Funny, considering one of the main reasons I won't buy DRM products is it already costs more to do so. If I want my favorite Britney song from Itunes, it costs 99 cents. If I want a ringtone of the same thing, Verizon charges me up to a couple bucks for a much smaller clip of exactly the same song. Why would I pay twice for something I can rip from my (wifes') CD and create myself anyway? Don't they see it's costing THEM more money in the long run to include this garbage?
Exactly. And if the prices were sane, I would definitely buy DRM-Free MP3s. Definitely. But they'd have to be DRM free. I'm not buying.wmas and putting them with the rest of my collection, it's just not happening.
I think what companies don't yet realize is that, look, we already have collections of MP3s. Everyone under 30 probably has a large collection, and I'm one of the few that has a HUGE collection. However, there are times when I want an album and you can't find it on bittorrent and it's not available other than going to the CD store. Honestly, I don't feel like ripping CDs, and there's a lot of times when I just don't even buy the track rather than having to go and buy a CD and rip it to my hard drive. And it has NOTHING to do with cost. It did, at one point when I was a college student money was an issue. Nowadays, it definitely isn't. But when you have a large collection of high quality MP3s that you know will work on your player, in your DVD player, or any number of other devices you simply aren't going to buy a track and break the DRM to have it mesh well with the rest of your collection.
Yes, I'm notorious for downloading a lot of MP3s, but I would be willing to buy legitimate, if only companies would give me the chance to do so. Stop trying to change how we store our music and just mix with what we have. It's the only way you'll survive.
Most of the general public that buys personal computers is only interested in web browsing and e-mail, i work for a PC retailer and i've heard many claim as much.
Yes, this is what they claim. However, in the end they want to install weird screensavers from online or other bogus crapplets, and when these things don't work on their newly purchased Linux machines, they are going to start getting irritated. They are used to the just work model of Windows.
They all *say* they just want internet and e-mail, until they see an advertisement on TV for some new POS service or application or they want to run turbotax or whatever. When they can't run these things on their PC, it'll be Linux to blame and they won't get into the open source politics. It will be as simple as "my crap doesn't run", "I bought a webcam and it doesn't work." And that's just the bottom line.
It's kind of like my job, how factories buy equipment saying they're looking to move certain quantities, and then later start testing the equipment by moving more in 6 months. That's what they *start out* wanting, but it's not all they really want. They want everything cool that everyone else is using, and if they can't have it, even if they paid less, they are going to be pissed.
Even though he is a Republican now he is an old fashioned one that believes in a small Federal government that is responsive to the people.
People always say this as if any Republican has ever really been for this style of government. Let's be honest, even Reagan talked about eliminating the department of education then managed to grow it. Both major parties are candidates for big government.
The last few years I've been a little bit more political than I had been in the past, and I have had a few observations: 1) both parties are radical in their own ways that don't serve the people and 2) both organizations are more religious than governmental. I went to a peace rally in Washington only to find myself surrounded by people who thought not only shouldn't we be at war with Iraq, but that the government did 9/11 and that we should all be eating different foods, etc. Both movements are almost religious in their blatant ignorance of the facts and the lies they wish to perpetuate throughout their base. Neither side is any good for anyone.
Republicans claim to be states rights and anti-federalists, but they aren't. Bush grows government, everyone grows government. All republicans that got into office wound up growing government, so why should I believe the next "I'm going to shrink government" presidential candidate? We all know that shrinking government would cut bureaucratic jobs and that's not what any politician is about. They want to make more jobs instead of fewer while making the government smaller? Right. You folks can have your religion, I'll keep my politics level headed and vote for whoever seems less likely to make a complete asshole out of themselves when they get into office (a thing Bush has failed miserably at).
So, we take $15*12=$180. Office 2003 Small Business can be had for as little as $145. If you use Office at least once a month, then 'pay as you go' is simply not cheaper. Yet another example of 'cheaper is not always cheaper.'
