Not everyone who might own an Pod already owns one. Future sales are what is being considered and Real would like its content to be playable on as many players as possible (unlike Apple). Clearly Real feels there is a market for their product and that some of their future customers might want to use it with an iPod. Perhaps current iTMS customers may also consider their service if proves superior. I suspect there is too much blind brand loyalty for that.
So music sold by someone other than Apple playing on the iPod is bad for the customer? Seems like an effort to break the vendor lockin to iTMS to me (which everyone should applaud). If iTMS is so great then it should easily compete with Real on its own merits.
And yet their complaints are still valid and GIMP is still uncompetitive. OSS authors and supporters are unappreciative of criticism like their counterparts, but lacking a financial incentive to improve their product they find it easy to dismiss the opinions of others. Challenging them to fix it themselves is another way of saying "I'm better than you". It makes no sense at all but soothes the ego. GIMP is a classic example of this. There are many experienced users of Photoshop whow be unqualified as programmers yet have great usability insight for GIMP. Why would anyone believe their opinions should be ignored?
My version was called "custom lasik" but was similar. My flap was created with a blade and was easily the most unpleasant part of the procedure. I'm amazed at how good the results are.
Newer systems correct higher order aberrations, though to what extent isn't advertised. With glasses and contacts my prescription was always best at a 1/2 to 3/4 power overprescribed. I got 20/15 that way but my night vision suffered. With custom lasik I am not overprescibed yet have superior vision over glasses or contacts and have perfect night vision for the first time. Procedures may continue to improve but they are better now than ever.
Go have a custom lasik procedure done. There are other names for it depending on the manufacturer, but they all optimize the procedure to each eye. I was -3 before, am perfect now and have no low light issues whatsoever.
The scuba ban lasts for the duration of the healing process (one month for salt water). Pressure has nothing to do with it. Your friend needs to talk to someone who's not an idiot.
I had essentially the same thing done two months ago (only mine is called custom lasik instead of wavefront). My vision was nearly perfect getting up from the table and flawless after 4 hours. The next day I tested 20/15 in each eye and have had absolutely stable, superior vision every day since. It's not an uncommon result and you don't have to be "lucky" to experience it. I "highly recommend" it.
Custom lasik basically eliminates the haloing at night plus I always experienced comparable artifacting with contacts anyway. I now have absolutely no artifacting and my vision was absolutely flawless 4 hours after the surgery. The next day was no problem. Procedures have advanced quite a bit in 4 years.
I agree to spend what it takes to get the most qualified surgeon and look for someone who offers a costom procedure.
I can't agree with anything you said. First, no glasses are capable of nearly the performance of contacts or corrective surgery. Second, there are plenty of surgeries that may come with no long-term cost. Third, there's nothing to suggest that laser surgery accerates macular degeneration or cataracts, and fourth, there's nothing that suggests that glasses reduce your odds of "nasty blinding problems" as compared to alternatives.
I never had vision nearly as good with glasses as I did with contacts. After lasik, my vision is far better at all times than it was with contacts. I don't get splitting headaches from the frames or increased risk of infection with contacts and I wake up in the morning with perfect vision every day without having to sleep in my lenses. My night vision is absolutely flawless, something I never had with glasses or contacts. Over the remainder of my lifetime my surgery will cost me less than glasses or contacts would and I can travel without supplies to care for equipment.
Points 1 and 2 may be valid but the rest aren't. My night vision is vastly improved after lasik. What people fail to consider is that contacts and glasses also have serious night vision consequences. Who cares what the army and police think, and what possible reason would there be for being more prone to infection?
My "optician" tried to talk me out of it, too, since he'd no longer be selling me contact lenses. The retiring "optician" before him told me I'd be a fool not to have it done and I was already years late doing it. He had no vested interest in the matter.
People seriously underestimate the quality of life differences this can bring. No purchase of "stuff" can compare to this type of investment provided it is performed by someone with proper skill, experience and equipment.
I had custom lasik done within the last three months. My contact lens prescription was stable at about -3 in each eye and my vision was 20/15 with contacts. 24 hours after the surgery I tested 20/15 in each eye and now see 20/10 together. I have absolutely no artifacting or night vision issues and my overal vision is better in every way than with contacts (which says quite a lot in my case). My procedure was a thrilling success.
