"Such as selling your personal viewing habits to advertisers? I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but this is one of the main reasons I chose ReplayTV. I understand TiVo's data collection is aggregate, but the thought that someone keeps a record of everything I watch (or re-watch), and uses it for profit is a bit off-putting. Kudos to the newcomers!"
Why do you care? TiVo hopes to use the information they can sell to increase their profitability and hopefully lower the subscription costs for their customers. How is that bad? Its not like they are going to tell advertisers and the government that "Joe Average" at 123 Average Way watches Cinemax (aka "Skinamax") every single evening. It is aggregate. And speaking as a TiVo enthusiast, I am happy they will be reporting viewing habits to advertisers. I want advertisers to know that they shouldn't advertise feminine hygene products during action programs and the like. I want to encourage advertisers to actually make decent commercials. And most importantly, I'm tired of 6,000 Nielsen homes dictating what is shown on television. There are over 1 million TiVo subscribers vs. 6,000 Nielsen homes. I want our numbers to count for something because I'm tired of seeing shows that I like (such as "Angel") getting cancelled. The other DVR/PVRs on the market, such as your ReplayTV (which has bankrupted two corporate owners and is now on its third and still has yet to get over 100,000 subscribers), do not have the power to save favorite television programs from cancellation. So in my book, TiVo's aggregate viewer data collection is a reason to sign up.
"Surprisingly, it's Microsoft who has the most compatible-with-them devices, and also is the only one who has multiple compatible-with-them digital music stores. Microsoft the champion of consumer choice? Who let that happen?"
Somehow, equating Microsoft with choice is like Henry Ford telling the public they could "have the Model T in any color as long as its black."
The consumers have spoken - the iPod is their preferred MP3 portable and iTunes is the consumer choice for legal downloads. That means Microsoft is NOT the choice of consumers in this market contrary to your point.
I've only seen it happen once, but on my older Sony 3rd generation DVD player (which is now my parent's DVD player), the audio was out of sync with the video for one movie rental, "Meet the Parents." The video outputted to S-Video on the television (because the model was the year before JVC started equipping 27" televisions with Component jacks) and had RCA audio output to the television with the Hyper Surround activated. Terrible. Yet its the only DVD that I've witnessed it happen to. Even the $3.99 Vicent Price "The Last Man on Earth" from Best Buy didn't do this...:0
"At Apple's shareholder's meeting, someone jokingly asked if Apple could help out with the voting booth problem."
I don't find that comforting - Al Gore is on Apple's board of directors. Well, then again, if CalPERS is successful, he won't be on the board for long - as well as the rest of the board members. What really cheeses me off is that CalPERS owns a large block of shares in Apple, yet various departments and agencies in the Golden State are prohibited from buying computers other than from Dell or Compaq (HP). Our IT staff will make every excuse known to mankind to deny Mac purchases considering we could lay off 2/3rds of them if we switched. Not a week goes by when we aren't hit by viruses on our Exchange servers that kills our net access. Our office just purchased a SQL server after being delayed for 3 years. 3 years from the point that our office filled out the paperwork. I cringed when I saw the cost vs. what an XServe costs. The IT staff said we had to go with Microsoft because MySQL wasn't powerful enough to work with. It all boils down to people justifying their own certifications and thus their continued employment.
"After the last disasterous presidential election in Florida would you trust your government to a system that can be hacked this easily? Not me."
Why not? At the very least, the computer terminals will ensure that liberal senior citizens won't be voting for Pat Buchannon. Granted, they'd probably be intimidated into not voting - which is probably a good thing if we actually want to correct the mess with Social Security - the *Third Rail* of politics.:)
...the California Panel and Legislature probably would've recommended against going with Diebold to supply voting machines. Diebold's management is closely aligned with President Bush, and as we all know, aside from the current Governor, the California government is essentially controlled by the Democratic Party. They would've seized on Diebold's President's statements about "delivering" the 2004 election to the Bush Administration. No matter how harmless the words probably were, they are easily translated into something rather sinister. Granted, vote tabulating machines have always been crooked, and that was the reason why IBM never entered the market. You can read all about it in the book published in 1993 known as "Votescam."
"No, it isn't. The only things AOL Communicator shares with Mozilla are Gecko and the fact that it looks striking similar to Netscape 7 Mail & Newsgroups."
Yes, it [AOL Communicator] is [Mozilla Thunderbird]. I suggest you read the Beta program notes if you are an AOL Subscriber.
Maybe the guy should stop using the internet too because it was the creation of DARPA. Maybe that will cause a change in the U.S. foreign policy...:0
And the whole logic behind "being happy that Hussein is gone but not worth the lives of 20,000 Iraqis." Well, its not like the Iraqis could vote him out of power. That's as stupid as Dave Matthews before the war posting on his website that it was up to the Iraqis themselves to opt for regime change.
"What really makes me cringe is when I see an AOL address on the website of someone who owns his or her own domain name. Why can't you just use your domain name email? Why would you admit that you're an AOL subscriber? my brain screams"
Something tells me you'd complain about seeing a "mac.com" email address too. Why admit to having an AOL address? 23-25 million subscribers and the largest concentration of women online in America. Go figure.
An MSN email address generally means someone bought their machine at Best Buy during the "free computer" promos - i.e. "bottom feeder" or that the person has their finger on the pulse of the ultra-non-cool, kinda like having been an Intellivision owner when all your friends were sporting Atari 2600s.
"This seems to go hand-in-hand with the release of their AOL Communicator application... anything to save a sinking ship, I suppose."
It should be noted that AOL Communicator is Mozilla Thunderbird rechristened under the AOL brand...
