Apple is so safe with the iPod that it's not funny. Just look at how many people they're licensing the dock interface to. It's available in new cars, in aftermarket cart stereos, it's in all kinds of accessories. The prevalence of the dock connector simply makes the iPod more desirable than its competitors, and the fact that it's proprietary gives Apple a lot of safety.
Microsoft has implemented their "play anywhere" USB interface, and some car stereo makers are starting to implement it. Eventually, it will provide an alterenative to the iPod dock, but it looks to be somewhere in 2007 before it achieves any uptake.
The catch is that the "generic" MP3 player makers will be fighting each other on price, while Apple will be able to maintain much better margins on the iPod. So the iPod will eventually drop some market share, but it will remain profitable for Apple. Meanwhile, Creative and iRiver and all the others will be beating their brains out trying to undercut each other.
He who owns the interface owns the market. I didn't say it's good, it's just a fact of life.
What's the problem? It was a woman who taught me to make fun of this crap. Most women, after the age of 12, seem to think "pink and pony" themes are pretty lame. My friend's mother gave her some unicorn pajamas when she was 15, and it scarred her well into her 30's.
Besides, the rest of the year, Slashdot is pretty much a parody of teenage boys, even if they don't intend it.
Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious... reminds me that I ran a retail shop in the 80's, and submitted my charges on paper.
And anybody who RTFA noted that the issue concerned DEBIT cards. You don't worry much about getting your credit card stolen, because the liability is limited. Debit cards are a whole 'nother story, and the problem here is that some debit-card software had been storing the PIN number as well as the card number... so anybody who got the numbers could go to an ATM and empty your bank account in seconds. Additionally, a stolen debit card is a much greater risk for identity theft than a stolen credit card.
This has to be about Dell. If Macs could dual-boot, it would impact Dell the most. I imagine it was something along the lines of, "Gee, we're seeing increased demand for Linux servers, we're thinking of ramping up our promotion there. BTW, are you still planning on letting your desktop OS run on Macs?"
They can build the system as tight or as loose as they want. Porn sites a pretty loose, they just want customers, and they can afford the occasional ripoff. But if you do a human review of an application (whois the domains, do some background work on the individuals), then it gets a lot tighter.
Dell and Amazon sure wouldn't be paying by credit card.
Again, the use I can envision is for high-priority things like purchase receipts and software keys. It's been a long time since I had a problem with one of them, but some vendors might be willing to pay a little extra just in case.
I can envision e-tailers like Dell or Amazon using it when they mail out invoices or software vendors using it to mail out registration keys.
But it's probably not cost-effective for shotgun spamming, certainly too expensive for penis enlargement and Viagra hustlers. Those folks won't want their names/banking info on file anyway.
Fortunately, Google is run by people who are a little sharper than your average reporter.
Sure, Google could set up their own network, and only allow paid access to it. That is, assuming they learned nothing from Compuserve and Prodigy's attempts to do the same.
More likely, they want to build their own global back end.
In a company that has an IT department that big, flexibility isn't very important to the bottom line. Stability counts for much more, and beaureaucracy creates stability, at the expense of productivity. The bigger the company, the stronger the preference to forego opportunities as a cost of achieving stability.
With flexibility comes the need for filtering... it's great to allow employees to try out new things, but most new things are really no good. Beaureaucracy provides a certain sort of institutional filtering. It's annoying as hell, but it does crudely serve a purpose.
Bottom line, if you're itchy and want to be innovative, stay out of big companies, unless you can find something like a research or product development setting.
We do have a decent form of governement, and judging by immigration, people prefer to live under our government over most others.
But it's probably more accurate to say that it's less bad than the others. I'm continually amazed that simple Constitutional constructs enable us to live under a permanent standoff between two horrible but basically ineffective political parties. Yes, I disagee with most everything that Washington does, but that's not the point... the point is, compared to the damage that COULD be done, they're remarkably benign. But that's not because they're nice and civil and cooperative and deliberative, it's becasue the Constitution ties their hands and prevents them from effectively doing worse.
In any event, there's nothing inherently wrong with lobbyists... I'm sure there are folks in Washington lobbying for all sorts of things I would favor if I hadn't learned to ignore Washington's daily BS. And as often as not, lobbyists are in Washington to prevent Congress from doing harm as they are seeking goodies.
