That is a tired argument: because Google China is located in China, it will have to follow Chinese laws. No one is disputing that.
When MSN China and Yahoo China followed Chinese laws and performed acts deemed unsavory by the American blogosphere (turning over information, censoring results, whatever), both companies were widely attacked. No one ever came to the corporation's defense by saying: oh, there is nothing the companies can do, Chinese journalists and others should have know better by using MSN/Yahoo US!
So when you say that "everyone seems to be a bit confused about this," you are correct, people should be confused about how to defend Google "Do no evil" for doing the exact same thing they are chastising Microsoft and Yahoo for. This double standard is indeed confusing.
But as much as they beat every clone to the punch with GMail... So why has Google kept their market against a player like Microsoft?
While I like GMail, there was simply no way for the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail to offer the same functionalities Google offers globally considering those two services combined have 100x more users (conservatively) than GMail. Google's refreshing approach with mail (reminds me of Pine) urged innnovation amongst its peers which I think is the best situation the users can wish for - rather than having any one of the above companies dominate any one field
Simply put, Google get start fresh because they do not have to maintain millions of users who are already using their (mail/photo/IM/start page/whatever MSFT and Y offers to keep its users sticky). How many times have you wished you could start fresh only wishing that you do not have to support existing users and maintain existing code/process?
Seeing how fickle the internet search engine business is, first with Yahoo, then Altavista, (Inktomi and metasearchs somewhere in there) and now Google, it would not surprise me if Google is dethroned someday like the likes of Kodak, Polaroid, Lotus, etc.
Yahoo's strength, and the company itself has said that over and over, is that it is a media company which encompasses being a directory, a portal, a provider of services - one of which includes search.
If Microsoft says what you said about Windows source code, how would you feel?
"And speaking of ethics, it's been shown that there are plenty of people out there with none. Should the exact details of the source code be public, I have no doubt that hordes of hackers and virus writers would use that knowledge to corrupt the system.
There are times when secrecy has its benefits..."
It is unfortunate that whatever Google does gets a free pass on Slashdot.
Here is why Projet Gutenberh sucks: no good search engine, no publishing house participation, no standards or accuracy (see http://www.gutenberg.org/about/faq0). Don't compare one guy's hobby to a serious effort to make content available AND searchable.
Here is one instance where Yahoo! has Google beat.
Yahoo's plan is to scan books where the copyright has expired (Mark Twain, Henry james, William Shakespeare, etc) or where authors has signed copyright waivers (O'Reilly Media, National Archive of UK, etc). Yahoo! also plays nice with others - HP will do the scanning, Adobe is donating software, and most importantly, the results from the Open Content Alliance can be used by anyone - including Google or Microsoft.
"you could record the magnificent 1920x1080 interlaced MPEG-2 widescreen broadcast every Sunday"
Yes but not every station broadcasts in 1080i. ABC, whose shows are the ones being offered on iTunes, broadcast is 720p.
Still, I bought an episode of of Deseperate Housewives - this is despite having watched it on HD and (720p over-the-air) semi-HD (file downloaded via bittorrent - better than 480p but not quite 720p). Both versions' quality is much higer than that offered by iTunes. However, it is nice to watch a professionally created and edited version that has no station identifier and no choppy transitions (ad cuts).
The price of $1.99 is too higher in my opinion, however, for a non-burnable version.
Modular does not solve what you are talking about, idiot! And as other said, UNIX philosphy is for software, not hardware.
In this kooky kaotica world, apparently you, can choose between using a 100" 1080p screen vs. a watch-size display, attach a 1 TB RAID or a trans flash module, support both optical fiber and IrDa - all with the same pocket-sized device!!!!
In the meantime, you are in a car that is a 2 seat roadster when you want it but transforms into full-bed pickup with a 5000lb towing capacity when needed through the amazing modularity UNIX converter - all with a hybrid 100 mpg engine! With wings!
Duh, it is not fucking obvious that you wanted a modular device.
