however, in raising rates they loose a small amount of competitive edge
This would be true if companies included fees as part of the advertised rates, but they rarely do. So the monthly rate remains $29.99 but the portability fee rises from $2.50 to $2.65 (or something like that).
Perhaps this is true in some strange theoretical sense (I doubt that), but it's certainly not true in reality. Virtually all content that is sold is that which has already been made. Your argument makes very little sense.
Give me $1500 and I'll build you a server that can beat your server in storage related activities.
If you're that confident why not post the specs and prices of your $1500 system. Use the best price from Pricegrabber or any other site you'd prefer. I'm not doubting you, I'm just interested in seeing what you come up with.
The author says, "Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player." He agrees that the iPod is the best MP3 player, but that doesn't mean that it's ideal in every single situation.
The article discusses several of these situations and suggest alternatives. If you do care about low battery life or do want to jog with your player, perhaps you may wish to consider one of these alternative.
Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player. Although everyone can think of reasons why they want an iPod, I've decided to use this column to list a few reasons why not to buy one.
Before you send me rants for putting down the iPod, please read the list, realize that we still love the iPod, and take a deep breath.
If CNET ran an article with the title "5 Reasons Not to Buy a Windows XP PC", would that also be flamebait or would you consider it an alternative view? Follow the advice of the article: take a deep breath.
The article says: "Both Pepsi and McDonald's are paying Apple's retail price of 99 cents per song, sources say".
Personally, I doubt McDonald's will be paying anywhere near $.99 per song downloaded. This promotion likely won't generate an extra $990 million in revenue. I'd say that the price is somewhere in the $.30-$.40 per song range. Also keep in mind that far less than 1 billion free songs will actually be downloaded.
By "secret balloting" I meant anonymous balloting. I suppose that although they may be close, they're not the same.
If the ballot is signed, it's not anonymous. If the signature is so unrecognizable that it can't be traced back to anyone, it does nothing to prevent voting fraud.
Suppose you are a clueless driver driving an old car that has never gone beyond 55 mph, and has always behaved nicely so far.
The problem with your analogy is that we don't have accurate climate data from a large enough sample size.
With the old car, we know it ran nicely at 55 MPH. Keeping all other variables constant, we increase the speed and begin to notice problems. In this case, it's quite likely that higher speeds are the problem.
With the climate change, it may be possible to determine that the average temperature has risen in the past century or two. However, we don't have conclusive data on what the precise temperatures were 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago.
To continue your analogy, it's as if we've just bought an old car and driven it for a few minutes. We've noticed that it shakes at 80 MPH and thus declared that everyone must drive their cars at 55 MPH.
Invite all supporters of candidate Foo to bring in their PKI signed paper voting receipts, when you get to 46% receipts for candidate Foo, you know you have a problem.
This would rarely be a practical way to verify a problem. Take your example with the precinct of 600 people.
Let's assume the exit polls are 100% accurate and 52% of voters indeed voted for Foo. Let's also assume that 10% voted for various third party candidates and the remaining 38% voted for candidate Bar. These would be the actual vote totals:
Foo - 312 Bar - 228 Other - 60
The voting system shows only 270 votes for Foo. To use your method to check for a problem at least 271 voters must show their receipts. This amounts to 86.9% of Foo voters. It's certain that at least some of these people will have thrown their receipts out, lost them, or are unwilling or unable to turn them in to be verified.
I know you just came up with some sample numbers but the criticisms apply to almost all common voting scenarios. This method won't work unless it's a situation where a candidate's exit poll numbers are vastly different than the amount recorded by the voting system.
The statement was made several levels up that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war" was actually a misperception.
The response to this post was: "...Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat..."
I asked for a source on this and you respond with intelligence that Colin Powell presented to the UN. How does this in any way prove that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war"?
These erroneous leaps of logic are exactly what lead to misperceptions. Blame it on apologists all you want, but in this case it's you that's wrong, not Bush.
William Safire, the founding editor of the freaking National Review...
William Buckley (Jr.) founded National Review, not William Safire. Perhaps Buckley has written for the Times occasionally, but I don't think he's a frequent contributor.
Faux News? No one has ever thought of that! Oh wait...google returns 418,000 hits. And there's a fauxnewschannel.com. Make fun of Fox News if you want, but at least come with some new material.
It also mirrors to my PC at work to provide location redundancy (it is 20miles away).
Out of curiousity, have there been complaints from your ISP about the amount of bandwidth your backups are consuming? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding and you only do offsite backups periodically instead of nightly. Just wondering...
> Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.
a) Why would they do that, when no one else in the industry does it?
