"I have had fewer Win2K crashes since 1999 than I have with OS X since 2001."
From this post, I can limit the possibilities to two:
1.) You're full of crap.
2.) You only used Win2K for about 5 seconds.
Win2K, even on a "properly assembled" or "optimized" (or whatever the Windows people call it these days) machine bears the true mark of any Windows OS -- buggy and unstable. I work with Win2K machines every day. I also work with a MacOS X-running iBook every day.
I've been running OS X since 10.0. I've been running Win2K since mid-2K. Guess which one has never crashed? (Not once.)
I started my college academic life as a Comp Sci major and hated it. I hated the slow pacing, I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already solved for myself or learned by reading a book in high school, so I switched to a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) and kept my job in the computer lab (where I went on to become the Multimedia Sysadmin).
The experience from the job led me to a career in web design and development, which led me to experience as a project manager. I now have three rsums, one targeted to each kind of job. On the side, I do freelance web design and design fonts, to supplement the income.
Long years of being an amateur bicycle racer gave me the experience to get part-time jobs at bike shops when times are tough.
And times will be tough. That's just the way of the New Economy. If you're not well-rounded and adaptable, you're pretty much fucked.
Goddamn, I so want to Mod this as a Troll. I mean, Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ...how many times does this thread have to be beat to death?
The chances of Apple going Wintel are pretty damn unlikely at best. For reasons that have been beat to death over and over and over and over for the last six months.
...if it happens, I guess I can write-off the possibility of Fontographer 5.0, which the team at Macromedia has been promising since 1997.
Honestly, it would be in Apple's best interests to snatch up Macromedia before Microsoft can. Apple is primarily a media creation platform, and if Microsoft holds the keys to the kingdom, then Jobs and Co. are fucked.
Re:Don't forget killer whales...
on
Starcraft
·
· Score: 1
"Don't forget about killer whales, if we don't work hard to ensure their continued existence as a species, aliens may send a probe out looking for them..."
Man, I can't decide if there should be a "Trekkie Troll" mod, or not. You probably have dozens of them frothing over the insignificant blip in here, but not willing to sacrifice their Karma to correct you.
Back when I first ventured into font design, I was a poor, starving college student and couldn't afford Fontographer. (Then, the only real choice for doing good font design work.) Hell, I wasn't even sure I wanted to do font design fulltime, but I didn't want to shell out $300+ for the program. So I downloaded a copy, found that yes, indeed, I did enjoy font design.
So I scraped, scrounged, begged, and borrowed, and bought a legitimate copy of the program. It would have been just as easy to keep the hacked copy, but why bother? When I purchased the package, I got the manuals, the knowledge that I'd get a decent price on upgrades (there have been no major upgrades since before I bought the software -- Macromedia seems to have let the software die on the vine).
In the end, though...I did the right thing because...well, it was the right thing to do. Macromedia provided me with a tool that I could use to make some money, and it was only fair that I repaid them for that.
This article is one of the most insightful that I've read on the subject. It's definitely made me think quite a bit...I have a B.A. in creative writing and I know that the stuff that I write is quality material. Like any other writer, I'm having a hard time breaking in... I think I'll take a few of my better works that don't seem to be going anywhere and publish them in PDF and e-Book formats for all to enjoy. And hopefully this will build a little bit of recognition for my work so I can actually start selling to the real publishers out there and then someone else will come along and do the right thing by me as an artist and buy my works off a bookshelf somewhere.
Maybe it's better to have a network of faith than a network of enforced trust.:-)
I dunno...the abitily to launch surface-to-air missiles with a cellphone would be pretty groovy. (Obligatory USA PATRIOT Disclaimer: I am NOT advocating or planning any terrorist activities.)
Actually, I'm of the opinion that extra features in a cellphone generally suck. I just cancelled my web access ($5/month) on my SprintPOS (er, PCS) phone because I never use it.
Right now I want exactly TWO things from my cellphone: decent coverage area, and Bluetooth capabilities to I can use my iBook to surf from wherever and keep all my phone #s straight between my Palm, iBook, and cellphone (because I have so many floating around, I never remember them all).
