I can definitely see the logic behind this type of request. Specifying non-Microsoft not only accomplishes the obvious goal of promoting Linux, but carries several other intrinsic benefits.
For example, the precedent alone would be astonishing. What kind of message would this send to Microsoft? Just as the global trend of governments switching to open source forced Microsoft to lower prices on related products, this might trigger a price-war in which Redmond is forced to slash prices again.
This would also force big steps in adopting open source in teaching environments. What better way to infuse open source with CS studies than to allow students to manage new labs where only open source is used? This creates a more well-rounded graduate: someone more desirable to hiring companies.
Finally, a move such as this would bolster innovation in general. Competition isn't only beneficial to the bottom line, but also to the development of better products. Innovation occurs much faster when involved parties are scrambling to out-do the other. When only one party exists, developers can sit back and enjoy the glory.
I'd say with everything I'm reading about Linux's new target market, a lot of people will leave their kernels. Why? Because they either don't know how to upgrade, or more likely, are not educated on the benefits of upgrading.
Honestly, with the advent of Linux being sold at K-Mart, used in schools, and wielded by mouse-clicking Grandma's, there are bound to be lots of people who don't know they should upgrade their kernels. I personally think marketing Linux to these markets is important, but an equal amount of importance should be recognized in educating these new users in the basics of maintaining these systems.
Because what good is the open source movement if the end user doesn't know how to benefit from our work?
Here's an article I published awhile back for Artificial Cheese. It's titled "PowerBook Drop Test". Pretty abused hardware, but still entirely functional.
If hurting spammers is really what we're after, why not just set up a bunch of honey-pots around the net? Publish this software with the ability to tag a specific username@address.com as a honey-pot (user configurable). Then sys-admins around the world can make fake web pages publishing the emails, bots can catalog them, and consequently get stuck in them.
This method is better in the sense that it doesn't mess with anyone's real e-mail address and capitalizes off the stupidity of spambots.
Well, yes, I still fault Apple for being cheap. I also don't agree that the noise "didn't effect the performance of the box". Did you visit that web site? Audio professionals couldn't use the box because it was so loud. I'm a content creator (photoshop, dreamweaver, and other non-audio related apps consume my days) and I doubt even I could focus with a machine that loud.
For Apple to not be "cheap", in my opinion, they need to 1. not charge any money to ship the parts 2. offer to cover all costs if a user wishes for an Apple Authorized service center to make the replacement.
That's what they've done in the past. Now all of a sudden Apple isn't doing this anymore. Therefore, I stand by my original opinion.
Just bring it into an Apple Authorized Service Center. Ask if they'll do the replacement. If they want money (which they shouldn't!), don't bother. You could get a better monitor for much cheaper than it would take to pay for a fix.
That really doesn't sound like Apple. I worked in an Apple-Authorized Service Center for two years, and whenever the company messed up, they were better to their customers than this. Maybe it's the harder economic times, but it seems to me that Apple is getting cheap.
For example, Apple's 15 inch MultiSync monitor often was effected by something which everyone referred to as "the tint issue". If a customer brought one in, and we verified tint was indeed wrong, we'd simply call up Apple. They'd say, 'What's up?" We'd say, "Tint issue." They'd say, "Give us two days."
The two days referred to how long we had to wait for an empty box. Usually we got it the next day. We packaged the monitor up, and Apple paid for the shipping back to their shop. They'd fix it free of charge, send it back to us, and we'd give it back to the customer. Good as new. $0 paid by the customer.
When Apple didn't perform the fix themselves, they'd always pay our shop to do it. Even if the machine was out of warranty. An example of this is the 7200/90 which had ethernet-port problems on the motherboard. Apple paid for new motherboards, and for the Apple shop to install them for any customer. There also wasn't a time limit set for people to get it fixed. I noticed there is one for the new power supply fix.
So all in all, it seems like Apple is getting cheap. Darn shame, too.
You have a point, but I draw the line differently. If reporters had asked Steve Jobs his stance on DRM, and he had expressed his disapproval, you might be right. However, Apple has scheduled PR events specifically to address this issue. This tells me Apple is not merely telling its customers what they want to hear. They're taking a firm stance, one that they'll follow through with.
I also fail to see your connection regarding the iPod. Apple makes it hard to copy music from an iPod to iTunes? Are you insane? It's the easiest thing in the world to copy music from an iPod to iTunes, and vice versa. Additionally, even if it were hard, I hardly take this as a sign that Apple is pro-DRM.
It's interesting that the ISMA wants to put DRM in MPEG4, and that Apple is part of the ISMA, but does anyone know how much of a part? There are plenty of alliances where the members have very little say in what gets decided.
