No, it just stops working after a year or two. I've managed dozens of x86 machines in my career... good ones from IBM and, er, well, Toshiba do tend to last. But crap from Gateway, Dell, and all those no-name fly-by-night people lasts, on average, about two years before it dies.
Sure you're going to go on and on about the little 486/33 you have thats still running.. I'm sitting not 8 feet from one, and, actually its not working now but up until this year it ran. But the average life of the average PC is rather short, compared to macintoshes...
Mostly its because quality manufacturers such as Apple and IBM and....er, Toshiba, do make good products. But most PCs are bought on price and they are DESIGNED TO FAIL.
And they do.
But most slashdotters keep their pc for such a short time they never see it, they replace the machine once a year (And think they're getting a great deal cause they only spend $700 twice a year to upgrade it, rather than the $1,200 for a Mac that would last 4 times as long. Apparently math is not their strong point, but I digress.)
Yes, they Macs do last much much longer. Remember all these bullshit comparisons are between no-name $400 piece of crap computers and Macs, not between quality computers. Hell, you go to IBM and the mac is clearly cheaper.
You're right, Microsoft has no reason to try and marginalize its competitors. Why would they downplay the percentage of machines out there that have Linux or Mac installed? What possible reason could they have?
Yep, it was an eye opener for me. I was employed in the online gaming industry (think quake, not gambling) in the early days and they were predicting adoption rates for the online games going forward. By this point, it was supposed to be larger than hollywood... wow, it was 6 years ago. Anyway, the tellign thing was their numbers for what was currently being done-- they were literally based on what the CEOs of the companies in question told them. The CEO of MPATH would tell them that they have x active members and the CEO of TEN would tell them that they have Y members, and they'd just add x and y and go from there.
Just now I was reading the press release from apple talking about going to all OS X macs in 2003... and they said that %75 of the people who get OS X on the new machine keep it, rather than switch to OS 9.
What struck me about that fact is that in every assesment of Windows adoption, it is assumed that every box MS sells and every computer that ships with Windows runs Windows. That means that there are literally tens of millions of computer out there that have been counted as running windows 5 of more times.... Because business are often buying boxes to upgrade the OS, so it gets counted when it ships, it gets counted with the first upgrade, then there's a site licens and it gets counted again, and then there's another upgrade and it gets counted again....Hell, I'm sure there are almost as many computers that have been decommissioned but are still on the books and counted when the company buys its site licenses....
Like the dead voting in Chicago elections, its a sham.
OS X is not slow. Yo ucan't buy a PC for 1/3 the price, unless you think an XBOX at 1/4 the price is the same as an iMac.
This is utter bullshit. Why do you guys have to make such pathetic claims to justify your platform choice?
Macs are cheaper than PCs, always have been, always will be.
Only by ignoring the costs of PCs and comparing macs that are 20-30 times faster than the PC in your comparison can you claim that PCs are cheaper-- but you're ignoring the performance difference to do so.
but you're still talking about 40-50% of the price of a comparably powered Mac.
Bullshit. The eMac is $1,000. Not $2,000.
This "Third to half of the price" nonesense is absurd.
I'm sure you'll also tell us that an itanium is much slower than a pentium 4 because it only runs at 800MHz... and what an absurd price you have ot pay for itanium machines!
Nope. Consistently, and REPEATEDLY I have saved money using Macintosh machines.
My web server is a 9500 I bought for $75 running OS X... runs rather well (And faster than I'd expect for such an old machine.)
Truth is, every study ever done of the total cost of ownership shows Macs to be 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a Windows Box. Probably more like 3/5 to 4/5 the cost when compared to Linux boxes.
The hardware is cheaper to begin with (Yes, you can buy lower end PC hardware, but when you compare low end and mid range machines, you get more for less with the macs.)... the hardware lasts longer (usually much longer) and is usable longer (the 9500 is 7 years old now.)
Its interesting that comparisons on slashdot always compare the highest end mac to a low end fly by night crippled pc.
Its unfortunate that people cannot advocate your platform without basing it on lies about the Mac.
Please, stop spreading this kinds of bogus claims. I've never seen an example of a Linux system from a tier one manufacturer for 1/3 the cost of a comperable Mac system.
In fact, every time I've done the comparison, the MACS ARE CHEAPER.
This kind of flamebait is not appropriate for slashdot.
The penetration rates given by IDG and Gartner are, essentially, made up numbers.
I've been in a position to deal with these analysts, give them information, and observe how they work. They are no different from Wall Street Soothsayers who predict whether a stock is going to go up or down-- except that the Wall Street types are MORE scientific.
