DRM would be useful. So would a perpetual motion machine. It is wishful thinking to believe that the sheer utility of a function means it is capable of being produced.
Yes, but it's not wishful thinking to believe that the sheer utility of a function means that it is capable of being sold. Sales is a function of hope, not reality.
As far as I can tell, my resource-hogging, system-destabilizing virus scanner does effectively nothing against any of those and there's no reason to believe it can be changed to do so.
ABSOLUTELY. I gave up on AV programs some time ago. A good firewall, firewall-like execution protection such as Process Guard, not using the most popular email programs or web browsers, and severely restricting web-based application execution (i.e., boycott ActiveX and hamstring Java and Javascript) are far more effective techniques for tripping up a virus as such attacks will almost always try to 1) exploit networking applications most common to the OS, 2) try to run some kind of executable that you haven't run before, and/or 3) attempt some kind of network operation in order to propagate itself. Trying to recognize virus signatures is a lousy use of CPU resources, and has not been seen to be very effective.
AV software companies are addicted to the subscription model that signature-based AV provides, and consequently are in a serious conflict-of-interest with regards to best security practices. Symantec in particular seems to be short of ideas for an alternative business model, and have opted instead to whine like a six-year-old who's mommy won't let them buy candy at the checkstand.
What really astonishes me is that open source has made such great leaps in other areas yet there's no apparent replacement for Outlook & Exchange. For a huge number of folk in business, having an open office suite is useless if they don't have calendar sharing, resource scheduling and email/contact sharing amongst groups. Is this really so difficult to achieve?
I don't know how difficult it is, but it exists. Ever hear of
Lotus Notes?
While it may not be open source or Free (as in beer), it runs on x86 Linux (RH & SUSE at least), as does the Domino server (an Exchange alternative). It's not directly compatible with Exchange, but nothing is going to be except Microsoft mail products which are closed and non-Linux, so if that's your problem then nothing but a Microsoft supported platform can ever satisfy you so why did it take you so long to figure that out and give up?
Easy; assume I don't want it unless I request it. If I write a personal email to someone, like to customer service, I expect a response. If I order something, I assume they'll send me a confirmation. I don't want an email a week for the next 50 years.
EXACTLY. As far as I'm concerned, this sort of bulk email IS spam, and should be treated as such. Just because you got a legitimate email from them once upon a time doesn't mean that anything they send you from then on is somehow not SPAM...
There are a couple of serious problems with this statement. The most important one is that the article doesn't say that existing software will get slower. And there's a reason for that: Existing software will continue to run on the individual processor cores. Something that they've done for a long period of time. Old software may not get any faster due to a change in focus toward parallelism vs. increased core speed, but it's not going to suddenly come to a screeching halt any more than my DOS programs from 15 years ago are.
Uh-- what if the 3GHZ CPU you have now is upgraded for a 64-core 500MHZ system? You'll have essentially ~32GHZ of performance for programs that can utilize parallelism, but only 500MHZ of individual core performance for those that cannot...
Also remember the old RISC and CISC battles? Then we came to see that both architectures evolved towards each other. RISC instruction sets became more complex, CISC ones adopted some of the RISC architecture advantages. I expect that multi-core and CELL may do the same. But it's possible in the process that rather than continuing to crank up the clock speed and have to further shorten the signal paths in order to make it work, that they'll reduce the clock and increase the parallelism in order to open up means of performance expansion that aren't butting up against some of the hard physical limitations as clock rate currently is.
I'm not saying that's definately how it all is going to go, but it is a distinct possibility that is consistent with the statement that "current programs will get slower," and is not necessarily unreasonable, IMHO.
The only real issue with ebay is you have to watch out for the jerks that jack up the shipping and handling and sell low.
I agree you have to watch out for this, but I don't attribute it simply to "jerkdom" like I did initially. Apparently many sellers started doing this when eBay started jacking up their percentage. The sellers saw this as a way to counteract and/or protest the increased fees. It does make it more treacherous for buyers who have to make sure they check the S/H, but the motivation for many sellers is not so much to fake-out buyers into thinking they're getting a better deal (though it can do that), but to move more of the purchase price of the item from eBay-taxable into non-eBay-taxable amounts. If you're a high volume seller it adds up...
