The only time you'll experience DRM within iTunes is if you purchase music (or videos I assume) from the iTMS.
iTunes will never DRM your own files so that they'll only play on your own computer (a'la WMP).
So, it's safe to say that you could probably remove iTunes from that list of programs you're boycotting to 'save yourself' from the DRM monster... as you'll never run into any DRM problems unless you specifically go looking for them.
IMO, Apple got it right when it comes to 'acceptable' DRM schemes... only use it when necessary, rather than force it on the user for every piece of media associated with the application.
I do, however, realize that you can turn off the DRM in WMP, but MS's DRM is enabled by default (at least the last time I checked)... that speaks volumes as to where I think their focus is directed in the future.
Everybody so far in the commentary to this story has been off by almost a factor of two. They're spending £1.2 million, which, by current exchange rates, works out to be about $2,057,641.
Also, you can't do an economic analysis by how many villagers will be affected, you instead have to look at how much square footage will be covered in light for this price (since not all villagers will benefit equally from this project).
Since they plan on having 8 to 10 hotspots "the size of your standard front yard", we'll assume that a 'standard' front yard (in Europe) is about 10 feet by 20 feet in size, for 200 sq.ft. total per yard. (I'm pretty sure this is erring on the 'high' side)
Now, multiply that by the amount of hot spots expected, and you get 1,600 to 2,000 sq.ft. of sunlight.
Now, doing the math with the figures above, that works out to be about $1,028 to $1,286 per square foot of sunlight... of course this is only the one-time construction cost of the project... the maintenance costs will also have to be taken into account (and none of the articles linked here make any mention of what it'll cost to remove snow from the mirrors in mid-winter).
In a purely economic sense (I'm an economist), you maximize your profits when your marginal cost equals your marginal revenue (i.e. you make as much selling the next unit of the good as it costs you to produce it) along your marginal demand curve.
Thus, you're foregoing profits if you sell less than that amount, because (for example) you could make $50.01 on a good that costs you $50 to produce. You also wouldn't produce past that point, because you'd be losing revenue (i.e. making $49.99 on something that costs $50 to produce).
I'm not sure if that was the definition of 'maximizing' profits that you were looking for, but that's how economists define profit maximization.;)
I just opened the Quake3.pbproj file in Xcode (which needed updating for the new build environment), and clicked 'build'.
I do have the full version of Q3A installed, so I just fired up the resulting binary and noticed all these problems.
The first thing I noticed is that the Quake 3 header that hovers back and forth over the setup screen (when you first log in) was missing.
Normally I try to connect to multiplayer servers first whenever I try out a Q3A update, which crashed the game.
Next I decided to tackle a single player game with bots, and that's when I noticed that the bots had no bodies or heads... just legs.
The interesting part is that the collision detection was functioning correctly, because if you tried to shoot where the body was supposed to be, you wouldn't hit anything, however going for the leg shot worked... weird.
So, I can't really offer any tips, since C is a foreign language to me. In this case I just clicked a button.
Well, it compiles and runs under OSX, but it's not pretty.
So far, there's three pretty major bugs that I've noticed in my limited trial.
1. Trying to ping multiplayer servers crashes the game 2. Several of the 3D models are really messed up, and some are missing. I was playing against a bunch of bodyless people... all that were present was legs. 3. The Quake 3 header on the setup screen is missing.
The odd thing, is that I assumed that since the last build to come out of iD worked great on my G4, that the source would just compile and run without problems... boy was I wrong.
Of course I compiled under 10.4.2, and I think the last time it was compiled under 10.2.x, so the difference in compilers could probably be the difference.
Um... do the PPC Macs turn into pumpkins once the Intel clock reaches midnight?
I'm still using a 3-year-old dually G4 and it works just fine, even though G5's have been out for quite a while... I imagine that will also be the case when the Intel Macs are released.
