How much RAM can you put in your Macbook? Tell me about the speed of the discrete, modular SLI GPUs. How is the performance on any Apple computer compared to any PC at the same price?
I can install 16gb of ram in my i7 Macbook Pro 15".
The performance isn't what this discussion is about. It's the premium features and fit-and-finish available on Apple products. This debate is about whether Apple products are Mercedes vs. Dell's Hyundai car analogy.
What is the resolution on that Dell laptop? Tell me about the throughput on the Dell thunderbolt port. How is the resolution on that Dell Inspirion all-in-one (iMac equivalent)? 1600x900? At twenty inches? Ouch!
This could have been a much better video. Roblimo doesn't understand how to gather compelling content. Ughhh!
He talked to the robotics engineer asking him all kinds of questions about stuff nobody is excited to learn about - "How many people are on your team at UT?" "Why doesn't the school let you use their laser cutter?" A better direction would have been to ask the guy how the laser cutter works and how the pieces it was processing would fit into the robot project. That was completely missing.
Also, half the video was about some card game. Less than 1% of this video is about 'hacking' anything and 99.9% is about the social aspects of the ATX Hackerspace. This is a missed opportunity for Slashdot to create relevant content.
If you are going to ask visitors to spend 11 minutes of their lives looking at your video, you better make it worth it. This isn't.
This time they don't want to be as dumb as they were in the past when they let our nation's enemies have all the information they need about the attacks we were doing to them. In this case, once they find out exactly what it's doing and can determine if it's some retarded hacking team that wants to steal CC info or it's something the government's involved in.
Hmmm... Checking the Kaspersky website to verify the location of the company headquarters reveals their definition of "our nation's enemies" might not match up with that of chemosh6969's definition.
The companyâ(TM)s headquarters are located in Moscow, Russia, from which it oversees global operations and business development.
This distinction might explain why Kaspersky was responsible for unearthing Stuxnet, while MacAfee, et. al. were pretty silent about it.
It's too bad the environmentalist morons who don't actually understand the fucking environment let alone a dam or an atom won't let us use them.
The obstacle to nuclear isn't so much political as it is expensive. The start-up investment in building a nuclear reactor facility is massive, and the per-kw cost savings of generating power from nuclear isn't so great that it makes the investors a pile of money right away.
"One of the big problems with nuclear power is the enormous upfront cost. These reactors are extremely expensive to build. While the returns may be very great, they're also very slow. It can sometimes take decades to recoup initial costs. Since many investors have a short attention span, they don't like to wait that long for their investment to pay off."
It's a long, slow process to put a project like this together from a financial perspective. When Fukushima happened, the federal government was very careful not to mouth-off about increasing regulations on nuclear power production. It would have jeopardized the projects currently collecting funding.
If you think the environmental lobby is the obstacle to nuclear, I think you should compare the public resistance to fracking and other fossil fuels with public demonstrations against nuclear. The resistance isn't that significant.
If you get the gist of the message, then my job is done -- I've effectively communicated the idea.
Poor grammar and spelling is an example of poor craftsmanship. Either the composer is unskilled or uncaring. Why should I care about the message written by someone who doesn't care enough to use the established standards of communication? If the person didn't learn the difference between "then" and "than" in second grade, should I expect to find wisdom within the content of her message?
I've got a lot of content to read throughout the day. I don't have the time to read and consider everything. Spotting poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation is one way I can increase the signal to noise ratio.
"Here are two things we made, they won't be able to run the same programs, we're not going to really demo any of it, we won't tell you the price, we won't tell you when it's shipping, and none of you here get to play with it."
And let me add:
"And we've got each of these devices tethered to power supplies because we've barely gotten the OS optimized for this hardware and we can't depend on battery life lasting through the entire presentation. YMMV when it's released, hopefully."
They've got to undercut Apple's price and provide more and better features.
You've probably already realized this, but didn't mention it in your post, so I thought I'd post an addendum...
With Apple's massive volume discounts in the supply chain, it's unlikely Microsoft can match their price without taking a loss on each sale. This is what they did on the xBox360 and Amazon is doing with the Kindle Fire. Microsoft has the cash reserves to pull this off so long as the board of directors allows.
