That's actually very plausible.
I do consider myself to be an (ex)Apple-user, and my experience is that Apple focuses way too much on form and way too little on function - outside of the basic function of the form. So the basic 2 or 3 things you really must do, do function well since they're part of the form. But once you have to do anything that's outside the box, you can't, your'e not allowed or, best of all, you can, but it won't work - at least not as you expect it to.
I know very well that you can find plenty of situations like that with Microsoft. But it's not Microsoft that we're complaining about here, is it ?
Apple has long ago lost their touch. I say hand Jobs a shovel. Have Scully help him dig their collective grave.
Battery...
Battery Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing
Up to 16 hours Audio playback
But how long in standby ?
On my first GSM phone ( back in '94 ) I had to charge the phone (big as a building brick) once to twice a week.
Today, I still have to charge my phone twice a week (at least).
If that phone is charge-daily or bi-daily, it will be a "cool flop" in just a few weeks after release.
One thing a phone has to have is good standby. At least 160-200 hrs.
I want the standby time. Apple. Hear me, hear me.
When the user dislikes the GUIs that actually attempt to be (somewhat) user-friendly, just feed him/her a GUI that is stepwise worse and more user-hostile than the last one.
"What's for dinner honey?" - "Caterpillars and worms. And if you don't like it, we have wooden splinters, glass shards and iron filings."
Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i
on
Wii, DS, Not Cannibals
·
· Score: 1
Nope, I won't get a Yamaha.
It's either Piaggio or BMW.
And BMWs most fierce competition could easily be BMW ( they do produce both quality cars and quality motorcycles;) )
It's not that different from Apple putting its browser (Safari) in a premium market position (embedded into the operating system) or the KDE group putting Konqueror in a prime position (embedded into KDE).
Being embedded into an environment or operating system does not mean that you MUST use it. There are plenty of options on all platforms.
The same goes for the Windows Media Player - Apple does the same with Quicktime but I have yet to hear an Apple user complain about that.
Ads are a whole other category. When you sell ads, you should be required to be impartial. If my local television should start hoging the prime ad space for its own ads, I bet the advertisers would take their business elsewhere. But since Google is the giant in online advertising it may be hard for the advertisers to "switch".
Of course, if the son is a clone of his parent and he grew up in a test tube, the parent can claim to have "built" him. And that would actually be a pretty darn cool thing to have done;)
Two games that had a tremendous play value in my family where "Myst" ( the original ) and "Neverhood". These two got over 40 hours play each in the first play. They do however have little recurring play value. The value ? Solve something and have YOUR intellect work for you.
FPS like Half Life II, Unreal Tournament 200x and Quake 3 Arena on the other hand have had little initial value, but a lot of recurring value ( the player usually hold up for 30-60 minutes at a time at the most, but the games are played 2-5 times a week ). The value ? Blow something or someone up. Simple and stress relieveing ( that's how it's written, eh ? ):)
Then there's a lot of games that have had little or no value at all. Initial or recurring. "Riven" - too hard/tedious, "Star Trek - Whatever" - plain boring, The Sims.. well, the girls dig it..
And the only MMO game I've ever bothered to use is Second Life. And I use that what... an hour a month or so...:P
The biggest problems are diversity. The human mind is a simple thing. It can handle at most 6-7 simultaneous tasks / choices. When like in the OSS world, you have a plethora of choices for each and every task you intend to perform, you ( the new kid on the block ) have to waste lengthy sessions of trial and error testing the choices you have to find the tool that is right for the task.
When you have a choice of tens of editors, spreadsheets, drawing packages, email clients, web browsers, windowing environments, formula editors ( each with their own prerequisites of tools ) etc etc, you will get lost. The human mind really can't handle all the simultaneous choices and collapses down on the first that "seems" to work ( regardless of whether it is the best choice ).
Hell, I have been using Linux since 1994 and Minix, HP-UX and UniSYS UNIX since before that, and occationally, I find myself lost.
