Then, I reached the point where you insulted my wife.
I'd say you insulted your wife, by claiming she would not even consider the merits of tools in her field, insinuating that she is close minded and unprofessional... but hey you run with that emotional response there.
Go take your shitty assumptions and lack of reading ability and shove it up your own ass
Golly, how persuasive. You sure did convince me and everyone else that your arguments are convincing, rational, and well thought out.
Indeed your achieles[sic] heel comes in the shape of poor 3rd party apps, though this whole thread is about the need to render the UI via GPU for the sake of power.
That's only one of the topics he brings up with regard to performance in his article, although it is one focused upon heavily in the discussion. Referring to Android phones as having "only average" battery performance when compared to an iPhone, however, is being politic and the AC I was replying to was making some rather spurious claims in that regard.
Please name and shame these poorly optimised android apps (that presumably don't exist evenly across mobile platforms?)
I don't have the resources to do large scale testing, nor do I even have an iPhone and Android of my own, just access to them for testing at work. Anecdotally: eBuddy, Qik, ESPN sports center, fring, imovicha. Note several are IM clients that some reason ignore the push APIs and Google has no way to force them to use the push features.
But as to whether or not they exist cross platform evenly, well no I strongly suspect they don't for a variety of reasons. Apps on the iPhone are limited in dev tools and in access to system resources much more so than Android apps. This is annoying as a developer and even as a power user, but it also means apps can't just start sending pings to a server on a regular interval, but instead are required to use push services and are required to break out only specific types of background threads when running in the background. They can't constantly query the GPS if they aren't in the foreground.
...or accept the fact that the hardware burns through so much power than virtually any trivial (and without the hardware mentioned mobile apps generally are trivial) applications power use is irrelevant.
Perhaps you're laboring under a misunderstanding. Apps are software that makes the hardware do things. ALL battery usage is a combination of software AND hardware. It's a matter of what hardware and how often it is used by an app. Does it use the built in push notification service like a good app or does it waste battery power constantly running a thread in the background and constantly sending unneeded data? (Note I keep coming back to the network usage model, because it is a big differentiator with real, measurable battery ramifications.) There are several other, similar API issues, especially allowed multitasking modes. Remember when Apple came out with a castrated version of multitasking and we all scoffed, well if you read the Google engineering Android blogs, they sure wish they'd come up with the same thing because multitasking as implemented is killing battery as much as any other factor. (Read Larry Page's comments on it if you want an authoritative view from a Google founder.)
The idea that the UI effects is the power sucker is...
Nowhere stated nor implied in my post. Are you sure you replied to the correct post? Mine was mostly about poorly optimized applications being a huge battery drain. It has nothing to do with window animations.
Other things I like on this thread are people suggesting, what about people on older Android where performance is poor. Good argument, my Tmoby pulse has been on Android 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2 each upgrade adds more flair and makes the battery/performance better.
This was something I mentioned. Older versions of Android perform more poorly with regard to battery life, but because of the way Android is deployed by vendors, many phones are not updated in a timely fashion (some are never updated). This exacerbated the battery performance issues that are one of Android's biggest weaknesses.
Hmm, looks like my post only made it halfway. I've never seen that before. Here's a retry of the complete post.
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
Of only slight importance, really. Because no matter how much people might think that to be a great program, it still isn't Photoshop.
That's just the refrain every market leader parrots, but no one stays on top forever. WordPerfect probably thought the same thing. Name recognition is lot of what carries Photoshop, but this is an opportunity for more recognition for other products. Imagine in a few years a user who found a competitor through the Apple store, bought it because it fit their budget and now does not like Photoshop at work because it is not what they are used to. This is exactly Adobe's strategy coming back at them.
potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP
Of pretty well zero importance to Adobe.
How do you figure? I've already worked in places where GIMP and Illustrator were used in lieu of Adobe products. One of the main things holding them back from growing in market share is that they do not cost money and are thus not seen as legitimate (something being in the App store will solve) and that no one has heard of or has experience with them (again things the app store addresses by providing a free venue to advertise it and getting people to try it). Now neither product is a 100% replacement for Adobe's tools in all market segments, but it can definitely start to lose Adobe sales permanently to a competitor they will never be able to beat on price.
While I use Gimp regularly, professionals will continue to turn their noses up at it. My wife is a graphic designer and wouldn't consider using Gimp for her work, regardless of how expensive Photoshop is.
Then she is a poor graphic designer. GIMP is superior to photoshop for certain automated workflows and a few types of filtering and anyone who isn't willing to evaluate new tools and apply them where appropriate is a lousy professional.
And I'm quite sure she's never even heard of the program you mentioned earlier - she knows of Gimp because I use it all the time for my work where I don't need all the features and compatibility of Photoshop.
You're probably right that she's never heard of Pixelmator, which is its biggest problem. It is a very well put together Mac only photo editor that surpasses Photoshop in some areas and is much, much faster in every way. I own a copy of Photoshop, but I still use Pixelmator for about 80% of my graphic editing simply because it is so much faster and easier to use. Now, it has a chance to be put right in front of a huge number of users when they are considering graphics software. You don't think that's likely to put some pressure on Adobe?
Being as they are the most important software company for
Hmm, looks like my post only made it halfway. I've never seen that before. Here's a retry of the complete post.
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
Of only slight importance, really. Because no matter how much people might think that to be a great program, it still isn't Photoshop.
That's just the refrain every market leader parrots, but no one stays on top forever. WordPerfect probably thought the same thing. Name recognition is lot of what carries Photoshop, but this is an opportunity for more recognition for other products. Imagine in a few years a user who found a competitor through the Apple store, bought it because it fit their budget and now does not like Photoshop at work because it is not what they are used to. This is exactly Adobe's strategy coming back at them.
potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP
Of pretty well zero importance to Adobe.
How do you figure? I've already worked in places where GIMP and Illustrator were used in lieu of Adobe products. One of the main things holding them back from growing in market share is that they do not cost money and are thus not seen as legitimate (something being in the App store will solve) and that no one has heard of or has experience with them (again things the app store addresses by providing a free venue to advertise it and getting people to try it). Now neither product is a 100% replacement for Adobe's tools in all market segments, but it can definitely start to lose Adobe sales permanently to a competitor they will never be able to beat on price.
While I use Gimp regularly, professionals will continue to turn their noses up at it. My wife is a graphic designer and wouldn't consider using Gimp for her work, regardless of how expensive Photoshop is.
Then she is a poor graphic designer. GIMP is superior to photoshop for certain automated workflows and a few types of filtering and anyone who isn't willing to evaluate new tools and apply them where appropriate is a lousy professional.
And I'm quite sure she's never even heard of the program you mentioned earlier - she knows of Gimp because I use it all the time for my work where I don't need all the features and compatibility of Photoshop.
