Oh, it can be. I have to say, the last couple times I went through airport security, I found the waiting times to be comparable to the RMV, the politeness and decency completely lacking, and the search measures such a pain in the ass that I simply didn't pack beforehand. Why bother, it's all going to be emptied out anyway. I still prefer dealing with the TSA to dealing with the RMV, but I'd rather deal with the IRS than either of them by a long ways.
The return rates on linux netbooks suggest that people want their computer to look and behave in a somewhat familiar manner. Since most are used to Windows, that means they want Windows. You're talking about what they *need*, which is different from what they say they want, which is also different from the wants that are inferred when one looks at purchasing stats.
Also, (1) isn't going anywhere, as consoles have as many haters as supporters, and web based gaming really won't be likely unless internet bandwidth magically starts to approach disk transfer rates, or gamers stop wanting things to improve in ways that use more computing power. Until then, anything that cares at all about system-performance will be written in HAL specific compiled languages, and anything that uses a large quantity of data will be stored locally.
IANAL, but AFAIK if Dell and Gateway and HP communicate, but not set prices, that's not inherently anti-competitive. They are agreeing to stop colluding with Microsoft by all snubbing the discount simultaneously. If they talk prices, that's a whole other story.
Any lawyers want to call BS?
So get on the horn with Dell and Gateway, and talk about how much money they lost, and how if they all went the same route on this, they could reduce their dependence on a vendor that clearly has no regard for their welfare. After all, it's almost always bad news for any large company to be that dependent on a single vendor.
If HP, Dell, and Gateway got together and (a) exposed their Windows per unit cost, while (b) offering Linux, with paid support plans, Microsoft wouldn't have dominance within a few years. Simple really. But Gateway, HP, and Dell have to be convinced by us, the consumer, that this will not hurt their sales. Microsoft is only dominant because people *want* Windows, and most people only *want* Windows because the other options are too much work.
Make the prices equal, and use the money from the sales of various Linuxes (linuxi? linuxies?) to drive the support and driver development. The price of linux will fall over time, and HP will be essentially transferring money from MSFT to themselves, to offset the amount of money they lost by depending on Microsoft.
Seriously, why doesn't HP simply add Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and CentOS to the list of versions of Windows Vista, and list the price for each choice. Mark up every option by 10$ to offset the money they've lost. I'm sure the point will get across.
It doesn't have the graphics power to run Aero. Intel instructed Microsoft to remove that as a requirement for the "Vista Capable" sticker. Microsoft agreed, despite previously telling ATI, Nvidia, and HP that they would not remove that requirement, even for Intel.
Mistakes Happen. Just think of all the areas where you can already get away with that:
Law enforcement: Mistakes Happen
Speed Cameras: Mistakes Happen
IRS: Mistakes Happen
The ATF: Mistakes Happen
Our elections: Mistakes Happen
Sorry our product doesn't work as advertised for you, we just wanted to make sure you're a paying customer. No refunds. Mistakes Happen.
Gross negligence is becoming more and more acceptable these days, from all sorts of people and agencies in positions of real power. Why do we put up with this crap?
For gaming, there's no question that OSX doesn't work. I like Supreme Commander, Team Fortress 2, Portal, C&C (pretty much the whole series), and most of them just don't work on anything but Windows.
For the mediaboxen, aside from the fact that they are all commodity hardware and thus cannot run OSX, I really like Amarok.
The netbook, obviously, isn't even the right processor architecture, (Atom, not Core 2), and my wife really prefers Ubuntu to OSX or Windows anyway.
As for the servers, the fileserver/torrentserver is running software RAID through LVM, Samba, Mediwiki, and a MySQL database for Amarok, and FreeNX for remote management, and the firewall runs OpenBSD for simplicity and security.
I was half replying to you, and half making my own point. Sorry for the confusion.
As for the multi-booting thing, though (and I think I've answered this elsewhere), multi-booting is what happens when you have multi-purpose hardware and there is no single OS that serves all of those purposes. That is essentially the logic behind all of the laptops with a flash based linux that can be booted into to do email and whatnot without booting up the full system, a second os for when the requirements are speed and battery life rather than versatility. The process for switching between them can be a pain, but if you want to play Crysis sometimes, and test the linux ATI drivers other times, you're going to be dual booting.