For instance, when counting mac hardware sales, they do not count mail orders sales, sales at the apple online store, sales at local apple retailers or sales at independent apple dealers. When they say "Apple has 3.1% of the market" they are really saying "Apple has %3.1 percent of the Retail x86 Market" which is pretty absurd since apple doesn't seel x86 machines. They only look at the distribution channels that x86 manufacturers use, they ignore the majority of Mac sales.
And that was the case in the one instance where they actually gave the source for their data... usually they never provide a backing research, or any explanation where they get their numbers.
As a reasonably scientific person, this data is bunk. It is unsupported, unreviewed (peer review? Ha!) And, of course, it comes from companies who are paid by Microsoft to create a marketing perception that supports Microsoft's' agendas.
I'm not going to say I know for sure what the market share is for Apple or Linux machines, but its worth pointing out that Apple machines have a service life of 2-4 times that of the average x86 PC-- the quality is better, and its shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC.
Furthermore, I suspect Linux boxes are kept around a lot longer as well -- though we have no way of knowing which ones are used on the desktop and which ones in the server room.
So, these fabricated "annual sales" numbers are irrelevant on the face of them-- the TAM (total addressable market) is going to be much different because people don't replace their computers every year.. but they do buy software every year. IF you're a mac software maker, you know that there are far more customers out there, as people tend to keep their macs for years. Annual sales figures aren't that relevant.
Anyway, I think all of us should make sure we don't take these numbers seriously. And we should not repeat them, and should write to every (idiot) journalist who quotes them pointing out that they are false. Just as %95 of the computers out there are NOT x86, these figures for linux adoption are wrong as well.
These numbers are not scientific, they aren't even "facts". They are, essentially, fabrications.
But the codec is standardized, with reference implementionas, etc.
That id3 doesn't fit the original standard is irrelevant. How many of the early MP3 players were based on the reference implementation code?
Ogg provides the code, but it doesn't have the market opportunity that MP3 had... that market need is already satisfied, and satisfied by a standardized format.
Ogg runs a big risk of being marginalized... The ogg developers have everything they need to make it playback on operating systems... but for devices with a tiny os, or that are controlled by a hardware manufacturer, Ogg faces the chicken and egg problem-- why build in support for a marginal format into your hardware when MP3 is very popular? And without that support, Ogg remains a desktop, rather than cellphone & portable player, format.
Exactly. Without the weight of microsoft behind them, Ogg will not be able to convince people to add playback support... unless it becomes a defacto standard.
MP3 answered a need in the marketplace. Ogg is an improvement, but it does not answer a NEW need, it answers the same need. MP3 was already standardized as part of MPEG1.
Ogg would find the road a lot better paved if it were part of an international standard, like MPEG.
Without the weight of Microsoft, or the weight of a huge adoption rate (coupled with the benefit of being a standard) at a one-time event in history when there wasn't a portable music playback format, Ogg is going to have a lot of trouble supplanting MP3.
You're incorrect about the purpose of the MPEG group. The MPEG group works to ensure that standards are UNENCUMBERED, not encumbered. They do standardize proprietary codecs, and work to ensure that *anyone* can license them... making them less restrictive.
A non-proprietary codec would fit right in, as the licensing issues would be minimal.
A lot of what MPEG4 sets as a standard, for instance the MPEG7 metadata standard-- is not patented, trademarked or copyrighted. Hell, the MPEG5 file format is Quicktime. While Quicktime is a trademark, when you use MPEG4 you don't have to license the Quicktime trademark... you get use of the MPEG4 trademark for free.
Since Ogg's goals and MPEG's goals are aligned, joining MPEG is exactly what they should do.
.. is a standard. AAC may not be as good as Ogg, but I'm encoding to it in my application because it is part of the MPEG-4 standard.
The Ogg team should get on the MPEG bodies and start lobbying to be included. This is the only reason MP3 was able to be as popular as it is-- it was a clear standard. Ogg should do the same.
IF, for instance, it had been part of Mpeg4 then any of the hundreds of thousands of cellphones, computers, pdas, musicplayers, stereos, tvs, DVD players, etc, that come out over the next 10 years that make use of the MPEG4 standard would be able to play back ogg content.
The last major standard like this was MPEG2 (and MP3 is part of MPEG1) so these are not things that happen often, and companies are highly unlikely to add playback support for something that's not part of a standard.
Phones will be MP3 capable going forward, but not ogg capable unless it becomes at least a defacto standard-- getting it into the Profile 0 of MPEG4 would have accomplished this....
This is not to bash the Ogg developers, just to give a recommendation for going forward.
Sure, if you choose to redefine work to suit your agenda (whatever that is.)
The first definition of work from dictionary.com fits my usage of it: "Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something."
Therefore, to say I'm wrong in my usage is stupid.
Endeavor, used as a verb means: "To work with a set or specified goal or purpose"
Not angry at you, Buck2. I misunderstood your first comment on the quote, and this response was mostly directed at the other guy, not you.
