If I think about the occasional holiday fling, which might be more near the Calvin Kline scenario, I really think I'd have problems remembering.
Exactly.
I wonder if perhaps someone outside the family who didn't see Marty grow up but had met "Calvin" might be more likely to notice the resemblance upon seeing Marty in 1985. Did any of Lorraine's friends also think Calvin was cute?
Probably once Biff made some serious coin, his actions would have effected the sports world to such a degree that the almanac was no longer useful. Once Biff buys a sports team or gets the Clean Air Act repealed (I seem to recall "the future" being dark and polluted) or does anything "big" it may have changed the accuracy of those "predictions".
Then again, maybe the almanac would change to reflect the different outcomes, similar to Marty starting to disappear when his parent were not falling for each other.
The article states: "Even appreciating that they didn't know 'Calvin Klein' for long, his impact upon them was such that they'd still have an idea what he looks like, many years later."
I think the author overestimates how much visual memory is likely to fade after 30 years. I just saw some high school classmates after 25 years and looked over some old HS photos. I could barely recall the linking between HS photos and names of the people I saw daily for over three years - including some I lusted after with all the strength of a stereotypical adolescent. Without photographic backup (did Marty get in any photos at the dance?) I doubt they could remember his look very well after only knowing him for a week or so. Combining this with later knowing Marty's face since birth and gradual growth, I do not find it at all implausible that they wouldn't recognize his as a teenager as looking like "Calvin".
“In a Prius, there is no mechanical linkage between the engine and the wheels -- it goes through a motor,” he said. “They use the engine to drive a direct-drive generator to drive the motor. The Volt does the same thing, it’s just that the Volt can run with electric power without an engine longer than pretty much any hybrid right now can.” [Attributed to Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics}
I didn't know that about the Prius. I thought that there was a mechanical linkage between the wheels and the engine. Guess that I was wrong.
I think someone is unintentionally or not mistating the Prius drivetrain. In the Prius there is a planetary gearing system between the gas engine, the electric motor, and the wheels. (Actually I think there are two electric motors, one or both of which can be operated "backwards" to act as electric generators for charging purposes). This setup allows the computer to take power from the gas engine and feed it to the wheels and/or the generator in any combination, as well as to take power from the wheels to the electric generator (regenerative braking), or to take power from the gas engine as well as from the electric motor to feed to the wheels (for higher acceleration than the gas can do alone for example). There is certainly a mechanical connection between the gas engine and the wheels - in fact since there is no clutch, there is always a mechanical connection. As a consequence of this setup, the Prius must use only the electric motor to go in reverse since the gas engine cannot reverse direction.
It may be a "noticeable skill" but it is not a *unique* skill. Perhaps a "genius" is required, but it is clear that any one particular genius is not necessary. Had Zuckerberg gotten hit by a buss back in the day, someone else would have put together the "winning formula" for this particular application.
To be fair, it was not until Mac OS X that Apple started providing the "developer tools" for free. Back in the pre-X days one needed to get ones tools from someone else (Metrowerks Codewarior was the top choice I think just before OS X).
Heck, the TRS-80 didn't even have sound output designed into it so people wrote out to the cassette tape storage device to get sound for games, and IT managed to do passable voice synthesis.
It looks like you are right, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa was forced off the project in 1982 - I don't know how much this "one man" vision on this one project doomed the whole company as implied by mjwx.
The "rules" I am mostly talking about are the ones like "don't fart in the elevator" and they are made by "us" when we glare at people who so fart and whack our kid on the head if they do so as they are growing up.
"Don't steal people's lunch from the break-room fridge" is another one that is nice to encourage in the office.
I don't think your memory is very accurate. I think you are confusing the Lisa with the slightly later Macintosh product line. I don't think Jobs had any hand in the Lisa product.
Were "hackers" ever their "core audience"? Business had long embraced the IBM PC by the time the Mac was available - that market was "lost" during the Apple II days.
Lawsuits are often of little value, but the licensing agreements between Apple and MS were certainly vague over MS's use of various Apple IP and it is certainly was not clear that either side would have eventually prevailed if they had not gone to court and then finally settled all outstanding issues in 1997 when Jobs came back.
