Or just buy one of these http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53... It even comes with the benefit of being environmentally friendly. IE, soon you'll, become obsessed with the smell of your farts, buy a hybrid, shave your head, and grow a soul patch, wear crocheted scarves, masturbate to "An inconvenient truth," or... not...
So if I create a pact with all but my fiercest competitors, submit a patent on a newly emerging main stream technology , and wait 10 years...
I can hire a team of lawyers, and sue the whole world for a technology that they've been freely using since its inception? Then, my collective group can get filthy rich off of a technology that we've neither worked to develop or produce?
Who needs work when I can rape the rest of the world of all forms of creativity by bullying the masses into submission with my personal team of scumbag lawyers. This is like the bastard child of monopolies and mob rule dipped in awesomeness.
Get ready to pay up, first on my list of patents is valid but unsound arguments.
"(Hey, if you can't fuck your friends and family, then who can you fuck?)" (sic)
"I gotta buy you, like, a proverb book or something. This mix'n'match shit's gotta go."
Families that play together... Stay together.
"Now make like a tree... and get the f*** out of here!"
The Palm had a great niche. I used to own and use a m500 on a regular basis. It was a simple PDA that was comfortable to use, could easily fit into your pocket, run a week on a single charge, and had a great platform to store data that enabled be to be more productive.
Their device failed because they decided to chase their competitors down the path of feature driven development. Every new feature got in the way of productivity, increased power consumption, and increased the size of the device. Until, it just became another 'trendy toy' with an identity crisis.
It started out doing one thing really well and ended up doing everything poorly.
If they still produced PDAs like my old Palm m500 I would buy one in a second. It's sad to see the category of PDA disappear, especially in the midst of potential improvements like micro-usb becoming the standard for data transfer and charging, SDHC MicroSD flash memory, or SD Wifi.
I really hope that the manufacturers of eReader devices aren't market driven to make the same mistakes (the Sony PRS-700 has already made this mistake).
Funny... I was just implying that, if windows was modular, it would be easier to develop on and it would be easy for users to pick what they want and leave out the extra (crap). Doesn't it make sense to trim the excess fat on new operating systems so they can run their fancy graphics without hoarding processing time (ie. Vista)? For example, probably 75% of the crap in the System32 folder could be removed without affecting the user. Not to mention there are 88 different background services that come with a fresh install of Windows and many of these can be shut off without affecting the user (when was the last time you used telephony). Have you ever used DrWatson or MRT.exe (Malicious Software Removal Tool)? I know that Linux is coming close to reaching this but, there's still a ton of work that needs to be done to centralize the libraries. Maybe if OSI or FSF funded an effort to standardize the libraries and make them easy to modify/document without breaking functionality like MS did with.NET framework. But until someone is willing to fund it, there is little satisfaction or motivation to undertake such a massive project (and therefore little incentive to stop reinventing the wheel).
Noise Pollution = Being annoyed by other people having fun?
Maybe, is you didn't refer to everybody as "sonny boy," someone might invite you to join in on the fun. And, LIFE LONG resident != Special Case
The problem is... The people who would actually take the time to test Windows 7 Beta probably don't represent the "real" windows customers. Most people just want an OS that can get on the internet and check e-mail. For the rest of us they should just make their system simple and pluggable. Look at firefox. Millions of plugins, but the base always stays the same. Microsoft has always made the mistake of incorporating everything into the operating system. They should read the success stories of the OSS community. Create a platform that people can build on themselves and they'll do all the hard work on their own. In short, they should sell an operating system and stop trying to monopolize the users desktop.
One small step for medical research. One giant leap back for medical credibility.
Next, the pharmaceutical companies will have new medications to address this issue that have side-effects much worse than a few blisters. Since when did doctors and medical researchers decide that people's gaming and internet habits needed to all be diagnosed as disorders or diseases? Sounds like 100K+/Year to treat sick and ill people isn't cushy enough. Now they have to make up illnesses to swindle us.
I really hope this is a joke.
Medieval weapons for sure. They're the first and best weapons of mass destruction ever.
