Are you arguing that because the government does a poor job that it shouldn't do the job at all? The problem is that there doesn't exist someone else to actually do that job.
I understand you hold some basic Libertarian beliefs; I do too, but I also understand that even the act of scrutiny has curbed some of Microsoft's practices. I'll redirect your last statement at you:
By the way, it's worth noting the police are not required by law to protect anyone. They are merely to protect the public at large (IOW, go after people after they've raped you).
It's worth noting that the government is not required by law to protect anyone. They are merely to protect the public at large (IOW, go after corporations after they've broken the law)
That is why, for example, they don't punish Apple for acquiring an apparent monopoly in MP3 players, or Microsoft for acquiring a monopoly in OSes in the first place. It is only when they resort to extortion, something commonly seen as illegal by many people, to force Compaq to unbundle Netscape or to attempt to force IBM to stop development on OS/2, that Microsoft was targetted by the government.
The same with Intel vs AMD, it isn't until Intel engages in anticompetitive acts, aka extortion, in forcing retailers to not do business with AMD or sweetening the pot to encourage vendors to ignore AMD's products, that the government has any reason to step in. Until then it is business as usual.
Read up on history. Read up on the Sherman Antitrust Act. Read up on Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and yes, Microsoft. It isn't stupid.
Who is the government to tell microsoft that they can't dictate the terms of their licensing to companies?
Being that the government is supposedly an extension of the will of the people, the government acts to protect the people. In telling Microsoft how to act, they are actually, I dunno, trying to protect you. Yes, you may not need their protection, but by the time you do, it will be too late seeing as Microsoft ALREADY had (at the time) 90% of the desktop OS, 90%+ of the web browser market, and 90% of the office productivity market, and had already shown they were willing to take advantage of those strengths to manipulate the market.
What prevented compaq from selling their machines without an OS?
The market. If they sold their machines without an OS, it would mean their consumers would have to pay an additional $100+ for an OS on top of that, meaning their machines would minimum be $100+ more expensive than their competitors. This of course would put them at a severe disadvantage over Dell, HP, IBM, and Gateway, at the time. If this continued long enough, then Compaq would have been forced out of the market as no one would buy their systems. Come on, do you really have to ask that?
What stopped compaq from approaching Apple about clone licensing (Apple was doing that then).
The fact that Compaq had no expertise in manufacturing Motorola/IBM PCs? The fact that their core competency was in COTS IBM PCs? The fact that Apple's licensing terms may have been more difficult? The fact that Apple at the time was only a 20% market player? The fact that even then it was apparent that Apple was declining in marketshare, compared to Windows?
Just because your business can't thrive without another companies product doesn't mean you get to get the government to make the other company give you favorable licensing terms.
Agreed. However, if ALL business cannot thrive without another company's product, it does mean the government can/will/should step in. This has been demonstrated for over 100 years now. It wasn't just Compaq, it was the fact that all PC manufacturers were held hostage by Microsoft's tactics that put them in the government's sights.
Furthermore, don't you think this was damaging to the competative market as a whole. Instead of companies being forced to find new ways to compete or develop competing products, everyone basicaly caved in to microsofts demands and then got the government to make it easier on them.
The market, like the ecosystem, is resilient. The purpose of government interference is to prevent consumers from being hurt or people from being killed. Sure, the market would have survived, Apple would have carved out a niche, and Linux would have thrived, but until that happened, until the market corrected itself, Microsoft would have continued it's strong arm tactics, would have exerted continuing pressure on other companies, and ultimately hurt the market and economy before it could be corrected by the market and economy.
The concept of surgically intervening before your body has a chance to heal in order to accelerate healing means something to you, doesn't it?
Imagine what the computer landscape might look like today if compaq and IBM teamed up on OS/2 or even better if IBM jumped on the linux train much much earlier. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it wrong or illegal, and I personaly think the laws were wrong in this regard.
Of course not, however as I mentioned before, over 100 years of experience with monopolies has given the government the idea that it needs to protect itself and it's citizens from them. If you think the government shouldn't step in, then why should we have police forces to protect the weak from the strong? Why shouldn't natural law kick in? If som
Why? Unless they do it through illegal means (and threatening to not sell your product is not illegal) why shouldn't Microsoft be able to dictate terms of sale like that. Neither Dell, nor HP or Gateway were forced to not bundle or install anything else, the only reason they didn't was because they were afraid.
If you look it up, you will see as part of the proceedings that Microsoft actually threatened to withhold Windows licenses to Compaq for bundling Netscape. So in effect, Compaq was FORCED to not bundle otherwise they could not sell PCs, as at the time in 1995 there was no competing OSes for them to license.
In addition Microsoft also applied pressure to IBM because of OS/2, in a very similar manner. IBM just ate the cost difference in licensing, but it was still pretty heavy handed of Microsoft.
