Not only is the DRM liberal, the file format is high quality and the store is easy to use.
Sony's Connect store has had rather poor success.
But regardless of that, the iTMS didn't hit until AFTER the iPod was a success, and controlled most of the HDD MP3 player market. The PSP came out... tuesday.
I'm all for downloadable movies, or heck, extended trailers or synopses, but people don't buy iPods so they can go buy music from the iTMS -- they use the iTMS because they already have iPods.
The PSP will not have market saturation for a while, even if it tramples Nintendo's market. And as said above, the thing comes with a 32mb memory stick. Are users really going to shell out another hundred for a 512 stick just so they can watch a heavily compressed movie they purchased online? Or will they simply rip the DVDs they already own?
Music is great because you can buy just one song for a buck, and it's an aggregate like that -- you get a selection of songs. Movies need to be enjoyed on the whole, in usually a full sitting.
There just seem to be so many things already stacked against such a service's success. Now, if they were selling TV shows for a buck that would fit on cheaper memory sticks, I could see this having some impact. But, uhh, no, not for the PSP, and not without a device to play them on separate from computers. People buy music for entirely different reasons than they do movies. The fact that you can play both on a computer do not mean that they are consumed in the same way.
I know that CR is different, but I used them as a great example of an objective review source. Which I believe they are.
ipodlounge has many of the same qualities, though -- their ads are pretty much always things that they have tested themselves and like, they're not afraid to give something bad scores (including iPods themselves) and rate things on overall quality and price ranges. they even altered their scoring scheme so that things that got a rating of "F" were products that would either damage or harm your stuff in some way or another, so that people would be able to spot those troublesome items.
They're still aligned with iPods and Apple stuff, of course, but they're better than, say, something like "Official PS2 Magazine" when it comes to reviews.
It's the entire buyer's guide. 100 pages of consolidated reviews of essentially every worthwhile, not-worthwhile, and worthless product available for iPods, from covers to transmitters to batteries to iPods themselves to whatever.
Yes, there's advertising involved, but looking at it, it reads like a review magazine. Any consumer review publication is going to appear like an advertisement -- they're reviewing consumer goods that you can buy based on what you're interested in, and give you the opportunity to be a discerning shopper.
Having access to a large file like this that you can essentially use as a reference, without needing an internet connection and a series of bookmarks is quite worthwhile. Perhaps not worthwhile enough to make headlines, but for anyone interested in iPod gear and opinions, the iPodlounge is really a great site and comprehensive. And no, I don't work there.
Criticizing something like this is sort of like criticizing Consumer Reports, or pretty much any review-only consumer magazine. Personally, I really like the website because although they, of course, like iPods a great deal, they're objective enough to be able to step back and look at things objectively. They're quite well known to give fair opinions on whether or not new iPod releases are worthwhile (they were quite upset at the lack of a dock and other goodies in the latest Photo versions), and their review of 3rd party accessories have the one thing that many, many reviews online lack -- the ability to compare to other products they've reviewed. So you can go there and get the full tables and comparisons for whatever you're looking for. It's even useful for those just looking for portable audio reviews, like portable speakers or headphones.
No, it's not much of a tangent at all. There's nothing "right wing" about pointing out that kids are playing GTA and that people should be aware that doing so will of course affect people.
The difference is the resolution. Banning the sale of games is extreme, whereas encouraging parents to pay attention to what their kids are doing is another. If anything, we should be railing against the article in the first place -- it's vague, covers no new information, and doesn't really address Clinton's views. Most politicans disagree with violence in video games played by kids (and media in general). Most PARENTS do. The kicker that should get people up in arms is what are we going to do about it?
The right-wing wackos are the ones who want to sue the developers and ban all M games from being created. Normal people want to educate parents and make them pay attention to their kids.
Would anyone be bashing Hillary in this thread if the quote read "GTA shouldn't be played by kids, and we need to help parents realize that not all video games are made for kids"? For some reason, I think the responses would be a little different...
Linux is better than windows for a development standpoint. The problem is that most people who want to use linux don't understand that you need to administer your own box. For me, when I had Gentoo installed, everything worked rather well... after about 2 weeks of hacking at it, compiling stuff, checking various conf files to make sure everything loaded and configured right.
And then, I couldn't touch it. Well, that would work great if I was setting up a box for a granny. You often hear that here -- set up a linux box for a computer noob friend and they're good to go. The problem is that the person doing the setup has to be admin. So if the person wants new functionality, the "admin" is the first person to get the call, and it's not always easy stuff.
I did a similar thing, trying out linux, playing with the easy ones (Mandrake), the hardcore ones (Gentoo, running Fluxbox), and the in-between ones (debian). They all set up pretty well and had me doing what I wanted. It was when I wanted to get more into the guts that I hit a wall, and it was a tradeoff -- spend countless hours hacking at Linux to get the perfect system, or buy a mac. I bought a mac. The stuff I learned in Linux is still valuable for hacking away in OS X, but I don't feel restricted or left out by not having a certain knowledge base.
In my case, it was the "linux is free only if your time is worthless" cliche that gets trotted out, which is more true if you're not a hardcore programmer or sysad. I got sick of Windows because I wanted to USE my computer. Linux doesn't provide an alternative to that unless you're a programmer, in which case it's great -- set it up for development and leave it alone. OS X comes set up for development and doesn't require the hacking or fiddling. Sure it costs more, but it doesn't have this large knowledge base prerequisite in order to do what you want, if what you want to do is more than just code. In my case, it was deal with music and audio work, along with video editing as well as all the other mini-hacky stuff.
