I don't see why you brought this up. I think my comments on this subject have been fairly rational and in line with each other. Why did you even start talking about people who won't see reality for what it is, unless you were implying I'm one of them?
Your posts are usually insightful and this one is on the whole no exception. However, I have to comment on the "The[y] could just have just as easily chosen Linux": that statement totally forgets the monopolies Microsoft has been able to build in the last fifteen years (legally or otherwise) and the "traps" that were built on top of those monopolies. Most operating system customers _cannot_ choose non-MS products, and that is not just because the competing products themselves aren't good.
The OS and document format monopoly, the IE-trap that many companies unknowingly stepped into ten years ago and the well documented anti-interoperability stance that seemed to be the M.O. at Microsoft for some time... These things may not be illegal (although I expect they may be in combination) but I have no problem calling them immoral.
In any case saying that customers have a choice is bollocks. They had a choice ten years ago, and hopefully will again after five or ten years... Let's hope so.
ah, I see you haven't followed how gadget prices work in EU vs US... otherwise you would have known 175 euros is not the equivalent of $250 -- prices I've seen elsewhere in Europe indicate the Zino costs more than 300 euros here (it's not available in my country yet for some reason).
Any better examples, preferably with prices from a EU store?
This solution (if taken into the logical conclusion) would obviously use the codecs installed on the host via the browsers video functionality. This is how video on the web should have been done in the first place.
Of course Monty doesn't have the money to buy MySQL. It doesn't change the fact that he stayed completely silent on this until he got his millions. Maybe he only understood the problems of Oracle ownership then?
If Oracle has patents they can use to kill MySQL, why on earth did they need to buy it first, and how would the situation improve if they were forced to sell it? That is an absurd idea.
Of course monopoly is not good for the public. However, there is no monopoly here.
Websites that were built on (non-gpl) mysql could be in trouble if Oracle wants to fuck them. That was the risk those websites took when they decided to go with a proprietary vendor. That would suck for them, but that's how proprietary software works.
Users of GPL MySQL could be sightly inconvenienced: In the end a new community would still form around one of the forks. Again, for smart users selecting MySQL was a calculated risk of relying on a project with only one major developer.
Well, I have one of those 5 meter cables, and it's annoying. Always in the way, never where I need it (remember, it's a laptop, so movable).
Another thing: I'm currently thinking of buying a projector. The 12-15 meter VGA cable I need will be butt ugly and I'll have to do a lot of work to make it not stick out. Really hiding the cable would require a competent handyman and a hefty bill. I'd pay $200 in a heartbeat for working wireless display tech.
organised religion has, over the millennia, worked with science and technology rather than against it
You make the mistake of assuming they can't do both. As any power that was larger than it should have been, the church logically rooted for science when it suited them and silenced scientists when they were inconvenient.
The once silent minority polarised viewpoints of strong atheism and literal, reason-rejecting interpretation of religious texts have become so loud! What happened to the healthy scientific scepticism of yore, where doubt and questioning rather than certainty and dogma was the foundation of knowledge?
The scientific method is now stronger than ever, IMO. In Ye Olde Days only a select few could write their ideas on paper so it may seem like idiocy is on the rise, but I'm ready to bet that's not true -- there are quite certainly more scientists-by-heart alive now than ever before. I think you may be looking at history with rose-tinted glasses.
And the GP was a troll: as mdwh2 said his straw men arguments are so far fetched that there's just nothing to discuss.
uh, what? She was convicted of three counts of reckless homicide. Are you saying in your mind she is guilty of an additional crime and should have been charged with something else as well?
How do you see your anti-suicide law working? Do you think Jeanette might have thought "hmm, on second thought maybe I won't kill myself because I might get jail time for it"?
It all depends on the contract, but selling unlicensed tech is very common. After all, the much larger device manufacturer may be able to get the needed licenses from cross-licensing deals much cheaper.
This is one of the reasons the patent systems sucks: it was supposed to give inventors some time to cash in on the invention, but now big companies just use the system to keep new smaller competitors out.
It's a single mod on a single post. Whether this one mod is correct or not (your post can be overrated even if it's not been modded) does not define the usefulness of the whole mod system. Get over it and stop whining.
"I have karma to burn" seems to mostly mean "I care about my karma more than I care about a good discussion". Mentioning it does not improve the discussion in any case.
You messed up or they made an honest mistake. CC companies want you to use the credit card, that's how they make their money -- Handling your savings account and possibly making a slight profit from it is just a bonus.
I'm guessing the only guys who followed you out of the bank were security...
I agree that the important thing to take home is the awesomeness of finally having a non-monoculture web and actual progress in web technologies.
