And, incidentally, if every person in the U.S. bought only one CD, on average, per year, at $20 a pop, that would be more than a five fold cut in their profits. At their current size, there is no way that they could sustain themselves AND fork out tons of money for litigation and pocket lining without either falling on their face in the process or drastically restructuring.
Amen, brotha! When the RIAA started their Gestapo tactics, I did just that. In the past four years, I have bought four CDs. (Three from one label, one from a second.) I have also kept track of CDs that I would have bought, if I wasn't boycotting. I have sent letters to the labels, and the bands, informing them of my protest. Telling those whose albums I did buy, in essence "Your album is so good, you were the only one I bought. I may have bought more of your albums if you weren't signed with an RIAA-affiliated label." And those whose I did not buy "Sorry, the RIAA sucks. You've lost business because of the RIAA's practices."
I also broke my Metallica CDs and sent them to the members of the band back when the whole Napster mess was going on. (I actually did use Napster to find new music. I bought one of Metallica's older CDs specifically because I listened to a couple of the songs from Napster, and decided I liked them.) I wrote a very politely worded letter telling them that I disagree with their actions so much that they had lost me as a fan. Never did get a reply. (No, I haven't re-bought their CDs, yes, I still change the station whenever one of their songs comes on; well, that doesn't happen much since I stopped listening to commercial radio...)
...give up automobiles. After all, terrorists in Israel and Iraq are using car-bombs. And that's just wrong.
Now, if the whole 'the U.S. Military uses it' is really this guy's justification, then he's an idiot. He might as well give up food, too, because the Military feeds their soldiers.
But, I think his comments are taken out of context. It's a stupid rationale, and thankfully, it's not his primary reason. It's some stupid secondary 'justification' reason. (Kind of like giving up cars for political reasons, then blaming it on terrorists.)
hehe.. Yeah, I bit the bullet and bought a 12" PowerBook. One month later, they released the 1GHz/DVI model. Oh well. (I doubt I'd ever use the DVI port anyway, but the extra 133Mhz would have been nice, as I do video editing, and USB 2.0 would have been a nice bonus.)
So just hide it in a cabinet, and attach a VGA-plug LCD screen...
Re:Fast DVD burner, too!
on
Apple Revises eMac
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
To me, this is an iron-clad sign that the entire lineup of desktop Macs is about to receive an update.
I mean, making the second-cheapest computer have a faster drive than the top of the line PowerMac? And making this new eMac better or equal to the iMac in every way at a significantly cheaper price? This can't stand for long. Either LCDs are so expensive that they're not making much of a profit off the iMacs, or the iMac is about to be updated.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if everything else but the iBook gets an update within two weeks. (This also signals to me that the iMac will either receive a noticeable speed bump, or go G5.)
Bill Lear was the creator of the Learjet (and also happens to be the inventor of the Eight-track. No, really, look it up.) He was a sadistic mofo. He named his daughter Shanda.
Yes, that's right. Her name is Shanda Lear. (Read it out loud. Faster. There you go.)
Now I hope this poster is playing a sick April Fools joke. But if not, then I will hunt you down and take a big fat LART to you. Giving your progeny a goofy name is one thing, but marking them with such a 'leet' name will scar them for life.
(Please, for the love of Cthulhu, may this be a joke.)
Tell them to never call your cell phone. Since they aren't going to provide one, they obviously feel that being able to contact you 24/7 is not important for your job position. So they have no reason to ever call your cell phone. (This also applies to your automatic messages.)
Tell them that you want them to cover a percentage of the cost of your personal cell service based on the calls that are work-oriented. (Meaning, you'll have to submit your cell phone bill to them every month.)
Just bear with it, and write off your cell phone bill as an unreimbursed business expense.
At my college, Sigma Pi was full of the elitist rich kids who partied right out of Animal House, giving the whole Greek system a bad name. (I think they finally lost their charter a couple years after I left.)
Well, it's been pretty much proven that this technique is just creating a false partition table, which is what I was out to test.
The drive was thoroughly low-level formatted, then 'full' formatted during the first partitioning. Any bad sectors SHOULD have been found then.
Blaming my choice of hard drive (I have four other equally old 540MB drives of the same make and model that are happily in use in older computers,) doesn't magically make this technique valid. I just wasn't willing to sacrifice any important data by testing this on anything newer.
