"Yes, it was irresponsible of the bloggers to do what they did [...]"
I don't see this. How was it irresponsible? It's called Media Jamming or Culture Jamming. If anything, this has shown how the mainstream media will jump to conclusions rather quickly and without any evidence whatsoever.
What the bloggers did was in no way irresponsible. What they did was prove a point about mainstream media reporting about China. Personally, I applaud these guys. Anybody who reminds the mainstream media that we depend on them to report facts, not speculation, is a hero in my book.
While I wouldn't disagree with your buddy--he's part of the industry and I'm not--I'd also point out that reviewers who say bad things about a product may not get the next product to preview.
So while I'd agree that there is no contract stating that saying bad things may be hazardous to your ability to get further Previews, I'm sure it's implied.
I remember radio stations and record companies working on the same sort of system. If you don't want that hot single after everybody else has it, you'd better be nice and play some of this crap that we want you to play now.
I think subscription services for music will be a tough sell. First, you have over a hundred years of history going against you. For over a hundred years, people have been able to buy music (Player Piano Rolls). That's going to be a tough sell.
Conversely, video has traditionally been a "pay to watch" kind of thing. You went to the movies and paid your money to see the movie. TV, while free to watch, came with commercials. So I think video will be easier to convince people to buy a pay-to-watch subscription service.
That said, I kind of like the way this works and it would be interesting to see Apple do more of this. For example, while I might not pay $40-some-odd dollars to watch a season of 'Lost', I might pay Apple $20 up front for a subscription to 'Lost'. The files can sit on my hard drive until I manage to get around to watching them in much the same way that they are currently sitting on my DVR.
I got hit by iTunes DRM recently and I wasn't amused.
I heard a fun song on TV and wandered over to iTunes to look it up. I found the song and I noticed Apple was also selling the video. Well, I watched the video and, again, thought it was a cute video and I decided to buy that instead of the song. Same thing, right?
Wrong.
I don't own an iPod, so I burn stuff to CD so I can listen to music in my car. Well, I went to burn that video to a CD and got the "Sorry, you're not allowed to do that." message. Now, I can understand that I can't burn a video to an audio CD. But seeing that Apple considers this to be a Music video, I would think iTunes would at least smart enough to say "Hey, you're not going to get the video on an audio CD, but I'll put the audio on the CD..."
The obvious solution was Audio Hijack and Sound Studio, I'll admit. But it irked me enough that I probably won't bother buying anymore videos.
"Fire has never in the history of buildings brought down a skyscraper (A building in Venezuela I believe it was, which was built at the same time as the twin towers, burned for some 20+ hours and spread over two dozen floors. No collapse). Oh, also, in the mid '40s when a B-25 (a smaller plane, admittedly, than a 757) crashed into the Empire State Building, it didn't collapse, even after burning for longer than either of the twin towers did"
A B-25 is also about a quarter of the weight of a 757 and doesn't use jet fuel. The Empire State Building is constructed differently as well. So it's kind of an apples/oranges thing.
That said, the one that gets me is the implosion factor. The twin towers and one other building essentially collapsed on themselves--kind of like an implosion. I remember seeing a program on Discovery years ago where they talked to the guys who do implosions on buildings. From what I understand, they take a ton of planning.
And yet, three buildings collapsed. Two after being hit by airplanes and one just because it caught on fire.
So, either these guys who tell us that implosions are complex things are lying--just set the building on fire and it'll collapse on it's own--or there's something fishier going on here.
"It's that I have a kid, and if my babysitter needs to call me while my kid has a fever or some other accident (god forbid), she should be able to get ahold of me."
Okay, let's start with the obvious. Your kid is sick with a fever and you feel the need to go to the movies? "But Star Wars is opening tonight!" You, my friend, definitely need to check your priorities.
Second, but less obvious, is "some accident." Suppose your kid breaks his leg. Hey, why not, it could happen. Decided to jump off the roof or something like in those Warner Brothers cartoons. You're 20 miles away in a movie theatre. How much immediate help are you going to be? Heck, it will probably take you at least half-an-hour to get home!
