It is amusing how few people who claim to be Christian bother to do any research about their religion. I think that if everyone who wanted to be a Christian had to read the bible all the way through then a lot more of them would have serious doubts about the divine inspiration of the bible. More importantly if any of them did any real research on the origins of the bible, they would be a great deal more skeptical about it's inspiration by a judeo-christian god. A good portion of it was copied from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. And the translations have varied widely. For all those people who claim that the bible is some sort of magical book that their god has controlled the content of, why has it changed so much over time? Why are their so many spelling and grammar errors in the early Greek versions? Why did people long ago get a different version?
I've read the bible, along with a great many other religious texts. It's way better than the Quaran but much less engaging than the gateless gate. The old testament is really boring in parts, but has some very good stories and parables in others. The new testament teachings of Jesus make for some pretty decent philosophy and the rest is good sci-fi. I wish some Christians would read both of them, then actually do some of what Jesus told them to. He had some very good ideas, particularly about not creating organized religious groups. Most of the Christians I know follow a sort of Christianity-lite that they learned from holiday specials on TV, or are Dogmatic and just try to follow along with whatever it is their priest tells them, without bothering to learn about the bible in a historical context, or about the other religious works of the time that are excluded from mainstream Christianity, despite having as much, or more relevance to the teachings of Jesus.
I can imagine this sort of attitude from technology awed natives who have just been converted by a missionary, but here in America with all the educational resources available and all history of questioning authority, it sickens me. I'm sure their are exceptions, but for the most part I find Christians to be annoying and sheeplike.
Asian cultures where family is prominent and lineage and ancestor worship is prominent, the introduction of homosexulity would be devestaing because parents count on male children to continue the family name. Ilamic and African culture is also incompatible with homosexuality. That alone accounts for over half the world's population.
Ha ha ha. Whew. Funny. Using broad terms like Asian cultures or African cultures is so unspecific as to be meaningless in this context. The same things could be said of the United States 200 years ago. You are merely grasping at straws for rational arguments to support an irrational view. You claim that countries are opposed to homosexuality because of the damage it does to society. On the contrary, most opposition to homosexuality comes from religious or social conservatism.
The only societies I know who had rational objections to homosexuality were Roman and Greek societies, who passed laws to discourage it since it was contributing to under population (it was very common and accepted in both of these societies). Seeing as overpopulation is one of the largest threats to our planet today, homosexuality is probably a very rational and helpful social trend.
I can't even fathom a rational reason why someone living in the same world as I do would object to other people practicing homosexuality. Are you afraid that so many people will not reproduce that our species will start to die out? Are you afraid that it will anger some deity and he will punish you as well as the homosexuals? I just don't get it. What rational objection to homosexuality is there?
Whenever the topic of homosexuality is brought up, someone says it is unnatural, and someone else asserts that other animals can be homosexual as well. Anyone who does even a brief investigation, immediately discovers that this is the case. Inevitably, there are some close-minded idiots who refuse to believe this, or are for some reason completely incapable of finding out well documented facts. These people, like you, are people that can immediately be ignored from this point onward. After all, what is the point of having a rational discussion with someone who has made up their mind, and is not interested in or capable of finding basic scientific facts?
I regularly use word for OS X (1.25 GHz Powerbook) with large (40-75 page) documents with lots of tables, figures, etc., and can't remember the last time it crashed on me. Excel, occasionally; Word, never.
I have used both Windows and Mac versions of Word extensively. Both have easily repeatable crashes with large documents (about 150 pages with a medium number of images). Both have regular issues with file corruption, where Word will corrupt a file on save making it unopenable. Word has some nice features, and some really annoying ones, but there is certainly plenty of room for improvement. I look forward to a modern Apple word processor, not so much for the application, but in the hopes that it will include useful grammar checking, dictionary, and thesaurus system services that I can use in some of the professional layout applications I use.
I stated my opinion about socialism, and it's based on the bad experiences from the past.
In future perhaps you should avoid preceding your opinions with the word "Fact." Logic is logic whether applied mathematically or to real world situations. It is about using a reasoned progression based upon measured criteria. Given A and B we can deduce C. Assertions without facts, or without directly related causation are not logical. It seems to me that reasoned discourse and logic should be formally taught everywhere, as I find it lacking most everywhere.
Well, I could just stop picking sides, but I don't like to. Picking no sides is always easier.
I disagree. Picking sides (in terms of right, left, democrat, republican, etc as I used it above) is easy when you just follow the party line. Making your own choices about things, and making an informed decision is much harder than listening to Rush Limbaugh for debating points.
I don't know if "caricature" is a common word in USA
the word 'caricature' is fairly common in American English, although it is usually used in terms of a drawing or a grotesque exaggeration.
I can understand being disenchanted with many of the regimes that have claimed to be socialist, but socialism is such a broad concept that it is practiced to some degree almost everywhere. Oppression and totalitarianism are also present in some degree almost everywhere. Try not to let a bunch of power hungry thugs turn you off on the basic idea of sharing resources and sharing work equitably.
Much less, actually. Think of the 20th century, for example. Lenin? Mao? Pol Pot? Hitler? Stalin? All Socialists.
Niether Pol Pot nor Hitler qualify as socialists. And the U.S. helped put Pol Pot in power. You are being very selective in your history.
How come, whenever it is tried in any but the most mild forms, it results in the worst extremes of unlevelness and extreme stratification between rich and poor?
