Apparently, you can get arrested in Thailand for using, or advocating VoIP - the fact that the telecom monopoly is owned by th eprime minister is probably jst coincidence....
"According to sources, wrote Geoff Long for CommsDay Global, "Thai authorities have begun a crackdown on illegal SIP phone services" with up to 30 people charged with offering illegal phones and telecom services, "an offence which carries a significant fine and or jail term"."
Sorry to burst your bubble - 'Freedom Fries' were the brilliant (cynicical!) innovation by two dorky Congressmen from the United States Congress - who erroneously considered 'French Fries' to be of French origin, and felt that by renaming them they would 'show' the French that the US meant business.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned Fries were of Belgian origin, and the Congressional action elicited hearty laughter from the French over the stupidity of 'those Americans'.
Hence why, a little bit later, without much fanfare, 'Freedom Fries' (and 'Freedom Toast') were renamed back to their old names.
Ah, yes, education *could* go a long way to save one to be embarassed, n'est ce pas?
The article isn't abut how companies are actually doing this, but rather it is the Gartner Group *recommending* that comapnie do this.
This isn't about security, it's about Apple (as always). Apple is doin well, efforts at negative press backfire, the iPod is breaking sales records, along with the iTMS -- so, what can people like Gartner do to try to drag down Apple again?
"Let's see, let's claim it's a security risk, that will spread plenty of FUD with execs and IT experts that are clueles..."
> Arthur C. Clarke -- nice ideas but fluffy > (Eh? 'The City at the Edge of Forever' fluffy?)
You might want to correct that as well. Better proofread before hitting 'submit', as CotEoF was penned by Harlan Ellison, who we both agree is an unpleasant individual.
Harry
Re:Shrek 2 an international flop?
on
Shrek 2 How-To
·
· Score: 1
I was the recipient of Ricardo Batista's marketing spam announcing this 'service'. Noting several problems with it, I replied to his e-mail (doing a 'reply all'), and informed him not only of my concerns, but also pointed out that now all the morons thinking they get $5,000 from Bill Gates and Walt Disney Jr. will resurface with renewed efforts to convince their famiies to forward mail "because now it can be tracked, here's proof..."
Well, turns out that Ricardo had a 'setting' wrong on his mail server, or whatever, as my response to him was also broadcast to his entire spam list.
- He neglected to supress the recipient list. - 'customers@batista.org' was aliased to his customer list. - He allow any non-local reply to take advantage of that.
As confirmation, Ricardo sent me an e-mail pointing out *my* mistake in replaying 'all', and the subsequent deluge of 'bounced mails' and other recipients responding pretty much corroborated this.
Whoops.
Granted, this is a simple mistake that could happen to anyone (well, not really) but doesn't paint to rosy a picture of someone claiming to provide an expert e-mail service.
I have no idea why someone like Ricardo Batista would jump on doing something so obviously silly and transparently flawed (I guess rent needs paying), but I wonder how mnay (if any) people will fall for this.
Not sure if this counts as being leaked (seeing as how it's starting to inch its way all over the place), but this is one definitely hilarious new 'underground' trailer for Pixar's The Incredibles.
Unfortunately for you, devphil, it was never posted on the site. I would know, you know.
Unless you can provide a nice cozy URL indicating what you claim.
As to getting your information elsewhere, and what you feel about the site - that's fine, it's your right to have a personal taste and preferences. Besides the fact that you currently have not other option than to get your entertainment elsewhere, since The Spot has been unavailable since 1997 (I don't count the current incarnation as a valid replacement).
All I'm saying is "get your facts right", seeing as how you haven't, so far.
Could you possibly be any more mis-informed? I would suggest at least having hald a clue before you spout off nonsense. The Spot had at least 5 writers, some of which did write multiple characters (you know, I don't think the dog needed its own writer), and the characters/actors/authors behind the characters were quite real. I know, since I met most of them (either actors, or the authors).
Interest in the site did not drop because it was 'discovered' it was fake (I guess you never visited the 'Behind the Scenes' part of the site, which made no secret of that), but rather because in its last year it was taken over (sorry, re-imagined) under a corporate restructing, by actual soap-opera writers that wanted to give the site more dimension'. Combine that with the new leadership having kicked out the original authors and creators, and having 'mainstreamed' the site (i.e. dumbed it down), and it became a slow-motion trainwreck, until a fan boycott shuttered the site down in late 1997.
