OK, it's simple. I hereby proclaim that all gambling in Kentucky has had ruinous effects on my life. ISO like-minded individuals to join me, find a shark, and find a state that hates Kentucky enough to seize ownership of the Kentucky Derby, distribution of proceeds from same to go to the class members.
And we'll spend it all on Kentucky Bourbon and then rise to the intellectual level of today's featured judge.
I have visited and worked at semiconductor fabs worldwide. None(*) of them allow cell phones or recording devices into the plant, and this includes laptops in most locations, blank CDs and USB sticks. (Yes, that precludes iPods and internet access at these places.) Ditto on defense installations, which I've also visited and worked at, but there the restrictions may vary depending on facility sensitivity.
Industrial espionage is real. Designs, documentation, and mask files have all been extracted and stolen by the vectors above. Losses have been in the mega-millions. Try to circumvent it in small countries incredibly dependent on their semiconductor industry, and see how quickly your butt is introduced to the local gendarmes.
Industrial security is far from pointless. So is defense security.
If you haven't heard of this in the UK, then I strongly suspect that you're not in a high tech circle or in a sensitive area of defense or energy.
(* None = you may find fabs where such devices are allowed in non-sensitive areas, but go deep enough, you'll hit the restrictions. For a vast many firms, the restriction starts at the reception desk, period.)
Years ago, I read something about the Theory of Everything that rattled me, and it took me a long time to accept the fullness of it. What was said was that if we ever find the correct Theory of Everything, it won't mean that we're done - it might mean, AT BEST, that we are poised to be begin asking the right questions.
I don't recall who specifically said it - someone of Steven Weinberg's stature, if not Weinberg himself.
That puts the statement - by whomever it was, it was someone very smart and respectable (way more of both than me!!) - squarely in 100% accordance with what you said.
I guess that I thought that your statement was sufficiently right-on as to be pretty insightful, but given that I felt that we were in the same boat in REALLY understanding things, compared to Weinbergs, Epsteins, and Einsteins of world - and given my usual walk that for any valid point, there's a valid counterpoint - I decided that a little tongue-in-cheek levity with a counterpoint might also further the discourse. Or something.
So while me saying "absolutely wrong" and handing out Fs in science is, by lexical definition, statements of your erroneousness, there's also this thing where sometimes, words have two meanings, and no erroneousness should be read or implied.
Proof: Clearly by my own words, I live with a woman with some bimbo friends and am obviously enough OK with that to have married her. Further evidence suggests that I drink to the point of offering to buy rounds for a stranger. If this somehow adds up to a normal profile for someone really qualified to hand out As or Fs in advanced cosmology, and that someone is me, then I'm being confused with Buckaroo Banzai - which, now that I think of it, I'm all for!!!
(Disclaimer: Offer not valid in Maryland. I could turn out to be right, you could actually be in error. Judges decisions are final. Or not. Buckaroo Banzai is in fact a non-fictional character, is presently in hiding, it's actually me, and I was hiding this even from myself. Or not.)
(Actually, I do have at least one Ph.D. friend who has in fact handed out As and Fs in graduate physics, does in fact consort with bimbos and does in fact drink heavily. However, there remains a critical difference to the model put forth here - good luck trying to get him to buy a round, especially for any sort of stranger. In fact, now that I think of it, he's actually consorting with my bimbos - derivative bimbos, now that I think of it! I'm glad in advance to have cleared this up for you.)
Decades ago, university courses tying beliefs to science were given - I seem to recall one relating Zen Buddhism to physics.
I think it's altruistic to believe that science is examined at the philosophical level by those at the top unless you could be more specific. I hobnob with a large number of Ph.D.s, majority physicists, definitely from best schools, definitely came up the hard way. Of those, and admittedly speaking from my experiences - but maintaining that is direct experience - the ones that map philosophical beliefs to science are in the minority.
{soapbox}Extending to theosophy (adding religious beliefs to the philosophy and science soup) I personally opine that Hawking's, Galileo's, Newton's, and Einstein's formative thinking were adversely affected by philosophical contaminants. Taking the argument to the absurd to make the point (and substituting << as in much less than for your <= as in less than or equal to) relating to Total Possible Knowledge..... what scientist? what layman? computer scientist ~= astrology-or-creationist-believing layman << Total Possible Knowledge?? Yes, A << C and B << C making A and B somewhat analogous, but this doesn't make A ~= B.{/soapbox}
I hear that there's a tombstone in Germany, and accepting this as fact, it's inscription is one of my favorites: "Now I know more than the wisest among you." This is a stunning and crystal clear truth for all things metaphysical.
Some people want to study physics or cosmology to understand the mind of God, or the meaning of existence. I wish them best luck, as I was once one of them, and now believe that the grave will give the answer - (linear) time abides all. For that subset, you can argue your A~=B<=C case (no disrespect, but I prefer to save on typing), but you're really not arguing to cosmology.
For those in group A that are interested in physical law for its own sake - to say that those in group A, who have worked their asses (and brains) off most all of their lives are equivalent in knowledge to those who have not, is simply not true. I'd have to allow the degrees of freedom that transmutes knowledge as wisdom or all knowledges as equivalent or transmute the properties of the equality (to political or existential equivalent or to equivalently ignorant for sufficiently large values of C (and given that C is by your definition, very significantly large)) to agree otherwise.
Your A~=B<=C argument isn't at all new. In fact, it's very medieval. I don't much subscribe to it - just as I don't do well with angels dancing on pins, either, as it's the same discussion.
I wasn't trolling anyone, and wasn't intending to waste bandwidth with my original post - I was just laying down a little dry humor and trying to open the door for membrane theory. If you look at the poster I'd responded to, and postulate (correctly) that I'd read his/her previous post and postulate that my reply was friendly (geez - my wife's friends are built, and there was an invitation to a pub there!) then maybe the context of what I'd written might seem different.
However - your reply stand on its own merit, as I hope this one does for you.
My instincts tell me that dark matter is a growth industry in physics and any truth in the matter may be long coming until the wheat is separated from the chaff. Is there a force in a true vacuum? A lot of the chaff came from Einstein's addition of a cosmological constant (added for religious/philosophical reasons - my theory says the universe is not steady state, I *know* it is steady state, I hereby add a cosmological constant to make it so) and others refuting Einstein when he said such a constant was his biggest blunder (no, Albert had the right idea, wrong constant!), sprinkle in calculation error regarding vacuum energy (i.e., dark energy), and there you are. Now comes the topic at hand, and my only point was - do we know the framework for the hypothesis in the article? Do we know the bent of those involved? Are they accepting strings as a corollary to membrane collision and positing spacetime laws in that regard?
I'd like to know more. For all effects and purposes, I'm as clueless as a lay, man.
Absolutely wrong. My wife has friends that are mind-numbingly clueless, right down to Nevada being part of California.
While the jury is out on M theory, et al, and now dark flow - and while your point may have been that the unknown is so disproportionately large to that already known as to not essentially matter - you're wrong. A in philosophy, F in science.
I sentence you to a night with my wife's friends while I escape to the local pub. I predict that upon joining me at said pub later, should you in fact retain the mental skills necessary for perambulation to thus make it as far as the pub, you will never again allow your brane to stray in such a fashion.
(Brane isn't misspelled - it's what'll be left of your once-brain.)
Glad it's humor because any semblance of any reality to a threat analysis and user response is sadly lacking.
The study was for browser-based dialog threats only - RTFA.
In all cases, mousing over the "OK" button would cause the cursor to turn into a hand button, behavior more typical of a browser control....
I find it hard to express without sarcasm that when an app or machine gets buggy, the cursor or pointer may go south, and I think that this is a NOT-TOO-UNCOMMON experience - not in frequency of occurrence, but in the BREADTH of users who have experienced it.
My postulated user thinking: "OK, it went south - it's all gobblety - even the cursor is nuts...."
