Actually, the cogent and relevant portion of my post was the italicized portion, which I feel speaks to the issues surrounding this slashdot story; i.e., the idea (correct, in my opinion) that going to "blogs" and "journalism" where everyone contributes is a Bad Thing.
Since the quote in question used Flight 77 as an example, and I knew there would be readers who *actually believe* the conspiracy theories about Flight 77, and would respond to my post, I attached a pre-written footnote, labeled as such, briefly debunking the ridiculous conspiracy theories (though anyone who believes that Flight 77 didn't really crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 likely won't believe any of it anyway).
How many times did Fox claim that WMDs had been found in Iraq? It became a running joke in our house to guess how long it would be until they made their next false discovery.
Huh?
FNC is one of the several channels on in my office all day. They only claimed WMD were possibly found when a source within the government, military, or other source in Iraq claimed WMD were possibly found.
No. Really.
They never "made up" stories that WMD were found. And, in fact, trace amounts of WMD were found, several times. I'm not saying any of these constitutes finding WMD in the context of our initial claims, but trace amounts of WMD were found nonetheless. I'm sure there's some blog(s) somewhere that alleged to track "falsehoods" from FNC. I have never seen a story that was later found to be inaccurate (with regard to WMD, WMD trailers, labs, etc.) allowed to stand. And no, they don't just silently sweep it away, they often spent the next several hours saying that the initial reports were inaccurate.
The difference with FNC is that they reported on things much earlier and with less verification, resulting in less reliable news at any point in time, but MORE TIMELY news over an extended period of time. After watching FNC alongside CNN, MSNBC, BBCWORLD, and even Armed Forces Television, I recall extremely numerous times that FNC was reporting on a news item fifteen to thirty minutes, and sometimes up to an hour, before any other news outlet. Most of the time, the story was generally accurate. The other news organizations seemed to be more conservative about reporting. This sometimes came back to bite FNC, but ultimately resulted in much more timely information from FNC *if* you watched it long enough to see potential corrections. Reporting that could be termed inaccurate or incorrect was BY NO MEANS the norm, and was ALWAYS corrected/retracted if it was incorrect.
If you're one of those people who thinks that the US mainstream press doesn't report "the truth" and is completely "in the pocket" of corporations and/or government, then you're already part of the problem. I find the following excerpt from a story on the (ridiculously blatantly false) theory that Flight 77 really didn't crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 extremely relevant:
It is safe to say that the thesis advocated by Thierry Meyssan, that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is a tour de force of obfuscation and misinterpretation. Meyssan has nevertheless attracted a bevy of adherents who have based their own interpretations and theories on his. Just how prevalent this theory has become can be confirmed quickly with a Web search. Such a search turns up very little useful information but returns a veritable mountain of misinformation.
This, in fact, underscores the problem. Modern society is awash in a rapidly expanding sea of information, and it has become increasingly more difficult to identify information that is reliable, factual and useful. Nevertheless, it is essential to identify reliable information sources and carefully evaluate their material. What is the background of the source? Does the source have a track record of reliability? Is the story verifiable? Are witnesses named, or are they anonymous? Does the story match known or observed phenomena, or does it run counter to these? Are there elements of the story that you know to be true -- or know not to be true? Has the source consistently employed fallacious reasoning?
Failure to carefully weigh the reliability of information sources by asking these and other questions exposes patriotic Americans to the possibility of being misled and marginalized, an outcome to be avoided if the tide toward collectivism is to be reversed.
"Bloggers" have no obligation to report all sides of a story, all the facts of a story, or even any facts at all. And it seems that many people are content to read blogs as gospel, and seek out information that reinforces their preconceived notions about a particular topic.
----------------
The rest of this message is a footnote for people who *actually believe* that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon on 9/11, since some retards will inevitably respond with things like "Um, dude, you're seriously deluded if you believe the official propaganda about what happened on 9/11", etc.:
Here was an email that I wrote up before, in response to the ridiculous flash move that's been circulating:
-----
The problem here is the way the flash movie was done. First of all, some of the images in the movie were edited from the original photographs to support the author's view of events. Second, the only quotes from witnesses in the flash movie are selectively picked - from HUNDREDS of statements - to support the "missile" theory. Additionally, the author even contradicts himself, including statements about a missile, AND a "small" or "commuter" plane. (Well, which is it?)
