And this is the easiest way to tell people who have worked on critical systems, and those who have not. The later just think they can fix things in production, or if a fuse is wrong it can be replaced. The former live in fear of missing some small detail, or more often a few seemingly trivial details, that will cost the entire project.
One thing that kept the internet a happy place for so long was that good ideas were given a place to prosper. As one serch engine declined in usefullness, another rose to take it's place. Competition was fierce among retailers and service providers. Users were sophisticated enough to see the technology, although they were often too young to have the experience to stay away from the scams.
This is no longer true. MS used the desktop monopoly to hijack and then nearly destroy meaningful browser innovation. Google has created a near search and ad monopoly that is going to be very difficult to unseat. Simple searches seldom resturn useful results at the top. We are way past the point where, in the past, we would have had a good aternative. MSN is not is.
Is this guy is buildign consumer machines. If he was building geek machines or high end bussiness machines, it wouldn't matter. But he want to be in the low end consumer market. Where Lupe and Joe buy the computer thingy.
And when building mass consumer devices, one has to add extra junk, even though it may not be strictly neccesary. You add signs not to open things that no one should ever open. You add grills so that no one sticks a finger in places where no one should stick a finger in. You put covers on parts that really don't need covers, but need to be left alone. Making a consumer device requires a bit of extra thinking. Things are done not becuase they are required, but because they are neccesary.
So, consumers need a special mode to run safely. It is precisely the lack of such a mode that made windows crash and burn when it becam a commodity. No one needed it to start. But for some reason MS never developed the consumer OS. We have now have the chance to do so using Linux.
I have worked on three or so real legecy projects, not to mention going back to my own old code. In each case the official documentation has been hopelessly out of date. What saved me is the quality of the code. Even in the most archaic languages, good developers self document in such a way that other good developers can easily understand and map the process.
Good design documents show intent, but it is the code itself that determine the process. It is like a factory. One has draft and official procedures, but it is the marked up copies on the floor that indicate what is actually going on.
Amazingly, I find this somewhat harder to do in OO languages. The flow is often not as clear due to polymorphism and the like. Makes coding easier, but sometime reading harder. I guess it is just a matter of manners.
There is not crime. This is not a criminal trail. It is a lawsuit. And it is certainly not frivolous. AOL marketed thier service as superior to other services based on the fact that service was monitored. They claimed in advertising that the service was worth the extra money because of the added security. They fed off the paranoa of parents, who were the one likely paying for the service, by explicitely claiming added security. Security that was clearly not realized, at least in this particular case.
The age of consent has nothing to do with it. The expectation based on AOL advertising was that minors would be protected from predators. The fact that a rape victim is 16 does not automatically mean that the victim in fact consented, or that a possible lapse in promised security did not in fact provide the means for the rape.
And they absolutely can be liable. If a firm offers a service, they cannot then state the service does not in fact exist, or is of no value. That is bait and switch. I cannot, for instance, open a store, say that a product is available, and then not have the product available. Even the cheapest of stores guarantees product availability for at least on day. Under your logic, I can claim to provide DSL speed, but only offer analog telephone modem lines. All I have to do is send a note with the shipped package saying that all service is analog modem. The standards of product offers and prices have been set for quite a while. If a firm is going to offer something, they better provide it. Even an disclaimer is often not enough.
Sometimes getting the consumer into a new model is more important than profit. It is important to MS to have every user move to SP2. The upgrade was more a matter of fixing a defective product than anything else. Yet SP2 breaks many exisiting custom application, so many users already have a disincentive to upgrade. Charging an upgrade fee would have just been something that would not generate any profit.
Also, the cost of the upgrade is not all that much. For most users, it is like $100 a year, and upgrades can be skipped if the user really wants to. There is no poisin bullet that dramatically raise the licensing cost if the user skips an upgrade. For me, with rebates, I wil be able to upgrade in May for around $50 per machine. Windows XP prof is nearly twice as much as OS X. They should give more free stuff with it.
I think the big issue is the continuing availability of technology. Will the tools one uses to build a firm be available next year. Will there be predictability in costs and upgrades. With MS products, this predictability generally exists, and if it changes, there is often a long enough window so that firms can change tools. This predictability is what forces MS to keep older OS alive, and nuetered the MS attempted to force firms into yearly upgrade cycles.
So, the issue is not so much who will pay for lawsuits. Most end users, of course, realize that they will not be liable. What of concern is if the GPLed tool will be availabe. If SCO or MS wins a suit, there might be immidiate injunctions against the use of those tools. MS has enough money to make the problem go away, and has done so. The OS vendors. typically, do not.
So in this enviroment where eveyone is suing everyone over patents, and even MS has made payments, there is great uncertainty in the market over who own what. Like so many things, the situation works in favor of the monopolist, and against the free market.
You know, i really miss the days when we had to have inkwells and quill pens and paper was scarce. We had a peice of chalk and our boards that we could use, but realy only had a enough paper to write a single copy. And not everyone could have a book. We actually had to listen carefully to our teachers and understand what they were saying, and carefully copy everything down so we could understand it. And we had to learn to write so that our teachers could read it.
