Okay, I'm pretty sure Gmail never sent passwords over the clear. Like everybody else, they used encryption only for establishing credentials.
Actually, Gmail used to have a login scheme where you could send your username and password as GET parameters encoded in the URL. If you weren't using encryption between your computer and router and that URL went out over the air, yeah, someone could have pulled it right out of the URL itself.
Actually, we'd just like to get paid for our work, so we can pay our bills and make more and better games. We have no desire to enslave humanity.
Fine! Then stop treating me like a criminal, and maybe I'll buy your games, and thus you will get paid for your work.
The things that you are doing are keeping me–an honest customer–from playing my games. Your DRM is keeping me from playing when my Internet connection is down. It's keeping me from playing without having to have physical media on-hand. (This makes your software effectively protected by a "dongle.") Your DRM has at times caused anything from mildly annoying bugs to grossly compromising holes in my system's security. Meanwhile, even if you develop a 100% effective DRM solution, the pirates will still not buy your game! I fail to see how even that helps you get paid for your work.
I'm sorry, but there are more options than the false dichotomy of "give your game to everyone for free" or "enslave humanity," and if you really want to get paid for your work, then you're going to have to back away from your dug-in position. There are plenty of games out there without oppressive DRM that are doing perfectly well in the market. I'll simply choose those instead—and you'll continue to get nothing.
To be honest, I think it makes people a bit uncomfortable because really, when you think about it, what are we besides really fancy organic "computers"? I think that news such as this raises interesting philosophical questions not just about what makes Mozart unique, but what makes us all unique. How long before someone can just whip out a KingSkippus capable of doing everything I do, thinking everything I think, posting what I post on Slashdot, and for all practical purposes, replacing anything special I might have to offer the world to make it a better place?
Also, this could make religious people mighty uncomfortable. After all, God is the one who is supposed to be the One through whom such grandiose works are created. How long before someone can just whip out everything that only He could supposedly inspire?
I'm not saying that I feel this way; I think the whole prospect is very cool, and the more that religious people can feel uncomfortable, the better.;)
I'd be scared to try to use this for anything but maybe passing some idle time playing games.
I mean, think about it. The OS and core apps are developed in China. I'd be afraid if I use Chinzilla to read my e-mail on this thing, even if by WiFi, it would be "phoning home" to the people who installed the software to let them know where I'm going, what I'm doing, and oh, here are his passwords. Good luck reporting or prosecuting that identity theft.
You know, even if Google itself doesn't roll out to all markets, I really think this could be a game-changer. Anyone else here remember pre-Gmail days, when your ISP or a service like Hotmail may give you all of a whopping 5 MB or so for free, and we were told that that was a lot?
Google came along and said, "Screw that. You get a GIGABYTE." The webmail world changed, and now, any webmail service that gives you less than a gigabyte or so of storage is antiquated.
Point is, is Google starts rolling out gigabit to the home, other Internet services will move to catch up. Not so much because of the immediate competition, since Google's market will probably be very small to start with, but so that they won't look like antiquated idiots, offering a server that is literally orders of magnitude slower than what's available out there to others.
When I was in college, a friend of mine who lived down the hall from me came to my door one day frantically knocking. She had stored the only copy of her PhD dissertation on a floppy disk, and the disk had gotten corrupted, and she didn't know what to do.
I poked around on it for a little while, trying out a disk sector editor I had to see if I could recover anything, and I couldn't. It was just lost, period.
She ended up going dumpster-diving. She had thrown away a printed hard copy the day before, and they hadn't taken the trash away yet. She was literally in the trash dumpster, sifting through two apartment buildings' worth of trash to find it, and spent that entire night retyping it from scratch.
I felt sorry for her, and I remember thinking, "Well, I guess that's one way to learn a lesson that you'll never forget..." I was also really glad that I wasn't her significant other, because you know who would have been sifting through that dumpster.
But third-party companies are under no obligation to offer their products and/or services for free, and this is a service of a third-party company (Ksplice).
If there is a demand for this service, plus an unwillingness to pay Ksplice for it, it's entirely possible (and likely) that someone will come along and offer an open source equivalent. But until the itch is scratched, Ksplice is perfectly within the right to offer the service at a cost.
