The iPhone is essentially a handheld computer and is going up against other handheld computers, like the Treo and the Blackberry.
Apple did not make the iPhone to appeal to people who think of smartphones as handheld computers. If you ask a random consumer what a Blackberry is (if they know at all) they would most likely say it's a phone which does email, not a general purpose computer. I suspect most Blackberry users don't use any third-party software at all. The phone works, the email works, the SMS works and the calendar works - out of the box. Most people don't want any more. People don't really want choice, they only want choice because they want to be able to choose what works for them. If the one choice available already does the job then most people will be happy with having no choice.
Actually, properly developed AJAX-like applications should function better in these circumstances.
The comparison was AJAX vs local code, not AJAX vs regular web pages. AJAX would work better than regular web pages in those circumstances, but would still suck ass compared to local code, particularly local native code. Not only is the network slow but Javascript and web rendering engines are slow too.
In practice what it means is someone can patent anything he can imagine, even if he has no clue how to invent one.
Assuming they can (I suspect it would be harder than you think), that patent would be worthless (of no commercial value). I could patent a nonsense device for sorting spaghetti shapes, but that does not mean nobody else can patent devices for sorting spaghetti shapes. It means nobody can sell devices for sorting spaghetti shapes which use my useless, patented design. This is not a problem for the world at large because my design is useless - it does not apply to useful spaghetti sorting devices, which use different mechanisms (ones which work). There seems to be a widespread misconception on Slashdot that a patent for a device which does X means the patent covers every device which does X. That is not the case. Patents cover specific implementations, not general ideas. At least, that's the idea.
The problem is that the US patent office have been granting patents on practically anything - obvious 'inventions', pre-existing 'inventions', overly broad 'inventions', poorly described 'inventions'. Many of these patents invalid, but proving that will cost you more than most companies can afford in legal costs.
Even if your software is free, you really oughta do your best to make sure it's not crippled with fatal security holes--discovered within hours I might add.
What makes you think Apple aren't doing their best? I suspect they actually are pretty much doing their best, but in common with the rest of the industry (and FOSS) Apple simply don't know how to make bug-free software in commercially realistic timescales.
In the UK, the only telco is BT, and they don't care because there is very little competition and spending money on upgrades will benefit their competitor ISPs, who use the BT network, just as much.
You must have missed Local Loop Unbundling. Coming soon to a BT exchange near you. BT are having to allow other companies to install kit in their exchanges, to access the local loop - the copper to homes and offices. Thus, all over the UK you can get phone and tube without using BT's network at all (apart from the wires from the subscribers to the exchange, which are owned and maintained by BT Openreach).
For a direct pipe, erm, tube to Telehouse perhaps, but a leased line from an ISP would be much less (under $10 000 / year, unless you live in the sticks) and SDSL less still.
In fact, one can very easily make the argument that, historically, the societies that have the highest standards of living are precisely those that have the least amount of government involvment.
All this US business with "minutes" and crap just seems weird. Can someone explain it in detail for the foreigners?
Well, I'm the wrong type of foreigner, being British, but we have 'minutes' over here too. You can buy different monthly plans, which come with X number of inclusive minutes. So you might pay £15 and get 60 minutes to use that month before being charged Y pence per minute for calls. On more expensive plans, not only do you get more inclusive minutes, but the cost per minute after your inclusive minutes are used up is generally lower too. In effect, it's a bulk discount with a minimum order. You get something similar with text messages and plans which combine minutes and texts in various proportions.
But a translation isn't only your own creation, it's a derivative of the original work. Ownership of the rights is thefore joint between you and the creator of the original work.
It's hardly "fair and level" as it is now. I mean, there are some kids on there who I presume play Halo for at least eight or nine hours each day. They can always beat those of us who can only ever manage perhaps an hour or two a week, due to us holding, you know, a job.
