The article is good publicity for Warp Pipe. Which, as it clearly identifies, is now a business.
However, the article basically takes some random actions on the part of the Warp Pipe team (i.e. posting images with a DS badly photoshopped into them), combines them with some random allusions and common assumptions (i.e. Marionette, online play), and then pulls a patent applying to the Gameboy Color out of nowhere.
Out of that we get: 1. Warp Pipe is now a business. 2. A bunch of people know big things but aren't telling us, and won't even confirm that they know big things that they won't tell us. 3. GBC Patent. 4. This somehow correlates into the DS being online.
So what do we get? Questionable rumors and what's probably hype over Warp Pipe's next project. I mean, is anyone else getting anything out of this beyond Warp Pipe publicity?
Nothing against Warp Pipe, mind you, as they've done great things on the Gamecube. I find myself wondering if they're just using all this mysterious BS to simply hedge their bets (and bets that are theirs alone) should the DS not fit into their online schemes.
the reason is that Microsoft paints itself as the savior of computing, as software that will make your life infallibly better and easier, and along the way has made quite a lot of unethical business decisions.
Watched a commercial lately?
My knives utilize revolutionary cutting technology. My headphones contain patented technology that's bound to change audio as we know it. My toothpaste is recommended by four out of five dentists, and my car is the world's safest. Even my power bar provides the best in surge protection.
At least, that's what the packaging claims.
Microsoft sells a product. Over-selling can be bad, particularly if it breeds skepticism, or if it involves outright lies. However, you'll do better with hype than with "Windows: It's an operating system!"
It's not just big companies either. My old restaurant claimed the best martinis in the city, and the local ice cream parlour makes the best in the country (ice cream, mind you, not martinis).
If you think Microsoft's bad, watch more infomercials, or the Home Shopping Network.
but that have been countless security vulnerabilities where Microsoft has openly said: "yes, we knew about this 6 months ago, here's the patch now"
And it happens with FireFox as well. Less often those of the 6-month variety, and rarely of the crippling scope as observed with Microsoft bugs, but refer to Bugzilla. Dozens of bugs are reported on a daily basis, and there are many long-standing entries that remain unresolved.
And obviously the Firefox team knew about the bugs being fixed... because they would need to know of the bug to later claim that it was fixed. We have no guarantee of how long they've known about a specific bug before they resolve it, but even if they coincidentally fix a bug without knowing about it beforehand, they would need to know about at some point to claim the fix.
All companies fix bugs pre-emptively with updates. Such is the nature of software development, and despite Microsoft's faults, I assume all released code undergoes some degree of review. The question is how successful any given company is at rooting our all the bugs.
That said, Microsoft does seem to let more bugs slip through, and the bugs that get through are often mind boggling.
Amen to that. What could have been a serious discussion regarding Word alternatives is made somewhat of a farce thanks to the article.
To touch on one point you didn't, what's with the complaint regarding plaintext, near the end? The dialog defaults to vanilla "Windows (default)", which is what I think most Windows users would naturally expect. One needs to select an "Other:" radio button to even activate the apparently cryptic list.
Meanwhile, I'd kill for better language support in modern applications, and we have someone acting as if it's just obfuscated a critical feature. Would he rather all these options show up in the Save As... dialog?
If anything it sounds like he had a bad install. His fault? Microsoft's? Not enough detail. The fact that he mentioned emailed files and macro errors makes me suspect that not all is clean on his end. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's primarily Microsoft's fault, it's a series of personal anecdotes followed by him having trouble figuring out several arbitrary features. I could get the same from my grandmother.
As for XML-supporting text editors, Word 2003 allows files to be saved as XML. Whether that XML is kosher, I don't know, though I don't see any suspicious binary in a quick test document.
The advantages of FLAC and other lossless formats are diminished somewhat by the power considerations of HD-based players. The two most battery-intensive activities with the player seem to be transfering files to and from my computer, and loading data off the hard drive for playback. iRiver itself estimates the battery life based on the bitrate of the file being played (128kbps MP3 ~= 16 hours), which I'd venture is guided more by the time to read data off the drive than actual processing power required.
FLAC is my own preferred lossless codec, and while its compression is fantastic given the quality it retains, I'd personally much rather save the battery life. Particularly with the occasional fears surrounding HD-based mp3 player battery life. Replaceable? Probably. A bother? Definitely.
