I think you are grossly overestimating Joe Sixpack. Look at the continuous rollback of freedoms and rights since 9/11... it's been what... oh wait, more than 10 years now for fuck's sake! The masses in the US still don't see it coming, and seem willing to continue to let legislation pass that further restricts their freedoms and rights and puts more and more control in the hands of businesses and their paid-for lackeys in Congress and politics in general.
The black hole is looming and the speed at which the US is heading for it is increasing by the day.
And I recall that even the mighty iPhone had problems with the clock/reminders/alarm at the 2012 year turnover, requiring an iOS update to fix, which is NOT available for older devices. How nice of you Apple...
Good riddance, glad to see this moving out of the EU. For you guys on the other side of the Atlantic... hope you realize what is coming. We don't accept it here in Europe and you shouldn't either.
Not to mention, congress critters don't even READ the damn legislation they are passing for the most part. A few years ago in a Michael Moore documentary, several congress critters that were interviewed openly admitted they don't have time to read most of the legislation they pass.
If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
Wrong. The Pentax K-5 outscored the NEX-7, 82 vs. 81 points on DxOMark sensor testing. The K-5 hardly costs $10k... more like closer to $1k depending on sales and rebates. In fact, the K-5 sensor outperforms *every* APS-C DSLR camera currently available, and is bested only by *one* full-frame Nikon and a few medium format professional bodies (including the Pentax 645D). In particular, it's low-light performance and sensitivity is matched by only a few cameras, at any price.
Interestingly, the Nikon D7000, which is reportedly using the same sensor as K-5, scores only 80 and has worse low-light sensor performance.
Almost got it right. Yes, they did more or less neuter DOS in ME, but the well-known stability issues of ME were also due to MS trying to remove much of the underlying 16-bit code from the OS and make it "more" 32-bit than 9x. DOS was of course a part of this underlying 16-bit code, although hacks could bring part of it back.
I can agree 100% with this, and as someone who survived a GE acquisition, I feel the pain. Luckily, GE bought us to acquire some of our other technology units and we were sold off after a couple years. But, during the years we were under GE, innovation stagnated. We learned that GE really stands for "good enough". Our GE tenure put us 3-4 years behind the competition, taking into account the catch-up scenario we were left with after separation from GE.
Is this a surprise, that nature can route around humans? Seriously, this was expected. However, all this means is that Monsato and other evil corporations like it who create GM seeds now have an opening for a new product to develop and sell, for an even higher price. And they will get this higher price because the "old" GM seeds are not successful any more. And the cycle continues...
I find it insightful to see a "company" like this who was going after MILLIONS in so-called damages, is suddenly struggling to pay a paltry $64k debt. And all I can say is... BWAHAHAHAHA! There *can* be justice in this world.
I believe your statement that the majority of Apple products are Macs... is a bit out of date. I don't have the numbers or links handy but I recall in the recent past that iOS devices far outsold the number of Macs, to the point that some pundits believe that Apple could drop the whole Mac line of computers and it would barely be a blip in their profits. They make most of their profit on iOS, from the iDevices to apps sold in the app store to songs bought on iTunes. The Mac as a business is relatively small chunk of their whole business these days.
Me, I have an iPad but it's only for work and it's provided by my company. It's a useful tool, but I don't get all fanboy about it like some others. It might as well be Android or some other device, I could really care less. What matters is what I can do with the device. I also own a few iPods, but I do not own any Macs. I looked at the recent Airs when I was shopping for a new small laptop, but could not accept a) the higher price compared to other similarly-equipped laptops and b) the glossy screen; I detest them with a passion and the fact that Apple will not give me a choice of an anti-glare screen is a deal breaker.
Back to the original post, I do agree that Apple is displaying very anti-competitive behavior by abusing the legal and patent systems in the name of locking out competitors from various markets. I believe that long-term, they will pay for this, it's only a matter of time before the system corrects itself. The issue of patent reform is starting to become visible to the general public now, and once a few higher-ups get burned, you can bet laws will get changed.
