If I remember correctly it is, so it's still usable if a few bits go wonky. And yes, this is about as much of a security concern as having a hard disk.
Yeah! 'Cos now when I send an email, the recipient gets AIDS. It's terrible! I once sent an email to my mother, and all that happened was poisonous spiders of every description sprang forth, speaking German, and trying to annexe the computer room! The humanity!
Punish it, definitely. Really destroy a life because of people being inconvenienced? Definitely not. Proportional sentencing 11 years is not.
Yeah! I remember when I watched The Little Mermaid and it ends on that cliff-hanger with the machine gun and the cocaine. And Bambi! And Back to the Future!
I can see what the GP was saying - kids films are nicely finished, with a good ol' moral heaped on top, a nice lesson wrapped in a bow. It *is* more mature to be able to do away with any notion of what has to happen in the end of a piece, than to simply give in and tie up all the loose ends, send out a FAQ, draw some diagrams, and have a Q&A. Art isn't supposed to be formulaic, and I hate to say it, but spelling everything out in small words for the audience to lap up is formulaic.
It's not about tastes. There's nothing that says you can only like cliff-hangers, or you can only like nicely-sewn-up endings. Tastes are things like comedy/drama/art-house/snuff/whatever. This is a device we're talking about, not a style or genre.
No, it's not Vista-only. It can be used by ANY operating system. It's designed as a way to allow parts of an OS, or indeed applications within an OS, to persist when the host computer is off, allowing, say, the OS to boot from that faster memory than a hard disk. If drivers were written for it in Linux, then Linux could use it.
And those files will not be able to be shared with non-license-fee-paying folks how, exactly? Your solution is not a solution in the slightest. It certainly doesn't free the BBC from their obligations. I'm completely against DRM on music, as music is an advert for the live gigs. I support DRM when it's used as it should be, to allow media to exist where previously it couldn't.
By "radio license" I meant the discounted TV license for people who only have radio sets and no TV, obviously.
The BBC's media is clearly intended to be viewed on a large-screen PC, not a 2.something" screen on your phone. As soon as the BBC can find a way of protecting its content on those mobile phones, the content will be there. The BBC does what its charter allows and what the public wants. Just because people have devices that can't play un-DRM'd media doesn't mean they can ditch their charter and start giving content away for free.
And how do you stop those videos from being uploaded after they've typed in their TV license? That's kind of why DRM was invented. Plenty of folks don't watch TV on actual TVs but over the internet. It's getting more and more. The line between TVs and computers is getting thinner and thinner, and if they can get BBC content over the internet for free, without paying their license, they will, which will put a massive dent in the BBC's income, which will in turn put a massive dent in their programming, to the point where East Enders will be a monologue by a studio cleaner in a darkened room, lasting 15 seconds per week.
If you have a PC that is capable of listening to BBC radio, you technically should have a radio license. The other part of their charter that deals with this is they have to strike a balance between providing the content to license fee payers, and stopping those who don't have licenses from getting it. That's why they (or, rather the TV licensing authority) enforce the TV license, and that's why the TV license isn't optional but mandatory for those who receive the content in the UK.
The BBC isn't supporting Microsoft, they're supporting the people, most of who use Microsoft. If you're going to get sand in your vagina over that, and refuse BBC content, then please go ahead. No skin off anyone else's nose but your own:)
If people can watch the BBC legally without having to pay for it, or without the BBC being reimbursed in a way that doesn't break their charter, then people will stop paying their TV licenses, which means the BBC will get less funding, which means its quality will suffer.
I totally agree that the BBC's back-catalogue should be made available to license payers to watch, but without some sort of mechanism to ensure that viewers actually have a license fee, when such a measure is possible, then that breaks their charter.
The BBC is legally obligated to do all it can to protect the content and ensure it's only available to those who have paid their license fees. If DRM didn't exist, there would be *no* online media from the BBC. As DRM does exist, they are capable of making sure, or at least doing the best they can, that the viewers are paying their license fees (such as restricting playback to the UK, where if you have a PC capable of watching it, you must have a license).
