Right, and when the seatbelt law passed in MN we were assured use of seatbelts would NEVER be used as a reason to stop a car. You could only get a seatbelt citation if there was something else that caused you to be pulled over, like speeding. Now they brag about their policy of pulling people over who don't have on seatbelts. I have always used seatbelts before and after this law. My issue with it is the bald faced dishonesty. It will almost certanly be the same with incandescent bulbs. First they get one law and then they need more to make it more effective.
Wow, a state full of people driving what amounts to Sherman tanks is now sanctimoniously telling people what type of lightbulb they can legally use? Will there be teams of lightbulb inspectors descending on homes in their black SUVs to insure compliance by the peasants?
Here are a few free suggestions. If you strongly feel that CFL should be used instead of incandescant then buy them for your own damn home amd business. If you think it would be a useful application of public funds then propose that the state purchase and distribute CFL's for free or a much reduced price. But don't use the police power of the state to enforce your own fashionable whim of the moment. If this proposal does succeed then good luck dealing with the mercury poisoning.
I think this is exactly how they expect many people to get the update. I certainly can't speak for Apple but I doubt if they care. On the other hand they are a company that has been around for thirty years and they have many customers who are glad to pay for the peace of mind that comes with the increased certainty that no malware is being carelessly installed.
I don't have any special insight into Sarbanes Oxley or how it does or does not apply specifically to this case. I do have a reasonably clear view of the context. Apple's revenues and profits have never been higher. They are also an American institution that has been around for a long time and plan to be around a lot longer. They would neither need nor want the $5 per transaction if it is a scam.
On the other hand there is a peculiar personality type on/. that has a perverse fixation on Apple and/or Steve Jobs. Not only would they never buy anything from Apple, they are offended that anyone else does. At every opportunity they spew venom regardless of how illogical it might be. That doesn't mean they have to be wrong (after all someone was messing around with stock option dates) but I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make much sense. If a pattern of unannounced feature update charges appears then I am wrong. If it doesn't then my interpretation is probably accurate.
Right, you genius's have seen through the evil plot and have discerned this is how Apple plans to achieve profitability! It has nothing to do with Sarbanes-Oxley and its onerous accounting regulations. A complete ruse! What's that? You don't even own any Apple hardware? Well, all the more remarkable that you would lend your subtle and omniscient wisdom to explaining the world to baffled Apple customers. They might be easily misled by the continuing availability of Apple's free Software Update which has actually been effective. All part of the subtrafuge to arrange the scheme to extract $5 a crack from those thousands of customers who purchased a product with an unannounced feature. Explain to me again how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.
Yes, I thought about qualifying my reply to include the possibility that the legal work could have been consulting work just as Apple (and Microsoft and other) will sometimes hire contract workers for engineering projects also. But I thought it would dilute the force of the statement that actual concerns about Sarbanes Oxley was a much better explanation than fanciful notions that they added fees to cover legal expenses that were not needed. Of course I also guessed that the person making the comment was probably joking and indeed he has confirmed it was meant in jest.
It may not be entirely obvious from context but this issue is not about policies in the past. If you go back a few years (before the brief flirtation with Mac compatible clones) all Apple system software updates were free. That policy changed and didn't change back when Mac clones were discontinued. The point is that these policies change sometimes due to new external facts (like Sarbanes-Oxley). We'll have to see if Apple's interpretation is shared by others based on what they do in the future. Maybe Congress will see fit to modify this new regulation so it won't have this effect.
they needed to charge $5/download just to cover the consultation fees
You probably meant this to be a humorous comment. On the off chance you were serious it should be pointed out that Apple is a large multinational company and as such they have an entire legal department. They are paid a salary, not consulting fees. Ocassionally they may be given a biscuit for a particularly nice trick.
I suspect Apple is just spreading the pain resulting from Sarbanes-Oxley and as time passes others, probably including Microsoft, will be forced to a similar position. At this point the idea that Apple has to "eek out a profit" is comical. Take a look at the financial numbers for Apple to see how silly that comment is. There are reasons why their stock price is at its highest level ever.
If the $5 charge is too aggravating don't you suppose it might be possible to get a free copy without too much effort? Just think of it as conscientious objection to Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. Apple seems to be saying they would rather not charge you so do them a favor and comply with their wishes.
The place where this might get more aggravating is when it is applied to the minor system software updates, e.g. 10.4.7 -> 10.4.8. In the past such updates could include changes that go beyond just bug fixes.
How about (c) You are incapable or unwilling to actually read an article before typing your uninformed opinion. The change due to Sarbanes Oxley only applies to new features, not bug fixes. Now you may return to anguished seething about how much you hate Apple and Steve Jobs.