I wish them the best and look forward to it. I recently discovered, or more accurately installed, Linux Mint. I have been using ubuntu since 6.06 or so, and I don't like the direction they are going. I have tried and failed to like Unity. I dived into xubuntu a bit which is not bad, before deciding to give LM a good try. I have to say, I like their attitude and their "political" position... if something works and is good, use it. Nevermind the OSS politics, closed source is OK for some libraries and drivers, if that's what is available. Just make it work. This is a refreshing change from the purist OSS view, which in my opinion is harming the movement more than helping it. Take for example the sad state of open source wireless drivers. I can't even begin to mention how many times I have installed or upgraded a Linux distro, and lost all wireless functionality for sometimes _days_ at a time. Searching for a solution that works "with this specific version of this distro" is a load of bullshit. Most of the so-called solutions are nothing more than hacks anyway. Oh, and somewhere down the line some obscure library or driver binary gets automatically updated and breaks the whole fucking thing again. I'm really tired of it. LM seems to focus on getting things to work, and that's the way it should be. There will always be Gentoo or Debian or other roll-your-own distros for those that want that level of control or purism, but I want an OS that works and is not a fragile house of cards waiting to collapse. At the moment, it seems LM is closest to that ideal. I still have several machines running various flavors and versions of ubuntu, but that may change in the near future.
Heck, even my hopelessly out-of-date Nokia S60 smartphones can multitask, and they did it WAY before the Apple iPhone.
It's becoming very clear that the new American way to do business is to patent every blindingly obvious idea and then sue the shit out of your competitors with your warchest.
Dragging and dropping folders is just archaic, I prefer to use players with a library feature. I have a music collection of over 16k tracks (99% purchased, mostly ripped from my own CD's) and accessing my music via a library is a necessity. On Windows I use a recent Winamp or foobar2000. On Linux... well, I haven't really found a player that works for me yet. The one included in recent ubuntu releases (I can't recall which one it is) is supposed to support a library-like function, but I have never been able to get it to work. It starts to scan my library (stored on a QNAP NAS and connected via wired gigabit), maybe adds a few tracks, and then... does nothing. I can play the tracks that were added, but it just seems to "give up" for an unknown reason. Sure, I can drag tracks from a folder into the player and play them, but that's not the point. This happens on several different computers and laptops, each with different flavors and releases. It's just unfinished in my opinion.
You know, I don't believe there's a word for "atheists" outside the USA... well scratch that, they're called ordinary people. Seriously, only in the good 'ol US of A do you need a proper name for people who do not believe in religion. That says a lot.
Absolutely not. I'll tell you why: There is currently no way to verify who you say you are on social networks, hell, some of them you can sign up with a fake, made-up name... all you need is a valid email address which can be anything. Oh, and that email address can be webmail, which also does not attempt to verify your identity. This makes it incredibly easy to set up fake accounts or profiles in someone else's name.
Absolutely NONE of these services have a way to accurately verify your identity. They don't even try for the most part. This alone means that searching for Bob Smith's facebook page does not guarantee that I find the real Bob Smith's facebook page. Or that anything posted or linked to Bob's profile has any accuracy whatsoever.
Stuff can become attached or linked to your social media profile, even without your knowledge. Character assassination anyone? Someone you know (or even don't know) can take a picture, post it online and tag it with your name, and there is absolutely no way to verify who is in the picture. I can take a picture of my cat taking a dump and post it, tag it with a friends name, and this will then get linked to their profile.
Do you see the problem with this? If a prospective employer or a credit service wants to search for my name on social media sites fine, but I expect they will be smart about actually using unverifiable information to determine my credit or job worthiness. The mere act that they would use unverifiable data to back up a decision on something important like a job position or a credit score, tells a lot about the company. Luckily I live in the EU where this sort of thing is not widespread and we actually have strong personal data protection laws.
Actually, it's the ones which blast sound through the rear channels that are the most annoying. I don't mind the ads taking advantage of multi-channel sound in a reasonable way, but blasting full-volume through the rear channels borders on audio system abuse. I have more than a few times been worried about damage to my rear channel speakers from loud ads.
Nikon's "super-ISO" modes can't hold a candle, literally, to the Pentax K-5. The K-5 wipes the floor with it's high-ISO performance. At the moment, there are few cameras that come close, even several FF CaNikons fall victim. ISO 6400 is very clean and 12800 is usable if shooting RAW with moderate post-processing. I heard that passable shots can be had at ISO 25600 using heavier post-processing, but I have not tried it myself.
