Just think of what a Microsoft-designed and managed school would be like!
- Students never have to hand in homework on time, although unfinished papers may be accepted as "release candidates".
- Textbooks contain physical DRM that prevents the students from learning at other school campuses, or at the homes of friends.
- Digital blackboards frequently feature an attractive new shade: blue.
- The school facilities are in a constant state of repair to fix "critical errors" that should have been caught during construction.
- Under the sports program's "Plays for sure" push, atheletes must show up for at least every third practice. Cheerleading chants frequently make embarrassing spelling mistakes, but school-wide spellchecking (like that elite school down the street has) is expected soon.
I'm actually against prisons, period. They punish the victims as well as the criminals (through costly taxation), and never fit the crime (with the possible exception of kidnapping).
A spammer should be made to pay for the resources and timet he has cost every victim. Have him send five bucks to every resident of Virginia and let him make an honest living after that.
Apparently they weren't able to satisfactorily cram the FW800 controller into the 15" Macbook in time for launch. Someone at Apple has said this, either officially or semi-officially. I'm hoping the next Macbook revision will include it.
It's not shipping in January. It's available for retail in January, which means it has to come preloaded on Dell and HP computers at the same time. That, in turn, means that they have to get the finished build to Dell (and probably HP) in September, since Dell *requires* that much time to build and test new hardware-software configurations. The OEMs can't wait for the retail release and then just cross their fingers and hope it works. Microsoft is contractually obligated to hold off on the retail release for the sake of the OEMs.
Guess what: most Windows applications make lousy Mac applications. They break interface guidelines; they look and work clumsy; they don't use wonderful APIs like Cocoa text input; they don't integrate with the rest of the system. To be sure, some "native" ports make all the same mistakes, which is hardly better than running the Windows version in emulation mode.
So from the user's perspective, what you're really recommending is that software developers make crappy applications for Mac users instead of good applications. (And, uh, pocket the "savings".)
Somehow, that doesn't sound like advice that will lead to much success or many savings. You'll lose out to a well-designed app every time.
The difference is that John Gruber is probably the most-read and most respected Mac technology pundit and blogger out there. His challenge is a high-profile one, certain to get the attention of the "journalists" and hoaxsters who started this whole thing. Heck, just look at how many Slashdotters here know about his challenge.
If I had mod points this week, I'd use them. Most of the posts above are missing or ignoring key points.
I think a lot, at first, will depend on educated Westerners who have learned an African language and want to contribute to the future of those cultures and peoples. Nothing's stopping me from learning Swahili or Yoruba and writing Wikipedia articles (in fact, I plan to learn an African language one day). In the long run, once the ball is rolling, these people will have much unique information of their own to contribute to Wikipedia.
Another part of the problem is that the elite minority in many African countries would very much like to keep government, science, and mass communication in a foreign language (English, French, Portuguese, etc.) to keep the general populace from threatening their superiority. The more Africans are empowered in their own languages, the better.
Your confusion stems from the fact that the person is not being prosecuted. Remember, copyright infringement is not theft, nor a criminal act. It's a civil offence. This is a civil suit.
Corporations love civil suits. Individuals can't afford to fight them, and seemingly logical courses of action (like cleaning your hard disk) will get you in trouble if you don't know the intricacies of the law -- and law in modern democracies is designed to be incomprehensible to the people it governs. The requirements for a guilty verdict in civil suits are much lower than for criminal trials, and no right to a jury is guaranteed in many states.
'Out of curiosity, can the government use an "eminent domain" style procedure to take control of a patent or force it into the public domain, in the interest of public safety or national security?'
Eminent domain is when the government seizes physical property for its own use, or to give to another party it favours more. It's a kind of legalized theft.
Patents aren't physical property, though. They're government-protected monopolies for selling certain things. That should make it really easy; all the government has to do is revoke the patent it granted (i.e. withdraw its monopoly guarantee). I don't know if any legislation is required, or if it's just a bureaucratic process.
"Is there some kind of sick need for Japan to 'approve' of the console to lend it credibility?"
Arguably, all a console needs for credibility is satisfied customers and profitable sales.
However, this article is all about the Console Wars and the console makers who compete so fiercely, there's only room for a handful of winners. Japan is still, to a great extent, the cultural nexus of console gaming. Two of the big three console companies are Japanese (as well as some big historical ones), and many key game developers. The Japanese gaming market rivals the size of the American market. Europe and the rest of Asia are after-thoughts.
No console maker ever did well in the Console Wars by failing in Japan. Staying in business without succeeding in Japan might not even be possible. You could point to the Xbox, but Microsoft has done nothing but lose money so far. A smaller company would have folded by now. The Xbox 360 and its successors will always be at risk if Microsoft is limited to the American market while Nintendo and Sony strike gold in both Japan and North America.