What dropped it was corporate cluelessness and greedy stupidity.
Where the heck do you get such stupid ideas as 'it was scripted by ONE person?? How utterly stupid!
If you want to see what the people that were actually behind it are up to now, go to http://www.crlight.com. If you want to see what the people that contributed to its original downfall are up to, you can alternate between the unemployment line, or the new Spot site (soon to *be* the unemployment line)
If this was actually THE SPOT given creds in this thread, I'd be joyous and happy (I used to love that site back in 95/96) but as it stands, the VERY same people that caused the downfall and destruction of the Spot back in in 1997, are now back and trying to purely make $$$ out of this property -- the original creators are not only not involved, but can't be too happy with the current travesty that barely has the URL in common with the original.
Submitted, of course, by an 'anonymous reader', which is the normal M.O. for the people behind Spot2004 -- namely ignoring continuity, alienating the fans, and hiding behind lies of claiming they are not involved. Now, judging by the overly negative comments here, I'd say that they aren't doing too good a job finding new fans - I guess they shouldn't have pissed away their old fansbase, now should they:-)
The 'anonymous' contributor claims that the Spot originally sunk as "another victim of the dot-com bust. ", when nothing could be further from the truth. The dot-com bust had nothing to do with it, but rather greedy and incompetent corporate leadership, executives recruited from film & TV with absolutely no clue about the nascent internet culture, and (after booting the original writers and creators of TheSpot) a creative crew that couldn't write their way out of a barrel. Come to think of it, those were the problems of every other dot-com, and the reason why they busted, I guess:-)
So, overall, the site does not deserve a visit, or even a casual glance, in the state that it has been 'revived', which, judging by te coments on here, won't really happen (except for the Slashdot spike they might get).
Kinda funny that they submitted to slashdot, in hopes of getting hits (and taking those to the bank) pretty much on the eve of their investor's stopping the flow of $$$ (their 90 days are coming to an end)
...and precisely because of nukelite's inability to cooperate and work in an open/source environmnet was PostNuke created - and precisely because it implements a truly cooperative environment has it grown quite popular.
It's almost like PostNuke and PHPNuke can be used as examples of a good, and bad (respectively) open source project.
[Disclaimer: I'm a dev on the PostNuke development team, so my views and opinions might be slightly skewed, but no less accurate.]
PostNuke and PHP-Nuke are two slashdot-like weblogs developed in PHP.
I find PostNuke (postnuke.com) to be a good example of a functional and successful open source project, whereas PHP-Nuke (phpnuke.org) represents the opposite.
PostNuke cam into being as a fork of PHP-Nuke, simply because a number of devs were dissatisfied with the attitude of the main and sole developer of PHP-Nuke.
PHP-Nuke, while billing itself as an open source development, is really just managed and run by one person, who historically does not communicate with his user-based, and while many people constantly suggest and contribute fixes, rarely incorporates code, if at all.
This is the environment that has created PostNuke, which quickly grew into a very dynamic project, attract a large group of inventive, innovative developers - all of which work very cooperatively and effectively on extending and enhancing PostNuke beyond it's original roots.
During the slightly over two months of its existence, PostNuke has leapt by leaps and bounds ahead of PHP-Nuke, to the point where the PHP-Nuke developer has started to incorporate features that PostNuke innovated into his code - albeit badly.
While PHP-Nuke has now, officially, opened their code-base, and claims to have a developer team helping out (again a response to PostNuke's developmnet model on SourceForge and using CVS), activity level and development are nearly at a standstil for the same reason - lack of communication, and lack of management (to the point where his 'developers' are leaving the team for lack of things to do).
What does that really mean? In my opinion, a successful open source project depends certainly on good top-down management, which involves maintaining good communication with the team, providng guidance, an effective vision, and getting a team that works well together.
PostNuke.com is the result of all these factors working together well, and why we're growing really well.
"(oh, and have you ever noticed that our logo isn't the sun logo? They cease-and-desisted us for using their logo here to, even tho that is definitely fair use)"
Well, this is, I guess the difference between a company like IBM (where internal help was applied to the legal departmnet to allow Slashdot to use te IBM logo), and Sun, which essentially cease-and-0desists anyone and anything, and hopes to build good-will, and support for their technology that way.