The other reason to dual boot, of course, is to see if you like something. I'm dual booting a laptop with Ubuntu 8.10, to see if I can use that instead of the OS I was running before (WinXP on that one). If I can get the games I play on that running in WINE, it will cease to be dual booted, but until then, I dual boot.
The reason not to use a single os for multipurpose hardware (or to use one) is all about good "enough". A nice 17" mobile workstation with a gaming graphics card is an excellent example: if the os is good enough for gaming, you can game on it. If the os creates a good enough environment to do video editing, or image composition, you can do that. If the os has good enough power management, it can be a portable, for use on the train. The thing is, to use only one OS for all of those tasks, that OS has to be 'good enough' at all of them. If you use your 17" laptop to game, write code, and occasionally check email while roving, on battery, you probably want Windows for gaming, whatever environment you develop for to do your dev in, and a flash based, fast booting linux for the email on the run, so that the battery doesn't die.
For *any* of the single purposes I use my hardware for, Mac OS isn't good enough. Even if I had one device that did all of those things, OSX wouldn't be good enough at all of them (Again, nothing wrong with OSX, I'm just not in their target market, and they don't design for my usage).
There are arguably different pros and cons to all three operating systems
You say there is no need to multi-boot because OSX does everything perfectly. I submit that OSX does nothing perfectly, but everything well, which makes it useless to me. I have many devices, each for one thing, and OSX doesn't do any of those things better than the alternatives. Why use it?
Ubuntu Netbook remix is much nicer on the ultra-portable than OSX or Windows, 64 bit Windows is required on the gaming machine, and Linux+XBMC does for the mediaboxen quite well. Macs were never an option there, because the one piece of hardware that has component and TOSLINK out in a small form-factor with no adapters or messy cables, the Apple TV, has no DVD drive and does not allow me to easily put stuff on it (where stuff includes zsnes & and a controller, a DVD drive, and support for all of the stuff I have that's not in a format Apple accepts).
I wasn't intending to attack OSX here, just to attack the evangelism in the parent suggestion that we should all use X because it does what he needs, and we obviously need the same things. Everyone wants different things from their computers, and there is no single solution that will ever satisfy them all.
Is jailbreaking not covered under the DMCA?
Anyway, I was just attacking the ad populem justification. The iPhone is a actually a pretty slick piece of hardware, though the absence of buttons, and the lack of a large array of 3rd party software keep me on HTCs WinCE options.
Its obviously legal to develop apps for the iPhone since there are hundreds of apps available.
It is obviously legal to download music through bittorrent, since there are millions of tracks available, and hundreds of millions of people downloading and sharing them.
Well, 2 dual shocks with adapters set me back $24, which is half the cost of a single Sixaxis or Wiimote. If the 360 controllers are much cheaper, though, that could certainly have an effect on the value proposition.
For $150, I would be looking more at 20-22" monitors, which also tend to have resolutions comparable to or in excess of what most $1k 32" TVs have. And no, four people can't sit that comfortable in front of one. 2 can, but that's not really enough. To be honest, though, I'm surprised TVs have gotten that cheap, I was thinking of decent gaming TVs (32+") as being between $800 and $1k.
No, I didn't look for TV out capability. I don't actually own a TV, just some relatively large monitors (and a projector). The cheap desktop was a proprietary mini-itx job, low cost low power, but it had composite and s-video out right along side the vga. Can't remember the model info, and I don't have it handy anymore, as it was replaced by my Thinkpad (T42)
As for the 360, or the PS3, for $400 I can buy a Wii, a couple controllers, and 4 games. The cheapest I've actually seen a PS3 is $450, but I have seen 360s for $350, so I suppose it does average out. Add some controllers and games, though, and you have a $500 console, or even $600. For that price, I can get a decent, basic gaming PC, and it will have TV outputs, because it will have a decent video card. There are very few discrete graphics cards with no TV-out these days.
Of course, the PC is getting a dodge here because I'm not including a seperate monitor, which usually will be bought for a PC, and usually won't be for a console. If the display cost was included for both, though, comparable displays (in terms of pixels and perceived size, or amount of field of view filled) cost about four times as much if they're 'TV's as if they're 'monitors'.
