It's their patent. What's the problem with them doing as they see fit with it? Actually, not giving the producer of a patent control is going to stifle innovation more then your system would benefit the open market. I know I wouldn't gamble money on R&D into a product if I knew some random company could bid control of it from under me.
Well, this concept goes far beyond teamwork to the point that the question is about getting two companies with various interests together to create one product. I'm sure teamwork is fine. In fact, I don't see many worthwhile projects that can be done with technology today that wouldn't involve people of different disciplines.
It's getting the bean counters together that is going to kill these projects, not the engineers.
Once you get all these teams together and you get everyone to agree and sign off on something the patents are damn near expired and the advancement isn't worth anything from a patent rights aspect.
Until then, he gets to work indoors, on a computer, smoke as much as he wants (try that in the US!), and learn a skill that some may consider mundane, but shows a helluva lot of marketability with a longterm and bright future. Now it sounds like a win-win situation.
I would agree with you if this was a new generation of an existing product instead of a new product with no past history. Again, manufacturers produce shoddy products from time to time. This is true of every manufacturer.
Is it so unthinkable to say, I have liked products from this company before, I'll trust them with a new purchase now?
Ah ha! But that's not what the OP was saying. The OP was saying that it was definitely worth the money without ever even seeing the product (nor having any real market data since none exists!) based on the fact that the Apple brand name was attached to it. To say "It should be a good product given..." is a far cry from "This product is definitely paying over current market value for..."
I am also no "fanboy" as everyone seems to like to call people who likes Apple. I just love better products and are willing to pay extra for them.
Also, last time I checked, it was only $600, but if it is now $800, fine... For Apple products, it definitely worth it.
Just as a note: take it from me, you're a fanboi if this is the way you really think.
You're already proclaiming that spending as much as 2-3 times what most smart phones cost is Ok with you because it's an Apple, without even getting the phone into your hands? Actually, even more than Ok but "definitely worth it."
If that's not fanboism what is?
I'm not saying the phone is not worth it. If all the promises are true and if the phone is as reliable as my iPod has been I can understand why people found it desirable. But the fact is that you're pretty much saying it's a done deal. No one on slashdot, or at least very very few, have even had one of these in their hands let alone made a call on one or beat it around for a few months or a year to give us the kind of serious insight into this device that dictates spending big money on it.
To sit there and publicly proclaim a product get's a "thumbs up" simply because of the name etched into it's shell is fanboism. 100%. Every company makes a bad product and Apple has had enough to show us they're no different than anyone else. To deny that is also fanboism.
Ok, what percent of AT&T users will need to buy this to get it to equal 1% of all new phone sales? I think the lack of choice in carriers has a bigger impact than the price, right off.
On the serious side, if you are disgusted with law enforcement, and think you can do better, then do something about it.
Uh, it was a joke. I guess that there were more humorless people around here then I first expect. I know the 400th Balmer-throws-a-chair joke still gets high praise around here. Maybe I'll switch to that.
Yeah, as much as some like to say that population density isn't a question the bottom line is that it's nice that China is catching up to us when China has four times the population density of the US. This is no small difference.
I think not having a majority of any party in congress is the solution. I don't think I can convince many of this but it is what it is. Not to say that I've thrown in the towel, I still vote third party, but I know that it will take a lot of time before people move in one direction or the other.
In some secret way I was hoping that there would be enough splintering at the points where Nader and Perot were in the mix that some of the moderates of both parties would have gone away from their own little party influences but this simply isn't the case.
Also, I think that aiming straight for the federal level is slightly over ambitious. Maybe some solid state and local officials can make some moderates more encouraged to try for third party victories.
No, people never take a chance on the alternative. Every election I've ever voted in there has always been a good representation of third party and indie candidates. Few ever get elected because people actually believe it's better to vote for who might win vs who represents them best. Maybe if people took the time and heart to vote for who represents them best maybe they'd have a chance to win.
Why is it that both the Department of Justice and FBI seem to be violating so many laws these days?
Maybe you're just finally paying attention to it? I'm finding more and more people who couldn't have cared less pre-9/11 are now up in arms about the smallest movement within government that is questionable.
Now here's my real question: Are you same people going to be so scrutinising and demanding when the next guy takes office?
