OMFG, he used a $ for an S in MS! That's wonderful news. Instead of discussing the point he brought up, we can just complain about the $ and dismiss his criticism of Microsoft.
It might be childish to use M$, but it's more childish still to dismiss his argument because of it.
If the codec is included with their browser, that won't be a problem.
But it's not. In fact, if it were included in all the main browsers and it was worse quality (up to a point) than the competing codec, it would still be the best choice.
But the tables are reversed. H.264 is universally supported by every OS, Theora is not. H.264 is actually better quality, so it's nice that that's how things are, but even if Theora were better (up to a point), the clear choice is H.264 because people can use it.
After all, the video quality is zero if you don't have the codec installed, which brings us back to the OP's point.
While you might hope that your iTunes or Kindle--being a popular product--will have flawless DRM that will not inhibit you, this is simply not the case.
I think iTunes current music DRM is pretty much flawless.
F451 was misunderstood. I think Ray is more concerned with the balkanization of society where narrow-minded groups decide which book is valuable and which isn't.
No, it's pretty clear it's about removing books altogether.
Wall screens replace books, people pick their political candidates on their looks. There's really not a hint allusion of balkanization in the book at all.
Farenheit 451 required a visionary. But I think that Bradbury simply lost his vision. It's not about the books. It's about the minds BEHIND the books.
Exactly. Two of the ideas behind Fahrenheit 451 is that books should be preserved, and one way to preserve them is in the minds of people (literally, word-for-word memorization). So, how is putting books on the Internet, where they can be copied virtually infinitely, a bad thing?
And furthermore, putting a book on the Internet is like the ultimate preservation technique. Would that there had been some sort of Internet where books could be stored when the library of Alexandria burned!
Besides, if he finds the contents of the Internet so awful, why not raise the quality a bit with his books?
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
Well, as the number of computers dwindles from the billions to the millions and eventually the thousands, perhaps someone would be kind enough to hit 'Print' before things wind all the way down.
He shopped around, discovered that the state of Tennessee could best meet his needs, and took his business there. It's called a free market.
I don't think, in any way whatsoever, that the market for liver transplants should be a free market.
It's kinda nice, really...
It's not "kinda nice, really", it's fucking disgusting. I don't really blame Jobs for going to where the livers are, but the system which allows such inequalities to exist in the first place.
Are you suggesting only people Tennessee be allowed to buy products and services from Tennessee? I doubt the people of Tennessee would agree with that. Are you suggesting people from California not be allowed to buy products and services from outside California? The "buy local" people might like that, but I don't think that's really a good idea either...
How do you get from there (livers) to here (general "products and services")? The context is scarce, life-saving organs. We're not talking about produce or iPods, we're talking about people's lives.
Bullshit. The only way to be fair is to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator through coercion.
Not really. You just put a regulatory agency in place with objective rules for who gets a liver in what order, and disallow wealth to play a factor (i.e., you can't buy a place in line).
That's the problem with anti-competitive behavior. The market can't work if it never gets a chance to. If we want the best products at the best prices, we need fair competition.
Get over it. There is no such thing as a functioning free market. The only way "the market" can work is when it's heavily regulated against "bad" competitors. At that point, it's no longer a free market.
I never said a free market. I agree wholly that there is no such thing as a free market, and that regulations are needed. In fact, I believe it's somewhat implied when I state that MS's behavior is harming the market (how else can it be correct in any sort of timely fashion other than regulation?).
Why? How often is the processor in your laptop idle? When my laptop is turned on, I am doing things. When I stop doing things, I turn it off.
Idle doesn't mean you don't have tasks running, it means time *while* those tasks are running (from your point of view) that they don't have anything to do. It's a whole collections of milliseconds here and there. Take the case of decoding an HD video. Your computer has to decode a frame, and when it's done, the video decoder has nothing to do until that frame is displayed and it's time to move onto the next one. That time is considered idle even though from your point of view, your computer is continuously decoding the video.
The only reason they don't appear idle is that we don't experience life at billions of actions per second. In fact, if you think of a clock cycle in a computer as the perceptual equivalent of a second to a human (clearly there are differences, but just for some sort of reference), what we experience as a second, a 3.2GHz cpu would "experience" as 100 years.
Obviously you should have made a better horse, if it were so easy for Microsoft to have killed it.
Horses have the inherent weakness of being able to be shot. The problem isn't the horse. Even MS's horse can be shot. The problem is that only MS has a gun.
So, instead of finding out how each horse compares with the other on the racetrack (MS's horse would still most likely win, but it won't be a 95% (or whatever the actual value is) market share, which they get by default if they don't have to race), all we've found out is that horses can be shot, and MS has a gun.
That's the problem with anti-competitive behavior. The market can't work if it never gets a chance to. If we want the best products at the best prices, we need fair competition.
The flaw with the race analogy is these contexts it implies a "win-lose" dichotomy. When you come in first, you don't take all the money, and if you come in second/last you don't go home with nothing. If MS doesn't race, they get a high market share by default (perhaps something like 95% Windows, 5% Linux on netbooks). If they race, and come in first, they will get something more in line with the actual market, which might be more like 80% Windows and 20% Linux, on netbooks.