The "researchers'" postulated user thinking: "Galloop, galloop, galloop - well, gee, Tennessee - lookie me while I ignore gobblety - hurhur, hurhur, I don't even notice the cursormagikit change-a-late'n...."
Yes, in a perfect world, users know everything about their experience and their machine's interface. Welcome to reality. Until that's fixed, blaming users for not recognizing malware vectors is idiotic. Had users been capable of recognizing malware vectors in the first place, malware wouldn't exist.
Sorry if I'm having a bad day on this one. But if there's any merit to my point and add the fact that the sample size is small, then science this ain't. And I'm disgusted that the FA calls users idiots, right from the headline.
Re:1&1 -- cheap hosting includes domain and ma
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Email-only Providers?
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1and1 is great. I have domain hosting (6 or 8 bucks a year, I forget) and a small $12/year email package - 5 email accounts, unlimited aliases, spam filtering, some virus checking.
There's NO contender to Blackberry email in the market.
If you limit to the US market, I think that there is - a Helio Ocean with a $99/month unlimited voice/roaming/data plan. On mine, I get mail from Helio, Yahoo, Gmail, AIM,.mac, and a few others - all very well-managed with a pretty good interface. It also has Mail for Microsoft Exchange (uses Exchange 2003 SP2 or 2007 enabled for ActiveSync) that costs (an expensible) $10/month. Full QWERTY keyboard + a separate phone pad. Reads PDFs and MS Office docs. Out of the box, it has setups for many popular emails and is VERY EASY to configure for others. IMAP and POP3 supported.
Helio's recently been purchased; its popularity was never high and it marketed to the bling crowd (dumb, dumb, dumb move).
Battery life is very good (for me - I'm on it all of the time, so I don't want to venture into battery life arguments), even with my mail being auto-updated all of the time - and it's got a replaceable battery.
Mail headers and a head download, giving the option of downloading the full message if so inclined.
For me personally, reading mail on a Blackberry is no contest compared to my Ocean - the Ocean text and formating looks way better, less clunky.
The service itself is on Sprint's network, as I understand it, as HELIO is an MVNO - and I've basically enjoyed 3G service just about anywhere I've been for a lot of months.
I'm not a shill, I just wanted to put this info out. The Ocean is NOT a smartphone - it's a pretty good not-too-dumb phone.
As to non-email features - it's browser is crappy, but Opera Mini is there, good for my mobile browsing (but not an iPhone). YouTube app optimized for the device. Orientation sensitive - not by sensor but by keypad orientation (it slides two ways). Mediocre camera, good enough for occasional use. GPS built-in linked to Google Maps, Buddy Beacon, Where, and Garmin Mobile. Not open source. Not Windows nor Symbian OS. Skype available as separate app, but was too clunky to be useful (my opinion). AIM text chat (and email) built in. Windows Live Messenger text chat (and email) built in. Yahoo Messenger text chat (and email) built in.
Form factor not unlike a Neo1973 (not touch screen). Odd shape and layout, it isn't light and it isn't thin.
No data features on international roaming, last time I'd tried. (Blackberry wins on this - but I have horror stories and success stories of friends with Blackberry international access.)
And you get mail alerts when idling that are nicely non-obtrusive. A single front-panel button jumps to the alerted mail subject and sender (it's actually a non-account-specific inbox list for latest-alerts-only) and normal mousing has you reading quickly and efficiently.
But there is definitely a contender to the Blackberry in the email market in the US - and seems to offer other interesting features to boot.
I think it's another case of superior technology with a potential for dying because of very bad marketing - but until that day comes, I'll take a Helio Ocean over a Blackberry any day - specifically because of its email capabilities.
I totally agree and disagree with you, and worked in the audio industry in its heyday. I want to make a few common sense remarks in rebuttal to comments about audio wiring, as I am sure that in your zeal for common sense, you've thrown a bit of the baby out with the bath water. My comments are made based on double-blind tests (not so much), lab measurements, simulations and physical science.
First, you are correct. I worked in the audio industry, some years ago, in retail, distribution and finally in manufacturing. We took awards for our *applied science* in our (manufactured) products. Most are absolute snake oil, as you point out.
HOWEVER - let's start with typical wiring - lamp cord, or your basic 16 gauge zip wire. If you think about it - it's conducting AC (audio is ***theoretically*** 20 to 20kHz (actually much less) but it is AC. Therefore - zip wire is an inductor. Many esoteric wires are mega-multi-stranded and individually lacquered for insulation and braided to avoid this effect - and often become capacitive as a result.
The first thing the wire sees in a typical speaker is the crossover network. I won't argue snake oil, I will simply submit that if all of the following are actually true, then what I say applies. Here are the conditions: proper crossover, meaning all inductors at right angles to one another, non-magnetic leads on the capacitors, and the crossover actually equalizing for the drivers to achieve the proper crossover, not just generic circuits with generic drivers. (We made speakers - we tested and coded each driver and all parts, and tuned the crossovers to the drivers. With quality components, this is quite doable, and can be done without going overboard on price.) We used a very sophisticated circuit simulation program to model the drivers so as to optimize the crossover/equalizers. A typical woofer's impedance response took on the order of 17 to 25 passive components to model (simple pi to T or T to pi inputs were insufficient to characterize the impedance at all operating frequencies - for example). Finally, with such decent speakers, let's assume equally decent amplification - and - let's match the amp's characteristics - especially damping factor and how it's achieved (i.e., output impedance of the power transistors) to the to the particular speakers. This is the physical how of an amp performing better with some speakers than others and vice versa, all quality factors being equal, because of impedance balancing and matching being necessary for optimal power transfer.
Under these conditions, wiring can make a difference. It can be measured, it can be modeled, it can be predicted. Depending on the grotesqueness or quality of the match, it can be audible.
If you don't actually have the decent under the hood, physically (as in physics) defensive parts and construction and matching, then any extra filtering or impedance differences due to wiring WILL BE masked by the grosser errors of the system.
In the late 70s or early 80s - can't remember which - an excellent compromise solution was found for high quality speaker wiring: what we used to call 4-cross Romex. House wiring, basically, but with four STRANDED conductors, with good-quality copper and 14 gauge. With instrumentation and internal knowledge of all components (meaning - take 'em apart and measure them in the lab), you could optimize for theoretically better, but the 4 cross worked great. You run red ("positive" as they call it, even though it's AC) and black on opposing pairs. I'll try to illustrate in ascii: xo ox The wire has a twist to it such that its inductance is much lower that 2-lead or zip wire, and is sufficient in gauge and stranding so as to not introduce capacitive reactance to any great degree. On any decent system, such wiring very often results in an audible improvement - provided an acceptable definition of decent and that the music being listened to is equally well-recorded (and not compressed, over compensated, etc, etc, etc - you know - music, n
My opinion is right only when it is. The only Macs I've owned have run OS X (with the exception of OS 9 as my fall-back to rebuild my OS X partition in the beta-10.0 transition). As I recall, MacOS is the name used to denote pre-OS X systems - I cannot tell if that's your intent or not, but the pre-iMacs you mention were pre-OS X. If your point was that those OSs were overrated, I'd agree, in the sense that I found them to be about on par with Windows - both were videogames, not OSs, to me.
I found Windows to be an intolerable experience until Windows 2000 and that one I liked, shared with others (not in the pirate sense, thank you), used extensively, and - if you will - campaigned for it. Replace Windows 2000 in the above statement with OS X and that's also true. I looked forward to XP upgrades until the actuality of it hit. First, on a purposely-slow machine, you could see the windows painted Classic, then painted with the newer XP theme - no excuse for that performance hit. Later, with SP2, performance was back on par with a quality product, and I like XP SP2 - as much as I can for a non-*nix system.
