I wouldn't mind him being on the golf court with his manager buddies. Chances are this lands us another fat contract meaning I still have a job in a few months.
Don't confuse the "supervisor" with the "owner" (read CEO/Pres/CoB). If they're one and the same, sure his business meetings are useful (and you're correct and probably work in a small co/startup), but if the person who "supervises" isn't the one who brings in the contracts, there's no reason he should be sitting his fat middle-management ass down to dinner while his team slaves away because he couldn't say no.
I don't know about you, but for me the star of the original trilogy was Han Solo. I'm not sure who the star of the prequel trilogy was, but there was not a single Han Solo-esque character in it.
Wasn't that supposed to be Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan?... Maybe that's because Harrison Ford told Lucas to stuff his lines "George, you can write this shit but you can't make me say it."
Oligopolies are perfectly capable of being formed in a free market economy. A free market refers to the lack of governmental intervention except in cases of force or fraud.
As correct as you are, you forget what this means in reality: All the "goodness" (read: efficiency) of the ideal free-market goes out the window as soon as it becomes an Oligopoly or Monopoly... so in effect, this "free market variant" is so different in terms of apply basic pricing theory that it's not a free market at all.
Yeah, getting a netbook with windows is a pretty stupid move.
I got it because I needed the 160GB HDD so I could triple-boot and test out the various OS (ubuntu/iDeneb(hackintosh)/XP). Doing this on the 20GB (16+4, actually) SSD was not going to be easy, so I had to get the only config with 160GB, and that was XP... besides my goal was to tinker anyway.
I ended up learning that ubuntu netbook remix had the easiest interface, OSX looked the best (both were quite usable at 1024x600), and XP was a bit too cramped.
However, only XP had usable touchpad drivers. The other OS drivers pretty much made the touchpad too... touchy. Couldn't type without random mouse jumps (happened in XP, too, but much less).
All in all, I pretty much gave up on that machine as it was nowhere near as usable as my 3 year old macbook I had bought to replace (my 2nd machine) and the size factor with a 6-cell battery was not enough to offset all the frustrations. I ended up giving it away to someone who ended up using as a nice portable desktop-replacement (with KVM it's quite usable).
Apple is merely exerting rights over the customer that it should not have to begin with.
True.
It's engaging in "artistic megalomania" and that is bullshit whether it's legal or not.
If they didn't have this power, do you think they would release OSX as easily hackable as it is, to the world?
Your position doesn't leave much room for their relatively unobtrusive stance on copying and DRM... either they would lock the OS down so hard (iPhone-like) or simply not exist as the company they are today.
What have you done to counteract the corporate intellectual property police state?
This netbook has the same screen size, ram, and CPU perforcement as my four year old laptop.
Has my old laptop become a netbook?
Not unless your old laptop was 12" got 5 hrs battery life and could do 1080p output with HDMI.
I'll also bet your old laptop was about 2x the cost.
Seriously, the CPU sounds very capable for what it's supposed to be doing (lightweight computing/media).
The iPhone was in the interesting position of being (arguably) the first "smartphone" well executed enough(and running on powerful enough hardware) to outcompete the far less flexible, but far more mature, "featurephone" segment for a large number of people.
I'd say the Palm/Handspring Treo 650 was the first such really usable smartphone... but as you mention, it probably failed due to poor hardware, inflexible OS, and poor execution on the part of Palm.
I did love my Verizon Treo 650 until I got my iPhone 2G. Even without mobile data, the Treo was really good for managing my contacts/calendars/email and playing games. It was really a data-centric device.
I'd argue that the new paradigm for smartphone as the mobile internet device (MID) is probably what the iPhone was aimed at, and hit with amazing accuracy.
Optical drives are unneeded features for this form-factor, and add cost, size, and frustration that a non-optical system can do without.
If you really want an optical drive, there are many 15" laptops at the same price range that will do that for you, but be prepared for worse build-quality, middling battery life and completely budget-bin processor.
That said, I didn't get a windowsXP restore image on a SD card (yes, they gave me an optical restore disk for a device that doesn't support it!!) when I got my eeePC 1000H a year ago, and that really made it difficult when I gave the device away (had to restore using an imaging tool... luckily I backed up the pristine image prior to doing anything with it)... so if Asus could replace their DVD with, say, even a gimped SD card that does the restore, I'd have been completely happy.
