First off, the title to this story is a bit misleading. Video IM has been around for a long time. This is significant because it's mobile video IM.
Second, who is actually going to use this? All it is is an automated way to host video content sent via MMS, something that is pretty trivial to do yourself anyway. How many people really want to record themselves on their cell phone and pay to send it to Veeker so they can... Call someone and tell them the URL to visit to see it? If I want to send video to someone, I can already MMS it to them directly. If I want to update the world on my status, there are ways to update various types of blogs via MMS as well. If I really, really need to be able to upload my little clips of cell phone video to an HTTP server, I'll use my own and write a script to do it for free.
Yeah, I figured such things were possible. I guess this just further highlights the usability gap between Parallels and Boot Camp - the author of this article, who cared enough to write about the software and who joosan identified as a sysadmin, couldn't get this feature to work and had his VMs farked over without doing anything obviously incorrectly, at least from what he wrote in TFA.
That is a very nice feature, and probably one of the main ones that causes people to run Parallels over Boot Camp. However, TFA didn't discuss this. I was just pointing out that the article does not make any arguments as to why Parallels > Boot Camp, and, from what the article says, there is no apparent reason to prefer Parallels.
GPU performance is important for a lot more than games, and will continue to become even more vital in the future. Heard of Vista Premium? A lot of people also want to be able to run graphics-intensive CAD, Photoshop, etc. style apps. I never said every component ran slower, but buying a machine with a decent graphics card and then using Parallels to lose that performance benefit might make sense to some users who value not having to reboot over having the full power of their machine, but there are plenty of people who'd rather not deal with that limitation, especially on a piece of software that isn't free.
TFA says NOTHING about Parallels being better than Boot Camp; the only reason he cites for wanting to use Parallels instead is to save room on the main disk. Since Parallels fails entirely on his external drive, it doesn't even accomplish that modest goal.
Aside from some fairly vague comments about the VMs being "fairly snappy," there's no indication of performance. From what I've heard, Parallels doesn't even come close to Boot Camp on that front, probably because Apple ported its own drivers specifically for Boot Camp so that all the hardware would work at full speed.
Also, Parallels costs $49.99. Boot Camp is free.
Oh, and the author says that setting up the VMs is time-consuming and complex; Boot Camp, by most reports, is easier to set up than installing Windows on a 'regular' PC.
The only advantage Parallels has over Boot Camp is that it can be used for more than just Windows. However, that's not a reason to prefer it if what you want is Windows. Boot Camp is free, faster and easier to set up. There may be some other advantages to Parallels, but this (decidedly mediocre) article doesn't mention any of them.
I grew up in Southern California, and when I hear "University of California," I think the whole system. Berkeley's common nickname is Cal. The UC system has several good campuses; while Berkeley is the most famous, there are departments at other schools, such as UCSB, UCD and UCLA, that are superior to their Berkeley counterparts, and the UC system itself is often worth talking about.
OK, I left a few names off the list. My point stands; the label still gets the biggest chunk of that $15-$20. The artist gets a small chunk, but the price is so bloated that the fat cats can make their money and give a slightly-less-pathetic payment to the artists. With iTunes, you have Apple making a full third and the record label absorbing the vast majority of the remaining money. The artist gets a lot less, because the record label eats up an enormous chunk of that $10 to satiate its greed. If you want to get technical, there may be other companies getting paid a tiny portion for printing the booklets, making the CD jewel cases/security RFID tags/other packaging, shipping the CDs to the retailer, etc. I am not trying to document every penny in a CD sale. I am making a point about how the label takes a lot of money and the artist gets a pittance, and that that pittance is even more, well, pitiful when the money coming in is $10 instead of $15-$20. You, sir, are an anonymous troll.
