All of these groups wants to suck of the teat of MS, and then complain that MS does not provide enough milk. MS is just one company, and it's purpose is to make a profit, and helps others when it helps the bottom line.
So Apple is one of the few computer companies who is not happy being on the MS dole, and tries not to be. But the rest of the world complains about this, and then complains that Apple won't license, and then complains that MS changes things so that existing options go away.
Fundementally the problme is that we have too many people that want free milk, and too few people that are really willing to work for it. Napster, et al, could license or create a non-MS drm, then apply that DRM to a number of differenct players and shops. These could be created for any numbe of OS, even OSS, though the jukebox and drivers of course could be closed.
So the bottom line is the companies like Realplayer and Apple created a profit generating bussiness model. The other companies are little more than some MLM, where MS is at the top, the labels take thier cut, and everyone else is just selling content to each other, hoping to get enough 'associcates' to make a profit.
To be fair, I think we must pause to appreciate the amount of techno crud in the press release. I think of myself as a person who can comprehend pretty well, and cut through the distracting text meant to hide the reality, but this document is a master work of saying nothing.
I mean, it is hard to pin down exactly what they have as a shipping product and what they have as an idea. It this as simple as a stadard shopping cart backend with the ability to handly multiple commisions? Is it truly a sales tracking application? It is a platform on which services can be distributed, or merely offered. And given the various standards, and closed cell networks, will this actually work on real phones?
In the end, as usual, the product from SCO is the entertaining copy. The product itself is copied out of a five year old text book.
Yes, but when I upgrade the OS I can legally all my macs for $200. Also on my mac I won't be accused of piracy for if I change out a hard disk or optical drive, which, by the way, i have done. Also, on a mac when I download music I can burn it to CD and not worry that there might be additional stuff from MS to bork the process, as has been thier wont.
And I don't have those issues that I always had with MS about the HD crashing, and then having to beg to be allowed to install the upgrade, or figure out the workaround that would allow me to pirate the software I was contractually allowed to in the first place as I paid for a license, and merely wanted to reinstall it on the single machine I had.
As is clear to many people, $100 is a small price to pay to not have MS and the BSA houding you. Of course, some people need any kind of attention they can get.
As I see, there are precious few applications that depend on 3d maps, or even 2d maps overlayed on streets. I am sure that hundreds of people can respond with 'I need this application!', but how many of those respondants don't already have a better GIS application.
For my day to day needs, which is to get from point a to point b, google maps is nearly useless. The direction range from rediculous to absurd. For the gee-whiz let's play and learn about the world, Google rocks. But which application is going to generate more appreciation of the brand. Play time with satilite images, or proper directions?
My disilusionment with google is the inability to create code that will truly organize the worlds information that they seem to love to collect. To me, Froogle is nowhere as useful as Yahoo Shopping. Google Maps is nowhere as useful as Mapquest. My total saved email from a decade past, not include nearly a decade past that archived, is a few hundred megabytes, and has never challenged the storage capacity of any server I have been on, and has greatfully been deleted when i wanted it to be.
So what i see with google is feature bloat resulting from a need to parade whiz bang pictures in front of investors, with little benifit to the end user. Sure satilite images are cool, but if if really needed them, we could have gotten them.
Job wsa in charge of Pixar and Apple, but he never pushed the merger.
Apple appears to prefer flexibility as opposed to monolithic growth. For example, the could easily buy a production and distribution facility to make the new intel machines, say Gateway, but they have not done so. Apple has become a design firm, and they seem to want to stick to that core competency. They are doing some simple things, like iTunes and.MaC to support the customers, but one would how buying disney would be good for customers. Customers want to be able to buy content from anyone.
Dexter's Lab was the done when he was becoming very popular. It was a good show, taken from the perspective of a child, full of the fanstansy and nondeterminstic thougth that is typical of a child. It is pretend, and only makes sense if you are a child or a creative adult. In particular, adolescents and teens are too obsesed with rules, learning the rules, and bending the rules to thier advantage for such a show to be of any interest. The other work he has done, like 2 stupid dogs, shows the level of creativity he is capable of.
Now, I agree with you that his work is bit spotty, and often does not transcend the childish plot. He is not as good as Gabor/Klasky at building a childs world that also works at the adolescent and teen level.
Which is the key point and why the labels do not want music in non-DRM digital format. The problem is the youngsters do not realize the problem.
When the wax cylinder went awasy, people had to buy the same music in a new format. When the 8-track went away, we had to buy the same music in a new format. When the LP went away, we had a choice of listening to degraded music on tape or buying the same music in a new format.
With iTunes, this is the first time we can buy music, and, if the hardware does not become encumbered, with relitive ease transfer between many formats as we wish. Once we make a CD of it, we can put the music on player that accepts unencumbered music. We can make a DVD of it. If the furture meadia accept unecumbered music, we can do that as well.
The BS of this article, and I am trying to be objective here, is that apple has done something that is revolutionary. Legal music that is potentially transportable into the future. Even if you do not remove the DRM, As long as Apple makes iTunes for the general platform, or the technology is licensed, there will be no reason to buy other music because any machine can be authorized once an old machine is deauthorized. The labels want more money from the sales at iTunes because they know that is all they will ever get! Of course, Apple can be forced to changes the licensing, and the music might become obsolete, but as I have shown, that is nothing new.
It really is true. For a commodity PC, one really cannot easily beat the big system builders, if for no other reason than it costs more to retail 10 individual pieces, with the packaging, handling and liability, that a single monolithic system. Now, for specialty computers, or if one does not wish to pay the MS tax, the building a system might make sense. It is just like when I built my bicycle. It was more expensive to build one, but the standard configurations were just not to my liking.