You're probably right that she's never heard of Pixelmator, which is its biggest problem. It is a very well put together Mac only photo editor that surpasses Photoshop in some areas and is much, much faster in every way. I own a copy of Photoshop, but I still use Pixelmator for about 80% of my graphic editing simply because it is so much faster and easier to use. Now,
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
This is a strawman argument. No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change. Rather, it seems likely that Adobe may feel more competitive pressure as the result of the App Store. Instead of relying upon smaller players to have no marketing clout and little way to get their app in front of potential buyers, Adobe now has to compete on price, features, and performance. Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator and potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP. This will likely pressure Adobe to make their products better and/or cheaper one way or another.
Being as they are the most important software company for the Mac today...
You're living in the past man. Macs have not been just niche computers for graphics geeks for a long time. There are a lot more sales of WoW or the Sims than there are of photoshop on the Mac. Macs are first and foremost targeted at the home user, their main demographic.
They go out of their way to prevent piracy, they certainly aren't about to start distributing their top titles as downloadable applications for $5 a pop.
Ha! Clearly you don't know folks at Adobe. They go out of their way to prevent piracy among corporations, but rely upon piracy among individual developers to promote their products to those who can pay. I doubt they'll ever drop to the $5 price point for Photoshop, but if home users and small shops start adopting alternatives that will start to bleed over into the corporate market where they do care, and you'll see some serious changes.
Forking would only empower the mega-corps to invest in the locked down interwebs, while letting the free internet rot away into nothingness.
That depends upon what one means by forking. Several projects (like theconnective.net) aim to replace the last mile of the internet with community and cooperatively owned networks and allow those networks to interoperate and bargain collectively with core network operators. That is to say, if instead of Comcast or AT&T as your choices for home high speed internet, you could go with the city or county or community run mesh network which, in turn, buys a big pipe or two from whoever offers them not only the best price but also the least limitation, then there is little ability to mess with net neutrality, especially if a large number of these start making demands as a group or boycotting your service. It would be like trying to dictate to Comcast now.
The hard part is threefold, getting enough momentum behind it, overcoming the halo effects of TV and wires phone service, and keeping it from being outlawed by crooked politicians. I'm already part of one of the largest community wireless mesh projects in the country, but it needs to go a lot further. It needs organizers and people to show communities how to do it, technologically and politically, and to help organize.
Ying argues that will just lead to an average battery life compared to devices like the iPhone.
I really don't understand statements like this. It's obvious from statements like this that Charles Ying has a personal vendetta against the Android platform.
I think what he's meaning to imply is that battery life for Android devices tends to be both mediocre and highly variable in comparison to the iPhone.
By implementing the "average" weasel word (most people thinking average = bad), he is really trying to taint the whole platform.
I thought he was trying to be conciliatory and avoid alienating Android fans. By pretty much all proper studies, Android devices tend to do very poorly on battery life when running an average number of third party apps (as compared to iPhones). Take a look at some of Michael Arrington's writings on the subject (he writes for Tech Crunch and is a very outspoken Android fan). Several Android loving reviewers have brought up this point and demonstrated it, but maybe it needs to be said again: Battery life is Android's Achilles heel. The performance can get really, really lousy largely because of the poor performance and design decisions of third party app makers. The big problem for the average user is, they don't have easy visibility into this. They don't know their phone sucks down the juice because they installed a crappy game that is constantly contacting a server to look for updates or new ads. More expert users can use an app to profile battery life, but that doesn't really help phone makers who are the ones losing sales over it.
...my pea brain parses it similar to: "An Android phone has battery life +/- 5% within the working range of a comparable iPhone
With a good phone that has an up to date version of Android and where you're careful to pick your apps based upon battery usage, this might be the case. If you're a normal user that just downloads some apps and uses whatever version of Android is supplied with it, well I seriously doubt you'll get anywhere near that close.
Self professed Android phone lover Tom Loverro puts it thusly: "Battery life is not just another feature on some specifications checklist. It is the driving philosophy behind every design decision made on the iPhone. I think Android fanboys totally miss this point." He goes on to say, 'producing a great phone that gets six hours of battery life, is like me saying “I love my pet tiger, but he eats babies.'"
Yes, I am ignoring every third-party 'satisfaction surveys' - not only for Apple, but for everything. They are basically flawed because they are nothing but post-purchase syndrome where human minds tend to approve of things they have already invested heavily in.
First, companies like Consumer Reports don't ask people how satisfied they are. They ask how their support experience was in a variety of categories. Surveys like this often suffer from some self selection that tends to overrepresent those with very good or very bad experiences, but that doesn't not invalidate them, especially when they're comparing across vendors. You fail to mention by what mechanism Apple would score better than other vendors whose customers took the same survey. People looking for confirmation about their purchase is not limited to any one brand. Nor do other company's with high end products just as expensive as Apple's show results as good as Apple.
For the same reason, when I do my research, I go to various forums and look for negative reviews.
So you think people on forums get upset and complain and that is useful to you, but people taking the survey did not get upset and give poor scores? I don't follow your logic.
And I have my reason to hate Apple... s. Being sucker basically means you are blinded already.
Hatred blinds. Emotional investment instead of careful analysis based upon statistical evidence is just irrational and will only result in correct beliefs by chance. Cherry picking anecdotes instead of looking at a reasonably large sample set is unscientific. This is a forum for nerds, geeks, scientists. You're rejecting reason and intelligent decision making. Please turn in your kinda, sort scientific sounding username:)
While I like their[Apple's] machines their support does suck.
Your anecdote is interesting, but it does not seem to be the general case. Consumer Reports does an annual study of computer support among major vendors, asking about several specific categories. Apple always wins by a huge margin. In 2010 Apple scored 86 out of 100, compared to Dell's 56.
The summary refers to "m/m gay fiction" with "rape" in the title. It does not refer to pornography, that was your own assumption...
"m/m" is a special code word on the internet. If the summarizer lacked internet lingo skills, this is hardly my problem.
I see your beliefs about personal responsibility run hand in hand with your beliefs about personal freedom. Blaming someone else for your ignorance because of your interpretation of a Slashdot summary and consequent failure to do any research on a topic before spouting is the hight of irresponsibility. Oh poor you, it was the summary writer's fault that you're ignorant, also your high school teachers, parents, and society in general. Certainly not you though, huh? Pathetic.
If you can't see the difference between deciding what type of artistic work to create and intentionally removing existing artistic works from a store...
I said "decided not to carry," not create.
Except you're talking about a media creator that sells their own works, not those of others. Fail.
Frankly, your lack of appreciation for individuals being able to choose for themselves is more than a little repugnant to me.
Your insistence that Amazon have obligations to carry something in order to cater to your notion of "freedom" is repugnant to ME.
