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Slashback: Courseware, Warranties, Subscraption
But will they distribute diploma blanks as PDF files? perlmunger writes "Linux Journal highlighted this in the 'up front' section of the June 2001 issue (I knew I keep these old issues around for a reason). Apparently, MIT will (finally) be opening their Open Course Ware initiative on September 30th to the public. Looks like a great start from many departments."
Answer: it's a strong possibility. skinfitz writes "Following on from Google returning to China, New Scientist is reporting in this article that Chinese surfers searching Google are finding their Internet connection dropped for five minutes if they enter "politically sensitive" keywords, such as the Chinese president's name! Will this new technology find uses elsewhere? Is this the future of the web?"
My human transporter is still a station wagon. An anonymous reader writes with the text which by now many people have seen regarding the status of the world's most famous unavailable scooter; apparently it's not necessarily as far from available as an automated message from Amazon implied.
"Greetings from Amazon.com.You recently received an e-mail from us regarding the Segway Human Transporter (also known as "Ginger" or "IT"). This e-mail was sent accidentally by an automated system and the information in it is incorrect.
In fact, there is no new information on Segway's availability. Consumer versions of Segway Human Transporters are currently being piloted in various communities throughout the U.S. The Segway HT is expected to be released to the general consumer market in 2003.
We apologize for the confusion. We will keep your e-mail address on our list of customers who wish to be notified about this item.
Sincerely,
Amazon.com Customer Service
Strong Opinions softsign writes "Apparently, Tim O'Reilly's recent article addressing the topic of Switchers was so popular and generated so much response that he felt compelled to respond to reader comments in his MacDevCenter column this week. It reads almost like the Apple Switch website, but there are some really insightful emails peppered with Tim's comments. Worth a read."
The moon's been asking for this for years. cscx writes "The mysterious space junk, or apparent "other moon" reported a few weeks ago, now is more likely to be an old Saturn V (from the Apollo program) rocket booster. Bad thing is, there is a 20% chance it could strike the moon sometime next year. More details at MSNBC."
We'll let you you borrow it for a while, sign here. An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has scrapped plans for subscription-based licensing of consumer products following the end of a 12-month trial in several countries including New Zealand. The Story says people were getting confused as to why they had to pay after the 12 months had gone by."
I find your lack of confidence disturbing. Longinus writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Western Digital is going to follow Maxtor's recent decision to cut their warranty of future drives from three years to one, with an extended warranty being offered at an additional price. The article goes on to mention that Seagate is rumored to also be considering such a cut, but nothing official has been confirmed. One can only wonder if this increase in price is to due to corporate cost saving measures or the fact that hard drives are becoming less stable magnetically as they increase in storage space."
The day they go quiet is when you should start to worry.
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One can only wonder if this increase in price is to due to corporate cost saving measures or the fact that hard drives are becoming less stable magnetically as they increase in storage space.
Makes me wonder if the manufacturers are comprimising quality for both the extra space, and the speed at which they're getting churned out. I noticed the same thing with 3.5" floppy drives in their later years, prices went right down, as did the quality. In the end they were treated almost as a "disposable" part. Are hard drives going this way?
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Reminds me of that plan /. had on making money. Actually, do they still? I haven't noticed although I do click on the links to support them.
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Hard drives are now a comodity part with razor thin margins (that's why IBM bailed from the consumer market, remember), and waranties cost money. It should be no surprise that all the remaining manufacturers are cutting their warranty period. I very much doubt that it is a reflection on actual drive performance, but rather simply a cost cutting measure.
Honestly, when I can buy a 40G Seagate for $64, so what if it only has a one year warranty. You made backups, right? Toss it and get a new one.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
In a year or so if my hard drive goes up i'd rather get a newer, bigger one.
And this is the exact reason manufacturers are going with shorter warrantees on their low end drives. If you buy one of the low-end Maxtor 20GB drives in a year or so, in three more years, they won't have those in stock, and will be forced to send you a 100GB drive if you RMA it.
Maxtor has already said their high capactiy and high end drives will have a full three year warranty, and the same MTTF rating as SCSI drives. I think you will see price cuts, and intense price competition on the low end, you may not associate it with the shorter warantee, but they will come. Imagine buying a new, in production, not EOLed hard disk for $30... I think that's coming soon.
I think I am safe in saying that never before in history has there been such a gap between low and high end of in-production hard disks. In the next year, Maxtor will have drives from 20GB to 320GB. When 320 megabyte disks came into production, 20 meg drives were distant history, the smallest in production was something like 100 megs.
The nature of the hardware market is changing, I'd say that this is driving these warantee decisions, not some vague threat of magnetic flux unreliability.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
... need to make use of a hd-warranty, then I won't buy that brand of drive anymore. I've been fortunate in that I've never needed to discover what the warranty terms are.
I haveta admit, though, it does make pre-built systems a little more enticing. You can get 4-year warranties on the entire machine, not just the hard-drive. I suppose that's a plus, particularly if you need to have your computer up all the time.
