"Math? Reading and Writing? Those aren't cultural values, those are the basis of civilization."
Hardly. Plenty of civilizations existed without these things. Of course, not "Modern" civilization.
As recently as 500 years ago, there were whole cultures that lived that had no concept of reading, writing and math beyond basic counting.
Those things ARE values you have. They do not denote civilization. If you call them uncivilized, you'd be wrong.
And by the way, I also work in education;) I value education, but I also know others don't. My point remains, education is a value of our culture, other cultures don't have the same values.
You should visit the natives of the Amazon Jungle and test your theory out. Or are you calling those people "Uncivilized" because they don't hold the same value system as you?
You are missing the fourth option. Which is for Comcast to become a CDN, like Level3 just did. The fact is, Comcast is already a CDN for its own offering (video on demand). They have the infrastructure already in place, and know how to do "streaming video" just fine.
This is what I would be doing if I were Comcast, directly negotiate CDN services with Netflix, and then sell that as a FEATURE for servicing their customers.
The problem is we don't have people like me at places like Comcast, people who see problems as opportunities in disguise. THIS is huge opportunity where Comcast can really affect more than their local telco monopoly, and in a positive way for their customers with little or no need to change much of their business model, while increasing profits and keeping costs down.
It is stupid for Comcast NOT to go into the CDN market, since they already are in it... sort of.
Exactly how do you educate children whose parents don't value the same things as you? Educate according to your standards, and not the culture and values of the parents? Only option for that is to take the kids from the parents.
So, you want to take kids from their parents and indoctrinate them to your culture and values. How very enlightened of you.
The very idea that people may not have the same culture and values as you, and that yours are somehow better than theirs is typical ivory tower socialism teaching.
It is NOT easy to change a cultural value system, short of forcibly removing children from their culture (and parents).
I said "engines and parts"... of course if you strip out "engine" it makes less sense. And of course you COULD put a Chevy engine in a Ford, but chances are, your mounts won't fit without some adjustments, perhaps even having to make your own system to get it mounted.
And don't even get me started on the Radio/Stereo/CD systems in Fords...
The problem with your assumption is that those that live in regimes that foster terrorists want things like "education", and that building schools and whatnot would help. I can assure you that when fighting third century mentalities you cannot think like modern humans, they don't have the same values you do. If you think it is easy to change a person's values, let me come live with you for a year and let me see if I can change your values to mine (I'm sure we have great differences). If you don't want to change your values, I cannot make you change them.
To these people only one thing matters, and it isn't what you've been told by Fox News or MSNBC. They want the whole world to be Muslim, and will stop at nothing to achieve this. THAT is their purpose; their goal. Nothing else matters and anything that gets in the way is worthy of waging Jihad against. When you hear the word Jihad, it doesn't mean what you think it means, but it does explain why they are willing to die and kill for Islam.
Until we have people realize that the best way to deal with it is simply announce the next terrorist bomb done by Islamists will incur the wrath, and we'll bomb one Mosques at a time and eventually will nuke Mecca so that no Muslim could ever make pilgrimage again, if they continue their cause. Not because we want to, but because that is the only thing they value more than their own life.
But we (the west) are completely unwilling to do what it takes, and that is why we're inevitably going to lose the "war on terror".
You cannot stop crime. You can only interdict crime after it has happened.
I said STOP crime, not PREVENT. These are two different things. We prevent crime by installing deterrents (punishments) and safeguards (locks, alarms etc).
Police are the official response to crimes that are in the process or have already been committed. They cannot protect everyone or even most people. They can only show up after it is all done and over for most crimes.
To protect? vaguely true, but only in the sense of preventing MORE crime by existing criminals, by arresting them so they cannot repeat their crimes.
so don't buy iPhone and don't worry about Apple's shenanigans. It really is that simple folks. Apple will learn one way or another, and either adapt or die.
If sufficient number of people take issue with Apple's App Store policies, they will lose market share to Android and the others. We still have a choice, so choose.
