"They want it to work out of the box and are willing to pay for that"
Work out of the box...
Like when a new Mac randomly chooses the startup disk and operating system because it has never been started before, even just to do a system check? Just a miniscule ammount of quality control and uniform user experience would be nice.
Is it the free year of CompuServe 2000 you can get as a buying incentive that has no OS X client and runs as an application that breaks your connection when you run software update because Macs have to shut down all running applications to do installs?
Is it the message "Mac OS is trying to shut down, please wait for mac os to shut down before trying to shut down."
Is it when AppleTalk grabs the printer port because it cannot see a connection on the Ethernet, preventing you from file sharing or printing?
Is it when Apple issues a firmware update that disables any ram that is not cas latency 322, even if it is better than cas 322, and to disable the check for "inferior ram" (you didn't pay apples 200% markup on ram) there is an easter egg hunt involving holding down secret keys while opening the memory control panel?
Is it having to use guesswork to manage each individual application's memory usage because the operating system will not take care of it for you?
Is it the hidden cost of OS X of running extremely poorly on the stock memory provided with apples requiring you to "purchase" a smooth running OS X for the price that apple sells their 200% markup memory for?
Is it the chipping paint on the TiBook, cracks in the Cube, useless handles and front foot of the iMac, misaligned hinges on the clamshell iBook, soft, easily scratched surface of the new ibook or flimsy plastic catch mechanism on the G4 Tower, that requires so much force to close that it is likely to break?
Is it the recalled power supplies, out of focus iMac CRTs, chronically bad G4 motherboards, temperamental slot load drives, incomplete software automatic software updates, type -43925 errors with no explanation or documentation or the inability to use USB printer sharing with dynamic addresses and again no documentation telling you why it is not working?
USB keyboards hubs constantly complaining of "not enough power" and going bad crashing the system. Absolutely no spill protection in any mac keyboard even though they were able to totally prevent a spill causing any damage to a Apple IIc twenty years ago? Designed in fragility so they can generate sales of a high margin item. A keyboard with USB hub is 30 bucks. Apple's is $80.
Bet also that the corrupted preferences adds to ease of use too. Infinitely tall launcher just because you changed screen resolution, inability to send mail and having to install an entirely new client to let you setup an account again. Applications constantly reporting "I see you are running 'blah-bah' for the first time" No OS provisions to do a clean uninstall resulting in the machine accumulating more and more stray files, forcing a clean OS install to get a measure of sanity back. Rebuilding the desktop corrupting all your aliases, and all the apple scripts you wrote to automate the bug fixes you have to do on a daily basis because Apple will not fix them.
Mac OS never enforcing any application privlages and no third party software vender even vaguely willing to undertake that momentous task because if Apple can't get something that fundamental right, how is anyone going to fix it for them?
Lack of documentation on extensions that would allow you to get rid of the parasites that provide no benefit but rob an already slow machine of resources?
Is it getting a brand new Mac with a burner just to find you have to download the disk burning software and extension from apple, instead of it coming pre-installed?
Is it the 20+ hours you have to put into a brand new machine because it is not even close to being able to perform as advertised when you pull it out of the box?
Is it the favorites menu filled to the brim already that you must empty before you can even use it as your favorites instead of what apple's marketing department thinks your favorites ought to be?
Is it the hidden spell check button that you must move to a usable location in both apple works and Office 2001?
Is it the crappy TCP/IP interface and application memory manager interface that will not let you make changes out of order?
Is it the horrible window management that will not let you properly maximize a window to use ALL available desktop space, forcing you to give up screen real estate to "important" things like the taskbar, dock, blank desktop, apple menu, and the inert top of the window?
I can build a PC out of parts and fully configure it in less man hours than it took to write this post including the time it takes to sit with my credit card and order the parts.
Pay extra to work out of the box. Bullshit. Pay extra for nothing but image. I'll bet you own a 4×4 that has never been off the highway and a Mac that sits on your desk looking pretty because if you EVER use it you would run into the same troubles that I have had with Macs.
Macs are fragile, slow, pretty and overpriced.
"PC-centric" Hell, I ran kicking and screaming to PCs. Macs forced me to. Do I have an ax to grind? hell yes! An ax of thousands of wasted man hours and endless late night sessions praying that this fix or that fix might work.
Find me some non-marketoid documentation for macs. Give me a troubleshooting procedure where the first option is not "Swap ot the motherboard". With what for god's sake? Shove a banana in the damn machine and fire her up?
