Microsoft prioritises compatibility. As a result, they have an OS that actually runs the applications people want to use...
Everything in this is true, except for the connector you use.
Windows running all the applications has little to do with Microsoft prioritizing compatibility, and everything to do with Microsoft's jealously (and illegally) defended monopoly position in the OS market.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Sony stated that the PS3 will not have backwards compatability.
You're wrong.
The PlayStation 3 will be compatible "on the chip" with PlayStation 2 and PlayStation games, without emulation. It still is not known how Sony has achieved this (although Sony had developed a single-chip PS2 CPU/GPU solution, used in newer revisions of the "slim" PS2). Compatibility with PS2 online games and games designed for the hard drive have not been elaborated upon. In a recent interview Ken Kutaragi stated that backward compatibility will be achieved through a combination of hardware and software.
My complaint is that if you walk into a shop right now and drop $400 on an ipod, in a couple of months it'll have been superceded.
If you walk into a shop and buy a PS2, PSP, XBOX or any other 'pricey toy', you will get years from it.
Y'know, that's funny, 'cause my 3G iPod, which is 2 1/2 years old now, and (by your logic of counting all iPod lines as the same) probably a dozen generations out of date...and yet, it still works, it still plays all my songs—tell me just how it's been "superseded"?
If you have to have the latest and greatest, then yeah, you're going to have a frustrating time keeping up (especially if you automatically assume that the most recently released iPod is the Best Ever, even if it's the Nano, which is a completely different product line than the full-sized iPod...). On the other hand, if you can hold your manly ego in check for a while, you might realize that if the iPod Nano was good enough for you then, it just might still be good enough for you now...it's not like Apple has magically taken away its features, or activated some kind of failsafe that corrodes away the insides and ages it all 20 years overnight...
Just chill. Unless you're very unlucky, your Nano will not need to be "superseded" for another few years, and for the same money you would be spending on the iPod Video, you can buy the 10G iPod Holo, that plays holographic movies and is controllable by brainwaves;-)
Well, I dunno what you're doing to your iPod, but I have a whole bunch of 320Kbps songs...and I can never tell which they are by listening. I have never had any problems with songs skipping on my 3G iPod (well, except when I dropped it on the floor several times, and *everything* skipped for a week or 3, but that's a different story...)
Just because I tend to vote Republican doesn't mean that I've got anything in common with Jessie Helms, or George Bush.
Then get those like you in the party to denounce them, and distance themselves from them.
If the mainstream Republican party—people like you—were to publicly divorce themselves from Bush and those like him, maybe demand that they change their stance or make their own party, I think that this country could get back to some semblance of reasonable debate and reasonable government.
I still wouldn't agree with the Republican party....but at least I could respect it somewhat.
Of course, according to that galaxy, 13 billion years have passed for them, and only a fraction of that for use. If you can't wrap your head around this, you can either read books to educate yourself, or just pray and continue to wallow in your own ignorence.
Well, to be fair, time dilation (note spelling) is one of the more difficult concepts to wrap one's head around in modern physics...
My father is a physicist, and I considered becoming one (became a computer geek instead), and I still have trouble with it.
I mean, the guy's not too bright, but claiming that anyone who can't wrap their head around time dilation should just give up and never try to think again would eliminate about 99.8% of the population of the world. It would be like writing off everyone who can't write a Slashdot post with perfect spelling and grammar...
Actually, I think you might be (unpleasantly) surprised how many people believe, if pressed to give an actual answer, that life begins at conception—because a lot of them are Catholic, and have been told by the Church that that is when life begins.
However, I haven't conducted even an unscientific poll on the subject;-)
We have a perfect analogy already available to answer this question. Look at death of the elderly. A person is medically dead when brain function ceases, and thus, it is reasonable to conclude that a person becomes a medically alive person when brain function begins.
And this is where you lose the whole core of the abortion issue: the people who believe that "the start of life," meaning, "the gaining of a soul," happens at the moment of conception, and who will never believe anything different, because that's what their priest tells them to believe. (Or what their priest told their mother, who tells them, but you get the point.)
I happen to agree with you: I cannot see any reasonable argument that an embryo/fetus can be considered to be separately alive before it at least has differentiated brain cells, which doesn't happen for a while. Beyond that, I'm not medically qualified to judge.
But you and I are able to put aside emotion, and religion, for reason. Some people are not, and never will be.
Drug laws haven't made it too hard to get drugs, it just drives up the price. Prohibition didn't make it harder to get alcohol, it just drove up the price.