Did you ever say that you wanted a modular device? Furthermore, you say that one day you might want to take notes so you take a 4x6 interface - so you carry that around all day just so you might want to take notes? If you don't end up taking notes you just carried a 4x6 display for nothing, didn't you?
Furthermore, what do you do on the days you may not want to take note so you did not take your 4x6 interface but end up having to take notes on your wrist-watch display only to realize you forgot the detachable storage unit and can't remember where you left it? Your original idea of a multi-purpose device turns out to be a rambling idiotic blueprint of a device.
Don't blame people for not having a perfect vision of your lame gadget wet dream.
First, it was the the submitter who used the word "completely redesigned" not Ive, Job, or lazy journalist as you claimed.
Second, even if the words "completely redesigned" was used, with a newer CPU, new PMU, HD replaced by solid-state RAM, new LCD, new casing, new click wheel and new software features, - I would say that statement is not far from the mark!
I've got a PDA, cellphone, and iPod. Each of them has a screen and CPU. (snip) Wouldn't it be much better for the (pda-like) screen device to be an interface for the "phone" and "iPod"?
Duh. Have you not heard of the Palm Treo which does all of the above (provide you supply a big memory card and content)? I would get one if I can afford one (close to US$1K 1st year if including cell plan).
Your statement is only partially correct. AAC is a closed format covered by a pool patent led by Dolby. You are not allowed to modify the format nor distrbiute applications that use its codec royalty-free without permission from Via Lincensing corporation. Its fees can be found here: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nse.terms.html. AAC too is a closed format just like MP3, WMA, and ATRAC.
IANAL and trying hard to use FLAC which is not that iTunes friendly!
Thank you. Anything you say after that is just irrelevant and back-pedaling.
SpyGlass's contract explicity stated that they would get royalties for the sale of the browser. Microsoft, however, pulled a fast one by bundling it with the OS (which they made a profit off of!) then paying SpyGlass nothing! It was nothing more than a dirty loophole, and the courts agreed. (Even though SpyGlass still walked away with little.)
Spyglass fucked up the lawsuit and you like to blame Microsoft because you are a zealot. If you read the contract, you would have known that the annual cap is $5 million. For whatever reason, Spyglass settled for an one-time $7.5M and was glad that it settled. It was a boneheaded decision. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/januar y/new0122d.htm The company I work for is also in direct competition with Microsoft (and Google) but I don't blame my hitting a pot hole on my drive home on Microsoft.
Got proof?
What are ya, blinded by Google-love and Microsoft-hate that you can't do a search on Google?
"The proprietor of Froogles.com registered the Web address in December 2000, according to the filing, but did not use the domain for business until July 2002. Google claims that this was four years after it had secured rights to its Google trademarks. Froogles.com registered for a trademark for e-commerce related marketing services in September 2003.
For its part, Google filed a trademark application for Froogle in November 2002, and was granted the mark in February 2004."
-News.com 4/19/05
"Humphrey said that after Wolfe filed an opposition proceeding with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office last spring, Google told Wolfe that if he would dismiss his opposition, it would leave him alone. If he refused, according to Humphrey, Google's attorneys said, "We'll file a complaint and take the trademark away from you."
Google never actually "stole" anything more than the idea.
Oh, so that makes it OK then? If Microsoft stole an idea from someone else which then accounts for 99% of MSFT's revenue, you would feel OK about that too? And if Google was so right, it did not have to settle and pay out major bucks to Yahoo like it did.
Guess how much Spyglass collected in royalties...Guess how much good that did Digital?
Hey, don't blame Microsoft because Spyglass and Digital made bad deals, cannot execute, and fucked things up. Morover, had they made out from those deals would suddenly make Microsoft OK then? You double standard worries me.
Maybe, just maybe, Google is execising the law to get rid of scammers? Wait, that doesn't sound evil(tm) enough.
