Whatever anyone does - do not read Brown's book when it comes out.
Thanks to Mr. Tanenbaum, we have the proof here:
People can create operating systems on their own. Even UNIX-like operating systems. Linus learned from Mr. Tanenbaum. Linus wrote the first kernel, published it and asked for input, which the rest of the world provided.
Linus then acted as a proper project manager, and the rest is history.
So again, whatever people do - do not buy the book.
Now, here's the problem: if we talk about this upcoming book, people will want to buy it. It's the Gibson Effect - the more its denounced, the more people will want to read it, and next thing you know there will be lines of people at the bookstores claiming they can see Jesus's face on this book.
So instead, I recommend to all intelligent folks in the programming community: ignore it. From here on out, don't even refer to the book by name, or its foundation, or the author. The more we pretend it doesn't exist and it's not important, the less interest people will have in it. If someone asks (such as a Pointy Haired Boss guy), shrug and lie as you say "No idea. I heard it was some book, but that it wasn't that good." And then shut up and leave it at that.
Don't give these guys free advertising. Don't even give them an ounce of respect, they don't deserve it.
Before the Xbox was released, Microsoft tried to sell Sony a development kit that would allow Sony (and their 3rd party developers) to develop games on a standard platform.
If you read the book "Opening the Xbox", Bill Gates was pretty irritated and confused when Sony turned them down flat. Why would they turn down Microsoft? Oh, sure - it would also make these games easier to port to a MS based system in the future - but MS was trying to help Sony!
Anyway. Sony saw through the game. And while XNA might be the greatest thing in the world to folks who want to port games between the Xbox, the PC, the Pocket PC - it's probably not something that Sony and Nintendo give a big rats ass about.
That's not to say that Microsoft's plan is a bad one. When Thief III comes out, I'll probably get the Xbox version. I've got a Pentium 800 as my old "game" machine, and I haven't turned it on for about 6 months now (I made the OS X switch some time ago). The Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox let me play what I want and I don't have to spend $300 - $600 every 12 months to keep up my video card/ram/processor/motherboard/whatever.
MS probably realizes this; I'm willing to bet their seeing higher Xbox sales on Xbox/PC titles (such as Knights of the Old Republic). So for games, I'll expect to see more of their emphasis to the Xbox.
Which is kind of a problem - it's still a major money loser for MS. It could be a winner in the long run, but will that means they'll have to open it up a bit and start letting people use it as a PC like system, which could eat into their PC sales profits? That could be a dual edged sword, since that means people could get used to using a "console" as a computer.
Eh. Either way, I'll just keep my eye on the situation. The best games will rule (which looks to be Nintendo for the next 9-12 months, with some nice looking gems on the other platforms), and I'm not about to give up my Powerbook any time soon;).
There's a place selling modified Xbox's for about $450 that does all of this stuff that I've been considering.
For the most part, a modified Xbox would be my "dream TV box". Sit it in the living room (it's about the same size as the DVD/VCR combo machine - thicker, but not as long), and I could have an archive of my legally purchased DVD's. As a guy with 2 kids who are always trying to ruin the DVD's with their grimy little fingers, this would be a great machine for my household.
"Here, kids - want to watch 'Blue's Clues on a Deserted Island and Joe Dies Horribly' again? OK - let me just use the remote on the Xbox." Boom - there goes my XVID ripped DVD movie on. Originals are kept safe, kids are happy.
I'm kind of dissapointed we haven't seen a company come up with a solution like this. A Cappachino sized device with the same capabilities, running Linux so I could FTP/SSH into it for upgrades/other mods would sell like hotcakes. (And as an avid fan of hotcakes, I know what I'm talking about.)
You know, I didn't mind the "Cell-da" look of the Wind Waker game. I acutally liked it, and my daughter (now 5, going on 12) liked it too. (Right after we finish "Kingdom Hearts" I've told her Link is next.)
I never got the cries of "mature Link" from folks out there.
But after that video - damn. It looks great (the castle looks a little blocky, but ah well), but the rest of it was, well, kick ass.
Will I still be able to play this game with my daughter? I think so. While there's still violence, it doesn't look like "blood and guts" - just the same kind of violence in other Zelda games, just now with better effects.
And that Balrog creature?
Here's hoping the next Zelda game is as long and wonderful as Ocarina of Time was.
Just that my.Mac email account won't work, so I can't change my password, get new reciepts, and so on.
The iTunes store account is typically your email address if you have a.Mac account, so that might be a problem. Then again, I haven't tried switching that to a different email address yet - I'll try that first. (Duh me.)
