You may want to report this to Google, I just upload the.mov file and they do all the conversion, the file that comes down is not the same one I uploaded either. So I would guess that something in their conversion process screwed up.
In the meantime, any IT folks (or pretty much any other occupation, but this is Slashdot after all:) looking for good-paying work, come visit. We're looking at a labour shortage of nearly 100,000 people just in the construction industry alone over the next 5 years. Plus, there's mountains:)
Umm, no mountains near Fort McMurray, and the sweet smell of oil in the air is a bit.... Well, gah.
I went up to the oilsands back in October and took a tour of one of their mines. I shot the whole tour from the bus and you can actually see it online at Google.
Let's just say, they burn a lot of fuel to get the stuff out of the ground, not to mention a lot of energy to get the oil out of the sand.
Me. It hasn't exactly hurt Microsoft to sell operating systems, now has it? The reason Apple is so puny is BECAUSE they try and control everything.
But Microsoft really is a Software company while Apples model is based on moving boxes.
What people seem to forget that Apple is highly profitable, because they sell those little boxes called iPods and iMacs.
Reality is Apple has nothing to win by allowing other people to load on their OS. Look at Daimler-Chrysler. In order to get the Chrysler cars up to "snuff" they plundered the Mercedes-Benz stuff and crammed it in. Chrysler won, and Mercedes-Benz lost. Which of the two do you think was / is the more valuable brand, and where did they make a higher margin?
iTMS and the iPod are two separate products that work exclusively with each other. Have lots of iTunes music purchased? It won't play on anyone else's music device (the ROKR is negligible).
So? It doesn't prevent you from playing the music back in your CD player OR to go out and buy another device and buy your music from a different store.
However, competition is healthy and booming in the professional photography world. Some have likened this to the desktop PC world too, but it again falls short because so many apps are available for Windows and MacOSX, and even Linux has equivalents for most products.
iTunes in and on itself is not preventing you from playing the NonDRMed music in other devices, even the iPod can take on WAV, MP3 and AAC (unprotected). So there is no real reason why this would be a monopoly.
iTunes itself runs on Windows and the Mac (officially) and on Linux as well. So there is no "lock in" there either.
However, in the iTMS + iPod world, these are two separate products that each have a strongly dominant hold on their respective markets, which also monopolistically exclude all competition from functioning with either product.
No it is not. There are other companies out there (including Microsoft) who produce players and sell music. There is no "closed deal" going on.
I cannot buy songs from say Rhapsody and put it on my iPod either. But in the end it is the consumer who can decide, if they don't like iPods or iTunes anymore they can go and chose another service. A Monopoly would prevent that because they are the only game in town.
I say it's about time someone looked at this case. How many/.ers have friends who bought a non-iPod mp3 player only to find out that none of their Fairplay-encrypted songs will play on it? How many/.ers have iPods that they wish could use Napster or a competing music store to purchase songs with different rights or improved quality?
None, because everybody I know who has an iPod and buys tunes online loves the iTunes interface and all would buy another iPod, they don't even LOOK at any other players.
Yeah, that's the truth, Apple has a Monopoly of the mind, but that is hardly their fault. Are we now starting to punish companies because they make products people like?
Now, if Apple would start to prevent music companies / artists to sell anywhere BUT iTMS then we have a case, until then it is really just jealousy because the others can't get a foot on the ground.
Sure you can. After all, the bonds are promises to pay in dollars and not gold. Of course don't be suprised if it causes instant inflation and instant dollar dumping. In fact, some have argued that it is already happening. Just as China stopped buying more bonds at auction causing markets to get really nervous, some mysterious account in the Cyamans started buying billions and billions worth of US treasuries at auction.
Okay, good point, but who do you think is buying all the bonds? The US Government?
IMHO, the problem is that the US economy has more debt than it can pay off at face value so this is just the beginning.
That is clearly part of the problem, but the way bigger problem is that the US mentality is based around "cheap". Meaning cheaper products at a faster and faster pace.