So much of this just seem like political spin to get a Democrat in office that, frankly, I'm concerned that most people are going to turn a blind eye once they get "their boy" in office. What's worse yet is the people who don't think this kind of stuff doesn't go on under nearly every administration. As I see it Bush just finally took off the gloves and gave this kind of thing a face.
Or do you really think Bush was the first one to come up with stuff like the PATRIOT Act off the cuff?
But then, you deliberately misunderstood my posting.
Actually, I'm not. Care to bring some more light to this arguement?
Oh, there are other ways of course. But bomb building is difficult and dangerous. And a bomb requires euther significant overkill or real expertise to place.
Really? My understanding is that in the case of the OKC bombing that McVeigh had zero idea that it was going to do that much damage. And from his testimony about the daycare center it's pretty clear he never even knew the layout of the building. As far as killing a couple dozen people in an enclosed space with a bomb? It doesn't take planning, it just takes a location. If what you were saying were true hand grenades would be useless by untrained troops. Sadly, we know this is not true at all.
Guns are simple: Aim and pull the trigger. Doable by anyone with little preparation
Only kinda... I do see what you're getting at here but the truth is that people who are ill-prepared with a firearm normally don't do well with them. Cho's targets were a matter of opportunity, his "accomplishments" had more to do with location then it had to do with weapons. Had he had a couple dozen bombs that body count would have been much higher in a much shorter span of time. He planned out these attacks as well so you can not claim that there was little preparation.
What I find funny about all of these patent deals, is that these Linux distributions are selling out, and they are also alienating their userbase.
You know what, seriously? Big deal. Mod me down all you want but the truth is that if Linux is growing at the pace that people are proclaiming here it makes sense for MS to play along. And if in playing along we're still going to have people shunning anything MS because they're the big bad wolf, again, big deal.
The bottom line is that OSS zealots (not to be confused with the more legitimate core of the OSS community) don't make up a significant number of users to care about anyway. If MS starts to adapt better computing standards that incorporate friendly partnerships with certain Linux vendors and open document standards why shouldn't people support that?
It really makes me wonder if the OSS zealots out there really support OSS or if they just want to be among the tragically hip geeks and have some "cause" to fight for. It also makes me wonder what's going to happen to these same people if OSS becomes widely adopted. Are they going to become like the punk music snobs who scream "sell out" anytime one of their ex-favorite bands starts to make enough money not to live in an Econoline? It seems like that is what's going on.
Should people be cautious of their dealings with MS? Sure, it may not take much for them to hamstring some of their recently "signed on" vendors. But it doesn't mean that MS will and it doesn't mean that MS may not put out a few items that may make things work well together without fear of patient infringement.
If you would have RTFA over the blurb you would know that it wasn't TTF technology itself that was granted but rather rights to use Microsoft's code in relation to TTF. I think someone building a Windows emulator would find this important.
but in providing any weapon/gun you provide the means to a motive.
Uh, no. A motive is the reason people are driven towards crime. The gun itself isn't a motive unless the criminals only motive was "let's see what it's like to kill someone with this particular weapon". I have never heard of a case where a person buys a Glock 19 just to see what it's like to kill another human with a Glock 19. I have heard of people who kill just to see another human die but most of these seem to involve slower methods of death that also normally include torture. The motives in these crimes comes from somewhere outside of the tools of the criminal.
In using other weapons, such people would be more easily overpowered
It would be interesting to see this in real action. If you think it's harder to overpower a human with a firearm than it is someone who uses their auto as a battering ram I'd like to see you try it. Those kids at VT could have easily overpowered Cho early on, it's just a matter of being willing to take a bullet for the home team. Of course, had there been no gun control on campus they may have been able to do it without having to rush him and drag him to the ground.
more gun control
Yeah, gun control worked real well at VT. Just like it works in NYC and how well it worked in DC.
The guns are already out there. The genie is already out of the bottle. More gun control is going to lead to worse criminal activity at this point. Not to mention that disarming legal gun owners who believe in the true flavor of the 2nd Amendment are going to have a field day.
