The cost to buy out these little "free" alternatives is statistical noise in the balance sheet Larry Ellison/Oracle. So they buy the company, patent any IP they think might be useful, and then put development on ice while "their top people" study it (Raiders of the Lost Ark style).
Yes, I've seen it. Yes, I agree that it's mighty nice looking. Yes, I agree that it's a nice hardware package in a relatively light notebook. But no, I can't afford to lose some key applications that I use on the road that need Windows. If it could dual boot, I'd buy one today and keep my relatively heavy (and battery gobbling) HP Athlon 64 3400+ notebook as a desktop replacement.
I'm also waiting for dual boot. I want the hardware simply because I like the way Apple designs their hardware. It's relatively light, sturdy, the internals are pretty full-featured for a small form factor laptop, and it's easy on the eyes. Given the cost is about the same as a duo powered Vaio, you're not really paying a huge "Apple tax" if you decide you don't want to run OSX and want to run Windows or Linux instead. I would definitely consider buying one, but not if it can only run OSX.
Assuming a "de-tag" program doesn't pop up an hour later, what do you do with this wonderful invention? Instead of passing around a "normal" mp3 of Metallica, they're now sharing a "watermarked" version that allegedly can't be discerned by mere humans. How does this help?
Cheers,
Barriers to Entry Falling = More Freedom
on
How Songs Get Popular
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Until relatively recently, the barriers to entry of the music business were sky high because of distribution costs. Now that distribution costs are going into a tailspin (iTunes & Bitorrent...Gracias!), the studios are scared out of their wits. Not because they're so worried about piracy, but because they can be cut out of the game entirely.
So I'm quite content to have actual listeners help shepherd in popular bands rather than have mediocre cookie cutter crap foisted on me by megacorps.
So when the cops show up with a warrant that says "give us XYZ" you should just refuse on moral grounds and go to prison. You do that. I doubt the Chinese government even told Google what the investigation was about. It must be so satisfying to sit back in the safety of your own country and criticize other people who are not running their business up to your "moral" standards and that they should risk their liberty so that you can sleep better at night....
I don't like the Chinese government any more than you do. However, the fact remains that if you intend to do business in THEIR country, you have no choice but to obey their laws. So spare me the naive commentary on how they "should" act. Don't like China? Do your part and don't buy any Chinese products, don't deal with "evil" companies that operate in China....blah blah blah...that strategy seems to be oh so effective in Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.
"Yahoo is better than IBM in 1939 in shades and degree, not principle. There is nothing so craven as a man or men who value profit and wealth greater than liberty."
Oh please. Google is operating a business in China. If the government asks you for your cooperation in an investigation, as is their legal right in THEIR country, you comply. If you don't comply, YOU go to jail and/or get shut down or fined.
This is no different than a US company being served with a search warrant in the US and having the legal obligation to comply with it. Whether or not you agree with the political motivations of the "server" or the company being served is irrelevant. If you're going to do business in a foreign country, it is your obligation to obey their laws...or suffer the consequences. Period. Full stop.
Absolutely. If you must have a slick duo-powered laptop right now, the Macbook Pro is a sweet machine. Pretty interface and unix-ish under the hood. It's not even THAT expensive compared to similar Windows notebooks. Win-win-win.
God forbid they should just write a better OS so we didn't NEED to spend money on anti-virus software.
I don't have a big axe to grind with Microsoft. I use some of their products because the business reality is that I must if I want other people I work with to be able to use my files. Fine, I can live with that. What I'm having difficulty with is that one needs to spend money on anti-spyware and anti-virus software at a bare minimum if they want to have any hope of keeping their net-connected Windows machine from being exploited.
I suspect that as more people get fed up and beging to explore other OSes, like OSX or (gasp) Linux, Microsoft's OS market share will begin to erode at more than the snail's pace it is now. So they're just getting ready for the time that they glom their revenue from these "value added services". I suspect THAT is a much more powerful motivator for them than the prospect of being sued (which they can stave off for many years through legal foot shuffling).
Then I suggest you just walk it like you talk it...and refuse to do business with China and refuse to buy any products originating in China. That seems to be working so well in N. Korea and Cuba. *shrug*
I'm an American businessman. I have offices in the US and I have offices in Beijing. The vast majority of the time, I find Chinese rules to be both restrictive and rigged to favor people in the government or their relatives/friends who just happen to benefit from their official decrees. Fine. Those are the rules. You learn to work within them. The average Chinese person on the street knows good and well that most things they are fed through the official media are censored. I just returned from Beijing a few days ago and since I'm in the tech industry (and speak Mandarin) I asked a few people what they thought. They said they'd rather have some information from outside than none at all. And if you've ever been to China, you know that there are rules and then there are "the rules." There are many avenues of information flow in China. The "real" news might not make the "People's Daily", but Chinese like to "gossip" and genuine news tends to spread, whether the government likes it or not.
