The two are not identical situations. A firm like Lycos is basically an advertising agent. It provides a service to attract eyeballs to it ads. If an account is not using a service, then the account is not generating revenue, and said account is merely occupying disk space that could be used by a more productive account. This situation is pretty clear to anyone objective party. What is also clear is the fact that Lycos has no duty to provide a backup for anyones email. Not only is it a free system best suited for casual use, but I doubt seriously that they guarantee that a backup will be available if some system fails. Even on paid services backup is the ultimately the users responsibility, unless the contract specifically has provision for such a thing.
So let's make a more realistic comparison between your firm and lycos. Let's say that after a year or so, a customer wants to restore data. In particular the customer is looking for a certain file. You try to restore, and it works, but has a read error on the file. The customer states you promised a backup, and the customer is going to hold you to it. So, you run some data recovery software, and even though you would really like to charge for it, you don't. As a result you accrue a hour of non billable time. At this point you have provided good customer service, done the best you could, and expect the customer just to acknoledge that service was free, and to go away. However, the customer really wants the file, and asks what else can be done. Still trying to provide good customer service, you say there are some data recovery people that can do the job. The customer asks how much, and you say a few hundred dollars. The customer then asks you to pay the any fees for recovery since you promised a backup. Under the assumption that Lycos was responsible for the email, you are responsible for those charges. Otherwise the customer has every right to trash your company for not keeping promises, even though you did everything you could.
The world is full of mostly reasonable agents, all understanding the limits of the process. But some people are just unreasonable. They want to set fire to a product and then expect warranty to repair it. They don;'t understand that a free service is worth exactly that, even it the payment is indirect, which of course any reasonable person knows it is. These are the people who fall for the Nigerian scams, and even after huge sums of money, still believe it is a legitimate offer. These are the people that ruin the world for the rest of us.
Some of the rabbits were CG, particularly when floating around the bun-vac. I am sure there were other instances.
Hand made films are extremely expensive and are becoming out of style, like black and white films. We see this with Titan A.E. and the death of hand drawn animation.
What Aardman does is an art, and there is little room for art in the major studios. As much as I respect Dreamworks, serperating Aardman from the real plasticine is a crime. OTOH, I say no problem with supplementing the plasticine with CG in Werer-Rabbit
If this were the 80's, and people had a choice, then I could see why this strategy would be bad for MS. In the 80's, it did not matter what computer a user had at home. As long as the computer had the appropriate terminal emulator, the user could dial in and work. This is why I could work on my Apple/// with little ill effect. I had Kermit, so it did not matter. Most everything was transfered in text, so weird binaries formats were not an issue, and when data was transfered as binary, little endian to big endian was not a major problem.
Fast forward 20 years. Everything is in MS Word format, which may or may not work with a particular version of Word, and is much more likely to work with another Office application. We are nearly 100% connected, but if you do not have the MS Windows only version of IE, there are significant web pages that will not work. It now matters that you have the same computer as work, if for no other reason than you can use the office copy of MS Office.
If there was the fluidity of motion of the 80's, then perhaps the MS strategy would be as disastrous as the IBM strategy. However, I do not see millions of users moving from the WinTel machine to something cheaper, nor do I see millions of users who never bought a computer before buying something other than a Wintel. Perhaps a few hundred thousand will buy a Mac, and few hundred thousand will buy a *nix machine, but that is not going to be a short term problem for MS.
Ultimately Vista does what it is supposed to do, which is to satisfy the contract of those that paid MS for very expensive long term licensing, as well as justify the higher cost machines from MS real customers, the OEM computer people. A positive ancillary purpose of MS Vista is to further isolate MS OS from other commodity products, thus making it harder to switch. This is a risky proposal, but perhaps the only way that MS can continue to amass the huge profits on what is essentially old stock. Good for them.
The game MS plays with upgrades is one of the annoying thing about dealing with their products.
The saving grace is that there is always a relatively cheap way around it, as long as you time is worth nothing.
I recall that in the time of diskettes, when installing MS software truly was a day long labor intensive task, the MS office upgrade software also needed a previous version already on the machine. This meant that if a hard disk died, installing office became a two day task. Install the old version and then upgrade to the new version. One day, by accident, I discovered that the upgrade was looking for a single file, and as long that single file was present, everything would be cool.
Since this is the OS, such a trick would probably not work, and MS has become much more sophisticated in insuring that customers cannot use licensed software, but I am sure there must be an easier way around the restriction.
I am now of the belief that the best thing would be some VC to buy them out, and then sue management for something like gross incompetence, recover funds, and cut the golden parachute.
There might be enough funds in company and management assets to bring a significant profit.
IRC, the big problem with a buyout is the lack of readily available stock.
A PC is computer of IBM decent, mostly running an OS and software of IBM DOS heritage. Although it is a GPC, it most runs a single major business application, with perhaps a few other minor functions, currently web browsing and mail. The PC is mostly a GPC, or a jack of all trades computer.
Other computers may be specialized personal computers, workstations, servers, etc. Traditionally, *nix runs on workstations, not PCs. Therefore, Sun and SGI sells workstations. Some, like ATT, tried to sell the UNIX PC, but that did not fare well. Unlike the PCs, these machines tend to be robust and allow day to day flexibility.
Apple sells Mac, which are robust semi-open personal workstations. They sell a few types of machines configured for the type of work the users expects to most often do. This is not popular as MS pushed the multivendor multiuse computer model, which is a decent model for users, profitable model for them, but not a great model for hardware vendors.
While verizon might be good for some people, for those of us with good Cingular coverage, verizon just seems like an overpriced, pompous, and unresponsive company. They probably would have wanted to do stuff like cut out the address book feature and have music and video transferable only over their network.
While I understand that many people find Cingular to be joke, I am happy that cingular was flexible enough to adopt a phone that will likely force them to reevaluate their business model. They will certainly have rethink the data rates, and they are not likely to make any money off music downloads.
In a couple years, I am sure verizon, and it's customers, will be perfectly happy with the iPod knockoff Zunefone, with it's verizon only music downloads and it's DRM protected overpriced ringtones. I am sure everyone will continue to say how great Verizon is, and how the Zunefone surpasses the Apple phone is copies, although even today, with existing products, neither is true.