I don't think you understand what a 'fair and level playing field' actually means. It does not mean everybody has the same skill level, it means that the system (console, games, Live...) does not provide an advantage to any player over any other player. Modifying any of those to provide an advatage which another player does not have would make for an uneven playing field. The fact that circumstances beyond Microsoft's control mean you can't practice as much as others has nothing whatsoever to do with the 'playing field'. The level of ability, skill and practice which you bring to the playing field is your problem, not Microsoft's.
Indeed they should get it right. One gigabyte (GB) is 10^6 bytes and 2^20 bytes is not one gigabyte, but one gibibyte (GiB). Gibibytes are only really of use for things which naturally operate on powers of two, like RAM (where 'partial' use of an address line creates undesirable overhead). For everything else, the gigabye is a useful, rational measure of quantities of data which is simple to work with in our deciam-dominated world and compatible with long accepted, standardised use of the SI giga prefix.
The reason is that only six of those albums were released in the past five years. Those albums are by Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem. I do hear a lot of Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem on the radio. I don't hear much of Vanilla Ice, The Eagles and the Spice Girls any more, but they got played in their day.
There are many ways to deprive people of money. Not all of them are stealing. Not all of them are even illegal.
If something is priced at X dollars by the person who made it, and you want that thing, you PAY for it or you don't have it. Anything else is just a load of pseudo-intellectual waffle to justify taking other peoples hard work for free.
Why is this concept so beyond otherwise intelligent people? because they will rationalise any bullshit if it lets them take stuff for free.
Why do you think people who are intelligent and knowlgable enough to realise that copyright violation isn't theft are in favour of copyright violation? There are plenty of people who think copyright violation is wrong, but don't consider it theft. I'm one. I make the distinction because it's an important distinction. Blurring the lines between property and copyright is dangerous. The logical conclusion of calling copyright violation theft and use of terms like "intellectual property" is the equivalence of copyright and property - that means pertetual copyright with no provisions for fair use. I am all for copyright and respecting copyright, but I am also strongly for fair use rights and against perpetual copyright. That is why I object to characterisation of copyright violation as theft.
The point was that repling on a single entity isn't a good idea. Google is a single company, The Internet Archive is a single organisation.
I'd suggest something more along the lines of DNS, where although there would be a single ultimate authority, the day-to-day business of serving DTDs would be distributed and handled by multiple levels of servers.
Second, as strange as it may seem, a lot of practicing law is a matter of avoiding the real issue at hand. Take the SCO case - very little time has been spent addressing the case itself. Almost all the time has been spent on discovery motions, procedural arguments, evidence rules, etc.
That's not avoiding the issue at hand, that's validating the input.
let the freshly-boiled water stand for ten seconds to bring it down to maximum flavour extraction temperature
Ten seconds? Your altitude will have a substantially larger impact on the temperature of the water than letting it stand for a mere ten seconds. Shit, you'd need an unusually good thermometer and decent methodology just to measure the temperature drop in ten seconds. Last I heard, coffee should be brewed with water at around 360 kelvin. Unless you live on the top of a mountain, your boiled-ten-seconds-ago water will still be too hot.
Quiet? Once I got to "to work with a TV as a secondary display" I cracked up. I remember using a TV as a display a long time ago, with my TRS-80 Color Computer. Unless you're going to use HDTV, it's a serious pain.
I presume you didn't read TFA and instead projected your negative preception of Microsoft onto the summary. FYI, that bit of the summary relates to this quote from TFA:
"There's no reason that if this thing were hooked up to a large display that we couldn't watch video in this environment," Mundie said.
The fact that the average person in the developed world spends hours per day viewing video on a TV suggests that TVs are widely considered adequate for that task.
I don't bypass the bits you can't fast-forward on DVDs, but I don't watch that many DVDs so perhaps that annoyance hasn't got to me yet. I've never had a DVD which made me sit through a whole bunch of previews. I don't feel obliged to watch any optional previews because I paid for the content with cash, not eyeballs on previews. I do sometimes flick around or make a cup of tea during TV ads, but I still see plenty of them. There's a difference between flicking around or not paying attention and ensuring you never see the ads at all.