Will I use the new Hymn/Playfair program? Oh, probably - my.Mac account runs out and I'm not going to renew, and it's how I bought my iTunes songs in the past.
So, now I'm kind of boned (maybe - probably not, but maybe) in the future. Yes, I can "rip to audio-CD-and-then-to-MP3", but Hymn will make it all a "one stop shopping trip" for my fairly large iTunes store collection (hey, they had a special on classical music and BB King - give me a break).
Apple really doesn't have much to worry about, since people have to buy the music first before they can remove the Fairplay protections. And even if a bunch of butt-munches start "sharing" their music with others, that means more AAC files out there, which means a better chance we'll see more MP3 players that include AAC support in the future.
So while Apple doesn't have to worry about Fairplay, the fact is that the folks they get their music from - IE, the RIAA and even independant musicians - might like to hear that Apple's not letting just anybody give away their music without paying for it. Apple might not care, but since the place where they get music does, Apple's obligated to at least "fight the good fight" to show "due process" or some such.
Yeah, I'll use it, I know Apple will work to shut it down, but it should all be good in the long run.
If you read the book "The Hacker Crackdown" (free at peanutpress.com), you'll find the FBI know that once they catch most crackers, they can't get them to shut the hell up afterwards.
I think most of it is "bragging rights". Which is why you notice the most successful psychopaths in history are the quiet ones....
Right now, Nintendo has a problem with people downloading rom files for the Game Boy Advance, and playing them with a growing number of emulators for platforms from the PC, OS X, Linux, GP32, and maybe even Palm Pilots.
So to combat that, they've created "value added" features, such as their Connectivity system: if you want to get the Tingle Tuner for the Gamecube, you need a GBA + Gamecube + an actual copy of the game. In some cases, it's worked (see "Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles" and others), so that's Nintendo's move.
Sony seems to have a different idea: use the Internet. Assuming that you'll be able to use Sony Memory Sticks with your PSP, then you can just download games off the 'Net and play them. Granted, these games won't be the 1.8 GB that their PSP disks can hold, so it will be the difference between playing, say, "Final Fantasy VII" on your PSP and playing "Chrono Trigger".
Still, it's an interesting move: Sony's betting that there won't be a PSP emulator for long enough to squeeze profits out of this. And if they allow people to create their own "burned" PSP disks from downloads (sure, 1.8 GB takes awhile, but you never know), then they just have to make their system difficult to mod for "pirated" games.
I'm still in a "wait and see" for both the DS and the PSP, but I think both items will have different markets that should prove interesting to a range of gamers.
If SCO doesn't have any more real claims in court, how will we as a society get by?
The last time a major company fell apart, we had to hire Sally Struthers to start up "CEO charity foundations".
We can't have these people walking the streets. Keeping them in upper management positions is the only way to protect the rest of us from serious harm. At least in the boardroom, secluded from the rest of society, they can do the least damage.
I'm hardly surprised by the results. Personally, I don't drink Pepsi usually (though it's not a religious thing, no matter what people think). But I'll drink a Sierra Mist, which is included in the contest.
So when My Lovely Wife (MLF) would go to the store, she knew to look for Sierra Mist with the label. For about the last 5 months she's looked, and every so often I'd take a peek.
Nothing. Nada. I've talked to other people in the San Diego/Southern California area. Nothing. I was on a business trip to Chicago - didn't see any out there (though maybe someone who lives there might have had more luck).
I don't know if it's that Pepsi had a lot of "warehouse" Pepsi to sell that just never got to the market, or if they only shipped it to certain areas. But whatever the reason, I have not seen one iTunes Pepsi cap - and those friends I have who have seen them in their area mention that it's not 1/3 that one, but typically more like 1/10 (though perhaps they were victims of the "Bottle Tilt Trick" in their area from ambitious music buyers).
I'd like to hear that Pepsi extends the contest for another 6 months in the hopes that the labeled bottles will eventually reach stores, but I'm not holding my breath.
Simple: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word Sitting: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word AND rating of >2 Driving: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word, AND rating of > 3
three playlists, and I'm clicking the "add" button all day long. Why can't I just make up a list of:
Simple: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word
Then make up:
Sitting: Any song > 2
And place it as a "nested smart playlist" under Simple? Then it will automatically inherit Simple's rules, plus add it's own. Driving can be under sitting, or under simple -whatever.
