Librarians are really unsung heroes. Well, maybe not unsung, but they should be sung more.
They're doing the right thing even if it seems creepy. Of course the second he starts tugging it, they need to haul him off.
Anyone that has ever owned an iPod or iPhone knows for sure that everything he said is a blatant lie.
I don't know this DJRumpy character, but the claims he made didn't sound all that crazy to me
No, the connectors that interface with the PC are standard USB or Firewire. This is FUD.
That's the physical connector on one side, but I'm pretty sure thing is proprietary. I don't agree with this claim.
Any MP3, AAC, AIFF, or WAV will work with an iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.
This is true.
You are NOT required to use iTunes either. There are a multitude of alternatives (http://www.sourceforge.net).
This claim is a bit ambiguous because I'm not sure if he means the management software or the music store. Regardless, you certainly don't have to use either. You can't rip your own CDs or buy MP3s from Amazon or whatever. And there are alternatives for the management software, but none of them work as smoothly as iTunes. I agree with this claim.
Even if you choose to use iTunes, it can be set to use MP3 if you don't like AAC.
Yup. Totally true.
So three out of his four claims are valid. That's a pretty good fact to bullshit ratio for the internet.
I consume HTML5 video almost daily. Support for HTML5 video in recent browsers is solid. I work for an organization that produces several national and international publications and we publish HTML5 video content daily. Numerous news sites are publishing HTML 5 video. If you want to serve video to iOS devices (and most of us do), you're going to use HTML5. It's here.
Really the one problem that I don't see resolved with HTML5 is DRM. Arguably that isn't a problem. But I have a hard time imagining Hulu or Netflix rolling out an HTML5 UI anytime soon.
While Microsoft's use of HTML5 video will certainly broaden its support, HTML5 video would have happened without it. It's already well on its way. Your claim that it wouldn't have happened without it is baseless. This really has nothing to do with Microsoft being perceived as evil.
If you make your living developing web apps for mobile devices, you should care a great deal about a new iPhone. And not because of any of the device's inherent qualities. But because people will be in fact lining up to buy it. It's like the stock market in a sense. A stock is worth a lot because people think it's worth a lot. The iPhone is a big deal because people think it's a big deal.
And people only like Harry Potter because it's secret? Really? Super compelling argument.
It may seem reactionary, but I suspect the debate about whether to end support for IE6 has been going on for quite some time.
I would be very interested to know what percentage of Google Docs users are still using IE6. I would also be very interested in knowing how much it costs Google to support IE6 (the recent attacks notwithstanding). The development costs of supporting IE6 in any sort of web application are not insignificant. I suspect the percentage of the development budget that Google uses to support IE6 is disproportionate to the percentage of IE6 users.
Dropping IE6 is inevitable. Sure it leaves some people behind, but I'll bet the benefits of doing so significantly outweigh the drawbacks.
It seems as though no one is making a distinction between being anti-business and anti-corporation. Personally, I feel that the corporation as a legal entity is indeed a malignancy. But I certainly wouldn't regard myself as anti-business or anti-capitalist. Far from it.
And I've always hated that maxim. It's perniciously simplistic. It's just a pithy way for conservatives to call liberals dumb. It it no way addresses how drastically the terms "conservative" and "liberal" have changed over time.
But just like you I've yet to see a system that I'd rather live under.
I think you've done a great job of articulating your point (although I disagree with your use of the term "by definition"). I certainly share your frustration with our legal system. Having laws that are generally ignored (or of which we are wholly ignorant) engenders a lack of respect for the law.
But what would the "right" legal system look like? I honestly don't know. That's something that I've never heard satisfactorily explained. Could you offer some details?
Clearly something is broken. How would you fix it?
I'd like to know more about this agreement between Apple and Sun. I did a bit of searching and couldn't find anything. Do you have more info? A link maybe?
He makes a pretty common argument that Google News actually helps every news service as opposed to the AP's claims of hurting them (maybe even stealing from them).
I work for a struggling national newspaper. It isn't the New York Times, but you've certainly heard of it. And for our editorial staff, getting one of our stories picked up by Google news is about the best thing that can happen. We love it.