The problem is not the seller outbidding you on an item, the problem is the seller artificially jacking up your cost of an item by bidding against you to drive up the current bid price nearer to your maximum. You are then paying more than you should for the item even if you are willing to bid that much. When you enter a maximum bid, you essentially are saying you are willing to bid against other valid bidders up to X amount to get the item, but not more. Fraud occurs when the seller places (or arranges to have placed) a competitive bid for his own item simply in order to increase the current price so that he'll make more money out of you than he would if it was a fair marketplace. That you may be willing to pay more is not the issue, entering a maximum bid says you are willing to pay more only if you actually have to in order to beat other bidders.
eBay has been very poor at handling this, and in fact there is a conflict of interest because even eBay makes more commission when this sort of fraud occurs. Consequently, eBay may not be all that motivated to do much of anything about it.
I used to work for Tektronix fixing oscilloscopes and test equipment. In the field repair offices the first thing we did with ANY gear that came in the door was send it to the wash rack. We hosed it down with essentially the same nozzle and soap & water that you use at the self-serve car washes. Rinse, then it went in the drying ovens for about three days (I don't remember the temp, not terribly high tho). Only caveat-- make sure any enclosed transformers were oriented so they would drain, because if they filled with water the dryers would not dry out a transformer filled with water in the alotted drying time.
We never had a problem with water damaging anything. Of course, the power didn't go on until after this process, but they were always dry by the time it did so there was no problem.
Water damage to electronics occurs when power is on at the same time, since water conducts electricity-- it can consequently cause shorts and component failures. Water exposure to unpowered electronics is usually undamaging except perhaps certain specialized components or possibly extremely hard water that might leave a mineral residue (rinse with distilled water if you're concerned about residue).
Note this is even true with antique devices that are vacuum tube and used paper capacitors. Paper capacitors were wax coated, though probably need to be changed due to their age anyhow if you're restoring old gear, as they don't have that great a lifespan.
YMMV, but I got paid to do it to all kinds of gear for years and never had a problem getting electronics wet.
It seems to me that there's no reason that a spam mailer couldn't operate with a traffic pattern virtually indistinguishable from a non-spam mailing list. To the extent they don't *already* do that it's probably just because they haven't had to. If such analysis becomes routine at ISPs, that will simply motivate the
spammers to tune their engines behavior a bit, and the "fix" will be rendered useless in no time...
If you're a strict evolutionist, it seems one should avoid words that connote intention or design.
I don't see that the word "design" implies a conscious or self-aware "designer." Design can be produced by filtered randomness and automated processes. Intelligence is the accumulation of information (knowledge). The problem here is not that scientists utilize the word "design" but that ID'ers have convinced you that "design" or "intelligence" presume a consciousness.
why can't we identify a currently living transitionary animal to a currently existing "latest and greatest" evolved creature?
EVERY population is "transitionary." Evolution occurs in populations, not individuals. Successful genes propagate through populations and unsuccessful ones are weeded out. Over time that genetic drift combined with division into subpopulations produces sufficient variances that we then see them in the fossil record as distinct. Fossil remains are rare, so what we have is a sparse sampling of what has lived. However, there are cases where in layer after layer the shifts in a population can be seen. The reptile-to-mammal transition for example, has lots of fossil examples of the incremental variations of populations over an extended period.
But really-- read a book. This is not rocket science, and popular books on evolutionary details are not hard to read. Asking a question like "how come there are no transitions" merely shows how ignorant you truly are about the subject. The question itself is erroneous as it presumes ridiculous things like a reptile suddenly giving birth to a half-bird or something which has nothing to do with how evolution works. Trotting out dated creationist canards does not speak well for your education. If you wish to argue against evolution, find out what it is first before you start asking "how long have you been beating your wife"-type questions.
Yes, though by autonomous processes. Evolution is a design mechanism. Self awareness or consciousness are not requirements for the production of design. Evolution produces design through trial and error-- errors are eliminated and successes survive. The results are simply designed (optimized) to survive.
And in fact, to the extent that "intelligence" is defined as the "accumulation of information" (accumulation of knowledge), Evolutionary design is also "intelligent." What it's not is conscious or self-aware, at least in the sense normally attributed to individuals.
Intelligent Design proponents would have us believe that design requires intelligence, and intelligence requires consciousness/self-awareness. They are incorrect. Evolution is a process of unconscious intelligent design.
