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No Levy on iPods in Canada
colinemckay writes "The fight over a levy on iPods and other digital music devices ended Thursday when the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear any further arguments on the matter. That means there will be no levy applied to digital audio recorders such as Apple's popular iPod and iPod Shuffle as well as other MP3 players like iRiver."
less pie
woot
frosty post
This is NOT my response to the oh-so-dull and typical flame-wars regarding whether the GNOME or KDE desktop is "best". I have an opinion on that, but that's not what this is about. This is about how I picture the development process of each of those fine desktop products.
Warning to readers: this is mildly offensive, however it's not particularly obscene, for most values of obscene. On a flame-o-riffic scale of one to ten, it rates about a seventy-three.
When I contemplate how the Java and Perl desktops are developed, here is what I imagine:
Java
----
An army barracks in the UK where everything is crisp and clear-cut, with an army-style sense of order and sense. The computers and tables are arranged vertically in rows like a workhouse fashion, and each developer is made to wear a full uniform.
There may be a few spots of dust here and there, but if they are noticed by the officers in charge, every developer has to do push-ups until they die. At this point, they are brought back to life by the ressurection techniques which always work and never fail, and the spot of dust is then cleaned up before being noticed again.
All the developers are hugely muscular to the point of having bulging biceps and large packages. Any weedy developers are quicky gassed in the chambers at the facility.
Every once in a while, the army general will come along to the compilation box, to find that the compilation command has been typed out for him and is awaiting his next command. Everyone stands and salutes as the general then smashes his finger through the enter key to start compilation. He then breaks down in tears as he watches Java compile perfectly, which is has done from the start of time, and they all have a bug chaser party to celebrate.
If for some reason Java does not compile, there are gas buttons all over the facility available for use, which the general is authorised to use in case of emergency. These have never been used.
Perl
----
A funhouse at a fairground where there is sick all over the floor and graffiti covering the walls. The developers are kids aged between 9 and 12 with sticky hands and mouths after eating an exorberant amount of sweets and candy floss.
All their teeth have rotted away, and every one of them has ADHD and diabetes. There is cum all over the walls and floors as none of the children can actually be bothered to code, and resort to touching their junk in a spurious manner.
None of these kids have ever developed anything in their life, and anyone can come in and code for Perl. The funhouse has many sections including a bouncy castle and a rotating tube.
All of these devices serve as inspiration for Perl, as well as the smell coming from the sick on the floor which can be seen splashing about when the bouncy castle is used.
Compilation of Perl has only happened a few times when all the kids have a candy floss eating contest and then have a sugar rush. They then sit down at the puke covered computers of which only a quarter work to type random stuff until more stuff happens in a fit of ecstasy until they pass out.
There is an insane clown who stands on a podium in the middle of the computer room to make sure that all the code is extremely poor in quality. The clown holds his cock all the time for no reason.
That's it, I'm moving to Canada...
In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?
This is off-topic but a desperate plea:
:)
Could someone with NASA TV please create torrents of the Flight-Day Highlights & spacewalk video? The NASA TV real/wmv streams don't do the views justice, and NASA TV is Free, public domain video.
Thanks, and sorry to be off topic until the video iPods arrive.
Let me first state that I am against DRM as much as the next guy .. But I wish to compare Apples to Microsofts here ...
.. but the whole thing helps Apple keep it's monopoly position without worrying about iPod clones (competing mp3 players arent legally allowed to play protected songs bought off iTunes). Also, if you wish to sell music online ..unless you are prepared to make it mp3 and have no DRM .. you have to sell it through iTunes .. and they will take a chunk of the profit and/or tell you what to charge subject to whether they'll accept the song even.
.. anybody can add DRM to their song and sell it on the net (without having to use itunes as the middle man and give Apple a chunk of change). You can protect your music and sell it online on your own website or elsewhere.
..dunno the point of making this point that others have been trying to make for a while .. cause people who hate DRM will mod me down, and Apple folks will mod me down too.
