How do you know? The upgrade might have had that effect but it might not have been deliberate, but simply the result of trying to apply an update to software that was in an unknown state because it have been modified by the user.
You're right, it's impossible to say whether the effect of phones being bricked was just a consequence of other changes, or a deliberate punishment for hackers (probably the former, I mean why would they bother with the latter, given all the bad press it was bound to generate).
What *was* deliberate was the encryption of the firmware to lock out third party apps/mods. That's a deliberate step to lock down the phone, as with the touch, not an unintended consequence.
Yes, funny that Spartans would ever be considered 'democratic' - if a state which enslaved an entire nation which lived next door, forced people to live communally in dorms and enlist in the army, and was ruled by KINGS can be considered democratic, I'd like to know what democracy means. The Spartans did win a crushing victory over Athens though (mainly due to Athenian incompetence and demagogues), they just lost the peace - a very interesting story.
Perhaps he learned his history from Hollywood films.
But seriously you might never even have thought that bears are evil had you not encountered that language (even if at 2nd hand). I think Wittgenstein said it best -
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Your thoughts are shaped remarkably by the language you express them in - if that language lacks certain idioms or grammatical forms, it will affect what thoughts you're likely to have. If you consider all the phrases that you use in everyday life, you'll likely find that most of them you have heard at least once before - none of them are unique, they're almost entirely learned combinations of words, none of your thoughts are unique (well, virtually none)! Thus losing unique languages, which contain unique concepts, without at least having a record of them is a serious business. Thankfully some people are attempting to preserve languages, like The Rosetta Project.
The link is to a cache of the official www.myanmar.gov.mm site, which is now down and replaced with another one, cleansed of all refs to Fortinet.
Next, Sales Director of Fortinet Co Mr Benjamin Teh explained the Fortinet Antivirus Firewall with audio visual aids. Next, Mr Benjamin Teh presented a certificate of sole official representative of Fortinet Co to Managing Director U Min Zeya Hlaing.
I wonder why they have an indirect sales model and don't restrict the actions of their licensees? Perhaps they just don't care who uses their software, and to what ends. If their sales director was there actively selling the software, it looks to me like they don't care.
Not sure how you missed it, but the iPhone has a lat of third party apps - it's just that the loading mechanism is not officially supported. Putting your hands over your eyes going LA LA LA THERE ARE NO APPZ however does nothing expect make you appear extremely ill-informed.
Yes, and Apple just killed them all - now no-one with the new update or any future ones has third party apps. You're the one who appears ill-informed rattling on about it having 3rd party apps when the vendor is actively hostile to the idea and has blocked them on all new phones.
I'm curious, do you feel that the possession of firearms by the citizens of the United States has in any way impeded the erosion of civil rights over the last few years?
Apple is not interested in blurring the line between handhelds and desktops. After all, look how well that's worked for Microsoft.
I couldn't disagree more - that's exactly what they're doing and will continue to do - they run almost the same software after all.
Oh, you're not worried about the Mac after all...This isn't a new thing, it's just business as usual.
I am worried about OS X, not desktop macs specifically - the iPhone and Apple TV are one possible future (seemingly Apple's preferred one) for Macs and Mac OS X - I don't want to see OS X run only on locked down appliances - do you? This is a new thing, it has not historically been the way they operate - Apple have always had a thriving third party developer market which they depend on. If that were to cease, a lot of people would find the platform a lot less interesting and it would become less a platform, and more of a set of tools for Apple to use to sell typewriters, phones and media centres.
I disagree when you say that this is just a new iPod - it's the new Mac, and will get the lion's share of attention (along with other mobile devices) from now on. That's why it's important. Apple are throwing away the one huge advantage they have here - a computing platform and interface far more advanced than any of the others currently on smartphones and a stable of great 3rd party developers who are familiar with it.
So this is not just whining about the new iPods (though the article was a little whiny for my tastes), it's legitimate concern about the future of all OS X based products. But we'll see what transpires over the next few years - perhaps they just haven't had time to work out an SDK, and one will come out in due course. Given Steve's comments so far though, and his bullshit excuses over 'bringing the west coast Cingular network down', I'm beginning to doubt it.
