I went over this previously and it was pointed out that Dell makes significant revenue by selling "seats" on their default Windows image. This effectively subsidizes the cost of Windows by a large factor.
If they sell a PC with FreeDOS, then they can't nag you to spend nearly a hundred on Antivirus (most of which os pocketted by Dell).
If you've ever turned on a Dell out-of-the-box, you can attest to the fact that it looks like a circus of "buy me" trialware crap.
Note that this has nothing to do with iPod Nano scratches.
Re:What about successes?
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Mistakes? What about what Palm did right?
Their only mistake was not breaking the law, like RIMM did. Basically, NTP is holding a very vague patent and trying to extort manufacturers who want to make very obvious products.
RIMM went out and knowingly infringed on the patent with hopes that someone would fix the patent system prior to the enforcement of such nonsense.
The bottom line is that Palm devices have been largely replaced by smartphones and Blackberries. Palm *could have* been Blackberry if they just had the cajones to take on the system in the first place.
The use of intelligence to develop accurate results in a predicative system
You don't even need intelligence, in many cases. Just the "wisdom of the crowd". Read this for more info. A quote:
In an early example, Surowiecki refers to a study conducted by the British scientist Francis Galton. Galton was a believer in the power of the elite, noting "the stupidity and wrong-headedness of many men and women being so great as to be scarcely credible." But at a fair, he noticed a wagering competition in which people bet on the weight of an ox. Eight hundred people participated; some were butchers and farmers, others just idle guessers.
When Galton averaged the estimates, he expected the result to be way off. Instead, the crowd had come within one pound of the ox's weight.
and then the dude would say "That's not my notebook". Oh, the hilarity!
IBM made a special video for "internal use only" that had that commercial with a couple more seconds of footage. They'd hired the Dell Guy after he was busted for marajuana.
Basically, the footage was that the two guys from the "that's not my thinkpad" commercial were sitting at the hotel bar later on and the Dell Guy walks up to them and says, "Dude, where's my notebook?"
Pretty funny stuff but it would've been much funnier if they would have "crossed that line" and made it part of the public commercial.
It'd be great if Firefox would close the current tab when the 'X' in the upper right of the program windows was pressed. Or at least, if this was optional. Most people, including myself, always want to close the current window and have the habbit of cramming the mouse into the upper right and clicking in order to accomplish this.
I stopped using tabbed browsing for this reason. I'd just like to be able to close the current window with that 'X'.
The yutzes over at Sun's marketing team don't even know what their talking about. What's an "x64" server? Do they mean "64-bit" or have they shaved x86 down to size?
Woah, that's a relief. I was afraid that I might be buying a device with billions of non-functional or even disfunctional transistors.
Just a note...
Flash is not perfect. It is typical for a small percentage of bits to be bad right off of the line. All of the devices contain error correction circuitry in order to compensate for bad bits. There are actually many more than 16.4 billion transistors on board. Many of them will be marked as bad, however.
Cheese and rice... EBAY paid this much money for simple software VoIP. Imagine if they had simply thrown $100 million at the Asterisk project with the following criteria:
1) NAT-friendly Windows and MAC VoIP client 2) NOTHING!
Seriously... If you provide clients, Asterisk already has the capability to do EVERYTHING that Skype has. They even have a NAT-friendly IAX protocol. They'd just need to develop the clients and then build a large PSTN interface.
The inefficiency in business is astounding. EBAY had money burning a hole in their pocket so their remedy was to remove the money and throw it into the fire.
The question I have is how do we get the hydrogen back out?
The linked article calls the stuff "AMMINEX" which sounds like yet another ammonia hydrogen storage scheme. I won't comment on their implementation but others have failed here.
The next problem facing hydrogen as an energy carrier (NOTE - never use the term "energy source" when referring to hydrogen because it only carries energy that has to come from somewhere else) is the fuel cell, which requires costly noble metal catalysts (i.e. - platinum). The whole electrolysis process is highly alkaline so conventional metals are quickly fouled.
What I don't get is why the OSS community hasn't made a Windows client for unix. Novell proved that this could be done with their "Client For Netware" that integrated nicely into all versions of Windows.
A client for unix/linux would be the beginning of the end for Microsoft. You could integrate all sorts of nice OSS stuff into it. Microsoft wouldn't control it, either.
...how long will it last? Any bets that Microsoft will be there, trying to get this reversed?
Microsoft will simply allow people to open OO.org formats but then silently save the documents as their own proprietary XML. In this respect, users won't know that they are screwing themselves over (as they never do), and everyone will still require Microsoft Office.
If you've got a hand-held mirror, then you can just heat it up under the shower water. The "fog" appears on the mirror because it is lower temperature than the water vapor. When this water vapor comes in contact with the lower temp mirror, it loses the energy that it needs to stay in the form of vapor and turns back into water. This "fogs up" the mirror.
If you just heat up the mirror, then it will no longer suck the energy out of the water vapor and cause the fog.