Quicktime + Perian can't solve my "source videos are unusually low in volume, or my laptop speakers suck"... which happens a lot. VLC is nice in that the volume slider goes to 4x.
I also have never had issues with playback in VLC where QT+Perian did any better.
And some of us objected to MFN status for China based on their horrid human rights record. Too bad the 'progressives' formed an unholy alliance with the big transnational corporate interests on that issue....
Nice unsubstantiated attack there... Clinton, who signed the MFN with China is no progressive (he's a corporate-backed Dem, just like his wife). I didn't see many progressives saying MFN with China was good, if you have evidence, I'd like to see it.
That is, unfortunately, not a strong argument for Free Software as governments (and other large organizations) often can and do purchase access to proprietary source code.
So let me ask you this, when Microsoft or Adobe, etc give these governments the "source code" do they allow compilation of the resulting binary from the given source... with deployment of that binary as production-level binary?
The whole "shared source" concept fails when it comes to security because you can't VERIFY the source code is what you have in your binary unless you have the entire toolchain necessary to build, execute, and formally test the binaries you will deploy in your organization.
People put up with for lack of an alternative network for their Jesus phone, without that exclusive they would start hemorrhaging customers.
I'd say bleeding customers like an arterial wound might be more accurate. I would definitely jump ship if they screwed with the flat data plan, UNLESS they buy me out by offering a really nice discount for limited usage (some months I hardly use 3G data)... I do NOT want to get "surprise" bills; that's what I thought I was paying a premium for on the flat data iPhone plan.
It seems more and more reasonable to give kids their own version of the internet completely. That way we wont get crazy someone think of the children laws.
We replaced Idiomatick's coffee with folgers crystals, let's see what happens:
It seems more and more reasonable to give porn sites their own version of the internet completely. That way we wont get crazy puritanical laws.
Do you EVER see that happening? No, because the people who make the "think of the children" and "puritanical" laws won't stop until these people are defanged.
I feel for those affected, but at some point the people inside the Matrix need to do more to help themselves. Having the people outside complain really doesn't do a whole lot to make it better.
Bullshit... these people are subjugated mainly because foreign governments view their slave labor as more valuable than their freedoms. The treaty establishing a communist, completely un-free state (China) as "Most Favored Nation" by the "bastion of freedom" (USA) was the wrong move. Instead we should have included fair trade protections in our treaties to encourage these nations to stop their slave labor practices, because it undermines the standard of living across the globe when we simply say "free trade" (ie, race to the bottom for wages and standard of living).
f there were a pill that extended their life 10years and increased the quality of life. They'd be fucking horrified of not having that pill. Proof? If they really wanted to die they wouldn't be such pussies about it (srsly, old people are not pussies), and they'd end it themselves. Old people have tons of drugs they could do themselves in with in their sleep.
Specious reasoning. Not only are humans (as well as most living organisms) HEAVILY averse to suicide, it's considered in many cultures to be a cowardly/sinful/disgraceful act... so saying that someone who can't commit suicide is being "a pussy" is stupid. There's a reason people want to die "naturally"... it's encoded in beings.
Incidentally, you can sign up for experts exchange and get access to the answers without paying. You just need to sign up as an expert and post some useful answers that help other people regularly.
I prefer the stackoverflow model where you take what you need and then get rewarded to give back (with points, etc).
I detest Experts Exchange for the single reason that when I desperately need an answer, I'm not in a position, time-wise, to build up a reputation on an information exchange site... however, I've visited and answered many questions at stackoverflow and been voted up... after I got the help/hints that I needed when I was desperate.
Then again, stackoverflow isn't in the business of restricting knowledge (that their users created) for money.
...Apple still hasn't gotten the wake-up call regarding how paranoid you really have to be for software security...
And how paranoid do you have to be? It's silly. Any lock can be opened, there is no such thing as complete security.
Apple is still making money hand over fist and there's yet to be an iPhone malware released that actually compromised a large number of users' data.
I bet their security team is really paranoid, but have to deal with their usability and other teams to make sure that the paranoia doesn't lead to unusable software/interfaces.
On another note, it's sad how every story covering this (well, the Mail, the Telegraph) likes to bash Wikipedia with other example mistaken edits. But how much false information has been published by these same newspapers?