And if I could copy/paste smart playlists, then I could have a list for language. I like listening to songs in Japanese and English, my wife only likes Enligh. So I could make up a new sublist for "Driving" that excludes "comments contains Japanese" for my wife, without having to have 6 Smart Playlists, all with 8 different settings.
This would also mean if I placed a new genre of "Children's Songs", I could exclude it from Simple, and the "nested smart playlists" would inherit those settings. I would have to change 6 different playlists.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but why does it give you pleasure to pass along useless information disguised as helping?
Looking for more links to this piece of information about Xerox and Apple?
It just - doesn't make any sense. Perhaps I need to be more clear:
2. Copy *smart* playlists: So I just copy the logic and tweak the settings, not just "copy a playlist and manually remove songs".
My apologies if I was less than clear - but really. Your link was probably the most useless thing that I've seen since the invention of washing ice in hot water.
And maybe this is available in other MP3 players - but this is my list after setting up some new Smart Lists this morning:
1. Nested lists: so I could have one list that says "if genre = rock", then a sublist that just has "if My Rating is > 3" or "if year published is 2" and the other "if My Rating is > 3" (which I use to differentiate between "Background work music" and "Driving kick ass music".
2. Copy playlists: Another major issue with the above is that if I have 2 playlists that are 90% the same, I'd like to set the first one up, then just copy the list logic into a new one and only edit the 1 or 2 differences.
3. iSync iTunes I have a laptop, and so does my wife. Right now, all of our music sits on a Master hard drive on a Powermac, then synced to my iPod, which when I'm at work I plug into my laptop and place on "manual" (so it doesn't copy the laptop music files). This works out, but it's not what I'd like.
What I'd like is to go home, sit with my laptop and have it say "Oh, I see Playlists X, Y, and Z on your main computer have updated, and I've updated these MP3 tracks ratings/tags/etc. Let me sync up."
Then I could select the lists I want on my laptop from the main machine and only those files would be copied to my box. Since, if I buy music from the iTunes Music Store I can play it on 5 separate machines, it would be nice to have an "auto-sync" kind of system.
I think that's about it for now. I like the option of a new lossless recording (if I ever get my computer tied into a good sound system I can use it - I think there's some new devices that can stream from your Mac to from about $200 that might be worth a look).
I'm rather interested in seeing some of these that support FM radio. I hadn't really thought about it, since other than NPR I haven't listened to much radio for the last 18 months (why bother? It's the same damned stuff they were playing 3 years before that!).
But it makes some sense - most walkman's, even CD based ones, have AM/FM radio support. A MP3 player shouldn't be that different.
Though, maybe there is a very small portable XM radio player. Hm - something to look into.
OK, so some I can understand, like how to make millions of dollars by investing in some guy in Nigeria. Or increase the size of your sexual organs (though I'm disturbed by the ones that state "I went from 2" to 6"!" I mean, my 2 year old son is 2", you know? What of freaks are in these testimonials?)
But the ones I really don't understand are the "stop spam with this email!" It's like the phone company selling you caller-ID systems that block unlisted or telemarketers numbers - then sell the telemarketers systems to get through those.
If you have Tivo record the shows you miss, and you catch up with them next week? I usually have just 2 shows I care about - The Daily Show (which if you miss it, 2 days later it loses the oomph since current events have passed) and Clone Wars. Maybe South Park if I remember.
So if you record the shows for later, is that kosher? Because I think I can talk my wife into this, but she's certainly in the "But I'll miss Friends!" camp. Heaven forbid she shouldn't find out if Ross and Monica are finally going to get together.
Imagine what this could do for the rental business. Now, I'm not about to get rid of my DVDs, and I hope they don't stop selling them: I rather like "owning" a movie I can play whenever Iike.
But getting on an airplane, and instead of "renting" a movie, I just but the cheap $2.00 one. This is what DiVX could have been without the annoying DRM and phone calling back method.
If I want to try out a game, such as "Jak and Daxter 14: Goatees for Everybody", I could get the cheap $5 full version paper demo, try it out, and when the disk finally breaks down say "Well, I can either buy another $5 version and finish the game, or pay $30 for the full version".
Either way, Sony doesn't come across looking evil, and I get what I want.
Granted, I don't care for real, even though "Air America" seems to like it (hello? Streamed MP3, folks - more universal, damn it!)
Anyway. It all boils down to "What does Apple want?" If it wants to sell iPods, this is part of the whole "killer move" thing. Right now, I can use my iPod with iTunes Music Store and Audible.com. And since I already shelled out $300 for this portable hard drive/music player, if you're not compatible, I don't want to hear it.
