Does anybody see that these results are in still favor of open source? The fact is, it's actually a beautiful thing that the difference in quality is marginal. This equality then becomes the rubric by which to judge other elements of the design process, and choices about whether to develop and deploy programs with open source or closed source.
People make claims about the need for closed source all the time, usually revolving around the need to a predictable level of quality, or some other factor. The fact is, this results proves that its a wash whether you choose open or closed--so why not choose open?
There's a deep significance here I'm failing to capture completely. Someone else word it better if they can. But there didn't need to be some blow-out victory of open source over closed source for this to be a victory. All open source needed to do was compare--which it did, clearly--with closed source, in terms of value, to secure its worth.
This "customers will be free to attach any device and any application to its network by the end of the year" seems like a complete 180 to that mindset. The only way I see them pulling that is if some huge charge is added to your data plan to allow it. They already nickel and dime you if you want to tether a phone instead of using their air card.
Yeah, exactly. I've been with Verizon for almost 5 years on a family plan, now up to 5 phones and it's been one of the worst experiences in terms of hardware and upgrading. Every two years you get the chance to upgrade to another proprietary, locked-in phone, and if you want to buy a better phone or upgrade before, you're paying an arm and a leg for even the most basic phones, and renewing your subscription for two more years.
I'd love to see cell phones become like cell phone numbers: you can them whereever you go. Hardware should be carrier independent. It's not like my ISP makes me buy a computer which only works with their network. My TV works with any cable provider. But my cell phone?
It's just kind of sickening to see a business (or industry) which is so baldfaced in its callousness towards its customers.
Yeah, I've been with Verizon for years and this sounds way too "nice guy" for them. It would be incredible if it was true, and maybe Verizon is feeling the pinch from iPhone subscriptions and the prospect of future Android defectors, but I doubt it. Think Microsoft OOXML vs. ODF: I think its similar.
"Tired of being locked to a screen and playing pre-recorded songs on second rate equipment? Well no longer! With Rock Band 2 you can create your own, ORIGINAL music! People have been waiting for this for literally _CENTURIES_, and now it can finally be yours. Supporting multiplayer with up to 4 people, your power-chord pals and you can begin ascending the tower of real life Rock and Roll with Rock Band 2: Real Life Rock. (Talent not included.)"
Actualy, you're right; the diagnosis of pining for the glory days is correct. You guys have destroyed what was left of my connection to CNET. Time to get rid of the past and move on to new things.
You're right. You're SOOO right. You said what I was trying to say much better than I did.
And your rhetorical questions about Linux user interface are exactly the same as mine. It's one of those pet passions of mine, the Linux Desktop Aesthetic Experience(TM). I'd love to be the one who saves the world by inventing The Perfect Linux Desktop. Ahh, dreams, dreams.
Thanks for drawing this out. You hit the nail on the head with about ten hammers straight.
Haha... *tear*. Am I the only one who is actually sad about this? I lose faith in new media outlets when they partner with old media. I know Cnet is big and corporate anyway, but it's like your favorite local supermarket chain being bought out by the big, national one; you know worse service and product quality is on the way, all in the name of (supposedly) lower prices.
For me, Cnet was the Amazon of review websites. Sure it was big, it was corporate, but it provided solid baseline advice on pricing and advice, along with user reviews and links to other websites or places to buy the product. Compare that baseline with a little in depth search on fan sites and blogs, and you were sure to find the easily accessible deal on the net. Cnet could be trusted, in the same way Amazon could/can be trusted.
This is another MSNBC monstrosity. No one trusted them from the first, but Cnet is losing respect in my eyes and my chances of going there will dimish as the months of incorperation with CBS increase. This rings like I imagine a major network partnering with Amazon would. I would lose respect for the beauty of a purely "new world" portal of information and services, feeling like it was sold out to old world profit motives and corporate greed.
Old networks are trying to "stay relevent" but they are only dead anchors on sailing ships of new technology. When has this kind of partnership helped? An example of a good acqusition was Google/YouTube, being that they were both new world technologies with distinct advantages for each other. Old media is just trying to keep their hands in the money pot, and as they become more irrelevent, they start to make grand, flailing gestures like this, much like the record companies and RIAA.
This smacks of the same way Microsoft "innovates": buying companies which have technologies they can quickly repackage and sell off as their own. CBS brings nothing to this merger. They are acquiring a relevent, new world technology and are going to suck it dry, purely in their best interest. Unless they stay fairly hand-off and simply siphon ad revenue, Cnet will go down the drain and become another "made over" new world technology no one (informed) cares about.