Any by the way, I don't need to buy a *new* prime lens for a Pentax DSLR... the K-mount is still around and I can pick up an old Pentax-M or Pentax-A prime for very little money and use it on my K-5 (which I have). I can even use M42 screw-mount lenses from the 60's. Not even CaNikon has a bigger lens selection when you take into account that Pentax DSLR's are compatible with every Pentax K-mount and M42 lens ever made... and there is some very good old glass available if you look for it.
Sorry, fail. In a modern society it can be challenging to get by without internet access. Take Finland for example, where internet access is a right for all citizens. Practically all services are handled electronically here. Banking has been done online for a couple decades (perhaps more, I wasn't living here before that). We do not use paper checks (how archaic), and the banks have had electronic kiosks for paying bills and performing basic banking tasks as far back as I can remember. I pay all store purchases with a bank card (debit), credit card or very occasionally, cash from an ATM. Today, the vast majority in Finland do their banking online. The last time I was in a bank physically, was when taking out a mortgage many years ago. I do 100% of my financial transactions at home, or any place I can have access via internet. All my bills are paid electronically online.
To the naysayers that will inevitably say they don't trust online transactions, I call bullshit. I cannot begin to count the number of transactions in let's say the last 10 years (must be in the many thousands), and not ONCE have I had an issue. It can be done if your financial institutions take security seriously.
Perhaps in some less well developed countries it may be possible to live offline, but I would say that if you tried to live offline here you will have a much more difficult time as practically all services are online. You may be able to live without TV, but living without internet access would be very challenging here.
Please, stop spreading FUD. Where does it say in the article that you lose root access to HARDWARE?
Besides... simple solution... don't buy apps through the Windows Store. Don't install/use Windows 8 if it can't install/use normal software not purchased from the Store (they won't lock this down, it would kill the platform).
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I think you are grossly overestimating Joe Sixpack. Look at the continuous rollback of freedoms and rights since 9/11... it's been what... oh wait, more than 10 years now for fuck's sake! The masses in the US still don't see it coming, and seem willing to continue to let legislation pass that further restricts their freedoms and rights and puts more and more control in the hands of businesses and their paid-for lackeys in Congress and politics in general.
The black hole is looming and the speed at which the US is heading for it is increasing by the day.
And I recall that even the mighty iPhone had problems with the clock/reminders/alarm at the 2012 year turnover, requiring an iOS update to fix, which is NOT available for older devices. How nice of you Apple...
Good riddance, glad to see this moving out of the EU. For you guys on the other side of the Atlantic... hope you realize what is coming. We don't accept it here in Europe and you shouldn't either.
Not to mention, congress critters don't even READ the damn legislation they are passing for the most part. A few years ago in a Michael Moore documentary, several congress critters that were interviewed openly admitted they don't have time to read most of the legislation they pass.
If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
And sadly, you are correct.
Wrong. The Pentax K-5 outscored the NEX-7, 82 vs. 81 points on DxOMark sensor testing. The K-5 hardly costs $10k... more like closer to $1k depending on sales and rebates. In fact, the K-5 sensor outperforms *every* APS-C DSLR camera currently available, and is bested only by *one* full-frame Nikon and a few medium format professional bodies (including the Pentax 645D). In particular, it's low-light performance and sensitivity is matched by only a few cameras, at any price.
Interestingly, the Nikon D7000, which is reportedly using the same sensor as K-5, scores only 80 and has worse low-light sensor performance.
Almost got it right. Yes, they did more or less neuter DOS in ME, but the well-known stability issues of ME were also due to MS trying to remove much of the underlying 16-bit code from the OS and make it "more" 32-bit than 9x. DOS was of course a part of this underlying 16-bit code, although hacks could bring part of it back.
The real irony is that the original Apple would have utterly failed in today's market, given the predatory behavior of today's companies, like Apple.
I can agree 100% with this, and as someone who survived a GE acquisition, I feel the pain. Luckily, GE bought us to acquire some of our other technology units and we were sold off after a couple years. But, during the years we were under GE, innovation stagnated. We learned that GE really stands for "good enough". Our GE tenure put us 3-4 years behind the competition, taking into account the catch-up scenario we were left with after separation from GE.
