Why does the standart limits to one video format is completely beyond me.
Oh please. Content providers and browsers would be totally free to support any craptacular codecs they want, there would just be one that would be guaranteed to work on HTML5 compliant browsers and sites. How can this be so hard to understand?
Where in everyday use do you need more precision than you get with Celsius integers? Remember that pretty much no consumer thermometers are built and installed in a way that actually gives that kind of accuracy.
I assume you've explained the same point to the zoning authorities: A single apartment building probably generates much more friction than a wind mill...
Why? How often is the processor in your laptop idle?
My laptop is in C3 (sleep) state easily more than 95% of the time and very probably so is yours.
When I stop doing things, I turn it off.
I don't think you understand the timeframes we talk about: very few things you do on your computer require the processor to be awake more than some milliseconds per second...
In the long run, Theora will be completely irrelevant, and H.264 will be the new GIF format, or be freed.
I think you will find out that the world has changed in fifteen years. Many people, consumers and suits, have learned a lot since GIF and are interested (or at least aware) of these issues.
In the long run closed formats are only better for the guys who own the patents. There are 6 billion people and thousands of corporations that would be better off with open formats.
Chrome is a minor detail that will not turn this boat into one direction or the other. When the AC said 'Google' he was referring to Youtube supporting Theora.
Technically they are forks of course, but that doesn't really describe the situation: The 'forks' are slight deviations from the 'master' and are kept fairly well up to date with the master... We really should come up with a word that describes this situation (if there isn't one already), this seems to be a common phenomenon: Firefox->Iceweasel, Debian->Ubuntu, OO.org->GoOO, etc.
In the best Slashdot tradition, lemme fix that for ya:
Airbus is built by socialists who believe the state, the institution, etc knows better than the individual. Boeing was (or at least used to be) built by free thinking capitalists who believe corporations know better than the individual.
...how this relates to the discussion at hand, I don't know. But that didn't seem to stop anyone else so why should it stop me?
no phone in the history of the universe has had a front facing video camera
Maybe tone down the hyperbole? The Samsung z500 that I bought in 2006 had one already (and it was used already, no idea how old the model is).
The camera was total crap of course and I still don't see the point of mobile video calls, but that's beside the point: front facing video cameras have been done for quite a while.
People, don't bother trying to discuss with this guy. Look at his comment history and see for yourself: he is only interested in turning every issue into evidence on how Slashdot is some sort of hypocritical hive mind.
Ok, we've already established that some of you think there is a blatantly obvious _and valid_ reason for the rule and that some people are ignorant enough not to know it. So, why can't you quickly explain the main point behind that decision instead of concentrating on fairly personal comments about the previous poster?
Wikipedia says (while discussing the institutional problems of the Weimar Republic):
The use of proportional representation meant any party with a small amount of support could gain entry into the Reichstag. This led to many small parties, some extremist, building political bases within the system. Yet, it has to be noted that the Reichstag of the monarchy was fractioned to a similar degree although being elected by majority vote (under a two-round system). And the republic did not fall due to the small parties, but to the strength of the communists, conservatives and national socialists.
I'm still left wondering why the 5% rule was needed.
It would take a half a day at most. Camp outside his office or home, figure out which cell tower he is on (line of site) and poke an antenna in the path of the microwave link the tower uses to talk to the exchange. (This traffic is all unencrypted, bog standard T1/E1 stuff) - do whatever you need to do to trigger the text alert, suck down the CCITT-7 channel, then pick through the SMS payload until you find the code. Log in and take the cash.
I'm not saying GSM isn't swiss cheese from todays security POV, but you make it sound like you would definitely succeed in that: in practice it would require a lot of effort and luck. First of all you're implying all BTS-BSC traffic goes over microwave which just isn't true: most of it is cable (probably partly because of the insecurity of the protocol). I've also heard some manufacturers break the standard and encrypt the BTS-BSC traffic in networks that are all their equipment (no links just hearsay, sorry).
