I think it's more like this: Product A isn't compliant to standard X, but works with all products conforming to standard X. Product B also works with all products conforming to standard X, but is also noncompliant itself. And now it so happens that Product A and Product B don't work together, and the makers of Product B are blaming the makers of Product A.
The GDP is GROSS domestic product. Someone who "owned" the US wouldn't be able to pull a profit anywhere close to $13 trillion per year. The slaves have to eat something.
Really? From myself and people I know, I can count 7 Macs, all of which lasted at least a year without any problems. Five of those still work, one I'm not sure about, and one had a hard drive fail.
I've still never seen a broken iPod, though I'm sure it happens, and my old 3G did need to be restored a few times.
Anecdotal evidence is worse than useless -- if you even bring it up, you ought to be modded Flamebait.
Well, the Eee PC could be called suitable, but I'm not sure that's realistic. There are a lot of things you can't do with the Eee PC that people like to do on the road. Load up a GUI email client and a Web browser, maybe with a tab or two, and pretty soon you're running out of RAM and there's no swap to speak of. Rendering Web pages with a lot of scripting is going to take a while. And forget about taking a movie with you, or some music, or hooking up your digital camera on the go -- there's just so little space. Based on the way my 3Ghz P4 runs OpenOffice, I'm not sure it's so great for word processing either.
I'm sure that some people are OK with the Eee PC's limitations, but I'm not sure it belongs in this comparison. The laptop market hasn't shown too much interest in godawful-slow tiny laptops as of yet.
No, it's ridiculous. You're talking about a device with 4GB of storage versus one with 80GB. A device with a 630Mhz Celeron versus a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo. A 1280x800 screen versus 800x480. 512MB of RAM versus 2GB. 2.5 hours of battery versus 5.
The specs on the Eee PC are a lot closer to those of the iPhone than they are to the Macbook Air.
I feel the same way about the iPhone -- with 16GB storage, it is in no way a replacement for my current iPod. But I suspect if he'd been willing to accept 1/16 of an inch increased thickness, we could be looking at 32GB or 64GB, and then you've got me as a customer.
No way. The iPhone (which is 8GB max) uses flash and has zero space left inside. If you're talking 32GB flash, you're adding hundreds of dollars to an already hefty price to get that much flash, and you'd still possibly need to slim down the battery to make more space for flash chips (the thing is seriously packed inside). And a 32GB hard drive like the one in the current iPods wouldn't fit in 1/16 of an inch.
If anything, his comment demonstrates how far people will go to paint Apple as the new Microsoft. As if Microsoft weren't still around and up to the same dirty tricks as always.
But hey, they made a game console that's pretty good (at least when it works), so now they must be a great bunch of people. And all corporations have the exact same ethical standards by law, right? Right?
The letter is dated Feb 6, 2007. EMI and Apple jointly announced DRM-free tracks on April 2. iTunes Plus launched on May 29. This may be "clearly far too late" in your opinion, but I just don't see it. Jobs could easily have written the letter as part of a media pressure campaign during negotiations with EMI. EMI and Apple presumably came to an agreement sometime in February; otherwise why wait to make the announcement? Obviously there is some tech work that Apple had to do, but that could have been done in the time between April 2 and May 29.
the DRM removal on iTunes was at the request of EMI
Where are you getting that information? Usually from an outsider's perpective it's impossible to understand how high-level corporate negotiations work, but the chronology was that Steve wrote a letter calling for DRM to be abolished first, then EMI's songs were sold DRM-free starting some time after that. It seems like if EMI were doing it on their own initiative, they would have made the announcement and claimed the credit, not letting Jobs pre-empt them and claim credit.
"Plaintext" just means "not encrypted" (as opposed to "plain text"). By the way, recent versions of iTunes will happily copy music from an iPod, though this feature wasn't always present. Also, I don't believe that MP3 files have the ID3 tags stripped (though the file name is mangled as you describe).
