Almost right, but it's more like "they won't be able to sell you the same tune for an Nth time in the form of an "official" (and often crappy) ringtone".
(Yes, I know a guitar tab is not sheet music - but having the key and chord progressions makes it remarkably easy for even this non-muso to add the melody on top and create better-than-the-shitty-$2-per-download quality ringtones for free...)
Having worked in the technology industry for 20 years, and having relatives who have worked for longer fixing portable AC equipment (power tools, desktop appliances, etc), I can say one thing :
There is no way to make a strain relief mechanism that will withstand the way the average fsckwit pulls on it, stretches it, or bends it. Breakage at the cable entry/exit point, regardless of any strain relief, is the most common fault with any of these devices.
(Or maybe not the most common, but it's not a far second behind things like "I tried to drill a 3/4" hole through 6" of concrete with my 650W B&D drill, then it just stopped & blew the fuse"...)
It happens on cheap no-name Chinese made plugpacks, it happens on million dollar transportable industrial equipment (with some of the most elaborate cable vs operator protection you'll ever see - pivoting feeders, spring-loaded spoolers, anti-twist and anti-tension devices, etc) - and, apparently, it happens on MacBook power supplies too...
This sort of behaviour is fairly common with small switchmode supplies - in fact, it's more likely if the power supply is well-designed and over-rated.
It's to do with the current waveform. Any switchmode supply tends to have a very spiky current load, as it switches on an off to keep the output voltage stable. A cheap switcher, if it's lightly loaded, will draw huge spikes of current only in the early part of each half-cycle - so it's current load looks just like one or two noise spikes, which get absorbed by any output filtering &/or ignored the protection circuitry in the source UPS/inverter.
A better switcher, on the other hand, will spread that current draw over the each half-cycle - so it's current load looks like a continuous noise hash to the supply. Enough hash to get back past any output filtering on the UPS / inverter and trigger the protection circuitry.
Hence the reason any decent UPS or inverter has specific warnings and / or deratings when used with switchmode loads.
(Yup, that's a simplified explanation - but it's also basically correct...)
In your case, it would probably work better with a smaller inverter, or a cheaper & nastier one without such good protection circuitry;-)
Firstly, they're a solution looking for a problem. Dedicated hardware works much better in this instance, even if the hardware is effectively a PC in disguise.
Secondly, current implementations suck. Apart from the initial install and extremely basic functionality, getting MCE running properly with multiple file types and codecs is almost as hard as installing and grooming MythTV - even on blessed hardware!
And why feck around with either, when I can go and buy a twin-tuner SD digital PVR for under AU$800, a twin-tuner HD digital PVR for under AU$2000, or lease a twin-tuner Pay-TV digital PVR for AU$10/mo?
the UK is unusual in that it should really have used.gb
Maybe not - Great Britain refers to the island, United Kingdom refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's mainly due to a historical accident/innaccuracy that the.ie TLD refers to both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Though your argument has weight too, especially considering the existence of.fm (Federated States of Micronesia),.fk (Falkland Islands), and others...
Then you must have read a different, shallower book called "1984" than I did. Because, in the "1984" I have sitting here, the state didn't actually do much 'controlling' beyond setting up the basic structure whereby people wittingly or unwittingly controlled themselves. Remember, Winston - himself a replaceable everyman, just doing his unimportant little job - was part of the problem in his position at the Ministry.
Rocket bombs? (What colour is the Terror Alert level today?). Eurasia/Eastasia? (Who are you 'at war' with - Afghanistan? Iraq? Is it Iran yet? What about tomorrow - Lebanon? Venezuela?). Hate Week? (Watch much Fox News?). Prisoners being driven through the streets (seen footage from Gitmo lately?) on their way to an uncertain fate? (Military courts, anyone?). The constant state of fear? (Are you with us in the War on Terrah, or against us?). The soothing voice of the figurehead Big Brother? (When is the next State of the Union address anyway?).
There's very little overt control from the state in there; just the appearance of. There's a reason the book is mostly written from a POV inside Winston's head - that's where the problem lies. Was that a physical or metaphorical bullet at the end? Which do you hope it was?
And I agree with others - it should be read alongside "Brave New World", as a warning against all types of dystopian futures. I'd add "The Fountainhead" and/or "Atlas Shrugged" to the list too...
