>> While in their FAQ's they (/.) state that they've only ever removed one comment...
They should update their FAQ. I found a hole in Slashcode that would allow you to remove people from your freaks list, posted a quick how-to in my journal, and within an hour, the post was gone. And an hour or two after that, the hole was gone too. This was during those times when Slashdot was crashing hourly due to a raft of "code upgrades".
Of course, that was a journal entry, not a comment, so perhaps they're still telling the truth on that level. But I've documented a few editorial abuses (disappearing Insightful mods, etc.) that tell me that the editors aren't being 100% honest or fair. A good idea to improve transparency would be to document WHO moderated your posts -- right now you have no idea whether someone has a grudge against you or not. In my case, of course, they do. Either way, in many cases knowing who moderated you will give insight as to why they moderated you as they did. But the editors say no. Why is that?
And you're right; there is no anonymity -- unless you're using a hacked corporate NT system somewhere in Ontario as a proxy;-) *cough*Should have patched*cough*
If you weren't an AC, I'd tell you that you shouldn't be reading this. I am despised by all on Slashdot, but loved and respected by all in person. And I have made the front page of Slashdot in the past, but without my name attached to my posts, it seems I am nothing. That's humanity for you. If Steve Jobs posted here under an assumed name, he'd be flamed as a troll. The message is only as insightful as you consider the person giving it, it seems.
I have found that the great majority of posters here have very little concept of reality, and they're vastly unintelligent, and none seem burdened with initiative. I could chain together every poster at Slashdot into a Beowulf cluster and I still couldn't power a light bulb.
Hmmmmm... I know *I* have to wonder. I have a few Macs, and while they're very good, they're definitely not deserving of the amount of worship I see here. The Finder sucks compared to Windows Explorer, Safari is barely out of Beta, the damn things are still at 1-2 Ghz with a crippled bus, iLife is still crashy and often slow (iPhoto STILL sucks), and Photoshop REALLY IS FASTER ON WINDOWS. OS X is not Open Source like Linux, it doesn't have the millions of apps or printer/scanner/camera/etc. support like Windows. Apple computers are LOSING marketshare, which means Jobs, being a smart and hardcore businessman, will eventually migrate COMPLETELY from making computers to iPods (his most profitable product), leaving all us Maccies in a BeOS-like situation of homelessness, and since OS X is proprietary, no way to continue development ourselves. There are ahem--let's say, "rumors" of backdoors built into OS X at the request of the NSA (It was done with LotusNotes and many other important pieces of software (search this page for 'Lotus'), and I highly doubt Apple would be able to resist similar demands, especially when a large cash carrot was dangled in front of what was, at the time, a very financially desperate Apple).
Yes, of course, I know this is a "troll". I know better than to post something "Insightful" or "Informative". I've learned that on Slashdot, when reality conflicts with hype, reality must be wrong. Don't bother reading it or thinking about it; just mod it down and go back to blissful unaware sleep. I and the other Overlords will take care of everything for you. Damn, it's hard to blow the whistle when your mouth is taped shut by the religious masses.
You can type a letter on a 386 running DOS or Windows 3.1. Why aren't you? In fact, you can use a typewriter. If all anybody wanted to do was "type a friggin' letter", typewriters would still be around en masse, wouldn't they. The fact is that people want more functionality than they think they do originally. My dad buys a computer to check his stocks online, next thing he knows he's in Photoshop playing with digital photography. My mom bought her laptop to do her banking, now she hacks NASA on the weekends. Everyone I know who's thinking of buying a Mac talks about getting into MP3's, or trying their hand at making movies or electronic music. And of course, consolidating their pr0n into one spot.
And as the stuff we do gets more complicated (as is inevitable), the complexity of our interaction with the machine gets more complicated, and you *really can't avoid* learning about your machine. Even surfing the web is complicated to a newbie. I know guys who can't get a grasp on sending email attachments. It's all relative. Learning is required. You've already done it, you just don't remember....