Yeah, but I'm not disappointed. The Colts played pretty well, but the Saints played awesome. If it boiled down to which team screwed up less, I would have been pissed. But after the first quarter, it was as close to a perfect game as I think I've ever seen from them. The Saints were on fire, and they earned that win clean and square. Congratulations to all Saints fans out there! And good job to Brees and crew for proving me wrong.;)
P.S. Manning is still a better QB than Pretty Boy Brady.
Matt Ryan is looking really good as a franchise quarterback. I have a lot more faith in him than I ever did Vick. Plus, we've got an above-average running game, and Roddy White is shaping up to be a really good receiver. Oh, and Tony Gonzales, 'nuff said.
The defense still needs a little work, but considering that most of them were brand spankin' new, added to the fact they did at least mediocre this season, I really think that within two years, we'll make it at least two or three rounds into the playoffs, maybe even further.
Two things hurt us this season. First, Jason Elam turned out to be a dud. I blame him for single-handedly losing two or three games. If not by score, then at least by morale, by missing critical field goals and even point-after attempts. But now we have Matt Bryant, who booted a 62-yarder in 2006. (Yes, I know, Elam kicked a 63-yarder, but trust me, this will be different!) Second, Matt Ryan missed, what, three games? Apparently, that turf toe is nasty stuff.
Still, we have a pretty young team that did really well. We now have back-to-back winning seasons, and we no longer have to be reminded by the commentators every week that we didn't for 35 years. As these guys get some more games under their belts and gain veteran status, I really think we have a good shot at making it back to the Super Bowl in the next five years or so.
Translation: "I don't give a fuck what my daughter actually wants. She is, after all, only a FEMALE. She will do what daddy wants her to do."
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I'd have a double standard based on gender. If my son isn't programming by the age of 10, I'll disown him, too. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it's good to be the daddy.
In fact, as I sit here typing this, I'm eying my nine-year-old dog and thinking, "You know, he hasn't produced any useful code lately..."
Barbies? Yugh. If I have a daughter and she's not programming by the age of 10, I'm going to disown her.
On a more serious note, I hope that this changes soon. Keep in mind that we're still coming off the tail end of the "Math is hard!" generation. It'll take a while, but I'm confident as the new generation grows up, we'll get there.
Geeks, at least the type of geek who cares who is making their cpu generally don't watch the superbowl. I know it's a stereotype, but it does have a basis in reality.
That is a stereotype, and it most certainly does not have a basis in reality.
I'm a geek, most of the people I work with are geeks, and about half will probably watch the Super Bowl. If you ask around, you'll probably find that around the same proportion of geeks are into football as about any other random segment of the population. Maybe even more, since "geek" is a predominantly male demographic, as is "Super Bowl watcher." I have a Falcons tag on the front of my car, thank you very much, and I've gotta say, that red and black logo on my red car does look sweet.
Granted, I'm not into fantasy football leagues, and I can't quote a bunch of stats or tell you who led the league in touchdown receptions, but that doesn't apply to most average Joes, either. I do enjoy watching the competition at its highest level, the ads are generally the cream of the crop and funny, plus a Who concert to boot? Jesus, count me in, let's kick off already!
Oh, and lest I forget, Go Colts! Sorry Saints, I don't hate you, but I just don't think it's not your year yet. Plus, any chance that Peyton Manning gets to prove that he's a better QB than Pretty Boy Brady is a sure-fire opportunity for me to root for his team.
In order for Mozilla to include native H.264 support, they can either 1) pay licensing fees and not distribute part of their code, which flies in the face of what open source is all about, or 2) integrate native support for three different APIs on three different platforms.
In order for Apple to include native Ogg Theora support, they can simply integrate one freely available codec into Safari.
And you're accusing Mozilla of being the one that has religious-like motivation? At best, that's a double standard. At worst, I'm calling it out for the BS that it is.
On Linux, I tend not to care, just as I don't care that I've got DeCSS so I can play copy-protected DVDs.
Can you not see the irony in what you're saying?
Have you ever considered how much you benefit from the ideals of open source, and yes, even DeCSS, even if you don't use open source software? Have you been hiding under a rock as we consumers have been trying so hard to pry Big Content's wares from them for our computers and mobile devices, offering to pay a reasonable price for the privilege to do so, only to be constantly turned down because of their greed? Do you think for a second that if it weren't for DeCSS, sites like hulu.com would exist, or most of the digital downloads in Apple's app store, Amazon's unbox service, Netflix's streaming service, etc. if Big Content weren't competing with how freely and easily people can simply download a movie from a torrent? Do you think that if it weren't for Firefox, Microsoft would still have finally released a decent browser to compete with it, that if it weren't for Linux, they would still have been so eager to spend money to improve Windows?
