......people should be free to live their lives the way they choose.......
That's great until one person's life style and wishes conflict with another's desires in any given area. Before there were governments and in the animal kingdom, the strongest or the one with the sharpest claws gets their way. Governments at least end to mitigate this problem somewhat by making rules and enforcing these evenly for most people most of the time.
......In Germany you pay a yearly "road-tax" that is scaled by the volume of your engine......
Indeed they do and this is the stupidest way to tax any vehicle ever invented. That's why German trucks go up hills on the Autobahn at 20 km/hr while the other cars pass in the next lane at 120. How do they tax all electric cars, which have zero engine volume?
All taxes should be according to ability to pay, not some arbitrary characteristic of the engine. Tax the current value of the car, like they do in the US. If someone can afford to pay for an expensive car, they can afford the tax. Taxes should be for raising money, not social engineering.
.......Most malicious software *does not need* elevated privileges to run....
Unless it wants to alter the later behavior of the computer in some way. If a Mac user, admin or not, downloads an executable file masquerading as a picture, sound or other kind of file, a warning will pop up informing the user that a program that has never run before on their computer is trying to open. The user may then cancel the launching of that program.
(.....programs can just as easily run in the background.....)
Of course they can, but they have to be installed first. To do that requires an admin password.
Bottom line: True, there are fewer Macs, although writer(s) of a successful virus infecting thousands of Macs would likely feel mighty proud of themselves, because it is much harder to get malware to run or install on Macs than on Windows.
......There is an admin DNS sploit recently patched........
I don't know exactly what you mean. Unless the server capabilities of OSX are enabled (and they are not by default) DNS is used only for getting an IP address. This process is usually done by the ISP. The ISP's DNS server looks up the numerical address associated with an Internet name and informs the client which then send some commands to which the distant computer with that address responds. Where in this process can bad code be introduced to and executed by the requesting Mac?
......But that doesn't stop them doing nasty things if, for example, they run some piece of malware on their machines......
The question is: how did that malware get on the system in the first place? In the case of Windows, it is quite easy. A firewall not prevent the downloading of programs, good or bad. On a Mac, lack of the admin password will prevent installation of software, especially in the application folder or any other system areas.
Because many, if not most Windows programs misbehave or won't work at all, if the user doesn't have admin rights, the malware can do anything it wants without the user being aware. VISTA supposedly will not allow such software to run unless this prohibition is deliberately disabled by the user. How many users will do this, in order to get their old familiar programs to work on their shiny new computers? More than a few would be my guess. The fact that Mac software, once installed by and administrator, (even games) does NOT need to run under an admin account makes the request for an admin password a red flag that something wants to go where it should not. If a user doesn't have that admin password or is smart enough not to give it, then there is protection from whatever operation a (rogue) program might want to do. The admin password therefore is definitely NOT snake oil. The user's data is still subject to be sent to the writers of malevolent programs however.
....I interpret this to mean that eventually pay downloads will be so cheap & easy that P2P networks won't be worth the time & effort......
Probably the present generation of those running the content business will have to die off first. They will be replaced with people who grew up with the Internet and try new things. Among those new things will be DRM free content paid for by viewers. For generations now, the public has lived with content supported by advertising. Perhaps ad supported downloads might work also, just as ad supported "free" over the air broadcasting has been with us for years now. This would be used by those who now watch regular TV broadcasting and listen to the radio.
Yes, and there is not even ONE that will affect an out of the box Mac by the mere act of connecting it naked to the Internet. There millions of Macs, but not even ONE piece of malware that has affected more than a handful of users, if that. Macs are much more secure, but no computer can be secured against clever social engineering and careless net habits. There are bad neighborhoods, where a woman has a high probability to get raped or mugged. There are bad places on the Internet that gets Windows systems infected easily because they are weaklings in security. A Mac is more like a 250+ pound football player. Someone with a gun could mug him too, but a mugger with knife or a baseball bat might go for an easier victim.
......Apple itself doesn't want to! If they really wanted compete with Windows the software would be installable in any PC, otherwise they are just a company that produces expensive hardware for "special people"......
The difference is that Apple is a hardware company and is the ONLY one that makes a whole computer. Everyone else makes only half of one or less. Why should they allow the operating system part of their complete computer run on other makers product? Let those makers come up with their own OS or continue to be enslaved to MS. Apple would be fools to make it possible for their competitors to run OSX.
