By all means, keep antagonizing the best online music provider with these innovations.
This antagonisation as you call it is people wanting to use the Apple iTunes store, wanting to purchase and legally download music, but being unable to do because iTunes uses a shitty DRM and other 'features' that prevent fair use.
Apple have only themselves to blame here. By all means integrate the store with iTunes, but where is the harm with offering a web-based version? Where is the harm in offering music in non-proprietary (ogg) or industry standard formats (mp3)? It doesn't prevent Apple from making a bundle from their iTunes - far from it since it brings more eyeballs to their site where they can sell songs, iPods and perhaps even Mac stuff.
And neither does DRM or AAC help protect the songs as we have seen with the release of tools to strip out the DRM.
It would be much smarter of Apple and other online music stores to release the music in any format the user wants and watermark them. Watermarking does not stop piracy, but it does dampen trading since law abiding people don't want to trade tracks if they have their identity stamped all over.
The problem with PDA / cellphone hybrids is that the battery life falls through the floor. You'd be lucky to get 2 or 3 days out of something like a Treo whereas a decent Palm PDA can last weeks. So the PDA lives much of its life sitting in a dock to stay charged.
I'm sure battery life could be extended by disabling the phone functionality (i.e. aircraft mode), but that kinds of defeats the point of buying a hybrid in the first place.
Sorry but this rubbish. If someone is driving around without a licence or insurance, why do you suddenly think an ID card (especially a voluntary one) is going to make a damned bit of difference?
IDs are simply white elephants. They won't prevent crime (in fact ID theft will become a massive problem), they won't stop terrorism (they didn't in Spain) and they won't stop immigration (because people are desperate).
I would be in favour of immigrants being DNA swabbed, fingerprinted & photographed (all of which are destroyed upon citizenship being granted) to aid in deportation but that is another issue altogether.
Get serious. Sony has no way at all to coerce you to buy a memory stick product, any more than they could twist your arm to buy a BetaCam. This isn't Microsoft we're talking about.
Which is why I said it was their business, but I won't be buying those products. I expect a lot of others wouldn't either. Given Sony's financial woes, it seems a little odd that they equip devices with a memory format that actively put people off wanting to buy them.
Sony tried to sell Memory Stick, and it didn't catch on. What do you want them to do about it? Abandon it after a year, leaving all the early adopters in the lurch, or do what they are doing?
Abandon it of course. Announce an end of life and move on. It doesn't mean readers or cards suddenly become unobtainable. It doesn't mean the camera you bought last year is obsolete. I bet even today you can buy brand new beta max tapes if were motivated enough to look for them.
I don't think that was quite the same situation at all. Sony aren't 'supporting' Memory Stick, they're foisting it. All their new products use the format, irrespective of that means in terms of interoperability with other products.
If they want to do that, that's their business but I certainly won't be locking myself into the technology any time soon. I'm not averse to Sony as a brand (I have a widescreen Sony TV & PS2), but I certainly wouldn't use it where I expect the media format to be interoperable with other devices I might have.
More proprietary you mean since barely any non-Sony devices use memory stick. While SD or CF might be 'proprietary' in the sense that someone collects revenue from them, from a consumer perspective they are open - every manufacturer except Sony uses those formats and there are dozens of brands of cards to choose from. So they are cheap and ubiquitous.
It is a wonder why anyone buys Sony at all these days. I know on principle that I'm not going to lock myself into their products or media when I can't use the cards interchangeably with other devices I might own.
Whatever. The point I was making was the original poster having no respect for Linspire for ripping off the iTunes UI when a good part of the OSS catalogue has similar roots.
As for Windows being a UI ripoff of MacOS - hardly. It might contain some of the same metaphors such as pointers and windows but neither OS was in danger of being passed off or confused for the other. They look fundamentally different and I daresay your other examples do too if you put them side by side.
And that was the whole point of this thread in the first place.
I expect standing in front of a green screen day after day talking to a tennis ball on the end of the stick doesn't make for Emmy award winning performances.
The Evolution UI is ripped straight from MS Outlook, everything from the shelf on the left to the button layout. If you were being charitable you could say it is to help users migrate over to Linux, but it is still a ripoff.
And KDE is too. It may not be so obvious these days, but the whole L&F of KDE 1 & 2, was ripped straight out of MS Windows, circa Windows 95/98. Until recently many dists even inflicted the same single-click-to-launch metaphor that was so briefly popular (and despised) on "web-enabled" Windows at that time.
The same accusation could be levelled at GNOME, but the 2.x branch seems to be striving for something minimalist which is neither MacOS 9, OS X or XP but has influences from all of them.
I get no sound but xmms claims to be playing (equalizer is going). My volume is set to max on every physical and software mixer. I've also tried both the ALSA and OSS plugins, neither of which play sound.
