But what if the next band charges $12? or $20? or $40?
I would pay $3 for hours of my favorite band and deal with some inconveniences.
Not being able to mix it into a playlist with other artists is a pretty serious inconvenience at any price. Hell, even at 'free' I'd find it more annoying than it was worth. Nevermind not being able to move it to any other device.
Better than spending $12 on 1 album and not being able to do anything with my music because of DRM.
Bios, extra content, tour dates, blogs, and ALL their music in one place. Sounds like something a fan would gladly pay 2.99 to have access to.
Yeah, ONE place. Their ipod/phone app. What if they want to listen to it on their computer? or put it on their kids mp3 device?
What happens when you buy a new phone, and it isn't an iphone?
Hell, you can't even to mix the tracks into a playlist with music by other artists on your iphone.
As for bios, tour dates, blogs... those better be on the regular web. That leaves 'extra content'... sure that might be worth 2.99, and super-fans will pay 2.99 to join their favorite artists little exclusive iphone club... and I have no issue with that. But I'd HATE to see this become a trend for actually accessing music.
Possibly. It came bundled with Win95OSR2, so it might be someone with a really old system that never upgraded anything.
Its more likely someone with a fresh install of Win95 or NT4 for testing purposes somewhere. Probably who is trying download a more modern browser but is having trouble finding one because microsoft.com, windows update, etc pukes on browsers that old.
Come on Microsoft! Windows update should detect the really old browsers and redirect to a PLAIN html page with downloads for NT service backs, IE redistributables, and so on. For that matter firefox.com should also provide very graceful degradation for browsers that old too (which last time I checked, it did not.)
And while I'm dreaming, they should degrade to a low resolution low color page too.
Because if I'm using IE3 or 4 I'm almost always trying to bootstrap a fresh install of a legacy OS... meaning that while I'm trying to upgrade IE3/4 to something more modern I'm also usually stuck at 800x600 or even 640x480 in 16 colors...)
Nothing is more annoying than trying to download video drivers from a site that is designed to be viewed exclusively at 1024x768 in 24bit+ color with flash animations and png transparency, and fancy css/dhtml/ajax... Hello!! I'm here to download video drivers, why is this site designed to assume I already have them with no fallback -- if I show up at nvidia.com or support.dell.com with an antique browser have the decency to take pity on me, and let me bybass your flashy web2.0 hi-color hi-res crap... and take me straight to the damn drivers in plain ugly html 1.0 with old fashioned download links.
Wrong. Abuse of monopoly power is a reason for anti trust under US law (IANAL). Simply being a monopoly is not.
Abuse of monopoly power is a reason for an anti trust lawsuit. Simply being a monopoly is a reason to be watching for anti-trust activity.
I say normal market forces still apply. I can take my advertising...
But I'm talking about search, not advertising. And sure you can switch to yahoo if you want. But if google removes your site from their results, for most people that would mean your site may as well not be on the web. As I said, there are millions of online businesses that live or die based on their pagerank.
Compare this to the microsoft os monopoly, where my hardware and software are tied together and I cannot simply switch over, because my business processes are at risk and it will cost me a lot of effort to switch.
Explain to me how an online business can mitigate the risk that google will not list them, other than to 'trust google'.
That is faulty reasoning, because if you follow that same line you can come the conclusion that every company or every human being needs to be closely watched because of the possibility to commit a crime.
Not because of the possibility to commit a crime, because the market no longer regulates how they operate, so manual regulation is required, even if its just a hands off 'keep an eye on it'. So it only applies to corporations, not people, and only corporations in a monopoly position, not everyone.
Google has 23.7% online market share. In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
Re-read what I said, and then re-read the reference you provided, and see if you can spot the disconnect. Hint: "search" for it.
In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
In the way that 23.7% has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Google search in US: 70% Google search in Germany: 88% Google search in France: 89% Google search in the UK: 90% Google search in Europe overall: 80%
70-90% is fast closing in on monopoly territory. In the US, for exampe, Google captured 90% of all growth in search, meaning, it is is steadily increasing its market share.
Doesn't it suck when you throw out unsupported allegations...
Why? Because they've built a better mousetrap, and now people want to use it?
No, people are getting trapped IN it.
Google isn't even close to being a monopoly.
In the US & Canada for search (perhaps Europe too?), yes it is close. Close enough that online businesses, site profitability, etc, etc, live and die in large part based on their google page ranks.
I'm not a slobbering fanboy of Google the way some other people are, but I also fail to see a business boogeyman behind every corner as some people do.
Google is a serious threat to privacy, and has easily reached the critical mass that gives it monopoly power.
Some people's concept of "anti-trust" would be more correctly called "anti-success"
Enough success to the point that they achieve monopoly power is a reason for anti-trust.
this notion that a company that's been very successful must have cheated or done something nefarious to get that way.
Say what now? Nobody is accusing google of necessarily having done something nefarious or of cheating to get where they are, but the point remains that they are in fact where they are. They have reached a level of success, size, and influence now in some markets that normal market forces no longer really apply to them. As such, they now need to be watched closely. That is all.
