I use my iPod like a PDA. Granted, I can't enter data on it, but it's got my entire address book and all my calendars, and I've got it syncing todo lists and shopping lists I keep on Ta Da List whenever I plug it in. It's pretty handy.
Absolutely true. In fact, I'd argue that if it weren't for me "stealing" the BSG miniseries, I wouldn't have become a fan. Same with Dr. Who and Torchwood. In fact I'd never have seen the latter two if it weren't for P2P technologies.
But to many people, my parents included, it still looks like stealing. They worry every day that I'm going to be picked up by the cops.
And I'm sorry, but I'm not from Australia. That was just a typo. But I do know someone from Australia who's a big BSG fan.
I use iTunes like TiVo. If I miss an episode of a show, I can buy that episode for two dollars. Granted, I could find a torrent for the show and download it, but it's much more convenient for me to simply pay the two bucks.
I've also done a cost analysis for my video content. At current prices, which is $2 per episode and $20-$30 per season, it's cost-competitive to buy my content from iTunes. I'm willing to pay that because it's convenient, and while there is DRM it's not too obtrusive. (However, this doesn't mean it shouldn't be eliminated.) The only reason I'm not ditching cable TV altogether is that the best broadband in my area is cable, and they charge you $15 more per month for it if you don't subscribe to at least their $15 per month basic packages, which is another rant for another time.
Also, based on the value my employer pays me for my time ($22/hour), those 18 minutes of my time are worth more than the $2 per episode I'm paying. And the frustration of commercials (why are they so much LOUDER than the show itself?) simply makes it more economical for me to get my content by paying for it than waiting an extra 18 minutes while they try to sell me an SUV or convince me to join the military.
Finally, the current market for downloadable content is very small when compared with the market for television. Heck, the market for cable is small when compared with the total market for television viewers. The people who are going to push downloadable TV aren't going to be geeks like you and I who know where to look for pirated content. They're going to be folks like our parents, or the secretaries at our jobs. They're not technical enough to know the difference between codecs or which open source players to download or even what a torrent file is. They're also frightened that stealing video content is going to get them thrown in prison. They want something that is convenient, easy, and legal. DRM removes the first two, and piracy removes the latter two. Only by creating an online store that works with any kind of player will people start moving away from broadcast or cable TV.
Okay, Clinton lied under oath. But he lied under oath ABOUT A BLOWJOB. And this was after a FORTY MILLION DOLLAR INVESTIGATION. And all they could get was him to lie under oath ABOUT A BLOWJOB.
The idea of a "red state" and a "blue state" is fallacious. Almost every county in the past presidential election broke right down the middle, except for a few counties in the heart of Kansas and Utah which were solidly red and some in California and New York that were solidly blue.
So that tells me that the divide is less between states and more between people. The red vs. blue idea is counterproductive, and is only peddled by talking-head pundits (for whom I have zero respect) to create conflict and thereby create a news story.
The problem with DRM is that you're trying to limit access to the very same people who are trying to buy access to the media. DRM will not work if the methods for acquiring or viewing this media are not easy. Right now, it's easier for me to fly BT Airways to watch unedited, newly released episodes of Dr. Who or Torchwood in a timely manner than it is for me to obtain them through legal means. I would buy the content if I could, but I can't, so I'm a criminal for being a fan of a show. And I'm sure Australian fans of Battlestar Galactica or Heroes feel the same way. The only reason we're unable to watch legitimate versions of our favorite shows is because of outdated licensing agreements.
So make the content easy to get no matter where in the world the viewer happens to be, and make it easy to view on any device, and you won't need DRM. People want things to be convenient, and they'll only pay for it if it's convenient. People will always steal content, with or without DRM. So the best way to ensure you get paying customers isn't to make DRM easier, but to eliminate it and make paying for the content easier. Most people don't want to be crooks.
Ignoring the ad hominem attacks, X11 is a lot like emulation. You need to start up a separate app, and you need to fiddle with it to get printers working and use native fonts, and I've yet to see a good looking interface in X11.
All those apps might be different, but they run without starting some other piece of software, they integrate well across the rest of your operating system, and they're not hideous.
You are most likely male, between the ages of 18 and 25. You are not who Nintendo wants to sell these things to.
Case in point: I was at my parents house having dinner when my 57 year old mom said "I really like those Nintendo Wiis. I think I'll buy one." My jaw about hit the floor. Here's someone who has never played a video game for more than five minutes in her life talking about dropping $250 on a console. I asked her why she liked it, and she said that it wasn't just sitting in front of a screen, that it would help her stay active. She's worried about osteoporosis and gaining too much weight.