14.7 million phones in the quarter ending Sept 30 is... upper income bracket?
I'm guessing you think anyone making 50k a year is "upper income bracket"?
As for the race to the bottom, Apple is indeed "competitive" in pricing, it just doesn't have to have the "lowest price" like others do to gain sales. Value added features of Macs and the other devices is what differentiates Apple from the "me too" computer companies, which all have Windows 7. The distinction between HP, Dell, Acer, and so on is one that is primarily price driven, which is that proverbial race to the bottom.
But then again, Apple gets to reap those rewards as well, don't they? Sometimes I don't think they aren't even playing the same game.
Compared to average person (my wife and kids) yeah. AND Why would you want to drag n drop, delete and add copy and paste music to E:\mp3player\tunes\artist\album\random.mp3 when checking and unchecking a box does it for you... automatically.
It doesn't have to harder than it is, and yet, that is what you're asking for.
yup, you're right. Except that Apple is experiencing growth in a recession, on items that one would think would be most affected by that recession.
Granted, it can't maintain that growth for long, but it doesn't show signs of slowing any time soon. And when Apple gets a hiccup in sales of iPhones because of Android Phones, let me know. Right now, Android is eating Symbian, Blackberry and the other's market share.
Spoken like a true geek who just doesn't get the fact that there are people out there that aren't geeks.
Everything you said is true, and yet, you are either too smart or too stupid to realize that iTunes manages all of that for your average person, so they don't have to.
About the only thing you didn't say that would have been geekier would be to say that you manage your tunes with emacs you compiled yourself.
iPods we only for Mac users at first. I saw one and saw what Creative had and iPod was better. I almost bought a Mac just to have it handle my MP3s. I know a few people who did.
If you compare the basic functionality only, there was no difference. The "marketing" was that it was easier than all the others. It still is. If you buy a MP3 player that is not iPod, what do you get to manage the tunes? WMP? WinAmp? How does it sync? Push button automatic or do you have to mount it like a drive and copy the tunes over manually? Honestly, I don't know. I just know that iPods just work, and no worries about having to learn how to get stuff done.
iPhones are the revolution in smartphones for the rest of us. Sure Blackberries existed, but they were (and still are) mostly for Corporate. iPhones made the Smartphone market. Droids are close behind.
iPads have made the Tablet market. Now everyone wants to make a tablet, and they all are copying Apple's design. And iPad is still a better tablet than exists elsewhere. Android Tablets may compete with them, but I don't see Acer, HP, Dell or any of the others that are making tablets that don't suck.
To stay extremely profitable you can't be in the race to the lowest price. This is where most other tech companies epically fail as they march forward on thinning margins until they go broke "making it up in volume".
As margins decline, you end up with capacitors that are substandard and covering up that fact as your customers leave in droves (DELL). Apple's success has always been about standing out from the rest of the Tech crowd, which allows them the comfort of profits most other companies would kill for. But most other companies love resting on their laurels (Microsoft) or attacking their customers (Oracle, SCO) in the drive to create margins.
What Apple does better than anyone else is taking existing ideas and making them better than anyone else. Slashdotters make fun of iPods, iPads and iPhones for being "lame", and not having the greatest specs, but they aren't Apple's customers, and Apple doesn't listen to them, and it shows up in the bottom line. For every slashdotter that cries "lame" there's a couple hundred average people saying "cool".
Before iPods, MP3 players existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPhones, "smart phones" existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPads, tablet computers existed but Apple did it better (and beat price expectations) (No table exists that is better even now).
Apple will find some other area that is lacking a polished product, introduce a iWhatever with a polish that is missing, and the slashdot community will cry "lame" once again. The price will be higher than "comparable" whatever, and Apple will sell gazillions in spite of what slashdot community thinks.
Apple knows how to make a profit where none seems to exist, in a market that looks like it is wallowing, in an economy that sucks. Apple will become the largest market cap company in the next 12 - 18 months. And slashdotters will say "lame" and still not get it.