Then all the crutches came in. Paper for everyone. Cheap ball points. Typewriters, for god sakes, so that now all these ignorant kids don't even know how to write. And try to give a kid an inkwell. They would probably just throw it.
Pencils with erases, books for everyone, copy machines so the lazy student don't have to copy what the teacher says. It reallys started back in the 60's, that is why all the trouble started. I say give the kids a desk, one sheet of paper, and one pencil. That is all the technology they need. If they can't keep up, or can't fit a days work on the one sheet, send them to coal mines!
Here is my take. Kids need computer skills. Just like a skilled child of the 70's knew how to use a typewriter, and a skilled child of the 80's knew how to use vi or ed, a skilled child today should know how to use a word processor, spread sheet, presentation, and email software. Kids may not have a computer at home, just like not all kids had a typewriter. Therefore, if we are to educate our kids, the school should include such activities in the curriculum. I certainly don't want to send employer kids that cannot send an email or write a document.
Second is programming. Programming a computer is a matter or logic and abstraction. Anyone who has taught kids about variables know how difficult this is, even at the college level. Even if all a kids learns in a computer class is that to switch x and y one has to write z=x,x=y, y=x, that is such a fundamental concept that it is time well spent. The math and science teacher will be ecstatic.
Third, more kids are gaining entertainment and expressing themselves through interactive technology. Fewer who are write write on paper. More are attracted to the pace of video games. This requires some rethinking in the way material is learned. Human teachers are still important in the customization of sequencing of the material to meet the needs of groups of students, and diagnosing difficulties of certain students, and the presentation of new materials in such a way that it connects to past experience and future expectations, but there are two places that technology is important now.
At the beginning of each section, the student must be hooked into a learning experience. Technology can help us do this through, for instance, animation of functions, interactive history lessons, or the like. This can help the student experience immediate success, while laying the groundwork for the incorporation of new knowledge. Even low motivation students are often more likely to interact with a computer, especially if it requires minimal effort such as moving a mouse around. Just look at how many low motivation kids will sit here and play web games even though there is no element of competition.
At the end of each section there must be practice. There was a time when one could sit a kid down with a worksheet and have them work through exercises. It is now much harder. However, on the computer, with hints and immediate feedback, the child who might sit there helplessly staring a sheet of paper is more likely to work. Yes it is expensive. Yes it is no better, and maybe worse, than traditional practice, but if the participation rate is up, then it is certainly beneficial. The biggest problem i see with kids is the lack of practice. The teachers teach, the student understand the concepts, but without practice those concepts are not incorporated to long term memory.
So, although I agree that computers are not the silver bullet, nothing is, and they are expensive, they are useful. We always played games on the school computers. We still learned a lot. One reason may have been that I had at least twice as much time on the school computer as any of my kids do, and I had the competence to understand it was a useful tool, and not just an interesting distraction.
I often wornder if this miriad of studies 'proving' that kids are not learning and technology is not help are merely another excuse to fund education. Most employers wants a computer literate HR bank, and all of us know that computer literacy does not come free. We either had a computer at home to play with all the time, or had computers at school to play with a lot, or had teachers making the best use of very limited computer time.
Re:The morality of the story:
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Tracking Your Taxes
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but someone has to pay the bills. By overpaying one is insuring that one does not have to pay money unexpectedly at the end of the year. Many firms go through great length to avoid all unexpected expenses, though things such as service contracts and planned replacement of equipment, even though it might be cheaper to do otherwise.
What is retarded is believing in a free lunch, and is what is wrong with the current US administration. They live in a fantasy world in which they can give their friends all the pork they want, but, through magiks, not have anyone pay for it.
I guess I love this country enough to pay for the privilege to live in it. Sure there is money to be saved, and cheaper places to live, but that is always true. Since we are civilized I know that there things I have to pay for that I wish I didn't, and there are things that others have to pay for that they wish the didn't, but overall it tends to work out.
And the interest argument, for most people, is absurd. For many people, the marginal benifit of the interest will not offset the time it takes to plan. Sure, the money is nice and we can spend it, but so can the government. Again, things have to be paid for.
I have been self employed, and the only thing I felt when I wrote check, aside from the twinge that I may have not fully accounted for the expense, which is my fault, is pride that I was contributing to this great country, and pride that I lived in a place where I was allowed to have the opportunity to suceed.
That is one way to make a standard. At universities all over the world, people ignore the standards and walk where they wish. Should the university pave the entire campus just becuase a few people will chose not to take the sidewalk a few feet away. Should we put trashcans every few feet just because many people will not walk the few feet to throw thier trash away.
On a personal level, we have some neighbors who will not walk to the street, and therefore cross our yards. I do not see anything inherntly wrong with this, but when I was a kid I had energy and manners and so did not trample the neighbors bushes. Should we get rid of the bushes and put in sidewalk? Maybe, but one truth about civilization is we can't do things just because we want to.
And that is what standards are. Compromises that are made so that we can mostly do what we want, without annoying everyone else so much that we go to war. This may require us walking a few feet extra. It may require us clicking a box instead of automagically running unknown code. And it may require us to give up personal property for the greater good. But is it is not the tyranny of majority or minority.
And that is why DVD is so heavily protected, both through simply deafated technology and heavy handed laws.