The same could be said of KDE (Windows ripoff), Evolution (Outlook ripoff), XMMS (WinAmp ripoff), KDevelop (DevStudio ripoff) and I daresay quite a few other OSS projects.
Thanks for the modprobe.conf but I checked against mine and it was the same except for the options line. I added that, restarted alsasound but still had no joy.
My rant yesterday sparked me to run alsaconf again just to make sure I had everything right and it was. I think I'm resigned to no sound for now, but I'll hold off final judgement until Fedora Core 2 appears. Currently its running RH9.0 with a 2.6.x kernel.
I got the Broadcom 10/100 ethernet working in 2.6.5. The option is called CONFIG_NETWORK_B44 I believe. It seems to work but it's still marked EXPERIMENTAL.
And Linux just sucks at supporting some sound cards. I have an ASUS A7V8X motherboard with a VIA82xxx sound card. I can't get the bastard to work for love nor money.
And it isn't for lack of trying either. I've tried several dists, I've patched the 2.4 kernel with ALSA, I've built the 2.6.5 kernel but NOTHING works. ALSA sees the card, but it is muted even if you run the mixer and unmute everything and stick on the max. Yes, I have the speakers plugged into the right connection and yes I'm certain I've double and triple checked everything. It still doesn't work. I'm not alone in this - the internet is filled with people in the same boat as me.
At least 2.6.x comes with ALSA out of the box which is a blessing. But even so, if it takes major kernel surgery (and in my case it still doesn't work) there is something seriously screwed with the model.
On Windows or OS X, at most you stick a disk into the machine or click an exe. That's assuming it doesn't just work automatically. On Linux you could waste a day applying patches and rebuilding to do the same.
Linux really, really needs to sort out the whole driver issue because it throws a wet blanket over widespread adoption. Expecting people to rebuild kernels, or be in possession of a toolchain to build a module is unacceptable.
A single unified ABI for drivers would be a good start. I can understand if Linus doesn't care to support such a thing, but I can't fathom why the dist vendors wouldn't.
Exceptions in C++ are just horrid. You might catch an exception and but not have the faintest idea who threw it. And C++ doesn't even enforce exception handling - you have no idea if a function throws an exception unless someone declares it explicitly. And the compiler won't care if you don't you put try / catch blocks in for it either. Even worse for Win32 programming are that #imported COM interfaces throw _com_error exceptions rather than return an HRESULT, making it a massive pain in the arse to program ADO or anything like it - a single uncaught exception can kill your app or make it fall out of functionality in a very bad way.
I have no problem when exceptions are done properly as in Java, but using them in C++ is an exercise in frustration.
In the last week there have been three Form 4's and two Form 144's. I'm sure the accused will offer a completely reasonable Martha Stewartesque explanation in their defence.
Yes but once you remove the DRM you can spread it around freely. It's like the MS Reader e-book reader - just run your titles through clit and they are free to pass on to any one else.
Hence the foolishness of sitting behind a two foot wall (DRM) and thinking that somehow makes you secure. Their proprietary music format is probably more protection that the DRM on it, but assuming AAC took off that wouldn't be much use either.
Apple should have just released files in AAC / MP3 in the first place and watermarked them. It wouldn't stop all piracy. But it sure as hell would make it easier to detect and prosecute file traders. This is itself would have a massive dampening effect since people would be loath to trade paid-for tracks for fear of having the RIAA / Apple ripping their heads off and shitting down their necks.
Better yet if you could flick of a switch and redirect all outgoing SMTP connections straight to a local mail client that tossed the spam straight into the bitbucket.
It is possible of course that there are marker emails amongst the spam that they used to determine if you are actually sending anything (a bit like ringing up customers on a paperboy route), but those could be let through or forged.
Of course this is all academic. The persons who do these kinds of services are likely to be fly by night scumbags who you'd be hard pressed earn a cent for doing their illegal bidding. It would be much better to ignore them altogether.
Let the idiots trojan their own machines. I'm sure that $1 of pure profit will come in handy when they're looking for a new ISP.
Why would a firewire jack kick ass? You can bet your bottom dollar that a firewire cable would be considerably more expensive and fragile than a simple headphone jack. The same goes for USB.
More annoying is the number of computers and monitors left on in the workplace after hours. I wonder how complacent companies would be if charges quadrupled between 8pm and 7am. I'm sure we'd see emails flying urging people to shut down at night. Assuming everyone did so it would actually save the company money and mean a massive saving on overall energy consumption.
Who says I am offended? I actually find it laughable.
If somone's moral beliefs stop them from watching a film with sex in it, then perhaps they shouldn't have rented or bought the thing in the first place. The content of a film is clearly indicated on the box, in reviews and places like IMDB.com. If a DVD has it has some kissing in it (oh the humanity!!), then it's their own stupid fault for not checking before hand.
but with all the matrix merchandise out there how can you keep an 8 year old from not wanting to watch the movie. At least with this you can let the child see it without the violence, sex, and language.
