Well, as far as this temporary directory that you're suggesting, there is an internet cache, and that's where most things go so long as they're viewable in Safari. The only occasional exception to this, AFAIK, is PDFs, and I believe that it's just a bug due to the fact that Safari used to be unable to open PDFs in the browser.
For files not viewable in Safari, however, Apple faces a dilemma. Do you allow people to open them, supposedly without saving them, and have people wondering where those files went? Or do you risk "downloading" files (download in quotes, because of course you're downloading either way) that the user won't really want.
I think Apple is doing it the better way. It diminishes the risk of losing data. For example, Microsoft's e-mail products (and IE) will offer to open files (in the case of e-mail, attachments) "where they are", and not "save" them. The file goes into some temporary directory, the user edits it, saves it, closes it, and... whoops, where'd it go? It didn't overwrite the original file, wherever that is, but you saved it, so you'd expect it's safe, somewhere. So where'd it go?
Sometimes it's just gone. Sometimes it's still on the hard drive, but it's in a hidden temp directory where normal users will never find it. In any case, for most people, the data is as good as gone.
Therefore, I say anything that's being opened in an external viewer (and therefore potentially an editor) should be saved somewhere. If you ask me, the browser shouldn't even open external editors. Anything that can't be opened in the browser should only be allowed to be saved.
Yeah, I know. I don't think it's really the best behavior, but I think Apple does it in an attempt to make downloads easy to find, and draw their attention to the fact that they've downloaded things. As for myself, I have a general habit of setting up user profiles to have a "Downloads" folder on their desktop, and point Safari (or any other web browser/FTP program) to download there as the default.
In the end, I just think of file management as a necessary skill for using computers-- almost as much as typing, or even reading. Yes, technically you can use a computer without those skills, but that doesn't mean you're using it well.
Um... are "concepts" protected by copyrights? Like, "Star Wars" is a copyrighted work, yes? I can't use characters from them, or specific artwork, etc. But can they sue me for using a concept similar to "the force" in my own story? The concept of a lowly farmboy becoming a hero? The concept of, I don't know, the villain turning out to be the hero's father? Does the copyright protect methods such as plot devices? Like the cliff-hanger, the surprise twist, or character development?
If the court rules that concepts and methods are protected by copyrights, then I think we've really hit a point where IP laws need to be reevaluated, because it would mean the end of free production of any kind of software/movies/music/etc. It would be all the bad things of software patents, but without even the patent application process.
Macs did have a proper file structure before OS X: it was whatever you wanted it to be.
"Whatever you want" may be fine for some users of single-user systems to don't care much about security, but it's not what I would call a "proper file structure". I'm not saying the system should necessarily keep you from doing whatever you want, but users should understand that storing your files in some places makes sense, and storing them in others does not. The OS should also encourage the proper behavior (using someplace in their home folder as the default in "save as" dialogues) and discouraging improper behavior (requiring administrator authentication to move documents to system folders).
Now, admittedly, storing everything on your desktop is a different sort of problem from storing everything in the root of your hard drive (though someone who didn't understand computing wouldn't understand why). However, both tend to reflect, IMHO, a sort of carelessness and ignorance. Of course, people are allowed to be careless and ignorant with their own data on their own computers, but I wouldn't advise it.
there were about 340 items there, as it's both my default download folder and the place I drag images and clippings to from Safari.
Holy crap. 340 files on your desktop?
I've been in IT for a while, and this seems to be a particular neurosis or Mac users. Inexperienced Windows users will throw everything on their desktop, but with Mac users, even many of the experienced ones do it. Everything is on their desktop, or just on the hard drive (by which I mean, not sorted at all, but in the root directory), and they never close their applications. I really don't get it. Maybe it's a hold-over from the old pre-OSX days, before Macs had a proper file structure?
Anyway, before people jump on me for being a troll, I'm a Mac user. I really like OSX a lot. I have an iPod, 2 powerbooks, and a Mac mini. But geeze, man, OSX gives you a whole home directory with a nice little Desktop/Documents/Pictures/Music breakdown-- learn to use it...
Apple needs Microsoft to justify their existence, but Microsoft doesn't.
Huh? So if Microsoft didn't exist, Apple would be out of business? I think, more likely, they'd be huge.
Mac is a niche platform and they will continue for support Office for Mac until they see Mac as a real threat.
That's a concern among Mac users, but it's not as clear cut as that. First of all, failure to open Office file formats in addition to failure to produce a version of office for any other platform would probably land Microsoft in some more anti-trust hot water. Additionally, Microsoft really has *two* cash-cow monopolies. Office doesn't just prop up Windows, it's a big deal in its own right. If Apple grew to the point of being a real threat, Microsoft would probably be hesitant to lose that market for their Office suite. The more threatened Windows is, the more Microsoft needs to ensure the viability of Office in order to survive.
Apple's merits and "you-get-what-you-pay for" philosophy only make sense with an alternative such as MS that works but isn't sexy or stylish.