The problem lies in the fact that Congress has things to give lobbyists, and what Congress can do if they don't pay up. If you really want to eliminate the influence of money in politics, the only way is to limit the money that Congress controls. That's why I'm in favor of all general tax cuts, and against all "targeted" tax breaks.
In any event, I don't see why acceding to lobbyists' wishes should produce any worse results than letting Congresspeople figure it out for themselves.
It's one thing to assign copyright to FSF, quite another to assign it a random non-profit organization. FSF has some history and widespread recognition, and one can be reasonably confident that they'll survive and remain true to their vision.
On the other hand, if somebody set up a non-profit to create the nextest bestest portal application, there's a real chance that the non-profit org could go bankrupt, regardless of the sincerity of their intention. Or the org could undergo a leadership change and a change of philosophy. If you had assigned your code to them, it could easily wind up in a proprietary commercial application. The GPL would protect existing releases, but anybody who held all the copyrights could update and re-release under a proprietary license.
Even if the terms of assignation were written to preclude this, such provisions might not survive bankruptcy.
They don't pay dividends, because they're still a growing company, and they feel they can do better for their shareholders (including themselves) by reinvesting the money. Microsoft recently "topped-out" on their potential for rapid growth, and started paying dividends. The stock price has been static since.
Once Google reaches a certain size, and the opportunities for growth diminish, then it will make more sense for them to pay dividends.
Tape degrades, but it's pretty amazing how well it holds up. I'm currently going through a box of about 50 live cassettes from the 70's. While the sound quality is as mediocre as it ever was, they all work, except for one that needs a splice.
If they had been recorded on CD-R in 1978, they'd probably be gone now.
If ICANN wants to maintain control of the root servers, then the way to enlist support (or deflect criticism) is to give other governments their own little spheres of sovereignty.
Politics is ugly, but I think this is more workable than having the UN in charge.
>> We must not enter into political arrangements with countries ill-prepared to adequately protect our greatest economic assets.
And exactly why should Russia give a hoot about protecting the RIAA's assets? This continues to emerge as a huge issue in international relations.
In the Internet age, the only way to make copyrights & patents work is to enforce them wordwide. And agreements can be made, as long as both involved countries have IP to protect. France, Germany, UK, Japan, I can see why they'd cooperate. But most of the world's nations don't have much commecial IP to protect. I don't see how IP can be protected worldwide without bullying the crap out of a lot of little countries. In fact, I don't think even that will work.
More likely the prosecutor looked at the case, and figured he shouldn't put much effort into prosecuting a countryman for the benefit of American movie studios.
We expect them to be computer illiterate, and they rarely disappoint.
If I'm working at a biotech company, I don't want the researchers to be good at computers. If I'm working at an investment firm, I want the users to understand investments, not DLL's.
We're here precisely so that they can be idiots at computers... and experts at whatever it is they do when their computers aren't broken.
The company isn't here so that we have a network to play with.
Learn to praise the users' idiocy, they'll appreciate it.
If the users get frustrated, empathize with their confusion and blame Microsoft. Never fails.
Oh, that is so true. I mean, computers KNOW when you think they have 'em licked, and they'll pretend to be okay, and then, just as you finish tightening the last screw, they'll mess with ya'.
Sometimes, when they're especially cruel, the PC's will wait until you've put them back under the desk, put the photos of the users' kids back on top of them. Then, just as you're ready to button it up and head out to lunch, they'll strike.
>> a task force of political appointees has no business telling more than 2000 IT professionals what to do.
Yeah, but that's not going to stop them. They stick their noses into all kinds of places they have no business, from the design of shower heads to the rules of baseball.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is so safe with the iPod that it's not funny. Just look at how many people they're licensing the dock interface to. It's available in new cars, in aftermarket cart stereos, it's in all kinds of accessories. The prevalence of the dock connector simply makes the iPod more desirable than its competitors, and the fact that it's proprietary gives Apple a lot of safety.
Microsoft has implemented their "play anywhere" USB interface, and some car stereo makers are starting to implement it. Eventually, it will provide an alterenative to the iPod dock, but it looks to be somewhere in 2007 before it achieves any uptake.