Besides, ~160kbps OGG sounds perfect to my ears. At least with transcoding from FLAC to OGG you're still only encoding lossy once. Of course, I'm hardly a purist, and I know a lot of iPod owners condemn iRiver's parallels for their lack of AAC, for example. Everyone has their own preference.
Mind you, the unit does support WAV playback, so FLAC would still be a nice addition, if only for completeness. The WAV playback itself, I'd venture, exists both due to fact it's still the generic lossless format, and that some users probably want at least one lossless option to go with the recording features. That in mind, FLAC markets itself as asymmetric in favor of decoding, meaning that it may not make for an ideal recording format if iRiver's hardware can't keep up, so I wouldn't count on it to replace the WAV format in this area.
Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.
At last check, my iRiver iHP-120 supports SRS, WOW, and TruBass in amongst its EQ settings. Don't know about their Flash-based players, but it would be surprising if some of them didn't.
Re:I'm with linus torvalds on this one
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Browser Wars Mark II
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· Score: 2, Insightful
How do you "bookmark" a section of a Flash movie? If I find something interesting in a Flash-based web site, and I want to come back to it later, I have to remember all the cutesy menus I had to go through just to get back there.
I could badly design a site using a single HTML file and a bit of CSS that's completely unbookmarkable beyond what you see when you first load the page. I'd be an idiot to do so, as would anyone presenting Flash content that isn't divided such that it can be bookmarked at reasonable points during site navigation. Don't blame the tools, blame those that go out of their way to abuse them.
Most Flash pages do not allow copying of text. So, not only can I not easily bookmark the information I want, I can't copy it either unless I whip out a text editor and re-type everything myself.
Again, I could make a site that's an extreme hassle to copy text from using HTML and a bit of CSS. Again, don't blame the tools.
Accessibility! Perhaps Macromedia or someone else has a solution for this, but I've yet to hear of such a thing. How accessible are Flash sites to, say, blind people? If your computer can't access the information as text, how can it read it to you or present it in Braille?
Mind you, I'm not blind, but Macromedia's been promoting Accessibility for a while now. Further, how many existing HTML/CSS-based web sites comply with AAA/508 accessibility guidelines? Provide proper aural stylesheets? How many developers know the capabilities and limitations, or even the names of popular accessibility software? Or even know what the AAA and 508 guidelines are?
Time for a geeky one: it's a closed standard. Unlike HTML, and JPEG, and PNG, and XML, and CSS, etc. Flash is not really an open standard. You have to use Macromedia's tools if you want to do anything serious with the format. If Macromedia goes out of business tomorrow, and you can't get Flash for Windows Longhorn or Mac OS X Tiger, oh well you're screwed. And what happens if they decide they want royalties for every.swf you put on your web site?
Valid complaint, but there are both open and commercial alternatives to the Flash application, and documentation of the format is available. If Macromedia disappeared tomorrow, these open alternatives and documentation wouldn't suddenly cease to exist. If Sun were to disappear tomorrow, would all Java developers and products become dead weight?
The argument seems to be that because US citizens download this software and the company gains some of its revenue from advertisements from US companies/advertising firms, it should be subjected to US law?
I think part of the question being asked in this case is whether individuals are intentionally promoting international distribution to dodge the law within a given system. I mean, I agree that we shouldn't be meddling in foreign affairs, but can we support individuals who take advantage of "international waters" to promote questionably moral practices?
This is something that is hurting the anti-DRM movement more than it's helping.
I couldn't agree more. The idea of "free speech" has been warped to the point that the concept is diluted beyond recognition. Defending P2P filetrading as an act of free speech does less to promote the life of P2P applications and networks than degrade the image of free speech in general. Which is more important, protecting Joe Teenager's right to trade mp3s, or protecting the right of the media and common people to speak on all matters, whether endorsed by the majority or not?
So when they're committing "evil" acts against the consumer, we treat them as a single evil entity, and hate them as such. When they start doing "good", we break it down so as to dilute the issue?
Way to make clear the obvious bias within the Slashdot community. Face it, classifying the RIAA as a single entity comes with the intent of promoting them less as a fair oligopoly than some nefarious modular monopoly. We're so quick to drop the title when it's less convenient to a given perspective.
As for the matter of overcharging (not in regard to the parent post, so much as those above), define "overcharge". No made-up (ie assumed) statistics or assumed libertarian audience. We've already heard it time and time again. If you're going to quote the FCC, quote with context.