You seem to think this is okay, which is fine, but we actually have laws set up to protect the consumer, the country, and the marketplace against this kind of tactic. By some measures this is called extortion; it is also called anticompetitive, because Microsoft is wielding it's Windows monopoly to squash competitors in the web browser market. The laws in place are the Sherman Antitrust Act and it was drafted in 1890 because of Standard Oil.
Except it isn't the 90s, Apple's smartest executives and leaders have not left, the OS has not stood still, they have moved to faster processors, the iPod design continues to grow, Apple continues to add iPod exclusive content, and, oh yeah, they keep dropping the price of entry every generation.
Yes, the iPod will eventually pass, but I doubt it will be this year, Zune or not.
What "creative" changes? In 1995 Optimus Prime was a red-black long nose truck sporting flames.
Also if VW was unwilling to allow Bumblebee to be a New Beetle in the current Alternators toy line, why do you think they would allow him to be a New Beetle (or an old one) in the movie?
Fast enough, and fast, are two different beasts. If you can queue a 2GB movie at lunch and have the movie on the HD by dinner, isn't that much more convenient (especially if you are a stuck at home parent with two kids) than waiting (at which point you may have lost interest?)?
Also the need to queue is diminished by the fast turnaround; you watch movies as fast as you can download them. Rather than "three in hand" you have "six a week" because you watch all six.
As per the price, if you watch 4 movies one month (say $4 a movie) then that is $16 that month; if you watch nothing for the next two months, that is $0, and if you watch another 4 in the next month, that's a total of $32, much cheaper than the $18 a month. This is much more "on demand" in terms of access and pricing.
See, there is a distinction between professional (Photoshop, Office) and personal (Photoshop Elements, Appleworks) that I think you are failing to recognize.
The success of the DVD market is proof positive that consumers will accept DRM, and that DRM done properly doesn't hurt the market. After that the success of the iTMS is further proof that DRM is acceptable.
If you really hate DRM that much, you need to be fighting the current DVD industry, too.
1) You pay a monthly charge for NetFlix. If you keep a movie for weeks, you are paying for it in terms of a monthly subscription. If you wanted to do the same with an online rental, you too would have to pay for it. There is no difference there.
2) Apple will use MP4, as they already do with TV and music videos. That means for "effective" DVD quality they compress to something like 1.4Mbps instead of the more normal 7Mbps found on DVDs. A fourfold decrease in bitrate means a full DVD quality movie is only 2GB, and given their proclivity for trading usability for quality, it will probably NOT be full DVD quality, meaning it won't be 2GB in size either. They can lower the resolution as well as increase the compression. Let us say they keep movies to about 1GB in size.
So here's where NetFlix has to worry: 1) Downloads can be "faster" than mail 2) There is no need to "queue" because there is no effective limit on warehouse copies 3) A per download price can be much cheaper than a NetFlix subscription 4) A download can be portable (without risk of damage to the media) 5) There is no return 6) There is no subscription
You're partially right; evolution doesn't care, doesn't measure, doesn't predict. It only tells us why a species evolves.
The living ones dictate the future and the dead ones don't.
We can't predict anything about our future unless we can also make predictions about our environment; the two are tightly wedded in evolutionary theory. So what if we are sick? So what if we are dying? As long as we reproduce, and our kids reproduce, and so on, evolution plays it's part. The only time I think evolution will be null and void is when we can precisely predict, control, and modify our environments and by extension ourselves.
Evolution doesn't exist to "work in our favor". Evolution exists as an explanation of how our species got where it is today. If it has ever worked in our favor, it wasn't through careful observation and action. It was purely a game of numbers. As it stands, then, our very ability to save the sick and increase the population diversity "works in our favor" because if something catastrophic occurred tomorrow, our genetic diversity gives us an advantage in the odd chance that someone might survive.
So that's all it is. Increase diversity, increase the population, and increase the coverage, that's all it takes for evolution to work, and "work in our favor".
Photoshop Elements
on
Beginning GIMP
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Hmm, well, for those who think GIMP is too hard and Photoshop too expensive, there does exist an $80 version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements.
Sometimes you can get a good discount with bundles for scanners or cameras or printers, too.
I figure the GIMP isn't the only player in the "low end" space. Of course if you are dedicated to free/OSS, you can feel free to ignore PE.
When/how did I imply that choosing not to have kids is a function of stupidity, infertility, ill health, or weakness? I was only implicating that choosing not to have children is as much an evolutionary factor as being dead or infertile:)
I have also noticed that the more developed, NOT civilized, nations have lower birthrates. The US is not particularly civil, if you haven't noticed.
Anyway, what do you want me to explain? Why people choose not to have children? It's an economic choice to garner individual personal wealth. Kids are expensive, but that is exactly why they are also an evolutionary factor; only those who can afford to have kids will have kids, whether it be supported through wealth, state largess, or personal ingenuity.
