And with multiple sheets per workbook, why not just add validation layers to check for errors? Range checking and such is easy in Excel and it's equally easy to put a reference on each worksheet to report any errors from the validation layers. The problem I've discovered is that people don't build spreadsheets like they would applications - separating data and business logic, etc. - they just jump in and start whacking away. The downside to this is that Excel becomes rather slow as almost everything is pulled by calculation, but the upside is that the liklihood that you'll get the results you expect and not need to go trace back a bunch of errors is much greater.
I'm a consistent supporter of Apple, so let's just get that out in the open.
What's going to be interesting is how the logic plays out on this. Initially, the labels don't appear to have colluded - Apple went to them. Apple can state what wholesale price they will accept will be - retailers do this all the time - especially WalMart. Since there effectively was no wholesale price for music - yes, some smaller labels, etc. then the iTMS price wasn't so much collusion as reaction to the only standard put forward - what Apple offered to pay. That, I believe, is totally legal. It may be strongarming, but it's not illegal. Now, that wholesale price appears to have been extended to other retailers, which is still all cool - charging all retailers the same amount is okay once the price has been set.
There are two places where this could be problematic. The renegotiating with Apple, stated in TFA, where we have heard at least two labels are pushing for essentially the same tired pricing. That could be an intent to price fix - especially if they are pressuring other labels to join or boycott Apple or other retailers.
The other place is ringtone pricing which I understand labels have a different unified wholesale price for. Since these are essentially the same product in slightly different contexts, it could be part of the investigation as well.
Umm... sorry to break it to you. Apple may control RETAIL pricing for digital music, but the labels set the WHOLESALE pricing for digital music.
The labels can pretty much dictate WHATEVER pricing they want, and Apple will not have any say over it (unless they want to lose revenue). It would be one thing if they had a marketshare of say, Walmart. But digital sale is still pretty small percentage of the overall revenue for the labels.
And sorry to break it to you, but Walmart could only dream of having the kind of retail pricing influence that Apple has right here. Walmart has, what, 10% of their retail market? Apple has 80%? I don't see Walmart bending it's knee to the whims of manufacturers. In fact, we see Walmart demanding to see balance sheets so they can tell manufacturers where they should cut their costs to meet Walmarts pricing.
Granted, the growth potential in Apple's market is considerably greater than WalMart, which means that some other retailer could step in to those marketshare gains over iTMS, but it'd be damn hard without resorting to unprotected AAC or MP3, because you don't exist if you don't run on iPod.
Bottom line, unless someone else steps up and shows they can push the iTMS/iPod share down, Apple can pretty much ask for whatever it wants and the labels either need to pay it or get out of the game.
And you can tinker with Quartz, iWork, iPhoto, iTunes, Garage Band in Linux?
No, you can tinker with X11, python, gcc, and all of the very same things that you can tinker with in OS X, including looking at the source code, making modifications to the source code, and distributing the code with changes: http://developer.apple.com/darwin/
So, the fact that Apple offers MORE things, even if some aren't open is somehow a liability. Interesting logic, there.
In what ways can you tinker with Linux that you cannot tinker with OS X? In fact, OS X gives you far more to tinker with because not only do you have the keys to the kernal and the BSD layer and X11, but also to everything that Apple provides. That answer makes no sense whatsoever.
Highly lethal viruses
on
A Flu Pandemic?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Highly lethal viruses tend to not spread terribly far if they incubate quickly for the simple reason that those who are infected die before they can infect many others. This is one of the reasons why Ebola tends to be limited to individual communities - nobody lives long enough to get it to the next community.
A 5% fatal virus will leave 95% of those infected to act as carriers - and because of the low fatality rate, some percentage of those won't realize that they're sick and will take it on planes, etc. without being diagnosed.
1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X? Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit.
Apple's gross margin is 28%. That $1000 system is probably earning the company $200-$250 - a bit more if you bought it directly. It's why Dell has been stumbling a bit more. With single-digit margin and much of their sales volume in the $500 range, they need to move 4-5x as many systems to make the same profit as Apple. Now, they do that quite nicely, but any missteps are felt pretty strongly.
The magnitude of the change from hw to sw is really quite massive.
Just store the first script and then the diffs for all subsequent scripts. I think you'll find that the incremental changes from one Hollywood script to the next is astonishingly small.
Bypassing the reality that this is a fairly stupid idea economically, the distribution issue with the wire is actually pretty straightforward.
The wire can be easily wound into large coils to be transported by truck. The truck unwinds the wire which is rewound at the station. When you load up, you unwind from the station and wind into the car. This can actually be done at rather high speed. No problem.
