Re:This whole article is an embarrassment to Slash
on
AppleTV Hits the Streets
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
- doesn't support DivX - a keyboard would make it a computer, not a set-top streamer - non-Disney movies already available (have been for a while) - *does* play non DRM'ed music and video (just like iPod)
My additions: - it *does* play H.264 and *only* H.264 video (protected and unprotected) - it plays a myriad of audio formats (probably all the ones the iPods do) but, again, only 1 video format - it has *no* video/audio inputs on the device, and cannot record *anything*, ever. - it can connect to any copy if iTunes software running on a LAN and can either stream or be synchronized like an iPod using its built-in 40Gig HD
So, basically, this can be used for *four* purposes 1) Playing videos you have bought off the iTunes Store and downloaded off Quicktime trailers 2) Playing videos you have, for some reason, in H.264 format 3) Viewing Photos in most of the popular formats 4) Listening to supported audio files in most of the popular formats
It does *nothing* and I mean *nothing* else.
I, for one, will not be buying this. $1/song, $2/TV show, $10/movie all in awful fidelities and with a sub-par selection is absolutely ball-busting. Moreover, I can't loan any of this stuff to a friend or resell it when I'm done.
You buy your big-ass plasma TV and an AppleTV and you'll notice damn fast the difference between your HD Cable TV and the mess you downloaded off iTunes. Not to mention a 128kbit/s AAC iTunes song streaming to your stereo.
Apple's 'digital lifestyle' is cheap, highly limited crap with a high price tag. With the money I save from NOT buying into this vicious cycle of over-priced lock-in, lock-out, I'll buy myself a TiVo and a Netflix/Blockbuster account (which is now shipping HDDVD and BluRay). Larger selection, higher fidelity, more choices, choose to rent or choose to buy.
It's one of the reasons that I try to be civil and friendly to the cops. If they feel like they are part of the same community as me, they're more likely to voluntarily 'do a bit more than they have to' to help me.
Well, you can suck up to authority and *hope* they protect you all you want. I'll sleep better at night with Hans and his MG-42 behind my front door waiting for a beach landing on my porch.... FROM HANS' COLD DEAD HANDS!!
Prison!? That is too harsh, just make it a stiff fine, but payable to the person wrongly reported or surveiled.
There have been a few supreme court cases stating that an officer working for the executive branch cannot be charged with crimes relating to their job under most circumstances. Remember how hard it was to bust those cops in the Rondey King beating? Oh wait, they got away free.
Invasion of privacy and searching and seizing without warrants is usually punishable by suspension. A cop will never worry about going to jail unless they inflict physical harm upon somebody else.
Something that should warm your heart even more: According to the Supreme Court, cops are NOT required to protect you. Ever.
They can watch you be shot, stabbed, raped, or anything else while doing nothing. They cannot be charged or even disciplined for inaction. Moreover, even if ordered to "serve and protect" directly, the worst that can happen if they refuse is.. you guessed it, suspension. It's not the military, it's just one step up from an armed security guard.
The movie The Great Global Warming Swindle is a fraud. The filmmaker has been convicted in the past of "creative editing". And sure enough, Professor Carl Wunsch from MIT, who is shown in key moments of the movie, is crying foul.
The link to your article has nothing by that MIT professor in it.
Also, it was written by someone who obviously hasn't even seen the movie in question (Swindle). Just read the part where he says that "everybody agrees that temps are higher now than 100 years ago and CO2 is high...." It does not go onto say that the "Swindle" movie offered an alternate reasoning for this to be true, and backed it up with very persuasive data.
Another funny fact: many of the "scientists" shown in the movie are introduced as members of renowned academic institutions... which they left long ago. In other words, the movie is misrepresenting lobbyists as scientists. That should speak volumes about the integrity of the filmmakers.
Another funny fact about the IPCC report, which is mentioned in the film, is that there was NOT consensus among the "2500+ scientists" who "wrote" the report. In point of fact, the report was compiled in large part by bureaucrats and many of the scientists, including 1 interviewed in the "swindle" movie, had no involvement or had opposing views to the ones that were published.
