Re:Apple's wireless networking technology?
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Macs In Space!
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Yes, there are even Linux drivers. They actually support a helluva lot of OS's. The Win2000 drivers work great and the $300 Apple Airport (or the new $300 Orinoco equivalent) are great for small LAN's -- we have one Apple Airport that easily supports 25 Windows PC's.
Now they even have an adapter for *NIX servers or any 10Base-T device that can't use PCMCIA, ISA, or PCI adapters. It just plugs in through any standard 10Base-T interface. Now I can get my SGI server on the WaveLAN! Very cool -- we're going wireless everywhere soon since wiring a building costs about the same as the initial investment in the WaveLAN/Orinoco cards and moving a wireless device requires no expensive re-wiring.
Oh, and regardless of what people tell you about reliability, if we've had approximately 35 total users using Airports without ANY problems for several months, I would say the reliability is very good. BTW, this is as an ethernet hardware access point, not using the internal modem for connection to the internet. As an ethernet hardware access point, both the AirPort and Orinoco are Plug-and-Play out of the box.
E-mail me if you want any details -- we've done a lot of research and work using WaveLAN products including trying to use the 11 mBit wireless building connection hardware.
Configure and/or add hardware? Am I missing something or is it just that all 4 distributions of Linux I've used (this year) force you to use the CLI at some point when using the system?!? I just remember fucking around so much in the command line (not by choice) when trying to get the PCMCIA ethernet card working on my laptop.
But, once everything was working, it was cool. Except it was fuckin' slow no matter which WM I used! Oh man, if this is the future of computing, I'm sticking with Windows for day-to-day use for a long time! Once you're done installing any disty of linux, you're left realizing you've had a nice learning experience and you now have a computer that would make a fine demo/museum piece, but get work done? Not without being forced to use really crude tools and then you wonder why the hell you have a $2000 PC or $3000 laptop!!!!
If you're pro-Linux like me you need to face facts or Linux is doomed: Today, Linux is not usable by your average "person-next-door". If someone doesn't make it usable and appealing to that person-next-door REAL DAMN QUICK, the ship's goin' down and I mean real quick. I've been using Linux off and on for about 7 years and it's still not usable for normal day-to-day tasks without making sacrifices -- and people tend to get cranky if you tell them to sacrifice features without good reason when using their valuable possessions.
Uum, isn't that the whole point of MP3, the internet and Napster/Gnutella??? You just killed your own argument because this artist (along with all the other unknowns who can't get a contract with a major label) CAN have immense distribution using the above tools -- possibly even better than Metallica.
I don't really like Metallica or Dr. Dre and never have, but I have found (through very casual use) almost a half dozen unknown artists that I know for a fact don't have contracts with major labels -- they're unknowns. I found them on MP3.com and they were there (I assume) for the exposure that MP3's and the internet brings.
I also have to weigh in on the argument that downloading an album's songs through Napster is easier than encoding MP3's from your own CD: In reality this is far from the truth. Check out MusicMatch.com -- I download their Jukebox software and I can encode my own MP3's from my CD's. OK, but it's really slow (records only as fast as the CD would normally play which means about 1 hour recording per CD). Forget that, go to Napster! I go to Napster and after doing searches for days on different artists, only 10-20% of the songs are downloadable (I'm on a T1)! After several days, I only have maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of each CD I wanted to record in my library. I go back to MusicMatch.com and discover -- gee, if I pay $29.99 ($39.99 for the shipped, boxed version with some hardware extras for stereo hookup) I can download their Jukebox Deluxe which, among other things, allows you to record CD songs at up to 5x normal speed. I get that and within 10 minutes I'm recording my CD's songs... but now at a rate of about 10-15 minutes per CD... and it's automated (just leave it alone and continue surfing the web, reading e-mail, and other stuff until it spits out the CD).
The average speedup was about 3.5x faster than before. And... I got all my songs in MP3 format in an organized way... many of them were smaller than the ones I downloaded through Napster (same MP3 quality like 128, 192, etc.), so I just ended up tossing the few I was able to download in Napster anyway.
I guess the final point of this story is that the artists need to realize that this is here to stay and they need to start offering their songs via MP3 direct to their fans (at a substantially reduced price/song like maybe $0.50/song). If they don't they just look like dinosaurs and if they attack Napster/MP3.com and their own fans, they just look like a**holes.
Wasn't "Final Doom" just a regurgitated Doom II? I actually thought it was just Doom II with a "cooler" name for the videogame consoles. But, maybe it was just Doom II with some extra features -- either way, at first glance it looked just like Doom II to me...
I think the key point here is that it takes more than a university education to succeed in the real unsanitized world. In my not-so-humble-opinion I'd say that the ability to learn and keep updated is *more* important than the formal education you received at a certain point in your life. I speak from experience when I say that my Computer Science degree has done almost nothing to help me in my day-to-day job as I.T. Director. Everything I use most often I've learned in OJT (On the Job Training). Because the simple fact is once you have 10 years of work experience after getting that degree and you have to use that degree to compete with newer grads, you will lose because if the employer is only making a decision based on degrees he'll go for the person with the more current education.
The only way you can show you have a more updated education after you get that degree is by showing what you've actually accomplished. You wanna be responsible for hiring a new grad to set up IT operations for a company in 16 locations in Europe, America, & Asia? I've done that -- how much of a chance do you seriously think a new grad has? Any exec would have to be an idiot to hire a new grad into a position demanding more than 0 experience. And any experienced IT worker/programmer would have to be an idiot to interview for a job requiring 0 experience. AND, the pay-scale is aligned accordingly (this is from working the past 10 years in the Silicon Valley).
I've worked my way up since graduating 10 years ago and I know from surveys, etc. that I make 2-3 times more than any entry-level grad in my field and I can safely say that if you don't want to bet your career on your ability to learn and stay current, then you WILL lose in the end. I guarantee it. How can I guarantee it? Because I'm one of those execs hiring you new grads and experienced workers. So, when I have one guy coming to me with 10 years of "experience" plus a 10 year-old degree and another guy with 0 experience plus a brand-new degree, who do you think I hire?
You just can't go wrong hiring *proven* experience over education unless you need cheap (and I DO mean CHEAP) fodder for the labor pool. That statement sums it all up.
(Then again, if you give me one very experienced idiot and one wet-nosed genius, I'll try to pick the wet-nosed genius every time, but that's another argument.:-))
That is true, but first the search is just a way to filter out stuff you aren't looking for, so yes you could just do a search for "*" with 500,000 maximum results and you'd get a complete list. And yes, that's not the best way to find unknowns.
