Blizzard is exercising its right to not allow anybody except for Blizzard to use the gaming technology that it built! Panic, panic, boycott, boycott!
I think Michael is forgetting one crucial bit of information -- BLIZZARD GAMES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE. Blizzard built it, people play it; Blizzard has the legal right to choose who they allow to interact with their game at any level. Not to say that interop software would be a bad thing -- id Software and Valve have proven that a game or gaming engine's longevity is closely tied to how accessable it is to the modding community. But if Blizzard has no desire to venture down that path, so be it.
Blizzard makes good games, period. If you don't want to buy them, that's your beef. But don't try to turn this into an open-source crusade -- you're wrong, they're right, end of story. Deal with it.
I definitely agree. I have a Nomad II that I use when I hit the gym, and I always store my files in WMA format on my player, so I can squeeze the most sound of it. However, all of my music is stored in MP3 format. As you and countless others have said, WMA is superior -- but it also doesn't hobble me with an DRM crapola.
Honestly, I think the Linux community is better off without such a "darkside" group. The more effort that is spent on making actual progress, and NOT fighting the war of words that Microsoft so desperately wants to fight, the better off we'll be. Microsoft has been saying bad stuff about Linux for years -- they have endless supplies of cash to wage that war, and can neatly tie up the Linux community's resources that way.
I would say that any and all "intellectual" aid -- legal, political, research / reporting, etc. should be directed towards loosening or removing Microsoft's grip on public education and government markets. Right now, we have two major entities -- Peru and Taiwan -- that have taken the plunge and are attempting to eliminate their reliance on Microsoft products. We have the US government questioning for the first time how to better secure their networks. And in a time of relative national crisis, shouldn't security at all levels be of paramount concern?
MS has proven itself incapable of (or unwilling to?) improving the security of its code, despite its ubiquity. Open source can only get _more_ stable and secure as time passes, and users / white hats continue to help find bugs in the system. So why shouldn't we have people who are willing to evagenlize OpenSource do it, but to discredit MS by selling the idea behind using Linux et al?
I wish this guy was an element in the US government. Instead, we're stuck with Fritz "Freling" Hollings' caricature of how technology can / should be used to serve his supposed constituents. Which is laughable at best, since it seems to be more focused on eviscerating digital rights/privacy and handing them out to corporations wholesale.
Good to see digital democracy is alive and well in Peru. Sorry I can't say the same about things back home, though........
He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.
Somehow, I think that if the US government forbade the use of any Microsoft applications within federal facilities, pending a code review by a neutral 3rd party to identify and fix potential security holes, you'd see Microsoft scramble to get their shyte in gear pretty damn quickly.
As somebody already stated in this thread, Peru has the right idea: open source allows people to public review code for potential security flaws, which is how most bugs are caught anyway -- a fresh pair of eyes takes a peek. Ultimately, there's no way that Microsoft can compete with this code development paradigm -- since there's so much Open Source code "out there", it might spread people's attention out a bit too thinly in places, but over time one would hope that Linux apps will only more secure / stable.
.... for the legions of pure-pop bands (Britney, N'Sync, et al) that were "ripped off" by Napster -- they've sold the requisite # of albums required to be rolling in dough, even though they're probably being ripped off. Somebody mentioned how Linkin Park only got signed to WB after they proved themselves -- I'm wondering what kind of terms they were able to land, or if they were better off going with a smaller label.
But whatever -- most bands are still getting ripped off. Perhaps in part by us, the consumer -- but I refuse to pay the middleman surcharge anymore. If the popular bands are starting to feel the squeeze, maybe this will urge them on to taking action of their own. Some might go the way of Metallica, and scream and yell about P2P -- maybe others will refuse to sign multialbum deals, and hold out for terms where they get more of the cash that consumers intend to reward them with. But for now, as people have said, I'll stick to paying for clubs, concerts and only select CDs that are worth the price tag attached to them.
Isn't it as simple as buying a TiVo instead of a ReplayTV unit? Granted, it's not the company's fault that it now has to invade its users' privacy, but that's moot -- the fact is that users' privacy will be knowingly violated going forward. Or am I missing something?
