Those people living on the bleeding edge are the ones who upgrade their system every 3 years or more often. It's the people who don't buy new machines frequently who this hurts. There are certain obvious architectural barriers where Apple decides not to support their new OS on old hardware: the change to PPC, the change from NuBus to PCI architecture, the new world ROM. How long do you think it will be before Apple says their new OS won't run on PowerPC Macs at all? It won't be 10.5, and probably not 10.6 either. But do you really want to throw out your pbg4 or dual g5 in order to run 10.7? It won't have the kind of resale value you'd see on a comparably old mac today, either.
In other news, I'm looking to buy a cheap ibook g4.
If you don't like the bloat that happened on the Macintosh between System 7 and MacOS 9, you're in for a surprise. You're going to be shocked when you realize how much bloat there was between the first versions of nextstep, rhapsody, and MacOS X 10.0.
Forget any metric of size, just think about relative performance of core functionality of the system, or about the minimum hardware requirements necessary to get comparible performance out of the OS. Which of these OSes will even run on the same hardware?
MacOS X is A Good Thing. Solve MacOS 9's bloatware problem it did not.
Expanding FOSE to "Federal Office Systems Exposition" is pretty worthless since it doesn't really tell me anything - and to people who actually know what FOSE is, it's probably less recognisable then the acronym. The provided link to fose.com, however, was very helpful and let me know what it was in seconds.
Ah, how far we've come. Steve Jobs has brought us the iPod, which you had to essentially trade in the unit to replace the battery. Not to mention the Mac mini, for which user-service of any of the internals is not recommended.
Artists own their work until they sign a contract and sell their work to the label. At that point, they negotiate for royalties. Generic pop acts whose value depends on the promotion and marketing of the label will have a hard time collecting royalties, but don't confuse the issue by equating royalties with Madonna. Independent labels pay royalties, too.
the main reason I don't buy CD's is because they still cost almost 4 times the price of a DVD on sale.
There's no comparison between the cost of DVDs and CDs. Selling records is basically the only way the artist/producer/record company have to make money off the music, and recover the cost of making the record. When a DVD is released, most likely, the movie is already profitable for the production company. When the movie was released in theaters, ticket sales paid for the whole thing -- if not in the US, then probably internationally. Of course, some movies are never profitable and the ones that completely bomb are just written off as failures and may never get released on DVD. The only thing DVD sales have to cover is the production cost of the DVD (which in some cases is considerable, but probably not comparable to the original cost of the movie).
That said, I think DVD prices are way too high. Their prices are inflated by the fact that they have to be more expensive than, e.g., a rental at Blockbuster -- otherwise no one would rent from Blockbuster. But at least there's some competition in DVD pricing! CDs seem to suffer from price-fixing a lot worse than DVDs do (a few years ago, the record companies had to pay out to customers after settling a suit for price-fixing).
My highschool freshman physics teacher once related a story[1] (after being pestered by us to do so when we learned he had met these celebrities). It seems said teacher had met both Bill Nye and Beakman[2] (presumably at conferences for scientists/science teachers). Of them he said, "well, one of them is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and the other is a complete jerk you'd never want to know." I always assumed Bill Nye was the jerk, at the time being a fan of Beakman's World but not much of a fan of The Science Guy. But based on reading these/. comments today, I suspect it was the other way around.
[1] I may be remembering this story wrong[3]. I was a freshman, so that would have been 10 years ago.
[2] It may not have even been Beakman who Bill Nye was compared to, but someone else. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. Wizard, though. But definitely Bill Nye was in there.
[3] It's also possible Mr. Hickman was just pulling our chain and made the whole thing up.
Apple are probably using one of the edge-cache services like Akamai to reduce server load and bandwidth fees. In order for this to work, the data that each client downloads must be the same - otherwise, it can't be cached.
Although it is possible, and even desirable from a security standpoint, to apply the DRM to each file as it is downloaded, the increased server load and bandwidth probably makes this economically and logistically unviable.
7+ years ago, edge-caching as it exists today was impractical and basically unheard of. I expect we'll soon see companies like Akamai offer edge-computing servers which do exactly this: apply the DRM encryption in a distributed manner, when users download files. How computationally hard is it to encrypt a few megabytes? All you have to do is put your client logic and the unencrypted data on the distribution servers, pay for servers which are CPU-fast instead of only needing to be bandwidth-fast, and trust your hosting service absolutely (which apparently, they already do).
ok, so you still have the right to use the music, but you do not have the right to distribute without the authors permission.
what's the difference?