They do have an ethical obligation to support individual choice. As do all people who value freedom. I certainly hope you have long since given up singing the Star Spangled Banner. All that freedom it talks about is dangerous. People might be able to choose to read fiction about our messed up legal system and how it encourages rape.
You are arguing, like a child, that Amazon should be LESS FREE in order to enhance your personal sense of entitlement, and having a temper tantrum about it.
Your reading comprehension certainly seems childish. I've stated no less than three times now that I believe Amazon should have the right to not carry certain products and that they should have the freedom to censor. Why do you insist on believing otherwise? Are you a moron?
I further insist that they have an ethical responsibility to support personal freedom and all freedom loving people should try to avoid doing business with them until they start supporting our individual right to make choices for ourselves about the type of literature we should read. I further believe this is important regardless of the type of material they are refusing to carry because that is irrelevant if you believe in the concept of Freedom.
Here's a crazy concept, I think people should be free to tell everyone "whites are a superior race and blacks are evil and we should vote to prevent them from having the right to vote". And guess what, while I support their right to say what they want, I still think they are freedom hating cocks and won't do business with them or vote for them or buy their lousy literature. Believing people are wrong and have a responsibility to promote freedom instead of lessen it is not mutually exclusive with protecting the rights and freedoms of those I'm criticizing. Try to wrap your tiny mind around that idea.
Enough, go live in your fantasy land and believe what you want, that companies have no responsibility to protect personal freedom and that you have no responsibility to actually research what you're talking about before shooting your mouth off. You sir, are ignorant, irresponsible, and un-american.
According to this dude's timeline [coredump.cx]. He contacted them on December 20th, and got a real reply the next day.
You fail to note that the contact in December was a reminder that he was releasing the tool. He sent them the original crash reports in July and then more detailed info in August. MS security researchers were apparently unable, unwilling, or just too lazy to do the work to replicate the bugs or contact Mr. Zalewski for the next four months until he reminds them twice more in December about the issues.
By December Mr. Zalewski was no longer wiling to give MS extra time, not because he was looking for publicity, but because he had real indications that the exploits were already known to other parties and the situation had become one that needed immediate action on the part of users and sys admins to defend themselves pending a fix from MS. I have to disagree with you about him being a dick. He was very responsible on this one, even when dealing with a vendor that ha an abysmal track record of making timely fixes for periods lasting years, right until there is public disclosure.
While I did not RTFA, I am quite confident in the summary. It referred to "m/m rape". Now, as someone with more than 20 years of experience with both porn and the internet, if the subject is not as I say, the error is certainly in the summary. Please do not blame me.
The summary refers to "m/m gay fiction" with "rape" in the title. It does not refer to pornography, that was your own assumption. The books in question were, in fact, serious literature that happened to have homosexuality and had "rape" in the title. One was about a man trying to find justice for his family member who had been raped in prison and the difficulties of dealing with a prison and legal system that normalizes and condones rape as a means of punishment.
And I do blame you for making assumptions, not RTFA, and for not reading the other posts in this thread discussing in detail the types of books banned.
Your statement would hold equal merit if you accused Disney of the same thing by deciding not to carry films about the subject in its film inventory.
Not at all. If you can't see the difference between deciding what type of artistic work to create and intentionally removing existing artistic works from a store because you don't believe others should have the choice of reading them, then you fundamentally misunderstand the whole topic.
How do you justify your anti-freedom stance?
It has to do with the number of thinking hours under my belt about what constitutes "freedom".
"Freedom" isn't subject to your redefinition. Buy a dictionary. Freedom is me being able to make the choice about what book to buy without anyone interfering. In this case, Amazon is interfering by removing some of my choices (within a limited venue). Frankly, your lack of appreciation for individuals being able to choose for themselves is more than a little repugnant to me. You are what is wrong with this nation, people who don't see any harm in removing persona choices from others because they seem to think they "know better".
However, Amazon is violating no one's rights. To say so is an invitation to action, because rights violations always are.
This is both an implicit statement fallacy and an appeal to consequences fallacy. Someone interfering with individual choice does not always need to be addressed by the legislative process. Why would you make such an unsupportable assertion? The boy scouts don't support individual choice to be gay or be a woman member, for example, and by and large our society is okay with both recognizing that fact and still allowing them to have discriminatory rules (although many oppose them getting public funds as a result).
To wit: if you really think they are violating another's RIGHTS, you are pretty passive about it by merely taking your dollars elsewhere.
Ahh, but I do more than that don't I? I not only don't buy their products, but I speak out about it and tell other people what I'm doing and why, in the hopes that more people will develop an ethical code that includes valuing and protecting the individual choices of others, to valuing and working towards increased freedom as a cultural value. I act as I would have others act and I try to persuade others to join me and make the world a better place.
Whatever else is true, I think you will fairly well stand alone if you attempt to find agreement that Amazon's decision to drop m/m gay rape porn from its inventory is violating anyone's rights (or "freedom") as you put it.
Well first I'd like to clarify that the books dropped were not "rape porn" as you so badly mischaracterize them. You should really inform yourself more thoroughly before entering into a discussion about a topic. Second, I said outright there are not going to be a lot of people that are willing to stand up for freedom, because it is not valued in our society. Just as very few people will stand up to defend the free speech rights of neo-nazis, very few are willing to stand up on principal and defend freedom. It doesn't have to be popular to be right.
Another poster observes that Amazon exercises undue influence in the book market.
That's a whole different discussion about trusts and markets and I'm not willing to open up that whole can of worms and try to explain the legal and economic necessitates of managed capitalism. I've already had to educate enough people on the basics of that topic in other discussions.
What I will say is that if a private seller decides not to carry m/m gay rape porn, it is simply ABSURD to call this violating anyone's rights or "freedoms".
Legally speaking, Amazon is probably not violating the laws that protect individual rights. But they absolutely are taking away individual choice and acting against the principal of individual choice and freedom. Their position and yours are decidedly opposed to individual choice and freedom.
Now please answer my questions from the last four posts, instead of ignoring them or dodging them. Why are you so opposed to freedom? How can you place no value on people being able to decide for themselves which books to read and how can you possibly think it is a good thing for corporations to be making these decisions without caring about personal freedom, you know, here in the "land of the free". Do you only value your own personal freedom, or do you want people to make choices for you as well? Do you want you local grocery store to decide not to sell you certain foods they don't think you should eat?
Seriously, stop dodging the question and answer it. How do you justify your anti-freedom stance?
Whenever anything bad happens on the android platform related to malware, trojans, etc this distinction is heavily downplayed.
Again, if I download and install malware on one of my Linux boxes, how is this a Linux problem? Linux protects much better than Windows against remote attacks, it can't protect against stupid users.
