Indeed. It's sad that you get modded down - Apple stories are the only ones I have to browse at -1, because of the abuse from the Apple fans who seem to get all the mod points these days. Note to mods: just because someone doesn't share your love of a particular product, doesn't make it flamebait.
The joke is the way that features magically become important, only when the Iphone has them. It's bad enough that anything the Iphone can do is important, and anything the Iphone can't do is "Why would I need that?", but the funniest bit is that they can completely change their minds, when the Iphone finally gets the feature.
3G, MMS, copy/paste, video recording - it happened with all of these things. Now it'll be the same for multitasking, front facing cameras, along with Java and Flash if it finally adds those basic features. Similarly with resolution - my 5800, right now, has twice the resolution of an Iphone, at half the price. But no, you don't hear anyone raving about that. But the moment there's a mere rumour that a future Apple iVapourware product will have a higher resolution, it's suddenly front page news. And they're even going to call it "Iphone HD" to signify that that's the most advanced feature it has (and improvement over the embarrassment of "Iphone 3G" - wow, welcome to 2005. I thought all the 3G hype was over five years ago).
Remember all those years that we heard that one mouse button made things simpler, yet on the Iphone it's supposed to be better to have to remember complex multitouch gestures? Personally I'll stick with my 5800, that I can't even use with gloves on.
Recording a song from the radio or tv does not have the same quality that you could possibly find on the internet.
How so? TV quality is as good as many Internet downloads, if not better. Especially with HDTV these days.
And by your reasoning, it should only be illegal if they're downloading flacs or high quality mp3s?
Radio and tv broadcasting audio uses compression
Yes, just like those Internet videos you download. In fact they tend to be even more compressed - few movies take up the same space as the copy on DVD.
So what if I subscribe to cable, pay my BBC TV licence - but then I download something showing on those channels, because it's simply more convenient than having to worry about watching it at a particular time?
Iplayer is already restricted to UK viewers only, so no, you can't view the stream, with or without DRM. At best, your argument is one for introducing DRM for non-UK viewers, but this shouldn't be the case for those of us in the UK.
If they lose profits from disk sales, then they would in turn need to increase fees to keep operations at the same level.
But even if that's true, if it makes no difference to how much we pay (because we either pay through DVD prices or a higher licence fee), then what's the benefit for the DRM route?
Can you prove it doesn't?
No I can't prove that unicorns don't exist. The burden is upon the one making the claim. My argument against DRM is not based on profits, it's based on the fact that I don't want DRM on content that the public is funding.
No where did I suggest BBC is better due to DRM. I said that BBC is better than PBS.
So therefore your point is irrelevant. I never claimed that they aren't better than PBS.
You basically make my argument for me. You're stating that you currently are not buying these disks due to lack of copy protection and then question whether DRM will actually increase sales?
I didn't agree - I said "Even if". Yes, even if this was true, how does it make it better for us consumers, if we're still paying for it one way or the other?
And FWIW, I've bought DVDs of BBC material even though I could have downloaded it.
If only that was true. Only the other day I came across a bug on NVIDIA 6100, that didn't show on my NVIDIA 8600. I like PCs, but the range of different graphics hardware is a pain.
Let's check market share - it's more like saying Symbian development is being held back by IphoneOS (comparing one Nokia product to the entire range which run IphoneOS is hardly fair...).
First of all, this is irrelevant to the point, and looks like an obligitary "let's make a +5 anti-MS post". If you used OpenGL, that doesn't mean you'd magically get those latest features on those older chipsets!
The problem would still remain that developers would be targeting consoles, which would be older than that available on the latest PCs. The API is irrelevant - any decent engine can support both (or at least, can be made to do so with little effort), the question is one of chipset supported features.
And how would PC gaming be better off if they used OpenGL instead? I'm not making a pro-MS post for the sake of it - I've programmed both OpenGL and DirectX for years, and I'm struggling to see what advantage you are referring to?