But I am angry that the feds take %50 of my gross income and people walk around talking about how I should be giving more, and should have my human rights violated.
I'm angry that I grew up believing this liberal ideology, only to discover it was a lie, and that I was a fool to believe those people cared at all about human rights.
But mostly, I'm angry that it seems that the vast majority of the population is too stupid or too comfortable to use their brains and actually think things thru-- that I didn't think things thru for many years-- and that we have a country that could be great but is ruled by two parties-- neither of which respect human rights and both argue back and forth over exactly how they are going to spend the money they steal...
But what really makes me angry are self righteous little shits (and I'm not talking about you) who claim that it is the moral high ground to advocate violence, brutality, and thievery.
That people vote for little shits like that makes me very sad-- I don't want to believe that people are idiots and deserve the misery they bring upon themselves-- but it is hard not to given the evidence we see every day.
Airport security sucks because the local governments are in control? Lets federalize it so the federal government is in control... what happnens? The quality of airport security goes down. And every person who does not protest this stupidity deserves what they get.
There's a scene in Atlas Shrugged where a train tunnel collapses killing all the poeple on the train... I'd thought those people were innocent and found that scene really offensive when I first read the book... but now I understand. How many of the people who died in 9/11 voted for the measures that ended up killing them? How many of those people deserved to die? Since the WTC was what came down, its probably a smaller percentage of the population than a random one, as WTC occupents are more likely to be free market, free choice supporters.... But when the obvious rational solution (putting airlines in charge of their own security, they have more vested interest in keeping their planes safe than anyone else.) is ignored and instead we go for complete disarmament (making us more vulnerable to any thug who comes by, as Ms. Rand pointed out many years ago.).. eventually I'm going to have to decide that flying is not worth it.
The airlines are the rails of today, and the parallels to the decay of the rail system in Atlas are impressive.
Yes, I have a weakness. Stupidity makes me angry. I wish it didn't, but I cannot just not care.
It was a mistake. When I copied the quote, I didn't include the name. It wasn't deliberate, and when I noticed it, I didn't think people would care that much.
After all, it was in quotes, and I did say that I was providing a quote that I had heard.
BZZT. Nice try. You know, I grew up in Louisiana. I know poor. I know poor real well. Alaska is the only state of the 49 I've been to that reminds me of Louisiana more than Mississippi.
Nobody is destitute in alaska? Are you that ignorant, or are you deliberately lying? They payout-- which, by the way, you have to meet strict qualifications to get, contrary to your statement-- is only around $6,000. I'm sure its gone up in the past two years, but even $8,000 in alaska doesn't buy nearly as much as $8,000 in California-- and california isn't exactly a cheap state. And the weeks that it occurs, every car dealership in the state is offering to "double it" if you sign over your payment check.
Yeah, there are billions in that fund, but it isn't exactly social security--- and Alaska is a poor state. A poor state with a very high cost of living.
Unlike you apparently, I have BEEN to alaska, I've travelled the length of the state and been to many of the towns there. Its a great state, but it is not without poor people, as you claim.
There are not many jobs, there are a lot of people out of work, and the economic situation isn't ideal. Sure, the oil money has helped (and its absurd the way that resource as been mismanaged-- an example of why government DOESN'T work, not one of why it does.)
You are living in a dream world where Communist russia was a paradise and people in Alaska have their needs met by oil money. But reality is quite different.
But then, I knew this going it-- its just nice to have you prove it for anyone else reading this. You believe your little fantasy about alaska, and about how glorious russia was, but everyone knows the reality. Objective fact is, you're wrong. Alaska's oil payout doesn't come close to covering a single person's financial needs, let alone a family. Most of the money goes into a fund, or to state programs, some of which are good, but there is no "direct payout" as you claimed. What people do get is a small cut of the interest of a huge fund that is collected...
You're either ignorant, or a liar, or both. Shame on you. And what makes you think you can say such a frankly bald faced falsehood? Oh, that's right, you had no way of knowing I'd been to alaska and know people who live there.... well, you're caught red handed.
Just another socialist swindler. Moral high ground my ass. You should go live in one of these socialist paradises -- preferable Russia. You deserve to live in the aftermath of what you advocate. But if not there, go to canada. You deserve what you would force on others.
When all is said and done, it is worth the possible loss of resources in order to rehabilitate someone (in the sense of giving them a job, food, whatever) on the off-chance that they might actually BE rehabilitated and contribute back to society.