The best an OS maker can do for you is to pay attention to make everything as simple as possible within reason. NOBODY, even geeks, wants to spend 3 hours configuring their system in order to accomplish a task that is automated and automatic on the other platforms. This is where Apple is doing better than the other platforms. Sometimes, it's not worth the effort to use Linux. People just want to get their crap done, and what is the best tool to get it done quickly and painlessly?
Linux won't rule the desktop until they realize that Ease-Of-Use is the only thing that matters to the masses.
Jeezus, just when the nightmares and waking up screaming due to my high school calculus humiliation had finally stopped, Slashdot goes and stirs the pain pot. Hey, Slashdot! Here's a good next article fo you! "The true love of Scooby's life married another man!" Post that one and give the knife another twist, why don't ya?
Damn calculus and trains travelling north from Boston at 35 miles an hour... Damn you, oh mysterious, insane calculus!
Sadly, our culture is built around obedience, compliance, compromise, and detachment. We basically don't care about what happens to us. We're sleepwalking through life, and only the big companies seem to be awake to take advantage of our stupor. If we care about something now, we soon will not. And the things we do care about are hammered into us for so long and so unrelentingly that we eventually accept them. Think about all your anti-Microsoft friends who swore they'd NEVER use Windows XP. 90% of them are right now. So many of us want to switch to linux, but give up in lazy surrender.
The only hope is for a massive uprising against our owners, but we are too doped on carbohydrates and reality tv to care about anything but organizing our pr0n and finding out who's going for coffee at next break.
.
Under the table Winston's feet made convulsive movements.
He had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was
running, swiftly running, he was with the crowds outside,
cheering himself deaf. He looked up again at the portrait of
Big Brother. The colossus that bestrode the world ! The rock
against which the hordes of Asia dashed themselves in vain ! He
thought how ten minutes ago-yes, only ten minutes -- there had
still been equivocation in his heart as he wondered whether the
news from the front would be of victory or defeat. Ah, it was
more than a Eurasian army that had perished! Much had changed
in him since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the
final, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until
this moment.
The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its
tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting
outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back
to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle.
Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his
glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer.
He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven,
his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing
everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the
white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight,
and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was
entering his brain.
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken
him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark
moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn,
self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears
trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right,
everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won
the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
This is still big in Mexico. All the buses have VCR's in the dash, and there's often a VHS tape that has a pirated copy of a Harry Potter audiobook on the dash -- beside the mandatory tip bucket.
They also told me you get better audio quality than cassettes. Different, but a good idea. That's when I learned that the rest of the world is cool in its own way.
Microsoft does, idiot. So does Oracle, and I've heard about some good parties at Sun. But I've definitely been at the Microsoft parties (Remember the Win95 bash with Pearl Jam, biggest band in the world at the time?) I hear you can hire Barenaked Ladies or REM or Pearl Jam etc. for between 25-75 grand for a one night show. Colleges hire big bands for their parties all the time, why not someone with 10,000x the resources?
Maybe that's why Apple's markups are so high and their profits are so low after expenses. Too many parties (when all the employees want to do is go home and go to bed after a 65 hour workweek anyway).
Stuff like this is what's holding GNU/Linux back. You shouldn't have to read a manual to upgrade a kernel. The average user can't and won't handle the "shoddy glue" that binds Linux together. The apps themselves are fine, but there are a bevy of problems, glitches, and incompatibilities that MUST be resolved if Linux is to ever become something other than a "pimply-horny-hacker-sitting-in-his-mom's-basement -feeling-kewl-for-compiling-gimp" OS. Both WinXP and Mac OS X are extremely well-put together and easy to use (*snickers a bit about XP*). Until Linux gets some real standards (apt-get vs RPM is the tip of the iceburg) and some tools to automate much of this pain, Linux will be consigned to the basement of history, free as in freedom or not. And free as in beer doesn't matter. Because really, EVERYTHING is essentially free right now, thanks to P2P. Linux *really is* competing with XP based primarily on features (and familiarity, compatibility issues, etc., but NOT on price). OS X, of course, requires a hefty hardware purchase to run it, so it's not exactly in the same boat. But the people who are switching to Linux from Windows are switching for Linux' attributes, not the low low price. Most of the people I know who have experimented with Linux bought RedHat boxed OSes. They were willing to pay to ditch MS, and they all eventually went back.... because Linux does not TECHNICALLY make the grade yet. And you all know there's one or two areas Linux is lacking. Ease of use. Application support. Drivers for Digital cameras and stuff like that (the drivers that DO exist are named so archaically they can't be found or installed by the common man). If we want to keep the momentum we have right now, we have to give the people good reasons to consider us. The best and most important traits an OS can have are ease-of-use, security, and numerous apps and tools.