CDs cost about $15-$20. The record label takes most of it, and the artist gets a little cut.
iTunes CDs cost about $10. Apple gets a moderate cut (only about a third of what you pay), the record label still gets the lion's share, and there's even less of a smaller pie left for the artist. Apple benefits - they don't pay the costs associated with producing the music, their cut is enough to maintain the fairly high bandwidth and server costs to keep the service running and turn a small profit, all while selling more iPods. The record label benefits - they get less money, but still more than half the cost, and it costs them pretty much _nothing_ once they've handed over the digital music to Apple. Plus, a lot of people that buy iTunes music would have pirated otherwise, not paid for a full price CD. The artist, as always, gets screwed - artists have made *some* progress in increasing their share of CD sales, but when it was time to renegotiate to include iTunes sales, the record labels already owned existing artists' music, so it wasn't like the artists could back out and look for a better deal on the digital front.
Piracy is, in most people's opinions, the best option even before price is considered - much more convenient than going to a store or waiting for a CD to get mailed to you, wider selection and no DRM compared to iTMS and similar services... From right at home and in practically no time, one can acquire almost any piece of music and be listening to it, right from just about any internet-capable computer. Factor in free vs. rather overpriced, and it's pretty obvious why piracy is so popular.
So how can we support our favourite artists? For those who tour, the best method is probably to go to live concerts. Artists tend to get a bigger cut from tours than from CD sales, and going to shows gives you an experience you _can't_ replace with a better alternative for free. Put aside all the money you would have used to buy CDs and go to shows instead.
The only big problem left before the music industry can evolve to a more artist-centric process is the prohibitive cost of studio time / recording equipment. The digital age means that any artist can cheaply and easily distribute his/her music, once recorded, but most fledgling artists can't afford to record on good equipment. The one useful function (at least from a market perspective) record labels still serve is to select which artists get time in the expensive studios; there's not enough high-fi sound equipment for every high school garage band to record an album, and currently the labels are the deciding factor in who gets to record and who doesn't. There could certainly be better systems to decide this, but none are in place right now on a wide scale.
What? Mass has nothing to do (at least not directly) with sea level; it's volume that counts. A given mass of ice will occupy a higher volume as water. Don't believe me? Take a cup of ice water, full to the brim, and wait for the ice to melt. When you're done cleaning up the puddle, come back and recant that statement. When the polar ice melts, just like the ice in your cup, it will take up more space. Thus, rising water levels. Say goodbye to all those nice coastal regions.
"Furthermore, to achieve a "Green" status, a driver must have been released and in use for at least 120 days (starting on June 1, 2007), and must maintain its stability throughout time. "
"Only drivers with a "Green" status can be used in computers that are Windows-logo certified"
So... any hardware requiring new drivers would not be useable in logo-certified machines for almost half a year? What a terrific way to stifle the adoption of new technology!
"Furthermore, because "Green" hardware can be re-rated as "Yellow" or "Red" in the event that problems arise, OEMs and device manufacturers will need to look after systems even after they have shipped."
Meaning... if the driver for a piece of hardware goes Yellow on them, they have to either sell their current stock as non-logo-certified or swap out all the hardware? Lovely. The article uses the example of Dell having to fix their drivers to avoid this costly problem, but what about OEMs that are using 3rd party drivers, as I imagine most are? If your mobo manufacturer lets you down, you're screwed? Hmm.
"This unfortunately won't mean the death of bargain-basement PCs equipped with questionable hardware. OEMs can choose not to have their hardware certified, of course, but it is also important to note that DRQ ratings are only required for computers certified for the "Premium" Vista experience. That is, Vista Home Basic is not subject to these requirements (the only version of Vista not covered by the Premium requirement). While we feel this is regrettable, it does seem to fall in line with Microsoft's intentions to position Home Basic as a no-frills OS."
Is this the same "Premium" that requires 128mb VRAM, a DirectX 9-compatible card and a gig of RAM? How many consumer PCs actually meet those requirements? It seems to me that the vast majority of Windows PC customers will not get any benefit from this new program. What a surprise; MS is only worried about quality control for customers willing to shell out extra bucks for higher end hardware and the (presumedly) more expensive copy of Vista.
Makes me glad to be a Mac user. Want Windows with good drivers? Two words: Boot Camp.
Do you have any idea what it would do to the US, Chinese, heck, the world economy if the US and/or EU ceased all trade with China? I don't think you do. The US and EU should take measures to improve conditions (lower hours, pay that at least matches the average earning potential of a labourer in the area; unions might run afoul of the government, but that's not Apple's fault), but something so drastic would be a grave error. I say this as a Socialist.
