Why put in a "make my interface less usable" checkbox?
Because, hard as it may be to believe, not all of us have the same opinions as you!! (shock, horror) For some of us, far from making the dock less useful, having the dock move makes it more usable. You seem to have missed the point of "options"--they are there so that people with different tastes can make their computers work the way they please. Currently, there is, in fact, a way to get your dock to do that (I think): set the dock's magnification to "off", and use TinkerTool to pin it to a corner. Yes, the latter is not accessible through Apple's GUI, and I don't know why, but you can do it.
What you are advocating is pushing your particular view on the rest of the Mac-using world. Why should we want to do things your way? Make it customizable! Give me checkboxes! That way, we can all be happy.
Except for you, apparently, since you don't want anyone else to have any choice.
Moving a file from one location to the next should never create an alias.
This statement clearly illustrates the problem: you see the Dock as a location, where files can exist separately, when it is not. It can only hold links/aliases/shortcuts to documents, folders, and applications.
Let me say it one more time, to make it perfectly clear. The Dock is not a place you can store documents. Therefore, moving them from the Dock should not move the document. Creating an alias is, in fact, the most sensible thing to do, since that is what, in essence, it already is. The document is not "in the Dock." There is a reference to it in the Dock.
I have a couple of minor (largely conceptual, since I find it perfectly easy and useful to work with) problems with the Dock. However, that is not in the least one of them. It is a problem with your perception of what the Dock is/should be, not a problem with the Dock itself.
In case you don't actually pay attention to FF news as devotedly as fanboys like me, whatever rift existed between Nintendo and Square has been healed, and new FF games (after XII, most likely, since it's already in development--but what do I know?) will probably come to Nintendo's consoles as well. Crystal Chronicle (not a numbered FF, but an FF, nonetheless) is already out for GC/GBA.
Of course, I'm sticking with my PS2, and 3 when it comes out, or more likely a year or 2 after:-)
The reason people want to stop guns from being automatic or easy to make automatic is one you, yourself brought up, and it is, indeed, a practical one:
We want to stop more people from being killed.
Yeah, it would be great to stop people from going on rampages, but people are going to snap. It's unpleasant, but true. All we can do is try to save as many lives as possible.
The point isn't the philosophy of it all, it's the people. It may not make a difference in the "big picture" to save one kindergartener's life, but I guarantee you it makes a difference to him (or her) and to her (or his) family and friends.
The point is that guns are designed to kill people, and the more people they are designed to kill at a time, the less they should be allowed to fall--legally or otherwise--into the hands of ordinary civilians. Your argument that they are not is nothing but sophistry. They are, and always have been, designed for the purpose of killing and injuring, whether people or animals.
A good way of summing this whole issue up seems to be stated very well by Lois McMaster Bujold: Persons before principles. It's all very well to have high principles, but if they end up with more people getting killed...
I apologize if I seemed condescending in my previous post. I misunderstood what you were saying, and you hit one of my pet peeves. I generally try to rise above the garden-variety zealots, Apple and otherwise. However, I do have a pedantic streak, and that's where your comment fell:
The problem is the very real and legal distinction between price fixing--an illegal activity which a single company cannot practice, since it involves collusion between several companies--and price gouging--a legal, if disliked, activity, which anyone can practice, so long as they can get away with it. My opinion is that Apple is not gouging. I believe that Apple's products are worth the additional cost, for a couple of reasons: 1) they are of high quality, and 2) Apple's whole business is built up on large margins, not price wars.
I admit, though, that I'm a bit puzzled as to why, exactly, they won't let the retailers charge less, if Apple's not seeing that money, anyway. They may have a good reason, and I still think the iPod's worth the money. Mine certainly was.
It appears, Dingleberry, that you have a disturbingly common misconception: that because only Apple makes Apple products, that makes them a monopoly. I will first give a relatively standard answer: does Sony have a monopoly because only they sell PlayStations? No. If Sony were the only company that sold gaming consoles, or held a supermajority of the market, and they actively fought to keep it that way, then they would be in a monopoly position. If Apple were the only company that sold MP3 players, or held a supermajority of the market, and actively fought to keep it that way, then they would have a monopoly and your position would be reasonable.
The other difference is that between monopoly pricing and price fixing. The former can only be done by a monopoly that holds a supermajority of the market in a particular commodity (a single company). The latter can only be done by what is commonly known as a cartel, a group of companies in the same industry that get together to decide what the price of the good or service they all sell should be. If they collectively hold enough of the market, they can keep prices as high as they want, because the competition cannot make enough of a dent in their market share to really compete.
You can be sure that even if the market share of the iPod dropped from its current level of (I believe) about 80% down to 40%, Apple would not lower the price by a significant amount. This is because Apple doesn't keep the price high to gouge us or because they're a monopoly, they do it because that's the kind of company they are: they make expensive, high-quality, high-profit-margin items that people buy because they're the best, not because they're the most affordable. In other words, they're not a monopoly, and nor are they trying to compete on the same footing as companies like Dell and HP, which always compete on price. They compete on quality, instead.
You're right about the thorn (looks like/. doesn't support weird HTML character entities, or I'd show you; it's þ) being "th", and many people mistaking it for a "y" in "the". However, "ye" is also a plural/formal form of the word "you." Anyone who's taken French, or German, will understand when I say it's like "vous", or "ihr". It's a little more complicated than that, though, since it's only nominative: that is, you can say "Can ye come to me?" but not "I'm coming to ye." (For that, you want "you"--yes, it really was a word back then!)
'ye shalt' is then wrong. 'thou shalt'
Because of what I just said, "ye shalt" is not wrong for the reason you state. However, it is still wrong, for the following reason: forms like "shalt," "art," "dost" and such are only for the second-person singular familiar: that is, "thou." (And, of course, in the analog position to "you" we have "thee") But also, like I said, it's the familiar form, not, as many today incorrectly believe, the formal. So in a letter to someone you don't know, you should use "ye" and "you," not "thou" and "thee." (But I'll ignore that distinction for the remainder of the corrections)
'readeth' is not a proper conjugation, simply use 'read'.