What the F/OSS world needs is a set of directions. Guidelines of what should be done, how and why. A dictator if you will. Much like Linus is handling the kernel, others should be appointed for the GUI, the network applications etc.
If there was a set of "official core applications" and documentation on how these applications should behave and communicate ( UML, requirements etc ), it would be easier for OSS programmers ( even those with short attention spans - like myself ) to participate and more would get done.
The current status leaves the programmer to utilize his strengths by the "focus follows gaze" algorithm:-P
If you like to stick to facts, then you should remember the one about choice.
Fact: people DO have a choice.
That means the following fact is true:
Fact: people CAN choose to use OS/X.
There is nothing saying that people have been visited by Jobs and his henchmen and beaten to pulp for not wanting to use OS/X, nothing says people have been coerced into using it.
Choice.
Remember, that little thing the Americans say people should have ?
I choose to use OS/X.
I choose to use Windows as well, because some things Microsoft actually does better. ( Nobody does Tablet PCs better for one )
And I choose to use FreeBSD since nobody does small footprint servers better than they.
And it's my choice.
I havn't been beaten, and this NDA I have says so.:-
Hmm..
I have had two power outages in the past year.
I have also had two network outages in the past year ( unrelated to the power outages ).
Gee...
Oh and for the record, it is now almost a year since the distributors in Iceland ( polar bear jokes not needed, they don't live here ) quit distributing VHS tapes. We can still buy blank tapes, and there is still content available in the stores but people aren't buying it..
Rentals have been getting rid of their old tapes ( selling them for $1-4 ).
So even if it's really not actual for the US, it's actually happening up here. Unfortunately.
That doesn't even suffice, as there are still countries outside the EU but within Europe that do not allow software patents.
Icelandic patent law is extremely clear on the matter ( as I wish the american law was ):
The first clause of the Icelandic patent law reads:
Helstu nýjungar, sem ekki verða taldar til uppfinninga, eru ær sem eingöngu varða:
1. Uppgötvanir, vísindakenningar og stærðfræðiaðferðir.
2. Listræn verk.
3. Skipulag, reglur eða aðferðir við hugarstarfsemi, leiki eða atvinnustarfsemi eða forrit fyrir tölvur.
4. Miðlun upplýsinga.
Loosely translated, it reads:
new things that will not be considered inventions are those that are based only on:
1. Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods
2. Work of art
3. Patters, rules or methods used for work of the mind, games or commerce or software for computers
4. Distribution of information
That means that any software implementable methods are non-patentable.
It also means that any hardware implementable methods and algorithms are ALSO non-patentable, IF they can be considered software in any way, OR if their application in the grand scheme is to distribute information of any kind.
(Some) Other countries have very similar patent laws. These patent laws are very good. And, these patent laws are one of the few things of my heritage that I will defend with teeth and claws. (bringem'on)
What exactly would the U.S. government be putting tax on ?
Windows ? Nah, the E.U. isn't buying Windows according to your plot.
Linux ? But Linux isn't "Made in U.S. of A.".. They'd just buy SuSE Linux, or go ftp://ftp.funet.fi
Methinks the EU wouldn't actually be in such a bad shape, even if Microsoft really would stop shipping Windows to the EU. The already sold licenses are still valid ( although they'd be a virus trap on the scale of O(n$) once the patches stop appearing in the EU:) )
There would be a transition period, but business would recover soon enough and domestic solutions to POS, banking, TAX etc would appear. ( Although not an EU country, Iceland would suffer only for a brief period of time if Windows was banned. Banking and Tax returns are already multi-platform capable due to good back-ends, clueful programmers and a good browser
The EU might actually gain something from having Microsoft taken off of the market. Although it's only speculative, I think there's a lot of domestic tech-job-opportunities here:)
This must be one of the dumbest answers I have seen so f... oh.. this is SlashDot... I forget.:P
I don't have a B.Sc./M.Sc. in CS. Yet.