OS X in Apple's rush to add gee-whiz has lost some of its original BSD appeal for me - but with greater acceptance, enough new apps have hit that I rarely miss it - but then, csh and vi were things I've been happy with.
As for stability, Windows finally got there with Win2k and improved from there with XP. Until then, there was no question that OS X was not overrated over Win for stability. When VirtualPC came out, I could run Windows under OS X. When Fink came out and gcc upgraded to fully support the architecture, building GNU apps under OS X became a walk in the park. When Microsoft Office X came out, OS X users had the full Office without having to resort to Win under VirtualPC (I contend that the previous Offices on a Mac were weak compared to Windows versions, and that post Office X, the Win versions have been weaker.) When OroborOSX came out, it became a walk in the park to run various desktops under Linux, just a hot switch away from the OS X desktop or the Windows desktop. Oh - and its underlying stuff via the terminal was just straightforward BSD (admittedly frustrating to those more familiar with Linux as their only reference), so it was easy to pull server tricks with OS X (and still is) without resorting to OS X Server.
If admiring that and noting that no other OS gives me access to so many desktops (and their important features) and server features, all for free (post-OS X purchase or upgrade purchase) with the exception of a virtual tool and a Windows license, makes me a Mac-o-lite, so be it. That you believe that although you can do all of those things under OS X, but cannot under Windows or Linux, and that OS X is overrated (if OS X was indeed your reference), so be that, too.
Windows is a brute-force OS by a brute force company, and has only risen to prominence for reasons so aptly stated in Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" - which I'd recommend you read or re-read, as it clearly explains the MS Kool-Aide far better than I would attempt.
I think people should use and enjoy the OS that supports the apps they need and want in the way that they want those apps to work.
And if that OS allows you to do what you need and want without being a computer expert and without calling me as a pal out of frustration needing free support, then it's a great OS (therefore, that statement applies equally to Linux, OS X and WinXP to the equal amount that all three examples suck (Vista notably excluded from the list)) based on this personal-for-me criteria.
My tirade was against Windows mentality and the Microsoft ads. I think the Apple "I'm a Mac" ads are targeting people who might not know that they have a true commercial OS alternative if they've become frustrated with their Windows experiences of things just not working right, and who still think of Macs in pre-OS X terms or in terms of hearsay rather than knowledge. I think the M
Clear thinking on that - right up there with that mythical lock-in that includes MS Office, Windows if you want it, BSD sources, GNU sources.
Yep, being locked in to a proven cost-effective hybrid platform - best of Apple, best of FOSS - and then to be outed as so elitist by those ads - it's really devastating.
To your point - thanks. I'm disabused of the idea that information fazes your preconceptions in the slightest, as someone dedicated to viewing the world objectively; without emotionalism, wishful thinking, cynicism or silly prejudices.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
It was nothing of the sort.
It was Billy's ego finally getting to get his rage satisfied against a Linux bumper sticker that one of our GUI programmers had above his monitor since the dot-com days: "LINUX - In a world without walls or fences, who needs Gates?"
Ads serve two purposes - to persuade you to buy, and to persuade you to remain happy after you buy. That you think that ad in any way was devastating to Apple is merely a statement that you've bought the second part of the message. 500-level marketing courses preach that those who buy this second part of the message did so because they needed to - and because they need to, that part of the message is included in the ad.
You'd do well to not admit publicly, without anonymity, that you thought the ad devastated Apple - you might be not be realizing what message you're sending to those around you, about yourself.
The stereotypes are of the PC vs. Mac. Getting a Mac doesn't make you cooler - it makes you a user of a cooler system. Using a PC doesn't make you fat and bald - it makes you lame.
And the exclusivity of Apple products doesn't come from conspicuous consumption - it comes from being intelligent enough to not drink the fucking Kool Aide - even if you do think it tastes great.
The reason that the Apple ads were successful is because many people - unlike you - had the ability to think in more than 1 dimension at a time.
Apple ads essentially said, here's a metaphor for your OS - which do you want? Microsoft ads said, see? See? See? Apple makes fun of you, but not us.
Right. The guys that gave you ME and Vista are not inherently making fun of you. Of course not.
Maybe this can help wake you up: The Apple PC wasn't fat, balding and uncool - he was a CONFORMIST. Just like every character that appeared in the Microsoft ad - all cliche, no substance.
You're right about one thing - the Microsoft ad was very true to the Microsoft defender is all about - conformity. And you're right about what you're trying to describe as empowerment - conformity thrives on large numbers acting the same.
Looking for an individual in the Microsoft ad - a non-conformist - is like looking at all of the differences you'll find in a fundamentalist tent meeting, id est, none.
Kool Aide, Kool Aide, tastes great - wish I had some - can't wait!
There is no limit whatsoever to the amount of interpretation and rationalization a fundamentalist will use to get a holy scripture to justify insane or toxically illogical actions or beliefs.
This is true of any fundamentalism - regardless of religion or topic.
Your outcome is logically correct only if the premise is unmutable - QED, the premise is mutable, the outcome cannot be specified.
This fundamentalist behavior defies any causal analysis - as cause and effect changes for the fundamentalist over time.
Belief in creationism or ID is not coincidentally undertaken only by a lack of skills required for causal analysis or understanding of a causal universe. War is causal. Aggression is causal. Response is causal. Using belief in creationism as a predictor for the suitability of appropriate wartime response is not only logical - it's downright sensical.
Sending in a creationist to oversee nuclear (or any geopolitical) outcomes and expecting success is like sending a dwarf into the NBA and betting that they'll make player of the year.
Today, I awoke in Bizarro Universe - I could tell because I found a path where the Gates/Seinfeld commercials make sense.
It seems like it's part of the *marketing* plan to prop up whatever MS is going to do with Vista - or its OS future in general - Bill Gates is going to return to head Microsoft. As the commercials suggest - and cater to the mass ignorance - Bill is a genius, knows design, knows what kids want, has connected a billion people - and the problem is he's retired and out of touch.
Once you solve out of touch, you can solve retired.
Further, future news releases have Balmer stepping down due to health reasons, in the best traditions of the Soviet.
Vista will equate to Non-person, its successor to Gates - the perennial hero, the everyman, the genius that no one can live without.
Bill wiggles and computer industry convulses in rebirth. Bill has the answers to the questions. We are in dire straights with his Jupiter-sized brain locked away in his moon-like mansion orbiting above Seattle - but he is about to come back down to earth and solve all.
I think the rest of my day is going to get worse, until I awake and discover it was all a bad dream - and as I awake I'll look out my bedroom window, I'll see it burrowing into the ridge behind my house and no one will believe me - until it is all too late.
I've run Skype and iChat (OS X, obviously) side by side for some time, precisely because not everyone can access iChat. Ethan1701 may be being kind to his Mac friends trying to not ferment duplicity on them or maybe they're the sort of mom-and-pop users that don't do well with outside-Mac software.
I have this advice to offer. I have a mom-and-pop type friend that gets everything wrong on her computer. I was able to talk her through a Skype install and account setup on Windows. It's even easier on a Mac. The Skype website detects when being browsed with Safari on a Mac, downloads just what you need and the account setup wizard is 100% AOK and easy.
iChat's pretty good, but not as good as it was before they went H.264 - it's a common bitch that since then, frame rate and video quality have generally gone down and despite Apple's claims, this is true even on hardwired small LANs with best/fastest Macs.
There's a point to this - having both Skype and iChat on a Mac is A VERY GOOD THING. Some days, you get bad iChat video, so your Mac friends can switch to Skype and sometimes it's better.
iChat advantages over Skype: 1) If both users are.mac (now MobileMe) users, iChat engages in secure video conferencing. How secure I can't say but I point it out out of fairness. (Yes, lots more advantages if on top of that, everyone lives in the Leopard-fast-Core-2-Duo universe for the pedantic among us.) 2) iChat is far superior to Skype at echo control - seems to be more laptop related (co-located mic and speakers) - fixable on Skype if external speakers are used and can be angled way from the mic.