But, the much larger problem in the US is now that the public K-12 system is hopelessly mired... I think I will see the day when US kids go to the far east to get an education.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be, is it? I suppose it is harsh to pick on one specific posting when the tendency is present in many. There is a natural impulse to suppose that things were better when one was younger and because this new generation just doesn't measure up that we must certainly be headed for disaster. I'm fairly certain there is a quote to this effect that is attributed to an ancient Greek philosopher. There have been ups and downs so some predictions of looming disaster were accurate (pessimistic Germans in the 1930's for example). But I think it is remarkable that so many are certain of worse times even as American universities go from strength to strength.
Part of the confusion is the idea that scentific advance is not an elite activity. More specifically that general scientific literacy as reflected by universally administered standardized tests is of much more than anecdotal interest. People as a whole don't cause scientific advances and they never did. In any case if anything there are more places today where cutting edge work is pursued than there were in the past.
At the risk of sounding Panglossian I think it would be a good thing if places like China (OK, I guess I really mean just China) were to develop some world class research universities. Having a greater variety of settings is bound to be healthier. So if the local peasantry grab their pitchforks and torches (e.g. the Cambridge City Council or some Berkeley activist group) and try to impose their inspired vision, there could still be an alternative with the needed infrastructure (colleagues, llibraries, students, technicians, technology companies, etc).
If a company's IT infrastructure starts spontaneously disintegrating after a month, I'd question the talent of the people that put it together.
Just as a business shouldn't need a staff carpenters on hand to re-build walls that fall down, it shouldn't need a staff of IT experts on hand to re-build failing infrastructure.
Not familiar with the phenomenon of bit rot are we? I suppose if things could ever be really kept static it might not be such a pervasive fact and I'm not sure that one month is the right time scale. But for a number of reasons that seem to be different for every case things that work (and were built with reasonable care) just stop being effective. I think a case can be made that the relentless march of actual improvements and fashion changes that masquerade as improvements force everything that is built to be on an ever shifting foundation.
There were some organizations that bucked the trend and kept their Fortran or Cobol code running on old hardware in order to escape the treadmill. Until Y2K they got away with it.
It is an exaggeration but as the Red Queen tells Alice you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. If your building's infrastructure had the property of potentially improving at an exponential rate you can bet it would be in the process of continual rebuilding and some of it would involve fixing mistakes. If you look at the number of construction cranes in some cities it seems like that process may be close to reality.
The role played by DVD-Jon in the original exploit for decoding DVDs made for entertaining journalism but it was dependent on one particular carelessly handled player key that was subsequently revoked. What matters was the cryptanalysis performed by Frank Stephenson of CSS which exposed mistakes in the CSS algorithm (see this link: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/FrankStevenson/an alysis.html). It made the already inadequate 40 bit keyspace no more effective than a 25 bit space. Looping through 2^25 possible keys takes almost no time at all with a modern computer. In other words keys are found on the fly and there was no important role played by the mysterious German hackers assosciated with DVD-Jon. Of course the real "heroes" of this story are the poor engineers at Hitachi given the assignment of designing and implementing a secure system just because someone thought it should be possible and creating from scratch was "obviously" the way to proceed.
The moral again is that bumbling and incompetence are often the important explanatory factors rather than significant money or strategic brilliance.
It's a shame that you have to be such a run away success in order to have enough money to sue for what you are due.
It was on a different scale financially and quite a while ago but I recall a similar incident with the actor James Garner as the aggrieved party concerning a great deal of shady accounting (a claim that "The Rockford Files" never made a profit). But he had been in so many successful TV series that he had enough money finally to get his much delayed day in court and prevail. The people who were being sued were always at great pains to explain that Garner was paid plenty for all the success he had achieved with the implication that he should accept being screwed out of the contractual obligations that he had negotiated.
When you think of all the times these producers put out huge sums of money for some incredibly lackluster work which leaves them scrambling to try to recover, you might think they would gladly forgo their usual shady accounting tricks for work that seems to be successful on every level. But they seem to be biologically incapable of that sort of self control. Being predatory is probably an important factor in how they got to be where they are and they probably have no ability to control it even in their own self interest.
Greedy, dishonest Hollywood executives. Nothing new here. They should do a TV show about them. Wait, they did, it was called Action! and it was hilarious. It is even available on DVD.
Thanks, I needed that chuckle when you replied, quite correctly, that it has at least two buttons. I exaggerated because compared to "phones" that come with a complete qwerty keyboard and more Apple has gone with a radically different design (breaking the mold and all that). I'm pleased that we have successfully expressed our diverging viewpoints so that each basically knows the other's opinion. We might even agree there is little more to discuss about the iPhone until it faces its only really important test when people start to use it in June. I would suggest that there is more going on in the iPod phenomenon than you have understood so far. On the other hand I know you don't agree with that suggestion.
