If you make a sweeping comment in a forum, you should be willing and able to back it up with documentary evidence. If you dont or cant, why should we listen to you?
Speak to a GSM network providor, like Vodaphone, Orange, O2 or something (to give UK examples). All of these providors will sell you a local cell unit, its a service they provide to companies with large sites or campuses, to use mobile phones instead of DECT phones across a wide area with automatic roaming off site. Calls within the same cell are free, with a annual rental, and calls off the local cell are charged at the standard airtime rate, and the bonus is that its just a normal mobile cell.
What is 'personal use' of an item that HAS no other use? All films, music etc derive 99% of their income from sales to individuals, either through cinema or DVD/CD sales, so doesnt it seem counterproductive to remove what is essentially this mediums only revenue source? How do they suggest that these items generate income when its equally made available for free as a download by people who have no financial attachments to the creation of the work?
Massively. The last Harry Potter book was scanned and made into a readable ebook within 24 hours of its release, and made available on the internet. Many of my friends just use their PDAs and ebook software to read books with, I dont think any of them has actually touched a physical book in a couple of years.
Nokia did a padded and increased robustness phone, and apparnetly it tanked in sales. Unfortunately, it traded features for robustness and almost everyone I spoke to that got one said they wouldnt recommend it because of the sheer lack of features. It also had an internal ariel, as external ariels and robustness dont really go together in the same sentance, and that affected the signal quality.
Yes! Shame! Shame on you, GP, for your failure to conform to the most profitable demographic. Surely you know by now that there is no demand for anything you might want? How dare you express your feeble opinions with out first undertaking extensive market research to ensure your desires are widely held?
Thanks for an overtly hostile response to my post.
The fact of the matter is that featureless phones jsut dont yield good enough profits while requiring a similiar investment on the part of the phone companies. The demographic that buys a featureless phone isnt likely to go out 12 months later and get another, better phone because there wont be any difference in the phones. The largest part of the phone market is upgrades, or in other words reoccuring customers.
The people who buy gadget laden phones tend to upgrade to a new phone year after year - everyone I know gets a new phone at the end of a 12 month contract, and starts a new 12 month period. Why? To get the latest features, its certainly not because their current phone stops working or suddenly becomes inadequet to make calls on. Wheres the reoccuring profits for a company when noone upgrades a featureless phone?
eriously, what is it with companies today? If you aren't part of the maximally profitable marketing group, then you don't exist. Push off, there are paying customers waiting.
Its called shareholders and risk investment. Why should a company invest $5million in a new featureless phone which would yield $50million in profits, when that same $5million invested in a different gadget laden phone will hit a different market and make the same company $150million? Do the math, its very simple.
Does it ever occur to anyone that the reason there's no profit in non camera/tevevision/secret-squirrel-decoder-ring phones is that no one is making the bloody things? Look at all the folks on/. saying "all I want is a phone that makes phone calls". I can think of half a dozen people in real life who've expressed that opinion to me lately as well. But no, apparently there's no demand.
Yes, this happens all the time in markets and these companies have a name for the markets they fulfil: niche. The fact that noone has fulfilled such a niche market in mobile phones indicates that there just isnt a suitably sized niche market to support such a phone. Would your friends be willing to pay the same for a featureless phone as it would cost to get a current gadget laden phone? Im willing to bet that they wouldnt, but unfortunately that is the cost of a niche product in almost all cases.
Because broadcast TV requires more hardware in the phone, or at least decoding software, while this just requires a videophone, which are already on the market and available. That is why.
You do realise that you are no longer the profitable market for mobile phones? Here in the UK, the primary market for mobile phones is now 15 - 29 year olds, and that just happens to include the age range of people who like gadgets, so to gain more consumer market, your phone has to have an MP3 player, a megapixel camera, video capability, sms, instant messaging, wap, 3G, polyphonic ringtones, colour screen etc.
Honestly, what do these companies think that people buy phones for?
Cameras, MP3 players, etc etc. Really, in the largest growing market area its all about gadgets that come with the phones. Your phone doesnt take pictures? Thats poor. Your phone doesnt have polyphonic ringtones? Bad. Your phone cant receive picture messages? Not good. What does your phone do? Oh, its built like a rubber brick to survive your clumsiness?!