Skype advantage over iChat: 1) Both apps let you transfer a file by dropping it into the entry widget of a text chat. Skype wins hands down over iChat on this feature - it's not even close. You get a very nice pop-up almost instantly that the other person wants to send you a file, you can cancel, save as, or open. iChat on the other hand seems (actually, I'm kinda sure) to first copy the file on the sender's side, then copy the file to the receiver. For larger files, this is a real drag. For me, this feature is very important. You don't have to worry about email file size of who-got-what-when - you'll share more photos, videos and documents when it's easier to do so. 2) I've travelled a LOT internationally (was away from home 6 months last year) - and my personal experience is that Skype is far better between US and Europe - and in a lot of places in Asia, you can forget iChat altogether, period. I've also had iChat trouble while in some US hotels, but not Skype. 3) If you want to have an AUDIO conference, this is a breeze in Skype - I've had 8 people in a Skype audio conference (free) - read: all sorts of platforms and user levels - with zero problems for anyone, and I've done this often.
DISADVANTAGE OF HAVING BOTH INSTALLED ON A MAC: Sometimes one or the other won't connect reliably or won't see an iSight reliably after long sessions (days, weeks or months) of using both and having both constantly up. We (myself and my chat buddy) then shut down and restart whichever of the two apps we're using at the time; we do this together because we can't tell if the fault is on one side, the other side, or both sides of the chat. This always works. Personally, I put up with this because 1) it's infrequent and minor with a solid workaround and 2) each app is using a private protocol and 3) I'm living like I'm one of the Jetsons for free and I don't mind the workaround as much as I'd mind uninstalling Skype and losing cross-platform freedom. And you get a new route on each login - and the routes are very long. So maybe we're restarting because of a crappy route and not necessarily crappy software. All I'm saying is I hang with people that are pretty intolerant of restarting crappy software, but restarting iChat or Skype just doesn't seem to hit our radar.
VIDEO QUALITY: once in a while, something magical happens and the iChat video is astounding. Apple claims this is
...the iPod requires specific software to interface with and don't think about going cross platform, many an ipod has been wiped by going from Mac to PC and visa versa
I don't pretend to be an expert, but I did find out an interesting fact when trying to take my iPod between WinXP and OS X - caution, this applies as accurate at the time but can't say if still true - I have one of the first iPod Nanos. So, I'm going to speak in present tense to 1) keep it straight in my own brane and 2) if it's still this way, I'm accidentally right!
The iPod (Nano) was formatted using FAT32 out of the box - this was the heady days of transition from Firewire to USB and really targeting the Windows users. But you plug it into a Mac on Tuesday and stand in the corner (or maybe say don't sync and use as mass storage in addition to tunes as I did) and it reformats it as Mac OS Extended.
Take it cross-platform once it's Mac OS Extended, and Win iTunes complains that it's unreadable - proceed from there and it does first things first - reformats it as FAT32.
Fortunately for me, I stopped before proceeding. I was running WinXP under the dual-boot beta so I knew my iPod was ok minutes before. Had it been a different laptop - dedicated Win - I prolly would have proceeded to lose everything, thinking it was Windows or Win iTunes.
But it's incompatible file systems as the root cause for cross platform woes.
Not trying to debate merits - just trying to enlighten as an ounce of prevention. HTH.
If they make criminals of EVERYONE, then they ARE fair.
Please tell me that you were laughing your ass off when you wrote that and only decided you were on to something when modded up. And please tell me that your friends modded this drek as insightful as part of the joke.
Seriously. Somebuddy's liable to read that and start to believe that it has merit. Think of the children.
Does that mean that Vista is therefore a step backwards? Or do Microsoft finally admit that they rushed a beta product to release?
I just remembered hearing about Longhorn some years back. Is it just my memory, or wasn't Vista a retreat from Longhorn never making it to market? If my memory/understanding on this is accurate, then Vista was a step backwards from Longhorn. As far as rushing a beta to market, if Vista was indeed a Longhorn derivative rather than a new development, then no, they didn't rush a beta to market. The Longhorn was failing and they rushed a mitigation to market, as I'm sure of my memory in the part where Longhorn delivery was beginning to sound like Duke Nukem Forever projections.
I'm happy for somebuddy to square me away if I'm wrong on this - memory isn't perfect and I frankly got confused trying to google it.
Sorry, I know you're sore, but I can't resist - "you must be new here."
I'm guilty of misinterpreting you also - except I didn't go down the path others did. I got the part implied about stability, but I also began to ponder performance and wondered if you didn't have a point. What operating system allows an app to automagically attach itself to other apps and affect their performance? I'd also questioned the idea that apps NEED to do this to work well. But then, I use GIMP, not Photoshop, and Miro for torrents - and make no pretense of knowing which apps are better, much less how they compare under Windows - because they sound to me like they do very well doing the same job without all of the evil.
I do have a point, one that I think may be slightly important - enough people read it my way or yours to rate your first post very highly. You don't know if that's a function of misinterpretation or not. Neither do you know now, that if you had stated things as clearly as you first suggest you could have, that you wouldn't have been called a shill.
I think you're overreacting, especially with a handle like causality. You're postulating the other guy's mental processes and concluding that it's a two-way fuckup if he misunderstood. Even after almost completely recognizing that your processes triggered his, you're not a mind reader - you don't know.
BTW - I agree with others, not so much you now - a bad scheduler and poor task control is a shortcoming of the OS. I say Windows suffers from both. At one time, the the IBM Fellows at CMU taught that quality is a binary - you have it or you don't. I find no difference from a user perspective whether I restart to gain control, gain speed or because the system has hung or crashed in the most unstable way possible - either way, I lose.
And while I'm ranting, I anecdotally offer that I've had significantly less to complain about with WinXP and rarely (compared to previous Wins) had to shut it down, but for some crazy reason, my shutdown rate under Parallels on a Mac is even far lower.
So are common Win problems stability, resource management, third party apps, bad hardware or bad machine interfaces? I couldn't say, even if I often do.
I recall reading somewhere that iTunes is essentially an xml parser/browser and the actual work is done by Quicktime.
I may have that wrong in part, but it makes sense that they wouldn't duplicate functions. I suppose it might make more sense that they would simply be using shared libraries for media playback. Perhaps they do, but they don't try to manage library installation across two installers - they simply require QT installation for iTunes.
It's been a while since I've installed either on Windows; I wasn't aware of the systray task install. I'd hate the hell out of that. What possesses people to think the systray must be used? My personal path was Apple II, CP/M, HP-UX, VMS, *nices, DOS, OS/2, Win and finally Macs. By the time I'd seen Win, I was no strangers to computers, but the systray was new and OK. When others decided to plant stuff there mysteriously, I learned to hate them. I had enough to keep straight. OK, sorry, I guess that's all "get off my lawn" stuff.
I'm a Safari fan - but sneaking installs of it in? That makes it - what? - bloatware?
Even though I far prefer OS X over Windows, here's something anyone with an ounce of sense can relate to - make your Apple experience bad under Windows and you're not going to blame anyone but Apple. How is that going to encourage you to become a bigger spender? It won't.
A good salesman takes care of the big-ticket repeat customers.
A great salesman treats all customers the same, recognizing that a dollar to one guy might be a lot bigger than a hundred bucks to the next dude - and through respect, builds those big-ticket repeat customers.
I'm sure that whatever fool at Apple thought to do this to you did so convinced that being pushy was somehow a good thing.
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OK, it's simple. I hereby proclaim that all gambling in Kentucky has had ruinous effects on my life. ISO like-minded individuals to join me, find a shark, and find a state that hates Kentucky enough to seize ownership of the Kentucky Derby, distribution of proceeds from same to go to the class members.