Microsoft hyping Unix as a money trap?? I make my living as as MS-oriented web developer, and I still find their licensing models absurd. As is no surprise to peeps on/., MS calling anything a money trap is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Quick recent anecdote: my employer is looking to update their database from Oracle 5/6, or some version that was pre-RDMS...... the Powers-That-Be are hesitant to shell out $1m+ for an Oracle license, and SQL Server might have been our database of choice, except that it doesn't run on our VMS machine. And since the hardware has been rock-solid, we're loathe to adapt such a patch-happy OS (Windows 2000 Adv. Server). Maybe if MS didn't own the market, they might be inclined to make their apps more portable across OS's. But there's the money trap for you - as good as many of their applications are, they're all interlocking. Where Microsoft is concerned, it's impossible to take the "best-of-breed", where software and hardware are concerned. IMO, this marketing scheme is merely a campaign against common sense.... or at least, technicaly savvy.
Oh, and I don't claim to know a damned thing about the *nix flavor of OS's, but how the hell can Microsoft badmouth Unix?! It's been around since forever, I rarely hear *nix admins complain about stability or security issues / flaws........ rather amusing, methinks. As far as the "expensive experts" go, somebody already said it -- just because a person is MS-certified doesn't mean he's worth a red cent. In college, I always tested rather poorly, compared with the quality of material I wrote in CS labs or independent projects. As such, the material I developed when not under duress was always a poor indication of my knowledge of the subject matter. On the flip side, ALL (5 so far) of my previous employers have told me that the person I was replacing was MS-certified (I'm not yet, but I have 4+ yrs _experience_), but couldn't work independently, cranked out shoddy code (which I have to rewrite now anyway) and was a pain in the ass to deal with in terms of basic communications skills! And these guys were billing out at $30-$50/hr!!
As with all things, I have no problem spending money, as long as it's WELL SPENT. Developing and maintaining scalable, stable, complex business applications / systems will always be an expensive endeavor, as a lot of resources and effort are require to run such an operation. But you're throwing your money away if you think that hiring people with exorbitant rates, fluffy resumes, stamped certifications and even college degrees is the same as hiring talented, diligent, knowledgable individuals. One of my best friends dropped out of college to code, and despite the fact that I have a background/degree/honors in CS and have exactly the same amount of work experience has him, he's still every bit as good as I am as a developer.
To address the myraid of issues concerning consumers' rights in the modern age. Digital copyrights are an obvious issue, with the whole Napster/RIAA/P2P stuff that's going on these days. And privacy is another one -- I would argue that all email lists should be opt-in, so that consumers can explicitly choose who has the right to contact them. Of course, I doubt that would ever fly -- spam has existing in snail format far longer than the electronic version has, so there's probably not enough reason there to limit it.
I also think this would be a perfect time to nail Microsoft's shoes to the ground, in terms of how they bundle new modules into every subsequent release of their operating system. Their most recent gripe is that the OS is so closely bound to each of its (formerly standalone) components, it would ruin the OS if they had to split it up. I think it should be every consumer's unalienable right to be able to select which pieces of discrete functionality exist on their computer. Every other softwar manufacturer on the planet has an uninstaller program to go along with their install -- why should Microsoft be any different?! If they want to go ahead and bundle their stuff together, that's fine -- but they would also have to design it in such a way that I could remove Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player, if I so chose.
Finally, I think that spyware should be made illegal -- or, at the very least, every installer of spyware should come with a simpified explanation of what information will be transmitted to where, under what conditions, and for what use. Violating those rules should be grounds for stiff penalties and the purging of all offending information -- so if a company sells data to a 3rd party without the consent of the user, A) they're liable for it and B) the company which obtained that information is obligated to erase it. Hell, make it a telescoping fine, for repeat offenders -- first infraction, $xxx per violation; second offense, $x,xxx per violation; etc.
But of course, all this is but a pipe dream -- the very thought of our representatives in this country siding with the people, and not Big Business, is laughable at best. Or do we need to look any further than the recent decision to postpone requiring the auto industry to clean up its act?
I have to admit that, after reading Richard Seltzer's response to Mr. Doctorow's article, I'm wondering which search engine he's really arguing for. He freely admits two key facts: that poor business decisions had led to a decline in the quality of searches in Altavista searches, even before Google arrived on the scene; and that Google is a lot better at turning up quality, long-standing content than Altavista is.