And in what way does driving up the price not make it harder, hmm?
More people can afford a black-market gun at $20 than at $200, and more can afford one at $200 than at $800. If you drive up the black-market price, it will make it harder for criminals to get guns.
There is no difference to me between a thief, a rapist, a murderer or an arsonist.
It is this kind of thinking that led to the death penalty for thieves back in medieval times (or maybe Dark Ages, not sure of the exact time frame). That led to greatly increased murder rates--after all, if you were going to be killed anyway if you got caught, you might as well kill the people trying to catch you. They can't kill you deader than they were already going to...
I had never heard that Disney attempted to claim copyright over the Brothers Grimm's works; care to cite a real source for that, or would you prefer to just keep pointing me to IMDB?
Walt died in 1966. That was well before all the nasty stuff you know of as being Disney...and he wasn't much interested in the business side in the first place. His brother Roy was in charge of that; Walt was the ideas man--much like Steve Jobs.
One thing I find interesting about your scenario is that it does not in any way require that the "agents" actually be government agents--it's just as easy for it to be some random (terrorist?) group with nefarious intentions and some black suits.
Erm...besides what the other guys mentioned, another good reason to use "USians" instead of "Americans" is that it is more precise. Many people live in the Americas who don't live in the US.
I'm not one of them, but I do appreciate the distinction.
OK, I forgot that my 1% was just those people running Linux who don't also run Windows or Mac OS X. I should, indeed, have said 97% or so.
And I have no problem with an ideological opposition to DRM and the DMCA, so long as you don't try to blame Apple for them...
And by the way, why on earth do you use such a small column width? I should think you could at least have 80-character columns...unless you're working on some incredibly ancient terminal or something...
Sure, let's. I'll get out my bright green pen and join you.
h.264 format? I guess that's okay.
Oh, you're too kind.
'FairPlay' DRM? Not good. I can't play it outside iTunes.
Well, actually, you can play it in QuickTime. A much better video player.
Open and accessible store? Nope. You need iTunes which is only available for Macintosh and Windows.
And...Apple should cater to the 1% of computer users who run only Linux with this why, exactly?
Compatibility with many devices? Nope. Only one: the iPod 5G.
Um, actually, it's compatible with those 99% of computers running Windows and Mac OS X.
Well at least I can create a DVD, like iTunes lets me burn a CD with my purchased songs, right? Nope. No burning. Only playback.
I'll admit that this is kind of annoying, but I have little doubt that it will change, given time. Don't forget, this is still a very new service.
Well at least the new episodes of Law & Order, which are filmed in HDTV, will be shown in brilliant 1280x720 resolution, right? Nope. 320x240.
Ah...well, you may have a nice fat OC3 to download shows on, but many (if not most) of us are still stuck on nominally 784kbps pipes, that actually turn out to be more like 80kbps most of the time if we're lucky. Oh, and most of us don't have HDTVs to watch them on, either.
Good for you, Apple. Welcome to the 19th century. I'll be over here with my trusty BitTorrent client.
And I'll be here with my copy of iTunes, watchin' the next Law & Order legally in what I, and many, many others consider to be a perfectly acceptable resolution and format, on my laptop, or maybe plug my TV into it and watch it there (it'll probably be higher quality than what comes over the cable anyway).
I think your real problem is that you are both rich and extremely myopic. You seem to think that Apple's (essentially) brand-new service should provide the absolute top-of-the-line product to be worth purchasing at all, when in reality, most people either couldn't use that product ('cause it would take them 3 days to download the file) or it wouldn't be any different, for them, than what they're getting ('cause they don't have a 60" 1080p HDTV with 9.2 ultra-surround--they have a 28" analog TV with ordinary stereo speakers).
So take a peek outside your soundproof, well-upholstered, $30,000 technological paradise and glance at the real world once in a while, and you'll see why Apple is doing this. Then stop being such a whiner.
So am I, and I was giving what the government is really supposed to do, not what the corporations (and, by extension, the current administration) believe government is supposed to do.
"Creating a competitor to the phone company" is a trifle disingenuous. A better way to put it might be, oh, "Providing a service which many, if not most, Americans now consider essential."
That sounds to me like the definition of what government is supposed to do: provide essential services with a focus on maximising service, not profit.
Oh, sure, I agree; a la carte cable is going to be good for all kinds of reasons. I'm just annoyed that it's this particular one that made the FCC realize it's a good idea.
