I understand that drivers == performance == competitive advantage, so the vendors want to keep SOMETHING secret, but hasn't the state of the art advanced quite a bit beyond what the vast majority of people need? Can't the vendors just release a plain-vanilla, rock-solid, super-basic driver that offers 90% of the performance? Or hell, even 50%? I mean, if I somehow managed to run Linux on a 75 MHz Pentium with 1 MB onboard VRAM in 1998, surely I should be able to expect *some* acceptable level of performance in 2014 with 1024 times more VRAM. Why is this so hard? You'd think at least ONE vendor would want to be known as "the ones who support Linux really well" -- especially with how Windows 8 is doing.
On one side: Miss October '93. On the other: a million scientists, an airplane, and a hypodermic needle.
Caption: "If you trust SCIENCE to keep your kids safe when flying in an airplane at 600 MPH, five miles off the ground, why don't you trust it about medicine?"
Sub-caption: "Would you rather your kids be autistic, or DEAD?"
Despite having been on the job for nine months, RadioShack CEO Julian Day said Monday that he still has "no idea" how the home electronics store manages to stay open.
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said. "You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day."
Too bad, though. I thought they had something planned after seeing their awesome new ad.
Is the benefit of "making as many people as happy as possible" worth the cost of "keeping nine million different apps running"? In this case, evidently not.
News flash: NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE IN HE SAME PLACE. If a company is located in the city, some employees will commute in from the suburbs. If a company is located in the suburbs, some employees will commute from their homes in the city.
... once they became "powerful enough" and portability mattered. Same way that Intel won on the desktop, really -- compared to mainframes, they were small enough to fit into a useful spot (literally and figuratively) and became powerful enough to be REALLY useful, not just occasionally handy.
But chips themselves don't sell devices -- Intel desktops sold more and more as the OSs and apps got better and better, and it's the same thing with the iPhone and similar devices. Would a 160x160 monochrome Palm Pilot (if it still existed today) sell in iPhone-esque numbers if it had a multicore, gigahertz-plus CPU? The chip makes the product possible, and better products make people want more chips.
While consumers are certainly still buying Windows 8, the latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft is not getting the same amount of love as Windows 7 did. That seems to be the general consensus, but now there's data straight from the horse's mouth to back that claim: at 15 months, Windows 8 sold 100 million fewer licenses than Windows 7 did, according to Microsoft's own sales figures.
Microsoft today revealed that Windows 8 has passed the 200 million mark. The two operating systems grew at the same rate for their respective first six months, but then at some point things slowed down for Windows 7's successor.
You know how if you have to explain a joke, it isn't funny? Well, if you have to explain a decision you made like this, there's a solid chance it wasn't the right one. Especially when it comes to matters of personal taste, preferences, perception, etc. "No, see, you should like this, because..."
Well, good news -- the only "not a good sign" you're seeing is from these idiot analysts who, collectively, are wrong about 90% of the time when it comes to Apple. If you care to hear what Apple themselves have to say...
WSJ: Apple has never made a billion-dollar acquisition. Google is snapping up everyone including your old friends at Nest. Does this alter how you think about bigger deals?
Cook: We've looked at big companies. We don't have a predisposition not to buy big companies. The money is also not burning a hole in our pocket where we say let's make a list of 10 and pick the best one. We're not doing that. We have no problem spending ten figures for the right company that's the right and that's in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero.
But we're not going to go out and buy something for the purposes of just being big. Something that makes more fantastic products, something that's very strategic -- all these things are of interest and we're always looking regardless of size.
If you've been paying attention to Apple for the last 15 years, you know they aren't usually stupid, panicky, or reactionary. Remember when everyone was saying the *had* to make a netbook? And then they didn't, and then that market segment dissolved? And instead they made the iPad and took over the world? Good times.
Or how about RIGHT NOW, when everyone is saying they *have* to make a bigger and/or cheaper phone, and they aren't, and they're STILL taking 87% of the market's profits -- almost THREEE TIMES as much as their next-closest competitor? (Samsung, 32%)
Believe it or not, there are some smart people still in that place. The brains and vision didn't disappear with Jobs. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to get pageviews or sell you something. I'm not saying they'll be the leader forever, but they're not going away anytime soon.
And, you can stop reading right there. Analysts are idiots, and rumors usually turn out to be wrong.