Two things happen then:
1. The Quality goes down the drain. 2. Someone else will come along sooner or later and make it even cheaper (see China).
What will most likely happen is that the fed will monitize some debts in order to prevent massive bankruptcies. But it will make the problem worse, because watering down the value of the money will drive up commodity prices like gas and food, but it likely won't drive up pay. So people will have the same debts, but costs that are several times higher. This will cause more bankruptcies, which will lead to more monitization, which will lead to more bankruptcies and so on in a vicious cycle.
Possible, though that would probably a "best case scenario". It is not only companies who have debt but the US as well. China and Japan being the largest US debt holder in the world.
How long do you think they are willing to give their good money for stuff they pretty much should just fire their stoves with?
The US as a whole still seems to operate like it is 1985 and the only valid currency in "open trade" is the USD. With the Emergence of the Euro (and the Euro Zone) this is no longer valid and there are already some countries who are getting slowly out of the USD and into the Euro.
All it needs to have the US (and world economies to some degree) crash and burn is someone panicing somewhere and throwing large amounts of USD and Bonds on the open market. If one or two follow after that you may see a massive payoff and I doubt very much that either Japan or China alone in this scenario would be willing to throw more money at it, and I doubt the US can do it because they probably don't have too many "hard currency" reserves themselves (obviously you cannot buy your own debt with the money you print).
The Dollar is becoming softer, but that is not what is doing companies like Gateway et al. in right now, it is the first two points I wrote.
nd no i'm not going to connect my computer up to the stereo becase evry time someone IM's me or I get an email or windows breaks you get horible alert noises that would drive everyone insane!
Airtunes is your friend. I stream to two stereos from my machine in the office remote controlled by the PSP and no alert noises (e.g. incoming email) interferes with this.
If you use Airfoil you can use pretty much any application that processes audio.
They even had the balls to tell us they might call us if they realized it was a mistake and wanted you back. Does that sound like the "ethical" way to do things for a company?
The problem for the company is that if they start asking around people will find out before the fact and that could cause some bigger problems.
Sure it is not "ethical" in that sense, but at least they are open enough to admit it. I was caught in a similar layoff once, I wasn't called back, but they ended up calling back an entire group of 50 people based on contracts because those who did the firing werne't aware of a project deadline taht couldn't be met anymore once they walked them all out of the door.
The bigger the company, the harder it is to do a "fair" layoff I think.
And beside, it's not like they are getting dumped into a saturated market. Silicon Valley has thousands of openings in other tech companies. Most of these people will get snatched up by Google (1000+ openings), Yahoo (500+ openings), and Sales Force (150+ openings).
Umm, transfer of skills?
It is by far not that easy to jump in most jobs from one tech company to the next. Sure, if you're a DBA or C Programmer or SysAdmin it is no big problem, but if you are specialized on some of the CRM applications (which one would think being Oracle / Siebel etc.) then the market and air is a lot thinner.
Furthermore, because Fairplay DRM is closed.. if you are a band and want to sell your music (with DRM).. you have to do it on the iTunes store.. or your music will not have the protection of DRM if it's to be put on iPods (iPod owners being a massive marketshare.. this is essential for success). The alternative is DRM free mp3.. but then you lose the ability to protect your music. I hate DRM as much as the next guy.. but this isnt helping the situation to have Apple doing this.
Knowing some musicians they told me an interesting observation: They do not care if their stuff is copied, because they tend not to make too much money with it anyways. They rather concentrate on licensing their songs to companies who, for example, want to use them in commercials.
So who helps DRM? It seems it helps the companies who peddle in music, not neccessarily the artist, they rather win by more people listening (or so they tell me).
Re:Glad this wasn't settled out of court
on
RIM - The Whole Story
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The moral of this story is simple: don't lie in court.
Oh I don't doubt that there may be the occassional App that makes it impractical to switch, but the solution for that would be to either find something similar, or if not available bug the company until they produce one (if enough people ask, they will).
Porting to Mac OS X also doesn't have a "Stigma" attached like Linux (everything free).
