In my shop we're all coders, so that plan would work
I agree that it depends on the users and the context, and your shop full of coders might be great. On the other hand, I've been in an office full of coders who definitely shouldn't have had admin rights over their own machines. Programmers often make for bad desktop/network support personnel in my experience. A lot of programmers I've met have studied how computers are supposed to work, and assume that computers actually work that way. Most of the best desktop/network support people I know know something about how computers are supposed to work, but are more interested in how they actually work, specifically how they work when they're doing things they aren't supposed to do. I've seen this discrepancy lead to programmers being over-confident in their abilities to be their own IT support.
What I'd usually try to do in those sorts of situations would be to have programmers have work machines and an additional development machine, or something of that sort (making use of virtual machines?). The rule I've always stood by is, if you want my IT team to support your system, then we need complete control over it (we have admin rights, you don't). If you want a dev machine where you have free reign to do what you want, that's fine, but don't expect us to fix it when you break it.
I haven't found that rule to necessary in all cases, but when you're dealing with 100+ systems, it's too complicated to manage them all unless you standardize them, using disk images, and lock them down.
Well it's a bit more complicated than that. What people have clearly wanted is
FREE all you can download buffets
No DRM
Any format or encoding bitrate they choose
Every piece of music ever recorded
But clearly that's not a viable business model by itself. Even a low flat fee without DRM, as you suggest, might result in everyone joining for 1 month, downloading the entire library (causing huge bandwidth expense for the business), and then cancel. That's certainly not unthinkable, considering how cheap storage is these days.
I think you'll continue to see services that offer either subscription with DRM, or purchase without DRM. (or both) This will continue until such time that "record companies" as we know them will no longer exist, and a completely different business-model is used to support artists/producers. (e.g. give music for free in order to make money touring and selling merchandise)
It depends on the company, but the CIO can have quite a lot of power. Particularly if you assume that distribution is generally moving towards going over the internet, and therefore a large portion of the "record company" business will then consist of providing the IT services for online distribution. Sure, the distribution portion of the business has been taking a back-seat to marking/branding, but the CIO might still have quite a lot of sway within the company.
I think what he's trying to get at is the assumption that illegal downloaders don't buy music. He's saying that they *are* buying music, but just not in a way that we can track along with the download. In other words, "pirates" are also legitimate customers, but the record companies can't measure how much of their sales are going to "pirates".
At least that's my guess as to what he means, because otherwise I can't figure it out.
In a motion to dismiss, the judge will assume that everything the plaintiff says is true, so it is assumed at this point that songs were actually copied.
Are you sure? I think not having evidence is sufficient to dismiss a case. He notes in the decision that the RIAA offered no evidence of distribution, right?
I don't know what the fate of Twitter will be. It seems like it's not doing anything complicated, so even if the concept lives on, it might be that Twitter itself goes under.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what's being said here about podcasting. I think the hype has certainly died down, but the hype on the internet in general has died down too. Gone are the days where people thought putting up a website automatically meant earning millions of dollars.
I know some very non-technical people who download free podcasts of popular radio and TV shows to play on their iPods instead of listening to the radio. They aren't bragging about it or even talking much about it unless you bring it up, but that's only because it's become common-place enough that it's not interesting anymore. Sure, there are lots of people who don't listen to podcasts, but there are also lots who do.
Not that I have anything investing in the argument. I don't really care whether podcasting is a "sideline" technology. I'm just not sure what it means to call podcasting a "sideline" technology. It's not a rarely-used technology, though.
Actually in both the third and fourth cases they'll have a hard time coming after you.
Well I can't speak about the reality of that, but I'm just talking about the decision this judge made. He indicates in the decision that the RIAA might have a case if they could prove that distribution occurred, or if they could prove that the defendants had offered the content for distribution.
The judge does not say, in my reading of it, that the defendants would definitely be guilty if distribution had occurred or if an offer of distribution had been made, but seemed more to be saying that, since the plaintiffs offered no evidence that either had occurred, there wasn't even a case to be made.
The RIAA's undoubtably going to argue that the defendant's P2P software made the file available and that that constitutes the offer of distribution.