Okay, I have an old 540MB hard drive lying around, so I decided to try it, just for kicks. (And to silence those who are saying that either those who don't try it are cowards, or who actually think it works.
I followed the directions to the letter. I ended up with a 1GB drive! (On a supposedly 540MB drive. In the end, FDISK claimed 965 MB.) I filled up the first partition (with mp3s, naturally.) I then started filling up the second partition...
Surprise, surprise. It crashed halfway through copying the mp3s. Reboot? BZZZT! Windows 98 crashed a quarter of the way through loading. Starting up from a DOS disk, and my directory structure is all frooed up on the C partition. Filenames with random ASCII characters in them, inaccessible directories, all sorts of data corruption goodness. The D partition had correct names, though. (So my second batch of mp3s was probably fine.)
** DO ** *** NOT *** ** TRY ** ** THIS ** !!!!!!!
(Or, more specifically, do not try this on a hard drive you want to keep, or with data you want to keep.)
2. Put a 4-pin port on laptops, then put a proprietary 'power out' connector right next to it! (So they can have a custom made cable that carries both FireWire and power, instead of just using standard 6-pin FireWire to do it, which would take up the exact same amount of space.)
In Portland, Oregon, I'd say about half of the lights won't have the cross-street turn red at all unless you push. Others, the cross-street will turn red, but the crosswalk will stay 'Don't Walk', while only the vehicle traffic gets a green.
Then there are those corners where you know the cross-street will turn red sooner or later, and when it does, the walk will light up. Out of boredom one day, I went to one of those, timed how long the lights lasted if left alone, then tried pushing the button.
My result was that the main street would get a 5-minute green if undisturbed. If a car came on the cross-street, or someone pushed the walk button, it would change in about 30 seconds, although with a 90-second 'minimum-green' time. (So if I pushed the crosswalk button as soon as the main street turned green, it would wait 90 seconds to turn red. If I waited a minute or more, it would only wait 30 seconds.)
Yes, I was bored. (I was waiting for a ride home, and I knew the wait would be about an hour.) This was in high school.
A couple years later, again bored, I decided to perform my experiment at two more intersections. Both were the kind that had a main street one way, and a less-used cross street. Both would change red/green even with no traffic. One would give me a green faster if I pushed, the other didn't.
So, now, I push by default, unless I know for a fact that it doesn't help at that particular intersection. (Like downtown Portland, where there are very few buttons left, because the whole grid is computerized/timed like NYC.)
Again, they still honor their warranty, this is only relating to someone who buys the machine, then decides he doesn't want it within his '30-day return' and tries to send it back.
And my car analogy was meaning a car with a factory-provided CD changer, but one that must be added separately. For example, my wife and I are planning on buying a Toyota Prius soon. It comes in one of 9 'packages'. A 6-disc CD changer is included in some packages, but not others. If we get a package without it, then have them add it, it's still being done by Toyota. But it is now 'custom'. To me, Apple's equivalent are the three 'main' configurations. 1.6, 2x1.8, and 2x2.0. If you want anything that's not one of those standard packages (including upgrading memory, or video card,) then it's custom.
Toyota will take my Prius back within 7 days if I don't like it. *IF* I choose one of the 9 packages. If I choose a low-level package, then have them add the CD changer, they won't take it back. Yes, it's still under full warranty (just like a custom Mac,) but I can't just return it because I decide I don't like it.
Again: CUSTOM COMPUTERS STILL HAVE FULL WARRANTY! (Sorry, lots of people seem to be missing this part.)
No, the point is that Apple DOES guarantee their work, they just won't take a 'no-fault' return on custom equipment.
If my engraved iPod stops working within the warranty period, I can get it repaired/replaced at no charge.
But if I decide that I just don't like my iPod, I can't return it if it's engraved. If it's *NOT* engraved, Apple policy says I have 30 days to return it for a full refund, no questions asked.
Same with computers. A 'non-custom' one, I can just decide that I don't like it and return it for a full refund. (Maybe I decided on the Dual 2.0GHz instead, who knows?) But if I have customized it, I can't return it for a refund. If it breaks, I can get it repaired under warranty, but I can't return it for 'no reason'.