"This sounds a little strange to me since you would need a line of site with no obstacles in the way to use this."
Uh, no...all you'd need is a huge network of mirrors or a lot of little collection points. Use VoIP technology to manage packets of data. Blinks of light work as well as packets of radio and because of their higher frequency they provide more bandwidth.
I know from past stories that Iraq is in the market for game consoles. I say that Bill should lobby the UN to allow him to open the Iraqi game console market.
Hell, they should just force the entire country to adopt Windows on all their hardware. The whole place would shut down inside two days. War over.
I fail to see why this is an issue. The market will correct for this almost instantaneously. DivX didn't fail for technology reasons...it failed because no one in their right mind is going to pay repeatedly to watch a movie that they "own".
There are companies that realize this, and they will be the ones that create non-perishable discs. Perishables might have their place, but it certainly won't be in rental media or for-purchase long-term media like modern DVDs. No one in their right mind would buy them!
Think about it -- why did DVD take off? Because it offered the customer significantly better performance at costs equivelent to VHS. Why did DivX flop? They assumed, incorrectly, that people would pay less money up-front and pay a per-view cost, for something that offers similar performance.
The same thing is going to happen here. No one is going to pay less for a degradable disc. It doesn't offer any additional value, and it doesn't matter how cheaply they price it.
Stop sweating it. The market will correct for this, and it won't be occupying landfills.
The MPAA isn't lobbying against Open Source software, they're lobbying against free exchange of copyrighted works. There's a world of difference. The MPAA has no beef with Open Source, they have a beef with people illegally sharing files of copyrighted movies on the Net.
I think you're confusing Microsoft and the MPAA -- which is understandable, both are short-sighted money-grubbing Evil Empires -- Microsoft hates Open Source, and the MPAA hates the free trade of copyrighted works.
Give Me a Break
on
Film Gimp
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This article has nothing to do with the MPAA campaigning for content restrictions. It's all well and good that the movie studios have discovered Linux and have built FilmGimp, but again, what does this have to do with Open Source? Not a damn thing.
Why? Because the various Open Source licenses don't cover content created with their software, unlike the stuff the Evil Empire could pull if it wanted to.
...competes with Microsoft Platform Software or any product or service that
distributes or promotes any Non-Microsoft Middleware;
2. shipping a Personal Computer that (a) includes both a Windows Operating
System Product and a non-Microsoft Operating System, or (b) will boot with
more than one Operating System; or
So I think this is the first nail in Palladium's coffin. This legalese seems to imply that Microsoft is barred of collusion with OEMs that would block middleware or OSs that would compete with Microsoft. Which is, at the core, EXACTLY what Palladium would do.
Nice to see that the DoJ can kill two birds with one stone.:-)
You make an excellent point. However, the question is: what's to prevent the system from having the power-supply equivelent of a brown-out? Or a black-out, for that matter? Personally, if I ran a large company, I'd rather have my own machines at a fixed cost, sitting idle for certain amounts of time, than to trust the core of my business to someone else.
Following the power analogy, what happens when the government steps in and decides it has to regulate "processing power suppliers"? Does IBM become a "non profitable business" like all the other utility companies?
Well, this is going to lead to a few possible outcomes:
1.) The first outcome is one in which IBM wastes $10 billion and becomes the laughingstock of the industry. This seems to be the most likely outcome because using Linux and Beowulf, anyone can assemble their own supercomputer for a small amount of money.
2.) People actually buy into this shit and start using IBM's model for processing. People obviously don't want to waste any processor operations -- similar to gas consumption in cars -- so there's an ongoing race to create efficient software (and it's about fucking time). Of course, this leads to a situation where as software becomes more and more efficient, it requires less and less processing power, meaning it can run on smaller systems, meaning IBM will have a bunch of supercomputers sitting around doing nothing because they've evolved themselves into obsolescence.