I have under the hood as you so skilfully describe, a self-education in programming and system administration. And, I have been working as a systems administrator, dba and network technician for the past decade at universities and major corporations/banks. I do have experience, of that there's no doubt.
A year ago I decided that a CS degree would be of benefit. All too often I had discussions with my teammates and had little or no understanding when it came to mathematical reasoning used in our work.
Now, I'm finishing the first half of my second year in CS. I have so far learnt more in these 12 months ( 3 terms a year ) then I have in the past 10 years, and today I can say that I have a grasp on a helluva lot of issues that I didn't while I was actively working on them ( monkey see, monkey do - me being the monkey at that time ).
A CS degree must be the one thing that truly should have some meaning for computer enthusiasts. If not to get a better salary, then for your greater mental good.
And to be on topic, I've taken so far: Discrete Mathematics I. Next term I'm taking Discrete Mathematics II and Linear Algebra. Term after that comes Calculus and Algorithm Design.
Of course, the mathematics CS students take should echo the usability of the mathematics within the sector.
ISS observation deck window smashed when a frozen Hulk Grogan jettisoned from the ISS a few months earlier caught up with the ISS and smashed through the observation window. Leaves three astronauts severely smelly and in lack of air.
At my university (Reykjavik University), this is taught in Software Engineering - a two year subject. All C.S. students get a one-term subject called "Software theory" (since the "engineering" part is protected by law and may only be used for engineers and their studies). Software theory only scratches the surface of Software Engineering, but gives enough insight into the subject that C.S. graduates may comfortably work alongside Software Engineers, appreciate their work and actually participate in making their own work environment better:)
Slashdot Mirror
That's actually very plausible. I do consider myself to be an (ex)Apple-user, and my experience is that Apple focuses way too much on form and way too little on function - outside of the basic function of the form. So the basic 2 or 3 things you really must do, do function well since they're part of the form. But once you have to do anything that's outside the box, you can't, your'e not allowed or, best of all, you can, but it won't work - at least not as you expect it to. I know very well that you can find plenty of situations like that with Microsoft. But it's not Microsoft that we're complaining about here, is it ? Apple has long ago lost their touch. I say hand Jobs a shovel. Have Scully help him dig their collective grave.
Umm... if it's easy as 1-2-3, you ought to be using Lotus 1-2-3, not Office 2-0-0-7, right ?
I want quantum clothes.
They'd be worn by everybody _and_ no-one in the whole world, at the same time.
Man, that'd be one crowded set of clothes...
Battery... Battery Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing Up to 16 hours Audio playback But how long in standby ? On my first GSM phone ( back in '94 ) I had to charge the phone (big as a building brick) once to twice a week. Today, I still have to charge my phone twice a week (at least). If that phone is charge-daily or bi-daily, it will be a "cool flop" in just a few weeks after release. One thing a phone has to have is good standby. At least 160-200 hrs. I want the standby time. Apple. Hear me, hear me.
They didn't watch S05E11 (Three hundred big boys) ?
:)
A hundred cups of coffee and he'll be able to deliver in an instant.
(Same idea was then reused in over the hedge where once character consumes a single can of caffeine, stopping time).
Caffeine is the answer. Lots of it. First stop, Brazil
Yeah, that's the spirit ! :)
When the user dislikes the GUIs that actually attempt to be (somewhat) user-friendly, just feed him/her a GUI that is stepwise worse and more user-hostile than the last one.
"What's for dinner honey?" - "Caterpillars and worms. And if you don't like it, we have wooden splinters, glass shards and iron filings."
Nope, I won't get a Yamaha.
;) )
It's either Piaggio or BMW.
And BMWs most fierce competition could easily be BMW ( they do produce both quality cars and quality motorcycles
On the Internet Explorer thing...
It's not that different from Apple putting its browser (Safari) in a premium market position (embedded into the operating system) or the KDE group putting Konqueror in a prime position (embedded into KDE).
Being embedded into an environment or operating system does not mean that you MUST use it. There are plenty of options on all platforms.