Don't forget "fair use." If I was on a picturephone connection to my grandma, and held up a product package to the camera to show her something I just bought-- should I be held accountable for "copying" the package design? What if I send similar footage in a canned video to all my relatives? To my relatives and my friends? What if I have 100,000 relatives and friends? The problem is a "copy" here is applied to any type of facsimile or partial facsimilie. Should Andy Warhol been forced to pay royalties to Marilyn Monroe and Cambells? What if he had painted them from scratch rather than using a xerox of acutal photos?
The problem is, people's ability to connect with others over the internet is vastly expanding-- in essense, extending your network of "friends" considerably. Noone worried about your grandma seeing that can of Coors sitting behind you in the speakerphone conversation, but now if you record that same conversation and post it to YouTube, there's this percieved threat that a bunch of folks will get their knickers in a twist for illegal "copying".
The problem is, the term "copy" to the extent it infringes property rights is poorly defined and broadly applied when it comes to the new digital technologies. On the other extreme, some might argue that unless it is a physical copy, and not just a digital representation or duplication of a representation, it is not really a copy-- as in Magritte's famous, "This is not a pipe" painting, a representation is not equivalent to what is being represented and therefore not a "copy," merely a "representation." Then again, Magritte's painting is also not functional as a pipe, yet a copy of an mp3 file is equally functional as the original mp3 file. Still others try to claim that unless the owner is not deprived of his own copy it should not be considered property theft. While these extremes are perhaps unreasonable, so too is the extreme that any sort of digital copy is infringement.
But individual communication, whether to a single friend or relative or to thousands over YouTube cannot reasonably be impeded by such overbroad application of infringement IMHO. As long as some semblance of freedom of speech exists, persons must be allowed to quote, represent and misrepresent, repurpose and reproduce the elements found in the real world in people's real lives. And this must be regardless of whether or not that personal communication is destined solely for your grandma or to be posted on YouTube.
The real problem is, personal communication now presents a potentially significant distraction from commercialized media programs. If people are spending more time watching their friends do stupid things on YouTube than they are watching broadcast television programs, there are people who are going to get very upset-- but that is their problem. They may have money to spend to try to fight the problem and make life uncomfortable for some people during that process, but I think they should be taken to task for illegally impeding your civil rights in doing so. Politicians don't have the guts to take that stand however, so I don't expect that to happen but I see no way media conglomerates will be able to wrest control of personal communications away from the individuals at this point-- get used to it.
The rules about digital reproduction cannot be so arbitrary that the average individual who is not a media or copyright expert cannot figure them out, nor can the legal system be used as intimidation for long without repercussions. MPAA and RIAA lawsuits are in fact, hastening their own demise, IMHO.
Maybe because then you have to offer it in many different formats?
No, all you'd have to use is mp3/mpeg2/mpeg4 or some other format that virtually everything plays.
More likely, he's using flash because he thinks he will be able to exert some kind of control over it-- stream only, no download, or download but can't edit or something. A common misconception about flash format security.
Yes, it's not as if we don't have enough codecs out there. If a given piece of media can't be viewed with a legal and free codec, I just don't need to see it. There's plenty more things to view out there that don't require restricted codecs. Rather than accomodate proprietary restrictions on media play, we should avoid them and help restricted codecs to die out. Making them available on Linux suggests that it is Linux' problem that a codec won't run on it, rather than the codec's problem. In either case it's the users problem, but covering up the fact the codec is restrictive is doing noone any favors except those who wish to exert proprietary controls over media-- and while they may have that right, we also have the right to ignore them. As soon as some Madison Avenue exec realizes that their ads are missing a segment of the market by using a restrictive codec, they'll toss it and use something else, and ad men can be pretty darn influential in media production...
The problem with tabbed browsing is that in MS Windows anyway, it is completely redundant. There is ALREADY tabbed browsing, implemented in the OS. I want ONE place where I can select the tab of any screen page I want, not spread all over individual applications UIs with their own idiosyncratic mechanisms. Essentially, browser tab pages subcategorize your web pages, making them harder to find. If you want WEB pages, you have to go HERE. If you want any other screen page go HERE. Perhaps you spend all your time just in the web browser, but I don't. I have bunches of apps running at the same time-- paint programs, telnet windows, etc. I want ALL screen pages in the same tab system, and at least on MS Windows, there already is such a one, called the TASKBAR. It ain't broke, and it handles ALL application pages, not just web pages. I just don't want yet-another specialized tabbing system. Also, I can move the Windows taskbar to where I want it and to where it is the most efficient-- rather than along the bottom or the top of the screen where it eats up valuable vertical space, I keep my application tabs in a vertical column on the left side of my screen. With the advent of wide-screen monitors, that allows me to stack more "tabs" in a far more efficient use of screen real estate. Vertical space is at a greater premium IMHO than horizontal space, given the aspect ratio of modern screens.