Also, if Chinese becomes a third major console market in 10 years, the Japanese companies are better positioned geographically and culturally to take advantage.
I guess the British record industry is desperate for some positive publicity and hopes that calling Allofmp3 "illegal" in court will get people -- who just want to buy affordable DRM-free music -- to feel some sympathy for the BPI's hardworking lawyers. It should be obvious any injunction obtained would be unenforceable. How are they even going to get Allofmp3 to show up? If someone in Britain tried to sue me, I'd just ignore it like the hot air it was.
Robert Vaughn is currently abroad in England, filming his excellent con-man series Hustle.:) You don't have to worry about him getting sued in the US at all! (I'll bet that's a load off your mind, I like the chap too.)
If the added regulations and red tape make their costs and rates go up (and what else could happen?), then no thanks. You stick with the regulated banks you trust, and I'll keep using Paypal, which is so much cheaper and more convenient than the banks' ways (wire transfers).
Both Quaoar and Sedna, planets (or planetoids) discovered beyond Pluto, break with the Greco-Roman naming tradition. While those names may not be official yet, they're in wide use and probably will stick.
At my non-technology-related weblog (about learning Japanese), my stats are roughly 60%-30%-15% for Firefox, IE, and Safari. I've heard similar stats from other blog writers. Maybe the AOL crowd was 97% IE at one point, but the web-savvy blog-surfing crowd is not.
"Why shouldn't DRM'd software be written and sold, as long as the transaction is voluntary?"
For some people, like myself, the issue isn't the voluntary buying and selling of DRM-encumbered data. The issue is that DRM is weak and ultimately unfeasible, so companies get governments to pass laws making it illegal to remove the DRM from stuff you already own. Decrypting my own data is not a crime in any reasonable moral sense, but groups like the RIAA and MPAA are trying to *force* publishers to use DRM and *punish* consumers for by-passing it. That's not free-market in any sense, which is why more and more intrusive laws are introduced and passed each year.
Also note: DRM isn't a contract, it's simply encryption added to data -- often, without the consumer being properly informed (which could be considered fraud).
"There is the commercial about how Mac is soooo easy for managing photos. Yet we have Picasa for Windows and now Linux that is totally free"
It's terrific that Windows and Linux users are getting decent software for photo management. Still, those who haven't used Macs don't realize how good iPhoto 6 is, or how well it integrates your photo library with your other applications (iMovie, Pages, Keynote, etc.). With Automator, you can build whole automated workflows that do stuff with your photos.
"I feel like most of the pointers of this current advertising campaign are false."
Feelings mean nothing if you haven't actually tried a Mac. Are you really so jaded by years of using PCs that you don't think a computer can be that much better?
"I hate malware as much as the next guy but someone needs to take Apple and all of their smug anti-virusless users down a peg."
The smugness is hard to fight sometimes, but we can all be allowed our vices, surely.
"XP, love it of hate it, is a very solid platform."
And yet, its usability flaws and security issues have driven droves of people (like me) in search of alternate platforms.
Doctors and medical researchers, like those in any other scientific field, have been taught a certain paradigm for understanding health and disease. Anything not explainable within that framework tends to be overlooked or ignored -- just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps, but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
For a long time, disease was regarded as a curse; people just didn't understand that a small animal called a germ could infect your body and cause illness. What a silly concept! As such, illnesses were misdiagnosed and mistreated for centuries. Then modern medicine came along, but it still wasn't aware of another class of germ, the virus (which is non-living). Eventually, knowledge of viruses became well-established and accepted. But then there was a whole new class of non-microbial, disease-causing agent that flummoxed the establishment: only recently has the existence of the prion, a hostile mal-formed protein, been acknowledged. And then there's radiation poisoning, something that wouldn't have been understood at all 150 years ago.
What if there are other undiscovered disease agents? It's immensely hubristic to assume modern medicine has everything figured out yet.
I've read about significant outbreaks of Morgellon's Syndrome in non-mainstream publications like the Fortean Times. It's serious, and whatever it is, it's not made up. That it's frequently present alongside other unusual diseases like Lyme disease doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It took researchers years to figure out that a stealthy virus called HIV was enabling other diseases to destroy people's bodies. Likewise, it'll take some clever thinking and new detection methods to figure out what's behind Morgellon's.
