The poster was most likely referring to incidents where someone whom you know outside of Facebook is posting things on the site that you otherwise would not want on there. While it would seem that the solution is to never tell these people these things in the first place, it is worth realizing that these people are in all likelihood giving the appearance of trust, and are even otherwise genuinely trustworthy. They would not report these things to random strangers outside of Facebook, but have been duped by the site's promises of privacy to believe that they have just as much control of the decimation of your information as they think they do in real life.* These people could also be trustworthy individuals who have turned on you, like an ex-spouse.
*Of course, privacy is a chain that will break at its weakest link, so it could also be said that assuming privacy in real life is foolish as well, since all it takes is one untrustworthy individual in the chain to ruin everything. "Two people can keep a secret if one is dead" and all that.
Or that using online banking proves you're an idiot, because your login information *could* be compromised if someone got physical or root access to the bank's database server.
Or it could be that Apple is an AVC patent holder, and stands to gain by pushing a format that they can later cash in on. Given this advantage, Apple is unlikely to support any free formats, and is likely using Theora's shortcomings as an excuse.
Funny how a lot of commenters here are quick to point out the possible ulterior motives of Microsoft, but so few do the same for Apple.
Lack of hardware decoders on the desktop is a minor annoyance, but for mobile hardware it's a deal breaker. And mobile is a big and rapidly expanding market. If open source codecs are going to get widespread adoption going forward, they're going to need to get built into hardware codecs.
No, the opposite is true. If Theora is going to get built into hardware codecs, it needs to get widespread adoption. Without enough adoption, there is not enough demand to justify the cost of developing and deploying accelerators.
As you mentioned, desktop machines don't need hardware decoders as badly, so Theora can get the necessary demand from those machines.
I am sick of this argument. Not because of its merit, but because of its defeatist attitude. Arguments like this one are basically "Theora has no hardware decoders at the moment, therefore it never will, and Theora will die." They may not be saying this explicitly, but the implication is certainly there.
At what point do you think that someone won't step up to the plate and design a Theora decoder? I don't know of any technical reason that they can't. The decoder has been frozen since 2004, so encoder improvements can still continue and will still play on hardware-accelerated devices. The only thing that is needed is sufficient demand for the codec. The codecs you mentioned as now having hardware accelerators started out without any. It was only after those formats became popular that they started being built.
Furthermore, mobile devices may or may not need these decoders, but the overpowered Core Octo machines that the soccer moms and grandmothers of the world are being told that they have to buy for their e-mail and word processing needs will handle Theora without any acceleration. You mentioned your $50 card? Well, my card has no acceleration at all, and I can play web-resolution Theora just fine. In fact, I can play multiple videos at the same time.
Defeatist arguments like this one aren't helping. They are hurting. They only serve to create self-fulfilling prophecies by discouraging Theora adoption on the grounds of something that will never come to pass unless Theora adoption occurs in the first place. If you really do want Theora to succeed, then it needs to grow enough of a base that chip manufacturers will see a high enough demand for Theora chip production.
Because the courts do not exist to determine whether a law is just, rather if the law was broken. The one exception is judicial review, and that only applies to unconstitutional laws and is a power only the Supreme Court holds.
I think the major difference that the tatics in use by most business software vendors are accepted because they for the most part don't try to engage in device lock-in like DRM'd music does. Once you've gotten a copy of the software, you're free to install it on a computer of your chosing, and when you want to move it to a new PC it is generally not too difficult to do (except for Adobe stuff.)
(The previous two paragraphs are based on conjecture, anecdotes, and my own reasoning. I think my conclusions are fairly pedestrian, but if anyone has any statistics or studies as to the revenue generated by back catalog, I'd be interested to see them.)
Likewise.
When the CD was introduced, everyone who wanted the new format ended up having to upgrade their collections or continue to use their current LPs and casettes until they wore out. The CD was not recordable (and would not become recordable for another 8 years), so dubbing one's existing collection to CD was out of the question. Still, the promise of the new format was enough to finally kill off vinyl, as no doubt customers were sick of worn out records and eaten cassettes, and loved the idea of a format whose marketing promised a century of readability without analog degrading. The CD gobbles up vinyl's market first, then the cassette's after the introduction of anti-skip buffers. Eventually people's old collections are either worn out or become difficult to play due to inconvenience, and people start re-buying their old music on CD. Sales skyrocket, because the labels are not just selling their discs to new customers, but also to old customers who bought the same lineup of recordings years ago, and were replacing their recordings at a rate faster than the usual re-purchase due to destruction of the old medium.