I gather then, that the reason Firefox has it's own tabs, must be because Linux windowing systems don't have a useful system-wide tabbing mechanism like MS Windows has. Or at least, not one that the Firefox developers like. Personally, I know and love Unices generally, including Linux, but their GUIs suck, so I prefer to use them in console or telnet windows because of that. I guess Firefox is trying to compensate for that lack in the application, but IMHO is not where that feature belongs.
What makes you think so? If you look at it closely, Firefox sticks to its assumptions. The new features are either supplementing or replacing previous ones, like the improved bookmarks system, or are mostly about streamlining the already existing usage paths.
TABBED BROWSING is what makes me think so. Don't need it. Don't want it. Never wanted it. Don't like it. Didn't ask for it. I find tabs incredibly annoying-- more often than not I find that tabs have opened in the background that I didn't ask for and only find when I close the window and get a popup indicating there are additional tabs. Is your windowing system so slow that it takes too long for a new window? Or is your memory so tight that a new window uses too much more than a new tab? Tabs take up valuable screen real estate-- TABS BEGONE!
... like Firefox was in the early days? That was the feature I wanted, not the bloatware it's turned into by V2.0. I don't need no stinkin' tabbed browsing or ActiveX, I want a small footprint, high performance & security basic browser who's developers aren't afflicted with bouts of creeping featurism...
They're worried about bringing down Cingular's network? The Treo or Blackberry doesn't have this problem, something must be wrong with iPhone's OS X application security...
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DRM would be useful. So would a perpetual motion machine. It is wishful thinking to believe that the sheer utility of a function means it is capable of being produced.
Yes, but it's not wishful thinking to believe that the sheer utility of a function means that it is capable of being sold. Sales is a function of hope, not reality.
As far as I can tell, my resource-hogging, system-destabilizing virus scanner does effectively nothing against any of those and there's no reason to believe it can be changed to do so.
ABSOLUTELY. I gave up on AV programs some time ago. A good firewall, firewall-like execution protection such as Process Guard, not using the most popular email programs or web browsers, and severely restricting web-based application execution (i.e., boycott ActiveX and hamstring Java and Javascript) are far more effective techniques for tripping up a virus as such attacks will almost always try to 1) exploit networking applications most common to the OS, 2) try to run some kind of executable that you haven't run before, and/or 3) attempt some kind of network operation in order to propagate itself. Trying to recognize virus signatures is a lousy use of CPU resources, and has not been seen to be very effective.
AV software companies are addicted to the subscription model that signature-based AV provides, and consequently are in a serious conflict-of-interest with regards to best security practices. Symantec in particular seems to be short of ideas for an alternative business model, and have opted instead to whine like a six-year-old who's mommy won't let them buy candy at the checkstand.
Gates suggests "having a fix" for an exploit means "there are no vulnerable machines out there." What a maroon...
What really astonishes me is that open source has made such great leaps in other areas yet there's no apparent replacement for Outlook & Exchange. For a huge number of folk in business, having an open office suite is useless if they don't have calendar sharing, resource scheduling and email/contact sharing amongst groups. Is this really so difficult to achieve?
I don't know how difficult it is, but it exists. Ever hear of Lotus Notes?
While it may not be open source or Free (as in beer), it runs on x86 Linux (RH & SUSE at least), as does the Domino server (an Exchange alternative). It's not directly compatible with Exchange, but nothing is going to be except Microsoft mail products which are closed and non-Linux, so if that's your problem then nothing but a Microsoft supported platform can ever satisfy you so why did it take you so long to figure that out and give up?
Easy; assume I don't want it unless I request it. If I write a personal email to someone, like to customer service, I expect a response. If I order something, I assume they'll send me a confirmation. I don't want an email a week for the next 50 years.
EXACTLY. As far as I'm concerned, this sort of bulk email IS spam, and should be treated as such. Just because you got a legitimate email from them once upon a time doesn't mean that anything they send you from then on is somehow not SPAM...
