The problem, of course, is that most people won't have a Vorbis-ready player already installed on their computer. Most computers do have Realplayer installed on them, often when it's shipped from the factory. As much as people like to see Ogg as the perfect codec and worthy of having everything converted over to it, the general public just wants to be able to click on a link and listen to their file. You can say "Vorbis is better" all you want, but when it comes down to the average person listening to Car Talk, they just want to listen to the stream, regardless of what is playing it. It happens that a lot more people have Realplayer, so that one is more convenient.
I have to wholeheartedly agree with you. Those two shows are the only ones I really ever listen to ("Wait Wait" more than "This American Life"). Sadly, not too many people are into listening to the radio for the purpose of actually listening to it, instead of just hearing whatever the latest drivel that is being shoved through our ears happens to be.
I think the joke was more along the lines that the grandparent put a single quote after the number, instead of a double quote. Therefore instead of saying 21" (21 inches) they said 21' (21 feet);)
Technically, the WTO can't really overturn national laws or enforce standards. All they can really do is approve trade sanctions. If a country's willing to accept these sanctions, then there's no need to overturn the law.
It also appears that, indirectly, we do indeed vote for our WTO representative. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is an executive position. As such, this position is confirmed by the Senate. Another example of why we're a democratic republic, not a simple democracy like many people think we are.
I can see your point, and I agree, as you have said, that there is indeed no written law against yelling "fire" in a theatre. Certainly there are many different ways of interpreting anything said by the Justices, and as you have shown, putting the words into context also have a big effect on the interpretations. I also realize, looking back on the decision along with what you said, that you are indeed right on the legal effect of the words from Justice Holmes. I stand corrected:)
(And no, I think I'll recuse myself from testing it out;)
There may not be any written law, but the decisions of the Supreme Court are as good as law when it comes down to it. And in Schenck v. US, the following words are found:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic
Therefore, there might as well be a law against it.
I fail to see what's so contradictory about the ACLU's stance on the second amendment. They stay out of the issue. The NRA has that area more than adequately covered, so the ACLU focuses on their specific forte, which happens to be broader personal liberties. Why should they spend their money trying to add another issue when there's already a group that takes care of that issue?
Nobody's saying you can't use it. They're just saying, "you want to use it, you have to make it work yourself." By your argument, everyone using OS/2, DOS, Next, Windows 1.0, VMS, etc. should be able to complain simply because Apple won't let them use the iPod on their computer. Sometimes certain OSes get left behind. That's where the community has to come in and fill in the gaps, and perhaps even innovate in the field a little bit.
Seriously, I'm not exactly sure why Ogg being free should be one of the overruling concerns about which codec to choose. I try to support free software as much as possible (much of the work that I do is done using open-source web development tools, and I've released a number of open source programs.)
However, just because Ogg is free doesn't mean that I'm going to choose it over what I see as a better, non-free choice for codecs. MP3 and AAC work much better for my needs, so that's what I choose. As soon as Ogg is up to par with what I need (native support in iTunes and iPod, integrated into the CD rippers I use), I'll use it gladly. However, I'm not going to choose a codec that's inferior for my specific uses, just because I want to go with a free solution.
Looking back, though, Yahoo was never really that great. The only big feature it had over any other search engine was its category system. I never really used Yahoo exclusively back then, I was also partial to Webcrawler and Altavista. However, now that Google's arrived on the scene, with its exceedingly huge index and PageRank, I very, very rarely ever use another search engine. It's just that good and convenient.
I think that was the grandparent poster's idea. Apple can afford to lose a bit of money on iTMS because they make it back in iPod sales. Napster, on the other hand, can't really sell anything specific to their offering, so they have to be profitable on the music alone. That means that Napster has that much higher of a hill to climb, and I think they'll eventually fall back down it.
Pixar's not going out of business. You may have heard about Pixar and Disney not renewing their contract for more films (there are still 2 that are in post-production stages that are due to be released later this year). However, I'm sure many of the other studios are giddy with the chance of having a contract with Pixar, so I highly doubt they're going out of business anytime soon.
Technically that money only exists on paper. Typically, what happens is that the acquiring company issues shares of its stock that amount to the value of the deal. In this case, Comcast is issuing Disney shareholders 0.78 shares of Comcast for every 1 share of Disney stock they own (if the deal passes, that is). Since it's highly unlikely 100% will (or even could) be liquidated in the market, there will probably never be $66 billion to be seen.
My recent Nokia 5180i, and the current 5185, didn't have any sort of special feature (unless you call SMS a special feature). It had pretty good reception on it as well, with CDMA and analog.
I think the concern is more with translating HTML to WML. Many phones (such as my LG VX-3100) can only read WML. If you don't have a translation system, it gives you an "unsupported content type" error. However, Google's WAP page translates HTML to WML for you, so all you have to do is set that as your homepage and it works great.