God, I could go on and on. Do you believe I work with macs? Do you belive that every PC I have built, weather running Linux or Windows 2000 is bullet proof only a few hours after recieving parts in the mail while a Mac NEVER becomes bullet proof after insane amounts of work?
Macs sure are pretty but never talk about ease of use or digital hub with me. Digital hub is their way of saying, buy this overpriced computer, then buy software equil in value to the computer, then buy periferals equil to twice the value of the computer. Now you have a digital hub that costs as much as an economy car. Welcome to setup hell, nothing is going to work as advertised. Out of the box, can't print, burn, communicate, import images, edit movies, play video. Upgrade to quiktime ten!
They want to help get you on the internet. asks you nicly twice, scoldingly once and threateningly once. They want you to register. "we want you to become part of the happy consumer collective. we want to sell you out to every direct marketing mass mailer on the planet with no opt out provisions." With over 180 Macs happily registered to me, Entire trees die every week just to get my attention. "Buy more mac crap! you were a sucker once, be a sucker again!"
THIS IS THE MAC USER EXPERIENCE!
I didn't even address speed. Save that for a later post.
Duron 1 Ghz (the G4,PIII and Duron Perform the same clock for clock) Abit NV7m GeForce 2 graphics, everything built in. Micro ATX for small footprint like the iMac. 128mb DDR ram, better memory but cheaper than crippled 100fsb SDRAM 40mb hard drive. 24x disk burner. micro ATX case. Keyboard, optical mouse. Firewire Card. $401 for a pc computer, as fast if not faster than the iMac. $300 for a 15 inch TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display
EXACTLY HALF THE PRICE.
Now, with the $1400 budget:
XP 1800, about as fast as a 1.5 Ghz G4 (HA!) ASUS A7V333 Motherboard. 1 GB DDR333 ram TWO 160 GB drives mirrored or striped depending on your pleasure (does the mac support drive sizes this large?;) GeForce 3 DVD drive 40x burner Case, Wireless Keyboard, Wireless Optical Mouse Firewire Card, Gigabit Ethernet. 19" perfect flat usb monitor
Certainly a system comparable with a high end G4
For the Price of a dual 1 Ghz G4 "Ultimate":
Dual AMD MP 2000+ @ 1666mhz each Asus A7M266D AMD 760MPX 1.5 GB DDR ram 1/2 TERABYTE OF DRIVE SPACE. Geforce 4 Ti 4600/128MB ram DVD Burner 40x CD burner Firewire Card 8 channel IDE raid (hardware not software) 22" perfect flat usb monitor.
Plain and simple. Apple hardware is inferior and over priced.
To hell with Dell, Gateway, etc. They don't get my dollars either.
Alpha-Techie, my ass. You better get with the program, I'd never hire you with the emotional bias you place on hardware. Computers are Tools. I want the best tools at the best price. I do not want some Mac zealot who will break my budget on shiny glossy pretty slow boxes.
That's like putting pom-poms and rhinestones on a Hole-Hawg... actually macs are more like 3.3v cordless drils in comparison so maybe pop-poms are the right idea.
the difference is, I own a Mitsubishi 22" DP2040u. The SGI sucks 27 watts, the DP2040u sucks 155 watts. Used 16 hours a day, 31 days a month, results in a 12 dollar electric bill. Including the $75 recycle fee, I can run my monitor for 10 years before my total cost of ownership exceeds the SGI. $1500 invested instead of spent on a flat panel makes the CRT pay for itself relative to the flat panel in the same timeframe. I still have an 8 year old 21" HM-4520-D. I know the life expectancy of a CRT. The apple cinema display has a life expectancy of 15000 hours. That is less than TWO YEARS. 6 years peak with conservative use.
So, with 1/3 the life expectancy, Buying THREE for every one CRT, Where are your cost of ownership numbers now?
You do not own a cinema display. You have absolutly no idea what it costs to own one.
Re:Perceived value of "overpriced apples"
on
Apple @ MacWorld Tokyo
·
· Score: -1, Troll
It shows that you are intrinsicly stupid and want to be ripped off. $1000 is a lot to pay for the emotional satisfaction of owning a Mac. Coputers are tools. Save the $1000 dollars for your girlfriend/wife/kids. Willingness to spend an extra $1000 shows a dysfunctional emotional attachment to inanimate objects. I am guessing Mac owners don't have very fulfilling relationships with real people.
