Because there isn't an iPod with 3.5" touchscreen?
Is that enough to make it better than the existing offering, though?
An 80GB iPod, for example, may have a smaller screen and a clickwheel, but it also offers TEN times the capacity as the iPhone for a little more than HALF the price. I don't see the core value of the iPhone being in its music/video playing abilities.
back in the mid-90s I could run Windows apps on my [OS/2 Warp] desktop natively.
Well, 16-bit Windows apps at least. Most Win3.1 software worked relatively well under Warp, but NT and 95 software didn't; IBM didn't have any access to the new OS code Microsoft wrote after the split.
So while Warp worked well for legacy software needs, it wasn't a good solution for running contemporary software in cases where a native version was not available. Web browsing was one instance where OS/2 fell behind; the native Web Explorer browser was decent, but fell behind Netscape 2.x quickly in the feature race and never caught up. And unfortunately, Netscape for Windows didn't run stably under OS/2.
I can't see a scenario where Apple would be interested in becoming a Windows OEM, supporting Windows, etc.
Nor can I see a scenario where Microsoft would be FORCED to do business with Apple as a Windows OEM. Microsoft doesn't need to forbid EVERYBODY from virtualizing Vista to keep Apple away.
Compact discs do not only confer upon the purchaser a limited right to play the recordings located therein, but actual ownership of the music itself!
I don't want to have to pay for it all again should my MP3 player die, or my hard disk bite the big one.
If a compact disc becomes scratched, melted, or otherwise unplayable, simply return to the store where you purchased it and they will replace it with a new one free of charge!
My car does not have an MP3 player that I can "sync" with my music library, nor does it have a way to connect my MP3 player to my Car's audio system.
People are going to look back on the period from the mid-90s to the mid-00s--after car stereos stopped offering cassette decks as standard equipment but before they started offering line-in jacks as standard--and wonder "how the hell did people hook up their MP3 players to their Cars' audio systems?".
you have to go out of your way to get the tracks to play in "album/CD order".
All the reputable music download sites I know of include track number metadata in the files they sell, and all the reputable music player devices I know of respect them when playing back in album order. I don't think the problem you have is as widespread as you think.
And it's ridiculous to pay the same for a 20 second "interlude" track as you do for a 15 minute opus track
Agreed, but that's a flaw of the pricing policy established by the download sites and record companies, not of downloadable music itself. Questions of legitimacy aside, I've always thought that AllofMP3's pricing scheme made a lot of sense. You're charged based on the number of bytes in the file you download, so that cost becomes a function of both content length (how many seconds make up the song) and content fidelity (how many bits represent a second).
Until downloadable music isn't compressed, or they are able to compress without ANY loss, there will still be a need for CD's.
I disagree. With the current state of album mastering these days, a huge amount of information is lost even on Red Book CDs due to dynamic compression. Listeners expect their music to be constantly loud. And even without that phenomenon, there's been enough advances in technology over the past 25 years that Red Book's 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo specs seem dated and inadequate.
I expect that audiophiles will migrate from CDs to a niche format that seems to address their needs specifically: possibly SACD or DVD-Audio, possibly a return to vinyl, most likely a downloadable digital format like FLAC Lossless. Everyone else will migrate--excuse me, HAS BEEN migrating--from CDs to mildly-lossy MP3 and AAC files.
The real reason that Flash is popular is because that is the standard that YouTube decided on.
And why did YouTube decide on Flash as their standard? Because Flash plugins were mature and reliable, worked well with all leading browsers and OS platforms, and even came pre-installed with many browser distros. Because it allowed them to avoid the game of "Select your poison: Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime?" that users at previous video sites had to play. Because tools for generating and publishing Flash content were not onerously expensive.
"Microsoft® Silverlight(TM) is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of.NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."
That's fantastic. But I still can't figure out what it is from that marketing copy/Buzzword Bingo card.
So it's Microsoft's attempt to devise a Flash killer? Or something like that?