And we'll spend it all on Kentucky Bourbon and then rise to the intellectual level of today's featured judge.
IOW, I propose we fight faar with faar!
I have visited and worked at semiconductor fabs worldwide. None(*) of them allow cell phones or recording devices into the plant, and this includes laptops in most locations, blank CDs and USB sticks. (Yes, that precludes iPods and internet access at these places.) Ditto on defense installations, which I've also visited and worked at, but there the restrictions may vary depending on facility sensitivity.
Industrial espionage is real. Designs, documentation, and mask files have all been extracted and stolen by the vectors above. Losses have been in the mega-millions. Try to circumvent it in small countries incredibly dependent on their semiconductor industry, and see how quickly your butt is introduced to the local gendarmes.
Industrial security is far from pointless. So is defense security.
If you haven't heard of this in the UK, then I strongly suspect that you're not in a high tech circle or in a sensitive area of defense or energy.
(* None = you may find fabs where such devices are allowed in non-sensitive areas, but go deep enough, you'll hit the restrictions. For a vast many firms, the restriction starts at the reception desk, period.)
At no time did I find your remark ignorant.
Years ago, I read something about the Theory of Everything that rattled me, and it took me a long time to accept the fullness of it. What was said was that if we ever find the correct Theory of Everything, it won't mean that we're done - it might mean, AT BEST, that we are poised to be begin asking the right questions.
I don't recall who specifically said it - someone of Steven Weinberg's stature, if not Weinberg himself.
That puts the statement - by whomever it was, it was someone very smart and respectable (way more of both than me!!) - squarely in 100% accordance with what you said.
I guess that I thought that your statement was sufficiently right-on as to be pretty insightful, but given that I felt that we were in the same boat in REALLY understanding things, compared to Weinbergs, Epsteins, and Einsteins of world - and given my usual walk that for any valid point, there's a valid counterpoint - I decided that a little tongue-in-cheek levity with a counterpoint might also further the discourse. Or something.
So while me saying "absolutely wrong" and handing out Fs in science is, by lexical definition, statements of your erroneousness, there's also this thing where sometimes, words have two meanings, and no erroneousness should be read or implied.
Proof: Clearly by my own words, I live with a woman with some bimbo friends and am obviously enough OK with that to have married her. Further evidence suggests that I drink to the point of offering to buy rounds for a stranger. If this somehow adds up to a normal profile for someone really qualified to hand out As or Fs in advanced cosmology, and that someone is me, then I'm being confused with Buckaroo Banzai - which, now that I think of it, I'm all for!!!
(Disclaimer: Offer not valid in Maryland. I could turn out to be right, you could actually be in error. Judges decisions are final. Or not. Buckaroo Banzai is in fact a non-fictional character, is presently in hiding, it's actually me, and I was hiding this even from myself. Or not.)
(Actually, I do have at least one Ph.D. friend who has in fact handed out As and Fs in graduate physics, does in fact consort with bimbos and does in fact drink heavily. However, there remains a critical difference to the model put forth here - good luck trying to get him to buy a round, especially for any sort of stranger. In fact, now that I think of it, he's actually consorting with my bimbos - derivative bimbos, now that I think of it! I'm glad in advance to have cleared this up for you.)
Decades ago, university courses tying beliefs to science were given - I seem to recall one relating Zen Buddhism to physics.
I think it's altruistic to believe that science is examined at the philosophical level by those at the top unless you could be more specific. I hobnob with a large number of Ph.D.s, majority physicists, definitely from best schools, definitely came up the hard way. Of those, and admittedly speaking from my experiences - but maintaining that is direct experience - the ones that map philosophical beliefs to science are in the minority.
{soapbox}Extending to theosophy (adding religious beliefs to the philosophy and science soup) I personally opine that Hawking's, Galileo's, Newton's, and Einstein's formative thinking were adversely affected by philosophical contaminants. Taking the argument to the absurd to make the point (and substituting << as in much less than for your <= as in less than or equal to) relating to Total Possible Knowledge..... what scientist? what layman? computer scientist ~= astrology-or-creationist-believing layman << Total Possible Knowledge?? Yes, A << C and B << C making A and B somewhat analogous, but this doesn't make A ~= B.{/soapbox}
I hear that there's a tombstone in Germany, and accepting this as fact, it's inscription is one of my favorites: "Now I know more than the wisest among you." This is a stunning and crystal clear truth for all things metaphysical.
Some people want to study physics or cosmology to understand the mind of God, or the meaning of existence. I wish them best luck, as I was once one of them, and now believe that the grave will give the answer - (linear) time abides all. For that subset, you can argue your A~=B<=C case (no disrespect, but I prefer to save on typing), but you're really not arguing to cosmology.
For those in group A that are interested in physical law for its own sake - to say that those in group A, who have worked their asses (and brains) off most all of their lives are equivalent in knowledge to those who have not, is simply not true. I'd have to allow the degrees of freedom that transmutes knowledge as wisdom or all knowledges as equivalent or transmute the properties of the equality (to political or existential equivalent or to equivalently ignorant for sufficiently large values of C (and given that C is by your definition, very significantly large)) to agree otherwise.
Your A~=B<=C argument isn't at all new. In fact, it's very medieval. I don't much subscribe to it - just as I don't do well with angels dancing on pins, either, as it's the same discussion.
I wasn't trolling anyone, and wasn't intending to waste bandwidth with my original post - I was just laying down a little dry humor and trying to open the door for membrane theory. If you look at the poster I'd responded to, and postulate (correctly) that I'd read his/her previous post and postulate that my reply was friendly (geez - my wife's friends are built, and there was an invitation to a pub there!) then maybe the context of what I'd written might seem different.
However - your reply stand on its own merit, as I hope this one does for you.
My instincts tell me that dark matter is a growth industry in physics and any truth in the matter may be long coming until the wheat is separated from the chaff. Is there a force in a true vacuum? A lot of the chaff came from Einstein's addition of a cosmological constant (added for religious/philosophical reasons - my theory says the universe is not steady state, I *know* it is steady state, I hereby add a cosmological constant to make it so) and others refuting Einstein when he said such a constant was his biggest blunder (no, Albert had the right idea, wrong constant!), sprinkle in calculation error regarding vacuum energy (i.e., dark energy), and there you are. Now comes the topic at hand, and my only point was - do we know the framework for the hypothesis in the article? Do we know the bent of those involved? Are they accepting strings as a corollary to membrane collision and positing spacetime laws in that regard?
I'd like to know more. For all effects and purposes, I'm as clueless as a lay, man.
Absolutely wrong. My wife has friends that are mind-numbingly clueless, right down to Nevada being part of California.
While the jury is out on M theory, et al, and now dark flow - and while your point may have been that the unknown is so disproportionately large to that already known as to not essentially matter - you're wrong. A in philosophy, F in science.
I sentence you to a night with my wife's friends while I escape to the local pub. I predict that upon joining me at said pub later, should you in fact retain the mental skills necessary for perambulation to thus make it as far as the pub, you will never again allow your brane to stray in such a fashion.
(Brane isn't misspelled - it's what'll be left of your once-brain.)
Glad it's humor because any semblance of any reality to a threat analysis and user response is sadly lacking.
The study was for browser-based dialog threats only - RTFA.
In all cases, mousing over the "OK" button would cause the cursor to turn into a hand button, behavior more typical of a browser control....
I find it hard to express without sarcasm that when an app or machine gets buggy, the cursor or pointer may go south, and I think that this is a NOT-TOO-UNCOMMON experience - not in frequency of occurrence, but in the BREADTH of users who have experienced it.
My postulated user thinking: "OK, it went south - it's all gobblety - even the cursor is nuts...."
The "researchers'" postulated user thinking: "Galloop, galloop, galloop - well, gee, Tennessee - lookie me while I ignore gobblety - hurhur, hurhur, I don't even notice the cursormagikit change-a-late'n...."