As for your second statement: which would be easier - moving to another country, or living a completely Microsoft-free computing existence?
There isn't an evil, all powerful, super intelligent group of people controlling the world.
Except those reptile alien half-breeds. And cats. The Queen Mother (she's not dead, you know!) has the first under control, but I'm still worried about the second...
Aw, c'mon, it's such a catchy phrase! And it makes the sayer feel soooo superior, as it he sits in his Aeron chair in front of his Dell computer, watches his Sony LCD TV, or drives his Chevrolet past all the sheeple at Wal*Mart on his way to the buy a new pair of pants at 'Fat-Arsed-And-Stupid'...
That's a very interesting and astute post - not all of us are interested in making the proverbial million; we're more interested in making a nice happy rewarding life for ourselves - and if we can collect a few toys along the way, well that just makes it a little bit nicer;-)
However, keep that in mind while together we jump forward to your third paragraph:
That process doesn't "push other people into poverty"...
Au contraire. Maybe not directly, but indirectly it does.
Y'see, the other side of this thing called "capitalism", sometimes mistaken for "the free market", is that the grower / manufacturer / supplier / vendor is tasked to charge what the market will bear - the market as a whole, that is, not the poorest in the market.
Take this as an example: A grocery shop sells to 75% of the potential market, making an average of 40% profit. Would it make sense for them to reduce their profit to 10% in order to sell to 100% of the market? No way! And if the operators tried it, their backers/shareholders would run them out of town on a rail.
You might say "well, someone else could open up shop and corner that bottom 25% of the market - what a brilliant idea!". True, but in real life there are other near-insurmountable barriers to that. To pick one: your suppliers. Why would they supply to you over the bigger shop, at possibly less profit for them (and certainly higher admin costs per line/order)? They wouldn't; they'd stick to where the biggest profit is. To pick another: the other, bigger shop. Why wouldn't they lower their prices to match or beat yours, sure in the knowledge they can outlast your capital (and even possibly subsidising their temporary loss at that location with profits from other locations)? Now, all that is simplified - but, simplified or not, it's how it works in the real world.
So, while your initial attitude and premise is spot on - and, if people took heed of it, the world would be a much better place - your concluding attitude sucks. Worse than that, in your fourth paragraph, you descend into the usual "blame the victim" attitude which is a rampant disease in our society. You've read too much Ayn Rand, and not understood enough about (very basic) economics...
Y'know, everybody laughed at him for saying that - but it's a pretty damned good "idiot laymans'" description of how the Internet works and differs from other "transport" systems.
How else would you describe it to someone with *absolutely no knowledge* of how it works?
Of course, most of those who poked fun at him did it because he was on the "wrong" side of the argument.
(He might have been better served by a road analogy: highways are the backbone, local roads are the area infrastructure, and suburban streets are the "last mile". This would've worked even better for his argument, because "heavy users" - e.g. trucks - are hit with higher tolls, roughly based on carrying capacity...)
I'm not American, so I don't know the specifics, but I'm enough of an astute observer of politics to be able to comment on at least some of your points...
Arlen Specter, one of hte most powerful men in congress, almost lost his primary because of conservatives who labeled him "too liberal." Where were the corporate interests there?
Lining the pockets of those even more to the Right of him?
How did Arnold become the governator?
Because he was the furthest-right that the people of California would accept?
[comment: Right, Left... doesn't matter, except that at the moment the Right is in power, so they're calling the shots in order to perpetuate their "God-given right", "natural party of government', "thousand-year reich", or whatever they're calling it this week. So, naturally, those that want advantage will be favouring them.]
... but congress knows better than to alter the experience of the average end user in a way that will get them tossed from office.
Oh yes, they sure do. Which is why they do it the way they do - slow enough that the the majority don't complain (and the minority that do complain is small enough to dismiss as "kooks", "ratbag nutjobs", or "raving [right || left]-wing loonies"), and fast enough that the real vested interests are happy with the direction of progress.
[comment: not suggesting that there's a shadowy New World Order behind the scenes; belief in the Bavarian Illuminati, international Jewish conspiracy, and shape-shifting blood-drinking reptile aliens is for the paranoid and mentally unstable*. It's much simpler than that: follow the money...]
but smart congressmen know they have to listen to public opinion or they lose their jobs.
