that feel they shouldn't *have* to learn, and often take a point of pride that they haven't learned it and instead can command someone else to fix it.
I don't think the majority of people act spiteful or proud about their lack of knowledge. I believe such behavior is mostly a defense mechanism that some use because learning something (such as computers or math) just doesn't come naturally to them for whatever reason, and so they've focused on other things in their lives and rationalize their failures away to preserve their egos.
Case in point: My dad has a PhD (my point is, he's a relatively intelligent guy) but after 20 years of computer use, still hasn't really wrapped his head around such a simple idea as logical directory structure. Try getting something useful done in a Windows environment when you don't really understand this elementary concept. He still mostly relies on 'Recently opened documents' type lists to pull up the latest doc he's working on, and if that list gets deleted, he'll fumble around for quite a while before finding what he's looking for -- incidentally programs like Google Desktop are literally MADE for his type. He isn't necessarily proud of his lack of computer knowledge, but then again, you don't see him even attempting to learn or better understand this concept, after two decades!
Microsoft bought Spyglass and started flinging shit at Mosaic until they got a working browser in a short time to kill Netscape. Then they flung more shit at it to corner the browser market, then they kept on flinging shit at random, to add this and that feature and eye candy.
Since when does writing a piece of software (IE5) that single-handedly beat the competition (Netscape) through simplicity, ease-of-use and performance amount to flinging shit at random? Sure, they had a head start from Mosaic, but Netscape had a further head start. I switched to IE at version 5 because it was much more stable and faster than Netscape 4.7x.
As much as we might malign MS's heavy-handedness in its business dealings and slow movement to embrace secure coding practices, until Firefox came along, there was no browser competition. I'm no more MS lover than the average/.er, but this response reeks of the kind of subjective one-sided bias that is all too often passed off as the undisputed truth around here.
Only techies seem to be interested in things like awareness or battling the status quo.
Perhaps you should rephrase that to include the caveat that this applies to the *technological* domain. Many people care about battling the status quo, but the average person doesn't understand the nuances of how M$ maintains its monopoly through government lobbying and embrace-and-extend philosophy... they just want the computer to accomplish the task at hand and carry on with their lives.
Just like you don't ask what animals were harmed in the making of the product you use to wash your hair. Nor does the typical geek sound the alarm to bring attention to the conflicts of interest entrenched within the US pharmaceutical industry or the worldwide monopoly that DeBeers holds on diamonds, or the dairy lobby or human rights.
So the point is, there are plenty of non-technology causes in this world, but technology is your domain, so it's fitting that you should be a proponent for education and change if that's what you believe in.
You'd think if Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Acer were having such a hard time eking out a profit with Intel processorsd, they'd be MORE likely to try things out with AMD, no?
I'm not saying that AMD doesn't make some valid arguments here, but I fail to see how Intel having their OEMs struggle to make a profit forces those OEMs closer to its hand when there's a viable alternative?
There are a lot more socialist and communist we-want-to-run-your-life liberal wacko's out there...
Paranoia anyone? The current administration and its proponents are arguably creating an environment that will cause much more lasting damage to your freedoms than the laughable minorioty of "liberal wackos" saving chickens from the KFC "holocaust" or blowing up Hummers to save the rain forests. Please, do yourself a favor, turn off FOX News for a moment and gain some perspective.
Most of you are part of a vast empire of drones whose consumption of mass media is rotting your brain -- not unlike the damage caused by using methamphetamine every day for 10 years. Aside from eating, sleeping working, and going to school, you spend your supposed free time consuming junk food for your brain. So in the interests of slowly weening you off this mass media cult(ure), I present some workable alternatives. Sure, your friends and family will hate you when you can no longer mimick the latest Adam Sandler baby talk, but rest assured, they're just a bunch of junkies who only liked you because you were their monkey boy in the first place.
1. Go outside. It's sunny. Unless you live in Seattle. 2. Turn on PBS. Sure, it's boring, but you can fantasize about the large breasted woman pleading with you to help save WSTD. 3. Use the intarweb. You know, they have it for computers now. 4. Play with your kids. They hate you, but you did father them. If you don't have kids, make some. 5. Refer to last part of previous point -- even if you already have kids. 6. Get a girlfriend. They're all squishy and stuff. I highly recommend it. Make sure the wife doesn't find out. 7. Produce your own movie. If Kevin Costner can get paid to pretend that he can pretend, then I doubt you can do much worse. 8. Play sports. Well, that might be a stretch seeing as you have developed into a plump little couch potato during your addiction phase, but rest assured there's a position for you on the baseball diamond... like designated backstop.