"Specific rights are normally spelled out in the contract for the image. I have personally seen contracts that forbid re-purposing. With this ruling the media conglomerate is granted all rights automagically."
That sounds to me like it might be a misinterpretation of the ruling. I read it as "Taking content that was originally bought for distribution in a (paper) magazine and then distributing it online, still in the magazine context, does not necessarily qualify as 're-purposing'."
My numero-uno (un)favourite Internet-era buzzword is 'web app'. What is a web app, exactly?
An application that leverages web technologies. Obviously.
My ADSL router has a 'web interface' and for the most part it's just crappy.
For most consumers, that crappy web interface is better than what the alternatives would have been: 1. telnetting to 192.168.0.1 and using nonsensical command-line instructions; 2. prying open the router's case and setting DIP switches or jumpers by hand; 3. configuring via a desktop config app that only works in Windows and sometimes crashes the whole PC because it runs in driver space and is badly written; or 4. being unable to configure the router behavior at all.
My understandnig is that it won't PREVENT "existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd[s]", but will make it much harder to find software to do so.
You mean drag-and-dropping the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders from drive F: to C:\DVDBAK in Windows NT might stop working someday?
Credit cards are useful occassionally - my fiancee and I use hers maybe three times a year - but I'd much rather use my debit card.
Credit cards essentially give you an interest-free loan until the end of the current billing cycle, and the card issuers have all kinds of policies that allow you to recover your money if you've been a victim of fraud. Once that debit card is swiped and your bank account has been debited -- that money's gone.
Yes, it's a bit more difficult to balance the books when different parts of a transaction--authorization, billing, and finally payment--can take place on different days, even weeks apart. But responsible use of a credit card has some real benefits over debit card use.
Manage your expenses wisely, and you'll never need a loan or a mortgage.
And you'll also be living in a shabby 1-bedroom rental in the bad part of town until you're 50 years old and can afford to buy a nice house for cash -- the same nice house you could have already been living in for the past 20 years if you had taken out a mortgage.
Some debt is not a bad thing, if it improves your quality of life and you have a reasonable plan for repaying it.
it's got a way better chance to help Sony than that the HD-DVD drive add-on for 360 will help microsoft.
The 360 HD-DVD add-on also isn't HURTING Microsoft in any way, though. It's just commodity parts inside a custom case, so it's relatively cheap to manufacture and not a major production risk. And best of all, it's OPTIONAL. You don't hear anybody complaining that they would like an Xbox 360, but won't buy one because they don't want to pay for a hi-def movie player they have no interest in.
So if they do not know the difference between fantasy and reality, aren't they kind of, you know, "psycho"? (and probably "psycho" and in the generic term to refer to some some mentally no-right people).
Aren't you setting up a circular definition here?
Why does this person doesn't refrain from committing horrible acts? Because he's psycho. Why is this person psycho? Because he doesn't refrain from committing horrible acts.
They can't stop all copies from reaching people. But they can significantly reduce the volume with these laws. Or has your country decided that drug laws are pointless, too?
If the drug in question is ethanol, then yes, my country did figure out that the drug laws were pointless, even counterproductive.
Any newscast will be covering events at least as horrible if not worse than anythin you will find in a video game.
And that's just the coverage of how Paris Hilton is passing the time in jail...!
The difference is, when you hear about someone getting brutally murdered on the news, a person actually died.
Another difference is that the newscast doesn't ask you put yourself in the killer's place. At least not beyond a superficial 'psychoanalysis' of the criminal, offered by a talking head with a book to sell who never actually interviewed anybody involved in the act, which invariably reaches the conclusion "that boy ain't right", conveniently absolving the viewer of having to think about anything.
The reason that Hollywood was set up in southern California is that Edison was unable to pursue his royalty and usage claims against movies there.
I think this tale is apocryphal -- even a century ago, it would have been possible for attorneys on both coasts to plan legal action against the studios by telegraph had Edison been serious about pursuing it.
