NT is much more efficient than OS X at basically all kernel functions. It has a better scheduler, system calls are faster, it has finer-grained locking, its virtual memory system is better.
Theoretically that may be true, but it does not seem to hold up in the real world, possibly due to flaws in the implementation.
People that close programs on Windows while playing games are running expensive programs or are stupid. Plain and simple.
You seem to have missed the point. Just because you are running expensive programs does not mean you should have to shut them down to play a game. I leave several very expensive programs like photoshop and InDesign running and can still play cpu/memory hungry games without a problem. Theoretically you might be able to do that with Windows, but in reality it does not work for me. I have two machines with comparable CPUs and RAM but the OS X machine can run the same games or other intensive programs smoothly while the Windows machine becomes unresponsive to clicks. There is a certain build process I run every few days and often run on both machines. If I run it on my mac it runs and I do normal tasks like writing in a text editor, checking my mail, or web browsing. If I run it on the Windows machine it takes 10 seconds or so to register a mouse click and then doing anything else is like working on a 486/66.
I'm sure adding tons of RAM or using a different set of applications may provide different results, but for me NT's fabulous scheduler and virtual memory system performs like crap in the real world. Plain and simple.
I decided to load the entire adobe cs2 suite into memory and see just how many cpu cycles it hogs? Less than 1% with the gui drawn or sent to the taskbar. PROGRAMS DONT ARBITRARILY EAT CPU AND IO TIME UNLESS THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING MORON.
OK, now open a large file, with lot's of pictures in it make a random change and save that change. Now switch do another application, like Firefox or explorer, leaving the file open but not doing anything. Now take a look at your CPU usage. Up around 50% maybe smartass?
If you have pdf's set to load in a new window you can merrily continue about your work.
...And if you don't? Oh yeah, your machine grinds to a halt and you can't even switch windows. Nice multitasking.
I don't know if your an idiot or just a fraud but I suspect a bit of both
I'll tell you what I am, I'm a person who actually uses the software and judges it based upon real-world performance rather than loads it without doing anything. Perhaps you and the QA people from both MS and Adobe got your education from the box of cracker jacks. If you're going to start calling someone a moron, maybe you should take a hard look in the mirror.
I quoted real worlds statistics from boxes sitting in front of me, right now, and you think your half-assed, poorly thought out "test" somehow makes for a valid argument. Programs on Windows that are not being used, but do have resources open certainly do arbitrarily eat cpu cycles and interfere with the operation of other programs as anyone who has tried to run an resource intensive game or application on Windows can tell you. Get a clue and pull your head out of your ass already. And next time you decide to refute a claim how about asking for some information on the setup and procedure before doing so? You know little things like what version of Windows and InDesign and number of processors and what exactly was done and how the numbers were gathered. You know, like facts.
Jerkoffs like you that are impolite as well as incompetent should really learn to either keep their mouths shut or spend at least 5 minutes thinking before being allowed to type. Congrats, you're the first person I've ever bothered to ban from my viewing list.
Some people just don't know how to make their machines work well !
Given most everyone there was either a software engineer, or systems administrator I'd say maybe Windows is very difficult to set up correctly. All I know is that Windows seems to sporadically develop problems that for some reason require a lot of rebooting, while more stable OSs seem to behave more consistently. And, as I mentioned before, Windows cannot multitask it's was out of a soggy paper bag.
sorry the world just doesn't work that way. You don't just take your chips and go home because in the end you just end up hurting yourself. Most of the time idealism translates to stupidity.
Freeing the slaves was pretty impractical. Trying to coordinate voting across a huge nation instead of just having a bunch of little monarchies was impractical too. Police informing those accused of a crime of their rights is impractical too; 90% of people they inform either know already or don't care. Sometimes an idealistic solution is the right answer. In this case it is idealistic and practical and will probably save them money and time in the long term. The Norwegians are not running a business, they are doing what is right for their people and what they have announced is certainly something I would probably do were I in their place.
why does everyone else complain about this? i dont get it really unless they are out just to flame off their anti-MS personal agenda. btw my specs are: 3.4 Ghz Pci-express mobo L2 Cache 2 GB DDR RAM @ 533 Mhz Geforce 6800 SLI(256 RAM per card)
Take a look at what applications you are running, but not using, are consuming in terms of resources. Your machine is pretty well specced compared to most. The laptop I run dozens of applications on all the time, plus a game on top, has about 1/3 the cpu and ram, and even less video ram. It is several years old, a laptop (obviously), and was not top of the line even when I bought it. Maybe that is immaterial, but in my experience, Windows does not do a very good job of resource allocation when under high loads, while other OSs do just fine. Maybe you don't have a problem because you are not taxing your system, or maybe your machine does a better job than most for some reason. I can tell you that when I play games on my windows box, I shut all the other major applications or performance suffers.