Now if AOL would just allow its service to run inside a Mozilla/Netscape browser window like what MSN does with IE, they'd be making giant leaps in the right direction. And if "AOL Advanced" launched Mozilla FireFox/Netscape along with AOL Communicator and AIM all working in conjunction, you'd probably have better use of system resources not to mention the best individual apps they offer running instead of the bloatware that is the AOL client itself.
"You can use AIM Express from any browser, you have to allow the window itself to pop-up though. AIM even has a Linux client. Read all about it.Where IM is concerned, the market is cornered because the market is cornered. If someone were to come out with an awesome IM service, would anyone use it? "Hey, what's your AIM screen name?" 'I don't have one, I use Florbnab.' "What's that?" People already have established their screen names in various IM networks already"
Not to mention AIM is also on the Palm OS and PocketPC platforms, and every major mobile phone operator in the US. And as you noted, Linux. Can MSN do that? Nope - because they won't.
AIM will also be on the PS2/PS3 online project. Sony never got around to releasing their hard drive accessory for the PS2 (looks like Square did), but you can best bet AIM will be the IM client straight out of the PS3 box.
"I'd love AIM to be opened up, but I'm not holding my breath. Mail is a commodity now, and there is no obvious benefit in walling it up any more. But IM is dominated by the big three: AOL+ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. AOL has too much to lose by letting go, especially since its craptacular IM client is likely to be beaten hands down by Gaim or MSN Messenger."
Obviously you haven't seen iChat on a Mac. If AOL was hurting in the IM tech department, Apple wouldn't have selected them as the tech template for their own compatible chat platform.
MSN Messenger has failed to surpass AOL IM despite bundling with the OS, years and billions (if you count MSN in the figures) of dollars invested.
While many people on Slashdot knock AOL, it should be noted that they are one of the FEW companies to beat Microsoft consistently no matter how much cash Redmond throws down. Its too bad that Time Warner executives might scuttle AOL like Microsoft never could.
"In a move reminiscent of the 1997 MSFT/Borland Lawsuits, Microsoft has hired the SUSE sales guy who won Munich for SUSE."
How's this any different than SCO hiring David Boise to serve as their legal counsel considering Boise beat Microsoft in court for the Justice Department; yet we all know Microsoft is the financial puppet master behind SCO's motivations?
"Sure, or you could get an Athlon XP 3200 512K 2.2GHz 400 MHz FSB w/dvd-rw, 80gb 7200rpm drive, 512m, gigabit ethernet, bluetooth, 802.11g, a radeon 9200 and a 20" CRT for $100 less."
Funny thing that you mentioned Bluetooth in that comparison. As a person who has used Bluetooth via my Sony Ericsson T616 with both an eMac (OS X 10.2 and 10.3) and a PC (WinXP), I can tell you which platform works best with Bluetooth.
You also didn't factor in the cost of software in your PC equation. To match the eMac in standard software, you would have to include pirated copies of commercial software to match the functionality of the iApps.
As for a 20" CRT, that maybe so, but I have to say that the CRTs in the eMac line are incredibly sharp. My 19" Trinitron I use with my PC is not as sharp as the eMac screen.
And of course, you also aren't comparing the advange of having OS X as an operating system over WindowsXP. Sure, you could toss in the Linux factor for your PC example, but then you'd also take away a major advantage the (Windows) PC platform has over the Mac - games. You might as well drop the Radeon out of there if you go Linux because of driver issues; and the games factor again.
"yet the majority still shell out and pay the cable tax instead of moving to the better value. Given that lack of consumer knowledge, why would cable companies cut prices at all?"
My original post's title was "Support McCain," as in "support McCain's regulations." It was a given that my assumptions were based upon re-regulation of the cable industry because that is what Senator McCain (a Republican) is advocating. That's the only way *a la carte* will work. And *a la carte* can only be delivered effectively from a digital cable platform and to cut costs, through selecting channels via the internet.
Your assumption that consumers are idiots for not choosing Dish or DirecTV opposed to cable is flawed. I won't switch to satellite because I will not sign up for broadband via a local Baby Bell like SBC. From my experience, my cable modem has always been faster than the "dedicated digital subscriber line" provided by Covad or SBC. No matter how you slice it, coax is better than POTS. I do not see SBC in my area bringing fibre to the house and that is the only way they'll defeat the cable company. And I'm not throwing my good money to SBC; I switched my phone service to Vonage via the cable line. And as much as I complain about Comcast, they did upgrade their cable lines versus SBC going around and trying to resurrect Ma Bell by acquiring as many Baby Bells as possible instead of upgrading their infrastructure.
I would also not switch to Dish Network because their Dish Player PVR directly violates TiVo's intellectual property. As a TiVo enthusiast, I will not support a provider like Dish that causes injury to the company.
"There are people who live right in the middle of their city who can't get television reception without cable due to environmental factors. Should they just be written off or forced to buy/rent special equipment to watch broadcast television that the guy in the penthouse CAN have for free (but doesn't since he can afford digital cable or satellite)?Analog cable provides affordable television reception (particularly of the broadcast networks) to people who may not be able to afford even one extra cable channel. They shouldn't have to sit in the dark listening to a transistor radio when a big event is happening just because they can't afford digital cable, they're not allowed to put up an external antenna and rabbit ears don't work in their house."
You know, I'm beginning to think people on Slashdot have the reading comprehension of 2nd graders.
Getting rid of analog cable won't increase the cost of cable. Twice now in this thread I've indicated that it costs the cable companies less to offer digital cable television versus analog, yet they continue to offer analog and charge a premium for digital. It makes no sense at all. My whole point is that digital basic cable should be at the same price as analog basic. The cable companies like Comcast would save a fortune since they can cram 4-6 more standard definition channels into the same bandwidth as a single analog channel. Therefore, cable companies would make more per subscriber in terms of savings without resorting to ever-costly price increases. Somehow, I think the poor would prefer digital cable at the same price point as analog basic.
