Have you considered that it may not be possible to provide reasonable prices (whatever that means), choice of format, and decent range, and decent music (whatever that means) all at the same time? Sure it's all well and good for consumers to demand something, but the reason why things are the way they are is often because it's cheap. If you want some change, you may have to be prepared to pay for it.
Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps one day you'll find a (legal) store that fits all those criteria, and whichever it is, it will get all of your business. Then you won't have to bother the rest of us with your whinging.
Ooh, ooh, what if the number of all the possible bases (less than the number itself) such that the number of digits of the representation of the prime number was also a prime number? How about all the number of prime bases?
True, but while sites refuse to stick to documents, and (some would say) pollute the internet with their pages, the iPhone can't surf the entire internet like it's advertised to do. Apple knows this. They can't honestly believe that the internet is made up entirely of W3C/RFP document-compliant pages, right?
So you were supporting a hypothetical situation you don't advocate yourself?
In other words you were trolling?
It's a hypothetical situation. There is no question of advocacy. It happens, or it doesn't happen. I don't have a stake in it, but that doesn't really have a bearing on its plausibility.
If it were an opinion, then that would be different, and it could be considered trolling. However, as someone who values intelligence, I value the ability to empathise with other opinions that the person is ambivalent to, or even disagrees with.
The support of things Apple doesn't support? That doesn't = better functionality to anyone but a geek or IT person.
With a better range of applications comes a better range of functionality. That, or there is greater choice and competition. Most likely, it's a whole lot of all three. You don't have to be a geek to appreciate more choice and more apps. Most people will appreciate, for example, a large selection games and time-wasters that they can fiddle with once they are bored of the included set. Especially if some of them are FREE! (That's right, free!)
The customers have already spoken in another very closely related market, MP3 players. Apple's iPod does not support Ogg Vorbis, nor Theora. Yet it continues to dominate.
Maybe that's because nobody outside the geek community gives a crap. What, you don't think I know this? You don't think most Slashdotters know this? All these connections from functionality to geeky obsessions are coming from you, not me.
So there must be some other reason in your desire for an open device.
I don't actually really desire any of these devices, free or not. Well, unless it was free in the other sense. I actually never expressed a want for a free device. I only provided a hypothetical situation where mistreating developers could actually detriment sales of the device and desirability of consumers. I'm no party to this at all.
That leaves me with the conclusion that you are a free software advocate for freedom's sake alone.
The fact that you keep coming back to this leaves me with the conclusion that you have an irrational hatred of the words "open" and "free", that have somehow lead you to believe I am some sort of zealot. I can assure you that you are mistaken. If you could see much of my history, I post comments specifically against zealous advocacy of free software and open platforms, and I have been a long time believer that Microsoft, Apple, and others often gets the raw end of the stick on slashdot (plus a number of other unrelated opinions that are contrary to the pervasive groupthink on slashdot). I hate the fact that I have to justify myself to you, but what can you do when faced with a completely ad-hominem attack?
Yes seriously. Even if their names are publicly accessible, you still don't want people aggregating them just to prove some insane point about free speech or the internet. It's all well and good to have principles, but to do it at someone else's expense is sick. Especially since they are innocent in the free-speech affair (even if they are guilty of whatever they're charged with).
I agree. Undermining this judge may have the side-effect of undermining the accused's life. It's bad enough that he has to deal with the Streisand Effect without people deliberately making it worse.
I think we need to liscence who gets access to this "internet" you speak of since it's clearly dangerous.
From your current post (the parent):
Oh I agree, either ban the mainstream media from publishing that kind of thing altogether...
Assuming you were being sarcastic in the top quote, you appear to have double standards on censorship of the internet and censorship of mainstream media. Just thought you should know.
From what you just replied with I don't think I'm off the mark at all.
No? Where are all those terms that you flung around like a monkey flinging around its own shit? Where's the mollycoddling? Where are those darling little emos?
You continue to place a higher emphasis on a platform being "free" than the general public does.
That's probably true. I like to do homebrew development from time to time, and I prefer a free platform. No warm fuzzy feelings. It's such a slight preference, because I have plenty of other platforms I can develop for, some of which are handheld.