Groklow did kind of miss the target with their smoking gun. The smoking gun isn't that MS wouldn't win, it's that MS wouldn't win the same share. They aren't allowing a significant percentage of people to buy what they want, and the rest are likely getting worse prices and hardware configurations than they'd otherwise have available.
Sheesh, the guy has *one* thing in his life that gives him joy, and you guys have to go and spoil it. Perhaps you could show a bit more courtesy if he ever brings up mounting/unmounting filesystems on the fly...
Easy, we do it right now in the US, except instead of banning them, we rate them and do ban sales to minors of some games. The only difference is the scope of the ban, which is a clerical issue.
What prevents you from banning books, newspapers and and meetings based on same criteria?
By saying it only applies to games.
If video games are banned because of violence in them, then books also need to be banned. So do newspapers. So do meetings which discuss such newspapers
That is not an inherent requirement. There's no fundamental reason you can't ban games, but allow books, or vice versa.
Where do start and where do we end?
Right now, in the US, certain media are banned. Somehow we are able to stop the ban-wagon at some point. There's no reason the Germans can't do the same.
Because while Germans as individuals are the best of the human race, as a group they are capable of the worst behavior. And no, i didn't say this.
That can be said of any nation, the individuals are top notch, the collective can be cruel, but so can the reverse. I'm not sure I glean any useful meaning from that regarding the topic at hand.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation"
I'll leave you to guess who I'm quoting.
I'll bet he also said something about how Christmas is a nice time to spend with family, or how he thinks his mustache makes him look more mature, but that doesn't make mustaches or Christmas evil.
German politicians are treading the thinnest line possible between Liberty and Hitler.
Because banning video games is just a thin line's-crossing away from Naziism...
I'm pretty sure the next steps away from liberty after banning violent games don't involve invading neighboring nations, forcing ethnic and religious groups to wear specific symbols, rounding them up and killing them, and what not.
Slashdot Mirror
OMFG, he used a $ for an S in MS! That's wonderful news. Instead of discussing the point he brought up, we can just complain about the $ and dismiss his criticism of Microsoft.
It might be childish to use M$, but it's more childish still to dismiss his argument because of it.
Why are you wearing purple trousers? (i.e., your question assumes something that isn't true)
i don't know that i agree with some of googles design choices
I'm sure they'll get right on that, random slashdot guy...
If the codec is included with their browser, that won't be a problem.
But it's not. In fact, if it were included in all the main browsers and it was worse quality (up to a point) than the competing codec, it would still be the best choice.
But the tables are reversed. H.264 is universally supported by every OS, Theora is not. H.264 is actually better quality, so it's nice that that's how things are, but even if Theora were better (up to a point), the clear choice is H.264 because people can use it.
After all, the video quality is zero if you don't have the codec installed, which brings us back to the OP's point.
where is my Large AnonymousCowardon Collider?
You're posting on it.
Oh you do? Tell me, which third party devices and software support iTunes DRM?
They all do, except those where the manufacturer chose not to include AAC support.
And it works on Linux?
Yes, Linux can play the files also.
While you might hope that your iTunes or Kindle--being a popular product--will have flawless DRM that will not inhibit you, this is simply not the case.
I think iTunes current music DRM is pretty much flawless.
Apple has no moral authority to set these rules at all.
It's Apple's store. They have *every* right (and I'd even say, an obligation) to decide what they will and will not sell.
F451 was misunderstood. I think Ray is more concerned with the balkanization of society where narrow-minded groups decide which book is valuable and which isn't.
No, it's pretty clear it's about removing books altogether.
Wall screens replace books, people pick their political candidates on their looks. There's really not a hint allusion of balkanization in the book at all.
Farenheit 451 required a visionary. But I think that Bradbury simply lost his vision. It's not about the books. It's about the minds BEHIND the books.
Exactly. Two of the ideas behind Fahrenheit 451 is that books should be preserved, and one way to preserve them is in the minds of people (literally, word-for-word memorization). So, how is putting books on the Internet, where they can be copied virtually infinitely, a bad thing?
And furthermore, putting a book on the Internet is like the ultimate preservation technique. Would that there had been some sort of Internet where books could be stored when the library of Alexandria burned!
Besides, if he finds the contents of the Internet so awful, why not raise the quality a bit with his books?
How do you know our civilization's ability to produce personal computers isn't going to vanish. At least a book is good for three centuries on proper paper, is our ability to produce hard drives so robust?
Well, as the number of computers dwindles from the billions to the millions and eventually the thousands, perhaps someone would be kind enough to hit 'Print' before things wind all the way down.
Why his book isn't on the net?
Which book? Fahrenheit 451 is on the Internet, whether he wants it there or not. Just saying...
He shopped around, discovered that the state of Tennessee could best meet his needs, and took his business there. It's called a free market.
I don't think, in any way whatsoever, that the market for liver transplants should be a free market.
It's kinda nice, really...
It's not "kinda nice, really", it's fucking disgusting. I don't really blame Jobs for going to where the livers are, but the system which allows such inequalities to exist in the first place.