Lots of tools are able to make their own iPod database from scratch, and this has been true for years.
Modern CVTs can be used on a reasonably powerful motor (like that in a Civic or so) with very good mileage (superior to regular auto, close to manual) and great performance.
Sorry, I'm talking about the database, not the firmware -- the database is not encrypted. You said that it was, which is wrong, and that such a measure was most designed to prevent the removal of music, which is impossible since it's not encrypted.
It's not "encrypted", silly -- it has a checksum, whose purpose is just as likely to be integrity verification as anything else. It took other projects, what, two days to figure out?
How does a checksum make it harder to pull music off the device? The database is still in plaintext as always.
Both in their complete failure in implementing local disaster policies and their initial REFUSAL to accept help
Just to respond to this -- a president cannot sit quietly with the resources of the entire federal government at his disposal while Americans suffer and die. All the Bush aplogists can explain the "sitting" part all they want, but they can't explain the "quietly" part. It's the responsibility of the President to lead, and that means (for instance) addressing the nation immediately when there is a crisis on that scale and the local government is screwing up. That's what the bully pulpit is for, and Bush failed to use it.
All the things I can't do with the nice hardware of this 160 gig iPod because of the DRM-restricted software
What? There is no DRM built into the iPod except that it can play FairPlay-encoded files, which is Apple's DRM system (and which Apple is working to phase out besides). Are you confused about how the device works? It does store music in a database-driven format, but that format is not DRM-encumbered and is well-supported by a variety of tools.
It says right there that it is NOT acronymized. So as you say, it's an initialism that wouldn't be pronounced.
They could have gone with XII, and then it could stand for "XII Is an Initialism", but everybody would treat it like an acronym and pronounce it "zee". Or "twelve", but that's another ball of wax.
Why don't you tell us about her health care policy? Or her votes in the Senate?
Well, as we all know the answer is mostly ratings, there is at least some sense to it. While the President does have a bully pulpit, they don't write laws, and can't ultimately pass a health care policy, and certainly don't vote in the Senate. That is the job of legislators.
If you consider the Bush administration, most of his important successes and failures are not legislative in nature. The famous tax cuts are somewhat overblown, since there was a surplus at the time and everybody (including Gore) had a tax cut proposal. The much-hyped social security reform did not occur. The immigration plan did not pass.
Presidential candidates are always full of legislative proposals, but they are seldom remembered long. Bush's operational record is much more interesting -- the years of failure to react when Rumsfeld's war plan was not working, the laid-back approach to Katrina disaster relief, the poor international relations. The point is that if you judge presidential candidates entirely by their policy positions -- as if they were running for the Senate -- they can all look deceptively similar. So it's not surprising that the electorate at large is looking for signs of leadership and a particular philosphy more than they are looking for detailed policy proposals.
This is an intelligent response? This kind of "if you were as smart and well-informed as I am, you'd reach my conclusion" sort of crap is now considered a brilliant debate style?
I had to explain to him how the computer handles twos complement works in binary and how a binary 1 converted to integer would be -1 and 0 would be 0.
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but a binary 1 (as in 00000001) interpreted as a two's-complement integer is positive 1, not negative 1. -1 would be 11111111. Maybe this doesn't have much to do with your point, though.
The "police" don't do so much to prosecute piracy in the US either, at least where it comes to individual music downloads. The enforcement activity is being driven by the industry in the form of civil lawsuits.
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I think it's more like this: Product A isn't compliant to standard X, but works with all products conforming to standard X. Product B also works with all products conforming to standard X, but is also noncompliant itself. And now it so happens that Product A and Product B don't work together, and the makers of Product B are blaming the makers of Product A.
Yeah, though those of us with a genetic melanin deficiency got tired of being sunburned all the time and ran off for less equatorial climates.
The GDP is GROSS domestic product. Someone who "owned" the US wouldn't be able to pull a profit anywhere close to $13 trillion per year. The slaves have to eat something.