Licensing Fairplay to Real (and yes, I know that Fairplay isn't owned by Apple, but I'm willing to bet they've got an "exclusive agreement" and enough clout to convince the actual owners to let Real in on the fun) would, as the header notes, make the iPod work with Rhapsody. I'm not about to sign up for Rhapsody, but all of the sudden, those "Apple's trying to lock you into their own technology" arguments go out the window. And it sets a good precident: ask Apple nicely, and you can use their service.
But - this is only if Apple sees the prize as iPods. If they see the prize as becoming the de facto standard for online music, which would put them in a very powerful position, they could say "Hm - we have about 60% of all legal music downloads now, and the #1 portable MP3 players. Forget it, Real."
Personally, I think a combination of the two is in order: license with Real as they did with Audible.com. Let Real sell "iPod compatible" songs off of Rhapsody and whatever - but make those same tunes available through iTMS, just like you can buy Audible's site or through the iTunes interface. Everybody gets to sell something, and Apple will gain the "subscription services" so people can pick and choose thier poisen.
Of course, I could be totally wrong - but I won't mind if this scenario plays out.
I think that the only issue with Open Source boils down to this:
The things that nobody wants to do, but somebody has to.
Nobody wants to think about documentation. Or user interfaces. These things are hard, tedious, and a hell of a lot more boring than actually coming up with stuff to "make things work".
It's the reason why Windows is pretty easy to use. Personally, I think that OS X is the preferred model that many business should think about: having an open source "core" (BSD or Linux, whatever) with standard interfaces, then having the companies business be working on the upper levels: the stuff you have to see, since that's what you can pay somebody to work on.
Novell is taking such an approach, I believe, along with IBM. The issues with how to handle memory and the things that 99% of the people never see, let that get put out there so it becomes stronger. Faster. Better, and if nobody "owns" it, then everybody can use it to make their business better - fosters competition.
But your job is to provide the "service layer", such as with Novell/IBM admin tools to administrate those underlying pieces, or Apple giving you a nice "standardized" GUI where everything just works with the rock solid core.
These issues in the paper are not new - but they're the things that somebody, somewhere down the line, has to fork up for. And that's where I'm content to let a business pick up that slack and fill a product niche on top of Open Source software.
Granted, of course, they play by the rules, and let the rest of the community in on what they did so we can all benefit and get better.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
On the one hand, I'm not sure I oppose this system on principle. There's a lot of bad drivers out there (I'm lookin' at you, California and Utah), and something to say "Hey, assmuch, would it kill you to slow the hell down and stop putting on your mascara eating a bagle talking on your cell phone to your wife and just friggin' drive your car?"
On the other side, there's two things that I believe in:
a) Visible Law Enforcement
b) Leave the rest of us alone
You don't "punish" the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. You want to make the roads safe? Get more cops driving out there. Last time I checked, having more police (assuming good training, obey civil liberties, etc) on the roads tends to majorly disrupt crime of most kinds - whether its speeding, accidents, selling drugs, whatever. Those of us that are innocents will wave to the nice policeperson as we drive by knowing that Mr. Cruise Control keeps us from getting pulled over, while the idiot who likes to ride my bumper because I don't want to go 80 in the 65 MPH zone will think twice before passing on the right shoulder.
Without making me feel like a criminal in my own car because it has to remind me how to drive.
I might have to fire up Mozilla or IE, since it doesn't support Safari just yet.
But I could see where this could be useful to me. Right now, my only problem with Google is that it returns too many results. By letting it know I'm not interesting (usually) about sports, religion, and other issues, I can start to specify what I want. And if I need more general, that's what the slider is for.
Nice idea. Be interesting to see how they handle things (like can I make an "account"), and then there's the privacy issue. I don't mind Google sells the data in a generic sense, as in "people interested in Clark also research political books" or some such, as long as they don't say "John Hummel has a fetish for Swedish schoolgirls with giganticly think eyebrows".
'Cause if that information got out, man would my face be red.
Option 4, then: License the iPod. I wonder how far that "licensing" goes? I believe for HP it's really just an iPod made by Apple then slapped with an HP case. Perhaps they should license the technology behind it - that way, every "iPod clone" has to pay an "Apple tax" for working with iTMS - which means that Apple would still win in the long run.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever anyone does - do not read Brown's book when it comes out.
Thanks to Mr. Tanenbaum, we have the proof here:
People can create operating systems on their own. Even UNIX-like operating systems. Linus learned from Mr. Tanenbaum. Linus wrote the first kernel, published it and asked for input, which the rest of the world provided.
