I know this (actually if you use actual exchange rates the per capita income is around $420). But I used $2250 because I feared some Slashbot would go to the CIA world fact book and come back armed with the argument that I was exaggerating to make my point sound better. Taking this reality into consideration, Windows costs 33% of the average Vietnamese person's annual income. Which would, using the per capita income from the United States, make the cost of Windows rise above $12000. Would you pay five figures for your copy of Windows? Do you know anyone who would? Exactly.
Maybe it depends on what you prefer. Would you rather be locked in to a set of cheap and crappy hardware from third party vendors looking to make a buck by playing crappy WMA from Microsoft which is DRM'd to beat the band, or would you rather be locked into the best available portable audio player made by a company looking to make excellent products which play the upcoming audio standard (which has very reasonable DRM) by Apple? I know what I'd choose.
They are having lots of trouble stopping piracy because of (I guess) cultural reasons, the population simply don't recognize "piracy" as being wrong.
You don't have to guess. It's quite simple, really, and it's not because of any cultural blindness to the concept of piracy, whether or not there is any such blindness. The reason piracy is so prevalent is solely economical. The Vietnam version of Windows costs $140, while the annual per capita income of Vietnam is $2250. Given the choice, would you pay Microsoft 6% of your annual income, or would you try to get it for free? By comparison, Windows costs $300 in the US, while the US per capita income is $37600. This amounts to only 0.8% of the average American's annual income versus 6% of the average Vietnamese's. Imagine if Microsoft tried to charge the same relative prices here in the US? Relatively, it costs 7.5x as much in Vietnam, so try to think about how many people would pay, say, $2250 for their copy of Windows, and how many would steal it. And then, to combat the rampant piracy, the government would have to act in some way, and it is considerably easier to make a new regulation about open source than to start fining/jailing people for refusing to pay for something that no one in their right mind would pay for. It's ridiculous, and Microsoft should know this.
Varadarajan revealed that in addition to the G5, he'd also considered using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron and Intel's Itanium II processors. But the Opteron was too expensive and the Itanium too slow, he said.
Maybe you didn't read close enough, because the articles specifically state that he didn't compare only to Intel and that he found the Opterons to be too expensive. I'm just saying, because I think a lot of people did see a quote in the article mentioning Opterons, and you seem to have missed it. Thought you'd like to know.
And if you decide to disbelieve whatever you don't find convenient in a new story, you should rethink your statement about keeping religion and technical discussion separate, because you're really not.
No offense, but I think it should be pointed out that not only Mac fans are zealous.
Especially the video cards? It seems to me that it would be at least as impossible to burn a DVD on a computer sitting in the middle of an 1100 machine cluster as it would be to play a video game on it.
3) All downloaded music is in AAC format. Great if you have iPod. Sucks for like 99% of the music players outthere that support MP3 and WMA. Yeah, there's always a way of burning a disk, then ripping that into MP3, but that's a hassle.
You know, you're right! Instead of using an upcoming standard, like AAC (it's MPEG-4 audio), they should have used a real standard, like WMA. That way, it would make it virtually "impossible" for MS to compete with them... and they wouldn't even have to PAY MS FOR THE RIGHTS TO RIP TO WMA IN THEIR PROGRAM. Are you seriously complaining about the lack of WMA support? WMA sucks.
Minorities (Jews or Tibetans or Muslims or whatever) are persecuted, no criticism of the government is allowed, censorship and corruption are part of everyday life, military has a very important role in politics,... the rant goes on and on.
Are we talking about the Nazis and the Communists or are we talking about the USA? Think about it for a second before you mod me down.
Back on topic: I haven't heard of any big Chinese Space achievements before this.
You have to start somewhere. We didn't have much of a space program in the 60s, but we built one with a manned program. We didn't start with Hubble; we didn't start with GPS; we didn't start with shuttles and a space station; we started with launching a man into space and went from there. China's doing the same thing. Why criticize their space program for starting from zero? That's where they're at, so that's where they're starting from. We did the same thing 40 years ago, and now we've all forgotten about it. Go China.
You have to give away the sources along with the work when you sell it. I don't believe you have to release the source code to everyone, just the people who buy your product; can someone correct me if I'm wrong on that?
iCal is an absolutely fabulous program. But, since I left my Mac at home when I went to college and couldn't afford a new one on a student's budget, I was wondering if there is an equivalent (functionality-wise and quality-wise) for Windows... Can anyone help out those of us who lack Macs? Thanks.
And gravity STILL wouldn't exist! How many fundamental principles of the universe are still nonexistant (undiscovered) because of the drugs? The War on Drugs is focusing in totally the wrong area!;)
This is a kind of inversion of Warhol's idea, that everyone would be famous -- to everyone else -- for fifteen minutes. In the future, maybe everyone will be famous for a long time, but to a limited group.