That is all completely bullshit, when somebody snaps and goes on a rampage, over in the USA they can reach for a gun, if they don't own one they can go and buy one without any problems. Over here the chances of them having a gun in the first place is low, and to get a gun you need to go through a months long process, by that time it would be obvious they're not mentally stable enough to own a gun.
Uh, you know he planned this attack for a long time and didn't just "snap" at all? He didn't just buy a pistol at KMart (not that you can buy a pistol at KMart). You know this, right?
That leaves them with few options, a knife? a really big knife? How many people do you think a person can kill with a knife? Will they be able to blast their way into a room with a knife? I don't think so. It's quite simple really, killing someone with a gun is easier, the body count is lower if there is no gun.
Two words: Timothy McVeigh.
Also I feel much safer walking down the street knowing that nobody around me is carrying any guns, for pretty obvious reasons I would say.
So, since I'm a gun owner you'd feel unsafe around me? Eh, no big loss from where I sit.
Two different beasts. If you can substitute EQ2 for a PnP game and not miss the latter, then you weren't doing it right.
Oh, you mean I wasn't doing it your way? Not to get on you or anything but I always thought that there was more than one way to enjoy D&D. If I'm wrong just tell me.
the face-to-face socializing and wide-open gameplay of a good D&D game kick the snot out of killing the same mob for the 1000th time hoping for a good drop, or sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for the other 30 people in the raid to get their shit together.
And the "load and go" gameplay of MMO games kicks the snot out of trying to work around everyones private life in the hopes that an entire group can show up, especially at my age where many of my peers have new wives/husbands and young children to consider in the mix. Grinding can be a bore, no doubt, but how much different is it on the excitement scale then making 12 phone calls 3 days before a session, getting everyone together just to realize that you only got nearly everyone together. So you call up the absent player(s) again only to find out that work or family has thrown up a last minute obligation and they'll either be late or not showing at all. All of this leaves not only a timegap that you need to fill with random garbage (not much different than getting a raid together, eh?) but also the problems it causes for the GM. Maybe your group is more stable but in my group we have a lot going on in our private lives and it's not as easy as saying "everyone be here at 7pm ready to play."
Worst case scenario with EQ2 (or whatever MMO): I log on, no one else is around, I have no solo material to work on (yeah, right). So I log off and play CounterStrike instead. Maybe that's part of it too, I feel that playing is becoming tiresome because I'm seeing it more and more as an obligation to not let others down because I have to show up or it's going to cause the party problems. I simply don't want to make those kinds of commitments to D&D anymore when I have, what I feel is, a substitute. I probably wouldn't feel the same if I didn't have EQ2.
The thing that will probably make you cringe over all of this is that if I had to choose I would drop P&P RPGs in a second.
And you can play a perfectly fun game of D&D without buying any books at all. If you think you need every splatbook WotC publishes, you're a sucker.
I actually don't buy these books but all it takes is a lukewarm GM and a player who wants to use The Complete Potato Farmer v. 3.5.1223.2a to start to throw a group for a tailspin. I'm not the GM here. If the GM allows whatever book to be used it makes it all the harder for those of us without. I actually haven't upgraded since I got PHG, DMG and MM for 3.0 and I feel somewhat isolated by how the balance of the game is thrown off by the supplemental materials that WotC is selling for 20+ USD a pop. I see my kick ass spells as a 3.0 cleric being turned trivial in the face of prestige classes who have better spells four levels earlier than myself.
Somewhere else in this thread I adress this in a roundabout manner by saying that WotC is treating D&D like a "cheap whore ala Magic". It's somewhat amusing for me to look back and remember how I felt about Magic after hearing about players pouring money into their decks only to have some cards be made invalid for play in certain situations and among certain other players who wanted to stick with the official edicts of Wizards.
Unfortunately part of what amused me at the time has turned into my own little problem when Wizards took over TSR. Not that TSR wasn't heading down that road themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
It's their patent. What's the problem with them doing as they see fit with it? Actually, not giving the producer of a patent control is going to stifle innovation more then your system would benefit the open market. I know I wouldn't gamble money on R&D into a product if I knew some random company could bid control of it from under me.
Well, this concept goes far beyond teamwork to the point that the question is about getting two companies with various interests together to create one product. I'm sure teamwork is fine. In fact, I don't see many worthwhile projects that can be done with technology today that wouldn't involve people of different disciplines.