If all you anti-**AA and anti-broadcast flag folks are correct in the notion that the relatively unhindered movement of media actually benefits artists, actors, recording companies and movie studios, then these Draconian measures should have a detrimental effect on both the producers and gatekeepers.
I, on the other hand, couldn't care any less about some silly Broadcast flag. As for the EFF assertion that it... "Limits Fair Use: As the May 11, 2005 Congressional Research Service report noted, the flag will prevent important fair uses, like the ability of teachers to engage in distance learning..." Yawn. The day that teachers can't play video because of some stupid broadcast flag is the day that students start to learn something worthwhile, because the teacher can't opt out of teaching by turning on some stupid "educational" show.
And as far as art goes, I will continue to vote with my wallet. I will vote not to see the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster, because it does not add to my well being or increase my enjoyment out of life and I don't approve of the prominence that he brings a stupid UFO cult. That's right, I'm prejudiced, sue me.
Furthermore, I vote not to buy most CDs because I'd rather download from some of the vast empire of highly innovative independent music coming from artists who don't have corporations manipulating overused harmony hooks on their behalf... Though I must admit, from time to time I watch with mild amusement (and arousal?) at the latest pair of tits that Viacom parades across MTV.
As for the rest of you, enjoy decrypting a digital clip of the latest piece of hollywood fart humor to be targetted at you by the corporations. At least you'll have something to talk about with your friends.
That's not what your link says... "Congress in 1996 passed an amendment which prohibited the sale by U.S. firms of images of Israeli territory with less than a two-meter resolution. This followed an effort by Saudi Arabia to buy a U.S.-made satellite for imaging the Middle East."
The US government has access to what they want of Israel satellite photos, but the *sale* of high resolution images is restricted so Israel's enemies will find it harder to spy on them.
oooooh, a government acting in the interests of its citizens... scandalous!
If you were to go back in time, there are one of two logical possibilities, depending on which theory you believe:
Either you CAN alter things or you can't. There's NO IN BETWEEN!
So, if the case is such that you *can't* alter things, then you're an observer. Simple. You can't change anything, including the position of a blade of grass in the wind. The world is essentially made out of unmoveable "stone" to you, including air molecules. There is no "a car would suddenly come out of nowhere to mow you down" to preserve some incidental fact such as that your mom needs to live to give birth to you. It's equally as impossible for *anything* to be altered in even the slightest way.
Now, the other possibility is that you *can* alter things. In this case, as soon as you appear in the past, air molecules have been displaced around you, and as a result you've created an altered branch of time/reality. If this is considered allowable (remember, you're already on another track), then there's literally nothing that *time* is going to do to stop you from killing your mother. Since this results in a serious paradox, I vote for the first theory as the only logical possibility (assuming one can travel back in time at all).
I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth. It positively cancels out activity on my (alebit old) 802.11b home network whenever it's in motion and I have network monitor and file transfer progress dialogs to prove it. Now, it doesn't actually kill the connection, but it definitely interferes severely.
Above and beyond that obvious problem, the bluetooth implementation in this mouse is poorly thought out -- Microsoft felt they needed to get this product to market in time to cash in on the bluetooth craze as enthusiasts like me thought they'd use bluetooth technology to actually improve some aspect of the mousing experience. The result?
The mouse driver only comes on CD, and is not downloadable from Microsoft's website. Now, where did I put that CD? Oh well, bye bye mousy.
It doesn't work in Linux -- no drivers and it doesn't even attempt to emulate a regular USB mouse from the computer's perspective.... even though the base bluetooth receiver plugs into a USB port.
I can move my mouse pointer on screen when I'm at the neighbor's house down the street. What possible good can come of this gross misappropriation of wireless technology? Well, how about positively gluttonous battery consumption. Even when the base station and mouse are kept within 2 feet, I have to swap and recharge 2400mAh NiMH AAs every 4 days or so on a home computer that is only in use evenings and weekends.
You don't need any memo to tell you that. I guarantee you they knew and continue to recognize the side benefits of rampant piracy, not that they'll admit it openly...