Written notice 1:
We have noted some inconstancies in your licenses. On all MS machines machines we will require you to install, at your expense in time and loss of business, MS auditing software. On all non MS machines, we must physically inspect the machines and log all software that runs on the machine, along with a detailed description of what the machine is used for, and compelling reasons why it does not run MS software. We or our agents must be allowed to conduct random inspection of all company assets without notice.
Notice 2:
We have received your note regarding proof that your firm is not in compliance with MS licensing. Since MS sets the licensing guideline, MS has sole discretion as to whether a customer is in compliance. Therefore you are out of compliance because we say so. MS would be happy to send a compliance team to your office, at your expense, to show specific points where you have stolen product from MS, to collect all fines, and to install our spyware in your machines. And, since we know that you claim to use non MS computers, we will have to physically inspect those machines and insure that they are in fact non MS product, and, if they are, recieve a good why you do not find MS products adequate.
Notice 3:
You have continued to insist on due process. The next notice will be a summary injunction against you use of MS products. We have been very reasonable. All we want to do is install spyware on your machines so we can monitor your use of our software, and find our why you do not use more MS products. This is not that expensive, and will save you issue like the current on in the future. If you want to continue to have a bussiness to run, we suggest you simply pay us the protection money, and get it over with.
I agree, very reasonable behavior. Many small business do a good job complying with licenses, but do not have the resources to keep perfect track of everything. They do not necessarily buy all machines through the same vendor, or have copies of all licenses and receipts. They are subject to vendor fraud, which MS does not do a good job policing. They have employees that install illegal software, and then are told by the BSA that a single instance of such software could ruin their business. Why would anyone allow an audit under such conditions? If the machines is bought with MS software, why should a small business live in fear that MS might use some technicality to squeeze a bit more money out of the situation?
A big thing that all cell phone companies need to think of is how to keep customer. Right now there is no loyalty and no reason to stay with on company. The only thing that exists are sticks. If you try to leave early, you owe us $1000. If you need a new phone, you must sign a two year contract or pay extra money. It does not matter how long you have been a subscriber, there are no carrots.
So if they sell the phone with a one year contract, that would be cool. Current subscribers would not have to pay $50 for the privilege of a one year contract. Subscribers to other carriers will have a reason to switch, as the phone is likely going to be truly cool, and the deal will, on the whole, be better than any not-free phone at other carriers.
But my fear from beginning, and what I still believe will happen, is this phone will be out reach. I will not sign up for a two year contract, as that is simply too dangerous given that phones are sometimes lost or broken, and it is too easy to become entrapped in the perpetual contract. If they want another $50 on top of the $500, then that is unacceptable as well.
So, if Cingular is smart, this will win them business. If they are just going to play the same games, then nothing good will come of this. Remember, the original ATT got in trouble because it refused to adjust to shifting trends, and even though it eventually tried to adapt, by then it was too late. The baby bells continued to exploit local monopolies, and are now in somewhat of trouble because they would not shift either. Cell phones too have a good product, but they are going to have become less draconian about the terms.
If Borders books refuses to sell a CD, is this limiting choice? Does borders book exist as the sole music purveyor in any market? Can't a consumer just go next door and get the music from someone else? Same thing for tower records. The few times I have been to a tower, and there are none in my town, it was a fun place to shop but the indies that existed then had a better selection of non-mainstream records. At the end of they day, it is not like WalMart censoring music, which does have an effect becuase Wal Mart does strive to be the only retailer across a number of markets and demographics.
A more accurate presentation might be that DRM and restrictive licensing is limiting the choice of music, which does have an element of truth, and Apple does bear some responsibility. But even this is far from unclear. If we are talking about music downloads, the only thing effecting music choice is the artist, not Apple. Apple certainly effects exposure, but not choice, except in the sense that one cannot choose what one does not know.
But certainly anyone can go onto a P2P network an download music, and it will play on the iPod and work in iTunes. Any artist can go to Youtube and upload a video. If a song is insanely great, it will generate insanely great buzz, and people will hear it.
I also wonder about the definition of insanely great music, and people expecting have such music handed to them on a gold platter. We are so used to having sanitized music spoon fed to us. The ability to download music is just going to exacerbate this problem, and lead to the increasingly sanitized of music. A better article would be how increased music delivery in destroying insanely great local music, and replacing it with moderately interesting sanitized corporate music.
The efficient use of processors is a trick subject. Processor cycles, like memory, has become very cheap. The expenditure or person hours to minimize their use, therefore, has become a much less winning proposition. At the extreme, it is no longer reasonable to have every machine instruction hand coded in an effort to minimize hardware resources. While MS may be on the front line of wasting resources on useless processes, this waste is not inherently bad.
OTOH, MS is guilty of added features that are not really useful to the user and in the process creating gapping security holes. Many of the problem with IE stem from features that benefit the web advertisers at the expense of the safety of the user, the one who actually paid for the MS license on the machine. At the end of the day this is where I expect the problem will lay. If all this complexity has been added in to not limit quality of certain content, but also to insure that other content does not have the quality limited, there are they are bound to be defects. Defects not only in the code that is directly realted to complexity that does not benefit the user at all, but also ancillary defects caused, perhaps even caused by lack of resources on other projects.
I personally find DVDs barely tolerable due to the amount of energy that goes into insuring that the user cannot skip certain spots, cannot back up the CDs, and cannot play them in all DVD players. I tolerate DVDs simply becuase I can use them on my computer, where I cannot use VHS. Since It will be long time before I will not be able to use a DVD on my computer, I suspect it will be a long time before I buy into a new format.
For very small ad hoc data sets, or if the engineer does not have serious computer experience, excel is a very good option, better than OO.org. Excel is the one MS application that has been, and will likely continue to be, the market leader.
For routine operations, even on moderate data sets, other scientific visualization packages are more suitable. Custom solutions, using commercial and GNU libraries, also produce superior results much more efficiently. For business processes I use a spreadsheet, but I have used a spreadsheet for data analysis since I left school.
I wonder if any of the readers on this site are american, or if the majority come from oppressive countries where they are brainwashed into believing that coming from the wrong family implies implicit inferiority, or perhaps where women must be hidden because they are implicitly morally inferior, or perhpas where dark people are suitable for cleaning, but must be out of town before sunset.
