Any time there's a limited resource, monopolies can form "naturally" simply by one corporation buying up all of that resource. Monopolies can also form when one company can severely undercut the competition long enough for the competition to go out of business (see Microsoft in the 90s.)
Anyway, I wasn't intending to imply that most monopolies aren't government-granted--I was trying to point out that it's still a monopoly even if it is government granted. The person to whom I responded seemed to think that the term wasn't appropriate.
I agree that parallelism is more easily (and transparently) used at the OS level, but that doesn't mean that we don't need to start moving that way in applications, too. As we move towards a point where extracting more speed out of the silicon becomes harder and harder, we're going to see more and more need for parallelism. For a lot of applications, it's going to be irrelevant, but for anything at all CPU intensive (working with video, games, etc.) it's going to eventually be the way of the future.
I wasn't using it as a chess term, I was using it as a in "checking an item off of the list of things which are censorship, since apparently it isn't."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. [1] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods. [2] Alternatively (a modern and less common usage), it may be used as a verb or adjective to refer to the process (see Monopolism) by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition. The latter usage of the term is invoked in the theory of monopolistic competition. So yes, patents are monopolies--they're just government granted.
It's also how PalmOS has worked for years. Most of the people I know ditched Palm in favor of any smartphone that didn't kill their various connections after switching apps.
A few vendor-supplied applications would work in the background. Mail would poll, music would play, etc. Most applications had to use the state-saving trick you described. Frankly, it's pretty awful. If the iPhone didn't do just about everything I want out of the box, it wouldn't even be a consideration for my next phone. As it is, I'd like to be able to switch out of an SSH session, go to my browser, check something, and then go back. It doesn't sound like this will be possible with the SDK.
That's fair, I guess, though I don't think that it's reasonable to only discuss one facet of life if you're concerned about a police state (which the original poster explicitly mentioned.)
Producing your own quality products in the US with US workers(or even a worker-friendly country) are 2 cardinal sins according to them. Well...duh. The US has much stricter environmental laws than China, so any industrial plants are going to have problems over here. They're going to be more expensive, if they're even feasible, meaning the costs of producing the goods goes up, and the prices that they must sell for in order to make a profit also go up. That computer you're typing on? You probably couldn't afford it if all of the parts had been made in the USA.
Then there's the workers. In China, a person working in a factory for a full day will make less than an American working on American soil does in one hour (given minimum wage plus benefits mandated by law.) Now that money that they make goes a lot further over there, so even if they're being underpaid, it's not by the margin that most people reading this would immediately expect. Nonetheless, it's another cost of doing business that would skyrocket if it was handled over here.
There are different forms of censorship, and you're only focusing on one of them.
One form is not allowing people access to content by blocking it. That's what China does.
Another way to censor is to fine people who display unwanted content. The US uses this to keep "bad language", images of a sexual nature, etc. off of non-premium television stations.
Another form of censorship involves controlling the media. The current administration does this primarily by blacklisting reporters who don't play nicely. Ask a question that's not on the list of safe topics, and good luck interviewing anyone in the government again.
Banning demonstrations are also a form of censorship, and another form that the US engages in. Search for "free speech zones" for a better understanding.
Soon you can expect to get false 404's on port 80 if you've used "too much" of your "unlimited" bandwidth... No one advertises "unlimited" internet anymore. Now it's "an always-on connection," so that they don't have to deal with people complaining that the data transfer wasn't really unlimited.
I'll spell it out further, and perhaps in a way that you can understand.
Apple file lawsuit. Lawsuit lost. Many Slashdot users think lawsuit frivolous. Sancho comment on reasons to hate Apple. Sancho include lawsuit in list of possible reasons. Sancho list groups of people who might hate Apple for these reasons. Group includes anti-frivolous lawsuit crowd.
I was never stating opinion in any of this--what part of that is so hard for you to understand?
This will be my last word on the subject. I'm sorry that I've gotten a little hot-headed, but the apparent unwillingness to even try to understand what I'm writing here has been fairly frustrating. If you were really trolling me, well, congrats. I guess you won. If not, you really just don't belong here. In either case, good day to you.
I think that it's unlikely that the SCOTUS will even hear the case. If they do, I think that they're not likely to rule in favor of automatic attorney fees.
