I think what's far more relevant-- if I were God, just because I created the universe with beings within it who can feel pain and suffering, does not mean that I have no responsibility for their pain and suffering, or that it would somehow be moral for me to either cause them pain and suffering, or even to allow them pain and suffering. Apologetics about individuals "turning away," or the influence of evil entities (that I too, created, BTW), notwithstanding.
I take it back about real estate-- that may have been true at one time but I see now that the "Always show the tab bar" option does in fact solve this part of the problem. Or well, would, if it weren't for the other problem.
The "open in new tab" option is what I'm getting at. I do uncheck that, but found that I still end up with tabs getting created periodically. I usually don't notice it right away because it opens a background tab and eventually I see that the tab bar is back and there's a second tab sitting there. By that time I usually don't know exactly what page I visited or what action I took that was the one that caused it, so I've never pinned it down to a specific action, but it happened now and then. Maybe I fat fingered something on the keyboard, or overshot the selection on the "open in new window" in the right-click menu (a feature I use so often I rather wish it was the default). In fact, I've used proxy filters to edit target= tags to force them to stay in the current window, which is less than a perfect solution, unfortunately.
In fact, that's probably it-- as "open link in new tab" is right next to it and I probably periodically hit it accidentally. This would explain it as open in new tab does open it behind the active page, so I don't notice the tab bar appearance right away and think I missed the menu option entirely and just do it over again, finally opening up the desired link in a new window. Later I see the tab is there-- I would think that open in new tab ought to bring it to front, just like open in new window does, but since I don't care for tabs anyway that's an argument I'd just as soon stay out of. If it had brought it to front though, I likely would have realized it was me missing the right-click menu option for open in window and hit open in tab. K-Meleon on the other hand, won't even show the option on the right-click menu if the tabbed browsing is disabled, so if I overshoot I get "open in background window" (and still figure missed it entirely and so do it again:-).
Popups on typing is an interesting issue. Right now, popups are only allowed during the handling of certain user events, and the ones relevant here would be:
* keypress of a return key
* keyup of a space key (needed for handling space being used to trigger buttons)
* input
I'm not sure why input is on the list; that should probably be revisited.
Is there a bug filed on this, or were you expecting people to fix your #1 beef without knowing anything about it?
It would appear, given the number of applications that have this problem, that it's not actually seen as a "bug" but simply a characteristic of general computer interfaces that users have grown to put up with. I suppose then, it is actually a feature request, though that presumably gets entered into bug reports as well. If I were to file it as a bug report I'd have to do it in dozens if not hundreds of programs that could be enhanced to address. Frankly, it should be a characteristic of the underlying windowing system, but none actually implement it that I'm aware of. Loss of focus while typing is a problem that is systemwide and not specific to browsers, though a browser feature that attempts to do it within the browser might raise awareness of the fact that as users we shouldn't have to put up with it.
It's also true that there are potentially complex implications in solutions for the problem. A windowing system could certainly connect a timer to key input and place popups in a queue until sufficient time has elapsed with no keystrokes. Then you also have to ask, what about mouse input? And what about a popup queue that begins to get rather large? The user experience would be that when you pause in typing, you may get a series of popups appear all of a sudden-- hopefully less disruptive than when you're actually typing. Perhaps a better way to handle it is to queue the popups until the user takes a specific action that would change window focus, on the presumption that changing focus at that point is acceptable.
Presumably, applications that use popups know that the user may be asleep and/or choose not to acknowlege it immediately, so I think we could safely assume that blocking the app for a time via its popup should be workable.
As an example, back in the old days with printing terminals, it was often that an equivalent to a popup was used-- such as in broadcast messages. If you were in the middle of editing a line of text on the printing terminal, it was seen as inappropriate to simply blast a broadcast message out and mess up what the user was doing. I think this was a perfectly reasonable idea, and the solution was usually to queue up the message until the next CR was entered by the user. This worked pretty well-- but that concern for the user experience went "out the window" with the advent of windowing interfaces. Of course, it happened slowly, as running dozens of programs simultaneously along with automated background tasks that check for update availability, didn't exist when windows were new-- but now we're at the point where you end up typing your input into the wrong windows and losing keystrokes all over the place when popups mechanisms assume that the users actions are less important, less critical, than the computers-- which is plainly incorrect (or should be).