....Computers are a tool, not a replacement for thinking,......
Yes, Every tool needs some skill to use. However, unlike a hammer or chain-saw, computers handle information and can therefore include information on how to use the tool for various information handling purposes. In most cases, the persons making the tool (programmers) do not write good instructions for using that tool. Much of the time, the writer of the instructions and the programmer are different people. Some of these instructions can be built into the program, but some must be separate. From some of the very poor English I have seen here on/., I can see why computers are often so hard to use. The people that make them may be able to communicate well to the computer, but fail miserably in getting anything across to humans.
Apple takes more care in the design of the entire computer, hardware and software. That is why they have a reputation for an easier to use product. The iPod/iTunes/computer integration and its intuitive wholeness, is what made it such a success. Careful attention to what others consider minor details costs more, but in the end, a superior product results, albeit at a higher cost. Apple is by no means perfect in this, but at least a run or two ahead of all the other players.
.... Basically I sometimes wonder whether putting a PC in every home was such a hot idea after all.......
It is not so much having a computer in every home, but the fact that most of them are connected to each other these days. Apple has shown however, that this can be done with relatively safety. There are millions of Macs connected, but AFAIK there still is no way an out of the box Mac can be messed with by the mere fact of its being connected to the Internet. There will never be a technological way of protecting users from socially engineered foolishness that can damage any computer or at least some parts thereof. We protect our Mac users machines by simply NOT giving them the administrative password. This can of course still allow sensitive user data to escape to unwanted places, but by simply creating a new user account and then erasing the old, messed up one, the computer is still useable, without a HD wipe.
......so long as those lies do not take away the rights of others......
So if someone lies to you, they do not ALWAYS take away your right to be told the truth? If you are lied to sometimes, and sometimes not, how would you know the truth?
(....Breaking the law as a means of changing the law....)
Would it not be better to not get bad law passed in the first place? That is why we need UNBIASED free news media. They must inform the people about what those in government are up to.
(....risk of becoming a tool of an oppressive government.....)
Technological tools are available to everyone and works both ways. They can also be used to watch the watchers. We have had examples of this, where the cops were caught on camera. If it were not for the camera, they would have gotten away with their abuse of power. It is never the tools that are the problem, but how they are used or abused. If the cops know they are on camera, they will also be more careful to follow the rules. They who want to do wrong, will not do so if they know they are being watched and all their actions are recorded for review. A camera is an accurate, impartial witness in court. When that cop car is behind you, are you not very careful to observe the traffic laws? You are wrong. Fear of punishment IS a deterrent to crime. Punishment may not be a noble motivation, but it DOES work to deter crime.
.....why not take some video snapshots every second as well so it can be correlated with the GPS.......
It sounds to me that you are advocating a small percentage of God's omniscience for the government. He knows everybody's thoughts. It is generally good to use whatever technology becomes available to enforce the law. The bad part comes when laws are made that themselves are wrong or are only enforced against selected individuals or groups based on arbitrary criteria. That is how dictators such as Stalin, Hitler and many others persecuted and murdered countless 'lawbreakers'.
.... I don't support making it illegal for private citizens to tell lies on TV. I do support making it illegal for official representatives of the government to lie on TV......
Don't you think it would be better if EVERYBODY had to tell the truth at all times? In earlier times people were told that liars were children of the devil, the father of lies. They were told all liars would join him in the lake of fire forever. If that promise of eternal damnation did not prevent people from telling lies, what makes you think that singling out and passing laws against government officials would stop them from or anybody else from telling lies?
Cameras can also be used to establish innocence. If you are accused of a crime, yet a time stamped camera clearly shows you being miles from the crime scene, the cops would have to find the true culprit. If everybody were on camera at all times, then wrong or questionable acts would be rare. The only problem would be as to who decides what is a wrong or questionable act.
.....But it is quite possible to back them up without any decryption at all,......
Really? Does this work on Mac? I tried making a disk images of movie DVDs, but when mounted, would not play like a real disk. Only Mac the R1pper would make a playable copy.