Again, huh? Are you implying that Microsoft products are cheap? The retail price of Windows XP is $300.
It just seems like owning a Apple product turns people into RDFed Steve fans.
So, essentially, you don't want to buy an Apple machine because you're afraid that you'll like it so much it'll turn you into a fan of Apple products?
"Informative" indeed. I was a Windows/Unix guy for years enticed by the unixy nature of macintoshes, so I migrated. At first, I was completely put off by the idea of resource forks. Data that could magically disappear if you copied the file "the wrong way"? Wouldn't be so bad, except the "wrong way" was through FTP, SMB, HTTP, or even just through the command line. Crazy stuff.
Then I learned more about them, and largely, they aren't so ridiculous. Maybe there'd be a better technical way to accomplish the same thing, but it's essentially a way to attach meta-data, which is a good thing. How many times do you hear that database-like file systems are the future? Well, you're going to need metadata somehow, and as you mention, you can't just start throwing it in arbitrarily to the data forks of various file-types, because different formats won't all allow the metadata to be stored in the same way and in the same place.
Mostly, there isn't anything super-important in the resource fork anyhow. At least, there shouldn't be. I guess you could create an empty text file and store your text in the resource fork instead, but why would you? Mostly it's things like thumbnails, tag words, icons, and program associations. And when I say "program associations", I mean that I can set JPGs, by default, to open in Preview, but then set a particular JPG to open in Photoshop, and the instructions for the particular JPG to open in Photoshop would be held in the resource fork. So it's mostly things that are useful, but if you lose them, it's not a huge deal.
Of course there are some exceptions. Often icon or font files are store their data only in the resource fork (though that need not be the case). On the other hand, if you want to protect your resource fork on a file system or while passing through a transmission that does not support them, you can use Stuffit, Tiger's built-in zip functionality, or a disk image. Also, in the newest versions of OSX, Apple's addressed many of the problems with command-line tools dropping the resource forks.
Yeah, sure. Lengthening the lifetime/accessability of both media and file format on all documents to 20 years, even, would be nice. And let's be honest, "forever" isn't really going to happen. No medium will hold up forever. We won't be sure that any file format will be good enough for the rest of eternity.
So you can't plan for forever, but at the same time, I'm not sure any finite time is sufficiently long, which necessarily indicates that we can't afford to have a closed format. Even if Microsoft will guarantee readability of Word documents for 20 years, for example, that's not sufficiently long. 100 years? Not long enough. We're still using information from thousands of years ago. The only way to ensure that we get to keep all our data for another thousand, or another 5 thousand, or however long we'll need it, is to put it in a medium and in a format that will continue to be readable. Must we keep printouts? Is paper really the only trustworthy medium?
Maybe so. If we desire to keep our information digital, however, we should be working on methods of storing data that is as sure to remain accessible as paper. Maybe we don't have it yet, but let's keep in mind that that is our goal, and anything that's headed toward lesser accessibility is generally a bad move for us.
Therefore, if data is important, copies should be kept in an open format, DRM free, on long-lasting media. Anything less is irresponsible.
Back in 1999 or so I bought a portable CD based MP3 player that also plays VCDs!.... Plugs into any TV or VCR or whatever is connected to your TV that has some sort of imput with RCA video jacks. Works in hotels even. Plays crispy MPEG2 video no problem...Now, it had no built-in screen and obviously it didn't have gobs of flash memory since it was a CD based device. But it was extemely cheap both in terms of initial cost and in terms of blank media. Most importantly it didn't have any DRM...What I'd like to emphaize is that if this ultra cheap DRM free portable video player device was already done at a cheap price seven years ago, it will most likely be done again with flash storage, and an MP4 codec support.
Somehow, I missed responding to this. Here's a little secret: Apple has just released a portable video player that plays DRM free MP4 in a hard-drive-based player! Plugs into any TV or VCR or whatever to connect to your TV using RCA jacks. It should work in hotels, even. Now, it won't be crispy MPEG2, but it will be roughly the quality that I get on my non-digital cable. There will be minor compression artifacts. Most importantly, you can play DRM free movies!
It's called the iPod, and though it's not perfect, it's pretty good. It also plays music, stores pictures, can be used as a portable hard drive, and a pseudo-PDA. Oh, by the way, you can also, if you choose, buy movies with DRM from this online store, but, you know, nothing says you have to.
However, music stores at malls and such have a very large selection of music, including obscure, and they don't seem to have a problem.
It's all a question of "how obscure". There are tons of small label stuff not in those record stores, and there are things that never made the transition to CD from vinyl. I'm not claiming Apple has all this music, or even that they ever will, but I bet they could handle it in a more cost-effective way than your mall record store.
You think the OEM designs the iPod, and Apple has nothing to do with it?
Apple is following Sony's missteps here and Sony is clearly losing its way due to its relentless insistence on DRM across the product line.
