It's true that they are sitting on a boatload of cash. However, the god that is worshipped on Wall Street is GROWTH. What have you done for me lately?
As linux slowly drains the revenues from the business world, there will be more and more pressure for Microsoft to perform. In a saturated market, where will they show growth?
As they scramble for new markets and new growth, maybe they will get desperate, lose focus, and make mistakes. I contend that, going forward, it's much easier for OS X and Linux to gain marketshare than it is for Microsoft. And, once a trend is established, it might just be a rolling snowball.
There are many convincing arguments for the lack of fossil evidence including the fact that, if these creatures are at all intelligent, they may bury the bones for various reasons.
Also, the creatures, if they exist, must be fairly reclusive. The areas where they live are pretty remote. Also, when they die, they may slink of to some cave or something.
Besides, I have done a lot of hiking in the Pacific NW and have yet to stumble across the corpse of an elk or a bear. I suspect the ravens, beatles, and insects make quick qork of a rotting caracass in the rain forest.
BTW - there was, fairly recently, a dicovery of an ape population in Indonesia that scientists didn't know about previously. The discovery raised the number of orangutan known to exist by 10%.
From http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=327: This article is significant to bigfoot/sasquatch researchers, because it points out some of the challenges encountered in other areas of great ape research. The fact that such a sizeable group of large, diurnal (awake during the day) apes whose biology is very well studied has managed to avoid detection by active researchers helps one better understand the challenges involved with the bigfoot/sasquatch phenomenon. Sasquatches are believed to be nocturnal great apes with far lower population densities across significant portions of North America and whose biology and ecology is less well understood.
On Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) Talk of the Nation: Science Friday with Ira Flatow, Dr. Jane Goodall made a striking comment on her strong beliefs that large "undiscovered" primates, such as the Yeti or Sasquatch, do indeed exist.
I don't have a link to the quote handy - go google - but Dr. Goodall has actually stated that she thinks there is a good chance that the Bigfoot could be real. AFAIK, she was seriously planning to attend - as were other respected primate researchers.
Now, suppose that Bob and Roy get sick and each incurs 10 dollars worth of health care bills. Now you have:
Bob: $10
Tim: $40
Doug: $60
David: $80
Roy: $90
Now, suppose that the Bob and Roy both need to send their kids to school and that costs $5 a year:
Bob: $3
Tim: $40
Doug: $60
David: $80
Roy: $83
Well, looks like Bob is heading for homelessness while Roy still has enough to spend the summer in Hawaii licking his financial wounds. And, Bob ain't likely to win the lottery my friend.
I am so sick of hearing the charges of "class warfare" from the very people (and their apologists) who are getting rich at the expense of the poor and middle class who are the real engines of the economy. The fact is that there are a lot of poor and middle class people busting there ass, obeying the law, working two jobs, and trying to raise honest, decent children. And you know what, many of them are failing because the rich are constantly against anything that would provide a shred of hope to these people.
Fighting against the minimum wage, allowing corporations to pay $0 in taxes, fighting mass-transit, head start, social security, medicare - this is the REAl class warfare.
I am afraid I am going to have to report you to general Ashcroft.
That kind of multilateral, thinkin don't fly around here mister. We're trying to fight a war on terrorism here.
The last thing we need is a bunch of Frenchies, China men, and god knows what else telling us how to build rockets and where we can fly them and so forth.
If we start cooperating with the world, and learn how to work together, why then, the terrorists have won.
It seemes to me that both sides are partially to blame.
The computer makers are more than likely underpaying and undertraining staff for what is, obviously, a very difficult job. Much like teachers, they are underpaid and a good one makes a big difference.
Many users like my parents (don't get me started) refuse to take responsibility for educating themselves on the basics of the machine. My parents still don't understand the difference between hard drive storage space and RAM. Computers are complicated - you have to take some time to read and experiment until you understand the vocabulary and basic methodology.
So, here is one idea for a partial solution - have levels of support based on the users grasp of the OS. So, when a user wants to buy a support package, he or she is directed to a short multiple choice quiz on the Web that ranks the user based on their skill. The higher they rank, the cheaper their support package.
This may seem a little harsh, but it makes logical sense.
* Users like you and I might not have to jump through so many hoops to actually get to a crux of the problem becuase the person on the other end of the line would know that we have a clue.
* People who know their computers better are less likely to need tech support and should, therefore, pay less. Conversly, people who don't bother to learn the lingo and basic operation of their machine would be fairly penalized.