I have at least 3 email addresses registered with Apple (Mac mini Registration, ibook registration and ADC registration) and havent received a single email about this:/ All 3 email addresses are current and valid.
A tip - compose your post in another app, like MS Word or something so it looks like you are working. Cut and paste into the slashdot comment box, switch back to your work for 20 seconds, swithc back and post. Nothing for the cameras to catch. NB - this is not how I do it, we have very liberal bosses at work.
Ive just checked my battery and its within the range, which is worrysome, because if I hadnt spotted this on Slashdot, chances are I would never have found out about it! Anyway, replacement ordered, battery disconnected, threat of death averted, thanks:)
Which 15 points? Chances are, this information wont be available to anyone except those who should have that info, so if someone is trying to build this information up on their own then they have to work out WHICH 15 points are used - granted there is an infinite number of points which make up a fingerprint, which makes it a less than trivial task.
Law enforcement will probabl;y have access to this info, and rightly they should - what expectation of privacy do you have when accessing public equipment that is the subject of a legal investigation?
Isnt that *the* major factor whenever a major corporation switches, or is looking to switch? Isnt that the main factor that is always pushed for switching from closed source to opensource here on slashdot? It isnt just the communists that want to freeload, everyone does.
We are by far the world's foremost leader in weapon system development -- stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, laser guided munitions -- these are all our inventions.
Wrong.
Stealth Aircraft - THe B-2 was based on a German WW2 bomber design by the Horton Brothers. The B-2 design team visited the only remaining example of the WW2 aircraft repeatedly while designing the B-2. The F-117 was based on a research paper by a Soviet scientist called Pyotr Ufimstev, who came up with the concept in the early 1970s, long before the F-117 program even started. That research paper was the very base on which the F-117 program and later programs were based on. The US may have been the first with production examples, but others were there first on the concept, invention and design.
Cruise Missiles - The Nazis had lots of weapons that would later be classed as cruise missiles. The V-1 was the most commonly known of these.
And thats entirely your choice - me? I choose to not box myself in, I choose to allow myself the freedom to HAVE a choice. I dont believe that a world with only Free software would be better than today, I dont believe it would be worse, it would jsut be different. Should I use an inferior opensource[1] application just because it grants me a few freedoms that I may never use? Thats something only I can answer, and only I should have to answer for myself.
I do agree with the diamond stance tho, they are artificially inflated and they are the cause of much suffering around the world (unlike closed source software).
[1] No, Im not calling *all* opensource software inferior, Im just saying that if the OSS solution is inferior to a closed source one, and the closed source one makes my life easier, why should I have to go with the opensource one? Its a personal choice, but I make that choice each time I need to, I dont label it all right from the start.
Why would they have to do any of that? Leave the mshtml core in place for all the OS level stuff, and replace the front facing Internet browser bits with Opera - no need to waste any effort on replacing IE at the OS level, just replace the part that interacts with the unsafe internet.
Personally I put the people who refuse to even consider a closed source application for purely ideological reasons (as indicated in the slashdot blurb) into the same little box as those corporate IT managers who refuse to consider opensource applications 'just because'.
The Radio Times data isnt XML, its tilde delimited fixed fields which means you dont require an XML parser (which is great because Im using the raw data for something else - project to be released shortly if you are intrigued).
Lets note the differences here between the Yahoo! service and offering music for download:
1. The $5 Yahoo! service is for *you* to download and listen to music - the RIAA lawsuits are against uploaders who distribute files to a lot of people.
2. The $5 Yahoo! service is a subscription service and is not perpetual - music gained through copyright infringement invariably is perpetual.
This guy also seems to forget that a simple $5 fine doesnt cover the cost of getting that fine from you - what about the plaintiffs cost of taking you to court for that fine? A $5 fine provides no discouragement from commiting an illegal act at all.
Simple - they havent paid for it to be produced, theyve paid a TV license fee, which is entirely differnet. It just so happens that the BBC receives this money, but that does not automatically mean that the viewers have all rights to the productions.
