Also, I bought my iMac on an edu discount. Even without, it's what - $1200? How much does a decent PC go for - just under to quite a bit over. I remember my utility bills from college with homebuilt PCs. I'll gladly take the power consumption I've got now at the slightly higher initial expense.
Read my other post. We put about $300 into our savings every month. We have plenty of money left over. However, most people don't save. They have the cable tv, the broadband, the wasted money on all of these things they really don't need - or they want because of status.
Anyway, best of luck to you when finances catch up and start to burn.
First off, get your ass kicked much when you were younger? You've got quite the attitude going.
It's a townhouse. We like it, I've done a lot of work on it, and it's not a dump, but it's far from the big beautiful home you must be imagining. Not big. I also live very close to WashDC, so it's a safe bet houses here that run around $750K (low end of the scale) are more likely $150-200K wherever you may reside. Who knows, you're full of assumptions, I guess I can be too.
My finances are fine. Everything is rising. These weren't problems two years ago - hell, even a year ago. Our average gas price is $2.65. How much was it a year ago? Two years? Our last utility bill was roughly $360 (for the month) with a 60F thermostat setting. Of that, $48 was the total charge for actual 'electricity provided'. This insane. We've followed every tip out there about lowering heating costs, conserving, reducing dependence. If it matters, other than a mortgage, I'm completely debt free. No CC debt, no loans - business or otherwise; can you claim the same?
Perhaps I should have clarified as well - the examples I posted above are things I've voluntarily given up. Not because I can't afford it. They've hit the price that TO ME they know longer are worth keeping around. I don't watch $120 worth of cable TV a month (I don't really watch a lot of TV period - most of it's a waste of living). I don't use $60 worth of internet access a month. I don't need $40-60 worth of phone service a month when it's already covered by my much cheaper cellphone service. I save roughly $350-$400 every month by not wasting money on things I feel I don't need. Your whole post seems to show you really have missed the point.
And the SUV is a CRV. Not exactly a luxury item. And it's from Carmax.
And I hope the system fails? Either your trolling (probably) or your f_cking nuts. It's called tongue-in-cheek.
Condescension aside, things really are getting unmanageable for most people most places. Maybe it's only for most people *here* though. I don't know. The problem is ultimately that my 110% (and I'm guessing my 110% is worth much more than yours) is no longer cutting it. The future is not sustainable with the way things work now.
$2/day on soda is a huge waste of money. And $60/month for internet access is at that point where I start considering the various options available contrasted with now badly I need the access.
The cost of basic living necessities are going up (gas for transportation, electricity for the home, misc. utilities rising) to the point that serious budgeting is taking place. My household already gave up on cable TV (our 2nd year), landline phone access (no cheap DSL), 60F thermostat settings for the winter and relegating the SUV only to short hops or when professionally needed (I'm a regular gigging musician lugging around huge speakers - it's a legit use). Saving that $60 per month (Comcast cable modem) really makes a difference. And for the majority of what I use the internet for, I can do it easily enough through my day job. Hell, I even use an iMac because - well 1 of the reasons;-) - it only has a 70 or so watt powersupply compared to a 300-500W PC desktop psu.
A major factor of internet growth slowing is due to corporate greed. Costs everywhere are too high when factored into the rest of the average US citizens budget. The bottom is soon going to collapse - I can't wait.
Cost Batteries Control (or lack of it) General inconvenience
On average, I read a paperback a week. I've got an ebook reader on my Palm, and I have read a few books on there, but honestly, I'm just not interested in changing my reading habits. I like turning pages, I like having cover art, I like the mystique of shopping in a book store trying to find the perfect tale to satisfy whatever it is I'm in the mood for (lately, Tamara Thorne and Douglas Clegg). For me, that's part of the whole experience. Reading for pleasure is a personally satisfying experience, however like most things digital and computer, ebooks aren't 'personal' - they're tools.
Ebooks will be the norm only when paper books are no longer made.