It's getting the bean counters together that is going to kill these projects, not the engineers.
Once you get all these teams together and you get everyone to agree and sign off on something the patents are damn near expired and the advancement isn't worth anything from a patent rights aspect.
Why would I want to find out that I have more?
Until then, he gets to work indoors, on a computer, smoke as much as he wants (try that in the US!), and learn a skill that some may consider mundane, but shows a helluva lot of marketability with a longterm and bright future. Now it sounds like a win-win situation.
And don't forget he get's a free WoW account.
Prediction based on past performance?
I would agree with you if this was a new generation of an existing product instead of a new product with no past history. Again, manufacturers produce shoddy products from time to time. This is true of every manufacturer.
Is it so unthinkable to say, I have liked products from this company before, I'll trust them with a new purchase now?
Ah ha! But that's not what the OP was saying. The OP was saying that it was definitely worth the money without ever even seeing the product (nor having any real market data since none exists!) based on the fact that the Apple brand name was attached to it. To say "It should be a good product given..." is a far cry from "This product is definitely paying over current market value for..."
I am also no "fanboy" as everyone seems to like to call people who likes Apple. I just love better products and are willing to pay extra for them.
Also, last time I checked, it was only $600, but if it is now $800, fine... For Apple products, it definitely worth it.
Just as a note: take it from me, you're a fanboi if this is the way you really think.
You're already proclaiming that spending as much as 2-3 times what most smart phones cost is Ok with you because it's an Apple, without even getting the phone into your hands? Actually, even more than Ok but "definitely worth it."
If that's not fanboism what is?
I'm not saying the phone is not worth it. If all the promises are true and if the phone is as reliable as my iPod has been I can understand why people found it desirable. But the fact is that you're pretty much saying it's a done deal. No one on slashdot, or at least very very few, have even had one of these in their hands let alone made a call on one or beat it around for a few months or a year to give us the kind of serious insight into this device that dictates spending big money on it.
To sit there and publicly proclaim a product get's a "thumbs up" simply because of the name etched into it's shell is fanboism. 100%. Every company makes a bad product and Apple has had enough to show us they're no different than anyone else. To deny that is also fanboism.
Ok, what percent of AT&T users will need to buy this to get it to equal 1% of all new phone sales? I think the lack of choice in carriers has a bigger impact than the price, right off.
On the serious side, if you are disgusted with law enforcement, and think you can do better, then do something about it.
Uh, it was a joke. I guess that there were more humorless people around here then I first expect. I know the 400th Balmer-throws-a-chair joke still gets high praise around here. Maybe I'll switch to that.
Yeah, that's why E85 vanished from the market!
Oh, wait...
Where are those flatfoots when you need one?
On the serious side I'm glad to see that this lady got her comeuppance. Had it been me I would have beaten down the thief.
Yeah, as much as some like to say that population density isn't a question the bottom line is that it's nice that China is catching up to us when China has four times the population density of the US. This is no small difference.
I think not having a majority of any party in congress is the solution. I don't think I can convince many of this but it is what it is. Not to say that I've thrown in the towel, I still vote third party, but I know that it will take a lot of time before people move in one direction or the other.
In some secret way I was hoping that there would be enough splintering at the points where Nader and Perot were in the mix that some of the moderates of both parties would have gone away from their own little party influences but this simply isn't the case.
Also, I think that aiming straight for the federal level is slightly over ambitious. Maybe some solid state and local officials can make some moderates more encouraged to try for third party victories.
but people can never seem to find an alternative.
No, people never take a chance on the alternative. Every election I've ever voted in there has always been a good representation of third party and indie candidates. Few ever get elected because people actually believe it's better to vote for who might win vs who represents them best. Maybe if people took the time and heart to vote for who represents them best maybe they'd have a chance to win.
Why is it that both the Department of Justice and FBI seem to be violating so many laws these days?
Maybe you're just finally paying attention to it? I'm finding more and more people who couldn't have cared less pre-9/11 are now up in arms about the smallest movement within government that is questionable.
Now here's my real question: Are you same people going to be so scrutinising and demanding when the next guy takes office?