* Joe and Jane would have more incentive to pick up that Windows XP for idiots book and give it a read.
* Users who don't understand such basic terms as "right-click" and "hard drive" could be forced to learn those terms prior to callinng tech support.
RE: "IANA geneticist, but I wonder whether some rapid evolution occurred amongst these small subgroups that gave modern humans the advantage over the Neanderthals?"
My understanding is that our branch of evolution succeeded while the neanderthals failed because we were nomadic while they tended to try and stay in one area. The idea is that out cultural evolution made us more fit to survive and prosper be cause we became more able to deal with change.
I bill my time at $100 an hour (not as expensive as it sounds when you have your own business). A lot of shopping around, downloading drivers, assembling computers, and dealing with conflicts costs much more than the difference between a PC and a MAC.
There is a lot of hostility out there about which computer people use. Who gives a shit?
5 cents a song? Are you serious? Bandwidth costs alone preclude that.
If you have played with the new service at all, you will appreciate the high-quality 30 second previews of EVERY song. For me, this is killer and a great way to learn about new music as well as remember older songs. You can't have millions of people listening to free previews and still charge 5 cents a song. The price of the song subsidizes the entire experience.
Sound quality is important to me and I have Soundstick/iSub speakers which sound pretty good.
I have my CD's ripped at 320. The tunes I bought from Apple sound just as good to me - although I haven't tested the same exact songs against one another.
YES! I noticed it too. Oh, thank god I am not insane.
Actually, at first I thought it was a problem with the prurchased music, but I listened to other exisitng songs in iTunes and I hear it in some of them as well. I think this is a bug/feature of iTunes 4.0. I hope so, because it's a lot easier to change the app than 200,000 encoded songs. Speaking of which, do you think they have all these encoded songs sitting around or are they encoding on the fly. The downloads seem too fast to be encoded in realtime.
I am not presuming a supernatural element to life, I am just posing an interesting question. I don't necessarily believe in a "soul", but many people do. A virus is a relatively simple organism. It is interesting that constructing a virus resulted in a life-like virus. However, I wonder if a constructed monkey or human would have a personality and consciousness.
OK, this might paint me as profoundly ignorant in the ways of biochemistry, but where's the lightning bolt?
I mean, one day, after enough practice, we will probably be able to construct DNA - base pair by base pair - and set them up to create some protiens that can build cells etc. etc. But, how do we breath life into the resulting tissues? Are we making the extrapolation that biochemistry=living creature?
What's to say that the thing will have a "soul" -so to speak - or animating life force? If there is a "soul", where does it come from? Does it just "fill in" to the bodily form when the conditions are right or are we assuming that the soul is a funtion of bio-chemistry?
I think having a conference dedicated to audio issues on Linux is great for the platform. Linux is going gang-bisters on the server - it's on the desktop that the next surge will take place. If compelling video and audio applications are produced that push the envelope in terms of performance and features can that take advantage of the cost savings of Intel hardware, then Linux may be able to carve out a niche from some of SGI and Apple's customers. This will certainly be of benefit to the end user and will help increase Linux mindshare.
1) I do some contract work for a vendor called "Winternals". They make recovery and repair products that allow you to roll back certain Windows files when the OS becomes hosed among other things. I have always wondered why MS doesn't buy some of this kind of technology that makes Windows a little easier to administor. Maybe they want to add the ability to "Roll Back" XP to a last known good state.
2) It doesn't hurt to have another sword hanging over Apple's head - after all, many people switch knowing they have the Virtual PC safety blanket.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true that they are sitting on a boatload of cash. However, the god that is worshipped on Wall Street is GROWTH. What have you done for me lately?
As linux slowly drains the revenues from the business world, there will be more and more pressure for Microsoft to perform. In a saturated market, where will they show growth?
As they scramble for new markets and new growth, maybe they will get desperate, lose focus, and make mistakes. I contend that, going forward, it's much easier for OS X and Linux to gain marketshare than it is for Microsoft. And, once a trend is established, it might just be a rolling snowball.
We can't find Osama or Sadam either and their habits are well known and their range of movement smaller than North America.
There are many convincing arguments for the lack of fossil evidence including the fact that, if these creatures are at all intelligent, they may bury the bones for various reasons.
Also, the creatures, if they exist, must be fairly reclusive. The areas where they live are pretty remote. Also, when they die, they may slink of to some cave or something.