Is this a surprise, that nature can route around humans? Seriously, this was expected. However, all this means is that Monsato and other evil corporations like it who create GM seeds now have an opening for a new product to develop and sell, for an even higher price. And they will get this higher price because the "old" GM seeds are not successful any more. And the cycle continues...
I find it insightful to see a "company" like this who was going after MILLIONS in so-called damages, is suddenly struggling to pay a paltry $64k debt. And all I can say is... BWAHAHAHAHA! There *can* be justice in this world.
Don't worry, I'm sure the invisible hand of the free market will step in and all will be OK.
I believe your statement that the majority of Apple products are Macs... is a bit out of date. I don't have the numbers or links handy but I recall in the recent past that iOS devices far outsold the number of Macs, to the point that some pundits believe that Apple could drop the whole Mac line of computers and it would barely be a blip in their profits. They make most of their profit on iOS, from the iDevices to apps sold in the app store to songs bought on iTunes. The Mac as a business is relatively small chunk of their whole business these days.
Me, I have an iPad but it's only for work and it's provided by my company. It's a useful tool, but I don't get all fanboy about it like some others. It might as well be Android or some other device, I could really care less. What matters is what I can do with the device. I also own a few iPods, but I do not own any Macs. I looked at the recent Airs when I was shopping for a new small laptop, but could not accept a) the higher price compared to other similarly-equipped laptops and b) the glossy screen; I detest them with a passion and the fact that Apple will not give me a choice of an anti-glare screen is a deal breaker.
Back to the original post, I do agree that Apple is displaying very anti-competitive behavior by abusing the legal and patent systems in the name of locking out competitors from various markets. I believe that long-term, they will pay for this, it's only a matter of time before the system corrects itself. The issue of patent reform is starting to become visible to the general public now, and once a few higher-ups get burned, you can bet laws will get changed.
I wish them the best and look forward to it. I recently discovered, or more accurately installed, Linux Mint. I have been using ubuntu since 6.06 or so, and I don't like the direction they are going. I have tried and failed to like Unity. I dived into xubuntu a bit which is not bad, before deciding to give LM a good try. I have to say, I like their attitude and their "political" position... if something works and is good, use it. Nevermind the OSS politics, closed source is OK for some libraries and drivers, if that's what is available. Just make it work. This is a refreshing change from the purist OSS view, which in my opinion is harming the movement more than helping it. Take for example the sad state of open source wireless drivers. I can't even begin to mention how many times I have installed or upgraded a Linux distro, and lost all wireless functionality for sometimes _days_ at a time. Searching for a solution that works "with this specific version of this distro" is a load of bullshit. Most of the so-called solutions are nothing more than hacks anyway. Oh, and somewhere down the line some obscure library or driver binary gets automatically updated and breaks the whole fucking thing again. I'm really tired of it. LM seems to focus on getting things to work, and that's the way it should be. There will always be Gentoo or Debian or other roll-your-own distros for those that want that level of control or purism, but I want an OS that works and is not a fragile house of cards waiting to collapse. At the moment, it seems LM is closest to that ideal. I still have several machines running various flavors and versions of ubuntu, but that may change in the near future.
Heck, even my hopelessly out-of-date Nokia S60 smartphones can multitask, and they did it WAY before the Apple iPhone.
It's becoming very clear that the new American way to do business is to patent every blindingly obvious idea and then sue the shit out of your competitors with your warchest.
Except that the "war on terror" can never be "won".
Dragging and dropping folders is just archaic, I prefer to use players with a library feature. I have a music collection of over 16k tracks (99% purchased, mostly ripped from my own CD's) and accessing my music via a library is a necessity. On Windows I use a recent Winamp or foobar2000. On Linux... well, I haven't really found a player that works for me yet. The one included in recent ubuntu releases (I can't recall which one it is) is supposed to support a library-like function, but I have never been able to get it to work. It starts to scan my library (stored on a QNAP NAS and connected via wired gigabit), maybe adds a few tracks, and then... does nothing. I can play the tracks that were added, but it just seems to "give up" for an unknown reason. Sure, I can drag tracks from a folder into the player and play them, but that's not the point. This happens on several different computers and laptops, each with different flavors and releases. It's just unfinished in my opinion.