From all the people I know who switched, none of them went back because they found similar apps that did what they needed to do. For me the only reason why an old Dell is still having Windows on it is because of Garmin who until MacWorld didn't provide a client for their GPS Software, this will change come spring and then I can truly retire that thing for good. Heck, even Google is starting to release Mac Versions, now that should tell people something.
It'll happen. BTW, I am living in Canada now. I left Europe a couple of years behind.
As for "fuck unifying". It's a consequence, and yes, I did leave the rest of the world out, because as large as it is from a pure population standpoint it doesn't really matter that much.
Canada & US == ~300 Million People. EU == ~300 Million People. Russia == ~ 140 Million People. China & India each ~1.2 BILLION People.
That makes up roughly half of the worlds population. That doesn't mean the rest isn't important, but they just don't throw around as much weight.
I guess we will also see places like South America coming together (there are already rumblings to that effect, lead by Chavez) and Africa probably will try something similar once they can figure out how they would like their borders being drawn.
But neither of them will really be a "force to recon with" in the forseeable future.
My other two examples may have been bad, but there are still hundreds of games out there that have no Mac support and no ports planned.
Probably, but for games I can buy a console and be done with it. Plug and play too dude.
I really don't see the appeal on playing games on the PC, sure mice are nice, but so far I had no problem playing the games with the game pad, and even my old TV is bigger than my computer screen, plus sitting around with some friends and playing on the same screen is way more fun than sitting alone in a dark room in front of a computer screen (IMO).
If the only reason to buy a Windows PC is to play games.... Well then thanks, but I stick with my Mac.
Why would you see fighting? Europe ultimatly will grow closer together, because in the way the world is going you don't really have a lot of choice.
Having said that: The ties are already so close that tearing it apart again will be pretty bad, and about:
We're pretty happy over here in North America, nobody wants to unify anything any further.
It's not really North America's (USA) say in this, is it?
I could see four large "spheres" in the future:
North America Europe / Russia China India
The latter two should be clear why, the first one already is (more or less) and Europe / Russia fits quite nicely together because both have something the other wants, I guess the Europe / Russia piece will end up being like Canada / US.
150 years ago Germany wasn't a state either, it was a lose "collection" of independented states more or less but some people dreamed for a unified Germany. In the end that happened (for better or worse) and Germany does exist as one nation today.
The same will most likely happen with Europe, but it will take time and probably a generation or two until it fully happens. The only way it would be happening faster is if there is an outside threat.
My gut feeling is that many Europeans do look more warily towards the US these days than they may have five years ago and maybe that is moving it along a bit faster as well.
There are many advantages of this design over the classic lithium ion design, including the fact that the solid polymer electrolyte is not flammable (unlike the organic solvent that the Li-Ion cell uses); thus, these batteries are less hazardous if mistreated. Lithium ion polymer batteries started appearing in consumer electronics around 1996
Price in Canada wasn't the deal. I got the Apple for 919 and the Dell was 899, not a lot of savings. And I had them sitting side by side because a collegue had bought the Dell.
A while ago people where pointing out that Dell was selling "the same" display as the Apple for the 20" but sooo much cheaper.
Yeah, it seemed to be using the same Panel but the backlight is different and I had a chance to compare both the Apple and the Dell and the Apple IMO looked better, brighter (I am writing it on that one right now).
Slashdot Mirror
You have never seen a "hardware support contract" that the likes of Sun, IBM and HP sell for their hardware, have you?
Usually you do not only write one sentence though.
In a sea of text those "funny characters" and capitalization actually help.
If you just have a blob of text it is a lot harder to read and apprehend than if it clearly structured.
You may want to report this to Google, I just upload the .mov file and they do all the conversion, the file that comes down is not the same one I uploaded either. So I would guess that something in their conversion process screwed up.
Umm, no mountains near Fort McMurray, and the sweet smell of oil in the air is a bit.... Well, gah.
BTW, I shot a roughly one hour movie when I went up there, you can get it from Google. Photos too.