The original poster isn't clear, but it sounds like he just wants to return it with nothing wrong.
How else do you customize it? Tell Apple to build you a special graphics card with an all-new chip created just for you?
Yes, you are choosing a system that is not 'standard,' therefore you have customized it.
If I order a new car, but get a sunroof added, it is customized, even though the sunroof is a normal option that the dealer offers. If I get a car that has the sunroof included as part of a higher-end package, then it's not customized.
Likewise, if I order a 1.6GHz Power Mac G5, then upgrade the memory to 512MB, it's custom. If I order the Dual 1.8 that comes standard with 512MB, it's not custom.
If the 6-disc CD changer in the car is not part of any package, then adding it makes the car custom. If I add Bluetooth to my G5, it's custom. Any change that is *NOT* part of a preselected package makes the computer custom. It is very cut and dry.
Admittedly, the policy on Apple's part sucks, but it is their policy, and you agreed to it when you ordered the computer. Just sell the thing and be done with it. But don't come crying to us because you didn't read the contract all the way.
Yes, my point is that they weren't going to make a third 64-bit version. They told Intel that if they were going to make a 'low-end' 64-bit platform, it had better be compatible with one of the existing two. And Intel knows that backward compatibility is important to this new low-end market, so they really had no choice.
Microsoft wants the choice in 64-bit platforms, but they don't want to spend millions of man-hours developing yet another version of Windows. They want all platforms to be compatible. They would love it if Intel dropped IA-64 in favor of AMD64. (They have already dropped Alpha, PPC, and MIPS, all of which had 64-bit support in Windows NT 4.0, and all of which were dropped by Windows 2000.) I predict that unless Intel makes some serious changes to the Itanium line (making them much lower cost, even faster, and making a better x86-32 emulator,) MS will drop IA-64 support within two years. (Windows 64-bit for IA-64 only exited beta last year, even though Itaniums had been available for 2 years!)
That, and a lack of Slot-1 and Socket 370 processors in his kit. Even if you dislike Intel, there are still a lot of Pentium IIs, Celerons, and Pentium IIIs out there.
Intel (and Barrett specifically) can't stand Microsoft. They were 'forced' into supporting AMD64 by Microsoft, because MS only wants one 64-bit OS.
The last time Microsoft strong-armed Intel, Intel created the OSDN (the current employer of Linus Torvalds.) Intel helped write the IA64 (a.k.a. Itanium) port of Linux, and had it up and running months before Windows was running on Itanium systems.
Intel likes Linux. Specifically because it isn't Microsoft.
There really was no sour grapes intended. I am both a PC and a Mac user. I have a PowerBook, but my desktop is a PC.
If I saw someone open that up, my first thought would probably be "well, that's interesting, I wonder what's under the hood?" Then I'd scold myself for the horrible pun, and go on my way.
However, most pure Mac people I know would find that laptop to be ridiculously silly. Much the same way they find PC cases with windows, neon lights, lighted fans, etc, to be silly.
They wouldn't be admiring it, they'd be laughing at it. My statement was said from a 'neutral' point of view.
I paid 'extra' for my Mac laptop because I greatly prefer the OS, and I like small "fully functional" notebooks. I thought that the 12" PowerBook was a good machine for the money, maybe a little on the skimpy side processor-speed-wise, but adequate for my uses, and the cost 'increase' over an equivalent PC was worth it for me to have the Mac OS. And while I like the Mac OS, if I get a Mac desktop, it would have to be a top-of-the-line model for what I use my computer for, and I'm *NOT* willing to pay the price difference on that. (Yet.)
Personally, I can't stand OS holy wars in any direction. I've got a Mac laptop, a Windows desktop, and a Linux server, and they all do their jobs just fine.
Name one piece of software that isn't available for the Mac that is for the PC. (And that doesn't have a compatible/comparable Mac equivalent, and that people actually use. Your piece of shareware that you wrote that only you use doesn't qualify.)
MS Office? It's better on the Mac. Any Adobe app? Available or better on the Mac. Quicken, available, QuickBooks, available. Games? Mostly available. (Most people who would even consider a Mac aren't ardent gamers; the same way that someone who considers an economy car usually wouldn't even think about buying a sports car.)
