A few months ago I was stoked about moving to Linux. The whole free software idea really made sense to me. Open source, coming from the perspective of someone who has been a coder for a number of years, seemed like a fantastic idea for an OS to be based on.
Unfortunately, I found that Linux, despite being told otherwise from here and other sources, is not half as user-friendly as Windows. I didn't much mind, and in fact if I weren't running media center on my main computer right now I'd probably run Linux on that, but I digress.
Windows makes complicated operations simple. It's not the installation of the OS that's easy, or the installation of drivers. Windows makes it easier to get sort of complicated things handled. To give you a for instance, I doubt anyone in my office here at work would be able to setup a samba share to save their life. However, all of the computers here have shared folders sitting on the network with different properties. The people here don't know anything about networking or anything, but with windows, you right click and hit share, and wowwy, shared.
Everything, it seems, in Linux, is designed around the CLI. I understand that it's probably a faster more efficient way to do things once you get used to it, and I understand that most users of Linux don't want hand holding. That's fine, I do understand. But at the same time, you can't blame Windows users for their own plight. If you make an OS for yourselves, don't be surprised when you are the only one using it. Most people haven't seen or heard from a CLI since DOS, and even then they learned what little they had to (if they had to learn anything on computers at all) to get the job done. They see GUI as a step forward, and not a step backward. Anything involving the CLI is going to be "hacking" to them and something that they don't ever see themselves doing. You can fight these notions all you like, but they will not change.
Even the younger generation of computer users doesn't really know how to use a CLI on a consistent basis. People have gotten so used to the hand holding of Windows that they wouldn't be able to work without it. So, the way I see it is: stop requiring CLI use for anything but the most advanced features if you want mainstream users. Allow fixing of just about any kind of problem from the GUI. Believe it or not, this can actually be efficient too. I certainly find it easier to check checkboxes than to look through a list of command line switches, but maybe that's just a personal preference.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, if you want new users, especially Windows users, be prepared to cater to their lack of knowledge. Otherwise, don't complain.
You know, it used to be my music player for playing my music. Owning it used to mean I was cool, but now everybody on the subway has one. What do I do now? Please, please, direct me to the Next Big Thing for me to purchase so that I can continue to identify myself as someone who is young and wise to the latest trends.
What's funny is that it's becoming kind of trendy to not own an iPod. I feel proud that I have personally started this trend by not wanting to buy things that are under on features, over on DRM and overpriced. On a personal level in conversation when someone is ranting and raving about an iPod and how cool it is, you look like the cool one in the group for not buying into the groupthink.
They wanted us to "think different" (sic), now thinking differently requires one to look at other options than an iPod, because everyone thinks that way.
Just remember, I hated iPods before it was cool to hate them =P. But seriously, a lot of "trend setters" are just common sense people, then everyone follows their trend and it becomes one. When it wasn't the intention to begin with.
Microsoft have essentially copied a classic. Which would you prefer, a VW Beetle or a copy that looks similar to it and has a couple of extra features? A Harley Davidson Sportster or a similar looking bike.
Whichever's cheaper as long as they are around the same quality. Welcome to the Chinese knockoff 21st century. I could really give a shit if it's "official" if it works and it's cheaper. Everything is made in sweatshops anyway, might as well save a buck on brand name. Besides, I don't want to have to pay the "geniuses" for their "expertise" in coming up with a "click wheel" anyway. I'd rather just pay the competitor who isn't taxing me for "innovation." Popular brands often require that you pay for the brand name, with no real addition in benefits besides "wow, I'm so cool, I got the official one!" And I'm sorry, I graduated from middle school, so if it works the same, it is the same in my book. (Not to say that Zune is better than iPod, but players that have the same feature set as the iPod and are cheaper are exactly what I look for anyway.)
I mean it's your money and your computer, but why waste the former to fuck up the latter?
Because not only do users usually not pay for windows, and use whatever type of OS is installed, but they also don't know how to spend 20 minutes in the command prompt trying to figure out how to get a resolution over 800x600.
I understand that Linux doesn't have full vendor support, or very little or no vendor support from most vendors, but you have to deal with the fact that in reality, a lot of things don't run Linux, and even if you can get them to work with command prompt tweaking or additional drivers, most people have no clue how to make that happen. Most people won't even know what a wiki is to get help to fix it either.
If you are blaming average users for their own situation and for the slow adoption of Linux, as if it's a no-brainer, you are certainly kidding yourself. People see a computer as a toaster or a phone, something that performs a function. They just want you to fix it enough so they can use ebay and get email.
So why aren't car-radio manufacturers just putting some good ol' RCA plugs, eighth-inch stereo mini-plugs, and/or digital audio or other inputs under a flap somewhere on the console rather than force people to destroy their audio by modulating, transmitting, and de-modulating it?
I don't know if the demand isn't there, or if car manufacturers simply like to tie the "stereo system" into the selling features of the car, but it's simple common sense that they would do this and many other things.
Car manufacturers are almost anti-progressive when it comes to stereo equipment. It's usually very difficult to even replace their garbage equipment with something fitting a standard DIN size because in many cases they make it damn near impossible to remove their garbage head decks. In one of my cars (a cavalier) installation of a new head deck required me to remove the entire top of the dash material (being careful not to puncture the airbag) in order to get at a few screws so I could remove the head deck.
You'd think it would be simple for them to put RCA ins on a stock stereo or at least make the stock stereo easy to replace, but no. They stand in the way of progress of stereo equipment in cars for some reason. Then people use hacky tools like FM transmitters to play something other than the POS stereo installed in their car. Even tape adapters were a better solution, but honestly, how long does it take for car manufacturers to add something so simple? Almost all aftermarket stereos provide this capacity in one way or another, why can't stock stereos come with a set of RCAs mounted, it would be oh so simple to do.