The PC also gets a break because a lot of the games to be emulated are already owned, so there is some legal defense for downloading the images, and a capable OS and emulation software are free. New PC games typically require a more costly OS, and of course cost money themselves, which helps to offset the savings from the display. .
Anyway, I'm not arguing that one is cheaper than the other, just that TV out is readily available for a price hike of as little as 0$ on many PCs, and if the PC is assumed to be already owned, a $40 adapter is way cheaper than any console.
As far as the console market is concerned, though Nintendo owns the casual and party space pretty thoroughly, thanks primarily to the fact that they tried to. They develop more titles for that market, and they price their stuff more attractively to that market. No great surprise there.
LAN parties?
Party Games?
Nothing wrong with videogames as a social hobby, it just requires either LAN play (co-op in particular is most awesome with other people right next to you, and the best gaming experiences I've ever had have been with ten friends in team vs games like COD. We auto-team balance, because everyone likes to have fun, teams can communicate well (voice chatter is very easy when you can, you know, just talk to the person), and the combination of co-operation and competition is one of the most satisfying experiences I know. It's like playing paintball, except there are a wider range of games and styles, the weather is irrelevant, there's less risk of injury, and of course, we are all looking at a screen. That said it costs about the same, takes about as much time, both to get a good party going and to stay in practice in between, and it even can encourage the same sort of bonding among those who consistently play together.
Internet play offers almost none of this, but it's easy.
Why shouldn't we simply demand that the FCC (who's job is to defend our interests in the matter of communications) should be stepping and telling the carriers something like 'suck it up, you *have* to open this up or we'll take away your right to transmit'.
Unlike most PCs, a game console has SDTV outputs, and most PCs would need a $40 adapter to simulate that.
Every pc I have bought for more than five years has had SDTV video out. Business laptops, gaming video cards, even a cheapo desktop solution. That said, as long as Nintendo is designing consoles with that sort of game in mind, (and they have been for what, a decade now?), most party games are going to be made for a Nintendo system. After all, who wants to go to the effort of making it work on a PC when a Nintendo console seems so affordable? After spending 250$ on more controllers and so forth, that has less relevance, but as a perceived value thing, it usually kicks in.
Here's my take on the situation. Google realizes that carriers want strict control over their devices.
Of course they do. So what? Why should they get it? I want strict control over people being allowed to park in front of my house. That doesn't mean I have any right to it. AT&T wanted strict control over what could be plugged into their telephone jacks. That doesn't mean they got to have it, and I for one am grateful that it was decided that the network should be open to innovative new devices, because I like the fax machine, and I thought the MODEM was pretty handy for a while there. So what if network operators *want* more control? Are they using a public resource to provide the network? (Hint the spectrum is currently considered a public resource). Then we the public have every right to attach conditions on their use of it. If we attach reasonable conditions, they'll try to meet them while making a profit, and innovation will be served. If we attach excessive conditions that they cannot meet, the market will work, they'll go bankrupt, and we'll have to decide if we need to subsidize them, ease the conditions, or just do without the product. This is how markets are supposed to behave, and this is how regulation should interact with markets.
I don't believe that a profit seeking corporation should bow to the needs and wants of a minority intrinsically, I believe that it is the responsibility of government to step in and *make* them bow to the needs of the *whole* public, when they use public resources. When AT&T got right-of-ways to install phone wiring, they were forced to install it everywhere, profitable or not. They were still able to make a profit, and things kept going. I don't see why the cell network operators shouldn't have to face some of the same quid-pro-quo.
In slashdot terms,
Step 1: Obtain access to public resources.
Step 2: Use them to make a valuable product.
Step 3: Attempt to use the control of the resource/network to leverage monopolistic power.
Step 4: Get smacked down with regulation.
Step 5: Learn how to make money off it anyway.
Step 6: Profit.
We're between steps 3 and 4 with the cellphone industry. Frankly, considering how much we've all come to depend on their product, I think they'll be able to manage step 5.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, it can be. I have to say, the last couple times I went through airport security, I found the waiting times to be comparable to the RMV, the politeness and decency completely lacking, and the search measures such a pain in the ass that I simply didn't pack beforehand. Why bother, it's all going to be emptied out anyway. I still prefer dealing with the TSA to dealing with the RMV, but I'd rather deal with the IRS than either of them by a long ways.
