They've done eye-tracking studies that show that people literally do not even look at banner ads when browsing a Webpage. Even if they're not being blocked, they aren't being looked at. There might be some value to subconsciously reinforcing the existence of your product, but few banner ads even do that as you have no idea what they're for unless you actually click on them.
It just seems like there are proven better ways out there, but whenever the dinosaurs responsible for these types of ads find out "Nobody is looking at your ads", their response is "Ok, well lets make it talk" and that's when people start forum threads about ad-blocking software.
Not too long ago, around a year ago, Blizzard added banner ads to the official World of Warcarft game forums.
People strongly objected on the basis that nobody can post to those forums unless they already pay Blizzard money for an account, so why should paying customers be subjected to the advertisements? They clearly didn't need advertising revenue to pay the bills, it was just a crass money-grab. This spawned many posts on how to block the ads. The result? All of the ad-blocking discussion threads deleted, and all of their creators banned from the forums. Some people complained, but they soon found out that talking about deleted threads is also grounds for a ban.
It sucks, but what can you do? The only way they would have any incentive to change is if people actually quit the game in protest over the decision, which isn't particularly likely. They perhaps spent some of their good will by way of their actions, but there's no real immediate or obvious negative repercussions.
I am torn as well. I understand the need for advertisements to subsidize content on the web, but I also see it as an issue when a company abuses the ubiquity of ads to slip them in as a money-grab when they clearly aren't dependent on advertising for their revenue. Moreover, I really feel like it should be obvious at this point that banner ads are stupid. They fact that people go to such lengths to remove them should indicate how people feel about them. They're really no different then spam; except spam is free, so it can be profitable with abysmal response rates. Does anyone actually buy anything as result of banner ads? Sure people click them all the time, but how often is it done on purpose? The damn things are just in the way. I'm constantly accidentally tapping on ads on my iPhone, but I sure as hell have never bought anything as a result.
Annoying flash ads, banner ads, and javascript-fueled nightmare ads are not selling anything. Anyone notice those are all things Google does not use? I think they know a thing or two about the business of internet ads. They've got 25 billion dollars in the bank that says internet advertising works better when its not obtrusive and obnoxious.
People talking about things typically has more to do with marketing than the products merits. I hear people at work who couldn't tell the difference between a Toaster Oven and an iMac talking about the Droid. None of them own one, they've just been blitzed by commercials.
With the ipad, its hard to miss it. Not just commercials, but it's showed up on the Emmys, multiple television shows, every nightly newscast under the sun and most of the late night talk shows. Did you see that Betty White skit with the iPad? It's being absolutely pounded into people's consciousness. Of course people are going to talk about it. They're going to be curious about it. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll choose to buy one once they know more about it, though no doubt some will. Advertising works. There's a reason why the Droid has massively outsold the Nexus One, and it's not necessarily that one is superior to the other. It's largely just a function of advertising.
At any rate, that doesn't mean a revolution is coming.
Apple announced that the iPad would begin worldwide availability late April.
Not to play semantics, but "late April" is not a "date". It's a time-frame, and if you'll recall Apple missed their "time frame" for the domestic launch too (originally was 60 days, ended up being like 65-70).
There's also the little matter of Apple not being able to keep the iPad fully stocked, which places an upper limit on sales numbers.
Stock has not been a major issue. Some stores have run out, but then gotten more a day or two later. In most areas of the country, if you want an iPad, you can go out and buy one with no problems. Best Buy hasn't gotten nearly as much stock as the Apple stores, however, so if you live in an area with no Apple store you might have to call around.
Since Apple has had no major problems keeping it in stock domestically, one would have to wonder if demand has truly exceeded their expectations. Perhaps they only expected to sell exactly as many as they had pre-ordered? If there are problems with supply, its probably not a function of under-estimated demand, but with production issues (Keep in mind the US launch was later than they initially stated and there were plenty of rumors about manufacturing issues).
At any rate I don't know if Apple has any supply issues or if this is just marketing, and neither do you -- but If I had to guess, I'd guess its probably just marketing. Although, it could just as easily be both: they could have a real reason for the delay, but give a different one that helps create demand. I have no idea.
Instead of trying to spin reality completely backwards, why not admit that the iPad isn't the dud you and those who mod you up thought it would be? What's wrong with admitting the truth? Is your technological self-esteem so insecure that it must be propped up by hiding reality lest... Lest what? Will your Windows PC or Ubuntu netbook or Android tablet serve you any less well if you admit that there are many other people out there that prefer the iPad to *your* device of choice?
A big part of whether the iPad is a success or not will be measured in its ability to live up to its own hype, and not so much its ability to turn a profit. It's way too soon to say if the iPad is a success. Knowing that it's an Apple product, and Apple has a large following, it would be inconceivable that it would be an outright failure. Apple TV sold over 6 million units to date and nobody really considers it a success . ..
And profitability and shipping millions of products per year. Apple is the fifth largest PC maker in the US, and that includes businesses which skew much more heavily towards Windows PCs. Even then, Apple sells 8% of all computers in America.
That does not support your "PR and Advertising" smoke and mirrors claim. There's substance to back up their flair. Unlike your incessant posting of ignorance on all things Apple.