If people CAN'T use it, people WON'T use it. Ease of use and convenience is EVERYTHING.
Hell, even *I*, the great and terrible Doctor Scooby, find myself dual booting, and this is AFTER I've found evidence of subliminal messages in certain proprietary Operating Systems which shall remain nameless.
We have to decide whether we support "free as in freedom" or not. If we do, we have to realize that software freedom will be snuffed out unless we "fix" Linux so that it will flourish. Or do we think, like Linus Torvalds, that "No man is an island - except me, and when the news comes on tv I cover my ears and hum noo-noo-nnooooo so I can't hear it." If we don't obey the rules of economics, we'll be gone. And no man is an island, otherwise Stallman would have done it all himself.
A, I'm not only a Mac user, I used to work for them; B, Apple dropped the floppy at the height of its popularity as well, and that worked out okay for them. It's called progress. Ditching MP3 without a suitable alternative is suicide, ditching it for something better, cheaper, faster (The Bionic Man of audio formats?) is good business, and progressive thinking. Face it, 90% of Mac users will buy iPods and use iTunes simply because of brand loyalty. What Steve says is good IS good to them. If Steve-o pushes OGG, within 6 months, everybody will use OGG. But of course, he won't, since he needs his DRM fix, ineffective as it is....
The solution? Keep MP3 and AAC capability on the iPod, but *add* OGG and start pushing it. Apple is the ONE company who can make the revolution happen. Instead, the rumors are they will not add OGG (which gives greater freedom to the user), but WMA (which places greater restrictions on the user)...
And yes, I am delusional. Doctor Scooby is self-prescribing again.
Similarly, I was about to buy a Dell with Windows XP, then I saw the Microsoft commercials with people flying around after using Windows XP. It was then that I realized that you had to be on drugs to use Windows.
Power it off when going through the XRay machine at the airport, or you'll probably end up with a beautiful expensive paperweight. I've seen it happen. NASTY.
Which is also why I don't eat Microwaved food anymore. If it can wreck my friend's TiBook, it can't be making my pizza very happy.
And one more thing... Drop the constant whining about OGG. Please.
Yeah! Screw all those "free", "open" formats! We WANT to be paying a licensing fee for closed formats as long as we can! I don't care if OGG beats MP3 in many tests for sound quality at the same file size! Screw quality, I wanna support Apple Corporate!
If Apple really is the great innovator, the mover-and-shaker who first supports a new technology and pushes it into the limelight, then let them do so now by supporting OGG (although they're already not the first, though they'll claim to be). I'm tired of hearing about how they were 3 weeks ahead of the PC on installing CDRoms as standard, and that makes it "their innovation". My ass. If they're as good as you say they are, and if they care about their customers as much as everybody here thinks, then know now that they could drop the price on the iPods by not having to pay the MP3 licensing fee. TRUST ME, if Apple tells the Mac users OGG is great, 100% of the fans will convert all their MP3's to OGG before sunrise the next day. And if Apple's gutless, they can run both side by side and let the people choose. In a few years, MP3 and its mandatory licensing fees will largely be gone, replaced by OGG. All it would take is some good PR, which is really what Apple does best.
And if you really don't see how saving money by choosing an equally good or better technology for a better price is good business for both Apple and the consumer, you've got your Apple Astroturfer underwears on a little too tight and you should start thinking like a consumer again instead of an Apple PR distributor or sales flunkie.
1) When Napster gives a marketshare number, the Slashdot masses go on the offensive and try to tear that number apart. When Apple gives a marketshare number, we accept it without question, despite the fact that they are well-known for their questionable sales tactics and misleading facts and figures. Does this imply any sort of bias? Open your eyes and take a step back, you'll start to understand what's happening here on Slashdot. A seemingly grassroots groundswell of support for Apple and their brand of proprietary software, and a seemingly grassroots groundswell of disdain for the GPL.