Windows multitasks just as well, those processes will slow down your gaming and eat RAM on any OS, period.
No, it doesn't. Windows can run one application quickly, but is terrible about running multiple applications. I know I have a Windows box, an OS X box, and a NetBSD box all handy at work. Ever wonder why so many people hate PDFs? I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with so may people being Windows users. Click on the wrong link and suddenly your computer is useless while the plug-in and the PDF load. That is not the case on OS X, Linux, or NetBSD. All of those OSs let you switch to a new browser tab, or another application and keep working happily.
I'm typing this on an OS X box with about a dozen major applications running in my user space. My browser is currently using 18% of my cpu and all the other applications and the OS together are using 8%. That is because although photoshop is open and InDesign is open and both are resource hogs, neither is actually doing anything and neither is using more than a percent or two of the CPU. My Windows box has Indesign open in the background too. It is using 55% of the somewhat faster CPU in that machine.
Windows will run games literally twice, if not more, quickly than any other desktop OS, including Linux and OS X
Umm, have you ever run a game (not in emulation) on all three platforms? The performance difference is usually not even noticeable on comparable hardware.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Linux and OS X just aren't good gaming environments, and probably never will be.
You know what, for the most part you are right. But that is because the lack of titles, not because of any problem with the OS. I occasionally go to LAN parties and play games. I always bring along my relatively slow mac laptop if we're playing a game that runs on that platform. I never had any problems with it being too slow, but I certainly had some advantages when it came to stability and functionality. I once ended up hosting the games on my laptop because all three of the windows towers were having issues. One was blue-screening every 30 minutes or so due to a video card conflict with the motherboard. One was having network problems and kept dropping off and the third could join the game, but no one could see the game while hosted on that machine. Tell me, which was the superior gaming platform that day?
What are the Norwegians going to do when the US or British governments, for example, send them a.doc? Tell them they have to redo it over again in a non-proprietary format?
I imagine a secretary will open it with openoffice and save it to a standard format. If they are feeling evangelical, they may do just as you have suggested and request a standard format.
Picture this, you're a U.S. ambassador and a foreign government that controls a fair bit of oil and is historically friendly to you and well respected by the rest of the world sends you a letter asking you to please resend the papers you sent them, but in a format that does not require them to buy special software from an American company. Do you A) tell them no; or B) tell your executive assistant to do it? The clock is ticking here. Gee, sure is a tough choice huh? For that matter if you have to do this a dozen or so times are you going to get pissed at the Norweigans or at your IT guys who can't seem to send documents in the right format (whatever the hell that is)?
The truth of the matter is Norway can easily dictate the format they receive documents in, and if other countries (ones we are less inclined to cater to like Peru) ask for the same, it is much more likely we will do so for them as well. Some U.S. government officials might even wonder what the big deal is, research the issue, and try to mandate the same for their department, office, agency or whatever.
Embracing open standards is fine, but to do so at the expense of proprietary standards is stupid. More broadly, you can't afford to be idealistic in this industry; you have to be practical.
Actually, Norway is exactly the kind of customer who can afford to be idealistic on behalf of their current citizens and on behalf of future generations. For a reasonable amount of money they can switch over to open streaming video technologiesand other open standards that rely upon no patents or particular software vendors, thus ensuring their data will be viewable, freely, by future generations.
Norway is a relatively wealthy, educated nation and I don't see why it would be impractical for them to make this sort of a move. They'll probably end up ahead of the game financially within just a few years.
apple is stylish because typically artists want them and make decisions not on specifications and performance to cost ratios alone but if it looks pretty in their "space".
Bullshit. I mean sure, Apple makes some sales because clueless people with too much money think the look "cool" but that is by no means their main market. You think Linus Torvalds bought a powerbook because he is so artistic and wanted a computer that looked cool and was ignorant about how poorly it performed? You think the dozens of security professionals I work with daily bought macs because they are ignorant of the specifications and cost/performance ratios? Hell no. They bought them because they work better for the task at hand. Raw cpu cycles are by no means the best judge of how suited a computer is to a task. If I want to play Half-life I'm not going to use a cluster of PPC processors even though they provide more bang for the buck because first, they can't run the software and second, I don't need that much CPU power to play a stupid game.