As for people complaining about not having internet access to pay bills, ever heard of a public library? Public libraries offer free internet access, so that whole argument is moot in my book.
Next time, do yourself a favor and actually read the post for what it is and not interject your own beliefs of class struggle into a very straightforward topic.
"You claim you don't want to have to pay for OnDemand which you won't use just because others do, and yet you want me to pay for multiple set-top boxes with a feature I will not use."
I didn't advocate that Comcast and all other cable companies deploy all digital set-top boxes with TiVo built in. Of course that would cost more than the average box they leased out. However, what I do advocate is that the cable companies dump analog, period. Analog costs the cable companies more more than digital, therefore, instead of constantly increasing our rates, they should cut out the expense. Digital is not a premium when per user it costs them much less and makes more profit. If Digital Basic started out at the price of Analog Basic, then there'd really be no reason to switch to DirecTV or Dish Network. Its rather moot anyway since in June 2004, us consumers will have the option of purchasing our own digital set-top boxes so a whiner like you won't ever have DVR/PVR forced upon them, unlike OnDemand with my cable service.
"Except for those people who don't have internet connections. Yet another cost you want to push onto someone else."
You missed my point completely. The cable companies are using the customer service cost as a reason why they cannot offer *a la carte* as a billing option. They believe it will cost too much money if every one of their customers calls customer service, and hogs the telephone line for a good ten (10) minutes determining which channels they wanted to pay for. I offered the internet select option as a way to stiffle their ridiculous argument. If the options were available on the net and someone could select the channels they wanted over the net, then the infrastructure costs are minimal and thus *a la carte* is possible. Instead of reading what I wrote, you wasted considerable effort in trying to make me look like a hypocrite. Hello, its the 21st century - if someone cannot afford a computer then perhaps they have no business signing up for cable television. Banks and other institutions charge money for "services" that are considered free if you do the stuff yourself online, so why should cable television channel selection be treated differently? It shouldn't.
I totally want to move to a la carte pricing, even if it does end up costing more. However, I think companies like Comcast should be put under regulation. Why? Let me break it down:
A. Comcast was able to purchase AT&T Broadband last year with very little scrutiny imposed upon it from the FTC and the FCC. AOL Time Warner was not so lucky during the merger that created them.
B. Comcast raised rates again. They claim they are recuping on their investment to upgrade their system. They claim it had to do with spending a fortune on OnDemand programming. That's great, but I don't use OnDemand; I should not be punished for this capital expense just because I was smart enough to buy my own DVR (TiVo) so that I do not need such a feature.
C. In turn, Comcast is now trying to acquire the Walt Disney Company. Comcast will claim this is going to be a pure stock swap and thus increased subscriber rates have nothing to do with it but it most certainly does...if Comcast does not suffer a large amount of customer defection due to the pricing increases, Comcast's stock will be more valuable. This helps Comcast to acquire Disney and thus it is Joe Consumer that is paying for the acquisition.
Now let us look at how Comcast could save money/increase revenue without resorting to rate increases and prosper under a la carte:
1. Deploy set-top boxes with TiVo built in; not "Comcast DVR" from some other supplier. Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo - if Comcast supports TiVo, it enriches their own investment. TiVo is a popular brand now, and brand influence can be a deciding point if it comes down to Comcast w/TiVo versus Dish Network with Dish PVR. Furthermore, Comcast can share revenue based upon TiVo's viewer statistics so they'll know which channels are being watched and what commercials are the most popular. That would be profitable.
2. Comcast can offer cable telephony. Comcast has been paying lip-service to this for years. How come I cannot get local telephone service through Comcast itself yet I can sign up for Vonage which will run over their cable line? Here in Sacramento, the upstart SureWest (which is actually Roseville Telecom) offers bundled telephone service as standard. Granted, they are offering fibre directly to the home.
3. Dump analog, period. Analog is the piracy hole in the cable systems. Digital piracy is not a major problem compared to analog. Plus, since an analog SDTV channel takes up as much bandwidth as 4-6 digital SDTV channels, this becomes more economical for Comcast to move directly to digital. Digital cable should not be considered a premium when it is so profitable. Charge a premium for HDTV.
4. A la carte pricing will not cause a customer service issue. Any channel additions and subtractions could be made via the internet, and if someone wants to spend time on the phone with customer service to add or subtract channels, leverage a fee on them.
5. Allow DirecTV and Dish to offer their own ISPs to their customers over Comcast wires and share in the revenue. Those customers are no longer Comcast customers so you might as well make some money off them. This is money that would go directly to the company and not other company competitors like the regional Bell telephone companies offering DSL packages. If you look at the revenue share agreements between Time Warner Cable and Earthlink, Time Warner Cable makes 90% of the fees.
Finally, programming packages are ridiculous. To get TechTV, I had to move up to another $5 more per month just to get it. Trio was a bonus. However, I did not require BET Jazz to be included in that. Furthermore, I would like to voice my support at Comcast keeping both TechTV and G4 separate now that they are both owned by Comcast. They are similar yet serve different interests just as MTV1 and MTV2 do.
"I can burn data CD's with Finder, audio CD's (and mp3 CD's) with iTunes, and make DVD's with iDVD. Why do I need Roxio again?"
