Instead of doing like MS does and licensing their DRM so that they let other people do all the sales, etc, they're holding onto their DRM tech and not letting the market develop around apple-made solutions.
And how do you think MS would react to your proposed solution? Maybe they would do something similar to what they always do? They would license the tech so that it works in Windows Media player, keep it that way long enough for everyone to get used to it, and then start adding "features" that break compatibility with the standard. Once they have a foothold, and are selling music that plays on the ipod, they can do basically whatever they want, and Apple will have to play along, or explain to 90% of their customers, why things stopped working with Longhorn and the ipod, or why service pack 3 (required to stop all those worms) breaks itunes, but not windows media, and why can't apple write software that works?
You fail to address the question. If this is intended to break Real's hack, why didn't they release it for all ipod's?
I don't see any reason why Real wouldn't be in a position to sue over it.
Sure they can sue all they like, but since they don't have a leg to stand on I don't think they will. Even given that this is intended to break Real's hack, and Apple has a much greater market share of online music than reported, Apple still is not doing anything illegal because they are not stopping competitors from competing in the same space (you can sell your own mp3 player and music service). If you are contesting that bundling a music service with your mp3 player is anticompetitive, then maybe you should note the dozen open formats supported, or the licensing deals Apple has signed with other companies to do basically this same thing on other devices.
This is about Real trying to strong arm Apple into supporting their own crappy, proprietary format, not about some poor company that sold files that Apple said would work, and then broke them.
Well, assuming MS has a 70% share of Operating systems, a 12% share of word processors, and 70% share of selling DRM files in Word format (with a legal way to remove that DRM) I don't see any problem with MS doing that at all. Unfortunately for the computing industry, that is not the case. And since they are a monopoly, and have been convicted of illegally abusing that monopoly to take over other industries, I'd say the comparison does not hold up very well.
Your numbers sound suspicious. I was quoting Bloomberg. They claim apple at 80% hardware MP3 players for 2004 and 70% over the last 3 years. Apple does use a closed DRM format, but the DRM can be legally removed, unlike with WMD. The format itself is open, and the player supports a good half dozen open formats. If the firmware update was intended to break Real's hack, why did they not release it for all players, instead of about half of them? Most likely, this is just Real's hack breaking, which is not surprising since it is an unsupported format masquerading as Apple's licensed files. If you sold something and a company renowned for shady business practices and installing spyware started selling products that were similar to your, and claimed you would support them despite your making public statements to the contrary, I'm sure you would not give a rat's ass if their crap broke.
Basically, Apple is not a monopoly, and even if they were, they have not used that to move into any other markets. MS on the other hand is a monopoly, and has used it to both take over other markets, and to force competitors out of business. Some of my favorite software was made by companies MS bought and killed to prevent them from competing with them.
P.S. this release came out a while ago, it's just that no one was stupid enough to buy files from Real, so no one noticed till now that they don't work.
When MS on the other hand license their WMA DRM to competing music stores
MS already bundles the player with Windows. They license the format (for a fee) to anyone who wants it because it furthers their desktop monopoly. You can play MS's files after you have payed for a copy of windows, which they have already included the costs into. This is classic monopoly bundling.
If Apple had not stepped in with their music business, MS would own it. Do you doubt that? If MS can tax every song sold online, and there is no one to challenge them, do you think they will hesitate to charge a ridiculous fee? This was a smart, defensive move by Apple.
I think you are confusing a monopoly entering new markets, with a company who entered a market without a monopoly, gained a large share of it, and has not leveraged it for anything. I don't like the fact the itunes and Apple use DRM, so I don't buy from them. If I had an ipod it could still play my mp3s. If I did buy music from Apple, I could remove the DRM convert it to Windows Media format, and play it on players from people who license from MS. Can you legally remove the DRM from Windows Media files, and play them on the ipod? With Apple customers get a choice. With MS, we all get screwed.
I have seen iPod and iTunes market share figures that compete well with Windows market share figures. And they use the position the same way it seems...
Numbers I have seen are about 70% for ipods, 70% for online music sales, and 12% for mp3 software actually used. That is not even close to Windows's market share. But as far as the "use the position the same way" what competitors has Apple bought out? What other markets have they moved in to, by leveraging their music player? the only thing I can think of that they are giving away with them is Quicktime, and MS (the competition) already bundles Windows Media player with Windows. What markets, exactly, do you think Apple is using their monopoly (I don't think it really is a monopoly) to move into?
Here is how Apple is being evil - they are intentionally crippling their hardware to be incompatable with other services.
