They actually were the first to "Get It" in both cases. Yeah other products existed that essentially had the same functionality, but Apple "Got It" in that they integrated the software, the hardware and the online store in such a manner that it was easy to use for the non-tech savy out there. For the most part everything just works when it comes to iTunes, the iPod and the iTMS. If they can duplicate that with their iTV device they'll have a hit on their hands.
Not being able to burn to DVD is a downside, but I look at video increasingly like I look at music. I can't tell you the last time I needed to burn a CD. I take my iPod with me when I want to hear my music. I've got an iTrip to broadcast over FM if I need to play music through a standard radio. With iTV there will be no need to burn to DVD if I want to watch something at home and if I want to watch something on someone elses TV you can just take the Video iPod and dock connector and the proper audio and video cables and I can get the same result. It's slighly more of a pain and if Apple was smart they would come up with something that could plug into the iPod that had the audio / video cables connected already to eliminate some of the hassle but as it stands now you can watch iTMS video content on other TVs.
Save the digivangelism for something more important than "Firefox isn't Microsoft." In Vista especially, IE is next to bulletproof - a reworked Windows kernel runs it within a virtual machine of sorts
Oh please! I'll take that bet in a heartbeat. Given Microsoft's track record I'd wait until the product has actually been released for a sufficient amount of time before making such a bold statement. It may be bulletproof in theory, but as we all should know by now there is probably next to no chance that it will actually remain that way once Vista gets a sufficient enough market share so as to attract the attention of the black hats.
Companies are free to sell anything in any format they want just as consumers are free to pass on the product if they don't want to deal with vendor lock in. You don't like Apple's DRM then don't shop at iTunes and your problem is solved. Quite whining like a 4 year old girl.
What value? YouTube is making money. If they are doing so all or in part by using copyrighted material that they have not licensed then what they are doing is illegal and unethical and they should be sued. I'm an information wants to be free kind of guy but even I recognize that copyright serves an important purpose. It's been thoroughly bastardized with the constant extensions and the DCMA but the whole idea behind it was and still is an important one. Namely if I go the trouble to create something then that work should be protected for a limited amount of time so I can profit from my own creation. If YouTube is knowingly profiting in whole or in part from the distribution of copyrighted material that they have not licensed then they should be sued.
The grey area here is that since users can post their own video YouTube can not and does not have control of everything that is available at a given time on their sight. Given that the questions that ought to be asked here are the same questions posed to the file sharing companies. Are there legitimate uses for YouTube other than for copyright infringement? Does the vast majority of activity on YouTube involve copyright infringement? Does YouTube make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to try and prevent copyrighted material from being posted? Does YouTube do anything to encourage copyrighted material to be posted? More importantly, once YouTube is informed that copyrighted material has been posted are they quick to respond and remove the offending material?
I don't even know where to begin with this one. Yes, some things actually are bad and have nothing whatsoever to do with the perspective of the person who is judging the actions. There is black and white in this world along with large chunks of grey area. This isn't one of those grey areas.
Your whole post contradicts itself in that you say that you support the right of the people to choose their government but how can that be possible if the truth about a government and it's actions are being actively censored by said government? Further the notion that the Chinese people have chosen their government is simply absurd. When was the last free and fair election where the general population was actually given a choice about who leads their nation?
The idea that just because a nation isn't in a civil war that the majority of its citizens are content with the government is simply absurd. The reason there is no civil war in China is because the Chinese military would crush it before it even had the chance to begin. There are uprisings and protest in China all the time and they are quickly and forcefully quelled and the news about the events is censored. It's nothing that amounts to anything like a civil war but to act like things are all well in good in that nation is to be completely ignorant of the situation. All one has to do is Google for the term "Chinese Unrest" or "Chinese Uprising" to see all the examples and some truly horrifying video of the kinds of things that happen to those unfortunate souls who try and express their dissatisfaction.
Respect should never be given. Respect should be earned. Saying that we ought to respect the Chinese government and it's actions simply because it is the Chinese government is about as absurd as saying we ought to automatically respect the Bush Administration it's actions because it's the government of the United States of America. That just doesn't fly. In fact, the more I think of it the more absurd it seems.