It's the edge cases that test the establishment. If leprosy emerged today and was more rare, chances are the medical profession would reject its existence; after all, the bacteria that causes it cannot be cultured in the lab, unlike all other known bacteria. Its mode of transmission is also a mystery; it's practically non-contagious from personal contact, and the cause of nearly all infections is unknown. The bacteria itself is also not directly responsible for the lesions and other visible symptoms.
To anyone who thinks Morgellon's must necessarily be a load of nonsense: pray that you never get infected by that "nonsense" yourself. For the people affected, it really sucks.
Some respondents have suggested that many countries are hiding a certain amount of prisoners; while I'm sure that's true, the US is still astonishingly ahead of the pack; and they're hiding their share of prisoners as well, particularly in off-shore gulags like Guantanamo.
A telling statistic is the US's portion of citizens who have been victims of a crime: 21%, which while high, only puts them at 15th of 21 reporting countries. That means they have a middle-of-the-pack crime rate but the world's highest jail rate. That suggests many or most US prisoners aren't captive for crimes against people, but for offending the wishes of the state: using unapproved drugs (560 offences per 100,000), breaking obscure statutes and regulations, not assisting police when they try to hang charges on you (e.g. Martha Stewart), avoiding taxes, owning a weapon, being a suspected terrorist, etc. In other words, political crimes. Just get rid of the stupid War on Drugs, and you cut your prison population in half.
If Yahoo has to choose between 1. not having physical operations in China, and 2. helping the Chinese state jail dissidents, 1 is the only moral choice. 2, as they have and continue to do, is despicable. Furthermore, there's no real proof that they had to help the Chinese government nab those people; it seems they did it more to curry favour than anything.
Yahoo is not just a faceless corporation who must do the bidding of governments whenever told. It's made up of actual people who have to decide whether they'll take actions that destroy the lives of others or not. Yahoo's management has shown a willingness -- even eagerness -- to do the wrong thing over and over again.
One day, you might find yourself saying some things that make *you* unpopular with one or more governments. You should be careful you don't make those comments with a Yahoo mail or IM account.
Slashdot Mirror
Just think of what a Microsoft-designed and managed school would be like!
- Students never have to hand in homework on time, although unfinished papers may be accepted as "release candidates".
- Textbooks contain physical DRM that prevents the students from learning at other school campuses, or at the homes of friends.
- Digital blackboards frequently feature an attractive new shade: blue.
- The school facilities are in a constant state of repair to fix "critical errors" that should have been caught during construction.
- Under the sports program's "Plays for sure" push, atheletes must show up for at least every third practice. Cheerleading chants frequently make embarrassing spelling mistakes, but school-wide spellchecking (like that elite school down the street has) is expected soon.
I'm actually against prisons, period. They punish the victims as well as the criminals (through costly taxation), and never fit the crime (with the possible exception of kidnapping).
A spammer should be made to pay for the resources and timet he has cost every victim. Have him send five bucks to every resident of Virginia and let him make an honest living after that.
Apparently they weren't able to satisfactorily cram the FW800 controller into the 15" Macbook in time for launch. Someone at Apple has said this, either officially or semi-officially. I'm hoping the next Macbook revision will include it.
It's not shipping in January. It's available for retail in January, which means it has to come preloaded on Dell and HP computers at the same time. That, in turn, means that they have to get the finished build to Dell (and probably HP) in September, since Dell *requires* that much time to build and test new hardware-software configurations. The OEMs can't wait for the retail release and then just cross their fingers and hope it works. Microsoft is contractually obligated to hold off on the retail release for the sake of the OEMs.
Guess what: most Windows applications make lousy Mac applications. They break interface guidelines; they look and work clumsy; they don't use wonderful APIs like Cocoa text input; they don't integrate with the rest of the system. To be sure, some "native" ports make all the same mistakes, which is hardly better than running the Windows version in emulation mode.
So from the user's perspective, what you're really recommending is that software developers make crappy applications for Mac users instead of good applications. (And, uh, pocket the "savings".)
Somehow, that doesn't sound like advice that will lead to much success or many savings. You'll lose out to a well-designed app every time.
The difference is that John Gruber is probably the most-read and most respected Mac technology pundit and blogger out there. His challenge is a high-profile one, certain to get the attention of the "journalists" and hoaxsters who started this whole thing. Heck, just look at how many Slashdotters here know about his challenge.
If I had mod points this week, I'd use them. Most of the posts above are missing or ignoring key points.
I think a lot, at first, will depend on educated Westerners who have learned an African language and want to contribute to the future of those cultures and peoples. Nothing's stopping me from learning Swahili or Yoruba and writing Wikipedia articles (in fact, I plan to learn an African language one day). In the long run, once the ball is rolling, these people will have much unique information of their own to contribute to Wikipedia.
