Hulu was created *by* the studios, so yeah, they got "their way" (whatever that means).
That said Hulu had, and still has, a lot going for it. In terms of TV Shows available Hulu Plus is fairly competitive with Netflix, plus they usually get new shows within a week of the original airing with many available the next day (there are a handful that are 30-days after original air, but these are few and far between). All you had to deal with was the occasional 1-2 commercials at the regular commercial intervals. Occasionally you had a video that gave you the option of one longer commercial at the beginning for no commercials later. This was a great trade-off for a free service. Hulu Plus gave you the ability to stream it to your TV easier, and enhanced their business model by keeping episodes available longer and in some cases offering past seasons for streaming.
You can also use Hulu Plus for many current shows at another $7.99/month, which would still leave you with 7 shows on top of that from Amazon to break even with spending on Cable.
Cell coverage in the Bay Area is crappy because it takes 3-years for any of the Cell companies to get approval to install a new tower. Everyone wants the coverage, but no-one wants the tower in their back yard. Urban and Rural areas are notoriously hard to cover, and the US has a LOT of both. In Urban areas you have a lot of tall buildings and underground breeze-ways and trains. In rural areas you might have 20 people in a coverage zone.
For instance the LA Basin Area (LA County, Orange County, Ventura County, Riverside County, etc..) has some really good cell-coverage (on average). It's mostly suburbs, so you can cover more area with fewer towers. It also takes less time and effort to get a new tower installed.
the US trails Japan, South Korea, and others in variety and performance of mobiles.
Compare the land-mass and population distribution of the US to these other countries that we "trail" in terms of "variety and performance".... Some of these countries have only one or two carriers, and are about the size of a single medium sized state in the US (both in terms of land-mass and population). Once you account for land-mass and population distribution the US actually has pretty good coverage given how big the cell network has to be to deliver half-way decent speed to ~250 Million potential users spread out over 1.9 billion acres of land (not including Alaska or Hawaii).
The AT&T/T-Mobile merger would hardly constitute a Monopoly. GSM is a technology that is on the way out, AT&T and Verizon have both selected LTE as their "4G" technology of choice (as has a good chunk of the rest of the world).
This summary is full of FUD. "Already, Verizon has dropped unlimited data plans" ? Really? That's your complaint? The average user doesn't go over 1GB in a month. They're all dropping Unlimited data plans so they can charge the 1% that does go over 2-4GB/month an extra $10-$20. When you go over your cap on AT&T they charge you $10 to up your cap by another 1GB for that month... which isn't an outrageous overage fee. Saying\Implying consumers would be better off if each state had it's own regulatory commissions like the SEC, FCC, and/or FTC is like saying consumers were better off when states printed their own currency (like before the Constitution when we had the Articles of Confederation)... It would make inter-state commerce next to impossible, and that is really BAD for consumers.
If this merger happens, the world will not end and life will go on..
The "M$-goggles" was meant as a friendly jab and nothing more. Your original post read like you had previously filtered out negative posts, summaries, etc regarding Microsoft, hence "M$-goggles". You could have argued for Skype deciding to do this on their own without bringing up Microsoft and/or any anti-Microsoft slant many of those on/. have. You didn't which opened you up to some moderate ridicule;)
You are correct. I personally do not have any evidence that Microsoft had any hand in this. If such proof actually existed then both Skype and Microsoft may find themselves in a legal quandary (maybe not entirely on the wrong side, but not entirely on the right side either). I was merely suggesting that it is a distinct possibility and something I would not put past either company.
This has to be some of the most apparent anti-Microsoft slant I've ever seen on Slashdot to date, and I've seen quite a bit of it. Please don't troll in the summary.
You must not come here very often or have some filter on (M$-goggles perhaps).
Microsoft not having direct control over Skype operations doesn't mean it can't indirectly influence operations. This is a fairly common practice that, while morally gray, can be legally acceptable (as long as all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed).
There's always one or two stories each day that troll in the summary, especially if the comment is somewhat snarky or amusing.
Mobile Qt (AKA: Qtopia\Qt-Extended) may be dead, but full-blown Qt is too widely used for it to just die. If nothing else the Community Edition will likely live on as an Open Source project.
You should also look into Location Services settings on an iPhone sometime... You can turn it off, and it *does* ask every time you launch a new app that want's access to it. These settings have always been there, in a recent update they just made them easier for people to find and change (4.2 or 4.3, can't remember which).
