The problem with iPod is that you need to buy an Apple PC to go with it.
True, and no doubt Apple knows this is a downer. This and the price makes it obvious they're currently selling the iPod as a Mac peripheral, rather than a general-purpose MP3 player.
However, I expect Apple will: (1) bring down the price on the device after a few months, (2) develop and/or partner for non-Apple compatability for the device. If people like it, no doubt third-party attachments for non-FireWire computers will become available. The FireWire is one of the best features about the iPod, though, so I don't expect that to ever go away.
Just my thoughts. Sony sells all their portables with Memory Stick compatability; Apple sells for Mac compatability; Microsoft sells for Windows compatability. It's normal for the industry to at least *start* with closed compatability and open it as time goes on. Smaller companies benefit from open technologies, like MP3 CDs, because they don't have to develop as much.
But as has been said, Apple is profitable *because* they target a niche audience, and the only reason to complain that they're focusing on that niche is if you aren't yet part of it. So I'd expect the iPod price drop and wider compatability to arrive at about the same time. Best thing you ("you" meaning "all Slashdot's readers") can do to hasten that process: WRITE APPLE AND TELL THEM YOU WANT LINUX COMPATABILITY. It's got to be easier than Microsoft compatability, right?
According to a first look at the iPod, it's got a Breakout-style game included as an easter egg. No doubt the ROM is fully programmable, and I expect it to be only a couple of months before programmers have hacked the device to play other games as well, or (which would be very cool) read games from a special file on the hard disk.
Considering that it's got far more memory than your average 128MB MP3 portable, and that it's clearly smaller and more portable than a Nomad, I think this is a hasty judgement.
which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners
PCs have access to FireWire, as does Linux. The direct connection to iTunes is the only Mac-only feature that I can see; I should hope Apple will be smart enough to enable compatability with PCs, or if not, develop a Windows version of iTunes to do the same job.
but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product.
It has a six-line LCD display, backlit, a simple four-button interface, and a circular scroll wheel to navigate your songs (which can organize by CD, artist, or your own custom playlists). You call that "virtually no UI"?
Methinks some people's "first post" ambitions are getting in the way of a decent review of the features.
The notion that "information wants to be free" is a rather interesting case study of anthropomorphism gone horribly wrong. Information doesn't want anything. Truth, the facts, raw data, none of them want anything. They're just sentences, numbers, claims, opinions, ideas. Unless you're willing to extend the definition of a meme to the extreme, they're hardly capable of even Darwinian ambition.
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
This problem discussed in the article is better solved by the type of licensing model Microsoft plans to adopt: subscription software. That way, you always have the latest, least buggy version of the software you use without having to shell out for a new copy, and the corporation that writes the software is motivated to eliminate bugs, rather than leave them in so they can sell you the new version.
On the other hand, just because you're entitled to the latest version of software doesn't mean your hardware will run it. You may buy a five-year subscription to Microsoft's Windows OS, but if your hardware three years down the road won't run it and Microsoft won't budge on compatability, you're still out of money. And worse yet, Microsoft now has even less reason to support old versions of its software. "We're giving you the latest version for your low, low subscription price! Take it or leave it."
This way, you have all the advantages of open source, yet you can take comfort in the fact that your software is written by professionals.
If I'm not mistaken, the majority of open source software out there is written by professionals. They're just not getting paid to write it.
More like "had succeeded", really -- the condensate was achieved in 1995. Nobel prizes are usually bestowed several years after the achievement itself in order to give plenty of time for independent verification and to demonstrate relevance to the greater body of research and knowledge.
Apple Computer and Apple Vacations. They both use the same identifier, there's a potential trademark violation. Except there isn't, because one is "Computer" and is associated with hardware and software, while the other is "Vacations" and is associated with the travel industry. Easy to tell them apart. This is how trademark disputes using common words are dealt with.
Yahoo! (with the exclamation mark, which they have always used even if their users don't) is associated with a Web portal, and has been for years, while Yahoo Serious (with the last name) has always been associated with comedy (well, loosely). "Yahoo" is a common word, but they're used differently in each case, so there's no confusion.