A more plausible reason for setting up the movie industry in sunny Southern California was the sunshine itself. The weather around Los Angeles was certainly more conducive to the primitive filmmaking methods of the time than Menlo Park, NJ's seasonal climes.
Why an OS for an appliance computer? (Because a voting machine is basically an appliance computer).
Well, because building an appliance computer out of commodity hardware, running a commodity OS, with a rich API, is a lot more efficient than rolling your own solution out of breadboards and assembly code. Why re-invent the wheel -- or the file system, or keyboard driver, or task scheduler?
A better question might be, why not use a FREE commodity OS such as Linux on these appliance computers instead of an essentially opaque and unverifiable component like Windows?
I have lived and worked in 6 different 1st world countries and USA is by far the worst.
In that case I invite you to stay in one of the countries you do enjoy, and shut your fucking mouth about my home.
One of the more defining characteristics of the American political identity is the idea that nobody knows what's better for my country than its own people do. It's a noble and honorable sentiment, really--the cornerstone of all democracy.
Yes, sometimes we do overextend this until it's "nobody knows what's better for EVERY country than my country's people do," and that's foolish. I encourage you not to participate in such foolishness yourself; mind your own country's beeswax and we'll mind ours, thank you.
Why does a Beatles CD cost $17? The Beatles recorded back in the 60's.
Because the record company has discovered that they can price a 40-year-old recording at $17 per half-hour and it will still sell well enough to make a profit.
It is possible that they could sell the same content at $10 or even $5 and still make a profit? Quite possible.
It is possible that as long as the record company is making a profit, I as a consumer won't shed a single tear over any additional profits they feel they're missing out on? Not only possible, but definite.
Slashdot Mirror
Because there isn't an iPod with 3.5" touchscreen?
Is that enough to make it better than the existing offering, though?
An 80GB iPod, for example, may have a smaller screen and a clickwheel, but it also offers TEN times the capacity as the iPhone for a little more than HALF the price. I don't see the core value of the iPhone being in its music/video playing abilities.
back in the mid-90s I could run Windows apps on my [OS/2 Warp] desktop natively.
Well, 16-bit Windows apps at least. Most Win3.1 software worked relatively well under Warp, but NT and 95 software didn't; IBM didn't have any access to the new OS code Microsoft wrote after the split.
So while Warp worked well for legacy software needs, it wasn't a good solution for running contemporary software in cases where a native version was not available. Web browsing was one instance where OS/2 fell behind; the native Web Explorer browser was decent, but fell behind Netscape 2.x quickly in the feature race and never caught up. And unfortunately, Netscape for Windows didn't run stably under OS/2.
I can't see a scenario where Apple would be interested in becoming a Windows OEM, supporting Windows, etc.
Nor can I see a scenario where Microsoft would be FORCED to do business with Apple as a Windows OEM. Microsoft doesn't need to forbid EVERYBODY from virtualizing Vista to keep Apple away.
I want to OWN my music.
Compact discs do not only confer upon the purchaser a limited right to play the recordings located therein, but actual ownership of the music itself!
I don't want to have to pay for it all again should my MP3 player die, or my hard disk bite the big one.
If a compact disc becomes scratched, melted, or otherwise unplayable, simply return to the store where you purchased it and they will replace it with a new one free of charge!
My car does not have an MP3 player that I can "sync" with my music library, nor does it have a way to connect my MP3 player to my Car's audio system.
People are going to look back on the period from the mid-90s to the mid-00s--after car stereos stopped offering cassette decks as standard equipment but before they started offering line-in jacks as standard--and wonder "how the hell did people hook up their MP3 players to their Cars' audio systems?".
you have to go out of your way to get the tracks to play in "album/CD order".
All the reputable music download sites I know of include track number metadata in the files they sell, and all the reputable music player devices I know of respect them when playing back in album order. I don't think the problem you have is as widespread as you think.