There are a couple of serious problems with this statement. The most important one is that the article doesn't say that existing software will get slower. And there's a reason for that: Existing software will continue to run on the individual processor cores. Something that they've done for a long period of time. Old software may not get any faster due to a change in focus toward parallelism vs. increased core speed, but it's not going to suddenly come to a screeching halt any more than my DOS programs from 15 years ago are.
Uh-- what if the 3GHZ CPU you have now is upgraded for a 64-core 500MHZ system? You'll have essentially ~32GHZ of performance for programs that can utilize parallelism, but only 500MHZ of individual core performance for those that cannot...
Also remember the old RISC and CISC battles? Then we came to see that both architectures evolved towards each other. RISC instruction sets became more complex, CISC ones adopted some of the RISC architecture advantages. I expect that multi-core and CELL may do the same. But it's possible in the process that rather than continuing to crank up the clock speed and have to further shorten the signal paths in order to make it work, that they'll reduce the clock and increase the parallelism in order to open up means of performance expansion that aren't butting up against some of the hard physical limitations as clock rate currently is.
I'm not saying that's definately how it all is going to go, but it is a distinct possibility that is consistent with the statement that "current programs will get slower," and is not necessarily unreasonable, IMHO.
The only real issue with ebay is you have to watch out for the jerks that jack up the shipping and handling and sell low.
I agree you have to watch out for this, but I don't attribute it simply to "jerkdom" like I did initially. Apparently many sellers started doing this when eBay started jacking up their percentage. The sellers saw this as a way to counteract and/or protest the increased fees. It does make it more treacherous for buyers who have to make sure they check the S/H, but the motivation for many sellers is not so much to fake-out buyers into thinking they're getting a better deal (though it can do that), but to move more of the purchase price of the item from eBay-taxable into non-eBay-taxable amounts. If you're a high volume seller it adds up...
The problem is not the seller outbidding you on an item, the problem is the seller artificially jacking up your cost of an item by bidding against you to drive up the current bid price nearer to your maximum. You are then paying more than you should for the item even if you are willing to bid that much. When you enter a maximum bid, you essentially are saying you are willing to bid against other valid bidders up to X amount to get the item, but not more. Fraud occurs when the seller places (or arranges to have placed) a competitive bid for his own item simply in order to increase the current price so that he'll make more money out of you than he would if it was a fair marketplace. That you may be willing to pay more is not the issue, entering a maximum bid says you are willing to pay more only if you actually have to in order to beat other bidders.
eBay has been very poor at handling this, and in fact there is a conflict of interest because even eBay makes more commission when this sort of fraud occurs. Consequently, eBay may not be all that motivated to do much of anything about it.
I used to work for Tektronix fixing oscilloscopes and test equipment. In the field repair offices the first thing we did with ANY gear that came in the door was send it to the wash rack. We hosed it down with essentially the same nozzle and soap & water that you use at the self-serve car washes. Rinse, then it went in the drying ovens for about three days (I don't remember the temp, not terribly high tho). Only caveat-- make sure any enclosed transformers were oriented so they would drain, because if they filled with water the dryers would not dry out a transformer filled with water in the alotted drying time.
We never had a problem with water damaging anything. Of course, the power didn't go on until after this process, but they were always dry by the time it did so there was no problem.
Water damage to electronics occurs when power is on at the same time, since water conducts electricity-- it can consequently cause shorts and component failures. Water exposure to unpowered electronics is usually undamaging except perhaps certain specialized components or possibly extremely hard water that might leave a mineral residue (rinse with distilled water if you're concerned about residue).
Note this is even true with antique devices that are vacuum tube and used paper capacitors. Paper capacitors were wax coated, though probably need to be changed due to their age anyhow if you're restoring old gear, as they don't have that great a lifespan.
YMMV, but I got paid to do it to all kinds of gear for years and never had a problem getting electronics wet.
Jeez-- looks like the Apple fanboi's are pretty testy. Musta hit a nerve...
... in my next cell phone:
- Bigger screen for web pages
- Support for third party apps
Right now that sounds more like a Blackberry or Treo, than an iPhone...
Yes, I think Howard Aiken said it best:
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
They seem grossly overpriced as it is-- it's not like they're "giving away the razor," the old Gillette strategy...