Let's take a step back for a moment:
1. There were dozens upon dozens of eyewitness reports who say that a commercial jetliner was what crashed into the Pentagon. These were all just ordinary people, going about their business in the DC area, some affiliated with government and/or miltary, some not. Of the witnesses who say it "sounded" like a missile (note the word "sounded"): how is that even relevant? I ask because of the obvious: how many of these people even know what a missile "sounds" like? How many people have heard a commercial jetliner just hundreds of feet (and at some point, tens of feet) off the ground travelling at ~400-500mph? And to repeat, many, many, many people reported directly seeing an American Airlines commercial jetliner.
2. All of the "conspiracy" reports talk about how "no wreckage" was found at the scene. That is patently false. There was TONS of Boeing 757 wreckage recovered, in total, from the Pentagon. Ironically, here are even large pieces of 757 wreckage visi
But the problem is, while Apple is very responsive to security issues, you kind of have to wait on them for any updates to components that are part of the stock/standard OS. If you go around installing and updating things yourself OVER the OS-installed components, it could break the real updates when they arrive from Apple. The only alternative is to install the updated version in an alternate location, and then revert to Apple's version when it's updated.
This, of course, defeats the whole purpose of using something like Mac OS X Server as a server, since it's supposed to release you from doing all of that crap. Of course, Apple will likely provide an update soon, but it's still irritating to have a known open, unpatched vulnerability on a production system, even if it's only theoretical, and even only for a couple of days.
I can throw a little more gas onto the Apple phone rumors. I was on a train this weekend, watching an episode of the Simpsons on my Treo600. The gentleman sitting across from me asked me how I liked the phone. I told him I loved it and we began a tech conversation. He mentioned that he worked for Motorola. I told him I was a Macintosh consultant, and then he dropped the bomb! "I've got a scoop for you", he teased.
Apparently some of his associates had been telling him earlier in the week about an Apple branded phone that had been circulating around the office at Motorola. The phone had Motorola components, but most certainly had Apple brandings on it. He said that he did not have a chance to handle the phone, but that his direct supervisor did. The phone was "sleek and sexy" in her words. He mentioned that there was talk amongst the people who had seen it that itunes and iphoto would factor into this device somehow. They also said that the phone had a slot on the top (media slot?) as well as what looked to be a usb 2.0 port on the bottom.
All very interesting. He gave me his card, so I'll be sure to press him for more details in the coming weeks.
Stay Tuned! _________________ Tony Ricciardi Administrator TreoMac.com
Also, from another source:
It's basically the successor to the Motorola E398, but with iTunes, and extensive Apple influence and iPod integration. I haven't seen it yet, but my info is direct from Moto top people.
The current Motorola E398 was a tri-band GSM bar form factor phone, with a large screen, TransFlash slot, Bluetooth, camera, media player, speakerphone, and FM tuner. And since this offering is GSM, and Steve Jobs has twice trotted out Cingular CEO Stephen Carter at Macworld keynotes, and given other carriers' resistance to the idea of iTunes on a phone (for reasons of either not wanting to provide bandwidth for such a service at a reasonable cost, OR being opposed to having full computer/device connectivity via Bluetooth bypassing their networks), it would appear that Cingular/AT&T might be a good candidate to carry such a device.
And for all those who think that Motorola phones suck OR are only basing your opinion on NEXTEL phones, trust me: they've gotten a LOT better, and actually have some excellent offerings (e.g., RAZR V3 and v710, Verizon crippling aside).
As the cost of cameras and digital storage approaches zero, is it inevitable that every machine you interact with will take your photograph and store it?
No, but as michael keeps posting paranoid left-wing drivel as commentary to each story to the front page of slashdot, it's inevitable that I and a lot of other people will stop reading it.
I think it's time to visit my slashdot homepage preferences...
You found a way to blame a Finnish police raid in Finland on the US! For extra points, try to find a way to blame it directly on Bush, or better yet, John Ashcroft.
Have you considered that reverse engineering isn't guaranteed to work with changes to the iPod and/or FairPlay and/or the implementation of such, etc.?
