>Likewise, once you've lawfully obtained a copy of MacOS-X, Apple loses all rights to dictate how that copy may be used.
That's not correct. You do not own the software, you are licensing it, and you must agree to the license to install it.
All your other points are valid about it not being a _good_idea_ for apple to work too hard to prevent, you, the user, from using their software in the way you want. But they sure have the _rights_ to do just that.
You mentioned the example of a phone company restricting what brands of phones you attach to its lines: before all the anti-trust bruhaha against AT&T, that was indeed how it worked! You could be sued by AT&T for attaching "foreign equipment" to their network -- and they'd win. It was later argued, successfully, that the telephone network was a public utility that shouldn't be restricted in this way.
Apple's software is in no way a public utility. If they want to state that you have to buy their expensive boxes to run their software, that's up to them. You the consumer have NO entitlement to anything else, since it's a free market for you to choose any of their competitors' products.
Now -- if _Microsoft_ were to suddenly jump into the hardware game, and require that every windows user buy Microsoft hardware -- THEN there'd be some legal wrangling, becuase they _are_ a legally defined monopoly, and as such they have to be careful not to stifle competition.
>These generate minimum amounts of heat when in this mode, but still draws a lot of power.
Not possible! Unless that energy is actually performing some work -- causing motion, facilitating a chemical reaction etc -- ANY power drawn by an electronic device will come right on out as heat.
If a device uses 2 Watts of electricity while on standby, you'd better believe that 2 Watts of heat energy come out of that device. (minus the energy of any photons emitted by light-producing components)
GP is right in that in any environment where energy is being used to keep the room temperature UP, there's really no "waste" by this standby power. Electric heating is usually a bit more expensive than other energy sources, but your vcr on standby at 5 watts is no worse than running a small electric space heater at 5 watts.
The real problem comes in cases where energy is being used to COOL a space -- in any hot part of the country, or in data centers etc. In THOSE cases, you'd want to eliminate ANY power waste, since you're paying for that heat twice -- once for the energy that's producing the waste heat, and a second time for the cooling equipment to REMOVE that heat.
I don't mind leaving any/all lights on in my house during the winter. But during hot summers, I look at each 100W light bulb as an evil source of dastardly HEAT.
THERE IS NOT A "WAR" ON, though. Many times in our nation's history, the congress has declared war and afforded the president with extraordinary war powers.
Now, just like korea, vietnam, kuwait, and now iraq, the military actions have been _authorized_ by congress, but no war declared. I can understand how these are called wars, though.
But just because Bush says this is a "war on terror" (tell me when THAT ends?) doesn't mean that we're "at war"?
To be using the word "war" wili-nilli like this demeans the true gravity of the concept of limiting civil rights and affording the president extra powers in times of REAL war.
I've had the exact opposite experience with Apple's implementations of wifi, even the early ones running on OS 9: It has always JUST WORKED. On OS X it's even easier.
I have had similar bad expeirences with windows systems... man, what awful software. WHY do people put up with such crap?
Meh. The contents of your typical well-sealed battery, rechargeable or not, aren't very nice to have spilled either.
Granted, this means you won't be refilling from a gallon jug -- you'll be locked in to some form of replaceable, well-sealed cartridges.
OTOH it WILL take a bit of time for their safety to be proven and accepted. Will they let you take these things on a plane, for instance?
(Even if refil cartridges are safe in normal use, could they be willfully forced open and used as some sort of weapon? I wouldn't want formic acid fumes on a crowded plane or bus.)
Or maybe it's all moot? What if they figured out how to formulate it with some sort of chemical buffer? Something in the catalist would enable the acidic protons to be freed, but the overall ph of the "fuel" would be neutral and harmless?
Regardless, you can bet in todays litigous society that they will have it figured out before this ever makes it into the hands of a consumer.
>The masses are mirrors which the light reflects off of on the end of the tunnels.
Actually, the mass of the mirrors doesn't even matter. They're measuring the space between the mirrors -- the gravitational wave doesn't move the mirrors, per se, as shrinking the space between them.
To detect this, it's a bit more complicated than simple interfereometry. They set up a resonance with the light in each arm reflecting 30 times before being compared. Something about the resonance can detect if the space has been deformed.
As ususal, the wikipedia article on LIGO is a pretty succinct and informative source.
You do know that hydrogen is SAFER than gasoline in terms of ruptured tanks and explosions and fires, right?
Let's see... better to have the fuel stick around in puddles under your crashed vehicle, or disperse quickly into the atmosphere leaving no danger at all behind? Hmm.
