"I fail to see how stripping out add-on middleware from Windows will benefit the consumer in the end."
Because Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway are not stupid. They all realize that their customers WANT stuff to come with their machine and will include it themselves. This isn't rocket science here. Look at OS X, it comes with a web browser, media player, dvd player, photo manager (with built in web page maker), mp3 manager (with bult in burning)...every single one of those apps can be dragged into the trash and the user can insteal install anything they want to replace them ).
In the PC market, it wouldn't be the user who deceided this (directly anyhow), it would be the OEM's who did. The would add to a stripped down Windows their own branded toys. Then, shopping for a x86 box would require a choice that was more advanced than looking at 1. price 2. hardware 3. shape of computer. The industry would be better off.
"If you take off the blinders and look at it,.NET really makes sense. "
This is only partially true. From a home user perspective.NET is little more than useless garbage. Renting software and "services" (I point to the blackcomb demo movie that floated around a while back) is just something users don't want to do. It violates perceived ideas of "owership". I remeber a long time ago, I worked in a lab that had VAX stations, which had to have their licenses "renewed" every year. It just boggled my mind that someone would have to pay, on a regular basis, just to keep using their computer. They were replaced with Linux boxes. This is not a world Mom and Dad want, much less even know its going to happen shortly.
From a the perspective of a business it makes perfect sense..NET allows the ability to distribute new software (an hence always be up-to-date) across an entire Windows network in a manageable way. (other vendors have more elgant ways, but i digress) So I guess over time, business will move to a.NET "platform".
Now. Personally, I think a.NET for other OS's is a total waste of time..NET is little more than a way to keep making money after the sale. What other vendors should be doing is designing BETTER ways to distribute applications, so that Windows.NET will look like a toy. Apple is going down a Network road that is totally different from Microsoft (iTools, iApps, Netinfo, Netbooting), and I wouldn't doubt for a second that in OS 11 or 12 you won't be able to differentiate iTools from the rest of the OS.
My day is already full. Work, rest, hanging out with my wife, hanging out with friends. There is just not enough time in my day to actually watch all the Law and Orders, all the great stuff on my FIVE discovery channels, and other ods and ends that come on. Even if i did, It certainly isn't worth CONTINUALLY paying for or playing a damn high price for.
Also I UNDERSTAND what these things are. Quite frankly, I don't see the NEED to buy yet another PC (which is pretty much what it is) to do something that my current PC could probabally do, if someone put the time to it.
These things just aren't useful. In order to actually USE it, I would have to have no life. Which, btw, is what it's supposed to let you have.
There is a communities of people who live wire and wireless free in the US, they are called the Amish. Nice folk, live a simple life. They don't try to remove radio stations from nearby communities.
Now if someone beleives that the transmissions are giving them trouble, move to Montana or North Dakota, don't stay in Ca and certainly don't try to move everyone backwards with you. There are alternatives, and they are feasable.
"Photoelectric effect of Albert Einstein is about exciting electorns so that they go out of the material (metal). There is no significant reemitting of the light in the matter."
Incorrect. Photoelectric effect CAN be used to turn light into electrical energy, it does not necissarily need to be the case. Photoelectric effect is merely the excitation of electrons by light into higher shells. When the electron returns to its "normal" shell, it emits light of the same frequency as that "stored" as potential energy in the shell.
"Um.. you are wrong, so I'll correct you. "Glow in the dark" stuff glows because a chemical reaction is happening, and generating light."
Though in most cases of "Glow in the dark stuff" this is true, you are forgetting one exception. It's called the photoelectric effect, which stores light as potential energy in electron shells, which can be released later as light again. Some famous guy named Alberta Einstein got a nobel prize for work on it.
"This is a nice way of saying, "I can't upgrade my 3-year old Mac because Apple's hardware is too expensive." Right?"
ZIF upgrades, PCI upgrades, daughter card upgrades can be bought for ALL PowerPC's Apple has ever made, and MOST (90%) can be upgraded to a G4 without buying a new machine, and the remaining can be upgraded to G3's.