2) People here are also attacking Napster because of its DRM as opposed to Apple's DRM (which is like saying "I much prefer the Guillotine to the Gas Chamber, they really thought about my comfort in designing it"). However, the most interesting part of AAC is that it is an open-ended DRM, which is to say, it can be strengthened after the market has widely embraced it. Think about it - right now, Apple gives you nearly limitless freedom to pirate, copy, share, and distribute files bought from iTMS. They say the RIAA is good with it. Does that sound like the RIAA to you? Apple admits they lose money on the transaction, hoping to make it up in iPod sales (yes, this is the same Apple who is now charging for iLife).... In 2-3 years, when they have cornered the market, they will change the terms and conditions of sale, just as they did with the "forever free".Mac accounts, for example.
Right now, Apple listens to their customers. They do this because they are fighting for marketshare. When you reward them with a monopoly, they will become a monopolist in attitude as well as fact. The goal of Apple and the RIAA is not to beat MS' DRM format, the goal is to beat piracy and kill open formats. And they will, to a large extent; with their hardware and software lockins -- this is quite possible and, in fact, probable -- and is the same idea MS has with their Longhorn / Bios / hardware anti-piracy lockin.
I know you love Apple, but sometimes you have to protect yourself from the ones you love.
Uhh, "anonymous" troll, sir, please try to stay in character. At the beginning of your rant, you're astroturfing nicely, saying "he" said this and "the poster" said that, but by the end, you're saying "when did *I* "...
Look man, this is Slashdot. We're only famous for one thing -- our trolls. If you don't wanna have your troll license revoked (and I have the authority to do this), you better start previewing your trolls to make sure you don't give yourself away anymore. Our editors might not be quality, our posts might not be quality, and our speling might suck totally, but DAMMIT! This is Slashdot, and as long as I'm on duty our trolls are gonna rule. The quality of our trolls WILL NOT slide. Not on my watch, mister. Not on my watch.
Yours in Christ, Doctor Reginald Scooby Slashdot Trolling Academy
Slashdot Mirror
>> While in their FAQ's they (/.) state that they've only ever removed one comment...
;-) *cough*Should have patched*cough*
They should update their FAQ. I found a hole in Slashcode that would allow you to remove people from your freaks list, posted a quick how-to in my journal, and within an hour, the post was gone. And an hour or two after that, the hole was gone too. This was during those times when Slashdot was crashing hourly due to a raft of "code upgrades".
Of course, that was a journal entry, not a comment, so perhaps they're still telling the truth on that level. But I've documented a few editorial abuses (disappearing Insightful mods, etc.) that tell me that the editors aren't being 100% honest or fair. A good idea to improve transparency would be to document WHO moderated your posts -- right now you have no idea whether someone has a grudge against you or not. In my case, of course, they do. Either way, in many cases knowing who moderated you will give insight as to why they moderated you as they did. But the editors say no. Why is that?
And you're right; there is no anonymity -- unless you're using a hacked corporate NT system somewhere in Ontario as a proxy
A nice unbiased article about how Linux is superior...from a Linux magazine.
It's a nice change from hearing how Macs are superior from the Mac magazines.
If you weren't an AC, I'd tell you that you shouldn't be reading this. I am despised by all on Slashdot, but loved and respected by all in person. And I have made the front page of Slashdot in the past, but without my name attached to my posts, it seems I am nothing. That's humanity for you. If Steve Jobs posted here under an assumed name, he'd be flamed as a troll. The message is only as insightful as you consider the person giving it, it seems.
I have found that the great majority of posters here have very little concept of reality, and they're vastly unintelligent, and none seem burdened with initiative. I could chain together every poster at Slashdot into a Beowulf cluster and I still couldn't power a light bulb.
