one of the guys at Freeset Interactive gets home, and sits down for a bottle of beer. His dear mother calls him on the phone. "Honey, what did you do at work today?"
Proud of his latest effort, our hero replies, "Well Mom, we just discovered a way to help advertisers track people and shove ads down their throats at every possible opportunity. I think this is going to make us a big bundle of money!"
Dear sweet Mother replies: "You know, I've never told you this until now, but you're adopted. We picked you up from an adoption service in the States."
Apple is very strongly tying the new iMac to the iPod. The idea is to leverage the tremendous success of the iPod to show Wintel users that Apple also makes great personal computers.
While the original iMac, G4 Cube, and Luxo iMac were impressive feats of design, they also screamed out, "This is an Apple product. I'm different!"
The new iMac is elegant and well-designed, but it takes a much more subtle approach. It is less of an ad for Apple. I think the reason is that Apple wants to provide Wintel users with a computer that is like the iPod - elegant, highly useful, and understated.
Whether they'll say it or not, many corporate and small business customers have stayed away from Apple hardware for years because since the advent of the bondi blue iMac, Macs have been just too "different'. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to go too far away from familiar design.
Apple is taking a very measured and cautious approach with business customers, and they probably will never come out and directly say it, but the new iPod-inspired design is likely intended less to appeal to traditional Mac users than it is to entice Switchers.
I think Apple will sell boatloads of the new iMac, and I'm very tempted to snag one of the 20" versions myself.
but his background and his approach are easy to discern.
Although he has his own stand-alone pundit site, he also works for Windows IT Pro, which delivers "News about Windows and Microsoft. No fluff."
Asking him to talk in reasonable terms about a battle between Microsoft and Apple is like asking Guy Kawasaki in 1986 to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of PCs and Macs. Just look at what puts bread on the table for Thurrott.
Basically Thurrott seems to believe that Windows is "all about choice" because there is a monopolist (Microsoft) running the show. Any assaults on that monopoly seem to bring up his defenses. He'll give Apple and other players kudos, but in the dismissive way that IT people used to discuss Linux. He's generous when Microsoft is ascendant in a market, but nasty when someone else is in the lead.
I remember seeing plenty of ads in the DC metro area back in the mid-90s, in which corporations were seeking Java programmers with 5-8 years experience. I'm not kidding.
Obviously Apple knows their job announcements are scrutinized, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were casting a broader net than they need to be, as insurance against future needs that may or may not materialize.
There are so many different distributions and kernels and window managers. It's all so scary, unlike the easy, confusionless, standardized world of Microsoft Windows.
Every time someone comes up with a new technology application on the 'Net, people want to judge whether it will be successful or not without thinking about the NUMBER ONE factor - how does a business succeed based on this technology?
This is why Silicon Valley VCs keep fucking up left, right and center. They can't seem to figure out that a business has to make money, regardless of the technology in question.
Marketing (or any business books) are like SF. 90% of the stuff out there is total crap. 10% of it is great.
Guy Kawasaki's How to Drive Your Competition Crazy is great because it talks about what really makes people do your job for you in promoting your product. It also doesn't assume that you have a huge, traditional marketing department.
"Folks, the Mac platform is through...." - John C. Dvorak, 1998
He went to MacWorld. He thought he saw the end of the road for Apple. He unequivocally stated that the Mac was not destined for, but already in, the scrap heap of history.
I really would like to put together a site that keeps tabs on industry pundits and prognosticators. Wouldn't it be useful when reading the latest predictions from industry windbags? You could look up that windbag's track record. My goodness, it might even force some accountability among tech journalists.
Hell, you could even use the principle on regular ol' journalists and opinion-makers of all stripes. It seems to me that although politicians lie and make excuses for the votes they made in earlier years, media hacks don't get called to the table often enough because until quite recently they controlled the information flow.
My guess is there are hundreds if not thousands of regular Slashdot readers who are much better at predicting tech trends than many of the journalists who are paid to prognosticate.
is it time to pay more attention to end-users?(who aren't geeks)?
Welllll.. considering that without end-users IT wouldn't have a job, it does seem fairly important to pay as much attention as possible to end-users.
If you have to ask that question as an IT person, you are already a few steps behind.
