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User: base3

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Comments · 1,608

  1. Re:Why do ads need to come first while loading a p on Facebook's "Evil Interfaces" · · Score: 1

    That's why God gave us tabbed browsers. Of course when I encounter that crap, I usually decide it's not even worth that much trouble and just close the page.

  2. Re:Why does anyone use iTunes? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    When CDs came out, you had to re-buy all your old tapes/records on CD.

    You say that like it's a good thing.

  3. Re:Why does anyone use iTunes? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    FYI, that trick won't work if the account for which the DRMd song are "authorized" has ever logged in with a later version of iTunes. Fortunately, I only had to go to a back version of iTunes to get a song that no one else sold one time.

  4. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    I stand corrected--hadn't tried it in Windows 7.

  5. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    WAV isn't compressed--I suspect you know that.

    Yes, it is lock-in, because MP3 is the de facto standard format for digital music. Anything that only works on a subset of players that happen to also support the standard tends to lock in to those players.

    All Apple music was available in DRMless format four months before Amazon launched the non-beta version of their service. So Amazon such a great job of forcing Apple to get rid of DRM it was retroactive to before Amazon's store existed.

    I know that can't true because I had to restort to iTMS on an old G4 that I had lying around (still running a version of iTunes where the key location was known--yes, of course I stripped the DRM) to get Fiona Apple's cover of Elvis Costello's "I Want You" which was not only iTMS exclusive but not available (even for an extra price) without DRM. I know Amazon was selling MP3s at the time because I looked there first to try to purchase the song. The metadata in the file gives a 1/25/2009 purchase date. I haven't used iTMS since, thank goodness, but that establishes that as of that date Apple was still selling (for people who can't strip the DRM, renting--and no, burning to CD and another lossy compression does not constitute stripping DRM) DRM-encumbered music.

  6. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you were comparing one compressed audio format to another, that'd be fair. Your friend with the 8-track isn't using a ubiquitous format anymore, either. The use of AAC/M4A by Apple is form of vendor lock-in, albeit somewhat softer now that they sell some audio tracks without DRM (thank you, Amazon!).

  7. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    Also, WMP does not play AAC/M4A files natively--a third party codec is required.

  8. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    That's right -- the Zune is its own walled garden. Can it add DRM to AAC files before sharing them, too?

  9. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    Okay, fair enough -- they play on something besides the iPod now--but MP3 is still overwhelmingly more compatible and ubiquitous. And it's not an irrational anti-patent stance so much as an anti-Apple one. (Yes, I know AAC isn't owned by Apple, but iTMS is the only reason most people use it.)

  10. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Okay, so some commercial players have jumped on the bandwagon (and I doubt mplayer's codecs are technically legal), but MP3 is still more compatible and more common. How about car stereos--do CDs full of AAC files work as well as CDs full of MP3s?

  11. Re:Straight MP3? on Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31 · · Score: 1

    AAC is technically an "open standard" (patent encumbered just like MP3, plus digital restrictions-encumbered in the case of some iTMS "purchases") but for all practical purposes is useless outside of the iTMS walled garden.

  12. Re:Most Expensive Hotels Price Gouge on the Wi-Fi on HotelChatter's Annual Hotel Wi-Fi Report 2010 · · Score: 1

    I've got a three night stay in such a hotel coming up and am thinking about Cricket--a month of access with the "free" modem, even with the activation fee, is close to the $50 w/tax three nights of WiFi would cost me.

  13. Re:People still use cash? on Treasury Goes High-Tech With Redesigned $100 Bills · · Score: 1

    If you pay for everything with your credit card, it takes literally zero effort to click a button and get a complete record of your monthly transactions.

    Exactly. Oh, you meant get a record of your own transactions--yeah, that too :).

  14. Re:Disappearing libertybell on Treasury Goes High-Tech With Redesigned $100 Bills · · Score: 1

    Was also thinking that that was quite apropos!

  15. What's the point . . . on Treasury Goes High-Tech With Redesigned $100 Bills · · Score: 1

    . . . if they aren't going to recall all the existing $100s in circulation and declare them worthless and no longer legal tender as of some date certain? If the current ones are easier to counterfeit, why wouldn't the counterfeiters just keep counterfeiting those?

  16. Re:Well, pull out of China completely on Google Enumerates Government Requests · · Score: 1

    Internet peace in our time!

  17. Re:Now if only they would change their policy on Bad PR Forces Apple To Reconsider Banning Mark Fiore's App · · Score: 1

    Replying to undo Redundant moderation that was meant to be an Insightful.

  18. Re:Suing them for what, exactly? on Will Adobe Sue Apple Over Flash? · · Score: 1

    Does Apple demand access to source code as part of their review process? Do they reverse engineer binaries to see what they were compiled with? (Seems like that could be defeated with a wrapper.) Were I a smartphone developer, I wouldn't touch the iPhone/iPad sharecropper farm with a ten foot pole, I know that much.

  19. Re:Stoppelman doesn't get it on Yelp Founder Says "No Extortion — Just a Misunderstood Algorithm" · · Score: 1

    It sounds a lot like the U.S. credit scoring system before the Fair Credit Reporting Act--lenders would use all that stuff here in a New York minute if they could get away with it, because whether it's true or not, those folks believe those things to be indicators of risk.

  20. Re:Sham on Yelp Founder Says "No Extortion — Just a Misunderstood Algorithm" · · Score: 1

    I've found that when searching for reviews on Google, I see more clearly sham reviews than on Yelp. Yelp isn't perfect, but if you read it knowing they game the reviews for their paying customers and have a well-tuned bullshit detector, it can be useful in a strange city.

  21. Re:Experience shows that they most likely don't... on Yelp Founder Says "No Extortion — Just a Misunderstood Algorithm" · · Score: 1

    Ooh--that's evil. I've never left a review (I check out Yelp, keeping in mind the possibility of pay-for-play and adjusting my expectations accordingly.) If I ever do post one, I'll be sure and check it out from another IP with a different browser, cookies, etc.

  22. Re:Experience shows that they most likely don't... on Yelp Founder Says "No Extortion — Just a Misunderstood Algorithm" · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Only peripherally on-topic--a bit pricey likely because of its proximity to Michigan Avenue, but Mary's Cafe served the best damn breakfast I'd had in a long time. Try the "Stack" if you go.

  23. Re:Maroons make the news on Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars · · Score: 1

    Was the victim here a cop or a politician? I'm guessing that unless the prank call was a death threat that that's an unusual degree of investigative effort for a crank call.

  24. Re:Maroons make the news on Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars · · Score: 1

    LOL at that--excellent! Also, probably good to make sure the cell phone you normally carry every day sees some travel or is at least turned on somewhere far away from the AP in question--maybe taped to the underside of a seat on a bus to somewhere you could say you were travelling? (Would be necessary to get another bus ticket to retrieve the phone--wouldn't want to use that alibi if the phone was retrieved by someone else.) Not that I've thought this through or anything, mind you!

  25. Re:Maroons make the news on Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hmmm . . . or gen up a copy of some plates of a car of a similar make and model and put them on the car near the AP. Probably a bad idea to drive with fake plates on the highway, but in a residential area, should be fine so long as you don't run stop signs or look out of place. Not that I've thought this through or anything--oh, there's someone at the door :) . . .