'ye hearts' should be 'thy heart dost'
'I am using ye' => 'I be using the'
You're correct about "readeth;" that is the third-person singular form (eg, "he readeth," "she readeth," "it readeth"). You're also right about "thy heart dost [bleed]." As someone else pointed out, however, "I be using the" is weird pirate-talk*. It should be "I am using an," just as it would be today.
'hast thou hearest' => 'hast thou not heard'
The "not" is unnecessary; it can just be "hast thou heard." (the "not" just makes it more poetic, or something)
'Remindest' is an improper combining of dost. Drop the do, and add an apostrophe: Remind'st
'ones'? just 'one' will do.
As I said before, the forms ending in "-st" or "-est" are second-person singular familiar. I'm really not sure what the original poster's intent in this part was; I suspect it should be something more like "I remind thee," but the desire to obfuscate overcame them, and this dreck came out. It could also be "Remind yourselves," or, "It remindeth me" (though I'm not entirely sure about "remindeth").
Most humbly, I remain _thy_ servant...
Given that they're using the informal forms throughout, yes. However, formally and correctly it would indeed be "your servant."
Misuse of archaic language is one of my pet peeves.
Dan Aris
* As a matter of fact, what we tend to think of as "pirate-talk" is in actuality the dialect spoken in the furthest southwest of England, in Cornwall. A lot of smugglers operated there, because of the nature of the coastline. And please forgive me if I've gotten details wrong; I'm always happy to be corrected by someone who knows what they're talking about.
You know, the more I argue with you, the more I think we actually agree, so long as we can each figure out what the other is talking about.
such as my wife, for whom an iPod (or any other mechanical music device) is basically useless since she would only use it when she's working out.
Have you/she actually had problems with one? I have an iPod, and haven't had problems with skipping or anything, except for the time I actually dropped it onto the pavement, after which it acted weird for a couple of days, but fixed itself once I plugged it into my computer, and has been fine since.
This statement only proves that you COMPLETELY missed my point
Yep, you're quite right, I really did miss your point. Apologies. I thought you were going for exaggeration, trying to present a scenario in which iTMS files would become unusable. I quite understand the problem of transferring files to/from antique hardware, though perhaps not quite so arcane as an 8088 (we have a Mac Plus and a Mac IIvx, neither of which network well...it's a pain).
the second requires that iTunes phone home every arbitrary-amount-of-time or it shuts off access to the files.
Except that that would prevent dialup users, who only want to connect, say, once a week or so from using their music, and I don't think (just to really show my prejudice) that even M$ would be that stupid. It would seriously alienate plenty of people.
...there is no guarantee that this will continue to be iTMS's policy...
Again, you're quite right. I just looked at the iTMS Terms of Service, and sections (clauses? paragraphs? Obviously, not a lawyer here!) 13b, 14b, and 20 seem to say basically that. However, a) that's standard CYA stuff, and b) I doubt that Apple would arbitrarily decide to do something like that.
Here is my first point of slight puzzlement. Are you in fact implying that you think Apple might change/remove the service out from under us? Or are you just providing a hypothetical example, that is obviously well known to many, for the sake of the point? Because if it is the former, I would say that while anything's possible, you don't know Apple very well if you seriously think they'd do something that mean-spirited, not to mention really stupid, businesswise, without a pretty darn good reason. If it's the latter, yes, I concede the point.
[me] So you think you could have negotiated a better deal with the RIAA?
[you] No, and that's the problem.
And here is my other point of puzzlement. Do you mean that you realize that the deal we got was the best we were likely to under the circumstances, but that it would be better without the RIAA? Or...um...something else? Because if the former (or something like that), I completely agree. If the
Now for a closing ramble and attempt to summarize:
I realize that our fair use rights are under attack, even with such trivial DRM. I realize that I sound somewhat self-contradictory. But...let me try to put it a little more coherently. I think you'll allow that the RIAA would never allow such a music service with no DRM at all. Agreed? I see FairPlay as, essentially, a token DRM that prevents people from just downloading from the iTMS and putting the song directly on Kazaa, but doesn't stop ordinary people from doing most of what they want with their music. We geeks are different; we have more different stuff we like to do with our music, and we understand what's going on better. But aside from transferring music to a non-iPod, non-CD-based portable player, I can't see what your average user would want to do with an iTMS track that they can't. And given that the iPod is the most popular player anyway, that takes some of the sting out of even that. (And yes, I know that DRM is far more encumbering to ordinary people than to serious pirates; I think this is aimed at "casual" sharers)
I like to think that I have a more open mind than your average
Why don't people understand that "taking back tax cuts" is the same thing as "I'm going to tax you more"?
Why don't people understand that "cutting taxes" means "the government has less money to do what it needs?"
Far too many people seem to believe, as the Republicans would have us do, that taxes exist in a void, and all they do is take money away from people. But taxes are NECESSARY to run a government!
The question of what kind of programs you think should be funded is a separate one: I like the idea of lots of socialist-type programs to help people; you might not, you might prefer agricultural subsidies or defense spending. But that's somewhat separate from the issue of taxes, and politicians don't talk about cutting social programs, they talk about cutting taxes. But every dollar that is lost to tax cuts has to be made up somehow, whether by increasing income from some other source or by decreasing spending.
Now, before you accuse me of such, let me say that I am not categorically against tax cuts. I think that tax cuts for the lower income brackets are a great idea: a moderate percentage tax cut will cost the government relatively little. But at the same time, it would make sense to raise taxes on the richest income brackets, where a very small percentage increase would give significant extra money.