And it's ridiculous to pay the same for a 20 second "interlude" track as you do for a 15 minute opus track
Agreed, but that's a flaw of the pricing policy established by the download sites and record companies, not of downloadable music itself. Questions of legitimacy aside, I've always thought that AllofMP3's pricing scheme made a lot of sense. You're charged based on the number of bytes in the file you download, so that cost becomes a function of both content length (how many seconds make up the song) and content fidelity (how many bits represent a second).
Until downloadable music isn't compressed, or they are able to compress without ANY loss, there will still be a need for CD's.
I disagree. With the current state of album mastering these days, a huge amount of information is lost even on Red Book CDs due to dynamic compression. Listeners expect their music to be constantly loud. And even without that phenomenon, there's been enough advances in technology over the past 25 years that Red Book's 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo specs seem dated and inadequate.
I expect that audiophiles will migrate from CDs to a niche format that seems to address their needs specifically: possibly SACD or DVD-Audio, possibly a return to vinyl, most likely a downloadable digital format like FLAC Lossless. Everyone else will migrate--excuse me, HAS BEEN migrating--from CDs to mildly-lossy MP3 and AAC files.
if they're only 3 weeks behind and a lot more stable
WHOA. Who said that Moonlight was "a lot more stable" than Microsoft's Silverlight?
The real reason that Flash is popular is because that is the standard that YouTube decided on.
And why did YouTube decide on Flash as their standard? Because Flash plugins were mature and reliable, worked well with all leading browsers and OS platforms, and even came pre-installed with many browser distros. Because it allowed them to avoid the game of "Select your poison: Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime?" that users at previous video sites had to play. Because tools for generating and publishing Flash content were not onerously expensive.
Is Silverlight any of these things yet?
"Microsoft® Silverlight(TM) is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."
That's fantastic. But I still can't figure out what it is from that marketing copy/Buzzword Bingo card.
So it's Microsoft's attempt to devise a Flash killer? Or something like that?
Wonderful news!
So what the heck is "Silverlight"?
Sounds to me like that's the "mix tape exception" to copyright law.
Would not peer-to-peer file sharing of digital music files fall within the same exception, then? What is "noncommercial use" understood to mean?
"Specific rights are normally spelled out in the contract for the image. I have personally seen contracts that forbid re-purposing. With this ruling the media conglomerate is granted all rights automagically."
That sounds to me like it might be a misinterpretation of the ruling. I read it as "Taking content that was originally bought for distribution in a (paper) magazine and then distributing it online, still in the magazine context, does not necessarily qualify as 're-purposing'."
My numero-uno (un)favourite Internet-era buzzword is 'web app'. What is a web app, exactly?
An application that leverages web technologies. Obviously.
My ADSL router has a 'web interface' and for the most part it's just crappy.
For most consumers, that crappy web interface is better than what the alternatives would have been:
1. telnetting to 192.168.0.1 and using nonsensical command-line instructions;
2. prying open the router's case and setting DIP switches or jumpers by hand;
3. configuring via a desktop config app that only works in Windows and sometimes crashes the whole PC because it runs in driver space and is badly written; or
4. being unable to configure the router behavior at all.
Where are:
1. goatse.cz
The Czech Republic.
2. tubgirl.jpg
The Jpgech Republic.
3. 133t
No idea, sorry.
My understandnig is that it won't PREVENT "existing computer users with DVD-R/Ws from using their compies to backup their dvd[s]", but will make it much harder to find software to do so.
You mean drag-and-dropping the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders from drive F: to C:\DVDBAK in Windows NT might stop working someday?
Credit cards are useful occassionally - my fiancee and I use hers maybe three times a year - but I'd much rather use my debit card.
Credit cards essentially give you an interest-free loan until the end of the current billing cycle, and the card issuers have all kinds of policies that allow you to recover your money if you've been a victim of fraud. Once that debit card is swiped and your bank account has been debited -- that money's gone.
Yes, it's a bit more difficult to balance the books when different parts of a transaction--authorization, billing, and finally payment--can take place on different days, even weeks apart. But responsible use of a credit card has some real benefits over debit card use.
Manage your expenses wisely, and you'll never need a loan or a mortgage.