It's not Apple that's insisting on DRM. It's the media companies. Apple would not have been able to gather such a large catalogue of music, and would have little/no chance of getting more TV shows, if not for the DRM.
I believe that the new metric for data accessability should be one average human lifespan--any electronic data created at one's birth should be accessable during that person's entire predicted lifespan. This obviously precludes vendor lockin of file formats for the purposes of revenue enhancement.
I might just be crazy or something, but I would really hope that the new metric for data accessibility would be "forever". Or at least "as far as the eye can see". Ok, maybe not everyone wants to keep all of their data forever, but why does that mean that our aim shouldn't be to make data accessible for the foreseeable future, for as long as a person should want to keep his data? If any data format precludes this possibility, I think it should probably be obsoleted immediately, as it is insufficient for the needs of civilization-- or my needs, at any rate.
Why should there be a necessary expiring of information, anyway? Can you imagine if every bit of information from more than 80 years ago suddenly disappeared? Imagine what we'd lose. No, we should demand that all file formats are open enough that they can be read for all of the foreseeable future, and that if that format should become obsolete, conversion would be possible.
Could not agree more with the premise. In a world where content is king, it continually amazes me that the vast piles of old TV programming out there can't find a market. Online delivery at low prices strikes me as the perfect delivery channel.
Yes, online delivery seems particularly good for old (or even just unpopular/obscure shows) to be distributed. After all, I'd imagine the reason you can't find those "vast piles" anywhere is that the distribution channels are too tricky and expensive. A lot of money goes into maintaining a TV network for 24 hours a day, and so every hour needs to be maximized for profit. It isn't good enough for a show to make money, it needs to be the most cost-efficient means of selling commercial airtime in that slot. Time is the limitation.
In DVDs, there's the cost of transferring the content to digital and producing the DVDs, but I'm guessing shelf-space is often the limitation. For Best Buy to carry a DVD collection of every movie ever made and every TV show, it would need to be enormous. They'd be spending tons of money for space and employees to sort through inventory that would largely go unsold.
Digital, however, you have the onetime transfer to a digital form, the cost of some hard drive space, and bandwidth. Even the bandwidth would only cost money when someone actually purchased it. It seems like an online store would potentially be able to carry a much larger and more varied inventory than any brick-and-morter store could hope.
However, I'm no businessman, so feel free to correct.
You can view it on your computer also. Or you can play it on your TV by hooking your iPod up to the TV.
The only reason you have to is the DRM. Sorry. But you aren't going to get a store right now that has no DRM-- which leads us to...
Apple can try to be fair about their DRM, but no media company, whether they be music, movie, or TV, is going to agree to online stores with no DRM. Not right now. Of course, it's arguable the DRM doesn't really protect the content from replication, but good luck convincing these companies of that. On the other hand, digital distribution allows for new avenues of competition with these large companies, so acceptance of reasonable DRM in the short-term may lead to new distribution models by companies that don't require such tight control. In other words, it might be worth it to put up with some DRM if it gets this stuff online.
How about paying through the credit card?
Higher quality doesn't really make much sense for what Apple's looking for. It's not just an issue of these movies being designed to play on the iPod, but there are bandwidth considerations, and the fact that many customers just won't want to wait 10 hours while the thing downloads (on a broadband connection). The truth is, the quality they provide is watchable. It's far from perfect, but it's generally good enough for catching up on an episode you've missed. I would bet, though, that they are working on long-term plans for higher quality downloads, should it become appropriate.
Huh? This one, strangely, doesn't make much sense to me. They're just starting with video, and you're complaining that you won't use them until they have a big selection. Why? What does it benefit you to have a large selection if they still don't have what you want, and what does it hurt you for them to have a small collection if they have a show you want to see? Netflix needs a big catalogue, but that's because they run a subscription model. iTMS doesn't cost you a thing until you want something they're offering. I agree that it'd be nice if they had more shows, but that's only so there'd be a greater chance of having what I want. They could have the same number of shows, but better shows, and I'd be happier.
Well, it might have been a lot, but it might not have been caused by the subscription model. Norton has become more of a resource hog, seemingly less effective, and other packages have improved drastically. For home use, I usually recommend AVG. It uses very little in the way of resources, works well, and is free.
I think you've hit on the real issue here. In my mind, for example, I should be able to purchase Microsoft Office, since that is a piece of software that I can take a given snapshot of it, and it doesn't necessarily decrease in usefulness as time goes on. For example, there are people that are still running Office 97 and who wouldn't really benefit from the upgrade to 2003.
On the other hand, you have software like antivirus software, where it's usefulness is predicated on constant updates. Why would a company offer constant updates for free? How would they make money to support the staff that produces these updates? A subscription model makes sense here.
There may be some middle-ground as well. Maybe it'd be worth paying for some sort of maintenance for some software. For example, if I could pay a small fee ($10 a year?) to make sure my version of office was continually supported with bug-fixes, that'd be worth it. No new features, but support for the newest versions of the Word.doc format, security holes plugged, etc.?