The difference is that in the case of the GPL, the software is free to use (download), but if you comply with the terms of the license, you're allowed to distribute it and modify it and do things which otherwise would be in violation of the copyright. In the case of itunes, if you don't agree to the license, you can't download the music. You don't have the right to violate the copyright on the music no matter what - but if you don't comply with the license, you don't even have the right to use it.
For instance, open up the Disk Management applet in Computer Management in Windows control panel and try to change a drive's letter without using a contextual menu-- you can't do it!
Not to be a killjoy, but: (left click) Action -> (left click) All Tasks -> (left click) Change Drive Letter and Paths. (at least in Windows XP)
Y'know what's really funny is that OS-X supports poly-button mice with wheel-scrolling ability, yet Apple don't (as yet) sell such a mouse.
This is patently false. Apple has sold multi-button and scroll-wheel mice since at least 1998, if not longer. The only issue here is that Apple does not manufacture or brand one as their one. There's a big distinction.
I thought it was pretty creepy that about a week before she was fired, Carly was mentioned - by name, and as being the CEO of HP - in Dilbert. Hm, I can't seem to find a link. bah
Apple's customer service and support aren't in question. But to answer your question, the reason they're ranked #1 is (partly) that everyone else completely sucks, and Apple's actually pretty decent most of the time.
Apple's product development and marketing are in an adversarial relationship with their customers. Every profit-seeking company is like this - it's just good business. Apple wants to maximize profits; customers don't want to spend more money. Apple fans want to know what they'll be releasing in the future; Apple doesn't want to tell them.
You raise a good point. Think Secret is not an Apple fan in the sense that Guy Kawasaki was - it's more of a fan of Apple fans. Think Secret tries to inform its readers, even at Apple's expense. That this is a problem for Apple is only evidence of Apple's adversarial relationship with their users/customers.
One recent example of a real cure was for ulcers. Someone found the fungus that was causing the problem and a common drug kills the fungus. That killed a two billion dollar a year industry.
I have mod points, but on this point I must correct you. I have suffered from an ulcer myself.
Helicobacter pylori was found to cause a significant portion of certain kinds of GI ulcers. This is old news, on the order of 20 years ago. My doctor decided to treat my ulcer with 2 kinds of antibiotics and an antacid. It turns out, I didn't actually have Helicobacter pylori in my stomach, so the antibiotics were completely ineffective. In fact, many ulcers are not caused by H pylori and there's still a huge market for other kinds of ulcer and acid-reflux relief medication.
The "two billion dollar a year industry" you refer to, I assume, are the Pepcid / Nexium / Prilosec / Prevacid / etc. folks. These guys are NOT out of business. With health insurance and prescription coverage, my doctor's prescription probably cost me about $5-$10 per drug to fill (my prescription copay). The stuff I took in the mean time which actually treated my stomach was available over the counter, and therefore not covered. That stuff cost $20 per drug.
The purpose of suing for this sort of stuff should be twofold: 1) to
regulate company action by means of threat and penalty AND 2)
reparations. Nowhere in those two clauses do I find any justification
for "screwing the other guy over because he did it to me first."
Um, what exactly do you think the word reparations means?
The problem with this logic is that it gives an advantage to people who use automated bidding systems, e.g. for sniping. It's perfectly reasonable to decide to up your maximum bid before you've been outbid, simply out of convenience, for example because you're going to be away and unable to place a subsequent bid later before the auction ends. If you're using an automated bidding agent, you don't need this convenience, because you can snipe even if you're AFK. Sniping is evil and it decreases the value of ebay for everybody. Ebay shouldn't use policy that encourages it.
But why does this a freedom of speech issue? Think Secret and the other sites are free to say whatever they want. Nothing wrong with that.
Actually, according to the UTSA, there is. This is why I believe the UTSA may be found unconstitutional.
What if Apple simply wants to know who told it to them? In other words, "Keep on publishing whatever you want, we don't care... just tell us who told it to you because that person violated a contract and we'd like to pursue that matter with that particular individual."
Well, we don't know this. Without a law suit, Think Secret owes Apple nothing. Apple can't just force them to provide answers. But since Apple is suing Think Secret, instead of simply subpoenaing them to testify and provide the identify of their sources, I don't think it is that simple... At least on the face of it - in reality I think they know they'll fail, but maybe they'll intimidate an answer out of Think Secret in the mean time. Regardless, if a publisher can be forced to reveal their sources, either by the government, by a company, or by a lawsuit by a company invoking a law such as the UTSA, that may abridge the freedom of the press. Why? Because "the freedom of the press" may be construed to mean the freedom of the press to collect data, conduct interviews, and publish their conclusions without being accountable to those who disagree with the content of their work. Now, obviously the first amendment doesn't spell this out the way I have, but it's up to the judicial branch and ultimately the supreme court - not congress - to decide what "freedom of the press" entails.