There's two possibilities: It's marketing or apple *failed* to gauge the market and organize their production chain effectively. They've had other product launches exceeding a million units sold in the first week, so this quantity of iPad's is easily something they could handle. Given everything you just said about Apple, which do you think is more likely: They dropped the ball and didn't handle the launch intelligently, or they're doing the smart thing now and trying to increase demand? Smart or stupid, your call. Personally, I think Apple is *smart*. I don't necessarily like every product Apple makes, but I do believe they know what the hell they're doing when it comes to marketing and supply chain. With that in mind, I can't imagine that this is anything other than marketing.
Not all of Europe, actually, just all of northern Europe and also East Africa and places were the populations are descended primarily of those stocks. Wikipedia has a map!
I'm not questioning his business acumen, it just seems like he's not been able to keep up with the technology, and technology and media these days are simply inextricably linked. Everything out of his mouth seems to scream total ignorance, but perhaps he's simply hoping that if he shouts angrily at Google long enough, they'll give him some money. The fact that they haven't delisted themselves in the year or so since Rupert started this campaign of crying shows that at least somebody at Newscorp understands that they need Google and not the other way around.
He's like the elderly relative at Thanksgiving who keeps saying racist things that would make everyone uncomfortable but they're so used to it they just roll their eyes and say "Oh Grandpa!" Is there any way this guy could not get it less? He understood how to be a Newspaper tycoon, but these days that skillset makes him roughly as useful as a candlestick maker or a wheelwright.
He keeps saying all this crazy stuff, but the guys who actually run Newscorp keep doing the opposite, lucky for them. They could easily edit their robots.txt and keep Google out, but they're smart enough to not only let Google in, but to let users coming in from Google slip past the pay wall . . .
No, I wouldn't. If everyone else has them, I want at least 120x optical zoom, ad-block on the HUD, and an automatic targeting program for the laser cannons.
Oh, you kids and your laser canons. You know, in my day, we only had plasma canons -- and we got on just fine.
This is actually just a watered down version of a very, very old trick wherein you'd take a URL like http://3273372964/en/weblog?weblogid=208188044 and insert www.cnn.com@ before the ip address in long form. This of course meant the browser would try to login to the "real" website with the login "www.cnn.com". So you'd end up with a url that looked very much like it was part of CNN's website but was in fact something else entirely. I'd show you a demonstration URL, but Slashdot filters out the obfuscating part of urls formatted in that way so it would look identical.
At any rate, these days, not only do forums like Slashdot actively weed out those sorts of URLs as obvious attempts at obfuscation, but browsers pretty much universally will throw up a warning before you taking you to a website obfuscated in that manner. And as a result, that trick long ago fell out of fashion.
But it seems everything old is new again, if you wait long enough.
The DMCA provides a Safe harbor if they take stuff down any time the *rights holder* submits a takedown notice. So yes, they knew there was copyrighted stuff and this is effectively what all those quotes amount to:
"Why do we have users submitting reports on copyrighted materials when the law doesn't require such a step? It's the rights holder's job to complain, not the users -- and for all we know the users may be complaining about stuff the real rights holder wants to stay up there for promotional reasons.
We're doing all this extra enforcement on material people want to see that the law does not require, and it's not very smart of us. Let's just scale back and only remove stuff if the right's holders complain. "
It turns out that this is a very reasonable philosophy for two reasons:
1) Most rights holders don't care. Pretty much every major media company but Viacom has recognized the value of having content on Youtube, as long as it's only partial clips of a show or a low-quality music video. It's a very effective and cheap form of promotion. They could object, but they choose not to. Thus making Youtubes decision to stop *pre-emptively* removing it based on user reports the correct one for those companies.
2) Many of those clips may in fact have been uploaded by the rights holders themselves. In another recent batch of documents from this lawsuit we saw that Viacom was hiring companies to promote their shows and one of their tactics was to upoad clips to Youtube. In other words, *much* of the "infringing" content on Youtube was put there on behalf of Viacom. Does it make sense to have users reporting these clips to be removed when they might be there *officially*?
I agree. IANAL, but the so called damning evidence against them were things like "Let's not have a button for users to report copyrighted video. It's the copyright holder's job to complain, not the users".
That sort of thing. But if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. How is google to know whether Viacom approved the upload of a 2 minute Daily Show clip or not? Should Youtube really be removing stuff like that unless the Right's holder complains? Maybe the rights holder uploaded it himself or doesn't care. It was perfectly reasonable for them to scale back on unnecessary enforcement of things like news clips that may or may not have been ok to upload.
Nothing in any of those quotes suggests that Youtube was doing anything other than scaling back *unnecessary* enforcement in favor of what the DMCA actually requires (which is a takedown notice). Yes, there was one message that says something along the lines of "Stop uploading stolen videos, it could make us look bad, blah blah blah" but from the context I took that to mean a Youtube employee had been taking user generated content from one video site and uploading it to theirs -- shady and possibly illegal, but they were being told to *stop* and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Viacom.
It all seems perfectly reasonable to me. I'm not trying to address legality, that's what the courts are there for -- but it's definitely not *evil*, even if you are a strong believer in copyright.
And what, Dear Genius, would you have us switch to?
OS X? It's *less* secure by most estimations -- it derives security primarily through obscurity. We all switch to Macs and rest assured, the problem follows.