Or, for example, if Microsoft wanted to offer, in addition to the option of purchasing Office, the option to subscribe to the "latest and greatest" version, whatever that was, that might be worth considering. Pay $100 a year, and when Office 2006 (or whatever) comes out, you get the upgrade and support? Like I said, worth considering.
The problem comes when some greedy company applies one business model to a product that should have another. Switching all Microsoft Office products to a subscription model, for example, would be inappropriate. What if Word 97 is good enough for me? Why should I keep having to pay Microsoft for their work, even when I, as the customer, am not benefiting? Further, what's the incentive, then, for Microsoft (or whoever) to make meaningful updates to their software? You'll be paying them anyhow, just to keep running the old software. Why should they bother trying to innovate if it won't earn them extra money?
The real key here is to provide consumers with choice, and subscriptions should always be for updates and fixes, not for just continued use.
My phones have cost between zero and a hundred pounds (even a SonyEricsson 910i smartphone would cost me nothing if I wanted to upgrade to one today) - this story mentioning $900 phones is strange to me.
It seem like, around here, all phones are at least $200. Even cheap plastic, don't do anything special, aren't particularly great phones, if you buy them without a service contract, are at least $200. A good phone is going to be in the $400 range, and high-end phones will be something like $1000. It's even more if you want an unlocked phone (a phone that isn't crippled to work with only one provider).
Now, if you sign up for a two year contract, they give you a discount-- something like $200. So those $200 phones are "free", so long as you obligate yourself to pay for their service for at least 2 years. And those phones are locked to that provider, so if after those two years, you want to switch to a different carrier, you have to buy a new phone, even if you were happy with the old one, and obligate yourself to another two years with the new provider (or spend an extra $200 to avoid obligating yourself).
I don't really know what that's all about, why phones need to cost that much, and why it's different from... pretty much everywhere else. The extra space to cover, yes, that's an issue. The US is generally pretty sparsely populated in comparison with many other countries. However, it seems like they should be able to do something about the densely populated areas.
So again, I'm back to wondering what, exactly, the deal is, and whether the carriers are engaging in unethical business practices.
Except no. There's tons of evidence for natural selection...
Well, natural selection, I hope, is something we can all agree on. Natural selection almost needs no evidence. It's pretty certain, through other means, that things which are unsuited to survive will not survive. Those things which can't replicate and are unable to survive will disappear, and those things which multiply themselves and survive will grow in numbers. This is inherent in our intuition of time.
If we admit that genetic mutations happen (or, more generically, that it's possible for species to change), and we admit that natural selection occurs (hardly avoidable), then we must admit that some kind of evolution takes place (even if the result is small). Even without the genetic mutation thing, variation and natural selection ensure that the overall composition of a species will change over time. So the question, I suppose, is one of how much offspring can differ from their parents, and whether new traits which didn't exist before are capable of appearing.
Whether we admit that man evolved from less-developed apes, however, is a different matter. Even were we to grant everything about evolution, someone could still argue that man was dropped on earth by some power or another. To argue with that, you'll need to look for history, which we don't have unless you believe the bible, and fossil records, which are inherently incomplete, and may have been planted by satan to trick us.
On a side note, satan is quite a little trickster. Just the other day, he tricked me into drinking a Pepsi when I meant to drink a Coke. I think it was some form of transubstantiation. Switching Coke and Pepsi, leaving fake bones laying around... that satan is quite a character.
Personally, I think that a systematic approach to religion would go a long ways towards helping to fill it, but it would be a far greater threat to established dogmas than ID.
I think I agree with you here, but as you imply later on, one could view christianity as an attempt to reevaluate Judaism in order to make it more reasonable and less dogmatic. Don't you have worry that, no matter what progress is made, dogmatism will rear its ugly head? Science itself has a tendency to become dogmatic, and things are taken as fact by those who are unfamiliar with the field of study, with no evidence offered or required other than it was reached by "science".
I guess I'm suggesting that there's always a cycle of dogmatism. One man makes a discovery and he convinces the world, in spite of the world failing to understand. His discovery eventually becomes among the things "we all know", and questioning his discovery is met with scorn. His discovery then, however "true", must be rediscovered before it's actually known on valid grounds. This discovery, known widely and with certainty-- but invalidly-- becomes part of some sort of dogma.... or something like that. The thrust being that no matter how systematic we are, our conclusions are still libel to become a fresh, unreasonable dogma.
So how do you address that in your proposal of a systematic approach? Would you say, let us deal with now, and those who come later will deal with what comes after? Or do you see a way to create a lasting, undogmatic understanding?
BTW, what's your deal? You're probably the most philosophic mind of anyone I've seen 'round these parts. You a student?
