You begin with the incorrect axiom that each person produces a fixed quantity of hate.
I, for one, and not a hater of bad grammar, but if I was I'm sure I could get all bent out of shape over people using "it's" when they mean "its" without any reduction of hatred towards people who don't signal lane changes, terrorists, or the Los Angeles Lakers.
Back to the topic at hand, the summary wasn't just guilty of making a few grammar mistakes; it was completely uninteligible. There are chunks of the slash code which are easier to read. None of this matters, though. I've long since given up on carving any useful information from Slashdot story summaries, and have completely given up hope on the linked stories ever turning out to be even half as useful as what a Google News search of the summary's main keywords would have yielded.
Slashdot is a chat room with (relatively) recent news items used to kick off the conversation. That's all it is, and probably all it ever will be. It's still a good way to kill time when waiting for shit to load on the projects I'm working on.
If you didn't know, here is a clue: some people don't care to be lost in some fanciful world and would rather be engaged with other people in some form of itneraction.
The way everybody was so close and friendly with each other on New York subways before the invention of the Sony Walkman? The world you live in sounds like it must be really nice. I wouldn't know, as I've never seen it.
Seriously, you sound like a total ass when you assume that you KNOW the reason why other people bought their iPods. I can only speak for myself and those close to me: We buy them to listen to music on, and don't care what the fuck people think about them. When they are not in use for the stated purpose of listening to music, they are hidden away in pockets, glove boxes, handbags, etc.
Why would anybody think of a small hunk of personal electronics as a "status symbol" anyway? It's barely visible, cheaper than jewelry, and usually tucked out of sight. You might as well try to convince me that women who buy expensive vibrators are only getting them because they want to be part of the "in crowd." My first guess is that they are getting them for their own personal satisfaction, and don't really care whether they impress anybody or not.
The pronoun here should of course be "whom" and not "who"
I'm pretty sure the current edition of Strunk & White agrees with you, but many professional writers and professors will tell you that common usage has rendered "whom" somewhat obsolete in American English at this point. You can replace it with "who" and get away with it in almost all cases.
The kind of stuff where once pointed it out, seems incredible obvious and will bug you everytime you use the software.
Fair enough, but if anything I see less of that stuff in Apple's software than out in the Open Source arena, where there seems to be a mad rush to make apps work as much like Microsoft's crap as possible, and often apps fall short of clearing that very low bar.
I was just commenting on how everyone seems to now need an MP3 player to be part of the in crowd...
Yes. It's all about status and conformity. The amazing convenience of having your whole music collection handy at all times for your personal entertainment can't possibly have anything to do with why MP3 players are so popular with people. We are all cattle, and you are soooooo special for not moving with the herd.
You go right on being the only person waiting in line at the DMV who's bored out of his skull. I'll be with the other cattle, listening to whatever music strikes my fancy at the moment, blissfully unaware of how much less cool I am than you.
As a roadmap for OSX, I recommend the following: 1. Fix kernel/stability problems.
Did you cut-and-paste this whole post from a critique of the 10.0 beta???
I've been running three macs 24/7 without reboots (other than upgrades) for years now (one in the media room, one in the music studio, and an iBook for everything else), and the only kernel-level problem I ever had in all that time was traced back to a defective bridge circuit on an external Firewire hard drive. OS X boxen are freakishly solid.
Please note that I did not call iTunes the best music playing app out there.
I called it "the only one worth getting excited over." From the heat of the debate which followed (to the extent that everything else I said was completely ignored), I would say my statement is pretty well supported. Who would ever spend this much time arguing over the UI decisions made by Media Monkey?
Lack of WMA & OGG support, and an "ugly" interface are both valid criticisms, if such things are important to you, but iTunes stands out for several reasons:
1) AAC. It's a standard codec, superior to MP3 in several ways, which many other players are lagging behind in supporting, and the ideal codec for use with an iPod (which is the same as saying "the ideal codec for 90% of the MP3 Players out there.")
2) Apple Lossless. Yes, there are a couple of other players out there which support FLAC, which is another lossless compression codec. If I own an iPod (see point one), guess which one I'll want to use for music I don't want in a lossy format?
3) iTMS. This is huge. An "a la carte" music store seamlessly within the application. Since it came out, I flat-out stopped looking around at what other music apps are out there.
4) Database-driven file management, with user playlists and auto-synch with MP3 players. Far from the only player which does this, but it does it really, really well.