Do you think for a second that if it weren't for Ogg Theora being out there and freely implementable by anyone who wants to, MPEG LA would have extended the royalty-free period to 2016? If H.264 wins out as the de facto standard and everyone forgets about Ogg Theora and starts using H.264, do you think for a second that they will extend it past 2016?
Let me be crystal clear on this. Even if you think H.264 is a better codec because of quality, bandwidth, performance, or whatever, it is in everyone's best interest to throw your support behind Ogg Theora. It is the only way that every application across every platform will be able to standardize on video playback. Period, end of story.
To be brutally honest, anyone who doesn't support Ogg Theora is stupid. If I'm Apple, I wouldn't want to take the chance of some competitor putting themselves in the position of owning IP that drives my products. What happens if Google, in its zeal to defeat Apple, simply buys out MPEG LA? How fun would that be to get a Dear Steve letter saying, "We're sorry to inform you that we are revoking your H.264 codec license"? I'd want to ensure that all of my competitors are on a level playing field with me.
Maybe for a layman...
You're not a Moster cable salesman by any chance, are you?
You're missing a third requirement -- that it be a better codec.
The claim that Ogg Theora is inferior is a myth. The quality of video is virtually identical, and in some circumstances (low bitrates), the quality of Ogg Theora is, in my humble opinion, actually better.
Imagine for a moment that PNG had been the proprietary format, and only JPEG had been open. Would you really have advocated JPEG?
I thought I made myself clear. Yes, I unequivocally would. That's not to say that I would have advocated that browsers not implement PNG; the more formats your browser supports, the better, as far as I'm concerned, and if you're willing and able to pony up the licensing fees, bully for you. But had a browser deliberately chosen not to implement JPEG-encoded files, then yeah, that would tweak me off.
Since Apple is competing with Google for the title of the company that can "Do most evil", should we be cheering on Miguel and MS in the hopes that Theora gains some traction?
Yes.
For one thing, I dispute your assertion that Google is doing evil. It's a company, it's doing what's in its best interest. Still, I know of few companies who have contributed so much to open standards and yes, even open source software, to the technological community. But I digress...
For another, it boils down to one simple question. Do we want a de facto web standard to depend on a patent-encumbered standard? We've been there before. Remember the GIF kerfuffle? Remember the JPG morass? Remember how long it took Microsoft to get a browser out there that supported PNG, which is a better image rendering codec, and a standard that all browsers (or any other software developer, open source or otherwise) can implement? Wouldn't it be nice if, just for once, we could bypass all of the stupidity and just settle on something up front that's easy and that everyone can support?
Also, what the hell good does it do to write a web standard designed to get people out of the Flash embedding hell that we're in right now, only to put us into yet another hell of a patent consortium that may or may not charge exorbitant fees to develop software with its standard built in?
Let's not fool ourselves. Anyone who wants H.264 to become a web standard, whether it be codified or de facto, is basically saying, "I hope that Firefox dies a miserable death." Why? Because Firefox is open source, and as such, it can't build in a patent-encumbered codec like H.264. On the other hand, most other browser makers (Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc.) have a choice. There is nothing stopping them from implementing either or both. "Evil" Google has taken the middle road, and Chrome handles both. We have yet to hear from Microsoft. Apple has chosen to deliberately not support Ogg Theora, even though it would be trivially easy for them to do so. It has taken this position, I believe, because it knows that Firefox can't implement H.264. I honestly think they want to kill off Firefox so that there's more marketshare for Safari.
So yeah, I will gladly cast my lot with those who support Ogg Theora as THE video standard of the web, and I don't care who they are. If Microsoft wants to come on board, then hell yeah, +1 for finally doing something right and that will ultimately benefit all video producers and consumers. Google and Firefox already have Ogg Theora built in, so they've already earned their +1, even though Google was one of the objectors to Ogg Theora being codified in the HTML 5 standard. I've given up on Apple getting anything but -1 Troll for this issue.
Does anybody think Barnes and Noble would be willing to post a sign saying your book was #38 in its category on Amazon?
No, but then Barnes and Noble isn't the only place you can sell your book. If you don't like their policies, you can also put it up for sale on Amazon, Books-A-Million, any number of local bookstores, and probably even stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
On the other hand, Apple's app store is the only place to offer applications for iPhones, iTouches, and now iPads. The author of this application can't simply go through some alternate means of distributing his application without asking people to jailbreak their device, something that is at best iffy to do if they want to maintain service.