The return rates on linux netbooks suggest that people want their computer to look and behave in a somewhat familiar manner. Since most are used to Windows, that means they want Windows. You're talking about what they *need*, which is different from what they say they want, which is also different from the wants that are inferred when one looks at purchasing stats.
Also, (1) isn't going anywhere, as consoles have as many haters as supporters, and web based gaming really won't be likely unless internet bandwidth magically starts to approach disk transfer rates, or gamers stop wanting things to improve in ways that use more computing power. Until then, anything that cares at all about system-performance will be written in HAL specific compiled languages, and anything that uses a large quantity of data will be stored locally.
IANAL, but AFAIK if Dell and Gateway and HP communicate, but not set prices, that's not inherently anti-competitive. They are agreeing to stop colluding with Microsoft by all snubbing the discount simultaneously. If they talk prices, that's a whole other story.
Any lawyers want to call BS?
So get on the horn with Dell and Gateway, and talk about how much money they lost, and how if they all went the same route on this, they could reduce their dependence on a vendor that clearly has no regard for their welfare. After all, it's almost always bad news for any large company to be that dependent on a single vendor.
If HP, Dell, and Gateway got together and (a) exposed their Windows per unit cost, while (b) offering Linux, with paid support plans, Microsoft wouldn't have dominance within a few years. Simple really. But Gateway, HP, and Dell have to be convinced by us, the consumer, that this will not hurt their sales. Microsoft is only dominant because people *want* Windows, and most people only *want* Windows because the other options are too much work.
Make the prices equal, and use the money from the sales of various Linuxes (linuxi? linuxies?) to drive the support and driver development. The price of linux will fall over time, and HP will be essentially transferring money from MSFT to themselves, to offset the amount of money they lost by depending on Microsoft.
Seriously, why doesn't HP simply add Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and CentOS to the list of versions of Windows Vista, and list the price for each choice. Mark up every option by 10$ to offset the money they've lost. I'm sure the point will get across.
It doesn't have the graphics power to run Aero. Intel instructed Microsoft to remove that as a requirement for the "Vista Capable" sticker. Microsoft agreed, despite previously telling ATI, Nvidia, and HP that they would not remove that requirement, even for Intel.
Because the filesystem doesn't do the two big things that "libraries" do, associate metadata and simplify searching.
They might affect us though. I have yet to see the videogame that could effect a person. That would be one seriously realistic game.
Mistakes Happen. Just think of all the areas where you can already get away with that:
Law enforcement: Mistakes Happen
Speed Cameras: Mistakes Happen
IRS: Mistakes Happen
The ATF: Mistakes Happen
Our elections: Mistakes Happen
Sorry our product doesn't work as advertised for you, we just wanted to make sure you're a paying customer. No refunds. Mistakes Happen.
Gross negligence is becoming more and more acceptable these days, from all sorts of people and agencies in positions of real power. Why do we put up with this crap?
For gaming, there's no question that OSX doesn't work. I like Supreme Commander, Team Fortress 2, Portal, C&C (pretty much the whole series), and most of them just don't work on anything but Windows.
For the mediaboxen, aside from the fact that they are all commodity hardware and thus cannot run OSX, I really like Amarok. The netbook, obviously, isn't even the right processor architecture, (Atom, not Core 2), and my wife really prefers Ubuntu to OSX or Windows anyway. As for the servers, the fileserver/torrentserver is running software RAID through LVM, Samba, Mediwiki, and a MySQL database for Amarok, and FreeNX for remote management, and the firewall runs OpenBSD for simplicity and security.
But if you want my opinion, and what else is the point of the internet
Is the internet no longer for porn?
I was half replying to you, and half making my own point. Sorry for the confusion.
As for the multi-booting thing, though (and I think I've answered this elsewhere), multi-booting is what happens when you have multi-purpose hardware and there is no single OS that serves all of those purposes. That is essentially the logic behind all of the laptops with a flash based linux that can be booted into to do email and whatnot without booting up the full system, a second os for when the requirements are speed and battery life rather than versatility. The process for switching between them can be a pain, but if you want to play Crysis sometimes, and test the linux ATI drivers other times, you're going to be dual booting.