If you look around, people have ways to get free access to WAP sites on your phone. The only thing that your phone company charges you for is to use their specific WAP server and the services that are on it. If you set up your phone (through the debug menus) to use a free WAP service, you only use airtime.
I know people on Verizon and AT&T have gotten it to work, and have verified that you don't get charged extra. Verizon, for instance, charges you to use their custom MSN WAP service, that's all. Paired with the Google WAP gateway (translates HTML into WML), that's a pretty good deal.
Indeed. Here at SUNY Buffalo, you can't find a Pepsi product ANYWHERE on campus. Vending machines, restaurants, events, everywhere is Coke products. This, of course, I don't like because I do use iTunes on a fairly regular basis. I remember Lewis Black making an extremely funny reference to the all-Coke campus when he came a few months ago and they gave him massive amounts of Dasani water (made by Coke).
The grandparent actually indicated that he or she is most likely American. Examine, if you will, such quotes as:
we have plenty of time to sit around and watch Survivor, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, and The Bachelorette.
(Note that I am in no way advocating or denouncing the grandparent post's comment. I prefer to stay out of that debate. I'm just trying to clear something up here.)
There's also free stuff out there to do mp3 (LAME). Read the documentation behind it, though, and you'll find that LAME uses patented algorithms that require a license. Look at how many software programs use LAME freely, however.
To "The Masses", the songs from iTMS are flexible. They're going to be listening to it only on their computer, an iPod, and maybe a work computer. They don't care whether they can transfer it to a Linux box because, surprisingly, they don't have one. It's sometimes hard for those of us who do have these less-prevalent OSes to imagine life without them; but for 95% of the population, they don't have an "alternative" OS and it doesn't concern them that they can only put their songs on 3 computers at a time. It's as flexible as they need it to be.
Because what you're using your Pentium III for now on your desktop is nowhere near what Wikipedia is using for their site. Chips that run perfectly fine when you're doing basic word processing and games can fail horribly when put until the load of running web servers and the like. The cost of trying to ensure all of these myriad parts are up to the task is much more than simply buying servers off the shelf that are standardized and have been designed specifically to handle the load of serving web pages and databases.
Surely I can't be the only one thinking right about now: only on Slashdot would we have a discussion about the chemical makeup of the alcohol in the moonshine we got as a Christmas gift.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem, of course, is that most people won't have a Vorbis-ready player already installed on their computer. Most computers do have Realplayer installed on them, often when it's shipped from the factory. As much as people like to see Ogg as the perfect codec and worthy of having everything converted over to it, the general public just wants to be able to click on a link and listen to their file. You can say "Vorbis is better" all you want, but when it comes down to the average person listening to Car Talk, they just want to listen to the stream, regardless of what is playing it. It happens that a lot more people have Realplayer, so that one is more convenient.
I have to wholeheartedly agree with you. Those two shows are the only ones I really ever listen to ("Wait Wait" more than "This American Life"). Sadly, not too many people are into listening to the radio for the purpose of actually listening to it, instead of just hearing whatever the latest drivel that is being shoved through our ears happens to be.
I think the joke was more along the lines that the grandparent put a single quote after the number, instead of a double quote. Therefore instead of saying 21" (21 inches) they said 21' (21 feet) ;)
Technically, the WTO can't really overturn national laws or enforce standards. All they can really do is approve trade sanctions. If a country's willing to accept these sanctions, then there's no need to overturn the law.
It also appears that, indirectly, we do indeed vote for our WTO representative. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is an executive position. As such, this position is confirmed by the Senate. Another example of why we're a democratic republic, not a simple democracy like many people think we are.
I can see your point, and I agree, as you have said, that there is indeed no written law against yelling "fire" in a theatre. Certainly there are many different ways of interpreting anything said by the Justices, and as you have shown, putting the words into context also have a big effect on the interpretations. I also realize, looking back on the decision along with what you said, that you are indeed right on the legal effect of the words from Justice Holmes. I stand corrected :)
;)
(And no, I think I'll recuse myself from testing it out
There may not be any written law, but the decisions of the Supreme Court are as good as law when it comes down to it. And in Schenck v. US, the following words are found:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic
Therefore, there might as well be a law against it.
I fail to see what's so contradictory about the ACLU's stance on the second amendment. They stay out of the issue. The NRA has that area more than adequately covered, so the ACLU focuses on their specific forte, which happens to be broader personal liberties. Why should they spend their money trying to add another issue when there's already a group that takes care of that issue?
Nobody's saying you can't use it. They're just saying, "you want to use it, you have to make it work yourself." By your argument, everyone using OS/2, DOS, Next, Windows 1.0, VMS, etc. should be able to complain simply because Apple won't let them use the iPod on their computer. Sometimes certain OSes get left behind. That's where the community has to come in and fill in the gaps, and perhaps even innovate in the field a little bit.