The catch is that the "generic" MP3 player makers will be fighting each other on price, while Apple will be able to maintain much better margins on the iPod. So the iPod will eventually drop some market share, but it will remain profitable for Apple. Meanwhile, Creative and iRiver and all the others will be beating their brains out trying to undercut each other.
He who owns the interface owns the market. I didn't say it's good, it's just a fact of life.
What's the problem? It was a woman who taught me to make fun of this crap. Most women, after the age of 12, seem to think "pink and pony" themes are pretty lame. My friend's mother gave her some unicorn pajamas when she was 15, and it scarred her well into her 30's.
Besides, the rest of the year, Slashdot is pretty much a parody of teenage boys, even if they don't intend it.
Big deal. The Grateful Dead played From The Mars Hotel more than 30 years ago.
Thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious... reminds me that I ran a retail shop in the 80's, and submitted my charges on paper.
And anybody who RTFA noted that the issue concerned DEBIT cards. You don't worry much about getting your credit card stolen, because the liability is limited. Debit cards are a whole 'nother story, and the problem here is that some debit-card software had been storing the PIN number as well as the card number... so anybody who got the numbers could go to an ATM and empty your bank account in seconds. Additionally, a stolen debit card is a much greater risk for identity theft than a stolen credit card.
This has to be about Dell. If Macs could dual-boot, it would impact Dell the most. I imagine it was something along the lines of, "Gee, we're seeing increased demand for Linux servers, we're thinking of ramping up our promotion there. BTW, are you still planning on letting your desktop OS run on Macs?"
They can build the system as tight or as loose as they want. Porn sites a pretty loose, they just want customers, and they can afford the occasional ripoff. But if you do a human review of an application (whois the domains, do some background work on the individuals), then it gets a lot tighter.
Dell and Amazon sure wouldn't be paying by credit card.
Again, the use I can envision is for high-priority things like purchase receipts and software keys. It's been a long time since I had a problem with one of them, but some vendors might be willing to pay a little extra just in case.
I can envision e-tailers like Dell or Amazon using it when they mail out invoices or software vendors using it to mail out registration keys.
But it's probably not cost-effective for shotgun spamming, certainly too expensive for penis enlargement and Viagra hustlers. Those folks won't want their names/banking info on file anyway.
The folks from the Department of State always believe in solving problems through diplomatic means. Diplomacy is their job.
The people in the Department of Defense always defend military action. Military action is their job.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Yeah, but if there's ever a cyber-terorist who thinks just like a government bureaucrat, we'll be ready for him.
Fortunately, Google is run by people who are a little sharper than your average reporter.
Sure, Google could set up their own network, and only allow paid access to it. That is, assuming they learned nothing from Compuserve and Prodigy's attempts to do the same.
More likely, they want to build their own global back end.
In a company that has an IT department that big, flexibility isn't very important to the bottom line. Stability counts for much more, and beaureaucracy creates stability, at the expense of productivity. The bigger the company, the stronger the preference to forego opportunities as a cost of achieving stability.
With flexibility comes the need for filtering... it's great to allow employees to try out new things, but most new things are really no good. Beaureaucracy provides a certain sort of institutional filtering. It's annoying as hell, but it does crudely serve a purpose.
Bottom line, if you're itchy and want to be innovative, stay out of big companies, unless you can find something like a research or product development setting.
We do have a decent form of governement, and judging by immigration, people prefer to live under our government over most others.
But it's probably more accurate to say that it's less bad than the others. I'm continually amazed that simple Constitutional constructs enable us to live under a permanent standoff between two horrible but basically ineffective political parties. Yes, I disagee with most everything that Washington does, but that's not the point... the point is, compared to the damage that COULD be done, they're remarkably benign. But that's not because they're nice and civil and cooperative and deliberative, it's becasue the Constitution ties their hands and prevents them from effectively doing worse.
In any event, there's nothing inherently wrong with lobbyists... I'm sure there are folks in Washington lobbying for all sorts of things I would favor if I hadn't learned to ignore Washington's daily BS. And as often as not, lobbyists are in Washington to prevent Congress from doing harm as they are seeking goodies.