You stop an 8 year from watching it by being a good parent.
As for the Matrix, watching only the parts without violence would make for a fantastically boring film indeed. Or do would you hope that ClearPlay see it in their hearts to chop the more grisly parts but leave the consequence free violence, explosions and gunplay intact?
As a visitor to the US, I am flabbergasted by how crass the TV output is. Apparantly it's okay to show guns, violence and gore but swearwords and nudity are out. Even the crazy channels like TBN put out violence packed junk like the Omega Code.
... buys or rents a DVD and then buys a player to selectively cut parts out of it? If you are offended that much by a movie, why rent it in the first place? If you're scared a child might watch it, then why not use the parental lock that a lot of players come with?
Besides, it will butcher movies, not replace the content with milder cuss words like on TV. If you have ever watched Malaysian TV you will know exactly what it will do. Entire chunks of film will simply disappear leaving an incoherent mess in its place. Imagine (trying) to watch something like Pulp Fiction through it for example.
People who buy this are idiots and following on from its DIVX fiasco it is more proof that RCA really doesn't have a clue.
Of course something good might come out of it. If all the god bothering prudes equip themselves with one of these, it will leave Blockbuster et al with no excuse for not stocking certain titles.
Slashdot Mirror
This antagonisation as you call it is people wanting to use the Apple iTunes store, wanting to purchase and legally download music, but being unable to do because iTunes uses a shitty DRM and other 'features' that prevent fair use.
Apple have only themselves to blame here. By all means integrate the store with iTunes, but where is the harm with offering a web-based version? Where is the harm in offering music in non-proprietary (ogg) or industry standard formats (mp3)? It doesn't prevent Apple from making a bundle from their iTunes - far from it since it brings more eyeballs to their site where they can sell songs, iPods and perhaps even Mac stuff.
And neither does DRM or AAC help protect the songs as we have seen with the release of tools to strip out the DRM.
It would be much smarter of Apple and other online music stores to release the music in any format the user wants and watermark them. Watermarking does not stop piracy, but it does dampen trading since law abiding people don't want to trade tracks if they have their identity stamped all over.
I'm sure battery life could be extended by disabling the phone functionality (i.e. aircraft mode), but that kinds of defeats the point of buying a hybrid in the first place.
IDs are simply white elephants. They won't prevent crime (in fact ID theft will become a massive problem), they won't stop terrorism (they didn't in Spain) and they won't stop immigration (because people are desperate).
I would be in favour of immigrants being DNA swabbed, fingerprinted & photographed (all of which are destroyed upon citizenship being granted) to aid in deportation but that is another issue altogether.
Which is why I said it was their business, but I won't be buying those products. I expect a lot of others wouldn't either. Given Sony's financial woes, it seems a little odd that they equip devices with a memory format that actively put people off wanting to buy them.
Sony tried to sell Memory Stick, and it didn't catch on. What do you want them to do about it? Abandon it after a year, leaving all the early adopters in the lurch, or do what they are doing?
Abandon it of course. Announce an end of life and move on. It doesn't mean readers or cards suddenly become unobtainable. It doesn't mean the camera you bought last year is obsolete. I bet even today you can buy brand new beta max tapes if were motivated enough to look for them.
If they want to do that, that's their business but I certainly won't be locking myself into the technology any time soon. I'm not averse to Sony as a brand (I have a widescreen Sony TV & PS2), but I certainly wouldn't use it where I expect the media format to be interoperable with other devices I might have.
It is a wonder why anyone buys Sony at all these days. I know on principle that I'm not going to lock myself into their products or media when I can't use the cards interchangeably with other devices I might own.
As for Windows being a UI ripoff of MacOS - hardly. It might contain some of the same metaphors such as pointers and windows but neither OS was in danger of being passed off or confused for the other. They look fundamentally different and I daresay your other examples do too if you put them side by side.
And that was the whole point of this thread in the first place.
I expect standing in front of a green screen day after day talking to a tennis ball on the end of the stick doesn't make for Emmy award winning performances.
The Evolution UI is ripped straight from MS Outlook, everything from the shelf on the left to the button layout. If you were being charitable you could say it is to help users migrate over to Linux, but it is still a ripoff.
And KDE is too. It may not be so obvious these days, but the whole L&F of KDE 1 & 2, was ripped straight out of MS Windows, circa Windows 95/98. Until recently many dists even inflicted the same single-click-to-launch metaphor that was so briefly popular (and despised) on "web-enabled" Windows at that time.
The same accusation could be levelled at GNOME, but the 2.x branch seems to be striving for something minimalist which is neither MacOS 9, OS X or XP but has influences from all of them.