"NFS support is severely lacking. You can't even count on a command-line mount of an nfs volume. If I try to mount with "mount server:/local/mnt/local", the "/mnt/local" directory disappears. The mount doesn't and you can't unmount without rebooting. There is a shareware program that makes it possible to use NFS, but c'mon folks. This is a violation of some basic trust. NFS should just work. "
And it does. The Mac OS X machine I am sitting at RIGHT NOW has two NFS exports and 3 NFS imports. It does "just work". I guess your problem is that NFS doesn't use the set up procedure that are used to. This is because OS X using NetInfo for all set ups. Try using NFSManager for easy setup with no learning curve, or "NetInfo Manager", which is infinitely more powerful. Ingorance is okay and can be cured, but I suspect you are nothing more than a troll, since you outright dismissed using "shareware tools" and wanted it to work your way.
"This is the first network-based, remote compromise that I'm aware of for Windows desktop systems," said Scott Culp, manager of Microsoft's security response center."
"if you use Microsoft's Incident based support system, It is really really damn good. I have not contacted any other Vendors where you can call w/ a technical support problem and speak to the developers of the application at 11:00 at night."
You forgot some very important pieces of information about this.
1. You need to be a very important customer
2. You need to PAY per incident if you don't have a contract
3. If you are a nobody, you talk to a nobody who knows about as much about computers as your mother does.
"That's like telling a cop that you refuse to give him access to your home to search it without a warrent. All you're doing is causing a bigger hassle for yourself."
You are under the misguided beleifs that:
1. Only guilty people exercise their right to privacy
2. Only guilty poeple have items seized as evidence upon a voluntary search.
Lets say for example, the FBI knocks on your door saying they suspect someone has been sending death threats to the president from your computer. They are mistaken. They want in to "look around" and walk out with your computer. Good luck getting it back, cause it will be in a "evidence" vault till you die, regardless of innocence or charges being sought. They could do that with ANY item in your house that MIGHT be tied to the crime and odds are you won't get it back, ever.
Reminds me of a county n Texas, all traffic violators were searched and anything that the searchers thought was "drug related" was seized. Well, a buisness man was speeding though said county, pulled over and lost 10-15K (I don't remember the exact figure) in cash he was taking to his son as a loan, all of which he could prove was legally earned. He ended up sueing, and getting little more than half of it back.
So, my legal advice to you (IANAL-Lawyer) is to NEVER ever for any reason let any cop search any of your property, unless they have a court approved warrent.
Re:I must be missing something
on
Review: SliMP3
·
· Score: 2
1. Audio cable runs can only be so long with out degradation of signal. Cat5 has longer run length."
I think he was infering using ones computer as a stereo for mp3s.
"2. Web interface. Is there client control for WinAmp?"
All a web interface means is you can run it from a browser. Fancy, certainly. Buzzword compliant, definitely. The best of all interfaces, nope.
3. The device has an IR remote. Much better than running upstairs (or downstairs) to switch tracks on a server in another room.
I don't even think its feasible to control my mp3 collection with a remote, unless the remote came with an LCD for scrolling through songs. But anyhow, scriptable remotes (USB) have been on the market for 3 years now and cost less than $100.
4.It is designed as an audio component. It can sit with the rest of your stereo. And can be operated as such by people that don't need to be messing around on your computer.
True, but not worth nearly $300.
5. It can serve mulitple devices. You can serve your 80GB audio collection throughout the house to multiple locations. It is much more difficult to split line level audio output across 4 locations.
This reminds me of an old roommate of mine in college. He had this little portable CP/M like contraption with a 2400 baud modem which he would dial into our basic school account (92 or so) and telnet out from there to MUD. Anyhow, this is what happened.
He because SO addicted that he would be awake for 20 hours at a time playing (but actually making it to class) then sleep a few hours (6-8). So the time he was awake actually rotated around the clock, which occasional disruptions caused by actually having to make it to class.
This burned him out in about a year and he went back to where his family lives.
I had a problem for a few months, but was able to shake it off quickly, but not before racking up a new character to level 50 in 36 hours of straight play on "Silly Mud" (which was the last time I really played on a MUD)
"Record companies run a risky, speculative business, and it is a well-known fact that most of the artists they sponsor do not succeed"
One does not need one minute of radio airplay, any videos, major labels, or really high "promotion costs" to make descent honest living. Not only that, it is almost always MORE profitable for a band to rely on word of mouth than it is to rely on spending 100K on promotion costs.
