Although you are correct in theory, that's not how water or electricity use is measured or billed. It's almost like buying a car. Yes, the sticker price is one thing. But that's not the entire cost. Even if you avoid freight and delivery by buying used, you're still paying taxes. And even if you avoid ALL those fees, you still have insurance. And even if you avoid insurance, you've still got gas. And even if you're stealing gas, you're still "paying" with time.
Although the companies in the USA might call it metered billing based on usage, and they may not be clear about what you're being charged for, there is still overhead and the actual "cost" of usage will include more than digital bytes flowing across a cable.
This makes no sense. My electric company has to pay for things that aren't the actual fuel it burns to make the electricity they're selling me. They have infrastructure, billing, the janitor at the power plant, etc. The proper way to account for this is some combination of fixed fees and increasing the cost per kilowatt hour (or in AT&T's case, cost per megabyte.) I can verify that my electric company isn't overbilling me by checking the meter, multiplying that number by the cost per kWh, and then adding in the fixed fees. I should be able to track my internet bill the same way.
Would transferring your iTunes library include the song's metadata? I use Windows Media Player and not iTunes, but I have playlists set up like my own Top 40, which is just the 40 songs I've played the most, calculated by play count. I have things playlists based on my own subjective ratings of a song. iTunes keeps track of playcount and rating, right? I can copy the MP3s holding individual files, but can I take my playcounts or song ratings with me to another player/music software? With WMP I can.
With Apple's solution, on the other hand, you can't transfer this data out of iTunes and so if you want to get a non-Apple MP3 player, you have to redo all your music ratings. This is why iTunes represents vendor lock-in, and probably has more than a little bit to do with the anti-trust complaints Apple is dealing with. This is Slashdot. We want Free/Open* software, with Free/Open data. We demand this from other companies. Why not Apple?
*There are substantial and profound differences between Free Software and Open Source Software. In the context of "Things Your iTunes Library Is Not," the two are EXACTLY equivalent.
Finally, isn't this largely an Open Source/Free Software site? We demand APIs for everything else so that we can use a generic X with something else because the default solution doesn't meet our requirements. Why not for iTunes?
ITunes only works with iDevices. Most songs people have in their iTunes library are MP3s, which play on all kinds of devices. (For that matter, so do unprotected AACs.) I have a Creative brand MP3 player which came with its own iTunes-like software, but I use Windows Media Player to fill it up instead, partly because if I were to get a non-Creative brand MP3 player, my library would still work.
Microsoft developed an OS which it sold to its consumers, who were primarily OEMs. This OS had features, one of which was "It works with almost all the software your customers will see for sale in the brick and mortar software shop down the street, so you can market your hardware to people who may not be familiar with computers." In order to ensure this feature, it made contracts with its OEMs, who were free to accept, decline, or negotiate parts of this deal. The deal exchanged discounts on the cost Microsoft would charge its customers (who, again, were willing participants) for guarantees that its customers would only sell Microsoft's product. In my view, the only difference between this and what Apple does is that Microsoft's customers (who, again, are predominantly OEMs) negotiated and agreed to their deal, whereas Apple's customers didn't have a choice.
The canonical example of an anti-trustworthy action would be if a car company decided to make a special connector between the fuel tank and the gas pump, so you would only be able to use the special gas station set up by the car's manufacturer. Meanwhile, you cannot (well, you can, but Apple says it's hacking and will try to block you) put songs on your iPod without using the special media manager that the manufacturer made. (Or alternately, you can't put media from your iTunes library on an MP3 player unless it's a special device made by the manufacturer.) Your car cannot accomplish its primary purpose (driving from Point A to Point B) without gasoline, and your MP3 player cannot accomplish its primary purpose (playing media) without a media manager, so this is probably a better analogy. It's EXACTLY what Apple is doing.
Finally, isn't this largely an Open Source/Free Software site? We demand APIs for everything else so that we can use a generic X with something else because the default solution doesn't meet our requirements. Why not for iTunes?
There are two countries in the Americas (North and South) with the phrase "United States" in their name, the United States of America and the United Mexican States. (There are other countries that are in fact unions of states, but they don't have "United States" in their name.) Only one country in the Americas has "America" in its name. Loser.