If you ask me, this is just a cheap publicity ploy by Yahoo Serious to get his name back in the public eye, since his acting ability is incapable of doing so. The dispute is a non-issue, and will be treated as such by the courts.
...including this one from 1999. It looks remarkably similar to the one that Pause Technology is trying to concoct, except more thorough and clearly with a physical implementation in mind.
A keyboard equipped audiovisial recording and playback device is provided having an input and an output adapted for connection between a users signal source and display device, respectively, and a memory unit with a storage medium enabling random access to programming information stored therein. A keyboard responsive control circuit enables manipulation and transfer of programming information between the input, output and memory. Because of the relative high speed of the control circuitry and memory access, substantially simultaneous recording and playback of television type signals is achieved, thus enabling user controlled programming delay.
...back in 1992, the computer technology was nowhere NEAR advanced enough to allow for pausing of live TV using a PVR. The memory and disk space requirements would have been functionally impossible. So this patent, while describing a neat idea, was functionally useless until about 2-3 years ago.
While that doesn't invalidate the patent in and of itself, it does make me wonder what the "inventor" intended to do with this idea. How can you invent something that can't be built?
A broadcast recording and playback device employing a "circular buffer" which constantly records one or more incoming audio or video program signals and a microprocessor for accessing the memory to read a playback signal from the circular buffer to display programming material delayed from its receipt by a selectable delay interval. The circular buffer is implemented by a digital memory.
Doesn't that describe a very common and straightforward buffer, such as the kind that have been employed in portable CD players for years now?
...of letting commercial interests take over a part of your computer network, I would like to know a few things:
- Are the computers counting how many times the ads are viewed? Wouldn't this constitute a privacy violation on their part?
- Are the ads going to be "click-through" to Internet sites, like the ones used in Bezerk's games? If so, wouldn't the university be concerned about the productivity lost?
- How do they plan to keep the software installed? Unless these are highly-public, short-term use terminals (i.e. email checking between classes) it will just be a matter of time before some clever employee or student removes the annoyance, permissions or no.
- If they've got all this space to spare, surely they'd be better off developing some SETI@Home-like software and using it for research. Is this really the best use of their computing resources, to bring more advertising to the campus?
Apple has something like 5% market saturation. The widespread use of USB means that peripheral makers can FINALLY make the same mouse, keyboard or what have you for Macs and PCs without Mac users getting all irate. FireWire has the same ambitions, and while it has a little ways to go, the growing popularity of 1394-enabled digital video cameras bodes VERY well for this interface. That's really what it was meant to accomplish; hard drive connectivity is an added bonus.
And now competitors are looking to release USB 2.0. If, and that's still an IF, other manufacturers decide to move to it, then Apple stands to lose royalties from FireWire. But if they do, it makes sense for Apple to already have it installed on their popular machines. It makes the Mac more marketable, because they can say it will connect with any USB 2.0 peripherals no matter when they arrive. If PCs have these additional ports and Apple doesn't, it's one more strike against the Mac market.
Yes, Apple will lose royalties from FireWire if developers move to it. But do you seriously think that Apple refusing to support USB 2.0 will stop developers from wanting it? "Oh no, a tiny sliver of the peripheral-buying public won't be able to use our stuff! Whatever shall we do?" Exactly what they usually do, which is not care about Apple users one way or the other.
FireWire has a huge head start on USB 2.0, especially in the digi-vidicam market. And while that doesn't guarantee anything, it does mean that USB has to promise a lot more to beat it out. Meanwhile, Apple stands to lose more in lost hardware sales by NOT supporting USB 2.0 than it stands to gain in royalties. Economically, it's a sound and sensible move.
I believe it's not that IIS has more exploits, but that IIS users aren't as vigilant about patching their exploits.
Think about it. Microsoft's entire appeal is based on ease-of-use; zero administration, wizards, automatically opening your attachments, and so on and so forth. This philosophy sells their servers and server software as well. So people who are used to MS products think they can set up a server, turn it on, and pretty much forget about it.
