as deserving of an "+1 Insightful" rating, then this is it.
I really grok your concept of "social barometer":
That said, I don't have a problem with it -- I think that corporations are a useful barometer in society of our incentive structure. When you start to see corporations doing sick things, it's time to revisit your incentive and punishment systems and decide how to fix the basic problem: why is doing bad things more profitable than doing good things?
It becomes even more poignant when you think of all the "good things" that are now "bad" from the law's point of view (expressions of sexuality/sharing information/even congregation) such that you wonder... perhaps corporations aren't broken, but the way the law is implemented and enforced is.
Then again, corporations are not exactly outside the legal framework, are they... these amoral structures now play with the law flagrantly, and even get laws made to support their business model (RIAA corp. constituents?)...
What? You don't think user interface has anything to do with programming?
That comment would make sense if Samsung had some pre-existing cachet for non-software style. Unfortunately, they are far behind Apple in that area as well as in in software usability. So just getting the software part ignores the other parts... and the GP poster really just meant that programming is ONE part of the overall design, but if samsung borks the other parts, it won't make much difference.
IMHO, none of the product design really matters so much when iTunes (the app) is so strong a feature for the iPod. A player without a VERY strong sync software (or is not recognized by the #1 jukebox software) has a hard fight ahead for it.
That's our salvation eventually. The data will be so shitty and useless as to not matter much anymore. For all the talk about realtime and linked this and that, I have a sense that much of the data will be nearly immutable and thus unable to reflect the real world. Hence useless.
On the path to your "salvation", I don't want to be road-kill. How many bad "anonymous tips" and "no-fly listees" resulting in random asset seizures and imprisonment will it take? And wwith the news media on the take, it might never become "news".
Just because a plant is in America it doesn't mean that Americans will be running it. I mean, they could just as easily bring in nuclear engineers from Germany, Japan or South Korea to actually run the plants.
t's not an assumption - it's the law that a corporations first and only priority is to protect shareholder value.
Care to post a link to backup your reference? Just because 99% of corporations out there exist SOLELY to enhance shareholder value, that is not a law. The details of responsibility of the corporation [to the shareholders] is part of the company charter, and the board of directors oversee adherence to this charter (ideally). When the board or officers fail to satisfy the shareholders (not only financially, but strategically as well as morally), they can be asked to step down.
The fact that A) Google has a slightly different charter and B) shareholders are aware of this seems to be beyond you.
Yes. Someone who loses a laptop with personal data should be liable, but only for "private" data (ie, something, that when stolen can directly lead to real possibility of either identity theft or tangible loss... ie, name, SSN, address, CC#s, medical information).
A laptop should never contain full customer profiles non-encrypted, without serious security policies in place. The idea is that loss of that data should be as important to the holder of that data as it is to the customer/person that data references.
Until we make this the case, expect to hear about data loss/hacking/and compromised records monthly.
Camino is an OS X native browser using the gecko rendering engine.
Hate to reply with possible FUD, but I have honestly resisted using Camino due to the whole plug-in situation. Things like AdBlock/Filterset.G, NukeAnything, Tabbrowser Prferences, and FasterFox(!) really make FireFox much more usable/safe than any other browser out there (Opera was decent at v8.0, but I haven't really tried it since). How is the extension situation with Camino these days?
I honestly think that Jobs really bought into his own RDF with this one.
You can't tell me that after Win98 & IE4 + 8 years... anyone still believes that bypassing security for "features" is a good idea on as hostile a network as the internet.
Esp. with someone with as seemingly high a clue-factor as Jobs...:sigh:
I just turned off the feature on my Safari, and sent an email to my wife to do the same on her powerbook.
Why did they go from a niche market to an overpriced K-B Toys and cellphones?
Think about it, there must be a competitor that provides a significantly cheaper price point... being a distant 2nd place in a niche market is not a good thing.
When I'm breadboarding a hardware project, I order online. I know the local Radio Shack doesn't have parts.
... and the answer. Think: most other hobbyists/hardware geeks probably figured this out sooner, and cut out the middleman. RadioShack really didn't have much choice except to do what they did (keep selling the profitable parts at a higher margin + pimp out their locations to interested folks).
The same thing is happening in photography (take a look at your local photo/film shop... they're also pimping out their store to cell-phone vendors, etc) and other niche markets as well.