Content makers have always figured out eventually how to make money from the new technologies. In time, DRM will become extinct. Someone will figure out how to make their content available more conveniently for a fair price. This someone will make a killing and the rest will then follow suit. iTunes is an ALMOST good example of this. I say almost, because it is still encumbered by DRM. They could do an experiment: Remove all DRM for a short indeterminate time from all material and see if this has an effect on sales, one way or another.
Some people will still go the inconvenient route of getting their material for free, but the vast majority will pay for convenient easy to use digital material that will freely play on all devices. The sooner companies figure this out, the more money they will collect in their cash registers from the vast majority of customers.
....Even if the error message contains explicit instructions to blame the player, not the disc?.....
Most likely the disk will still get blamed. Here is the scene:
Customer: "But all my movies I have bought in this store worked and still do, as do all my friends disks. It's only this ONE I bought yesterday, out of all of them that doesn't. it is obviously no good." Store clerk: "Ok we will give you another copy" Next day---> Customer (now angry): The new one doesn't work either. Give me back my money! Clerk: " We think it is your player that is the problem in that its license has been revoked by the movie maker. However, it is store policy, we only want satisfied customers. Here is your refund."
This scene is multiplied for EVERY copy of that great new movie. End result: Word spreads that DVD movie release xyz will not play on 'popluar brand abc' player. It therefore is defective and nobody buys it. The producer who was deceived by the DRM 'experts' is screwed out of real money twice. First the movie guys paid good money to the DRM sharks and then second, they lost sales because of the DRM they were conned into putting on the disks.
.....Joe will take its car to walmart and buy the DVD.....
And then copy it to play it so he/she can watch it on the laptop or iPod on that plane trip or or other place away from the big screen TV in the living room. Most copying of legally purchased DVDs is done for the purpose of device/place shifting. Few DVD's are copied onto other disks and passed around to others.
....The point has never been to make an unbreakable DRM scheme.....
True. However anyone who wants to, can back up their DVD or play it on some other playback device, because the encryption scheme has been broken. I like to be able to watch a movie on my laptop, the DVD drive of which doesn't always want to give the disk back. Therefore I copy the decrypted DVD onto an external HD connected to a desktop system. After that I can copy it to the HD on the laptop. After I am tired of watching (usually once) it gets erased from both drives. I have never copied a DVD onto another disk and I don't see the need to, since I take care of my purchased disks very carefully. I like to think that the vast majority of people who use a decryption program do something similar. I can see that copying a DVD might be useful, so the kids can get a copy which usually becomes damaged soon. In that case, another copy can be made for them from the original kept in a safe place. Bottom line: Plenty of DVDs are sold legally and the producers thereof are not really losing a ton of money.
....Tell that to people trying to pirate DirecTV signals.....
The difference here is that the keys can be changed and are being changed constantly, whereas once a DVD is recorded and/or a player is sold, nothing can be changed. That is why the new HD players have revokable keys. However I doubt whether the content providers will mess with a huge number of installed players. If millions of Joe consumers get a popular movie DVD as a gift or purchase and then cannot play it, then the producers will not be happy when these DVDs are returned as defective.
.....Maybe they could charge less if they didn't take the time or spend the money developing newer DRM........
Maybe the movie and music moguls are duped by the inventors and purveyors of these harebrained copy protection schemes. The latter KNOW that the laws of physics and mathematics GUARANTEE that *any* copy protection scheme WILL be broken. After all, in order to use the content, the key has to be given to the consumer in order to play it. There is NO way to hide a key, if it is needful to be able to use it at some point in order to view the movie or play the music. Perhaps some sane crypto expert can convince the content producers that they have been lied to by these crooked, money grabbing "experts" who know deep down that none of their schemes can ever work for long. The hollywood and the music industry have been sold the equivalent of a certain bridge labeled DRM by these companies who make money selling their DRM schemes to the content producers. Content makers would likely make more money if they did NOT pay these liars a dime.
.....Remember, Apple is a hardware manufacturer first and software developer second........
Yes and they are the ONLY such manufacturer that makes a whole computer, software and hardware. Everybody else only makes half of one. There will always be many people who appreciate this integration that Apple provides. Apple will never just become another run of the mill computer maker who will give up their unique advantage. Why is it that Apple's sales figures are always pitted against the entire rest of the computer market, rather than say against each of the other makers. In such a more fair comparison, Apple is right behind Dell in sales, especially to consumers and laptops. In iPods and Mac, Apple provides an end to end solution including both hardware and software. MS is, as always, copying Apple's innovations, including Apple's business model with their XBOX and ZUNE. Other than games, there is no dearth of Mac software for consumers.