Like it or not, the RIAA is handling things almost exactly as Congress intended in these matters, and more or less as well as they could handle filing these lawsuits. The only possible frivolity I can see is in filing lawsuits over file sharing in the first place, and any court which rules this way will fundamentally change copyright forever. With this conservative court, I don't expect this to happen.
The actions taken by Apple are simply truths. They did file the lawsuit (though I was a bit off on the timeframe.) They do use DRM on their OS, and they do so while condemning it in the music that they sell. None of that is disputable. And they're reasons that a person might dislike Apple as a company--particularly people on Slashdot, who tend to be anti-frivolous-lawsuit and anti-DRM, so it should come as no surprise that these particular aspects would be brought up in a conversation. I never said that my opinion was that Apple was bad, or that Apple was bad because of these reasons, but that these might be reasons to hate Apple.
It's not my fault that you inferred incorrectly. I really thought that it was enough for me to mention that one of the reasons to hate Apple was only in my post because I had a similar reason to hate Microsoft. I guess I was wrong.
Not necessarily. I guess that it depends upon the hardware. There are three groups we can be discussing: a) All 32-bit hardware. b) 64-bit hardware with limitations on the MMU that ultimately restrict (to various degrees) mapping of high portions of memory. b) 64-bit hardware with an MMU that does not have the above restriction.
All modern operating systems on hardware platform a are going to have problems seeing 4GB of RAM. All modern 64-bit operating systems on hardware platform b (including Windows Vista 64) will be able to map the full range of memory, less whatever is mapped or reserved for devices. This is the hardware platform that I was referencing. More on this later. All modern 64-bit operating systems on hardware platform c should be able to see the full amount of RAM. This seems to be the hardware platform to which you're referring.
The specific issue I had was with a 64-bit, dual-core Athlon processor and a motherboard (I don't remember the brand, much less the model.) The board was advertised as capable of accepting 4 gigabytes of RAM, but when I put four gigabyte sticks in, Linux told me that it was only able to use 3.25. This was 64-bit Linux with a kernel that should have allowed the full amount to be accessed. After I ran into this, I started researching the issue and discovered the cause.
Please reread my post, then reply back with the precise quote where I stated that I hated Apple for any reason. I was giving reasons why a person might hate Apple, not stating my own personal opinions.
I don't know whether to hope that you're trolling (meaning that it's one more asshole on Slashdot) or just can't read (meaning it's one more idiot on Slashdot.)
I guess this is a little off-topic, but it bears mentioning since people constantly refer to the slippery slope fallacy as though it negates any attempt to guess at future events.
It's only a slippery slope fallacy if it pre-supposes that an outcome will occur at the end of a chain of events given the starting link. In the post that the parent replied to, no chain of events was produced, and all that the poster did was list some possibilities for abuse of the modular-subscription model. In fact, what was imagined was eerily similar to the way some major vendors act.
You hate APPLE for that lawsuit??? I didn't say that I did. As I said quite clearly, I only mentioned that lawsuit because I hold a similar grudge against Microsoft--a grudge concerning quite old behavior of theirs.
I sincerely hope that Apple would not try to sell an "unsupported" version of their software. That is the de-facto situation right now anyway, since anyone can buy a copy of Leopard and hack it onto "unsupported" hardware. The only thing worse than vendor lock-in would be lack of vendor support. I think Linux nicely fills in the niche of a modern OS without any support. They don't have to sell an unsupported version. Really, it would be enough if they just didn't send C&Ds to sites explaining how to get around the DRM. Ideally, though, they'd sell a version which only supports Apple hardware--just like they do now, but without the artificial lock-in, so that power users get the choice of running it, and average users don't see the difference.
The DRM on the OS is in the bit of code that checks for a proprietary chip on the motherboard to ensure that OS X isn't installed or booted from non-Apple hardware. Given projects like OSX86, it's pretty clear that the only limitation is this artificial one.
DRM on the OS? If you mean the fact that you can't install the OS on any computer you want, see my comment above. The key word in my point was really arbitrary. There's no technical reason for disallowing OS X to run on any x86-based platform. In most of the cases you refer to, there wasn't clone-hardware to run the OS on, so the issue never really came up.
A good example of a company doing it the friendlier way is Sun. OpenSolaris can be run on non-Sun hardware.