Hrm... Well, I'm a guy, and my wife parallel parks significantly better than I do. (She gets it within an inch of the curb in only one 'cycle', I take three or four cycles to get within 4 inches.)
Slashdot Mirror
Svirfneblin Monk with the Vow of Poverty feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds. Such a high AC, he can't even hit himself. ;-)
Amen, brotha! When the RIAA started their Gestapo tactics, I did just that. In the past four years, I have bought four CDs. (Three from one label, one from a second.) I have also kept track of CDs that I would have bought, if I wasn't boycotting. I have sent letters to the labels, and the bands, informing them of my protest. Telling those whose albums I did buy, in essence "Your album is so good, you were the only one I bought. I may have bought more of your albums if you weren't signed with an RIAA-affiliated label." And those whose I did not buy "Sorry, the RIAA sucks. You've lost business because of the RIAA's practices."
I also broke my Metallica CDs and sent them to the members of the band back when the whole Napster mess was going on. (I actually did use Napster to find new music. I bought one of Metallica's older CDs specifically because I listened to a couple of the songs from Napster, and decided I liked them.) I wrote a very politely worded letter telling them that I disagree with their actions so much that they had lost me as a fan. Never did get a reply. (No, I haven't re-bought their CDs, yes, I still change the station whenever one of their songs comes on; well, that doesn't happen much since I stopped listening to commercial radio...)
...give up automobiles. After all, terrorists in Israel and Iraq are using car-bombs. And that's just wrong.
Now, if the whole 'the U.S. Military uses it' is really this guy's justification, then he's an idiot. He might as well give up food, too, because the Military feeds their soldiers.
But, I think his comments are taken out of context. It's a stupid rationale, and thankfully, it's not his primary reason. It's some stupid secondary 'justification' reason. (Kind of like giving up cars for political reasons, then blaming it on terrorists.)
hehe.. Yeah, I bit the bullet and bought a 12" PowerBook. One month later, they released the 1GHz/DVI model. Oh well. (I doubt I'd ever use the DVI port anyway, but the extra 133Mhz would have been nice, as I do video editing, and USB 2.0 would have been a nice bonus.)
So just hide it in a cabinet, and attach a VGA-plug LCD screen...
To me, this is an iron-clad sign that the entire lineup of desktop Macs is about to receive an update.
I mean, making the second-cheapest computer have a faster drive than the top of the line PowerMac? And making this new eMac better or equal to the iMac in every way at a significantly cheaper price? This can't stand for long. Either LCDs are so expensive that they're not making much of a profit off the iMacs, or the iMac is about to be updated.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if everything else but the iBook gets an update within two weeks. (This also signals to me that the iMac will either receive a noticeable speed bump, or go G5.)
Bill Lear's daughter?
Bill Lear was the creator of the Learjet (and also happens to be the inventor of the Eight-track. No, really, look it up.) He was a sadistic mofo. He named his daughter Shanda.
Yes, that's right. Her name is Shanda Lear. (Read it out loud. Faster. There you go.)
Now I hope this poster is playing a sick April Fools joke. But if not, then I will hunt you down and take a big fat LART to you. Giving your progeny a goofy name is one thing, but marking them with such a 'leet' name will scar them for life.
(Please, for the love of Cthulhu, may this be a joke.)
Sorry, I was with you until your sig.
At my college, Sigma Pi was full of the elitist rich kids who partied right out of Animal House, giving the whole Greek system a bad name. (I think they finally lost their charter a couple years after I left.)
Well, it's been pretty much proven that this technique is just creating a false partition table, which is what I was out to test.
The drive was thoroughly low-level formatted, then 'full' formatted during the first partitioning. Any bad sectors SHOULD have been found then.
Blaming my choice of hard drive (I have four other equally old 540MB drives of the same make and model that are happily in use in older computers,) doesn't magically make this technique valid. I just wasn't willing to sacrifice any important data by testing this on anything newer.
I followed the directions to the letter. I ended up with a 1GB drive! (On a supposedly 540MB drive. In the end, FDISK claimed 965 MB.) I filled up the first partition (with mp3s, naturally.) I then started filling up the second partition...
