They do license the discs. You are only allowed to use them in certain ways; it's not as restrictive as "you must use Sony players", but it does restrict use to exclude things like copying, distribution, public performance and so on.
But according to Apple's claims in the lawsuit, which the courts agreed with, you do not own a copy of the software. Presumably you own the physical materials, but the bits on the disc remain Apple's property and you are only allowed to use them according to terms Apple sets. This is no different from any other software license, except that until this case the enforceability of EULAs was in legal question.
On the other other hand, the power to change corporate behavior is tremendously imbalanced in favor of the corporations themselves; people are going to consume regardless, but when their choices to consume are limited to a set of corporate products that are destructive, they are inevitably going to consume destructively. There is quite a lot of needless and destructive consumption that could be reduced or curtailed, sure, but ultimately the contents of the market are determined by the more powerful market forces, not the least.
Obviously the power from the wall is sufficient to power the computer, otherwise the battery could never be charged while the machine is running. What I meant is that the power management system prefers to draw some power from the battery, rather than all of it from the wall. Yes, it is cycling the battery... which is what I described.
I bought my MBP in April of 2010 and keep it plugged in almost all the time. The battery has only 23 cycles at this point. And the health is 96%. And at this rate, I am keeping mine plugged in a good deal more than you were. It might be that the newer models have a vastly improved power system, but I doubt the difference is that significant. I would put money on your unit being faulty.
Worth noting: At least under load, the power supplied from the wall is not enough to fully power the computer, so some battery reserves are used at this point. The battery will usually be allowed to drain down to 95% charge before it is recharged from the wall. And as I understand it, cells are not drained in the same order each time, so eventually all of the cells are allowed to drain and be recharged.
Your argument might have more merit if you were complaining that they don't contribute to the projects they use themselves (which, apart from WebKit, is probably a slam dunk argument, but I don't know offhand). Complaining that Apple doesn't contribute to Linux is like complaining that Google doesn't contribute to Gecko.
Putting aside the matter of the sanity of the Tea Party platform and proposals, if it's going to take a civil war to undo the insanity of the US system, then a civil war we will have, regardless of who catalyzes it.
If you want to go live in a cubicle in the desert in Texas, more power to you. I hope you enjoy the disease, malnutrition, and mental illness that assuredly come with such a proposition.
the idea that there is insufficient land is bogus as long as we are paying farmers to not grow things.
That's only logically true if the land on which nothing is grown could replace the food that is being grown on land that is being cleared (for instance, in the Amazon) for food production. The amount of land subsidized not to grow is about 34 million acres. From various sources, I'm seeing anywhere from 6 to 47 million acres of Amazon rainforest alone being cleared for food production each year. Taking the lowest figure for granted, that 34 million acres of unfarmed land could effectively produce "sustainably" (in place of clearing forest land) for six years. And that's assuming an acre is an acre and equally capable of producing food.
All of this takes a lot of assumptions I'm not comfortable with, about whether current production levels are even remotely necessary, about quite a lot of things. But the "paying farmers not to grow" argument is just far too facile for me to ignore anymore; the fact is, sustainable food production requires a certain amount of land per person, and it requires certain features of land that need to be maintained over a period of time. Adding more people adds more burden to that requirement. And it adds more burden to the land, which once depleted stops producing.
Your argument has been building in this direction all along. Whatever the merits of your position, I don't have the time or energy for people whose argumentation depends on insult instead of substance. Take care.
Complete claptrap. But even granting it, just for the sake of argument, when the hell did the leverage of a coordinated market-dominating force become "the majority"? How is "the majority" a response to "might-makes-right"?
Cost is always a factor in determining merit, it's pretty simple.
More claptrap. Cost might *outweigh* merit, but it doesn't contribute to it.
One of the merits is that the major corporations support Microdata, so alternatives had better be able to counter that merit.
More might-makes-right. The might of major corporations is not a merit, it's just power. Yes, the reality is that winning against a power consensus takes a great deal of leverage; that doesn't mean that failing to win is any kind of a statement of merit.
How is that a negative for end users?
Increased cost every step of the way, increased restrictions every step of the way, increased exposure to litigation every step of the way, increased likelihood of abuse of IP protection every step of the way.
