" The c64 was more popular than the apple II, and it was a better machine too."
I won't argue that either way, but it is beside the point of the argument I was making in my parent post. The Apple II came out first. It was the one that popularized the notion that you could have a computer in your home. Tandy and Commodore followed. So it was the Apple II that was revolutionary, and the others were evolutionary.
From that list, it appears he chose based on the hardware itself, and it's popularity, with the OS coming along for the ride. Why else pick the IBM PC 5150 as #2, running DOS? Clearly because it was very popular and helped turn the PC market toward the business world in an unprecedented way.
The "PCs Limited Turbo"? Yeah, that was another DOS machine, and helped revolutionize the turn toward mail-order PCs. Again, that wasn't about the OS.
So those people who complained that the Mac should be number 1 because its OS influenced Windows are missing the point. That doesn't seem to have been the focus of this columnist's article. Now if you want to have another article talking about the most influential OSes, well that's entirely different, and I doubt you'd find the "Tandy Sensation" on that list.
Still, I guess I will make my nits too. If you are going by ubiquity and influence in the marketplace, would you really put the Compaq Portable PC #1? Yeah, it revolutionized portability back when everybody and their uncle's dog were making nothing but desktop PCs. But I would think either the Apple II or the IBM PC would be the truly revolutionary boxes. Those were the boxes that told the world that you could have a computer of your very own, both at home and on your desk at work. That was a true paradigm shift that none of the others matched, IMO.
Interesting article; thanks for posting it. Of course Gates is also quoted in that article as saying, "We invented personal computing." So clearly he doesn't have all his facts straight.
Remember, folks, this is another step in Microsoft's plan to lock in users to Windows. As noted in this Groklaw article, a number of questions are raised about these Phoenix plans:
"Will there be Windows-specific APIs in the BIOS? Are they available to other operating systems? Are these APIs cryptographically hidden from reverse engineering? Legally, do these APIs belong to Microsoft or to Phoenix? Is this a loophole with respects to the anti-trust settlement? This raises a lot of questions about the ability of hardware that includes this new Phoenix BIOS to run non-Microsoft operating systems. Would they run? Would they be crippled it they run? Would Microsoft customers switching to Linux have to change hardware as well, if their PCs run this BIOS? "
"In a 1978 essay he wrote: "We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. "
Doesn't this just ring true? We see politicians create anti-spam bills that will create more spam, help Medicare bills that will gut Medicare, Clean Air Acts designed to allow our air to get dirtier, acts to "save" the forests by cutting down the trees. We see propaganda from foreign news sources, and, sadly, from our own. We see commercials that say one thing while we know reality is the opposite. We "see" things on football fields and behind baseball diamonds that are not actually at the stadiums. We see Times Square electronically made over in order to insert a billboard that is not there in real life. We see Wall Street promising to get tough on corporate crime, while analysts give buy ratings to SCO.
We live a PKD existence! That's why his story themes resonate so strongly with us. We recognize it. Every day.
I'm no moron; you misunderstood my message. I wasn't talking about security exploits. I was merely talking about how when you choose the closed-source paradigm, you are forced to spend a lot of time and money to keep people away from your source code. A problem that is non-existant in the open source model. That's all.
I wasn't saying open source is a silver bullet, so that part of your message was off-topic as well. All I was saying is that there is one inherent advantage to the open source model, and here was a stark example of this. How my message got so misunderstood by so many people responding is a mystery. I guess what I said brought out people's biases into play.
"MS's admission that 'there is a medium to high probability that within the next year, a successful attack will occur that could compromise the High Value and/or Highest Value data class.' According to the document, that includes things such as source code "
Poor Microsoft, still stuck in the old paradigm of closed-source software. Oh sure, it's been a profitable paradigm for them, but those days will gradually erode as the trend toward Free and Open Source continues over the years ahead. Meanwhile Microsoft is stuck spending mega-bucks and lots of time trying to protect themselves from having anyone actually...gasp...see the source code. Horrors!
When I was in high school, and using PDP printer terminals in my computer programming class (yes, this goes way back), I wrote a program that would lock out keyboard input, go into a loop of form feeding paper, and never stop until someone pulled the plug. I then named my little program "SEX.BAS" and put a warning at first when it run that this was a dangerous program, not to touch it.
I left it in our class's shared directory and waited. About 15 minutes later a cluster of male students were sitting around the terminal whispering, when suddenly the paper began form-feeding at high speed and they panicked! Ah, that was fun, preying on the natural curiosity of my fellow geeks.