The benefits of this are that stations and transportation vehicles don't have the safety concerns that gasoline has. The downside is that the pipeline system that makes gas distribution in this country efficient has no parallel for wire, so even if it was pound for pound equivalent to gas, it would still be more expensive to distribute. Oh, and it's 3x as heavy, so even factoring out the safety costs, it's that much more expensive to distribute.
Oh, and it's a stupid idea. I mean, it's a good *idea*, but it's shitty engineering.
What, exactly, should Apple do differently on this front?
Apple could have used WMA for the iPod, except that MS won't port the full DRM suite to the Mac. Should Apple ship iPods that Mac users can't use? Apple has made Fairplay available for Windows, which is more than can be said in return. Since the music store isn't better than break-even and the profits come from the iPod, should Apple turn over the key to their profitability of their entire music ecology?
On the content side they're up against RIAA and on the device side they're up against MS. So, how does Apple get cast as the bully here?
The difference is that in Apple's home country, ripping CDs is legal (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia) while ripping DVDs is illegal under the DMCA (MGM v. 321 Studios).
And coming from somebody that doesn't even exceed the speed limit, the fed can kiss my ass.
I've got two small kids and my DVD collection would be in shambles if I didn't rip them. I bought them, I don't share them, but I'll do with them as I please, thank you very much.
From a Marilyn Vos Savant column. Google for explanation:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say number 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say number 3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door number 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?
I love puzzles, and most are just a bit of a push to work out, but I've had a ton of people argue to no end with me on this one.
While I agree with your point, don't overlook that Scaled had $2B in today's dollars of NASA funded research to work off of. Retracing the steps of others should always be cheaper and faster because you know what path to follow. But the modern, politicized, cost-plus NASA approach to solving problems pretty much guarantees that any real progress will be exceptionally expensive and largely accidental thanks only to the competencies of the engineers to overcome the f'd up environment in which they are placed.
Slashdot Mirror
And with multiple sheets per workbook, why not just add validation layers to check for errors? Range checking and such is easy in Excel and it's equally easy to put a reference on each worksheet to report any errors from the validation layers. The problem I've discovered is that people don't build spreadsheets like they would applications - separating data and business logic, etc. - they just jump in and start whacking away. The downside to this is that Excel becomes rather slow as almost everything is pulled by calculation, but the upside is that the liklihood that you'll get the results you expect and not need to go trace back a bunch of errors is much greater.
So change it - it's CSS. Just add in new line spacing rules and have your browser use that CSS instead.
You mean, like peer-review science? Gee, have we really fallen so far that we don't recognize what proper science looks like?
Not to mention the sight of someone's skull ripped clean open as a kid that decades later still doesn't leave your memory.
They weren't exactly grunting fools 8,000-10,000 years ago.
Are you suggesting that they were smarter than most of us?
Whoa.
The title's a little redundant, no? What would the title of this entry have been if it had failed?
"Non-Orbiter Fails to Enter Orbit"
"Parabolic Object Fails to Enter Orbit"
"Orbiter Successful" would have been sufficient, no?
I must be older than you. They were called "Trade Federation Units" when they were taught to me.
Modmini has a rundown of the new minis including some technical details that I don't think have been published anywhere else.
http://www.modmini.com/gear/reviews/mini-c
I'm a consistent supporter of Apple, so let's just get that out in the open.
What's going to be interesting is how the logic plays out on this. Initially, the labels don't appear to have colluded - Apple went to them. Apple can state what wholesale price they will accept will be - retailers do this all the time - especially WalMart. Since there effectively was no wholesale price for music - yes, some smaller labels, etc. then the iTMS price wasn't so much collusion as reaction to the only standard put forward - what Apple offered to pay. That, I believe, is totally legal. It may be strongarming, but it's not illegal. Now, that wholesale price appears to have been extended to other retailers, which is still all cool - charging all retailers the same amount is okay once the price has been set.
There are two places where this could be problematic. The renegotiating with Apple, stated in TFA, where we have heard at least two labels are pushing for essentially the same tired pricing. That could be an intent to price fix - especially if they are pressuring other labels to join or boycott Apple or other retailers.
The other place is ringtone pricing which I understand labels have a different unified wholesale price for. Since these are essentially the same product in slightly different contexts, it could be part of the investigation as well.
Finally a mouse smart enough to be elected President.
Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Actually, the Mac Fat Bastard.
Umm... sorry to break it to you. Apple may control RETAIL pricing for digital music, but the labels set the WHOLESALE pricing for digital music.
The labels can pretty much dictate WHATEVER pricing they want, and Apple will not have any say over it (unless they want to lose revenue). It would be one thing if they had a marketshare of say, Walmart. But digital sale is still pretty small percentage of the overall revenue for the labels.