It does. This is obviously just an RDBMS with a web front end and hooks for writing (and probably saving) your own "mathematical" SELECT statements. Big deal.
And a podcast is just a RSS based distribution of sound and video media. But it is a good implementation and use of RSS, and a WikiCalc would be a great use of wiki.
Some of the best most obvious innovations seem rediculously obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't detract from their greatness (in fact, you could just say they were elegant)
Seriously, IE *is* playing catchup. Some will say that this is the end of an IE only net.
Others say that all Microsoft has to do is to just be "good enough" and they can keep their near-monopoly market share of the browsing environment.
One thing that's for sure is that Microsoft is no longer the "apparent" force for innovation that they were in the 90's. And that tabbed browsing (eg: MDI done properly) is here to stay:-)
This writeup is great. I just bought a cheapo laptop (Turion ML-32) and other than increasing RAM to 1GB and getting a faster (and cooler/more efficient) 5400RPM laptop HD, I think that reducing power output is one of the most important things for usability.
Other than just battery life, a reduced heat profile will move the laptop from a desktop replacement to a more usable all-around better box. Will still pale in comparison to my wife's powerbook, but hey, this was half the price and I still can't use OSX at the office (damn intranet IE only webapps).
Performance apart, it seems that good ol' Apple is charging $1300 for a machine that costs around $900(according to market research firm iSuppli) to them. A markup of around 45% in a ultra-competitive market like PC hardware!
Unless you think that the OS, iLife apps, support, and general machine design as not valuable, then that $400 markup is understandable.
If you don't value those things, then don't buy a Mac. Simple as that. Especially now, when you can get the same hardware without the overhead (as you put it)... just don't go onto/. (aka appledot) and whine about it, ok?
"Freescale, first to the market with UWB products, believes its headstart will give it a long-term victory, while WiMedia, with the backing of industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft, reckons its punch will eventually win through, even without a formal IEEE standard"
Emphasis mine... why do those companies and non-adherence to standards not surprise me?
I have lost four jobs in the past to less (only slightly though) qualified individuals because they were minorities and the company had to meet the EOE minimum requirements
Could you please enlighten us by telling us how the hell you got that info? I have not ever gotten, or heard of anyone getting any info about why they lost their job (except once, it was an internal position, and I found out from the person who took the new job because my current position dealt with that existing role).
Microsoft always did say that SP will not have new features.
Well leaving aside the XPSP2 you mentioned, what about NT4SP4 (ie, integration of browser with OS)? If this is really Microsoft's statement regarding SP's, then they've went against their word more than once.
Ok, absurdity of 11 tuners aside, I noticed some serious warning signs that this project really didn't seem all that well thought out, and instead seems like a huge AD for beyondTV, Intel, and pretty much all the "high end" components you need for your media center type beast.
"Heat is the biggest enemy when building a quiet HTPC system. "
Uh... sure. Agreed.
"You have to sometimes sacrifice a quiet HTPC so the machine can cool itself efficiently. "
Hmm... so it supposed to be quiet, but not really.
"We choose the Intel Pentium D 840 "Extreme Edition" Processor!"
Ok, quiet is RIGHT OUT now, and what a way to add to your heat problem:-)
"While trying to push the Godzilla PVR to its limit we experienced an overheating and fan noise issue. " LOL. Stopped reading right about there.
Google won't let you use Gmail if you block the Google cookie either. Do you see where I'm going with this?:)
Just use the standard Firefox feature of "keep cookies.... until I close Firefox". Given the memory leaks and minor issues with extensions, you'll end up closing the browser eventually (I close it approximately 1-2 times/day). Or use private browsing option in various browsers, and it'll do the same thing.
Then again, if you're a mainline IE user (not avant/myie2 user) this doesn't apply. Of course, if you're using IE, you've probably got bigger problems:-)
You are correct, provided you are willing to risk an explosion See the "Warning" section. Lithium batteries are not used in automotive applications due to their volitile nature. I believe some new technologies are upcoming to mitigate these risks.
Yup, Check out these guys Valence. They apparently make a variant of li-ion or li-po which has reduced dangers of heat buildup in banked cells.
From a first glance, it seemed that this survey was pretty useless considering there is no similar survey for other laptop vendors (ie, Dell, HP, etc). However, if you're going to go OSX, then you gotta get an Apple product, and if you're doing so on the cheap, then it's good to know what to avoid... and this survey gives that information, in a general sense.
