Heartily seconded. I know that folks who only want simple PDA functionality -- address book, agenda -- find it too large, and folks who want their entire Windows PC -- M$ compatibility and all -- find it too small, but for me the trouser-pocket size and touch-typeable keyboard, together with great on-board software (office-type apps, email, Opera, &c) and the ability to develop on the machine in Java, Perl, OPL, &c, make it a perfect pocket computer in its own right, and I've seen nothing that comes even close to it.
Well, they certainly seem to have been leaving the door open for future claims and arguments. Or at least, that's how I interpret their continuing refusal, in court, to detail all of their claims -- a few allegations here, a few lines of code there, but not even the judge can get out of them exactly what they're claiming.
Maybe they're still checking the details themselves, maybe they're trying to give IBM as little time as possible to respond, maybe they have something really clever up their sleeves. But personally, I think they know they have nothing, and are either hoping something will turn up (maybe from all the discovery they want from IBM), or that by adding new claims at long intervals, they'll be able to spin it out until everyone gets fed up.
Didn't someone once say something along the lines that a revolutionary new scientific theory is only really accepted when all the scientists who learned the old one die off?
Okay, I'm sure things aren't really as bad as that, but as you say, there is an awful lot of paradigmatic inertia (isn't that a wonderful phrase? Let me say it again: paradigmatic inertia) in the scientific community. A certain amount is justified and useful, but maybe it exceeds that?
Please don't tell me what I want. I know what I want, and believe it or not the Communicator isn't too big -- in fact, it's too small.
Coincidentally enough, I use a Psion 5mx, the platform for which Symbian's OS was originally designed. Yes, I 'cart' it around. It lives in my trouser pocket, where it's very happy (no jokes please, missus), and is always accessible. I've seen a Communicator briefly, and discussed it at length with users, and I can tell that, compared with the 5mx, its lack of touch screen, poky keyboard, limited memory, small screen, and inaccessible software would make it far less useful to me.
Of course, not everyone is like me. But then, not everyone's like you either, so please don't judge everything by your standards.
The user base is only one factor. Even if every single computer had support for M$' DRM, that wouldn't make it inevitable. Not if enough people found it too awkward and didn't buy it. There are only two ways for the media industry to force formats upon us: 1) make them a legal requirement, or 2) make them attractive enough. Of course, 'attractive' can take many forms, such as popular content, extra features, freebies, or whatever, but short of legal action, they need people to buy it, and that's always our choice.
As to my correction, please don't take it personally:) I'm a stickler for such things, and every so often someone pushes me over the edge! BTW, would I be right in presuming you're an American? For some reason, running words together seems more common over there than here in the UK.
What isit with thismodern tendencytorun wordstogether? Thisisn'tGermanyouknow. Youcan'tjust forgettohitthespacebar andclaimit'spartofthelanguage. ThisisEnglishandwesplitwordsupcosithelpspeopleunde rstandwhatwe'reonabout!
[fx: pauses to catch breath]
Anyway, the only reason that widespread DRM might be inevitable is that people like you think it's inevitable. Yes, content providers want it. But they wanted to stop video recorders; they failed, and both they and the rest of the world continue unabated. They've wanted many other things, too, but they're not invincible. For example, one of the main factors in Sony's MiniDisc format never really taking off as it should is the limitations they put on it - enforcing SCMS, denying access to the compressed data directly, making MD-Data incompatible and expensive, &c. It's time Sony learned a lesson from that.
They want control, but they also want to sell their stuff, and if they do too much of the former, they won't do enough of the latter.
no-one... has ever done a deal with Microsoft and not regretted it later.
Yes, but that doesn't matter. This isn't about Disney. Personally, I don't really care whether Disney regrets it or not -- what I care about is whether we'll regret it. And I rather worry we will...
I'm pretty sure that "MP3" is an abbreviation for "MPEG-3"
Nope; it's short for "MPEG Audio Layer 3", where the MPEG is the first version, later called MPEG-1. (References: mpeg.org, Fraunhofer.)
AAC was developed for MPEG-2, and improved for MPEG-4.
I'm a tad confused by this paragraph...