I've been looking into the same area recently, and you haven't got long to wait (except if you're in North America);
But of course I *am* in north america, which should explain some of my frustration. I don't think I can even get either of the two phones from 2 megapixel shootout. This was part of the reason I asked if the culprit was the carriers. I don't understand how the business works exactly, but I get the feeling sometimes like carriers here want everyone to have shitty phones that don't work properly.
I know nobody would want a phone where the keyboard is locked out when a picture is taken.
Personally, I'd be fine, I think, if you had to flip a switch to change between camera mode and phone mode, and if while working as one device, it was non-functional for the other.
The only reason I want a two-in-one device is so that I don't need to carry around several devices. I wouldn't need to worry about keeping track of both, whether they're lost/stolen, and it'd just be easier to carry around. Being able to use my phone while I'm taking pictures, eh.... I really don't care.
And more to the point, I'm not even interested in having the two work together. I don't want to e-mail my pictures to people over the phone. I don't need any data transmissions over my phone at all. Just voice.
Would you like a digital camera that has a built-in mobile phone?
Uh... yeah. I think that all those people who want digital cameras built into their phones would also like phones built into their digital cameras.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that I'd rather have the phone built into the digital camera, like an Elph with a phone built in? Canon is better at making sturdy designs, sensible feature sets, and good interfaces that any mobile phone company I can think of. Mobile phones are always cheap plastic crap that don't work properly and fall apart after a week. I had an Elph that stuck together for 4 years before I sold it (at which point, it was still going strong).
What do you think buying nothing for a day will accomplish? Anything that a person wants that day, they'll just buy in advance. Let's say I was participating. If my family drank a half-gallon of milk a day, and I normally bought that half-gallon every day, then knowing that buy-nothing day was coming, I'd just buy a full gallon the day before. Or is this "buy nothing day" actually "starve your kids day"?
I regularly go several days without buying anything. Most of us do. Let's see... today? I bought a fricken cup of coffee. $1.25. That's it. So what do you think it'd do if I dropped that cup of coffee? It wouldn't even effect the guy I buy coffee from. Ok, I'll agree not to buy a cell-phone today. I haven't bought a cell phone for a year, and Cingular hasn't surrendered yet. Though, if I want a new cell phone, I'll need to buy one sooner or later.
But if all of us have a day here and there where we buy nothing, or very little, who's going to care if we just all align those days to the same day? Now, if you want to organize a "buy nothing year", that might get someone's attention. But what would it accomplish? What would you do for that year?
Or, how about we organize a "don't buy useless crap for the rest of your lifetime" movement. That would simultaneously reward those companies which are making products that you thought were good, while damaging the businesses that make crap. Of course, I'm already doing that... but, you know, whatever.
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For files not viewable in Safari, however, Apple faces a dilemma. Do you allow people to open them, supposedly without saving them, and have people wondering where those files went? Or do you risk "downloading" files (download in quotes, because of course you're downloading either way) that the user won't really want.
I think Apple is doing it the better way. It diminishes the risk of losing data. For example, Microsoft's e-mail products (and IE) will offer to open files (in the case of e-mail, attachments) "where they are", and not "save" them. The file goes into some temporary directory, the user edits it, saves it, closes it, and... whoops, where'd it go? It didn't overwrite the original file, wherever that is, but you saved it, so you'd expect it's safe, somewhere. So where'd it go?
Sometimes it's just gone. Sometimes it's still on the hard drive, but it's in a hidden temp directory where normal users will never find it. In any case, for most people, the data is as good as gone.
Therefore, I say anything that's being opened in an external viewer (and therefore potentially an editor) should be saved somewhere. If you ask me, the browser shouldn't even open external editors. Anything that can't be opened in the browser should only be allowed to be saved.
In the end, I just think of file management as a necessary skill for using computers-- almost as much as typing, or even reading. Yes, technically you can use a computer without those skills, but that doesn't mean you're using it well.
If the court rules that concepts and methods are protected by copyrights, then I think we've really hit a point where IP laws need to be reevaluated, because it would mean the end of free production of any kind of software/movies/music/etc. It would be all the bad things of software patents, but without even the patent application process.
"Whatever you want" may be fine for some users of single-user systems to don't care much about security, but it's not what I would call a "proper file structure". I'm not saying the system should necessarily keep you from doing whatever you want, but users should understand that storing your files in some places makes sense, and storing them in others does not. The OS should also encourage the proper behavior (using someplace in their home folder as the default in "save as" dialogues) and discouraging improper behavior (requiring administrator authentication to move documents to system folders).
Now, admittedly, storing everything on your desktop is a different sort of problem from storing everything in the root of your hard drive (though someone who didn't understand computing wouldn't understand why). However, both tend to reflect, IMHO, a sort of carelessness and ignorance. Of course, people are allowed to be careless and ignorant with their own data on their own computers, but I wouldn't advise it.
Holy crap. 340 files on your desktop?