Obviously, if the kid breaks his leg, your babysitter will call the hospital. An ambulance will be dispatched and the kid will be taken to the emergency room. The emergency room will stablize the kid and call you before doing anything more severe. When your movie is completed, you will probably notice that you have a voicemail saying that your kid is in the hospital after breaking his leg. You'll call the hospital and tell them that "Yes, it's okay, fix my kid's leg." Problem solved.
Oh and before you go into the "My kid has severe allergies to some drug or another", I'd probably let the babysitter know that so that she could tell the hospital in the event that this happens.
Hell, when I was 19, I was in a serious accident several hundred miles away from my parents--who also happened to be away for the weekend--it happened Friday afternoon and my parents didn't hear about it until Sunday. And yet, somehow, I survived without Mom & Dad there to hold my hand. (Yes, Mom & Dad showed up on Monday but I was so whacked out on Morphine that I don't even remember them being there.)
Don't get me wrong--I agree about the notification. If I am explicitly doing something to prevent your cell phone from working (versus the cell phone company), I should notify you. But the concept that something that you and/or your babysitter decide is an emergency should somehow override my ability to enjoy a movie is dubious at best.
"1. You can 'miss an emergency call' in many places that have poor reception."
...and you sue the owners of the property with the poor reception, the city that the property resides in, the state the city resides in, and George Bush.
"2. You can 'miss an emergency call' if your battery goes dead. Who will you sue then?"
The battery maker and the phone maker for not warning you IN GREAT BIG LETTERS that phone batteries lose their charge.
Heck, I'm not even a lawyer and I came up with that one. Throw me a tough one...:^):^):^)
Well, first, we have the obvious issue of a "legitimate emergency."
I was in a theatre recently sitting next to a couple with a child at home. The babysitter called to say that the child was misbehaving and wouldn't go to bed. To the parents, I'm sure this was a "legitimate emergency." Personally, this wasn't what I'd call a "legitimate emergency." Poor parenting in your part is not an emergency in my part.
So, yes, I think it's fine that everyone is being "punished equally." If I owned a theatre, I would certainly do this. I'd have a sign out front saying that the theatre is shielded and return the ticket money of anyone who purchased a ticket and felt they could not be away from their phone in the event of an emergency (such as doctors, volunteer firemen, parents, etc.)
I'd be willing to bet that I wouldn't go broke if I did this. Or at least, no worse than any theatre is going broke today...
Again, if I owned a theatre, I'd do this and advertise it. Heck, it might get people back into the movies.
"What other job would you propose for the thing? It is a low spec machine sold at a very premium pricepoint."
Uh...let's see. Before the $100 price bump, you got a very nice machine in a small package suitable for Mom to see pictures of the grandkids, play solitaire, and not have to call up her son every weekend saying that the computer is "acting funny." All that for $499.
You also have a nice machine for schools and such which might already have keyboards and mice and monitors and just need a cut-rate box. Figure schools probably got them for around $450 (and maybe less in bulk) and that's a pretty good deal.
You're right--the form factor and such made it a great media center machine, too. But it was the pundits who said that--not Apple.
"[...] the simple fact is that if you buy a non-apple mouse there's only a small chance that Steve will creep into your house that night and eat your liver."
Since he's a vegan (or pescatarian or whatever restricted diet he observes), I think you're real safe from him eating your liver.
Phil, on the other hand, looks like he'd eat your liver if you considered using a non-Apple mouse. So you're not completely safe.
"2. Using half your memory for your windowing tool will impress all your friends."
Well, sort of. This means you'll need a computer with 2GB of RAM to get any work done. That will, in theory, impress the friends with their piddling little 512MB.
Because, hey, let's face it: Big numbers are always better.
I gotta admit, besides the obvious porn reference, "Jurassic Beavers" has a certain Pythonesque quality to it. Giant Beavers terrorizing the populace or something.
Of course, the first IMAX movie I ever saw was "Beavers".
However, we've changed your hotel reservations from The Four Seasons to U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. Also your reservations were changed from August 22-24 to right the fuck now get in the car you terrorist bastard.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Re:yep, great benchmarks, but lacking in features.
on
MacBook Pro Benchmarks
·
· Score: 1
Well, you're sort of right.
FireWire 800 has caught in pretty well for great big/nonportable hard drives. It's been tough to find a small portable hard drive with FireWire 800.
