I suspect a hoax - this is described in TFA exactly the same way the iPad DHCP issue was back in September of last year, and the link to "Princeton" directs to "www.net.princeton.edu.nyud.net" - pretty sure Princeton can afford to register and use princeton.edu for their official communication, not some odd.net address.
Given that this bug made it out into the wild, does this mean that the Android team only did 24 days of beta testing of the product? Or that they thought they would release a patch within 24 days?
No, really, Slashdot doesn't have enough rabid platform advocacy and name-calling. By all means let's put this on the front page and drum up some more.
Serious research is one thing, trolling for a flamewar is another.
Even if it is 20000 songs _or_ 25000 pictures, how does a 20gb increase in space equate to 20000 songs, even with Apple math? If you get 5000 songs in a 20gb ipod, and 10000 songs in a 40gb ipod, wouldn't you get 15000 songs in a 60gb ipod?
That's why I look at the claim skeptically - that and the color screen = battery usage. I feel fairly comfortable with the idea of a 60gb ipod in general - it fits Apple's usual good/better/best model lineup. Some of the extras mentioned like color, photo viewing, and claimed capacity are where the credibility slips.
They have a decent track record, but read the article - they claim that Apple will market a 60gb ipod as holding 20000 songs _and_ 25000 pictures? I can feel the monkeys flying out of my butt right now... a 40gb ipod will hold (according to Apple) 10000 songs, so somehow a 50% increase in space will hold another 10000 songs and 25000 photos?
Sounds like someone's on the wish-fulfilment crack pipe there.
In response to the primary question (how come we get G5 iMacs when we can't get PowerMac G5s) - I would certainly expect the G5 iMac to use a slower processor than the high-end G5 towers, which should not be subject to the same yield issues. Basically, IBM can target 2.5 GHz, and the chips that don't cut the mustard at that speed may still be usable at (say) 1.8GHz. They can fill lower-speed chip volume with "duds" from the higher-speed production. No, they don't get all the 1.8s this way, but it does explain why IBM has constrained supply on 2.5's and Apple can still expect to launch a slower iMac.
As far as the order for the tower - did you preorder a Dual 2.5? Were you told flat out with the order "estimated ship time"? Yes, it's a brand new system, and many vendors are off on predictions for new systems. No, you haven't "paid money" for your computer. You have committed to doing so, but no funds have changed hands until product ships. To quote the AppleStore policy page:
At the time your order is placed, Apple obtains a pre-approval from the credit card company for the amount of the order. Credit card billing occurs when your order ships.
Fairly standard practice, so you're not waiting for something you paid for already. Did you sign a binding contract for delivery on a certain date? No? Well then, why do you talk that way? Sure, I'd love to have something I ordered the next day, but sometimes it happens. With Apple and new products, it tends to happen more often than not, and that is unfortunate, but don't act like it's your "right" to have something just because you're ready to have it.
Re:Here's an interesting quote
on
Open Source Law
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
And why exactly would it be a bad idea if you could make a photocopy of the text? Sure, it would cost an arm and a leg at $0.10 per page (or whatever the copy machine at city hall costs), and take forever, and you'd be stuck with a huge stack of papers. On the other hand, there's nothing keeping the "national engineering bodies" from producing, at negligible additional cost, a reference CD with PDFs and/or a printed manual of the relevant code, and selling that to individuals who want and "use" them. It's the service that's being sold, not the (non-copyrighted) material.
Legally, the PDFs (or whatever format) would be protected, not on basis of the law itself being copyrighted, but because the product is composed of a service, which would be governed by a use license or suchlike (yes, I know, that's another broken model, but one thing at a time). The law itself could and probably should be available online, and if you think that will kill sales of a potential product, just go into your favorite computer store, and see how many manuals get sold for information readily available on the internet.
If we have "national engineering bodies" that are writing laws (which they sort of are, but are sort of also just providing expertise to lawmakers), then the cost of effort that actually becomes law should be borne (and probably already is) by the taxpayers. If, on the other hand, these laws are written in ways that tend to make things favorable (read 'financially advantageous') to the writers, then they already have their reward, and don't need to have a revenue stream from folks who are being governed by work they have done in whole or in part.
Not sure what you really mean by them not being factual evidence. Certainly, the statements contained within cannot be assumed to be true, but the fact that the statements were made still can, which is the only way I would imagine anything from a message board being used in a legal case. Are you saying that I can't go into court and (provided there is a clear, reliable link between poster and comment) say "So-and-So posted such-and-such" because of this ruling? I don't think that works. Now if I were to say "Foobar was posted, so it must be true and factual" then that would be incorrect, according to the ruling.
Even with the ruling, the "fact" that the post was made is still true and correct, not an opinion. Sure, you can argue about whether you can really associate a post with a given individual unless you have eyewitnesses who saw it being typed, but the post's existence is still factual and is therefore admissable.