Encouraging everyone to wait for the transition is bad advice... my advice is buy a PPC Mac now, and let the guinea pigs work out the bugs in the new Intel Macs for the first generation after release, then upgrade on generation 2 (to get the most ang for your buck with the least frustration).
Besides, the final iteration of the PPC G5's will be a collector's item then, since they will be the last PPC towers manufactured by Apple... that's my opinion anyway.
The Profiles in History page linked from the summary only has about four of the couple-hundred props that are being auctioned off. There is a full catalog of all Star Wars memorabilia being auctioned off HERE (pdf file), on pages 2 through 37.
You can buy everthing from Yoda's latex body parts (though badly deteriorated) to a stormtrooper's blaster, and everything in between.
Oh, and Luke Skywalker's flight suit and lightsaber (which incidentally was fabricated from an old Graflex flash gun from the 30's) are expected to fetch from between $60,000 to $80,000 each... yikes!
You can get an orange jumpsuit for free, however... just go rob your local liquor store.:)
Wow... a post that gets rated insightful for ignorance (or just lack of reading comprehension).
Apparently you missed this part of the article:
Taking the modification yet further, you can also replace both of the X-rated capacitors (indicated in orange)around the transformer with 0.47 F 600-V Auricaps. These will set you back about $13 apiece. X-rated capacitors are standard components that meet Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) standards for use on ac mains lines. These capacitors are designed to be self-extinguishing in the event of a big surge on the power line. They're potted in fire-retardant compositions, and are designed to fail open, rather than closed, so components up- and downstream will be protected. Auricap capacitors, a brand of high-end capacitor favored by audiophiles, are not rated against UL standards for ac current.
So, they're not advocating using those 'audiophile grade' unrated capacitors you're blathering about, but instead suggesting that people use actual UL-rated caps.
Jinkies... I think they should change the mod system so that people who are modding up posts actually read the damn article.
Of course this will probably be rated flamebait for pointing out known facts, not knee-jerk conclusions based on a brief skim of the article...
Apple has earned the respect of the Slashdot crowd, it wasn't just given to them. Don't you remember Rob's (CmdrTaco) comments when the iPod was released... that sure didn't strike me as unadulterated praise.
I'm not saying that everything Apple does is golden, just that at least they take you to dinner before they screw you. Microsoft treats everybody like a two-bit hooker...
Actually, after a 'repair permissions' session, it's recommended to restart your computer... it's the restart that gives it "teh snappy" feeling, since it cleans out about a gigabyte of pagefiles from the hard disk and frees up memory.
That's the only thing so far that I don't like about OSX... it seems that you have to restart it every once in a while (like every couple weeks) or it just starts to really slow down from paging in and out each time you switch programs (and I have 1.25GB RAM).
I fail to see how buying an Apple computer constitutes 'Hardware Lock-In'... of course you're probably talking about running Windows on a home-built PC made of OEM commodity parts, but try speccing a PC with similar features and you'll find that Apple remains competitive (maybe a bit more, but that's the 'Apple Tax').
But, you aren't 'locked in' to their hardware... you can buy commodity parts off the shelf, install them, and have them work just fine, such as mice, keyboards, hard drives, CD-R's, DVD-R's, RAM, monitors, etc.
Gone are the days when you had to buy everything Apple-branded or Apple 'compatible' while paying a hefty mark-up... as I write this I think the only two components that still require design specifically for Apple are SCSI and Video cards (I'm talking 'basic' components, not obscure ones).
I've had three (small) earrings in my left ear since I was a junior in HIgh School (two tiny gold hoops and a 1/10ct. diamond)... this is going on... hrm... about 18 years. Never have they been a detriment and prevented me from getting a job... well, it could've been different if assholes like the parent were doing the hiring.
Thankfully, those people interviewing me were competent enough to look past those and hired me for both my personality and skillset.
Most of the time I've completely forgotten that I have them, and those people that I've worked both 'for' and 'with' don't seem to bother with them either.