And where does "public opinion" come from? Hint: it ain't the public...
In my country, this last is becoming more and more obvious each day - I've lost count of the number of minor issues that have been seeded in one media then run with by others, until suddenly they're picked up by some group and promoted as "Issues" (with a capital "I") of "public importance" that need to be addressed by the government. In most cases, these seeds have been planted by the government - state rights, childcare, education, employment law, etc - in order to further their agenda.
At the moment, in your country and mine, the Right seem to be much better at this than the Left. And, although I'm definitely Left-leaning, I'm just as aware of it and pissed off when I see them doing it in turn.
(* Except for that thing about the Queen Mother. She's not really dead, y'know...)
Long ago, kids played "Cowboys and Indians", because that was the standard "good vs evil" metaphor of the time.
Slightly less long ago, kids played "Cops & Robbers" for the exact same reason.
And even less long ago, kids played "Superman", "Batman", or "Spiderman" to get their "good vs evil" fix.
[Embarrasing personal story] When I was a kid in the early 70's, my older sister & I played "Marine Boy" & "Astro Boy" for those reasons.
Kids in the 80's played with Transformers (good) vs Decepticons (bad).
The multitude of "gotta catch 'em all!" variations on characters in the 90's & 00's? Same thing.
I look forward, in my extreme old age 30 or 40 years from now, to watching kids play "MPAA vs Copyright Infringers" games in the backyard. But, even though it was always more fun to play on the losing side, I don't want to see them running around in suits and handing out writs. Carrying on like children, as it were...
You're right, and the parent is wrong. That's true.
But you're both missing the point of the article. Current US law*, as I understand it, allows you to make a copy of a broadcast for your own personal use with no restrictions whatsoever. No restrictions, that is, except to prevent what common sense would agree is non-personal use - public display, retransmission, etc. So basically, once you're recorded it, you're free to use it as you see fit for yourself.
Now, the clown in the article wants to take it one step further. He wants to control what you do with it for yourself - either by using technical means to extend his control (a "no skip" flag, anyone?), or economic/political pressure to remove your means of doing it (banning PVRs, outlawing FFWD & skip buttons, etc).
(* I'm Australian, and I was going to write something here about what our laws will look like soon - as revealed in another FPP a day or so ago. But it's a bit difficult to explain simply, so I'll just say this - our forthcoming laws will leave out the "fair use" step, and jump straight to "fair use, as long as they use it the way want them to" conclusion. The same thing you'll be getting if clowns like this get their way, except we won't have had the "fair use" holiday in the meantime...)
((Yes, clowns. Clowns are evil. It's something to do with the greedy, lecherous, self-satified look on their faces...))
I wouldn't be suprised if Microsoft hired Chuck Norris to take down the music cartels.
Y'know, there's a good idea buried in there - Chuck seems like a nice guy, he has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to fight for the little man against overwhelming odds and win, and his movies show him to have a healthy disrepsect for undeserved authority.
Who here wants to chip in to buy him a copy of Ubuntu and a ticket to Redmond?
My favorite part is Microsoft bitching about Apple's "vendor lock-in." How out of touch is MS marketing to not see the humor in that?
"Out of touch"? Try "cunning as a fox" instead.
Because now they've started - and this is just the start; expect more to come - to tie the the negative term "vendor lock-in" to Apple. And in the mind of the average punter, because Microsoft are the ones who exposed it, they can't be guilty of the same thing - can they? If they were, that just wouldn't make sense...
I used to do DSL faults/installs for an ISP/telco. Would you believe that staff members were the most common offenders for those faults?
I once got a call near knock-off time to do an urgent fault at a manager's house. Luckily it was also on my way home, so I said yes. Rang them before I headed off there, went through all the obvious stuff - yes, I checked with them that the cables were correctly plugged in; the service had worked perfectly the day before; no, nothing had changed - and decided it was a faulty modem.
Get there, and the truth comes out. Things had changed - they'd moved the modem from the office downstairs to the new office upstairs. Yes, they had been very careful to note exactly what plugged where - even showed me the little diagram they'd made before unplugging things, correct right down to a drawing of the back of the modem with the line skt having the little moulded icon above it and the notation "phone line from wall plugs in here".
