Why is everyone here assuming that the claims in the patent (you've actually read and/or skimmed the claims portion before posting, right?) apply to the current iPod? The way I'm reading this, it seems that it could apply to something we have yet to see. There are fresh rumors out there of a significant update to the iPod operating system and perhaps this is a preemptive attempt to protect that. It seems illogical, as much as the claims can or do apply to the current iPod, that Apple would be finally getting around to patent it now. Why not a year ago? Why not when the iPod was released? Seems to me that there is a good possibility that this is for something we may not have seen yet.
I could be wrong, of course, but I have yet to see any evidence that this applies to the iPod as we know it. That seems to be mostly an assumption.
Why do you talk about Slashdot like it's one person? There are many, many people reading and posting here. Do you actually expect thousands of people posting to adhere to one consistent point of view? I don't get the point of your complaint.
The "world's fastest" thing is just marketing hype. Who can't see that? It may or may not be true, but who really cares one way or the other? I never have. Is it really so hard to figure that out? Has there been a rash of people rushing out to get G5s only to find out they were sorely duped? This is such a non-issue.
Clearly, Dell is run by a bunch of whiners who would rather gripe and complain than come up with their own attention-grabbing ad campaigns. And it's so nice to see CNet letting themselves be used as Dell's little bitch--no surprise there given CNet's notorious history of Apple bashing.
I'd love to see how many folks at CNet have Dell and/or Microsoft stock. That would probably explain a few things.
Whether you love Apple or hate 'em, you have to admit that it's remarkable that a computer company that is often viewed as a niche player may have actually outfoxed Wal-Mart and has put that company (often viewed as an unstoppable force in business) on a bit of a defensive position. Sort of amusing when you think about it. It would be really amazing to see if Wal-Mart, of all companies, were unable to compete with Apple in this regard (although I have no doubt that this won't be Wal-Mart's last effort.)
There's a lot more to it. Bundling isn't a bad thing unless you have a dominant position in the market and use underhanded means to keep competitors off your turf and make it hard for your own apps to be removed. MS apologists frequently boil it down to a vastly oversimplified "Oh, so that's all they did? Just supply their own apps? I think everyone is just jealous that they're so successful!"
Way more to it than that. If you're just bundling your apps with no intention of locking out competitors, then fine. No harm done.
A lot has been written about this and MS was found guilty of it. A quick search at Google should turn up more than sufficient explanation if you want to know the gory details.
That's not really the issue per se. Bundling has gotten a bad name because of MS. The problem is that part of MS's anti-competitive behavior relied on their (supposedly--not trying to argue this one way or the other) bundling of certain apps. Other accusations included gearing their OS to make it harder for competitor's software to be installed and the MS stuff to be uninstalled. That, on top of their dominant position in the market made that kind of activity illegal. So, bundling is not illegal or unethical, but if you're bundling your software with your OS and making it very difficult for competitors to get in, then you're likely guilty of anti-competitive behavior which is illegal. (If this seems like no big deal now, remember that MS was actively trying to undermine Netscape's position at the time this became an issue.)
At this point, you should be able to see the differences here between when MS bundles and Apple bundles. Bundling is fine as long as that's all you do. Essentially, MS's behavior painted them into a very bad corner. IMO, they have nobody to blame but themselves. And if it seems unfair, their behavior prior to this was likewise unfair.
Yet another instance of "we've got something real cool coming real soon so don't get too wrapped up in the other guys and especially don't go investing your money in them... God forbid!" If MS would get rid of the people they have writing all these fantastic PR releases and hire more people to work on this stuff, maybe they could actually get some of this stuff out and in people's hands. I mean, c'mon... every time some other company has a great idea, MS is hot on their heels with "something just like it real soon but even better!" They have an iTunes Music Store and an "iPod killer" coming... real soon. They have Longhorn coming... real soon (just not as soon as we originally said!) They have a Google-killer... real soon.
How many times can MS get away with crying wolf like this?
The Chicken Little News Service is reporting today that scientists believe that the sky may be falling sometime next week. More on this as it develops.
Those of us in our 30s will sense a certain familiarity to this viewpoint that video games are DOOMed. It's been prophesied several times before and has never come to pass, even as far back as the early 80s when it was all written off as a fad. I remember anxiously reading an article is some news periodical after the big explosion of games in the early 80s about how video games would disappear once Atari and Intellivision's popularity decline bottomed out. And I've seen similar predictions since then--always somehow slightly more ridiculous sounding that the previous version.