Clearly a case of the consolidated media industry fighting off new technology startup that could shine a light on all their misdeeds
google has done evil and they have lost all their 'shine' when they pull crap like this.
I really love this kind of binary thinking (those logic-gates corrupt your non-binary brain?)...
back in reality, it's all shades of gray. Everyone does "evil" (ie, self-interest), the question is how evil are you (or Google, or random politician)?
Compare these minor incidents with say, coercive monopolistic behavior (Microsoft vs. Netscape) or poisoning entire cities (Union Carbide, Bhopal) in the name of profits... Google in such terms is NOT EVIL, and neither are most companies (in fact, I'd say Microsoft is far less EVIL than Union Carbide, Exxon/Mobil, or Haliburton)
Of course, this isn't exactly a prisoner's dilemma. The news sites can communicate and make deals. The prisoners caught in the dilemma can't.
The communication part is key... if the newspapers collude through agreements that are written, then it's cartel/anti-competetive behavior -- an actionable legal offense.
If they don't... then how can you trust the other entity when there's no written agreement?
So I actually see the "no communication/agreement" as analogous to the Prisoners Dilemma.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't confuse the "supervisor" with the "owner" (read CEO/Pres/CoB). If they're one and the same, sure his business meetings are useful (and you're correct and probably work in a small co/startup), but if the person who "supervises" isn't the one who brings in the contracts, there's no reason he should be sitting his fat middle-management ass down to dinner while his team slaves away because he couldn't say no.
Wasn't that supposed to be Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan? ... Maybe that's because Harrison Ford told Lucas to stuff his lines "George, you can write this shit but you can't make me say it."
As correct as you are, you forget what this means in reality: All the "goodness" (read: efficiency) of the ideal free-market goes out the window as soon as it becomes an Oligopoly or Monopoly... so in effect, this "free market variant" is so different in terms of apply basic pricing theory that it's not a free market at all.
I got it because I needed the 160GB HDD so I could triple-boot and test out the various OS (ubuntu/iDeneb(hackintosh)/XP). Doing this on the 20GB (16+4, actually) SSD was not going to be easy, so I had to get the only config with 160GB, and that was XP... besides my goal was to tinker anyway.
I ended up learning that ubuntu netbook remix had the easiest interface, OSX looked the best (both were quite usable at 1024x600), and XP was a bit too cramped.
However, only XP had usable touchpad drivers. The other OS drivers pretty much made the touchpad too... touchy. Couldn't type without random mouse jumps (happened in XP, too, but much less).
All in all, I pretty much gave up on that machine as it was nowhere near as usable as my 3 year old macbook I had bought to replace (my 2nd machine) and the size factor with a 6-cell battery was not enough to offset all the frustrations. I ended up giving it away to someone who ended up using as a nice portable desktop-replacement (with KVM it's quite usable).
True.
If they didn't have this power, do you think they would release OSX as easily hackable as it is, to the world?
Your position doesn't leave much room for their relatively unobtrusive stance on copying and DRM... either they would lock the OS down so hard (iPhone-like) or simply not exist as the company they are today.
What have you done to counteract the corporate intellectual property police state?
Not unless your old laptop was 12" got 5 hrs battery life and could do 1080p output with HDMI.
I'll also bet your old laptop was about 2x the cost.
Seriously, the CPU sounds very capable for what it's supposed to be doing (lightweight computing/media).
I'd say the Palm/Handspring Treo 650 was the first such really usable smartphone... but as you mention, it probably failed due to poor hardware, inflexible OS, and poor execution on the part of Palm.
I did love my Verizon Treo 650 until I got my iPhone 2G. Even without mobile data, the Treo was really good for managing my contacts/calendars/email and playing games. It was really a data-centric device.
I'd argue that the new paradigm for smartphone as the mobile internet device (MID) is probably what the iPhone was aimed at, and hit with amazing accuracy.
If you really want an optical drive, there are many 15" laptops at the same price range that will do that for you, but be prepared for worse build-quality, middling battery life and completely budget-bin processor.
That said, I didn't get a windowsXP restore image on a SD card (yes, they gave me an optical restore disk for a device that doesn't support it!!) when I got my eeePC 1000H a year ago, and that really made it difficult when I gave the device away (had to restore using an imaging tool... luckily I backed up the pristine image prior to doing anything with it)... so if Asus could replace their DVD with, say, even a gimped SD card that does the restore, I'd have been completely happy.