It might be news to you but the *vast* majority of people don't give a fuck about openness, and they don't see lack of it as a negative. Yes some of the geek minority screams about the virtues of openness but most people don't care, the proof is all around you.
Whether or not people are harmed isn't determined by whether they "give a fuck" or "see it as a negative". The *vast* majority of people are also unaware that they are paying a premium for h.264, that the services they use are also paying a premium that could otherwise be used to improve those services, that there are enormous legal restrictions on their use of that codec, and that they are potentially targets of litigation if any component of that is either untoward in their use of IP or is a convenient or useful target. Being unaware of things doesn't make the things you're unaware of nonexistent. It just makes them more dangerous.
Again with your 'massive barrier to entry' bullshit, there is no barrier to entry for WebM, it's free
There's a massive barrier to entry. Most video content on the web is in h.264 or VP6. 73% of users (see below) can't use it. Getting web site/application developers to support it is a tough sell, not because they wouldn't love the reduced cost and liability, but because the traffic has to be there to justify the cost. Traffic != merit.
and the most popular browsers support it.
More claptrap. IE (around 55% of web users) does not support it at all, no version of Firefox before 4.0 (about 11%), no version of Safari (7%) and no version of Opera before 10.60 (negligible %). 73% of browsers in use don't support it. (Source: marketshare.hitslink.com)
No, 'the powerful' is a rubbish term you made up, what I said is the 'decision-makers'
Explain how they differ.
as in the people who make the decision to use the format
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are not people. They're powerful corporations.
which is anyone doing content production/distribution.
That's not who's making the choice.
Because what i wrote in no way implies that
I didn't say you implied that, I responded with it. It's a *relevant response*, which you can agree or disagree with, but it *has something to do with it*.
just because it doesn't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way *does not* mean it affects everyone else in a negative way
It doesn't *mean* that, it just *is the case*.
your assumption just shows your desperation to support your idea with information that simply is not there.
Do you realize your whole might-makes-right argument totally undermines the proposition that merit will determine the chosen standard?
If content producers don't jump on board the search engines have no content, but they will jump on board because benefit of opposing it just isn't there. Why fight it if there's next to nothing to gain?
You suggested before that the merit of a better standard would be enough to overcome the choice of the major corporations. Now, by arguing that the "benefit of opposing it just isn't there", you're begging the question—you're saying that if corporations use their leverage to manipulate choice, then the merit is determined by that manipulated outcome. You can't have it both ways.
It doesn't affect end users in a negative way
Yes, of course it does. End users can't (currently) have both an open Internet and HTML5 video. Either trade-off is a negative for end users.
and those who make the decision to use h.264 do so even though solutions like WebM exist.
Right... but not because the merits of h.264 outweigh those of WebM, only because there is a massive barrier to entry for WebM and in the short term content producers/distributors will be losing a huge audience if they go WebM-only. In a world where the potential audience wasn't fragmented by codec support, content producers/distributors would almost certainly choose WebM, on monetary cost alone; but they (currently) can't.
I didn't demonstrate your point at all
Yes, you did. You demonstrated that the choice is made by the powerful, based on how the choice affects those making the choice, regardless of how it affects others.
you just wrote something that has nothing to do with what i wrote and then followed it with that sentence.
You wrote: "downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way". How does "it just affects everyone else in a negative way" have nothing to do with that? It's a direct response.
It represents a barrier to entry for web browser developers, that is not a huge segment of the web or a majority of people.
It's not just a barrier to entry for web browser developers; it's a barrier to entry for web site/application developers as well as content producers (potentially *everyone*).
Slashdot Mirror
No, the license restricts those things; copyright law is the mechanism by which they are able to issue such licenses.
Copyright law itself does that, you dipshit!
I didn't say otherwise. Not sure why you feel compelled to resort to name-calling in any case.
They do license the discs. You are only allowed to use them in certain ways; it's not as restrictive as "you must use Sony players", but it does restrict use to exclude things like copying, distribution, public performance and so on.