But no, cry the Republicans, the rich can't afford higher taxes! We have to lower their taxes as much as we can! Because, of course, they won't just reinvest that money the same as they're doing with the rest; they'll spend it, and stimulate the economy! Poor people wouldn't spend more money if you gave it to them, they wouldn't stimulate the economy!
If it sounds like I'm a little bitter about this, yeah, I am. A president I certainly didn't vote for has put the country more deeply into debt than it has ever been before with a financial policy I find deeply flawed. If this were happening to you, wouldn't you feel bitter?
So, how do you get it to a non-DRM format without breaking the DRM? Is this something iTMS allows with their DRMed files?
*sigh* I guess you really didn't know, but yes, iTMS does allow this. You get it into a non-DRMed format by simply...burning it to a CD. Really, truly. That's all it takes, and it's absolutely allowed. Now, I don't have a copy of the TOS in front of me, so I don't know what their official policy towards reripping is, but if you do it, they're not going to come to your house and take away your computer (unless you share the songs you've reripped, but that's another issue).
...how would you get the files from the 8088 to a modern machine?
My point about it being an exaggeration was, how would you get the files to the 8088 from a modern machine? And the fact that you couldn't be playing those files on iTunes on a machine that old in the first place, so if you have them there, you can't listen to them now, let alone if Apple suddenly decided to turn evil.
Clearly that is not true, and they've already demonstrated that.
How so?
There's no reason they couldn't cut them off similarly for any reason...
...there are any number of ways they could do that, most of which are trivial.
How???? I still don't see how they can stop you from listening to your music if you have half an ounce of sense.
Let me say it once more, because apparently I haven't got through yet: You have the legal right to burn your iTMS songs to CD, and once you do that, there's nothing anyone can do to stop you listening to them.
...there's no reason my iTMS files should be any different.
So you think you could have negotiated a better deal with the RIAA? I am so sick of people complaining that there's DRM on iTMS songs, oh, we should be able to do whatever we please with them, and they should be free, besides! Well, let me tell you, the only way Apple, or anyone else, could ever get permission from the RIAA to do something like this is with DRM on the songs. And I bet you that no one could have negotiated a better deal for us than what Apple got. The point isn't what you "should" be able to do with them. Of course we should be able to exercise full fair use rights with no hassle. I've never contested that point, and neither has anyone with sense. The point is that allowing that would also allow sharing on Kazaa and friends with no hassle, and the RIAA don't want that--and, more importantly, it's illegal. The point is that it is different because it's digital, whether any of us like it or not. The point is that the iTMS DRM is the least restrictive out there, and there's really nothing stopping you from legally removing the DRM from the songs by burning them to CD.
The copy you burned still has DRM, and ripping it to a DRM-less format is against the law.
Huh??? I don't know what you're smoking, but once you burn it to CD, it's a real, honest-to-goodness, Red Book CD, that is exactly like any audio CD you bought before DRM was more than a mad gleam in the RIAA's eye. No DRM there.
Which works great as long as that's true, and you still have access to that machine. Of course, it really sucks when you have to somehow get your old 8088 on your fibre-optic network so you can have access to your old files.
OK, first off, your example of an 8088 is a serious exaggeration, and highly implausible besides. Secondly, while, again, I don't know how the authorization works, you can deauthorize a machine and move the files to another...which you can then authorize. But you can certainly burn them, as mentioned before, at which point you can listen to them anywhere.
...neither am I dumb enough to ignore the fact that they can.
In your (apparent) eagerness to bash Apple, you missed my point: that no, they can't do that. They can't destroy your files. They can't even stop you from listening to them. In fact, they carefully designed their DRM format (if it was, in fact, them who designed it) to ensure that you would be able to listen to your music into the foreseeable future by allowing you to burn CDs till you turn blue in the face, which you can then play wherever you darn well please.
Then again, wasn't there a story not to long ago about how iTMS tunes would mysteriously stop working when you took them out of North America?
Not exactly; it was more like if you change your legal address to outside of North America, or something; I don't recall exactly. But do you know what kind of legal wrangling Apple would have to go through to get people outside the US permission to use iTMS songs? There are plenty of countries that don't view copyright the same way we do, and if Apple let people there have the same access that people here do, you can bet the RIAA would pull the plug on the iTMS in a New York second*.
You know, it would be refreshing if people would at least come up with new trolls.
Dan Aris
*Defined as the length of time between when the light turns green and when the taxi driver behind you starts leaning on his horn (with apologies to Terry Pratchett).
When Apple gets "tired" of iTunes every copy of your content will simple [sic] vanish
And why would that be? Are you saying that Apple, like the RIAA, wants to start hacking into our computers, so they can delete the songs?
The iTMS might someday disappear (though why Apple should give up on it...well...EVER is beyond me!), but your music will still be there. Granted, if you have only kept the original FairPlay-encrypted AAC, you might not be able to play it, assuming that Apple also destroyed/removed/? whatever authentication method they use (and I'm not at all sure it's not local to your machine, rather than some sort of server). But the files will certainly still be there
And if any of the following are true, you will still be able to listed to your music:
You burned a copy to CD (whether or not you re-ripped it--Oh horrors, quality loss!)
The DRM authorizing agent actually resides on your machine, rather than on some server of Apple's
Someone cracks the DRM on the songs, allowing you to easily play them or extract a non-DRMed copy
Your example might have worked if the songs were kept somewhere central (eg, a server at Apple). But they're not, and Apple can't just tell all the songs to self-destruct. There are probably music services this is true of, but the iTMS is not one of them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't FLAC fall inside the Ogg container? I know that most people think of Vorbis as just "Ogg," but it's just one of the parts of Ogg, another of which, if this page says what I think it does, is FLAC.