Did this CEO work for Microsoft at any point? This whole "strategy" (I'm reluctant to apply that word to an idea as bad as this) reeks of something that would come out of Redmond. Have they learned nothing during their embracing of Linux? Do they really think that the end user wants to pay on a per-usage fee? The power of the computer is that all I pay for is a connection and electricity...given a choice where I have that, or a system which also requires me to pay for processing time, and I know which one I'll go with, every time.
You can't simply add a cost like this to the cost-of-ownership of a product with no significant improvement in overall cost or performance and expect it to be widely adopted.
And here all this time, I thought it was Microsoft that played the "let's throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" game of product development.
Time to sell my IBM stock. They just jumped the shark.
I don't see how this is an issue -- I haven't got a math degree, in fact, I suck at it. (Hence, my English degree.) But with a finite playing field and finite set of shapes, one would think that a computer would be much better at it than a human if it knew the order of the pieces.
You could probably create a genetic algorithm that would look at the order of groups of N and figure out macro-structures, and how those macro-structures best interacted with one another.
Whatever the case, I'm still of the opinion that Tetris is a Soviet Meme Weapon that was released too early. If they'd waited until the Internet was in every office and home, Western Civilization would have ground to a halt, and we'd all be drinking vodka and wearing furry hats by now.
Indeed, I'm inclined to agree with you. It gets worse...you don't need radar or or IR systems...all you need is a well-developed cellular phone network. Other references here.
From the article: "Critics -- notably Intel -- argue that most desktop users have no need for 64-bit processing. In fact, Microsoft Corp. has yet to release a 64-bit version of Windows that will run on AMD's Hammer chips."
Is it any wonder, given they just lost their defense against Intergraph's patent lawsuit which may result in them not being able to release the Itanium series?
Hey, Intel, last I checked, no one had a use for 32-bit processing or 640K of RAM on the desktop, either.</sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
Make with the lightsabers. And midichlorian implants. Now.
"This isn't the post you want to mod down."
"I have had fewer Win2K crashes since 1999 than I have with OS X since 2001."
From this post, I can limit the possibilities to two:
1.) You're full of crap.
2.) You only used Win2K for about 5 seconds.
Win2K, even on a "properly assembled" or "optimized" (or whatever the Windows people call it these days) machine bears the true mark of any Windows OS -- buggy and unstable. I work with Win2K machines every day. I also work with a MacOS X-running iBook every day.
I've been running OS X since 10.0. I've been running Win2K since mid-2K. Guess which one has never crashed? (Not once.)
I couldn't agree with you more.
I started my college academic life as a Comp Sci major and hated it. I hated the slow pacing, I wasn't learning anything I hadn't already solved for myself or learned by reading a book in high school, so I switched to a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) and kept my job in the computer lab (where I went on to become the Multimedia Sysadmin).
The experience from the job led me to a career in web design and development, which led me to experience as a project manager. I now have three rsums, one targeted to each kind of job. On the side, I do freelance web design and design fonts, to supplement the income.
Long years of being an amateur bicycle racer gave me the experience to get part-time jobs at bike shops when times are tough.
And times will be tough. That's just the way of the New Economy. If you're not well-rounded and adaptable, you're pretty much fucked.
Goddamn, I so want to Mod this as a Troll. I mean, Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ...how many times does this thread have to be beat to death?
The chances of Apple going Wintel are pretty damn unlikely at best. For reasons that have been beat to death over and over and over and over for the last six months.
...if it happens, I guess I can write-off the possibility of Fontographer 5.0, which the team at Macromedia has been promising since 1997.
Honestly, it would be in Apple's best interests to snatch up Macromedia before Microsoft can. Apple is primarily a media creation platform, and if Microsoft holds the keys to the kingdom, then Jobs and Co. are fucked.
"Don't forget about killer whales, if we don't work hard to ensure their continued existence as a species, aliens may send a probe out looking for them..."
Man, I can't decide if there should be a "Trekkie Troll" mod, or not. You probably have dozens of them frothing over the insignificant blip in here, but not willing to sacrifice their Karma to correct you.
Heh.
