The only reason why Madden and NCAA are huge franchises is because of the fact that sports games are the only games you can really do the same thing year after year after year, still get people to buy it and have the reviewers not totally bash it. It would be like releasing "level packs" for Super Mario Bros. for the lifespan of the NES, doing the same thing for Super Mario World for the SNES, doing the same thing for Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, doing the same thing for Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube, and doing the same thing for Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. It just doesn't work for any other type other than sports games.
How isn't it simple? A web browser isn't exactly simple, yet we have hundreds of small, independent forks of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.
Microsoft sees Word as one component of an integrated office system that scales "almost effortlessly" from the home user to enterprise solutions on the grandest of scales.
It scales nicely until it doesn't, which for some people happens pretty fast. A word of advice, don't try writing a long-ish book on Word, eventually the file becomes nearly unreadable. Similarly, a well-used Excel spreadsheet will become super-laggy in time due to lots of hidden objects. Office does not scale well. Sure, you can use the same thing at home or at the office, but both end up being about the exact same thing: Short documents that sometimes require formatting.
I'm sorry but Radio Shack (or as it will be known now, as The Shack) is no longer the place to buy your cool parts for build projects. Yes, they still have a decent supply of some things but every time I go in there it becomes closer and closer to a best buy. I mean, half the stuff in there is pre-built computers, cell phones and such. The days of going to Radio Shack to find every obscure part you need for a build project are long over.
No what I was saying was that Apple didn't just replace a faulty product, they -upgraded- said faulty product to the newest model. That would be like having problems with a Pentium 4 and Dell sends you a brand new Core 2 quad. That doesn't happen. Your argument is that they pay part of it, in many cases they do not, they send you a fully upgraded one. Look at this post by MadCow42
I bought a 24" white iMac (2006). It worked perfect up until it was 2.5 years old, when I started having video issues with it. It was under Applecare, so I brought it into the local Apple store, and they fixed it on-site (took a couple days, unfortunately).
Similar issues re-occured a few days after getting it back, then after a second repair it happened a third time. The computer DID work each time when I got it back, and the symptoms were different each time... so I can't really blame them. They replace all the major componants in the process too.
However, after 2 repairs and 3 similar faults, they replaced the machine with a brand-new 2009 aluminum iMac - with bigger/better/faster everything. Even the lowest-end machine would have beaten my old one, but they gave me the mid-line one anyways. They even offered this without me pushing. On top, they even gave me a free mini-DVI converter for my second monitor because my old cable was a different plug on the old iMac.
So, I'm not sure what in the world you are arguing.
But for every headline making story of Apple doing something evil, there are just as many smaller stories about them doing something positive. In this thread already some guy was saying how Apple offered to replace his aging machine with a brand new one for no cost. Now would that happen to any other computer maker? I have heard other stories about how Apple when contacted after a refresh of the product line returned a newly purchased older product for the newer one. Although I haven't experienced these myself (only Apple products I own is an iPod touch and a Apple Keyboard, the new ones are nice) there is enough evidence on the 'net about these things that I don't really blame the fanboys, Apple does a lot more to please the average consumer than Dell, HP, Asus or Toshiba does.
There are too many flaws in it for it to be considered anything more than a tech-demo. The major one is the pathetically short battery life (I can easily go over 300 miles with a full tank of gas) and the fact there is no easy way of getting the car started if you get stranded. With my gas car, if I run out of gas I just call up someone or a repair place to lend me a bit of gas till I can get to a gas station, with this, do you honestly think someone is going to lug around 100 pounds of batteries? Also, in emergency situations this car will do more harm than good. Just look at the pictures before a major hurricane sweeps through, crowded streets, people running out of gas, etc. and in hardly-moving traffic, you aren't going to get near 100 miles out of it. Than there is the fact that maintenance will be -expensive-, other than changing oil my gas car rarely needs maintenance, in the 5 years the only thing that needed replaced was a belt, something that electric cars have too. But batteries do not hold a charge forever. The more you use it the more it comes to having an expensive repair, no matter how nice you are or how good you take care of your electric car it will need replaced.
Hm, but how many people drive with no electronics? No AC, no heat, etc? A 30-40 mile commute isn't unheard of (in fact its very typical) where I live, and it tends to be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, so that is 60-80 miles both ways, every day. Lets mix in the fact that heat (has to be electric thus running down the battery) or AC (also electric) is going to without a doubt cut down on the battery's life, making it uncertain if you can make it any other place (such as to pick up your kids, run and grab some groceries, etc) without taking it home to charge. However, what I think is the worst part about electric vehicles is there is no easy way to get started if you get stranded. Its happened to all of us, either you forgot to get gas, or the gas gauge was inaccurate, but you run out of gas. Most of the time its not a huge problem. Just call up someone and have them bring a bit of gas to make it to the next gas station, but how are you going to move that electric car? Its unfeasible to just call up someone to lug 100 pounds + of batteries to you, and solar just isn't efficient/fast enough to charge it.