Interesting, Neal, but highly dubious. Warhol's prediction that everyone will be universally famous for 15 minutes probably won't actually turn into everyone becoming famous for a long time to a limited group. What is more likely, with the fragmentation of the media, is that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes to an increasingly smaller audience. That is, if any change has to be made at all, which is anything but certain.
Everything else is already underfunded, that's true, but it's also being cut to fund the war. Take that $87 billion and help the states, jump start the economy, pay back the debt, fund space travel, do any number of things that will HELP the taxpayers, rather than KILL people.
Feh - Conservatives and their closed-minded blindness. And mod me down to the bowels of hell if you must, but at least read and think.
Actually my biggest fear is that we'll be a lot like the bad guys in movies like Independence Day: moving on and on through the galaxy, consuming and destroying everything in our path, unable to find equilibrium anywhere. That's where we're going now, anyway, as long as we continue to view space travel only as a means to escape the world we've already wrecked before we figure out how not to wreck one.
Believe this: we Americans are, as a whole, dumb enough to believe that the idiot at the helm is defending our freedom. While half of us also hold out hope for the next election, my advice you is to stay overseas, where the grass is greener, the leaders can read, and the people in prison at least know why.
Microsoft and its allies have sought to discredit open-source software, likening its challenge of proprietary ownership to communism and suggesting that its openness makes it insecure and therefore vulnerable to terrorism.
More strikingly, Microsoft has been imitating the ways of the open-source "community". Last year, the firm launched a "shared source" initiative that allows certain approved governments and large corporate clients to gain access to most of the Windows software code, though not to modify it. This is intended, in part, to assuage the fears of foreign governments that Windows might contain secret security backdoors.
So, they're saying that the openness of the code makes it less secure and vulnerable to terrorism, while at the same time opening their source to prove that it isn't secure... If they willingly admit that open code can be verified as more secure, how can they accuse Open Source software as being inherently less secure because it is open? And how come nobody calls them on that?
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Proof. But, like the link says, support was dropped in 1996, and it WAS only NT (obviously). But if it's been done before it can be done again.
I know this (actually if you use actual exchange rates the per capita income is around $420). But I used $2250 because I feared some Slashbot would go to the CIA world fact book and come back armed with the argument that I was exaggerating to make my point sound better. Taking this reality into consideration, Windows costs 33% of the average Vietnamese person's annual income. Which would, using the per capita income from the United States, make the cost of Windows rise above $12000. Would you pay five figures for your copy of Windows? Do you know anyone who would? Exactly.
Thanks Danny.
Maybe it depends on what you prefer. Would you rather be locked in to a set of cheap and crappy hardware from third party vendors looking to make a buck by playing crappy WMA from Microsoft which is DRM'd to beat the band, or would you rather be locked into the best available portable audio player made by a company looking to make excellent products which play the upcoming audio standard (which has very reasonable DRM) by Apple? I know what I'd choose.
They are having lots of trouble stopping piracy because of (I guess) cultural reasons, the population simply don't recognize "piracy" as being wrong.
You don't have to guess. It's quite simple, really, and it's not because of any cultural blindness to the concept of piracy, whether or not there is any such blindness. The reason piracy is so prevalent is solely economical. The Vietnam version of Windows costs $140, while the annual per capita income of Vietnam is $2250. Given the choice, would you pay Microsoft 6% of your annual income, or would you try to get it for free? By comparison, Windows costs $300 in the US, while the US per capita income is $37600. This amounts to only 0.8% of the average American's annual income versus 6% of the average Vietnamese's. Imagine if Microsoft tried to charge the same relative prices here in the US? Relatively, it costs 7.5x as much in Vietnam, so try to think about how many people would pay, say, $2250 for their copy of Windows, and how many would steal it. And then, to combat the rampant piracy, the government would have to act in some way, and it is considerably easier to make a new regulation about open source than to start fining/jailing people for refusing to pay for something that no one in their right mind would pay for. It's ridiculous, and Microsoft should know this.
Varadarajan revealed that in addition to the G5, he'd also considered using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron and Intel's Itanium II processors. But the Opteron was too expensive and the Itanium too slow, he said.
Maybe you didn't read close enough, because the articles specifically state that he didn't compare only to Intel and that he found the Opterons to be too expensive. I'm just saying, because I think a lot of people did see a quote in the article mentioning Opterons, and you seem to have missed it. Thought you'd like to know.
And if you decide to disbelieve whatever you don't find convenient in a new story, you should rethink your statement about keeping religion and technical discussion separate, because you're really not.
No offense, but I think it should be pointed out that not only Mac fans are zealous.
Especially the video cards? It seems to me that it would be at least as impossible to burn a DVD on a computer sitting in the middle of an 1100 machine cluster as it would be to play a video game on it.