I also disagree that children are an economic burden for the nation; they are only a burden for the parents. The nation dies without people, so some middle ground has to be found where children are valued but not wasted. It is, after all, why parents get tax credits and incentives to have children in the US, Japan, and many other developed (not civilized) countries.
Evolution is merely a force that adapts an organism to it's environment. Death is one of the aspects through which evolution works; so is reproduction, and ultimately life.
If everyone is sick, evolution works to favor those LESS sick, insofar as they: 1) Don't die before reproducing 2) Successfully reproduce
If the trend is that we all die sooner and have less kids, then only those kids who live long enough to have more kids will pass on their genetic traits, and that is enough for evolution to act. We, living in these times, cannot evaluate who gains from these selective forces, it can only be measured by how successful our kids and grandkids are, and that can't be measured until they exist and have kids of their own.
Finally you ask why I am confident humans will exist in 100 years? I am not, but any discussion about humans is pointless if we assume we don't exist in a hundred years:)
That people die from heart disease, obesity, and diabetes seems like proof positive that selective force is being applied. That coupled with children being born later, and people choosing not to have children, also select towards healthier, stronger, and more fertile people.
If we can continue selecting for later childbirth and healthier parents for the next hundred years, we may see some real evolution at work.
I myself use my phone rather than a dedicated mp3 player these days.... the iPod is probably a better music playing device but it's not that much better, and it's not worth it to me to carry about two devices when one + a pair of headphones is nearly as good. And the phones will only improve.
You know, iPods will improve too. They have better addressbook, calendar, and contact functionality than my Nokia cell phone right now, and at some point I imagine they will gain some kind of VoIP functionality with the addition of a headset, perhaps wireless mesh iChat/AIM communication.
I'm glad you think like this. Microsoft is the white elephant in the room here, isn't it?
We have plenty of examples of coupling, like Windows and PCs, Office and Windows, and IE and Windows.
Are we going to ask Microsoft to write Windows for Macs (it only requires EFI for 32bit PCs), Office for Linux (much harder) and IE for Linux and Mac in order to divorce the Windows-PC, IE-Windows, and Office-Windows connections?
How about the fact that published papers have shown, since at least 1996, that ultrasound can accelerate bone growth.
If it can accelerate bone growth, it seems a logical enough step for someone to experiement with teeth, and given that it's been ten years since bone growth was seen, why is teeth/jaw regeneration so hard to believe?
Or is it just because you haven't heard of it, it can't be real?
Did you also know that light acts simultaneously as both a particle and a wave, depending on how you examine it?
You are certainly intelligent, I am not questioning that, but I think we are arguing flip sides of the same coin. I say competition is vital and cooperation is necessary and you say cooperation is vital and competition is necessary. You will find both. The prisoner's dilemna is a classic game in which cooperation is the best strategy, while many "stock market games" show that competition is a vital component in quickly finding optimal solutions.
In other words, if we have two teams playing a prisoner's dilemna game, the competition between the teams for the same reward will drive them faster towards the cooperation model than individual isolated teams without competition.
I'm sorry, I should have explained my point when I posted. Your view, I believe, is too extreme, and I offered a corresponding extreme that I do not actually believe. I think a nice middle ground is actually reality, and that both points of view are expressed by that middle ground.
1) How do our cells compete to distribute resources? An interesting essay proposes that cells use competition as a means to determine which functions, which organs, which tissues, and what features are developed. Otherwise we would be a blob of millions of identical undifferentiated cells with identical genes. Or a cancer, if you like. Certain cells, like bone, need calcium more than certain cells need lipids, like fat, or protien, like muscles. This competition for resources would allow different cells to develop differently, in a way reducing competition by specializing into different cells with different requirements, with the end results that you have a heart and bones and blood and fat and muscle.
2) Why do cells die when told to?
Some forms of cell death are critical to development of features such as fingers, in which the spaces between fingers die and fall away. It is a form of survival enhancement in the same way kin selection selects for altruistic behavior. A creature born with a functional heart, because certain nerves and muscles and fats died when told to, survived while a creature born without a functional heart died.
3) Cells that only compete have a name: cancer
That is entirely too simplistic. Cancer is many things, not only competing. Cancer cells have to cooperate to create the necessary environment necessary for cancer growth, such as the development of additional blood vessels, supports, and metastasizing. Cancer cells are like normal cells, but more so:)
4) One flora or fauna overwhelming the rest is the end result of competition, not cooperation!
The fact is that when there is multiple flora or fauna competing, no single flora or fauna can overwhelm the system because they keep each other in check. If they did not keep each other in check, if they did not compete but instead gave up, then you get gastrointestinal infections and other diseases. As long as there is competition no one can overwhelm, by the very definition of competition.
5) People are not intrinisically motivated by competition.