And your insurance carrier will drop you like a rock without paying a dime after you get into an accident and an investigation uncovers your hack...
You know, I don't believe there's a word for "atheists" outside the USA... well scratch that, they're called ordinary people. Seriously, only in the good 'ol US of A do you need a proper name for people who do not believe in religion. That says a lot.
Absolutely not. I'll tell you why: There is currently no way to verify who you say you are on social networks, hell, some of them you can sign up with a fake, made-up name... all you need is a valid email address which can be anything. Oh, and that email address can be webmail, which also does not attempt to verify your identity. This makes it incredibly easy to set up fake accounts or profiles in someone else's name.
Absolutely NONE of these services have a way to accurately verify your identity. They don't even try for the most part. This alone means that searching for Bob Smith's facebook page does not guarantee that I find the real Bob Smith's facebook page. Or that anything posted or linked to Bob's profile has any accuracy whatsoever.
Stuff can become attached or linked to your social media profile, even without your knowledge. Character assassination anyone? Someone you know (or even don't know) can take a picture, post it online and tag it with your name, and there is absolutely no way to verify who is in the picture. I can take a picture of my cat taking a dump and post it, tag it with a friends name, and this will then get linked to their profile.
Do you see the problem with this? If a prospective employer or a credit service wants to search for my name on social media sites fine, but I expect they will be smart about actually using unverifiable information to determine my credit or job worthiness. The mere act that they would use unverifiable data to back up a decision on something important like a job position or a credit score, tells a lot about the company. Luckily I live in the EU where this sort of thing is not widespread and we actually have strong personal data protection laws.
Actually, it's the ones which blast sound through the rear channels that are the most annoying. I don't mind the ads taking advantage of multi-channel sound in a reasonable way, but blasting full-volume through the rear channels borders on audio system abuse. I have more than a few times been worried about damage to my rear channel speakers from loud ads.
Nikon's "super-ISO" modes can't hold a candle, literally, to the Pentax K-5. The K-5 wipes the floor with it's high-ISO performance. At the moment, there are few cameras that come close, even several FF CaNikons fall victim. ISO 6400 is very clean and 12800 is usable if shooting RAW with moderate post-processing. I heard that passable shots can be had at ISO 25600 using heavier post-processing, but I have not tried it myself.
Any by the way, I don't need to buy a *new* prime lens for a Pentax DSLR... the K-mount is still around and I can pick up an old Pentax-M or Pentax-A prime for very little money and use it on my K-5 (which I have). I can even use M42 screw-mount lenses from the 60's. Not even CaNikon has a bigger lens selection when you take into account that Pentax DSLR's are compatible with every Pentax K-mount and M42 lens ever made... and there is some very good old glass available if you look for it.
Sorry, fail. In a modern society it can be challenging to get by without internet access. Take Finland for example, where internet access is a right for all citizens. Practically all services are handled electronically here. Banking has been done online for a couple decades (perhaps more, I wasn't living here before that). We do not use paper checks (how archaic), and the banks have had electronic kiosks for paying bills and performing basic banking tasks as far back as I can remember. I pay all store purchases with a bank card (debit), credit card or very occasionally, cash from an ATM. Today, the vast majority in Finland do their banking online. The last time I was in a bank physically, was when taking out a mortgage many years ago. I do 100% of my financial transactions at home, or any place I can have access via internet. All my bills are paid electronically online.
To the naysayers that will inevitably say they don't trust online transactions, I call bullshit. I cannot begin to count the number of transactions in let's say the last 10 years (must be in the many thousands), and not ONCE have I had an issue. It can be done if your financial institutions take security seriously.
Perhaps in some less well developed countries it may be possible to live offline, but I would say that if you tried to live offline here you will have a much more difficult time as practically all services are online. You may be able to live without TV, but living without internet access would be very challenging here.
And Audi before that.
Please, stop spreading FUD. Where does it say in the article that you lose root access to HARDWARE?
Besides... simple solution... don't buy apps through the Windows Store. Don't install/use Windows 8 if it can't install/use normal software not purchased from the Store (they won't lock this down, it would kill the platform).