Man, I KNOW -- they didn't hire me either. Totally evil.
A whole year? Gosh, it must be great to have such low expectations.
Some of them aren't much older than that, idiot.
I simply don't believe that, sorry.
Why not? Because it would hurt your world-view? Or do you have some kind of study proving your allegation of a high iPod failure rate?
You mean when other people use it I assume, since your post is all anecdotal evidence
My post is in contrast to your post, as a demonstration that anecdotal evidence is useless. When you go to college, take a logic class.
Actually, there's nothing wrong with it.
And statistics.
Really? From myself and people I know, I can count 7 Macs, all of which lasted at least a year without any problems. Five of those still work, one I'm not sure about, and one had a hard drive fail.
I've still never seen a broken iPod, though I'm sure it happens, and my old 3G did need to be restored a few times.
Anecdotal evidence is worse than useless -- if you even bring it up, you ought to be modded Flamebait.
On http://www.apple.com/macbookair/features.html you can see that he's talking about the package, not the chip itself.
Well, the Eee PC could be called suitable, but I'm not sure that's realistic. There are a lot of things you can't do with the Eee PC that people like to do on the road. Load up a GUI email client and a Web browser, maybe with a tab or two, and pretty soon you're running out of RAM and there's no swap to speak of. Rendering Web pages with a lot of scripting is going to take a while. And forget about taking a movie with you, or some music, or hooking up your digital camera on the go -- there's just so little space. Based on the way my 3Ghz P4 runs OpenOffice, I'm not sure it's so great for word processing either.
I'm sure that some people are OK with the Eee PC's limitations, but I'm not sure it belongs in this comparison. The laptop market hasn't shown too much interest in godawful-slow tiny laptops as of yet.
The comparison with the Eee PC is interesting.
No, it's ridiculous. You're talking about a device with 4GB of storage versus one with 80GB. A device with a 630Mhz Celeron versus a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo. A 1280x800 screen versus 800x480. 512MB of RAM versus 2GB. 2.5 hours of battery versus 5.
The specs on the Eee PC are a lot closer to those of the iPhone than they are to the Macbook Air.
I feel the same way about the iPhone -- with 16GB storage, it is in no way a replacement for my current iPod. But I suspect if he'd been willing to accept 1/16 of an inch increased thickness, we could be looking at 32GB or 64GB, and then you've got me as a customer.
No way. The iPhone (which is 8GB max) uses flash and has zero space left inside. If you're talking 32GB flash, you're adding hundreds of dollars to an already hefty price to get that much flash, and you'd still possibly need to slim down the battery to make more space for flash chips (the thing is seriously packed inside). And a 32GB hard drive like the one in the current iPods wouldn't fit in 1/16 of an inch.
If anything, his comment demonstrates how far people will go to paint Apple as the new Microsoft. As if Microsoft weren't still around and up to the same dirty tricks as always.
But hey, they made a game console that's pretty good (at least when it works), so now they must be a great bunch of people. And all corporations have the exact same ethical standards by law, right? Right?
The letter is dated Feb 6, 2007. EMI and Apple jointly announced DRM-free tracks on April 2. iTunes Plus launched on May 29. This may be "clearly far too late" in your opinion, but I just don't see it. Jobs could easily have written the letter as part of a media pressure campaign during negotiations with EMI. EMI and Apple presumably came to an agreement sometime in February; otherwise why wait to make the announcement? Obviously there is some tech work that Apple had to do, but that could have been done in the time between April 2 and May 29.
the DRM removal on iTunes was at the request of EMI
Where are you getting that information? Usually from an outsider's perpective it's impossible to understand how high-level corporate negotiations work, but the chronology was that Steve wrote a letter calling for DRM to be abolished first, then EMI's songs were sold DRM-free starting some time after that. It seems like if EMI were doing it on their own initiative, they would have made the announcement and claimed the credit, not letting Jobs pre-empt them and claim credit.
