All technology costs more when it first comes out. That is hardly a reason not to develop it and let it get cheaper over time.
I'd be very interested in buying a Volt. IMO all oil-based fuels are a dead-end path. Even if they are still cheap they will get more expensive as oil supplies get lower and demand gets higher. Electricity is something we'll always have from some source or another. I'm not sure batteries are the best way to store electricity though. It might be better to produce hydrogen or use some sort of coil system to store the energy.
Macs are a little more but you get what you pay for as far as quality.
I wouldn't mind seeing a low end Mac, especially a laptop, in the $350 price range as it'd really open up the platform to everyone and probably cause a lot of pain to the PC market but I'm not sure they could maintain their quality for that amount. IMO that is a good reason to allow clones. Let the clones offer the cheap entry level products and dominate on quality. I might even allow clones only within that price range.
I simply run Apple products because I've found them better on so many levels. Their hardware has fewer problems, lasts longer, and looks good. Mac OS is okay (better than Windows for most things) and I can easily run virtual machines to get my Linux and Windows tasks done. My client computers and my music player (if you can still call it that when it's really a PDA/phone/whatever) are Apple products because of those reasons.
I still run custom made PC boxes running Linux for most my servers. Along with a fancy IBM box running AIX that is just a bit crappy for the $30k it cost.
The only reason to have a Windows box IMO is to play games. It's kind of like a toy.
I actually bought an iPod because IMO it is a PDA (probably the best one I've seen). I'm thinking of buying either an iPhone or an Android phone too. I'm leaning iPhone because I can then write apps for all it's functionality without learning a new platform from the iPod. If there was an iPod-level device (not requiring phone service) running Android and every bit as good as the iPod I would have considered that more. I do think the exclusivity of the iPhone platform is a benefit as a software developer too - Android seems like it'd be a lot less focused as far as what's available and how easy it is to find (to many choices).
I wish that someone would put together a language and SDK that would compile for either iPhone/iPod or Android. (why not for Windows, OS X, and Linux while you're at it) It'd be good to have easy portability.
As a developer I appreciate how easy the iStore makes it for customers to find my apps. The hurdles to developing for iPod and iPhone are frustrating but make for less competition which weeds out a lot of the crap so people can find me easier. So not all bad.
Maybe people just don't want a 100lb system when they can get something that fits in their pocket. I just got an iPod Touch to use as a pocket computer (it works nicely and I'll really like it when I figure out how to write programs for it), and now my wife wants one too. She'll probably get one of those cute Acer netbooks for $400 too as they look handy to throw in the diaper bag for times you need to run a Windows program on the go.
The vast majority of the time we just want web and email access or to make some notes and keep track of our check book, shopping list, etc. For those even a laptop is to much. The iPod is really optimal. To bad they made it such a pain to write apps for - I have to upgrade my OS and pay $100 to become a developer and use Apple's own pet language it seems (or jailbreak it which is also a pain).
The iPhone would be good but $80+ a month seems a lot and we don't like AT&T. If they could give it some competition then I'd be really interested. They need a 32GB model of the iPhone too though. 16GB just isn't enough.
Reminds me of a fun project I did a couple years ago where I did away with the keyboard and set up double mice to be used together. You could mouse with both mice and by holding down the left middle mouse button you could use simple gestures from the two mice to type and do other things pretty effectively. It worked pretty well but would probably never catch on as it requires learning gestures. The general idea was to make the computer more usable for people who could use mice but not keyboards (due to trouble moving their fingers).
I certainly didn't want digital tv. It just gets worse range and has crappy square things instead of fuzz. Like digital cable it just sort of sucks. Of course I tried to order by converter boxes anyway as I figured I might as well since they were free. DirectTV took the order for the converter boxes, took the coupons, and then canceled the order and never sent me anything or returning my coupons to working condition. The whole thing is one big fuck up IMO.
It's true. Recent games aren't games so much as simulations. Simulations can be fun at times but they don't have the same game play value as a real game. It's the difference between running around in a field with a paintball gun or playing Scrabble. Both are entertainment but only the later is really a game under that meaning of the word.
Most current games aren't designed for gamers - they are designed for people who want to spend a huge amount of time involved in complex simulations. Most of us don't have time or energy for such complex simulations and have satisfying enough lives that we don't need pretend ones so this sort of game doesn't appeal to us. It's just not the same sort of beast that classic video games were.
ie. I have a real wife, a real child, real friends, and a real job so I don't need or want to waste 16 hours a day playing Sims or WoW but I'd still sit down and play a classic platform scroller for 30 minutes every now and then.