Also, it should be noted that Apple will find any alternatives necessary to avoid DRM. This isn't one of those huge developments that completely shifts a company's views on a certain matter. Apple will simply find another way...
But in this case the artist who creates the song is being physically deprived of their royalties. I realize they don't get much money, but that's for another debate. The fact is they are getting deprived something.
There's still theft. There's still a party losing something.
That's a fair extension of my analogy, but I'd like to pose a question that might modify sentiment. It's a chicken or the egg question: which came first? Kazaa's "swap meet" or Kazaa's "legitimate business".
I'm not an expert on Kazaa history, but I don't belive Kazaa started business with those legal channels in place. I see that a swap meet existed, the cops came to shut it down, and they started a legitimate selling channel underneith their illegal swap meet with the intent to throw off the authorities. From a legal standpoint, I don't buy it.
I definitely agree this is the case in most situations, and this case could be one of those situations...but it also could be different.
Speaking strictly from the perspective of my analogy, which side would you side on (keeping in mind the politics of your country)? To me, I can't think of any law-abiding citizen in any country who wouldn't find any merit in the car-owner's claims.
Now, if you don't believe my analogy transfers to the Kazaa case, that's a different issue that we can discuss separately.
It seems to me that this argument basically admits what the music industry is getting at: that Kazaa enables and almost condones the illegal music trade. I'm speaking straightly from a legal perspective. I know better than to try to get into the philosophical debate.:)
But just take a look at the issue. Let's say an auto parts store opens its doors. One department is legit. It buys new parts and sells them to customers. The second department is a kind of swap meet where enthusiasts may come and trade their wares. Some of the enthusiasts in this second department trade stolen car parts.
So some organization sues the auto parts store. Maybe they're an organization of car owners that are sick of their bumpers and headlights getting stolen by car punks. They bring a case to the courts and say, "We're sick of this auto store making an environment conducive to stealing."
Kazaa, and the auto parts store, reply that their major goal is to make money off their legitimate department. They reply that their business model is being impaired by such an atrocious lawsuit.
Is this fair? I'm not sure. I'm not a lawyer. Something seems fishy about it to me though...
Well, to be fair, I wasn't entirely wrong. The eye can perceive much more than 30 FPS, but the brain peaks at 60-90. About 10 other people have already replied to the thread with this information.
And to reply to my own comment: I'm sorry. I'm a horrible speller. Curious. It's so easy to criticize when the editors do it, but here I am making the same mistakes.
Good plan. I've noticed also that buying just behind the latest tech decreases power consumption/fan noise/size too. Developers usually end up sacrificing those factors for more speed when creating something top of the line. But after a few months their manufacturing will get to the point it should have been in the first place, and you'll get a "normal" looking/sounding card that pushes the same performance.
No, I didn't pull it out of my ass. That's not saying it's correct though.:)
Someone else posted what I meant to say. The brain has a limit to how many frames it can see. But it's much higher than 30. That sounds more reasonable.
Thanks for your explanation (and everyone else who posted under my thread).
Unfortunately the amount of time I spend at work doesn't allow me to play many games, but seeing this article made me curious: is the demand for faster video cards still high enough to warrant so much development?
My reasoning comes from the simple fact that the human eye is unable to perceive extra frames beyond a certain number (I've heard this number to be around 25 or 30). I realize that owning a video card that averages at, say, 40 isn't ideal, because when you get into a lot of action you'll drop frames. But the statistics I see on the newer cards show that even the most complex games, on the highest resolutions, get WAY too many frames. The gamer is never going to notice dropped frames. And yet every few months a new card comes out, and lots of people get excited and shell out the bucks (enough to warrant the R&D I suppose).
I'm honestly not being cynical. Can someone explain why an average gamer (or even an extreme gamer) should buy the newest and best?
All I know is I'm going to be at the conference, and when the aliens come down from the sky and hover over everyonce in the audience, I'll be there. Then a really hot alien chick will get beamed down in front of me, and we'll be the first inter-planetary-species couple.
Wait? What day is the announcement? CRAP! That's the day of my Star Trek convention! Oh well, I bet the engines from the alient craft will burn everyone in the audience anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the people making the decision saw this.
I can definitely see the logic behind this type of request. Specifying non-Microsoft not only accomplishes the obvious goal of promoting Linux, but carries several other intrinsic benefits.
For example, the precedent alone would be astonishing. What kind of message would this send to Microsoft? Just as the global trend of governments switching to open source forced Microsoft to lower prices on related products, this might trigger a price-war in which Redmond is forced to slash prices again.