This may be true in theory, but since you are representing my opinion here, I want to be a clearer on what I think--- I think that welfare should be abolished. I think that the tax money wasted on it would be better spent invested in private charities. My SO grew up on welfare and when I met her had never had a job in her life, I've seen her become a productive member of society. I have first hand experience with this stuff (having been homeless myself for a brief period and penniless a couple times. Something people who know of my current wealth assume never did, or could, happen.) First off the money put into that system is lost to graft and waste, and whats left is mismanaged. Instead of encouraging people to become productive members of society, it actually encourages people to breed more children, which deepens their hole, and makes it less likely that they will ever be financially solvent.
Not that it isn't their choice-- they have the right to have too many children. They just don't have the right to depend on me for support- and sPiCe doesn't have the right to demand at gunpoint that I pay it.
immigration
I love that on one hand SPice is complaining about how people who don't want to work don't get paid enough money, and on the other hand he's complaining about all these "illegals". Such contempt for humanity.
Anyone who sneaks into this country to find a better job is welcome to work for me. I'd much rather have someone who has shown initiative in finding work than someone who thinks life should be handed to them on a silver platter. You go out into the wild and expect the forest to give you food? You got another thing coming... the bear that kills you doesn't care that you don't have as nice a set of teeth and claws as he does. Civilisation is not about turning productive people into unproductive ones (as welfare does).
Its about providing laws to protect human rights-- and THATS IT. Nothing more.
Forced redistribution of wealth is a violation of human rights.
All this whining about immigrants is really racism, plain and simple. They dont' say it outright-- but in their mind you know they're thinking "Dirty mexicans" or "damn indians". Lets not forget that they pay taxes too.
If someone halfway around the world can do your job better than you with a language barrier and time zone issue to over come, that reflects on you, not on them. And I say, more power too them.
I was a liberal because I thought liberals believed in human rights. Now that I actually do, I see liberalism as very anti-human rights. They just don't realize it. But the right of free association is not to be infringed upon.
And when you look at it, most of this "charity" type work that they do is just a scam. The only reason liberalism still exists in this country is that the government work force is so huge, and between them, the contractors that do business with the government and the mafia/unions, they represent half the population.
Its in their personal financial interest to keep big government and high taxes.
So when this guy whines about people starving, what he's really talking about is his own paycheck, and he wants more. Either that, or he's a fool who thinks these people really mean what they say, despite all the evidence of reality, and about a hundred years of history showing the constant failure of socialism.
I understand that you think patents do more harm than good, but you are wrong.
This error comes from taking a few examples (The amazon one click patent) blowing them out of proportion and misrepresenting them, and then claiming that the whole of the patent system is this way.
Hell, I've *never* seen anyone point out any harm that a patent actually did. Even bad patents don't do much harm. (and its not clear that any of the notoriously bad patents really are bad patents and not just patents that have been oversimplified.)
Its as if we wanted to kill ever dog in the country because a few of them got rabies.
And finally, since the general agenda of the people who hate patents is the creation of a brutal, oppressive dictatorship with no human rights, I become very suspicious of those who oppose patents. Patents, like the ownership of private property (and closed source software code) is one of those human rights the anti-humans always try to do away with in their agenda of subjugation and opporession. Yes, I'm talking about stallman here. That he doesn't realize he's advocating the use of violence against people for this political ends does not make him irresponsible for it. That it will never happen is fortunate, but the advocacy of it is bad enough. We saw it in russia, we saw how poorly the partial implementations of it happen here in the us and in the UK....
So when you advocate the elimination of human rights, and you back it up with just "they do more harm than good" I say, you have a much higher bar you need to reach.
You haven't made your case. But don't feel picked on, none of the dozen or so people ranting and raving in this topic about how bad patents are have mad it either... you just happened to respond to one of my posts.
If patents are so bad, then people should be able to provide evidence of damage.
I'll keep an eye out for the book, but as I said in another post, some of my most productive work time occured north of the arctic circle in isolation while on "vacation". No bells or schedules and the ever-present sun throwing my clock off so much that I never slept the same time s two days in a row. The entire purpose of that trip was to escape work, and not think about it at all, but by the time I crossed the circle, I was working on a new product idea... its natural.
The irony is thick since my philosophy is grounded in direct observation of the world around you, and yours in the denial of it existence-- Yet you tell me to watch the world carefully. Maybe I should ask you to at least open your eyes. (Oh, and if you hate being human so much, the exit door is easily found.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, it just stops working after a year or two. I've managed dozens of x86 machines in my career... good ones from IBM and, er, well, Toshiba do tend to last. But crap from Gateway, Dell, and all those no-name fly-by-night people lasts, on average, about two years before it dies.
Sure you're going to go on and on about the little 486/33 you have thats still running.. I'm sitting not 8 feet from one, and, actually its not working now but up until this year it ran. But the average life of the average PC is rather short, compared to macintoshes...
Mostly its because quality manufacturers such as Apple and IBM and....er, Toshiba, do make good products. But most PCs are bought on price and they are DESIGNED TO FAIL.