I found these sites to be useful in determining where to get the latest deals on used macs:
I'm sorry, but as a loyal, God-fearing American I refuse to use any number invented by them A-Rabs.
Don't worry; it wasn't invented by them, yet another set of brown people that Americans generally confuse with Arabs (and consequently irrationally hate).
Is this topic really book-worthy? Seems like how to "just say no" to Microsoft could be covered in an article or two. Perhaps that's why the author spends so much time bashing Microsoft in the book... for filler.
It's good gift for the PHB's of the world, some of whom are only impressed by:
Options that are proprietary
Arguments made by people who think they're important
In that sense, this book is good to lay out a point, and hammer it home. Sure, such content would be considered (-1, Redundant) here, but your average PHB eats up [Flamebait, Redundant, Overrated] stuff for lunch.
I see this as a direct result to this previous/. article. Microsoft is scrambling to get some entry to the online advertising market, to compete with Google on their home turf. And, as they have done with every battle in which their products win, they want to tie it into the OS.
This is not innovative or interesting, hell NetZero/Juno/Opera have done this to death with their advertising-based browsers (to limited success). What would make this different is that it would remove any way of avoiding the advertising... built into the window manager (OS in MS terms).
I don't see this as very attractive to many users, since it'd probably be much easier to just get a pirate version of windows (even an older version will often do).
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I really grok your concept of "social barometer":
That said, I don't have a problem with it -- I think that corporations are a useful barometer in society of our incentive structure. When you start to see corporations doing sick things, it's time to revisit your incentive and punishment systems and decide how to fix the basic problem: why is doing bad things more profitable than doing good things?
It becomes even more poignant when you think of all the "good things" that are now "bad" from the law's point of view (expressions of sexuality/sharing information/even congregation) such that you wonder... perhaps corporations aren't broken, but the way the law is implemented and enforced is.
Then again, corporations are not exactly outside the legal framework, are they... these amoral structures now play with the law flagrantly, and even get laws made to support their business model (RIAA corp. constituents?)...
That comment would make sense if Samsung had some pre-existing cachet for non-software style. Unfortunately, they are far behind Apple in that area as well as in in software usability. So just getting the software part ignores the other parts... and the GP poster really just meant that programming is ONE part of the overall design, but if samsung borks the other parts, it won't make much difference.
IMHO, none of the product design really matters so much when iTunes (the app) is so strong a feature for the iPod. A player without a VERY strong sync software (or is not recognized by the #1 jukebox software) has a hard fight ahead for it.
On the path to your "salvation", I don't want to be road-kill. How many bad "anonymous tips" and "no-fly listees" resulting in random asset seizures and imprisonment will it take? And wwith the news media on the take, it might never become "news".
I doubt your salvation will ever come.
Or from the UAE...
Care to post a link to backup your reference? Just because 99% of corporations out there exist SOLELY to enhance shareholder value, that is not a law. The details of responsibility of the corporation [to the shareholders] is part of the company charter, and the board of directors oversee adherence to this charter (ideally). When the board or officers fail to satisfy the shareholders (not only financially, but strategically as well as morally), they can be asked to step down.
The fact that A) Google has a slightly different charter and B) shareholders are aware of this seems to be beyond you.
Yes. Someone who loses a laptop with personal data should be liable, but only for "private" data (ie, something, that when stolen can directly lead to real possibility of either identity theft or tangible loss... ie, name, SSN, address, CC#s, medical information).
A laptop should never contain full customer profiles non-encrypted, without serious security policies in place. The idea is that loss of that data should be as important to the holder of that data as it is to the customer/person that data references.
Until we make this the case, expect to hear about data loss/hacking/and compromised records monthly.
Hate to reply with possible FUD, but I have honestly resisted using Camino due to the whole plug-in situation. Things like AdBlock/Filterset.G, NukeAnything, Tabbrowser Prferences, and FasterFox(!) really make FireFox much more usable/safe than any other browser out there (Opera was decent at v8.0, but I haven't really tried it since). How is the extension situation with Camino these days?
...what a stupid idea.
:sigh:
I honestly think that Jobs really bought into his own RDF with this one.
You can't tell me that after Win98 & IE4 + 8 years... anyone still believes that bypassing security for "features" is a good idea on as hostile a network as the internet.
Esp. with someone with as seemingly high a clue-factor as Jobs...