Well I think (and IANAL and I only skimmed the decision) that the ruling is mostly saying that the RIAA has to allege a specific act or event took place. I *don't* think it's saying that unlicensed distribution is acceptable as long as the distributor can claim distribution occurred unintentionally.
So I'll try to adapt your example, even though it doesn't work very well for the point I'm trying to make. *Imagine* I need a license to distribute books, even if I'm giving legal copies away for free:
If I set up a table with a sign that says "free books", and I give books away, then according to this decision, they can still come after me.
If I set up a table with a sign that says "free books" but nobody can prove anyone took a book, then according to this decision, they can probably come after me.
If I set up a table with a bunch of books on it, with no sign, and they can prove someone took some books, then according to this decision, they can still come after me.
If I have a table with a bunch of books, with no "free books" sign, and nobody can prove anyone took a book, then according to this decision, they can't come after me.
Why can't they come after me in the last instance? Because no one is offering any evidence that anything happened. All they can prove is that I had books, and those books were available, so distribution was possible. But there's no evidence that I distributed them or even intended to distribute them.
The RIAA only offered evidence that the copyrighted materials were available, which means that copyright infringement could have taken place, hypothetically. But they didn't offer any evidence that any kind of copyright infringement had taken place.
The RIAA lawyers apparently tried to argue that someone most likely had downloaded the content, but that was rejected because they offered no evidence. So then they tried to argue that setting up a situation where copyright infringement could theoretically have taken place was enough. They judge said, "Sorry guys, you have to actually prove that copyright infringement occurred."
So it sounds to me like the RIAA can still come after you if they can offer proof of an actual download, or even if they can successfully argue that making something available on a P2P network constitutes an "offer of distribution". But again, IANAL, so I apologize if I got it wrong. Feel free to correct me.
Is it just me, or is it pretty obvious that this all just depends on the algorithm and the data?
Like I could "augment" the data with worthless or misleading data, and get the same or worse results. If I have a huge set of really good and useful data, I can get better results without making my algorithm more advanced. And no matter how advanced my algorithm is, it won't return good results if it doesn't have sufficient data.
When a challenge is put out to improve these algorithms, it's really because these companies are operating with limited and/or bad data. They have to deal with crap data and people trying to game the system. They can't pull data from other sites because they don't own the other sites' data. They can't necessarily track their own customers' searches and compile that because (sometimes) their customers would be outraged at the "invasion of privacy".
They historically provided, out of economic necessity, whatever music was (subjectively) "the best."
I don't agree. I'm not a music snob at all, and I have no problem with people listening to pop-y music. However, these days the record industry does not provide "the best" music. I don't know how it's been in the past, but that's not what they're doing now. Right now, what the record industry tries to do is create generic music that they hope won't completely fail. They're risk averse, so they pick up on safe and generic music. And then they put their marketing people on the task of convincing the general public that this safe/generic band is the "next big thing", hoping that the bandwagon effect will drive that band to stardom. They try to capitalize on that fame as much as possible, but then they drop the band when the tide turns against them.
That's the business they're in. It doesn't have all that much to do with music. They're marketing companies who will market any kind of fame they can sign.
I'm starting to wonder if "someone at Adobe" really thought this was a bad policy?
I'm not sure why this is supposed to be such a bad policy. Has anyone here actually read the EULA in question and thought about the context?
Adobe is running a service in which people can upload photos and graphics, and part of this service allows users to put their photos into "public areas". So Adobe puts something in their EULA saying, "If you put your photos into our public area, then you're implicitly giving us license to distribute your photos."
They may have gone overboard with the language, but it seems obvious to me that this is Adobe trying to protect themselves from copyright infringement lawsuits.
Because think of the alternative: You put something on Adobe's site and make it public. If anyone downloads that photo, Adobe is now "distributing" those photos. If those photos are copyrighted and Adobe doesn't have some sort of license to distribute them, they're now guilty of copyright infringement.
I also think that women are sometimes seduced by their own uncertainty. It's as though, once they really decide to have sex, the whole thing becomes less interesting. It's more of a turn-on to have the question bouncing around in their own minds, "Do I *really* want this?" For women, the unknown and uncertain are more seductive than a known-good thing.
I don't have scientific evidence to back that up, nor do I have any evolutionary theory.