Google is a big threat now, whether they abuse it or not, they need to be watched. Microsoft is sill big, but they are off their peak, and while they should be watched they are less of a threat these days. Personally I applaud the administrations frank recognition of that.
Yes! It's only a matter of time until Slashdot's heroes, the Pirate Bay operators, get away with this. It's our right as human beings to rip off artists and not pay them, and it's totally awesome for Pirate Bay to run a torrent tracker that connects users so that they can distribute file chunks to each other.
FUCK artists, and FUCK their rights. They are our slaves. We don't owe them a dime for their work. Long live, Pirate Bay, and enjoy the victory, guys!
So if H&K or Smith&Wesson were ever to be charged with making the guns used to kill people, and were acquited... logically you would say:
Yes! Its only a matter of time until Slashdot's heroes the, the manufacturers of guns, get away with this. It's our right as human beings to shoot people in the face, and its totally awesome for gun manufacturers to run a production chain that connects users to guns so they can buy weapons for eachother.
Fuck people I want to shoot in the face, and fuck their rights. They are our slaves. We don't owe them not shooting them in the face. Long live gun manufacturers, and enjoy the victory guys!
See what I did there? Copyright infringement may not be legal (murder sure isn't), but simply being peripherally involved in the crime, by providing, say, the very instruments used to commit it provided you aren't directly participating in anything criminal,... well shucks... that isn't actually illegal.
If you want to stop copyright infringement, convince the people actually downloading copies that what they are doing is wrong. Senselessly prosecuting gun manufacturers and torrent indexes for what end users do with them really isn't ever going to be very effective, because the murderers and infringers aren't even the ones affected.
Microsoft does not offer downgrade rights with its Vista Home Premium, the most popular of Vista's editions."
Your Dell config came with Vista Home Premium? Well, if you want XP you're SOL, that'll be $120 to 'upgrade' the Vista you want to 'downgrade'.
Ok, but there's still something you missed:
You are getting XP Professional, not XP Home. You've always had to pay extra for Pro.
Microsoft launched Vista, and effectively discontinued XP. There is no reason they should -HAVE- to offer downgrade rights at all. However, for their business customers, that flexibility is available on the Pro operating systems.
Home users who don't want Vista, are upgrading to pro to take advantage of the downgrade rights to xp pro. They are getting what they paid for.
Seriously, the real question is why does microsoft have to offer any product at all at a given price point?
What if they had simply decided not to offer Home Basic or Home Premium at all, and just had a single edition "Windows Vista", and that's it?! All those low end consumer PCs would cost $100 more, but it wouldn't be 'extra' because there would be no lower version, and now everyone would have downgrade rights. Would that make these idiots happier?
Good call. They are also, more importantly =different= niches. Road warriors who want the ultimate portable they can swap batteries on the fly with aren't likely to be carrying around 17" 3k$ desktop replacement laptops.
They tend to shoot for smaller more portable devices with long battery life.
Um, no it's not, unless you're comparing it to other Apple notebooks, which have historically been a pain in the ass to service. 16 screws is on the hard side of medium difficulty for replacing a part. LCDs are usually fewer than ten, for example. I've replaced some motherboards by taking out about 16 screws...
Except that 16 screws and one plug is the total effort. Replacing a motherboard from a PC is usually at least a dozen screws plus power connectors, sata, ide, fans, usb leads, power/reset/hddled leads, first removing any expansion cards, not to mention the re&re on the CPU/heatsink which is probably one of the hardest parts to replace if you are unfamiliar with doing them.
16 screws is something my father would attempt without hesitation. replacing a motherboard? not a chance.
In actual fact the macbook battery is essentially an irregularly shaped pancake.
Because of this, there is an additional challenge to making it removable, aside from the irregularity.
Batteries aren't 'bendable'; you don't want them flexing. That would lead to shortouts, and possibly fires.
Giving a battery that shape enough structural integrity would would add a LOT of bulk. Imagine building an enclosure for a 12" vinyl record rigid enough that it wouldn't flex if you stepped on it, dropped it, put it in your backpack, or did all the things people expect to be able to safely do with a spare laptop battery.
A switchable battery isn't bigger, heavier or last less.
I misspoke for simplicity. A switchable battery requires a rigid durable casing of its own, and the laptop must be sufficiently rigid and durable as well when it is removed. In practice this tends to add a mm or so to the thickness, a key metric that you want to reduce in laptops.
Perhaps even importantly, the switchable battery is MUCH more limited in terms of its form factor. It must be regular convex shape so that it can slip easily into its slot, make contact, etc.
Take a look at a new MacBook Pro battery. Its a big pancake that fits into every available nook of space on the macbook pro covering most of its bottom surface. This enables it to utilize every bit of available space, and add the least amount of size.