The defining "overcharging" is as cut-and-dry as defining "poverty". Are they overcharging when they charge an unreasonable sum relative to production costs? When they soak the artists to maximize their own profit? But isn't overcharging best demonstrated by consumer trends? I doubt people're buying fewer albums due to high costs than as a result of industry music simply sucking.... and that's a bit non-sequituous in the greater overcharging issue.
Various Java courses are mandatory at my university. Our main *nix server is a SPARC running Solaris. There are Sun workstations peppered across campus. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if we have a deal with Sun.
The same is true for IBM. In my mandatory OOP&D course, we're forced to sign an agreement put forth by IBM. This allows for free educational use of Smalltalk.
I doubt it's a coincidence that we're taught UML (also mandatory), and find ourselves with a rather hefty donation (supposedly in the millions) from Rational.
I've also been through mandatory classes for C and C++.... although I doubt bribery is involved.
These are all classes I've taken. All mandatory at my school, and I'm only in second year. Who knows what the future holds?
So what was your point again?
Frankly, I don't find it hard to justify even the more underhanded deals considering the state of tuition fervor in Ontario universities. Thanks to deregulation, Computer Science and Computer Engineering students face unrestricted tuition increases in the near future, whereas various other science course, and the liberal arts, are provide some security. Over the past 10 years, tuition has supposedly increased by ~130%. If choosing a mandatory C# course over a mandatory Java course means saving the students money, I can't see why the option wouldn't be given strong consideration at the very least.
Re:I'm not trolling
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Newton Won't Die
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The "problem", if we're to treat it as such, is less Wired than Leander Kahney the individual. If there's old Mac hardware and software being used by anyone, anywhere, and made vocal online, I wouldn't put it past Leander to report on it.
That isn't to say Newtons and Hypercard aren't worth note. However, there's a bit of disproportionate tracking of Mac "cult" interests over at Wired as a result.
Doesn't help that articles such as this made an appearance on Wired's front page with a description along the lines of "iPod users giving up their Palms". It's a little bit of pleasant hyperbole, but justified in that it no doubt pleases the iPod owners in the crowd.
I didn't think subscription models were such a scary thing? Term it a monthly payment plan, and it's how many of us pay our ISP, phone, and cable bills, regardless of how much we use them.
Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but being the type to only spend so much per month on music as it is, I doubt you represent the demographic they're aiming at.
HMV's service costs half as much as your typical CD, at ~$7 per month. While the number of tracks for download are undisclosed, I think it'd be reasonable to assume they allow for the download of at least a CD's worth of songs for that price, otherwise making the service completely trivial. I could see that saving a lot of people money.... particularly your typical P2P-using singles troll.... the same people it'd be nice to lure away from P2P networks.
Is it really enough to simply play off the weaknesses?
Two notable strengths of P2P, as it stands:
1) It's free, within a reasonable definition of the word "free". 2) Bandwidth expenses are distributed.
I'm betting that the vast majority of common P2P application users are less concerned with the quality of the material they download, than that it comes without visible expense. How would a company price their services, whatever the merits, in the face of such competition?
Furthermore, the big issues seem to be quality control and control over distribution. This implies some centralized server for distribution, meaning high bandwidth commitment from a single source, rather than depending on the bandwidth of other users.
On one hand businesses are forced to adjust their prices to compete with free, lower-quality services. On the other, they're forced to make enough revenue to cover distribution expenses.
I don't think it's such an "easy concept", when you consider that the balance of priorities of the end user will likely weigh heavily in terms of financial expense.
In my first year of computer science, there were two mandatory courses on Java. We weren't educated in Java because it's accessible. We weren't educated in Java because it represents the most practical real-world programming language. We were educated in Java for two reasons.
1. It's easy. 2. It's a very reasonable programming language to learn fundamentals and standard practices.
Apparently the mandatory C# course is presented as an introductory course, putting it in the same role as Java as an educational language at my school. If it does the job, all the power to U of W.
I only have two concerns:
1. It's less accessible than Java. 2. I hate Microsoft.
If anything, the former will encourage a level playing field, forcing all students to depend on school facilities. The latter is a personal bias.
With all these evil terrorists and executives roaming the streets, I'm appauled we're still busting all those poor innocent shoplifters and breaking up domestic disputes! Civil servants should be profiling foreigners and storming office buildings, not enforcing all those trivial matters that don't REALLY effect us! *end sarcasm*
Terrorism is a matter being dealt with. Big businesses are under the microscope. Are we to put down everything else until these matters are completely resolved? 'Cause y'know what? They won't be. Ever.