There's no "platform lock-in" to the iPhone. If there was an iPhone SDK, there would be, but as it is if you don't have an iPhone you can get another phone that can still use all the same third-party content you could if you had one, and if you do you aren't locked into it. This is a different kind of lockin-in, and it's got nothing to do with developers.
His complaint is that developers are locked out, and thus customers are locked in to whatever Apple deigns to produce. Perhaps that's not quite the same as lock-in to Windows, but it has the same effect - a slow erosion of rights until you realise you don't even own your device. The same can not be said for OS X on the desktop.
The real fear here (and this is voiced in the article), is that in 10 years, when the OS X platform is mostly about mobile devices, and there are 10 million iPhones to each 1 million macs (this day will come), only Apple will control everything about these phones, and all the 3rd party developers will have to find some other platform to use, and customers will have to take what they're given, or look elsewhere. That would be a real shame, and a disappointment for many mac users. People would desert the platform in droves. Apple has done a good job up to now of balancing their need for control with the needs of their customers, but the iPhone, with no promise of being open at all, isn't looking good.
Oh, I can only agree, but Steve isn't going to do that, so my recommendation is to stick to the Mac, ignore the 'appliance' products, and have an exit strategy so you can jump ship if Apple decides they're going to get serious about making the Mac an appliance again. That way we'll never have to put up with 1984 being just like 1984.
All it would take from Apple would be a simple statement that the SDK is coming next year, and people should be patient till then. That would calm a lot of nerves. As it is it's starting to look like hubris on the part of Apple, perhaps the thought that they can do it all themselves so much better (when they patently can't). The iPhone is the future of the mac, it *is* the future mac, and Shipley doesn't like what he sees, as far as software support goes. This is what Jobs said before he came back, I believe he meant it:
Steve Jobs (1996): The PC wars are over. Microsoft won a long time ago. If I were the head of Apple, I would milk the Mac for all it's worth and then move on the next big thing.
I think Shipley rightly feels if no-one speaks out, then Jobs will think it's fine to continue down this path - perhaps even try to switch the entire OS X platform to a closed one like the iPhone, and to hell with the developers (they've said that enough times : ). I disagree that Apple has necessarily made an irreversible decision on this, and feel with enough pressure they could be encouraged to change their mind. Pressure from people like Wil Shipley and potential customers.
The main problem is - there is no device like this out there, and no prospect of one in the near future, so we have nowhere to jump ship to if Apple gets worse.
OpenMoko looks nice, but is severely crippled and doesn't yet work well as a phone, let alone incorporate things like a finger operated touchscreen and wifi support.
Palm OS is a joke which is no longer funny
Windows Mobile Edition or whatever it's called now is also crap, *and* is made by Microsoft.
So for those who see this as a great device with huge potential, the attempt by Apple to lock this down so that they control it completely is foolish, disappointing, and short-sighted. Apple have not tried this on the desktop, so why do it on the phone? That's what he's asking. In short, this is a new departure for Apple (contrary to most of the comments on this thread), and as potential customers, we should speak up if we don't like what we see - it could be a defining moment for Apple.
Well, people already paid for the content through forced taxation. Why should they have to pay again or have the content that they paid for be locked up? Seriously, it is not like the BBC is a private company that is making content on their own dime. If that was the case, then people could complain but wouldn't have much of a case since they didn't pay for the content. As it is now, the BBC content is a public good, payed for by the public and should not have artificial restrictions placed on it.
They should sell the content worldwide - it would generate revenue and allow them to reduce the licence fee - there's certainly a demand (huge demand in the US it seems for some shows), and they already syndicate worldwide. Hell, they're one of the few media companies that could actually get away with selling a subscription to their news service round the world (world service is currently paid for by UK govt. grant, not the licence fee).
The shows are already all over Bit-torrent without DRM, so why not supply that market?
They could offer free downloads to people in the UK restricted via the TV licence number, though I'd be inclined if I was them to go for a reduction in the licence fee and just sell the content in the UK too, for 50p an episode or something (with reductions for a full series). It'd still be available free over the air, but you could could pay for the convenience of having what you want on your terms; just as people currently do in the UK with DVDs, which sell quite well, even at outrageous prices. I'd rather pay for completely open content than download some half-broken DRM player that times out after 30 days - I mean why bother with that, why not just watch TV with a DVR?