I get no sound but xmms claims to be playing (equalizer is going). My volume is set to max on every physical and software mixer. I've also tried both the ALSA and OSS plugins, neither of which play sound.
The same could be said of KDE (Windows ripoff), Evolution (Outlook ripoff), XMMS (WinAmp ripoff), KDevelop (DevStudio ripoff) and I daresay quite a few other OSS projects.
My rant yesterday sparked me to run alsaconf again just to make sure I had everything right and it was. I think I'm resigned to no sound for now, but I'll hold off final judgement until Fedora Core 2 appears. Currently its running RH9.0 with a 2.6.x kernel.
I got the Broadcom 10/100 ethernet working in 2.6.5. The option is called CONFIG_NETWORK_B44 I believe. It seems to work but it's still marked EXPERIMENTAL.
And it isn't for lack of trying either. I've tried several dists, I've patched the 2.4 kernel with ALSA, I've built the 2.6.5 kernel but NOTHING works. ALSA sees the card, but it is muted even if you run the mixer and unmute everything and stick on the max. Yes, I have the speakers plugged into the right connection and yes I'm certain I've double and triple checked everything. It still doesn't work. I'm not alone in this - the internet is filled with people in the same boat as me.
At least 2.6.x comes with ALSA out of the box which is a blessing. But even so, if it takes major kernel surgery (and in my case it still doesn't work) there is something seriously screwed with the model.
On Windows or OS X, at most you stick a disk into the machine or click an exe. That's assuming it doesn't just work automatically. On Linux you could waste a day applying patches and rebuilding to do the same.
Linux really, really needs to sort out the whole driver issue because it throws a wet blanket over widespread adoption. Expecting people to rebuild kernels, or be in possession of a toolchain to build a module is unacceptable.
A single unified ABI for drivers would be a good start. I can understand if Linus doesn't care to support such a thing, but I can't fathom why the dist vendors wouldn't.
I have no problem when exceptions are done properly as in Java, but using them in C++ is an exercise in frustration.
In the last week there have been three Form 4's and two Form 144's. I'm sure the accused will offer a completely reasonable Martha Stewartesque explanation in their defence.
Hence the foolishness of sitting behind a two foot wall (DRM) and thinking that somehow makes you secure. Their proprietary music format is probably more protection that the DRM on it, but assuming AAC took off that wouldn't be much use either.
Apple should have just released files in AAC / MP3 in the first place and watermarked them. It wouldn't stop all piracy. But it sure as hell would make it easier to detect and prosecute file traders. This is itself would have a massive dampening effect since people would be loath to trade paid-for tracks for fear of having the RIAA / Apple ripping their heads off and shitting down their necks.
It is possible of course that there are marker emails amongst the spam that they used to determine if you are actually sending anything (a bit like ringing up customers on a paperboy route), but those could be let through or forged.
Of course this is all academic. The persons who do these kinds of services are likely to be fly by night scumbags who you'd be hard pressed earn a cent for doing their illegal bidding. It would be much better to ignore them altogether.
Let the idiots trojan their own machines. I'm sure that $1 of pure profit will come in handy when they're looking for a new ISP.
Why would a firewire jack kick ass? You can bet your bottom dollar that a firewire cable would be considerably more expensive and fragile than a simple headphone jack. The same goes for USB.
More annoying is the number of computers and monitors left on in the workplace after hours. I wonder how complacent companies would be if charges quadrupled between 8pm and 7am. I'm sure we'd see emails flying urging people to shut down at night. Assuming everyone did so it would actually save the company money and mean a massive saving on overall energy consumption.
If somone's moral beliefs stop them from watching a film with sex in it, then perhaps they shouldn't have rented or bought the thing in the first place. The content of a film is clearly indicated on the box, in reviews and places like IMDB.com. If a DVD has it has some kissing in it (oh the humanity!!), then it's their own stupid fault for not checking before hand.
You stop an 8 year from watching it by being a good parent.
As for the Matrix, watching only the parts without violence would make for a fantastically boring film indeed. Or do would you hope that ClearPlay see it in their hearts to chop the more grisly parts but leave the consequence free violence, explosions and gunplay intact?
Good for you. And I'm sure you'd welcome a system hardcoded to automatically fast forward over stuff that someone else found boring.
What kind of fucked up system is that?
Besides, it will butcher movies, not replace the content with milder cuss words like on TV. If you have ever watched Malaysian TV you will know exactly what it will do. Entire chunks of film will simply disappear leaving an incoherent mess in its place. Imagine (trying) to watch something like Pulp Fiction through it for example.
People who buy this are idiots and following on from its DIVX fiasco it is more proof that RCA really doesn't have a clue.
Of course something good might come out of it. If all the god bothering prudes equip themselves with one of these, it will leave Blockbuster et al with no excuse for not stocking certain titles.