Seriously, HD porn video isn't exactly a huge draw, but imagine 3D.
I also have never had issues with playback in VLC where QT+Perian did any better.
Don't forget trac hacks.... it makes the vanilla trac actually usable (ie, stored user logins, user-defined custom fields, you name it).
Nice unsubstantiated attack there... Clinton, who signed the MFN with China is no progressive (he's a corporate-backed Dem, just like his wife). I didn't see many progressives saying MFN with China was good, if you have evidence, I'd like to see it.
So let me ask you this, when Microsoft or Adobe, etc give these governments the "source code" do they allow compilation of the resulting binary from the given source... with deployment of that binary as production-level binary?
The whole "shared source" concept fails when it comes to security because you can't VERIFY the source code is what you have in your binary unless you have the entire toolchain necessary to build, execute, and formally test the binaries you will deploy in your organization.
Now do these stack? What would you have if someone was a Convicted Drunk Driver, Murderer and a Drug Offender?
WMD = home grown terrorist
Totally agreed. I pay a premium not to worry about that shit. If mobile data becomes like texting or international rates
I'd say bleeding customers like an arterial wound might be more accurate. I would definitely jump ship if they screwed with the flat data plan, UNLESS they buy me out by offering a really nice discount for limited usage (some months I hardly use 3G data)... I do NOT want to get "surprise" bills; that's what I thought I was paying a premium for on the flat data iPhone plan.
We replaced Idiomatick's coffee with folgers crystals, let's see what happens:
It seems more and more reasonable to give porn sites their own version of the internet completely. That way we wont get crazy puritanical laws.
Do you EVER see that happening? No, because the people who make the "think of the children" and "puritanical" laws won't stop until these people are defanged.
Bullshit... these people are subjugated mainly because foreign governments view their slave labor as more valuable than their freedoms. The treaty establishing a communist, completely un-free state (China) as "Most Favored Nation" by the "bastion of freedom" (USA) was the wrong move. Instead we should have included fair trade protections in our treaties to encourage these nations to stop their slave labor practices, because it undermines the standard of living across the globe when we simply say "free trade" (ie, race to the bottom for wages and standard of living).
Specious reasoning. Not only are humans (as well as most living organisms) HEAVILY averse to suicide, it's considered in many cultures to be a cowardly/sinful/disgraceful act... so saying that someone who can't commit suicide is being "a pussy" is stupid. There's a reason people want to die "naturally"... it's encoded in beings.
I prefer the stackoverflow model where you take what you need and then get rewarded to give back (with points, etc).
I detest Experts Exchange for the single reason that when I desperately need an answer, I'm not in a position, time-wise, to build up a reputation on an information exchange site... however, I've visited and answered many questions at stackoverflow and been voted up... after I got the help/hints that I needed when I was desperate.
Then again, stackoverflow isn't in the business of restricting knowledge (that their users created) for money.
I considered a bike, and decided against for three reasons:
My Prius handles those fine, and still gets motorcycle-like mileage. For non-inclement weather, we also have foot-powered bikes (with kids seat).
And how paranoid do you have to be? It's silly. Any lock can be opened, there is no such thing as complete security.
Apple is still making money hand over fist and there's yet to be an iPhone malware released that actually compromised a large number of users' data.
I bet their security team is really paranoid, but have to deal with their usability and other teams to make sure that the paranoia doesn't lead to unusable software/interfaces.
Clearly a case of the consolidated media industry fighting off new technology startup that could shine a light on all their misdeeds
I really love this kind of binary thinking (those logic-gates corrupt your non-binary brain?)...
back in reality, it's all shades of gray. Everyone does "evil" (ie, self-interest), the question is how evil are you (or Google, or random politician)?
Compare these minor incidents with say, coercive monopolistic behavior (Microsoft vs. Netscape) or poisoning entire cities (Union Carbide, Bhopal) in the name of profits... Google in such terms is NOT EVIL, and neither are most companies (in fact, I'd say Microsoft is far less EVIL than Union Carbide, Exxon/Mobil, or Haliburton)
The communication part is key... if the newspapers collude through agreements that are written, then it's cartel/anti-competetive behavior -- an actionable legal offense.
If they don't... then how can you trust the other entity when there's no written agreement?
So I actually see the "no communication/agreement" as analogous to the Prisoners Dilemma.