Surprise, surprise. It crashed halfway through copying the mp3s. Reboot? BZZZT! Windows 98 crashed a quarter of the way through loading. Starting up from a DOS disk, and my directory structure is all frooed up on the C partition. Filenames with random ASCII characters in them, inaccessible directories, all sorts of data corruption goodness. The D partition had correct names, though. (So my second batch of mp3s was probably fine.)
(Or, more specifically, do not try this on a hard drive you want to keep, or with data you want to keep.)
Even worse are Sony's two FireWire sins:
1. Put an unpowered 6-pin port on desktops.
2. Put a 4-pin port on laptops, then put a proprietary 'power out' connector right next to it! (So they can have a custom made cable that carries both FireWire and power, instead of just using standard 6-pin FireWire to do it, which would take up the exact same amount of space.)
In Portland, Oregon, I'd say about half of the lights won't have the cross-street turn red at all unless you push. Others, the cross-street will turn red, but the crosswalk will stay 'Don't Walk', while only the vehicle traffic gets a green.
Then there are those corners where you know the cross-street will turn red sooner or later, and when it does, the walk will light up. Out of boredom one day, I went to one of those, timed how long the lights lasted if left alone, then tried pushing the button.
My result was that the main street would get a 5-minute green if undisturbed. If a car came on the cross-street, or someone pushed the walk button, it would change in about 30 seconds, although with a 90-second 'minimum-green' time. (So if I pushed the crosswalk button as soon as the main street turned green, it would wait 90 seconds to turn red. If I waited a minute or more, it would only wait 30 seconds.)
Yes, I was bored. (I was waiting for a ride home, and I knew the wait would be about an hour.) This was in high school.
A couple years later, again bored, I decided to perform my experiment at two more intersections. Both were the kind that had a main street one way, and a less-used cross street. Both would change red/green even with no traffic. One would give me a green faster if I pushed, the other didn't.
So, now, I push by default, unless I know for a fact that it doesn't help at that particular intersection. (Like downtown Portland, where there are very few buttons left, because the whole grid is computerized/timed like NYC.)
Again, they still honor their warranty, this is only relating to someone who buys the machine, then decides he doesn't want it within his '30-day return' and tries to send it back.
And my car analogy was meaning a car with a factory-provided CD changer, but one that must be added separately. For example, my wife and I are planning on buying a Toyota Prius soon. It comes in one of 9 'packages'. A 6-disc CD changer is included in some packages, but not others. If we get a package without it, then have them add it, it's still being done by Toyota. But it is now 'custom'. To me, Apple's equivalent are the three 'main' configurations. 1.6, 2x1.8, and 2x2.0. If you want anything that's not one of those standard packages (including upgrading memory, or video card,) then it's custom.
Toyota will take my Prius back within 7 days if I don't like it. *IF* I choose one of the 9 packages. If I choose a low-level package, then have them add the CD changer, they won't take it back. Yes, it's still under full warranty (just like a custom Mac,) but I can't just return it because I decide I don't like it.
Again: CUSTOM COMPUTERS STILL HAVE FULL WARRANTY! (Sorry, lots of people seem to be missing this part.)
No, the point is that Apple DOES guarantee their work, they just won't take a 'no-fault' return on custom equipment.
If my engraved iPod stops working within the warranty period, I can get it repaired/replaced at no charge.
But if I decide that I just don't like my iPod, I can't return it if it's engraved. If it's *NOT* engraved, Apple policy says I have 30 days to return it for a full refund, no questions asked.
Same with computers. A 'non-custom' one, I can just decide that I don't like it and return it for a full refund. (Maybe I decided on the Dual 2.0GHz instead, who knows?) But if I have customized it, I can't return it for a refund. If it breaks, I can get it repaired under warranty, but I can't return it for 'no reason'.
The original poster isn't clear, but it sounds like he just wants to return it with nothing wrong.
How else do you customize it? Tell Apple to build you a special graphics card with an all-new chip created just for you?
Yes, you are choosing a system that is not 'standard,' therefore you have customized it.
If I order a new car, but get a sunroof added, it is customized, even though the sunroof is a normal option that the dealer offers. If I get a car that has the sunroof included as part of a higher-end package, then it's not customized.
Likewise, if I order a 1.6GHz Power Mac G5, then upgrade the memory to 512MB, it's custom. If I order the Dual 1.8 that comes standard with 512MB, it's not custom.