There certainly is more innovation in the concept than in the iPad -- by a fairly large margin. That doesn't necessarily mean it would be more useful or useable -- but it's enough that iIm very interested to hear more about it. The leaked video from a few months ago was really quite interesting, the only thing we need now is actual details on the operating system, spec, etc. As a concept it's great, but as a reality it might fall short.
It's funny, I never thought I'd live to see the day when Microsoft became the plucky underdog and Apple became the evil empire but that seems to be exactly what's taken place . . . Sure, it's not true of the Desktop OS market, but by pretty much any other metric . . .
Other articles have covered him as a nutjob who claims to have invented things which he had no hand in. He's definately a controversial figure with some controversial claims. This story sorta just took him at his word . . .
Oh for god sake. How is this hard for you? I'm fully aware of all the crap you keep bringing up. I was smart enough to realize, after your first post, that you knew what you were talking about and must know the same stuff I did. Since you knew that stuff, and came to a different conclusion, I realized this argument could never be productive. Why are you slow on this realization? You don't strike me as stupid. A bit of a zealot? Perhaps, but probably not stupid.
Listen. You try to bait me into "proving" that Moses could not have written Genesis. I could give you the 10 standard points on that from the Age of Reason (there's like half a chapter on it), but I suspect you're familiar enough with Paine to come right back with the standard rebuttals to those points to which I'd come back with the rebuttals to those rebuttals.
You would say that it was initially written by him, but transcribers after his death changed the place names to their modern equivalents to keep it modern. And I would point out if transcribers can change things on whim like that, then how can you claim the book is 99% pure. We'd probably end arguing about the epic of Gilgamesh at some point.
Here's the thing there, it won't get us anywhere. I'm guessing the reason you have figured this out yet is because you're simply too arrogant to realize that I might already know all the crap you keep throwing at me.
Yes, I'm familiar with Frederic Kenyon, C.S. Lewis, Immanuel Kant, Newton or whatever other Biblical Scholar you want to bring into the discussion. The thing is this: They were all BIBLICAL SCHOLARS. That means they started with the conclusion, that the bible is fact, and worked backwards to find facts to support their conclusion.
I realize the Bible is not science, but surely you can understand how flawed this approach is and recognize that anytime you start with the conclusion and work backwards, no mater how silly your conclusion is, you will ALWAYS find "facts" to support your conclusion.
And Yes, I'm also familiar with a the handful of Christ references you dug up, well like 3 of them anyways, and all of them are of disputed Authenticity particularly the one from Jospehus Flavius -- which is, to my way of thinking, very obviously a total forgery (in as much as it sticks out like a sore thumb and makes no sense) whereas the others are much harder to say.
Do you really want to have a lengthy discussion on each one of these and possible reasons as to why Tacticus might have given Pontius Pilate the wrong title?
Well here's the thing, I don't. It's obvious to me where this is going (nowhere, fast) and it would be obvious to you too if you weren't so arrogant as to assume you had knowledge on the subject that I didn't already have. The but fact is, we both have the facts and both drew very different conclusions and there's not going to be any chance of some shocking new revelation that's going to change my mind or yours. So let's cut our losses.
You're right, I'm running away from this argument. Not because I'm going to lose, but because everybody is going to lose.
Yeah, see, your problem is that *I* am the one citing facts and using actual arguments. *You* are the one who is ignoring arguments backed by evidence, backpedalling away from them with the transparent "well you wouldn't accept a good argument anyway."
The first 2 posts I gave you plenty of good facts and actual arguments and your response was simply "false". You have a clear blindspot, and I simply realized it wasn't productive to argue with someone who was not going to be persuaded by anything short of divine intervention.
In your head, you're using facts and I'm not. What the heck? You continually take my facts, and respond with "false" or simply ignore them entirely. Meanwhile, your facts consist of vague declarations about "scholars". In only ONE instance have you actually cited a single name -- and that was after I realized that this clearly wasn't going down a productive avenue.
The third, valid response to your argument's is simply to point out that they are entirely tangential to anything of substance. This discussion was never, or was never meant to be, an argument over religion. You continue to try to draw it in that direction -- and I simply am not interested.
From every point of view of which I can conceive, offering to trade porn for bibles, does not count as "belittling people". They simply are trying to draw attention to the fact that people who subscribe to biblical beliefs often share puritanical values which, if strictly enforced, would have them ban the bible itself for some of its content.
To me, no reasonable person construes this as "belittling others". Obnoxious? Well I obviously don't think it is, but that's somewhat within the eye of the beholder. But when I point out that they are belittling no one, you say "false".
Whatever. We don't share a common reality, so we can't have this discussion. It's that simple.
I could go point by point in my response, but I've been down that road before. There's no benefit to it. You clearly have your own beliefs and they are clearly not what I would consider to be based on solid intellectual footing.
You clearly have confused, quite intentionally because it suits you, "biblical scholars" with "historians". Biblical Scholars are the least credible people when it comes to the authenticity and historical accuracy of the Bible. They are, quite simply, biased. They have created bodies of work which you have decided are credible despite very thin actual evidence supporting them.
And I believe it is you who does not know what the word apocryphal means. For starters, I don't know where you got the "99% pure" idea from. But even if that were the case, apocryphal merely means we don't know who *actually* wrote it. Authorship on most books of the Bible has been traditionally ascribed to specific individuals who in many cases we know for a fact did NOT write those books. For instance, Moses did not write Genesis -- that can be proven. Even most of the gospels were likely written after the deaths of their namesakes.