I think that the music industry is reacting from the percieved failures of MTV and CDs. Though both made barrel loads of money for all involved, the labels seem to have wanted much more. Take, for instance, the fact that beavis and butthead cannot be released on video with the music clips.
It is about control, and all future formats will insure that the lables have control over thier property, both recording and people.
One of the big reasons why I use apple stuff is that there is not interegation for serial numbers. I want to keep that way, so I want to do nothing that encourages them to start implementing these measures.
Furthermore, the family pack is clearly presented as a method to work with users to keep the software easy to use, but allow Apple to properly license it's software. Compare this to what other OS manufacturers do, prohibiting even the movement of license from one machine to another.
So, as with anything, benificial systems require the participation of all actors. If you only have two machine, and you are poor, perhaps it is not such a big deal to install one copy on each. Or perhpas a five pack on six machines. But the reason you buy a five pack, even for three machines, is to keep the software easy.
If it won't load on my old powermac, now about 5 years old, then that is just stupid. Fully updated OS X runs perfectly now. It should have no trouble running Tiger. I don't know about 350MHZ, but 500 is plenty fast enough for anything. Any OS X will run in less that half a gig, although I wonder if older machine iwll need more memory to compensate for speed.
However, I cannot imaqgine using a SCSI based mac for any OS X activities. For one thing, how many were made with anything better than the original PowerPC. Aw, I see the iMac was, which is one reason why the machines are cheaper. Just not as likely to be useful as long.
The same argument can be used for law and order. It is a cheap show that requires minimal acting, minimal set dressing, minimal plots, and any hack can direct and edit it. It is in fact the ultimate solution in drama where a low price point is the overwhelming goal.
In the case of reality tv, and the virus of staged court tv, it comes down to cost. When profits are at stake, would a network rather have an expensive show suceed, even that expensive show would attract more viewers, or a show that cost half as much but attract 20% less viewers. Also in the equation, to the staged court tv advantage, is the fact the reality tv cannot be syndicated to generate additional profits.
A few producers still try to create interesting TV. The problem is that with the costs of sets, competant actors, reasonable writers, and simply trying to do a good job directing, the costs are too high. A network does a much better job giving stockholder value with Law and Order than with a traditional TV show. And since so much in entertainment is a matter of promotion, all they need to do is not promote the more expensive shows. That way they can claim that no one wants anything but reality, or psuedo reality, tv.
So, let's think about this. Best Buy goal is to sell stuff that poeple want, not need, at a cost low enough to make people think they are getting the best deal, but high enough to support executive salaries and maybe generate a profit.
Obviously, to do this, corners are cut. You are not going to get the same service as a place where they are not having to play games to bring you a low price. They are not going to expend resources to ship extra product across the state and in the process lose money.
And it is not about buidling relationships. There is none. A person shops at best buy for the lowest price. If the price is lower somewhere else, they will go there. If Best Buy has the lowest price, the person will go to Best Buy regardless of past experience.
The only thing slimy is the six to eight week wait time. This seems unreasonable, as most places I go refund large sums in 14 days. However, you get what you pay for. If dealing is honorable people is a benefit, pay for it. There is little at Best Buy that is a neccisity.
If I may add a computer tidbit. I remember about 10 years ago buying an Apple Laptop. There was some minor issue with it, and i wanted to exchange it. It had been at least a week, and the store said I could not return it but had to send it back to the manufacturer myself. This was reasonable, as at that time computer manufacturers were increasingly refusing to exchange computers that had functioned for a week. However, Apple still had the policy of allowing up to 30 days. Of course now almost everyone is 14 days, though apple will still allow 30 days under soem conditions. Fortunately I was able to ruturn the machine, get a new one, and not suffer the productivity loss of having to wiat a month for a repair.
There are certain points in life that if a student does not know something, it is not extremely useful to teach it, expecially if there are adequate tools to compensate. For instance if a person never learned add, a school or firm might give them a calculator. Or if a person never learned to drive a stick, that person might buy an automatic transmission.
In addition, a good grammar checker is a good teaching tool. It provides feedback customized to the students common mistakes, and pedogogical methods can be used to reinforce that feedback. The issue is that the student thinks the computer is always right, and so improper grammar might get reinfornced.
This is one reason I call MS Office a legacy App, especially MS Word. The core functionality, that is the automation of the process of writing, has not been significantly improved in years.
As a marketing person he probably realizes that s prime example of this is the grammar checker. Proper grammar is very important for business. However, the average business writer to going to make mistakes. This would seem to a prime area to add value so as to compete with other packages, even free packages. Five years ago it was cool to just have MS Word catch the common mistakes, but now it should be powerful enough to do more.
In truth this is just another example of the MS preference to add bloat rather than useful features. A word processor should make the process of writing easier, not push hundreds of icons and warning messages onto the user. The computer is not just a new fangled replace for the typewriter. You know I just realized last week that the MS notepad does not even a spell checker? WTF
The Betamax shield doesn't necessarily fit the circumstances. With the analog VCR tech, there are generational losses and the machines aren't conducive to easy affordable mass-distribution because of their 1x record rates. One reason SCOTUS gave Betamax their blessings was that people at the time weren't trying to build libraries of videos, but rather watch TV shows at a more convenient time
The issue, again, is which users you are considering. I would think that most people would experience a generational loss as most people are not going to download a perfect uncompressed copy of the orignal product. Sure, there is only a single generation lost, but that is not much different. I am old enough to think that recorded a show onto video is keen, yet I never have had to make more than one copy of a tv show. I could always copy it off the TV, or find someone with a first gen copy.