He's not trying to pull the focus away from Apple though. The bulk of TFA is talking about the flaws he's seen in that "tracking" on iPhone. He has a small update blurb that mentions that Android has a similar tracking file. That isn't pulling attention away, just pointing out that Apple is not the only company that is doing this "bad thing". Pulling attention away would be talking about the Apple "flaw" briefly and then spending the rest of TFA talking about how Android is doing something similar and/or "worse."
Most people on/. seem to want to vilify Apple and raise Android to god-hood. Neither one is "the one true Mobile OS." There is no "one true Mobile OS to rule them all" and there never will be; the whole concept is flawed (without competition "the one true Mobile OS" would stagnate with no incentive to innovate, other than innovation's sake... and our society hasn't evolved to a point where that would be probable).
Android, iOS, WP7, WebOS, MeeGo, Symbian, etc... Whichever of these you choose, at least acknowledge that you are choosing it because it provides the user experience *you* want. Just because you like it doesn't mean everyone else has to. Vilifying the competition does nobody any good and only polarizes the general Mobile OS community. I'm tired of "ZOMG!!! [Mobile OS A] has [Some Perceived Major Flaw]!! They must be [Doing Something Evil]!!! [Mobile OS B] would never do that! Everyone should be using [Mobile OS B] because that's what I use!!!"-type arguments on/. (yes, I am aware that this is/. and being tired of these types of arguments is like being tired of seeing trees in a forest)...
Full Disclosure: I own an iPhone, work with both iOS and Android devices. I see neither as inherently superior to the other (both have their pros and cons and come out about equal in an objective analysis). I chose an iPhone for my personal phone because I liked the UI feel, and using iTunes to manage the media on it is more convenient for me than manually copying files.
No, it's called "apple is innocent focus on android I'm an apple fanboy", to some degree (and not always). The "oh but android!" argument is seriously getting old.
As opposed to the "Apple is doing BAD BAD THINGS!!!! But lets ignore that Android is too because we're Android fanboys" argument?
Agreed that Java should not be taught in intro to CS classes... Software Engineering, however, is the *application* of Computer Science. Having a CS degree is essential to that, and no I'm not one of those crazy people who argues for the removal of Math from CS programs; even though I never use Calculus, it did teach me how to think about things in a more analytical light.
Maybe you should check out the website, and pay attention to the Commodore Vic-Slim model. That definitely solves your problem number 2. Given that it's a modern take on the original concept, it's housing isn't really all that nostalgic, so problem number 1 is pretty much eliminated.
Basically, it's exactly what you were asking for. "A cheap computer that will do what most people want it to do"
I wouldn't call "git" an alternative technology. It's gone pretty mainstream.
According to the git website major projects that use git include:
-- Linux Kernel (git was started by Linus specifically for the Linux Kernel source)
-- Perl
-- Eclipse
-- Gnome
-- KDE
-- Qt
-- Ruby on Rails
-- Android
-- PostgreSQL
-- Debian
-- X.org
I would call every single one of those projects "mainstream" more than "alternative" any day. They're all widely used.
CA is still far worse than Microsoft IMHO. They buy an existing company for the product, then sit on it for 20 years making few to no improvements or upgrades. Just look at AutoSys... *shudder* The "GUI" tools for it are practically useless (or at least the ones we had were); vi, awk, sed, grep, and make were far more effective (but to be fair these tools can still be more efficient than the most well thought out GUI's).
It's also worth pointing out that most of the people that cry foul when this correlation/causation is "proven" are people who play violent games themselves. Many of them are well balanced people presenting well thought out arguments. So, either there is an obscenely large size group of outliers (people who don't fit into the study's results) or the study is faulty in some way. You tell me which is more likely?
One "good" study (where solid methodology is used and most potential factors are taken into account) should be able to disprove many "faulty" studies (where questionable methodology is used or many potential external factors are completely ignored). If that's *not* possible, then what the hell is the point of science if someone could publish several faulty studies and claim everyone else is wrong because his/her faulty conclusion has been reached more than the less faulty one.
Many of the studies that show causation or a positive correlation also *don't* take into account factors other than violent video games and/or television. If you look at them closely, and don't just skim the headlines or results, there is no data for other important factors such as environment and good vs bad parenting. Having more studies with the same general result doesn't make the methods used in those studies any less suspect or wrong.