The funny thing to me is that I tried to push a concept for localized web businesses to get a business loan and was shot down because they didn't think users wanted to interact with local stores and people that lived near them. Even when I showed them my statistics from existing web businesses I run that show otherwise. Doh.
I've seen them all over in Nevada, Utah, and California. I checked out a couple a long time ago and decided it was some sort of affiliate spammer thing. That's about as far as my interest level went.
I've tried a bunch of Windows and Linux music players and they all basically suck. When I find one that can do something decent with 500GB of music, can properly play music from the network, and can work with my iPod properly then I'll be interested.
Not that iTunes is perfect but it does most of what I need. Stupid complaints like it not having skins is a totally moot point. iTunes has good usability whereas I've not seen a skinned player that didn't suck. Skins are fun for about 2 minutes and then become an annoyance to most users.
iTunes could use easy plugins though. That'd make it easy to fix problems like it not detecting new music or not supporting new codecs. My personal pet peeve is that it doesn't have an intelligent playlist feature - it doesn't learn from your habits and adapt for you.
And knowing when to wrap code. Write a lightweight layer between third-party code and your own so if you need to change it you can do so without rewriting your entire program. ie Don't include MySQL specific code throughout your program - have a db lib that provides generic functions that you can tie to MySQL but easily change if you move to Oracle or something.
I'd be happy if they'd just make some sort of decent digital paper affordable enough that normal geeks could make stuff with it.
e.g. I've wanted to mod an iMac so that the entire case is done in digital paper so that it acts as a screen without nasty backlighting. Could make an interesting look, be fun, and allow nice display of stats.
I'm sure I could come up with endless ideas if the stuff wasn't so damn expensive. I keep hearing that they'll be doing cereal boxes and greeting cards in this stuff but I can't see it happening for a long time if the current prices mean anything.
I publish bits of stuff I produce, through my job as well as my home hobby stuff, as open source because it's a cheap and easy way to get people to help debug the code.
It's also an easy/cheap way to get traffic and inbound links to your website which is beneficial.
There is no way I'm going to stop writing and releasing code so wanks like this guy are just sniffing glue. If anything, I'm more likely to publish code as open source when the economy isn't as good because I can't afford to hire so many programmers and QA people.
It pisses me off that my iMac has firewire ports but not enough USB ports. About damn time that they start getting rid of firewire. I've never had any device that used firewire.
Better then $200 plastic sneakers, baggy pants, droopy t-shirt, and some cheap gold chains. (At least that is how the black guys I see at Taco Bell look like mostly.) At least when black guys were shown as wild African men they were warriors - now what the hell are they supposed to be?
I may be to white to understand but from my point of view I'll take some rippling muscles and a spear as my stereotype any day. Give whitey his light saber but Mr African Warrior man will kick his ass with nothing but a bit of stick and a dazzling smile. All black men should talk like James Earl Jones too. That guy is awesome. I don't think white guys could get away with sounding like that though. Even Darth Vader is black - if Anakin talked that way we'd all be like wtf.
Why complain if your stereotype makes you look like a stud? Or anyway that is my theory on stereotypes.
My daughter is three months old. I'm busy modding a PS2 to be a media player with a slick interface that can play content off the hdd, the network, usb, or cd/dvd. I figure it's quite a bit cheaper than something like Apple TV and I can write whatever software for it that I want now that it's cracked (a process that takes about 15 minutes and $15) if you have an old chubby PS2. A benefit of the PS2's popularity is that lots of case mods are available so I can get her a girly looking setup. I'm planning on giving her a touch screen tv too so that she can control it easily even as a toddler. (My 2yr old nephew loves watching Cars and drives his parents nuts demanding they restart the DVD. He knows how it works but they don't want to give him access to it.)
Then I can download and make available everything I want without risk of her seeing anything I don't want. I'm not to worried she'll watch to much tv because I do a lot with her and plan to continue. I think it'll be an awesome setup.
See how well your DNS stays up under a massive DDoS attack when you're running your own little server on a T1 line. I've learned from experience that it sucks.
I recently switched to UltraDNS for my important domains after a string of problems related to my old providers going down under DDoS attacks. So far it seems good. A little pricey but that doesn't really matter so long as they deliver everything they promise.
Their support has already proven to be good too - they even answered a question that was more about my registar than DNS serving.
Slashdot Mirror
All technology costs more when it first comes out. That is hardly a reason not to develop it and let it get cheaper over time.