It seems to me that there's no reason that a spam mailer couldn't operate with a traffic pattern virtually indistinguishable from a non-spam mailing list. To the extent they don't *already* do that it's probably just because they haven't had to. If such analysis becomes routine at ISPs, that will simply motivate the spammers to tune their engines behavior a bit, and the "fix" will be rendered useless in no time...
If you're a strict evolutionist, it seems one should avoid words that connote intention or design.
I don't see that the word "design" implies a conscious or self-aware "designer." Design can be produced by filtered randomness and automated processes. Intelligence is the accumulation of information (knowledge). The problem here is not that scientists utilize the word "design" but that ID'ers have convinced you that "design" or "intelligence" presume a consciousness.
why can't we identify a currently living transitionary animal to a currently existing "latest and greatest" evolved creature?
EVERY population is "transitionary." Evolution occurs in populations, not individuals. Successful genes propagate through populations and unsuccessful ones are weeded out. Over time that genetic drift combined with division into subpopulations produces sufficient variances that we then see them in the fossil record as distinct. Fossil remains are rare, so what we have is a sparse sampling of what has lived. However, there are cases where in layer after layer the shifts in a population can be seen. The reptile-to-mammal transition for example, has lots of fossil examples of the incremental variations of populations over an extended period.
But really-- read a book. This is not rocket science, and popular books on evolutionary details are not hard to read. Asking a question like "how come there are no transitions" merely shows how ignorant you truly are about the subject. The question itself is erroneous as it presumes ridiculous things like a reptile suddenly giving birth to a half-bird or something which has nothing to do with how evolution works. Trotting out dated creationist canards does not speak well for your education. If you wish to argue against evolution, find out what it is first before you start asking "how long have you been beating your wife"-type questions.
Were dinosaurs really "designed?"
Yes, though by autonomous processes. Evolution is a design mechanism. Self awareness or consciousness are not requirements for the production of design. Evolution produces design through trial and error-- errors are eliminated and successes survive. The results are simply designed (optimized) to survive.
And in fact, to the extent that "intelligence" is defined as the "accumulation of information" (accumulation of knowledge), Evolutionary design is also "intelligent." What it's not is conscious or self-aware, at least in the sense normally attributed to individuals.
Intelligent Design proponents would have us believe that design requires intelligence, and intelligence requires consciousness/self-awareness. They are incorrect. Evolution is a process of unconscious intelligent design.
Karaoke bars are in real big trouble here...
Don't forget "fair use." If I was on a picturephone connection to my grandma, and held up a product package to the camera to show her something I just bought-- should I be held accountable for "copying" the package design? What if I send similar footage in a canned video to all my relatives? To my relatives and my friends? What if I have 100,000 relatives and friends? The problem is a "copy" here is applied to any type of facsimile or partial facsimilie. Should Andy Warhol been forced to pay royalties to Marilyn Monroe and Cambells? What if he had painted them from scratch rather than using a xerox of acutal photos?
The problem is, people's ability to connect with others over the internet is vastly expanding-- in essense, extending your network of "friends" considerably. Noone worried about your grandma seeing that can of Coors sitting behind you in the speakerphone conversation, but now if you record that same conversation and post it to YouTube, there's this percieved threat that a bunch of folks will get their knickers in a twist for illegal "copying".
The problem is, the term "copy" to the extent it infringes property rights is poorly defined and broadly applied when it comes to the new digital technologies. On the other extreme, some might argue that unless it is a physical copy, and not just a digital representation or duplication of a representation, it is not really a copy-- as in Magritte's famous, "This is not a pipe" painting, a representation is not equivalent to what is being represented and therefore not a "copy," merely a "representation." Then again, Magritte's painting is also not functional as a pipe, yet a copy of an mp3 file is equally functional as the original mp3 file. Still others try to claim that unless the owner is not deprived of his own copy it should not be considered property theft. While these extremes are perhaps unreasonable, so too is the extreme that any sort of digital copy is infringement.
But individual communication, whether to a single friend or relative or to thousands over YouTube cannot reasonably be impeded by such overbroad application of infringement IMHO. As long as some semblance of freedom of speech exists, persons must be allowed to quote, represent and misrepresent, repurpose and reproduce the elements found in the real world in people's real lives. And this must be regardless of whether or not that personal communication is destined solely for your grandma or to be posted on YouTube.