Re:Games are the key...
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Return of the Mac
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· Score: 2, Insightful
My dad used to do the "You need a car and a truck" thing. Until he was done landscaping the yard. Now he has 2 cars.
For an extremely small fee, you can get a load of rock delivered. Or you can rent a U-Haul or similar for $20-$50 depending on the load for all moving needs. That's a one-time fee for a one-time job. That's a lot cheaper than buying the truck outright, not even taking into account the insurance payments involved.
It's not exactly equivalent for PCs vs Consoles, but it's getting there. The gametypes are different, but what's left on PCs? First person shooters, which are usually getting ported to consoles (without the driver conflicts), sim games, and real-time strategy games. Oh, and MMORPGs which aren't graphically intensive anyway. Why spend so much money for what amounts to relatively few games? Why buy the cow (that needs expensive food and someone to clean up after it) when you can pick up milk for a few bucks down at the grocery store?
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
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Hacking Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
It kills me that there is no way to simply preview a text file with a non text file looking extension. Maybe I'm just old school. But I find the commandline better for well over 99% of file interaction. I can type 'cat filename' and see what is in there, I can move, compare, copy, delete, edit, compress, use wildcards, multiple operations via a 'for' loop, or do anything basically from the commandline, so that is where I stay most of the time. The only real benefit of a GUI file manager is if I need to select seemingly random files to move or delete where a wildcard or sorting by date or extension or whatever will not be efficient or effective.
I think Apple realizes this, though, which is why the Terminal is a pretty sweet app. It natively supports dragging files into it to put the absolute path, which is a great help for moving deep folders. It's also easy to access and Apple no longer pulls punches about how useful it is.
The limitations of Finder make more sense when you step back and realize that they're trying to keep it simple, on purpose. Its base navigation features are very useful, and for most people, the preview features are very useful. You only start running into these problems mentioned when you start doing more powerful stuff on your computer. While I agree that there are problems and that they should absolutely program Finder to scale up in a way for power users to still find it useful, I can understand some of the limitations like moving (many people don't understand that moving deletes the original, or that there's a difference between copying and moving), for instance. I just think that Apple isn't quite sure how to make Finder more functional without adding a lot of cluttery objects that most people don't use. I've lost count the number of times I've worked on someone else's computer and they have everything set up using defaults, with Icon view and "each window opens in new window" turned on. So by falling back on the command line, they've reached a good middle-point, I think.
After all, everyone who says Finder sucks simply uses the command line or launcher apps as an alternative. For those people, not much would convince them to go back to a GUI for file management and control.
I agree with the crux of your argument. I'm on a mac and so there's a lot of extra eye-candy, but looking at the different apps, they did so in a smart way. The borders on windows are thin on pretty much every side, the little "hide" bar on the top right gets rid of stupid extra buttons that you don't use, and while the dock animations are needless, stuff like Expose is not only very user-friendly, it focuses on speed rather than flash -- on slow computers, it's jumpier but still spreads and reconverges in the same amount of time.
But I've never understood those apps or even websites that use big flashy menus. Look at Fluxbox -- its stripped-down appearance is almost elegant, in how it lets the extra crap fall away, presenting just the applications and windows. I would actually like a flux-box launcher for OS X -- click anywhere on the desktop to bring up custom menus when combined with expose and man, that'd be slick.
Anyway, I liken the "simple is better, stupid" argument to why Google and its various products have worked so well. Maps is just beautiful to use -- simple popups focused on readability and usefulness, easy to print. Gmail is just text, for the most part, with colors. No images or curves or weirdness. We don't need transparent windows and menus -- most people end up turning stuff like that off if they can because it can be hard to see on certain backgrounds. iTunes really isn't much to look at, but it focuses on making your music easy to find and navigate through, without much wasted space -- the bars are very slim and easy to move, with very minimal nesting.
The thing I'm curious about is that you know all of these features and fancy curves are going to be user-controllable, but is Microsoft going to make it obvious and easy for people to change their layouts and themes? Currently you can only do basic color changes, and even then it's hidden away in submenus, and really heavy modifications require 3rd party programs or some major hacking. I'll be more impressed when I hear that it's easily controllable by an easy-to-access and easy-to-use menu or application.
As stated above, there are no ads on google news, so Google is running the service at a loss. How much of a loss is unknown, but as it is, Google News is essentially "google" for news. That may sound obvious, but if this suit sees the actual courtroom, how is the news service different from Google's regular searches?
have numerous laws set up to explicitly avoid such situations?
Maybe I've been misled, but when a news agency publishes a story, that story can be used and published by others as long as the source is cited. Google cites all of their sources, links to the original source, and essentially are providing pre-search engine usefulness. They're collecting news that people are interested in or has general appeal and displaying it like they would a search, and there's already numerous laws that state it doesn't violate copyright to index information like that.
More importantly, if this lawsuit goes to court, EVERY online news aggregator would be forced to stop, and it would likely have repercussions for all major news agencies. CNN's stories are only about 1/3 CNN's -- the rest are pulled from other sources, AFAIK. How many times have you read a story somewhere and it says at the top "REUTERS" or "AP WIRE" ?
Ultimately it wouldn't surprise me if Google has this case dismissed under the grounds that Google is not providing the news, rather is simply providing an index of different news sources.