Asssuming users have no knowledge is a good idea
on
Linux Desktop Guide
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
People learn about computers in a very haphazard manner. For example, I've been using them for about 20 years, and there is an entire univers of computer knowledge I have never encountered. By the same token, many of the supposedly computer-savvy teens today have no idea about many of the fundamental underpinnings of computers. My point is that when you assume a user has "basic" knowledge, you're already leaving some people out of the loop, even if many of them have been using computers for years.
I think this guide is a fantastic idea for people like my uncle. The guy absolutely hates Microsoft, for a variety of reasons that will be familiar to most Slashdot readers. But he has never switched to anything else because he's too afraid of losing compatibility, not being able to use MS Office, etc. I should say he *was* afraid, because I recently gave him an old G3/500 iBook running Mac OSX, and he loves it.
Now he is ready to take his old Wintel box and put Linux on it. This manual will be perfect. I can pass it his way, have him give it a read-through, and then I'll go over to his place and we'll run through a Linux installation together.
There are a variety of folks out there who have a strong dislike for Microsoft products, but have no real experience with anything but Microsoft. They know that many pundits say OS X is a better user experience. They know that Linux is out there too. But they need all the help they can get in pushing past the extremely strong inertia that Microsoft has created.
You are quite right in saying that "the vast majority of them will be too scared or too stubborn to switch," but I believe that if there are multiple avenues (in the true *NIX tradition) for people to take in their quest to find alternatives to Microsoft, so much the better. Linux has never been about "The One True Way" and I think it's a bit much to expect that we will ever find "a way to deal with it." Why not present multiple paths?
The thrust of your comment seems to be that nobody on the side of "The People" could in all good conscience advocate adherence to current patent and copyright laws. I'm strongly on the side of intellectual property reform, but there are many reasons why reasonable people disagree about intellectual property laws.
For example, I have written the Representative and Senators who represent me in Congress, advocating for a reform of intellectual property laws so that big companies like Disney can't steamroll anyone who attempts to impose a more rational system. But I also happen to live in California, where a huge slice of the population makes its living off of intellectual property in one way or another. The movie, music, and computer industries all depend on intellectual property for their survival.
The reaction from my representatives in Congress has been a fairly uniform, "We want to respond to new technologies in a way that allows for innovation but respects intellectual property laws." Basically they are concerned that if IP laws are messed with, the bread and butter for their constituents will vanish. It's about them wanting to stay in office, but it's also about them looking out for the economic interests of California.
You can say what you want about people wanting to make a quick buck, but as a small business owner I can categorically say that business is very difficult. It's never easy, and there is always someone ready to take over your market and eat your lunch if you're not careful. That's the nature of free enterprise. When you're in business, you seek every legal advantage you can get, because if you don't, you might not survive. Copyrights and patents do not "have the sole purpose of protecting the little guy from the big guy," or "the big guy from the little guy." They are intended to encourage innovation and spur the economy, while providing for long-term benefits to society.
It seems to me that the goal of all who would like to see the current imbalances in copyright and patent law redressed should be to show Congress and the people at large how current laws favor powerful, entrenched, and (this is vitally important) non-innovative players in the market. We need to show how if we do not change our IP laws, we will collectively be at an economic disadvantage because we have squelched innovation.
If you want to take on big, vested interests, you need to beat them at their own game. You need to show legislators and regular people (I get nervous any time anyone uses the term "The People" because it implies that in a country as large and diverse as the United States somehow there are only two camps - the forces of Evil, and The People) that it makes economic sense to reform intellectual property laws.
p.s. - "Back in the good 'ol days" (1920), the Prohibition Act came into being after more than 27 years of concerted grassroots political effort. Congress didn't just up and decide to enact Prohibition.
They have the ability to stop zombies and whatnot- they just don't give a shit.
It might not be that simple. Imagine if the backbone providers did exercise this supposed power and used it to squish zombies and other Internet Undead. Something tells me there would be a hue and cry about excessive corporate power over the Internet.
Backbone providers likely see it as a utility. You can use electricity to power a hospital or power a meth lab. It's essentially out of their purvue, and they likely want to stay out of policing what people do with the bandwidth they provide. It's good business, and it's probably better for the rest of us, too.
but history is filled with examples of big business being pressured to conform to society's wishes.