The article says their pay is 1/5 the median household income, but what's income disparity like in that region? I wonder how their pay compares to similar households; there's a big gap between the poor and the rich in China, and the median is probably heavily skewed by the wealth of the elite. The living conditions and working hours sound pretty atrocious, though.
Blaming individual corporations is all well and good - maybe wide enough strikes will create an economic incentive for them to mend their ways a bit - but some action by the US toward China regarding its labour standards would be much more effective at actually ending the bad conditions.
Urine tests before every exam in college?
"Sure, we're looking for people using performance-enhancing drugs. Ooh look, another pothead to arrest. How convenient."
I think not. I can only imagine the protests that this plan would spark at just about any college stupid enough to try it.
I've heard many people (including my mother, who is what normal people would call a geek) complain that interfaces are getting too complicated on newer cell phone models. Users are often required to press several buttons and navigate poorly designed menus to perform basic functions like searching an address book. Also, all the silly gadgets they're building into phones these days have a tendency to drain batteries rather quickly. Phones seem to be getting worse and worse at performing the tasks of, well, a phone. My latest flipphone has 3 IM clients, a camera, a few Java apps and tons of other random crap on it, but my old Nokia candybar model was actually better at the main tasks of a cell phone: making and receiving phone calls.
Part of the reason why these new features aren't leading to higher customer satisfaction is the plethora of other digital devices many people now have. As not only cell phones but also music players (iPods in particular), sub-notebook computers, hell, even graphing calculators demonstrate, it's pretty trivial to build a whole lot of features into any device; however, most people only need one calendar, one address book, one music player, one camera and so forth. When every digital device tries to do everything, it just gets annoying. I've never used most of the functions on my cell, and neither have a lot of others. I'd rather have a phone that could do nothing but calls and text messages, but performed these tasks well, than my current model, which seems like the bastard child of a phone, a PDA and a camera.
Proprietary DRM is not really for Apple. It's for the record labels. Apple fights to protect its standard, sure, because it is dependent on record labels finding its copy protection sufficient to continue licensing them music. Steve Jobs would love to sell everyone unprotected mp3s, I'm sure, but the RIAA would never go for it. FairPlay was the DRM of choice - the RIAA's choice, not Apple's - from early negotiations on. I agree that it sucks and that consumers would be better off without it, but it's not gonna go away that easily. There's a pretty good chance that Apple will simply withdraw from the French market rather than risk seeing iTMS destroyed by compromised DRM.
First, the insurgency has been directly counter-productive at removing US forces. If Iraq had been the 'jolly little war' the GOP somehow deluded itself into thinking it would be, we might already be out. The fact that it's turned into a violent mess is why the US _can't_ leave.
Second, the 'changes in government' your are referring to were trivial, of little concern to the insurgency and not at all revolutionary - they were just changes of ruling parties within the same constitutional frameworks. If any of those states had had a strongly entrenched and extremely corrupt regime in place, no such changes would have occurred because there would not have been free elections.
Third, don't sidetrack the discussion by pretending this is about what the insurgents want. This was your (bad) example of guns being used for OUR idea of success - that is, overthrowing a bad government and replacing it with a good one, or at least forcing the bad gov't to be less bad. The insurgents have certainly not managed to do so. Also, the forces committed to Iraq, while considerable, are nowhere near the full capacity of the US government. Any serious challenge to the government on American soil would be met with whatever force was necessary, up to and including the entirety of the military, police forces, et cetera. A trained soldier is easily a match for a dozen or so untrained, poorly armed 'revolutionaries' with their firearms. A single modern tank could probably stop such a revolution on its own, assuming the revolutionaries didn't also have explosives of some sort - most guns that are legally available (or illegally available, for that matter) in the US wouldn't penetrate modern armour.
There are two viable strategies for overthrowing a modern, first-world state: get the military on your side, or get a huge proportion of the population to start simply ignoring governmental authority. A 1776-style revolutionary war is out of the question. If you're looking for inspiration on how to overthrow a corrupt government, the writings of Mao and Che will be far more informative than the rather out-of-date 'theories' of revolution set forth by the American revolutionaries.