You might like to come live in the current world. Like everything else in entertainment (movies, games, comics whatever), music is entertainment and professionally made. It requires time, effort and money
Your argument fails. While feature-length movies are generally the domain of professionals (requires a ton more time), there are entertaining other shorter movies such as Homestar Runner which doesn't even have ads on their site yet has hundreds of videos. Games? There are loads of games that the game itself is free while they use other ways of making a profit. Heck, I can download the WoW client for free ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/wowclient-download.html ) yet I wouldn't say it was unprofitable in the least. Comics? Lets see here, off of the top of my head there are, Megatokyo ( http://www.megatokyo.com/ ), User Friendly ( http://www.userfriendly.org/ ) and XKCD ( http://xkcd.com/ ) And XKCD lets you use their comic so long as you attribute to them.
The only downside is that I can't find any riaa-free stations. Does anyone know of any?
Easy way is to listen to non-American music. Of course, usually you end up with music from the foreign equivalents to the RIAA. But really, most of the bands I listen to are either European or Asian, very few actually are American.
The reason why streaming music is taking over is because radio is crap. Seriously, if you don't like hip hop, pop, country or classic rock, there are -no- stations other than that anymore. If you have musical tastes other than that, too bad. You won't find any terrestrial radio that plays that. So because of that people stream more, in general streaming music ends up being better and have a greater variety. If I can't find a terrestrial radio station that plays music I like, I'm going to then listen to streaming music. Because of that, why buy the music when you can with a bit of searching find the streaming music?
I'm not exactly sure why anyone would pay 6.5k for it. Yes, it is a prototype, but its not an interesting prototype. It is effectively just a smaller netbook, a DIY project in a few years.
I'm assuming so it can be reprogrammed to change between the multiple keyboard layouts without much of a hardware change other than changing the keycaps.
Against the platform. I would have no problem if it was offered for sale post-jailbreak. I do not think it is ethical to sell the app in a restricted market such as the iPhone app store, selling it on Cydia because anyone can publish on Cydia without paying a fee or relying on unreliable approval processes.
It is available, yes. But it is not really usable with the full freedoms of the GPL. While this may be legal for use under the GPL, I would consider this very unethical.
But you don't have the right to distribute it. With the recent trends for Apple, for all you know, your app will be rejected for no reason. You cannot guarantee the right or even have a reasonable assumption that you have the right to distribute it. With Windows, I can take the app, copy it to a CD and run it on a different Windows platform no problem. With the iPhone I cannot simply go to some site, or plug in a flash drive and load the app. I must rely on an unreliable source (Apple) to determine my right to distribute.
However, Windows is not the only OS for x86, and most hardware works with a free OS (Linux, BSD, etc). Add with the fact that most languages can be compiled between OSes with little to no platform and run on a multitude of hardware platforms, means that developing for x86 isn't a "trap" on the other hand there are no other OSes you can run with any sort of success (well, I think they got Linux to sort of boot) on the iPhone.
But the problem is, it removes the ability to take the code and compile it for your own platform. That is, it removes the right to redistribute. With the iPhone you cannot redistribute the program for free.
No, it does not encourage you to do that for the simple reason that the app store is totally non-free.
If your program is free software, it is basically ethical--but there is a trap you must be on guard for. Your program, though in itself free, may be restricted by non-free software that it depends on. Since the problem is most prominent today for Java programs, we call it the Java Trap.
That was written before the release of Java as F/OSS, but I think it very much applies to the iPhone (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html for the entire article). Basically, the rights to use the iPhone SDK are reserved for a select few, that is only Intel OS X users. If you want to redistribute the app, it costs $99, plus you can not guarantee the right of distribution because of Apple's strange approval process. Distributing the program with a jailbroken repository wouldn't make it as much of a problem ethically, but when you can only vaguely assure the rights of distribution and use of the program, it becomes unethical.
That is called the "Java Trap" (it was called that before Java became F/OSS) where the code is free, but the platform is not. However, with Windows I can run whatever code on it.
But the Wii is going to be -much- more powerful than the laptop. Even on an "inactive" system, there are hundreds of tiny processes going on, polling hardware, etc. the Wii is more or less truly single tasking. Plus, the code can be very optimized for the Wii.