Second, Napster is not the entire mechanism here, it just facilitates music transfers. You wouldn't find out about some hot new artist in Napster, you'd find out about them through the web like everyone does now (the artist's direct site, MP3.com, etc.). Once you've heard their music and you know you love it, then you use Napster to find everything available from them that's out there.
It's that simple. I've been using the internet for about 7-8 years and I never thought I'd be finding unknown/unsigned artists I really like through the 'net -- but I have. This is where it's going and idiots like Lars/Metallica (who've shown in Lars' response they and their managers couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag) will either have to adapt or go bye-bye!
I'm not sure who's "paying the bills" right now, but I'm sure the long term goal is to set up Napster as a web-based equivalent of a brick-and-mortar record label. More people certainly know about Napster than Gnutella, etc. They mention "proprietary MusicShare technology" that their client uses, so I'm sure they could try to parlay that into some kind of subscription-based service.
Remember that all these software clients are just at the beta or preview stage, so once they are finally at the release stage, they could also sell the client software for profit. And, since they control the database of MP3's, they could easily make it so older/beta clients would no longer work.
Even the "rumor" that the Lisa was named after his first daughter is disputed. Other people on the original team said it was named after a lead programmer's relation (whoever).
And, maybe Steve's attempts at enlightenment were simply reparations for wrongdoing against others? Who knows except him...
First, aren't we all forgetting something a little critical here? A nuclear weapon can't produce a nuclear explosion unless it is detonated... by a working detonator... that isn't already blown up. If a nuclear warhead or nuclear-tipped rocket explodes, then what would trigger the detonator to go off at that particular point -- if it even survives that conventional explosion? The worst that would happen is that the nuclear material itself would be spread everywhere around that area, but that's a far cry from an actual nuclear explosion!!
Second, you have a good point on Russian/American paranoia of the time -- unless the American government communicates what's happening a day or even a week in advance, something drastic could happen. No matter what, a day's warning would be *expected* even during the cold war because at that point it wouldn't matter anyway (the Russians couldn't have whipped together a similar mission in a day) and of course we'd want to make sure they SEE it. Also, do you forget how many times both countries test-flew nuclear missiles??? Even recently, China test-flew missiles over or near Taiwan and everyone knew it was going to happen, but that didn't lessen its intimidation effect. I think the idea that we would do something like this and NOT inform both our allies and adversaries (who it is meant to intimidate) and then one of our adversaries would do something drastic to stop it is something out of a James Bond movie, but not real life.
Third paragraph, why would it detonate on impact? Makes sense in a wartime situation, but this is a demonstration of power. Also, why/how would it just "freely return" to Earth? If we simply "miss" the moon, "Bye, bye rocket!" If it goes into orbit around the moon and somehow slingshots around it AND gains enough speed to leave orbit, you're saying it would somehow end up pointing right back at Earth???? Jesus, I wish things were that easy -- then we wouldn't need NASA anymore -- we could just all launch rocketships out of our back yards!!! Maybe you've seen too many time-travel-slingshot Star Trek episodes? This situation is just so unlikely it's laughable -- you'd be better off watching the sky for giant asteroids to hit us (unlikely, but much more likely, IMO).
The rest of it all goes downhill from there. I do agree that we have reached the year 2000 because we have had enough sane people in power who did NOT go ahead with these kinds of plans. What was the likelihood that plans like this would ever have been executed? Probably the same likelihood that any of your scenarios would have taken place -- nearly nil... Since I was in the military before, I know first-hand that we come up with a detailed plan for every possible scenario -- SOP. This was possibly one of those obviously crazy plans that was just a "what-if".
Oh yeah, it was shown in the U.S. at least to a certain extent -- I think it was called "Space 1999". I remember watching it as a kid some time in the late 70's. It was a very cool show, but for the time the effects were pretty lame (similar to the 60's Star Trek, but I didn't mind because I was watching those reruns then, too). The Eagles did stand out as looking very cool -- I based many of my Lego spaceships on them when I was a kid.
Anyway, I had forgotten the premise. Makes you wonder how large a nuclear explosion it would take to affect moon orbit, let alone knock it out of orbit. I doubt that could ever happen (like in Space 1999), but I wonder if it could have affected it enough to have an effect on the Earth? Tidal waves anyone?
(but then again, maybe there's a reason I'm a Mathematician with no Moon data and not a Physicist:-) )
This is far from a time for NASA to rest on it's butt because they think they have no competition. Am I the only one who was more than a little stunned by the fact that China is ready to (or have they already done it?) put astronauts into space? I believe Japan has already done it and the EU puts a lot more commercial hardware into space than we do already.
Not only do we (America/NASA) have competition, but we've already been left behind in some ways (the EU is far more busy than us putting that stuff into orbit because they are just plain better at doing it efficiently than we are). Where are our national leaders?
With the economy the way it is now, why the hell isn't someone working on finding new resources in space to propel us as a nation through the 21st century??? There's no telling if there's another "Seward's Folly" waiting out there for us.
...great. Yeah, it's not our fault the world is fscked up -- it's the corporations, the governments, the... wait a minute, those corporations and governments don't exist without us (the public) so isn't it our fsck-up?
Let's face it: Human forays into new frontiers have never been and never will be pretty. We all WANT to do it but nobody's willing to SACRIFICE to do it, so profit's got to be the overriding priority. Are you willing to give half your annual salary/pay to do it and do it right? Or if you're a student how about selling half your worldly posessions?
It's all well and good to have lofty ideals, but no matter how much we all want the world to run on honesty, respect, and generally good will toward all things it just doesn't -- it runs on Money. These computers we are ALL typing on wouldn't be here in front of us (not to mention many other luxuries like cars, etc.) if not for those same *nasty* corporations.
Bottom line: embrace progress or be steamrolled by it.
If you borrow my car to rob a 7-11, shouldn't I be allowed to do anything in my power to be aware of that?
That's all we're talking about here. This is perfectly legal and has many court precedents because if you are using *someone else's* posessions, they have every right be aware of what you're doing using those possessions. This idea extends to these situations because you are given the use of this equipment and these resources to do a job you are *paid for*. Therefore, you do *not* have the right to pay your bills on company time using company computers and company internet access resources by accessing your account on a bill-payment website (one real-world example).
Maybe I'm just a little too honest here, but this simply seems like "the right thing" to me. Sure, there's room for abuse, but if you're worried about it then you make sure you do everything you need using your own stuff. Period.
