Not necessarily. I would be totally cool if (with the purchase of my DVD) it came with software to rip it in a format that suits my DRM enabled media player best. This means that only I can use it, I can't use it to distribute to the whole world. I'm totally fine with that because it fits in with the idea of Fair Use (because I still get to use it the way I want) and they still 'feel' better that it has some form of DRM on it. That's a win-win to me.
...that is, until you have some player or device that isn't supported by their ripping program.
Or, 5 years from now, when the operating system that the program was written for is no longer available, and you no longer have the tools to make your fair use copies....Or, 10 years from now when your original media is scratched and you want to restore a copy from your backup.
While in theory DRM and Fair Use can coexist, the DMCA prevents "future proofing" anything. Furthermore since Fair Use isn't legally defined you have no guarantees as to functionality over time; it is at the publisher's sole discretion. Possibly more importantly, any DRM system needs to "time out" at its copyright expiration.
The movie industry should be smarter than Music, but they really need to be proactive to understand the differences between people's needs bot now and in the future. DRM doesn't help that move. Watermarking might, but it is not easy to make it really solve their problems. How granular can you be?
One thing that bewilders me is that I've heard there's even incompatibility issues between Office for Windows and Office for Macs.
From a formatting persepctive, the two are very close (not like previous versions, anyway). This hasn't been a problem for me at all, even working with complex applications.
Macros are hard; the benefits they offer are hard to ignore, but compatibility is difficult to achieve between applications. The idea of an interstitial language for data manipulation is great, but how many layers can really be supported?
If on average it is only 12 songs that are purchased, the prospective "switcher" will either burn a single CD, live without the songs, or re-purchase for a whopping $12. It's an invisible barrier... there is no real impact, just a small hassle factor afterwards.
The reality for many people is more that they are locked into iTunes Store rather than being locked into the iPod. Content from other providers isn't available on the iPod. This is a problem for the record labels more than the consumers. For the consumers (at least for myself), the biggest issue is that I can't buy higher quality songs that will play on my iPod from another vendor. This gets right back to the root of the issue-- who does DRM benefit.
The labels intended for it to benefit themselves. What it has really done is given the power to another party (Apple iTS), because it is the only store selling DRM major label content that will work with 78% of the music players sold today. Apple doesn't benefit from this situation given the fact that iTS does not make a significant profit, especially when compared to customer satisfaction concerns.
There is a lot more to the CAD world than just being able to draw lines. Arcitosh is nowhere close to the big picture that is required. Drawings move between different companies with the expectation of compatibility. We use AutoCAD 2007 but most of our customers use 2004-- this alone is a challenge. The biggest hope is when a viable competitor can come out with a solid professional level CAD package with automation support for less than $800. At that price point, there is hope.
I hoped Omni Graffe would work for me... it did many things better than Visio... but smart blocks from Visio weren't compatible in it. Other programs I have tried like Excel substitutes (Mariner Calc was one) couldn't even handle merged cells in a spreadsheet.
Primavera has hope, but the big picture still has a lot of major holes.
Again, for myself, I can work around limitations... but many of my co-workers can't. I hope things get better over the next year.
I'm in a similar position as the GP; every so often, someone has a problem opening my Word 2004 documents. Word also crashes often if Parallels is running (as does Excel and PowerPoint). Word is a lot more finicky on an Intel Mac than it is on the old PPC units.
BUT... I enjoy working on my Mac so much more than the XP boxes every one else has. This even though I really like keyboard-only navigation, which is impractical on a Mac.
Apple needs to do a better job of simplifying management of XP, Mac, and Linux boxes without purchasing a quite expensive Mac server. Without that, Windows keeps creeping back in.
For me, it is AutoCAD and Visio. I can get a substitute for Visio (happily), but it isn't 100% compatible with the rest of the world. Autodesk is not nearly as flexible; there really aren't any similarly mature programs available for Mac or Linux. I'm sure I could find a substitute for MS Project, but I don't think Primavera is available for Macs.
I still use a mac at work (with parallels installed), just need to go out to the bullpen to use a windows machine for anything requiring more than 15 minutes with AutoCAD.
We should have been able to buy two new Mac laptops instead of Dells, but this issue kept us from it. Maybe the next two...