And yet, they'd still managed to plug the phone line into the ethernet jack, and had actually gone to the trouble of finding a suitable RJ45-RJ12 male-male adaptor & patch cord to plug the ethernet cable into the line skt!
This particular manager happened to manage the IT support helpdesk...
A rough equivalent in Win95 was to close the start button - click on "Start", then Alt-minus, and choose "close".
If you have a non-Apple store near you that sells Macs, you can have almost as much fun by doing the Ctrl-Option-Apple-8 "invert screen" thing on a few machines;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Almost right, but it's more like "they won't be able to sell you the same tune for an Nth time in the form of an "official" (and often crappy) ringtone ".
(Yes, I know a guitar tab is not sheet music - but having the key and chord progressions makes it remarkably easy for even this non-muso to add the melody on top and create better-than-the-shitty-$2-per-download quality ringtones for free...)
"ISO 9001:2000 specifies requirements for a quality management system"
Pointing at the lowest-ranking guy on the factory floor and saying "it was his fault!" is not being ISO 9001-compliant.
Having a documented set of procedures which allow you to point at the guy on the factory floor and say "it was his fault - and we can prove it!" is.
(Oh yeah - you also need a documented method for addressing quality shortfalls. Add "And now he's fired!" to that last paragraph...)
In other words, it has nothing to do with actual quality...
Having worked in the technology industry for 20 years, and having relatives who have worked for longer fixing portable AC equipment (power tools, desktop appliances, etc), I can say one thing :
There is no way to make a strain relief mechanism that will withstand the way the average fsckwit pulls on it, stretches it, or bends it. Breakage at the cable entry/exit point, regardless of any strain relief, is the most common fault with any of these devices.
(Or maybe not the most common, but it's not a far second behind things like "I tried to drill a 3/4" hole through 6" of concrete with my 650W B&D drill, then it just stopped & blew the fuse"...)
It happens on cheap no-name Chinese made plugpacks, it happens on million dollar transportable industrial equipment (with some of the most elaborate cable vs operator protection you'll ever see - pivoting feeders, spring-loaded spoolers, anti-twist and anti-tension devices, etc) - and, apparently, it happens on MacBook power supplies too...
This sort of behaviour is fairly common with small switchmode supplies - in fact, it's more likely if the power supply is well-designed and over-rated.
;-)
It's to do with the current waveform. Any switchmode supply tends to have a very spiky current load, as it switches on an off to keep the output voltage stable. A cheap switcher, if it's lightly loaded, will draw huge spikes of current only in the early part of each half-cycle - so it's current load looks just like one or two noise spikes, which get absorbed by any output filtering &/or ignored the protection circuitry in the source UPS/inverter.
A better switcher, on the other hand, will spread that current draw over the each half-cycle - so it's current load looks like a continuous noise hash to the supply. Enough hash to get back past any output filtering on the UPS / inverter and trigger the protection circuitry.
Hence the reason any decent UPS or inverter has specific warnings and / or deratings when used with switchmode loads.
(Yup, that's a simplified explanation - but it's also basically correct...)
In your case, it would probably work better with a smaller inverter, or a cheaper & nastier one without such good protection circuitry
Firstly, they're a solution looking for a problem. Dedicated hardware works much better in this instance, even if the hardware is effectively a PC in disguise.
Secondly, current implementations suck. Apart from the initial install and extremely basic functionality, getting MCE running properly with multiple file types and codecs is almost as hard as installing and grooming MythTV - even on blessed hardware!
And why feck around with either, when I can go and buy a twin-tuner SD digital PVR for under AU$800, a twin-tuner HD digital PVR for under AU$2000, or lease a twin-tuner Pay-TV digital PVR for AU$10/mo?
Though your argument has weight too, especially considering the existence of
(Hint: unlike WordPerfect, you're probably still using some of them...)
wait
wait
wait
wait
OK. Read the front page now.
Rocket bombs? (What colour is the Terror Alert level today?). Eurasia/Eastasia? (Who are you 'at war' with - Afghanistan? Iraq? Is it Iran yet? What about tomorrow - Lebanon? Venezuela?). Hate Week? (Watch much Fox News?). Prisoners being driven through the streets (seen footage from Gitmo lately?) on their way to an uncertain fate? (Military courts, anyone?). The constant state of fear? (Are you with us in the War on Terrah, or against us?). The soothing voice of the figurehead Big Brother? (When is the next State of the Union address anyway?).