Sure it is, had you actually researched it, you would have know froogles and gmail existed before Google ever thought of them and once Google thought of those names, it tried to force existing owners to give them in addition to their first borns and up. Sound evil enough for you?
"Every (Microsoft) product was either a stolen or bought-out design.... (Microsoft) doesn't have an honest or original bone in its metaphorical body." "
A bit of exaggeration, no?
Google's main product, i.e. the thing that allowed them to make 99% of its revenue, is sponsored search - something they "stole" from Overture (now Yahoo!) which they settled by paying $$$ to Yahoo. They also also trying hard to "steal" various trademark such as googles.com, froogles.com, and gmail.com through lawsuits too. Lastly, it is well known that Google has made a number of purchases that are now products e.g.Picasa.
So please do not make Google out to be a Saint with 100% "honest or original bone in its metaphorical body" either.
* Yahoo! has access numerous deals with top last-mile telecoms such as SBC in the US, BT in UK, Rogers in CA, etc.
My prediction: two months after Yahoo! starts to provide VOIP, Google will do so and then Slashdot will have an article annoucing that Google now offers VOIP and is the first one doing so and Yahoo! is copying Google.
My amigos at Freescale's Apple support division were actually quite happy that the Jobs monkey was finally off their backs.
Well yeah, since Motorola/Freescale cannot get out the chips that Apple wanted (where's the G4 @2.x ghz?) which forced Apple to go with IBM!
If the professor/researcher/boss who has been bugging you for results left the group and go elsewhere, you will be quite happy too (and still not deliver).
"Many classical forms have become pompous, whiny and annoying to modern ears. I, for example, can't stand any Vivaldi, Haendel, Beethoven. I've enjoyed them all, mind you, when I was younger, but I've grown out of it."
Like the classical forms that you despise, you are also quite pompous, whiny, and annoying. I have enjoyed childish comments like yours, especially when I was younger, but I've since grown out of it.
P.S. - By the way, I can't stand the self-aggrandizing, I am too important to express myself and thus cannot make anythng that sounds good modern classical music composers. Give me Mozart's sublime Le Nozze di Figaro anyday!
Correct. And in a pinch, one's hi-fi VCR can double as a CD-quality recording device as it will record uncompressed PCM audi (not exactly as good as CD due to the fact that an analog tape medium will have some problems inherent with the medium i.e. wow & flutter, jitter, etc)
Slashdot Mirror
When MSN China and Yahoo China followed Chinese laws and performed acts deemed unsavory by the American blogosphere (turning over information, censoring results, whatever), both companies were widely attacked. No one ever came to the corporation's defense by saying: oh, there is nothing the companies can do, Chinese journalists and others should have know better by using MSN/Yahoo US!
So when you say that "everyone seems to be a bit confused about this," you are correct, people should be confused about how to defend Google "Do no evil" for doing the exact same thing they are chastising Microsoft and Yahoo for. This double standard is indeed confusing.
Google's halo is undeserved in my opinion.
While I like GMail, there was simply no way for the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail to offer the same functionalities Google offers globally considering those two services combined have 100x more users (conservatively) than GMail. Google's refreshing approach with mail (reminds me of Pine) urged innnovation amongst its peers which I think is the best situation the users can wish for - rather than having any one of the above companies dominate any one field
Simply put, Google get start fresh because they do not have to maintain millions of users who are already using their (mail/photo/IM/start page/whatever MSFT and Y offers to keep its users sticky). How many times have you wished you could start fresh only wishing that you do not have to support existing users and maintain existing code/process? Seeing how fickle the internet search engine business is, first with Yahoo, then Altavista, (Inktomi and metasearchs somewhere in there) and now Google, it would not surprise me if Google is dethroned someday like the likes of Kodak, Polaroid, Lotus, etc.
Yahoo's strength, and the company itself has said that over and over, is that it is a media company which encompasses being a directory, a portal, a provider of services - one of which includes search.
"And speaking of ethics, it's been shown that there are plenty of people out there with none. Should the exact details of the source code be public, I have no doubt that hordes of hackers and virus writers would use that knowledge to corrupt the system.