"A Chinese government official at a United Nations summit in Athens on internet governance has claimed that no Net censorship exists at all in China.
You know what's really sad? The fact that despite all of the claims about China and the realities about it, we still continue to do business with them on a larger scale than almost any other manufacturing country. We support the regime that does this to its people. Meanwhile, in our name our country props up puppet dictators where there used to be democracy, then again, I guess democracy isn't great for oil prices or US interests at all times, and totalitarianism...well, that's awesome for capitalism.
I'm not saying you should invade every country with a dictator or oppressive government, there are far too many, but to openly support a country with such off the wall policies, all the while attacking others for no good reasons is absolutely awful. I suppose this country was bought and sold years ago when it comes to just about every (including foreign) policy, so I shouldn't be surprised. But it really is disheartening.
So you want a "diversity" that is forced and created by government? You claim in the sentence above that, given a choice, the people would not have it at all.
No, I want not everything to be about money. I want bands that aren't in the label's pockets to be able to have a chance to be heard along with everyone else. I admit that these things will probably never happen, but that doesn't mean they are bad things to want.
That's your personal choice. Guess what? Most of the public really cares very little about it.
It's quite a common complaint, and you know what, it really doesn't matter. Radio is bullshit anyway and that's why I make a "market decision" not to listen to it at all. I was just saying it would be cool thing if the radio actually let you know about new artists that make good music, aired good music at all, or maybe even aired something other than the P. Diddy "Loosen up my buttons babe" remix 20x a day between hours of commercials. Is this what the public wants? I hardly think so, because more and more people are getting starting to hate the radio and buy players so they don't have to listen to it anymore. If the radio stations were anything like what the public wants, why the hell is satellite radio around? Obviously not 100% of the public is satisfied with this usage of their airwaves. You know who's satisfied? Clear channel. I actually hope that XM and Sirius put them for the most part out of business. I'm not gonna pay for radio personally, but I hope that XM and Sirius keep gaining market share.
It is impossible to do this via radio. All they do is present information, which I am free to ignore.
Way to take a use of language literally when it's obviously not the intention of it. I honestly thought they could shove products literally down my throat via radio, thanks for clearing this up! I'm not saying you can't ignore commercials. I'm making a pretty practical argument here, it's commercial ridden crap, there's just too many commercials. TV is like this too but I don't really even watch TV unless I've recorded the show ahead of time anyway, so whatever. When you are driving to work in the morning between the talk and the commercials there's almost no music at all. Fun stuff. That's why I always make sure to remember my player.
Who decides what is "decent!"? You or the public? Media that the public thinks is decent is what succeeds.
If you think that's really true, then you have some things to learn. Listen, when most people get their musical tastes from the radio or TV, and all of these companies have the same owners and are basically merged with one another I'll tell you exactly what happens: the artist becomes a product. It's not just wow I really like this record let's put it on the radio, that's how it used to be. Nowadays, it's a filtration system. An artist can release an awesome CD that all the critics rave about, and will get no exposure. I believe this is the reason a lot of P2P networks have less popular artists being rated more popularly. People listen to what music they want to listen to with this method, all of a sudden nobody thinks the latest Christina Aguilera single is so great anymore. Radio used to take a chance on artists from time to time, give them a spin and see how the audience responds. It doesn't work that way anymore, now they try to sell you the artist instead of even offering you a choice. They use the repetition as a way to beat the songs into your brain so that eventually you'll like every one of them and probably go out and buy the CDs like the nice little consumer sheep you are. I don't think the public decides anymore what decent music is, and that's my point. What is "decent" is determined for us through a bunch of industry knobs and then we get the pleasure of choosing between the bands they picked out to be popular.
If the CD format is dead, you're going to have to figure out some way to get a physical master copy to me or I'm going to be upset mighty fast. I think if you remove this from people, some will start to miss it. And the second people realize that Apple's 99 cent deals were set by Steve Jobs & guarantee you nothing, I think there will be quite the demand for the 'ancient' physical media.
Is this just a case of 'I have it so hard! We need to change our business model, please feel sorry for us!' or am I the only one that thinks this dude is crying that the sky is falling?
This may be true, maybe some people want a physical master copy of everything, but once people get a taste of what true digitization of media means (no more flipping discs, no more even rising from your couch to change between a selection of 100s of movies as storage increases), the want for physical media will eventually pass us by. And this isn't a bad thing. As you stated, right now physical media is the only way you can guarantee yourself of having an actual copy of what you bought, but this won't always be the case. Pirated media lasts forever. My MP3s will forever play on my player, will forever play off of my computer and as TV/computer convergence becomes more mainstream this will be the case for more and more people. The benefits of digitization are just too huge to worry about a little loss in quality in one album.
I don't think it's a bad thing, personally, but I do believe that if DRM takes off, people will be very frustrated and be looking to go back to physical media, or will never leave it to begin with. The technology already exists, it's the artificial limitations that are keeping the dream of a media-free entertainment industry from taking off. They are afraid of what it means. Even as an avid downloader, as my posting history will show, I would not be afraid to purchase digital, restriction free media at a fair price. Fair means taking out the chunk they've forever pretended was due to production costs, it means paying for the content itself, and the cost should be reduced greatly. If you only own two CDs, it makes more sense to have actual physical copies, but if you have a large base of people who want to listen to a lot of music experimentally, and want to be able to access large amounts of media at any time from any device you have to lower the price. There's a reason why people are getting more eclectic music collections nowadays: and the reason is digital downloads. I wouldn't have bought most of the CDs I listen to nowadays, I wouldn't listen to the same type of music. If you make it cheap for someone to check out an artist and expand horizons, they will come in throngs. If you continue to make the illegal road easier than being legal and continue to try to fight human nature: enjoy the battle. Because you aren't going to win.