Sure it can, at least a lot more than it does now. It can sandbox all apps by default, automatically check a malware blacklist and elevate permissions for trojans to ones that are useful to malware only when explicitly told to do so by the user, i.e. he goes in and checks the (allow to send mass e-mails) checkbox for that app.
There is a lot that can be done to more tightly secure Linux distros, applying SELinux style permissions universally is good start. The difference is, for normal home use users don't need these improvements yet because the risks are still so small. Linux does a great job of adapting and improving security as it becomes needed because the developers are the users as well so they are very motivated.
Several people already posted hypothesizing that Apple would pull the App, but I don't think that is even in the realm of possibility. Rather, this may prompt Apple to get off their butts and release the FaceTime specs as an open standard as they previously promised. Hopefully they'll roll out some improvements first, like default encryption on all channels, but it sure would be nice to have an open competitor to Skype that can interact with iPhones.
Then you should go back to school for some reading comprehension since I explicitly stated the exact opposite in the post you're responding to.
The sentiment is that somehow they are impinging your freedom.
Yes.
Such remarks are a preamble to action; which is to say, regardless of your overt remarks, your covert sentiment is clear.
So When I explicitly write that I will take the action of "spending my money elsewhere whenever possible" and that "they have the right to carry anything they want and not carry anything they want" you interpret that to mean the opposite of what I wrote and that I want to somehow force Amazon to take an action? You have a serious problem with comprehension or you just live in a fantasy world where you make random assumptions based upon convenience.
However, they Amazon is not impinging your freedom at all.
They are intentionally taking away my choices and making a subset of them on my behalf. That shows a lack of respect for individual freedom and the right of people to choose things they don't approve of. It is, by definition, anti-freedom, as it is taking away the freedom to choose from the individual, albeit in a small and limited way.
You never answered my question. Why do you hate freedom?
I didn't answer this question because it's an implied statement drawn most obviously from your imagination
You not only accept but applaud a company for refusing to give individuals the right to make choices that you personally don't want others to make. That is antithetical to valuing personal freedom. So you're taking a stance decidedly opposed to individual freedom to choose. My question stands. Why don't you value individual freedom? Have you never been part of a minority and realized that if others could they would take away your right to make the choice that aligns you with a minority? Is it just that you apply one standard to yourself (i.e. you value your own freedom) but do not value the freedom of others? I'm really curious what you and so much of the country have as a reasoning process here. In the US, founded on the principal of individual freedom, how do you develop a set of ethics that places no value on it?
There are plenty of people who will sell literature fantasizing about the rape of other people if you wish to read it.
What's your point? That doesn't mean Amazon supports my right to make my own choices or that they support individual freedom.
Amazon should be removing such material from their site because in the long it will be poor for their corporate branding.
That's the business case for it, to appeal to the majority who don't value freedom as much as they value punishing or inconveniencing those the majority disapproves of. It is not, however, an ethical case.
Removing it is merely good corporate stewardship.
No, it's showing a lack of reverence for freedom, you know in the "land of the free" where people theoretically value such things. Where people are supposed to value making their own choices and leaving others to do the same.
Getting all uppity about it is just silly.
That's an understandable opinion if you don't value freedom.
Amazon is not impeding your freedom at all;
Yes, they are. They're making decisions on my behalf as to what I should buy. I have alternatives, like to go with others, but it's Amazon taking a choice away from me instead of leaving it up to the individual to freely choose.
...however I am detecting the vague sentiment that you would like to impede THEIR freedom.
Then you should go back to school for some reading comprehension since I explicitly stated the exact opposite in the post you're responding to.
You never answered my question. Why do you hate freedom?
All the sooner, people will wake up to the fact that they don't really "own" that DRM-ridden content after all.
Sadly most of the US wants companies to censor and punish people who make choices they disapprove of. People in the US do not value personal freedom. Freedom is just a pseudo-patriotic word with no meaning to most of our society. I try to avoid Amazon and other major companies that restrict content on my behalf instead of being impartial champions of freedom, but that is sadly almost all of them because the American people want it and it makes companies more money.
Titles on the subject of gay rape disappear from Amazon and we're supposed to be concerned. WTF is wrong with you?
I actually value individual freedom, instead of just spouting off about "freedom" but not actually meaning it. Freedom is a virtue. I value the freedom of every person to choose for themselves. Most people clearly do not. I don't really want to read about incest for the most part. Nor do I want to read about white power or intelligent design. I still value companies that make it their policy to not make those choices on my behalf, but to be impartial and allow every individual to make other choices.
I understand that Amazon is a private company and they have the right to carry anything they want and not carry anything they want. I'm sure this move will make them more money. I just don't approve of it and will spend my money elsewhere whenever possible because unlike most Americans I value individual freedom, including freedom to make choices I disapprove of.
Daycare centres are busineses. Carers are professionals earning a living from their work. If they want to use a musician's song as part of their work then why shouldn't they have to pay? Why should this beneficial material be provided freely to them?
In most countries around the world freedom of speech/expression is an inherent right. Copyright law is a restriction on that right enacted in order to encourage the production of new works of art and science, i.e. if you make up a new song, you can make money off of it because we will restrict the free speech of others until you are paid.
So, since the only justification for copyright in the first place is its benefit to society, benefit that must outweigh the restriction on inherent freedoms, don't you think the question should ALWAYS be the other way around? How does this restriction on children's free speech benefit society? Does stopping the children from singing what they want really benefit society by giving slightly more money to people creating works?
Your next argument is probably going to be that civil servants still draw a public paycheck and should be answerable for that reason -- but unless you receive no rebates, incentives or other money from the government, that is a slippery slope to start on.
I like how you address your straw man logical fallacy with a slippery slope logical fallacy. You're just trying to make educated people's heads explode with indignation, aren't you?
Oh, and just to be clear, people working as official agents of the government are answerable to the people in ways people benefiting from government programs are not. This is a time tested legal concept and the reason (for example) that public school teachers cannot evangelize religion on the job, while they can when they are off the clock. When acting as an agent of the government you're working for "we the people" and just like any other boss "we the people" should be able to look at what you're doing so we can decide if you need to be fired, promoted, or given better directives.
Slashdot Mirror
They showed off 25 new models of UAV at the last air show. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703374304575622350604500556.html
Then, I reached the point where you insulted my wife.
I'd say you insulted your wife, by claiming she would not even consider the merits of tools in her field, insinuating that she is close minded and unprofessional... but hey you run with that emotional response there.
Go take your shitty assumptions and lack of reading ability and shove it up your own ass
Golly, how persuasive. You sure did convince me and everyone else that your arguments are convincing, rational, and well thought out.
Indeed your achieles[sic] heel comes in the shape of poor 3rd party apps, though this whole thread is about the need to render the UI via GPU for the sake of power.
