* Posts by JEDIDIAH

2525 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2009

Logitech CEO: Google TV a 'gigantic mistake'

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Corporate Feudalism

> It's part of the "right" in copyright.

> Redistribution rights are part of

> modern copyrights, so the

> broadcasters can say who gets

> to display their show and who can't.

That is just insane, Feudal nonsense.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Fanboy silliness

> ...is Apple to enter the market in a big way, like what happened for mobile phones.

You mean like they already have done and have been doing for quite some time now? They've been at it long enough for them to go through a 68K -> PPC style architecture change already.

Apple's iPad not so shiny once you get it home

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Does that tablet dissolve in water?

> As a ready recipe reference in the kitchen (no keyboard to collect dirt),

Yeah... like a smudge slab won't collect dirt or be prone to other kinds of damage.

Not all of the detractors here are "unimaginative".

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Some people just make simple things hard.

...or you just spent a few minutes to rip a CD when you bought it. It might have been in the 90s or it could be in the oughts. The only real difference is how long you had to wait for the ripper to finish before you could play your music. You still spent a whole 5 minutes on the process.

Backups just happen.You automate something that sorts you out in general and backups of your music are "free". Any time you manually copy your music to some device (like your phone), that is yet another backup with a marginal cost of zero.

You don't futz with stuff because you realize that if one ancient format (like vinyl) is good enough than you don't have to constantly move between less ancient formats.

It helps to only use what seems suitable to begin with.

Although video is an entirely different kettle of fish...

JEDIDIAH
Linux

No proof of purchase.

Without some sort of physical token of ownership, you don't really have any means to prove that you have any right to a particular digital file. Even without DRM, you still have the problem of "proving that it's yours". Screeching fanboys that like to paint anything not purchased from Apple as piracy are a great example of this problem.

You buy it from Amazon, then how do you prove it when someone tries to say otherwise?

Are we in the middle of a patent bubble?

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

The idea versus the thing.

> The best inventions seem completely obscure and when completed seem completely obvious.

Patents protect implementations and not ideas.

If all it takes for something to be invented is a good description and the work of a college student, then it really doesn't deserve a patent. This was the case for my own "favorite" patents that Tivo was granted for the PVR.

You are advocating treating nukes like firecrackers for no other reason that you are really ignorant and you can't imagine anyone actually having a clue.

A 17 year exclusive innovation crushing monopoly is like any nasty thing you can name (nuke, toxic waste, biological weapon) and should be treated accordingly. Proliferation certainly shouldn't be casually encouraged.

ASUS: 'We run out of hard disks at the end of the month'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Highly sub-optimal solution

> .. or they'll get external drives to add further storage when the price is better.

That tends to be a less satisfying option. Although upgrading internal storage could certainly be made easier. It's not that hard with most laptops as it is though.

It's strange that you have to be a geek in order to even be aware of "better usability" options.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Size doesn't matter so much anymore...

There is a practical lower bound price on components. Certain manufacturers aren't interested in selling the cheaper gear. So once you get to a certain price point, things don't get cheaper anymore. You just end up with "better" components. That means that it becomes increasingly harder to find small hard drives or even reasons to buy them.

Before this flood, there was very little price difference between the smallest spinny drive you could get and a much bigger one.

SSDs are still puny. It's easy enough to overwhelm them with just music and family photos. You don't even need to get into various forms of video hoarding. The gap between SSD and spinny disk capacity is simply too wide.

Pete Townshend condemns Apple as 'digital vampire'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

The stupid bike analogy

There are many ways that I can avoid paying Townsend for his "talent". Some of them are legal and some of them are not. They are largely equivalent in the end despite the differing moral and legal values place on them.

With so much fixation on "freeloaders", you would think that the busybodies here would suffer sufficient confusion for their heads to explode if they really thought about what they were babbling.

MTV. Movie Trading Company. Pandora. BT. It all looks the same on the balance sheet in the end.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

It's the Brooklyn Bridge...

> Of course it happens, it's one of the main reasons that the PRS exist.

PRS exists so that PRS gets paid.

Whether or not anyone besides the middleman actually gets anything is another matter entirely.

"Distrust and be sure to verify,"

JEDIDIAH
Linux

I have a bridge for you...