Every screening method is going to have flaws which is why you don't rely on any one method to get the job done. Profiling alone is ineffective for the seasons that you have sighted, but just because it isn't 100% effective doesn't mean that it should not be used in conjuction with other methods. It's important to note that you can profile on factors other than race or religion. Most of the attackers thus far have been males in their 20's and 30's that are not U.S. citizens. It would make sense to give people that fall into this category a little more scrutiy than you would give to an elderly couple who are US citizens. Behavioral profiling can and should also be used to single out individuals whose behavior might indicate that they are up to something.
Random searchs, watch lists, profiling, behavioral profiling or any other method taken by itself will never effective enough which is why you use all of these methods in conjuction with one another to cast the widest most cost effective net possilbe with the limited resources that we have to throw at the problem.
Who watches the watchman? Easy, let the community do it by making each step of the editing process as transparent as possible. Everytime someone submits a change the proposed submission, whether it's ultimately accepted or rejected, should be accesible somewhere along with the reason for it being accepted or rejected. If an editor is clearly biased it will visible for all to see. If enough people complain the higher ups in the organization can look into it and remove the editor if they find sufficient cause.
People obessed with Grand Theft Auto have gone on killing sprees. Should violent video games be outlawed as well? What about violent movies? There will always be sick individuals out there, does that mean we have to ban everything that may have inspired their acts? Get real. Violent pornography isn't my thing, but when it comes to goverment censorship or banning of any content, there ought to be a damn good reason behind it and the death of one girl who's killer might have been inspired by a certain type of movie doesn't cut it in my book.
Time is money. You buy a Mac, plug it in and it just works. With Linux in most instances you have to buy a PC, install Linux and deal with the issues that go along with that (although it has admittedly gotten a lot easier with certain distros in recent years) and then you have to put up with unacceptable crap like not being able to copy and paste consistently between applications and having a limited choice of applications depending on which desktop environemnt you prefer to operate in. Say what you will, not all KDE apps run well in Gnome and vise versa. That kind of crap is not acceptable.
Now let's look at Windows. You buy a Windows PC and you have to put up with unacceptable crap like buying and configuring a good firewall, buying antivirus software and paying to keep your antivirus software up to date, constantly having to keep up with patches, etc. I'd argue that given all of the costs associated with Windows, paying the "Mac tax" is actually cheaper in the long run when you consider that Macs also consistently have a higher resale value then Windows based PCs. Maybe that will change eventaully with the move to Intel based processors but that hasn't happened yet.
How so? You can use fuel from any supplier in a car, provided that it's compatible. Plenty of generic aftermarket parts as well as parts for customization are on the market.
You can use memory, hard drives, etc in any Mac desktop from any supplier in a Mac, provided that it's compatible. Plenty of generic aftermarket parts as well as parts for customization are on the market.
I'm sure the Brits from Bet on Sports currently languishing in a U.S jail for running a gambling Web site accessible in the U.S would agree with you. It seems to me that the NYT is making a good will effort to avoid breaking a law against prejudicing trials in the UK which has widespread support in the UK.
Indeed but the whole notion of enforcing the laws of one country on an invididual, corporation or group that resides and publishes material somewhere else is the begining of a slippery slope. One has to look no further than the The International Cyber-Crimes Treaty for the perfect example of where things might be headed.
No, the long term outlook is big shortfalls, it's called "peak oil" and the only debate amongst credible scientists is when it occurs, not if. I'll give you a hint, the most optimistic estimates are for around 2035, with most realistic estimates coming in at about 2010. Unless you consider 20 years to be long term (I wouldn't) then it's not right to say the long term outlook is of a surplus.