AT&T's monopoly was dismembered.
Standard Oil's monopoly was dismembered.
The horrific child labor conditions of the Industrial Age were checked by laws.
Labor unions were established.
The weekend was created.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but the point is that business in the United States is not immune to pressure from the population at large. It just takes a lot of hard work and political activism to force change of any kind, and most Americans are for a variety of reasons singularly uninterested in exercising their political power.
The cellular market in the US still has problems. There are quite a few things wrong with the state of cell phone networks and phones in the US market. For example:
Make a call: Maybe, if you're not in a dead zone. Even then the quality of the call varies widely depending on you are and where the caller is.
Receive a call: Ditto.
Save phone numbers: Yep
Receive voice mail: Not immediately, or reliably. I just received a message that was left by another Verizon user for me over 18 hours ago. We're on the same network, yet somehow the message doesn't get to my phone for 18 hours. I don't want to know how it all works. I don't care. I want my phone to make messages available to me within a few minutes of the message being left. Is that so much to ask?
It's not fashionable to compain about cell phones; it's just a reaction to widespread annoyances. Pundits think cell phone cams are wildly popular because so many people buy them. But people buy them because they want features that are bundled with the cam features. Cell phone hardware is becoming commoditized, and the manufacturers are trying desperately to provide more and more goodies that most people don't need or want.
That leads me to another very annoying thing about cell phones and service providers: Lack of phone choice. As a consumer, I don't want to have to run through a byzantine search just to find out what phones will work with my plan. Cell services need to get much better about providing clear and useful information to consumers. They're still too used to acting like in many respects like utilities: You get the service we give you - be happy.
I like having the flexibility of a cell phone, but it also annoys the hell out of me sometimes, in that it's often like stepping backwards from land line in terms of voice quality. Sure, the cell has all of these additional features, but the primary purpose of the cell phone is to make it easy for me to have a clear, garble-free phone conversation. The other bells and whistles are just distractions from the fact that cell companies have a long way to go in that department.
I fact, I do my presentations from notes, using nothing more than dry-erase markers and a whiteboard. It never fails to impart an order of magnitude more information than a static bullet-point presentation ever could.
I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. For one thing, audiences understand that you actually know what you're talking about when you are so comfortable that you're willing to forgo the PowerPoint crutch.
Tufte is dead-on when he notes that PowerPoint engenders "a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content." People tend to expect pablum when they sit down for a presentation where PowerPoint is the star. But if you step away from reliance on PowerPoint, surprising things can happen. In training presentations where I eschew PowerPoint for prepared notes and the whiteboard, I receive some surprising feedback from attendees.
People often tell me that they feel like I was communicating directly with them, that they felt like their questions were answered more thoroughly than usual, and that they were more engaged. Again, as Tufte points out, if you take away the PowerPoint crutch, the people you're presenting to are forced to pay attention to what you're saying. They tend to me more engaged, and they ask better questions when PowerPoint is left out of the equation altogether.
I thoroughly recommend not only Tufte's piece on PowerPoint, but all of his work. If you want to truly cut through the corporate b.s. and get people to pay attention to what you're saying, make a presentation without PowerPoint and watch the reaction.
Star Trek is a classic example of something that was good, but has been rehashed so many times that it's all tapped out. The mine is spent. The well is dry. Star Trek has died on the vine.
I can't think of any more rediculous ways of saying it. Star Trek must die, for the good of Star Trek. Let it die. Let someone new pick it up again in a decade. End the madness now!
* The sequence of events during and immediately following the Cylon attack was well-handled, IMHO. It had the feeling of a real event, where nobody knew quite what was going on and people who were not expected to be leaders had to step up and take responsibility.
* The environment on Galactica, the crew reactions, and the overall tone of a fleet that had been on guard duty for years without seeing any combat, and was now engaged in combat felt right to me.
* The "combat journalism" style of dogfight footage was great. I definitely prefered it to the smooth, effortless and artificial feel of most Trek space combat.
* The characters were set up with individual personalities without reliance on alien cliches. It's a lot more difficult to make a show based on mere humans seem interesting to SF fans, but I wanted to know more about these characters, and I felt that there was a lot more to explore in each of them.