.....Eventually, being a "Mac user" could mean little more than "someone who uses the Mac OS for file management, internet activity and itunes, and uses Windows for everything else........
Eventually Windows users, including those of the new supposedly "secure" VISTA, will tire of getting their computers hosed by mal/spyware and switch to the Mac OS. Apple may at some point license OSX to a few selected hardware makers. The huge installed base of hardware for Windows is in danger of becoming useless, since the vast majority of existing systems will not run VISTA. Also much existing Windows software fails to run under VISTA even on brand new computers. Many buyers of new computers with VISTA installed are going to be severely pissed when they find out their favorite programs, they have used for years won't install or run on their shiny new boxes. Once many people find out that they have to buy a new computer and all their software again anyway, many will seriously consider and buy a Mac.
In order to maintain even a semblance of compatibility with the vast store of existing Windows programs, MS had to make some very limiting compromises in their new OS. Most users, in order to be able to use their existing favorite programs will turn off many of the nice new security features of VISTA. If they cannot do it themselves, they will take their non-functional box back to the store and the store geek will do it for them. If enough people want this, the stores will turn off the security before the customers even get the computer out the door. The end result will be that VISTA will be plagued by malware problems again. Windows VISTA is still Windows and therefore is basically a single user system with multi-user functionality bolted on afterwards. For that reason alone, it can never be as secure as the Mac OSX, which was built upon a true multi-user system and its better basic security from the beginning.
....And no, looking sexier is not an innovation.....
Nevertheless, sex sells. Apple makes good looking, friendlier gadgets that may have other functionally equivalent competitors. There are many people, especially outside of geekdom, that appreciate good looks and ease of use. If they do come out with a phone, it will be well designed and made, as well as being easy and fun to use. Likely it will be a great music player that also works as a phone, rather than the other way round such as is available already today from others.
.....If your online service is gone or the internet access is failing, you are completely locked out of your data.......
This is exactly what happens around here when there is a power failure. Even though we have a generator and have power, the Internet doesn't work if the commercial power dies. The phone still works, but the DSL part of it no longer responds. There is a lot of technology between the customer and the web servers and all of it is subject to failure. There is less technology subject to loss of function for the local users. It will be a LONG time, if ever, before the Internet is as reliable as POTS or the average hard drive. Drives are pretty cheap now and keeping a RAID is not all that expensive.
....So basically, some now existing life-forms (bacteria, single-celled organisms, lichens, etc.) might be able to survive and even thrive, any organism of even moderate complexity would be unlikely to make it......
You are saying that just because complex living things made it once through all that turmoil of natural disasters, they could not make it again and again, as well as through a little global warming? The laws of physics put some rather narrow limits on the parameters for photosynthesis. This means that conditions on the early earth could not have been too radically different than what they are today. The wavelengths of light from the sun and the fraction of these permitted to reach the surface limit the possible composition of the atmosphere pretty much to what we have today. The optimum temperature for photosynthesis and most other biochemistry is about the same temperature as your blood. If the average temperature of the earth were to approach this, life would literally explode. Dinosaurs were huge. Unlike mammals they do not regulate their internal temperature well. The temperature of the environment mostly determines the rate at which their metabolic processes operate. Because of their great mass, creatures like dinosaurs cannot follow the diurnal fluctuations, but adapt to some average. As the average temperature dropped to what it is today, they could no longer sustain the metabolism needed for reproduction and so they died out. They did not die out because of any catastrophe per se, but because the earth became much cooler than it once was. The calamities you mention certainly contributed to the temperature drop.
.......If you don't believe this line of reasoning........
Indeed, I don't. There must have been a first generation of plants, maybe one-celled that worked on the original supply of CO2. The bottom line, before there were plants to take the CO2 underground, it must have been in the air. So now if we burn ALL the fossil fuels, if we could even find and recover them all, the worst case would be that we return the earth to the conditions before there were plants. Since living things developed in those conditions in the first place, there is no logical reason to theorize that the now existing life forms would not also thrive.
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......people should be free to live their lives the way they choose.......