Parent is right in that Apple doesn't seem to really care about the DRM, and it shows in the DRM itself. it's surprisingly lax. You can copy it to 5 computers at a time and burn 7 playlists.. from each computer. So you can make 35 copies while staying within the DRM rights. Why would anyone need that many copies?
I've been very happy buying music from the iTMS. I download the music, plop it on my iPod, burn it to CD as a backup and file it in a big CD wallet. When you download, they say "Please burn a backup so you have your own copy in case anything happens to your computer."
Maybe if I had 10 computers and wanted to mirror my music collection across all 3, I'd be more concerned about it. With iTunes, though, you can simply turn on "share this computer's music" and it lets you stream to any networked computer, without the need to copy the files in the first place. I actually prefer doing that.
I could go about numerous ways to decrypt the DRM, but they've never affected the way I listen to music. I only know they're there because people who don't use the iTMS complain about them.
I understand the complaints against the restriction, but there's a fine line between obvious restriction, and restriction that's pretty much never encountered by the user.
All of the information coming out seemed to show that WinFS was simply a metadata layer atop NTFS. It wouldn't add any actual data handling to the file system, it wouldn't speed up read/write, and it wouldn't make NTFS more accessible to other operating systems.
All it would do is make locating files easier, at least that's pretty much how they were shopping it around. You could do that without adding another layer to the HDD by simply having an element of the OS scan in the background efficiently.
Conversely, though, I wonder if the reason they're starting to back off of WinFS now is because including it would mean that all of those obscure file locations where companies like to hide setup files would be that much easier and faster for people to locate. I've lost count of the number of times I've needed to hunt through hidden folders to find some stupid file to edit or delete. And the search taking 30+ minutes didn't help.
Maybe instead of working on WinFS, they should focus on coming up with an alternative to the registry.
The problem is that most people experience quicktime on Windows, where it tries to take over your media file associations, embed itself in your web browser, and generally bug you during use with its non-standard interface (for Windows, that is).
On the Mac, it's an entirely different story, with elegant integration and very clean use (small size, not much overhead, etc.).
I've been using Quicktime Pro to encode video on my own website, and, without sound, am able to pick between numerous codecs I've installed to shrink 200mb video files down to around 5mb, with no real loss in quality. It's a beautiful thing. Not to mention how quickly it handles it, without wading through tons of menus.
But when I was on Windows, it was a true PITA.
But yeah, people need to understand that.mov is no different than.avi or whatever container people felt like using at the time. The fact that so many people use it to overcompress video simply for size and bandwidth considerations shouldn't reflect poorly on the media player/container.
I've installed various linux distributions in the past. I tried out Mandrake, Redhat, and my most recent install was Gentoo (about 18 months ago). I'd give it a spin every few years. Yes, it's gotten easier, but the same motivation spurred me on each time -- it's free, so let's see what it's like.
In every case, I learned more, had a fully functioning computer, and was happy with it. In each instance, though, what I was exploring and using was the free software -- the stuff that was open source, easy to install (I ventured into source compiling on Gentoo, which was fun) -- and never for games or commercial software. It didn't seem like the point -- why buy software when there's such an element of "diy" in the linux world?
That and there really isn't that much commercial software available, let alone shareware. All of the obvious linux resources point to source code...
On OS X, there's a literal deluge of commercial software, some of it that's been around forever (Digital Performer from MOTU has been around for about as long as the mac itself, and is available for every MacOS) and some of it new (there's an impressive array of programs for FTP, IRC, and so on, more than on Windows due to the fact that there isn't one program that's established itself as *the* program for many of these tasks).
If we're really arguing about commercial software availability, I think we need to look no further than the presence of Adobe, Macromedia, Maya, and other major commercial applications.
As far as marketshare, plenty of people try out linux but then go back to Windows or OSX. Installing a free OS for a month or two doesn't make them a "linux user."
It comes standard with 128mb of ram, a 20gb harddrive, a cd-rom drive, no operating system, and a 1.2ghz celeron processor.
Bumping it up so that it is at least somewhat comparable to the mini puts it at $1000. Twice the price of a mini.
and you can't get bluetooth AND wireless together (and both options cost $100 each, the mac mini offers both together for less than $90).
That's often the deciding factor -- yes you can get small PCs, and shuttle-sized PCs have been around for a while. But to get anything close, you need to build your own or configure a system, and in both cases the prices quickly get outside of the $500 range. Often, just a bare case + MB will push $200-$300, and that's without any other parts.
Heck, the cappucino CAN'T get more than 256mb ram. What the hell is that?
Even the mac super-computers are quiet. I have a dual 1.8 G5 (the pre-gimped revision, with PCI-X and the bigger HDD) and on top of being one damn fast computer, it's whisper quiet. The FW enclosures I have sitting next to it filled with harddrives are louder, and they're only loud from harddrive whine (which means I want to replace them). Rather than going loud for the dual 2.5's, they went to internal water cooling. Most manufacturers only consider water cooling useful for overclockers, afaik.
Occasionally when I'm doing heavy work the fans spin up louder... and then go back to whisper quiet.
iBooks are actual laptops, as far as I'm concerned, as they don't get hot, they don't make noise, and they don't blow hot air. You can actually use them on your lap with no pads or risers. My girlfriend's iBook is eerie, as it turns on and is used pretty heavily, but makes no sound -- when I first used it (not often, it's a work/lab laptop), I almost thought something was wrong!