If Apple would let developers put their apps up for download from their own web site or alternate app stores, then I wouldn't complain. Apple has the right to accept, deny, or place any conditions on apps in its app store that they want. However, that's only half the story. My problem with their attitude is that they have set themselves up so that their store is the only store in town; they have a monopoly over distribution of iDevice applications. They have final authority over what I can and can't run on a device that I own, and as this story illustrates, they are grossly misusing that authority.
Personally, I can't understand why anyone would want to by an iPad, given that it is going to maintain this paradigm. With phones, people are somewhat used to this. With the iPad pushing into the netbook and ultraportable laptop market, though, it is completely unacceptable. Imagine if you bought, for example, an HP laptop, and they told you the following: "Congratulations on your new HP laptop! To obtain applications, visit apps.hp.com. Oh, and we're sorry if it causes any inconvenience, but that is the only way you may install applications on this new laptop. Everything else is blocked, and if we find out that you're trying to install apps from anywhere except hp.com, your laptop could be deactivated. Congratulations again!" Well, that's Apple, and it boggles my mind that anyone would tolerate it.
These shenanigans are precisely why I, as a developer, got a refund on my developer program application and told them that I will be not be developing for the iDevices. It's also why I, who used to be an advocate for Apple devices, am strongly urging people to not buy their products these days.
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it just goes to show you. NEVER trust ANYONE on the Ineternet. Not even your friends.
Throw in some old adages about "too good to be true," "fool and his money," etc., and it ain't rocket science. Yes, I blame "John" for the evils of these scams. But you know what? There's plenty of blame to go around. I also blame the victims, too, for being so greedy and/or naive.
Actually, it's more a matter of volume manufacturing. If you have to spread out your fixed manufacturing costs among only a few hundred of something for some hospitals, they're going to be very high per item, thus resulting in a very high price. If you mass market millions of them, those same costs might only be a few pennies per item.
Before the Wii, there wasn't much demand for mass producing these kinds of components.
I'm glad it helped. I lost my dad to cancer a couple of years later, and that time, I was a little more prepared for it. Obviously, there was still grief and mourning going on, but it did help.
Today, I don't visit the graves of my parents very often. For one thing, they're both out of town, between three hours (my mom) and six hours (my dad) away from me. But really, it's because I don't really want to remember them as being dead, I want to remember them as they were alive. I still make donations in their name, and if you ever meet me in person and give me a chance, I'll tell you the most wonderful stories about them.
It's called self-deprecating humor. I'm a male, so I get to make fun of men. I'm also a white guy, so I can make fun of white guys. I've witnessed African-Americans making fun of the African-American stereotype, and guess what. It's funny. I've also witnessed women making fun of female stereotypes, and guess what. It's funny, too.
You should try it sometime yourself. Stop taking yourself, your race, your gender, your religion, your [whatever] so seriously. Ironically, most people respect folks more who are able to laugh at themselves. It's people like you are are "that guy" that no one wants to be around because they're so self-righteous.
I don't feel sorry for our children at all. I want my kids to have a healthy sense of humility and not be like you. And if you think that comments like these about one's own cultural groups are a contributing factor to society's ills, you really need to get a better perspective things.
What the hell do you care? It's not like you're going to be lying there thinking, "Aw man, this really sucks!"
My family has approached me a few times about what I want to be done with my body when I die. My answer is always the same. I want what organs might be useful donated. After that, I really don't care. Bury me, cremate me, donate me to science, do whatever gives you what comfort and solace you need, because that's not me.
When my mom passed away, which is by far the single most gut-wrenching experience I've ever been through in my life, that thought was the only thing that got me through the funeral without totally falling apart. My mom was a lot more than just the collection of organic molecules that lay before me, and she's gone. I appreciate the body that lay before me; it was her "house" for 60 years and allowed me to see her, talk to her, interact with her, and love her. But the house was now empty. Sad, for sure, but it wasn't the loss of the house I was mourning.
So yeah, once I'm gone, you can pull my brains out through my nose and make gut soup for all I care. It was just my house, and I don't live there any more.
An "open" beta means that you have the means by which to join the beta without them selecting you. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily free. It is as opposed to a "closed" beta which means that you can only join by their specific invitation, and that it is entirely likely that no matter how badly you want to join or how much money you have to spend (well, barring buying the entire company), you won't be able to get in.