So maybe Google doesn't have ALL the latest stuff....... it's extremely good at 95% of what I need, and I don't even need to use those silly "+", "*", "-" symbols anymore. Also, is it just me, or did Altavista only recently decide to fix the special character parsing of keywords in its searches? I remember a time in the not-too-distant past when doing a search on keywords containing "." or "'" would choke, and only return the prefix part of the keyword. And perhaps the best thing about Google? No popups, no sloppy "I paid for advertising" links posted at the top of my result set, no banner ads on each and EVERY DAMNED PAGE -- Google searches, and that's it!
But even if this sounds like I'm bashing Altavista, I'm not. I still fall back on it to see what it'll turn up when I'm looking for rather obscure subject matter, and besides, I don't think Google would be where it is today without having another search engine to compete against. And now that Google's fortunes are rising, Altavista has started focusing more on the quality of ITS searches once again -- a situation where we all win.
My second employer ever ended up being really good to me, but I almost took a pass on the job, based on the initial offer they approached me with. At first, they said my salary would be far below what I was asking, but I'd get a boatload of options; this is in 1999, mind you, nearing the apex of the bubble. Even back then, I knew that I couldn't pay my credit cards, school loans or rent on promises alone, so I didn't call them back and kept looking. A few days later, and much to my surprise, they followed up with a phone call, asking me why I hadn't called back. I told them that they hadn't met my expectations, and hence I was still looking. At which point, they called me back in, met my figure and tossed in a relocation bonus (with zero stock, though).
Skip forward to today -- I've since moved on, but the company still hasn't gone public, and has been hemmoraging employees as of late. In a few select cases, I've heard of people kicking themselves for not jumping in on some phat options plans with very successful companies. But I'd rather miss an golden opportunity than stake my financial viability on possibilities and pipe dreams.
I don't think the government needs to do anything beyond making sure that consumers know which CDs are hobbled and which aren't. If a CD is clearly labeled as copy-protected, I won't buy it -- plain and simple. And that way, consumers can vote with their dollars........ if they don't care about this limitation on their ability to take their music wherever they go, then they can choose to buy it.
It's as simple as educating the masses -- nobody's gonna want a conglomerate to tell them what they can or can't do with their music. If anything, legislators should start focusing more on the digital rights of consumers, instead of narrowing the scope down to addressing only CDs. If it's crystal-clear what constitutes piracy and what constitutes fair use, the RIAA won't have any excuse to start bawling about how consumers are copying their music, regardless of the reasons for doing so (piracy vs portability).
God forbid Chuck Jones should have profited from his works during his lifetime, and the company that financed his work should profit from it in turn! Oh, and it's all well and good that you say that you'd like to toss everything that you create to the public domain after you die -- but then again, what have you created that anybody would care about? I suspect it's nothing on the scale of what CJ did, and as such, I'd venture to say that your POV has absolutely no merit on this matter whatsoever.
But your ridiculously broad, over-reaching and ignorant blanket opinion isn't what really ticked me off. It's that Chuck Jones isn't even 24hrs in the grave, and you say he should open source his work??
Shut the hell up and have some respect for one of the greatest creative talents of the 20th century. Or try and do something of worth on your own -- if you're not too busy making an ass of yourself, that is.
PS: How utterly amusing that this thread's original post got moded to a score of 4.
No need to be flippant -- I think hyrdra put forth a very simple question. Why not solve a very real, immediate problem right here on Planet Earth, as opposed to extending our time and energy in a direction that we may very well not have the technological means to have any real effect on. Would you rather cure AIDS, or work to develop a cheap source of renewable, clean energy? Granted, limitless energy is a Holy Grail in and of itself -- IMHO, not unlike the discovery of intelligent ET life, since both would change our world in ways we can't possibly imagine. But in the meantime, people are still starving and dying......... why not try to spend a bit more of our time and energy improving our quality of life before taking on those other, perhaps somewhat extraneous tasks?
I suppose we could go back and forth on this all day -- opinions vs opinions is all this is. But I think it's kind of perverse that people are so obsessed about SETI, when they could be making a more immediate difference in the lives of those humans around them instead.
After all of the sleazy marketing tactics they've engaged in, Microsoft is irked that security-oriented websites are being forthright in revealing the flaws associated with the myriad facets of Windows?? Here's a novel idea, which should apply to everyone from the smallest two-bit software shop to the big boys at Redmond -- if I pay for your software, I'm gonna damn well complain as much as I like when it starts breaking!