What you say is possible, but unlikely. First of all Apple does not really make money selling music, it is a break even proposition for them that they maintain to promote the ipod and as a strategic investment to slow MS's embracing of digital music. Second, if Apple planned on making a firmware release to mess with Real, why wouldn't they release it for all of their ipods, instead of just some of them? They are 100% correct to refuse to support some other companies products, especially after making it very clear that the format is unsupported by them, and will probably break. If Real's music no longer works on ipods after an update that it Real's problem. They were the ones that sold music to people, telling them it would work on ipods, when it was in a format not supported by the device manufacturer.
If Sony or someone introduces a free and standard DRM format, that can be applied to any music format and that does not have any licensing fee, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Apple adds support. In the mean time, Apple supports a half a dozen non-DRMed formats, and one DRMed format that can be legally un-DRMed. I'd say that is about as good as anyone can ask. The only thing they could do would be to open fairplay (which they probably do not have the rights to) or write and release an open alternative. The danger with this course, is, of course MS will embrace it by releasing music in that format, then breaking compatibility, and crushing Apple's music business.
May I inquire why it should matter who you bought the music from as long as you own it?
It should not, which is why music formats and DRM should be open standards. Unfortunately, MS is in the process of embracing the digital music industry with yet more illegal bundling. As the industry stands right now, the music seller is responsible for providing support and authentication for your digital music. Real just tried to make Apple do it for them, free of cost and Apple shot them down. If Apple does not maintain control of their DRM, and maintain the best hardware and software in what is increasingly a commodity industry, MS will take over, and there will be one more industry completely dominated, and paying a toll on every transaction to MS. A toll for doing nothing, except having control of the dominant OS, and forcing everyone to pay because of it.
I don't know about you, but I'm much happier having a music seller whose DRM has an easy and legal out, rather than one that is illegal to remove. (Not that I plan to buy music from Apple, MS, or Real anytime soon.)
Obligated to refrain from taking antocompetitive [sic] measures in a market in which they are the dominant supplier
Umm, they have a good percentage of both the mp3 player and digital audio markets, but no monopoly in either. In any case, since when has it been illegal for a company to provide non-mandatory updates to the firmware of a device they create that prevents people from hacking around their DRM? If they refused to play non-protected files, I could see an argument. If they refused to play a competitors DRM, that they had at one time included I could see it as arguable. But refusing to play files masquerading as authenticated files from their own licensed system, well that does not bother me at all. Especially when that competitor is as shady as Real Networks.
No, I criticized your links, and lack of good sources. I did not criticize you for providing links.
That's right-wing debate style...the right-winger is unable to smell his own stink...Oh? Please point them out.
That is an ad hominem attack, as well as as an unsubstantiated assumption.
more obsessed with rhetorical style
The items I mentioned are not rhetorical style, they are common flaws in logical reasoning. If you don't think logic and reason are important to you arguments, then I think you have validated my point about your style of debate.
Geo, as a prefix, means of or relating to Earth.
Yes, but in the manner of the ground, not the planet, Terra would be the planet earth and aero would be the air. You do not seem very well informed about the origins of the word in question.
You would never address the core issue of my argument which was the fact the term for a type of energy is determined by the source of its generation.
I disagree with this assertion, since by your definition of generate, energy is generated again and again. You also failed to provide any description of why your labeling of energy is more valid than everyone else's, including experts in the field and the dictionary. You ignore all references that contradict you, fail to provide any credible ones supporting your position (with one exception), do not even address that the dictionary contradicts you, don't provide any reasons for your assertions (e.g. why can't something be both solar and goethermal), and you resort to arguing that the root words for the word are what defines it's meaning (even though you don't even know what those root words really meant.) You have been illogical and unreasoning and you continually prove more interesting in proving yourself right, than in being right.
You are close minded, and cannot accept that someone else's opinion may be valid and more supported by both fact and reason than your own. I doubt you will ever change your mind about anything, no matter what the facts happen to be. Maybe you had better stop reading right now, since new information seems to have no affect on your opinions other than to provide support for what you already believe. That is the exact opposite of the science you earlier claimed I lack any understanding of.
Only in Slashdot will people walk right past this silently.
Well, you are close. Only on Slashdot, or another site that attracts technically competent people. You see all of your problems with the article require actually installing the toolbar, in Windows, for use with IE to discover. What technically competent person would actually run Windows with IE??? What technically competent person would install beta software from Microsoft??? I can see fringe cases, like if it was your job, or if you were writing malware and wanted to use it as a vector. But really, Windows+IE+beta software from MS, maybe if you are trying to destroy your data.
You should be accurate. As I understand, the true text of these options is "Block all images from this server"
The text varies, depending upon which browser's implementation you are looking at; hence, the generic text. Note, in some cases this includes embedded flash applications or other multimedia.
While I agree, for the most part, with your conclusions that this study is not meaningful, I take exception to one of your staements.