Back when I first ventured into font design, I was a poor, starving college student and couldn't afford Fontographer. (Then, the only real choice for doing good font design work.) Hell, I wasn't even sure I wanted to do font design fulltime, but I didn't want to shell out $300+ for the program. So I downloaded a copy, found that yes, indeed, I did enjoy font design.
:-)
So I scraped, scrounged, begged, and borrowed, and bought a legitimate copy of the program. It would have been just as easy to keep the hacked copy, but why bother? When I purchased the package, I got the manuals, the knowledge that I'd get a decent price on upgrades (there have been no major upgrades since before I bought the software -- Macromedia seems to have let the software die on the vine).
In the end, though...I did the right thing because...well, it was the right thing to do. Macromedia provided me with a tool that I could use to make some money, and it was only fair that I repaid them for that.
This article is one of the most insightful that I've read on the subject. It's definitely made me think quite a bit...I have a B.A. in creative writing and I know that the stuff that I write is quality material. Like any other writer, I'm having a hard time breaking in... I think I'll take a few of my better works that don't seem to be going anywhere and publish them in PDF and e-Book formats for all to enjoy. And hopefully this will build a little bit of recognition for my work so I can actually start selling to the real publishers out there and then someone else will come along and do the right thing by me as an artist and buy my works off a bookshelf somewhere.
Maybe it's better to have a network of faith than a network of enforced trust.
A great way for the Children of the Corn to dispose of the bodies!
I dunno...the abitily to launch surface-to-air missiles with a cellphone would be pretty groovy. (Obligatory USA PATRIOT Disclaimer: I am NOT advocating or planning any terrorist activities.)
Actually, I'm of the opinion that extra features in a cellphone generally suck. I just cancelled my web access ($5/month) on my SprintPOS (er, PCS) phone because I never use it.
Right now I want exactly TWO things from my cellphone: decent coverage area, and Bluetooth capabilities to I can use my iBook to surf from wherever and keep all my phone #s straight between my Palm, iBook, and cellphone (because I have so many floating around, I never remember them all).
"This sounds a little strange to me since you would need a line of site with no obstacles in the way to use this."
Uh, no...all you'd need is a huge network of mirrors or a lot of little collection points. Use VoIP technology to manage packets of data. Blinks of light work as well as packets of radio and because of their higher frequency they provide more bandwidth.
So the first time I go to run across a wet street, I get to head-plant in front of hundreds of people!
But at least the soles of my shoes will be clean!
Note: I am refraining from the mom-checking-for-clean-underwear jokes.
I know from past stories that Iraq is in the market for game consoles. I say that Bill should lobby the UN to allow him to open the Iraqi game console market. Hell, they should just force the entire country to adopt Windows on all their hardware. The whole place would shut down inside two days. War over.
I fail to see why this is an issue. The market will correct for this almost instantaneously. DivX didn't fail for technology reasons...it failed because no one in their right mind is going to pay repeatedly to watch a movie that they "own".
There are companies that realize this, and they will be the ones that create non-perishable discs. Perishables might have their place, but it certainly won't be in rental media or for-purchase long-term media like modern DVDs. No one in their right mind would buy them!
Think about it -- why did DVD take off? Because it offered the customer significantly better performance at costs equivelent to VHS. Why did DivX flop? They assumed, incorrectly, that people would pay less money up-front and pay a per-view cost, for something that offers similar performance.
The same thing is going to happen here. No one is going to pay less for a degradable disc. It doesn't offer any additional value, and it doesn't matter how cheaply they price it.
Stop sweating it. The market will correct for this, and it won't be occupying landfills.
The MPAA isn't lobbying against Open Source software, they're lobbying against free exchange of copyrighted works. There's a world of difference. The MPAA has no beef with Open Source, they have a beef with people illegally sharing files of copyrighted movies on the Net.
I think you're confusing Microsoft and the MPAA -- which is understandable, both are short-sighted money-grubbing Evil Empires -- Microsoft hates Open Source, and the MPAA hates the free trade of copyrighted works.
Content Restrictions Issue != Linux/Open Source Issues.