They don't like it when flaws are posted and exploited, which makes them work harder on securing their newest OS? Why, because it slows down the product development lifecycle of the next, marginally improved generation of software? Then they should either extend the beta until they're more confident in it..... consumers shouldn't have to pay for QA!
.... of the software. EZ CD Creator's been pretty good thus far -- just buy an older version of the software, and you won't have to worry about any "innovations" that the company might make with respect to future releases.
Why is it that some of the most insipid, ignorant, heartless people on this planet are always in a position to pass judgment on the lives of those most qualified for those same posts? This kind of crap pisses me off to no end.
I think it should be a requirement to call all the underappreciated, socially aloof kids in each school in this country to a meeting, sit them down and then explain to them that, while they are indeed the most promising elements of their generation, they will need to endure the barbs and general stupidity of many of those who would otherwise drive them to violence -- against their own selves, or others. How many times have we seen this happen before, and when will people learn?!
Grr..... it almost makes me want to go down there in person, with a sledgehammer in hand, and rip their precious little system to bits. I couldn't hack my way through a moistened towelette, but I could certainly do more justifiable damage to it than that poor kid ever did (or intended, for that matter).
As an aspiring MCP, I still wonder how MS can certify people in the setup, administration and troubleshooting of an operating system that still has yet to have all the kinks ironed out anyway. Isn't that a bit like raising the curtain at the opera before all the actors have their lines memorized? In any case, it's disheartening to see that Microsoft is willing to isolate those relatively rare individuals who are actually able to fix problems, and haven't just gone ahead and bought a certificate.
I'm wondering if the Jukebox is crippled, in that it only allows files to be written to and delete from the player.... not read from the player.
If so, what makes the Jukebox from a laptop, in that bidirection file transfers are enabled on a laptop, but not the handheld player? Maybe the industry's just too scared of being sued by the RIAA for coming out with a player that can be used to share music. Sad.....
I think that article / essay brought up some pretty good points, mainly to always keep a conservative eye on the future, even if the present is looking rosy.
As a newly-minted graduate (Class of 1998, anyway), I'm way ahead of where I thought I'd ever be, in terms of present salary and happiness with my job. All of this because I got bored with my standard-fare CS classes and started messing around with HTML 3. Little did I know that in less than 2 yrs time, this skill would be the foundation of a new techie revolution.
Moving right along, the nature of the techie or geek (as it's so fashionable to call us now) is that we don't play with new tech toys entirely because of the salary -- it's because we ENJOY it. Enjoyment can be interpreted in any number of ways -- "challenging", "team-oriented", "interesting", "engaging" or "neat". That these fun new skills end up being the foundation of a new economic sector is pure happenstance. But the more toys a techie plays around with at any given time, the more their possible market value will increase in the future.
My final point: there will always be techies, and a solid economy to go with it. The nature of the tech may change, but as long as there are people fiddling with new languages and such before it goes mainstream, there will always be a hoppin' market for us. Cheers!
Doesn't this seem a bit peculiar, that these people would prefer to ignore the scientific knowledge that humans have spent the past few thousand years amassing about themselves, and instead pass on some Biblical ideology? Nobody even knows who wrote the Bible, yet apparently there's a pressing need to use this as the source of information relating to our evolution..... how sad.
Anyway, this seems to be a bit of a "Christian Science" idea to me. After all, those "scientists" advocate the use of NATURAL HEALING over anything that science has offered a cure for. "Hit by a car? Walk it off -- God will take care of the rest" seems to be a paraphrased idea (if somewhat more than cynical) of what they preach. And now Kansas' board of education wishes to teach its students the "new science" of evolution?
Pretty sad, really -- these people are actively eroding the quality of education which thousands of kids receive, whom really have no say in the matter, given their age. All this because of some religious predispositions.......
I noticed in the article that Sony plans to increase the power of the workstations by an order of magnitude every few years. Does this mean they're also going to require end users (read: PSX2 gamers) to upgrade their PSX's as well?
I think that if it's relatively simple to do so (swapping out a CPU or increasing the amt of RAM), like a simple computer hardware upgrade (w/o mobo reinstall), they'll have a lock on the market. But if they expect people to keep in line with the Intel Syndrome (architecture / mobo changes every 9 - 16 months), I'd rather have a fully-powered PC than an almost-obsolete gaming box.
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard is exercising its right to not allow anybody except for Blizzard to use the gaming technology that it built! Panic, panic, boycott, boycott!
