I'm curious as to why you would need a tuner at all in case of cable TV. (over-the-air (which freeview is?) is a different story, satellite would only apply to the signal being received)
For those who don't know... the tuner is the block in your TV/VCR/etc. that 'tunes' to a basic channel frequency and grabs the signal off of that. That's why you need 2 tuners or a dual-tuner for picture-in-picture ( unless that picture is of the same channel %) ).
However, all the channels -are- already on the cable line. So, at least in theory, you could store all the data coming across it. It'd take some massive storage space, but it's doable. Then when you want to watch a show, send the signal back out and through a tuner, and you're all set.
Most trackers will happily accept and play back mp3 format samples.
So.. 1. The file size could be even smaller 2. You could do even better 'DJ' mixes with them (changing temp without changing pitch, and without using weird filters to achieve that - which all tend to suck.) 3. You can even do such things as replace instruments, change the sequences, etc. etc.
Hear, hear... hell, gamma isn't even a browser's task.
I know what grandparent is referring to, I've seen many sites on the problem. Graphics getting gamma applied, but background colors not. Table cells getting gamma applied, but text not. Continue for a few hundred variations on this theme.
Now this could all be solved if the browser handled gamma globally, i.e. at the final part of the rendering engine.
But in all honesty - gamma isn't the job of a browser anyway. Ideally, gamma would be on the display device only. Smack the same card with the same driver and the same OS onto a different CRT and there goes your perfect gamma set up in either the card, driver or OS level. Less-ideally, it goes down that chain. Card next, card driver next, OS next, application absolute very last.
The only time this causes problems is when you get multiple authors all working with different ideas of what is a 'correct gamma'. When you put two pictures next to eachother, one from an author who used a gamma value (arbitrary) of 2.4 and the the other from an author who used a gamma value of 2.0, whilst you're displaying under a gamma of 2.2, then the former will be (simplified) a slight too dark and the latter a slight too bright. That's where device-specific information would be saved with the image data.. to tell the handling software to work back from a gamma of 2.4/2.0 respectively back to 1.0 and let -your- gamma setup (display, card, driver, os, application) bring that back to 2.2.
If everybody would just work with a proper gamma (plenty of webpages on this), it'd be entirely unnecessary.
That said.. I don't work with a proper gamma myself. Applications are holding me back. If I set up a proper gamma in the driver, all my UIs become completely washed out. No problem, I simply re-calculted them to the proper colors and set them back up (windows, linux, whatever - all the same). But I can't do the same for games and many other applications that handle UI display for themselves without allowing the user to tweak it.
I don't see any solution for the above anytime soon.
...and it was great! Downloaded from a BBS, had a vague description. It was like reading one of those claims about sticking a feature-length TV-res movie in only 100MB now. Couldn't believe it. Had to try anyway. Was an eye-opener, and I knew the future of music would change right there and then.
That said.. it immediately made me look for other solutions, as nobody else could play back MP3s, and ended up using a-law and mu-law codecs from Microsoft. Smaller files than plain WAVs, not bad quality %)
Note: I was working on sound effects back then and needed to compact them for a game. To this date, I still don't care much for CD rips and 'sharing' music:P
The problem, explained commission chairman Matthew W. Daus, is that people like their cabs big, and hybrids do not have the legroom and large trunks of the fleet's current workhorse, an extra-long version of the Ford Crown Victoria.
- This f'ing annoying ringtone brought to you by Nokia
doo-doo-doo-da-dum... doo-doo-doo-da-dum... doo-doo-doo-da-dum... - THIS f'ing annoying ringtone brought to you by T-Mobile
Want me to go on ?
My Ringtone is set to the theme of "I Dream of Jeannie" in midi format. And I, for one, welcome my free choice of ringtone - especially since I'll know it's -my- phone that's ringing. That said.. it's set to vibrate first for up to 5 seconds, then ring. So it's a rare occurance that you'd even get to the first notes of the ringtone.