Here's the trick, though. Their hardware partners (Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, et. al) won't be able to do that. Not unless there's dramatic profit-sharing built into content delivery. Because the hardware partners can't sell units at a loss, AND they'll have the additional expense of OS licenses, Microsoft's move here literally shuts the door on any third-party releasing Windows-based tablet devices.
North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses.
We've had them in the US for a VERY long time. They're mostly referred to as 'mobile homes', but a more recent euphemism has been applied- 'manufactured housing.'
The common problem with anything prefab vs. custom is quality. The emphasis in prefab is always cost savings. The end user is then defined by those willing to make a trade-off of cheap over nice.
Regardless of whether the actual usage experience is good or bad, the minority market share puts Windows Phone users at a disadvantage when it comes to accessories. I have seen plenty of reasonably-priced ( under $140) aftermarket car stereos that are speccd. to be iPhone compatible and even can control apps like Pandora through their front bezel controls. I haven't really seen any that support WinPhone7 or any nightstand clock radios that can wake you up playing mp3s off a WinPhone7.
It's difficult to just magically have this kind of third-party ecosystem materialize. Definitely a chicken-and-egg situation... Not one that I am eager to be a part of.
My company pays for hosted Exchange services. It's all taken care of. I'm sorry you have to administer your own Exchange Server. I hear it's quite complicated. You certainly sound angry about it.
I think you've identified an excellent opportunity for Microsoft to move into yet another product space and take over. Sounds like whoever makes this "Exchange Server" product has really dropped the ball on usability and user-experience. All Microsoft needs to do is create a competing product using their awesome Win7phone user-experience experts and put it out in the marketplace. They'll win over all the irate admins like "h4rr4r" and sell millions of licenses. Whoever makes "Exchange Server" will then go out of business by failing to update their product to compete with the new offering.
You're original post was a regurgitation of Microsoft marketing materials rather than a personal anecdote illustrating the strength of the Win7phone platform. That's why people are accusing you to be an astroturfer.
Judging from your post history, you're very familiar with Microsoft. Likely even to be an employee or have some such interest in the company. With your intimate knowledge of the company, you know it's true that MS marketing employs astro-turfing "street teams" to promote Microsoft products. I suppose you'll just need to do a better job of personalizing your advocacy to avoid this confusion in the future.
The gist of it being that Windows isn't working, and Elop is killing any possible "plan B" for the company.
I wouldn't exactly call "selling off the patent portfolio to Google" no possible "plan B." That route is only profitable if the proceeds of the sale don't have to be spent on workers' salaries. The layoffs are required so the spoils are entirely given to the investors.
They survived Vista so they'll survive Windows 8, Microsoft is far too entrenched to flop in one generation.
Of course, we're assuming a failure with Windows 8 / RT, and then there was Vista preceding it. So, it's a bit more than a 'flop' on one generation here.
Don't underestimate the fallout from the evolution to mobile devices. Very big players are holding meetings each day asking each other, "What are we going to do?" It wasn't on any of their product roadmaps. Suddenly new competitors have appeared that they had never considered a threat, and those competitors are raking in unimaginable wealth.
Companies like AMD thought they were only competing against Intel. They had fortified all of their efforts in that battle against Intel. Now they've turned around and recognized they have several more armies attacking for which they have little weapons to defend their business. I hope they make it, but the prospects are dire for AMD. If they are able to shift gears and prosper, Ron Howard needs to film a sequel to Apollo 13 about the guys at AMD who pulled it off.
Oh, and Dell? That company isn't going to be around in two years. Microsoft will be around for a while, but it might look significantly different in the years to come. Assuredly, Ballmer won't be on the payroll much longer.
but for the vast majority of business use out there it is very much alive.
What bandwidth is the 'vast majority of business use out there' demanding? I proffer that 99.9999% of business users are passing around documents and files that are less than 200 mb throughout the day. If they're working with larger files, then a USB dongle is acceptable in the workplace.
I work in an enterprise software firm. We have ethernet available, but the wifi seems to work just fine for all levels of the organization.
I'm not suggesting GigE is disappearing. I'm saying that the majority of users in the majority of situations aren't needing it, so there's no compelling argument to build it into the device when doing so carries a price on form factor.