But, I also think your expectations are insanely high: ~10% yearly growth is phenomenal, especially when we are already talking about significant market share and not minuscule figures. I'm fine with calling that a "slow climb" instead of phenomenal because that's what it is when you draw it in a specific way (10% of 30% doesn't look that dramatic). I'm not fine with calling it "flatlining" because that's just not based on reality -- a steady and reliable rise through the recent years.
If you make a personal transaction such as buying at a boot sale and don't have your chequebook with you, how do you pay?
Seriously, the inconvenience of not having cheques is minimal compared to the savings made when that antique system is thrown out. Cash, credit/debit cards and electronic banking provide a good enough option for every situation.
Do you guys really not have direct bank transfers? You can do that from any web browser (that you consider secure enough) or from a bank or from a bank machine that supports this.
With 15 years of experience of life without cheques, I can tell you the problem you imagine does not really exist.
Does your car service level agreement promise 20 years of parts manufacture?...I thought it might not. Even if a deal like that is available, it wouldn't be if cars improved at the speed computing does.
Car parts will only be made as long as there's demand, same goes for software support. It just happens not many people want support for 20 year old software. That is NORMAL business practice.
My money would be on that as well. It's quite amazing how standard todays laptops are. As an example, I don't know a single laptop manufacturer* who would design their own boards: everyone just uses Intel reference boards, and as a result all laptops end up very similar to each other.
*) I think Apple is still the exception here, no doubt because it lets them get the benefits of the non-removable battery.
Your other points may be valid but 1) isn't really. The idea of a web tablet was not revolutionary or new. The _only_ reason Arrington got the press he did was his claim that the end product could be sold at $200. That has turned out to have been as ridiculous as many of us originally predicted.
Higher build quality is a bit misleading as components and assembly are exactly the same as for other laptops AFAIK... Apple does do their own board design (to take advantage of non-removable batteries etc.) unlike all other laptop manufacturers that use Intel reference designs (which is why every laptop looks alike), and their chassis is unique of course.
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I don't see why you brought this up. I think my comments on this subject have been fairly rational and in line with each other. Why did you even start talking about people who won't see reality for what it is, unless you were implying I'm one of them?
Your posts are usually insightful and this one is on the whole no exception. However, I have to comment on the "The[y] could just have just as easily chosen Linux": that statement totally forgets the monopolies Microsoft has been able to build in the last fifteen years (legally or otherwise) and the "traps" that were built on top of those monopolies. Most operating system customers _cannot_ choose non-MS products, and that is not just because the competing products themselves aren't good.
The OS and document format monopoly, the IE-trap that many companies unknowingly stepped into ten years ago and the well documented anti-interoperability stance that seemed to be the M.O. at Microsoft for some time... These things may not be illegal (although I expect they may be in combination) but I have no problem calling them immoral.
In any case saying that customers have a choice is bollocks. They had a choice ten years ago, and hopefully will again after five or ten years... Let's hope so.
oops, posting to remove accidental mod...
It's not just a computer in a black cubic case. It's artwork.
ah, I see you haven't followed how gadget prices work in EU vs US... otherwise you would have known 175 euros is not the equivalent of $250 -- prices I've seen elsewhere in Europe indicate the Zino costs more than 300 euros here (it's not available in my country yet for some reason).
Any better examples, preferably with prices from a EU store?
This solution (if taken into the logical conclusion) would obviously use the codecs installed on the host via the browsers video functionality. This is how video on the web should have been done in the first place.
What is your problem with this?
None of your points are relevant...
Of course Monty doesn't have the money to buy MySQL. It doesn't change the fact that he stayed completely silent on this until he got his millions. Maybe he only understood the problems of Oracle ownership then?
If Oracle has patents they can use to kill MySQL, why on earth did they need to buy it first, and how would the situation improve if they were forced to sell it? That is an absurd idea.
Of course monopoly is not good for the public. However, there is no monopoly here.
Websites that were built on (non-gpl) mysql could be in trouble if Oracle wants to fuck them. That was the risk those websites took when they decided to go with a proprietary vendor. That would suck for them, but that's how proprietary software works.
Users of GPL MySQL could be sightly inconvenienced: In the end a new community would still form around one of the forks. Again, for smart users selecting MySQL was a calculated risk of relying on a project with only one major developer.
Did I forget anything?
Well, I have one of those 5 meter cables, and it's annoying. Always in the way, never where I need it (remember, it's a laptop, so movable).