What'll be interesting is later when you can use a PDA (Pilot or WinCE) which belongs to you using a wireless internet service you pay for to do nasty or illegal stuff (at work, but on a break or during lunch). In that case, the company you work for can't touch you or your data/possessions... but maybe police with reasonable cause could.
Don't be an idiot. First off, you can't negotiate opinions -- someone's opinion, idiotic as it may *seem* to be, is just that. If I want to ban animal testing, but I don't want to ban astronomy, that's my opinion and that's the end of it.
Second, YOU'RE saying "Settle down"? Where do you get animal research from on this and how do you assume this guy wants a ban on animal research??? He mentioned torturing and burning people at the stake to *jokingly* point out how ridiculous the original post was. Unless you actually BELIEVE that we should selectively ban scientific research because of one *small* group's beliefs -- like it or not, we Christians are the minority in this world. Or maybe you could say, "OK, if you are a Christian scientist, you CANNOT do any SETI research because it flies in the face of our beliefs; but if you are one of the many atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, etc. scientists, then go right ahead and do it."
But, then again, I am a Christian and I DON'T agree with you that this "flies in the face" of our beliefs, so maybe you should just put out that decree for the people of your Christian sect. Unless the majority of the people in your sect disagree with you, then you're screwed -- unless you're Catholic, then you just need the Pope to dictate it and everyone must follow.
Back on topic, I personally don't think any scientific research should be "banned". If it poses a serious potential threat to any life, it should be handled carefully and sparingly. If it has serious potential benefits for life, then it should be prioritized higher than other research. Anything else should be somewhere in-between. SETI falls possibly into all of these areas because a success would be such a major event in human history -- potentially positive and negative. So IMO, we should proceed with SETI research very carefully, but it should be a medium to high priority.
That's true -- there's usually quite a difference between almost all mainstream Asian food in America and the traditional food of whichever ethnic group you're talking about. That's why my favorite Asian food is Vietnamese followed closely by Japanese. Before I was exposed to "REAL Asian food" I loved Chinese food, but now it literally makes me sick EXCEPT for most Dim Sum -- that's gotta be my third favorite. With a real Dim Sum place, you'll see probably about 1/5 dishes going around that make even my wife shudder.
My wife is Vietnamese (so that may be why Viet food like Pho is my #1 favorite), so I can honestly tell you that pretty much any Vietnamese restaurant/deli that you walk into sells REAL Vietnamese food, no Americanized shit here -- if you don't like it, too bad!! I have to laugh sometimes because they really haven't figured out (yet) how to make some foods at least *look* or *sound* a little better to Americans! Oh yeah, give me a calf brain sandwich, a plate of grilled chicken feet, and a nice bowl of Pho Tai Chin Gau Gan Sach (hint: that Pho has lots of beef fat, tendon, tripe and other crap I would usually throw away from a steak). And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I may be exaggerating it a bit, but you get the idea -- un-Americanized Asian food is an adventure to say the least!
To put it simply, your message illustrates my point in my original post.
ALL computers are usable until they "literally" die from some incurable (due to shortage of parts or whatever) problem -- including my little TI home computer. The difference between most people and those addicts who continue to use those old computers SOLELY (using no newer computer for anything) is the ability to make that critical decision when it is time to *move on*.
Why does a gamble-aholic keep gambling when the odds are terrible and the end results are always bigger losses? Why does an alcoholic continue drinking even though they fully realize the problems/pain it's causing them?
I'm not describing those people who still use Amigas for something they are useful for while using other modern computers for other things that normal people can admit can't be done on an Amiga today. I'm describing those Amiga users who refuse to use any modern computer regardless of how many Microsoft/Mac applications/documents they have to work with, etc. Every time I go back to nostalgically use any of my 4 Amigas (500, 2000, 3000, & 1200) at home, it's fun & heartwarming for a little while, but eventually I realize I can't do this, do that, or the other thing and so it's little more than a museum trip.
BTW, if a salesman told you to buy a 286 in 1992, he was trying to rip you off. Unless I'm mistaken, 030/040 Macs and 386/486 PC's were mainstream then (maybe we were special:)) -- 286's were "dead". You could still be using that 286 today -- some people I know do to run their business because that's all they need. But, that doesn't mean they refuse to use anything *but* a 286 -- that'd be idiotic. The reason you *can* upgrade a 2000 to a PPC processor today is because a market exists because the Amiga was completely abandoned and died.
You can stuff a dead relative, stick them up in an attic, talk to them and talk back to yourself, but that doesn't change the fact that the person's dead. You may have useful conversations but does that change the fact that you have a real problem and the person's dead? There are just too many Amiga users like I described above who have a real problem and can't admit it. Denying it only strengthens that conclusion.
Personally, I think they "will never let it die" because the average Amiga user in the year 2000 doesn't have the BALLS to let it die.
Uum, does this remind anyone else of Norman Bates in Psycho? Wouldn't/couldn't let momma die? Keepin' her "alive" in the attic with a fake, thrown female voice?
NO MOTHER, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!
Give me a break -- the only reason the Amiga will never die is because it's too much fun for everyone else to make fun of these poor bastards while still keeping them in their psychotropic coma.:-P
AND, if I pissed any of you off with this message all I can say is, "LEARN HOW TO TAKE A JOKE!!!!"
As a former Amiga user (former meaning *7 years* ago!), I just couldn't pass up this joke considering some of the threads here being along the lines of "abuse of a corpse", etc.
Seriously though, as a brother and son of alcoholics, I'm thinking that at least some die-hard Amiga fans have a *problem*! Maybe I'm alone on this one, but from the rash of discussions that *always* pop up from stories like this on any site, I don't think so.
As a former die-hard Amiga user (again, *7 years* ago!) I always have to read these articles to keep up on this stuff because the Amiga was my first true computer (I had a Timex Sinclair piece-o-crap before it, but I don't consider that a true computer), so I want to see what's going on. But, some Amiga users (that I know personally) are simply *obsessed* with everything Amiga.
I think there's a line that many of the few remaining Amiga users have crossed that takes them into "true addict" territory -- maybe they need more help and less ridiculing to bring them into the mainstream with the rest of us? Maybe these are symptoms of a real problem that needs to be treated, but nobody takes it seriously?
Again, I'm speaking as a former die-hard Amiga user of 8 years who left the Amiga platform 7 years ago... so this is not a troll or flame-bait!
