The only reason that buying patterns are concentrated around this time of year is precisely because the holiday exists. The holiday? Okay, so I suppose that Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Rohatsu, Yule, Winter Solstice, etc. all don't exist?
I don't think your statistic of "being in the red" rings true for all retail sectors, It actually doesn't. This is more true for smaller retailers than for larger ones, but even Walmart makes MUCH more money during the holiday shopping season than any other time of the year.
but if it did- it would disappear without christmas. Correct. My point is that religious holidays influence buying patterns, and therefore, markets, very greatly.
So true. For those that are somehow in doubt, consider these facts:
The Christian Bible is the all-time best-selling book in the world and continues to do very well despite wide available on the Internet and despite being in the public domain.
The religious book market in the U.S. had net sales of $1.3 billion dollars in 2004 and continues to grow very well
Religious merchandise has recieved similar growth in recent years
Retailers in the U.S. are in the red all year up until "Black Friday" -- the day following Thanksgiving. This is mostly due to the existence of multiple religious holidays where gift giving/exchange is encouraged that fall on or around the winter solstice.
Actually Novell makes perfect sense, though I doubt Microsoft would want spend that much money...NOVL's current market cap is 2.73 gigadollars. Still, when you look at Novell's portfolio:
- Novell has contributed a lot of code to and has their own version of OpenOffice.org - Evolution and the Exchange Connector - SuSE - Ximian Desktop - Mono and Moonlight
It seems perfectly aligned with Microsoft's strategy.
No probs, check it out: HTML 4.01 Specification:) I think what the grandparent there meant was, "we need standards that browsers other than Opera and Safari actually follow."
No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that Apple did not plan to release an SDK publicly. They planned on either A) licensing the SDK to an exclusive group of developers under NDA or B) contracting out or developing in-house all additional apps for iPhone. Customers, people who bought or are about to buy the iPhone, were asking for additional functionality. Some folks wanted to be able to make thing more useable as a PDA, others wanted GPS navigation and so forth. These things aren't core to the iPhone and weren't developed because iPhone is marketed at the widest audience possible. Does anyone here read the trade press for crying out loud?
I'm really just sick of rabid Apple fanbois who refuse to look at Apple's products objectively. Yes, they have some very nice stuff. The iPod is, without a doubt, one of the best media players on the market. The iTunes Store is a very good solution to the problem of how to get legally-purchased content for the iPod. Mac OS X is a fine OS if you don't mind that much of the stuff that makes it a useable OS is closed-source, proprietary code, encumbered badly by patents. But the iPhone is not the great product Steve Jobs and his disciples seem to think it is. In case you're interested, here are my valid, rational reasons for disliking the iPhone.
Hardly, when "market" means "a handful of whiny anti-Apple fanboys" Anti-Apple fanboys? A little paranoid here aren't we?
FTR, I am not anti-Apple anything. I call it as I see it. Apple is a company with plenty of good products, most of which are too expensive for me to purchase. Call me frugal. But the iPhone isn't one them, although it has the potential to be, IMHO. Steve Jobs isn't a prophet and Apple is some spiritual ecstasy religion. Their products have flaws like everything else in the industry.
IMHO, the iPhone is:
too expensive for a phone (even at the new lower price)
until February, is not open enough to be a PDA platform, but sold as is lacks too much functionality to be a PDA
lacks a user-replaceable power supply, which is the nail in the coffin for professional users and road warriors seeking to use the iPhone as a PDA device
tied to a network that is too slow for decent streaming video
tied to a service vendor that illegally tapped their customer's phones and sells overpriced, underpowered service
tied to service contracts that are much more expensive than standard AT&T service
and Apple has gone out of their way to ensure that people who try to use the phone on alternative networks cannot do so
My guess is there never was going to be a publicly available API, but Apple finally realized if they didn't make it available, they'd be overwhelmed by people who actually want to use what they bought in the way the want to. Exactly. Why would Apple say that the platform was closed to 3rd party apps, blaming it on AT&T, then come out in October, they will be releasing an SDK in February?
I've seen all the Steve Jobs quotes, taken completely out of context, by rabid fanbois. The bottom line is that there is almost no way this SDK was already in the works when iPhone was released. No way. Apple caved to pressure from the market.
Actually, most Flash-based content can, in fact, be downloaded. if you're wiley enough. There are even Firefox extensions that help you with this (i.e., VideoDownloader and so forth)
And, of course, there are always ways to grab video streams when you're running on an OS that doesn't tie you down with digital restrictions mangling.
Also, Apple have managed to take UNIX and wrap it in a genuinely friendly GUI front end, c.f. KDE/Gnome/X who have taken Linux and wrapped it in a usable but clunky and over-engineered GUI that is still suffering from its ancestry as a way of letting Unix geeks run 8 simultaneous instances of their favorite CLI shell in translucent windows. I doubt very much that you've used a recent version of KDE or Gnome. Freedesktop.org standards and a real desire for the two groups to work together have lead to superior desktops from both projects. Gnome, for instance, has moved from clunky and wayyy too configurable to elegant and easy to use. Yes, Gnome is still rough around the edges -- there's no easy way to recursively change permissions on a directory short of either writing or using a Nautilus script or resorting to the command line, registering a mimetype can still be a hassle, and adding custom services to the service (init scirpt) configuration tool is still not possible via some GUI. But these are things that, in time, are (hopefully) being worked on. In the meantime, the desktop is very useable for 90%+ of users out there.