Linus then acted as a proper project manager, and the rest is history.
So again, whatever people do - do not buy the book.
Now, here's the problem: if we talk about this upcoming book, people will want to buy it. It's the Gibson Effect - the more its denounced, the more people will want to read it, and next thing you know there will be lines of people at the bookstores claiming they can see Jesus's face on this book.
So instead, I recommend to all intelligent folks in the programming community: ignore it. From here on out, don't even refer to the book by name, or its foundation, or the author. The more we pretend it doesn't exist and it's not important, the less interest people will have in it. If someone asks (such as a Pointy Haired Boss guy), shrug and lie as you say "No idea. I heard it was some book, but that it wasn't that good." And then shut up and leave it at that.
Don't give these guys free advertising. Don't even give them an ounce of respect, they don't deserve it.
Before the Xbox was released, Microsoft tried to sell Sony a development kit that would allow Sony (and their 3rd party developers) to develop games on a standard platform.
;).
If you read the book "Opening the Xbox", Bill Gates was pretty irritated and confused when Sony turned them down flat. Why would they turn down Microsoft? Oh, sure - it would also make these games easier to port to a MS based system in the future - but MS was trying to help Sony!
Anyway. Sony saw through the game. And while XNA might be the greatest thing in the world to folks who want to port games between the Xbox, the PC, the Pocket PC - it's probably not something that Sony and Nintendo give a big rats ass about.
That's not to say that Microsoft's plan is a bad one. When Thief III comes out, I'll probably get the Xbox version. I've got a Pentium 800 as my old "game" machine, and I haven't turned it on for about 6 months now (I made the OS X switch some time ago). The Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox let me play what I want and I don't have to spend $300 - $600 every 12 months to keep up my video card/ram/processor/motherboard/whatever.
MS probably realizes this; I'm willing to bet their seeing higher Xbox sales on Xbox/PC titles (such as Knights of the Old Republic). So for games, I'll expect to see more of their emphasis to the Xbox.
Which is kind of a problem - it's still a major money loser for MS. It could be a winner in the long run, but will that means they'll have to open it up a bit and start letting people use it as a PC like system, which could eat into their PC sales profits? That could be a dual edged sword, since that means people could get used to using a "console" as a computer.
Eh. Either way, I'll just keep my eye on the situation. The best games will rule (which looks to be Nintendo for the next 9-12 months, with some nice looking gems on the other platforms), and I'm not about to give up my Powerbook any time soon
There's a place selling modified Xbox's for about $450 that does all of this stuff that I've been considering.
For the most part, a modified Xbox would be my "dream TV box". Sit it in the living room (it's about the same size as the DVD/VCR combo machine - thicker, but not as long), and I could have an archive of my legally purchased DVD's. As a guy with 2 kids who are always trying to ruin the DVD's with their grimy little fingers, this would be a great machine for my household.
"Here, kids - want to watch 'Blue's Clues on a Deserted Island and Joe Dies Horribly' again? OK - let me just use the remote on the Xbox." Boom - there goes my XVID ripped DVD movie on. Originals are kept safe, kids are happy.
I'm kind of dissapointed we haven't seen a company come up with a solution like this. A Cappachino sized device with the same capabilities, running Linux so I could FTP/SSH into it for upgrades/other mods would sell like hotcakes. (And as an avid fan of hotcakes, I know what I'm talking about.)
You know, I didn't mind the "Cell-da" look of the Wind Waker game. I acutally liked it, and my daughter (now 5, going on 12) liked it too. (Right after we finish "Kingdom Hearts" I've told her Link is next.)
I never got the cries of "mature Link" from folks out there.
But after that video - damn. It looks great (the castle looks a little blocky, but ah well), but the rest of it was, well, kick ass.
Will I still be able to play this game with my daughter? I think so. While there's still violence, it doesn't look like "blood and guts" - just the same kind of violence in other Zelda games, just now with better effects.
And that Balrog creature?
Here's hoping the next Zelda game is as long and wonderful as Ocarina of Time was.
Just that my .Mac email account won't work, so I can't change my password, get new reciepts, and so on.
.Mac account, so that might be a problem. Then again, I haven't tried switching that to a different email address yet - I'll try that first. (Duh me.)
The iTunes store account is typically your email address if you have a
Will I use the new Hymn/Playfair program? Oh, probably - my .Mac account runs out and I'm not going to renew, and it's how I bought my iTunes songs in the past.