I'm sorry if I'm supposed to be a good Slashdot citizen and not reply to trolls, but WHAT THE F*CK IS YOUR PROBLEM, Anonymous Coward!?!? Why in the HELL can't Americans like you once-and-for-all give up this constant German-bashing!?!? As a German-American and therefore a member of the largest ethnic group in America (check the stats in the past 5 years), I am damn sick and tired of this! This constant stereotyping of Germans hurts as many Americans as it does Germans. This is like stereotyping "white" people like me as being in the same group as the slave-owners who founded this country when my ancestors didn't get here until 100 years later! Who agrees with or supports that kind of prejudice?
I hate to tell you, jerk, but those god-damn "krauts" you're talking about are right here in your back yard so I can see why you are so afraid to show your real identity. Why don't you have enough balls to post with your real identity, coward??????
All I can say to bring this back to the subject at hand is that this development IS important as a development of yet another computer-assisted feature used in mechanical devices we use every day! If a technology derived from this crude first step can make driving safer for EVERYONE then who would oppose it? An extremely controlling or dictatorial person? A fascist? A nazi? Gee, then wouldn't that make you a nazi? Interesting what is discovered when one actually thinks instead of spewing prejudice....
Being a self-taught programmer with a vestigial C.S. degree, all I can say is... what do you do when faced with those things? I seriously doubt that you could honestly say that every bit of knowledge you need in your IT job today (if you have one) and in the future you could pull out of what you learned in earning your CS degree (if you have one). At SOME point you have to pull out a book. If you never have to pull out a book, then I would be amazed because even some of the things you mention I would have to go back to a reference book because I just plain don't remember. One major difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer is the willingness to pull out that reference and make sure you aren't f*cking up the work, because unless you are a 100% perfect robot you will make mistakes and forget things.
I worked with a guy a few years ago whose primary career for a decade or two was as a university programming/C.S. professor. I'm fairly sure he could recite every bit of C.S. knowledge in your head and then some without ever referencing a book. He was fired within 6 months. He just didn't have what it took to *get the job done* as required because he was too obsessed with doing it 100% right. He would take a month to produce a chunk of code that I would produce in 3 days with very little extra to show for those extra 27 days' work. That doesn't work in the corporate world -- you have to balance efficiency/correctness with deadlines or your career will be sunk in no time.
I'm not trying to de-value a good degree, but I honestly never use 99% of what I learned in university. The few times I have EVER had to use anything you are talking about (or other things you didn't mention) I had to refresh my memory by reading shelved books. Part of what makes me a good programmer (better than most of my colleagues) is basic techniques I learned very early on in my university education. Everything beyond that was simply a foundation for about 1% my typical work day (I'm an IT Director for a $100 million electronics company).
Also, how can I "back up my code's correctness or efficiency"? I believe the proof is in the end-product!! I never have to back up anything if my programs WORK correctly and efficiently. What's inside only matters to the next programmer and if it's sufficiently explanatory that's all that's necessary. Because in the end we exist to serve end-users, they come first and we come second. If more companies (I'm not naming names, Microsoft) took that attitude, I can guarantee you'd see software shipping with better quality than it is today and faster than it is today.
All I can say, Anonymous Coward, is that most of what you're saying doesn't make any sense in the real world so I suggest you go out and get some real world experience.
The Apple Airport has 40-58bit (I'm not sure which) encryption that you can just easily turn on, and you set an admin password. I'd assume the Lucent one will have similar if not better features since it's Lucent hardware inside the Airport. We've been using Airports (3) here at work and at my house for several months and they've been flawless for ethernet routing -- very easy to use and very fast. And, if you figure that to set up a PC router, you'd have to get the PCMCIA card for $175 (approx. street price) plus $70 plus buy a PC or have one that's worth no more than $55??? The Airport works *out of the box* as an ethernet router for $299 (includes NAT/DHCP if you want to configure it, but we just need wireless routing).
I would assume this Lucent device will be almost exactly the same device for about that street price -- that's pretty hard to beat when you consider that it's a simple device that won't crash or have other typical PC problems.
That's a good answer -- I completely agree. For some reason, I have too many friends who constantly cut apart sci-fi movies based on today's knowledge and today's technology. "Aliens" is another good example of a plausible movie that gets attacked because certain aspects seem/are impossible because of either ignorance or because the viewer mistakenly thinks technology or humans will be the same hundreds of years from now or at some "unknown date" in the future! I can understand doing a story at some "unknown date" in the future when things are possible that seem impossible today, but you can't do that in a story that is set today (unless they travel to the future or something like that -- assuming someone invents some means to time-travel).
After everything's said and done, we have to remember that these *are* just stories that are meant to be enjoyed, not scientific hypotheses meant to be dissected and scrutinized. Sci-Fi has a basis in science fact, but that percentage is totally up to the author. This is one episode that I could watch once, but it was just plain boring the second time around (we have a satellite dish so I can watch it on the East coast and West coast again if it was good) -- this one wasn't worth replaying.
I've got news for you: many if not most IT people have already switched to Linux on their desktop! That shouldn't be surprising since you just don't happily go back to your work desk or home and use a Windows machine after working on primarily Windows problems day-in and day-out (that's like working at a Chinese noodle house for 8 years like my wife and going home and eating the same stuff). That's why I personally use Macs and x86 Linux everywhere I can for my own use, and most of my IT counterparts are similar in using some form of *NIX as their primary OS.
But, then again, no *real* "IS or IT type" actually uses Office on a daily basis anyway (vi, BBEdit, or something similar is most common) regardless of which OS they use. The only time we do use it is for the same reason we have the Windows PC behind us collecting dust -- to test something we're giving to a normal office worker.
Seriously, if Microsoft thinks that we're going to use Office more if they port it to Linux when I use BBEdit more than Office on the Mac, then it's no wonder they're on the way out as a computer "superpower"...
Also, WHO uses IE on *NIX??? I've seen it, but absolutely everyone I know who uses Linux uses Netscape or "something else".
The minimum Apple developer program that allows access to software seeding/prototypes is the Select membership for $500 per year -- I've had this for 2 years and the software/documentation makes it more than worth it since I use and program on a Mac. You also get big discounts on some full products like OS X Server for $99, full ASIP releases as a part of seeding, and of course OS X releases as they come out.
We've been using OS X since we first got it and it's been one "Wow!" after another. More than worth the cost of membership alone since I almost had to pay $800 for NeXTStep v3.3 way back...
BTW, you don't have to jump through any NDA hoops, you just have to sign the standard NDA that every developer signs...