But on the other hand, the fact that they released an X11 window manager application with OS X for free when they released OS X (even before releasing, it was in the beta IIRC) means that they aren't always as controlling as that. I didn't think that X11 itself was the subject of an Apple lawsuit--specifically, I thought it was the window managers which were run on top of it.
Regardless, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to let as much software run on top of OS X as they can, so building in compatibility layers makes perfect sense. I don't think that releasing an X11 window manager for OS X is Apple trying to be open so much as it's Apple trying to get as much software to run on their platform as possible.
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Any time there's a limited resource, monopolies can form "naturally" simply by one corporation buying up all of that resource. Monopolies can also form when one company can severely undercut the competition long enough for the competition to go out of business (see Microsoft in the 90s.)
Anyway, I wasn't intending to imply that most monopolies aren't government-granted--I was trying to point out that it's still a monopoly even if it is government granted. The person to whom I responded seemed to think that the term wasn't appropriate.
I agree that parallelism is more easily (and transparently) used at the OS level, but that doesn't mean that we don't need to start moving that way in applications, too. As we move towards a point where extracting more speed out of the silicon becomes harder and harder, we're going to see more and more need for parallelism. For a lot of applications, it's going to be irrelevant, but for anything at all CPU intensive (working with video, games, etc.) it's going to eventually be the way of the future.
I wasn't using it as a chess term, I was using it as a in "checking an item off of the list of things which are censorship, since apparently it isn't."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. [1] Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods. [2] Alternatively (a modern and less common usage), it may be used as a verb or adjective to refer to the process (see Monopolism) by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition. The latter usage of the term is invoked in the theory of monopolistic competition. So yes, patents are monopolies--they're just government granted.
Gotcha. Shoving protestors into an area where they cannot be seen isn't censorship. Check.
It's also how PalmOS has worked for years. Most of the people I know ditched Palm in favor of any smartphone that didn't kill their various connections after switching apps.
A few vendor-supplied applications would work in the background. Mail would poll, music would play, etc. Most applications had to use the state-saving trick you described. Frankly, it's pretty awful. If the iPhone didn't do just about everything I want out of the box, it wouldn't even be a consideration for my next phone. As it is, I'd like to be able to switch out of an SSH session, go to my browser, check something, and then go back. It doesn't sound like this will be possible with the SDK.
That's fair, I guess, though I don't think that it's reasonable to only discuss one facet of life if you're concerned about a police state (which the original poster explicitly mentioned.)
Or you could...you know...block all of China's address space from sending you mail. That's effectively what you're doing with this tactic.
Then there's the workers. In China, a person working in a factory for a full day will make less than an American working on American soil does in one hour (given minimum wage plus benefits mandated by law.) Now that money that they make goes a lot further over there, so even if they're being underpaid, it's not by the margin that most people reading this would immediately expect. Nonetheless, it's another cost of doing business that would skyrocket if it was handled over here.
There are different forms of censorship, and you're only focusing on one of them.
One form is not allowing people access to content by blocking it. That's what China does.
Another way to censor is to fine people who display unwanted content. The US uses this to keep "bad language", images of a sexual nature, etc. off of non-premium television stations.
Another form of censorship involves controlling the media. The current administration does this primarily by blacklisting reporters who don't play nicely. Ask a question that's not on the list of safe topics, and good luck interviewing anyone in the government again.
Banning demonstrations are also a form of censorship, and another form that the US engages in. Search for "free speech zones" for a better understanding.
You forgot to put the word keep in quotation marks.
If it's DRMed, you don't get to keep it. You get to watch it until the content provider decrees that you can't anymore.
What happens when, just like the .com and housing ones, this bubble bursts? $3.5 million down the drain, that's what.
Dear God, what is your problem?
I'll spell it out further, and perhaps in a way that you can understand.
Apple file lawsuit.
Lawsuit lost.
Many Slashdot users think lawsuit frivolous.
Sancho comment on reasons to hate Apple.
Sancho include lawsuit in list of possible reasons.
Sancho list groups of people who might hate Apple for these reasons.
Group includes anti-frivolous lawsuit crowd.
I was never stating opinion in any of this--what part of that is so hard for you to understand?