Likewise I think most P2P users just want to watch tv at a more convinent time. Sue they could go over to their friends house who has cable, but it just is not convinent. And downloading a copy is more convinent that borrowing the recording.
And I certainly tried to build libraries. I have more tapes in storage than I care to count. Again, I am old enough to think VCRs are new fangled. I know that a computer and internet access is comparable to the costs of a VCR and tapes. And I always skipped commercials, or in the pre-vcr days, go get a snack.
I don't know if the betamax decision is in trouble. I do know that anyone can make wide generalizations to prove whatever point they wish.
That is like saying regardless of what a child molester has done in the past, we are going to assume good intentions and let him take care of our children. Historically MS has bought technology long after the market has decided the technology is needed. This started with DOS, Windows, IE, everything. They redevelop the technology, but it is almost all out of house and derivative.
But let's ignore the past. In this case Apple introduced OS X in 1999, and MS started longhorn a little later. MS released XP, which seemed derivative of OS X, after Apple released OS X. MS created a demo for a future feature, on and OS that does not even exist, or, at the time was not even well defined, and then Apple started talking about a similar feature on an OS that did exist, was well defined, and was shipping.
I can see how one might think that talking about a demo on future feature on a non-shipping OS might give MS the title or progenitor. The missing piece of your fact chain, however, is that the search technology that will be used for spotlight is iTunes. iTunes has fast searches, iTunes has smart folders. Apple has said the only reason they are adding the feature is because it already existed.
MS has, after many years, created a reasonable OS with a workable GUI. It is something they can be proud of, and fanbois can reasonable cheer about. However, they almost never have come up with anything independently, and search technology is no exception.
It is a trade off. HD based music players allow you to carry a large part of your music collection and a number of files for backup and a copy your calenders and contacts. Solid state players allows you to carry a much smaller percentage of your music collection and fewer files, if any.
But reliability is a red herring. First, at least on the iPod under normal use, that is, not skipping songs, hard disk access occurs only every five minutes or so. The rest of the time the head is parked. Therefore if we assume that it takes 15 seconds to access the memory and park the head, the the drive is only on 5% of the time. Perhaps the HD is in danger 1% of that time. Furthermore, solid state persistant memeory does not last forever.
I will say one thing about The shuffle. They have gotten much better about thinking of cool integraiton features, adn not just bloat. The ability of iTunes to fill the shuffle with a random set of songs is nice.I do not miss the screen. I have a old nomad that would be easy to upgrade to half a gig. I never use it.
I think these stories are published to maintain the market perception that the software is valuable. Right now MS is basically charges huge amounts of money for essentially legacy software, and not very reliable legacy software. They have a market because of vendor lock in and some useful integration. The company likes MS Exchange Server and the individual doesn't want the hassle of not being compatible with everyone else. As I have mentioned before, the fact that so much MS stuff can be had for free does not hurt either.
So the current fight is to keep prices high by creating the perception that there are hidden costs associated with competitors software, while MS costs can be exactly enumerated up front. This is a valuable asset, as purchasing decisions are often made based on the vendors ability to guarantee COA.
But MS has a problem. Unlike traditional companies, it does not provide end to end solutions. It provides one piece, and claims that it's piece is infinitely more valuable than all the other pieces. It doesn't even support it's piece, leaving that to the manufactures of the hardware that MS claims should be free. And this is the cause of the desperate measures. MS was and is the cheap alternative. It stuff is not great, just good enough. Now there is another cheap alternative, sold by people who will support the product, and people who have the ability to customize the product, just like a traditional computer company.
So, does MS become cheaper, or does it try to add value, or does it just make vague threats. Clearly it is the later. You must upgrade or you lose your rights, as it has done with VPC. MS will actively break competitors systems to insure that customers have no choice. All this to make sure that MS Office does not drop to $150 and MS Windows does not drop to $100. Or, even worse, $200 for a five license pack like Apple.
In TOS, the romulans were introduced as a contrast to the Vulcans. I believed it served to make the Vulcans seem more dangerous, as it was only a thin sliver or self control that made the safe. At any minute, Spock could crack and all hell could break loose. Otherwise he would have looked like some pacifist wuss(remember this was in the middle of the cold war where pacifists were considered people who would let the communist scourge destroy american. Oh wait, we are back there. Substitute the concrete Soviet with the abstract 'terrrorist').
In any case, to make the plot device work, A war with the romulans was created, one which the freedom loving federation barely survived, and in which the romulans were never seen. This made the romulans, unlike klingons, faceless, murderous, being with no redeeming culture or civilization.
Enterpise has had some success showing how this faceless war might have been mounted. However, those episodes did not stand on thier own. I suspect that a Romulan thread, in which the romulans directed the action from protected bunkers, would be as excited as ST:TMP.
One problem with this season is that they are just filling in back story. However much of the back story is the result of interesting plot devices or makeup chages, not intersting stories.