5) The visualizer. Sure, almost every player has one of these things... and on most other players, they really, really suck. Microsoft's is slightly less interesting than a screen-saver app. When I'm playing music in my media room and turn the iPod visualizer on across my 119" widescreen, people gape in wonder at it. Throw on "Dark Side of the Moon", and it's even better than those "Laser Floyd" shows that used to be popular at planetariums. Seriously, if you haven't spend a few minutes watching it in full-screen mode, you probably are not aware of exactly how well it was done. (And it keeps getting better with each iTunes update!)
As for the "large memory footprint" complaint... What is this, 1991? Who gives a crap?
Woz is no Apple basher. If he's bitching about their software, then he honestly does not like the direction they are taking.
That said, I can't help but wonder if he is looking at the same Apple software as me.
Garage Band 2 is my very life blood. I *love* that app! X-Code is the bizz-omb. Pages and Keynote are really neat. iTunes is the only desktop music player worth getting excited over. Safari is a pretty good browser.
All I can think is that he must be really, really down on Searchlight and the Dashboard, because those are the only two flubs I can think of to have come out of Cupertino lately... and Searchlight is actually growing on me.
As for the Dashboard... meh. I use it a little, because it's right there, waiting to show me the weather forcast and what-have-you, but I would not exactly weep if it were scrapped in 10.5.
I would be very surprised if the term "MP3 player" remains in use if they become terribly popular. It's only a term "everyone uses" as long as "everyone" is a small subset of the population.
Wow. You mean you actually know somebody who doesn't own one?
When is he going to start bragging about it on the Internet, like those nutty crackpots who choose not to own TV sets and can't shut up about it?
This is Japan we're talking about. That kid is right up their alley.
I'd say the fact that it creeps westerners out shows that they did their market research. If you don't think Japanese soft-core tastes are creepy, take a look at the free pencil box art that shipped with the "R.O.D the TV" DVD's sometime. Particularilly the pin-up of Hisa.
Yeesh. I now need to somehow scrub my brain out after remembering the sight of it. Hello, beer!
Sooooo, what I think everyone wants to know is -- will DOA Volleyball be a whole `new` game?
DOA eXtreme Beach Volleyball, (a.k.a., the Greatest Game Evar!) is not on the compatability list.
This is 90% of the reason why I have not purchased an X-Box 360 yet. I can live with being a year behind Playstation owners on the GTA franchise, but no DOAX is a deal-breaker. I gots ta have my Yuri Sentai dating sim with the bolted-on volleyball game, or life loses all meaning.
First of all Michael Jackson only owns publishing rights, only jointly owns them, and does not own the entire catalog.
Sony (by far the biggest record label out there... more accurately a massive owner of several huge labels) has right of first refusal on the part of the Beatles catalog which Jackson jointly owns with ATV (one of the labels Sony owns), so if Apple Computer wanted to buy the Beatles music, they would have to negotiate with Sony to do it.
The reason that the Music Industry is so excited about screwing up iTMs that it *does* promote music better than FM radio.
Is that any different from when MTV stole the promotional power of radio in the 80s? iTMS just becomes the newest promotional tool for the labels to manipulate. Go to the iTMS front page, and you will see an explosion of ads for big-label stuff.
(Not to mention the "recommendations" avenue which is shockingly open to payola, should Apple become interested in playing that game... and I'm willing to bet that a couple larege suitcases full of money could make them very interested.)
Right now Apple sells primarily music that they get from the record labels, but if iTMS becomes the primary way that people pay for music then the terms will almost certainly change. Apple will simply cut out the middlemen and start signing up recording artists itself.
Only if they are willing to pay a multi-billion dollar settlement to Apple Records and change the name of their company. Personally, I'm casting my vote for them calling themselves NeXT.:)
But we all know the RIAA is there to make their customers as unhappy as possible, so indeed, they are trying to fix what is not broken.
Actually, the RIAA is there to establish industry recording standards and act as an organizing force for legal representation or a political lobbying presense when the needs of the various recording companies happen to coincide.
Also, lately, they have served the purpose of being a convenient scape-goat to shield the real corporate villains from criticism.
Maybe it's time for the music industry to drop iTunes and find a proper online music store that is set up to maximize its profit, then the supplier and retailer will have the same goal.
In an "ideal" world, that would be the way to go.
Just like in an "ideal" world, no supplier of home electronics would ever deal with Wal-Mart, who seems more interested in being a massive retailer of inexpensive goods than maximizing the profits of their suppliers.
But we are talking about business, not ideals. iTMS is where the customers are, therefore any label who wants all that wonderful, soft, fluffy, on-line music sales money, they need to deal with iTMS.