Hmmmmm... I know *I* have to wonder. I have a few Macs, and while they're very good, they're definitely not deserving of the amount of worship I see here. The Finder sucks compared to Windows Explorer, Safari is barely out of Beta, the damn things are still at 1-2 Ghz with a crippled bus, iLife is still crashy and often slow (iPhoto STILL sucks), and Photoshop REALLY IS FASTER ON WINDOWS. OS X is not Open Source like Linux, it doesn't have the millions of apps or printer/scanner/camera/etc. support like Windows. Apple computers are LOSING marketshare, which means Jobs, being a smart and hardcore businessman, will eventually migrate COMPLETELY from making computers to iPods (his most profitable product), leaving all us Maccies in a BeOS-like situation of homelessness, and since OS X is proprietary, no way to continue development ourselves. There are ahem--let's say, "rumors" of backdoors built into OS X at the request of the NSA (It was done with LotusNotes and many other important pieces of software (search this page for 'Lotus'), and I highly doubt Apple would be able to resist similar demands, especially when a large cash carrot was dangled in front of what was, at the time, a very financially desperate Apple).
Yes, of course, I know this is a "troll". I know better than to post something "Insightful" or "Informative". I've learned that on Slashdot, when reality conflicts with hype, reality must be wrong. Don't bother reading it or thinking about it; just mod it down and go back to blissful unaware sleep. I and the other Overlords will take care of everything for you. Damn, it's hard to blow the whistle when your mouth is taped shut by the religious masses.
I just want to type a friggin letter.
You can type a letter on a 386 running DOS or Windows 3.1. Why aren't you? In fact, you can use a typewriter. If all anybody wanted to do was "type a friggin' letter", typewriters would still be around en masse, wouldn't they. The fact is that people want more functionality than they think they do originally. My dad buys a computer to check his stocks online, next thing he knows he's in Photoshop playing with digital photography. My mom bought her laptop to do her banking, now she hacks NASA on the weekends. Everyone I know who's thinking of buying a Mac talks about getting into MP3's, or trying their hand at making movies or electronic music. And of course, consolidating their pr0n into one spot.
And as the stuff we do gets more complicated (as is inevitable), the complexity of our interaction with the machine gets more complicated, and you *really can't avoid* learning about your machine. Even surfing the web is complicated to a newbie. I know guys who can't get a grasp on sending email attachments. It's all relative. Learning is required. You've already done it, you just don't remember....
The best an OS maker can do for you is to pay attention to make everything as simple as possible within reason. NOBODY, even geeks, wants to spend 3 hours configuring their system in order to accomplish a task that is automated and automatic on the other platforms. This is where Apple is doing better than the other platforms. Sometimes, it's not worth the effort to use Linux. People just want to get their crap done, and what is the best tool to get it done quickly and painlessly?
Linux won't rule the desktop until they realize that Ease-Of-Use is the only thing that matters to the masses.
Jeezus, just when the nightmares and waking up screaming due to my high school calculus humiliation had finally stopped, Slashdot goes and stirs the pain pot. Hey, Slashdot! Here's a good next article fo you! "The true love of Scooby's life married another man!" Post that one and give the knife another twist, why don't ya?
Damn calculus and trains travelling north from Boston at 35 miles an hour... Damn you, oh mysterious, insane calculus!
Hopefully, they're not the "peer reviewers" of Open-Source software we hear so much about.
The only hope is for a massive uprising against our owners, but we are too doped on carbohydrates and reality tv to care about anything but organizing our pr0n and finding out who's going for coffee at next break.
Sixteen pounds is getting pretty close to the 18.75 lbs of the M60E3 machinegun.
And which one do you think kicks more ass?
Yikes! Sounds like all information that enters a black hole turns into spaghetti code!!! The horror! The horror!
Now I know where Windows98 really came from.
you forgot to include the SlashdotTheirWebsite function, the most important part of the Slashdot Experience.
This is still big in Mexico. All the buses have VCR's in the dash, and there's often a VHS tape that has a pirated copy of a Harry Potter audiobook on the dash -- beside the mandatory tip bucket.
They also told me you get better audio quality than cassettes. Different, but a good idea. That's when I learned that the rest of the world is cool in its own way.