The reports on this seem to make it a marketing issue. I am wondering if there is some conflict over how this device will generate profit.
A key issue might be how the music is distributed. Maybe Apple just wants to continue having users download the songs via the computer. Perhaps the phone companies want the ability to download songs via the phone as well, to increase airtime charges. I think the telcos have been trying to push these relitively premium services. Maybe $10 additioanl to have the ability to download songs.
Of course if songs are bought through the phone and computer, this leads to which devices the songs can be used on. If the phones are harddrive based this decision might be very important. If flash based, then maybe not so much.
In any case, I would still like to see a phone the size and form of a standard iPod with Bluetooth headset and all data entry done via a computer. Since I am sure this is not on the way, I probably will just get a Razr.
The issue is not generally the small screen. The big issue is that many web designers, as is true for most people, cannot think abstractly.
HTML is a text markup language. When used properly, within reasonable limits, it does not matter how the text is presented. It could be on small screen, large screen, or audio, or whatever.
But many designers do not realize this. They want a consistant look across machines, which is just stupid. The HTML spec does not state a specific look. So, when a web designer uses thing such as absolute widths, absolute text sizes, and the like, that designer is trying to do something outside the spec. This inevitably leads to failure.
This issue is nothing new. Many have been prediciting this day of reckoning for many years. For many sites the day of reckoning has all ready come once when most people started using resolutions beyond VGA. The problem we have now is merely one of design, not structure.
Now, some may say that they design for IE, and it works. Even in this case there are problems with not abstracting the interface. For instance, I access a MS mail client on a MS machine unsing the MS browser. It is extremely difficult to use this client because the mail summary lines goes off the window. The area set for the window is fixed because it is not set to resize.
This is not a issue with the software or computer. It is incompetant design. Commercial intersts have problems because they want to use HTML as a page layout language. That is all there is too it.
In the US we have the rule of law. I believe quite a number of americans and others are currently dying to support this notion.
For the rule of law to work, we have to take it seriously and limit the creative work arounds. Yes, there are a lot of people who believe all the fuss about a 40 hour work week for wage employees, comp time salary employess, safety rules, and the like are stupid. But those are the rules that have been democratically set as the SOP of this nation.
Lawyers are there to help us maintain this rule of law without a lot of unnecesary bloodshed. We wronged we have a choice. We can shoot my boss when he or she does not pay me, or we find that an unreasonable term has been added to my contract, or I can call a lawyer. Take your pick. look at history to see how well the shooting worked out. In that case the people who made the money were not lawyers, but real hired guns, and the employers and employees still lost out.
As a society there are some thing that we cannot allow a citizen to give away, or it reduces the force of rule of law. We can change the law, as is happening, so frivilous lawsuits are limited to wealthy or perhaps access to lawyers are liited for the poor, but we cannot complain as long as everyone is playing within the current constructs.
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And this is the easiest way to tell people who have worked on critical systems, and those who have not. The later just think they can fix things in production, or if a fuse is wrong it can be replaced. The former live in fear of missing some small detail, or more often a few seemingly trivial details, that will cost the entire project.
This is no longer true. MS used the desktop monopoly to hijack and then nearly destroy meaningful browser innovation. Google has created a near search and ad monopoly that is going to be very difficult to unseat. Simple searches seldom resturn useful results at the top. We are way past the point where, in the past, we would have had a good aternative. MSN is not is.
And when building mass consumer devices, one has to add extra junk, even though it may not be strictly neccesary. You add signs not to open things that no one should ever open. You add grills so that no one sticks a finger in places where no one should stick a finger in. You put covers on parts that really don't need covers, but need to be left alone. Making a consumer device requires a bit of extra thinking. Things are done not becuase they are required, but because they are neccesary.
So, consumers need a special mode to run safely. It is precisely the lack of such a mode that made windows crash and burn when it becam a commodity. No one needed it to start. But for some reason MS never developed the consumer OS. We have now have the chance to do so using Linux.
Good design documents show intent, but it is the code itself that determine the process. It is like a factory. One has draft and official procedures, but it is the marked up copies on the floor that indicate what is actually going on.
Amazingly, I find this somewhat harder to do in OO languages. The flow is often not as clear due to polymorphism and the like. Makes coding easier, but sometime reading harder. I guess it is just a matter of manners.
The age of consent has nothing to do with it. The expectation based on AOL advertising was that minors would be protected from predators. The fact that a rape victim is 16 does not automatically mean that the victim in fact consented, or that a possible lapse in promised security did not in fact provide the means for the rape.
And they absolutely can be liable. If a firm offers a service, they cannot then state the service does not in fact exist, or is of no value. That is bait and switch. I cannot, for instance, open a store, say that a product is available, and then not have the product available. Even the cheapest of stores guarantees product availability for at least on day. Under your logic, I can claim to provide DSL speed, but only offer analog telephone modem lines. All I have to do is send a note with the shipped package saying that all service is analog modem. The standards of product offers and prices have been set for quite a while. If a firm is going to offer something, they better provide it. Even an disclaimer is often not enough.