Yes, in a perfect world, users know everything about their experience and their machine's interface. Welcome to reality. Until that's fixed, blaming users for not recognizing malware vectors is idiotic. Had users been capable of recognizing malware vectors in the first place, malware wouldn't exist.
Sorry if I'm having a bad day on this one. But if there's any merit to my point and add the fact that the sample size is small, then science this ain't. And I'm disgusted that the FA calls users idiots, right from the headline.
1and1 is great. I have domain hosting (6 or 8 bucks a year, I forget) and a small $12/year email package - 5 email accounts, unlimited aliases, spam filtering, some virus checking.
Easy to use, easy to admin.
There's NO contender to Blackberry email in the market.
If you limit to the US market, I think that there is - a Helio Ocean with a $99/month unlimited voice/roaming/data plan. On mine, I get mail from Helio, Yahoo, Gmail, AIM, .mac, and a few others - all very well-managed with a pretty good interface. It also has Mail for Microsoft Exchange (uses Exchange 2003 SP2 or 2007 enabled for ActiveSync) that costs (an expensible) $10/month. Full QWERTY keyboard + a separate phone pad. Reads PDFs and MS Office docs. Out of the box, it has setups for many popular emails and is VERY EASY to configure for others. IMAP and POP3 supported.
Helio's recently been purchased; its popularity was never high and it marketed to the bling crowd (dumb, dumb, dumb move).
Battery life is very good (for me - I'm on it all of the time, so I don't want to venture into battery life arguments), even with my mail being auto-updated all of the time - and it's got a replaceable battery.
Mail headers and a head download, giving the option of downloading the full message if so inclined.
For me personally, reading mail on a Blackberry is no contest compared to my Ocean - the Ocean text and formating looks way better, less clunky.
The service itself is on Sprint's network, as I understand it, as HELIO is an MVNO - and I've basically enjoyed 3G service just about anywhere I've been for a lot of months.
I'm not a shill, I just wanted to put this info out. The Ocean is NOT a smartphone - it's a pretty good not-too-dumb phone.
As to non-email features - it's browser is crappy, but Opera Mini is there, good for my mobile browsing (but not an iPhone). YouTube app optimized for the device. Orientation sensitive - not by sensor but by keypad orientation (it slides two ways). Mediocre camera, good enough for occasional use. GPS built-in linked to Google Maps, Buddy Beacon, Where, and Garmin Mobile. Not open source. Not Windows nor Symbian OS. Skype available as separate app, but was too clunky to be useful (my opinion). AIM text chat (and email) built in. Windows Live Messenger text chat (and email) built in. Yahoo Messenger text chat (and email) built in.
Form factor not unlike a Neo1973 (not touch screen). Odd shape and layout, it isn't light and it isn't thin.
No data features on international roaming, last time I'd tried. (Blackberry wins on this - but I have horror stories and success stories of friends with Blackberry international access.)
And you get mail alerts when idling that are nicely non-obtrusive. A single front-panel button jumps to the alerted mail subject and sender (it's actually a non-account-specific inbox list for latest-alerts-only) and normal mousing has you reading quickly and efficiently.
But there is definitely a contender to the Blackberry in the email market in the US - and seems to offer other interesting features to boot.
I think it's another case of superior technology with a potential for dying because of very bad marketing - but until that day comes, I'll take a Helio Ocean over a Blackberry any day - specifically because of its email capabilities.
I totally agree and disagree with you, and worked in the audio industry in its heyday. I want to make a few common sense remarks in rebuttal to comments about audio wiring, as I am sure that in your zeal for common sense, you've thrown a bit of the baby out with the bath water. My comments are made based on double-blind tests (not so much), lab measurements, simulations and physical science.
First, you are correct. I worked in the audio industry, some years ago, in retail, distribution and finally in manufacturing. We took awards for our *applied science* in our (manufactured) products. Most are absolute snake oil, as you point out.
HOWEVER - let's start with typical wiring - lamp cord, or your basic 16 gauge zip wire. If you think about it - it's conducting AC (audio is ***theoretically*** 20 to 20kHz (actually much less) but it is AC. Therefore - zip wire is an inductor. Many esoteric wires are mega-multi-stranded and individually lacquered for insulation and braided to avoid this effect - and often become capacitive as a result.
The first thing the wire sees in a typical speaker is the crossover network. I won't argue snake oil, I will simply submit that if all of the following are actually true, then what I say applies. Here are the conditions: proper crossover, meaning all inductors at right angles to one another, non-magnetic leads on the capacitors, and the crossover actually equalizing for the drivers to achieve the proper crossover, not just generic circuits with generic drivers. (We made speakers - we tested and coded each driver and all parts, and tuned the crossovers to the drivers. With quality components, this is quite doable, and can be done without going overboard on price.) We used a very sophisticated circuit simulation program to model the drivers so as to optimize the crossover/equalizers. A typical woofer's impedance response took on the order of 17 to 25 passive components to model (simple pi to T or T to pi inputs were insufficient to characterize the impedance at all operating frequencies - for example). Finally, with such decent speakers, let's assume equally decent amplification - and - let's match the amp's characteristics - especially damping factor and how it's achieved (i.e., output impedance of the power transistors) to the to the particular speakers. This is the physical how of an amp performing better with some speakers than others and vice versa, all quality factors being equal, because of impedance balancing and matching being necessary for optimal power transfer.
Under these conditions, wiring can make a difference. It can be measured, it can be modeled, it can be predicted. Depending on the grotesqueness or quality of the match, it can be audible.
If you don't actually have the decent under the hood, physically (as in physics) defensive parts and construction and matching, then any extra filtering or impedance differences due to wiring WILL BE masked by the grosser errors of the system.
In the late 70s or early 80s - can't remember which - an excellent compromise solution was found for high quality speaker wiring: what we used to call 4-cross Romex. House wiring, basically, but with four STRANDED conductors, with good-quality copper and 14 gauge. With instrumentation and internal knowledge of all components (meaning - take 'em apart and measure them in the lab), you could optimize for theoretically better, but the 4 cross worked great. You run red ("positive" as they call it, even though it's AC) and black on opposing pairs. I'll try to illustrate in ascii:
xo
ox
The wire has a twist to it such that its inductance is much lower that 2-lead or zip wire, and is sufficient in gauge and stranding so as to not introduce capacitive reactance to any great degree. On any decent system, such wiring very often results in an audible improvement - provided an acceptable definition of decent and that the music being listened to is equally well-recorded (and not compressed, over compensated, etc, etc, etc - you know - music, n
My opinion is right only when it is. The only Macs I've owned have run OS X (with the exception of OS 9 as my fall-back to rebuild my OS X partition in the beta-10.0 transition). As I recall, MacOS is the name used to denote pre-OS X systems - I cannot tell if that's your intent or not, but the pre-iMacs you mention were pre-OS X. If your point was that those OSs were overrated, I'd agree, in the sense that I found them to be about on par with Windows - both were videogames, not OSs, to me.
I found Windows to be an intolerable experience until Windows 2000 and that one I liked, shared with others (not in the pirate sense, thank you), used extensively, and - if you will - campaigned for it. Replace Windows 2000 in the above statement with OS X and that's also true. I looked forward to XP upgrades until the actuality of it hit. First, on a purposely-slow machine, you could see the windows painted Classic, then painted with the newer XP theme - no excuse for that performance hit. Later, with SP2, performance was back on par with a quality product, and I like XP SP2 - as much as I can for a non-*nix system.
OS X in Apple's rush to add gee-whiz has lost some of its original BSD appeal for me - but with greater acceptance, enough new apps have hit that I rarely miss it - but then, csh and vi were things I've been happy with.