If they can afford to take risks, perhaps they should. As it stands, they are so far behind the cutting edge technologicly, their in danger puting us all to sleep. They had better wrap that obsolete hardware in a pretty skin. ATA66? PC100? 15-inch display? GeForce2 MX? Stereo sound? Anything that was not available two years ago?
Consoles have better specifications. Apples are toys.
They do run huge margins on their hardware. They get $300 for 512 megs of ram. Last time I checked, that costs about $120 for name brand memory. That is over %100 markup.
That is because Apple markets their products to fools. A mac zealot and thier money are soon parted. Preettty shiiinny gloossssy slick new compuuterr.
The price of memory is back down. Flat panels have never been cheaper. The barrier to entry for Apple is up $600 from the CRT iMac.
Have they got any idea what their competition is doing? PCs have twice the power for half the cost. $1400 will buy one hell of a fast PC with firewire, USB 2.0, Geforce 4 graphics, all the speed and features of the dual G4 1Ghz for the price of an iMac. God it kills me what fools mac zealots are. Begging to be robbed. Pretty shiny slick glowing throbbing easy slow expensive fragile.
22 inch DP2040u max resolution 2048 by 1536. Perfect flat CRT. Less than $1000. You sir, are a fool. You paid 3 times too much for a product with inferior visual quality.
Flat panels have not yet surpassed CRTs for visual quality. The best of them have pixel response times of 25ms. At 45ms, The SGI 1600SW display is not in that category. Ghosting while playing video is noticable and distracting. The SGI is a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display (AMLCD). An inferior technology they used because it is cheaper and has better yields when producing larger displays. Max Gamma is 7000 kelvin so the picture washes out at daylight brightness. Additionally, the display can only produce 24 bit color. So, despite SGI's marketing bullshit, this is one of the worst displays for video editing.
The new apple display has the same drawbacks only it is bigger and costs more.
For now a CRT is the best way to go unless you have no desktop space (get a bigger desk) or, like most apple owners, prefer style over substance (get a life).
Lap dogs of intel Piss boy for microsoft. Dell is the market leader.
Whatever.
Michael Dell must feel 2 inches tall. No wonder he has stopped making speeches. 9 in 2000, 3 in 2001, the last was a year ago. I'd hide my head in shame too.
How can they be a market leader when they put themselves in the pockets of their suppliers. No wonder their margins ar so slim. They're cutting their own options. I smell a minority shareholder lawsuit.
As mach pain as HP will be in after the Compaq fiasco, At least a leader may emerge with some spine. If Carly stays on, you can bet she will gun for dell. If not, look at Gateway.
For that matter look at me and you. Anyone can build a PC, and honest smart companies can move up fast.
Kittens raised in a room with nothing but horizontal stripes on the walls will be forever blind vertical stripes and vice versa. Kittens raised without any light will be completely blind. Is it any wonder that humans experience a mild timing error in zero G? At least we are not "blind" to free fall.
They turn you down for a grant? Posting pseudo science to slashdot does not a nuclear physicist make guymatimuk.
Now that you have first hand experience being rejected, tell us about it. It might be the first time you ever contributed anything to a disscusion on slashdot that was not a troll.
Assuming this is true, it is interesting to think of what might be the evolutionary advantage for this.
For example, humans go unconscious seemingly just when we need our minds the most. If the body or brain receives trauma, we loose the capacity to fight the cause of trauma. This does not seem to be to our advantage. But the brain shuts down for only one reason: lack of cooling capacity.
The most processor intensive task the brain has is consciousness. The difference between consciousness and unconsciousness is 15 watts of heat. Shock id caused by a partial loss in cooling capacity caused by blood loss or dehydration. So, when we loose blood or receive a head injury, causing the body to reduce blood flow to the head to reduce aggravation of a bruising condition, we loose consciousness.
While unconscious, we remain combative. We have reptilian response that does not shut down. We still swallow and can place one foot in front of the other as these functions are controlled by the lizard brain and brain stem.
Cut circulation to the arm and it falls asleep due to lack of oxygen in about two minutes. Cut the blood flow to the head and we loose consciousness in as little as 3 seconds not because there is no oxygen but because the body shuts the brain down to prevent overheating.
So the seemingly illogical response of loss of consciousness just when we need it most is in fact a life saving measure. So, that begs the question: What do we gain by becoming stupid and aggressive when rejected? A "sober" man rejected by a woman does not procreate. A "drunk" man rejected by a woman might create the opportunity to procreate by force. A "sober" woman rejected will not procreate. A "drunk" woman rejected might become promiscuous.