>> "Getting music for free from the radio or it's equivalent is what advertises artists"

>

> eh.. no. Artists receive a royalty payment when a song is play on the radio as it is considered a performance.

If you really think this actually happens, I have a bridge to sell you across the pond.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Clueless children...

>> "iTunes is comparable to the record shops of old"

>

> Eh, No. If you bought a record (or a CD) you paid for the whole record and

You remind me of all of those surveys they like to take of incoming college freshmen and then whine about in the news media. There is NOTHING new about the whole "just pay for the hits" model of iTunes. This was the normal way the industry did business since the beginning. Only during a very brief period during the rise of the CD did this ever change.

Then it came back with a vengance.

Singles are nothing new. They are something that should be VERY familiar to the likes of Townsend.

Singles always existed side by side with Albums.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

iTunes is just another vendor

iTunes is just another vendor. They sell singles or albums and they sell them under the terms offered by the publisher. If the artists aren't seeing any windfall, then it is the middle men that are at fault at not iTunes. Apple is simply chasing the market.

iTunes is no more or less vampiric than Virgin Megastore.

The labels are the actual villain in this piece and always have been. If Apple has gained any power here, than the labels have given it to them.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

The mind boggles...

You've really got to wonder where radio and MTV fits into Pete's view of things here.

There are plenty of bands who's works I've enjoyed for free and quite legally too.

This includes The Who oddly enough.

...talking 'bout my generation and whatnot.

Ultrabook sales 'falling short of targets'

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Price without reason

Price without reason is the perfect description of the Apple user demographic. With a wider array of choices, PC buyers will opt for one of the other many options available to them. The option may be cheaper or it may be more capable.

Macbooks sell to people that brag about their own ignorance.

The PC market probably isn't quite so easy. Wankers like me will be asking if it actually is worth the money rather than just mindlessly queuing up for it.

Android 'stands on Microsoft's shoulders', says MS lawyer

JEDIDIAH
Linux

First in the wild on a Falcon

> How many people are complaining how rubbish Windows is whilst simultaneously posting said message from a Windows PC.

I could be posting this from an Atari Falcon if not for the fact that Microsoft muscled most everyone else out of the home computer business. Proprietary network effects tend to quickly favor a single computing vendor.

I could migrate off of kludge clones in a heartbeat if another option presented itself.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

The fantastic OS

...if you believe that Android is nothing more than Linux slapped together with some spyware then clearly the people that ought to be complaining about theft are AT&T rather than Microsoft since Linux is a variant of Unix and not some DOS clone.

If Linux is running afoul of any Microsoft patents they likely mainly involve "compatability".

Stallman: Did I say Jobs was evil? I meant really evil

JEDIDIAH
Linux

"hating" on emacs

This "hating" on emacs quite nicely highlights the "fanboy" problem.

Not everyone is the same sort of extra from an Apple SuperBowl ad. Some of us "think different" and have different requirements. Some of those requirements might be quite techical, or simply being able to recieve large numbers of text messages and not go insane cleaning them up afterwards.

Apple has a totalitarian approach. If they only abused their own customers it would be fine. However, they also insist on limiting everyone else's choices. They aren't just some hippies keeping to themselves in their own commune. They are more like a notorious band of fascist invaders.

You should be at liberty to use the right tool for the job.

JEDIDIAH
Devil

You get to choose the corner

> Show us these similarly spec'd PCs that are half the price.

> They don't exist. Either they have cut corners

Well that's the rub. If you buy a PC, you get to decide what corners you want cut. If you buy and Apple, you simply have no choice. You either take what the corporate overlord wants to sell you or you do without completely.

Sucks if you've got any investment in iTunes content with DRM or expensive proprietary apps.

With a PC, I can pick my tradeoffs and spend 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 the price.

It's ultimately the same spare parts made by other companies with production outsourced to China.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Another wrinkle...

I think one thing that bothers a lot of people here is the new idea that Apple fanboys have been pushing to support their Messiah 2.0 platform. That idea is the notion that you need to have the computing equivalent of 1984 in order to have a secure system. This is an idea that Apple itself and the fanboys didn't push until relatively recently. Once their glorious leader declared the new direction they all decided to ignore the previous propaganda en masse in favor of the new propaganda.