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Yes, there are even Linux drivers. They actually support a helluva lot of OS's. The Win2000 drivers work great and the $300 Apple Airport (or the new $300 Orinoco equivalent) are great for small LAN's -- we have one Apple Airport that easily supports 25 Windows PC's.
Now they even have an adapter for *NIX servers or any 10Base-T device that can't use PCMCIA, ISA, or PCI adapters. It just plugs in through any standard 10Base-T interface. Now I can get my SGI server on the WaveLAN! Very cool -- we're going wireless everywhere soon since wiring a building costs about the same as the initial investment in the WaveLAN/Orinoco cards and moving a wireless device requires no expensive re-wiring.
Oh, and regardless of what people tell you about reliability, if we've had approximately 35 total users using Airports without ANY problems for several months, I would say the reliability is very good. BTW, this is as an ethernet hardware access point, not using the internal modem for connection to the internet. As an ethernet hardware access point, both the AirPort and Orinoco are Plug-and-Play out of the box.
E-mail me if you want any details -- we've done a lot of research and work using WaveLAN products including trying to use the 11 mBit wireless building connection hardware.
Configure and/or add hardware? Am I missing something or is it just that all 4 distributions of Linux I've used (this year) force you to use the CLI at some point when using the system?!? I just remember fucking around so much in the command line (not by choice) when trying to get the PCMCIA ethernet card working on my laptop.
But, once everything was working, it was cool. Except it was fuckin' slow no matter which WM I used! Oh man, if this is the future of computing, I'm sticking with Windows for day-to-day use for a long time! Once you're done installing any disty of linux, you're left realizing you've had a nice learning experience and you now have a computer that would make a fine demo/museum piece, but get work done? Not without being forced to use really crude tools and then you wonder why the hell you have a $2000 PC or $3000 laptop!!!!
If you're pro-Linux like me you need to face facts or Linux is doomed: Today, Linux is not usable by your average "person-next-door". If someone doesn't make it usable and appealing to that person-next-door REAL DAMN QUICK, the ship's goin' down and I mean real quick. I've been using Linux off and on for about 7 years and it's still not usable for normal day-to-day tasks without making sacrifices -- and people tend to get cranky if you tell them to sacrifice features without good reason when using their valuable possessions.
Uum, isn't that the whole point of MP3, the internet and Napster/Gnutella??? You just killed your own argument because this artist (along with all the other unknowns who can't get a contract with a major label) CAN have immense distribution using the above tools -- possibly even better than Metallica.
... but now at a rate of about 10-15 minutes per CD ... and it's automated (just leave it alone and continue surfing the web, reading e-mail, and other stuff until it spits out the CD).
... I got all my songs in MP3 format in an organized way ... many of them were smaller than the ones I downloaded through Napster (same MP3 quality like 128, 192, etc.), so I just ended up tossing the few I was able to download in Napster anyway.
I don't really like Metallica or Dr. Dre and never have, but I have found (through very casual use) almost a half dozen unknown artists that I know for a fact don't have contracts with major labels -- they're unknowns. I found them on MP3.com and they were there (I assume) for the exposure that MP3's and the internet brings.
I also have to weigh in on the argument that downloading an album's songs through Napster is easier than encoding MP3's from your own CD: In reality this is far from the truth. Check out MusicMatch.com -- I download their Jukebox software and I can encode my own MP3's from my CD's. OK, but it's really slow (records only as fast as the CD would normally play which means about 1 hour recording per CD). Forget that, go to Napster! I go to Napster and after doing searches for days on different artists, only 10-20% of the songs are downloadable (I'm on a T1)! After several days, I only have maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of each CD I wanted to record in my library. I go back to MusicMatch.com and discover -- gee, if I pay $29.99 ($39.99 for the shipped, boxed version with some hardware extras for stereo hookup) I can download their Jukebox Deluxe which, among other things, allows you to record CD songs at up to 5x normal speed. I get that and within 10 minutes I'm recording my CD's songs
The average speedup was about 3.5x faster than before. And
I guess the final point of this story is that the artists need to realize that this is here to stay and they need to start offering their songs via MP3 direct to their fans (at a substantially reduced price/song like maybe $0.50/song). If they don't they just look like dinosaurs and if they attack Napster/MP3.com and their own fans, they just look like a**holes.
Wasn't "Final Doom" just a regurgitated Doom II? I actually thought it was just Doom II with a "cooler" name for the videogame consoles. But, maybe it was just Doom II with some extra features -- either way, at first glance it looked just like Doom II to me...
I think the key point here is that it takes more than a university education to succeed in the real unsanitized world. In my not-so-humble-opinion I'd say that the ability to learn and keep updated is *more* important than the formal education you received at a certain point in your life. I speak from experience when I say that my Computer Science degree has done almost nothing to help me in my day-to-day job as I.T. Director. Everything I use most often I've learned in OJT (On the Job Training). Because the simple fact is once you have 10 years of work experience after getting that degree and you have to use that degree to compete with newer grads, you will lose because if the employer is only making a decision based on degrees he'll go for the person with the more current education.
:-))
The only way you can show you have a more updated education after you get that degree is by showing what you've actually accomplished. You wanna be responsible for hiring a new grad to set up IT operations for a company in 16 locations in Europe, America, & Asia? I've done that -- how much of a chance do you seriously think a new grad has? Any exec would have to be an idiot to hire a new grad into a position demanding more than 0 experience. And any experienced IT worker/programmer would have to be an idiot to interview for a job requiring 0 experience. AND, the pay-scale is aligned accordingly (this is from working the past 10 years in the Silicon Valley).
I've worked my way up since graduating 10 years ago and I know from surveys, etc. that I make 2-3 times more than any entry-level grad in my field and I can safely say that if you don't want to bet your career on your ability to learn and stay current, then you WILL lose in the end. I guarantee it. How can I guarantee it? Because I'm one of those execs hiring you new grads and experienced workers. So, when I have one guy coming to me with 10 years of "experience" plus a 10 year-old degree and another guy with 0 experience plus a brand-new degree, who do you think I hire?
You just can't go wrong hiring *proven* experience over education unless you need cheap (and I DO mean CHEAP) fodder for the labor pool. That statement sums it all up.
(Then again, if you give me one very experienced idiot and one wet-nosed genius, I'll try to pick the wet-nosed genius every time, but that's another argument.
OK, name examples of how the universities and military pioneered 100% of the technology in the computer you use right now...
I'm waiting...
Oh, I guess I won't get an answer from you, "Anonymous Coward"!!