One scientist, who proved that malaria would not increase due to rising temperatures (due to global warming or otherwise) told them repeatedly to remove his name from the report, which, of course, stated the worst. Obviously, they ignored him and his (correct, according to me) assessment completely and he wanted his name off the report. After much argument, he finally had to threaten legal action just to get his name removed!
I will not accept data collected and assembled in this manner to form my opinion. The fact that they are grasping at straws of credibility to hold this thing together makes this--"the most important climate change report"--absolutely and indisputably invalid. The scientific community should stand up for themselves and proclaim a "do-over".
I only mention the IPCC report because the 'swindle' movie was mainly just a response to that. It all goes back to the original post of this article: Crying wolf diminishes credibility of anthropogenic climate change "alarmists" (heroes?) as a whole.
Anthropogenic climate change may be real, but I'm reiterating that Gadwin's Law is now in full effect with the popular invocation of the word "denier". The debate is over, but only because we can't behave ourselves.
We may be destroying our planet with greenhouse emissions, or we may be needlessly destroying our economy with alarmism. I don't think we'll know for sure for a long time.
Personally, I've looked at the data, and I'm waiting to be convinced either way.
They took out everything that was going to be revolutionary (or at least interesting) about Longhorn and were afraid to try anything new for fear it would push back the already embarrassing release date or further alienating developers.
This is great. It's about time they tied this down to something that can be tested for so the people with real problems can get help, and all the Internet whiners can learn to deal with life instead of always searching for a cop-out.
I've been using chat programs and on online forums since 1996 and have never seen someone flame someone else and then later claim to have aspergers.
So, I just have to ask: What the hell straw man are you roundhousing to the face, chuck?
They'll quickly realize that the loss in revenue caused by the huge drop in sales is not worth it in the least, and the price will come right back down.
Or more likely, they'd blame the drop in sales on piracy and direct their wholly-owned subsidiary members of Congress to push yet more ridiculous legislation through in support of their dying business model at the expense of the citizenry.
This is exactly what happened with Napster. No, really: In the same period of time when Napster was 'stealing all their sales', the record companies were price fixing! They were even convicted!
Viacom is just saying, "It's our content, give us what we want or you can't host it...pay to play suckers!!!". Fault them if you wish but they are well within their rights.
Blasphemy! Any media company that sues to protect its IP must be stopped!
Because if we get rid of viacom, then we wont get sued for stealing their stuff!... wait, but they wont make any more stuff... uh OK, I got it! we'll make it a law that they HAVE to make good quality content FOR FREE and not do a damn thing about it when people upload copies online!
And somehow, we'll convince ourselves that it was in viacom's best interest, because we saw the clips and then watched the shows on TV... even if that's BS and P2P is still the largest distributor of online music...
Your statement that the US is "lapping" the socialized world" is nonsensical
That wasn't my statement, that was your straw man. My statement was "If central planning were the answer, the US wouldn't be lapping the socialized world in pharmacological research."
Pushing placebos and snake oil on an uneducated public is NOT the right way to fund R&D.
O'RLY? I would think that the way that works is the best way. Perhaps you could point to a system right now that's been more effective. Besides, I don't think my post was really centered around US having the best MEDICAL SYSTEM, just the best research system.
Even if most R&D in breakthrough drugs was funded privately, which it is NOT. Most private R&D is in copycat drugs which provide little or no medical benefit over existing drugs and are pursued as a way to bust through the monopoly positions our inane patent system creates for other pharma companies.
The point of my post was that they release the 'copycat' drugs AS WELL AS the breakthrough drugs. The copycats pay for the breakthroughs, or did you get that?
Also, your use of 'monopoly' is totally wrong (someone else pointed this out earlier).
Private R&D is devoted primarily to discovering drugs which can penetrate already established markets.
Did I say it wasn't? The money from selling these candy-store drugs has given birth to more USEFUL drugs than any other system could (or has).
That, of course, means we'd get five times the R&D for the same money we're paying today if we paid for it outright rather than granting monopolies. Or we'd get the same level of R&D at a fifth of the price.
Oh of COURSE that's what it means.