No. The message should definitely be to women, "Be more clear about your intentions." Because even if men are naturally oblivious, we're not going to become any more insightful, but women can change their behavior. So women, if you don't want to send a message that your interested, quit flirting. If you are interested, go ahead and be forward.
I said I simply don't believe that there are as many professionals in this area as there seem to be in GIMP related threads.
Um... yeah, and what I'm saying is that it's not that unusual for someone who's not a graphic professional to need to export something to CMYK. Just a couple months ago, my company needed to print up some business cards in a hurry. We couldn't use our normal printer because it was needed within 2 days. So we found a quickie print service, but that printer required CMYK. Now, I don't believe that it was actually necessary that it was in CMYK, since they were black and white anyway, but the printer wouldn't accept RGB.
This side it in general "news for nerds", not "news for professional graphic designers".
And who does IT support for professional graphic designers? Us nerds. So there you go...
Remember this sub-thread is about using GIMP instead of a free cut-down photoshop version.
And yet you felt the need to raise these issues. I just responded to the subject matter you raised.
How many people do you know who would miss features in the full photoshop whic haren't in the GIMP
Quite a few. Of course, I've worked with various kinds of graphics professionals, but I doubt it's really all that unusual (to work in graphic design, graphic processing, print media, advertising, etc. or know people who do)
My limited testing on my own Macbook Pro indicates that the native (non X11) OSX version of OOo isn't any faster than NeoOffice. Of course, thats one guy testing on one config, comparing an alpha to a release-- so it's not a very comprehensive comparison, but I wouldn't count my chickens just yet.
I can't tell you numbers, but anyone who's doing professional work for print media needs CMYK. It's not that unusual if your doing any kind of graphic design or photo work.
according to GIMP related threads,/. is positively infested with photographic professionals
It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.
I am incapable of learning another UI
Or maybe you're in a position where it'd cause a big mess to try to force an entire department of graphic designers to use a UI they don't like?
Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well.
Or maybe it prevents you from selling your PHB on using deploying it in a large company, especially when the name could sound like it's related to sex acts or making fun of people with disabilities.
Sorry, you're right that all these things do come up every time people talk about the GIMP. I guess it's because some people refuse to accept that the GIMP has some shortcomings, despite being a very good and very useful program.
I agree, and I even have an iPhone and *like* the iPhone for typing. Touch-screen keyboard works ok, assuming a situation where you'll be doing limited amounts of typing while paying a lot of attention for short bursts of time. To be more clear, when I'm typing an e-mail or SMS on my iPhone, I'm typing a quick message in particular circumstances, and I feel like I can afford to be a little deliberate in that process. But if I'm going to type a long e-mail or a report or something, I need a physical keyboard. No way around that.
I'd bet that in 7 years laptops will be thinner, lighter, and more power-efficient. Hopefully the screen will be brighter and easier to read in sunlight, and we'll have better wireless internet. Those are features that pretty much every laptop owner actually wants. The screens might also be touch-sensitive, or I could imagine someone putting an additional screen behind the track-pad to provide additional controls. Hell, I could even imagine keyboards generally having little screens on them like the Optimus Maximus keyboard. But a touch-screen keyboard on my laptop is out of the question.
Correct. We sometimes get used to the idea that no technology can survive for very long, but we still use tons of really old tech every day. The wheel, knives, tables, chairs, bicycles, the internal combustion engine, light bulbs, copper wiring, etc.
I mean, there are plenty of little innovations everyday, but sometimes even big changes are really minor design changes. We've had cups and bottles for a very long time, but when you invent the plastic cup, suddenly you have something that's "disposable". It makes a huge culture shift, but you haven't even really changed the design very much. We get new cars every year, but the design usually isn't that much different.
So why should we necessarily expect that useful technology will cease to be used? Why would we even want that? If it's useful, serves a purpose, and nothing better has been invented, keep using it. Often, new technology isn't even necessarily better, but has instead has new benefits and new drawbacks. Plastic cups won't break as easily as glass, for example, but the texture changes, the chemicals leech into our bodies, and making everything "disposable" has been a nightmare as far as environmentalists are concerned.
I agree that Walmart is the "hero" of this particular story, but to me, the real villain is the record buying public. We can't ask firms to not try to make a profit... that's communism! We needed to stand up to the major labels a long time ago by simply not buying their over-priced crap. But sadly, most of us are just too dumb to know better.