This case realy proves it. We go out and try to build a good cheap system, and it runs about $525 without shipping costs, and if this for a bussiness, the oportunity or wage costs involved in ordering the invidual parts and the building and debugging of the system. We see that dell, and I am no fan, for around $600, including windows. Now, if you are going to run not windows, or have a extra license to windows, or are going to pirate windows, then one certainly save some money. Otherwise, the build you own is likely to costs more, as a legal copy of XP home is $80.
Which is to say the build your own is really for the hobbyist or specialist, not, in general, the type of people that this article is directed to.
This thread has both the MS apologist and the denegrating comments stating Apple is just a fashion with little technical competence.
The reality is likely to be more complex. There is almost always a nationalistic pride for localy produced products. And even though almost all electronics are produced in Asia, the branding issue is still very real. But at the heart a good product can always compete, and a good product is not just about fashion, but also the amount of money a person is willing to pay for the product.
For instance a real Prada bag will last a lifetime, while the cheap nylon ones will start to shread quickly. It may not be worth $400 dollars to you to own such a bag, but the quality difference is real. There was a story of Enzo Ferrari that was totaled in the Malibu accident. Car cost 1.2 million. The driver hit at 150+ miles per hour and the occupant(s) suvived. The car was not just about a name. One pays for safety.
So stating the issue is just about style, or just about nationality is a cop out. Sure, to compete in another country one has to be much better, but one can always build a better mousetrap. of course it is easier to just build the same old crap and then complain, but that is not the issue. The iPod is a well made product that has been able to compete. The xBox does not really have anything the consumer finds compelling, and mostly succeeds in the US because it is MS, an name that Americans trust. OTOH, I do not see the powerbooks competing in Japan because the Sony laptops are by many measures better machines. This is reality. Complaining that the Japanese are not buying Powerbooks when Apple is not competing with Sony, at least on that level, would be silly.
First, if the purpose of a commercial is to get people to buy stuff, then the only way to measure the success of a commercial is to try to determine if the commercial increased actual sales, not if people were excited by the content. For instance, if a car company or department store wanted to promote a sale, the brain activity might not be so important. As long the consumer at some level realized a sale was going on, that would be enough.
OTOH, the purpose of comercials on the super bowl and other self service events like the olympics might be quite different. In these cases the commercials are to link the product to the percieved excitement and cache of the event, thus building brand loyalty. This is no small matter, as store brands are subverting the brands,and brand premiums are not as high as they once were. As such, the commercial seem to best work when they provide a 'comic relief' to the tension of the event. In effect, the commercials are merely a short entertainment featuring the produc in question. If this is the case, then perhaps brain activity is relevent, if the brain activity reflects an appreciation for the gag, and not just an acknowledgement of the product. If the consumer appreates the commercial, then the consumer might be more willing to pay or utilize the brand.
This was, IMHO, the big mistake made by the internet bust companies, and still is made today. Firms think that the because of a huge audience the superbowl in a good place to launch new products, and sometimes it does work, like the 1984 Mac ad. But it seems to me that within the context of the superbowl people want entertainment more that the pushing of new product, and the money would be better spent on more targeted ads. Sure the superbowl will insure that everyone knows your name, but it does not seem to mean that they will make any special effort to buy your producrt. If we are talking beer, they might grab a bud instead of a coors, but that does not mean they will make an effort to learn to use a computer to buy the pet supplies they can get almost as cheap down the street.
This is a sad state of affairs. Games are for entertainment, but they have been, at least traditionally, a primary method for people to safely explore social norms and rules. Remember the argument over rules as a child, or the number of adult theme games, which are little more than truth and dare for the uncreative.
So, without RTFA, I can say that the writer might have a point, from a certain perspective. If you believe that a person should not be compensated for thier time, then the critism is quite true. However we are far from the days, at least in America, where after a hard days work we state the work is unsatisfactory and send the person on their way. In fact, this is why people like to work for Americans. We will pay as long as the work is pretty well done, and we will tend to state those minimum requirements at the onset.
Now, clearly one can work hard for years and then be fired for no apparent reason, or at least for no reason you can control. But we have those lessons all the time. A person leads a good life and dies at 25. A person works hard in school, learns, and still makes worse grades that the person who knows who to finagle good grades. But as games, again at least in America, are mostly used reinfornce social norms and promote the fairness of rules, on might wonder what purpose a game that randomly punishes a person who follows the rules, or does not reward a person for persistant effort, would serve. After all, at the base of the economy is our work ethic that states we work until the job is finished, no matter what the pay or sacrifices, as this is the path to greatest reward. Mind you the work ethic is disintegrating and people prefer to gamble in hopes of a big win, be it lottery, a music or sports carreer, or the stock market, rather than put in a days work.
From the summary all I can really fantom is the write is some sort of neo con who resents paying employees the work that brings profit to the firm. In many ways it might be simpler to pay on per peice basis, only for days worked, and with no benifits, and with no regard to those who dedicate thier lives to the continuing success of the firm. But as a society, and increasingly as a world, we tend to think this is not fair.
This reminds of the old MS DOS 3.1 days, when we could use all sorts of tricks to upgrade to more memory, but wheather wwe could use it at a particular time was dependent upon the phase of the moon, the distribution of the electrons, or whatever. One would have all the formats, all the drivers, and hope for the best.
It seems that this might be the same case. First, the connection seems a bit fragile. Second, the current specificatins for some motoralo phone already include a memeory slot, but the maximum memory is listed at 256MB even though the current maximum memory module is 512K. This indicates that phones may have a less than GB limit, perhpas they do not include 32 bit addressing.
One of the recurring security problems in mail is rendering HTML and autoloading image files. Mail poses a particular security risk since the sender is likely to be unknown, where one at least usually chooses to navigate to a web page. As such a secure mail client would not render HTML or images unless told to do so by the user, either through a list of trusted parties or, perhpas more secure, manually.