This article has nothing to do with the MPAA campaigning for content restrictions. It's all well and good that the movie studios have discovered Linux and have built FilmGimp, but again, what does this have to do with Open Source? Not a damn thing.
Why? Because the various Open Source licenses don't cover content created with their software, unlike the stuff the Evil Empire could pull if it wanted to.
...competes with Microsoft Platform Software or any product or service that distributes or promotes any Non-Microsoft Middleware;
:-)
2. shipping a Personal Computer that (a) includes both a Windows Operating System Product and a non-Microsoft Operating System, or (b) will boot with more than one Operating System; or
So I think this is the first nail in Palladium's coffin. This legalese seems to imply that Microsoft is barred of collusion with OEMs that would block middleware or OSs that would compete with Microsoft. Which is, at the core, EXACTLY what Palladium would do.
Nice to see that the DoJ can kill two birds with one stone.
You make an excellent point. However, the question is: what's to prevent the system from having the power-supply equivelent of a brown-out? Or a black-out, for that matter? Personally, if I ran a large company, I'd rather have my own machines at a fixed cost, sitting idle for certain amounts of time, than to trust the core of my business to someone else.
Following the power analogy, what happens when the government steps in and decides it has to regulate "processing power suppliers"? Does IBM become a "non profitable business" like all the other utility companies?
Well, this is going to lead to a few possible outcomes:
1.) The first outcome is one in which IBM wastes $10 billion and becomes the laughingstock of the industry. This seems to be the most likely outcome because using Linux and Beowulf, anyone can assemble their own supercomputer for a small amount of money.
2.) People actually buy into this shit and start using IBM's model for processing. People obviously don't want to waste any processor operations -- similar to gas consumption in cars -- so there's an ongoing race to create efficient software (and it's about fucking time). Of course, this leads to a situation where as software becomes more and more efficient, it requires less and less processing power, meaning it can run on smaller systems, meaning IBM will have a bunch of supercomputers sitting around doing nothing because they've evolved themselves into obsolescence.
Did this CEO work for Microsoft at any point? This whole "strategy" (I'm reluctant to apply that word to an idea as bad as this) reeks of something that would come out of Redmond. Have they learned nothing during their embracing of Linux? Do they really think that the end user wants to pay on a per-usage fee? The power of the computer is that all I pay for is a connection and electricity...given a choice where I have that, or a system which also requires me to pay for processing time, and I know which one I'll go with, every time.
You can't simply add a cost like this to the cost-of-ownership of a product with no significant improvement in overall cost or performance and expect it to be widely adopted.
And here all this time, I thought it was Microsoft that played the "let's throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" game of product development.
Time to sell my IBM stock. They just jumped the shark.
I don't see how this is an issue -- I haven't got a math degree, in fact, I suck at it. (Hence, my English degree.) But with a finite playing field and finite set of shapes, one would think that a computer would be much better at it than a human if it knew the order of the pieces.
You could probably create a genetic algorithm that would look at the order of groups of N and figure out macro-structures, and how those macro-structures best interacted with one another.
Whatever the case, I'm still of the opinion that Tetris is a Soviet Meme Weapon that was released too early. If they'd waited until the Internet was in every office and home, Western Civilization would have ground to a halt, and we'd all be drinking vodka and wearing furry hats by now.
So if the power goes out, half the city asphixiates, right? :-)
Indeed, I'm inclined to agree with you. It gets worse...you don't need radar or or IR systems...all you need is a well-developed cellular phone network. Other references here.
You work in Marketing, don't you?
Where do they find these people?
From the article:
"Critics -- notably Intel -- argue that most desktop users have no need for 64-bit processing. In fact, Microsoft Corp. has yet to release a 64-bit version of Windows that will run on AMD's Hammer chips."
Is it any wonder, given they just lost their defense against Intergraph's patent lawsuit which may result in them not being able to release the Itanium series?
Hey, Intel, last I checked, no one had a use for 32-bit processing or 640K of RAM on the desktop, either.</sarcasm>
You may also obtain slack via Chez Geek, an excellent game from Steve Jackson.