There are times when secrecy has its benefits..."
It is unfortunate that whatever Google does gets a free pass on Slashdot.
Here is why Projet Gutenberh sucks: no good search engine, no publishing house participation, no standards or accuracy (see http://www.gutenberg.org/about/faq0). Don't compare one guy's hobby to a serious effort to make content available AND searchable.
Yahoo's plan is to scan books where the copyright has expired (Mark Twain, Henry james, William Shakespeare, etc) or where authors has signed copyright waivers (O'Reilly Media, National Archive of UK, etc). Yahoo! also plays nice with others - HP will do the scanning, Adobe is donating software, and most importantly, the results from the Open Content Alliance can be used by anyone - including Google or Microsoft.
Why can't Google play nice?
Yes but not every station broadcasts in 1080i. ABC, whose shows are the ones being offered on iTunes, broadcast is 720p.
Still, I bought an episode of of Deseperate Housewives - this is despite having watched it on HD and (720p over-the-air) semi-HD (file downloaded via bittorrent - better than 480p but not quite 720p). Both versions' quality is much higer than that offered by iTunes. However, it is nice to watch a professionally created and edited version that has no station identifier and no choppy transitions (ad cuts).
The price of $1.99 is too higher in my opinion, however, for a non-burnable version.
Your lady cannot use Tivo? Let me guess, she is confounded by the scroll wheel on the iPod too?
Yahoo! Advanced Search at http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8 allows one to search for Creative Commons licensed content.
I have also found that in Yahoo! advanced search (http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8) you can now search for Creative Commons content!
Google remains my primary search engine but Yahoo! is an extremely close second with results every bit as relevant.
For your information, Apple Mail has that before GMail and so did a few other clients.
In this kooky kaotica world, apparently you, can choose between using a 100" 1080p screen vs. a watch-size display, attach a 1 TB RAID or a trans flash module, support both optical fiber and IrDa - all with the same pocket-sized device!!!!
In the meantime, you are in a car that is a 2 seat roadster when you want it but transforms into full-bed pickup with a 5000lb towing capacity when needed through the amazing modularity UNIX converter - all with a hybrid 100 mpg engine! With wings!
Dream on Mr. My-idea-is-optimal-in-all-situation.
Did you ever say that you wanted a modular device? Furthermore, you say that one day you might want to take notes so you take a 4x6 interface - so you carry that around all day just so you might want to take notes? If you don't end up taking notes you just carried a 4x6 display for nothing, didn't you?
Furthermore, what do you do on the days you may not want to take note so you did not take your 4x6 interface but end up having to take notes on your wrist-watch display only to realize you forgot the detachable storage unit and can't remember where you left it? Your original idea of a multi-purpose device turns out to be a rambling idiotic blueprint of a device.
Don't blame people for not having a perfect vision of your lame gadget wet dream.
Second, even if the words "completely redesigned" was used, with a newer CPU, new PMU, HD replaced by solid-state RAM, new LCD, new casing, new click wheel and new software features, - I would say that statement is not far from the mark!
Duh. Have you not heard of the Palm Treo which does all of the above (provide you supply a big memory card and content)? I would get one if I can afford one (close to US$1K 1st year if including cell plan).
IANAL and trying hard to use FLAC which is not that iTunes friendly!
http://www.ecsis.net.nyud.net:8090/~gregday/park.j pg
Thank you. Anything you say after that is just irrelevant and back-pedaling.
SpyGlass's contract explicity stated that they would get royalties for the sale of the browser. Microsoft, however, pulled a fast one by bundling it with the OS (which they made a profit off of!) then paying SpyGlass nothing! It was nothing more than a dirty loophole, and the courts agreed. (Even though SpyGlass still walked away with little.)