Honestly, I really don't think this is the case. People are still dumb as ever, they just have less disposable income to squander. Gas, utilities, credit / mortgage payments, cable, movie tickets, these are all higher than this time last year. And the year before. And the year before.
If people really were smarter, LCD tv shows (which are quasi-already paid for so no additional 'movie tix' style budgeting) would have lower ratings. American Idol, that next top model show, Survivor, Fear Factor, that suitcase game show, etc etc all seem to be on top.
Google Talk rocks. Completely. I imagine that if you think it's an embarassment it's because you just don't have anyone to contact through it so you don't really use it. Not intended as a putdown, but being able to message coworkers, friends/family from the say window that I keep my email in (it's never closed) is just great.
To me (and I'm old school about a lot of what I do - I say that to show that I appreciate change and am not an old kurmudgeon) google's renovations on a standard are very welcome. I hate using non-threaded email progams now because of gmail, I hate having artificual quotas and rediculous attachment limits, I like searching for things in the same manner that I have learned to search the web so that I find them. While I prefer no ads, Google's are a perfect balance of them making their money, me getting free services and nonintrusiveness. And, they're halfway useful.
Safari doesn't support the rich text editing fields (or whatever it's called) as well as some good CSS layering stuff - both which gPages use. Try using gmail under Firefox and you'll see a world of difference.
But it can easily hose a partition table, MBR, etc. Yeah, dual booting isn't something I particuarly want either. Being able to run inside a protected OSX enviroment with access to all of these advanced features (for games, or whatever) that VPC or vmware aren't capable of is much more desirable.
Vic 20 here too. Still have it, still works great. No idea what it's worth vintage-wise (if anything), but the moment it gets me $10k it's outta here:)
I think you're confused. Or you've never used Craigslist.
It doesn't cost anything to post an ad on Craigslist. And there's no traditional internet advertising (ie google adsense, yahoo ads, etc) from which to generate revenue.
I'm not sure how Craig makes money, but I'm pretty sure it's not from advertising.
No. It used to be that way (proud nerdly IT folk), but I'm becoming more and more convinced that slashdot now is made up of the new 'AIM / MSN is ko0L' crowd.
I declare shenanigans. I see this over and over again and I can't believe what I'm reading.
The Bill of Rights, the Ammendements, Constitution, etc etc. Yeah, these are frameworks of our government and the rules they abide by. But they are also all rules that we (normal people, corps, private institutions, etc) have to abide by. It's everyone. If you're here, you're bound by these.
By your logic, while the governement isn't allowed slaves (amend. xiii), a private corporation can have them? BS. Back during prohibition, amend. xviii stated that it was illegal only for the government to make and distrubute booze? Hell no.
Damn, the collective lack of basic civics knowledge is astounding. No wonder the current government is getting away with its crap.
I've got the original 10gb iPod (the Caddie of the original iPods;-). I have not pirated/tsk-tskdownloaded/tsk-tskcopied any music since getting it. I either (oh my!) buy actual CDs now, or I buy tracks/CDs on ITMS. Quite honestly, I think it comes down to pride. Pyschologically speaking, an iPod is a lot nicer than a normal cd player or even a normal mp3 player. As such, I don't want to sully things (by pirating, etc). Sounds goofy, but that's definitely my view.
It's like having a new car and enforcing the 'no eating' rule inside. It's all pride based on your acquisition.
I've always felt Visual Studio (at least with all the.Net stuff) was turning more into a Visual Basic type of dev platform. A lot of automation, you don't have to know why your doing things the way you are doing, fundementals and such aren't important anymore, etc. It's more for application development than actual (think CS rather than IT) programming.
You know, you're right. I completely forgot 5.25" & 8" both existed (no doubt others too - and I used both 5&8" formats). Now that I'm recalling it, I even had one of those knotchers for 5.25" discs that did allow you to write as well as double side the disk. The mind truly does gloss over painful (i'm officially old!) memories.
