While I do not necessarily disagree with your major point, I must inform you, as you seem not to know: the DVDs have ads too. In fact, many a DVD, legitimately bought and paid for by good, upstanding consumers, still contain advertising. Most do, really. Some legitimately purchased DVDs behave so nastily as to even use that nifty feature of the DVD standard to make those advertisements unskippable. Try as I might, not a button on my DVD player or its remote will work during those ads that come up EVERY FREAKING TIME I INSERT THE DVD.
What makes this repetitive display of ads even more ridiculous is they are often ads for movies coming out "next summer" but next summer was two summers ago. And yet, they still want to make it illegal to own, use, or even create programs that enable me to copy the DVD onto my own media and cut out the ads.
Is the mainstream market not yet ready for portable video?
Who the hell wants to watch TV on a 2-inch screen?
As soon as they start making cell phones with 9" or better screens on them, I'll be interested in watching TV on them. But then, it'll be a bitch to get into my pocket.
I will absolutely not buy this so-called "phone." For $900 I can get:
Hookers
Blow
I already have a digital camera and a cellphone and if my digital camera's batteries die after I photograph myself with the hooker, I can still use my phone to call my dealer for blow.
Intel knew what they were up against and somehow didn't cut it? Intel has been the masters of their domain for a long time and I'm rather astounded that they couldn't come up with something to 1-up the competition this go-around. They have so much in the way of resources to throw at this too.... why?
I think the point you're missing is they plan to release enough (all?) specs and firmware for this device. You can build your own.
It appears to me the plan is hindered only by TI being stingy about releasing key bits about its chips. Neuros will have to make what amounts to an API to a binary driver to keep TI happy and still release the firmware as open source.
It's a fine line to walk but I give Neuros kudos for at least daring to walk it. I've been on their mailing list for a while now, participated in some of their IRC meetings, and am impressed overall with their desire to do it right.
Right, both in terms of making a superb audio device and in terms of keeping it open and free as in libre. They are relative newbs at the open source thing, though, imho...so cut them some slack if they mis-step here or there.
Go ahead, mod me a troll. It makes you feel really good for just a few minutes, doesn't it? Fuck that guy! Stupid trolls! We're trying to have an open, honest debate and a free exchange of ideas and he's in here disagreeing with us!
I don't know about Troll; but, Flamebait sounds just about right.
Microsoft provides Internet Explorer for free, too.
Incorrect. Microsoft provides Internet Explorer at no additional charge. But you pay for it. The cost of it is embedded in the license cost for Windows.
And the documentation for their MSHTML control is superb.
Because somebody is paid to produce that documentation.
In the case of Mozilla, it would greatly benefit them if their product were to be embedded all over the place.
Why? If you had said, "It would greatly benefit them if people were paying them money to embed their product all over the place." Well, if you'd said that I could see how it would benefit them. As it is, what benefits them is to make sure the needs of the people who fund the development are being met. It does not necessarily stand to reason that the people funding Mozilla development are doing so in an attempt to have it embedded all over the place. Were it embedded all over the place, it might have ancillary benefits... but it does not seem that the people who fund the development want that, or else they'd pay someone to write better documentation.
Of course, non-Mozilla developers need solid documentation and solid examples in order to learn how to embed Gecko. Such documentation and examples currently do not exist.
Non-Mozilla developers could use solid documentation and solid examples in order to learn how to embed Gecko. In fact, they would greatly benefit from such. However, "need" is a bit much. The source code is available.
The same goes for OpenOffice. If these products want to be seriously used, then they will need to provide sufficient documentation. It's as simple as that.
These products are seriously used as is. It's as simple as that. If you, I, or anybody else wants something out of them that they are not providing, then you, I or whomever else needs to fund that thing.
The price they're charging for their software is irrelevant.
It is entirely relevant. They do not charge you for the product. Yet they provide means for any entity to add, modify, or delete functionality from the product if they so desire. To whine about not having feature X (even if that feature is documentation) but not funding the development is a bit like a beggar on the street moaning about getting coupons good for a free sandwich at a local shop instead of cash.