Custom lasik optimizes the procedure for each individual eye so that the odd of a superior result the first time through are improved. The surcharge was $500 per eye ($2500 each was what I paid) for custom but I can't imagine not going that route. I can't recommend custom lasik highly enough (and I had superior vision with contacts).
Because the first thing a processor does when it powers on is fetch an instruction from a specific address. That instruction would come from a "ROM". Doing something else to avoid that would be stupid. As for adding additional functions, it's easy to make arguments for why they are good things. A whole lot of people could tell you at this point why not requiring a floppy (or front panel switches) is a good thing.
True embedded work IS the BIOS and there's plenty of it that's not BSD or Linux. Ain't no Int13 in my embedded work. That's a PC fabrication.
Old PC interrupts were not under software control and new ones are sharable. Before railing on any specific machine's BIOS perhaps you may wonder why, after so many years of having hardware-sharable interrupts, you continue to have "interrupt conflicts". PCI IRQ's are not uniquely routable in any event, so you can't solve any arbitrary IRQ issue strictly through BIOS control anyway.
Having been specifically involved in this very BIOS code for a similar (or even identical) company, I can say that there has never been a compelling argument to provide the capability that you describe. The whole point of plug and play is that you don't need to do that. The hardware is capable of doing everything right and the problem that needs to be fixed is in the operating system, not the BIOS. As for "deterministically recognize", PCI doesn't require it of the BIOS, yet all BIOS'es (including Dell's) have a mechanism for assuring exactly that. Perhaps you don't understand your problem well enough to be commenting on it.
That's a big leap. How fast a problem gets fixed in the free software world is dependent on who has the skill AND interest to fix it. In your case the problem may never have been addressed at all. The machine you quote is hardly mainstream.
IBM did nothing of the sort. They published technical documents but everything was encumbered by patents which they vigorously pursued later.
In any event, the point is meaningless because "free hardware" is not required to run free software. There are "free" processor designs available with which you could do an entire machine under the GPL (and it's probably been done). Wonder why RMS doesn't dictate that everyone switch to that? Could it be that they would be ultimately slow and expensive? "Free" is not the solution to all the world's problems and it won't make BIOS'es better.
Many of the things you've listed have been available in PC BIOS'es for years as well. Network boot has been around for a long time.
MS is in no position to mandate and XBox-lke BIOS to PC manufacturers. The entire industry would oppose it (that would include Intel, IBM, Dell and HP for starters).
BIOS should be viewed as part of the hardware and the current system works fine. RMS simply wants the source to everything he uses whether he has any reasonable need for it or not. After he gets a BIOS under GPL he'll start claiming that the world needs GPL'ed source to the VLSI and microcode. It's only about Stallman wanting the source for everything for his own interests.
At least the 1G wheels were "simple, elegant, and perfectly functional". The newer wheels don't work nearly as well. As for other solutions, wheels turned on their edge (ala wheel-mice) and sticks work fine, too. A wheel like the iPod's was at the time a proven effective control for its application and was certainly not new. It has the unique feature of requiring greater finger movement than any other control for accomplishing its task (although I don't find that a problem).
Actually it needs one more than anything since it apparently NEVER turns off. It's interesting that one of the late problems in the development of the original was power management even when the unit was "OFF". The claim was they fixed that but the 3G models certainly suffer from it greatly. My 3G model self-discharges when "OFF" within three days and all my friends' do, too. Giving the unit a proper, mechanical power switch would fix that. As it is, an iPod is virtually useless for a 24 hour airline trip to the other side of the world. All its competitors are just fine doing that. We'll see how the 4G version does.
Funny thing how Apple nurtures it easy-to-use, intuitive image but pulls such a boneheaded design move for the sake of aesthetics and produces a non-intuitive, poorly performing device as a result. The lack of an OFF switch is the iPod's worst problem IMO.
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Perhaps, but I agree that everyone should support the opportunity to buy music from another store. It can't possibly hurt the customer.