Second, while locating the cell might not be hard, locating the BSC is more work and getting to the line of sight could be a real pain... these are implementation details of the attack but IMO important since you said "this is easy money": I disagree, it probably would not be easy even if you were lucky and the link really was microwave, definitely not half a day. Plus it absolutely would be criminal at least here in Finland, I'm guessing your laws don't actually require you to 'monitor a call' either for it to be criminal...
It's entirely possible that breaking the phone-BTS encryption could be an easier solution -- at least if they were still using A5/2 (an encryption shown to be just slightly better than ROT-13 when there is any known plaintext), but I guess that's not the case in the US. Social engineering or just lifting the phone from the CEOs pocket are almost certainly easier...
I'm not really contesting your analysis (I don't have any knowledge to do so), but referring to "most reasonable analysts" without any links doesn't convince me: I was never trying to argue that itunes is big business for Apple or that it isn't mostly a value-add for ipods, I'm trying to say no-ones really shown any evidence to support the claim that it only barely breaks even...
As an example of how difficult these things are to estimate: the first thing you mention as a cost for Apple is hosting downloads. That just cannot be a major expense: as a big client they should get a price well below 1 cent per song. As for advertizing, they don't really need that like traditional shops do, do they? I certainly have never seen an iTunes ad.
I believe the major argument for you POV may be credit card handling: that could be insanely expensive, but knowing the rate is pretty much impossible for us...
Apple runs the iTunes store at about break even. They make basically nothing.
Many people say that very confidently... and never back it up. If you can, please do so because my back of the envelope calculations just don't add up to that.
Apple sold 2 billion songs last year. Let's say a song costs $1 (average in US maybe lower, but Europe has higher prices to counter that). Last I heard Apple takes ~30% of that price.
Now, those figures mean that after paying the rights owners Apple gets $600 million a year from music alone (you do the math for videos and apps). Are you really telling me it costs that much to keep a service like itunes running?
Don't get me wrong if the Wii at least supported 720p it would get a huge amount of third party games
You guys keep saying that but not really explaining why that would be the case. I mean, if you develop a game for PS3 + XBox360 you still have a smaller number of potential customers than if you just developed a game for Wii.
Now, you can start adding PCs into that mix but I have some trouble believing that most PC games would easily transfer to the Wii (assuming it had more horsepower), the controls are just very different.
...and really: "since there are many really good Hi Res gaming engines out there now, Low Res games are actually becoming difficult more expensive to make." WTF, that makes no sense at all. I don't think you understand why more pixels is more expensive (and as an aside the jump to HD is huge in that context: 2X - 5X the amount of pixels).
According to reports young Chinese don't really care about Tiananmen, because they can buy stuff which makes them happy.
Well, I've understood some young chinese don't even know that anything happened on June 4th and many others only know the cleaned up version: a small group of extremists tried to bring about civil unrest and the armed forces stopped these illegal activities with the least amount of violence possible. Why would anyone (consumer or not) object to that?
Oh ffs, Asus UK is probably a wholly owned subsidiary with just a few employees. Lets look at your evidence: * Different company name * A typo * cheap registrar, hosted server All of those are explained by Asus UK being a small company operating mostly on their own -- just like most sales offices around the world.
Let's take an occam's razor look at this. Which one is more probable:
1. Asus UK, a small sales company have a website for their own promotions (see e.g. http://www.asus.co.uk/seashell/sys/) but they direct the front page to asus.com because, well, it makes sense.
2. A nefarious person decides to create a website mimicking asus with no way to make money from it (notice how there are no ads or "Buy now" links). He also throws away 99% of his traffic by directing the front page to asus.com
Honestly, do you have any reason to pick #2 based on the evidence we have?
I agree that you can deliver a Gnome desktop on top of Qt, and why even suggest it in an interview if he wasn't saying it should be done?