The idea that there have been more than one big bang/big crunch cycles already is far from new. It was first proposed by Richard Tolman - in 1934. Similar theories have been presented by many others, including Stephen Hawking.
I'm sure there are some new ideas in this theory, but the notion of an oscillatory/cyclical universe has been around longer than I or most other/.ers have.
The term Socialism is so abused by the general public and, in particular, the American Right that nobody seems to know what it is anymore.
The Soviets practised, in theory, a radical form of Socialism that most Socialists do not approve of. They didn't even live up to those ideals, however, and became good, old-fashioned authoritarians. I think that hey!'s assertion that they were "left wing" is flawed. After the early stages, most people with any real power in the Comintern were very conservative in that they were against change in policies, and right wing in that they wanted a very defined power structure. The leftist philosophy expressed in their propaganda was empty and false.
Socialists in the non-Communist sense are usually either Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists. Social Democracy is basically just liberal, left wing politics in the mainstream- the far left of the Democratic Party in the US could be described as such, as can most of the liberal parties in European nations. Blair used to consider himself a Social Democrat, and I believe that Schroeder still does. Social Democrats believe that we need more welfare, less militarism, less corporate control of the state, and other leftist things, but they don't necessarily want any major changes to or replacements for Capitalism.
Democratic Socialists are a bit more radical. They want real change- either an abolition of so-called Capitalist institutions like the free market, or major changes to make them more acceptable (high minimum wage and a maximum wage such as that in Japan are a good example of one of these major changes). However, like Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists hate resorting to violence and absolutely oppose revolutions in Western countries. The question of revolution in countries under somewhat more authoritarian nations is a point of contention.
Some, like myself, straddle the fence somewhat. I consider myself a Democratic Socialist, but some call me a Social Democrat. I won't get into my beliefs, since I've probably already posted enough that nobody cares to read, anyway.
So the organisation responsible for proposing the Total Information Awareness program wants to develop a super AI with the ability to make decisions on the fly regarding the deployment of military resources? Fantastic.
First, you're assuming that these 8000 voters were the only in the county. That seems rather unlikely; I assume this is just one polling station. Second, you're assuming randomness. Even if you ignore the very real possibility of fraud (come on, who can't count voter rolls and compare to memory space?), those who voted earlier would have their votes counted, while those that voted later - the last 4500 - would be ignored. Working class voters that don't get off work to go vote until 5 or 6 would therefore be all but guaranteed not to get their vote in, whereas those with white collar jobs that could take the day off and vote in the morning would be far more likely to vote. Stats don't apply if there are outside factors not reflected in the numbers. Your test fails on assumptions.
Err.... I own an iPod, I think it's great, and I realise that it's made Apple a lot of money, but is sticking a nice GUI and interface on a mini HDD and packaging it nicely really anywhere close to as "important" as, say, the first personal computer? No? What about the first GUI for a consumer OS? No again? Or, if we're going to talk in terms of cash cows, how about the iMac, which actually saved Apple? If the company was on its last financial legs before the iPod's debut, I could see calling it one of their most important releases, but making a profitable company more profitable by taking exiting ideas and technology and simply doing them better than anyone else, while significant, can't be compared to innovations that changed the world forever à la MacOS or Apple I.
So, in essence, this takes a bunch of simple functions most people already have access to, and in exchange for not having to go through the arduous task of opening multiple apps or contextual menus, you hand over as much personal info as you could ever hope to cram into a single app to a company who states that their express purpose for this is to give it to advertisers. Also, let's say you actually use their features and become reliant on them. What happens when, all of a sudden, they decide to charge premium usage fees for access to, say, your online chat logs? Never trust data you may want or need some day to a host you can't rely on having indefinite free access to.
