Its not just the price of XP Media Center you're taking into consideration there. There are a slew of vendors who pay to have their software and adware preinstalled on a new PC coming from a manufacturer such as Dell - all that crapware figures into the overall equation. If there's no OS, then there's no crapware included.
I received a Dell XPS last month and it came with no less than 7 media players for playing music (and the only one I wanted, iTunes, wasn't one of them). (I use the term adware above to refer to Real Advertiser which is included with virtually any PC with Windows as an OS from a manufacturer; I think the actual purpose of said program is to play video or music, albeit at really shitty quality, but I've never made it past the advertisements to find out.)
Does anyone else think that maybe we're just in a Google-bubble, much like the internet bubble of the late 90s? I mean c'mon! Yeah, they wrote a search engine and they've made enough money to create a developer utopia where their programmers can be paid to work on thier own personal projects. Yeah, they have several other products out which utilize the internet in various ways. So now NASA, a government agency, is looking to spend taxpayer dollars to team up with Google... so they can bring the Apollo mission search results when we ask for them? And perform research into fields that Google only has money to due to an excessive amount of over speculation? Give me a break.
>> Replace old school bus with efficient new ones. Perhaps even a hybrid concept or something similar. Very high cost upfront, but gas savings.
Not so. (1) Maintenance, (2) battery disposal, and (3) the fact that hybrids haven't been running for 60+ years means that they are more expensive than you might think (1 & 2) and possibly unreliable which can create more cost than its worth (3). Many school buses are diesel engines; they should be tested to see at what level blend of biodiesel they can run efficiently at; this will save some money in the near term.
>> Raise taxes. Gap! yes! raise *YOUR* taxes so that *YOUR* children may go to school
I'm not a parent, but I'd pay higher taxes for the betterment of our society. It'd be really nice if they could teach them to STFU (and turn off cell phones) while in a theatre from the first grade though. I'd pay an extra $100 a year for that.
(Below is not in direct reply to the post above, but to the thread in general.)
Anyway, I'm a student of Paul Graham on this one: schools are ran like prisons. Its basically day care and I personally think it is useful up until the kid can take care of himself without parental supervision. Most blue collar jobs don't pay enough to offset the cost of daycare. Keep the kids in school.
Oh whoops, I should've clarified: prisoners of war are not subject to courts-martial. They are subject to trial by civilian court or a specially appointed war crimes court. Courts-martial is reserved for service men and woman only in the military where the courts-martial is taking place, never for POWs. It is assumed that during a time of war your typical grunt, while he might hold valuable intel, cannot be held responsible for actions committed which do not violate the rules of war.
>>or to a cout martial, depending on their status and alledged crimes
Just a minor thing, but service men and woman would be subject to a courts-martial. Prisoners of war are not subject to trial unless it is for war crimes. Enemy combatants are, seemingly, sometimes eligible for trial or indefinite detention. Enemy combatants should instead be eligible for civil trial, or the "war on terrorism" should be operated as any other war under the Geneva convention (and thus extend - in theory - certain protections to US service men and woman).
>> you act as if 15$ is a fortune. It isn't. It's going to the cinema twice.
Umm... I don't know where you live, but $15 will get you in the movies once and if you're looking to splurge you can even buy a small thing of spring water too. No popcorn though.
In an MMORPG the acting is usually better than the movies anyway.
George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, commented: "... Because of its diminutive size and industrial-hip look, Game Boy Micro immediately identifies the person playing it as a trendsetter with discriminating style."
I've always wondered what it takes to be a trendsetter. Now I know, its some corporate businessman simply saying "if you buy our product, you are a trendsetter!" I can't wait to get mine and set some trends with my disciminating style.
Oh crap... I just realized my joke isn't funny because its the truth.
"Are all the other devices essentially slaves to the PC - which is the Microsoft vision - or do the functions become spread out to smart consumer devices through the home?
2004 Jetta Wagon TDI (GLS trim), standard transmission: Average 47 mpg 2002 Pontiac Trans AM WS-6, standard transmission: Average about 32 mpg (more if its cold)... that's with a V8.
My diesel VW gets significantly more mileage than my friend's hybrids... but that might have something to do with a lack of stop and go traffic for their hybrids.