Basically anyone rejected will lower his or her standards for the next opportunity to procreate. We hardly needed a study to tell us this is true.
Name one teacher who was teaching at the time that they made the discovery that earned them a Nobel Prize. They teach afterwards but not before.
SO, teachers, by the nature of passing on information that is already known CAN NOT be cutting edge.
The top 10% might be capable of advancing their fields. 90% cannot advance their field so they end up teaching. If they could advance their field, they would be doing it. Keep in mind, only 3% of all teachers are professors. The rest rule their petty domains, classrooms in primary and secondary schools across the nation.
They are teachers because of the perceived sense of power they derive because they know something their students do not. They seek that power because the real movers and shakers in their fields know something the teachers don't, and never will.
If you had a masters in business, why would you become an officer? To pay off student loans in return for 6 years of service minimum? If you can't make $130,000 in 6 years as an MBA, you must be incredibly bad in your field. Keep in mind only 1% of Officers are fighter pilots. The rest are simply inferior in their field.
The typical manager has no grasp of the technology the people he manages are using. If he had a grasp of technology, he would not seek to move into management. The term has been labeled "fuck up, move up." put the unskilled person in a place where they can do the least damage. Contrary to popular belief, even the worst manager cannot hinder a technical person who really shines. A manager can certainly ride on the success of his team, and will seek to do so, lacking the competence to shine themselves.
SO, as a 90% true rule, people incompetent in their fields, end up as teachers, military officers and managers.
90% is more than enough for me to make a blanket statement. Unlike the your "hey, I know this guy who is a complete renaissance man who is brilliant beyond measure and is an fighter pilot and has a ten inch penis". He represents a tiny fraction, of the population. There may be only 1000 people on the entire planet of 6 billion people with that kind of resume.
I will further guess that there may be perhaps 1000 people capable of writing a textbook on programming that is as revered as "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" putting Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman also outside the scope of my blanket statement.
In other words, you picked the worst examples imaginable. Meaning, you too are inadequate. Since you are defending teachers and have shown yourself inadequate in a way that teachers often are, citing poor examples, you must be a teacher, and therefore biased.
30 meter masts. 105 feet with unauthorized 10 foot extentions, for 115 foot. The problem was, the summit of Kaala has a naval communications station on it and Pu Ki Ki twin summits were impassible. We had to set up in the saddle between them. The shot actually crosses Maui so you can't just trig out the curve of the earth. There are rocks hanging in the air too.
Hawaii has a long history of being radio central. From the developement of by TCP by HAMs to NAVCAM, one of the few elf stations in the world. I shot a 1435mhz LOS link 310 miles from Pu Ki Ki on the big island to Mount Kahala on Oahu at 3 watts @ 4608kbs data rate. The water does some amazing things for RF propogation there.
That ought to make a screaming fast system, but it doesn't. For god sakes, Apple's performance claims are pure marketing FUD. Get two dual AMD 1u systems with 6 times the power for the same price.
I'm sure these guys have the metric/standard thing fixed for these trajectory calculations. I mean it is NASA and they would never make a silly mistake like that right? um.. right?
How many times has your computer spit out the wrong answer but you accept it as true, just to find out later that you fed it the wrong data? I would sort of like to see them put at least as much effort into tracking earth crossing asteroids as say... modeling nuclear explosions.
I mean the JPL's computer is number 374 on the top 500 list not number 1, with number 5 acting as a glorified graphics card.
ASCI Blue, a 32,524,800,000-transistor graphics card: 50 million dollars GeForce 4, 63,000,000-transistor graphics card: 450 dollars. Time for ASCI blue's power to be available at retail following Moore's law: 14 years
Amateur computer enthusiasts and astronomers saving the world: priceless.
Sentry automatic impact monitoring system... Damn thing better monitor the impacts automaticly. It's not like there will me any people to care after an impact with an energy equil to the detonation of 52,727,272,727,272,727 grams of trinitrotoluol!!!
Slashdot Mirror
"They want it to work out of the box and are willing to pay for that"
Work out of the box...
Like when a new Mac randomly chooses the startup disk and operating system because it has never been started before, even just to do a system check? Just a miniscule ammount of quality control and uniform user experience would be nice.
Is it the free year of CompuServe 2000 you can get as a buying incentive that has no OS X client and runs as an application that breaks your connection when you run software update because Macs have to shut down all running applications to do installs?