(Also note that, AIUI, consoles don't necessarily support OpenGL either, but have their own custom APIs. OpenGL is handy for Linux etc, but I'm not sure that's a major factor for the state of PC gaming today.)
I'm also not sure what you base your claim of "when nobody really wants to use it" for DirectX 11 on? The article's assertion is that nobody is using it because of consoles holding them back. What is your reason for them not wanting to use it? Because they're all secretly OpenGL fans who hate DirectX? I don't think so - as much as I wished OpenGL would succeed, the rate at which commercial developers switched to DirectX suggest otherwise.
Yes. They profit from the sale of DVD's and Blu-ray. You may not like it, but they do
Two straw men in one. Thank you for point out the obvious - yes, I know they sell DVDs. And no, it's not true that I don't like it. I've never complained about them selling DVDs etc, since that doesn't affect those of us who pay for it. The issue is when they introduce DRM as an argument for making even more money, since that does affect us.
If they did not have this option, I would probably not be able to freely view this content via browser as is.
Why not? And if you're not paying for the BBC, yet you can watch it, then how is that helping the BBC's profits?
Is BBC entirely funded by the tax-payer? Do you agree that any taxes eliminated by profits that they may make are a good thing?
What taxes eliminated by profits?
It is reasonable to call the BBC fee a tax, however this doesn't mean it's funded out of general taxation. There is a specific TV licence fee.
Not to mention that no one is arguing against profits. You still have to show that DRM increases their profits.
I can only assume that the BBC is much like PBS in the US (public funded). PBS is a wasteland of uninteresting content here and doesn't have near the recognition of BBC. If they have a successful model that doesn't cost your tax payers too much, I personally wouldn't be so quick to criticize this move.
You are seriously suggesting that the BBC is better than PBS, because of DRM? How does that account for all the decades when they didn't have DRM? How can you possibly argue that we can't criticise this move now, based on the quality of the BBC so far?
It costs us £145.50 a year (from April). Even if DRM does help them lower the fee, it's hardly helping if licence payers are simply instead having to pay more by buying DVDs - they're still paying one way or the other! And the biggest point you are missing is that, since the BBC is funded by the public, its quality is not going to go down just because they don't have DRM. That's the poorest argument for DRM I've ever heard. Speaking as someone who pays for the BBC - unlike you - I don't want DRM.
The prefix means whatever it's defined to mean. Words borrowed from other languages often have subtely different meanings. If you interpreted everything in English based on the literal meaning of the language it originally came from, you wouldn't get very far.
You're saying that everyone should know the special case that kilobyte means 1024 bytes, but that's already a lost cause; disk makers have been using kilo to mean 1000 for years, and it'll probably never be really sorted out.
Yes, it's a mess, but kibi bibi this isn't solving this problem - even fewer people know what these terms are. As I say, I've never even once hear anyone use these terms.
The point of using the kibi-style prefixes is to make it clear what you're talking about.
I'm doubtful that most people would have a clue what you are on about if you started saying kibi to them. And what happens when disk makers start misusing kibibytes?
So don't buy DRM content and if you're in the UK don't get a TV license until the BBC drops their DRM. Simple enough I'd say. Worked for music.
As pointed out, the BBC doesn't work like this - we don't have consumer choice like for other companies.
As a constituent in a political system, derive an argument that producer digital restrictions are harmful enough that you can campaign against your local politico and make it stick.
Um, exactly like people are doing, you mean? That's what we're talking about - you're the one saying that people shouldn't care.
Until that's the law of the land though, you have no *right* to be allowed to change presentation layers of digital media; particularly if it means circumventing encryption. I have no problems with people defying it in an act of civil disobedience, just never forget, that producers *do* and *should* have rights of distribution and presentation as the law stands now.
You're conflating what the law is, with opinions about what the law should be. Even if the law says one thing, people can still question what the law should be.
Furthermore, you don't even know what UK law is - there is no UK law, AFAIK, against circumventing encryption (at least, I don't think we've yet brought in our own DMCA equivalent, though I may be wrong). We are not governed by your Spanish law, and producers do not have some legal given right of presentation. The issue here is not one of law, but a question of the BBC using DRM, when it's funded by the licence fee.