I once worked for a company whose CEO was adamant about us being number one in the space precisely *because* of piracy (btw, most of you have heard of the software of which I speak). Now, he wouldn't broadcast this opinion on the news or anything, but behind closed doors, he would gladly explain to anyone who'd listen that he had no interest in quelling piracy as he felt that most pirates were cheapskates, teenagers, Russians and Chinese who wouldn't purchase the software if someone put a gun to their head, so he wasn't really losing any real sales because of it.
Instead, he was happy to have the cheapskate come in Monday morning having just pirated the software over the weekend and recommend it to the boss over our competitors for an enterprise deal.
There were a boatload of other tools on the market that worked roughly like ours, but our company was quite happy to have pirates helping us get the word out.
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy the Internet is insignificant next to the power of the Force!
Assuming it's not a hoax -- the originating website IS msn.co.uk, and the date is NOT April 1st -- it looks as if Redmond has allowed msn.co.uk too much autonomy to carry out independent PR and marketing campaigns. There is just no way that corporate PR would have greenlighted such an overt piece of manipulative propaganda, especially considering the numerous ironies. They should have taken it back to the drawing board and "thought" of a better theme.
This could be indicative of a more serious organizational problem. Perhaps MS is straining under its own weight? Yet another crack appears in the Microsoft coat of armor.
With Firefox, updates are full downloads. While it may be a vote of confidence to you, to most people it's just another way to lie with statistics.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but for it to be lying, wouldn't they have to say something like x million unique *users* rather than downloads? They call it a download because there's no easy way to differentiate unique users without forcing people to register or something... even then the statistics wouldn't be perfect.
But seriously, the negatives outweigh the positives from their perspective (hint: their eyes have dollar signs instead of pupils).
Off the top of my head, a couple reasons:
1. They maintain their technological advantage against competitors longer by keeping things closed. 2. Support costs are kept to a minimum because the dolt answering the phone in first line support doesn't have to figure out whether the user has converted the camera into a portable Mame device. (Yes, I know it's been done...)
I don't believe they're claiming their DRM scheme is uber-impossible to break or that you can't take a videocam or other analogue copy of the material if you're so inclinsed, but that by providing a convenient *MEDIUM* for "the message", they've removed one of the primary factors that make piracy an attractive option. Thus this helps defeat piracy.
Belkin again, as they and/or their mail-in-rebate "partner" (in crime) screwed me on some 802.11b gear rebate a while back. The kicker is, once you send them your original UPC codes, you can't prove you did it anymore. Clever, isn't it? That's when they send you the pre-fab response card indicating that you sent in "copies" of the UPC codes... And they know that $50 is likely not worth your time and effort in small claims court... especailly since you can't PROVE anything.
Oh I'm sorry, this is off-topic? Since the original news item could be considered an advertisement, I figured potential customers would want to know the full story before they make a purchase.
It's quite a simple answer - misleading or misrepresenting anything whasoever is falsehood. There's not really any grey area, proposing the existence of such is a socially acceptable way of making the lie pallatable or discusable.
Actually, there's a lot of grey area. First of all, you fail to take into account subjective statements, such as "it's fantastic". Is that misleading or a lie? Not in and of itself.
Furthermore, when you evaluate information about a particular concept for absolute truth, you're bound to find that some information is just not disclosed. This could be as esoteric as not disclosing the material that your software CD is crafted from, or as important as failing to mention that the software is not compatible with your computer. Each instance could be considered misleading, and each falls into this "grey area". Absolute truth about a concept requires infinite pieces of information, which is just not possible in real life, so we humans (including Marketers) settle for a subset.
Seriously though, I hold the belief that all sales and marketing folk are born liars and will never change... [blah, blah, blah]...Sales and Marketing (S&M how ironic) folk are beneath lawyers, politicians and criminals in my book.
So did you tell your wife about your propensity for digging toejam on your first date? You are a hypocrite and an elitist, which is beneath sales, marketers, lawyers, politicians and criminals in my book.
Read all about the trial lawyer lobby here. They are the real reason for the preponderance of frivolous lawsuits like SCO's.
I particularly found amusing the part about the American Medical Association considering not treating trial lawyers and their spouses at their annual convention.