Is it the message "Mac OS is trying to shut down, please wait for mac os to shut down before trying to shut down."
Is it when AppleTalk grabs the printer port because it cannot see a connection on the Ethernet, preventing you from file sharing or printing?
Is it when Apple issues a firmware update that disables any ram that is not cas latency 322, even if it is better than cas 322, and to disable the check for "inferior ram" (you didn't pay apples 200% markup on ram) there is an easter egg hunt involving holding down secret keys while opening the memory control panel?
Is it having to use guesswork to manage each individual application's memory usage because the operating system will not take care of it for you?
Is it the hidden cost of OS X of running extremely poorly on the stock memory provided with apples requiring you to "purchase" a smooth running OS X for the price that apple sells their 200% markup memory for?
Is it the chipping paint on the TiBook, cracks in the Cube, useless handles and front foot of the iMac, misaligned hinges on the clamshell iBook, soft, easily scratched surface of the new ibook or flimsy plastic catch mechanism on the G4 Tower, that requires so much force to close that it is likely to break?
Is it the recalled power supplies, out of focus iMac CRTs, chronically bad G4 motherboards, temperamental slot load drives, incomplete software automatic software updates, type -43925 errors with no explanation or documentation or the inability to use USB printer sharing with dynamic addresses and again no documentation telling you why it is not working?
USB keyboards hubs constantly complaining of "not enough power" and going bad crashing the system. Absolutely no spill protection in any mac keyboard even though they were able to totally prevent a spill causing any damage to a Apple IIc twenty years ago? Designed in fragility so they can generate sales of a high margin item. A keyboard with USB hub is 30 bucks. Apple's is $80.
Bet also that the corrupted preferences adds to ease of use too. Infinitely tall launcher just because you changed screen resolution, inability to send mail and having to install an entirely new client to let you setup an account again. Applications constantly reporting "I see you are running 'blah-bah' for the first time" No OS provisions to do a clean uninstall resulting in the machine accumulating more and more stray files, forcing a clean OS install to get a measure of sanity back. Rebuilding the desktop corrupting all your aliases, and all the apple scripts you wrote to automate the bug fixes you have to do on a daily basis because Apple will not fix them.
Mac OS never enforcing any application privlages and no third party software vender even vaguely willing to undertake that momentous task because if Apple can't get something that fundamental right, how is anyone going to fix it for them?
Lack of documentation on extensions that would allow you to get rid of the parasites that provide no benefit but rob an already slow machine of resources?
Is it getting a brand new Mac with a burner just to find you have to download the disk burning software and extension from apple, instead of it coming pre-installed?
Is it the 20+ hours you have to put into a brand new machine because it is not even close to being able to perform as advertised when you pull it out of the box?
Is it the favorites menu filled to the brim already that you must empty before you can even use it as your favorites instead of what apple's marketing department thinks your favorites ought to be?
Is it the hidden spell check button that you must move to a usable location in both apple works and Office 2001?
Is it the crappy TCP/IP interface and application memory manager interface that will not let you make changes out of order?
Is it the horrible window management that will not let you properly maximize a window to use ALL available desktop space, forcing you to give up screen real estate to "important" things like the taskbar, dock, blank desktop, apple menu, and the inert top of the window?
I can build a PC out of parts and fully configure it in less man hours than it took to write this post including the time it takes to sit with my credit card and order the parts.
Pay extra to work out of the box. Bullshit. Pay extra for nothing but image. I'll bet you own a 4×4 that has never been off the highway and a Mac that sits on your desk looking pretty because if you EVER use it you would run into the same troubles that I have had with Macs.
Macs are fragile, slow, pretty and overpriced.
"PC-centric" Hell, I ran kicking and screaming to PCs. Macs forced me to. Do I have an ax to grind? hell yes! An ax of thousands of wasted man hours and endless late night sessions praying that this fix or that fix might work.
Find me some non-marketoid documentation for macs. Give me a troubleshooting procedure where the first option is not "Swap ot the motherboard". With what for god's sake? Shove a banana in the damn machine and fire her up?
God, I could go on and on. Do you believe I work with macs? Do you belive that every PC I have built, weather running Linux or Windows 2000 is bullet proof only a few hours after recieving parts in the mail while a Mac NEVER becomes bullet proof after insane amounts of work?
