and InformationWeek. If specific demographics of users--like, say, Linux users--don't tend to read those types of sites, they are going to be underrepresented,
The Moz Foundation is a Net Applications client.
Opera. Nokia. Adobe. Apple. Microsoft. RIM. D&B. CNN. Roche. Amazon.
The geek who hasn't ventured out of his grandma's basement in the last decade might be overlooked.
But the odds seem very good that you will be counted.
The problem is the things that make a netbook so desirable by a lot of people - amazing battery life and small form factor - are being discarded by hardware makers
The Linux netbook was discarded because it didn't sell.
It's worth considering the possibility that the market may be rebelling against the small screen and awkward keyboard of the netbook.
That the netbook experience isn't so amazing the second or third year out.
You very carefully left out the "R" word. When the people have suffered enough under the current law, they can and as history has shown will, stand up against what they despise most.
The geek as revolutionary paints an interesting picture.
In a double-wide view.
Commercial interests have taken such control over the way we live, that they will drive us over the edge sooner than later.
"Commercial interests" define who and what we are as Americans:
Gordon Wood's impressive new book The Radicalism of the American Revolution takes sharp issue with this consensus. American society is generally thought to embody cultural extremes of both egalitarian idealism and materialist vulgarity. Professor Wood thinks that these cultural characteristics are the direct--and thoroughly unintended--consequence of the Revolution, which made us for good and ill the most democratic culture on the planet. Thus our revolution was the most radical one imaginable, for it entirely discredited the older forms of paternalistic authority that everywhere else delayed the coming of capitalist modernity, and resulted in the construction of the first and so far the most completely commercial society the world has seen. If the measure of radicalism is the totality of the destruction of the old order, we are for Professor Wood's money the heirs of the most radical revolution in history.
Everybody's here. No race or nationality hasn't got somebody in the United States living as a citizen. It's extraordinary, and it's the product of our being so pure a commercial society.The Radical Revolution [Dec 1992]
The Great Depression did not end in revolution. Not here. The chaos of the 1960s - assassination, civil rights, the Vietnam war - did not end in revolution. Not here.
The poor do not make the Revolution. The Middle Class makes the Revolution.
That said:
The loudest talk of disenfranchisement these days comes from the radical Right- from the blowhards of Fox and AM talk radio - the Republicans of the Old South and the depopulated Great Plains.
It comes from those least sympathetic to the poor, the homeless - and the geek.
The fan spends four years in production. The film is screened in New York and L.A.
It never occurs to him at any point along the way to ask Nintendo for their permission and support. It comes as a surprise when the rights holder pulls the plug.
So blind people will be able to use this MUI (since their muscles work)? How does it relay things back via muscles? Oh wait, you mean it's still a GUI?
The keyboard and mouse are a form of muscular control.
So is the Wii controller. Project Natal.
That doesn't make alternative input device any less useful or significant.
I can hear the geek going into cardiac arrest if Microsoft did patent muscular feedback - and control.
Tech of enormous medical and military significance.
Steamboat Willie is eight minutes of silent era sight gags with a synchronized audio track.
Nitrate stock.
Phonographic disk with mechanical synchronization. That's a problem for MoMA and The Library of Congress.
Entry into the public domain doesn't mean you have legal or physical access to primary sources.
It doesn't fund conservation. Restoration.
The Disney archives remain intact not only because the studio values its history - and not only because it uses these resources to recruit and train new talent.
The archives remain intact because they are self-supporting. Disney's shorts, features and television productions still have commercial value.
Perhaps 7 years automatic for free, with the next 7 years costing $1,000, and the next costing $10,000, and the next costing $100,000, then $1,000,000, and so forth. A 10x increase for each extension
This is so ridiculously biased towards big media and against the little guy that the geek ought to be ashamed for ever having posted it.
Fixed that. "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."
This is the classic exposition of what "ex post facto" means in in America law and it has held for 212 years.
I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws, within the words and the intent of the prohibition. 1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender. All these, and similar laws, are manifestly unjust and oppressive. In my opinion, the true distinction is between ex post facto laws, and retrospective laws. Every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective; but every retrospective law is not an ex post facto law: The former, only, are prohibited. Every law that takes away, or impairs, rights vested, agreeably to existing laws, is retrospective, and is generally unjust; and may be oppressive; and it is a good general rule, that a law should have no retrospect: but there are cases in which laws may justly, and for the benefit of the community, and also of individuals, relate to a time antecedent to their commencement; as statutes of oblivion, or of pardon.
