Wow sorry that's incorrect. Look into Monsanto Puss-Milk, rBGH (and/or why Canada rejected it outright for Canadian cows) and what happened when whistle-blowers in the US tried to bring findings forward into public view, etc.
"encourage people to become actually violent and start punching people in real life ?"
No I definitely did NOT mean that. Otherwise all great points in your reply.
I think eSports are a joke when they're just a video game version of a real sport; however, I believe there is legitimacy in the case of a game that cannot be played in real life (such as Rocket League). I do agree with the Olympic committee that video games that promote violence (while I love them) don't really belong under the "eSports" moniker. Therefore games such as Rocket League uniquely qualify to usher in exciting global competition much like the Olympics. (I'm not commenting on whether I feel RL should be in the actual Olympics - that's a separate conversation IMHO.)
I agree with the sentiments in many other posts that the market is geared towards "ohh shiny" types. I want a 16:9 or 16:10 widescreen MATTE screen, thanks. That's why I have yet to replace my 2011 Macbook Pro. I don't need the glossy, protective layer as I don't want kids so don't need it baby-proofed.
I'm sick of companies trying to use pointless metrics to determine what consumers want... they only made giant phones in the last few years and then use that "data" as justification for only making those because those are "all that sold." It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's full of shit. (It's all bullshit folks, and it's bad for ya. -Carlin)
Also, regarding applications, I like tabs - but that's besides the point. I think I'm missing the point of this article.
That sony sports a 4.6 inch screen! I don't want anything bigger than 3.5 - 4 inches... and reading a lot of other comments here I suspect I'm not alone. Adding "compact" to the name doesn't make it so.
I'd agree, but besides one guy I know who wants to watch TV shows on the bus, EVERYONE else I know is complaining right now that there are no reasonably-sized phones available. Tablets are successful because they're tablets, not because they're big - and I would venture that MOST people don't want or need giant phones.
"Phones come in booths now? Great! Now I don't have to carry around this stupid cell phone!" --Hermes Conrad
...as they used to be. I just want a smaller screen than 4.3 inches! If I have to live with lesser specs, too bad but FINE, I WILL.... JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T SUCK TO CARRY AROUND. 3.5" - 4" for a phone screen is plenty. I already have a tablet.
It's not like that at all. In your example people are able to simply not take the tape - this was forced into your library and the only way to hide it (not even delete it) is to hide ALL your previous purchases. Sucks if you delete content to make space sometimes and want to add it again later - this album will always be there in that list of stuff you bought (now a combined list of stuff you bought and stuff apple forced on you).
A lot of what I read above seems to be "so what" but what happens when it's more targeted, and more rampant? You'll start changing your minds and start to value having a little control over your media, your device, your life. You'll miss your short list of 5 albums you bought when you have to wade through 40 albums of crap Apple decided should show up in the list. At very least just make it a new/different list!! We used to get TV free but had to sit through commercials - that was fair. Now you pay $40/month for cable and still have to watch commercials? Greed and desire for control are changing things more rapidly than before, and it seems silly to me that they're taking control away from consumers; if we can't even vote with our dollar any longer I suspect piracy will skyrocket on a scale so far unseen. If I owed stock in Apple I'd be outraged that company money went toward this rather than R&D for how to not suck.
I disagree. The option is to auto-download purchased content, not "everything", but in any case those of us who Don't want it and didn't purchase it have it marked as purchased now! Previously we were allowed to choose what we bought, (and price or lack-thereof doesn't change what I'm talking about here). For the record I never enabled that stupid option, but I'm still pissed. See my post above about Control. The issue isn't U2 or iTunes or bandwidth, it's about control.
There's nothing stopping you from browsing, and there are now tons of sites and databases and forums etc to help you find similar or related music, including one built into iTunes (ping I think? did my best to disable & hide it because "F-OFF and stop watching my usage preferences for your marketing").
The issue here boils down to one simple thing: Control. People want control of their (very expensive) mobile - or any - device, and Apple wants control of how you use it and what you have access to when you use it. That's obvious with just about every aspect of iOS (yes I have an iPhone). Apps, settings, etc it's all their way or no way. I can't uninstall the Stocks app. Why? You can't tell me there's code in it needed by iOS, and if there was, why not move it to a required shared object / DLL type file and let.me.delete.Stocks. Now there are Facebook settings in the iOS general settings - WHY?! I deleted my facebook account and don't even have the app installed!