The idea that open systems can't be secured or made easy is nonsense. Apple's own products disproved that. There is nothing necessary or useful about Apple's current approach.

It simply seems to suit Apple as the new Microsoft.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

> Any kind of tea is fine with milk and sugar?

>

> Green tea? Lemon tea? URRRGH! Sounds awful! >:b

Are you from the UK? Have you never had American tea? I could understand your confusion then.

If he is presented with proper "first sort" tea, he might not care about the brand or how long the leaves have been cooked. I can relate to his perspective on tea having never been able to stomach the stuff until I visited London and had the real thing.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Lowering the bar...

Apple is like Microsoft here. Microsoft "lowered the bar" when it came to expectations about computers in terms of security and reliability. Apple is doing the same for end user choice.

It would be nice if we were just talking about Free Software here but the bar is even lower than that.

Now you have systems that end users aren't even in control of. Never mind source code, people aren't even in full control of their personal data or proprietary applications. You have a system where commercial rivals are easily locked out.

Free Software is just the tip of the iceberg here.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Apple deserves the flac it gets

> a portable music player with a command line interface is probably not gonna catch on.

Yes but one that "just works" and plays anything you happen to have on hand just might.

It's a shame that St. Jobs didn't allow his product to do this and actively attacked competitors that were willing to take up the slack.

Ten... mono laser printers

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Greasey fingers are just the beginning

> Its the 21stC there's no need to kill trees with out of date documents.

I would rather get a bit of dead tree wet or covered with extra virgin olive oil than some overpriced consumer electronics device.

Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Fanboys ignoring the inconvenient.

> Remote controls are not a good example of usability

Sure they are.

They are great examples of how a company approaches design and how that approach impacts usability and usefulness. Apple remotes are the perfect example of real world practical usability and usefulness taking a back seat to dubious design goals.

A conventional remote may have "too many buttons" but it does include enough such that basic features one usually associates with modern video appliances. Admittedly, the OSD interfaces that Apple employs could take up the slack here, but they don't.

Apple remotes are also a great example of Apple ignoring established UI elements that are already well understood by the users. Apple's TV interfaces are a great example of Apple ignoring HID guidelines that fanboys like to crow about so much.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Problem already solved, by someone other than Apple.

> The problem is not the hardware it's the content,

> or rather access to content. The problem with

> Telly is that, you can't watch what you want to

> watch, when you want to watch it.

Tivo already solved that problem.

Kaledescape also solved that problem but they are the only vendor that has survived the ensuing inevitable legal challenges from Hollywood. So any other similar products have to be DIY.

> you can watch the last 5 seasons of Doctor Who one after the other

Got a lot of storage on the PVR. Can do that already. Could have done that in the 90s too.

At $2 or $3 or $5 a pop, stuff ads up fast. A lot of the stuff on iTunes that isn't new releases can be bought on spinny disk for what Apple wants to charge you to rent it.

Apple's iPod: ten years old

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Apple products have always been anemic...

Apple products have always been anemic when it comes to storage and plenty of fanboys will come out of the woodwork to make all sorts of excuses for this. This is precisely the sort of nonsense that demonstrates why Apple should not be able to keep anyone else out of the market regardless of what their excuse is.

Someone needs to be able to accomodate the rest of us.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

iPod alternatives...

I was never much into the whole "walkman" thing. I was always more interested in "home audio" and "car audio" and the occasional bit of bulk storage. I started out with data CDs and moved onto data DVDs and things like MythTV.

These days, I would just use a thumb drive and a car stereo that can use it.

For video, I use Archos devices because they are unmatched in terms of capacity.

Sony BDP-SX1 portable Blu-ray player

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Yeah. Ripping is a bother.

On the one hand you've got an encrypted media format and a certain contingent that will gleefully declare that it is only legal to play that encrypted format on blessed players. On the other hand, you have an inferior encryption format that locks you into a single hardware vendor. Plus the legal landscape makes the tools for liberating either one more bothersome to deal with.

The annoyances and pitfalls of DRM still make physical media relevant. It may be for nothing more than as a token of ownership or it may be as a primary playback medium because you just want portability and aren't terribly geeky.