Get a grip man, this is the 2000's, not the 1900's...
You sir don't understand either economics or marketing. Prices can be completely arbitrary, depending on the willingness to pay of the focus group.
What happens is this... you lay out the specs of the computer survey-style, and ask the focus group how much they'd be willing to pay for such a computer, and once you extrapolate that to the market, you come up with a number.
You start out a little on the high side (called 'skimming' the market), then slowly lower the price until you capture the rest of the market segment you were going after... that way you make sure to get the most producer surplus without foregoing the extra revenue you'd have made from those willing to pay the higher price.
That is a fairly arbitrary method, because you're going on the arbitrary replies of your focus group, though it isn't as arbitrary as throwing a dart at several prices and charging whichever one it hits. It's not like Apple sits down and says "Okay, we need to make 35% on this computer" and charges accordingly... after all look what that method did for the G4 Cube market.
I was going to mod your post down, but figured I'd rather reply than burn points... I'm not saying that you're incorrect in calling 'shenanigans', but it would take more than somebody employed at Apple claiming the price is set arbitrarily to make me do so (for the reasons mentioned above).
Slashdot Mirror
The only time you'll experience DRM within iTunes is if you purchase music (or videos I assume) from the iTMS.
iTunes will never DRM your own files so that they'll only play on your own computer (a'la WMP).
So, it's safe to say that you could probably remove iTunes from that list of programs you're boycotting to 'save yourself' from the DRM monster... as you'll never run into any DRM problems unless you specifically go looking for them.
IMO, Apple got it right when it comes to 'acceptable' DRM schemes... only use it when necessary, rather than force it on the user for every piece of media associated with the application.
I do, however, realize that you can turn off the DRM in WMP, but MS's DRM is enabled by default (at least the last time I checked)... that speaks volumes as to where I think their focus is directed in the future.
Everybody so far in the commentary to this story has been off by almost a factor of two. They're spending £1.2 million, which, by current exchange rates, works out to be about $2,057,641.
Also, you can't do an economic analysis by how many villagers will be affected, you instead have to look at how much square footage will be covered in light for this price (since not all villagers will benefit equally from this project).
Since they plan on having 8 to 10 hotspots "the size of your standard front yard", we'll assume that a 'standard' front yard (in Europe) is about 10 feet by 20 feet in size, for 200 sq.ft. total per yard. (I'm pretty sure this is erring on the 'high' side)
Now, multiply that by the amount of hot spots expected, and you get 1,600 to 2,000 sq.ft. of sunlight.
Now, doing the math with the figures above, that works out to be about $1,028 to $1,286 per square foot of sunlight... of course this is only the one-time construction cost of the project... the maintenance costs will also have to be taken into account (and none of the articles linked here make any mention of what it'll cost to remove snow from the mirrors in mid-winter).
Yeah... I'd hope that IBM learned their lesson with MS-DOS.
That sounds like the odds of whether or not these specs are accurate...
In a purely economic sense (I'm an economist), you maximize your profits when your marginal cost equals your marginal revenue (i.e. you make as much selling the next unit of the good as it costs you to produce it) along your marginal demand curve.
;)
Thus, you're foregoing profits if you sell less than that amount, because (for example) you could make $50.01 on a good that costs you $50 to produce. You also wouldn't produce past that point, because you'd be losing revenue (i.e. making $49.99 on something that costs $50 to produce).
I'm not sure if that was the definition of 'maximizing' profits that you were looking for, but that's how economists define profit maximization.
I just opened the Quake3.pbproj file in Xcode (which needed updating for the new build environment), and clicked 'build'.
I do have the full version of Q3A installed, so I just fired up the resulting binary and noticed all these problems.
The first thing I noticed is that the Quake 3 header that hovers back and forth over the setup screen (when you first log in) was missing.
Normally I try to connect to multiplayer servers first whenever I try out a Q3A update, which crashed the game.