All I buy are CDs, so that I can listen to them in my nice home stereo. I can't at this point see myself buying a music download from, say, iTunes. CDs are convenient, sound good, and last a long time since I take care of my stuff. This exec is either living in the future or is out of touch with the average music buyer!
Everyone, at least under 25, pretty much uses an Ipod or other MP3 player for listening to music on a daily basis. This is the main target audience for most CDs, and this executive is dead on with the fact that people aren't going to buy something they aren't using.
If he were smart, he'd propose to do what I did years ago when giving copies of CDs out, you burn the CD along with an extra data track containing the MP3s of the album. Unfortunately, industry heads are afraid of this kind of freedom.
If CDs were 5 a piece, and you got the MP3s, good quality rips with the CD purchase, I'd definitely buy them again. As it stands, 20 bucks for something that might infest my computer with a worm when I try to rip it, or might not want to be ripped, or have a stupid autoplay that irritates me when I insert it, is simply not worth the pricetag when the product is free elsewhere.
The public domain is reclaiming artistry, even if it is a "black market" style way of doing it. If these people want to continue living in the entertainment industry they better figure out how to market the product to people instead of trying to tailor the people to the product.
Make it more convenient, and a whole lot cheaper and I won't bother with the torrents anymore. Keep up your draconian bullshit, and I'll keep downloading without paying your ass a red cent. Less money or no money, it's all up to you assholes. And for the record, when/if I ever cut a full album, it'll be freely released.
I suppose it isn't entirely as bad as I initially thought. They introduced a new bug on Oct. 13 and discovered/fixed it the following week. That isn't nearly as bad as having that bug be in there for months and then finally getting discovered near the end.
That's because Microsoft doesn't let you keep your bugs until you've paid for them.:P
I find their criteria for depression to set the bar unbearably low.
If you answered 'YES' to question 1 and/or 2 and ticked at least three symptoms in the checklist, you probably have a depressive illness.
For more than TWO WEEKS have you: 1. felt sad, down or miserable most of the time? Yes No 2. lost interest or pleasure in most of your usual activities? Yes No
I don't know if that means in the _last_ two weeks or not, but certainly everyone has had a two week period in their life where they felt sad most of the time or lost interest in activities. Doesn't make them clinically depressed in my honest opinion.
As far as the rest of the criteria, three symptoms on a list that includes things like "feeling tired" or "feeling sick and run down" and feelings such as "overwhelmed" and "irritable" set the bar so low that almost everyone would tick at least three of these boxes. Everyone has some of these symptoms. I think depression is over diagnosed, and in my honest opinion I think it makes it under scrutinized in the cases where it actually is a real problem. It's like the boy who cried wolf, people with real problems don't get any attention because depression is a disease just about anyone can claim to have.
The key to a real disorder to me is when someone has a different perception of reality than what really exists. You see this in the case of rock stars with depression in that they'll have practically everything material in the world, possibly good relationships, but somehow can't stop themselves from throwing it all away. That, in my eyes, is depression.
The 38-year old single fat lady who is sad and miserable because she lives alone with three cats is just rational, it's not really a disorder. It's a sane reaction to a non-fulfilling life.
This to me is equivalent to saying that "everyone has an eating disorder" and is inclined to be anorexic because they think that their bodies are fat, without taking note of the fact that some of them could actually be fat. A mental disorder, to me, is about disconnection with reality, at least in part. Anorexics see themselves as fat when they are bones, that's a disorder. Someone feeling down because they aren't doing anything with their life or whatever, that's a logical reaction.
Huh? Why is broken iTMS DRM a reason not to buy an iPod? Since I purchased my first iPod years ago I only have 4 protected music files, 3 of which are political speeches from the National Conventions in 2004, and another is the free song that I got from a Pepsi. Heck I don't even use iTunes to put music on my iPod anymore, I use XPlay.
So if you aren't using the store, why bother to buy an iPod? If you are using non-protected files anyway, I find it much easier to just drag and drop the files like you would on a portable hard drive than to mess around with some application, and every other player on the market it seems supports linking their device to your computer as a USB-Mass Storage class unit. Why bother with the iPod? The addons? I mean, come on.
If you want less censorship, the only solution is to privatize the airwaves and abolish the FCC. Of course, this won't stop the communists at "Democracy Now" from whining about "corporate media consolidation"
Privatize them? Who gets the profit from the sale of the airwaves then? The government? Who? And also, just in case you haven't noticed, it's already easy for companies with a lot of money to take up a lot of airspace, so what exactly is your "solution" supposed to be solving? If you want diversity, you don't put things into a marketplace because those with the biggest pockets usually have similar interests. That's why I think public radio is awesome. You turn it on and it's something you might actually want to hear, versus the same 12 songs on every other station. I thought the purpose of radio and television and stuff was at least partially to give people new tastes and interests, but it seems like both have just become ways to shove products down peoples' throats. Whenever any decent music gets popular I usually deem it to be a "despite the media" type of thing instead of with the help of the media. It did used to be the other way around. And I don't think privatizing the airwaves will do a damned thing to help this situation. They are practically bought and sold now as it is.
That's what the Xerox Execs said about computers moving to color. And to be honest, they were right that there is very little reason for a business desktop to use color. Sure, it makes the pie charts pretty, but there are enough hash-mark patterns that do the same job.