Any count related to bugs, also, needs to take into account the fact that on Windows, you have billions of users any of whom could find and report a bug. On Linux, bugs are more likely to go undiscovered for a longer period of time, simply because there aren't as many people trying to hit them.
There are a number of factors that you do not mention here. One is that bugs can be found more easily in open source products, since the code can and often is inspected by others. Another is that while there are more users of Windows, the ratio of bug reporters to users is probably much lower. The technically inept rarely report problems and even the technically proficient often do not bother reporting them to MS. I know I never report bugs to MS, since none of the ones I have reported were ever fixed. The same is not true with open source, or even many other closed source vendors. Finally, due to the closed nature of Windows, and their reporting process, there is no way of knowing what bugs are found and fixed internally by MS, but are never made known to developers or users. Basically, I agree that this report is nonsense, but I disagree with your theory that Windows probably has the same number of bugs or fewer bugs than the Linux kernel. I suspect that the Windows source code is a bug ridden mess, that will not be fixed unless it affects the bottom line at MS.
...says the person who quoted one.edu site and the IRS becuase google (and general opinion) disagrees with you. Your opinion is that the energy stored in the earth, and utilized by ground pumps is not geothermal. Most authoritative sources disagree with you. When arguing the meaning of a technical word in the English language, reasonable arguments can include how it is used, defined by the dictionary, and quoted by experts in the field.
Question: When does that heat change from solar to geothermal?
Since you have a problem with my ignoring your weak and irrelevant points I will address the one you mention. Your question implies that something cannot be both. It is akin to the question "At what point does EM radiation from the sun, stop being Solar and start being EM?" The answer is that at some point both definitions can be applied and found correct. Your logic is very poor. I recommend you take a sophmore course in logic, or read some of the Greek works on logical discourse and reasoned approach. Over the course of this discussion you have managed to make a slew of non sequiturs and logical fallacies, not to mention ad hominem attacks and your recent implied assumption. You seem to be a product of the "modern media sound bite" school of discourse. You have proven yourself interested on trying to prove that you are "right" and your opponent is "wrong" by any and all means, rather than trying to find common ground, then define or resolve the core disagreement. It works wonderfully when trying to discredit your opponent on TV, but poorly for any useful discourse. Good day.
There are a number of features that have not made it into mainstream browsers yet. IE is obviously lacking in security due to its implementation, although the concept of different security levels that can be set on a site by site basis is a good one. Omniweb's ability to edit HTML files "in place" is incredibly useful for fixing broken sites on the fly when you really need to use something that is is served while non-functional. Several browsers have implemented a "right click to never see ads from here again" feature that is indispensable once you have used it. Mainly, however, what we need is a push for open standards so that all of the different browsers (coming soon to your phone, toothbrush, toaster, etc.) will all work on all sites. This last feature will only happen when IE is dethroned. Whether or not this will come to pass, is pretty uncertain at this point.
Their is an unsubstantiated rumor that Quicktime NG will be released at Macworld in San Francisco in January. Part of the rumor includes: "Support for.ogg, heAAC, and FLAC audio. (these will also be available for playback in new iTunes)." If it comes to Quicktime and iTunes, it will likely also appear for the iPod.
This is just a rumor mind you, but it is not quite as out there as other rumors I have seen. Maybe you should keep your fingers crossed.
If you google for the word "geothermal" the top four pages all reference heat pumps as geothermal energy. (The fifth is very brief and does not mention heat pumps either as geothermal or not.) You must have searched pretty hard to find the two references you sited.
Geothermal Education Office
"Today, with geothermal heat pumps (GHP's), we take advantage of this stable earth temperature - about 45 - 58 degrees F just a few feet below the surface"
Geothermal Resources Council
"Learn the basics about geothermal energy and the three technology categories, geothermal heat pumps, direct-use applications, and power plants"
U.S. Dept of Energy
"Ground-source heat pumps use the earth or groundwater as a heat source in winter and a heat sink in summer."
P.S. citing the IRS as a technical resource is pathetic. They are the ones that upheld ketchup as a "fresh and perishable fruit" for purposes of bankrupcy.
Science is an easy concept described by the scientific method, unless of course you mean it in the sense of, "This could lead to real advances in the field of science!"
"Generate" does not mean to create from thin air no matter how much you want to claim that that was my meaning.
Generate \Gen"er*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Generated; p. pr. &
vb. n. Generating.] [L. generatus, p. p. of generare to
generate, fr. genus. See Genus, Gender.]
1. To beget; to procreate; to propagate; to produce (a being
similar to the parent); to engender; as, every animal
generates its own species.
2. To cause to be; to bring into life. --Milton.
3. To originate, especially by a vital or chemical process;
to produce; to cause.