Anyone have suggestions for other broad-base review websites I can start visiting?
This would be interesting to know in terms of other statistics, such as how many new computer users are there every month. If people are "switching" to Linux but that number is outweighed by the number of uninformed new users just picking up a Windows machine, then its just noise.
The fact is it still takes a very informed choice to switch to Linux. This type of thing could go a long way towards solving that ("what, an operating system already onboard?!"), but at the same time this is only one manufacturer and its the kind of thing only people building their own PCs are going to see, anyway.
The general market still has so much to learn about other options besides Windows. Mac is gaining popularity because of cool-factor and crossover conversions, none of which Linux has. Honestly, it won't be until you can fool someone into using Linux before they figure out its not Windows that you will see a change in general market trends. Either that or some unforeseen landmark change in the computer landscape is going to have to take place.
In this regard, the comparison between open source solutions and alternative energy options makes sense here, except that the open source industry has had _superior_, WORKING solutions for the past decade, and the alternative energies industry hasn't. Its kind of like people choosing to stick with their internal combustion engine technology and refusing to try out a hydrogen car because "no body else does." But really, its because there's been no mass awakening to it, and unlike the energy crisis, there isn't likely to be unless someone brings it about.
Still, this is the extreme value of Linux to me: it's portability. Not *mobility*--we'll have to wait for Andriod for that--but its ability to fit on almost any system in any way. Scaleability and flexibility also apply here. I'd love to have a trusted operating system living at the hardware level of my comptuter. It seems to make sense in a way, even: the logical extension of CMOS in a way. Honestly, you're telling me motherboard hardware has improved for the past 10-15 years but we still have no better built in soft/firmware?
I'm doing more brainstoming than actual technical analysis here, but these are the kinds of things that get me excited like that: speculating, hypothesizing, dreaming about a more open and inherently good future.
"When doing anything that requires physical transation of cash is too much work and we'd rather risk out financial info being stolen because its on a little plastic card, we have serious issues."
"When doing anything that requires physical transation of goods and property is too much work and we'd rather risk our wealth being stolen because its in an easily transportable paper form, we have serious issues."
This is an arguement by current position, in which new technology seems unnecessary and old technology isn't scrutinized.
To be honest, what I'm scared of is the day they start implanting these in our wrists and foreheads. And before you mark me flamebait, don't tell me it isn't the logical extension of this technology, in SOME way.
So, I agree with you in part, that this is a bit excessive to our minds right now, but almost any other parallel to new vs. old technology can be drawn to show that eventually, someone will say the same thing about the next, easier system that comes out. So aside from actual detrimental side-effects like cancer or teletubbies, this argument just shows your age.
This is apples to oranges: A not-for-profit scientific endeavor vs. a profit driven, squeeze-the-customer-for-all-their-worth service of the cellular phone industry. This is, of course, the point, but its not surprising in the least, kind of the like the cost of ink.
So is this really newsworthy, unless new information is brought to light, like the actual cost of text messaging or the antequated data networks being used to transmit this information, which account for the exponentially high costs?
To reiterate, this is obvious when you think about it: there is no profit motive to sending data to and from the hubble space telescope. The rates he's giving are the price of text messages--market value--, not the cost of transmission.
Here's a question for a better comparison: how much would it cost to buy a photograph directly from the hubble telescope?
Coloring every fifth row makes me think of how editors mark every 5th line in a long/epic poem. It helps the reader keep his place and know his progress, without annoying them with a line number every line. This makes sense to me, good point.
On a side note however, this technique seems to accomplish a different goal. The goal of table striping is to increase efficiency and accuracy in locating data points. The effect of striping every fifth line (to me) is to make linear progress through the document easier to track. Not sure if it matters, but its an interesting difference in my mind.
Exactly. Is the improvement in "accuracy and efficency" really the only goal? What about a more pleasurable user experience, reduced stress or sense of fatigue, etc? Essentially, any time we treat humans like machines we miss a huge part of the equation. If a humans overall comfort level is increased, as long as it is not in a way which directly detracts from the work they are performing (alcohol comes to mind), they're almost guarunteed to be more productive and committed in the long term.
This is the same reason we buy fancy coffee for drastically overmarked prices, instead of the dollar cup from BlowJoe Coffee. Aesthetic and experience matter, and if there are no marked *decreases* in efficiency due to table striping, then I'll do it every day of the week.