Macs sure are pretty but never talk about ease of use or digital hub with me. Digital hub is their way of saying, buy this overpriced computer, then buy software equil in value to the computer, then buy periferals equil to twice the value of the computer. Now you have a digital hub that costs as much as an economy car. Welcome to setup hell, nothing is going to work as advertised. Out of the box, can't print, burn, communicate, import images, edit movies, play video. Upgrade to quiktime ten!
They want to help get you on the internet. asks you nicly twice, scoldingly once and threateningly once. They want you to register. "we want you to become part of the happy consumer collective. we want to sell you out to every direct marketing mass mailer on the planet with no opt out provisions." With over 180 Macs happily registered to me, Entire trees die every week just to get my attention. "Buy more mac crap! you were a sucker once, be a sucker again!"
THIS IS THE MAC USER EXPERIENCE!
I didn't even address speed. Save that for a later post.
Oh my! they might break a nail!
Similar Machine:
;)
Duron 1 Ghz (the G4,PIII and Duron Perform the same clock for clock)
Abit NV7m GeForce 2 graphics, everything built in. Micro ATX for small footprint like the iMac.
128mb DDR ram, better memory but cheaper than crippled 100fsb SDRAM
40mb hard drive.
24x disk burner.
micro ATX case.
Keyboard, optical mouse.
Firewire Card.
$401 for a pc computer, as fast if not faster than the iMac.
$300 for a 15 inch TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display
EXACTLY HALF THE PRICE.
Now, with the $1400 budget:
XP 1800, about as fast as a 1.5 Ghz G4 (HA!)
ASUS A7V333 Motherboard.
1 GB DDR333 ram
TWO 160 GB drives mirrored or striped depending on your pleasure (does the mac support drive sizes this large?
GeForce 3
DVD drive
40x burner
Case, Wireless Keyboard, Wireless Optical Mouse
Firewire Card, Gigabit Ethernet.
19" perfect flat usb monitor
Certainly a system comparable with a high end G4
For the Price of a dual 1 Ghz G4 "Ultimate":
Dual AMD MP 2000+ @ 1666mhz each
Asus A7M266D AMD 760MPX
1.5 GB DDR ram
1/2 TERABYTE OF DRIVE SPACE.
Geforce 4 Ti 4600/128MB ram
DVD Burner
40x CD burner
Firewire Card
8 channel IDE raid (hardware not software)
22" perfect flat usb monitor.
Plain and simple. Apple hardware is inferior and over priced.
To hell with Dell, Gateway, etc. They don't get my dollars either.
Alpha-Techie, my ass. You better get with the program, I'd never hire you with the emotional bias you place on hardware. Computers are Tools. I want the best tools at the best price. I do not want some Mac zealot who will break my budget on shiny glossy pretty slow boxes.
That's like putting pom-poms and rhinestones on a Hole-Hawg... actually macs are more like 3.3v cordless drils in comparison so maybe pop-poms are the right idea.
Exactly. You can not build a Mac from parts. You have to pay Apple's premium price for inferior hardware.
Apple is "in the black" on the backs of their sucker die hard fanboys.
the difference is, I own a Mitsubishi 22" DP2040u. The SGI sucks 27 watts, the DP2040u sucks 155 watts. Used 16 hours a day, 31 days a month, results in a 12 dollar electric bill. Including the $75 recycle fee, I can run my monitor for 10 years before my total cost of ownership exceeds the SGI. $1500 invested instead of spent on a flat panel makes the CRT pay for itself relative to the flat panel in the same timeframe. I still have an 8 year old 21" HM-4520-D. I know the life expectancy of a CRT. The apple cinema display has a life expectancy of 15000 hours. That is less than TWO YEARS. 6 years peak with conservative use.
So, with 1/3 the life expectancy, Buying THREE for every one CRT, Where are your cost of ownership numbers now?
You do not own a cinema display. You have absolutly no idea what it costs to own one.
It shows that you are intrinsicly stupid and want to be ripped off. $1000 is a lot to pay for the emotional satisfaction of owning a Mac. Coputers are tools. Save the $1000 dollars for your girlfriend/wife/kids. Willingness to spend an extra $1000 shows a dysfunctional emotional attachment to inanimate objects. I am guessing Mac owners don't have very fulfilling relationships with real people.
If they can afford to take risks, perhaps they should. As it stands, they are so far behind the cutting edge technologicly, their in danger puting us all to sleep. They had better wrap that obsolete hardware in a pretty skin. ATA66? PC100? 15-inch display? GeForce2 MX? Stereo sound? Anything that was not available two years ago?
Consoles have better specifications. Apples are toys.