Do you think that really matters tho? I mean, you are dealing with a country where Rent-A-Center is seen as a credit card company to some people (as if credit cards weren't draconian enough with interest rates). This is the "we want it now, and we'll pay for it later" nation, it runs from everything to consumer products to the presidential administration. Pay as you go software, if marketed correctly could be a boon for Microsoft. Just imagine, you have a box in walmart with "lease Office 2003 now for only $15!" and have the box itself only cost $15, with payments every month upon installation. The shortsightedness of the average American will see this as cheaper. Such as those who pay to lease a car, buy from the bigbox and then pay minimum payments and get crap from rent-a-center.
Companies have a general knowledge of something that average people seem to not really care about: compounding of interest and overall cost calculations. Most people don't look into the long term costs of things if they can get it on the cheap in the short term.
Back a few years ago, my brother wanted to buy a PS2 but didn't want to save up. He went to rent-a-center and got a contract to buy it eventually given weekly payments. I forget what it was per week, but the sales person quoted him a figure that didn't include interest I guess. He said it was going to cost him like 300-400 dollars, which my brother thought was reasonable given the fact he didn't have the money initially. Then I told him the guy was full of shit and worked it out. If I took the amount of the payment times the length (all you have to do to work something like this out, instead of believing the "4-easy payments of 24.99" salesman) it worked out to like $1,200 for a Playstation 2, just stretched out in small increments over a long period of time.
Big business will always play to the idiot consumer without the good sense to whip out a calculator and work the math out, and it's a good strategy from their angle because most consumers are shortsighted. Given proper marketing, it wouldn't matter how much more subscribing to software would cost consumers in the long run, they see it as a small fee in the short term.
It's the same effect that has people buying $150 dollars of cigarettes a month and wondering why they can't save: they buy them at $5 a pack a day and it seems like a small amount, until you add it up.
An inkless printer will never be a viable profit-generating product unless it costs many, many thousands of dollars. Printer manufacturers make most of their money from consumables, and a printer which requires no consumables (even the paper is resuable) will never make it to market.
And this is, in the end, why capitalism prevents _real_ innovation.
When I suspect someone is driving under the influence, they get a cop on their ass five minutes after I pick up my cellphone. I forbid to let idiots like you and everyone else that downs a beer to think its acceptable to drink and drive, and actually promote the idea of it.
But sometimes you have to drive drunk: Those kids have to get to school!
Keywords like -force are there for a reason. They're intended for use by someone who knows what they're doing. The system didn't force ESR to use them, it simply was the case that ESR didn't know what he needed to do and used the wrong "system override" to try to do it. Ordinary users would, quite simply, never have destroyed their system in the way ESR did, because of some limitation being imposed by their system.
Nope, normal users wouldn't, however, if the app in question was mission critical and updating it became a problem it would stick out in the user's mind as a major failure of the OS, no matter who you want to blame for it. If there's an alternative on a mainstream OS, all of a sudden that seems more enticing. Simply put it becomes a case of "this doesn't work, and I don't care what the excuses are, I need it to work."
If Linux wants to be taken seriously it has to take these issues seriously. Ubuntu's makers seem to understand that a little more and have reduced the dependency hell's effect in their distro. You cannot fault him for thinking that at this point in the game, this should be the way you do things. There's innovation, but after a while, if you don't keep up with innovation and don't do what's expected of you, you become obsolete and people will move to a competitor. As happened here.
The hypocrasy and general one sided "we're the best, do as we say not as we do" attitude of the US Government stinks to high heaven, and the UK Government really needs to grow a pair and stand up to the one sided "special relationship" we supposeldly have with the USA.
You have a "special relationship" alright, the same type of "special relationship" a lot of kids had with their priests and weird uncles.
Hobbyists and free software advocates have succeeded where Bill Gates said they could not. They have put out a usable, alternative to solution to just about everything. This irritates people in the lock'em'in software business, as suddenly now they have competition that not only won't just go away, but is demanding and developing alternative standards to proprietary formats.
They are not only threatening as a competitor, but they threaten companies like MS with eventual obsolescence. And let's face it: no company wants to deal with something that will eventually put them out of business if it succeeds.
What's funny about Linux is that it is sort of a Microsoft tactic to get rid of competitors, namely, we'll give it away. That's how they put Netscape out of business, how they attained so much market share in media players, etc. Linux is the ultimate "we'll give it away" solution, giving away everything even the OS.