The expressions 'ex post facto laws,' are technical, they had been in use long before the Revolution, and had acquired an appropriate meaning, by Legislators, Lawyers, and Authors. The celebrated and judicious Sir William Blackstone, in his commentaries, considers an ex post facto law precisely in the same light I have done. His opinion is confirmed by his successor, Mr. Wooddeson; and by the author of the Federalist, who I esteem superior to both, for his extensive and accurate knowledge of the true principles of Government.Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386 (1798)
If you found a torrent of "From Here To Eternity" you could not create a new work with those characters or the story or whatever. We grow up surrounded by ideas and culture that inspire us, but which we can't use to create our own works.
Perfectly true.
But what you are describing is nothing more than fan fiction.
Pre-built characters. Story and setting. Your search for a "torrent" suggests that you looking to crib from the movie and not the book.
Either way, you are stepping into some very big shoes:
James Jones enlisted in the United States Army in 1939 and served in the 25th Infantry Division before and during World War II, first in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, then in combat on Guadalcanal, where he was wounded in action. He witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to his first published novel, From Here to Eternity. The Thin Red Line reflected his combat experiences on Guadalcanal.
From Here To Eternity was in some small way inspired by Kipling's poem. But a nudge in the right direction is all a good writer ever really needs.
Gentlemen-rankers out on a spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!
Slashdot Mirror
But Microsoft is nowhere near any of those fields, are they?
They are very much in this game:
Microsoft Visual Simulation Platform Licensed by Flight1 Tech
Microsoft Simulation Platform to Be Used in Warfighter Training
Nothing but Love for the Microsoft Simulation Platform From aviation and defense industry leaders
I really just don't understand this whole 3D movie thing. It's about as interesting as VR gloves in the late 90s
Avatar grossed $1 billion dollars in eighteen days. Up and Monsters vs Aliens about $300 million each in theatrical release.
Not so many years back, the geek-in-embryo couldn't see any value in surround-sound.
It took his dad or grandad quite some time to come around to the idea - and expense - of investing in FM and stereo Hi-Fi.
How does a firm "acquire" an OSS project?
The big corp has organization, money, discipline, manpower, material and technical resources of every kind.
The geek sees code - and that is too often all he sees.
MS isn't the power house that they once were. They're more like the obese ex-college football star that thinks they're still the big fast hunk they once were
The numbers suggest otherwise:
Operating System Market Share
Top Operating System Share Trend
Holding 92% of the market after a quarter century or more of competition looks mighty healthy to me.
Win 7 is approaching a 7% share. OSX has 5% and Linux 1%. Mobile browsing's "explosive" growth still accounts for only 1% of all browsing.
Top Operating System Share Trend
Mobile Browsing Explodes in December
Just saw my first full length film in 3D, and I don't need that in my house. It just doesn't add that much to the viewing experience.
I'll be skipping blu-ray.
Why one man's opinion gets a mod-up to *3, Informative on Slashdot remains a mystery to me.
Avatar grossed $1 Billion US Dollars in eighteen days. Up delivered a very respectable $293 million.
I'll take that as evidence the 3D experience does matter.
Laws were meant to keep people from harming one another. "sexting" harms no one.
That assumes that the sender and receiver are playing by the same rules - and the communication is genuinely private.
Not being intercepted and exploited by others.
You have a problem is one of the parties a minor and the other an adult. You have a problem if the text or images are being shared or broadcast without consent.
Does it matter, as long as they get their work done?
It matters when your conduct is inappropriate or unprofessional.
When "the right to surf" becomes a geek entitlement. The fringe benefit denied other workers.
It matters when you are not as reliable and productive as you think you are.
It matters when you break the law.
It matters when you violate company policy.
It matters when exposure of your activity is likely to become a major headache for your employer.
we have kind of a "feel free to use the internet as you wish" policy. This actually works out quite well. They basically say "hey, if you end up doing illegal stuff, you're screwed, otherwise we don't care as long as you get to do your work."
I have to say this makes me itch a little.
The president of our school board made his departure when his racist and sexist e-mail attachments became publicly known.
Not quite so damning to your organization as when an immense stash of child porn is found on your corporate servers. But it will do for a start.
