It's not that people don't have the ability to understand DRM-related issues, it's that they don't have the desire.
In one respect, I agree with you. Every once in a while, a report crops up of this-or-that new album not being playable on standard hardware like a car stereo. This is the sort of DRM that gets in everyone's way. People hear about it, nobody buys that particular album, and the record companies give up on it.
The problem that I think we will be facing in the future is that more well thought out DRM systems will crop up, such as the DRM in Apple's iTunes Music Store. For most cases, the DRM is transparent, and users never run into it. My mom fits nicely into this category, and can't understand my frustrations over the same DRM. To her, it seems obvious that if something that I'm trying to do (like keep both her purchased music and mine in the same iTunes library side by side) is difficult, I shouldn't bother myself about it. Never mind the fact that I should be able to do this.
I guess my point is that I think DRM is going to get into our lives simply because most people are apathetic towards fringe cases that don't affect them. I hope that, as you suggest, this is just pessimism, and that I'm wrong.
. . . Apple has been told quite clearly by the market that having the distinction of being the first mover in the locked down PC market won't be good for the share price.
Well, if "the market" consists solely of folks like you and me who have nothing better to do than posts their complainst to Slashdot, then I suppose you have a point... However, my suspicion is that those people whom "the market" actually reflects don't understand what DRM is and couldn't be botherd to develop an educated opinion on it. Ultimately, what will Apple's move to Intel mean to them? A potential price reduction, faster laptops, and absolutely nothing else.
I think one could argue that the problem here is with HP, not with gray-beared gurus. I myself don't know what this guy has done lately, but I imagine coporate culture has as much to do with ground-breaking inventions as the tenure of the guys working on them. I mean, what if Sun had decided that Java was only going to be good for programming toasters and VCRs and the like, and decided that it had no future?
I know the IE haters won't switch. But what about the Firefox users who are using it because it's the latest thing and because of features IE6 doesn't have but IE7 will(tabbed browsing, RSS reader, etc.)?
People who only care about "cool new features" like tabbed browsing and RSS integration will probably just say "Myeh, I already have all that" when Microsoft starts advertising IE7, and continue using Firefox because that's what comes up by default.
The original Myst was indeed a set of standalone HyperCard stack. I used to use a "cheat code" which consisted of typing 'Command-?' A dialogue box would appear, complaining that it couldn't find "HyperCard Help Stack," and giving asking you to find the help stack in an Open File... dialogue. Thing is, the different Myst Ages were just different stacks which, while normally hidden, were visible in the Open File... dialogue. Select your desired Age and voila--instant warp!
Not that this exactly ruined the ending or anything. You could warp to the last age, where old whats-his-name would ask you for the white page, and you'd be all like WTF?? and warp back to the main island to actually figure the damn game out for yourself.
Thought I'd chime in here as an employee of a national financial corporation...
If you want your money ASAP, cash the check and then deposit most of the cash. Assuming you are an account holder in good stead, you should have those funds available to you immediately...
This won't work. If the bank with which you are working places holds on checks, then it won't matter how you use the check. If you deposit it, the bank simply waits to credit your account. If you cash it, the bank will give you the money right away, but it will place a hold for the funds you are taking on the account against which you are cashing the check. Your available balance will be reduced by the ammout of the check, and the fund holds will be lifted gradually according to the bank's check hold policy.
The bank which employs me is particularily stringent about it's hold policy, and for most customers, non-local personal checks get five to seven business day holds placed on them (almost half the month!) As you may imagine, this does cause customer service issues. As a lowly teller, however, all I can really do is is shrug, sympathise, and direct the customer to the brochure explaining our hold policy, which he received when he opened his account.
I feel your pain; however, I found that the ability to play the original games was well worth the pain of installing OS 9 next to OS X. I bought the Trilogy Box Set years ago, and every once in a while I still get the itch to play through all three of the games. It's like crack.
Of course, I've got an old iMac DV. I guess these days OS 9 won't even run by itself.
More likely, this was the cause of the first black hole. Lord only knows what happens when He tries to asign one constant to another. What version of gcc is He using?
I think the issue is more that supporting Ogg would undermine their own investment. Apple would like to create a world in which, for all intents and purposes, digital music means AAC.
In Northern California, anyhow, NetFlix still provides higher bandwidth than the local DSL provider.
I get to watch as many movies as I have the time for per week (usually four), they aren't crappy divx rips, and I get to choose where to play them. Works for me.
Oh, and I guess an average of $1.20 or so per isn't too shabby.
Well, it can taka a long time to do sys admin stuff, but only if you are like me and go months between doing a full system update. Make a cron job to do an emerge -uD world overnight, and you're set.
I use Gentoo for one thing: portage. I know the Debian package manager is great and all, but the latest Debian install CD hangs when I try to run it on my laptop, and I'm just too damned lazy to find a work-around.
