Or, you could not buy the premium system at time of purchase, drive it to a car system dealer, have it gutted and installed with this decade's hardware. The advantage is not only a modular system you can upgrade later a piece at a time, but when the time comes, you can have it gutted again.
(I tend to buy slightly higher end than I need and then keep the vehicle for a very long time. Your mileage, of course, may vary.)
"Smokeless powder" (nitrocellulose) pretty much replaced gunpowder (sulfer, charcoal, and potassium nitrate) in firearms over an hundred years ago, except for historical reproductions. And even those replicas of old firearms largely use alternative propellants that are engineered to have the same bang per volume of gunpowder (as the propellant is measured by volume during reloading). The "gunpowder" in fireworks is not the same propellant used in modern firearms. Equating the two could lead to some confusion. This distinction will be entirely lost on the congressional floor, but as nerds, we should be aware of it.
> Awesome, so as an employee *I* have to pay for my $700 smartphone -AND- the expectation will exist that I will be monitoring emails nights and weekends?
I was thinking that too. So one possible answer is, I won't bring my own device, thanks. I'll be available via email during office hours, or if I happen to be in front of my computer at home.
About two years ago at my current company, they went to a really obnoxious lock-down application on company phones, and rolled it out badly. (New pin every few days, three missed pins locks the phone, didn't play well with email/calendar sync.) Got so bad I very nearly gave back the phone and did without. That would have been interesting -- can they *make* me have a company phone? I'm happy to carry a pager when on-call. But make the phone too fussy and I'll learn to live without it. It's not, like, an addiction.
> The employee owns the device, and the company helps to cover usage costs [...]
Let's hope companies find a reasonable way to do so. I worked for a company that would cover cellular expenses, but only if you submitted an expense report once a month. Procedure was to fill out an online application, print out the result, then fax the form with your physical receipt, then staple them together and walk them to a basket in a different part of the building. (So that both the company and the outsourced accounts payable had copies.) It was so annoying and time consuming that most people just ate the cost.
In another company, I was required to carry a company cell but was forbidden to make or receive personal calls, rigidly enforced, so had to carry and manage charging for two cells, one company, one personal. Then, they decided that pagers were more reliable, so I had to carry that plus the other two devices for the weeks I was on call. You know that alpha geek thing? Where you swagger around bristling with devices? It's not as cool as it sounds.
Sorta... well no, It's still highly illegal and you can get sued for making an illegal copy.
For example: some Canadians got sued for coping "Hurt Locker" (The erotic comedy about two gay shoe store employees and their love of leather uppers.)
This is entirely untrue, in Canada, making copies of AUDIO recoding for personal use IS legal.. This only applies to Audio content, not to movies, etc. This is also why the levy is only on CDs, not on DVDs for example.
...but but but.... I like to play video files through the speaker, for the sound it makes.
You know, that just doesn't work for me. I have Kindle and the slashdot app and a couple of free readers and a decent web browser on my phone, and if that's all tablets are for, I already have that without having to buy a tablet. I don't feel the need to be all alpha geek and own a bunch of different appliances with severely overlapping usage. If that's really all tablets are for, I don't have any use for them.
For me, it's not about writing the great american novel. I am a writer, I insist on a decent keyboard for serious wordsmithing, and I think it's unreasonable to expect a tablet to fill that need. (Or even a laptop. Laptop keyboards are generally pants for fast typists.) Where tablets *could* shine, is in photo manipulation and content layout. The touch paradigm is *made* for that. Back in the old days we arranged cutouts on a table -- the paradigm is almost identical. But there still aren't serious applications in this field that are decently touch enabled. What tools are available are toys. Barely sufficient to create party invitations and draw on blurry photos taken with the tablet camera, but not sufficient for serious work.
See, you shouldn't have to drag content around on a screen with a mouse. It's fundamentally counter-intuitive. This is where the touch interface could shine, but the apps aren't there yet.
And don't bring up Surface. Just don't. The Windows touch paradigm is fundamentally broken. Aping mouse motions with cabalistic gestures to manipulate non-touch-aware apps is *not* "touch enabled". Microsoft doesn't understand touch at a fundamental level. I'd sooner go back to LaTex.
The tablet market is not dying, but I think the device is still looking for a purpose beyond casual consumption of content. I'm desperate to switch from a laptop to a tablet, especially in the field, but the apps for content creation just aren't there yet. Android and iPad devices have the touch paradigm down very well, but the apps oriented towards content creation still aren't much beyond "let's take a picture of Fred and then draw a moustache on him. Hee hee."
Remember those futurist commercials a few years ago where someone is doing serious design work with just gestures on a surface? That's what's (still) missing.
For content consumers, tablets are sexy and convenient. For content creators, tablets are still unrealized potential. And I can see where people, frustrated by what they *could* do but still don't, could start to be seeing them as a passing fad.
Sorry, I'm from the UK, so I don't know what point you were trying to make there.