In many ways the BBC is hobbled by the licence fee - that's why the trust is constantly going on about them not encroaching on the territory of other commercial broadcasters. The trust should be disbanded - they've done nothing but restrict the BBC and constantly narrow their remit online, and by the time they wake up to the internet it'll be too late, and the BBC will be a ghost of its former self.
That's really simple, then... just don't use it. The BBC is not offering this to the World, just UK viewers;
I'm from the UK, and have paid good money for programming I can't watch. I don't want to see the BBC squander money on such a losing idea, and I'm horrified by their lack of commitment to a large part of their audience.
Why should they make their content available to you, anyway? What's in it for them? "If it's good, people might even pay for it" is fallacious reasoning: it is already bought and paid for by the TV License payers in the UK, and there is no reason they should suppliment your selfish viewing, on the offchance you might one day think something is worth paying for!
Leaving aside your erroneous assumption about where I live and gratuitous insults, I honestly think a better way of taxing UK viewers would be to ask them to pay a smaller licence fee (say half of the current amount), and then pay per episode for things which interest them. The rest of the world could also be offered episodes for sale (via various channels online), and the BBC would have more than enough money to prosper. They're hobbled by the trust. The programming is already paid for by UK viewers when they buy DVDs, why not online as well?
You ask what's in it for them :
Worldwide revenue that would dwarf their current licence fees. Downloadable content for all their paying customers in the UK. A head start on other media companies that haven't yet realised broadcasting is dead.
This current BBC attempt is a farce, because it will never work on many devices, is time-limited, and will inevitably be broken anyway. They're wasting tax-payers' money on it, which is why it concerns me - some of that money comes from my licence fee.
The problem is that Kontiki (the platform forced upon the BBC as the only off-the-shelf system available that handled all the drm and p2p side of things) only runs on Windows (and evidently the version the beeb uses only works on XP). The BBC are beholden to them wrt other platforms. I suspect some of the bright people at BBC research are working on their own system for the other platforms (maybe even to replace kontiki). It really wouldn't be an insurmountable problem (it's not as if Kontiki is Rocket Science - it's a p2p distribution platform that leverages Windows Media DRM), build in a bittorrent client, maybe license FairPlay for the Macs and look into developing some sort of close-source playback system for Linux and they're onto a winner. They could then sell it to the other media companies who want to offer a cross-platform content-delivery system.
As some other posters have pointed out, this entire debate is framed incorrectly - they're asking the wrong questions.
NEWSFLASH to the BBC from the world
We don't want to have to wonder which of our devices will play this content because the BBC deigns to produce a player.
We don't want the Internet to turn into the TV - time-limited, time-shifted, restricted content that is controlled by someone else.
We don't want files that expire, ever.
We don't want Kontiki, PlaysForSure, FairPlay etc.
We don't want yet another bittorrent client that chews up our bandwidth whenever it's open.
We don't want iPlayer; we want your content available on the internet, worldwide. If it's good, people might even pay for it.
The BBC shouldn't be trying to make the Internet into broadcast television, but turning from broadcast television and using the Internet to distribute, via the channels already available - (XBox, unbox, iTMS, YouTube etc). The future for the BBC is not in broadcasting, but in content production. Unfortunately the BBC Trust has no fucking idea about the internet, and the BBC is not enlightening them. Why not? The BBC doesn't even depend on advertising, this should be a perfect situation for them to lead the way. Instead they're leading everyone in precisely the wrong direction, egged on by the Trust.
People would gladly pay for these shows in the right format. If you don't have the licensing rights to sell online, get them; you seem to manage to for DVDs.
No mail, maps, etc? All that S/W already exists, Why wouldn't they include them? I was hoping for those plus iChat.
They kept all the PDA type stuff for the iPhone - I imagine they want to sell you up to that if you're interested in those apps. Don't worry though, someone will try copying over those apps and any frameworks they depend on (mail might need a private framework) from the iPod system image, and doubtless they'll work. They don't depend on having a cellular connection as network stuff is abstracted away for them, and it's the same OS X lite underneath. You can already get an ichat equivalent as a native iPhone app - should work on one of these.
