There comes a point when the extra bells and whistles just aren't worth it.
Well I think that if XP had been as good as OS X, people would have upgraded from W2K. However, as far as I can tell W2K and XP are pretty much the same OS (I switch of the eyecandy in XP). The problem MS has is not that innovation is no longer neccesary, but that they're just not good enough at innovating.
I'm wondering if Apple really needs Tivo. Why can't they do what they usually do (BSD-Darwin, KHTML-Safari) which is to take some free software (MythTV, which already runs on OS X ) and make it really easy to use with all the Apple shine. Given that Myth is already such a polished product that would seem like a good idea to me.
Maybe the raw number of users on a particular platform does not represent the importance of that platform. I might be running hundreds of Debian systems on x86 but have a few very mission critical systems running on IA-64. Would that be reflected in this "popularity contest" ?
Well pretty much every single show gets ripped into HDTV quality anyway, so they wouldn't be losing anything by selling DRM-free shows. They're not having any success in stopping DRM free content beingout there, so... why not make some money selling this content. They can always try and switch to DRM at a later stage, though I suspect consumers would find that a bitter pill to swallow (which I suppose is why they're not doing it).
You'll be pleased to know that communism was defeated in Pennsylvania last year. Governor Ed Rendell signed into law a bill prohibiting the Reds in local government from offering free Wi-Fi throughout their municipalities. The action came after Philadelphia, where more than 50 percent of neighborhoods don't have access to broadband, embarked on a $10 million wireless Internet project. City leaders had stepped in where the free market had failed. Of course, it's a slippery slope from free Internet access to Karl Marx. So Rendell, the telecom industry's latest toady, even while exempting the City of Brotherly Love, acted to spare Pennsylvania from this grave threat to its economic freedom.
Bioware have already licensed the Unreal Engine 3 for a project they have said will be a RPG. Bioware of course is the company behind Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic.
Well you can run MythTV on OS X. Not sure about the hardware acceleration. Here's a good review.
I'm wondering if Apple really needs Tivo. Why can't they do what they usually do (BSD-Darwin, KHTML-Safari) which is to take some free software (Myth in this case) and make it really easy to use with all the Apple shine. Given that Myth is already such a polished product that would seem like a good idea to me.
XUL ides. Ok not much, but it's a start. Personally I feel Mozilla should also start some development projects. Mozilla is no longer working on the composer, that is now being sponsored by Linspire. I think a push from Mozilla to build a XUL ide is a very good idea.
Who builds the road infrastructure in the US? Is that done by private companies too? How about national defence? If it hadn't been for DARPA there would have been no internet, at least not in the shape we know it today. Get real, the US is guilty of central planning just like every other country. It's about finding a balance of course, Communism=BAD, Anarchy=BAD.
A good example of "open source" or "free as in speech" journalism is Wikinews. Granted, organisations like the AP and Reuters provide on their wires every news story Wikinews will (probably) cover, but that's beside the point. The point is that there exists a news source that licences it's content under the GFDL which means that anyone can take the stories on Wikinews and do whatever they like with them that springs to mind.
One might want to write a tool that analyses news sites and not want to worry about whether or not scraping the news content is legal or not!
Of course, many detractors will say that there is no way that a wiki news source could ever be accurate. The same thing was said for a wiki encyclopaedia. It turns out that mass-collaboration can sometimes be a more accurate form of editing than traditional forms. I don't want to mention Rathergate so I wont:)
In any case I think the whole argument about Wikipedia/Wikinews 's accuracy is pretty much irrelivant. This is a free information source that exists and if people don't want to rely on it they are more than free to do so. In any case there is a big push happening right now to improve the validation of articles within wikipedia. Check the comments of an article i wrote on this subject for more information.
P.S. If you live in Europe anywhere near Brussels or Berlin at all please try to make it to the protests against software patents! I'll be travelling from Amsterdam to Brussels on the day.. if anyone wants to catch the train with me please reply here and we'll get in touch!
Using something like FCKeditor would enable WYSIWYG editing, so users would not have to learn the Wiki markup language. I'm not sure if it has been ported to any wiki platforms, but it should be easy enough to port to something like twiki.
Audioscrobbler builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.
The system also has a lot of problems with taggin music. This is because a lot of the time ID3 tags in mp3s are not done correctly. It is then possible to do tag moderation. I'm not sure if this is what this article refers to as social tagging, but if it is this is a good example of it working. I've had quite a few badly labeled tracks and artists fixed this way.
I'm thinking that it is probably a good idea to jumpstart this project by stealing code from projects such as Kontact and Evolution. I'm guessing the Mozilla Public License is compatible with the GPL, so I doubt there are legal issues.
If Korganizer has all these features already, and I'm guessing Evolution does too, isn't it easy to simply port a lot of that code into Sunbird? Of course all the GUI stuff would be useless. Or is the Mozilla license not compatible with the GPL?
There's an interesting article on engadget on using a combination of bittorrent and RSS to get a tivo-like system on your pc that will download shows automatically for you.
There's an interesting article on engadget on using a combination of bittorrent and RSS to get a tivo-like system on your pc that will download shows automatically for you.