Next I decided to tackle a single player game with bots, and that's when I noticed that the bots had no bodies or heads... just legs.
The interesting part is that the collision detection was functioning correctly, because if you tried to shoot where the body was supposed to be, you wouldn't hit anything, however going for the leg shot worked... weird.
So, I can't really offer any tips, since C is a foreign language to me. In this case I just clicked a button.
Well, it compiles and runs under OSX, but it's not pretty.
So far, there's three pretty major bugs that I've noticed in my limited trial.
1. Trying to ping multiplayer servers crashes the game
2. Several of the 3D models are really messed up, and some are missing. I was playing against a bunch of bodyless people... all that were present was legs.
3. The Quake 3 header on the setup screen is missing.
The odd thing, is that I assumed that since the last build to come out of iD worked great on my G4, that the source would just compile and run without problems... boy was I wrong.
Of course I compiled under 10.4.2, and I think the last time it was compiled under 10.2.x, so the difference in compilers could probably be the difference.
This has to be a net loss in profit for them...
;)
:D
Accounting Nazi mode on...
Well, you can't have a net loss and profit at the same time... they're mutually exclusive.
However, you can have a net loss in revenue.
Sorry... I didn't take my pills this morning.
End Accounting Nazi mode...
Um... do the PPC Macs turn into pumpkins once the Intel clock reaches midnight?
I'm still using a 3-year-old dually G4 and it works just fine, even though G5's have been out for quite a while... I imagine that will also be the case when the Intel Macs are released.
Encouraging everyone to wait for the transition is bad advice... my advice is buy a PPC Mac now, and let the guinea pigs work out the bugs in the new Intel Macs for the first generation after release, then upgrade on generation 2 (to get the most ang for your buck with the least frustration).
Besides, the final iteration of the PPC G5's will be a collector's item then, since they will be the last PPC towers manufactured by Apple... that's my opinion anyway.
The Profiles in History page linked from the summary only has about four of the couple-hundred props that are being auctioned off. There is a full catalog of all Star Wars memorabilia being auctioned off HERE (pdf file), on pages 2 through 37.
:)
You can buy everthing from Yoda's latex body parts (though badly deteriorated) to a stormtrooper's blaster, and everything in between.
Oh, and Luke Skywalker's flight suit and lightsaber (which incidentally was fabricated from an old Graflex flash gun from the 30's) are expected to fetch from between $60,000 to $80,000 each... yikes!
You can get an orange jumpsuit for free, however... just go rob your local liquor store.
Okay, I've had one too many beers this afternoon (gotta blame the fourth of July weekend). :D
:)
Apparently my reading comprehension sucks... they're advocating replacing UL-rated caps with some unknown audiophile caps... what fools.
Sorry for the uh... bad timing. I think there should be a 'retract' button under your own posts...
Wow... a post that gets rated insightful for ignorance (or just lack of reading comprehension).
Apparently you missed this part of the article:
Taking the modification yet further, you can also replace both of the X-rated capacitors (indicated in orange)around the transformer with 0.47 F 600-V Auricaps. These will set you back about $13 apiece. X-rated capacitors are standard components that meet Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (UL) standards for use on ac mains lines. These capacitors are designed to be self-extinguishing in the event of a big surge on the power line. They're potted in fire-retardant compositions, and are designed to fail open, rather than closed, so components up- and downstream will be protected. Auricap capacitors, a brand of high-end capacitor favored by audiophiles, are not rated against UL standards for ac current.
So, they're not advocating using those 'audiophile grade' unrated capacitors you're blathering about, but instead suggesting that people use actual UL-rated caps.
Jinkies... I think they should change the mod system so that people who are modding up posts actually read the damn article.
Of course this will probably be rated flamebait for pointing out known facts, not knee-jerk conclusions based on a brief skim of the article...
*Sigh*...