I doubt Apple will ever sell those apps though (unless perhaps they port iWork in some form), so you'd have to hack it.
Here is a question for someone with access to both an iPhone and an iPod Touch - can you copy over the r notes app and get it to work? That one shouldn't really have dependencies. Also, perhaps people can try some of the available iPhone apps and jailbreak etc. - plenty of space for new apps on the launch screen : )
I do it all the time using TextEdit on OS X - it opens word files with simple formatting, which probably comprises 95% of all word documents and 100% of those I receive. If I ever had a problem opening files (never have), I'd email and ask for rtf or files without extra formatting. On Linux or Mac you can use open office, it works for almost all.doc files.
You run Windows.
Why? This isn't the 1990s.
Say whatever you like, but sometimes the Linux alternatives aren't enough
So no matter what people say or Linux becomes, you'll stick your fingers in your ears and say 'nah nah nah, I can't hear you'. I guess you're the perfect customer for MS - hope that works out for you.
PS, if you're using word for formatting you're using the wrong tool, get a proper page layout program. The information should be stored in a format that is easy to read (that means nothing like OOXML or binary.doc files) like XML, HTML or text, and then presented with whatever the layout program du jour is. If you want to save presentation info, save a PDF as well, you will thank yourself for it in 10 years.
So, all in all, you can (on average) afford way more stuff than we can. Yet you complain about the cost of things every bit as much as we do.
Well, perhaps. It's a complicated subject and no doubt difficult to compare statistics given the differences in data and methods, but the median household income before taxes appears to be :
for 2005/2006. It would be interesting to compare them after taxes, and of course there's all sorts of confounding factors like purchasing power, but the salaries do seem to be lower in the US than in the UK, which is compensated by slightly lower prices (though given prices are quoted before tax there and not in the UK, it's difficult to compare directly). Median income after tax looks surprisingly high in the UK in that graph (around $52,000), and in the US ($40,843), given how much everyone moans about taxes. Interestingly the figure after tax is much closer to median income (because of benefits on the low end and higher tax on the high end perhaps?) for the UK than for the US. This doesn't include the shared health care etc in the UK of course.
It would probably be very healthy for a lot of governments to be forced to publish their figures in comparative tables with other countries - I'm sure it would smash a few myths about who spends or taxes the most, but good comparative data is hard to find.
Unfortunately, this is English, and you should probably look up words in your second language before assuming that they work in it. As for polyvalent, most dictionaries I've seen do not list a general purpose meaning for it, meaning that its use in that manner borders on the esoteric.
Anyone who knows the chemical definition can quite easily guess at the meaning of its use in normal speech, which is really quite elegant. How do you think new words are coined anyway? They're often borrowed from other languages or domains.
Your ignorance is not a reason to belittle others.
Re:We already have this in the UK
on
Manhattan 1984
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The system works reasonably well, but it doesn't really stop people driving in the "congestion" zones
Traffic has been reduced by 26% at the last count, so it has in fact stopped some people driving in the congestion zones, as intended. 'Reductions in congestion inside the charging zone over the whole period since the introduction of the scheme now average 26 percent. ' - from the 2007 report of Tfl.
Now - the mayor is proposing to charge different rates based on what type of car you have - small effecient compacts would pay nothing or next to nothing, while massive SUVs or anything with a 3+ liter engine would pay upto £25 GBP per day ($50 USD). The most likely outcome of this? Poorer people will use public transport, while for the richer bigger fines will just affirm their social status, or make them consider getting smaller cars.
I believe this is the intended effect, I doubt very much people would use fines as status symbols (proof of this?), and if they do, their stupidity would fund further public transport. No one who is poor in London can afford a car anyway (if you can afford a car in London, you have to pay parking, road tax, and fuel, not to mention upkeep), so they'll be happier with improved public transport.
As for the surveillance aspect - I'd be more concerned about their efforts to extend the length of time the police can hold people without trial (currently being misused to hold protesters against airport expansion), and routine use of torture (though thank goodness its use in court has been banned, much to the UK government's chagrin). Potential tracking of road use is the least of our worries.
