This one is rich coming from a guy that invested in a BitTorrent wanna-be that was recently purchased by Akamai. I heard Cuban made most of his money back on that one.
I remember when ACE was announced. For you youngin's, the Advanced Computing Environment was an alliance of Compaq, Microsoft, MIPS Computer Systems, Digital Equipment Corporation, and the Santa Cruz Operation to build the next generation of computers in 1991. Basically, they wanted to wrestle control of the industry away from Intel. Steve Jobs was famously quoted as saying industry alliances always fail because there are just too many competing interests. He challenged people to name some successful industry alliances.
Can anyone name some successful computer industry alliances composed of competing members? This alliance has tons of members who compete directly with each other: handset manufacturers, software companies, chip manufacturers. The idea that these companies are going to align all of their interests, come together and produce anything is pretty far fetched IMHO.
Maybe they dropped it because nobody was using it. A massive development effort that could be used to improve the tools that Mac developers actually use. It's not like Windows app developers use Java either, so Apple isn't losing much in the way of cross platform apps (are there ANY popular apps for the mac written in Java other than Azureus?)
Apple has done quite a bit to improve their development environment in Leopard, they aren't scorning third party developers at all on the Mac.
Given that the only popular Java application on Mac OS X, Azureus, is universally regarded as being slow, bloated, and ugly, I'd say the GP's impression is not at all outdated.
Get this: your ISP doesn't care two spits if you're running BitTorrent. They care that you are using what they consider to be excessive amounts bandwidth. They don't need to see the contents of your packets. They can see that you're tx/rx large volumes of packets simultaneously to many different hosts all over the net. That's all they need to know to throttle you. There simply isn't any way around this without destroying the "raison d'etre" for using p2p.
You're nuts if you think social networking on the 'net is peaking. It has barely gotten started. Eventually, it will be as ubiquitous as personal phone numbers.
You absolutely can use a trademark to parodize/satirize the trademark itself or the trademark holder. The SCOTUS has held this to be protected speech. See the many examples of using Mickey Mouse and the trademark mouse ears to poke fun at Disney.
On the other hand, you can't use a trademark to make fun of something unrelated. You can't appropriate Hasbro's Monopoly trademarks to make fun of Microsoft, for instance.
uh no, with very few exceptions, the musicians make $0 on a $20 album. That's because all of the costs of production, promotion, packaging, advance, etc... come out of the (in your example) $2 royalty, not out of the $16 wholesale price.
The artist royalty may be less than a dollar but generally the artist doesn't get any of that. That's because all of the costs of production, marketing, packaging, etc... come out of the artists royalty.
the fact remains though that you cannot distribute music you don't own
That is false.
I have not once advocated infringement, I don't know why you're trying to lecture me.
if artists decide to go that direction then its their decision, not yours
Many artists have gone in that direction, yet Apple has already made the decision for those artists when it comes to iTunes. Bully for Apple, but people shouldn't expect a company with a track record for such things to change tack when it comes to the iPhone. Especially for the iPhone.
Thats BitTorrent's web site, not its software, but more importantly, every single restriction you have mentioned (including Mac support) is a technical artifact of the Windows Media DRM copy protection they use at the demand of the people that own the content. To support my point, the BitTorrent and uTorrent clients don't have any restrictions. You can share anything with as many people as you want. There is no assumption in the client software that you are attempting to infringe whether you are or not.
BitTorrent has an online store with content from the major audio and motion picture studios. Which features of BitTorrent or uTorrent are limited? Does BitTorrent really have more pull with the studios than Apple?
iPhone is basically an ipod with a phone. In fact, the latest ipods are just iphones without the phones. They both use iTunes. iTunes/ipods already have an SDK and it's locked down in the manner I have already expounded upon. Steve Jobs is saying that he thinks locking down the platform is a good idea. Remind me again why we should think the new iTunes/ipod SDK is going to be open? I mean, other than empty hope.
Just because you have no talent doesn't mean that there aren't millions of people in the USA alone that are capable of making their own music. Furthermore, there are many professional musicians who allow people to record, trade, and promote their performances, including Slashdot darling Radiohead.
Get a clue, copying music is not necessarily infringement.
Even on your local network iTunes imposes a limit of five people per day per track. We hit this at the office trying to listen to recordings of our officemates performing, and for a recording of friends we had play at the office. Everyone wanted to listen but iTunes was limiting us. Yet another reason to hate iTunes.
Every time one of these stories comes out I point out that the situation will be the same as with the iTunes SDK: to get the SDK you'll have to sign an agreement that gives Apple veto power over your application. Every time people flamed me. It still looks like I'm right.