Also, the cost of the upgrade is not all that much. For most users, it is like $100 a year, and upgrades can be skipped if the user really wants to. There is no poisin bullet that dramatically raise the licensing cost if the user skips an upgrade. For me, with rebates, I wil be able to upgrade in May for around $50 per machine. Windows XP prof is nearly twice as much as OS X. They should give more free stuff with it.
So, the issue is not so much who will pay for lawsuits. Most end users, of course, realize that they will not be liable. What of concern is if the GPLed tool will be availabe. If SCO or MS wins a suit, there might be immidiate injunctions against the use of those tools. MS has enough money to make the problem go away, and has done so. The OS vendors. typically, do not.
So in this enviroment where eveyone is suing everyone over patents, and even MS has made payments, there is great uncertainty in the market over who own what. Like so many things, the situation works in favor of the monopolist, and against the free market.
Then all the crutches came in. Paper for everyone. Cheap ball points. Typewriters, for god sakes, so that now all these ignorant kids don't even know how to write. And try to give a kid an inkwell. They would probably just throw it.
Pencils with erases, books for everyone, copy machines so the lazy student don't have to copy what the teacher says. It reallys started back in the 60's, that is why all the trouble started. I say give the kids a desk, one sheet of paper, and one pencil. That is all the technology they need. If they can't keep up, or can't fit a days work on the one sheet, send them to coal mines!
Second is programming. Programming a computer is a matter or logic and abstraction. Anyone who has taught kids about variables know how difficult this is, even at the college level. Even if all a kids learns in a computer class is that to switch x and y one has to write z=x,x=y, y=x, that is such a fundamental concept that it is time well spent. The math and science teacher will be ecstatic.
Third, more kids are gaining entertainment and expressing themselves through interactive technology. Fewer who are write write on paper. More are attracted to the pace of video games. This requires some rethinking in the way material is learned. Human teachers are still important in the customization of sequencing of the material to meet the needs of groups of students, and diagnosing difficulties of certain students, and the presentation of new materials in such a way that it connects to past experience and future expectations, but there are two places that technology is important now.
At the beginning of each section, the student must be hooked into a learning experience. Technology can help us do this through, for instance, animation of functions, interactive history lessons, or the like. This can help the student experience immediate success, while laying the groundwork for the incorporation of new knowledge. Even low motivation students are often more likely to interact with a computer, especially if it requires minimal effort such as moving a mouse around. Just look at how many low motivation kids will sit here and play web games even though there is no element of competition.
At the end of each section there must be practice. There was a time when one could sit a kid down with a worksheet and have them work through exercises. It is now much harder. However, on the computer, with hints and immediate feedback, the child who might sit there helplessly staring a sheet of paper is more likely to work. Yes it is expensive. Yes it is no better, and maybe worse, than traditional practice, but if the participation rate is up, then it is certainly beneficial. The biggest problem i see with kids is the lack of practice. The teachers teach, the student understand the concepts, but without practice those concepts are not incorporated to long term memory.
So, although I agree that computers are not the silver bullet, nothing is, and they are expensive, they are useful. We always played games on the school computers. We still learned a lot. One reason may have been that I had at least twice as much time on the school computer as any of my kids do, and I had the competence to understand it was a useful tool, and not just an interesting distraction.
I often wornder if this miriad of studies 'proving' that kids are not learning and technology is not help are merely another excuse to fund education. Most employers wants a computer literate HR bank, and all of us know that computer literacy does not come free. We either had a computer at home to play with all the time, or had computers at school to play with a lot, or had teachers making the best use of very limited computer time.
What is retarded is believing in a free lunch, and is what is wrong with the current US administration. They live in a fantasy world in which they can give their friends all the pork they want, but, through magiks, not have anyone pay for it.
I guess I love this country enough to pay for the privilege to live in it. Sure there is money to be saved, and cheaper places to live, but that is always true. Since we are civilized I know that there things I have to pay for that I wish I didn't, and there are things that others have to pay for that they wish the didn't, but overall it tends to work out.
And the interest argument, for most people, is absurd. For many people, the marginal benifit of the interest will not offset the time it takes to plan. Sure, the money is nice and we can spend it, but so can the government. Again, things have to be paid for.
I have been self employed, and the only thing I felt when I wrote check, aside from the twinge that I may have not fully accounted for the expense, which is my fault, is pride that I was contributing to this great country, and pride that I lived in a place where I was allowed to have the opportunity to suceed.
On a personal level, we have some neighbors who will not walk to the street, and therefore cross our yards. I do not see anything inherntly wrong with this, but when I was a kid I had energy and manners and so did not trample the neighbors bushes. Should we get rid of the bushes and put in sidewalk? Maybe, but one truth about civilization is we can't do things just because we want to.
And that is what standards are. Compromises that are made so that we can mostly do what we want, without annoying everyone else so much that we go to war. This may require us walking a few feet extra. It may require us clicking a box instead of automagically running unknown code. And it may require us to give up personal property for the greater good. But is it is not the tyranny of majority or minority.
I think that the music industry is reacting from the percieved failures of MTV and CDs. Though both made barrel loads of money for all involved, the labels seem to have wanted much more. Take, for instance, the fact that beavis and butthead cannot be released on video with the music clips.
It is about control, and all future formats will insure that the lables have control over thier property, both recording and people.