Another possible solution for popups is to reserve a spot on the screen where popups are relegated to appear, and make it so they do NOT redirect input focus (something that frankly, I think only the USER should ever be allowed to do!). A status line that popups must use, where they can use color and perhaps even sound to signal an important event, but where they will NOT interfere with what the user is doing. In fact, if I had the time to dig into it, I'd find out if it's possible to intercept the Windows API for programmatic focus change generally, and simply disable it? Perhaps a utility could be made that would help raise the bar in user experience. There's still the problem with new windows, but at least
....maybe it's nice to actually improve the experience of your users.
How about improving the experience by keeping the interface simple, the footprint of the program small, the performance high, and my #1 beef-- prohibiting popups from occuring while your typing?
It's not about the Kindle's usefullness to the user, it's about the Kindle's usefullnes to amazon. The Kindle is not where Amazon makes their money, it's on the sale of the ebooks-- if people are buying them from elsewhere, Amazon is not getting their profit, and in fact it may be costing them money-- the Kindle is essentially subsidised by their ebooks.
Just imagine-- using software whose developers don't feel they have to be constantly finding new features to add to it in order to keep their revenue stream going. Releases might just become stable enough that for a change, they aren't introducing new security flaws with every update. Sounds pretty sweet, actually.
Funk isn't something you admire while you're sitting alone in front of a computer, it's something you groove to with a scotch on the rocks in your hand while surrounded by a bunch of classy ladies who like to shake what their momma gave them. The band isn't there to perform something they conceived in a dark room, they're there to play the crowd, to react and interact with the people as they get excited, antsy, tired, etc.
I'm sorry to break your balloon, but not everyone likes to listen to music in small clubs. Even those who like Funk (which would include me, BTW). I understand the crowd-rapport thing, but that only works if the audience is <300 IMHO (well, it may work for the BAND, but it doesn't work for me as an audience member). But in the smaller venues, usually the music is 1) too loud for the acoustics in the room &/or their PA system, 2) crowded full of drunk idiots (and at one time or in some places, drunk and smoking idiots), and 3) was accompanied by expensive parking in bad part of town & cover charge. If that's your idea of the future of music, I don't want any part of it.
On the other hand, the last concert I went to was free, was at the local University music department, the sound system was right for the room and adjusted properly, and I got to sit really close without having to climb over drunk jerks (or vice versa) in the process. Parking wasn't cheap, but that's all the two venues had in common. It was for these guys.. Not exactly Funk, I grant you. But somehow I don't think they are particularly threatened by the competition from YouTube mashups.
But I don't go out for music all that often, as it's rare that a group I actually want to see will be in a venue I would want to go to. I don't care for the big mainstream bands that would book huge concerts, but the smaller bands tend to end up in crappy clubs that you couldn't pay me to visit. So, mashups like the one in TFA provide at least, some entertainment value now and then. But I'm over 50 so maybe that explains my low tolerance for aggregations of 20-something dipshits.
Plus, I like a lot of electronica, which often sounds a lot better on my own tuned up home sound system than in public venues.
Out of stock? So they'd rather not sell it to you at all then? Nice to know they don't need your business. Or I guess the margins are so razor thin they actually lose money on them w/o the insurance.
Well, if so, we saw what happened to Circuit City, looks like these guys will be next...
What about when local people are just out of town but would like to access local services? For example, someone might want to use a local service to schedule a local meeting in LA while they are out of town on business in New York...
One question you might ask, is does competition have any role in increasing the effectiveness of the products here? The problem with government mandated open source is there will likely end up being only one to choose from.
Right now the proprietary vendors know their own products well, and have to keep on top of them as regulatory changes are happening all the time that require updates of the software-- much of the money they make in the process is in maintaining their customers with these sorts of things. Now sure, they could do that with open source software, but that would relegate them to support-only organizations rather than support and development organizations unless the developers at the companies work to enhance the open source offering. But if it is mandated not just that open source should be used, but a particular open source package (in a quest for standardization), then in order to make it better by adding features they want, they'd have to get the new features vetted by a monolithic open source and regulatory community, and couldn't opt to fork the source tree for their own enhanced or custom version wanting to provide new features for their customers. All of a sudden, the "freedom" of open source isn't really so "free," the purpose of it becomes "transparency," not "freedom."
On the other hand, if there is a collection of open source offerings to choose from, is an environment that restricts options to these somehow better than one that also allows for proprietary solutions? Not in the "freedom" department, I'd say, possibly only in the "transparency" department.