So, now I'm kind of boned (maybe - probably not, but maybe) in the future. Yes, I can "rip to audio-CD-and-then-to-MP3", but Hymn will make it all a "one stop shopping trip" for my fairly large iTunes store collection (hey, they had a special on classical music and BB King - give me a break).
Apple really doesn't have much to worry about, since people have to buy the music first before they can remove the Fairplay protections. And even if a bunch of butt-munches start "sharing" their music with others, that means more AAC files out there, which means a better chance we'll see more MP3 players that include AAC support in the future.
So while Apple doesn't have to worry about Fairplay, the fact is that the folks they get their music from - IE, the RIAA and even independant musicians - might like to hear that Apple's not letting just anybody give away their music without paying for it. Apple might not care, but since the place where they get music does, Apple's obligated to at least "fight the good fight" to show "due process" or some such.
Yeah, I'll use it, I know Apple will work to shut it down, but it should all be good in the long run.
If you read the book "The Hacker Crackdown" (free at peanutpress.com), you'll find the FBI know that once they catch most crackers, they can't get them to shut the hell up afterwards.
I think most of it is "bragging rights". Which is why you notice the most successful psychopaths in history are the quiet ones....
Right now, Nintendo has a problem with people downloading rom files for the Game Boy Advance, and playing them with a growing number of emulators for platforms from the PC, OS X, Linux, GP32, and maybe even Palm Pilots.
So to combat that, they've created "value added" features, such as their Connectivity system: if you want to get the Tingle Tuner for the Gamecube, you need a GBA + Gamecube + an actual copy of the game. In some cases, it's worked (see "Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles" and others), so that's Nintendo's move.
Sony seems to have a different idea: use the Internet. Assuming that you'll be able to use Sony Memory Sticks with your PSP, then you can just download games off the 'Net and play them. Granted, these games won't be the 1.8 GB that their PSP disks can hold, so it will be the difference between playing, say, "Final Fantasy VII" on your PSP and playing "Chrono Trigger".
Still, it's an interesting move: Sony's betting that there won't be a PSP emulator for long enough to squeeze profits out of this. And if they allow people to create their own "burned" PSP disks from downloads (sure, 1.8 GB takes awhile, but you never know), then they just have to make their system difficult to mod for "pirated" games.
I'm still in a "wait and see" for both the DS and the PSP, but I think both items will have different markets that should prove interesting to a range of gamers.
Don't say it's so!
If SCO doesn't have any more real claims in court, how will we as a society get by?
The last time a major company fell apart, we had to hire Sally Struthers to start up "CEO charity foundations".
We can't have these people walking the streets. Keeping them in upper management positions is the only way to protect the rest of us from serious harm. At least in the boardroom, secluded from the rest of society, they can do the least damage.
I'm hardly surprised by the results. Personally, I don't drink Pepsi usually (though it's not a religious thing, no matter what people think). But I'll drink a Sierra Mist, which is included in the contest.
So when My Lovely Wife (MLF) would go to the store, she knew to look for Sierra Mist with the label. For about the last 5 months she's looked, and every so often I'd take a peek.
Nothing. Nada. I've talked to other people in the San Diego/Southern California area. Nothing. I was on a business trip to Chicago - didn't see any out there (though maybe someone who lives there might have had more luck).
I don't know if it's that Pepsi had a lot of "warehouse" Pepsi to sell that just never got to the market, or if they only shipped it to certain areas. But whatever the reason, I have not seen one iTunes Pepsi cap - and those friends I have who have seen them in their area mention that it's not 1/3 that one, but typically more like 1/10 (though perhaps they were victims of the "Bottle Tilt Trick" in their area from ambitious music buyers).
I'd like to hear that Pepsi extends the contest for another 6 months in the hopes that the labeled bottles will eventually reach stores, but I'm not holding my breath.
Well - damn! I never knew!
Thanks, SpamJunkie! I don't know how I missed that one. (Duhhhhh.)
I want to expand on that.
In my case, I have 3 lists:
Driving
Sitting
Simple
Simple: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word
Sitting: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word AND rating of >2
Driving: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word, AND rating of > 3
three playlists, and I'm clicking the "add" button all day long. Why can't I just make up a list of:
Simple: Any song EXCEPT holiday, spoken word
Then make up:
Sitting: Any song > 2
And place it as a "nested smart playlist" under Simple? Then it will automatically inherit Simple's rules, plus add it's own. Driving can be under sitting, or under simple -whatever.