Anything you see the record companies do in regards to online sales at this point, in my opinion, is a self preserving act.
The thing is, iTunes has, so far, proven to be their most likely route to salvation.
iTMS works with the labels. Their store runs promotions at their request, and buys music only through the major labels (or large music groups, in the case of "indie" music), rather than run a label of its own or simply pirate files from a country beyond copyright enforcement powers (as allofmp3.com does.)
They've already poured millions into the coffers of the record labels. While I still insist on the "lossless" 14.4K digital format of CD's for jazz and various hi-fi recordings, I've probably purchaced more pop music in the last three years than in the previous twenty, for the simple reason that Apple's dollar-a-song model makes it far easier for me to get the songs I want. Not only do I buy more music than ever via iTunes, but often times my iTunes purchace of one or two songs makes me want to go out and buy the rest of the disk.
So here you have this new revenue stream, which also happens to do a better job of promoting new music than FM radio, and these short-sighted fools from certain record labels can't wait to fuck it all up.
Either the record exectives making these decisions are alarmingly stupid about their own best interests, or else there's some other factor at play that I'm simply not smart enough to see.
(Fears of Apple eventually devouring them? A desire to lose money as a tax write-off for their parent companies? What?)
It just looks to me like they're killing the goose which laid the golden egg.
Specific evidence? Given, above. Ignored (by you), above.
Parent post was asking for specific evidence of a large marketing campaign, and emphatically was asking for more than "some vague reference to digital photography magazine and websites."
Nowhere in your "above" posts is any such specific evidence given. Care to try again?
Slashdot Mirror
I, for one, and not a hater of bad grammar
s/and/am
(sigh)
Something about discussing grammar which seems to bring out the worst writers in us all.
You begin with the incorrect axiom that each person produces a fixed quantity of hate.
I, for one, and not a hater of bad grammar, but if I was I'm sure I could get all bent out of shape over people using "it's" when they mean "its" without any reduction of hatred towards people who don't signal lane changes, terrorists, or the Los Angeles Lakers.
Back to the topic at hand, the summary wasn't just guilty of making a few grammar mistakes; it was completely uninteligible. There are chunks of the slash code which are easier to read. None of this matters, though. I've long since given up on carving any useful information from Slashdot story summaries, and have completely given up hope on the linked stories ever turning out to be even half as useful as what a Google News search of the summary's main keywords would have yielded.
Slashdot is a chat room with (relatively) recent news items used to kick off the conversation. That's all it is, and probably all it ever will be. It's still a good way to kill time when waiting for shit to load on the projects I'm working on.
If you didn't know, here is a clue: some people don't care to be lost in some fanciful world and would rather be engaged with other people in some form of itneraction.
The way everybody was so close and friendly with each other on New York subways before the invention of the Sony Walkman? The world you live in sounds like it must be really nice. I wouldn't know, as I've never seen it.
Seriously, you sound like a total ass when you assume that you KNOW the reason why other people bought their iPods. I can only speak for myself and those close to me: We buy them to listen to music on, and don't care what the fuck people think about them. When they are not in use for the stated purpose of listening to music, they are hidden away in pockets, glove boxes, handbags, etc.
Why would anybody think of a small hunk of personal electronics as a "status symbol" anyway? It's barely visible, cheaper than jewelry, and usually tucked out of sight. You might as well try to convince me that women who buy expensive vibrators are only getting them because they want to be part of the "in crowd." My first guess is that they are getting them for their own personal satisfaction, and don't really care whether they impress anybody or not.
The pronoun here should of course be "whom" and not "who"
I'm pretty sure the current edition of Strunk & White agrees with you, but many professional writers and professors will tell you that common usage has rendered "whom" somewhat obsolete in American English at this point. You can replace it with "who" and get away with it in almost all cases.
The kind of stuff where once pointed it out, seems incredible obvious and will bug you everytime you use the software.
Fair enough, but if anything I see less of that stuff in Apple's software than out in the Open Source arena, where there seems to be a mad rush to make apps work as much like Microsoft's crap as possible, and often apps fall short of clearing that very low bar.
I was just commenting on how everyone seems to now need an MP3 player to be part of the in crowd...
Yes. It's all about status and conformity. The amazing convenience of having your whole music collection handy at all times for your personal entertainment can't possibly have anything to do with why MP3 players are so popular with people. We are all cattle, and you are soooooo special for not moving with the herd.
You go right on being the only person waiting in line at the DMV who's bored out of his skull. I'll be with the other cattle, listening to whatever music strikes my fancy at the moment, blissfully unaware of how much less cool I am than you.
