Yes, the ridiculous amounts of money they make are completely due to the cool image they make, and you'd have to be a fucking retard to deny it. Point to another company that has the hype surrounding merely incremental increases in standard product lines, and massive consumer binges the moment that upgrade's released. They're pretty few and far between, but because Apple's cultivated an image of "latest and greatest is the only cool," most people go for that upgrade immediately, even if they don't need it right away, or ever. The number of people buying iPhone 4s or iPads goes far beyond the rich douches who just want the latest toy, Apple's a success because they make people *want* that incremental upgrade, even if it's not that much more spectacular than what they've got.
People buy apple products because apple makes them seem cool. The iPhone isn't objectively better than any of the half-dozen equivalent smartphones out there. They buy it because of marketing and image. Stockholders know that. Without Jobs, the image starts to waver. My comment makes perfect sense.
It's cute that you think that. OS X isn't based on nothing, iTunes isn't based on nothing. The company of today is based solely around taking an idea and shining it up really well, then incrementally improving that idea to drive people along the upgrade path.
No, Apple is not too big. And that's the problem. Apple effectively has 4 products. iPods, iPhones, iPads, and laptop/desktops. The only reason Apple continues to make money is not because of that 4th one. It's because of the first three, and only because they've convinced people that they need to continually upgrade their mp3 player or phone. If Apple fucks up on even one upgrade cycle on one of those three products, they're likely to lose a chunk of those people on the annual upgrade cycle, and the entire company's fucked and without Jobs' RDF, it'd probably not have time to recover. As much as I hate Apple as a company, I will freely admit that they've done well in continually making a product that's clearly superior to the last, and maintaining a pretty fierce brand loyalty. Unfortunately, most of that loyalty isn't based on product quality, but image, and Jobs is a HUGE part of that.
As an MS fanboy, and a proponent of choice and freedom in use of hardware I've purchased, and as a human being, I wish Jobs a long, healthy life; no one else could make a viable commercial alternative to Windows at this point, everyone else will see the walled garden, try it, and fail, bringing more openness, and really, I can't wish harm on another human, especially if all they've done is be a douche.
It's because Apple's not based on product, it's based on image. If anything seems like it could even start to threaten that image, people want out before it crashes.
On my new phone, I put in my facebook account for shits 'n giggles, and my phone imported my friends list and all their contact data. I now have a couple dozen phone numbers for people that I was never given directly by the owner. When that happened, I just kinda shook my head in wonder. Now with this story, I'm damn glad I've got absolutely minimal information on my facebook account.
If you really want to fix the root of the problem, remove all warning labels from all products. Then wait one generation. It'll sort itself out and the rest of us will be much better off.
As much as I love this idea, it won't work. You also need to fix the legal system for that time so you can't sue someone for your own idiocy, or on behalf of another's idiocy.
It's not averted. It's delayed. Simply pushing back a war is not a solution. You are sticking your finger in the dike and telling me that you're fine, you just had a good night's sleep. Your finger isn't going to save the dike, and a good night's sleep has nothing to do with it.
The *proper* response is work towards resolving the issues between two parties, and eliminating the chance of war. Pissing off one side further to simply buy a few years peace is not going to help anything.
I'd like to point out the hilarity of you fucking up the spelling of a word you're linking the definition of? Especially a word that I'd think most of slashdot would be familiar with, and even worse, a term that doesn't exactly work in context, in any case. No one's asking Google to act as God over Android, but instead impose structure on something that Google created. Sort of like companies usually do with their products.
And frankly, as a pissed off user of a Samsung Galaxy, perma-stuck on 1.5, I'm all in favour of Google getting some damn balls and telling companies that using Android carries some responsibilities.
Man, your calendar must be fucking *hell* to sync up with when you're travelling. Leave, stay somewhere for a week, come back to find a month's passed in Alaska?
Probably solitary is for his own protection, and keeping him alive is the responsibility of the justice system, so if he's on suicide watch, that means being deprived of things he can use to KILL HIMSELF WITH. There's nothing in there that violates constitutional rights. In fact, if they were remiss in removing those items, it could be seen as complicit agreement with his suicidal intentions, and then they're meting out capital punishment without due process, which WOULD be in violation of constitutional rights. And "right to a speedy trial" isn't for military law, and needs to be requested by the defendant in either case.
The only thing troubling here is that this guy's so upset with his circumstances that he's trying to kill himself. Anything else stems from that fact.
Except they're NOT world-wide copyright concepts, they're US concepts that they're trying to export to everywhere else, especially through international treaties and trade agreements.
Sure they can do that. Though the US wants everyone to use their version of copyright law, they tend not to care what rulings are in different jurisdictions, so it'll never get within shouting distance of a court in the US.