I don't remember AOL doing 5.25" disks though - think that's where I got sidetracked. Prodigy did - in 2 disc sets.
It's actually the inverse of this. A disk was write proteced by having the notch open. To allow writing to the disk - to reuse an AOL disk for example - you covered it with tape. There's a spring mechanism that when inserted into the write protection hole (upon inserting the disk) will prohibit copying.
The industry is not going to just stop producing DVDs upon the release of an HD disc player - marketplace suicide. I suspect the gradual phasing will be like DVD and PSP/UMD releases (both coexist, neither replacing the other). Considering the fracturing of HD and Blueray, I suspect we'll see DVD, Blu and HD releases of all movies. Major overkill. I'm just going to stick with DVD. I have no intention of ever buying an HD disc/player until DVD is no longer a viable option.
If I buy a UMD movie and I don't have a PSP, do I now have carte blanche to whine about not being able to view? Likewise buying a movie on DVD and only having a VCR. Hell, even buying a normal music CD dictates that I must have some compatible device in order to actually be able to use it.
Vendor lock-in? No way. It's called price of admission. If you desire the ability to play a UMD movie or watch something on your PSP, you have to satisfy the requirements. If you want to be able to travel to distant locales, you have to satisfy the requirements of a lic, car and gas. If you want to use Apple's music store or store music on the ipod, then you have the responsibility of making sure what you purchase or use works.
We already knew that Microsoft was devious and backhanded in its business practices. It shows how much regard the big corp has for the small but dedicated developer. Ultimately, I think this is a good thing - Microsoft, keep on alienating your backers!
Slashdot Mirror
My car is actually a 96 Camry. Used.
Also, I bought my iMac on an edu discount. Even without, it's what - $1200? How much does a decent PC go for - just under to quite a bit over. I remember my utility bills from college with homebuilt PCs. I'll gladly take the power consumption I've got now at the slightly higher initial expense.
Read my other post. We put about $300 into our savings every month. We have plenty of money left over. However, most people don't save. They have the cable tv, the broadband, the wasted money on all of these things they really don't need - or they want because of status.
Anyway, best of luck to you when finances catch up and start to burn.
First off, get your ass kicked much when you were younger? You've got quite the attitude going.
It's a townhouse. We like it, I've done a lot of work on it, and it's not a dump, but it's far from the big beautiful home you must be imagining. Not big. I also live very close to WashDC, so it's a safe bet houses here that run around $750K (low end of the scale) are more likely $150-200K wherever you may reside. Who knows, you're full of assumptions, I guess I can be too.
My finances are fine. Everything is rising. These weren't problems two years ago - hell, even a year ago. Our average gas price is $2.65. How much was it a year ago? Two years? Our last utility bill was roughly $360 (for the month) with a 60F thermostat setting. Of that, $48 was the total charge for actual 'electricity provided'. This insane. We've followed every tip out there about lowering heating costs, conserving, reducing dependence. If it matters, other than a mortgage, I'm completely debt free. No CC debt, no loans - business or otherwise; can you claim the same?
Perhaps I should have clarified as well - the examples I posted above are things I've voluntarily given up. Not because I can't afford it. They've hit the price that TO ME they know longer are worth keeping around. I don't watch $120 worth of cable TV a month (I don't really watch a lot of TV period - most of it's a waste of living). I don't use $60 worth of internet access a month. I don't need $40-60 worth of phone service a month when it's already covered by my much cheaper cellphone service. I save roughly $350-$400 every month by not wasting money on things I feel I don't need. Your whole post seems to show you really have missed the point.
And the SUV is a CRV. Not exactly a luxury item. And it's from Carmax.
And I hope the system fails? Either your trolling (probably) or your f_cking nuts. It's called tongue-in-cheek.
Condescension aside, things really are getting unmanageable for most people most places. Maybe it's only for most people *here* though. I don't know. The problem is ultimately that my 110% (and I'm guessing my 110% is worth much more than yours) is no longer cutting it. The future is not sustainable with the way things work now.
