most people who go through the trial by fire to become bona fide authors are pretty firm when it comes to intellectual rights. In fact, I don't think I've met a single pro author who isn't.
Well, you may not have met him, but I'm sure you know of one. Tim O'Reilly has a different view, which seems pretty well thought out to me. And he's not only an author, but a publisher too!
Although the article linked above is a couple years old, its ideas and reasoning are still completely valid today.
While there's no doubt the Shuffle is a decent deal, you have to consider that virtually every other player on the market (including this segment) has more features. Almost all players at least have a screen, many are able to play other formats, such as Ogg Vorbis and Windows Media, many have FM tuners and recording capabilities, and some will even display photos.
So, as with most things, you get what you pay for. If you don't need certain features, the Shuffle is probably the thing for you. But I know some people want more, and they are the target audience of the more expensive players.
Incidentally, SanDisk makes a 512MB player for $99 also.. Oh, and it's got a backlit lcd screen, FM tuner, and a built-in mic for voice recording.
The online music store Magnatune already does this.
From the FAQ:
When you buy music on Magnatune, you can download the music in a variety of formats -- and you can download all the different versions you want.
There are 5 major formats availabe to buyers:
44k/16bit WAV: zip file of perfect quality WAV files. FLAC: zip file of perfect quality FLAC files. OGG: zip file of high quality OGG files. 128kb MP3: zip file of 128kb MP3 files. MP3 VBR: zip of high quality MP3 VBR files.
In addition, you can download individual songs as either 128k MP3s or WAV files.
Other nice things about Magnatune are:
You can listen to every song all the way through (in streaming 128kbps mp3) as much as you want before buying
You decide how much you want to pay for an album, and exactly half of your money goes straight to the artist
To me, that just says that both browsers are horribly insecure, and slightly more effort has been put into finding flaws in MSIE.
I feel compelled to point out (to those who haven't actually rtfa) that ALL 7 of the items listed there for Mozilla have already been fixed.
On the other hand, several of the Microsoft vulnerabilities include "solutions" (listed on secunia.com) such as "Use another browser" or (essentially) "Disable X functionality."
Having the same characters in a bunch of their games does not imply a lack of innovation. For instance, MarioKart and Mario Tennis and Smash Bros all had Mario and Luigi in them, but these games differ greatly from each other, and from Mario Bros.
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Although the article linked above is a couple years old, its ideas and reasoning are still completely valid today.
My current Athlon XP 2100+ is now 4 years old, certainly wasn't top of the range at the time
Dang, I'd like to know what your definition of "top of the range" is, if a not-to-be-released-for-another-8-months cpu doesn't cut it...
(The Athlon XP 2100+ was brand spanking new in March of 2002)
While there's no doubt the Shuffle is a decent deal, you have to consider that virtually every other player on the market (including this segment) has more features. Almost all players at least have a screen, many are able to play other formats, such as Ogg Vorbis and Windows Media, many have FM tuners and recording capabilities, and some will even display photos.
So, as with most things, you get what you pay for. If you don't need certain features, the Shuffle is probably the thing for you. But I know some people want more, and they are the target audience of the more expensive players.
Incidentally, SanDisk makes a 512MB player for $99 also.. Oh, and it's got a backlit lcd screen, FM tuner, and a built-in mic for voice recording.
From the FAQ:Other nice things about Magnatune are:
I feel compelled to point out (to those who haven't actually rtfa) that ALL 7 of the items listed there for Mozilla have already been fixed.
On the other hand, several of the Microsoft vulnerabilities include "solutions" (listed on secunia.com) such as "Use another browser" or (essentially) "Disable X functionality."
Having the same characters in a bunch of their games does not imply a lack of innovation. For instance, MarioKart and Mario Tennis and Smash Bros all had Mario and Luigi in them, but these games differ greatly from each other, and from Mario Bros.