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The only reason why Madden and NCAA are huge franchises is because of the fact that sports games are the only games you can really do the same thing year after year after year, still get people to buy it and have the reviewers not totally bash it. It would be like releasing "level packs" for Super Mario Bros. for the lifespan of the NES, doing the same thing for Super Mario World for the SNES, doing the same thing for Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, doing the same thing for Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube, and doing the same thing for Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. It just doesn't work for any other type other than sports games.
A lot of speed issues have to do with drivers and not the actual hardware itself. I wonder if this takes that into the equation.
Microsoft sees Word as one component of an integrated office system that scales "almost effortlessly" from the home user to enterprise solutions on the grandest of scales.
It scales nicely until it doesn't, which for some people happens pretty fast. A word of advice, don't try writing a long-ish book on Word, eventually the file becomes nearly unreadable. Similarly, a well-used Excel spreadsheet will become super-laggy in time due to lots of hidden objects. Office does not scale well. Sure, you can use the same thing at home or at the office, but both end up being about the exact same thing: Short documents that sometimes require formatting.
Which military though? There seems to be no major military that could have done this and doesn't strike.
I'm sorry but Radio Shack (or as it will be known now, as The Shack) is no longer the place to buy your cool parts for build projects. Yes, they still have a decent supply of some things but every time I go in there it becomes closer and closer to a best buy. I mean, half the stuff in there is pre-built computers, cell phones and such. The days of going to Radio Shack to find every obscure part you need for a build project are long over.
I bought a 24" white iMac (2006). It worked perfect up until it was 2.5 years old, when I started having video issues with it. It was under Applecare, so I brought it into the local Apple store, and they fixed it on-site (took a couple days, unfortunately). Similar issues re-occured a few days after getting it back, then after a second repair it happened a third time. The computer DID work each time when I got it back, and the symptoms were different each time... so I can't really blame them. They replace all the major componants in the process too. However, after 2 repairs and 3 similar faults, they replaced the machine with a brand-new 2009 aluminum iMac - with bigger/better/faster everything. Even the lowest-end machine would have beaten my old one, but they gave me the mid-line one anyways. They even offered this without me pushing. On top, they even gave me a free mini-DVI converter for my second monitor because my old cable was a different plug on the old iMac.
So, I'm not sure what in the world you are arguing.
Open source only means that the source is available to the users of the product.
Nope, OSI defines open source software as software that:
A. Free Redistribution
B. Includes Source
C. Allow Derived Works
And a lot of other stuff. See http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php for more info.
But for every headline making story of Apple doing something evil, there are just as many smaller stories about them doing something positive. In this thread already some guy was saying how Apple offered to replace his aging machine with a brand new one for no cost. Now would that happen to any other computer maker? I have heard other stories about how Apple when contacted after a refresh of the product line returned a newly purchased older product for the newer one. Although I haven't experienced these myself (only Apple products I own is an iPod touch and a Apple Keyboard, the new ones are nice) there is enough evidence on the 'net about these things that I don't really blame the fanboys, Apple does a lot more to please the average consumer than Dell, HP, Asus or Toshiba does.
There are too many flaws in it for it to be considered anything more than a tech-demo. The major one is the pathetically short battery life (I can easily go over 300 miles with a full tank of gas) and the fact there is no easy way of getting the car started if you get stranded. With my gas car, if I run out of gas I just call up someone or a repair place to lend me a bit of gas till I can get to a gas station, with this, do you honestly think someone is going to lug around 100 pounds of batteries? Also, in emergency situations this car will do more harm than good. Just look at the pictures before a major hurricane sweeps through, crowded streets, people running out of gas, etc. and in hardly-moving traffic, you aren't going to get near 100 miles out of it. Than there is the fact that maintenance will be -expensive-, other than changing oil my gas car rarely needs maintenance, in the 5 years the only thing that needed replaced was a belt, something that electric cars have too. But batteries do not hold a charge forever. The more you use it the more it comes to having an expensive repair, no matter how nice you are or how good you take care of your electric car it will need replaced.
Hm, but how many people drive with no electronics? No AC, no heat, etc? A 30-40 mile commute isn't unheard of (in fact its very typical) where I live, and it tends to be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, so that is 60-80 miles both ways, every day. Lets mix in the fact that heat (has to be electric thus running down the battery) or AC (also electric) is going to without a doubt cut down on the battery's life, making it uncertain if you can make it any other place (such as to pick up your kids, run and grab some groceries, etc) without taking it home to charge. However, what I think is the worst part about electric vehicles is there is no easy way to get started if you get stranded. Its happened to all of us, either you forgot to get gas, or the gas gauge was inaccurate, but you run out of gas. Most of the time its not a huge problem. Just call up someone and have them bring a bit of gas to make it to the next gas station, but how are you going to move that electric car? Its unfeasible to just call up someone to lug 100 pounds + of batteries to you, and solar just isn't efficient/fast enough to charge it.