And they do.
But most slashdotters keep their pc for such a short time they never see it, they replace the machine once a year (And think they're getting a great deal cause they only spend $700 twice a year to upgrade it, rather than the $1,200 for a Mac that would last 4 times as long. Apparently math is not their strong point, but I digress.)
Yes, they Macs do last much much longer. Remember all these bullshit comparisons are between no-name $400 piece of crap computers and Macs, not between quality computers. Hell, you go to IBM and the mac is clearly cheaper.
You're right, Microsoft has no reason to try and marginalize its competitors. Why would they downplay the percentage of machines out there that have Linux or Mac installed? What possible reason could they have?
No, you aren't paranoid enough.
Yep, it was an eye opener for me. I was employed in the online gaming industry (think quake, not gambling) in the early days and they were predicting adoption rates for the online games going forward. By this point, it was supposed to be larger than hollywood... wow, it was 6 years ago. Anyway, the tellign thing was their numbers for what was currently being done-- they were literally based on what the CEOs of the companies in question told them. The CEO of MPATH would tell them that they have x active members and the CEO of TEN would tell them that they have Y members, and they'd just add x and y and go from there.
Just now I was reading the press release from apple talking about going to all OS X macs in 2003... and they said that %75 of the people who get OS X on the new machine keep it, rather than switch to OS 9.
What struck me about that fact is that in every assesment of Windows adoption, it is assumed that every box MS sells and every computer that ships with Windows runs Windows. That means that there are literally tens of millions of computer out there that have been counted as running windows 5 of more times.... Because business are often buying boxes to upgrade the OS, so it gets counted when it ships, it gets counted with the first upgrade, then there's a site licens and it gets counted again, and then there's another upgrade and it gets counted again....Hell, I'm sure there are almost as many computers that have been decommissioned but are still on the books and counted when the company buys its site licenses....
Like the dead voting in Chicago elections, its a sham.
OS X is not slow. Yo ucan't buy a PC for 1/3 the price, unless you think an XBOX at 1/4 the price is the same as an iMac.
This is utter bullshit. Why do you guys have to make such pathetic claims to justify your platform choice?
Macs are cheaper than PCs, always have been, always will be.
Only by ignoring the costs of PCs and comparing macs that are 20-30 times faster than the PC in your comparison can you claim that PCs are cheaper-- but you're ignoring the performance difference to do so.
Shame.
but you're still talking about 40-50% of the price of a comparably powered Mac.
Bullshit. The eMac is $1,000. Not $2,000.
This "Third to half of the price" nonesense is absurd.
I'm sure you'll also tell us that an itanium is much slower than a pentium 4 because it only runs at 800MHz... and what an absurd price you have ot pay for itanium machines!
decent doesn't include a monitor, a keyboard, and probably alot of other things you need.
You expect people to believe this crap? That's pretty stupid.
The iMach as the monitor built in, comes with a keyboard, comes with a mouse, comes with an office suite and lots of extra software.
Sheesh. Thinking you can just say stuff like that and have people believe you?
Hell the whole perception of PCs being cheaper than macs is based on flat out lies like this.
Nope. Consistently, and REPEATEDLY I have saved money using Macintosh machines.
My web server is a 9500 I bought for $75 running OS X... runs rather well (And faster than I'd expect for such an old machine.)
Truth is, every study ever done of the total cost of ownership shows Macs to be 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a Windows Box. Probably more like 3/5 to 4/5 the cost when compared to Linux boxes.
The hardware is cheaper to begin with (Yes, you can buy lower end PC hardware, but when you compare low end and mid range machines, you get more for less with the macs.)
Its interesting that comparisons on slashdot always compare the highest end mac to a low end fly by night crippled pc.
Its unfortunate that people cannot advocate your platform without basing it on lies about the Mac.
Yeah, but an $800 iMac would kick your $600 computers' butt -- AND Still be working two years later.
People who say stuff like this think that an XBOX is the same as a PowerMac.
Every time I do a comparison of quality machines, the Macs come out cheaper and faster.
Please, stop spreading this kinds of bogus claims.
I've never seen an example of a Linux system from a tier one manufacturer for 1/3 the cost of a comperable Mac system.
In fact, every time I've done the comparison, the MACS ARE CHEAPER.
This kind of flamebait is not appropriate for slashdot.
Cause everyone knows its better to have no job and no food than work in conditions some yuppie scum calls "Sweatshop".
Why is it americans think the rest of the world should be forced to live the way they do?
Also, nevermind that most Mac browsers report themselves to be PCs so that web sites will actually WORK with them.
I don't know how well google is at determining the OS of the browser, but it could well be that they are undercounting most mac clients.