I just turned off the feature on my Safari, and sent an email to my wife to do the same on her powerbook.
Think about it, there must be a competitor that provides a significantly cheaper price point... being a distant 2nd place in a niche market is not a good thing.
When I'm breadboarding a hardware project, I order online. I know the local Radio Shack doesn't have parts.
... and the answer. Think: most other hobbyists/hardware geeks probably figured this out sooner, and cut out the middleman. RadioShack really didn't have much choice except to do what they did (keep selling the profitable parts at a higher margin + pimp out their locations to interested folks).
The same thing is happening in photography (take a look at your local photo/film shop... they're also pimping out their store to cell-phone vendors, etc) and other niche markets as well.
And a podcast is just a RSS based distribution of sound and video media. But it is a good implementation and use of RSS, and a WikiCalc would be a great use of wiki.
Some of the best most obvious innovations seem rediculously obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't detract from their greatness (in fact, you could just say they were elegant)
Seriously, IE *is* playing catchup. Some will say that this is the end of an IE only net.
Others say that all Microsoft has to do is to just be "good enough" and they can keep their near-monopoly market share of the browsing environment.
One thing that's for sure is that Microsoft is no longer the "apparent" force for innovation that they were in the 90's. :-)
And that tabbed browsing (eg: MDI done properly) is here to stay
Other than just battery life, a reduced heat profile will move the laptop from a desktop replacement to a more usable all-around better box. Will still pale in comparison to my wife's powerbook, but hey, this was half the price and I still can't use OSX at the office (damn intranet IE only webapps).
Unless you think that the OS, iLife apps, support, and general machine design as not valuable, then that $400 markup is understandable.
If you don't value those things, then don't buy a Mac. Simple as that. Especially now, when you can get the same hardware without the overhead (as you put it)... just don't go onto /. (aka appledot) and whine about it, ok?
Emphasis mine... why do those companies and non-adherence to standards not surprise me?
Could you please enlighten us by telling us how the hell you got that info? I have not ever gotten, or heard of anyone getting any info about why they lost their job (except once, it was an internal position, and I found out from the person who took the new job because my current position dealt with that existing role).
Well leaving aside the XPSP2 you mentioned, what about NT4SP4 (ie, integration of browser with OS)? If this is really Microsoft's statement regarding SP's, then they've went against their word more than once.
"Heat is the biggest enemy when building a quiet HTPC system. "
Uh... sure. Agreed.
"You have to sometimes sacrifice a quiet HTPC so the machine can cool itself efficiently. "
Hmm... so it supposed to be quiet, but not really.
"We choose the Intel Pentium D 840 "Extreme Edition" Processor!" :-)
Ok, quiet is RIGHT OUT now, and what a way to add to your heat problem
"While trying to push the Godzilla PVR to its limit we experienced an overheating and fan noise issue. "
LOL. Stopped reading right about there.
Just use the standard Firefox feature of "keep cookies.... until I close Firefox". Given the memory leaks and minor issues with extensions, you'll end up closing the browser eventually (I close it approximately 1-2 times/day). Or use private browsing option in various browsers, and it'll do the same thing.
Then again, if you're a mainline IE user (not avant/myie2 user) this doesn't apply. Of course, if you're using IE, you've probably got bigger problems :-)
Yup, Check out these guys Valence. They apparently make a variant of li-ion or li-po which has reduced dangers of heat buildup in banked cells.
I found these sites to be useful in determining where to get the latest deals on used macs:
Don't worry; it wasn't invented by them, yet another set of brown people that Americans generally confuse with Arabs (and consequently irrationally hate).
No, I immediately thought of "Jeebus" (nice: IM with an eliza-bot that thinks it's god!)
It's good gift for the PHB's of the world, some of whom are only impressed by:
In that sense, this book is good to lay out a point, and hammer it home. Sure, such content would be considered (-1, Redundant) here, but your average PHB eats up [Flamebait, Redundant, Overrated] stuff for lunch.
This is not innovative or interesting, hell NetZero/Juno/Opera have done this to death with their advertising-based browsers (to limited success). What would make this different is that it would remove any way of avoiding the advertising... built into the window manager (OS in MS terms).
I don't see this as very attractive to many users, since it'd probably be much easier to just get a pirate version of windows (even an older version will often do).
Dude, it's unfair to fault your Windows laptop for this. You can set Windows to not require a password on resume/unhibernate, just like your mactop.