Similarly, many people buy macs because they run OS X, which is the best environment for what they want to do. These people might be artists, or writers, or security professionals, or geneticists, but macs allow them to get their job done better than and other machine available. The number of artists who run macs because they are ignorant is probably a handful compared to the number who run it because the system works better for working with graphics because of the tools available, the better multithreading, the prioritization of input which means when you're painting a line the OS won't suddenly hog the processor and stop recording mouse input for half a second, the color support is much better, and because most artistic software is written for macs with Windows as a buggy afterthought.
Your condescension towards those poor ignorant artists is really annoying and your ignorance about using computers as a professional artist is glaringly obvious.
The problem is you can have the best product in all fronts vs. your competor and still loose out.
True. That does not necessarily mean, however, that other products are better than ipods. I don't own one, or any mp3 player. I have a computer pretty much anywhere I want to listen to music. That said, if I were to buy one it would likely be an ipod. The reasons why include:
It will work well on both my Windows machine and my Mac. Most players have really crappy Mac support.
I like the mp4 format, it fits more music of the same quality into a device.
I like the itunes music store. While I have only rarely bought DRMed music, on those few instances I have I like to be able to legally remove the DRM. I don't know any other mainstream stores that allow that.
I like the interface. I've played with several mp3 players and the ipod was easiest for me to learn to use without looking at the screen.
I'm strongly opposed to MS dominating the digital music field with yet another proprietary format and their DRM is unacceptable. I'd rather not support any company that furthers MS's dominance in that area.
I'm sure other people have different priorities and would rather have Ogg support and better Linux support. That is fine by me. At the same time though, for me (from what little research I"ve done) iPods are the toyotas in this case. Just because a product is dominant does not mean it is not better.
seriously though, i doubt you run your games with all those files/applications going on at the same time sapping your ram and cpu speed...
Spoken like a Windows user. My web browser, mail application, messaging client, calendar, terminals, text editor, image viewer, layout application, and a dozen more have been running non-stop for the last several weeks. Why would I shut them down to run a game? Any system with decent multitasking and prioritization will not use any real CPU cycles or hog the rRAM on applications just sitting open while I'm playing a game.
Note, this is on a couple year old laptop running OS X. The games I usually play are some older ones, like UT2003, Warcraft 3, Neverwinter nights, and a handful of less cpu/gpu intensive but fun games.
Maybe you should use a good OS for a month and see what it is you're missing. I'm very unlikely to ever reboot to play a game, nor am I ever going to quit all my running applications.
Doing bodily harm is not illegal in all instances. Distributing copyrighted works is not illegal in all instances. It's a valid comparison.
Except the courts ruled that Grokster was promoting copyright infringement not just distributing copyrighted works which, as you said, is legal in some cases.
Please show me how downloading "The Simpsons: Season 7" has issues with circumstances to mitigate its use.
Actually there are a number of legal uses for downloading copyrighted material. Some examples include:
...non-commercial research and private study, criticism or review, reporting current events, judicial proceedings, teaching in schools and other educational establishments, not for profit playing of sound recordings and to help visually impaired people.
The question then is, were the people promoting Grokster promoting legal or illegal use? The court has ruled the latter, but having never seen a Grokster advertisement, I'll reserve judgment.
which means that Hollywood should be liable for promoting the use of guns for killing people whenever they show guns being used for killing people
Non sequitur. You don't think there is a difference between showing a movie in which a character murders someone with a gun (or for that matter writing a book in which a character murders someone with a gun) and promoting a gun for the purpose of murdering people? If the movie makers were selling guns or being paid to include certain guns and the guns were being used unlawfully and there was a case where that same gun was then purchased specifically to be used unlawfully in that manner, then there might be a case. As far as I know that has not happened. You're taking the ruling a whole step further. If a movie about hackers shows someone use grokster to download something illegally and then loses a case feel free to bring this point up again.
Firearm manufacturers have already lost court cases in which they were found to have designed and marketed firearms with the express purpose of selling to criminals. I believe the manufacturers of tec-9 firearms lost a civil case where they were shown to have marketed the gun specifically to inner city gangs.
It was not "doing bodily harm" though, as that is not illegal in all instances. The crimes supposedly promoted were armed robbery and murder. Plenty of firearms are marketed for "doing bodily harm" usually as an ideal weapon for self defense. As far as I know none have ever lost a lawsuit over it.