That's great until one person's life style and wishes conflict with another's desires in any given area. Before there were governments and in the animal kingdom, the strongest or the one with the sharpest claws gets their way. Governments at least end to mitigate this problem somewhat by making rules and enforcing these evenly for most people most of the time.
......In Germany you pay a yearly "road-tax" that is scaled by the volume of your engine......
Indeed they do and this is the stupidest way to tax any vehicle ever invented. That's why German trucks go up hills on the Autobahn at 20 km/hr while the other cars pass in the next lane at 120. How do they tax all electric cars, which have zero engine volume?
All taxes should be according to ability to pay, not some arbitrary characteristic of the engine. Tax the current value of the car, like they do in the US. If someone can afford to pay for an expensive car, they can afford the tax. Taxes should be for raising money, not social engineering.
.......Most malicious software *does not need* elevated privileges to run....
Unless it wants to alter the later behavior of the computer in some way. If a Mac user, admin or not, downloads an executable file masquerading as a picture, sound or other kind of file, a warning will pop up informing the user that a program that has never run before on their computer is trying to open. The user may then cancel the launching of that program.
(.....programs can just as easily run in the background.....)
Of course they can, but they have to be installed first. To do that requires an admin password.
Bottom line: True, there are fewer Macs, although writer(s) of a successful virus infecting thousands of Macs would likely feel mighty proud of themselves, because it is much harder to get malware to run or install on Macs than on Windows.
......There is an admin DNS sploit recently patched........
I don't know exactly what you mean. Unless the server capabilities of OSX are enabled (and they are not by default) DNS is used only for getting an IP address. This process is usually done by the ISP. The ISP's DNS server looks up the numerical address associated with an Internet name and informs the client which then send some commands to which the distant computer with that address responds. Where in this process can bad code be introduced to and executed by the requesting Mac?
......But that doesn't stop them doing nasty things if, for example, they run some piece of malware on their machines......
The question is: how did that malware get on the system in the first place? In the case of Windows, it is quite easy. A firewall not prevent the downloading of programs, good or bad. On a Mac, lack of the admin password will prevent installation of software, especially in the application folder or any other system areas.
Because many, if not most Windows programs misbehave or won't work at all, if the user doesn't have admin rights, the malware can do anything it wants without the user being aware. VISTA supposedly will not allow such software to run unless this prohibition is deliberately disabled by the user. How many users will do this, in order to get their old familiar programs to work on their shiny new computers? More than a few would be my guess. The fact that Mac software, once installed by and administrator, (even games) does NOT need to run under an admin account makes the request for an admin password a red flag that something wants to go where it should not. If a user doesn't have that admin password or is smart enough not to give it, then there is protection from whatever operation a (rogue) program might want to do. The admin password therefore is definitely NOT snake oil. The user's data is still subject to be sent to the writers of malevolent programs however.
....I interpret this to mean that eventually pay downloads will be so cheap & easy that P2P networks won't be worth the time & effort......
Probably the present generation of those running the content business will have to die off first. They will be replaced with people who grew up with the Internet and try new things. Among those new things will be DRM free content paid for by viewers. For generations now, the public has lived with content supported by advertising. Perhaps ad supported downloads might work also, just as ad supported "free" over the air broadcasting has been with us for years now. This would be used by those who now watch regular TV broadcasting and listen to the radio.
....Just google MacOS X Security Flaws........
Yes, and there is not even ONE that will affect an out of the box Mac by the mere act of connecting it naked to the Internet. There millions of Macs, but not even ONE piece of malware that has affected more than a handful of users, if that. Macs are much more secure, but no computer can be secured against clever social engineering and careless net habits. There are bad neighborhoods, where a woman has a high probability to get raped or mugged. There are bad places on the Internet that gets Windows systems infected easily because they are weaklings in security. A Mac is more like a 250+ pound football player. Someone with a gun could mug him too, but a mugger with knife or a baseball bat might go for an easier victim.
......Apple itself doesn't want to! If they really wanted compete with Windows the software would be installable in any PC, otherwise they are just a company that produces expensive hardware for "special people"......
The difference is that Apple is a hardware company and is the ONLY one that makes a whole computer. Everyone else makes only half of one or less. Why should they allow the operating system part of their complete computer run on other makers product? Let those makers come up with their own OS or continue to be enslaved to MS. Apple would be fools to make it possible for their competitors to run OSX.