To me, it's like comparison shopping for HDD insulation to fit inside your computer that handles heat effectively and cuts down on noise, vs. simply buying a new, quiet harddrive. Or replacing all of your internal fans and case with stuff specifically designed to monitor heat and run at appropriate speeds. Most people have experienced the point where it makes sense to simply buy new stuff instead of kludging together your old crap. To many people, that "new stuff" is a mac, since it hits so many of the points. I know it did for me. I see the software as a bonus, which is a pretty sweet bonus:D
And the bulk of this post doesn't even consider how much thought is put into the insides of their computers. Working inside a G5 is a treat, since it doesn't feel like "working." Never having to deal with the tangle of cables inside a computer is a treat most x86 users haven't experienced.
That's what comics that are truly serious and industrious about the job do. Most professional comics have a buffer time, partly because there's a lapse between the time it takes for it to go from the editor to actual publication, but also because when it's all that you're doing, it makes sense to set yourself up to cover for any sickdays, vacations, or whatever happens.
Megatokyo is often criticized as being one of the most popular inconsistent comics, yet the author is on record as having a point in time where even he had a buffer (after some comic challenge thing, similar to the OP). He said he was set for about 2 weeks. Of course, he worked through that and got back on the missed updates. Lately, though, he's been on-time.
For anyone based on internet publication, I think timeliness is one of the most overlooked aspects of the process, and people often approach it in the same procrastinatey way they do term papers and homework. Unsurprisingly, the students that often perform well in school are the ones who have their homework done well before the deadline, giving them a buffer for editing and more
One of the reasons I personally like Penny Arcade is because there's always a new comic on MWF. And that's one of the reasons I completely lost interest in The Brunching Shuttlecocks when they were still updating -- they were on long hiatuses (hiatii?) for their last 2 years, so after a while it was easy to forget about them. At which point there's little reason for reading them religiously, and content gets missed.
I'm sure the comics that got involved in the OP are already quite timely -- otherwise they wouldn't get involved. I read it more as a test of how long a comic can stick around and consistently update, rather than how quickly other comics fall behind. I also see it as a statement that people view timelyness as an important and valuable aspect of web publications.
Same here. My girlfriend still buys CDs at best buy, whereas I tend to look at the iTMS. For me, it's because I like more obscure music, but her stuff is a little more mainstream, or available in the classical or folk sections.
She still buys the CDs because at Best Buy, everything is under $13 again. She just bought the Garden State CD for $9.99. So it cost the same for her to buy the actual CD as it would have to buy the AAC version of it online.
I saw $16-18 CDs a few years ago, but after the price-fixing lawsuits went down, everything started dropping, and now I regularly see CDs in the $10-13 range.
No, it's not theft. It's copyright infringement. Many people liken it to theft because it's the closest tangible thing that most people deal with, in a legal sense.
Essentially copyright, as stated in numerous places, simply gives those who control the copyright the "right to copy," or produce those works in question. It started with books and, surprisingly, US booksellers reprinting British books without permission, meaning that british authors received no money from their work while the US booksellers profited. It was akin to piracy, and it's simply a form of piracy control.
Does this mean that it's equivalent to theft? No. That doesn't make it "ok," though.
So many artists essentially get something akin to a mortgage in order to produce music nowadays (and it's been this way for a long time) that I no longer feel that these 'artists who sell gold records living in poverty' should be held to higher standards than the labels that gave them the ability to do so. Labels pay for studio time, instruments, session musicians, mastering, distribution and more all up front, before an artist sells a single record or goes on tour, that I feel yes, the artist does owe the label something for giving them the chance to express their creativity to a wider audience. Some of it sucks and some of it's good. That doesn't absolve consumers of responsibility to purchase goods that are released for sale simply because they feel it's "unfair to the artists." Many of those same artists are poor with handling money and fame and fall on hard times on their own accord. Plenty more do quite well, releasing an album every few years without ever having to work a regular job. Boo hoo.
There's a great deal of indie music with fair record labels and well-paid musicians that are waiting for your money, if you feel the major labels are doing something wrong. You don't exercise civil disobedience by illegally downloading music -- you exercise it by boycotting those labels and enjoying independent music.
And FYI, if you have the vinyl record, you're allowed to make copies for personal use. You could download that album via P2P and RIAA wouldn't have a leg to stand on against you, if you already owned the release.
That's what most people's arguments are for TV shows, and why most TV execs, rather than necessarily sueing everyone, are looking into DVR alternatives, pay-for-content services, and other setups that will give people what they want to see, when they want to see it, and the creators/publishers still get some money out of the deal.
If you look at the most popular downloaded shows, they nearly always correspond with the most popular sold DVDs. Those two things are directly related -- people want to see the show, and are often more than happy to go out and buy the content when it's available for a decent price
Of course, that same reason is why unavailable media (stuff you can't buy anyway) or "edited content" are still heavily pirated -- people who own, say, one particular version of Bladerunner are probably quite interested in seeing the alternate version, if only temporarily, so instead of renting (if they're able to find the version at all), they'll head to the internet. I see a similar reaction to most people when they talk about TV shows.
Similarly, look at the fansub/anime community. "Piracy" is rampant, but the groups will stop distribution of a series when they are released in their respective countries and they will often be purchased by fans. They're a good example of something that's otherwise unavailable being pirated until it becomes available, at which point peopel are happy to pick them up.