And if I could copy/paste smart playlists, then I could have a list for language. I like listening to songs in Japanese and English, my wife only likes Enligh. So I could make up a new sublist for "Driving" that excludes "comments contains Japanese" for my wife, without having to have 6 Smart Playlists, all with 8 different settings.
This would also mean if I placed a new genre of "Children's Songs", I could exclude it from Simple, and the "nested smart playlists" would inherit those settings. I would have to change 6 different playlists.
That's what I'm looking for.
My apologies, then - sometimes it's hard to tell the sarcasm from the trolls these days ;).
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but why does it give you pleasure to pass along useless information disguised as helping?
Looking for more links to this piece of information about Xerox and Apple?
It just - doesn't make any sense. Perhaps I need to be more clear:
2. Copy *smart* playlists: So I just copy the logic and tweak the settings, not just "copy a playlist and manually remove songs".
My apologies if I was less than clear - but really. Your link was probably the most useless thing that I've seen since the invention of washing ice in hot water.
And maybe this is available in other MP3 players - but this is my list after setting up some new Smart Lists this morning:
1. Nested lists: so I could have one list that says "if genre = rock", then a sublist that just has "if My Rating is > 3" or "if year published is 2" and the other "if My Rating is > 3" (which I use to differentiate between "Background work music" and "Driving kick ass music".
2. Copy playlists: Another major issue with the above is that if I have 2 playlists that are 90% the same, I'd like to set the first one up, then just copy the list logic into a new one and only edit the 1 or 2 differences.
3. iSync iTunes I have a laptop, and so does my wife. Right now, all of our music sits on a Master hard drive on a Powermac, then synced to my iPod, which when I'm at work I plug into my laptop and place on "manual" (so it doesn't copy the laptop music files). This works out, but it's not what I'd like.
What I'd like is to go home, sit with my laptop and have it say "Oh, I see Playlists X, Y, and Z on your main computer have updated, and I've updated these MP3 tracks ratings/tags/etc. Let me sync up."
Then I could select the lists I want on my laptop from the main machine and only those files would be copied to my box. Since, if I buy music from the iTunes Music Store I can play it on 5 separate machines, it would be nice to have an "auto-sync" kind of system.
I think that's about it for now. I like the option of a new lossless recording (if I ever get my computer tied into a good sound system I can use it - I think there's some new devices that can stream from your Mac to from about $200 that might be worth a look).
I'm rather interested in seeing some of these that support FM radio. I hadn't really thought about it, since other than NPR I haven't listened to much radio for the last 18 months (why bother? It's the same damned stuff they were playing 3 years before that!).
But it makes some sense - most walkman's, even CD based ones, have AM/FM radio support. A MP3 player shouldn't be that different.
Though, maybe there is a very small portable XM radio player. Hm - something to look into.
OK, so some I can understand, like how to make millions of dollars by investing in some guy in Nigeria. Or increase the size of your sexual organs (though I'm disturbed by the ones that state "I went from 2" to 6"!" I mean, my 2 year old son is 2", you know? What of freaks are in these testimonials?)
But the ones I really don't understand are the "stop spam with this email!" It's like the phone company selling you caller-ID systems that block unlisted or telemarketers numbers - then sell the telemarketers systems to get through those.
That would never happen, right?
If you have Tivo record the shows you miss, and you catch up with them next week? I usually have just 2 shows I care about - The Daily Show (which if you miss it, 2 days later it loses the oomph since current events have passed) and Clone Wars. Maybe South Park if I remember.
So if you record the shows for later, is that kosher? Because I think I can talk my wife into this, but she's certainly in the "But I'll miss Friends!" camp. Heaven forbid she shouldn't find out if Ross and Monica are finally going to get together.
Imagine what this could do for the rental business. Now, I'm not about to get rid of my DVDs, and I hope they don't stop selling them: I rather like "owning" a movie I can play whenever Iike.
But getting on an airplane, and instead of "renting" a movie, I just but the cheap $2.00 one. This is what DiVX could have been without the annoying DRM and phone calling back method.
If I want to try out a game, such as "Jak and Daxter 14: Goatees for Everybody", I could get the cheap $5 full version paper demo, try it out, and when the disk finally breaks down say "Well, I can either buy another $5 version and finish the game, or pay $30 for the full version".
Either way, Sony doesn't come across looking evil, and I get what I want.
Well, that explains things.
Bugger all.
Granted, I don't care for real, even though "Air America" seems to like it (hello? Streamed MP3, folks - more universal, damn it!)