I don't know that socialism has ever been tried on a large scale. It is certainly applied in many European countries to great effect, and within the U.S. to alleviate much of worst poverty. There have been a number of oligarchies that claimed to be strictly socialist, but none of them provided for citizens to have equal power in the government. In any case look to the U.S. as a good example of extreme stratification of money and power. With money, you can do basically anything, without it you are legally helpless. Upward mobility is worse than the vast majority of the world and of the top 1% income only about 400 of them last year were not born into the top 1%. Of course due to the poor mathematics scores and unrealistic expectations 35% of people asked in a survey thought that they were in the top 1%.
when it is applied, it ends up that the wealth is distributed all to the rulers, who pay lip service to the idea of giving it to others.
And when was their a U.S. president that was not one of the wealthy elite? I think Grant was the last one. In any case, I believe we already covered the logical fallacy of claiming historical evidence as the proof of future implementations.
Ah, another tired "Bush is Hitler" reference...You are also forgetting that if Bush really did order this, his government would not be punishing those responsible for Abu Ghraib.
I never equated Bush with Hitler, I merely stated three leaders who were elected and have been decried by the world as human rights violators. As far as your comment about Bush and punishment, did he punish them before or after the press published? And why has no one of rank been charged? And why does the FBI have to go to the press a year after they make reports to the administration in order for something to be done? And why is the commander of both locations suddenly posted somewhere obscure and unreachable? And why does the leader of the most powerful country in the world claim that the basic rights our forefathers listed for all men, don't apply to some particular ones?
you will be very hard pressed to find a country that is more free. The media is without a doubt the most free and least controlled.
You are delusional if you believe that. I believe Amnesty international lists the U.S.A around number 30 for the least domestic human rights violations. Sweden, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, and Finland are often near the top of the list. And that does not take into account violations the U.S.A. perpetrates in other countries. If you have not been paying attention, the freedom of the press has been officially revoked in the U.S.A. The patriot act gives the federal government the right to issue gag orders to anyone including the media. Historically the press has been censored many times in the U.S.A. Several media outlets have mentioned withholding news within the last year at the request of the U.S. and did you ever notice those little notices at the bottom of Google pages that say results have been removed due to legal injunctions in the U.S.?
Your view of socialism is narrow and dated. Your view of the U.S. is unrealistic. I suppose you think most of the world considers the U.S. to be an evil empire because of all that liberal media huh? Those poor stupid foreigners. The U.S. is certainly not as bad as some other places, but as far as doing evil things in the world, it is pretty near the top of the list right now. Get a clue.
Some beliefs, if they are very destructive, are worth attacking.
At least as much pain and suffering has been caused by capitalism as by socialism. The thing is, both can be viable economic systems, but are brought low by the nature of people. Greed and the lust for power corrupt both systems. Socialism was (and is) an attempt at a level social structure, without rich people and poor people. Many people are given a great deal more money, power, contacts, and resources than I was to start in life. Many were given a great deal less. This is not fair, but neither is most of life. We all ignore this injustice as are forebears ignored other injustices. Slaves were born into slavery, it wasn't fair, but hey what can you do? You can try to make things as fair as possible for everyone.
You claim that socialism is oppressive and totalitarian, and in many cases, governments ruling over socialist structures were just that. But Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, and George Bush were all elected in democratic societies and all three have denied people their basic human rights and tortured helpless prisoners. All of them have a lake of blood on their hands. The U.S. thinks of itself as the poster child of democracy. It is a joke. The U.S. is not a direct democracy, is not very free compared to many other countries, is horribly corrupt, and has supported some of the most horrible dictators ever. All is not rosy in non-socialist countries.
There is nothing wrong with socialism. The theory of socialism is quite simply to distribute wealth and labor equally among all people. More recent socialism calls for the state ownership of industry. That too, is not bad in and of itself. Some socialist governments have been totalitarian and oppressive. Well that sucks. Feel free to badmouth those regimes or totalitarianism or oppression. Just be sure to note that they occur under both socialist and democratic governments. You've been buying into too much cold war era propaganda my friend. It is not us against them. It is all of us in it together, with some greedy power hungry asshats trying to turn people against each other for their own personal gain. The problem here is not socialism or democracy. It is greed, anger, hatred, power-lust, inequality, and oppression. It is the way people behave and think. And democracy + capitalism is just as sure a road to inequality and oppression as any other, unless these parts of human nature can be overcome.
When the Israeli Gov. decided to go open source (and Israel does have a strong IT community).. it was, correctly, interpreted as snubbing microsoft .
It was an action by a government to protect itself from illegal practices of a monopoly that was damaging to their country and violating their laws. I don't see why every government does not take action against MS, and at least demand compensation for the damage they do to marketplace.
You are glad USSR fell. Most leftists are. The question is: didn't they support USSR? Yes, they did. They knew what was going on, but they supported USSR back then. Why? Because it was against USA. Quite simple.
Fact: Socialism will never work. In fact, every single comunist regime was extremely elitist.
So here is the problem I have with your statements. They are all about choosing sides and saying leftists are wrong and rightists are correct. It is all bullcrap. I don't consider myself leftist or right, or conservative, or republican or democrat or libertarian. Why does it always have to be broken into two sides. Is it so hard to actually discuss issues intelligently instead of trying to find a club that you can join. Competition is all well and good as a means to an end, but it is not an end by itself.