Apple may or may not have deliberately disabled Real's reverse engineering, but what if, for the sake of argument, some third party reverse engineered service became popular in some circles, and then was inadvertently broken due to updates in Apple's products, or because the parties responsible for reverse engineering aren't aware of Apple product and firmware roadmaps, etc.?
Then your answer is, well, they should just license to anyone, and make SDKs and whitepapers available regarding their implementation. Why? Who are you to say? It's their product. Furthermore, the tight iTunes(-only) and iPod integration - and the associated ridiculous ease of use - is one of Apple's biggest selling points for the combo. Why would they want to support anything that dilutes that?
If you don't want to support Apple because of it, fine. And their refusal to license may ultimately doom iPod to the same "fate" as Macintosh in the marketplace. But Apple isn't doing anything legally or morally wrong here; the only question is whether or not you want to support Apple for their decisions.
No, all the "rest" that support protected Windows Media do NOT outnumber the iPod. That's the point. Apple has 92% share of ALL hard-drive-based players, INCLUDING ones that play Windows Media format. 92%. They have something like a 75% share of ALL music players. INCLUDING ones that play Windows Media format, and INCLUDING the crappy 128MB "MTV" flash players. Apple radically outnumbers ALL OTHER PLAYERS combined, including ones that support Windows Media. So while you're correct that every other store seems to be supporting Windows Media, the iTunes Music Store has something close to 80% of all online purchased music downloads worldwide, massively eclipsing any other store. Also, Apple is expected by analysts to sell 100 million iPods next quarter. That's *four times* what they sold last quarter. The sales are going up exponentially. It might not always be this way, and I wish Apple would license too for its own good, but that's the way it is now.
Because every other store (besides Real and Apple) that uses DRM is Windows Media. Those players won't play songs from the Real or Apple stores ("whatever I buy"). The iPod won't play DRMed WMA files. So you're either not buying anything, or you'll be waiting for some format to "win".
Apple doesn't make you use their store, dumbass. You can play ANY non-DRMed MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, etc., file that you wish. It was never advertised as working with any other online store with DRM, and Apple is under no obligation to support any other online store with DRM. If you don't agree with it, don't buy it. Simple.
No one is forcing you to update your firmware. NO ONE.
The firmware updates will only stay within the specified operating parameters of the device. There is no parameter that requires supporting reverse-engineered DRM content from other sources.
Now if Apple removed the ability, for example, to play MP3s, then you might have a point.
But they didn't, and Apple isn't forcing anyone to update firmware, therefore you're completely wrong, whether I'm "fanboy" or not.
Have you considered that reverse engineering isn't guaranteed to work with changes to the iPod and/or FairPlay and/or the implementation of such, etc.?
Apple may have deliberately disabled Real's reverse engineering, but what if, for the sake of argument, some third party reverse engineered service became popular in some circles, and then was inadvertently broken due to updates in Apple's products, or because the parties responsible for reverse engineering aren't aware of Apple product and firmware roadmaps, etc.?
Then your answer is, well, they should just license to anyone, and make SDKs and whitepapers available regarding their implementation. Why? Who are you to say? It's their product. Furthermore, the tight iTunes(-only) and iPod integration - and the associated ridiculous ease of use - is one of Apple's biggest selling points for the combo. Why would they want to support anything that dilutes that?
If you don't want to support Apple because of it, fine. And their refusal to license may ultimately doom iPod to the same "fate" as Macintosh in the marketplace. But Apple isn't doing anything legally or morally wrong here; the only question is whether or not you want to support Apple for their decisions.
They just reduced the functionality of a unit I already own. I want a refund now for the lost functionality.
Um, no, they didn't. First of all, read this. Second, the iPod doesn't support DRM content from anyplace other than Apple. Even if Apple intentionally disabled it, Real cannot predict legitimate changes that might be made to the product or the DRM technology that might break it. And guess what? Real's trickery reflects poorly on APPLE. If they're so concerned about getting their music on iPods, maybe they should be the champion of DRM-free music, eh? After all, non-DRMed music in numerous formats plays on the iPod just fine. Real's whole reverse-engineering house of cards was built on shaky ground to begin with. As for the issue of DRM in general, the iTunes Music Store and quite possibly some of the success of the iPod wouldn't exist today if Apple hadn't allowed for SOME DRM in their store. Apple made it as invisible as it could, and also, Apple's product win is the tight integration between iTunes, the iPod, etc. It's their right to treat their products as they see fit. And if this really concerns you that much, then yes, by all means, don't buy any more iPods.