I recently dropped an external hard drive that I used to carry stuff between work and home. Needless to say, it didn't work after I picked it up (hooray for backups). Since my machine at work is an older G4 without FireWire 800 but my computer at home has FireWire 800, I went looking for a hard drive with FireWire 400 & 800 that would be reasonable to carry between work and home.
No dice. The ones that support FireWire 400 & 800 were too big. The ones that were the right size supported FireWire 400 & USB 2.0. Portable hard drives with FireWire 800 were just starting to come on the market when Apple dropped it.
I agree with the poster. When I buy a Professional Macintosh, I don't expect to be nickel and dimed and have to go out and buy a bunch of necessary pieces separately. If I wanted to do that, I'd go buy a Dell at half-price.
"Also, I think free speech _must_ be tempered by respect. I think this is partly why The Cartoons have caused so many problems. We need the right to be able to say anything. But, we need to exercise that right responsibly, and not use it to facilitate hate-speech, and racism."
You had me right up until "hate-speech and racism."
At the risk of thumping a bible, I'm a firm believer in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For example, when Irving was speaking here in Southern California, protesters literally blocked him and anyone who wanted to hear him speak from entering the auditorium. To me, that's just wrong. How would they feel if a bunch of people blocked them from speaking out about how horrible the Holocaust was?
Sometimes exercising freedom of speech means shutting up until the other person has finished.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yes, it was irresponsible of the bloggers to do what they did [...]"
I don't see this. How was it irresponsible? It's called Media Jamming or Culture Jamming. If anything, this has shown how the mainstream media will jump to conclusions rather quickly and without any evidence whatsoever.
What the bloggers did was in no way irresponsible. What they did was prove a point about mainstream media reporting about China. Personally, I applaud these guys. Anybody who reminds the mainstream media that we depend on them to report facts, not speculation, is a hero in my book.
While I wouldn't disagree with your buddy--he's part of the industry and I'm not--I'd also point out that reviewers who say bad things about a product may not get the next product to preview.
So while I'd agree that there is no contract stating that saying bad things may be hazardous to your ability to get further Previews, I'm sure it's implied.
I remember radio stations and record companies working on the same sort of system. If you don't want that hot single after everybody else has it, you'd better be nice and play some of this crap that we want you to play now.
Well, I assume it will be sometime around 2032. Toilet paper will be replaced by three sea shells.
They'll just keep studying it until they get the results they want.
I think you're the only one.
I think subscription services for music will be a tough sell. First, you have over a hundred years of history going against you. For over a hundred years, people have been able to buy music (Player Piano Rolls). That's going to be a tough sell.
Conversely, video has traditionally been a "pay to watch" kind of thing. You went to the movies and paid your money to see the movie. TV, while free to watch, came with commercials. So I think video will be easier to convince people to buy a pay-to-watch subscription service.
That said, I kind of like the way this works and it would be interesting to see Apple do more of this. For example, while I might not pay $40-some-odd dollars to watch a season of 'Lost', I might pay Apple $20 up front for a subscription to 'Lost'. The files can sit on my hard drive until I manage to get around to watching them in much the same way that they are currently sitting on my DVR.
I got hit by iTunes DRM recently and I wasn't amused.
I heard a fun song on TV and wandered over to iTunes to look it up. I found the song and I noticed Apple was also selling the video. Well, I watched the video and, again, thought it was a cute video and I decided to buy that instead of the song. Same thing, right?
Wrong.
I don't own an iPod, so I burn stuff to CD so I can listen to music in my car. Well, I went to burn that video to a CD and got the "Sorry, you're not allowed to do that." message. Now, I can understand that I can't burn a video to an audio CD. But seeing that Apple considers this to be a Music video, I would think iTunes would at least smart enough to say "Hey, you're not going to get the video on an audio CD, but I'll put the audio on the CD..."
The obvious solution was Audio Hijack and Sound Studio, I'll admit. But it irked me enough that I probably won't bother buying anymore videos.
Gives a new meaning to "Don't ask, don't tell."