At any rate, the atheists in this story are not being particularly obnoxious, in the grand scheme of things. They are not knocking on doors or belittling others. They are merely a reaction to the general oppression they feel in society. For you to judge them harshly is, frankly, unfair.
Of all the arguing we've done here, I've really only cared to persuade you on that one particular issue -- but I imagine your disposition is such that I couldn't persuade you that the sky was blue. With that in mind, I'll let the matter rest here.
I mentioned several in the other comments in this thread. One example: Jesus was witnessed by 500 people post-resurrection, and many of those people were alive when the gospels were written, and could have -- but didn't apparently, as there's no record of it -- denied that the gospels were accurate reflections of what they saw.
Is this proof? Nope. Evidence? Of course.
For this to be evidence you have to *assume* that Jesus Christ is a real historical figure and that the events surrounding his life as depicted in the Bible were true. These 2 things alone are huge leaps of faith. How do you know there were 500 people present at the time of his resurrection? Because the bible tells you so? The Romans kept great records, and we don't have any roman records of Jesus -- his execution or otherwise.
The only record of this story at all is the gospels themselves. If it is a fictional story, then how can fictional characters write records objecting to the authenticity of their own story? This makes no sense as evidence of anything.
There is, in fact, almost no historical writings from the first century AD that confirm the existence of Jesus in *any* form -- god or otherwise. There are two popular ones, but one is strongly suspect to be a forgery added by a monk transcribing the original several centuries after the author's death.
Now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I am not suggesting Jesus did not exist (nor I am acknowledging that he did). The lack of records is hardly enough to suggest that he did not exist. But that being said, you can't really use the same lack of records as evidence that he did.
[quote]Absolutely not. It's a very common misconception (mostly among people who don't have faith), but it is completely wrong. Faith is related to lack of PROOF, not lack of EVIDENCE. Indeed, the New Testament is filled with examples of people believing, and having faith, as the result of evidence. Paul talked often about proving himself to the churches he wrote letters to, and about the churches testing him and others based on the evidence before them.[/quote]
I would disagree. There's proof of very few things in life. I don't think you can say that you have to take *everything* for which there is not absolute proof on faith. There's no proof of gravity, for instance. That doesn't mean I take gravity's existence on *faith*. I require significant evidence. Perhaps you mean to say that Faith is the lack of "overwhelming" evidence . ..
[quote]Also false. That's like saying that I can't argue my own case before a court of law. Granted, external evidence is helpful, but I can make arguments in my favor apart from external evidence, and those arguments are, themselves, evidence.[/quote]
If this were a court of law, the Bible would be hearsay and inadmissible as evidence -- with good reason. You may choose to adhere to a lesser standard of what qualifies as evidence, if you wish -- but please do so with the knowledge that anecdotes of apocryphal origin are simply not *compelling* as evidence in a rational setting.
Here's my bottom line:
Believe whatever you want -- that's my motto. I'm not posting here to try to dissuade you from your own beliefs. I'm perfectly happy for you to go on believing whatever makes you happy on the basis of any evidence you find compelling -- even if I find your evidence to be so weak as to be non-existent.
However, you have to understand that there are quite a few people in the world who are *not* happy to allow people to believe as they see fit and make it their mission to harass, belittle, and persecute those who do not share their beliefs. In this country, Christians are sadly very often guilty of that. It's not surprising, therefore, that *some* atheists would react harshly to that and become unnecessarily vocal about their beliefs.
There are people all over the country who would not hesitate to admit to being gay -- but wouldn't dream of telling friends or fami
All definitions I've ever seen of dogma imply that the belief is not subject to examination, or isn't backed up by any evidence. I defy you to give a single example of Christine doctrine -- such doctrine as is held by all, or almost all, Christian sects -- that is not subject to examination or isn't backed up by any evidence.
Could you name one that is? Forget the "subject to examination", for now. Name one Christian doctrine that is "backed up by evidence." Isn't the idea of "evidence" sort of anathema to the very idea of "faith"? If you have evidence, then there's no need for faith. Please keep in mind that the Bible is evidence of anything by itself . . .
The people lining up to buy this device in its first gen, 1.0 Firmware form will be hardcore Apple fanboys. And after they've all bought one, the general interest will wane. There will be a quick price drop, followed by newer firmware with missing features added.
By the time the 2nd gen device rolls around, it'll do most of the things it's currently being criticized for not doing and it may well indeed take off and be a success.
Frankly, however, my grandmother won't buy an iPad. Not ever. First of all, the "i" scares her,; "i" says to her, "you will not understand what this product does, not ever, don't even try". Secondly, the "pad" offends her. Ultimately, Macs are, in general, computers for your grandmother -- but how many grandmothers actually have one? In my experience, Gradmothers tend to prefer "cheap" to "polished UI". It's hard to sell "polished UI".
Slashdot Mirror
They've done eye-tracking studies that show that people literally do not even look at banner ads when browsing a Webpage. Even if they're not being blocked, they aren't being looked at. There might be some value to subconsciously reinforcing the existence of your product, but few banner ads even do that as you have no idea what they're for unless you actually click on them.