I realize this probably means nothing, but what the hell, when am I gonna have a chance like this again? I'd like to say that I generally enjoy Microsoft stuff, and think overall the company's moving in a good direction. But damn it, I miss the old optical mice. Those things were indestructible and awesome. If any evil's ever been done, it was in moving away from that mouse.
Except there's a thread of continuity between Transformers, and Transformers 2, so you'd be reasonable there. There's continuity between Buffy and Angel and even some with Firefly (check the writers/producers, more than a couple crossovers), but not as much with Doll House, so it'd be wise to go in with fewer expectations of similarity. Windows Mobile 6 and Windows Phone 7 only share two things in common: the word "Windows" in the title, and Microsoft paying the development bills. They're developed by different groups, with a different marketspace, using different technology and ideologies. It may or may not be fair to say "Everything Microsoft makes sucks," but you can't reasonably judge Windows Phone 7 by how Windows Mobile 6 was. That would basically be like me trying a salad at McDonalds, thinking it's terrible, and then writing off their newest burger because of how awful that salad was. Sure, everything McDonalds makes may or may not be terrible, but judging the burger by the salad is unfair and unreasonable.
Actually, most people over 50 that I've sold computers to were looking forward to a shiny new system with a new operating system. About the only people ever upset are those in their 30s, and I'm guessing it's because those are actually the people who have been using XP for most of their computing career.
And no, most young people are still fucking morons when it comes to computer, they just use it for Teh Facebooks and YouPorn.
Lastly, most people couldn't tell you if a machine was running Vista or 7 unless you told them, and don't care. People don't care about their OS, they care about their shit working on their computer. The reason Vista had terrible uptake is because they were told that it didn't work with all their stuff. Vista/7 have been around long enough that most people have replaced their old stuff with new stuff that works, so they don't care.
The same effect is visible in more portions of life than that. Customer complaints are always more numerous than customer compliments, because if something pisses you off, you want it changed, but if something went fine, well, yay, I don't need to do anything, do I? That's why a lot of retail places offer incentives for customer service surveys, so that people who had good experiences have more of a reason to mention it. People don't seem to realize that if you only get feedback from one side, then you institute changes based on just that one side. If you like something the way it is, you need to mention it so that there is a reason to not change something.
You think you have a counter-point there, but you're really just proving his point further. In a corporate R&D department, they're given a task to complete. "Find a drug to fix X." "Develop a method to do Y." The company only commissions studies that it knows will benefit it, and needs the results of that specific research. If you don't find a way to do something, they don't care, they'll give you more money, and at least you found a way to NOT do it, which can be helpful as well.
Governments tend to take a slightly more liberal approach, to a point. You come to them, ask them for money for your project, and then you do the project. Finish the project, and you find out you didn't get what you were looking for. That's not really publishable. But like the private sector, government demands returns on a project, and "a way not to do something" isn't good enough. You're not getting any more money to continue your project, and government doesn't care if your initial goal and finished finding match, so you burrow in your data and find *something* you can publish. Then you can point government to it and prove you're a good investment, and get more grants.
It seems like a lot of countries are going on a slide towards dictatorships and totalitarianism, and if it doesn't stop, I'm pretty sure we're going to see World War III, and I'm willing to bet it's within the next 50 years. The problem with WWIII is going to be, it's not going to be countries banding together to stop aggression from another bloc of countries, but fighting for the right to rule over other countries. Russia, USA, UK, Italy, Hungary, China, and North Korea are the ones off the top of my head sliding that way, though there's a bunch of other countries who might give them a run for their money (Iran et al).
Really? I'd just assumed most people would recite the alphabet, starting at T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, then loop around to A, and go through to S. It doesn't seem very confusing.
There's a difference between "doesn't seem drunk" and "is unaffected." A person may not have slurred speech, or weave while walking, but their reaction times and general co-ordination can still be significantly affected, which is the entire reason we, as a society, don't want drunks driving 1000+ lbs machines at high rates of speed.
"One" judgement reversed, out of how many cases? From what I understand, most judges hear upwards of 100 cases a year. If they had a reversal percentage of 5%, I'd consider that "knowing the law" to an acceptable degree, since appeals going up the chain can also be reversed, and there's chances those appellate judges don't actually know the law, or are merely erring on the side of legal precedent, rather than the merits of the case (not that the second case is a bad thing, always).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the ridiculous amounts of money they make are completely due to the cool image they make, and you'd have to be a fucking retard to deny it. Point to another company that has the hype surrounding merely incremental increases in standard product lines, and massive consumer binges the moment that upgrade's released. They're pretty few and far between, but because Apple's cultivated an image of "latest and greatest is the only cool," most people go for that upgrade immediately, even if they don't need it right away, or ever. The number of people buying iPhone 4s or iPads goes far beyond the rich douches who just want the latest toy, Apple's a success because they make people *want* that incremental upgrade, even if it's not that much more spectacular than what they've got.