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First off, the title to this story is a bit misleading. Video IM has been around for a long time. This is significant because it's mobile video IM. Second, who is actually going to use this? All it is is an automated way to host video content sent via MMS, something that is pretty trivial to do yourself anyway. How many people really want to record themselves on their cell phone and pay to send it to Veeker so they can... Call someone and tell them the URL to visit to see it? If I want to send video to someone, I can already MMS it to them directly. If I want to update the world on my status, there are ways to update various types of blogs via MMS as well. If I really, really need to be able to upload my little clips of cell phone video to an HTTP server, I'll use my own and write a script to do it for free.
1. Why is this story titled, "iPod Cracked?" It's the DRM on iTunes Store-purchased .m4p files, not some software specific to the iPod.
2. If, as the story claims, this is unimportant and we shouldn't care, why is this a front page story?
You might want to fix your computer's clock/calendar, bud... it's 2006.
Yeah, I figured such things were possible. I guess this just further highlights the usability gap between Parallels and Boot Camp - the author of this article, who cared enough to write about the software and who joosan identified as a sysadmin, couldn't get this feature to work and had his VMs farked over without doing anything obviously incorrectly, at least from what he wrote in TFA.
That is a very nice feature, and probably one of the main ones that causes people to run Parallels over Boot Camp. However, TFA didn't discuss this. I was just pointing out that the article does not make any arguments as to why Parallels > Boot Camp, and, from what the article says, there is no apparent reason to prefer Parallels.
GPU performance is important for a lot more than games, and will continue to become even more vital in the future. Heard of Vista Premium? A lot of people also want to be able to run graphics-intensive CAD, Photoshop, etc. style apps. I never said every component ran slower, but buying a machine with a decent graphics card and then using Parallels to lose that performance benefit might make sense to some users who value not having to reboot over having the full power of their machine, but there are plenty of people who'd rather not deal with that limitation, especially on a piece of software that isn't free.
TFA says NOTHING about Parallels being better than Boot Camp; the only reason he cites for wanting to use Parallels instead is to save room on the main disk. Since Parallels fails entirely on his external drive, it doesn't even accomplish that modest goal.
Aside from some fairly vague comments about the VMs being "fairly snappy," there's no indication of performance. From what I've heard, Parallels doesn't even come close to Boot Camp on that front, probably because Apple ported its own drivers specifically for Boot Camp so that all the hardware would work at full speed.
Also, Parallels costs $49.99. Boot Camp is free.
Oh, and the author says that setting up the VMs is time-consuming and complex; Boot Camp, by most reports, is easier to set up than installing Windows on a 'regular' PC.
The only advantage Parallels has over Boot Camp is that it can be used for more than just Windows. However, that's not a reason to prefer it if what you want is Windows. Boot Camp is free, faster and easier to set up. There may be some other advantages to Parallels, but this (decidedly mediocre) article doesn't mention any of them.
I grew up in Southern California, and when I hear "University of California," I think the whole system. Berkeley's common nickname is Cal. The UC system has several good campuses; while Berkeley is the most famous, there are departments at other schools, such as UCSB, UCD and UCLA, that are superior to their Berkeley counterparts, and the UC system itself is often worth talking about.
OK, I left a few names off the list. My point stands; the label still gets the biggest chunk of that $15-$20. The artist gets a small chunk, but the price is so bloated that the fat cats can make their money and give a slightly-less-pathetic payment to the artists. With iTunes, you have Apple making a full third and the record label absorbing the vast majority of the remaining money. The artist gets a lot less, because the record label eats up an enormous chunk of that $10 to satiate its greed. If you want to get technical, there may be other companies getting paid a tiny portion for printing the booklets, making the CD jewel cases/security RFID tags/other packaging, shipping the CDs to the retailer, etc. I am not trying to document every penny in a CD sale. I am making a point about how the label takes a lot of money and the artist gets a pittance, and that that pittance is even more, well, pitiful when the money coming in is $10 instead of $15-$20. You, sir, are an anonymous troll.