My company had class action problems when earnings fell way below estimates for a quarter... right after the dot com bubble burst. There wasn't really much we could do about it as we got caught dreaming of unrealistic expectations just like so many other technology companies. All the "ambulance chasers" appeared out of the woodwork claiming our CFO and CEO misled investors, yada, yada, yada... Eventually, our company recovered and all the class action lawsuits mysteriously vanished.
Are such seemingly frivolous class action suits at the first sign of blood a good or bad thing? I prefer to look at it from a higher plain... These lawsuits are an important part of the Capitalist "food chain". Though on an emotional level, we may be rooting for our beloved Red Hat, it's important for the vultures to be flying around in circles over head at the first sign of weakness. Nature does it for a reason: the fittest must survive and the weak must become a quick meal for successful predators. Unfortunately, sometimes cute little furry bunny rabbits get eaten up. Such is the nature of the game.
The posturing and lawsuits are all part of an elaborate check and balance system that keeps CFOs honest and our economy running efficiently.
I've had both (used Bell Expressvu Staellite in the US as well as MediaOne/AT&T/Comcast cable).
More or less, it comes down to which service has the content you want most. However there are several differences that make satellite a better choice for me:
I absolutely hate Comcast's digital cable channel surfing interface. I like to flip through channels quickly, and the digital cable interface prevents me from doing that because it's so slow and difficult to navigate. The guide screen is much quicker to respond, more intuitive and more informative with DishNetwork/Expressvu IMO (both are based on the same hardware/software -- just different branding).
As far as the weather goes... don't believe the cable companies' hype. I subscribe to NHL CenterIce on Comcast cable right now (not due to choice mind you), and believe it or not, I experience more blips and outages on these channels as I did with satellite due to the fact that the signal is travelling mostly by satelite from the game locations to the cable operator before it's ever placed on a cable to get to your home.
Also picture quality stinks with comcast digital. They must be pushing the mpeg compression really high, because the artifacts are absolutely noticeable on anything larger than a 27" TV and fast moving sports plays often show noticeable blockiness. Expressvu is much cleaner on large screens.
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that feel they shouldn't *have* to learn, and often take a point of pride that they haven't learned it and instead can command someone else to fix it.
I don't think the majority of people act spiteful or proud about their lack of knowledge. I believe such behavior is mostly a defense mechanism that some use because learning something (such as computers or math) just doesn't come naturally to them for whatever reason, and so they've focused on other things in their lives and rationalize their failures away to preserve their egos.
Case in point: My dad has a PhD (my point is, he's a relatively intelligent guy) but after 20 years of computer use, still hasn't really wrapped his head around such a simple idea as logical directory structure. Try getting something useful done in a Windows environment when you don't really understand this elementary concept. He still mostly relies on 'Recently opened documents' type lists to pull up the latest doc he's working on, and if that list gets deleted, he'll fumble around for quite a while before finding what he's looking for -- incidentally programs like Google Desktop are literally MADE for his type. He isn't necessarily proud of his lack of computer knowledge, but then again, you don't see him even attempting to learn or better understand this concept, after two decades!
Microsoft bought Spyglass and started flinging shit at Mosaic until they got a working browser in a short time to kill Netscape. Then they flung more shit at it to corner the browser market, then they kept on flinging shit at random, to add this and that feature and eye candy.
/.er, but this response reeks of the kind of subjective one-sided bias that is all too often passed off as the undisputed truth around here.
Since when does writing a piece of software (IE5) that single-handedly beat the competition (Netscape) through simplicity, ease-of-use and performance amount to flinging shit at random? Sure, they had a head start from Mosaic, but Netscape had a further head start. I switched to IE at version 5 because it was much more stable and faster than Netscape 4.7x.
As much as we might malign MS's heavy-handedness in its business dealings and slow movement to embrace secure coding practices, until Firefox came along, there was no browser competition. I'm no more MS lover than the average
cold dead tand-em playing hands.
Only techies seem to be interested in things like awareness or battling the status quo.
Perhaps you should rephrase that to include the caveat that this applies to the *technological* domain. Many people care about battling the status quo, but the average person doesn't understand the nuances of how M$ maintains its monopoly through government lobbying and embrace-and-extend philosophy... they just want the computer to accomplish the task at hand and carry on with their lives.
Just like you don't ask what animals were harmed in the making of the product you use to wash your hair. Nor does the typical geek sound the alarm to bring attention to the conflicts of interest entrenched within the US pharmaceutical industry or the worldwide monopoly that DeBeers holds on diamonds, or the dairy lobby or human rights.