"Fire has never in the history of buildings brought down a skyscraper (A building in Venezuela I believe it was, which was built at the same time as the twin towers, burned for some 20+ hours and spread over two dozen floors. No collapse). Oh, also, in the mid '40s when a B-25 (a smaller plane, admittedly, than a 757) crashed into the Empire State Building, it didn't collapse, even after burning for longer than either of the twin towers did"
A B-25 is also about a quarter of the weight of a 757 and doesn't use jet fuel. The Empire State Building is constructed differently as well. So it's kind of an apples/oranges thing.
That said, the one that gets me is the implosion factor. The twin towers and one other building essentially collapsed on themselves--kind of like an implosion. I remember seeing a program on Discovery years ago where they talked to the guys who do implosions on buildings. From what I understand, they take a ton of planning.
And yet, three buildings collapsed. Two after being hit by airplanes and one just because it caught on fire.
So, either these guys who tell us that implosions are complex things are lying--just set the building on fire and it'll collapse on it's own--or there's something fishier going on here.
"And besides, all newfangled technology comes with an 'off' switch should you find yourself needing some down time."
20 Minutes Into The Future:
Janie Crane: "Edison... an off switch!"
Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!"
--Max Headroom Episode 16, "Blanks"
"It's that I have a kid, and if my babysitter needs to call me while my kid has a fever or some other accident (god forbid), she should be able to get ahold of me."
Okay, let's start with the obvious. Your kid is sick with a fever and you feel the need to go to the movies? "But Star Wars is opening tonight!" You, my friend, definitely need to check your priorities.
Second, but less obvious, is "some accident." Suppose your kid breaks his leg. Hey, why not, it could happen. Decided to jump off the roof or something like in those Warner Brothers cartoons. You're 20 miles away in a movie theatre. How much immediate help are you going to be? Heck, it will probably take you at least half-an-hour to get home!
Obviously, if the kid breaks his leg, your babysitter will call the hospital. An ambulance will be dispatched and the kid will be taken to the emergency room. The emergency room will stablize the kid and call you before doing anything more severe. When your movie is completed, you will probably notice that you have a voicemail saying that your kid is in the hospital after breaking his leg. You'll call the hospital and tell them that "Yes, it's okay, fix my kid's leg." Problem solved.
Oh and before you go into the "My kid has severe allergies to some drug or another", I'd probably let the babysitter know that so that she could tell the hospital in the event that this happens.
Hell, when I was 19, I was in a serious accident several hundred miles away from my parents--who also happened to be away for the weekend--it happened Friday afternoon and my parents didn't hear about it until Sunday. And yet, somehow, I survived without Mom & Dad there to hold my hand. (Yes, Mom & Dad showed up on Monday but I was so whacked out on Morphine that I don't even remember them being there.)
Don't get me wrong--I agree about the notification. If I am explicitly doing something to prevent your cell phone from working (versus the cell phone company), I should notify you. But the concept that something that you and/or your babysitter decide is an emergency should somehow override my ability to enjoy a movie is dubious at best.
"1. You can 'miss an emergency call' in many places that have poor reception."
...and you sue the owners of the property with the poor reception, the city that the property resides in, the state the city resides in, and George Bush.
:^) :^) :^)
"2. You can 'miss an emergency call' if your battery goes dead. Who will you sue then?"
The battery maker and the phone maker for not warning you IN GREAT BIG LETTERS that phone batteries lose their charge.
Heck, I'm not even a lawyer and I came up with that one. Throw me a tough one...
Even better--y'know when that really tall person with the big hair sits in front of you? Lean forward so your head is right next to his...
"I HATE CELERY!"
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
Pretty girl with her boyfriend. Again, lean forward so your head is right next to his...
"MY HOVERCRAFT IS FULL OF EELS!"
***BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!***
"Oh, Let me offer you my condolences on your boyfriend's untimely death..."
Well, first, we have the obvious issue of a "legitimate emergency."
I was in a theatre recently sitting next to a couple with a child at home. The babysitter called to say that the child was misbehaving and wouldn't go to bed. To the parents, I'm sure this was a "legitimate emergency." Personally, this wasn't what I'd call a "legitimate emergency." Poor parenting in your part is not an emergency in my part.
So, yes, I think it's fine that everyone is being "punished equally." If I owned a theatre, I would certainly do this. I'd have a sign out front saying that the theatre is shielded and return the ticket money of anyone who purchased a ticket and felt they could not be away from their phone in the event of an emergency (such as doctors, volunteer firemen, parents, etc.)