Control. I don't even hate U2, but this whole debacle pisses me off to no end. It may not have auto-downloaded, but I can't get it off my list unless I also remove all the other content that I (should not have!) bought on iTunes and CHOSE not to have on the iPhone this month. I went back to buying CD's and ripping them - you know why? Control. I can control the quality, whether I see them in the list, which cover artwork to embed, everything.
There's simply no intuitive, nice way of taking control away from a user without someone getting upset, and I don't see how anyone is surprised by that.
I love my Asus RT-AC66U with Merlin's custom firmware. I use openVPN with it (and Tunnelblick etc on my clients). That being said, if you want the best, pfSense is where it's at. You just need any cheap motherboard and a total of 2 network connections (usually that's one on-board and one add-in card, and they're cheap). I'd use a mobo that had on-board video so you have less generating heat in the case (and also less to buy and supply power to).
I can't disagree with you, but I feel there's another aspect missing here - what the manufacturer sees as beneficial (costs such as making physical kb's in every language) and what retailers or business analysts feel will sell based on all the latest marketing research (and remember in Big Data correlation IS causation!). "Wow look at how well the iPhone 3G sold! I guess no wants a physical keyboard anymore... None of our phones will ever sell again unless they're exactly like the iPhone in every way." (Nevermind the fact it could have sold for any one of 10-15 fairly cool / fairly new / or fairly well implemented features).
I believe this is also the reason someone (somewhere) in just about every camp (Mac, Win 8, Ubuntu as examples) thinks a desktop OS should start being gutted to look and work more like a mobile OS. I firmly believe LACK of features on mobiles (like real keyboards, mice, configurability/customizability, etc) are helping keep the PC market alive ever-so-slightly.
Not sure where you get your information from, but find a new source. Any language can be on the outside as long as the French is bigger OR on top (or both), and I'm from Quebec but barely speak French; we only ever spoke English outside of class. I don't deny they're pretty stupid with some of the language laws though... For example, considering the laws are to protect their culture from erosion due to the overwhelming English majority in North America, which makes sense, doesn't it also make sense to assume that road signs for tourists should be in English because a) tourists don't speak French and b) the locals already know where they're going?!
Don't be fooled into thinking AT&T won't add caps soon too - they've always had them here in Canada (Rogers here is AT&T) and they make a killing off the overage fees - I can't imagine they wouldn't want to apply that to a larger marker like the US; it's free money! Re "no one seems to care", I would guess the polititians are getting hand-out incentives to go for this. "If the company makes more they promise me more, and I can afford the unlimited plan (if they don't give it to me free anyway)!" Matured-Capitalism-in-a-Matured-Democracy 101.
So true... and they'll ignore the obvious stuff like Netflix, Steam, and the other modern e-business models that have greatly increased our average monthly bandwidth. I'm in Canada and I got tired of paying Rogers (AT&T) $68 a month for a 120GB cap, only to habitually over-step that line (I'm a habitual line-stepper, as Charlie Murphy would say) and get charged up to $100 more - thankfully laws prevent them from charging any more than $100 extra per month, but that's still $168 in a month just for internet. I've recently switched to Acanac where I'm paying less than $50 for the same speeds with no cap. Hopefully US customers will be able to find smaller/independant ISPs that offer something similar... switching away from the big guys when they make stupid moves like this is the only way to ge the message across - vote with your dollar! Don't be shy to sign online petitions and send out emails to politians on the upcoming bill they have to vote on, too.
This is along the lines of what I was thinking. Yes, the internet can be used for telecommunications. Using morse code, so can my flashlight... should it be regulated too?
Yes. You remember seeing your grandparents watching golf, Matlock, Murder She Wrote and The Price is Right? That was on a TV, not a computer. I know you don't believe me, but it was in 480i at best!!! And they'd have to sit through commericials and wait until the show started! At least it was free! Hahaha! It's true!
Exactly. In Canada, thanks to TV being completely digital now, there is no such thing as 'free tv' like there used to be - where having commercials made sense (they paid to show us their ads, while we didn't pay for channels). Now, we can't get TV for less than about $40 a month! Well guess what: I'm not watching commercials if I pay. PERIOD.