Hosting it on BitTorrent, while making it easy for license fee payers to watch it, also makes it easy for non-paying folks, which is a no-go. People will stop subscribing to their advertising-supported non-UK BBC network, which means loss in revenue. The BBC has to do all it can to stay the BBC. Giving its content away is not going to do that, so the BBC won't. It's not their fault, it's the charter, which is in place to ensure it's as good as it can be.
The BBC should sell their licenses abroad and make a way for those licenses to enable the buyers to download and watch BBC shows, while stopping those who haven't. This isn't the RIAA we're talking about here, they actually charge a decent rate for their products, and they're not getting rich off ages-old business models. The BBC are the good guys, remember?
That's because they have no way of changing that without denying license payers in the UK access to the content for free. They have to do all they can to ensure license payers get the content for free, and those without licenses don't. That's why as DRM exists, they're forced to use it, as without it, they'd be in breach of their charter. They can't have advertising-supported DRM-free content, as other content suppliers have done, as that again is in serious breach of their charter.
"To you" being the operative words... without DRM the content would be free to those who haven't paid their license fee, which is against the BBC's charter. It would mean folks just wouldn't pay their license fees, as they could get the content for free, which means no money is put into the BBC, which means no shows, which means everyone suffers. Yay!
But what about people who don't pay for a TV license? This will allow THEM access to shows YOU'VE paid for... What about if the only DRM is you entering your TV license code, with no restrictions on what you can do with it, bar removing the protection? For you, the media would be free, but for those without TV licenses (who have no right to the media), it's not free. The BBC has a mandate to protect the interests of the license fee payer, which means limiting the availability of the media to those folks alone, and charging others for it.
I hear ya. The problem there is each application has its own switch-between-windows keyboard shortcuts, which means it's not as simple as alt-tabbing. With Windows it's *always* alt-tab, so it becomes second nature. Also, you can lean on the tab button when you're holding alt, and it flies through the list very quickly, so even when I have countless windows open (I have about 27 windows open at the moment, no joke), I can move from one to the other very quickly, including the various documents in Word, my Photoshop files, command-line sessions, Notepad ramblings, etc. Windows is keyboard friendly, as anything using the Windows UI is instantly perfectly keyboard-accessible. With OS X it isn't, so that kind of discounts its keyboard-friendliness, for me at least.
But getting used to OS X means I'll have to be slower, as there's no way I can learn to use the mouse as quickly as I can the keyboard, as physics simply won't allow it. The tabbing is an issue for me, as I'm used to dealing with pop-ups with the keyboard, so they're a half-second affair. Under OS X, I have to reach for the mouse which takes even longer than.5s, so it's slower. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying Windows is perfect, but as a keyboard-intensive user, it's closer to perfection than OS X is, but it's still a long way off;)
My notebook IS my main machine, and I lug it around the world too. It's standing up to the torture admirably. I've seen Powerbooks my friends have had fall by the wayside in this timeframe, and they've not lugged them around half as much. Dead screens, devices not being recognised, flaky memory, batteries ceasing to work, OS problems of all descriptions, the works. Macs are just PCs, but they have the added problem of aesthetics putting the squeeze on the technology. That's why they had all the heat problems in the last PPC versions, and the case discolouration problems, and screens breaking, etc. If you want insane reliability, get a Panasonic Toughbook. If not, get whatever your budget allows. Don't assume a Mac will out-last a non-Apple notebook just because it's a Mac. They're not built by Apple guys but a company that makes notebooks for non-Apple suppliers, too. They're not as special as you imagine;)
1. Processor clock speeds mean very little when you're dealing with comparing graphical performance, fyi. Graphics core, memory bandwidth and speed, bus speeds, card revisions, etc. mean a LOT more than clock speed. 2. Unlike Apple, you can get drivers from the manufacturers for Windows, the Dell drivers being there for out-of-the-box functionality. And "better" could do with a little bit more definition if this discussion is to continue. 3. I'm not talking about recipe managers, but things like games, freeware utilities, software from media providers, drivers, etc. Commonly they don't even have comparable equivalents on OS X, so trying to argue the OS X versions are better, when they don't even exist, is a bit silly 4. The "damned argument" comes from reality. If you're used to using a two-buttoned mouse, having 3 different ways of actually right-clicking is exactly what I'm talking about. I prefer the "press down with your middle finger" method of right-clicking, not using two hands or two fingers or doing a traditional bavarian dance or any other method. Having to modify how I work due to someone placing aesthetics over functionality strikes me as somewhat odd. 5. That's one example. I'm talking about operating systems on desktops, where people frequently use it to browse untrusted code and to run applications from possibly-untrusted people, not web servers which are administered by professional administrators who know exactly what they're doing.