It's been modded flamebait because some people don't like being reminded that taking something (content) and not giving what is expected (eyeballs on ads) in return is unfair and damaging.
I am NEVER going to be browsing CNN and suddenly decide to buy flowers from an ad I see there.
Not even if you happened to be browing CNN a couple of days before Mothers' Day? If you are as advertising-resistant as you claim (which I doubt - even scattergun advertising hits the mark sometimes), you are highly unusual and thus irrelevant to CNN's advertising strategy. Advertising works; people do buy flowers from companies they see advertised on CNN. As a result florists will pay CNN for advertising space which means CNN can afford to continue to produce the content which took you to the CNN site in the first place. If CNN perceive (rightly or wrongly) that blocking ads significantly hurts their bottom line they will take measures to protect their revenues.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple did not make the iPhone to appeal to people who think of smartphones as handheld computers. If you ask a random consumer what a Blackberry is (if they know at all) they would most likely say it's a phone which does email, not a general purpose computer. I suspect most Blackberry users don't use any third-party software at all. The phone works, the email works, the SMS works and the calendar works - out of the box. Most people don't want any more. People don't really want choice, they only want choice because they want to be able to choose what works for them. If the one choice available already does the job then most people will be happy with having no choice.
The comparison was AJAX vs local code, not AJAX vs regular web pages. AJAX would work better than regular web pages in those circumstances, but would still suck ass compared to local code, particularly local native code. Not only is the network slow but Javascript and web rendering engines are slow too.
Assuming they can (I suspect it would be harder than you think), that patent would be worthless (of no commercial value). I could patent a nonsense device for sorting spaghetti shapes, but that does not mean nobody else can patent devices for sorting spaghetti shapes. It means nobody can sell devices for sorting spaghetti shapes which use my useless, patented design. This is not a problem for the world at large because my design is useless - it does not apply to useful spaghetti sorting devices, which use different mechanisms (ones which work). There seems to be a widespread misconception on Slashdot that a patent for a device which does X means the patent covers every device which does X. That is not the case. Patents cover specific implementations, not general ideas. At least, that's the idea.
The problem is that the US patent office have been granting patents on practically anything - obvious 'inventions', pre-existing 'inventions', overly broad 'inventions', poorly described 'inventions'. Many of these patents invalid, but proving that will cost you more than most companies can afford in legal costs.
Bugger. They should have some kind of a preview facility on this site...
What makes you think Apple aren't doing their best? I suspect they actually are pretty much doing their best, but in common with the rest of the industry (and FOSS) Apple simply don't know how to make bug-free software in commercially realistic timescales.
I wondered who'd be the first to call anyone who didn't scream 'Apple are teh sux0r' a fanboi - and look, right there in the second comment.
BTW, incorrectly using a latin phrase in an effort to look clever just makes you look like a pretentious twat.
I think you need the full retail version of XP for Parallels, an OEM version won't do.
You must have missed Local Loop Unbundling. Coming soon to a BT exchange near you. BT are having to allow other companies to install kit in their exchanges, to access the local loop - the copper to homes and offices. Thus, all over the UK you can get phone and tube without using BT's network at all (apart from the wires from the subscribers to the exchange, which are owned and maintained by BT Openreach).
For a direct pipe, erm, tube to Telehouse perhaps, but a leased line from an ISP would be much less (under $10 000 / year, unless you live in the sticks) and SDSL less still.
Dear PC and Mac users, "Smug"? You guys hardly even know the meaning of the word. Hugs and kisses, Linux users
Go on then.
Well, I'm the wrong type of foreigner, being British, but we have 'minutes' over here too. You can buy different monthly plans, which come with X number of inclusive minutes. So you might pay £15 and get 60 minutes to use that month before being charged Y pence per minute for calls. On more expensive plans, not only do you get more inclusive minutes, but the cost per minute after your inclusive minutes are used up is generally lower too. In effect, it's a bulk discount with a minimum order. You get something similar with text messages and plans which combine minutes and texts in various proportions.