This is how they are able to make it last longer. Its a bigger battery, much bigger than anything they could fit into it if they had to keep it the same size. A giant irregular pancake would never be able to be rigid enough to be safe bouncing around in your backpack.
When I said it was 'smaller and lighter' I was comparing it to how big and heavy it would be if they had bolted on a battery of the same capacity that was user switchable, and thus had to be self contained safe secure convenient enclosure even when it was out of the laptop.
There is no way you can put the macbook pro battery into to such an enclosure. As an engineer you get to choose between:
a) have a high cap sprawling pancake that fits into the nooks and crannies
b) have a high cap battery in a big bulky container and make the laptop much bigger
c) have a lower cap enclosed battery that will fit into the biggest single nook they can manage.
They chose a, and gave up user switchability for 'high cap using all available irregular space'.
At best, Apple is using the 0.1% of room they gain from not having to put a flap to put a larger, bigger, heavier battery in (which will last a little longer). Its just not significant overall so no one minds./i
Logically, they shouldn't. Psychologically however, they should. Even if a user will never change the battery throughout the unit's lifespan; not giving the user the option can stop an Apple sale dead in its tracks. More so in this crowded market I might add.
Yes, a small number of sales will be lost because of this. However it will be a small number. And the cost of those sales is probably less than the cost of making the batteries removable, and will be more than offset by the service center profit from swapping batteries that die after a couple years at inflated prices for users who lack the savvy to get a replacement online, and spin those 16 screws themselves.
Yes, two wrongs make a right. Apple still hasnt learned. Dont compliment them by saying "Oh its not as bad as it used to be!"
Quite frankly, most people don't change their laptop battery EVER. After 2+ years when the original one dies, most people STILL don't even do a one time replacement... they just use it plugged in or buy a new one.
Yes, there are road warriors out there that do buy 2 or 3 batteries and rotate them daily. They aren't most people, they are a niche. And they won't buy a MacBook now.
So it doesn't really matter, those of us who never change the battery will be unaffected by the fact that they now can't; and they benefit from a smaller lighter laptop.
Those of us who do actually buy a new battery after 2+ years to replace the old one that no longer holds its charge well, will find the process for changing the mac battery un-daunting. Spinning 16 screws once every couple years simply isn't an issue.
So, why exactly should Apple go out of their way to make batteries more user removable?
Most of their customers are quite happy to give up the option of switching them on the fly, in exchange for a battery that's smaller, lighter, and lasts a bit longer.
A total of sixteen screws. To change the battery. And that's "easy"?
To change a battery that is not designed to be removed by the end user? Yes. That's easy. Especially compared to the effort required to change the hard drive in an original clamshell ibook, for example.
My laptops require zero screws to remove. What does that make them?
It makes them laptops designed to have the battery removed by the user.
Hint: Glibly comparing the difficulty of removing parts 'designed for end user removal' and removing parts 'not designed for end user removal' leads to a FAIL. What do they teach kids in school these days?
I don't think that the single owning entity is an important factor. In fact, Google is the perfect counterexample here; they are set up to index and analyze tons of data they don't own.
Google's actively taking even more direct ownership of data via youtube, gmail, google apps, streetview, latitude, etc. And then they run behind the scenes on a massive number of websites (google analytics, adsense, etc) and finally they index and cache evrything they can get their hands on, even if it doesn't belong to them.
And frankly, google's index and cache amounts to taking ownership of the data. Sure they might not 'own' it the sense of they have copyright over it, but google's cache is effectively their own private copy of the entire public facing internet, under one roof, for them to mine.
Google is one of the worst of the bunch in my opinion.
I have read the first of that series, in fact. It was a horrible book with aweird sexist preachy message. And unbelievable characters, to boot.
The 2nd book is worse imo. The 3rd is better. Its not my favorite book(s) either, and like you I didn't care for the characters. I'm not sure they were unbelievable though, the protagonist woman reminded me of people I knew... and don't care for. So I'm not sure whether I "didn't like the writing of the characters"... or simply "didn't like the characters".
But it featured almost exactly what you referred to, and its treatment of that subject isn't bad.
In a lot of ways it reminded me of "The Left Hand of Darkness" in its larger themes, particularly with its redefinition and treatment of gender roles in the Neanderthal culture... and on that level it works well. But yeah the plot and characters aren't his best work.
But I thought it was funny the author had come up with basically the same idea I had, except for some reason he'd allowed the courts access to it, which I think is a bad idea.
Making it mandatory (ie universal) and giving the courts access to it was a big part of how crime was eliminated (with an interesting exception that arose in the 3rd book). You also have to realize that there was a dichotomy being drawn between "an all seeing God's and his perfect judgement of us" and the Neanderthal recording system, allowing them to be similarly watched and perfectly judged... That's an example of what I -do- like about Sawyer's work.
You don't even have kids do ya? Anyone who put a 6 year old kid on the phone with someone claiming to be a parent would not be working with children for long.
Don't be naive. This happens all the time. I know. I have a six year old.