So if I can offer proof of one individual intrinisically motivated by competition, your assertion is proven wrong. Here is my proof, and I use me, because I am a person and I am motivated by competition. I like knowing I am smarter, I like knowing I am right, and this is my reward for posting on Slashdot, in which moderators might see my brilliance and mod me up for other people to see my posts and read my words. I compete with other Slashdot posters for moderation points.
6) There is no proof that competition motivates people to greater heights. There is no proof that in a cooperative environment people would get barely enough to survive. Rather than addressing my legitimate points, you are just making shit up.
Again I apologize, I should have made it more clear I was being facetious, sarcastic, and mocking. My real point is lost in the noise, I was trying to point out that competition and cooperation both are needed. Cooperation is a valid survival and success strategy. Two people together may survive where two people competing might not. However two people competing may achieve more than two people cooperating because the reward and competition incites more out of the people. I think we need both.
I was never trying to invalidate you, merely show you as being hyperbolic. Cooperation is necessary. So is competition.
You ask a serious question: "Why do corporations never use internal competition between divisions"? My answer, "Because cooperation is the more successful strategy in
Life is not just cooperation, either. Our ability to compete gives us an edge over animals that don't. Your cells competition to distribute resources is a prime example, as is the whole ecosystem of competing creatures you have living in and on you, and without whom you would be suffering from dangerous infections and imbalances as one flora or fauna overwhelm the entire system.
Competition is an efficent way to distribute resources. People who need more will work harder to get more. With competition in effect, people are motivated to greater heights and start coming up with new ideas and solutions that might not arise in a purely cooperative environment in which everyone gets barely enough to satisfy everyone.
Competition ensures redundancy. Without redundancy and variation, entire industries are held hostage to simple catastrophic failures that cannot happen in a diverse and competitive environment. Find me one example of a large and successful corporation that is run externally on cooperation rather than competition. Corporations know that competition is the only viable strategy, because they have never been able to succeed if they cooperate with their competitors.
In short, cooperation is not enough and is not what nature is based on, and it is not a good model for effectiveness in human society.
My take: Nature developed evolution, which itself is a pure form of competition for resources, mates, and life. Evolution relies on massive redundancy and variation to succeed, and in that model a corporation that is redundant, competitive, and diverse will have more success than a corporation that is too efficient, too cooperative, and not diverse. All it takes is for one person to get sick, and that corporation stops working because there is no redundancy, all it takes is for one process to fail, and that corporation fails because there are no alternatives, and all it takes is for one person to make a mistake because there is no competition to weed out bad ideas or mistakes before it bites the company.
If evolution favors individual survival, then the existence of individuals who have no survival value except to ensure other, related, individuals survive and reproduce will still be selected for.
In other words evolution has selected individuals who "take one for the team" if it means: 1) The team survives 2) The team contains the same genetics as the individual who "took one for the team" 3) The success of the team with such altruistic individuals is many times greater than any single individual going it alone or other teams lacking altruistic individuals
Easy example: I'm walking with my niece and nephew, and a car comes along. I push them out of the way, at the expensive of my mobility and reproduction. Evolution favors this behavior because my niece and nephew have a far higher survival rate than a similar niece and nephew down the street who's uncle would not push them out of the way. The niece and nephew in turn would probabilistically contain the same genes as I have, and would rescue their own nieces and nephews, and so on and so on, until there are more altruistic individuals than selfish individuals because the selfish individuals have less family and less offspring as well as relatives.
In the last twenty years, the real wages for college educated US workers have barely kept up with inflation.
Except that is not capitalism. College educations provided by the state is a type of socialism. Wages, especially minimum wages and the inflation that inflicts upon the rest of the wages, is another type of socialism. Inflation is another beast entirely, an effect of economics and technology as well as interest and growth.
Outside the US, the situation is even worse in the majority of cases in those countries that have followed the so-called free market solutions to economic and social problems.
Well, if the problem is higher wages, the solution is not capitalism, socialism, or any other kind of dogma. Wages and income are a function of value and productivity, which themselves are products of science, technology, ingenuity, and research, among other things. Capitalism is the solution for a totally different problem. Capitalism is about competition, profit, and growth, and towards that end it has succeeded.
Meanwhile, as the majority hang out to dry, the profits for those involved in capitalism proper, eg capital instensive ventures, have doubled dozens of times over.
As they should, because that is how capitalism works. If you want people to earn more, they need to engage in capitalism; given their resources, offer a service or good worth many times the raw resources, at a price that the market will bear, and prosper (or fail).
The only lesson capitalism seems to offer is that under a capitalist system, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How long does it take this guy to get that lesson?
No, the only lesson capitalism offers is that under a capitalist system, only capitalists get rich, while everyone else will coast along on the engine of growth generated by the capitalist. The capitalist increases profit by increasing efficiency and reducing waste, and paying people is technically a waste if it is unnecessary. That is why you see wages stagnating.