There's very little overt control from the state in there; just the appearance of. There's a reason the book is mostly written from a POV inside Winston's head - that's where the problem lies. Was that a physical or metaphorical bullet at the end? Which do you hope it was?
And I agree with others - it should be read alongside "Brave New World", as a warning against all types of dystopian futures. I'd add "The Fountainhead" and/or "Atlas Shrugged" to the list too...
As for your second statement: which would be easier - moving to another country, or living a completely Microsoft-free computing existence?
Aw, c'mon, it's such a catchy phrase! And it makes the sayer feel soooo superior, as it he sits in his Aeron chair in front of his Dell computer, watches his Sony LCD TV, or drives his Chevrolet past all the sheeple at Wal*Mart on his way to the buy a new pair of pants at 'Fat-Arsed-And-Stupid'...
However, keep that in mind while together we jump forward to your third paragraph:Au contraire. Maybe not directly, but indirectly it does.
Y'see, the other side of this thing called "capitalism", sometimes mistaken for "the free market", is that the grower / manufacturer / supplier / vendor is tasked to charge what the market will bear - the market as a whole, that is, not the poorest in the market.
Take this as an example:
A grocery shop sells to 75% of the potential market, making an average of 40% profit. Would it make sense for them to reduce their profit to 10% in order to sell to 100% of the market? No way! And if the operators tried it, their backers/shareholders would run them out of town on a rail.
You might say "well, someone else could open up shop and corner that bottom 25% of the market - what a brilliant idea!". True, but in real life there are other near-insurmountable barriers to that. To pick one: your suppliers. Why would they supply to you over the bigger shop, at possibly less profit for them (and certainly higher admin costs per line/order)? They wouldn't; they'd stick to where the biggest profit is. To pick another: the other, bigger shop. Why wouldn't they lower their prices to match or beat yours, sure in the knowledge they can outlast your capital (and even possibly subsidising their temporary loss at that location with profits from other locations)? Now, all that is simplified - but, simplified or not, it's how it works in the real world.
So, while your initial attitude and premise is spot on - and, if people took heed of it, the world would be a much better place - your concluding attitude sucks. Worse than that, in your fourth paragraph, you descend into the usual "blame the victim" attitude which is a rampant disease in our society. You've read too much Ayn Rand, and not understood enough about (very basic) economics...
The problem with a free market is that you can grow very old waiting for it to work for you...
Y'know, everybody laughed at him for saying that - but it's a pretty damned good "idiot laymans'" description of how the Internet works and differs from other "transport" systems.
How else would you describe it to someone with *absolutely no knowledge* of how it works?
Of course, most of those who poked fun at him did it because he was on the "wrong" side of the argument.
(He might have been better served by a road analogy: highways are the backbone, local roads are the area infrastructure, and suburban streets are the "last mile". This would've worked even better for his argument, because "heavy users" - e.g. trucks - are hit with higher tolls, roughly based on carrying capacity...)
Lining the pockets of those even more to the Right of him?
Because he was the furthest-right that the people of California would accept?
[comment: Right, Left
Oh yes, they sure do. Which is why they do it the way they do - slow enough that the the majority don't complain (and the minority that do complain is small enough to dismiss as "kooks", "ratbag nutjobs", or "raving [right || left]-wing loonies"), and fast enough that the real vested interests are happy with the direction of progress.
[comment: not suggesting that there's a shadowy New World Order behind the scenes; belief in the Bavarian Illuminati, international Jewish conspiracy, and shape-shifting blood-drinking reptile aliens is for the paranoid and mentally unstable*. It's much simpler than that: follow the money...]
And where does "public opinion" come from? Hint: it ain't the public...
In my country, this last is becoming more and more obvious each day - I've lost count of the number of minor issues that have been seeded in one media then run with by others, until suddenly they're picked up by some group and promoted as "Issues" (with a capital "I") of "public importance" that need to be addressed by the government. In most cases, these seeds have been planted by the government - state rights, childcare, education, employment law, etc - in order to further their agenda.