I've been in IT for a while, and this seems to be a particular neurosis or Mac users. Inexperienced Windows users will throw everything on their desktop, but with Mac users, even many of the experienced ones do it. Everything is on their desktop, or just on the hard drive (by which I mean, not sorted at all, but in the root directory), and they never close their applications. I really don't get it. Maybe it's a hold-over from the old pre-OSX days, before Macs had a proper file structure?
Anyway, before people jump on me for being a troll, I'm a Mac user. I really like OSX a lot. I have an iPod, 2 powerbooks, and a Mac mini. But geeze, man, OSX gives you a whole home directory with a nice little Desktop/Documents/Pictures/Music breakdown-- learn to use it...
You mean like when they go looking for news stories on FARK? Or when they reported on how bloggers figured out Dan Rather's papers were bogus?
That's some good investigating.
Huh? So if Microsoft didn't exist, Apple would be out of business? I think, more likely, they'd be huge.
Mac is a niche platform and they will continue for support Office for Mac until they see Mac as a real threat.
That's a concern among Mac users, but it's not as clear cut as that. First of all, failure to open Office file formats in addition to failure to produce a version of office for any other platform would probably land Microsoft in some more anti-trust hot water. Additionally, Microsoft really has *two* cash-cow monopolies. Office doesn't just prop up Windows, it's a big deal in its own right. If Apple grew to the point of being a real threat, Microsoft would probably be hesitant to lose that market for their Office suite. The more threatened Windows is, the more Microsoft needs to ensure the viability of Office in order to survive.
Apple's merits and "you-get-what-you-pay for" philosophy only make sense with an alternative such as MS that works but isn't sexy or stylish.
Again, huh? Are you implying that Microsoft products are cheap? The retail price of Windows XP is $300.
It just seems like owning a Apple product turns people into RDFed Steve fans.
So, essentially, you don't want to buy an Apple machine because you're afraid that you'll like it so much it'll turn you into a fan of Apple products?
Then I learned more about them, and largely, they aren't so ridiculous. Maybe there'd be a better technical way to accomplish the same thing, but it's essentially a way to attach meta-data, which is a good thing. How many times do you hear that database-like file systems are the future? Well, you're going to need metadata somehow, and as you mention, you can't just start throwing it in arbitrarily to the data forks of various file-types, because different formats won't all allow the metadata to be stored in the same way and in the same place.
Mostly, there isn't anything super-important in the resource fork anyhow. At least, there shouldn't be. I guess you could create an empty text file and store your text in the resource fork instead, but why would you? Mostly it's things like thumbnails, tag words, icons, and program associations. And when I say "program associations", I mean that I can set JPGs, by default, to open in Preview, but then set a particular JPG to open in Photoshop, and the instructions for the particular JPG to open in Photoshop would be held in the resource fork. So it's mostly things that are useful, but if you lose them, it's not a huge deal.
Of course there are some exceptions. Often icon or font files are store their data only in the resource fork (though that need not be the case). On the other hand, if you want to protect your resource fork on a file system or while passing through a transmission that does not support them, you can use Stuffit, Tiger's built-in zip functionality, or a disk image. Also, in the newest versions of OSX, Apple's addressed many of the problems with command-line tools dropping the resource forks.
So you can't plan for forever, but at the same time, I'm not sure any finite time is sufficiently long, which necessarily indicates that we can't afford to have a closed format. Even if Microsoft will guarantee readability of Word documents for 20 years, for example, that's not sufficiently long. 100 years? Not long enough. We're still using information from thousands of years ago. The only way to ensure that we get to keep all our data for another thousand, or another 5 thousand, or however long we'll need it, is to put it in a medium and in a format that will continue to be readable. Must we keep printouts? Is paper really the only trustworthy medium?
Maybe so. If we desire to keep our information digital, however, we should be working on methods of storing data that is as sure to remain accessible as paper. Maybe we don't have it yet, but let's keep in mind that that is our goal, and anything that's headed toward lesser accessibility is generally a bad move for us.
Therefore, if data is important, copies should be kept in an open format, DRM free, on long-lasting media. Anything less is irresponsible.
Somehow, I missed responding to this. Here's a little secret: Apple has just released a portable video player that plays DRM free MP4 in a hard-drive-based player! Plugs into any TV or VCR or whatever to connect to your TV using RCA jacks. It should work in hotels, even. Now, it won't be crispy MPEG2, but it will be roughly the quality that I get on my non-digital cable. There will be minor compression artifacts. Most importantly, you can play DRM free movies!
It's called the iPod, and though it's not perfect, it's pretty good. It also plays music, stores pictures, can be used as a portable hard drive, and a pseudo-PDA. Oh, by the way, you can also, if you choose, buy movies with DRM from this online store, but, you know, nothing says you have to.
It's all a question of "how obscure". There are tons of small label stuff not in those record stores, and there are things that never made the transition to CD from vinyl. I'm not claiming Apple has all this music, or even that they ever will, but I bet they could handle it in a more cost-effective way than your mall record store.