Burning with Finder? You mean dragging the icon to the Trash Can? Sorry, that doesn't cut it. For serious burning, you still need Toast6 or something like it on OS X. It just seems to me that since Roxio is now a competitor of Apple's via Napster, it would make sense for Apple to acquire them not only to shut Napster down but also to implement serious burning software directly into the OS. Apple could do that whereas Microsoft would have difficulty on antitrust grounds (Nero would protest the feature-creep).
How is this going to secure Sony's dominance in terms of future standards related to the DVD Forum? Microsoft's WMP9 has already been chosen as the encoding form for the next generation HD-DVD format. Will Sony be able to use these advances as leverage to remove Microsoft from the lucrative standard? Or will we see a format war on HD-DVD just like what we've seen for recordable DVDs?
Ultimately, I'd think Sony would want Microsoft expelled from the platform. I'd also wager that Sony would expell Windows from the Vaio platform if 1. Linux was viable for Joe Consumer, or 2. Sony purchased Apple and OS X became Sony's operating system of choice. #2 would add to Sony's OS "mess." They'd be supporting OS X for computers, Symbian for Sony Ericsson mobile phones, and Palm OS for their PDAs. That's pretty funny, actually.
"I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall the 7 Years' War starting in the colonies as the French & Indian War, then spreading from there to Europe as word of the conflict spread."
Yes, the war did start in North America. The war is known in Europe (and the rest of the world) as the "7 Years War." It is still taught in the United States today that it was called "the French and Indian War."
The war is also the very reason why we have the United States today. George Washington didn't get a permanent commission in the British Army after the end of the war because he could not speak French (crucial in negotiations) and also because he proved to be inept in that war. He lost a fort to the French because he failed to take the advice of the native tribe that was allied with the British (they told him not to settle in the place during the winter due to the rains but he did anyways and it flooded the place, trapping him). He also signed a surrender to the French that admitted his and the guilt of the British because he could not speak French and he relied on an interpreter who was Dutch and did not really speak French that well. They don't teach that in the K-12 educational system.:)
Washington was itching for revenge against the British Army. That's why he himself volunteered at the first opportunity to lead the Continental Army with a suit specially made for him to impress the leaders. He did his very best to create the same discipline the British Army was known for in the Continental Army. It is a misnomer to think the Continental Army fought like militias because they did not. Washington hated the militias and the riflemen because they had proven so ineffective in the 7 Years War and they'd leave a battle if they thought they'd be killed or if they had crops to plant.
The 7 Years War should be remembered as the first truly world war. The British and the French fought each other on every known continent at the time. That's pretty impressive.
"I'm no history buff, humor me. Did the depression come before or after the British Empire, the largest trading nation, with the largest navy, and the largest treasury, in the world at the time, imposed an embargo on a newly formed purposely undeveloped country which they had controlled just a few years prior?"
The depression happened AFTER independence. The British Empire locked out the United States of the imperial system. The leaders of the newly formed U.S. thought the British would simply allow them to continue trading with the entire Empire without paying anything. The British decided to teach them a lesson and to show the U.S. how little profit there was in trading with non-Imperial possessions which the colonial merchants had complained about for years (their supposed trading losses, kinda like how the RIAA and MPAA today complain about how many sales they "lost" due to piracy which is a flawed assumption since most of those "losses" would've never been actual sales to begin with).
So alas, it can be summarized that the British Empire taught the newly formed United States a lesson that it would not profit from the imperial system when the new nation was unwilling to pay for its administrative costs, or the cost it took to keep those former colonies from being swallowed up by the French Empire earlier.
"It won't find one. For whatever reason - a crappy client, death-by-Microsoft, etc...Real is no longer relevant in the media marketplace. It had to happen - between Quicktime/AAC, Windows Media, MP3, and even Ogg, there was no room whatsoever for a codec, client, and company with nothing to offer."
And that's the very reason why I think it would be smart for Apple to allow an alliance with Real. Apple won't be losing anything, and at the very least, they have "wiggle room" if there is some sort of monopoly charge thrown at them. It pays to remember that Microsoft was able to get the government (FCC and FTC) to place conditions on AOL during the AOL Time Warner merger stating that AOL had to open up AIM to 1 competitor before it enabled advanced features such as video messaging as part of the merger. Microsoft was concerned about AOL's "monopoly" in instant messaging (via owning AIM and ICQ) to the detriment of Microsoft's MSN Messenger (poor monopolist Microsoft). So the advantage here is Apple can say that the iPod is indeed an open platform while still continuing to snub the real threat, which is WMA.
The second smart thing would be for Apple to buy Roxio. Roxio is bleeding because of Napster, so a quick Apple purchase would shut down iTunes's nearest competitor and Apple could integrate Roxio's Toast6 (or 7) into OS X 10.4 or 10.5 while still continuing to profit off Easy Media Creator and funnel the profits into Mac development of the iLife suite and anything else they'd like. It would also be yet another sucker punch to WMA in the process.
"Now if only I could get more Firefly, TV might be worth watching again."
Since you are rooting for "Firefly," how about saying the same for the other Mutant Enemy show still on the air, "Angel"? "Angel" is the second highest genre program on the WB Network, right behind Smallville. It had a significant ratings increase this season, yet the WB decided to cancel it, to try to replace it with a rehash of "Dark Shadows" and "Lost in Space." This is after the WB tried to replace it with "Birds of Prey," "Black Sash," and "Tarzan" all before they fizzled out.
"Angel" has 5 more new episodes this season on the WB before it bows out. If anyone is interested in helping to save the show, please head over to www.savingangel.org. Co-creator Joss Whedon has stated that the more the fans are vocal, the more chances that at least the WB will actually follow up on their rather hollow promises of having "Angel" tv movies/mini-series next year if they don't decide to reverse the cancellation notice. "Angel" is selling well with the DVD box sets, and you can also catch repeat episodes (Season 1-4) on TNT and in local syndication (usually on Fox owned affiliates just like with "Buffy").