....Computers are a tool, not a replacement for thinking,......
/., I can see why computers are often so hard to use. The people that make them may be able to communicate well to the computer, but fail miserably in getting anything across to humans.
Yes, Every tool needs some skill to use. However, unlike a hammer or chain-saw, computers handle information and can therefore include information on how to use the tool for various information handling purposes. In most cases, the persons making the tool (programmers) do not write good instructions for using that tool. Much of the time, the writer of the instructions and the programmer are different people. Some of these instructions can be built into the program, but some must be separate. From some of the very poor English I have seen here on
Apple takes more care in the design of the entire computer, hardware and software. That is why they have a reputation for an easier to use product. The iPod/iTunes/computer integration and its intuitive wholeness, is what made it such a success. Careful attention to what others consider minor details costs more, but in the end, a superior product results, albeit at a higher cost. Apple is by no means perfect in this, but at least a run or two ahead of all the other players.
.... Basically I sometimes wonder whether putting a PC in every home was such a hot idea after all.......
It is not so much having a computer in every home, but the fact that most of them are connected to each other these days. Apple has shown however, that this can be done with relatively safety. There are millions of Macs connected, but AFAIK there still is no way an out of the box Mac can be messed with by the mere fact of its being connected to the Internet. There will never be a technological way of protecting users from socially engineered foolishness that can damage any computer or at least some parts thereof. We protect our Mac users machines by simply NOT giving them the administrative password. This can of course still allow sensitive user data to escape to unwanted places, but by simply creating a new user account and then erasing the old, messed up one, the computer is still useable, without a HD wipe.
......so long as those lies do not take away the rights of others......
So if someone lies to you, they do not ALWAYS take away your right to be told the truth? If you are lied to sometimes, and sometimes not, how would you know the truth?
(....Breaking the law as a means of changing the law....)
Would it not be better to not get bad law passed in the first place? That is why we need UNBIASED free news media. They must inform the people about what those in government are up to.
(....risk of becoming a tool of an oppressive government.....)
Technological tools are available to everyone and works both ways. They can also be used to watch the watchers. We have had examples of this, where the cops were caught on camera. If it were not for the camera, they would have gotten away with their abuse of power. It is never the tools that are the problem, but how they are used or abused. If the cops know they are on camera, they will also be more careful to follow the rules. They who want to do wrong, will not do so if they know they are being watched and all their actions are recorded for review. A camera is an accurate, impartial witness in court. When that cop car is behind you, are you not very careful to observe the traffic laws? You are wrong. Fear of punishment IS a deterrent to crime. Punishment may not be a noble motivation, but it DOES work to deter crime.
.....why not take some video snapshots every second as well so it can be correlated with the GPS.......
It sounds to me that you are advocating a small percentage of God's omniscience for the government. He knows everybody's thoughts. It is generally good to use whatever technology becomes available to enforce the law. The bad part comes when laws are made that themselves are wrong or are only enforced against selected individuals or groups based on arbitrary criteria. That is how dictators such as Stalin, Hitler and many others persecuted and murdered countless 'lawbreakers'.
.... I don't support making it illegal for private citizens to tell lies on TV. I do support making it illegal for official representatives of the government to lie on TV......
Don't you think it would be better if EVERYBODY had to tell the truth at all times? In earlier times people were told that liars were children of the devil, the father of lies. They were told all liars would join him in the lake of fire forever. If that promise of eternal damnation did not prevent people from telling lies, what makes you think that singling out and passing laws against government officials would stop them from or anybody else from telling lies?
Cameras can also be used to establish innocence. If you are accused of a crime, yet a time stamped camera clearly shows you being miles from the crime scene, the cops would have to find the true culprit. If everybody were on camera at all times, then wrong or questionable acts would be rare. The only problem would be as to who decides what is a wrong or questionable act.
.....But it is quite possible to back them up without any decryption at all,......
Really? Does this work on Mac? I tried making a disk images of movie DVDs, but when mounted, would not play like a real disk. Only Mac the R1pper would make a playable copy.