Maybe, just maybe, this law is not a stupid as it appears on the surface. Everyone is assuming spammers will just grab these lists and send spam to them using spoofed source addresses. Maybe, that is exactly the intention. Make a list, put everyone that requests to be on it, and give that list to mass marketers on demand so that they can avoid sending to those addresses. Make sure every time you give out a list, you note who it goes to and embed a unique e-mail address or two. When you get spam to that address, prosecute whoever you gave that e-mail to. Spammers could easily get around this by getting multiple lists, or stealing a list from another marketer, but provided the law is written correctly and has a clause to deal with redistribution of the list, this could be a huge and successful sting operation.
Realistically, this isn't what is happening. I just don't think law enforcement and legislators are both that clever, coordinated, and motivated on this issue. Still, it's a good idea.
Take is a very common word with multiple definitions. Would you guess in the context above webster meant:
A "In an active sense; To lay hold of; to seize with the
hands, or otherwise; to grasp; to get into one's hold or
possession; to procure; to seize and carry away; to
convey."
Or:
B "To make selection of; to choose; also, to turn to; to
have recourse to; as, to take the road to the right."
The point is, stealing is if I break into your house and take a book you have written. Copyright infringement is when I sneak into your home an laboriously copy every page in a book you have written. They are different crimes, governed by different laws and equating them is an insult to the suffering of people who really have had things stolen from them.
Making an exact copy of something is not the same as stealing. And I don't see a reasonable argument to the contrary yet.
I would know this by evaluating all the other judges he has appointed so far.
If you think who gets appointed to regular federal courts has much to do with the politics of who gets appointed to the supreme court I have a bridge to sell you.
I think "Cops" and similar TV shows will be a great historical reference for future generations and need to be diligently preserved. It is actual footage of police on their best behavior for the cameras and they still constantly break the law themselves and behave in very unethical ways. They also help demonstrate the absurdity of many laws. For example, I saw an episode some time ago where a police officer fell over while demonstrating a drunk test. The drunk then passed the test, and laughed at the cop, at which point the cops decided to search her for weapons. Then they gave her a breathalyzer. Completely illegal and unconstitutional and on TV for millions to see. How much worse is it, on average, when the cameras are off?
Those cop reality shows show you exactly what you shouldn't do when confronted by the cops.
Before you try to practice your theory, please make sure the cops who stop you are being followed by a TV camera crew. Those shows are showing cops on their best behavior. Without the cameras there (in some areas and with some cops) telling them they don't have the right to search you will earn you a beating and some planted drugs will land you in jail for a few years. TV, even reality TV, is not reality. The truth of the matter is any cop can present one of a dozen plausible excuses as to why they had to search you and your car and they can always find a reason to stop, ticket, and arrest you if they feel like it.
Using a VCR or PVR to record video and archive it is certainly easier and of better quality than downloads (in general) but it does not solve the problem of accessibility. Most television shows, movies, music, books, etc. are not available for sale in stores and are not played on television. Many of these are available for download on the internet. It's not just price but availability that drives piracy.
Several other people have posted that "without intending to return it clause" implies something. That point is irrelevant. In the case of software piracy people are not taking anything. They are making a copy of something. The original is left wherever it was. Copying is not stealing, although copying a copyrighted work is illegal in many circumstances. They are separate crimes and the type of piracy you are talking about was perfectly legal if money was not exchanged right up until the 70s in the U.S.
It is very understandable that most people don't think of it as a crime, since it is a common behavior, arguable is victimless, was legal until recently, and is rarely enforced on an individual level. Also, a great many people don't agree with the law. I'd be willing to bet that if law enforcement were to actually stop all software and intellectual property piracy, the law making it illegal in the U.S. would be repealed in a month.
Yet another crushing blow to the rights of individuals and a victory for big business is inherent in this decision. Things are going to get much worse before they get better once Bush appoints a few more even more pro-big-business judges. In Detroit the corrupt government has been getting around this type of thing by seizing property for public works projects, evicting everyone from their homes, then canceling the projects and selling land to casino developers. Now it has been ruled legal. Great. More little old ladies can be kicked onto the street and their home bulldozed so the rich can get richer by sucking money from people desperate or gullible enough to gamble their money away.
Isn't it interesting how the constitution is now interpreted to mean the exact opposite of what is says? Apparently an office complex owned by a corporation is now "public use." I'm a member of the public. Does that mean I can walk in any time and hang out; or camp out for a few days while I'm in town maybe? How long will corporations be given more rights and fewer responsibilities than people, even though their stated purpose is (in most instances) wholly unethical and greedy? How much power and wealth will accumulate into the hands of the "elite" before the public notices that 3/4 of all people are living in perpetual debt to about 1% of the rest of the people and just how little upward mobility there really is in this country. Good PR, bread, and circuses will only last so long.