What kind of failure in reasoning does it take to make an assertion like "Socialism will never work" and try to claim it as a fact? Have you ever read anything about logic or reasoning? A prediction cannot, by definition, be a fact. Citing previous examples of something not working is not a valid argument as to why something cannot work in the future. In 1200 AD someone may have said, "humans will never fly. people have tried for years to invent flying machines and all failed. Most of them seriously injured themselves. It is a fact that flying machines can never work. "
Most people would have agreed, but they would have been just as wrong as you are. Why don't you stop picking sides, or trying to attack others who believe differently than you and try to look at some of the problems in the world and try to help solve them. Bickering will get you exactly nowhere.
where do you suppose they would've done that? Probably from an Apple retail store, online at Apple.com, or from a dedicated computer vendor like Microcenter or CompUSA. All of which venues, needless to say, offer loads of Mac software. Any other brick-and-mortar retailer (your Best Buys, your Circuit Cities) that sold the unit would certainly offer a few major software titles to go with it--it just makes good business sense.
A large number of Americans live in rural or suburban areas and travel to a larger city to shop, especially for large electronics purchases. Many of these same people do not want to make a special trip for software. While I have little doubt that stores which carry Apple computers have some software, most stores do not. The Best Buy nearest me only carries a few titles that have both Mac and Windows versions in the same box. Circuit City has a small selection. Target, Wal-mart, K-mart, and several grocery stores near me carry software, none have any Mac titles. I agree that many people will be able to shop online, and find things readily. Many others, especially new computer users, will not know to include 'mac' in their google searches and will be stymied. Maybe they will all look at the Apple store or maybe they will notice the selection in the Apple menu. I still think it would be a good idea to provide information and links on the default web page.
I'm glad you like it. I played the Mac version a few years ago and the original game years before that. I've never seen the Windows port. I agree about the annoyance of having to reload your pilot after being killed. Aside from that though, I don't recall any UI issues or menu problems. It does not drop out of fullscreen mode in the mac version. In any case it is a fun game with some real plot. Enjoy.
I challenge you to find any company in the entertainment industry who cares more about product quality than they do profits.
There are plenty of such companies, just not many large ones. I watch a number of small gaming companies, and await their releases. Ambrosia is a good example, they make enough money to get by, obviously enjoy their work, and make some really, really fun games. For larger companies the best you can hope for is a culture that cares about their products and leadership that lets them do what they need to to make things right.
Waste is waste. It doesn't matter if its Open or Closed Source, it will still cost a huge amount and still barely work because it is the government.
I disagree. Mostly because open source software used by the government, with improvements funded by the government, will not just be used by the government. If the USA decided it needed a secure web browser with some very specific features they could hire contractors to write one, buy an existing one, or hire someone to modify an existing open source browser. If open source was given preference for the good of all, then not just the government would use it. For example, if they made some changes to Firefox and used that, then any changes (presumably some valuable and some not) would be given back to the community, and could be incorporated in the regular release. If they created a brand new inventory tracking system, some other companies would probably try to use it as well and what would have been a POS when just the gov. was working on it, could turn into something useful.
How often in history does a private enterprise have this much power?
Well their were the Medici family, Catholic Church, Knights Templar, Guilds, etc. I'd say all of those qualify. Money has been a power for a long time. Democracy has in many ways made governments less repressive, but people are power hungry, and if they can't gain dominion through force of arms and a repressive government, they will do so with private organizations and subversion of law.
How many government officials here in America could you actually convince to launch a campaign promoting free software? Not many, if any.
Hmm, on a local level, it would probably not be too hard at all. On a federal scale you have to be able to match the payola from all the government contractors, and that is not very likely.
The only files that the system will refuse to burn are those where the copy protect flag has been set, which currently is limited to a few shows on HBO and Cinemax.
If you are going for a PVR setup, why go with one that limits your ability to archive shows at all? Why would they want to limit the shows you can archive? Oh yeah, because they are hoping they will be able to dominate the market and then use those flags more extensively. Trusting MS is foolish.
I'm not sure that is sufficient. The site itself is fine, but will new users find that option? Most users are used to downloading software, but how many will think to look for a link in the apple menu? I know I never noticed it, and I use an OS X machine every day for several hours. The might look in the default bookmarks in Safari, but I really think Apple should be a lot more proactive here.
someone asked where the $400 MythTV box is. It doesn't exist, and neither does your idea, because it's not profitable.
Here is a computer for $200 that has everything except the Tuner card which can be had for under $100 if you shop around. It is true that Dell does not sell to individual computers for less than about $450, but they also include much faster than necessary processors, a pile of useless software including Windows, and a lot of other features useless for a PVR. If Dell wanted to, they could build and ship a computer, profitably, for less than $500. They don't because they are not innovators and will never do anything until someone else does it profitably.
If it doesn't make money (or convince someone with a lot of money that it will), you aren't going to see it on the market, period. If you think this isn't the case, stick your nuts out there and try to break the trend. You'll fail, I promise.
There are two types of tech companies that are successful. There are ones like Dell that try to be the biggest, but don't do anything new. They count upon economy of scale and being able to copy those who make new things. The others are innovative companies who do cool things, because invention is part of their culture. They make money because they are first with cool technologies, and because they make new markets that everyone else has to play catch-up to get into. I'll not be starting a new company just now because I already work for a very successful start-up. But any of the big players with marketing power and the ability to buy in bulk and suck up a small R&D investment, can make money selling cheaply made PVRs. It won't be Dell or Wal-Mart. It may or may not be Tivo. Just hope it is not Microsoft, because if it is, they will screw us all again and kill innovation in the PVR space.