Well, what I was intending to convey by the use of quotes around "indecency" was that my problem is not with fighting indecency in general, but with the attempt by the government to define what is indecent for everyone based on a set of religious values that not everyone--indeed, I would say not even a significant majority--in America shares.
And they don't let us and the networks decide what to watch and air--they have Decreed that showing a female breast, or any human genitalia, is Forbidden outside of certain very specific situations (I don't know the specifics of the regulations, but their effects are pretty clear). Meanwhile, showing people getting mauled to death, sliced, shot, or otherwise maimed and killed is only restricted if it's extremely graphic.
I have no problem with religious people, until they try to force me to share their religion. I have my own beliefs, thank you very much, and they don't include "Naked people EVIL, killing people FINE".
You don't like the fact that they are offing consumers to self censor on a per customer basis? Would you prefer that they just ban anything they find indecent?
No; like I said, I think it's the right decision, I'm just annoyed that it took framing it as an indecency issue to get them to make that decision.
And I think you're right about the rest; unless Congress mandates a la carte pricing, it's probably not going to happen.
A la carte pricing could be really great (I haven't studied the economics of it, but it sounds good). But it irks me no end that this conclusion is drawn in the context of fighting "indecency" on the air.
Now, I certainly don't want television to become nothing but porn and violence--but the way indecency restrictions work these days is quite ridiculous. Moreover, its only purpose is to push strongly religious-based values as if they were the "one, true way", when our Constitution explicitly forbids the government from so much as suggesting that there might be a "one, true way".
Why not let us make our own decisions about what to watch--and let the networks make their own decisions about what to air?
Well, if you'd read the 2 sequels, you'd see that there's a LOT more to it...Nix has created a very deep world, with a lot of backstory and a fascinating system of magic and Death. You'd probably see pretty much the same thing if you read Sabriel itself with an open mind, 'cause the end scene with the Ancelstierre army trying to hold back the Dead with the guns is in no way the goal of the book. There is, of course, a possibility that it was somewhat the inspiration for it, but I've had weirder inspirations for stories.
It's also possible that it's simply not your type of book.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft prioritises compatibility. As a result, they have an OS that actually runs the applications people want to use...
Everything in this is true, except for the connector you use.
Windows running all the applications has little to do with Microsoft prioritizing compatibility, and everything to do with Microsoft's jealously (and illegally) defended monopoly position in the OS market.
Dan Aris
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Sony stated that the PS3 will not have backwards compatability.
You're wrong.
From Wikipedia
Granted, it could be wrong, but it matches with the most recent stuff I've heard various other places.
Dan Aris
My complaint is that if you walk into a shop right now and drop $400 on an ipod, in a couple of months it'll have been superceded.
If you walk into a shop and buy a PS2, PSP, XBOX or any other 'pricey toy', you will get years from it.
Y'know, that's funny, 'cause my 3G iPod, which is 2 1/2 years old now, and (by your logic of counting all iPod lines as the same) probably a dozen generations out of date...and yet, it still works, it still plays all my songs—tell me just how it's been "superseded"?
If you have to have the latest and greatest, then yeah, you're going to have a frustrating time keeping up (especially if you automatically assume that the most recently released iPod is the Best Ever, even if it's the Nano, which is a completely different product line than the full-sized iPod...). On the other hand, if you can hold your manly ego in check for a while, you might realize that if the iPod Nano was good enough for you then, it just might still be good enough for you now...it's not like Apple has magically taken away its features, or activated some kind of failsafe that corrodes away the insides and ages it all 20 years overnight...
Just chill. Unless you're very unlucky, your Nano will not need to be "superseded" for another few years, and for the same money you would be spending on the iPod Video, you can buy the 10G iPod Holo, that plays holographic movies and is controllable by brainwaves ;-)
Dan Aris
Well, I dunno what you're doing to your iPod, but I have a whole bunch of 320Kbps songs...and I can never tell which they are by listening. I have never had any problems with songs skipping on my 3G iPod (well, except when I dropped it on the floor several times, and *everything* skipped for a week or 3, but that's a different story...)
So...yeah; I call shenanigans.
Dan Aris
Just because I tend to vote Republican doesn't mean that I've got anything in common with Jessie Helms, or George Bush.
Then get those like you in the party to denounce them, and distance themselves from them.
If the mainstream Republican party—people like you—were to publicly divorce themselves from Bush and those like him, maybe demand that they change their stance or make their own party, I think that this country could get back to some semblance of reasonable debate and reasonable government.