That's only one of the topics he brings up with regard to performance in his article, although it is one focused upon heavily in the discussion. Referring to Android phones as having "only average" battery performance when compared to an iPhone, however, is being politic and the AC I was replying to was making some rather spurious claims in that regard.
Please name and shame these poorly optimised android apps (that presumably don't exist evenly across mobile platforms?)
I don't have the resources to do large scale testing, nor do I even have an iPhone and Android of my own, just access to them for testing at work. Anecdotally: eBuddy, Qik, ESPN sports center, fring, imovicha. Note several are IM clients that some reason ignore the push APIs and Google has no way to force them to use the push features.
But as to whether or not they exist cross platform evenly, well no I strongly suspect they don't for a variety of reasons. Apps on the iPhone are limited in dev tools and in access to system resources much more so than Android apps. This is annoying as a developer and even as a power user, but it also means apps can't just start sending pings to a server on a regular interval, but instead are required to use push services and are required to break out only specific types of background threads when running in the background. They can't constantly query the GPS if they aren't in the foreground.
...or accept the fact that the hardware burns through so much power than virtually any trivial (and without the hardware mentioned mobile apps generally are trivial) applications power use is irrelevant.
Perhaps you're laboring under a misunderstanding. Apps are software that makes the hardware do things. ALL battery usage is a combination of software AND hardware. It's a matter of what hardware and how often it is used by an app. Does it use the built in push notification service like a good app or does it waste battery power constantly running a thread in the background and constantly sending unneeded data? (Note I keep coming back to the network usage model, because it is a big differentiator with real, measurable battery ramifications.) There are several other, similar API issues, especially allowed multitasking modes. Remember when Apple came out with a castrated version of multitasking and we all scoffed, well if you read the Google engineering Android blogs, they sure wish they'd come up with the same thing because multitasking as implemented is killing battery as much as any other factor. (Read Larry Page's comments on it if you want an authoritative view from a Google founder.)
The idea that the UI effects is the power sucker is...
Nowhere stated nor implied in my post. Are you sure you replied to the correct post? Mine was mostly about poorly optimized applications being a huge battery drain. It has nothing to do with window animations.
Other things I like on this thread are people suggesting, what about people on older Android where performance is poor. Good argument, my Tmoby pulse has been on Android 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2 each upgrade adds more flair and makes the battery/performance better.
This was something I mentioned. Older versions of Android perform more poorly with regard to battery life, but because of the way Android is deployed by vendors, many phones are not updated in a timely fashion (some are never updated). This exacerbated the battery performance issues that are one of Android's biggest weaknesses.
Hmm, looks like my post only made it halfway. I've never seen that before. Here's a retry of the complete post.
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
Of only slight importance, really. Because no matter how much people might think that to be a great program, it still isn't Photoshop.
That's just the refrain every market leader parrots, but no one stays on top forever. WordPerfect probably thought the same thing. Name recognition is lot of what carries Photoshop, but this is an opportunity for more recognition for other products. Imagine in a few years a user who found a competitor through the Apple store, bought it because it fit their budget and now does not like Photoshop at work because it is not what they are used to. This is exactly Adobe's strategy coming back at them.
potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP
Of pretty well zero importance to Adobe.
How do you figure? I've already worked in places where GIMP and Illustrator were used in lieu of Adobe products. One of the main things holding them back from growing in market share is that they do not cost money and are thus not seen as legitimate (something being in the App store will solve) and that no one has heard of or has experience with them (again things the app store addresses by providing a free venue to advertise it and getting people to try it). Now neither product is a 100% replacement for Adobe's tools in all market segments, but it can definitely start to lose Adobe sales permanently to a competitor they will never be able to beat on price.
While I use Gimp regularly, professionals will continue to turn their noses up at it. My wife is a graphic designer and wouldn't consider using Gimp for her work, regardless of how expensive Photoshop is.
Then she is a poor graphic designer. GIMP is superior to photoshop for certain automated workflows and a few types of filtering and anyone who isn't willing to evaluate new tools and apply them where appropriate is a lousy professional.
And I'm quite sure she's never even heard of the program you mentioned earlier - she knows of Gimp because I use it all the time for my work where I don't need all the features and compatibility of Photoshop.
You're probably right that she's never heard of Pixelmator, which is its biggest problem. It is a very well put together Mac only photo editor that surpasses Photoshop in some areas and is much, much faster in every way. I own a copy of Photoshop, but I still use Pixelmator for about 80% of my graphic editing simply because it is so much faster and easier to use. Now, it has a chance to be put right in front of a huge number of users when they are considering graphics software. You don't think that's likely to put some pressure on Adobe?
Being as they are the most important software company for
Hmm, looks like my post only made it halfway. I've never seen that before. Here's a retry of the complete post.
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
Of only slight importance, really. Because no matter how much people might think that to be a great program, it still isn't Photoshop.
That's just the refrain every market leader parrots, but no one stays on top forever. WordPerfect probably thought the same thing. Name recognition is lot of what carries Photoshop, but this is an opportunity for more recognition for other products. Imagine in a few years a user who found a competitor through the Apple store, bought it because it fit their budget and now does not like Photoshop at work because it is not what they are used to. This is exactly Adobe's strategy coming back at them.
potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP
Of pretty well zero importance to Adobe.
How do you figure? I've already worked in places where GIMP and Illustrator were used in lieu of Adobe products. One of the main things holding them back from growing in market share is that they do not cost money and are thus not seen as legitimate (something being in the App store will solve) and that no one has heard of or has experience with them (again things the app store addresses by providing a free venue to advertise it and getting people to try it). Now neither product is a 100% replacement for Adobe's tools in all market segments, but it can definitely start to lose Adobe sales permanently to a competitor they will never be able to beat on price.
While I use Gimp regularly, professionals will continue to turn their noses up at it. My wife is a graphic designer and wouldn't consider using Gimp for her work, regardless of how expensive Photoshop is.
Then she is a poor graphic designer. GIMP is superior to photoshop for certain automated workflows and a few types of filtering and anyone who isn't willing to evaluate new tools and apply them where appropriate is a lousy professional.
And I'm quite sure she's never even heard of the program you mentioned earlier - she knows of Gimp because I use it all the time for my work where I don't need all the features and compatibility of Photoshop.
You're probably right that she's never heard of Pixelmator, which is its biggest problem. It is a very well put together Mac only photo editor that surpasses Photoshop in some areas and is much, much faster in every way. I own a copy of Photoshop, but I still use Pixelmator for about 80% of my graphic editing simply because it is so much faster and easier to use. Now,
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change
I made no such claim; actually I suggested they would make no immediate change.