It just seems like there are proven better ways out there, but whenever the dinosaurs responsible for these types of ads find out "Nobody is looking at your ads", their response is "Ok, well lets make it talk" and that's when people start forum threads about ad-blocking software.
Not too long ago, around a year ago, Blizzard added banner ads to the official World of Warcarft game forums.
People strongly objected on the basis that nobody can post to those forums unless they already pay Blizzard money for an account, so why should paying customers be subjected to the advertisements? They clearly didn't need advertising revenue to pay the bills, it was just a crass money-grab. This spawned many posts on how to block the ads. The result? All of the ad-blocking discussion threads deleted, and all of their creators banned from the forums. Some people complained, but they soon found out that talking about deleted threads is also grounds for a ban.
It sucks, but what can you do? The only way they would have any incentive to change is if people actually quit the game in protest over the decision, which isn't particularly likely. They perhaps spent some of their good will by way of their actions, but there's no real immediate or obvious negative repercussions.
I am torn as well. I understand the need for advertisements to subsidize content on the web, but I also see it as an issue when a company abuses the ubiquity of ads to slip them in as a money-grab when they clearly aren't dependent on advertising for their revenue. Moreover, I really feel like it should be obvious at this point that banner ads are stupid. They fact that people go to such lengths to remove them should indicate how people feel about them. They're really no different then spam; except spam is free, so it can be profitable with abysmal response rates. Does anyone actually buy anything as result of banner ads? Sure people click them all the time, but how often is it done on purpose? The damn things are just in the way. I'm constantly accidentally tapping on ads on my iPhone, but I sure as hell have never bought anything as a result.
Annoying flash ads, banner ads, and javascript-fueled nightmare ads are not selling anything. Anyone notice those are all things Google does not use? I think they know a thing or two about the business of internet ads. They've got 25 billion dollars in the bank that says internet advertising works better when its not obtrusive and obnoxious.
People talking about things typically has more to do with marketing than the products merits. I hear people at work who couldn't tell the difference between a Toaster Oven and an iMac talking about the Droid. None of them own one, they've just been blitzed by commercials.
With the ipad, its hard to miss it. Not just commercials, but it's showed up on the Emmys, multiple television shows, every nightly newscast under the sun and most of the late night talk shows. Did you see that Betty White skit with the iPad? It's being absolutely pounded into people's consciousness. Of course people are going to talk about it. They're going to be curious about it. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll choose to buy one once they know more about it, though no doubt some will. Advertising works. There's a reason why the Droid has massively outsold the Nexus One, and it's not necessarily that one is superior to the other. It's largely just a function of advertising.
At any rate, that doesn't mean a revolution is coming.
Apple announced that the iPad would begin worldwide availability late April.
Not to play semantics, but "late April" is not a "date". It's a time-frame, and if you'll recall Apple missed their "time frame" for the domestic launch too (originally was 60 days, ended up being like 65-70).
There's also the little matter of Apple not being able to keep the iPad fully stocked, which places an upper limit on sales numbers.
Stock has not been a major issue. Some stores have run out, but then gotten more a day or two later. In most areas of the country, if you want an iPad, you can go out and buy one with no problems. Best Buy hasn't gotten nearly as much stock as the Apple stores, however, so if you live in an area with no Apple store you might have to call around.
Since Apple has had no major problems keeping it in stock domestically, one would have to wonder if demand has truly exceeded their expectations. Perhaps they only expected to sell exactly as many as they had pre-ordered? If there are problems with supply, its probably not a function of under-estimated demand, but with production issues (Keep in mind the US launch was later than they initially stated and there were plenty of rumors about manufacturing issues).
At any rate I don't know if Apple has any supply issues or if this is just marketing, and neither do you -- but If I had to guess, I'd guess its probably just marketing. Although, it could just as easily be both: they could have a real reason for the delay, but give a different one that helps create demand. I have no idea.
Instead of trying to spin reality completely backwards, why not admit that the iPad isn't the dud you and those who mod you up thought it would be? What's wrong with admitting the truth? Is your technological self-esteem so insecure that it must be propped up by hiding reality lest... Lest what? Will your Windows PC or Ubuntu netbook or Android tablet serve you any less well if you admit that there are many other people out there that prefer the iPad to *your* device of choice?
A big part of whether the iPad is a success or not will be measured in its ability to live up to its own hype, and not so much its ability to turn a profit. It's way too soon to say if the iPad is a success. Knowing that it's an Apple product, and Apple has a large following, it would be inconceivable that it would be an outright failure. Apple TV sold over 6 million units to date and nobody really considers it a success . . .
And profitability and shipping millions of products per year. Apple is the fifth largest PC maker in the US, and that includes businesses which skew much more heavily towards Windows PCs. Even then, Apple sells 8% of all computers in America.
That does not support your "PR and Advertising" smoke and mirrors claim. There's substance to back up their flair. Unlike your incessant posting of ignorance on all things Apple.
There's two possibilities: It's marketing or apple *failed* to gauge the market and organize their production chain effectively. They've had other product launches exceeding a million units sold in the first week, so this quantity of iPad's is easily something they could handle. Given everything you just said about Apple, which do you think is more likely: They dropped the ball and didn't handle the launch intelligently, or they're doing the smart thing now and trying to increase demand? Smart or stupid, your call. Personally, I think Apple is *smart*. I don't necessarily like every product Apple makes, but I do believe they know what the hell they're doing when it comes to marketing and supply chain. With that in mind, I can't imagine that this is anything other than marketing.