As a roadmap for OSX, I recommend the following:
1. Fix kernel/stability problems.
Did you cut-and-paste this whole post from a critique of the 10.0 beta???
I've been running three macs 24/7 without reboots (other than upgrades) for years now (one in the media room, one in the music studio, and an iBook for everything else), and the only kernel-level problem I ever had in all that time was traced back to a defective bridge circuit on an external Firewire hard drive. OS X boxen are freakishly solid.
Please note that I did not call iTunes the best music playing app out there.
I called it "the only one worth getting excited over." From the heat of the debate which followed (to the extent that everything else I said was completely ignored), I would say my statement is pretty well supported. Who would ever spend this much time arguing over the UI decisions made by Media Monkey?
Lack of WMA & OGG support, and an "ugly" interface are both valid criticisms, if such things are important to you, but iTunes stands out for several reasons:
1) AAC. It's a standard codec, superior to MP3 in several ways, which many other players are lagging behind in supporting, and the ideal codec for use with an iPod (which is the same as saying "the ideal codec for 90% of the MP3 Players out there.")
2) Apple Lossless. Yes, there are a couple of other players out there which support FLAC, which is another lossless compression codec. If I own an iPod (see point one), guess which one I'll want to use for music I don't want in a lossy format?
3) iTMS. This is huge. An "a la carte" music store seamlessly within the application. Since it came out, I flat-out stopped looking around at what other music apps are out there.
4) Database-driven file management, with user playlists and auto-synch with MP3 players. Far from the only player which does this, but it does it really, really well.
5) The visualizer. Sure, almost every player has one of these things... and on most other players, they really, really suck. Microsoft's is slightly less interesting than a screen-saver app. When I'm playing music in my media room and turn the iPod visualizer on across my 119" widescreen, people gape in wonder at it. Throw on "Dark Side of the Moon", and it's even better than those "Laser Floyd" shows that used to be popular at planetariums. Seriously, if you haven't spend a few minutes watching it in full-screen mode, you probably are not aware of exactly how well it was done. (And it keeps getting better with each iTunes update!)
As for the "large memory footprint" complaint... What is this, 1991? Who gives a crap?
But I'm not bitter.
Woz is no Apple basher. If he's bitching about their software, then he honestly does not like the direction they are taking.
That said, I can't help but wonder if he is looking at the same Apple software as me.
Garage Band 2 is my very life blood. I *love* that app!
X-Code is the bizz-omb.
Pages and Keynote are really neat.
iTunes is the only desktop music player worth getting excited over.
Safari is a pretty good browser.
All I can think is that he must be really, really down on Searchlight and the Dashboard, because those are the only two flubs I can think of to have come out of Cupertino lately... and Searchlight is actually growing on me.
As for the Dashboard... meh. I use it a little, because it's right there, waiting to show me the weather forcast and what-have-you, but I would not exactly weep if it were scrapped in 10.5.
I would be very surprised if the term "MP3 player" remains in use if they become terribly popular. It's only a term "everyone uses" as long as "everyone" is a small subset of the population.
Wow. You mean you actually know somebody who doesn't own one?
When is he going to start bragging about it on the Internet, like those nutty crackpots who choose not to own TV sets and can't shut up about it?
Best "In Soviet Russia" post I've seen in months. Thanks for that, except you owe me one keyboard.
To what extent are we fat, overpaid, and lazy, and to what extent are we just victims of $2500 mortgage payments?
I'm glad you are only asking about extent, because we are clearly both.
This is Japan we're talking about. That kid is right up their alley.
I'd say the fact that it creeps westerners out shows that they did their market research. If you don't think Japanese soft-core tastes are creepy, take a look at the free pencil box art that shipped with the "R.O.D the TV" DVD's sometime. Particularilly the pin-up of Hisa.
Yeesh. I now need to somehow scrub my brain out after remembering the sight of it. Hello, beer!
The author probably could have writen a similar article about the internet in the early days.
;)
What? You mean like an anti-frames rant?
That's crazy talk!
"Why do you say I'm a virus?"
"How does thinking I'm a virus make you feel?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Come, come. Elucidate your feelings."
Sooooo, what I think everyone wants to know is -- will DOA Volleyball be a whole `new` game?
DOA eXtreme Beach Volleyball, (a.k.a., the Greatest Game Evar!) is not on the compatability list.
This is 90% of the reason why I have not purchased an X-Box 360 yet. I can live with being a year behind Playstation owners on the GTA franchise, but no DOAX is a deal-breaker. I gots ta have my Yuri Sentai dating sim with the bolted-on volleyball game, or life loses all meaning.