I'm a young (26) and successful engineer. I grew up playing games like Doom and Duke Nukem. I did not turn out to be a violent person, if anything the games gave me an outlet for an unstable temper. Before the games I was prone to occasionally going into almost violent outbursts over little things. After I started playing them, and as I got older, I was able to control it better. Other factors include my parents, teachers, relatives and neighbors (all important factors in raising a well-balanced person) being able to teach me the difference between a game and reality as well as right from wrong.
Give a bunch of kids in a violent neighborhood with largely absent parents a copy of GTA4 and yes, you will see a correlation between violent games and violent behavior.
Comparing violence in video games to the dangers of smoking Cigarettes is faulty and misleading. Those two "dangers" are not even close to the same thing. Many video games already come with labels explaining that it's rated "M for Mature due to violence". What we need are more vigilant parents that are willing to pay attention to what their kids are playing, watching, and doing.
In cases of ID Theft, that is a totally unfair misrepresentation of circumstances (possibly enough to sue for defamation of character). If he says it wasn't him and can explain why in a reasonable way, than he is entitled to some due process before losing his salary. The least they could do is put on on reduced salary (enough to pay bills and eat) while they work together to figure it out. Flat out firing someone or putting them on suspension without pay is a cowardly act by a company that is afraid they might be sued, so they make sure the employee can't afford a very good lawyer to defend himself.
Still suggest getting real legal counsel. There are even lawyers who specialize in IP registration law, so you may want to try getting your lawyer to consult with another in that specialty to find out how that all works.
Actually, there *is* an alternative repository that is 100% binary compatible with the enterprise editions of the distro you refer to. You may have heard of it... http://www.centos.org
The distro you refer to also has their own totally free Linux distro/repository, which you also may have heard of... http://fedoraproject.org/
The business model of your example is not simply repository access. What you're paying for with their "main distribution" is easier access to support and updates/patches.
Slashdot Mirror
Hulu was created *by* the studios, so yeah, they got "their way" (whatever that means).
That said Hulu had, and still has, a lot going for it. In terms of TV Shows available Hulu Plus is fairly competitive with Netflix, plus they usually get new shows within a week of the original airing with many available the next day (there are a handful that are 30-days after original air, but these are few and far between). All you had to deal with was the occasional 1-2 commercials at the regular commercial intervals. Occasionally you had a video that gave you the option of one longer commercial at the beginning for no commercials later. This was a great trade-off for a free service. Hulu Plus gave you the ability to stream it to your TV easier, and enhanced their business model by keeping episodes available longer and in some cases offering past seasons for streaming.
You can also use Hulu Plus for many current shows at another $7.99/month, which would still leave you with 7 shows on top of that from Amazon to break even with spending on Cable.
That's like saying Windows 7 was only a Service Pack for Vista..... and that "Service Pack" cost hundreds of dollars. For fewer updated components.
Cell coverage in the Bay Area is crappy because it takes 3-years for any of the Cell companies to get approval to install a new tower. Everyone wants the coverage, but no-one wants the tower in their back yard. Urban and Rural areas are notoriously hard to cover, and the US has a LOT of both. In Urban areas you have a lot of tall buildings and underground breeze-ways and trains. In rural areas you might have 20 people in a coverage zone. For instance the LA Basin Area (LA County, Orange County, Ventura County, Riverside County, etc..) has some really good cell-coverage (on average). It's mostly suburbs, so you can cover more area with fewer towers. It also takes less time and effort to get a new tower installed.
the US trails Japan, South Korea, and others in variety and performance of mobiles.
Compare the land-mass and population distribution of the US to these other countries that we "trail" in terms of "variety and performance".... Some of these countries have only one or two carriers, and are about the size of a single medium sized state in the US (both in terms of land-mass and population). Once you account for land-mass and population distribution the US actually has pretty good coverage given how big the cell network has to be to deliver half-way decent speed to ~250 Million potential users spread out over 1.9 billion acres of land (not including Alaska or Hawaii).
The AT&T/T-Mobile merger would hardly constitute a Monopoly. GSM is a technology that is on the way out, AT&T and Verizon have both selected LTE as their "4G" technology of choice (as has a good chunk of the rest of the world).
This summary is full of FUD. "Already, Verizon has dropped unlimited data plans" ? Really? That's your complaint? The average user doesn't go over 1GB in a month. They're all dropping Unlimited data plans so they can charge the 1% that does go over 2-4GB/month an extra $10-$20. When you go over your cap on AT&T they charge you $10 to up your cap by another 1GB for that month... which isn't an outrageous overage fee. Saying\Implying consumers would be better off if each state had it's own regulatory commissions like the SEC, FCC, and/or FTC is like saying consumers were better off when states printed their own currency (like before the Constitution when we had the Articles of Confederation)... It would make inter-state commerce next to impossible, and that is really BAD for consumers.