Uh, because he was asked a question about it so he had to say something? Please read the interview that you linked to...
It should be noted that Shuttleworth also pushed for a notification system right out of KDE 4 and OS X in Gnome.
So? The different desktops environments have been collaborating for some time now, trying to be as compatible as possible: this means technologies go from KDE to GNOME and vice versa.
I really don't get your point (but I do get the feeling you have an agenda).
He said "I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of Qt". You really need new glasses if you read that as "GNOME should move to QT"...
Care to back that weird claim with some proof? whois tells me asus.co.uk is registered by "Asustek Computer Inc". Where exactly has this been repeatedly proven fake?
Access to internet is a Fundamental Right as per EU.
A parliamentary amendment that said this was passed earlier this month, but that definitely does not mean that "the EU has decided so" -- new amendments mean the Commission has to approve the whole telecom package again before it can become a real law.
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Oh please. Content providers and browsers would be totally free to support any craptacular codecs they want, there would just be one that would be guaranteed to work on HTML5 compliant browsers and sites. How can this be so hard to understand?
Spot on. I'll sign that.
Where in everyday use do you need more precision than you get with Celsius integers? Remember that pretty much no consumer thermometers are built and installed in a way that actually gives that kind of accuracy.
I assume you've explained the same point to the zoning authorities: A single apartment building probably generates much more friction than a wind mill...
Even a child understands that "downward pressure" doesn't necessarily mean downward movement...
You really need to lower your expectations buddy, no operating system is going to fulfill that one.
My laptop is in C3 (sleep) state easily more than 95% of the time and very probably so is yours.
I don't think you understand the timeframes we talk about: very few things you do on your computer require the processor to be awake more than some milliseconds per second...
I think you will find out that the world has changed in fifteen years. Many people, consumers and suits, have learned a lot since GIF and are interested (or at least aware) of these issues.
In the long run closed formats are only better for the guys who own the patents. There are 6 billion people and thousands of corporations that would be better off with open formats.
Chrome is a minor detail that will not turn this boat into one direction or the other. When the AC said 'Google' he was referring to Youtube supporting Theora.
Technically they are forks of course, but that doesn't really describe the situation: The 'forks' are slight deviations from the 'master' and are kept fairly well up to date with the master... We really should come up with a word that describes this situation (if there isn't one already), this seems to be a common phenomenon: Firefox->Iceweasel, Debian->Ubuntu, OO.org->GoOO, etc.
In the best Slashdot tradition, lemme fix that for ya:
Maybe tone down the hyperbole? The Samsung z500 that I bought in 2006 had one already (and it was used already, no idea how old the model is).
The camera was total crap of course and I still don't see the point of mobile video calls, but that's beside the point: front facing video cameras have been done for quite a while.
People, don't bother trying to discuss with this guy. Look at his comment history and see for yourself: he is only interested in turning every issue into evidence on how Slashdot is some sort of hypocritical hive mind.
Ok, we've already established that some of you think there is a blatantly obvious _and valid_ reason for the rule and that some people are ignorant enough not to know it. So, why can't you quickly explain the main point behind that decision instead of concentrating on fairly personal comments about the previous poster?
Wikipedia says (while discussing the institutional problems of the Weimar Republic):
I'm still left wondering why the 5% rule was needed.
I'm not saying GSM isn't swiss cheese from todays security POV, but you make it sound like you would definitely succeed in that: in practice it would require a lot of effort and luck. First of all you're implying all BTS-BSC traffic goes over microwave which just isn't true: most of it is cable (probably partly because of the insecurity of the protocol). I've also heard some manufacturers break the standard and encrypt the BTS-BSC traffic in networks that are all their equipment (no links just hearsay, sorry).
Second, while locating the cell might not be hard, locating the BSC is more work and getting to the line of sight could be a real pain... these are implementation details of the attack but IMO important since you said "this is easy money": I disagree, it probably would not be easy even if you were lucky and the link really was microwave, definitely not half a day. Plus it absolutely would be criminal at least here in Finland, I'm guessing your laws don't actually require you to 'monitor a call' either for it to be criminal...