The same goes for the Windows Media Player - Apple does the same with Quicktime but I have yet to hear an Apple user complain about that.
Ads are a whole other category. When you sell ads, you should be required to be impartial. If my local television should start hoging the prime ad space for its own ads, I bet the advertisers would take their business elsewhere. But since Google is the giant in online advertising it may be hard for the advertisers to "switch".
Of course, if the son is a clone of his parent and he grew up in a test tube, the parent can claim to have "built" him. And that would actually be a pretty darn cool thing to have done ;)
Two games that had a tremendous play value in my family where "Myst" ( the original ) and "Neverhood". These two got over 40 hours play each in the first play. They do however have little recurring play value. The value ? Solve something and have YOUR intellect work for you. FPS like Half Life II, Unreal Tournament 200x and Quake 3 Arena on the other hand have had little initial value, but a lot of recurring value ( the player usually hold up for 30-60 minutes at a time at the most, but the games are played 2-5 times a week ). The value ? Blow something or someone up. Simple and stress relieveing ( that's how it's written, eh ? ) :)
Then there's a lot of games that have had little or no value at all. Initial or recurring. "Riven" - too hard/tedious, "Star Trek - Whatever" - plain boring, The Sims.. well, the girls dig it..
And the only MMO game I've ever bothered to use is Second Life. And I use that what... an hour a month or so... :P
That last "What" should not have been there. I should have used preview :)
"Icons and stuff" are not the problems F/OSS has.
:-P
The biggest problems are diversity. The human mind is a simple thing. It can handle at most 6-7 simultaneous tasks / choices. When like in the OSS world, you have a plethora of choices for each and every task you intend to perform, you ( the new kid on the block ) have to waste lengthy sessions of trial and error testing the choices you have to find the tool that is right for the task.
When you have a choice of tens of editors, spreadsheets, drawing packages, email clients, web browsers, windowing environments, formula editors ( each with their own prerequisites of tools ) etc etc, you will get lost. The human mind really can't handle all the simultaneous choices and collapses down on the first that "seems" to work ( regardless of whether it is the best choice ).
Hell, I have been using Linux since 1994 and Minix, HP-UX and UniSYS UNIX since before that, and occationally, I find myself lost.
What the F/OSS world needs is a set of directions. Guidelines of what should be done, how and why. A dictator if you will. Much like Linus is handling the kernel, others should be appointed for the GUI, the network applications etc.
If there was a set of "official core applications" and documentation on how these applications should behave and communicate ( UML, requirements etc ), it would be easier for OSS programmers ( even those with short attention spans - like myself ) to participate and more would get done.
The current status leaves the programmer to utilize his strengths by the "focus follows gaze" algorithm
What
IE7 with popup blocker set to allow no popups. Works fine :)
Skype ?
Or any SIP or H323 application that predates Skype ?
Isn't it time for Americans to revolt agains the patent crazyness ?
If you like to stick to facts, then you should remember the one about choice. Fact: people DO have a choice. That means the following fact is true: Fact: people CAN choose to use OS/X. There is nothing saying that people have been visited by Jobs and his henchmen and beaten to pulp for not wanting to use OS/X, nothing says people have been coerced into using it. Choice. Remember, that little thing the Americans say people should have ? I choose to use OS/X. I choose to use Windows as well, because some things Microsoft actually does better. ( Nobody does Tablet PCs better for one ) And I choose to use FreeBSD since nobody does small footprint servers better than they. And it's my choice. I havn't been beaten, and this NDA I have says so. :-
Eclipse ? Try Jetbrains IntelliJ/IDEA. Far better than Eclipse.
Hmm.. I have had two power outages in the past year. I have also had two network outages in the past year ( unrelated to the power outages ). Gee... Oh and for the record, it is now almost a year since the distributors in Iceland ( polar bear jokes not needed, they don't live here ) quit distributing VHS tapes. We can still buy blank tapes, and there is still content available in the stores but people aren't buying it.. Rentals have been getting rid of their old tapes ( selling them for $1-4 ). So even if it's really not actual for the US, it's actually happening up here. Unfortunately.