Except that our small green guy would be LONG dead from terrible burns. We get burned at 110*F or so -- the chemistry of our bodies and verily the very structure of our proteins are affected by temperatures above that, just as temperatures too low do not allow our metabolic processes to continue.
Titan is COOOOOOOLD. Acetylene is much MORE reactive, such that at our "room temperature" it reacts much too easily and much too violently. Our bodies don't work at those temperatures, becuase you can't get oxygen to react (or many other of our normal chemical reactions). But, the article says, they think acetylene chemistry could work at that temperature.
But heat up those chemicals to our normal temps, and fffffffffffffffffffffft!
It's not the absolute price that hurts people, it's the rapid change that's doing all the harm.
In the long term, the cost of energy gets rolled in to the cost of doing business, and is budgeted for. But if the price more than doubles in a very short amount of time, it HURTS economically, since there's often no quick way to reduce your energy usage overnight.
Now, I understand this is a contentious issue, and all, but I'm coming from the standpoint that I happen to like my circumcised penis, I'm perfectly happy with it, and I just shake my head in wonder at the rhetoric on the site you link to. What is the big deal?
It's not a sale, though. It's compensation. The government is TAKING it, and then compensating you for your loss. It's right there in the constitution.
The constitution is asserting the rights of the country as a whole, over the rights of the individual, in this case.
The land is NOT yours. The land is the part of the many layers of government that keeps our society running.
If this weren't true, it could be possible for someone else to buy all the land immediately surrounding you, and walling you in. No, the government says, there must be an easement, or we'll take suchandso part of your land to build a road, etc. to make society actually work.
But, keep in mind, while this seems like unlimited power for the government, the check and balance here is that that very government is elected by YOU and your neighbors.
I would _happily_ pay $0.01 PER PLAY for songs I don't own yet, just to be able to listen to them. If you counted that money towards later purchase of that same song, all the better. (I.e. listen to a song 99 times, you own it.)
There are plenty of songs I'd like to just hear in their entirety once or twice, out of curiosity. I don't want to BUY them... but I'd be willing to pay a small amount for the privilege.
If only the oh-so-scared-of-piracy folks would learn that there are lots of people WILLING to part with their money for the right kinds of services...
There are plenty of examples of cripple-ware. Mail servers are a good example: the communigate pro mail server software scales from 10 to 1,000,000s of accounts... all that's different is the license key enabling the larger number.
So you're saying that if you buy the cheap, small version, and they give you a license key that "cripples" their software for you by limiting it in its features, it should be just fine for you to steal by using a fake or hacked key to get past their protection!?
How cool is it that these companies are competing for the best service to give away for FREE!
It's fascinating to think of all these amazing "free" services we have access to, and how they're actually paid for. All that money comes from a "tax" we pay in the form of slightly higher prices on consumer goods. This tax isn't collected by any government, but by the advertising industry.
In this way, there really is real "value" to Cool Stuff(tm) because the more appealing it is, the more people will see it, and the more valuable it is as advertising real estate.
I thought the 8xx series of north american area codes were reserved for toll-free calls?
Why isn't this a 900 number service?
Granted, I don't feel cheated... I understood their claim that if I played them a song and they recognized it they would charge me. I just wonder HOW they get permission to charge me.
What's with this using "gay" as a synonym for "bad" or "stupid"?
I fail to see the connection.
Why not say, "Real Genius was jewish and noone cares." or "Real Genius was black and noone cares." Oh wait... because that would be offensive.
Yeah, only a minority of people are offended by that use of the word, but if you don't actually intend to offend people, why not choose a different way to say it?
Just a thought. (and i'm not picking on you, just the trend these days for the misuse of the word)
Currently all of Intel's stuff runs hotter, so Apple would have to work significantly harder at heat dissipation issues in all but their tower designs.
And what, pray tell, do you expect them to do with little-endian issues, backwards compatibility, and all those little details?
Unless Apple thinks that neither IBM or Motorola are ever going to catch up, I just can't see them justifying the huge cost of a major architecture change like this.
Slashdot Mirror
>Likewise, once you've lawfully obtained a copy of MacOS-X, Apple loses all rights to dictate how that copy may be used.
That's not correct. You do not own the software, you are licensing it, and you must agree to the license to install it.
All your other points are valid about it not being a _good_idea_ for apple to work too hard to prevent, you, the user, from using their software in the way you want. But they sure have the _rights_ to do just that.
You mentioned the example of a phone company restricting what brands of phones you attach to its lines: before all the anti-trust bruhaha against AT&T, that was indeed how it worked! You could be sued by AT&T for attaching "foreign equipment" to their network -- and they'd win. It was later argued, successfully, that the telephone network was a public utility that shouldn't be restricted in this way.