Just to amend your post a little... Fractal Design's Painter and Expression were later marketed under the MetaCreations brand. They dissolved and put their products up for sale. Expression was bought up by Creature House, which Microsoft bought. Painter, however, was bought up by Corel; http://www.corel.com/painterix/home/index.html
Painter has the tech that's much more like what's being referred to in the article. Expression is much more a vector brush strokes/etc. thingy which is quite cool.. and v3 is available from MS for free.
And please quite perpetuating that Expression is trying to 'be like Photoshop'. It's not. It's an entirely different piece of software.
OK, so it's 2005 and we don't have colonies on the moon, atomic powered flying cars, supersonic transports or fusion power plants or many of the other technologies that the future was supposed to bring.
You mean not anymore, right ? Or have we already forgotten about Concorde ? Sure, she was economically not viable, but there she was.. elegant and cruising at supersonic speeds. And guess what ? France and Japan are pondering a suitable replacement.
The other items were pipedreams back then. The fusion thing *may* happen in a test run in France in a couple of years or whatever. But flying cars ? People can't drive on a boundaried 2D grid properly, and we expect them to do a good job in a 3D grid (air corridors), let alone freeform ? I think not. Colony on the moon ? What -for- ? I can think of scientific research, maybe, but most of that can be done in an orbital station (assuming 'we' ever finish ISS up proper).
I think it's also important to note that although there's many things envisioned in the 50's/60's that we don't have, there's a staggering amount of things we take for granted now that they couldn't have even dreamed up back then.
Heck, I'm only using Photoshop because it is the ubiquitious example - and I find that a sad thing. I don't think Photoshop even is all that good of a product. In fact, I think it's a shame that it's the defacto/industry standard. It's holding back development too much; see acrylic/expressions vs photoshop wars (acrylic reigning supreme with vector brush strokes.. not even in photoshop, but all the comparisons whine about raster functions), see photogenix HDR (now there's true 32-bit editing, none of this 'only levels and blur' BS), etc.
I support The Gimp not so much because it's Open Source and free as in beer, but mostly because it has the potential to be something larger than Photoshop - even if it will never reach the same status. Too bad too many people want it to -be- a free-as-in-beer Photoshop:/
I'm not sure how you can equate copying software for which one has to pay, by law, to 'shopping around'. It would be one thing if a reseller of Adobe's Photoshop offered a limited-time offer of $1 and John Doe bought that, and Poor Schmuck didn't. John Doe just blatantly violating copyright law just seems quite different to me.
I think maybe 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. But if somebody is only touching up their family pictures, they don't need Photoshop. They could get The Gimp - for all the things where it's not Photoshop, it's fine for touching up your photos. Or they can pick up some graphics editing application and get a DVD full of clip art, fonts and whatnot for $10 at their local Best Buy / MediaMarkt / whathaveyou. Times have changed too much for me to think it is still 'acceptable'.
Now, meet me again in whatever time where physical objects can easily be copied (Star Trek-style, whatever) - assuming I'm not dead - and assume I work at Adobe. Then I'd fully agree with you that those who want to are free to copy Photoshop. As long as I'm free to copy the baker's bread, the farmer's crop and that villa down by the beach. Until that happens, I don't think I'll find it acceptable for some time:)
off-topic: the above situation would be interesting. I think those in control of raw materials would then be the true powers that be.
The reason I ask is this... you take issue with people who pirate media/software for profit of some sort. But those who don't, you tolerate.
However, is John Doe downloading Photoshop and learning it not profiting from it as well ? Sure, it may not be monetary profit. But he did profit from being able to learn how to use it. His immediate profit is skills. Long-term profit may be a job.
Compare that to Poor Schmuck who 'did the right thing' and bought Photoshop (Elements, Edu, whatever) and profited in the same way.
In a purely hypothetical fashion, if they both gleaned an equal amount of information from it, developed an equal amount of skill, etc.