The call from the Bishop. The Eye-Witness News truck out front.
The correct extension of the principle of respecting other's values is "we should respect the wishes of the people of local countries". The people are not synonymous with their government....
But neither are they necessarily in sympathy with other governments and other cultures.
Particularly when outsiders try to ignore or evade local laws and traditions.
The libertarian geek can look a lot like a cultural imperialist - hell-bent on imposing his own beliefs and values on everyone.
This means that the only OS and browser numbers being tracked are those from users who specifically visit those member sites, which include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and InformationWeek. If specific demographics of users--like, say, Linux users--don't tend to read those types of sites, they are going to be underrepresented,
The Moz Foundation is a Net Applications client.
Opera. Nokia. Adobe. Apple. Microsoft. RIM. D&B. CNN. Roche. Amazon.
The geek who hasn't ventured out of his grandma's basement in the last decade might be overlooked.
But the odds seem very good that you will be counted.
In reality, netbook sales are WAY up, which isn't a sign of them going down.
Percentage increases always look fantastic when you start from a small enough base.
Sell your first unit and then sell two more...
What I want to see is the raw numbers. How many of these machines are out there - and how that number compares with others.
I like demographics as well. I want to know the age of the buyer. I want to know the income of the buyer.
I want to know if the netbook is his primary PC or simply another gadget. Not the argument that "feels right," but what can be proven.
The problem is the things that make a netbook so desirable by a lot of people - amazing battery life and small form factor - are being discarded by hardware makers
The Linux netbook was discarded because it didn't sell.
It's worth considering the possibility that the market may be rebelling against the small screen and awkward keyboard of the netbook.
That the netbook experience isn't so amazing the second or third year out.
Perhaps particularly so for the older adult.
You very carefully left out the "R" word. When the people have suffered enough under the current law, they can and as history has shown will, stand up against what they despise most.
The geek as revolutionary paints an interesting picture.
In a double-wide view.
Commercial interests have taken such control over the way we live, that they will drive us over the edge sooner than later.
"Commercial interests" define who and what we are as Americans:
Gordon Wood's impressive new book The Radicalism of the American Revolution takes sharp issue with this consensus. American society is generally thought to embody cultural extremes of both egalitarian idealism and materialist vulgarity. Professor Wood thinks that these cultural characteristics are the direct--and thoroughly unintended--consequence of the Revolution, which made us for good and ill the most democratic culture on the planet. Thus our revolution was the most radical one imaginable, for it entirely discredited the older forms of paternalistic authority that everywhere else delayed the coming of capitalist modernity, and resulted in the construction of the first and so far the most completely commercial society the world has seen. If the measure of radicalism is the totality of the destruction of the old order, we are for Professor Wood's money the heirs of the most radical revolution in history.
Everybody's here. No race or nationality hasn't got somebody in the United States living as a citizen. It's extraordinary, and it's the product of our being so pure a commercial society. The Radical Revolution [Dec 1992]
The Great Depression did not end in revolution. Not here. The chaos of the 1960s - assassination, civil rights, the Vietnam war - did not end in revolution. Not here.
The poor do not make the Revolution. The Middle Class makes the Revolution.
That said:
The loudest talk of disenfranchisement these days comes from the radical Right- from the blowhards of Fox and AM talk radio - the Republicans of the Old South and the depopulated Great Plains.
It comes from those least sympathetic to the poor, the homeless -
and the geek.
_____
The Father Of Video Games Ralph Baer and the Magnovox Odyssey
And so Disney uses someone else's original idea
Ideas can't be copyrighted -
asumming it is even possible to invent a new one.
The geek can't get it up on his own.
He needs the pre-built sets, characters, themes and story of a movie like Wall-E.
The protection of copyright is not an inalienable human right. The default condition is no protection at all, which we call Public Domain.
The default condition for millennia was patronage.
You worked under the protection of the state, the church, or the merchant prince.
Someone who would be deeply dangerous to offend.
Someone who might very well be a silent partner in any commercial enterprise you might be involved in, like a arena or a theater.
The fan spends four years in production. The film is screened in New York and L.A.
It never occurs to him at any point along the way to ask Nintendo for their permission and support. It comes as a surprise when the rights holder pulls the plug.
There is a way to get it right:
The Hunt for Gollum
So blind people will be able to use this MUI (since their muscles work)? How does it relay things back via muscles? Oh wait, you mean it's still a GUI?