I don't doubt Apple does, and will continue to make business errors, but it is difficult to argue with their current success in terms of profitability and market value. If you feel that you know better than the "unwashed masses" (which isn't really that hard to do), I would suggest you short some Apple stock and make some money if your doom and gloom predictions turn out to be accurate.
Amazon will sell you a DVD of Mac OS X 10.6 for something like $30 - perfectly legally.
What you can legally do with that software depends on the enforceability of the click-through license that may come up when you install it, but buying the copy isn't any problem.
Well, knock me over with a feather. First I learn that the Canadian's left Vancouver for Sacramento and now the Expos have abandoned Montreal. Clearly someone doesn't like snow-baseball. (OK, Vancouver doesn't really get much snow, but still....)
Thank you very much for the references - fascinating.
I still see your characterization of this as being a 60-year old failing of people's understanding of aerodynamics as being a bit over-the-top. When a scientific model does not explain everything (fixed wing aerodynamics compared to moving wings for example) it does not immediately invalidate that model, but rather resricts its area of applicability. To use the bee's as a "they don't understand bees' flight thus they know nothing" falls into the "science has nothing to say unless it says everything" fallacy. A common fallacy that I just now gave name to.
Just because you repeat it many times does not make it true.
Are you saying that there were unsolved problems in insect flight for 60 odd years, under active research? What were they? Who managed to milk 60 years of funding perusing that understanding?
When did the "hindsight" issue crop up? Only after the full 60 years or maybe it was after 2 hours with a paper and pencil back in the 1950s when someone said "hey, bees fly pretty slow compared to our jets - what's up with that?"
I have no doubt that there have been and will continue to be many difficult to "understand" issues with fluid dynamics and modeling of non-linear systems, and that we will continue to increase our knowledge of "how things work" at small and large scale, but to imply that there was some fundamental error or shortcoming in the understanding of flight over the past 60 years does not do justice to the way that modern science and technological understanding develop.
USB is ubiqutous [sic] because intel put it on all their motherboards, not because apple forced the issue. What apple does is leave people in the lurch with no recourse. That isn't vision or inivation [sic] or design. It's simple asshattery.
Intel and Microsoft's participation was certainly necessary for USB to become ubiquitous, however what Apple did was to create a viable market for USB by providing a few million customers who had no other choice for connectivity with the first iMac designs. It made little economic sense to sell USB peripherals to people with Intel machines when you could reach a larger market with the "legacy" connectors. Those manufactures who had previously sold product to the Apple serial and ADB market found their former customers now unable to use the stuff they were manufacturing so they HAD to make USB devices. As a bonus they got to sell to the Intel market for "free" or only the price of a software driver. Witness the glut of Bondi-blue USB devices from that era.
Apple removed the "chicken-or-egg" problem by creating a market for a relatively new and relatively unsupported standard.
The original "bondi blue" iMac was the first computer to offer USB ports without offering "legacy" ports. That's right -- no serial ports, no ADB. This changes the network effects. Before the iMac showed up, there were many millions of PC users who had no USB ports and perhaps a couple of million who had a USB port and also legacy ports. The biggest market in 1998 was in serial and parallel ports (or joystick ports, PS/2 ports, and so on) -- there was no reason to target the USB market. That would just restrict your audience.
The iMac presented a ready-made market of users who chose the Mac line for its graphics capability. In turn, the iMac offered a captive audience of users who would buy a USB peripheral but would not buy any other kind of peripheral. These users provided a market for USB peripherals that wasn't facing competition from other port choices. The result was a flood of USB devices in white-and-blue plastic. This was a crucial turning point that created a reason (tied to a proven system choice) to prefer USB to non-USB ports.
Once adoption was foist onto this substantial segment of users, the technical merits of the technology won out easily. USB's technical superiority (for most peripherals) to the conglomeration of a half-dozen different port types was unambiguous.
There is a societal cost though in rewarding those who work against the community rules. I agree that we want to promote "outside the box" and "innovative" thinking, we also want to develop in our kiddies a certain respect for the rules we as a group put together. I would much rather live in a society where most individuals think that stealing my wallet is "wrong" rather than a society where most individuals think that sealing my wallet is ok, as long as they do not get caught.