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Are you arguing that because the government does a poor job that it shouldn't do the job at all? The problem is that there doesn't exist someone else to actually do that job.
I understand you hold some basic Libertarian beliefs; I do too, but I also understand that even the act of scrutiny has curbed some of Microsoft's practices. I'll redirect your last statement at you:
By the way, it's worth noting the police are not required by law to protect anyone. They are merely to protect the public at large (IOW, go after people after they've raped you).
It's worth noting that the government is not required by law to protect anyone. They are merely to protect the public at large (IOW, go after corporations after they've broken the law)
That is why, for example, they don't punish Apple for acquiring an apparent monopoly in MP3 players, or Microsoft for acquiring a monopoly in OSes in the first place. It is only when they resort to extortion, something commonly seen as illegal by many people, to force Compaq to unbundle Netscape or to attempt to force IBM to stop development on OS/2, that Microsoft was targetted by the government.
The same with Intel vs AMD, it isn't until Intel engages in anticompetitive acts, aka extortion, in forcing retailers to not do business with AMD or sweetening the pot to encourage vendors to ignore AMD's products, that the government has any reason to step in. Until then it is business as usual.
And personaly I find it stupid.
Read up on history. Read up on the Sherman Antitrust Act. Read up on Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and yes, Microsoft. It isn't stupid.
Who is the government to tell microsoft that they can't dictate the terms of their licensing to companies?
Being that the government is supposedly an extension of the will of the people, the government acts to protect the people. In telling Microsoft how to act, they are actually, I dunno, trying to protect you. Yes, you may not need their protection, but by the time you do, it will be too late seeing as Microsoft ALREADY had (at the time) 90% of the desktop OS, 90%+ of the web browser market, and 90% of the office productivity market, and had already shown they were willing to take advantage of those strengths to manipulate the market.
What prevented compaq from selling their machines without an OS?
The market. If they sold their machines without an OS, it would mean their consumers would have to pay an additional $100+ for an OS on top of that, meaning their machines would minimum be $100+ more expensive than their competitors. This of course would put them at a severe disadvantage over Dell, HP, IBM, and Gateway, at the time. If this continued long enough, then Compaq would have been forced out of the market as no one would buy their systems. Come on, do you really have to ask that?
What stopped compaq from approaching Apple about clone licensing (Apple was doing that then).
The fact that Compaq had no expertise in manufacturing Motorola/IBM PCs? The fact that their core competency was in COTS IBM PCs? The fact that Apple's licensing terms may have been more difficult? The fact that Apple at the time was only a 20% market player? The fact that even then it was apparent that Apple was declining in marketshare, compared to Windows?
Just because your business can't thrive without another companies product doesn't mean you get to get the government to make the other company give you favorable licensing terms.
Agreed. However, if ALL business cannot thrive without another company's product, it does mean the government can/will/should step in. This has been demonstrated for over 100 years now. It wasn't just Compaq, it was the fact that all PC manufacturers were held hostage by Microsoft's tactics that put them in the government's sights.
Furthermore, don't you think this was damaging to the competative market as a whole. Instead of companies being forced to find new ways to compete or develop competing products, everyone basicaly caved in to microsofts demands and then got the government to make it easier on them.
The market, like the ecosystem, is resilient. The purpose of government interference is to prevent consumers from being hurt or people from being killed. Sure, the market would have survived, Apple would have carved out a niche, and Linux would have thrived, but until that happened, until the market corrected itself, Microsoft would have continued it's strong arm tactics, would have exerted continuing pressure on other companies, and ultimately hurt the market and economy before it could be corrected by the market and economy.
The concept of surgically intervening before your body has a chance to heal in order to accelerate healing means something to you, doesn't it?
Imagine what the computer landscape might look like today if compaq and IBM teamed up on OS/2 or even better if IBM jumped on the linux train much much earlier. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it wrong or illegal, and I personaly think the laws were wrong in this regard.
Of course not, however as I mentioned before, over 100 years of experience with monopolies has given the government the idea that it needs to protect itself and it's citizens from them. If you think the government shouldn't step in, then why should we have police forces to protect the weak from the strong? Why shouldn't natural law kick in? If som
As well as IBM.
Why? Unless they do it through illegal means (and threatening to not sell your product is not illegal) why shouldn't Microsoft be able to dictate terms of sale like that. Neither Dell, nor HP or Gateway were forced to not bundle or install anything else, the only reason they didn't was because they were afraid.
If you look it up, you will see as part of the proceedings that Microsoft actually threatened to withhold Windows licenses to Compaq for bundling Netscape. So in effect, Compaq was FORCED to not bundle otherwise they could not sell PCs, as at the time in 1995 there was no competing OSes for them to license.
In addition Microsoft also applied pressure to IBM because of OS/2, in a very similar manner. IBM just ate the cost difference in licensing, but it was still pretty heavy handed of Microsoft.