I agree wholeheartedly that the only way to dislodge the broken/corrupt government in China is to help create a middle class. That middle class is growing very quickly and it is only a matter of time before they begin to flex their financial/political muscle. As this last crop of 60+ year old Communist leaders dies off, I fully expect China to emerge a stronger and likely much more democratic country. My only hope is that we don't wind up with another "let's dig in our heels" Tiananmen Square confrontation before the geezers throw in the towel.
As much as I hate dealing with this festering pool of opportunists, sometimes you just have to contain your revulsion and deal with a headhunter. With the promise of a fat fee, they can be quite motivated to place you and can often get you "in" to places that would just pass your resume by.
That's not my reason at all. If I buy an intel Mac notebook, it's because of the ergonomics, the weight, the battery life, and Apple hardware support. If I can run Windows or Linux on it, that's a bonus. 75% of my notebook usage is on business trips where I just need something to run an office suite to create/edit documents and to do an occasional presentation. When it's not doing that, it's acting like an expensive DVD player while I'm stuck on long plane flights.
I like the way they look and behave a lot more than I care about whether or not I can boot Windows/Linux.
While it might be a "treat" to be able to see the sweat on the brow of that pr0n actress, I've got WAY too much money invested in my existing DVD collection and home theater system to jump on the "let's upgrade everything so that I can have one of the 10 titles to be available in (roll the dice) whatever HD format rises to the top."
There is absolutely no way I'm going to jump in until I've gotten my money's worth from my existing generation of equipment and media and then I'll consider upgrading IFF (if and only if) there is a bona fide upgrade path that is universally supported. I don't see any evidence of that happening anytime soon.
If this is meant as a mouse for a laptop I am curious to know how bluetooth usage will affect both the battery life of the mouse itself AND the battery life of the laptop. While this is definitely "cool," I don't think the form factor is very functional and then there's the battery issue.
"most iPod owners aren't interested in Microsoft's offerings anyway. So why should Apple make it work? We don't care."
I suspect there are vastly more ipod owners than Mac owners. What do you think those other folks are using for a computer? I'm no fan of Microsoft either, but I don't think Apple has the clout to continue going alone. Eventually, when they feel they have the necessary leverage, the labels are going to pull the rug out from under Apple and price them out of the market.
Personally, while I like the ipod as an appliance, I only use mine with non-DRM'ed mp3 songs that I rip and put on it myself. I don't use the iTunes store at all....
The over abundance of these idiotic "reality" shows is just completely out of hand. I don't even turn on network TV anymore except for a vanishingly small number of shows (Boston Legal, NCIS, CSI, 24). At the current rate of degradation, I figure I can write off traditional network TV entirely in another couple of years.
I also hope they get more episodes for the next season. Ten eps left me feeling a bit wanting at the end. I'm glad the SciFi channel is starting to get some recognition for their attention to detail and great writing for this series.
The AMD 4800+ was faster in a LOT of the benchmarks, it's cheaper, it uses less power, and it's available today while the Intel part will be available in limited quantities sometime in January.
I think this is one of those times that Intel would prefer to have the benchmarkers say nothing and silently release their white elephant. 8-)
You cannot legislate away theft. If you want to curb it, you have to remove the economic incentive to steal. For music/video, you do that by making it easier/cheaper to buy the content from a legitimate distributor than to copy it. The "man" thinks they can also do this by limiting the quality of the output from illegitimate sources (using onerous copy protection systems that probably won't work anyway). They need to believe this if they have any hope of maintaining their rather excessive markups on their product. I am of the opinion that they'll kick and scream some more and eventually mostly give up and use pricing to fight piracy. But we'll see....
If you follow the reasoning of the gun control lobby in the US, you would expect the RIAA to go after the software/hardware manufacturers in addition to pinning the blame on the ultimate consumer. I suspect the reason you don't see that happening is that the Dell's and the Microsoft's of the world have a large enough financial warchest to make it very costly avenue to pursue. So they go after mom and pop because they get a lot of press showing how "bad" file sharing is and mom and pop are likely to just roll over and settle to make the problem go away (since they don't want to spend their life savings on a lawyer to fight an idiotic court case).
1. Firstly, how does a blatant advertisement like this get posted in the first place?
2. It's only 16" deep, but it's THREE RU tall. Where's this "space savings" they're talking about? 1/2RU, 1RU, and blade servers are where it's at for saving space.
Slashdot Mirror
The cost to buy out these little "free" alternatives is statistical noise in the balance sheet Larry Ellison/Oracle. So they buy the company, patent any IP they think might be useful, and then put development on ice while "their top people" study it (Raiders of the Lost Ark style).