Were any of the people implementing those block lists holding a monopoly on desktop operating systems and implementing those block lists based upon whether or not the sender uses a technology that is only available from within said operating system? How about implementing that closed technology even though the rest of the internet community has standardized on a superior and freely available technology? I'd say that is the main difference.
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NT is much more efficient than OS X at basically all kernel functions. It has a better scheduler, system calls are faster, it has finer-grained locking, its virtual memory system is better.
Theoretically that may be true, but it does not seem to hold up in the real world, possibly due to flaws in the implementation.
People that close programs on Windows while playing games are running expensive programs or are stupid. Plain and simple.
You seem to have missed the point. Just because you are running expensive programs does not mean you should have to shut them down to play a game. I leave several very expensive programs like photoshop and InDesign running and can still play cpu/memory hungry games without a problem. Theoretically you might be able to do that with Windows, but in reality it does not work for me. I have two machines with comparable CPUs and RAM but the OS X machine can run the same games or other intensive programs smoothly while the Windows machine becomes unresponsive to clicks. There is a certain build process I run every few days and often run on both machines. If I run it on my mac it runs and I do normal tasks like writing in a text editor, checking my mail, or web browsing. If I run it on the Windows machine it takes 10 seconds or so to register a mouse click and then doing anything else is like working on a 486/66.
I'm sure adding tons of RAM or using a different set of applications may provide different results, but for me NT's fabulous scheduler and virtual memory system performs like crap in the real world. Plain and simple.
I decided to load the entire adobe cs2 suite into memory and see just how many cpu cycles it hogs? Less than 1% with the gui drawn or sent to the taskbar. PROGRAMS DONT ARBITRARILY EAT CPU AND IO TIME UNLESS THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING MORON.
OK, now open a large file, with lot's of pictures in it make a random change and save that change. Now switch do another application, like Firefox or explorer, leaving the file open but not doing anything. Now take a look at your CPU usage. Up around 50% maybe smartass?
If you have pdf's set to load in a new window you can merrily continue about your work.
...And if you don't? Oh yeah, your machine grinds to a halt and you can't even switch windows. Nice multitasking.
I don't know if your an idiot or just a fraud but I suspect a bit of both
I'll tell you what I am, I'm a person who actually uses the software and judges it based upon real-world performance rather than loads it without doing anything. Perhaps you and the QA people from both MS and Adobe got your education from the box of cracker jacks. If you're going to start calling someone a moron, maybe you should take a hard look in the mirror.
I quoted real worlds statistics from boxes sitting in front of me, right now, and you think your half-assed, poorly thought out "test" somehow makes for a valid argument. Programs on Windows that are not being used, but do have resources open certainly do arbitrarily eat cpu cycles and interfere with the operation of other programs as anyone who has tried to run an resource intensive game or application on Windows can tell you. Get a clue and pull your head out of your ass already. And next time you decide to refute a claim how about asking for some information on the setup and procedure before doing so? You know little things like what version of Windows and InDesign and number of processors and what exactly was done and how the numbers were gathered. You know, like facts.
Jerkoffs like you that are impolite as well as incompetent should really learn to either keep their mouths shut or spend at least 5 minutes thinking before being allowed to type. Congrats, you're the first person I've ever bothered to ban from my viewing list.
Some people just don't know how to make their machines work well !
Given most everyone there was either a software engineer, or systems administrator I'd say maybe Windows is very difficult to set up correctly. All I know is that Windows seems to sporadically develop problems that for some reason require a lot of rebooting, while more stable OSs seem to behave more consistently. And, as I mentioned before, Windows cannot multitask it's was out of a soggy paper bag.
sorry the world just doesn't work that way. You don't just take your chips and go home because in the end you just end up hurting yourself. Most of the time idealism translates to stupidity.
Freeing the slaves was pretty impractical. Trying to coordinate voting across a huge nation instead of just having a bunch of little monarchies was impractical too. Police informing those accused of a crime of their rights is impractical too; 90% of people they inform either know already or don't care. Sometimes an idealistic solution is the right answer. In this case it is idealistic and practical and will probably save them money and time in the long term. The Norwegians are not running a business, they are doing what is right for their people and what they have announced is certainly something I would probably do were I in their place.
why does everyone else complain about this? i dont get it really unless they are out just to flame off their anti-MS personal agenda. btw my specs are: 3.4 Ghz Pci-express mobo L2 Cache 2 GB DDR RAM @ 533 Mhz Geforce 6800 SLI(256 RAM per card)
Take a look at what applications you are running, but not using, are consuming in terms of resources. Your machine is pretty well specced compared to most. The laptop I run dozens of applications on all the time, plus a game on top, has about 1/3 the cpu and ram, and even less video ram. It is several years old, a laptop (obviously), and was not top of the line even when I bought it. Maybe that is immaterial, but in my experience, Windows does not do a very good job of resource allocation when under high loads, while other OSs do just fine. Maybe you don't have a problem because you are not taxing your system, or maybe your machine does a better job than most for some reason. I can tell you that when I play games on my windows box, I shut all the other major applications or performance suffers.