Next up we have the format. I can't be available to watch it exactly when they want me to watch it. I want to be able to watch it on whatever device I want, and I want to be able to pause it whenever the need arises. I have computers etc so I'm not paying for a PVR, especially when they don't have a lot of space and half time stick you with commercials, prevent FF through them, whatever.
Last, I'm sick of "them" (be they the channels, producers of the shows, whoever) thinking piracy is so bad - once upon a time you'd blast that shit free to everyone (see first point). Now you have proof people love it, and rather than pump out DVDs Blurays and merch, you'd rather spank people and get them to overpay for channels that play garbage and ads the other 99% of the time because otherwise you'll go broke even though you have a great show to provide?! GET A NEW BUSINESS MODEL. Many are still somewhat blind sheep, but too many have woken up and there simply is no going back. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
This answers the question I was about to ask... I figured if the PS4 was based on FreeBSD there *was* an AMD driver, but you point out well that it may not be one usable by the (freeBSD) PC gamer crowd. Boo.
Is that worse than buying competition to create a monopoly the way corporations like Microsoft do? IMO Patents aren't as much the issue so much as the laws surrounding corporations and their free run on power. Power derived from money. A good example is how they can do illegal/dangerous/harmful things if they want because often a fine is less than the profit they'll make. Shouldn't they be put out of business and their cash given back to the public or shareholders rather than scolded mildly so they can repeat the offense?
I can't imagine corporations with all their money and control (thanks largely to their money) will allow the system to be changed toward anything they don't like.
I guess it depends on if you think anything anti-government counts as treason. Some think the government is somewhat anti-freedom, which is another form of treason? In this case, I wonder about the secrecy of the documents he released myself. Just saying a document is "top secret" doesn't make it top secret, I'm sorry. It has to contain info that would endanger lives or the good of the country. You can't have douchebags marking every document "top secret" just to prevent it from being shared because they know it will incriminate them. Did these documents contain the info gathered or just let us know that info was being gathered?
Wow sorry that's incorrect. Look into Monsanto Puss-Milk, rBGH (and/or why Canada rejected it outright for Canadian cows) and what happened when whistle-blowers in the US tried to bring findings forward into public view, etc.
"encourage people to become actually violent and start punching people in real life ?" No I definitely did NOT mean that. Otherwise all great points in your reply.
I think eSports are a joke when they're just a video game version of a real sport; however, I believe there is legitimacy in the case of a game that cannot be played in real life (such as Rocket League). I do agree with the Olympic committee that video games that promote violence (while I love them) don't really belong under the "eSports" moniker. Therefore games such as Rocket League uniquely qualify to usher in exciting global competition much like the Olympics. (I'm not commenting on whether I feel RL should be in the actual Olympics - that's a separate conversation IMHO.)
I agree with the sentiments in many other posts that the market is geared towards "ohh shiny" types. I want a 16:9 or 16:10 widescreen MATTE screen, thanks. That's why I have yet to replace my 2011 Macbook Pro. I don't need the glossy, protective layer as I don't want kids so don't need it baby-proofed.
I'm sick of companies trying to use pointless metrics to determine what consumers want... they only made giant phones in the last few years and then use that "data" as justification for only making those because those are "all that sold." It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it's full of shit. (It's all bullshit folks, and it's bad for ya. -Carlin)
Also, regarding applications, I like tabs - but that's besides the point. I think I'm missing the point of this article.
That sony sports a 4.6 inch screen! I don't want anything bigger than 3.5 - 4 inches... and reading a lot of other comments here I suspect I'm not alone. Adding "compact" to the name doesn't make it so.
I'd agree, but besides one guy I know who wants to watch TV shows on the bus, EVERYONE else I know is complaining right now that there are no reasonably-sized phones available. Tablets are successful because they're tablets, not because they're big - and I would venture that MOST people don't want or need giant phones.
"Phones come in booths now? Great! Now I don't have to carry around this stupid cell phone!" --Hermes Conrad
...as they used to be. I just want a smaller screen than 4.3 inches! If I have to live with lesser specs, too bad but FINE, I WILL.... JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T SUCK TO CARRY AROUND. 3.5" - 4" for a phone screen is plenty. I already have a tablet.