Or we could have let the banks, GM and Wall Street fail.
OR we could have said "we'll give you this option, fail OR we'll bail the company out, but all common and preferred shares will become "worthless paper" The company will pay its debt with assets and profits and all future profits go to the treasury until the company is solvent enough to have an IPO, and proceeds for the IPO go to the US Treasury, up to the amount that was used to bail the company out.
There are a bunch of different ways we could have handled this, all of which would have been better for most people. The problem is, nobody has the guts to do the right thing because it is distasteful (putting it mildly).
The biggest problem is that we're not a people any more. We're a bunch of sniveling whiny bratty kids who want their allowance without having to do chores.
Nobody want to pay taxes, but everyone (most anyway) want government to pay for something they should pay for themselves. Which leaves us with Leftwing politicians promising free healthcare, and rightwing politicians promising no new taxes.
We get free healthcare, but no taxes to pay for it, and eventually we end up broke and with no healthcare for anyone, even if you could pay for it.
The problem isn't taxes, or socialistic programs. The problem is that there is no responsibility or accountability because the politicians are too far removed from the people they supposedly represent.
In my city we have roads falling apart but great art work at city hall and a pretty new park. A politician is smart. Politicians are dumb stupid panicky animals, and you know it.
Not just companies, but the government too. It was the government that seized the sites, not the corporations that asked them to. But it isn't Bush in the white house so all is good.
Slashdot Mirror
"Math? Reading and Writing? Those aren't cultural values, those are the basis of civilization."
Hardly. Plenty of civilizations existed without these things. Of course, not "Modern" civilization.
As recently as 500 years ago, there were whole cultures that lived that had no concept of reading, writing and math beyond basic counting.
Those things ARE values you have. They do not denote civilization. If you call them uncivilized, you'd be wrong.
And by the way, I also work in education ;) I value education, but I also know others don't. My point remains, education is a value of our culture, other cultures don't have the same values.
You should visit the natives of the Amazon Jungle and test your theory out. Or are you calling those people "Uncivilized" because they don't hold the same value system as you?
You are missing the fourth option. Which is for Comcast to become a CDN, like Level3 just did. The fact is, Comcast is already a CDN for its own offering (video on demand). They have the infrastructure already in place, and know how to do "streaming video" just fine.
This is what I would be doing if I were Comcast, directly negotiate CDN services with Netflix, and then sell that as a FEATURE for servicing their customers.
The problem is we don't have people like me at places like Comcast, people who see problems as opportunities in disguise. THIS is huge opportunity where Comcast can really affect more than their local telco monopoly, and in a positive way for their customers with little or no need to change much of their business model, while increasing profits and keeping costs down.
It is stupid for Comcast NOT to go into the CDN market, since they already are in it ... sort of.
You also forgot that the government often requires the sphere to have only six sides (cube). ie that it no longer even resembles the original shape.
After all, have you ever tried to stack spheres ?
Exactly how do you educate children whose parents don't value the same things as you? Educate according to your standards, and not the culture and values of the parents? Only option for that is to take the kids from the parents.
So, you want to take kids from their parents and indoctrinate them to your culture and values. How very enlightened of you.
The very idea that people may not have the same culture and values as you, and that yours are somehow better than theirs is typical ivory tower socialism teaching.
It is NOT easy to change a cultural value system, short of forcibly removing children from their culture (and parents).
....key assumption .... "rational parent" ... is in error.
They prevent girls from education, and send their boys to madrassas to learn how to be good little soldiers for the faith and jihad.
We've built schools and they bomb them and use them as cover for their operations. It doesn't work the way you think it should.
I said "engines and parts" ... of course if you strip out "engine" it makes less sense. And of course you COULD put a Chevy engine in a Ford, but chances are, your mounts won't fit without some adjustments, perhaps even having to make your own system to get it mounted.
And don't even get me started on the Radio/Stereo/CD systems in Fords ...
Nothing
Book
Real MP3 Player
Real Laptop
Real Phone
Wait for Android Tablets or something else.