I still wouldn't agree with the Republican party....but at least I could respect it somewhat.
Dan Aris
Of course, according to that galaxy, 13 billion years have passed for them, and only a fraction of that for use. If you can't wrap your head around this, you can either read books to educate yourself, or just pray and continue to wallow in your own ignorence.
Well, to be fair, time dilation (note spelling) is one of the more difficult concepts to wrap one's head around in modern physics...
My father is a physicist, and I considered becoming one (became a computer geek instead), and I still have trouble with it.
I mean, the guy's not too bright, but claiming that anyone who can't wrap their head around time dilation should just give up and never try to think again would eliminate about 99.8% of the population of the world. It would be like writing off everyone who can't write a Slashdot post with perfect spelling and grammar...
Dan Aris
OK, then; falsify it for us, so we can all forget about it and move on.
Dan Aris
Actually, I think you might be (unpleasantly) surprised how many people believe, if pressed to give an actual answer, that life begins at conception—because a lot of them are Catholic, and have been told by the Church that that is when life begins.
However, I haven't conducted even an unscientific poll on the subject ;-)
Dan Aris
We have a perfect analogy already available to answer this question. Look at death of the elderly. A person is medically dead when brain function ceases, and thus, it is reasonable to conclude that a person becomes a medically alive person when brain function begins.
And this is where you lose the whole core of the abortion issue: the people who believe that "the start of life," meaning, "the gaining of a soul," happens at the moment of conception, and who will never believe anything different, because that's what their priest tells them to believe. (Or what their priest told their mother, who tells them, but you get the point.)
I happen to agree with you: I cannot see any reasonable argument that an embryo/fetus can be considered to be separately alive before it at least has differentiated brain cells, which doesn't happen for a while. Beyond that, I'm not medically qualified to judge.
But you and I are able to put aside emotion, and religion, for reason. Some people are not, and never will be.
Dan Aris
Drug laws haven't made it too hard to get drugs, it just drives up the price. Prohibition didn't make it harder to get alcohol, it just drove up the price.
And in what way does driving up the price not make it harder, hmm?
More people can afford a black-market gun at $20 than at $200, and more can afford one at $200 than at $800. If you drive up the black-market price, it will make it harder for criminals to get guns.
Dan Aris
There is no difference to me between a thief, a rapist, a murderer or an arsonist.
It is this kind of thinking that led to the death penalty for thieves back in medieval times (or maybe Dark Ages, not sure of the exact time frame). That led to greatly increased murder rates--after all, if you were going to be killed anyway if you got caught, you might as well kill the people trying to catch you. They can't kill you deader than they were already going to...
Dan Aris
I had never heard that Disney attempted to claim copyright over the Brothers Grimm's works; care to cite a real source for that, or would you prefer to just keep pointing me to IMDB?
Dan Aris
Care to substantiate that with, well, anything?
Walt died in 1966. That was well before all the nasty stuff you know of as being Disney...and he wasn't much interested in the business side in the first place. His brother Roy was in charge of that; Walt was the ideas man--much like Steve Jobs.
Dan Aris
One thing I find interesting about your scenario is that it does not in any way require that the "agents" actually be government agents--it's just as easy for it to be some random (terrorist?) group with nefarious intentions and some black suits.
Dan Aris
Erm...besides what the other guys mentioned, another good reason to use "USians" instead of "Americans" is that it is more precise. Many people live in the Americas who don't live in the US.
I'm not one of them, but I do appreciate the distinction.
Dan Aris
OK, I forgot that my 1% was just those people running Linux who don't also run Windows or Mac OS X. I should, indeed, have said 97% or so.
And I have no problem with an ideological opposition to DRM and the DMCA, so long as you don't try to blame Apple for them...
And by the way, why on earth do you use such a small column width? I should think you could at least have 80-character columns...unless you're working on some incredibly ancient terminal or something...
Dan Aris
Let's get out my handy-dandy little red pen here.
Sure, let's. I'll get out my bright green pen and join you.
h.264 format? I guess that's okay.
Oh, you're too kind.
'FairPlay' DRM? Not good. I can't play it outside iTunes.
Well, actually, you can play it in QuickTime. A much better video player.
Open and accessible store? Nope. You need iTunes which is only available for Macintosh and Windows.
And...Apple should cater to the 1% of computer users who run only Linux with this why, exactly?
Compatibility with many devices? Nope. Only one: the iPod 5G.
Um, actually, it's compatible with those 99% of computers running Windows and Mac OS X.