Yes, I've seen it. Yes, I agree that it's mighty nice looking. Yes, I agree that it's a nice hardware package in a relatively light notebook. But no, I can't afford to lose some key applications that I use on the road that need Windows. If it could dual boot, I'd buy one today and keep my relatively heavy (and battery gobbling) HP Athlon 64 3400+ notebook as a desktop replacement.
Would be finding a way to allow Apple systems with Intel processor to dual-boot Linux or Windows.
I'm also waiting for dual boot. I want the hardware simply because I like the way Apple designs their hardware. It's relatively light, sturdy, the internals are pretty full-featured for a small form factor laptop, and it's easy on the eyes. Given the cost is about the same as a duo powered Vaio, you're not really paying a huge "Apple tax" if you decide you don't want to run OSX and want to run Windows or Linux instead. I would definitely consider buying one, but not if it can only run OSX.
Cheers,
OK, so you tag downloads. Now what?
Assuming a "de-tag" program doesn't pop up an hour later, what do you do with this wonderful invention? Instead of passing around a "normal" mp3 of Metallica, they're now sharing a "watermarked" version that allegedly can't be discerned by mere humans. How does this help?
Cheers,
Until relatively recently, the barriers to entry of the music business were sky high because of distribution costs. Now that distribution costs are going into a tailspin (iTunes & Bitorrent...Gracias!), the studios are scared out of their wits. Not because they're so worried about piracy, but because they can be cut out of the game entirely.
So I'm quite content to have actual listeners help shepherd in popular bands rather than have mediocre cookie cutter crap foisted on me by megacorps.
"So when the Nazis were rounding up the Jews"
So when the cops show up with a warrant that says "give us XYZ" you should just refuse on moral grounds and go to prison. You do that. I doubt the Chinese government even told Google what the investigation was about. It must be so satisfying to sit back in the safety of your own country and criticize other people who are not running their business up to your "moral" standards and that they should risk their liberty so that you can sleep better at night....
I don't like the Chinese government any more than you do. However, the fact remains that if you intend to do business in THEIR country, you have no choice but to obey their laws. So spare me the naive commentary on how they "should" act. Don't like China? Do your part and don't buy any Chinese products, don't deal with "evil" companies that operate in China....blah blah blah...that strategy seems to be oh so effective in Cuba, North Korea, and Iran.
"Yahoo is better than IBM in 1939 in shades and degree, not principle. There is nothing so craven as a man or men who value profit and wealth greater than liberty." Oh please. Google is operating a business in China. If the government asks you for your cooperation in an investigation, as is their legal right in THEIR country, you comply. If you don't comply, YOU go to jail and/or get shut down or fined. This is no different than a US company being served with a search warrant in the US and having the legal obligation to comply with it. Whether or not you agree with the political motivations of the "server" or the company being served is irrelevant. If you're going to do business in a foreign country, it is your obligation to obey their laws...or suffer the consequences. Period. Full stop.
Absolutely. If you must have a slick duo-powered laptop right now, the Macbook Pro is a sweet machine. Pretty interface and unix-ish under the hood. It's not even THAT expensive compared to similar Windows notebooks. Win-win-win.
God forbid they should just write a better OS so we didn't NEED to spend money on anti-virus software.
I don't have a big axe to grind with Microsoft. I use some of their products because the business reality is that I must if I want other people I work with to be able to use my files. Fine, I can live with that. What I'm having difficulty with is that one needs to spend money on anti-spyware and anti-virus software at a bare minimum if they want to have any hope of keeping their net-connected Windows machine from being exploited.
I suspect that as more people get fed up and beging to explore other OSes, like OSX or (gasp) Linux, Microsoft's OS market share will begin to erode at more than the snail's pace it is now. So they're just getting ready for the time that they glom their revenue from these "value added services". I suspect THAT is a much more powerful motivator for them than the prospect of being sued (which they can stave off for many years through legal foot shuffling).
Then I suggest you just walk it like you talk it...and refuse to do business with China and refuse to buy any products originating in China. That seems to be working so well in N. Korea and Cuba. *shrug*
I'm an American businessman. I have offices in the US and I have offices in Beijing. The vast majority of the time, I find Chinese rules to be both restrictive and rigged to favor people in the government or their relatives/friends who just happen to benefit from their official decrees. Fine. Those are the rules. You learn to work within them. The average Chinese person on the street knows good and well that most things they are fed through the official media are censored. I just returned from Beijing a few days ago and since I'm in the tech industry (and speak Mandarin) I asked a few people what they thought. They said they'd rather have some information from outside than none at all. And if you've ever been to China, you know that there are rules and then there are "the rules." There are many avenues of information flow in China. The "real" news might not make the "People's Daily", but Chinese like to "gossip" and genuine news tends to spread, whether the government likes it or not.