Whenever a release date slips on one of their products, Microsoft is criticized. With Longhorn, instead of using their initial estimate, it's likely that Microsoft has added in some "padding" to make the release date realistic. It's not as if Microsoft hasn't noticed that many of their products' release dates have slipped. With Longhorn, they're simply attempting to correct this.
b) Have you seen any evidence that that's what they've done in the past? As I stated above, Microsoft has a history of products being released later than the initial release date. That doesn't mean that they can never learn from their mistakes. If everyone on Slashdot understands than software projects always take longer than planned, it can be assumed that MS project managers also understand this.
The initial estimate might have said that Longhorn could be completed in 18 months. Instead of announcing that Longhorn would be released in late 2004, it would make sense to double the time-to-release and announce a 2006 release. By employing this strategy, there's very little downside for Microsoft, other than some inital cricitism on the long wait.
Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.
And I thought they were saying 2006, so the problem is how to maintain interest for 5-6 years.
Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.
The parent never stated that he was unable to control his car's speed. He presented the scenario of someone receiving a ticket for traveling downhill at 44.5 MPH (70km/h) in a zone where the speed limit was 37.3 MPH (60km/h). Yes, that does violate the law but it hardly signals a mechanical defect or lack of driving ability.
In fact, if the average vehicle was moving at 45 MPH, it would be safer to travel above the speed limit. It's quite common for drivers to go 5-10 MPH over, especially when travelling downhill. You risk get rear-ended if you slow down too much on the hill. A speed trap at the bottom of the hill could reduce safety even more if it caused drivers to slam their brakes on after catching sight of the cop.
There's been a lot of gushing about iTunes for Windows today, and I really hope it lives up to the hype. What about the drawbacks to iTunes? Are there any "gotchas" that really degrade the experience? What about limitations? I'd be interested in hearing the top gripes about iTunes.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides, can you think of *any* film franchise that has gone beyond 3 without sucking a very large one?
James Bond. The 21st film is planned for release in 2005.
however, in raising rates they loose a small amount of competitive edge
This would be true if companies included fees as part of the advertised rates, but they rarely do. So the monthly rate remains $29.99 but the portability fee rises from $2.50 to $2.65 (or something like that).
would you ever see such a quote:
"But the absolute magnitude of my disagreements are typically no more than a single "cuckoo"."
If it's already been made, it's valueless.
Perhaps this is true in some strange theoretical sense (I doubt that), but it's certainly not true in reality. Virtually all content that is sold is that which has already been made. Your argument makes very little sense.
Give me $1500 and I'll build you a server that can beat your server in storage related activities.
If you're that confident why not post the specs and prices of your $1500 system. Use the best price from Pricegrabber or any other site you'd prefer. I'm not doubting you, I'm just interested in seeing what you come up with.
The author says, "Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player." He agrees that the iPod is the best MP3 player, but that doesn't mean that it's ideal in every single situation.
The article discusses several of these situations and suggest alternatives. If you do care about low battery life or do want to jog with your player, perhaps you may wish to consider one of these alternative.
Did you RTFA? It's stated right at the beginning:
Don't get me wrong; it's still our favorite overall MP3 player. Although everyone can think of reasons why they want an iPod, I've decided to use this column to list a few reasons why not to buy one.
Before you send me rants for putting down the iPod, please read the list, realize that we still love the iPod, and take a deep breath.
If CNET ran an article with the title "5 Reasons Not to Buy a Windows XP PC", would that also be flamebait or would you consider it an alternative view? Follow the advice of the article: take a deep breath.
The article says: "Both Pepsi and McDonald's are paying Apple's retail price of 99 cents per song, sources say".
Personally, I doubt McDonald's will be paying anywhere near $.99 per song downloaded. This promotion likely won't generate an extra $990 million in revenue. I'd say that the price is somewhere in the $.30-$.40 per song range. Also keep in mind that far less than 1 billion free songs will actually be downloaded.
By "secret balloting" I meant anonymous balloting. I suppose that although they may be close, they're not the same.
If the ballot is signed, it's not anonymous. If the signature is so unrecognizable that it can't be traced back to anyone, it does nothing to prevent voting fraud.
...have everyone sign their ballot.
This isn't a workable solution since most countries place a high value on secret balloting.
Suppose you are a clueless driver driving an old car that has never gone beyond 55 mph, and has always behaved nicely so far.
The problem with your analogy is that we don't have accurate climate data from a large enough sample size.
With the old car, we know it ran nicely at 55 MPH. Keeping all other variables constant, we increase the speed and begin to notice problems. In this case, it's quite likely that higher speeds are the problem.