You think the OEM designs the iPod, and Apple has nothing to do with it?
Apple is following Sony's missteps here and Sony is clearly losing its way due to its relentless insistence on DRM across the product line.
It's not Apple that's insisting on DRM. It's the media companies. Apple would not have been able to gather such a large catalogue of music, and would have little/no chance of getting more TV shows, if not for the DRM.
I might just be crazy or something, but I would really hope that the new metric for data accessibility would be "forever". Or at least "as far as the eye can see". Ok, maybe not everyone wants to keep all of their data forever, but why does that mean that our aim shouldn't be to make data accessible for the foreseeable future, for as long as a person should want to keep his data? If any data format precludes this possibility, I think it should probably be obsoleted immediately, as it is insufficient for the needs of civilization-- or my needs, at any rate.
Why should there be a necessary expiring of information, anyway? Can you imagine if every bit of information from more than 80 years ago suddenly disappeared? Imagine what we'd lose. No, we should demand that all file formats are open enough that they can be read for all of the foreseeable future, and that if that format should become obsolete, conversion would be possible.
Yes, online delivery seems particularly good for old (or even just unpopular/obscure shows) to be distributed. After all, I'd imagine the reason you can't find those "vast piles" anywhere is that the distribution channels are too tricky and expensive. A lot of money goes into maintaining a TV network for 24 hours a day, and so every hour needs to be maximized for profit. It isn't good enough for a show to make money, it needs to be the most cost-efficient means of selling commercial airtime in that slot. Time is the limitation.
In DVDs, there's the cost of transferring the content to digital and producing the DVDs, but I'm guessing shelf-space is often the limitation. For Best Buy to carry a DVD collection of every movie ever made and every TV show, it would need to be enormous. They'd be spending tons of money for space and employees to sort through inventory that would largely go unsold.
Digital, however, you have the onetime transfer to a digital form, the cost of some hard drive space, and bandwidth. Even the bandwidth would only cost money when someone actually purchased it. It seems like an online store would potentially be able to carry a much larger and more varied inventory than any brick-and-morter store could hope.
However, I'm no businessman, so feel free to correct.
Well, it might have been a lot, but it might not have been caused by the subscription model. Norton has become more of a resource hog, seemingly less effective, and other packages have improved drastically. For home use, I usually recommend AVG. It uses very little in the way of resources, works well, and is free.
I think you've hit on the real issue here. In my mind, for example, I should be able to purchase Microsoft Office, since that is a piece of software that I can take a given snapshot of it, and it doesn't necessarily decrease in usefulness as time goes on. For example, there are people that are still running Office 97 and who wouldn't really benefit from the upgrade to 2003.
On the other hand, you have software like antivirus software, where it's usefulness is predicated on constant updates. Why would a company offer constant updates for free? How would they make money to support the staff that produces these updates? A subscription model makes sense here.
There may be some middle-ground as well. Maybe it'd be worth paying for some sort of maintenance for some software. For example, if I could pay a small fee ($10 a year?) to make sure my version of office was continually supported with bug-fixes, that'd be worth it. No new features, but support for the newest versions of the Word .doc format, security holes plugged, etc.?
Or, for example, if Microsoft wanted to offer, in addition to the option of purchasing Office, the option to subscribe to the "latest and greatest" version, whatever that was, that might be worth considering. Pay $100 a year, and when Office 2006 (or whatever) comes out, you get the upgrade and support? Like I said, worth considering.
The problem comes when some greedy company applies one business model to a product that should have another. Switching all Microsoft Office products to a subscription model, for example, would be inappropriate. What if Word 97 is good enough for me? Why should I keep having to pay Microsoft for their work, even when I, as the customer, am not benefiting? Further, what's the incentive, then, for Microsoft (or whoever) to make meaningful updates to their software? You'll be paying them anyhow, just to keep running the old software. Why should they bother trying to innovate if it won't earn them extra money?
The real key here is to provide consumers with choice, and subscriptions should always be for updates and fixes, not for just continued use.
It seem like, around here, all phones are at least $200. Even cheap plastic, don't do anything special, aren't particularly great phones, if you buy them without a service contract, are at least $200. A good phone is going to be in the $400 range, and high-end phones will be something like $1000. It's even more if you want an unlocked phone (a phone that isn't crippled to work with only one provider).
Now, if you sign up for a two year contract, they give you a discount-- something like $200. So those $200 phones are "free", so long as you obligate yourself to pay for their service for at least 2 years. And those phones are locked to that provider, so if after those two years, you want to switch to a different carrier, you have to buy a new phone, even if you were happy with the old one, and obligate yourself to another two years with the new provider (or spend an extra $200 to avoid obligating yourself).
I don't really know what that's all about, why phones need to cost that much, and why it's different from... pretty much everywhere else. The extra space to cover, yes, that's an issue. The US is generally pretty sparsely populated in comparison with many other countries. However, it seems like they should be able to do something about the densely populated areas.