The other reason to dual boot, of course, is to see if you like something. I'm dual booting a laptop with Ubuntu 8.10, to see if I can use that instead of the OS I was running before (WinXP on that one). If I can get the games I play on that running in WINE, it will cease to be dual booted, but until then, I dual boot.
The reason not to use a single os for multipurpose hardware (or to use one) is all about good "enough". A nice 17" mobile workstation with a gaming graphics card is an excellent example: if the os is good enough for gaming, you can game on it. If the os creates a good enough environment to do video editing, or image composition, you can do that. If the os has good enough power management, it can be a portable, for use on the train. The thing is, to use only one OS for all of those tasks, that OS has to be 'good enough' at all of them. If you use your 17" laptop to game, write code, and occasionally check email while roving, on battery, you probably want Windows for gaming, whatever environment you develop for to do your dev in, and a flash based, fast booting linux for the email on the run, so that the battery doesn't die.
For *any* of the single purposes I use my hardware for, Mac OS isn't good enough. Even if I had one device that did all of those things, OSX wouldn't be good enough at all of them (Again, nothing wrong with OSX, I'm just not in their target market, and they don't design for my usage).
There are arguably different pros and cons to all three operating systems
You say there is no need to multi-boot because OSX does everything perfectly. I submit that OSX does nothing perfectly, but everything well, which makes it useless to me. I have many devices, each for one thing, and OSX doesn't do any of those things better than the alternatives. Why use it?
Ubuntu Netbook remix is much nicer on the ultra-portable than OSX or Windows, 64 bit Windows is required on the gaming machine, and Linux+XBMC does for the mediaboxen quite well. Macs were never an option there, because the one piece of hardware that has component and TOSLINK out in a small form-factor with no adapters or messy cables, the Apple TV, has no DVD drive and does not allow me to easily put stuff on it (where stuff includes zsnes & and a controller, a DVD drive, and support for all of the stuff I have that's not in a format Apple accepts).
I wasn't intending to attack OSX here, just to attack the evangelism in the parent suggestion that we should all use X because it does what he needs, and we obviously need the same things. Everyone wants different things from their computers, and there is no single solution that will ever satisfy them all.
Is jailbreaking not covered under the DMCA?
Anyway, I was just attacking the ad populem justification. The iPhone is a actually a pretty slick piece of hardware, though the absence of buttons, and the lack of a large array of 3rd party software keep me on HTCs WinCE options.
Its obviously legal to develop apps for the iPhone since there are hundreds of apps available.
It is obviously legal to download music through bittorrent, since there are millions of tracks available, and hundreds of millions of people downloading and sharing them.
I don't see *any* reason to play a PC game.
I didn't say console was superior.
Understood. I do see many reasons to play PC games, however, and attacks on my platform of choice are starting to piss me off.
Well, 2 dual shocks with adapters set me back $24, which is half the cost of a single Sixaxis or Wiimote. If the 360 controllers are much cheaper, though, that could certainly have an effect on the value proposition.
For $150, I would be looking more at 20-22" monitors, which also tend to have resolutions comparable to or in excess of what most $1k 32" TVs have. And no, four people can't sit that comfortable in front of one. 2 can, but that's not really enough. To be honest, though, I'm surprised TVs have gotten that cheap, I was thinking of decent gaming TVs (32+") as being between $800 and $1k.
No, I didn't look for TV out capability. I don't actually own a TV, just some relatively large monitors (and a projector). The cheap desktop was a proprietary mini-itx job, low cost low power, but it had composite and s-video out right along side the vga. Can't remember the model info, and I don't have it handy anymore, as it was replaced by my Thinkpad (T42)
As for the 360, or the PS3, for $400 I can buy a Wii, a couple controllers, and 4 games. The cheapest I've actually seen a PS3 is $450, but I have seen 360s for $350, so I suppose it does average out. Add some controllers and games, though, and you have a $500 console, or even $600. For that price, I can get a decent, basic gaming PC, and it will have TV outputs, because it will have a decent video card. There are very few discrete graphics cards with no TV-out these days.