Anything they don't like, gone. They say its to protect users from spyware and other forms of malware but it'll be used to eliminate anything they don't like. Just like there isn't any decent music sharing functionality in iTunes, there won't be anything on the iPhone that doesn't settle well with the ultraconservatives in Apples Ivory Tower. Instead you'll get crippled functionality, like music sharing with ridiculous limits on the number of people/playbacks per day. As if all of their developers and customers are children who can't be given responsibility. Children don't own copyrights, so they don't need the discretion to share music beyond what Apple believes is "fair enough."
People are still going to flame me saying that we should wait and see. Well, I've been waiting and I see no way to set an mp3 on your iPhone as a ringtone. Is there any reason not to give this functionality other than to protect Apple's new ringtone business? Why would any reasonable person believe that Apple won't do the same thing when granting ISVs permission to deploy applications on iPhone?
The argument that phones are somehow more vulnerable than any other network connected computer and need to be controlled by a central authority is specious.
"Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you..."
Sonny, when I was your age we had to tap out our trolls and flames in Morse code on a telegraph key, in the snow, with frostbitten fingers, uphill, both ways.
Are you kidding? Musicians don't see a dime of royalties from their record sales. Creative accounting and "recoupable" expenses take care of that. Thats why musicians like Reznor encourage the public to steal from the record companies, because the record companies are stealing from the musicians.
Musicians make all of their money from live performances and merchandising. Reznor may earn royalties from other musicians albums he has producer credits on, however.
Also, I seriously doubt that Trent Reznor is "very rich" or even "rich" by first world standards.
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work.
This is false. The GPL isn't a contract and you are under no obligation to accept it. Rather, nothing else gives you permission to exercise what are normally the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. Namely, reproducing the work and making derivative works. In reality it is the enforceability of Copyright that makes the GPL work. If you violate the GPL and Eben Moglen hauls your ass into court, you're not going to be facing a breach of contract suit. Nope, it'll be a copyright infringement suit.
If you enjoy and it and are good at it, why don't you write some cool and useful software in your spare time? If it is popular you can earn money off it directly, more than you make teaching. Even if it is not, you can use it as a portfolio to get work. It's pretty easy to get an interview if you have code people can download and look at. If you have several published things out there that people are using, you can get high dollar contract work that wouldn't require a daily commute.
Releasing software, either end user apps/utils (closed or open source) or libraries, will launch your career. Pick a hot new development environment you want to work in and make some libs or tools. Write some utilities or cool internet apps for end users.
The proof is in the pudding. Fortunately, with software it is easy to make pudding.
Software requires the least amount of capital to start up. If you can hack code in your parents basement or after work, you can start a software company. Write some really cool software. Once you have something working you can get more money. It will take a lot of hard work but you'll love every second of it and who knows, you might make it. Even if you don't you get valuable experience and a portfolio.
Just do it. Make something cool that people need. Be your own boss. Hire your own programmers in India. Do it now, while you're young and don't have a family.
original poster: Don't listen to the parent of this post, he doesn't know what he is talking about.
You don't need or want a refractor. Its too much money for the aperture and is totally unnecessary for your application. You can view the planets with a Newtonian just fine. Trust me, my 15" Newtonian gives far better views of the planets than any 6" refractor, even if was made by "Uncle Rollo." Aperture wins and wins big. You can get quality aperture, don't believe the refractorholic hype.
Get a planisphere. It is a round star chart with a cutout representing the horizon. You dial in the date/time and it shows you what the sky looks like overhead. This is what you use to learn the constellations and bright stars. Use the binoculars you have or get a pair, they are useful even if you decide astronomy is too boring. Don't fool around with a laptop and software unless it is cloudy. Don't get a big book of star charts yet.
Before you spend any money on a telescope, GO TO A STAR PARTY AND LOOK THROUGH OTHER PEOPLES SCOPES. Check the local astronomy clubs, they surely have a website where they list the monthly star parties and locations. Bring your binos and planisphere and look through a bunch of scopes. A star party will have a bunch of big expensive scopes to look through, like 8-10" SCTs and 10-18" Newtonians. If your site really is dark, consider allowing the local club to use your site on new moon weekends. Every club could use another dark site with no stray lights or drunken campers.
Plenty of people get the astronomy bug, go out and drop money on an expesive telescope, then find out that they are bored and cold standing around in the dark looking at barely visible fuzzies. Nothing looks as good as it does in the pictures, except globular clusters. If you think the views in a big scope with a 24" mirror that requires a ladder to look through is going to compare to the deep images you've seen on your computer, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Astrophotography is way, way harder than it looks and is insanely expensive to get top results. The amateurs who are good at it (crisp, gendler, croman, crawford, etc...) spend $5-$10K on a mount, as much on a telescope, and as much on a camera. Then they have lots of software, tons of patience, and tons of talent. Some of them have remote observatories in the middle of nowhere with robotic telescopes.