As for a 3D filesystem being more difficult to navigate, a command-line is still a hell of a lot easier way to navigate our filesystems than point-and-click. I can get anywhere on my filesystem a lot easier and faster using "cd" (esp. with command-completion) than I can by clicking: "My Computer", "C:", "Program Files", "Adobe", etc. Just because a new GUI hurts productivity, doesn't mean that it won't be wildly popular. Yes this applies to the bottom-line-loving suits, too.
Firstly, the reasons for a color display are plainly obvious, even in an office environment. So if people were skeptical about this it was an extreme lack of foresight on their part.
I disagree with command-line being easier than a GUI file system. Copying files is a _lot_ easier with a GUI, as is just about everything else. While you may be able to get somewhere 10 seconds quicker if you type it right the first time, GUI allows a kind of consistency and lack of knowledge that the command line simply doesn't. And it's more irritating to look through pages of a directory listing line by line when you've forgotten a directory name than it is to scroll through a list of folders using your mouse wheel. Command line is unforgiving and clunky for most things, and this is coming from a power user...
There are some things it is arguably better for, but definitely not for the average user.
That being said that negates both of your points, now allow me to make mine. 3D file systems really aren't more efficient, nor are they time saving, nor are they easier to use. If you expect an end user to endure a learning curve, there should be at least some benefit besides "WOW I'M FLYING AROUND IN VIRTUAL SPACE!" 3D-Accelerated desktops are pretty neat too, and I even kind of liked the idea of "stacks" I saw kicked around, but let's not get out of control. I don't want to have to "walk" through my hard drive. Completely a waste of time and resources. The efficiency of a computer is to make paper documents manipulatable in an abstract, easier to deal with way. Putting them back into 3d space makes them just as inefficient as the paper ones. I don't need to fly around a virtual office, I'm sitting in an office.
It's fairly easy to play DRM'd iTunes Music Store music on any MP3 player. All you do is burn an audio CD from the DRM'd files and then rip that CD into MP3s. That's it. You might have to rip at higher bitrate to make sure you capture all the original audio information, but it's perfectly doable--and legal.
Sounds like something I'd wanna do to get MP3s on my player, especially considering if I want I can just bittorrent em and have a whole album free in 15 minutes... But thanks!
If they think that's a true alternative to piracy they are kidding themselves. Not everyone wants to use their player.
So as much as we all hate lawyers, having judicial oversight that follows the strict letter of the law, and not its "intent", is a much more democratic system. If governments want to change laws, they can make new ones and let the legislators openly argue and vote on them.
The strict letter of the law is supposed to be its intent. Things might seem ambiguous today that certainly weren't intended to be ambiguous, but this is a matter of language. The idea of "legalese" is to write in a language that, believe it or not, takes ambiguity out of the question. It's just another attempt to account for the infinite amount of possibilities with the certainty of language, which is ambiguous in nature. There's a reason why pre-law includes logic classes and why logic has its own formal language. Legalese is an attempt to make language that will be clearly followed in a court room, that does not have loopholes. Sure, people take advantage of the language to hide clauses and make legislative loopholes, but that is _not_ the original intent of the language. You can make plain english full of loopholes and hidden crap even more easily if you wanted to.
Oh wait, I guess the retarded telemarketers might need a computer for that. Oh wait, that catagory includes all telemarketers, and the rocket scientists who thought that annoying people was a good way to get them to buy stuff.
Make no doubt about it, telemarketing does, at least to some extent, work. It might not work on the 20-30 something IT crowd, but it certainly has benefits for a company. And this software might do what it promises and make it more effective.
I find it particularly sick that it's allowed to be legal even to be quite honest. I suppose it's a form of free speech or something but the fact remains that telemarketers typically prey on the worst victims: those who have been so influenced by our consumer marketed culture that they'll buy just about anything from anyone just to get a quick fix and lonely people who are looking, above all else, for someone to talk to about anything, even if it's about emptying their own bank accounts to the nice sounding girl on the other end.
They prey on the very same people they create: the desperate lifestyle questing consumer and the isolated consumer. It's sick.
The same people that can't exercise self-control with gambling, alcohol, prescription drugs, sex, smoking, illegal drugs, internet usage, eating, or one of a whole host of other problems, can just as easily become addicted to video games.
A lot of the things you mentioned are physically addictive though. There is a substantative difference between activities that just require control and things that will actually make your body feel differently if you don't have them. I know the difference because I'm a smoker and let me tell you: weed isn't addictive physically either...
There are people with addictive personalities, and then there are people that "try" a drug like heroin or coke thinking that they don't have an addictive personality so they'll be fine. In the spirit of the ongoing joke: in addictive terms the coke sniffs you. Even casual use of some substances leads to a definite, bodily, physical dependency. I'm sure that how much you have to use before you are physically addicted varies from person to person, but that has very little to do with self-control.
Whereas comparing video games to crack in addictive terms is basically absurd.
Let's face another glaringly obvious fact that everyone glosses over: those people who turn off their "real life" to play the game all the time and are "addicted" more than likely find WoW more stimulating than their real life, and that's why they stay there. Everyone has the "I had friends and WoW ruined it all" line, but most of the people who dedicate 8 hours per day on WoW aren't the type that had blossoming social schedules and fun activities to do before they started playing WoW, because they probably wouldn't have begun in the first place.
Additionally, do you honestly think any company (Intel, Microsoft, Samsung) would back this technology if it was limited to R/W cycles in thousands?
Maybe not, but I don't know about the Samsung brand to begin with. When I was reading the article the whole time I couldn't help myself but to think "yeah but, it's samsung, I'll buy it when someone else makes it."