The keyboard and mouse are a form of muscular control.
So is the Wii controller. Project Natal.
That doesn't make alternative input device any less useful or significant.
I can hear the geek going into cardiac arrest if Microsoft did patent muscular feedback - and control.
Tech of enormous medical and military significance.
Unlimited commercial potential.
Mickey Mouse will never enter the public domain.
Steamboat Willie is eight minutes of silent era sight gags with a synchronized audio track.
Nitrate stock.
Phonographic disk with mechanical synchronization. That's a problem for MoMA and The Library of Congress.
Entry into the public domain doesn't mean you have legal or physical access to primary sources.
It doesn't fund conservation. Restoration.
The Disney archives remain intact not only because the studio values its history - and not only because it uses these resources to recruit and train new talent.
The archives remain intact because they are self-supporting. Disney's shorts, features and television productions still have commercial value.
Perhaps 7 years automatic for free, with the next 7 years costing $1,000, and the next costing $10,000, and the next costing $100,000, then $1,000,000, and so forth. A 10x increase for each extension
This is so ridiculously biased towards big media and against the little guy that the geek ought to be ashamed for ever having posted it.
Not to mention making a mockery or the "limited time" phrase in Art. I, Sect. 8.
It has always been a policy decision.
Those who wrote the Constitution were reluctant to cast anything of the sort in stone.
There has never been a way for a court to give practical meaning to the phrase, other than to say that the Congress must set some limit.
Treaties play a role in copyright as well - and treaties have the same legal standing as fundamental law as the Constitution itself.
Fixed that.
"No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."
This is the classic exposition of what "ex post facto" means in in America law and it has held for 212 years.
I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws, within the words and the intent of the prohibition. 1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender. All these, and similar laws, are manifestly unjust and oppressive. In my opinion, the true distinction is between ex post facto laws, and retrospective laws. Every ex post facto law must necessarily be retrospective; but every retrospective law is not an ex post facto law: The former, only, are prohibited. Every law that takes away, or impairs, rights vested, agreeably to existing laws, is retrospective, and is generally unjust; and may be oppressive; and it is a good general rule, that a law should have no retrospect: but there are cases in which laws may justly, and for the benefit of the community, and also of individuals, relate to a time antecedent to their commencement; as statutes of oblivion, or of pardon.
The expressions 'ex post facto laws,' are technical, they had been in use long before the Revolution, and had acquired an appropriate meaning, by Legislators, Lawyers, and Authors. The celebrated and judicious Sir William Blackstone, in his commentaries, considers an ex post facto law precisely in the same light I have done. His opinion is confirmed by his successor, Mr. Wooddeson; and by the author of the Federalist, who I esteem superior to both, for his extensive and accurate knowledge of the true principles of Government. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386 (1798)
And its really odd that Disney has been so strongly for copyright extensions yet its entire classic film library is public domain tales
Disney copyrights - and can only copyright - its own take on these stories. The jazz age Princess and the Frog, for exampe.
Mary Martin's Peter Pan is in print on DVD. Rogers & Hammerstein's original 1957 television production of Cinderella, Wallace Beery's Treasure Island.
There are countless other examples.
Disney's sources were never entirely public domain:
Dumbo published 1939. Bambi, first English edition, 1928, 101 Dalmations, 1957.
If you found a torrent of "From Here To Eternity" you could not create a new work with those characters or the story or whatever. We grow up surrounded by ideas and culture that inspire us, but which we can't use to create our own works.
Perfectly true.
But what you are describing is nothing more than fan fiction.
Pre-built characters. Story and setting. Your search for a "torrent" suggests that you looking to crib from the movie and not the book.
Either way, you are stepping into some very big shoes:
James Jones enlisted in the United States Army in 1939 and served in the 25th Infantry Division before and during World War II, first in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, then in combat on Guadalcanal, where he was wounded in action. He witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to his first published novel, From Here to Eternity. The Thin Red Line reflected his combat experiences on Guadalcanal.
From Here To Eternity was in some small way inspired by Kipling's poem. But a nudge in the right direction is all a good writer ever really needs.
Gentlemen-rankers out on a spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Awkward around girls - check
It strikes me that could be a little too close to the truth to be funny.
Ever wonder why Windows is so slow to boot?
Not really. Not since sleep or hibernation became reliable.