As for who to hire - anyone stupid enough to let slip that they cheated on an intro course is not someone I would want to work with. Luthor is always going on about how his latest scheme will work and then backstabbing his partners. At least the "slow but steady" can be counted on to actually do some work and finish the project.
There is some evidence for the latter position, in that "regular" fluorescent lamps have been widely used for ages (especially in commercial settings), with a variety of phosphor formulations, and people still widely preferred incandescent lamps for home use (especially for "living areas", as opposed to "utility areas", which suggests that it's related to the quality of the light rather than the price or whatever).
On the other hand, if your experience is that there is one type of light used "at work" and another type of light used "at home", it might come as no surprise that people do not feel "right" when they encounter the "wrong" one in either place.
I seem to recall that there are regional differences in light color preferences - I doubt very much this is due to anything other than the "nurture" side of the "nature vs nurture" type of debate.
I don't know, perhaps. I have no knowledge of what you are talking about. I do know that when some hardware maker ships a router with GPL firmware and without following the GPL requirements, the FSF takes the maker to task and not the retailer, but I could be wrong on the this.
Transportation costs are also an issue. For a light bulb with a $0.25 sales price, shipping from overseas can start to be a significant fraction of the total expense compared to local manufacture. This is less the case as the sales price increases.
I wonder how much of this colour preference is a result of exception and prior experience? Did people in the 1890s complain about those new-fangled light bulbs with their weird colour compared to good old fashioned gas lamps? And did the gas lamps have a weird colour compared to the candles? Does the candle light colour depend on the type of wax?
With that said, I do prefer some CFL light colours over others. We have gotten used to the use of CFLs in virtually all of our fixtures over the past nine years - they were pretty hard to find at reasonable prices back at the turn of the century - it is nice to see them more readily available now.
And how, exactly, is this a change? What software do you currently have that's not licensed to you rather than sold?
I'm not saying it's right - I'm just saying I don't expect changes as a result of this ruling because this is pretty much what every software company does already.
Note that even GPL-ed software is licensed to you. You do not own any GPL-ed software after downloading it. Otherwise anyone could take FOSS software and change the license on it before re-selling it.
I think you are wrong. I own a copy of the DVD with the ABCXYZ Linux V1.2345, and I think there is nothing in the GPS to prevent my from reselling that DVD. The GPL only has implications in regard to making copies of that DVD, not with reselling that particular piece of plastic. Certainly the GPL has no extra limitations than are currently existing on resale of a book or phonograph record.
A EULA is being enforced on someone that never even so much as opened the box in question.
This just highlights the absurdity of this EULA nonsense. People that have never done anything to be a party to these "contracts" are being bound by them.
Again, that is exactly how the GPL works. The only *legal* way to distribute the copyrighted material is as described in the license. Ignorance of the GPL does not entitle someone to distribute in a manner inconsistent with the license (GPL).
But in the GPL case "distribute" means making copies. If Amazon sells some pack of CD's it buys from Bob's House of Linux, in the terms of the GPL, it is Bob who is doing the distribution and thus needs to comply with the GPL, not Amazon. If Amazon makes copies and sells those copies, then they need to comply with the GPL.
And whichever one is the software cannot be used because the EULA hasn't been agreed to.
So what happens if I use it *without* agreeing to the EULA? Say I load up the installer in a debugger, click "I disagree" and make the software continue installing anyway. What if I make the EULA display something different (you know, just like a *real* contract, where you can strike sections out or amend it before you sign) and agree to that?
I believe that would be like whiting out sections of the contract after it was signed and carefully inserting your own text in the handwriting of the other party. IE, no way would that pass legal muster.
Couldn't you amend the contract as desired, sign it, and send it to the publisher with a note saying, "if you disagree, let me know"? Isn't that pretty much what the click-through-license does? Then if they disagree and let you know about it, you could resell the box.
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If I think about the occasional holiday fling, which might be more near the Calvin Kline scenario, I really think I'd have problems remembering.
Exactly.
I wonder if perhaps someone outside the family who didn't see Marty grow up but had met "Calvin" might be more likely to notice the resemblance upon seeing Marty in 1985. Did any of Lorraine's friends also think Calvin was cute?