You're speaking in the context of media players, and I'm sorry to say that "iTunes" in the context of a media player has zero to do with this situation. This is about the Apple iPod playing DRMed content from Real as if it were FairPlay-protected content.
Number one, this is old, since the iPod firmware that did this, iPod Updater 2004-11-15, was released a month ago.
Number two, Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE else's DRM, period.
Unprotected AAC, WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc., files from ANY source will play fine on ANY iPod. This is ONLY about Real reverse engineering FairPlay (more power to them) in order to allow their "Harmony" DRM-protected files to play on an iPod. They succeeded. And Apple is under NO obligation of any kind to allow it to continue. The iPod DOES NOT SUPPORT DRM files from ANY other source, so this isn't a matter of "doing what you want with something you bought". If you can personally get Real's songs to play on your iPod again, go for it. If Real re-engineers it such that the files work, great. Further, you are not forced to update the firmware. What's that? You'll eventually have to to get new features and bug fixes? Tough. Don't like it? Don't buy another iPod.
Apple is doing nothing legally, technically, ethically, morally or wrong.
Apple took back the Power Mac G5 tower systems that were a part of the initial cluster.
For an *additional* $600,000, they replaced it with Xserve G5s.
1100 dual Xserve G5s - today - costs $2.8M. So, with all their other stuff (RAM, storage, Infiniband interconnect, ethernet switches, etc.) the prices they've quoted since the inception of this project are more than reasonable. Additionally, VT has said publicly numerous times (no, I'm not going to search for them for you) that they paid Apple's standard academic discount price and did not get any giveaways from Apple. So unless you think VT is lying, or it's part of some conspiracy, it's clear that the Apple cluster is very aggressive when it comes to price/performance.
...except get untold amounts of recognition, publicity, free advertising, news articles, and the capability to catapult themselves to the forefront of the supercomputing community overnight for a paltry sum of money, thus attracting millions of dollars of additional funding and grants to build clusters that WILL be doing real work, such as the one we're talking about now (which is more than capable now that it has ECC memory), and the several additional clusters they plan to build in the future, not to mention the benefit of proving that a new architecture, interconnect, and OS will perform well as a supercomputer, allowing more choice, competition, and innovation to enter the scene, which ultimately results in more and better choices for everyone.
And yes, they saved a lot of space, and heat/power (130nm chips to 90nm) and increased the performance by 2Tflops (by going from 2.0GHz processors to 2.3GHz). The major gain, though, was ECC memory.
The only special thing they did for VT was *take back* the original G5 towers, and provide 2.3GHz G5 Xserves before they were otherwise available. The $600K upgrade did not reflect any significant discount or gift. A similar cluster could be built by anyone, now, for around that same total price of $6M.
The speed you quoted is the theoretical peak, not the actual maximum achieved in a real world calculation (like the Top 500 organization's use of Linpack).
System X's equivalent theoretical peak is 20.24 TFlops.
I'm also not indicting Linux clusters in the least; they've clearly shown they can outperform traditionally architected and constructed supercomputers for many tasks, with the benefit of using commodity parts - at commodity pricing. All I'm saying is that there's a new player here, and it's a real contender, and has done a lot for very little money...which was the whole goal of Linux clusters in this realm in the first place.
(Also, as I said, the volunteer labor model is irrelevant - let's just pretend it was professionally installed for an additional $1M, or even $2M if that would satisfy you. It's still several million dollars cheaper, and 3Tflops greater performance. These are BOTH rackmount clusters with similar amounts of nodes and processors, running a commodity OS with fast interconnects. There are differences, yes, and perhaps even differences in goals. But looking past that, price/performance for something like this is still an important metric.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the cogent and relevant portion of my post was the italicized portion, which I feel speaks to the issues surrounding this slashdot story; i.e., the idea (correct, in my opinion) that going to "blogs" and "journalism" where everyone contributes is a Bad Thing.
Since the quote in question used Flight 77 as an example, and I knew there would be readers who *actually believe* the conspiracy theories about Flight 77, and would respond to my post, I attached a pre-written footnote, labeled as such, briefly debunking the ridiculous conspiracy theories (though anyone who believes that Flight 77 didn't really crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 likely won't believe any of it anyway).