Tim manages at the same time to only reproduce emails that do not go for the jugular against his Apple eulogy, and to ignore the strikingly good contestation published at freshmeat.
It is like his other blunders, creating proprietary documentation for free software and starting the whole open source useful innocents propaganda that confused so much the free software message: he puts his foot in his mouth, and then ignores criticism, or put only rehashing of old arguments as a counterpoint, perhaps hoping critics will go away...
It is all right for the likes of you and me to ignore some criticism, but for him, a publisher to do that so openly and so often, and having the advantage of being, well, a publisher... he should know, and behave, better.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Why is this a bad thing? It's not like there's any lunar ecology to disturb, or lunar inhabitants to threaten. And if it hits Luna, that's one less piece of dangerous unguided space debris for future space travellers to keep track of.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
There are a number of reasons to be worried about HD reliability:
1. As the fly height gets lower (generally a requisite of higher data density), the chances of a head crash increase (or if there is any dust or other particulate matter, the chances of the head turning into a record needle).
2. Higher data density = less area consumed for a bit = easier for data to be lost.
3. Higher track density = more probability that the head can go off track and write too close to (or over) adjacent tracks (yes, this can happen, and I guarantee it does on at least a yearly basis to someone you know).
Combine this with thin margins (and corresponding decreases in funding to QA and good suppliers/mfg), and you have a recipe for disaster.
For the last time: Back up your friggin' data.
Software maufacturers aren't responsible for loss of data, Why should hardware manufacturers? At least they give you one year! Honestly though, if the data matters: back it up and store it offsite. :)
Simple, they have nukes, Iraq doesn't.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I find it odd people are surprised at these warranty changes. How many components in a PC have moving parts? How many other components in a PC have a warranty over 1 year? Not many.
I was always amazed that the HD companies did 3 and 5 year warranties on consumer drives. Overpriced SCSI drives are one thing, but these consumer drives are getting so CHEAP these days that it isn't cost effective to offer these warranties.
"Our country is going to do this" is an example of being paranoid.
"Our country would never do this" is an example of being delusional.
Just for clarity's sake.
The enemies of Democracy are
Generally, you are exposed to far more radiation from "natural" sources than you will ever receive from "man-made" sources. For example, if you were to sit on the fence of Three Mile Island from the minute of its accident for a period of one year you would have gotten less than a typical chest x-ray worth of radiation. However, if you live in a region where natural radon gas seeps into your house then you can get the same dose in a matter of a few weeks. Cinder blocks which make up your house are slightly radioactive, and coal-fired power plants produce many times the radiation per watt as that of a typical nuclear power plant. (Coal typically has a lot of radioactive elements bound up in it, which are released when it burns.)
In short, don't worry so much about radiation. It's a natural part of life, just use sunblock, seal your basement, and get the power companies to replace coal power plants with nuclear ones. The last item will also have the benefit of saving a ton in power costs.
Sapere aude!
From the article:
"People think of software as a CD in their computer which they can use forever and a day. They're not used to having to reactivate the product after 12 months."
"I think we've learned that the market isn't ready for this type of service. There's value in it but we need to do some thinking around how we market and position it."
Translation:
We tried and failed. Once we manipulate people into believing information can be rented, we'll try again.
Slashdotters, this is not a victory.
Doesn't the Chinese government retain power with popular soverignty? If so, why do they need to censor things
While it's true that governments ultimately derive their just power from the consent of the governed, it can take a bloody long time for the governed to give consent, or for the government to derive just power.
The same thing could be said of America, which had a really tough time with the Brittish prior to 1776, and well past 1812. Many lived their entire lives within the period of conflict between government and governed, with no real justice. Even longer if you were Black or NA Indian.
If we're so damn worried about the Iraqi regime, why aren't we equally worried about China's current regime
We are. It's just that Nixon decided to play China against the Soviet Union. Later, the policy became one of "constructive engagement". The argument goes that by trading and relating with the Chinese, we are more likely to influence their culture and ultimately liberate their people--hence the complaints about American hegemony from some Chinese. For such a large country, there may be no other practical solution. What do you want? A potentially nuclear conflict with China?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
But still, aren't they legally responsible if they put out a shoddy product?
Let's compare this to cars. But first, I need to clarify your question.
Do you mean that if you buy it and it just breaks, are they responisble for the data? I hope you don't mean that. If a company buys a delivery truck and it just breaks down, the seller doesn't owe what the company is losing while it's getting repaired. The warranty(if within the period) will cover the cost of the labor and/or parts, but it will certainly not cover loss of time.
If you mean that if the HD company produces a bad product, are they liable for it? Let's compare to vehicles again. In the auto business, they're called lemons(among other things). Without getting into the specifics of recalls, etc., the broken vehicle would get repaired like it was under warranty(probably still is), but you still wouldn't expect to receive any compensation for loss of time. The only way to get a possible compensation would be to take legal action, hopefully with other people in the same position.