You set up the argument no one had made and then attacked it. This is called a "strawman argument". It is an argumentative technique that is logical fallacy. Don't tell me you read Slashdot and you've never heard it used before.
Adobe now has to compete on price
I would be shocked if they suddenly felt that to be true
Not suddenly, no, but as they see market share of competitors grow in the home market and then start in the business market. It will likely take several years.
Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator
Of only slight importance, r
The summary is overlooking Adobe completely.
True.
I see no reason to expect that they are going to drop their sotware prices by 90% tomorrow.
This is a strawman argument. No one but you claimed Adobe is going to make an immediate change. Rather, it seems likely that Adobe may feel more competitive pressure as the result of the App Store. Instead of relying upon smaller players to have no marketing clout and little way to get their app in front of potential buyers, Adobe now has to compete on price, features, and performance. Suddenly users are going to be aware of competitors like the much cheaper, faster, but slightly less featureful Pixelmator and potentially even free, open source apps like GIMP. This will likely pressure Adobe to make their products better and/or cheaper one way or another.
Being as they are the most important software company for the Mac today...
You're living in the past man. Macs have not been just niche computers for graphics geeks for a long time. There are a lot more sales of WoW or the Sims than there are of photoshop on the Mac. Macs are first and foremost targeted at the home user, their main demographic.
They go out of their way to prevent piracy, they certainly aren't about to start distributing their top titles as downloadable applications for $5 a pop.
Ha! Clearly you don't know folks at Adobe. They go out of their way to prevent piracy among corporations, but rely upon piracy among individual developers to promote their products to those who can pay. I doubt they'll ever drop to the $5 price point for Photoshop, but if home users and small shops start adopting alternatives that will start to bleed over into the corporate market where they do care, and you'll see some serious changes.
Forking would only empower the mega-corps to invest in the locked down interwebs, while letting the free internet rot away into nothingness.
That depends upon what one means by forking. Several projects (like theconnective.net) aim to replace the last mile of the internet with community and cooperatively owned networks and allow those networks to interoperate and bargain collectively with core network operators. That is to say, if instead of Comcast or AT&T as your choices for home high speed internet, you could go with the city or county or community run mesh network which, in turn, buys a big pipe or two from whoever offers them not only the best price but also the least limitation, then there is little ability to mess with net neutrality, especially if a large number of these start making demands as a group or boycotting your service. It would be like trying to dictate to Comcast now.
The hard part is threefold, getting enough momentum behind it, overcoming the halo effects of TV and wires phone service, and keeping it from being outlawed by crooked politicians. I'm already part of one of the largest community wireless mesh projects in the country, but it needs to go a lot further. It needs organizers and people to show communities how to do it, technologically and politically, and to help organize.
Let the umm surfer unite?
Ying argues that will just lead to an average battery life compared to devices like the iPhone.
I really don't understand statements like this. It's obvious from statements like this that Charles Ying has a personal vendetta against the Android platform.
I think what he's meaning to imply is that battery life for Android devices tends to be both mediocre and highly variable in comparison to the iPhone.
By implementing the "average" weasel word (most people thinking average = bad), he is really trying to taint the whole platform.
I thought he was trying to be conciliatory and avoid alienating Android fans. By pretty much all proper studies, Android devices tend to do very poorly on battery life when running an average number of third party apps (as compared to iPhones). Take a look at some of Michael Arrington's writings on the subject (he writes for Tech Crunch and is a very outspoken Android fan). Several Android loving reviewers have brought up this point and demonstrated it, but maybe it needs to be said again: Battery life is Android's Achilles heel. The performance can get really, really lousy largely because of the poor performance and design decisions of third party app makers. The big problem for the average user is, they don't have easy visibility into this. They don't know their phone sucks down the juice because they installed a crappy game that is constantly contacting a server to look for updates or new ads. More expert users can use an app to profile battery life, but that doesn't really help phone makers who are the ones losing sales over it.
...my pea brain parses it similar to: "An Android phone has battery life +/- 5% within the working range of a comparable iPhone
With a good phone that has an up to date version of Android and where you're careful to pick your apps based upon battery usage, this might be the case. If you're a normal user that just downloads some apps and uses whatever version of Android is supplied with it, well I seriously doubt you'll get anywhere near that close.
Self professed Android phone lover Tom Loverro puts it thusly: "Battery life is not just another feature on some specifications checklist. It is the driving philosophy behind every design decision made on the iPhone. I think Android fanboys totally miss this point." He goes on to say, 'producing a great phone that gets six hours of battery life, is like me saying “I love my pet tiger, but he eats babies.'"
Yes, I am ignoring every third-party 'satisfaction surveys' - not only for Apple, but for everything. They are basically flawed because they are nothing but post-purchase syndrome where human minds tend to approve of things they have already invested heavily in.
First, companies like Consumer Reports don't ask people how satisfied they are. They ask how their support experience was in a variety of categories. Surveys like this often suffer from some self selection that tends to overrepresent those with very good or very bad experiences, but that doesn't not invalidate them, especially when they're comparing across vendors. You fail to mention by what mechanism Apple would score better than other vendors whose customers took the same survey. People looking for confirmation about their purchase is not limited to any one brand. Nor do other company's with high end products just as expensive as Apple's show results as good as Apple.
For the same reason, when I do my research, I go to various forums and look for negative reviews.
So you think people on forums get upset and complain and that is useful to you, but people taking the survey did not get upset and give poor scores? I don't follow your logic.
And I have my reason to hate Apple... s. Being sucker basically means you are blinded already.
Hatred blinds. Emotional investment instead of careful analysis based upon statistical evidence is just irrational and will only result in correct beliefs by chance. Cherry picking anecdotes instead of looking at a reasonably large sample set is unscientific. This is a forum for nerds, geeks, scientists. You're rejecting reason and intelligent decision making. Please turn in your kinda, sort scientific sounding username :)
While I like their[Apple's] machines their support does suck.
Your anecdote is interesting, but it does not seem to be the general case. Consumer Reports does an annual study of computer support among major vendors, asking about several specific categories. Apple always wins by a huge margin. In 2010 Apple scored 86 out of 100, compared to Dell's 56.
The summary refers to "m/m gay fiction" with "rape" in the title. It does not refer to pornography, that was your own assumption...
"m/m" is a special code word on the internet. If the summarizer lacked internet lingo skills, this is hardly my problem.
I see your beliefs about personal responsibility run hand in hand with your beliefs about personal freedom. Blaming someone else for your ignorance because of your interpretation of a Slashdot summary and consequent failure to do any research on a topic before spouting is the hight of irresponsibility. Oh poor you, it was the summary writer's fault that you're ignorant, also your high school teachers, parents, and society in general. Certainly not you though, huh? Pathetic.