You can see why software businesses could feel threatened by Linux, but legally, they probably don't have a leg to stand on either way. Nobody can say they own a patent to a generic GUI, when Apple, MS, OS/2, etc. etc. have all used GUIs. Linux is in little to no legal trouble. But it's the last leg that they can stand on when competing for enterprise marketshare when all the other FUD runs through.
They are protecting what may soon be a failing business model: the proprietary software development house.
I've been described as the guy who "turns email into an instant-messaging system." I just wish Slashdot comment reply notification emails were sent out as they happened, instead of in batches every five minutes.
That's funny, I'm known as the guy who turns an instant-messaging system into snail mail because I forget to put up an away message and it confuses people.
I'm sick and tired of IT departments that try to control everything I do when I know perfectly well that WeatherBug and WinFixer are the right tools for the job. I am a smart and knowledgeable IT consumer, and I've been using these fine products at home for some time now. Why not at work too?
Wow, I didn't know my dad read slashdot. Hey dad, you can register you know... You have to click on...oh nevermind, you know everything.
Has always been the user who *thinks* he knows too much, and is out to prove it - usually causing problems, havoc, and destruction in so doing. You know, the kind of guy who gets pissed when you won't give them root/Administrator priveliges because he thinks he's a real big-shot. I've heard arguments as silly as "Well, I'm learning Linux on my own at home, so sooner or later, I'm going to know how to use it whether you give me root or not." Yeah, good for you.
Ah, this reminds me of my older brother. I tried to get him to show me the computer he was buying before he bought it so he'd get the best deal and then he buys it without showing me first and I get a phone call:
Him: "It's the newest thing, it's got a different type of video card slot though, so I'm going to have to buy a new videocard."
Me: "But you had a PCI express, what did you get an AGP?"
Him: "Nah, it's some kind of new thing, it said it somewhere, P something...Here's the paper."
Me: "What's it say?"
Him: "One A....G.....P slot."
Me: "Yeah, AGP. I don't know why you bought that when you have a PCI Express card..."
And I'll be damned if all I really care about is whether or not it works as advertised. I don't give a shit if it runs Linux or can be unlocked to run on any network I might imagine running it on. I don't care. I just want it to work. It's a fucking phone not some flag to rally around or a battlefield to fight for our rights on. It's not a "weapon in some insane power war" either. It's just a phone.
You might be modded up and everything, but this is a common point of view. However, you yourself said you considered buying the iPhone. Why would you pay $500 for "just a phone"?
The problem in my opinion is that wireless carriers in this country like to lock down phones to prevent you from not spending millions of dollars on ringtones and graphics. They lock down the actual capabilities of the phone. There's things right now that phones on these carriers could do if it weren't for barriers that they put up, and they don't let them. You can't use a voice recording as a ringer because they don't want you to, not because it isn't possible. They start to limit your abilities to use your hardware in order to charge you 1.99 per 10 second ringtone that's untransferrable, and doesn't have what you want in song selection. Then, after your POS phone that they give you breaks or dies because you left it on the charger too long and that's enough to kill it in some bad hardware cases, you have to buy a new phone and buy your ringtones and wallpapers all over again. Many people wondered why when you bought your cell phone there wasn't a regular telephone ring style tone and all the stock ringers sounded like weird sci-fi or classical crap that nobody'd want to embarrass themselves using, it's because they were gonna charge 1.99 per tone for anything else.
People buy camera phones everyday only to find out that the only conceivable way to transfer pictures out is to email them to yourself on some phones, at, of course, a charge per picture.
There are ways around these things, and I have found one (I bought an unlocked motorola that came with a USB cable, now I pay the mafia for nothing), but the average person doesn't take these avenues and that's what corporations like Cingular, etc. depend upon.
In other countries cell phones are able to be used on other networks. They are unlocked so you can use any sim card you want. The phone I bought, I can take overseas, plug in a prepaid sim and use it there. This is how the technology works. Each network isn't a unique snowflake, your hardware can already work on competitor's networks, it's just that they don't want you to use it.