Science only exists because the militaries of the world exist to do violence against the savages who would destroy it.
The death of Archimedes, among many other scientists during warfare, gives the lie to your words:
Many brutalities were committed in hot blood and the greed of gain, and it is on record that Archimedes, while intent upon figures which he had traced in the dust, and regardless of the hideous uproar of an army let loose to ravage and despoil a captured city, was killed by a soldier who did not know who he was. - Livy
Military might does not exist to defend science or civilisation, or any of the other things which we like to tell ourselves; far from it. It is used most often (including in our time) to brutalise others into submission and fealty, often at the cost of all of these values we pretend to hold dear. It's entirely unconnected to the existence of science or civil society, which is dependent on a stable wealthy society, not a warlike one - note that a strong military is not necessarily linked to a peaceful society or good science. Further to that, the use of force (or the threat of it) within civil society is not necessarily related to the use of force between nations in wars, so your argument of removing all military and police is really tilting at windmills.
This meme of virtue and physical force nurturing a delicate civilisation has been with us since the Romans, and it was a lie then, as it is now.
It's sad that many of our best endeavours have been linked to war (Archimedes for example also designed anti-siege equipment), but it doesn't mean that war produces the best of our science, or is the best use of our time. e.g. things like the atom bomb and nuclear power are often used as an example of advances given by warfare, however the groundwork for that was laid long before the second world war broke out, in efforts unrelated to warfare, by people like Rutherford and Bohr. Radar was discovered in 1904, etc, etc. If we spent half the time and money (not all but half say) we do killing each other on perfecting science and technology like this for civilian use, we would be a lot further on. That's a choice the US is confronted with today, and I don't believe they've chosen the balance wisely.
How much do you think that they are paying for iPlayer?
Too much.
It doesn't serve their customers well - even those with Windows XP who can actually run the player will have this braindead limit of 7 days to watch something, because the Trust can't make up their mind about what the BBC is allowed to do (they're allowed to sell DVDs in all markets but not sell content online? !? !). They may as well can the program now, before it fails miserably; the alternatives are free, not time-limited (PVR, Democracy or Bit Torrent), and more and more widespread. Why would I want to download some cheesy player software from each TV company I want to watch content from? ? ? What is this, 1995?
DRM, Windows only, and the built-in restrictions have doomed this player to obscurity. I'm disgusted that they're spending license fee money on it (and they are).
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, it's impossible to say whether the effect of phones being bricked was just a consequence of other changes, or a deliberate punishment for hackers (probably the former, I mean why would they bother with the latter, given all the bad press it was bound to generate).
What *was* deliberate was the encryption of the firmware to lock out third party apps/mods. That's a deliberate step to lock down the phone, as with the touch, not an unintended consequence.
Apple has been using up a lot of karma lately.
Yes, funny that Spartans would ever be considered 'democratic' - if a state which enslaved an entire nation which lived next door, forced people to live communally in dorms and enlist in the army, and was ruled by KINGS can be considered democratic, I'd like to know what democracy means. The Spartans did win a crushing victory over Athens though (mainly due to Athenian incompetence and demagogues), they just lost the peace - a very interesting story.
Perhaps he learned his history from Hollywood films.
Please read this book for enlightenment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
But seriously you might never even have thought that bears are evil had you not encountered that language (even if at 2nd hand). I think Wittgenstein said it best -
Your thoughts are shaped remarkably by the language you express them in - if that language lacks certain idioms or grammatical forms, it will affect what thoughts you're likely to have. If you consider all the phrases that you use in everyday life, you'll likely find that most of them you have heard at least once before - none of them are unique, they're almost entirely learned combinations of words, none of your thoughts are unique (well, virtually none)! Thus losing unique languages, which contain unique concepts, without at least having a record of them is a serious business. Thankfully some people are attempting to preserve languages, like The Rosetta Project.
The link is to a cache of the official www.myanmar.gov.mm site, which is now down and replaced with another one, cleansed of all refs to Fortinet.
I wonder why they have an indirect sales model and don't restrict the actions of their licensees? Perhaps they just don't care who uses their software, and to what ends. If their sales director was there actively selling the software, it looks to me like they don't care.