Now MS gave up security long ago when it not only encouraged users to create HTML mail, but set defaults to automatically render in the preview window. Apple followed suit, but at least did not default to a preview window. The purpose of this may have been two fold. First, many people like to send email in HTML format, even though it adds little to the content. Second, Apple likes to send it's ads in HTML with images, which means that if the defualt were to not load images of HTML, then customers would not be able to read ads. Again, a company decides to put in own interest ahead of the safety of the clients.
So, that this is the first vunelability is well deserved. We all know very well that images and HTML is a prime vector of attack. We all know that autoloading HTML and images is dangerous. Yet Apple chooses to encourage this practice indiscriminately.
I am not saying the HTML and images should not be used in email. All I am saying is that email should be by default executable free, users should be discouraged from including potentially executable content in emails, and clients should have whitelist of trusted sender to load images. That way if apple wants it's ads read, then they can. But hotpics@bigboobs.org is going to have a tougher time infected anyone.
It is even worse than this. PDF, or the portable document format, defines pretty exactly how things will be rendered given certain instructions. This means that the document will look pretty much the same no matter the device on which it is rendered. The limitiation is that the device is assumed to be in some from of print.
HTML, OTOH, is a text markup language. It only defined certains classes and the certain relations among those classes. It does not explicitely define how things are rendered, and in fact is explicitely flexible enough to allow printed, audible, or tactile output. Even with CSS HTML is not goiong to achive the level of reproduction that PDF and things like postscript do. Of course, if the basis for production is Flash, then the HTML becomes just a container. But if one depending on CSS, one is likely in for a sad surprise, as there is still quite a bit of flexibility in implementaion, not to mention abiguity and right out error.
This is kind of like MS trying to make the various MS Office format the defacto means to transfer files. After all, everyone has MS Office, so why not just transfer files. Of course, each MS Office format is slightly different, and translating can mess up formats. It will be close, but not as close as PDF.
Back in the day Compaq reversed engineered the BIOS and then built an equally closed system with proprietary parts, and only somewhat cheaper. Most people I knew still bought the Osborne or the Apple because it was a better value, especially since the later ran visicalc. It was other cut rate companies, without R&D departments, and simply out to make a quick buck, that build the cheap systems. And MS encouraged this to create the myth of a multivendor system.
The battle we have now is over closed software, not closed hardware. Both systems use mostly commidity parts, and most computers, especially at the consumer level, have relitively little expandability. And both have single vendor lockin. With Apple products, the lock in is apple. With MS compatible computers, the lockin is MS. Sure in both cases you can run other OS on it, but unless you built your own, you either pay MS or Apple. While hardware prices have fallen, and while Apple sells products at very reasonable costs, for instance five licenses of Mac OS for $200, or a family iLife for $100, MS has not given in to such competative forces. This is basically 1984, but with software instead of hardware.
I think we should fight against any use of the DCMA. However, your analogy is flawed, and it feeds the myth that have made the current computer industry so dysfunctional. The fact is that most people are wanting computers as appliances, and MS seems to think they also want these appliances to be remotely administered. MS Windows and Mac OS will evolve toward this appliance state, and those of us that want a more hands on experience will require a different OS. I remeber when my dad and I were hacking stereo amplifiers and car engines. I pretty much feel that hacking computer hardware is quickly moving towards the same state.
It is quite arguable that the current airline industry is based on mail delivery. I have seen in more than one history that fixed costs were in fact paid for by the US government through the USPS and airmail, while people transportation covered only fractional amounts.
Given this history, and the assertion that it was probably true of the railroad as well, I wonder if a commercial space service can grow and thrive without significant direct or indirect government assistance.
There are possibility besides mail. Research institutions, even high school, could use the services to put up small sattilites with fixed lifetimes. Additional photos of specifice locations, like the far norhtern hemisphere, might be relized at a profit. Souviners that have been in space can be sold.
Just like NASA, the taking people to space is mostly just a Gee Whiz thing for publicity. Yes it is important for us to get experience in space. Yes it is important to have people who can talk about thier space travel. Yes there are experiments and duties that require local human intervention. But human space travel is only part of the equation, and does not justify or fund even half of the costs. So, I question any commercial enterprise that is going to fund a majority of it's expenses through human space travel, in the same way that many commercial enterprises questions the need for NASA as a humans in space enterprise.
Any future researchers needs to know that if one wants to get the money, one has to get the grants, and if one wants the grants, one has to be in the trendy research of the day.
Of course, the trendy research changes, and one can find oneself in grant limbo. That is why it is often better to do something personally interesting instead of just hoping for money. That way, if you don't get the money, at least you are doing something interesting.
Camino is a brilliant product and has been in beta for a long time. There was a time when Camino was the only browser worthy of the Mac, not even Opera had a decent product. For quite a while i have been running a nightly build, and it is more or less stable.
I think one runs Camino, nee Chimera, for the simplicity. There are things one cannot do, and few things that are easy to do. It is fast, often effecient, sometimes a memory hog, but usualy quite a bit better than anything out there.
I also think that people who have use the more recent browsers might look at the Camino setup and not like it. I would say give it a try, expecially if you are technically savy. Most thing can be done in Camino, just not like one is used to.
Kudos on the 1.0 release. Know that there are people out here that really appreciate all the work.
That one is against the theory of natural selection is not the issue. Rather it is the reason for the rejection of this well established set of principles. If one had evidence of a systematic flaw or a prediction that was verifiable inaccurate, then one could say that this theory was unsound. However, as it has served us well for so long, it is unlikely that we would throw it out. Rather, like classical mechanics, we would merely limit the domain.
