That's no mystery. Why do you think your third-party insurance asks you what car you drive with? It's because certain vehicles are far more likely to be involved in certain types of accidents.
And even if you isolate "these sorts of accidents" (people blaming the accelerator or specific sequence of events?) and have a significant deviation, that still has a million other explanations such as people being used to driving Fords and then getting into a Toyota.
There are faults for sure. Cruise control isn't entirely intuitive, the floor mats sometimes move about and can cause problems etc. etc.
But this isn't unique to Toyota. I could rant all day about cars I've driven with asshole designs round the accelerator which were practically designed to catch your shoes. You're probably far more likely to find these types of issues with other Brands though. Toyota vehicles have traditionally been far more polished than many of their competitors.
That sounds ridiculous. Am I supposed to carry around everything of any value whenever I park my car? Who the fuck "attends" their car anyway? Am I not far more likely to have something stolen if I have to carry bags around? Like when sitting on a park bench?
Surely? Your use of words shows how picky you are. The creative industry is far more complex. People could show you cancelled projects and piracy statistics without end, and you would insist that there were other factors and hence it isn't proof. That's not how markets work. There are so many productions that are on the verge of profitability. Many won't be profitable even if there were no piracy whatsoever. But piracy certainly does diminish the target market in such a way that in some cases it may be just too small to be worth their while.
Games publishers say that they are simply not interested in the PC any more. The games don't make enough money. If you look at some of the piracy statistics, you can guess that if a fraction of the pirates had bought the games, they might be interested in making them again.
Same goes for C64 games. Loved by fans, but everyone was too cheap to buy them and just copied them instead. As a result many of the smaller developers of the era simply couldn't make any money on the system. Nintendo meanwhile had the best anti-piracy protection of the day, and raked in endless profits. This attracted more and more developers and publishers.
I don't see how this is an issue though. You don't have any choice of Skype clients. Ekiga is basically a drop-in replacement for Skype. You can also use any compatible software.
That's a common defense argument but I don't see how this solves the problems. Even with utility windows you still keep losing focusand and are constantly shuffling around pop-ups to get to menu items or even just to see your image. To completely master Gimp's behavior you need a tiling window manager with custom settings. And that's way too overkill to just get an application to behave consistently, and also a whole lot uglier.
Jailbreaking is the easy part. The hard part is finding high quality software.
And while it might be easy now, how do we know that Apple won't crack down on it big-time somewhere in the future and ruin all the years work for everyone who put time into jailbroken iPhones? Judging by heir history, we can't expect Apple to be too lenient here.
We all know about the option of Jailbreaking, but it's a really miserable experience on the iPhone. Apple keep bringing updates which you have to avoid, until you sure it's safe, iTunes compatibility keeps breaking, much of the software is neither reliable or even any good, and every useful jailbroken app seems to switch to trial and shareware models the second it gets popular. Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is a really nice phone and you can do really neat things with it. But working around a manufacturer intent on stopping you results in a sytem that's far too kludgy and is nowhere near are flexible and as clean as the alternatives.
Get a VOIP phone, but avoid Skype at all costs. They're not particularly cheap for a VOIP gateway, and you're locked in with the phone and their service. Get a standard SIP device instead. How about this one?
Music collection societies are the seediest groups in the copyright industry. They bully and exploit their own members, and fight free culture with all earnest. Thanks to them we have blank media levies, and their members are forced to anti-competitive licensing agreements. They usually have monopoly status in their respective markets, so they wield an incredible amount of power.
This whole discussion began because I pointed out that the iPhone is more than capable of playing Flash.
Capable, but not allowed as per License Agreement.
There is no restriction to playing Flash content.
Oh yes there is.
I even showed someone (not Adobe) who has provided a working Flash implementation. Why do you feel you have to give up the Flash development environment?
Because that's what Apple's license agreement says. What's so hard to understand? A Flash interpreter is an illegal tool on the iPhone. Neither is it allowed to convert it to some inefficient Javascript code.
Apple has two platforms on the iPhone. Their open one (HTML5) and their closed one (App Store).
