This is funny - people are slowly forgetting that our computers are cabable of running software other than the browser.
Imagine a future where your typical homeuser buys her computer from a browser company. Instead of buying Macs or PC's, instead of IBM's or HP's, people go and buy a Firefox terminal, or an Opera terminal, or a Safari terminal.
Ofcourse, the computer could run any browser, but the browser is locked into it and starts automatically on start up. Kinda like how people are buying Vodafone cellphones these days. Vodaphone doesn't make the phone, Nokia or Samsung does, but Vodaphone has it's SIM-card locked into it. The phones could just as well be sold without a SIM-card so you could buy one yourself from any phone company, but it's just more handy and easy this way.
The reason for excluding essential services is because including them leads to monopoly accusations.
In many countries it is illegal to ship Windows with IE preinstalled and set as the default browser. Instead, new copies of Windows offer a download window which asks you if you want to install IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera.
The weight of an object is defined as being equal to the force exerted on it by gravity. Take the object far away from any celestial bodies and you'll find it weightless. Toss it into a black hole and it's weight will approach infinity.
For the sake of simplicity, lets imagine that the internet is uniformly distributed on the surface of the earth, as a single object. You will find that the gravity of the earth pulls the internet from every direction with equal force, and assuming the internet is a solid object, the net force is zero, since the opposing forces negate each other. So in essence, the internet as a single object is weightless, even on earth.
So that didn't work out. Lets instead assume that the internet is divided into numerous parts so that the weight of each one can be summed together to give a meaningful answer. So what is the internet? Is it the servers that run it? The huge cables that run below the oceans? Or maybe internet can be best thought of as the information it contains. Then what is information? Is it the magnetic direction of the molecules of a harddisk? Is it the dents on a CD? Or something else that can be thought of still being "physical" in nature? Or does information on the storage devices only truly become information once it is observed and digested by a human mind?
How much calories would it take for a human brain to go trough all the information on the internet? After finding out, use the calories to calculate their mass by E=mc^2.
Or maybe the internet is the biomass of the humans involved in it? The biomass of the users? Internet is after all, an "international network". Is it a network of machines or a network of people? Are people the whole bodies or just the brain? Is the brain just the gray mass or it's whole history of nature and nurture? All the way to the big bang? Could it be said that the mass of 1GB of data is the mass of the whole universe, since you need humans to give meaning to data and you need universes to support human brains?
I am a student and a hobbyist. Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Maya and Sony Forge are examples of great software that I really want to use and love to use, but simply could never afford as a student. I'd add Windows 7 and the Office pack to the list, if my school didn't offer free licenses for them.
And to be honest, even if I was making decent money and using those tools as a pro, I'd still only pay for the software if I had a reason to believe that someone was angry at me and might rat on me. Actually, even then I'd rather install a self-destruct mechanism on my workstation and encrypt my hard drives.
I'm not trying to boycot anything either. I think it's a good thing that developers get paid for making good software.
Piracy is just so easy and care free, that the only pressure not to do it comes from within yourself, if it comes at all. The question is no longer "Is this right? Am I being a good person?", where you reflect on yourself trough popular morality, but rather a personal two part question of "Do I want this product?" and "Do I want to give away my money?". The answers are "Yes" and "No", and in my mind the questions are totally unrelated to each other. Paying for software would feel like flushing the money down the toilet when it's actually easier to just download it.
PS: In the end, if I had to pretend that I cared, I could honestly say that I believe I would be generating more wealth for the world when I am allowed to concentrate on creating and learning instead of concentrating on worrying about money and working at McDonald's to pay for my Photoshop license.
From the conclusion of the article: "go 8 seconds on and 12 seconds off for 60 rounds", where "on" is max effort, what does "off" mean? Is it medium effort or zero effort or is it something that you modify as your endurance increases?
"Sprint -> Jog"
or
"Sprint -> Walk"
or
"Sprint -> Lie on the ground, motionless"
?
Imagine a future where your typical homeuser buys her computer from a browser company. Instead of buying Macs or PC's, instead of IBM's or HP's, people go and buy a Firefox terminal, or an Opera terminal, or a Safari terminal.
Ofcourse, the computer could run any browser, but the browser is locked into it and starts automatically on start up. Kinda like how people are buying Vodafone cellphones these days. Vodaphone doesn't make the phone, Nokia or Samsung does, but Vodaphone has it's SIM-card locked into it. The phones could just as well be sold without a SIM-card so you could buy one yourself from any phone company, but it's just more handy and easy this way.