At first I thought this was just a troll. But then it dawned on me that you might actually hold these opinions. Wow.
So I wanted to add my two cents.
I'm a Mac user and I find the implication that I've chosen a Mac in order to be cool or because of peer pressure plainly insulting. I don't think the OS is great, but for my needs I think it's the least bad of the major desktop OSes.
I can do the things I want to do.
I don't have to mess with the OS if I don't want to.
I want my peripherals work with minimal effort.
Using those statements as a guide, OS X was the clear winner. By a long shot. Of course that evaluation is subjective--what you want to do and what I want to do are likely rather different.
Frankly, I don't give a shit whether someone know what OS I use. It isn't a part of my identity and it isn't part of an image I wish to project. It's just a preference. Lighten the fuck up.
I was pretty curious about the "iPod prototype" as well. I was able to find a little more info, but not enough to satisfy my curiosity.
Link to more info
I disagree. My experiences working in both the public and private sectors have been almost identical to the parent poster's. However, the government agency I worked for was in no position to just "print more money". Our annual budget was determined by legislators. And we had to produce value or our budget would get sharply reduced. The bottom line was very closely watched.
It's tempting to think of the government as being some monolithic entity, but it isn't.
As I read your post I was thinking "that's exactly what a linguistics professor of mine said". Then I saw your email address. Is the linguistics profressor you're referring to named Mark Southern? If so, we may have been in the same class
>sites tend to produce better search engine results, be faster to download, use less bandwidth, and improved usability
This BS meme is repeated all time and yet with ZERO proof. None of the most popular sites validate. Not google, not yahoo, not cnn, not msnbc, not flickr, not myspace, not even our sacred slashdot. none!
They show up in search engines just fine, download speed is a matter of data size not standard compliance as is bandwidth and as well, you can follow all the standards and still not be usable and you can break all the standards and have a more usable site than others.
As long as standard zealots keep using lies to try to get people to support standards no one is going to listen.
Do you really think that anyone is claiming that search engine results are just a list of sites ordered by degree of standards compliance?
Google gives extra weight to terms that appear with header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc). So if the heading on your site is some CSS-styled text within an h1 rather than a gif without ALT text, that heading will have an impact on how your site is handled by search engines.
And failing validation doesn't necessarily mean that the site doesn't closely follow standards. It could perfectly valid with exception of using a <br> instead of <br/>
The claim of increased download speed, is based on the assumption that the client will need to download less data. If headings are styled text rather than graphics, there will be less data to download. If text formating and layout are controlled by css rather than line after line of table mark-up and font tags, there will be less to download.
Unfortunately, there are irrational standards zealots. Much like there are knee-jerk contrarians...
Essentially what I'm asking you is, "Would a Democratic president be doing anything differently?" That's hard to decide--both sides are all talk and no action on this subject.
I think your question is utterly irrelevant. It is the duty of every citizen to call out every instance of bullshit committed by those in power. If this were Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever, I'd have absolutely no compunction about calling bullshit. It's disheartening to know that others would hold their tongues because the guy is "one of theirs".
Being able to boot into another platform makes a mac that much more compelling of a choice for developers.
How so? If they know a Mac can be booted into Windows, why on earth would they then be willing to port their Windows app. to MacOS?
If there's a market for OS X apps, they will be developed. I'm sure some folks believe that this will be the end of OS X. Some believe that developers will cease to create apps for (or port apps to) OS X. I don't believe that, however. A lot of people really like and prefer OS X to Windows. I know I do. I believe this move will help increase the number of OS X because this will increase the number of machines sold capable of runnning OS X.
And if I'm a web developer, I need to make sure my app looks right in Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, etc. Just because a Firefox user might have IE available to them doesn't mean that I don't have to worry about Firefox anymore.
Why would anyone bother porting a linux app to Windows? I mean, they could just reboot into linux after all.
So are you advocating a private space program? Or a goverment space program that isn't tax-funded? Or no space program? Or were you just lamenting that this is just the way goes? I'm curious
And just to play the devil's advocate...