May as well be predicting the imminent demise of Apple or something.
Disclaimer first: I'm no fan of MS and do not use Windows.
Second, what's with the one-size-fits-all interface? It seems that every interface for every function looks about the same. Is that was MS is moving toward? That would drive me bat-shit. A flexible interface following consistent rules of behavior is the way to go. But making everything look like it was generated out of some kind of web page template...? Weird.
However, Washington State (where I am) has insurance premiums that continue to climb.
Coincidentally, I'm in Washington also. You're probably best off leaving the state to pursue your work. Our family physician has been practicing medicine for several decades and delivering babies throughout. That he quit the latter 7 years ago is not a good indication of the direction insurance costs are going here (and he even commented that it was one of the favorite aspects of his work.) Somebody needs to slap the @#$%&* out of these insurance companies.
I see comments about litigation-happy patients, greedy lawyers and careless doctors, but when you look at the whole system, the real problem here is the looming threat of increased insurance premiums for doctors. That's what a doctor fears most. Our own family doctor ceased delivering babies shortly after my daughter was born due to the increasing costs of insurance. I've been waiting 10 years to hear a politician utter the phrase "insurance reform." Someday, it's going to be an issue and when it gets addressed, a lot of problems will disappear. This issue of doctors fearing which patients might or might not sue would become less burdensome if not for the concern about the costs of malpractice costs.
A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
Right, it's the qualifier at the end that frequently gets ignored and in the context of the way it was used here, it meant such a usage. I'm not arguing whether or not one can use "bias" as a synonym for "preference" casually but rather the overuse of the term "bias" in places where "preference" should be.
Anyway, nuance in grammar and language too frequently gets bulldozed nowadays in favor of exaggeration and rhetoric. I can't get the point across to people who apparently don't want to hear it.
Anyone who takes YEARS to figure out that Rush Limbaugh is an idiot.
Wrong again. Like I said, I listened only a couple days a week and a few minutes at a time at most. I didn't chain myself to the radio and listen three hours a day, seven days a week. I have a great deal of patience and wanted to hear the guy out, see what the big deal was. I'm not cynical enough to believe that there are so many people in the world who are so easily misled and lied to and wanted to see if there was some nuance to Limbaugh that liberals were missing, maybe some layer of irony or something. But no, there's nothing there. There really are huge numbers of people in the world who can be lied to and misled. Maybe I'm naive on that point, but not a moron and certainly not a "total pinhead."
Anyway, continue arguing with me about it if it makes you feel like you're proving something. BTW, are you a regular on Fark.com? You argue like one.
Nope, unless your definition of bias is the standard "doesn't like what I like."
However, it is kind of odd that you claim to have listened to someone for YEARS before making up your mind about him. You probably have an IQ of 43. Everyone else is perceptive enough (and Rush is outspoken enough) that they figure out he is an idiot OR genius without 30 minutes of first hearing him.
Anyone who decides someone's an "idiot or genius" within 30 minutes of exposure is likely acting on bias. Do you really not undersand that or are you just trying desperately to bait me? I had plenty of liberal friends who claimed Rush was an idiot. I decided that I wanted to hear the guy out, often pointing out that I was just giving the guy a fair shake since some of his listeners seemed so fanatical about what he had to say. (Note the lack of bias, there.) I listened to his show for years. Not all three hours of it and not five days a week so the fact that it took a while was simply the fact that I resisted any bias and wanted to hear what the guy had to offer, if anything. So I listened here and there for a few years in small snippets while in the car. After that much time, I knew he was not only not worth my time, but somewhat troubling in his thinking.
Anyway, anything I do is irrelevant to the fact that you obviously have no clue what bias actually is. I'll reiterate: go educate yourself about it.
Your message said more about your own left-wing bias
Thanks for proving my point! "Left-wing bias" from someone who listened to Rush Limbaugh for several years before deciding that he was an idiot and a liar. Not bias. Preference. Selectivity. Teach yourself the difference.
God, I'm so tired of hearing the term bias misused in this way (thank you Rush Limbaugh and all your under-educated, piglet followers and wannabes for abusing the term.) Bias isn't the same as a preference.
Wonder if there's any spots on that ranch left that can make a good Star Wars movie?
I'm sure this will be misinterpreted as flamebait, but so be it. I'm so fucking fed up with this snotty attitude.