Let me summarize for those who don't get it: A grandmother who is almost sixty wants a Wii. There are at least as many of them in the world as hardcore gamers, mostly because the hardcore gamers live in their basements.
For what it's worth, I'm a 25-year-old male, but not a hardcore gamer. I get about 1 hour a day of downtime, which is split between the Web and TV. I'd like to buy a Wii, but I have to save some money since my wife and I are having a kid in October. So I'm going to stick with my NES I picked up at a yard sale for $20 along with about 80 games. That is, unless they release Guitar Hero 2 for the Wii.
Tons of people consider OpenOffice.org to be "Mac compatible," which is like saying a Windows app is "Mac compatible" because you can run it in emulation. X11 is about as far from a mac-like experience as you can get. It's absolutely hideous to look at, and there's no standardization about how interfaces should work.
Yes, it might end up sucking balls for the home user
Will they even notice? If most people are like my parents, they use email and surf the net. They don't podcast or stream audio, they don't use BitTorrent or share photos. So if they can't do those things, will they even care? Probably not.
The long-term survival of the species depends on leaving Earth to colonize other Earth-like worlds. Anyone who opposes this simply wishes the human race to become extinct.
Also, the idea that we need to destroy any ecosystem we come into contact with is a false dichotomy. It's people like you who give rational environmentalists like me a bad name. I'm an environmentalist because I want to help save humanity, not because I think we shouldn't be allowed to survive.
It doesn't integrate with Exchange Server, it has a music and movie player, and it can operate as a hard drive. This isn't an "Enterprise" product, this is a consumer product. This should be marketed as a replacement for your phone and your iPod, not as something middle-management uses to interfere with the folks who do the real work.
Re:Social hack - use "bullfight" for "speed trap".
on
Is Your GPS Naive?
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely not. Above 55mph, air resistance increases as a square of the velocity. Below 55, rolling resistance is higher. It has nothing to do with the engine, and everything to do with physics. I was able to get 32 mpg out of my 1999 Mazda Protege (which is only rated at 29mpg highway) by doing 60mph on the highway.
Here are a few keywords that the Great Firewall will keep the sensitive citizens of China from having to think about:
- Freedom
- Human rights
- Liberty
- Representative government
- Elections
- More than one political party
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of religion
- Freedom to assemble
- Freedom of the press
Re:Social hack - use "bullfight" for "speed trap".
on
Is Your GPS Naive?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Highway speed limits were originally instituted to save fuel. If you drive between 55 and 60 on the highway you'll get about 10% better gas mileage. Having had to drive 40 miles each way for work each month, I figured this out very quickly.
All you need is for one of your idiot friends to have left something behind you didn't know about.
This is exactly what happened to my little brother. He got pulled over, let the cops search his car, and they found his friend's marijuana pipe with trace amounts in it.
Vim is nice, if I'm chained to a terminal window. But it doesn't have customizable snippets, word completion, project document searching, or themed syntax highlighting. And it's a lot uglier than TextMate.
And none of those can chain commands together like Quicksilver, and as far as I know they're not integrated with my address book or calendar or iTunes or Firefox.
X11 apps are universally ugly. I have to stare at a text file for about 6 hours a day. I want attractive, anti-aliased fonts. TextMate is the only editor on any platform that seems to be able to do that.
I'll try it for the other features that TextMate has that I love (themes and a document search, to name a couple), but I'll still only use it if I don't have TextMate available.
The scary thing is that, were it not for the influence of my girlfriend (now wife and soon to be mother of my child), I could have ended up like him. In reading his "rambling and incoherent manifesto," as people are calling it, I saw a lot of what I hated about my freshman year of college. I hated that everyone seemed to be there for hedonism. I hated that fraternities and sororities and sports teams got all the attention. I hated that I was ignored by everyone around me, and I started to resent them for it.
I was that way until I found a place where I could fit in; a smaller school, and an off-campus apartment with my then-girlfriend, and a little bit of that hedonism for myself. If this guy had someone in his life that could make him feel at home, and to reassure him that not everyone was heartless and self-centered, maybe we'd have 33 more people in the world today.
"But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered."
I read that as "if a woman is praying with her head uncovered, she is being dishonorable, because it's just as bad as if she shaved it bald. And if she's not covered, she should have her hair cut off, because it's just as bad to have her hair shaved off, because she should feel ashamed about not having her head covered."
And what about the millions of women who go to church without head coverings? Are they breaking god's law? Should they be forced to wear a covering or shave their own hair?
And why is this ridiculousness even in the Bible? Does it really matter whether women have their head covered or whether men have short hair?
Slashdot Mirror
All you have to do to view it is spoof your nationality.
I've already started practicing my accent. "'Ello guvnah. Fancy a spot of tea and a nice bit a' Stilton? 'Ow about that la'est episode of Doctor Who?"
I use my iPod like a PDA. Granted, I can't enter data on it, but it's got my entire address book and all my calendars, and I've got it syncing todo lists and shopping lists I keep on Ta Da List whenever I plug it in. It's pretty handy.
Absolutely true. In fact, I'd argue that if it weren't for me "stealing" the BSG miniseries, I wouldn't have become a fan. Same with Dr. Who and Torchwood. In fact I'd never have seen the latter two if it weren't for P2P technologies.
But to many people, my parents included, it still looks like stealing. They worry every day that I'm going to be picked up by the cops.
And I'm sorry, but I'm not from Australia. That was just a typo. But I do know someone from Australia who's a big BSG fan.
I use iTunes like TiVo. If I miss an episode of a show, I can buy that episode for two dollars. Granted, I could find a torrent for the show and download it, but it's much more convenient for me to simply pay the two bucks.
I've also done a cost analysis for my video content. At current prices, which is $2 per episode and $20-$30 per season, it's cost-competitive to buy my content from iTunes. I'm willing to pay that because it's convenient, and while there is DRM it's not too obtrusive. (However, this doesn't mean it shouldn't be eliminated.) The only reason I'm not ditching cable TV altogether is that the best broadband in my area is cable, and they charge you $15 more per month for it if you don't subscribe to at least their $15 per month basic packages, which is another rant for another time.
Also, based on the value my employer pays me for my time ($22/hour), those 18 minutes of my time are worth more than the $2 per episode I'm paying. And the frustration of commercials (why are they so much LOUDER than the show itself?) simply makes it more economical for me to get my content by paying for it than waiting an extra 18 minutes while they try to sell me an SUV or convince me to join the military.
Finally, the current market for downloadable content is very small when compared with the market for television. Heck, the market for cable is small when compared with the total market for television viewers. The people who are going to push downloadable TV aren't going to be geeks like you and I who know where to look for pirated content. They're going to be folks like our parents, or the secretaries at our jobs. They're not technical enough to know the difference between codecs or which open source players to download or even what a torrent file is. They're also frightened that stealing video content is going to get them thrown in prison. They want something that is convenient, easy, and legal. DRM removes the first two, and piracy removes the latter two. Only by creating an online store that works with any kind of player will people start moving away from broadcast or cable TV.
Okay, Clinton lied under oath. But he lied under oath ABOUT A BLOWJOB. And this was after a FORTY MILLION DOLLAR INVESTIGATION. And all they could get was him to lie under oath ABOUT A BLOWJOB.
If Bush lies under oath can we impeach him, too?
The idea of a "red state" and a "blue state" is fallacious. Almost every county in the past presidential election broke right down the middle, except for a few counties in the heart of Kansas and Utah which were solidly red and some in California and New York that were solidly blue.
So that tells me that the divide is less between states and more between people. The red vs. blue idea is counterproductive, and is only peddled by talking-head pundits (for whom I have zero respect) to create conflict and thereby create a news story.
The problem with DRM is that you're trying to limit access to the very same people who are trying to buy access to the media. DRM will not work if the methods for acquiring or viewing this media are not easy. Right now, it's easier for me to fly BT Airways to watch unedited, newly released episodes of Dr. Who or Torchwood in a timely manner than it is for me to obtain them through legal means. I would buy the content if I could, but I can't, so I'm a criminal for being a fan of a show. And I'm sure Australian fans of Battlestar Galactica or Heroes feel the same way. The only reason we're unable to watch legitimate versions of our favorite shows is because of outdated licensing agreements.
So make the content easy to get no matter where in the world the viewer happens to be, and make it easy to view on any device, and you won't need DRM. People want things to be convenient, and they'll only pay for it if it's convenient. People will always steal content, with or without DRM. So the best way to ensure you get paying customers isn't to make DRM easier, but to eliminate it and make paying for the content easier. Most people don't want to be crooks.
Ignoring the ad hominem attacks, X11 is a lot like emulation. You need to start up a separate app, and you need to fiddle with it to get printers working and use native fonts, and I've yet to see a good looking interface in X11.
All those apps might be different, but they run without starting some other piece of software, they integrate well across the rest of your operating system, and they're not hideous.
Yes, I've heard of NeoOffice and have used it for quite some time. However, it's a separate project from OO.o, and fewer development resources.
I thought I was the only person who remembered Hotwire. You practically had to transcode the bits by hand. AND WE LIKED IT!