I will make this real simple: The UTSA is a law, passed by congress. If the UTSA abridges the freedom of speech or of the press, it is unconstitutional. If the UTSA is unconstitutional, it is unenforcable. If the UTSA can't be enforced, Apple will be unsuccessful using it to sue people.
Lets just get that straight: ANYTHING that a company wants to keep secret is a trade secret as long as they keep it secret (and it is still secret if it is discovered through illegal means, like breaking an NDA).
This is absurd. A company has to do a lot more than want to keep something a secret for it to be a protected trade secret. If some representative of the company tells you something they shouldn't have, or in confidence, you are not bound to keep it a secret. Only if you agree to an NDA are you bound to keep it a secret. If you violate your NDA, that doesn't automatically make me bound to your NDA. It does mean that the company can sue your pants off. Whether I have any responsibilities whatsoever to keep that secret is still in question, vis-a-vis the first ammendment vs. the UTSA.
Now, considering all of these
replies that insist that Nick Ciarelli (of Think Secret) and these
other websites are "journalists", and anyone who's apparently got any
kind of website at all on any topuc should be considered a
"journalist", certainly that means that Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert)
is a "journalist" too?
Or does it not work both ways?/
The situation with Jeff Gannon doesn't even begin to compare and you know it.
Yes, Jeff Gannon/Games Guckert is a journalist, and deserves all of the legal and constitutional protections of one (whatever those may be, it still isn't clear to me if journalists have different rights from everybody else). But I haven't heard that anyone is trying to bring charges against Mr. Gannon for some crime or infraction. The fact is Jeff Gannon is a partisan hack, a fraud, and a troll. On top of that, he's obvious about it. ("Divorced from reality?" come on! the trick to editorializing is to present an opinion while sounding unbiased.) He has no more business at white house press conferences than Nick Ciarelli does. The complaint is that the white house staff lets him participate in press conferences, and the president takes his questions. They ought to have higher standards. The white house has earned its criticism for this one.
The difference between an Xbox and DRMed music files is that DRMed music files are playable using software, running on an operating system, running on hardware, all of which you have direct access to or control of. You get find the decryption key from the software. You can extract the decrypted data stream from memory. It may be hard, but it will never be prohibitively so. The public key can be extracted from an Xbox. I don't know how hard it is or how expensive the fancy tools to do it are - I don't really care - but fundamentally, it can be done. Microsoft gives it to you inside of the Xbox, it's not magical.
The trick here is to never accept a closed system, never surrender your control of the hardware and operating system to someone else.
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, I'm looking to buy a cheap ibook g4.
Is anybody still wondering why the rumor mill is so damaging to Apple?...Guys, the dual-core CPUs are a myth.
So is the 3 GHz G5. Who's damaging Apple now? Jobs? Or is that IBM's fault?
This is why I print out hard copies of slashdot every day. I'm waiting to cash in on my original edition of CmdrTaco calling the iPod lame.
If you don't like the bloat that happened on the Macintosh between System 7 and MacOS 9, you're in for a surprise. You're going to be shocked when you realize how much bloat there was between the first versions of nextstep, rhapsody, and MacOS X 10.0.
Forget any metric of size, just think about relative performance of core functionality of the system, or about the minimum hardware requirements necessary to get comparible performance out of the OS. Which of these OSes will even run on the same hardware?
MacOS X is A Good Thing. Solve MacOS 9's bloatware problem it did not.
Expanding FOSE to "Federal Office Systems Exposition" is pretty worthless since it doesn't really tell me anything - and to people who actually know what FOSE is, it's probably less recognisable then the acronym. The provided link to fose.com, however, was very helpful and let me know what it was in seconds.
Ah, how far we've come. Steve Jobs has brought us the iPod, which you had to essentially trade in the unit to replace the battery. Not to mention the Mac mini, for which user-service of any of the internals is not recommended.
Artists own their work until they sign a contract and sell their work to the label. At that point, they negotiate for royalties. Generic pop acts whose value depends on the promotion and marketing of the label will have a hard time collecting royalties, but don't confuse the issue by equating royalties with Madonna. Independent labels pay royalties, too.
the main reason I don't buy CD's is because they still cost almost 4 times the price of a DVD on sale.