Slashdot Mirror
"Such as selling your personal viewing habits to advertisers? I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but this is one of the main reasons I chose ReplayTV. I understand TiVo's data collection is aggregate, but the thought that someone keeps a record of everything I watch (or re-watch), and uses it for profit is a bit off-putting.
Kudos to the newcomers!"
Why do you care? TiVo hopes to use the information they can sell to increase their profitability and hopefully lower the subscription costs for their customers. How is that bad? Its not like they are going to tell advertisers and the government that "Joe Average" at 123 Average Way watches Cinemax (aka "Skinamax") every single evening. It is aggregate. And speaking as a TiVo enthusiast, I am happy they will be reporting viewing habits to advertisers. I want advertisers to know that they shouldn't advertise feminine hygene products during action programs and the like. I want to encourage advertisers to actually make decent commercials. And most importantly, I'm tired of 6,000 Nielsen homes dictating what is shown on television. There are over 1 million TiVo subscribers vs. 6,000 Nielsen homes. I want our numbers to count for something because I'm tired of seeing shows that I like (such as "Angel") getting cancelled. The other DVR/PVRs on the market, such as your ReplayTV (which has bankrupted two corporate owners and is now on its third and still has yet to get over 100,000 subscribers), do not have the power to save favorite television programs from cancellation. So in my book, TiVo's aggregate viewer data collection is a reason to sign up.
"Surprisingly, it's Microsoft who has the most compatible-with-them devices, and also is the only one who has multiple compatible-with-them digital music stores. Microsoft the champion of consumer choice? Who let that happen?"
Somehow, equating Microsoft with choice is like Henry Ford telling the public they could "have the Model T in any color as long as its black."
The consumers have spoken - the iPod is their preferred MP3 portable and iTunes is the consumer choice for legal downloads. That means Microsoft is NOT the choice of consumers in this market contrary to your point.
I've only seen it happen once, but on my older Sony 3rd generation DVD player (which is now my parent's DVD player), the audio was out of sync with the video for one movie rental, "Meet the Parents." The video outputted to S-Video on the television (because the model was the year before JVC started equipping 27" televisions with Component jacks) and had RCA audio output to the television with the Hyper Surround activated. Terrible. Yet its the only DVD that I've witnessed it happen to. Even the $3.99 Vicent Price "The Last Man on Earth" from Best Buy didn't do this... :0
"Some of the fancy processing, such as 3:2 pulldown and deinterlacing, is only applicable to 480i signals."
480i? What game system are you playing? I don't know about the PS2, but the Xbox outputs at 480p, and some (very few) games do support 1080i.
"At Apple's shareholder's meeting, someone jokingly asked if Apple could help out with the voting booth problem."
I don't find that comforting - Al Gore is on Apple's board of directors. Well, then again, if CalPERS is successful, he won't be on the board for long - as well as the rest of the board members. What really cheeses me off is that CalPERS owns a large block of shares in Apple, yet various departments and agencies in the Golden State are prohibited from buying computers other than from Dell or Compaq (HP). Our IT staff will make every excuse known to mankind to deny Mac purchases considering we could lay off 2/3rds of them if we switched. Not a week goes by when we aren't hit by viruses on our Exchange servers that kills our net access. Our office just purchased a SQL server after being delayed for 3 years. 3 years from the point that our office filled out the paperwork. I cringed when I saw the cost vs. what an XServe costs. The IT staff said we had to go with Microsoft because MySQL wasn't powerful enough to work with. It all boils down to people justifying their own certifications and thus their continued employment.
"After the last disasterous presidential election in Florida would you trust your government to a system that can be hacked this easily? Not me."
:)
Why not? At the very least, the computer terminals will ensure that liberal senior citizens won't be voting for Pat Buchannon. Granted, they'd probably be intimidated into not voting - which is probably a good thing if we actually want to correct the mess with Social Security - the *Third Rail* of politics.
"No, it isn't. The only things AOL Communicator shares with Mozilla are Gecko and the fact that it looks striking similar to Netscape 7 Mail & Newsgroups."
Yes, it [AOL Communicator] is [Mozilla Thunderbird]. I suggest you read the Beta program notes if you are an AOL Subscriber.
Maybe the guy should stop using the internet too because it was the creation of DARPA. Maybe that will cause a change in the U.S. foreign policy... :0
And the whole logic behind "being happy that Hussein is gone but not worth the lives of 20,000 Iraqis." Well, its not like the Iraqis could vote him out of power. That's as stupid as Dave Matthews before the war posting on his website that it was up to the Iraqis themselves to opt for regime change.
Some people really have no clue.
"What really makes me cringe is when I see an AOL address on the website of someone who owns his or her own domain name. Why can't you just use your domain name email? Why would you admit that you're an AOL subscriber? my brain screams"
Something tells me you'd complain about seeing a "mac.com" email address too. Why admit to having an AOL address? 23-25 million subscribers and the largest concentration of women online in America. Go figure.
An MSN email address generally means someone bought their machine at Best Buy during the "free computer" promos - i.e. "bottom feeder" or that the person has their finger on the pulse of the ultra-non-cool, kinda like having been an Intellivision owner when all your friends were sporting Atari 2600s.
"This seems to go hand-in-hand with the release of their AOL Communicator application... anything to save a sinking ship, I suppose."
It should be noted that AOL Communicator is Mozilla Thunderbird rechristened under the AOL brand...