Retail scuba equipment has a 200% markup; it is the lifeblood of most dive shops. Price fixing is done to keep the incentive to the dive shops to sell equipment and foster interest in the field.
I use DiversDiscount.com when I can't get trade prices; good service and prices.
From the other article linked in the comments, sounds like it has a maximum range of 17mi (not sure if that is range or coverage area), and is designed to be mounted on the bottom of a helicopter. Sure it is also possible to mount it from a mast if available, but quick deployments, a helicopter or balloon would make sense.
From my personal experience (3 years of travelling in SE Asia), the only reason to bring your laptop is if you are doing work, or financial transactions where the risk of a keylogger in an internet cafe is not tolerable. I was stuck with three laptops for a while (wife's and two for me), and it was hell. Making matters worse, we are also scuba divers, and have a lot of gear for that with us. Traveling light is so much more relaxing.
Do remember that every device you bring that requires a dedicated cord will also complicate matters. All the cords took up almost as much space as the gadgets themselves.
Gadgets I had with me: -Laptop - Heavily used, primarily for work. -Nokia 770 - Heavily used for a while, mainly for web access. -Motorola V360 (tri-band phone with Edge) - Heavily used for internet access for laptop or 770. One less cord, since it could use mini-usb cable to charge. -Blackberry - Heavily used, half for work, half for web browsing. -GPS - Magellan Explorist 500 - Used initially, not especially useful without purchasing all the maps for wherever you will be. Default maps weren't accurate enough (coastlines) for any reason, failed to download additional "free" maps, and it had a goofy extra cord. -iPod - Heavily used -Altec Lansing foldable iPod stereo with charger - Very heavily used. Extra power brick, but eliminates the need for the iPod charger. -Digital Rebel Camera, three or four lenses - Occasionally used... just too big. -Pentax Optio 5SI Camera - Heavily used (for any digital camera, get a second battery pack. Battery packs work better than AA's.) -Travel tripod - Occasionally used, mainly for steadying night time shots. -External hard drives - Rarely used. -iStick USB Drive - Heavily used, should have had several extra. -DVD Burner for backups. The frigging brick was never once used. I tried once, actually, but it just made coasters. -Airport Express base station - Fairly well used, good for places where I could bridge the signal. -14dB Gain WiFi antenna and 30 fricking feet of coax - Well intentioned, never opened.
If you are just kicking back and seeing the world (and not telecommuting), keep things very simple. If you plan on staying in one place for 6 months, the creature comforts are nice, as is a source of information.
I was always jealous of the people with 40L backpacks that could travel for a year. My wife and I traveled with our body weight in luggage.
While now I am one of 7 people in LA that ride a bike to work, I was once one of hundreds of people that rode their bike to classes through the snow wearing Birkenstocks (you know... because they were cool...). With the right gear, you can always ride a bike, although comfortable distance does drop off pretty quickly.
You can ride a bike to work no matter where you live, if you live a reasonable distance away.
It is below Lan Kwai Fong. Maybe the first thing they should do is turn off the freaking escalators and have people walk up the stairs! As for the benefits of converting pedal power to useful power, it's a nice idea, especially as it would convert part of what is now heat to useful energy, reducing AC costs.
Write their own apps, very few. Install apps that someone with a particular need created... quite a few. On my Blackberry, I have at least 3 applications from third party developers that are critical to me now. My Nokia 770 is closer to how I see the iPhone working for me; on that I had dozens of applications that were not part of Nokia's plans for the device.
While Nokia integrating the features themselves would have (hopefully) created a better user experience, expecting them to create everything I need would be foolish.
I hope Apple does come up with a good way for developers to create applications to serve niches, and lets the iPhone become more than just another phone.
When I left my previous employer and started a business with other former co-workers, we were afraid of being sued. It does happen, and is generally baseless but an effective means of tying up capital for a small company.
Here in California, non-competes are not enforceable-- you can't prevent an employee from making a living. However, two interesting things do crop up: 1. You can't steal employees from your former employer; and 2. If you have stock/options in the company (and signed a stock agreement) you are held to a higher standard.
What's odd about the situation the OP described is that only an idiot would sue before you actually started the new job. Scare tactics like "Our lawyers are looking into this" are common; I even got a letter from a lawyer hired by the previous company about suspending buyback of my stock. We hired two lawyers to send letters back to the company, and everything was restored to normalcy pretty quickly.