The MCSE graduates know better, of course, but they're so expensive to hire. Meanwhile, Linux and *nix in general almost always require a degree of problem-solving ability in order to set them up and get them working. This is part of the reason why they have a smaller market share. However, it also means that most people who take the time to install *nix and get it working on a network (not all, but most) are also going to be vigilant about keeping things patched and secure.
Maybe that's the nature of it, maybe not. But I'm convinced that there's something in the culture of *nix that drives its adopters to keep things patched, updated and secure, while the culture of MS users is to buy it, install it and let it do your work for you.
Will I soon be prohibited from posting anti-MS information on sites that use IIS? How about Web servers that use Windows? If they can put this into a license legally, can they also prevent me from using IE to post anti-MS speech or Outlook to e-mail it?
No, seriously, The clause for those actions wouldn't have to be much different from this one, if you read how it's written.
Verily, the PC is developing into an organism in its own right. How long until hackers develop the first "immunodeficiency", anti-LaBrea attacks, I wonder?
For all these "alternative" construction toys, nothing has ever beat LEGO. I don't think that it's necessarily because LEGO has a head-start, although that's sure an advantage for them. No, I think LEGO has the simplicity factor nailed down better than anyone else.
I mean, come on. BRICKS. How much simpler can you get than a plain rectangular prism, except for the alphabet cubes everyone gets as babies? You stack them, they get taller, and its easy to visualize how several of them combine. Right angles and multiple planes and voila, you have a house. A little more creativity, and you have a car or a plane. And so on.
The sets get more "multidimensional" as you progress, but that's the beauty of LEGO. They can stay simple or get increasingly complicated depending on your preferences. At one end, you have Duplo bricks; at the other, Technic Star Wars droids that you can program with MindStorms. LEGO is only as complicated as you want.
Every other type of construction set, however, seems to promote flexibility at the expense of simplicity. Sure I can use these two pieces to build (supposedly) anything I want, but I can't really visualize how that's supposed to work. And I'm a grown adult with a talent for abstract visualization; how's a child supposed to accomplish it? Once you've built everything in the booklet you're given, you're left to your own imagination, and with these pieces I don't have any.
I'm convinced that many of these "alternate" construction sets are purchased by teenagers and adults, people who like construction and who want to "wow" their friends and family with elaborate creations. They're supposed to be sold to children, but they don't have the visualization skills to make a dinosaur or a Formula-1 racecar with them. All they really want, upon opening the package, is to be able to build a house.
Sources from the CIA and various government officials have come out and point blank stated that they have a severe lack of spies out there to actually infiltrate these terrorist cells...
The CIA and various government officials are directly responsible for bin Laden (vs. USSR) and Saddam Hussein (vs. Iran) being where they are today. You'll pardon me if I say it sounds like they're passing the buck.
Their best selling point, no doubt, considering that the multifunctionality of the PS2 and XBox drive up their costs to $300 and $400-500, respectively. Nintendo is still making great games, but they're clearly targetting families with tighter budgets instead of hard-core gamers who spend all their disposable income on hardware.
Good for them. MS and Sony seem to be ignoring the "family" audience in favor of high-income gamers, and Nintendo stands to make a lot of money by continuing to focus on them.
Because the world hasn't stopped turning, that's why. And cold though it sounds, even the deaths of thousands can't completely halt the lives of millions.
My wife uses our Mac at home. She clutters her desktop with icons, rarely empties the trash can unless I tell her it's essential, and (like the article says) never looks for more than one way to do a task, once she's found a way that works.
My office email is filled with people mailing MS Word documents to me for Web-related projects. Often there's nothing in these documents but plain text and some bolded topic headlines. If I try to convert them to HTML to make my job easier, it doesn't work, because MS litters Word-generated HTML with styles and nonstandard tags that only IE5 can understand, all to make the Web page look as much like the Word doc as possible.
Friends use instant messenging to send me short, two-sentence "hi"s throughout the day. Half of them use brightly-colored backgrounds, harshly-contrasting text colors, and hard-to-read fonts because they look cool to them. They rarely use good spelling or punctuation to make sentences easier to read. "KISS" is a slogan that has never occurred to them. They probably never empty their desktop trash, either.