Anyway. It all boils down to "What does Apple want?" If it wants to sell iPods, this is part of the whole "killer move" thing. Right now, I can use my iPod with iTunes Music Store and Audible.com. And since I already shelled out $300 for this portable hard drive/music player, if you're not compatible, I don't want to hear it.
Licensing Fairplay to Real (and yes, I know that Fairplay isn't owned by Apple, but I'm willing to bet they've got an "exclusive agreement" and enough clout to convince the actual owners to let Real in on the fun) would, as the header notes, make the iPod work with Rhapsody. I'm not about to sign up for Rhapsody, but all of the sudden, those "Apple's trying to lock you into their own technology" arguments go out the window. And it sets a good precident: ask Apple nicely, and you can use their service.
But - this is only if Apple sees the prize as iPods. If they see the prize as becoming the de facto standard for online music, which would put them in a very powerful position, they could say "Hm - we have about 60% of all legal music downloads now, and the #1 portable MP3 players. Forget it, Real."
Personally, I think a combination of the two is in order: license with Real as they did with Audible.com. Let Real sell "iPod compatible" songs off of Rhapsody and whatever - but make those same tunes available through iTMS, just like you can buy Audible's site or through the iTunes interface. Everybody gets to sell something, and Apple will gain the "subscription services" so people can pick and choose thier poisen.
Of course, I could be totally wrong - but I won't mind if this scenario plays out.
I think that the only issue with Open Source boils down to this:
The things that nobody wants to do, but somebody has to.
Nobody wants to think about documentation. Or user interfaces. These things are hard, tedious, and a hell of a lot more boring than actually coming up with stuff to "make things work".
It's the reason why Windows is pretty easy to use. Personally, I think that OS X is the preferred model that many business should think about: having an open source "core" (BSD or Linux, whatever) with standard interfaces, then having the companies business be working on the upper levels: the stuff you have to see, since that's what you can pay somebody to work on.
Novell is taking such an approach, I believe, along with IBM. The issues with how to handle memory and the things that 99% of the people never see, let that get put out there so it becomes stronger. Faster. Better, and if nobody "owns" it, then everybody can use it to make their business better - fosters competition.
But your job is to provide the "service layer", such as with Novell/IBM admin tools to administrate those underlying pieces, or Apple giving you a nice "standardized" GUI where everything just works with the rock solid core.
These issues in the paper are not new - but they're the things that somebody, somewhere down the line, has to fork up for. And that's where I'm content to let a business pick up that slack and fill a product niche on top of Open Source software.
Granted, of course, they play by the rules, and let the rest of the community in on what they did so we can all benefit and get better.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
On the one hand, I'm not sure I oppose this system on principle. There's a lot of bad drivers out there (I'm lookin' at you, California and Utah), and something to say "Hey, assmuch, would it kill you to slow the hell down and stop putting on your mascara eating a bagle talking on your cell phone to your wife and just friggin' drive your car?"
On the other side, there's two things that I believe in:
a) Visible Law Enforcement
b) Leave the rest of us alone
You don't "punish" the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. You want to make the roads safe? Get more cops driving out there. Last time I checked, having more police (assuming good training, obey civil liberties, etc) on the roads tends to majorly disrupt crime of most kinds - whether its speeding, accidents, selling drugs, whatever. Those of us that are innocents will wave to the nice policeperson as we drive by knowing that Mr. Cruise Control keeps us from getting pulled over, while the idiot who likes to ride my bumper because I don't want to go 80 in the 65 MPH zone will think twice before passing on the right shoulder.
Without making me feel like a criminal in my own car because it has to remind me how to drive.
Just my $0.02. I could be wrong.
I might have to fire up Mozilla or IE, since it doesn't support Safari just yet.
But I could see where this could be useful to me. Right now, my only problem with Google is that it returns too many results. By letting it know I'm not interesting (usually) about sports, religion, and other issues, I can start to specify what I want. And if I need more general, that's what the slider is for.
Nice idea. Be interesting to see how they handle things (like can I make an "account"), and then there's the privacy issue. I don't mind Google sells the data in a generic sense, as in "people interested in Clark also research political books" or some such, as long as they don't say "John Hummel has a fetish for Swedish schoolgirls with giganticly think eyebrows".
'Cause if that information got out, man would my face be red.
Excellent point - my apologies on missing that.
Option 4, then: License the iPod. I wonder how far that "licensing" goes? I believe for HP it's really just an iPod made by Apple then slapped with an HP case. Perhaps they should license the technology behind it - that way, every "iPod clone" has to pay an "Apple tax" for working with iTMS - which means that Apple would still win in the long run.