Maybe they need that marketing to sell the drugs to pay for the R&D to make the drugs and the best way to do that is to pay for more advertisements.
You think companies like to advertise? They would rather give the money to R&D if the drugs actually sold themselves. Most drugs, however, do not sell themselves. Most of the medication sold in this country has little effect or could easily be replaced by an older drug which is 1/10 the cost and only 3 to 4% less effective.
Another problem is that if the patient dies, that '3 to 4%' figure is brought up in COURT in the form of a malpractice suit against the doctor that prescribed the alternative!
The niche medications which treat ailments that effect 1% of the population have a high price and the research in finding them is often NEVER PAID OFF. It's a tightly held secret that drug companies often pursue avenues that yield JACK SQUAT.
The worthless 'celebrex' and 'nexium' medications pay for those dead ends and niche drugs. And their marketing allows them to do that.
Drugs like Celebrex which show barely any improvement over placebo, and medications that take care of problems related to obesity (a relatively easily-cured disease) wouldn't be flying off the counters if it weren't for those commercials.
If the drug companies cut their marketing in half, freeing up 20% of their revenue according to your figures (which, btw, are wrong), they may end up having half the revenue to work with. So they'd have -50% less money and +20% more, for a net of -30%. Those are obviously arbitrary figures, but you can see the point: less marketing does not mean more money for R&D.
So, to sum up, the pharmaceutical system in the US is the best money could buy. If central planning were the answer, the US wouldn't be lapping the socialized world in pharmacological research. When government starts telling doctors what to prescribe and price fixing on drugs in America, we'll see a quick restructuring inside these companies in which R&D will fall through the floor.
The best thing you can do is never give out your information. Protect it like you're a secret agent. Protect it against torturous interrogation. Protect it to point of taking that suicide pill hidden as the third button on your shirt.
Dude, calm down. Everyone knows you live in your mom's basement.
Don't appply unless you're 20 something and remotely good looking. The BBC recently knee capped their tech presents to only pretty people who don't seem to care even remotely about tech.
It probably wouldn't make much difference in quality. The last 3 articles on technology I read on the BBC (years ago) were either riddled with misuse of certain words, left out some important and key details, misstated the implications of the story, and/or came up with a very strange and subjective conclusion that came out of the blue.
I've seen this happen elsewhere, so I stopped reading tech news from most places. I will not conjecture on why this is so.
Sprawl doesn't make you fat. Lack of discipline makes you fat.
The kids who move a lot are faced with more adversity so they actually have something to DO.
I have no idea why people blame things from french fries to urban sprawl for obesity. We just plain have no discipline anymore, that's all!
I always hear "I can't work out, I don't have time!" I work out 10 hours a week, am a full time straight-A pre-med student, and work part time at 2 jobs. How do I do it? I tried it with an open mind, and it was possible. I'm not even that stressed out or tired.
As a matter of fact, you CAN do it. PS: I don't own a TV.
Average wages are the highest in the past decade than they've been in any other point in history, but we have record debt. How is that possible?
We don't NEED to be out of debt, we don't NEED to be skinny, so therefore we're fat debtors, and there's nothing wrong with that, provided we can get away with it. When the day comes that we can't do it anymore, you'll see us snap back to our industrious puritan heritage we were founded upon... or we'll all have simultaneous heart attacks and sue McDonalds.
Slashdot Mirror
- doesn't support DivX
- a keyboard would make it a computer, not a set-top streamer
- non-Disney movies already available (have been for a while)
- *does* play non DRM'ed music and video (just like iPod)
My additions:
- it *does* play H.264 and *only* H.264 video (protected and unprotected)
- it plays a myriad of audio formats (probably all the ones the iPods do) but, again, only 1 video format
- it has *no* video/audio inputs on the device, and cannot record *anything*, ever.
- it can connect to any copy if iTunes software running on a LAN and can either stream or be synchronized like an iPod using its built-in 40Gig HD
So, basically, this can be used for *four* purposes
1) Playing videos you have bought off the iTunes Store and downloaded off Quicktime trailers
2) Playing videos you have, for some reason, in H.264 format
3) Viewing Photos in most of the popular formats
4) Listening to supported audio files in most of the popular formats
It does *nothing* and I mean *nothing* else.