There will always be exceptions, but I personally find the TV people a lot more realistic about piracy, digital media, and access to content compared to the RIAA and MPAA groups. TV shows include like 6 hours of basic content in a release and costs just a little more than a comparable movie, not to mention a bevy of special features including multiple commentary and other crap.
TV shows are one of the most common pirated media, but TV DVDs are also one of the fastest growing markets. The fact that TV people realize that means good things for consumers. When record and movie people realize that, I think we'll be better off.
(personally, I'd be very excited for a movie studio to set up a "drm'd torrent" site of their own, that let people download movies and watch them for free, but only keep them on their harddrive for, say, a week, after which point they're deleted automatically or rendered unplayable. And you're unable to download more movies if your share ratio goes below a certain percentage. It would probably curb piracy significantly as well as encourage people to both watch more movies and purchase movies that they like)
If this is for customers, why does it read like it's focused entirely on reseller's problems? While I understand that there are people who have been unlucky with Apple products in the past (such as the G4 MDD problems, iBook logic board problems, etc.), they seem like one of the best companies when it comes to actually repairing and fixing things under warranty.
And the reseller gripes leave out an important element -- the Apple stores offer similar prices yet a much better shopping environment. The people there know their stuff, there's very little pressure to buy, and they're happy just letting you use the computers or chat tech with them if they're not super-busy. Nearly every "boutique style" computer reseller takes the opposite approach.
I've never been in a small-time reseller that actually felt like I'd want to spend time there and talk to the people, whether they sell Apple or PC products. I know that's just anecdotal, but the Apple stores offer up stiff competition for even PC resellers, let alone Apple resellers.
I think the real question is whether the companies like Small Dog and MacMall are really feeling a hit in their business. AFAIK, they're not part of these lawsuits.
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I'd love to say it goes to eleven... but they'll probbably just do OS X 2.
Sony's Connect store has had rather poor success.
But regardless of that, the iTMS didn't hit until AFTER the iPod was a success, and controlled most of the HDD MP3 player market. The PSP came out... tuesday.
I'm all for downloadable movies, or heck, extended trailers or synopses, but people don't buy iPods so they can go buy music from the iTMS -- they use the iTMS because they already have iPods.
The PSP will not have market saturation for a while, even if it tramples Nintendo's market. And as said above, the thing comes with a 32mb memory stick. Are users really going to shell out another hundred for a 512 stick just so they can watch a heavily compressed movie they purchased online? Or will they simply rip the DVDs they already own?
Music is great because you can buy just one song for a buck, and it's an aggregate like that -- you get a selection of songs. Movies need to be enjoyed on the whole, in usually a full sitting.
There just seem to be so many things already stacked against such a service's success. Now, if they were selling TV shows for a buck that would fit on cheaper memory sticks, I could see this having some impact. But, uhh, no, not for the PSP, and not without a device to play them on separate from computers. People buy music for entirely different reasons than they do movies. The fact that you can play both on a computer do not mean that they are consumed in the same way.
Just FYI, they're releasing Katamari Damacy DS for the Nintendo DS before the end of the year.
Those with lots of time to play something like this will likely skip over the thing that doesn't give them much time to play with it.
ipodlounge has many of the same qualities, though -- their ads are pretty much always things that they have tested themselves and like, they're not afraid to give something bad scores (including iPods themselves) and rate things on overall quality and price ranges. they even altered their scoring scheme so that things that got a rating of "F" were products that would either damage or harm your stuff in some way or another, so that people would be able to spot those troublesome items.
They're still aligned with iPods and Apple stuff, of course, but they're better than, say, something like "Official PS2 Magazine" when it comes to reviews.
Yes, there's advertising involved, but looking at it, it reads like a review magazine. Any consumer review publication is going to appear like an advertisement -- they're reviewing consumer goods that you can buy based on what you're interested in, and give you the opportunity to be a discerning shopper.
Having access to a large file like this that you can essentially use as a reference, without needing an internet connection and a series of bookmarks is quite worthwhile. Perhaps not worthwhile enough to make headlines, but for anyone interested in iPod gear and opinions, the iPodlounge is really a great site and comprehensive. And no, I don't work there.
Criticizing something like this is sort of like criticizing Consumer Reports, or pretty much any review-only consumer magazine. Personally, I really like the website because although they, of course, like iPods a great deal, they're objective enough to be able to step back and look at things objectively. They're quite well known to give fair opinions on whether or not new iPod releases are worthwhile (they were quite upset at the lack of a dock and other goodies in the latest Photo versions), and their review of 3rd party accessories have the one thing that many, many reviews online lack -- the ability to compare to other products they've reviewed. So you can go there and get the full tables and comparisons for whatever you're looking for. It's even useful for those just looking for portable audio reviews, like portable speakers or headphones.
The difference is the resolution. Banning the sale of games is extreme, whereas encouraging parents to pay attention to what their kids are doing is another. If anything, we should be railing against the article in the first place -- it's vague, covers no new information, and doesn't really address Clinton's views. Most politicans disagree with violence in video games played by kids (and media in general). Most PARENTS do. The kicker that should get people up in arms is what are we going to do about it?
The right-wing wackos are the ones who want to sue the developers and ban all M games from being created. Normal people want to educate parents and make them pay attention to their kids.
Would anyone be bashing Hillary in this thread if the quote read "GTA shouldn't be played by kids, and we need to help parents realize that not all video games are made for kids"? For some reason, I think the responses would be a little different...
And then, I couldn't touch it. Well, that would work great if I was setting up a box for a granny. You often hear that here -- set up a linux box for a computer noob friend and they're good to go. The problem is that the person doing the setup has to be admin. So if the person wants new functionality, the "admin" is the first person to get the call, and it's not always easy stuff.
I did a similar thing, trying out linux, playing with the easy ones (Mandrake), the hardcore ones (Gentoo, running Fluxbox), and the in-between ones (debian). They all set up pretty well and had me doing what I wanted. It was when I wanted to get more into the guts that I hit a wall, and it was a tradeoff -- spend countless hours hacking at Linux to get the perfect system, or buy a mac. I bought a mac. The stuff I learned in Linux is still valuable for hacking away in OS X, but I don't feel restricted or left out by not having a certain knowledge base.
In my case, it was the "linux is free only if your time is worthless" cliche that gets trotted out, which is more true if you're not a hardcore programmer or sysad. I got sick of Windows because I wanted to USE my computer. Linux doesn't provide an alternative to that unless you're a programmer, in which case it's great -- set it up for development and leave it alone. OS X comes set up for development and doesn't require the hacking or fiddling. Sure it costs more, but it doesn't have this large knowledge base prerequisite in order to do what you want, if what you want to do is more than just code. In my case, it was deal with music and audio work, along with video editing as well as all the other mini-hacky stuff.
For an extremely small fee, you can get a load of rock delivered. Or you can rent a U-Haul or similar for $20-$50 depending on the load for all moving needs. That's a one-time fee for a one-time job. That's a lot cheaper than buying the truck outright, not even taking into account the insurance payments involved.
It's not exactly equivalent for PCs vs Consoles, but it's getting there. The gametypes are different, but what's left on PCs? First person shooters, which are usually getting ported to consoles (without the driver conflicts), sim games, and real-time strategy games. Oh, and MMORPGs which aren't graphically intensive anyway. Why spend so much money for what amounts to relatively few games? Why buy the cow (that needs expensive food and someone to clean up after it) when you can pick up milk for a few bucks down at the grocery store?
I think Apple realizes this, though, which is why the Terminal is a pretty sweet app. It natively supports dragging files into it to put the absolute path, which is a great help for moving deep folders. It's also easy to access and Apple no longer pulls punches about how useful it is.
The limitations of Finder make more sense when you step back and realize that they're trying to keep it simple, on purpose. Its base navigation features are very useful, and for most people, the preview features are very useful. You only start running into these problems mentioned when you start doing more powerful stuff on your computer. While I agree that there are problems and that they should absolutely program Finder to scale up in a way for power users to still find it useful, I can understand some of the limitations like moving (many people don't understand that moving deletes the original, or that there's a difference between copying and moving), for instance. I just think that Apple isn't quite sure how to make Finder more functional without adding a lot of cluttery objects that most people don't use. I've lost count the number of times I've worked on someone else's computer and they have everything set up using defaults, with Icon view and "each window opens in new window" turned on. So by falling back on the command line, they've reached a good middle-point, I think.
After all, everyone who says Finder sucks simply uses the command line or launcher apps as an alternative. For those people, not much would convince them to go back to a GUI for file management and control.
But I've never understood those apps or even websites that use big flashy menus. Look at Fluxbox -- its stripped-down appearance is almost elegant, in how it lets the extra crap fall away, presenting just the applications and windows. I would actually like a flux-box launcher for OS X -- click anywhere on the desktop to bring up custom menus when combined with expose and man, that'd be slick.
Anyway, I liken the "simple is better, stupid" argument to why Google and its various products have worked so well. Maps is just beautiful to use -- simple popups focused on readability and usefulness, easy to print. Gmail is just text, for the most part, with colors. No images or curves or weirdness. We don't need transparent windows and menus -- most people end up turning stuff like that off if they can because it can be hard to see on certain backgrounds. iTunes really isn't much to look at, but it focuses on making your music easy to find and navigate through, without much wasted space -- the bars are very slim and easy to move, with very minimal nesting.
The thing I'm curious about is that you know all of these features and fancy curves are going to be user-controllable, but is Microsoft going to make it obvious and easy for people to change their layouts and themes? Currently you can only do basic color changes, and even then it's hidden away in submenus, and really heavy modifications require 3rd party programs or some major hacking. I'll be more impressed when I hear that it's easily controllable by an easy-to-access and easy-to-use menu or application.
Well the shields cover the first hits. After the shields go down, any bullet from the rifle hitting the head will kill the player.
As stated above, there are no ads on google news, so Google is running the service at a loss. How much of a loss is unknown, but as it is, Google News is essentially "google" for news. That may sound obvious, but if this suit sees the actual courtroom, how is the news service different from Google's regular searches?
Maybe I've been misled, but when a news agency publishes a story, that story can be used and published by others as long as the source is cited. Google cites all of their sources, links to the original source, and essentially are providing pre-search engine usefulness. They're collecting news that people are interested in or has general appeal and displaying it like they would a search, and there's already numerous laws that state it doesn't violate copyright to index information like that.
More importantly, if this lawsuit goes to court, EVERY online news aggregator would be forced to stop, and it would likely have repercussions for all major news agencies. CNN's stories are only about 1/3 CNN's -- the rest are pulled from other sources, AFAIK. How many times have you read a story somewhere and it says at the top "REUTERS" or "AP WIRE" ?