People buy apple products because apple makes them seem cool. The iPhone isn't objectively better than any of the half-dozen equivalent smartphones out there. They buy it because of marketing and image. Stockholders know that. Without Jobs, the image starts to waver. My comment makes perfect sense.
It's cute that you think that. OS X isn't based on nothing, iTunes isn't based on nothing. The company of today is based solely around taking an idea and shining it up really well, then incrementally improving that idea to drive people along the upgrade path.
No, Apple is not too big. And that's the problem. Apple effectively has 4 products. iPods, iPhones, iPads, and laptop/desktops. The only reason Apple continues to make money is not because of that 4th one. It's because of the first three, and only because they've convinced people that they need to continually upgrade their mp3 player or phone. If Apple fucks up on even one upgrade cycle on one of those three products, they're likely to lose a chunk of those people on the annual upgrade cycle, and the entire company's fucked and without Jobs' RDF, it'd probably not have time to recover. As much as I hate Apple as a company, I will freely admit that they've done well in continually making a product that's clearly superior to the last, and maintaining a pretty fierce brand loyalty. Unfortunately, most of that loyalty isn't based on product quality, but image, and Jobs is a HUGE part of that.
As an MS fanboy, and a proponent of choice and freedom in use of hardware I've purchased, and as a human being, I wish Jobs a long, healthy life; no one else could make a viable commercial alternative to Windows at this point, everyone else will see the walled garden, try it, and fail, bringing more openness, and really, I can't wish harm on another human, especially if all they've done is be a douche.
It's because Apple's not based on product, it's based on image. If anything seems like it could even start to threaten that image, people want out before it crashes.
On my new phone, I put in my facebook account for shits 'n giggles, and my phone imported my friends list and all their contact data. I now have a couple dozen phone numbers for people that I was never given directly by the owner. When that happened, I just kinda shook my head in wonder. Now with this story, I'm damn glad I've got absolutely minimal information on my facebook account.
If you really want to fix the root of the problem, remove all warning labels from all products. Then wait one generation. It'll sort itself out and the rest of us will be much better off.
As much as I love this idea, it won't work. You also need to fix the legal system for that time so you can't sue someone for your own idiocy, or on behalf of another's idiocy.
It's not averted. It's delayed. Simply pushing back a war is not a solution. You are sticking your finger in the dike and telling me that you're fine, you just had a good night's sleep. Your finger isn't going to save the dike, and a good night's sleep has nothing to do with it.
The *proper* response is work towards resolving the issues between two parties, and eliminating the chance of war. Pissing off one side further to simply buy a few years peace is not going to help anything.
I'd like to point out the hilarity of you fucking up the spelling of a word you're linking the definition of? Especially a word that I'd think most of slashdot would be familiar with, and even worse, a term that doesn't exactly work in context, in any case. No one's asking Google to act as God over Android, but instead impose structure on something that Google created. Sort of like companies usually do with their products.
And frankly, as a pissed off user of a Samsung Galaxy, perma-stuck on 1.5, I'm all in favour of Google getting some damn balls and telling companies that using Android carries some responsibilities.
Man, your calendar must be fucking *hell* to sync up with when you're travelling. Leave, stay somewhere for a week, come back to find a month's passed in Alaska?
Probably solitary is for his own protection, and keeping him alive is the responsibility of the justice system, so if he's on suicide watch, that means being deprived of things he can use to KILL HIMSELF WITH. There's nothing in there that violates constitutional rights. In fact, if they were remiss in removing those items, it could be seen as complicit agreement with his suicidal intentions, and then they're meting out capital punishment without due process, which WOULD be in violation of constitutional rights. And "right to a speedy trial" isn't for military law, and needs to be requested by the defendant in either case.
The only thing troubling here is that this guy's so upset with his circumstances that he's trying to kill himself. Anything else stems from that fact.
Except they're NOT world-wide copyright concepts, they're US concepts that they're trying to export to everywhere else, especially through international treaties and trade agreements.
I don't know what the CMRRA is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Musical_Reproduction_Rights_Agency
Not hard to see why someone would think the CMRRA would be involved in something like this, since it's exactly what they're there for.
Sure they can do that. Though the US wants everyone to use their version of copyright law, they tend not to care what rulings are in different jurisdictions, so it'll never get within shouting distance of a court in the US.