Regardless, it doesn't hurt to be accurate. It's great that it plays Ogg Vorbis and Ogg FLAC files, and has lots of other cool features; however, I'll not give up my iPod till you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
You've got to remember that copyright is intended to help the public -- not artists.
This is true. However, assuming that the song in question is a recently produced song, say, within the last 14 years or so, the original framers of copyright would certainly have wanted the person who created that song to get due compensation. Now, you can argue about who's actually getting the money, and how much they're charging, till the cows turn blue and the moon comes home, but those are separate issues. Now, I think the RIAA should curl up in a hole and die, and that they are, in very many ways evil, but I also think there are some important misconceptions at work here.
The purpose of copyright was to allow the creator of a work to have sole control over its sale for a limited time, or something to that effect. If we are within the limited time, then why should the artist not get paid?
Too many people forget the way copyright was supposed to help the public was to encourage creators to keep creating by letting them get paid for it for 14-28 years. The mindset of "copyright was meant to help the public" should not be at odds with "copyright was meant to help the artists." It was meant to help everyone involved. The RIAA have perverted it so that it's only helping them, but it was supposed to get the artists paid. It was not designed to give anyone a free ride, not us, not the artists, and certainly not the RIAA.
I really like the way you think; however, I think that due to basic human nature, there will never be such a system that works. I hope I'm wrong, though; I suppose it could just be that we're culturally programmed to believe that we deserve everything at no cost to us. I'm not saying that everyone feels this way, just that too many people do.
Also, do you really mean you want to keep a class of "elitists", or do you mean "an elite class"? I can see how either would work...I'm curious which you meant.
and movies that feature the incumbent Governor of California from this.
There are movies starring Gray Davis? Really? I didn't know that. I mean, I can see that he's got some crew credits, and one guest appearance as "Himself", but I think you mean the Governor-elect of California: Ahnold isn't in there just yet, I believe.
Since when did something have to support more than 2 platforms to be considered cross-platform? Does your personal definition of "cross-platform" mean "supports every platform out there," or just "supports my particular flavour of Linux/BSD/whatever"? Because neither of these is what the rest of the world thinks, or even reasonable.
If you are running Linux/BSD/whatever, have you tried iTunes under WINE? (I haven't; I have a Mac, and don't know if it works--it's just a suggestion) You might want to try it. And until you do and it doesn't work, don't complain: Windows is a reasonable market for Apple to try to penetrate. Linux isn't; it's far too small, and most of the people in it are mindless zealots, like you.
And you're in profound disagreement with a large chunk of the world on aesthetics, there. Millions of people have iPods. I, and everyone I've talked to, loves the iPod's look. And Apple is generally considered to have the best (read: prettiest, most aesthetically pleasing) designs out there. *shrug* De gustibus non est disputandum.
If I recall correctly, the argument SCO has made for the GPL being unconstitutional, as sibling poster sort of said, is that it is not restricting what people can do with the copyrighted stuff. In fact, not only is it not restricting what you can do, it's giving you rights! <sarcasm>You're not allowed to give people more rights than what the Constitution says they already have with your stuff! You're only allowed to take away rights!</sarcasm>
is that there must be a monopoly. Personally, I believe that if M$ had not become a monopoly, no one would have! Why should Apple have become one?
There were a whole bunch of different operating systems, on different hardware platforms, poised to take off between the mid-80s and the mid-90s. What was it that crushed them--was it merely the presence of a bigger fish? Or was it the fact that the big fish was systematically going around eating and killing the little fish?
Apple's philosophy has always been different than Microsoft's. Where Microsoft has made things cheap and functional, Apple has made things solid and elegant. Where Microsoft has bought or squashed new, useful technologies, Apple has developed their own, or licensed existing ones. Where Microsoft lied, cheated, and stole their way to the top, Apple was still plugging away down there, making good, dependable hardware (generally) and elegant, well-written software to go with it.
Yes, there have been times when Apple did bad stuff, too; I'm not trying to paint them like some kind of saint. For a while, they lost their way, in the Amelio era, and they have done unpleasant stuff before & since, too. But they didn't make a pattern out of it the way M$ did.
I think that if Microsoft had not become the monopoly that they did, the playing field today would look totally different. I suspect there would have been at least ten major OSes (including Linux and its OSS brethren as maybe 2 of those), playing by a set of standards that mean that almost any software will run easily on most of them.
The worst part is how close M$ came to dying before it was even born. Have you watched Pirates of Silicon Valley? You should. The beginnings of Microsoft and Apple were both incredibly precarious. If one tiny decision had gone the other way, everything for the past 25 years would have been changed.
And, once again, I don't think that anyone but Microsoft would have become the monopoly that they did. No one else has the mindset that Gates does, that everything belongs to him. Jobs is a control freak too, but he just likes to control everything that does "belong" to him absolutely. Not make everything his.
That's the difference between Microsoft and Apple.
OK, I haven't read the article. However, just from your first 2 sentences, I would say that it's more likely that recycling does good. Note what you said:
If one does a google on Why To Recycle there is a staggering amount of information on how recycling saves trees, resources, reduces pollution and generally is A Good Thing (tm). However, I recently read this article which comments...
(emphasis mine)
So...there's a "staggering amount" of information on why recycling's good, but suddenly now, because one article has been published bashing recycling, it's bad? I realize this is an exaggeration, and other such articles have been published; however, it seems to me that when you see a vast body of scientific work showing one thing, with no large money-wielding entity behind it (and no, the environmental lobby has never had all that much money, particularly compared to its opponents), it seems to me that whatever that one thing is is probably pretty likely to be true.
Slashdot Mirror
Why put in a "make my interface less usable" checkbox?
Because, hard as it may be to believe, not all of us have the same opinions as you!! (shock, horror) For some of us, far from making the dock less useful, having the dock move makes it more usable. You seem to have missed the point of "options"--they are there so that people with different tastes can make their computers work the way they please. Currently, there is, in fact, a way to get your dock to do that (I think): set the dock's magnification to "off", and use TinkerTool to pin it to a corner. Yes, the latter is not accessible through Apple's GUI, and I don't know why, but you can do it.