What got the US to the moon? Oh yeah, politics.
I gotta say that building anything on the far side of the moon is an *awesome* idea. Just think about that for a second. Imagine yourself saying, "they built it... on the far side of the moon". Outstanding.
And can you imagine how entertaining talk radio will become after that? Like Coast to Coast AM wasn't nutso enough? Government funding to build something on the far side of the moon would make their tinfoil covered heads explode. And that, my friends, is reason enough to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Librarians are really unsung heroes. Well, maybe not unsung, but they should be sung more. They're doing the right thing even if it seems creepy. Of course the second he starts tugging it, they need to haul him off.
There's nothing that says the name of the tool and the command you type must be the same. I wouldn't sweat it.
I don't know this DJRumpy character, but the claims he made didn't sound all that crazy to me
That's the physical connector on one side, but I'm pretty sure thing is proprietary. I don't agree with this claim.
This is true.
This claim is a bit ambiguous because I'm not sure if he means the management software or the music store. Regardless, you certainly don't have to use either. You can't rip your own CDs or buy MP3s from Amazon or whatever. And there are alternatives for the management software, but none of them work as smoothly as iTunes. I agree with this claim.
Yup. Totally true.
So three out of his four claims are valid. That's a pretty good fact to bullshit ratio for the internet.
I consume HTML5 video almost daily. Support for HTML5 video in recent browsers is solid. I work for an organization that produces several national and international publications and we publish HTML5 video content daily. Numerous news sites are publishing HTML 5 video. If you want to serve video to iOS devices (and most of us do), you're going to use HTML5. It's here. Really the one problem that I don't see resolved with HTML5 is DRM. Arguably that isn't a problem. But I have a hard time imagining Hulu or Netflix rolling out an HTML5 UI anytime soon.
While Microsoft's use of HTML5 video will certainly broaden its support, HTML5 video would have happened without it. It's already well on its way. Your claim that it wouldn't have happened without it is baseless. This really has nothing to do with Microsoft being perceived as evil.
If you make your living developing web apps for mobile devices, you should care a great deal about a new iPhone. And not because of any of the device's inherent qualities. But because people will be in fact lining up to buy it. It's like the stock market in a sense. A stock is worth a lot because people think it's worth a lot. The iPhone is a big deal because people think it's a big deal.
And people only like Harry Potter because it's secret? Really? Super compelling argument.
It may seem reactionary, but I suspect the debate about whether to end support for IE6 has been going on for quite some time.
I would be very interested to know what percentage of Google Docs users are still using IE6. I would also be very interested in knowing how much it costs Google to support IE6 (the recent attacks notwithstanding). The development costs of supporting IE6 in any sort of web application are not insignificant. I suspect the percentage of the development budget that Google uses to support IE6 is disproportionate to the percentage of IE6 users.
Dropping IE6 is inevitable. Sure it leaves some people behind, but I'll bet the benefits of doing so significantly outweigh the drawbacks.
It seems as though no one is making a distinction between being anti-business and anti-corporation. Personally, I feel that the corporation as a legal entity is indeed a malignancy. But I certainly wouldn't regard myself as anti-business or anti-capitalist. Far from it.
And I've always hated that maxim. It's perniciously simplistic. It's just a pithy way for conservatives to call liberals dumb. It it no way addresses how drastically the terms "conservative" and "liberal" have changed over time.
But just like you I've yet to see a system that I'd rather live under.
I think you've done a great job of articulating your point (although I disagree with your use of the term "by definition"). I certainly share your frustration with our legal system. Having laws that are generally ignored (or of which we are wholly ignorant) engenders a lack of respect for the law.
But what would the "right" legal system look like? I honestly don't know. That's something that I've never heard satisfactorily explained. Could you offer some details?
Clearly something is broken. How would you fix it?
I'd like to know more about this agreement between Apple and Sun. I did a bit of searching and couldn't find anything. Do you have more info? A link maybe?
I'd say Macgillivray is right
I work for a struggling national newspaper. It isn't the New York Times, but you've certainly heard of it. And for our editorial staff, getting one of our stories picked up by Google news is about the best thing that can happen. We love it.