But thanks for your concern.
(And of course this gets modded up)
How many times did Fox claim that WMDs had been found in Iraq? It became a running joke in our house to guess how long it would be until they made their next false discovery.
Huh?
FNC is one of the several channels on in my office all day. They only claimed WMD were possibly found when a source within the government, military, or other source in Iraq claimed WMD were possibly found.
No. Really.
They never "made up" stories that WMD were found. And, in fact, trace amounts of WMD were found, several times. I'm not saying any of these constitutes finding WMD in the context of our initial claims, but trace amounts of WMD were found nonetheless. I'm sure there's some blog(s) somewhere that alleged to track "falsehoods" from FNC. I have never seen a story that was later found to be inaccurate (with regard to WMD, WMD trailers, labs, etc.) allowed to stand. And no, they don't just silently sweep it away, they often spent the next several hours saying that the initial reports were inaccurate.
The difference with FNC is that they reported on things much earlier and with less verification, resulting in less reliable news at any point in time, but MORE TIMELY news over an extended period of time. After watching FNC alongside CNN, MSNBC, BBCWORLD, and even Armed Forces Television, I recall extremely numerous times that FNC was reporting on a news item fifteen to thirty minutes, and sometimes up to an hour, before any other news outlet. Most of the time, the story was generally accurate. The other news organizations seemed to be more conservative about reporting. This sometimes came back to bite FNC, but ultimately resulted in much more timely information from FNC *if* you watched it long enough to see potential corrections. Reporting that could be termed inaccurate or incorrect was BY NO MEANS the norm, and was ALWAYS corrected/retracted if it was incorrect.
If you're one of those people who thinks that the US mainstream press doesn't report "the truth" and is completely "in the pocket" of corporations and/or government, then you're already part of the problem. I find the following excerpt from a story on the (ridiculously blatantly false) theory that Flight 77 really didn't crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 extremely relevant:
It is safe to say that the thesis advocated by Thierry Meyssan, that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is a tour de force of obfuscation and misinterpretation. Meyssan has nevertheless attracted a bevy of adherents who have based their own interpretations and theories on his. Just how prevalent this theory has become can be confirmed quickly with a Web search. Such a search turns up very little useful information but returns a veritable mountain of misinformation.
This, in fact, underscores the problem. Modern society is awash in a rapidly expanding sea of information, and it has become increasingly more difficult to identify information that is reliable, factual and useful. Nevertheless, it is essential to identify reliable information sources and carefully evaluate their material. What is the background of the source? Does the source have a track record of reliability? Is the story verifiable? Are witnesses named, or are they anonymous? Does the story match known or observed phenomena, or does it run counter to these? Are there elements of the story that you know to be true -- or know not to be true? Has the source consistently employed fallacious reasoning?
Failure to carefully weigh the reliability of information sources by asking these and other questions exposes patriotic Americans to the possibility of being misled and marginalized, an outcome to be avoided if the tide toward collectivism is to be reversed.
"Bloggers" have no obligation to report all sides of a story, all the facts of a story, or even any facts at all. And it seems that many people are content to read blogs as gospel, and seek out information that reinforces their preconceived notions about a particular topic.
----------------
The rest of this message is a footnote for people who *actually believe* that Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon on 9/11, since some retards will inevitably respond with things like "Um, dude, you're seriously deluded if you believe the official propaganda about what happened on 9/11", etc.:
Here was an email that I wrote up before, in response to the ridiculous flash move that's been circulating:
-----
The problem here is the way the flash movie was done. First of all, some of the images in the movie were edited from the original photographs to support the author's view of events. Second, the only quotes from witnesses in the flash movie are selectively picked - from HUNDREDS of statements - to support the "missile" theory. Additionally, the author even contradicts himself, including statements about a missile, AND a "small" or "commuter" plane. (Well, which is it?)
Let's take a step back for a moment:
1. There were dozens upon dozens of eyewitness reports who say that a commercial jetliner was what crashed into the Pentagon. These were all just ordinary people, going about their business in the DC area, some affiliated with government and/or miltary, some not. Of the witnesses who say it "sounded" like a missile (note the word "sounded"): how is that even relevant? I ask because of the obvious: how many of these people even know what a missile "sounds" like? How many people have heard a commercial jetliner just hundreds of feet (and at some point, tens of feet) off the ground travelling at ~400-500mph? And to repeat, many, many, many people reported directly seeing an American Airlines commercial jetliner.