No... in order to do that we have to make a law, and enforce it. That aint free. It's paid for by "the rest of us" and we don't give two shits about your preference to be un-data-mined. Go live in the freaking woods. Become a sailor.
Really? That must be why Facebook's ToS change isn't a controversy... and why Google latitude isn't being criticized... and why people freak out everytime they try and introduce a national id card. All the rest of you who don't give to shits?
One day you'll thank those of us who care for saving you from your own idiocy. I won't hold my breath though.
If you're a higher risk you *should* get charged more.. because if you're not getting charged more than *I* am getting charged more.
Except that its *you* getting charged more because *you* were deemed higher risk than me. If they get good enough at predicting who will need an expensive payout, they'll just stop insuring those people. Insurance is supposed to be about covering the risk of things you can't control.
And? That is possible and scary but not nearly as scary as the idea of your 6 year old daughter having a phone.. freak.
No. They'd call the school, moron.
if you're not interested in giving out personal information, don't, but other people are free to give out whatever information they want and yes, that includes information about you. The world can not bend over backwards to accommodate your personal preferences.
The world can easily bend over backwards to make collecting and correlating data about me without my express permission illegal. If other people want to submit information about me, fine, but they don't have to keep it. They don't have to index it. They don't have to data mine it.
And all so entirely boring that people are happy to provide that information to you over a cup of tea.
That was just the beginning. And even that is far more than most people would be comfortable with absolutely *everyone* being able to know.
You apply for car insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places your car has been seen parked and decide you are high risk...
You apply for life insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places you have been seen, and decide you are higher risk...
You cut off the wrong jerk on the freeway, and your 6 year old daughter gets a threatening phone call at school...
What is your point?
The there is a MASSIVE difference between being in the background of a picture in someone's cubicle, and having every photo of you ever taken being indexed along with millions of photos of others and thoroughly data-mined. Anyone who suggests they are equivalent is an idiot.
A little data is meaningless. A lot of data becomes information. Facebook and Google have scary amounts of data to mine for information.
Do you know what a non-sequitur is? If Facebook didn't exist (and believe it or not, there was a time when it didn't), his sister would be just putting the pictures up on her website.. or on the wall of her cubical at work. He might well be opposed to that too.
And those might be annoying but nothing worse.
The reason something like facebook or google is a problem is that ALL the information in the network is owned by one entity, linked together and tagged in ways that a bunch of independant websites and personal blogs never could be. Tons of data in aggregate, actively being linked together by the very users being monitored is far more than the simple sum of its parts.
A few pics on the web of me, a couple in the foreground, and a couple in the background of other people photos is meaningless. But take enough of those pictures, put them together, link them and put them into a cohesive context and piles of new information starts falling out, even if NONE of it was explicitly written.
It goes from there's you at the beach with some girl. To "He's been dating that girl for about 6 years." (from seeing that girl start showing up regularly in photos 6 years ago)
They had child. -- She gradually becomes pregnant in the 3rd year pics.
He works at X, She works at Y. == Random pics of them at work with coworkers. Misc corporate branding in background, plus multiple pictures of those coworkers around a particular building. You are never in a picture outside at work, but based on who your coworkers are and the fact that a high number of them are pictured with this building and the building features the corporate branding means its probably your place of work. The building address is pulled via a correlation with streetview.
He drives an X. Its plate number is Y. - oops you got caught in a pic with your car a few times, and a couple had your plates. It happens. But now its all linked to your profile.
He lives in city A. - pictures of you at home, correlated to an address via streetview. She moved in on date B. - again more picture trending.
The child goes to school at C - more correlations. pics of your kid on stage that other parents took of their kids, where those other kids parents tagged the school. Software matches your child's face to pics of your child at the beach your sister uploaded...
The school at Address D...
You went as a family to see Coraline 3D -- Caught in the background of a cell phone pic someone else uploaded to facebook, and tagged as a visit to coraline. Your faces were matched to those already in your profile. So even though you never told anyone you went, you get caught on some cell phone pic by complete strangers and its linked to your profile. Everyone who has access to the profile knows you were there.
Think that could happen if all these pictures were uploaded to dozens of different providers. Sure someone might randomly stumble upon the image who happens to know you. But the odds of it getting linked back to your profile are astronomically small.
The odds of anything that can be related or correlated to you from any content anyone anywhere ever uploads about anyone to a site like facebook is only a question of time as the data mining and facial recognition, and raw mass of data increases.
All online. All the web of associations and inferences already mapped out from a vast collection of data.
Slashdot Mirror
What happens? You're out a whopping $3.
But what if the next band charges $12? or $20? or $40?
I would pay $3 for hours of my favorite band and deal with some inconveniences.
Not being able to mix it into a playlist with other artists is a pretty serious inconvenience at any price. Hell, even at 'free' I'd find it more annoying than it was worth. Nevermind not being able to move it to any other device.
Better than spending $12 on 1 album and not being able to do anything with my music because of DRM.
iTunes music doesn't have DRM anymore.