Full disclosure: I work for Microsoft.
I realize this probably means nothing, but what the hell, when am I gonna have a chance like this again? I'd like to say that I generally enjoy Microsoft stuff, and think overall the company's moving in a good direction. But damn it, I miss the old optical mice. Those things were indestructible and awesome. If any evil's ever been done, it was in moving away from that mouse.
Except there's a thread of continuity between Transformers, and Transformers 2, so you'd be reasonable there. There's continuity between Buffy and Angel and even some with Firefly (check the writers/producers, more than a couple crossovers), but not as much with Doll House, so it'd be wise to go in with fewer expectations of similarity. Windows Mobile 6 and Windows Phone 7 only share two things in common: the word "Windows" in the title, and Microsoft paying the development bills. They're developed by different groups, with a different marketspace, using different technology and ideologies. It may or may not be fair to say "Everything Microsoft makes sucks," but you can't reasonably judge Windows Phone 7 by how Windows Mobile 6 was. That would basically be like me trying a salad at McDonalds, thinking it's terrible, and then writing off their newest burger because of how awful that salad was. Sure, everything McDonalds makes may or may not be terrible, but judging the burger by the salad is unfair and unreasonable.
Actually, most people over 50 that I've sold computers to were looking forward to a shiny new system with a new operating system. About the only people ever upset are those in their 30s, and I'm guessing it's because those are actually the people who have been using XP for most of their computing career.
And no, most young people are still fucking morons when it comes to computer, they just use it for Teh Facebooks and YouPorn.
Lastly, most people couldn't tell you if a machine was running Vista or 7 unless you told them, and don't care. People don't care about their OS, they care about their shit working on their computer. The reason Vista had terrible uptake is because they were told that it didn't work with all their stuff. Vista/7 have been around long enough that most people have replaced their old stuff with new stuff that works, so they don't care.
The same effect is visible in more portions of life than that. Customer complaints are always more numerous than customer compliments, because if something pisses you off, you want it changed, but if something went fine, well, yay, I don't need to do anything, do I? That's why a lot of retail places offer incentives for customer service surveys, so that people who had good experiences have more of a reason to mention it. People don't seem to realize that if you only get feedback from one side, then you institute changes based on just that one side. If you like something the way it is, you need to mention it so that there is a reason to not change something.
You think you have a counter-point there, but you're really just proving his point further. In a corporate R&D department, they're given a task to complete. "Find a drug to fix X." "Develop a method to do Y." The company only commissions studies that it knows will benefit it, and needs the results of that specific research. If you don't find a way to do something, they don't care, they'll give you more money, and at least you found a way to NOT do it, which can be helpful as well.
Governments tend to take a slightly more liberal approach, to a point. You come to them, ask them for money for your project, and then you do the project. Finish the project, and you find out you didn't get what you were looking for. That's not really publishable. But like the private sector, government demands returns on a project, and "a way not to do something" isn't good enough. You're not getting any more money to continue your project, and government doesn't care if your initial goal and finished finding match, so you burrow in your data and find *something* you can publish. Then you can point government to it and prove you're a good investment, and get more grants.
It seems like a lot of countries are going on a slide towards dictatorships and totalitarianism, and if it doesn't stop, I'm pretty sure we're going to see World War III, and I'm willing to bet it's within the next 50 years. The problem with WWIII is going to be, it's not going to be countries banding together to stop aggression from another bloc of countries, but fighting for the right to rule over other countries. Russia, USA, UK, Italy, Hungary, China, and North Korea are the ones off the top of my head sliding that way, though there's a bunch of other countries who might give them a run for their money (Iran et al).
Do you really wanna breathe that? Or use it to cook your food? No. Use it instead of coal. Bam, energy enough for everyone who remains.
It's a question designed to make anyone go "huh?"
Really? I'd just assumed most people would recite the alphabet, starting at T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, then loop around to A, and go through to S. It doesn't seem very confusing.
There's a difference between "doesn't seem drunk" and "is unaffected." A person may not have slurred speech, or weave while walking, but their reaction times and general co-ordination can still be significantly affected, which is the entire reason we, as a society, don't want drunks driving 1000+ lbs machines at high rates of speed.
I find your story both humorous and disturbing. Did the cops ever say what they were looking for?
"One" judgement reversed, out of how many cases? From what I understand, most judges hear upwards of 100 cases a year. If they had a reversal percentage of 5%, I'd consider that "knowing the law" to an acceptable degree, since appeals going up the chain can also be reversed, and there's chances those appellate judges don't actually know the law, or are merely erring on the side of legal precedent, rather than the merits of the case (not that the second case is a bad thing, always).