Whatever generates a quantity of good chyle must
likewise generate milk. --Arbuthnot.
4. (Math.) To trace out, as a line, figure, or solid, by the
motion of a point or a magnitude of inferior order.
It has other meanings specific to electro-mechanics, but I'm not sure it has a particular definition peculiar to the field of geology or planetary mechanics
I notice, however, that you are "cavilling" and not addressing the point of the definition of the word (geothermal), about which we were having a discussion.
Now that you've demonstrated your weakness in scientific understanding, would you care to make some more uneducated statements?
Certainly, your commentary denotes an uneducated opinion, based upon your failure to grasp the principles of cascading logical discourse and inability to address the topics at hand. Further, your arguments are all mere contradiction, without addressing any salient features of the actual issue. Geothermal energy is heat from the earth, with no regard given to the means by which that heat was introduced. If you have any source you would like to cite, that states this is not so, please reference it posthaste. Otherwise, quit wasting my time.
How is this any different from a legally obtained wiretap?
It is different mostly in that poorly written wiretaps are unlikely to crash your phone, and closed source wiretaps, purchased from some shady company/guy, are less likely to send a feed to some third party. I hope there is a clause that will make the police responsible for any damage they cause, and any property or trade secrets that are destroyed as a result of said software.
there's this little cage for you called "OS/X"... whose default browser is Internet Explorer.
You're probably trolling but did you mean MacOS X? If so the default browser has been Safari for some time. Also, I think you underestimate the world's dislike of America right now. IE will die in the next 10 years if only because it comes from an American company.
If it was generated by Earth, then it is geothermal.
I don't know why I waste my time arguing with you, but hey I'm waiting for something to build. You use the word "generated" in a peculiar way. You seem to think that generating energy is creating it, instead of just changing it from one form to another. The energy did not suddenly appear when the earth formed, it was just transformed from one type to another. Gravity, light, em, nuclear bonds, whatever.
No. Storage medium is irrelevant. Where and how was it generated ?
Depending upon what theory you choose to base you argument on, it was either created in some existence event, or has existed forever. In either case it changes form again and again. Describing energy in terms of what it used to be is illogical. It's like claiming fish are algae because that is what they eat, and you are what you eat. It completely misses the point of describing something as what it is, by its characteristics.
The term "geothermal" has to have a specific meaning.
You're right about that, just wrong about what that definition is. Geothermal is: "of or relating to the heat in the earth." It is not: "of or relating to energy that is in the earth and was stored there during the earth's creation." Your definition is particularly short-sited since there is no way of knowing when the energy in the earth was introduced, or by what particular means. I'm sure the heat in the earth was introduced by a variety of phenomenon, you just choose to exclude one of them, because you are stubborn and prefer to argue to justify your opinions rather than form opinions based upon research and fact.
DRM-locked music vendor takes new payment form. News at 11. Oh, wait--it's our beloved Apple?! OMG Why didn't you say so? +1, FP!!!!
I think DRM-locked is an overstatement. Apple's Fairplay is more like DRM-speedbumped. DRM that legally allows you to burn a non-DRMed CD, is about as good as you can hope for, for legal, mainstream tunes. That said, no DRM, and indy tunes are a better solution yet.
The majority of your arguments about the difficulties of PDF are the result of your PDF reader, not of the PDF format. Being slow to load, slow to scroll, jumping at page breaks, heavy on resources, and lack of accessibility for the blind are all solved issues for preview.app, the default PDF reader on OSX. You still cannot change the fonts easily and it is not as easily modified as HTML. I find that using PDFs in Windows is painfully slow. The sad state of multitasking in Windows results in your whole machine grinding to a halt while a PDF is loaded from a Web page. Before OSX and preview.app, I too hated PDFs, but now that I see how well they can work, I realize that it is Acrobat Reader, not the PDF format, that is largely to blame. I suspect the lack of hatred for PDFs on Slashdot is related to the number of people here that use OSX.
HTML is fine for posting documents that you plan to host on a web server. It is, however, not a solution for documents you plan to e-mail to someone, especially if it includes graphics. Also, HTML is for markup, and is not suitable for marketing materials or materials that require precise layout.
Actually they don't. If someone is technically inclined enough to know what a doc and xls file is, they are 15 geek shame seconds away from downloading Acrobat.
...and then they have Acrobat for windows, which is a piece of garbage. Reading PDF files on windows is a painful experience for many. Acrobat reader is slow and clunky. You can scroll bitmaps faster.
That said, I send only PDF files for security reasons. If your company does not require you to clean all outgoing word files, or convert them to PDF, well they are probably going to be burned by it eventually. They probably won't even figure out that is the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Instead of doing like MS does and licensing their DRM so that they let other people do all the sales, etc, they're holding onto their DRM tech and not letting the market develop around apple-made solutions.