After the experience, I now think that it is a good idea to be cautious of lawsuits, and to operate in an ethical way towards any former employers. This is especially true if you are starting up your own business.
I've lost 3 48G's to baggage handling. I got the new one... the keys aren't nearly as nice, but it does have USB and SD slots. Cannot deal with non-RPN calculators, but it's hard to understand why they move keys around without "real" upgrades to the systems.
As someone else said, it's a shame HP abandoned development on the calculators.
Cingular is definitely "beige" as you state, but they have a better footprint than T-Mobile, more users (in the US), and more marketing budget. (Sadly, this is mainly because they charge more...)
It would have been foolish to go with Verizon or Sprint, since the phones can't travel internationally.
I would have preferred Apple as an MVNO (as an investor), but that would have been a challenge as well. At that point, the carriers have leverage against them...
I think the iPhone is a work of art. Beautiful, functional, and a perfect embodiment of what Steve Jobs must want. Unfortunately, he doesn't want the same things as me, which just might kill it for me.
Lack of 3rd party apps will kill the iPhone, at least as a smartphone. While the Blackberry is pretty cool out of the box, it takes a couple extra 3rd party applications to really make it shine.
Hopefully, Jobs statement is more in line with what is required for the blackberry - applications must be signed, and you pay ~$100 for a developer license which lets you sign anything you want. Time will tell.
While I agree in concept that a keyboard is going to be faster and more reliable, there are plenty of interesting tricks that *could* be done to make it work well. Personally, I would love to use the virtual keyboard in landscape mode, and have the keys arranged somewhat dynamically to support thumb typing. With audio feedback on extension (maybe a higher pitched tone as you get closer to the g and h keys), you could regain many of the benefits of a real keyboard, and keep it from being heads-down. It might even be possible to overlay it to some extent with the page so you don't completely loose the real-estate.
I'll keep my fingers that RevA is better than the Rev1/2 iPods for user interface.
France and Germany are both in financial trouble for their ways of protecting the middle class. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to "protect" people. You can invest in them (education, increasing competitiveness), but when you try protectionist measures it just distorts the playing field.
Offshoring is scary stuff; we are all at risk of losing the jobs we have, and that we were trained for. If those disappear, what do you do? Offshoring yourself works ok when times are good, but fails when things slow down.
To the Bozo that keeps sending us his resume and salary history: Take your picture off the resume, track who you send resumes to and when, and never e-mail a resume twice to the same company without attempting to call first. Sending a salary history that is inconsistent with the job posted reeks of low self esteem (I don't want to know how much you made at the restaurant). Get an extra e-mail address that is simple and does not lead to questions or judgement.
I was actually wanting to give him an interview but my partners overruled. I was just curious how brain dead he could possibly be.
More likely bargaining issue is over VOIP. Cisco might want to either bar them from the market or force them to license their technology for the device.
It's only EDGE because that is the only (real) service Cingular has. I expect to see it released as a 3G phone when it hits Europe... and wouldn't be completely surprised if it was 3G when released in the US; Cingular's rollout should be pretty far along by then.
Another option is to use bulbs rated for a higher voltage. Inaccessible lights are often specified as 130V and operated at 115V, which increases life by about 50%, and reduces energy consumption by 12%.
Just because it is hard, vague, and subject to interpretation doesn't mean you can't offer a meaningful response.
I'm an engineer and get paid $200+/hr to help clients understand their problems. I am constantly given questions like "have we eliminated all risks?" or "Could anything go wrong?" My responses are always a reflection of my understanding of their situation, and subject to change with the situation, or as more information is divulged. I understand that there is bias in what information I am provided with, and work hard to balance that in my decisions.
If I give the "wrong" answer, there is a good chance that I will either get sued... or just never have my bills paid.
This is what makes me a professional. I expect the same from anyone else that claims to be an experienced professional. When I ask a Doctor a question, they do a pretty good job at this (despite the infinite set of unknowns in their field). A lawyer has no more unknowns than a doctor.
If the honest response to a legal question is that "It comes down to the judge on any given day," or "you can be sued for anything," or "depends on how good your lawyer is," then we aren't really dealing with Professionals in law. (All parties-- lawmakers, judges, lawyers, and police.)
Slashdot Mirror
Or, 5 years from now, when the operating system that the program was written for is no longer available, and you no longer have the tools to make your fair use copies.
While in theory DRM and Fair Use can coexist, the DMCA prevents "future proofing" anything. Furthermore since Fair Use isn't legally defined you have no guarantees as to functionality over time; it is at the publisher's sole discretion. Possibly more importantly, any DRM system needs to "time out" at its copyright expiration.
The movie industry should be smarter than Music, but they really need to be proactive to understand the differences between people's needs bot now and in the future. DRM doesn't help that move. Watermarking might, but it is not easy to make it really solve their problems. How granular can you be?
From a formatting persepctive, the two are very close (not like previous versions, anyway). This hasn't been a problem for me at all, even working with complex applications.
Macros are hard; the benefits they offer are hard to ignore, but compatibility is difficult to achieve between applications. The idea of an interstitial language for data manipulation is great, but how many layers can really be supported?
If on average it is only 12 songs that are purchased, the prospective "switcher" will either burn a single CD, live without the songs, or re-purchase for a whopping $12. It's an invisible barrier... there is no real impact, just a small hassle factor afterwards.
The reality for many people is more that they are locked into iTunes Store rather than being locked into the iPod. Content from other providers isn't available on the iPod. This is a problem for the record labels more than the consumers. For the consumers (at least for myself), the biggest issue is that I can't buy higher quality songs that will play on my iPod from another vendor. This gets right back to the root of the issue-- who does DRM benefit.
The labels intended for it to benefit themselves. What it has really done is given the power to another party (Apple iTS), because it is the only store selling DRM major label content that will work with 78% of the music players sold today. Apple doesn't benefit from this situation given the fact that iTS does not make a significant profit, especially when compared to customer satisfaction concerns.
There is a lot more to the CAD world than just being able to draw lines. Arcitosh is nowhere close to the big picture that is required. Drawings move between different companies with the expectation of compatibility. We use AutoCAD 2007 but most of our customers use 2004-- this alone is a challenge. The biggest hope is when a viable competitor can come out with a solid professional level CAD package with automation support for less than $800. At that price point, there is hope.
I hoped Omni Graffe would work for me... it did many things better than Visio... but smart blocks from Visio weren't compatible in it. Other programs I have tried like Excel substitutes (Mariner Calc was one) couldn't even handle merged cells in a spreadsheet.
Primavera has hope, but the big picture still has a lot of major holes.
Again, for myself, I can work around limitations... but many of my co-workers can't. I hope things get better over the next year.
I'm in a similar position as the GP; every so often, someone has a problem opening my Word 2004 documents. Word also crashes often if Parallels is running (as does Excel and PowerPoint). Word is a lot more finicky on an Intel Mac than it is on the old PPC units.
BUT... I enjoy working on my Mac so much more than the XP boxes every one else has. This even though I really like keyboard-only navigation, which is impractical on a Mac.
Apple needs to do a better job of simplifying management of XP, Mac, and Linux boxes without purchasing a quite expensive Mac server. Without that, Windows keeps creeping back in.
For me, it is AutoCAD and Visio. I can get a substitute for Visio (happily), but it isn't 100% compatible with the rest of the world. Autodesk is not nearly as flexible; there really aren't any similarly mature programs available for Mac or Linux. I'm sure I could find a substitute for MS Project, but I don't think Primavera is available for Macs.
I still use a mac at work (with parallels installed), just need to go out to the bullpen to use a windows machine for anything requiring more than 15 minutes with AutoCAD.
We should have been able to buy two new Mac laptops instead of Dells, but this issue kept us from it. Maybe the next two...
Retail scuba equipment has a 200% markup; it is the lifeblood of most dive shops. Price fixing is done to keep the incentive to the dive shops to sell equipment and foster interest in the field.
I use DiversDiscount.com when I can't get trade prices; good service and prices.
From the other article linked in the comments, sounds like it has a maximum range of 17mi (not sure if that is range or coverage area), and is designed to be mounted on the bottom of a helicopter. Sure it is also possible to mount it from a mast if available, but quick deployments, a helicopter or balloon would make sense.