Yes, and Apple just killed them all - now no-one with the new update or any future ones has third party apps. You're the one who appears ill-informed rattling on about it having 3rd party apps when the vendor is actively hostile to the idea and has blocked them on all new phones.
Stop defending the indefensible.
Now with extra lock-in.
No thanks, I'll pass.
I'm curious, do you feel that the possession of firearms by the citizens of the United States has in any way impeded the erosion of civil rights over the last few years?
And also www.magnatunes.com - they let you choose how much you pay, which is pretty cool.
I couldn't disagree more - that's exactly what they're doing and will continue to do - they run almost the same software after all.
I am worried about OS X, not desktop macs specifically - the iPhone and Apple TV are one possible future (seemingly Apple's preferred one) for Macs and Mac OS X - I don't want to see OS X run only on locked down appliances - do you? This is a new thing, it has not historically been the way they operate - Apple have always had a thriving third party developer market which they depend on. If that were to cease, a lot of people would find the platform a lot less interesting and it would become less a platform, and more of a set of tools for Apple to use to sell typewriters, phones and media centres.
I disagree when you say that this is just a new iPod - it's the new Mac, and will get the lion's share of attention (along with other mobile devices) from now on. That's why it's important. Apple are throwing away the one huge advantage they have here - a computing platform and interface far more advanced than any of the others currently on smartphones and a stable of great 3rd party developers who are familiar with it.
So this is not just whining about the new iPods (though the article was a little whiny for my tastes), it's legitimate concern about the future of all OS X based products. But we'll see what transpires over the next few years - perhaps they just haven't had time to work out an SDK, and one will come out in due course. Given Steve's comments so far though, and his bullshit excuses over 'bringing the west coast Cingular network down', I'm beginning to doubt it.
His complaint is that developers are locked out, and thus customers are locked in to whatever Apple deigns to produce. Perhaps that's not quite the same as lock-in to Windows, but it has the same effect - a slow erosion of rights until you realise you don't even own your device. The same can not be said for OS X on the desktop.
The real fear here (and this is voiced in the article), is that in 10 years, when the OS X platform is mostly about mobile devices, and there are 10 million iPhones to each 1 million macs (this day will come), only Apple will control everything about these phones, and all the 3rd party developers will have to find some other platform to use, and customers will have to take what they're given, or look elsewhere. That would be a real shame, and a disappointment for many mac users. People would desert the platform in droves. Apple has done a good job up to now of balancing their need for control with the needs of their customers, but the iPhone, with no promise of being open at all, isn't looking good.
All it would take from Apple would be a simple statement that the SDK is coming next year, and people should be patient till then. That would calm a lot of nerves. As it is it's starting to look like hubris on the part of Apple, perhaps the thought that they can do it all themselves so much better (when they patently can't). The iPhone is the future of the mac, it *is* the future mac, and Shipley doesn't like what he sees, as far as software support goes. This is what Jobs said before he came back, I believe he meant it
I think Shipley rightly feels if no-one speaks out, then Jobs will think it's fine to continue down this path - perhaps even try to switch the entire OS X platform to a closed one like the iPhone, and to hell with the developers (they've said that enough times : ). I disagree that Apple has necessarily made an irreversible decision on this, and feel with enough pressure they could be encouraged to change their mind. Pressure from people like Wil Shipley and potential customers.
The main problem is - there is no device like this out there, and no prospect of one in the near future, so we have nowhere to jump ship to if Apple gets worse.
So for those who see this as a great device with huge potential, the attempt by Apple to lock this down so that they control it completely is foolish, disappointing, and short-sighted. Apple have not tried this on the desktop, so why do it on the phone? That's what he's asking. In short, this is a new departure for Apple (contrary to most of the comments on this thread), and as potential customers, we should speak up if we don't like what we see - it could be a defining moment for Apple.
They should sell the content worldwide - it would generate revenue and allow them to reduce the licence fee - there's certainly a demand (huge demand in the US it seems for some shows), and they already syndicate worldwide. Hell, they're one of the few media companies that could actually get away with selling a subscription to their news service round the world (world service is currently paid for by UK govt. grant, not the licence fee).