Well, the fact that JAVA, essentially, has been reduced to just another buzzword with nary mcuh use for anyone is a good start for Sun's demise on that front.
China, fortunately, was the most likely candidate to do this, and I'm really glad they did.
Why?
VeriSign/NSI *ONLY* hatched this plan of 'allowing' foreign characters, in order for hem to make more profit, and thus add 40,000 new characters to the.com,.net, and.org TLDs. Face it, NSI is a money-grubbing behemoth that cares woefully little about standards, or what the internet is all about - they have reached the inevitable end of their rope with domain registrations, what with added competition of hundreds of registrars, and having pissed off enough people (me included) for us to seek alternate registrars for those domains we had registered with them. What does that mean: less revenues for them, and like any company, they desperately need additional avenues of cashflow.
Enter non-roman character sets.
Instead of having just 26 characters (and numbers), there's 40,000+ available characters that can be tacked on to.com addresses - and since NSI is trying to have the monopoly on this (under the guise of an 'experiment'), they are looking to be the nly ones making $$$ off it.
Regardless of their high-falootin' PR words of 'expanding horizons of technology' and such crap, this is just about more money for them - and absolutely NOTHING else.
The only domains that might, if anything, need local character support, or those local TLDs of the specific countries.
As such, it was just a matter of time until some country would have taken those steps, and now that China has, it is only a matter of time until Korea, and possibly even Japan will take similar steps (and there's more countries waiting in the wings) - the final result: Total fragmentation of the homogenous space that *used* to be the internet.
Personally, I hope that this will be enough to terminate this 'experiment' (which is what it is being biled as), and therefore the world can return to a simple use of the roman character set as the defacto lingua franca for the internet.
And I hope that sooner or later those fuckers from Network Solutions burn in whatever hell they believe in...
Not as much of a joke as you think - China, fortunately, was the most likely candidate to do this, and I'm really glad they did.
VeriSign/NSI *ONLY* hatched this plan of 'allowing' foreign characters, in order for hem to make more profit, and thus add 40,000 new characters to the.com,.net, and.org TLDs.
This was the ONLY reason for them doing this, and it has woefully little to do with their public posturing of 'expanding horizons of technology' and such crap.
The only domains that should, if anything, need local character support, or those TLDs of the specific countries.
As such, it was just a matter of time until some country would have taken those steps, and now that China has, it is only a matter of time until Korea, and possibly even Japan will take similar steps - the final result: Total fragmentation of the homogenous space that *used* to be the internet.
Personally, I hope that this will be enough to terminate this 'experiment' (which is what it is being biled as), and therefore the world can return to a simple use of the roman character set as the defacto lingua franca for the internet.
And I hope that sooner or later those fuckers from Network Solutions burn in whatever hell they believe in...
If you look at it from a sane (as opposed to a mouth-frothing) point of view, Apple did not so much license a technology, but rather the **NAME** of "1-click(TM)" shopping.
This is similar to Apple's FireWire license - anyone can build IEEE.1394 stuff, but you need to license the name 'FIREWIRE' from Apple in order to use it (the license is free, BTW).
Since none of the busybodies on here actually know how much, if anything, Apple has paid for this license, the whole issue, except on a philosophical level, is moot.
On a business-level it makes sense, as "1-Click" is a catchy expression, and by licensing an existing 'concept', it renders legitimacy to the experience, and saves Apple from having to come up with a spiffy work-around name.
Licensing isn't all about 'inventions' - you can license the right to the use of a cartoon character, a book, a special term - that's what this is about, not about technology. I'm surprised none of the 'smart' people on here who spout their opposition have understood something as simple.
Of course the myth of self-regulating Open Source projects is just that - a myth.
The reality, and why this model does work over the 'established' corporate model, is manifold:
* Centralized control in OS works, because the people in charge are so by virtue of their qualifications, and because they are accepted as thus by the rest of the developers working on the project.
In corporate environments, traditionally the least qualified individuals are hired to oversee and manage the project - this is even more true for ANY internet related venture. Furtermore, these people are hired because of their resumé, not their qualifications.
* The people doing the work, or managing the project do so because they have a stake in the project (the proverbial itch), and because they approached the project because of interest, not a paycheck.
In corporate environments, hiring chains are so long and convoluted that people are, again, hired by resumé and committee, not based on true qualifications, or interest for a project.