But a translation isn't only your own creation, it's a derivative of the original work. Ownership of the rights is thefore joint between you and the creator of the original work.
I don't think you understand what a 'fair and level playing field' actually means. It does not mean everybody has the same skill level, it means that the system (console, games, Live...) does not provide an advantage to any player over any other player. Modifying any of those to provide an advatage which another player does not have would make for an uneven playing field. The fact that circumstances beyond Microsoft's control mean you can't practice as much as others has nothing whatsoever to do with the 'playing field'. The level of ability, skill and practice which you bring to the playing field is your problem, not Microsoft's.
Will that be the jPhone or the iiPhone?
Indeed they should get it right. One gigabyte (GB) is 10^6 bytes and 2^20 bytes is not one gigabyte, but one gibibyte (GiB). Gibibytes are only really of use for things which naturally operate on powers of two, like RAM (where 'partial' use of an address line creates undesirable overhead). For everything else, the gigabye is a useful, rational measure of quantities of data which is simple to work with in our deciam-dominated world and compatible with long accepted, standardised use of the SI giga prefix.
The reason is that only six of those albums were released in the past five years. Those albums are by Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem. I do hear a lot of Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem on the radio. I don't hear much of Vanilla Ice, The Eagles and the Spice Girls any more, but they got played in their day.
Why do you think people who are intelligent and knowlgable enough to realise that copyright violation isn't theft are in favour of copyright violation? There are plenty of people who think copyright violation is wrong, but don't consider it theft. I'm one. I make the distinction because it's an important distinction. Blurring the lines between property and copyright is dangerous. The logical conclusion of calling copyright violation theft and use of terms like "intellectual property" is the equivalence of copyright and property - that means pertetual copyright with no provisions for fair use. I am all for copyright and respecting copyright, but I am also strongly for fair use rights and against perpetual copyright. That is why I object to characterisation of copyright violation as theft.
The point was that repling on a single entity isn't a good idea. Google is a single company, The Internet Archive is a single organisation.
I'd suggest something more along the lines of DNS, where although there would be a single ultimate authority, the day-to-day business of serving DTDs would be distributed and handled by multiple levels of servers.
That's not avoiding the issue at hand, that's validating the input.
Ten seconds? Your altitude will have a substantially larger impact on the temperature of the water than letting it stand for a mere ten seconds. Shit, you'd need an unusually good thermometer and decent methodology just to measure the temperature drop in ten seconds. Last I heard, coffee should be brewed with water at around 360 kelvin. Unless you live on the top of a mountain, your boiled-ten-seconds-ago water will still be too hot.
I presume you didn't read TFA and instead projected your negative preception of Microsoft onto the summary. FYI, that bit of the summary relates to this quote from TFA:
The fact that the average person in the developed world spends hours per day viewing video on a TV suggests that TVs are widely considered adequate for that task.
I don't bypass the bits you can't fast-forward on DVDs, but I don't watch that many DVDs so perhaps that annoyance hasn't got to me yet. I've never had a DVD which made me sit through a whole bunch of previews. I don't feel obliged to watch any optional previews because I paid for the content with cash, not eyeballs on previews. I do sometimes flick around or make a cup of tea during TV ads, but I still see plenty of them. There's a difference between flicking around or not paying attention and ensuring you never see the ads at all.
It's been modded flamebait because some people don't like being reminded that taking something (content) and not giving what is expected (eyeballs on ads) in return is unfair and damaging.
Not even if you happened to be browing CNN a couple of days before Mothers' Day? If you are as advertising-resistant as you claim (which I doubt - even scattergun advertising hits the mark sometimes), you are highly unusual and thus irrelevant to CNN's advertising strategy. Advertising works; people do buy flowers from companies they see advertised on CNN. As a result florists will pay CNN for advertising space which means CNN can afford to continue to produce the content which took you to the CNN site in the first place. If CNN perceive (rightly or wrongly) that blocking ads significantly hurts their bottom line they will take measures to protect their revenues.