Because the thing about America is that we were born with a revolution whose basis was that the status quo was not efficient, and just because someone was not born to the proper family, and we can extend that to the proper color or gender, does not mean that the person does not have anything to contribute. Everyone of our founding fathers was forced to fight the respect they deserved, because every englishman in power assumed that anyone not of the proper family were automatically morons. No amount of money or education could change that
It also reminds me of some people I knew and know. They were always complaining that they could not get into a good school because of affirmative action. The reality was that they were lazy spoiled gits, and the 'minorities' were just willing to work harder. Of course, now it matters not how smart you are, or how hard you are willing to work. As long as you're family has money and can hire a good lawyer, you can get into a good school. We are back to the aristocracy being more important than ability. Not that smart people don't get rejected from school, but America is very competitive. Competitiveness is one reason why america is so great, and corruption, graft, and nepotism is why much of the rest of the world is in the piss pot.
So here is the deal. At my engineering high school there was no shortage of girls, and the valedictorian was a girl. I know a few that made it to advance degrees. In college there was a good number of women in engineering school, significantly less in the sciences. Texas A&M, along with most schools, work hard to attract women because they know what our founding fathers knew. That talent does not depend solely on how you were born, but also on the effort you are willing to make to master and apply a skill. And that throwing away a significant percentage of the population just because they were not traditionally in the trade.
Everyone is different, and the differences, if we treat it as a benefit and an annoyance, can be a great benefit. Although I don't like the movie, many of the posts on this topic reminded me of the kids in the 'freedom writers'. They all live in fear of those that are different, and all believe that the world would be a better place if they didn't have to deal with 'the others'. I really enjoyed working for and with the women engineers and scientists.
I will leave on a more positive note. The main impediment with attracting women engineers and scientist is that women often are not exposed to such things. This is the same of the majority of the population. Most have not been exposed to the possibilities of the art, so do not understand it. In schools boys are still more likely to be exposed to the technology, while girls will be moved to cosmetology. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, we again need to ask if our competitiveness can stand not fully utilizing human resources just because they do not meet our preconceived notions. There are those that want to protect their family by limited the competition, i.e. limiting the opportunities to those outside their family. This is not good for the country. Just like so many other things, they want to profit at the expense of the country. The graft in the contracts for Katrina and Iraq show just how willing engineering firms are to trade their profit for the good of the country.
Taking action is hugely expensive to certain parties, and hugely profitable to others. Resources are always going to be limited, and the challange is to have a balance between current and future needs.
What we see in the global warming debate, in particular fossil fuels, is the creation of present profit at the expense of future wealth. Take the internal combustion engine. As has been shown, by the increase in the Toyota market share, innovation in this area with an eye toward elminating the need for them is hugely profitable. OTOH, companies like Ford, Chrysler, and GM are increasinly losing market share. The prevailing wisdom was that Americans wanted huge cars, and supplying these huge cars would generate huge profits and protect market share. The wisdom of that philosophy, just as the wisdom of the similar philosophy i the 70's, has been well demonstrated. So, America is losing market share because innovation seems hugely expensive. Can you imagine what might have happened if the Pilot were introduced as a hybrid, if Ford would have diverted some of those huge profits in research projects instead of the the huge bonuses?
The US has a lot of technology, and we as a country can regain out status by application of that technology to domestic projects instead of stifling progress because it will make a few people slightly less rich, possibly forcing them to fire a few domestics. We can either apply the technology to advance our manufacturing process, or sit helplessly while out economy becomes dependent on income from mercenary activities.
Prediction is engineering, that is the application of known rules to know what will work and what will not work. Prediction is also what some theoretical physicist do, you know the swine that get hit on the head when they find a truffle.
The base of physics, shared equally by experimental and theoretical physicist, is the collection and concise modeling and classification of data in such a way that is self consistant and is amenable to simple 'laws' that can be used to make predictions. The predictions are used to determine if and how that models can be used for interpolation, that is to explain phenomenon outside the domain of the original data. The prediction in themselves do not necessarily imply that the model is good or bad.
As such science is about discovering the limits of our models and then devising better models that can be used more generally. We see, obviously, that certain things fall faster than others, but we also know that in a simple gravitational field, with no other forces, all objects will 'fall' at the same rate. We know that the acceleration of an object is due the mass of the object and forces acting on the object, an in general, as long as the amount of stuff stays constant, the mass can be assumed as constant. And for all speeds we normally see this is true, and the law made many good predictions, until it didn't, but it still has a wide domain.
But what most people talk about when speaking of predictions is the ludicrous mathematical models, like quantum mechanics and special relativity, that we take as given simply because they solved certain problems, even though they make little sense. We are willing to forgive the nonsense because they can be used to predict real effects. These laws may or may not reflect 'reality', but as long as the create engineering marvels, or solve other pesky problems, we are happy to allow them to complicate our lives. But what has string theory done? Nothing! Does it make out lives easier? Do we work less? Absolutely not. So it must be wrong.
The thing is that they do seem to model some data pretty well. At this point there is no real way to find out if the math does anything else than model some data, but who knows. The thing is at this point we seem to be in the same kind of trouble we were in 100 years ago or so. Old models were showing cracks, things were not explained, and we needed some major changes to make things right. These major changes were not comfortable, and we still are dealing with it, although I do not think the copenhagen thing is one we still have to debate. But we do need to get QM and GR settled. We do need to figure out what constants are really constant. We do need to figure out the shape of the universe and what is going on with the expansion. The people are working on the problem are those that are doing the math, not those that are complaining about those that are doing the math.
The article summary is bad. First, it is quite amazing how we can get an accurate review about a product that doesn't even exist, at least not in any real sense. The products on display and in use are preproduction prototypes, and reviewers at most have seen in for a hour, perhaps some have used a prototype for an hour. At this point, the iPhone is cool, but until we have massive quantities shipped, it is vaporware. Until it sells, it is nothing more than an interesting concept.
Second, fairplay is not the primary format of the iPod, or even iTunes, and presumable not the primary format of the iPhone. The songs are not translated to a Fairplay format, or any other format, when copied to the iPod. Songs are not by default imported into iTunes as Fairplay files, and there is not even an option to so do. I do not think Apple marks files that are imported in iTunes at all. And while the default import format is the is ACC, is it easy to change it to MP3 which is compatible with most players, except maybe Sony.