DRM and anti-cracking laws continue to make physical media more relevant than it should be.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Spinning disks....

...it probably takes a good amount of extra energy to keep a spinning disk spinning.

Extracting that element out of the situation probably significantly improves the life of the laptop.

Although any clamshell device is ultimately going to be less convenient than a "tablet" in a lot of situations.

MIT boffin: Salted disks hold SIX TIMES more data

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Big versus small

Either way, you can still cram 4 or more laptop sized hard drives into a single full size drive bay on a desktop computer. That dramatically shrinks the footprint of a storage array that has some hope of meeting modern multimedia storage needs.

Win 8 haters are just scared of change, say MS bosses

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Posers droning on about stuff they pirate

> why should you spend nearly as much again in learning a product that does the same job?

I can think of about 600 good reasons.

Photoshop is not cheap. Unless you are a real graphics pro (and not just some lame wannabe), then it's probably an absurd waste of money. A photographer that toys with PS doesn't really count.

Pay Jobs due respect - by crushing the empire he created

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Fanboy nonense

> Android is still a buggy, laggy mess

No it isn't. That's just fanboy nonsense. Perhaps telling yourself that gives you some perverse comfort.

First and foremost a phone should be good at being a phone. "Just go get a feature phone" is hardly a proper retort to criticisms of Apple. All it does is just confirm my claim that the emperor really has no clothes.

Apple products are fine only so long as you don't really use them and/or you're not terribly creative. Then you being to see that the shiny is only skin deep.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

The turnip truck...

Your view on Microsoft's contribution to serious computing would charitably be described as "creative".

Linux was created to fill the void left in technology left by Microsoft the monopoly vendor.

That's hardly anything to brag about.

JEDIDIAH
Mushroom

Fanboy nonsense

> Android is clearly designed for tech junkies,

Ah... no.

As a basic phone doing phone things, Android is actually much better than iPhone. It actually appears that the thing was designed with being a phone in mind. The basic features are somewhat thought out and the basic boundary use cases are dealt with.

Apple simply ignores these.

Apple may have a better "pocket computer". However, that is a SECONDARY concern.

So in truth it is really Apple that is targeting the "mindless geek" market segment despite the typical tendency of certain types to denigrate geeks in general and try to marginalize them and their significance in the market place.

I dumped my iPhone because as a phone it's functionally inferior to a Nokia from 1999.

If you want to "geek out" with a pocket computer, that's another matter...

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Seeing is believing (Goat Jam)

People don't just hate on Microsoft for no reason. This hate is usually borne out of frustration and being forced to deal with their crap. It is usually borne out of ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. Now after 15 or 20 years later, things might have settled down a bit. Someone that "just fell off the turnip truck" is bound to have a far different opinion of Microsoft than those of us that actually used it in the days when all of these "positive influences" have been alleged.

The industry succeeds in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.

That is apparent by their current floundering. They have lost their leverage and they suddenly seem old and toothless.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

6 Macs in the front room...

I had 3 Macs before one of them prematurely died.

They were bought as low profile HTPCs.

The ones that aren't dead now are obsolete though. (Weak GPU)

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Lemming nonsense...

> MS became dominant after Wordperfect,

> Borland, Lotus/IBM and a few others fired

> in their feet with crappy products that couldn't

> match Word/Excel/Access/Outlook in Offfice.

No. It was just fashionable at that time to put all of your eggs in one basket. It was a diseased meme of the management classes that they should buy everything from a single vendor.

Trashing non-Microsoft products is just the usual mindless screech of the Lemming.

It was annoying back in the day and it's annoying now. It pretty much destroys the main advantage of using the monopoly vendor. There is no point in using the platform that "has everything" if you can't actually "use anything".

You might as well be putting up with Apple users.

I happily used alternatives in those days. They worked quite well. They certainly worked well enough for your average Lemming or office worker.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Premature eulogies...

Samsung is in no great danger from Apple.

Unlike Apple, they are not some one trick pony.

Samsung also has their own home market that they are very strong in.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Joke alert...

Sales versus usage...

You know how the saying from Disraeli goes.