Bios, extra content, tour dates, blogs, and ALL their music in one place. Sounds like something a fan would gladly pay 2.99 to have access to.
Yeah, ONE place. Their ipod/phone app. What if they want to listen to it on their computer? or put it on their kids mp3 device?
What happens when you buy a new phone, and it isn't an iphone?
Hell, you can't even to mix the tracks into a playlist with music by other artists on your iphone.
As for bios, tour dates, blogs... those better be on the regular web. That leaves 'extra content' ... sure that might be worth 2.99, and super-fans will pay 2.99 to join their favorite artists little exclusive iphone club... and I have no issue with that. But I'd HATE to see this become a trend for actually accessing music.
IE3!?
Possibly. It came bundled with Win95OSR2, so it might be someone with a really old system that never upgraded anything.
Its more likely someone with a fresh install of Win95 or NT4 for testing purposes somewhere. Probably who is trying download a more modern browser but is having trouble finding one because microsoft.com, windows update, etc pukes on browsers that old.
Come on Microsoft! Windows update should detect the really old browsers and redirect to a PLAIN html page with downloads for NT service backs, IE redistributables, and so on. For that matter firefox.com should also provide very graceful degradation for browsers that old too (which last time I checked, it did not.)
And while I'm dreaming, they should degrade to a low resolution low color page too.
Because if I'm using IE3 or 4 I'm almost always trying to bootstrap a fresh install of a legacy OS... meaning that while I'm trying to upgrade IE3/4 to something more modern I'm also usually stuck at 800x600 or even 640x480 in 16 colors...)
Nothing is more annoying than trying to download video drivers from a site that is designed to be viewed exclusively at 1024x768 in 24bit+ color with flash animations and png transparency, and fancy css/dhtml/ajax... Hello!! I'm here to download video drivers, why is this site designed to assume I already have them with no fallback -- if I show up at nvidia.com or support.dell.com with an antique browser have the decency to take pity on me, and let me bybass your flashy web2.0 hi-color hi-res crap... and take me straight to the damn drivers in plain ugly html 1.0 with old fashioned download links.
Wrong. Abuse of monopoly power is a reason for anti trust under US law (IANAL). Simply being a monopoly is not.
Abuse of monopoly power is a reason for an anti trust lawsuit.
Simply being a monopoly is a reason to be watching for anti-trust activity.
I say normal market forces still apply. I can take my advertising...
But I'm talking about search, not advertising. And sure you can switch to yahoo if you want. But if google removes your site from their results, for most people that would mean your site may as well not be on the web. As I said, there are millions of online businesses that live or die based on their pagerank.
Compare this to the microsoft os monopoly, where my hardware and software are tied together and I cannot simply switch over, because my business processes are at risk and it will cost me a lot of effort to switch.
Explain to me how an online business can mitigate the risk that google will not list them, other than to 'trust google'.
That is faulty reasoning, because if you follow that same line you can come the conclusion that every company or every human being needs to be closely watched because of the possibility to commit a crime.
Not because of the possibility to commit a crime, because the market no longer regulates how they operate, so manual regulation is required, even if its just a hands off 'keep an eye on it'. So it only applies to corporations, not people, and only corporations in a monopoly position, not everyone.
Yeah. I See that now. Sorry for falling for.
Go slit your fucking wrists fucktard
-spun
Aw, cute, chickenshit is afraid of the mods?
Google has 23.7% online market share. In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
Re-read what I said, and then re-read the reference you provided, and see if you can spot the disconnect. Hint: "search" for it.
In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
In the way that 23.7% has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Google search in US: 70%
Google search in Germany: 88%
Google search in France: 89%
Google search in the UK: 90%
Google search in Europe overall: 80%
70-90% is fast closing in on monopoly territory. In the US, for exampe, Google captured 90% of all growth in search, meaning, it is is steadily increasing its market share.
Doesn't it suck when you throw out unsupported allegations...
I accept your apology.
Cites:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jun/10/googleukclosesinon90mark
http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/articles/search-engine-optimization/search-engine-market-shares-europe.php
http://lab.77agency.com/marketing-analysis/google-leads-the-search-engine-industry-holding-80-of-the-european-market-share-485/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9991866-93.html
Why? Because they've built a better mousetrap, and now people want to use it?
No, people are getting trapped IN it.
Google isn't even close to being a monopoly.
In the US & Canada for search (perhaps Europe too?), yes it is close. Close enough that online businesses, site profitability, etc, etc, live and die in large part based on their google page ranks.
I'm not a slobbering fanboy of Google the way some other people are, but I also fail to see a business boogeyman behind every corner as some people do.
Google is a serious threat to privacy, and has easily reached the critical mass that gives it monopoly power.
Some people's concept of "anti-trust" would be more correctly called "anti-success"
Enough success to the point that they achieve monopoly power is a reason for anti-trust.
this notion that a company that's been very successful must have cheated or done something nefarious to get that way.