Except that floppy disk isnt rarely used. I get the impression that every one of my friends with a laptop has used floppy disk at sometime or another (if not on a regular basis) because its more reliable than cdrom, and it just works even if you know nothing about removable media.
Your post reminded me of some stuff people were saying when the iMac came out and was missing features people claimed were essential at the time.
Unless you are a graphics professional, i just dont see the use-case for it.
You can see more stuff on your screen at once. You won't have to scroll as frequently. No disrespect intended, but it sounds like you've only been exposed to 1080 displays. To people who remember, the value of CRTs was that you could run ridiculously-high resolutions-- 1080 sucks. I'm one of those people who has hated LCD displays because I'm sick of not being able to put two documents on the screen at once and see them side-by-side.
Retina for a desktop environment will be fantastic.
Yes, I'm sure Slashdot's readership is a highly sought-after market for $70,000 water purifiers.
This is an ugly example of Slashdot's owners whoring the site for SEO purposes. It ain't about trying to sell water purifiers to anonymous cowards. It's about boosting this company in Google rankings when buyers are searching for water purification systems.
Mark already could have had any woman he wanted who marries for money, and he continues to choose Priscilla.
Your original statement suggested that every living woman is only interested in money when selecting a partner. That's a bit of an offensive perspective on women.
Since corporations have been ruled to be people by the Supreme Court, I'm excited to see the Democrats finally concoct a distraction for enacting legislation that will ultimately put Dick Cheney's employer in jail.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-N.H., called the company's move "corporate greed at its worst." He added, "This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years. At the same time they'll be avoiding U.S. taxes, I'm sure they won't stop insisting on taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash."
It would be premature to alter the Wikipedia definition of hubris right now. Once Windows Phone OS and the ARM version of Windows 8 end up costing Ballmer his job, then we can submit our edit.
They can't seem to beat Apple at its own game, though. I don't see that as a corporate failing, rather the inability to work with an unstable element. (Image, the perception of cool)
There is a largely-held perception that Apple's success is due to slick advertising. Where Apple has excelled is in product management as a function of marketing. They have powerfully identified the feature set and price points people will pay for their products. They have accurately forecast demand so that they can leverage volume purchasing of components to keep the price at those acceptable points while building in a healthy profit margin. They are firing on all cylinders, and even a few cylinders nobody thought existed.
Meanwhile, Ballmer has ignored the trends and innovations of other companies until success in the marketplace forces him to mount a too-late response (Zune, Windows Store, Windows Phone 7, et. al.). Consider this 2007 interview where Ballmer mocked the iPhone's prospects. For him to do that means that he was ignoring competitive intelligence studies that he should have been taking seriously. Even then, his marketing department should have been focus-grouping on the iPhone to determine what the demand was and projecting out where it could go. Had he read what the competitive intelligence studies would have told him, his response would have been to acknowledge the vacuum in existing smartphone technology and hint about forthcoming Microsoft innovations to come in that space.
In years to come, the wikipedia definition for the word "hubris" will contain a link to that video clip.
Slashdot Mirror
I can install 16gb of ram in my i7 Macbook Pro 15".
The performance isn't what this discussion is about. It's the premium features and fit-and-finish available on Apple products. This debate is about whether Apple products are Mercedes vs. Dell's Hyundai car analogy.
Seth
What is the resolution on that Dell laptop? Tell me about the throughput on the Dell thunderbolt port. How is the resolution on that Dell Inspirion all-in-one (iMac equivalent)? 1600x900? At twenty inches? Ouch!
Not really the same parts as Dell.
Seth
This could have been a much better video. Roblimo doesn't understand how to gather compelling content. Ughhh!
He talked to the robotics engineer asking him all kinds of questions about stuff nobody is excited to learn about - "How many people are on your team at UT?" "Why doesn't the school let you use their laser cutter?" A better direction would have been to ask the guy how the laser cutter works and how the pieces it was processing would fit into the robot project. That was completely missing.
Also, half the video was about some card game. Less than 1% of this video is about 'hacking' anything and 99.9% is about the social aspects of the ATX Hackerspace. This is a missed opportunity for Slashdot to create relevant content.
If you are going to ask visitors to spend 11 minutes of their lives looking at your video, you better make it worth it. This isn't.