I went up to the oilsands back in October and took a tour of one of their mines. I shot the whole tour from the bus and you can actually see it online at Google.
Let's just say, they burn a lot of fuel to get the stuff out of the ground, not to mention a lot of energy to get the oil out of the sand.
But Microsoft really is a Software company while Apples model is based on moving boxes.
What people seem to forget that Apple is highly profitable, because they sell those little boxes called iPods and iMacs.
Reality is Apple has nothing to win by allowing other people to load on their OS. Look at Daimler-Chrysler. In order to get the Chrysler cars up to "snuff" they plundered the Mercedes-Benz stuff and crammed it in. Chrysler won, and Mercedes-Benz lost. Which of the two do you think was / is the more valuable brand, and where did they make a higher margin?
So? It doesn't prevent you from playing the music back in your CD player OR to go out and buy another device and buy your music from a different store.
iTunes in and on itself is not preventing you from playing the NonDRMed music in other devices, even the iPod can take on WAV, MP3 and AAC (unprotected). So there is no real reason why this would be a monopoly.
iTunes itself runs on Windows and the Mac (officially) and on Linux as well. So there is no "lock in" there either.
No it is not. There are other companies out there (including Microsoft) who produce players and sell music. There is no "closed deal" going on.
I cannot buy songs from say Rhapsody and put it on my iPod either. But in the end it is the consumer who can decide, if they don't like iPods or iTunes anymore they can go and chose another service. A Monopoly would prevent that because they are the only game in town.
None, because everybody I know who has an iPod and buys tunes online loves the iTunes interface and all would buy another iPod, they don't even LOOK at any other players.
Yeah, that's the truth, Apple has a Monopoly of the mind, but that is hardly their fault. Are we now starting to punish companies because they make products people like?
Now, if Apple would start to prevent music companies / artists to sell anywhere BUT iTMS then we have a case, until then it is really just jealousy because the others can't get a foot on the ground.
Okay, good point, but who do you think is buying all the bonds? The US Government?
That is clearly part of the problem, but the way bigger problem is that the US mentality is based around "cheap". Meaning cheaper products at a faster and faster pace.
Two things happen then:
1. The Quality goes down the drain.
2. Someone else will come along sooner or later and make it even cheaper (see China).
Possible, though that would probably a "best case scenario". It is not only companies who have debt but the US as well. China and Japan being the largest US debt holder in the world.
How long do you think they are willing to give their good money for stuff they pretty much should just fire their stoves with?
The US as a whole still seems to operate like it is 1985 and the only valid currency in "open trade" is the USD. With the Emergence of the Euro (and the Euro Zone) this is no longer valid and there are already some countries who are getting slowly out of the USD and into the Euro.
All it needs to have the US (and world economies to some degree) crash and burn is someone panicing somewhere and throwing large amounts of USD and Bonds on the open market. If one or two follow after that you may see a massive payoff and I doubt very much that either Japan or China alone in this scenario would be willing to throw more money at it, and I doubt the US can do it because they probably don't have too many "hard currency" reserves themselves (obviously you cannot buy your own debt with the money you print).
The Dollar is becoming softer, but that is not what is doing companies like Gateway et al. in right now, it is the first two points I wrote.
Airtunes is your friend. I stream to two stereos from my machine in the office remote controlled by the PSP and no alert noises (e.g. incoming email) interferes with this.
If you use Airfoil you can use pretty much any application that processes audio.
The problem for the company is that if they start asking around people will find out before the fact and that could cause some bigger problems.
Sure it is not "ethical" in that sense, but at least they are open enough to admit it. I was caught in a similar layoff once, I wasn't called back, but they ended up calling back an entire group of 50 people based on contracts because those who did the firing werne't aware of a project deadline taht couldn't be met anymore once they walked them all out of the door.
The bigger the company, the harder it is to do a "fair" layoff I think.
Not an exucse, just an observation.
Umm, transfer of skills?