*shrug* The concern Stallman had was that OOo wouldn't be compatable with (real and hypothetical) Free Java implementations, a legitimate concern given the difficulty of restricting one's self to an "official" API.
I find it amusing that RMS is looking to ensure that a project will be compatable with 'Free' version of a language that was created, developed, fostered and made acceptable by a closed source company. Why isnt he promoting the use of a fully 'Free' language, like Python or similiar (no, Im not a python developer) and then he would have no worries about a controlling company damaging opensource projects in anyway.
That only comes into play when you package two individual projects together - in that case the GPL doesnt even come into play for hte other package, compatable or not because its not creating a derivative work of GPLed code. That does not cover redistribution of GPL code in other projects with a different license - completely seperate issue. I shall reiterate - you cannot distribute GPLed code under a different license, the compatability and code flow is one way only.
Why are the timetables inconveniant? Surely instead of sending off what are essentially one off probes that cost many millions each time, it would be more cost effective to develop a cheap adaptable frame, with a set propulsion method, a set guidance system, and custom packages on board. Send off one every 6months to a year, have them get there within 6months, that way you know there and then if your probe has failed for whatever reason, theres no waiting around 8 years just for the probe to fail as it unfurles an antenna or whatever?
Space exploration should be cheap, disposable, mass produced probes, the space equivilent of sonar bouys or weather balloons. We should be able to say 'Hmm, we need a closer look at titan, this pictures a bit blurry', and dispatch a probe with hardly a second thought of the matter. We should be able to pull a probe out of storage when we need one, rather than wait years for the damn thing to be built. There should be a base standard for scientific packages to interface with the probe itself.
Probes should be customised after they are pulled out of storage, not one offs.
Chemical rockets also have a limited practical top speed, research into nuclear propulsion is definately required if we are to make travel to the outer reaches of the solar system a regular occurance without waiting years for the results (how long did Cassini take to reach Saturn? How much more science can be done if we launch a probe a year and they get their within 6 months?)
Slashdot Mirror
If you make a sweeping comment in a forum, you should be willing and able to back it up with documentary evidence. If you dont or cant, why should we listen to you?
Speak to a GSM network providor, like Vodaphone, Orange, O2 or something (to give UK examples). All of these providors will sell you a local cell unit, its a service they provide to companies with large sites or campuses, to use mobile phones instead of DECT phones across a wide area with automatic roaming off site. Calls within the same cell are free, with a annual rental, and calls off the local cell are charged at the standard airtime rate, and the bonus is that its just a normal mobile cell.
What is 'personal use' of an item that HAS no other use? All films, music etc derive 99% of their income from sales to individuals, either through cinema or DVD /CD sales, so doesnt it seem counterproductive to remove what is essentially this mediums only revenue source? How do they suggest that these items generate income when its equally made available for free as a download by people who have no financial attachments to the creation of the work?
Massively. The last Harry Potter book was scanned and made into a readable ebook within 24 hours of its release, and made available on the internet. Many of my friends just use their PDAs and ebook software to read books with, I dont think any of them has actually touched a physical book in a couple of years.
Nokia did a padded and increased robustness phone, and apparnetly it tanked in sales. Unfortunately, it traded features for robustness and almost everyone I spoke to that got one said they wouldnt recommend it because of the sheer lack of features. It also had an internal ariel, as external ariels and robustness dont really go together in the same sentance, and that affected the signal quality.
Yes! Shame! Shame on you, GP, for your failure to conform to the most profitable demographic. Surely you know by now that there is no demand for anything you might want? How dare you express your feeble opinions with out first undertaking extensive market research to ensure your desires are widely held?
Thanks for an overtly hostile response to my post.
The fact of the matter is that featureless phones jsut dont yield good enough profits while requiring a similiar investment on the part of the phone companies. The demographic that buys a featureless phone isnt likely to go out 12 months later and get another, better phone because there wont be any difference in the phones. The largest part of the phone market is upgrades, or in other words reoccuring customers.