They do run huge margins on their hardware. They get $300 for 512 megs of ram. Last time I checked, that costs about $120 for name brand memory. That is over %100 markup.
That is because Apple markets their products to fools. A mac zealot and thier money are soon parted. Preettty shiiinny gloossssy slick new compuuterr.
Build a Mac yourself for $500...
Build a PC yourself for $500...
See the difference now?
I'm in the black. And I didn't raise the barrier to entry on my product more than the cost of a new computer.
The price of memory is back down. Flat panels have never been cheaper. The barrier to entry for Apple is up $600 from the CRT iMac.
Have they got any idea what their competition is doing? PCs have twice the power for half the cost. $1400 will buy one hell of a fast PC with firewire, USB 2.0, Geforce 4 graphics, all the speed and features of the dual G4 1Ghz for the price of an iMac. God it kills me what fools mac zealots are. Begging to be robbed. Pretty shiny slick glowing throbbing easy slow expensive fragile.
22 inch DP2040u max resolution 2048 by 1536. Perfect flat CRT. Less than $1000. You sir, are a fool. You paid 3 times too much for a product with inferior visual quality.
Flat panels have not yet surpassed CRTs for visual quality. The best of them have pixel response times of 25ms. At 45ms, The SGI 1600SW display is not in that category. Ghosting while playing video is noticable and distracting. The SGI is a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display (AMLCD). An inferior technology they used because it is cheaper and has better yields when producing larger displays. Max Gamma is 7000 kelvin so the picture washes out at daylight brightness. Additionally, the display can only produce 24 bit color. So, despite SGI's marketing bullshit, this is one of the worst displays for video editing.
The new apple display has the same drawbacks only it is bigger and costs more.
For now a CRT is the best way to go unless you have no desktop space (get a bigger desk) or, like most apple owners, prefer style over substance (get a life).
Lap dogs of intel
Piss boy for microsoft.
Dell is the market leader.
Whatever.
Michael Dell must feel 2 inches tall. No wonder he has stopped making speeches. 9 in 2000, 3 in 2001, the last was a year ago. I'd hide my head in shame too.
How can they be a market leader when they put themselves in the pockets of their suppliers. No wonder their margins ar so slim. They're cutting their own options. I smell a minority shareholder lawsuit.
As mach pain as HP will be in after the Compaq fiasco, At least a leader may emerge with some spine. If Carly stays on, you can bet she will gun for dell. If not, look at Gateway.
For that matter look at me and you. Anyone can build a PC, and honest smart companies can move up fast.
Kittens raised in a room with nothing but horizontal stripes on the walls will be forever blind vertical stripes and vice versa. Kittens raised without any light will be completely blind. Is it any wonder that humans experience a mild timing error in zero G? At least we are not "blind" to free fall.
They turn you down for a grant? Posting pseudo science to slashdot does not a nuclear physicist make guymatimuk.
Now that you have first hand experience being rejected, tell us about it. It might be the first time you ever contributed anything to a disscusion on slashdot that was not a troll.
Assuming this is true, it is interesting to think of what might be the evolutionary advantage for this.
For example, humans go unconscious seemingly just when we need our minds the most. If the body or brain receives trauma, we loose the capacity to fight the cause of trauma. This does not seem to be to our advantage. But the brain shuts down for only one reason: lack of cooling capacity.
The most processor intensive task the brain has is consciousness. The difference between consciousness and unconsciousness is 15 watts of heat. Shock id caused by a partial loss in cooling capacity caused by blood loss or dehydration. So, when we loose blood or receive a head injury, causing the body to reduce blood flow to the head to reduce aggravation of a bruising condition, we loose consciousness.
While unconscious, we remain combative. We have reptilian response that does not shut down. We still swallow and can place one foot in front of the other as these functions are controlled by the lizard brain and brain stem.
Cut circulation to the arm and it falls asleep due to lack of oxygen in about two minutes. Cut the blood flow to the head and we loose consciousness in as little as 3 seconds not because there is no oxygen but because the body shuts the brain down to prevent overheating.
So the seemingly illogical response of loss of consciousness just when we need it most is in fact a life saving measure. So, that begs the question: What do we gain by becoming stupid and aggressive when rejected? A "sober" man rejected by a woman does not procreate. A "drunk" man rejected by a woman might create the opportunity to procreate by force. A "sober" woman rejected will not procreate. A "drunk" woman rejected might become promiscuous.