Then Poor Schmuck is still minus whatever amount of money it cost him to legally acquire Photoshop. John Doe is not. This is all regardless of whether Adobe will still sell a copy of Photoshop to whatever place John Doe goes to work at. Not to mention that with Joe Schmuck they got 2 sales. *shrug*
And yes.. although there's only one GPL, and then there's the LGPL.. that's where the problems start. Though there is only one GPL, there are dozens of licenses that derive from the GPL that are either compatible with it or not.
I'm mostly all for the GPL, though I think in a world with commercial software the LGPL is a good asset. So not trashing the GPL at all;)
So basically the browser should check the document location's domain and only allow cookie requests for for that domain, no ?
I.e. if slashdot.org carries an ad from adserver.com , then in no way should the cookie requests from adserver.com be honored, even if the cookies are set for that domain as well.
If, of course, one were to visit adserver.com directly, then those cookies should be allowed to be set/read.
Is this the seafaring, raping, murdering pirate ? Or the copyright infringement pirate ? Or the license infringement pirate ?
You do realize that none of the above apply, right ? If you contribute to a BSD under a BSD-style license then yes... others can use your code in their closed-source products. Don't like it ? Don't release under that license.
As for the GPL.. crikey - which one ? which version ? There's too many of them out there already. You mean GPL 2.0, I take it - which doesn't stop a company from "pirating" your code by using it only internally on a webservice and just spitting out the results of the code. That's one of those things GPL 3.0 is supposed to address, I guess ? whatever
So how the hell would these PC leak SECRET data at all
By way of the user behind it
Who needs access to the actual data files when you can trick the person behind the machine into giving the data (be it the files, be it just some quotes/numbers, be it whatever) to you ?
That's how the vast majority of these things work after all.
Well, given the proliferation of QuickTime and Real Media formats... I would imagine quite a few people have found one reason or another to do so. Similarly, companies providing media -in- those formats apparently have found one reason or another NOT to use a media format that would play on the vast mojority of systems without requiring the user to install some piece of software.
I know the theory, however it doesn't stroke with reality at all in this case.
I'm a bit confused by your statements, really... in theory it's all perfectly sound. But does it stroke with reality ?
Microsoft can roll the cost of WMP in with Windows, and make the customers pay for both when they only wanted Windows.
Given this study, and I would imagine the vast majority of users would agree, wouldn't it be realistic to say that when people buy Windows, that they expect a media player to come with it ? It has come with it at least since Windows 3.0. Similarly, would you say the same argument [people only want 'windows' therefore not a mediaplayer] holds true against notepad, Paint, etc. ? If so - why ? If not - why not ?
Suppliers of other media players cannot force customers to buy their product.
Although absolutely true, I would also pose that neither Apple nor Real have had any trouble getting users to download and use their media players. For example, for movie trailers QuickTime is predominantly the format of choice - the QuickTime player is also the player of that format of choice. For streaming media, often Real Media is the format of choice. Again, the Real player is often the player of choice (not with geeks, obviously). Both players are available freely. Would you argue that users, if Windows Media Player didn't ship with Windows, would pay for these products instead ? Despite many free and open source players readily available ? Or would you argue that the reason there are so many free / open source players are available is because they could never compete commercially due to a media player being included with Windows ?
So they are at a disadvantage. Anti-monopoly laws that have been on the books for a century or more state that such cross-subsidies are illegal.
Again... the monopoly conviction is recent, making all this possible. So would you say this applies to notepad, paint, etc. as well ?
If there was a competitive Operating Systems market, then Microsoft couldn't force money out of customers' wallets, either, because customers could choose an OS supplier that did not inflate the price of their OS with a Media Player.
Let's fantasize about a world in which OS X and Linux are on par with Windows in terms of distribution. Would you believe that the vast majority would prefer to 'buy' a product that is merely an operating system ? Or would you believe that what most people buy is not an operating system per se, but rather an operating system and desktop productivity suite ? If the latter, could you explain why any commercial company would make the economically unsound decision to offer everything separately ?