Wrong. We are not running out of oil. People have been saying that for decades. What we are running out of is cheap oil that is relatively easy and inexpensive to extract. That's been the case for years. As technology improves we are able to extract oil from places we previously thought impossible or to expensive to be feasible. As the price of oil increases thereby increasing oil companies profits they are able to further invest into research and development to come up with new and improved ways to get to the oil reserves we know about but have previously been unable to tap. In addition, as the price increases it becomes possible to tap previous reserves that have not been heavily tapped because the return on investment wasn't there with prices being low. The Canadian Oil Sands are a great example.
The bottom line is that we are not running out of oil and will not run out of oil anytime soon. What we are running out of is the cheap and inexpensive oil that we are used to. However as technology advances and/or prices increase we will be increasingly be able to tap into reserves that were previously impossible or simply cost prohibitive to tap.
People want to run Windows on Apple hardware for the saftey net it provides. You can now buy a Mac and know that with either Boot Camp (free) or Parallels ($40) you can still run Windows applications if you need to. It's a perfect fit for someone who is thinking about switching but is worried that they may still need to run Windows applications from time to time.
Your a fucking idiot. Get over yourself. I'll take a 2 hour wait in line with the inability to bring certain items in a carry on (just pack them and check them) over getting blown the fuck up What? Would you prefer the goverment just sit back and do nothing all the while knowing there is a real possibility that people are going to bring explosives in certain carry on items and try to bring down several planes? What the fuck is the goverment supposed to do?
Not Mac users. The version of OOo that's available for Mac requires you be running X11, and does not integrate into the desktop WHATSOEVER. I will use it only as a last resort.
Mac users interested in OpenOffice.org need to try NeoOffice. It's a Mac native port of Open Office and the 2.0 Beta release uses Aqua. There's no need for X11 and installation is a breeze.
Software is complex. Incredibly complex. Horrendously complex. All software. No exceptions. It's a fact of life.
I beg to differ. While the vast majority of software is complex under the hood some platforms do a much better job than others of hiding that complexity from the end user and making things that appear to "just work". Linux isn't there yet. That being said, it's leaps and bounds better than it was even 4 or 5 years ago.
Even if there is no official Beta 3 release as we all know from experience the RTM version will in fact be the Beta 3. Avoid any new Microsoft Operating System until at least SP1 unless you're an early adopter who is ready and willing to deal with the inevasible bugs and security vulnerabilities or if you just a mashochist who enjoys the pain.
What is wrong with allowing the date format to be displayed differently, or expecting programmers to put that in for non-US users? Why is that something that many US programmers do not do?
Perhaps it because most US programmers, myself included, are writing software with US users in mind and thus it would be a waste of our time to include various options that, while useful to people in other countries, would be a waste to 99% of the users in our target market.
If users from other countries find US software usefull that's great. If not then they are completely free to use some other piece of software produced somewhere else. Nobody forces them to use US software so they really should shut up.
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They actually were the first to "Get It" in both cases. Yeah other products existed that essentially had the same functionality, but Apple "Got It" in that they integrated the software, the hardware and the online store in such a manner that it was easy to use for the non-tech savy out there. For the most part everything just works when it comes to iTunes, the iPod and the iTMS. If they can duplicate that with their iTV device they'll have a hit on their hands.
Not being able to burn to DVD is a downside, but I look at video increasingly like I look at music. I can't tell you the last time I needed to burn a CD. I take my iPod with me when I want to hear my music. I've got an iTrip to broadcast over FM if I need to play music through a standard radio. With iTV there will be no need to burn to DVD if I want to watch something at home and if I want to watch something on someone elses TV you can just take the Video iPod and dock connector and the proper audio and video cables and I can get the same result. It's slighly more of a pain and if Apple was smart they would come up with something that could plug into the iPod that had the audio / video cables connected already to eliminate some of the hassle but as it stands now you can watch iTMS video content on other TVs.
Oh please! I'll take that bet in a heartbeat. Given Microsoft's track record I'd wait until the product has actually been released for a sufficient amount of time before making such a bold statement. It may be bulletproof in theory, but as we all should know by now there is probably next to no chance that it will actually remain that way once Vista gets a sufficient enough market share so as to attract the attention of the black hats.