However, that's completely separate to the scenario presented in my post. Not once in my scenario were the developers or public buying because they liked freedom for freedom's sake. Not once did I assume that they were motivated by anything other than the desire for (by the developers) money, and (by the consumers) an equivalent platform for the same price but better functionality. I'm not even sure you really read my post past being off the mark, which you continue to be. It is possible to piss off developers, even if they are professional and thick-skinned, perhaps not in the personal sense, but in the commercial sense. Lowering of barriers of entry can make a large difference in competition.
Seriously, a lot of people in the world have thick skins and aren't emo and are thus able to do business and get on with their lives without moddycoddling.
Oookaaay, you are about 50 miles wide of the mark. Let me spell it out for you a little more clearly.
Let's say we have two development platforms A and B, both equally capable. Platform A is popular, lucrative, but restrictive. Platform B is a lot less popular, a lot less lucrative, but a lot more free. Barrier of entry for platform A is much higher, whereas it's the opposite for platform B. Even though platform A is the target for just about every developer out there, platform B is easier and cheaper to develop for, even though it won't make quite so much money. Basically, platform B feeds off the dregs of platform A, but manages to get a small developer base out of it.
Platform B now looks a little better to the consumer. Not as good as platform A, but better than it used to look. It has some cool little apps, and a burgeoning open source market that have been quickly and relatively painlessly porting some cool apps from open source repositories, something that could be difficult to impossible to do for platform A. This just keeps increasing the appeal of platform B.
Now, as a result of competition, platform A is becoming less lucrative. The developers of the less popular apps are finding that they can't afford to keep developing exclusively for platform A, and start producing apps for platform B. Even the better developers realise that if they develop for both platforms, they can potentially make more money than from just developing for platform A.
Meanwhile, increasingly more people are choosing platform B because it now can do just as much as platform A, and the choice of applications is increasingly rapidly while platform A's is not. Developers are drawn to platform B, not because of some half-baked talk of being mollycoddled by some dumb slashdotters, but because it's lucrative, easy and cheap. Platform A probably doesn't die, but it loses its appeal by both developers and consumers. Unfortunately for it, it doesn't have the low barrier of entry that sparked platform B's gain in popularity, so it's doomed to play second fiddle.
This is all hypothetical of course (as I said so in my original post). Please note that nowhere does it factor in 'good warm feelings', developers being 'emo', or 'mollycoddling'. I've seen better attempts to make me look stupid from a 10-year-old boy using cookie-cutter insults.
Examining the top industry contributions to Biden, there is a TV/movies/music presence there, but it's less than a 20th of his top contributor. Also note that the RIAA/MPAA doesn't even rate a mention in the individual company contributors.
Basically, it looks like he formulated that opinion on IP without... outside help.
All that other stuff you listed is SO irrelevant to the non-engineer/geek customer. No one but such folks cares that Apple requires people to go through the "commisar" to develop for the iPhone.
Perhaps not, but, in theory, it is possible to piss developers off enough that most development goes into other platforms, which become far richer and more desirable as a result. Who knows? Perhaps good first party support can outweigh the benefits of having fantastic third party support?
Fools and their money are soon parted but it's good to keep up with the scams so that we can be less foolish.
No way. Uh-uh. I can't be a fool. Other people are fools, and I laugh at them. Saying that I could become a fool at one time or another, well, it shakes my outlook on the world to the very core! Next you'll be inferring that there isn't a clean dichotomy between fools and us superior beings!
The way the summaries are presented makes it pretty clear that they're the editorialised version of the original, interpreted the opinions of the submitter, and I think honestly we all have the critical thinking skills required to handle that, right?
Sure, but the one of the OP's points is that it alienates outsiders. Which is actually the way I like it on these anti-IP stories.
Nice try, but unlike the Scotsman, opinions such as these define being a libertarian. All a true Scotsman has to do is live in Scotland, and all a libertarian has to do is believe in liberty, and oppose government curtailing thereof (unless the activity is harmful). This clearly applies here.