They want to lock your phone to the network so that you buy a 2 year contract with them. Because the phones are unaffordable otherwise. They lure you in with the 2 year 50 dollar phone deal, and then you are still paying long after you realize their service sucks in your particular area. You could switch but you'd have to pay the fee. Everytime you switch you have to do another activation charge and another phone. Yes, sometimes you can get a phone for free but with a contract. You can't cancel without their fees. It's a real ripoff.
I use a monthly prepaid plan with a rollover balance on Cingular now with an unlocked phone I bought online from canada. This isn't average, but it actually guarantees interoperability. Years ago I bought a phone on AT&T only to have them "merge" with Cingular and force me to buy an inferior phone which was awful and unsatisfying just because they chose to lock the phone I bought. Well, they can change all day and all I'll have to buy now is a new sim card. They won't get any more dollars out of me for new phones just because they felt like screwing their customers by moving to a different name. Cingular is the new AT&T or something now, it's only a matter of time before Cingular becomes AT&T again with another sim card or AT&T and whatever merge and it becomes "let's make you buy a new phone" wireless. Whatever, as l
Water was a interesting choice, in fact, Fluidics is a very important field of study that is widely used in aerospace or mission-critical applications, where eletronic control devices don't offer the reliability of cannot support the envoronment. Also, military technologies use Fluidics in order to prevent malfunction in a nuclear war, when eletric devices cease to work.
Well, since it's used in eletronic control devices that don't offer the reliability of cannot support the envoronment, I can definitely see it's usefulness.
They use the words the community has used to attack their software monoculture to attack a standards monoculture. It's calculated, and a smart move on their part. Utterly contemptuous and underhanded, but very very smart.
<moviequote>They're playing hardball, and I gotta say I'm kinda impressed by it.</moviequote>
What ends up happening is they teach the kid to use a crutch. Instead of practicing arithmetic, they let kids in grade 3 (!) just use calculators. My kids only know the times tables because I *made* them learn it. Flashcards and practice, just like I did (I had a hard time with it too). They already forgive me for it. My son is seen as a "math prodigy", to use his teachers words - and quite frankly (not to denigrate him), his abilities are what I would consider average for his age. He isn't like moved on to precalculus on his own, or anything like that. He can add, subtract, multiply and divide simple numbers in his head. This makes him a prodigy in the modern US education system. ouch.
Reminds me of how impressed I made a girl because I could calculate what everyone owed for a meal without thinking too hard about it. The dumb age has officially arrived, not only are people using spell check to go between there their and they're, they don't even know the difference in some cases. I start to feel like a rare minority some days, and I don't consider myself exactly exceptional as far as mathematical ability, grammar, spelling or really anything is concerned. I just don't need a crutch, as you said.
Someone comes up with a new tech that could be used for something "evil" and people shit themselves? If you're truly worried about being RFID tagged, or having stuff you're shoplifting being tagged, get scanner, locate the spot and apply a neutralizer (electricity, magnetics?). So I think there's no cause for world-wide panic quite yet.
This is all great and everything, but with everything spiraling downwardly the way it is, you have to fake your info on every website, provide different passwords and emails so they can't track you that way, use encryption so they don't check your email, never make a phone call so they can survey you that way, not go out in public because there's public surveillance in a lot of major cities, encrypt your web traffic so they don't survey your web queries and other activity and microwave/neutralize your money and never use credit cards for purchases. Protecting whatever sense of privacy you have is becoming a full time job. The average person isn't going to even do half of this, and should an authority wish to jail them for some real or virtual crime, enough digging through the information they have on a person will probably be enough to find an infraction large enough to land them in jail. Next thing you know you make a comment about Bush and the FBI is at your doorstep. It has happened before.
Next time you hear the **AA's going on about how piracy is killing them, realize that they may be targetting those who make decisions about including DRM just as much, or possibly more, than they're targetting the lawmakers or joe public.
Okay, but that makes me ask in my head why would they want the DRM if not for this purpose? Many people like to push the "control the consumer" and "make them re-buy things" theories here, but honestly, do you really think that's the reason? Maybe the **AAs do actually think the DRM deters piracy. I mean, it can have these side effects, the lockin, etc. But in all honesty they don't seem to be stopping people from ripping their own CDs and using windows DRM, which is compatible with more devices than just one. It just doesn't seem to me like these side effects are their real motivation, as those side effects are more likely to make no sale at all. They perhaps do actually believe what they preach, even if it is incorrect.