I was trying to put the restrictions on AAC into a context people would be familiar with. As you say, it's not treated exactly the same as MP3, but it's very close in most respects, as compared with WMA, FairPlay-protected AAC, Real, or other formats.
I have yet to encounter a single consumer implementation of an AAC encoding/decoding piece of software other than Apple's.
I came across FAAC earlier today. As you say, there's not a lot else; but considering the high usage of iTunes, QuickTime, the iTMS, and the iPod, I expect to see more in future. (MP3 took a while to take off, too.)
Ah, but that 1% of developers can still be thousands or tens of thousands of people for a popular platform. And what they do can then be used by the other 99% as well, which will make it important to them too, indirectly.
Do you think Steve Ballmer would have made such a fool of himself if developers weren't important?
Okay, they have no restrictions beyond those should be obvious to all./ readers; no more than MP3 files have.
The point is that so many people assume that all AAC files are as restricted as the FairPlay-wrapped ones from the iTMS, and I think it's important to know that's not the case. Yes, AAC is a patented format, but so is MP3. Yes, AAC needs a suitable decoder, but so does MP3. Both are the audio layers from MPEG specifications (MP3 from MPEG-1, AAC from MPEG-4), and both are from Dolby/Fraunhofer. Both are published international standards. You can create your own AAC files, and play them wherever there's an AAC decoder, just like MP3.
The iPod does play other things too, you know. Sure, it'll play FairPlay-protected AACs from the iTunes Music Store. But it'll also play unencrypted AACs, MP3s, &c too. I've got many tens of GB of AACs I've ripped myself, and not a hint of DRM anywhere.
Sure, hate iPods if you want, that's your prerogative. But don't hate 'em thinking they only play DRM-ed files, because that's simply not true. They're a good deal more open than most others, in fact -- AAC is an open standard (it's the audio layer of MPEG-4, just as MP3 is of MPEG-1; it's even from the same people), unlike WMA...
(Not getting at you personally, but these terms seem to cause confusion.)
iTunes (small 'i', big 'T', no hyphen) is an application, one that runs on Windows and Mac OS X.
The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is the web service. (Plenty of us use the former without the latter -- here in Europe, iTMS isn't even available...)
And, while I'm here, a related point that also causes confusion: the iTMS sells AAC files that have been wrapped in a FairPlay encryption wrapper. Plain AAC files are not encrypted or restricted in any way.
Right, now I've got that off my chest... Did anyone seriously think that people would be fooled by the Napster name? That they wouldn't realise it was a completely different service from a completely different company? I hate to rehash old jokes, but it does look rather like:
Here in the UK at least, I don't think that's the issue. As with pilots, drivers have to take both written and practical tests, and neither are pushovers. (I know: I failed my practical first time.)
Of course, there's no ground traffic control, so it's not as easy to pick up people without a licence, but then the vast majority of accidents are caused by people who are licensed, so that's not the issue.
The issue, AFAICT, is that once people have passed their test, they don't care how they drive. People don't realise just how dangerous a weapon a car is (let along a Jeep or van). People don't care enough to pay proper attention to their driving, don't care enough to leave sufficient space around their vehicle, don't care enough to slow down in adverse road conditions (whether caused by weather or obstructions).
And they don't care enough to avoid driving when they're too tired, otherwise distracted, too angry, or otherwise in an unfit state. Anger, especially -- so many people take traffic situations personally. Even members of my family who are normally fairly mild-tempered swear and curse when they get behind the wheel. (Myself, I've learned not to take anything personally, which helps both blood pressure and driving style.)
Until people realise just how dangerous cars can be, how important it is to drive carefully, how much attention it takes, then no amount of technology will help.
Ah, but there are other benefits to seeing down the side of your car. I use mine all the time when parking, when judging my position in thin lanes, and suchlike. I expect I'd be substantially less safe not being able to see the sides. Not that you need to see all of your vehicle, of course, but just the edge is extremely useful.
Anyway, isn't that why some mirrors curve towards the outer edge, or have a separate inset? Aren't those even safer than radar? Not to mention cheaper, easier to fit...