As for growth... "Last year, we grew (revenue) by $14 billion to $15 billion. Yes, those percentages are smaller compared to a year earlier and two years earlier and so forth. But that doesn't mean that you're not a growth company. We were in hyper-growth, or whatever is above growth. We went from $65 billion to over $100 billion to $150 billion to $170 billion. These are historic, unprecedented numbers. I don't know any companies adding growth at that level. So when you say $14 billion to $15 billion compared to those numbers, it's clearly smaller and a smaller percentage, but, to put it in some context, that's like adding three Fortune 500 companies in a year. [emphasis mine] I think that's hard to say that's not a growth company."
The summary was missing a couple important words. I've added them below:
The passwords for the FTP applications, which are transmitted unencrypted because that's just how FTP is and it doesnt matter if your password is "kjasdfkljlYSU87fyue847thIP&SH&&CDFO$Wfhi7qe4h5fo78aegh4fai7oshc7o8vae4hf84" or "correct horse battery staple" because a third-grader could sniff the traffic with decade-old tools, are complex and not default ones
Slashdot Mirror
I understand that drivers == performance == competitive advantage, so the vendors want to keep SOMETHING secret, but hasn't the state of the art advanced quite a bit beyond what the vast majority of people need? Can't the vendors just release a plain-vanilla, rock-solid, super-basic driver that offers 90% of the performance? Or hell, even 50%? I mean, if I somehow managed to run Linux on a 75 MHz Pentium with 1 MB onboard VRAM in 1998, surely I should be able to expect *some* acceptable level of performance in 2014 with 1024 times more VRAM. Why is this so hard? You'd think at least ONE vendor would want to be known as "the ones who support Linux really well" -- especially with how Windows 8 is doing.
Give the survey. If they act like idiots, euthanize the parents & vaccinate the kids.
On one side: Miss October '93. On the other: a million scientists, an airplane, and a hypodermic needle.
Caption: "If you trust SCIENCE to keep your kids safe when flying in an airplane at 600 MPH, five miles off the ground, why don't you trust it about medicine?"
Sub-caption: "Would you rather your kids be autistic, or DEAD?"
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
Despite having been on the job for nine months, RadioShack CEO Julian Day said Monday that he still has "no idea" how the home electronics store manages to stay open.
"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said. "You wouldn't think that people still buy enough strobe lights and extension cords to support an entire nationwide chain, but I guess they must, or I wouldn't have this desk to sit behind all day."
Too bad, though. I thought they had something planned after seeing their awesome new ad.
> The real problem here is the notion that bitcoin is a currency.
Yeah, where would all these morons get a stupid idea like that? Oh, right...
"Bitcoin is... a new kind of money."
That is LITERALLY the first thing they say, front and center at the top of their home page, following only their logo and nav links.
> The same things that make gold less than idea as
> an actual currency (or a backer to a currency) apply
> to bitcoin.
If people want to steal my gold, they at least need to know a) that I have it, b) where I keep it, and then c) come and get it, in person, by force.
... because Tapped Out is a lot like work. :-)
Holy cow, six-digit IDs are low now? Sweet!
This just in: the whole world is crazy. And it just happened. Just now. Nothing crazy has ever happened before. Anywhere. Ever.
What a worthless, piece of shit clickbait article.
Dice, if you want to do something to actually make Slashdot better, let us moderate articles, and let me browse them at +5.
And then add a rich text editor for comments. Doesn't need to be fancy, just support the tags you already allow. (Oh, and then fix how lists display.)
Is the benefit of "making as many people as happy as possible" worth the cost of "keeping nine million different apps running"? In this case, evidently not.
Asshole walks into bar full of assholes; hilarity ensues.
I'm surprised Netflix would agree to a partnership like this and not be in control of how the codes were handed out.
News flash: NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO LIVE IN HE SAME PLACE. If a company is located in the city, some employees will commute in from the suburbs. If a company is located in the suburbs, some employees will commute from their homes in the city.
What's the problem? Did this guy just discover "you can't please all the people all the time"? If so, he's about 150 years behind the curve.
It's attention whores all the way down!
If you're worried about something you say leaking online, keep your fucking mouth shut.
... once they became "powerful enough" and portability mattered. Same way that Intel won on the desktop, really -- compared to mainframes, they were small enough to fit into a useful spot (literally and figuratively) and became powerful enough to be REALLY useful, not just occasionally handy.
But chips themselves don't sell devices -- Intel desktops sold more and more as the OSs and apps got better and better, and it's the same thing with the iPhone and similar devices. Would a 160x160 monochrome Palm Pilot (if it still existed today) sell in iPhone-esque numbers if it had a multicore, gigahertz-plus CPU? The chip makes the product possible, and better products make people want more chips.