Say what now? Nobody is accusing google of necessarily having done something nefarious or of cheating to get where they are, but the point remains that they are in fact where they are. They have reached a level of success, size, and influence now in some markets that normal market forces no longer really apply to them. As such, they now need to be watched closely. That is all.
Google is a big threat now, whether they abuse it or not, they need to be watched. Microsoft is sill big, but they are off their peak, and while they should be watched they are less of a threat these days. Personally I applaud the administrations frank recognition of that.
Yes! It's only a matter of time until Slashdot's heroes, the Pirate Bay operators, get away with this. It's our right as human beings to rip off artists and not pay them, and it's totally awesome for Pirate Bay to run a torrent tracker that connects users so that they can distribute file chunks to each other.
FUCK artists, and FUCK their rights. They are our slaves. We don't owe them a dime for their work. Long live, Pirate Bay, and enjoy the victory, guys!
So if H&K or Smith&Wesson were ever to be charged with making the guns used to kill people, and were acquited... logically you would say:
Yes! Its only a matter of time until Slashdot's heroes the, the manufacturers of guns, get away with this. It's our right as human beings to shoot people in the face, and its totally awesome for gun manufacturers to run a production chain that connects users to guns so they can buy weapons for eachother.
Fuck people I want to shoot in the face, and fuck their rights. They are our slaves. We don't owe them not shooting them in the face. Long live gun manufacturers, and enjoy the victory guys!
See what I did there? Copyright infringement may not be legal (murder sure isn't), but simply being peripherally involved in the crime, by providing, say, the very instruments used to commit it provided you aren't directly participating in anything criminal,... well shucks... that isn't actually illegal.
If you want to stop copyright infringement, convince the people actually downloading copies that what they are doing is wrong. Senselessly prosecuting gun manufacturers and torrent indexes for what end users do with them really isn't ever going to be very effective, because the murderers and infringers aren't even the ones affected.
Microsoft does not offer downgrade rights with its Vista Home Premium, the most popular of Vista's editions."
Your Dell config came with Vista Home Premium? Well, if you want XP you're SOL, that'll be $120 to 'upgrade' the Vista you want to 'downgrade'.
Ok, but there's still something you missed:
You are getting XP Professional, not XP Home. You've always had to pay extra for Pro.
Microsoft launched Vista, and effectively discontinued XP. There is no reason they should -HAVE- to offer downgrade rights at all. However, for their business customers, that flexibility is available on the Pro operating systems.
Home users who don't want Vista, are upgrading to pro to take advantage of the downgrade rights to xp pro. They are getting what they paid for.
Seriously, the real question is why does microsoft have to offer any product at all at a given price point?
What if they had simply decided not to offer Home Basic or Home Premium at all, and just had a single edition "Windows Vista", and that's it?! All those low end consumer PCs would cost $100 more, but it wouldn't be 'extra' because there would be no lower version, and now everyone would have downgrade rights. Would that make these idiots happier?
So are people who pay $2800 for a laptop.
Good call. They are also, more importantly =different= niches. Road
warriors who want the ultimate portable they can swap batteries on the fly with aren't likely to be carrying around 17" 3k$ desktop replacement laptops.
They tend to shoot for smaller more portable devices with long battery life.
Um, no it's not, unless you're comparing it to other Apple notebooks, which have historically been a pain in the ass to service. 16 screws is on the hard side of medium difficulty for replacing a part. LCDs are usually fewer than ten, for example. I've replaced some motherboards by taking out about 16 screws...
Except that 16 screws and one plug is the total effort. Replacing a motherboard from a PC is usually at least a dozen screws plus power connectors, sata, ide, fans, usb leads, power/reset/hddled leads, first removing any expansion cards, not to mention the re&re on the CPU/heatsink which is probably one of the hardest parts to replace if you are unfamiliar with doing them.
16 screws is something my father would attempt without hesitation. replacing a motherboard? not a chance.
In actual fact the macbook battery is essentially an irregularly shaped pancake.
Because of this, there is an additional challenge to making it removable, aside from the irregularity.
Batteries aren't 'bendable'; you don't want them flexing. That would lead to shortouts, and possibly fires.
Giving a battery that shape enough structural integrity would would add a LOT of bulk. Imagine building an enclosure for a 12" vinyl record rigid enough that it wouldn't flex if you stepped on it, dropped it, put it in your backpack, or did all the things people expect to be able to safely do with a spare laptop battery.
Or they can make it non-removable...