I'm not sure why you are quoting the article write-up in a response to my post. In any case, I have not purchased WMCE and do not plan to because the product information provided states that you can only record video in windows media format that can only be played from the local machine. It can be streamed to other devices, but not transferred and played there. Those are the DRM restrictions I believe he was talking about.
Last I heard, there were something like 100 known Linux viruses, and 20 known Mac OS X viruses.
Where did you hear that? My count is 3 trojans and no worms or viruses for MacOS X. 530 and worms and viruses (mostly slapper variants) for Linux and innumerable trojans.
What MacOS X viruses exist? I don't even know of any proof of concepts.
You can't compare a desktop that can perform a huge number of different functions and to a PVR that really can only perform one function. That was the point that I was trying to make.
Nor was it my intention to contend otherwise. I was merely providing a PC (WMCE) to PC (Apple) comparison, since you said comparing the former to consumer electronics PVRs was not a valid comparison.
there is nothing that says that you have to be restricted to Windows DRM. My ATI All-In-Wonder 7200 comes with all of the software that I would need to record and archive.
Again, I did not contend otherwise. I was making a comparison of WMCE (the subject of this article) and a Mac+EyeTV solution.
I also fully disagree about the "better DVD creation and video editing software", but that's best left for another discussion.
You are misquoting me. I said, "better built in DVD creation, and video editing software." As far as I know windows ships with little or no DVD creation software that can actually do anything useful. As far as which platform has better DVD creation/video editing software, that is a strongly a matter of which functionality/price best matches your uses. It is hard to compete with the free solutions from Apple, but if you need something more powerful, I think the Mac platform really has a few much better choices (although some of the best are also available for PC at a higher cost). I have only limited experience with video editing/DVD creation, and no experience as a professional, but I do know some professionals and I don't think there is much debate among them.
While it is fashionable here to think of e.g. cable companies as 'evil' and 'controlling', that anthropomorphizes something that can be explained much more simply: they exist, as agents of their stockholders, to be profitable.
I agree that most people express a somewhat oversimplified view of corporations in general and cable companies in particular, but I'm not sure that 'evil' is not a bad term to describe them. We're talking about organizations whose stated goal is to get as much money as possible. How can you be more of a personification of greed than that. Greed is, by most ethical and moral standards, evil. Realistically, large companies are composed of individuals who make choices. The culture is, however, one of greed, where it is by no means unusual for executives or any employee to be working solely for the goal of making money for themselves (greed again). The culture is further problematic in that it separates individuals from responsibility. Share holders don't know what is happening in the company and many don't even know that they are shareholders and hence no one feels responsible for the goals of the company. Employees routinely separate themselves with a number of common sentiments like, "If I don't they will just hire someone else", "It's just business, nothing personal", or "I'm just doing my job, don't blame me."
The end result is something that many would categorize as evil, or at least despicable and unethical. With no one taking responsibility for any of the things that result.
As far as a MythTV box is concerned, I think a lot of Tivo's overhead is the result of being a subscription service. Most consumer electronics companies forget their products as soon as they ship. A MythTV system can be made from very cheap components, can access TitanTV, or a similar free TV scheduler that is ad supported, and with a minimalist GUI can require basically no support aside from repairs. Dell could ship one for $500 under a new brand name with a couple hundred grand investment in R&D. The increase in blank DVD sales would probably make the whole thing worth while regardless of the margins on the box.
I disagree with this point, but for the sake of argument lets just assume that you are correct. How about taking that $500 mac that was mentioned earlier, plugging in an EyeTV tuner from Elgato, adding a TV out card or adapter and comparing it to the WMCE PC. Where does that get us?
Pros of Mac solution vs. PC solution:
The mac solution has better built in DVD creation, and video editing software. You can make shnazzy DVDs of your home movies, things you record, or your pictures and with a soundtrack and some nice menus. The Mac solution will make DVDs and VCDs to archive your shows as opposed to Windows only DRM-laden formats. The mac makes for a nicer MP3 server in my opinion as iTunes is much nicer than Windows Media Player. You don't have to worry about viruses, worms, hackers, etc. If you already have a PC, this increases the range of software available to you. It can stream video to Macs, Windows, and Linux boxes.
Cons of Mac solution vs. PC solution:
If you are used to Windows, there is a learning curve. It cannot stream to an X-box. You can probably build a cheaper PC. You cannot easily archive in Windows Media format, if for some reason you would want to. You can (maybe not legally) load software you already own for the PC onto this box as well.
it...lets you archive your recordings to CD or DVD, can support transmitting its content to any other PC, media center extender, or Xbox, etc.
It lets you archive to CD or DVD, but does it let you archive in a format everything can read, or only devices that pay a Windows tax? It can stream to other devices, but can it stream to a Linux box?
WMCE is all about lock in as usual. If consumers had a clue, they would not go near it with a 10-foot pole. My PVR archives to DVD or CD too, except it does so in the standard DVD or VCD formats so that any DVD player can play them. That means the portable on you use to keep you kid quiet, the one in the family van, the one at the neighbor's house, the one at the baby sitter's, the one that I will buy 5 years from now, etc.
I have doubt as to whether or not the average soccer mom will be able to figure this out before a purchase, and people are very defensive about their large purchases, so I imagine a lot of people will be buying WMCE machines in the future unless there is a better, mainstream option. Tivo is almost there, but there recent actions to prevent the archiving of some shows, has really put me off of recommending them. Where is the startup with the $400 MythTV-based solution?
Slashdot Mirror
58% believe the Bible was inspired by God.