Of course, the PC is getting a dodge here because I'm not including a seperate monitor, which usually will be bought for a PC, and usually won't be for a console. If the display cost was included for both, though, comparable displays (in terms of pixels and perceived size, or amount of field of view filled) cost about four times as much if they're 'TV's as if they're 'monitors'.
The PC also gets a break because a lot of the games to be emulated are already owned, so there is some legal defense for downloading the images, and a capable OS and emulation software are free. New PC games typically require a more costly OS, and of course cost money themselves, which helps to offset the savings from the display.
. Anyway, I'm not arguing that one is cheaper than the other, just that TV out is readily available for a price hike of as little as 0$ on many PCs, and if the PC is assumed to be already owned, a $40 adapter is way cheaper than any console.
As far as the console market is concerned, though Nintendo owns the casual and party space pretty thoroughly, thanks primarily to the fact that they tried to. They develop more titles for that market, and they price their stuff more attractively to that market. No great surprise there.
LAN parties?
Party Games?
Nothing wrong with videogames as a social hobby, it just requires either LAN play (co-op in particular is most awesome with other people right next to you, and the best gaming experiences I've ever had have been with ten friends in team vs games like COD. We auto-team balance, because everyone likes to have fun, teams can communicate well (voice chatter is very easy when you can, you know, just talk to the person), and the combination of co-operation and competition is one of the most satisfying experiences I know. It's like playing paintball, except there are a wider range of games and styles, the weather is irrelevant, there's less risk of injury, and of course, we are all looking at a screen. That said it costs about the same, takes about as much time, both to get a good party going and to stay in practice in between, and it even can encourage the same sort of bonding among those who consistently play together.
Internet play offers almost none of this, but it's easy.
They are going to get it regardless.
Why?
Why shouldn't we simply demand that the FCC (who's job is to defend our interests in the matter of communications) should be stepping and telling the carriers something like 'suck it up, you *have* to open this up or we'll take away your right to transmit'.
Unlike most PCs, a game console has SDTV outputs, and most PCs would need a $40 adapter to simulate that.
Every pc I have bought for more than five years has had SDTV video out. Business laptops, gaming video cards, even a cheapo desktop solution. That said, as long as Nintendo is designing consoles with that sort of game in mind, (and they have been for what, a decade now?), most party games are going to be made for a Nintendo system. After all, who wants to go to the effort of making it work on a PC when a Nintendo console seems so affordable? After spending 250$ on more controllers and so forth, that has less relevance, but as a perceived value thing, it usually kicks in.
Here's my take on the situation. Google realizes that carriers want strict control over their devices.
Of course they do. So what? Why should they get it? I want strict control over people being allowed to park in front of my house. That doesn't mean I have any right to it. AT&T wanted strict control over what could be plugged into their telephone jacks. That doesn't mean they got to have it, and I for one am grateful that it was decided that the network should be open to innovative new devices, because I like the fax machine, and I thought the MODEM was pretty handy for a while there. So what if network operators *want* more control? Are they using a public resource to provide the network? (Hint the spectrum is currently considered a public resource). Then we the public have every right to attach conditions on their use of it. If we attach reasonable conditions, they'll try to meet them while making a profit, and innovation will be served. If we attach excessive conditions that they cannot meet, the market will work, they'll go bankrupt, and we'll have to decide if we need to subsidize them, ease the conditions, or just do without the product. This is how markets are supposed to behave, and this is how regulation should interact with markets.
I don't believe that a profit seeking corporation should bow to the needs and wants of a minority intrinsically, I believe that it is the responsibility of government to step in and *make* them bow to the needs of the *whole* public, when they use public resources. When AT&T got right-of-ways to install phone wiring, they were forced to install it everywhere, profitable or not. They were still able to make a profit, and things kept going. I don't see why the cell network operators shouldn't have to face some of the same quid-pro-quo.
In slashdot terms,
Step 1: Obtain access to public resources.
Step 2: Use them to make a valuable product.
Step 3: Attempt to use the control of the resource/network to leverage monopolistic power.
Step 4: Get smacked down with regulation.
Step 5: Learn how to make money off it anyway.
Step 6: Profit.
We're between steps 3 and 4 with the cellphone industry. Frankly, considering how much we've all come to depend on their product, I think they'll be able to manage step 5.