... OS X isn't keyboard-friendly. Even with the option turned on to extend the tabbing to all UI components, it still doesn't extend it to all of them. I primarily use the keyboard when I'm working, as being a developer, I have my hands on the keyboard to do my work. Switching one to the mouse to select a drop-down makes me less productive. Also alt-tabbing is fantastically swift on Windows, allowing me to switch between documents and not just applications. There are apps on OS X that can make that more like Windows, but even so they're just not as quick. I've used OS X for months and months (being a contractor in London I happened across lots of offices who loved using macs, and working on their hardware I had to use one), and every time I use it, I notice how much it's slowing me down. I'm not a fan-boy of any camp. I use what I can to get the job done in as quick a time as possible. As it currently stands (I'm not discounting Apple's ability to change, believe me), OS X isn't at the top of the list for keyboard-preferring users like myself.
That should have read "My mac lasted longer", as that's just one example. I've got a 4-year-old cheap-ass MSI notebook which still works perfectly, so clearly your assertion doesn't hold much water;)
But if you wanted that notebook to have a WUXGA screen and a 160GB 7200rpm hard disk, or with a nVidia graphics card with 512MB of ram, you couldn't chose an Apple if you wanted to, as they've only just figured out people might want that. And you still can't get a 512MB graphics adaptor in an Apple, come to think of it. Apple don't offer everything out there, so if you do want something Apple doesn't have, you have to go somewhere else. There is no choice.
That'd be a great argument, if Macs came with the same hardware choice as you get with non-Apple PCs. As it is, Apple hardware is limited, they have greater lead-times in rolling out new devices (WUXGA screens and 7200rpm 160GB disks on notebooks are a GREAT example, not to mention the choice of graphics cards, the new Turbo Memory thing from Intel, etc. etc.). They're not even comparable. And as for your trolling about spyware and popups, those are not even a problem for most people. And if they want to play games, then there is really no choice, no matter how great Parallels is, it's still not the same as running the OS on the machine itself. "Boot camp!" I hear you cry, well, then you've got to shell out for Windows on top of the price of the Mac, and hope it delivers drivers suitable to use your hardware.
- If you're not wanting to spend top-dollar, non-Apple PCs are far cheaper. - There *are* fewer applications for Apple computers, which is to be expected as they don't command the market-share of, say, Windows - They are *different* to use, and if you're used to Windows, that means you have a learning curve to climb, which implies work just to use the computer - See above - They do use one-button mice, on the notebooks at least, and the "mighty mouse" is not exactly a two-buttoned mouse if you keep a finger on the right mouse button. Again, something you have to get used to. Or you can buy another mouse, again, more money. - Apple computers are just as secure as everything else on the market if used properly. Apple doesn't have a magic bullet against trojan horses, it just isn't that big of a target for hackers. As the market share grows, that will become a problem.
Ignorance IS bliss, my friend. You've just demonstrated the other side of the coin;)
The turbo memory is a much better solution than ReadyBoost on USB, as this can be used to boot the OS, whereas Vista's ReadyBoost on another device can't.
... if it wasn't for DRM, I wouldn't be able to download TV shows from various TV networks online. DRM for no reason sucks ass, but if it lets me get content that I couldn't get before, how can I be upset? If it *is* a sucky situation, surely the problem isn't DRM but the economic structures in place that requires DRM to be used. I think it'd make more sense to get our society to a place where we don't need DRM than to a place where we shoot ourselves in the foot by not attacking the actual cause of DRM, and waste all our time and money screaming at acronyms.
Not to mention its new wireless adaptor and the ability to turn off the second core if needed... and the PCIE, the graphics adaptor, etc. Intel made power savings across the board - Apple don't state where the power savings come from, because Apple doesn't know.
Slashdot Mirror
If I remember correctly it is, so it's still usable if a few bits go wonky. And yes, this is about as much of a security concern as having a hard disk.