Understood. If you wiki DIVX (not to be confused with the video codec of the same name) you'll get the story. It's very entertaining reading. Essentially, it was a DVD format championed by Circuit City where the player had to contact a licensing server on the internet in order to get permission to play the disc. It became a poster child for everything that's wrong with DRM, and a great example of how not to implement same. (And then sometime later, Electronic Arts came along and showed us how internet-validated DRM doesn't work for games.)
There's part of me that wants to say that this *by itself* justifies piracy. It's possible for one to possess illegal downloads of titles that they also own legitimately, because the illegal download is less annoying to watch.
Nine Inch Nails. Radiohead. Reel Big Fish. Jim Gaffigan. Do a google search on "eliminating the middleman" or "artists selling online". It's possible for an artist to make a significant income without dealing with a distributor. Often, more than they did before getting out of their contracts.
Certainly you've heard that musicians make more from concerts than they do from CDs.
So yeah, "no drm means no income for the artist" doesn't bear scrutiny. It's something that the RIAA says to justify leaning on consumers, but it's demonstrably untrue.
I've been dunned for pay per view also, and have successfully had the charges removed, but it's a hassle.
These things, spurious mini bar and PPV charges, have me wondering whether the staff is having a party at my expense while I'm in meetings. I mean really -- pragmatically, if I wanted to drink, I'll go someplace where I can disguise it as food expenses. And if I wanted to see porn, there's the entire internet to draw from. There just isn't any reason to touch either the overpriced minibar, or overpriced PPV, especially since they show up very specifically on the hotel bill that is included as part of the expense report.
"Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing?"
Does it matter? The content selection process is only one of the many things wrong with broadcast TV. They could do this and maybe survive another year or two, but in the medium-long run it will not matter.
Or, alternately, I already have a wife who notices rough braking, aggressive acceleration, or speeding over 70 mph, and she is more than willing to chirp at me about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, you could not buy the premium system at time of purchase, drive it to a car system dealer, have it gutted and installed with this decade's hardware. The advantage is not only a modular system you can upgrade later a piece at a time, but when the time comes, you can have it gutted again.
(I tend to buy slightly higher end than I need and then keep the vehicle for a very long time. Your mileage, of course, may vary.)
Just hang on a minute.
"Smokeless powder" (nitrocellulose) pretty much replaced gunpowder (sulfer, charcoal, and potassium nitrate) in firearms over an hundred years ago, except for historical reproductions. And even those replicas of old firearms largely use alternative propellants that are engineered to have the same bang per volume of gunpowder (as the propellant is measured by volume during reloading). The "gunpowder" in fireworks is not the same propellant used in modern firearms. Equating the two could lead to some confusion. This distinction will be entirely lost on the congressional floor, but as nerds, we should be aware of it.
> Awesome, so as an employee *I* have to pay for my $700 smartphone -AND- the expectation will exist that I will be monitoring emails nights and weekends?
I was thinking that too. So one possible answer is, I won't bring my own device, thanks. I'll be available via email during office hours, or if I happen to be in front of my computer at home.
About two years ago at my current company, they went to a really obnoxious lock-down application on company phones, and rolled it out badly. (New pin every few days, three missed pins locks the phone, didn't play well with email/calendar sync.) Got so bad I very nearly gave back the phone and did without. That would have been interesting -- can they *make* me have a company phone? I'm happy to carry a pager when on-call. But make the phone too fussy and I'll learn to live without it. It's not, like, an addiction.
> The employee owns the device, and the company helps to cover usage costs [...]
Let's hope companies find a reasonable way to do so. I worked for a company that would cover cellular expenses, but only if you submitted an expense report once a month. Procedure was to fill out an online application, print out the result, then fax the form with your physical receipt, then staple them together and walk them to a basket in a different part of the building. (So that both the company and the outsourced accounts payable had copies.) It was so annoying and time consuming that most people just ate the cost.
In another company, I was required to carry a company cell but was forbidden to make or receive personal calls, rigidly enforced, so had to carry and manage charging for two cells, one company, one personal. Then, they decided that pagers were more reliable, so I had to carry that plus the other two devices for the weeks I was on call. You know that alpha geek thing? Where you swagger around bristling with devices? It's not as cool as it sounds.
Mod up. Knuckling under "just for this one bully" doesn't end well.
Sorta... well no, It's still highly illegal and you can get sued for making an illegal copy.
For example: some Canadians got sued for coping "Hurt Locker" (The erotic comedy about two gay shoe store employees and their love of leather uppers.)
This is entirely untrue, in Canada, making copies of AUDIO recoding for personal use IS legal.. This only applies to Audio content, not to movies, etc. This is also why the levy is only on CDs, not on DVDs for example.
Is "both" an allowed response?
You know, that just doesn't work for me. I have Kindle and the slashdot app and a couple of free readers and a decent web browser on my phone, and if that's all tablets are for, I already have that without having to buy a tablet. I don't feel the need to be all alpha geek and own a bunch of different appliances with severely overlapping usage. If that's really all tablets are for, I don't have any use for them.