Libby talked to Judith Miller on July 8th, 2003. (Miller claims they talked about the CIA, but not about Plame specifically, and that someone else gave her Plame's name.) Novak's story ran July 14th of that year (i.e. so he did the research earlier), which isn't long before the 8th, especially since Armitage told Bob Woodward about Plame in June of that year. Novak and Armitage both said, repeatedly, that Armitage was Novak's initial and primary source. And since Armitage was working AGAINST the war, leaking Plame's name wasn't part of a grand conspiracy to discredit Joe Wilson. Sorry.
Also, typical Wikipedia misinformation favors conservatives over liberals? What Wikipedia are you reading?
My sources are the Wikipedia pages on Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, and Plame affair. New Slashdot sucks and is screwing up links in this reply window, so I'm not linking to them, but you can put those titles in a Wikipedia search box if you really care.
So you're saying, because Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Scooter Libby (the fall guy) did it, it's okay for Wikileaks to do it?
Richard Armitage, who was working within the State Department to prevent the Iraq war, is the one who leaked Valerie Plame's name. The investigators knew that when the investigation (into who leaked her name) started. The Libby indictment and conviction were entirely political. There's valid things to dislike the Bush administration for. But this isn't one of them.
You can like or hate Apple any way you like, but they are not locking you in or out of non-standard proprietary document formats or secret API's in any way, in fact they use open and commonly accepted and interchangeable formats and technology almost everywhere.
How come I can't plug my MP3 player into my car? (Hint: If iPods were Mass Storage Devices and they used a regular USB cable like mine/most others do, this would work.)
It's not like the author played a big role in the censored story, though. It seemed like he was just thrown in to be there. Like, you know, a Tolkein character.
If "some people" wanted to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, wouldn't the time to do it be when you've got the presidency, a 40-vote majority in the House of Representatives and a 60-40 majority in the Senate
Supporters of the Fairness Doctrine lacked at least two of those things. According to the Wikipedia article, towards the beginning of her Speakership, Nancy Pelosi said that most of her caucus (e.g. the Democrats in the House) opposed reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, although she personally supported it. As a candidate, President Obama also said he would oppose re-instituting it when he was a candidate.
YOU, on the other hand, said that "nobody" supports re-instituting it. Chuck Schumer is an influential Senator, and I linked to a video of him saying he supports it. He's not an "unknown progressive."
American people, who, as we all know hate the idea of "Fairness"
A substantial number of Americans do hate "Fairness," actually, but would be fine actual, no-scare-quotes attached Fairness. "Fairness" would be making sure there are fewer people who disagree with you. Fairness is that people can say what they want, and you can turn your radio away from Limbaugh or your television away from Olbermann. Censorship is wrong, but with the exception of NPR, there's no rule that you have to support any particular speech either. If enough people think that someone shouldn't be on the air, they won't make enough money and will get pulled from the air that way.
For serious. The link has a VIDEO OF HIM SAYING IT. He says exactly what Malkin and I claimed he said, and she posted the video evidence. Did you even click on the link? Do your own research next time. Maybe then you won't be wrong.
It had nothing to do with allowing equal time, but simply required that anybody with a broadcast license give some recognition to opposing viewpoints, even if it's marginalized, ridiculed, and ignored..
There was a slashdot story like a month ago about how the authorities DID arrest a DDoSer of Wikileaks, though.
Wikileaks DDoS Attacker Arrested; Equipment Seized
The e-mails themselves showed that Palin wasn't doing anything wrong and was using it for personal correspondence and not state business.
The Crazy Left hypothesized that she must have had ANOTHER secret e-mail address. ("She's Sarah Palin. Of course she's doing something wrong.")
The "hacker" was sentenced to a year in jail.
The "hacker's" father, Mike Kernell, D-93rd District, Tennessee House of Representatives, was re-elected in 2008 and 2010.
The glasses have to connect, right? Put eye one hole in the zero and one in between the two 1's. With appropropriately large serifs, they can pull it off.
Steam engine (the reason for being out from feudalism and stepped into industrialization) was not invented for military purposes. Printed press wasn't either.