However, these people have not really shown the theory to be unsound. Rather, they have merely stated that the theory in theistically undesirable, and therefore must be untrue. What most people miss, and BTW what makes schooling based on religious fanaticism scary, is that science is not a set of disparate facts, but a set of guiding processes and principles, and, given that Evolution is such a successful theory, when one disrespects evolution based solely on personal belief, one also disrespects the of scientific process and puts all scientific finding into questions. (Let me clarify here that I am not claiming the scientific process is perfect or even acceptable, merely useful, and if one rejects it, one must reject all the useful things that has resulted form it.)
What we must remember is that science is a house of cards. If one chooses to believe that one part of science is wrong, say evolution, then one must question all science, because all science is based on the assumption that with careful observation and modeling one can discern the workings of nature. If we believe that evolution must be wrong for theistic reasons, then we have no basis to believe that any other science is correct. It is like believing that a particular person is a crook, and then leaving all your money in this persons care. If your money gets stolen then you are an idiot, and it not then you are likely a hypocrite.
And as christians what we must remember is that the one thing our lord cannot stand is a hypocrite. Recall, we shall not like the hypocrite go pray in public. We shall not like the hypocrite advertise our good deeds. A hypocrite is on who may be likely to go to hell, and a hypocrite is one who rejects evolution based on faith, but still has faith that science is accurate enough to build a car that won't blow up. Clearly we would not drive a car unless we thought it was safe, and clearly a car is safe because of the science based research that went into it. Clearly GM does not list prayer meetings as a basis for their safety program.
By all means question any theory. By all means ask why this must be true, and why that must not be true. But remember why the likes of Newton started the systematic observation of the world. They were not satisfied with the pompous people who thought they already knew the nature and intentions of Gods. These natural philosophers were not so arrogant as to think they were equal to god, to think that they could tell others exactly what god was thinking, exactly who would go to hell, and impose human rules on the all powerful. Rather, these natural philosophers took their rightful place beneath the almighty and tried to understand the rules by observing the only manifestation we have, that of the creation. And by these observations we can come to understand the nature of the world, and that nature is necessarily the same no matter how many gods you believe in, even if that number is zero. And what these natural philosophers discovered was so dangerous to the megalomaniacs, so risky to cushy like that the religous hypocrites build on the back of the ignorant masses, that these so-called men of god tortured and killed these philosophers, even though we know that the taking of a human life is the sole perogative of the almighty.
So in the end I pity the hypocrites that deny evolution solely based on faith, for they lack not only the intelligence to understand the unity of the world and the moral fortitude to truly live their beliefs, but also suffer from the greatest illness known to humanity: the delusion that one is equal to the creator.
I honestly do not see this at all. I have never heard that netfilx refuses to stop subscriptions or has agents who get fired if they let a subscriber go. I have had to deal with companies like these. Give comments in the netflix threads, I do not think that netflix is one of these companies, therefore it can hardly be said that netflix has anyone by the balls by autobilling. One just needs to cancel it.
Additionally, netflix is a cut rate bussiness. The model is based on providing cheap products, which any reasonable person would realize also implies cheap service. Expecting anything more is equivilent to taking spam seriously. Sure the lame and gulliable and desperate respond to the cheap sex ad, and we mercilessly make fun of them.
By the standards of American business, I have never seen anything misleading in their copy. They claim most DVD will arrive within a day, but they have no guarantee for time to check in a CD or get the next one out. A reasonable person would calculate 1 day in, 1 day out, 2 days to check in, 2 days to ship, or perhaps 5 DVD a month, if you are lucky 8, on the $9.99 plan. Sure Netflix could do it faster, and if they do they should be commended, but again, those who expect this are the same who send thier $1000 overseas to a stranger, then expect out sympathy at being duped.
So, perhaps we are complaining that Netflix rents DVD for an average of $2 a piece, which is perhaps a good deal. We might have expected that we could get DVD to rip at $.50 a piece, and are disappointed that can't, but again, I have never seen any copy in which netflix guaranteed a minimum cycle time. And again, if the value is bad, one can cancel. One can hardly complain tha someone has fixed a machine in which on has been getting free product, anymore than one can complain that walmart requires intrusive searches in exchange for cheap prices.
The issue is not that the company has a right to determine the employee can and can't do at work, at least to a degree. The issue is the companies inability to manage resources. I have often said a big problem with MS Windows is it's inability to install an OS suitable for business use. Why do we need solitaire, minesweeper, and media cores on a machine that will be used to run billing software, for instance?
The bottom line is that if a company does not want an employee to use a resource, then they company should not supply the resource, or limit the use. For instance, reading ponography at work is probably also frowned upon, but would a company have a case if it provided that SWANK in the library, and then fired employees that chose to utilize it?
Now, one might say that employers provide the internet, and that can be used for ponography. The thing is the employer does not actually provide the ponography/ In fact, if the employer was smart, filters would in place to limit access to these sites, and employees who tried to circumvent the filters could then be fired.
In the end firing this guy is like firing a guy who picked up $10 from the ground. Sure one could say it was theft, but it might also be entrapment. Hiring and trainine employees cost a lot of money, and one does not fire them friviously. Unless, of course, one is borrow and spend republican.
Truly and utterly bad science. Truly and utterly bad reporting. the first line says it all
When Ashlee Simpson tops the charts while a critically acclaimed ex-Beatle's album fails to crack the top 200, eyebrows go up in the marketing world.
This is called starting with you conclusion and finding evidence to match it. You take one of the most loved bands, that has stood the test of time, and arguable has some artistic merit, and compare it to what is arguable trash. Is every new artist trash? Were there any fewer trash artist 40 years ago? I think not. So much for bad reporting.
The bad science is that music is intrinsically a social art, and always has been. Normal people in a society have the same expectations, and when those expectations are met normal people are satisfied. Those expectation change over time, but are rather consistant during short periods. So, what this study actually shows is that taste among normal teens is consistant, and they are more likely to enjoy songs that also enjoyed by thier peers, rather than a somewhat random collections of songs.