I think Michael is forgetting one crucial bit of information -- BLIZZARD GAMES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE. Blizzard built it, people play it; Blizzard has the legal right to choose who they allow to interact with their game at any level. Not to say that interop software would be a bad thing -- id Software and Valve have proven that a game or gaming engine's longevity is closely tied to how accessable it is to the modding community. But if Blizzard has no desire to venture down that path, so be it.
Blizzard makes good games, period. If you don't want to buy them, that's your beef. But don't try to turn this into an open-source crusade -- you're wrong, they're right, end of story. Deal with it.
I definitely agree. I have a Nomad II that I use when I hit the gym, and I always store my files in WMA format on my player, so I can squeeze the most sound of it. However, all of my music is stored in MP3 format. As you and countless others have said, WMA is superior -- but it also doesn't hobble me with an DRM crapola.
Honestly, I think the Linux community is better off without such a "darkside" group. The more effort that is spent on making actual progress, and NOT fighting the war of words that Microsoft so desperately wants to fight, the better off we'll be. Microsoft has been saying bad stuff about Linux for years -- they have endless supplies of cash to wage that war, and can neatly tie up the Linux community's resources that way.
I would say that any and all "intellectual" aid -- legal, political, research / reporting, etc. should be directed towards loosening or removing Microsoft's grip on public education and government markets. Right now, we have two major entities -- Peru and Taiwan -- that have taken the plunge and are attempting to eliminate their reliance on Microsoft products. We have the US government questioning for the first time how to better secure their networks. And in a time of relative national crisis, shouldn't security at all levels be of paramount concern?
MS has proven itself incapable of (or unwilling to?) improving the security of its code, despite its ubiquity. Open source can only get _more_ stable and secure as time passes, and users / white hats continue to help find bugs in the system. So why shouldn't we have people who are willing to evagenlize OpenSource do it, but to discredit MS by selling the idea behind using Linux et al?
But maybe that's just me........
I wish this guy was an element in the US government. Instead, we're stuck with Fritz "Freling" Hollings' caricature of how technology can / should be used to serve his supposed constituents. Which is laughable at best, since it seems to be more focused on eviscerating digital rights /privacy and handing them out to corporations wholesale.
Good to see digital democracy is alive and well in Peru. Sorry I can't say the same about things back home, though........
He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.
Somehow, I think that if the US government forbade the use of any Microsoft applications within federal facilities, pending a code review by a neutral 3rd party to identify and fix potential security holes, you'd see Microsoft scramble to get their shyte in gear pretty damn quickly.
As somebody already stated in this thread, Peru has the right idea: open source allows people to public review code for potential security flaws, which is how most bugs are caught anyway -- a fresh pair of eyes takes a peek. Ultimately, there's no way that Microsoft can compete with this code development paradigm -- since there's so much Open Source code "out there", it might spread people's attention out a bit too thinly in places, but over time one would hope that Linux apps will only more secure / stable.
.... for the legions of pure-pop bands (Britney, N'Sync, et al) that were "ripped off" by Napster -- they've sold the requisite # of albums required to be rolling in dough, even though they're probably being ripped off. Somebody mentioned how Linkin Park only got signed to WB after they proved themselves -- I'm wondering what kind of terms they were able to land, or if they were better off going with a smaller label.
But whatever -- most bands are still getting ripped off. Perhaps in part by us, the consumer -- but I refuse to pay the middleman surcharge anymore. If the popular bands are starting to feel the squeeze, maybe this will urge them on to taking action of their own. Some might go the way of Metallica, and scream and yell about P2P -- maybe others will refuse to sign multialbum deals, and hold out for terms where they get more of the cash that consumers intend to reward them with. But for now, as people have said, I'll stick to paying for clubs, concerts and only select CDs that are worth the price tag attached to them.
Isn't it as simple as buying a TiVo instead of a ReplayTV unit? Granted, it's not the company's fault that it now has to invade its users' privacy, but that's moot -- the fact is that users' privacy will be knowingly violated going forward. Or am I missing something?
One slight change to the commercial: change the tagline to "Because _Uptime_ is Money".