So the real issue here is transparency-- what we have now is no less free than it would be if open source was mandated in some way, in fact it's more free, I'd say. Then I'd have to ask, just what are the transparency issues we're talking about-- what the vendors *do* with the data? That has little to do with whether or not it's open source or proprietary software, that has to do with how they manage the resultant data. Seems to me that there may be some apples & oranges going on here, but it's not clear-- just what is the transparency problem? We need to identify that clearly first, before we can judge what effect the use of open source or proprietary software has on it, which may in fact turn out to be irrelevant to the issue.
I don't see any reason why ActiveX apps couldn't be sandboxed like anything else. Granted, it has deep hooks into the OS-- but if nothing else, given how beefy computers are going to be by the time IE9 comes out, you could give each ActiveX app its own perfectly compatible virtual copy of XP+IE8 to run on, and just parse the result into IE9 format. Destroy the virtualized OS+browser when the app closes.
Yeah, that ought to work great in my PDA's browser.
The reality is having a refresh greater than 60Hz is pretty pointless with an LCD because there is no phosphor being strobe blasted with scanlines where the eye can detect the flicker and most people can't detect changes faster than 1/30th of a second, much less 1/60th.
This is probably true if they're calculating motion blur, but pumping up the refresh rate is simpler. We're not talking about flicker of static images, but the stepped-motion of moving ones. An object that flies across a 1920 pixel screen in one second, shifts 32 pixels a frame at 60hz, and 16 at 120hz. These are differences you can see.
I would agree with this. As an atheist I'm inclined to agree with most of the God Delusion, but thought that as he seemed to want to convince non-atheists, he is totally without a clue as to what would simply drive them away. The first page of Chapter 2 I think is probably so offensive to many that they won't make it past that page. And it's irrelevant if his points can be justified, as they are made on that page they are especially acerbic and insensitive. He even states "It is unfair to attack such an easy target" immediately after doing so (referring to God as an unpleasant s#!t).
Sadly this is another knee jerk reaction to a serious problem in society. Just by making access to the images difficult, child abuse will not go away. The British government should look at the roots of anti-social behaviour in society and put in place programmes of education to ensure that the next generation are not abusers.
Well, you see there's a problem with this.
The reason these control freaks are control freaks, is likely because they need to be in control because when they grew up things were out of control, due to things like abuse. Likely as not, they are themselves abused children now trying to recover the control they didn't have when they were young. Consequently, the roots of the anti-social behavior you refer to begin right at home, and you aren't going to get these people to look at themselves to solve a problem they are convinced is external. The system is not operating on logic, as much as we all may wish it were.
My patch for Adobe is to uninstall reader and use Foxit instead. I thank those on Slashdot who alerted me of its existence as I have longed for a viable alternative from Adobe crapware for ages. It constantly was popping up windows where I would click "don't show me this again" about issues that were relevant to Adobe but not to me, and it never seemed to remember the setting once I checked on it. Worst designed junk I've ever seen. I've since found that Foxit is considerably faster as well.
Oh, while we're on the subject, you do know that Jordan Hubbard works at Apple now, don't you?
Hmm... Jordan Hubbard.... Argent... That explains a lot. The Reality Distortion Field is working overtime here trying to convince us that OSX == BSD.
Well, maybe it is.
But maybe many of us don't even care.
So you, and, er., he, drank the kool-aid. You've made that clear. And yes, software is always more stable when it's written to run on a restricted set of hardware. Yes, we all know that. Too bad significant compatibility and flexibility has been lost in the process. Once you get beyond the world of the unsophisticated "black-box" user, flexibility of the hardware often becomes a critical feature. With OSX, all your hardware has to come from Apple or has to be approved by Apple, and that leaves out a lot. Consequently, OSX will always be an anomaly in the Unix-ish environment.
The thing is, it's just not about Unix anymore. Once upon a time, Linux was measured against how Unix compatible it was. Times have changed however. Unices are now measured against how Linux compatible they are. Look at what IBM has been doing with AIX. Look at what Sun is doing with Solaris. SCO was mismanaged into oblivion, there's absolutely nothing going on there. Unix is so, 20th century. And look what launched all of this-- "GNU's Not Unix," it's PROUDLY not Unix. Could it be any more obvious?
From W98SE-- which won't run even IE6, nor will it run Firefox 2.