The objective reality is that a suffently cultured person can enjoy a range of music, from classical, to jazz, to rock, to rap, to hip hop, to country. The fact that teens are not sophiticated is not surprising as they lack experience. The problem is that some so-called adults are not sophisticated either, and seem to be proud of that. On the flip side, the difference between bad music and good music, outside of they psuedo-intellectual world or music reviewing, is slight. Anything that is going to get recorded is going to basically meet some minimum standard. Anything that is going to be targeted to teens, even by an indie band, will meet certain expectations.
A valid experiment could be designed. Take teens from distincly different culture, ask them to sample each others music, music that is already popular in the other culture, and see if there is statistically significant impact of the popularity factor.My guess is there might not be. I have seen total rejection of even different forms of hip hop, seperated by a scant few hundred miles. The issue is not whether we follow the herd, as we clearly in many cases do. The issue is whether we just follow any herd.
Exactly. It is a game. The purpose is to provide a place for people to simulate activites that they otherwise not either because those activites are either impossible, impracticle or illigal. The fact that we played roles in which we were mass murderers or were gnomes, and spent considerable time refinng those roles and writing backgrounds, does not mean that we then go out to be mass murders or become gnomes. For that matter, the fact that we role play healthy heterosexual relationships does not mean that we ever actually find a healthy heterosexual relationship.
The bottom line is that games should provide safe place for the person to explore possible realities. These realities might be pretending to be a troll, and the fact that some might not like trolls should not make any difference. It would be intensely unfair to say that no one could be a troll because a few religious idiots think that trolls look to much like satan. Likewise, if unions are allowed, then there is really no way to police them. I mean, as has been mentioned, is the player behind a character of the same gender. If the person already married in real life, or does the S.O. allow this third party. Is it even ethical to allow this fantasy coupling.
In the end, this all smacks of intolerance. And in a world as vile and evil as the current video game industry, one would must wonder who has the balls to play simulate these demon infested worlds while at the same time claim some moral fortitude. I guess it is the currrent reality. One does drugs, has random sex, cheats, steals, and kills, but still claims to be the moral leader of the world.
The considlated federation of town criers, villiage idiots, and buggy whip vendors, are petitioning congress to protect them against thin sheets of papers printed with daily news and advertisements. These so-called news-papers, made practical by recent innovation in moveable type. The town criers insist that they have spent much effort organizing a network of reliable informants, and that the news-papers are able to undercutting traditional news outlets because they do not have such expenses. Even though the criers are fully attributed, they object as this may cut down on public contact and potential revenue.
In addition, the villiage idiot objects as these papers also supply a high quality entertainment, thusly potentially destroying the trade of villiage idiot and the untold community benifit such a person provides. The buggy whip manufacturers are concerned as the papers offer non-local cheaper alternatives to the buggy whip, and prints stories about a post-horse power economy which threatens the entire industry.
Slashdot Mirror
So Apple is one of the few computer companies who is not happy being on the MS dole, and tries not to be. But the rest of the world complains about this, and then complains that Apple won't license, and then complains that MS changes things so that existing options go away.
Fundementally the problme is that we have too many people that want free milk, and too few people that are really willing to work for it. Napster, et al, could license or create a non-MS drm, then apply that DRM to a number of differenct players and shops. These could be created for any numbe of OS, even OSS, though the jukebox and drivers of course could be closed.
So the bottom line is the companies like Realplayer and Apple created a profit generating bussiness model. The other companies are little more than some MLM, where MS is at the top, the labels take thier cut, and everyone else is just selling content to each other, hoping to get enough 'associcates' to make a profit.
since you ask, this paramilitary group is continuing to brainwash innocent children. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Metro/GE04A k06.html
I mean, it is hard to pin down exactly what they have as a shipping product and what they have as an idea. It this as simple as a stadard shopping cart backend with the ability to handly multiple commisions? Is it truly a sales tracking application? It is a platform on which services can be distributed, or merely offered. And given the various standards, and closed cell networks, will this actually work on real phones?
In the end, as usual, the product from SCO is the entertaining copy. The product itself is copied out of a five year old text book.
And I don't have those issues that I always had with MS about the HD crashing, and then having to beg to be allowed to install the upgrade, or figure out the workaround that would allow me to pirate the software I was contractually allowed to in the first place as I paid for a license, and merely wanted to reinstall it on the single machine I had.
As is clear to many people, $100 is a small price to pay to not have MS and the BSA houding you. Of course, some people need any kind of attention they can get.
For my day to day needs, which is to get from point a to point b, google maps is nearly useless. The direction range from rediculous to absurd. For the gee-whiz let's play and learn about the world, Google rocks. But which application is going to generate more appreciation of the brand. Play time with satilite images, or proper directions?
My disilusionment with google is the inability to create code that will truly organize the worlds information that they seem to love to collect. To me, Froogle is nowhere as useful as Yahoo Shopping. Google Maps is nowhere as useful as Mapquest. My total saved email from a decade past, not include nearly a decade past that archived, is a few hundred megabytes, and has never challenged the storage capacity of any server I have been on, and has greatfully been deleted when i wanted it to be.
So what i see with google is feature bloat resulting from a need to parade whiz bang pictures in front of investors, with little benifit to the end user. Sure satilite images are cool, but if if really needed them, we could have gotten them.
Apple appears to prefer flexibility as opposed to monolithic growth. For example, the could easily buy a production and distribution facility to make the new intel machines, say Gateway, but they have not done so. Apple has become a design firm, and they seem to want to stick to that core competency. They are doing some simple things, like iTunes and .MaC to support the customers, but one would how buying disney would be good for customers. Customers want to be able to buy content from anyone.