But according to Apple's claims in the lawsuit, which the courts agreed with, you do not own a copy of the software. Presumably you own the physical materials, but the bits on the disc remain Apple's property and you are only allowed to use them according to terms Apple sets. This is no different from any other software license, except that until this case the enforceability of EULAs was in legal question.
The person you responded to quoted the parent post, you are complaining to the wrong person.
Shift + reload.
On the other other hand, the power to change corporate behavior is tremendously imbalanced in favor of the corporations themselves; people are going to consume regardless, but when their choices to consume are limited to a set of corporate products that are destructive, they are inevitably going to consume destructively. There is quite a lot of needless and destructive consumption that could be reduced or curtailed, sure, but ultimately the contents of the market are determined by the more powerful market forces, not the least.
Obviously the power from the wall is sufficient to power the computer, otherwise the battery could never be charged while the machine is running. What I meant is that the power management system prefers to draw some power from the battery, rather than all of it from the wall. Yes, it is cycling the battery... which is what I described.
I bought my MBP in April of 2010 and keep it plugged in almost all the time. The battery has only 23 cycles at this point. And the health is 96%. And at this rate, I am keeping mine plugged in a good deal more than you were. It might be that the newer models have a vastly improved power system, but I doubt the difference is that significant. I would put money on your unit being faulty. Worth noting: At least under load, the power supplied from the wall is not enough to fully power the computer, so some battery reserves are used at this point. The battery will usually be allowed to drain down to 95% charge before it is recharged from the wall. And as I understand it, cells are not drained in the same order each time, so eventually all of the cells are allowed to drain and be recharged.
Your argument might have more merit if you were complaining that they don't contribute to the projects they use themselves (which, apart from WebKit, is probably a slam dunk argument, but I don't know offhand). Complaining that Apple doesn't contribute to Linux is like complaining that Google doesn't contribute to Gecko.
And the portion of it that funds other countries' medical care is approximately dick.
Putting aside the matter of the sanity of the Tea Party platform and proposals, if it's going to take a civil war to undo the insanity of the US system, then a civil war we will have, regardless of who catalyzes it.
Point is... it's hardly a fair criticism of JavaScript to say "look, this thing you should never ever do has seemingly unpredictable results".
Honest question: in your preferred language(s), what does '5' + 3 do, and is it an operation you would do knowingly?
If you want to go live in a cubicle in the desert in Texas, more power to you. I hope you enjoy the disease, malnutrition, and mental illness that assuredly come with such a proposition.
the idea that there is insufficient land is bogus as long as we are paying farmers to not grow things.
That's only logically true if the land on which nothing is grown could replace the food that is being grown on land that is being cleared (for instance, in the Amazon) for food production. The amount of land subsidized not to grow is about 34 million acres. From various sources, I'm seeing anywhere from 6 to 47 million acres of Amazon rainforest alone being cleared for food production each year. Taking the lowest figure for granted, that 34 million acres of unfarmed land could effectively produce "sustainably" (in place of clearing forest land) for six years. And that's assuming an acre is an acre and equally capable of producing food. All of this takes a lot of assumptions I'm not comfortable with, about whether current production levels are even remotely necessary, about quite a lot of things. But the "paying farmers not to grow" argument is just far too facile for me to ignore anymore; the fact is, sustainable food production requires a certain amount of land per person, and it requires certain features of land that need to be maintained over a period of time. Adding more people adds more burden to that requirement. And it adds more burden to the land, which once depleted stops producing.
Really? You think Microsoft expects a web browser to promote Windows sales?
And it's also disabled when a script in the page intercepts keystrokes.
There's a difference?
Internet points are good wherever odds of getting laid are poor.
Telling doctors that you are paying in cash, out of pocket, will often reduce your costs as well.
Whut. Insurance companies negotiate prices, and have a lot of leverage when doing so. Out-of-pocket patients always pay full price, in my experience.
It must be exhausting to have such a dull obsession.
idiot
Your argument has been building in this direction all along. Whatever the merits of your position, I don't have the time or energy for people whose argumentation depends on insult instead of substance. Take care.
Merit is judged by the majority, pretty obvious.
Complete claptrap. But even granting it, just for the sake of argument, when the hell did the leverage of a coordinated market-dominating force become "the majority"? How is "the majority" a response to "might-makes-right"?