And sorry to break it to you, but Walmart could only dream of having the kind of retail pricing influence that Apple has right here. Walmart has, what, 10% of their retail market? Apple has 80%? I don't see Walmart bending it's knee to the whims of manufacturers. In fact, we see Walmart demanding to see balance sheets so they can tell manufacturers where they should cut their costs to meet Walmarts pricing.
Granted, the growth potential in Apple's market is considerably greater than WalMart, which means that some other retailer could step in to those marketshare gains over iTMS, but it'd be damn hard without resorting to unprotected AAC or MP3, because you don't exist if you don't run on iPod.
Bottom line, unless someone else steps up and shows they can push the iTMS/iPod share down, Apple can pretty much ask for whatever it wants and the labels either need to pay it or get out of the game.
And you can tinker with Quartz, iWork, iPhoto, iTunes, Garage Band in Linux?
No, you can tinker with X11, python, gcc, and all of the very same things that you can tinker with in OS X, including looking at the source code, making modifications to the source code, and distributing the code with changes: http://developer.apple.com/darwin/
So, the fact that Apple offers MORE things, even if some aren't open is somehow a liability. Interesting logic, there.
What?!
In what ways can you tinker with Linux that you cannot tinker with OS X? In fact, OS X gives you far more to tinker with because not only do you have the keys to the kernal and the BSD layer and X11, but also to everything that Apple provides. That answer makes no sense whatsoever.
Highly lethal viruses tend to not spread terribly far if they incubate quickly for the simple reason that those who are infected die before they can infect many others. This is one of the reasons why Ebola tends to be limited to individual communities - nobody lives long enough to get it to the next community.
A 5% fatal virus will leave 95% of those infected to act as carriers - and because of the low fatality rate, some percentage of those won't realize that they're sick and will take it on planes, etc. without being diagnosed.
1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X?
Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit.
Apple's gross margin is 28%. That $1000 system is probably earning the company $200-$250 - a bit more if you bought it directly. It's why Dell has been stumbling a bit more. With single-digit margin and much of their sales volume in the $500 range, they need to move 4-5x as many systems to make the same profit as Apple. Now, they do that quite nicely, but any missteps are felt pretty strongly.
The magnitude of the change from hw to sw is really quite massive.
Airport is plenty open - it's a standard mini-PCI 802.11g card. It's just not commonly found outside of Apple laptops.
You don't need that much storage.
Just store the first script and then the diffs for all subsequent scripts. I think you'll find that the incremental changes from one Hollywood script to the next is astonishingly small.
Bypassing the reality that this is a fairly stupid idea economically, the distribution issue with the wire is actually pretty straightforward.
The wire can be easily wound into large coils to be transported by truck. The truck unwinds the wire which is rewound at the station. When you load up, you unwind from the station and wind into the car. This can actually be done at rather high speed. No problem.
The benefits of this are that stations and transportation vehicles don't have the safety concerns that gasoline has. The downside is that the pipeline system that makes gas distribution in this country efficient has no parallel for wire, so even if it was pound for pound equivalent to gas, it would still be more expensive to distribute. Oh, and it's 3x as heavy, so even factoring out the safety costs, it's that much more expensive to distribute.
Oh, and it's a stupid idea. I mean, it's a good *idea*, but it's shitty engineering.
"I just saw Apple's Aperture and realized that even with 10,000 extra applications at my disposal, they almost all suck. Why is that?"
It's about quality not quantity. Thank goodness for Picassa.
What, exactly, should Apple do differently on this front?
Apple could have used WMA for the iPod, except that MS won't port the full DRM suite to the Mac. Should Apple ship iPods that Mac users can't use? Apple has made Fairplay available for Windows, which is more than can be said in return. Since the music store isn't better than break-even and the profits come from the iPod, should Apple turn over the key to their profitability of their entire music ecology?
On the content side they're up against RIAA and on the device side they're up against MS. So, how does Apple get cast as the bully here?
You do realize that most windows open, don't you?
The difference is that in Apple's home country, ripping CDs is legal (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia) while ripping DVDs is illegal under the DMCA (MGM v. 321 Studios).
And coming from somebody that doesn't even exceed the speed limit, the fed can kiss my ass.
I've got two small kids and my DVD collection would be in shambles if I didn't rip them. I bought them, I don't share them, but I'll do with them as I please, thank you very much.
From a Marilyn Vos Savant column. Google for explanation:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say number 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say number 3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door number 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?
I love puzzles, and most are just a bit of a push to work out, but I've had a ton of people argue to no end with me on this one.
While I agree with your point, don't overlook that Scaled had $2B in today's dollars of NASA funded research to work off of. Retracing the steps of others should always be cheaper and faster because you know what path to follow. But the modern, politicized, cost-plus NASA approach to solving problems pretty much guarantees that any real progress will be exceptionally expensive and largely accidental thanks only to the competencies of the engineers to overcome the f'd up environment in which they are placed.