Yeah! 'Cos now when I send an email, the recipient gets AIDS. It's terrible! I once sent an email to my mother, and all that happened was poisonous spiders of every description sprang forth, speaking German, and trying to annexe the computer room! The humanity!
Punish it, definitely. Really destroy a life because of people being inconvenienced? Definitely not. Proportional sentencing 11 years is not.
Yeah! I remember when I watched The Little Mermaid and it ends on that cliff-hanger with the machine gun and the cocaine. And Bambi! And Back to the Future!
I can see what the GP was saying - kids films are nicely finished, with a good ol' moral heaped on top, a nice lesson wrapped in a bow. It *is* more mature to be able to do away with any notion of what has to happen in the end of a piece, than to simply give in and tie up all the loose ends, send out a FAQ, draw some diagrams, and have a Q&A. Art isn't supposed to be formulaic, and I hate to say it, but spelling everything out in small words for the audience to lap up is formulaic.
It's not about tastes. There's nothing that says you can only like cliff-hangers, or you can only like nicely-sewn-up endings. Tastes are things like comedy/drama/art-house/snuff/whatever. This is a device we're talking about, not a style or genre.
No, it's not Vista-only. It can be used by ANY operating system. It's designed as a way to allow parts of an OS, or indeed applications within an OS, to persist when the host computer is off, allowing, say, the OS to boot from that faster memory than a hard disk. If drivers were written for it in Linux, then Linux could use it.
And those files will not be able to be shared with non-license-fee-paying folks how, exactly? Your solution is not a solution in the slightest. It certainly doesn't free the BBC from their obligations. I'm completely against DRM on music, as music is an advert for the live gigs. I support DRM when it's used as it should be, to allow media to exist where previously it couldn't.
By "radio license" I meant the discounted TV license for people who only have radio sets and no TV, obviously.
The BBC's media is clearly intended to be viewed on a large-screen PC, not a 2.something" screen on your phone. As soon as the BBC can find a way of protecting its content on those mobile phones, the content will be there. The BBC does what its charter allows and what the public wants. Just because people have devices that can't play un-DRM'd media doesn't mean they can ditch their charter and start giving content away for free.
And how do you stop those videos from being uploaded after they've typed in their TV license? That's kind of why DRM was invented. Plenty of folks don't watch TV on actual TVs but over the internet. It's getting more and more. The line between TVs and computers is getting thinner and thinner, and if they can get BBC content over the internet for free, without paying their license, they will, which will put a massive dent in the BBC's income, which will in turn put a massive dent in their programming, to the point where East Enders will be a monologue by a studio cleaner in a darkened room, lasting 15 seconds per week.
If you have a PC that is capable of listening to BBC radio, you technically should have a radio license. The other part of their charter that deals with this is they have to strike a balance between providing the content to license fee payers, and stopping those who don't have licenses from getting it. That's why they (or, rather the TV licensing authority) enforce the TV license, and that's why the TV license isn't optional but mandatory for those who receive the content in the UK.
:)
The BBC isn't supporting Microsoft, they're supporting the people, most of who use Microsoft. If you're going to get sand in your vagina over that, and refuse BBC content, then please go ahead. No skin off anyone else's nose but your own
If people can watch the BBC legally without having to pay for it, or without the BBC being reimbursed in a way that doesn't break their charter, then people will stop paying their TV licenses, which means the BBC will get less funding, which means its quality will suffer.
I totally agree that the BBC's back-catalogue should be made available to license payers to watch, but without some sort of mechanism to ensure that viewers actually have a license fee, when such a measure is possible, then that breaks their charter.
The BBC is legally obligated to do all it can to protect the content and ensure it's only available to those who have paid their license fees. If DRM didn't exist, there would be *no* online media from the BBC. As DRM does exist, they are capable of making sure, or at least doing the best they can, that the viewers are paying their license fees (such as restricting playback to the UK, where if you have a PC capable of watching it, you must have a license).
Hosting it on BitTorrent, while making it easy for license fee payers to watch it, also makes it easy for non-paying folks, which is a no-go. People will stop subscribing to their advertising-supported non-UK BBC network, which means loss in revenue. The BBC has to do all it can to stay the BBC. Giving its content away is not going to do that, so the BBC won't. It's not their fault, it's the charter, which is in place to ensure it's as good as it can be.
The BBC should sell their licenses abroad and make a way for those licenses to enable the buyers to download and watch BBC shows, while stopping those who haven't. This isn't the RIAA we're talking about here, they actually charge a decent rate for their products, and they're not getting rich off ages-old business models. The BBC are the good guys, remember?
That's because they have no way of changing that without denying license payers in the UK access to the content for free. They have to do all they can to ensure license payers get the content for free, and those without licenses don't. That's why as DRM exists, they're forced to use it, as without it, they'd be in breach of their charter. They can't have advertising-supported DRM-free content, as other content suppliers have done, as that again is in serious breach of their charter.
"To you" being the operative words... without DRM the content would be free to those who haven't paid their license fee, which is against the BBC's charter. It would mean folks just wouldn't pay their license fees, as they could get the content for free, which means no money is put into the BBC, which means no shows, which means everyone suffers. Yay!
But what about people who don't pay for a TV license? This will allow THEM access to shows YOU'VE paid for... What about if the only DRM is you entering your TV license code, with no restrictions on what you can do with it, bar removing the protection? For you, the media would be free, but for those without TV licenses (who have no right to the media), it's not free. The BBC has a mandate to protect the interests of the license fee payer, which means limiting the availability of the media to those folks alone, and charging others for it.
I hear ya. The problem there is each application has its own switch-between-windows keyboard shortcuts, which means it's not as simple as alt-tabbing. With Windows it's *always* alt-tab, so it becomes second nature. Also, you can lean on the tab button when you're holding alt, and it flies through the list very quickly, so even when I have countless windows open (I have about 27 windows open at the moment, no joke), I can move from one to the other very quickly, including the various documents in Word, my Photoshop files, command-line sessions, Notepad ramblings, etc. Windows is keyboard friendly, as anything using the Windows UI is instantly perfectly keyboard-accessible. With OS X it isn't, so that kind of discounts its keyboard-friendliness, for me at least.
But getting used to OS X means I'll have to be slower, as there's no way I can learn to use the mouse as quickly as I can the keyboard, as physics simply won't allow it. The tabbing is an issue for me, as I'm used to dealing with pop-ups with the keyboard, so they're a half-second affair. Under OS X, I have to reach for the mouse which takes even longer than .5s, so it's slower. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying Windows is perfect, but as a keyboard-intensive user, it's closer to perfection than OS X is, but it's still a long way off ;)
My notebook IS my main machine, and I lug it around the world too. It's standing up to the torture admirably. I've seen Powerbooks my friends have had fall by the wayside in this timeframe, and they've not lugged them around half as much. Dead screens, devices not being recognised, flaky memory, batteries ceasing to work, OS problems of all descriptions, the works. Macs are just PCs, but they have the added problem of aesthetics putting the squeeze on the technology. That's why they had all the heat problems in the last PPC versions, and the case discolouration problems, and screens breaking, etc. If you want insane reliability, get a Panasonic Toughbook. If not, get whatever your budget allows. Don't assume a Mac will out-last a non-Apple notebook just because it's a Mac. They're not built by Apple guys but a company that makes notebooks for non-Apple suppliers, too. They're not as special as you imagine ;)
1. Processor clock speeds mean very little when you're dealing with comparing graphical performance, fyi. Graphics core, memory bandwidth and speed, bus speeds, card revisions, etc. mean a LOT more than clock speed.
2. Unlike Apple, you can get drivers from the manufacturers for Windows, the Dell drivers being there for out-of-the-box functionality. And "better" could do with a little bit more definition if this discussion is to continue.
3. I'm not talking about recipe managers, but things like games, freeware utilities, software from media providers, drivers, etc. Commonly they don't even have comparable equivalents on OS X, so trying to argue the OS X versions are better, when they don't even exist, is a bit silly
4. The "damned argument" comes from reality. If you're used to using a two-buttoned mouse, having 3 different ways of actually right-clicking is exactly what I'm talking about. I prefer the "press down with your middle finger" method of right-clicking, not using two hands or two fingers or doing a traditional bavarian dance or any other method. Having to modify how I work due to someone placing aesthetics over functionality strikes me as somewhat odd.
5. That's one example. I'm talking about operating systems on desktops, where people frequently use it to browse untrusted code and to run applications from possibly-untrusted people, not web servers which are administered by professional administrators who know exactly what they're doing.
... OS X isn't keyboard-friendly. Even with the option turned on to extend the tabbing to all UI components, it still doesn't extend it to all of them. I primarily use the keyboard when I'm working, as being a developer, I have my hands on the keyboard to do my work. Switching one to the mouse to select a drop-down makes me less productive. Also alt-tabbing is fantastically swift on Windows, allowing me to switch between documents and not just applications. There are apps on OS X that can make that more like Windows, but even so they're just not as quick. I've used OS X for months and months (being a contractor in London I happened across lots of offices who loved using macs, and working on their hardware I had to use one), and every time I use it, I notice how much it's slowing me down. I'm not a fan-boy of any camp. I use what I can to get the job done in as quick a time as possible. As it currently stands (I'm not discounting Apple's ability to change, believe me), OS X isn't at the top of the list for keyboard-preferring users like myself.
That should have read "My mac lasted longer", as that's just one example. I've got a 4-year-old cheap-ass MSI notebook which still works perfectly, so clearly your assertion doesn't hold much water ;)
But if you wanted that notebook to have a WUXGA screen and a 160GB 7200rpm hard disk, or with a nVidia graphics card with 512MB of ram, you couldn't chose an Apple if you wanted to, as they've only just figured out people might want that. And you still can't get a 512MB graphics adaptor in an Apple, come to think of it. Apple don't offer everything out there, so if you do want something Apple doesn't have, you have to go somewhere else. There is no choice.
That'd be a great argument, if Macs came with the same hardware choice as you get with non-Apple PCs. As it is, Apple hardware is limited, they have greater lead-times in rolling out new devices (WUXGA screens and 7200rpm 160GB disks on notebooks are a GREAT example, not to mention the choice of graphics cards, the new Turbo Memory thing from Intel, etc. etc.). They're not even comparable. And as for your trolling about spyware and popups, those are not even a problem for most people. And if they want to play games, then there is really no choice, no matter how great Parallels is, it's still not the same as running the OS on the machine itself. "Boot camp!" I hear you cry, well, then you've got to shell out for Windows on top of the price of the Mac, and hope it delivers drivers suitable to use your hardware.
;)
- If you're not wanting to spend top-dollar, non-Apple PCs are far cheaper.
- There *are* fewer applications for Apple computers, which is to be expected as they don't command the market-share of, say, Windows
- They are *different* to use, and if you're used to Windows, that means you have a learning curve to climb, which implies work just to use the computer
- See above
- They do use one-button mice, on the notebooks at least, and the "mighty mouse" is not exactly a two-buttoned mouse if you keep a finger on the right mouse button. Again, something you have to get used to. Or you can buy another mouse, again, more money.
- Apple computers are just as secure as everything else on the market if used properly. Apple doesn't have a magic bullet against trojan horses, it just isn't that big of a target for hackers. As the market share grows, that will become a problem.
Ignorance IS bliss, my friend. You've just demonstrated the other side of the coin
The turbo memory is a much better solution than ReadyBoost on USB, as this can be used to boot the OS, whereas Vista's ReadyBoost on another device can't.
They've got to iron out some of the performance issues first, but yeah - it would be cool.
... if it wasn't for DRM, I wouldn't be able to download TV shows from various TV networks online. DRM for no reason sucks ass, but if it lets me get content that I couldn't get before, how can I be upset? If it *is* a sucky situation, surely the problem isn't DRM but the economic structures in place that requires DRM to be used. I think it'd make more sense to get our society to a place where we don't need DRM than to a place where we shoot ourselves in the foot by not attacking the actual cause of DRM, and waste all our time and money screaming at acronyms.
You should read up about it here, as no slashdot posting can do it justice :)
Not to mention its new wireless adaptor and the ability to turn off the second core if needed... and the PCIE, the graphics adaptor, etc. Intel made power savings across the board - Apple don't state where the power savings come from, because Apple doesn't know.