I can read and I can spell. I also notice when a modification makes a difference and when it is largely cosmetic.
my argument was that the iPhone does not break the previous mold of phone design
It has NO FRACKIN' BUTTONS! It may turn out to be a goofy idea and they could fall flat on their faces but that is an important part of the reason they're Apple and not just some other screwdriver clone company. We won't know whether it was a good or great idea or just another miscue until many people own and use it. The Newton was a cool idea that is still better than the pale copycats that followed but the failure of its handwriting recognition system was fatal.
The fact that your undersized PC has a barrel full of features including some combination of video screen interfaces doesn't matter because it also has a full complement of physical keys as well. To put it mildly I would venture to guess that most would not characterize it as a clean or elegant interface. The ray of sunshine in this is that you like it. What is not so clear is if you understand that others might not share your enthusiasm for perfectly valid reasons. Your response seems to be that if someone doesn't agree he must be an idiot (e.g. the tens of millions of purchasers of iPods). Well, that is as much effort as I am willing to expend.
I hope the apple fanbois realize that my phone, two years old, stomps all over Apple's iPhone (which hasen't even been released yet) as a phone, not to mention as a portable computing appliance.
So to this comment you add:
For information's sake, I paid 1100 USD, totally unlocked, for my Universal
You spent $1,100 for a phone and you brag about the specs that come with this dinosaur. It weighs more, it's bulkier and its design sounds like it is much like every other "smart"phone. Maybe it is the right device for you but you aren't going to influence anyone who is looking for something that breaks the mold of previous phone design.
About your HTC Univeral you also say: You apparently didn't look very hard. Activating 802.11g speed is as simple as flipping a software switch
Actually I did look and in Wikipedia: Although the Universal is shipped as 802.11b-compatible only, a registry tweak can make the Universal compatible with 802.11g-only access points, but the speed would still be the same as 802.11b (11 Mbit/s).
Then there is also: I bought what amounts to a Nano-knockoff for a friend a whle back. Cost me 60 bucks, including shipping, for 8 GB of storage. Looks identical to a Nano on the outside, except that it's a hell of a lot cheaper...
Really, and how is the quality of the software that comes with the device for getting music onto it? Does it work well with a Mac? Is there a wide variety of tracks that can be purchased easily and moved seamlessly to it? How about the market of third party software and devices that integrate easily with it? Does it work well with the audio system of most new cars?
I've had some experience with other audio player devices going back to early models from Rio and more recently with the Sony PSP. The software and the user experience is simply not comparable to the iPod. If a knock off is good enough for you then good for you. But you might want to consider the possibility that those soon to be 100,000,000 iPods sold reflect an experience beyond your grasp of all the issues involved. Remember in almost every case this is an individual spending his own money on a device that he uses on a daily basis. That is a lot of people and you might have a challenge dismissing all of them as mindless.
Personally I think $250 is a lot of money for any portable music player and $600 together with a 2 year contract with Cingular is a lot of money for any cell phone but at least it has OS X installed. That is the wild card in this announcement that keeps me interested. If I can access bash then against my better judgment it may tempt me.
"Now I know you're just an idiot. Apple's MP3 players are rediculously horrible compared to the competition. Anyone with half a brain shouldn't use one..."
Right, I'm an idiot and you can't even spell a simple word like ridiculous correctly. You are also in the position of someone whose advice on music players is so inept that you've completely lost contact with reality. Maybe "standard WM5 interface" is the greatest development ever in human interface design, I haven't used it so I can't say. I do use WinXP on a daily basis and find it pathetic in comparison to OS X which is at best tolerable.
I did just do a quick lookup of HTC Universal and it is a good thing you are happy with it. We need more tech devices that have satisfied users. It does seem to be possibly even more expensive than Apple's product but I doubt your characterization of its advantages is entirely accurate. For one thing it is limited to 802.11b wifi speeds rather than 802.11g for the iPhone. That is a non-trivial disadvantage but it is an older device. Also the VGA screen looks pretty dim in some of the reviews but maybe that is not common. It also appears to be bulkier and heavier. Hard to say and I couldn't find specific numbers to compare with iPhone's 4.8 ounces and 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches.
I don't plan to be spending the sort of money Apple is charging (or for an HTC Universal) unless there are some surprises that haven't been announced yet. But I can imagine why someone might rationally make that choice. Just like I haven't purchased an iPod but can understand why all three of my children have purchased one. It is too bad your blinders prevent you from appreciating some of the best technology and design available today.
p.s. the Apple Demo I refer to is not what was shown at MacWorld by Jobs but rather what is available at Apple's website. If you haven't seen it yet don't be misled by the simplified stuff they use for for onstage presentation.
Yep, no question about it. I also wish the price were lower not unlike many other devices from Apple and others. I am skeptical about your rather unsupported claim that your two year old phone stomps all over Apple's as yet unreleased phone. You fail to mention what model phone you have so that others could evaluate how accurate your claim might be.
