This reminds me of an ad campaign for Lake Tahoe. They were really pushing to get people from relatively nearby areas (ie the SF Bay) to go there, and they had a site called GoTahoe.com that they pushed on all the busses and trains in the area.
Of course, that ad campaign--although not the site--were pulled not long after people started referring to it in common parlance as "Got-A-Hoe dot com".
Of course, I don't know if the site was sponsored by the California side of Tahoe, or the Nevada side, where the alternate name could be accurate.
I'm in full agreement with you, but it just takes so much energy to hate.
When I got my first computer, it was a Commodore 64, and my friends all had Atari 400/800s, Apple IIes, IBM PCs or, well, a life:-). Among my digitally-able friends, there was a constant religious battle about which system was better for this, that or the other thing. Furious arguments about sprites, colors, RAM allocation and more would break out over what were really quite similar machines.
I was 13 when I got the C64. Long before the clock struck 14, I had a policy of nodding and smiling whenever someone made a crack about the C64 sucking for whatever reason. Atari people said it had no games. Apple people said it did not have any serious productivity applications (!). IBM people said it wasn't IBM. Whatever.
When people don't have anything better to do, they treat meaningless debate as a religious front; I say rise above, or better yet, ignore.
Of course, it paid off long term for me; the C64 stayed in production long after the Ataris, Apple IIes and the original IBM PC. Being sold in second-and-third-world countries well into the 90's, it's one of the best-selling single models of computer of all time. In fact, now that they've got that C64-based joystick game console, the reign continues!!
Actually, I recently read that some studios who shot out of the gate with great support for UMD are scaling back, and even places like Walmart are no longer buying them because they gather too much dust on the shelves.
I think this was a great example of the "early adopter" market making a great showing, but the product didn't have what it took to cross the chasm.
I can't find the original news article, but Engadget is usually a pretty trustworthy source.
It's true, traffic is like a gas; it expands to whatever space you give it.
The idea here is one of supply and demand: if the cost is too high, people will find a way to use resources more efficiently. When there is so much traffic that the morning commute is up to two hours, people will find ways to make it easier. Ride public transportation, share rides, telecommute, use small cars, ride bicycles, walk, etc.
But you build up the infrastructure to accommodate, two things can happen. First, better infrastructure may stimulate growth in demand for the infrastructure, and second, people get lazy. I grew up in Berkeley, where highway 80 which runs along the edge of town going towards San Francisco was two lanes in each direction when I was a kid. It's now up to five lanes in each direction, and traffic is backed up sometimes for 15-20 miles.
Now part of that is that San Francisco has gone through explosive growth, which might have been impossible without the bigger roads. But part of that is also that the road, instead of being filled with Honda CVCC hatchbacks and VW Bugs, as it was when I was a kid, is filled with Explorers, Hummers and such, each carrying one passenger--the driver.
One has to wonder if, were they to have not increased the road infrastructure, people might have stayed in smaller cars, carpooled more, and maybe, just maybe this Internet thing would have made it more likely for people to be able to bypass the commute altogether.
Yeah, I corrected that in a later post. That's the problem with shooting from the hip. 3 seconds later, I realized I had confused "Nutty" with "Absent-Minded".
When I was doing contract programming out of my home, I ran a webcam that was totally boring, but I got a bunch of hits. I seriously considered trying to get sponsorships so I could be paid to drink coke, use Brother printer, etc... all the things I was already doing for free (or me paying;-)). However, I didn't really know where to start, and considering I wasn't a naked hot blond, my traffic was only so good, I guess.
Funny thing is that it got listed on some questionable websites which are still referring hits to the site, even though I took the cam and archive down years ago. Now all those missing hits go to my haiku movie review.
Well, actually, the,8 was for the floppy; if you started out with the Dataset like I did, it was either,1 or,1,1.
If you didn't include the final,1, then whatever you loaded was loaded into the 38k RAM block set aside for basic programs. If you did include it, it would load into RAM starting at the address the person saving it had designated.
Some programs loaded into the top half of the BASIC RAM, which was fine if you weren't running any BASIC programs, because that was the area BASIC used to store variables. However, there was a 4k block starting at 49152 which was set aside solely for user-initiated macine language programming and/or data storage (i.e. sprites, etc), so some programs would load in with ",8,1" or ",1,1" and then you'd type "sys 49152" to get them started.
Last, there was some set of registers just below the BASIC RAM that you could use to auto-start a program. I think that the way that these programs were written, they'd write a small basic program as a loader that would include a command similar to "LOAD 'MAINPROGRAM',8,1", and then they'd tack something on to the beginning of it which would be unintelligible if you loaded it right into BASIC RAM, but if you loaded it with the final,1, the pre-pended stuff would fall into a register that said, "Execute the program that's just loaded", and the BASIC would be in the right place. I remember typing in a program from Compute's Gazette that let me create such auto-run files.