Probably once Biff made some serious coin, his actions would have effected the sports world to such a degree that the almanac was no longer useful. Once Biff buys a sports team or gets the Clean Air Act repealed (I seem to recall "the future" being dark and polluted) or does anything "big" it may have changed the accuracy of those "predictions".
Then again, maybe the almanac would change to reflect the different outcomes, similar to Marty starting to disappear when his parent were not falling for each other.
The article states: "Even appreciating that they didn't know 'Calvin Klein' for long, his impact upon them was such that they'd still have an idea what he looks like, many years later."
I think the author overestimates how much visual memory is likely to fade after 30 years. I just saw some high school classmates after 25 years and looked over some old HS photos. I could barely recall the linking between HS photos and names of the people I saw daily for over three years - including some I lusted after with all the strength of a stereotypical adolescent. Without photographic backup (did Marty get in any photos at the dance?) I doubt they could remember his look very well after only knowing him for a week or so. Combining this with later knowing Marty's face since birth and gradual growth, I do not find it at all implausible that they wouldn't recognize his as a teenager as looking like "Calvin".
“In a Prius, there is no mechanical linkage between the engine and the wheels -- it goes through a motor,” he said. “They use the engine to drive a direct-drive generator to drive the motor. The Volt does the same thing, it’s just that the Volt can run with electric power without an engine longer than pretty much any hybrid right now can.” [Attributed to Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics}
I didn't know that about the Prius. I thought that there was a mechanical linkage between the wheels and the engine. Guess that I was wrong.
I think someone is unintentionally or not mistating the Prius drivetrain. In the Prius there is a planetary gearing system between the gas engine, the electric motor, and the wheels. (Actually I think there are two electric motors, one or both of which can be operated "backwards" to act as electric generators for charging purposes). This setup allows the computer to take power from the gas engine and feed it to the wheels and/or the generator in any combination, as well as to take power from the wheels to the electric generator (regenerative braking), or to take power from the gas engine as well as from the electric motor to feed to the wheels (for higher acceleration than the gas can do alone for example). There is certainly a mechanical connection between the gas engine and the wheels - in fact since there is no clutch, there is always a mechanical connection. As a consequence of this setup, the Prius must use only the electric motor to go in reverse since the gas engine cannot reverse direction.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
It may be a "noticeable skill" but it is not a *unique* skill. Perhaps a "genius" is required, but it is clear that any one particular genius is not necessary. Had Zuckerberg gotten hit by a buss back in the day, someone else would have put together the "winning formula" for this particular application.
To be fair, it was not until Mac OS X that Apple started providing the "developer tools" for free. Back in the pre-X days one needed to get ones tools from someone else (Metrowerks Codewarior was the top choice I think just before OS X).
Heck, the TRS-80 didn't even have sound output designed into it so people wrote out to the cassette tape storage device to get sound for games, and IT managed to do passable voice synthesis.
I had not considered that - I'll have to modify my snarky comments to those who go on about their great insights in light of that type of cost.
The fact does remain that contrarians (when they are correct) CAN make money off their correctness - but perhaps not as easily as I would have them.
"The Big Short" was pretty fascinating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short
It looks like you are right, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa was forced off the project in 1982 - I don't know how much this "one man" vision on this one project doomed the whole company as implied by mjwx.
The "rules" I am mostly talking about are the ones like "don't fart in the elevator" and they are made by "us" when we glare at people who so fart and whack our kid on the head if they do so as they are growing up.
"Don't steal people's lunch from the break-room fridge" is another one that is nice to encourage in the office.
I don't think your memory is very accurate. I think you are confusing the Lisa with the slightly later Macintosh product line. I don't think Jobs had any hand in the Lisa product.
Were "hackers" ever their "core audience"? Business had long embraced the IBM PC by the time the Mac was available - that market was "lost" during the Apple II days.
Lawsuits are often of little value, but the licensing agreements between Apple and MS were certainly vague over MS's use of various Apple IP and it is certainly was not clear that either side would have eventually prevailed if they had not gone to court and then finally settled all outstanding issues in 1997 when Jobs came back.