I've been burnt by their brand on numerous occasions and it really wouldn't shock me if/when this drive dies and if it's early in its life cycle when it happens.
People kept focussing on making kids feel good and increasing their self-esteem, but they're finding that making kids feel good about math doesn't help them do well at math.
That's because math, like computers, functions on logical operations. Math doesn't care how you feel just as the computer doesn't hate you. In cases where people say things such as that, a lot of tech support people mutter PEBKAC under their breath. Some people are naturally inclined to be logical, and some aren't. Maybe it is something that can be taught, but if the pupil is uninterested, telling them they are doing well when they can't add 2+2 isn't going to make their wrong answer right.
Now it's time for my editorial take:
Unfortunately most people who are logical are less emotional and therefore have less of an understanding of others' emotions, emotional IQ or whatever they call it these days. Fortunately, I believe that part is easily educated. But it does require the math nerd to get out and mingle with people on a day-to-day basis. It all comes down to what I used to find to be a fact: it's difficult for a logically motivated person to understand people who are primarily motivated by emotions. Illogical decisions seem to be foreign and something not worth understanding, or not able to be understood. I think people who are on one side or the other tend to become embittered that not everyone is like them and so the two parties divide.
It's a common thing to say that people are stupid, most people are stupid, etc. But, honestly, we make up these "people." I would personally argue that someone who rides entirely on logic their whole lives are missing a great part of the picture and therefore are probably very unhappy. This is coming from a person who has always been good at logic, math, computers and used to hold the attitude that people are stupid. I'd argue that thinking that way makes you stupid as well. Understanding emotions, irrationality at times and freak events in life gives you a better understanding of people in general.
In short, math nerds need to condescend and stop trying to make every conversation they have revolve around complex mathematical or philosophical terms. A smart, logical, person can engage in a ten minute conversation about ice cream flavors and it can be emotionally stimulating. Stop being so stuffy and mingle with fellow humans: because you aren't always smarter than the rest of us even if you think you are.
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A few months ago I was stoked about moving to Linux. The whole free software idea really made sense to me. Open source, coming from the perspective of someone who has been a coder for a number of years, seemed like a fantastic idea for an OS to be based on.
Unfortunately, I found that Linux, despite being told otherwise from here and other sources, is not half as user-friendly as Windows. I didn't much mind, and in fact if I weren't running media center on my main computer right now I'd probably run Linux on that, but I digress.
Windows makes complicated operations simple. It's not the installation of the OS that's easy, or the installation of drivers. Windows makes it easier to get sort of complicated things handled. To give you a for instance, I doubt anyone in my office here at work would be able to setup a samba share to save their life. However, all of the computers here have shared folders sitting on the network with different properties. The people here don't know anything about networking or anything, but with windows, you right click and hit share, and wowwy, shared.
Everything, it seems, in Linux, is designed around the CLI. I understand that it's probably a faster more efficient way to do things once you get used to it, and I understand that most users of Linux don't want hand holding. That's fine, I do understand. But at the same time, you can't blame Windows users for their own plight. If you make an OS for yourselves, don't be surprised when you are the only one using it. Most people haven't seen or heard from a CLI since DOS, and even then they learned what little they had to (if they had to learn anything on computers at all) to get the job done. They see GUI as a step forward, and not a step backward. Anything involving the CLI is going to be "hacking" to them and something that they don't ever see themselves doing. You can fight these notions all you like, but they will not change.
Even the younger generation of computer users doesn't really know how to use a CLI on a consistent basis. People have gotten so used to the hand holding of Windows that they wouldn't be able to work without it. So, the way I see it is: stop requiring CLI use for anything but the most advanced features if you want mainstream users. Allow fixing of just about any kind of problem from the GUI. Believe it or not, this can actually be efficient too. I certainly find it easier to check checkboxes than to look through a list of command line switches, but maybe that's just a personal preference.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, if you want new users, especially Windows users, be prepared to cater to their lack of knowledge. Otherwise, don't complain.
What's funny is that it's becoming kind of trendy to not own an iPod. I feel proud that I have personally started this trend by not wanting to buy things that are under on features, over on DRM and overpriced. On a personal level in conversation when someone is ranting and raving about an iPod and how cool it is, you look like the cool one in the group for not buying into the groupthink.
They wanted us to "think different" (sic), now thinking differently requires one to look at other options than an iPod, because everyone thinks that way.
Just remember, I hated iPods before it was cool to hate them =P. But seriously, a lot of "trend setters" are just common sense people, then everyone follows their trend and it becomes one. When it wasn't the intention to begin with.
Whichever's cheaper as long as they are around the same quality. Welcome to the Chinese knockoff 21st century. I could really give a shit if it's "official" if it works and it's cheaper. Everything is made in sweatshops anyway, might as well save a buck on brand name. Besides, I don't want to have to pay the "geniuses" for their "expertise" in coming up with a "click wheel" anyway. I'd rather just pay the competitor who isn't taxing me for "innovation." Popular brands often require that you pay for the brand name, with no real addition in benefits besides "wow, I'm so cool, I got the official one!" And I'm sorry, I graduated from middle school, so if it works the same, it is the same in my book. (Not to say that Zune is better than iPod, but players that have the same feature set as the iPod and are cheaper are exactly what I look for anyway.)
Because not only do users usually not pay for windows, and use whatever type of OS is installed, but they also don't know how to spend 20 minutes in the command prompt trying to figure out how to get a resolution over 800x600.
I understand that Linux doesn't have full vendor support, or very little or no vendor support from most vendors, but you have to deal with the fact that in reality, a lot of things don't run Linux, and even if you can get them to work with command prompt tweaking or additional drivers, most people have no clue how to make that happen. Most people won't even know what a wiki is to get help to fix it either.