I loved the old show when I was a kid, primarily because of Starbuck, and because I could picture myself flying around in a Viper waxing Cyclon Raiders. But this is a very different show for a different audience. In my opinion it's better acted and richer, and it has the potential to be a solid series. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.
You're mixing public domain and private sources there
Agreed. I should have been more selective in my quote. It's Disney's transformation of public domain works into Disney-owned properties is what really rankles.
"Indeed, the catalog of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set together: Snow White (1937), Fantasia (1940), Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942),/Song of the South (1946), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951),/Robin Hood (1952), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Mulan (1998), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967)--not to mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, Treasure Planet (2003). In all of these cases, Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
Slashdot Mirror
Proud of his latest effort, our hero replies, "Well Mom, we just discovered a way to help advertisers track people and shove ads down their throats at every possible opportunity. I think this is going to make us a big bundle of money!"
Dear sweet Mother replies: "You know, I've never told you this until now, but you're adopted. We picked you up from an adoption service in the States."
While the original iMac, G4 Cube, and Luxo iMac were impressive feats of design, they also screamed out, "This is an Apple product. I'm different!"
The new iMac is elegant and well-designed, but it takes a much more subtle approach. It is less of an ad for Apple. I think the reason is that Apple wants to provide Wintel users with a computer that is like the iPod - elegant, highly useful, and understated.
Whether they'll say it or not, many corporate and small business customers have stayed away from Apple hardware for years because since the advent of the bondi blue iMac, Macs have been just too "different'. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to go too far away from familiar design.
Apple is taking a very measured and cautious approach with business customers, and they probably will never come out and directly say it, but the new iPod-inspired design is likely intended less to appeal to traditional Mac users than it is to entice Switchers.
I think Apple will sell boatloads of the new iMac, and I'm very tempted to snag one of the 20" versions myself.
Although he has his own stand-alone pundit site, he also works for Windows IT Pro, which delivers "News about Windows and Microsoft. No fluff."
Asking him to talk in reasonable terms about a battle between Microsoft and Apple is like asking Guy Kawasaki in 1986 to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of PCs and Macs. Just look at what puts bread on the table for Thurrott.
Basically Thurrott seems to believe that Windows is "all about choice" because there is a monopolist (Microsoft) running the show. Any assaults on that monopoly seem to bring up his defenses. He'll give Apple and other players kudos, but in the dismissive way that IT people used to discuss Linux. He's generous when Microsoft is ascendant in a market, but nasty when someone else is in the lead.
Including the only band that mattered.
The British impact on popular music over the last fifty years is arguably greater than that of any country in the world, including the US.
Obviously Apple knows their job announcements are scrutinized, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were casting a broader net than they need to be, as insurance against future needs that may or may not materialize.
Errr... .
This is why Silicon Valley VCs keep fucking up left, right and center. They can't seem to figure out that a business has to make money, regardless of the technology in question.
Guy Kawasaki's How to Drive Your Competition Crazy is great because it talks about what really makes people do your job for you in promoting your product. It also doesn't assume that you have a huge, traditional marketing department.
He went to MacWorld. He thought he saw the end of the road for Apple. He unequivocally stated that the Mac was not destined for, but already in, the scrap heap of history.
I really would like to put together a site that keeps tabs on industry pundits and prognosticators. Wouldn't it be useful when reading the latest predictions from industry windbags? You could look up that windbag's track record. My goodness, it might even force some accountability among tech journalists.
Hell, you could even use the principle on regular ol' journalists and opinion-makers of all stripes. It seems to me that although politicians lie and make excuses for the votes they made in earlier years, media hacks don't get called to the table often enough because until quite recently they controlled the information flow.
My guess is there are hundreds if not thousands of regular Slashdot readers who are much better at predicting tech trends than many of the journalists who are paid to prognosticate.
Welllll.. considering that without end-users IT wouldn't have a job, it does seem fairly important to pay as much attention as possible to end-users.
If you have to ask that question as an IT person, you are already a few steps behind.
I think this guide is a fantastic idea for people like my uncle. The guy absolutely hates Microsoft, for a variety of reasons that will be familiar to most Slashdot readers. But he has never switched to anything else because he's too afraid of losing compatibility, not being able to use MS Office, etc. I should say he *was* afraid, because I recently gave him an old G3/500 iBook running Mac OSX, and he loves it.