But the CD, being a digital format, had an advantage over the previous formats of vinyl and cassette. Because the tracks are digital, they can be extracted and easily transferred to another medium. The labels knew about the transfer of recordings from a CD to another medium, but anticipated the process would be in the form of a conventional dub using analog means, much like what the casette tape allowed. Hence, the CD did not have DRM, and no attempt was made during the specification process to prevent digital extraction. Once digital music started becoming the norm, the prediction was that customers would dub their tracks using S/PDIF to MD or DAT, or to the new CD recorders. So the labels lobbied for the AHRA and SCMS.
Of course, what happened instead was that these new digital formats failed to gain traction, and a new more efficient method of digital transfer arose: the digital extraction of tracks to a hard drive using a computer. Unlike a dub, ripping did not require playback of the source medium. Despite the original rips of CDs taking a long time due to encoding and slow processors, the difficult task of ripping only had to be done once. Once done, the tracks can be copied to any writable medium with ease. If one wanted to copy a CD to another CD, a computer allowed for a verbatim copy from source to destination without the need for any dubbing. Suddenly, any future form of music storage, which would inevitably be some sort of digital file, could not be as successful as the CD. Even tape, which also had the ability to record from another source, would inevitably have made more money from back catalog updating due to the tediousness of dubbing, as opposed to the straightforward process of ripping.
Phillips and Sony outdid themselves with the CD, making it almost impossible to create a successor. Attempts to try (DVD-Audio and SACD) failed because their features catered only to a select few and due to low player and disc support. Digital distribution is successful because of the a la carte model of allowing the selection of individual tracks, and the convenience of having songs beamed directly to your hard drive, since a new CD would just end up there anyway. But it would be absurd to re-buy all of your music online if you already have a CD, as you can just get the track from your existing collection, leaving back catalog purchases to those who do not know about ripping.
So to compare the revenues of labels from their peak in 1999 is absurd, as much of that revenue no doubt came from back catalog purchases. Instead it would make far more sense to compare it to revenues from before 1981, before the CD came out (adjusted for inflation of course).
- anticompetitive business practices (price fixing, etc) that have given potential customers a sour attitude towards music labels
Really? Most people I come across aren't even aware of this, and even fewer really care so long as they get what they want from the labels.
- destruction of diversity in radio broadcasting (something the music industry ironically pushed for) via the death of media ownership regulations mid-'90s
Maybe you just don't live in an area with diverse radio stations. Where I live these seems to be a decent amount of diversity, although certainly the amount of said diversity is dependent on what those who are in the reception area generally want to listen to.
And finally, the main reason:
- replacement of almost all talented acts that produced good music, with hyperproduced kiddie-shit "artists" whose assets are not musical talent or singing voices, but barely-covered bikini bottoms and tits. Just you wait: in 4 years, tops, "Hannah Montana" will be pulling a Britney-style selfdestruct. And neither of them are capable of producing "music" even remotely worth listening to.
You and I may agree on that statement, but in the end it is still completely based on aesthetics. I have seen plenty of people that apparently like this music. If no one liked it, it wouldn't even get made at all.
Except that this has been happening long before iTunes or even Napster. Radio, singles, "Greatest Hits" compilations, and mixtapes all helped in some way to kill off the album long before the Internet came along.
The danger isn't so much that you will receive malware on your machine. The far more likely scenario is that someone is pretending to be that online retailer you browsed to, and tricks you into connecting to that person instead. He or she gets your credit card number and leaves you with the bill for that expensive boat or timeshare he or she buys with it. That kind of thing is not something that your browser or operating system alone can save you from.
That really isn't going to help people who don't even know what a Web browser is, let alone those who don't know what the differences are between each browser.
Second, you think "freedoms conflict"? You're going to have to give at least one example of conflicting freedoms if you want to be believed. And no, copyleft does not provide such an example.
My freedom to play my stereo as loud as I want within the confines of my apartment has the potential to conflict with the freedom of my neighbors to an atmosphere of peace and quiet within the confines of their apartments.
Well I'm no expert, but I think it's pretty hard to play console games without a console, whereas TV broadcasts, as well as anything that outputs to a TV, can be viewed on just about any TV set. If the goal is to play console games, I would imagine the console itself is a higher priority.
KDE programs run just fine in GNOME, and GNOME programs run fine in KDE. Most programs don't have an extremely tight level of integration with the desktop environment, so there isn't a huge amount of problems with doing this.
Slashdot Mirror
The poster was most likely referring to incidents where someone whom you know outside of Facebook is posting things on the site that you otherwise would not want on there. While it would seem that the solution is to never tell these people these things in the first place, it is worth realizing that these people are in all likelihood giving the appearance of trust, and are even otherwise genuinely trustworthy. They would not report these things to random strangers outside of Facebook, but have been duped by the site's promises of privacy to believe that they have just as much control of the decimation of your information as they think they do in real life.* These people could also be trustworthy individuals who have turned on you, like an ex-spouse.