Even where it is a question of law, are you like this on every Slashdot story? E.g., there's a story about the DMCA, and you post 50 comments telling us that that's what the law is? Yes, we know what the law is - it's the law that we're complaining about.
And by that logic, there are more important things than the BBC having a right to force anyone watching any TV to pay for the BBC, and to stick DRM on it. So by your own argument, why are they wasting time doing this, when that money and their time is better spent on health care, fighting discrimination, curing world hunger, etc?
And are you seriously suggesting that everything be illegal, unless a court rules otherwise? I don't think so. That's not how it works in the UK.
The OP is clearly talking about the rights that he wants to have, anyway. As opposed to the rights that the BBC thinks it should have (even though we pay for it).
There are way more important things in life than DRM.
Ah yes, this card. So people can't spend time on more than one issue? And the issues you list are all trivial compared to even more important issues, such as world poverty - surely by your logic, we should only be spending time on the single most important thing in the world right?
And anyhow, what are you doing here, if you think it's not important? Surely there are more important things in life, than people on Slashdot talking about things you disagree with? What worthy causes do you spend your time on - and where's the evidence that this is more than what the OP spends his time on?
Because you say that DRM removes rights of the consumer, which rights? Redistribution and authorized playback are the rights of the producer, not the consumer.
There are no consumers in the BBC's model - they're funded by the British public, whether they want to consume the BBC's material or not.
Which is important when you're trying to convince someone to pay for a TV license on materials they can easily download online.
Again, no. The BBC does not have to worry about getting people to buy its content, because it doesn't work like that. In fact, whilst people who watch non-BBC TV still have to pay the licence, it's also true that non-TV owners can watch material on Iplayer without paying for the licence. So the argument that this provides an incentive is nonsense - those people who watch TV don't need an incentive, because they have no choice (it's illegal to watch without a licence), whilst those people thinking about downloading versus using Iplayer don't have to pay anyway.
but you are going to end up like the hackers trying to reclaim their name from the media
The only ones trying to reclaim a name is the people who think that the byte is an SI unit, and are trying to reclaim "kilo" etc to only mean the SI version.
Just as long as it suits hard disk manufacturers to correctly use the SI prefix and you can't call them out on it because they are unfortunately right
They weren't right until people started agreeing with them.
I could say the same to you - give it up; you don't even have the hacker's claim to be right.
Um, the pedants in this debate are those who want to redefine a system, because they're hung up on the pedantic point that the original greek meaning of the word "kilo" meant "a thousand". Words change - especially when they are in a new language, but derived from a greek or latin term, it's not uncommon that there is only a loose connection in meaning. That's not a problem unless you're going to be pedantic.
Mac OS X moved to base-10 units on Snow Leopard, and it's made things much, much simpler. 500GB drives appear as 500GB. My 32GB iPhone appears as 32GB.
Oh of course, if your Apple OS and phone do it this way, it must be right!
How much base-10 memory does your Apple PC have? My PC has 3.221225472GB! Much simpler, I only had to use a calculator to work it out.
but why on earth are so many CS people arguing *against* decreasing ambiguity?
The ambiguity is introduced by those people saying it should instead be 1000 kb. The "KiB" thing doesn't really help, because now you have no idea who's using the new system or not. It would have been more sensible to use the alternative letters for the 1000 system. And whilst I sometimes see people write "KiB" etc, I've never once heard people say "Kibibyte" or anything like that...
The only reason to resist it that I can see is just blind and unthinking resistance to change -- the exact same reason so many people resist the metric system and SI at all.
I'll say it again: Bytes (or bits) are not SI units. And if they were, the bit would be the far more sensibly choice as a base unit.
(Even the SI unit has its issues - that the kilogram is the base unit for mass. A gram should really be called a millikilogram - but thankfully people aren't pedantic when it comes to mass.)