2. All of the "conspiracy" reports talk about how "no wreckage" was found at the scene. That is patently false. There was TONS of Boeing 757 wreckage recovered, in total, from the Pentagon. Ironically, here are even large pieces of 757 wreckage visi
No, they do, and plenty:
7 98
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61
But the problem is, while Apple is very responsive to security issues, you kind of have to wait on them for any updates to components that are part of the stock/standard OS. If you go around installing and updating things yourself OVER the OS-installed components, it could break the real updates when they arrive from Apple. The only alternative is to install the updated version in an alternate location, and then revert to Apple's version when it's updated.
This, of course, defeats the whole purpose of using something like Mac OS X Server as a server, since it's supposed to release you from doing all of that crap. Of course, Apple will likely provide an update soon, but it's still irritating to have a known open, unpatched vulnerability on a production system, even if it's only theoretical, and even only for a couple of days.
And of course, Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server 10.3.7 contain php 4.3.2...
http://treomac.com/v-web/portal/cms/modules.php?na me=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=32
I can throw a little more gas onto the Apple phone rumors. I was on a train this weekend, watching an episode of the Simpsons on my Treo600. The gentleman sitting across from me asked me how I liked the phone. I told him I loved it and we began a tech conversation. He mentioned that he worked for Motorola. I told him I was a Macintosh consultant, and then he dropped the bomb! "I've got a scoop for you", he teased.
Apparently some of his associates had been telling him earlier in the week about an Apple branded phone that had been circulating around the office at Motorola. The phone had Motorola components, but most certainly had Apple brandings on it. He said that he did not have a chance to handle the phone, but that his direct supervisor did. The phone was "sleek and sexy" in her words. He mentioned that there was talk amongst the people who had seen it that itunes and iphoto would factor into this device somehow. They also said that the phone had a slot on the top (media slot?) as well as what looked to be a usb 2.0 port on the bottom.
All very interesting. He gave me his card, so I'll be sure to press him for more details in the coming weeks.
Stay Tuned!
_________________
Tony Ricciardi
Administrator
TreoMac.com
Also, from another source:
It's basically the successor to the Motorola E398, but with iTunes, and extensive Apple influence and iPod integration. I haven't seen it yet, but my info is direct from Moto top people.
The current Motorola E398 was a tri-band GSM bar form factor phone, with a large screen, TransFlash slot, Bluetooth, camera, media player, speakerphone, and FM tuner. And since this offering is GSM, and Steve Jobs has twice trotted out Cingular CEO Stephen Carter at Macworld keynotes, and given other carriers' resistance to the idea of iTunes on a phone (for reasons of either not wanting to provide bandwidth for such a service at a reasonable cost, OR being opposed to having full computer/device connectivity via Bluetooth bypassing their networks), it would appear that Cingular/AT&T might be a good candidate to carry such a device.
And for all those who think that Motorola phones suck OR are only basing your opinion on NEXTEL phones, trust me: they've gotten a LOT better, and actually have some excellent offerings (e.g., RAZR V3 and v710, Verizon crippling aside).
As the cost of cameras and digital storage approaches zero, is it inevitable that every machine you interact with will take your photograph and store it?
No, but as michael keeps posting paranoid left-wing drivel as commentary to each story to the front page of slashdot, it's inevitable that I and a lot of other people will stop reading it.
I think it's time to visit my slashdot homepage preferences...
So the "US" is to blame simply because the movies are created here?
I have a solution:
Don't download them, and don't watch them. Problem solved.
You found a way to blame a Finnish police raid in Finland on the US! For extra points, try to find a way to blame it directly on Bush, or better yet, John Ashcroft.
Have you considered that reverse engineering isn't guaranteed to work with changes to the iPod and/or FairPlay and/or the implementation of such, etc.?
Apple may or may not have deliberately disabled Real's reverse engineering, but what if, for the sake of argument, some third party reverse engineered service became popular in some circles, and then was inadvertently broken due to updates in Apple's products, or because the parties responsible for reverse engineering aren't aware of Apple product and firmware roadmaps, etc.?