So fairplay will only effect users that buy songs from iTunes, and only those songs that are bought from iTunes and not burned to CDs. This is all covered in the article, but not the summary
The article is really about the fact that Apple will not license fairplay. This is really indicates a sad state of writing. First the author decries Fairplay as crippleware, and then complains that it cannot be acquired universally. This is like complaining that polio is a horrible disease, but innoculations means most of us won't get it. The article is correct that if you use the iTMS, you must buy apple stuff. The logical response to this is not to use the iTMS, and fight for non DRM online formats.
Then the article goes onto say that MS is better because it does license formats, but then has to admit that the Zune does not use the format. What the article does not admit is that this situation indicates that there is no money to be made in licenses DRM formats and thus compete with walmart on price instead of locking consumers in to an optional online format.
The point that the article does get to, after losing all credibility, is that consumers may end up with songs a product they cannot use. They may buy Play for sure, and then buy a zune or an iPod. They may have a collection of iTMS tracks, and then buy a Sandisk, in which case they will have to butn all the tracks to CD and reimport then. What the article does not mention is that we did this all before when we copied all our vinyl to tape, and even worse when we replaced all our vinyl with CDs.
I really believe that this article is the case of an uninspired writer cribbing from old articles. The lesson learned, and probably needs to be taught to the masses, is if possible buy a used CD and rip it to your computer.
'Why would they want to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever they are suing you tube, et al for. They don't want to sit down and talk about it. TWX thinks that the fans owe them something after we've paid them over FIVE billion dollars, helping TWX achieve a gross profit of 17 billion dollars. Cheers'
p.s. if then need a new director, try Robert Rodriguez. As wonderful as the panoramic were, the funky way the actors were shot, not to mention the random acting, was pitiful.
one thing that has to be considered is that money and wealth are not the same thing, and persons, firms, and states should be more concerned with wealth. If properly connected, money can be an indication of wealth. However, as often happens, money is seen as an means in itself.
What this means the we should be careful in making sure monies do represent wealth. So, if stock is legitimately doing well, and the executives benefit from this, then that is a good thing. OTOH, if the stock is being manipulated, or executives are being sold stock at artificially low prices, then that is not good. Money no longer represent wealth. This means that money is being removed without value being added, so we are in fact taking about a negative sum game.
I think this is what most people have problems with. If I go into work everyday, do my job, and work gets down, then the company can continue to create wealth. If I do an exceptional job, and the company creates exceptional wealth, then I may get a bonus. At the executive level, however, it appears that many are getting bonuses for doing nothing more than their job, something that I only get paid a basic salary for.
What also is worrisome is when value and wealth ceases to be created. South America is, in fact, very rich. Many people have money. However, they do not have a lot wealth. The resources are not used to promote society, make people healthier, and educate the kids. Instead, a few people live luxurious lives. This leads to the case that in the country basic things like food and water are not necessarily as safe as in most of north America, and the average person is not as safe from the spread of disease as in N America. For instance, in S America, a robbery can not only result in loss of possessions, but also the contraction of a serious infection. The investment of money to create wealth just does not exist. While a few good things result, the overall society suffers.
I also look back to the Europe of the 19th century. Some parts of Europe, the UK and France and the like, seemed to really put effort into building wealth. Other countries, like Spain, just went and got gold. Spain was rich, and many wonderful things resulted, but we can see the present results. The problem with the income gap, illustrated by a disgraced executive receiving 200 million to go away, is that it produces no wealth. And in American, especially in conservative america, we have no room for those that produce no wealth, and speak badly of them when they line up at the dole.
I would guess the cost of the ink and wear on the printer would be not be significantly les than the cost of buying the product. Just look at how many people still buy custom embroidered fabric novleties even though the cost of the machine to do such a work is not incredible expensive, and the patterns are widely available. Most of us still go out a buy out snoopy clothing.
What this might create a market for replacement parts. Might we be able to get resins that would work to fix that little plastic thing that broke in your car or electronics equipment, that might cost $20 to make, but $100 to buy. I see companies that depend on selling significantly marked up replacement parts filing suits against anyone who buys one of these and then attempts to undercut the market.
In fact, I would guess that creative markets are not going to suffer, especially those that market to 3-10 year old children. They want the real thing, and their friends, always looking for some way to compete, will know the difference. This is also true with even the average collector. No, what this will effect most is the companies that put cheap parts in expensive devices to insure a limited product lifetime.
The RAZR started at that price, and still sold well enough to bring motorola to a respectable position.
Apple wants a small part of the market to start. Unlike other cell phones, Apple is making money off every sale. They are not dumping the hardware hoping that market share will magically bring profits.
One also has to look at the full package. Most cell phones are feature compromised. Most cell phones require additional purchases to work with a computer. Most cell phones are only well integrated with the PC, and are no integrated at all with the Mac. The reason this phone is a value is because it is feature complete. You will not buy and find that a feature has been turned off, or you need to spend another $100 dollars for software. At least on a mac, everything you need is there. I am not saying that this phone is really worth the money, just that after buying my RAZR the sales person told me it would be another $100 to hook it up to my computer. Fortunately I had a mac and my own cable. So the costs on the apple phone are up front, while the other phones nickel and dime you.
As far as cingular, I am surprised they found anyone that was willing to give up the provider gravy train and allow such a phone. No need to pay $2 for ringtones. No need to use airtime to download songs. Given Verizon's huge monthly fees, and their lack of customer respect, I doubt they were even willing to talk about giving up the gravy train. Verizon does often have better coverage, but to me they have lost the war when it comes to value.
I noticed that some of the new devices support 802.11n. Went over to the store, and behold, a new base station that supports 802.11n. I am sad that is is not pretty like the old base station. Apple, Inc does go through pretty stages and mundane stages. It looks like now that are not going for industrial design awards, just sales.
But it looks pretty cool. Has three LAN ports, which is cool, and the USB supports hard disks. Wonder how this will work.
Will we see any speed increase with out 802.11g airport cards? I wonder how this will work with the express? I suppose this is mostly useful for the new tv device, which I won't need because I watch everything on my computer anyway.