Were they invented for short term profit, like OP alluded to? (Hint: Yes.)
Palin was complaining about the media, and not liberal bloggers specifically. David Gregory is part of the media, right?
I don't see where he blamed Sarah Palin there either
His question was about the angry violent conservative rhetoric that caused this event. He didn't mention Palin by name this time, because the media has been painting the Tea Party, a group in which Palin is at least an important figure, as a group of angry violent conservatives. The reference clearly was meant to include Palin.
or do you honestly think using violent metaphors are great in politics?
Yeah, actually, I do. I have no problem with a political party "targeting" a moderate for electoral defeat by someone more ideologically to their liking. (Hint: Both sides were targeting Giffords' district for the next election.) I also have no problem with a quarterback "targeting" a receiver for a pass, GCC allowing you to specify "target" architectures to compile your programs for, or the Target department store chain.
Amazing. A week's worth of whining from this woman, and you couldn't come up with ONE freaking example of all of this blame being dumped on her.
Well, I kind of showed an example of what she was complaining about, not your strawman. But other than that, yeah.
By the way, I didn't realize how far up in this thread you were the OP. If I had, I would have taken issue with your assertion that
During Bush's 8 years the Republicans questioned nothing.
Sure they did. They questioned why he was too liberal on some issues. They didn't like his immigration reform attempt and they wanted him to spend like the fiscal conservative they thought he was. Similarly, the liberals who are mad at Obama want him to be more liberal.
As to liberals "still" blaming Palin for the Giffords shooting, I challenge you to show me one example of a liberal blog blaming her for it. I challenge you! Give me an example. Palin has whined about this for a week, acting like she's the victim, and yet I haven't seen one single person blame her for it.
David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, was blaming violent conservative rhetoric for the shooting on his show this past Sunday. He's not quite a blogger, but I think he's important enough for Palin to be mad that he's blaming her for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Although you are correct in theory, that's not how water or electricity use is measured or billed. It's almost like buying a car. Yes, the sticker price is one thing. But that's not the entire cost. Even if you avoid freight and delivery by buying used, you're still paying taxes. And even if you avoid ALL those fees, you still have insurance. And even if you avoid insurance, you've still got gas. And even if you're stealing gas, you're still "paying" with time. Although the companies in the USA might call it metered billing based on usage, and they may not be clear about what you're being charged for, there is still overhead and the actual "cost" of usage will include more than digital bytes flowing across a cable.
This makes no sense. My electric company has to pay for things that aren't the actual fuel it burns to make the electricity they're selling me. They have infrastructure, billing, the janitor at the power plant, etc. The proper way to account for this is some combination of fixed fees and increasing the cost per kilowatt hour (or in AT&T's case, cost per megabyte.) I can verify that my electric company isn't overbilling me by checking the meter, multiplying that number by the cost per kWh, and then adding in the fixed fees. I should be able to track my internet bill the same way.
With Apple's solution, on the other hand, you can't transfer this data out of iTunes and so if you want to get a non-Apple MP3 player, you have to redo all your music ratings. This is why iTunes represents vendor lock-in, and probably has more than a little bit to do with the anti-trust complaints Apple is dealing with. This is Slashdot. We want Free/Open* software, with Free/Open data. We demand this from other companies. Why not Apple?
*There are substantial and profound differences between Free Software and Open Source Software. In the context of "Things Your iTunes Library Is Not," the two are EXACTLY equivalent.
It's a commercial. With actors in it. Deal with it
Finally, isn't this largely an Open Source/Free Software site? We demand APIs for everything else so that we can use a generic X with something else because the default solution doesn't meet our requirements. Why not for iTunes?
itunes is free...
Now read the other 37 words of the quote, moron.
ITunes only works with iDevices. Most songs people have in their iTunes library are MP3s, which play on all kinds of devices. (For that matter, so do unprotected AACs.) I have a Creative brand MP3 player which came with its own iTunes-like software, but I use Windows Media Player to fill it up instead, partly because if I were to get a non-Creative brand MP3 player, my library would still work.