And how do you think MS would react to your proposed solution? Maybe they would do something similar to what they always do? They would license the tech so that it works in Windows Media player, keep it that way long enough for everyone to get used to it, and then start adding "features" that break compatibility with the standard. Once they have a foothold, and are selling music that plays on the ipod, they can do basically whatever they want, and Apple will have to play along, or explain to 90% of their customers, why things stopped working with Longhorn and the ipod, or why service pack 3 (required to stop all those worms) breaks itunes, but not windows media, and why can't apple write software that works?
You fail to address the question. If this is intended to break Real's hack, why didn't they release it for all ipod's?
I don't see any reason why Real wouldn't be in a position to sue over it.
Sure they can sue all they like, but since they don't have a leg to stand on I don't think they will. Even given that this is intended to break Real's hack, and Apple has a much greater market share of online music than reported, Apple still is not doing anything illegal because they are not stopping competitors from competing in the same space (you can sell your own mp3 player and music service). If you are contesting that bundling a music service with your mp3 player is anticompetitive, then maybe you should note the dozen open formats supported, or the licensing deals Apple has signed with other companies to do basically this same thing on other devices.
This is about Real trying to strong arm Apple into supporting their own crappy, proprietary format, not about some poor company that sold files that Apple said would work, and then broke them.
Well, assuming MS has a 70% share of Operating systems, a 12% share of word processors, and 70% share of selling DRM files in Word format (with a legal way to remove that DRM) I don't see any problem with MS doing that at all. Unfortunately for the computing industry, that is not the case. And since they are a monopoly, and have been convicted of illegally abusing that monopoly to take over other industries, I'd say the comparison does not hold up very well.
Your numbers sound suspicious. I was quoting Bloomberg. They claim apple at 80% hardware MP3 players for 2004 and 70% over the last 3 years. Apple does use a closed DRM format, but the DRM can be legally removed, unlike with WMD. The format itself is open, and the player supports a good half dozen open formats. If the firmware update was intended to break Real's hack, why did they not release it for all players, instead of about half of them? Most likely, this is just Real's hack breaking, which is not surprising since it is an unsupported format masquerading as Apple's licensed files. If you sold something and a company renowned for shady business practices and installing spyware started selling products that were similar to your, and claimed you would support them despite your making public statements to the contrary, I'm sure you would not give a rat's ass if their crap broke.
Basically, Apple is not a monopoly, and even if they were, they have not used that to move into any other markets. MS on the other hand is a monopoly, and has used it to both take over other markets, and to force competitors out of business. Some of my favorite software was made by companies MS bought and killed to prevent them from competing with them.
P.S. this release came out a while ago, it's just that no one was stupid enough to buy files from Real, so no one noticed till now that they don't work.
When MS on the other hand license their WMA DRM to competing music stores
MS already bundles the player with Windows. They license the format (for a fee) to anyone who wants it because it furthers their desktop monopoly. You can play MS's files after you have payed for a copy of windows, which they have already included the costs into. This is classic monopoly bundling.
If Apple had not stepped in with their music business, MS would own it. Do you doubt that? If MS can tax every song sold online, and there is no one to challenge them, do you think they will hesitate to charge a ridiculous fee? This was a smart, defensive move by Apple.
I think you are confusing a monopoly entering new markets, with a company who entered a market without a monopoly, gained a large share of it, and has not leveraged it for anything. I don't like the fact the itunes and Apple use DRM, so I don't buy from them. If I had an ipod it could still play my mp3s. If I did buy music from Apple, I could remove the DRM convert it to Windows Media format, and play it on players from people who license from MS. Can you legally remove the DRM from Windows Media files, and play them on the ipod? With Apple customers get a choice. With MS, we all get screwed.
I have seen iPod and iTunes market share figures that compete well with Windows market share figures. And they use the position the same way it seems...
Numbers I have seen are about 70% for ipods, 70% for online music sales, and 12% for mp3 software actually used. That is not even close to Windows's market share. But as far as the "use the position the same way" what competitors has Apple bought out? What other markets have they moved in to, by leveraging their music player? the only thing I can think of that they are giving away with them is Quicktime, and MS (the competition) already bundles Windows Media player with Windows. What markets, exactly, do you think Apple is using their monopoly (I don't think it really is a monopoly) to move into?
Here is how Apple is being evil - they are intentionally crippling their hardware to be incompatable with other services.