So the point is, there are plenty of non-technology causes in this world, but technology is your domain, so it's fitting that you should be a proponent for education and change if that's what you believe in.
Read points 33 and 34 from TFC
You'd think if Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Acer were having such a hard time eking out a profit with Intel processorsd, they'd be MORE likely to try things out with AMD, no?
I'm not saying that AMD doesn't make some valid arguments here, but I fail to see how Intel having their OEMs struggle to make a profit forces those OEMs closer to its hand when there's a viable alternative?
There are a lot more socialist and communist we-want-to-run-your-life liberal wacko's out there...
Paranoia anyone? The current administration and its proponents are arguably creating an environment that will cause much more lasting damage to your freedoms than the laughable minorioty of "liberal wackos" saving chickens from the KFC "holocaust" or blowing up Hummers to save the rain forests. Please, do yourself a favor, turn off FOX News for a moment and gain some perspective.
Most of you are part of a vast empire of drones whose consumption of mass media is rotting your brain -- not unlike the damage caused by using methamphetamine every day for 10 years. Aside from eating, sleeping working, and going to school, you spend your supposed free time consuming junk food for your brain. So in the interests of slowly weening you off this mass media cult(ure), I present some workable alternatives. Sure, your friends and family will hate you when you can no longer mimick the latest Adam Sandler baby talk, but rest assured, they're just a bunch of junkies who only liked you because you were their monkey boy in the first place.
1. Go outside. It's sunny. Unless you live in Seattle.
2. Turn on PBS. Sure, it's boring, but you can fantasize about the large breasted woman pleading with you to help save WSTD.
3. Use the intarweb. You know, they have it for computers now.
4. Play with your kids. They hate you, but you did father them. If you don't have kids, make some.
5. Refer to last part of previous point -- even if you already have kids.
6. Get a girlfriend. They're all squishy and stuff. I highly recommend it. Make sure the wife doesn't find out.
7. Produce your own movie. If Kevin Costner can get paid to pretend that he can pretend, then I doubt you can do much worse.
8. Play sports. Well, that might be a stretch seeing as you have developed into a plump little couch potato during your addiction phase, but rest assured there's a position for you on the baseball diamond... like designated backstop.
If all you anti-**AA and anti-broadcast flag folks are correct in the notion that the relatively unhindered movement of media actually benefits artists, actors, recording companies and movie studios, then these Draconian measures should have a detrimental effect on both the producers and gatekeepers.
I, on the other hand, couldn't care any less about some silly Broadcast flag. As for the EFF assertion that it... "Limits Fair Use: As the May 11, 2005 Congressional Research Service report noted, the flag will prevent important fair uses, like the ability of teachers to engage in distance learning..." Yawn. The day that teachers can't play video because of some stupid broadcast flag is the day that students start to learn something worthwhile, because the teacher can't opt out of teaching by turning on some stupid "educational" show.
And as far as art goes, I will continue to vote with my wallet. I will vote not to see the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster, because it does not add to my well being or increase my enjoyment out of life and I don't approve of the prominence that he brings a stupid UFO cult. That's right, I'm prejudiced, sue me.
Furthermore, I vote not to buy most CDs because I'd rather download from some of the vast empire of highly innovative independent music coming from artists who don't have corporations manipulating overused harmony hooks on their behalf... Though I must admit, from time to time I watch with mild amusement (and arousal?) at the latest pair of tits that Viacom parades across MTV.
As for the rest of you, enjoy decrypting a digital clip of the latest piece of hollywood fart humor to be targetted at you by the corporations. At least you'll have something to talk about with your friends.
That's not what your link says... "Congress in 1996 passed an amendment which prohibited the sale by U.S. firms of images of Israeli territory with less than a two-meter resolution. This followed an effort by Saudi Arabia to buy a U.S.-made satellite for imaging the Middle East."
The US government has access to what they want of Israel satellite photos, but the *sale* of high resolution images is restricted so Israel's enemies will find it harder to spy on them.
oooooh, a government acting in the interests of its citizens... scandalous!
If you were to go back in time, there are one of two logical possibilities, depending on which theory you believe:
Either you CAN alter things or you can't. There's NO IN BETWEEN!