CDs cost about $15-$20. The record label takes most of it, and the artist gets a little cut. iTunes CDs cost about $10. Apple gets a moderate cut (only about a third of what you pay), the record label still gets the lion's share, and there's even less of a smaller pie left for the artist. Apple benefits - they don't pay the costs associated with producing the music, their cut is enough to maintain the fairly high bandwidth and server costs to keep the service running and turn a small profit, all while selling more iPods. The record label benefits - they get less money, but still more than half the cost, and it costs them pretty much _nothing_ once they've handed over the digital music to Apple. Plus, a lot of people that buy iTunes music would have pirated otherwise, not paid for a full price CD. The artist, as always, gets screwed - artists have made *some* progress in increasing their share of CD sales, but when it was time to renegotiate to include iTunes sales, the record labels already owned existing artists' music, so it wasn't like the artists could back out and look for a better deal on the digital front.
Piracy is, in most people's opinions, the best option even before price is considered - much more convenient than going to a store or waiting for a CD to get mailed to you, wider selection and no DRM compared to iTMS and similar services... From right at home and in practically no time, one can acquire almost any piece of music and be listening to it, right from just about any internet-capable computer. Factor in free vs. rather overpriced, and it's pretty obvious why piracy is so popular.
So how can we support our favourite artists? For those who tour, the best method is probably to go to live concerts. Artists tend to get a bigger cut from tours than from CD sales, and going to shows gives you an experience you _can't_ replace with a better alternative for free. Put aside all the money you would have used to buy CDs and go to shows instead.
The only big problem left before the music industry can evolve to a more artist-centric process is the prohibitive cost of studio time / recording equipment. The digital age means that any artist can cheaply and easily distribute his/her music, once recorded, but most fledgling artists can't afford to record on good equipment. The one useful function (at least from a market perspective) record labels still serve is to select which artists get time in the expensive studios; there's not enough high-fi sound equipment for every high school garage band to record an album, and currently the labels are the deciding factor in who gets to record and who doesn't. There could certainly be better systems to decide this, but none are in place right now on a wide scale.
What? Mass has nothing to do (at least not directly) with sea level; it's volume that counts. A given mass of ice will occupy a higher volume as water. Don't believe me? Take a cup of ice water, full to the brim, and wait for the ice to melt. When you're done cleaning up the puddle, come back and recant that statement. When the polar ice melts, just like the ice in your cup, it will take up more space. Thus, rising water levels. Say goodbye to all those nice coastal regions.
"Furthermore, to achieve a "Green" status, a driver must have been released and in use for at least 120 days (starting on June 1, 2007), and must maintain its stability throughout time. " "Only drivers with a "Green" status can be used in computers that are Windows-logo certified" So... any hardware requiring new drivers would not be useable in logo-certified machines for almost half a year? What a terrific way to stifle the adoption of new technology! "Furthermore, because "Green" hardware can be re-rated as "Yellow" or "Red" in the event that problems arise, OEMs and device manufacturers will need to look after systems even after they have shipped." Meaning... if the driver for a piece of hardware goes Yellow on them, they have to either sell their current stock as non-logo-certified or swap out all the hardware? Lovely. The article uses the example of Dell having to fix their drivers to avoid this costly problem, but what about OEMs that are using 3rd party drivers, as I imagine most are? If your mobo manufacturer lets you down, you're screwed? Hmm. "This unfortunately won't mean the death of bargain-basement PCs equipped with questionable hardware. OEMs can choose not to have their hardware certified, of course, but it is also important to note that DRQ ratings are only required for computers certified for the "Premium" Vista experience. That is, Vista Home Basic is not subject to these requirements (the only version of Vista not covered by the Premium requirement). While we feel this is regrettable, it does seem to fall in line with Microsoft's intentions to position Home Basic as a no-frills OS." Is this the same "Premium" that requires 128mb VRAM, a DirectX 9-compatible card and a gig of RAM? How many consumer PCs actually meet those requirements? It seems to me that the vast majority of Windows PC customers will not get any benefit from this new program. What a surprise; MS is only worried about quality control for customers willing to shell out extra bucks for higher end hardware and the (presumedly) more expensive copy of Vista. Makes me glad to be a Mac user. Want Windows with good drivers? Two words: Boot Camp.
What an outrage! Someone post a link to one of his articles so we can all leave scathing comments about this!