If this merger happens, the world will not end and life will go on..
The "M$-goggles" was meant as a friendly jab and nothing more. Your original post read like you had previously filtered out negative posts, summaries, etc regarding Microsoft, hence "M$-goggles". You could have argued for Skype deciding to do this on their own without bringing up Microsoft and/or any anti-Microsoft slant many of those on /. have. You didn't which opened you up to some moderate ridicule ;)
You are correct. I personally do not have any evidence that Microsoft had any hand in this. If such proof actually existed then both Skype and Microsoft may find themselves in a legal quandary (maybe not entirely on the wrong side, but not entirely on the right side either). I was merely suggesting that it is a distinct possibility and something I would not put past either company.
This has to be some of the most apparent anti-Microsoft slant I've ever seen on Slashdot to date, and I've seen quite a bit of it. Please don't troll in the summary.
You must not come here very often or have some filter on (M$-goggles perhaps).
Microsoft not having direct control over Skype operations doesn't mean it can't indirectly influence operations. This is a fairly common practice that, while morally gray, can be legally acceptable (as long as all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed).
There's always one or two stories each day that troll in the summary, especially if the comment is somewhat snarky or amusing.
CNN ran a version of this article a couple days ago, at least they pointed out that the study was "unscientific."
Therefore this study is nothing more than flame-bait.
I am a well-educated, young Engineer and I use a Mac. I'm also a Republican (not one of those crazy ones you see on TV, a real one).
Mobile Qt (AKA: Qtopia\Qt-Extended) may be dead, but full-blown Qt is too widely used for it to just die. If nothing else the Community Edition will likely live on as an Open Source project.
You should also look into Location Services settings on an iPhone sometime... You can turn it off, and it *does* ask every time you launch a new app that want's access to it. These settings have always been there, in a recent update they just made them easier for people to find and change (4.2 or 4.3, can't remember which).
He's not trying to pull the focus away from Apple though. The bulk of TFA is talking about the flaws he's seen in that "tracking" on iPhone. He has a small update blurb that mentions that Android has a similar tracking file. That isn't pulling attention away, just pointing out that Apple is not the only company that is doing this "bad thing". Pulling attention away would be talking about the Apple "flaw" briefly and then spending the rest of TFA talking about how Android is doing something similar and/or "worse."
/. seem to want to vilify Apple and raise Android to god-hood. Neither one is "the one true Mobile OS." There is no "one true Mobile OS to rule them all" and there never will be; the whole concept is flawed (without competition "the one true Mobile OS" would stagnate with no incentive to innovate, other than innovation's sake... and our society hasn't evolved to a point where that would be probable).
/. (yes, I am aware that this is /. and being tired of these types of arguments is like being tired of seeing trees in a forest)...
Most people on
Android, iOS, WP7, WebOS, MeeGo, Symbian, etc... Whichever of these you choose, at least acknowledge that you are choosing it because it provides the user experience *you* want. Just because you like it doesn't mean everyone else has to. Vilifying the competition does nobody any good and only polarizes the general Mobile OS community. I'm tired of "ZOMG!!! [Mobile OS A] has [Some Perceived Major Flaw]!! They must be [Doing Something Evil]!!! [Mobile OS B] would never do that! Everyone should be using [Mobile OS B] because that's what I use!!!"-type arguments on
Full Disclosure: I own an iPhone, work with both iOS and Android devices. I see neither as inherently superior to the other (both have their pros and cons and come out about equal in an objective analysis). I chose an iPhone for my personal phone because I liked the UI feel, and using iTunes to manage the media on it is more convenient for me than manually copying files.
No, it's called "apple is innocent focus on android I'm an apple fanboy", to some degree (and not always). The "oh but android!" argument is seriously getting old.
As opposed to the "Apple is doing BAD BAD THINGS!!!! But lets ignore that Android is too because we're Android fanboys" argument?
Did nobody ever wonder exactly how "Find my iPhone/iPad" worked?
Who said anything about wanting to be normal?
If you RTFA you'd see that he applies commonly known Monty Python skits to real world situations when working on a Software Project.
This has nothing to do with "geek cred" or anything like that. It's just another way of looking at something that's been around for a while.