I don't doubt Apple does, and will continue to make business errors, but it is difficult to argue with their current success in terms of profitability and market value. If you feel that you know better than the "unwashed masses" (which isn't really that hard to do), I would suggest you short some Apple stock and make some money if your doom and gloom predictions turn out to be accurate.
Amazon will sell you a DVD of Mac OS X 10.6 for something like $30 - perfectly legally.
What you can legally do with that software depends on the enforceability of the click-through license that may come up when you install it, but buying the copy isn't any problem.
Well, knock me over with a feather. First I learn that the Canadian's left Vancouver for Sacramento and now the Expos have abandoned Montreal. Clearly someone doesn't like snow-baseball. (OK, Vancouver doesn't really get much snow, but still....)
Surely signs of the apocalypse.
I don't know if Montreal has ever played in the WS, but they too have a team in MLB - the Expos.
Thank you very much for the references - fascinating.
I still see your characterization of this as being a 60-year old failing of people's understanding of aerodynamics as being a bit over-the-top. When a scientific model does not explain everything (fixed wing aerodynamics compared to moving wings for example) it does not immediately invalidate that model, but rather resricts its area of applicability. To use the bee's as a "they don't understand bees' flight thus they know nothing" falls into the "science has nothing to say unless it says everything" fallacy. A common fallacy that I just now gave name to.
Just because you repeat it many times does not make it true.
Are you saying that there were unsolved problems in insect flight for 60 odd years, under active research? What were they? Who managed to milk 60 years of funding perusing that understanding?
When did the "hindsight" issue crop up? Only after the full 60 years or maybe it was after 2 hours with a paper and pencil back in the 1950s when someone said "hey, bees fly pretty slow compared to our jets - what's up with that?"
I have no doubt that there have been and will continue to be many difficult to "understand" issues with fluid dynamics and modeling of non-linear systems, and that we will continue to increase our knowledge of "how things work" at small and large scale, but to imply that there was some fundamental error or shortcoming in the understanding of flight over the past 60 years does not do justice to the way that modern science and technological understanding develop.
USB is ubiqutous [sic] because intel put it on all their motherboards, not because apple forced the issue. What apple does is leave people in the lurch with no recourse. That isn't vision or inivation [sic] or design. It's simple asshattery.
Intel and Microsoft's participation was certainly necessary for USB to become ubiquitous, however what Apple did was to create a viable market for USB by providing a few million customers who had no other choice for connectivity with the first iMac designs. It made little economic sense to sell USB peripherals to people with Intel machines when you could reach a larger market with the "legacy" connectors. Those manufactures who had previously sold product to the Apple serial and ADB market found their former customers now unable to use the stuff they were manufacturing so they HAD to make USB devices. As a bonus they got to sell to the Intel market for "free" or only the price of a software driver. Witness the glut of Bondi-blue USB devices from that era.
Apple removed the "chicken-or-egg" problem by creating a market for a relatively new and relatively unsupported standard.
From IBM is a pretty similar analysis of the economics and the significant role of the iMac: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-spec7.html
Enter the iMac.
The original "bondi blue" iMac was the first computer to offer USB ports without offering "legacy" ports. That's right -- no serial ports, no ADB. This changes the network effects. Before the iMac showed up, there were many millions of PC users who had no USB ports and perhaps a couple of million who had a USB port and also legacy ports. The biggest market in 1998 was in serial and parallel ports (or joystick ports, PS/2 ports, and so on) -- there was no reason to target the USB market. That would just restrict your audience.
The iMac presented a ready-made market of users who chose the Mac line for its graphics capability. In turn, the iMac offered a captive audience of users who would buy a USB peripheral but would not buy any other kind of peripheral. These users provided a market for USB peripherals that wasn't facing competition from other port choices. The result was a flood of USB devices in white-and-blue plastic. This was a crucial turning point that created a reason (tied to a proven system choice) to prefer USB to non-USB ports.
Once adoption was foist onto this substantial segment of users, the technical merits of the technology won out easily. USB's technical superiority (for most peripherals) to the conglomeration of a half-dozen different port types was unambiguous.
