It's not about profit for them, it's about market denial to apple. Someone should have told them that selling a market denial product means the product should be sufficiently appealing to achieve that goal.
If Microsoft wasn't the huge manager overladen monster that it is, the zune might have had a good chance, as it is it's dead in the water already. They tried to appease everyone but the consumer, tried to copy the iPod, and produced a player that caters to rights holder over the fair use needs of consumers.
iPod has one huge advantage, you can burn iTunes music to a cd and remove the drm. Microsoft can never allow this, they're too deep in with the RIAA and cohorts.
Also, Brown? what were they thinking, no really....
However I do not dislike america. One does not need to hate a thing to worry about it. If the supposed bastion of freedom goes down the pan, what hope is there for the rest of us?
it's not hard to be seen to be bashing americans these days, the collective paranoia exhibited by government and people is a bit worrying.
A nation that has the worlds most powerful army, where a worryingly large number of people beleive the world was created a few thousand years ago, or aliens abduct them on a weekly basis. Yup, fills me with confidence that does. Oh yes, and it's invaded two countries in the last five years and is progressivelly eroding the rights of it's own citizens at the same time.
One hardly needs to mock america, you're doing it yourselves quite nicely. Yup, this is what all those decent and idealistic americans died for in the war of independance. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
With the current mess I would agree. However were the current tech market not so frankly corrupt, suing for a fast buck with frivolous patents there may be some merit to software patents.
I would think that such patents should be reserved for seriously massive innovations, not navigating a menu or button placement ffs. As an example had Gary Kildall patented some of his (at the time) massive innovations, he might have been able to get a truly fair due, instead of being ripped off and left in the wake of vast corporations taking his work and making billions.
We're all very familiar with his work now, but back then he was pretty much the only guy doing a lot of the work.
Software patents are here to stay, but they're screwed up royally.
those are releases on a vast scale, so much so that the ship no longer has sufficient mass of water around it to stay on the surface, and it lowers to its new level, which is far too low under the surface for survival. I don't think it's the same thing at all.
The same concentration reaches up into the sky and causes planes to go boom impressively it is beleived. The hypothesis being that the reduced density of the water causes the fragments to also sink below the surface instantly, which is why there is no surface debris to find, even potentially floaty bits.
This finding should have put paid to the whole 'aliens stole the ships/planes' thing, but that hasn't happened for some reason. Probably because the people who make a living expounding the alien myth have too much revenue to lose.
since starting to watch online content I've found that my friends and I talk far more about video content then we ever did about tv. Links to cool new things get bandied about, and there's a constant hunt to find the next cool thing to share.
Redvsblue is my current favorite for quality comedy online.This was found not through brainless channel surfing, but via a conversation with a friend.
he said linux as well. I don't turn my linux boxes off unless they're being moved, upgraded, or during kernel testing, I mainly do linux too (cluster admin and hpc development), and the whole hibernate/sleep/standby stuff in windows confuses me too. They all mean the computer is consuming power. I just save work and turn my windows box off.
I knew someone at uni who graduated in my year who became a millionaire in the last six months by hosting a web based service on the uni servers that had tens of thousands of users and got bought for over a million.
He broke so many uni network rules that the uni could of kicked him out. However they made it quite clear that they liked to have a few rich allumni about the place, and brushed it under the carpet.
Had he just broken the rules and not got rich I'm sure the story would have been different.
I didn't mean a different type of free speech, I meant that his rights are limited and thus not free speech.
Granted, a teacher is free to express opinion *provided* that opinion is one related to the subject at hand, but not just any opinion. We don't have automata teaching children, but nor should we have people who will use a classroom to push their own unrelated agenda.
the issue is not the willpower of the children, it's that he acted in a way contrary to that which he was required to act. A teacher is a public servent, and thus not given the same free speech rights as people in other professions.
yes, but tv is something people can choose not to watch, it's a little thing called freedom of speech combined with freedom to choose. A teacher however has a duty of care which overrides any freedom of speech right they may hold outside the classroom.
That duty requires them to teach the children in their care in the manner the community and government define, this is clearly not what happened in this case. Thus the teacher is in breach of their duty of care. T
it's no more then an expansion of a basic doubly linked list, such as one might create for a specific problem.
I've come close to something like this in a compressed matrix data format I had to create a couple of years ago, it's nothing special. My design took me three weeks and I wouldn't ever have thought of patenting it, I doubt I'll even use it again. Aside from that it's in GPL code, so its in my stack of stuff to be chucked on sourceforge next year.
The patent is almost entirely worthless, since the world of data structures is moving very fast, and something like this is not that likely to find a use elsewhere. It's no great gift to the world of computing. people aren't going to be that interested, and to be honest I doubt if it's all that optimal. Mine was only optimal in the sense that it saved memory. Certainly it would be a bitch to code and manage. Mine was, which is why I don't use it any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft?
It's not about profit for them, it's about market denial to apple. Someone should have told them that selling a market denial product means the product should be sufficiently appealing to achieve that goal.
If Microsoft wasn't the huge manager overladen monster that it is, the zune might have had a good chance, as it is it's dead in the water already. They tried to appease everyone but the consumer, tried to copy the iPod, and produced a player that caters to rights holder over the fair use needs of consumers.
iPod has one huge advantage, you can burn iTunes music to a cd and remove the drm. Microsoft can never allow this, they're too deep in with the RIAA and cohorts.
Also, Brown? what were they thinking, no really....
oh, well that's alright then, silly me
However I do not dislike america. One does not need to hate a thing to worry about it. If the supposed bastion of freedom goes down the pan, what hope is there for the rest of us?
it's not hard to be seen to be bashing americans these days, the collective paranoia exhibited by government and people is a bit worrying.