As for stability, Windows finally got there with Win2k and improved from there with XP. Until then, there was no question that OS X was not overrated over Win for stability. When VirtualPC came out, I could run Windows under OS X. When Fink came out and gcc upgraded to fully support the architecture, building GNU apps under OS X became a walk in the park. When Microsoft Office X came out, OS X users had the full Office without having to resort to Win under VirtualPC (I contend that the previous Offices on a Mac were weak compared to Windows versions, and that post Office X, the Win versions have been weaker.) When OroborOSX came out, it became a walk in the park to run various desktops under Linux, just a hot switch away from the OS X desktop or the Windows desktop. Oh - and its underlying stuff via the terminal was just straightforward BSD (admittedly frustrating to those more familiar with Linux as their only reference), so it was easy to pull server tricks with OS X (and still is) without resorting to OS X Server.
If admiring that and noting that no other OS gives me access to so many desktops (and their important features) and server features, all for free (post-OS X purchase or upgrade purchase) with the exception of a virtual tool and a Windows license, makes me a Mac-o-lite, so be it. That you believe that although you can do all of those things under OS X, but cannot under Windows or Linux, and that OS X is overrated (if OS X was indeed your reference), so be that, too.
Windows is a brute-force OS by a brute force company, and has only risen to prominence for reasons so aptly stated in Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" - which I'd recommend you read or re-read, as it clearly explains the MS Kool-Aide far better than I would attempt.
I think people should use and enjoy the OS that supports the apps they need and want in the way that they want those apps to work.
And if that OS allows you to do what you need and want without being a computer expert and without calling me as a pal out of frustration needing free support, then it's a great OS (therefore, that statement applies equally to Linux, OS X and WinXP to the equal amount that all three examples suck (Vista notably excluded from the list)) based on this personal-for-me criteria.
My tirade was against Windows mentality and the Microsoft ads. I think the Apple "I'm a Mac" ads are targeting people who might not know that they have a true commercial OS alternative if they've become frustrated with their Windows experiences of things just not working right, and who still think of Macs in pre-OS X terms or in terms of hearsay rather than knowledge. I think the M
Horse. Water. Drink.
Clear thinking on that - right up there with that mythical lock-in that includes MS Office, Windows if you want it, BSD sources, GNU sources.
Yep, being locked in to a proven cost-effective hybrid platform - best of Apple, best of FOSS - and then to be outed as so elitist by those ads - it's really devastating.
To your point - thanks. I'm disabused of the idea that information fazes your preconceptions in the slightest, as someone dedicated to viewing the world objectively; without emotionalism, wishful thinking, cynicism or silly prejudices.
Best luck to you.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
It was nothing of the sort.
It was Billy's ego finally getting to get his rage satisfied against a Linux bumper sticker that one of our GUI programmers had above his monitor since the dot-com days: "LINUX - In a world without walls or fences, who needs Gates?"
Ads serve two purposes - to persuade you to buy, and to persuade you to remain happy after you buy. That you think that ad in any way was devastating to Apple is merely a statement that you've bought the second part of the message. 500-level marketing courses preach that those who buy this second part of the message did so because they needed to - and because they need to, that part of the message is included in the ad.
You'd do well to not admit publicly, without anonymity, that you thought the ad devastated Apple - you might be not be realizing what message you're sending to those around you, about yourself.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
The stereotypes are of the PC vs. Mac. Getting a Mac doesn't make you cooler - it makes you a user of a cooler system. Using a PC doesn't make you fat and bald - it makes you lame.
And the exclusivity of Apple products doesn't come from conspicuous consumption - it comes from being intelligent enough to not drink the fucking Kool Aide - even if you do think it tastes great.
The reason that the Apple ads were successful is because many people - unlike you - had the ability to think in more than 1 dimension at a time.
Apple ads essentially said, here's a metaphor for your OS - which do you want? Microsoft ads said, see? See? See? Apple makes fun of you, but not us.
Right. The guys that gave you ME and Vista are not inherently making fun of you. Of course not.
Maybe this can help wake you up: The Apple PC wasn't fat, balding and uncool - he was a CONFORMIST. Just like every character that appeared in the Microsoft ad - all cliche, no substance.
You're right about one thing - the Microsoft ad was very true to the Microsoft defender is all about - conformity. And you're right about what you're trying to describe as empowerment - conformity thrives on large numbers acting the same.
Looking for an individual in the Microsoft ad - a non-conformist - is like looking at all of the differences you'll find in a fundamentalist tent meeting, id est, none.
Kool Aide, Kool Aide, tastes great - wish I had some - can't wait!
Compadre - if we've learned anything, it's this:
There is no limit whatsoever to the amount of interpretation and rationalization a fundamentalist will use to get a holy scripture to justify insane or toxically illogical actions or beliefs.
This is true of any fundamentalism - regardless of religion or topic.
Your outcome is logically correct only if the premise is unmutable - QED, the premise is mutable, the outcome cannot be specified.
This fundamentalist behavior defies any causal analysis - as cause and effect changes for the fundamentalist over time.
Belief in creationism or ID is not coincidentally undertaken only by a lack of skills required for causal analysis or understanding of a causal universe. War is causal. Aggression is causal. Response is causal. Using belief in creationism as a predictor for the suitability of appropriate wartime response is not only logical - it's downright sensical.
Sending in a creationist to oversee nuclear (or any geopolitical) outcomes and expecting success is like sending a dwarf into the NBA and betting that they'll make player of the year.
Today, I awoke in Bizarro Universe - I could tell because I found a path where the Gates/Seinfeld commercials make sense.
It seems like it's part of the *marketing* plan to prop up whatever MS is going to do with Vista - or its OS future in general - Bill Gates is going to return to head Microsoft. As the commercials suggest - and cater to the mass ignorance - Bill is a genius, knows design, knows what kids want, has connected a billion people - and the problem is he's retired and out of touch.
Once you solve out of touch, you can solve retired.
Further, future news releases have Balmer stepping down due to health reasons, in the best traditions of the Soviet.
Vista will equate to Non-person, its successor to Gates - the perennial hero, the everyman, the genius that no one can live without.
Bill wiggles and computer industry convulses in rebirth. Bill has the answers to the questions. We are in dire straights with his Jupiter-sized brain locked away in his moon-like mansion orbiting above Seattle - but he is about to come back down to earth and solve all.
I think the rest of my day is going to get worse, until I awake and discover it was all a bad dream - and as I awake I'll look out my bedroom window, I'll see it burrowing into the ridge behind my house and no one will believe me - until it is all too late.
Windows Gurus could end up 'lightning rods for customers' frustrations with Vista.'"
Let me fix that....
Apple Geniuses have probably ended up as 'lightning rods for customers' frustrations with Vista.'"
I've run Skype and iChat (OS X, obviously) side by side for some time, precisely because not everyone can access iChat. Ethan1701 may be being kind to his Mac friends trying to not ferment duplicity on them or maybe they're the sort of mom-and-pop users that don't do well with outside-Mac software.
I have this advice to offer. I have a mom-and-pop type friend that gets everything wrong on her computer. I was able to talk her through a Skype install and account setup on Windows. It's even easier on a Mac. The Skype website detects when being browsed with Safari on a Mac, downloads just what you need and the account setup wizard is 100% AOK and easy.
iChat's pretty good, but not as good as it was before they went H.264 - it's a common bitch that since then, frame rate and video quality have generally gone down and despite Apple's claims, this is true even on hardwired small LANs with best/fastest Macs.
There's a point to this - having both Skype and iChat on a Mac is A VERY GOOD THING. Some days, you get bad iChat video, so your Mac friends can switch to Skype and sometimes it's better.
iChat advantages over Skype: 1) If both users are .mac (now MobileMe) users, iChat engages in secure video conferencing. How secure I can't say but I point it out out of fairness. (Yes, lots more advantages if on top of that, everyone lives in the Leopard-fast-Core-2-Duo universe for the pedantic among us.) 2) iChat is far superior to Skype at echo control - seems to be more laptop related (co-located mic and speakers) - fixable on Skype if external speakers are used and can be angled way from the mic.