I'm older than that. I remember going into Radio Shack when the TRS-80 was first introduced, writing a quick BASIC program:
10 PRINT "Trash 80s suck!"
20 GOTO 10
running it and walking out. Ah, memories!
Re:More Apple-as-culture tripe
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 1
"Firstly, they're not doing anything anyone couldn't have done 20 years ago with a walkman (and it seems that they can't verify that this is a real phenomenon at all, given that the author called a few places and it seems he is still the only one the writers can track down who's done it). What makes this an iPod-specific phenomenon ? Why wouldn't regular MP3-toting people be into this as well ? What's so special about the iPod that it enables this ? Answer, nothing."
Yet it is happening, and with iPods. Nothing prevents people with other players from doing it, so why aren't they?
"Second, IF true (and I have my doubts), what does this say about the conspicuous consumption which in this article at least seems to define iPod users ? Just exactly how do these 'iPod regulars' identify themselves to each other ? It seems to me, if I had an iPod, it would be in my breast pocket, and noone outside would know I had one."
Read the article. You can tell an iPod from the earphones. No need for conspicuous consumption, so the rest of your comments are totally off the mark.
Apple really does have a community that cares about it, not all that unlike the community of Linux users. It's not snobbery, it's a realization of someone else who sees things the way you do, at least in this one small area. That's a natural human reaction.
I appreciate your input on this. As I said, the listed article did not indicate the problem, but your comments do and I accept that. I agree with you that both sides will use this for their advantage every chance they get so it's best not to paint this as a Republican plot.
"widespread right-wing conspiracy theories have done great harm by galvanizing election officials to be dismissive of re-opening their consideration of the issue."
I read the CBS News article in the included link, and I don't see the "great harm" anywhere in that article. I'm wondering if the submitter is showing a bias by his comments.
I am not aware of any solid proof that the right-wing has used electronic voting machines to ensure election, but it stands to reason that it has and will happen. Why? Because politicians on both sides have tampered with election results and methods for decades (centuries, millenia). So it would be quite naive to think that the right-wing wouldn't try to use whatever advantage it had. The left-wing too, when they are in power, would do the same thing. Power corrupts.
This is a non-partisan problem. Either side is likely to try to use closed-source technology to their favor. It is short-sided to think this is only a right-wing problem -- it's not. Whoever is in power will use whatever means are accesible to maintain that power. Therefore it is imperative that the voting method being used does not give them an obvious tool to corrupt in maintaining that power. Diebold (and other manufacturer) machines are bad news, no matter which side you are on. Elections are stolen routinely throughout human history. Don't give them another tool to do the job, for they will most assuredly use them.
Think about it: Do you really want to give politicians a method to hide voting result confirmations? To be able to say, "Here are the results and, hey whaddya know? I won!" and have no possible way to verify that? That's called power without accountability, and we all know where that leads.
"However, some local bands say they didn't ask for and don't want protection from fans downloading their music.
"I'm all for file sharing," said Mark Arm, the lead singer for Mudhoney. "I think it's ridiculous that they're going after 80-year-old women and 15-year-old kids, no matter how many items they've downloaded."
The biggest artists may have the most to lose. File sharing takes money out of their pockets, because fans download the music rather than buy it.
Non-mainstream, more independent artists take a different view. File sharing gives them exposure they may not otherwise get. "
Nice to see that even the mainstream media is beginning to catch on that just because the RIAA bought themselves some laws it doesn't mean they are right. Yes, laws have now been crafted to make it illegal to share, so what she did is "illegal." But she didn't do anything wrong, some music groups understand that, and eventually people will see that file sharing is the best way to advertise.
Spare me the new/. wave of conservative thought that wants to lecture me about how the corporations are in the right and we should just cooperate and shut up. The RIAA got this one wrong, they are trying to protect a dying business model, and history will show that file sharing increases business, not descreases it.
Keep in mind, I actually am law-abiding, even though I disagree with the law. But it encourages me when I see the mainstream media begining to see that just because the RIAA says 'file sharing = evil' it isn't necessarily show.