Slashdot Mirror
People make claims about the need for closed source all the time, usually revolving around the need to a predictable level of quality, or some other factor. The fact is, this results proves that its a wash whether you choose open or closed--so why not choose open?
There's a deep significance here I'm failing to capture completely. Someone else word it better if they can. But there didn't need to be some blow-out victory of open source over closed source for this to be a victory. All open source needed to do was compare--which it did, clearly--with closed source, in terms of value, to secure its worth.
Yeah, exactly. I've been with Verizon for almost 5 years on a family plan, now up to 5 phones and it's been one of the worst experiences in terms of hardware and upgrading. Every two years you get the chance to upgrade to another proprietary, locked-in phone, and if you want to buy a better phone or upgrade before, you're paying an arm and a leg for even the most basic phones, and renewing your subscription for two more years.
I'd love to see cell phones become like cell phone numbers: you can them whereever you go. Hardware should be carrier independent. It's not like my ISP makes me buy a computer which only works with their network. My TV works with any cable provider. But my cell phone?
It's just kind of sickening to see a business (or industry) which is so baldfaced in its callousness towards its customers.
Yeah, I've been with Verizon for years and this sounds way too "nice guy" for them. It would be incredible if it was true, and maybe Verizon is feeling the pinch from iPhone subscriptions and the prospect of future Android defectors, but I doubt it. Think Microsoft OOXML vs. ODF: I think its similar.
"Tired of being locked to a screen and playing pre-recorded songs on second rate equipment? Well no longer! With Rock Band 2 you can create your own, ORIGINAL music! People have been waiting for this for literally _CENTURIES_, and now it can finally be yours. Supporting multiplayer with up to 4 people, your power-chord pals and you can begin ascending the tower of real life Rock and Roll with Rock Band 2: Real Life Rock. (Talent not included.)"
So, where do you turn for reviews these days, /.?
And your rhetorical questions about Linux user interface are exactly the same as mine. It's one of those pet passions of mine, the Linux Desktop Aesthetic Experience(TM). I'd love to be the one who saves the world by inventing The Perfect Linux Desktop. Ahh, dreams, dreams.
Thanks for drawing this out. You hit the nail on the head with about ten hammers straight.
Haha... *tear*. Am I the only one who is actually sad about this? I lose faith in new media outlets when they partner with old media. I know Cnet is big and corporate anyway, but it's like your favorite local supermarket chain being bought out by the big, national one; you know worse service and product quality is on the way, all in the name of (supposedly) lower prices.
For me, Cnet was the Amazon of review websites. Sure it was big, it was corporate, but it provided solid baseline advice on pricing and advice, along with user reviews and links to other websites or places to buy the product. Compare that baseline with a little in depth search on fan sites and blogs, and you were sure to find the easily accessible deal on the net. Cnet could be trusted, in the same way Amazon could/can be trusted.
This is another MSNBC monstrosity. No one trusted them from the first, but Cnet is losing respect in my eyes and my chances of going there will dimish as the months of incorperation with CBS increase. This rings like I imagine a major network partnering with Amazon would. I would lose respect for the beauty of a purely "new world" portal of information and services, feeling like it was sold out to old world profit motives and corporate greed.
Old networks are trying to "stay relevent" but they are only dead anchors on sailing ships of new technology. When has this kind of partnership helped? An example of a good acqusition was Google/YouTube, being that they were both new world technologies with distinct advantages for each other. Old media is just trying to keep their hands in the money pot, and as they become more irrelevent, they start to make grand, flailing gestures like this, much like the record companies and RIAA.
This smacks of the same way Microsoft "innovates": buying companies which have technologies they can quickly repackage and sell off as their own. CBS brings nothing to this merger. They are acquiring a relevent, new world technology and are going to suck it dry, purely in their best interest. Unless they stay fairly hand-off and simply siphon ad revenue, Cnet will go down the drain and become another "made over" new world technology no one (informed) cares about.
Anyone have suggestions for other broad-base review websites I can start visiting?
Technorant, out.
The fact is it still takes a very informed choice to switch to Linux. This type of thing could go a long way towards solving that ("what, an operating system already onboard?!"), but at the same time this is only one manufacturer and its the kind of thing only people building their own PCs are going to see, anyway.