Content makers have always figured out eventually how to make money from the new technologies. In time, DRM will become extinct. Someone will figure out how to make their content available more conveniently for a fair price. This someone will make a killing and the rest will then follow suit. iTunes is an ALMOST good example of this. I say almost, because it is still encumbered by DRM. They could do an experiment: Remove all DRM for a short indeterminate time from all material and see if this has an effect on sales, one way or another.
Some people will still go the inconvenient route of getting their material for free, but the vast majority will pay for convenient easy to use digital material that will freely play on all devices. The sooner companies figure this out, the more money they will collect in their cash registers from the vast majority of customers.
....Even if the error message contains explicit instructions to blame the player, not the disc?.....
Most likely the disk will still get blamed. Here is the scene:
Customer: "But all my movies I have bought in this store worked and still do, as do all my friends disks. It's only this ONE I bought yesterday, out of all of them that doesn't. it is obviously no good."
Store clerk: "Ok we will give you another copy"
Next day---> Customer (now angry): The new one doesn't work either. Give me back my money!
Clerk: " We think it is your player that is the problem in that its license has been revoked by the movie maker. However, it is store policy, we only want satisfied customers. Here is your refund."
This scene is multiplied for EVERY copy of that great new movie. End result: Word spreads that DVD movie release xyz will not play on 'popluar brand abc' player. It therefore is defective and nobody buys it. The producer who was deceived by the DRM 'experts' is screwed out of real money twice. First the movie guys paid good money to the DRM sharks and then second, they lost sales because of the DRM they were conned into putting on the disks.
.....Joe will take its car to walmart and buy the DVD.....
And then copy it to play it so he/she can watch it on the laptop or iPod on that plane trip or or other place away from the big screen TV in the living room. Most copying of legally purchased DVDs is done for the purpose of device/place shifting. Few DVD's are copied onto other disks and passed around to others.
....The point has never been to make an unbreakable DRM scheme.....
True. However anyone who wants to, can back up their DVD or play it on some other playback device, because the encryption scheme has been broken. I like to be able to watch a movie on my laptop, the DVD drive of which doesn't always want to give the disk back. Therefore I copy the decrypted DVD onto an external HD connected to a desktop system. After that I can copy it to the HD on the laptop. After I am tired of watching (usually once) it gets erased from both drives. I have never copied a DVD onto another disk and I don't see the need to, since I take care of my purchased disks very carefully. I like to think that the vast majority of people who use a decryption program do something similar. I can see that copying a DVD might be useful, so the kids can get a copy which usually becomes damaged soon. In that case, another copy can be made for them from the original kept in a safe place. Bottom line: Plenty of DVDs are sold legally and the producers thereof are not really losing a ton of money.
....Tell that to people trying to pirate DirecTV signals.....
The difference here is that the keys can be changed and are being changed constantly, whereas once a DVD is recorded and/or a player is sold, nothing can be changed. That is why the new HD players have revokable keys. However I doubt whether the content providers will mess with a huge number of installed players. If millions of Joe consumers get a popular movie DVD as a gift or purchase and then cannot play it, then the producers will not be happy when these DVDs are returned as defective.
.....Maybe they could charge less if they didn't take the time or spend the money developing newer DRM........
Maybe the movie and music moguls are duped by the inventors and purveyors of these harebrained copy protection schemes. The latter KNOW that the laws of physics and mathematics GUARANTEE that *any* copy protection scheme WILL be broken. After all, in order to use the content, the key has to be given to the consumer in order to play it. There is NO way to hide a key, if it is needful to be able to use it at some point in order to view the movie or play the music. Perhaps some sane crypto expert can convince the content producers that they have been lied to by these crooked, money grabbing "experts" who know deep down that none of their schemes can ever work for long. The hollywood and the music industry have been sold the equivalent of a certain bridge labeled DRM by these companies who make money selling their DRM schemes to the content producers. Content makers would likely make more money if they did NOT pay these liars a dime.
.....Remember, Apple is a hardware manufacturer first and software developer second........
Yes and they are the ONLY such manufacturer that makes a whole computer, software and hardware. Everybody else only makes half of one. There will always be many people who appreciate this integration that Apple provides. Apple will never just become another run of the mill computer maker who will give up their unique advantage. Why is it that Apple's sales figures are always pitted against the entire rest of the computer market, rather than say against each of the other makers. In such a more fair comparison, Apple is right behind Dell in sales, especially to consumers and laptops. In iPods and Mac, Apple provides an end to end solution including both hardware and software. MS is, as always, copying Apple's innovations, including Apple's business model with their XBOX and ZUNE. Other than games, there is no dearth of Mac software for consumers.