File sharing is a matter of concern. I think we all accept that illegal activity is the norm on P2P networks, and I'm not just talking music piracy (noting the bias hereabouts against the RIAA). Just because there're bigger things going on in the world, doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to all the smaller concerns.
Why do today's software and consumer electronics users expect to be able to fire up their new toy and magically have a complete understanding of how to use it?
Perhaps because standardization makes sense? Although regretably not to manufacturers, it seems.
In my house I have two VCRs. One of them, if the timer is set to record, requires that the VCR be on when the given time comes up. The other, however, requires that the VCR be turned off when the given time approaches, or it won't record. Even if we get users to read the manual (and I do believe that a good number of consumers are willing to read the manual, so long as it's easy enough to confront their specific issue), what're the chances that we're going to get them to read the manual each time they're forced to remember how their specific hardware performs?
It's the same with phones, particularly portables. Some have one button to place a call and another to hang up. Others use the same button. I don't know how many calls I've had logged on my answering machine from those who've accidentally hit the talk button expecting the phone to disconnect (because it does on the phone they're more accustomed to using).
Heck, if you wanna get technical, it all starts at the input device. Some time ago I went so far as to purchase a "simple" controller for my mother, as the controller that game with her present TV confused her with the circular button arrangement, four different menu-opening buttons, and six different menu navigation buttons.
I'm convinced the average consumer could pick up a given device and use it straight out of the box if their creators didn't go out of their way to confound the user with new "innovative" interface features.
Walmart is about the only US company I can think of that can actually take on MS.
I think "take on" is a little bit too strong in this case, as it implies that Walmart went out of their way to make some form of statement against Microsoft.
After Walmart's attempt at the "OS-less PC", I think it's obvious that they're simply interested in being able to pursue lower pricetags.
I doubt they're intent on making a pro-Linux statement either, otherwise they'd be packaging a more common Linux distribution. I'm thinking they're just going for the low-cost compromise.
Last I checked Walmart was one of them big evil corporations that we tend to frown upon hereabouts? Their means of establishing their building monopoly is beating out the competition's prices. Lindows is just another piece in the puzzle.
Re:article illustrated something about family...
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Tracking Mafiaboy
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I believe the poster before you was suggesting that bad parents imply bad kids, rather than bad kids implying bad parents.
While your point is still a valid one, I don't think justifies such a harsh tone against the original post.
Perhaps it's a naive classical perspective, but I'm inclined to believe that moral development begins in the home, under the influence of one's parents and siblings. While good parents may not properly instill strong moral judgement in their children, I think there's a higher chance of them making a valid attempt toward strong moral development than parents lacking in said morals.
I think the problem can be traced back to the statement "This game looks good."
Admittedly I haven't been giving FFXI the attention it deserves (in lack of Sakaguchi), but taking into consideration the limited power of the PS2, and the graphic compromises in even the most advanced PC MMORPGs, I find myself wondering just how many characters we can expect to see on-screen? How many enemies? How many unique environment elements and NPCs?
Part of the appeal of MMORPGs is the ability to have insane numbers of players all interacting simultaneously.
The question I pose to those that've followed the progress of FFXI is whether it's truly an MMORPG, or simply an online RPG of the same sort as Phantasy Star Online, where clear limits are placed on the number of active characters?
As for MS, if I were them, I'd be perfectly happy with Morrowind for the XBox. It's a beautiful, engrossing game for the PC. But then, it doesn't have the words "Final" and "Fantasy" anywhere in its name, so it's unlikely that the bulk of console RPG gamers'll give it any notice.
The majority of the information provided by the given document is generally based on studies provided by other organizations, the most of which being magazines, news sites, and web stat sources.
However, the spin put on such results by the author is rather one-sided, throwing the original interpretations to the win in favor of the author's interpretation of numbers alone.
Similarly the document pretains almost solely to server software, and argues present usage and future potential, rather that presenting feature-to-feature comparison.
I hate to be a rather biased critic, but the "study" could have been titled a bit better.... perhaps to reflect that we're not really considering consumer-level applications.... and, for that matter, that little actual comparison is done between software packages rather than their users.
Slashdot Mirror
The article is good publicity for Warp Pipe. Which, as it clearly identifies, is now a business.