I, for one, will not be buying this. $1/song, $2/TV show, $10/movie all in awful fidelities and with a sub-par selection is absolutely ball-busting. Moreover, I can't loan any of this stuff to a friend or resell it when I'm done.
You buy your big-ass plasma TV and an AppleTV and you'll notice damn fast the difference between your HD Cable TV and the mess you downloaded off iTunes. Not to mention a 128kbit/s AAC iTunes song streaming to your stereo.
Apple's 'digital lifestyle' is cheap, highly limited crap with a high price tag. With the money I save from NOT buying into this vicious cycle of over-priced lock-in, lock-out, I'll buy myself a TiVo and a Netflix/Blockbuster account (which is now shipping HDDVD and BluRay). Larger selection, higher fidelity, more choices, choose to rent or choose to buy.
It's one of the reasons that I try to be civil and friendly to the cops. If they feel like they are part of the same community as me, they're more likely to voluntarily 'do a bit more than they have to' to help me.
... FROM HANS' COLD DEAD HANDS!!
Well, you can suck up to authority and *hope* they protect you all you want. I'll sleep better at night with Hans and his MG-42 behind my front door waiting for a beach landing on my porch.
Happy St. Patty's day everybody! *black out*
Prison!? That is too harsh, just make it a stiff fine, but payable to the person wrongly reported or surveiled.
There have been a few supreme court cases stating that an officer working for the executive branch cannot be charged with crimes relating to their job under most circumstances. Remember how hard it was to bust those cops in the Rondey King beating? Oh wait, they got away free.
Invasion of privacy and searching and seizing without warrants is usually punishable by suspension. A cop will never worry about going to jail unless they inflict physical harm upon somebody else.
Something that should warm your heart even more: According to the Supreme Court, cops are NOT required to protect you. Ever.
They can watch you be shot, stabbed, raped, or anything else while doing nothing. They cannot be charged or even disciplined for inaction. Moreover, even if ordered to "serve and protect" directly, the worst that can happen if they refuse is.. you guessed it, suspension. It's not the military, it's just one step up from an armed security guard.
That's one of the many reasons I own a gun.
The movie The Great Global Warming Swindle is a fraud. The filmmaker has been convicted in the past of "creative editing". And sure enough, Professor Carl Wunsch from MIT, who is shown in key moments of the movie, is crying foul.
...." It does not go onto say that the "Swindle" movie offered an alternate reasoning for this to be true, and backed it up with very persuasive data.
The link to your article has nothing by that MIT professor in it.
Also, it was written by someone who obviously hasn't even seen the movie in question (Swindle). Just read the part where he says that "everybody agrees that temps are higher now than 100 years ago and CO2 is high
Another funny fact: many of the "scientists" shown in the movie are introduced as members of renowned academic institutions... which they left long ago. In other words, the movie is misrepresenting lobbyists as scientists. That should speak volumes about the integrity of the filmmakers.
Another funny fact about the IPCC report, which is mentioned in the film, is that there was NOT consensus among the "2500+ scientists" who "wrote" the report. In point of fact, the report was compiled in large part by bureaucrats and many of the scientists, including 1 interviewed in the "swindle" movie, had no involvement or had opposing views to the ones that were published.
One scientist, who proved that malaria would not increase due to rising temperatures (due to global warming or otherwise) told them repeatedly to remove his name from the report, which, of course, stated the worst. Obviously, they ignored him and his (correct, according to me) assessment completely and he wanted his name off the report. After much argument, he finally had to threaten legal action just to get his name removed!
I will not accept data collected and assembled in this manner to form my opinion. The fact that they are grasping at straws of credibility to hold this thing together makes this--"the most important climate change report"--absolutely and indisputably invalid. The scientific community should stand up for themselves and proclaim a "do-over".
I only mention the IPCC report because the 'swindle' movie was mainly just a response to that. It all goes back to the original post of this article: Crying wolf diminishes credibility of anthropogenic climate change "alarmists" (heroes?) as a whole.