I haven't held and operated Apple's phone but if the demo on Apple's website is accurate your claim about an existing phone being better as a phone is utter nonsense. Every phone I've ever used has required that I have its own cryptic and unknowable interface committed securely to my memory to operate it effectively. A call is coming in, what phone am I using, what is the magic key sequence needed to handle the call and if I guess wrong what happens to the existing call and the impending call? With a touch screen and Apple's useable interface that sort of common frustration is simply eliminated. The devices that are currently available are just plain broken and the vendors are mindless idiots to have done nothing to correct this sort of interface hell that they have been providing ever since we moved beyond circular dial phone.
This looks incredibly similar to the mp3 player market where existing devices and their unimaginative vendors have settled for crappy products and left it to Apple to do the sort of things that were obviously needed but no one was providing. As a result Apple could charge high prices and still rout their competition utterly. Plenty of otherwise savvy viewers of the market were oblivious to the glaring shortcomings of existing products because they made the needed absurd accomodations. So Apple's success remains an inexplicable mystery that can only be understood by inventing a fanbois mythology. Wake up and smell the coffee!
What sort of brain dead gambit involves bringing a lawsuit in a court that has absolutely ZERO authority? AllOfMP3.com is in Russia which is a foreign country. US courts have no jurisdiction there. If they (AllOfMP3.com) had assets in the US it might have some relevance but this is just a stupid publicity stunt that can only impress people who do not remotely have a clue. The RIAA has no bargaining position. They are like those dufuses in "The Big Lebowski" who can't get a ransom because they haven't kidnapped anyone. As a news story it is at most slightly amusing.
I think he should loose his job... He should even more loose his job...
The spelling of the correct word is LOSE. I'll repeat that: L O S E. Loose is a word with a significantly different meaning. Lose and loose are not interchangeable. The battle over your, you're and their, there, they're is lost but do we have to LOSE the distinction between lose and loose? That single 'o' may look lonely but it is correct. Lose the extra 'o', please.
I apologize for being so snarky in my reply but I thought you were the same person who made the ridiculously inaccurate initial statement. But did you follow your own link? There are no criminal penalties stated for copyright infringement in that statute. None of that would EVER apply to a P2P case. The criminal penalties only pertain to the use of counterfeit government seals applied to some physical medium. The criminal statute which you cited only applies to counterfeiting (title 17 refers to title 18 for its definition). So if read at all carefully (unless you have a correction to supply) your reference makes the case that copyright infringement (specifically downloading) is not subject to any criminal statute. I stand by the content, though not the attitude of my reply. (It does get awfully annoying, though that people continue to claim downloading is the "same" as stealing and a criminal violation and then have no valid evidence even from the RIAA's own lapdog Congress).
OK, smart ass. Name one case brought by the RIAA which has been a criminal prosecution. ALL of these cases are civil cases. Trying to weasel around doesn't change that salient fact. They have managed to get their sock puppets in Congress to pass all sorts of laws over the years and the day may come when it is a criminal violation to hum a tune without paying royalties but we aren't there yet (but try singing "Happy Birthday" in some public fashion and see what happens next). There is a criminal statute having to do with infringement which is on a commercial scale (from what I've read, I have not bothered to look up the statute). This would be in the case of one company against another where large sums of money changes hands. The fact remains that stealing is a crime and copyright infringement is a civil matter. Pretending otherwise is either dishonest or stupid. Your choice.
If you read 18 USC 2319 it refers to physical goods that have a counterfeit seal:
(a) Whoever-- (1) falsely makes, forges, counterfeits, mutilates, or alters the seal of any department or agency of the United States, or any facsimile thereof;
Which has absolutely zero relevance in every case under discussion (i.e. downloading where there is no seal involved). You're firing blanks.
...both stealing and copyright infringement are criminal acts
One act is covered by criminal law and the other by civil law. Can you guess which is which? Unless you are a paid shill or too feeble minded to tell the difference it might help in discussions to refrain from parrotting their more flagrantly dishonest claims. Ironically it almost certainly works to their (RIAA) advantage in these lawsuit/extortion actions. If it were a criminal statute they would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which is much more stringent than the civil law's requirement of preponderance of evidence.
They could even (gasp! horror!) push the envelope and produce a few HD commercials of gameplay. Although almost all new network shows have been produced in HD for the last several years we have the odd spectacle of TV switching back to 4x3 standard definition every time they go to a commercial break (There are a few exceptions like some Apple iPod commercials in HD). Since HD is a feature of the current generation of consoles why not play that up and demonstrate more clearly why it would be worthwhile dropping hundreds of dollars for yet another console?