Microsoft hyping Unix as a money trap?? I make my living as as MS-oriented web developer, and I still find their licensing models absurd. As is no surprise to peeps on /., MS calling anything a money trap is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Quick recent anecdote: my employer is looking to update their database from Oracle 5/6, or some version that was pre-RDMS...... the Powers-That-Be are hesitant to shell out $1m+ for an Oracle license, and SQL Server might have been our database of choice, except that it doesn't run on our VMS machine. And since the hardware has been rock-solid, we're loathe to adapt such a patch-happy OS (Windows 2000 Adv. Server). Maybe if MS didn't own the market, they might be inclined to make their apps more portable across OS's. But there's the money trap for you - as good as many of their applications are, they're all interlocking. Where Microsoft is concerned, it's impossible to take the "best-of-breed", where software and hardware are concerned. IMO, this marketing scheme is merely a campaign against common sense.... or at least, technicaly savvy.
Oh, and I don't claim to know a damned thing about the *nix flavor of OS's, but how the hell can Microsoft badmouth Unix?! It's been around since forever, I rarely hear *nix admins complain about stability or security issues / flaws........ rather amusing, methinks. As far as the "expensive experts" go, somebody already said it -- just because a person is MS-certified doesn't mean he's worth a red cent. In college, I always tested rather poorly, compared with the quality of material I wrote in CS labs or independent projects. As such, the material I developed when not under duress was always a poor indication of my knowledge of the subject matter. On the flip side, ALL (5 so far) of my previous employers have told me that the person I was replacing was MS-certified (I'm not yet, but I have 4+ yrs _experience_), but couldn't work independently, cranked out shoddy code (which I have to rewrite now anyway) and was a pain in the ass to deal with in terms of basic communications skills! And these guys were billing out at $30-$50/hr!!
As with all things, I have no problem spending money, as long as it's WELL SPENT. Developing and maintaining scalable, stable, complex business applications / systems will always be an expensive endeavor, as a lot of resources and effort are require to run such an operation. But you're throwing your money away if you think that hiring people with exorbitant rates, fluffy resumes, stamped certifications and even college degrees is the same as hiring talented, diligent, knowledgable individuals. One of my best friends dropped out of college to code, and despite the fact that I have a background/degree/honors in CS and have exactly the same amount of work experience has him, he's still every bit as good as I am as a developer.
To address the myraid of issues concerning consumers' rights in the modern age. Digital copyrights are an obvious issue, with the whole Napster/RIAA/P2P stuff that's going on these days. And privacy is another one -- I would argue that all email lists should be opt-in, so that consumers can explicitly choose who has the right to contact them. Of course, I doubt that would ever fly -- spam has existing in snail format far longer than the electronic version has, so there's probably not enough reason there to limit it.
I also think this would be a perfect time to nail Microsoft's shoes to the ground, in terms of how they bundle new modules into every subsequent release of their operating system. Their most recent gripe is that the OS is so closely bound to each of its (formerly standalone) components, it would ruin the OS if they had to split it up. I think it should be every consumer's unalienable right to be able to select which pieces of discrete functionality exist on their computer. Every other softwar manufacturer on the planet has an uninstaller program to go along with their install -- why should Microsoft be any different?! If they want to go ahead and bundle their stuff together, that's fine -- but they would also have to design it in such a way that I could remove Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player, if I so chose.
Finally, I think that spyware should be made illegal -- or, at the very least, every installer of spyware should come with a simpified explanation of what information will be transmitted to where, under what conditions, and for what use. Violating those rules should be grounds for stiff penalties and the purging of all offending information -- so if a company sells data to a 3rd party without the consent of the user, A) they're liable for it and B) the company which obtained that information is obligated to erase it. Hell, make it a telescoping fine, for repeat offenders -- first infraction, $xxx per violation; second offense, $x,xxx per violation; etc.
But of course, all this is but a pipe dream -- the very thought of our representatives in this country siding with the people, and not Big Business, is laughable at best. Or do we need to look any further than the recent decision to postpone requiring the auto industry to clean up its act?
I have to admit that, after reading Richard Seltzer's response to Mr. Doctorow's article, I'm wondering which search engine he's really arguing for. He freely admits two key facts: that poor business decisions had led to a decline in the quality of searches in Altavista searches, even before Google arrived on the scene; and that Google is a lot better at turning up quality, long-standing content than Altavista is.