All these people have something in common: they don't think like a computer. It doesn't occur to them that searching for data is easier if everything is in plain text, or that organizing your files into directories makes them easier to archive and find later, or that removing all the pretty colors and fonts and complicated layouts would make it easier for others to read what they've written. They're just here to have fun.
They're the reason for XP's Luna and MacOS's Aqua. Pretty colors and gradients don't help anyone get the job done, but it makes the computer more "friendly" and less computer-like.
Meanwhile, I send all my IM's in high-contrast colors and sans-serif fonts. I email plain text whenever possible and RTF whenever it's not. I organize my files pathologically so that I don't have to throw old things away to find new things. And my desktop background picture is only two colors: medium blue and navy, so it doesn't distract or take half a minute to redraw whenever I minimize my browser.
Because I do think like a computer. I like plain, readable text; I solve problems logically; and (unfortunately) I have a "stateless" memory which loses track of one thing as soon as it starts another. Keeping everything in neat lines and plainly-marked boxes is the only way for me to get any work done.
But if I didn't spend 8-12 hours a day in front of a computer screen, I probably wouldn't know that. I'd probably prefer the pretty colors and chaotic fonts, too.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with iPod is that you need to buy an Apple PC to go with it.
True, and no doubt Apple knows this is a downer. This and the price makes it obvious they're currently selling the iPod as a Mac peripheral, rather than a general-purpose MP3 player.
However, I expect Apple will: (1) bring down the price on the device after a few months, (2) develop and/or partner for non-Apple compatability for the device. If people like it, no doubt third-party attachments for non-FireWire computers will become available. The FireWire is one of the best features about the iPod, though, so I don't expect that to ever go away.
Just my thoughts. Sony sells all their portables with Memory Stick compatability; Apple sells for Mac compatability; Microsoft sells for Windows compatability. It's normal for the industry to at least *start* with closed compatability and open it as time goes on. Smaller companies benefit from open technologies, like MP3 CDs, because they don't have to develop as much.
But as has been said, Apple is profitable *because* they target a niche audience, and the only reason to complain that they're focusing on that niche is if you aren't yet part of it. So I'd expect the iPod price drop and wider compatability to arrive at about the same time. Best thing you ("you" meaning "all Slashdot's readers") can do to hasten that process: WRITE APPLE AND TELL THEM YOU WANT LINUX COMPATABILITY. It's got to be easier than Microsoft compatability, right?
According to a first look at the iPod, it's got a Breakout-style game included as an easter egg. No doubt the ROM is fully programmable, and I expect it to be only a couple of months before programmers have hacked the device to play other games as well, or (which would be very cool) read games from a special file on the hard disk.
It's not unethical to optimize your hardware for a particular piece of software.
It is unethical to then use that software for a competitive benchmark, without telling anyone you've done the optimizing.
The first is an example of giving your customers what they want. The second is an example of manipulating independent reviews to give misleading data.
Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit
Considering that it's got far more memory than your average 128MB MP3 portable, and that it's clearly smaller and more portable than a Nomad, I think this is a hasty judgement.
which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners
PCs have access to FireWire, as does Linux. The direct connection to iTunes is the only Mac-only feature that I can see; I should hope Apple will be smart enough to enable compatability with PCs, or if not, develop a Windows version of iTunes to do the same job.
but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product.
It has a six-line LCD display, backlit, a simple four-button interface, and a circular scroll wheel to navigate your songs (which can organize by CD, artist, or your own custom playlists). You call that "virtually no UI"?
Methinks some people's "first post" ambitions are getting in the way of a decent review of the features.
The notion that "information wants to be free" is a rather interesting case study of anthropomorphism gone horribly wrong. Information doesn't want anything. Truth, the facts, raw data, none of them want anything. They're just sentences, numbers, claims, opinions, ideas. Unless you're willing to extend the definition of a meme to the extreme, they're hardly capable of even Darwinian ambition.