At first I thought this was just a troll. But then it dawned on me that you might actually hold these opinions. Wow.
So I wanted to add my two cents.
I'm a Mac user and I find the implication that I've chosen a Mac in order to be cool or because of peer pressure plainly insulting. I don't think the OS is great, but for my needs I think it's the least bad of the major desktop OSes.
Using those statements as a guide, OS X was the clear winner. By a long shot. Of course that evaluation is subjective--what you want to do and what I want to do are likely rather different.
Frankly, I don't give a shit whether someone know what OS I use. It isn't a part of my identity and it isn't part of an image I wish to project. It's just a preference. Lighten the fuck up.
I was pretty curious about the "iPod prototype" as well. I was able to find a little more info, but not enough to satisfy my curiosity. Link to more info
I disagree. My experiences working in both the public and private sectors have been almost identical to the parent poster's. However, the government agency I worked for was in no position to just "print more money". Our annual budget was determined by legislators. And we had to produce value or our budget would get sharply reduced. The bottom line was very closely watched.
It's tempting to think of the government as being some monolithic entity, but it isn't.
As I read your post I was thinking "that's exactly what a linguistics professor of mine said". Then I saw your email address. Is the linguistics profressor you're referring to named Mark Southern? If so, we may have been in the same class
My two cents as a native speaker of American English:
abso-fucking-lutely
li-fucking-brarian
I also have a fascination with English infixes. Are there others besides "fucking" and possibly "freaking"?
Are you familiar with the Tower of Babel?
Do you really think that anyone is claiming that search engine results are just a list of sites ordered by degree of standards compliance?
Google gives extra weight to terms that appear with header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc). So if the heading on your site is some CSS-styled text within an h1 rather than a gif without ALT text, that heading will have an impact on how your site is handled by search engines.
And failing validation doesn't necessarily mean that the site doesn't closely follow standards. It could perfectly valid with exception of using a <br> instead of <br />
The claim of increased download speed, is based on the assumption that the client will need to download less data. If headings are styled text rather than graphics, there will be less data to download. If text formating and layout are controlled by css rather than line after line of table mark-up and font tags, there will be less to download.
Unfortunately, there are irrational standards zealots. Much like there are knee-jerk contrarians...
Essentially what I'm asking you is, "Would a Democratic president be doing anything differently?" That's hard to decide--both sides are all talk and no action on this subject.
I think your question is utterly irrelevant. It is the duty of every citizen to call out every instance of bullshit committed by those in power. If this were Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever, I'd have absolutely no compunction about calling bullshit. It's disheartening to know that others would hold their tongues because the guy is "one of theirs".
How so? If they know a Mac can be booted into Windows, why on earth would they then be willing to port their Windows app. to MacOS?
If there's a market for OS X apps, they will be developed. I'm sure some folks believe that this will be the end of OS X. Some believe that developers will cease to create apps for (or port apps to) OS X. I don't believe that, however. A lot of people really like and prefer OS X to Windows. I know I do. I believe this move will help increase the number of OS X because this will increase the number of machines sold capable of runnning OS X.
And if I'm a web developer, I need to make sure my app looks right in Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, etc. Just because a Firefox user might have IE available to them doesn't mean that I don't have to worry about Firefox anymore.
Why would anyone bother porting a linux app to Windows? I mean, they could just reboot into linux after all.
You touched on some of this already, but I think it boils down to these three things:
So are you advocating a private space program? Or a goverment space program that isn't tax-funded? Or no space program? Or were you just lamenting that this is just the way goes? I'm curious
And just to play the devil's advocate...
What got the US to the moon? Oh yeah, politics.
I gotta say that building anything on the far side of the moon is an *awesome* idea. Just think about that for a second. Imagine yourself saying, "they built it... on the far side of the moon". Outstanding.
And can you imagine how entertaining talk radio will become after that? Like Coast to Coast AM wasn't nutso enough? Government funding to build something on the far side of the moon would make their tinfoil covered heads explode. And that, my friends, is reason enough to do it.
It made my day to see this modded as informative. Thank you, Slashdot.