Windows multitasks just as well, those processes will slow down your gaming and eat RAM on any OS, period.
No, it doesn't. Windows can run one application quickly, but is terrible about running multiple applications. I know I have a Windows box, an OS X box, and a NetBSD box all handy at work. Ever wonder why so many people hate PDFs? I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with so may people being Windows users. Click on the wrong link and suddenly your computer is useless while the plug-in and the PDF load. That is not the case on OS X, Linux, or NetBSD. All of those OSs let you switch to a new browser tab, or another application and keep working happily.
I'm typing this on an OS X box with about a dozen major applications running in my user space. My browser is currently using 18% of my cpu and all the other applications and the OS together are using 8%. That is because although photoshop is open and InDesign is open and both are resource hogs, neither is actually doing anything and neither is using more than a percent or two of the CPU. My Windows box has Indesign open in the background too. It is using 55% of the somewhat faster CPU in that machine.
Windows will run games literally twice, if not more, quickly than any other desktop OS, including Linux and OS X
Umm, have you ever run a game (not in emulation) on all three platforms? The performance difference is usually not even noticeable on comparable hardware.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Linux and OS X just aren't good gaming environments, and probably never will be.
You know what, for the most part you are right. But that is because the lack of titles, not because of any problem with the OS. I occasionally go to LAN parties and play games. I always bring along my relatively slow mac laptop if we're playing a game that runs on that platform. I never had any problems with it being too slow, but I certainly had some advantages when it came to stability and functionality. I once ended up hosting the games on my laptop because all three of the windows towers were having issues. One was blue-screening every 30 minutes or so due to a video card conflict with the motherboard. One was having network problems and kept dropping off and the third could join the game, but no one could see the game while hosted on that machine. Tell me, which was the superior gaming platform that day?
What are the Norwegians going to do when the US or British governments, for example, send them a .doc? Tell them they have to redo it over again in a non-proprietary format?
I imagine a secretary will open it with openoffice and save it to a standard format. If they are feeling evangelical, they may do just as you have suggested and request a standard format.
Picture this, you're a U.S. ambassador and a foreign government that controls a fair bit of oil and is historically friendly to you and well respected by the rest of the world sends you a letter asking you to please resend the papers you sent them, but in a format that does not require them to buy special software from an American company. Do you A) tell them no; or B) tell your executive assistant to do it? The clock is ticking here. Gee, sure is a tough choice huh? For that matter if you have to do this a dozen or so times are you going to get pissed at the Norweigans or at your IT guys who can't seem to send documents in the right format (whatever the hell that is)?
The truth of the matter is Norway can easily dictate the format they receive documents in, and if other countries (ones we are less inclined to cater to like Peru) ask for the same, it is much more likely we will do so for them as well. Some U.S. government officials might even wonder what the big deal is, research the issue, and try to mandate the same for their department, office, agency or whatever.
Embracing open standards is fine, but to do so at the expense of proprietary standards is stupid. More broadly, you can't afford to be idealistic in this industry; you have to be practical.
Actually, Norway is exactly the kind of customer who can afford to be idealistic on behalf of their current citizens and on behalf of future generations. For a reasonable amount of money they can switch over to open streaming video technologiesand other open standards that rely upon no patents or particular software vendors, thus ensuring their data will be viewable, freely, by future generations.
Norway is a relatively wealthy, educated nation and I don't see why it would be impractical for them to make this sort of a move. They'll probably end up ahead of the game financially within just a few years.
apple is stylish because typically artists want them and make decisions not on specifications and performance to cost ratios alone but if it looks pretty in their "space".
Bullshit. I mean sure, Apple makes some sales because clueless people with too much money think the look "cool" but that is by no means their main market. You think Linus Torvalds bought a powerbook because he is so artistic and wanted a computer that looked cool and was ignorant about how poorly it performed? You think the dozens of security professionals I work with daily bought macs because they are ignorant of the specifications and cost/performance ratios? Hell no. They bought them because they work better for the task at hand. Raw cpu cycles are by no means the best judge of how suited a computer is to a task. If I want to play Half-life I'm not going to use a cluster of PPC processors even though they provide more bang for the buck because first, they can't run the software and second, I don't need that much CPU power to play a stupid game.