So, if the case is such that you *can't* alter things, then you're an observer. Simple. You can't change anything, including the position of a blade of grass in the wind. The world is essentially made out of unmoveable "stone" to you, including air molecules. There is no "a car would suddenly come out of nowhere to mow you down" to preserve some incidental fact such as that your mom needs to live to give birth to you. It's equally as impossible for *anything* to be altered in even the slightest way.
Now, the other possibility is that you *can* alter things. In this case, as soon as you appear in the past, air molecules have been displaced around you, and as a result you've created an altered branch of time/reality. If this is considered allowable (remember, you're already on another track), then there's literally nothing that *time* is going to do to stop you from killing your mother. Since this results in a serious paradox, I vote for the first theory as the only logical possibility (assuming one can travel back in time at all).
I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth. It positively cancels out activity on my (alebit old) 802.11b home network whenever it's in motion and I have network monitor and file transfer progress dialogs to prove it. Now, it doesn't actually kill the connection, but it definitely interferes severely.
Above and beyond that obvious problem, the bluetooth implementation in this mouse is poorly thought out -- Microsoft felt they needed to get this product to market in time to cash in on the bluetooth craze as enthusiasts like me thought they'd use bluetooth technology to actually improve some aspect of the mousing experience. The result?
The mouse driver only comes on CD, and is not downloadable from Microsoft's website. Now, where did I put that CD? Oh well, bye bye mousy.
It doesn't work in Linux -- no drivers and it doesn't even attempt to emulate a regular USB mouse from the computer's perspective.... even though the base bluetooth receiver plugs into a USB port.
I can move my mouse pointer on screen when I'm at the neighbor's house down the street. What possible good can come of this gross misappropriation of wireless technology? Well, how about positively gluttonous battery consumption. Even when the base station and mouse are kept within 2 feet, I have to swap and recharge 2400mAh NiMH AAs every 4 days or so on a home computer that is only in use evenings and weekends.
Thank you Microsoft!
You don't need any memo to tell you that. I guarantee you they knew and continue to recognize the side benefits of rampant piracy, not that they'll admit it openly...
I once worked for a company whose CEO was adamant about us being number one in the space precisely *because* of piracy (btw, most of you have heard of the software of which I speak). Now, he wouldn't broadcast this opinion on the news or anything, but behind closed doors, he would gladly explain to anyone who'd listen that he had no interest in quelling piracy as he felt that most pirates were cheapskates, teenagers, Russians and Chinese who wouldn't purchase the software if someone put a gun to their head, so he wasn't really losing any real sales because of it.
Instead, he was happy to have the cheapskate come in Monday morning having just pirated the software over the weekend and recommend it to the boss over our competitors for an enterprise deal.
There were a boatload of other tools on the market that worked roughly like ours, but our company was quite happy to have pirates helping us get the word out.
Legally? Perhaps not, but how long before someone hacks the proprietary apple hardware and gets it to run on standard x86 architecture?
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy the Internet is insignificant next to the power of the Force!
Assuming it's not a hoax -- the originating website IS msn.co.uk, and the date is NOT April 1st -- it looks as if Redmond has allowed msn.co.uk too much autonomy to carry out independent PR and marketing campaigns. There is just no way that corporate PR would have greenlighted such an overt piece of manipulative propaganda, especially considering the numerous ironies. They should have taken it back to the drawing board and "thought" of a better theme.
This could be indicative of a more serious organizational problem. Perhaps MS is straining under its own weight? Yet another crack appears in the Microsoft coat of armor.
But is the Nazi parallel really that strong? To my knowledge, Microsoft hasn't been exterminating people.
I think Godwin had something to say about this... um, oh nevermind.
With Firefox, updates are full downloads. While it may be a vote of confidence to you, to most people it's just another way to lie with statistics.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but for it to be lying, wouldn't they have to say something like x million unique *users* rather than downloads? They call it a download because there's no easy way to differentiate unique users without forcing people to register or something... even then the statistics wouldn't be perfect.
But seriously, the negatives outweigh the positives from their perspective (hint: their eyes have dollar signs instead of pupils).
Off the top of my head, a couple reasons:
1. They maintain their technological advantage against competitors longer by keeping things closed.
2. Support costs are kept to a minimum because the dolt answering the phone in first line support doesn't have to figure out whether the user has converted the camera into a portable Mame device. (Yes, I know it's been done...)