Companies are free to sell anything in any format they want just as consumers are free to pass on the product if they don't want to deal with vendor lock in. You don't like Apple's DRM then don't shop at iTunes and your problem is solved. Quite whining like a 4 year old girl.
What value? YouTube is making money. If they are doing so all or in part by using copyrighted material that they have not licensed then what they are doing is illegal and unethical and they should be sued. I'm an information wants to be free kind of guy but even I recognize that copyright serves an important purpose. It's been thoroughly bastardized with the constant extensions and the DCMA but the whole idea behind it was and still is an important one. Namely if I go the trouble to create something then that work should be protected for a limited amount of time so I can profit from my own creation. If YouTube is knowingly profiting in whole or in part from the distribution of copyrighted material that they have not licensed then they should be sued.
The grey area here is that since users can post their own video YouTube can not and does not have control of everything that is available at a given time on their sight. Given that the questions that ought to be asked here are the same questions posed to the file sharing companies. Are there legitimate uses for YouTube other than for copyright infringement? Does the vast majority of activity on YouTube involve copyright infringement? Does YouTube make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to try and prevent copyrighted material from being posted? Does YouTube do anything to encourage copyrighted material to be posted? More importantly, once YouTube is informed that copyrighted material has been posted are they quick to respond and remove the offending material?
I don't even know where to begin with this one. Yes, some things actually are bad and have nothing whatsoever to do with the perspective of the person who is judging the actions. There is black and white in this world along with large chunks of grey area. This isn't one of those grey areas.
Your whole post contradicts itself in that you say that you support the right of the people to choose their government but how can that be possible if the truth about a government and it's actions are being actively censored by said government? Further the notion that the Chinese people have chosen their government is simply absurd. When was the last free and fair election where the general population was actually given a choice about who leads their nation?
The idea that just because a nation isn't in a civil war that the majority of its citizens are content with the government is simply absurd. The reason there is no civil war in China is because the Chinese military would crush it before it even had the chance to begin. There are uprisings and protest in China all the time and they are quickly and forcefully quelled and the news about the events is censored. It's nothing that amounts to anything like a civil war but to act like things are all well in good in that nation is to be completely ignorant of the situation. All one has to do is Google for the term "Chinese Unrest" or "Chinese Uprising" to see all the examples and some truly horrifying video of the kinds of things that happen to those unfortunate souls who try and express their dissatisfaction.
Respect should never be given. Respect should be earned. Saying that we ought to respect the Chinese government and it's actions simply because it is the Chinese government is about as absurd as saying we ought to automatically respect the Bush Administration it's actions because it's the government of the United States of America. That just doesn't fly. In fact, the more I think of it the more absurd it seems.
Every screening method is going to have flaws which is why you don't rely on any one method to get the job done. Profiling alone is ineffective for the seasons that you have sighted, but just because it isn't 100% effective doesn't mean that it should not be used in conjuction with other methods. It's important to note that you can profile on factors other than race or religion. Most of the attackers thus far have been males in their 20's and 30's that are not U.S. citizens. It would make sense to give people that fall into this category a little more scrutiy than you would give to an elderly couple who are US citizens. Behavioral profiling can and should also be used to single out individuals whose behavior might indicate that they are up to something.
Random searchs, watch lists, profiling, behavioral profiling or any other method taken by itself will never effective enough which is why you use all of these methods in conjuction with one another to cast the widest most cost effective net possilbe with the limited resources that we have to throw at the problem.
Who watches the watchman? Easy, let the community do it by making each step of the editing process as transparent as possible. Everytime someone submits a change the proposed submission, whether it's ultimately accepted or rejected, should be accesible somewhere along with the reason for it being accepted or rejected. If an editor is clearly biased it will visible for all to see. If enough people complain the higher ups in the organization can look into it and remove the editor if they find sufficient cause.
People obessed with Grand Theft Auto have gone on killing sprees. Should violent video games be outlawed as well? What about violent movies? There will always be sick individuals out there, does that mean we have to ban everything that may have inspired their acts? Get real. Violent pornography isn't my thing, but when it comes to goverment censorship or banning of any content, there ought to be a damn good reason behind it and the death of one girl who's killer might have been inspired by a certain type of movie doesn't cut it in my book.