Now if AOL would just allow its service to run inside a Mozilla/Netscape browser window like what MSN does with IE, they'd be making giant leaps in the right direction. And if "AOL Advanced" launched Mozilla FireFox/Netscape along with AOL Communicator and AIM all working in conjunction, you'd probably have better use of system resources not to mention the best individual apps they offer running instead of the bloatware that is the AOL client itself.
"You can use AIM Express from any browser, you have to allow the window itself to pop-up though. AIM even has a Linux client. Read all about it.Where IM is concerned, the market is cornered because the market is cornered. If someone were to come out with an awesome IM service, would anyone use it? "Hey, what's your AIM screen name?" 'I don't have one, I use Florbnab.' "What's that?" People already have established their screen names in various IM networks already"
Not to mention AIM is also on the Palm OS and PocketPC platforms, and every major mobile phone operator in the US. And as you noted, Linux. Can MSN do that? Nope - because they won't.
AIM will also be on the PS2/PS3 online project. Sony never got around to releasing their hard drive accessory for the PS2 (looks like Square did), but you can best bet AIM will be the IM client straight out of the PS3 box.
"I'd love AIM to be opened up, but I'm not holding my breath. Mail is a commodity now, and there is no obvious benefit in walling it up any more. But IM is dominated by the big three: AOL+ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. AOL has too much to lose by letting go, especially since its craptacular IM client is likely to be beaten hands down by Gaim or MSN Messenger."
Obviously you haven't seen iChat on a Mac. If AOL was hurting in the IM tech department, Apple wouldn't have selected them as the tech template for their own compatible chat platform.
MSN Messenger has failed to surpass AOL IM despite bundling with the OS, years and billions (if you count MSN in the figures) of dollars invested.
While many people on Slashdot knock AOL, it should be noted that they are one of the FEW companies to beat Microsoft consistently no matter how much cash Redmond throws down. Its too bad that Time Warner executives might scuttle AOL like Microsoft never could.
"In a move reminiscent of the 1997 MSFT/Borland Lawsuits, Microsoft has hired the SUSE sales guy who won Munich for SUSE."
How's this any different than SCO hiring David Boise to serve as their legal counsel considering Boise beat Microsoft in court for the Justice Department; yet we all know Microsoft is the financial puppet master behind SCO's motivations?
"Sure, or you could get an Athlon XP 3200 512K 2.2GHz 400 MHz FSB w/dvd-rw, 80gb 7200rpm drive, 512m, gigabit ethernet, bluetooth, 802.11g, a radeon 9200 and a 20" CRT for $100 less."
Funny thing that you mentioned Bluetooth in that comparison. As a person who has used Bluetooth via my Sony Ericsson T616 with both an eMac (OS X 10.2 and 10.3) and a PC (WinXP), I can tell you which platform works best with Bluetooth.
You also didn't factor in the cost of software in your PC equation. To match the eMac in standard software, you would have to include pirated copies of commercial software to match the functionality of the iApps.
As for a 20" CRT, that maybe so, but I have to say that the CRTs in the eMac line are incredibly sharp. My 19" Trinitron I use with my PC is not as sharp as the eMac screen.
And of course, you also aren't comparing the advange of having OS X as an operating system over WindowsXP. Sure, you could toss in the Linux factor for your PC example, but then you'd also take away a major advantage the (Windows) PC platform has over the Mac - games. You might as well drop the Radeon out of there if you go Linux because of driver issues; and the games factor again.
"yet the majority still shell out and pay the cable tax instead of moving to the better value. Given that lack of consumer knowledge, why would cable companies cut prices at all?"
My original post's title was "Support McCain," as in "support McCain's regulations." It was a given that my assumptions were based upon re-regulation of the cable industry because that is what Senator McCain (a Republican) is advocating. That's the only way *a la carte* will work. And *a la carte* can only be delivered effectively from a digital cable platform and to cut costs, through selecting channels via the internet.
Your assumption that consumers are idiots for not choosing Dish or DirecTV opposed to cable is flawed. I won't switch to satellite because I will not sign up for broadband via a local Baby Bell like SBC. From my experience, my cable modem has always been faster than the "dedicated digital subscriber line" provided by Covad or SBC. No matter how you slice it, coax is better than POTS. I do not see SBC in my area bringing fibre to the house and that is the only way they'll defeat the cable company. And I'm not throwing my good money to SBC; I switched my phone service to Vonage via the cable line. And as much as I complain about Comcast, they did upgrade their cable lines versus SBC going around and trying to resurrect Ma Bell by acquiring as many Baby Bells as possible instead of upgrading their infrastructure.
I would also not switch to Dish Network because their Dish Player PVR directly violates TiVo's intellectual property. As a TiVo enthusiast, I will not support a provider like Dish that causes injury to the company.
Regards,
Mr Pompous
"There are people who live right in the middle of their city who can't get television reception without cable due to environmental factors. Should they just be written off or forced to buy/rent special equipment to watch broadcast television that the guy in the penthouse CAN have for free (but doesn't since he can afford digital cable or satellite)?Analog cable provides affordable television reception (particularly of the broadcast networks) to people who may not be able to afford even one extra cable channel. They shouldn't have to sit in the dark listening to a transistor radio when a big event is happening just because they can't afford digital cable, they're not allowed to put up an external antenna and rabbit ears don't work in their house."
You know, I'm beginning to think people on Slashdot have the reading comprehension of 2nd graders.
Getting rid of analog cable won't increase the cost of cable. Twice now in this thread I've indicated that it costs the cable companies less to offer digital cable television versus analog, yet they continue to offer analog and charge a premium for digital. It makes no sense at all. My whole point is that digital basic cable should be at the same price as analog basic. The cable companies like Comcast would save a fortune since they can cram 4-6 more standard definition channels into the same bandwidth as a single analog channel. Therefore, cable companies would make more per subscriber in terms of savings without resorting to ever-costly price increases. Somehow, I think the poor would prefer digital cable at the same price point as analog basic.