Besides, I have done a lot of hiking in the Pacific NW and have yet to stumble across the corpse of an elk or a bear. I suspect the ravens, beatles, and insects make quick qork of a rotting caracass in the rain forest.
BTW - there was, fairly recently, a dicovery of an ape population in Indonesia that scientists didn't know about previously. The discovery raised the number of orangutan known to exist by 10%.
From http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=327:
This article is significant to bigfoot/sasquatch researchers, because it points out some of the challenges encountered in other areas of great ape research. The fact that such a sizeable group of large, diurnal (awake during the day) apes whose biology is very well studied has managed to avoid detection by active researchers helps one better understand the challenges involved with the bigfoot/sasquatch phenomenon. Sasquatches are believed to be nocturnal great apes with far lower population densities across significant portions of North America and whose biology and ecology is less well understood.
Here's a link:
http://www.bfro.net/news/goodall.asp
On Friday, September 27, 2002, during National Public Radio's (NPR) Talk of the Nation: Science Friday with Ira Flatow, Dr. Jane Goodall made a striking comment on her strong beliefs that large "undiscovered" primates, such as the Yeti or Sasquatch, do indeed exist.
I don't have a link to the quote handy - go google - but Dr. Goodall has actually stated that she thinks there is a good chance that the Bigfoot could be real. AFAIK, she was seriously planning to attend - as were other respected primate researchers.
OK, take these baseline salaries.
Bob: $20
Tim: $40
Doug: $60
David: $80
Roy: $100
Now, suppose that Bob and Roy get sick and each incurs 10 dollars worth of health care bills. Now you have:
Bob: $10
Tim: $40
Doug: $60
David: $80
Roy: $90
Now, suppose that the Bob and Roy both need to send their kids to school and that costs $5 a year:
Bob: $3
Tim: $40
Doug: $60
David: $80
Roy: $83
Well, looks like Bob is heading for homelessness while Roy still has enough to spend the summer in Hawaii licking his financial wounds. And, Bob ain't likely to win the lottery my friend.
I am so sick of hearing the charges of "class warfare" from the very people (and their apologists) who are getting rich at the expense of the poor and middle class who are the real engines of the economy. The fact is that there are a lot of poor and middle class people busting there ass, obeying the law, working two jobs, and trying to raise honest, decent children. And you know what, many of them are failing because the rich are constantly against anything that would provide a shred of hope to these people.
Fighting against the minimum wage, allowing corporations to pay $0 in taxes, fighting mass-transit, head start, social security, medicare - this is the REAl class warfare.
I am afraid I am going to have to report you to general Ashcroft.
That kind of multilateral, thinkin don't fly around here mister. We're trying to fight a war on terrorism here.
The last thing we need is a bunch of Frenchies, China men, and god knows what else telling us how to build rockets and where we can fly them and so forth.
If we start cooperating with the world, and learn how to work together, why then, the terrorists have won.
It seemes to me that both sides are partially to blame.
The computer makers are more than likely underpaying and undertraining staff for what is, obviously, a very difficult job. Much like teachers, they are underpaid and a good one makes a big difference.
Many users like my parents (don't get me started) refuse to take responsibility for educating themselves on the basics of the machine. My parents still don't understand the difference between hard drive storage space and RAM. Computers are complicated - you have to take some time to read and experiment until you understand the vocabulary and basic methodology.
So, here is one idea for a partial solution - have levels of support based on the users grasp of the OS. So, when a user wants to buy a support package, he or she is directed to a short multiple choice quiz on the Web that ranks the user based on their skill. The higher they rank, the cheaper their support package.
This may seem a little harsh, but it makes logical sense.
* Users like you and I might not have to jump through so many hoops to actually get to a crux of the problem becuase the person on the other end of the line would know that we have a clue.
* People who know their computers better are less likely to need tech support and should, therefore, pay less. Conversly, people who don't bother to learn the lingo and basic operation of their machine would be fairly penalized.
* Joe and Jane would have more incentive to pick up that Windows XP for idiots book and give it a read.
* Users who don't understand such basic terms as "right-click" and "hard drive" could be forced to learn those terms prior to callinng tech support.
My understanding is that our branch of evolution succeeded while the neanderthals failed because we were nomadic while they tended to try and stay in one area. The idea is that out cultural evolution made us more fit to survive and prosper be cause we became more able to deal with change.