Now he is ready to take his old Wintel box and put Linux on it. This manual will be perfect. I can pass it his way, have him give it a read-through, and then I'll go over to his place and we'll run through a Linux installation together.
There are a variety of folks out there who have a strong dislike for Microsoft products, but have no real experience with anything but Microsoft. They know that many pundits say OS X is a better user experience. They know that Linux is out there too. But they need all the help they can get in pushing past the extremely strong inertia that Microsoft has created.
You are quite right in saying that "the vast majority of them will be too scared or too stubborn to switch," but I believe that if there are multiple avenues (in the true *NIX tradition) for people to take in their quest to find alternatives to Microsoft, so much the better. Linux has never been about "The One True Way" and I think it's a bit much to expect that we will ever find "a way to deal with it." Why not present multiple paths?
For example, I have written the Representative and Senators who represent me in Congress, advocating for a reform of intellectual property laws so that big companies like Disney can't steamroll anyone who attempts to impose a more rational system. But I also happen to live in California, where a huge slice of the population makes its living off of intellectual property in one way or another. The movie, music, and computer industries all depend on intellectual property for their survival.
The reaction from my representatives in Congress has been a fairly uniform, "We want to respond to new technologies in a way that allows for innovation but respects intellectual property laws." Basically they are concerned that if IP laws are messed with, the bread and butter for their constituents will vanish. It's about them wanting to stay in office, but it's also about them looking out for the economic interests of California.
You can say what you want about people wanting to make a quick buck, but as a small business owner I can categorically say that business is very difficult. It's never easy, and there is always someone ready to take over your market and eat your lunch if you're not careful. That's the nature of free enterprise. When you're in business, you seek every legal advantage you can get, because if you don't, you might not survive. Copyrights and patents do not "have the sole purpose of protecting the little guy from the big guy," or "the big guy from the little guy." They are intended to encourage innovation and spur the economy, while providing for long-term benefits to society.
It seems to me that the goal of all who would like to see the current imbalances in copyright and patent law redressed should be to show Congress and the people at large how current laws favor powerful, entrenched, and (this is vitally important) non-innovative players in the market. We need to show how if we do not change our IP laws, we will collectively be at an economic disadvantage because we have squelched innovation.
If you want to take on big, vested interests, you need to beat them at their own game. You need to show legislators and regular people (I get nervous any time anyone uses the term "The People" because it implies that in a country as large and diverse as the United States somehow there are only two camps - the forces of Evil, and The People) that it makes economic sense to reform intellectual property laws.
p.s. - "Back in the good 'ol days" (1920), the Prohibition Act came into being after more than 27 years of concerted grassroots political effort. Congress didn't just up and decide to enact Prohibition.
If you don't know how to roll a d3, you don't get to watch a documentary. Sorry, house rules.
It might not be that simple. Imagine if the backbone providers did exercise this supposed power and used it to squish zombies and other Internet Undead. Something tells me there would be a hue and cry about excessive corporate power over the Internet.
Backbone providers likely see it as a utility. You can use electricity to power a hospital or power a meth lab. It's essentially out of their purvue, and they likely want to stay out of policing what people do with the bandwidth they provide. It's good business, and it's probably better for the rest of us, too.
AT&T's monopoly was dismembered.
Standard Oil's monopoly was dismembered.
The horrific child labor conditions of the Industrial Age were checked by laws.
Labor unions were established.
The weekend was created.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but the point is that business in the United States is not immune to pressure from the population at large. It just takes a lot of hard work and political activism to force change of any kind, and most Americans are for a variety of reasons singularly uninterested in exercising their political power.
Make a call: Maybe, if you're not in a dead zone. Even then the quality of the call varies widely depending on you are and where the caller is.
Receive a call: Ditto.
Save phone numbers: Yep
Receive voice mail: Not immediately, or reliably. I just received a message that was left by another Verizon user for me over 18 hours ago. We're on the same network, yet somehow the message doesn't get to my phone for 18 hours. I don't want to know how it all works. I don't care. I want my phone to make messages available to me within a few minutes of the message being left. Is that so much to ask?