So maybe Google doesn't have ALL the latest stuff....... it's extremely good at 95% of what I need, and I don't even need to use those silly "+", "*", "-" symbols anymore. Also, is it just me, or did Altavista only recently decide to fix the special character parsing of keywords in its searches? I remember a time in the not-too-distant past when doing a search on keywords containing "." or "'" would choke, and only return the prefix part of the keyword. And perhaps the best thing about Google? No popups, no sloppy "I paid for advertising" links posted at the top of my result set, no banner ads on each and EVERY DAMNED PAGE -- Google searches, and that's it!
But even if this sounds like I'm bashing Altavista, I'm not. I still fall back on it to see what it'll turn up when I'm looking for rather obscure subject matter, and besides, I don't think Google would be where it is today without having another search engine to compete against. And now that Google's fortunes are rising, Altavista has started focusing more on the quality of ITS searches once again -- a situation where we all win.
My second employer ever ended up being really good to me, but I almost took a pass on the job, based on the initial offer they approached me with. At first, they said my salary would be far below what I was asking, but I'd get a boatload of options; this is in 1999, mind you, nearing the apex of the bubble. Even back then, I knew that I couldn't pay my credit cards, school loans or rent on promises alone, so I didn't call them back and kept looking. A few days later, and much to my surprise, they followed up with a phone call, asking me why I hadn't called back. I told them that they hadn't met my expectations, and hence I was still looking. At which point, they called me back in, met my figure and tossed in a relocation bonus (with zero stock, though).
Skip forward to today -- I've since moved on, but the company still hasn't gone public, and has been hemmoraging employees as of late. In a few select cases, I've heard of people kicking themselves for not jumping in on some phat options plans with very successful companies. But I'd rather miss an golden opportunity than stake my financial viability on possibilities and pipe dreams.
I don't think the government needs to do anything beyond making sure that consumers know which CDs are hobbled and which aren't. If a CD is clearly labeled as copy-protected, I won't buy it -- plain and simple. And that way, consumers can vote with their dollars........ if they don't care about this limitation on their ability to take their music wherever they go, then they can choose to buy it.
It's as simple as educating the masses -- nobody's gonna want a conglomerate to tell them what they can or can't do with their music. If anything, legislators should start focusing more on the digital rights of consumers, instead of narrowing the scope down to addressing only CDs. If it's crystal-clear what constitutes piracy and what constitutes fair use, the RIAA won't have any excuse to start bawling about how consumers are copying their music, regardless of the reasons for doing so (piracy vs portability).
God forbid Chuck Jones should have profited from his works during his lifetime, and the company that financed his work should profit from it in turn! Oh, and it's all well and good that you say that you'd like to toss everything that you create to the public domain after you die -- but then again, what have you created that anybody would care about? I suspect it's nothing on the scale of what CJ did, and as such, I'd venture to say that your POV has absolutely no merit on this matter whatsoever.
But your ridiculously broad, over-reaching and ignorant blanket opinion isn't what really ticked me off. It's that Chuck Jones isn't even 24hrs in the grave, and you say he should open source his work??
Shut the hell up and have some respect for one of the greatest creative talents of the 20th century. Or try and do something of worth on your own -- if you're not too busy making an ass of yourself, that is.
PS: How utterly amusing that this thread's original post got moded to a score of 4.
No need to be flippant -- I think hyrdra put forth a very simple question. Why not solve a very real, immediate problem right here on Planet Earth, as opposed to extending our time and energy in a direction that we may very well not have the technological means to have any real effect on. Would you rather cure AIDS, or work to develop a cheap source of renewable, clean energy? Granted, limitless energy is a Holy Grail in and of itself -- IMHO, not unlike the discovery of intelligent ET life, since both would change our world in ways we can't possibly imagine. But in the meantime, people are still starving and dying......... why not try to spend a bit more of our time and energy improving our quality of life before taking on those other, perhaps somewhat extraneous tasks?
I suppose we could go back and forth on this all day -- opinions vs opinions is all this is. But I think it's kind of perverse that people are so obsessed about SETI, when they could be making a more immediate difference in the lives of those humans around them instead.
After all of the sleazy marketing tactics they've engaged in, Microsoft is irked that security-oriented websites are being forthright in revealing the flaws associated with the myriad facets of Windows?? Here's a novel idea, which should apply to everyone from the smallest two-bit software shop to the big boys at Redmond -- if I pay for your software, I'm gonna damn well complain as much as I like when it starts breaking!