It's entirely possible that breaking the phone-BTS encryption could be an easier solution -- at least if they were still using A5/2 (an encryption shown to be just slightly better than ROT-13 when there is any known plaintext), but I guess that's not the case in the US. Social engineering or just lifting the phone from the CEOs pocket are almost certainly easier...
I'm not really contesting your analysis (I don't have any knowledge to do so), but referring to "most reasonable analysts" without any links doesn't convince me: I was never trying to argue that itunes is big business for Apple or that it isn't mostly a value-add for ipods, I'm trying to say no-ones really shown any evidence to support the claim that it only barely breaks even...
As an example of how difficult these things are to estimate: the first thing you mention as a cost for Apple is hosting downloads. That just cannot be a major expense: as a big client they should get a price well below 1 cent per song. As for advertizing, they don't really need that like traditional shops do, do they? I certainly have never seen an iTunes ad.
I believe the major argument for you POV may be credit card handling: that could be insanely expensive, but knowing the rate is pretty much impossible for us...
Many people say that very confidently ... and never back it up. If you can, please do so because my back of the envelope calculations just don't add up to that.
Apple sold 2 billion songs last year. Let's say a song costs $1 (average in US maybe lower, but Europe has higher prices to counter that). Last I heard Apple takes ~30% of that price.
Now, those figures mean that after paying the rights owners Apple gets $600 million a year from music alone (you do the math for videos and apps). Are you really telling me it costs that much to keep a service like itunes running?
You guys keep saying that but not really explaining why that would be the case. I mean, if you develop a game for PS3 + XBox360 you still have a smaller number of potential customers than if you just developed a game for Wii.
Now, you can start adding PCs into that mix but I have some trouble believing that most PC games would easily transfer to the Wii (assuming it had more horsepower), the controls are just very different.
Well, I've understood some young chinese don't even know that anything happened on June 4th and many others only know the cleaned up version: a small group of extremists tried to bring about civil unrest and the armed forces stopped these illegal activities with the least amount of violence possible. Why would anyone (consumer or not) object to that?
Oh ffs, Asus UK is probably a wholly owned subsidiary with just a few employees. Lets look at your evidence:
* Different company name
* A typo
* cheap registrar, hosted server
All of those are explained by Asus UK being a small company operating mostly on their own -- just like most sales offices around the world.
Let's take an occam's razor look at this. Which one is more probable:
1. Asus UK, a small sales company have a website for their own promotions (see e.g. http://www.asus.co.uk/seashell/sys/) but they direct the front page to asus.com because, well, it makes sense.
2. A nefarious person decides to create a website mimicking asus with no way to make money from it (notice how there are no ads or "Buy now" links). He also throws away 99% of his traffic by directing the front page to asus.com
Honestly, do you have any reason to pick #2 based on the evidence we have?
Uh, because he was asked a question about it so he had to say something? Please read the interview that you linked to...
So? The different desktops environments have been collaborating for some time now, trying to be as compatible as possible: this means technologies go from KDE to GNOME and vice versa.
I really don't get your point (but I do get the feeling you have an agenda).
Bullshit.
He said "I think it would be perfectly possible to deliver the values of GNOME on top of Qt". You really need new glasses if you read that as "GNOME should move to QT"...
http://derstandard.at/?id=3413801
Care to back that weird claim with some proof? whois tells me asus.co.uk is registered by "Asustek Computer Inc". Where exactly has this been repeatedly proven fake?
I can't imagine why it would be sponsored by Asus but they certainly link to it: http://www.asus.co.uk/eeepc/1008HA/features.html
A parliamentary amendment that said this was passed earlier this month, but that definitely does not mean that "the EU has decided so" -- new amendments mean the Commission has to approve the whole telecom package again before it can become a real law.