The problem lies in the fact that Congress has things to give lobbyists, and what Congress can do if they don't pay up. If you really want to eliminate the influence of money in politics, the only way is to limit the money that Congress controls. That's why I'm in favor of all general tax cuts, and against all "targeted" tax breaks.
In any event, I don't see why acceding to lobbyists' wishes should produce any worse results than letting Congresspeople figure it out for themselves.
It's one thing to assign copyright to FSF, quite another to assign it a random non-profit organization. FSF has some history and widespread recognition, and one can be reasonably confident that they'll survive and remain true to their vision.
On the other hand, if somebody set up a non-profit to create the nextest bestest portal application, there's a real chance that the non-profit org could go bankrupt, regardless of the sincerity of their intention. Or the org could undergo a leadership change and a change of philosophy. If you had assigned your code to them, it could easily wind up in a proprietary commercial application. The GPL would protect existing releases, but anybody who held all the copyrights could update and re-release under a proprietary license.
Even if the terms of assignation were written to preclude this, such provisions might not survive bankruptcy.
You've renewed my faith in the /. community.
I'll be more impressed when somebody replies using an Amiga. ;)
Well then, if the Amiga was so capable, it wouldn't have been very impressive to run video on it, would it?
/., I imagine somebody will reply to me with a link....)
If somebody wants to do something impressive on an Amiga, try setting one up to surf the web.
(and this being
They don't pay dividends, because they're still a growing company, and they feel they can do better for their shareholders (including themselves) by reinvesting the money. Microsoft recently "topped-out" on their potential for rapid growth, and started paying dividends. The stock price has been static since.
Once Google reaches a certain size, and the opportunities for growth diminish, then it will make more sense for them to pay dividends.
Tape degrades, but it's pretty amazing how well it holds up. I'm currently going through a box of about 50 live cassettes from the 70's. While the sound quality is as mediocre as it ever was, they all work, except for one that needs a splice.
If they had been recorded on CD-R in 1978, they'd probably be gone now.
I'll be darned, NewEgg has this RAID-Optimized hard drive in stock. Limit one to a customer.
What's that called, RAID -1?
If ICANN wants to maintain control of the root servers, then the way to enlist support (or deflect criticism) is to give other governments their own little spheres of sovereignty.
Politics is ugly, but I think this is more workable than having the UN in charge.
>> We must not enter into political arrangements with countries ill-prepared to adequately protect our greatest economic assets.
And exactly why should Russia give a hoot about protecting the RIAA's assets? This continues to emerge as a huge issue in international relations.
In the Internet age, the only way to make copyrights & patents work is to enforce them wordwide. And agreements can be made, as long as both involved countries have IP to protect. France, Germany, UK, Japan, I can see why they'd cooperate. But most of the world's nations don't have much commecial IP to protect. I don't see how IP can be protected worldwide without bullying the crap out of a lot of little countries. In fact, I don't think even that will work.
Sure is gonna be messy over the next few decades.
More likely the prosecutor looked at the case, and figured he shouldn't put much effort into prosecuting a countryman for the benefit of American movie studios.
My standard pep talk:
Users are idiots. This is a good thing.
We expect them to be computer illiterate, and they rarely disappoint.
If I'm working at a biotech company, I don't want the researchers to be good at computers. If I'm working at an investment firm, I want the users to understand investments, not DLL's.
We're here precisely so that they can be idiots at computers... and experts at whatever it is they do when their computers aren't broken.
The company isn't here so that we have a network to play with.
Learn to praise the users' idiocy, they'll appreciate it.
If the users get frustrated, empathize with their confusion and blame Microsoft. Never fails.
Oh, that is so true. I mean, computers KNOW when you think they have 'em licked, and they'll pretend to be okay, and then, just as you finish tightening the last screw, they'll mess with ya'.
Sometimes, when they're especially cruel, the PC's will wait until you've put them back under the desk, put the photos of the users' kids back on top of them. Then, just as you're ready to button it up and head out to lunch, they'll strike.
Screws last, people. Learn it or suffer.
>> a task force of political appointees has no business telling more than 2000 IT professionals what to do.
Yeah, but that's not going to stop them. They stick their noses into all kinds of places they have no business, from the design of shower heads to the rules of baseball.