Microsoft does, idiot. So does Oracle, and I've heard about some good parties at Sun. But I've definitely been at the Microsoft parties (Remember the Win95 bash with Pearl Jam, biggest band in the world at the time?) I hear you can hire Barenaked Ladies or REM or Pearl Jam etc. for between 25-75 grand for a one night show. Colleges hire big bands for their parties all the time, why not someone with 10,000x the resources?
Maybe that's why Apple's markups are so high and their profits are so low after expenses. Too many parties (when all the employees want to do is go home and go to bed after a 65 hour workweek anyway).
Stuff like this is what's holding GNU/Linux back. You shouldn't have to read a manual to upgrade a kernel. The average user can't and won't handle the "shoddy glue" that binds Linux together. The apps themselves are fine, but there are a bevy of problems, glitches, and incompatibilities that MUST be resolved if Linux is to ever become something other than a "pimply-horny-hacker-sitting-in-his-mom's-basement -feeling-kewl-for-compiling-gimp" OS. Both WinXP and Mac OS X are extremely well-put together and easy to use (*snickers a bit about XP*). Until Linux gets some real standards (apt-get vs RPM is the tip of the iceburg) and some tools to automate much of this pain, Linux will be consigned to the basement of history, free as in freedom or not. And free as in beer doesn't matter. Because really, EVERYTHING is essentially free right now, thanks to P2P. Linux *really is* competing with XP based primarily on features (and familiarity, compatibility issues, etc., but NOT on price). OS X, of course, requires a hefty hardware purchase to run it, so it's not exactly in the same boat. But the people who are switching to Linux from Windows are switching for Linux' attributes, not the low low price. Most of the people I know who have experimented with Linux bought RedHat boxed OSes. They were willing to pay to ditch MS, and they all eventually went back.... because Linux does not TECHNICALLY make the grade yet. And you all know there's one or two areas Linux is lacking. Ease of use. Application support. Drivers for Digital cameras and stuff like that (the drivers that DO exist are named so archaically they can't be found or installed by the common man). If we want to keep the momentum we have right now, we have to give the people good reasons to consider us. The best and most important traits an OS can have are ease-of-use, security, and numerous apps and tools.
If people CAN'T use it, people WON'T use it. Ease of use and convenience is EVERYTHING.
Hell, even *I*, the great and terrible Doctor Scooby, find myself dual booting, and this is AFTER I've found evidence of subliminal messages in certain proprietary Operating Systems which shall remain nameless.
We have to decide whether we support "free as in freedom" or not. If we do, we have to realize that software freedom will be snuffed out unless we "fix" Linux so that it will flourish. Or do we think, like Linus Torvalds, that "No man is an island - except me, and when the news comes on tv I cover my ears and hum noo-noo-nnooooo so I can't hear it." If we don't obey the rules of economics, we'll be gone. And no man is an island, otherwise Stallman would have done it all himself.
what the heck was your friend thinking, putting his TiBook in the microwave?
I guess he wanted to experience what a G5 PowerBook would feel like on his lap.
Now THAT'S a hack!
A, I'm not only a Mac user, I used to work for them; B, Apple dropped the floppy at the height of its popularity as well, and that worked out okay for them. It's called progress. Ditching MP3 without a suitable alternative is suicide, ditching it for something better, cheaper, faster (The Bionic Man of audio formats?) is good business, and progressive thinking. Face it, 90% of Mac users will buy iPods and use iTunes simply because of brand loyalty. What Steve says is good IS good to them. If Steve-o pushes OGG, within 6 months, everybody will use OGG. But of course, he won't, since he needs his DRM fix, ineffective as it is....
The solution? Keep MP3 and AAC capability on the iPod, but *add* OGG and start pushing it. Apple is the ONE company who can make the revolution happen. Instead, the rumors are they will not add OGG (which gives greater freedom to the user), but WMA (which places greater restrictions on the user)...
And yes, I am delusional. Doctor Scooby is self-prescribing again.
No, actually, I was stoned at the time. Didn't hear about it till later ;-P
Similarly, I was about to buy a Dell with Windows XP, then I saw the Microsoft commercials with people flying around after using Windows XP. It was then that I realized that you had to be on drugs to use Windows.