I'd be very interested in buying a Volt. IMO all oil-based fuels are a dead-end path. Even if they are still cheap they will get more expensive as oil supplies get lower and demand gets higher. Electricity is something we'll always have from some source or another. I'm not sure batteries are the best way to store electricity though. It might be better to produce hydrogen or use some sort of coil system to store the energy.
Macs are a little more but you get what you pay for as far as quality.
I wouldn't mind seeing a low end Mac, especially a laptop, in the $350 price range as it'd really open up the platform to everyone and probably cause a lot of pain to the PC market but I'm not sure they could maintain their quality for that amount. IMO that is a good reason to allow clones. Let the clones offer the cheap entry level products and dominate on quality. I might even allow clones only within that price range.
I simply run Apple products because I've found them better on so many levels. Their hardware has fewer problems, lasts longer, and looks good. Mac OS is okay (better than Windows for most things) and I can easily run virtual machines to get my Linux and Windows tasks done. My client computers and my music player (if you can still call it that when it's really a PDA/phone/whatever) are Apple products because of those reasons.
I still run custom made PC boxes running Linux for most my servers. Along with a fancy IBM box running AIX that is just a bit crappy for the $30k it cost.
The only reason to have a Windows box IMO is to play games. It's kind of like a toy.
I actually bought an iPod because IMO it is a PDA (probably the best one I've seen). I'm thinking of buying either an iPhone or an Android phone too. I'm leaning iPhone because I can then write apps for all it's functionality without learning a new platform from the iPod. If there was an iPod-level device (not requiring phone service) running Android and every bit as good as the iPod I would have considered that more. I do think the exclusivity of the iPhone platform is a benefit as a software developer too - Android seems like it'd be a lot less focused as far as what's available and how easy it is to find (to many choices).
I wish that someone would put together a language and SDK that would compile for either iPhone/iPod or Android. (why not for Windows, OS X, and Linux while you're at it) It'd be good to have easy portability.
As a developer I appreciate how easy the iStore makes it for customers to find my apps. The hurdles to developing for iPod and iPhone are frustrating but make for less competition which weeds out a lot of the crap so people can find me easier. So not all bad.
Maybe people just don't want a 100lb system when they can get something that fits in their pocket. I just got an iPod Touch to use as a pocket computer (it works nicely and I'll really like it when I figure out how to write programs for it), and now my wife wants one too. She'll probably get one of those cute Acer netbooks for $400 too as they look handy to throw in the diaper bag for times you need to run a Windows program on the go.
The vast majority of the time we just want web and email access or to make some notes and keep track of our check book, shopping list, etc. For those even a laptop is to much. The iPod is really optimal. To bad they made it such a pain to write apps for - I have to upgrade my OS and pay $100 to become a developer and use Apple's own pet language it seems (or jailbreak it which is also a pain).
The iPhone would be good but $80+ a month seems a lot and we don't like AT&T. If they could give it some competition then I'd be really interested. They need a 32GB model of the iPhone too though. 16GB just isn't enough.
Reminds me of a fun project I did a couple years ago where I did away with the keyboard and set up double mice to be used together. You could mouse with both mice and by holding down the left middle mouse button you could use simple gestures from the two mice to type and do other things pretty effectively. It worked pretty well but would probably never catch on as it requires learning gestures. The general idea was to make the computer more usable for people who could use mice but not keyboards (due to trouble moving their fingers).
I certainly didn't want digital tv. It just gets worse range and has crappy square things instead of fuzz. Like digital cable it just sort of sucks. Of course I tried to order by converter boxes anyway as I figured I might as well since they were free. DirectTV took the order for the converter boxes, took the coupons, and then canceled the order and never sent me anything or returning my coupons to working condition. The whole thing is one big fuck up IMO.
It's true. Recent games aren't games so much as simulations. Simulations can be fun at times but they don't have the same game play value as a real game. It's the difference between running around in a field with a paintball gun or playing Scrabble. Both are entertainment but only the later is really a game under that meaning of the word.
Most current games aren't designed for gamers - they are designed for people who want to spend a huge amount of time involved in complex simulations. Most of us don't have time or energy for such complex simulations and have satisfying enough lives that we don't need pretend ones so this sort of game doesn't appeal to us. It's just not the same sort of beast that classic video games were.
ie. I have a real wife, a real child, real friends, and a real job so I don't need or want to waste 16 hours a day playing Sims or WoW but I'd still sit down and play a classic platform scroller for 30 minutes every now and then.
The funny thing to me is that I tried to push a concept for localized web businesses to get a business loan and was shot down because they didn't think users wanted to interact with local stores and people that lived near them. Even when I showed them my statistics from existing web businesses I run that show otherwise. Doh.