The real problem is, personal communication now presents a potentially significant distraction from commercialized media programs. If people are spending more time watching their friends do stupid things on YouTube than they are watching broadcast television programs, there are people who are going to get very upset-- but that is their problem. They may have money to spend to try to fight the problem and make life uncomfortable for some people during that process, but I think they should be taken to task for illegally impeding your civil rights in doing so. Politicians don't have the guts to take that stand however, so I don't expect that to happen but I see no way media conglomerates will be able to wrest control of personal communications away from the individuals at this point-- get used to it.
The rules about digital reproduction cannot be so arbitrary that the average individual who is not a media or copyright expert cannot figure them out, nor can the legal system be used as intimidation for long without repercussions. MPAA and RIAA lawsuits are in fact, hastening their own demise, IMHO.
Maybe because then you have to offer it in many different formats?
No, all you'd have to use is mp3/mpeg2/mpeg4 or some other format that virtually everything plays.
More likely, he's using flash because he thinks he will be able to exert some kind of control over it-- stream only, no download, or download but can't edit or something. A common misconception about flash format security.
Yes, it's not as if we don't have enough codecs out there. If a given piece of media can't be viewed with a legal and free codec, I just don't need to see it. There's plenty more things to view out there that don't require restricted codecs. Rather than accomodate proprietary restrictions on media play, we should avoid them and help restricted codecs to die out. Making them available on Linux suggests that it is Linux' problem that a codec won't run on it, rather than the codec's problem. In either case it's the users problem, but covering up the fact the codec is restrictive is doing noone any favors except those who wish to exert proprietary controls over media-- and while they may have that right, we also have the right to ignore them. As soon as some Madison Avenue exec realizes that their ads are missing a segment of the market by using a restrictive codec, they'll toss it and use something else, and ad men can be pretty darn influential in media production...
Vote with your feet-- against restricted codecs.
The problem with tabbed browsing is that in MS Windows anyway, it is completely redundant. There is ALREADY tabbed browsing, implemented in the OS. I want ONE place where I can select the tab of any screen page I want, not spread all over individual applications UIs with their own idiosyncratic mechanisms. Essentially, browser tab pages subcategorize your web pages, making them harder to find. If you want WEB pages, you have to go HERE. If you want any other screen page go HERE. Perhaps you spend all your time just in the web browser, but I don't. I have bunches of apps running at the same time-- paint programs, telnet windows, etc. I want ALL screen pages in the same tab system, and at least on MS Windows, there already is such a one, called the TASKBAR. It ain't broke, and it handles ALL application pages, not just web pages. I just don't want yet-another specialized tabbing system. Also, I can move the Windows taskbar to where I want it and to where it is the most efficient-- rather than along the bottom or the top of the screen where it eats up valuable vertical space, I keep my application tabs in a vertical column on the left side of my screen. With the advent of wide-screen monitors, that allows me to stack more "tabs" in a far more efficient use of screen real estate. Vertical space is at a greater premium IMHO than horizontal space, given the aspect ratio of modern screens.
I gather then, that the reason Firefox has it's own tabs, must be because Linux windowing systems don't have a useful system-wide tabbing mechanism like MS Windows has. Or at least, not one that the Firefox developers like. Personally, I know and love Unices generally, including Linux, but their GUIs suck, so I prefer to use them in console or telnet windows because of that. I guess Firefox is trying to compensate for that lack in the application, but IMHO is not where that feature belongs.
What makes you think so? If you look at it closely, Firefox sticks to its assumptions. The new features are either supplementing or replacing previous ones, like the improved bookmarks system, or are mostly about streamlining the already existing usage paths.
TABBED BROWSING is what makes me think so. Don't need it. Don't want it. Never wanted it. Don't like it. Didn't ask for it. I find tabs incredibly annoying-- more often than not I find that tabs have opened in the background that I didn't ask for and only find when I close the window and get a popup indicating there are additional tabs. Is your windowing system so slow that it takes too long for a new window? Or is your memory so tight that a new window uses too much more than a new tab? Tabs take up valuable screen real estate-- TABS BEGONE!
... like Firefox was in the early days? That was the feature I wanted, not the bloatware it's turned into by V2.0. I don't need no stinkin' tabbed browsing or ActiveX, I want a small footprint, high performance & security basic browser who's developers aren't afflicted with bouts of creeping featurism...
They're worried about bringing down Cingular's network? The Treo or Blackberry doesn't have this problem, something must be wrong with iPhone's OS X application security...