Are you suggesting only people Tennessee be allowed to buy products and services from Tennessee? I doubt the people of Tennessee would agree with that. Are you suggesting people from California not be allowed to buy products and services from outside California? The "buy local" people might like that, but I don't think that's really a good idea either...
How do you get from there (livers) to here (general "products and services")? The context is scarce, life-saving organs. We're not talking about produce or iPods, we're talking about people's lives.
Bullshit. The only way to be fair is to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator through coercion.
Not really. You just put a regulatory agency in place with objective rules for who gets a liver in what order, and disallow wealth to play a factor (i.e., you can't buy a place in line).
theres was probably a line of apple fanboys queuing to give their livers to steve
To be fair, if a fanboy gives their liver, they can't line up for the next iPhone. This is basic Fanboy 101.
This is also why Steve Ballmer hasn't received a heart.
As for RMS and a shave, I don't know. I'm hoping they'll cover it in Fanboy 102...
That's the problem with anti-competitive behavior. The market can't work if it never gets a chance to. If we want the best products at the best prices, we need fair competition.
Get over it. There is no such thing as a functioning free market. The only way "the market" can work is when it's heavily regulated against "bad" competitors. At that point, it's no longer a free market.
I never said a free market. I agree wholly that there is no such thing as a free market, and that regulations are needed. In fact, I believe it's somewhat implied when I state that MS's behavior is harming the market (how else can it be correct in any sort of timely fashion other than regulation?).
And if torture was a crime... :P
Why? How often is the processor in your laptop idle? When my laptop is turned on, I am doing things. When I stop doing things, I turn it off.
Idle doesn't mean you don't have tasks running, it means time *while* those tasks are running (from your point of view) that they don't have anything to do. It's a whole collections of milliseconds here and there. Take the case of decoding an HD video. Your computer has to decode a frame, and when it's done, the video decoder has nothing to do until that frame is displayed and it's time to move onto the next one. That time is considered idle even though from your point of view, your computer is continuously decoding the video.
The only reason they don't appear idle is that we don't experience life at billions of actions per second. In fact, if you think of a clock cycle in a computer as the perceptual equivalent of a second to a human (clearly there are differences, but just for some sort of reference), what we experience as a second, a 3.2GHz cpu would "experience" as 100 years.
Obviously you should have made a better horse, if it were so easy for Microsoft to have killed it.
Horses have the inherent weakness of being able to be shot. The problem isn't the horse. Even MS's horse can be shot. The problem is that only MS has a gun.
So, instead of finding out how each horse compares with the other on the racetrack (MS's horse would still most likely win, but it won't be a 95% (or whatever the actual value is) market share, which they get by default if they don't have to race), all we've found out is that horses can be shot, and MS has a gun.
That's the problem with anti-competitive behavior. The market can't work if it never gets a chance to. If we want the best products at the best prices, we need fair competition.
The flaw with the race analogy is these contexts it implies a "win-lose" dichotomy. When you come in first, you don't take all the money, and if you come in second/last you don't go home with nothing. If MS doesn't race, they get a high market share by default (perhaps something like 95% Windows, 5% Linux on netbooks). If they race, and come in first, they will get something more in line with the actual market, which might be more like 80% Windows and 20% Linux, on netbooks.
Groklow did kind of miss the target with their smoking gun. The smoking gun isn't that MS wouldn't win, it's that MS wouldn't win the same share. They aren't allowing a significant percentage of people to buy what they want, and the rest are likely getting worse prices and hardware configurations than they'd otherwise have available.
Sheesh, the guy has *one* thing in his life that gives him joy, and you guys have to go and spoil it. Perhaps you could show a bit more courtesy if he ever brings up mounting/unmounting filesystems on the fly...
No, it's about whether enacting laws to protect children are good or evil.
How do you ban video games on certain criteria?
Easy, we do it right now in the US, except instead of banning them, we rate them and do ban sales to minors of some games. The only difference is the scope of the ban, which is a clerical issue.
What prevents you from banning books, newspapers and and meetings based on same criteria?
By saying it only applies to games.
If video games are banned because of violence in them, then books also need to be banned. So do newspapers. So do meetings which discuss such newspapers
That is not an inherent requirement. There's no fundamental reason you can't ban games, but allow books, or vice versa.
Where do start and where do we end?
Right now, in the US, certain media are banned. Somehow we are able to stop the ban-wagon at some point. There's no reason the Germans can't do the same.
Because while Germans as individuals are the best of the human race, as a group they are capable of the worst behavior. And no, i didn't say this.
That can be said of any nation, the individuals are top notch, the collective can be cruel, but so can the reverse. I'm not sure I glean any useful meaning from that regarding the topic at hand.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation"
I'll leave you to guess who I'm quoting.
I'll bet he also said something about how Christmas is a nice time to spend with family, or how he thinks his mustache makes him look more mature, but that doesn't make mustaches or Christmas evil.
German politicians are treading the thinnest line possible between Liberty and Hitler.
Because banning video games is just a thin line's-crossing away from Naziism...
I'm pretty sure the next steps away from liberty after banning violent games don't involve invading neighboring nations, forcing ethnic and religious groups to wear specific symbols, rounding them up and killing them, and what not.