You *can* still get qualified personel in both instanaces using the corporate methods, but either it's rare, or if you get someone who knows what they are doing, their input is squelched by those above them.
Coporate structures are total, centralized empires, with small fiefdoms battling continuously for their own mini-empires, and self-justification - while not getting much of anything done.
OS projects are benign monarchies, that achive an objective because everyone is involved in wanting the project to succeed for their own reasons.
While USB connectd fast hard drives are at best vaporware right now, FireWire hard drives are very much of a reality right now (albeit running at far less than FireWire's 400MBps limit).
By the time USB 2.0 comes out, FireWire 2.0 at 800MBps will be available (existing installations will be upwards compatible) - that is, if you want to play the "my vaporware is better than your's" game.
Most of all, FireWire 1.0 is here and supported now. USB 2.0 ain't.
Albeit this critique has been leveled before towards Slashdot, it can't be said enough - RESEARCH YOUR STORIES BEFORE YOU POST THEM!
Particularly true if the story in question only required 10 seconds of verification - firiong up your AIM client and checking to see if you stay on.
Posting this, getting everyone worried, and then posting a correction like 'Sorry for the scare' doesn't cut it. Yeah, granted, writing evil-empire scare stories about how EVIL AOL is, might look nice in print, but it makes you look like an idiot if the story ends up being false.
I was hoping that at least the sacred halls of academia would be protected from being exploited for crass commercialisation - but I guess that was just a PipeDream(TM).
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, you can get arrested in Thailand for using, or advocating VoIP - the fact that the telecom monopoly is owned by th eprime minister is probably jst coincidence
"According to sources, wrote Geoff Long for CommsDay Global, "Thai authorities have begun a crackdown on illegal SIP phone services" with up to 30 people charged with offering illegal phones and telecom services, "an offence which carries a significant fine and or jail term"."
Sorry to burst your bubble - 'Freedom Fries' were the brilliant (cynicical!) innovation by two dorky Congressmen from the United States Congress - who erroneously considered 'French Fries' to be of French origin, and felt that by renaming them they would 'show' the French that the US meant business.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned Fries were of Belgian origin, and the Congressional action elicited hearty laughter from the French over the stupidity of 'those Americans'.
Hence why, a little bit later, without much fanfare, 'Freedom Fries' (and 'Freedom Toast') were renamed back to their old names.
Ah, yes, education *could* go a long way to save one to be embarassed, n'est ce pas?
The article isn't abut how companies are actually doing this, but rather it is the Gartner Group *recommending* that comapnie do this.
This isn't about security, it's about Apple (as always). Apple is doin well, efforts at negative press backfire, the iPod is breaking sales records, along with the iTMS -- so, what can people like Gartner do to try to drag down Apple again?
"Let's see, let's claim it's a security risk, that will spread plenty of FUD with execs and IT experts that are clueles..."
It was just a matter of time for this to happen.
Harry
> Arthur C. Clarke -- nice ideas but fluffy
> (Eh? 'The City at the Edge of Forever' fluffy?)
You might want to correct that as well. Better proofread before hitting 'submit', as CotEoF was penned by Harlan Ellison, who we both agree is an unpleasant individual.
Harry
Who is 'we'?
I was the recipient of Ricardo Batista's marketing spam announcing this 'service'. Noting several problems with it, I replied to his e-mail (doing a 'reply all'), and informed him not only of my concerns, but also pointed out that now all the morons thinking they get $5,000 from Bill Gates and Walt Disney Jr. will resurface with renewed efforts to convince their famiies to forward mail "because now it can be tracked, here's proof..."
Well, turns out that Ricardo had a 'setting' wrong on his mail server, or whatever, as my response to him was also broadcast to his entire spam list.
- He neglected to supress the recipient list.
- 'customers@batista.org' was aliased to his customer list.
- He allow any non-local reply to take advantage of that.
As confirmation, Ricardo sent me an e-mail pointing out *my* mistake in replaying 'all', and the subsequent deluge of 'bounced mails' and other recipients responding pretty much corroborated this.
Whoops.
Granted, this is a simple mistake that could happen to anyone (well, not really) but doesn't paint to rosy a picture of someone claiming to provide an expert e-mail service.
I have no idea why someone like Ricardo Batista would jump on doing something so obviously silly and transparently flawed (I guess rent needs paying), but I wonder how mnay (if any) people will fall for this.