However, the article basically takes some random actions on the part of the Warp Pipe team (i.e. posting images with a DS badly photoshopped into them), combines them with some random allusions and common assumptions (i.e. Marionette, online play), and then pulls a patent applying to the Gameboy Color out of nowhere.
Out of that we get:
1. Warp Pipe is now a business.
2. A bunch of people know big things but aren't telling us, and won't even confirm that they know big things that they won't tell us.
3. GBC Patent.
4. This somehow correlates into the DS being online.
So what do we get? Questionable rumors and what's probably hype over Warp Pipe's next project. I mean, is anyone else getting anything out of this beyond Warp Pipe publicity?
Nothing against Warp Pipe, mind you, as they've done great things on the Gamecube. I find myself wondering if they're just using all this mysterious BS to simply hedge their bets (and bets that are theirs alone) should the DS not fit into their online schemes.
the reason is that Microsoft paints itself as the savior of computing, as software that will make your life infallibly better and easier, and along the way has made quite a lot of unethical business decisions.
Watched a commercial lately?
My knives utilize revolutionary cutting technology. My headphones contain patented technology that's bound to change audio as we know it. My toothpaste is recommended by four out of five dentists, and my car is the world's safest. Even my power bar provides the best in surge protection.
At least, that's what the packaging claims.
Microsoft sells a product. Over-selling can be bad, particularly if it breeds skepticism, or if it involves outright lies. However, you'll do better with hype than with "Windows: It's an operating system!"
It's not just big companies either. My old restaurant claimed the best martinis in the city, and the local ice cream parlour makes the best in the country (ice cream, mind you, not martinis).
If you think Microsoft's bad, watch more infomercials, or the Home Shopping Network.
but that have been countless security vulnerabilities where Microsoft has openly said: "yes, we knew about this 6 months ago, here's the patch now"
And it happens with FireFox as well. Less often those of the 6-month variety, and rarely of the crippling scope as observed with Microsoft bugs, but refer to Bugzilla. Dozens of bugs are reported on a daily basis, and there are many long-standing entries that remain unresolved.
And obviously the Firefox team knew about the bugs being fixed... because they would need to know of the bug to later claim that it was fixed. We have no guarantee of how long they've known about a specific bug before they resolve it, but even if they coincidentally fix a bug without knowing about it beforehand, they would need to know about at some point to claim the fix.
All companies fix bugs pre-emptively with updates. Such is the nature of software development, and despite Microsoft's faults, I assume all released code undergoes some degree of review. The question is how successful any given company is at rooting our all the bugs.
That said, Microsoft does seem to let more bugs slip through, and the bugs that get through are often mind boggling.
Amen to that. What could have been a serious discussion regarding Word alternatives is made somewhat of a farce thanks to the article.
To touch on one point you didn't, what's with the complaint regarding plaintext, near the end? The dialog defaults to vanilla "Windows (default)", which is what I think most Windows users would naturally expect. One needs to select an "Other:" radio button to even activate the apparently cryptic list.
Meanwhile, I'd kill for better language support in modern applications, and we have someone acting as if it's just obfuscated a critical feature. Would he rather all these options show up in the Save As... dialog?
If anything it sounds like he had a bad install. His fault? Microsoft's? Not enough detail. The fact that he mentioned emailed files and macro errors makes me suspect that not all is clean on his end. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's primarily Microsoft's fault, it's a series of personal anecdotes followed by him having trouble figuring out several arbitrary features. I could get the same from my grandmother.
As for XML-supporting text editors, Word 2003 allows files to be saved as XML. Whether that XML is kosher, I don't know, though I don't see any suspicious binary in a quick test document.
He's selling his brand of Jesus. Been in business for a long time.
Now if somebody capitalizes on his name to lure people on a site that hurts his business, that's unfair competition.
I'm with you! Jesus should totally pursue legal action against Falwell for hurting his business!
That might set some extreme precedence, though. What would Jesus sue?
Do you know if they have plans to add FLAC to it?
Speaking strictly as an iRiver consumer...
The advantages of FLAC and other lossless formats are diminished somewhat by the power considerations of HD-based players. The two most battery-intensive activities with the player seem to be transfering files to and from my computer, and loading data off the hard drive for playback. iRiver itself estimates the battery life based on the bitrate of the file being played (128kbps MP3 ~= 16 hours), which I'd venture is guided more by the time to read data off the drive than actual processing power required.