The penetration rates given by IDG and Gartner are, essentially, made up numbers.
I've been in a position to deal with these analysts, give them information, and observe how they work. They are no different from Wall Street Soothsayers who predict whether a stock is going to go up or down-- except that the Wall Street types are MORE scientific.
For instance, when counting mac hardware sales, they do not count mail orders sales, sales at the apple online store, sales at local apple retailers or sales at independent apple dealers. When they say "Apple has 3.1% of the market" they are really saying "Apple has %3.1 percent of the Retail x86 Market" which is pretty absurd since apple doesn't seel x86 machines. They only look at the distribution channels that x86 manufacturers use, they ignore the majority of Mac sales.
And that was the case in the one instance where they actually gave the source for their data... usually they never provide a backing research, or any explanation where they get their numbers.
As a reasonably scientific person, this data is bunk. It is unsupported, unreviewed (peer review? Ha!) And, of course, it comes from companies who are paid by Microsoft to create a marketing perception that supports Microsoft's' agendas.
I'm not going to say I know for sure what the market share is for Apple or Linux machines, but its worth pointing out that Apple machines have a service life of 2-4 times that of the average x86 PC-- the quality is better, and its shocking what the 2 year failure rate is for the average PC.
Furthermore, I suspect Linux boxes are kept around a lot longer as well -- though we have no way of knowing which ones are used on the desktop and which ones in the server room.
So, these fabricated "annual sales" numbers are irrelevant on the face of them-- the TAM (total addressable market) is going to be much different because people don't replace their computers every year.. but they do buy software every year. IF you're a mac software maker, you know that there are far more customers out there, as people tend to keep their macs for years. Annual sales figures aren't that relevant.
Anyway, I think all of us should make sure we don't take these numbers seriously. And we should not repeat them, and should write to every (idiot) journalist who quotes them pointing out that they are false. Just as %95 of the computers out there are NOT x86, these figures for linux adoption are wrong as well.
These numbers are not scientific, they aren't even "facts". They are, essentially, fabrications.
But the codec is standardized, with reference implementionas, etc.
That id3 doesn't fit the original standard is irrelevant. How many of the early MP3 players were based on the reference implementation code?
Ogg provides the code, but it doesn't have the market opportunity that MP3 had... that market need is already satisfied, and satisfied by a standardized format.
Ogg runs a big risk of being marginalized... The ogg developers have everything they need to make it playback on operating systems... but for devices with a tiny os, or that are controlled by a hardware manufacturer, Ogg faces the chicken and egg problem-- why build in support for a marginal format into your hardware when MP3 is very popular? And without that support, Ogg remains a desktop, rather than cellphone & portable player, format.
Exactly. Without the weight of microsoft behind them, Ogg will not be able to convince people to add playback support... unless it becomes a defacto standard.
MP3 answered a need in the marketplace. Ogg is an improvement, but it does not answer a NEW need, it answers the same need. MP3 was already standardized as part of MPEG1.
Ogg would find the road a lot better paved if it were part of an international standard, like MPEG.
Without the weight of Microsoft, or the weight of a huge adoption rate (coupled with the benefit of being a standard) at a one-time event in history when there wasn't a portable music playback format, Ogg is going to have a lot of trouble supplanting MP3.
That's my point.
You're incorrect about the purpose of the MPEG group. The MPEG group works to ensure that standards are UNENCUMBERED, not encumbered. They do standardize proprietary codecs, and work to ensure that *anyone* can license them... making them less restrictive.
A non-proprietary codec would fit right in, as the licensing issues would be minimal.
A lot of what MPEG4 sets as a standard, for instance the MPEG7 metadata standard-- is not patented, trademarked or copyrighted. Hell, the MPEG5 file format is Quicktime. While Quicktime is a trademark, when you use MPEG4 you don't have to license the Quicktime trademark... you get use of the MPEG4 trademark for free.
Since Ogg's goals and MPEG's goals are aligned, joining MPEG is exactly what they should do.
.. is a standard. AAC may not be as good as Ogg, but I'm encoding to it in my application because it is part of the MPEG-4 standard.
The Ogg team should get on the MPEG bodies and start lobbying to be included. This is the only reason MP3 was able to be as popular as it is-- it was a clear standard. Ogg should do the same.
IF, for instance, it had been part of Mpeg4 then any of the hundreds of thousands of cellphones, computers, pdas, musicplayers, stereos, tvs, DVD players, etc, that come out over the next 10 years that make use of the MPEG4 standard would be able to play back ogg content.
The last major standard like this was MPEG2 (and MP3 is part of MPEG1) so these are not things that happen often, and companies are highly unlikely to add playback support for something that's not part of a standard.
Phones will be MP3 capable going forward, but not ogg capable unless it becomes at least a defacto standard-- getting it into the Profile 0 of MPEG4 would have accomplished this....