Put differently, do you believe that if OS X were to become the predominant 'operating system' out there, reaching and becoming convicted of having a monopoly, that Apple should be forced to remove their media player software, having come with their operating system for years, as well ?
These are honest and serious questions. I know I appear to be siding with Microsoft here, and I have to admit that I am - removing mediaplayer appears ridiculous to me.. to the point of it being a waste of time and resources for all involved. Addressing other methodologies Microsoft employs, such as telling major computer vendors that they can only ship with Windows or no OS at all, seems vastly more important to me.
1. : "since knoppix uses a very cleverly hacked filesystem layout" ???
2. : " was curious to find that 5th picture, talking about using insects to control a green swirl". I think that belongs with Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas
Bring forth your own class action suit in your own country (provided it has such provitions - otherwise, you could go for a private suit. eek.)
If this settlement is approved by the USA court, it'll very much strengthen your case* in other countries - which you'd typically need as there's far fewer people;) (Not as much as when there would be an actual court ruling, however.)
Oh... get a nice consumer rights association involved to get things rolling.
Sure, it's one thing when Amazon suddenly charges you $500 for a book when you could've sworn it would only cost $25...
But what if they charge you $24.99 instead of $22.99 based on whatever criteria ? Wouldn't you like to know that you could get it cheaper if you fulfilled that criteria ? It's just like shopping cards/etc... they get offered to you, and if you take it, you can get things 'cheaper' (whether you actually do is another discussion). However, in these cases, Amazon doesn't offer you any such thing at all. They keep it as quiet as possible. So short of going to a different machine and maybe logging in as an entirely different user, you won't know.
That's what the problem is:)
Yes, I know, people should 'shop around' and find the best deal anyway. But that's between different stores. This is a price difference at the exact same store.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious as to why you would need a tuner at all in case of cable TV. (over-the-air (which freeview is?) is a different story, satellite would only apply to the signal being received)
For those who don't know... the tuner is the block in your TV/VCR/etc. that 'tunes' to a basic channel frequency and grabs the signal off of that. That's why you need 2 tuners or a dual-tuner for picture-in-picture ( unless that picture is of the same channel %) ).
However, all the channels -are- already on the cable line. So, at least in theory, you could store all the data coming across it. It'd take some massive storage space, but it's doable.
Then when you want to watch a show, send the signal back out and through a tuner, and you're all set.
...these are notebooks. Just to go over the difference again:5 8&cid=11906247
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1420
So, no, you wouldn't want this sitting in your lap, as they aren't laptops.
(Note also that the article only once mentions 'laptop', on the first page, in reference to typical application of a particular chipset.)
Which is a shame, really...
:/
Most trackers will happily accept and play back mp3 format samples.
So..
1. The file size could be even smaller
2. You could do even better 'DJ' mixes with them (changing temp without changing pitch, and without using weird filters to achieve that - which all tend to suck.)
3. You can even do such things as replace instruments, change the sequences, etc. etc.
Can't do that with MP3s
Bring Back Mods!
Hear, hear... hell, gamma isn't even a browser's task.
I know what grandparent is referring to, I've seen many sites on the problem. Graphics getting gamma applied, but background colors not. Table cells getting gamma applied, but text not. Continue for a few hundred variations on this theme.
Now this could all be solved if the browser handled gamma globally, i.e. at the final part of the rendering engine.
But in all honesty - gamma isn't the job of a browser anyway.
Ideally, gamma would be on the display device only. Smack the same card with the same driver and the same OS onto a different CRT and there goes your perfect gamma set up in either the card, driver or OS level.
Less-ideally, it goes down that chain. Card next, card driver next, OS next, application absolute very last.
The only time this causes problems is when you get multiple authors all working with different ideas of what is a 'correct gamma'. When you put two pictures next to eachother, one from an author who used a gamma value (arbitrary) of 2.4 and the the other from an author who used a gamma value of 2.0, whilst you're displaying under a gamma of 2.2, then the former will be (simplified) a slight too dark and the latter a slight too bright.