Now, I agree with you that his work is bit spotty, and often does not transcend the childish plot. He is not as good as Gabor/Klasky at building a childs world that also works at the adolescent and teen level.
When the wax cylinder went awasy, people had to buy the same music in a new format. When the 8-track went away, we had to buy the same music in a new format. When the LP went away, we had a choice of listening to degraded music on tape or buying the same music in a new format.
With iTunes, this is the first time we can buy music, and, if the hardware does not become encumbered, with relitive ease transfer between many formats as we wish. Once we make a CD of it, we can put the music on player that accepts unencumbered music. We can make a DVD of it. If the furture meadia accept unecumbered music, we can do that as well.
The BS of this article, and I am trying to be objective here, is that apple has done something that is revolutionary. Legal music that is potentially transportable into the future. Even if you do not remove the DRM, As long as Apple makes iTunes for the general platform, or the technology is licensed, there will be no reason to buy other music because any machine can be authorized once an old machine is deauthorized. The labels want more money from the sales at iTunes because they know that is all they will ever get! Of course, Apple can be forced to changes the licensing, and the music might become obsolete, but as I have shown, that is nothing new.
This case realy proves it. We go out and try to build a good cheap system, and it runs about $525 without shipping costs, and if this for a bussiness, the oportunity or wage costs involved in ordering the invidual parts and the building and debugging of the system. We see that dell, and I am no fan, for around $600, including windows. Now, if you are going to run not windows, or have a extra license to windows, or are going to pirate windows, then one certainly save some money. Otherwise, the build you own is likely to costs more, as a legal copy of XP home is $80.
Which is to say the build your own is really for the hobbyist or specialist, not, in general, the type of people that this article is directed to.
The reality is likely to be more complex. There is almost always a nationalistic pride for localy produced products. And even though almost all electronics are produced in Asia, the branding issue is still very real. But at the heart a good product can always compete, and a good product is not just about fashion, but also the amount of money a person is willing to pay for the product.
For instance a real Prada bag will last a lifetime, while the cheap nylon ones will start to shread quickly. It may not be worth $400 dollars to you to own such a bag, but the quality difference is real. There was a story of Enzo Ferrari that was totaled in the Malibu accident. Car cost 1.2 million. The driver hit at 150+ miles per hour and the occupant(s) suvived. The car was not just about a name. One pays for safety.
So stating the issue is just about style, or just about nationality is a cop out. Sure, to compete in another country one has to be much better, but one can always build a better mousetrap. of course it is easier to just build the same old crap and then complain, but that is not the issue. The iPod is a well made product that has been able to compete. The xBox does not really have anything the consumer finds compelling, and mostly succeeds in the US because it is MS, an name that Americans trust. OTOH, I do not see the powerbooks competing in Japan because the Sony laptops are by many measures better machines. This is reality. Complaining that the Japanese are not buying Powerbooks when Apple is not competing with Sony, at least on that level, would be silly.
OTOH, the purpose of comercials on the super bowl and other self service events like the olympics might be quite different. In these cases the commercials are to link the product to the percieved excitement and cache of the event, thus building brand loyalty. This is no small matter, as store brands are subverting the brands,and brand premiums are not as high as they once were. As such, the commercial seem to best work when they provide a 'comic relief' to the tension of the event. In effect, the commercials are merely a short entertainment featuring the produc in question. If this is the case, then perhaps brain activity is relevent, if the brain activity reflects an appreciation for the gag, and not just an acknowledgement of the product. If the consumer appreates the commercial, then the consumer might be more willing to pay or utilize the brand.
This was, IMHO, the big mistake made by the internet bust companies, and still is made today. Firms think that the because of a huge audience the superbowl in a good place to launch new products, and sometimes it does work, like the 1984 Mac ad. But it seems to me that within the context of the superbowl people want entertainment more that the pushing of new product, and the money would be better spent on more targeted ads. Sure the superbowl will insure that everyone knows your name, but it does not seem to mean that they will make any special effort to buy your producrt. If we are talking beer, they might grab a bud instead of a coors, but that does not mean they will make an effort to learn to use a computer to buy the pet supplies they can get almost as cheap down the street.
So, without RTFA, I can say that the writer might have a point, from a certain perspective. If you believe that a person should not be compensated for thier time, then the critism is quite true. However we are far from the days, at least in America, where after a hard days work we state the work is unsatisfactory and send the person on their way. In fact, this is why people like to work for Americans. We will pay as long as the work is pretty well done, and we will tend to state those minimum requirements at the onset.
Now, clearly one can work hard for years and then be fired for no apparent reason, or at least for no reason you can control. But we have those lessons all the time. A person leads a good life and dies at 25. A person works hard in school, learns, and still makes worse grades that the person who knows who to finagle good grades. But as games, again at least in America, are mostly used reinfornce social norms and promote the fairness of rules, on might wonder what purpose a game that randomly punishes a person who follows the rules, or does not reward a person for persistant effort, would serve. After all, at the base of the economy is our work ethic that states we work until the job is finished, no matter what the pay or sacrifices, as this is the path to greatest reward. Mind you the work ethic is disintegrating and people prefer to gamble in hopes of a big win, be it lottery, a music or sports carreer, or the stock market, rather than put in a days work.
From the summary all I can really fantom is the write is some sort of neo con who resents paying employees the work that brings profit to the firm. In many ways it might be simpler to pay on per peice basis, only for days worked, and with no benifits, and with no regard to those who dedicate thier lives to the continuing success of the firm. But as a society, and increasingly as a world, we tend to think this is not fair.
It seems that this might be the same case. First, the connection seems a bit fragile. Second, the current specificatins for some motoralo phone already include a memeory slot, but the maximum memory is listed at 256MB even though the current maximum memory module is 512K. This indicates that phones may have a less than GB limit, perhpas they do not include 32 bit addressing.