Similarly, many people buy macs because they run OS X, which is the best environment for what they want to do. These people might be artists, or writers, or security professionals, or geneticists, but macs allow them to get their job done better than and other machine available. The number of artists who run macs because they are ignorant is probably a handful compared to the number who run it because the system works better for working with graphics because of the tools available, the better multithreading, the prioritization of input which means when you're painting a line the OS won't suddenly hog the processor and stop recording mouse input for half a second, the color support is much better, and because most artistic software is written for macs with Windows as a buggy afterthought.
Your condescension towards those poor ignorant artists is really annoying and your ignorance about using computers as a professional artist is glaringly obvious.
The problem is you can have the best product in all fronts vs. your competor and still loose out.
True. That does not necessarily mean, however, that other products are better than ipods. I don't own one, or any mp3 player. I have a computer pretty much anywhere I want to listen to music. That said, if I were to buy one it would likely be an ipod. The reasons why include:
I'm sure other people have different priorities and would rather have Ogg support and better Linux support. That is fine by me. At the same time though, for me (from what little research I"ve done) iPods are the toyotas in this case. Just because a product is dominant does not mean it is not better.
seriously though, i doubt you run your games with all those files/applications going on at the same time sapping your ram and cpu speed...
Spoken like a Windows user. My web browser, mail application, messaging client, calendar, terminals, text editor, image viewer, layout application, and a dozen more have been running non-stop for the last several weeks. Why would I shut them down to run a game? Any system with decent multitasking and prioritization will not use any real CPU cycles or hog the rRAM on applications just sitting open while I'm playing a game.
Note, this is on a couple year old laptop running OS X. The games I usually play are some older ones, like UT2003, Warcraft 3, Neverwinter nights, and a handful of less cpu/gpu intensive but fun games.
Maybe you should use a good OS for a month and see what it is you're missing. I'm very unlikely to ever reboot to play a game, nor am I ever going to quit all my running applications.
Doing bodily harm is not illegal in all instances. Distributing copyrighted works is not illegal in all instances. It's a valid comparison.
Except the courts ruled that Grokster was promoting copyright infringement not just distributing copyrighted works which, as you said, is legal in some cases.
Please show me how downloading "The Simpsons: Season 7" has issues with circumstances to mitigate its use.
Actually there are a number of legal uses for downloading copyrighted material. Some examples include:
The question then is, were the people promoting Grokster promoting legal or illegal use? The court has ruled the latter, but having never seen a Grokster advertisement, I'll reserve judgment.
which means that Hollywood should be liable for promoting the use of guns for killing people whenever they show guns being used for killing people
Non sequitur. You don't think there is a difference between showing a movie in which a character murders someone with a gun (or for that matter writing a book in which a character murders someone with a gun) and promoting a gun for the purpose of murdering people? If the movie makers were selling guns or being paid to include certain guns and the guns were being used unlawfully and there was a case where that same gun was then purchased specifically to be used unlawfully in that manner, then there might be a case. As far as I know that has not happened. You're taking the ruling a whole step further. If a movie about hackers shows someone use grokster to download something illegally and then loses a case feel free to bring this point up again.
Firearm manufacturers have already lost court cases in which they were found to have designed and marketed firearms with the express purpose of selling to criminals. I believe the manufacturers of tec-9 firearms lost a civil case where they were shown to have marketed the gun specifically to inner city gangs.
It was not "doing bodily harm" though, as that is not illegal in all instances. The crimes supposedly promoted were armed robbery and murder. Plenty of firearms are marketed for "doing bodily harm" usually as an ideal weapon for self defense. As far as I know none have ever lost a lawsuit over it.
Maybe, just maybe, this law is not a stupid as it appears on the surface. Everyone is assuming spammers will just grab these lists and send spam to them using spoofed source addresses. Maybe, that is exactly the intention. Make a list, put everyone that requests to be on it, and give that list to mass marketers on demand so that they can avoid sending to those addresses. Make sure every time you give out a list, you note who it goes to and embed a unique e-mail address or two. When you get spam to that address, prosecute whoever you gave that e-mail to. Spammers could easily get around this by getting multiple lists, or stealing a list from another marketer, but provided the law is written correctly and has a clause to deal with redistribution of the list, this could be a huge and successful sting operation.
Realistically, this isn't what is happening. I just don't think law enforcement and legislators are both that clever, coordinated, and motivated on this issue. Still, it's a good idea.