Not everyone who might own an Pod already owns one. Future sales are what is being considered and Real would like its content to be playable on as many players as possible (unlike Apple). Clearly Real feels there is a market for their product and that some of their future customers might want to use it with an iPod. Perhaps current iTMS customers may also consider their service if proves superior. I suspect there is too much blind brand loyalty for that.
No such thing as reverse engineering of patents. They are public disclosures to begin with.
So music sold by someone other than Apple playing on the iPod is bad for the customer? Seems like an effort to break the vendor lockin to iTMS to me (which everyone should applaud). If iTMS is so great then it should easily compete with Real on its own merits.
And yet their complaints are still valid and GIMP is still uncompetitive. OSS authors and supporters are unappreciative of criticism like their counterparts, but lacking a financial incentive to improve their product they find it easy to dismiss the opinions of others. Challenging them to fix it themselves is another way of saying "I'm better than you". It makes no sense at all but soothes the ego. GIMP is a classic example of this. There are many experienced users of Photoshop whow be unqualified as programmers yet have great usability insight for GIMP. Why would anyone believe their opinions should be ignored?
My version was called "custom lasik" but was similar. My flap was created with a blade and was easily the most unpleasant part of the procedure. I'm amazed at how good the results are.
Newer systems correct higher order aberrations, though to what extent isn't advertised. With glasses and contacts my prescription was always best at a 1/2 to 3/4 power overprescribed. I got 20/15 that way but my night vision suffered. With custom lasik I am not overprescibed yet have superior vision over glasses or contacts and have perfect night vision for the first time. Procedures may continue to improve but they are better now than ever.
Go have a custom lasik procedure done. There are other names for it depending on the manufacturer, but they all optimize the procedure to each eye. I was -3 before, am perfect now and have no low light issues whatsoever.
Mine was also done by Dell and my results were even better (had the newer custom procedure). Worth any amount of money.
The scuba ban lasts for the duration of the healing process (one month for salt water). Pressure has nothing to do with it. Your friend needs to talk to someone who's not an idiot.
My doctor told me 98% certainty of at least 20/20 for my eyes. They were better than that getting out of the chair.
I had essentially the same thing done two months ago (only mine is called custom lasik instead of wavefront). My vision was nearly perfect getting up from the table and flawless after 4 hours. The next day I tested 20/15 in each eye and have had absolutely stable, superior vision every day since. It's not an uncommon result and you don't have to be "lucky" to experience it. I "highly recommend" it.
Custom lasik basically eliminates the haloing at night plus I always experienced comparable artifacting with contacts anyway. I now have absolutely no artifacting and my vision was absolutely flawless 4 hours after the surgery. The next day was no problem. Procedures have advanced quite a bit in 4 years.
I agree to spend what it takes to get the most qualified surgeon and look for someone who offers a costom procedure.
I can't agree with anything you said. First, no glasses are capable of nearly the performance of contacts or corrective surgery. Second, there are plenty of surgeries that may come with no long-term cost. Third, there's nothing to suggest that laser surgery accerates macular degeneration or cataracts, and fourth, there's nothing that suggests that glasses reduce your odds of "nasty blinding problems" as compared to alternatives.
I never had vision nearly as good with glasses as I did with contacts. After lasik, my vision is far better at all times than it was with contacts. I don't get splitting headaches from the frames or increased risk of infection with contacts and I wake up in the morning with perfect vision every day without having to sleep in my lenses. My night vision is absolutely flawless, something I never had with glasses or contacts. Over the remainder of my lifetime my surgery will cost me less than glasses or contacts would and I can travel without supplies to care for equipment.
Points 1 and 2 may be valid but the rest aren't. My night vision is vastly improved after lasik. What people fail to consider is that contacts and glasses also have serious night vision consequences. Who cares what the army and police think, and what possible reason would there be for being more prone to infection?
My "optician" tried to talk me out of it, too, since he'd no longer be selling me contact lenses. The retiring "optician" before him told me I'd be a fool not to have it done and I was already years late doing it. He had no vested interest in the matter.
People seriously underestimate the quality of life differences this can bring. No purchase of "stuff" can compare to this type of investment provided it is performed by someone with proper skill, experience and equipment.
who knows what god intended you to have? Perhaps god intends for you to have lasik surgery.