Do you have any idea what it would do to the US, Chinese, heck, the world economy if the US and/or EU ceased all trade with China? I don't think you do. The US and EU should take measures to improve conditions (lower hours, pay that at least matches the average earning potential of a labourer in the area; unions might run afoul of the government, but that's not Apple's fault), but something so drastic would be a grave error. I say this as a Socialist. The article says their pay is 1/5 the median household income, but what's income disparity like in that region? I wonder how their pay compares to similar households; there's a big gap between the poor and the rich in China, and the median is probably heavily skewed by the wealth of the elite. The living conditions and working hours sound pretty atrocious, though. Blaming individual corporations is all well and good - maybe wide enough strikes will create an economic incentive for them to mend their ways a bit - but some action by the US toward China regarding its labour standards would be much more effective at actually ending the bad conditions.
Urine tests before every exam in college? "Sure, we're looking for people using performance-enhancing drugs. Ooh look, another pothead to arrest. How convenient." I think not. I can only imagine the protests that this plan would spark at just about any college stupid enough to try it.
I've heard many people (including my mother, who is what normal people would call a geek) complain that interfaces are getting too complicated on newer cell phone models. Users are often required to press several buttons and navigate poorly designed menus to perform basic functions like searching an address book. Also, all the silly gadgets they're building into phones these days have a tendency to drain batteries rather quickly. Phones seem to be getting worse and worse at performing the tasks of, well, a phone. My latest flipphone has 3 IM clients, a camera, a few Java apps and tons of other random crap on it, but my old Nokia candybar model was actually better at the main tasks of a cell phone: making and receiving phone calls. Part of the reason why these new features aren't leading to higher customer satisfaction is the plethora of other digital devices many people now have. As not only cell phones but also music players (iPods in particular), sub-notebook computers, hell, even graphing calculators demonstrate, it's pretty trivial to build a whole lot of features into any device; however, most people only need one calendar, one address book, one music player, one camera and so forth. When every digital device tries to do everything, it just gets annoying. I've never used most of the functions on my cell, and neither have a lot of others. I'd rather have a phone that could do nothing but calls and text messages, but performed these tasks well, than my current model, which seems like the bastard child of a phone, a PDA and a camera.
Proprietary DRM is not really for Apple. It's for the record labels. Apple fights to protect its standard, sure, because it is dependent on record labels finding its copy protection sufficient to continue licensing them music. Steve Jobs would love to sell everyone unprotected mp3s, I'm sure, but the RIAA would never go for it. FairPlay was the DRM of choice - the RIAA's choice, not Apple's - from early negotiations on. I agree that it sucks and that consumers would be better off without it, but it's not gonna go away that easily. There's a pretty good chance that Apple will simply withdraw from the French market rather than risk seeing iTMS destroyed by compromised DRM.
Uhh... Reality check:
First, the insurgency has been directly counter-productive at removing US forces. If Iraq had been the 'jolly little war' the GOP somehow deluded itself into thinking it would be, we might already be out. The fact that it's turned into a violent mess is why the US _can't_ leave.
Second, the 'changes in government' your are referring to were trivial, of little concern to the insurgency and not at all revolutionary - they were just changes of ruling parties within the same constitutional frameworks. If any of those states had had a strongly entrenched and extremely corrupt regime in place, no such changes would have occurred because there would not have been free elections.
Third, don't sidetrack the discussion by pretending this is about what the insurgents want. This was your (bad) example of guns being used for OUR idea of success - that is, overthrowing a bad government and replacing it with a good one, or at least forcing the bad gov't to be less bad. The insurgents have certainly not managed to do so. Also, the forces committed to Iraq, while considerable, are nowhere near the full capacity of the US government. Any serious challenge to the government on American soil would be met with whatever force was necessary, up to and including the entirety of the military, police forces, et cetera. A trained soldier is easily a match for a dozen or so untrained, poorly armed 'revolutionaries' with their firearms. A single modern tank could probably stop such a revolution on its own, assuming the revolutionaries didn't also have explosives of some sort - most guns that are legally available (or illegally available, for that matter) in the US wouldn't penetrate modern armour.