It is amusing how few people who claim to be Christian bother to do any research about their religion. I think that if everyone who wanted to be a Christian had to read the bible all the way through then a lot more of them would have serious doubts about the divine inspiration of the bible. More importantly if any of them did any real research on the origins of the bible, they would be a great deal more skeptical about it's inspiration by a judeo-christian god. A good portion of it was copied from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. And the translations have varied widely. For all those people who claim that the bible is some sort of magical book that their god has controlled the content of, why has it changed so much over time? Why are their so many spelling and grammar errors in the early Greek versions? Why did people long ago get a different version?
I've read the bible, along with a great many other religious texts. It's way better than the Quaran but much less engaging than the gateless gate. The old testament is really boring in parts, but has some very good stories and parables in others. The new testament teachings of Jesus make for some pretty decent philosophy and the rest is good sci-fi. I wish some Christians would read both of them, then actually do some of what Jesus told them to. He had some very good ideas, particularly about not creating organized religious groups. Most of the Christians I know follow a sort of Christianity-lite that they learned from holiday specials on TV, or are Dogmatic and just try to follow along with whatever it is their priest tells them, without bothering to learn about the bible in a historical context, or about the other religious works of the time that are excluded from mainstream Christianity, despite having as much, or more relevance to the teachings of Jesus.
I can imagine this sort of attitude from technology awed natives who have just been converted by a missionary, but here in America with all the educational resources available and all history of questioning authority, it sickens me. I'm sure their are exceptions, but for the most part I find Christians to be annoying and sheeplike.
"chum guzzlers"
I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. The Daily Show rocks.
Asian cultures where family is prominent and lineage and ancestor worship is prominent, the introduction of homosexulity would be devestaing because parents count on male children to continue the family name. Ilamic and African culture is also incompatible with homosexuality. That alone accounts for over half the world's population.
Ha ha ha. Whew. Funny. Using broad terms like Asian cultures or African cultures is so unspecific as to be meaningless in this context. The same things could be said of the United States 200 years ago. You are merely grasping at straws for rational arguments to support an irrational view. You claim that countries are opposed to homosexuality because of the damage it does to society. On the contrary, most opposition to homosexuality comes from religious or social conservatism.
The only societies I know who had rational objections to homosexuality were Roman and Greek societies, who passed laws to discourage it since it was contributing to under population (it was very common and accepted in both of these societies). Seeing as overpopulation is one of the largest threats to our planet today, homosexuality is probably a very rational and helpful social trend.
I can't even fathom a rational reason why someone living in the same world as I do would object to other people practicing homosexuality. Are you afraid that so many people will not reproduce that our species will start to die out? Are you afraid that it will anger some deity and he will punish you as well as the homosexuals? I just don't get it. What rational objection to homosexuality is there?
Whenever the topic of homosexuality is brought up, someone says it is unnatural, and someone else asserts that other animals can be homosexual as well. Anyone who does even a brief investigation, immediately discovers that this is the case. Inevitably, there are some close-minded idiots who refuse to believe this, or are for some reason completely incapable of finding out well documented facts. These people, like you, are people that can immediately be ignored from this point onward. After all, what is the point of having a rational discussion with someone who has made up their mind, and is not interested in or capable of finding basic scientific facts?
I regularly use word for OS X (1.25 GHz Powerbook) with large (40-75 page) documents with lots of tables, figures, etc., and can't remember the last time it crashed on me. Excel, occasionally; Word, never.
I have used both Windows and Mac versions of Word extensively. Both have easily repeatable crashes with large documents (about 150 pages with a medium number of images). Both have regular issues with file corruption, where Word will corrupt a file on save making it unopenable. Word has some nice features, and some really annoying ones, but there is certainly plenty of room for improvement. I look forward to a modern Apple word processor, not so much for the application, but in the hopes that it will include useful grammar checking, dictionary, and thesaurus system services that I can use in some of the professional layout applications I use.
I stated my opinion about socialism, and it's based on the bad experiences from the past.
In future perhaps you should avoid preceding your opinions with the word "Fact." Logic is logic whether applied mathematically or to real world situations. It is about using a reasoned progression based upon measured criteria. Given A and B we can deduce C. Assertions without facts, or without directly related causation are not logical. It seems to me that reasoned discourse and logic should be formally taught everywhere, as I find it lacking most everywhere.
Well, I could just stop picking sides, but I don't like to. Picking no sides is always easier.
I disagree. Picking sides (in terms of right, left, democrat, republican, etc as I used it above) is easy when you just follow the party line. Making your own choices about things, and making an informed decision is much harder than listening to Rush Limbaugh for debating points.
I don't know if "caricature" is a common word in USA
the word 'caricature' is fairly common in American English, although it is usually used in terms of a drawing or a grotesque exaggeration.
I can understand being disenchanted with many of the regimes that have claimed to be socialist, but socialism is such a broad concept that it is practiced to some degree almost everywhere. Oppression and totalitarianism are also present in some degree almost everywhere. Try not to let a bunch of power hungry thugs turn you off on the basic idea of sharing resources and sharing work equitably.
Much less, actually. Think of the 20th century, for example. Lenin? Mao? Pol Pot? Hitler? Stalin? All Socialists.
Niether Pol Pot nor Hitler qualify as socialists. And the U.S. helped put Pol Pot in power. You are being very selective in your history.
How come, whenever it is tried in any but the most mild forms, it results in the worst extremes of unlevelness and extreme stratification between rich and poor?