As for people complaining about not having internet access to pay bills, ever heard of a public library? Public libraries offer free internet access, so that whole argument is moot in my book.
Next time, do yourself a favor and actually read the post for what it is and not interject your own beliefs of class struggle into a very straightforward topic.
"You claim you don't want to have to pay for OnDemand which you won't use just because others do, and yet you want me to pay for multiple set-top boxes with a feature I will not use."
I didn't advocate that Comcast and all other cable companies deploy all digital set-top boxes with TiVo built in. Of course that would cost more than the average box they leased out. However, what I do advocate is that the cable companies dump analog, period. Analog costs the cable companies more more than digital, therefore, instead of constantly increasing our rates, they should cut out the expense. Digital is not a premium when per user it costs them much less and makes more profit. If Digital Basic started out at the price of Analog Basic, then there'd really be no reason to switch to DirecTV or Dish Network. Its rather moot anyway since in June 2004, us consumers will have the option of purchasing our own digital set-top boxes so a whiner like you won't ever have DVR/PVR forced upon them, unlike OnDemand with my cable service.
"Except for those people who don't have internet connections. Yet another cost you want to push onto someone else."
You missed my point completely. The cable companies are using the customer service cost as a reason why they cannot offer *a la carte* as a billing option. They believe it will cost too much money if every one of their customers calls customer service, and hogs the telephone line for a good ten (10) minutes determining which channels they wanted to pay for. I offered the internet select option as a way to stiffle their ridiculous argument. If the options were available on the net and someone could select the channels they wanted over the net, then the infrastructure costs are minimal and thus *a la carte* is possible. Instead of reading what I wrote, you wasted considerable effort in trying to make me look like a hypocrite. Hello, its the 21st century - if someone cannot afford a computer then perhaps they have no business signing up for cable television. Banks and other institutions charge money for "services" that are considered free if you do the stuff yourself online, so why should cable television channel selection be treated differently? It shouldn't.
I totally want to move to a la carte pricing, even if it does end up costing more. However, I think companies like Comcast should be put under regulation. Why? Let me break it down:
A. Comcast was able to purchase AT&T Broadband last year with very little scrutiny imposed upon it from the FTC and the FCC. AOL Time Warner was not so lucky during the merger that created them.
B. Comcast raised rates again. They claim they are recuping on their investment to upgrade their system. They claim it had to do with spending a fortune on OnDemand programming. That's great, but I don't use OnDemand; I should not be punished for this capital expense just because I was smart enough to buy my own DVR (TiVo) so that I do not need such a feature.
C. In turn, Comcast is now trying to acquire the Walt Disney Company. Comcast will claim this is going to be a pure stock swap and thus increased subscriber rates have nothing to do with it but it most certainly does...if Comcast does not suffer a large amount of customer defection due to the pricing increases, Comcast's stock will be more valuable. This helps Comcast to acquire Disney and thus it is Joe Consumer that is paying for the acquisition.
Now let us look at how Comcast could save money/increase revenue without resorting to rate increases and prosper under a la carte:
1. Deploy set-top boxes with TiVo built in; not "Comcast DVR" from some other supplier. Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo - if Comcast supports TiVo, it enriches their own investment. TiVo is a popular brand now, and brand influence can be a deciding point if it comes down to Comcast w/TiVo versus Dish Network with Dish PVR. Furthermore, Comcast can share revenue based upon TiVo's viewer statistics so they'll know which channels are being watched and what commercials are the most popular. That would be profitable.
2. Comcast can offer cable telephony. Comcast has been paying lip-service to this for years. How come I cannot get local telephone service through Comcast itself yet I can sign up for Vonage which will run over their cable line? Here in Sacramento, the upstart SureWest (which is actually Roseville Telecom) offers bundled telephone service as standard. Granted, they are offering fibre directly to the home.
3. Dump analog, period. Analog is the piracy hole in the cable systems. Digital piracy is not a major problem compared to analog. Plus, since an analog SDTV channel takes up as much bandwidth as 4-6 digital SDTV channels, this becomes more economical for Comcast to move directly to digital. Digital cable should not be considered a premium when it is so profitable. Charge a premium for HDTV.
4. A la carte pricing will not cause a customer service issue. Any channel additions and subtractions could be made via the internet, and if someone wants to spend time on the phone with customer service to add or subtract channels, leverage a fee on them.
5. Allow DirecTV and Dish to offer their own ISPs to their customers over Comcast wires and share in the revenue. Those customers are no longer Comcast customers so you might as well make some money off them. This is money that would go directly to the company and not other company competitors like the regional Bell telephone companies offering DSL packages. If you look at the revenue share agreements between Time Warner Cable and Earthlink, Time Warner Cable makes 90% of the fees.
Finally, programming packages are ridiculous. To get TechTV, I had to move up to another $5 more per month just to get it. Trio was a bonus. However, I did not require BET Jazz to be included in that. Furthermore, I would like to voice my support at Comcast keeping both TechTV and G4 separate now that they are both owned by Comcast. They are similar yet serve different interests just as MTV1 and MTV2 do.
"I can burn data CD's with Finder, audio CD's (and mp3 CD's) with iTunes, and make DVD's with iDVD. Why do I need Roxio again?"
Burning with Finder? You mean dragging the icon to the Trash Can? Sorry, that doesn't cut it. For serious burning, you still need Toast6 or something like it on OS X. It just seems to me that since Roxio is now a competitor of Apple's via Napster, it would make sense for Apple to acquire them not only to shut Napster down but also to implement serious burning software directly into the OS. Apple could do that whereas Microsoft would have difficulty on antitrust grounds (Nero would protest the feature-creep).