Free is as much about the principle as the price. GIMP really isn't a photoshop substitute, but if I had to offer up my thumb every time I was about to use Photoshop, I wouldn't. I refuse to work that way; I'd rather use lesser-quality tools than be monitored and have each use of the software I've licensed be tracked with as much dilligence as a mortgage contract signature...
Don't know if I've commented on it before... but being a nostalgic former C64 user, the command 'LOAD "[something",8,1' brings back far too many warm memories:-)
The analogy I was thinking of was that if you're selling a book, you're selling it to be read. But if I want to tear out the pages and plaster them to my window to block the light, you can't stop me. Hell, to tell the truth, if I use the pages in a papier-mache sculpture, I think I can still sell that sculpture, even if your work is clearly visible on it.
Now, on the other hand, I don't know that I could copy all the pages in the book, and mass-produce my sculpture; for it to be fair use, I'd need to purchase as many books as I needed in order to make my sculptures or otherwise come to some agreement with you, the book seller.
I have truly mixed feelings about this one. There are two layers of problems they are trying to address:
First, they are trying to avoid having to do the serial-code/validation thing that is required with most software. It adds cost and inconvenience without adding any value to the customer. They've been able to do this for years because most enough mac users upgrade and pay the full fare often enough to cover the people who "borrow" the OS from their friends. The idea of "not stealing" in this context is that if it's cracked for all generic Intel boxen, then it will go up on all the kiddie warez sites, and millions of people will have it for free. Some would argue that this would benefit Apple, but I would side with them on this one, that this would be uncool stealing.
The other side of the equation is that they are indeed a hardware business, and even if nobody pirates the software, but everyone purchases it, their business could be considered devalued because people wouldn't have to buy their hardware in order to use the software. I think their stance on this is less solid, because if there is truly no value added for using their hardware, then there's no good reason--other than corporate profits--for anyone to have to pay a premium for the hardware.
That having been said, I do drink the Apple kool-aid, in that I think that the hardware is often more reliable, easier to upgrade and better optimized than that of generic boxen. Based on my experience with 5 macs and 3 windows boxes over the last decade and a half, the macs--even when slower--are much more reliable machines, and every problem I have had (bad Quadra 650 audio, bad iBook video) has been handled quickly and responsibly under warranty by Apple.
I guess the thing that Apple is most afraid of is that people will (A) hack the software, (B) tell everyone else how to do it, maybe even writing an app to crack it and/or distribute it. Then they will (C) install it on all sorts of generic boxen with less-well-supported hardware. The result of this will be that (D) a lot of people might think that OS X sucks because on their box it was unreliable and crashed a lot, unlike their perfectly stable Windows 2000 system, which hasn't been rebooted in six months.
The only real way to address this is either to go back to non-intel processors--not impossible, but not likely at the moment--or to offer hobbyists a basic box for cheap enough that it's more tempting to just use it the way Apple wants them to. Basically, if they could get a Mini under $300.00, piracy problems would be minimal.
Another way they could do it is build in byzantine software protection and charge twice as much for each software upgrade so that they make back some of the margin lost in their hardware business as well as the costs for increased support, but that sounds a lot like another company's tactics...
Either that, or burn the OS into a ROM cartridge and have it connect to their machines via a proprietary port... but there are still ways around that.
I guess just saying that doing things that the company doesn't want isn't cool is probably the best way to protect the OS:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, that ad campaign--although not the site--were pulled not long after people started referring to it in common parlance as "Got-A-Hoe dot com".
Of course, I don't know if the site was sponsored by the California side of Tahoe, or the Nevada side, where the alternate name could be accurate.
man woman
Or for that matter:
'How would you rate the dishonesty of Prez Bush?
When I got my first computer, it was a Commodore 64, and my friends all had Atari 400/800s, Apple IIes, IBM PCs or, well, a life :-). Among my digitally-able friends, there was a constant religious battle about which system was better for this, that or the other thing. Furious arguments about sprites, colors, RAM allocation and more would break out over what were really quite similar machines.
I was 13 when I got the C64. Long before the clock struck 14, I had a policy of nodding and smiling whenever someone made a crack about the C64 sucking for whatever reason. Atari people said it had no games. Apple people said it did not have any serious productivity applications (!). IBM people said it wasn't IBM. Whatever.
When people don't have anything better to do, they treat meaningless debate as a religious front; I say rise above, or better yet, ignore.
Of course, it paid off long term for me; the C64 stayed in production long after the Ataris, Apple IIes and the original IBM PC. Being sold in second-and-third-world countries well into the 90's, it's one of the best-selling single models of computer of all time. In fact, now that they've got that C64-based joystick game console, the reign continues!!
Sigh... rise above...
I think this was a great example of the "early adopter" market making a great showing, but the product didn't have what it took to cross the chasm.
I can't find the original news article, but Engadget is usually a pretty trustworthy source.
We do not sell to potty-mouths.
Sorry, buddy!
Kang might have something to say about that.