Apple's software is in no way a public utility. If they want to state that you have to buy their expensive boxes to run their software, that's up to them. You the consumer have NO entitlement to anything else, since it's a free market for you to choose any of their competitors' products.
Now -- if _Microsoft_ were to suddenly jump into the hardware game, and require that every windows user buy Microsoft hardware -- THEN there'd be some legal wrangling, becuase they _are_ a legally defined monopoly, and as such they have to be careful not to stifle competition.
a 25kW space heater would be. :)
>These generate minimum amounts of heat when in this mode, but still draws a lot of power.
Not possible! Unless that energy is actually performing some work -- causing motion, facilitating a chemical reaction etc -- ANY power drawn by an electronic device will come right on out as heat.
If a device uses 2 Watts of electricity while on standby, you'd better believe that 2 Watts of heat energy come out of that device. (minus the energy of any photons emitted by light-producing components)
GP is right in that in any environment where energy is being used to keep the room temperature UP, there's really no "waste" by this standby power. Electric heating is usually a bit more expensive than other energy sources, but your vcr on standby at 5 watts is no worse than running a small electric space heater at 5 watts.
The real problem comes in cases where energy is being used to COOL a space -- in any hot part of the country, or in data centers etc. In THOSE cases, you'd want to eliminate ANY power waste, since you're paying for that heat twice -- once for the energy that's producing the waste heat, and a second time for the cooling equipment to REMOVE that heat.
I don't mind leaving any/all lights on in my house during the winter. But during hot summers, I look at each 100W light bulb as an evil source of dastardly HEAT.
- Peter
Duh?
THERE IS NOT A "WAR" ON, though. Many times in our nation's history, the congress has declared war and afforded the president with extraordinary war powers.
Now, just like korea, vietnam, kuwait, and now iraq, the military actions have been _authorized_ by congress, but no war declared. I can understand how these are called wars, though.
But just because Bush says this is a "war on terror" (tell me when THAT ends?) doesn't mean that we're "at war"?
To be using the word "war" wili-nilli like this demeans the true gravity of the concept of limiting civil rights and affording the president extra powers in times of REAL war.
A T1(or E1) in a downtown metro area == cheap.
A T1 out in, say, Montana in the US? NOT cheap.
It all depends where you are.
See, that's just SAD.
I've had the exact opposite experience with Apple's implementations of wifi, even the early ones running on OS 9: It has always JUST WORKED. On OS X it's even easier.
I have had similar bad expeirences with windows systems... man, what awful software. WHY do people put up with such crap?
>What would you call AAC then?
Um. An ISO standard, defined in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4?
AAC is just the latest version of mp3. (Which is defined in MPEG-1)
>AAC is the only reason I don't own an ipod.
WTF? If you don't like AAC for some reason, is mp3 too proprietary for you, too? Nothing forces you to use AAC with an iPod.
- Peter
Meh. The contents of your typical well-sealed battery, rechargeable or not, aren't very nice to have spilled either.
Granted, this means you won't be refilling from a gallon jug -- you'll be locked in to some form of replaceable, well-sealed cartridges.
OTOH it WILL take a bit of time for their safety to be proven and accepted. Will they let you take these things on a plane, for instance?
(Even if refil cartridges are safe in normal use, could they be willfully forced open and used as some sort of weapon? I wouldn't want formic acid fumes on a crowded plane or bus.)
Or maybe it's all moot? What if they figured out how to formulate it with some sort of chemical buffer? Something in the catalist would enable the acidic protons to be freed, but the overall ph of the "fuel" would be neutral and harmless?
Regardless, you can bet in todays litigous society that they will have it figured out before this ever makes it into the hands of a consumer.
- Peter
Oh. Of course LIGO is the US project; GEO-600 is the UK/Germany project.
The US one has 2000-meter long arms, the Eropean one has 2000-foot long arms (600 meters).
Otherwise I think they're similar in design, so the LIGO article should be accurate.
>The masses are mirrors which the light reflects off of on the end of the tunnels.
Actually, the mass of the mirrors doesn't even matter. They're measuring the space between the mirrors -- the gravitational wave doesn't move the mirrors, per se, as shrinking the space between them.
To detect this, it's a bit more complicated than simple interfereometry. They set up a resonance with the light in each arm reflecting 30 times before being compared. Something about the resonance can detect if the space has been deformed.
As ususal, the wikipedia article on LIGO is a pretty succinct and informative source.
- Peter
You do know that hydrogen is SAFER than gasoline in terms of ruptured tanks and explosions and fires, right?