The general market still has so much to learn about other options besides Windows. Mac is gaining popularity because of cool-factor and crossover conversions, none of which Linux has. Honestly, it won't be until you can fool someone into using Linux before they figure out its not Windows that you will see a change in general market trends. Either that or some unforeseen landmark change in the computer landscape is going to have to take place.
In this regard, the comparison between open source solutions and alternative energy options makes sense here, except that the open source industry has had _superior_, WORKING solutions for the past decade, and the alternative energies industry hasn't. Its kind of like people choosing to stick with their internal combustion engine technology and refusing to try out a hydrogen car because "no body else does." But really, its because there's been no mass awakening to it, and unlike the energy crisis, there isn't likely to be unless someone brings it about.
Still, this is the extreme value of Linux to me: it's portability. Not *mobility*--we'll have to wait for Andriod for that--but its ability to fit on almost any system in any way. Scaleability and flexibility also apply here. I'd love to have a trusted operating system living at the hardware level of my comptuter. It seems to make sense in a way, even: the logical extension of CMOS in a way. Honestly, you're telling me motherboard hardware has improved for the past 10-15 years but we still have no better built in soft/firmware?
I'm doing more brainstoming than actual technical analysis here, but these are the kinds of things that get me excited like that: speculating, hypothesizing, dreaming about a more open and inherently good future.
Technorant, out.
or the restaurant at the end of the universe?
HP Buys Acronym For 14 Billion, Tells Sajak It Would Like To Solve The Puzzle.
HP Buys Other Acronym, Cites Insecurity Over Its Own 'Length.'
HP, EDS Fall In Love, Says It Was 'Meant To Be.'
A lot more work and a lot less dead time than waiting for IT to resurrect a completely fsck'd system, maybe?
"The system is down."
Am I gay?
concrete does end users quite nicely though.
/. is just the place to come for advice on "system hardening."
No.
Track this back.
"When doing anything that requires physical transation of cash is too much work and we'd rather risk out financial info being stolen because its on a little plastic card, we have serious issues."
"When doing anything that requires physical transation of goods and property is too much work and we'd rather risk our wealth being stolen because its in an easily transportable paper form, we have serious issues."
This is an arguement by current position, in which new technology seems unnecessary and old technology isn't scrutinized.
To be honest, what I'm scared of is the day they start implanting these in our wrists and foreheads. And before you mark me flamebait, don't tell me it isn't the logical extension of this technology, in SOME way.
So, I agree with you in part, that this is a bit excessive to our minds right now, but almost any other parallel to new vs. old technology can be drawn to show that eventually, someone will say the same thing about the next, easier system that comes out. So aside from actual detrimental side-effects like cancer or teletubbies, this argument just shows your age.
So is this really newsworthy, unless new information is brought to light, like the actual cost of text messaging or the antequated data networks being used to transmit this information, which account for the exponentially high costs?
To reiterate, this is obvious when you think about it: there is no profit motive to sending data to and from the hubble space telescope. The rates he's giving are the price of text messages--market value--, not the cost of transmission.
Here's a question for a better comparison: how much would it cost to buy a photograph directly from the hubble telescope?
1. collect old, broken iPods. 2. assemble iGod. 3. profit.
Man, operating that thing with the click-wheel is going to be a bitch.
alright boys, here's the plan:
1. lie in bed.
2. get fed.
3. profit!
sound good? let's get to bed!
On a side note however, this technique seems to accomplish a different goal. The goal of table striping is to increase efficiency and accuracy in locating data points. The effect of striping every fifth line (to me) is to make linear progress through the document easier to track. Not sure if it matters, but its an interesting difference in my mind.
Exactly. Is the improvement in "accuracy and efficency" really the only goal? What about a more pleasurable user experience, reduced stress or sense of fatigue, etc? Essentially, any time we treat humans like machines we miss a huge part of the equation. If a humans overall comfort level is increased, as long as it is not in a way which directly detracts from the work they are performing (alcohol comes to mind), they're almost guarunteed to be more productive and committed in the long term. This is the same reason we buy fancy coffee for drastically overmarked prices, instead of the dollar cup from BlowJoe Coffee. Aesthetic and experience matter, and if there are no marked *decreases* in efficiency due to table striping, then I'll do it every day of the week.
in real life, however, are incalculable. well, except that you constantly get scanned and have to pay for yourself nearly everywhere you shop.
hiding near a white picket fence at night is a breeze, though.
Discuss. -
The article says 'designer of Alpha chips' not 'designer of Alpha's' chips.
Who sells more songs, iTunes or Napster?