Microsoft, with Windows, has to support every reasonable configuration of x86 hardware there is - with all the quirky motherboards, audio, video, serial ports, 250 formats of memory and that old 5.25" floppy drive you insist on using. The problem being, MS doesn't make any of that.
Sorry, but this is nothing but a big fat red herring. Microsoft writes the specifications for x86 hardware, and Microsoft can choose to support, or not to support, what ever hardware suits them.
In no fashion is Microsoft forced or obligated to support *any* particular configuration, and recent history has shown quite well that even such an august institution as the United States government cannot force Microsoft to do anything they don't want to do
In fact, Microsoft doesn't even offer *support* for their own product, unless you buy a retail copy. Otherwise, you're left to the tender mercies of the hardware developer that sold you the OEM copy.
What, exactly do you find proprietary about Apple hardware? Is it the PowerPC processors (which are found in many places other than Apple hardware, so therefore must have an available specification)? Is it Open Firmware? Is it PCI or USB? Is it FireWire? Is it Serial ATA? Is it AGP? Is it PCI-X? What?
Possibly the only thing which can be described as "Apple Proprietary" is the bridge chipset, and I'm not even so sure of that. After all, there are many other fine operating systems out there that run just fine on Apple hardware--like OpenBSD, or Linux, in case you were wondering.
And, Darwin seems to work just fine on x86 hardware. In fact, it arguably got its start on x86 hardware. The guys at Apple are no dummies--the upper layers of the OS may not be open source, but you can be sure that they are sufficiently abstracted from the lower layers that it would be a relatively simple job for Apple to port to another platform. They might lose things like AltiVec/Velocity Engine, but vector processors are widely available elsewhere.
For the same reason, I don't buy the argument that Apple will never release an x86 version of Mac OS X--after all, by the same logic, in no way is Apple obligated to make sure that an x86 Mac OS X would be compatible with commodity PC hardware. If Apple were to go down this path, you can be quite sure that commodity hardware would never live up to Steve Jobs' expectations. In fact, I'm shocked that Apple ever released the Mac mini! Who wants to see some crappy old PC monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers next to the elegant Mac mini?
And even Microsoft is no stranger to PowerPC development, if you count Windows NT and the XBox...
A Microsoft Windows user is besieged. And I mean not just with spyware and worms, but also with Windows Updates. They're doing the same thing as Apple's updates (make no mistake--both companies are giving you bug fixes), but there are so many updates for this mysterious vulnerability or that compromise that a typical home user is overwhelmed by not only by the OS prompting them to the point of annoyance that you have new Windows Updates as well as the number of patches and attacks. And Windows can be so finicky and problematic that most users don't WANT to rock the boat by applying some update. This situation has improved a bit with Windows XP, but there's still too much information.
Which brings up an interesting point I've often wondered about--how much of the bandwidth of the Internet is being consumed by Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office Updates?
Well, at least Microsoft took at least one idea from the open source community--release early, and release often!
I should have also mentioned the early benchmarks which show massive increases in CPU speed for G4's, healthy increases in memory speed for G5's, and no performance hit at all on G3's. In fact, even G3's will see massive increases in UI speed, as will all Mac OS X users when upgrading to Tiger.
Thurrot may consider Tiger "certainly not worth $129", but I wonder how much he's willing to pay to upgrade his Windows machines to make them 25-50% faster?
I think maybe Thurrot, while being a self-described "Mac fan", does not know quite as much about the inner workings of Mac OS X than he ought to before attempting such a review.
Mac OS X 10.4 is certainly much more than a "minor upgrade with few major new features", especially when you look past the somewhat superficial nature of the "gee-whiz" features like Spotlight and Dashboard. The improtant changes are under the hood, in the form of Core Data, Core Image, better SMP support, etc.
I certainly do, however, agree with him in chiding Apple for their frequent UI experimentation that seems to throw one usability concept after another out with the bath water, so to speak.
But as far as likening Tiger to "what we'd call a service pack in the Windows world", consider the contents of the Slashdot story that appears on the front page along with this article, Survey Shows Admins Avoiding SP2.
While Apple may indeed find that "Tiger's retail success is far more important to Apple than Windows' retail success is to Microsoft", my prediction is that Apple, on the day of Tiger's release (or very, very shortly thereafter), will have sold enough copies of Tiger at $129 or $199 to cover 24% of their installed Mac OS X user base, while Microsoft, having given away Windows XP Service Pack 2 for freeeight months ago, still can't seem to convince enough of their users to adopt it to even hit the one-quarter mark.
I have already ordered the upgrades for my three compatible Macs, how about you?
I've made similar arguments. The basis of my argument is that the biggest thing holding back the subnotebook market is the parctical requirement for some sort of optical drive in order to load most software.
At some point, Apple will make the jump and drag us all kicking and screaming into the post- 12cm optical drive world, just like they dumped the 3.5" floppy and forced USB on us.
Of course, what probably needs to happen first is ubiquitous wireless broadband for this to make real sense...
Once we've gotten rid of the battery and space hungry optical drive, we can have much lighter, smaller portables. Such a device wouldn't be for everyone, but for those of us who still have good eyesight, I wouldn't mind seeing a Mac with a screen like the ones on the smaller Sony VAIO's.
As it stands, it seems to me that those subnotebooks out there that do not have optical drives are seen as less-than-capable devices. It's time to change our thinking again, real soon like.
Americans spend $400 billion on their defense budget alone...Thats $1,333 per taxpayer. Russians and the Chinese don't spend that much on their defense budget even combined.
Yes. And we all sleep better at night because of this.
Or are you honestly and seriously suggesting that we would all be better off if Pre- or Post-Soviet Russia or Pre- or Post-Maoist China become the world's sole remaining superpower?
I am the first to point out the shortcomings of the United States of America, as I feel it to be my duty as a Citizen of the United States to do so--but it remains to be demonstrated that any other nation on this planet can assume such a role as ably.
You're not following your premise to it's ultimate conclusion.
If cars only cost $25, how much is $25 really worth?
Cost is relative to inherent value and/or utility, among other things (let's not start an advanced economic theory debate just now).
The relative value of a currency will fluctuate in accordance with the relative cost, in economic terms, of the commodities which can be purchased with that currency. Therefore, the only way that cars could cost $25 is if all other commodities available were to have their prices adjusted concurrently to accomodate this notion.
In other words, if cars cost $25, $25 dollars would be worth quite a lot of money...
I would very much like to see a full financial breakdown of how you are able to produce CD's, in any amount, for 1.74USD/ea. I suspect you are considering only the costs of reproduction, and not the actual costs involved, end-to-end.
I'll accept Digital Rights Restrictions when they protect my rights as a content creator to generate revenue from my creations while at the same time offering the consumer a reasonable amount of freedom to enjoy that same content.
There needs to be a distinction drawn between "sharing with friends" and "distributing/publishing to the world". This is not a technological problem, it's a societal problem. As the saying goes, there are management solutions to technological problems, but there are no techinical solutions to management problems.
Education is the silver bullet. This is a morality issue. My views on this issue are diametrically opposed to those who believe that they have the right to dispose of my creations as they see fit. It's *my* right, not theirs.
I have to say, I found that article to be dead on the mark...
at least until I got to the bottom and read the praise of Michelle Malkin...a more misguided person, I've never met. Advocates of naked fascism should not be held up as positive examples....well, unless of course, you yourself are a facsist...
I don't know, I think you might be wrong there. If any of the parties involved willfully passed on information that they could have reasonably suspected fell under trade secret protection, then ethically, at least, I think they should be held accountable. Legally, of course, it's not necessarily the same.
I also don't think that the "slippery slope" argument is compelling. I see no reason to believe that, from this case, the public is in any particular danger of the encroachment of corporate "rights" upon those of individual rights.
Of course, one other possible scenario is that the ultimate source(s) of the information are not, in fact, under an NDA...wouldn't *that* be interesting to find out?
Now, see, there's a point worth discussing! *Should* Apple be trying to discover the guilty parties? It could be argued that they should just leave well enough alone. However, I am not Apple, so I don't know if there are other cirumstances involved that might help me decide one way or the other...
In the end, I think this case will be of little consequence, though I will admit a passing personal interest in seeing Jason O'Grady humbled a bit. I knew Jason back when, and I think he's (or at least, he was then) an arrogant jerk lacking in actual technical skills.
You are assuming that any innocent people will not be protected. The aim of the action, for Apple, is to discover tha *guilty* parties. In this case, at least, the innocent have nothing to fear.
I disagree. The fact that wrongdoing was involved (and here I hesitate to characterize the act as criminal, as opposed to civil, being as I am not familiar with CA contract law) is empirically demonstrated by the fact that the only way that the information in question could have been released is if someone under prior restriction (as in an NDA) revealed it to the journalists involved.
The relevant question is, does Apple have a right to discover the identities of the violator(s)?
I believe that they do. Declan McCullagh's article (news.com) on the topic is indicative of the false assumptions made by many people as concerns this case. As the judge correctly surmised, an "interested public" does not equate with "the public interest". The Watergate scandal involved criminal acts that clearly reached to highest levels of government. Apple v. Doe involves a tort committed against a corporation inclear violation of prior agreements. The two are not equivalent.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not, and should not, extend to an ability to withhold the identities of persons who have committed an illegal act. The same would be true even if we were discussing the attorney/client privilege. An attorney who is privy to physical edvidence that his client is guilty can be lawfully compelled to reveal that information.
This is not about corporate interests v. the public interest.
While I applaud the B&MG Foundation for putting at least some of their money where Bill's mouth is, I have to say that I think he's missing the point here.
Secondary education should not, as Mr. Gates believes, "be redesigned to prepare every student for college." What we need is high schools that prepare every student for *life*. There was a time when high schools in the US did exactly this.
Looking back at my own experience, having graduated from the esteemed Peter Stuyvesant High School (from the old building, and before they redesigned the SAT's, back when it was still the *Westinghouse* Science Talent Search, etc, etc), I can say that it was a great shock to me to find myself, in college, in what I can only describe as remedial required courses with students who clearly should not ever have been awarded a high school diploma, let alone have been admitted to university.
Having said that, if we really want to advance the state of education in this country, it will require a massive commitment of public money, as well as a dramatic shift in the way we view both parental and community responsibilites.
Two things to keep in mind:
1. There are no bad students, there are only bad teachers. 2. Education begins in the home.
Post-secondary education should not be a foregone conclusion. We need to strengthen the requirements for the satisfactory completion of secondary education. High school graduates in the future need to have an equivalent education to today's liberal arts bachelor's recipient's.
Of course, getting there is going to require universal day care and preschool, all-year elementary and secondary school schedules, and a complete re-think of the way we provide for family support in our economic sector. By this I mean things like fully-paid maternity and paternity leave, realistic and generous vacation allotments, and universal health care coverage.
I also believe that post-secondary education should be free for all those who demonstrate an appropriate level of aptitude. By supplying this level of support for post-secondary education, we can help ensure that all those who have the ability are able to achieve their rightful place in a productive economy, but this also has to be backed up by an education system that provides those of average and below average aptitude a complete education that culminates at the secondary level.
May I refer you (and the AC above) to the respective financial statements of both SIRI and XMSR? Both of these companies have lost staggering amounts of green since their inception, and they continue to do so. It remains to be seen whether or not either company will ever be profitable, despite the fact that the number of subscriptions is rising. I suspect that many of the so-called "new subscribers" are purchasers of new cars that are geting a bundled OEM deal for the first year or so. How many of those people can be converted to renewals? Probably not anywhere close to 100%.
I will admit, the content factor is somewhat compelling (given that regular radio currently sucks ass), but until I can get both XM and Sirius in one vehicle without too much trouble, I'm not going to even consider jumping on board. And even if that technical hurdle were passed, there's the small matter of the subscription fees to continue using the very expensive proprietary equipment I've already purchased.
And what happens when those companies finally go belly-up? No more service, and a useless pile of electronics.
I suppose if it were still 1998, the rising number of subscribers would outweigh the lack of profitability, but in the post-bubble world, profitability matters. The iTunes/iPod business model has been profitable from Day One, or pretty close to it.
I've got three iPod's now, with a fourth one on the way (a 1GB Shuffle). I'm not paying a subscription fee to listen to my iPod's, and of the 1400-odd songs currently on my iPod, a grand total of about 20 have come off of the iTunes store. I only buy things that I would probably never want to actually own in CD format from iTunes. If the music is good enough, I'll buy the CD and rip it. If it's not good enough, I probably don't want to hear it, anyway.
I use a 250GB external FireWire 800 LaCie d2 extreme to archive all my CD's in Sound Designer II format with Toast 6 Platinum and then rip them to 192KBps AAC's for the iPod's. With this strategy, I calculate that I can fit *at least* 400 CD's on this drive, which happens to be approximately the amount of CD's that I currently own.
And, I keep a full installation of Mac OS X on my iPod's, so I can boot up machines and fix hard drives. The Shuffle on the way will replace my USB keys for quick file transfers between Mac's and PC's. With 1400-odd songs on a 40GB iPod *and* Mac OS X, I still have somthing like 30GB of space left (and 300 more CD's to rip).
I don't need or want to support Microsoft's overly-restrictive Digital Restrictions Management scheme. The subscription model is doomed to failure--just look at satellite radio! Meanwhile, Apple has proven that the iTunes Music Store is a viable business model, with over 250-plus million sales to date.
Napster's pathetic Super Bowl ad was the lowest ranked of all the commercials shown that night. Need anyone ask why?
And what happens when you decide not to pay the subscription fee? No more music.
No, you've entirely missed the point. Being, that mediation is a valuable thing in a diverse culture, and that a lack of mediation does not automaticaly lead to a better culture, nor does the existence thereof infer or imply a lesser culture.
The RIAA and the recording industry in general may truly suck ass, but despite the widespread availability of inexpensive technologies that enable musicians and artists to circumvent the conglomerates, success does not seem to automatically follow in their wake.
The bottom line is, this is truly a cultural problem, not a technological problem. As the saying goes, "There are management solutions for technology problems, but there are no technological solutions for management problems."
In the same way, in a digitized culture where many, if not most, people seem to feel that, as one poster here described, copyright infringment is not theft, content creators cannot thrive without the protection of "Digital Restrictions Management" technologies.
Yes, that's right. I said "restrictions", not "rights". Surprised? You shouldn't be.
Maybe you would feel better off living in an anarchic state where the only property one can posess is that which can be protected by direct force of arms? Where do you draw the line?
And, to answer your question, no...I haven't heard of the Vandals. But then, I suspect they haven't heard of me, either.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft, with Windows, has to support every reasonable configuration of x86 hardware there is - with all the quirky motherboards, audio, video, serial ports, 250 formats of memory and that old 5.25" floppy drive you insist on using. The problem being, MS doesn't make any of that.
Sorry, but this is nothing but a big fat red herring. Microsoft writes the specifications for x86 hardware, and Microsoft can choose to support, or not to support, what ever hardware suits them.
In no fashion is Microsoft forced or obligated to support *any* particular configuration, and recent history has shown quite well that even such an august institution as the United States government cannot force Microsoft to do anything they don't want to do
In fact, Microsoft doesn't even offer *support* for their own product, unless you buy a retail copy. Otherwise, you're left to the tender mercies of the hardware developer that sold you the OEM copy.
What, exactly do you find proprietary about Apple hardware? Is it the PowerPC processors (which are found in many places other than Apple hardware, so therefore must have an available specification)? Is it Open Firmware? Is it PCI or USB? Is it FireWire? Is it Serial ATA? Is it AGP? Is it PCI-X? What?
Possibly the only thing which can be described as "Apple Proprietary" is the bridge chipset, and I'm not even so sure of that. After all, there are many other fine operating systems out there that run just fine on Apple hardware--like OpenBSD, or Linux, in case you were wondering.
And, Darwin seems to work just fine on x86 hardware. In fact, it arguably got its start on x86 hardware. The guys at Apple are no dummies--the upper layers of the OS may not be open source, but you can be sure that they are sufficiently abstracted from the lower layers that it would be a relatively simple job for Apple to port to another platform. They might lose things like AltiVec/Velocity Engine, but vector processors are widely available elsewhere.
For the same reason, I don't buy the argument that Apple will never release an x86 version of Mac OS X--after all, by the same logic, in no way is Apple obligated to make sure that an x86 Mac OS X would be compatible with commodity PC hardware. If Apple were to go down this path, you can be quite sure that commodity hardware would never live up to Steve Jobs' expectations. In fact, I'm shocked that Apple ever released the Mac mini! Who wants to see some crappy old PC monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers next to the elegant Mac mini?
And even Microsoft is no stranger to PowerPC development, if you count Windows NT and the XBox...
A Microsoft Windows user is besieged. And I mean not just with spyware and worms, but also with Windows Updates. They're doing the same thing as Apple's updates (make no mistake--both companies are giving you bug fixes), but there are so many updates for this mysterious vulnerability or that compromise that a typical home user is overwhelmed by not only by the OS prompting them to the point of annoyance that you have new Windows Updates as well as the number of patches and attacks. And Windows can be so finicky and problematic that most users don't WANT to rock the boat by applying some update. This situation has improved a bit with Windows XP, but there's still too much information.
Which brings up an interesting point I've often wondered about--how much of the bandwidth of the Internet is being consumed by Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office Updates?
Well, at least Microsoft took at least one idea from the open source community--release early, and release often!
Oh, come on, the buttons aren't the size of Delaware...there's more like the size of Rhode Island.
I should have also mentioned the early benchmarks which show massive increases in CPU speed for G4's, healthy increases in memory speed for G5's, and no performance hit at all on G3's. In fact, even G3's will see massive increases in UI speed, as will all Mac OS X users when upgrading to Tiger.
Thurrot may consider Tiger "certainly not worth $129", but I wonder how much he's willing to pay to upgrade his Windows machines to make them 25-50% faster?
I think maybe Thurrot, while being a self-described "Mac fan", does not know quite as much about the inner workings of Mac OS X than he ought to before attempting such a review.
Mac OS X 10.4 is certainly much more than a "minor upgrade with few major new features", especially when you look past the somewhat superficial nature of the "gee-whiz" features like Spotlight and Dashboard. The improtant changes are under the hood, in the form of Core Data, Core Image, better SMP support, etc.
I certainly do, however, agree with him in chiding Apple for their frequent UI experimentation that seems to throw one usability concept after another out with the bath water, so to speak.
But as far as likening Tiger to "what we'd call a service pack in the Windows world", consider the contents of the Slashdot story that appears on the front page along with this article, Survey Shows Admins Avoiding SP2.
While Apple may indeed find that "Tiger's retail success is far more important to Apple than Windows' retail success is to Microsoft", my prediction is that Apple, on the day of Tiger's release (or very, very shortly thereafter), will have sold enough copies of Tiger at $129 or $199 to cover 24% of their installed Mac OS X user base, while Microsoft, having given away Windows XP Service Pack 2 for free eight months ago, still can't seem to convince enough of their users to adopt it to even hit the one-quarter mark.
I have already ordered the upgrades for my three compatible Macs, how about you?
I've made similar arguments. The basis of my argument is that the biggest thing holding back the subnotebook market is the parctical requirement for some sort of optical drive in order to load most software.
At some point, Apple will make the jump and drag us all kicking and screaming into the post- 12cm optical drive world, just like they dumped the 3.5" floppy and forced USB on us.
Of course, what probably needs to happen first is ubiquitous wireless broadband for this to make real sense...
Once we've gotten rid of the battery and space hungry optical drive, we can have much lighter, smaller portables. Such a device wouldn't be for everyone, but for those of us who still have good eyesight, I wouldn't mind seeing a Mac with a screen like the ones on the smaller Sony VAIO's.
As it stands, it seems to me that those subnotebooks out there that do not have optical drives are seen as less-than-capable devices. It's time to change our thinking again, real soon like.
Americans spend $400 billion on their defense budget alone...Thats $1,333 per taxpayer. Russians and the Chinese don't spend that much on their defense budget even combined.
Yes. And we all sleep better at night because of this.
Or are you honestly and seriously suggesting that we would all be better off if Pre- or Post-Soviet Russia or Pre- or Post-Maoist China become the world's sole remaining superpower?
I am the first to point out the shortcomings of the United States of America, as I feel it to be my duty as a Citizen of the United States to do so--but it remains to be demonstrated that any other nation on this planet can assume such a role as ably.
But, hey, that's realpolitik for you...
But I sleep during my lunch hour...how is that going to help me?
You're not following your premise to it's ultimate conclusion.
If cars only cost $25, how much is $25 really worth?
Cost is relative to inherent value and/or utility, among other things (let's not start an advanced economic theory debate just now).
The relative value of a currency will fluctuate in accordance with the relative cost, in economic terms, of the commodities which can be purchased with that currency. Therefore, the only way that cars could cost $25 is if all other commodities available were to have their prices adjusted concurrently to accomodate this notion.
In other words, if cars cost $25, $25 dollars would be worth quite a lot of money...
I would very much like to see a full financial breakdown of how you are able to produce CD's, in any amount, for 1.74USD/ea. I suspect you are considering only the costs of reproduction, and not the actual costs involved, end-to-end.
I'll accept Digital Rights Restrictions when they protect my rights as a content creator to generate revenue from my creations while at the same time offering the consumer a reasonable amount of freedom to enjoy that same content.
There needs to be a distinction drawn between "sharing with friends" and "distributing/publishing to the world". This is not a technological problem, it's a societal problem. As the saying goes, there are management solutions to technological problems, but there are no techinical solutions to management problems.
Education is the silver bullet. This is a morality issue. My views on this issue are diametrically opposed to those who believe that they have the right to dispose of my creations as they see fit. It's *my* right, not theirs.
I have to say, I found that article to be dead on the mark...
...well, unless of course, you yourself are a facsist...
at least until I got to the bottom and read the praise of Michelle Malkin...a more misguided person, I've never met. Advocates of naked fascism should not be held up as positive examples.
I don't know, I think you might be wrong there. If any of the parties involved willfully passed on information that they could have reasonably suspected fell under trade secret protection, then ethically, at least, I think they should be held accountable. Legally, of course, it's not necessarily the same.
I also don't think that the "slippery slope" argument is compelling. I see no reason to believe that, from this case, the public is in any particular danger of the encroachment of corporate "rights" upon those of individual rights.
Of course, one other possible scenario is that the ultimate source(s) of the information are not, in fact, under an NDA...wouldn't *that* be interesting to find out?
Now, see, there's a point worth discussing! *Should* Apple be trying to discover the guilty parties? It could be argued that they should just leave well enough alone. However, I am not Apple, so I don't know if there are other cirumstances involved that might help me decide one way or the other...
In the end, I think this case will be of little consequence, though I will admit a passing personal interest in seeing Jason O'Grady humbled a bit. I knew Jason back when, and I think he's (or at least, he was then) an arrogant jerk lacking in actual technical skills.
You are assuming that any innocent people will not be protected. The aim of the action, for Apple, is to discover tha *guilty* parties. In this case, at least, the innocent have nothing to fear.
I disagree. The fact that wrongdoing was involved (and here I hesitate to characterize the act as criminal, as opposed to civil, being as I am not familiar with CA contract law) is empirically demonstrated by the fact that the only way that the information in question could have been released is if someone under prior restriction (as in an NDA) revealed it to the journalists involved.
The relevant question is, does Apple have a right to discover the identities of the violator(s)?
I believe that they do. Declan McCullagh's article (news.com) on the topic is indicative of the false assumptions made by many people as concerns this case. As the judge correctly surmised, an "interested public" does not equate with "the public interest". The Watergate scandal involved criminal acts that clearly reached to highest levels of government. Apple v. Doe involves a tort committed against a corporation inclear violation of prior agreements. The two are not equivalent.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not, and should not, extend to an ability to withhold the identities of persons who have committed an illegal act. The same would be true even if we were discussing the attorney/client privilege. An attorney who is privy to physical edvidence that his client is guilty can be lawfully compelled to reveal that information.
This is not about corporate interests v. the public interest.
I thank Dog that there is at least one judge in this country with a brain. Justice has prevailed here, people...move along, now.
According to the Declaration of Independence, in America all men are created equal so nobody can have titles.
Oh that's right...it does only say "men"...
Well then, that explains my wife's title of Her Imperial Dreadfulness...
While I applaud the B&MG Foundation for putting at least some of their money where Bill's mouth is, I have to say that I think he's missing the point here.
Secondary education should not, as Mr. Gates believes, "be redesigned to prepare every student for college." What we need is high schools that prepare every student for *life*. There was a time when high schools in the US did exactly this.
Looking back at my own experience, having graduated from the esteemed Peter Stuyvesant High School (from the old building, and before they redesigned the SAT's, back when it was still the *Westinghouse* Science Talent Search, etc, etc), I can say that it was a great shock to me to find myself, in college, in what I can only describe as remedial required courses with students who clearly should not ever have been awarded a high school diploma, let alone have been admitted to university.
Having said that, if we really want to advance the state of education in this country, it will require a massive commitment of public money, as well as a dramatic shift in the way we view both parental and community responsibilites.
Two things to keep in mind:
1. There are no bad students, there are only bad teachers.
2. Education begins in the home.
Post-secondary education should not be a foregone conclusion. We need to strengthen the requirements for the satisfactory completion of secondary education. High school graduates in the future need to have an equivalent education to today's liberal arts bachelor's recipient's.
Of course, getting there is going to require universal day care and preschool, all-year elementary and secondary school schedules, and a complete re-think of the way we provide for family support in our economic sector. By this I mean things like fully-paid maternity and paternity leave, realistic and generous vacation allotments, and universal health care coverage.
I also believe that post-secondary education should be free for all those who demonstrate an appropriate level of aptitude. By supplying this level of support for post-secondary education, we can help ensure that all those who have the ability are able to achieve their rightful place in a productive economy, but this also has to be backed up by an education system that provides those of average and below average aptitude a complete education that culminates at the secondary level.
and come to think of it, I don't recall seeing the slide rule on that list...
...or at least study history a little more closely. Well, at least they got the Swiss Army Knife and Leatherman PSK on there!
My vote for #1 gadget is the Stanley #1 Odd Jobs.
I'd also throw in the automotive cup holder, the Brunton Pocket Transit, the air conditioner, and the diode and triode thermonic valves.
And as for #36, I see the boys at Mobile PC still think that digital watches are a pretty neat idea...
May I refer you (and the AC above) to the respective financial statements of both SIRI and XMSR? Both of these companies have lost staggering amounts of green since their inception, and they continue to do so. It remains to be seen whether or not either company will ever be profitable, despite the fact that the number of subscriptions is rising. I suspect that many of the so-called "new subscribers" are purchasers of new cars that are geting a bundled OEM deal for the first year or so. How many of those people can be converted to renewals? Probably not anywhere close to 100%.
I will admit, the content factor is somewhat compelling (given that regular radio currently sucks ass), but until I can get both XM and Sirius in one vehicle without too much trouble, I'm not going to even consider jumping on board. And even if that technical hurdle were passed, there's the small matter of the subscription fees to continue using the very expensive proprietary equipment I've already purchased.
And what happens when those companies finally go belly-up? No more service, and a useless pile of electronics.
I suppose if it were still 1998, the rising number of subscribers would outweigh the lack of profitability, but in the post-bubble world, profitability matters. The iTunes/iPod business model has been profitable from Day One, or pretty close to it.
I've got three iPod's now, with a fourth one on the way (a 1GB Shuffle). I'm not paying a subscription fee to listen to my iPod's, and of the 1400-odd songs currently on my iPod, a grand total of about 20 have come off of the iTunes store. I only buy things that I would probably never want to actually own in CD format from iTunes. If the music is good enough, I'll buy the CD and rip it. If it's not good enough, I probably don't want to hear it, anyway.
I use a 250GB external FireWire 800 LaCie d2 extreme to archive all my CD's in Sound Designer II format with Toast 6 Platinum and then rip them to 192KBps AAC's for the iPod's. With this strategy, I calculate that I can fit *at least* 400 CD's on this drive, which happens to be approximately the amount of CD's that I currently own.
And, I keep a full installation of Mac OS X on my iPod's, so I can boot up machines and fix hard drives. The Shuffle on the way will replace my USB keys for quick file transfers between Mac's and PC's. With 1400-odd songs on a 40GB iPod *and* Mac OS X, I still have somthing like 30GB of space left (and 300 more CD's to rip).
I don't need or want to support Microsoft's overly-restrictive Digital Restrictions Management scheme. The subscription model is doomed to failure--just look at satellite radio! Meanwhile, Apple has proven that the iTunes Music Store is a viable business model, with over 250-plus million sales to date.
Napster's pathetic Super Bowl ad was the lowest ranked of all the commercials shown that night. Need anyone ask why?
And what happens when you decide not to pay the subscription fee? No more music.
Do you find yourself picking nits often to justify your behavior?
No, you've entirely missed the point. Being, that mediation is a valuable thing in a diverse culture, and that a lack of mediation does not automaticaly lead to a better culture, nor does the existence thereof infer or imply a lesser culture.
The RIAA and the recording industry in general may truly suck ass, but despite the widespread availability of inexpensive technologies that enable musicians and artists to circumvent the conglomerates, success does not seem to automatically follow in their wake.
The bottom line is, this is truly a cultural problem, not a technological problem. As the saying goes, "There are management solutions for technology problems, but there are no technological solutions for management problems."
In the same way, in a digitized culture where many, if not most, people seem to feel that, as one poster here described, copyright infringment is not theft, content creators cannot thrive without the protection of "Digital Restrictions Management" technologies.
Yes, that's right. I said "restrictions", not "rights". Surprised? You shouldn't be.
Maybe you would feel better off living in an anarchic state where the only property one can posess is that which can be protected by direct force of arms? Where do you draw the line?
And, to answer your question, no...I haven't heard of the Vandals. But then, I suspect they haven't heard of me, either.