Currently I'm doing their job for them by downloding HD clips of gameplay from various web sites. It would be nice if they could get over their pathetic navel gazing and actually do something useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, and when the seatbelt law passed in MN we were assured use of seatbelts would NEVER be used as a reason to stop a car. You could only get a seatbelt citation if there was something else that caused you to be pulled over, like speeding. Now they brag about their policy of pulling people over who don't have on seatbelts. I have always used seatbelts before and after this law. My issue with it is the bald faced dishonesty. It will almost certanly be the same with incandescent bulbs. First they get one law and then they need more to make it more effective.
Wow, a state full of people driving what amounts to Sherman tanks is now sanctimoniously telling people what type of lightbulb they can legally use? Will there be teams of lightbulb inspectors descending on homes in their black SUVs to insure compliance by the peasants?
Here are a few free suggestions. If you strongly feel that CFL should be used instead of incandescant then buy them for your own damn home amd business. If you think it would be a useful application of public funds then propose that the state purchase and distribute CFL's for free or a much reduced price. But don't use the police power of the state to enforce your own fashionable whim of the moment. If this proposal does succeed then good luck dealing with the mercury poisoning.
let it "find its own way" onto the internet.
/. that has a perverse fixation on Apple and/or Steve Jobs. Not only would they never buy anything from Apple, they are offended that anyone else does. At every opportunity they spew venom regardless of how illogical it might be. That doesn't mean they have to be wrong (after all someone was messing around with stock option dates) but I'm just pointing out that it doesn't make much sense. If a pattern of unannounced feature update charges appears then I am wrong. If it doesn't then my interpretation is probably accurate.
I think this is exactly how they expect many people to get the update. I certainly can't speak for Apple but I doubt if they care. On the other hand they are a company that has been around for thirty years and they have many customers who are glad to pay for the peace of mind that comes with the increased certainty that no malware is being carelessly installed.
I don't have any special insight into Sarbanes Oxley or how it does or does not apply specifically to this case. I do have a reasonably clear view of the context. Apple's revenues and profits have never been higher. They are also an American institution that has been around for a long time and plan to be around a lot longer. They would neither need nor want the $5 per transaction if it is a scam.
On the other hand there is a peculiar personality type on
Right, you genius's have seen through the evil plot and have discerned this is how Apple plans to achieve profitability! It has nothing to do with Sarbanes-Oxley and its onerous accounting regulations. A complete ruse! What's that? You don't even own any Apple hardware? Well, all the more remarkable that you would lend your subtle and omniscient wisdom to explaining the world to baffled Apple customers. They might be easily misled by the continuing availability of Apple's free Software Update which has actually been effective. All part of the subtrafuge to arrange the scheme to extract $5 a crack from those thousands of customers who purchased a product with an unannounced feature. Explain to me again how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.
Yes, I thought about qualifying my reply to include the possibility that the legal work could have been consulting work just as Apple (and Microsoft and other) will sometimes hire contract workers for engineering projects also. But I thought it would dilute the force of the statement that actual concerns about Sarbanes Oxley was a much better explanation than fanciful notions that they added fees to cover legal expenses that were not needed. Of course I also guessed that the person making the comment was probably joking and indeed he has confirmed it was meant in jest.
It may not be entirely obvious from context but this issue is not about policies in the past. If you go back a few years (before the brief flirtation with Mac compatible clones) all Apple system software updates were free. That policy changed and didn't change back when Mac clones were discontinued. The point is that these policies change sometimes due to new external facts (like Sarbanes-Oxley). We'll have to see if Apple's interpretation is shared by others based on what they do in the future. Maybe Congress will see fit to modify this new regulation so it won't have this effect.
they needed to charge $5/download just to cover the consultation fees
You probably meant this to be a humorous comment. On the off chance you were serious it should be pointed out that Apple is a large multinational company and as such they have an entire legal department. They are paid a salary, not consulting fees. Ocassionally they may be given a biscuit for a particularly nice trick.
I suspect Apple is just spreading the pain resulting from Sarbanes-Oxley and as time passes others, probably including Microsoft, will be forced to a similar position. At this point the idea that Apple has to "eek out a profit" is comical. Take a look at the financial numbers for Apple to see how silly that comment is. There are reasons why their stock price is at its highest level ever.
If the $5 charge is too aggravating don't you suppose it might be possible to get a free copy without too much effort? Just think of it as conscientious objection to Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. Apple seems to be saying they would rather not charge you so do them a favor and comply with their wishes.
The place where this might get more aggravating is when it is applied to the minor system software updates, e.g. 10.4.7 -> 10.4.8. In the past such updates could include changes that go beyond just bug fixes.
How about (c) You are incapable or unwilling to actually read an article before typing your uninformed opinion. The change due to Sarbanes Oxley only applies to new features, not bug fixes. Now you may return to anguished seething about how much you hate Apple and Steve Jobs.
