I'd put Baren-Cohen in the activist category too. Every couple of years he announces how autisum is because of X, and then turns out it's not. It's starting to wear thin.
Or just applications for technical people who can download it off your webpage. I've seen plenty of niche android apps that are publicly available on the developer's website and nowhere else, presumably because the dev didn't want to go through the hassle of signing up to google's market. A couple of them I use every week; not many people would, but one guy did, and he published it, and that means I can use it too. There's a whole long tail here that Apple's missing out on.
It's no different, but it bears remembering given all this hype around apps. Two or three years ago you were an idiot if you wasted your time developing a native program for a specific computer platform, you should be making something that runs on the web where everyone can use it. As far as I'm concerned that's still true, and a few high-profile folks making millions off their apps doesn't change it.
Cosplayers have to make their own costumes (or if they haven't, it's obvious and they will be looked down on by their compatriots). It's a much more authenticated geekhood than reading some scifi/scientific american/computer instruction manuals.
Switch the layout in software; that's trying it at no risk. And it'll make you a better typist, since you simply can't look at the keys (or rather, looking at the keys doesn't tell you anything).
I read it as "there's already so much piracy that I really wouldn't be worried about my works becoming public domain". Which you could take either way.
anyway for those that have seen film of metro in action they are using these little 'auto-updating" windows in the "desktop" that will have all kinds of feeds from weather to video
Hah, I remember that when it was called Active Desktop in windows 98.
You could say no-one needed C++, or no-one needed C. Heck, no-one needed assembler - we could do everything by toggling machine codes in on the front panel. But every advancement improves our productivity, and that goes for everything on your list. If you're going to claim that organizations that stick to Java and don't try anything new are more productive than those using Python/Ocaml/Ruby, evidence please.
I still run 2000. Did you try editing the installer script to change its version check? IME most things that supposedly require XP will in fact run fine on 2K once you tell them not to check for XP.
I don't care about passive consumers. I care about creators who want to incorporate existing culture into their work; at a certain point a work belongs in the public domain, where it can be used for fresh creation. Copyright is robbing us of that.
Many books have an order form in the back for books from the same publisher, only giving you the chance to buy it from them. And defeating amazon's lock-in would be simple - just sell a non-drm ebook, the way music sites eventually figured out to do if they wanted to sell music for the ipod.
I'm only going by what I read here. But even if the absolute numbers are wrong, the point stands - he owns a substantial percentage of all the bitcoins there can ever possibly be. Since there's a fixed, and quite low, limit on the number of remaining bitcoins, fresh "mining" is never going to decrease his share below that percentage. That's a disproportionate advantage on a level we've never seen from other early adopters.
As to your assertion that widespread adoption necessarily creates unbounded riches for the founders, or even the early adopter, I don't see that as a supportable premise. It's a matter of scale. I can think of several titans of information industry who have benefited disproportionately by virtue of their early positioning.
"Satoshi" (I read he may actually be a guy called Mike, but anyway) owns not just half of the bitcoins there currently are, but half of all the bitcoins that can ever be created (less the ones he's already sold, I guess). No-one else has that disproportionate an advantage; Google might have more than half today's search market, but they don't have anything that guarantees they'll always have it. (Myspace had over half the social networking-fu at one point, but facebook was able to outgrow them).
Their mail is perfectly decent. Their groups are good, at least for some subjects. Until recently they had the best TV listings on the web for my country. Their personalized homepage is really neat - lets you put your email, rss feeds, tv listings, weather report all in one place - and that's where the one stop shop aspect of yahoo really helps - their news isn't the best, but since I can drag yahoo news into that same custom homepage that's a much nicer overall experience than anywhere else. Yahoo pipes seems really cool, I keep wishing I had more time to play around with them. Heck, yahoo games are pretty good if that's your thing - I still have friends playing on yahoo pool. Yahoo isn't the best at everything it does, but it seems like the only place left that tries to be a proper portal, integrating content from everywhere, and there's a niche for that.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd put Baren-Cohen in the activist category too. Every couple of years he announces how autisum is because of X, and then turns out it's not. It's starting to wear thin.
After what happened with Xbox, I wouldn't underestimate MS' staying power. They'll keep going until they get it right.
2. So the US controls the governments of the UK and Sweden but we couldn't convince them not to send the Lockerbie bomber back the Libya?
Libya paid more than the US was offering.
Or just applications for technical people who can download it off your webpage. I've seen plenty of niche android apps that are publicly available on the developer's website and nowhere else, presumably because the dev didn't want to go through the hassle of signing up to google's market. A couple of them I use every week; not many people would, but one guy did, and he published it, and that means I can use it too. There's a whole long tail here that Apple's missing out on.