Anthropogenic climate change may be real, but I'm reiterating that Gadwin's Law is now in full effect with the popular invocation of the word "denier". The debate is over, but only because we can't behave ourselves.
We may be destroying our planet with greenhouse emissions, or we may be needlessly destroying our economy with alarmism. I don't think we'll know for sure for a long time.
Personally, I've looked at the data, and I'm waiting to be convinced either way.
Here is a thought
...
Why dont we have our students actually learn in school and not pander to the test mentality which has proven to be ineffective and misleading.
Emboldened is the reason why American Education will never do this.
So what was MS working on all those years?
Dead ends and evasion of blind corners.
They took out everything that was going to be revolutionary (or at least interesting) about Longhorn and were afraid to try anything new for fear it would push back the already embarrassing release date or further alienating developers.
Other countries can turn our people away, but we can't seem to turn other counties people away.
That's because WE'RE NUMBER 1! WOOO GO USA!
GET A BRAIN, MORANS! [sic.]
This is great. It's about time they tied this down to something that can be tested for so the people with real problems can get help, and all the Internet whiners can learn to deal with life instead of always searching for a cop-out.
I've been using chat programs and on online forums since 1996 and have never seen someone flame someone else and then later claim to have aspergers.
So, I just have to ask: What the hell straw man are you roundhousing to the face, chuck?
(+5 Wtf)
TFA wasn't about the war, yet half the posts so far are only about politics.
/. comments are cluttered with offtopic political comments.
I think this blood shunt is really interesting. It's sad the
Can anyone find any photos? I am seriously interested in this and I can't find any.
... the Space Cowboy...
Wyoming doesn't really exist.
According to Garfield, Wyoming is an Indian word for "nobody lives here"
Viacom is just saying, "It's our content, give us what we want or you can't host it...pay to play suckers!!!". Fault them if you wish but they are well within their rights.
... wait, but they wont make any more stuff... uh OK, I got it! we'll make it a law that they HAVE to make good quality content FOR FREE and not do a damn thing about it when people upload copies online!
Blasphemy! Any media company that sues to protect its IP must be stopped!
Because if we get rid of viacom, then we wont get sued for stealing their stuff!
And somehow, we'll convince ourselves that it was in viacom's best interest, because we saw the clips and then watched the shows on TV... even if that's BS and P2P is still the largest distributor of online music...
Your statement that the US is "lapping" the socialized world" is nonsensical
That wasn't my statement, that was your straw man. My statement was "If central planning were the answer, the US wouldn't be lapping the socialized world in pharmacological research."
Pushing placebos and snake oil on an uneducated public is NOT the right way to fund R&D.
O'RLY? I would think that the way that works is the best way. Perhaps you could point to a system right now that's been more effective. Besides, I don't think my post was really centered around US having the best MEDICAL SYSTEM, just the best research system.
Even if most R&D in breakthrough drugs was funded privately, which it is NOT. Most private R&D is in copycat drugs which provide little or no medical benefit over existing drugs and are pursued as a way to bust through the monopoly positions our inane patent system creates for other pharma companies.
The point of my post was that they release the 'copycat' drugs AS WELL AS the breakthrough drugs. The copycats pay for the breakthroughs, or did you get that?
Also, your use of 'monopoly' is totally wrong (someone else pointed this out earlier).
Private R&D is devoted primarily to discovering drugs which can penetrate already established markets.
Did I say it wasn't? The money from selling these candy-store drugs has given birth to more USEFUL drugs than any other system could (or has).
Capitalism is OK! Just calm down!
Much of the criticism is being lead by a prominent user named Thomas Hawk who also happens to be CEO of Zooomr, a direct competitor to Flickr.
/. post?
... ? ... Anyone else see a possible problem in his motivation for saying something like this?
I'm sorry, was this supposed to reinforce the "OMG YAHOO IS EVIL" slant of this
So a guy who's competing with Yahoo says Yahoo sucks?
That, of course, means we'd get five times the R&D for the same money we're paying today if we paid for it outright rather than granting monopolies. Or we'd get the same level of R&D at a fifth of the price.
Oh of COURSE that's what it means.