So again, I'm back to wondering what, exactly, the deal is, and whether the carriers are engaging in unethical business practices.
Well, natural selection, I hope, is something we can all agree on. Natural selection almost needs no evidence. It's pretty certain, through other means, that things which are unsuited to survive will not survive. Those things which can't replicate and are unable to survive will disappear, and those things which multiply themselves and survive will grow in numbers. This is inherent in our intuition of time.
If we admit that genetic mutations happen (or, more generically, that it's possible for species to change), and we admit that natural selection occurs (hardly avoidable), then we must admit that some kind of evolution takes place (even if the result is small). Even without the genetic mutation thing, variation and natural selection ensure that the overall composition of a species will change over time. So the question, I suppose, is one of how much offspring can differ from their parents, and whether new traits which didn't exist before are capable of appearing.
Whether we admit that man evolved from less-developed apes, however, is a different matter. Even were we to grant everything about evolution, someone could still argue that man was dropped on earth by some power or another. To argue with that, you'll need to look for history, which we don't have unless you believe the bible, and fossil records, which are inherently incomplete, and may have been planted by satan to trick us.
On a side note, satan is quite a little trickster. Just the other day, he tricked me into drinking a Pepsi when I meant to drink a Coke. I think it was some form of transubstantiation. Switching Coke and Pepsi, leaving fake bones laying around... that satan is quite a character.
I think I agree with you here, but as you imply later on, one could view christianity as an attempt to reevaluate Judaism in order to make it more reasonable and less dogmatic. Don't you have worry that, no matter what progress is made, dogmatism will rear its ugly head? Science itself has a tendency to become dogmatic, and things are taken as fact by those who are unfamiliar with the field of study, with no evidence offered or required other than it was reached by "science".
I guess I'm suggesting that there's always a cycle of dogmatism. One man makes a discovery and he convinces the world, in spite of the world failing to understand. His discovery eventually becomes among the things "we all know", and questioning his discovery is met with scorn. His discovery then, however "true", must be rediscovered before it's actually known on valid grounds. This discovery, known widely and with certainty-- but invalidly-- becomes part of some sort of dogma.... or something like that. The thrust being that no matter how systematic we are, our conclusions are still libel to become a fresh, unreasonable dogma.
So how do you address that in your proposal of a systematic approach? Would you say, let us deal with now, and those who come later will deal with what comes after? Or do you see a way to create a lasting, undogmatic understanding?
BTW, what's your deal? You're probably the most philosophic mind of anyone I've seen 'round these parts. You a student?
But of course I *am* in north america, which should explain some of my frustration. I don't think I can even get either of the two phones from 2 megapixel shootout. This was part of the reason I asked if the culprit was the carriers. I don't understand how the business works exactly, but I get the feeling sometimes like carriers here want everyone to have shitty phones that don't work properly.
More to the point, I was a couch potato and movie nut when I was a kid. There are lots of movies I've seen more than 10 times.
Personally, I'd be fine, I think, if you had to flip a switch to change between camera mode and phone mode, and if while working as one device, it was non-functional for the other.
The only reason I want a two-in-one device is so that I don't need to carry around several devices. I wouldn't need to worry about keeping track of both, whether they're lost/stolen, and it'd just be easier to carry around. Being able to use my phone while I'm taking pictures, eh.... I really don't care.
And more to the point, I'm not even interested in having the two work together. I don't want to e-mail my pictures to people over the phone. I don't need any data transmissions over my phone at all. Just voice.
Uh... yeah. I think that all those people who want digital cameras built into their phones would also like phones built into their digital cameras.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that I'd rather have the phone built into the digital camera, like an Elph with a phone built in? Canon is better at making sturdy designs, sensible feature sets, and good interfaces that any mobile phone company I can think of. Mobile phones are always cheap plastic crap that don't work properly and fall apart after a week. I had an Elph that stuck together for 4 years before I sold it (at which point, it was still going strong).
I regularly go several days without buying anything. Most of us do. Let's see... today? I bought a fricken cup of coffee. $1.25. That's it. So what do you think it'd do if I dropped that cup of coffee? It wouldn't even effect the guy I buy coffee from. Ok, I'll agree not to buy a cell-phone today. I haven't bought a cell phone for a year, and Cingular hasn't surrendered yet. Though, if I want a new cell phone, I'll need to buy one sooner or later.
But if all of us have a day here and there where we buy nothing, or very little, who's going to care if we just all align those days to the same day? Now, if you want to organize a "buy nothing year", that might get someone's attention. But what would it accomplish? What would you do for that year?
Or, how about we organize a "don't buy useless crap for the rest of your lifetime" movement. That would simultaneously reward those companies which are making products that you thought were good, while damaging the businesses that make crap. Of course, I'm already doing that... but, you know, whatever.