Another thing: I'm currently thinking of buying a projector. The 12-15 meter VGA cable I need will be butt ugly and I'll have to do a lot of work to make it not stick out. Really hiding the cable would require a competent handyman and a hefty bill. I'd pay $200 in a heartbeat for working wireless display tech.
You make the mistake of assuming they can't do both. As any power that was larger than it should have been, the church logically rooted for science when it suited them and silenced scientists when they were inconvenient.
The scientific method is now stronger than ever, IMO. In Ye Olde Days only a select few could write their ideas on paper so it may seem like idiocy is on the rise, but I'm ready to bet that's not true -- there are quite certainly more scientists-by-heart alive now than ever before. I think you may be looking at history with rose-tinted glasses.
And the GP was a troll: as mdwh2 said his straw men arguments are so far fetched that there's just nothing to discuss.
uh, what? She was convicted of three counts of reckless homicide. Are you saying in your mind she is guilty of an additional crime and should have been charged with something else as well?
How do you see your anti-suicide law working? Do you think Jeanette might have thought "hmm, on second thought maybe I won't kill myself because I might get jail time for it"?
It all depends on the contract, but selling unlicensed tech is very common. After all, the much larger device manufacturer may be able to get the needed licenses from cross-licensing deals much cheaper.
This is one of the reasons the patent systems sucks: it was supposed to give inventors some time to cash in on the invention, but now big companies just use the system to keep new smaller competitors out.
It's a single mod on a single post. Whether this one mod is correct or not (your post can be overrated even if it's not been modded) does not define the usefulness of the whole mod system. Get over it and stop whining.
"I have karma to burn" seems to mostly mean "I care about my karma more than I care about a good discussion". Mentioning it does not improve the discussion in any case.
You messed up or they made an honest mistake. CC companies want you to use the credit card, that's how they make their money -- Handling your savings account and possibly making a slight profit from it is just a bonus.
I'm guessing the only guys who followed you out of the bank were security...
I agree that the important thing to take home is the awesomeness of finally having a non-monoculture web and actual progress in web technologies.
But, I also think your expectations are insanely high: ~10% yearly growth is phenomenal, especially when we are already talking about significant market share and not minuscule figures. I'm fine with calling that a "slow climb" instead of phenomenal because that's what it is when you draw it in a specific way (10% of 30% doesn't look that dramatic). I'm not fine with calling it "flatlining" because that's just not based on reality -- a steady and reliable rise through the recent years.
If by "flatlining" you mean a 20% increase during the chart period, sure. The percentages were 26.86 in the beginning and 32.12 in the end.
What was your point? That Firefox market share needs to double every 18 months to be considered to be slowly climbing?
If you make a personal transaction such as buying at a boot sale and don't have your chequebook with you, how do you pay?
Seriously, the inconvenience of not having cheques is minimal compared to the savings made when that antique system is thrown out. Cash, credit/debit cards and electronic banking provide a good enough option for every situation.
Do you guys really not have direct bank transfers?
You can do that from any web browser (that you consider secure enough) or from a bank or from a bank machine that supports this.
With 15 years of experience of life without cheques, I can tell you the problem you imagine does not really exist.
Outlook may be a good Exchange client, but calling it a capable e-mail client is stretching it...
Does your car service level agreement promise 20 years of parts manufacture? ...I thought it might not. Even if a deal like that is available, it wouldn't be if cars improved at the speed computing does.
Car parts will only be made as long as there's demand, same goes for software support. It just happens not many people want support for 20 year old software. That is NORMAL business practice.
My money would be on that as well. It's quite amazing how standard todays laptops are. As an example, I don't know a single laptop manufacturer* who would design their own boards: everyone just uses Intel reference boards, and as a result all laptops end up very similar to each other.
*) I think Apple is still the exception here, no doubt because it lets them get the benefits of the non-removable battery.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22leggos%22+blocks
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22legos%22+blocks
164 "lego" results for every "leggo" result.
I'll let you do the conclusions.
Remember the triple damages... That price will be included in the buying price of Microsoft, SAP, or however you decide buy.
Your other points may be valid but 1) isn't really. The idea of a web tablet was not revolutionary or new. The _only_ reason Arrington got the press he did was his claim that the end product could be sold at $200. That has turned out to have been as ridiculous as many of us originally predicted.
Using Rogerborgs test: A search for "mozilla recommends bing" give me no useful results on Cuil, unlike Google and Bing.
Higher build quality is a bit misleading as components and assembly are exactly the same as for other laptops AFAIK... Apple does do their own board design (to take advantage of non-removable batteries etc.) unlike all other laptop manufacturers that use Intel reference designs (which is why every laptop looks alike), and their chassis is unique of course.