FLAC is my own preferred lossless codec, and while its compression is fantastic given the quality it retains, I'd personally much rather save the battery life. Particularly with the occasional fears surrounding HD-based mp3 player battery life. Replaceable? Probably. A bother? Definitely.
Besides, ~160kbps OGG sounds perfect to my ears. At least with transcoding from FLAC to OGG you're still only encoding lossy once. Of course, I'm hardly a purist, and I know a lot of iPod owners condemn iRiver's parallels for their lack of AAC, for example. Everyone has their own preference.
Mind you, the unit does support WAV playback, so FLAC would still be a nice addition, if only for completeness. The WAV playback itself, I'd venture, exists both due to fact it's still the generic lossless format, and that some users probably want at least one lossless option to go with the recording features. That in mind, FLAC markets itself as asymmetric in favor of decoding, meaning that it may not make for an ideal recording format if iRiver's hardware can't keep up, so I wouldn't count on it to replace the WAV format in this area.
I suppose that's my two cents.
Both players feature audio functions not seen in MP3 Player before, like SRS, WOW and TruBass.
At last check, my iRiver iHP-120 supports SRS, WOW, and TruBass in amongst its EQ settings. Don't know about their Flash-based players, but it would be surprising if some of them didn't.
How do you "bookmark" a section of a Flash movie? If I find something interesting in a Flash-based web site, and I want to come back to it later, I have to remember all the cutesy menus I had to go through just to get back there.
I could badly design a site using a single HTML file and a bit of CSS that's completely unbookmarkable beyond what you see when you first load the page. I'd be an idiot to do so, as would anyone presenting Flash content that isn't divided such that it can be bookmarked at reasonable points during site navigation. Don't blame the tools, blame those that go out of their way to abuse them.
Most Flash pages do not allow copying of text. So, not only can I not easily bookmark the information I want, I can't copy it either unless I whip out a text editor and re-type everything myself.
Again, I could make a site that's an extreme hassle to copy text from using HTML and a bit of CSS. Again, don't blame the tools.
Accessibility! Perhaps Macromedia or someone else has a solution for this, but I've yet to hear of such a thing. How accessible are Flash sites to, say, blind people? If your computer can't access the information as text, how can it read it to you or present it in Braille?
Mind you, I'm not blind, but Macromedia's been promoting Accessibility for a while now. Further, how many existing HTML/CSS-based web sites comply with AAA/508 accessibility guidelines? Provide proper aural stylesheets? How many developers know the capabilities and limitations, or even the names of popular accessibility software? Or even know what the AAA and 508 guidelines are?
Time for a geeky one: it's a closed standard. Unlike HTML, and JPEG, and PNG, and XML, and CSS, etc. Flash is not really an open standard. You have to use Macromedia's tools if you want to do anything serious with the format. If Macromedia goes out of business tomorrow, and you can't get Flash for Windows Longhorn or Mac OS X Tiger, oh well you're screwed. And what happens if they decide they want royalties for every .swf you put on your web site?
Valid complaint, but there are both open and commercial alternatives to the Flash application, and documentation of the format is available. If Macromedia disappeared tomorrow, these open alternatives and documentation wouldn't suddenly cease to exist. If Sun were to disappear tomorrow, would all Java developers and products become dead weight?
The argument seems to be that because US citizens download this software and the company gains some of its revenue from advertisements from US companies/advertising firms, it should be subjected to US law?
I think part of the question being asked in this case is whether individuals are intentionally promoting international distribution to dodge the law within a given system. I mean, I agree that we shouldn't be meddling in foreign affairs, but can we support individuals who take advantage of "international waters" to promote questionably moral practices?
This is something that is hurting the anti-DRM movement more than it's helping.
I couldn't agree more. The idea of "free speech" has been warped to the point that the concept is diluted beyond recognition. Defending P2P filetrading as an act of free speech does less to promote the life of P2P applications and networks than degrade the image of free speech in general. Which is more important, protecting Joe Teenager's right to trade mp3s, or protecting the right of the media and common people to speak on all matters, whether endorsed by the majority or not?
So when they're committing "evil" acts against the consumer, we treat them as a single evil entity, and hate them as such. When they start doing "good", we break it down so as to dilute the issue?
Way to make clear the obvious bias within the Slashdot community. Face it, classifying the RIAA as a single entity comes with the intent of promoting them less as a fair oligopoly than some nefarious modular monopoly. We're so quick to drop the title when it's less convenient to a given perspective.