There's no comparison between the cost of DVDs and CDs. Selling records is basically the only way the artist/producer/record company have to make money off the music, and recover the cost of making the record. When a DVD is released, most likely, the movie is already profitable for the production company. When the movie was released in theaters, ticket sales paid for the whole thing -- if not in the US, then probably internationally. Of course, some movies are never profitable and the ones that completely bomb are just written off as failures and may never get released on DVD. The only thing DVD sales have to cover is the production cost of the DVD (which in some cases is considerable, but probably not comparable to the original cost of the movie).
That said, I think DVD prices are way too high. Their prices are inflated by the fact that they have to be more expensive than, e.g., a rental at Blockbuster -- otherwise no one would rent from Blockbuster. But at least there's some competition in DVD pricing! CDs seem to suffer from price-fixing a lot worse than DVDs do (a few years ago, the record companies had to pay out to customers after settling a suit for price-fixing).
My highschool freshman physics teacher once related a story[1] (after being pestered by us to do so when we learned he had met these celebrities). It seems said teacher had met both Bill Nye and Beakman[2] (presumably at conferences for scientists/science teachers). Of them he said, "well, one of them is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and the other is a complete jerk you'd never want to know." I always assumed Bill Nye was the jerk, at the time being a fan of Beakman's World but not much of a fan of The Science Guy. But based on reading these /. comments today, I suspect it was the other way around.
[1] I may be remembering this story wrong[3]. I was a freshman, so that would have been 10 years ago.
[2] It may not have even been Beakman who Bill Nye was compared to, but someone else. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. Wizard, though. But definitely Bill Nye was in there.
[3] It's also possible Mr. Hickman was just pulling our chain and made the whole thing up.
Although it is possible, and even desirable from a security standpoint, to apply the DRM to each file as it is downloaded, the increased server load and bandwidth probably makes this economically and logistically unviable.
7+ years ago, edge-caching as it exists today was impractical and basically unheard of. I expect we'll soon see companies like Akamai offer edge-computing servers which do exactly this: apply the DRM encryption in a distributed manner, when users download files. How computationally hard is it to encrypt a few megabytes? All you have to do is put your client logic and the unencrypted data on the distribution servers, pay for servers which are CPU-fast instead of only needing to be bandwidth-fast, and trust your hosting service absolutely (which apparently, they already do).
what's the difference?
The difference is that in the case of the GPL, the software is free to use (download), but if you comply with the terms of the license, you're allowed to distribute it and modify it and do things which otherwise would be in violation of the copyright. In the case of itunes, if you don't agree to the license, you can't download the music. You don't have the right to violate the copyright on the music no matter what - but if you don't comply with the license, you don't even have the right to use it.
For instance, open up the Disk Management applet in Computer Management in Windows control panel and try to change a drive's letter without using a contextual menu-- you can't do it!
Not to be a killjoy, but: (left click) Action -> (left click) All Tasks -> (left click) Change Drive Letter and Paths. (at least in Windows XP)
Y'know what's really funny is that OS-X supports poly-button mice with wheel-scrolling ability, yet Apple don't (as yet) sell such a mouse.
This is patently false. Apple has sold multi-button and scroll-wheel mice since at least 1998, if not longer. The only issue here is that Apple does not manufacture or brand one as their one. There's a big distinction.
As for Starship Troopers... well, I will openly admit to being a fascist. I do not believe in Democracy.
Holy Godwin's law, Batman! Is there precedent for this sort of invocation of Godwin's law?
I thought it was pretty creepy that about a week before she was fired, Carly was mentioned - by name, and as being the CEO of HP - in Dilbert. Hm, I can't seem to find a link. bah
Apple's customer service and support aren't in question. But to answer your question, the reason they're ranked #1 is (partly) that everyone else completely sucks, and Apple's actually pretty decent most of the time.
Apple's product development and marketing are in an adversarial relationship with their customers. Every profit-seeking company is like this - it's just good business. Apple wants to maximize profits; customers don't want to spend more money. Apple fans want to know what they'll be releasing in the future; Apple doesn't want to tell them.
You raise a good point. Think Secret is not an Apple fan in the sense that Guy Kawasaki was - it's more of a fan of Apple fans. Think Secret tries to inform its readers, even at Apple's expense. That this is a problem for Apple is only evidence of Apple's adversarial relationship with their users/customers.
One recent example of a real cure was for ulcers. Someone found the fungus that was causing the problem and a common drug kills the fungus. That killed a two billion dollar a year industry.