Comments on today's SCO conference call
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I found these comments from the excellent GrokLaw site by someone who was able to get in on this morning's teleconference call set up by SCO. See here for where I got the comments from, as well as PJ's commentary on recent events in SCOville:
Authored by: radicimo on Tuesday, November 18 2003 @ 12:40 PM EST
Conference call just ended. I had a *1 for questions, but they just cut off the conference before things got too hairy, with a "We have no more callers". LIARS. Also, interesting how Dion Cornett was unable to ask his question. Makes me wonder out loud.
1. They referred to SCOsource licensing as one of the contingencies that created the payment for Boies (really cagey about it too). However they also said that Microsoft in no way was funding the lawsuit. That is a patently untrue then, as MSFT has funded the SCOsource licensing.
I think this one is really important to note. IF there ever is a securities fraud investigation of TSG, some of their comments in the call are patently self-contradictory, and if I was "allowed" to ask my questions these would have come out.
2. Still seems that there are no other licensees besides MSFT and SUNW. I was going to force them to get specific about this and find out when Sun payment will be recorded, and if there were any future contingencies which would lead to additional payments by either.
3. I wanted Boies to explain how the USL v. BSDI lawsuit gave them any legal standing. It doesn't, and seems to weaken it (IANAL).
4. Compete versus non-compete wrt Novell. First UNIX is not Linux, so how are they competing with the letter of the agreement? Second, SCO legacy revenue is decreasing whereas this new partnership (word they used again and again) with a law firm suggests that their core business is now lawsuits. How is Novell competing with that (tongue in cheek)?
5. Has OSDL contacted them about their use of the trademark UNIX, and why do they continue to use this trademark without proper attribution?
The reason why SCO is able to perpetrate the FUD they do is because the press and financial community are not doing their research and asking the hardball questions. Things only got a bit tight when they got called to task on the issue of Boies payment and whether it was a contingency based on past or future actions."
" How long before theives chop off people's fingers and buy stuff with it?"
Well, quite a long while I would think. I would imagine that the teenage checkout person at the supermarket would scream bloody murder at the sight of you using a severed finger, getting blood all over the biometric scanner. I can see it now:
Later for you, Belkin. I want nothing to do with a company that treats its customers with contempt. You fixed the problem, you say? Why did you create a problem in the first place, and who is to say there isn't something else in there still hidden? You didn't do a thing about this problem until it blew up in your face. So you aren't sorry, you are sorry you got caught.
Why is it whenever a company that thinks of itself as reputable sends spam (unasked for advertising messages) to someone they deny it is spam? 'We did not spam our users. We had a product we thought they would be interested in so we directed their attention to the product.' In other words, you spammed. Busted by your own admission.
I've used Belkin products in the past. Never again. Trust shattered. Blame the marketing person at your company who came up with this idea.
" Even the Washinton Post call these guys leftists"
Yes, I noticed that when I first saw this page. Of course, I suppose in today's corporate world any group that looks out for workers is automatically "leftist." Still, it's the numbers I found interesting, not who reported it. Do you know the numbers are wrong? If not, isn't the point of the numbers still of significance, regardless of the messenger?
Slashdot Mirror
I won't argue that either way, but it is beside the point of the argument I was making in my parent post. The Apple II came out first. It was the one that popularized the notion that you could have a computer in your home. Tandy and Commodore followed. So it was the Apple II that was revolutionary, and the others were evolutionary.
But I was using it as a possessive instead:
"...the hardware itself, and it's popularity"
So I was wrong the first time.
/nt
The "PCs Limited Turbo"? Yeah, that was another DOS machine, and helped revolutionize the turn toward mail-order PCs. Again, that wasn't about the OS.
So those people who complained that the Mac should be number 1 because its OS influenced Windows are missing the point. That doesn't seem to have been the focus of this columnist's article. Now if you want to have another article talking about the most influential OSes, well that's entirely different, and I doubt you'd find the "Tandy Sensation" on that list.
Still, I guess I will make my nits too. If you are going by ubiquity and influence in the marketplace, would you really put the Compaq Portable PC #1? Yeah, it revolutionized portability back when everybody and their uncle's dog were making nothing but desktop PCs. But I would think either the Apple II or the IBM PC would be the truly revolutionary boxes. Those were the boxes that told the world that you could have a computer of your very own, both at home and on your desk at work. That was a true paradigm shift that none of the others matched, IMO.
OEKay, thanks for that clarification...
Seriously, I do realize what it stands for and all, and it is interesting to see what happens to a slashed O here. I just couldn't resist the joke.
"OK, OK, Retry Immediately, Man!"