This will be my last word on the subject. I'm sorry that I've gotten a little hot-headed, but the apparent unwillingness to even try to understand what I'm writing here has been fairly frustrating. If you were really trolling me, well, congrats. I guess you won. If not, you really just don't belong here. In either case, good day to you.
I think that it's unlikely that the SCOTUS will even hear the case. If they do, I think that they're not likely to rule in favor of automatic attorney fees.
Like it or not, the RIAA is handling things almost exactly as Congress intended in these matters, and more or less as well as they could handle filing these lawsuits. The only possible frivolity I can see is in filing lawsuits over file sharing in the first place, and any court which rules this way will fundamentally change copyright forever. With this conservative court, I don't expect this to happen.
The actions taken by Apple are simply truths. They did file the lawsuit (though I was a bit off on the timeframe.) They do use DRM on their OS, and they do so while condemning it in the music that they sell. None of that is disputable. And they're reasons that a person might dislike Apple as a company--particularly people on Slashdot, who tend to be anti-frivolous-lawsuit and anti-DRM, so it should come as no surprise that these particular aspects would be brought up in a conversation. I never said that my opinion was that Apple was bad, or that Apple was bad because of these reasons, but that these might be reasons to hate Apple.
It's not my fault that you inferred incorrectly. I really thought that it was enough for me to mention that one of the reasons to hate Apple was only in my post because I had a similar reason to hate Microsoft. I guess I was wrong.
Not necessarily. I guess that it depends upon the hardware. There are three groups we can be discussing:
a) All 32-bit hardware.
b) 64-bit hardware with limitations on the MMU that ultimately restrict (to various degrees) mapping of high portions of memory.
b) 64-bit hardware with an MMU that does not have the above restriction.
All modern operating systems on hardware platform a are going to have problems seeing 4GB of RAM.
All modern 64-bit operating systems on hardware platform b (including Windows Vista 64) will be able to map the full range of memory, less whatever is mapped or reserved for devices. This is the hardware platform that I was referencing. More on this later.
All modern 64-bit operating systems on hardware platform c should be able to see the full amount of RAM. This seems to be the hardware platform to which you're referring.
The specific issue I had was with a 64-bit, dual-core Athlon processor and a motherboard (I don't remember the brand, much less the model.) The board was advertised as capable of accepting 4 gigabytes of RAM, but when I put four gigabyte sticks in, Linux told me that it was only able to use 3.25. This was 64-bit Linux with a kernel that should have allowed the full amount to be accessed. After I ran into this, I started researching the issue and discovered the cause.
Please reread my post, then reply back with the precise quote where I stated that I hated Apple for any reason. I was giving reasons why a person might hate Apple, not stating my own personal opinions.
I don't know whether to hope that you're trolling (meaning that it's one more asshole on Slashdot) or just can't read (meaning it's one more idiot on Slashdot.)
Not necessarily. It still depends upon your hardware, regardless of the operating system that you use. This site has an explanation of the 4GB to 3GB problem.
I guess this is a little off-topic, but it bears mentioning since people constantly refer to the slippery slope fallacy as though it negates any attempt to guess at future events.
It's only a slippery slope fallacy if it pre-supposes that an outcome will occur at the end of a chain of events given the starting link. In the post that the parent replied to, no chain of events was produced, and all that the poster did was list some possibilities for abuse of the modular-subscription model. In fact, what was imagined was eerily similar to the way some major vendors act.
I had that same problem on Linux. It was a hardware design limitation.
The DRM on the OS is in the bit of code that checks for a proprietary chip on the motherboard to ensure that OS X isn't installed or booted from non-Apple hardware. Given projects like OSX86, it's pretty clear that the only limitation is this artificial one.
A good example of a company doing it the friendlier way is Sun. OpenSolaris can be run on non-Sun hardware. But on the other hand, the fact that they released an X11 window manager application with OS X for free when they released OS X (even before releasing, it was in the beta IIRC) means that they aren't always as controlling as that. I didn't think that X11 itself was the subject of an Apple lawsuit--specifically, I thought it was the window managers which were run on top of it.
Regardless, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to let as much software run on top of OS X as they can, so building in compatibility layers makes perfect sense. I don't think that releasing an X11 window manager for OS X is Apple trying to be open so much as it's Apple trying to get as much software to run on their platform as possible.