The shows are already all over Bit-torrent without DRM, so why not supply that market?
They could offer free downloads to people in the UK restricted via the TV licence number, though I'd be inclined if I was them to go for a reduction in the licence fee and just sell the content in the UK too, for 50p an episode or something (with reductions for a full series). It'd still be available free over the air, but you could could pay for the convenience of having what you want on your terms; just as people currently do in the UK with DVDs, which sell quite well, even at outrageous prices. I'd rather pay for completely open content than download some half-broken DRM player that times out after 30 days - I mean why bother with that, why not just watch TV with a DVR?
In many ways the BBC is hobbled by the licence fee - that's why the trust is constantly going on about them not encroaching on the territory of other commercial broadcasters. The trust should be disbanded - they've done nothing but restrict the BBC and constantly narrow their remit online, and by the time they wake up to the internet it'll be too late, and the BBC will be a ghost of its former self.
I'm from the UK, and have paid good money for programming I can't watch. I don't want to see the BBC squander money on such a losing idea, and I'm horrified by their lack of commitment to a large part of their audience.
Leaving aside your erroneous assumption about where I live and gratuitous insults, I honestly think a better way of taxing UK viewers would be to ask them to pay a smaller licence fee (say half of the current amount), and then pay per episode for things which interest them. The rest of the world could also be offered episodes for sale (via various channels online), and the BBC would have more than enough money to prosper. They're hobbled by the trust. The programming is already paid for by UK viewers when they buy DVDs, why not online as well?
You ask what's in it for them :
Worldwide revenue that would dwarf their current licence fees.
Downloadable content for all their paying customers in the UK.
A head start on other media companies that haven't yet realised broadcasting is dead.
This current BBC attempt is a farce, because it will never work on many devices, is time-limited, and will inevitably be broken anyway. They're wasting tax-payers' money on it, which is why it concerns me - some of that money comes from my licence fee.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=Safari+Nightly
As some other posters have pointed out, this entire debate is framed incorrectly - they're asking the wrong questions.
NEWSFLASH to the BBC from the world
The BBC shouldn't be trying to make the Internet into broadcast television, but turning from broadcast television and using the Internet to distribute, via the channels already available - (XBox, unbox, iTMS, YouTube etc). The future for the BBC is not in broadcasting, but in content production. Unfortunately the BBC Trust has no fucking idea about the internet, and the BBC is not enlightening them. Why not? The BBC doesn't even depend on advertising, this should be a perfect situation for them to lead the way. Instead they're leading everyone in precisely the wrong direction, egged on by the Trust.
People would gladly pay for these shows in the right format. If you don't have the licensing rights to sell online, get them; you seem to manage to for DVDs.
They kept all the PDA type stuff for the iPhone - I imagine they want to sell you up to that if you're interested in those apps. Don't worry though, someone will try copying over those apps and any frameworks they depend on (mail might need a private framework) from the iPod system image, and doubtless they'll work. They don't depend on having a cellular connection as network stuff is abstracted away for them, and it's the same OS X lite underneath. You can already get an ichat equivalent as a native iPhone app - should work on one of these.
I doubt Apple will ever sell those apps though (unless perhaps they port iWork in some form), so you'd have to hack it.
Here is a question for someone with access to both an iPhone and an iPod Touch - can you copy over the r notes app and get it to work? That one shouldn't really have dependencies. Also, perhaps people can try some of the available iPhone apps and jailbreak etc. - plenty of space for new apps on the launch screen : )
I do it all the time using TextEdit on OS X - it opens word files with simple formatting, which probably comprises 95% of all word documents and 100% of those I receive. If I ever had a problem opening files (never have), I'd email and ask for rtf or files without extra formatting. On Linux or Mac you can use open office, it works for almost all
Why? This isn't the 1990s.
So no matter what people say or Linux becomes, you'll stick your fingers in your ears and say 'nah nah nah, I can't hear you'. I guess you're the perfect customer for MS - hope that works out for you.
PS, if you're using word for formatting you're using the wrong tool, get a proper page layout program. The information should be stored in a format that is easy to read (that means nothing like OOXML or binary
Not any more - http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/31itunes.