And of course, to get them to do that, you'll have to get them to upgrade their hardware as a 64MB 233MHZ P2 won't run XP or Vista worth a darn (though I suppose they could move to Linux, but they won't do that if they're dependent on some Windows-based apps). And since they're by no means computer experts, nor like to re-learn what they think they've already learned, changing the OS is not something that appeals.
And of course, they'll have to buy new apps to go with. No matter how you cut it, upgrading to IE6 or IE7 can be an expensive proposition.
HALF of the people I know are STILL running W98SE on dialup. GET USED TO IT. They don't stream anything, they just get email and surf the web. It works for them just fine, they have little reason to change (things are a little bit slow, that's all).
This is an early test of whether President Obama will make good on his promises (a) not to allow industry insiders to participate in cases affecting the industry they represented (the 2nd and 3rd highest DOJ officials are RIAA lawyers) and (b) to look out for ordinary citizens rather than big corporations.
Nice delusion, but totally false-to-fact. Maybe back in the day of the Altar or Apple II you could control the entire machine, but today you didn't write the OS, the BIOS, the device firmware, the drivers, the utilities, or the programs. You have no say in the matter.
Yeah, all you did is PAY FOR IT. How dare you to expect anything of it.
That's exactly what it's like in the US, right down to the campaigns. Except our police beat us, protest is suppressed, and there's a lot of dirty underhanded corporate and political scheming.
Oh, and you forgot-- for the last 20 years or so the banking and securities industry has been running a giant Ponzi scheme that makes even Madoff look like an amateur.
It seems to me that the very idea an ISP is allowed to interpret the data you transmit over their service *in any way* is akin to the phone company listening in on all your phone calls. Now we know in the US that's business as usual, at least in Australia it doesn't take an telco whistleblower for them to find out about it.
Time to buy stock in some VPN service companies, I'd say...
Correction-- or rather, the dinos died in the flood. Though there is one creationist museum which depicts dinosaurs on the ark and claims they died off soon afterwards...
Slashdot Mirror
I think what's far more relevant-- if I were God, just because I created the universe with beings within it who can feel pain and suffering, does not mean that I have no responsibility for their pain and suffering, or that it would somehow be moral for me to either cause them pain and suffering, or even to allow them pain and suffering. Apologetics about individuals "turning away," or the influence of evil entities (that I too, created, BTW), notwithstanding.
* Uncheck "Open new windows in a new tab instead"
I take it back about real estate-- that may have been true at one time but I see now that the "Always show the tab bar" option does in fact solve this part of the problem. Or well, would, if it weren't for the other problem.
The "open in new tab" option is what I'm getting at. I do uncheck that, but found that I still end up with tabs getting created periodically. I usually don't notice it right away because it opens a background tab and eventually I see that the tab bar is back and there's a second tab sitting there. By that time I usually don't know exactly what page I visited or what action I took that was the one that caused it, so I've never pinned it down to a specific action, but it happened now and then. Maybe I fat fingered something on the keyboard, or overshot the selection on the "open in new window" in the right-click menu (a feature I use so often I rather wish it was the default). In fact, I've used proxy filters to edit target= tags to force them to stay in the current window, which is less than a perfect solution, unfortunately.
In fact, that's probably it-- as "open link in new tab" is right next to it and I probably periodically hit it accidentally. This would explain it as open in new tab does open it behind the active page, so I don't notice the tab bar appearance right away and think I missed the menu option entirely and just do it over again, finally opening up the desired link in a new window. Later I see the tab is there-- I would think that open in new tab ought to bring it to front, just like open in new window does, but since I don't care for tabs anyway that's an argument I'd just as soon stay out of. If it had brought it to front though, I likely would have realized it was me missing the right-click menu option for open in window and hit open in tab. K-Meleon on the other hand, won't even show the option on the right-click menu if the tabbed browsing is disabled, so if I overshoot I get "open in background window" (and still figure missed it entirely and so do it again :-).
Popups on typing is an interesting issue. Right now, popups are only allowed during the handling of certain user events, and the ones relevant here would be: * keypress of a return key * keyup of a space key (needed for handling space being used to trigger buttons) * input I'm not sure why input is on the list; that should probably be revisited. Is there a bug filed on this, or were you expecting people to fix your #1 beef without knowing anything about it?