With the climate change, it may be possible to determine that the average temperature has risen in the past century or two. However, we don't have conclusive data on what the precise temperatures were 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago.
To continue your analogy, it's as if we've just bought an old car and driven it for a few minutes. We've noticed that it shakes at 80 MPH and thus declared that everyone must drive their cars at 55 MPH.
Invite all supporters of candidate Foo to bring in their PKI signed paper voting receipts, when you get to 46% receipts for candidate Foo, you know you have a problem.
This would rarely be a practical way to verify a problem. Take your example with the precinct of 600 people.
Let's assume the exit polls are 100% accurate and 52% of voters indeed voted for Foo. Let's also assume that 10% voted for various third party candidates and the remaining 38% voted for candidate Bar. These would be the actual vote totals:
Foo - 312
Bar - 228
Other - 60
The voting system shows only 270 votes for Foo. To use your method to check for a problem at least 271 voters must show their receipts. This amounts to 86.9% of Foo voters. It's certain that at least some of these people will have thrown their receipts out, lost them, or are unwilling or unable to turn them in to be verified.
I know you just came up with some sample numbers but the criticisms apply to almost all common voting scenarios. This method won't work unless it's a situation where a candidate's exit poll numbers are vastly different than the amount recorded by the voting system.
That's simply a coincidence. The book really is that good.
Cheers,
Ernest Friedman-Hill
The statement was made several levels up that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war" was actually a misperception.
The response to this post was: "...Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat..."
I asked for a source on this and you respond with intelligence that Colin Powell presented to the UN. How does this in any way prove that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war"?
These erroneous leaps of logic are exactly what lead to misperceptions. Blame it on apologists all you want, but in this case it's you that's wrong, not Bush.
Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat.
Any source? Something not written by Jayson Blair preferably.
William Safire, the founding editor of the freaking National Review...
William Buckley (Jr.) founded National Review, not William Safire. Perhaps Buckley has written for the Times occasionally, but I don't think he's a frequent contributor.
Faux News? No one has ever thought of that! Oh wait...google returns 418,000 hits. And there's a fauxnewschannel.com. Make fun of Fox News if you want, but at least come with some new material.
It also mirrors to my PC at work to provide location redundancy (it is 20miles away).
Out of curiousity, have there been complaints from your ISP about the amount of bandwidth your backups are consuming? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding and you only do offsite backups periodically instead of nightly. Just wondering...
> Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.
a) Why would they do that, when no one else in the industry does it?
Whenever a release date slips on one of their products, Microsoft is criticized. With Longhorn, instead of using their initial estimate, it's likely that Microsoft has added in some "padding" to make the release date realistic. It's not as if Microsoft hasn't noticed that many of their products' release dates have slipped. With Longhorn, they're simply attempting to correct this.
b) Have you seen any evidence that that's what they've done in the past?
As I stated above, Microsoft has a history of products being released later than the initial release date. That doesn't mean that they can never learn from their mistakes. If everyone on Slashdot understands than software projects always take longer than planned, it can be assumed that MS project managers also understand this.
The initial estimate might have said that Longhorn could be completed in 18 months. Instead of announcing that Longhorn would be released in late 2004, it would make sense to double the time-to-release and announce a 2006 release. By employing this strategy, there's very little downside for Microsoft, other than some inital cricitism on the long wait.
Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.
And I thought they were saying 2006, so the problem is how to maintain interest for 5-6 years.
Although Microsoft may be the Evil Empire, they're not stupid. It's quite likely the project managers estimated the time-to-release at 12-18 months and then doubled that to come up with the 2006 release date.
The parent never stated that he was unable to control his car's speed. He presented the scenario of someone receiving a ticket for traveling downhill at 44.5 MPH (70km/h) in a zone where the speed limit was 37.3 MPH (60km/h). Yes, that does violate the law but it hardly signals a mechanical defect or lack of driving ability.
In fact, if the average vehicle was moving at 45 MPH, it would be safer to travel above the speed limit. It's quite common for drivers to go 5-10 MPH over, especially when travelling downhill. You risk get rear-ended if you slow down too much on the hill. A speed trap at the bottom of the hill could reduce safety even more if it caused drivers to slam their brakes on after catching sight of the cop.
only because it wants to avoid the hose...
Yes, please do educate yourself.
Tired of unsightly deficits? Vote Howard Dean [deanforamerica.com]!
Yes, let's all vote for Dean so our deficits will no longer just be unsightly, they'll be ungodly.
There's been a lot of gushing about iTunes for Windows today, and I really hope it lives up to the hype. What about the drawbacks to iTunes? Are there any "gotchas" that really degrade the experience? What about limitations? I'd be interested in hearing the top gripes about iTunes.