I don't really care about apps. As long as it'll play my PlaysForSure music, I'll be happy.
It'd be such a pain to be halfway to work and then have to turn around, drive back home, and start the trip over.
- because your phone comes with built-in wireless networking but your car doesn't?
- because your phone isn't a 4,000-pound hunk of metal and glass frequently moving at a hundred feet per second in public?
Just a couple thoughts...
At the other end of the spectrum, the biggest bargain ever was NeXT acquiring Apple for negative $429 million.
http://thenextweb.com/microsof...
While consumers are certainly still buying Windows 8, the latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft is not getting the same amount of love as Windows 7 did. That seems to be the general consensus, but now there's data straight from the horse's mouth to back that claim: at 15 months, Windows 8 sold 100 million fewer licenses than Windows 7 did, according to Microsoft's own sales figures.
Microsoft today revealed that Windows 8 has passed the 200 million mark. The two operating systems grew at the same rate for their respective first six months, but then at some point things slowed down for Windows 7's successor.
You know how if you have to explain a joke, it isn't funny? Well, if you have to explain a decision you made like this, there's a solid chance it wasn't the right one. Especially when it comes to matters of personal taste, preferences, perception, etc. "No, see, you should like this, because..."
"De gustibus non est disputandum."
(I'm not using Latin to make me look smarter, but to illustrate that this idea has been around for a long damn time.)
Doesn't matter if you're right if you can't sell it.
Well, good news -- the only "not a good sign" you're seeing is from these idiot analysts who, collectively, are wrong about 90% of the time when it comes to Apple. If you care to hear what Apple themselves have to say...
WSJ: Apple has never made a billion-dollar acquisition. Google is snapping up everyone including your old friends at Nest. Does this alter how you think about bigger deals?
Cook: We've looked at big companies. We don't have a predisposition not to buy big companies. The money is also not burning a hole in our pocket where we say let's make a list of 10 and pick the best one. We're not doing that. We have no problem spending ten figures for the right company that's the right and that's in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero.
But we're not going to go out and buy something for the purposes of just being big. Something that makes more fantastic products, something that's very strategic -- all these things are of interest and we're always looking regardless of size.
WSJ interview with Tim Cook, 2/14/2014
If you've been paying attention to Apple for the last 15 years, you know they aren't usually stupid, panicky, or reactionary. Remember when everyone was saying the *had* to make a netbook? And then they didn't, and then that market segment dissolved? And instead they made the iPad and took over the world? Good times.
Or how about RIGHT NOW, when everyone is saying they *have* to make a bigger and/or cheaper phone, and they aren't, and they're STILL taking 87% of the market's profits -- almost THREEE TIMES as much as their next-closest competitor? (Samsung, 32%)
Believe it or not, there are some smart people still in that place. The brains and vision didn't disappear with Jobs. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to get pageviews or sell you something. I'm not saying they'll be the leader forever, but they're not going away anytime soon.
"The Apple rumor mill is alive and well."
And, you can stop reading right there. Analysts are idiots, and rumors usually turn out to be wrong.
As for growth... "Last year, we grew (revenue) by $14 billion to $15 billion. Yes, those percentages are smaller compared to a year earlier and two years earlier and so forth. But that doesn't mean that you're not a growth company. We were in hyper-growth, or whatever is above growth. We went from $65 billion to over $100 billion to $150 billion to $170 billion. These are historic, unprecedented numbers. I don't know any companies adding growth at that level. So when you say $14 billion to $15 billion compared to those numbers, it's clearly smaller and a smaller percentage, but, to put it in some context, that's like adding three Fortune 500 companies in a year. [emphasis mine] I think that's hard to say that's not a growth company."
--Tim Cook to the WSJ Feb 7, 2014
The summary was missing a couple important words. I've added them below:
The passwords for the FTP applications, which are transmitted unencrypted because that's just how FTP is and it doesnt matter if your password is "kjasdfkljlYSU87fyue847thIP&SH&&CDFO$Wfhi7qe4h5fo78aegh4fai7oshc7o8vae4hf84" or "correct horse battery staple" because a third-grader could sniff the traffic with decade-old tools, are complex and not default ones
> Be as diplomatic as possible, but completely
> factual and provide as much evidence as possible.
Yup. The best way to win an argument is to start out by being right. Being polite saves your ass in case it turns out you're not.