Now go blow it out your ass troll.
$2/day on soda is a huge waste of money. And $60/month for internet access is at that point where I start considering the various options available contrasted with now badly I need the access.
The cost of basic living necessities are going up (gas for transportation, electricity for the home, misc. utilities rising) to the point that serious budgeting is taking place. My household already gave up on cable TV (our 2nd year), landline phone access (no cheap DSL), 60F thermostat settings for the winter and relegating the SUV only to short hops or when professionally needed (I'm a regular gigging musician lugging around huge speakers - it's a legit use). Saving that $60 per month (Comcast cable modem) really makes a difference. And for the majority of what I use the internet for, I can do it easily enough through my day job. Hell, I even use an iMac because - well 1 of the reasons ;-) - it only has a 70 or so watt powersupply compared to a 300-500W PC desktop psu.
A major factor of internet growth slowing is due to corporate greed. Costs everywhere are too high when factored into the rest of the average US citizens budget. The bottom is soon going to collapse - I can't wait.
Virtual PC doesn't run on the intel macs yet.
It could be VNC though.
Cost
Batteries
Control (or lack of it)
General inconvenience
On average, I read a paperback a week. I've got an ebook reader on my Palm, and I have read a few books on there, but honestly, I'm just not interested in changing my reading habits. I like turning pages, I like having cover art, I like the mystique of shopping in a book store trying to find the perfect tale to satisfy whatever it is I'm in the mood for (lately, Tamara Thorne and Douglas Clegg). For me, that's part of the whole experience. Reading for pleasure is a personally satisfying experience, however like most things digital and computer, ebooks aren't 'personal' - they're tools.
Ebooks will be the norm only when paper books are no longer made.
Honestly, I really don't think this is the case. People are still dumb as ever, they just have less disposable income to squander. Gas, utilities, credit / mortgage payments, cable, movie tickets, these are all higher than this time last year. And the year before. And the year before.
If people really were smarter, LCD tv shows (which are quasi-already paid for so no additional 'movie tix' style budgeting) would have lower ratings. American Idol, that next top model show, Survivor, Fear Factor, that suitcase game show, etc etc all seem to be on top.
Google Talk rocks. Completely. I imagine that if you think it's an embarassment it's because you just don't have anyone to contact through it so you don't really use it. Not intended as a putdown, but being able to message coworkers, friends/family from the say window that I keep my email in (it's never closed) is just great.
To me (and I'm old school about a lot of what I do - I say that to show that I appreciate change and am not an old kurmudgeon) google's renovations on a standard are very welcome. I hate using non-threaded email progams now because of gmail, I hate having artificual quotas and rediculous attachment limits, I like searching for things in the same manner that I have learned to search the web so that I find them. While I prefer no ads, Google's are a perfect balance of them making their money, me getting free services and nonintrusiveness. And, they're halfway useful.
Safari doesn't support the rich text editing fields (or whatever it's called) as well as some good CSS layering stuff - both which gPages use. Try using gmail under Firefox and you'll see a world of difference.
It does, but it's turned off in Finder Preferences by default (no .ext is historical holdover from pre-OSX - never had them).
If it becomes an issue Apple will change (ie: in update 10.4.6 or something) the default to on.
But it can easily hose a partition table, MBR, etc. Yeah, dual booting isn't something I particuarly want either. Being able to run inside a protected OSX enviroment with access to all of these advanced features (for games, or whatever) that VPC or vmware aren't capable of is much more desirable.
Vic 20 here too. Still have it, still works great. No idea what it's worth vintage-wise (if anything), but the moment it gets me $10k it's outta here :)
I think you're confused. Or you've never used Craigslist.
It doesn't cost anything to post an ad on Craigslist. And there's no traditional internet advertising (ie google adsense, yahoo ads, etc) from which to generate revenue.