Didn't I read somewhere of an experiment performed at an accident blackspot, where a remote rural road crossed a railway line? They cut down several trees near the junction to improve visibility, but this had an unexpected effect: instead of reducing accidents, people just didn't slow down as much. They concluded that drivers have an acceptable safety level, and drive to maintain that -- neither more dangerous, nor safer.
In that light, I expect that in many cases, a system like this will simply cause drivers to pay less attention to the road around them, supposedly safe in the knowledge that the new-fangled system will keep them out of trouble. Which it might do in many cases; but all? And meanwhile, people are learning the lesson that safety is the car's responsibility, and not theirs...
Er, yes, I've had to maintain code by people who clearly thought like that, and what a nightmare it was...
I saw an estimate once that 80% of the time spent on code is maintenance. (Of course, this will vary between systems and projects. But it seems reasonable IME.) That means that people will spend four times as long reading code, amending it, extending it, and fixing it, than they do writing it in the first place. Code that suffers from being knocked out quickly takes longer overall -- bugs are harder to find, it's harder to change without breaking, it's harder to learn from, harder to fix, harder to read, harder to do anything with. That applies whether it's the writer or anyone else -- but especially for anyone else, who might have trouble following the author's disorganised thought processes or labyrinthine code.
IME, clarity and neatness isn't something you can turn on and off. People who don't care about how code looks or functions, often don't care about how well it works, or even whether it works...
As another commenter said, I hope I'm being trolled here!
I don't really know -- I haven't used them yet! I'm just raising the possibility. Experience will tell.
Up to now, I've generally used the 'typesafe enum' pattern (a class with fixed, named static instances) instead of integer constants. So this won't be such a wrench. And it certainly has a lot of potential.
Yes, coding standards are important, and personal responsibility is also important. It's possible to write a monstrosity in any language! But IME, with its nice clean syntax, simple scoping rules and namespaces, doc comments, and well-designed libraries, Java makes it easier to write clean, elegant code, and harder to write bad code, than most other languages. I'm just concerned that these changes don't spoil that.
While all of these features make code easier to write, I'm not sure they all make it easier to read.
I believe that overall, much more time is spent maintaining code than in writing it, and yet languages seem designed mainly for the latter. (Perl particularly!) Some of the changes -- new for() loops, generics -- will improve readability and maintainability too, but I worry that the new imports, and maybe enums, won't. At present, it's fairly easy to look at a small section of Java code and know exactly what it's doing. With no preprocessor, and nice easy scope rules, you can easily tell what names and objects are being used -- that's one of the things I really like about the language. Additional imports, not just of class names but of other identifiers, risks muddying this. Has anyone done much actual work in 1.5 and can speak from experience?
Virus does indeed come from the Latin, probably (though not certainly) a 2nd-declension neuter noun. But one that has no plural, either recorded or supposed. Result: the English plural is 'viruses'.
Depends on the PDA, of course, but I can tap the keys of my Psion 5mx faster than I can write. And I can type one-handed, too, whereas writing one-handed on small bits of paper can be very tricky. And I usually find it much faster to open my Psion than to scrabble around for a pen and paper (even though both are nearby).
And then, afterwards, the info in my Psion is with me when I'm out and about, whereas I'm always losing pieces of paper. My Psion can remind me of things, set alarms, &c, which I've yet to see paper do.
Yes, I still use paper too, for some things, but there's nothing inherently wrong with many non-paper solutions. Different people, in different situations, prefer different methods.
Slashdot Mirror
Heartily seconded. I know that folks who only want simple PDA functionality -- address book, agenda -- find it too large, and folks who want their entire Windows PC -- M$ compatibility and all -- find it too small, but for me the trouser-pocket size and touch-typeable keyboard, together with great on-board software (office-type apps, email, Opera, &c) and the ability to develop on the machine in Java, Perl, OPL, &c, make it a perfect pocket computer in its own right, and I've seen nothing that comes even close to it.
Indeed. Sometimes I worry that the USA is breeding a whole culture of, er, well, to coin a phrase, litigious bastards...
Maybe they're still checking the details themselves, maybe they're trying to give IBM as little time as possible to respond, maybe they have something really clever up their sleeves. But personally, I think they know they have nothing, and are either hoping something will turn up (maybe from all the discovery they want from IBM), or that by adding new claims at long intervals, they'll be able to spin it out until everyone gets fed up.