Take is a very common word with multiple definitions. Would you guess in the context above webster meant:
A "In an active sense; To lay hold of; to seize with the hands, or otherwise; to grasp; to get into one's hold or possession; to procure; to seize and carry away; to convey."
Or:
B "To make selection of; to choose; also, to turn to; to have recourse to; as, to take the road to the right."
The point is, stealing is if I break into your house and take a book you have written. Copyright infringement is when I sneak into your home an laboriously copy every page in a book you have written. They are different crimes, governed by different laws and equating them is an insult to the suffering of people who really have had things stolen from them.
Making an exact copy of something is not the same as stealing. And I don't see a reasonable argument to the contrary yet.
I would know this by evaluating all the other judges he has appointed so far.
If you think who gets appointed to regular federal courts has much to do with the politics of who gets appointed to the supreme court I have a bridge to sell you.
I think "Cops" and similar TV shows will be a great historical reference for future generations and need to be diligently preserved. It is actual footage of police on their best behavior for the cameras and they still constantly break the law themselves and behave in very unethical ways. They also help demonstrate the absurdity of many laws. For example, I saw an episode some time ago where a police officer fell over while demonstrating a drunk test. The drunk then passed the test, and laughed at the cop, at which point the cops decided to search her for weapons. Then they gave her a breathalyzer. Completely illegal and unconstitutional and on TV for millions to see. How much worse is it, on average, when the cameras are off?
Those cop reality shows show you exactly what you shouldn't do when confronted by the cops.
Before you try to practice your theory, please make sure the cops who stop you are being followed by a TV camera crew. Those shows are showing cops on their best behavior. Without the cameras there (in some areas and with some cops) telling them they don't have the right to search you will earn you a beating and some planted drugs will land you in jail for a few years. TV, even reality TV, is not reality. The truth of the matter is any cop can present one of a dozen plausible excuses as to why they had to search you and your car and they can always find a reason to stop, ticket, and arrest you if they feel like it.
Using a VCR or PVR to record video and archive it is certainly easier and of better quality than downloads (in general) but it does not solve the problem of accessibility. Most television shows, movies, music, books, etc. are not available for sale in stores and are not played on television. Many of these are available for download on the internet. It's not just price but availability that drives piracy.
Several other people have posted that "without intending to return it clause" implies something. That point is irrelevant. In the case of software piracy people are not taking anything. They are making a copy of something. The original is left wherever it was. Copying is not stealing, although copying a copyrighted work is illegal in many circumstances. They are separate crimes and the type of piracy you are talking about was perfectly legal if money was not exchanged right up until the 70s in the U.S.
It is very understandable that most people don't think of it as a crime, since it is a common behavior, arguable is victimless, was legal until recently, and is rarely enforced on an individual level. Also, a great many people don't agree with the law. I'd be willing to bet that if law enforcement were to actually stop all software and intellectual property piracy, the law making it illegal in the U.S. would be repealed in a month.
you are full of Crap, provided you even RTFA. These the precisely the kinds of judges Bush doesn't appoint/
...and you would know this because he has appointed how many supreme court judges? How about engaging your brain?
Yet another crushing blow to the rights of individuals and a victory for big business is inherent in this decision. Things are going to get much worse before they get better once Bush appoints a few more even more pro-big-business judges. In Detroit the corrupt government has been getting around this type of thing by seizing property for public works projects, evicting everyone from their homes, then canceling the projects and selling land to casino developers. Now it has been ruled legal. Great. More little old ladies can be kicked onto the street and their home bulldozed so the rich can get richer by sucking money from people desperate or gullible enough to gamble their money away.
Isn't it interesting how the constitution is now interpreted to mean the exact opposite of what is says? Apparently an office complex owned by a corporation is now "public use." I'm a member of the public. Does that mean I can walk in any time and hang out; or camp out for a few days while I'm in town maybe? How long will corporations be given more rights and fewer responsibilities than people, even though their stated purpose is (in most instances) wholly unethical and greedy? How much power and wealth will accumulate into the hands of the "elite" before the public notices that 3/4 of all people are living in perpetual debt to about 1% of the rest of the people and just how little upward mobility there really is in this country. Good PR, bread, and circuses will only last so long.
How is this any different?
Were any of the people implementing those block lists holding a monopoly on desktop operating systems and implementing those block lists based upon whether or not the sender uses a technology that is only available from within said operating system? How about implementing that closed technology even though the rest of the internet community has standardized on a superior and freely available technology? I'd say that is the main difference.