Seriously, I'm not exactly sure why Ogg being free should be one of the overruling concerns about which codec to choose. I try to support free software as much as possible (much of the work that I do is done using open-source web development tools, and I've released a number of open source programs.)
However, just because Ogg is free doesn't mean that I'm going to choose it over what I see as a better, non-free choice for codecs. MP3 and AAC work much better for my needs, so that's what I choose. As soon as Ogg is up to par with what I need (native support in iTunes and iPod, integrated into the CD rippers I use), I'll use it gladly. However, I'm not going to choose a codec that's inferior for my specific uses, just because I want to go with a free solution.
Looking back, though, Yahoo was never really that great. The only big feature it had over any other search engine was its category system. I never really used Yahoo exclusively back then, I was also partial to Webcrawler and Altavista. However, now that Google's arrived on the scene, with its exceedingly huge index and PageRank, I very, very rarely ever use another search engine. It's just that good and convenient.
I think that was the grandparent poster's idea. Apple can afford to lose a bit of money on iTMS because they make it back in iPod sales. Napster, on the other hand, can't really sell anything specific to their offering, so they have to be profitable on the music alone. That means that Napster has that much higher of a hill to climb, and I think they'll eventually fall back down it.
Could be worse. You could have to deal with Sprint like we have to in the south *shudders*
Pixar's not going out of business. You may have heard about Pixar and Disney not renewing their contract for more films (there are still 2 that are in post-production stages that are due to be released later this year). However, I'm sure many of the other studios are giddy with the chance of having a contract with Pixar, so I highly doubt they're going out of business anytime soon.
Technically that money only exists on paper. Typically, what happens is that the acquiring company issues shares of its stock that amount to the value of the deal. In this case, Comcast is issuing Disney shareholders 0.78 shares of Comcast for every 1 share of Disney stock they own (if the deal passes, that is). Since it's highly unlikely 100% will (or even could) be liquidated in the market, there will probably never be $66 billion to be seen.
My recent Nokia 5180i, and the current 5185, didn't have any sort of special feature (unless you call SMS a special feature). It had pretty good reception on it as well, with CDMA and analog.
I think the concern is more with translating HTML to WML. Many phones (such as my LG VX-3100) can only read WML. If you don't have a translation system, it gives you an "unsupported content type" error. However, Google's WAP page translates HTML to WML for you, so all you have to do is set that as your homepage and it works great.
If you look around, people have ways to get free access to WAP sites on your phone. The only thing that your phone company charges you for is to use their specific WAP server and the services that are on it. If you set up your phone (through the debug menus) to use a free WAP service, you only use airtime.
I know people on Verizon and AT&T have gotten it to work, and have verified that you don't get charged extra. Verizon, for instance, charges you to use their custom MSN WAP service, that's all. Paired with the Google WAP gateway (translates HTML into WML), that's a pretty good deal.
Indeed. Here at SUNY Buffalo, you can't find a Pepsi product ANYWHERE on campus. Vending machines, restaurants, events, everywhere is Coke products. This, of course, I don't like because I do use iTunes on a fairly regular basis. I remember Lewis Black making an extremely funny reference to the all-Coke campus when he came a few months ago and they gave him massive amounts of Dasani water (made by Coke).
The grandparent actually indicated that he or she is most likely American. Examine, if you will, such quotes as:
we have plenty of time to sit around and watch Survivor, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, and The Bachelorette.
(Note that I am in no way advocating or denouncing the grandparent post's comment. I prefer to stay out of that debate. I'm just trying to clear something up here.)
There's also free stuff out there to do mp3 (LAME). Read the documentation behind it, though, and you'll find that LAME uses patented algorithms that require a license. Look at how many software programs use LAME freely, however.
Hey, some of us are PHP geeks. I.e. me ;)
To "The Masses", the songs from iTMS are flexible. They're going to be listening to it only on their computer, an iPod, and maybe a work computer. They don't care whether they can transfer it to a Linux box because, surprisingly, they don't have one. It's sometimes hard for those of us who do have these less-prevalent OSes to imagine life without them; but for 95% of the population, they don't have an "alternative" OS and it doesn't concern them that they can only put their songs on 3 computers at a time. It's as flexible as they need it to be.
I remember my father buying a 32MB SDRAM stick when SDRAM was just coming out. He spent almost $300 on that. Resale value a few months ago: $5.
Because what you're using your Pentium III for now on your desktop is nowhere near what Wikipedia is using for their site. Chips that run perfectly fine when you're doing basic word processing and games can fail horribly when put until the load of running web servers and the like. The cost of trying to ensure all of these myriad parts are up to the task is much more than simply buying servers off the shelf that are standardized and have been designed specifically to handle the load of serving web pages and databases.
Surely I can't be the only one thinking right about now: only on Slashdot would we have a discussion about the chemical makeup of the alcohol in the moonshine we got as a Christmas gift.