And really, I'm not one of these guys. Anyone who notices a speed increase when switching to Gentoo is probably imagining things.
I have to side with the GP here. The truely nifty hack was creating a Linux distro that runs on these old beasts. From there, the feat is nothing special.
Proposition: to make Mac OS X run on an old Centris.
Mac OS X will install on any recent PowerPC or any environment that acts exactly like one; PearPC is an environment which acts exactly like a PowerPC, and it runs on Linux or any environment that acts exactly like Linux; Linux was made to run on an old Centris (cool!). Therefore, Mac OS X will run on an old Centris. Therefore, etc.
Q.E.F.
Porism: from this it is manifest that Mac OS X will run on anything that can run Linux.
Actually, the Safari folks must be avid/.ers. I remember when Safari was first introduced, Apple's website had an image of the bookmark manager with a Slashdot bookmark in it.
G4 merely defines the PowerPC generation 4, which means existance of AltiVec, multi-processing capability, etc. It doesn't have to be on the same hardware at all.
Actually, I think the correct technical definition would be "G4 is whatever Apple's marketing department needs it to be."
The true pedant appreciates being corrected as much he enjoys doing the correcting. The worst are those pseudo-pedants who can dish it out but can't take it.
Young man, this is the sort of insolence up with which I will not put!
Perhaps you mean "up with which I shall not put!" "Shall" is, I believe, still used for the future first person, singular or plural.
And to the grandparent poster, I believe you mean "may not want to live." "May," in this context, indicates the subjunctive mood, which you want because (a) you seem uncertain about the actual factuality of the statement; and (b) the main clause is in the present tense (first order clause). "Might" would be used in the following sentence: "A grammar checker was something without which I might not have passed English Comp."
Naturally, I shall make no claims to correctness of spelling; moreover, I may be completely full of shit.
I myself was shocked when Apple started advertising applemusic.com. As for your second point, the above referenced image is just about the first thing that pops into my head when I think of the Beatles (psychotic LSD flashbacks excepted, of course).
Slashdot Mirror
"droolingly beautiful and slick as Elvis' hair."
Ew.
It's not that people don't have the ability to understand DRM-related issues, it's that they don't have the desire.
In one respect, I agree with you. Every once in a while, a report crops up of this-or-that new album not being playable on standard hardware like a car stereo. This is the sort of DRM that gets in everyone's way. People hear about it, nobody buys that particular album, and the record companies give up on it.
The problem that I think we will be facing in the future is that more well thought out DRM systems will crop up, such as the DRM in Apple's iTunes Music Store. For most cases, the DRM is transparent, and users never run into it. My mom fits nicely into this category, and can't understand my frustrations over the same DRM. To her, it seems obvious that if something that I'm trying to do (like keep both her purchased music and mine in the same iTunes library side by side) is difficult, I shouldn't bother myself about it. Never mind the fact that I should be able to do this.
I guess my point is that I think DRM is going to get into our lives simply because most people are apathetic towards fringe cases that don't affect them. I hope that, as you suggest, this is just pessimism, and that I'm wrong.
. . . Apple has been told quite clearly by the market that having the distinction of being the first mover in the locked down PC market won't be good for the share price.
Well, if "the market" consists solely of folks like you and me who have nothing better to do than posts their complainst to Slashdot, then I suppose you have a point... However, my suspicion is that those people whom "the market" actually reflects don't understand what DRM is and couldn't be botherd to develop an educated opinion on it. Ultimately, what will Apple's move to Intel mean to them? A potential price reduction, faster laptops, and absolutely nothing else.
I think one could argue that the problem here is with HP, not with gray-beared gurus. I myself don't know what this guy has done lately, but I imagine coporate culture has as much to do with ground-breaking inventions as the tenure of the guys working on them. I mean, what if Sun had decided that Java was only going to be good for programming toasters and VCRs and the like, and decided that it had no future?
And, er, Objective-C rules. Yeah.
I know the IE haters won't switch. But what about the Firefox users who are using it because it's the latest thing and because of features IE6 doesn't have but IE7 will(tabbed browsing, RSS reader, etc.)?
People who only care about "cool new features" like tabbed browsing and RSS integration will probably just say "Myeh, I already have all that" when Microsoft starts advertising IE7, and continue using Firefox because that's what comes up by default.
The original Myst was indeed a set of standalone HyperCard stack. I used to use a "cheat code" which consisted of typing 'Command-?' A dialogue box would appear, complaining that it couldn't find "HyperCard Help Stack," and giving asking you to find the help stack in an Open File... dialogue. Thing is, the different Myst Ages were just different stacks which, while normally hidden, were visible in the Open File... dialogue. Select your desired Age and voila--instant warp!
Not that this exactly ruined the ending or anything. You could warp to the last age, where old whats-his-name would ask you for the white page, and you'd be all like WTF?? and warp back to the main island to actually figure the damn game out for yourself.