What you say is possible, but unlikely. First of all Apple does not really make money selling music, it is a break even proposition for them that they maintain to promote the ipod and as a strategic investment to slow MS's embracing of digital music. Second, if Apple planned on making a firmware release to mess with Real, why wouldn't they release it for all of their ipods, instead of just some of them? They are 100% correct to refuse to support some other companies products, especially after making it very clear that the format is unsupported by them, and will probably break. If Real's music no longer works on ipods after an update that it Real's problem. They were the ones that sold music to people, telling them it would work on ipods, when it was in a format not supported by the device manufacturer.
If Sony or someone introduces a free and standard DRM format, that can be applied to any music format and that does not have any licensing fee, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Apple adds support. In the mean time, Apple supports a half a dozen non-DRMed formats, and one DRMed format that can be legally un-DRMed. I'd say that is about as good as anyone can ask. The only thing they could do would be to open fairplay (which they probably do not have the rights to) or write and release an open alternative. The danger with this course, is, of course MS will embrace it by releasing music in that format, then breaking compatibility, and crushing Apple's music business.
May I inquire why it should matter who you bought the music from as long as you own it?
It should not, which is why music formats and DRM should be open standards. Unfortunately, MS is in the process of embracing the digital music industry with yet more illegal bundling. As the industry stands right now, the music seller is responsible for providing support and authentication for your digital music. Real just tried to make Apple do it for them, free of cost and Apple shot them down. If Apple does not maintain control of their DRM, and maintain the best hardware and software in what is increasingly a commodity industry, MS will take over, and there will be one more industry completely dominated, and paying a toll on every transaction to MS. A toll for doing nothing, except having control of the dominant OS, and forcing everyone to pay because of it.
I don't know about you, but I'm much happier having a music seller whose DRM has an easy and legal out, rather than one that is illegal to remove. (Not that I plan to buy music from Apple, MS, or Real anytime soon.)
Obligated to refrain from taking antocompetitive [sic] measures in a market in which they are the dominant supplier
Umm, they have a good percentage of both the mp3 player and digital audio markets, but no monopoly in either. In any case, since when has it been illegal for a company to provide non-mandatory updates to the firmware of a device they create that prevents people from hacking around their DRM? If they refused to play non-protected files, I could see an argument. If they refused to play a competitors DRM, that they had at one time included I could see it as arguable. But refusing to play files masquerading as authenticated files from their own licensed system, well that does not bother me at all. Especially when that competitor is as shady as Real Networks.
you criticize me for it
No, I criticized your links, and lack of good sources. I did not criticize you for providing links.
That's right-wing debate style...the right-winger is unable to smell his own stink...Oh? Please point them out.
That is an ad hominem attack, as well as as an unsubstantiated assumption.
more obsessed with rhetorical style
The items I mentioned are not rhetorical style, they are common flaws in logical reasoning. If you don't think logic and reason are important to you arguments, then I think you have validated my point about your style of debate.
Geo, as a prefix, means of or relating to Earth.
Yes, but in the manner of the ground, not the planet, Terra would be the planet earth and aero would be the air. You do not seem very well informed about the origins of the word in question.
You would never address the core issue of my argument which was the fact the term for a type of energy is determined by the source of its generation.
I disagree with this assertion, since by your definition of generate, energy is generated again and again. You also failed to provide any description of why your labeling of energy is more valid than everyone else's, including experts in the field and the dictionary. You ignore all references that contradict you, fail to provide any credible ones supporting your position (with one exception), do not even address that the dictionary contradicts you, don't provide any reasons for your assertions (e.g. why can't something be both solar and goethermal), and you resort to arguing that the root words for the word are what defines it's meaning (even though you don't even know what those root words really meant.) You have been illogical and unreasoning and you continually prove more interesting in proving yourself right, than in being right.
You are close minded, and cannot accept that someone else's opinion may be valid and more supported by both fact and reason than your own. I doubt you will ever change your mind about anything, no matter what the facts happen to be. Maybe you had better stop reading right now, since new information seems to have no affect on your opinions other than to provide support for what you already believe. That is the exact opposite of the science you earlier claimed I lack any understanding of.
Only in Slashdot will people walk right past this silently.
Well, you are close. Only on Slashdot, or another site that attracts technically competent people. You see all of your problems with the article require actually installing the toolbar, in Windows, for use with IE to discover. What technically competent person would actually run Windows with IE??? What technically competent person would install beta software from Microsoft??? I can see fringe cases, like if it was your job, or if you were writing malware and wanted to use it as a vector. But really, Windows+IE+beta software from MS, maybe if you are trying to destroy your data.
You should be accurate. As I understand, the true text of these options is "Block all images from this server"
The text varies, depending upon which browser's implementation you are looking at; hence, the generic text. Note, in some cases this includes embedded flash applications or other multimedia.
While I agree, for the most part, with your conclusions that this study is not meaningful, I take exception to one of your staements.