If you don't like the fucking films don't post about them! Pretend they don't exist or something. Nobody is forcing you to go see them. Nobody is forcing you to acknowledge their existence. What is with this incessant need for certain so-called fans to use every opportunity to whine and bitch about films that are primarily intended as fun and eye-candy, not high art. Fercrissake, get your life in order and maybe this might not seem like such an issue. Whether you accept it or not, Ep. 1 & 2 were every bit as good as 4, 5 & 6. We just don't have the gloss of nostalgia to help us ignore the warts of the latter.
Either leave the films alone to those of us who can get over that and enjoy them for what they are or just shut up about it. "WAAAHHH... I don't like these films so I have to chuck out a load of horseshit whining every time someone mentions it." Christ! Message received, okay? Move on.
The ongoing convergence of various aspects of Linux and OS X is interesting to me. Some of the Mac rumor sites are mentioning the possibility that Apple will incorporate the ability to run Linux apps natively in 10.4. I'm not sure exactly what that would accomplish or whether it's even technically feasible, and rumor sites are... well, not the most reliable sources, but it seems like an interesting turn of events.
How many more examples do corporate "content creators" need before they understand that people don't want to rent movies and music instead of own them? There may be a minority out there who prefers that but most of us want to own the copy of the stuff we pay for. I don't want to pay each time I watch nor do I want my watching habits tucked away in some marketing database. The lesson behind the surprising performance of iTunes Music Store versus Music Store X would seem to have been lost on companies like Disney.
So, given that the only compelling stuff coming from Disney lately is either from Pixar or Miyazaki, I would say that the adoption of Windows media is another self-administered nail in their coffin. Pathetic! Disney's animation was always top-notch and it's sad to watch a bunch of greedy drones run such a legacy into the ground.
Because they have useless names like DSC0001.jpg and there's no metadata that says they are wedding photos.""
Doesn't storing your photos in hierarchical folders labeled appropriately count as metadata? I know it's not very flexible or powerful, but it's metadata of a sort. Store your wedding photos in a wedding folder in a photos folder.
Now, if you're talking about a database of metadata about files, then that's something else.
I don't have time to read the article yet, but does the article explore the psyche of people who write viruses? I recently wrote to a well-known radio personality about some comments that he made concerning virus-writers being anti-MS and that being their primary drive. I wrote to explain that most profiles we've seen over the last couple years show that not to be the case (although I can't find any of the articles I've seen) and that most virus writers were just tinkering and seeing what could be done. He actually wrote back to argue the point with me and refuses to accept anything beside the anti-MS angle.
So does this article address that? Also, while on the topic, anyone have any links to sites that might support my case? Like I said, I can't find any of the articles profiling the virus writers that have made headlines in the last few years.
Slashdot Mirror
I could be wrong, of course, but I have yet to see any evidence that this applies to the iPod as we know it. That seems to be mostly an assumption.
The "world's fastest" thing is just marketing hype. Who can't see that? It may or may not be true, but who really cares one way or the other? I never have. Is it really so hard to figure that out? Has there been a rash of people rushing out to get G5s only to find out they were sorely duped? This is such a non-issue.
Clearly, Dell is run by a bunch of whiners who would rather gripe and complain than come up with their own attention-grabbing ad campaigns. And it's so nice to see CNet letting themselves be used as Dell's little bitch--no surprise there given CNet's notorious history of Apple bashing.
I'd love to see how many folks at CNet have Dell and/or Microsoft stock. That would probably explain a few things.
Way more to it than that. If you're just bundling your apps with no intention of locking out competitors, then fine. No harm done.
A lot has been written about this and MS was found guilty of it. A quick search at Google should turn up more than sufficient explanation if you want to know the gory details.
At this point, you should be able to see the differences here between when MS bundles and Apple bundles. Bundling is fine as long as that's all you do. Essentially, MS's behavior painted them into a very bad corner. IMO, they have nobody to blame but themselves. And if it seems unfair, their behavior prior to this was likewise unfair.
How many times can MS get away with crying wolf like this?
May as well be predicting the imminent demise of Apple or something.
Second, what's with the one-size-fits-all interface? It seems that every interface for every function looks about the same. Is that was MS is moving toward? That would drive me bat-shit. A flexible interface following consistent rules of behavior is the way to go. But making everything look like it was generated out of some kind of web page template...? Weird.
Coincidentally, I'm in Washington also. You're probably best off leaving the state to pursue your work. Our family physician has been practicing medicine for several decades and delivering babies throughout. That he quit the latter 7 years ago is not a good indication of the direction insurance costs are going here (and he even commented that it was one of the favorite aspects of his work.) Somebody needs to slap the @#$%&* out of these insurance companies.