Another part of the problem is that the elite minority in many African countries would very much like to keep government, science, and mass communication in a foreign language (English, French, Portuguese, etc.) to keep the general populace from threatening their superiority. The more Africans are empowered in their own languages, the better.
Your confusion stems from the fact that the person is not being prosecuted. Remember, copyright infringement is not theft, nor a criminal act. It's a civil offence. This is a civil suit.
Corporations love civil suits. Individuals can't afford to fight them, and seemingly logical courses of action (like cleaning your hard disk) will get you in trouble if you don't know the intricacies of the law -- and law in modern democracies is designed to be incomprehensible to the people it governs. The requirements for a guilty verdict in civil suits are much lower than for criminal trials, and no right to a jury is guaranteed in many states.
"Bloghackers"
That is just so Web 2.0, isn't it?
Actually, I think it's still Web 2.0 beta. :)
'Out of curiosity, can the government use an "eminent domain" style procedure to take control of a patent or force it into the public domain, in the interest of public safety or national security?'
Eminent domain is when the government seizes physical property for its own use, or to give to another party it favours more. It's a kind of legalized theft.
Patents aren't physical property, though. They're government-protected monopolies for selling certain things. That should make it really easy; all the government has to do is revoke the patent it granted (i.e. withdraw its monopoly guarantee). I don't know if any legislation is required, or if it's just a bureaucratic process.
I don't know, I heard about a pretty cool chair he invented!
The Cnet article gushes over the Q1 a lot actually -- for a lot of bizarre reasons. Under part 1, design:
... hint at the device's massive potential."
"The Samsung logo at the bottom of the unit, the SRS surround-sound logo
So the Q1 wins for having lots of prominent logos? Logos = massive potential? I'm sure glad this guy doesn't design iPods.
"Is there some kind of sick need for Japan to 'approve' of the console to lend it credibility?"
Arguably, all a console needs for credibility is satisfied customers and profitable sales.
However, this article is all about the Console Wars and the console makers who compete so fiercely, there's only room for a handful of winners. Japan is still, to a great extent, the cultural nexus of console gaming. Two of the big three console companies are Japanese (as well as some big historical ones), and many key game developers. The Japanese gaming market rivals the size of the American market. Europe and the rest of Asia are after-thoughts.
No console maker ever did well in the Console Wars by failing in Japan. Staying in business without succeeding in Japan might not even be possible. You could point to the Xbox, but Microsoft has done nothing but lose money so far. A smaller company would have folded by now. The Xbox 360 and its successors will always be at risk if Microsoft is limited to the American market while Nintendo and Sony strike gold in both Japan and North America.
Also, if Chinese becomes a third major console market in 10 years, the Japanese companies are better positioned geographically and culturally to take advantage.
I guess the British record industry is desperate for some positive publicity and hopes that calling Allofmp3 "illegal" in court will get people -- who just want to buy affordable DRM-free music -- to feel some sympathy for the BPI's hardworking lawyers. It should be obvious any injunction obtained would be unenforceable. How are they even going to get Allofmp3 to show up? If someone in Britain tried to sue me, I'd just ignore it like the hot air it was.
Robert Vaughn is currently abroad in England, filming his excellent con-man series Hustle. :) You don't have to worry about him getting sued in the US at all! (I'll bet that's a load off your mind, I like the chap too.)
If the added regulations and red tape make their costs and rates go up (and what else could happen?), then no thanks. You stick with the regulated banks you trust, and I'll keep using Paypal, which is so much cheaper and more convenient than the banks' ways (wire transfers).
Both Quaoar and Sedna, planets (or planetoids) discovered beyond Pluto, break with the Greco-Roman naming tradition. While those names may not be official yet, they're in wide use and probably will stick.
At my non-technology-related weblog (about learning Japanese), my stats are roughly 60%-30%-15% for Firefox, IE, and Safari. I've heard similar stats from other blog writers. Maybe the AOL crowd was 97% IE at one point, but the web-savvy blog-surfing crowd is not.
"Why shouldn't DRM'd software be written and sold, as long as the transaction is voluntary?"
For some people, like myself, the issue isn't the voluntary buying and selling of DRM-encumbered data. The issue is that DRM is weak and ultimately unfeasible, so companies get governments to pass laws making it illegal to remove the DRM from stuff you already own. Decrypting my own data is not a crime in any reasonable moral sense, but groups like the RIAA and MPAA are trying to *force* publishers to use DRM and *punish* consumers for by-passing it. That's not free-market in any sense, which is why more and more intrusive laws are introduced and passed each year.
Also note: DRM isn't a contract, it's simply encryption added to data -- often, without the consumer being properly informed (which could be considered fraud).