Harry
Not sure if this counts as being leaked (seeing as how it's starting to inch its way all over the place), but this is one definitely hilarious new 'underground' trailer for Pixar's The Incredibles.
r edibles_TV2472_1stNLine_1500.mov
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/TheIncredibles/Inc
Not quite sure where they found that guy, but he pretty much perfectly captures the average Slashdot reader (doesn't he? -- grin!)
Unfortunately for you, devphil, it was never posted on the site. I would know, you know.
Unless you can provide a nice cozy URL indicating what you claim.
As to getting your information elsewhere, and what you feel about the site - that's fine, it's your right to have a personal taste and preferences. Besides the fact that you currently have not other option than to get your entertainment elsewhere, since The Spot has been unavailable since 1997 (I don't count the current incarnation as a valid replacement).
All I'm saying is "get your facts right", seeing as how you haven't, so far.
Could you possibly be any more mis-informed? I would suggest at least having hald a clue before you spout off nonsense. The Spot had at least 5 writers, some of which did write multiple characters (you know, I don't think the dog needed its own writer), and the characters/actors/authors behind the characters were quite real. I know, since I met most of them (either actors, or the authors).
Interest in the site did not drop because it was 'discovered' it was fake (I guess you never visited the 'Behind the Scenes' part of the site, which made no secret of that), but rather because in its last year it was taken over (sorry, re-imagined) under a corporate restructing, by actual soap-opera writers that wanted to give the site more dimension'. Combine that with the new leadership having kicked out the original authors and creators, and having 'mainstreamed' the site (i.e. dumbed it down), and it became a slow-motion trainwreck, until a fan boycott shuttered the site down in late 1997.
What dropped it was corporate cluelessness and greedy stupidity.
Where the heck do you get such stupid ideas as 'it was scripted by ONE person?? How utterly stupid!
If you want to see what the people that were actually behind it are up to now, go to http://www.crlight.com. If you want to see what the people that contributed to its original downfall are up to, you can alternate between the unemployment line, or the new Spot site (soon to *be* the unemployment line)
If this was actually THE SPOT given creds in this thread, I'd be joyous and happy (I used to love that site back in 95/96) but as it stands, the VERY same people that caused the downfall and destruction of the Spot back in in 1997, are now back and trying to purely make $$$ out of this property -- the original creators are not only not involved, but can't be too happy with the current travesty that barely has the URL in common with the original.
:-)
:-)
Submitted, of course, by an 'anonymous reader', which is the normal M.O. for the people behind Spot2004 -- namely ignoring continuity, alienating the fans, and hiding behind lies of claiming they are not involved. Now, judging by the overly negative comments here, I'd say that they aren't doing too good a job finding new fans - I guess they shouldn't have pissed away their old fansbase, now should they
The 'anonymous' contributor claims that the Spot originally sunk as "another victim of the dot-com bust. ", when nothing could be further from the truth. The dot-com bust had nothing to do with it, but rather greedy and incompetent corporate leadership, executives recruited from film & TV with absolutely no clue about the nascent internet culture, and (after booting the original writers and creators of TheSpot) a creative crew that couldn't write their way out of a barrel. Come to think of it, those were the problems of every other dot-com, and the reason why they busted, I guess
So, overall, the site does not deserve a visit, or even a casual glance, in the state that it has been 'revived', which, judging by te coments on here, won't really happen (except for the Slashdot spike they might get).
Kinda funny that they submitted to slashdot, in hopes of getting hits (and taking those to the bank) pretty much on the eve of their investor's stopping the flow of $$$ (their 90 days are coming to an end)
...and precisely because of nukelite's inability to cooperate and work in an open/source environmnet was PostNuke created - and precisely because it implements a truly cooperative environment has it grown quite popular.
It's almost like PostNuke and PHPNuke can be used as examples of a good, and bad (respectively) open source project.
Harry
www.PostNuke.com
[Disclaimer: I'm a dev on the PostNuke development team, so my views and opinions might be slightly skewed, but no less accurate.]
PostNuke and PHP-Nuke are two slashdot-like weblogs developed in PHP.
I find PostNuke (postnuke.com) to be a good example of a functional and successful open source project, whereas PHP-Nuke (phpnuke.org) represents the opposite.