A switchable battery isn't bigger, heavier or last less. I misspoke for simplicity. A switchable battery requires a rigid durable casing of its own, and the laptop must be sufficiently rigid and durable as well when it is removed. In practice this tends to add a mm or so to the thickness, a key metric that you want to reduce in laptops. Perhaps even importantly, the switchable battery is MUCH more limited in terms of its form factor. It must be regular convex shape so that it can slip easily into its slot, make contact, etc. Take a look at a new MacBook Pro battery. Its a big pancake that fits into every available nook of space on the macbook pro covering most of its bottom surface. This enables it to utilize every bit of available space, and add the least amount of size. This is how they are able to make it last longer. Its a bigger battery, much bigger than anything they could fit into it if they had to keep it the same size. A giant irregular pancake would never be able to be rigid enough to be safe bouncing around in your backpack. When I said it was 'smaller and lighter' I was comparing it to how big and heavy it would be if they had bolted on a battery of the same capacity that was user switchable, and thus had to be self contained safe secure convenient enclosure even when it was out of the laptop. There is no way you can put the macbook pro battery into to such an enclosure. As an engineer you get to choose between: a) have a high cap sprawling pancake that fits into the nooks and crannies b) have a high cap battery in a big bulky container and make the laptop much bigger c) have a lower cap enclosed battery that will fit into the biggest single nook they can manage. They chose a, and gave up user switchability for 'high cap using all available irregular space'. At best, Apple is using the 0.1% of room they gain from not having to put a flap to put a larger, bigger, heavier battery in (which will last a little longer). Its just not significant overall so no one minds./i
Logically, they shouldn't. Psychologically however, they should. Even if a user will never change the battery throughout the unit's lifespan; not giving the user the option can stop an Apple sale dead in its tracks. More so in this crowded market I might add.
Yes, a small number of sales will be lost because of this. However it will be a small number. And the cost of those sales is probably less than the cost of making the batteries removable, and will be more than offset by the service center profit from swapping batteries that die after a couple years at inflated prices for users who lack the savvy to get a replacement online, and spin those 16 screws themselves.
Yes, two wrongs make a right. Apple still hasnt learned. Dont compliment them by saying "Oh its not as bad as it used to be!"
Quite frankly, most people don't change their laptop battery EVER. After 2+ years when the original one dies, most people STILL don't even do a one time replacement... they just use it plugged in or buy a new one.
Yes, there are road warriors out there that do buy 2 or 3 batteries and rotate them daily. They aren't most people, they are a niche. And they won't buy a MacBook now.
So it doesn't really matter, those of us who never change the battery will be unaffected by the fact that they now can't; and they benefit from a smaller lighter laptop.
Those of us who do actually buy a new battery after 2+ years to replace the old one that no longer holds its charge well, will find the process for changing the mac battery un-daunting. Spinning 16 screws once every couple years simply isn't an issue.
So, why exactly should Apple go out of their way to make batteries more user removable?
Most of their customers are quite happy to give up the option of switching them on the fly, in exchange for a battery that's smaller, lighter, and lasts a bit longer.
A total of sixteen screws. To change the battery. And that's "easy"?
To change a battery that is not designed to be removed by the end user? Yes. That's easy. Especially compared to the effort required to change the hard drive in an original clamshell ibook, for example.
My laptops require zero screws to remove. What does that make them?
It makes them laptops designed to have the battery removed by the user.
Hint: Glibly comparing the difficulty of removing parts 'designed for end user removal' and removing parts 'not designed for end user removal' leads to a FAIL. What do they teach kids in school these days?
The millions of people who happily post pictures of themselves on Facebook are the ones who are crazy.
No, not crazy, mostly just blissfully (and occasionally willfully) ignorant.
Are they going to call her to the office to get her threatening message?
Yes. As a matter of fact that's exactly what they will do.
I don't think that the single owning entity is an important factor. In fact, Google is the perfect counterexample here; they are set up to index and analyze tons of data they don't own.
Google's actively taking even more direct ownership of data via youtube, gmail, google apps, streetview, latitude, etc. And then they run behind the scenes on a massive number of websites (google analytics, adsense, etc) and finally they index and cache evrything they can get their hands on, even if it doesn't belong to them.
And frankly, google's index and cache amounts to taking ownership of the data. Sure they might not 'own' it the sense of they have copyright over it, but google's cache is effectively their own private copy of the entire public facing internet, under one roof, for them to mine.
Google is one of the worst of the bunch in my opinion.
I have read the first of that series, in fact. It was a horrible book with aweird sexist preachy message. And unbelievable characters, to boot.
The 2nd book is worse imo. The 3rd is better. Its not my favorite book(s) either, and like you I didn't care for the characters. I'm not sure they were unbelievable though, the protagonist woman reminded me of people I knew... and don't care for. So I'm not sure whether I "didn't like the writing of the characters"... or simply "didn't like the characters".
But it featured almost exactly what you referred to, and its treatment of that subject isn't bad.
In a lot of ways it reminded me of "The Left Hand of Darkness" in its larger themes, particularly with its redefinition and treatment of gender roles in the Neanderthal culture... and on that level it works well. But yeah the plot and characters aren't his best work.
But I thought it was funny the author had come up with basically the same idea I had, except for some reason he'd allowed the courts access to it, which I think is a bad idea.