Furthermore, the family pack is clearly presented as a method to work with users to keep the software easy to use, but allow Apple to properly license it's software. Compare this to what other OS manufacturers do, prohibiting even the movement of license from one machine to another.
So, as with anything, benificial systems require the participation of all actors. If you only have two machine, and you are poor, perhaps it is not such a big deal to install one copy on each. Or perhpas a five pack on six machines. But the reason you buy a five pack, even for three machines, is to keep the software easy.
However, I cannot imaqgine using a SCSI based mac for any OS X activities. For one thing, how many were made with anything better than the original PowerPC. Aw, I see the iMac was, which is one reason why the machines are cheaper. Just not as likely to be useful as long.
In the case of reality tv, and the virus of staged court tv, it comes down to cost. When profits are at stake, would a network rather have an expensive show suceed, even that expensive show would attract more viewers, or a show that cost half as much but attract 20% less viewers. Also in the equation, to the staged court tv advantage, is the fact the reality tv cannot be syndicated to generate additional profits.
A few producers still try to create interesting TV. The problem is that with the costs of sets, competant actors, reasonable writers, and simply trying to do a good job directing, the costs are too high. A network does a much better job giving stockholder value with Law and Order than with a traditional TV show. And since so much in entertainment is a matter of promotion, all they need to do is not promote the more expensive shows. That way they can claim that no one wants anything but reality, or psuedo reality, tv.
Obviously, to do this, corners are cut. You are not going to get the same service as a place where they are not having to play games to bring you a low price. They are not going to expend resources to ship extra product across the state and in the process lose money.
And it is not about buidling relationships. There is none. A person shops at best buy for the lowest price. If the price is lower somewhere else, they will go there. If Best Buy has the lowest price, the person will go to Best Buy regardless of past experience.
The only thing slimy is the six to eight week wait time. This seems unreasonable, as most places I go refund large sums in 14 days. However, you get what you pay for. If dealing is honorable people is a benefit, pay for it. There is little at Best Buy that is a neccisity.
If I may add a computer tidbit. I remember about 10 years ago buying an Apple Laptop. There was some minor issue with it, and i wanted to exchange it. It had been at least a week, and the store said I could not return it but had to send it back to the manufacturer myself. This was reasonable, as at that time computer manufacturers were increasingly refusing to exchange computers that had functioned for a week. However, Apple still had the policy of allowing up to 30 days. Of course now almost everyone is 14 days, though apple will still allow 30 days under soem conditions. Fortunately I was able to ruturn the machine, get a new one, and not suffer the productivity loss of having to wiat a month for a repair.
In addition, a good grammar checker is a good teaching tool. It provides feedback customized to the students common mistakes, and pedogogical methods can be used to reinforce that feedback. The issue is that the student thinks the computer is always right, and so improper grammar might get reinfornced. This is one reason I call MS Office a legacy App, especially MS Word. The core functionality, that is the automation of the process of writing, has not been significantly improved in years.
As a marketing person he probably realizes that s prime example of this is the grammar checker. Proper grammar is very important for business. However, the average business writer to going to make mistakes. This would seem to a prime area to add value so as to compete with other packages, even free packages. Five years ago it was cool to just have MS Word catch the common mistakes, but now it should be powerful enough to do more.
In truth this is just another example of the MS preference to add bloat rather than useful features. A word processor should make the process of writing easier, not push hundreds of icons and warning messages onto the user. The computer is not just a new fangled replace for the typewriter. You know I just realized last week that the MS notepad does not even a spell checker? WTF
The issue, again, is which users you are considering. I would think that most people would experience a generational loss as most people are not going to download a perfect uncompressed copy of the orignal product. Sure, there is only a single generation lost, but that is not much different. I am old enough to think that recorded a show onto video is keen, yet I never have had to make more than one copy of a tv show. I could always copy it off the TV, or find someone with a first gen copy.
Likewise I think most P2P users just want to watch tv at a more convinent time. Sue they could go over to their friends house who has cable, but it just is not convinent. And downloading a copy is more convinent that borrowing the recording.
And I certainly tried to build libraries. I have more tapes in storage than I care to count. Again, I am old enough to think VCRs are new fangled. I know that a computer and internet access is comparable to the costs of a VCR and tapes. And I always skipped commercials, or in the pre-vcr days, go get a snack.
I don't know if the betamax decision is in trouble. I do know that anyone can make wide generalizations to prove whatever point they wish.
But let's ignore the past. In this case Apple introduced OS X in 1999, and MS started longhorn a little later. MS released XP, which seemed derivative of OS X, after Apple released OS X. MS created a demo for a future feature, on and OS that does not even exist, or, at the time was not even well defined, and then Apple started talking about a similar feature on an OS that did exist, was well defined, and was shipping.
I can see how one might think that talking about a demo on future feature on a non-shipping OS might give MS the title or progenitor. The missing piece of your fact chain, however, is that the search technology that will be used for spotlight is iTunes. iTunes has fast searches, iTunes has smart folders. Apple has said the only reason they are adding the feature is because it already existed.
MS has, after many years, created a reasonable OS with a workable GUI. It is something they can be proud of, and fanbois can reasonable cheer about. However, they almost never have come up with anything independently, and search technology is no exception.