Any count related to bugs, also, needs to take into account the fact that on Windows, you have billions of users any of whom could find and report a bug. On Linux, bugs are more likely to go undiscovered for a longer period of time, simply because there aren't as many people trying to hit them.
There are a number of factors that you do not mention here. One is that bugs can be found more easily in open source products, since the code can and often is inspected by others. Another is that while there are more users of Windows, the ratio of bug reporters to users is probably much lower. The technically inept rarely report problems and even the technically proficient often do not bother reporting them to MS. I know I never report bugs to MS, since none of the ones I have reported were ever fixed. The same is not true with open source, or even many other closed source vendors. Finally, due to the closed nature of Windows, and their reporting process, there is no way of knowing what bugs are found and fixed internally by MS, but are never made known to developers or users. Basically, I agree that this report is nonsense, but I disagree with your theory that Windows probably has the same number of bugs or fewer bugs than the Linux kernel. I suspect that the Windows source code is a bug ridden mess, that will not be fixed unless it affects the bottom line at MS.
...says the person who quoted one .edu site and the IRS becuase google (and general opinion) disagrees with you. Your opinion is that the energy stored in the earth, and utilized by ground pumps is not geothermal. Most authoritative sources disagree with you. When arguing the meaning of a technical word in the English language, reasonable arguments can include how it is used, defined by the dictionary, and quoted by experts in the field.
Question: When does that heat change from solar to geothermal?
Since you have a problem with my ignoring your weak and irrelevant points I will address the one you mention. Your question implies that something cannot be both. It is akin to the question "At what point does EM radiation from the sun, stop being Solar and start being EM?" The answer is that at some point both definitions can be applied and found correct. Your logic is very poor. I recommend you take a sophmore course in logic, or read some of the Greek works on logical discourse and reasoned approach. Over the course of this discussion you have managed to make a slew of non sequiturs and logical fallacies, not to mention ad hominem attacks and your recent implied assumption. You seem to be a product of the "modern media sound bite" school of discourse. You have proven yourself interested on trying to prove that you are "right" and your opponent is "wrong" by any and all means, rather than trying to find common ground, then define or resolve the core disagreement. It works wonderfully when trying to discredit your opponent on TV, but poorly for any useful discourse. Good day.
There are a number of features that have not made it into mainstream browsers yet. IE is obviously lacking in security due to its implementation, although the concept of different security levels that can be set on a site by site basis is a good one. Omniweb's ability to edit HTML files "in place" is incredibly useful for fixing broken sites on the fly when you really need to use something that is is served while non-functional. Several browsers have implemented a "right click to never see ads from here again" feature that is indispensable once you have used it. Mainly, however, what we need is a push for open standards so that all of the different browsers (coming soon to your phone, toothbrush, toaster, etc.) will all work on all sites. This last feature will only happen when IE is dethroned. Whether or not this will come to pass, is pretty uncertain at this point.
Their is an unsubstantiated rumor that Quicktime NG will be released at Macworld in San Francisco in January. Part of the rumor includes: "Support for .ogg, heAAC, and FLAC audio. (these will also be available for playback in new iTunes)." If it comes to Quicktime and iTunes, it will likely also appear for the iPod.
This is just a rumor mind you, but it is not quite as out there as other rumors I have seen. Maybe you should keep your fingers crossed.
If you google for the word "geothermal" the top four pages all reference heat pumps as geothermal energy. (The fifth is very brief and does not mention heat pumps either as geothermal or not.) You must have searched pretty hard to find the two references you sited.
Geothermal Education Office
"Today, with geothermal heat pumps (GHP's), we take advantage of this stable earth temperature - about 45 - 58 degrees F just a few feet below the surface"
Geothermal Resources Council
"Learn the basics about geothermal energy and the three technology categories, geothermal heat pumps, direct-use applications, and power plants"
U.S. Dept of Energy
"Ground-source heat pumps use the earth or groundwater as a heat source in winter and a heat sink in summer."
International Geothermal Association
"The most common non-electric use world-wide (in terms of installed capacity) is heat pumps (34.80%)"
Yup, you're still wrong.
P.S. citing the IRS as a technical resource is pathetic. They are the ones that upheld ketchup as a "fresh and perishable fruit" for purposes of bankrupcy.
You obviously don't understand science
Science is an easy concept described by the scientific method, unless of course you mean it in the sense of, "This could lead to real advances in the field of science!"
"Generate" does not mean to create from thin air no matter how much you want to claim that that was my meaning.
Generate \Gen"er*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Generated; p. pr. & vb. n. Generating.] [L. generatus, p. p. of generare to generate, fr. genus. See Genus, Gender.] 1. To beget; to procreate; to propagate; to produce (a being similar to the parent); to engender; as, every animal generates its own species. 2. To cause to be; to bring into life. --Milton. 3. To originate, especially by a vital or chemical process; to produce; to cause. Whatever generates a quantity of good chyle must likewise generate milk. --Arbuthnot. 4. (Math.) To trace out, as a line, figure, or solid, by the motion of a point or a magnitude of inferior order.