What you are advocating is pushing your particular view on the rest of the Mac-using world. Why should we want to do things your way? Make it customizable! Give me checkboxes! That way, we can all be happy.
Except for you, apparently, since you don't want anyone else to have any choice.
Dan Aris
Moving a file from one location to the next should never create an alias.
This statement clearly illustrates the problem: you see the Dock as a location, where files can exist separately, when it is not. It can only hold links/aliases/shortcuts to documents, folders, and applications.
Let me say it one more time, to make it perfectly clear. The Dock is not a place you can store documents. Therefore, moving them from the Dock should not move the document. Creating an alias is, in fact, the most sensible thing to do, since that is what, in essence, it already is. The document is not "in the Dock." There is a reference to it in the Dock.
I have a couple of minor (largely conceptual, since I find it perfectly easy and useful to work with) problems with the Dock. However, that is not in the least one of them. It is a problem with your perception of what the Dock is/should be, not a problem with the Dock itself.
Dan Aris
In case you don't actually pay attention to FF news as devotedly as fanboys like me, whatever rift existed between Nintendo and Square has been healed, and new FF games (after XII, most likely, since it's already in development--but what do I know?) will probably come to Nintendo's consoles as well. Crystal Chronicle (not a numbered FF, but an FF, nonetheless) is already out for GC/GBA.
Of course, I'm sticking with my PS2, and 3 when it comes out, or more likely a year or 2 after :-)
Dan Aris
The reason people want to stop guns from being automatic or easy to make automatic is one you, yourself brought up, and it is, indeed, a practical one:
We want to stop more people from being killed.
Yeah, it would be great to stop people from going on rampages, but people are going to snap. It's unpleasant, but true. All we can do is try to save as many lives as possible.
The point isn't the philosophy of it all, it's the people. It may not make a difference in the "big picture" to save one kindergartener's life, but I guarantee you it makes a difference to him (or her) and to her (or his) family and friends.
The point is that guns are designed to kill people, and the more people they are designed to kill at a time, the less they should be allowed to fall--legally or otherwise--into the hands of ordinary civilians. Your argument that they are not is nothing but sophistry. They are, and always have been, designed for the purpose of killing and injuring, whether people or animals.
A good way of summing this whole issue up seems to be stated very well by Lois McMaster Bujold: Persons before principles. It's all very well to have high principles, but if they end up with more people getting killed...
Dan Aris
I apologize if I seemed condescending in my previous post. I misunderstood what you were saying, and you hit one of my pet peeves. I generally try to rise above the garden-variety zealots, Apple and otherwise. However, I do have a pedantic streak, and that's where your comment fell:
The problem is the very real and legal distinction between price fixing--an illegal activity which a single company cannot practice, since it involves collusion between several companies--and price gouging--a legal, if disliked, activity, which anyone can practice, so long as they can get away with it. My opinion is that Apple is not gouging. I believe that Apple's products are worth the additional cost, for a couple of reasons: 1) they are of high quality, and 2) Apple's whole business is built up on large margins, not price wars.
I admit, though, that I'm a bit puzzled as to why, exactly, they won't let the retailers charge less, if Apple's not seeing that money, anyway. They may have a good reason, and I still think the iPod's worth the money. Mine certainly was.
Dan Aris
I think that the term "dingleberry" is just a touch inappropriate.
Heh, Dingleberry was the nick of the person I was replying to. I wouldn't insult someone that badly on purpose ;-)
Dan Aris
It appears, Dingleberry, that you have a disturbingly common misconception: that because only Apple makes Apple products, that makes them a monopoly. I will first give a relatively standard answer: does Sony have a monopoly because only they sell PlayStations? No. If Sony were the only company that sold gaming consoles, or held a supermajority of the market, and they actively fought to keep it that way, then they would be in a monopoly position. If Apple were the only company that sold MP3 players, or held a supermajority of the market, and actively fought to keep it that way, then they would have a monopoly and your position would be reasonable.
The other difference is that between monopoly pricing and price fixing. The former can only be done by a monopoly that holds a supermajority of the market in a particular commodity (a single company). The latter can only be done by what is commonly known as a cartel, a group of companies in the same industry that get together to decide what the price of the good or service they all sell should be. If they collectively hold enough of the market, they can keep prices as high as they want, because the competition cannot make enough of a dent in their market share to really compete.
You can be sure that even if the market share of the iPod dropped from its current level of (I believe) about 80% down to 40%, Apple would not lower the price by a significant amount. This is because Apple doesn't keep the price high to gouge us or because they're a monopoly, they do it because that's the kind of company they are: they make expensive, high-quality, high-profit-margin items that people buy because they're the best, not because they're the most affordable. In other words, they're not a monopoly, and nor are they trying to compete on the same footing as companies like Dell and HP, which always compete on price. They compete on quality, instead.
They're worth it.
Dan Aris
Do you know why 'y' is pronounced 'th'?
Because, as I (sort of) said, it's not "y", it's a thorn, a different letter entirely that we don't have anymore, a letter pronounced "th".
Dan Aris
ye == the. y is a rune, pronounced like 'th'
You're right about the thorn (looks like /. doesn't support weird HTML character entities, or I'd show you; it's þ) being "th", and many people mistaking it for a "y" in "the". However, "ye" is also a plural/formal form of the word "you." Anyone who's taken French, or German, will understand when I say it's like "vous", or "ihr". It's a little more complicated than that, though, since it's only nominative: that is, you can say "Can ye come to me?" but not "I'm coming to ye." (For that, you want "you"--yes, it really was a word back then!)