I agree entirely - what the "kibibyte" crowd miss is that a byte is not an SI unit, so the fact that some SI group decided to redefine it later on isn't really relevant. And as you note, we have bits as well as bytes - surely it's the bit that should be the SI unit, not byte? What's so special about a collection 8 bits?
(And let's be serious here - do these people actually say kibibyte and mebibyte, etc?)
They can alter the EULA to prohibit the development as easily as they can prohibit it's use. Since he's a user of their service he's bound by their EULA too.
I didn't realise that EULA's were so magical. All he needs to do then is write an EULA that says Facebook should leave him alone.
Personally I'm altering my EULA right now, to say that you agree to pay me $100:)
(Being a user of a service doesn't make you a slave to whatever a company decides to alter their "EULA" too. Try and have a think what the A stands for, for starters.)
Fair's fair. The Iphone gets an obligitary mention even when it's irrelevant ("You can also view this website on an Iphone!") So it's fair to do so when it's negative publicity also - they can't have it both ways.
Facebook and MySpace are annoying, but they're not all like that. (E.g., LiveJournal is a lot nicer.)
And why should I have to visit your website? What is this, the 1990s? You'd better have an RSS feed that allows me to more conveniently pull the information together.
They have every right to stop a user from accessing their site, if they detect its use somehow. But a "EUL" doesn't give them the right to "go after" them. If they think it does, then my EULA says they agree to pay me a billion dollars should they do that.
Facebook own the trademark to the letters "F" and "B" now? And any phrase that includes those letters is infringing? I think that's a stretch.
Maybe MySpace should sue Facebook for using the "ace" ("space", "face"? Sounds quite similar, if you ask me...) Except then MySpace would be sued by MicroSoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. It's sad that you get modded down - Apple stories are the only ones I have to browse at -1, because of the abuse from the Apple fans who seem to get all the mod points these days. Note to mods: just because someone doesn't share your love of a particular product, doesn't make it flamebait.
The joke is the way that features magically become important, only when the Iphone has them. It's bad enough that anything the Iphone can do is important, and anything the Iphone can't do is "Why would I need that?", but the funniest bit is that they can completely change their minds, when the Iphone finally gets the feature.
3G, MMS, copy/paste, video recording - it happened with all of these things. Now it'll be the same for multitasking, front facing cameras, along with Java and Flash if it finally adds those basic features. Similarly with resolution - my 5800, right now, has twice the resolution of an Iphone, at half the price. But no, you don't hear anyone raving about that. But the moment there's a mere rumour that a future Apple iVapourware product will have a higher resolution, it's suddenly front page news. And they're even going to call it "Iphone HD" to signify that that's the most advanced feature it has (and improvement over the embarrassment of "Iphone 3G" - wow, welcome to 2005. I thought all the 3G hype was over five years ago).
Remember all those years that we heard that one mouse button made things simpler, yet on the Iphone it's supposed to be better to have to remember complex multitouch gestures? Personally I'll stick with my 5800, that I can't even use with gloves on.
Recording a song from the radio or tv does not have the same quality that you could possibly find on the internet.
How so? TV quality is as good as many Internet downloads, if not better. Especially with HDTV these days.
And by your reasoning, it should only be illegal if they're downloading flacs or high quality mp3s?
Radio and tv broadcasting audio uses compression
Yes, just like those Internet videos you download. In fact they tend to be even more compressed - few movies take up the same space as the copy on DVD.
So what if I subscribe to cable, pay my BBC TV licence - but then I download something showing on those channels, because it's simply more convenient than having to worry about watching it at a particular time?
If I legally can only view the stream
Iplayer is already restricted to UK viewers only, so no, you can't view the stream, with or without DRM. At best, your argument is one for introducing DRM for non-UK viewers, but this shouldn't be the case for those of us in the UK.
If they lose profits from disk sales, then they would in turn need to increase fees to keep operations at the same level.
But even if that's true, if it makes no difference to how much we pay (because we either pay through DVD prices or a higher licence fee), then what's the benefit for the DRM route?
Can you prove it doesn't?