Now MS gave up security long ago when it not only encouraged users to create HTML mail, but set defaults to automatically render in the preview window. Apple followed suit, but at least did not default to a preview window. The purpose of this may have been two fold. First, many people like to send email in HTML format, even though it adds little to the content. Second, Apple likes to send it's ads in HTML with images, which means that if the defualt were to not load images of HTML, then customers would not be able to read ads. Again, a company decides to put in own interest ahead of the safety of the clients.
So, that this is the first vunelability is well deserved. We all know very well that images and HTML is a prime vector of attack. We all know that autoloading HTML and images is dangerous. Yet Apple chooses to encourage this practice indiscriminately.
I am not saying the HTML and images should not be used in email. All I am saying is that email should be by default executable free, users should be discouraged from including potentially executable content in emails, and clients should have whitelist of trusted sender to load images. That way if apple wants it's ads read, then they can. But hotpics@bigboobs.org is going to have a tougher time infected anyone.
HTML, OTOH, is a text markup language. It only defined certains classes and the certain relations among those classes. It does not explicitely define how things are rendered, and in fact is explicitely flexible enough to allow printed, audible, or tactile output. Even with CSS HTML is not goiong to achive the level of reproduction that PDF and things like postscript do. Of course, if the basis for production is Flash, then the HTML becomes just a container. But if one depending on CSS, one is likely in for a sad surprise, as there is still quite a bit of flexibility in implementaion, not to mention abiguity and right out error.
This is kind of like MS trying to make the various MS Office format the defacto means to transfer files. After all, everyone has MS Office, so why not just transfer files. Of course, each MS Office format is slightly different, and translating can mess up formats. It will be close, but not as close as PDF.
The battle we have now is over closed software, not closed hardware. Both systems use mostly commidity parts, and most computers, especially at the consumer level, have relitively little expandability. And both have single vendor lockin. With Apple products, the lock in is apple. With MS compatible computers, the lockin is MS. Sure in both cases you can run other OS on it, but unless you built your own, you either pay MS or Apple. While hardware prices have fallen, and while Apple sells products at very reasonable costs, for instance five licenses of Mac OS for $200, or a family iLife for $100, MS has not given in to such competative forces. This is basically 1984, but with software instead of hardware.
I think we should fight against any use of the DCMA. However, your analogy is flawed, and it feeds the myth that have made the current computer industry so dysfunctional. The fact is that most people are wanting computers as appliances, and MS seems to think they also want these appliances to be remotely administered. MS Windows and Mac OS will evolve toward this appliance state, and those of us that want a more hands on experience will require a different OS. I remeber when my dad and I were hacking stereo amplifiers and car engines. I pretty much feel that hacking computer hardware is quickly moving towards the same state.
Given this history, and the assertion that it was probably true of the railroad as well, I wonder if a commercial space service can grow and thrive without significant direct or indirect government assistance.
There are possibility besides mail. Research institutions, even high school, could use the services to put up small sattilites with fixed lifetimes. Additional photos of specifice locations, like the far norhtern hemisphere, might be relized at a profit. Souviners that have been in space can be sold.
Just like NASA, the taking people to space is mostly just a Gee Whiz thing for publicity. Yes it is important for us to get experience in space. Yes it is important to have people who can talk about thier space travel. Yes there are experiments and duties that require local human intervention. But human space travel is only part of the equation, and does not justify or fund even half of the costs. So, I question any commercial enterprise that is going to fund a majority of it's expenses through human space travel, in the same way that many commercial enterprises questions the need for NASA as a humans in space enterprise.
Of course, the trendy research changes, and one can find oneself in grant limbo. That is why it is often better to do something personally interesting instead of just hoping for money. That way, if you don't get the money, at least you are doing something interesting.
I think one runs Camino, nee Chimera, for the simplicity. There are things one cannot do, and few things that are easy to do. It is fast, often effecient, sometimes a memory hog, but usualy quite a bit better than anything out there.
I also think that people who have use the more recent browsers might look at the Camino setup and not like it. I would say give it a try, expecially if you are technically savy. Most thing can be done in Camino, just not like one is used to.
Kudos on the 1.0 release. Know that there are people out here that really appreciate all the work.
However, these people have not really shown the theory to be unsound. Rather, they have merely stated that the theory in theistically undesirable, and therefore must be untrue. What most people miss, and BTW what makes schooling based on religious fanaticism scary, is that science is not a set of disparate facts, but a set of guiding processes and principles, and, given that Evolution is such a successful theory, when one disrespects evolution based solely on personal belief, one also disrespects the of scientific process and puts all scientific finding into questions. (Let me clarify here that I am not claiming the scientific process is perfect or even acceptable, merely useful, and if one rejects it, one must reject all the useful things that has resulted form it.)
What we must remember is that science is a house of cards. If one chooses to believe that one part of science is wrong, say evolution, then one must question all science, because all science is based on the assumption that with careful observation and modeling one can discern the workings of nature. If we believe that evolution must be wrong for theistic reasons, then we have no basis to believe that any other science is correct. It is like believing that a particular person is a crook, and then leaving all your money in this persons care. If your money gets stolen then you are an idiot, and it not then you are likely a hypocrite.
And as christians what we must remember is that the one thing our lord cannot stand is a hypocrite. Recall, we shall not like the hypocrite go pray in public. We shall not like the hypocrite advertise our good deeds. A hypocrite is on who may be likely to go to hell, and a hypocrite is one who rejects evolution based on faith, but still has faith that science is accurate enough to build a car that won't blow up. Clearly we would not drive a car unless we thought it was safe, and clearly a car is safe because of the science based research that went into it. Clearly GM does not list prayer meetings as a basis for their safety program.