I'm not sure how Craig makes money, but I'm pretty sure it's not from advertising.
It's precident. Not president. Though 'presiden't could potentially make sense given the current administration.
No. It used to be that way (proud nerdly IT folk), but I'm becoming more and more convinced that slashdot now is made up of the new 'AIM / MSN is ko0L' crowd.
Hooray! Finally, someone who knows how to test a hypothesis quasi-scientifically.
I declare shenanigans. I see this over and over again and I can't believe what I'm reading.
The Bill of Rights, the Ammendements, Constitution, etc etc. Yeah, these are frameworks of our government and the rules they abide by. But they are also all rules that we (normal people, corps, private institutions, etc) have to abide by. It's everyone. If you're here, you're bound by these.
By your logic, while the governement isn't allowed slaves (amend. xiii), a private corporation can have them? BS. Back during prohibition, amend. xviii stated that it was illegal only for the government to make and distrubute booze? Hell no.
Damn, the collective lack of basic civics knowledge is astounding. No wonder the current government is getting away with its crap.
I've got the original 10gb iPod (the Caddie of the original iPods ;-). I have not pirated/tsk-tskdownloaded/tsk-tskcopied any music since getting it. I either (oh my!) buy actual CDs now, or I buy tracks/CDs on ITMS. Quite honestly, I think it comes down to pride. Pyschologically speaking, an iPod is a lot nicer than a normal cd player or even a normal mp3 player. As such, I don't want to sully things (by pirating, etc). Sounds goofy, but that's definitely my view.
It's like having a new car and enforcing the 'no eating' rule inside. It's all pride based on your acquisition.
I've always felt Visual Studio (at least with all the .Net stuff) was turning more into a Visual Basic type of dev platform. A lot of automation, you don't have to know why your doing things the way you are doing, fundementals and such aren't important anymore, etc. It's more for application development than actual (think CS rather than IT) programming.
It's a rather large assumption to make that OP needs OpenGL support.
You know, you're right. I completely forgot 5.25" & 8" both existed (no doubt others too - and I used both 5&8" formats). Now that I'm recalling it, I even had one of those knotchers for 5.25" discs that did allow you to write as well as double side the disk. The mind truly does gloss over painful (i'm officially old!) memories.
I don't remember AOL doing 5.25" disks though - think that's where I got sidetracked. Prodigy did - in 2 disc sets.
Ahhh the good ole days.
It's actually the inverse of this. A disk was write proteced by having the notch open. To allow writing to the disk - to reuse an AOL disk for example - you covered it with tape. There's a spring mechanism that when inserted into the write protection hole (upon inserting the disk) will prohibit copying.
Same goes for audio cassettes, VHS tapes, etc.
Yep, that's my plan.
The industry is not going to just stop producing DVDs upon the release of an HD disc player - marketplace suicide. I suspect the gradual phasing will be like DVD and PSP/UMD releases (both coexist, neither replacing the other). Considering the fracturing of HD and Blueray, I suspect we'll see DVD, Blu and HD releases of all movies. Major overkill. I'm just going to stick with DVD. I have no intention of ever buying an HD disc/player until DVD is no longer a viable option.
If I buy a UMD movie and I don't have a PSP, do I now have carte blanche to whine about not being able to view? Likewise buying a movie on DVD and only having a VCR. Hell, even buying a normal music CD dictates that I must have some compatible device in order to actually be able to use it.
Vendor lock-in? No way. It's called price of admission. If you desire the ability to play a UMD movie or watch something on your PSP, you have to satisfy the requirements. If you want to be able to travel to distant locales, you have to satisfy the requirements of a lic, car and gas. If you want to use Apple's music store or store music on the ipod, then you have the responsibility of making sure what you purchase or use works.
We already knew that Microsoft was devious and backhanded in its business practices. It shows how much regard the big corp has for the small but dedicated developer. Ultimately, I think this is a good thing - Microsoft, keep on alienating your backers!