If the climate becomes stable for a decade or so AND if CO2 levels go through the roof, how will you respond with your rational argument when someone says "That's what they said about global warming". And every non-scientist listening will nod in agreement and think "yea, they lied to me about global warming, why wouldn't they lie to me about evolution". I fear this. You should fear this. You should start to point out that this type of assinine argument is going to be given credility because the same people who are proponents for (scientifically proven) evolution are also proponents for (scientifically inferred) global warming. Very few people who determine what becomes law or who gets money know the difference.
I don't know if you live on the same planet as me, but non-scientific, irrational arguments get weight all the time in these type of conversations now. One my favorite headnodder idiot arguments has to be: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Does that mean they will be in the position to do anything about it though? Not really. If the population wants to continue to get stupider about subjects instead of educating themselves, we aren't going to be able to prevent it. That's the problem with not being in the "average" sector. You can try your hardest, but at the end people won't understand what you are saying. I suggest watching idiocracy.
Why is it that authors, singers, actors, etc feel the need to get political? Are we enveloped in a society where it is expected that if you have any leverage, you push your beliefs on other people?
Why does anyone? Why do Slashdot posters get all political trying to push their ideologies on other people?
People are, by nature, "political animals" as Aristotle suggested 2300 years ago.
-l
Not only that, but in my opinion politics were never designed to be a specialized field full of aristocrats. Politics, is, by its very nature the business of the people in a democracy. The press gives these people the magnitude they use in expressing their views, don't blame them for having one. Everyone earns their right to an opinion by being a citizen of this nation. If you don't like that, maybe you should try a communist country where the only people who get to have political views are those that are authorized to have them.
I'm so sick of the "what do they know?" argument. What does anyone know? Anyone who follows the news knows that politicians hardly know the subject matter of the bills they vote on and they are the ones that are voting. If a celebrity can come on record with a lot of media attention and shine light onto a subject such as this one, which is, honestly, worthy of attention, and garner popular support, perhaps the politicians responsible for addressing these issues will take a second look at them before throwing them in the circular file.
Politicians often don't even read the bills they vote on. Just because someone isn't a full-time politician doesn't mean he knows nothing. In fact, it's probably the opposite.
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Exactly. And if the prices were sane, I would definitely buy DRM-Free MP3s. Definitely. But they'd have to be DRM free. I'm not buying .wmas and putting them with the rest of my collection, it's just not happening.
I think what companies don't yet realize is that, look, we already have collections of MP3s. Everyone under 30 probably has a large collection, and I'm one of the few that has a HUGE collection. However, there are times when I want an album and you can't find it on bittorrent and it's not available other than going to the CD store. Honestly, I don't feel like ripping CDs, and there's a lot of times when I just don't even buy the track rather than having to go and buy a CD and rip it to my hard drive. And it has NOTHING to do with cost. It did, at one point when I was a college student money was an issue. Nowadays, it definitely isn't. But when you have a large collection of high quality MP3s that you know will work on your player, in your DVD player, or any number of other devices you simply aren't going to buy a track and break the DRM to have it mesh well with the rest of your collection.
Yes, I'm notorious for downloading a lot of MP3s, but I would be willing to buy legitimate, if only companies would give me the chance to do so. Stop trying to change how we store our music and just mix with what we have. It's the only way you'll survive.
Yours truly,
A kind of average downloader.
Yes, this is what they claim. However, in the end they want to install weird screensavers from online or other bogus crapplets, and when these things don't work on their newly purchased Linux machines, they are going to start getting irritated. They are used to the just work model of Windows.
They all *say* they just want internet and e-mail, until they see an advertisement on TV for some new POS service or application or they want to run turbotax or whatever. When they can't run these things on their PC, it'll be Linux to blame and they won't get into the open source politics. It will be as simple as "my crap doesn't run", "I bought a webcam and it doesn't work." And that's just the bottom line.