Well at least I can create a DVD, like iTunes lets me burn a CD with my purchased songs, right? Nope. No burning. Only playback.
I'll admit that this is kind of annoying, but I have little doubt that it will change, given time. Don't forget, this is still a very new service.
Well at least the new episodes of Law & Order, which are filmed in HDTV, will be shown in brilliant 1280x720 resolution, right? Nope. 320x240.
Ah...well, you may have a nice fat OC3 to download shows on, but many (if not most) of us are still stuck on nominally 784kbps pipes, that actually turn out to be more like 80kbps most of the time if we're lucky. Oh, and most of us don't have HDTVs to watch them on, either.
Good for you, Apple. Welcome to the 19th century. I'll be over here with my trusty BitTorrent client.
And I'll be here with my copy of iTunes, watchin' the next Law & Order legally in what I, and many, many others consider to be a perfectly acceptable resolution and format, on my laptop, or maybe plug my TV into it and watch it there (it'll probably be higher quality than what comes over the cable anyway).
I think your real problem is that you are both rich and extremely myopic. You seem to think that Apple's (essentially) brand-new service should provide the absolute top-of-the-line product to be worth purchasing at all, when in reality, most people either couldn't use that product ('cause it would take them 3 days to download the file) or it wouldn't be any different, for them, than what they're getting ('cause they don't have a 60" 1080p HDTV with 9.2 ultra-surround--they have a 28" analog TV with ordinary stereo speakers).
So take a peek outside your soundproof, well-upholstered, $30,000 technological paradise and glance at the real world once in a while, and you'll see why Apple is doing this. Then stop being such a whiner.
Dan Aris
So am I, and I was giving what the government is really supposed to do, not what the corporations (and, by extension, the current administration) believe government is supposed to do.
On the latter, though, you're absolutely right.
Dan Aris
"Creating a competitor to the phone company" is a trifle disingenuous. A better way to put it might be, oh, "Providing a service which many, if not most, Americans now consider essential."
That sounds to me like the definition of what government is supposed to do: provide essential services with a focus on maximising service, not profit.
Dan Aris
Oh, sure, I agree; a la carte cable is going to be good for all kinds of reasons. I'm just annoyed that it's this particular one that made the FCC realize it's a good idea.
We're on the same side here ;-)
Dan Aris
Well, what I was intending to convey by the use of quotes around "indecency" was that my problem is not with fighting indecency in general, but with the attempt by the government to define what is indecent for everyone based on a set of religious values that not everyone--indeed, I would say not even a significant majority--in America shares.
And they don't let us and the networks decide what to watch and air--they have Decreed that showing a female breast, or any human genitalia, is Forbidden outside of certain very specific situations (I don't know the specifics of the regulations, but their effects are pretty clear). Meanwhile, showing people getting mauled to death, sliced, shot, or otherwise maimed and killed is only restricted if it's extremely graphic.
Dan Aris
I have no problem with religious people, until they try to force me to share their religion. I have my own beliefs, thank you very much, and they don't include "Naked people EVIL, killing people FINE".
Dan Aris
You don't like the fact that they are offing consumers to self censor on a per customer basis? Would you prefer that they just ban anything they find indecent?
No; like I said, I think it's the right decision, I'm just annoyed that it took framing it as an indecency issue to get them to make that decision.
And I think you're right about the rest; unless Congress mandates a la carte pricing, it's probably not going to happen.
Dan Aris
A la carte pricing could be really great (I haven't studied the economics of it, but it sounds good). But it irks me no end that this conclusion is drawn in the context of fighting "indecency" on the air.
Now, I certainly don't want television to become nothing but porn and violence--but the way indecency restrictions work these days is quite ridiculous. Moreover, its only purpose is to push strongly religious-based values as if they were the "one, true way", when our Constitution explicitly forbids the government from so much as suggesting that there might be a "one, true way".
Why not let us make our own decisions about what to watch--and let the networks make their own decisions about what to air?
Dan Aris
Well, if you'd read the 2 sequels, you'd see that there's a LOT more to it...Nix has created a very deep world, with a lot of backstory and a fascinating system of magic and Death. You'd probably see pretty much the same thing if you read Sabriel itself with an open mind, 'cause the end scene with the Ancelstierre army trying to hold back the Dead with the guns is in no way the goal of the book. There is, of course, a possibility that it was somewhat the inspiration for it, but I've had weirder inspirations for stories.
It's also possible that it's simply not your type of book.
Dan Aris