The point I'm trying to make in all this is that there is a very simple way to get the documentation: pay for it. If it is funded, it will get done. If the people who pay for the development of these products are not interested in funding features you want, then you need to pay for those features yourself.
So please, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org developers, provide us with some recent, useful documentation and examples! That is perhaps the greatest favour you could do at this time.
Never mind, you know, providing us with top-notch software products for... hmm, how much does it cost?... Oh, I remember, ZERO dollars... and nevermind making it open source so it's not just free as in gratis but free as in liberty... so we can do with it pretty much whatever we please, including writing our own documentation if it's an itch we need scratched... or, for that matter, allowing us to pay you or someone else to write the documentation for us if it's important to us...
Yeah, nevermind all that. We don't have time to wade through your source code and your lame documentation! And we're too cheap to buy a product or toolkit that includes proper documentation already! And we're too cheap to float the cost of some technical writers to keep the documentation for your free software up to date. Just fix your documentation NOW NOW NOW!!! It SUCKS!!! It SUCKS, YA HEAR ME!!! Write us some @#%#$^ documentation NOW!!!
A man had been dating three different women, all of whom he enjoyed very much. He actually felt he was in love with each of them, but he realized he could not keep up seeing all of them and he needed to pick just one to marry. The problem was: he couldn't decide. After a great deal of thought, he finally came up with an idea. He would give each of them $1000 and see what they did with it.
So, he gave each the money and waited. The first woman spent the money on herself, bought new clothes, had her nails and hair done, etc., and said she wanted to look good for him. The second woman spent the money on him, bought him gifts, etc., and said she just wanted to show him how much he meant to her. The third woman took the money and invested it, tripling it to $3000 in a week.
After he saw what each woman did with the money, he thought for a while, then disregarded the whole thing and married the one with the biggest tits.
It comes down to this. You have kids? Stay where you are at. As long as the company is not going to go under anytime soon its not worth putting your family through the stress of you working the ladder again.
Well, I'll add my two cents. I do not necessarily agree. I have four children. I quit my job last year to start my own business. On a wing and a prayer. I have told my children more times than I can count: the only thing you can gamble on in this world is yourself. it's the only thing you have any control over. I thought it better to teach my children to follow their dreams, take risks, and try, try again to succeed...rather than to keep the safe job and work 30+ years taking orders from somebody else.
Now, to be fair, had that job had any of a number of certain qualities...I might not've taken that risk even though running my own business has always been a personal dream of sorts. Anyway, I'm happier this way. Even if I fail and lose everything. It may make for some difficult times for my family, but it will not kill us and the risk is worth it, imho.
This is not a rule just an opion, responses to this can state their own opinion but cannot prove me wrong.
Why should I purchase locally, even if it's the same price, when I can just "buy it over the internet, tax free".
Well, to be fair, many times shipping & handling is >= sales tax. Plus, for many items, it is highly preferable to buy something locally, even though the same thing is available online (so long as the price is similar). There are a number of reasons for this. Among them are:
you can physically inspect/try out the item before purchase
local presence for returns, repairs, etc.
philosophical reasons (I like to support local small business owners, as I am one myself, etc.)
fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to the pope
Thank God you can still lie to servers about your location (sheesh...)
Yeah, but...if it bases the tax calculation off of shipping location, how do you lie to it and still get your purchase delivered to where you are? Are you gonna ship to a drop location in the Cayman Islands and re-ship it to your true location? You'll end up paying a lot more in shipping than sales tax for most cases.
What I really wonder is why no big PC companies like Dell, IBM, or Gateway are including OpenOffice with their PCs?
Seems like a brain dead way to give your customers a free office suit. I guess the answer is they are all hoping to sell you MS Office.
Right, wrong, or indifferent...the reason for it is they hope to (A) not piss off Microsoft; and, (B) not receive phone calls on their tech support line for OOo.
With Microsoft products, they can always tell callers to call Microsoft. With OOo, who can they pass the buck to? I can just imagine it...
Caller: Yes, I'm having trouble with this Office Write or whatever it's called. It won't [insert problem here].
Gateway tech support: I see. Well, we bundle OpenOffice.org with our PCs as a value add for our customers...but since it is third party software, we do not support it directly. Have you heard of Google?