HTML5 isn't close to being a computing platform and the Appstore isn't even a platform, it's the only way to install any native code on the iPhone as a platform.
the fact remains that there is nothing stopping Adobe from bringing Flash to the iPhone except themselves.
They already made a tool, but Steve Jobs stopped anybody from using it. Where have you been hiding these last months?
The Demo you linked is pretty neat, but like all the other examples just shows that it's still completely inadequate.
Look buddy, you're talking about hypothetical games that would be possible when somebody figures out how to make these hypothetical environments and someone comes along and makes the hypothetical tools to finally replace Flash.
At the moment we haven't got anything comparable that would be useful and we're probably many years away from anything that would be adequate. It's unbelievable how you're trying to spin Apple's anti-competitive restrictions into some sort of noble promotion of open platforms. Especially when they're essentially non-existant and Adobe will let you build native iPhone code from your Flash project.
On the iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad, HTML5 applications are installable to the springboard and will load without a network connection. They appear to the end user just like a native app, but without the need for App Store access.
Neither does Apple. They assemble their own products (computers, phones and monitors) using products developed by other companies (Display Panels and Microprocessors). Sure, like any good manufacturer they employ some really talented engineers and they do seek to be first to market new bleeding-edge technology, resulting in close cooperation with manufacturers. But to suggest they deserve the same credit as say Samsung, Sharp or Intel who do have labs making new displays and chips is highly inaccurate.
The App store is of primary concern. Don't forget what we're talking about here. Apple prevents developers from using any cross-platform tools for developing on the iPhone. Basically they're preventing people from developing Apps which can easily be ported.
Hyper-Text-Markup-Language is completely inadequate. Javascript can execute programs, but at the moment it's pretty useless for creating complex games with more than basic graphics.
As developers Adobe would certainly be interested in it. But don't expect them to invest much into the platform. Apple has permanently ruined their credibility with regard to third-party tool developers. Adobe have been badly burned by Apple's whimsical policy changes.
Nintendo are quite user-friendly in this respect. With every Update they explicitly warn you that it deletes Homebrew software and could brick your Wii. And apart from deleting the channels, they don't purposely attempt to do more damage. Microsoft OTOH don't give you any warning, brick your console, and block your account.
And the fact that Apple won't allow interpreters of any kind. Thus you're at the mercy of Apple's selective implementation of web standards. If they were to play this game with Apple it would only give them more justification to claim it's slow.
You do realize that your link is just emulating a flash player in Javascript don't you? It's like Adobe's player, but worse. I suppose it illustrates my point though. There simply are no tools out there that can replace the Flash tools we need, and Apple is stupid to suggest we all abandon it. It seems the Smokescreen developers agree with me
Oh for fucks sake! How is this Flash's fault? The BBC designed and implemented the player. Flash can handle multitouch fine, and it's up to web designers to make their sites accessible for mobile devices.
The only reason we have Flash Video is because Quicktime sucked so hard. I say the more competition the better.
There's plenty of bad iPhone experiences out there too. And there are plenty of well-written flash games and applications. Apple's suggested alternative to Flash? Javascript and SVG! LOL, give me a break.
Capturing the raw packets is a technical detail that was important to their job. They never intended to use the personal details in any way, as it would hardly have been useful. Consider this: You're a sound engineer interested in recording environmental sounds, so you go about town with a microphone listening to cars and such. While doing this you will inevitably pick up small parts of people's conversation. Some of it might even be personal or confidential. All in all however, it's mainly incoherent and useless information. Now, is it your fault for wanting to record sound? Should you have to immediatly purge all of your recordings for any voices?
And back to your peeper: Is it a Birdwatcher's fault if he happens to be in the forest and sees a couple having sex? Has he violated their privacy? Sure, the lovers might reasonably think it unlikely for anyone to spot them, but it's not as if anyone went looking for them either.
Slashdot Mirror
That's no mystery. Why do you think your third-party insurance asks you what car you drive with? It's because certain vehicles are far more likely to be involved in certain types of accidents.