If you are going to attack someone's post, at least have the balls to use your REAL IDENTITY!!!
That is true, but first the search is just a way to filter out stuff you aren't looking for, so yes you could just do a search for "*" with 500,000 maximum results and you'd get a complete list. And yes, that's not the best way to find unknowns.
Second, Napster is not the entire mechanism here, it just facilitates music transfers. You wouldn't find out about some hot new artist in Napster, you'd find out about them through the web like everyone does now (the artist's direct site, MP3.com, etc.). Once you've heard their music and you know you love it, then you use Napster to find everything available from them that's out there.
It's that simple. I've been using the internet for about 7-8 years and I never thought I'd be finding unknown/unsigned artists I really like through the 'net -- but I have. This is where it's going and idiots like Lars/Metallica (who've shown in Lars' response they and their managers couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag) will either have to adapt or go bye-bye!
I'm not sure who's "paying the bills" right now, but I'm sure the long term goal is to set up Napster as a web-based equivalent of a brick-and-mortar record label. More people certainly know about Napster than Gnutella, etc. They mention "proprietary MusicShare technology" that their client uses, so I'm sure they could try to parlay that into some kind of subscription-based service.
Remember that all these software clients are just at the beta or preview stage, so once they are finally at the release stage, they could also sell the client software for profit. And, since they control the database of MP3's, they could easily make it so older/beta clients would no longer work.
Even the "rumor" that the Lisa was named after his first daughter is disputed. Other people on the original team said it was named after a lead programmer's relation (whoever).
And, maybe Steve's attempts at enlightenment were simply reparations for wrongdoing against others? Who knows except him...
Or who cares, really...
First, aren't we all forgetting something a little critical here? A nuclear weapon can't produce a nuclear explosion unless it is detonated ... by a working detonator ... that isn't already blown up. If a nuclear warhead or nuclear-tipped rocket explodes, then what would trigger the detonator to go off at that particular point -- if it even survives that conventional explosion? The worst that would happen is that the nuclear material itself would be spread everywhere around that area, but that's a far cry from an actual nuclear explosion!!
Second, you have a good point on Russian/American paranoia of the time -- unless the American government communicates what's happening a day or even a week in advance, something drastic could happen. No matter what, a day's warning would be *expected* even during the cold war because at that point it wouldn't matter anyway (the Russians couldn't have whipped together a similar mission in a day) and of course we'd want to make sure they SEE it. Also, do you forget how many times both countries test-flew nuclear missiles??? Even recently, China test-flew missiles over or near Taiwan and everyone knew it was going to happen, but that didn't lessen its intimidation effect. I think the idea that we would do something like this and NOT inform both our allies and adversaries (who it is meant to intimidate) and then one of our adversaries would do something drastic to stop it is something out of a James Bond movie, but not real life.
Third paragraph, why would it detonate on impact? Makes sense in a wartime situation, but this is a demonstration of power. Also, why/how would it just "freely return" to Earth? If we simply "miss" the moon, "Bye, bye rocket!" If it goes into orbit around the moon and somehow slingshots around it AND gains enough speed to leave orbit, you're saying it would somehow end up pointing right back at Earth???? Jesus, I wish things were that easy -- then we wouldn't need NASA anymore -- we could just all launch rocketships out of our back yards!!! Maybe you've seen too many time-travel-slingshot Star Trek episodes? This situation is just so unlikely it's laughable -- you'd be better off watching the sky for giant asteroids to hit us (unlikely, but much more likely, IMO).
The rest of it all goes downhill from there. I do agree that we have reached the year 2000 because we have had enough sane people in power who did NOT go ahead with these kinds of plans. What was the likelihood that plans like this would ever have been executed? Probably the same likelihood that any of your scenarios would have taken place -- nearly nil... Since I was in the military before, I know first-hand that we come up with a detailed plan for every possible scenario -- SOP. This was possibly one of those obviously crazy plans that was just a "what-if".
Oh yeah, it was shown in the U.S. at least to a certain extent -- I think it was called "Space 1999". I remember watching it as a kid some time in the late 70's. It was a very cool show, but for the time the effects were pretty lame (similar to the 60's Star Trek, but I didn't mind because I was watching those reruns then, too). The Eagles did stand out as looking very cool -- I based many of my Lego spaceships on them when I was a kid.
:-) )
Anyway, I had forgotten the premise. Makes you wonder how large a nuclear explosion it would take to affect moon orbit, let alone knock it out of orbit. I doubt that could ever happen (like in Space 1999), but I wonder if it could have affected it enough to have an effect on the Earth? Tidal waves anyone?
(but then again, maybe there's a reason I'm a Mathematician with no Moon data and not a Physicist
This is far from a time for NASA to rest on it's butt because they think they have no competition. Am I the only one who was more than a little stunned by the fact that China is ready to (or have they already done it?) put astronauts into space? I believe Japan has already done it and the EU puts a lot more commercial hardware into space than we do already.
Not only do we (America/NASA) have competition, but we've already been left behind in some ways (the EU is far more busy than us putting that stuff into orbit because they are just plain better at doing it efficiently than we are). Where are our national leaders?
With the economy the way it is now, why the hell isn't someone working on finding new resources in space to propel us as a nation through the 21st century??? There's no telling if there's another "Seward's Folly" waiting out there for us.
...great. Yeah, it's not our fault the world is fscked up -- it's the corporations, the governments, the ... wait a minute, those corporations and governments don't exist without us (the public) so isn't it our fsck-up?
Let's face it: Human forays into new frontiers have never been and never will be pretty. We all WANT to do it but nobody's willing to SACRIFICE to do it, so profit's got to be the overriding priority. Are you willing to give half your annual salary/pay to do it and do it right? Or if you're a student how about selling half your worldly posessions?
It's all well and good to have lofty ideals, but no matter how much we all want the world to run on honesty, respect, and generally good will toward all things it just doesn't -- it runs on Money. These computers we are ALL typing on wouldn't be here in front of us (not to mention many other luxuries like cars, etc.) if not for those same *nasty* corporations.
Bottom line: embrace progress or be steamrolled by it.
If you borrow my car to rob a 7-11, shouldn't I be allowed to do anything in my power to be aware of that?
... but maybe police with reasonable cause could.
That's all we're talking about here. This is perfectly legal and has many court precedents because if you are using *someone else's* posessions, they have every right be aware of what you're doing using those possessions. This idea extends to these situations because you are given the use of this equipment and these resources to do a job you are *paid for*. Therefore, you do *not* have the right to pay your bills on company time using company computers and company internet access resources by accessing your account on a bill-payment website (one real-world example).