This is not to bash the Ogg developers, just to give a recommendation for going forward.
Sure, if you choose to redefine work to suit your agenda (whatever that is.)
The first definition of work from dictionary.com fits my usage of it:
"Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something."
Therefore, to say I'm wrong in my usage is stupid.
Endeavor, used as a verb means: "To work with a set or specified goal or purpose"
So your distinction is only in your mind.
Good day.
Not angry at you, Buck2. I misunderstood your first comment on the quote, and this response was mostly directed at the other guy, not you.
But I am angry that the feds take %50 of my gross income and people walk around talking about how I should be giving more, and should have my human rights violated.
I'm angry that I grew up believing this liberal ideology, only to discover it was a lie, and that I was a fool to believe those people cared at all about human rights.
But mostly, I'm angry that it seems that the vast majority of the population is too stupid or too comfortable to use their brains and actually think things thru-- that I didn't think things thru for many years-- and that we have a country that could be great but is ruled by two parties-- neither of which respect human rights and both argue back and forth over exactly how they are going to spend the money they steal...
But what really makes me angry are self righteous little shits (and I'm not talking about you) who claim that it is the moral high ground to advocate violence, brutality, and thievery.
That people vote for little shits like that makes me very sad-- I don't want to believe that people are idiots and deserve the misery they bring upon themselves-- but it is hard not to given the evidence we see every day.
Airport security sucks because the local governments are in control? Lets federalize it so the federal government is in control... what happnens? The quality of airport security goes down. And every person who does not protest this stupidity deserves what they get.
There's a scene in Atlas Shrugged where a train tunnel collapses killing all the poeple on the train... I'd thought those people were innocent and found that scene really offensive when I first read the book... but now I understand. How many of the people who died in 9/11 voted for the measures that ended up killing them? How many of those people deserved to die? Since the WTC was what came down, its probably a smaller percentage of the population than a random one, as WTC occupents are more likely to be free market, free choice supporters.... But when the obvious rational solution (putting airlines in charge of their own security, they have more vested interest in keeping their planes safe than anyone else.) is ignored and instead we go for complete disarmament (making us more vulnerable to any thug who comes by, as Ms. Rand pointed out many years ago.)
The airlines are the rails of today, and the parallels to the decay of the rail system in Atlas are impressive.
Yes, I have a weakness. Stupidity makes me angry. I wish it didn't, but I cannot just not care.
It was a mistake. When I copied the quote, I didn't include the name. It wasn't deliberate, and when I noticed it, I didn't think people would care that much.
After all, it was in quotes, and I did say that I was providing a quote that I had heard.
BZZT. Nice try. You know, I grew up in Louisiana. I know poor. I know poor real well. Alaska is the only state of the 49 I've been to that reminds me of Louisiana more than Mississippi.
Nobody is destitute in alaska? Are you that ignorant, or are you deliberately lying? They payout-- which, by the way, you have to meet strict qualifications to get, contrary to your statement-- is only around $6,000. I'm sure its gone up in the past two years, but even $8,000 in alaska doesn't buy nearly as much as $8,000 in California-- and california isn't exactly a cheap state. And the weeks that it occurs, every car dealership in the state is offering to "double it" if you sign over your payment check.
Yeah, there are billions in that fund, but it isn't exactly social security--- and Alaska is a poor state. A poor state with a very high cost of living.
Unlike you apparently, I have BEEN to alaska, I've travelled the length of the state and been to many of the towns there. Its a great state, but it is not without poor people, as you claim.
There are not many jobs, there are a lot of people out of work, and the economic situation isn't ideal. Sure, the oil money has helped (and its absurd the way that resource as been mismanaged-- an example of why government DOESN'T work, not one of why it does.)
You are living in a dream world where Communist russia was a paradise and people in Alaska have their needs met by oil money. But reality is quite different.
But then, I knew this going it-- its just nice to have you prove it for anyone else reading this. You believe your little fantasy about alaska, and about how glorious russia was, but everyone knows the reality. Objective fact is, you're wrong. Alaska's oil payout doesn't come close to covering a single person's financial needs, let alone a family. Most of the money goes into a fund, or to state programs, some of which are good, but there is no "direct payout" as you claimed. What people do get is a small cut of the interest of a huge fund that is collected...
You're either ignorant, or a liar, or both. Shame on you. And what makes you think you can say such a frankly bald faced falsehood? Oh, that's right, you had no way of knowing I'd been to alaska and know people who live there.... well, you're caught red handed.
Just another socialist swindler. Moral high ground my ass. You should go live in one of these socialist paradises -- preferable Russia. You deserve to live in the aftermath of what you advocate. But if not there, go to canada. You deserve what you would force on others.