*Of course, privacy is a chain that will break at its weakest link, so it could also be said that assuming privacy in real life is foolish as well, since all it takes is one untrustworthy individual in the chain to ruin everything. "Two people can keep a secret if one is dead" and all that.
Or that using online banking proves you're an idiot, because your login information *could* be compromised if someone got physical or root access to the bank's database server.
Using online banking proves you're an idiot.
Or it could be that Apple is an AVC patent holder, and stands to gain by pushing a format that they can later cash in on. Given this advantage, Apple is unlikely to support any free formats, and is likely using Theora's shortcomings as an excuse.
Funny how a lot of commenters here are quick to point out the possible ulterior motives of Microsoft, but so few do the same for Apple.
Lack of hardware decoders on the desktop is a minor annoyance, but for mobile hardware it's a deal breaker. And mobile is a big and rapidly expanding market.
If open source codecs are going to get widespread adoption going forward, they're going to need to get built into hardware codecs.
No, the opposite is true. If Theora is going to get built into hardware codecs, it needs to get widespread adoption. Without enough adoption, there is not enough demand to justify the cost of developing and deploying accelerators.
As you mentioned, desktop machines don't need hardware decoders as badly, so Theora can get the necessary demand from those machines.
I am sick of this argument. Not because of its merit, but because of its defeatist attitude. Arguments like this one are basically "Theora has no hardware decoders at the moment, therefore it never will, and Theora will die." They may not be saying this explicitly, but the implication is certainly there.
At what point do you think that someone won't step up to the plate and design a Theora decoder? I don't know of any technical reason that they can't. The decoder has been frozen since 2004, so encoder improvements can still continue and will still play on hardware-accelerated devices. The only thing that is needed is sufficient demand for the codec. The codecs you mentioned as now having hardware accelerators started out without any. It was only after those formats became popular that they started being built.
Furthermore, mobile devices may or may not need these decoders, but the overpowered Core Octo machines that the soccer moms and grandmothers of the world are being told that they have to buy for their e-mail and word processing needs will handle Theora without any acceleration. You mentioned your $50 card? Well, my card has no acceleration at all, and I can play web-resolution Theora just fine. In fact, I can play multiple videos at the same time.
Defeatist arguments like this one aren't helping. They are hurting. They only serve to create self-fulfilling prophecies by discouraging Theora adoption on the grounds of something that will never come to pass unless Theora adoption occurs in the first place. If you really do want Theora to succeed, then it needs to grow enough of a base that chip manufacturers will see a high enough demand for Theora chip production.
No it's win-lose. You have to choose between drinking the fuel or burning it.
On the other hand, this could put a serious dent in drunk driving.
Unlike trademarks, patents do not expire unless enforced.
Wrong. Patents expire in 20 years, but can not be invalidated unless enforced.
Oracle still makes billions of dollars, even if Microsoft makes more than them.
Because the courts do not exist to determine whether a law is just, rather if the law was broken. The one exception is judicial review, and that only applies to unconstitutional laws and is a power only the Supreme Court holds.
I think the major difference that the tatics in use by most business software vendors are accepted because they for the most part don't try to engage in device lock-in like DRM'd music does. Once you've gotten a copy of the software, you're free to install it on a computer of your chosing, and when you want to move it to a new PC it is generally not too difficult to do (except for Adobe stuff.)
As well as everything listed here.
No. Ignorance is not knowing how to do something right. Stupidity is not caring enough to do something right.
(The previous two paragraphs are based on conjecture, anecdotes, and my own reasoning. I think my conclusions are fairly pedestrian, but if anyone has any statistics or studies as to the revenue generated by back catalog, I'd be interested to see them.)
Likewise.
When the CD was introduced, everyone who wanted the new format ended up having to upgrade their collections or continue to use their current LPs and casettes until they wore out. The CD was not recordable (and would not become recordable for another 8 years), so dubbing one's existing collection to CD was out of the question. Still, the promise of the new format was enough to finally kill off vinyl, as no doubt customers were sick of worn out records and eaten cassettes, and loved the idea of a format whose marketing promised a century of readability without analog degrading. The CD gobbles up vinyl's market first, then the cassette's after the introduction of anti-skip buffers. Eventually people's old collections are either worn out or become difficult to play due to inconvenience, and people start re-buying their old music on CD. Sales skyrocket, because the labels are not just selling their discs to new customers, but also to old customers who bought the same lineup of recordings years ago, and were replacing their recordings at a rate faster than the usual re-purchase due to destruction of the old medium.
But the CD, being a digital format, had an advantage over the previous formats of vinyl and cassette. Because the tracks are digital, they can be extracted and easily transferred to another medium. The labels knew about the transfer of recordings from a CD to another medium, but anticipated the process would be in the form of a conventional dub using analog means, much like what the casette tape allowed. Hence, the CD did not have DRM, and no attempt was made during the specification process to prevent digital extraction. Once digital music started becoming the norm, the prediction was that customers would dub their tracks using S/PDIF to MD or DAT, or to the new CD recorders. So the labels lobbied for the AHRA and SCMS.