PostNuke cam into being as a fork of PHP-Nuke, simply because a number of devs were dissatisfied with the attitude of the main and sole developer of PHP-Nuke.
PHP-Nuke, while billing itself as an open source development, is really just managed and run by one person, who historically does not communicate with his user-based, and while many people constantly suggest and contribute fixes, rarely incorporates code, if at all.
This is the environment that has created PostNuke, which quickly grew into a very dynamic project, attract a large group of inventive, innovative developers - all of which work very cooperatively and effectively on extending and enhancing PostNuke beyond it's original roots.
During the slightly over two months of its existence, PostNuke has leapt by leaps and bounds ahead of PHP-Nuke, to the point where the PHP-Nuke developer has started to incorporate features that PostNuke innovated into his code - albeit badly.
While PHP-Nuke has now, officially, opened their code-base, and claims to have a developer team helping out (again a response to PostNuke's developmnet model on SourceForge and using CVS), activity level and development are nearly at a standstil for the same reason - lack of communication, and lack of management (to the point where his 'developers' are leaving the team for lack of things to do).
What does that really mean? In my opinion, a successful open source project depends certainly on good top-down management, which involves maintaining good communication with the team, providng guidance, an effective vision, and getting a team that works well together.
PostNuke.com is the result of all these factors working together well, and why we're growing really well.
Harry
www.PostNuke.com
CmdrTaco writes:
"(oh, and have you ever noticed that our logo isn't the sun logo? They cease-and-desisted us for using their logo here to, even tho that is definitely fair use)"
Well, this is, I guess the difference between a company like IBM (where internal help was applied to the legal departmnet to allow Slashdot to use te IBM logo), and Sun, which essentially cease-and-0desists anyone and anything, and hopes to build good-will, and support for their technology that way.
Well, the fact that JAVA, essentially, has been reduced to just another buzzword with nary mcuh use for anyone is a good start for Sun's demise on that front.
Harry
China, fortunately, was the most likely candidate to do this, and I'm really glad they did.
.com, .net, and .org TLDs. Face it, NSI is a money-grubbing behemoth that cares woefully little about standards, or what the internet is all about - they have reached the inevitable end of their rope with domain registrations, what with added competition of hundreds of registrars, and having pissed off enough people (me included) for us to seek alternate registrars for those domains we had registered with them. What does that mean: less revenues for them, and like any company, they desperately need additional avenues of cashflow.
.com addresses - and since NSI is trying to have the monopoly on this (under the guise of an 'experiment'), they are looking to be the nly ones making $$$ off it.
Why?
VeriSign/NSI *ONLY* hatched this plan of 'allowing' foreign characters, in order for hem to make more profit, and thus add 40,000 new characters to the
Enter non-roman character sets.
Instead of having just 26 characters (and numbers), there's 40,000+ available characters that can be tacked on to
Regardless of their high-falootin' PR words of 'expanding horizons of technology' and such crap, this is just about more money for them - and absolutely NOTHING else.
The only domains that might, if anything, need local character support, or those local TLDs of the specific countries.
As such, it was just a matter of time until some country would have taken those steps, and now that China has, it is only a matter of time until Korea, and possibly even Japan will take similar steps (and there's more countries waiting in the wings) - the final result: Total fragmentation of the homogenous space that *used* to be the internet.
Personally, I hope that this will be enough to terminate this 'experiment' (which is what it is being biled as), and therefore the world can return to a simple use of the roman character set as the defacto lingua franca for the internet.
And I hope that sooner or later those fuckers from Network Solutions burn in whatever hell they believe in...
Harry
Not as much of a joke as you think - China, fortunately, was the most likely candidate to do this, and I'm really glad they did.
.com, .net, and .org TLDs.
VeriSign/NSI *ONLY* hatched this plan of 'allowing' foreign characters, in order for hem to make more profit, and thus add 40,000 new characters to the
This was the ONLY reason for them doing this, and it has woefully little to do with their public posturing of 'expanding horizons of technology' and such crap.
The only domains that should, if anything, need local character support, or those TLDs of the specific countries.
As such, it was just a matter of time until some country would have taken those steps, and now that China has, it is only a matter of time until Korea, and possibly even Japan will take similar steps - the final result: Total fragmentation of the homogenous space that *used* to be the internet.