Maybe I'm just a little too honest here, but this simply seems like "the right thing" to me. Sure, there's room for abuse, but if you're worried about it then you make sure you do everything you need using your own stuff. Period.
What'll be interesting is later when you can use a PDA (Pilot or WinCE) which belongs to you using a wireless internet service you pay for to do nasty or illegal stuff (at work, but on a break or during lunch). In that case, the company you work for can't touch you or your data/possessions
Either way, the world is changing...
Don't be an idiot. First off, you can't negotiate opinions -- someone's opinion, idiotic as it may *seem* to be, is just that. If I want to ban animal testing, but I don't want to ban astronomy, that's my opinion and that's the end of it.
Second, YOU'RE saying "Settle down"? Where do you get animal research from on this and how do you assume this guy wants a ban on animal research??? He mentioned torturing and burning people at the stake to *jokingly* point out how ridiculous the original post was. Unless you actually BELIEVE that we should selectively ban scientific research because of one *small* group's beliefs -- like it or not, we Christians are the minority in this world. Or maybe you could say, "OK, if you are a Christian scientist, you CANNOT do any SETI research because it flies in the face of our beliefs; but if you are one of the many atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, etc. scientists, then go right ahead and do it."
But, then again, I am a Christian and I DON'T agree with you that this "flies in the face" of our beliefs, so maybe you should just put out that decree for the people of your Christian sect. Unless the majority of the people in your sect disagree with you, then you're screwed -- unless you're Catholic, then you just need the Pope to dictate it and everyone must follow.
Back on topic, I personally don't think any scientific research should be "banned". If it poses a serious potential threat to any life, it should be handled carefully and sparingly. If it has serious potential benefits for life, then it should be prioritized higher than other research. Anything else should be somewhere in-between. SETI falls possibly into all of these areas because a success would be such a major event in human history -- potentially positive and negative. So IMO, we should proceed with SETI research very carefully, but it should be a medium to high priority.
That's true -- there's usually quite a difference between almost all mainstream Asian food in America and the traditional food of whichever ethnic group you're talking about. That's why my favorite Asian food is Vietnamese followed closely by Japanese. Before I was exposed to "REAL Asian food" I loved Chinese food, but now it literally makes me sick EXCEPT for most Dim Sum -- that's gotta be my third favorite. With a real Dim Sum place, you'll see probably about 1/5 dishes going around that make even my wife shudder.
My wife is Vietnamese (so that may be why Viet food like Pho is my #1 favorite), so I can honestly tell you that pretty much any Vietnamese restaurant/deli that you walk into sells REAL Vietnamese food, no Americanized shit here -- if you don't like it, too bad!! I have to laugh sometimes because they really haven't figured out (yet) how to make some foods at least *look* or *sound* a little better to Americans! Oh yeah, give me a calf brain sandwich, a plate of grilled chicken feet, and a nice bowl of Pho Tai Chin Gau Gan Sach (hint: that Pho has lots of beef fat, tendon, tripe and other crap I would usually throw away from a steak). And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I may be exaggerating it a bit, but you get the idea -- un-Americanized Asian food is an adventure to say the least!
To put it simply, your message illustrates my point in my original post.
:)) -- 286's were "dead". You could still be using that 286 today -- some people I know do to run their business because that's all they need. But, that doesn't mean they refuse to use anything *but* a 286 -- that'd be idiotic. The reason you *can* upgrade a 2000 to a PPC processor today is because a market exists because the Amiga was completely abandoned and died.
ALL computers are usable until they "literally" die from some incurable (due to shortage of parts or whatever) problem -- including my little TI home computer. The difference between most people and those addicts who continue to use those old computers SOLELY (using no newer computer for anything) is the ability to make that critical decision when it is time to *move on*.
Why does a gamble-aholic keep gambling when the odds are terrible and the end results are always bigger losses? Why does an alcoholic continue drinking even though they fully realize the problems/pain it's causing them?
I'm not describing those people who still use Amigas for something they are useful for while using other modern computers for other things that normal people can admit can't be done on an Amiga today. I'm describing those Amiga users who refuse to use any modern computer regardless of how many Microsoft/Mac applications/documents they have to work with, etc. Every time I go back to nostalgically use any of my 4 Amigas (500, 2000, 3000, & 1200) at home, it's fun & heartwarming for a little while, but eventually I realize I can't do this, do that, or the other thing and so it's little more than a museum trip.
BTW, if a salesman told you to buy a 286 in 1992, he was trying to rip you off. Unless I'm mistaken, 030/040 Macs and 386/486 PC's were mainstream then (maybe we were special
You can stuff a dead relative, stick them up in an attic, talk to them and talk back to yourself, but that doesn't change the fact that the person's dead. You may have useful conversations but does that change the fact that you have a real problem and the person's dead? There are just too many Amiga users like I described above who have a real problem and can't admit it. Denying it only strengthens that conclusion.
Personally, I think they "will never let it die" because the average Amiga user in the year 2000 doesn't have the BALLS to let it die.
:-P
Uum, does this remind anyone else of Norman Bates in Psycho? Wouldn't/couldn't let momma die? Keepin' her "alive" in the attic with a fake, thrown female voice?
NO MOTHER, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!
Give me a break -- the only reason the Amiga will never die is because it's too much fun for everyone else to make fun of these poor bastards while still keeping them in their psychotropic coma.
AND, if I pissed any of you off with this message all I can say is, "LEARN HOW TO TAKE A JOKE!!!!"
'nuff said...
As a former Amiga user (former meaning *7 years* ago!), I just couldn't pass up this joke considering some of the threads here being along the lines of "abuse of a corpse", etc.
... so this is not a troll or flame-bait!
Seriously though, as a brother and son of alcoholics, I'm thinking that at least some die-hard Amiga fans have a *problem*! Maybe I'm alone on this one, but from the rash of discussions that *always* pop up from stories like this on any site, I don't think so.
As a former die-hard Amiga user (again, *7 years* ago!) I always have to read these articles to keep up on this stuff because the Amiga was my first true computer (I had a Timex Sinclair piece-o-crap before it, but I don't consider that a true computer), so I want to see what's going on. But, some Amiga users (that I know personally) are simply *obsessed* with everything Amiga.
I think there's a line that many of the few remaining Amiga users have crossed that takes them into "true addict" territory -- maybe they need more help and less ridiculing to bring them into the mainstream with the rest of us? Maybe these are symptoms of a real problem that needs to be treated, but nobody takes it seriously?