They don't like it when flaws are posted and exploited, which makes them work harder on securing their newest OS? Why, because it slows down the product development lifecycle of the next, marginally improved generation of software? Then they should either extend the beta until they're more confident in it..... consumers shouldn't have to pay for QA!
.... of the software. EZ CD Creator's been pretty good thus far -- just buy an older version of the software, and you won't have to worry about any "innovations" that the company might make with respect to future releases.
Why is it that some of the most insipid, ignorant, heartless people on this planet are always in a position to pass judgment on the lives of those most qualified for those same posts? This kind of crap pisses me off to no end. I think it should be a requirement to call all the underappreciated, socially aloof kids in each school in this country to a meeting, sit them down and then explain to them that, while they are indeed the most promising elements of their generation, they will need to endure the barbs and general stupidity of many of those who would otherwise drive them to violence -- against their own selves, or others. How many times have we seen this happen before, and when will people learn?! Grr..... it almost makes me want to go down there in person, with a sledgehammer in hand, and rip their precious little system to bits. I couldn't hack my way through a moistened towelette, but I could certainly do more justifiable damage to it than that poor kid ever did (or intended, for that matter).
Now I can send packets old-school style!
Oh, the marvels of French engineering, innovation and design.
As an aspiring MCP, I still wonder how MS can certify people in the setup, administration and troubleshooting of an operating system that still has yet to have all the kinks ironed out anyway. Isn't that a bit like raising the curtain at the opera before all the actors have their lines memorized? In any case, it's disheartening to see that Microsoft is willing to isolate those relatively rare individuals who are actually able to fix problems, and haven't just gone ahead and bought a certificate.
I'm wondering if the Jukebox is crippled, in that it only allows files to be written to and delete from the player.... not read from the player.
If so, what makes the Jukebox from a laptop, in that bidirection file transfers are enabled on a laptop, but not the handheld player? Maybe the industry's just too scared of being sued by the RIAA for coming out with a player that can be used to share music. Sad.....
I think that article / essay brought up some pretty good points, mainly to always keep a conservative eye on the future, even if the present is looking rosy.
As a newly-minted graduate (Class of 1998, anyway), I'm way ahead of where I thought I'd ever be, in terms of present salary and happiness with my job. All of this because I got bored with my standard-fare CS classes and started messing around with HTML 3. Little did I know that in less than 2 yrs time, this skill would be the foundation of a new techie revolution.
Moving right along, the nature of the techie or geek (as it's so fashionable to call us now) is that we don't play with new tech toys entirely because of the salary -- it's because we ENJOY it. Enjoyment can be interpreted in any number of ways -- "challenging", "team-oriented", "interesting", "engaging" or "neat". That these fun new skills end up being the foundation of a new economic sector is pure happenstance. But the more toys a techie plays around with at any given time, the more their possible market value will increase in the future.
My final point: there will always be techies, and a solid economy to go with it. The nature of the tech may change, but as long as there are people fiddling with new languages and such before it goes mainstream, there will always be a hoppin' market for us. Cheers!
Doesn't this seem a bit peculiar, that these people would prefer to ignore the scientific knowledge that humans have spent the past few thousand years amassing about themselves, and instead pass on some Biblical ideology? Nobody even knows who wrote the Bible, yet apparently there's a pressing need to use this as the source of information relating to our evolution..... how sad.
Anyway, this seems to be a bit of a "Christian Science" idea to me. After all, those "scientists" advocate the use of NATURAL HEALING over anything that science has offered a cure for. "Hit by a car? Walk it off -- God will take care of the rest" seems to be a paraphrased idea (if somewhat more than cynical) of what they preach. And now Kansas' board of education wishes to teach its students the "new science" of evolution?
Pretty sad, really -- these people are actively eroding the quality of education which thousands of kids receive, whom really have no say in the matter, given their age. All this because of some religious predispositions.......
I noticed in the article that Sony plans to increase the power of the workstations by an order of magnitude every few years. Does this mean they're also going to require end users (read: PSX2 gamers) to upgrade their PSX's as well?
I think that if it's relatively simple to do so (swapping out a CPU or increasing the amt of RAM), like a simple computer hardware upgrade (w/o mobo reinstall), they'll have a lock on the market. But if they expect people to keep in line with the Intel Syndrome (architecture / mobo changes every 9 - 16 months), I'd rather have a fully-powered PC than an almost-obsolete gaming box.