It's not like that at all. In your example people are able to simply not take the tape - this was forced into your library and the only way to hide it (not even delete it) is to hide ALL your previous purchases. Sucks if you delete content to make space sometimes and want to add it again later - this album will always be there in that list of stuff you bought (now a combined list of stuff you bought and stuff apple forced on you).
A lot of what I read above seems to be "so what" but what happens when it's more targeted, and more rampant? You'll start changing your minds and start to value having a little control over your media, your device, your life. You'll miss your short list of 5 albums you bought when you have to wade through 40 albums of crap Apple decided should show up in the list. At very least just make it a new/different list!! We used to get TV free but had to sit through commercials - that was fair. Now you pay $40/month for cable and still have to watch commercials? Greed and desire for control are changing things more rapidly than before, and it seems silly to me that they're taking control away from consumers; if we can't even vote with our dollar any longer I suspect piracy will skyrocket on a scale so far unseen. If I owed stock in Apple I'd be outraged that company money went toward this rather than R&D for how to not suck.
I disagree. The option is to auto-download purchased content, not "everything", but in any case those of us who Don't want it and didn't purchase it have it marked as purchased now! Previously we were allowed to choose what we bought, (and price or lack-thereof doesn't change what I'm talking about here). For the record I never enabled that stupid option, but I'm still pissed. See my post above about Control. The issue isn't U2 or iTunes or bandwidth, it's about control.
There's nothing stopping you from browsing, and there are now tons of sites and databases and forums etc to help you find similar or related music, including one built into iTunes (ping I think? did my best to disable & hide it because "F-OFF and stop watching my usage preferences for your marketing").
The issue here boils down to one simple thing: Control. People want control of their (very expensive) mobile - or any - device, and Apple wants control of how you use it and what you have access to when you use it. That's obvious with just about every aspect of iOS (yes I have an iPhone). Apps, settings, etc it's all their way or no way. I can't uninstall the Stocks app. Why? You can't tell me there's code in it needed by iOS, and if there was, why not move it to a required shared object / DLL type file and let.me.delete.Stocks. Now there are Facebook settings in the iOS general settings - WHY?! I deleted my facebook account and don't even have the app installed!
Control. I don't even hate U2, but this whole debacle pisses me off to no end. It may not have auto-downloaded, but I can't get it off my list unless I also remove all the other content that I (should not have!) bought on iTunes and CHOSE not to have on the iPhone this month. I went back to buying CD's and ripping them - you know why? Control. I can control the quality, whether I see them in the list, which cover artwork to embed, everything.
There's simply no intuitive, nice way of taking control away from a user without someone getting upset, and I don't see how anyone is surprised by that.
I love my Asus RT-AC66U with Merlin's custom firmware. I use openVPN with it (and Tunnelblick etc on my clients). That being said, if you want the best, pfSense is where it's at. You just need any cheap motherboard and a total of 2 network connections (usually that's one on-board and one add-in card, and they're cheap). I'd use a mobo that had on-board video so you have less generating heat in the case (and also less to buy and supply power to).
they will do anything they can to keep there actions hidden from the public.
Wouldn't we all with that much cash on the line? No one wants their empires taking in any less than the previous day...
I can't disagree with you, but I feel there's another aspect missing here - what the manufacturer sees as beneficial (costs such as making physical kb's in every language) and what retailers or business analysts feel will sell based on all the latest marketing research (and remember in Big Data correlation IS causation!). "Wow look at how well the iPhone 3G sold! I guess no wants a physical keyboard anymore... None of our phones will ever sell again unless they're exactly like the iPhone in every way." (Nevermind the fact it could have sold for any one of 10-15 fairly cool / fairly new / or fairly well implemented features).
I believe this is also the reason someone (somewhere) in just about every camp (Mac, Win 8, Ubuntu as examples) thinks a desktop OS should start being gutted to look and work more like a mobile OS. I firmly believe LACK of features on mobiles (like real keyboards, mice, configurability/customizability, etc) are helping keep the PC market alive ever-so-slightly.
Not sure where you get your information from, but find a new source. Any language can be on the outside as long as the French is bigger OR on top (or both), and I'm from Quebec but barely speak French; we only ever spoke English outside of class. I don't deny they're pretty stupid with some of the language laws though... For example, considering the laws are to protect their culture from erosion due to the overwhelming English majority in North America, which makes sense, doesn't it also make sense to assume that road signs for tourists should be in English because a) tourists don't speak French and b) the locals already know where they're going?!