I don't know, I thought part of the point of the article was that consumers *weren't* buying CDs for more than $10, while labels weren't willing to sell for less than $12. This lead Walmart to eat the $2 difference.
No one is a hero here. Labels were screwing Walmart, and Walmart was willing to be screwed for a little while because they were busy screwing consumers enough on other products to make up for the shortfall. Now Walmart is refusing to be screwed, but hasn't shown any inclination to stop screwing consumers. I didn't notice anything in the article saying that Walmart was going to lower prices to consumers, but only that they wanted to stop losing money on record sales.
As I said, if a bunch of kids in their basement can do it, why can't the professionals?
Because the professionals have to get enough money together to bribe radio stations to play their music, bribe congress to pass favorable laws, and run huge marketing campaigns to convince the public that their music is good.
if they maintained a pool of trained searchers that could be called upon for difficult queries (paid at maybe a fourth the rate of salaried employees).
That's not as unorthodox an idea as it might sound. Lots of professionals have always had assistants whose specific purpose was to research, proofread, fact-check, etc. Doing internet research is now just another skill for those types of assistants.
It isn't the age or size of a company that makes me hate them personally- it's their behavior.
I agree. Personally, I don't think it's good for any single operating system to be as dominant as Windows has been, but that's not the reason I dislike Microsoft. If they were this dominant simply by being the best, I wouldn't consider it their fault. It's a question of what they've done with that dominance-- stifled innovation, harassed their own customers with "activation" crap, locked their customers into Microsoft solutions with formats and protocols, trying to exert undue influence on standards bodies and governments, etc.
Now, whether Google and Apple would resort to equally evil behavior given that sort of market dominance is a question. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm an Apple fan, but maybe in 10 years they will have a 90% market share and pulling crap just as bad as what Microsoft pulls today. In that case, no, I won't like them anymore.
But that's not the same thing, I don't think, that the article implies. It's not an issue of customer fickleness, their judgement flipping around against powerful companies for absolutely no reason. The general discontent with Microsoft right now is due to the fact that they make poor-quality products and abuse their own customers. When people (or companies) change their behavior, you're allowed to change your attitude towards their behavior.
Slashdot Mirror
In my shop we're all coders, so that plan would work
I agree that it depends on the users and the context, and your shop full of coders might be great. On the other hand, I've been in an office full of coders who definitely shouldn't have had admin rights over their own machines. Programmers often make for bad desktop/network support personnel in my experience. A lot of programmers I've met have studied how computers are supposed to work, and assume that computers actually work that way. Most of the best desktop/network support people I know know something about how computers are supposed to work, but are more interested in how they actually work, specifically how they work when they're doing things they aren't supposed to do. I've seen this discrepancy lead to programmers being over-confident in their abilities to be their own IT support.
What I'd usually try to do in those sorts of situations would be to have programmers have work machines and an additional development machine, or something of that sort (making use of virtual machines?). The rule I've always stood by is, if you want my IT team to support your system, then we need complete control over it (we have admin rights, you don't). If you want a dev machine where you have free reign to do what you want, that's fine, but don't expect us to fix it when you break it.
I haven't found that rule to necessary in all cases, but when you're dealing with 100+ systems, it's too complicated to manage them all unless you standardize them, using disk images, and lock them down.
But clearly that's not a viable business model by itself. Even a low flat fee without DRM, as you suggest, might result in everyone joining for 1 month, downloading the entire library (causing huge bandwidth expense for the business), and then cancel. That's certainly not unthinkable, considering how cheap storage is these days.
I think you'll continue to see services that offer either subscription with DRM, or purchase without DRM. (or both) This will continue until such time that "record companies" as we know them will no longer exist, and a completely different business-model is used to support artists/producers. (e.g. give music for free in order to make money touring and selling merchandise)
He's only the CIO, not the CEO or CFO
It depends on the company, but the CIO can have quite a lot of power. Particularly if you assume that distribution is generally moving towards going over the internet, and therefore a large portion of the "record company" business will then consist of providing the IT services for online distribution. Sure, the distribution portion of the business has been taking a back-seat to marking/branding, but the CIO might still have quite a lot of sway within the company.
