Compact is in the eye of the beholder; my iRiver, on balance, was about the same volume as my last mobile 'phone (a Nokia 3650 iirc). Also, from inspection (ie I've no measured it) while it *may* be 25mm in the leather case (although I doubt it), it's definitely not that thick itself. Does your figure for the iPod include a case?
As for eas of use, I've never used an iPod, but I can't imagine a media player being much easier than the iRiver; certainly it's not hard to use.
As for requirement 4, I specifically disclaimed that, but thanks for pointing it out again anyway.
How so? I can release binaries without source, and I can (try to) make the application useless without some sort of subscription. Throw in some code-checking routines and other such tricks, and I have something that I can keep closed and under control as far as the vast majority of users are concerned.
In the abscence of a legal method to close a product, there still exist technological methods. *You* seem to be forgetting *that*.
If it's not about greed, then have them charge by the hour for their SERVICES and not have a federally backed monopoly on copying thank you.
Charge who? The consumer? What would you have them do, total up the amount of money they want, add on a per-unit cost for materials, distribution, etc (if a physical product), then divide that by the expected number of copies sold?
Given the pittance that we're regularly told artists actually earn from each copy of their works sold, it sounds very much like that's already done.
What are you talking about? Ever hear of Linux?
The GPL is backed by copyright law; no copyright, no GPL, nothing stopping people from taking GPLed code and incorporating it into closed products.
Nothing; I rather think that may be part of the OP's point. Where *are* the bounties for usability improvements?
When creating software, you basically have two choices:
1) implement all the features, and worry about bugs, usability, etc later; or 2) implement a subset of features, but get them perfect before moving on to add new features
My experience is that 1) is more common than 2), but that 2) generally results in better software.
Oracle's VARCHAR2 type goes up to 4000 chars, while the LOB types (BLOB, CLOB and NCLOB) support up to about 4GB.
For what it's worth though, think about what you're asking. If you have an integer id that increases sequentially from 1, you can already have a huge number of entries in the table before you start running out of ids for them. For any non-trivial table, chances are you're going to run out of disk space long before you run out of ids.
If you *are* a VP or higher (or local equivalent), it'll generally mean that you leave with a massive pay off and complete freedom to screw up at a whole new company.
Not that I'm bitter that my company's last chairman oversaw wasting literally billions of pounds (Sterling) of money, yet left with a pay off in the millions of pounds, while the ordinary employees are denied pay rises year after year...
Yes, you should. Linux isn't going to kill Windows any time soon, if ever. It's too deeply entrenched and too many people and companies have too much invested in it.
PS: What's with people's fascination of collecting disorders? "I'm a cutter! No! Bipolar! No, schizophrenic!"
Well, it makes you different, helping you stand out in a world that it's increasingly difficult to leave a mark on. It also, in some cases, gives you an excuse for certain things, eg "I'm not a twat with poor social skills, I have Apserger's! It's not my fault, I can't change it!"
If the customers don't want to use it when it's free they surely won't pay for it, either.
Perhaps not, although there is something to the old adage of "you get what you pay for". Not necessarily that better = more expensive, but that subconsciously at least many people do associate "cheap" with "inferior".
There is an optimum price point for everything, and it isn't always 0...
And what of the order-of-magnitude higher amount of drivers who have no business behind a steering wheel and cause hundred-fold more damage on a regular basis?
What of them? What does that have to do with the discussion at hand? Does the fact that the problem of crap drivers is an order of magnitude or more larger than the problem of crap hunters somehow magically make crap hunters ok?
Yes, ban crap drivers. Ban crap hunters too. Let's ban crap arguers while we're at it.
It can easily cost $25,000 just to install Oracle (License, time, machine, consultant).
I've installed Oracle on my own machine once or twice in the past. I'm no DBA, and this was hardly a production environment, but it really didn't take that long to do.
Other than that, I agree with you. You use Oracle when you need Oracle. When you need Oracle, the licence is most likely one of the smaller costs associated with the project.
Yes, I do. All my clients send me documents in either Excel or Word format. If I can't read them properly, or mess them up making edits and sending them back, it's at least embarassing.
Sure, mis-matched versions of Office can cause problems - but then I can say "well, sorry about that, but I used the right software - could you send it again please? Maybe try saving it as an older version, say Word 97?". If I use OO.o and it messes it up, it's my fault.
Not fair, perhaps, but that's the way it works in business a lot of the time. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with that sort of crap very often.
No one ever claimed F/OSS was perfect or resulted in perfect code
Yes, they have. Almost every discussion about such things here will have a number of replies claiming just that. Of course, those people aren't worth listening to, but they still say it.
The average time to infection is unknown. One group found on one instance of a honeypot network that the machine was up for around 15 minutes before being infected - that's in no way an average. It hardly paints an optimistic picture, though.
In contrast though, my firewall notifies me of a small handful of scan attempts a month, so my mean time to infection would be very much higher, even if I didn't keep my machine patched and firewalled.