'ye shalt' is then wrong. 'thou shalt'
Because of what I just said, "ye shalt" is not wrong for the reason you state. However, it is still wrong, for the following reason: forms like "shalt," "art," "dost" and such are only for the second-person singular familiar: that is, "thou." (And, of course, in the analog position to "you" we have "thee") But also, like I said, it's the familiar form, not, as many today incorrectly believe, the formal. So in a letter to someone you don't know, you should use "ye" and "you," not "thou" and "thee." (But I'll ignore that distinction for the remainder of the corrections)
'readeth' is not a proper conjugation, simply use 'read'.
'ye hearts' should be 'thy heart dost'
'I am using ye' => 'I be using the'
You're correct about "readeth;" that is the third-person singular form (eg, "he readeth," "she readeth," "it readeth"). You're also right about "thy heart dost [bleed]." As someone else pointed out, however, "I be using the" is weird pirate-talk*. It should be "I am using an," just as it would be today.
'hast thou hearest' => 'hast thou not heard'
The "not" is unnecessary; it can just be "hast thou heard." (the "not" just makes it more poetic, or something)
'Remindest' is an improper combining of dost. Drop the do, and add an apostrophe: Remind'st
'ones'? just 'one' will do.
As I said before, the forms ending in "-st" or "-est" are second-person singular familiar. I'm really not sure what the original poster's intent in this part was; I suspect it should be something more like "I remind thee," but the desire to obfuscate overcame them, and this dreck came out. It could also be "Remind yourselves," or, "It remindeth me" (though I'm not entirely sure about "remindeth").
Most humbly, I remain _thy_ servant...
Given that they're using the informal forms throughout, yes. However, formally and correctly it would indeed be "your servant."
Misuse of archaic language is one of my pet peeves.
Dan Aris
* As a matter of fact, what we tend to think of as "pirate-talk" is in actuality the dialect spoken in the furthest southwest of England, in Cornwall. A lot of smugglers operated there, because of the nature of the coastline. And please forgive me if I've gotten details wrong; I'm always happy to be corrected by someone who knows what they're talking about.
You know, the more I argue with you, the more I think we actually agree, so long as we can each figure out what the other is talking about.
such as my wife, for whom an iPod (or any other mechanical music device) is basically useless since she would only use it when she's working out.
Have you/she actually had problems with one? I have an iPod, and haven't had problems with skipping or anything, except for the time I actually dropped it onto the pavement, after which it acted weird for a couple of days, but fixed itself once I plugged it into my computer, and has been fine since.
This statement only proves that you COMPLETELY missed my point
Yep, you're quite right, I really did miss your point. Apologies. I thought you were going for exaggeration, trying to present a scenario in which iTMS files would become unusable. I quite understand the problem of transferring files to/from antique hardware, though perhaps not quite so arcane as an 8088 (we have a Mac Plus and a Mac IIvx, neither of which network well...it's a pain).
the second requires that iTunes phone home every arbitrary-amount-of-time or it shuts off access to the files.
Except that that would prevent dialup users, who only want to connect, say, once a week or so from using their music, and I don't think (just to really show my prejudice) that even M$ would be that stupid. It would seriously alienate plenty of people.
Again, you're quite right. I just looked at the iTMS Terms of Service, and sections (clauses? paragraphs? Obviously, not a lawyer here!) 13b, 14b, and 20 seem to say basically that. However, a) that's standard CYA stuff, and b) I doubt that Apple would arbitrarily decide to do something like that.
Here is my first point of slight puzzlement. Are you in fact implying that you think Apple might change/remove the service out from under us? Or are you just providing a hypothetical example, that is obviously well known to many, for the sake of the point? Because if it is the former, I would say that while anything's possible, you don't know Apple very well if you seriously think they'd do something that mean-spirited, not to mention really stupid, businesswise, without a pretty darn good reason. If it's the latter, yes, I concede the point.
[me] So you think you could have negotiated a better deal with the RIAA?
[you] No, and that's the problem.
And here is my other point of puzzlement. Do you mean that you realize that the deal we got was the best we were likely to under the circumstances, but that it would be better without the RIAA? Or...um...something else? Because if the former (or something like that), I completely agree. If the
Now for a closing ramble and attempt to summarize:
I realize that our fair use rights are under attack, even with such trivial DRM. I realize that I sound somewhat self-contradictory. But...let me try to put it a little more coherently. I think you'll allow that the RIAA would never allow such a music service with no DRM at all. Agreed? I see FairPlay as, essentially, a token DRM that prevents people from just downloading from the iTMS and putting the song directly on Kazaa, but doesn't stop ordinary people from doing most of what they want with their music. We geeks are different; we have more different stuff we like to do with our music, and we understand what's going on better. But aside from transferring music to a non-iPod, non-CD-based portable player, I can't see what your average user would want to do with an iTMS track that they can't. And given that the iPod is the most popular player anyway, that takes some of the sting out of even that. (And yes, I know that DRM is far more encumbering to ordinary people than to serious pirates; I think this is aimed at "casual" sharers)
I like to think that I have a more open mind than your average
Why don't people understand that "taking back tax cuts" is the same thing as "I'm going to tax you more"?
Why don't people understand that "cutting taxes" means "the government has less money to do what it needs?"
Far too many people seem to believe, as the Republicans would have us do, that taxes exist in a void, and all they do is take money away from people. But taxes are NECESSARY to run a government!
The question of what kind of programs you think should be funded is a separate one: I like the idea of lots of socialist-type programs to help people; you might not, you might prefer agricultural subsidies or defense spending. But that's somewhat separate from the issue of taxes, and politicians don't talk about cutting social programs, they talk about cutting taxes. But every dollar that is lost to tax cuts has to be made up somehow, whether by increasing income from some other source or by decreasing spending.