If you can't see the difference between deciding what type of artistic work to create and intentionally removing existing artistic works from a store...
I said "decided not to carry," not create.
Except you're talking about a media creator that sells their own works, not those of others. Fail.
Frankly, your lack of appreciation for individuals being able to choose for themselves is more than a little repugnant to me.
Your insistence that Amazon have obligations to carry something in order to cater to your notion of "freedom" is repugnant to ME.
They do have an ethical obligation to support individual choice. As do all people who value freedom. I certainly hope you have long since given up singing the Star Spangled Banner. All that freedom it talks about is dangerous. People might be able to choose to read fiction about our messed up legal system and how it encourages rape.
You are arguing, like a child, that Amazon should be LESS FREE in order to enhance your personal sense of entitlement, and having a temper tantrum about it.
Your reading comprehension certainly seems childish. I've stated no less than three times now that I believe Amazon should have the right to not carry certain products and that they should have the freedom to censor. Why do you insist on believing otherwise? Are you a moron?
I further insist that they have an ethical responsibility to support personal freedom and all freedom loving people should try to avoid doing business with them until they start supporting our individual right to make choices for ourselves about the type of literature we should read. I further believe this is important regardless of the type of material they are refusing to carry because that is irrelevant if you believe in the concept of Freedom.
Here's a crazy concept, I think people should be free to tell everyone "whites are a superior race and blacks are evil and we should vote to prevent them from having the right to vote". And guess what, while I support their right to say what they want, I still think they are freedom hating cocks and won't do business with them or vote for them or buy their lousy literature. Believing people are wrong and have a responsibility to promote freedom instead of lessen it is not mutually exclusive with protecting the rights and freedoms of those I'm criticizing. Try to wrap your tiny mind around that idea.
Enough, go live in your fantasy land and believe what you want, that companies have no responsibility to protect personal freedom and that you have no responsibility to actually research what you're talking about before shooting your mouth off. You sir, are ignorant, irresponsible, and un-american.
According to this dude's timeline [coredump.cx]. He contacted them on December 20th, and got a real reply the next day.
You fail to note that the contact in December was a reminder that he was releasing the tool. He sent them the original crash reports in July and then more detailed info in August. MS security researchers were apparently unable, unwilling, or just too lazy to do the work to replicate the bugs or contact Mr. Zalewski for the next four months until he reminds them twice more in December about the issues.
By December Mr. Zalewski was no longer wiling to give MS extra time, not because he was looking for publicity, but because he had real indications that the exploits were already known to other parties and the situation had become one that needed immediate action on the part of users and sys admins to defend themselves pending a fix from MS. I have to disagree with you about him being a dick. He was very responsible on this one, even when dealing with a vendor that ha an abysmal track record of making timely fixes for periods lasting years, right until there is public disclosure.
This also seems similar to a story that came out a while back regarding mystery data xfers on the iphone
The iPhone data logs were determined to be daily data usage logs sent to AT&T for billing and for the data stats they provide via text to the user.
While I did not RTFA, I am quite confident in the summary. It referred to "m/m rape". Now, as someone with more than 20 years of experience with both porn and the internet, if the subject is not as I say, the error is certainly in the summary. Please do not blame me.
The summary refers to "m/m gay fiction" with "rape" in the title. It does not refer to pornography, that was your own assumption. The books in question were, in fact, serious literature that happened to have homosexuality and had "rape" in the title. One was about a man trying to find justice for his family member who had been raped in prison and the difficulties of dealing with a prison and legal system that normalizes and condones rape as a means of punishment.
And I do blame you for making assumptions, not RTFA, and for not reading the other posts in this thread discussing in detail the types of books banned.
Your statement would hold equal merit if you accused Disney of the same thing by deciding not to carry films about the subject in its film inventory.
Not at all. If you can't see the difference between deciding what type of artistic work to create and intentionally removing existing artistic works from a store because you don't believe others should have the choice of reading them, then you fundamentally misunderstand the whole topic.
How do you justify your anti-freedom stance?
It has to do with the number of thinking hours under my belt about what constitutes "freedom".
"Freedom" isn't subject to your redefinition. Buy a dictionary. Freedom is me being able to make the choice about what book to buy without anyone interfering. In this case, Amazon is interfering by removing some of my choices (within a limited venue). Frankly, your lack of appreciation for individuals being able to choose for themselves is more than a little repugnant to me. You are what is wrong with this nation, people who don't see any harm in removing persona choices from others because they seem to think they "know better".
However, Amazon is violating no one's rights. To say so is an invitation to action, because rights violations always are.
This is both an implicit statement fallacy and an appeal to consequences fallacy. Someone interfering with individual choice does not always need to be addressed by the legislative process. Why would you make such an unsupportable assertion? The boy scouts don't support individual choice to be gay or be a woman member, for example, and by and large our society is okay with both recognizing that fact and still allowing them to have discriminatory rules (although many oppose them getting public funds as a result).
To wit: if you really think they are violating another's RIGHTS, you are pretty passive about it by merely taking your dollars elsewhere.
Ahh, but I do more than that don't I? I not only don't buy their products, but I speak out about it and tell other people what I'm doing and why, in the hopes that more people will develop an ethical code that includes valuing and protecting the individual choices of others, to valuing and working towards increased freedom as a cultural value. I act as I would have others act and I try to persuade others to join me and make the world a better place.
Whatever else is true, I think you will fairly well stand alone if you attempt to find agreement that Amazon's decision to drop m/m gay rape porn from its inventory is violating anyone's rights (or "freedom") as you put it.
Well first I'd like to clarify that the books dropped were not "rape porn" as you so badly mischaracterize them. You should really inform yourself more thoroughly before entering into a discussion about a topic. Second, I said outright there are not going to be a lot of people that are willing to stand up for freedom, because it is not valued in our society. Just as very few people will stand up to defend the free speech rights of neo-nazis, very few are willing to stand up on principal and defend freedom. It doesn't have to be popular to be right.
Another poster observes that Amazon exercises undue influence in the book market.
That's a whole different discussion about trusts and markets and I'm not willing to open up that whole can of worms and try to explain the legal and economic necessitates of managed capitalism. I've already had to educate enough people on the basics of that topic in other discussions.
What I will say is that if a private seller decides not to carry m/m gay rape porn, it is simply ABSURD to call this violating anyone's rights or "freedoms".
Legally speaking, Amazon is probably not violating the laws that protect individual rights. But they absolutely are taking away individual choice and acting against the principal of individual choice and freedom. Their position and yours are decidedly opposed to individual choice and freedom.
Now please answer my questions from the last four posts, instead of ignoring them or dodging them. Why are you so opposed to freedom? How can you place no value on people being able to decide for themselves which books to read and how can you possibly think it is a good thing for corporations to be making these decisions without caring about personal freedom, you know, here in the "land of the free". Do you only value your own personal freedom, or do you want people to make choices for you as well? Do you want you local grocery store to decide not to sell you certain foods they don't think you should eat?