We did this at the alternative school I went to and it was awesome.
We dropped a ball off a cliff (literally) and calculated gravity. Then we studied the effects of launch range based on firing angle and muzzle velocity by playing tank wars. We built paper trebuchets to toy with and test different modifications. Then we built full size ones (Both trebuchets and onagers based on personal taste). Mine, without the arm stool 3ft w/o the arm and about 6ft with it. The onager was the hardest to built because it uses torsion to lift the projectile (that's a lot of twists in a little bit of rope) whereas the trebuchets are a magnitude of difficulty harder to launch effectively. They take some practice to get a feel for it as well as a systematic approach to adjust rope lengths and weight to match the projectile weight and desired launch distance.
That was probably the best 3 weeks I've ever had in a class. I learned that physics is easy and fun as hell if put in context
Seriously, you can put your inner Apple fanboy to rest. I was just using the iPod sync cable as an example. If you don't like me putting Apple on the spot then just replace all instances of "Apple" with "Sony" and "iPod sync cable" with "Memory Stick (MS)". The same circumstances apply.
The point I was trying make is, if manufacturers made an effort to standardize trivial components like cables and interconnects then everybody would benefit.
Example: Theoretical laptop power supply standard - a standard wall-wart for all consumer level laptops, a standard for voltage, maybe a signal line so the adapter could read a hardware level setting for required current from the laptop and adjust accordingly, universal connectors for airplane car and house power like the Dell AC/Auto/Air Power Adapter, and a magnetic connector for the laptop like the MacBook Air because that's just too awesome not to have.
For proof of concept, Dell has already switched over to standard adapters for all Dell laptops sometime around the Inspiron 6000 generation and I'm positive Apple has been doing this since waaaaay back when OSX was introduced so isn't this feasible for all consumer level laptops?
Imagine buying a laptop and omitting the cost of a power supply because you already have a few lying around (even if your laptop was from a different manufacturer) and the waste generated by the wall warts left over from previous laptops. That would be a huge selling point, not to mention how much it would simplify the manufacturing process. Of course, not everybody would buy into it but they would be at a disadvantage to their competition if they didn't.
I'm so glad cell phones are finally being standardized. Now I know that, if I buy mini to micro USB adapters for my phone. I'll be able to use them on future phones, ear pieces, as well as all the other stuff I charge off of them. No more carrying around 5 different wall warts all the time.
Why are HDMI so expensive, IDK, look up the spec and see what makes a HDMI 'special'
I agree about overpriced HDMI and USB cables. AFIAK, USB cables are numerous and cheap if the vendor doesn't suck. USB build quality doesn't matter as much because it is only specified for > 15ft runs.
For HDMI, I'd assume the actual wiring to be held to a high standard since HD video will show noticeable deterioration over distance and in the presence of RF interference unless resistance kept low and the wires are properly shielded. Of course, I'm no expert, this is just speculation, and I don't know the current price of HDMI because I haven't bought any recently.
The comment was in direct response to a comment about the Apple cable. Not singling Apple out just staying in context with the reply.
Maybe you could create a fork of Ubuntu and call it NagOS. 'Mr. Malware... leggo my Nagos.' Why do you expect the Ubuntu devs to make the same mistake as the Vista devs did.
Wasting energy on creating nags for every instance where a users security may be threatened is not the solution. 1. Because, if an exploit is discovered to circumvent this feature or it is missing from some programs or components in the system, the user will assume everything is good. 2. Because the malware itself can be created to mimic this type of protection. Just look up MS Antivirus on wikipedia and you'll see what I mean.
Malware exploits will continue to be an issue as long as people continue to be ill-informed and make bad decisions about computing. This falls under the Moore's Law of computer security, "Make a better security system and we'll make a better idiot." OS should be expected to plug any backdoors, but user level should be managed by the users.
I agree, I remember some guys doing this to our principle back when I was in High School and it was hilarious.
Of course, that was back in the days before you could be charged for and labeled as a sexual offender for peeing in public.
I don't even want to think about what type of puritanical influence it took to make that a reality.