"I manually downloaded the preview file and in iTunes it says it's 64kbps, not 128kbps like the purchased stuff."
That's helpful. Guess everyone is out of mod points.
The preview are DEFINITELY lower quality than the downloaded song. I would say the difference is substantial.
I think I have pretty good ears, and I think the downloaded AACs rival the 320k MP3's I have.
The poster said "after a lot of shopping around".
I bill my time at $100 an hour (not as expensive as it sounds when you have your own business). A lot of shopping around, downloading drivers, assembling computers, and dealing with conflicts costs much more than the difference between a PC and a MAC.
There is a lot of hostility out there about which computer people use. Who gives a shit?
5 cents a song? Are you serious?
Bandwidth costs alone preclude that.
If you have played with the new service at all, you will appreciate the high-quality 30 second previews of EVERY song. For me, this is killer and a great way to learn about new music as well as remember older songs. You can't have millions of people listening to free previews and still charge 5 cents a song. The price of the song subsidizes the entire experience.
I just did some tests and it seems like the culprit is the equalizer - which is a drag because I use it extensively.
Sound quality is important to me and I have Soundstick/iSub speakers which sound pretty good.
I have my CD's ripped at 320. The tunes I bought from Apple sound just as good to me - although I haven't tested the same exact songs against one another.
YES! I noticed it too. Oh, thank god I am not insane.
Actually, at first I thought it was a problem with the prurchased music, but I listened to other exisitng songs in iTunes and I hear it in some of them as well. I think this is a bug/feature of iTunes 4.0. I hope so, because it's a lot easier to change the app than 200,000 encoded songs. Speaking of which, do you think they have all these encoded songs sitting around or are they encoding on the fly. The downloads seem too fast to be encoded in realtime.
I love this store. Stop me before I buy again!
I am not presuming a supernatural element to life, I am just posing an interesting question. I don't necessarily believe in a "soul", but many people do. A virus is a relatively simple organism. It is interesting that constructing a virus resulted in a life-like virus. However, I wonder if a constructed monkey or human would have a personality and consciousness.
This could add a new new level to terrorism.
OK, this might paint me as profoundly ignorant in the ways of biochemistry, but where's the lightning bolt? I mean, one day, after enough practice, we will probably be able to construct DNA - base pair by base pair - and set them up to create some protiens that can build cells etc. etc. But, how do we breath life into the resulting tissues? Are we making the extrapolation that biochemistry=living creature? What's to say that the thing will have a "soul" -so to speak - or animating life force? If there is a "soul", where does it come from? Does it just "fill in" to the bodily form when the conditions are right or are we assuming that the soul is a funtion of bio-chemistry?
Easy.
1)Why have a big clunky box, monitor, ups, keyboard, mouse etc when you can just click a couple of times and you are in Windows?
2)Why worry about re-installing Windows? Virtual PC let's you roll Windows back to an earlier state.
3) Forget LILO, rack up 5 or 6 different OSs on one machine - all a couple clicks away.
4) It's fun to watch your clueless Windows friends when you run it in Full screen mode on your Mac.
I think having a conference dedicated to audio issues on Linux is great for the platform. Linux is going gang-bisters on the server - it's on the desktop that the next surge will take place. If compelling video and audio applications are produced that push the envelope in terms of performance and features can that take advantage of the cost savings of Intel hardware, then Linux may be able to carve out a niche from some of SGI and Apple's customers. This will certainly be of benefit to the end user and will help increase Linux mindshare.
Apple doesn't have to be a threat to Microsoft in order for Microsoft to want to have leverage over Apple.
Besides, Apple IS a threat to Microsoft.
I wonder if their motives aren't 3 fold:
1) I do some contract work for a vendor called "Winternals". They make recovery and repair products that allow you to roll back certain Windows files when the OS becomes hosed among other things. I have always wondered why MS doesn't buy some of this kind of technology that makes Windows a little easier to administor. Maybe they want to add the ability to "Roll Back" XP to a last known good state.
2) It doesn't hurt to have another sword hanging over Apple's head - after all, many people switch knowing they have the Virtual PC safety blanket.
3) Unload some of that damn cash.
how long after the first Palladium crap-o-la is released until we can either a) emulate it's functionality or b) completely bypass it?
And then General Ashcroft finds out and puts you in the slammer for 10 years.
Let's hope it's better than Zardoz.