I think what he's trying to get at is the assumption that illegal downloaders don't buy music. He's saying that they *are* buying music, but just not in a way that we can track along with the download. In other words, "pirates" are also legitimate customers, but the record companies can't measure how much of their sales are going to "pirates".
At least that's my guess as to what he means, because otherwise I can't figure it out.
In a motion to dismiss, the judge will assume that everything the plaintiff says is true, so it is assumed at this point that songs were actually copied.
Are you sure? I think not having evidence is sufficient to dismiss a case. He notes in the decision that the RIAA offered no evidence of distribution, right?
I don't know what the fate of Twitter will be. It seems like it's not doing anything complicated, so even if the concept lives on, it might be that Twitter itself goes under.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what's being said here about podcasting. I think the hype has certainly died down, but the hype on the internet in general has died down too. Gone are the days where people thought putting up a website automatically meant earning millions of dollars.
I know some very non-technical people who download free podcasts of popular radio and TV shows to play on their iPods instead of listening to the radio. They aren't bragging about it or even talking much about it unless you bring it up, but that's only because it's become common-place enough that it's not interesting anymore. Sure, there are lots of people who don't listen to podcasts, but there are also lots who do.
Not that I have anything investing in the argument. I don't really care whether podcasting is a "sideline" technology. I'm just not sure what it means to call podcasting a "sideline" technology. It's not a rarely-used technology, though.
Actually in both the third and fourth cases they'll have a hard time coming after you.
Well I can't speak about the reality of that, but I'm just talking about the decision this judge made. He indicates in the decision that the RIAA might have a case if they could prove that distribution occurred, or if they could prove that the defendants had offered the content for distribution.
The judge does not say, in my reading of it, that the defendants would definitely be guilty if distribution had occurred or if an offer of distribution had been made, but seemed more to be saying that, since the plaintiffs offered no evidence that either had occurred, there wasn't even a case to be made.
The RIAA's undoubtably going to argue that the defendant's P2P software made the file available and that that constitutes the offer of distribution.
Well I think (and IANAL and I only skimmed the decision) that the ruling is mostly saying that the RIAA has to allege a specific act or event took place. I *don't* think it's saying that unlicensed distribution is acceptable as long as the distributor can claim distribution occurred unintentionally.
So I'll try to adapt your example, even though it doesn't work very well for the point I'm trying to make. *Imagine* I need a license to distribute books, even if I'm giving legal copies away for free:
Why can't they come after me in the last instance? Because no one is offering any evidence that anything happened. All they can prove is that I had books, and those books were available, so distribution was possible. But there's no evidence that I distributed them or even intended to distribute them.
The RIAA only offered evidence that the copyrighted materials were available, which means that copyright infringement could have taken place, hypothetically. But they didn't offer any evidence that any kind of copyright infringement had taken place.
The RIAA lawyers apparently tried to argue that someone most likely had downloaded the content, but that was rejected because they offered no evidence. So then they tried to argue that setting up a situation where copyright infringement could theoretically have taken place was enough. They judge said, "Sorry guys, you have to actually prove that copyright infringement occurred."
So it sounds to me like the RIAA can still come after you if they can offer proof of an actual download, or even if they can successfully argue that making something available on a P2P network constitutes an "offer of distribution". But again, IANAL, so I apologize if I got it wrong. Feel free to correct me.
Is it just me, or is it pretty obvious that this all just depends on the algorithm and the data?
Like I could "augment" the data with worthless or misleading data, and get the same or worse results. If I have a huge set of really good and useful data, I can get better results without making my algorithm more advanced. And no matter how advanced my algorithm is, it won't return good results if it doesn't have sufficient data.
When a challenge is put out to improve these algorithms, it's really because these companies are operating with limited and/or bad data. They have to deal with crap data and people trying to game the system. They can't pull data from other sites because they don't own the other sites' data. They can't necessarily track their own customers' searches and compile that because (sometimes) their customers would be outraged at the "invasion of privacy".
They historically provided, out of economic necessity, whatever music was (subjectively) "the best."