Skype advantage over iChat: 1) Both apps let you transfer a file by dropping it into the entry widget of a text chat. Skype wins hands down over iChat on this feature - it's not even close. You get a very nice pop-up almost instantly that the other person wants to send you a file, you can cancel, save as, or open. iChat on the other hand seems (actually, I'm kinda sure) to first copy the file on the sender's side, then copy the file to the receiver. For larger files, this is a real drag. For me, this feature is very important. You don't have to worry about email file size of who-got-what-when - you'll share more photos, videos and documents when it's easier to do so. 2) I've travelled a LOT internationally (was away from home 6 months last year) - and my personal experience is that Skype is far better between US and Europe - and in a lot of places in Asia, you can forget iChat altogether, period. I've also had iChat trouble while in some US hotels, but not Skype. 3) If you want to have an AUDIO conference, this is a breeze in Skype - I've had 8 people in a Skype audio conference (free) - read: all sorts of platforms and user levels - with zero problems for anyone, and I've done this often.
DISADVANTAGE OF HAVING BOTH INSTALLED ON A MAC: Sometimes one or the other won't connect reliably or won't see an iSight reliably after long sessions (days, weeks or months) of using both and having both constantly up. We (myself and my chat buddy) then shut down and restart whichever of the two apps we're using at the time; we do this together because we can't tell if the fault is on one side, the other side, or both sides of the chat. This always works. Personally, I put up with this because 1) it's infrequent and minor with a solid workaround and 2) each app is using a private protocol and 3) I'm living like I'm one of the Jetsons for free and I don't mind the workaround as much as I'd mind uninstalling Skype and losing cross-platform freedom. And you get a new route on each login - and the routes are very long. So maybe we're restarting because of a crappy route and not necessarily crappy software. All I'm saying is I hang with people that are pretty intolerant of restarting crappy software, but restarting iChat or Skype just doesn't seem to hit our radar.
VIDEO QUALITY: once in a while, something magical happens and the iChat video is astounding. Apple claims this is
Thank you! I was as confused as others about what the OP wanted but now it makes sense.
...the iPod requires specific software to interface with and don't think about going cross platform, many an ipod has been wiped by going from Mac to PC and visa versa
I don't pretend to be an expert, but I did find out an interesting fact when trying to take my iPod between WinXP and OS X - caution, this applies as accurate at the time but can't say if still true - I have one of the first iPod Nanos. So, I'm going to speak in present tense to 1) keep it straight in my own brane and 2) if it's still this way, I'm accidentally right!
The iPod (Nano) was formatted using FAT32 out of the box - this was the heady days of transition from Firewire to USB and really targeting the Windows users. But you plug it into a Mac on Tuesday and stand in the corner (or maybe say don't sync and use as mass storage in addition to tunes as I did) and it reformats it as Mac OS Extended.
Take it cross-platform once it's Mac OS Extended, and Win iTunes complains that it's unreadable - proceed from there and it does first things first - reformats it as FAT32.
Fortunately for me, I stopped before proceeding. I was running WinXP under the dual-boot beta so I knew my iPod was ok minutes before. Had it been a different laptop - dedicated Win - I prolly would have proceeded to lose everything, thinking it was Windows or Win iTunes.
But it's incompatible file systems as the root cause for cross platform woes.
Not trying to debate merits - just trying to enlighten as an ounce of prevention. HTH.
If they make criminals of EVERYONE, then they ARE fair.
Please tell me that you were laughing your ass off when you wrote that and only decided you were on to something when modded up. And please tell me that your friends modded this drek as insightful as part of the joke.
Seriously. Somebuddy's liable to read that and start to believe that it has merit. Think of the children.
Quality is binary - you have it or you don't. Please mod parent up a whole lot.
Does that mean that Vista is therefore a step backwards? Or do Microsoft finally admit that they rushed a beta product to release?
I just remembered hearing about Longhorn some years back. Is it just my memory, or wasn't Vista a retreat from Longhorn never making it to market? If my memory/understanding on this is accurate, then Vista was a step backwards from Longhorn. As far as rushing a beta to market, if Vista was indeed a Longhorn derivative rather than a new development, then no, they didn't rush a beta to market. The Longhorn was failing and they rushed a mitigation to market, as I'm sure of my memory in the part where Longhorn delivery was beginning to sound like Duke Nukem Forever projections.
I'm happy for somebuddy to square me away if I'm wrong on this - memory isn't perfect and I frankly got confused trying to google it.
Is it really that hard not to knee-jerk?
Sorry, I know you're sore, but I can't resist - "you must be new here."
I'm guilty of misinterpreting you also - except I didn't go down the path others did. I got the part implied about stability, but I also began to ponder performance and wondered if you didn't have a point. What operating system allows an app to automagically attach itself to other apps and affect their performance? I'd also questioned the idea that apps NEED to do this to work well. But then, I use GIMP, not Photoshop, and Miro for torrents - and make no pretense of knowing which apps are better, much less how they compare under Windows - because they sound to me like they do very well doing the same job without all of the evil.
I do have a point, one that I think may be slightly important - enough people read it my way or yours to rate your first post very highly. You don't know if that's a function of misinterpretation or not. Neither do you know now, that if you had stated things as clearly as you first suggest you could have, that you wouldn't have been called a shill.
I think you're overreacting, especially with a handle like causality. You're postulating the other guy's mental processes and concluding that it's a two-way fuckup if he misunderstood. Even after almost completely recognizing that your processes triggered his, you're not a mind reader - you don't know.
BTW - I agree with others, not so much you now - a bad scheduler and poor task control is a shortcoming of the OS. I say Windows suffers from both. At one time, the the IBM Fellows at CMU taught that quality is a binary - you have it or you don't. I find no difference from a user perspective whether I restart to gain control, gain speed or because the system has hung or crashed in the most unstable way possible - either way, I lose.
And while I'm ranting, I anecdotally offer that I've had significantly less to complain about with WinXP and rarely (compared to previous Wins) had to shut it down, but for some crazy reason, my shutdown rate under Parallels on a Mac is even far lower.
So are common Win problems stability, resource management, third party apps, bad hardware or bad machine interfaces? I couldn't say, even if I often do.
I recall reading somewhere that iTunes is essentially an xml parser/browser and the actual work is done by Quicktime.
I may have that wrong in part, but it makes sense that they wouldn't duplicate functions. I suppose it might make more sense that they would simply be using shared libraries for media playback. Perhaps they do, but they don't try to manage library installation across two installers - they simply require QT installation for iTunes.
It's been a while since I've installed either on Windows; I wasn't aware of the systray task install. I'd hate the hell out of that. What possesses people to think the systray must be used? My personal path was Apple II, CP/M, HP-UX, VMS, *nices, DOS, OS/2, Win and finally Macs. By the time I'd seen Win, I was no strangers to computers, but the systray was new and OK. When others decided to plant stuff there mysteriously, I learned to hate them. I had enough to keep straight. OK, sorry, I guess that's all "get off my lawn" stuff.
I'm a Safari fan - but sneaking installs of it in? That makes it - what? - bloatware?
Even though I far prefer OS X over Windows, here's something anyone with an ounce of sense can relate to - make your Apple experience bad under Windows and you're not going to blame anyone but Apple. How is that going to encourage you to become a bigger spender? It won't.
A good salesman takes care of the big-ticket repeat customers.
A great salesman treats all customers the same, recognizing that a dollar to one guy might be a lot bigger than a hundred bucks to the next dude - and through respect, builds those big-ticket repeat customers.
I'm sure that whatever fool at Apple thought to do this to you did so convinced that being pushy was somehow a good thing.
There's a simple explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome