I ment also to point out you could duplicate your mp3's to CD's, DVD's or another disk, but as you point out, it isn't always that straightforward either legally or technically
Care to explain this one? What's difficult or illegal about backing up iTunes tracks? You can burn them to disc as easily as any other file, and there are no legal restrictions on doing so.
Stranger still is the fact that some bands STILL refuse to (or their labels prohibit them from) posting all their CDs on iTMS. I'm looking at you, Dave Matthews Band.
What's the deal with that? Do they intentionally want to lower their sales figures?
Dave Matthews is pimping his stuff through an exclusive arrangement with Wal-Mart. Highly appropriate, really. Cheap and nasty music sold through a cheap and nasty store. Next thing you know, they'll be employing musicians in "sweat shop" recording studios to make manufactured bland music a few cents cheaper. I can see Britney Spears, Metallica and Dave Matthews with whips, as they force the laborers to make their new albums.
No slick animated menus, not even the boringly superfluous trailers for films I'm never going to watch, but a fucking commercial equating "piracy" with car-theft!.
Excuse me, but would you mind explaining what DRM has to do with this? It's not DRM's fault that you didn't back-up your data. DRM-free music doesn't prevent you from losing data because you have an inadeqaute backup system.
Another question - if you have spent as much as $400 on the iTMS - shouldn't you have spent that money on a decent backup system first, rather than a luxury like music? $400 buys a very nice backup system, and your life would be easier today.
Think about it - Cheney, Dubya, Kim Jong-Il, Fidel Castro, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hillary Clinton. Do you really think they come from our planet? The aliens have already infiltrated and control political power across the globe.
The first "intergalactic" war will actually be a civil war fought on our home planet. Look at the lengths they go to in trying to hide the cubic nature of time, making up elaborate spherical myths, and inventing fictional characters like Einstein. They want to keep you educated stupid so they can manipulate you.
AmBio has created a wireless mesh network of bugspraying "magnets" that report back data on the temperature,
Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't know that mosquitos were magnetic. I guess I'll have to welcome my new magnetic insectoid overlords. I'm getting really sick of welcoming new overlord, but whatever.
Hey, while travelling in France I was taken to a small wine shop that sold wine in bulk; bring your container, they'd fill it up from what looked like a gas hose.
I really doubt that $100 computers in the developing world will be doing a whole lot of video editing.
Why? this is the imperialism I'm talking about. You make assumptions and choices for these people. i don't see anything far fetched about using these for video. It could be very important for human rights and development. People could make documentaries to distribute online to draw attention to their plight, or even a possible genocide like Rwanda may be prevented.
Why do so many slashdotters have this arrogance that people in developing countries could not or will not use video as a medium for tellikng their stories?
A full, native office suite, for example. OS X only has MS Office as a fully functional native office suite.
That's simply not true.
OS X is also missing free native image and video editing solutions.
WTF are you talking about? It comes with iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD, and you can install GIMP if you want to. And you talk about "serious $$$" - but even Apple's professional video editing software is a bargain compared to anything else for any platform. The free software is still very professional, and doesn't cost anything.
I can't think of any. Can you give examples?
Well, there is no equivalent of iMovie or iDVD in the easy media creation department. Strange that you think it's the Mac which is lacking in this department.
It is severely lacking in the media creation and editing department. Not the OS per se, but there is a lack of diverse desktop applications for Linux.
and it contains a lot of desktop software packages that are expensive add-ons for OS X.
Can you provide some examples, please? MacOS comes with many app[lications that it is impossible to get equivalents for Red Hat. And most red Hat applications can be ported to MacOS. What are these applications you speak of?
If you have actually data to support that, please share it. Until then, that's just marketing speak and zealotry.
No, it's not. You still need more knowledge and patience to run a Linux system.
MIT is not looking for a general purpose operating system, they are looking for a specialized, device specific OS that is open source.
but why? That doesn't make much sense in the context of this project. if the goal is to help people - why put this software ideology and zealotry ahead of the wants or needs of users?
Despite all the Mac fanboy protestations, going with OS X would have been a step backwards.
What the hell does this have to do with "Mac fanboys"? It seems that it is the Open Source fanboys who are damaging this idea by excluding helpful tools, based on their narrow ideology and zealotry. OS X has many advantages. Linux has many advantages. They are not mutually exclusive, if it were not for this ridiculous thinking. Why not allow people to choose? Do poor people have to have their decisions made for them, unlike the lucky wealthy people? Do we know what's best for them? Imperial hubris.
If your plan is to indoctrinate the developing nations and poorer people through software - then you would be better off not bothering.
Seriously though the whole purpose of the computers is to EDUCATE children. To that end, GNU/Linux is a better choice.
Depends on what you want to educate them in. Educating on a computer doesn't mean you have to teach computer-specific skills. For example, what if you are teaching film-making? Linux has very little in the way of good video editing and graphics software.
What happens if apple decides not to stop supporting these $100 laptops?
you could install Linux. or you could just kepp using it - it won't stop working just because of official lack of support. How is it any different than if red Hat decides to stop supporting them?
The problem with Linux is that it makes many tasks unecessarily difficult. Users (especially those in need) just need to get on with things. When you can't get the software to do what you need, or need to learn obscure Linux skills, the computer becomes useless.
Also, I believe these computers are intended to be used for more than just education. I did read the article, and it talks about uniting the whole community and being practical - not just teaching esoteric skills.
Yes. I can imagine SPAM on my TV right now. It is jiggling faintly in the breeze. The spiced ham is glazed with jelly, and is beckoning ever closer. I take the SPAM and caress it with my tongue. I spank it a little.
It's an incredible sensation. I never knew I could be this close to a manufactured meat product. I am filled with the sudden desire to make SPAMburgers to share with my friends. Nothing can compare to you, televisual SPAM!
Better priced than it was in the past maybe, but you can still get a better PC for much less, LCD display included
Nonsense. You find me a cheap LCD display that is anywhere near the quality of the iMac 20" display. Typical LCD displays are absolute garbage compared to the Apple displays. That makes a huge difference, you have to look at that display all day long.
The foundation of this project is standing on the shoulders of older technology that is somewhat tried and true, and now cheap to manufacture. It's pointless to design new chipsets from scratch.
So, why does this argument not apply to software? Surely it is easier to stand on Apple's shoulders than to turn Red Hat into a workable general-purpose desktop OS?
After all, Apple has a much more evolved OS with more features that help users. So why do they want to restrict users' options on what software they use?
What you don't get is the freedom to inspect the program, to learn how it works, or to share copies of the program, to help your neighbors, or to modify the program, to make the program suit your needs. In short, you miss out on all of the other parts of what makes a program Free Software
Most people want to use a computer to get stuff done, not to learn about using a computer. Especially in a developing nation - you want your computer to help you survive, not be an extra burden. Why give them a computer that they have to waste time programming or trouble-shooting?
Bullshit. Ease of use empowers people to do things they might not be otherwise able to do.
Ease of use is a subjective assessment (everything is probably roughly equally hard to learn when you have no experience with computers) that doesn't address educational goals to the degree software freedom does.
How does "software freedom" improve education if the users are not computer literate, and the effort necessary to use an open-source solution locks people out of learning computers in the first place?
We are talking about solutions for developing and impoverished nations here - not some programmer's ideal of "software freedom." How does Apple donating an OS tie anybody's hands? It's not going to prevent users from running Linux. But it might help someone by offering more options, or an easier way of doing something.
Slashdot Mirror
Care to explain this one? What's difficult or illegal about backing up iTunes tracks? You can burn them to disc as easily as any other file, and there are no legal restrictions on doing so.
Dave Matthews is pimping his stuff through an exclusive arrangement with Wal-Mart. Highly appropriate, really. Cheap and nasty music sold through a cheap and nasty store. Next thing you know, they'll be employing musicians in "sweat shop" recording studios to make manufactured bland music a few cents cheaper. I can see Britney Spears, Metallica and Dave Matthews with whips, as they force the laborers to make their new albums.
Do you have a torrent of that commercial, please?
Excuse me, but would you mind explaining what DRM has to do with this? It's not DRM's fault that you didn't back-up your data. DRM-free music doesn't prevent you from losing data because you have an inadeqaute backup system.
Another question - if you have spent as much as $400 on the iTMS - shouldn't you have spent that money on a decent backup system first, rather than a luxury like music? $400 buys a very nice backup system, and your life would be easier today.
Have you ever heard of something called a "CD burner" or maybe an "FTP server"?
The first "intergalactic" war will actually be a civil war fought on our home planet. Look at the lengths they go to in trying to hide the cubic nature of time, making up elaborate spherical myths, and inventing fictional characters like Einstein. They want to keep you educated stupid so they can manipulate you.
Including wires!
Maybe I'm missing something, but I didn't know that mosquitos were magnetic. I guess I'll have to welcome my new magnetic insectoid overlords. I'm getting really sick of welcoming new overlord, but whatever.
Ahhh. I see you've met "old gushy."
That's because you never call!
How about an Apple logo, right in the middle of the laptop's lid?
If you watch it on fast-forward, you can learn it in only 12 hours!
Oh no, the horror! VIOLATING A SECURITY MEASURE makes you WORSE THAN HITLER!!!
Nah, the Duke Nukem Forever code will finally be found in the Sony rootkit.
It's a Sony!
Why? this is the imperialism I'm talking about. You make assumptions and choices for these people. i don't see anything far fetched about using these for video. It could be very important for human rights and development. People could make documentaries to distribute online to draw attention to their plight, or even a possible genocide like Rwanda may be prevented.
Why do so many slashdotters have this arrogance that people in developing countries could not or will not use video as a medium for tellikng their stories?
That's simply not true.
OS X is also missing free native image and video editing solutions.
WTF are you talking about? It comes with iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD, and you can install GIMP if you want to. And you talk about "serious $$$" - but even Apple's professional video editing software is a bargain compared to anything else for any platform. The free software is still very professional, and doesn't cost anything.
I can't think of any. Can you give examples?
Well, there is no equivalent of iMovie or iDVD in the easy media creation department. Strange that you think it's the Mac which is lacking in this department.
It is severely lacking in the media creation and editing department. Not the OS per se, but there is a lack of diverse desktop applications for Linux.
and it contains a lot of desktop software packages that are expensive add-ons for OS X.
Can you provide some examples, please? MacOS comes with many app[lications that it is impossible to get equivalents for Red Hat. And most red Hat applications can be ported to MacOS. What are these applications you speak of?
If you have actually data to support that, please share it. Until then, that's just marketing speak and zealotry.
No, it's not. You still need more knowledge and patience to run a Linux system.
but why? That doesn't make much sense in the context of this project. if the goal is to help people - why put this software ideology and zealotry ahead of the wants or needs of users?
Despite all the Mac fanboy protestations, going with OS X would have been a step backwards.
What the hell does this have to do with "Mac fanboys"? It seems that it is the Open Source fanboys who are damaging this idea by excluding helpful tools, based on their narrow ideology and zealotry. OS X has many advantages. Linux has many advantages. They are not mutually exclusive, if it were not for this ridiculous thinking. Why not allow people to choose? Do poor people have to have their decisions made for them, unlike the lucky wealthy people? Do we know what's best for them? Imperial hubris.
If your plan is to indoctrinate the developing nations and poorer people through software - then you would be better off not bothering.
Depends on what you want to educate them in. Educating on a computer doesn't mean you have to teach computer-specific skills. For example, what if you are teaching film-making? Linux has very little in the way of good video editing and graphics software.
What happens if apple decides not to stop supporting these $100 laptops?
you could install Linux. or you could just kepp using it - it won't stop working just because of official lack of support. How is it any different than if red Hat decides to stop supporting them?
The problem with Linux is that it makes many tasks unecessarily difficult. Users (especially those in need) just need to get on with things. When you can't get the software to do what you need, or need to learn obscure Linux skills, the computer becomes useless.
Also, I believe these computers are intended to be used for more than just education. I did read the article, and it talks about uniting the whole community and being practical - not just teaching esoteric skills.
It's an incredible sensation. I never knew I could be this close to a manufactured meat product. I am filled with the sudden desire to make SPAMburgers to share with my friends. Nothing can compare to you, televisual SPAM!
Nonsense. You find me a cheap LCD display that is anywhere near the quality of the iMac 20" display. Typical LCD displays are absolute garbage compared to the Apple displays. That makes a huge difference, you have to look at that display all day long.
So, why does this argument not apply to software? Surely it is easier to stand on Apple's shoulders than to turn Red Hat into a workable general-purpose desktop OS?
After all, Apple has a much more evolved OS with more features that help users. So why do they want to restrict users' options on what software they use?
Most people want to use a computer to get stuff done, not to learn about using a computer. Especially in a developing nation - you want your computer to help you survive, not be an extra burden. Why give them a computer that they have to waste time programming or trouble-shooting?
Bullshit. Ease of use empowers people to do things they might not be otherwise able to do.
Ease of use is a subjective assessment (everything is probably roughly equally hard to learn when you have no experience with computers) that doesn't address educational goals to the degree software freedom does.
How does "software freedom" improve education if the users are not computer literate, and the effort necessary to use an open-source solution locks people out of learning computers in the first place?
We are talking about solutions for developing and impoverished nations here - not some programmer's ideal of "software freedom." How does Apple donating an OS tie anybody's hands? It's not going to prevent users from running Linux. But it might help someone by offering more options, or an easier way of doing something.