You don't NEED an iPod Touch.
The problem with your assumption is that those that live in regimes that foster terrorists want things like "education", and that building schools and whatnot would help. I can assure you that when fighting third century mentalities you cannot think like modern humans, they don't have the same values you do. If you think it is easy to change a person's values, let me come live with you for a year and let me see if I can change your values to mine (I'm sure we have great differences). If you don't want to change your values, I cannot make you change them.
To these people only one thing matters, and it isn't what you've been told by Fox News or MSNBC. They want the whole world to be Muslim, and will stop at nothing to achieve this. THAT is their purpose; their goal. Nothing else matters and anything that gets in the way is worthy of waging Jihad against. When you hear the word Jihad, it doesn't mean what you think it means, but it does explain why they are willing to die and kill for Islam.
Until we have people realize that the best way to deal with it is simply announce the next terrorist bomb done by Islamists will incur the wrath, and we'll bomb one Mosques at a time and eventually will nuke Mecca so that no Muslim could ever make pilgrimage again, if they continue their cause. Not because we want to, but because that is the only thing they value more than their own life.
But we (the west) are completely unwilling to do what it takes, and that is why we're inevitably going to lose the "war on terror".
You cannot stop crime. You can only interdict crime after it has happened.
I said STOP crime, not PREVENT. These are two different things. We prevent crime by installing deterrents (punishments) and safeguards (locks, alarms etc).
Police are the official response to crimes that are in the process or have already been committed. They cannot protect everyone or even most people. They can only show up after it is all done and over for most crimes.
To protect? vaguely true, but only in the sense of preventing MORE crime by existing criminals, by arresting them so they cannot repeat their crimes.
so don't buy iPhone and don't worry about Apple's shenanigans. It really is that simple folks. Apple will learn one way or another, and either adapt or die.
If sufficient number of people take issue with Apple's App Store policies, they will lose market share to Android and the others. We still have a choice, so choose.
And in related news ... Ford Cars use only Ford Engines and Parts ... unless you root it.
It isn't a monopoly, you don't have to buy a iPhone to get a smartphone that does things the iPhone does.
Must be the second most boring day ...
14.7 million phones in the quarter ending Sept 30 is ... upper income bracket?
I'm guessing you think anyone making 50k a year is "upper income bracket"?
As for the race to the bottom, Apple is indeed "competitive" in pricing, it just doesn't have to have the "lowest price" like others do to gain sales. Value added features of Macs and the other devices is what differentiates Apple from the "me too" computer companies, which all have Windows 7. The distinction between HP, Dell, Acer, and so on is one that is primarily price driven, which is that proverbial race to the bottom.
But then again, Apple gets to reap those rewards as well, don't they? Sometimes I don't think they aren't even playing the same game.
Compared to average person (my wife and kids) yeah. AND Why would you want to drag n drop, delete and add copy and paste music to E:\mp3player\tunes\artist\album\random.mp3 when checking and unchecking a box does it for you ... automatically.
It doesn't have to harder than it is, and yet, that is what you're asking for.
What???
I still like playing House ... often as cowboy and indian ..
I can't believe I'm admitting this ;)
yup, you're right. Except that Apple is experiencing growth in a recession, on items that one would think would be most affected by that recession.
Granted, it can't maintain that growth for long, but it doesn't show signs of slowing any time soon. And when Apple gets a hiccup in sales of iPhones because of Android Phones, let me know. Right now, Android is eating Symbian, Blackberry and the other's market share.
Spoken like a true geek who just doesn't get the fact that there are people out there that aren't geeks.
Everything you said is true, and yet, you are either too smart or too stupid to realize that iTunes manages all of that for your average person, so they don't have to.
About the only thing you didn't say that would have been geekier would be to say that you manage your tunes with emacs you compiled yourself.
Tyranny then it is, because we're too pussified to do anything about it.
iPods we only for Mac users at first. I saw one and saw what Creative had and iPod was better. I almost bought a Mac just to have it handle my MP3s. I know a few people who did.