So much of this just seem like political spin to get a Democrat in office that, frankly, I'm concerned that most people are going to turn a blind eye once they get "their boy" in office. What's worse yet is the people who don't think this kind of stuff doesn't go on under nearly every administration. As I see it Bush just finally took off the gloves and gave this kind of thing a face.
Or do you really think Bush was the first one to come up with stuff like the PATRIOT Act off the cuff?
But then, you deliberately misunderstood my posting.
Actually, I'm not. Care to bring some more light to this arguement?
Oh, there are other ways of course. But bomb building is difficult and dangerous. And a bomb requires euther significant overkill or real expertise to place.
Really? My understanding is that in the case of the OKC bombing that McVeigh had zero idea that it was going to do that much damage. And from his testimony about the daycare center it's pretty clear he never even knew the layout of the building. As far as killing a couple dozen people in an enclosed space with a bomb? It doesn't take planning, it just takes a location. If what you were saying were true hand grenades would be useless by untrained troops. Sadly, we know this is not true at all.
Guns are simple: Aim and pull the trigger. Doable by anyone with little preparation
Only kinda... I do see what you're getting at here but the truth is that people who are ill-prepared with a firearm normally don't do well with them. Cho's targets were a matter of opportunity, his "accomplishments" had more to do with location then it had to do with weapons. Had he had a couple dozen bombs that body count would have been much higher in a much shorter span of time. He planned out these attacks as well so you can not claim that there was little preparation.
What I find funny about all of these patent deals, is that these Linux distributions are selling out, and they are also alienating their userbase.
You know what, seriously? Big deal. Mod me down all you want but the truth is that if Linux is growing at the pace that people are proclaiming here it makes sense for MS to play along. And if in playing along we're still going to have people shunning anything MS because they're the big bad wolf, again, big deal.
The bottom line is that OSS zealots (not to be confused with the more legitimate core of the OSS community) don't make up a significant number of users to care about anyway. If MS starts to adapt better computing standards that incorporate friendly partnerships with certain Linux vendors and open document standards why shouldn't people support that?
It really makes me wonder if the OSS zealots out there really support OSS or if they just want to be among the tragically hip geeks and have some "cause" to fight for. It also makes me wonder what's going to happen to these same people if OSS becomes widely adopted. Are they going to become like the punk music snobs who scream "sell out" anytime one of their ex-favorite bands starts to make enough money not to live in an Econoline? It seems like that is what's going on.
Should people be cautious of their dealings with MS? Sure, it may not take much for them to hamstring some of their recently "signed on" vendors. But it doesn't mean that MS will and it doesn't mean that MS may not put out a few items that may make things work well together without fear of patient infringement.
If you would have RTFA over the blurb you would know that it wasn't TTF technology itself that was granted but rather rights to use Microsoft's code in relation to TTF. I think someone building a Windows emulator would find this important.
Hmm... let me think...
Happyland
OKC
Bath
Nah, you're right. Guns kill far more people in a single spree than anything else.
but in providing any weapon/gun you provide the means to a motive.
Uh, no. A motive is the reason people are driven towards crime. The gun itself isn't a motive unless the criminals only motive was "let's see what it's like to kill someone with this particular weapon". I have never heard of a case where a person buys a Glock 19 just to see what it's like to kill another human with a Glock 19. I have heard of people who kill just to see another human die but most of these seem to involve slower methods of death that also normally include torture. The motives in these crimes comes from somewhere outside of the tools of the criminal.
In using other weapons, such people would be more easily overpowered
It would be interesting to see this in real action. If you think it's harder to overpower a human with a firearm than it is someone who uses their auto as a battering ram I'd like to see you try it. Those kids at VT could have easily overpowered Cho early on, it's just a matter of being willing to take a bullet for the home team. Of course, had there been no gun control on campus they may have been able to do it without having to rush him and drag him to the ground.
more gun control
Yeah, gun control worked real well at VT. Just like it works in NYC and how well it worked in DC.
The guns are already out there. The genie is already out of the bottle. More gun control is going to lead to worse criminal activity at this point. Not to mention that disarming legal gun owners who believe in the true flavor of the 2nd Amendment are going to have a field day.