Basically anyone rejected will lower his or her standards for the next opportunity to procreate. We hardly needed a study to tell us this is true.
Name one teacher who was teaching at the time that they made the discovery that earned them a Nobel Prize. They teach afterwards but not before.
SO, teachers, by the nature of passing on information that is already known CAN NOT be cutting edge.
The top 10% might be capable of advancing their fields. 90% cannot advance their field so they end up teaching. If they could advance their field, they would be doing it. Keep in mind, only 3% of all teachers are professors. The rest rule their petty domains, classrooms in primary and secondary schools across the nation.
They are teachers because of the perceived sense of power they derive because they know something their students do not. They seek that power because the real movers and shakers in their fields know something the teachers don't, and never will.
If you had a masters in business, why would you become an officer? To pay off student loans in return for 6 years of service minimum? If you can't make $130,000 in 6 years as an MBA, you must be incredibly bad in your field. Keep in mind only 1% of Officers are fighter pilots. The rest are simply inferior in their field.
The typical manager has no grasp of the technology the people he manages are using. If he had a grasp of technology, he would not seek to move into management. The term has been labeled "fuck up, move up." put the unskilled person in a place where they can do the least damage. Contrary to popular belief, even the worst manager cannot hinder a technical person who really shines. A manager can certainly ride on the success of his team, and will seek to do so, lacking the competence to shine themselves.
SO, as a 90% true rule, people incompetent in their fields, end up as teachers, military officers and managers.
90% is more than enough for me to make a blanket statement. Unlike the your "hey, I know this guy who is a complete renaissance man who is brilliant beyond measure and is an fighter pilot and has a ten inch penis". He represents a tiny fraction, of the population. There may be only 1000 people on the entire planet of 6 billion people with that kind of resume.
I will further guess that there may be perhaps 1000 people capable of writing a textbook on programming that is as revered as "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" putting Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman also outside the scope of my blanket statement.
In other words, you picked the worst examples imaginable. Meaning, you too are inadequate. Since you are defending teachers and have shown yourself inadequate in a way that teachers often are, citing poor examples, you must be a teacher, and therefore biased.
Your opinion means nothing in this discussion.
Cesium beam clocks are accurate to 10^-17 seconds. There is a figure that the programmers and hardware junkies of slashdot can appreciate.
People who have degrees but are crap in their field, end up in four places:
Military Officers
Management
Teachers
If they actually had any skill in their field, they would be doing it.
After they "retire", they all become cab drivers.
30 meter masts. 105 feet with unauthorized 10 foot extentions, for 115 foot. The problem was, the summit of Kaala has a naval communications station on it and Pu Ki Ki twin summits were impassible. We had to set up in the saddle between them. The shot actually crosses Maui so you can't just trig out the curve of the earth. There are rocks hanging in the air too.
Hawaii has a long history of being radio central. From the developement of by TCP by HAMs to NAVCAM, one of the few elf stations in the world. I shot a 1435mhz LOS link 310 miles from Pu Ki Ki on the big island to Mount Kahala on Oahu at 3 watts @ 4608kbs data rate. The water does some amazing things for RF propogation there.
That ought to make a screaming fast system, but it doesn't. For god sakes, Apple's performance claims are pure marketing FUD. Get two dual AMD 1u systems with 6 times the power for the same price.
Don't feel bad, next year it will be 46 years and you can lay your numerology on the 4/7/2047 earthquake or the 47 straight razor causing your demise.
I'm sure these guys have the metric/standard thing fixed for these trajectory calculations. I mean it is NASA and they would never make a silly mistake like that right? um.. right?
How many times has your computer spit out the wrong answer but you accept it as true, just to find out later that you fed it the wrong data? I would sort of like to see them put at least as much effort into tracking earth crossing asteroids as say... modeling nuclear explosions.
I mean the JPL's computer is number 374 on the top 500 list not number 1, with number 5 acting as a glorified graphics card.
ASCI Blue, a 32,524,800,000-transistor graphics card: 50 million dollars
GeForce 4, 63,000,000-transistor graphics card: 450 dollars.
Time for ASCI blue's power to be available at retail following Moore's law: 14 years
Amateur computer enthusiasts and astronomers saving the world: priceless.
But it would take much less TNT to wound a Gorn.
Sentry automatic impact monitoring system... Damn thing better monitor the impacts automaticly. It's not like there will me any people to care after an impact with an energy equil to the detonation of 52,727,272,727,272,727 grams of trinitrotoluol!!!