When all is said and done, it is worth the possible loss of resources in order to rehabilitate someone (in the sense of giving them a job, food, whatever) on the off-chance that they might actually BE rehabilitated and contribute back to society.
This may be true in theory, but since you are representing my opinion here, I want to be a clearer on what I think--- I think that welfare should be abolished. I think that the tax money wasted on it would be better spent invested in private charities. My SO grew up on welfare and when I met her had never had a job in her life, I've seen her become a productive member of society. I have first hand experience with this stuff (having been homeless myself for a brief period and penniless a couple times. Something people who know of my current wealth assume never did, or could, happen.) First off the money put into that system is lost to graft and waste, and whats left is mismanaged. Instead of encouraging people to become productive members of society, it actually encourages people to breed more children, which deepens their hole, and makes it less likely that they will ever be financially solvent.
Not that it isn't their choice-- they have the right to have too many children. They just don't have the right to depend on me for support- and sPiCe doesn't have the right to demand at gunpoint that I pay it.
immigration
I love that on one hand SPice is complaining about how people who don't want to work don't get paid enough money, and on the other hand he's complaining about all these "illegals". Such contempt for humanity.
Anyone who sneaks into this country to find a better job is welcome to work for me. I'd much rather have someone who has shown initiative in finding work than someone who thinks life should be handed to them on a silver platter. You go out into the wild and expect the forest to give you food? You got another thing coming... the bear that kills you doesn't care that you don't have as nice a set of teeth and claws as he does. Civilisation is not about turning productive people into unproductive ones (as welfare does).
Its about providing laws to protect human rights-- and THATS IT. Nothing more.
Forced redistribution of wealth is a violation of human rights.
All this whining about immigrants is really racism, plain and simple. They dont' say it outright-- but in their mind you know they're thinking "Dirty mexicans" or "damn indians". Lets not forget that they pay taxes too.
If someone halfway around the world can do your job better than you with a language barrier and time zone issue to over come, that reflects on you, not on them. And I say, more power too them.
I was a liberal because I thought liberals believed in human rights. Now that I actually do, I see liberalism as very anti-human rights. They just don't realize it. But the right of free association is not to be infringed upon.
And when you look at it, most of this "charity" type work that they do is just a scam. The only reason liberalism still exists in this country is that the government work force is so huge, and between them, the contractors that do business with the government and the mafia/unions, they represent half the population.
Its in their personal financial interest to keep big government and high taxes.
So when this guy whines about people starving, what he's really talking about is his own paycheck, and he wants more. Either that, or he's a fool who thinks these people really mean what they say, despite all the evidence of reality, and about a hundred years of history showing the constant failure of socialism.
Sure I was quoting her. What relevance does it have that it was her I was quoting?
I understand that you think patents do more harm than good, but you are wrong.
This error comes from taking a few examples (The amazon one click patent) blowing them out of proportion and misrepresenting them, and then claiming that the whole of the patent system is this way.
Hell, I've *never* seen anyone point out any harm that a patent actually did. Even bad patents don't do much harm. (and its not clear that any of the notoriously bad patents really are bad patents and not just patents that have been oversimplified.)
Its as if we wanted to kill ever dog in the country because a few of them got rabies.
And finally, since the general agenda of the people who hate patents is the creation of a brutal, oppressive dictatorship with no human rights, I become very suspicious of those who oppose patents. Patents, like the ownership of private property (and closed source software code) is one of those human rights the anti-humans always try to do away with in their agenda of subjugation and opporession. Yes, I'm talking about stallman here. That he doesn't realize he's advocating the use of violence against people for this political ends does not make him irresponsible for it. That it will never happen is fortunate, but the advocacy of it is bad enough. We saw it in russia, we saw how poorly the partial implementations of it happen here in the us and in the UK....
So when you advocate the elimination of human rights, and you back it up with just "they do more harm than good" I say, you have a much higher bar you need to reach.
You haven't made your case. But don't feel picked on, none of the dozen or so people ranting and raving in this topic about how bad patents are have mad it either... you just happened to respond to one of my posts.
If patents are so bad, then people should be able to provide evidence of damage.
Ah, I think I've already got it.
I'll keep an eye out for the book, but as I said in another post, some of my most productive work time occured north of the arctic circle in isolation while on "vacation". No bells or schedules and the ever-present sun throwing my clock off so much that I never slept the same time s two days in a row. The entire purpose of that trip was to escape work, and not think about it at all, but by the time I crossed the circle, I was working on a new product idea... its natural.
The irony is thick since my philosophy is grounded in direct observation of the world around you, and yours in the denial of it existence-- Yet you tell me to watch the world carefully. Maybe I should ask you to at least open your eyes. (Oh, and if you hate being human so much, the exit door is easily found.)