How is this going to secure Sony's dominance in terms of future standards related to the DVD Forum? Microsoft's WMP9 has already been chosen as the encoding form for the next generation HD-DVD format. Will Sony be able to use these advances as leverage to remove Microsoft from the lucrative standard? Or will we see a format war on HD-DVD just like what we've seen for recordable DVDs?
Ultimately, I'd think Sony would want Microsoft expelled from the platform. I'd also wager that Sony would expell Windows from the Vaio platform if 1. Linux was viable for Joe Consumer, or 2. Sony purchased Apple and OS X became Sony's operating system of choice. #2 would add to Sony's OS "mess." They'd be supporting OS X for computers, Symbian for Sony Ericsson mobile phones, and Palm OS for their PDAs. That's pretty funny, actually.
"I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall the 7 Years' War starting in the colonies as the French & Indian War, then spreading from there to Europe as word of the conflict spread."
:)
Yes, the war did start in North America. The war is known in Europe (and the rest of the world) as the "7 Years War." It is still taught in the United States today that it was called "the French and Indian War."
The war is also the very reason why we have the United States today. George Washington didn't get a permanent commission in the British Army after the end of the war because he could not speak French (crucial in negotiations) and also because he proved to be inept in that war. He lost a fort to the French because he failed to take the advice of the native tribe that was allied with the British (they told him not to settle in the place during the winter due to the rains but he did anyways and it flooded the place, trapping him). He also signed a surrender to the French that admitted his and the guilt of the British because he could not speak French and he relied on an interpreter who was Dutch and did not really speak French that well. They don't teach that in the K-12 educational system.
Washington was itching for revenge against the British Army. That's why he himself volunteered at the first opportunity to lead the Continental Army with a suit specially made for him to impress the leaders. He did his very best to create the same discipline the British Army was known for in the Continental Army. It is a misnomer to think the Continental Army fought like militias because they did not. Washington hated the militias and the riflemen because they had proven so ineffective in the 7 Years War and they'd leave a battle if they thought they'd be killed or if they had crops to plant.
The 7 Years War should be remembered as the first truly world war. The British and the French fought each other on every known continent at the time. That's pretty impressive.
"I'm no history buff, humor me. Did the depression come before or after the British Empire, the largest trading nation, with the largest navy, and the largest treasury, in the world at the time, imposed an embargo on a newly formed purposely undeveloped country which they had controlled just a few years prior?"
The depression happened AFTER independence. The British Empire locked out the United States of the imperial system. The leaders of the newly formed U.S. thought the British would simply allow them to continue trading with the entire Empire without paying anything. The British decided to teach them a lesson and to show the U.S. how little profit there was in trading with non-Imperial possessions which the colonial merchants had complained about for years (their supposed trading losses, kinda like how the RIAA and MPAA today complain about how many sales they "lost" due to piracy which is a flawed assumption since most of those "losses" would've never been actual sales to begin with).
So alas, it can be summarized that the British Empire taught the newly formed United States a lesson that it would not profit from the imperial system when the new nation was unwilling to pay for its administrative costs, or the cost it took to keep those former colonies from being swallowed up by the French Empire earlier.
"It won't find one. For whatever reason - a crappy client, death-by-Microsoft, etc...Real is no longer relevant in the media marketplace. It had to happen - between Quicktime/AAC, Windows Media, MP3, and even Ogg, there was no room whatsoever for a codec, client, and company with nothing to offer."
And that's the very reason why I think it would be smart for Apple to allow an alliance with Real. Apple won't be losing anything, and at the very least, they have "wiggle room" if there is some sort of monopoly charge thrown at them. It pays to remember that Microsoft was able to get the government (FCC and FTC) to place conditions on AOL during the AOL Time Warner merger stating that AOL had to open up AIM to 1 competitor before it enabled advanced features such as video messaging as part of the merger. Microsoft was concerned about AOL's "monopoly" in instant messaging (via owning AIM and ICQ) to the detriment of Microsoft's MSN Messenger (poor monopolist Microsoft). So the advantage here is Apple can say that the iPod is indeed an open platform while still continuing to snub the real threat, which is WMA.
The second smart thing would be for Apple to buy Roxio. Roxio is bleeding because of Napster, so a quick Apple purchase would shut down iTunes's nearest competitor and Apple could integrate Roxio's Toast6 (or 7) into OS X 10.4 or 10.5 while still continuing to profit off Easy Media Creator and funnel the profits into Mac development of the iLife suite and anything else they'd like. It would also be yet another sucker punch to WMA in the process.
"Now if only I could get more Firefly, TV might be worth watching again."
Since you are rooting for "Firefly," how about saying the same for the other Mutant Enemy show still on the air, "Angel"? "Angel" is the second highest genre program on the WB Network, right behind Smallville. It had a significant ratings increase this season, yet the WB decided to cancel it, to try to replace it with a rehash of "Dark Shadows" and "Lost in Space." This is after the WB tried to replace it with "Birds of Prey," "Black Sash," and "Tarzan" all before they fizzled out.
"Angel" has 5 more new episodes this season on the WB before it bows out. If anyone is interested in helping to save the show, please head over to www.savingangel.org. Co-creator Joss Whedon has stated that the more the fans are vocal, the more chances that at least the WB will actually follow up on their rather hollow promises of having "Angel" tv movies/mini-series next year if they don't decide to reverse the cancellation notice. "Angel" is selling well with the DVD box sets, and you can also catch repeat episodes (Season 1-4) on TNT and in local syndication (usually on Fox owned affiliates just like with "Buffy").