It's not fashionable to compain about cell phones; it's just a reaction to widespread annoyances. Pundits think cell phone cams are wildly popular because so many people buy them. But people buy them because they want features that are bundled with the cam features. Cell phone hardware is becoming commoditized, and the manufacturers are trying desperately to provide more and more goodies that most people don't need or want.
That leads me to another very annoying thing about cell phones and service providers: Lack of phone choice. As a consumer, I don't want to have to run through a byzantine search just to find out what phones will work with my plan. Cell services need to get much better about providing clear and useful information to consumers. They're still too used to acting like in many respects like utilities: You get the service we give you - be happy.
I like having the flexibility of a cell phone, but it also annoys the hell out of me sometimes, in that it's often like stepping backwards from land line in terms of voice quality. Sure, the cell has all of these additional features, but the primary purpose of the cell phone is to make it easy for me to have a clear, garble-free phone conversation. The other bells and whistles are just distractions from the fact that cell companies have a long way to go in that department.
I wholeheartedly agree with this approach. For one thing, audiences understand that you actually know what you're talking about when you are so comfortable that you're willing to forgo the PowerPoint crutch.
Tufte is dead-on when he notes that PowerPoint engenders "a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content." People tend to expect pablum when they sit down for a presentation where PowerPoint is the star. But if you step away from reliance on PowerPoint, surprising things can happen. In training presentations where I eschew PowerPoint for prepared notes and the whiteboard, I receive some surprising feedback from attendees.
People often tell me that they feel like I was communicating directly with them, that they felt like their questions were answered more thoroughly than usual, and that they were more engaged. Again, as Tufte points out, if you take away the PowerPoint crutch, the people you're presenting to are forced to pay attention to what you're saying. They tend to me more engaged, and they ask better questions when PowerPoint is left out of the equation altogether.
I thoroughly recommend not only Tufte's piece on PowerPoint, but all of his work. If you want to truly cut through the corporate b.s. and get people to pay attention to what you're saying, make a presentation without PowerPoint and watch the reaction.
Star Trek is a classic example of something that was good, but has been rehashed so many times that it's all tapped out. The mine is spent. The well is dry. Star Trek has died on the vine.
I can't think of any more rediculous ways of saying it. Star Trek must die, for the good of Star Trek. Let it die. Let someone new pick it up again in a decade. End the madness now!
* The sequence of events during and immediately following the Cylon attack was well-handled, IMHO. It had the feeling of a real event, where nobody knew quite what was going on and people who were not expected to be leaders had to step up and take responsibility.
* The environment on Galactica, the crew reactions, and the overall tone of a fleet that had been on guard duty for years without seeing any combat, and was now engaged in combat felt right to me.
* The "combat journalism" style of dogfight footage was great. I definitely prefered it to the smooth, effortless and artificial feel of most Trek space combat.
* The characters were set up with individual personalities without reliance on alien cliches. It's a lot more difficult to make a show based on mere humans seem interesting to SF fans, but I wanted to know more about these characters, and I felt that there was a lot more to explore in each of them.
I loved the old show when I was a kid, primarily because of Starbuck, and because I could picture myself flying around in a Viper waxing Cyclon Raiders. But this is a very different show for a different audience. In my opinion it's better acted and richer, and it has the potential to be a solid series. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.
Agreed. I should have been more selective in my quote. It's Disney's transformation of public domain works into Disney-owned properties is what really rankles.
From Lessig's book Free Culture:
"Indeed, the catalog of Disney work drawing upon the work of others is astonishing when set together: Snow White (1937), Fantasia (1940), Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), /Song of the South (1946), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), /Robin Hood (1952), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Mulan (1998), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967)--not to mention a recent example that we should perhaps quickly forget, Treasure Planet (2003). In all of these cases, Disney (or Disney, Inc.) ripped creativity from the culture around him, mixed that creativity with his own extraordinary talent, and then burned that mix into the soul of his culture. Rip, mix, and burn."
* Microsoft and Disney will partner to create a cobranded OS called "Lion King" to compete with Apple's "Tiger" OS X rev.
* It wasn't Bill Gates that invented the Internet. It was Walt Disney.
* Disney is in violation of copyright with SCO and will be sued shortly.