Let's see... better to have the fuel stick around in puddles under your crashed vehicle, or disperse quickly into the atmosphere leaving no danger at all behind? Hmm.
- Peter
It's more reactive, but would "live" in such a cold place that the two cancel each other out.
Except that our small green guy would be LONG dead from terrible burns. We get burned at 110*F or so -- the chemistry of our bodies and verily the very structure of our proteins are affected by temperatures above that, just as temperatures too low do not allow our metabolic processes to continue.
Titan is COOOOOOOLD. Acetylene is much MORE reactive, such that at our "room temperature" it reacts much too easily and much too violently. Our bodies don't work at those temperatures, becuase you can't get oxygen to react (or many other of our normal chemical reactions). But, the article says, they think acetylene chemistry could work at that temperature.
But heat up those chemicals to our normal temps, and fffffffffffffffffffffft!
- Peter
It's not the absolute price that hurts people, it's the rapid change that's doing all the harm.
In the long term, the cost of energy gets rolled in to the cost of doing business, and is budgeted for. But if the price more than doubles in a very short amount of time, it HURTS economically, since there's often no quick way to reduce your energy usage overnight.
This is hideously off topic, but your sig is... well, in-your-face.
Your sig is: Circumcision must be outlawed
Now, I understand this is a contentious issue, and all, but I'm coming from the standpoint that I happen to like my circumcised penis, I'm perfectly happy with it, and I just shake my head in wonder at the rhetoric on the site you link to. What is the big deal?
It's not a sale, though. It's compensation. The government is TAKING it, and then compensating you for your loss. It's right there in the constitution.
The constitution is asserting the rights of the country as a whole, over the rights of the individual, in this case.
The land is NOT yours. The land is the part of the many layers of government that keeps our society running.
If this weren't true, it could be possible for someone else to buy all the land immediately surrounding you, and walling you in. No, the government says, there must be an easement, or we'll take suchandso part of your land to build a road, etc. to make society actually work.
But, keep in mind, while this seems like unlimited power for the government, the check and balance here is that that very government is elected by YOU and your neighbors.
- Peter
Hey! Music industry! TAKE MY MONEY! PLEASE?
I would _happily_ pay $0.01 PER PLAY for songs I don't own yet, just to be able to listen to them. If you counted that money towards later purchase of that same song, all the better. (I.e. listen to a song 99 times, you own it.)
There are plenty of songs I'd like to just hear in their entirety once or twice, out of curiosity. I don't want to BUY them... but I'd be willing to pay a small amount for the privilege.
If only the oh-so-scared-of-piracy folks would learn that there are lots of people WILLING to part with their money for the right kinds of services...
- Peter
What we need are some new moderators. Now THAT would be a breath of fresh air!
There are plenty of examples of cripple-ware. Mail servers are a good example: the communigate pro mail server software scales from 10 to 1,000,000s of accounts... all that's different is the license key enabling the larger number.
So you're saying that if you buy the cheap, small version, and they give you a license key that "cripples" their software for you by limiting it in its features, it should be just fine for you to steal by using a fake or hacked key to get past their protection!?
It is still stealing.
- Peter
How cool is it that these companies are competing for the best service to give away for FREE!
It's fascinating to think of all these amazing "free" services we have access to, and how they're actually paid for. All that money comes from a "tax" we pay in the form of slightly higher prices on consumer goods. This tax isn't collected by any government, but by the advertising industry.
In this way, there really is real "value" to Cool Stuff(tm) because the more appealing it is, the more people will see it, and the more valuable it is as advertising real estate.
I thought the 8xx series of north american area codes were reserved for toll-free calls?
Why isn't this a 900 number service?
Granted, I don't feel cheated... I understood their claim that if I played them a song and they recognized it they would charge me. I just wonder HOW they get permission to charge me.
What's with this using "gay" as a synonym for "bad" or "stupid"?
I fail to see the connection.
Why not say, "Real Genius was jewish and noone cares." or "Real Genius was black and noone cares." Oh wait... because that would be offensive.
Yeah, only a minority of people are offended by that use of the word, but if you don't actually intend to offend people, why not choose a different way to say it?
Just a thought. (and i'm not picking on you, just the trend these days for the misuse of the word)
And why, now, would Intel CPUs be any cheaper?
Currently all of Intel's stuff runs hotter, so Apple would have to work significantly harder at heat dissipation issues in all but their tower designs.
And what, pray tell, do you expect them to do with little-endian issues, backwards compatibility, and all those little details?
Unless Apple thinks that neither IBM or Motorola are ever going to catch up, I just can't see them justifying the huge cost of a major architecture change like this.
- Peter
2 options (1, 10) as 0 would be below the cutoff. :)