It's kind of like my job, how factories buy equipment saying they're looking to move certain quantities, and then later start testing the equipment by moving more in 6 months. That's what they *start out* wanting, but it's not all they really want. They want everything cool that everyone else is using, and if they can't have it, even if they paid less, they are going to be pissed.
People always say this as if any Republican has ever really been for this style of government. Let's be honest, even Reagan talked about eliminating the department of education then managed to grow it. Both major parties are candidates for big government.
The last few years I've been a little bit more political than I had been in the past, and I have had a few observations: 1) both parties are radical in their own ways that don't serve the people and 2) both organizations are more religious than governmental. I went to a peace rally in Washington only to find myself surrounded by people who thought not only shouldn't we be at war with Iraq, but that the government did 9/11 and that we should all be eating different foods, etc. Both movements are almost religious in their blatant ignorance of the facts and the lies they wish to perpetuate throughout their base. Neither side is any good for anyone.
Republicans claim to be states rights and anti-federalists, but they aren't. Bush grows government, everyone grows government. All republicans that got into office wound up growing government, so why should I believe the next "I'm going to shrink government" presidential candidate? We all know that shrinking government would cut bureaucratic jobs and that's not what any politician is about. They want to make more jobs instead of fewer while making the government smaller? Right. You folks can have your religion, I'll keep my politics level headed and vote for whoever seems less likely to make a complete asshole out of themselves when they get into office (a thing Bush has failed miserably at).
Do you think that really matters tho? I mean, you are dealing with a country where Rent-A-Center is seen as a credit card company to some people (as if credit cards weren't draconian enough with interest rates). This is the "we want it now, and we'll pay for it later" nation, it runs from everything to consumer products to the presidential administration. Pay as you go software, if marketed correctly could be a boon for Microsoft. Just imagine, you have a box in walmart with "lease Office 2003 now for only $15!" and have the box itself only cost $15, with payments every month upon installation. The shortsightedness of the average American will see this as cheaper. Such as those who pay to lease a car, buy from the bigbox and then pay minimum payments and get crap from rent-a-center.
Companies have a general knowledge of something that average people seem to not really care about: compounding of interest and overall cost calculations. Most people don't look into the long term costs of things if they can get it on the cheap in the short term.
Back a few years ago, my brother wanted to buy a PS2 but didn't want to save up. He went to rent-a-center and got a contract to buy it eventually given weekly payments. I forget what it was per week, but the sales person quoted him a figure that didn't include interest I guess. He said it was going to cost him like 300-400 dollars, which my brother thought was reasonable given the fact he didn't have the money initially. Then I told him the guy was full of shit and worked it out. If I took the amount of the payment times the length (all you have to do to work something like this out, instead of believing the "4-easy payments of 24.99" salesman) it worked out to like $1,200 for a Playstation 2, just stretched out in small increments over a long period of time.
Big business will always play to the idiot consumer without the good sense to whip out a calculator and work the math out, and it's a good strategy from their angle because most consumers are shortsighted. Given proper marketing, it wouldn't matter how much more subscribing to software would cost consumers in the long run, they see it as a small fee in the short term.
It's the same effect that has people buying $150 dollars of cigarettes a month and wondering why they can't save: they buy them at $5 a pack a day and it seems like a small amount, until you add it up.
And this is, in the end, why capitalism prevents _real_ innovation.
But sometimes you have to drive drunk: Those kids have to get to school!
Nope, normal users wouldn't, however, if the app in question was mission critical and updating it became a problem it would stick out in the user's mind as a major failure of the OS, no matter who you want to blame for it. If there's an alternative on a mainstream OS, all of a sudden that seems more enticing. Simply put it becomes a case of "this doesn't work, and I don't care what the excuses are, I need it to work."
If Linux wants to be taken seriously it has to take these issues seriously. Ubuntu's makers seem to understand that a little more and have reduced the dependency hell's effect in their distro. You cannot fault him for thinking that at this point in the game, this should be the way you do things. There's innovation, but after a while, if you don't keep up with innovation and don't do what's expected of you, you become obsolete and people will move to a competitor. As happened here.