I don't know that socialism has ever been tried on a large scale. It is certainly applied in many European countries to great effect, and within the U.S. to alleviate much of worst poverty. There have been a number of oligarchies that claimed to be strictly socialist, but none of them provided for citizens to have equal power in the government. In any case look to the U.S. as a good example of extreme stratification of money and power. With money, you can do basically anything, without it you are legally helpless. Upward mobility is worse than the vast majority of the world and of the top 1% income only about 400 of them last year were not born into the top 1%. Of course due to the poor mathematics scores and unrealistic expectations 35% of people asked in a survey thought that they were in the top 1%.
when it is applied, it ends up that the wealth is distributed all to the rulers, who pay lip service to the idea of giving it to others.
And when was their a U.S. president that was not one of the wealthy elite? I think Grant was the last one. In any case, I believe we already covered the logical fallacy of claiming historical evidence as the proof of future implementations.
Ah, another tired "Bush is Hitler" reference...You are also forgetting that if Bush really did order this, his government would not be punishing those responsible for Abu Ghraib.
I never equated Bush with Hitler, I merely stated three leaders who were elected and have been decried by the world as human rights violators. As far as your comment about Bush and punishment, did he punish them before or after the press published? And why has no one of rank been charged? And why does the FBI have to go to the press a year after they make reports to the administration in order for something to be done? And why is the commander of both locations suddenly posted somewhere obscure and unreachable? And why does the leader of the most powerful country in the world claim that the basic rights our forefathers listed for all men, don't apply to some particular ones?
you will be very hard pressed to find a country that is more free. The media is without a doubt the most free and least controlled.
You are delusional if you believe that. I believe Amnesty international lists the U.S.A around number 30 for the least domestic human rights violations. Sweden, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, and Finland are often near the top of the list. And that does not take into account violations the U.S.A. perpetrates in other countries. If you have not been paying attention, the freedom of the press has been officially revoked in the U.S.A. The patriot act gives the federal government the right to issue gag orders to anyone including the media. Historically the press has been censored many times in the U.S.A. Several media outlets have mentioned withholding news within the last year at the request of the U.S. and did you ever notice those little notices at the bottom of Google pages that say results have been removed due to legal injunctions in the U.S.?
Your view of socialism is narrow and dated. Your view of the U.S. is unrealistic. I suppose you think most of the world considers the U.S. to be an evil empire because of all that liberal media huh? Those poor stupid foreigners. The U.S. is certainly not as bad as some other places, but as far as doing evil things in the world, it is pretty near the top of the list right now. Get a clue.
Some beliefs, if they are very destructive, are worth attacking.
At least as much pain and suffering has been caused by capitalism as by socialism. The thing is, both can be viable economic systems, but are brought low by the nature of people. Greed and the lust for power corrupt both systems. Socialism was (and is) an attempt at a level social structure, without rich people and poor people. Many people are given a great deal more money, power, contacts, and resources than I was to start in life. Many were given a great deal less. This is not fair, but neither is most of life. We all ignore this injustice as are forebears ignored other injustices. Slaves were born into slavery, it wasn't fair, but hey what can you do? You can try to make things as fair as possible for everyone.
You claim that socialism is oppressive and totalitarian, and in many cases, governments ruling over socialist structures were just that. But Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, and George Bush were all elected in democratic societies and all three have denied people their basic human rights and tortured helpless prisoners. All of them have a lake of blood on their hands. The U.S. thinks of itself as the poster child of democracy. It is a joke. The U.S. is not a direct democracy, is not very free compared to many other countries, is horribly corrupt, and has supported some of the most horrible dictators ever. All is not rosy in non-socialist countries.
There is nothing wrong with socialism. The theory of socialism is quite simply to distribute wealth and labor equally among all people. More recent socialism calls for the state ownership of industry. That too, is not bad in and of itself. Some socialist governments have been totalitarian and oppressive. Well that sucks. Feel free to badmouth those regimes or totalitarianism or oppression. Just be sure to note that they occur under both socialist and democratic governments. You've been buying into too much cold war era propaganda my friend. It is not us against them. It is all of us in it together, with some greedy power hungry asshats trying to turn people against each other for their own personal gain. The problem here is not socialism or democracy. It is greed, anger, hatred, power-lust, inequality, and oppression. It is the way people behave and think. And democracy + capitalism is just as sure a road to inequality and oppression as any other, unless these parts of human nature can be overcome.
When the Israeli Gov. decided to go open source (and Israel does have a strong IT community).. it was, correctly, interpreted as snubbing microsoft .
It was an action by a government to protect itself from illegal practices of a monopoly that was damaging to their country and violating their laws. I don't see why every government does not take action against MS, and at least demand compensation for the damage they do to marketplace.
You are glad USSR fell. Most leftists are. The question is: didn't they support USSR? Yes, they did. They knew what was going on, but they supported USSR back then. Why? Because it was against USA. Quite simple. Fact: Socialism will never work. In fact, every single comunist regime was extremely elitist.
So here is the problem I have with your statements. They are all about choosing sides and saying leftists are wrong and rightists are correct. It is all bullcrap. I don't consider myself leftist or right, or conservative, or republican or democrat or libertarian. Why does it always have to be broken into two sides. Is it so hard to actually discuss issues intelligently instead of trying to find a club that you can join. Competition is all well and good as a means to an end, but it is not an end by itself.