Not all of Europe, actually, just all of northern Europe and also East Africa and places were the populations are descended primarily of those stocks. Wikipedia has a map!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LacIntol-World2.png
I'm not questioning his business acumen, it just seems like he's not been able to keep up with the technology, and technology and media these days are simply inextricably linked. Everything out of his mouth seems to scream total ignorance, but perhaps he's simply hoping that if he shouts angrily at Google long enough, they'll give him some money. The fact that they haven't delisted themselves in the year or so since Rupert started this campaign of crying shows that at least somebody at Newscorp understands that they need Google and not the other way around.
He's like the elderly relative at Thanksgiving who keeps saying racist things that would make everyone uncomfortable but they're so used to it they just roll their eyes and say "Oh Grandpa!" Is there any way this guy could not get it less? He understood how to be a Newspaper tycoon, but these days that skillset makes him roughly as useful as a candlestick maker or a wheelwright.
He keeps saying all this crazy stuff, but the guys who actually run Newscorp keep doing the opposite, lucky for them. They could easily edit their robots.txt and keep Google out, but they're smart enough to not only let Google in, but to let users coming in from Google slip past the pay wall . . .
What about HTML5? Of course, then you're more forced to be open-sourced, but still -- it achieves the multi-platform goal very easily.
No, I wouldn't. If everyone else has them, I want at least 120x optical zoom, ad-block on the HUD, and an automatic targeting program for the laser cannons.
Oh, you kids and your laser canons. You know, in my day, we only had plasma canons -- and we got on just fine.
This is actually just a watered down version of a very, very old trick wherein you'd take a URL like http://3273372964/en/weblog?weblogid=208188044 and insert www.cnn.com@ before the ip address in long form. This of course meant the browser would try to login to the "real" website with the login "www.cnn.com". So you'd end up with a url that looked very much like it was part of CNN's website but was in fact something else entirely. I'd show you a demonstration URL, but Slashdot filters out the obfuscating part of urls formatted in that way so it would look identical.
At any rate, these days, not only do forums like Slashdot actively weed out those sorts of URLs as obvious attempts at obfuscation, but browsers pretty much universally will throw up a warning before you taking you to a website obfuscated in that manner. And as a result, that trick long ago fell out of fashion.
But it seems everything old is new again, if you wait long enough.
The DMCA provides a Safe harbor if they take stuff down any time the *rights holder* submits a takedown notice. So yes, they knew there was copyrighted stuff and this is effectively what all those quotes amount to:
"Why do we have users submitting reports on copyrighted materials when the law doesn't require such a step? It's the rights holder's job to complain, not the users -- and for all we know the users may be complaining about stuff the real rights holder wants to stay up there for promotional reasons.
We're doing all this extra enforcement on material people want to see that the law does not require, and it's not very smart of us. Let's just scale back and only remove stuff if the right's holders complain. "
It turns out that this is a very reasonable philosophy for two reasons:
1) Most rights holders don't care. Pretty much every major media company but Viacom has recognized the value of having content on Youtube, as long as it's only partial clips of a show or a low-quality music video. It's a very effective and cheap form of promotion. They could object, but they choose not to. Thus making Youtubes decision to stop *pre-emptively* removing it based on user reports the correct one for those companies.
2) Many of those clips may in fact have been uploaded by the rights holders themselves. In another recent batch of documents from this lawsuit we saw that Viacom was hiring companies to promote their shows and one of their tactics was to upoad clips to Youtube. In other words, *much* of the "infringing" content on Youtube was put there on behalf of Viacom. Does it make sense to have users reporting these clips to be removed when they might be there *officially*?
I agree. IANAL, but the so called damning evidence against them were things like "Let's not have a button for users to report copyrighted video. It's the copyright holder's job to complain, not the users".
That sort of thing. But if you think about it, this makes perfect sense. How is google to know whether Viacom approved the upload of a 2 minute Daily Show clip or not? Should Youtube really be removing stuff like that unless the Right's holder complains? Maybe the rights holder uploaded it himself or doesn't care. It was perfectly reasonable for them to scale back on unnecessary enforcement of things like news clips that may or may not have been ok to upload.
Nothing in any of those quotes suggests that Youtube was doing anything other than scaling back *unnecessary* enforcement in favor of what the DMCA actually requires (which is a takedown notice). Yes, there was one message that says something along the lines of "Stop uploading stolen videos, it could make us look bad, blah blah blah" but from the context I took that to mean a Youtube employee had been taking user generated content from one video site and uploading it to theirs -- shady and possibly illegal, but they were being told to *stop* and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Viacom.
It all seems perfectly reasonable to me. I'm not trying to address legality, that's what the courts are there for -- but it's definitely not *evil*, even if you are a strong believer in copyright.
And what, Dear Genius, would you have us switch to?
OS X? It's *less* secure by most estimations -- it derives security primarily through obscurity. We all switch to Macs and rest assured, the problem follows.
Linux? I'm sure that'd work out great!