It is by far not that easy to jump in most jobs from one tech company to the next. Sure, if you're a DBA or C Programmer or SysAdmin it is no big problem, but if you are specialized on some of the CRM applications (which one would think being Oracle / Siebel etc.) then the market and air is a lot thinner.
One Sentence:
Largest Pr0n collection EVAR!!!!11111
Knowing some musicians they told me an interesting observation: They do not care if their stuff is copied, because they tend not to make too much money with it anyways. They rather concentrate on licensing their songs to companies who, for example, want to use them in commercials.
So who helps DRM? It seems it helps the companies who peddle in music, not neccessarily the artist, they rather win by more people listening (or so they tell me).
Ummmmm no, the moral is: "Don't get caught".
I think you confuse "law" with "traditions".
Oh I don't doubt that there may be the occassional App that makes it impractical to switch, but the solution for that would be to either find something similar, or if not available bug the company until they produce one (if enough people ask, they will).
Porting to Mac OS X also doesn't have a "Stigma" attached like Linux (everything free).
From all the people I know who switched, none of them went back because they found similar apps that did what they needed to do. For me the only reason why an old Dell is still having Windows on it is because of Garmin who until MacWorld didn't provide a client for their GPS Software, this will change come spring and then I can truly retire that thing for good. Heck, even Google is starting to release Mac Versions, now that should tell people something.
It'll happen. BTW, I am living in Canada now. I left Europe a couple of years behind.
As for "fuck unifying". It's a consequence, and yes, I did leave the rest of the world out, because as large as it is from a pure population standpoint it doesn't really matter that much.
Canada & US == ~300 Million People.
EU == ~300 Million People.
Russia == ~ 140 Million People.
China & India each ~1.2 BILLION People.
That makes up roughly half of the worlds population. That doesn't mean the rest isn't important, but they just don't throw around as much weight.
I guess we will also see places like South America coming together (there are already rumblings to that effect, lead by Chavez) and Africa probably will try something similar once they can figure out how they would like their borders being drawn.
But neither of them will really be a "force to recon with" in the forseeable future.
Probably, but for games I can buy a console and be done with it. Plug and play too dude.
I really don't see the appeal on playing games on the PC, sure mice are nice, but so far I had no problem playing the games with the game pad, and even my old TV is bigger than my computer screen, plus sitting around with some friends and playing on the same screen is way more fun than sitting alone in a dark room in front of a computer screen (IMO).
If the only reason to buy a Windows PC is to play games.... Well then thanks, but I stick with my Mac.
Having said that: The ties are already so close that tearing it apart again will be pretty bad, and about:
It's not really North America's (USA) say in this, is it?
I could see four large "spheres" in the future:
North America
Europe / Russia
China
India
The latter two should be clear why, the first one already is (more or less) and Europe / Russia fits quite nicely together because both have something the other wants, I guess the Europe / Russia piece will end up being like Canada / US.
It may, but it will be quite off a bit.
150 years ago Germany wasn't a state either, it was a lose "collection" of independented states more or less but some people dreamed for a unified Germany. In the end that happened (for better or worse) and Germany does exist as one nation today.
The same will most likely happen with Europe, but it will take time and probably a generation or two until it fully happens. The only way it would be happening faster is if there is an outside threat.
My gut feeling is that many Europeans do look more warily towards the US these days than they may have five years ago and maybe that is moving it along a bit faster as well.
One thing to keep in mind:
What kind of crime is being committed? Being pickpocketed isn't nice, but a lot less drastic than being shot dead.
Guess they hate having batteries explode?
Price in Canada wasn't the deal. I got the Apple for 919 and the Dell was 899, not a lot of savings. And I had them sitting side by side because a collegue had bought the Dell.
I guess it's all personal what "looks good".
A while ago people where pointing out that Dell was selling "the same" display as the Apple for the 20" but sooo much cheaper.
Yeah, it seemed to be using the same Panel but the backlight is different and I had a chance to compare both the Apple and the Dell and the Apple IMO looked better, brighter (I am writing it on that one right now).
Michael