Okay, I'm sure things aren't really as bad as that, but as you say, there is an awful lot of paradigmatic inertia (isn't that a wonderful phrase? Let me say it again: paradigmatic inertia) in the scientific community. A certain amount is justified and useful, but maybe it exceeds that?
Coincidentally enough, I use a Psion 5mx, the platform for which Symbian's OS was originally designed. Yes, I 'cart' it around. It lives in my trouser pocket, where it's very happy (no jokes please, missus), and is always accessible. I've seen a Communicator briefly, and discussed it at length with users, and I can tell that, compared with the 5mx, its lack of touch screen, poky keyboard, limited memory, small screen, and inaccessible software would make it far less useful to me.
Of course, not everyone is like me. But then, not everyone's like you either, so please don't judge everything by your standards.
As to my correction, please don't take it personally :) I'm a stickler for such things, and every so often someone pushes me over the edge! BTW, would I be right in presuming you're an American? For some reason, running words together seems more common over there than here in the UK.
[fx: pauses to catch breath]
Anyway, the only reason that widespread DRM might be inevitable is that people like you think it's inevitable. Yes, content providers want it. But they wanted to stop video recorders; they failed, and both they and the rest of the world continue unabated. They've wanted many other things, too, but they're not invincible. For example, one of the main factors in Sony's MiniDisc format never really taking off as it should is the limitations they put on it - enforcing SCMS, denying access to the compressed data directly, making MD-Data incompatible and expensive, &c. It's time Sony learned a lesson from that.
They want control, but they also want to sell their stuff, and if they do too much of the former, they won't do enough of the latter.
That is, unless enough people just roll over...
Yes, but that doesn't matter. This isn't about Disney. Personally, I don't really care whether Disney regrets it or not -- what I care about is whether we'll regret it. And I rather worry we will...
How about Mozilla Express? Hee hee hee...
Nope; it's short for "MPEG Audio Layer 3", where the MPEG is the first version, later called MPEG-1. (References: mpeg.org, Fraunhofer.)
AAC was developed for MPEG-2, and improved for MPEG-4.
I'm a tad confused by this paragraph...
I was trying to put the restrictions on AAC into a context people would be familiar with. As you say, it's not treated exactly the same as MP3, but it's very close in most respects, as compared with WMA, FairPlay-protected AAC, Real, or other formats.
I have yet to encounter a single consumer implementation of an AAC encoding/decoding piece of software other than Apple's.
I came across FAAC earlier today. As you say, there's not a lot else; but considering the high usage of iTunes, QuickTime, the iTMS, and the iPod, I expect to see more in future. (MP3 took a while to take off, too.)
Do you think Steve Ballmer would have made such a fool of himself if developers weren't important?
The point is that so many people assume that all AAC files are as restricted as the FairPlay-wrapped ones from the iTMS, and I think it's important to know that's not the case. Yes, AAC is a patented format, but so is MP3. Yes, AAC needs a suitable decoder, but so does MP3. Both are the audio layers from MPEG specifications (MP3 from MPEG-1, AAC from MPEG-4), and both are from Dolby/Fraunhofer. Both are published international standards. You can create your own AAC files, and play them wherever there's an AAC decoder, just like MP3.
Sure, hate iPods if you want, that's your prerogative. But don't hate 'em thinking they only play DRM-ed files, because that's simply not true. They're a good deal more open than most others, in fact -- AAC is an open standard (it's the audio layer of MPEG-4, just as MP3 is of MPEG-1; it's even from the same people), unlike WMA...
iTunes (small 'i', big 'T', no hyphen) is an application, one that runs on Windows and Mac OS X.
The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is the web service. (Plenty of us use the former without the latter -- here in Europe, iTMS isn't even available...)
And, while I'm here, a related point that also causes confusion: the iTMS sells AAC files that have been wrapped in a FairPlay encryption wrapper. Plain AAC files are not encrypted or restricted in any way.