It would appear, given the number of applications that have this problem, that it's not actually seen as a "bug" but simply a characteristic of general computer interfaces that users have grown to put up with. I suppose then, it is actually a feature request, though that presumably gets entered into bug reports as well. If I were to file it as a bug report I'd have to do it in dozens if not hundreds of programs that could be enhanced to address. Frankly, it should be a characteristic of the underlying windowing system, but none actually implement it that I'm aware of. Loss of focus while typing is a problem that is systemwide and not specific to browsers, though a browser feature that attempts to do it within the browser might raise awareness of the fact that as users we shouldn't have to put up with it.
It's also true that there are potentially complex implications in solutions for the problem. A windowing system could certainly connect a timer to key input and place popups in a queue until sufficient time has elapsed with no keystrokes. Then you also have to ask, what about mouse input? And what about a popup queue that begins to get rather large? The user experience would be that when you pause in typing, you may get a series of popups appear all of a sudden-- hopefully less disruptive than when you're actually typing. Perhaps a better way to handle it is to queue the popups until the user takes a specific action that would change window focus, on the presumption that changing focus at that point is acceptable.
Presumably, applications that use popups know that the user may be asleep and/or choose not to acknowlege it immediately, so I think we could safely assume that blocking the app for a time via its popup should be workable.
As an example, back in the old days with printing terminals, it was often that an equivalent to a popup was used-- such as in broadcast messages. If you were in the middle of editing a line of text on the printing terminal, it was seen as inappropriate to simply blast a broadcast message out and mess up what the user was doing. I think this was a perfectly reasonable idea, and the solution was usually to queue up the message until the next CR was entered by the user. This worked pretty well-- but that concern for the user experience went "out the window" with the advent of windowing interfaces. Of course, it happened slowly, as running dozens of programs simultaneously along with automated background tasks that check for update availability, didn't exist when windows were new-- but now we're at the point where you end up typing your input into the wrong windows and losing keystrokes all over the place when popups mechanisms assume that the users actions are less important, less critical, than the computers-- which is plainly incorrect (or should be).
Another possible solution for popups is to reserve a spot on the screen where popups are relegated to appear, and make it so they do NOT redirect input focus (something that frankly, I think only the USER should ever be allowed to do!). A status line that popups must use, where they can use color and perhaps even sound to signal an important event, but where they will NOT interfere with what the user is doing. In fact, if I had the time to dig into it, I'd find out if it's possible to intercept the Windows API for programmatic focus change generally, and simply disable it? Perhaps a utility could be made that would help raise the bar in user experience. There's still the problem with new windows, but at least
How about improving the experience by keeping the interface simple, the footprint of the program small, the performance high, and my #1 beef-- prohibiting popups from occuring while your typing?
It's not about the Kindle's usefullness to the user, it's about the Kindle's usefullnes to amazon. The Kindle is not where Amazon makes their money, it's on the sale of the ebooks-- if people are buying them from elsewhere, Amazon is not getting their profit, and in fact it may be costing them money-- the Kindle is essentially subsidised by their ebooks.
Just imagine-- using software whose developers don't feel they have to be constantly finding new features to add to it in order to keep their revenue stream going. Releases might just become stable enough that for a change, they aren't introducing new security flaws with every update. Sounds pretty sweet, actually.
Funk isn't something you admire while you're sitting alone in front of a computer, it's something you groove to with a scotch on the rocks in your hand while surrounded by a bunch of classy ladies who like to shake what their momma gave them. The band isn't there to perform something they conceived in a dark room, they're there to play the crowd, to react and interact with the people as they get excited, antsy, tired, etc.
I'm sorry to break your balloon, but not everyone likes to listen to music in small clubs. Even those who like Funk (which would include me, BTW). I understand the crowd-rapport thing, but that only works if the audience is <300 IMHO (well, it may work for the BAND, but it doesn't work for me as an audience member). But in the smaller venues, usually the music is 1) too loud for the acoustics in the room &/or their PA system, 2) crowded full of drunk idiots (and at one time or in some places, drunk and smoking idiots), and 3) was accompanied by expensive parking in bad part of town & cover charge. If that's your idea of the future of music, I don't want any part of it.
On the other hand, the last concert I went to was free, was at the local University music department, the sound system was right for the room and adjusted properly, and I got to sit really close without having to climb over drunk jerks (or vice versa) in the process. Parking wasn't cheap, but that's all the two venues had in common. It was for these guys.. Not exactly Funk, I grant you. But somehow I don't think they are particularly threatened by the competition from YouTube mashups.