"Microsoft Corp. on Thursday confirmed that the source code for its Windows 2000 operating system has been leaked, a security breach that could give hackers important intelligence about how to exploit flaws in software run by most of the world's computers.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said someone had illegally posted incomplete portions of Windows 2000 on the Internet."
I think most of us who write code like to do it and it is even better when we get paid for it. In the future it looks like at least some of us will have to move to India to do what we enjoy. Some of us will adapt into new jobs. Some of us will continue to write code at a reduced salary. Some of us will continue to code at higher salaries. Perhaps it is inevitable, but I think that if it happens too fast we're going to suffer economic shock from it. Maybe these guys (www.itpaa.org) can help level the playing field a little bit and keep our jobs here for a while longer. Complaining about these problems individually on Slashdot is not going to solve them. If we can unify our efforts I think we could at least stand a better chance at slowing down IT jobs leaving the US. If the price of two Subway meals a month means that work is being done to at least try to keep IT jobs in the US, then I'll pack my lunch for two days a month.
I work as a contractor for the Marine Corps, and the powers that be did this exact same thing. Then they had a meeting after the purchase so Oracle sales reps could tell them exactly what they spent thier defense budget on, since apparently no one knew.
I spent four years in the US Marine Corps - just recently got out - and it seemed to me that an unusual number of Marines (myself included) would be stuck working the holiday whether it was the actual holiday itself or one of the other days off. I'm sure its like that for all of our military, and even more so now.
When I completed my training for the military, I had to send four boxes across country from the west coast to the east coast via UPS. I paid for full insurance on everything, packed everything in original packaging and I received one package intact - at my home of record in NY - when I should have received all of them in VA. My TV was cracked (plastic only) but still usable, my stereo was ruined beyond use, a package containing some PC games and my Playstation ended up in FL before it disappeared for good, and the final package with two books was mailed to me using the USPS (safely) to VA from NY.
Recently one of my friends had built a computer for his brother living at home in MN. He made the machine, then packed it all in the cases' original packaging with some additional protection. When his brother received it, there was a huge dent in the top side of the case, ruining the CD-ROM and making it impossible to remove or add any 5.25" or 3.5" devices that would occupy those bays.
In both cases we had maximum insurance on the packages. When asked repeatively about compensation for these mishaps, we are told insurance doesn't protect against damage to goods shipped. Apparently insurance protects only against robbery, natural disasters, and other such unlikely events.
Did they mention that a feature is "Your applications will crash faster than ever before allowing you to get less done in more time!". I think I saw this as a splash during the installation and I can verify this because a good portion of my game library has been rendered useless by XP (even when using the so-called "Compatability Wizard" - should be called the Blue Screen of Death Wizard). XP is to 2000 as Me was to 9X, except with a much bigger ad campaign. That, and a severely weakened recovery wizard (a broken console or the Automatic Recovery System which doesn't work) really adds to the flavor. Windows 2000 is probably MS's peak operating system.
I picked it up a couple hours after EB shelved it. I was very unimpressed... after playing Civ2 for the previous week I almost thought I had accidentially clicked on the "Play Civilization 2" link on my desktop rather than the newly created link for 3. I exchanged the game for Dark Age of Camelot, which I must admit, is much more enjoyable (even if its a completely seperate genre).
RMS was not referring to the Bush/Gore election problems, he was referring that by talking to your CURRENT representitives one of them MAY be the future president (so is therefore currently not elected).
So I wonder when Honda will recieve an e-mail from Microsoft's attorneys to "cease and desist" using the "Passport" name for their SUV.
Actually I think the cease and desist letter to the world from MS attorneys telling them to stop using the "Passport" term will be much more interesting.
Uh, there's always the military. 30 days paid vacation (weekends count), salary is about $10,000 yearly no matter what rank you are (if you're enlisted), but food and lodging is paid for by the government (ain't that great!). But you do get 4 (well 2 not counting the weekends) days off for every Federal holiday.
"Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software"
by
Erich Gamma
Richard Helm
Ralph Johnson
John Vlissides
(Addison-Wesley 1995 ISBN: 0-201-63361-2)
-AND-
"The Inmates Are Running the Asylum:
Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity"
by
Alan Cooper
(SAMS, 1999)
Slashdot Mirror
Its not just the price of XP Media Center you're taking into consideration there. There are a slew of vendors who pay to have their software and adware preinstalled on a new PC coming from a manufacturer such as Dell - all that crapware figures into the overall equation. If there's no OS, then there's no crapware included.