On one level, I consider dark matter to have the same credibility as the æther. An interesting concept, but largely created as hack to the model. The æther is shown not to exist and we have a more robust theory for the propagation of light. I suspect that the same will be true dark matter, and it will lead to a more robust theory of gravity.
That said, as the universe is explored in more detail, we increasingly see that the standard model is robust but has some issues, in the same way that more detailed analysis of the solar system validated Newtonian mechanics with caveats. Many things behave as they should. The Hubble recently detected dark matter behaving as predicted. Certain unexplained acceleration in the cosmos has renwed interest in the Einstein cosmological constant, which if it exists, renews the presence of the æther, albeit in a different form.
The evolutionary shifts in our understanding of the universe cannot be predicted. Dismissing a concept simply because it is a mathematical hack is a mistake. In reality we use mathematics because it is a precise language that will often lead us to an unobserved reality. Recall that quantum mechanics is based on Plank proposing the ludicrous mathematical hack that energy cannot be any arbitrary value. Recall that special relativity is based on Einstein's assertion that equations should be symmetric. And, for the record, we must also admit that there is no evidence for a particle of magnetic or gravitation force.
In any case, the search for the implausible particle that only interacts with the universe through gravity, and is unaffected by all other forces, will continue. What is for sure is the no matter what happens, the future likely holds a much stranger picture anything we might imagine today.
One big reason why software sucks is that the internal data structure is exposed at all levels. Rather than appropriately abstracting data at various levels, and proper interfaces developed, the original organization of the data drives the entire process. This means that either data must be organized to match real world expectations, or, more commonly, data is organized in a machine effecient manner and the user must adjust.
The most common examples of this are websites. Some websites are organized by the firms org chart. Most outside users do not care about the org chart. The just want to know a specific piece of information. Rather than abstracting the organization to the public needs, many firms expect the public to learn the org chart. Another example is those awful URL. If the URL was not exposed to the user, it would be ok. But they are.
Fundamentally, if developers separated the UI from the data, life would be much better.
It seems to me that knockoffs are not a problem, and are quite profitable, as long as they do not try to masquerade as the original. However, if a knockoff is trying to masquerade as the original, I as a consumer would like it to be a problem. I want to know that the product I am buying is made by the people I think it is, and not by some fly by night operation, and i don't want to waste a lot of time trying to figure it out. For instance, if I go and buy a montblanc pen, I don't want to be confused by the montblanch pen. Likewise if I so choose to pay for the unique design and quality of LV luggage, I don't want to be confused by some knockoff.
In this case if seems like these two player are nearly identical, which is no problem. Aiwa came out with walkman clones, which I considered better quality and a much better value. This was not an issue because there was a clear branding difference between the Sony and Aiwa product. What is a problem is the name super shuffle is confusing with the shuffle. Such confusion reducing the ability for consumers to efficiently acquire products, which is bad. Certain agents benefit at the expense of society.
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So let's make a more realistic comparison between your firm and lycos. Let's say that after a year or so, a customer wants to restore data. In particular the customer is looking for a certain file. You try to restore, and it works, but has a read error on the file. The customer states you promised a backup, and the customer is going to hold you to it. So, you run some data recovery software, and even though you would really like to charge for it, you don't. As a result you accrue a hour of non billable time. At this point you have provided good customer service, done the best you could, and expect the customer just to acknoledge that service was free, and to go away. However, the customer really wants the file, and asks what else can be done. Still trying to provide good customer service, you say there are some data recovery people that can do the job. The customer asks how much, and you say a few hundred dollars. The customer then asks you to pay the any fees for recovery since you promised a backup. Under the assumption that Lycos was responsible for the email, you are responsible for those charges. Otherwise the customer has every right to trash your company for not keeping promises, even though you did everything you could.
The world is full of mostly reasonable agents, all understanding the limits of the process. But some people are just unreasonable. They want to set fire to a product and then expect warranty to repair it. They don;'t understand that a free service is worth exactly that, even it the payment is indirect, which of course any reasonable person knows it is. These are the people who fall for the Nigerian scams, and even after huge sums of money, still believe it is a legitimate offer. These are the people that ruin the world for the rest of us.
Hand made films are extremely expensive and are becoming out of style, like black and white films. We see this with Titan A.E. and the death of hand drawn animation.
What Aardman does is an art, and there is little room for art in the major studios. As much as I respect Dreamworks, serperating Aardman from the real plasticine is a crime. OTOH, I say no problem with supplementing the plasticine with CG in Werer-Rabbit
Fast forward 20 years. Everything is in MS Word format, which may or may not work with a particular version of Word, and is much more likely to work with another Office application. We are nearly 100% connected, but if you do not have the MS Windows only version of IE, there are significant web pages that will not work. It now matters that you have the same computer as work, if for no other reason than you can use the office copy of MS Office.
If there was the fluidity of motion of the 80's, then perhaps the MS strategy would be as disastrous as the IBM strategy. However, I do not see millions of users moving from the WinTel machine to something cheaper, nor do I see millions of users who never bought a computer before buying something other than a Wintel. Perhaps a few hundred thousand will buy a Mac, and few hundred thousand will buy a *nix machine, but that is not going to be a short term problem for MS.
Ultimately Vista does what it is supposed to do, which is to satisfy the contract of those that paid MS for very expensive long term licensing, as well as justify the higher cost machines from MS real customers, the OEM computer people. A positive ancillary purpose of MS Vista is to further isolate MS OS from other commodity products, thus making it harder to switch. This is a risky proposal, but perhaps the only way that MS can continue to amass the huge profits on what is essentially old stock. Good for them.
The saving grace is that there is always a relatively cheap way around it, as long as you time is worth nothing.
I recall that in the time of diskettes, when installing MS software truly was a day long labor intensive task, the MS office upgrade software also needed a previous version already on the machine. This meant that if a hard disk died, installing office became a two day task. Install the old version and then upgrade to the new version. One day, by accident, I discovered that the upgrade was looking for a single file, and as long that single file was present, everything would be cool.
Since this is the OS, such a trick would probably not work, and MS has become much more sophisticated in insuring that customers cannot use licensed software, but I am sure there must be an easier way around the restriction.
There might be enough funds in company and management assets to bring a significant profit.