Yes, I live alone... Why do you ask?
First of all Michael Jackson only owns publishing rights, only jointly owns them, and does not own the entire catalog.
Sony (by far the biggest record label out there... more accurately a massive owner of several huge labels) has right of first refusal on the part of the Beatles catalog which Jackson jointly owns with ATV (one of the labels Sony owns), so if Apple Computer wanted to buy the Beatles music, they would have to negotiate with Sony to do it.
In other words: Fat chance.
For the strait dope on the subject: http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.htm
Don't blame Apple Computer for this
Who's blaming? I'm not saying it's a Good Thing or Bad Thing; I'm just saying how it is.
My point is that Apple's current aproach is very, very good for the labels, and those labels are fools not to see it.
The reason that the Music Industry is so excited about screwing up iTMs that it *does* promote music better than FM radio.
:)
Is that any different from when MTV stole the promotional power of radio in the 80s? iTMS just becomes the newest promotional tool for the labels to manipulate. Go to the iTMS front page, and you will see an explosion of ads for big-label stuff.
(Not to mention the "recommendations" avenue which is shockingly open to payola, should Apple become interested in playing that game... and I'm willing to bet that a couple larege suitcases full of money could make them very interested.)
Right now Apple sells primarily music that they get from the record labels, but if iTMS becomes the primary way that people pay for music then the terms will almost certainly change. Apple will simply cut out the middlemen and start signing up recording artists itself.
Only if they are willing to pay a multi-billion dollar settlement to Apple Records and change the name of their company. Personally, I'm casting my vote for them calling themselves NeXT.
Aren't we way past the point that artificial scarcity of media files will fool anybody?
(Apart from "limited" DVD releases of Disney movies, anyway. Those still seem to sell like hotcakes at absurd prices.)
But we all know the RIAA is there to make their customers as unhappy as possible, so indeed, they are trying to fix what is not broken.
Actually, the RIAA is there to establish industry recording standards and act as an organizing force for legal representation or a political lobbying presense when the needs of the various recording companies happen to coincide.
Also, lately, they have served the purpose of being a convenient scape-goat to shield the real corporate villains from criticism.
Maybe it's time for the music industry to drop iTunes and find a proper online music store that is set up to maximize its profit, then the supplier and retailer will have the same goal.
In an "ideal" world, that would be the way to go.
Just like in an "ideal" world, no supplier of home electronics would ever deal with Wal-Mart, who seems more interested in being a massive retailer of inexpensive goods than maximizing the profits of their suppliers.
But we are talking about business, not ideals. iTMS is where the customers are, therefore any label who wants all that wonderful, soft, fluffy, on-line music sales money, they need to deal with iTMS.
Anything you see the record companies do in regards to online sales at this point, in my opinion, is a self preserving act.
The thing is, iTunes has, so far, proven to be their most likely route to salvation.
iTMS works with the labels. Their store runs promotions at their request, and buys music only through the major labels (or large music groups, in the case of "indie" music), rather than run a label of its own or simply pirate files from a country beyond copyright enforcement powers (as allofmp3.com does.)
They've already poured millions into the coffers of the record labels. While I still insist on the "lossless" 14.4K digital format of CD's for jazz and various hi-fi recordings, I've probably purchaced more pop music in the last three years than in the previous twenty, for the simple reason that Apple's dollar-a-song model makes it far easier for me to get the songs I want. Not only do I buy more music than ever via iTunes, but often times my iTunes purchace of one or two songs makes me want to go out and buy the rest of the disk.
So here you have this new revenue stream, which also happens to do a better job of promoting new music than FM radio, and these short-sighted fools from certain record labels can't wait to fuck it all up.
Either the record exectives making these decisions are alarmingly stupid about their own best interests, or else there's some other factor at play that I'm simply not smart enough to see.
(Fears of Apple eventually devouring them? A desire to lose money as a tax write-off for their parent companies? What?)
It just looks to me like they're killing the goose which laid the golden egg.
Those of us involved with digital imaging have seen quite a bit of Aperture hype for months. Apparently, you haven't. Great.
And just what about that "hype" could possibly have cost them a "kajillion" dollars?
You keep dodging the question. Is it possible that you finally what you said in the first place was not only wrong, but idiotic?
Specific evidence? Given, above. Ignored (by you), above.
Parent post was asking for specific evidence of a large marketing campaign, and emphatically was asking for more than "some vague reference to digital photography magazine and websites."
Nowhere in your "above" posts is any such specific evidence given. Care to try again?