"There is the commercial about how Mac is soooo easy for managing photos. Yet we have Picasa for Windows and now Linux that is totally free"
It's terrific that Windows and Linux users are getting decent software for photo management. Still, those who haven't used Macs don't realize how good iPhoto 6 is, or how well it integrates your photo library with your other applications (iMovie, Pages, Keynote, etc.). With Automator, you can build whole automated workflows that do stuff with your photos.
"I feel like most of the pointers of this current advertising campaign are false."
Feelings mean nothing if you haven't actually tried a Mac. Are you really so jaded by years of using PCs that you don't think a computer can be that much better?
"I hate malware as much as the next guy but someone needs to take Apple and all of their smug anti-virusless users down a peg."
The smugness is hard to fight sometimes, but we can all be allowed our vices, surely.
"XP, love it of hate it, is a very solid platform."
And yet, its usability flaws and security issues have driven droves of people (like me) in search of alternate platforms.
It's well-supported by Apple and OS X.
That sounds like my Skype calls, but without the benefits of encryption. :/
(And, er, I'm talking about the broken-up audio, not the conversation topic.)
Doctors and medical researchers, like those in any other scientific field, have been taught a certain paradigm for understanding health and disease. Anything not explainable within that framework tends to be overlooked or ignored -- just look at the battles the homeopathic community has to fight; some of them are wackos perhaps, but many of them have treatments superior to those of "modern" medicine.
For a long time, disease was regarded as a curse; people just didn't understand that a small animal called a germ could infect your body and cause illness. What a silly concept! As such, illnesses were misdiagnosed and mistreated for centuries. Then modern medicine came along, but it still wasn't aware of another class of germ, the virus (which is non-living). Eventually, knowledge of viruses became well-established and accepted. But then there was a whole new class of non-microbial, disease-causing agent that flummoxed the establishment: only recently has the existence of the prion, a hostile mal-formed protein, been acknowledged. And then there's radiation poisoning, something that wouldn't have been understood at all 150 years ago.
What if there are other undiscovered disease agents? It's immensely hubristic to assume modern medicine has everything figured out yet.
I've read about significant outbreaks of Morgellon's Syndrome in non-mainstream publications like the Fortean Times. It's serious, and whatever it is, it's not made up. That it's frequently present alongside other unusual diseases like Lyme disease doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It took researchers years to figure out that a stealthy virus called HIV was enabling other diseases to destroy people's bodies. Likewise, it'll take some clever thinking and new detection methods to figure out what's behind Morgellon's.
It's the edge cases that test the establishment. If leprosy emerged today and was more rare, chances are the medical profession would reject its existence; after all, the bacteria that causes it cannot be cultured in the lab, unlike all other known bacteria. Its mode of transmission is also a mystery; it's practically non-contagious from personal contact, and the cause of nearly all infections is unknown. The bacteria itself is also not directly responsible for the lesions and other visible symptoms.
To anyone who thinks Morgellon's must necessarily be a load of nonsense: pray that you never get infected by that "nonsense" yourself. For the people affected, it really sucks.
Some respondents have suggested that many countries are hiding a certain amount of prisoners; while I'm sure that's true, the US is still astonishingly ahead of the pack; and they're hiding their share of prisoners as well, particularly in off-shore gulags like Guantanamo.
A telling statistic is the US's portion of citizens who have been victims of a crime: 21%, which while high, only puts them at 15th of 21 reporting countries. That means they have a middle-of-the-pack crime rate but the world's highest jail rate. That suggests many or most US prisoners aren't captive for crimes against people, but for offending the wishes of the state: using unapproved drugs (560 offences per 100,000), breaking obscure statutes and regulations, not assisting police when they try to hang charges on you (e.g. Martha Stewart), avoiding taxes, owning a weapon, being a suspected terrorist, etc. In other words, political crimes. Just get rid of the stupid War on Drugs, and you cut your prison population in half.
If Yahoo has to choose between 1. not having physical operations in China, and 2. helping the Chinese state jail dissidents, 1 is the only moral choice. 2, as they have and continue to do, is despicable. Furthermore, there's no real proof that they had to help the Chinese government nab those people; it seems they did it more to curry favour than anything.
Yahoo is not just a faceless corporation who must do the bidding of governments whenever told. It's made up of actual people who have to decide whether they'll take actions that destroy the lives of others or not. Yahoo's management has shown a willingness -- even eagerness -- to do the wrong thing over and over again.
One day, you might find yourself saying some things that make *you* unpopular with one or more governments. You should be careful you don't make those comments with a Yahoo mail or IM account.