Seriously, stop dodging the question and answer it. How do you justify your anti-freedom stance?
Whenever anything bad happens on the android platform related to malware, trojans, etc this distinction is heavily downplayed.
Again, if I download and install malware on one of my Linux boxes, how is this a Linux problem? Linux protects much better than Windows against remote attacks, it can't protect against stupid users.
Sure it can, at least a lot more than it does now. It can sandbox all apps by default, automatically check a malware blacklist and elevate permissions for trojans to ones that are useful to malware only when explicitly told to do so by the user, i.e. he goes in and checks the (allow to send mass e-mails) checkbox for that app.
There is a lot that can be done to more tightly secure Linux distros, applying SELinux style permissions universally is good start. The difference is, for normal home use users don't need these improvements yet because the risks are still so small. Linux does a great job of adapting and improving security as it becomes needed because the developers are the users as well so they are very motivated.
Several people already posted hypothesizing that Apple would pull the App, but I don't think that is even in the realm of possibility. Rather, this may prompt Apple to get off their butts and release the FaceTime specs as an open standard as they previously promised. Hopefully they'll roll out some improvements first, like default encryption on all channels, but it sure would be nice to have an open competitor to Skype that can interact with iPhones.
Then you should go back to school for some reading comprehension since I explicitly stated the exact opposite in the post you're responding to.
The sentiment is that somehow they are impinging your freedom.
Yes.
Such remarks are a preamble to action; which is to say, regardless of your overt remarks, your covert sentiment is clear.
So When I explicitly write that I will take the action of "spending my money elsewhere whenever possible" and that "they have the right to carry anything they want and not carry anything they want" you interpret that to mean the opposite of what I wrote and that I want to somehow force Amazon to take an action? You have a serious problem with comprehension or you just live in a fantasy world where you make random assumptions based upon convenience.
However, they Amazon is not impinging your freedom at all.
They are intentionally taking away my choices and making a subset of them on my behalf. That shows a lack of respect for individual freedom and the right of people to choose things they don't approve of. It is, by definition, anti-freedom, as it is taking away the freedom to choose from the individual, albeit in a small and limited way.
You never answered my question. Why do you hate freedom?
I didn't answer this question because it's an implied statement drawn most obviously from your imagination
You not only accept but applaud a company for refusing to give individuals the right to make choices that you personally don't want others to make. That is antithetical to valuing personal freedom. So you're taking a stance decidedly opposed to individual freedom to choose. My question stands. Why don't you value individual freedom? Have you never been part of a minority and realized that if others could they would take away your right to make the choice that aligns you with a minority? Is it just that you apply one standard to yourself (i.e. you value your own freedom) but do not value the freedom of others? I'm really curious what you and so much of the country have as a reasoning process here. In the US, founded on the principal of individual freedom, how do you develop a set of ethics that places no value on it?
There are plenty of people who will sell literature fantasizing about the rape of other people if you wish to read it.
What's your point? That doesn't mean Amazon supports my right to make my own choices or that they support individual freedom.
Amazon should be removing such material from their site because in the long it will be poor for their corporate branding.
That's the business case for it, to appeal to the majority who don't value freedom as much as they value punishing or inconveniencing those the majority disapproves of. It is not, however, an ethical case.
Removing it is merely good corporate stewardship.
No, it's showing a lack of reverence for freedom, you know in the "land of the free" where people theoretically value such things. Where people are supposed to value making their own choices and leaving others to do the same.
Getting all uppity about it is just silly.
That's an understandable opinion if you don't value freedom.
Amazon is not impeding your freedom at all;
Yes, they are. They're making decisions on my behalf as to what I should buy. I have alternatives, like to go with others, but it's Amazon taking a choice away from me instead of leaving it up to the individual to freely choose.
...however I am detecting the vague sentiment that you would like to impede THEIR freedom.
Then you should go back to school for some reading comprehension since I explicitly stated the exact opposite in the post you're responding to.
You never answered my question. Why do you hate freedom?
All the sooner, people will wake up to the fact that they don't really "own" that DRM-ridden content after all.
Sadly most of the US wants companies to censor and punish people who make choices they disapprove of. People in the US do not value personal freedom. Freedom is just a pseudo-patriotic word with no meaning to most of our society. I try to avoid Amazon and other major companies that restrict content on my behalf instead of being impartial champions of freedom, but that is sadly almost all of them because the American people want it and it makes companies more money.
Titles on the subject of gay rape disappear from Amazon and we're supposed to be concerned. WTF is wrong with you?
I actually value individual freedom, instead of just spouting off about "freedom" but not actually meaning it. Freedom is a virtue. I value the freedom of every person to choose for themselves. Most people clearly do not. I don't really want to read about incest for the most part. Nor do I want to read about white power or intelligent design. I still value companies that make it their policy to not make those choices on my behalf, but to be impartial and allow every individual to make other choices.
I understand that Amazon is a private company and they have the right to carry anything they want and not carry anything they want. I'm sure this move will make them more money. I just don't approve of it and will spend my money elsewhere whenever possible because unlike most Americans I value individual freedom, including freedom to make choices I disapprove of.
Why do you hate freedom? WTF is wrong with you?
Daycare centres are busineses. Carers are professionals earning a living from their work. If they want to use a musician's song as part of their work then why shouldn't they have to pay? Why should this beneficial material be provided freely to them?
In most countries around the world freedom of speech/expression is an inherent right. Copyright law is a restriction on that right enacted in order to encourage the production of new works of art and science, i.e. if you make up a new song, you can make money off of it because we will restrict the free speech of others until you are paid.
So, since the only justification for copyright in the first place is its benefit to society, benefit that must outweigh the restriction on inherent freedoms, don't you think the question should ALWAYS be the other way around? How does this restriction on children's free speech benefit society? Does stopping the children from singing what they want really benefit society by giving slightly more money to people creating works?
Your next argument is probably going to be that civil servants still draw a public paycheck and should be answerable for that reason -- but unless you receive no rebates, incentives or other money from the government, that is a slippery slope to start on.
I like how you address your straw man logical fallacy with a slippery slope logical fallacy. You're just trying to make educated people's heads explode with indignation, aren't you?
Oh, and just to be clear, people working as official agents of the government are answerable to the people in ways people benefiting from government programs are not. This is a time tested legal concept and the reason (for example) that public school teachers cannot evangelize religion on the job, while they can when they are off the clock. When acting as an agent of the government you're working for "we the people" and just like any other boss "we the people" should be able to look at what you're doing so we can decide if you need to be fired, promoted, or given better directives.