A nation that has the worlds most powerful army, where a worryingly large number of people beleive the world was created a few thousand years ago, or aliens abduct them on a weekly basis. Yup, fills me with confidence that does.
Oh yes, and it's invaded two countries in the last five years and is progressivelly eroding the rights of it's own citizens at the same time.
One hardly needs to mock america, you're doing it yourselves quite nicely. Yup, this is what all those decent and idealistic americans died for in the war of independance. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
sadly true, would that it were not so
true, and me too, I don't go to movies, I wait a few years and buy the dvd's cheap.
I also use mplayer, which just avoids all the shit and cuts to the film. That doesn't work with my dvd player though, which does suck
you know the best way to avoid seeing the anti piracy stuff on a dvd? Pirate it, they remove *all* that crap.
Seriously, I own loads of DVDs, and it makes me laugh that I have to sit through stuff extolling me not to steal what I've just fucking bought....
Next up, music that has compulsory segments with Mr T shouting 'you better not share this, sucker!' every fifteen seconds.
High-lariously ironical :-)
With the current mess I would agree. However were the current tech market not so frankly corrupt, suing for a fast buck with frivolous patents there may be some merit to software patents.
I would think that such patents should be reserved for seriously massive innovations, not navigating a menu or button placement ffs. As an example had Gary Kildall patented some of his (at the time) massive innovations, he might have been able to get a truly fair due, instead of being ripped off and left in the wake of vast corporations taking his work and making billions.
We're all very familiar with his work now, but back then he was pretty much the only guy doing a lot of the work.
Software patents are here to stay, but they're screwed up royally.
those are releases on a vast scale, so much so that the ship no longer has sufficient mass of water around it to stay on the surface, and it lowers to its new level, which is far too low under the surface for survival. I don't think it's the same thing at all.
The same concentration reaches up into the sky and causes planes to go boom impressively it is beleived. The hypothesis being that the reduced density of the water causes the fragments to also sink below the surface instantly, which is why there is no surface debris to find, even potentially floaty bits.
This finding should have put paid to the whole 'aliens stole the ships/planes' thing, but that hasn't happened for some reason. Probably because the people who make a living expounding the alien myth have too much revenue to lose.
since starting to watch online content I've found that my friends and I talk far more about video content then we ever did about tv. Links to cool new things get bandied about, and there's a constant hunt to find the next cool thing to share.
Redvsblue is my current favorite for quality comedy online.This was found not through brainless channel surfing, but via a conversation with a friend.
I said I didn't know....
he said linux as well. I don't turn my linux boxes off unless they're being moved, upgraded, or during kernel testing, I mainly do linux too (cluster admin and hpc development), and the whole hibernate/sleep/standby stuff in windows confuses me too. They all mean the computer is consuming power. I just save work and turn my windows box off.
55 years of copyright would seem adequate time to make money for a song.
Anyway, he still has the right to publish the songs, just not the unique right, this does not mean an end to money for an old song.
Well sort of
I knew someone at uni who graduated in my year who became a millionaire in the last six months by hosting a web based service on the uni servers that had tens of thousands of users and got bought for over a million.
He broke so many uni network rules that the uni could of kicked him out. However they made it quite clear that they liked to have a few rich allumni about the place, and brushed it under the carpet.
Had he just broken the rules and not got rich I'm sure the story would have been different.
Anyone capable of making a million whilst still a student is quite smart in my mind. He wasn't slinging hash at norms or anything. I say well done.
I didn't mean a different type of free speech, I meant that his rights are limited and thus not free speech.
Granted, a teacher is free to express opinion *provided* that opinion is one related to the subject at hand, but not just any opinion. We don't have automata teaching children, but nor should we have people who will use a classroom to push their own unrelated agenda.
the issue is not the willpower of the children, it's that he acted in a way contrary to that which he was required to act. A teacher is a public servent, and thus not given the same free speech rights as people in other professions.
sounds like me, only without the constant mentioning. I do like to rant on about the garbage that passes for entertainment on tv though.
My ex wife would sit in front of the tv for six hours in the day, then all evening, and moan if I asked her to do anything else.
I've seen that behaviour in all sorts of people.
I divorced her and gave away the telly years ago, I don't miss it in the slightest.
yes, but tv is something people can choose not to watch, it's a little thing called freedom of speech combined with freedom to choose. A teacher however has a duty of care which overrides any freedom of speech right they may hold outside the classroom.
That duty requires them to teach the children in their care in the manner the community and government define, this is clearly not what happened in this case. Thus the teacher is in breach of their duty of care. T
It's as simple as that.
it's no more then an expansion of a basic doubly linked list, such as one might create for a specific problem.
I've come close to something like this in a compressed matrix data format I had to create a couple of years ago, it's nothing special. My design took me three weeks and I wouldn't ever have thought of patenting it, I doubt I'll even use it again. Aside from that it's in GPL code, so its in my stack of stuff to be chucked on sourceforge next year.
The patent is almost entirely worthless, since the world of data structures is moving very fast, and something like this is not that likely to find a use elsewhere. It's no great gift to the world of computing. people aren't going to be that interested, and to be honest I doubt if it's all that optimal. Mine was only optimal in the sense that it saved memory. Certainly it would be a bitch to code and manage. Mine was, which is why I don't use it any more.
IBM was the first company in the IT industry to leverage its patent portfolio on a large scale to make money. They started all this.
you and me both bud
well put description that fits my thoughts on the matter precisely.