And you'll also be living in a shabby 1-bedroom rental in the bad part of town until you're 50 years old and can afford to buy a nice house for cash -- the same nice house you could have already been living in for the past 20 years if you had taken out a mortgage.
Some debt is not a bad thing, if it improves your quality of life and you have a reasonable plan for repaying it.
it's got a way better chance to help Sony than that the HD-DVD drive add-on for 360 will help microsoft.
The 360 HD-DVD add-on also isn't HURTING Microsoft in any way, though. It's just commodity parts inside a custom case, so it's relatively cheap to manufacture and not a major production risk. And best of all, it's OPTIONAL. You don't hear anybody complaining that they would like an Xbox 360, but won't buy one because they don't want to pay for a hi-def movie player they have no interest in.
So if they do not know the difference between fantasy and reality, aren't they kind of, you know, "psycho"? (and probably "psycho" and in the generic term to refer to some some mentally no-right people).
Aren't you setting up a circular definition here?
Why does this person doesn't refrain from committing horrible acts? Because he's psycho.
Why is this person psycho? Because he doesn't refrain from committing horrible acts.
They can't stop all copies from reaching people. But they can significantly reduce the volume with these laws.
Or has your country decided that drug laws are pointless, too?
If the drug in question is ethanol, then yes, my country did figure out that the drug laws were pointless, even counterproductive.
Any newscast will be covering events at least as horrible if not worse than anythin you will find in a video game.
And that's just the coverage of how Paris Hilton is passing the time in jail...!
The difference is, when you hear about someone getting brutally murdered on the news, a person actually died.
Another difference is that the newscast doesn't ask you put yourself in the killer's place. At least not beyond a superficial 'psychoanalysis' of the criminal, offered by a talking head with a book to sell who never actually interviewed anybody involved in the act, which invariably reaches the conclusion "that boy ain't right", conveniently absolving the viewer of having to think about anything.
The reason that Hollywood was set up in southern California is that Edison was unable to pursue his royalty and usage claims against movies there.
I think this tale is apocryphal -- even a century ago, it would have been possible for attorneys on both coasts to plan legal action against the studios by telegraph had Edison been serious about pursuing it.
A more plausible reason for setting up the movie industry in sunny Southern California was the sunshine itself. The weather around Los Angeles was certainly more conducive to the primitive filmmaking methods of the time than Menlo Park, NJ's seasonal climes.
Why an OS for an appliance computer? (Because a voting machine is basically an appliance computer).
Well, because building an appliance computer out of commodity hardware, running a commodity OS, with a rich API, is a lot more efficient than rolling your own solution out of breadboards and assembly code. Why re-invent the wheel -- or the file system, or keyboard driver, or task scheduler?
A better question might be, why not use a FREE commodity OS such as Linux on these appliance computers instead of an essentially opaque and unverifiable component like Windows?
I have lived and worked in 6 different 1st world countries and USA is by far the worst.
In that case I invite you to stay in one of the countries you do enjoy, and shut your fucking mouth about my home.
One of the more defining characteristics of the American political identity is the idea that nobody knows what's better for my country than its own people do. It's a noble and honorable sentiment, really--the cornerstone of all democracy.
Yes, sometimes we do overextend this until it's "nobody knows what's better for EVERY country than my country's people do," and that's foolish. I encourage you not to participate in such foolishness yourself; mind your own country's beeswax and we'll mind ours, thank you.
Why does a Beatles CD cost $17? The Beatles recorded back in the 60's.
Because the record company has discovered that they can price a 40-year-old recording at $17 per half-hour and it will still sell well enough to make a profit.
It is possible that they could sell the same content at $10 or even $5 and still make a profit? Quite possible.
It is possible that as long as the record company is making a profit, I as a consumer won't shed a single tear over any additional profits they feel they're missing out on? Not only possible, but definite.
It should be possible to more surely pin down the date of penetration by the spearhead by dating accompanying contamination.
Or sawing the whale in half and counting the rings.