It's too bad there few or no laws in local legislation to protect against obvious cases of abuse of power/position like this one.
You missed the point. You're supposed to let them take your money. If people really made money at the casinos then they wouldn't exist.
Consider this:
Night on the town drinking - $75;
Dinner and a movie - $45;
Rock concert - $50;
Night out gambling with free beer free strippers and a chance to win + or - $100 (unless you're the impulsive type);
If you're really willing to sacrifice the unique atmosphere of a casino for a realistic shot at winning money, you might as well sign up for publishers clearing house and invest in lotto tickets because with your luck, you're destined to win.
Because the scope of capitalism is much too complex for the average consumer to grasp. How are they expected to wrap their heads around complex and powerful subjects such as synergy when they spend all their time adorning their Al Gore shrines and praying to Buddah in a haze of bong smoke.
We need more commercials marketing and flashy stuff to teach the peasants the error of their ways. We need commercials running on daytime television, kids programming, and during American Idol to teach that capitalists are bringing society into a new era. As long as the consumers can stay the course by emptying their credit accounts on goods and free the banks of the burden they created when they quit paying their mortgages we'll all be fine.
The people just don't realize. The market, the economy, and the stock market are all the same thing. USB chargers are made my Mexicans and therefore are stealing jobs from good god fearing Americans, and standardization is evil.:: Cue Team America Theme Song::
Giggidy...
After reading some of the responses I finally understand the use of Apple's 'proprietary' connector. +1 for engineering foresight.
I would like to know what justifies charging $30 for the cable? Beside the connector, the rest of the assembly is nothing special so why the extreme markup from what people should expect to pay for a cable? Trendiness? And, are companies that make iPod charger cables required to leave out the part of the spec that supports syncing in their cables? Patent-lockdown?
Personally, I'm tired of paying for trendiness and patent-lockdown.
If a standard cable assembly were released to support all the features of the apple iPod cables that could be produced at a competitive price, wouldn't everybody (beside Apple) benefit?
I'm glad that Apple exists to raise the bar on hardware manufacturing quality standards, but their profit margins on hardware are akin to what MS does with software.
Slashdot Mirror
Or just buy one of these http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=53... It even comes with the benefit of being environmentally friendly. IE, soon you'll, become obsessed with the smell of your farts, buy a hybrid, shave your head, and grow a soul patch, wear crocheted scarves, masturbate to "An inconvenient truth," or... not...
So if I create a pact with all but my fiercest competitors, submit a patent on a newly emerging main stream technology , and wait 10 years... I can hire a team of lawyers, and sue the whole world for a technology that they've been freely using since its inception? Then, my collective group can get filthy rich off of a technology that we've neither worked to develop or produce? Who needs work when I can rape the rest of the world of all forms of creativity by bullying the masses into submission with my personal team of scumbag lawyers. This is like the bastard child of monopolies and mob rule dipped in awesomeness. Get ready to pay up, first on my list of patents is valid but unsound arguments.
"(Hey, if you can't fuck your friends and family, then who can you fuck?)" (sic) "I gotta buy you, like, a proverb book or something. This mix'n'match shit's gotta go." Families that play together... Stay together. "Now make like a tree... and get the f*** out of here!"
The Palm had a great niche. I used to own and use a m500 on a regular basis. It was a simple PDA that was comfortable to use, could easily fit into your pocket, run a week on a single charge, and had a great platform to store data that enabled be to be more productive. Their device failed because they decided to chase their competitors down the path of feature driven development. Every new feature got in the way of productivity, increased power consumption, and increased the size of the device. Until, it just became another 'trendy toy' with an identity crisis. It started out doing one thing really well and ended up doing everything poorly. If they still produced PDAs like my old Palm m500 I would buy one in a second. It's sad to see the category of PDA disappear, especially in the midst of potential improvements like micro-usb becoming the standard for data transfer and charging, SDHC MicroSD flash memory, or SD Wifi. I really hope that the manufacturers of eReader devices aren't market driven to make the same mistakes (the Sony PRS-700 has already made this mistake).
Funny... I was just implying that, if windows was modular, it would be easier to develop on and it would be easy for users to pick what they want and leave out the extra (crap). Doesn't it make sense to trim the excess fat on new operating systems so they can run their fancy graphics without hoarding processing time (ie. Vista)? For example, probably 75% of the crap in the System32 folder could be removed without affecting the user. Not to mention there are 88 different background services that come with a fresh install of Windows and many of these can be shut off without affecting the user (when was the last time you used telephony). Have you ever used DrWatson or MRT.exe (Malicious Software Removal Tool)? I know that Linux is coming close to reaching this but, there's still a ton of work that needs to be done to centralize the libraries. Maybe if OSI or FSF funded an effort to standardize the libraries and make them easy to modify/document without breaking functionality like MS did with .NET framework. But until someone is willing to fund it, there is little satisfaction or motivation to undertake such a massive project (and therefore little incentive to stop reinventing the wheel).
Noise Pollution = Being annoyed by other people having fun? Maybe, is you didn't refer to everybody as "sonny boy," someone might invite you to join in on the fun. And, LIFE LONG resident != Special Case
The problem is... The people who would actually take the time to test Windows 7 Beta probably don't represent the "real" windows customers. Most people just want an OS that can get on the internet and check e-mail. For the rest of us they should just make their system simple and pluggable. Look at firefox. Millions of plugins, but the base always stays the same. Microsoft has always made the mistake of incorporating everything into the operating system. They should read the success stories of the OSS community. Create a platform that people can build on themselves and they'll do all the hard work on their own. In short, they should sell an operating system and stop trying to monopolize the users desktop.
One small step for medical research. One giant leap back for medical credibility. Next, the pharmaceutical companies will have new medications to address this issue that have side-effects much worse than a few blisters. Since when did doctors and medical researchers decide that people's gaming and internet habits needed to all be diagnosed as disorders or diseases? Sounds like 100K+/Year to treat sick and ill people isn't cushy enough. Now they have to make up illnesses to swindle us. I really hope this is a joke.
Medieval weapons for sure. They're the first and best weapons of mass destruction ever. We did this at the alternative school I went to and it was awesome. We dropped a ball off a cliff (literally) and calculated gravity. Then we studied the effects of launch range based on firing angle and muzzle velocity by playing tank wars. We built paper trebuchets to toy with and test different modifications. Then we built full size ones (Both trebuchets and onagers based on personal taste). Mine, without the arm stool 3ft w/o the arm and about 6ft with it. The onager was the hardest to built because it uses torsion to lift the projectile (that's a lot of twists in a little bit of rope) whereas the trebuchets are a magnitude of difficulty harder to launch effectively. They take some practice to get a feel for it as well as a systematic approach to adjust rope lengths and weight to match the projectile weight and desired launch distance. That was probably the best 3 weeks I've ever had in a class. I learned that physics is easy and fun as hell if put in context
Seriously, you can put your inner Apple fanboy to rest. I was just using the iPod sync cable as an example. If you don't like me putting Apple on the spot then just replace all instances of "Apple" with "Sony" and "iPod sync cable" with "Memory Stick (MS)". The same circumstances apply. The point I was trying make is, if manufacturers made an effort to standardize trivial components like cables and interconnects then everybody would benefit. Example: Theoretical laptop power supply standard - a standard wall-wart for all consumer level laptops, a standard for voltage, maybe a signal line so the adapter could read a hardware level setting for required current from the laptop and adjust accordingly, universal connectors for airplane car and house power like the Dell AC/Auto/Air Power Adapter, and a magnetic connector for the laptop like the MacBook Air because that's just too awesome not to have. For proof of concept, Dell has already switched over to standard adapters for all Dell laptops sometime around the Inspiron 6000 generation and I'm positive Apple has been doing this since waaaaay back when OSX was introduced so isn't this feasible for all consumer level laptops? Imagine buying a laptop and omitting the cost of a power supply because you already have a few lying around (even if your laptop was from a different manufacturer) and the waste generated by the wall warts left over from previous laptops. That would be a huge selling point, not to mention how much it would simplify the manufacturing process. Of course, not everybody would buy into it but they would be at a disadvantage to their competition if they didn't. I'm so glad cell phones are finally being standardized. Now I know that, if I buy mini to micro USB adapters for my phone. I'll be able to use them on future phones, ear pieces, as well as all the other stuff I charge off of them. No more carrying around 5 different wall warts all the time. Why are HDMI so expensive, IDK, look up the spec and see what makes a HDMI 'special'
I agree about overpriced HDMI and USB cables. AFIAK, USB cables are numerous and cheap if the vendor doesn't suck. USB build quality doesn't matter as much because it is only specified for > 15ft runs. For HDMI, I'd assume the actual wiring to be held to a high standard since HD video will show noticeable deterioration over distance and in the presence of RF interference unless resistance kept low and the wires are properly shielded. Of course, I'm no expert, this is just speculation, and I don't know the current price of HDMI because I haven't bought any recently. The comment was in direct response to a comment about the Apple cable. Not singling Apple out just staying in context with the reply.