3) All downloaded music is in AAC format. Great if you have iPod. Sucks for like 99% of the music players outthere that support MP3 and WMA. Yeah, there's always a way of burning a disk, then ripping that into MP3, but that's a hassle.
You know, you're right! Instead of using an upcoming standard, like AAC (it's MPEG-4 audio), they should have used a real standard, like WMA. That way, it would make it virtually "impossible" for MS to compete with them... and they wouldn't even have to PAY MS FOR THE RIGHTS TO RIP TO WMA IN THEIR PROGRAM. Are you seriously complaining about the lack of WMA support? WMA sucks.
danielsfca2 for President!
:) That's awesome. They should launch again next week and ask for the money.
Minorities (Jews or Tibetans or Muslims or whatever) are persecuted, no criticism of the government is allowed, censorship and corruption are part of everyday life, military has a very important role in politics, ... the rant goes on and on.
Are we talking about the Nazis and the Communists or are we talking about the USA? Think about it for a second before you mod me down.
Back on topic:
I haven't heard of any big Chinese Space achievements before this.
You have to start somewhere. We didn't have much of a space program in the 60s, but we built one with a manned program. We didn't start with Hubble; we didn't start with GPS; we didn't start with shuttles and a space station; we started with launching a man into space and went from there. China's doing the same thing. Why criticize their space program for starting from zero? That's where they're at, so that's where they're starting from. We did the same thing 40 years ago, and now we've all forgotten about it. Go China.
You have to give away the sources along with the work when you sell it. I don't believe you have to release the source code to everyone, just the people who buy your product; can someone correct me if I'm wrong on that?
iCal is an absolutely fabulous program. But, since I left my Mac at home when I went to college and couldn't afford a new one on a student's budget, I was wondering if there is an equivalent (functionality-wise and quality-wise) for Windows... Can anyone help out those of us who lack Macs? Thanks.
The 21st century called: They also want the 60's space program back...
And gravity STILL wouldn't exist! How many fundamental principles of the universe are still nonexistant (undiscovered) because of the drugs? The War on Drugs is focusing in totally the wrong area! ;)
This is a kind of inversion of Warhol's idea, that everyone would be famous -- to everyone else -- for fifteen minutes. In the future, maybe everyone will be famous for a long time, but to a limited group.
Interesting, Neal, but highly dubious. Warhol's prediction that everyone will be universally famous for 15 minutes probably won't actually turn into everyone becoming famous for a long time to a limited group. What is more likely, with the fragmentation of the media, is that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes to an increasingly smaller audience. That is, if any change has to be made at all, which is anything but certain.
Dartmouth people have friends? Just kidding. ;)
he seemed to lost for words.
;)
Out of curiosity, is he still one of your main writing influences?
Just cause you think it's overhyped doesn't mean it isn't worth every bit of that hype.
Isn't that the definition of "overhyped"?
Everything else is already underfunded, that's true, but it's also being cut to fund the war. Take that $87 billion and help the states, jump start the economy, pay back the debt, fund space travel, do any number of things that will HELP the taxpayers, rather than KILL people.
Feh - Conservatives and their closed-minded blindness. And mod me down to the bowels of hell if you must, but at least read and think.
Actually my biggest fear is that we'll be a lot like the bad guys in movies like Independence Day: moving on and on through the galaxy, consuming and destroying everything in our path, unable to find equilibrium anywhere. That's where we're going now, anyway, as long as we continue to view space travel only as a means to escape the world we've already wrecked before we figure out how not to wreck one.
Believe this: we Americans are, as a whole, dumb enough to believe that the idiot at the helm is defending our freedom. While half of us also hold out hope for the next election, my advice you is to stay overseas, where the grass is greener, the leaders can read, and the people in prison at least know why.
Please explain to us which part of my post was a troll, as opposed to the final 28% of yours. That would be greatly appreciated.
Are you saying lying to the American people about the reasons for starting a war is LESS PETTY than lying about an affair? What?
Microsoft and its allies have sought to discredit open-source software, likening its challenge of proprietary ownership to communism and suggesting that its openness makes it insecure and therefore vulnerable to terrorism.
More strikingly, Microsoft has been imitating the ways of the open-source "community". Last year, the firm launched a "shared source" initiative that allows certain approved governments and large corporate clients to gain access to most of the Windows software code, though not to modify it. This is intended, in part, to assuage the fears of foreign governments that Windows might contain secret security backdoors.
So, they're saying that the openness of the code makes it less secure and vulnerable to terrorism, while at the same time opening their source to prove that it isn't secure... If they willingly admit that open code can be verified as more secure, how can they accuse Open Source software as being inherently less secure because it is open? And how come nobody calls them on that?
My only question: But does it run linux?
Oh, wait. I mean: Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of those?
Okay, fine. In Soviet Russia, secure system bypasses YOU!
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