"Whatever happened to fighting the good fight against communism because it threatened the freedoms we fought so hard to win?"
Because the people in China need to feed their families and earn an honest living. Because if the USA were to "(fight) the good fight" due to some moral docterine our economy would collapse almost instantly as we alienate Singapore, China, Vietnam, and every other "freedom hating" regime on the planet. Because, when it comes down to it, we have to make the best that we can and help the most people possible.
Any nation ID card will fail, and probabally make it easier for "terrorists" to enter the country due to a false sense of security. Once the card is reverse engineered, some millionaire with a grudge will buy/have made equipment to produce them or modify them. The ONLY way a national ID card could ever work is if the card were tied to a national database and that database had unique information on the individual with the card, such as genetic, retinal, or finger prints. You think there was a stink when people had to register their guns, just imagine trying to get the entire population to do this.
Now with that said, I wouldn't totally discount the idea. Why not require all foreigners over on visas submit thumb prints that are tied to cards? It would make it harder to "legally" enter the country on a stolen or counterfeit visa, though of course not impossible, but considering the paranoia in the US now it would make a "sleeper agents" job a bit more difficult.
Remember all of this resulted origionally from the DOJ talking MS to court when they violated their last consent decree with Win98/IE integration. That was 3 years ago. There are some points to keep in mind.
1. MS fought over the language in one sentence that the DOJ, or noone else noticed, that made the entire concent decree totally unenforceable. (something about the vague term "consumer benefit")
2. When the DOJ tried to stop IE/Win98 using the Consent Decree, they were eventually over turned when CLEARLY the Consent Decree was meant to stop MS from bundling, even if the a few words allowed them to wiggle out of it.
3. It took YEARS after this mess to get any form of judgement against MS, when any moron can clearly see they have a 90+% control over the computer market and use that control to run other companies out of business.
So...People should scour the judgement for ANYTHING that could remotely let them wiggle out of any part of the judgement. It's there, I guarantee you. Not only that, NOTHING stops MS from totally ignoring the consent decree because by time the DOJ or anyone else gets around to actually getting a legal judgement, whatever MS did would be irrelevent and irreversible. Any complicated consent decree is crap and is most likely unenforceable (due to the possibility of making "complicated" legal aguements that can tie of the system).
Which is why I would propose the following SIMPLE easy to enforce rules...
1. MS charges all OEMs the SAME price for Windows regardless of who they are.
2. MS should not be allowed to buy any companies, patents, or technologies for at least 5 years.
3. MS should not be allowed to license any additional technologies, patents, source code or ideas for at least 5 years.
4. OEM's should have the right to make any changes to Windows they think their customers want, including but not limited to removing any feature, or technology from Windows and replacing it with their own.
Having some experience in dealing with high resolution digitized images and scanners, I can say this: you have essentially no chance getting the specs.
"The problem is that I am having trouble finding out about the way in which scanners and digital cameras work, and how this would affect their accuracy with respect to what I am aiming to do."
This can be learned by studying optics. It is not very staight forward, but any discussion relating to it would be far beyond the range possible in discussing on slashdot. Get a book and start reading.
"The information I am looking for includes things like: the resolution of their grey-scales, what degree of accuracy the motor steps at, how uniformly distributed the CCDs are in the arrays, and other issues that might affect accuracy. Just so that I can know how close to the 'real' picture what I get out of the scanner/camera is"
There is a LOT more that affect what "the real picture" is than these factors. Again, perhaps you need to go do some reading on optics.
I don't know what's worse, that I read all of the interview or that I know which episode "We're from Starfleet! We don't lie!" (not by name at least)
For the curious, its right after Wesley was playing ball with some locals on some planet where all crime gets the death penalty and trips over some bar blocking access to some screened in plants (i guess). He admits to it to a police officer, not knowing they are going to kill him for it, and the police was suprised and said something like "you admit to it" which he replies......