Again, I'm speaking as a former die-hard Amiga user of 8 years who left the Amiga platform 7 years ago
I'm sorry if I'm supposed to be a good Slashdot citizen and not reply to trolls, but WHAT THE F*CK IS YOUR PROBLEM, Anonymous Coward!?!? Why in the HELL can't Americans like you once-and-for-all give up this constant German-bashing!?!? As a German-American and therefore a member of the largest ethnic group in America (check the stats in the past 5 years), I am damn sick and tired of this! This constant stereotyping of Germans hurts as many Americans as it does Germans. This is like stereotyping "white" people like me as being in the same group as the slave-owners who founded this country when my ancestors didn't get here until 100 years later! Who agrees with or supports that kind of prejudice?
I hate to tell you, jerk, but those god-damn "krauts" you're talking about are right here in your back yard so I can see why you are so afraid to show your real identity. Why don't you have enough balls to post with your real identity, coward??????
All I can say to bring this back to the subject at hand is that this development IS important as a development of yet another computer-assisted feature used in mechanical devices we use every day! If a technology derived from this crude first step can make driving safer for EVERYONE then who would oppose it? An extremely controlling or dictatorial person? A fascist? A nazi? Gee, then wouldn't that make you a nazi? Interesting what is discovered when one actually thinks instead of spewing prejudice....
Being a self-taught programmer with a vestigial C.S. degree, all I can say is ... what do you do when faced with those things? I seriously doubt that you could honestly say that every bit of knowledge you need in your IT job today (if you have one) and in the future you could pull out of what you learned in earning your CS degree (if you have one). At SOME point you have to pull out a book. If you never have to pull out a book, then I would be amazed because even some of the things you mention I would have to go back to a reference book because I just plain don't remember. One major difference between a good programmer and a bad programmer is the willingness to pull out that reference and make sure you aren't f*cking up the work, because unless you are a 100% perfect robot you will make mistakes and forget things.
I worked with a guy a few years ago whose primary career for a decade or two was as a university programming/C.S. professor. I'm fairly sure he could recite every bit of C.S. knowledge in your head and then some without ever referencing a book. He was fired within 6 months. He just didn't have what it took to *get the job done* as required because he was too obsessed with doing it 100% right. He would take a month to produce a chunk of code that I would produce in 3 days with very little extra to show for those extra 27 days' work. That doesn't work in the corporate world -- you have to balance efficiency/correctness with deadlines or your career will be sunk in no time.
I'm not trying to de-value a good degree, but I honestly never use 99% of what I learned in university. The few times I have EVER had to use anything you are talking about (or other things you didn't mention) I had to refresh my memory by reading shelved books. Part of what makes me a good programmer (better than most of my colleagues) is basic techniques I learned very early on in my university education. Everything beyond that was simply a foundation for about 1% my typical work day (I'm an IT Director for a $100 million electronics company).
Also, how can I "back up my code's correctness or efficiency"? I believe the proof is in the end-product!! I never have to back up anything if my programs WORK correctly and efficiently. What's inside only matters to the next programmer and if it's sufficiently explanatory that's all that's necessary. Because in the end we exist to serve end-users, they come first and we come second. If more companies (I'm not naming names, Microsoft) took that attitude, I can guarantee you'd see software shipping with better quality than it is today and faster than it is today.
All I can say, Anonymous Coward, is that most of what you're saying doesn't make any sense in the real world so I suggest you go out and get some real world experience.
The Apple Airport has 40-58bit (I'm not sure which) encryption that you can just easily turn on, and you set an admin password. I'd assume the Lucent one will have similar if not better features since it's Lucent hardware inside the Airport. We've been using Airports (3) here at work and at my house for several months and they've been flawless for ethernet routing -- very easy to use and very fast. And, if you figure that to set up a PC router, you'd have to get the PCMCIA card for $175 (approx. street price) plus $70 plus buy a PC or have one that's worth no more than $55??? The Airport works *out of the box* as an ethernet router for $299 (includes NAT/DHCP if you want to configure it, but we just need wireless routing).
I would assume this Lucent device will be almost exactly the same device for about that street price -- that's pretty hard to beat when you consider that it's a simple device that won't crash or have other typical PC problems.
That's a good answer -- I completely agree. For some reason, I have too many friends who constantly cut apart sci-fi movies based on today's knowledge and today's technology. "Aliens" is another good example of a plausible movie that gets attacked because certain aspects seem/are impossible because of either ignorance or because the viewer mistakenly thinks technology or humans will be the same hundreds of years from now or at some "unknown date" in the future! I can understand doing a story at some "unknown date" in the future when things are possible that seem impossible today, but you can't do that in a story that is set today (unless they travel to the future or something like that -- assuming someone invents some means to time-travel).
After everything's said and done, we have to remember that these *are* just stories that are meant to be enjoyed, not scientific hypotheses meant to be dissected and scrutinized. Sci-Fi has a basis in science fact, but that percentage is totally up to the author. This is one episode that I could watch once, but it was just plain boring the second time around (we have a satellite dish so I can watch it on the East coast and West coast again if it was good) -- this one wasn't worth replaying.
I've got news for you: many if not most IT people have already switched to Linux on their desktop! That shouldn't be surprising since you just don't happily go back to your work desk or home and use a Windows machine after working on primarily Windows problems day-in and day-out (that's like working at a Chinese noodle house for 8 years like my wife and going home and eating the same stuff). That's why I personally use Macs and x86 Linux everywhere I can for my own use, and most of my IT counterparts are similar in using some form of *NIX as their primary OS.
But, then again, no *real* "IS or IT type" actually uses Office on a daily basis anyway (vi, BBEdit, or something similar is most common) regardless of which OS they use. The only time we do use it is for the same reason we have the Windows PC behind us collecting dust -- to test something we're giving to a normal office worker.
Seriously, if Microsoft thinks that we're going to use Office more if they port it to Linux when I use BBEdit more than Office on the Mac, then it's no wonder they're on the way out as a computer "superpower"...
Also, WHO uses IE on *NIX??? I've seen it, but absolutely everyone I know who uses Linux uses Netscape or "something else".
We've been using OS X since we first got it and it's been one "Wow!" after another. More than worth the cost of membership alone since I almost had to pay $800 for NeXTStep v3.3 way back...
BTW, you don't have to jump through any NDA hoops, you just have to sign the standard NDA that every developer signs...