You have a "special relationship" alright, the same type of "special relationship" a lot of kids had with their priests and weird uncles.
There, fixed that for you.
Hobbyists and free software advocates have succeeded where Bill Gates said they could not. They have put out a usable, alternative to solution to just about everything. This irritates people in the lock'em'in software business, as suddenly now they have competition that not only won't just go away, but is demanding and developing alternative standards to proprietary formats.
They are not only threatening as a competitor, but they threaten companies like MS with eventual obsolescence. And let's face it: no company wants to deal with something that will eventually put them out of business if it succeeds.
What's funny about Linux is that it is sort of a Microsoft tactic to get rid of competitors, namely, we'll give it away. That's how they put Netscape out of business, how they attained so much market share in media players, etc. Linux is the ultimate "we'll give it away" solution, giving away everything even the OS.
You can see why software businesses could feel threatened by Linux, but legally, they probably don't have a leg to stand on either way. Nobody can say they own a patent to a generic GUI, when Apple, MS, OS/2, etc. etc. have all used GUIs. Linux is in little to no legal trouble. But it's the last leg that they can stand on when competing for enterprise marketshare when all the other FUD runs through.
They are protecting what may soon be a failing business model: the proprietary software development house.
Or figure out what usenet is. =P
That's funny, I'm known as the guy who turns an instant-messaging system into snail mail because I forget to put up an away message and it confuses people.
*Shrug* Maybe he'd like while loops better.
Wow, I didn't know my dad read slashdot. Hey dad, you can register you know... You have to click on...oh nevermind, you know everything.
Ah, this reminds me of my older brother. I tried to get him to show me the computer he was buying before he bought it so he'd get the best deal and then he buys it without showing me first and I get a phone call:
Him: "It's the newest thing, it's got a different type of video card slot though, so I'm going to have to buy a new videocard."
Me: "But you had a PCI express, what did you get an AGP?"
Him: "Nah, it's some kind of new thing, it said it somewhere, P something...Here's the paper."
Me: "What's it say?"
Him: "One A....G.....P slot."
Me: "Yeah, AGP. I don't know why you bought that when you have a PCI Express card..."
...that there would be a Milli Vanilli in the classical world.
Compact Disc Database, there that was hard wasn't it?
It's the thing you use to tag your music.
You might be modded up and everything, but this is a common point of view. However, you yourself said you considered buying the iPhone. Why would you pay $500 for "just a phone"?
The problem in my opinion is that wireless carriers in this country like to lock down phones to prevent you from not spending millions of dollars on ringtones and graphics. They lock down the actual capabilities of the phone. There's things right now that phones on these carriers could do if it weren't for barriers that they put up, and they don't let them. You can't use a voice recording as a ringer because they don't want you to, not because it isn't possible. They start to limit your abilities to use your hardware in order to charge you 1.99 per 10 second ringtone that's untransferrable, and doesn't have what you want in song selection. Then, after your POS phone that they give you breaks or dies because you left it on the charger too long and that's enough to kill it in some bad hardware cases, you have to buy a new phone and buy your ringtones and wallpapers all over again. Many people wondered why when you bought your cell phone there wasn't a regular telephone ring style tone and all the stock ringers sounded like weird sci-fi or classical crap that nobody'd want to embarrass themselves using, it's because they were gonna charge 1.99 per tone for anything else.
People buy camera phones everyday only to find out that the only conceivable way to transfer pictures out is to email them to yourself on some phones, at, of course, a charge per picture.
There are ways around these things, and I have found one (I bought an unlocked motorola that came with a USB cable, now I pay the mafia for nothing), but the average person doesn't take these avenues and that's what corporations like Cingular, etc. depend upon.
In other countries cell phones are able to be used on other networks. They are unlocked so you can use any sim card you want. The phone I bought, I can take overseas, plug in a prepaid sim and use it there. This is how the technology works. Each network isn't a unique snowflake, your hardware can already work on competitor's networks, it's just that they don't want you to use it.