I received a Dell XPS last month and it came with no less than 7 media players for playing music (and the only one I wanted, iTunes, wasn't one of them). (I use the term adware above to refer to Real Advertiser which is included with virtually any PC with Windows as an OS from a manufacturer; I think the actual purpose of said program is to play video or music, albeit at really shitty quality, but I've never made it past the advertisements to find out.)
Does anyone else think that maybe we're just in a Google-bubble, much like the internet bubble of the late 90s? I mean c'mon! Yeah, they wrote a search engine and they've made enough money to create a developer utopia where their programmers can be paid to work on thier own personal projects. Yeah, they have several other products out which utilize the internet in various ways. So now NASA, a government agency, is looking to spend taxpayer dollars to team up with Google... so they can bring the Apollo mission search results when we ask for them? And perform research into fields that Google only has money to due to an excessive amount of over speculation? Give me a break.
>> Replace old school bus with efficient new ones. Perhaps even a hybrid concept or something similar. Very high cost upfront, but gas savings.
Not so. (1) Maintenance, (2) battery disposal, and (3) the fact that hybrids haven't been running for 60+ years means that they are more expensive than you might think (1 & 2) and possibly unreliable which can create more cost than its worth (3). Many school buses are diesel engines; they should be tested to see at what level blend of biodiesel they can run efficiently at; this will save some money in the near term.
>> Raise taxes. Gap! yes! raise *YOUR* taxes so that *YOUR* children may go to school
I'm not a parent, but I'd pay higher taxes for the betterment of our society. It'd be really nice if they could teach them to STFU (and turn off cell phones) while in a theatre from the first grade though. I'd pay an extra $100 a year for that.
(Below is not in direct reply to the post above, but to the thread in general.)
Anyway, I'm a student of Paul Graham on this one: schools are ran like prisons. Its basically day care and I personally think it is useful up until the kid can take care of himself without parental supervision. Most blue collar jobs don't pay enough to offset the cost of daycare. Keep the kids in school.
Oh whoops, I should've clarified: prisoners of war are not subject to courts-martial. They are subject to trial by civilian court or a specially appointed war crimes court. Courts-martial is reserved for service men and woman only in the military where the courts-martial is taking place, never for POWs. It is assumed that during a time of war your typical grunt, while he might hold valuable intel, cannot be held responsible for actions committed which do not violate the rules of war.
Just nit-picky information.
Amen! :)
>>or to a cout martial, depending on their status and alledged crimes
Just a minor thing, but service men and woman would be subject to a courts-martial. Prisoners of war are not subject to trial unless it is for war crimes. Enemy combatants are, seemingly, sometimes eligible for trial or indefinite detention. Enemy combatants should instead be eligible for civil trial, or the "war on terrorism" should be operated as any other war under the Geneva convention (and thus extend - in theory - certain protections to US service men and woman).
>> you act as if 15$ is a fortune. It isn't. It's going to the cinema twice.
Umm... I don't know where you live, but $15 will get you in the movies once and if you're looking to splurge you can even buy a small thing of spring water too. No popcorn though.
In an MMORPG the acting is usually better than the movies anyway.
From Gamasutra.com Article:
I've always wondered what it takes to be a trendsetter. Now I know, its some corporate businessman simply saying "if you buy our product, you are a trendsetter!" I can't wait to get mine and set some trends with my disciminating style.
Oh crap... I just realized my joke isn't funny because its the truth.
"Are all the other devices essentially slaves to the PC - which is the Microsoft vision - or do the functions become spread out to smart consumer devices through the home?
5 7&tid=133&tid=103
The article uses the word "slave" when referring to something dealing with technology. Attempting to read the article in California may result in you breaking county law in your locality. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/25/00142
2004 Jetta Wagon TDI (GLS trim), standard transmission:
Average 47 mpg
2002 Pontiac Trans AM WS-6, standard transmission: Average about 32 mpg (more if its cold)... that's with a V8.
My diesel VW gets significantly more mileage than my friend's hybrids... but that might have something to do with a lack of stop and go traffic for their hybrids.
"Microsoft Corp. on Thursday confirmed that the source code for its Windows 2000 operating system has been leaked, a security breach that could give hackers important intelligence about how to exploit flaws in software run by most of the world's computers.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said someone had illegally posted incomplete portions of Windows 2000 on the Internet."