If you have learned anything from the open source movement, it should be that "open" != "free." You can be charged for open source software, just as not all software that is free (as in beer) is open source.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Gmail used to have a login scheme where you could send your username and password as GET parameters encoded in the URL. If you weren't using encryption between your computer and router and that URL went out over the air, yeah, someone could have pulled it right out of the URL itself.
Fine! Then stop treating me like a criminal, and maybe I'll buy your games, and thus you will get paid for your work.
The things that you are doing are keeping me–an honest customer–from playing my games. Your DRM is keeping me from playing when my Internet connection is down. It's keeping me from playing without having to have physical media on-hand. (This makes your software effectively protected by a "dongle.") Your DRM has at times caused anything from mildly annoying bugs to grossly compromising holes in my system's security. Meanwhile, even if you develop a 100% effective DRM solution, the pirates will still not buy your game! I fail to see how even that helps you get paid for your work.
I'm sorry, but there are more options than the false dichotomy of "give your game to everyone for free" or "enslave humanity," and if you really want to get paid for your work, then you're going to have to back away from your dug-in position. There are plenty of games out there without oppressive DRM that are doing perfectly well in the market. I'll simply choose those instead—and you'll continue to get nothing.
To be honest, I think it makes people a bit uncomfortable because really, when you think about it, what are we besides really fancy organic "computers"? I think that news such as this raises interesting philosophical questions not just about what makes Mozart unique, but what makes us all unique. How long before someone can just whip out a KingSkippus capable of doing everything I do, thinking everything I think, posting what I post on Slashdot, and for all practical purposes, replacing anything special I might have to offer the world to make it a better place?
Also, this could make religious people mighty uncomfortable. After all, God is the one who is supposed to be the One through whom such grandiose works are created. How long before someone can just whip out everything that only He could supposedly inspire?
I'm not saying that I feel this way; I think the whole prospect is very cool, and the more that religious people can feel uncomfortable, the better. ;)
I'd be scared to try to use this for anything but maybe passing some idle time playing games.
I mean, think about it. The OS and core apps are developed in China. I'd be afraid if I use Chinzilla to read my e-mail on this thing, even if by WiFi, it would be "phoning home" to the people who installed the software to let them know where I'm going, what I'm doing, and oh, here are his passwords. Good luck reporting or prosecuting that identity theft.
Verizon? Sure, that would be nice, but what I can't wait for is Google's gigabit to the home service.
You know, even if Google itself doesn't roll out to all markets, I really think this could be a game-changer. Anyone else here remember pre-Gmail days, when your ISP or a service like Hotmail may give you all of a whopping 5 MB or so for free, and we were told that that was a lot?
Google came along and said, "Screw that. You get a GIGABYTE." The webmail world changed, and now, any webmail service that gives you less than a gigabyte or so of storage is antiquated.
Point is, is Google starts rolling out gigabit to the home, other Internet services will move to catch up. Not so much because of the immediate competition, since Google's market will probably be very small to start with, but so that they won't look like antiquated idiots, offering a server that is literally orders of magnitude slower than what's available out there to others.
When I was in college, a friend of mine who lived down the hall from me came to my door one day frantically knocking. She had stored the only copy of her PhD dissertation on a floppy disk, and the disk had gotten corrupted, and she didn't know what to do.
I poked around on it for a little while, trying out a disk sector editor I had to see if I could recover anything, and I couldn't. It was just lost, period.
She ended up going dumpster-diving. She had thrown away a printed hard copy the day before, and they hadn't taken the trash away yet. She was literally in the trash dumpster, sifting through two apartment buildings' worth of trash to find it, and spent that entire night retyping it from scratch.
I felt sorry for her, and I remember thinking, "Well, I guess that's one way to learn a lesson that you'll never forget..." I was also really glad that I wasn't her significant other, because you know who would have been sifting through that dumpster.
Stating the obvious, yes, they are.
But third-party companies are under no obligation to offer their products and/or services for free, and this is a service of a third-party company (Ksplice).
If there is a demand for this service, plus an unwillingness to pay Ksplice for it, it's entirely possible (and likely) that someone will come along and offer an open source equivalent. But until the itch is scratched, Ksplice is perfectly within the right to offer the service at a cost.