Thought I'd chime in here as an employee of a national financial corporation...
If you want your money ASAP, cash the check and then deposit most of the cash. Assuming you are an account holder in good stead, you should have those funds available to you immediately...
This won't work. If the bank with which you are working places holds on checks, then it won't matter how you use the check. If you deposit it, the bank simply waits to credit your account. If you cash it, the bank will give you the money right away, but it will place a hold for the funds you are taking on the account against which you are cashing the check. Your available balance will be reduced by the ammout of the check, and the fund holds will be lifted gradually according to the bank's check hold policy.
The bank which employs me is particularily stringent about it's hold policy, and for most customers, non-local personal checks get five to seven business day holds placed on them (almost half the month!) As you may imagine, this does cause customer service issues. As a lowly teller, however, all I can really do is is shrug, sympathise, and direct the customer to the brochure explaining our hold policy, which he received when he opened his account.
I feel your pain; however, I found that the ability to play the original games was well worth the pain of installing OS 9 next to OS X. I bought the Trilogy Box Set years ago, and every once in a while I still get the itch to play through all three of the games. It's like crack.
Of course, I've got an old iMac DV. I guess these days OS 9 won't even run by itself.
And God said "sqrt(e/m)=c" - and there was light.
More likely, this was the cause of the first black hole. Lord only knows what happens when He tries to asign one constant to another. What version of gcc is He using?
Yep. For the first time, DRTFA!
I think the issue is more that supporting Ogg would undermine their own investment. Apple would like to create a world in which, for all intents and purposes, digital music means AAC.
Geez. I'll never understand how a +0 post gets modded Overrated. Some people have too many mod points on their hands.
In Northern California, anyhow, NetFlix still provides higher bandwidth than the local DSL provider.
I get to watch as many movies as I have the time for per week (usually four), they aren't crappy divx rips, and I get to choose where to play them. Works for me.
Oh, and I guess an average of $1.20 or so per isn't too shabby.
Emulating the multiuser part might have been hard since BeOS wasn't multiuser.
Reminds me of trying to use OS 9 as a multi-user system. Yuck... I thought I had burried those memories!
And after 10.0, many felt that it was actually NeXT buying Apple, and getting rid of Gil was just a nice bonus.
Well, it can taka a long time to do sys admin stuff, but only if you are like me and go months between doing a full system update. Make a cron job to do an emerge -uD world overnight, and you're set.
I use Gentoo for one thing: portage. I know the Debian package manager is great and all, but the latest Debian install CD hangs when I try to run it on my laptop, and I'm just too damned lazy to find a work-around.
And really, I'm not one of these guys. Anyone who notices a speed increase when switching to Gentoo is probably imagining things.
Nothing wrong with an undecided voter. It's the folks that can (apparently) hold a logically impossible conviction that make some peoples heads spin.
Ok, mod me down.
Utterly pointless but damned nifty.
I have to side with the GP here. The truely nifty hack was creating a Linux distro that runs on these old beasts. From there, the feat is nothing special.
Proposition: to make Mac OS X run on an old Centris.
Mac OS X will install on any recent PowerPC or any environment that acts exactly like one; PearPC is an environment which acts exactly like a PowerPC, and it runs on Linux or any environment that acts exactly like Linux; Linux was made to run on an old Centris (cool!). Therefore, Mac OS X will run on an old Centris. Therefore, etc.
Q.E.F.
Porism: from this it is manifest that Mac OS X will run on anything that can run Linux.
They're trying to Slashdot Slashdot!
/.ers. I remember when Safari was first introduced, Apple's website had an image of the bookmark manager with a Slashdot bookmark in it.
Actually, the Safari folks must be avid
G4 merely defines the PowerPC generation 4, which means existance of AltiVec, multi-processing capability, etc. It doesn't have to be on the same hardware at all.
Actually, I think the correct technical definition would be "G4 is whatever Apple's marketing department needs it to be."
Yikes! I had no idea. The pedant, it seems, has been out-pedanted. Of course, this is certainly a dubious honor...
Perhaps you mean "up with which I shall not put!" "Shall" is, I believe, still used for the future first person, singular or plural.
And to the grandparent poster, I believe you mean "may not want to live." "May," in this context, indicates the subjunctive mood, which you want because (a) you seem uncertain about the actual factuality of the statement; and (b) the main clause is in the present tense (first order clause). "Might" would be used in the following sentence: "A grammar checker was something without which I might not have passed English Comp."
Naturally, I shall make no claims to correctness of spelling; moreover, I may be completely full of shit.
Two things:
1) www.applemusic.com
2) Apple's Music
I myself was shocked when Apple started advertising applemusic.com. As for your second point, the above referenced image is just about the first thing that pops into my head when I think of the Beatles (psychotic LSD flashbacks excepted, of course).