Right, now I've got that off my chest... Did anyone seriously think that people would be fooled by the Napster name? That they wouldn't realise it was a completely different service from a completely different company? I hate to rehash old jokes, but it does look rather like:
Of course, there's no ground traffic control, so it's not as easy to pick up people without a licence, but then the vast majority of accidents are caused by people who are licensed, so that's not the issue.
The issue, AFAICT, is that once people have passed their test, they don't care how they drive. People don't realise just how dangerous a weapon a car is (let along a Jeep or van). People don't care enough to pay proper attention to their driving, don't care enough to leave sufficient space around their vehicle, don't care enough to slow down in adverse road conditions (whether caused by weather or obstructions).
And they don't care enough to avoid driving when they're too tired, otherwise distracted, too angry, or otherwise in an unfit state. Anger, especially -- so many people take traffic situations personally. Even members of my family who are normally fairly mild-tempered swear and curse when they get behind the wheel. (Myself, I've learned not to take anything personally, which helps both blood pressure and driving style.)
Until people realise just how dangerous cars can be, how important it is to drive carefully, how much attention it takes, then no amount of technology will help.
Anyway, isn't that why some mirrors curve towards the outer edge, or have a separate inset? Aren't those even safer than radar? Not to mention cheaper, easier to fit...
In that light, I expect that in many cases, a system like this will simply cause drivers to pay less attention to the road around them, supposedly safe in the knowledge that the new-fangled system will keep them out of trouble. Which it might do in many cases; but all? And meanwhile, people are learning the lesson that safety is the car's responsibility, and not theirs...
I saw an estimate once that 80% of the time spent on code is maintenance. (Of course, this will vary between systems and projects. But it seems reasonable IME.) That means that people will spend four times as long reading code, amending it, extending it, and fixing it, than they do writing it in the first place. Code that suffers from being knocked out quickly takes longer overall -- bugs are harder to find, it's harder to change without breaking, it's harder to learn from, harder to fix, harder to read, harder to do anything with. That applies whether it's the writer or anyone else -- but especially for anyone else, who might have trouble following the author's disorganised thought processes or labyrinthine code.
IME, clarity and neatness isn't something you can turn on and off. People who don't care about how code looks or functions, often don't care about how well it works, or even whether it works...
As another commenter said, I hope I'm being trolled here!
Up to now, I've generally used the 'typesafe enum' pattern (a class with fixed, named static instances) instead of integer constants. So this won't be such a wrench. And it certainly has a lot of potential.
Yes, coding standards are important, and personal responsibility is also important. It's possible to write a monstrosity in any language! But IME, with its nice clean syntax, simple scoping rules and namespaces, doc comments, and well-designed libraries, Java makes it easier to write clean, elegant code, and harder to write bad code, than most other languages. I'm just concerned that these changes don't spoil that.
I believe that overall, much more time is spent maintaining code than in writing it, and yet languages seem designed mainly for the latter. (Perl particularly!) Some of the changes -- new for() loops, generics -- will improve readability and maintainability too, but I worry that the new imports, and maybe enums, won't. At present, it's fairly easy to look at a small section of Java code and know exactly what it's doing. With no preprocessor, and nice easy scope rules, you can easily tell what names and objects are being used -- that's one of the things I really like about the language. Additional imports, not just of class names but of other identifiers, risks muddying this. Has anyone done much actual work in 1.5 and can speak from experience?
Virus does indeed come from the Latin, probably (though not certainly) a 2nd-declension neuter noun. But one that has no plural, either recorded or supposed. Result: the English plural is 'viruses'.
Depends on the PDA, of course, but I can tap the keys of my Psion 5mx faster than I can write. And I can type one-handed, too, whereas writing one-handed on small bits of paper can be very tricky. And I usually find it much faster to open my Psion than to scrabble around for a pen and paper (even though both are nearby).
And then, afterwards, the info in my Psion is with me when I'm out and about, whereas I'm always losing pieces of paper. My Psion can remind me of things, set alarms, &c, which I've yet to see paper do.
Yes, I still use paper too, for some things, but there's nothing inherently wrong with many non-paper solutions. Different people, in different situations, prefer different methods.
...while others forget that 'new' is not necessarily 'worse'. Judge things on merit.