It's not unethical to optimize drivers for specific performance. Meaning, if ATI's drivers make Quake 3 faster than the competition, that has added value for someone out there.
From a business point of view it's not the wisest thing to do. PC games have a tendency to be an extremly rabid bunch. Buying mobo's, processors, graphic's cards and anything else that lets them milk that last bit of performance out of games. They do this frequently,by keeping up on all the latest hardware and it's associated benchmarks and purchasing accordingly. They will even go to silly lengths to make sure what they are buying is the best, such as doing a grep for Quake3 and changing it to Quack3, then seeing if the performance is the same. Even without such lengths, a gamer would be sure that more than Q3 was fast on their hardware, so that when the next rage comes along, they can buy the game and expect it to run fast. So, ATI is shooting themselves in the foot by focusing on one game's performance, rather than going for general performance and as such games won't buy their cards....
Rather than try to make Windows apps run on Linux, why not take all that development effort and time and make a systemmatic porting toolkit from Windows to Linux? Not only that, why not do what Apple did with gcc and write one hella fine IDE and give it away? If an x86 Unix-like OS can run MS apps, there will be absolutely no reason for developers to write native applications.
You should take a look at how it WORKS. Hook it up, it begins charging via your Firewire port (10 hours of battery life!) and launchs iTunes. Create some playlists and send them to your iPod. Five minutes to fill up that 5GB.
Not only that, the interface is amazing. The menu system can actually be read by human eyes and easily browsed via the scroll wheel. Multiple playlists and can be listed via song OR artist.
Okay, so its yet another mp3 player. But this mp3 player fits in a shirt pocket and Apple didn't cute a single corner, they still somehow got a 5GB drive in that thing that costs the same damn price as the iPod itself, while at the same time making it as simple as possible to use. This is an mp3 player that passes the "mom test".
You don't need detail explainations to say this is a fake. All you need to remeber is the amount of applause ol' Stevie got when he showed the Powerbook G4's Apple logo appeared right side up when the book was opened, so others could clearly see the Apple logo (before then the logo appeared upside down). This iWalk has the Apple logo, upside down, a mistake that a clearly astetic Apple would not make when even color matters.
2. You will only find competent IT staff for Unix based OS, and as such they will usually cost more.
3. Downtime costs and refitting costs for your machines
4. Most Open Source software/OS are still unproven for many uses. At most, there is anecdotal evidence of how wonderful it is to switch.
5. Script Kiddie style root toolkits, that enable backdoors, are easier to find for Unix than Windows. IMHO this is a biggie. An Open Source OS has the potential for having the kernel and all major programs to be replaced without changing the modification dates. Not only that, a more careful cracker would be able to change your checksum reports so that an admin would have to take unusually strong precautions to ensure any files haven't been 0wn3d. Just because you haven't heard of it happening, doesn't mean it won't.
"Why would anyone run Linux on a new Apple though?"
People who want a cheap, lightweight notebook (iBook), without having to use a "proprietary" OS, which has the cavet of "locking in" people to an OS. Not that I'm one of them, as I'm posting from Mozilla in OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
"I fail to see how stripping out add-on middleware from Windows will benefit the consumer in the end."
Because Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway are not stupid. They all realize that their customers WANT stuff to come with their machine and will include it themselves. This isn't rocket science here. Look at OS X, it comes with a web browser, media player, dvd player, photo manager (with built in web page maker), mp3 manager (with bult in burning)...every single one of those apps can be dragged into the trash and the user can insteal install anything they want to replace them ).
In the PC market, it wouldn't be the user who deceided this (directly anyhow), it would be the OEM's who did. The would add to a stripped down Windows their own branded toys. Then, shopping for a x86 box would require a choice that was more advanced than looking at 1. price 2. hardware 3. shape of computer. The industry would be better off.
This is only partially true. From a home user perspective
From a the perspective of a business it makes perfect sense.
Now. Personally, I think a
But I digress...
My day is already full. Work, rest, hanging out with my wife, hanging out with friends. There is just not enough time in my day to actually watch all the Law and Orders, all the great stuff on my FIVE discovery channels, and other ods and ends that come on. Even if i did, It certainly isn't worth CONTINUALLY paying for or playing a damn high price for.