Nobody can sell music DRM'd music that plays on the ipod. Yes, they can sell mp3's but these aren't protected. Yes I know DRM is crackable blah blah
With Microsoft DRM
I'm not saying M$FT did this out of goodness etc. They basically had no choice.
Anyway
If they wanted to just sell mp3s, how come many indy and local bands don't put their music up for sale online?
I find that, for the money, the iRiver is a much better player and has many more features. I have an iHP-140, and the things it has built-in that a standard 40GB iPod does not have are: A) Vorbis support - the best (in my audiophile and freedom-loving opinion) lossy format! http://vorbis.com/ MP3s distort the high and low end a *lot*. Makes songs sound awful. But everyone loves .mp3 for some reason... weird.
B) FM tuner - Not that I *listen* to the radio
C) Built in recording support as either .wav or .mp3 - and the ability to use an external mike.
D) Shows up as a USB Mass-storage device on every operating system - so you don't need any crappy proprietary software to get access to *your* data! Besides, you have music players and jukeboxes on your machine already, right?
E) Long battery life - mine lasts 13 - 16 hours playing 256K vorbis files, after owning it for more than a year.
F?) Not sure if iPod has this, but optical output as well as analog. Awesome sound quality.
G) Other codec support - .wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3.
Check it out if you are thinking of buying a music player - http://www.iriveramerica.com/
Also check out the XClef, who's main feature is that it has a *lot* of storage space. The largest I have seen was 100GB. Disadvantage is that it is shaped like 1/2 of a brick.
http://xclef.com/pro03_e.htm This is the up to, apparently, 137GB model.
-Nick
Slashdot Declaration of Independence
(Quick summary: use http://www.digg.com/
When other tech companies severely take advantage of their customers, dismissing
any notion of customer service or satisfaction, they are no doubt subject to criticism by
the ever vigilant masses of Slashdot. Why should Slashdot itself be any different?
We must remember that slashdot makes money off subscriptions and ad revenues.
There is no altruistic motivation behind their actions, and as such, the Slashdot editors
are not so much editors as they are salesman.
In addition, we must remember that Slashdot is NOT a legitimate journalistic endeavor.
These so-called editors did not attend journalism school, nor is there a centralized forum
to air grievances done on the site. To the slashdot editors, their words are final, and cannot
be criticized.
We put forth three major grievances we have with Slashdot and its editors.
1. Complete lack of dupe checking and article checking:
Imagine a newspaper that routinely prints stories from months, weeks and even days
before. Image the same newspaper placing all import on the headline, rather than the
content. Surely this newspaper would not last long. If the readers would write in to the
editor to complain, surely they wouldn't have chastised by the editor.
Yet, as we are all aware of, this is the biggest problem facing slashdot. Although there
is no editorial section in which we may submit letters, we have the option to directly
emailing the editors. What happens when we do? We are scolded and our opinions
are labeled as hate mail.
http://www.anti-slash.org/injustices/CmdrTaco/taco _dupe_lash_out/
2. Increased commercialization behind articles:
Many recent articles seem to be advertisement for products, and not really newsworthy.
Other articles (including the recent "discovery" of month old google products) try to get
Slashdot in good graces with particular organizations.
Here are more examples of such "Slash-vertisement"
http://www.anti-slash.org/injustices/other/extreme tech_slashvertisement/
3. Blatant editor errors:
The role of an editor is to oversee the final content of text before it goes into publication. That, believe
it or not, includes checking minor errors in HTML and spelling, in addition to larger errors.
There are several instances of items just not being checked:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157102&c id=13170467
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157 209&cid=13177798
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157125 &cid=13172520
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156961&c id=13159282
Where as grievance one details the question of "newsworthiness" of an article, grievance three
points out instances where article and summary do not agree, in addition to the smaller problems
of spell checking etc.
Resolution:
We do not have to stand for this lack of respect toward the customer. There are alternatives to slashdot.
http://www.digg.com/ has had good reviews from the slashdot crowd.
If leaving slashdot all together seems too extremist you can start demanding better treatment from the
editors. Demand a public forum where we can discuss our issues with slashdot, and see that they
are resolved.