Well, perhaps. It's a complicated subject and no doubt difficult to compare statistics given the differences in data and methods, but the median household income before taxes appears to be :
US - $48,201
UK - $56,000 (£28,000)
for 2005/2006. It would be interesting to compare them after taxes, and of course there's all sorts of confounding factors like purchasing power, but the salaries do seem to be lower in the US than in the UK, which is compensated by slightly lower prices (though given prices are quoted before tax there and not in the UK, it's difficult to compare directly). Median income after tax looks surprisingly high in the UK in that graph (around $52,000), and in the US ($40,843), given how much everyone moans about taxes. Interestingly the figure after tax is much closer to median income (because of benefits on the low end and higher tax on the high end perhaps?) for the UK than for the US. This doesn't include the shared health care etc in the UK of course.
It would probably be very healthy for a lot of governments to be forced to publish their figures in comparative tables with other countries - I'm sure it would smash a few myths about who spends or taxes the most, but good comparative data is hard to find.
Anyone who knows the chemical definition can quite easily guess at the meaning of its use in normal speech, which is really quite elegant. How do you think new words are coined anyway? They're often borrowed from other languages or domains.
Your ignorance is not a reason to belittle others.
Traffic has been reduced by 26% at the last count, so it has in fact stopped some people driving in the congestion zones, as intended. 'Reductions in congestion inside the charging zone over the whole period since the introduction of the scheme now average 26 percent. ' - from the 2007 report of Tfl.
I believe this is the intended effect, I doubt very much people would use fines as status symbols (proof of this?), and if they do, their stupidity would fund further public transport. No one who is poor in London can afford a car anyway (if you can afford a car in London, you have to pay parking, road tax, and fuel, not to mention upkeep), so they'll be happier with improved public transport.
As for the surveillance aspect - I'd be more concerned about their efforts to extend the length of time the police can hold people without trial (currently being misused to hold protesters against airport expansion), and routine use of torture (though thank goodness its use in court has been banned, much to the UK government's chagrin). Potential tracking of road use is the least of our worries.
For certain values of 'benefit'.
The death of Archimedes, among many other scientists during warfare, gives the lie to your words
Military might does not exist to defend science or civilisation, or any of the other things which we like to tell ourselves; far from it. It is used most often (including in our time) to brutalise others into submission and fealty, often at the cost of all of these values we pretend to hold dear. It's entirely unconnected to the existence of science or civil society, which is dependent on a stable wealthy society, not a warlike one - note that a strong military is not necessarily linked to a peaceful society or good science. Further to that, the use of force (or the threat of it) within civil society is not necessarily related to the use of force between nations in wars, so your argument of removing all military and police is really tilting at windmills.
This meme of virtue and physical force nurturing a delicate civilisation has been with us since the Romans, and it was a lie then, as it is now.
It's sad that many of our best endeavours have been linked to war (Archimedes for example also designed anti-siege equipment), but it doesn't mean that war produces the best of our science, or is the best use of our time. e.g. things like the atom bomb and nuclear power are often used as an example of advances given by warfare, however the groundwork for that was laid long before the second world war broke out, in efforts unrelated to warfare, by people like Rutherford and Bohr. Radar was discovered in 1904, etc, etc. If we spent half the time and money (not all but half say) we do killing each other on perfecting science and technology like this for civilian use, we would be a lot further on. That's a choice the US is confronted with today, and I don't believe they've chosen the balance wisely.
If your skis were made of unsuitable materials, and poorly designed, your analogy might be more appropriate.
I think a lot of people consider using Windows to be much like using cardboard skis.
Too much.
It doesn't serve their customers well - even those with Windows XP who can actually run the player will have this braindead limit of 7 days to watch something, because the Trust can't make up their mind about what the BBC is allowed to do (they're allowed to sell DVDs in all markets but not sell content online? !? !). They may as well can the program now, before it fails miserably; the alternatives are free, not time-limited (PVR, Democracy or Bit Torrent), and more and more widespread. Why would I want to download some cheesy player software from each TV company I want to watch content from? ? ? What is this, 1995?
DRM, Windows only, and the built-in restrictions have doomed this player to obscurity. I'm disgusted that they're spending license fee money on it (and they are).