This would also force big steps in adopting open source in teaching environments. What better way to infuse open source with CS studies than to allow students to manage new labs where only open source is used? This creates a more well-rounded graduate: someone more desirable to hiring companies.
Finally, a move such as this would bolster innovation in general. Competition isn't only beneficial to the bottom line, but also to the development of better products. Innovation occurs much faster when involved parties are scrambling to out-do the other. When only one party exists, developers can sit back and enjoy the glory.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is GO FOR IT!
But what about recompiling/updating for bug fixes and for hardware support (USB cameras, printers, etc. have been mentioned earlier)?
I realize she doesn't need / shouldn't need what you mentioned. But kernel updates aren't just for us techies.
I'd say with everything I'm reading about Linux's new target market, a lot of people will leave their kernels. Why? Because they either don't know how to upgrade, or more likely, are not educated on the benefits of upgrading.
Honestly, with the advent of Linux being sold at K-Mart, used in schools, and wielded by mouse-clicking Grandma's, there are bound to be lots of people who don't know they should upgrade their kernels. I personally think marketing Linux to these markets is important, but an equal amount of importance should be recognized in educating these new users in the basics of maintaining these systems.
Because what good is the open source movement if the end user doesn't know how to benefit from our work?
Here's an article I published awhile back for Artificial Cheese. It's titled "PowerBook Drop Test". Pretty abused hardware, but still entirely functional.
This story can only be paralleled by the lady who put her PowerBook in the oven.
If hurting spammers is really what we're after, why not just set up a bunch of honey-pots around the net? Publish this software with the ability to tag a specific username@address.com as a honey-pot (user configurable). Then sys-admins around the world can make fake web pages publishing the emails, bots can catalog them, and consequently get stuck in them.
This method is better in the sense that it doesn't mess with anyone's real e-mail address and capitalizes off the stupidity of spambots.
Amen to Carmageddon I and II. I deeply miss those two games.
Speaking of psychopathic games, how about a carbon version of Postal? " OH MY GOD! HE'S GOING POSTAL! " Haha!
Well, yes, I still fault Apple for being cheap. I also don't agree that the noise "didn't effect the performance of the box". Did you visit that web site? Audio professionals couldn't use the box because it was so loud. I'm a content creator (photoshop, dreamweaver, and other non-audio related apps consume my days) and I doubt even I could focus with a machine that loud.
For Apple to not be "cheap", in my opinion, they need to 1. not charge any money to ship the parts 2. offer to cover all costs if a user wishes for an Apple Authorized service center to make the replacement.
That's what they've done in the past. Now all of a sudden Apple isn't doing this anymore. Therefore, I stand by my original opinion.
Just bring it into an Apple Authorized Service Center. Ask if they'll do the replacement. If they want money (which they shouldn't!), don't bother. You could get a better monitor for much cheaper than it would take to pay for a fix.
But Apple should still be fixing this for free.
That really doesn't sound like Apple. I worked in an Apple-Authorized Service Center for two years, and whenever the company messed up, they were better to their customers than this. Maybe it's the harder economic times, but it seems to me that Apple is getting cheap.
For example, Apple's 15 inch MultiSync monitor often was effected by something which everyone referred to as "the tint issue". If a customer brought one in, and we verified tint was indeed wrong, we'd simply call up Apple. They'd say, 'What's up?" We'd say, "Tint issue." They'd say, "Give us two days."
The two days referred to how long we had to wait for an empty box. Usually we got it the next day. We packaged the monitor up, and Apple paid for the shipping back to their shop. They'd fix it free of charge, send it back to us, and we'd give it back to the customer. Good as new. $0 paid by the customer.
When Apple didn't perform the fix themselves, they'd always pay our shop to do it. Even if the machine was out of warranty. An example of this is the 7200/90 which had ethernet-port problems on the motherboard. Apple paid for new motherboards, and for the Apple shop to install them for any customer. There also wasn't a time limit set for people to get it fixed. I noticed there is one for the new power supply fix.
So all in all, it seems like Apple is getting cheap. Darn shame, too.
Didn't people go blind from doing this during prohibition?
You have a point, but I draw the line differently. If reporters had asked Steve Jobs his stance on DRM, and he had expressed his disapproval, you might be right. However, Apple has scheduled PR events specifically to address this issue. This tells me Apple is not merely telling its customers what they want to hear. They're taking a firm stance, one that they'll follow through with.
I also fail to see your connection regarding the iPod. Apple makes it hard to copy music from an iPod to iTunes? Are you insane? It's the easiest thing in the world to copy music from an iPod to iTunes, and vice versa. Additionally, even if it were hard, I hardly take this as a sign that Apple is pro-DRM.
It's interesting that the ISMA wants to put DRM in MPEG4, and that Apple is part of the ISMA, but does anyone know how much of a part? There are plenty of alliances where the members have very little say in what gets decided.
Also, it should be noted that Apple will find any alternatives necessary to avoid DRM. This isn't one of those huge developments that completely shifts a company's views on a certain matter. Apple will simply find another way...
But in this case the artist who creates the song is being physically deprived of their royalties. I realize they don't get much money, but that's for another debate. The fact is they are getting deprived something.
There's still theft. There's still a party losing something.
That's a fair extension of my analogy, but I'd like to pose a question that might modify sentiment. It's a chicken or the egg question: which came first? Kazaa's "swap meet" or Kazaa's "legitimate business".
I'm not an expert on Kazaa history, but I don't belive Kazaa started business with those legal channels in place. I see that a swap meet existed, the cops came to shut it down, and they started a legitimate selling channel underneith their illegal swap meet with the intent to throw off the authorities. From a legal standpoint, I don't buy it.
I definitely agree this is the case in most situations, and this case could be one of those situations...but it also could be different.
Speaking strictly from the perspective of my analogy, which side would you side on (keeping in mind the politics of your country)? To me, I can't think of any law-abiding citizen in any country who wouldn't find any merit in the car-owner's claims.
Now, if you don't believe my analogy transfers to the Kazaa case, that's a different issue that we can discuss separately.
Then it wouldn't be analogous to the Kazaa story. I was trying to create a similar situation to reflect on the legitimacy of Kazaa's argument.
It seems to me that this argument basically admits what the music industry is getting at: that Kazaa enables and almost condones the illegal music trade. I'm speaking straightly from a legal perspective. I know better than to try to get into the philosophical debate. :)
But just take a look at the issue. Let's say an auto parts store opens its doors. One department is legit. It buys new parts and sells them to customers. The second department is a kind of swap meet where enthusiasts may come and trade their wares. Some of the enthusiasts in this second department trade stolen car parts.
So some organization sues the auto parts store. Maybe they're an organization of car owners that are sick of their bumpers and headlights getting stolen by car punks. They bring a case to the courts and say, "We're sick of this auto store making an environment conducive to stealing."
Kazaa, and the auto parts store, reply that their major goal is to make money off their legitimate department. They reply that their business model is being impaired by such an atrocious lawsuit.
Is this fair? I'm not sure. I'm not a lawyer. Something seems fishy about it to me though...
Well, to be fair, I wasn't entirely wrong. The eye can perceive much more than 30 FPS, but the brain peaks at 60-90. About 10 other people have already replied to the thread with this information.
And to reply to my own comment: I'm sorry. I'm a horrible speller. Curious. It's so easy to criticize when the editors do it, but here I am making the same mistakes.
Boy do I feel like a schmuck.
Good plan. I've noticed also that buying just behind the latest tech decreases power consumption/fan noise/size too. Developers usually end up sacrificing those factors for more speed when creating something top of the line. But after a few months their manufacturing will get to the point it should have been in the first place, and you'll get a "normal" looking/sounding card that pushes the same performance.
I guess I fell victim to that "common misconception". Thanks for the info!
No, I didn't pull it out of my ass. That's not saying it's correct though. :)
Someone else posted what I meant to say. The brain has a limit to how many frames it can see. But it's much higher than 30. That sounds more reasonable.
Thanks for your explanation (and everyone else who posted under my thread).
Unfortunately the amount of time I spend at work doesn't allow me to play many games, but seeing this article made me curious: is the demand for faster video cards still high enough to warrant so much development?
My reasoning comes from the simple fact that the human eye is unable to perceive extra frames beyond a certain number (I've heard this number to be around 25 or 30). I realize that owning a video card that averages at, say, 40 isn't ideal, because when you get into a lot of action you'll drop frames. But the statistics I see on the newer cards show that even the most complex games, on the highest resolutions, get WAY too many frames. The gamer is never going to notice dropped frames. And yet every few months a new card comes out, and lots of people get excited and shell out the bucks (enough to warrant the R&D I suppose).
I'm honestly not being cynical. Can someone explain why an average gamer (or even an extreme gamer) should buy the newest and best?
All I know is I'm going to be at the conference, and when the aliens come down from the sky and hover over everyonce in the audience, I'll be there. Then a really hot alien chick will get beamed down in front of me, and we'll be the first inter-planetary-species couple.
Wait? What day is the announcement? CRAP! That's the day of my Star Trek convention! Oh well, I bet the engines from the alient craft will burn everyone in the audience anyway.