As for the matter of overcharging (not in regard to the parent post, so much as those above), define "overcharge". No made-up (ie assumed) statistics or assumed libertarian audience. We've already heard it time and time again. If you're going to quote the FCC, quote with context.
The defining "overcharging" is as cut-and-dry as defining "poverty". Are they overcharging when they charge an unreasonable sum relative to production costs? When they soak the artists to maximize their own profit? But isn't overcharging best demonstrated by consumer trends? I doubt people're buying fewer albums due to high costs than as a result of industry music simply sucking.... and that's a bit non-sequituous in the greater overcharging issue.
Various Java courses are mandatory at my university. Our main *nix server is a SPARC running Solaris. There are Sun workstations peppered across campus. As such, I wouldn't be surprised if we have a deal with Sun.
The same is true for IBM. In my mandatory OOP&D course, we're forced to sign an agreement put forth by IBM. This allows for free educational use of Smalltalk.
I doubt it's a coincidence that we're taught UML (also mandatory), and find ourselves with a rather hefty donation (supposedly in the millions) from Rational.
I've also been through mandatory classes for C and C++.... although I doubt bribery is involved.
These are all classes I've taken. All mandatory at my school, and I'm only in second year. Who knows what the future holds?
So what was your point again?
Frankly, I don't find it hard to justify even the more underhanded deals considering the state of tuition fervor in Ontario universities. Thanks to deregulation, Computer Science and Computer Engineering students face unrestricted tuition increases in the near future, whereas various other science course, and the liberal arts, are provide some security. Over the past 10 years, tuition has supposedly increased by ~130%. If choosing a mandatory C# course over a mandatory Java course means saving the students money, I can't see why the option wouldn't be given strong consideration at the very least.
The "problem", if we're to treat it as such, is less Wired than Leander Kahney the individual. If there's old Mac hardware and software being used by anyone, anywhere, and made vocal online, I wouldn't put it past Leander to report on it.
That isn't to say Newtons and Hypercard aren't worth note. However, there's a bit of disproportionate tracking of Mac "cult" interests over at Wired as a result.
Doesn't help that articles such as this made an appearance on Wired's front page with a description along the lines of "iPod users giving up their Palms". It's a little bit of pleasant hyperbole, but justified in that it no doubt pleases the iPod owners in the crowd.
I didn't think subscription models were such a scary thing? Term it a monthly payment plan, and it's how many of us pay our ISP, phone, and cable bills, regardless of how much we use them.
Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but being the type to only spend so much per month on music as it is, I doubt you represent the demographic they're aiming at.
HMV's service costs half as much as your typical CD, at ~$7 per month. While the number of tracks for download are undisclosed, I think it'd be reasonable to assume they allow for the download of at least a CD's worth of songs for that price, otherwise making the service completely trivial. I could see that saving a lot of people money.... particularly your typical P2P-using singles troll.... the same people it'd be nice to lure away from P2P networks.
Is it really enough to simply play off the weaknesses?
Two notable strengths of P2P, as it stands:
1) It's free, within a reasonable definition of the word "free".
2) Bandwidth expenses are distributed.
I'm betting that the vast majority of common P2P application users are less concerned with the quality of the material they download, than that it comes without visible expense. How would a company price their services, whatever the merits, in the face of such competition?
Furthermore, the big issues seem to be quality control and control over distribution. This implies some centralized server for distribution, meaning high bandwidth commitment from a single source, rather than depending on the bandwidth of other users.
On one hand businesses are forced to adjust their prices to compete with free, lower-quality services. On the other, they're forced to make enough revenue to cover distribution expenses.
I don't think it's such an "easy concept", when you consider that the balance of priorities of the end user will likely weigh heavily in terms of financial expense.
Exactly.
In my first year of computer science, there were two mandatory courses on Java. We weren't educated in Java because it's accessible. We weren't educated in Java because it represents the most practical real-world programming language. We were educated in Java for two reasons.
1. It's easy.
2. It's a very reasonable programming language to learn fundamentals and standard practices.
Apparently the mandatory C# course is presented as an introductory course, putting it in the same role as Java as an educational language at my school. If it does the job, all the power to U of W.
I only have two concerns:
1. It's less accessible than Java.
2. I hate Microsoft.
If anything, the former will encourage a level playing field, forcing all students to depend on school facilities. The latter is a personal bias.