Yeah, but I'm not disappointed. The Colts played pretty well, but the Saints played awesome. If it boiled down to which team screwed up less, I would have been pissed. But after the first quarter, it was as close to a perfect game as I think I've ever seen from them. The Saints were on fire, and they earned that win clean and square. Congratulations to all Saints fans out there! And good job to Brees and crew for proving me wrong. ;)
P.S. Manning is still a better QB than Pretty Boy Brady.
It's pretty hard to beat your nemesis in a big game when your nemesis got knocked out before the playoffs even started.
Make you a deal. You figure out some way to get Brady back to the playoffs, and Manning's Colts will take care of the rest.
Hey now, that would have been funny before 1998.
Matt Ryan is looking really good as a franchise quarterback. I have a lot more faith in him than I ever did Vick. Plus, we've got an above-average running game, and Roddy White is shaping up to be a really good receiver. Oh, and Tony Gonzales, 'nuff said.
The defense still needs a little work, but considering that most of them were brand spankin' new, added to the fact they did at least mediocre this season, I really think that within two years, we'll make it at least two or three rounds into the playoffs, maybe even further.
Two things hurt us this season. First, Jason Elam turned out to be a dud. I blame him for single-handedly losing two or three games. If not by score, then at least by morale, by missing critical field goals and even point-after attempts. But now we have Matt Bryant, who booted a 62-yarder in 2006. (Yes, I know, Elam kicked a 63-yarder, but trust me, this will be different!) Second, Matt Ryan missed, what, three games? Apparently, that turf toe is nasty stuff.
Still, we have a pretty young team that did really well. We now have back-to-back winning seasons, and we no longer have to be reminded by the commentators every week that we didn't for 35 years. As these guys get some more games under their belts and gain veteran status, I really think we have a good shot at making it back to the Super Bowl in the next five years or so.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I'd have a double standard based on gender. If my son isn't programming by the age of 10, I'll disown him, too. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, it's good to be the daddy.
In fact, as I sit here typing this, I'm eying my nine-year-old dog and thinking, "You know, he hasn't produced any useful code lately..."
Barbies? Yugh. If I have a daughter and she's not programming by the age of 10, I'm going to disown her.
On a more serious note, I hope that this changes soon. Keep in mind that we're still coming off the tail end of the "Math is hard!" generation. It'll take a while, but I'm confident as the new generation grows up, we'll get there.
Double negative typos FTL. :( Obviously, I meant, "I just don't think it's your year yet..."
That is a stereotype, and it most certainly does not have a basis in reality.
I'm a geek, most of the people I work with are geeks, and about half will probably watch the Super Bowl. If you ask around, you'll probably find that around the same proportion of geeks are into football as about any other random segment of the population. Maybe even more, since "geek" is a predominantly male demographic, as is "Super Bowl watcher." I have a Falcons tag on the front of my car, thank you very much, and I've gotta say, that red and black logo on my red car does look sweet.
Granted, I'm not into fantasy football leagues, and I can't quote a bunch of stats or tell you who led the league in touchdown receptions, but that doesn't apply to most average Joes, either. I do enjoy watching the competition at its highest level, the ads are generally the cream of the crop and funny, plus a Who concert to boot? Jesus, count me in, let's kick off already!
Oh, and lest I forget, Go Colts! Sorry Saints, I don't hate you, but I just don't think it's not your year yet. Plus, any chance that Peyton Manning gets to prove that he's a better QB than Pretty Boy Brady is a sure-fire opportunity for me to root for his team.
So let me get this straight.
In order for Mozilla to include native H.264 support, they can either 1) pay licensing fees and not distribute part of their code, which flies in the face of what open source is all about, or 2) integrate native support for three different APIs on three different platforms.
In order for Apple to include native Ogg Theora support, they can simply integrate one freely available codec into Safari.
And you're accusing Mozilla of being the one that has religious-like motivation? At best, that's a double standard. At worst, I'm calling it out for the BS that it is.
Can you not see the irony in what you're saying?
Have you ever considered how much you benefit from the ideals of open source, and yes, even DeCSS, even if you don't use open source software? Have you been hiding under a rock as we consumers have been trying so hard to pry Big Content's wares from them for our computers and mobile devices, offering to pay a reasonable price for the privilege to do so, only to be constantly turned down because of their greed? Do you think for a second that if it weren't for DeCSS, sites like hulu.com would exist, or most of the digital downloads in Apple's app store, Amazon's unbox service, Netflix's streaming service, etc. if Big Content weren't competing with how freely and easily people can simply download a movie from a torrent? Do you think that if it weren't for Firefox, Microsoft would still have finally released a decent browser to compete with it, that if it weren't for Linux, they would still have been so eager to spend money to improve Windows?