Spyglass fucked up the lawsuit and you like to blame Microsoft because you are a zealot. If you read the contract, you would have known that the annual cap is $5 million. For whatever reason, Spyglass settled for an one-time $7.5M and was glad that it settled. It was a boneheaded decision. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/januar y/new0122d.htm The company I work for is also in direct competition with Microsoft (and Google) but I don't blame my hitting a pot hole on my drive home on Microsoft.
Got proof?
What are ya, blinded by Google-love and Microsoft-hate that you can't do a search on Google?
"The proprietor of Froogles.com registered the Web address in December 2000, according to the filing, but did not use the domain for business until July 2002. Google claims that this was four years after it had secured rights to its Google trademarks. Froogles.com registered for a trademark for e-commerce related marketing services in September 2003.
For its part, Google filed a trademark application for Froogle in November 2002, and was granted the mark in February 2004." -News.com 4/19/05
"Humphrey said that after Wolfe filed an opposition proceeding with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office last spring, Google told Wolfe that if he would dismiss his opposition, it would leave him alone. If he refused, according to Humphrey, Google's attorneys said, "We'll file a complaint and take the trademark away from you."
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/print.php/349 8621
4/18/2005
Not only are you a zealot, you are lazy as well.
Oh, so that makes it OK then? If Microsoft stole an idea from someone else which then accounts for 99% of MSFT's revenue, you would feel OK about that too? And if Google was so right, it did not have to settle and pay out major bucks to Yahoo like it did.
Guess how much Spyglass collected in royalties...Guess how much good that did Digital?
Hey, don't blame Microsoft because Spyglass and Digital made bad deals, cannot execute, and fucked things up. Morover, had they made out from those deals would suddenly make Microsoft OK then? You double standard worries me.
Maybe, just maybe, Google is execising the law to get rid of scammers? Wait, that doesn't sound evil(tm) enough.
Sure it is, had you actually researched it, you would have know froogles and gmail existed before Google ever thought of them and once Google thought of those names, it tried to force existing owners to give them in addition to their first borns and up. Sound evil enough for you?
A bit of exaggeration, no?
Google's main product, i.e. the thing that allowed them to make 99% of its revenue, is sponsored search - something they "stole" from Overture (now Yahoo!) which they settled by paying $$$ to Yahoo. They also also trying hard to "steal" various trademark such as googles.com, froogles.com, and gmail.com through lawsuits too. Lastly, it is well known that Google has made a number of purchases that are now products e.g.Picasa.
So please do not make Google out to be a Saint with 100% "honest or original bone in its metaphorical body" either.
* Dialpad (http://www.dialpad.com/) was acquired by Yahoo! two months ago.
* Yahoo! has access numerous deals with top last-mile telecoms such as SBC in the US, BT in UK, Rogers in CA, etc.
My prediction: two months after Yahoo! starts to provide VOIP, Google will do so and then Slashdot will have an article annoucing that Google now offers VOIP and is the first one doing so and Yahoo! is copying Google.
Dell fleet laptops for business are usally the Inspiron and Latitude (typing on one now) lines and are regularly had for $1000 (or less).
And as others have pointed out, Apple is taxable anywhere where Apple has a physical presence.
Well yeah, since Motorola/Freescale cannot get out the chips that Apple wanted (where's the G4 @2.x ghz?) which forced Apple to go with IBM!
If the professor/researcher/boss who has been bugging you for results left the group and go elsewhere, you will be quite happy too (and still not deliver).
Like the classical forms that you despise, you are also quite pompous, whiny, and annoying. I have enjoyed childish comments like yours, especially when I was younger, but I've since grown out of it.
P.S. - By the way, I can't stand the self-aggrandizing, I am too important to express myself and thus cannot make anythng that sounds good modern classical music composers. Give me Mozart's sublime Le Nozze di Figaro anyday!
Correct. And in a pinch, one's hi-fi VCR can double as a CD-quality recording device as it will record uncompressed PCM audi (not exactly as good as CD due to the fact that an analog tape medium will have some problems inherent with the medium i.e. wow & flutter, jitter, etc)