Best of luck with your career.
Right, it's the qualifier at the end that frequently gets ignored and in the context of the way it was used here, it meant such a usage. I'm not arguing whether or not one can use "bias" as a synonym for "preference" casually but rather the overuse of the term "bias" in places where "preference" should be.
Anyway, nuance in grammar and language too frequently gets bulldozed nowadays in favor of exaggeration and rhetoric. I can't get the point across to people who apparently don't want to hear it.
That's what I suspect too. Probably a dittohead.
Wrong. Maybe you're biased.
Anyone who takes YEARS to figure out that Rush Limbaugh is an idiot.
Wrong again. Like I said, I listened only a couple days a week and a few minutes at a time at most. I didn't chain myself to the radio and listen three hours a day, seven days a week. I have a great deal of patience and wanted to hear the guy out, see what the big deal was. I'm not cynical enough to believe that there are so many people in the world who are so easily misled and lied to and wanted to see if there was some nuance to Limbaugh that liberals were missing, maybe some layer of irony or something. But no, there's nothing there. There really are huge numbers of people in the world who can be lied to and misled. Maybe I'm naive on that point, but not a moron and certainly not a "total pinhead."
Anyway, continue arguing with me about it if it makes you feel like you're proving something. BTW, are you a regular on Fark.com? You argue like one.
Nope, unless your definition of bias is the standard "doesn't like what I like."
However, it is kind of odd that you claim to have listened to someone for YEARS before making up your mind about him. You probably have an IQ of 43. Everyone else is perceptive enough (and Rush is outspoken enough) that they figure out he is an idiot OR genius without 30 minutes of first hearing him.
Anyone who decides someone's an "idiot or genius" within 30 minutes of exposure is likely acting on bias. Do you really not undersand that or are you just trying desperately to bait me? I had plenty of liberal friends who claimed Rush was an idiot. I decided that I wanted to hear the guy out, often pointing out that I was just giving the guy a fair shake since some of his listeners seemed so fanatical about what he had to say. (Note the lack of bias, there.) I listened to his show for years. Not all three hours of it and not five days a week so the fact that it took a while was simply the fact that I resisted any bias and wanted to hear what the guy had to offer, if anything. So I listened here and there for a few years in small snippets while in the car. After that much time, I knew he was not only not worth my time, but somewhat troubling in his thinking.
Anyway, anything I do is irrelevant to the fact that you obviously have no clue what bias actually is. I'll reiterate: go educate yourself about it.
Thanks for proving my point! "Left-wing bias" from someone who listened to Rush Limbaugh for several years before deciding that he was an idiot and a liar. Not bias. Preference. Selectivity. Teach yourself the difference.
God, I'm so tired of hearing the term bias misused in this way (thank you Rush Limbaugh and all your under-educated, piglet followers and wannabes for abusing the term.) Bias isn't the same as a preference.
I'm sure this will be misinterpreted as flamebait, but so be it. I'm so fucking fed up with this snotty attitude.
If you don't like the fucking films don't post about them! Pretend they don't exist or something. Nobody is forcing you to go see them. Nobody is forcing you to acknowledge their existence. What is with this incessant need for certain so-called fans to use every opportunity to whine and bitch about films that are primarily intended as fun and eye-candy, not high art. Fercrissake, get your life in order and maybe this might not seem like such an issue. Whether you accept it or not, Ep. 1 & 2 were every bit as good as 4, 5 & 6. We just don't have the gloss of nostalgia to help us ignore the warts of the latter.
Either leave the films alone to those of us who can get over that and enjoy them for what they are or just shut up about it. "WAAAHHH... I don't like these films so I have to chuck out a load of horseshit whining every time someone mentions it." Christ! Message received, okay? Move on.
So, given that the only compelling stuff coming from Disney lately is either from Pixar or Miyazaki, I would say that the adoption of Windows media is another self-administered nail in their coffin. Pathetic! Disney's animation was always top-notch and it's sad to watch a bunch of greedy drones run such a legacy into the ground.
Doesn't storing your photos in hierarchical folders labeled appropriately count as metadata? I know it's not very flexible or powerful, but it's metadata of a sort. Store your wedding photos in a wedding folder in a photos folder.
Now, if you're talking about a database of metadata about files, then that's something else.
So does this article address that? Also, while on the topic, anyone have any links to sites that might support my case? Like I said, I can't find any of the articles profiling the virus writers that have made headlines in the last few years.