What kind of failure in reasoning does it take to make an assertion like "Socialism will never work" and try to claim it as a fact? Have you ever read anything about logic or reasoning? A prediction cannot, by definition, be a fact. Citing previous examples of something not working is not a valid argument as to why something cannot work in the future. In 1200 AD someone may have said, "humans will never fly. people have tried for years to invent flying machines and all failed. Most of them seriously injured themselves. It is a fact that flying machines can never work. "
Most people would have agreed, but they would have been just as wrong as you are. Why don't you stop picking sides, or trying to attack others who believe differently than you and try to look at some of the problems in the world and try to help solve them. Bickering will get you exactly nowhere.
where do you suppose they would've done that? Probably from an Apple retail store, online at Apple.com, or from a dedicated computer vendor like Microcenter or CompUSA. All of which venues, needless to say, offer loads of Mac software. Any other brick-and-mortar retailer (your Best Buys, your Circuit Cities) that sold the unit would certainly offer a few major software titles to go with it--it just makes good business sense.
A large number of Americans live in rural or suburban areas and travel to a larger city to shop, especially for large electronics purchases. Many of these same people do not want to make a special trip for software. While I have little doubt that stores which carry Apple computers have some software, most stores do not. The Best Buy nearest me only carries a few titles that have both Mac and Windows versions in the same box. Circuit City has a small selection. Target, Wal-mart, K-mart, and several grocery stores near me carry software, none have any Mac titles. I agree that many people will be able to shop online, and find things readily. Many others, especially new computer users, will not know to include 'mac' in their google searches and will be stymied. Maybe they will all look at the Apple store or maybe they will notice the selection in the Apple menu. I still think it would be a good idea to provide information and links on the default web page.
I'm glad you like it. I played the Mac version a few years ago and the original game years before that. I've never seen the Windows port. I agree about the annoyance of having to reload your pilot after being killed. Aside from that though, I don't recall any UI issues or menu problems. It does not drop out of fullscreen mode in the mac version. In any case it is a fun game with some real plot. Enjoy.
I challenge you to find any company in the entertainment industry who cares more about product quality than they do profits.
There are plenty of such companies, just not many large ones. I watch a number of small gaming companies, and await their releases. Ambrosia is a good example, they make enough money to get by, obviously enjoy their work, and make some really, really fun games. For larger companies the best you can hope for is a culture that cares about their products and leadership that lets them do what they need to to make things right.
From what I see, president Hugo Chavez has a deep hatred towards the U.S. And he sees any american company as a threat to his government.
Him and about half of the rest of the world, and with good reason.
Waste is waste. It doesn't matter if its Open or Closed Source, it will still cost a huge amount and still barely work because it is the government.
I disagree. Mostly because open source software used by the government, with improvements funded by the government, will not just be used by the government. If the USA decided it needed a secure web browser with some very specific features they could hire contractors to write one, buy an existing one, or hire someone to modify an existing open source browser. If open source was given preference for the good of all, then not just the government would use it. For example, if they made some changes to Firefox and used that, then any changes (presumably some valuable and some not) would be given back to the community, and could be incorporated in the regular release. If they created a brand new inventory tracking system, some other companies would probably try to use it as well and what would have been a POS when just the gov. was working on it, could turn into something useful.
How often in history does a private enterprise have this much power?
Well their were the Medici family, Catholic Church, Knights Templar, Guilds, etc. I'd say all of those qualify. Money has been a power for a long time. Democracy has in many ways made governments less repressive, but people are power hungry, and if they can't gain dominion through force of arms and a repressive government, they will do so with private organizations and subversion of law.
How many government officials here in America could you actually convince to launch a campaign promoting free software? Not many, if any.
Hmm, on a local level, it would probably not be too hard at all. On a federal scale you have to be able to match the payola from all the government contractors, and that is not very likely.
The only files that the system will refuse to burn are those where the copy protect flag has been set, which currently is limited to a few shows on HBO and Cinemax.
If you are going for a PVR setup, why go with one that limits your ability to archive shows at all? Why would they want to limit the shows you can archive? Oh yeah, because they are hoping they will be able to dominate the market and then use those flags more extensively. Trusting MS is foolish.
I'm not sure that is sufficient. The site itself is fine, but will new users find that option? Most users are used to downloading software, but how many will think to look for a link in the apple menu? I know I never noticed it, and I use an OS X machine every day for several hours. The might look in the default bookmarks in Safari, but I really think Apple should be a lot more proactive here.
someone asked where the $400 MythTV box is. It doesn't exist, and neither does your idea, because it's not profitable.
Here is a computer for $200 that has everything except the Tuner card which can be had for under $100 if you shop around. It is true that Dell does not sell to individual computers for less than about $450, but they also include much faster than necessary processors, a pile of useless software including Windows, and a lot of other features useless for a PVR. If Dell wanted to, they could build and ship a computer, profitably, for less than $500. They don't because they are not innovators and will never do anything until someone else does it profitably.
If it doesn't make money (or convince someone with a lot of money that it will), you aren't going to see it on the market, period. If you think this isn't the case, stick your nuts out there and try to break the trend. You'll fail, I promise.
There are two types of tech companies that are successful. There are ones like Dell that try to be the biggest, but don't do anything new. They count upon economy of scale and being able to copy those who make new things. The others are innovative companies who do cool things, because invention is part of their culture. They make money because they are first with cool technologies, and because they make new markets that everyone else has to play catch-up to get into. I'll not be starting a new company just now because I already work for a very successful start-up. But any of the big players with marketing power and the ability to buy in bulk and suck up a small R&D investment, can make money selling cheaply made PVRs. It won't be Dell or Wal-Mart. It may or may not be Tivo. Just hope it is not Microsoft, because if it is, they will screw us all again and kill innovation in the PVR space.
What DRM and content restrictions?