Instead of this "edit clipboard" command (or whatever it is), just include a "get admin privileges" command. It doesn't actually do anything, just creates a message box informing the user that the banner is trying to get admin privileges. Evil banners wouldn't be able to resist it, and there would be absolutely no way of annoying people.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you considered that it may not be possible to provide reasonable prices (whatever that means), choice of format, and decent range, and decent music (whatever that means) all at the same time? Sure it's all well and good for consumers to demand something, but the reason why things are the way they are is often because it's cheap. If you want some change, you may have to be prepared to pay for it.
Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps one day you'll find a (legal) store that fits all those criteria, and whichever it is, it will get all of your business. Then you won't have to bother the rest of us with your whinging.
Wow. I guess you never heard of CDs and DVDs huh?
How many digits-per-minute can you type?
But what if the base was also prime?
Ooh, ooh, what if the number of all the possible bases (less than the number itself) such that the number of digits of the representation of the prime number was also a prime number? How about all the number of prime bases?
Maths is fun, even if not always useful.
True, but while sites refuse to stick to documents, and (some would say) pollute the internet with their pages, the iPhone can't surf the entire internet like it's advertised to do. Apple knows this. They can't honestly believe that the internet is made up entirely of W3C/RFP document-compliant pages, right?
It's a hypothetical situation. There is no question of advocacy. It happens, or it doesn't happen. I don't have a stake in it, but that doesn't really have a bearing on its plausibility.
If it were an opinion, then that would be different, and it could be considered trolling. However, as someone who values intelligence, I value the ability to empathise with other opinions that the person is ambivalent to, or even disagrees with.
With a better range of applications comes a better range of functionality. That, or there is greater choice and competition. Most likely, it's a whole lot of all three. You don't have to be a geek to appreciate more choice and more apps. Most people will appreciate, for example, a large selection games and time-wasters that they can fiddle with once they are bored of the included set. Especially if some of them are FREE! (That's right, free!)
Maybe that's because nobody outside the geek community gives a crap. What, you don't think I know this? You don't think most Slashdotters know this? All these connections from functionality to geeky obsessions are coming from you, not me.
I don't actually really desire any of these devices, free or not. Well, unless it was free in the other sense. I actually never expressed a want for a free device. I only provided a hypothetical situation where mistreating developers could actually detriment sales of the device and desirability of consumers. I'm no party to this at all.
The fact that you keep coming back to this leaves me with the conclusion that you have an irrational hatred of the words "open" and "free", that have somehow lead you to believe I am some sort of zealot. I can assure you that you are mistaken. If you could see much of my history, I post comments specifically against zealous advocacy of free software and open platforms, and I have been a long time believer that Microsoft, Apple, and others often gets the raw end of the stick on slashdot (plus a number of other unrelated opinions that are contrary to the pervasive groupthink on slashdot). I hate the fact that I have to justify myself to you, but what can you do when faced with a completely ad-hominem attack?
Yes seriously. Even if their names are publicly accessible, you still don't want people aggregating them just to prove some insane point about free speech or the internet. It's all well and good to have principles, but to do it at someone else's expense is sick. Especially since they are innocent in the free-speech affair (even if they are guilty of whatever they're charged with).
I agree. Undermining this judge may have the side-effect of undermining the accused's life. It's bad enough that he has to deal with the Streisand Effect without people deliberately making it worse.
From an earlier comment of yours:
From your current post (the parent):
Assuming you were being sarcastic in the top quote, you appear to have double standards on censorship of the internet and censorship of mainstream media. Just thought you should know.
No? Where are all those terms that you flung around like a monkey flinging around its own shit? Where's the mollycoddling? Where are those darling little emos?
That's probably true. I like to do homebrew development from time to time, and I prefer a free platform. No warm fuzzy feelings. It's such a slight preference, because I have plenty of other platforms I can develop for, some of which are handheld.
However, that's completely separate to the scenario presented in my post. Not once in my scenario were the developers or public buying because they liked freedom for freedom's sake. Not once did I assume that they were motivated by anything other than the desire for (by the developers) money, and (by the consumers) an equivalent platform for the same price but better functionality. I'm not even sure you really read my post past being off the mark, which you continue to be. It is possible to piss off developers, even if they are professional and thick-skinned, perhaps not in the personal sense, but in the commercial sense. Lowering of barriers of entry can make a large difference in competition.