But people often want information -- want it to be free, or secure, or copyrighted, or burned, or locked away for the greater good. People want the latest news, the biased studies, the most accurate statistics. They want each other's secrets, their inventions, their inspirations, their dirty laundry . They want to be the first in the know, the winner in the argument, the smartest in the class. They want to be told what to think, to make others think like themselves, and to be the first with a new idea.
People in the Western world are conditioned to believe that with a little applied brain power, they can be anything they want. So they insist that information should be free, despite omnipresent evidence to the contrary. They ignore the fact that library books cost ten cents per day late, that a reliable Internet connection costs fifteen dollars a month, and that university tuition costs four thousand dollars a year.
Knowledge is power. The right kind of information is all that's needed to upend governments, bankrupt companies, exile citizens, and execute prisoners. It can turn a housewife into a millionaire, a CEO into an inmate, and a celebrity into a punch line. A poor man will kill for money, but a rich man will kill for secrecy. The patent office is filled with millions upon millions of facts which are worth anywhere from pennies to princedoms to the right people.
Information doesn't want to be anything. Information just is, which makes it an asset, which makes it vulnerable to the economic laws of supply and demand. So if your information is about Linux, it's probably worth nothing at all, save your reputation as a programmer. But if your information is about, say, Microsoft Office... in that case, it's worth whatever Bill Gates can get you to pay.
This problem discussed in the article is better solved by the type of licensing model Microsoft plans to adopt: subscription software. That way, you always have the latest, least buggy version of the software you use without having to shell out for a new copy, and the corporation that writes the software is motivated to eliminate bugs, rather than leave them in so they can sell you the new version.
On the other hand, just because you're entitled to the latest version of software doesn't mean your hardware will run it. You may buy a five-year subscription to Microsoft's Windows OS, but if your hardware three years down the road won't run it and Microsoft won't budge on compatability, you're still out of money. And worse yet, Microsoft now has even less reason to support old versions of its software. "We're giving you the latest version for your low, low subscription price! Take it or leave it."
This way, you have all the advantages of open source, yet you can take comfort in the fact that your software is written by professionals.
If I'm not mistaken, the majority of open source software out there is written by professionals. They're just not getting paid to write it.
This year's Nobel Laureates have succeeded
More like "had succeeded", really -- the condensate was achieved in 1995. Nobel prizes are usually bestowed several years after the achievement itself in order to give plenty of time for independent verification and to demonstrate relevance to the greater body of research and knowledge.
Apple Computer and Apple Vacations. They both use the same identifier, there's a potential trademark violation. Except there isn't, because one is "Computer" and is associated with hardware and software, while the other is "Vacations" and is associated with the travel industry. Easy to tell them apart. This is how trademark disputes using common words are dealt with.
Yahoo! (with the exclamation mark, which they have always used even if their users don't) is associated with a Web portal, and has been for years, while Yahoo Serious (with the last name) has always been associated with comedy (well, loosely). "Yahoo" is a common word, but they're used differently in each case, so there's no confusion.
If you ask me, this is just a cheap publicity ploy by Yahoo Serious to get his name back in the public eye, since his acting ability is incapable of doing so. The dispute is a non-issue, and will be treated as such by the courts.
...including this one from 1999. It looks remarkably similar to the one that Pause Technology is trying to concoct, except more thorough and clearly with a physical implementation in mind.
Simultaneous recording and playback apparatus
Abstract...back in 1992, the computer technology was nowhere NEAR advanced enough to allow for pausing of live TV using a PVR. The memory and disk space requirements would have been functionally impossible. So this patent, while describing a neat idea, was functionally useless until about 2-3 years ago.
While that doesn't invalidate the patent in and of itself, it does make me wonder what the "inventor" intended to do with this idea. How can you invent something that can't be built?
Doesn't that describe a very common and straightforward buffer, such as the kind that have been employed in portable CD players for years now?
...of letting commercial interests take over a part of your computer network, I would like to know a few things:
- Are the computers counting how many times the ads are viewed? Wouldn't this constitute a privacy violation on their part?
- Are the ads going to be "click-through" to Internet sites, like the ones used in Bezerk's games? If so, wouldn't the university be concerned about the productivity lost?