Slashdot Mirror
This one is rich coming from a guy that invested in a BitTorrent wanna-be that was recently purchased by Akamai. I heard Cuban made most of his money back on that one.
I think you're right on in your analysis. As others pointed it, its a lot like Java/Sun's strategy.
I remember when ACE was announced. For you youngin's, the Advanced Computing Environment was an alliance of Compaq, Microsoft, MIPS Computer Systems, Digital Equipment Corporation, and the Santa Cruz Operation to build the next generation of computers in 1991. Basically, they wanted to wrestle control of the industry away from Intel. Steve Jobs was famously quoted as saying industry alliances always fail because there are just too many competing interests. He challenged people to name some successful industry alliances.
Can anyone name some successful computer industry alliances composed of competing members? This alliance has tons of members who compete directly with each other: handset manufacturers, software companies, chip manufacturers. The idea that these companies are going to align all of their interests, come together and produce anything is pretty far fetched IMHO.
Maybe they dropped it because nobody was using it. A massive development effort that could be used to improve the tools that Mac developers actually use. It's not like Windows app developers use Java either, so Apple isn't losing much in the way of cross platform apps (are there ANY popular apps for the mac written in Java other than Azureus?)
Apple has done quite a bit to improve their development environment in Leopard, they aren't scorning third party developers at all on the Mac.
Given that the only popular Java application on Mac OS X, Azureus, is universally regarded as being slow, bloated, and ugly, I'd say the GP's impression is not at all outdated.
Get this: your ISP doesn't care two spits if you're running BitTorrent. They care that you are using what they consider to be excessive amounts bandwidth. They don't need to see the contents of your packets. They can see that you're tx/rx large volumes of packets simultaneously to many different hosts all over the net. That's all they need to know to throttle you. There simply isn't any way around this without destroying the "raison d'etre" for using p2p.
I guess you've never heard of Chaumian mix or a DC-net.
You're nuts if you think social networking on the 'net is peaking. It has barely gotten started. Eventually, it will be as ubiquitous as personal phone numbers.
You absolutely can use a trademark to parodize/satirize the trademark itself or the trademark holder. The SCOTUS has held this to be protected speech. See the many examples of using Mickey Mouse and the trademark mouse ears to poke fun at Disney.
On the other hand, you can't use a trademark to make fun of something unrelated. You can't appropriate Hasbro's Monopoly trademarks to make fun of Microsoft, for instance.
uh no, with very few exceptions, the musicians make $0 on a $20 album. That's because all of the costs of production, promotion, packaging, advance, etc... come out of the (in your example) $2 royalty, not out of the $16 wholesale price.
The artist royalty may be less than a dollar but generally the artist doesn't get any of that. That's because all of the costs of production, marketing, packaging, etc... come out of the artists royalty.
see http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
That is false.
I have not once advocated infringement, I don't know why you're trying to lecture me.
Many artists have gone in that direction, yet Apple has already made the decision for those artists when it comes to iTunes. Bully for Apple, but people shouldn't expect a company with a track record for such things to change tack when it comes to the iPhone. Especially for the iPhone.
Thats BitTorrent's web site, not its software, but more importantly, every single restriction you have mentioned (including Mac support) is a technical artifact of the Windows Media DRM copy protection they use at the demand of the people that own the content. To support my point, the BitTorrent and uTorrent clients don't have any restrictions. You can share anything with as many people as you want. There is no assumption in the client software that you are attempting to infringe whether you are or not.
BitTorrent has an online store with content from the major audio and motion picture studios. Which features of BitTorrent or uTorrent are limited? Does BitTorrent really have more pull with the studios than Apple?
iPhone is basically an ipod with a phone. In fact, the latest ipods are just iphones without the phones. They both use iTunes. iTunes/ipods already have an SDK and it's locked down in the manner I have already expounded upon. Steve Jobs is saying that he thinks locking down the platform is a good idea. Remind me again why we should think the new iTunes/ipod SDK is going to be open? I mean, other than empty hope.
Just because you have no talent doesn't mean that there aren't millions of people in the USA alone that are capable of making their own music. Furthermore, there are many professional musicians who allow people to record, trade, and promote their performances, including Slashdot darling Radiohead.
Get a clue, copying music is not necessarily infringement.
Even on your local network iTunes imposes a limit of five people per day per track. We hit this at the office trying to listen to recordings of our officemates performing, and for a recording of friends we had play at the office. Everyone wanted to listen but iTunes was limiting us. Yet another reason to hate iTunes.
Every time one of these stories comes out I point out that the situation will be the same as with the iTunes SDK: to get the SDK you'll have to sign an agreement that gives Apple veto power over your application. Every time people flamed me. It still looks like I'm right.