I'm not sure why you are quoting the article write-up in a response to my post. In any case, I have not purchased WMCE and do not plan to because the product information provided states that you can only record video in windows media format that can only be played from the local machine. It can be streamed to other devices, but not transferred and played there. Those are the DRM restrictions I believe he was talking about.
Last I heard, there were something like 100 known Linux viruses, and 20 known Mac OS X viruses.
Where did you hear that? My count is 3 trojans and no worms or viruses for MacOS X. 530 and worms and viruses (mostly slapper variants) for Linux and innumerable trojans.
What MacOS X viruses exist? I don't even know of any proof of concepts.
You can't compare a desktop that can perform a huge number of different functions and to a PVR that really can only perform one function. That was the point that I was trying to make.
Nor was it my intention to contend otherwise. I was merely providing a PC (WMCE) to PC (Apple) comparison, since you said comparing the former to consumer electronics PVRs was not a valid comparison.
there is nothing that says that you have to be restricted to Windows DRM. My ATI All-In-Wonder 7200 comes with all of the software that I would need to record and archive.
Again, I did not contend otherwise. I was making a comparison of WMCE (the subject of this article) and a Mac+EyeTV solution.
I also fully disagree about the "better DVD creation and video editing software", but that's best left for another discussion.
You are misquoting me. I said, "better built in DVD creation, and video editing software." As far as I know windows ships with little or no DVD creation software that can actually do anything useful. As far as which platform has better DVD creation/video editing software, that is a strongly a matter of which functionality/price best matches your uses. It is hard to compete with the free solutions from Apple, but if you need something more powerful, I think the Mac platform really has a few much better choices (although some of the best are also available for PC at a higher cost). I have only limited experience with video editing/DVD creation, and no experience as a professional, but I do know some professionals and I don't think there is much debate among them.
While it is fashionable here to think of e.g. cable companies as 'evil' and 'controlling', that anthropomorphizes something that can be explained much more simply: they exist, as agents of their stockholders, to be profitable.
I agree that most people express a somewhat oversimplified view of corporations in general and cable companies in particular, but I'm not sure that 'evil' is not a bad term to describe them. We're talking about organizations whose stated goal is to get as much money as possible. How can you be more of a personification of greed than that. Greed is, by most ethical and moral standards, evil. Realistically, large companies are composed of individuals who make choices. The culture is, however, one of greed, where it is by no means unusual for executives or any employee to be working solely for the goal of making money for themselves (greed again). The culture is further problematic in that it separates individuals from responsibility. Share holders don't know what is happening in the company and many don't even know that they are shareholders and hence no one feels responsible for the goals of the company. Employees routinely separate themselves with a number of common sentiments like, "If I don't they will just hire someone else", "It's just business, nothing personal", or "I'm just doing my job, don't blame me."
The end result is something that many would categorize as evil, or at least despicable and unethical. With no one taking responsibility for any of the things that result.
As far as a MythTV box is concerned, I think a lot of Tivo's overhead is the result of being a subscription service. Most consumer electronics companies forget their products as soon as they ship. A MythTV system can be made from very cheap components, can access TitanTV, or a similar free TV scheduler that is ad supported, and with a minimalist GUI can require basically no support aside from repairs. Dell could ship one for $500 under a new brand name with a couple hundred grand investment in R&D. The increase in blank DVD sales would probably make the whole thing worth while regardless of the margins on the box.
PCs and PVRs are just not comparable.
I disagree with this point, but for the sake of argument lets just assume that you are correct. How about taking that $500 mac that was mentioned earlier, plugging in an EyeTV tuner from Elgato, adding a TV out card or adapter and comparing it to the WMCE PC. Where does that get us?
Pros of Mac solution vs. PC solution:
The mac solution has better built in DVD creation, and video editing software. You can make shnazzy DVDs of your home movies, things you record, or your pictures and with a soundtrack and some nice menus. The Mac solution will make DVDs and VCDs to archive your shows as opposed to Windows only DRM-laden formats. The mac makes for a nicer MP3 server in my opinion as iTunes is much nicer than Windows Media Player. You don't have to worry about viruses, worms, hackers, etc. If you already have a PC, this increases the range of software available to you. It can stream video to Macs, Windows, and Linux boxes.
Cons of Mac solution vs. PC solution:
If you are used to Windows, there is a learning curve. It cannot stream to an X-box. You can probably build a cheaper PC. You cannot easily archive in Windows Media format, if for some reason you would want to. You can (maybe not legally) load software you already own for the PC onto this box as well.
it ...lets you archive your recordings to CD or DVD, can support transmitting its content to any other PC, media center extender, or Xbox, etc.
It lets you archive to CD or DVD, but does it let you archive in a format everything can read, or only devices that pay a Windows tax? It can stream to other devices, but can it stream to a Linux box?
WMCE is all about lock in as usual. If consumers had a clue, they would not go near it with a 10-foot pole. My PVR archives to DVD or CD too, except it does so in the standard DVD or VCD formats so that any DVD player can play them. That means the portable on you use to keep you kid quiet, the one in the family van, the one at the neighbor's house, the one at the baby sitter's, the one that I will buy 5 years from now, etc.
I have doubt as to whether or not the average soccer mom will be able to figure this out before a purchase, and people are very defensive about their large purchases, so I imagine a lot of people will be buying WMCE machines in the future unless there is a better, mainstream option. Tivo is almost there, but there recent actions to prevent the archiving of some shows, has really put me off of recommending them. Where is the startup with the $400 MythTV-based solution?