You seem to think this is okay, which is fine, but we actually have laws set up to protect the consumer, the country, and the marketplace against this kind of tactic. By some measures this is called extortion; it is also called anticompetitive, because Microsoft is wielding it's Windows monopoly to squash competitors in the web browser market. The laws in place are the Sherman Antitrust Act and it was drafted in 1890 because of Standard Oil.
Except it isn't the 90s, Apple's smartest executives and leaders have not left, the OS has not stood still, they have moved to faster processors, the iPod design continues to grow, Apple continues to add iPod exclusive content, and, oh yeah, they keep dropping the price of entry every generation.
Yes, the iPod will eventually pass, but I doubt it will be this year, Zune or not.
What "creative" changes? In 1995 Optimus Prime was a red-black long nose truck sporting flames.
Also if VW was unwilling to allow Bumblebee to be a New Beetle in the current Alternators toy line, why do you think they would allow him to be a New Beetle (or an old one) in the movie?
Compare the set photos to the 1995 Laser Optimus Prime. I wonder if the robot mode will look the same too?
11 years ago Optimus Prime was a long nosed truck.
In fact, black with red flames.
The toy was actually pretty good.
I wonder if the robot looks the same too.
Lacking desktop wise? What, running Windows in OS X, or Windows on a Mac isn't enough for you?
I mean, you already grok virtualization. With a Mac you can run Mac OS X, Windows AND Linux at the same time, and in a portable 5 pound laptop.
Fast enough, and fast, are two different beasts. If you can queue a 2GB movie at lunch and have the movie on the HD by dinner, isn't that much more convenient (especially if you are a stuck at home parent with two kids) than waiting (at which point you may have lost interest?)?
Also the need to queue is diminished by the fast turnaround; you watch movies as fast as you can download them. Rather than "three in hand" you have "six a week" because you watch all six.
As per the price, if you watch 4 movies one month (say $4 a movie) then that is $16 that month; if you watch nothing for the next two months, that is $0, and if you watch another 4 in the next month, that's a total of $32, much cheaper than the $18 a month. This is much more "on demand" in terms of access and pricing.
We'll see. This could all be rumors, right?
Appleworks, actually.
:)
See, there is a distinction between professional (Photoshop, Office) and personal (Photoshop Elements, Appleworks) that I think you are failing to recognize.
One is cheaper
The success of the DVD market is proof positive that consumers will accept DRM, and that DRM done properly doesn't hurt the market.
After that the success of the iTMS is further proof that DRM is acceptable.
If you really hate DRM that much, you need to be fighting the current DVD industry, too.
1) You pay a monthly charge for NetFlix. If you keep a movie for weeks, you are paying for it in terms of a monthly subscription. If you wanted to do the same with an online rental, you too would have to pay for it. There is no difference there.
2) Apple will use MP4, as they already do with TV and music videos. That means for "effective" DVD quality they compress to something like 1.4Mbps instead of the more normal 7Mbps found on DVDs. A fourfold decrease in bitrate means a full DVD quality movie is only 2GB, and given their proclivity for trading usability for quality, it will probably NOT be full DVD quality, meaning it won't be 2GB in size either. They can lower the resolution as well as increase the compression. Let us say they keep movies to about 1GB in size.
So here's where NetFlix has to worry:
1) Downloads can be "faster" than mail
2) There is no need to "queue" because there is no effective limit on warehouse copies
3) A per download price can be much cheaper than a NetFlix subscription
4) A download can be portable (without risk of damage to the media)
5) There is no return
6) There is no subscription
You're partially right; evolution doesn't care, doesn't measure, doesn't predict. It only tells us why a species evolves.
The living ones dictate the future and the dead ones don't.
We can't predict anything about our future unless we can also make predictions about our environment; the two are tightly wedded in evolutionary theory. So what if we are sick? So what if we are dying? As long as we reproduce, and our kids reproduce, and so on, evolution plays it's part. The only time I think evolution will be null and void is when we can precisely predict, control, and modify our environments and by extension ourselves.
Evolution doesn't exist to "work in our favor". Evolution exists as an explanation of how our species got where it is today. If it has ever worked in our favor, it wasn't through careful observation and action. It was purely a game of numbers. As it stands, then, our very ability to save the sick and increase the population diversity "works in our favor" because if something catastrophic occurred tomorrow, our genetic diversity gives us an advantage in the odd chance that someone might survive.
So that's all it is. Increase diversity, increase the population, and increase the coverage, that's all it takes for evolution to work, and "work in our favor".
Hmm, well, for those who think GIMP is too hard and Photoshop too expensive, there does exist an $80 version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements.
Sometimes you can get a good discount with bundles for scanners or cameras or printers, too.
I figure the GIMP isn't the only player in the "low end" space. Of course if you are dedicated to free/OSS, you can feel free to ignore PE.