If you are blaming average users for their own situation and for the slow adoption of Linux, as if it's a no-brainer, you are certainly kidding yourself. People see a computer as a toaster or a phone, something that performs a function. They just want you to fix it enough so they can use ebay and get email.
Cancer is hardly 100% faulty genes. Not that I necessarily agree with the original point, but...bad analogy.
I don't know if the demand isn't there, or if car manufacturers simply like to tie the "stereo system" into the selling features of the car, but it's simple common sense that they would do this and many other things.
Car manufacturers are almost anti-progressive when it comes to stereo equipment. It's usually very difficult to even replace their garbage equipment with something fitting a standard DIN size because in many cases they make it damn near impossible to remove their garbage head decks. In one of my cars (a cavalier) installation of a new head deck required me to remove the entire top of the dash material (being careful not to puncture the airbag) in order to get at a few screws so I could remove the head deck.
You'd think it would be simple for them to put RCA ins on a stock stereo or at least make the stock stereo easy to replace, but no. They stand in the way of progress of stereo equipment in cars for some reason. Then people use hacky tools like FM transmitters to play something other than the POS stereo installed in their car. Even tape adapters were a better solution, but honestly, how long does it take for car manufacturers to add something so simple? Almost all aftermarket stereos provide this capacity in one way or another, why can't stock stereos come with a set of RCAs mounted, it would be oh so simple to do.
You know what's really sad? The fact that despite all of the claims about China and the realities about it, we still continue to do business with them on a larger scale than almost any other manufacturing country. We support the regime that does this to its people. Meanwhile, in our name our country props up puppet dictators where there used to be democracy, then again, I guess democracy isn't great for oil prices or US interests at all times, and totalitarianism...well, that's awesome for capitalism.
I'm not saying you should invade every country with a dictator or oppressive government, there are far too many, but to openly support a country with such off the wall policies, all the while attacking others for no good reasons is absolutely awful. I suppose this country was bought and sold years ago when it comes to just about every (including foreign) policy, so I shouldn't be surprised. But it really is disheartening.
I thought this might happen in advance, so I just didn't make any.
No, I want not everything to be about money. I want bands that aren't in the label's pockets to be able to have a chance to be heard along with everyone else. I admit that these things will probably never happen, but that doesn't mean they are bad things to want.
It's quite a common complaint, and you know what, it really doesn't matter. Radio is bullshit anyway and that's why I make a "market decision" not to listen to it at all. I was just saying it would be cool thing if the radio actually let you know about new artists that make good music, aired good music at all, or maybe even aired something other than the P. Diddy "Loosen up my buttons babe" remix 20x a day between hours of commercials. Is this what the public wants? I hardly think so, because more and more people are getting starting to hate the radio and buy players so they don't have to listen to it anymore. If the radio stations were anything like what the public wants, why the hell is satellite radio around? Obviously not 100% of the public is satisfied with this usage of their airwaves. You know who's satisfied? Clear channel. I actually hope that XM and Sirius put them for the most part out of business. I'm not gonna pay for radio personally, but I hope that XM and Sirius keep gaining market share.
Way to take a use of language literally when it's obviously not the intention of it. I honestly thought they could shove products literally down my throat via radio, thanks for clearing this up! I'm not saying you can't ignore commercials. I'm making a pretty practical argument here, it's commercial ridden crap, there's just too many commercials. TV is like this too but I don't really even watch TV unless I've recorded the show ahead of time anyway, so whatever. When you are driving to work in the morning between the talk and the commercials there's almost no music at all. Fun stuff. That's why I always make sure to remember my player.
If you think that's really true, then you have some things to learn. Listen, when most people get their musical tastes from the radio or TV, and all of these companies have the same owners and are basically merged with one another I'll tell you exactly what happens: the artist becomes a product. It's not just wow I really like this record let's put it on the radio, that's how it used to be. Nowadays, it's a filtration system. An artist can release an awesome CD that all the critics rave about, and will get no exposure. I believe this is the reason a lot of P2P networks have less popular artists being rated more popularly. People listen to what music they want to listen to with this method, all of a sudden nobody thinks the latest Christina Aguilera single is so great anymore. Radio used to take a chance on artists from time to time, give them a spin and see how the audience responds. It doesn't work that way anymore, now they try to sell you the artist instead of even offering you a choice. They use the repetition as a way to beat the songs into your brain so that eventually you'll like every one of them and probably go out and buy the CDs like the nice little consumer sheep you are. I don't think the public decides anymore what decent music is, and that's my point. What is "decent" is determined for us through a bunch of industry knobs and then we get the pleasure of choosing between the bands they picked out to be popular.
This may be true, maybe some people want a physical master copy of everything, but once people get a taste of what true digitization of media means (no more flipping discs, no more even rising from your couch to change between a selection of 100s of movies as storage increases), the want for physical media will eventually pass us by. And this isn't a bad thing. As you stated, right now physical media is the only way you can guarantee yourself of having an actual copy of what you bought, but this won't always be the case. Pirated media lasts forever. My MP3s will forever play on my player, will forever play off of my computer and as TV/computer convergence becomes more mainstream this will be the case for more and more people. The benefits of digitization are just too huge to worry about a little loss in quality in one album.