Seth
Hmmm... Checking the Kaspersky website to verify the location of the company headquarters reveals their definition of "our nation's enemies" might not match up with that of chemosh6969's definition.
This distinction might explain why Kaspersky was responsible for unearthing Stuxnet, while MacAfee, et. al. were pretty silent about it.
There is a huge backlog of 1080p devices they need to sell through before those 'manufacturers' want to bring these displays to market.
Seth
The obstacle to nuclear isn't so much political as it is expensive. The start-up investment in building a nuclear reactor facility is massive, and the per-kw cost savings of generating power from nuclear isn't so great that it makes the investors a pile of money right away.
Check this wikipedia article about the economics of nuclear power plants. Here is a choice quote that was sourced from The Atlantic:
It's a long, slow process to put a project like this together from a financial perspective. When Fukushima happened, the federal government was very careful not to mouth-off about increasing regulations on nuclear power production. It would have jeopardized the projects currently collecting funding.
If you think the environmental lobby is the obstacle to nuclear, I think you should compare the public resistance to fracking and other fossil fuels with public demonstrations against nuclear. The resistance isn't that significant.
Seth
Poor grammar and spelling is an example of poor craftsmanship. Either the composer is unskilled or uncaring. Why should I care about the message written by someone who doesn't care enough to use the established standards of communication? If the person didn't learn the difference between "then" and "than" in second grade, should I expect to find wisdom within the content of her message?
I've got a lot of content to read throughout the day. I don't have the time to read and consider everything. Spotting poor grammar, spelling, and punctuation is one way I can increase the signal to noise ratio.
-- Seth Johnson
Said documentary is available for streaming via Netflix and features Danny DeVito. Probably as the narrator or something.
Seth
Most assuredly, this liver was used for a lifetime by Steve Jobs.
Seth
And let me add:
"And we've got each of these devices tethered to power supplies because we've barely gotten the OS optimized for this hardware and we can't depend on battery life lasting through the entire presentation. YMMV when it's released, hopefully."
You've probably already realized this, but didn't mention it in your post, so I thought I'd post an addendum...
With Apple's massive volume discounts in the supply chain, it's unlikely Microsoft can match their price without taking a loss on each sale. This is what they did on the xBox360 and Amazon is doing with the Kindle Fire. Microsoft has the cash reserves to pull this off so long as the board of directors allows.
Here's the trick, though. Their hardware partners (Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, et. al) won't be able to do that. Not unless there's dramatic profit-sharing built into content delivery. Because the hardware partners can't sell units at a loss, AND they'll have the additional expense of OS licenses, Microsoft's move here literally shuts the door on any third-party releasing Windows-based tablet devices.
Seth
We've had them in the US for a VERY long time. They're mostly referred to as 'mobile homes', but a more recent euphemism has been applied- 'manufactured housing.'
The common problem with anything prefab vs. custom is quality. The emphasis in prefab is always cost savings. The end user is then defined by those willing to make a trade-off of cheap over nice.
seth
Regardless of whether the actual usage experience is good or bad, the minority market share puts Windows Phone users at a disadvantage when it comes to accessories. I have seen plenty of reasonably-priced ( under $140) aftermarket car stereos that are speccd. to be iPhone compatible and even can control apps like Pandora through their front bezel controls. I haven't really seen any that support WinPhone7 or any nightstand clock radios that can wake you up playing mp3s off a WinPhone7.
It's difficult to just magically have this kind of third-party ecosystem materialize. Definitely a chicken-and-egg situation... Not one that I am eager to be a part of.
Seth
I think you've identified an excellent opportunity for Microsoft to move into yet another product space and take over. Sounds like whoever makes this "Exchange Server" product has really dropped the ball on usability and user-experience. All Microsoft needs to do is create a competing product using their awesome Win7phone user-experience experts and put it out in the marketplace. They'll win over all the irate admins like "h4rr4r" and sell millions of licenses. Whoever makes "Exchange Server" will then go out of business by failing to update their product to compete with the new offering.
Seth
You're original post was a regurgitation of Microsoft marketing materials rather than a personal anecdote illustrating the strength of the Win7phone platform. That's why people are accusing you to be an astroturfer.