Icelandic patent law is extremely clear on the matter ( as I wish the american law was ):
The first clause of the Icelandic patent law reads:
Helstu nýjungar, sem ekki verða taldar til uppfinninga, eru ær sem eingöngu varða:
1. Uppgötvanir, vísindakenningar og stærðfræðiaðferðir.
2. Listræn verk.
3. Skipulag, reglur eða aðferðir við hugarstarfsemi, leiki eða atvinnustarfsemi eða forrit fyrir tölvur.
4. Miðlun upplýsinga.
Loosely translated, it reads:
new things that will not be considered inventions are those that are based only on:
1. Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods
2. Work of art
3. Patters, rules or methods used for work of the mind, games or commerce or software for computers
4. Distribution of information
That means that any software implementable methods are non-patentable.
It also means that any hardware implementable methods and algorithms are ALSO non-patentable, IF they can be considered software in any way, OR if their application in the grand scheme is to distribute information of any kind.
(Some) Other countries have very similar patent laws. These patent laws are very good. And, these patent laws are one of the few things of my heritage that I will defend with teeth and claws. (bringem'on)
Windows ? Nah, the E.U. isn't buying Windows according to your plot.
Linux ? But Linux isn't "Made in U.S. of A.".. They'd just buy SuSE Linux, or go ftp://ftp.funet.fi
Methinks the EU wouldn't actually be in such a bad shape, even if Microsoft really would stop shipping Windows to the EU. The already sold licenses are still valid ( although they'd be a virus trap on the scale of O(n$) once the patches stop appearing in the EU :) )
There would be a transition period, but business would recover soon enough and domestic solutions to POS, banking, TAX etc would appear. ( Although not an EU country, Iceland would suffer only for a brief period of time if Windows was banned. Banking and Tax returns are already multi-platform capable due to good back-ends, clueful programmers and a good browser
The EU might actually gain something from having Microsoft taken off of the market. Although it's only speculative, I think there's a lot of domestic tech-job-opportunities here :)
This must be one of the dumbest answers I have seen so f... oh.. this is SlashDot... I forget. :P
I don't have a B.Sc./M.Sc. in CS. Yet.
I have under the hood as you so skilfully describe, a self-education in programming and system administration. And, I have been working as a systems administrator, dba and network technician for the past decade at universities and major corporations/banks. I do have experience, of that there's no doubt.
A year ago I decided that a CS degree would be of benefit. All too often I had discussions with my teammates and had little or no understanding when it came to mathematical reasoning used in our work.
Now, I'm finishing the first half of my second year in CS. I have so far learnt more in these 12 months ( 3 terms a year ) then I have in the past 10 years, and today I can say that I have a grasp on a helluva lot of issues that I didn't while I was actively working on them ( monkey see, monkey do - me being the monkey at that time ).
A CS degree must be the one thing that truly should have some meaning for computer enthusiasts. If not to get a better salary, then for your greater mental good.
And to be on topic, I've taken so far: Discrete Mathematics I. Next term I'm taking Discrete Mathematics II and Linear Algebra. Term after that comes Calculus and Algorithm Design.
Of course, the mathematics CS students take should echo the usability of the mathematics within the sector.
ISS observation deck window smashed when a frozen Hulk Grogan jettisoned from the ISS a few months earlier caught up with the ISS and smashed through the observation window. Leaves three astronauts severely smelly and in lack of air.
At my university (Reykjavik University), this is taught in Software Engineering - a two year subject. All C.S. students get a one-term subject called "Software theory" (since the "engineering" part is protected by law and may only be used for engineers and their studies). Software theory only scratches the surface of Software Engineering, but gives enough insight into the subject that C.S. graduates may comfortably work alongside Software Engineers, appreciate their work and actually participate in making their own work environment better :)