Anything they don't like, gone. They say its to protect users from spyware and other forms of malware but it'll be used to eliminate anything they don't like. Just like there isn't any decent music sharing functionality in iTunes, there won't be anything on the iPhone that doesn't settle well with the ultraconservatives in Apples Ivory Tower. Instead you'll get crippled functionality, like music sharing with ridiculous limits on the number of people/playbacks per day. As if all of their developers and customers are children who can't be given responsibility. Children don't own copyrights, so they don't need the discretion to share music beyond what Apple believes is "fair enough."
People are still going to flame me saying that we should wait and see. Well, I've been waiting and I see no way to set an mp3 on your iPhone as a ringtone. Is there any reason not to give this functionality other than to protect Apple's new ringtone business? Why would any reasonable person believe that Apple won't do the same thing when granting ISVs permission to deploy applications on iPhone?
The argument that phones are somehow more vulnerable than any other network connected computer and need to be controlled by a central authority is specious.
"Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you..."
Sonny, when I was your age we had to tap out our trolls and flames in Morse code on a telegraph key, in the snow, with frostbitten fingers, uphill, both ways.
Are you kidding? Musicians don't see a dime of royalties from their record sales. Creative accounting and "recoupable" expenses take care of that. Thats why musicians like Reznor encourage the public to steal from the record companies, because the record companies are stealing from the musicians.
Musicians make all of their money from live performances and merchandising. Reznor may earn royalties from other musicians albums he has producer credits on, however.
Also, I seriously doubt that Trent Reznor is "very rich" or even "rich" by first world standards.
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work.
This is false. The GPL isn't a contract and you are under no obligation to accept it. Rather, nothing else gives you permission to exercise what are normally the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. Namely, reproducing the work and making derivative works. In reality it is the enforceability of Copyright that makes the GPL work. If you violate the GPL and Eben Moglen hauls your ass into court, you're not going to be facing a breach of contract suit. Nope, it'll be a copyright infringement suit.
If you enjoy and it and are good at it, why don't you write some cool and useful software in your spare time? If it is popular you can earn money off it directly, more than you make teaching. Even if it is not, you can use it as a portfolio to get work. It's pretty easy to get an interview if you have code people can download and look at. If you have several published things out there that people are using, you can get high dollar contract work that wouldn't require a daily commute.
Releasing software, either end user apps/utils (closed or open source) or libraries, will launch your career. Pick a hot new development environment you want to work in and make some libs or tools. Write some utilities or cool internet apps for end users.
The proof is in the pudding. Fortunately, with software it is easy to make pudding.
Software requires the least amount of capital to start up. If you can hack code in your parents basement or after work, you can start a software company. Write some really cool software. Once you have something working you can get more money. It will take a lot of hard work but you'll love every second of it and who knows, you might make it. Even if you don't you get valuable experience and a portfolio.
Just do it. Make something cool that people need. Be your own boss. Hire your own programmers in India. Do it now, while you're young and don't have a family.
original poster: Don't listen to the parent of this post, he doesn't know what he is talking about.
You don't need or want a refractor. Its too much money for the aperture and is totally unnecessary for your application. You can view the planets with a Newtonian just fine. Trust me, my 15" Newtonian gives far better views of the planets than any 6" refractor, even if was made by "Uncle Rollo." Aperture wins and wins big. You can get quality aperture, don't believe the refractorholic hype.
Get a planisphere. It is a round star chart with a cutout representing the horizon. You dial in the date/time and it shows you what the sky looks like overhead. This is what you use to learn the constellations and bright stars. Use the binoculars you have or get a pair, they are useful even if you decide astronomy is too boring. Don't fool around with a laptop and software unless it is cloudy. Don't get a big book of star charts yet.
Before you spend any money on a telescope, GO TO A STAR PARTY AND LOOK THROUGH OTHER PEOPLES SCOPES. Check the local astronomy clubs, they surely have a website where they list the monthly star parties and locations. Bring your binos and planisphere and look through a bunch of scopes. A star party will have a bunch of big expensive scopes to look through, like 8-10" SCTs and 10-18" Newtonians. If your site really is dark, consider allowing the local club to use your site on new moon weekends. Every club could use another dark site with no stray lights or drunken campers.
Plenty of people get the astronomy bug, go out and drop money on an expesive telescope, then find out that they are bored and cold standing around in the dark looking at barely visible fuzzies. Nothing looks as good as it does in the pictures, except globular clusters. If you think the views in a big scope with a 24" mirror that requires a ladder to look through is going to compare to the deep images you've seen on your computer, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Astrophotography is way, way harder than it looks and is insanely expensive to get top results. The amateurs who are good at it (crisp, gendler, croman, crawford, etc...) spend $5-$10K on a mount, as much on a telescope, and as much on a camera. Then they have lots of software, tons of patience, and tons of talent. Some of them have remote observatories in the middle of nowhere with robotic telescopes.