But I don't go out for music all that often, as it's rare that a group I actually want to see will be in a venue I would want to go to. I don't care for the big mainstream bands that would book huge concerts, but the smaller bands tend to end up in crappy clubs that you couldn't pay me to visit. So, mashups like the one in TFA provide at least, some entertainment value now and then. But I'm over 50 so maybe that explains my low tolerance for aggregations of 20-something dipshits.
Plus, I like a lot of electronica, which often sounds a lot better on my own tuned up home sound system than in public venues.
Out of stock? So they'd rather not sell it to you at all then? Nice to know they don't need your business. Or I guess the margins are so razor thin they actually lose money on them w/o the insurance.
Well, if so, we saw what happened to Circuit City, looks like these guys will be next...
What about when local people are just out of town but would like to access local services? For example, someone might want to use a local service to schedule a local meeting in LA while they are out of town on business in New York...
One question you might ask, is does competition have any role in increasing the effectiveness of the products here? The problem with government mandated open source is there will likely end up being only one to choose from.
Right now the proprietary vendors know their own products well, and have to keep on top of them as regulatory changes are happening all the time that require updates of the software-- much of the money they make in the process is in maintaining their customers with these sorts of things. Now sure, they could do that with open source software, but that would relegate them to support-only organizations rather than support and development organizations unless the developers at the companies work to enhance the open source offering. But if it is mandated not just that open source should be used, but a particular open source package (in a quest for standardization), then in order to make it better by adding features they want, they'd have to get the new features vetted by a monolithic open source and regulatory community, and couldn't opt to fork the source tree for their own enhanced or custom version wanting to provide new features for their customers. All of a sudden, the "freedom" of open source isn't really so "free," the purpose of it becomes "transparency," not "freedom."
On the other hand, if there is a collection of open source offerings to choose from, is an environment that restricts options to these somehow better than one that also allows for proprietary solutions? Not in the "freedom" department, I'd say, possibly only in the "transparency" department.
So the real issue here is transparency-- what we have now is no less free than it would be if open source was mandated in some way, in fact it's more free, I'd say. Then I'd have to ask, just what are the transparency issues we're talking about-- what the vendors *do* with the data? That has little to do with whether or not it's open source or proprietary software, that has to do with how they manage the resultant data. Seems to me that there may be some apples & oranges going on here, but it's not clear-- just what is the transparency problem? We need to identify that clearly first, before we can judge what effect the use of open source or proprietary software has on it, which may in fact turn out to be irrelevant to the issue.
I don't see any reason why ActiveX apps couldn't be sandboxed like anything else. Granted, it has deep hooks into the OS-- but if nothing else, given how beefy computers are going to be by the time IE9 comes out, you could give each ActiveX app its own perfectly compatible virtual copy of XP+IE8 to run on, and just parse the result into IE9 format. Destroy the virtualized OS+browser when the app closes.
Yeah, that ought to work great in my PDA's browser.
The reality is having a refresh greater than 60Hz is pretty pointless with an LCD because there is no phosphor being strobe blasted with scanlines where the eye can detect the flicker and most people can't detect changes faster than 1/30th of a second, much less 1/60th.
This is probably true if they're calculating motion blur, but pumping up the refresh rate is simpler. We're not talking about flicker of static images, but the stepped-motion of moving ones. An object that flies across a 1920 pixel screen in one second, shifts 32 pixels a frame at 60hz, and 16 at 120hz. These are differences you can see.
I would agree with this. As an atheist I'm inclined to agree with most of the God Delusion, but thought that as he seemed to want to convince non-atheists, he is totally without a clue as to what would simply drive them away. The first page of Chapter 2 I think is probably so offensive to many that they won't make it past that page. And it's irrelevant if his points can be justified, as they are made on that page they are especially acerbic and insensitive. He even states "It is unfair to attack such an easy target" immediately after doing so (referring to God as an unpleasant s#!t).
The "Noticable Benefit" is to Sony, who can now charge premium prices for Blu-spec CDs. Because, hey, they're better!
And for certain recordings, if you want a legit copy, you'll pay it too if it's the only kind available!
Another example of how the music industry excels at making pirated music more attractive to the average consumer.
Sadly this is another knee jerk reaction to a serious problem in society. Just by making access to the images difficult, child abuse will not go away. The British government should look at the roots of anti-social behaviour in society and put in place programmes of education to ensure that the next generation are not abusers.
