Right. As presumably educated people, the/. crowd - especially moderators, the buffer between the Great Unwashed Masses Who Submit and the Creme de la Audience - should be on the lookout for common errors like this.
I think the killer app for the phone-drive might be locally stored voicemails.
That sounds like it has potential. Or a library of your own MP3s for ringtones, which is what started me thinking about the DRM aspect.
But imagine this: you have all of your important voicemail, as well as recordings you've made as reminders or notes on important topics. Maybe a video of your kid's 2nd birthday, stuff that really means something to you. And your service provider absolutely sucks. So you switch providers, but can't access any of your old files because your former service provider has locked down the drive. You agreed to this in a clause way, way down deep in the service contract you signed.
Worse, what if you can't even erase or reformat the drive? You're stuck with a useless phone, or held hostage by your cellular service provider.
Why another drive interface when the ones in the iPod mini and Samsung's new SPH-V5400 phone seem adequate? Here's a clue: the new interface is meant to "address the major concerns of consumer electronics manufacturers", which I read as "DRM".
It'll be interesting to see what's in the interface spec.
"Alphie and Bibi, two sweet, naive youths from Moose Jaw, Canada, have come to America to compete in the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival. Although the pair have talent, they are beaten out by the underhanded tactics of the festival favorites, another duo with the backing of BIM: Boogalow International Music, and its leader, Mr. Boogalow. Though crestfallen by their loss, Bibi and Alphie are soon delighted to hear the Mr. Boogalow has taken an interest in their music and wants to sign them to his label. All is looking up for the two until they begin to discover the dark underside of the rock and roll world."
It's like a weird cross between "Can't Stop the Music" and a Sid & Marty Krofft production from the mid-70s. Bad writing, plot, acting, effects, sets, costumes...and yet, you just have to look at it, like a car wreck. From mind control jewels to futuristic togas, this movie is classically bad. If the name "Menahem Golan" has any significance to you, you must see this awful movie.
Apple as well decided to more or less drop support of the older models up to and including the lack of firmware updates to provide many of the same features as present in the new models (I am told that it would be possible to add such things as on the go playlists and such, but Apple merely chooses not to). As the owner of a 2G I was, of course, upset by the idea that my iPod no longer seemed to exist.
You've got a great product that does what you want it to, and you're feeling "screwed" because the newer models have better features? Kinda like someone who got a computer 3 years ago feels screwed 'cause today's computers are better?
Yeah, you're talking about firmware. So hpw many applications have you bought that came with ongoing, free software updates, despite the fact that I'm told such a thing is possible?
Articles like this always downplay the loss of productivity involved. For example, the number of man-hours involved in changing all references of "back bacon" to "ham" would be staggering.
So the fact that they did not choose to speak extemporaneously indicates some sort of behind-the-scenes plan?
The President reads prepared statements all the time; he doesn't seem to have a plan.
Feedback from individual spamfilters is used in realtime to throttle back bandwidth on high-probablility spam generators. Not cut 'em off, just slow them down to the point where it'll take weeks to send out their evil payloads. Aggregated spam statistics are used to update individual filters. A reputation system develops to weight individual spamfilter results.
There's a valid point here that many in the Linux community just aren't getting: standards are important to users. ESPECIALLY interface standards. This is true of Linux users as well, but the interface that penguinheads expect is the CLI.
There are going to be a lot of penguinheads who will disagree with this: "But diversity is one of Linux' greatest strengths!" No argument there; diversity is a Good Thing. But having a standard interface will gain a LOT of users who would otherwise be "lost" to the Linux community.
Note that a standard interface isn't the same thing as a single interface. GNOME, KDE, whatever -- those can and should be options -- but a GUI that ships with ALL distributions of Linux would do wonders expanding the user base.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. As presumably educated people, the /. crowd - especially moderators, the buffer between the Great Unwashed Masses Who Submit and the Creme de la Audience - should be on the lookout for common errors like this.
It's ugly in the way that special-purpose devices are, which is to say that it has a kind of beauty forced upon it by engineering.
I think the "power winder" is the battery compartment.
That sounds like it has potential. Or a library of your own MP3s for ringtones, which is what started me thinking about the DRM aspect.
But imagine this: you have all of your important voicemail, as well as recordings you've made as reminders or notes on important topics. Maybe a video of your kid's 2nd birthday, stuff that really means something to you. And your service provider absolutely sucks . So you switch providers, but can't access any of your old files because your former service provider has locked down the drive. You agreed to this in a clause way, way down deep in the service contract you signed.
Worse, what if you can't even erase or reformat the drive? You're stuck with a useless phone, or held hostage by your cellular service provider.
Why another drive interface when the ones in the iPod mini and Samsung's new SPH-V5400 phone seem adequate? Here's a clue: the new interface is meant to "address the major concerns of consumer electronics manufacturers", which I read as "DRM".
It'll be interesting to see what's in the interface spec.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080380/
"Alphie and Bibi, two sweet, naive youths from Moose Jaw, Canada, have come to America to compete in the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival. Although the pair have talent, they are beaten out by the underhanded tactics of the festival favorites, another duo with the backing of BIM: Boogalow International Music, and its leader, Mr. Boogalow. Though crestfallen by their loss, Bibi and Alphie are soon delighted to hear the Mr. Boogalow has taken an interest in their music and wants to sign them to his label. All is looking up for the two until they begin to discover the dark underside of the rock and roll world."
It's like a weird cross between "Can't Stop the Music" and a Sid & Marty Krofft production from the mid-70s. Bad writing, plot, acting, effects, sets, costumes...and yet, you just have to look at it, like a car wreck. From mind control jewels to futuristic togas, this movie is classically bad. If the name "Menahem Golan" has any significance to you, you must see this awful movie.
Apple as well decided to more or less drop support of the older models up to and including the lack of firmware updates to provide many of the same features as present in the new models (I am told that it would be possible to add such things as on the go playlists and such, but Apple merely chooses not to). As the owner of a 2G I was, of course, upset by the idea that my iPod no longer seemed to exist.
You've got a great product that does what you want it to, and you're feeling "screwed" because the newer models have better features? Kinda like someone who got a computer 3 years ago feels screwed 'cause today's computers are better?
Yeah, you're talking about firmware. So hpw many applications have you bought that came with ongoing, free software updates, despite the fact that I'm told such a thing is possible?
1. Bacon-ish ...unless you college boys wanna nit-pick.
2. Ham-ish
3. "Other"
Articles like this always downplay the loss of productivity involved. For example, the number of man-hours involved in changing all references of "back bacon" to "ham" would be staggering.
So the fact that they did not choose to speak extemporaneously indicates some sort of behind-the-scenes plan? The President reads prepared statements all the time; he doesn't seem to have a plan.
Feedback from individual spamfilters is used in realtime to throttle back bandwidth on high-probablility spam generators. Not cut 'em off, just slow them down to the point where it'll take weeks to send out their evil payloads. Aggregated spam statistics are used to update individual filters. A reputation system develops to weight individual spamfilter results.
There are going to be a lot of penguinheads who will disagree with this: "But diversity is one of Linux' greatest strengths!" No argument there; diversity is a Good Thing. But having a standard interface will gain a LOT of users who would otherwise be "lost" to the Linux community.
Note that a standard interface isn't the same thing as a single interface. GNOME, KDE, whatever -- those can and should be options -- but a GUI that ships with ALL distributions of Linux would do wonders expanding the user base.