I don't agree. I'm not a music snob at all, and I have no problem with people listening to pop-y music. However, these days the record industry does not provide "the best" music. I don't know how it's been in the past, but that's not what they're doing now. Right now, what the record industry tries to do is create generic music that they hope won't completely fail. They're risk averse, so they pick up on safe and generic music. And then they put their marketing people on the task of convincing the general public that this safe/generic band is the "next big thing", hoping that the bandwagon effect will drive that band to stardom. They try to capitalize on that fame as much as possible, but then they drop the band when the tide turns against them.
That's the business they're in. It doesn't have all that much to do with music. They're marketing companies who will market any kind of fame they can sign.
I'm starting to wonder if "someone at Adobe" really thought this was a bad policy?
I'm not sure why this is supposed to be such a bad policy. Has anyone here actually read the EULA in question and thought about the context?
Adobe is running a service in which people can upload photos and graphics, and part of this service allows users to put their photos into "public areas". So Adobe puts something in their EULA saying, "If you put your photos into our public area, then you're implicitly giving us license to distribute your photos."
They may have gone overboard with the language, but it seems obvious to me that this is Adobe trying to protect themselves from copyright infringement lawsuits.
Because think of the alternative: You put something on Adobe's site and make it public. If anyone downloads that photo, Adobe is now "distributing" those photos. If those photos are copyrighted and Adobe doesn't have some sort of license to distribute them, they're now guilty of copyright infringement.
I also think that women are sometimes seduced by their own uncertainty. It's as though, once they really decide to have sex, the whole thing becomes less interesting. It's more of a turn-on to have the question bouncing around in their own minds, "Do I *really* want this?" For women, the unknown and uncertain are more seductive than a known-good thing.
I don't have scientific evidence to back that up, nor do I have any evolutionary theory.
No. The message should definitely be to women, "Be more clear about your intentions." Because even if men are naturally oblivious, we're not going to become any more insightful, but women can change their behavior. So women, if you don't want to send a message that your interested, quit flirting. If you are interested, go ahead and be forward.
Maybe the issue isn't where it stands on the list, but which direction it's moving, and how fast?
(don't know, didn't RTFA)
I said I simply don't believe that there are as many professionals in this area as there seem to be in GIMP related threads.
Um... yeah, and what I'm saying is that it's not that unusual for someone who's not a graphic professional to need to export something to CMYK. Just a couple months ago, my company needed to print up some business cards in a hurry. We couldn't use our normal printer because it was needed within 2 days. So we found a quickie print service, but that printer required CMYK. Now, I don't believe that it was actually necessary that it was in CMYK, since they were black and white anyway, but the printer wouldn't accept RGB.
This side it in general "news for nerds", not "news for professional graphic designers".
And who does IT support for professional graphic designers? Us nerds. So there you go...
Remember this sub-thread is about using GIMP instead of a free cut-down photoshop version.
And yet you felt the need to raise these issues. I just responded to the subject matter you raised.
How many people do you know who would miss features in the full photoshop whic haren't in the GIMP
Quite a few. Of course, I've worked with various kinds of graphics professionals, but I doubt it's really all that unusual (to work in graphic design, graphic processing, print media, advertising, etc. or know people who do)
My limited testing on my own Macbook Pro indicates that the native (non X11) OSX version of OOo isn't any faster than NeoOffice. Of course, thats one guy testing on one config, comparing an alpha to a release-- so it's not a very comprehensive comparison, but I wouldn't count my chickens just yet.
So are those known unknowns, or unknown unknowns?
(seriously, how many people on /. need CMYK?)
I can't tell you numbers, but anyone who's doing professional work for print media needs CMYK. It's not that unusual if your doing any kind of graphic design or photo work.
according to GIMP related threads, /. is positively infested with photographic professionals
It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.
I am incapable of learning another UI
Or maybe you're in a position where it'd cause a big mess to try to force an entire department of graphic designers to use a UI they don't like?
Oh, and apparently the name prevents me from using it as well.
Or maybe it prevents you from selling your PHB on using deploying it in a large company, especially when the name could sound like it's related to sex acts or making fun of people with disabilities.
Sorry, you're right that all these things do come up every time people talk about the GIMP. I guess it's because some people refuse to accept that the GIMP has some shortcomings, despite being a very good and very useful program.