When/how did I imply that choosing not to have kids is a function of stupidity, infertility, ill health, or weakness? I was only implicating that choosing not to have children is as much an evolutionary factor as being dead or infertile :)
I have also noticed that the more developed, NOT civilized, nations have lower birthrates. The US is not particularly civil, if you haven't noticed.
Anyway, what do you want me to explain? Why people choose not to have children? It's an economic choice to garner individual personal wealth. Kids are expensive, but that is exactly why they are also an evolutionary factor; only those who can afford to have kids will have kids, whether it be supported through wealth, state largess, or personal ingenuity.
I also disagree that children are an economic burden for the nation; they are only a burden for the parents. The nation dies without people, so some middle ground has to be found where children are valued but not wasted. It is, after all, why parents get tax credits and incentives to have children in the US, Japan, and many other developed (not civilized) countries.
Evolution is merely a force that adapts an organism to it's environment. Death is one of the aspects through which evolution works; so is reproduction, and ultimately life.
:)
If everyone is sick, evolution works to favor those LESS sick, insofar as they:
1) Don't die before reproducing
2) Successfully reproduce
If the trend is that we all die sooner and have less kids, then only those kids who live long enough to have more kids will pass on their genetic traits, and that is enough for evolution to act. We, living in these times, cannot evaluate who gains from these selective forces, it can only be measured by how successful our kids and grandkids are, and that can't be measured until they exist and have kids of their own.
Finally you ask why I am confident humans will exist in 100 years? I am not, but any discussion about humans is pointless if we assume we don't exist in a hundred years
That people die from heart disease, obesity, and diabetes seems like proof positive that selective force is being applied. That coupled with children being born later, and people choosing not to have children, also select towards healthier, stronger, and more fertile people.
If we can continue selecting for later childbirth and healthier parents for the next hundred years, we may see some real evolution at work.
You know, iPods will improve too. They have better addressbook, calendar, and contact functionality than my Nokia cell phone right now, and at some point I imagine they will gain some kind of VoIP functionality with the addition of a headset, perhaps wireless mesh iChat/AIM communication.
I'm glad you think like this. Microsoft is the white elephant in the room here, isn't it?
We have plenty of examples of coupling, like Windows and PCs, Office and Windows, and IE and Windows.
Are we going to ask Microsoft to write Windows for Macs (it only requires EFI for 32bit PCs), Office for Linux (much harder) and IE for Linux and Mac in order to divorce the Windows-PC, IE-Windows, and Office-Windows connections?
I mean, it is fair, too, right?
How about the fact that published papers have shown, since at least 1996, that ultrasound can accelerate bone growth.
If it can accelerate bone growth, it seems a logical enough step for someone to experiement with teeth, and given that it's been ten years since bone growth was seen, why is teeth/jaw regeneration so hard to believe?
Or is it just because you haven't heard of it, it can't be real?
Did you also know that light acts simultaneously as both a particle and a wave, depending on how you examine it?
You are certainly intelligent, I am not questioning that, but I think we are arguing flip sides of the same coin. I say competition is vital and cooperation is necessary and you say cooperation is vital and competition is necessary. You will find both. The prisoner's dilemna is a classic game in which cooperation is the best strategy, while many "stock market games" show that competition is a vital component in quickly finding optimal solutions.
In other words, if we have two teams playing a prisoner's dilemna game, the competition between the teams for the same reward will drive them faster towards the cooperation model than individual isolated teams without competition.
I'm sorry, I should have explained my point when I posted. Your view, I believe, is too extreme, and I offered a corresponding extreme that I do not actually believe. I think a nice middle ground is actually reality, and that both points of view are expressed by that middle ground.
:)
1) How do our cells compete to distribute resources?
An interesting essay proposes that cells use competition as a means to determine which functions, which organs, which tissues, and what features are developed. Otherwise we would be a blob of millions of identical undifferentiated cells with identical genes. Or a cancer, if you like. Certain cells, like bone, need calcium more than certain cells need lipids, like fat, or protien, like muscles. This competition for resources would allow different cells to develop differently, in a way reducing competition by specializing into different cells with different requirements, with the end results that you have a heart and bones and blood and fat and muscle.
2) Why do cells die when told to?
Some forms of cell death are critical to development of features such as fingers, in which the spaces between fingers die and fall away. It is a form of survival enhancement in the same way kin selection selects for altruistic behavior. A creature born with a functional heart, because certain nerves and muscles and fats died when told to, survived while a creature born without a functional heart died.
3) Cells that only compete have a name: cancer
That is entirely too simplistic. Cancer is many things, not only competing. Cancer cells have to cooperate to create the necessary environment necessary for cancer growth, such as the development of additional blood vessels, supports, and metastasizing. Cancer cells are like normal cells, but more so
4) One flora or fauna overwhelming the rest is the end result of competition, not cooperation!