Led Zeppelin has had many more years to sell so many more than Garth Brooks, That's what I was thinking. Led Zeppelin is one of the all-time most popular rock-n-roll bands -- evar!! And they've been selling records for, um, almost 40 years now. Garth Brooks, while extremely popular, has only been selling records since the mid 1990s or so. But comparing their discographies on Wikipedia, they do have a similar number of albums produced and they have a similar number of albums going at least double platinum. So I suppose it's actually possible that Garth Brooks squeaks by Led Zeppelin, but not by much.
Ok, what threat of legal or financial ruin did this guy suffer? I don't see anything that was threatening by either company. If true, its truly sleazy, but threatening? No.
RICO covers a whole slate of acts, not just coercion. Among them is (tada!) wire fraud, which, if true, Microsoft and Best Buy did participate in, since this guy never authorized MSN to charge his card.
OTOH, if you really want to look at it from a coercion angle, do you know what happens if you fail to pay a credit card charge, authorized or not? They report it to the credit card companies. The more they report it to the credit card companies, the more 'black' marks on your credit. Yes, they can report it over and over, too. Ever try to buy a house, or a car with a bad credit rating and no co-signer? It's damn near fscking impossible in this country, let me tell you.
It works the other way : Why do you think Gates did hand the keys to Ballmer in the first place ?:P You got it! Because Gates knew Microsoft was going downhill. Gates is a strategist and loves to win. On the flip side of that coin, he hates to lose. He hates to lose so much, than when playing strategy games like Risk as child, as soon as he saw that he was going to lose, he would quit playing.
You guys should really read the unauthorized biography on Gates by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews. Anybody who has knows that Microsoft's days are numbered, and more importantly, they know why.
And in reality, this is what 99.999999% of Windows users are going to do... ...for now. As the public's confidence in Windows erodes, so will its willingness to spend another dime on a future Windows release. This has already been reflected in the poor adoption rates of Vista.
Microsoft's days of monopoly are numbered. As a Microsoft watcher, I predicted that they would gain monopoly status in PC operating systems before it ever happened, I predicted that Microsoft would move users to NT before even the release of Windows 95, and I am predicting now that Microsoft's monopoly is coming to an end.
Unfortunately, the reason they probably still use 'phonographic' is that the word 'phonographic' still has a legal meaning in many countries, including the U.S. Even though CDs aren't phonographs per se, they are stilled referred to as 'phonographic recordings.'
Well,.com domains are registered via U.S. registrars, so U.S. courts may have jurisdiction here, although it's always possible, I suppose, that the plaintiffs could try to file suit in Sweden, since that's where TPB is located. At that point, it would be up to the Swedish judge to decide jurisdiction.
As far as whether it's a trademark infringement, it's important to realize that 1) trademarks are territorial in nature (IFPI would have to have a trademark on the name 'IFPI' in Sweden and possibly the U.S., and 2) whether or not the domain would fall under 'trademark dilution laws' depends on the nature of the mark that they filed and, ultimately, whether a judge would award them any damages. It's possible that they might -- but it's also possible that they might not.
So I wouldn't get my panties in a bunch about it. IFPI hasn't even filed suit at this point (of if they have, we haven't heard about it).
You can, last time I checked. They have an 'itemized billing' option, for which they charge an extra fee (because of the book they're going to have to send you.)
Mod parent up, informative! My cheapass motherboard supports ECC DIMMs, but does not make use of the ECC features. There's no way to know whether it'll use the ECC feature unless you either A) try it and see (hard to do), or B) Intel tells you it does (in which case you have to accept their word for it.)
It seems to me that a high-end motherboard chipset should support ECC features, but that doesn't mean that it does.
I have lots of funnier jokes, but, honestly, the first thing that pops into my head when I hear Al Gore is still 'and we took the initiative in inventing the Internet.' But, seriously, Al Gore and the IPPC have done great things to raise global awareness and create real action in working to solve the global warming crisis.
Slashdot Mirror
So is Red Hat, so is Mandriva...what's your point? Linux usage is up in general and a rising tide raises all boats.
Actually Novell makes perfect sense, though I doubt Microsoft would want spend that much money...NOVL's current market cap is 2.73 gigadollars. Still, when you look at Novell's portfolio:
- Novell has contributed a lot of code to and has their own version of OpenOffice.org
- Evolution and the Exchange Connector
- SuSE
- Ximian Desktop
- Mono and Moonlight
It seems perfectly aligned with Microsoft's strategy.
No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that Apple did not plan to release an SDK publicly. They planned on either A) licensing the SDK to an exclusive group of developers under NDA or B) contracting out or developing in-house all additional apps for iPhone. Customers, people who bought or are about to buy the iPhone, were asking for additional functionality. Some folks wanted to be able to make thing more useable as a PDA, others wanted GPS navigation and so forth. These things aren't core to the iPhone and weren't developed because iPhone is marketed at the widest audience possible. Does anyone here read the trade press for crying out loud?