That is all completely bullshit, when somebody snaps and goes on a rampage, over in the USA they can reach for a gun, if they don't own one they can go and buy one without any problems. Over here the chances of them having a gun in the first place is low, and to get a gun you need to go through a months long process, by that time it would be obvious they're not mentally stable enough to own a gun.
Uh, you know he planned this attack for a long time and didn't just "snap" at all? He didn't just buy a pistol at KMart (not that you can buy a pistol at KMart). You know this, right?
That leaves them with few options, a knife? a really big knife? How many people do you think a person can kill with a knife? Will they be able to blast their way into a room with a knife? I don't think so. It's quite simple really, killing someone with a gun is easier, the body count is lower if there is no gun.
Two words: Timothy McVeigh.
Also I feel much safer walking down the street knowing that nobody around me is carrying any guns, for pretty obvious reasons I would say.
So, since I'm a gun owner you'd feel unsafe around me? Eh, no big loss from where I sit.
Actually, target shooting is another hobby of mine. ;)
Hey pal, I play video games because I enjoy shooting my friends. If I were to do that IRL I would have many less friends and probably a jail sentence.
That just doesn't work well in my schedule.
Two different beasts. If you can substitute EQ2 for a PnP game and not miss the latter, then you weren't doing it right.
Oh, you mean I wasn't doing it your way? Not to get on you or anything but I always thought that there was more than one way to enjoy D&D. If I'm wrong just tell me.
the face-to-face socializing and wide-open gameplay of a good D&D game kick the snot out of killing the same mob for the 1000th time hoping for a good drop, or sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for the other 30 people in the raid to get their shit together.
And the "load and go" gameplay of MMO games kicks the snot out of trying to work around everyones private life in the hopes that an entire group can show up, especially at my age where many of my peers have new wives/husbands and young children to consider in the mix. Grinding can be a bore, no doubt, but how much different is it on the excitement scale then making 12 phone calls 3 days before a session, getting everyone together just to realize that you only got nearly everyone together. So you call up the absent player(s) again only to find out that work or family has thrown up a last minute obligation and they'll either be late or not showing at all. All of this leaves not only a timegap that you need to fill with random garbage (not much different than getting a raid together, eh?) but also the problems it causes for the GM. Maybe your group is more stable but in my group we have a lot going on in our private lives and it's not as easy as saying "everyone be here at 7pm ready to play."
Worst case scenario with EQ2 (or whatever MMO): I log on, no one else is around, I have no solo material to work on (yeah, right). So I log off and play CounterStrike instead. Maybe that's part of it too, I feel that playing is becoming tiresome because I'm seeing it more and more as an obligation to not let others down because I have to show up or it's going to cause the party problems. I simply don't want to make those kinds of commitments to D&D anymore when I have, what I feel is, a substitute. I probably wouldn't feel the same if I didn't have EQ2.
The thing that will probably make you cringe over all of this is that if I had to choose I would drop P&P RPGs in a second.
And you can play a perfectly fun game of D&D without buying any books at all. If you think you need every splatbook WotC publishes, you're a sucker.
I actually don't buy these books but all it takes is a lukewarm GM and a player who wants to use The Complete Potato Farmer v. 3.5.1223.2a to start to throw a group for a tailspin. I'm not the GM here. If the GM allows whatever book to be used it makes it all the harder for those of us without. I actually haven't upgraded since I got PHG, DMG and MM for 3.0 and I feel somewhat isolated by how the balance of the game is thrown off by the supplemental materials that WotC is selling for 20+ USD a pop. I see my kick ass spells as a 3.0 cleric being turned trivial in the face of prestige classes who have better spells four levels earlier than myself.
Somewhere else in this thread I adress this in a roundabout manner by saying that WotC is treating D&D like a "cheap whore ala Magic". It's somewhat amusing for me to look back and remember how I felt about Magic after hearing about players pouring money into their decks only to have some cards be made invalid for play in certain situations and among certain other players who wanted to stick with the official edicts of Wizards.
Unfortunately part of what amused me at the time has turned into my own little problem when Wizards took over TSR. Not that TSR wasn't heading down that road themselves.
If you want to tax oil then tax oil, don't take a tax that is supposedly for road maintenance and construction and warp it into a private crusade.