It has other meanings specific to electro-mechanics, but I'm not sure it has a particular definition peculiar to the field of geology or planetary mechanics
I notice, however, that you are "cavilling" and not addressing the point of the definition of the word (geothermal), about which we were having a discussion.
Now that you've demonstrated your weakness in scientific understanding, would you care to make some more uneducated statements?
Certainly, your commentary denotes an uneducated opinion, based upon your failure to grasp the principles of cascading logical discourse and inability to address the topics at hand. Further, your arguments are all mere contradiction, without addressing any salient features of the actual issue. Geothermal energy is heat from the earth, with no regard given to the means by which that heat was introduced. If you have any source you would like to cite, that states this is not so, please reference it posthaste. Otherwise, quit wasting my time.
How is this any different from a legally obtained wiretap?
It is different mostly in that poorly written wiretaps are unlikely to crash your phone, and closed source wiretaps, purchased from some shady company/guy, are less likely to send a feed to some third party. I hope there is a clause that will make the police responsible for any damage they cause, and any property or trade secrets that are destroyed as a result of said software.
there's this little cage for you called "OS/X" ... whose default browser is Internet Explorer.
You're probably trolling but did you mean MacOS X? If so the default browser has been Safari for some time. Also, I think you underestimate the world's dislike of America right now. IE will die in the next 10 years if only because it comes from an American company.
If it was generated by Earth, then it is geothermal.
I don't know why I waste my time arguing with you, but hey I'm waiting for something to build. You use the word "generated" in a peculiar way. You seem to think that generating energy is creating it, instead of just changing it from one form to another. The energy did not suddenly appear when the earth formed, it was just transformed from one type to another. Gravity, light, em, nuclear bonds, whatever.
No. Storage medium is irrelevant. Where and how was it generated ?
Depending upon what theory you choose to base you argument on, it was either created in some existence event, or has existed forever. In either case it changes form again and again. Describing energy in terms of what it used to be is illogical. It's like claiming fish are algae because that is what they eat, and you are what you eat. It completely misses the point of describing something as what it is, by its characteristics.
The term "geothermal" has to have a specific meaning.
You're right about that, just wrong about what that definition is. Geothermal is: "of or relating to the heat in the earth." It is not: "of or relating to energy that is in the earth and was stored there during the earth's creation." Your definition is particularly short-sited since there is no way of knowing when the energy in the earth was introduced, or by what particular means. I'm sure the heat in the earth was introduced by a variety of phenomenon, you just choose to exclude one of them, because you are stubborn and prefer to argue to justify your opinions rather than form opinions based upon research and fact.
DRM-locked music vendor takes new payment form. News at 11. Oh, wait--it's our beloved Apple?! OMG Why didn't you say so? +1, FP!!!!
I think DRM-locked is an overstatement. Apple's Fairplay is more like DRM-speedbumped. DRM that legally allows you to burn a non-DRMed CD, is about as good as you can hope for, for legal, mainstream tunes. That said, no DRM, and indy tunes are a better solution yet.
The majority of your arguments about the difficulties of PDF are the result of your PDF reader, not of the PDF format. Being slow to load, slow to scroll, jumping at page breaks, heavy on resources, and lack of accessibility for the blind are all solved issues for preview.app, the default PDF reader on OSX. You still cannot change the fonts easily and it is not as easily modified as HTML. I find that using PDFs in Windows is painfully slow. The sad state of multitasking in Windows results in your whole machine grinding to a halt while a PDF is loaded from a Web page. Before OSX and preview.app, I too hated PDFs, but now that I see how well they can work, I realize that it is Acrobat Reader, not the PDF format, that is largely to blame. I suspect the lack of hatred for PDFs on Slashdot is related to the number of people here that use OSX.
HTML is fine for posting documents that you plan to host on a web server. It is, however, not a solution for documents you plan to e-mail to someone, especially if it includes graphics. Also, HTML is for markup, and is not suitable for marketing materials or materials that require precise layout.
Actually they don't. If someone is technically inclined enough to know what a doc and xls file is, they are 15 geek shame seconds away from downloading Acrobat.
...and then they have Acrobat for windows, which is a piece of garbage. Reading PDF files on windows is a painful experience for many. Acrobat reader is slow and clunky. You can scroll bitmaps faster.
That said, I send only PDF files for security reasons. If your company does not require you to clean all outgoing word files, or convert them to PDF, well they are probably going to be burned by it eventually. They probably won't even figure out that is the problem.