The fact is that when there is multiple flora or fauna competing, no single flora or fauna can overwhelm the system because they keep each other in check. If they did not keep each other in check, if they did not compete but instead gave up, then you get gastrointestinal infections and other diseases. As long as there is competition no one can overwhelm, by the very definition of competition.
5) People are not intrinisically motivated by competition.
So if I can offer proof of one individual intrinisically motivated by competition, your assertion is proven wrong. Here is my proof, and I use me, because I am a person and I am motivated by competition. I like knowing I am smarter, I like knowing I am right, and this is my reward for posting on Slashdot, in which moderators might see my brilliance and mod me up for other people to see my posts and read my words. I compete with other Slashdot posters for moderation points.
6) There is no proof that competition motivates people to greater heights. There is no proof that in a cooperative environment people would get barely enough to survive. Rather than addressing my legitimate points, you are just making shit up.
Again I apologize, I should have made it more clear I was being facetious, sarcastic, and mocking. My real point is lost in the noise, I was trying to point out that competition and cooperation both are needed. Cooperation is a valid survival and success strategy. Two people together may survive where two people competing might not. However two people competing may achieve more than two people cooperating because the reward and competition incites more out of the people. I think we need both.
I was never trying to invalidate you, merely show you as being hyperbolic. Cooperation is necessary. So is competition.
You ask a serious question: "Why do corporations never use internal competition between divisions"?
My answer, "Because cooperation is the more successful strategy in
Life is not just cooperation, either. Our ability to compete gives us an edge over animals that don't. Your cells competition to distribute resources is a prime example, as is the whole ecosystem of competing creatures you have living in and on you, and without whom you would be suffering from dangerous infections and imbalances as one flora or fauna overwhelm the entire system.
Competition is an efficent way to distribute resources. People who need more will work harder to get more. With competition in effect, people are motivated to greater heights and start coming up with new ideas and solutions that might not arise in a purely cooperative environment in which everyone gets barely enough to satisfy everyone.
Competition ensures redundancy. Without redundancy and variation, entire industries are held hostage to simple catastrophic failures that cannot happen in a diverse and competitive environment. Find me one example of a large and successful corporation that is run externally on cooperation rather than competition. Corporations know that competition is the only viable strategy, because they have never been able to succeed if they cooperate with their competitors.
In short, cooperation is not enough and is not what nature is based on, and it is not a good model for effectiveness in human society.
My take: Nature developed evolution, which itself is a pure form of competition for resources, mates, and life. Evolution relies on massive redundancy and variation to succeed, and in that model a corporation that is redundant, competitive, and diverse will have more success than a corporation that is too efficient, too cooperative, and not diverse. All it takes is for one person to get sick, and that corporation stops working because there is no redundancy, all it takes is for one process to fail, and that corporation fails because there are no alternatives, and all it takes is for one person to make a mistake because there is no competition to weed out bad ideas or mistakes before it bites the company.
Kin selection.
If evolution favors individual survival, then the existence of individuals who have no survival value except to ensure other, related, individuals survive and reproduce will still be selected for.
In other words evolution has selected individuals who "take one for the team" if it means:
1) The team survives
2) The team contains the same genetics as the individual who "took one for the team"
3) The success of the team with such altruistic individuals is many times greater than any single individual going it alone or other teams lacking altruistic individuals
Easy example:
I'm walking with my niece and nephew, and a car comes along. I push them out of the way, at the expensive of my mobility and reproduction. Evolution favors this behavior because my niece and nephew have a far higher survival rate than a similar niece and nephew down the street who's uncle would not push them out of the way. The niece and nephew in turn would probabilistically contain the same genes as I have, and would rescue their own nieces and nephews, and so on and so on, until there are more altruistic individuals than selfish individuals because the selfish individuals have less family and less offspring as well as relatives.
Except that is not capitalism. College educations provided by the state is a type of socialism. Wages, especially minimum wages and the inflation that inflicts upon the rest of the wages, is another type of socialism. Inflation is another beast entirely, an effect of economics and technology as well as interest and growth.
Well, if the problem is higher wages, the solution is not capitalism, socialism, or any other kind of dogma. Wages and income are a function of value and productivity, which themselves are products of science, technology, ingenuity, and research, among other things. Capitalism is the solution for a totally different problem. Capitalism is about competition, profit, and growth, and towards that end it has succeeded.
As they should, because that is how capitalism works. If you want people to earn more, they need to engage in capitalism; given their resources, offer a service or good worth many times the raw resources, at a price that the market will bear, and prosper (or fail).
No, the only lesson capitalism offers is that under a capitalist system, only capitalists get rich, while everyone else will coast along on the engine of growth generated by the capitalist. The capitalist increases profit by increasing efficiency and reducing waste, and paying people is technically a waste if it is unnecessary. That is why you see wages stagnating.