With all these evil terrorists and executives roaming the streets, I'm appauled we're still busting all those poor innocent shoplifters and breaking up domestic disputes! Civil servants should be profiling foreigners and storming office buildings, not enforcing all those trivial matters that don't REALLY effect us! *end sarcasm*
Terrorism is a matter being dealt with. Big businesses are under the microscope. Are we to put down everything else until these matters are completely resolved? 'Cause y'know what? They won't be. Ever.
File sharing is a matter of concern. I think we all accept that illegal activity is the norm on P2P networks, and I'm not just talking music piracy (noting the bias hereabouts against the RIAA). Just because there're bigger things going on in the world, doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to all the smaller concerns.
Why do today's software and consumer electronics users expect to be able to fire up their new toy and magically have a complete understanding of how to use it?
Perhaps because standardization makes sense? Although regretably not to manufacturers, it seems.
In my house I have two VCRs. One of them, if the timer is set to record, requires that the VCR be on when the given time comes up. The other, however, requires that the VCR be turned off when the given time approaches, or it won't record. Even if we get users to read the manual (and I do believe that a good number of consumers are willing to read the manual, so long as it's easy enough to confront their specific issue), what're the chances that we're going to get them to read the manual each time they're forced to remember how their specific hardware performs?
It's the same with phones, particularly portables. Some have one button to place a call and another to hang up. Others use the same button. I don't know how many calls I've had logged on my answering machine from those who've accidentally hit the talk button expecting the phone to disconnect (because it does on the phone they're more accustomed to using).
Heck, if you wanna get technical, it all starts at the input device. Some time ago I went so far as to purchase a "simple" controller for my mother, as the controller that game with her present TV confused her with the circular button arrangement, four different menu-opening buttons, and six different menu navigation buttons.
I'm convinced the average consumer could pick up a given device and use it straight out of the box if their creators didn't go out of their way to confound the user with new "innovative" interface features.
Walmart is about the only US company I can think of that can actually take on MS.
I think "take on" is a little bit too strong in this case, as it implies that Walmart went out of their way to make some form of statement against Microsoft.
After Walmart's attempt at the "OS-less PC", I think it's obvious that they're simply interested in being able to pursue lower pricetags.
I doubt they're intent on making a pro-Linux statement either, otherwise they'd be packaging a more common Linux distribution. I'm thinking they're just going for the low-cost compromise.
Last I checked Walmart was one of them big evil corporations that we tend to frown upon hereabouts? Their means of establishing their building monopoly is beating out the competition's prices. Lindows is just another piece in the puzzle.
I believe the poster before you was suggesting that bad parents imply bad kids, rather than bad kids implying bad parents.
While your point is still a valid one, I don't think justifies such a harsh tone against the original post.
Perhaps it's a naive classical perspective, but I'm inclined to believe that moral development begins in the home, under the influence of one's parents and siblings. While good parents may not properly instill strong moral judgement in their children, I think there's a higher chance of them making a valid attempt toward strong moral development than parents lacking in said morals.
I think the problem can be traced back to the statement "This game looks good."
Admittedly I haven't been giving FFXI the attention it deserves (in lack of Sakaguchi), but taking into consideration the limited power of the PS2, and the graphic compromises in even the most advanced PC MMORPGs, I find myself wondering just how many characters we can expect to see on-screen? How many enemies? How many unique environment elements and NPCs?
Part of the appeal of MMORPGs is the ability to have insane numbers of players all interacting simultaneously.
The question I pose to those that've followed the progress of FFXI is whether it's truly an MMORPG, or simply an online RPG of the same sort as Phantasy Star Online, where clear limits are placed on the number of active characters?
As for MS, if I were them, I'd be perfectly happy with Morrowind for the XBox. It's a beautiful, engrossing game for the PC. But then, it doesn't have the words "Final" and "Fantasy" anywhere in its name, so it's unlikely that the bulk of console RPG gamers'll give it any notice.
The majority of the information provided by the given document is generally based on studies provided by other organizations, the most of which being magazines, news sites, and web stat sources. However, the spin put on such results by the author is rather one-sided, throwing the original interpretations to the win in favor of the author's interpretation of numbers alone. Similarly the document pretains almost solely to server software, and argues present usage and future potential, rather that presenting feature-to-feature comparison. I hate to be a rather biased critic, but the "study" could have been titled a bit better.... perhaps to reflect that we're not really considering consumer-level applications.... and, for that matter, that little actual comparison is done between software packages rather than their users.