I don't believe they're claiming their DRM scheme is uber-impossible to break or that you can't take a videocam or other analogue copy of the material if you're so inclinsed, but that by providing a convenient *MEDIUM* for "the message", they've removed one of the primary factors that make piracy an attractive option. Thus this helps defeat piracy.
Belkin again, as they and/or their mail-in-rebate "partner" (in crime) screwed me on some 802.11b gear rebate a while back. The kicker is, once you send them your original UPC codes, you can't prove you did it anymore. Clever, isn't it? That's when they send you the pre-fab response card indicating that you sent in "copies" of the UPC codes... And they know that $50 is likely not worth your time and effort in small claims court... especailly since you can't PROVE anything.
Oh I'm sorry, this is off-topic? Since the original news item could be considered an advertisement, I figured potential customers would want to know the full story before they make a purchase.
It's quite a simple answer - misleading or misrepresenting anything whasoever is falsehood. There's not really any grey area, proposing the existence of such is a socially acceptable way of making the lie pallatable or discusable.
Actually, there's a lot of grey area. First of all, you fail to take into account subjective statements, such as "it's fantastic". Is that misleading or a lie? Not in and of itself.
Furthermore, when you evaluate information about a particular concept for absolute truth, you're bound to find that some information is just not disclosed. This could be as esoteric as not disclosing the material that your software CD is crafted from, or as important as failing to mention that the software is not compatible with your computer. Each instance could be considered misleading, and each falls into this "grey area". Absolute truth about a concept requires infinite pieces of information, which is just not possible in real life, so we humans (including Marketers) settle for a subset.
Seriously though, I hold the belief that all sales and marketing folk are born liars and will never change... [blah, blah, blah] ...Sales and Marketing (S&M how ironic) folk are beneath lawyers, politicians and criminals in my book.
So did you tell your wife about your propensity for digging toejam on your first date? You are a hypocrite and an elitist, which is beneath sales, marketers, lawyers, politicians and criminals in my book.
Read all about the trial lawyer lobby here.
They are the real reason for the preponderance of frivolous lawsuits like SCO's.
I particularly found amusing the part about the American Medical Association considering not treating trial lawyers and their spouses at their annual convention.
My company had class action problems when earnings fell way below estimates for a quarter... right after the dot com bubble burst. There wasn't really much we could do about it as we got caught dreaming of unrealistic expectations just like so many other technology companies. All the "ambulance chasers" appeared out of the woodwork claiming our CFO and CEO misled investors, yada, yada, yada... Eventually, our company recovered and all the class action lawsuits mysteriously vanished.
Are such seemingly frivolous class action suits at the first sign of blood a good or bad thing? I prefer to look at it from a higher plain... These lawsuits are an important part of the Capitalist "food chain". Though on an emotional level, we may be rooting for our beloved Red Hat, it's important for the vultures to be flying around in circles over head at the first sign of weakness. Nature does it for a reason: the fittest must survive and the weak must become a quick meal for successful predators. Unfortunately, sometimes cute little furry bunny rabbits get eaten up. Such is the nature of the game.
The posturing and lawsuits are all part of an elaborate check and balance system that keeps CFOs honest and our economy running efficiently.
I've had both (used Bell Expressvu Staellite in the US as well as MediaOne/AT&T/Comcast cable).
More or less, it comes down to which service has the content you want most. However there are several differences that make satellite a better choice for me:
I absolutely hate Comcast's digital cable channel surfing interface. I like to flip through channels quickly, and the digital cable interface prevents me from doing that because it's so slow and difficult to navigate. The guide screen is much quicker to respond, more intuitive and more informative with DishNetwork/Expressvu IMO (both are based on the same hardware/software -- just different branding).
As far as the weather goes... don't believe the cable companies' hype. I subscribe to NHL CenterIce on Comcast cable right now (not due to choice mind you), and believe it or not, I experience more blips and outages on these channels as I did with satellite due to the fact that the signal is travelling mostly by satelite from the game locations to the cable operator before it's ever placed on a cable to get to your home.
Also picture quality stinks with comcast digital. They must be pushing the mpeg compression really high, because the artifacts are absolutely noticeable on anything larger than a 27" TV and fast moving sports plays often show noticeable blockiness. Expressvu is much cleaner on large screens.