Agreed that Java should not be taught in intro to CS classes... Software Engineering, however, is the *application* of Computer Science. Having a CS degree is essential to that, and no I'm not one of those crazy people who argues for the removal of Math from CS programs; even though I never use Calculus, it did teach me how to think about things in a more analytical light.
Maybe you should check out the website, and pay attention to the Commodore Vic-Slim model. That definitely solves your problem number 2. Given that it's a modern take on the original concept, it's housing isn't really all that nostalgic, so problem number 1 is pretty much eliminated.
Basically, it's exactly what you were asking for. "A cheap computer that will do what most people want it to do"
I wouldn't call "git" an alternative technology. It's gone pretty mainstream.
According to the git website major projects that use git include:
-- Linux Kernel (git was started by Linus specifically for the Linux Kernel source)
-- Perl
-- Eclipse
-- Gnome
-- KDE
-- Qt
-- Ruby on Rails
-- Android
-- PostgreSQL
-- Debian
-- X.org
I would call every single one of those projects "mainstream" more than "alternative" any day. They're all widely used.
Hackers was so bad it was entertaining. I like to think of it as the computer geek version of a SyFy Original Movie.
The "ZOMG That laptop roxxors" scene always cracks me up. It's like they read a Best Buy product card for script research >.
... think Computer Associates ....
CA is still far worse than Microsoft IMHO. They buy an existing company for the product, then sit on it for 20 years making few to no improvements or upgrades. Just look at AutoSys... *shudder* The "GUI" tools for it are practically useless (or at least the ones we had were); vi, awk, sed, grep, and make were far more effective (but to be fair these tools can still be more efficient than the most well thought out GUI's).
It's also worth pointing out that most of the people that cry foul when this correlation/causation is "proven" are people who play violent games themselves. Many of them are well balanced people presenting well thought out arguments. So, either there is an obscenely large size group of outliers (people who don't fit into the study's results) or the study is faulty in some way. You tell me which is more likely?
One "good" study (where solid methodology is used and most potential factors are taken into account) should be able to disprove many "faulty" studies (where questionable methodology is used or many potential external factors are completely ignored). If that's *not* possible, then what the hell is the point of science if someone could publish several faulty studies and claim everyone else is wrong because his/her faulty conclusion has been reached more than the less faulty one.
Many of the studies that show causation or a positive correlation also *don't* take into account factors other than violent video games and/or television. If you look at them closely, and don't just skim the headlines or results, there is no data for other important factors such as environment and good vs bad parenting. Having more studies with the same general result doesn't make the methods used in those studies any less suspect or wrong.
I'm a young (26) and successful engineer. I grew up playing games like Doom and Duke Nukem. I did not turn out to be a violent person, if anything the games gave me an outlet for an unstable temper. Before the games I was prone to occasionally going into almost violent outbursts over little things. After I started playing them, and as I got older, I was able to control it better. Other factors include my parents, teachers, relatives and neighbors (all important factors in raising a well-balanced person) being able to teach me the difference between a game and reality as well as right from wrong.
Give a bunch of kids in a violent neighborhood with largely absent parents a copy of GTA4 and yes, you will see a correlation between violent games and violent behavior.
Comparing violence in video games to the dangers of smoking Cigarettes is faulty and misleading. Those two "dangers" are not even close to the same thing. Many video games already come with labels explaining that it's rated "M for Mature due to violence". What we need are more vigilant parents that are willing to pay attention to what their kids are playing, watching, and doing.
In cases of ID Theft, that is a totally unfair misrepresentation of circumstances (possibly enough to sue for defamation of character). If he says it wasn't him and can explain why in a reasonable way, than he is entitled to some due process before losing his salary. The least they could do is put on on reduced salary (enough to pay bills and eat) while they work together to figure it out. Flat out firing someone or putting them on suspension without pay is a cowardly act by a company that is afraid they might be sued, so they make sure the employee can't afford a very good lawyer to defend himself.
Still suggest getting real legal counsel. There are even lawyers who specialize in IP registration law, so you may want to try getting your lawyer to consult with another in that specialty to find out how that all works.
Compared to which other country's system?
Last I check the US System works better than most.
Actually, there *is* an alternative repository that is 100% binary compatible with the enterprise editions of the distro you refer to. You may have heard of it...
http://www.centos.org
The distro you refer to also has their own totally free Linux distro/repository, which you also may have heard of...
http://fedoraproject.org/
The business model of your example is not simply repository access. What you're paying for with their "main distribution" is easier access to support and updates/patches.