And even if you isolate "these sorts of accidents" (people blaming the accelerator or specific sequence of events?) and have a significant deviation, that still has a million other explanations such as people being used to driving Fords and then getting into a Toyota.
There are faults for sure. Cruise control isn't entirely intuitive, the floor mats sometimes move about and can cause problems etc. etc.
But this isn't unique to Toyota. I could rant all day about cars I've driven with asshole designs round the accelerator which were practically designed to catch your shoes.
You're probably far more likely to find these types of issues with other Brands though. Toyota vehicles have traditionally been far more polished than many of their competitors.
That sounds ridiculous. Am I supposed to carry around everything of any value whenever I park my car? Who the fuck "attends" their car anyway? Am I not far more likely to have something stolen if I have to carry bags around? Like when sitting on a park bench?
Surely? Your use of words shows how picky you are. The creative industry is far more complex. People could show you cancelled projects and piracy statistics without end, and you would insist that there were other factors and hence it isn't proof.
That's not how markets work. There are so many productions that are on the verge of profitability. Many won't be profitable even if there were no piracy whatsoever. But piracy certainly does diminish the target market in such a way that in some cases it may be just too small to be worth their while.
Games publishers say that they are simply not interested in the PC any more. The games don't make enough money. If you look at some of the piracy statistics, you can guess that if a fraction of the pirates had bought the games, they might be interested in making them again.
Same goes for C64 games. Loved by fans, but everyone was too cheap to buy them and just copied them instead. As a result many of the smaller developers of the era simply couldn't make any money on the system.
Nintendo meanwhile had the best anti-piracy protection of the day, and raked in endless profits. This attracted more and more developers and publishers.
Or for a more exaustive list: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sip+client+%2Bvideo+%2Bfile+transfer
I don't see how this is an issue though. You don't have any choice of Skype clients.
Ekiga is basically a drop-in replacement for Skype. You can also use any compatible software.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software#General_softphone_clients
http://ekiga.org/
That's a common defense argument but I don't see how this solves the problems.
Even with utility windows you still keep losing focusand and are constantly shuffling around pop-ups to get to menu items or even just to see your image.
To completely master Gimp's behavior you need a tiling window manager with custom settings. And that's way too overkill to just get an application to behave consistently, and also a whole lot uglier.
Jailbreaking is the easy part. The hard part is finding high quality software.
And while it might be easy now, how do we know that Apple won't crack down on it big-time somewhere in the future and ruin all the years work for everyone who put time into jailbroken iPhones? Judging by heir history, we can't expect Apple to be too lenient here.
We all know about the option of Jailbreaking, but it's a really miserable experience on the iPhone. Apple keep bringing updates which you have to avoid, until you sure it's safe, iTunes compatibility keeps breaking, much of the software is neither reliable or even any good, and every useful jailbroken app seems to switch to trial and shareware models the second it gets popular.
Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is a really nice phone and you can do really neat things with it. But working around a manufacturer intent on stopping you results in a sytem that's far too kludgy and is nowhere near are flexible and as clean as the alternatives.
Get a VOIP phone, but avoid Skype at all costs. They're not particularly cheap for a VOIP gateway, and you're locked in with the phone and their service. Get a standard SIP device instead.
How about this one?
Music collection societies are the seediest groups in the copyright industry. They bully and exploit their own members, and fight free culture with all earnest. Thanks to them we have blank media levies, and their members are forced to anti-competitive licensing agreements. They usually have monopoly status in their respective markets, so they wield an incredible amount of power.
This whole discussion began because I pointed out that the iPhone is more than capable of playing Flash.
Capable, but not allowed as per License Agreement.
There is no restriction to playing Flash content.
Oh yes there is.
I even showed someone (not Adobe) who has provided a working Flash implementation. Why do you feel you have to give up the Flash development environment?
Because that's what Apple's license agreement says. What's so hard to understand? A Flash interpreter is an illegal tool on the iPhone. Neither is it allowed to convert it to some inefficient Javascript code.