IRC, the big problem with a buyout is the lack of readily available stock.
A PC is computer of IBM decent, mostly running an OS and software of IBM DOS heritage. Although it is a GPC, it most runs a single major business application, with perhaps a few other minor functions, currently web browsing and mail. The PC is mostly a GPC, or a jack of all trades computer.
Other computers may be specialized personal computers, workstations, servers, etc. Traditionally, *nix runs on workstations, not PCs. Therefore, Sun and SGI sells workstations. Some, like ATT, tried to sell the UNIX PC, but that did not fare well. Unlike the PCs, these machines tend to be robust and allow day to day flexibility.
Apple sells Mac, which are robust semi-open personal workstations. They sell a few types of machines configured for the type of work the users expects to most often do. This is not popular as MS pushed the multivendor multiuse computer model, which is a decent model for users, profitable model for them, but not a great model for hardware vendors.
While I understand that many people find Cingular to be joke, I am happy that cingular was flexible enough to adopt a phone that will likely force them to reevaluate their business model. They will certainly have rethink the data rates, and they are not likely to make any money off music downloads.
In a couple years, I am sure verizon, and it's customers, will be perfectly happy with the iPod knockoff Zunefone, with it's verizon only music downloads and it's DRM protected overpriced ringtones. I am sure everyone will continue to say how great Verizon is, and how the Zunefone surpasses the Apple phone is copies, although even today, with existing products, neither is true.
We have noted some inconstancies in your licenses. On all MS machines machines we will require you to install, at your expense in time and loss of business, MS auditing software. On all non MS machines, we must physically inspect the machines and log all software that runs on the machine, along with a detailed description of what the machine is used for, and compelling reasons why it does not run MS software. We or our agents must be allowed to conduct random inspection of all company assets without notice.
Notice 2:
We have received your note regarding proof that your firm is not in compliance with MS licensing. Since MS sets the licensing guideline, MS has sole discretion as to whether a customer is in compliance. Therefore you are out of compliance because we say so. MS would be happy to send a compliance team to your office, at your expense, to show specific points where you have stolen product from MS, to collect all fines, and to install our spyware in your machines. And, since we know that you claim to use non MS computers, we will have to physically inspect those machines and insure that they are in fact non MS product, and, if they are, recieve a good why you do not find MS products adequate.
Notice 3:
You have continued to insist on due process. The next notice will be a summary injunction against you use of MS products. We have been very reasonable. All we want to do is install spyware on your machines so we can monitor your use of our software, and find our why you do not use more MS products. This is not that expensive, and will save you issue like the current on in the future. If you want to continue to have a bussiness to run, we suggest you simply pay us the protection money, and get it over with.
I agree, very reasonable behavior. Many small business do a good job complying with licenses, but do not have the resources to keep perfect track of everything. They do not necessarily buy all machines through the same vendor, or have copies of all licenses and receipts. They are subject to vendor fraud, which MS does not do a good job policing. They have employees that install illegal software, and then are told by the BSA that a single instance of such software could ruin their business. Why would anyone allow an audit under such conditions? If the machines is bought with MS software, why should a small business live in fear that MS might use some technicality to squeeze a bit more money out of the situation?
So if they sell the phone with a one year contract, that would be cool. Current subscribers would not have to pay $50 for the privilege of a one year contract. Subscribers to other carriers will have a reason to switch, as the phone is likely going to be truly cool, and the deal will, on the whole, be better than any not-free phone at other carriers.
But my fear from beginning, and what I still believe will happen, is this phone will be out reach. I will not sign up for a two year contract, as that is simply too dangerous given that phones are sometimes lost or broken, and it is too easy to become entrapped in the perpetual contract. If they want another $50 on top of the $500, then that is unacceptable as well.
So, if Cingular is smart, this will win them business. If they are just going to play the same games, then nothing good will come of this. Remember, the original ATT got in trouble because it refused to adjust to shifting trends, and even though it eventually tried to adapt, by then it was too late. The baby bells continued to exploit local monopolies, and are now in somewhat of trouble because they would not shift either. Cell phones too have a good product, but they are going to have become less draconian about the terms.
A more accurate presentation might be that DRM and restrictive licensing is limiting the choice of music, which does have an element of truth, and Apple does bear some responsibility. But even this is far from unclear. If we are talking about music downloads, the only thing effecting music choice is the artist, not Apple. Apple certainly effects exposure, but not choice, except in the sense that one cannot choose what one does not know.
But certainly anyone can go onto a P2P network an download music, and it will play on the iPod and work in iTunes. Any artist can go to Youtube and upload a video. If a song is insanely great, it will generate insanely great buzz, and people will hear it.
I also wonder about the definition of insanely great music, and people expecting have such music handed to them on a gold platter. We are so used to having sanitized music spoon fed to us. The ability to download music is just going to exacerbate this problem, and lead to the increasingly sanitized of music. A better article would be how increased music delivery in destroying insanely great local music, and replacing it with moderately interesting sanitized corporate music.
OTOH, MS is guilty of added features that are not really useful to the user and in the process creating gapping security holes. Many of the problem with IE stem from features that benefit the web advertisers at the expense of the safety of the user, the one who actually paid for the MS license on the machine. At the end of the day this is where I expect the problem will lay. If all this complexity has been added in to not limit quality of certain content, but also to insure that other content does not have the quality limited, there are they are bound to be defects. Defects not only in the code that is directly realted to complexity that does not benefit the user at all, but also ancillary defects caused, perhaps even caused by lack of resources on other projects.
I personally find DVDs barely tolerable due to the amount of energy that goes into insuring that the user cannot skip certain spots, cannot back up the CDs, and cannot play them in all DVD players. I tolerate DVDs simply becuase I can use them on my computer, where I cannot use VHS. Since It will be long time before I will not be able to use a DVD on my computer, I suspect it will be a long time before I buy into a new format.
For routine operations, even on moderate data sets, other scientific visualization packages are more suitable. Custom solutions, using commercial and GNU libraries, also produce superior results much more efficiently. For business processes I use a spreadsheet, but I have used a spreadsheet for data analysis since I left school.