I agree, and I even have an iPhone and *like* the iPhone for typing. Touch-screen keyboard works ok, assuming a situation where you'll be doing limited amounts of typing while paying a lot of attention for short bursts of time. To be more clear, when I'm typing an e-mail or SMS on my iPhone, I'm typing a quick message in particular circumstances, and I feel like I can afford to be a little deliberate in that process. But if I'm going to type a long e-mail or a report or something, I need a physical keyboard. No way around that.
I'd bet that in 7 years laptops will be thinner, lighter, and more power-efficient. Hopefully the screen will be brighter and easier to read in sunlight, and we'll have better wireless internet. Those are features that pretty much every laptop owner actually wants. The screens might also be touch-sensitive, or I could imagine someone putting an additional screen behind the track-pad to provide additional controls. Hell, I could even imagine keyboards generally having little screens on them like the Optimus Maximus keyboard. But a touch-screen keyboard on my laptop is out of the question.
Correct. We sometimes get used to the idea that no technology can survive for very long, but we still use tons of really old tech every day. The wheel, knives, tables, chairs, bicycles, the internal combustion engine, light bulbs, copper wiring, etc.
I mean, there are plenty of little innovations everyday, but sometimes even big changes are really minor design changes. We've had cups and bottles for a very long time, but when you invent the plastic cup, suddenly you have something that's "disposable". It makes a huge culture shift, but you haven't even really changed the design very much. We get new cars every year, but the design usually isn't that much different.
So why should we necessarily expect that useful technology will cease to be used? Why would we even want that? If it's useful, serves a purpose, and nothing better has been invented, keep using it. Often, new technology isn't even necessarily better, but has instead has new benefits and new drawbacks. Plastic cups won't break as easily as glass, for example, but the texture changes, the chemicals leech into our bodies, and making everything "disposable" has been a nightmare as far as environmentalists are concerned.
I agree that Walmart is the "hero" of this particular story, but to me, the real villain is the record buying public. We can't ask firms to not try to make a profit... that's communism! We needed to stand up to the major labels a long time ago by simply not buying their over-priced crap. But sadly, most of us are just too dumb to know better.
I don't know, I thought part of the point of the article was that consumers *weren't* buying CDs for more than $10, while labels weren't willing to sell for less than $12. This lead Walmart to eat the $2 difference.
No one is a hero here. Labels were screwing Walmart, and Walmart was willing to be screwed for a little while because they were busy screwing consumers enough on other products to make up for the shortfall. Now Walmart is refusing to be screwed, but hasn't shown any inclination to stop screwing consumers. I didn't notice anything in the article saying that Walmart was going to lower prices to consumers, but only that they wanted to stop losing money on record sales.
As I said, if a bunch of kids in their basement can do it, why can't the professionals?
Because the professionals have to get enough money together to bribe radio stations to play their music, bribe congress to pass favorable laws, and run huge marketing campaigns to convince the public that their music is good.
Why, did you want to edit it and track changes, then pass it along to friends for further revision?
if they maintained a pool of trained searchers that could be called upon for difficult queries (paid at maybe a fourth the rate of salaried employees).
That's not as unorthodox an idea as it might sound. Lots of professionals have always had assistants whose specific purpose was to research, proofread, fact-check, etc. Doing internet research is now just another skill for those types of assistants.
It isn't the age or size of a company that makes me hate them personally- it's their behavior.
I agree. Personally, I don't think it's good for any single operating system to be as dominant as Windows has been, but that's not the reason I dislike Microsoft. If they were this dominant simply by being the best, I wouldn't consider it their fault. It's a question of what they've done with that dominance-- stifled innovation, harassed their own customers with "activation" crap, locked their customers into Microsoft solutions with formats and protocols, trying to exert undue influence on standards bodies and governments, etc.
Now, whether Google and Apple would resort to equally evil behavior given that sort of market dominance is a question. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm an Apple fan, but maybe in 10 years they will have a 90% market share and pulling crap just as bad as what Microsoft pulls today. In that case, no, I won't like them anymore.
But that's not the same thing, I don't think, that the article implies. It's not an issue of customer fickleness, their judgement flipping around against powerful companies for absolutely no reason. The general discontent with Microsoft right now is due to the fact that they make poor-quality products and abuse their own customers. When people (or companies) change their behavior, you're allowed to change your attitude towards their behavior.