Most people who don't like to cook (there's quite a few) eat out, and guess what, most restaurants won't serve you tap water... Of course, a lot of people also buy Evian to drink at home, which seems like a mystery to me...
Slashdot Mirror
There comes a point when the extra bells and whistles just aren't worth it.
Well I think that if XP had been as good as OS X, people would have upgraded from W2K. However, as far as I can tell W2K and XP are pretty much the same OS (I switch of the eyecandy in XP). The problem MS has is not that innovation is no longer neccesary, but that they're just not good enough at innovating.
A while ago there was a discussion speculating that Apple might buy TiVo.
I'm wondering if Apple really needs Tivo. Why can't they do what they usually do (BSD-Darwin, KHTML-Safari) which is to take some free software (MythTV, which already runs on OS X ) and make it really easy to use with all the Apple shine. Given that Myth is already such a polished product that would seem like a good idea to me.
Maybe the raw number of users on a particular platform does not represent the importance of that platform. I might be running hundreds of Debian systems on x86 but have a few very mission critical systems running on IA-64. Would that be reflected in this "popularity contest" ?
Eurogamer uses torrent technology too for their download section. I go there to get my game demos.
Well pretty much every single show gets ripped into HDTV quality anyway, so they wouldn't be losing anything by selling DRM-free shows. They're not having any success in stopping DRM free content being out there, so... why not make some money selling this content. They can always try and switch to DRM at a later stage, though I suspect consumers would find that a bitter pill to swallow (which I suppose is why they're not doing it).
For Dutch people, here you can find contact details for Dutch MEPs:
http://www.ep-monitor.nl/129
I use the Forecastfox plugin for firefox to give me forecasts for my local area. maybe an idea for you.
Check out the video from E3:
Link, Link 2
Bioware have already licensed the Unreal Engine 3 for a project they have said will be a RPG. Bioware of course is the company behind Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic.
Well you can run MythTV on OS X. Not sure about the hardware acceleration. Here's a good review .
I'm wondering if Apple really needs Tivo. Why can't they do what they usually do (BSD-Darwin, KHTML-Safari) which is to take some free software (Myth in this case) and make it really easy to use with all the Apple shine. Given that Myth is already such a polished product that would seem like a good idea to me.
XUL ides. Ok not much, but it's a start. Personally I feel Mozilla should also start some development projects. Mozilla is no longer working on the composer, that is now being sponsored by Linspire. I think a push from Mozilla to build a XUL ide is a very good idea.
nerdfilter.com
Who builds the road infrastructure in the US? Is that done by private companies too? How about national defence? If it hadn't been for DARPA there would have been no internet, at least not in the shape we know it today. Get real, the US is guilty of central planning just like every other country. It's about finding a balance of course, Communism=BAD, Anarchy=BAD.
The link I had meant regarding the reliability of wikipedia can be found here. Be sure to check the comments!
A good example of "open source" or "free as in speech" journalism is Wikinews. Granted, organisations like the AP and Reuters provide on their wires every news story Wikinews will (probably) cover, but that's beside the point. The point is that there exists a news source that licences it's content under the GFDL which means that anyone can take the stories on Wikinews and do whatever they like with them that springs to mind.
:)
One might want to write a tool that analyses news sites and not want to worry about whether or not scraping the news content is legal or not!
Of course, many detractors will say that there is no way that a wiki news source could ever be accurate. The same thing was said for a wiki encyclopaedia. It turns out that mass-collaboration can sometimes be a more accurate form of editing than traditional forms. I don't want to mention Rathergate so I wont
In any case I think the whole argument about Wikipedia/Wikinews 's accuracy is pretty much irrelivant. This is a free information source that exists and if people don't want to rely on it they are more than free to do so. In any case there is a big push happening right now to improve the validation of articles within wikipedia. Check the comments of an article i wrote on this subject for more information.
P.S. If you live in Europe anywhere near Brussels or Berlin at all please try to make it to the protests against software patents! I'll be travelling from Amsterdam to Brussels on the day.. if anyone wants to catch the train with me please reply here and we'll get in touch!
Using something like FCKeditor would enable WYSIWYG editing, so users would not have to learn the Wiki markup language. I'm not sure if it has been ported to any wiki platforms, but it should be easy enough to port to something like twiki.
I'm thinking that it is probably a good idea to jumpstart this project by stealing code from projects such as Kontact and Evolution. I'm guessing the Mozilla Public License is compatible with the GPL, so I doubt there are legal issues.
If Korganizer has all these features already, and I'm guessing Evolution does too, isn't it easy to simply port a lot of that code into Sunbird? Of course all the GUI stuff would be useless. Or is the Mozilla license not compatible with the GPL?
Seems you got the link wrong. at least, the .org doesn't work for me.
There's an interesting article on engadget on using a combination of bittorrent and RSS to get a tivo-like system on your pc that will download shows automatically for you.
Internet Tivo is happening. I wonder how long until they start trying to put some sort of DRM in Tvs.
There's an interesting article on engadget on using a combination of bittorrent and RSS to get a tivo-like system on your pc that will download shows automatically for you.
Most people who don't like to cook (there's quite a few) eat out, and guess what, most restaurants won't serve you tap water... Of course, a lot of people also buy Evian to drink at home, which seems like a mystery to me...