I had custom lasik done within the last three months. My contact lens prescription was stable at about -3 in each eye and my vision was 20/15 with contacts. 24 hours after the surgery I tested 20/15 in each eye and now see 20/10 together. I have absolutely no artifacting or night vision issues and my overal vision is better in every way than with contacts (which says quite a lot in my case). My procedure was a thrilling success.
Custom lasik optimizes the procedure for each individual eye so that the odd of a superior result the first time through are improved. The surcharge was $500 per eye ($2500 each was what I paid) for custom but I can't imagine not going that route. I can't recommend custom lasik highly enough (and I had superior vision with contacts).
Because the first thing a processor does when it powers on is fetch an instruction from a specific address. That instruction would come from a "ROM". Doing something else to avoid that would be stupid. As for adding additional functions, it's easy to make arguments for why they are good things. A whole lot of people could tell you at this point why not requiring a floppy (or front panel switches) is a good thing.
True embedded work IS the BIOS and there's plenty of it that's not BSD or Linux. Ain't no Int13 in my embedded work. That's a PC fabrication.
Old PC interrupts were not under software control and new ones are sharable. Before railing on any specific machine's BIOS perhaps you may wonder why, after so many years of having hardware-sharable interrupts, you continue to have "interrupt conflicts". PCI IRQ's are not uniquely routable in any event, so you can't solve any arbitrary IRQ issue strictly through BIOS control anyway.
Having been specifically involved in this very BIOS code for a similar (or even identical) company, I can say that there has never been a compelling argument to provide the capability that you describe. The whole point of plug and play is that you don't need to do that. The hardware is capable of doing everything right and the problem that needs to be fixed is in the operating system, not the BIOS. As for "deterministically recognize", PCI doesn't require it of the BIOS, yet all BIOS'es (including Dell's) have a mechanism for assuring exactly that. Perhaps you don't understand your problem well enough to be commenting on it.
That's a big leap. How fast a problem gets fixed in the free software world is dependent on who has the skill AND interest to fix it. In your case the problem may never have been addressed at all. The machine you quote is hardly mainstream.
IBM did nothing of the sort. They published technical documents but everything was encumbered by patents which they vigorously pursued later.
In any event, the point is meaningless because "free hardware" is not required to run free software. There are "free" processor designs available with which you could do an entire machine under the GPL (and it's probably been done). Wonder why RMS doesn't dictate that everyone switch to that? Could it be that they would be ultimately slow and expensive? "Free" is not the solution to all the world's problems and it won't make BIOS'es better.
Many of the things you've listed have been available in PC BIOS'es for years as well. Network boot has been around for a long time.
MS is in no position to mandate and XBox-lke BIOS to PC manufacturers. The entire industry would oppose it (that would include Intel, IBM, Dell and HP for starters).
BIOS should be viewed as part of the hardware and the current system works fine. RMS simply wants the source to everything he uses whether he has any reasonable need for it or not. After he gets a BIOS under GPL he'll start claiming that the world needs GPL'ed source to the VLSI and microcode. It's only about Stallman wanting the source for everything for his own interests.
At least the 1G wheels were "simple, elegant, and perfectly functional". The newer wheels don't work nearly as well. As for other solutions, wheels turned on their edge (ala wheel-mice) and sticks work fine, too. A wheel like the iPod's was at the time a proven effective control for its application and was certainly not new. It has the unique feature of requiring greater finger movement than any other control for accomplishing its task (although I don't find that a problem).
Actually it needs one more than anything since it apparently NEVER turns off. It's interesting that one of the late problems in the development of the original was power management even when the unit was "OFF". The claim was they fixed that but the 3G models certainly suffer from it greatly. My 3G model self-discharges when "OFF" within three days and all my friends' do, too. Giving the unit a proper, mechanical power switch would fix that. As it is, an iPod is virtually useless for a 24 hour airline trip to the other side of the world. All its competitors are just fine doing that. We'll see how the 4G version does.
Funny thing how Apple nurtures it easy-to-use, intuitive image but pulls such a boneheaded design move for the sake of aesthetics and produces a non-intuitive, poorly performing device as a result. The lack of an OFF switch is the iPod's worst problem IMO.