I have mod points, but on this point I must correct you. I have suffered from an ulcer myself.Helicobacter pylori was found to cause a significant portion of certain kinds of GI ulcers. This is old news, on the order of 20 years ago. My doctor decided to treat my ulcer with 2 kinds of antibiotics and an antacid. It turns out, I didn't actually have Helicobacter pylori in my stomach, so the antibiotics were completely ineffective. In fact, many ulcers are not caused by H pylori and there's still a huge market for other kinds of ulcer and acid-reflux relief medication.
The "two billion dollar a year industry" you refer to, I assume, are the Pepcid / Nexium / Prilosec / Prevacid / etc. folks. These guys are NOT out of business. With health insurance and prescription coverage, my doctor's prescription probably cost me about $5-$10 per drug to fill (my prescription copay). The stuff I took in the mean time which actually treated my stomach was available over the counter, and therefore not covered. That stuff cost $20 per drug.
The purpose of suing for this sort of stuff should be twofold: 1) to regulate company action by means of threat and penalty AND 2) reparations. Nowhere in those two clauses do I find any justification for "screwing the other guy over because he did it to me first."
Um, what exactly do you think the word reparations means?
The problem with this logic is that it gives an advantage to people who use automated bidding systems, e.g. for sniping. It's perfectly reasonable to decide to up your maximum bid before you've been outbid, simply out of convenience, for example because you're going to be away and unable to place a subsequent bid later before the auction ends. If you're using an automated bidding agent, you don't need this convenience, because you can snipe even if you're AFK. Sniping is evil and it decreases the value of ebay for everybody. Ebay shouldn't use policy that encourages it.
But why does this a freedom of speech issue? Think Secret and the other sites are free to say whatever they want. Nothing wrong with that.
Actually, according to the UTSA, there is. This is why I believe the UTSA may be found unconstitutional.
What if Apple simply wants to know who told it to them? In other words, "Keep on publishing whatever you want, we don't care... just tell us who told it to you because that person violated a contract and we'd like to pursue that matter with that particular individual."
Well, we don't know this. Without a law suit, Think Secret owes Apple nothing. Apple can't just force them to provide answers. But since Apple is suing Think Secret, instead of simply subpoenaing them to testify and provide the identify of their sources, I don't think it is that simple... At least on the face of it - in reality I think they know they'll fail, but maybe they'll intimidate an answer out of Think Secret in the mean time. Regardless, if a publisher can be forced to reveal their sources, either by the government, by a company, or by a lawsuit by a company invoking a law such as the UTSA, that may abridge the freedom of the press. Why? Because "the freedom of the press" may be construed to mean the freedom of the press to collect data, conduct interviews, and publish their conclusions without being accountable to those who disagree with the content of their work. Now, obviously the first amendment doesn't spell this out the way I have, but it's up to the judicial branch and ultimately the supreme court - not congress - to decide what "freedom of the press" entails.
I will make this real simple: The UTSA is a law, passed by congress. If the UTSA abridges the freedom of speech or of the press, it is unconstitutional. If the UTSA is unconstitutional, it is unenforcable. If the UTSA can't be enforced, Apple will be unsuccessful using it to sue people.
Lets just get that straight: ANYTHING that a company wants to keep secret is a trade secret as long as they keep it secret (and it is still secret if it is discovered through illegal means, like breaking an NDA).
This is absurd. A company has to do a lot more than want to keep something a secret for it to be a protected trade secret. If some representative of the company tells you something they shouldn't have, or in confidence, you are not bound to keep it a secret. Only if you agree to an NDA are you bound to keep it a secret. If you violate your NDA, that doesn't automatically make me bound to your NDA. It does mean that the company can sue your pants off. Whether I have any responsibilities whatsoever to keep that secret is still in question, vis-a-vis the first ammendment vs. the UTSA.
Or does it not work both ways?/
The situation with Jeff Gannon doesn't even begin to compare and you know it.
Yes, Jeff Gannon/Games Guckert is a journalist, and deserves all of the legal and constitutional protections of one (whatever those may be, it still isn't clear to me if journalists have different rights from everybody else). But I haven't heard that anyone is trying to bring charges against Mr. Gannon for some crime or infraction. The fact is Jeff Gannon is a partisan hack, a fraud, and a troll. On top of that, he's obvious about it. ("Divorced from reality?" come on! the trick to editorializing is to present an opinion while sounding unbiased.) He has no more business at white house press conferences than Nick Ciarelli does. The complaint is that the white house staff lets him participate in press conferences, and the president takes his questions. They ought to have higher standards. The white house has earned its criticism for this one.
The trick here is to never accept a closed system, never surrender your control of the hardware and operating system to someone else.