Because the thing about America is that we were born with a revolution whose basis was that the status quo was not efficient, and just because someone was not born to the proper family, and we can extend that to the proper color or gender, does not mean that the person does not have anything to contribute. Everyone of our founding fathers was forced to fight the respect they deserved, because every englishman in power assumed that anyone not of the proper family were automatically morons. No amount of money or education could change that
It also reminds me of some people I knew and know. They were always complaining that they could not get into a good school because of affirmative action. The reality was that they were lazy spoiled gits, and the 'minorities' were just willing to work harder. Of course, now it matters not how smart you are, or how hard you are willing to work. As long as you're family has money and can hire a good lawyer, you can get into a good school. We are back to the aristocracy being more important than ability. Not that smart people don't get rejected from school, but America is very competitive. Competitiveness is one reason why america is so great, and corruption, graft, and nepotism is why much of the rest of the world is in the piss pot.
So here is the deal. At my engineering high school there was no shortage of girls, and the valedictorian was a girl. I know a few that made it to advance degrees. In college there was a good number of women in engineering school, significantly less in the sciences. Texas A&M, along with most schools, work hard to attract women because they know what our founding fathers knew. That talent does not depend solely on how you were born, but also on the effort you are willing to make to master and apply a skill. And that throwing away a significant percentage of the population just because they were not traditionally in the trade.
Everyone is different, and the differences, if we treat it as a benefit and an annoyance, can be a great benefit. Although I don't like the movie, many of the posts on this topic reminded me of the kids in the 'freedom writers'. They all live in fear of those that are different, and all believe that the world would be a better place if they didn't have to deal with 'the others'. I really enjoyed working for and with the women engineers and scientists.
I will leave on a more positive note. The main impediment with attracting women engineers and scientist is that women often are not exposed to such things. This is the same of the majority of the population. Most have not been exposed to the possibilities of the art, so do not understand it. In schools boys are still more likely to be exposed to the technology, while girls will be moved to cosmetology. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, we again need to ask if our competitiveness can stand not fully utilizing human resources just because they do not meet our preconceived notions. There are those that want to protect their family by limited the competition, i.e. limiting the opportunities to those outside their family. This is not good for the country. Just like so many other things, they want to profit at the expense of the country. The graft in the contracts for Katrina and Iraq show just how willing engineering firms are to trade their profit for the good of the country.
What we see in the global warming debate, in particular fossil fuels, is the creation of present profit at the expense of future wealth. Take the internal combustion engine. As has been shown, by the increase in the Toyota market share, innovation in this area with an eye toward elminating the need for them is hugely profitable. OTOH, companies like Ford, Chrysler, and GM are increasinly losing market share. The prevailing wisdom was that Americans wanted huge cars, and supplying these huge cars would generate huge profits and protect market share. The wisdom of that philosophy, just as the wisdom of the similar philosophy i the 70's, has been well demonstrated. So, America is losing market share because innovation seems hugely expensive. Can you imagine what might have happened if the Pilot were introduced as a hybrid, if Ford would have diverted some of those huge profits in research projects instead of the the huge bonuses?
The US has a lot of technology, and we as a country can regain out status by application of that technology to domestic projects instead of stifling progress because it will make a few people slightly less rich, possibly forcing them to fire a few domestics. We can either apply the technology to advance our manufacturing process, or sit helplessly while out economy becomes dependent on income from mercenary activities.
The base of physics, shared equally by experimental and theoretical physicist, is the collection and concise modeling and classification of data in such a way that is self consistant and is amenable to simple 'laws' that can be used to make predictions. The predictions are used to determine if and how that models can be used for interpolation, that is to explain phenomenon outside the domain of the original data. The prediction in themselves do not necessarily imply that the model is good or bad.
As such science is about discovering the limits of our models and then devising better models that can be used more generally. We see, obviously, that certain things fall faster than others, but we also know that in a simple gravitational field, with no other forces, all objects will 'fall' at the same rate. We know that the acceleration of an object is due the mass of the object and forces acting on the object, an in general, as long as the amount of stuff stays constant, the mass can be assumed as constant. And for all speeds we normally see this is true, and the law made many good predictions, until it didn't, but it still has a wide domain.
But what most people talk about when speaking of predictions is the ludicrous mathematical models, like quantum mechanics and special relativity, that we take as given simply because they solved certain problems, even though they make little sense. We are willing to forgive the nonsense because they can be used to predict real effects. These laws may or may not reflect 'reality', but as long as the create engineering marvels, or solve other pesky problems, we are happy to allow them to complicate our lives. But what has string theory done? Nothing! Does it make out lives easier? Do we work less? Absolutely not. So it must be wrong.
The thing is that they do seem to model some data pretty well. At this point there is no real way to find out if the math does anything else than model some data, but who knows. The thing is at this point we seem to be in the same kind of trouble we were in 100 years ago or so. Old models were showing cracks, things were not explained, and we needed some major changes to make things right. These major changes were not comfortable, and we still are dealing with it, although I do not think the copenhagen thing is one we still have to debate. But we do need to get QM and GR settled. We do need to figure out what constants are really constant. We do need to figure out the shape of the universe and what is going on with the expansion. The people are working on the problem are those that are doing the math, not those that are complaining about those that are doing the math.
Second, fairplay is not the primary format of the iPod, or even iTunes, and presumable not the primary format of the iPhone. The songs are not translated to a Fairplay format, or any other format, when copied to the iPod. Songs are not by default imported into iTunes as Fairplay files, and there is not even an option to so do. I do not think Apple marks files that are imported in iTunes at all. And while the default import format is the is ACC, is it easy to change it to MP3 which is compatible with most players, except maybe Sony.
So fairplay will only effect users that buy songs from iTunes, and only those songs that are bought from iTunes and not burned to CDs. This is all covered in the article, but not the summary
The article is really about the fact that Apple will not license fairplay. This is really indicates a sad state of writing. First the author decries Fairplay as crippleware, and then complains that it cannot be acquired universally. This is like complaining that polio is a horrible disease, but innoculations means most of us won't get it. The article is correct that if you use the iTMS, you must buy apple stuff. The logical response to this is not to use the iTMS, and fight for non DRM online formats.
Then the article goes onto say that MS is better because it does license formats, but then has to admit that the Zune does not use the format. What the article does not admit is that this situation indicates that there is no money to be made in licenses DRM formats and thus compete with walmart on price instead of locking consumers in to an optional online format.