There certainly is more innovation in the concept than in the iPad -- by a fairly large margin. That doesn't necessarily mean it would be more useful or useable -- but it's enough that iIm very interested to hear more about it. The leaked video from a few months ago was really quite interesting, the only thing we need now is actual details on the operating system, spec, etc. As a concept it's great, but as a reality it might fall short.
Unless every single one of those computer's is physically in Spain, couldn't they be extradited? Or does Spanish law make that hard/impossible?
It's like they JUST realized that they Google and Apple were the behemoths now and that MS is the underdog.
It's funny, I never thought I'd live to see the day when Microsoft became the plucky underdog and Apple became the evil empire but that seems to be exactly what's taken place . . . Sure, it's not true of the Desktop OS market, but by pretty much any other metric . . .
Other articles have covered him as a nutjob who claims to have invented things which he had no hand in. He's definately a controversial figure with some controversial claims. This story sorta just took him at his word . . .
Oh for god sake. How is this hard for you? I'm fully aware of all the crap you keep bringing up. I was smart enough to realize, after your first post, that you knew what you were talking about and must know the same stuff I did. Since you knew that stuff, and came to a different conclusion, I realized this argument could never be productive. Why are you slow on this realization? You don't strike me as stupid. A bit of a zealot? Perhaps, but probably not stupid.
Listen. You try to bait me into "proving" that Moses could not have written Genesis. I could give you the 10 standard points on that from the Age of Reason (there's like half a chapter on it), but I suspect you're familiar enough with Paine to come right back with the standard rebuttals to those points to which I'd come back with the rebuttals to those rebuttals.
You would say that it was initially written by him, but transcribers after his death changed the place names to their modern equivalents to keep it modern. And I would point out if transcribers can change things on whim like that, then how can you claim the book is 99% pure. We'd probably end arguing about the epic of Gilgamesh at some point.
Here's the thing there, it won't get us anywhere. I'm guessing the reason you have figured this out yet is because you're simply too arrogant to realize that I might already know all the crap you keep throwing at me.
Yes, I'm familiar with Frederic Kenyon, C.S. Lewis, Immanuel Kant, Newton or whatever other Biblical Scholar you want to bring into the discussion. The thing is this: They were all BIBLICAL SCHOLARS. That means they started with the conclusion, that the bible is fact, and worked backwards to find facts to support their conclusion.
I realize the Bible is not science, but surely you can understand how flawed this approach is and recognize that anytime you start with the conclusion and work backwards, no mater how silly your conclusion is, you will ALWAYS find "facts" to support your conclusion.
And Yes, I'm also familiar with a the handful of Christ references you dug up, well like 3 of them anyways, and all of them are of disputed Authenticity particularly the one from Jospehus Flavius -- which is, to my way of thinking, very obviously a total forgery (in as much as it sticks out like a sore thumb and makes no sense) whereas the others are much harder to say.
Do you really want to have a lengthy discussion on each one of these and possible reasons as to why Tacticus might have given Pontius Pilate the wrong title?
Well here's the thing, I don't. It's obvious to me where this is going (nowhere, fast) and it would be obvious to you too if you weren't so arrogant as to assume you had knowledge on the subject that I didn't already have. The but fact is, we both have the facts and both drew very different conclusions and there's not going to be any chance of some shocking new revelation that's going to change my mind or yours. So let's cut our losses.
You're right, I'm running away from this argument. Not because I'm going to lose, but because everybody is going to lose.
Yeah, see, your problem is that *I* am the one citing facts and using actual arguments. *You* are the one who is ignoring arguments backed by evidence, backpedalling away from them with the transparent "well you wouldn't accept a good argument anyway."
The first 2 posts I gave you plenty of good facts and actual arguments and your response was simply "false". You have a clear blindspot, and I simply realized it wasn't productive to argue with someone who was not going to be persuaded by anything short of divine intervention.
In your head, you're using facts and I'm not. What the heck? You continually take my facts, and respond with "false" or simply ignore them entirely. Meanwhile, your facts consist of vague declarations about "scholars". In only ONE instance have you actually cited a single name -- and that was after I realized that this clearly wasn't going down a productive avenue.
The third, valid response to your argument's is simply to point out that they are entirely tangential to anything of substance. This discussion was never, or was never meant to be, an argument over religion. You continue to try to draw it in that direction -- and I simply am not interested.
From every point of view of which I can conceive, offering to trade porn for bibles, does not count as "belittling people". They simply are trying to draw attention to the fact that people who subscribe to biblical beliefs often share puritanical values which, if strictly enforced, would have them ban the bible itself for some of its content.
To me, no reasonable person construes this as "belittling others". Obnoxious? Well I obviously don't think it is, but that's somewhat within the eye of the beholder. But when I point out that they are belittling no one, you say "false".
Whatever. We don't share a common reality, so we can't have this discussion. It's that simple.
How will I mutter under my breath about what an idiot the person I'm talking to is?
I could go point by point in my response, but I've been down that road before. There's no benefit to it. You clearly have your own beliefs and they are clearly not what I would consider to be based on solid intellectual footing.
You clearly have confused, quite intentionally because it suits you, "biblical scholars" with "historians". Biblical Scholars are the least credible people when it comes to the authenticity and historical accuracy of the Bible. They are, quite simply, biased. They have created bodies of work which you have decided are credible despite very thin actual evidence supporting them.