From my personal experience (3 years of travelling in SE Asia), the only reason to bring your laptop is if you are doing work, or financial transactions where the risk of a keylogger in an internet cafe is not tolerable. I was stuck with three laptops for a while (wife's and two for me), and it was hell. Making matters worse, we are also scuba divers, and have a lot of gear for that with us. Traveling light is so much more relaxing.
Do remember that every device you bring that requires a dedicated cord will also complicate matters. All the cords took up almost as much space as the gadgets themselves.
Gadgets I had with me:
-Laptop - Heavily used, primarily for work.
-Nokia 770 - Heavily used for a while, mainly for web access.
-Motorola V360 (tri-band phone with Edge) - Heavily used for internet access for laptop or 770. One less cord, since it could use mini-usb cable to charge.
-Blackberry - Heavily used, half for work, half for web browsing.
-GPS - Magellan Explorist 500 - Used initially, not especially useful without purchasing all the maps for wherever you will be. Default maps weren't accurate enough (coastlines) for any reason, failed to download additional "free" maps, and it had a goofy extra cord.
-iPod - Heavily used
-Altec Lansing foldable iPod stereo with charger - Very heavily used. Extra power brick, but eliminates the need for the iPod charger.
-Digital Rebel Camera, three or four lenses - Occasionally used... just too big.
-Pentax Optio 5SI Camera - Heavily used (for any digital camera, get a second battery pack. Battery packs work better than AA's.)
-Travel tripod - Occasionally used, mainly for steadying night time shots.
-External hard drives - Rarely used.
-iStick USB Drive - Heavily used, should have had several extra.
-DVD Burner for backups. The frigging brick was never once used. I tried once, actually, but it just made coasters.
-Airport Express base station - Fairly well used, good for places where I could bridge the signal.
-14dB Gain WiFi antenna and 30 fricking feet of coax - Well intentioned, never opened.
If you are just kicking back and seeing the world (and not telecommuting), keep things very simple. If you plan on staying in one place for 6 months, the creature comforts are nice, as is a source of information.
I was always jealous of the people with 40L backpacks that could travel for a year. My wife and I traveled with our body weight in luggage.
While now I am one of 7 people in LA that ride a bike to work, I was once one of hundreds of people that rode their bike to classes through the snow wearing Birkenstocks (you know... because they were cool...). With the right gear, you can always ride a bike, although comfortable distance does drop off pretty quickly.
You can ride a bike to work no matter where you live, if you live a reasonable distance away.
It is below Lan Kwai Fong. Maybe the first thing they should do is turn off the freaking escalators and have people walk up the stairs! As for the benefits of converting pedal power to useful power, it's a nice idea, especially as it would convert part of what is now heat to useful energy, reducing AC costs.
Write their own apps, very few. Install apps that someone with a particular need created... quite a few. On my Blackberry, I have at least 3 applications from third party developers that are critical to me now. My Nokia 770 is closer to how I see the iPhone working for me; on that I had dozens of applications that were not part of Nokia's plans for the device.
While Nokia integrating the features themselves would have (hopefully) created a better user experience, expecting them to create everything I need would be foolish.
I hope Apple does come up with a good way for developers to create applications to serve niches, and lets the iPhone become more than just another phone.
When I left my previous employer and started a business with other former co-workers, we were afraid of being sued. It does happen, and is generally baseless but an effective means of tying up capital for a small company.
Here in California, non-competes are not enforceable-- you can't prevent an employee from making a living. However, two interesting things do crop up: 1. You can't steal employees from your former employer; and 2. If you have stock/options in the company (and signed a stock agreement) you are held to a higher standard.
What's odd about the situation the OP described is that only an idiot would sue before you actually started the new job. Scare tactics like "Our lawyers are looking into this" are common; I even got a letter from a lawyer hired by the previous company about suspending buyback of my stock. We hired two lawyers to send letters back to the company, and everything was restored to normalcy pretty quickly.
After the experience, I now think that it is a good idea to be cautious of lawsuits, and to operate in an ethical way towards any former employers. This is especially true if you are starting up your own business.
I've lost 3 48G's to baggage handling. I got the new one... the keys aren't nearly as nice, but it does have USB and SD slots. Cannot deal with non-RPN calculators, but it's hard to understand why they move keys around without "real" upgrades to the systems.