Microsoft developed an OS which it sold to its consumers, who were primarily OEMs. This OS had features, one of which was "It works with almost all the software your customers will see for sale in the brick and mortar software shop down the street, so you can market your hardware to people who may not be familiar with computers." In order to ensure this feature, it made contracts with its OEMs, who were free to accept, decline, or negotiate parts of this deal. The deal exchanged discounts on the cost Microsoft would charge its customers (who, again, were willing participants) for guarantees that its customers would only sell Microsoft's product. In my view, the only difference between this and what Apple does is that Microsoft's customers (who, again, are predominantly OEMs) negotiated and agreed to their deal, whereas Apple's customers didn't have a choice.
The canonical example of an anti-trustworthy action would be if a car company decided to make a special connector between the fuel tank and the gas pump, so you would only be able to use the special gas station set up by the car's manufacturer. Meanwhile, you cannot (well, you can, but Apple says it's hacking and will try to block you) put songs on your iPod without using the special media manager that the manufacturer made. (Or alternately, you can't put media from your iTunes library on an MP3 player unless it's a special device made by the manufacturer.) Your car cannot accomplish its primary purpose (driving from Point A to Point B) without gasoline, and your MP3 player cannot accomplish its primary purpose (playing media) without a media manager, so this is probably a better analogy. It's EXACTLY what Apple is doing.
Finally, isn't this largely an Open Source/Free Software site? We demand APIs for everything else so that we can use a generic X with something else because the default solution doesn't meet our requirements. Why not for iTunes?
There are two countries in the Americas (North and South) with the phrase "United States" in their name, the United States of America and the United Mexican States. (There are other countries that are in fact unions of states, but they don't have "United States" in their name.) Only one country in the Americas has "America" in its name. Loser.
Libby talked to Judith Miller on July 8th, 2003. (Miller claims they talked about the CIA, but not about Plame specifically, and that someone else gave her Plame's name.) Novak's story ran July 14th of that year (i.e. so he did the research earlier), which isn't long before the 8th, especially since Armitage told Bob Woodward about Plame in June of that year. Novak and Armitage both said, repeatedly, that Armitage was Novak's initial and primary source. And since Armitage was working AGAINST the war, leaking Plame's name wasn't part of a grand conspiracy to discredit Joe Wilson. Sorry.
Also, typical Wikipedia misinformation favors conservatives over liberals? What Wikipedia are you reading?
My sources are the Wikipedia pages on Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, and Plame affair. New Slashdot sucks and is screwing up links in this reply window, so I'm not linking to them, but you can put those titles in a Wikipedia search box if you really care.
So you're saying, because Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Scooter Libby (the fall guy) did it, it's okay for Wikileaks to do it?
Richard Armitage, who was working within the State Department to prevent the Iraq war, is the one who leaked Valerie Plame's name. The investigators knew that when the investigation (into who leaked her name) started. The Libby indictment and conviction were entirely political. There's valid things to dislike the Bush administration for. But this isn't one of them.
You can like or hate Apple any way you like, but they are not locking you in or out of non-standard proprietary document formats or secret API's in any way, in fact they use open and commonly accepted and interchangeable formats and technology almost everywhere.
How come I can't plug my MP3 player into my car? (Hint: If iPods were Mass Storage Devices and they used a regular USB cable like mine/most others do, this would work.)
Universal and Comcast are going to be the same. That's the point of the merger.
It's not like the author played a big role in the censored story, though. It seemed like he was just thrown in to be there. Like, you know, a Tolkein character.
If "some people" wanted to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, wouldn't the time to do it be when you've got the presidency, a 40-vote majority in the House of Representatives and a 60-40 majority in the Senate
Supporters of the Fairness Doctrine lacked at least two of those things. According to the Wikipedia article, towards the beginning of her Speakership, Nancy Pelosi said that most of her caucus (e.g. the Democrats in the House) opposed reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, although she personally supported it. As a candidate, President Obama also said he would oppose re-instituting it when he was a candidate.
YOU, on the other hand, said that "nobody" supports re-instituting it. Chuck Schumer is an influential Senator, and I linked to a video of him saying he supports it. He's not an "unknown progressive."