Time is money. You buy a Mac, plug it in and it just works. With Linux in most instances you have to buy a PC, install Linux and deal with the issues that go along with that (although it has admittedly gotten a lot easier with certain distros in recent years) and then you have to put up with unacceptable crap like not being able to copy and paste consistently between applications and having a limited choice of applications depending on which desktop environemnt you prefer to operate in. Say what you will, not all KDE apps run well in Gnome and vise versa. That kind of crap is not acceptable. Now let's look at Windows. You buy a Windows PC and you have to put up with unacceptable crap like buying and configuring a good firewall, buying antivirus software and paying to keep your antivirus software up to date, constantly having to keep up with patches, etc. I'd argue that given all of the costs associated with Windows, paying the "Mac tax" is actually cheaper in the long run when you consider that Macs also consistently have a higher resale value then Windows based PCs. Maybe that will change eventaully with the move to Intel based processors but that hasn't happened yet.
Cars are a vendor lock in solution, and not many people like that. Cars are slower than flying. Cars aren't a serious solution.
Sony stock holders should sell now before that abortion of a console, the PS3, launches and fails.
I know you!
Wrong. We are not running out of oil. People have been saying that for decades. What we are running out of is cheap oil that is relatively easy and inexpensive to extract. That's been the case for years. As technology improves we are able to extract oil from places we previously thought impossible or to expensive to be feasible. As the price of oil increases thereby increasing oil companies profits they are able to further invest into research and development to come up with new and improved ways to get to the oil reserves we know about but have previously been unable to tap. In addition, as the price increases it becomes possible to tap previous reserves that have not been heavily tapped because the return on investment wasn't there with prices being low. The Canadian Oil Sands are a great example.
The bottom line is that we are not running out of oil and will not run out of oil anytime soon. What we are running out of is the cheap and inexpensive oil that we are used to. However as technology advances and/or prices increase we will be increasingly be able to tap into reserves that were previously impossible or simply cost prohibitive to tap.
If we came from monkeys then please explain this. Oh wait ...
There will always be problems in first generation products you tool.
People want to run Windows on Apple hardware for the saftey net it provides. You can now buy a Mac and know that with either Boot Camp (free) or Parallels ($40) you can still run Windows applications if you need to. It's a perfect fit for someone who is thinking about switching but is worried that they may still need to run Windows applications from time to time.
If you want quality, you have to pay for it. If you want crap, enjoy your e-machine or low end Dell.
Your a fucking idiot. Get over yourself. I'll take a 2 hour wait in line with the inability to bring certain items in a carry on (just pack them and check them) over getting blown the fuck up What? Would you prefer the goverment just sit back and do nothing all the while knowing there is a real possibility that people are going to bring explosives in certain carry on items and try to bring down several planes? What the fuck is the goverment supposed to do?
Mac users interested in OpenOffice.org need to try NeoOffice. It's a Mac native port of Open Office and the 2.0 Beta release uses Aqua. There's no need for X11 and installation is a breeze.
I beg to differ. While the vast majority of software is complex under the hood some platforms do a much better job than others of hiding that complexity from the end user and making things that appear to "just work". Linux isn't there yet. That being said, it's leaps and bounds better than it was even 4 or 5 years ago.
Even if there is no official Beta 3 release as we all know from experience the RTM version will in fact be the Beta 3. Avoid any new Microsoft Operating System until at least SP1 unless you're an early adopter who is ready and willing to deal with the inevasible bugs and security vulnerabilities or if you just a mashochist who enjoys the pain.
Perhaps it because most US programmers, myself included, are writing software with US users in mind and thus it would be a waste of our time to include various options that, while useful to people in other countries, would be a waste to 99% of the users in our target market.
If users from other countries find US software usefull that's great. If not then they are completely free to use some other piece of software produced somewhere else. Nobody forces them to use US software so they really should shut up.
USian isn't a word. American is.