Apple has earned the respect of the Slashdot crowd, it wasn't just given to them. Don't you remember Rob's (CmdrTaco) comments when the iPod was released... that sure didn't strike me as unadulterated praise.
I'm not saying that everything Apple does is golden, just that at least they take you to dinner before they screw you. Microsoft treats everybody like a two-bit hooker...
Actually, after a 'repair permissions' session, it's recommended to restart your computer... it's the restart that gives it "teh snappy" feeling, since it cleans out about a gigabyte of pagefiles from the hard disk and frees up memory.
That's the only thing so far that I don't like about OSX... it seems that you have to restart it every once in a while (like every couple weeks) or it just starts to really slow down from paging in and out each time you switch programs (and I have 1.25GB RAM).
Whoops... I meant to say Linux, not Windows.
/me smacks himself upside the head... Doh!
I fail to see how buying an Apple computer constitutes 'Hardware Lock-In'... of course you're probably talking about running Windows on a home-built PC made of OEM commodity parts, but try speccing a PC with similar features and you'll find that Apple remains competitive (maybe a bit more, but that's the 'Apple Tax').
But, you aren't 'locked in' to their hardware... you can buy commodity parts off the shelf, install them, and have them work just fine, such as mice, keyboards, hard drives, CD-R's, DVD-R's, RAM, monitors, etc.
Gone are the days when you had to buy everything Apple-branded or Apple 'compatible' while paying a hefty mark-up... as I write this I think the only two components that still require design specifically for Apple are SCSI and Video cards (I'm talking 'basic' components, not obscure ones).
That might work great for large ID tubing, but this stuff is 1/8" OD... it would be 'slightly' difficult to fill this tube with sand.
I'd venture to say that through Jobs marketing skill Woz made a few million back from his affiliation with Jobs and Apple...
I'd forego $150 for that kind of windfall.
How did this dumbass get modded 'Insightful'?
I've had three (small) earrings in my left ear since I was a junior in HIgh School (two tiny gold hoops and a 1/10ct. diamond)... this is going on... hrm... about 18 years. Never have they been a detriment and prevented me from getting a job... well, it could've been different if assholes like the parent were doing the hiring.
Thankfully, those people interviewing me were competent enough to look past those and hired me for both my personality and skillset.
Most of the time I've completely forgotten that I have them, and those people that I've worked both 'for' and 'with' don't seem to bother with them either.
Get a grip man, this is the 2000's, not the 1900's...
Yowch, modded down to 0... I guess nobody appreciates Looney Tunes anymore... ;)
They must have found oil on the moon, and the Martians must be suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction.
;)
After all, Marvin the Martian was determined to blow up the earth in all those old Looney Toons flix...
Well, there's the proof... any Microsoft technology will obviously suck 27x as much as the competition. ;)
Dang... you misspelled 'Bitch' four times in the same paragraph.
Then how do you explain Microsoft's success?
You sir don't understand either economics or marketing. Prices can be completely arbitrary, depending on the willingness to pay of the focus group.
What happens is this... you lay out the specs of the computer survey-style, and ask the focus group how much they'd be willing to pay for such a computer, and once you extrapolate that to the market, you come up with a number.
You start out a little on the high side (called 'skimming' the market), then slowly lower the price until you capture the rest of the market segment you were going after... that way you make sure to get the most producer surplus without foregoing the extra revenue you'd have made from those willing to pay the higher price.
That is a fairly arbitrary method, because you're going on the arbitrary replies of your focus group, though it isn't as arbitrary as throwing a dart at several prices and charging whichever one it hits. It's not like Apple sits down and says "Okay, we need to make 35% on this computer" and charges accordingly... after all look what that method did for the G4 Cube market.
I was going to mod your post down, but figured I'd rather reply than burn points... I'm not saying that you're incorrect in calling 'shenanigans', but it would take more than somebody employed at Apple claiming the price is set arbitrarily to make me do so (for the reasons mentioned above).