Well, you see there's a problem with this.
The reason these control freaks are control freaks, is likely because they need to be in control because when they grew up things were out of control, due to things like abuse. Likely as not, they are themselves abused children now trying to recover the control they didn't have when they were young. Consequently, the roots of the anti-social behavior you refer to begin right at home, and you aren't going to get these people to look at themselves to solve a problem they are convinced is external. The system is not operating on logic, as much as we all may wish it were.
My patch for Adobe is to uninstall reader and use Foxit instead. I thank those on Slashdot who alerted me of its existence as I have longed for a viable alternative from Adobe crapware for ages. It constantly was popping up windows where I would click "don't show me this again" about issues that were relevant to Adobe but not to me, and it never seemed to remember the setting once I checked on it. Worst designed junk I've ever seen. I've since found that Foxit is considerably faster as well.
Good riddance.
Oh, while we're on the subject, you do know that Jordan Hubbard works at Apple now, don't you?
Hmm... Jordan Hubbard.... Argent... That explains a lot. The Reality Distortion Field is working overtime here trying to convince us that OSX == BSD.
Well, maybe it is.
But maybe many of us don't even care.
So you, and, er., he, drank the kool-aid. You've made that clear. And yes, software is always more stable when it's written to run on a restricted set of hardware. Yes, we all know that. Too bad significant compatibility and flexibility has been lost in the process. Once you get beyond the world of the unsophisticated "black-box" user, flexibility of the hardware often becomes a critical feature. With OSX, all your hardware has to come from Apple or has to be approved by Apple, and that leaves out a lot. Consequently, OSX will always be an anomaly in the Unix-ish environment.
The thing is, it's just not about Unix anymore. Once upon a time, Linux was measured against how Unix compatible it was. Times have changed however. Unices are now measured against how Linux compatible they are. Look at what IBM has been doing with AIX. Look at what Sun is doing with Solaris. SCO was mismanaged into oblivion, there's absolutely nothing going on there. Unix is so, 20th century. And look what launched all of this-- "GNU's Not Unix," it's PROUDLY not Unix. Could it be any more obvious?
Wow! I just found out how to make a website incompatible with IE-- THANKS!
From W98SE-- which won't run even IE6, nor will it run Firefox 2.
And of course, to get them to do that, you'll have to get them to upgrade their hardware as a 64MB 233MHZ P2 won't run XP or Vista worth a darn (though I suppose they could move to Linux, but they won't do that if they're dependent on some Windows-based apps). And since they're by no means computer experts, nor like to re-learn what they think they've already learned, changing the OS is not something that appeals.
And of course, they'll have to buy new apps to go with. No matter how you cut it, upgrading to IE6 or IE7 can be an expensive proposition.
HALF of the people I know are STILL running W98SE on dialup. GET USED TO IT. They don't stream anything, they just get email and surf the web. It works for them just fine, they have little reason to change (things are a little bit slow, that's all).
Finance has crashed, housing has crashed, oil is crashing, retail is crashing, now here begins the media. Maybe now I can get some peace and quiet.
This is an early test of whether President Obama will make good on his promises (a) not to allow industry insiders to participate in cases affecting the industry they represented (the 2nd and 3rd highest DOJ officials are RIAA lawyers) and (b) to look out for ordinary citizens rather than big corporations.
Are you in denial? Or just slow?
Nice delusion, but totally false-to-fact. Maybe back in the day of the Altar or Apple II you could control the entire machine, but today you didn't write the OS, the BIOS, the device firmware, the drivers, the utilities, or the programs. You have no say in the matter.
Yeah, all you did is PAY FOR IT. How dare you to expect anything of it.
That's exactly what it's like in the US, right down to the campaigns. Except our police beat us, protest is suppressed, and there's a lot of dirty underhanded corporate and political scheming.
Oh, and you forgot-- for the last 20 years or so the banking and securities industry has been running a giant Ponzi scheme that makes even Madoff look like an amateur.
It seems to me that the very idea an ISP is allowed to interpret the data you transmit over their service *in any way* is akin to the phone company listening in on all your phone calls. Now we know in the US that's business as usual, at least in Australia it doesn't take an telco whistleblower for them to find out about it.
Time to buy stock in some VPN service companies, I'd say...
Correction-- or rather, the dinos died in the flood. Though there is one creationist museum which depicts dinosaurs on the ark and claims they died off soon afterwards...