And I believe it is you who does not know what the word apocryphal means. For starters, I don't know where you got the "99% pure" idea from. But even if that were the case, apocryphal merely means we don't know who *actually* wrote it. Authorship on most books of the Bible has been traditionally ascribed to specific individuals who in many cases we know for a fact did NOT write those books. For instance, Moses did not write Genesis -- that can be proven. Even most of the gospels were likely written after the deaths of their namesakes.
At any rate, the atheists in this story are not being particularly obnoxious, in the grand scheme of things. They are not knocking on doors or belittling others. They are merely a reaction to the general oppression they feel in society. For you to judge them harshly is, frankly, unfair.
Of all the arguing we've done here, I've really only cared to persuade you on that one particular issue -- but I imagine your disposition is such that I couldn't persuade you that the sky was blue. With that in mind, I'll let the matter rest here.
I mentioned several in the other comments in this thread. One example: Jesus was witnessed by 500 people post-resurrection, and many of those people were alive when the gospels were written, and could have -- but didn't apparently, as there's no record of it -- denied that the gospels were accurate reflections of what they saw.
Is this proof? Nope. Evidence? Of course.
For this to be evidence you have to *assume* that Jesus Christ is a real historical figure and that the events surrounding his life as depicted in the Bible were true. These 2 things alone are huge leaps of faith. How do you know there were 500 people present at the time of his resurrection? Because the bible tells you so? The Romans kept great records, and we don't have any roman records of Jesus -- his execution or otherwise.
The only record of this story at all is the gospels themselves. If it is a fictional story, then how can fictional characters write records objecting to the authenticity of their own story? This makes no sense as evidence of anything.
There is, in fact, almost no historical writings from the first century AD that confirm the existence of Jesus in *any* form -- god or otherwise. There are two popular ones, but one is strongly suspect to be a forgery added by a monk transcribing the original several centuries after the author's death.
Now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I am not suggesting Jesus did not exist (nor I am acknowledging that he did). The lack of records is hardly enough to suggest that he did not exist. But that being said, you can't really use the same lack of records as evidence that he did.
[quote]Absolutely not. It's a very common misconception (mostly among people who don't have faith), but it is completely wrong. Faith is related to lack of PROOF, not lack of EVIDENCE. Indeed, the New Testament is filled with examples of people believing, and having faith, as the result of evidence. Paul talked often about proving himself to the churches he wrote letters to, and about the churches testing him and others based on the evidence before them.[/quote]
I would disagree. There's proof of very few things in life. I don't think you can say that you have to take *everything* for which there is not absolute proof on faith. There's no proof of gravity, for instance. That doesn't mean I take gravity's existence on *faith*. I require significant evidence. Perhaps you mean to say that Faith is the lack of "overwhelming" evidence . . .
[quote]Also false. That's like saying that I can't argue my own case before a court of law. Granted, external evidence is helpful, but I can make arguments in my favor apart from external evidence, and those arguments are, themselves, evidence.[/quote]
If this were a court of law, the Bible would be hearsay and inadmissible as evidence -- with good reason. You may choose to adhere to a lesser standard of what qualifies as evidence, if you wish -- but please do so with the knowledge that anecdotes of apocryphal origin are simply not *compelling* as evidence in a rational setting.
Here's my bottom line:
Believe whatever you want -- that's my motto. I'm not posting here to try to dissuade you from your own beliefs. I'm perfectly happy for you to go on believing whatever makes you happy on the basis of any evidence you find compelling -- even if I find your evidence to be so weak as to be non-existent.
However, you have to understand that there are quite a few people in the world who are *not* happy to allow people to believe as they see fit and make it their mission to harass, belittle, and persecute those who do not share their beliefs. In this country, Christians are sadly very often guilty of that. It's not surprising, therefore, that *some* atheists would react harshly to that and become unnecessarily vocal about their beliefs.
There are people all over the country who would not hesitate to admit to being gay -- but wouldn't dream of telling friends or fami
All definitions I've ever seen of dogma imply that the belief is not subject to examination, or isn't backed up by any evidence. I defy you to give a single example of Christine doctrine -- such doctrine as is held by all, or almost all, Christian sects -- that is not subject to examination or isn't backed up by any evidence.
Could you name one that is? Forget the "subject to examination", for now. Name one Christian doctrine that is "backed up by evidence." Isn't the idea of "evidence" sort of anathema to the very idea of "faith"? If you have evidence, then there's no need for faith. Please keep in mind that the Bible is evidence of anything by itself . . .
5 bucks says it will win when it does more.
The people lining up to buy this device in its first gen, 1.0 Firmware form will be hardcore Apple fanboys. And after they've all bought one, the general interest will wane. There will be a quick price drop, followed by newer firmware with missing features added.
By the time the 2nd gen device rolls around, it'll do most of the things it's currently being criticized for not doing and it may well indeed take off and be a success.
Frankly, however, my grandmother won't buy an iPad. Not ever. First of all, the "i" scares her,; "i" says to her, "you will not understand what this product does, not ever, don't even try". Secondly, the "pad" offends her. Ultimately, Macs are, in general, computers for your grandmother -- but how many grandmothers actually have one? In my experience, Gradmothers tend to prefer "cheap" to "polished UI". It's hard to sell "polished UI".