Then your answer is, well, they should just license to anyone, and make SDKs and whitepapers available regarding their implementation. Why? Who are you to say? It's their product. Furthermore, the tight iTunes(-only) and iPod integration - and the associated ridiculous ease of use - is one of Apple's biggest selling points for the combo. Why would they want to support anything that dilutes that?
If you don't want to support Apple because of it, fine. And their refusal to license may ultimately doom iPod to the same "fate" as Macintosh in the marketplace. But Apple isn't doing anything legally or morally wrong here; the only question is whether or not you want to support Apple for their decisions.
No, all the "rest" that support protected Windows Media do NOT outnumber the iPod. That's the point. Apple has 92% share of ALL hard-drive-based players, INCLUDING ones that play Windows Media format. 92%. They have something like a 75% share of ALL music players. INCLUDING ones that play Windows Media format, and INCLUDING the crappy 128MB "MTV" flash players. Apple radically outnumbers ALL OTHER PLAYERS combined, including ones that support Windows Media. So while you're correct that every other store seems to be supporting Windows Media, the iTunes Music Store has something close to 80% of all online purchased music downloads worldwide, massively eclipsing any other store. Also, Apple is expected by analysts to sell 100 million iPods next quarter. That's *four times* what they sold last quarter. The sales are going up exponentially. It might not always be this way, and I wish Apple would license too for its own good, but that's the way it is now.
Because every other store (besides Real and Apple) that uses DRM is Windows Media. Those players won't play songs from the Real or Apple stores ("whatever I buy"). The iPod won't play DRMed WMA files. So you're either not buying anything, or you'll be waiting for some format to "win".
Apple doesn't make you use their store, dumbass. You can play ANY non-DRMed MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, etc., file that you wish. It was never advertised as working with any other online store with DRM, and Apple is under no obligation to support any other online store with DRM. If you don't agree with it, don't buy it. Simple.
No one is forcing you to update your firmware. NO ONE.
The firmware updates will only stay within the specified operating parameters of the device. There is no parameter that requires supporting reverse-engineered DRM content from other sources.
Now if Apple removed the ability, for example, to play MP3s, then you might have a point.
But they didn't, and Apple isn't forcing anyone to update firmware, therefore you're completely wrong, whether I'm "fanboy" or not.
Thanks for playing.
Have you considered that reverse engineering isn't guaranteed to work with changes to the iPod and/or FairPlay and/or the implementation of such, etc.?
Apple may have deliberately disabled Real's reverse engineering, but what if, for the sake of argument, some third party reverse engineered service became popular in some circles, and then was inadvertently broken due to updates in Apple's products, or because the parties responsible for reverse engineering aren't aware of Apple product and firmware roadmaps, etc.?
Then your answer is, well, they should just license to anyone, and make SDKs and whitepapers available regarding their implementation. Why? Who are you to say? It's their product. Furthermore, the tight iTunes(-only) and iPod integration - and the associated ridiculous ease of use - is one of Apple's biggest selling points for the combo. Why would they want to support anything that dilutes that?
If you don't want to support Apple because of it, fine. And their refusal to license may ultimately doom iPod to the same "fate" as Macintosh in the marketplace. But Apple isn't doing anything legally or morally wrong here; the only question is whether or not you want to support Apple for their decisions.
They just reduced the functionality of a unit I already own. I want a refund now for the lost functionality.
Um, no, they didn't. First of all, read this. Second, the iPod doesn't support DRM content from anyplace other than Apple. Even if Apple intentionally disabled it, Real cannot predict legitimate changes that might be made to the product or the DRM technology that might break it. And guess what? Real's trickery reflects poorly on APPLE. If they're so concerned about getting their music on iPods, maybe they should be the champion of DRM-free music, eh? After all, non-DRMed music in numerous formats plays on the iPod just fine. Real's whole reverse-engineering house of cards was built on shaky ground to begin with. As for the issue of DRM in general, the iTunes Music Store and quite possibly some of the success of the iPod wouldn't exist today if Apple hadn't allowed for SOME DRM in their store. Apple made it as invisible as it could, and also, Apple's product win is the tight integration between iTunes, the iPod, etc. It's their right to treat their products as they see fit. And if this really concerns you that much, then yes, by all means, don't buy any more iPods.