For me, it's not about writing the great american novel. I am a writer, I insist on a decent keyboard for serious wordsmithing, and I think it's unreasonable to expect a tablet to fill that need. (Or even a laptop. Laptop keyboards are generally pants for fast typists.) Where tablets *could* shine, is in photo manipulation and content layout. The touch paradigm is *made* for that. Back in the old days we arranged cutouts on a table -- the paradigm is almost identical. But there still aren't serious applications in this field that are decently touch enabled. What tools are available are toys. Barely sufficient to create party invitations and draw on blurry photos taken with the tablet camera, but not sufficient for serious work.
See, you shouldn't have to drag content around on a screen with a mouse. It's fundamentally counter-intuitive. This is where the touch interface could shine, but the apps aren't there yet.
And don't bring up Surface. Just don't. The Windows touch paradigm is fundamentally broken. Aping mouse motions with cabalistic gestures to manipulate non-touch-aware apps is *not* "touch enabled". Microsoft doesn't understand touch at a fundamental level. I'd sooner go back to LaTex.
BTW, you appear to have missed a closing tag.
The tablet market is not dying, but I think the device is still looking for a purpose beyond casual consumption of content. I'm desperate to switch from a laptop to a tablet, especially in the field, but the apps for content creation just aren't there yet. Android and iPad devices have the touch paradigm down very well, but the apps oriented towards content creation still aren't much beyond "let's take a picture of Fred and then draw a moustache on him. Hee hee."
Remember those futurist commercials a few years ago where someone is doing serious design work with just gestures on a surface? That's what's (still) missing.
For content consumers, tablets are sexy and convenient. For content creators, tablets are still unrealized potential. And I can see where people, frustrated by what they *could* do but still don't, could start to be seeing them as a passing fad.
Yeah.... I don't know how the courts work over there, but that sounds like grounds for appeal.
... this surprises anyone how, exactly?
What surprised me is that the prosecutor appeared to take the tampering seriously.
Sorry, I'm from the UK, so I don't know what point you were trying to make there.
Understood. If you wiki DIVX (not to be confused with the video codec of the same name) you'll get the story. It's very entertaining reading. Essentially, it was a DVD format championed by Circuit City where the player had to contact a licensing server on the internet in order to get permission to play the disc. It became a poster child for everything that's wrong with DRM, and a great example of how not to implement same. (And then sometime later, Electronic Arts came along and showed us how internet-validated DRM doesn't work for games.)
> There are numerous business models involving temporary or restricted access that are in the interests of both creator and customer
Yep. That's what Circuit City told us about Digital Video Express. It's in the best interest of both creator and customer.
Right, and if all everyone ever did with a DVD is watch it on their laptop, there would be less of an issue.
> Don't forget unskippable DVD ads
There's part of me that wants to say that this *by itself* justifies piracy. It's possible for one to possess illegal downloads of titles that they also own legitimately, because the illegal download is less annoying to watch.
One word: Spore.
> No DRM means no income for the artist.
Nine Inch Nails. Radiohead. Reel Big Fish. Jim Gaffigan. Do a google search on "eliminating the middleman" or "artists selling online". It's possible for an artist to make a significant income without dealing with a distributor. Often, more than they did before getting out of their contracts.
Certainly you've heard that musicians make more from concerts than they do from CDs.
So yeah, "no drm means no income for the artist" doesn't bear scrutiny. It's something that the RIAA says to justify leaning on consumers, but it's demonstrably untrue.
Geeks need t' lighten up.
I've been dunned for pay per view also, and have successfully had the charges removed, but it's a hassle.
These things, spurious mini bar and PPV charges, have me wondering whether the staff is having a party at my expense while I'm in meetings. I mean really -- pragmatically, if I wanted to drink, I'll go someplace where I can disguise it as food expenses. And if I wanted to see porn, there's the entire internet to draw from. There just isn't any reason to touch either the overpriced minibar, or overpriced PPV, especially since they show up very specifically on the hotel bill that is included as part of the expense report.
True. And when the company doesn't reimburse you within the set limits, you are also responsible for the late fee.
The old AmEx were great if you had to travel for your job.
Fly,
expense report,
get reimbursed,
pay Amex,
done
More like
fly
expense report
wait
wait
ping accounting, offshore data entry error, correcting
wait
wait
ping accounting again, find out it's been on boss's desk for last three days
ping boss for sig
Explain why roll of Rolaids on expense report (high stress meeting over unreasonably hot tandoori)
wait
wait
wait
get reimbursed
Forget what the check is for
Remember what check is for
pay Amex plus late fee
done
There's an alternate path that involves fighting with the hotel over a charge for six mini-bottles of Cuervo Gold, but it ends the same.
"Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing?"
Does it matter? The content selection process is only one of the many things wrong with broadcast TV. They could do this and maybe survive another year or two, but in the medium-long run it will not matter.
Something else chirping at me.
Or, alternately, I already have a wife who notices rough braking, aggressive acceleration, or speeding over 70 mph, and she is more than willing to chirp at me about it.
Yes. It appears that tree-huggers are the new radical feminists.
Oh man, don't say that. Someone will believe it.