- How do they plan to keep the software installed? Unless these are highly-public, short-term use terminals (i.e. email checking between classes) it will just be a matter of time before some clever employee or student removes the annoyance, permissions or no.
- If they've got all this space to spare, surely they'd be better off developing some SETI@Home-like software and using it for research. Is this really the best use of their computing resources, to bring more advertising to the campus?
Apple has something like 5% market saturation. The widespread use of USB means that peripheral makers can FINALLY make the same mouse, keyboard or what have you for Macs and PCs without Mac users getting all irate. FireWire has the same ambitions, and while it has a little ways to go, the growing popularity of 1394-enabled digital video cameras bodes VERY well for this interface. That's really what it was meant to accomplish; hard drive connectivity is an added bonus.
And now competitors are looking to release USB 2.0. If, and that's still an IF, other manufacturers decide to move to it, then Apple stands to lose royalties from FireWire. But if they do, it makes sense for Apple to already have it installed on their popular machines. It makes the Mac more marketable, because they can say it will connect with any USB 2.0 peripherals no matter when they arrive. If PCs have these additional ports and Apple doesn't, it's one more strike against the Mac market.
Yes, Apple will lose royalties from FireWire if developers move to it. But do you seriously think that Apple refusing to support USB 2.0 will stop developers from wanting it? "Oh no, a tiny sliver of the peripheral-buying public won't be able to use our stuff! Whatever shall we do?" Exactly what they usually do, which is not care about Apple users one way or the other.
FireWire has a huge head start on USB 2.0, especially in the digi-vidicam market. And while that doesn't guarantee anything, it does mean that USB has to promise a lot more to beat it out. Meanwhile, Apple stands to lose more in lost hardware sales by NOT supporting USB 2.0 than it stands to gain in royalties. Economically, it's a sound and sensible move.
Are Slashdotters really so astonished that Windows XP would sell *at all* that this needed posting?
I believe it's not that IIS has more exploits, but that IIS users aren't as vigilant about patching their exploits.
Think about it. Microsoft's entire appeal is based on ease-of-use; zero administration, wizards, automatically opening your attachments, and so on and so forth. This philosophy sells their servers and server software as well. So people who are used to MS products think they can set up a server, turn it on, and pretty much forget about it.
The MCSE graduates know better, of course, but they're so expensive to hire. Meanwhile, Linux and *nix in general almost always require a degree of problem-solving ability in order to set them up and get them working. This is part of the reason why they have a smaller market share. However, it also means that most people who take the time to install *nix and get it working on a network (not all, but most) are also going to be vigilant about keeping things patched and secure.
Maybe that's the nature of it, maybe not. But I'm convinced that there's something in the culture of *nix that drives its adopters to keep things patched, updated and secure, while the culture of MS users is to buy it, install it and let it do your work for you.
1. You may not disparage Microsoft or any of its products in your use of Microsoft product box shots.
If you use any of the Character Animation Data and Image Files, you agree to...not use the Character Animation Data and Image Files to disparage Microsoft, its products or services or for promotional goods or for products which, in Microsoft's sole judgment, may diminish or otherwise damage Microsoft's goodwill in the SOFTWARE PRODUCT....
Will I soon be prohibited from posting anti-MS information on sites that use IIS? How about Web servers that use Windows? If they can put this into a license legally, can they also prevent me from using IE to post anti-MS speech or Outlook to e-mail it?
No, seriously, The clause for those actions wouldn't have to be much different from this one, if you read how it's written.
Verily, the PC is developing into an organism in its own right. How long until hackers develop the first "immunodeficiency", anti-LaBrea attacks, I wonder?
For all these "alternative" construction toys, nothing has ever beat LEGO. I don't think that it's necessarily because LEGO has a head-start, although that's sure an advantage for them. No, I think LEGO has the simplicity factor nailed down better than anyone else.
I mean, come on. BRICKS. How much simpler can you get than a plain rectangular prism, except for the alphabet cubes everyone gets as babies? You stack them, they get taller, and its easy to visualize how several of them combine. Right angles and multiple planes and voila, you have a house. A little more creativity, and you have a car or a plane. And so on.