I'm really just sick of rabid Apple fanbois who refuse to look at Apple's products objectively. Yes, they have some very nice stuff. The iPod is, without a doubt, one of the best media players on the market. The iTunes Store is a very good solution to the problem of how to get legally-purchased content for the iPod. Mac OS X is a fine OS if you don't mind that much of the stuff that makes it a useable OS is closed-source, proprietary code, encumbered badly by patents. But the iPhone is not the great product Steve Jobs and his disciples seem to think it is. In case you're interested, here are my valid, rational reasons for disliking the iPhone.
FTR, I am not anti-Apple anything. I call it as I see it. Apple is a company with plenty of good products, most of which are too expensive for me to purchase. Call me frugal. But the iPhone isn't one them, although it has the potential to be, IMHO. Steve Jobs isn't a prophet and Apple is some spiritual ecstasy religion. Their products have flaws like everything else in the industry.
IMHO, the iPhone is:
Adding an SDK fixes almost none of that.
I've seen all the Steve Jobs quotes, taken completely out of context, by rabid fanbois. The bottom line is that there is almost no way this SDK was already in the works when iPhone was released. No way. Apple caved to pressure from the market.
Actually, most Flash-based content can, in fact, be downloaded. if you're wiley enough. There are even Firefox extensions that help you with this (i.e., VideoDownloader and so forth)
And, of course, there are always ways to grab video streams when you're running on an OS that doesn't tie you down with digital restrictions mangling.
Um, Walmart.com does have an online music store. And, IIRC, they recently announced they are offering DRM-free music, as well.
...is that Garth Brooks outsells Led Zeppelin?!? Who knew?
RICO covers a whole slate of acts, not just coercion. Among them is (tada!) wire fraud, which, if true, Microsoft and Best Buy did participate in, since this guy never authorized MSN to charge his card.
OTOH, if you really want to look at it from a coercion angle, do you know what happens if you fail to pay a credit card charge, authorized or not? They report it to the credit card companies. The more they report it to the credit card companies, the more 'black' marks on your credit. Yes, they can report it over and over, too. Ever try to buy a house, or a car with a bad credit rating and no co-signer? It's damn near fscking impossible in this country, let me tell you.
Arrggghhh!!!! No! It's HOT GRITS. And she POURS THEM DOWN YOUR PANTS!!!
Get it right!
You guys should really read the unauthorized biography on Gates by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews. Anybody who has knows that Microsoft's days are numbered, and more importantly, they know why.
Microsoft's days of monopoly are numbered. As a Microsoft watcher, I predicted that they would gain monopoly status in PC operating systems before it ever happened, I predicted that Microsoft would move users to NT before even the release of Windows 95, and I am predicting now that Microsoft's monopoly is coming to an end.
Look. If you're going to propogate the meme, here's the format. Everyone, let's get coordinated here:
I for one, welcome our new [adjective FTFS][, [additional adjective or gerund form of verb FTFS]
So, let's try it, shall we?
I for one, welcome our new coordinated, environmentally-conscious blogging overlords!
Unfortunately, the reason they probably still use 'phonographic' is that the word 'phonographic' still has a legal meaning in many countries, including the U.S. Even though CDs aren't phonographs per se, they are stilled referred to as 'phonographic recordings.'
Well, .com domains are registered via U.S. registrars, so U.S. courts may have jurisdiction here, although it's always possible, I suppose, that the plaintiffs could try to file suit in Sweden, since that's where TPB is located. At that point, it would be up to the Swedish judge to decide jurisdiction.
As far as whether it's a trademark infringement, it's important to realize that 1) trademarks are territorial in nature (IFPI would have to have a trademark on the name 'IFPI' in Sweden and possibly the U.S., and 2) whether or not the domain would fall under 'trademark dilution laws' depends on the nature of the mark that they filed and, ultimately, whether a judge would award them any damages. It's possible that they might -- but it's also possible that they might not.
So I wouldn't get my panties in a bunch about it. IFPI hasn't even filed suit at this point (of if they have, we haven't heard about it).
You can, last time I checked. They have an 'itemized billing' option, for which they charge an extra fee (because of the book they're going to have to send you.)
Mod parent up, informative! My cheapass motherboard supports ECC DIMMs, but does not make use of the ECC features. There's no way to know whether it'll use the ECC feature unless you either A) try it and see (hard to do), or B) Intel tells you it does (in which case you have to accept their word for it.)
It seems to me that a high-end motherboard chipset should support ECC features, but that doesn't mean that it does.
No. Xeon is the name of the processor chip used in both high-end desktops and servers. X38, FTFS, is a chipset.
a cup of ... Breasts!
I have lots of funnier jokes, but, honestly, the first thing that pops into my head when I hear Al Gore is still 'and we took the initiative in inventing the Internet.' But, seriously, Al Gore and the IPPC have done great things to raise global awareness and create real action in working to solve the global warming crisis.