If the 6-disc CD changer in the car is not part of any package, then adding it makes the car custom. If I add Bluetooth to my G5, it's custom. Any change that is *NOT* part of a preselected package makes the computer custom. It is very cut and dry.
Admittedly, the policy on Apple's part sucks, but it is their policy, and you agreed to it when you ordered the computer. Just sell the thing and be done with it. But don't come crying to us because you didn't read the contract all the way.
Yeah, but without including Slot-1 and Socket-370, it isn't 90%, it's more like 60%.
Yes, my point is that they weren't going to make a third 64-bit version. They told Intel that if they were going to make a 'low-end' 64-bit platform, it had better be compatible with one of the existing two. And Intel knows that backward compatibility is important to this new low-end market, so they really had no choice.
Microsoft wants the choice in 64-bit platforms, but they don't want to spend millions of man-hours developing yet another version of Windows. They want all platforms to be compatible. They would love it if Intel dropped IA-64 in favor of AMD64. (They have already dropped Alpha, PPC, and MIPS, all of which had 64-bit support in Windows NT 4.0, and all of which were dropped by Windows 2000.) I predict that unless Intel makes some serious changes to the Itanium line (making them much lower cost, even faster, and making a better x86-32 emulator,) MS will drop IA-64 support within two years. (Windows 64-bit for IA-64 only exited beta last year, even though Itaniums had been available for 2 years!)
That, and a lack of Slot-1 and Socket 370 processors in his kit. Even if you dislike Intel, there are still a lot of Pentium IIs, Celerons, and Pentium IIIs out there.
Linus isn't part of, and Intel didn't help start, OSDN, that's the parent of Slashdot. I had my OSD's confused.
Intel helped start (and Linus is an employee of,) OSDL. That one letter makes a heck of a difference.
That's exactly right.
Intel (and Barrett specifically) can't stand Microsoft. They were 'forced' into supporting AMD64 by Microsoft, because MS only wants one 64-bit OS.
The last time Microsoft strong-armed Intel, Intel created the OSDN (the current employer of Linus Torvalds.) Intel helped write the IA64 (a.k.a. Itanium) port of Linux, and had it up and running months before Windows was running on Itanium systems.
Intel likes Linux. Specifically because it isn't Microsoft.
There really was no sour grapes intended. I am both a PC and a Mac user. I have a PowerBook, but my desktop is a PC.
If I saw someone open that up, my first thought would probably be "well, that's interesting, I wonder what's under the hood?" Then I'd scold myself for the horrible pun, and go on my way.
However, most pure Mac people I know would find that laptop to be ridiculously silly. Much the same way they find PC cases with windows, neon lights, lighted fans, etc, to be silly.
They wouldn't be admiring it, they'd be laughing at it. My statement was said from a 'neutral' point of view.
I paid 'extra' for my Mac laptop because I greatly prefer the OS, and I like small "fully functional" notebooks. I thought that the 12" PowerBook was a good machine for the money, maybe a little on the skimpy side processor-speed-wise, but adequate for my uses, and the cost 'increase' over an equivalent PC was worth it for me to have the Mac OS. And while I like the Mac OS, if I get a Mac desktop, it would have to be a top-of-the-line model for what I use my computer for, and I'm *NOT* willing to pay the price difference on that. (Yet.)
Personally, I can't stand OS holy wars in any direction. I've got a Mac laptop, a Windows desktop, and a Linux server, and they all do their jobs just fine.
Name one piece of software that isn't available for the Mac that is for the PC. (And that doesn't have a compatible/comparable Mac equivalent, and that people actually use. Your piece of shareware that you wrote that only you use doesn't qualify.)
MS Office? It's better on the Mac. Any Adobe app? Available or better on the Mac. Quicken, available, QuickBooks, available. Games? Mostly available. (Most people who would even consider a Mac aren't ardent gamers; the same way that someone who considers an economy car usually wouldn't even think about buying a sports car.)
Come on, give me a real argument.
Hate to break it to you, they're not 'joining the admirers', they're laughing their socks off at your gullibility.
Hrm... Well, I'm a guy, and my wife parallel parks significantly better than I do. (She gets it within an inch of the curb in only one 'cycle', I take three or four cycles to get within 4 inches.)