Judging from your post history, you're very familiar with Microsoft. Likely even to be an employee or have some such interest in the company. With your intimate knowledge of the company, you know it's true that MS marketing employs astro-turfing "street teams" to promote Microsoft products. I suppose you'll just need to do a better job of personalizing your advocacy to avoid this confusion in the future.
Seth
I wouldn't exactly call "selling off the patent portfolio to Google" no possible "plan B." That route is only profitable if the proceeds of the sale don't have to be spent on workers' salaries. The layoffs are required so the spoils are entirely given to the investors.
Seth
Of course, we're assuming a failure with Windows 8 / RT, and then there was Vista preceding it. So, it's a bit more than a 'flop' on one generation here.
Don't underestimate the fallout from the evolution to mobile devices. Very big players are holding meetings each day asking each other, "What are we going to do?" It wasn't on any of their product roadmaps. Suddenly new competitors have appeared that they had never considered a threat, and those competitors are raking in unimaginable wealth.
Companies like AMD thought they were only competing against Intel. They had fortified all of their efforts in that battle against Intel. Now they've turned around and recognized they have several more armies attacking for which they have little weapons to defend their business. I hope they make it, but the prospects are dire for AMD. If they are able to shift gears and prosper, Ron Howard needs to film a sequel to Apollo 13 about the guys at AMD who pulled it off.
Oh, and Dell? That company isn't going to be around in two years. Microsoft will be around for a while, but it might look significantly different in the years to come. Assuredly, Ballmer won't be on the payroll much longer.
Seth Johnson
What bandwidth is the 'vast majority of business use out there' demanding? I proffer that 99.9999% of business users are passing around documents and files that are less than 200 mb throughout the day. If they're working with larger files, then a USB dongle is acceptable in the workplace.
I work in an enterprise software firm. We have ethernet available, but the wifi seems to work just fine for all levels of the organization.
I'm not suggesting GigE is disappearing. I'm saying that the majority of users in the majority of situations aren't needing it, so there's no compelling argument to build it into the device when doing so carries a price on form factor.
Seth
Your post reminded me of some stuff people were saying when the iMac came out and was missing features people claimed were essential at the time.
seth
You can see more stuff on your screen at once. You won't have to scroll as frequently. No disrespect intended, but it sounds like you've only been exposed to 1080 displays. To people who remember, the value of CRTs was that you could run ridiculously-high resolutions-- 1080 sucks. I'm one of those people who has hated LCD displays because I'm sick of not being able to put two documents on the screen at once and see them side-by-side.
Retina for a desktop environment will be fantastic.
seth
This is an ugly example of Slashdot's owners whoring the site for SEO purposes. It ain't about trying to sell water purifiers to anonymous cowards. It's about boosting this company in Google rankings when buyers are searching for water purification systems.
Seth
Your original statement suggested that every living woman is only interested in money when selecting a partner. That's a bit of an offensive perspective on women.
Seth
Back in 2007, Halliburton was making so much money off no-bid war-related contracts, it moved headquarters out of America in order to avoid paying taxes on all the money it was making from the US government.
Very clever Mr. Schumer!
It would be premature to alter the Wikipedia definition of hubris right now. Once Windows Phone OS and the ARM version of Windows 8 end up costing Ballmer his job, then we can submit our edit.
Seth
There is a largely-held perception that Apple's success is due to slick advertising. Where Apple has excelled is in product management as a function of marketing. They have powerfully identified the feature set and price points people will pay for their products. They have accurately forecast demand so that they can leverage volume purchasing of components to keep the price at those acceptable points while building in a healthy profit margin. They are firing on all cylinders, and even a few cylinders nobody thought existed.
Meanwhile, Ballmer has ignored the trends and innovations of other companies until success in the marketplace forces him to mount a too-late response (Zune, Windows Store, Windows Phone 7, et. al.). Consider this 2007 interview where Ballmer mocked the iPhone's prospects. For him to do that means that he was ignoring competitive intelligence studies that he should have been taking seriously. Even then, his marketing department should have been focus-grouping on the iPhone to determine what the demand was and projecting out where it could go. Had he read what the competitive intelligence studies would have told him, his response would have been to acknowledge the vacuum in existing smartphone technology and hint about forthcoming Microsoft innovations to come in that space.
In years to come, the wikipedia definition for the word "hubris" will contain a link to that video clip.
Seth