No he won't. Even if everyone who hates him stop linking to him (which won't happen), many others (like magazines) will still pick up on it.
Consider this: The guy writes something that's completely wrong. (Done with the jokes yet? Good. Let's keep moving.) If Slashdot links to it, there will be thousands of people who other people trust to know this stuff that have had time to go through his argument or disinformation and be able to counter it. Would you rather have people accept his writing as right?
I'm personally concerned, more than the size of the screen, battery life (every full-size iPod provides "up to" 5 hours of "slideshows with music") and acquiring content, about the hard drive. Will these smaller hard drives hold up to the high activity over time? Even with efficient codecs like H.264, DivX or XviD or what have you, most clips would probably be big enough to not fit in cache, which would mean, performance-wise, kicking the HD in the fucking nuts.
Let people write what they want to write. So what if they 'devolve to nothing more than intellectual masturbation'? Who's forcing you to read it? Be picky about what you read. You don't lose your right to choose what to read just because some people label what they write 'blog'.
(Yes, 'blog' is an awful word. And yes, making money off of your writing - which is common to 'blogging', angry comments on Slashdot, columns, articles and books - may be terrible or acceptable depending on what, where, when, who, how, and the applicable specifics.)
Most decent apps that could be thrown together because of the Cocoa framework can still be thrown together in Objective-C, and most that could be thrown together because of the Java frameworks can still be thrown together in the same way.
When Java was fresh on my memory, I tried to write a Cocoa-Java app to learn Cocoa. The Java parts weren't hard, but few Cocoa frameworks are available because there's sizable effort in making your frameworks work with Cocoa-Java. I ended up having to learn Objective-C and it immediately got much easier.
Cocoa-Java support is generally neglected from Apple's side, and Objective-C Cocoa developers are not encouraged to help make sure that their own frameworks work with Cocoa-Java. With all respect to the Cocoa-Java team and the magic that have been put into it, it's a heroic effort, but it's still functionally half-assed. Apple had two choices - going all-in or ditching it. For better and worse, they chose ditching it.
Also, with its tight integration with Quicktime, I have frequently found that updating iTunes or Quicktime can mess up my file type preferences for other media apps.
The playback part of iTunes is based on QuickTime - some level of integration is unavoidable. Associations are still messy at best, though.
On a Mac, the default behavior for simply playing an mp3 is to open iTunes. There should be a simple file playing utility for file playback that doesn't involve a web storefront and a music database management system if you just want to play a simple file.
Oh, like QuickTime Player? Or why not the little QuickTime bar you get in Finder's column view?
Removing of, making products to facilitate removing of, or selling products that facilitate removing of DRM are all illegal actions.
The people who write these sorts of laws are morons. Don't write off Sweden as a bunch of asses just because we get these kinds of laws - that'd be like the rest of the world deriding the US as a load of RIAA-sympathizing dimbulbs.
Here's what the Pirate Bay - and any other BitTorrent tracker - does: they facilitate hosting of torrents, which include hashes and metadata about some specific files. They don't include the files themselves and as such can't be charged with either downloading nor uploading of the material in question. This is something that a great deal of lawyers have trouble grasping too, by the way.
Imagine a road network, and trucks, and goods. Goods are data, trucks are either of web sites, peer to peer networks, whatever, and roads are traffic between computers. You can't shut down trucks because they can carry crack or heroine. You can block roads and look through every truck for illegal goods if you wanted to, but trucks can't be deemed illegal by themselves.
That's true to a certain extent. Light configurations can work just fine with below 512MB of RAM (however, the ones needed to a) play streaming video (and not just acceptably) in a browser plugin in Windows XP and b) not quit whatever else you're running while doing a) are not light configurations to me).
apple is stylish because typically artists want them and make decisions not on specifications and performance to cost ratios alone but if it looks pretty in their "space".
I call stereotypical bullshit. Those of the designers and artists and whatnot that buy Macs buy them because they get the job done, much like most people that buy any given thing buys them because they do what they want it to do. The look of a computer might be important in some places and a deciding factor in some, but as far as I know this is not the case for this exact group. Were it not like that, wouldn't the net be flooded with those of that exact group of people who had seen the light, going on about how they *couldn't* get the job done?
The notion that "Macs are more 'artistic' because artists use Macs" is probably not true. Back when the original Mac was being designed, more than usual effort was being put into its case and packaging, which has since become a tradition, and that Mac was marketed towards "knowledge workers" (read: cubicle slaves), not "artists".
"The shareholders decide it." Fair point - I think of the definition as being a function of the public views at large on the company myself, but shareholders sounds reasonable.
"If you have a Gmail account in the same name (or you used a gmail account to sign up for the wallet) there would be no need for a cookie to connect the information toegther[sic]." By cookies in my original comment I refer to the fact that Google sets cookies for individual users in order to track search habits, an attempt that fails spectacularly when more than one person is involved, or when the person doesn't use Google for every web search. Surely such profiling could be made better which one account, but I contest the pure usability and reason of not using one account in order to please people for whom consolidation gives the willies.
">> That's what they do - scan emails for keywords. Nothing else.
That is not all they do. Using those keywords the server decides what Ad to taret you with. In other words a (simple) profile is created based on the conversation and they use that to create Ads for you. If you are not bothered by that, then thats your personal opinion."
That's all true - my point was that by design they don't snoop through emails for any other purpose, which some people do believe.
Google Wallet may very well be a cause for concern, to the extent that letting people play with too much of your personal data may be a cause for concern. Some grocery chains have these plastic cards which may or may not be used to record frequently bought items, and some even let you withdraw money from your bank account through them. This is in a lot of aspects a good parallel - properly used projection of usage can lead to (a better search engine/lower prices on common wares) but if abused all hell could break loose in either way.
I guess it boils down to this: I trust Google. It's easy to decry me as a fanatic, or as unexperienced, or as naïve, or as a nitwit ruining it for those who really really really want tight privacy. Conversely, it's easy for me to decry anyone else as a tin foil hat anti-corporate loon with something to hide, which, although not my original intent, I very well may have. (For that I apologize, if someone feels hit.) My personal opinion remains that I don't mind this kind of tracking as long as it in the end makes my life easier and doesn't disrupt my privacy, and that I don't mind one company in a position to fuck me royally if they're not very likely to, and in my mind Google fills both criteria because to my knowledge they haven't actually crossed that line yet, only been widely speculated to be able to.
You mean the power that you as a customer have? The same power that you can take elsewhere if you find out that a company you like does something that you do not agree with?
It's not impossible that an employee at Google could abuse information that they have or can get access to - in fact, given enough time it's highly likely. But it's not far more likely than at any other web mail provider, or at any other web search engine, or at any other online advertisement service, and it's this irrational belief that Google is somehow worse in this department than anyone else that bugs me.
Example: Your Hotmail emails are in the MSN server bank, your Yahoo! emails are in the Yahoo! server bank, and your Gmail emails are in Google's server bank. Yet I've only seen the privacy issue come up for Gmail's service on the basis that they're scanning it for keywords. Isn't it likely that an employee that could reprogram the routine to scan for keywords could also by extension get access to people's emails in other ways? I personally think it's about as likely as an employee mis-using the information.
It's not dumb in any way to warn people about the potential privacy issues with using web-based email, but at least those who're doing it should be fair and attribute the problem to the medium and the human nature, and not just to whatever provider is popular currently - Gmail or otherwise.
Who decides if Google is an advertising company or a search company? *What* decides it? Revenue or what most people use their services for? Don't Google still do good in helping people find what they're looking for above being ad-toting corporate concentrated evil?
'Selling me to companies' is ridiculous - Google has been one of the biggest players in the market of bringing ad spots to ordinary people. Anyone can buy AdWords for a paltry sum, and all they use is keywords - from your search or from the web page you're visiting. I don't see where this tips over from handy way to finance the other aspects of one's company to evil big brother attitude.
Is it the cookies? Block the cookies. Is it the ads? Block the ads. The 427 text ads crack is blown up for a quick laugh - I've never seen any Gmail page show me more than four *text-based* ads and Google have been consistently good at not getting ads get in the way of or distract from the actual content - with the only possible exceptions being the blue boxed "sponsored links" at the top of some search results. I find the ads on Slashdot, for example, to be more annoying and more in-my-face.
Speaking of Gmail, I'm okay with their computers scanning my correspondence for keywords. That's what they do - scan emails for keywords. Nothing else. The Google servers aren't secretly reading my emails, and if I would ever click those ads then it would at least be ads related to what I'm reading about or writing about at the time and thusly be much less annoying. I appreciate that.
(To knee-jerkers: Go ahead and call me a Google apologist or a Google fanboy or what have you if you want to. But refute my facts, refute my point of view, challenge my opinions and *back it all up* before you even think about sticking a label on me. Wouldn't you be mad if I blew you off as a "conspiracy theorist" or "corporate-hating hippie" and left it at that?)
Apple designed the hardware controller in at least the Power Mac G5 in-house (IBM is manufacturing it), and they also make plenty of peripheral hardware such as Cinema Displays and the iPod (border-line - PortalPlayer made the basic chips for this, and Pixo the operating system, but at the end of the day it's hardly stock). Apple certainly makes hardware of its own, but they don't make *all* hardware because that would be economical suicide - you think Macs are expensive now?
Apple is a hardware company to the extent that *they make more money through selling hardware than through selling software*, even when the software plays a big role in hardware purchases. This implies *nothing* about how much they make of each. They certainly make more software than hardware, but you put down $1299 for an iMac and $129 for Mac OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
No, the løveli lakes are here in Sweden. I hear we've got a wonderful telephøne system as well.
But not for the fjords.
Finland, Finland, Finland
The country where I want to be
I doubt he was linked to by more people than Dvorak.
If we ignore him, he will go away.
No he won't. Even if everyone who hates him stop linking to him (which won't happen), many others (like magazines) will still pick up on it.
Consider this: The guy writes something that's completely wrong. (Done with the jokes yet? Good. Let's keep moving.) If Slashdot links to it, there will be thousands of people who other people trust to know this stuff that have had time to go through his argument or disinformation and be able to counter it. Would you rather have people accept his writing as right?
I'm personally concerned, more than the size of the screen, battery life (every full-size iPod provides "up to" 5 hours of "slideshows with music") and acquiring content, about the hard drive. Will these smaller hard drives hold up to the high activity over time? Even with efficient codecs like H.264, DivX or XviD or what have you, most clips would probably be big enough to not fit in cache, which would mean, performance-wise, kicking the HD in the fucking nuts.
They're very much like Slashdot posts, eternally modded to 5 because you don't get the chance to slam them into oblivion.
Want to 'mod them into oblivion'? Don't go to their pages.
90% of 'blogs' are crud! Sure. That's because 90% of everything is crud.
Let people write what they want to write. So what if they 'devolve to nothing more than intellectual masturbation'? Who's forcing you to read it? Be picky about what you read. You don't lose your right to choose what to read just because some people label what they write 'blog'.
(Yes, 'blog' is an awful word. And yes, making money off of your writing - which is common to 'blogging', angry comments on Slashdot, columns, articles and books - may be terrible or acceptable depending on what, where, when, who, how, and the applicable specifics.)
Most decent apps that could be thrown together because of the Cocoa framework can still be thrown together in Objective-C, and most that could be thrown together because of the Java frameworks can still be thrown together in the same way.
When Java was fresh on my memory, I tried to write a Cocoa-Java app to learn Cocoa. The Java parts weren't hard, but few Cocoa frameworks are available because there's sizable effort in making your frameworks work with Cocoa-Java. I ended up having to learn Objective-C and it immediately got much easier.
Cocoa-Java support is generally neglected from Apple's side, and Objective-C Cocoa developers are not encouraged to help make sure that their own frameworks work with Cocoa-Java. With all respect to the Cocoa-Java team and the magic that have been put into it, it's a heroic effort, but it's still functionally half-assed. Apple had two choices - going all-in or ditching it. For better and worse, they chose ditching it.
Also, with its tight integration with Quicktime, I have frequently found that updating iTunes or Quicktime can mess up my file type preferences for other media apps.
The playback part of iTunes is based on QuickTime - some level of integration is unavoidable. Associations are still messy at best, though.
On a Mac, the default behavior for simply playing an mp3 is to open iTunes. There should be a simple file playing utility for file playback that doesn't involve a web storefront and a music database management system if you just want to play a simple file.
Oh, like QuickTime Player? Or why not the little QuickTime bar you get in Finder's column view?
Yeah, logic kind of does that.
Removing of, making products to facilitate removing of, or selling products that facilitate removing of DRM are all illegal actions.
The people who write these sorts of laws are morons. Don't write off Sweden as a bunch of asses just because we get these kinds of laws - that'd be like the rest of the world deriding the US as a load of RIAA-sympathizing dimbulbs.
The Pirate Bay will continue.
Here's what the Pirate Bay - and any other BitTorrent tracker - does: they facilitate hosting of torrents, which include hashes and metadata about some specific files. They don't include the files themselves and as such can't be charged with either downloading nor uploading of the material in question. This is something that a great deal of lawyers have trouble grasping too, by the way.
Imagine a road network, and trucks, and goods. Goods are data, trucks are either of web sites, peer to peer networks, whatever, and roads are traffic between computers. You can't shut down trucks because they can carry crack or heroine. You can block roads and look through every truck for illegal goods if you wanted to, but trucks can't be deemed illegal by themselves.
Yes, because boycotting a Swedish band that hasn't been around for over 20 years is going to solve a misguided law.
That's true to a certain extent. Light configurations can work just fine with below 512MB of RAM (however, the ones needed to a) play streaming video (and not just acceptably) in a browser plugin in Windows XP and b) not quit whatever else you're running while doing a) are not light configurations to me).
If you run a recent Windows machine (which is what's needed) which does *not* have 512MB of RAM, I pity you.
apple is stylish because typically artists want them and make decisions not on specifications and performance to cost ratios alone but if it looks pretty in their "space".
I call stereotypical bullshit. Those of the designers and artists and whatnot that buy Macs buy them because they get the job done, much like most people that buy any given thing buys them because they do what they want it to do. The look of a computer might be important in some places and a deciding factor in some, but as far as I know this is not the case for this exact group. Were it not like that, wouldn't the net be flooded with those of that exact group of people who had seen the light, going on about how they *couldn't* get the job done?
The notion that "Macs are more 'artistic' because artists use Macs" is probably not true. Back when the original Mac was being designed, more than usual effort was being put into its case and packaging, which has since become a tradition, and that Mac was marketed towards "knowledge workers" (read: cubicle slaves), not "artists".
"The shareholders decide it." Fair point - I think of the definition as being a function of the public views at large on the company myself, but shareholders sounds reasonable.
"If you have a Gmail account in the same name (or you used a gmail account to sign up for the wallet) there would be no need for a cookie to connect the information toegther[sic]." By cookies in my original comment I refer to the fact that Google sets cookies for individual users in order to track search habits, an attempt that fails spectacularly when more than one person is involved, or when the person doesn't use Google for every web search. Surely such profiling could be made better which one account, but I contest the pure usability and reason of not using one account in order to please people for whom consolidation gives the willies.
">> That's what they do - scan emails for keywords. Nothing else.
That is not all they do. Using those keywords the server decides what Ad to taret you with. In other words a (simple) profile is created based on the conversation and they use that to create Ads for you. If you are not bothered by that, then thats your personal opinion."
That's all true - my point was that by design they don't snoop through emails for any other purpose, which some people do believe.
Google Wallet may very well be a cause for concern, to the extent that letting people play with too much of your personal data may be a cause for concern. Some grocery chains have these plastic cards which may or may not be used to record frequently bought items, and some even let you withdraw money from your bank account through them. This is in a lot of aspects a good parallel - properly used projection of usage can lead to (a better search engine/lower prices on common wares) but if abused all hell could break loose in either way.
I guess it boils down to this: I trust Google. It's easy to decry me as a fanatic, or as unexperienced, or as naïve, or as a nitwit ruining it for those who really really really want tight privacy. Conversely, it's easy for me to decry anyone else as a tin foil hat anti-corporate loon with something to hide, which, although not my original intent, I very well may have. (For that I apologize, if someone feels hit.) My personal opinion remains that I don't mind this kind of tracking as long as it in the end makes my life easier and doesn't disrupt my privacy, and that I don't mind one company in a position to fuck me royally if they're not very likely to, and in my mind Google fills both criteria because to my knowledge they haven't actually crossed that line yet, only been widely speculated to be able to.
Your mileage may vary.
You mean the power that you as a customer have? The same power that you can take elsewhere if you find out that a company you like does something that you do not agree with?
It's not impossible that an employee at Google could abuse information that they have or can get access to - in fact, given enough time it's highly likely. But it's not far more likely than at any other web mail provider, or at any other web search engine, or at any other online advertisement service, and it's this irrational belief that Google is somehow worse in this department than anyone else that bugs me.
Example: Your Hotmail emails are in the MSN server bank, your Yahoo! emails are in the Yahoo! server bank, and your Gmail emails are in Google's server bank. Yet I've only seen the privacy issue come up for Gmail's service on the basis that they're scanning it for keywords. Isn't it likely that an employee that could reprogram the routine to scan for keywords could also by extension get access to people's emails in other ways? I personally think it's about as likely as an employee mis-using the information.
It's not dumb in any way to warn people about the potential privacy issues with using web-based email, but at least those who're doing it should be fair and attribute the problem to the medium and the human nature, and not just to whatever provider is popular currently - Gmail or otherwise.
Who decides if Google is an advertising company or a search company? *What* decides it? Revenue or what most people use their services for? Don't Google still do good in helping people find what they're looking for above being ad-toting corporate concentrated evil?
'Selling me to companies' is ridiculous - Google has been one of the biggest players in the market of bringing ad spots to ordinary people. Anyone can buy AdWords for a paltry sum, and all they use is keywords - from your search or from the web page you're visiting. I don't see where this tips over from handy way to finance the other aspects of one's company to evil big brother attitude.
Is it the cookies? Block the cookies. Is it the ads? Block the ads. The 427 text ads crack is blown up for a quick laugh - I've never seen any Gmail page show me more than four *text-based* ads and Google have been consistently good at not getting ads get in the way of or distract from the actual content - with the only possible exceptions being the blue boxed "sponsored links" at the top of some search results. I find the ads on Slashdot, for example, to be more annoying and more in-my-face.
Speaking of Gmail, I'm okay with their computers scanning my correspondence for keywords. That's what they do - scan emails for keywords. Nothing else. The Google servers aren't secretly reading my emails, and if I would ever click those ads then it would at least be ads related to what I'm reading about or writing about at the time and thusly be much less annoying. I appreciate that.
(To knee-jerkers: Go ahead and call me a Google apologist or a Google fanboy or what have you if you want to. But refute my facts, refute my point of view, challenge my opinions and *back it all up* before you even think about sticking a label on me. Wouldn't you be mad if I blew you off as a "conspiracy theorist" or "corporate-hating hippie" and left it at that?)
Corrected link (removed second 'http://' which isn't actually necessary but probably causes Slashcode to end the first link):
t .org/
http://web.archive.org/web/19971221012817/slashdo
She got a silver 6GB iPod mini.
I would suspect her sons to pre-load a little Prince for her as well.
Apple designed the hardware controller in at least the Power Mac G5 in-house (IBM is manufacturing it), and they also make plenty of peripheral hardware such as Cinema Displays and the iPod (border-line - PortalPlayer made the basic chips for this, and Pixo the operating system, but at the end of the day it's hardly stock). Apple certainly makes hardware of its own, but they don't make *all* hardware because that would be economical suicide - you think Macs are expensive now?
Apple is a hardware company to the extent that *they make more money through selling hardware than through selling software*, even when the software plays a big role in hardware purchases. This implies *nothing* about how much they make of each. They certainly make more software than hardware, but you put down $1299 for an iMac and $129 for Mac OS X.
More like all seasons in two days. ;)