Well, that's not the case on any machine that I've installed SP2 on. I may have said no to switching on automatic downloading and installation of updates, I don't remember, but that's certainly the way they're set up now.
You know, if I'm not going to save a truly significant amount of money, I really can't be arsed to go to all the trouble of importing stuff. It's not stupidity, it's laziness and lack of thought (in my case at least)
most british never got out of their we only speak english high horse
Culturally there isn't the emphasis on being able to speak more than one language that there is in most of continental Europe. Part of that is to do with the aforementioned Little England attitude, but it's also partly because even going to France is still mostly seen as a major trip. That's changing slowly, but for hundreds of years it was difficult, expensive, time-consuming and even dangerous to travel even just as far as France. That's no excuse now, but it does build up a sort of collective unconscious attitude that you don't get in countries with direct land connections to other countries.
Don't you guys have sales tax? Isn't that essentially the same thing? (In fact, at least with VAT it's included in the sticker price, and some items are exempt (food, (children's?) clothes, etc)
the insane TV Licensing system
It's about £10/month (roughly $16); I spend more than that each month on beer, and I'm hardly a heavy drinker. It really is insignificant for all but the poorest people (and they all have Sky or cable as well anyway!)
sky-high petrol taxes
Well, I own a car and I support high petrol taxes, congestion charges and anything else that serves to reduce car usage. I may well be in a minority on this one, though.
the government of every modern economy these days (including the US) "interferes" (as you put it) to control the price of goods in shops by tweaking interest rates
No, interest rates are set by the Bank of England, which is independent of the government. Other than that, you're right.
Either that, or someone's finger slipped when they were aiming for Troll or Flamebait. (Not that I'm saying that this was either)
Other than that, I agree - many aspects of slashdot are broken imho, especially the whole friends/foes thing and the ability to effectively ignore foes and give strong preference to friends. Talk about encouraging group think.
A licenced establishment (eg a pub, club or bar) can lose their licence if patrons regularly cause a nuisance to local residents. If they're too noisy leaving too often then this can happen.
I suspect that the mics will be used to monitor the situation at places that the authorities have received sufficient complaints about, so that evidence can be collected while the problem exists, rather than reacting to a complaint and possibly missing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Compact is in the eye of the beholder; my iRiver, on balance, was about the same volume as my last mobile 'phone (a Nokia 3650 iirc). Also, from inspection (ie I've no measured it) while it *may* be 25mm in the leather case (although I doubt it), it's definitely not that thick itself. Does your figure for the iPod include a case?
As for eas of use, I've never used an iPod, but I can't imagine a media player being much easier than the iRiver; certainly it's not hard to use.
As for requirement 4, I specifically disclaimed that, but thanks for pointing it out again anyway.
no closed products to put that gpl code into.
How so? I can release binaries without source, and I can (try to) make the application useless without some sort of subscription. Throw in some code-checking routines and other such tricks, and I have something that I can keep closed and under control as far as the vast majority of users are concerned.
In the abscence of a legal method to close a product, there still exist technological methods. *You* seem to be forgetting *that*.
If you're willing to swap Firewire for USB, the iRiver hd-based players support WMA (as well as mp3 and ogg) and meet the rest of your requirements.
Mine (an iHP-120) came with a CD, but I've never even unwrapped it. The player presents itself as a mass storage device and Just Works.
If it's not about greed, then have them charge by the hour for their SERVICES and not have a federally backed monopoly on copying thank you.
Charge who? The consumer? What would you have them do, total up the amount of money they want, add on a per-unit cost for materials, distribution, etc (if a physical product), then divide that by the expected number of copies sold?
Given the pittance that we're regularly told artists actually earn from each copy of their works sold, it sounds very much like that's already done.
What are you talking about? Ever hear of Linux?
The GPL is backed by copyright law; no copyright, no GPL, nothing stopping people from taking GPLed code and incorporating it into closed products.
What was your point again?
Nothing; I rather think that may be part of the OP's point. Where *are* the bounties for usability improvements?
When creating software, you basically have two choices:
1) implement all the features, and worry about bugs, usability, etc later; or
2) implement a subset of features, but get them perfect before moving on to add new features
My experience is that 1) is more common than 2), but that 2) generally results in better software.
Oracle's VARCHAR2 type goes up to 4000 chars, while the LOB types (BLOB, CLOB and NCLOB) support up to about 4GB.
For what it's worth though, think about what you're asking. If you have an integer id that increases sequentially from 1, you can already have a huge number of entries in the table before you start running out of ids for them. For any non-trivial table, chances are you're going to run out of disk space long before you run out of ids.
If you *are* a VP or higher (or local equivalent), it'll generally mean that you leave with a massive pay off and complete freedom to screw up at a whole new company.
Not that I'm bitter that my company's last chairman oversaw wasting literally billions of pounds (Sterling) of money, yet left with a pay off in the millions of pounds, while the ordinary employees are denied pay rises year after year...
Yes, you should. Linux isn't going to kill Windows any time soon, if ever. It's too deeply entrenched and too many people and companies have too much invested in it.