Ultimately it wouldn't surprise me if Google has this case dismissed under the grounds that Google is not providing the news, rather is simply providing an index of different news sources.
I've been very happy buying music from the iTMS. I download the music, plop it on my iPod, burn it to CD as a backup and file it in a big CD wallet. When you download, they say "Please burn a backup so you have your own copy in case anything happens to your computer."
Maybe if I had 10 computers and wanted to mirror my music collection across all 3, I'd be more concerned about it. With iTunes, though, you can simply turn on "share this computer's music" and it lets you stream to any networked computer, without the need to copy the files in the first place. I actually prefer doing that.
I could go about numerous ways to decrypt the DRM, but they've never affected the way I listen to music. I only know they're there because people who don't use the iTMS complain about them.
I understand the complaints against the restriction, but there's a fine line between obvious restriction, and restriction that's pretty much never encountered by the user.
All it would do is make locating files easier, at least that's pretty much how they were shopping it around. You could do that without adding another layer to the HDD by simply having an element of the OS scan in the background efficiently.
Conversely, though, I wonder if the reason they're starting to back off of WinFS now is because including it would mean that all of those obscure file locations where companies like to hide setup files would be that much easier and faster for people to locate. I've lost count of the number of times I've needed to hunt through hidden folders to find some stupid file to edit or delete. And the search taking 30+ minutes didn't help.
Maybe instead of working on WinFS, they should focus on coming up with an alternative to the registry.
On the Mac, it's an entirely different story, with elegant integration and very clean use (small size, not much overhead, etc.).
I've been using Quicktime Pro to encode video on my own website, and, without sound, am able to pick between numerous codecs I've installed to shrink 200mb video files down to around 5mb, with no real loss in quality. It's a beautiful thing. Not to mention how quickly it handles it, without wading through tons of menus.
But when I was on Windows, it was a true PITA.
But yeah, people need to understand that .mov is no different than .avi or whatever container people felt like using at the time. The fact that so many people use it to overcompress video simply for size and bandwidth considerations shouldn't reflect poorly on the media player/container.
I've installed various linux distributions in the past. I tried out Mandrake, Redhat, and my most recent install was Gentoo (about 18 months ago). I'd give it a spin every few years. Yes, it's gotten easier, but the same motivation spurred me on each time -- it's free, so let's see what it's like.
In every case, I learned more, had a fully functioning computer, and was happy with it. In each instance, though, what I was exploring and using was the free software -- the stuff that was open source, easy to install (I ventured into source compiling on Gentoo, which was fun) -- and never for games or commercial software. It didn't seem like the point -- why buy software when there's such an element of "diy" in the linux world?
That and there really isn't that much commercial software available, let alone shareware. All of the obvious linux resources point to source code...
On OS X, there's a literal deluge of commercial software, some of it that's been around forever (Digital Performer from MOTU has been around for about as long as the mac itself, and is available for every MacOS) and some of it new (there's an impressive array of programs for FTP, IRC, and so on, more than on Windows due to the fact that there isn't one program that's established itself as *the* program for many of these tasks).
If we're really arguing about commercial software availability, I think we need to look no further than the presence of Adobe, Macromedia, Maya, and other major commercial applications.
As far as marketshare, plenty of people try out linux but then go back to Windows or OSX. Installing a free OS for a month or two doesn't make them a "linux user."
It comes standard with 128mb of ram, a 20gb harddrive, a cd-rom drive, no operating system, and a 1.2ghz celeron processor.
Bumping it up so that it is at least somewhat comparable to the mini puts it at $1000. Twice the price of a mini.
and you can't get bluetooth AND wireless together (and both options cost $100 each, the mac mini offers both together for less than $90).
That's often the deciding factor -- yes you can get small PCs, and shuttle-sized PCs have been around for a while. But to get anything close, you need to build your own or configure a system, and in both cases the prices quickly get outside of the $500 range. Often, just a bare case + MB will push $200-$300, and that's without any other parts.
Heck, the cappucino CAN'T get more than 256mb ram. What the hell is that?
Occasionally when I'm doing heavy work the fans spin up louder... and then go back to whisper quiet.
iBooks are actual laptops, as far as I'm concerned, as they don't get hot, they don't make noise, and they don't blow hot air. You can actually use them on your lap with no pads or risers. My girlfriend's iBook is eerie, as it turns on and is used pretty heavily, but makes no sound -- when I first used it (not often, it's a work/lab laptop), I almost thought something was wrong!
To me, it's like comparison shopping for HDD insulation to fit inside your computer that handles heat effectively and cuts down on noise, vs. simply buying a new, quiet harddrive. Or replacing all of your internal fans and case with stuff specifically designed to monitor heat and run at appropriate speeds. Most people have experienced the point where it makes sense to simply buy new stuff instead of kludging together your old crap. To many people, that "new stuff" is a mac, since it hits so many of the points. I know it did for me. I see the software as a bonus, which is a pretty sweet bonus :D
And the bulk of this post doesn't even consider how much thought is put into the insides of their computers. Working inside a G5 is a treat, since it doesn't feel like "working." Never having to deal with the tangle of cables inside a computer is a treat most x86 users haven't experienced.
Megatokyo is often criticized as being one of the most popular inconsistent comics, yet the author is on record as having a point in time where even he had a buffer (after some comic challenge thing, similar to the OP). He said he was set for about 2 weeks. Of course, he worked through that and got back on the missed updates. Lately, though, he's been on-time.