But, the much larger problem in the US is now that the public K-12 system is hopelessly mired ... I think I will see the day when US kids go to the far east to get an education.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be, is it? I suppose it is harsh to pick on one specific posting when the tendency is present in many. There is a natural impulse to suppose that things were better when one was younger and because this new generation just doesn't measure up that we must certainly be headed for disaster. I'm fairly certain there is a quote to this effect that is attributed to an ancient Greek philosopher. There have been ups and downs so some predictions of looming disaster were accurate (pessimistic Germans in the 1930's for example). But I think it is remarkable that so many are certain of worse times even as American universities go from strength to strength.
Part of the confusion is the idea that scentific advance is not an elite activity. More specifically that general scientific literacy as reflected by universally administered standardized tests is of much more than anecdotal interest. People as a whole don't cause scientific advances and they never did. In any case if anything there are more places today where cutting edge work is pursued than there were in the past.
At the risk of sounding Panglossian I think it would be a good thing if places like China (OK, I guess I really mean just China) were to develop some world class research universities. Having a greater variety of settings is bound to be healthier. So if the local peasantry grab their pitchforks and torches (e.g. the Cambridge City Council or some Berkeley activist group) and try to impose their inspired vision, there could still be an alternative with the needed infrastructure (colleagues, llibraries, students, technicians, technology companies, etc).
If a company's IT infrastructure starts spontaneously disintegrating after a month, I'd question the talent of the people that put it together.
Just as a business shouldn't need a staff carpenters on hand to re-build walls that fall down, it shouldn't need a staff of IT experts on hand to re-build failing infrastructure.
Not familiar with the phenomenon of bit rot are we? I suppose if things could ever be really kept static it might not be such a pervasive fact and I'm not sure that one month is the right time scale. But for a number of reasons that seem to be different for every case things that work (and were built with reasonable care) just stop being effective. I think a case can be made that the relentless march of actual improvements and fashion changes that masquerade as improvements force everything that is built to be on an ever shifting foundation.
There were some organizations that bucked the trend and kept their Fortran or Cobol code running on old hardware in order to escape the treadmill. Until Y2K they got away with it.
It is an exaggeration but as the Red Queen tells Alice you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. If your building's infrastructure had the property of potentially improving at an exponential rate you can bet it would be in the process of continual rebuilding and some of it would involve fixing mistakes. If you look at the number of construction cranes in some cities it seems like that process may be close to reality.
The role played by DVD-Jon in the original exploit for decoding DVDs made for entertaining journalism but it was dependent on one particular carelessly handled player key that was subsequently revoked. What matters was the cryptanalysis performed by Frank Stephenson of CSS which exposed mistakes in the CSS algorithm (see this link: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/FrankStevenson/an alysis.html). It made the already inadequate 40 bit keyspace no more effective than a 25 bit space. Looping through 2^25 possible keys takes almost no time at all with a modern computer. In other words keys are found on the fly and there was no important role played by the mysterious German hackers assosciated with DVD-Jon. Of course the real "heroes" of this story are the poor engineers at Hitachi given the assignment of designing and implementing a secure system just because someone thought it should be possible and creating from scratch was "obviously" the way to proceed.
The moral again is that bumbling and incompetence are often the important explanatory factors rather than significant money or strategic brilliance.
It's a shame that you have to be such a run away success in order to have enough money to sue for what you are due.
It was on a different scale financially and quite a while ago but I recall a similar incident with the actor James Garner as the aggrieved party concerning a great deal of shady accounting (a claim that "The Rockford Files" never made a profit). But he had been in so many successful TV series that he had enough money finally to get his much delayed day in court and prevail. The people who were being sued were always at great pains to explain that Garner was paid plenty for all the success he had achieved with the implication that he should accept being screwed out of the contractual obligations that he had negotiated.
When you think of all the times these producers put out huge sums of money for some incredibly lackluster work which leaves them scrambling to try to recover, you might think they would gladly forgo their usual shady accounting tricks for work that seems to be successful on every level. But they seem to be biologically incapable of that sort of self control. Being predatory is probably an important factor in how they got to be where they are and they probably have no ability to control it even in their own self interest.
Greedy, dishonest Hollywood executives. Nothing new here. They should do a TV show about them. Wait, they did, it was called Action! and it was hilarious. It is even available on DVD.
Thanks, I needed that chuckle when you replied, quite correctly, that it has at least two buttons. I exaggerated because compared to "phones" that come with a complete qwerty keyboard and more Apple has gone with a radically different design (breaking the mold and all that). I'm pleased that we have successfully expressed our diverging viewpoints so that each basically knows the other's opinion. We might even agree there is little more to discuss about the iPhone until it faces its only really important test when people start to use it in June. I would suggest that there is more going on in the iPod phenomenon than you have understood so far. On the other hand I know you don't agree with that suggestion.
Because you apparently cannot read...