So basically, sure if they produce a shoddy product, you can surely take legal action to get compensation for the loss of data. To get anything in return, though, you'd better have other people on your side.
Oh yea, you might also want to provide a good reason why it's more cost effective to persue legal action rather than to back up properly in the first place.
And assuming it does happen, what's the big deal? It's a system under which MIT profs can voluntarily put their course materials online. Gazillions of schools have servers and let their profs put their course materials online voluntarily. And the word "open" would seem to imply information that's free as in speech, but what they're doing is only free as in beer. There's nothing wrong with making information free as in beer, but there's nothing special about it either --- the whole World-Wide Web is free as in beer.
Find free books.
Iraq never honored the terms of the truce of the Gulf War, Saddam never ceased the WMD programs, never honored the no-fly zones, never allowed inspectors in. The stupid ass shell-games he played with the weapons inspectors when they were there, and no doubt he'll play again, don't count.
Simply put, the US has every legal right to go back in and remove Saddam. He's masterminded (failed) plot to assasinate George Bush Sr. The fact that he's an idealogue maniac, willing to test gas agents on his own people, use them as human shields, fund terrorists, hand a briefcase of anthrax to al queda, or any other nightmare scenarios gives the US a moral right to do so.
In fact, I see it as an ethical obligation to do so. What do you think Saddam would do if he was diagnosed with a terminal illness tomorrow, and had nothing to lose? Would he think about his citizens (the ones he gassed and used as human shields) when he hands over his arsenal to muslim extremists to get revenge on the big evil US?
And, the US is equally concerned with Chinas regime, though the only course we have with them at the moment is diplomacy and economic pressure.
And it has had an effect. China has come along way since Tianemen Square. Westerners now regularly visit the country, Hong Kong has a budding capitalist economy, pressures from western groups are changing the way the peasants view their own freedoms, or lack thereof.
China will change eventually the same way the Soviet Union did. Their system doesn't work. We don't need to strongarm them, it'll happen naturally. Just not overnight. Leave it to the Chinese, and offer whatever assistance they ask for.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Trampling on the 1st Ammendment in times of war is long-honored American tradition.
And now that Bush has chosen a war that can neither be won nor lost, the US is closer than ever to the concept of "constant warfare" as practiced by Ingsoc's Oceania.
I was planning on buying a TiBook for a while, but after a lot of reflection and consideration of job security, (I work in telcom) I decided that the iBook was a better choice. The cost saving over the TiBook is substantial and the performance is more than adequate as long as you don't plan on playing a lot of graphic-intensive FPSs or doing a lot of video encoding on a daily basis. Just make sure you buy one of the latest iBook models with the Radeon chipset; the earlier ones don't take advantage of 'Quatz extreme', which gives a substantial boost to percieved speed in everyday use.
It's the old adage:
"good, fast, cheap - pick any two."
Any engineer will tell you that he can give you any tolerances you want, it's a matter of how much you want to spend. In this case, the issues are:
1. Bearings. You're going to spin that platter at 15,000 RPM 24 hrs. per day for years on end? At nearly 10 BILLION rotations per year, if you want reliability, those bearings had better be preeeeety good. And that means - more money.
2. Platter surface. Same as above. You want to spin that thing around thirty or fourty billion times with the heads nothing more than maybe a thousandth of an inch away? Better be awfully tough stuff, and it better be permanently bonded to the platter. Oh, wait - you're going to bump and kick your computer while it's on, aren't you? How good for the platter surface (or the heads) will those collisions be? Better coating, better heads: More money.
3. Electronics. Drives get HOT. You want your electronics to last a long time? They better be made for high-temp operation. That means.... yep, more money.
In the end, each company has had to ask itself this:
"Will we spend more money on quality drives, and hope that customer recognition pays off, or will we skimp a little here and there, and sell them by the boat-load?"
You can guess which one they've chosen. Why did they choose it? You guessed it... more money.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I commute 26 miles round-trip on a Klein mountain bike w/ road slicks. It rocks, but Kleins aren't cheap.
Tips:
- Buy a bike from a bike shop, a good shop will fit you for bike and let you test-ride
- Get your bike tuned-up regularly, or learn how to do it yourself
- Use decent-quality tires and tubes, check the pressure often
- A well-maintained used bike can be an excellent alternative
- Keep in mind that you're buying a vehicle for which your body is the engine -- comfort is important, quality is essential
Why would a three-year warranty double the cost of the drive? At worst all you have to do is send a replacement drive to everyone who claims - plus a small amount in costs for handling and postage. Suppose ten per cent of the drives fail within three years, compared to five per cent within one year. Then extending the warranty from 1 to 3 years would add about 5% to the price.
It could only double the price if a huge proportion of drives failed in three years!
This is why a long warranty is a good thing. The manufacturer is saying, I'm confident that not many drives will fail during the warranty period, and I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is. It's like the manufacturer placing a bet that few drives will fail. If the manufacturer is confident enough to do that, then it's likely to be a well-made product.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com