Regarding live performances, you have to realize that many bands aren't exactly sober when they play.
You might like to come live in the current world. Like everything else in entertainment (movies, games, comics whatever), music is entertainment and professionally made. It requires time, effort and money
Your argument fails. While feature-length movies are generally the domain of professionals (requires a ton more time), there are entertaining other shorter movies such as Homestar Runner which doesn't even have ads on their site yet has hundreds of videos. Games? There are loads of games that the game itself is free while they use other ways of making a profit. Heck, I can download the WoW client for free ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/wowclient-download.html ) yet I wouldn't say it was unprofitable in the least. Comics? Lets see here, off of the top of my head there are, Megatokyo ( http://www.megatokyo.com/ ), User Friendly ( http://www.userfriendly.org/ ) and XKCD ( http://xkcd.com/ ) And XKCD lets you use their comic so long as you attribute to them.
The only downside is that I can't find any riaa-free stations. Does anyone know of any?
Easy way is to listen to non-American music. Of course, usually you end up with music from the foreign equivalents to the RIAA. But really, most of the bands I listen to are either European or Asian, very few actually are American.
The reason why streaming music is taking over is because radio is crap. Seriously, if you don't like hip hop, pop, country or classic rock, there are -no- stations other than that anymore. If you have musical tastes other than that, too bad. You won't find any terrestrial radio that plays that. So because of that people stream more, in general streaming music ends up being better and have a greater variety. If I can't find a terrestrial radio station that plays music I like, I'm going to then listen to streaming music. Because of that, why buy the music when you can with a bit of searching find the streaming music?
I'm not exactly sure why anyone would pay 6.5k for it. Yes, it is a prototype, but its not an interesting prototype. It is effectively just a smaller netbook, a DIY project in a few years.
I'm assuming so it can be reprogrammed to change between the multiple keyboard layouts without much of a hardware change other than changing the keycaps.
Against the platform. I would have no problem if it was offered for sale post-jailbreak. I do not think it is ethical to sell the app in a restricted market such as the iPhone app store, selling it on Cydia because anyone can publish on Cydia without paying a fee or relying on unreliable approval processes.
It is available, yes. But it is not really usable with the full freedoms of the GPL. While this may be legal for use under the GPL, I would consider this very unethical.
But you don't have the right to distribute it. With the recent trends for Apple, for all you know, your app will be rejected for no reason. You cannot guarantee the right or even have a reasonable assumption that you have the right to distribute it. With Windows, I can take the app, copy it to a CD and run it on a different Windows platform no problem. With the iPhone I cannot simply go to some site, or plug in a flash drive and load the app. I must rely on an unreliable source (Apple) to determine my right to distribute.
However, Windows is not the only OS for x86, and most hardware works with a free OS (Linux, BSD, etc). Add with the fact that most languages can be compiled between OSes with little to no platform and run on a multitude of hardware platforms, means that developing for x86 isn't a "trap" on the other hand there are no other OSes you can run with any sort of success (well, I think they got Linux to sort of boot) on the iPhone.
But the problem is, it removes the ability to take the code and compile it for your own platform. That is, it removes the right to redistribute. With the iPhone you cannot redistribute the program for free.
If your program is free software, it is basically ethical--but there is a trap you must be on guard for. Your program, though in itself free, may be restricted by non-free software that it depends on. Since the problem is most prominent today for Java programs, we call it the Java Trap.
That was written before the release of Java as F/OSS, but I think it very much applies to the iPhone (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html for the entire article). Basically, the rights to use the iPhone SDK are reserved for a select few, that is only Intel OS X users. If you want to redistribute the app, it costs $99, plus you can not guarantee the right of distribution because of Apple's strange approval process. Distributing the program with a jailbroken repository wouldn't make it as much of a problem ethically, but when you can only vaguely assure the rights of distribution and use of the program, it becomes unethical.
That is called the "Java Trap" (it was called that before Java became F/OSS) where the code is free, but the platform is not. However, with Windows I can run whatever code on it.
Because A) It restricts you to an -expensive- platform, x86 Mac OS X B) I believe you need to pay Apple I think like $99 to get it on the app store
But the Wii is going to be -much- more powerful than the laptop. Even on an "inactive" system, there are hundreds of tiny processes going on, polling hardware, etc. the Wii is more or less truly single tasking. Plus, the code can be very optimized for the Wii.