The idea here is one of supply and demand: if the cost is too high, people will find a way to use resources more efficiently. When there is so much traffic that the morning commute is up to two hours, people will find ways to make it easier. Ride public transportation, share rides, telecommute, use small cars, ride bicycles, walk, etc.
But you build up the infrastructure to accommodate, two things can happen. First, better infrastructure may stimulate growth in demand for the infrastructure, and second, people get lazy. I grew up in Berkeley, where highway 80 which runs along the edge of town going towards San Francisco was two lanes in each direction when I was a kid. It's now up to five lanes in each direction, and traffic is backed up sometimes for 15-20 miles.
Now part of that is that San Francisco has gone through explosive growth, which might have been impossible without the bigger roads. But part of that is also that the road, instead of being filled with Honda CVCC hatchbacks and VW Bugs, as it was when I was a kid, is filled with Explorers, Hummers and such, each carrying one passenger--the driver.
One has to wonder if, were they to have not increased the road infrastructure, people might have stayed in smaller cars, carpooled more, and maybe, just maybe this Internet thing would have made it more likely for people to be able to bypass the commute altogether.
Funny thing is that it got listed on some questionable websites which are still referring hits to the site, even though I took the cam and archive down years ago. Now all those missing hits go to my haiku movie review.
If you didn't include the final ,1, then whatever you loaded was loaded into the 38k RAM block set aside for basic programs. If you did include it, it would load into RAM starting at the address the person saving it had designated.
Some programs loaded into the top half of the BASIC RAM, which was fine if you weren't running any BASIC programs, because that was the area BASIC used to store variables. However, there was a 4k block starting at 49152 which was set aside solely for user-initiated macine language programming and/or data storage (i.e. sprites, etc), so some programs would load in with ",8,1" or ",1,1" and then you'd type "sys 49152" to get them started.
Last, there was some set of registers just below the BASIC RAM that you could use to auto-start a program. I think that the way that these programs were written, they'd write a small basic program as a loader that would include a command similar to "LOAD 'MAINPROGRAM',8,1", and then they'd tack something on to the beginning of it which would be unintelligible if you loaded it right into BASIC RAM, but if you loaded it with the final ,1, the pre-pended stuff would fall into a register that said, "Execute the program that's just loaded", and the BASIC would be in the right place. I remember typing in a program from Compute's Gazette that let me create such auto-run files.
Ah, those were heady days!
Now, on the other hand, I don't know that I could copy all the pages in the book, and mass-produce my sculpture; for it to be fair use, I'd need to purchase as many books as I needed in order to make my sculptures or otherwise come to some agreement with you, the book seller.
First, they are trying to avoid having to do the serial-code/validation thing that is required with most software. It adds cost and inconvenience without adding any value to the customer. They've been able to do this for years because most enough mac users upgrade and pay the full fare often enough to cover the people who "borrow" the OS from their friends. The idea of "not stealing" in this context is that if it's cracked for all generic Intel boxen, then it will go up on all the kiddie warez sites, and millions of people will have it for free. Some would argue that this would benefit Apple, but I would side with them on this one, that this would be uncool stealing.
The other side of the equation is that they are indeed a hardware business, and even if nobody pirates the software, but everyone purchases it, their business could be considered devalued because people wouldn't have to buy their hardware in order to use the software. I think their stance on this is less solid, because if there is truly no value added for using their hardware, then there's no good reason--other than corporate profits--for anyone to have to pay a premium for the hardware.
That having been said, I do drink the Apple kool-aid, in that I think that the hardware is often more reliable, easier to upgrade and better optimized than that of generic boxen. Based on my experience with 5 macs and 3 windows boxes over the last decade and a half, the macs--even when slower--are much more reliable machines, and every problem I have had (bad Quadra 650 audio, bad iBook video) has been handled quickly and responsibly under warranty by Apple.
I guess the thing that Apple is most afraid of is that people will (A) hack the software, (B) tell everyone else how to do it, maybe even writing an app to crack it and/or distribute it. Then they will (C) install it on all sorts of generic boxen with less-well-supported hardware. The result of this will be that (D) a lot of people might think that OS X sucks because on their box it was unreliable and crashed a lot, unlike their perfectly stable Windows 2000 system, which hasn't been rebooted in six months.
The only real way to address this is either to go back to non-intel processors--not impossible, but not likely at the moment--or to offer hobbyists a basic box for cheap enough that it's more tempting to just use it the way Apple wants them to. Basically, if they could get a Mini under $300.00, piracy problems would be minimal.
Another way they could do it is build in byzantine software protection and charge twice as much for each software upgrade so that they make back some of the margin lost in their hardware business as well as the costs for increased support, but that sounds a lot like another company's tactics...
Either that, or burn the OS into a ROM cartridge and have it connect to their machines via a proprietary port... but there are still ways around that.
I guess just saying that doing things that the company doesn't want isn't cool is probably the best way to protect the OS :-)