I've seen them all over in Nevada, Utah, and California. I checked out a couple a long time ago and decided it was some sort of affiliate spammer thing. That's about as far as my interest level went.
I've tried a bunch of Windows and Linux music players and they all basically suck. When I find one that can do something decent with 500GB of music, can properly play music from the network, and can work with my iPod properly then I'll be interested.
Not that iTunes is perfect but it does most of what I need. Stupid complaints like it not having skins is a totally moot point. iTunes has good usability whereas I've not seen a skinned player that didn't suck. Skins are fun for about 2 minutes and then become an annoyance to most users.
iTunes could use easy plugins though. That'd make it easy to fix problems like it not detecting new music or not supporting new codecs. My personal pet peeve is that it doesn't have an intelligent playlist feature - it doesn't learn from your habits and adapt for you.
And knowing when to wrap code. Write a lightweight layer between third-party code and your own so if you need to change it you can do so without rewriting your entire program. ie Don't include MySQL specific code throughout your program - have a db lib that provides generic functions that you can tie to MySQL but easily change if you move to Oracle or something.
I'd be happy if they'd just make some sort of decent digital paper affordable enough that normal geeks could make stuff with it.
e.g. I've wanted to mod an iMac so that the entire case is done in digital paper so that it acts as a screen without nasty backlighting. Could make an interesting look, be fun, and allow nice display of stats.
I'm sure I could come up with endless ideas if the stuff wasn't so damn expensive. I keep hearing that they'll be doing cereal boxes and greeting cards in this stuff but I can't see it happening for a long time if the current prices mean anything.
I publish bits of stuff I produce, through my job as well as my home hobby stuff, as open source because it's a cheap and easy way to get people to help debug the code.
It's also an easy/cheap way to get traffic and inbound links to your website which is beneficial.
There is no way I'm going to stop writing and releasing code so wanks like this guy are just sniffing glue. If anything, I'm more likely to publish code as open source when the economy isn't as good because I can't afford to hire so many programmers and QA people.
Why do you need target disk mode when you can boot the thing up and move your files normally?
Macs can boot from CD or USB drive. Don't know why you'd need firewire.
It pisses me off that my iMac has firewire ports but not enough USB ports. About damn time that they start getting rid of firewire. I've never had any device that used firewire.
Better then $200 plastic sneakers, baggy pants, droopy t-shirt, and some cheap gold chains. (At least that is how the black guys I see at Taco Bell look like mostly.) At least when black guys were shown as wild African men they were warriors - now what the hell are they supposed to be?
I may be to white to understand but from my point of view I'll take some rippling muscles and a spear as my stereotype any day. Give whitey his light saber but Mr African Warrior man will kick his ass with nothing but a bit of stick and a dazzling smile. All black men should talk like James Earl Jones too. That guy is awesome. I don't think white guys could get away with sounding like that though. Even Darth Vader is black - if Anakin talked that way we'd all be like wtf.
Why complain if your stereotype makes you look like a stud? Or anyway that is my theory on stereotypes.
Mine is 15MB for about $65/mo from Bresnan.
My daughter is three months old. I'm busy modding a PS2 to be a media player with a slick interface that can play content off the hdd, the network, usb, or cd/dvd. I figure it's quite a bit cheaper than something like Apple TV and I can write whatever software for it that I want now that it's cracked (a process that takes about 15 minutes and $15) if you have an old chubby PS2. A benefit of the PS2's popularity is that lots of case mods are available so I can get her a girly looking setup. I'm planning on giving her a touch screen tv too so that she can control it easily even as a toddler. (My 2yr old nephew loves watching Cars and drives his parents nuts demanding they restart the DVD. He knows how it works but they don't want to give him access to it.)
Then I can download and make available everything I want without risk of her seeing anything I don't want. I'm not to worried she'll watch to much tv because I do a lot with her and plan to continue. I think it'll be an awesome setup.
They stopped being funny when I realized how fscked we are.
It's not fanatical. It's just crazy and paranoid. I bet you shred all your credit card offers to.
My life is to busy for all that paranoia - to much time spent trying to fix my credit as it keeps getting hijacked somehow.
See how well your DNS stays up under a massive DDoS attack when you're running your own little server on a T1 line. I've learned from experience that it sucks.
I recently switched to UltraDNS for my important domains after a string of problems related to my old providers going down under DDoS attacks. So far it seems good. A little pricey but that doesn't really matter so long as they deliver everything they promise.
Their support has already proven to be good too - they even answered a question that was more about my registar than DNS serving.