That's where device-specific information would be saved with the image data.. to tell the handling software to work back from a gamma of 2.4/2.0 respectively back to 1.0 and let -your- gamma setup (display, card, driver, os, application) bring that back to 2.2.
If everybody would just work with a proper gamma (plenty of webpages on this), it'd be entirely unnecessary.
That said.. I don't work with a proper gamma myself. Applications are holding me back. If I set up a proper gamma in the driver, all my UIs become completely washed out. No problem, I simply re-calculted them to the proper colors and set them back up (windows, linux, whatever - all the same). But I can't do the same for games and many other applications that handle UI display for themselves without allowing the user to tweak it.
I don't see any solution for the above anytime soon.
...and it was great! Downloaded from a BBS, had a vague description. It was like reading one of those claims about sticking a feature-length TV-res movie in only 100MB now. Couldn't believe it. Had to try anyway. Was an eye-opener, and I knew the future of music would change right there and then.
:P
That said.. it immediately made me look for other solutions, as nobody else could play back MP3s, and ended up using a-law and mu-law codecs from Microsoft. Smaller files than plain WAVs, not bad quality %)
Note: I was working on sound effects back then and needed to compact them for a game. To this date, I still don't care much for CD rips and 'sharing' music
I found this to be particularly amusing
deedadoodaa-DEEEEEEE
- This f'ing annoying ringtone brought to you by Nokia
doo-doo-doo-da-dum... doo-doo-doo-da-dum... doo-doo-doo-da-dum...
- THIS f'ing annoying ringtone brought to you by T-Mobile
Want me to go on ?
My Ringtone is set to the theme of "I Dream of Jeannie" in midi format. And I, for one, welcome my free choice of ringtone - especially since I'll know it's -my- phone that's ringing.
That said.. it's set to vibrate first for up to 5 seconds, then ring. So it's a rare occurance that you'd even get to the first notes of the ringtone.
Just to amend your post a little...
Fractal Design's Painter and Expression were later marketed under the MetaCreations brand. They dissolved and put their products up for sale.
Expression was bought up by Creature House, which Microsoft bought.
Painter, however, was bought up by Corel; http://www.corel.com/painterix/home/index.html
Painter has the tech that's much more like what's being referred to in the article.
Expression is much more a vector brush strokes/etc. thingy which is quite cool.. and v3 is available from MS for free.
And please quite perpetuating that Expression is trying to 'be like Photoshop'. It's not. It's an entirely different piece of software.
Apple keeps trying to sell me QuickTime Pro.
You mean not anymore, right ? Or have we already forgotten about Concorde ? Sure, she was economically not viable, but there she was.. elegant and cruising at supersonic speeds.
And guess what ? France and Japan are pondering a suitable replacement.
The other items were pipedreams back then. The fusion thing *may* happen in a test run in France in a couple of years or whatever.
But flying cars ? People can't drive on a boundaried 2D grid properly, and we expect them to do a good job in a 3D grid (air corridors), let alone freeform ? I think not.
Colony on the moon ? What -for- ? I can think of scientific research, maybe, but most of that can be done in an orbital station (assuming 'we' ever finish ISS up proper).
I think it's also important to note that although there's many things envisioned in the 50's/60's that we don't have, there's a staggering amount of things we take for granted now that they couldn't have even dreamed up back then.
Oh absolutely, wholly agreed.
:/
Heck, I'm only using Photoshop because it is the ubiquitious example - and I find that a sad thing. I don't think Photoshop even is all that good of a product. In fact, I think it's a shame that it's the defacto/industry standard. It's holding back development too much; see acrylic/expressions vs photoshop wars (acrylic reigning supreme with vector brush strokes.. not even in photoshop, but all the comparisons whine about raster functions), see photogenix HDR (now there's true 32-bit editing, none of this 'only levels and blur' BS), etc.
I support The Gimp not so much because it's Open Source and free as in beer, but mostly because it has the potential to be something larger than Photoshop - even if it will never reach the same status. Too bad too many people want it to -be- a free-as-in-beer Photoshop
I'm not sure how you can equate copying software for which one has to pay, by law, to 'shopping around'.
:)
It would be one thing if a reseller of Adobe's Photoshop offered a limited-time offer of $1 and John Doe bought that, and Poor Schmuck didn't.
John Doe just blatantly violating copyright law just seems quite different to me.
I think maybe 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. But if somebody is only touching up their family pictures, they don't need Photoshop. They could get The Gimp - for all the things where it's not Photoshop, it's fine for touching up your photos. Or they can pick up some graphics editing application and get a DVD full of clip art, fonts and whatnot for $10 at their local Best Buy / MediaMarkt / whathaveyou. Times have changed too much for me to think it is still 'acceptable'.
Now, meet me again in whatever time where physical objects can easily be copied (Star Trek-style, whatever) - assuming I'm not dead - and assume I work at Adobe. Then I'd fully agree with you that those who want to are free to copy Photoshop. As long as I'm free to copy the baker's bread, the farmer's crop and that villa down by the beach.
Until that happens, I don't think I'll find it acceptable for some time
off-topic:
the above situation would be interesting. I think those in control of raw materials would then be the true powers that be.
I wonder if you could define 'profit' for me.
The reason I ask is this... you take issue with people who pirate media/software for profit of some sort. But those who don't, you tolerate.
However, is John Doe downloading Photoshop and learning it not profiting from it as well ? Sure, it may not be monetary profit. But he did profit from being able to learn how to use it. His immediate profit is skills. Long-term profit may be a job.
Compare that to Poor Schmuck who 'did the right thing' and bought Photoshop (Elements, Edu, whatever) and profited in the same way.
In a purely hypothetical fashion, if they both gleaned an equal amount of information from it, developed an equal amount of skill, etc.
Then Poor Schmuck is still minus whatever amount of money it cost him to legally acquire Photoshop. John Doe is not. This is all regardless of whether Adobe will still sell a copy of Photoshop to whatever place John Doe goes to work at. Not to mention that with Joe Schmuck they got 2 sales. *shrug*
...and 'adoration' of Steve Irwin ;)
I don't care for either, really :)
;)
And yes.. although there's only one GPL, and then there's the LGPL.. that's where the problems start.
Though there is only one GPL, there are dozens of licenses that derive from the GPL that are either compatible with it or not.
I'm mostly all for the GPL, though I think in a world with commercial software the LGPL is a good asset. So not trashing the GPL at all
So basically the browser should check the document location's domain and only allow cookie requests for for that domain, no ?
I.e. if slashdot.org carries an ad from adserver.com , then in no way should the cookie requests from adserver.com be honored, even if the cookies are set for that domain as well.
If, of course, one were to visit adserver.com directly, then those cookies should be allowed to be set/read.
Is this the seafaring, raping, murdering pirate ?
Or the copyright infringement pirate ?
Or the license infringement pirate ?
You do realize that none of the above apply, right ?
If you contribute to a BSD under a BSD-style license then yes... others can use your code in their closed-source products.
Don't like it ? Don't release under that license.
As for the GPL.. crikey - which one ? which version ? There's too many of them out there already. You mean GPL 2.0, I take it - which doesn't stop a company from "pirating" your code by using it only internally on a webservice and just spitting out the results of the code. That's one of those things GPL 3.0 is supposed to address, I guess ? whatever
By way of the user behind it
Who needs access to the actual data files when you can trick the person behind the machine into giving the data (be it the files, be it just some quotes/numbers, be it whatever) to you ?
That's how the vast majority of these things work after all.
You mention "why would a user do that ?"
Well, given the proliferation of QuickTime and Real Media formats... I would imagine quite a few people have found one reason or another to do so. Similarly, companies providing media -in- those formats apparently have found one reason or another NOT to use a media format that would play on the vast mojority of systems without requiring the user to install some piece of software.
I know the theory, however it doesn't stroke with reality at all in this case.
Given this study, and I would imagine the vast majority of users would agree, wouldn't it be realistic to say that when people buy Windows, that they expect a media player to come with it ? It has come with it at least since Windows 3.0.
Similarly, would you say the same argument [people only want 'windows' therefore not a mediaplayer] holds true against notepad, Paint, etc. ? If so - why ? If not - why not ?
Although absolutely true, I would also pose that neither Apple nor Real have had any trouble getting users to download and use their media players. For example, for movie trailers QuickTime is predominantly the format of choice - the QuickTime player is also the player of that format of choice. For streaming media, often Real Media is the format of choice. Again, the Real player is often the player of choice (not with geeks, obviously). Both players are available freely. Would you argue that users, if Windows Media Player didn't ship with Windows, would pay for these products instead ? Despite many free and open source players readily available ? Or would you argue that the reason there are so many free / open source players are available is because they could never compete commercially due to a media player being included with Windows ?
Again... the monopoly conviction is recent, making all this possible. So would you say this applies to notepad, paint, etc. as well ?
Let's fantasize about a world in which OS X and Linux are on par with Windows in terms of distribution. Would you believe that the vast majority would prefer to 'buy' a product that is merely an operating system ? Or would you believe that what most people buy is not an operating system per se, but rather an operating system and desktop productivity suite ?
If the latter, could you explain why any commercial company would make the economically unsound decision to offer everything separately ?
Put differently, do you believe that if OS X were to become the predominant 'operating system' out there, reaching and becoming convicted of having a monopoly, that Apple should be forced to remove their media player software, having come with their operating system for years, as well ?
These are honest and serious questions. I know I appear to be siding with Microsoft here, and I have to admit that I am - removing mediaplayer appears ridiculous to me.. to the point of it being a waste of time and resources for all involved. Addressing other methodologies Microsoft employs, such as telling major computer vendors that they can only ship with Windows or no OS at all, seems vastly more important to me.
Care to elaborate on how they were hurt ? This is something that's never been quite clear to me.
Parent post (Re:Caesium) is about "Atomic Clock Turns 50"
:>
Three replies as I type this:
1. : "since knoppix uses a very cleverly hacked filesystem layout" ???
2. : " was curious to find that 5th picture, talking about using insects to control a green swirl". I think that belongs with Changing Planet Revealed In Atlas
3. "I'm sorry, but what qualification does CNET have to bestow open source software awards". CNET to Award Open Source Initiatives, anyone ?
Looks like Slashdot's a bit borked
Bring forth your own class action suit in your own country (provided it has such provitions - otherwise, you could go for a private suit. eek.)
;)
If this settlement is approved by the USA court, it'll very much strengthen your case* in other countries - which you'd typically need as there's far fewer people
(Not as much as when there would be an actual court ruling, however.)
Oh... get a nice consumer rights association involved to get things rolling.
This is hardly new or innovative. I'm pretty sure the company itself has been mentioned before as well.
Projecting images onto a rotating plane or helix is old stuff.
Sure, it's one thing when Amazon suddenly charges you $500 for a book when you could've sworn it would only cost $25...
:)
But what if they charge you $24.99 instead of $22.99 based on whatever criteria ?
Wouldn't you like to know that you could get it cheaper if you fulfilled that criteria ?
It's just like shopping cards/etc... they get offered to you, and if you take it, you can get things 'cheaper' (whether you actually do is another discussion).
However, in these cases, Amazon doesn't offer you any such thing at all. They keep it as quiet as possible. So short of going to a different machine and maybe logging in as an entirely different user, you won't know.
That's what the problem is
Yes, I know, people should 'shop around' and find the best deal anyway. But that's between different stores. This is a price difference at the exact same store.