The people who buy gadget laden phones tend to upgrade to a new phone year after year - everyone I know gets a new phone at the end of a 12 month contract, and starts a new 12 month period. Why? To get the latest features, its certainly not because their current phone stops working or suddenly becomes inadequet to make calls on. Wheres the reoccuring profits for a company when noone upgrades a featureless phone?
eriously, what is it with companies today? If you aren't part of the maximally profitable marketing group, then you don't exist. Push off, there are paying customers waiting.
Its called shareholders and risk investment. Why should a company invest $5million in a new featureless phone which would yield $50million in profits, when that same $5million invested in a different gadget laden phone will hit a different market and make the same company $150million? Do the math, its very simple.
Does it ever occur to anyone that the reason there's no profit in non camera/tevevision/secret-squirrel-decoder-ring phones is that no one is making the bloody things? Look at all the folks on /. saying "all I want is a phone that makes phone calls". I can think of half a dozen people in real life who've expressed that opinion to me lately as well. But no, apparently there's no demand.
Yes, this happens all the time in markets and these companies have a name for the markets they fulfil: niche. The fact that noone has fulfilled such a niche market in mobile phones indicates that there just isnt a suitably sized niche market to support such a phone. Would your friends be willing to pay the same for a featureless phone as it would cost to get a current gadget laden phone? Im willing to bet that they wouldnt, but unfortunately that is the cost of a niche product in almost all cases.
Because broadcast TV requires more hardware in the phone, or at least decoding software, while this just requires a videophone, which are already on the market and available. That is why.
Here is what I want in a phone:
You do realise that you are no longer the profitable market for mobile phones? Here in the UK, the primary market for mobile phones is now 15 - 29 year olds, and that just happens to include the age range of people who like gadgets, so to gain more consumer market, your phone has to have an MP3 player, a megapixel camera, video capability, sms, instant messaging, wap, 3G, polyphonic ringtones, colour screen etc.
Honestly, what do these companies think that people buy phones for?
Cameras, MP3 players, etc etc. Really, in the largest growing market area its all about gadgets that come with the phones. Your phone doesnt take pictures? Thats poor. Your phone doesnt have polyphonic ringtones? Bad. Your phone cant receive picture messages? Not good. What does your phone do? Oh, its built like a rubber brick to survive your clumsiness?!
I have at least 3 email addresses registered with Apple (Mac mini Registration, ibook registration and ADC registration) and havent received a single email about this :/ All 3 email addresses are current and valid.
A tip - compose your post in another app, like MS Word or something so it looks like you are working. Cut and paste into the slashdot comment box, switch back to your work for 20 seconds, swithc back and post. Nothing for the cameras to catch. NB - this is not how I do it, we have very liberal bosses at work.
Ive just checked my battery and its within the range, which is worrysome, because if I hadnt spotted this on Slashdot, chances are I would never have found out about it! Anyway, replacement ordered, battery disconnected, threat of death averted, thanks :)
Which 15 points? Chances are, this information wont be available to anyone except those who should have that info, so if someone is trying to build this information up on their own then they have to work out WHICH 15 points are used - granted there is an infinite number of points which make up a fingerprint, which makes it a less than trivial task.
Law enforcement will probabl;y have access to this info, and rightly they should - what expectation of privacy do you have when accessing public equipment that is the subject of a legal investigation?
Isnt that *the* major factor whenever a major corporation switches, or is looking to switch? Isnt that the main factor that is always pushed for switching from closed source to opensource here on slashdot? It isnt just the communists that want to freeload, everyone does.
We are by far the world's foremost leader in weapon system development -- stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, laser guided munitions -- these are all our inventions.
Wrong.
Stealth Aircraft - THe B-2 was based on a German WW2 bomber design by the Horton Brothers. The B-2 design team visited the only remaining example of the WW2 aircraft repeatedly while designing the B-2. The F-117 was based on a research paper by a Soviet scientist called Pyotr Ufimstev, who came up with the concept in the early 1970s, long before the F-117 program even started. That research paper was the very base on which the F-117 program and later programs were based on. The US may have been the first with production examples, but others were there first on the concept, invention and design.
Cruise Missiles - The Nazis had lots of weapons that would later be classed as cruise missiles. The V-1 was the most commonly known of these.
You are however correct on the LGB.