No I can't prove that unicorns don't exist. The burden is upon the one making the claim. My argument against DRM is not based on profits, it's based on the fact that I don't want DRM on content that the public is funding.
No where did I suggest BBC is better due to DRM. I said that BBC is better than PBS.
So therefore your point is irrelevant. I never claimed that they aren't better than PBS.
You basically make my argument for me. You're stating that you currently are not buying these disks due to lack of copy protection and then question whether DRM will actually increase sales?
I didn't agree - I said "Even if". Yes, even if this was true, how does it make it better for us consumers, if we're still paying for it one way or the other?
And FWIW, I've bought DVDs of BBC material even though I could have downloaded it.
If only that was true. Only the other day I came across a bug on NVIDIA 6100, that didn't show on my NVIDIA 8600. I like PCs, but the range of different graphics hardware is a pain.
Do all the consoles support OpenGL? My understanding was this wasn't the case.
Let's check market share - it's more like saying Symbian development is being held back by IphoneOS (comparing one Nokia product to the entire range which run IphoneOS is hardly fair...).
First of all, this is irrelevant to the point, and looks like an obligitary "let's make a +5 anti-MS post". If you used OpenGL, that doesn't mean you'd magically get those latest features on those older chipsets!
The problem would still remain that developers would be targeting consoles, which would be older than that available on the latest PCs. The API is irrelevant - any decent engine can support both (or at least, can be made to do so with little effort), the question is one of chipset supported features.
And how would PC gaming be better off if they used OpenGL instead? I'm not making a pro-MS post for the sake of it - I've programmed both OpenGL and DirectX for years, and I'm struggling to see what advantage you are referring to?
(Also note that, AIUI, consoles don't necessarily support OpenGL either, but have their own custom APIs. OpenGL is handy for Linux etc, but I'm not sure that's a major factor for the state of PC gaming today.)
I'm also not sure what you base your claim of "when nobody really wants to use it" for DirectX 11 on? The article's assertion is that nobody is using it because of consoles holding them back. What is your reason for them not wanting to use it? Because they're all secretly OpenGL fans who hate DirectX? I don't think so - as much as I wished OpenGL would succeed, the rate at which commercial developers switched to DirectX suggest otherwise.
Yes. They profit from the sale of DVD's and Blu-ray. You may not like it, but they do
Two straw men in one. Thank you for point out the obvious - yes, I know they sell DVDs. And no, it's not true that I don't like it. I've never complained about them selling DVDs etc, since that doesn't affect those of us who pay for it. The issue is when they introduce DRM as an argument for making even more money, since that does affect us.
If they did not have this option, I would probably not be able to freely view this content via browser as is.
Why not? And if you're not paying for the BBC, yet you can watch it, then how is that helping the BBC's profits?
Is BBC entirely funded by the tax-payer? Do you agree that any taxes eliminated by profits that they may make are a good thing?
What taxes eliminated by profits?
It is reasonable to call the BBC fee a tax, however this doesn't mean it's funded out of general taxation. There is a specific TV licence fee.
Not to mention that no one is arguing against profits. You still have to show that DRM increases their profits.
I can only assume that the BBC is much like PBS in the US (public funded). PBS is a wasteland of uninteresting content here and doesn't have near the recognition of BBC. If they have a successful model that doesn't cost your tax payers too much, I personally wouldn't be so quick to criticize this move.
You are seriously suggesting that the BBC is better than PBS, because of DRM? How does that account for all the decades when they didn't have DRM? How can you possibly argue that we can't criticise this move now, based on the quality of the BBC so far?
It costs us £145.50 a year (from April). Even if DRM does help them lower the fee, it's hardly helping if licence payers are simply instead having to pay more by buying DVDs - they're still paying one way or the other! And the biggest point you are missing is that, since the BBC is funded by the public, its quality is not going to go down just because they don't have DRM. That's the poorest argument for DRM I've ever heard. Speaking as someone who pays for the BBC - unlike you - I don't want DRM.
because thats what the prefix actually means.