PS: What's with people's fascination of collecting disorders? "I'm a cutter! No! Bipolar! No, schizophrenic!"
Well, it makes you different, helping you stand out in a world that it's increasingly difficult to leave a mark on. It also, in some cases, gives you an excuse for certain things, eg "I'm not a twat with poor social skills, I have Apserger's! It's not my fault, I can't change it!"
If the customers don't want to use it when it's free they surely won't pay for it, either.
Perhaps not, although there is something to the old adage of "you get what you pay for". Not necessarily that better = more expensive, but that subconsciously at least many people do associate "cheap" with "inferior".
There is an optimum price point for everything, and it isn't always 0...
And what of the order-of-magnitude higher amount of drivers who have no business behind a steering wheel and cause hundred-fold more damage on a regular basis?
What of them? What does that have to do with the discussion at hand? Does the fact that the problem of crap drivers is an order of magnitude or more larger than the problem of crap hunters somehow magically make crap hunters ok?
Yes, ban crap drivers. Ban crap hunters too. Let's ban crap arguers while we're at it.
It can easily cost $25,000 just to install Oracle (License, time, machine, consultant).
I've installed Oracle on my own machine once or twice in the past. I'm no DBA, and this was hardly a production environment, but it really didn't take that long to do.
Other than that, I agree with you. You use Oracle when you need Oracle. When you need Oracle, the licence is most likely one of the smaller costs associated with the project.
You don't need Microsoft to do word processing.
Yes, I do. All my clients send me documents in either Excel or Word format. If I can't read them properly, or mess them up making edits and sending them back, it's at least embarassing.
Sure, mis-matched versions of Office can cause problems - but then I can say "well, sorry about that, but I used the right software - could you send it again please? Maybe try saving it as an older version, say Word 97?". If I use OO.o and it messes it up, it's my fault.
Not fair, perhaps, but that's the way it works in business a lot of the time. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with that sort of crap very often.
Now you're just taking the piss. The funny thing is that people are still replying to correct you...
Clear communication is never off-topic. Sometimes I despair of the slashdot readership - I thought nerds were *supposed* to be pedantically exact?
No one ever claimed F/OSS was perfect or resulted in perfect code
Yes, they have. Almost every discussion about such things here will have a number of replies claiming just that. Of course, those people aren't worth listening to, but they still say it.
Now you've unknowingly became a willful party.
And a fool, for not seeking legal advice when threatened with legal action.
The average time to infection is unknown. One group found on one instance of a honeypot network that the machine was up for around 15 minutes before being infected - that's in no way an average. It hardly paints an optimistic picture, though.
In contrast though, my firewall notifies me of a small handful of scan attempts a month, so my mean time to infection would be very much higher, even if I didn't keep my machine patched and firewalled.
XP comes with a QoS Packet Scheduler network service, so believe it.
Well, that's not the case on any machine that I've installed SP2 on. I may have said no to switching on automatic downloading and installation of updates, I don't remember, but that's certainly the way they're set up now.
You know, if I'm not going to save a truly significant amount of money, I really can't be arsed to go to all the trouble of importing stuff. It's not stupidity, it's laziness and lack of thought (in my case at least)
most british never got out of their we only speak english high horse
Culturally there isn't the emphasis on being able to speak more than one language that there is in most of continental Europe. Part of that is to do with the aforementioned Little England attitude, but it's also partly because even going to France is still mostly seen as a major trip. That's changing slowly, but for hundreds of years it was difficult, expensive, time-consuming and even dangerous to travel even just as far as France. That's no excuse now, but it does build up a sort of collective unconscious attitude that you don't get in countries with direct land connections to other countries.
the dreaded VAT
Don't you guys have sales tax? Isn't that essentially the same thing? (In fact, at least with VAT it's included in the sticker price, and some items are exempt (food, (children's?) clothes, etc)
the insane TV Licensing system
It's about £10/month (roughly $16); I spend more than that each month on beer, and I'm hardly a heavy drinker. It really is insignificant for all but the poorest people (and they all have Sky or cable as well anyway!)
sky-high petrol taxes
Well, I own a car and I support high petrol taxes, congestion charges and anything else that serves to reduce car usage. I may well be in a minority on this one, though.
the government of every modern economy these days (including the US) "interferes" (as you put it) to control the price of goods in shops by tweaking interest rates
No, interest rates are set by the Bank of England, which is independent of the government. Other than that, you're right.
Either that, or someone's finger slipped when they were aiming for Troll or Flamebait. (Not that I'm saying that this was either)
Other than that, I agree - many aspects of slashdot are broken imho, especially the whole friends/foes thing and the ability to effectively ignore foes and give strong preference to friends. Talk about encouraging group think.
A licenced establishment (eg a pub, club or bar) can lose their licence if patrons regularly cause a nuisance to local residents. If they're too noisy leaving too often then this can happen.
I suspect that the mics will be used to monitor the situation at places that the authorities have received sufficient complaints about, so that evidence can be collected while the problem exists, rather than reacting to a complaint and possibly missing it.