I don't think it's a bad thing, personally, but I do believe that if DRM takes off, people will be very frustrated and be looking to go back to physical media, or will never leave it to begin with. The technology already exists, it's the artificial limitations that are keeping the dream of a media-free entertainment industry from taking off. They are afraid of what it means. Even as an avid downloader, as my posting history will show, I would not be afraid to purchase digital, restriction free media at a fair price. Fair means taking out the chunk they've forever pretended was due to production costs, it means paying for the content itself, and the cost should be reduced greatly. If you only own two CDs, it makes more sense to have actual physical copies, but if you have a large base of people who want to listen to a lot of music experimentally, and want to be able to access large amounts of media at any time from any device you have to lower the price. There's a reason why people are getting more eclectic music collections nowadays: and the reason is digital downloads. I wouldn't have bought most of the CDs I listen to nowadays, I wouldn't listen to the same type of music. If you make it cheap for someone to check out an artist and expand horizons, they will come in throngs. If you continue to make the illegal road easier than being legal and continue to try to fight human nature: enjoy the battle. Because you aren't going to win.
Everyone, at least under 25, pretty much uses an Ipod or other MP3 player for listening to music on a daily basis. This is the main target audience for most CDs, and this executive is dead on with the fact that people aren't going to buy something they aren't using.
If he were smart, he'd propose to do what I did years ago when giving copies of CDs out, you burn the CD along with an extra data track containing the MP3s of the album. Unfortunately, industry heads are afraid of this kind of freedom.
If CDs were 5 a piece, and you got the MP3s, good quality rips with the CD purchase, I'd definitely buy them again. As it stands, 20 bucks for something that might infest my computer with a worm when I try to rip it, or might not want to be ripped, or have a stupid autoplay that irritates me when I insert it, is simply not worth the pricetag when the product is free elsewhere.
The public domain is reclaiming artistry, even if it is a "black market" style way of doing it. If these people want to continue living in the entertainment industry they better figure out how to market the product to people instead of trying to tailor the people to the product.
Make it more convenient, and a whole lot cheaper and I won't bother with the torrents anymore. Keep up your draconian bullshit, and I'll keep downloading without paying your ass a red cent. Less money or no money, it's all up to you assholes. And for the record, when/if I ever cut a full album, it'll be freely released.
That's because Microsoft doesn't let you keep your bugs until you've paid for them. :P
I find their criteria for depression to set the bar unbearably low.
If you answered 'YES' to question 1 and/or 2 and ticked at least three symptoms in the checklist, you probably have a depressive illness.
For more than TWO WEEKS have you:
1. felt sad, down or miserable most of the time? Yes No
2. lost interest or pleasure in most of your usual activities? Yes No
I don't know if that means in the _last_ two weeks or not, but certainly everyone has had a two week period in their life where they felt sad most of the time or lost interest in activities. Doesn't make them clinically depressed in my honest opinion.
As far as the rest of the criteria, three symptoms on a list that includes things like "feeling tired" or "feeling sick and run down" and feelings such as "overwhelmed" and "irritable" set the bar so low that almost everyone would tick at least three of these boxes. Everyone has some of these symptoms. I think depression is over diagnosed, and in my honest opinion I think it makes it under scrutinized in the cases where it actually is a real problem. It's like the boy who cried wolf, people with real problems don't get any attention because depression is a disease just about anyone can claim to have.
The key to a real disorder to me is when someone has a different perception of reality than what really exists. You see this in the case of rock stars with depression in that they'll have practically everything material in the world, possibly good relationships, but somehow can't stop themselves from throwing it all away. That, in my eyes, is depression.
The 38-year old single fat lady who is sad and miserable because she lives alone with three cats is just rational, it's not really a disorder. It's a sane reaction to a non-fulfilling life.
This to me is equivalent to saying that "everyone has an eating disorder" and is inclined to be anorexic because they think that their bodies are fat, without taking note of the fact that some of them could actually be fat. A mental disorder, to me, is about disconnection with reality, at least in part. Anorexics see themselves as fat when they are bones, that's a disorder. Someone feeling down because they aren't doing anything with their life or whatever, that's a logical reaction.
So if you aren't using the store, why bother to buy an iPod? If you are using non-protected files anyway, I find it much easier to just drag and drop the files like you would on a portable hard drive than to mess around with some application, and every other player on the market it seems supports linking their device to your computer as a USB-Mass Storage class unit. Why bother with the iPod? The addons? I mean, come on.
Privatize them? Who gets the profit from the sale of the airwaves then? The government? Who? And also, just in case you haven't noticed, it's already easy for companies with a lot of money to take up a lot of airspace, so what exactly is your "solution" supposed to be solving? If you want diversity, you don't put things into a marketplace because those with the biggest pockets usually have similar interests. That's why I think public radio is awesome. You turn it on and it's something you might actually want to hear, versus the same 12 songs on every other station. I thought the purpose of radio and television and stuff was at least partially to give people new tastes and interests, but it seems like both have just become ways to shove products down peoples' throats. Whenever any decent music gets popular I usually deem it to be a "despite the media" type of thing instead of with the help of the media. It did used to be the other way around. And I don't think privatizing the airwaves will do a damned thing to help this situation. They are practically bought and sold now as it is.
Firstly, the reasons for a color display are plainly obvious, even in an office environment. So if people were skeptical about this it was an extreme lack of foresight on their part.
I disagree with command-line being easier than a GUI file system. Copying files is a _lot_ easier with a GUI, as is just about everything else. While you may be able to get somewhere 10 seconds quicker if you type it right the first time, GUI allows a kind of consistency and lack of knowledge that the command line simply doesn't. And it's more irritating to look through pages of a directory listing line by line when you've forgotten a directory name than it is to scroll through a list of folders using your mouse wheel. Command line is unforgiving and clunky for most things, and this is coming from a power user...
There are some things it is arguably better for, but definitely not for the average user.