Don't be fooled into thinking AT&T won't add caps soon too - they've always had them here in Canada (Rogers here is AT&T) and they make a killing off the overage fees - I can't imagine they wouldn't want to apply that to a larger marker like the US; it's free money! Re "no one seems to care", I would guess the polititians are getting hand-out incentives to go for this. "If the company makes more they promise me more, and I can afford the unlimited plan (if they don't give it to me free anyway)!" Matured-Capitalism-in-a-Matured-Democracy 101.
So true... and they'll ignore the obvious stuff like Netflix, Steam, and the other modern e-business models that have greatly increased our average monthly bandwidth. I'm in Canada and I got tired of paying Rogers (AT&T) $68 a month for a 120GB cap, only to habitually over-step that line (I'm a habitual line-stepper, as Charlie Murphy would say) and get charged up to $100 more - thankfully laws prevent them from charging any more than $100 extra per month, but that's still $168 in a month just for internet. I've recently switched to Acanac where I'm paying less than $50 for the same speeds with no cap. Hopefully US customers will be able to find smaller/independant ISPs that offer something similar... switching away from the big guys when they make stupid moves like this is the only way to ge the message across - vote with your dollar! Don't be shy to sign online petitions and send out emails to politians on the upcoming bill they have to vote on, too.
This is along the lines of what I was thinking. Yes, the internet can be used for telecommunications. Using morse code, so can my flashlight... should it be regulated too?
This type of lawsuit can help regain some of the liberties the government has taken away, or at least some of the transparency. #WishfulThinking
Yes. You remember seeing your grandparents watching golf, Matlock, Murder She Wrote and The Price is Right? That was on a TV, not a computer. I know you don't believe me, but it was in 480i at best!!! And they'd have to sit through commericials and wait until the show started! At least it was free! Hahaha! It's true!
Exactly. In Canada, thanks to TV being completely digital now, there is no such thing as 'free tv' like there used to be - where having commercials made sense (they paid to show us their ads, while we didn't pay for channels). Now, we can't get TV for less than about $40 a month! Well guess what: I'm not watching commercials if I pay. PERIOD.
Next up we have the format. I can't be available to watch it exactly when they want me to watch it. I want to be able to watch it on whatever device I want, and I want to be able to pause it whenever the need arises. I have computers etc so I'm not paying for a PVR, especially when they don't have a lot of space and half time stick you with commercials, prevent FF through them, whatever.
Last, I'm sick of "them" (be they the channels, producers of the shows, whoever) thinking piracy is so bad - once upon a time you'd blast that shit free to everyone (see first point). Now you have proof people love it, and rather than pump out DVDs Blurays and merch, you'd rather spank people and get them to overpay for channels that play garbage and ads the other 99% of the time because otherwise you'll go broke even though you have a great show to provide?! GET A NEW BUSINESS MODEL. Many are still somewhat blind sheep, but too many have woken up and there simply is no going back. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Now I know why I punch my air conditioner when it's not working!
This answers the question I was about to ask... I figured if the PS4 was based on FreeBSD there *was* an AMD driver, but you point out well that it may not be one usable by the (freeBSD) PC gamer crowd. Boo.
Is that worse than buying competition to create a monopoly the way corporations like Microsoft do? IMO Patents aren't as much the issue so much as the laws surrounding corporations and their free run on power. Power derived from money. A good example is how they can do illegal/dangerous/harmful things if they want because often a fine is less than the profit they'll make. Shouldn't they be put out of business and their cash given back to the public or shareholders rather than scolded mildly so they can repeat the offense?
I can't imagine corporations with all their money and control (thanks largely to their money) will allow the system to be changed toward anything they don't like.
I guess it depends on if you think anything anti-government counts as treason. Some think the government is somewhat anti-freedom, which is another form of treason? In this case, I wonder about the secrecy of the documents he released myself. Just saying a document is "top secret" doesn't make it top secret, I'm sorry. It has to contain info that would endanger lives or the good of the country. You can't have douchebags marking every document "top secret" just to prevent it from being shared because they know it will incriminate them. Did these documents contain the info gathered or just let us know that info was being gathered?