They want to lock your phone to the network so that you buy a 2 year contract with them. Because the phones are unaffordable otherwise. They lure you in with the 2 year 50 dollar phone deal, and then you are still paying long after you realize their service sucks in your particular area. You could switch but you'd have to pay the fee. Everytime you switch you have to do another activation charge and another phone. Yes, sometimes you can get a phone for free but with a contract. You can't cancel without their fees. It's a real ripoff.
I use a monthly prepaid plan with a rollover balance on Cingular now with an unlocked phone I bought online from canada. This isn't average, but it actually guarantees interoperability. Years ago I bought a phone on AT&T only to have them "merge" with Cingular and force me to buy an inferior phone which was awful and unsatisfying just because they chose to lock the phone I bought. Well, they can change all day and all I'll have to buy now is a new sim card. They won't get any more dollars out of me for new phones just because they felt like screwing their customers by moving to a different name. Cingular is the new AT&T or something now, it's only a matter of time before Cingular becomes AT&T again with another sim card or AT&T and whatever merge and it becomes "let's make you buy a new phone" wireless. Whatever, as l
Well, since it's used in eletronic control devices that don't offer the reliability of cannot support the envoronment, I can definitely see it's usefulness.
<moviequote>They're playing hardball, and I gotta say I'm kinda impressed by it.</moviequote>
Reminds me of how impressed I made a girl because I could calculate what everyone owed for a meal without thinking too hard about it. The dumb age has officially arrived, not only are people using spell check to go between there their and they're, they don't even know the difference in some cases. I start to feel like a rare minority some days, and I don't consider myself exactly exceptional as far as mathematical ability, grammar, spelling or really anything is concerned. I just don't need a crutch, as you said.
This is all great and everything, but with everything spiraling downwardly the way it is, you have to fake your info on every website, provide different passwords and emails so they can't track you that way, use encryption so they don't check your email, never make a phone call so they can survey you that way, not go out in public because there's public surveillance in a lot of major cities, encrypt your web traffic so they don't survey your web queries and other activity and microwave/neutralize your money and never use credit cards for purchases. Protecting whatever sense of privacy you have is becoming a full time job. The average person isn't going to even do half of this, and should an authority wish to jail them for some real or virtual crime, enough digging through the information they have on a person will probably be enough to find an infraction large enough to land them in jail. Next thing you know you make a comment about Bush and the FBI is at your doorstep. It has happened before.
Okay, but that makes me ask in my head why would they want the DRM if not for this purpose? Many people like to push the "control the consumer" and "make them re-buy things" theories here, but honestly, do you really think that's the reason? Maybe the **AAs do actually think the DRM deters piracy. I mean, it can have these side effects, the lockin, etc. But in all honesty they don't seem to be stopping people from ripping their own CDs and using windows DRM, which is compatible with more devices than just one. It just doesn't seem to me like these side effects are their real motivation, as those side effects are more likely to make no sale at all. They perhaps do actually believe what they preach, even if it is incorrect.
I don't know if you live on the same planet as me, but non-scientific, irrational arguments get weight all the time in these type of conversations now. One my favorite headnodder idiot arguments has to be: "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Does that mean they will be in the position to do anything about it though? Not really. If the population wants to continue to get stupider about subjects instead of educating themselves, we aren't going to be able to prevent it. That's the problem with not being in the "average" sector. You can try your hardest, but at the end people won't understand what you are saying. I suggest watching idiocracy.
Not only that, but in my opinion politics were never designed to be a specialized field full of aristocrats. Politics, is, by its very nature the business of the people in a democracy. The press gives these people the magnitude they use in expressing their views, don't blame them for having one. Everyone earns their right to an opinion by being a citizen of this nation. If you don't like that, maybe you should try a communist country where the only people who get to have political views are those that are authorized to have them.
I'm so sick of the "what do they know?" argument. What does anyone know? Anyone who follows the news knows that politicians hardly know the subject matter of the bills they vote on and they are the ones that are voting. If a celebrity can come on record with a lot of media attention and shine light onto a subject such as this one, which is, honestly, worthy of attention, and garner popular support, perhaps the politicians responsible for addressing these issues will take a second look at them before throwing them in the circular file.
Politicians often don't even read the bills they vote on. Just because someone isn't a full-time politician doesn't mean he knows nothing. In fact, it's probably the opposite.