Yes, but then you did just post to /. about the story, so...
"Will there be Windows-specific APIs in the BIOS? Are they available to other operating systems? Are these APIs cryptographically hidden from reverse engineering? Legally, do these APIs belong to Microsoft or to Phoenix? Is this a loophole with respects to the anti-trust settlement? This raises a lot of questions about the ability of hardware that includes this new Phoenix BIOS to run non-Microsoft operating systems. Would they run? Would they be crippled it they run? Would Microsoft customers switching to Linux have to change hardware as well, if their PCs run this BIOS? "
Tread very carefully.
"I'm sorry, sir, but that is politically incorrect language."
"Uh, ok, um, lemme see. Can I please have a mouse adaptor where one end has pins sticking out and one end has holes to fill."
"You trying to be funny with me, boy?"
"Ugh, ok, never mind. Just give me a master/slave controller."
"That's it, I'm calling the police, pervert!"
Doesn't this just ring true? We see politicians create anti-spam bills that will create more spam, help Medicare bills that will gut Medicare, Clean Air Acts designed to allow our air to get dirtier, acts to "save" the forests by cutting down the trees. We see propaganda from foreign news sources, and, sadly, from our own. We see commercials that say one thing while we know reality is the opposite. We "see" things on football fields and behind baseball diamonds that are not actually at the stadiums. We see Times Square electronically made over in order to insert a billboard that is not there in real life. We see Wall Street promising to get tough on corporate crime, while analysts give buy ratings to SCO.
We live a PKD existence! That's why his story themes resonate so strongly with us. We recognize it. Every day.
I wasn't saying open source is a silver bullet, so that part of your message was off-topic as well. All I was saying is that there is one inherent advantage to the open source model, and here was a stark example of this. How my message got so misunderstood by so many people responding is a mystery. I guess what I said brought out people's biases into play.
Poor Microsoft, still stuck in the old paradigm of closed-source software. Oh sure, it's been a profitable paradigm for them, but those days will gradually erode as the trend toward Free and Open Source continues over the years ahead. Meanwhile Microsoft is stuck spending mega-bucks and lots of time trying to protect themselves from having anyone actually...gasp...see the source code. Horrors!
ROFL!
When I was in high school, and using PDP printer terminals in my computer programming class (yes, this goes way back), I wrote a program that would lock out keyboard input, go into a loop of form feeding paper, and never stop until someone pulled the plug. I then named my little program "SEX.BAS" and put a warning at first when it run that this was a dangerous program, not to touch it.
I left it in our class's shared directory and waited. About 15 minutes later a cluster of male students were sitting around the terminal whispering, when suddenly the paper began form-feeding at high speed and they panicked! Ah, that was fun, preying on the natural curiosity of my fellow geeks.
10 PRINT "Trash 80s suck!"
20 GOTO 10
running it and walking out. Ah, memories!
Yet it is happening, and with iPods. Nothing prevents people with other players from doing it, so why aren't they?
"Second, IF true (and I have my doubts), what does this say about the conspicuous consumption which in this article at least seems to define iPod users ? Just exactly how do these 'iPod regulars' identify themselves to each other ? It seems to me, if I had an iPod, it would be in my breast pocket, and noone outside would know I had one."
Read the article. You can tell an iPod from the earphones. No need for conspicuous consumption, so the rest of your comments are totally off the mark.
Apple really does have a community that cares about it, not all that unlike the community of Linux users. It's not snobbery, it's a realization of someone else who sees things the way you do, at least in this one small area. That's a natural human reaction.
I appreciate your input on this. As I said, the listed article did not indicate the problem, but your comments do and I accept that. I agree with you that both sides will use this for their advantage every chance they get so it's best not to paint this as a Republican plot.
I read the CBS News article in the included link, and I don't see the "great harm" anywhere in that article. I'm wondering if the submitter is showing a bias by his comments.
I am not aware of any solid proof that the right-wing has used electronic voting machines to ensure election, but it stands to reason that it has and will happen. Why? Because politicians on both sides have tampered with election results and methods for decades (centuries, millenia). So it would be quite naive to think that the right-wing wouldn't try to use whatever advantage it had. The left-wing too, when they are in power, would do the same thing. Power corrupts.