Do you think for a second that if it weren't for Ogg Theora being out there and freely implementable by anyone who wants to, MPEG LA would have extended the royalty-free period to 2016? If H.264 wins out as the de facto standard and everyone forgets about Ogg Theora and starts using H.264, do you think for a second that they will extend it past 2016?
Let me be crystal clear on this. Even if you think H.264 is a better codec because of quality, bandwidth, performance, or whatever, it is in everyone's best interest to throw your support behind Ogg Theora. It is the only way that every application across every platform will be able to standardize on video playback. Period, end of story.
To be brutally honest, anyone who doesn't support Ogg Theora is stupid. If I'm Apple, I wouldn't want to take the chance of some competitor putting themselves in the position of owning IP that drives my products. What happens if Google, in its zeal to defeat Apple, simply buys out MPEG LA? How fun would that be to get a Dear Steve letter saying, "We're sorry to inform you that we are revoking your H.264 codec license"? I'd want to ensure that all of my competitors are on a level playing field with me.
You're not a Moster cable salesman by any chance, are you?
The claim that Ogg Theora is inferior is a myth. The quality of video is virtually identical, and in some circumstances (low bitrates), the quality of Ogg Theora is, in my humble opinion, actually better.
I thought I made myself clear. Yes, I unequivocally would. That's not to say that I would have advocated that browsers not implement PNG; the more formats your browser supports, the better, as far as I'm concerned, and if you're willing and able to pony up the licensing fees, bully for you. But had a browser deliberately chosen not to implement JPEG-encoded files, then yeah, that would tweak me off.
Yes.
For one thing, I dispute your assertion that Google is doing evil. It's a company, it's doing what's in its best interest. Still, I know of few companies who have contributed so much to open standards and yes, even open source software, to the technological community. But I digress...
For another, it boils down to one simple question. Do we want a de facto web standard to depend on a patent-encumbered standard? We've been there before. Remember the GIF kerfuffle? Remember the JPG morass? Remember how long it took Microsoft to get a browser out there that supported PNG, which is a better image rendering codec, and a standard that all browsers (or any other software developer, open source or otherwise) can implement? Wouldn't it be nice if, just for once, we could bypass all of the stupidity and just settle on something up front that's easy and that everyone can support?
Also, what the hell good does it do to write a web standard designed to get people out of the Flash embedding hell that we're in right now, only to put us into yet another hell of a patent consortium that may or may not charge exorbitant fees to develop software with its standard built in?
Let's not fool ourselves. Anyone who wants H.264 to become a web standard, whether it be codified or de facto, is basically saying, "I hope that Firefox dies a miserable death." Why? Because Firefox is open source, and as such, it can't build in a patent-encumbered codec like H.264. On the other hand, most other browser makers (Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc.) have a choice. There is nothing stopping them from implementing either or both. "Evil" Google has taken the middle road, and Chrome handles both. We have yet to hear from Microsoft. Apple has chosen to deliberately not support Ogg Theora, even though it would be trivially easy for them to do so. It has taken this position, I believe, because it knows that Firefox can't implement H.264. I honestly think they want to kill off Firefox so that there's more marketshare for Safari.
So yeah, I will gladly cast my lot with those who support Ogg Theora as THE video standard of the web, and I don't care who they are. If Microsoft wants to come on board, then hell yeah, +1 for finally doing something right and that will ultimately benefit all video producers and consumers. Google and Firefox already have Ogg Theora built in, so they've already earned their +1, even though Google was one of the objectors to Ogg Theora being codified in the HTML 5 standard. I've given up on Apple getting anything but -1 Troll for this issue.
No, but then Barnes and Noble isn't the only place you can sell your book. If you don't like their policies, you can also put it up for sale on Amazon, Books-A-Million, any number of local bookstores, and probably even stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
On the other hand, Apple's app store is the only place to offer applications for iPhones, iTouches, and now iPads. The author of this application can't simply go through some alternate means of distributing his application without asking people to jailbreak their device, something that is at best iffy to do if they want to maintain service.