You're speaking in the context of media players, and I'm sorry to say that "iTunes" in the context of a media player has zero to do with this situation. This is about the Apple iPod playing DRMed content from Real as if it were FairPlay-protected content.
So take your "I hate iTunes" troll elsewhere.
Number one, this is old, since the iPod firmware that did this, iPod Updater 2004-11-15, was released a month ago.
Number two, Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE else's DRM, period.
Unprotected AAC, WAV, AIFF, MP3, etc., files from ANY source will play fine on ANY iPod. This is ONLY about Real reverse engineering FairPlay (more power to them) in order to allow their "Harmony" DRM-protected files to play on an iPod. They succeeded. And Apple is under NO obligation of any kind to allow it to continue. The iPod DOES NOT SUPPORT DRM files from ANY other source, so this isn't a matter of "doing what you want with something you bought". If you can personally get Real's songs to play on your iPod again, go for it. If Real re-engineers it such that the files work, great. Further, you are not forced to update the firmware. What's that? You'll eventually have to to get new features and bug fixes? Tough. Don't like it? Don't buy another iPod.
Apple is doing nothing legally, technically, ethically, morally or wrong.
Additionally, Apple does play with other vendors, such as Audible.com content, and Macrovision will have to be a FairPlay licensor to support some of its product claims (though more details aren't known), and Motorola phones will run a version of iTunes and support Apple's protected music. Apple can do whatever it wishes with its own products, and consumers may decide whether or not they would like to purchase them.
SUCKER!
Huh?
That was INCLUDED in the original $5.2M. And I even referenced all of that (interconnect, etc.) in my last paragraph.
A breakdown of what?
The initial cluster cost $5.2M.
Apple took back the Power Mac G5 tower systems that were a part of the initial cluster.
For an *additional* $600,000, they replaced it with Xserve G5s.
1100 dual Xserve G5s - today - costs $2.8M. So, with all their other stuff (RAM, storage, Infiniband interconnect, ethernet switches, etc.) the prices they've quoted since the inception of this project are more than reasonable. Additionally, VT has said publicly numerous times (no, I'm not going to search for them for you) that they paid Apple's standard academic discount price and did not get any giveaways from Apple. So unless you think VT is lying, or it's part of some conspiracy, it's clear that the Apple cluster is very aggressive when it comes to price/performance.
...except get untold amounts of recognition, publicity, free advertising, news articles, and the capability to catapult themselves to the forefront of the supercomputing community overnight for a paltry sum of money, thus attracting millions of dollars of additional funding and grants to build clusters that WILL be doing real work, such as the one we're talking about now (which is more than capable now that it has ECC memory), and the several additional clusters they plan to build in the future, not to mention the benefit of proving that a new architecture, interconnect, and OS will perform well as a supercomputer, allowing more choice, competition, and innovation to enter the scene, which ultimately results in more and better choices for everyone.
And yes, they saved a lot of space, and heat/power (130nm chips to 90nm) and increased the performance by 2Tflops (by going from 2.0GHz processors to 2.3GHz). The major gain, though, was ECC memory.
The only special thing they did for VT was *take back* the original G5 towers, and provide 2.3GHz G5 Xserves before they were otherwise available. The $600K upgrade did not reflect any significant discount or gift. A similar cluster could be built by anyone, now, for around that same total price of $6M.
Look here.
The speed you quoted is the theoretical peak, not the actual maximum achieved in a real world calculation (like the Top 500 organization's use of Linpack).
System X's equivalent theoretical peak is 20.24 TFlops.
I'm also not indicting Linux clusters in the least; they've clearly shown they can outperform traditionally architected and constructed supercomputers for many tasks, with the benefit of using commodity parts - at commodity pricing. All I'm saying is that there's a new player here, and it's a real contender, and has done a lot for very little money...which was the whole goal of Linux clusters in this realm in the first place.
(Also, as I said, the volunteer labor model is irrelevant - let's just pretend it was professionally installed for an additional $1M, or even $2M if that would satisfy you. It's still several million dollars cheaper, and 3Tflops greater performance. These are BOTH rackmount clusters with similar amounts of nodes and processors, running a commodity OS with fast interconnects. There are differences, yes, and perhaps even differences in goals. But looking past that, price/performance for something like this is still an important metric.)