Slashdot Mirror
What makes this repetitive display of ads even more ridiculous is they are often ads for movies coming out "next summer" but next summer was two summers ago. And yet, they still want to make it illegal to own, use, or even create programs that enable me to copy the DVD onto my own media and cut out the ads.
Of course, there is no 2.7 kernel and no plans at all to create one...yet."
There. Fixed it.
As soon as they start making cell phones with 9" or better screens on them, I'll be interested in watching TV on them. But then, it'll be a bitch to get into my pocket.
- Hookers
- Blow
I already have a digital camera and a cellphone and if my digital camera's batteries die after I photograph myself with the hooker, I can still use my phone to call my dealer for blow.I think the point you're missing is they plan to release enough (all?) specs and firmware for this device. You can build your own.
It appears to me the plan is hindered only by TI being stingy about releasing key bits about its chips. Neuros will have to make what amounts to an API to a binary driver to keep TI happy and still release the firmware as open source.
It's a fine line to walk but I give Neuros kudos for at least daring to walk it. I've been on their mailing list for a while now, participated in some of their IRC meetings, and am impressed overall with their desire to do it right.
Right, both in terms of making a superb audio device and in terms of keeping it open and free as in libre. They are relative newbs at the open source thing, though, imho...so cut them some slack if they mis-step here or there.
...I was imagining Natalie Portman.
Ya beat me to it! I shouldn't have posted. I could've modded you up.
I, on the other hand...
The point I'm trying to make in all this is that there is a very simple way to get the documentation: pay for it. If it is funded, it will get done. If the people who pay for the development of these products are not interested in funding features you want, then you need to pay for those features yourself.
Vote with your dollars or STFU.
Yeah, nevermind all that. We don't have time to wade through your source code and your lame documentation! And we're too cheap to buy a product or toolkit that includes proper documentation already! And we're too cheap to float the cost of some technical writers to keep the documentation for your free software up to date. Just fix your documentation NOW NOW NOW!!! It SUCKS!!! It SUCKS, YA HEAR ME!!! Write us some @#%#$^ documentation NOW!!!
WAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!
Much appreciated, thanks.
Actually, I quite got the point. I was shooting for +5, Funny.
Which, incidentally, is closely related to my first query of the new local.google.com:
strip clubs in [Mytown]
I was gonna search for "whore houses" but I didn't think that would return any results because [Mytown] is not in Nevada.
Then, according to the Grokster test, does that make Media Play liable also as they encourage and actively promote this type of gifting activity?
Wow
This reminds me of an old joke about men:
A man had been dating three different women, all of whom he enjoyed very much. He actually felt he was in love with each of them, but he realized he could not keep up seeing all of them and he needed to pick just one to marry. The problem was: he couldn't decide. After a great deal of thought, he finally came up with an idea. He would give each of them $1000 and see what they did with it.
So, he gave each the money and waited. The first woman spent the money on herself, bought new clothes, had her nails and hair done, etc., and said she wanted to look good for him. The second woman spent the money on him, bought him gifts, etc., and said she just wanted to show him how much he meant to her. The third woman took the money and invested it, tripling it to $3000 in a week.
After he saw what each woman did with the money, he thought for a while, then disregarded the whole thing and married the one with the biggest tits.
Now, to be fair, had that job had any of a number of certain qualities...I might not've taken that risk even though running my own business has always been a personal dream of sorts. Anyway, I'm happier this way. Even if I fail and lose everything. It may make for some difficult times for my family, but it will not kill us and the risk is worth it, imho. My head asplode.
Okay, so not that last one so much...
Or:
Exchanging messages over the Internet seems precisely analogous to exchanging bits of encoded voice audio signals via the telephone.
With Microsoft products, they can always tell callers to call Microsoft. With OOo, who can they pass the buck to? I can just imagine it...
Caller: Yes, I'm having trouble with this Office Write or whatever it's called. It won't [insert problem here].
Gateway tech support: I see. Well, we bundle OpenOffice.org with our PCs as a value add for our customers...but since it is third party software, we do not support it directly. Have you heard of Google?