That being said that negates both of your points, now allow me to make mine. 3D file systems really aren't more efficient, nor are they time saving, nor are they easier to use. If you expect an end user to endure a learning curve, there should be at least some benefit besides "WOW I'M FLYING AROUND IN VIRTUAL SPACE!" 3D-Accelerated desktops are pretty neat too, and I even kind of liked the idea of "stacks" I saw kicked around, but let's not get out of control. I don't want to have to "walk" through my hard drive. Completely a waste of time and resources. The efficiency of a computer is to make paper documents manipulatable in an abstract, easier to deal with way. Putting them back into 3d space makes them just as inefficient as the paper ones. I don't need to fly around a virtual office, I'm sitting in an office.
Sounds like something I'd wanna do to get MP3s on my player, especially considering if I want I can just bittorrent em and have a whole album free in 15 minutes... But thanks!
If they think that's a true alternative to piracy they are kidding themselves. Not everyone wants to use their player.
The strict letter of the law is supposed to be its intent. Things might seem ambiguous today that certainly weren't intended to be ambiguous, but this is a matter of language. The idea of "legalese" is to write in a language that, believe it or not, takes ambiguity out of the question. It's just another attempt to account for the infinite amount of possibilities with the certainty of language, which is ambiguous in nature. There's a reason why pre-law includes logic classes and why logic has its own formal language. Legalese is an attempt to make language that will be clearly followed in a court room, that does not have loopholes. Sure, people take advantage of the language to hide clauses and make legislative loopholes, but that is _not_ the original intent of the language. You can make plain english full of loopholes and hidden crap even more easily if you wanted to.
Make no doubt about it, telemarketing does, at least to some extent, work. It might not work on the 20-30 something IT crowd, but it certainly has benefits for a company. And this software might do what it promises and make it more effective.
I find it particularly sick that it's allowed to be legal even to be quite honest. I suppose it's a form of free speech or something but the fact remains that telemarketers typically prey on the worst victims: those who have been so influenced by our consumer marketed culture that they'll buy just about anything from anyone just to get a quick fix and lonely people who are looking, above all else, for someone to talk to about anything, even if it's about emptying their own bank accounts to the nice sounding girl on the other end.
They prey on the very same people they create: the desperate lifestyle questing consumer and the isolated consumer. It's sick.
Give up? What are these laws you talk of, I don't know about you, but I'm American: I give up nothing and I write my own damned laws!
A lot of the things you mentioned are physically addictive though. There is a substantative difference between activities that just require control and things that will actually make your body feel differently if you don't have them. I know the difference because I'm a smoker and let me tell you: weed isn't addictive physically either...
There are people with addictive personalities, and then there are people that "try" a drug like heroin or coke thinking that they don't have an addictive personality so they'll be fine. In the spirit of the ongoing joke: in addictive terms the coke sniffs you. Even casual use of some substances leads to a definite, bodily, physical dependency. I'm sure that how much you have to use before you are physically addicted varies from person to person, but that has very little to do with self-control.
Whereas comparing video games to crack in addictive terms is basically absurd.
Let's face another glaringly obvious fact that everyone glosses over: those people who turn off their "real life" to play the game all the time and are "addicted" more than likely find WoW more stimulating than their real life, and that's why they stay there. Everyone has the "I had friends and WoW ruined it all" line, but most of the people who dedicate 8 hours per day on WoW aren't the type that had blossoming social schedules and fun activities to do before they started playing WoW, because they probably wouldn't have begun in the first place.
I don't know, I always found Super Mario Bros. to be quite a fine piece of cinema. John Leguizamo as Luigi, BRILLIANT!
Maybe not, but I don't know about the Samsung brand to begin with. When I was reading the article the whole time I couldn't help myself but to think "yeah but, it's samsung, I'll buy it when someone else makes it."
I've been burnt by their brand on numerous occasions and it really wouldn't shock me if/when this drive dies and if it's early in its life cycle when it happens.
Or maybe she's just a beotch who doesn't understand being l33t, hax0ring and quality pr0n.
That's because math, like computers, functions on logical operations. Math doesn't care how you feel just as the computer doesn't hate you. In cases where people say things such as that, a lot of tech support people mutter PEBKAC under their breath. Some people are naturally inclined to be logical, and some aren't. Maybe it is something that can be taught, but if the pupil is uninterested, telling them they are doing well when they can't add 2+2 isn't going to make their wrong answer right.
Now it's time for my editorial take:
Unfortunately most people who are logical are less emotional and therefore have less of an understanding of others' emotions, emotional IQ or whatever they call it these days. Fortunately, I believe that part is easily educated. But it does require the math nerd to get out and mingle with people on a day-to-day basis. It all comes down to what I used to find to be a fact: it's difficult for a logically motivated person to understand people who are primarily motivated by emotions. Illogical decisions seem to be foreign and something not worth understanding, or not able to be understood. I think people who are on one side or the other tend to become embittered that not everyone is like them and so the two parties divide.
It's a common thing to say that people are stupid, most people are stupid, etc. But, honestly, we make up these "people." I would personally argue that someone who rides entirely on logic their whole lives are missing a great part of the picture and therefore are probably very unhappy. This is coming from a person who has always been good at logic, math, computers and used to hold the attitude that people are stupid. I'd argue that thinking that way makes you stupid as well. Understanding emotions, irrationality at times and freak events in life gives you a better understanding of people in general.
In short, math nerds need to condescend and stop trying to make every conversation they have revolve around complex mathematical or philosophical terms. A smart, logical, person can engage in a ten minute conversation about ice cream flavors and it can be emotionally stimulating. Stop being so stuffy and mingle with fellow humans: because you aren't always smarter than the rest of us even if you think you are.