I agree wholeheartedly that the only way to dislodge the broken/corrupt government in China is to help create a middle class. That middle class is growing very quickly and it is only a matter of time before they begin to flex their financial/political muscle. As this last crop of 60+ year old Communist leaders dies off, I fully expect China to emerge a stronger and likely much more democratic country. My only hope is that we don't wind up with another "let's dig in our heels" Tiananmen Square confrontation before the geezers throw in the towel.
Hope springs eternal.
Cowboy Neal.
Yes, the employer pays them. I wasn't suggesting that the job seeker pay them.
Cheers,
As much as I hate dealing with this festering pool of opportunists, sometimes you just have to contain your revulsion and deal with a headhunter. With the promise of a fat fee, they can be quite motivated to place you and can often get you "in" to places that would just pass your resume by.
That's not my reason at all. If I buy an intel Mac notebook, it's because of the ergonomics, the weight, the battery life, and Apple hardware support. If I can run Windows or Linux on it, that's a bonus. 75% of my notebook usage is on business trips where I just need something to run an office suite to create/edit documents and to do an occasional presentation. When it's not doing that, it's acting like an expensive DVD player while I'm stuck on long plane flights.
I like the way they look and behave a lot more than I care about whether or not I can boot Windows/Linux.
While it might be a "treat" to be able to see the sweat on the brow of that pr0n actress, I've got WAY too much money invested in my existing DVD collection and home theater system to jump on the "let's upgrade everything so that I can have one of the 10 titles to be available in (roll the dice) whatever HD format rises to the top."
There is absolutely no way I'm going to jump in until I've gotten my money's worth from my existing generation of equipment and media and then I'll consider upgrading IFF (if and only if) there is a bona fide upgrade path that is universally supported. I don't see any evidence of that happening anytime soon.
If this is meant as a mouse for a laptop I am curious to know how bluetooth usage will affect both the battery life of the mouse itself AND the battery life of the laptop. While this is definitely "cool," I don't think the form factor is very functional and then there's the battery issue.
"most iPod owners aren't interested in Microsoft's offerings anyway. So why should Apple make it work? We don't care."
I suspect there are vastly more ipod owners than Mac owners. What do you think those other folks are using for a computer? I'm no fan of Microsoft either, but I don't think Apple has the clout to continue going alone. Eventually, when they feel they have the necessary leverage, the labels are going to pull the rug out from under Apple and price them out of the market.
Personally, while I like the ipod as an appliance, I only use mine with non-DRM'ed mp3 songs that I rip and put on it myself. I don't use the iTunes store at all....
The over abundance of these idiotic "reality" shows is just completely out of hand. I don't even turn on network TV anymore except for a vanishingly small number of shows (Boston Legal, NCIS, CSI, 24). At the current rate of degradation, I figure I can write off traditional network TV entirely in another couple of years.
I also hope they get more episodes for the next season. Ten eps left me feeling a bit wanting at the end. I'm glad the SciFi channel is starting to get some recognition for their attention to detail and great writing for this series.
The AMD 4800+ was faster in a LOT of the benchmarks, it's cheaper, it uses less power, and it's available today while the Intel part will be available in limited quantities sometime in January.
I think this is one of those times that Intel would prefer to have the benchmarkers say nothing and silently release their white elephant. 8-)
You cannot legislate away theft. If you want to curb it, you have to remove the economic incentive to steal. For music/video, you do that by making it easier/cheaper to buy the content from a legitimate distributor than to copy it. The "man" thinks they can also do this by limiting the quality of the output from illegitimate sources (using onerous copy protection systems that probably won't work anyway). They need to believe this if they have any hope of maintaining their rather excessive markups on their product. I am of the opinion that they'll kick and scream some more and eventually mostly give up and use pricing to fight piracy. But we'll see....
If you follow the reasoning of the gun control lobby in the US, you would expect the RIAA to go after the software/hardware manufacturers in addition to pinning the blame on the ultimate consumer. I suspect the reason you don't see that happening is that the Dell's and the Microsoft's of the world have a large enough financial warchest to make it very costly avenue to pursue. So they go after mom and pop because they get a lot of press showing how "bad" file sharing is and mom and pop are likely to just roll over and settle to make the problem go away (since they don't want to spend their life savings on a lawyer to fight an idiotic court case).
1. Firstly, how does a blatant advertisement like this get posted in the first place?
2. It's only 16" deep, but it's THREE RU tall. Where's this "space savings" they're talking about? 1/2RU, 1RU, and blade servers are where it's at for saving space.
Happy Boxing Day!