> I will not do business with a company that behaves like this.
Did the original poster even bother to _read_ the article provided as "more information here"? In the article, the owner of Stardock is quoted:
Wardell: Apple has rights
Wardell emphasized that Apple has rights in this matter and that it has not been unprofessional in its approach or dealings with Stardock.
"Every time a company tries to enforce their rights, they are always made out to be bad guys," he said. "The fact is Apple is trying to innovate, and if you take away their incentive to innovate, it hurts everybody. I think it's good to see Apple, within limits, protect their rights."
"We very strongly believe Apple has rights to protect its intellectual property up until they infringe on the rights of others," Wardell said. "We need to make sure we protect the rights of the 'skinny' community, too.
There's been a strong flavor of "post first, read never" to/. lately - lots of "news" items that arrive pre-slanted and it really appears that as long as they're slanted the right way, they stay that way. I don't particularly expect objective journalism from/., but things have been going a bit overboard even for here, on a number of subjects (not just Microsloth and Apple).
You can, but there are plenty of games to be played to get around that, if you happen to be the local phone provider. If you move within a city and are eligible to keep the same phone number, the most popular trick involves the local carrier pretending that it is necessary to delete/deactivate your old account & number to issue you a new account and _the same number_ that is now no longer PIC restricted. Surprise! You now have LD through whoever your local carrier is in bed with.
I had this done to me by Southwestern Bell, now that they're in the LD market in Texas. I managed to get AT&T mad enough about it that AT&T somehow got it fixed for me, but the AT&T people told me it's happened a fair bit.
Anyone ever do things honestly today? Sorry, that was an oxymoron...
Exactly. Also, if universities need to do something to their computing systems because of rising enrollment, why isn't the increase in revenue (if more people pay tuition, more money comes in the door...) helping to cover the costs? It's not like an increase of 10,000 in enrollment is _all_ in the CS department. Those English majors don't need much more than a word processor, the Web, and a printer.
"We sold our souls to the Devil because we weren't bright enough to realize that a _free_ alternative cost less."
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect a hoax - this is described in TFA exactly the same way the iPad DHCP issue was back in September of last year, and the link to "Princeton" directs to "www.net.princeton.edu.nyud.net" - pretty sure Princeton can afford to register and use princeton.edu for their official communication, not some odd .net address.
Given that this bug made it out into the wild, does this mean that the Android team only did 24 days of beta testing of the product? Or that they thought they would release a patch within 24 days?
Not particularly smart or impressive, either way.
Officer: "Sir, you are operating this vehicle under the influence of alcohol, please come with me to the station."
Driver: "Honest, officer, that 12-pack I just drank was just to get enough urine to get home!"
No, really, Slashdot doesn't have enough rabid platform advocacy and name-calling. By all means let's put this on the front page and drum up some more.
Serious research is one thing, trolling for a flamewar is another.
Even if it is 20000 songs _or_ 25000 pictures, how does a 20gb increase in space equate to 20000 songs, even with Apple math? If you get 5000 songs in a 20gb ipod, and 10000 songs in a 40gb ipod, wouldn't you get 15000 songs in a 60gb ipod?
That's why I look at the claim skeptically - that and the color screen = battery usage. I feel fairly comfortable with the idea of a 60gb ipod in general - it fits Apple's usual good/better/best model lineup. Some of the extras mentioned like color, photo viewing, and claimed capacity are where the credibility slips.
They have a decent track record, but read the article - they claim that Apple will market a 60gb ipod as holding 20000 songs _and_ 25000 pictures? I can feel the monkeys flying out of my butt right now... a 40gb ipod will hold (according to Apple) 10000 songs, so somehow a 50% increase in space will hold another 10000 songs and 25000 photos?
Sounds like someone's on the wish-fulfilment crack pipe there.
In response to the primary question (how come we get G5 iMacs when we can't get PowerMac G5s) - I would certainly expect the G5 iMac to use a slower processor than the high-end G5 towers, which should not be subject to the same yield issues. Basically, IBM can target 2.5 GHz, and the chips that don't cut the mustard at that speed may still be usable at (say) 1.8GHz. They can fill lower-speed chip volume with "duds" from the higher-speed production. No, they don't get all the 1.8s this way, but it does explain why IBM has constrained supply on 2.5's and Apple can still expect to launch a slower iMac.
As far as the order for the tower - did you preorder a Dual 2.5? Were you told flat out with the order "estimated ship time"? Yes, it's a brand new system, and many vendors are off on predictions for new systems. No, you haven't "paid money" for your computer. You have committed to doing so, but no funds have changed hands until product ships. To quote the AppleStore policy page:
At the time your order is placed, Apple obtains a pre-approval from the credit card company for the amount of the order. Credit card billing occurs when your order ships.