The point that the article does get to, after losing all credibility, is that consumers may end up with songs a product they cannot use. They may buy Play for sure, and then buy a zune or an iPod. They may have a collection of iTMS tracks, and then buy a Sandisk, in which case they will have to butn all the tracks to CD and reimport then. What the article does not mention is that we did this all before when we copied all our vinyl to tape, and even worse when we replaced all our vinyl with CDs.
I really believe that this article is the case of an uninspired writer cribbing from old articles. The lesson learned, and probably needs to be taught to the masses, is if possible buy a used CD and rip it to your computer.
p.s. if then need a new director, try Robert Rodriguez. As wonderful as the panoramic were, the funky way the actors were shot, not to mention the random acting, was pitiful.
What this means the we should be careful in making sure monies do represent wealth. So, if stock is legitimately doing well, and the executives benefit from this, then that is a good thing. OTOH, if the stock is being manipulated, or executives are being sold stock at artificially low prices, then that is not good. Money no longer represent wealth. This means that money is being removed without value being added, so we are in fact taking about a negative sum game.
I think this is what most people have problems with. If I go into work everyday, do my job, and work gets down, then the company can continue to create wealth. If I do an exceptional job, and the company creates exceptional wealth, then I may get a bonus. At the executive level, however, it appears that many are getting bonuses for doing nothing more than their job, something that I only get paid a basic salary for.
What also is worrisome is when value and wealth ceases to be created. South America is, in fact, very rich. Many people have money. However, they do not have a lot wealth. The resources are not used to promote society, make people healthier, and educate the kids. Instead, a few people live luxurious lives. This leads to the case that in the country basic things like food and water are not necessarily as safe as in most of north America, and the average person is not as safe from the spread of disease as in N America. For instance, in S America, a robbery can not only result in loss of possessions, but also the contraction of a serious infection. The investment of money to create wealth just does not exist. While a few good things result, the overall society suffers.
I also look back to the Europe of the 19th century. Some parts of Europe, the UK and France and the like, seemed to really put effort into building wealth. Other countries, like Spain, just went and got gold. Spain was rich, and many wonderful things resulted, but we can see the present results. The problem with the income gap, illustrated by a disgraced executive receiving 200 million to go away, is that it produces no wealth. And in American, especially in conservative america, we have no room for those that produce no wealth, and speak badly of them when they line up at the dole.
What this might create a market for replacement parts. Might we be able to get resins that would work to fix that little plastic thing that broke in your car or electronics equipment, that might cost $20 to make, but $100 to buy. I see companies that depend on selling significantly marked up replacement parts filing suits against anyone who buys one of these and then attempts to undercut the market.
In fact, I would guess that creative markets are not going to suffer, especially those that market to 3-10 year old children. They want the real thing, and their friends, always looking for some way to compete, will know the difference. This is also true with even the average collector. No, what this will effect most is the companies that put cheap parts in expensive devices to insure a limited product lifetime.
Apple wants a small part of the market to start. Unlike other cell phones, Apple is making money off every sale. They are not dumping the hardware hoping that market share will magically bring profits.
One also has to look at the full package. Most cell phones are feature compromised. Most cell phones require additional purchases to work with a computer. Most cell phones are only well integrated with the PC, and are no integrated at all with the Mac. The reason this phone is a value is because it is feature complete. You will not buy and find that a feature has been turned off, or you need to spend another $100 dollars for software. At least on a mac, everything you need is there. I am not saying that this phone is really worth the money, just that after buying my RAZR the sales person told me it would be another $100 to hook it up to my computer. Fortunately I had a mac and my own cable. So the costs on the apple phone are up front, while the other phones nickel and dime you.
As far as cingular, I am surprised they found anyone that was willing to give up the provider gravy train and allow such a phone. No need to pay $2 for ringtones. No need to use airtime to download songs. Given Verizon's huge monthly fees, and their lack of customer respect, I doubt they were even willing to talk about giving up the gravy train. Verizon does often have better coverage, but to me they have lost the war when it comes to value.
But it looks pretty cool. Has three LAN ports, which is cool, and the USB supports hard disks. Wonder how this will work.
Will we see any speed increase with out 802.11g airport cards? I wonder how this will work with the express? I suppose this is mostly useful for the new tv device, which I won't need because I watch everything on my computer anyway.
The only really good joke in that otherwise forgettable episode.
That said, as the universe is explored in more detail, we increasingly see that the standard model is robust but has some issues, in the same way that more detailed analysis of the solar system validated Newtonian mechanics with caveats. Many things behave as they should. The Hubble recently detected dark matter behaving as predicted. Certain unexplained acceleration in the cosmos has renwed interest in the Einstein cosmological constant, which if it exists, renews the presence of the æther, albeit in a different form.
The evolutionary shifts in our understanding of the universe cannot be predicted. Dismissing a concept simply because it is a mathematical hack is a mistake. In reality we use mathematics because it is a precise language that will often lead us to an unobserved reality. Recall that quantum mechanics is based on Plank proposing the ludicrous mathematical hack that energy cannot be any arbitrary value. Recall that special relativity is based on Einstein's assertion that equations should be symmetric. And, for the record, we must also admit that there is no evidence for a particle of magnetic or gravitation force.
In any case, the search for the implausible particle that only interacts with the universe through gravity, and is unaffected by all other forces, will continue. What is for sure is the no matter what happens, the future likely holds a much stranger picture anything we might imagine today.
The most common examples of this are websites. Some websites are organized by the firms org chart. Most outside users do not care about the org chart. The just want to know a specific piece of information. Rather than abstracting the organization to the public needs, many firms expect the public to learn the org chart. Another example is those awful URL. If the URL was not exposed to the user, it would be ok. But they are.
Fundamentally, if developers separated the UI from the data, life would be much better.
In this case if seems like these two player are nearly identical, which is no problem. Aiwa came out with walkman clones, which I considered better quality and a much better value. This was not an issue because there was a clear branding difference between the Sony and Aiwa product. What is a problem is the name super shuffle is confusing with the shuffle. Such confusion reducing the ability for consumers to efficiently acquire products, which is bad. Certain agents benefit at the expense of society.