As someone else said, it's a shame HP abandoned development on the calculators.
Cingular is definitely "beige" as you state, but they have a better footprint than T-Mobile, more users (in the US), and more marketing budget. (Sadly, this is mainly because they charge more...)
It would have been foolish to go with Verizon or Sprint, since the phones can't travel internationally.
I would have preferred Apple as an MVNO (as an investor), but that would have been a challenge as well. At that point, the carriers have leverage against them...
I think the iPhone is a work of art. Beautiful, functional, and a perfect embodiment of what Steve Jobs must want. Unfortunately, he doesn't want the same things as me, which just might kill it for me.
Lack of 3rd party apps will kill the iPhone, at least as a smartphone. While the Blackberry is pretty cool out of the box, it takes a couple extra 3rd party applications to really make it shine.
Hopefully, Jobs statement is more in line with what is required for the blackberry - applications must be signed, and you pay ~$100 for a developer license which lets you sign anything you want. Time will tell.
While I agree in concept that a keyboard is going to be faster and more reliable, there are plenty of interesting tricks that *could* be done to make it work well. Personally, I would love to use the virtual keyboard in landscape mode, and have the keys arranged somewhat dynamically to support thumb typing. With audio feedback on extension (maybe a higher pitched tone as you get closer to the g and h keys), you could regain many of the benefits of a real keyboard, and keep it from being heads-down. It might even be possible to overlay it to some extent with the page so you don't completely loose the real-estate.
I'll keep my fingers that RevA is better than the Rev1/2 iPods for user interface.
France and Germany are both in financial trouble for their ways of protecting the middle class. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to "protect" people. You can invest in them (education, increasing competitiveness), but when you try protectionist measures it just distorts the playing field.
Offshoring is scary stuff; we are all at risk of losing the jobs we have, and that we were trained for. If those disappear, what do you do? Offshoring yourself works ok when times are good, but fails when things slow down.
To the Bozo that keeps sending us his resume and salary history: Take your picture off the resume, track who you send resumes to and when, and never e-mail a resume twice to the same company without attempting to call first. Sending a salary history that is inconsistent with the job posted reeks of low self esteem (I don't want to know how much you made at the restaurant). Get an extra e-mail address that is simple and does not lead to questions or judgement.
I was actually wanting to give him an interview but my partners overruled. I was just curious how brain dead he could possibly be.
Yes, Bradley, I am talking about you.
Aaah, that feels good to get off my chest.
More likely bargaining issue is over VOIP. Cisco might want to either bar them from the market or force them to license their technology for the device.
It's only EDGE because that is the only (real) service Cingular has. I expect to see it released as a 3G phone when it hits Europe... and wouldn't be completely surprised if it was 3G when released in the US; Cingular's rollout should be pretty far along by then.
Another option is to use bulbs rated for a higher voltage. Inaccessible lights are often specified as 130V and operated at 115V, which increases life by about 50%, and reduces energy consumption by 12%.
I helped design the largest single-structure building in the world (at least at the time), and am sitting in it right now.
While there are other geekier things I have done in my life, seeing this building completed is pretty darn cool.
Too bad we focus on failures of projects rather than successes, but I guess that is the driver for continued innovation...
Just because it is hard, vague, and subject to interpretation doesn't mean you can't offer a meaningful response.
I'm an engineer and get paid $200+/hr to help clients understand their problems. I am constantly given questions like "have we eliminated all risks?" or "Could anything go wrong?" My responses are always a reflection of my understanding of their situation, and subject to change with the situation, or as more information is divulged. I understand that there is bias in what information I am provided with, and work hard to balance that in my decisions.
If I give the "wrong" answer, there is a good chance that I will either get sued... or just never have my bills paid.
This is what makes me a professional. I expect the same from anyone else that claims to be an experienced professional. When I ask a Doctor a question, they do a pretty good job at this (despite the infinite set of unknowns in their field). A lawyer has no more unknowns than a doctor.
If the honest response to a legal question is that "It comes down to the judge on any given day," or "you can be sued for anything," or "depends on how good your lawyer is," then we aren't really dealing with Professionals in law. (All parties-- lawmakers, judges, lawyers, and police.)
Locomotives used to be DC for higher torque, but are now generally AC.