But reliability is a red herring. First, at least on the iPod under normal use, that is, not skipping songs, hard disk access occurs only every five minutes or so. The rest of the time the head is parked. Therefore if we assume that it takes 15 seconds to access the memory and park the head, the the drive is only on 5% of the time. Perhaps the HD is in danger 1% of that time. Furthermore, solid state persistant memeory does not last forever.
I will say one thing about The shuffle. They have gotten much better about thinking of cool integraiton features, adn not just bloat. The ability of iTunes to fill the shuffle with a random set of songs is nice.I do not miss the screen. I have a old nomad that would be easy to upgrade to half a gig. I never use it.
So the current fight is to keep prices high by creating the perception that there are hidden costs associated with competitors software, while MS costs can be exactly enumerated up front. This is a valuable asset, as purchasing decisions are often made based on the vendors ability to guarantee COA.
But MS has a problem. Unlike traditional companies, it does not provide end to end solutions. It provides one piece, and claims that it's piece is infinitely more valuable than all the other pieces. It doesn't even support it's piece, leaving that to the manufactures of the hardware that MS claims should be free. And this is the cause of the desperate measures. MS was and is the cheap alternative. It stuff is not great, just good enough. Now there is another cheap alternative, sold by people who will support the product, and people who have the ability to customize the product, just like a traditional computer company.
So, does MS become cheaper, or does it try to add value, or does it just make vague threats. Clearly it is the later. You must upgrade or you lose your rights, as it has done with VPC. MS will actively break competitors systems to insure that customers have no choice. All this to make sure that MS Office does not drop to $150 and MS Windows does not drop to $100. Or, even worse, $200 for a five license pack like Apple.
In TOS, the romulans were introduced as a contrast to the Vulcans. I believed it served to make the Vulcans seem more dangerous, as it was only a thin sliver or self control that made the safe. At any minute, Spock could crack and all hell could break loose. Otherwise he would have looked like some pacifist wuss(remember this was in the middle of the cold war where pacifists were considered people who would let the communist scourge destroy american. Oh wait, we are back there. Substitute the concrete Soviet with the abstract 'terrrorist').
In any case, to make the plot device work, A war with the romulans was created, one which the freedom loving federation barely survived, and in which the romulans were never seen. This made the romulans, unlike klingons, faceless, murderous, being with no redeeming culture or civilization.
Enterpise has had some success showing how this faceless war might have been mounted. However, those episodes did not stand on thier own. I suspect that a Romulan thread, in which the romulans directed the action from protected bunkers, would be as excited as ST:TMP.
One problem with this season is that they are just filling in back story. However much of the back story is the result of interesting plot devices or makeup chages, not intersting stories.
A key issue might be how the music is distributed. Maybe Apple just wants to continue having users download the songs via the computer. Perhaps the phone companies want the ability to download songs via the phone as well, to increase airtime charges. I think the telcos have been trying to push these relitively premium services. Maybe $10 additioanl to have the ability to download songs.
Of course if songs are bought through the phone and computer, this leads to which devices the songs can be used on. If the phones are harddrive based this decision might be very important. If flash based, then maybe not so much.
In any case, I would still like to see a phone the size and form of a standard iPod with Bluetooth headset and all data entry done via a computer. Since I am sure this is not on the way, I probably will just get a Razr.
HTML is a text markup language. When used properly, within reasonable limits, it does not matter how the text is presented. It could be on small screen, large screen, or audio, or whatever.
But many designers do not realize this. They want a consistant look across machines, which is just stupid. The HTML spec does not state a specific look. So, when a web designer uses thing such as absolute widths, absolute text sizes, and the like, that designer is trying to do something outside the spec. This inevitably leads to failure.
This issue is nothing new. Many have been prediciting this day of reckoning for many years. For many sites the day of reckoning has all ready come once when most people started using resolutions beyond VGA. The problem we have now is merely one of design, not structure.
Now, some may say that they design for IE, and it works. Even in this case there are problems with not abstracting the interface. For instance, I access a MS mail client on a MS machine unsing the MS browser. It is extremely difficult to use this client because the mail summary lines goes off the window. The area set for the window is fixed because it is not set to resize.
This is not a issue with the software or computer. It is incompetant design. Commercial intersts have problems because they want to use HTML as a page layout language. That is all there is too it.
For the rule of law to work, we have to take it seriously and limit the creative work arounds. Yes, there are a lot of people who believe all the fuss about a 40 hour work week for wage employees, comp time salary employess, safety rules, and the like are stupid. But those are the rules that have been democratically set as the SOP of this nation.
Lawyers are there to help us maintain this rule of law without a lot of unnecesary bloodshed. We wronged we have a choice. We can shoot my boss when he or she does not pay me, or we find that an unreasonable term has been added to my contract, or I can call a lawyer. Take your pick. look at history to see how well the shooting worked out. In that case the people who made the money were not lawyers, but real hired guns, and the employers and employees still lost out.
As a society there are some thing that we cannot allow a citizen to give away, or it reduces the force of rule of law. We can change the law, as is happening, so frivilous lawsuits are limited to wealthy or perhaps access to lawyers are liited for the poor, but we cannot complain as long as everyone is playing within the current constructs.