Fairly standard practice, so you're not waiting for something you paid for already. Did you sign a binding contract for delivery on a certain date? No? Well then, why do you talk that way? Sure, I'd love to have something I ordered the next day, but sometimes it happens. With Apple and new products, it tends to happen more often than not, and that is unfortunate, but don't act like it's your "right" to have something just because you're ready to have it.
And why exactly would it be a bad idea if you could make a photocopy of the text? Sure, it would cost an arm and a leg at $0.10 per page (or whatever the copy machine at city hall costs), and take forever, and you'd be stuck with a huge stack of papers. On the other hand, there's nothing keeping the "national engineering bodies" from producing, at negligible additional cost, a reference CD with PDFs and/or a printed manual of the relevant code, and selling that to individuals who want and "use" them. It's the service that's being sold, not the (non-copyrighted) material.
Legally, the PDFs (or whatever format) would be protected, not on basis of the law itself being copyrighted, but because the product is composed of a service, which would be governed by a use license or suchlike (yes, I know, that's another broken model, but one thing at a time). The law itself could and probably should be available online, and if you think that will kill sales of a potential product, just go into your favorite computer store, and see how many manuals get sold for information readily available on the internet.
If we have "national engineering bodies" that are writing laws (which they sort of are, but are sort of also just providing expertise to lawmakers), then the cost of effort that actually becomes law should be borne (and probably already is) by the taxpayers. If, on the other hand, these laws are written in ways that tend to make things favorable (read 'financially advantageous') to the writers, then they already have their reward, and don't need to have a revenue stream from folks who are being governed by work they have done in whole or in part.
You can't forget the hairstyle-intensive programming language FROTRAN, and the symbolic Ebonics notation language FO'TRAN. ;)
Not sure what you really mean by them not being factual evidence. Certainly, the statements contained within cannot be assumed to be true, but the fact that the statements were made still can, which is the only way I would imagine anything from a message board being used in a legal case. Are you saying that I can't go into court and (provided there is a clear, reliable link between poster and comment) say "So-and-So posted such-and-such" because of this ruling? I don't think that works. Now if I were to say "Foobar was posted, so it must be true and factual" then that would be incorrect, according to the ruling.
Even with the ruling, the "fact" that the post was made is still true and correct, not an opinion. Sure, you can argue about whether you can really associate a post with a given individual unless you have eyewitnesses who saw it being typed, but the post's existence is still factual and is therefore admissable.
...if this is the beginning of a swing back to sense and rationality in the law, or if it's just one lone judicial candle guttering in the wind.
They did, however, release a version for Mac OS X, so you can have your BSD goodness and a crazy German Mac bigot browser at the same time. ;)
> I will not do business with a company that behaves like this.
/. lately - lots of "news" items that arrive pre-slanted and it really appears that as long as they're slanted the right way, they stay that way. I don't particularly expect objective journalism from /., but things have been going a bit overboard even for here, on a number of subjects (not just Microsloth and Apple).
Did the original poster even bother to _read_ the article provided as "more information here"? In the article, the owner of Stardock is quoted:
Wardell: Apple has rights
Wardell emphasized that Apple has rights in this matter and that it has not been unprofessional in its approach or dealings with Stardock.
"Every time a company tries to enforce their rights, they are always made out to be bad guys," he said. "The fact is Apple is trying to innovate, and if you take away their incentive to innovate, it hurts everybody. I think it's good to see Apple, within limits, protect their rights."
"We very strongly believe Apple has rights to protect its intellectual property up until they infringe on the rights of others," Wardell said. "We need to make sure we protect the rights of the 'skinny' community, too.
There's been a strong flavor of "post first, read never" to
Just $0.02 of unsolicited quoting and opinion.
You can, but there are plenty of games to be played to get around that, if you happen to be the local phone provider. If you move within a city and are eligible to keep the same phone number, the most popular trick involves the local carrier pretending that it is necessary to delete/deactivate your old account & number to issue you a new account and _the same number_ that is now no longer PIC restricted. Surprise! You now have LD through whoever your local carrier is in bed with. I had this done to me by Southwestern Bell, now that they're in the LD market in Texas. I managed to get AT&T mad enough about it that AT&T somehow got it fixed for me, but the AT&T people told me it's happened a fair bit. Anyone ever do things honestly today? Sorry, that was an oxymoron...
Exactly. Also, if universities need to do something to their computing systems because of rising enrollment, why isn't the increase in revenue (if more people pay tuition, more money comes in the door...) helping to cover the costs? It's not like an increase of 10,000 in enrollment is _all_ in the CS department. Those English majors don't need much more than a word processor, the Web, and a printer.
"We sold our souls to the Devil because we weren't bright enough to realize that a _free_ alternative cost less."
Hmm.