Apple has two platforms on the iPhone. Their open one (HTML5) and their closed one (App Store).
HTML5 isn't close to being a computing platform and the Appstore isn't even a platform, it's the only way to install any native code on the iPhone as a platform.
the fact remains that there is nothing stopping Adobe from bringing Flash to the iPhone except themselves.
They already made a tool, but Steve Jobs stopped anybody from using it. Where have you been hiding these last months?
The Demo you linked is pretty neat, but like all the other examples just shows that it's still completely inadequate.
Look buddy, you're talking about hypothetical games that would be possible when somebody figures out how to make these hypothetical environments and someone comes along and makes the hypothetical tools to finally replace Flash.
At the moment we haven't got anything comparable that would be useful and we're probably many years away from anything that would be adequate.
It's unbelievable how you're trying to spin Apple's anti-competitive restrictions into some sort of noble promotion of open platforms. Especially when they're essentially non-existant and Adobe will let you build native iPhone code from your Flash project.
On the iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad, HTML5 applications are installable to the springboard and will load without a network connection. They appear to the end user just like a native app, but without the need for App Store access.
News to me. How?
Neither does Apple. They assemble their own products (computers, phones and monitors) using products developed by other companies (Display Panels and Microprocessors). Sure, like any good manufacturer they employ some really talented engineers and they do seek to be first to market new bleeding-edge technology, resulting in close cooperation with manufacturers. But to suggest they deserve the same credit as say Samsung, Sharp or Intel who do have labs making new displays and chips is highly inaccurate.
The App store is of primary concern. Don't forget what we're talking about here. Apple prevents developers from using any cross-platform tools for developing on the iPhone. Basically they're preventing people from developing Apps which can easily be ported.
Hyper-Text-Markup-Language is completely inadequate. Javascript can execute programs, but at the moment it's pretty useless for creating complex games with more than basic graphics.
As developers Adobe would certainly be interested in it. But don't expect them to invest much into the platform. Apple has permanently ruined their credibility with regard to third-party tool developers. Adobe have been badly burned by Apple's whimsical policy changes.
A happy consumer is worth shit if you're losing money.
Nintendo are quite user-friendly in this respect. With every Update they explicitly warn you that it deletes Homebrew software and could brick your Wii. And apart from deleting the channels, they don't purposely attempt to do more damage. Microsoft OTOH don't give you any warning, brick your console, and block your account.
And the fact that Apple won't allow interpreters of any kind. Thus you're at the mercy of Apple's selective implementation of web standards. If they were to play this game with Apple it would only give them more justification to claim it's slow.
You do realize that your link is just emulating a flash player in Javascript don't you? It's like Adobe's player, but worse. I suppose it illustrates my point though. There simply are no tools out there that can replace the Flash tools we need, and Apple is stupid to suggest we all abandon it. It seems the Smokescreen developers agree with me
Oh for fucks sake! How is this Flash's fault? The BBC designed and implemented the player. Flash can handle multitouch fine, and it's up to web designers to make their sites accessible for mobile devices.
The only reason we have Flash Video is because Quicktime sucked so hard. I say the more competition the better.
There's plenty of bad iPhone experiences out there too. And there are plenty of well-written flash games and applications. Apple's suggested alternative to Flash? Javascript and SVG! LOL, give me a break.
Capturing the raw packets is a technical detail that was important to their job. They never intended to use the personal details in any way, as it would hardly have been useful.
Consider this: You're a sound engineer interested in recording environmental sounds, so you go about town with a microphone listening to cars and such. While doing this you will inevitably pick up small parts of people's conversation. Some of it might even be personal or confidential. All in all however, it's mainly incoherent and useless information. Now, is it your fault for wanting to record sound? Should you have to immediatly purge all of your recordings for any voices?
And back to your peeper: Is it a Birdwatcher's fault if he happens to be in the forest and sees a couple having sex? Has he violated their privacy? Sure, the lovers might reasonably think it unlikely for anyone to spot them, but it's not as if anyone went looking for them either.