And thats entirely your choice - me? I choose to not box myself in, I choose to allow myself the freedom to HAVE a choice. I dont believe that a world with only Free software would be better than today, I dont believe it would be worse, it would jsut be different. Should I use an inferior opensource[1] application just because it grants me a few freedoms that I may never use? Thats something only I can answer, and only I should have to answer for myself.
I do agree with the diamond stance tho, they are artificially inflated and they are the cause of much suffering around the world (unlike closed source software).
[1] No, Im not calling *all* opensource software inferior, Im just saying that if the OSS solution is inferior to a closed source one, and the closed source one makes my life easier, why should I have to go with the opensource one? Its a personal choice, but I make that choice each time I need to, I dont label it all right from the start.
Why would they have to do any of that? Leave the mshtml core in place for all the OS level stuff, and replace the front facing Internet browser bits with Opera - no need to waste any effort on replacing IE at the OS level, just replace the part that interacts with the unsafe internet.
Personally I put the people who refuse to even consider a closed source application for purely ideological reasons (as indicated in the slashdot blurb) into the same little box as those corporate IT managers who refuse to consider opensource applications 'just because'.
The Radio Times data isnt XML, its tilde delimited fixed fields which means you dont require an XML parser (which is great because Im using the raw data for something else - project to be released shortly if you are intrigued).
Lets note the differences here between the Yahoo! service and offering music for download:
1. The $5 Yahoo! service is for *you* to download and listen to music - the RIAA lawsuits are against uploaders who distribute files to a lot of people. 2. The $5 Yahoo! service is a subscription service and is not perpetual - music gained through copyright infringement invariably is perpetual.
This guy also seems to forget that a simple $5 fine doesnt cover the cost of getting that fine from you - what about the plaintiffs cost of taking you to court for that fine? A $5 fine provides no discouragement from commiting an illegal act at all.
Simple - they havent paid for it to be produced, theyve paid a TV license fee, which is entirely differnet. It just so happens that the BBC receives this money, but that does not automatically mean that the viewers have all rights to the productions.
The console also boasts a new graphics chip from Nvidia, which Sony claims can create movie-quality images in real time in games.
Sure there was something said about the Playstation 2, Toy Story and realtime graphics quality that never turned out to be true......
*shrug* The concern Stallman had was that OOo wouldn't be compatable with (real and hypothetical) Free Java implementations, a legitimate concern given the difficulty of restricting one's self to an "official" API.
I find it amusing that RMS is looking to ensure that a project will be compatable with 'Free' version of a language that was created, developed, fostered and made acceptable by a closed source company. Why isnt he promoting the use of a fully 'Free' language, like Python or similiar (no, Im not a python developer) and then he would have no worries about a controlling company damaging opensource projects in anyway.
That only comes into play when you package two individual projects together - in that case the GPL doesnt even come into play for hte other package, compatable or not because its not creating a derivative work of GPLed code. That does not cover redistribution of GPL code in other projects with a different license - completely seperate issue. I shall reiterate - you cannot distribute GPLed code under a different license, the compatability and code flow is one way only.
Why are the timetables inconveniant? Surely instead of sending off what are essentially one off probes that cost many millions each time, it would be more cost effective to develop a cheap adaptable frame, with a set propulsion method, a set guidance system, and custom packages on board. Send off one every 6months to a year, have them get there within 6months, that way you know there and then if your probe has failed for whatever reason, theres no waiting around 8 years just for the probe to fail as it unfurles an antenna or whatever?
Space exploration should be cheap, disposable, mass produced probes, the space equivilent of sonar bouys or weather balloons. We should be able to say 'Hmm, we need a closer look at titan, this pictures a bit blurry', and dispatch a probe with hardly a second thought of the matter. We should be able to pull a probe out of storage when we need one, rather than wait years for the damn thing to be built. There should be a base standard for scientific packages to interface with the probe itself.
Probes should be customised after they are pulled out of storage, not one offs.
Chemical rockets also have a limited practical top speed, research into nuclear propulsion is definately required if we are to make travel to the outer reaches of the solar system a regular occurance without waiting years for the results (how long did Cassini take to reach Saturn? How much more science can be done if we launch a probe a year and they get their within 6 months?)