Personally, I hope that this will be enough to terminate this 'experiment' (which is what it is being biled as), and therefore the world can return to a simple use of the roman character set as the defacto lingua franca for the internet.
And I hope that sooner or later those fuckers from Network Solutions burn in whatever hell they believe in...
Harry
If you look at it from a sane (as opposed to a mouth-frothing) point of view, Apple did not so much license a technology, but rather the **NAME** of "1-click(TM)" shopping.
This is similar to Apple's FireWire license - anyone can build IEEE.1394 stuff, but you need to license the name 'FIREWIRE' from Apple in order to use it (the license is free, BTW).
Since none of the busybodies on here actually know how much, if anything, Apple has paid for this license, the whole issue, except on a philosophical level, is moot.
On a business-level it makes sense, as "1-Click" is a catchy expression, and by licensing an existing 'concept', it renders legitimacy to the experience, and saves Apple from having to come up with a spiffy work-around name.
Licensing isn't all about 'inventions' - you can license the right to the use of a cartoon character, a book, a special term - that's what this is about, not about technology. I'm surprised none of the 'smart' people on here who spout their opposition have understood something as simple.
Harry
I've shipped packages before (including to Russia) and they have always arrived, regardless of value, via FedEx.
Unlike UPS (which, by the way, suck) they give you no hassle, you can send it from any shipment center, and they will deliver it.
Why the heck would you even use UPS??? Pricing between the two, for Russia, is the same.
Harry
Of course the myth of self-regulating Open Source projects is just that - a myth.
The reality, and why this model does work over the 'established' corporate model, is manifold:
* Centralized control in OS works, because the people in charge are so by virtue of their qualifications, and because they are accepted as thus by the rest of the developers working on the project.
In corporate environments, traditionally the least qualified individuals are hired to oversee and manage the project - this is even more true for ANY internet related venture. Furtermore, these people are hired because of their resumé, not their qualifications.
* The people doing the work, or managing the project do so because they have a stake in the project (the proverbial itch), and because they approached the project because of interest, not a paycheck.
In corporate environments, hiring chains are so long and convoluted that people are, again, hired by resumé and committee, not based on true qualifications, or interest for a project.
You *can* still get qualified personel in both instanaces using the corporate methods, but either it's rare, or if you get someone who knows what they are doing, their input is squelched by those above them.
Coporate structures are total, centralized empires, with small fiefdoms battling continuously for their own mini-empires, and self-justification - while not getting much of anything done.
OS projects are benign monarchies, that achive an objective because everyone is involved in wanting the project to succeed for their own reasons.
That probably sums it up best.
Harry
Aren't you the same kids who flocked, slobbering, to Microsoft's charging $30 for the 'honor' to beta test their buggy OS?
I thought so.
Harry
Read tha article, dummy - they are only using the motherboards.
Harry
> if I was building a cluster of anyhing, I'd want
> to use Athlon or Alpha
...and you'd have what - hardware that runs far hotter, and gives you less performance even though it's labeled higher - great thinking.
Any particular reason you'd prefer them, besides the rote repeat of marketing buzzwords...?
> EV6 r0x0rz
Oh, look, little dogs pissing on a hydrant.
Harry
While USB connectd fast hard drives are at best vaporware right now, FireWire hard drives are very much of a reality right now (albeit running at far less than FireWire's 400MBps limit).
By the time USB 2.0 comes out, FireWire 2.0 at 800MBps will be available (existing installations will be upwards compatible) - that is, if you want to play the "my vaporware is better than your's" game.
Most of all, FireWire 1.0 is here and supported now. USB 2.0 ain't.
Harry
Albeit this critique has been leveled before towards Slashdot, it can't be said enough - RESEARCH YOUR STORIES BEFORE YOU POST THEM!
Particularly true if the story in question only required 10 seconds of verification - firiong up your AIM client and checking to see if you stay on.
Posting this, getting everyone worried, and then posting a correction like 'Sorry for the scare' doesn't cut it. Yeah, granted, writing evil-empire scare stories about how EVIL AOL is, might look nice in print, but it makes you look like an idiot if the story ends up being false.
Harry
I was hoping that at least the sacred halls of academia would be protected from being exploited for crass commercialisation - but I guess that was just a PipeDream(TM).
Harry
...or you could use VMWare to run the FUSION Mac emulator, and thus run Mac in a Window under Linux.
Harry