Maybe they need that marketing to sell the drugs to pay for the R&D to make the drugs and the best way to do that is to pay for more advertisements.
You think companies like to advertise? They would rather give the money to R&D if the drugs actually sold themselves. Most drugs, however, do not sell themselves. Most of the medication sold in this country has little effect or could easily be replaced by an older drug which is 1/10 the cost and only 3 to 4% less effective.
Another problem is that if the patient dies, that '3 to 4%' figure is brought up in COURT in the form of a malpractice suit against the doctor that prescribed the alternative!
The niche medications which treat ailments that effect 1% of the population have a high price and the research in finding them is often NEVER PAID OFF. It's a tightly held secret that drug companies often pursue avenues that yield JACK SQUAT.
The worthless 'celebrex' and 'nexium' medications pay for those dead ends and niche drugs. And their marketing allows them to do that.
Drugs like Celebrex which show barely any improvement over placebo, and medications that take care of problems related to obesity (a relatively easily-cured disease) wouldn't be flying off the counters if it weren't for those commercials.
If the drug companies cut their marketing in half, freeing up 20% of their revenue according to your figures (which, btw, are wrong), they may end up having half the revenue to work with. So they'd have -50% less money and +20% more, for a net of -30%. Those are obviously arbitrary figures, but you can see the point: less marketing does not mean more money for R&D.
So, to sum up, the pharmaceutical system in the US is the best money could buy. If central planning were the answer, the US wouldn't be lapping the socialized world in pharmacological research. When government starts telling doctors what to prescribe and price fixing on drugs in America, we'll see a quick restructuring inside these companies in which R&D will fall through the floor.
The best thing you can do is never give out your information. Protect it like you're a secret agent. Protect it against torturous interrogation. Protect it to point of taking that suicide pill hidden as the third button on your shirt.
Dude, calm down. Everyone knows you live in your mom's basement.
The U.S. is suffering inflation. It's not that the cost of metal is increasing
Actually, it's both.
There's a higher demand for copper nowadays and supply is remaining constant.
All the metals are in higher demand because of little things like oh, I donno, China?
I agree, inflation's a huge problem (and getting worse), but it's not solely responsible for this.
Yogi-esque
That's Yogi Berra for those interested.
He taught me how to sleep.
The name is Joe. G.I. Joe.
More like Goonies. Remember the asian kid and his 'slick shoes'?
how else did _you_ expect it to work?
The bugs' DNA would be zapped by the microwaves, destroying it. Also, the water in the bugs would expand and maybe even boil, causing them to lyse.
If the sponge were non-polar and nonreactive to microwaves, leaving the sponge dry would be perfectly reasonable.
The water is needed to keep the sponge from catching fire, not to make the process more effective.
Don't appply unless you're 20 something and remotely good looking. The BBC recently knee capped their tech presents to only pretty people who don't seem to care even remotely about tech.
It probably wouldn't make much difference in quality. The last 3 articles on technology I read on the BBC (years ago) were either riddled with misuse of certain words, left out some important and key details, misstated the implications of the story, and/or came up with a very strange and subjective conclusion that came out of the blue.
I've seen this happen elsewhere, so I stopped reading tech news from most places. I will not conjecture on why this is so.
Sprawl doesn't make you fat. Lack of discipline makes you fat.
The kids who move a lot are faced with more adversity so they actually have something to DO.
I have no idea why people blame things from french fries to urban sprawl for obesity. We just plain have no discipline anymore, that's all!
I always hear "I can't work out, I don't have time!" I work out 10 hours a week, am a full time straight-A pre-med student, and work part time at 2 jobs. How do I do it? I tried it with an open mind, and it was possible. I'm not even that stressed out or tired.
As a matter of fact, you CAN do it. PS: I don't own a TV.
Average wages are the highest in the past decade than they've been in any other point in history, but we have record debt. How is that possible?
We don't NEED to be out of debt, we don't NEED to be skinny, so therefore we're fat debtors, and there's nothing wrong with that, provided we can get away with it. When the day comes that we can't do it anymore, you'll see us snap back to our industrious puritan heritage we were founded upon... or we'll all have simultaneous heart attacks and sue McDonalds.