Also I UNDERSTAND what these things are. Quite frankly, I don't see the NEED to buy yet another PC (which is pretty much what it is) to do something that my current PC could probabally do, if someone put the time to it.
These things just aren't useful. In order to actually USE it, I would have to have no life. Which, btw, is what it's supposed to let you have.
There is a communities of people who live wire and wireless free in the US, they are called the Amish. Nice folk, live a simple life. They don't try to remove radio stations from nearby communities.
Now if someone beleives that the transmissions are giving them trouble, move to Montana or North Dakota, don't stay in Ca and certainly don't try to move everyone backwards with you. There are alternatives, and they are feasable.
Incorrect. Photoelectric effect CAN be used to turn light into electrical energy, it does not necissarily need to be the case. Photoelectric effect is merely the excitation of electrons by light into higher shells. When the electron returns to its "normal" shell, it emits light of the same frequency as that "stored" as potential energy in the shell.
Though in most cases of "Glow in the dark stuff" this is true, you are forgetting one exception. It's called the photoelectric effect, which stores light as potential energy in electron shells, which can be released later as light again. Some famous guy named Alberta Einstein got a nobel prize for work on it.
"This is a nice way of saying, "I can't upgrade my 3-year old Mac because Apple's hardware is too expensive." Right?"
ZIF upgrades, PCI upgrades, daughter card upgrades can be bought for ALL PowerPC's Apple has ever made, and MOST (90%) can be upgraded to a G4 without buying a new machine, and the remaining can be upgraded to G3's.
"NFS support is severely lacking. You can't even count on a command-line mount of an nfs volume. If I try to mount with "mount server:/local /mnt/local", the "/mnt/local" directory disappears. The mount doesn't and you can't unmount without rebooting. There is a shareware program that makes it possible to use NFS, but c'mon folks. This is a violation of some basic trust. NFS should just work. "
And it does. The Mac OS X machine I am sitting at RIGHT NOW has two NFS exports and 3 NFS imports. It does "just work". I guess your problem is that NFS doesn't use the set up procedure that are used to. This is because OS X using NetInfo for all set ups. Try using NFSManager for easy setup with no learning curve, or "NetInfo Manager", which is infinitely more powerful. Ingorance is okay and can be cured, but I suspect you are nothing more than a troll, since you outright dismissed using "shareware tools" and wanted it to work your way.
"This is the first network-based, remote compromise that I'm aware of for Windows desktop systems," said Scott Culp, manager of Microsoft's security response center."
This speaks for itself
You forgot some very important pieces of information about this.
1. You need to be a very important customer
2. You need to PAY per incident if you don't have a contract
3. If you are a nobody, you talk to a nobody who knows about as much about computers as your mother does.
"That's like telling a cop that you refuse to give him access to your home to search it without a warrent. All you're doing is causing a bigger hassle for yourself."
You are under the misguided beleifs that:
1. Only guilty people exercise their right to privacy
2. Only guilty poeple have items seized as evidence upon a voluntary search.
Lets say for example, the FBI knocks on your door saying they suspect someone has been sending death threats to the president from your computer. They are mistaken. They want in to "look around" and walk out with your computer. Good luck getting it back, cause it will be in a "evidence" vault till you die, regardless of innocence or charges being sought. They could do that with ANY item in your house that MIGHT be tied to the crime and odds are you won't get it back, ever.
Reminds me of a county n Texas, all traffic violators were searched and anything that the searchers thought was "drug related" was seized. Well, a buisness man was speeding though said county, pulled over and lost 10-15K (I don't remember the exact figure) in cash he was taking to his son as a loan, all of which he could prove was legally earned. He ended up sueing, and getting little more than half of it back.
So, my legal advice to you (IANAL-Lawyer) is to NEVER ever for any reason let any cop search any of your property, unless they have a court approved warrent.
1. Audio cable runs can only be so long with out degradation of signal. Cat5 has longer run length."
I think he was infering using ones computer as a stereo for mp3s.
"2. Web interface. Is there client control for WinAmp?"