Oookaaay, you are about 50 miles wide of the mark. Let me spell it out for you a little more clearly.
Let's say we have two development platforms A and B, both equally capable. Platform A is popular, lucrative, but restrictive. Platform B is a lot less popular, a lot less lucrative, but a lot more free. Barrier of entry for platform A is much higher, whereas it's the opposite for platform B. Even though platform A is the target for just about every developer out there, platform B is easier and cheaper to develop for, even though it won't make quite so much money. Basically, platform B feeds off the dregs of platform A, but manages to get a small developer base out of it.
Platform B now looks a little better to the consumer. Not as good as platform A, but better than it used to look. It has some cool little apps, and a burgeoning open source market that have been quickly and relatively painlessly porting some cool apps from open source repositories, something that could be difficult to impossible to do for platform A. This just keeps increasing the appeal of platform B.
Now, as a result of competition, platform A is becoming less lucrative. The developers of the less popular apps are finding that they can't afford to keep developing exclusively for platform A, and start producing apps for platform B. Even the better developers realise that if they develop for both platforms, they can potentially make more money than from just developing for platform A.
Meanwhile, increasingly more people are choosing platform B because it now can do just as much as platform A, and the choice of applications is increasingly rapidly while platform A's is not. Developers are drawn to platform B, not because of some half-baked talk of being mollycoddled by some dumb slashdotters, but because it's lucrative, easy and cheap. Platform A probably doesn't die, but it loses its appeal by both developers and consumers. Unfortunately for it, it doesn't have the low barrier of entry that sparked platform B's gain in popularity, so it's doomed to play second fiddle.
This is all hypothetical of course (as I said so in my original post). Please note that nowhere does it factor in 'good warm feelings', developers being 'emo', or 'mollycoddling'. I've seen better attempts to make me look stupid from a 10-year-old boy using cookie-cutter insults.
Look:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00001669
Examining the top industry contributions to Biden, there is a TV/movies/music presence there, but it's less than a 20th of his top contributor. Also note that the RIAA/MPAA doesn't even rate a mention in the individual company contributors.
Basically, it looks like he formulated that opinion on IP without ... outside help.
Perhaps not, but, in theory, it is possible to piss developers off enough that most development goes into other platforms, which become far richer and more desirable as a result. Who knows? Perhaps good first party support can outweigh the benefits of having fantastic third party support?
Yup, probably a little too far ahead. Linux? Avidemux? I'm happy for you that you've found such a great device, but it's certainly not for everyone.
Maybe that's what the guy who modded you down should have said instead of abusing the moderation system.
Yeah? I think you need to figure out that NOT EVERYONE IS YOU!
Screw "open standards" and "vendor neutrality". Lobby for preferential treatment!
What? It's not like MS deserves anything less.
I'm no expert on MS marketing on C#, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't contain anything about a Google JIT.
No way. Uh-uh. I can't be a fool. Other people are fools, and I laugh at them. Saying that I could become a fool at one time or another, well, it shakes my outlook on the world to the very core! Next you'll be inferring that there isn't a clean dichotomy between fools and us superior beings!
... that some people regularly say "dumb" or "stupid" people get what they deserve, but they never mention anything about callous a-holes. Weird.
Sure, but the one of the OP's points is that it alienates outsiders. Which is actually the way I like it on these anti-IP stories.
So, what's the difference between "taste and sportsmanship" and political correctness?
I'm not trying to be clever here, I actually do want to know.
Nice try, but unlike the Scotsman, opinions such as these define being a libertarian. All a true Scotsman has to do is live in Scotland, and all a libertarian has to do is believe in liberty, and oppose government curtailing thereof (unless the activity is harmful). This clearly applies here.
... would be upset about yet another harmless activity becoming taboo, subject to government control, or outright illegal.
Instead of this "edit clipboard" command (or whatever it is), just include a "get admin privileges" command. It doesn't actually do anything, just creates a message box informing the user that the banner is trying to get admin privileges. Evil banners wouldn't be able to resist it, and there would be absolutely no way of annoying people.