A certification is quite different than a Bachelor's of Master's degree
That wasn't my point.
My point was that a certification can be as extensive as one of the aforementioned degrees. However, the big gripe about many current certifications is that most aren't even as extensive as a single college course, let alone an entire degree.
As I see it, the certification vendors see them as a way to profit. Only when they reorganize into a method of verifying a skillset at a bare minimum of cost will they begin to have some tangible value.
I have never gotten any certification, nor has any employer seriously asked me for one.
You've never applied for a job that had a bachelors, associates or masters degree in the requirements?
That's what a degree is - a certification.
Certifications are entirely useful if they are configured properly. For example, lets assume that I am out of town with all of my geek friends and my wife's laptop breaks. She needs it fixed immediately. Who do I trust to fix it?
Right now, there really isn't a certification that I trust. I took the A+ and passed it in all of 20 minutes - it is a joke, although you do have to memorize some arcane knowledge (which doesn't prove useful in the real world). The MCDST is looking better, in this respect. But even this one doesn't throw a tech into a room full of parts (some of them non-functional) and ask him/her to build a product to specification (or repair an existing one).
When the certs require real-world knowledge, we'll have real-world use for them. In a pinch, however, if I were running a business, the cert is a good way of filtering out those who can't even pass a simple test. This Ask Slashdot should have read:
Dear Slashdot, I can't seem to pass the [insert any cert here] tests, why do we need them anyway?
The point of a cert is the same as a degree - it demonstrates to a complete stranger that one posesses a certain skillset and dedication. Certainly, we all know that genious who is a high school or college dropout but if you hadn't known this person for longer than a few minutes, just how do you go about figuring out if they have certain qualifications?
Yes - it is possible to do some quick testing in some cases. In other cases, certs are the only tool.
A truly open system would not require YET ANOTHER FREAKIN' EMAIL ADDRESS. I have like seven email addresses, although I use only one. The rest are needed for IM services.
Google Talk will not be successful until Google management realize this.
Slashdot Mirror
I went over this previously and it was pointed out that Dell makes significant revenue by selling "seats" on their default Windows image. This effectively subsidizes the cost of Windows by a large factor.
If they sell a PC with FreeDOS, then they can't nag you to spend nearly a hundred on Antivirus (most of which os pocketted by Dell).
If you've ever turned on a Dell out-of-the-box, you can attest to the fact that it looks like a circus of "buy me" trialware crap.
Dell has been selling machines with FreeDOS for some time.
Yep
Note that this has nothing to do with iPod Nano scratches.
Mistakes? What about what Palm did right?
Their only mistake was not breaking the law, like RIMM did. Basically, NTP is holding a very vague patent and trying to extort manufacturers who want to make very obvious products.
RIMM went out and knowingly infringed on the patent with hopes that someone would fix the patent system prior to the enforcement of such nonsense.
The bottom line is that Palm devices have been largely replaced by smartphones and Blackberries. Palm *could have* been Blackberry if they just had the cajones to take on the system in the first place.
I was just going to ask if we could get a few more CSS styles like we saw in the Beta.
Yes - I'd really love to view every page in my favorite one, automagically!
The use of intelligence to develop accurate results in a predicative system
You don't even need intelligence, in many cases. Just the "wisdom of the crowd". Read this for more info. A quote:
In an early example, Surowiecki refers to a study conducted by the British scientist Francis Galton. Galton was a believer in the power of the elite, noting "the stupidity and wrong-headedness of many men and women being so great as to be scarcely credible." But at a fair, he noticed a wagering competition in which people bet on the weight of an ox. Eight hundred people participated; some were butchers and farmers, others just idle guessers.
When Galton averaged the estimates, he expected the result to be way off. Instead, the crowd had come within one pound of the ox's weight.
and then the dude would say "That's not my notebook". Oh, the hilarity!
IBM made a special video for "internal use only" that had that commercial with a couple more seconds of footage. They'd hired the Dell Guy after he was busted for marajuana.
Basically, the footage was that the two guys from the "that's not my thinkpad" commercial were sitting at the hotel bar later on and the Dell Guy walks up to them and says, "Dude, where's my notebook?"
Pretty funny stuff but it would've been much funnier if they would have "crossed that line" and made it part of the public commercial.
This is the typical Intel announcement:
- Zero details
- How much performance penalty?
- What technology is utilized?
- Are we smoking crack?
Nobody knows (even us)! We just like to put out press releases. Read about our next generation architecture. What is it? We haven't a fucking clue!
But we like to issue unannouncements! We're Intel!
It'd be great if Firefox would close the current tab when the 'X' in the upper right of the program windows was pressed. Or at least, if this was optional. Most people, including myself, always want to close the current window and have the habbit of cramming the mouse into the upper right and clicking in order to accomplish this.
I stopped using tabbed browsing for this reason. I'd just like to be able to close the current window with that 'X'.
Nit picking - I know...