American people, who, as we all know hate the idea of "Fairness"
A substantial number of Americans do hate "Fairness," actually, but would be fine actual, no-scare-quotes attached Fairness. "Fairness" would be making sure there are fewer people who disagree with you. Fairness is that people can say what they want, and you can turn your radio away from Limbaugh or your television away from Olbermann. Censorship is wrong, but with the exception of NPR, there's no rule that you have to support any particular speech either. If enough people think that someone shouldn't be on the air, they won't make enough money and will get pulled from the air that way.
For serious. The link has a VIDEO OF HIM SAYING IT. He says exactly what Malkin and I claimed he said, and she posted the video evidence. Did you even click on the link? Do your own research next time. Maybe then you won't be wrong.
It had nothing to do with allowing equal time, but simply required that anybody with a broadcast license give some recognition to opposing viewpoints, even if it's marginalized, ridiculed, and ignored..
he Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced.
I'm not going to link to more quotes from that article, but the "Supporters" section indicates that the Democrats that want to reinstate it want to do so to reduce the effect of right wing talk radio. Whether the original Fairness Doctrine did so or not, a modern one absolutely would be intended to.
Chuck Schumner, a senator from New York, has called for the reinstatement of the fairness doctrine. Here's the source
Wow, I screwed that up. The link is here.
There was a slashdot story like a month ago about how the authorities DID arrest a DDoSer of Wikileaks, though. Wikileaks DDoS Attacker Arrested; Equipment Seized
The e-mails themselves showed that Palin wasn't doing anything wrong and was using it for personal correspondence and not state business.
The Crazy Left hypothesized that she must have had ANOTHER secret e-mail address. ("She's Sarah Palin. Of course she's doing something wrong.")
The "hacker" was sentenced to a year in jail.
The "hacker's" father, Mike Kernell, D-93rd District, Tennessee House of Representatives, was re-elected in 2008 and 2010.
The glasses have to connect, right? Put eye one hole in the zero and one in between the two 1's. With appropropriately large serifs, they can pull it off.
Steam engine (the reason for being out from feudalism and stepped into industrialization) was not invented for military purposes. Printed press wasn't either.
Were they invented for short term profit, like OP alluded to? (Hint: Yes.)
David Gregory is a liberal?
Palin was complaining about the media, and not liberal bloggers specifically. David Gregory is part of the media, right?
I don't see where he blamed Sarah Palin there either
His question was about the angry violent conservative rhetoric that caused this event. He didn't mention Palin by name this time, because the media has been painting the Tea Party, a group in which Palin is at least an important figure, as a group of angry violent conservatives. The reference clearly was meant to include Palin.
or do you honestly think using violent metaphors are great in politics?
Yeah, actually, I do. I have no problem with a political party "targeting" a moderate for electoral defeat by someone more ideologically to their liking. (Hint: Both sides were targeting Giffords' district for the next election.) I also have no problem with a quarterback "targeting" a receiver for a pass, GCC allowing you to specify "target" architectures to compile your programs for, or the Target department store chain.
Amazing. A week's worth of whining from this woman, and you couldn't come up with ONE freaking example of all of this blame being dumped on her.
Well, I kind of showed an example of what she was complaining about, not your strawman. But other than that, yeah.
By the way, I didn't realize how far up in this thread you were the OP. If I had, I would have taken issue with your assertion that
During Bush's 8 years the Republicans questioned nothing.
Sure they did. They questioned why he was too liberal on some issues. They didn't like his immigration reform attempt and they wanted him to spend like the fiscal conservative they thought he was. Similarly, the liberals who are mad at Obama want him to be more liberal.
As to liberals "still" blaming Palin for the Giffords shooting, I challenge you to show me one example of a liberal blog blaming her for it. I challenge you! Give me an example. Palin has whined about this for a week, acting like she's the victim, and yet I haven't seen one single person blame her for it.
David Gregory, host of Meet the Press, was blaming violent conservative rhetoric for the shooting on his show this past Sunday. He's not quite a blogger, but I think he's important enough for Palin to be mad that he's blaming her for it.
This book you're talking about... does it have a title?
Mike Kernell (D-93rd District, Tennessee House of Representatives), David' father, had a strangely lawyerly and political stance on the matter.
Fixed that for you.