Maybe you could create a fork of Ubuntu and call it NagOS. 'Mr. Malware... leggo my Nagos.' Why do you expect the Ubuntu devs to make the same mistake as the Vista devs did. Wasting energy on creating nags for every instance where a users security may be threatened is not the solution. 1. Because, if an exploit is discovered to circumvent this feature or it is missing from some programs or components in the system, the user will assume everything is good. 2. Because the malware itself can be created to mimic this type of protection. Just look up MS Antivirus on wikipedia and you'll see what I mean. Malware exploits will continue to be an issue as long as people continue to be ill-informed and make bad decisions about computing. This falls under the Moore's Law of computer security, "Make a better security system and we'll make a better idiot." OS should be expected to plug any backdoors, but user level should be managed by the users.
I agree, I remember some guys doing this to our principle back when I was in High School and it was hilarious. Of course, that was back in the days before you could be charged for and labeled as a sexual offender for peeing in public. I don't even want to think about what type of puritanical influence it took to make that a reality. It's too bad there few or no laws in local legislation to protect against obvious cases of abuse of power/position like this one.
You missed the point. You're supposed to let them take your money. If people really made money at the casinos then they wouldn't exist. Consider this: Night on the town drinking - $75; Dinner and a movie - $45; Rock concert - $50; Night out gambling with free beer free strippers and a chance to win + or - $100 (unless you're the impulsive type); If you're really willing to sacrifice the unique atmosphere of a casino for a realistic shot at winning money, you might as well sign up for publishers clearing house and invest in lotto tickets because with your luck, you're destined to win.
Because the scope of capitalism is much too complex for the average consumer to grasp. How are they expected to wrap their heads around complex and powerful subjects such as synergy when they spend all their time adorning their Al Gore shrines and praying to Buddah in a haze of bong smoke. We need more commercials marketing and flashy stuff to teach the peasants the error of their ways. We need commercials running on daytime television, kids programming, and during American Idol to teach that capitalists are bringing society into a new era. As long as the consumers can stay the course by emptying their credit accounts on goods and free the banks of the burden they created when they quit paying their mortgages we'll all be fine. The people just don't realize. The market, the economy, and the stock market are all the same thing. USB chargers are made my Mexicans and therefore are stealing jobs from good god fearing Americans, and standardization is evil. :: Cue Team America Theme Song::
Giggidy...
After reading some of the responses I finally understand the use of Apple's 'proprietary' connector. +1 for engineering foresight. I would like to know what justifies charging $30 for the cable? Beside the connector, the rest of the assembly is nothing special so why the extreme markup from what people should expect to pay for a cable? Trendiness? And, are companies that make iPod charger cables required to leave out the part of the spec that supports syncing in their cables? Patent-lockdown? Personally, I'm tired of paying for trendiness and patent-lockdown. If a standard cable assembly were released to support all the features of the apple iPod cables that could be produced at a competitive price, wouldn't everybody (beside Apple) benefit? I'm glad that Apple exists to raise the bar on hardware manufacturing quality standards, but their profit margins on hardware are akin to what MS does with software.