You can twist the numbers to suit any bias you want to present. Linux is big in server rooms but it isn't necessarily the most expensive option. Commercial Unix oddly enough might not seem to be the most expensive option. Either will tend to require fewer machines for a given task or be able to support more tasks with a single machine.

The fact that you need to multiply your NT boxes is not necessarily something to brag about.

Serious operating systems still dominate "real work".

Linux is just the tip of the iceberg there.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

More nonsense from this guy...

I find the notion that Windows has had some sort of positive impact on the industry highly laughable. It sounds like the rantings of some Lemming that was always blindly followed the rest of the MS-DOS using pack and largely ignored every other vendor that was using GUIs in the 80s.

When it come to GUIs and Microsoft, I think of them as last to the party. They are sandbaggers. Windows represents the monopoly power of Microsoft and their unwillingess to adopt new technologies and their apparent immunity from market pressures.

For a long time it was effectively MacOS vs MS-DOS.

Then once Windows came in force it was a mis-begotten DOS shell.

If anything, I would call NeXT a better example of what happens when you allow inventors to copy from each other and build off of each other's work. So are various attempts to clone all or parts of OpenStep.

So was GEM even. Ironically that was mired in litigation from Apple (things really don't change do they).

Apple outs iPhone micro USB adaptor

JEDIDIAH
Linux

The "horrible" Legacy problem.

Well, it's sad to see a company like Archos manage a better design than Apple. They have essentially the same problem except not really since they're somewhat of a market failure and don't have to worry about 10 million 3rd party products.

So how did they solve this horrible problem of "legacy support"?

They put the usb port on another edge of the device. The "legacy" connector is still there unmolested. You can use it if you really insist. Not necessary though.

This also has the nice side effect of being able to charge the device should you ever decide to use the proprietary connector. You can use something like a proprietary Archos->TV dongle and not worry about draining the battery while your one and only expansion port is in use.

JEDIDIAH
Devil

What do do with Chargers?

Got a problem dealing with your old chargers? What kind of idiot buys something that is more nonstandard than it needs to be. Any "micro usb chargers" I might have are the same standard connection on the other end. It's cheaper that way and there's no need for a proprietary connection.

Even my "Apple" chargers have been that way for years.

The only thing we have left that aren't bog standard USB chargers at the wall are the DS chargers.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

...third party hardware

Most 3rd party hardware is just using the iDevice as a glorified hard drive.

Quite a few actual USB devices do the same thing.

There are also much more interesting standard device classes as well.

There's probably nothing that the iThing cable does that can't be achieved with USB and some standard type of device (HID/Storage/Camera).

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Yet another adaptor...

This is kind of funny considering that a cheap iPhone cable can already be had for less than what Apple wants for their dongle.

Fedora 16: Linux home for lost Ubuntu GNOMEs

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Everyone is "testing betas".

You drone on like somehow Linux GUI developers are the only ones that can't leave well enough alone when infact every platform seems to be infected with the same insanity. EVERYONE wants to trash well developed and thoroughly debugged interfaces for a lot of tablet hype nonsense. It's not just Linux. Apple is doing it and so is Microsoft.

How many times has Microsoft pulled the rug out from everyone since NT?

Been there. Did that. Don't try to BS an old veteran.

Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5

JEDIDIAH
Devil

Fanboy silliness

> and Rolls Royces are more expensive than hyundais.

It's an Apple product. IT IS NOT a Rolls Royce.

Get over yourself. You are just a poor prole.

If you walked in the door of a real luxury merchant you would be quickly walked back out again.

Apple sells the same crap as everyone else. Your upmarket babblings are pure fantasy.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

Coke vs Pepsi

Screw that false dichotomy.

Give me Grape Nehi, Root Beer, and Jamaican Ginger Beer.

Time to take the blinders off.

JEDIDIAH
Linux

This is just about iHype

This is just about iHype.

The fact that a new iDevice has come out does not make your old iDevice suddenly worthless. You simply don't have to throw out the old one in a fit of conspicuous consumption. There is no need to help add to the local landfill and to the destruction of the planet.

22,000 'freetards' escape Hurt Locker piracy suit

JEDIDIAH
Linux

WTF

A number of El Reg contributors seem to be professional trolls.