I'd be willing to bet that I wouldn't go broke if I did this. Or at least, no worse than any theatre is going broke today...
Again, if I owned a theatre, I'd do this and advertise it. Heck, it might get people back into the movies.
"What other job would you propose for the thing? It is a low spec machine sold at a very premium pricepoint."
Uh...let's see. Before the $100 price bump, you got a very nice machine in a small package suitable for Mom to see pictures of the grandkids, play solitaire, and not have to call up her son every weekend saying that the computer is "acting funny." All that for $499.
You also have a nice machine for schools and such which might already have keyboards and mice and monitors and just need a cut-rate box. Figure schools probably got them for around $450 (and maybe less in bulk) and that's a pretty good deal.
You're right--the form factor and such made it a great media center machine, too. But it was the pundits who said that--not Apple.
"[...] the simple fact is that if you buy a non-apple mouse there's only a small chance that Steve will creep into your house that night and eat your liver."
Since he's a vegan (or pescatarian or whatever restricted diet he observes), I think you're real safe from him eating your liver.
Phil, on the other hand, looks like he'd eat your liver if you considered using a non-Apple mouse. So you're not completely safe.
Better stick with Linux, I guess.
"2. Using half your memory for your windowing tool will impress all your friends."
Well, sort of. This means you'll need a computer with 2GB of RAM to get any work done. That will, in theory, impress the friends with their piddling little 512MB.
Because, hey, let's face it: Big numbers are always better.
I gotta admit, besides the obvious porn reference, "Jurassic Beavers" has a certain Pythonesque quality to it. Giant Beavers terrorizing the populace or something.
Of course, the first IMAX movie I ever saw was "Beavers".
Cheney Shot First.
"Or if the Republican positions on the ballot weren't at the top (enum 0)"
Well, I would imagine that's because they do it alphabetically. 'Bush' is pretty high, alphabetically.
That was the democrats mistake in 2004! They shouldn't have nominated John Kerry. They should have nominated Carol Moseley Braun. Or Willie Aames.
Remember the destruction of both Death Stars took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This was a nearby/recent event.
It was not the Patriots, so who cares?
How do I build an atomic bomb? [click] ...you win!
However, we've changed your hotel reservations from The Four Seasons to U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. Also your reservations were changed from August 22-24 to right the fuck now get in the car you terrorist bastard.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Well, you're sort of right.
FireWire 800 has caught in pretty well for great big/nonportable hard drives. It's been tough to find a small portable hard drive with FireWire 800.
I recently dropped an external hard drive that I used to carry stuff between work and home. Needless to say, it didn't work after I picked it up (hooray for backups). Since my machine at work is an older G4 without FireWire 800 but my computer at home has FireWire 800, I went looking for a hard drive with FireWire 400 & 800 that would be reasonable to carry between work and home.
No dice. The ones that support FireWire 400 & 800 were too big. The ones that were the right size supported FireWire 400 & USB 2.0. Portable hard drives with FireWire 800 were just starting to come on the market when Apple dropped it.
I agree with the poster. When I buy a Professional Macintosh, I don't expect to be nickel and dimed and have to go out and buy a bunch of necessary pieces separately. If I wanted to do that, I'd go buy a Dell at half-price.
"Also, I think free speech _must_ be tempered by respect. I think this is partly why The Cartoons have caused so many problems. We need the right to be able to say anything. But, we need to exercise that right responsibly, and not use it to facilitate hate-speech, and racism."
You had me right up until "hate-speech and racism."
At the risk of thumping a bible, I'm a firm believer in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For example, when Irving was speaking here in Southern California, protesters literally blocked him and anyone who wanted to hear him speak from entering the auditorium. To me, that's just wrong. How would they feel if a bunch of people blocked them from speaking out about how horrible the Holocaust was?
Sometimes exercising freedom of speech means shutting up until the other person has finished.
Heck, don't go all the way to Austria. Just check out The Smith Act.
By the way, as a laugh, I'm always reminded of a quote by George Will: "The Liberal Conundrum: What to do about graffiti on the free speech monument?"