The sets get more "multidimensional" as you progress, but that's the beauty of LEGO. They can stay simple or get increasingly complicated depending on your preferences. At one end, you have Duplo bricks; at the other, Technic Star Wars droids that you can program with MindStorms. LEGO is only as complicated as you want.
Every other type of construction set, however, seems to promote flexibility at the expense of simplicity. Sure I can use these two pieces to build (supposedly) anything I want, but I can't really visualize how that's supposed to work. And I'm a grown adult with a talent for abstract visualization; how's a child supposed to accomplish it? Once you've built everything in the booklet you're given, you're left to your own imagination, and with these pieces I don't have any.
I'm convinced that many of these "alternate" construction sets are purchased by teenagers and adults, people who like construction and who want to "wow" their friends and family with elaborate creations. They're supposed to be sold to children, but they don't have the visualization skills to make a dinosaur or a Formula-1 racecar with them. All they really want, upon opening the package, is to be able to build a house.
Sources from the CIA and various government officials have come out and point blank stated that they have a severe lack of spies out there to actually infiltrate these terrorist cells...
The CIA and various government officials are directly responsible for bin Laden (vs. USSR) and Saddam Hussein (vs. Iran) being where they are today. You'll pardon me if I say it sounds like they're passing the buck.
...is listed on their site here. Anyone who can translate this into plain English, please do so. IANAL.
Their best selling point, no doubt, considering that the multifunctionality of the PS2 and XBox drive up their costs to $300 and $400-500, respectively. Nintendo is still making great games, but they're clearly targetting families with tighter budgets instead of hard-core gamers who spend all their disposable income on hardware.
Good for them. MS and Sony seem to be ignoring the "family" audience in favor of high-income gamers, and Nintendo stands to make a lot of money by continuing to focus on them.
Because the world hasn't stopped turning, that's why. And cold though it sounds, even the deaths of thousands can't completely halt the lives of millions.
My wife uses our Mac at home. She clutters her desktop with icons, rarely empties the trash can unless I tell her it's essential, and (like the article says) never looks for more than one way to do a task, once she's found a way that works.
My office email is filled with people mailing MS Word documents to me for Web-related projects. Often there's nothing in these documents but plain text and some bolded topic headlines. If I try to convert them to HTML to make my job easier, it doesn't work, because MS litters Word-generated HTML with styles and nonstandard tags that only IE5 can understand, all to make the Web page look as much like the Word doc as possible.
Friends use instant messenging to send me short, two-sentence "hi"s throughout the day. Half of them use brightly-colored backgrounds, harshly-contrasting text colors, and hard-to-read fonts because they look cool to them. They rarely use good spelling or punctuation to make sentences easier to read. "KISS" is a slogan that has never occurred to them. They probably never empty their desktop trash, either.
All these people have something in common: they don't think like a computer. It doesn't occur to them that searching for data is easier if everything is in plain text, or that organizing your files into directories makes them easier to archive and find later, or that removing all the pretty colors and fonts and complicated layouts would make it easier for others to read what they've written. They're just here to have fun.
They're the reason for XP's Luna and MacOS's Aqua. Pretty colors and gradients don't help anyone get the job done, but it makes the computer more "friendly" and less computer-like.
Meanwhile, I send all my IM's in high-contrast colors and sans-serif fonts. I email plain text whenever possible and RTF whenever it's not. I organize my files pathologically so that I don't have to throw old things away to find new things. And my desktop background picture is only two colors: medium blue and navy, so it doesn't distract or take half a minute to redraw whenever I minimize my browser.
Because I do think like a computer. I like plain, readable text; I solve problems logically; and (unfortunately) I have a "stateless" memory which loses track of one thing as soon as it starts another. Keeping everything in neat lines and plainly-marked boxes is the only way for me to get any work done.
But if I didn't spend 8-12 hours a day in front of a computer screen, I probably wouldn't know that. I'd probably prefer the pretty colors and chaotic fonts, too.