Case in point: I was at my parents house having dinner when my 57 year old mom said "I really like those Nintendo Wiis. I think I'll buy one." My jaw about hit the floor. Here's someone who has never played a video game for more than five minutes in her life talking about dropping $250 on a console. I asked her why she liked it, and she said that it wasn't just sitting in front of a screen, that it would help her stay active. She's worried about osteoporosis and gaining too much weight.
Let me summarize for those who don't get it: A grandmother who is almost sixty wants a Wii. There are at least as many of them in the world as hardcore gamers, mostly because the hardcore gamers live in their basements.
For what it's worth, I'm a 25-year-old male, but not a hardcore gamer. I get about 1 hour a day of downtime, which is split between the Web and TV. I'd like to buy a Wii, but I have to save some money since my wife and I are having a kid in October. So I'm going to stick with my NES I picked up at a yard sale for $20 along with about 80 games. That is, unless they release Guitar Hero 2 for the Wii.
I'm surprised how often I use Wordpress's integrated goat shaver.
Tons of people consider OpenOffice.org to be "Mac compatible," which is like saying a Windows app is "Mac compatible" because you can run it in emulation. X11 is about as far from a mac-like experience as you can get. It's absolutely hideous to look at, and there's no standardization about how interfaces should work.
Will they even notice? If most people are like my parents, they use email and surf the net. They don't podcast or stream audio, they don't use BitTorrent or share photos. So if they can't do those things, will they even care? Probably not.
If you want to cycle windows in an app, use Command+~. I'd really appreciate it if Windows behaved this way. Not every window is the same.
The long-term survival of the species depends on leaving Earth to colonize other Earth-like worlds. Anyone who opposes this simply wishes the human race to become extinct.
Also, the idea that we need to destroy any ecosystem we come into contact with is a false dichotomy. It's people like you who give rational environmentalists like me a bad name. I'm an environmentalist because I want to help save humanity, not because I think we shouldn't be allowed to survive.
It doesn't integrate with Exchange Server, it has a music and movie player, and it can operate as a hard drive. This isn't an "Enterprise" product, this is a consumer product. This should be marketed as a replacement for your phone and your iPod, not as something middle-management uses to interfere with the folks who do the real work.
Absolutely not. Above 55mph, air resistance increases as a square of the velocity. Below 55, rolling resistance is higher. It has nothing to do with the engine, and everything to do with physics. I was able to get 32 mpg out of my 1999 Mazda Protege (which is only rated at 29mpg highway) by doing 60mph on the highway.
Here are a few keywords that the Great Firewall will keep the sensitive citizens of China from having to think about:
- Freedom
- Human rights
- Liberty
- Representative government
- Elections
- More than one political party
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of religion
- Freedom to assemble
- Freedom of the press
Highway speed limits were originally instituted to save fuel. If you drive between 55 and 60 on the highway you'll get about 10% better gas mileage. Having had to drive 40 miles each way for work each month, I figured this out very quickly.
This is exactly what happened to my little brother. He got pulled over, let the cops search his car, and they found his friend's marijuana pipe with trace amounts in it.
Vim is nice, if I'm chained to a terminal window. But it doesn't have customizable snippets, word completion, project document searching, or themed syntax highlighting. And it's a lot uglier than TextMate.
And none of those can chain commands together like Quicksilver, and as far as I know they're not integrated with my address book or calendar or iTunes or Firefox.
X11 apps are universally ugly. I have to stare at a text file for about 6 hours a day. I want attractive, anti-aliased fonts. TextMate is the only editor on any platform that seems to be able to do that.
I'll try it for the other features that TextMate has that I love (themes and a document search, to name a couple), but I'll still only use it if I don't have TextMate available.
The scary thing is that, were it not for the influence of my girlfriend (now wife and soon to be mother of my child), I could have ended up like him. In reading his "rambling and incoherent manifesto," as people are calling it, I saw a lot of what I hated about my freshman year of college. I hated that everyone seemed to be there for hedonism. I hated that fraternities and sororities and sports teams got all the attention. I hated that I was ignored by everyone around me, and I started to resent them for it.
I was that way until I found a place where I could fit in; a smaller school, and an off-campus apartment with my then-girlfriend, and a little bit of that hedonism for myself. If this guy had someone in his life that could make him feel at home, and to reassure him that not everyone was heartless and self-centered, maybe we'd have 33 more people in the world today.
The actual text is:
I read that as "if a woman is praying with her head uncovered, she is being dishonorable, because it's just as bad as if she shaved it bald. And if she's not covered, she should have her hair cut off, because it's just as bad to have her hair shaved off, because she should feel ashamed about not having her head covered."
And what about the millions of women who go to church without head coverings? Are they breaking god's law? Should they be forced to wear a covering or shave their own hair?
And why is this ridiculousness even in the Bible? Does it really matter whether women have their head covered or whether men have short hair?