The prefix means whatever it's defined to mean. Words borrowed from other languages often have subtely different meanings. If you interpreted everything in English based on the literal meaning of the language it originally came from, you wouldn't get very far.
You're saying that everyone should know the special case that kilobyte means 1024 bytes, but that's already a lost cause; disk makers have been using kilo to mean 1000 for years, and it'll probably never be really sorted out.
Yes, it's a mess, but kibi bibi this isn't solving this problem - even fewer people know what these terms are. As I say, I've never even once hear anyone use these terms.
The point of using the kibi-style prefixes is to make it clear what you're talking about.
I'm doubtful that most people would have a clue what you are on about if you started saying kibi to them. And what happens when disk makers start misusing kibibytes?
So don't buy DRM content and if you're in the UK don't get a TV license until the BBC drops their DRM. Simple enough I'd say. Worked for music.
As pointed out, the BBC doesn't work like this - we don't have consumer choice like for other companies.
As a constituent in a political system, derive an argument that producer digital restrictions are harmful enough that you can campaign against your local politico and make it stick.
Um, exactly like people are doing, you mean? That's what we're talking about - you're the one saying that people shouldn't care.
Until that's the law of the land though, you have no *right* to be allowed to change presentation layers of digital media; particularly if it means circumventing encryption. I have no problems with people defying it in an act of civil disobedience, just never forget, that producers *do* and *should* have rights of distribution and presentation as the law stands now.
You're conflating what the law is, with opinions about what the law should be. Even if the law says one thing, people can still question what the law should be.
Furthermore, you don't even know what UK law is - there is no UK law, AFAIK, against circumventing encryption (at least, I don't think we've yet brought in our own DMCA equivalent, though I may be wrong). We are not governed by your Spanish law, and producers do not have some legal given right of presentation. The issue here is not one of law, but a question of the BBC using DRM, when it's funded by the licence fee.
Even where it is a question of law, are you like this on every Slashdot story? E.g., there's a story about the DMCA, and you post 50 comments telling us that that's what the law is? Yes, we know what the law is - it's the law that we're complaining about.
And by that logic, there are more important things than the BBC having a right to force anyone watching any TV to pay for the BBC, and to stick DRM on it. So by your own argument, why are they wasting time doing this, when that money and their time is better spent on health care, fighting discrimination, curing world hunger, etc?
This is the UK, so RIAA v. Rio isn't relevant.
And are you seriously suggesting that everything be illegal, unless a court rules otherwise? I don't think so. That's not how it works in the UK.
The OP is clearly talking about the rights that he wants to have, anyway. As opposed to the rights that the BBC thinks it should have (even though we pay for it).
There are way more important things in life than DRM.
Ah yes, this card. So people can't spend time on more than one issue? And the issues you list are all trivial compared to even more important issues, such as world poverty - surely by your logic, we should only be spending time on the single most important thing in the world right?
And anyhow, what are you doing here, if you think it's not important? Surely there are more important things in life, than people on Slashdot talking about things you disagree with? What worthy causes do you spend your time on - and where's the evidence that this is more than what the OP spends his time on?
Because you say that DRM removes rights of the consumer, which rights? Redistribution and authorized playback are the rights of the producer, not the consumer.
There are no consumers in the BBC's model - they're funded by the British public, whether they want to consume the BBC's material or not.
Which is important when you're trying to convince someone to pay for a TV license on materials they can easily download online.
Again, no. The BBC does not have to worry about getting people to buy its content, because it doesn't work like that. In fact, whilst people who watch non-BBC TV still have to pay the licence, it's also true that non-TV owners can watch material on Iplayer without paying for the licence. So the argument that this provides an incentive is nonsense - those people who watch TV don't need an incentive, because they have no choice (it's illegal to watch without a licence), whilst those people thinking about downloading versus using Iplayer don't have to pay anyway.
And as a licence payer, I don't want it.
Then the same answer still applies. BBC is simply protecting it's own content and profits as they see it.