I think most of us who write code like to do it and it is even better when we get paid for it. In the future it looks like at least some of us will have to move to India to do what we enjoy. Some of us will adapt into new jobs. Some of us will continue to write code at a reduced salary. Some of us will continue to code at higher salaries. Perhaps it is inevitable, but I think that if it happens too fast we're going to suffer economic shock from it. Maybe these guys (www.itpaa.org) can help level the playing field a little bit and keep our jobs here for a while longer. Complaining about these problems individually on Slashdot is not going to solve them. If we can unify our efforts I think we could at least stand a better chance at slowing down IT jobs leaving the US. If the price of two Subway meals a month means that work is being done to at least try to keep IT jobs in the US, then I'll pack my lunch for two days a month.
I work as a contractor for the Marine Corps, and the powers that be did this exact same thing. Then they had a meeting after the purchase so Oracle sales reps could tell them exactly what they spent thier defense budget on, since apparently no one knew.
I spent four years in the US Marine Corps - just recently got out - and it seemed to me that an unusual number of Marines (myself included) would be stuck working the holiday whether it was the actual holiday itself or one of the other days off. I'm sure its like that for all of our military, and even more so now.
Yes, and its hard to believe people like to play more than seven games total.
When I completed my training for the military, I had to send four boxes across country from the west coast to the east coast via UPS. I paid for full insurance on everything, packed everything in original packaging and I received one package intact - at my home of record in NY - when I should have received all of them in VA. My TV was cracked (plastic only) but still usable, my stereo was ruined beyond use, a package containing some PC games and my Playstation ended up in FL before it disappeared for good, and the final package with two books was mailed to me using the USPS (safely) to VA from NY.
Recently one of my friends had built a computer for his brother living at home in MN. He made the machine, then packed it all in the cases' original packaging with some additional protection. When his brother received it, there was a huge dent in the top side of the case, ruining the CD-ROM and making it impossible to remove or add any 5.25" or 3.5" devices that would occupy those bays.
In both cases we had maximum insurance on the packages. When asked repeatively about compensation for these mishaps, we are told insurance doesn't protect against damage to goods shipped. Apparently insurance protects only against robbery, natural disasters, and other such unlikely events.
Did they mention that a feature is "Your applications will crash faster than ever before allowing you to get less done in more time!". I think I saw this as a splash during the installation and I can verify this because a good portion of my game library has been rendered useless by XP (even when using the so-called "Compatability Wizard" - should be called the Blue Screen of Death Wizard). XP is to 2000 as Me was to 9X, except with a much bigger ad campaign. That, and a severely weakened recovery wizard (a broken console or the Automatic Recovery System which doesn't work) really adds to the flavor. Windows 2000 is probably MS's peak operating system.
I picked it up a couple hours after EB shelved it. I was very unimpressed... after playing Civ2 for the previous week I almost thought I had accidentially clicked on the "Play Civilization 2" link on my desktop rather than the newly created link for 3. I exchanged the game for Dark Age of Camelot, which I must admit, is much more enjoyable (even if its a completely seperate genre).
RMS was not referring to the Bush/Gore election problems, he was referring that by talking to your CURRENT representitives one of them MAY be the future president (so is therefore currently not elected).
So I wonder when Honda will recieve an e-mail from Microsoft's attorneys to "cease and desist" using the "Passport" name for their SUV.
Actually I think the cease and desist letter to the world from MS attorneys telling them to stop using the "Passport" term will be much more interesting.
Uh, there's always the military. 30 days paid vacation (weekends count), salary is about $10,000 yearly no matter what rank you are (if you're enlisted), but food and lodging is paid for by the government (ain't that great!). But you do get 4 (well 2 not counting the weekends) days off for every Federal holiday.
Do you think that if I made a game for Linux I could get free advertising on Slashdot as well?
Wow, I didn't know GameSpy was getting so aggressive.
Slashdot: Free advertising space for Linux distros. Stuff that no one should care about.
If they haven't already been suggested:
"Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software"
by
Erich Gamma
Richard Helm
Ralph Johnson
John Vlissides
(Addison-Wesley 1995 ISBN: 0-201-63361-2)
-AND-
"The Inmates Are Running the Asylum:
Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity"
by
Alan Cooper
(SAMS, 1999)
woohoo!