Now, before you accuse me of such, let me say that I am not categorically against tax cuts. I think that tax cuts for the lower income brackets are a great idea: a moderate percentage tax cut will cost the government relatively little. But at the same time, it would make sense to raise taxes on the richest income brackets, where a very small percentage increase would give significant extra money.
But no, cry the Republicans, the rich can't afford higher taxes! We have to lower their taxes as much as we can! Because, of course, they won't just reinvest that money the same as they're doing with the rest; they'll spend it, and stimulate the economy! Poor people wouldn't spend more money if you gave it to them, they wouldn't stimulate the economy!
If it sounds like I'm a little bitter about this, yeah, I am. A president I certainly didn't vote for has put the country more deeply into debt than it has ever been before with a financial policy I find deeply flawed. If this were happening to you, wouldn't you feel bitter?
Have a nice day, Conservative.
Dan Aris
So, how do you get it to a non-DRM format without breaking the DRM? Is this something iTMS allows with their DRMed files?
*sigh* I guess you really didn't know, but yes, iTMS does allow this. You get it into a non-DRMed format by simply...burning it to a CD. Really, truly. That's all it takes, and it's absolutely allowed. Now, I don't have a copy of the TOS in front of me, so I don't know what their official policy towards reripping is, but if you do it, they're not going to come to your house and take away your computer (unless you share the songs you've reripped, but that's another issue).
My point about it being an exaggeration was, how would you get the files to the 8088 from a modern machine? And the fact that you couldn't be playing those files on iTunes on a machine that old in the first place, so if you have them there, you can't listen to them now, let alone if Apple suddenly decided to turn evil.
Clearly that is not true, and they've already demonstrated that.
How so?
There's no reason they couldn't cut them off similarly for any reason...
How???? I still don't see how they can stop you from listening to your music if you have half an ounce of sense.
Let me say it once more, because apparently I haven't got through yet: You have the legal right to burn your iTMS songs to CD, and once you do that, there's nothing anyone can do to stop you listening to them.
So you think you could have negotiated a better deal with the RIAA? I am so sick of people complaining that there's DRM on iTMS songs, oh, we should be able to do whatever we please with them, and they should be free, besides! Well, let me tell you, the only way Apple, or anyone else, could ever get permission from the RIAA to do something like this is with DRM on the songs. And I bet you that no one could have negotiated a better deal for us than what Apple got. The point isn't what you "should" be able to do with them. Of course we should be able to exercise full fair use rights with no hassle. I've never contested that point, and neither has anyone with sense. The point is that allowing that would also allow sharing on Kazaa and friends with no hassle, and the RIAA don't want that--and, more importantly, it's illegal. The point is that it is different because it's digital, whether any of us like it or not. The point is that the iTMS DRM is the least restrictive out there, and there's really nothing stopping you from legally removing the DRM from the songs by burning them to CD.
Dan Aris
The copy you burned still has DRM, and ripping it to a DRM-less format is against the law.
Huh??? I don't know what you're smoking, but once you burn it to CD, it's a real, honest-to-goodness, Red Book CD, that is exactly like any audio CD you bought before DRM was more than a mad gleam in the RIAA's eye. No DRM there.
Which works great as long as that's true, and you still have access to that machine. Of course, it really sucks when you have to somehow get your old 8088 on your fibre-optic network so you can have access to your old files.
OK, first off, your example of an 8088 is a serious exaggeration, and highly implausible besides. Secondly, while, again, I don't know how the authorization works, you can deauthorize a machine and move the files to another...which you can then authorize. But you can certainly burn them, as mentioned before, at which point you can listen to them anywhere.
In your (apparent) eagerness to bash Apple, you missed my point: that no, they can't do that. They can't destroy your files. They can't even stop you from listening to them. In fact, they carefully designed their DRM format (if it was, in fact, them who designed it) to ensure that you would be able to listen to your music into the foreseeable future by allowing you to burn CDs till you turn blue in the face, which you can then play wherever you darn well please.
Then again, wasn't there a story not to long ago about how iTMS tunes would mysteriously stop working when you took them out of North America?
Not exactly; it was more like if you change your legal address to outside of North America, or something; I don't recall exactly. But do you know what kind of legal wrangling Apple would have to go through to get people outside the US permission to use iTMS songs? There are plenty of countries that don't view copyright the same way we do, and if Apple let people there have the same access that people here do, you can bet the RIAA would pull the plug on the iTMS in a New York second*.
You know, it would be refreshing if people would at least come up with new trolls.
Dan Aris
*Defined as the length of time between when the light turns green and when the taxi driver behind you starts leaning on his horn (with apologies to Terry Pratchett).
When Apple gets "tired" of iTunes every copy of your content will simple [sic] vanish
And why would that be? Are you saying that Apple, like the RIAA, wants to start hacking into our computers, so they can delete the songs?
The iTMS might someday disappear (though why Apple should give up on it...well...EVER is beyond me!), but your music will still be there. Granted, if you have only kept the original FairPlay-encrypted AAC, you might not be able to play it, assuming that Apple also destroyed/removed/? whatever authentication method they use (and I'm not at all sure it's not local to your machine, rather than some sort of server). But the files will certainly still be there
And if any of the following are true, you will still be able to listed to your music:
Your example might have worked if the songs were kept somewhere central (eg, a server at Apple). But they're not, and Apple can't just tell all the songs to self-destruct. There are probably music services this is true of, but the iTMS is not one of them.
Dan Aris
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't FLAC fall inside the Ogg container? I know that most people think of Vorbis as just "Ogg," but it's just one of the parts of Ogg, another of which, if this page says what I think it does, is FLAC.
Regardless, it doesn't hurt to be accurate. It's great that it plays Ogg Vorbis and Ogg FLAC files, and has lots of other cool features; however, I'll not give up my iPod till you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Dan Aris
You've got to remember that copyright is intended to help the public -- not artists.