Making it mandatory (ie universal) and giving the courts access to it was a big part of how crime was eliminated (with an interesting exception that arose in the 3rd book). You also have to realize that there was a dichotomy being drawn between "an all seeing God's and his perfect judgement of us" and the Neanderthal recording system, allowing them to be similarly watched and perfectly judged... That's an example of what I -do- like about Sawyer's work.
You don't even have kids do ya? Anyone who put a 6 year old kid on the phone with someone claiming to be a parent would not be working with children for long.
Don't be naive. This happens all the time. I know. I have a six year old.
No... in order to do that we have to make a law, and enforce it. That aint free. It's paid for by "the rest of us" and we don't give two shits about your preference to be un-data-mined. Go live in the freaking woods. Become a sailor.
Really? That must be why Facebook's ToS change isn't a controversy... and why Google latitude isn't being criticized... and why people freak out everytime they try and introduce a national id card. All the rest of you who don't give to shits?
One day you'll thank those of us who care for saving you from your own idiocy. I won't hold my breath though.
If you're a higher risk you *should* get charged more.. because if you're not getting charged more than *I* am getting charged more.
Except that its *you* getting charged more because *you* were deemed higher risk than me. If they get good enough at predicting who will need an expensive payout, they'll just stop insuring those people. Insurance is supposed to be about covering the risk of things you can't control.
And? That is possible and scary but not nearly as scary as the idea of your 6 year old daughter having a phone.. freak.
No. They'd call the school, moron.
if you're not interested in giving out personal information, don't, but other people are free to give out whatever information they want and yes, that includes information about you. The world can not bend over backwards to accommodate your personal preferences.
The world can easily bend over backwards to make collecting and correlating data about me without my express permission illegal. If other people want to submit information about me, fine, but they don't have to keep it. They don't have to index it. They don't have to data mine it.
And all so entirely boring that people are happy to provide that information to you over a cup of tea.
That was just the beginning. And even that is far more than most people would be comfortable with absolutely *everyone* being able to know.
You apply for car insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places your car has been seen parked and decide you are high risk...
You apply for life insurance, and are charged extra because they analyze all the places you have been seen, and decide you are higher risk...
You cut off the wrong jerk on the freeway, and your 6 year old daughter gets a threatening phone call at school...
What is your point?
The there is a MASSIVE difference between being in the background of a picture in someone's cubicle, and having every photo of you ever taken being indexed along with millions of photos of others and thoroughly data-mined. Anyone who suggests they are equivalent is an idiot.
A little data is meaningless. A lot of data becomes information. Facebook and Google have scary amounts of data to mine for information.
Do you know what a non-sequitur is? If Facebook didn't exist (and believe it or not, there was a time when it didn't), his sister would be just putting the pictures up on her website.. or on the wall of her cubical at work. He might well be opposed to that too.
And those might be annoying but nothing worse.
The reason something like facebook or google is a problem is that ALL the information in the network is owned by one entity, linked together and tagged in ways that a bunch of independant websites and personal blogs never could be. Tons of data in aggregate, actively being linked together by the very users being monitored is far more than the simple sum of its parts.
A few pics on the web of me, a couple in the foreground, and a couple in the background of other people photos is meaningless. But take enough of those pictures, put them together, link them and put them into a cohesive context and piles of new information starts falling out, even if NONE of it was explicitly written.
It goes from there's you at the beach with some girl. To "He's been dating that girl for about 6 years." (from seeing that girl start showing up regularly in photos 6 years ago)
They had child. -- She gradually becomes pregnant in the 3rd year pics.
He works at X, She works at Y. == Random pics of them at work with coworkers. Misc corporate branding in background, plus multiple pictures of those coworkers around a particular building. You are never in a picture outside at work, but based on who your coworkers are and the fact that a high number of them are pictured with this building and the building features the corporate branding means its probably your place of work. The building address is pulled via a correlation with streetview.
He drives an X. Its plate number is Y. - oops you got caught in a pic with your car a few times, and a couple had your plates. It happens. But now its all linked to your profile.
He lives in city A. - pictures of you at home, correlated to an address via streetview.
She moved in on date B. - again more picture trending.
The child goes to school at C - more correlations. pics of your kid on stage that other parents took of their kids, where those other kids parents tagged the school. Software matches your child's face to pics of your child at the beach your sister uploaded...
The school at Address D...
You went as a family to see Coraline 3D -- Caught in the background of a cell phone pic someone else uploaded to facebook, and tagged as a visit to coraline. Your faces were matched to those already in your profile. So even though you never told anyone you went, you get caught on some cell phone pic by complete strangers and its linked to your profile. Everyone who has access to the profile knows you were there.
Think that could happen if all these pictures were uploaded to dozens of different providers. Sure someone might randomly stumble upon the image who happens to know you. But the odds of it getting linked back to your profile are astronomically small.
The odds of anything that can be related or correlated to you from any content anyone anywhere ever uploads about anyone to a site like facebook is only a question of time as the data mining and facial recognition, and raw mass of data increases.
All online. All the web of associations and inferences already mapped out from a vast collection of data.