There is a societal cost though in rewarding those who work against the community rules. I agree that we want to promote "outside the box" and "innovative" thinking, we also want to develop in our kiddies a certain respect for the rules we as a group put together. I would much rather live in a society where most individuals think that stealing my wallet is "wrong" rather than a society where most individuals think that sealing my wallet is ok, as long as they do not get caught.
As for who to hire - anyone stupid enough to let slip that they cheated on an intro course is not someone I would want to work with. Luthor is always going on about how his latest scheme will work and then backstabbing his partners. At least the "slow but steady" can be counted on to actually do some work and finish the project.
There is some evidence for the latter position, in that "regular" fluorescent lamps have been widely used for ages (especially in commercial settings), with a variety of phosphor formulations, and people still widely preferred incandescent lamps for home use (especially for "living areas", as opposed to "utility areas", which suggests that it's related to the quality of the light rather than the price or whatever).
On the other hand, if your experience is that there is one type of light used "at work" and another type of light used "at home", it might come as no surprise that people do not feel "right" when they encounter the "wrong" one in either place.
I seem to recall that there are regional differences in light color preferences - I doubt very much this is due to anything other than the "nurture" side of the "nature vs nurture" type of debate.
I don't know, perhaps. I have no knowledge of what you are talking about. I do know that when some hardware maker ships a router with GPL firmware and without following the GPL requirements, the FSF takes the maker to task and not the retailer, but I could be wrong on the this.
Transportation costs are also an issue. For a light bulb with a $0.25 sales price, shipping from overseas can start to be a significant fraction of the total expense compared to local manufacture. This is less the case as the sales price increases.
I wonder how much of this colour preference is a result of exception and prior experience? Did people in the 1890s complain about those new-fangled light bulbs with their weird colour compared to good old fashioned gas lamps? And did the gas lamps have a weird colour compared to the candles? Does the candle light colour depend on the type of wax?
With that said, I do prefer some CFL light colours over others. We have gotten used to the use of CFLs in virtually all of our fixtures over the past nine years - they were pretty hard to find at reasonable prices back at the turn of the century - it is nice to see them more readily available now.
And how, exactly, is this a change? What software do you currently have that's not licensed to you rather than sold?
I'm not saying it's right - I'm just saying I don't expect changes as a result of this ruling because this is pretty much what every software company does already.
Note that even GPL-ed software is licensed to you. You do not own any GPL-ed software after downloading it. Otherwise anyone could take FOSS software and change the license on it before re-selling it.
I think you are wrong. I own a copy of the DVD with the ABCXYZ Linux V1.2345, and I think there is nothing in the GPS to prevent my from reselling that DVD. The GPL only has implications in regard to making copies of that DVD, not with reselling that particular piece of plastic. Certainly the GPL has no extra limitations than are currently existing on resale of a book or phonograph record.
A EULA is being enforced on someone that never even so much as opened the box in question.
This just highlights the absurdity of this EULA nonsense. People that have never done anything to be a party to these "contracts" are being bound by them.
Again, that is exactly how the GPL works. The only *legal* way to distribute the copyrighted material is as described in the license. Ignorance of the GPL does not entitle someone to distribute in a manner inconsistent with the license (GPL).
But in the GPL case "distribute" means making copies. If Amazon sells some pack of CD's it buys from Bob's House of Linux, in the terms of the GPL, it is Bob who is doing the distribution and thus needs to comply with the GPL, not Amazon. If Amazon makes copies and sells those copies, then they need to comply with the GPL.
And whichever one is the software cannot be used because the EULA hasn't been agreed to.
So what happens if I use it *without* agreeing to the EULA? Say I load up the installer in a debugger, click "I disagree" and make the software continue installing anyway. What if I make the EULA display something different (you know, just like a *real* contract, where you can strike sections out or amend it before you sign) and agree to that?
I believe that would be like whiting out sections of the contract after it was signed and carefully inserting your own text in the handwriting of the other party. IE, no way would that pass legal muster.
Couldn't you amend the contract as desired, sign it, and send it to the publisher with a note saying, "if you disagree, let me know"? Isn't that pretty much what the click-through-license does? Then if they disagree and let you know about it, you could resell the box.