Cost is always a factor in determining merit, it's pretty simple.
More claptrap. Cost might *outweigh* merit, but it doesn't contribute to it.
One of the merits is that the major corporations support Microdata, so alternatives had better be able to counter that merit.
More might-makes-right. The might of major corporations is not a merit, it's just power. Yes, the reality is that winning against a power consensus takes a great deal of leverage; that doesn't mean that failing to win is any kind of a statement of merit.
How is that a negative for end users?
Increased cost every step of the way, increased restrictions every step of the way, increased exposure to litigation every step of the way, increased likelihood of abuse of IP protection every step of the way.
It might be news to you but the *vast* majority of people don't give a fuck about openness, and they don't see lack of it as a negative. Yes some of the geek minority screams about the virtues of openness but most people don't care, the proof is all around you.
Whether or not people are harmed isn't determined by whether they "give a fuck" or "see it as a negative". The *vast* majority of people are also unaware that they are paying a premium for h.264, that the services they use are also paying a premium that could otherwise be used to improve those services, that there are enormous legal restrictions on their use of that codec, and that they are potentially targets of litigation if any component of that is either untoward in their use of IP or is a convenient or useful target. Being unaware of things doesn't make the things you're unaware of nonexistent. It just makes them more dangerous.
Again with your 'massive barrier to entry' bullshit, there is no barrier to entry for WebM, it's free
There's a massive barrier to entry. Most video content on the web is in h.264 or VP6. 73% of users (see below) can't use it. Getting web site/application developers to support it is a tough sell, not because they wouldn't love the reduced cost and liability, but because the traffic has to be there to justify the cost. Traffic != merit.
and the most popular browsers support it.
More claptrap. IE (around 55% of web users) does not support it at all, no version of Firefox before 4.0 (about 11%), no version of Safari (7%) and no version of Opera before 10.60 (negligible %). 73% of browsers in use don't support it. (Source: marketshare.hitslink.com)
No, 'the powerful' is a rubbish term you made up, what I said is the 'decision-makers'
Explain how they differ.
as in the people who make the decision to use the format
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are not people. They're powerful corporations.
which is anyone doing content production/distribution.
That's not who's making the choice.
Because what i wrote in no way implies that
I didn't say you implied that, I responded with it. It's a *relevant response*, which you can agree or disagree with, but it *has something to do with it*.
just because it doesn't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way *does not* mean it affects everyone else in a negative way
It doesn't *mean* that, it just *is the case*.
your assumption just shows your desperation to support your idea with information that simply is not there.
Assumption? It's an opinion. The information
If content producers don't jump on board the search engines have no content, but they will jump on board because benefit of opposing it just isn't there. Why fight it if there's next to nothing to gain?
You suggested before that the merit of a better standard would be enough to overcome the choice of the major corporations. Now, by arguing that the "benefit of opposing it just isn't there", you're begging the question—you're saying that if corporations use their leverage to manipulate choice, then the merit is determined by that manipulated outcome. You can't have it both ways.
It doesn't affect end users in a negative way
Yes, of course it does. End users can't (currently) have both an open Internet and HTML5 video. Either trade-off is a negative for end users.
and those who make the decision to use h.264 do so even though solutions like WebM exist.
Right... but not because the merits of h.264 outweigh those of WebM, only because there is a massive barrier to entry for WebM and in the short term content producers/distributors will be losing a huge audience if they go WebM-only. In a world where the potential audience wasn't fragmented by codec support, content producers/distributors would almost certainly choose WebM, on monetary cost alone; but they (currently) can't.
I didn't demonstrate your point at all
Yes, you did. You demonstrated that the choice is made by the powerful, based on how the choice affects those making the choice, regardless of how it affects others.
you just wrote something that has nothing to do with what i wrote and then followed it with that sentence.
You wrote: "downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way". How does "it just affects everyone else in a negative way" have nothing to do with that? It's a direct response.
It represents a barrier to entry for web browser developers, that is not a huge segment of the web or a majority of people.
It's not just a barrier to entry for web browser developers; it's a barrier to entry for web site/application developers as well as content producers (potentially *everyone*).