Of course, what happened instead was that these new digital formats failed to gain traction, and a new more efficient method of digital transfer arose: the digital extraction of tracks to a hard drive using a computer. Unlike a dub, ripping did not require playback of the source medium. Despite the original rips of CDs taking a long time due to encoding and slow processors, the difficult task of ripping only had to be done once. Once done, the tracks can be copied to any writable medium with ease. If one wanted to copy a CD to another CD, a computer allowed for a verbatim copy from source to destination without the need for any dubbing. Suddenly, any future form of music storage, which would inevitably be some sort of digital file, could not be as successful as the CD. Even tape, which also had the ability to record from another source, would inevitably have made more money from back catalog updating due to the tediousness of dubbing, as opposed to the straightforward process of ripping.
Phillips and Sony outdid themselves with the CD, making it almost impossible to create a successor. Attempts to try (DVD-Audio and SACD) failed because their features catered only to a select few and due to low player and disc support. Digital distribution is successful because of the a la carte model of allowing the selection of individual tracks, and the convenience of having songs beamed directly to your hard drive, since a new CD would just end up there anyway. But it would be absurd to re-buy all of your music online if you already have a CD, as you can just get the track from your existing collection, leaving back catalog purchases to those who do not know about ripping.
So to compare the revenues of labels from their peak in 1999 is absurd, as much of that revenue no doubt came from back catalog purchases. Instead it would make far more sense to compare it to revenues from before 1981, before the CD came out (adjusted for inflation of course).
The record industry is fucked.
I should think so. Records haven't been excessively popular since the CD took over.
- anticompetitive business practices (price fixing, etc) that have given potential customers a sour attitude towards music labels
Really? Most people I come across aren't even aware of this, and even fewer really care so long as they get what they want from the labels.
- destruction of diversity in radio broadcasting (something the music industry ironically pushed for) via the death of media ownership regulations mid-'90s
Maybe you just don't live in an area with diverse radio stations. Where I live these seems to be a decent amount of diversity, although certainly the amount of said diversity is dependent on what those who are in the reception area generally want to listen to.
And finally, the main reason:
- replacement of almost all talented acts that produced good music, with hyperproduced kiddie-shit "artists" whose assets are not musical talent or singing voices, but barely-covered bikini bottoms and tits. Just you wait: in 4 years, tops, "Hannah Montana" will be pulling a Britney-style selfdestruct. And neither of them are capable of producing "music" even remotely worth listening to.
You and I may agree on that statement, but in the end it is still completely based on aesthetics. I have seen plenty of people that apparently like this music. If no one liked it, it wouldn't even get made at all.
Except that this has been happening long before iTunes or even Napster. Radio, singles, "Greatest Hits" compilations, and mixtapes all helped in some way to kill off the album long before the Internet came along.
The correct name of the studio is "30th Century Fox."
Why not? It's my apartment, after all.
So long as my stereo does not infringe on the freedom of my neighbors, I am very much within my right to play my stereo as loud as I want.
The danger isn't so much that you will receive malware on your machine. The far more likely scenario is that someone is pretending to be that online retailer you browsed to, and tricks you into connecting to that person instead. He or she gets your credit card number and leaves you with the bill for that expensive boat or timeshare he or she buys with it. That kind of thing is not something that your browser or operating system alone can save you from.
That really isn't going to help people who don't even know what a Web browser is, let alone those who don't know what the differences are between each browser.
Second, you think "freedoms conflict"? You're going to have to give at least one example of conflicting freedoms if you want to be believed. And no, copyleft does not provide such an example.
My freedom to play my stereo as loud as I want within the confines of my apartment has the potential to conflict with the freedom of my neighbors to an atmosphere of peace and quiet within the confines of their apartments.
That will only serve to confuse and anger most people, since the next button is disabled and they have no clue what option to select.
Not quite. IE is like a set of tires that won't come off the car unless you tear off the entire axle as well.
To be fair, the same analog applies to Safari in Mac OS X, and Firefox in Ubuntu.
Well I'm no expert, but I think it's pretty hard to play console games without a console, whereas TV broadcasts, as well as anything that outputs to a TV, can be viewed on just about any TV set. If the goal is to play console games, I would imagine the console itself is a higher priority.
The advantage of cursive over printing is that it is faster and less fatiguing to the hand.
I must have been doing it wrong then.
KDE programs run just fine in GNOME, and GNOME programs run fine in KDE. Most programs don't have an extremely tight level of integration with the desktop environment, so there isn't a huge amount of problems with doing this.