It's no different, but it bears remembering given all this hype around apps. Two or three years ago you were an idiot if you wasted your time developing a native program for a specific computer platform, you should be making something that runs on the web where everyone can use it. As far as I'm concerned that's still true, and a few high-profile folks making millions off their apps doesn't change it.
Cosplayers have to make their own costumes (or if they haven't, it's obvious and they will be looked down on by their compatriots). It's a much more authenticated geekhood than reading some scifi/scientific american/computer instruction manuals.
Switch the layout in software; that's trying it at no risk. And it'll make you a better typist, since you simply can't look at the keys (or rather, looking at the keys doesn't tell you anything).
I read it as "there's already so much piracy that I really wouldn't be worried about my works becoming public domain". Which you could take either way.
At least some of them (by which I mean: my phone (vodaphone UK) does) will just proxy you and let you see the warning. What're you going to do?
But what I don't understand is this: why are phones being sold new that are already one or two OS versions behind?
Because it's what the hardware was tested with, or in the case of cheap underpowered handsets, it's all the hardware can handle.
anyway for those that have seen film of metro in action they are using these little 'auto-updating" windows in the "desktop" that will have all kinds of feeds from weather to video
Hah, I remember that when it was called Active Desktop in windows 98.
You could say no-one needed C++, or no-one needed C. Heck, no-one needed assembler - we could do everything by toggling machine codes in on the front panel. But every advancement improves our productivity, and that goes for everything on your list. If you're going to claim that organizations that stick to Java and don't try anything new are more productive than those using Python/Ocaml/Ruby, evidence please.
It's worth noting that almost all companies - samsung, motorola, nokia et al - do cross-license. It's Apple that has decided to break with that.
I still run 2000. Did you try editing the installer script to change its version check? IME most things that supposedly require XP will in fact run fine on 2K once you tell them not to check for XP.
When Matthew Garret tells me it's a bad idea to run linux on this piece of hardware, I tend to listen.
I think you have that backwards; you get 1-11 (i.e. 1, 6, 11 for non-overlapping) in Japan, and 1-13 everywhere else. No?
Postscript is also turing-complete. It's still a) a good format for some things and b) a terrible general-purpose programming language
Eh? I bought a better phone, a better tablet and a better MP3 player than those made by apple, for less than the apple product would cost.
I don't care about passive consumers. I care about creators who want to incorporate existing culture into their work; at a certain point a work belongs in the public domain, where it can be used for fresh creation. Copyright is robbing us of that.
Many books have an order form in the back for books from the same publisher, only giving you the chance to buy it from them. And defeating amazon's lock-in would be simple - just sell a non-drm ebook, the way music sites eventually figured out to do if they wanted to sell music for the ipod.
Not really, the grid still dumps power at night. If lots of houses start charging them during the day then maybe we're in trouble.
I'm only going by what I read here. But even if the absolute numbers are wrong, the point stands - he owns a substantial percentage of all the bitcoins there can ever possibly be. Since there's a fixed, and quite low, limit on the number of remaining bitcoins, fresh "mining" is never going to decrease his share below that percentage. That's a disproportionate advantage on a level we've never seen from other early adopters.
Your last suggestion makes no sense. You do realise that both use Gecko, and that Firefox started as the cleaner, faster fork of Seamonkey?
It makes no sense, but it's true: if you want a cleaner, faster but basically the same firefox, Seamonkey does it.
As to your assertion that widespread adoption necessarily creates unbounded riches for the founders, or even the early adopter, I don't see that as a supportable premise. It's a matter of scale. I can think of several titans of information industry who have benefited disproportionately by virtue of their early positioning.
"Satoshi" (I read he may actually be a guy called Mike, but anyway) owns not just half of the bitcoins there currently are, but half of all the bitcoins that can ever be created (less the ones he's already sold, I guess). No-one else has that disproportionate an advantage; Google might have more than half today's search market, but they don't have anything that guarantees they'll always have it. (Myspace had over half the social networking-fu at one point, but facebook was able to outgrow them).
Their mail is perfectly decent. Their groups are good, at least for some subjects. Until recently they had the best TV listings on the web for my country. Their personalized homepage is really neat - lets you put your email, rss feeds, tv listings, weather report all in one place - and that's where the one stop shop aspect of yahoo really helps - their news isn't the best, but since I can drag yahoo news into that same custom homepage that's a much nicer overall experience than anywhere else. Yahoo pipes seems really cool, I keep wishing I had more time to play around with them. Heck, yahoo games are pretty good if that's your thing - I still have friends playing on yahoo pool. Yahoo isn't the best at everything it does, but it seems like the only place left that tries to be a proper portal, integrating content from everywhere, and there's a niche for that.