.....Eventually, being a "Mac user" could mean little more than "someone who uses the Mac OS for file management, internet activity and itunes, and uses Windows for everything else........
Eventually Windows users, including those of the new supposedly "secure" VISTA, will tire of getting their computers hosed by mal/spyware and switch to the Mac OS. Apple may at some point license OSX to a few selected hardware makers. The huge installed base of hardware for Windows is in danger of becoming useless, since the vast majority of existing systems will not run VISTA. Also much existing Windows software fails to run under VISTA even on brand new computers. Many buyers of new computers with VISTA installed are going to be severely pissed when they find out their favorite programs, they have used for years won't install or run on their shiny new boxes. Once many people find out that they have to buy a new computer and all their software again anyway, many will seriously consider and buy a Mac.
In order to maintain even a semblance of compatibility with the vast store of existing Windows programs, MS had to make some very limiting compromises in their new OS. Most users, in order to be able to use their existing favorite programs will turn off many of the nice new security features of VISTA. If they cannot do it themselves, they will take their non-functional box back to the store and the store geek will do it for them. If enough people want this, the stores will turn off the security before the customers even get the computer out the door. The end result will be that VISTA will be plagued by malware problems again. Windows VISTA is still Windows and therefore is basically a single user system with multi-user functionality bolted on afterwards. For that reason alone, it can never be as secure as the Mac OSX, which was built upon a true multi-user system and its better basic security from the beginning.
....And no, looking sexier is not an innovation.....
Nevertheless, sex sells. Apple makes good looking, friendlier gadgets that may have other functionally equivalent competitors. There are many people, especially outside of geekdom, that appreciate good looks and ease of use. If they do come out with a phone, it will be well designed and made, as well as being easy and fun to use. Likely it will be a great music player that also works as a phone, rather than the other way round such as is available already today from others.
.....If your online service is gone or the internet access is failing, you are completely locked out of your data.......
This is exactly what happens around here when there is a power failure. Even though we have a generator and have power, the Internet doesn't work if the commercial power dies. The phone still works, but the DSL part of it no longer responds. There is a lot of technology between the customer and the web servers and all of it is subject to failure. There is less technology subject to loss of function for the local users. It will be a LONG time, if ever, before the Internet is as reliable as POTS or the average hard drive. Drives are pretty cheap now and keeping a RAID is not all that expensive.
....So basically, some now existing life-forms (bacteria, single-celled organisms, lichens, etc.) might be able to survive and even thrive, any organism of even moderate complexity would be unlikely to make it......
You are saying that just because complex living things made it once through all that turmoil of natural disasters, they could not make it again and again, as well as through a little global warming? The laws of physics put some rather narrow limits on the parameters for photosynthesis. This means that conditions on the early earth could not have been too radically different than what they are today. The wavelengths of light from the sun and the fraction of these permitted to reach the surface limit the possible composition of the atmosphere pretty much to what we have today. The optimum temperature for photosynthesis and most other biochemistry is about the same temperature as your blood. If the average temperature of the earth were to approach this, life would literally explode. Dinosaurs were huge. Unlike mammals they do not regulate their internal temperature well. The temperature of the environment mostly determines the rate at which their metabolic processes operate. Because of their great mass, creatures like dinosaurs cannot follow the diurnal fluctuations, but adapt to some average. As the average temperature dropped to what it is today, they could no longer sustain the metabolism needed for reproduction and so they died out. They did not die out because of any catastrophe per se, but because the earth became much cooler than it once was. The calamities you mention certainly contributed to the temperature drop.
.......If you don't believe this line of reasoning........
Indeed, I don't. There must have been a first generation of plants, maybe one-celled that worked on the original supply of CO2. The bottom line, before there were plants to take the CO2 underground, it must have been in the air. So now if we burn ALL the fossil fuels, if we could even find and recover them all, the worst case would be that we return the earth to the conditions before there were plants. Since living things developed in those conditions in the first place, there is no logical reason to theorize that the now existing life forms would not also thrive.