At the moment, in your country and mine, the Right seem to be much better at this than the Left. And, although I'm definitely Left-leaning, I'm just as aware of it and pissed off when I see them doing it in turn.
(* Except for that thing about the Queen Mother. She's not really dead, y'know...)
If the marketing types take that idea and run with it, I'm going to come around and punch you in the face.
Not because I don't like you, you understand. Just because I want to see you walking around with a tampon stuck up your nose...
At least you're not trying to tell me people buy the Chrysler 300 for its elegance and style. That I just wouldn't believe...
In the whole world, there is exactly one current-model car that is fuglier than a Chrysler Crossfire. And that's the Chrysler 300...
Long ago, kids played "Cowboys and Indians", because that was the standard "good vs evil" metaphor of the time.
Slightly less long ago, kids played "Cops & Robbers" for the exact same reason.
And even less long ago, kids played "Superman", "Batman", or "Spiderman" to get their "good vs evil" fix.
[Embarrasing personal story] When I was a kid in the early 70's, my older sister & I played "Marine Boy" & "Astro Boy" for those reasons.
Kids in the 80's played with Transformers (good) vs Decepticons (bad).
The multitude of "gotta catch 'em all!" variations on characters in the 90's & 00's? Same thing.
I look forward, in my extreme old age 30 or 40 years from now, to watching kids play "MPAA vs Copyright Infringers" games in the backyard. But, even though it was always more fun to play on the losing side, I don't want to see them running around in suits and handing out writs. Carrying on like children, as it were...
You're right, and the parent is wrong. That's true.
But you're both missing the point of the article. Current US law*, as I understand it, allows you to make a copy of a broadcast for your own personal use with no restrictions whatsoever. No restrictions, that is, except to prevent what common sense would agree is non-personal use - public display, retransmission, etc. So basically, once you're recorded it, you're free to use it as you see fit for yourself.
Now, the clown in the article wants to take it one step further. He wants to control what you do with it for yourself - either by using technical means to extend his control (a "no skip" flag, anyone?), or economic/political pressure to remove your means of doing it (banning PVRs, outlawing FFWD & skip buttons, etc).
(* I'm Australian, and I was going to write something here about what our laws will look like soon - as revealed in another FPP a day or so ago. But it's a bit difficult to explain simply, so I'll just say this - our forthcoming laws will leave out the "fair use" step, and jump straight to "fair use, as long as they use it the way want them to" conclusion. The same thing you'll be getting if clowns like this get their way, except we won't have had the "fair use" holiday in the meantime...)
((Yes, clowns. Clowns are evil. It's something to do with the greedy, lecherous, self-satified look on their faces...))
Who here wants to chip in to buy him a copy of Ubuntu and a ticket to Redmond?
Because now they've started - and this is just the start; expect more to come - to tie the the negative term "vendor lock-in" to Apple. And in the mind of the average punter, because Microsoft are the ones who exposed it, they can't be guilty of the same thing - can they? If they were, that just wouldn't make sense...
I'd bet the CPU in my Furby runs faster than that...
I used to do DSL faults/installs for an ISP/telco. Would you believe that staff members were the most common offenders for those faults?
I once got a call near knock-off time to do an urgent fault at a manager's house. Luckily it was also on my way home, so I said yes. Rang them before I headed off there, went through all the obvious stuff - yes, I checked with them that the cables were correctly plugged in; the service had worked perfectly the day before; no, nothing had changed - and decided it was a faulty modem.
Get there, and the truth comes out. Things had changed - they'd moved the modem from the office downstairs to the new office upstairs. Yes, they had been very careful to note exactly what plugged where - even showed me the little diagram they'd made before unplugging things, correct right down to a drawing of the back of the modem with the line skt having the little moulded icon above it and the notation "phone line from wall plugs in here".
And yet, they'd still managed to plug the phone line into the ethernet jack, and had actually gone to the trouble of finding a suitable RJ45-RJ12 male-male adaptor & patch cord to plug the ethernet cable into the line skt!
This particular manager happened to manage the IT support helpdesk...
A rough equivalent in Win95 was to close the start button - click on "Start", then Alt-minus, and choose "close".
;-)
If you have a non-Apple store near you that sells Macs, you can have almost as much fun by doing the Ctrl-Option-Apple-8 "invert screen" thing on a few machines