I can read and I can spell. I also notice when a modification makes a difference and when it is largely cosmetic.
my argument was that the iPhone does not break the previous mold of phone design
It has NO FRACKIN' BUTTONS! It may turn out to be a goofy idea and they could fall flat on their faces but that is an important part of the reason they're Apple and not just some other screwdriver clone company. We won't know whether it was a good or great idea or just another miscue until many people own and use it. The Newton was a cool idea that is still better than the pale copycats that followed but the failure of its handwriting recognition system was fatal.
The fact that your undersized PC has a barrel full of features including some combination of video screen interfaces doesn't matter because it also has a full complement of physical keys as well. To put it mildly I would venture to guess that most would not characterize it as a clean or elegant interface. The ray of sunshine in this is that you like it. What is not so clear is if you understand that others might not share your enthusiasm for perfectly valid reasons. Your response seems to be that if someone doesn't agree he must be an idiot (e.g. the tens of millions of purchasers of iPods). Well, that is as much effort as I am willing to expend.
I hope the apple fanbois realize that my phone, two years old, stomps all over Apple's iPhone (which hasen't even been released yet) as a phone, not to mention as a portable computing appliance.
So to this comment you add:
For information's sake, I paid 1100 USD, totally unlocked, for my Universal
You spent $1,100 for a phone and you brag about the specs that come with this dinosaur. It weighs more, it's bulkier and its design sounds like it is much like every other "smart"phone. Maybe it is the right device for you but you aren't going to influence anyone who is looking for something that breaks the mold of previous phone design.
About your HTC Univeral you also say:
You apparently didn't look very hard. Activating 802.11g speed is as simple as flipping a software switch
Actually I did look and in Wikipedia:
Although the Universal is shipped as 802.11b-compatible only, a registry tweak can make the Universal compatible with 802.11g-only access points, but the speed would still be the same as 802.11b (11 Mbit/s).
Then there is also:
I bought what amounts to a Nano-knockoff for a friend a whle back. Cost me 60 bucks, including shipping, for 8 GB of storage. Looks identical to a Nano on the outside, except that it's a hell of a lot cheaper...
Really, and how is the quality of the software that comes with the device for getting music onto it? Does it work well with a Mac? Is there a wide variety of tracks that can be purchased easily and moved seamlessly to it? How about the market of third party software and devices that integrate easily with it? Does it work well with the audio system of most new cars?
I've had some experience with other audio player devices going back to early models from Rio and more recently with the Sony PSP. The software and the user experience is simply not comparable to the iPod. If a knock off is good enough for you then good for you. But you might want to consider the possibility that those soon to be 100,000,000 iPods sold reflect an experience beyond your grasp of all the issues involved. Remember in almost every case this is an individual spending his own money on a device that he uses on a daily basis. That is a lot of people and you might have a challenge dismissing all of them as mindless.
Personally I think $250 is a lot of money for any portable music player and $600 together with a 2 year contract with Cingular is a lot of money for any cell phone but at least it has OS X installed. That is the wild card in this announcement that keeps me interested. If I can access bash then against my better judgment it may tempt me.
"Now I know you're just an idiot. Apple's MP3 players are rediculously horrible compared to the competition. Anyone with half a brain shouldn't use one..."
Right, I'm an idiot and you can't even spell a simple word like ridiculous correctly. You are also in the position of someone whose advice on music players is so inept that you've completely lost contact with reality. Maybe "standard WM5 interface" is the greatest development ever in human interface design, I haven't used it so I can't say. I do use WinXP on a daily basis and find it pathetic in comparison to OS X which is at best tolerable.
I did just do a quick lookup of HTC Universal and it is a good thing you are happy with it. We need more tech devices that have satisfied users. It does seem to be possibly even more expensive than Apple's product but I doubt your characterization of its advantages is entirely accurate. For one thing it is limited to 802.11b wifi speeds rather than 802.11g for the iPhone. That is a non-trivial disadvantage but it is an older device. Also the VGA screen looks pretty dim in some of the reviews but maybe that is not common. It also appears to be bulkier and heavier. Hard to say and I couldn't find specific numbers to compare with iPhone's 4.8 ounces and 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches.
I don't plan to be spending the sort of money Apple is charging (or for an HTC Universal) unless there are some surprises that haven't been announced yet. But I can imagine why someone might rationally make that choice. Just like I haven't purchased an iPod but can understand why all three of my children have purchased one. It is too bad your blinders prevent you from appreciating some of the best technology and design available today.
p.s. the Apple Demo I refer to is not what was shown at MacWorld by Jobs but rather what is available at Apple's website. If you haven't seen it yet don't be misled by the simplified stuff they use for for onstage presentation.
Yep, no question about it. I also wish the price were lower not unlike many other devices from Apple and others. I am skeptical about your rather unsupported claim that your two year old phone stomps all over Apple's as yet unreleased phone. You fail to mention what model phone you have so that others could evaluate how accurate your claim might be.