All a web interface means is you can run it from a browser. Fancy, certainly. Buzzword compliant, definitely. The best of all interfaces, nope.
But, if you really want to control a computer-mp3 player with a web browser, you can use Streamsicle on the same machine that will play the mp3s and you can control it from any computer on your LAN (or in the world for that matter) and listen to it from that computer, or any other computer for that matter.
3. The device has an IR remote. Much better than running upstairs (or downstairs) to switch tracks on a server in another room.
I don't even think its feasible to control my mp3 collection with a remote, unless the remote came with an LCD for scrolling through songs. But anyhow, scriptable remotes (USB) have been on the market for 3 years now and cost less than $100.
4.It is designed as an audio component. It can sit with the rest of your stereo. And can be operated as such by people that don't need to be messing around on your computer.
True, but not worth nearly $300.
5. It can serve mulitple devices. You can serve your 80GB audio collection throughout the house to multiple locations. It is much more difficult to split line level audio output across 4 locations.
So can Streamsicle.
This reminds me of an old roommate of mine in college. He had this little portable CP/M like contraption with a 2400 baud modem which he would dial into our basic school account (92 or so) and telnet out from there to MUD. Anyhow, this is what happened.
He because SO addicted that he would be awake for 20 hours at a time playing (but actually making it to class) then sleep a few hours (6-8). So the time he was awake actually rotated around the clock, which occasional disruptions caused by actually having to make it to class.
This burned him out in about a year and he went back to where his family lives.
I had a problem for a few months, but was able to shake it off quickly, but not before racking up a new character to level 50 in 36 hours of straight play on "Silly Mud" (which was the last time I really played on a MUD)
One does not need one minute of radio airplay, any videos, major labels, or really high "promotion costs" to make descent honest living. Not only that, it is almost always MORE profitable for a band to rely on word of mouth than it is to rely on spending 100K on promotion costs.
Because the people in China need to feed their families and earn an honest living. Because if the USA were to "(fight) the good fight" due to some moral docterine our economy would collapse almost instantly as we alienate Singapore, China, Vietnam, and every other "freedom hating" regime on the planet. Because, when it comes down to it, we have to make the best that we can and help the most people possible.
Any nation ID card will fail, and probabally make it easier for "terrorists" to enter the country due to a false sense of security. Once the card is reverse engineered, some millionaire with a grudge will buy/have made equipment to produce them or modify them. The ONLY way a national ID card could ever work is if the card were tied to a national database and that database had unique information on the individual with the card, such as genetic, retinal, or finger prints. You think there was a stink when people had to register their guns, just imagine trying to get the entire population to do this.
Now with that said, I wouldn't totally discount the idea. Why not require all foreigners over on visas submit thumb prints that are tied to cards? It would make it harder to "legally" enter the country on a stolen or counterfeit visa, though of course not impossible, but considering the paranoia in the US now it would make a "sleeper agents" job a bit more difficult.
1. MS fought over the language in one sentence that the DOJ, or noone else noticed, that made the entire concent decree totally unenforceable. (something about the vague term "consumer benefit")
2. When the DOJ tried to stop IE/Win98 using the Consent Decree, they were eventually over turned when CLEARLY the Consent Decree was meant to stop MS from bundling, even if the a few words allowed them to wiggle out of it.
3. It took YEARS after this mess to get any form of judgement against MS, when any moron can clearly see they have a 90+% control over the computer market and use that control to run other companies out of business.
So...People should scour the judgement for ANYTHING that could remotely let them wiggle out of any part of the judgement. It's there, I guarantee you. Not only that, NOTHING stops MS from totally ignoring the consent decree because by time the DOJ or anyone else gets around to actually getting a legal judgement, whatever MS did would be irrelevent and irreversible. Any complicated consent decree is crap and is most likely unenforceable (due to the possibility of making "complicated" legal aguements that can tie of the system).
Which is why I would propose the following SIMPLE easy to enforce rules...
1. MS charges all OEMs the SAME price for Windows regardless of who they are.
2. MS should not be allowed to buy any companies, patents, or technologies for at least 5 years.
3. MS should not be allowed to license any additional technologies, patents, source code or ideas for at least 5 years.
4. OEM's should have the right to make any changes to Windows they think their customers want, including but not limited to removing any feature, or technology from Windows and replacing it with their own.