There are two viable strategies for overthrowing a modern, first-world state: get the military on your side, or get a huge proportion of the population to start simply ignoring governmental authority. A 1776-style revolutionary war is out of the question. If you're looking for inspiration on how to overthrow a corrupt government, the writings of Mao and Che will be far more informative than the rather out-of-date 'theories' of revolution set forth by the American revolutionaries.
The idea that there have been more than one big bang/big crunch cycles already is far from new. It was first proposed by Richard Tolman - in 1934. Similar theories have been presented by many others, including Stephen Hawking.
/.ers have.
I'm sure there are some new ideas in this theory, but the notion of an oscillatory/cyclical universe has been around longer than I or most other
Your answer to, "who buys a Mac to play games in the first place?" is "no?" The mind boggles.
The term Socialism is so abused by the general public and, in particular, the American Right that nobody seems to know what it is anymore. The Soviets practised, in theory, a radical form of Socialism that most Socialists do not approve of. They didn't even live up to those ideals, however, and became good, old-fashioned authoritarians. I think that hey!'s assertion that they were "left wing" is flawed. After the early stages, most people with any real power in the Comintern were very conservative in that they were against change in policies, and right wing in that they wanted a very defined power structure. The leftist philosophy expressed in their propaganda was empty and false. Socialists in the non-Communist sense are usually either Social Democrats or Democratic Socialists. Social Democracy is basically just liberal, left wing politics in the mainstream- the far left of the Democratic Party in the US could be described as such, as can most of the liberal parties in European nations. Blair used to consider himself a Social Democrat, and I believe that Schroeder still does. Social Democrats believe that we need more welfare, less militarism, less corporate control of the state, and other leftist things, but they don't necessarily want any major changes to or replacements for Capitalism. Democratic Socialists are a bit more radical. They want real change- either an abolition of so-called Capitalist institutions like the free market, or major changes to make them more acceptable (high minimum wage and a maximum wage such as that in Japan are a good example of one of these major changes). However, like Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists hate resorting to violence and absolutely oppose revolutions in Western countries. The question of revolution in countries under somewhat more authoritarian nations is a point of contention. Some, like myself, straddle the fence somewhat. I consider myself a Democratic Socialist, but some call me a Social Democrat. I won't get into my beliefs, since I've probably already posted enough that nobody cares to read, anyway.
So the organisation responsible for proposing the Total Information Awareness program wants to develop a super AI with the ability to make decisions on the fly regarding the deployment of military resources? Fantastic.
First, you're assuming that these 8000 voters were the only in the county. That seems rather unlikely; I assume this is just one polling station. Second, you're assuming randomness. Even if you ignore the very real possibility of fraud (come on, who can't count voter rolls and compare to memory space?), those who voted earlier would have their votes counted, while those that voted later - the last 4500 - would be ignored. Working class voters that don't get off work to go vote until 5 or 6 would therefore be all but guaranteed not to get their vote in, whereas those with white collar jobs that could take the day off and vote in the morning would be far more likely to vote. Stats don't apply if there are outside factors not reflected in the numbers. Your test fails on assumptions.
Err.... I own an iPod, I think it's great, and I realise that it's made Apple a lot of money, but is sticking a nice GUI and interface on a mini HDD and packaging it nicely really anywhere close to as "important" as, say, the first personal computer? No? What about the first GUI for a consumer OS? No again? Or, if we're going to talk in terms of cash cows, how about the iMac, which actually saved Apple? If the company was on its last financial legs before the iPod's debut, I could see calling it one of their most important releases, but making a profitable company more profitable by taking exiting ideas and technology and simply doing them better than anyone else, while significant, can't be compared to innovations that changed the world forever à la MacOS or Apple I.
In conclusion, profitable =/= important
So, in essence, this takes a bunch of simple functions most people already have access to, and in exchange for not having to go through the arduous task of opening multiple apps or contextual menus, you hand over as much personal info as you could ever hope to cram into a single app to a company who states that their express purpose for this is to give it to advertisers. Also, let's say you actually use their features and become reliant on them. What happens when, all of a sudden, they decide to charge premium usage fees for access to, say, your online chat logs? Never trust data you may want or need some day to a host you can't rely on having indefinite free access to.
How is this newsworthy?