You forgot Butt-head Astronomer (Sagan), the most famous one...
Power it off when going through the XRay machine at the airport, or you'll probably end up with a beautiful expensive paperweight. I've seen it happen. NASTY.
Which is also why I don't eat Microwaved food anymore. If it can wreck my friend's TiBook, it can't be making my pizza very happy.
Yeah! Screw all those "free", "open" formats! We WANT to be paying a licensing fee for closed formats as long as we can! I don't care if OGG beats MP3 in many tests for sound quality at the same file size! Screw quality, I wanna support Apple Corporate!
If Apple really is the great innovator, the mover-and-shaker who first supports a new technology and pushes it into the limelight, then let them do so now by supporting OGG (although they're already not the first, though they'll claim to be). I'm tired of hearing about how they were 3 weeks ahead of the PC on installing CDRoms as standard, and that makes it "their innovation". My ass. If they're as good as you say they are, and if they care about their customers as much as everybody here thinks, then know now that they could drop the price on the iPods by not having to pay the MP3 licensing fee. TRUST ME, if Apple tells the Mac users OGG is great, 100% of the fans will convert all their MP3's to OGG before sunrise the next day. And if Apple's gutless, they can run both side by side and let the people choose. In a few years, MP3 and its mandatory licensing fees will largely be gone, replaced by OGG. All it would take is some good PR, which is really what Apple does best.
And if you really don't see how saving money by choosing an equally good or better technology for a better price is good business for both Apple and the consumer, you've got your Apple Astroturfer underwears on a little too tight and you should start thinking like a consumer again instead of an Apple PR distributor or sales flunkie.
1) When Napster gives a marketshare number, the Slashdot masses go on the offensive and try to tear that number apart. When Apple gives a marketshare number, we accept it without question, despite the fact that they are well-known for their questionable sales tactics and misleading facts and figures. Does this imply any sort of bias? Open your eyes and take a step back, you'll start to understand what's happening here on Slashdot. A seemingly grassroots groundswell of support for Apple and their brand of proprietary software, and a seemingly grassroots groundswell of disdain for the GPL.
.Mac accounts, for example.
2) People here are also attacking Napster because of its DRM as opposed to Apple's DRM (which is like saying "I much prefer the Guillotine to the Gas Chamber, they really thought about my comfort in designing it"). However, the most interesting part of AAC is that it is an open-ended DRM, which is to say, it can be strengthened after the market has widely embraced it. Think about it - right now, Apple gives you nearly limitless freedom to pirate, copy, share, and distribute files bought from iTMS. They say the RIAA is good with it. Does that sound like the RIAA to you? Apple admits they lose money on the transaction, hoping to make it up in iPod sales (yes, this is the same Apple who is now charging for iLife).... In 2-3 years, when they have cornered the market, they will change the terms and conditions of sale, just as they did with the "forever free"
Right now, Apple listens to their customers. They do this because they are fighting for marketshare. When you reward them with a monopoly, they will become a monopolist in attitude as well as fact. The goal of Apple and the RIAA is not to beat MS' DRM format, the goal is to beat piracy and kill open formats. And they will, to a large extent; with their hardware and software lockins -- this is quite possible and, in fact, probable -- and is the same idea MS has with their Longhorn / Bios / hardware anti-piracy lockin.
I know you love Apple, but sometimes you have to protect yourself from the ones you love.
Thanks!
That's not flamebait, dickheads.
Uhh, "anonymous" troll, sir, please try to stay in character. At the beginning of your rant, you're astroturfing nicely, saying "he" said this and "the poster" said that, but by the end, you're saying "when did *I* "...
Look man, this is Slashdot. We're only famous for one thing -- our trolls. If you don't wanna have your troll license revoked (and I have the authority to do this), you better start previewing your trolls to make sure you don't give yourself away anymore. Our editors might not be quality, our posts might not be quality, and our speling might suck totally, but DAMMIT! This is Slashdot, and as long as I'm on duty our trolls are gonna rule. The quality of our trolls WILL NOT slide. Not on my watch, mister. Not on my watch.
Yours in Christ,
Doctor Reginald Scooby
Slashdot Trolling Academy