"The problem is that I am having trouble finding out about the way in which scanners and digital cameras work, and how this would affect their accuracy with respect to what I am aiming to do."
This can be learned by studying optics. It is not very staight forward, but any discussion relating to it would be far beyond the range possible in discussing on slashdot. Get a book and start reading.
"The information I am looking for includes things like: the resolution of their grey-scales, what degree of accuracy the motor steps at, how uniformly distributed the CCDs are in the arrays, and other issues that might affect accuracy. Just so that I can know how close to the 'real' picture what I get out of the scanner/camera is"
There is a LOT more that affect what "the real picture" is than these factors. Again, perhaps you need to go do some reading on optics.
For the curious, its right after Wesley was playing ball with some locals on some planet where all crime gets the death penalty and trips over some bar blocking access to some screened in plants (i guess). He admits to it to a police officer, not knowing they are going to kill him for it, and the police was suprised and said something like "you admit to it" which he replies......
It's not unethical to optimize drivers for specific performance. Meaning, if ATI's drivers make Quake 3 faster than the competition, that has added value for someone out there.
From a business point of view it's not the wisest thing to do. PC games have a tendency to be an extremly rabid bunch. Buying mobo's, processors, graphic's cards and anything else that lets them milk that last bit of performance out of games. They do this frequently,by keeping up on all the latest hardware and it's associated benchmarks and purchasing accordingly. They will even go to silly lengths to make sure what they are buying is the best, such as doing a grep for Quake3 and changing it to Quack3, then seeing if the performance is the same. Even without such lengths, a gamer would be sure that more than Q3 was fast on their hardware, so that when the next rage comes along, they can buy the game and expect it to run fast. So, ATI is shooting themselves in the foot by focusing on one game's performance, rather than going for general performance and as such games won't buy their cards....
Rather than try to make Windows apps run on Linux, why not take all that development effort and time and make a systemmatic porting toolkit from Windows to Linux? Not only that, why not do what Apple did with gcc and write one hella fine IDE and give it away? If an x86 Unix-like OS can run MS apps, there will be absolutely no reason for developers to write native applications.
You should take a look at how it WORKS. Hook it up, it begins charging via your Firewire port (10 hours of battery life!) and launchs iTunes. Create some playlists and send them to your iPod. Five minutes to fill up that 5GB.
Not only that, the interface is amazing. The menu system can actually be read by human eyes and easily browsed via the scroll wheel. Multiple playlists and can be listed via song OR artist.
Okay, so its yet another mp3 player. But this mp3 player fits in a shirt pocket and Apple didn't cute a single corner, they still somehow got a 5GB drive in that thing that costs the same damn price as the iPod itself, while at the same time making it as simple as possible to use. This is an mp3 player that passes the "mom test".
You don't need detail explainations to say this is a fake. All you need to remeber is the amount of applause ol' Stevie got when he showed the Powerbook G4's Apple logo appeared right side up when the book was opened, so others could clearly see the Apple logo (before then the logo appeared upside down). This iWalk has the Apple logo, upside down, a mistake that a clearly astetic Apple would not make when even color matters.
2. You will only find competent IT staff for Unix based OS, and as such they will usually cost more.
3. Downtime costs and refitting costs for your machines
4. Most Open Source software/OS are still unproven for many uses. At most, there is anecdotal evidence of how wonderful it is to switch.
5. Script Kiddie style root toolkits, that enable backdoors, are easier to find for Unix than Windows. IMHO this is a biggie. An Open Source OS has the potential for having the kernel and all major programs to be replaced without changing the modification dates. Not only that, a more careful cracker would be able to change your checksum reports so that an admin would have to take unusually strong precautions to ensure any files haven't been 0wn3d. Just because you haven't heard of it happening, doesn't mean it won't.
Last, but not least....
6. CmdrTaco.
People who want a cheap, lightweight notebook (iBook), without having to use a "proprietary" OS, which has the cavet of "locking in" people to an OS. Not that I'm one of them, as I'm posting from Mozilla in OS X.