By all means question any theory. By all means ask why this must be true, and why that must not be true. But remember why the likes of Newton started the systematic observation of the world. They were not satisfied with the pompous people who thought they already knew the nature and intentions of Gods. These natural philosophers were not so arrogant as to think they were equal to god, to think that they could tell others exactly what god was thinking, exactly who would go to hell, and impose human rules on the all powerful. Rather, these natural philosophers took their rightful place beneath the almighty and tried to understand the rules by observing the only manifestation we have, that of the creation. And by these observations we can come to understand the nature of the world, and that nature is necessarily the same no matter how many gods you believe in, even if that number is zero. And what these natural philosophers discovered was so dangerous to the megalomaniacs, so risky to cushy like that the religous hypocrites build on the back of the ignorant masses, that these so-called men of god tortured and killed these philosophers, even though we know that the taking of a human life is the sole perogative of the almighty.
So in the end I pity the hypocrites that deny evolution solely based on faith, for they lack not only the intelligence to understand the unity of the world and the moral fortitude to truly live their beliefs, but also suffer from the greatest illness known to humanity: the delusion that one is equal to the creator.
Additionally, netflix is a cut rate bussiness. The model is based on providing cheap products, which any reasonable person would realize also implies cheap service. Expecting anything more is equivilent to taking spam seriously. Sure the lame and gulliable and desperate respond to the cheap sex ad, and we mercilessly make fun of them.
By the standards of American business, I have never seen anything misleading in their copy. They claim most DVD will arrive within a day, but they have no guarantee for time to check in a CD or get the next one out. A reasonable person would calculate 1 day in, 1 day out, 2 days to check in, 2 days to ship, or perhaps 5 DVD a month, if you are lucky 8, on the $9.99 plan. Sure Netflix could do it faster, and if they do they should be commended, but again, those who expect this are the same who send thier $1000 overseas to a stranger, then expect out sympathy at being duped.
So, perhaps we are complaining that Netflix rents DVD for an average of $2 a piece, which is perhaps a good deal. We might have expected that we could get DVD to rip at $.50 a piece, and are disappointed that can't, but again, I have never seen any copy in which netflix guaranteed a minimum cycle time. And again, if the value is bad, one can cancel. One can hardly complain tha someone has fixed a machine in which on has been getting free product, anymore than one can complain that walmart requires intrusive searches in exchange for cheap prices.
The bottom line is that if a company does not want an employee to use a resource, then they company should not supply the resource, or limit the use. For instance, reading ponography at work is probably also frowned upon, but would a company have a case if it provided that SWANK in the library, and then fired employees that chose to utilize it?
Now, one might say that employers provide the internet, and that can be used for ponography. The thing is the employer does not actually provide the ponography/ In fact, if the employer was smart, filters would in place to limit access to these sites, and employees who tried to circumvent the filters could then be fired.
In the end firing this guy is like firing a guy who picked up $10 from the ground. Sure one could say it was theft, but it might also be entrapment. Hiring and trainine employees cost a lot of money, and one does not fire them friviously. Unless, of course, one is borrow and spend republican.
When Ashlee Simpson tops the charts while a critically acclaimed ex-Beatle's album fails to crack the top 200, eyebrows go up in the marketing world. This is called starting with you conclusion and finding evidence to match it. You take one of the most loved bands, that has stood the test of time, and arguable has some artistic merit, and compare it to what is arguable trash. Is every new artist trash? Were there any fewer trash artist 40 years ago? I think not. So much for bad reporting.
The bad science is that music is intrinsically a social art, and always has been. Normal people in a society have the same expectations, and when those expectations are met normal people are satisfied. Those expectation change over time, but are rather consistant during short periods. So, what this study actually shows is that taste among normal teens is consistant, and they are more likely to enjoy songs that also enjoyed by thier peers, rather than a somewhat random collections of songs.
The objective reality is that a suffently cultured person can enjoy a range of music, from classical, to jazz, to rock, to rap, to hip hop, to country. The fact that teens are not sophiticated is not surprising as they lack experience. The problem is that some so-called adults are not sophisticated either, and seem to be proud of that. On the flip side, the difference between bad music and good music, outside of they psuedo-intellectual world or music reviewing, is slight. Anything that is going to get recorded is going to basically meet some minimum standard. Anything that is going to be targeted to teens, even by an indie band, will meet certain expectations.
A valid experiment could be designed. Take teens from distincly different culture, ask them to sample each others music, music that is already popular in the other culture, and see if there is statistically significant impact of the popularity factor.My guess is there might not be. I have seen total rejection of even different forms of hip hop, seperated by a scant few hundred miles. The issue is not whether we follow the herd, as we clearly in many cases do. The issue is whether we just follow any herd.
The bottom line is that games should provide safe place for the person to explore possible realities. These realities might be pretending to be a troll, and the fact that some might not like trolls should not make any difference. It would be intensely unfair to say that no one could be a troll because a few religious idiots think that trolls look to much like satan. Likewise, if unions are allowed, then there is really no way to police them. I mean, as has been mentioned, is the player behind a character of the same gender. If the person already married in real life, or does the S.O. allow this third party. Is it even ethical to allow this fantasy coupling.
In the end, this all smacks of intolerance. And in a world as vile and evil as the current video game industry, one would must wonder who has the balls to play simulate these demon infested worlds while at the same time claim some moral fortitude. I guess it is the currrent reality. One does drugs, has random sex, cheats, steals, and kills, but still claims to be the moral leader of the world.
In addition, the villiage idiot objects as these papers also supply a high quality entertainment, thusly potentially destroying the trade of villiage idiot and the untold community benifit such a person provides. The buggy whip manufacturers are concerned as the papers offer non-local cheaper alternatives to the buggy whip, and prints stories about a post-horse power economy which threatens the entire industry.