I bet the inventor has a vanity license plate on his car that reads:
I8URCAT
The yutzes over at Sun's marketing team don't even know what their talking about. What's an "x64" server? Do they mean "64-bit" or have they shaved x86 down to size?
The spyware can all be run on one of the cores while the other can be used to get work done. I'm getting one for my father-in-law.
Woah, that's a relief. I was afraid that I might be buying a device with billions of non-functional or even disfunctional transistors.
Just a note...
Flash is not perfect. It is typical for a small percentage of bits to be bad right off of the line. All of the devices contain error correction circuitry in order to compensate for bad bits. There are actually many more than 16.4 billion transistors on board. Many of them will be marked as bad, however.
Cheese and rice... EBAY paid this much money for simple software VoIP. Imagine if they had simply thrown $100 million at the Asterisk project with the following criteria:
1) NAT-friendly Windows and MAC VoIP client
2) NOTHING!
Seriously... If you provide clients, Asterisk already has the capability to do EVERYTHING that Skype has. They even have a NAT-friendly IAX protocol. They'd just need to develop the clients and then build a large PSTN interface.
The inefficiency in business is astounding. EBAY had money burning a hole in their pocket so their remedy was to remove the money and throw it into the fire.
I'm breathless.
What if you're running virtual PC on a mac?
That whooshing sound was you missing the point entirely.
The question I have is how do we get the hydrogen back out?
The linked article calls the stuff "AMMINEX" which sounds like yet another ammonia hydrogen storage scheme. I won't comment on their implementation but others have failed here.
The next problem facing hydrogen as an energy carrier (NOTE - never use the term "energy source" when referring to hydrogen because it only carries energy that has to come from somewhere else) is the fuel cell, which requires costly noble metal catalysts (i.e. - platinum). The whole electrolysis process is highly alkaline so conventional metals are quickly fouled.
Is this really Lessig writing or is he just regurgitating Ray Bradbury?
In any event, people simply don't care. As long as they have a cool ringtone, that is.
What I don't get is why the OSS community hasn't made a Windows client for unix. Novell proved that this could be done with their "Client For Netware" that integrated nicely into all versions of Windows.
A client for unix/linux would be the beginning of the end for Microsoft. You could integrate all sorts of nice OSS stuff into it. Microsoft wouldn't control it, either.
Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?
Microsoft will simply allow people to open OO.org formats but then silently save the documents as their own proprietary XML. In this respect, users won't know that they are screwing themselves over (as they never do), and everyone will still require Microsoft Office.
It's too complicated because it's different from what they use every day at work and at home.
Then how come OSX is so freakin' easy for everyone to use? It only takes a few minutes.
Most slashdotters remind me of this guy.
If you've got a hand-held mirror, then you can just heat it up under the shower water. The "fog" appears on the mirror because it is lower temperature than the water vapor. When this water vapor comes in contact with the lower temp mirror, it loses the energy that it needs to stay in the form of vapor and turns back into water. This "fogs up" the mirror.
If you just heat up the mirror, then it will no longer suck the energy out of the water vapor and cause the fog.
A certification is quite different than a Bachelor's of Master's degree
That wasn't my point.
My point was that a certification can be as extensive as one of the aforementioned degrees. However, the big gripe about many current certifications is that most aren't even as extensive as a single college course, let alone an entire degree.
As I see it, the certification vendors see them as a way to profit. Only when they reorganize into a method of verifying a skillset at a bare minimum of cost will they begin to have some tangible value.
I have never gotten any certification, nor has any employer seriously asked me for one.
You've never applied for a job that had a bachelors, associates or masters degree in the requirements?
That's what a degree is - a certification.
Certifications are entirely useful if they are configured properly. For example, lets assume that I am out of town with all of my geek friends and my wife's laptop breaks. She needs it fixed immediately. Who do I trust to fix it?
Right now, there really isn't a certification that I trust. I took the A+ and passed it in all of 20 minutes - it is a joke, although you do have to memorize some arcane knowledge (which doesn't prove useful in the real world). The MCDST is looking better, in this respect. But even this one doesn't throw a tech into a room full of parts (some of them non-functional) and ask him/her to build a product to specification (or repair an existing one).
When the certs require real-world knowledge, we'll have real-world use for them. In a pinch, however, if I were running a business, the cert is a good way of filtering out those who can't even pass a simple test. This Ask Slashdot should have read:
Dear Slashdot, I can't seem to pass the [insert any cert here] tests, why do we need them anyway?
The point of a cert is the same as a degree - it demonstrates to a complete stranger that one posesses a certain skillset and dedication. Certainly, we all know that genious who is a high school or college dropout but if you hadn't known this person for longer than a few minutes, just how do you go about figuring out if they have certain qualifications?
Yes - it is possible to do some quick testing in some cases. In other cases, certs are the only tool.
A truly open system would not require YET ANOTHER FREAKIN' EMAIL ADDRESS. I have like seven email addresses, although I use only one. The rest are needed for IM services.
Google Talk will not be successful until Google management realize this.