This is a non-partisan problem. Either side is likely to try to use closed-source technology to their favor. It is short-sided to think this is only a right-wing problem -- it's not. Whoever is in power will use whatever means are accesible to maintain that power. Therefore it is imperative that the voting method being used does not give them an obvious tool to corrupt in maintaining that power. Diebold (and other manufacturer) machines are bad news, no matter which side you are on. Elections are stolen routinely throughout human history. Don't give them another tool to do the job, for they will most assuredly use them.
Think about it: Do you really want to give politicians a method to hide voting result confirmations? To be able to say, "Here are the results and, hey whaddya know? I won!" and have no possible way to verify that? That's called power without accountability, and we all know where that leads.
"However, some local bands say they didn't ask for and don't want protection from fans downloading their music.
"I'm all for file sharing," said Mark Arm, the lead singer for Mudhoney. "I think it's ridiculous that they're going after 80-year-old women and 15-year-old kids, no matter how many items they've downloaded."
The biggest artists may have the most to lose. File sharing takes money out of their pockets, because fans download the music rather than buy it.
Non-mainstream, more independent artists take a different view. File sharing gives them exposure they may not otherwise get. "
Nice to see that even the mainstream media is beginning to catch on that just because the RIAA bought themselves some laws it doesn't mean they are right. Yes, laws have now been crafted to make it illegal to share, so what she did is "illegal." But she didn't do anything wrong, some music groups understand that, and eventually people will see that file sharing is the best way to advertise.
Spare me the new /. wave of conservative thought that wants to lecture me about how the corporations are in the right and we should just cooperate and shut up. The RIAA got this one wrong, they are trying to protect a dying business model, and history will show that file sharing increases business, not descreases it.
Keep in mind, I actually am law-abiding, even though I disagree with the law. But it encourages me when I see the mainstream media begining to see that just because the RIAA says 'file sharing = evil' it isn't necessarily show.
Authored by: radicimo on Tuesday, November 18 2003 @ 12:40 PM EST
Conference call just ended. I had a *1 for questions, but they just cut off the conference before things got too hairy, with a "We have no more callers". LIARS. Also, interesting how Dion Cornett was unable to ask his question. Makes me wonder out loud.
1. They referred to SCOsource licensing as one of the contingencies that created the payment for Boies (really cagey about it too). However they also said that Microsoft in no way was funding the lawsuit. That is a patently untrue then, as MSFT has funded the SCOsource licensing.
I think this one is really important to note. IF there ever is a securities fraud investigation of TSG, some of their comments in the call are patently self-contradictory, and if I was "allowed" to ask my questions these would have come out.
2. Still seems that there are no other licensees besides MSFT and SUNW. I was going to force them to get specific about this and find out when Sun payment will be recorded, and if there were any future contingencies which would lead to additional payments by either.
3. I wanted Boies to explain how the USL v. BSDI lawsuit gave them any legal standing. It doesn't, and seems to weaken it (IANAL).
4. Compete versus non-compete wrt Novell. First UNIX is not Linux, so how are they competing with the letter of the agreement? Second, SCO legacy revenue is decreasing whereas this new partnership (word they used again and again) with a law firm suggests that their core business is now lawsuits. How is Novell competing with that (tongue in cheek)?
5. Has OSDL contacted them about their use of the trademark UNIX, and why do they continue to use this trademark without proper attribution?
The reason why SCO is able to perpetrate the FUD they do is because the press and financial community are not doing their research and asking the hardball questions. Things only got a bit tight when they got called to task on the issue of Boies payment and whether it was a contingency based on past or future actions."
Well, quite a long while I would think. I would imagine that the teenage checkout person at the supermarket would scream bloody murder at the sight of you using a severed finger, getting blood all over the biometric scanner. I can see it now:
"Paper or plast-- AAAAHHHHHHHH!"
Not exactly the most effective scam to try.
Why is it whenever a company that thinks of itself as reputable sends spam (unasked for advertising messages) to someone they deny it is spam? 'We did not spam our users. We had a product we thought they would be interested in so we directed their attention to the product.' In other words, you spammed. Busted by your own admission.
I've used Belkin products in the past. Never again. Trust shattered. Blame the marketing person at your company who came up with this idea.
Wait...did you just ask for MTV to NOT pander to helpless teeny boppers? Dude, that's their market!
Yes, I noticed that when I first saw this page. Of course, I suppose in today's corporate world any group that looks out for workers is automatically "leftist." Still, it's the numbers I found interesting, not who reported it. Do you know the numbers are wrong? If not, isn't the point of the numbers still of significance, regardless of the messenger?