If Apple would let developers put their apps up for download from their own web site or alternate app stores, then I wouldn't complain. Apple has the right to accept, deny, or place any conditions on apps in its app store that they want. However, that's only half the story. My problem with their attitude is that they have set themselves up so that their store is the only store in town; they have a monopoly over distribution of iDevice applications. They have final authority over what I can and can't run on a device that I own, and as this story illustrates, they are grossly misusing that authority.
Personally, I can't understand why anyone would want to by an iPad, given that it is going to maintain this paradigm. With phones, people are somewhat used to this. With the iPad pushing into the netbook and ultraportable laptop market, though, it is completely unacceptable. Imagine if you bought, for example, an HP laptop, and they told you the following: "Congratulations on your new HP laptop! To obtain applications, visit apps.hp.com. Oh, and we're sorry if it causes any inconvenience, but that is the only way you may install applications on this new laptop. Everything else is blocked, and if we find out that you're trying to install apps from anywhere except hp.com, your laptop could be deactivated. Congratulations again!" Well, that's Apple, and it boggles my mind that anyone would tolerate it.
These shenanigans are precisely why I, as a developer, got a refund on my developer program application and told them that I will be not be developing for the iDevices. It's also why I, who used to be an advocate for Apple devices, am strongly urging people to not buy their products these days.
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it just goes to show you. NEVER trust ANYONE on the Ineternet. Not even your friends.
Throw in some old adages about "too good to be true," "fool and his money," etc., and it ain't rocket science. Yes, I blame "John" for the evils of these scams. But you know what? There's plenty of blame to go around. I also blame the victims, too, for being so greedy and/or naive.
Actually, it's more a matter of volume manufacturing. If you have to spread out your fixed manufacturing costs among only a few hundred of something for some hospitals, they're going to be very high per item, thus resulting in a very high price. If you mass market millions of them, those same costs might only be a few pennies per item.
Before the Wii, there wasn't much demand for mass producing these kinds of components.
I'm glad it helped. I lost my dad to cancer a couple of years later, and that time, I was a little more prepared for it. Obviously, there was still grief and mourning going on, but it did help.
Today, I don't visit the graves of my parents very often. For one thing, they're both out of town, between three hours (my mom) and six hours (my dad) away from me. But really, it's because I don't really want to remember them as being dead, I want to remember them as they were alive. I still make donations in their name, and if you ever meet me in person and give me a chance, I'll tell you the most wonderful stories about them.
It's called self-deprecating humor. I'm a male, so I get to make fun of men. I'm also a white guy, so I can make fun of white guys. I've witnessed African-Americans making fun of the African-American stereotype, and guess what. It's funny. I've also witnessed women making fun of female stereotypes, and guess what. It's funny, too.
You should try it sometime yourself. Stop taking yourself, your race, your gender, your religion, your [whatever] so seriously. Ironically, most people respect folks more who are able to laugh at themselves. It's people like you are are "that guy" that no one wants to be around because they're so self-righteous.
I don't feel sorry for our children at all. I want my kids to have a healthy sense of humility and not be like you. And if you think that comments like these about one's own cultural groups are a contributing factor to society's ills, you really need to get a better perspective things.
In other words, man up, Nancy.
The cynical among us might say that we're finally catching up...
What the hell do you care? It's not like you're going to be lying there thinking, "Aw man, this really sucks!"
My family has approached me a few times about what I want to be done with my body when I die. My answer is always the same. I want what organs might be useful donated. After that, I really don't care. Bury me, cremate me, donate me to science, do whatever gives you what comfort and solace you need, because that's not me.
When my mom passed away, which is by far the single most gut-wrenching experience I've ever been through in my life, that thought was the only thing that got me through the funeral without totally falling apart. My mom was a lot more than just the collection of organic molecules that lay before me, and she's gone. I appreciate the body that lay before me; it was her "house" for 60 years and allowed me to see her, talk to her, interact with her, and love her. But the house was now empty. Sad, for sure, but it wasn't the loss of the house I was mourning.
So yeah, once I'm gone, you can pull my brains out through my nose and make gut soup for all I care. It was just my house, and I don't live there any more.
An "open" beta means that you have the means by which to join the beta without them selecting you. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily free. It is as opposed to a "closed" beta which means that you can only join by their specific invitation, and that it is entirely likely that no matter how badly you want to join or how much money you have to spend (well, barring buying the entire company), you won't be able to get in.
If you have learned anything from the open source movement, it should be that "open" != "free." You can be charged for open source software, just as not all software that is free (as in beer) is open source.