I haven't held and operated Apple's phone but if the demo on Apple's website is accurate your claim about an existing phone being better as a phone is utter nonsense. Every phone I've ever used has required that I have its own cryptic and unknowable interface committed securely to my memory to operate it effectively. A call is coming in, what phone am I using, what is the magic key sequence needed to handle the call and if I guess wrong what happens to the existing call and the impending call? With a touch screen and Apple's useable interface that sort of common frustration is simply eliminated. The devices that are currently available are just plain broken and the vendors are mindless idiots to have done nothing to correct this sort of interface hell that they have been providing ever since we moved beyond circular dial phone.
This looks incredibly similar to the mp3 player market where existing devices and their unimaginative vendors have settled for crappy products and left it to Apple to do the sort of things that were obviously needed but no one was providing. As a result Apple could charge high prices and still rout their competition utterly. Plenty of otherwise savvy viewers of the market were oblivious to the glaring shortcomings of existing products because they made the needed absurd accomodations. So Apple's success remains an inexplicable mystery that can only be understood by inventing a fanbois mythology. Wake up and smell the coffee!
What sort of brain dead gambit involves bringing a lawsuit in a court that has absolutely ZERO authority? AllOfMP3.com is in Russia which is a foreign country. US courts have no jurisdiction there. If they (AllOfMP3.com) had assets in the US it might have some relevance but this is just a stupid publicity stunt that can only impress people who do not remotely have a clue. The RIAA has no bargaining position. They are like those dufuses in "The Big Lebowski" who can't get a ransom because they haven't kidnapped anyone. As a news story it is at most slightly amusing.
I think he should loose his job...
He should even more loose his job...
The spelling of the correct word is LOSE. I'll repeat that: L O S E. Loose is a word with a significantly different meaning. Lose and loose are not interchangeable. The battle over your, you're and their, there, they're is lost but do we have to LOSE the distinction between lose and loose? That single 'o' may look lonely but it is correct. Lose the extra 'o', please.
I apologize for being so snarky in my reply but I thought you were the same person who made the ridiculously inaccurate initial statement. But did you follow your own link? There are no criminal penalties stated for copyright infringement in that statute. None of that would EVER apply to a P2P case. The criminal penalties only pertain to the use of counterfeit government seals applied to some physical medium. The criminal statute which you cited only applies to counterfeiting (title 17 refers to title 18 for its definition). So if read at all carefully (unless you have a correction to supply) your reference makes the case that copyright infringement (specifically downloading) is not subject to any criminal statute. I stand by the content, though not the attitude of my reply. (It does get awfully annoying, though that people continue to claim downloading is the "same" as stealing and a criminal violation and then have no valid evidence even from the RIAA's own lapdog Congress).
OK, smart ass. Name one case brought by the RIAA which has been a criminal prosecution. ALL of these cases are civil cases. Trying to weasel around doesn't change that salient fact. They have managed to get their sock puppets in Congress to pass all sorts of laws over the years and the day may come when it is a criminal violation to hum a tune without paying royalties but we aren't there yet (but try singing "Happy Birthday" in some public fashion and see what happens next). There is a criminal statute having to do with infringement which is on a commercial scale (from what I've read, I have not bothered to look up the statute). This would be in the case of one company against another where large sums of money changes hands. The fact remains that stealing is a crime and copyright infringement is a civil matter. Pretending otherwise is either dishonest or stupid. Your choice.
If you read 18 USC 2319 it refers to physical goods that have a counterfeit seal:
(a) Whoever--
(1) falsely makes, forges, counterfeits, mutilates, or alters the seal of any department or agency of the United States, or any facsimile thereof;
Which has absolutely zero relevance in every case under discussion (i.e. downloading where there is no seal involved). You're firing blanks.
...both stealing and copyright infringement are criminal acts
One act is covered by criminal law and the other by civil law. Can you guess which is which? Unless you are a paid shill or too feeble minded to tell the difference it might help in discussions to refrain from parrotting their more flagrantly dishonest claims. Ironically it almost certainly works to their (RIAA) advantage in these lawsuit/extortion actions. If it were a criminal statute they would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which is much more stringent than the civil law's requirement of preponderance of evidence.
They could even (gasp! horror!) push the envelope and produce a few HD commercials of gameplay. Although almost all new network shows have been produced in HD for the last several years we have the odd spectacle of TV switching back to 4x3 standard definition every time they go to a commercial break (There are a few exceptions like some Apple iPod commercials in HD). Since HD is a feature of the current generation of consoles why not play that up and demonstrate more clearly why it would be worthwhile dropping hundreds of dollars for yet another console?
Currently I'm doing their job for them by downloding HD clips of gameplay from various web sites. It would be nice if they could get over their pathetic navel gazing and actually do something useful.