If you compare the basic functionality only, there was no difference. The "marketing" was that it was easier than all the others. It still is. If you buy a MP3 player that is not iPod, what do you get to manage the tunes? WMP? WinAmp? How does it sync? Push button automatic or do you have to mount it like a drive and copy the tunes over manually? Honestly, I don't know. I just know that iPods just work, and no worries about having to learn how to get stuff done.
iPhones are the revolution in smartphones for the rest of us. Sure Blackberries existed, but they were (and still are) mostly for Corporate. iPhones made the Smartphone market. Droids are close behind.
iPads have made the Tablet market. Now everyone wants to make a tablet, and they all are copying Apple's design. And iPad is still a better tablet than exists elsewhere. Android Tablets may compete with them, but I don't see Acer, HP, Dell or any of the others that are making tablets that don't suck.
To stay extremely profitable you can't be in the race to the lowest price. This is where most other tech companies epically fail as they march forward on thinning margins until they go broke "making it up in volume".
As margins decline, you end up with capacitors that are substandard and covering up that fact as your customers leave in droves (DELL). Apple's success has always been about standing out from the rest of the Tech crowd, which allows them the comfort of profits most other companies would kill for. But most other companies love resting on their laurels (Microsoft) or attacking their customers (Oracle, SCO) in the drive to create margins.
What Apple does better than anyone else is taking existing ideas and making them better than anyone else. Slashdotters make fun of iPods, iPads and iPhones for being "lame", and not having the greatest specs, but they aren't Apple's customers, and Apple doesn't listen to them, and it shows up in the bottom line. For every slashdotter that cries "lame" there's a couple hundred average people saying "cool".
Before iPods, MP3 players existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPhones, "smart phones" existed, but Apple did it better (and held the price). Before iPads, tablet computers existed but Apple did it better (and beat price expectations) (No table exists that is better even now).
Apple will find some other area that is lacking a polished product, introduce a iWhatever with a polish that is missing, and the slashdot community will cry "lame" once again. The price will be higher than "comparable" whatever, and Apple will sell gazillions in spite of what slashdot community thinks.
Apple knows how to make a profit where none seems to exist, in a market that looks like it is wallowing, in an economy that sucks. Apple will become the largest market cap company in the next 12 - 18 months. And slashdotters will say "lame" and still not get it.
So what you're saying is that you're afraid of the government?
"A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!"
— Thomas Jefferson
We are more afraid of our government than our government is afraid of us.
Or we could have let the banks, GM and Wall Street fail.
OR we could have said "we'll give you this option, fail OR we'll bail the company out, but all common and preferred shares will become "worthless paper" The company will pay its debt with assets and profits and all future profits go to the treasury until the company is solvent enough to have an IPO, and proceeds for the IPO go to the US Treasury, up to the amount that was used to bail the company out.
There are a bunch of different ways we could have handled this, all of which would have been better for most people. The problem is, nobody has the guts to do the right thing because it is distasteful (putting it mildly).
The biggest problem is that we're not a people any more. We're a bunch of sniveling whiny bratty kids who want their allowance without having to do chores.
Nobody want to pay taxes, but everyone (most anyway) want government to pay for something they should pay for themselves. Which leaves us with Leftwing politicians promising free healthcare, and rightwing politicians promising no new taxes.
We get free healthcare, but no taxes to pay for it, and eventually we end up broke and with no healthcare for anyone, even if you could pay for it.
The problem isn't taxes, or socialistic programs. The problem is that there is no responsibility or accountability because the politicians are too far removed from the people they supposedly represent.
In my city we have roads falling apart but great art work at city hall and a pretty new park. A politician is smart. Politicians are dumb stupid panicky animals, and you know it.
One cannot "live off the land" without breaking a few laws these days.
Not just companies, but the government too. It was the government that seized the sites, not the corporations that asked them to. But it isn't Bush in the white house so all is good.