"Plaintext" just means "not encrypted" (as opposed to "plain text"). By the way, recent versions of iTunes will happily copy music from an iPod, though this feature wasn't always present. Also, I don't believe that MP3 files have the ID3 tags stripped (though the file name is mangled as you describe).
Lots of tools are able to make their own iPod database from scratch, and this has been true for years.
Modern CVTs can be used on a reasonably powerful motor (like that in a Civic or so) with very good mileage (superior to regular auto, close to manual) and great performance.
"65% of Americans are overweight" is an incredibly different statistic from your original "the average American is overweight by 50 pounds" line.
Sorry, I'm talking about the database, not the firmware -- the database is not encrypted. You said that it was, which is wrong, and that such a measure was most designed to prevent the removal of music, which is impossible since it's not encrypted.
It's not "encrypted", silly -- it has a checksum, whose purpose is just as likely to be integrity verification as anything else. It took other projects, what, two days to figure out?
How does a checksum make it harder to pull music off the device? The database is still in plaintext as always.
Both in their complete failure in implementing local disaster policies and their initial REFUSAL to accept help
Just to respond to this -- a president cannot sit quietly with the resources of the entire federal government at his disposal while Americans suffer and die. All the Bush aplogists can explain the "sitting" part all they want, but they can't explain the "quietly" part. It's the responsibility of the President to lead, and that means (for instance) addressing the nation immediately when there is a crisis on that scale and the local government is screwing up. That's what the bully pulpit is for, and Bush failed to use it.
All the things I can't do with the nice hardware of this 160 gig iPod because of the DRM-restricted software
What? There is no DRM built into the iPod except that it can play FairPlay-encoded files, which is Apple's DRM system (and which Apple is working to phase out besides). Are you confused about how the device works? It does store music in a database-driven format, but that format is not DRM-encumbered and is well-supported by a variety of tools.
It says right there that it is NOT acronymized. So as you say, it's an initialism that wouldn't be pronounced.
They could have gone with XII, and then it could stand for "XII Is an Initialism", but everybody would treat it like an acronym and pronounce it "zee". Or "twelve", but that's another ball of wax.
Why don't you tell us about her health care policy? Or her votes in the Senate?
Well, as we all know the answer is mostly ratings, there is at least some sense to it. While the President does have a bully pulpit, they don't write laws, and can't ultimately pass a health care policy, and certainly don't vote in the Senate. That is the job of legislators.
If you consider the Bush administration, most of his important successes and failures are not legislative in nature. The famous tax cuts are somewhat overblown, since there was a surplus at the time and everybody (including Gore) had a tax cut proposal. The much-hyped social security reform did not occur. The immigration plan did not pass.
Presidential candidates are always full of legislative proposals, but they are seldom remembered long. Bush's operational record is much more interesting -- the years of failure to react when Rumsfeld's war plan was not working, the laid-back approach to Katrina disaster relief, the poor international relations. The point is that if you judge presidential candidates entirely by their policy positions -- as if they were running for the Senate -- they can all look deceptively similar. So it's not surprising that the electorate at large is looking for signs of leadership and a particular philosphy more than they are looking for detailed policy proposals.
This is an intelligent response? This kind of "if you were as smart and well-informed as I am, you'd reach my conclusion" sort of crap is now considered a brilliant debate style?
I had to explain to him how the computer handles twos complement works in binary and how a binary 1 converted to integer would be -1 and 0 would be 0.
Maybe I'm not reading this right, but a binary 1 (as in 00000001) interpreted as a two's-complement integer is positive 1, not negative 1. -1 would be 11111111. Maybe this doesn't have much to do with your point, though.
The "police" don't do so much to prosecute piracy in the US either, at least where it comes to individual music downloads. The enforcement activity is being driven by the industry in the form of civil lawsuits.