This is true. However, assuming that the song in question is a recently produced song, say, within the last 14 years or so, the original framers of copyright would certainly have wanted the person who created that song to get due compensation. Now, you can argue about who's actually getting the money, and how much they're charging, till the cows turn blue and the moon comes home, but those are separate issues. Now, I think the RIAA should curl up in a hole and die, and that they are, in very many ways evil, but I also think there are some important misconceptions at work here.
The purpose of copyright was to allow the creator of a work to have sole control over its sale for a limited time, or something to that effect. If we are within the limited time, then why should the artist not get paid?
Too many people forget the way copyright was supposed to help the public was to encourage creators to keep creating by letting them get paid for it for 14-28 years. The mindset of "copyright was meant to help the public" should not be at odds with "copyright was meant to help the artists." It was meant to help everyone involved. The RIAA have perverted it so that it's only helping them, but it was supposed to get the artists paid. It was not designed to give anyone a free ride, not us, not the artists, and certainly not the RIAA.
Dan Aris
I really like the way you think; however, I think that due to basic human nature, there will never be such a system that works. I hope I'm wrong, though; I suppose it could just be that we're culturally programmed to believe that we deserve everything at no cost to us. I'm not saying that everyone feels this way, just that too many people do.
Also, do you really mean you want to keep a class of "elitists", or do you mean "an elite class"? I can see how either would work...I'm curious which you meant.
Dan Aris
I think he meant crackers.
No, I think he is crackers.
Well, laugh!
Dan Aris
and movies that feature the incumbent Governor of California from this.
There are movies starring Gray Davis? Really? I didn't know that. I mean, I can see that he's got some crew credits, and one guest appearance as "Himself", but I think you mean the Governor-elect of California: Ahnold isn't in there just yet, I believe.
Dan Aris
Since when did something have to support more than 2 platforms to be considered cross-platform? Does your personal definition of "cross-platform" mean "supports every platform out there," or just "supports my particular flavour of Linux/BSD/whatever"? Because neither of these is what the rest of the world thinks, or even reasonable.
If you are running Linux/BSD/whatever, have you tried iTunes under WINE? (I haven't; I have a Mac, and don't know if it works--it's just a suggestion) You might want to try it. And until you do and it doesn't work, don't complain: Windows is a reasonable market for Apple to try to penetrate. Linux isn't; it's far too small, and most of the people in it are mindless zealots, like you.
And you're in profound disagreement with a large chunk of the world on aesthetics, there. Millions of people have iPods. I, and everyone I've talked to, loves the iPod's look. And Apple is generally considered to have the best (read: prettiest, most aesthetically pleasing) designs out there. *shrug* De gustibus non est disputandum.
Dan Aris
If I recall correctly, the argument SCO has made for the GPL being unconstitutional, as sibling poster sort of said, is that it is not restricting what people can do with the copyrighted stuff. In fact, not only is it not restricting what you can do, it's giving you rights! <sarcasm>You're not allowed to give people more rights than what the Constitution says they already have with your stuff! You're only allowed to take away rights!</sarcasm>
At least I think that's their angle.
Dan Aris
is that there must be a monopoly. Personally, I believe that if M$ had not become a monopoly, no one would have! Why should Apple have become one?
There were a whole bunch of different operating systems, on different hardware platforms, poised to take off between the mid-80s and the mid-90s. What was it that crushed them--was it merely the presence of a bigger fish? Or was it the fact that the big fish was systematically going around eating and killing the little fish?
Apple's philosophy has always been different than Microsoft's. Where Microsoft has made things cheap and functional, Apple has made things solid and elegant. Where Microsoft has bought or squashed new, useful technologies, Apple has developed their own, or licensed existing ones. Where Microsoft lied, cheated, and stole their way to the top, Apple was still plugging away down there, making good, dependable hardware (generally) and elegant, well-written software to go with it.
Yes, there have been times when Apple did bad stuff, too; I'm not trying to paint them like some kind of saint. For a while, they lost their way, in the Amelio era, and they have done unpleasant stuff before & since, too. But they didn't make a pattern out of it the way M$ did.
I think that if Microsoft had not become the monopoly that they did, the playing field today would look totally different. I suspect there would have been at least ten major OSes (including Linux and its OSS brethren as maybe 2 of those), playing by a set of standards that mean that almost any software will run easily on most of them.
The worst part is how close M$ came to dying before it was even born. Have you watched Pirates of Silicon Valley? You should. The beginnings of Microsoft and Apple were both incredibly precarious. If one tiny decision had gone the other way, everything for the past 25 years would have been changed.
And, once again, I don't think that anyone but Microsoft would have become the monopoly that they did. No one else has the mindset that Gates does, that everything belongs to him. Jobs is a control freak too, but he just likes to control everything that does "belong" to him absolutely. Not make everything his.
That's the difference between Microsoft and Apple.
Dan Aris
OK, I haven't read the article. However, just from your first 2 sentences, I would say that it's more likely that recycling does good. Note what you said:
If one does a google on Why To Recycle there is a staggering amount of information on how recycling saves trees, resources, reduces pollution and generally is A Good Thing (tm). However, I recently read this article which comments...
(emphasis mine)
So...there's a "staggering amount" of information on why recycling's good, but suddenly now, because one article has been published bashing recycling, it's bad? I realize this is an exaggeration, and other such articles have been published; however, it seems to me that when you see a vast body of scientific work showing one thing, with no large money-wielding entity behind it (and no, the environmental lobby has never had all that much money, particularly compared to its opponents), it seems to me that whatever that one thing is is probably pretty likely to be true.
Dan Aris
Need I say more? It's just that, for some strange reason, Apple's marketing gets WAY more scrutiny than anyone else's. Not sure why.
Dan Aris
You're about the most sensible person in this whole stupid discussion. Including me.
Dan Aris