Its content and profits? The BBC is already paid for by the British public (well, anyone who watches TV - whether or not they want to watch the BBC).
As a licence payer, I don't want them using DRM.
but you are going to end up like the hackers trying to reclaim their name from the media
The only ones trying to reclaim a name is the people who think that the byte is an SI unit, and are trying to reclaim "kilo" etc to only mean the SI version.
Just as long as it suits hard disk manufacturers to correctly use the SI prefix and you can't call them out on it because they are unfortunately right
They weren't right until people started agreeing with them.
I could say the same to you - give it up; you don't even have the hacker's claim to be right.
Nobody cares about the pedantics
Um, the pedants in this debate are those who want to redefine a system, because they're hung up on the pedantic point that the original greek meaning of the word "kilo" meant "a thousand". Words change - especially when they are in a new language, but derived from a greek or latin term, it's not uncommon that there is only a loose connection in meaning. That's not a problem unless you're going to be pedantic.
Mac OS X moved to base-10 units on Snow Leopard, and it's made things much, much simpler. 500GB drives appear as 500GB. My 32GB iPhone appears as 32GB.
Oh of course, if your Apple OS and phone do it this way, it must be right!
How much base-10 memory does your Apple PC have? My PC has 3.221225472GB! Much simpler, I only had to use a calculator to work it out.
However, SI prefixes *are* in base 10
Bytes (or bits) are not SI units.
but why on earth are so many CS people arguing *against* decreasing ambiguity?
The ambiguity is introduced by those people saying it should instead be 1000 kb. The "KiB" thing doesn't really help, because now you have no idea who's using the new system or not. It would have been more sensible to use the alternative letters for the 1000 system. And whilst I sometimes see people write "KiB" etc, I've never once heard people say "Kibibyte" or anything like that...
The only reason to resist it that I can see is just blind and unthinking resistance to change -- the exact same reason so many people resist the metric system and SI at all.
I'll say it again: Bytes (or bits) are not SI units. And if they were, the bit would be the far more sensibly choice as a base unit.
(Even the SI unit has its issues - that the kilogram is the base unit for mass. A gram should really be called a millikilogram - but thankfully people aren't pedantic when it comes to mass.)
I agree entirely - what the "kibibyte" crowd miss is that a byte is not an SI unit, so the fact that some SI group decided to redefine it later on isn't really relevant. And as you note, we have bits as well as bytes - surely it's the bit that should be the SI unit, not byte? What's so special about a collection 8 bits?
(And let's be serious here - do these people actually say kibibyte and mebibyte, etc?)
They can alter the EULA to prohibit the development as easily as they can prohibit it's use. Since he's a user of their service he's bound by their EULA too.
I didn't realise that EULA's were so magical. All he needs to do then is write an EULA that says Facebook should leave him alone.
Personally I'm altering my EULA right now, to say that you agree to pay me $100 :)
(Being a user of a service doesn't make you a slave to whatever a company decides to alter their "EULA" too. Try and have a think what the A stands for, for starters.)
Fair's fair. The Iphone gets an obligitary mention even when it's irrelevant ("You can also view this website on an Iphone!") So it's fair to do so when it's negative publicity also - they can't have it both ways.
Facebook and MySpace are annoying, but they're not all like that. (E.g., LiveJournal is a lot nicer.)
And why should I have to visit your website? What is this, the 1990s? You'd better have an RSS feed that allows me to more conveniently pull the information together.
They have every right to stop a user from accessing their site, if they detect its use somehow. But a "EUL" doesn't give them the right to "go after" them. If they think it does, then my EULA says they agree to pay me a billion dollars should they do that.
Given that it's just the initials, I think it's even more dubious.
According to the parent, the Atari ST was infringing on Star Trek...
Facebook own the trademark to the letters "F" and "B" now? And any phrase that includes those letters is infringing? I think that's a stretch.
Maybe MySpace should sue Facebook for using the "ace" ("space", "face"? Sounds quite similar, if you ask me...) Except then MySpace would be sued by MicroSoft.