For anyone based on internet publication, I think timeliness is one of the most overlooked aspects of the process, and people often approach it in the same procrastinatey way they do term papers and homework. Unsurprisingly, the students that often perform well in school are the ones who have their homework done well before the deadline, giving them a buffer for editing and more
One of the reasons I personally like Penny Arcade is because there's always a new comic on MWF. And that's one of the reasons I completely lost interest in The Brunching Shuttlecocks when they were still updating -- they were on long hiatuses (hiatii?) for their last 2 years, so after a while it was easy to forget about them. At which point there's little reason for reading them religiously, and content gets missed.
I'm sure the comics that got involved in the OP are already quite timely -- otherwise they wouldn't get involved. I read it more as a test of how long a comic can stick around and consistently update, rather than how quickly other comics fall behind. I also see it as a statement that people view timelyness as an important and valuable aspect of web publications.
She still buys the CDs because at Best Buy, everything is under $13 again. She just bought the Garden State CD for $9.99. So it cost the same for her to buy the actual CD as it would have to buy the AAC version of it online.
I saw $16-18 CDs a few years ago, but after the price-fixing lawsuits went down, everything started dropping, and now I regularly see CDs in the $10-13 range.
Essentially copyright, as stated in numerous places, simply gives those who control the copyright the "right to copy," or produce those works in question. It started with books and, surprisingly, US booksellers reprinting British books without permission, meaning that british authors received no money from their work while the US booksellers profited. It was akin to piracy, and it's simply a form of piracy control.
Does this mean that it's equivalent to theft? No. That doesn't make it "ok," though.
So many artists essentially get something akin to a mortgage in order to produce music nowadays (and it's been this way for a long time) that I no longer feel that these 'artists who sell gold records living in poverty' should be held to higher standards than the labels that gave them the ability to do so. Labels pay for studio time, instruments, session musicians, mastering, distribution and more all up front, before an artist sells a single record or goes on tour, that I feel yes, the artist does owe the label something for giving them the chance to express their creativity to a wider audience. Some of it sucks and some of it's good. That doesn't absolve consumers of responsibility to purchase goods that are released for sale simply because they feel it's "unfair to the artists." Many of those same artists are poor with handling money and fame and fall on hard times on their own accord. Plenty more do quite well, releasing an album every few years without ever having to work a regular job. Boo hoo.
There's a great deal of indie music with fair record labels and well-paid musicians that are waiting for your money, if you feel the major labels are doing something wrong. You don't exercise civil disobedience by illegally downloading music -- you exercise it by boycotting those labels and enjoying independent music.
And FYI, if you have the vinyl record, you're allowed to make copies for personal use. You could download that album via P2P and RIAA wouldn't have a leg to stand on against you, if you already owned the release.
If you look at the most popular downloaded shows, they nearly always correspond with the most popular sold DVDs. Those two things are directly related -- people want to see the show, and are often more than happy to go out and buy the content when it's available for a decent price
Of course, that same reason is why unavailable media (stuff you can't buy anyway) or "edited content" are still heavily pirated -- people who own, say, one particular version of Bladerunner are probably quite interested in seeing the alternate version, if only temporarily, so instead of renting (if they're able to find the version at all), they'll head to the internet. I see a similar reaction to most people when they talk about TV shows.
Similarly, look at the fansub/anime community. "Piracy" is rampant, but the groups will stop distribution of a series when they are released in their respective countries and they will often be purchased by fans. They're a good example of something that's otherwise unavailable being pirated until it becomes available, at which point peopel are happy to pick them up.
There will always be exceptions, but I personally find the TV people a lot more realistic about piracy, digital media, and access to content compared to the RIAA and MPAA groups. TV shows include like 6 hours of basic content in a release and costs just a little more than a comparable movie, not to mention a bevy of special features including multiple commentary and other crap.
TV shows are one of the most common pirated media, but TV DVDs are also one of the fastest growing markets. The fact that TV people realize that means good things for consumers. When record and movie people realize that, I think we'll be better off.
(personally, I'd be very excited for a movie studio to set up a "drm'd torrent" site of their own, that let people download movies and watch them for free, but only keep them on their harddrive for, say, a week, after which point they're deleted automatically or rendered unplayable. And you're unable to download more movies if your share ratio goes below a certain percentage. It would probably curb piracy significantly as well as encourage people to both watch more movies and purchase movies that they like)
If this is for customers, why does it read like it's focused entirely on reseller's problems? While I understand that there are people who have been unlucky with Apple products in the past (such as the G4 MDD problems, iBook logic board problems, etc.), they seem like one of the best companies when it comes to actually repairing and fixing things under warranty. And the reseller gripes leave out an important element -- the Apple stores offer similar prices yet a much better shopping environment. The people there know their stuff, there's very little pressure to buy, and they're happy just letting you use the computers or chat tech with them if they're not super-busy. Nearly every "boutique style" computer reseller takes the opposite approach. I've never been in a small-time reseller that actually felt like I'd want to spend time there and talk to the people, whether they sell Apple or PC products. I know that's just anecdotal, but the Apple stores offer up stiff competition for even PC resellers, let alone Apple resellers. I think the real question is whether the companies like Small Dog and MacMall are really feeling a hit in their business. AFAIK, they're not part of these lawsuits.