Question: Why does it feel like everything "new" in software is a rewrite of stuff that has already been done in UNIX?
Because it is. Unix did it, but in a way that regular people couldn't figure out. It's still being re-written, except this time, it's being done in a much more useable way. The DVD is a re-write of VHS. The both do the same thing, but DVD does it better. Same thing.
You're right. Stick it to them! Show them what you think about them by giving them more money! They only have your name, address, phone number, email address, credit card number, purchasing history, etc.
The problem is that most geeks are just consumer whores like everybody else, and often worse. As long as you can pinch those precious pennies, it really doesn't matter what the big companies do, huh? Just keep giving them your money for more worthless Chinese plastic trinkets. Smart. Real smart.
I don't see what the point is. PC's are dirt cheap. Internet connections are slowly getting cheaper. Hell, the game I play almost 24/7 (see sig) requires only a browser. I can play it on a Pentium 1 with dial up just fine. What are you offering that the average personal doesn't already have?
That's not true. Spammers are paid a percentage or flat fee based on what is sold with their referrer ID. Nobody is paid just to spam. Google is the last major advertising company/industry on the web that actually pays people just to advertise, with no results. Porn and spam both figured out that per impression or per click or per email doesn't work, and there haven't been any of those programs available in either industry for at least the past 6 years (yes, they figured this out while all of the "straight" people were jerking themselves off during the dot-com bust).
Like I said, there was never any support contract for RH9, and by that time if you wanted guaranteed support you should have picked a RHEL product.
That's a crock. What if you were to buy a shiny new car, and the next year, the manufacturer stopped selling replacement parts for it. "Hey, you only had a one year warranty!" Hell, I play the same games for longer than a year. Red Hat really blew it on this one, and that move made me positive that I wasn't going to trust any of my business stuff to Red Hat.
I like the general theme of your idea, but it wouldn't work. The US government would continue doing what it's doing now: lying the the US populace in order to start wars so that they can keep the military/industrial complex chugging along, making money. There's -zero- reason to be in Iraq just like there was -zero- reason to be in most of the wars (conflicts) since WW2. The government just lies, covers up, and potentially creates their own "terrorist attack" (9/11/2001) in order to rally the sheeple behind them and keep re-electing them.
Watch "Why We Fight". It's an excellent film documenting the history of the US military/military industry since Eisenhower. It's in no way a documentary like Fahrenheit 9/11 or Loose Change or any of those. Just the facts about what happened, and when you are reminded of all of these facts in context, it all makes perfect sense.
I don't think that the company is particularly high profile. What I am surprised by is Apple's poor quality, when considering the price of their systems. Supposedly, part of the ridiculously high prices that Apple charges is for "quality" hardware. If I paid that much for a computer, I would certainly not expect the high level of defects that they have. Sure, they can fix it for ya', but that's a moot point when you end up relying on one for your job and it raps out on you (repeatedly).
No, I'm not interested at all in wireless. I'm wired at home, and wired at my business. Why? I'm a big fan of speed and reliability, both of which are always sacrificed with wireless anything. Wireless may be cute if all you're doing is checking your MySpace account and shopping and doing other such trivial things. Nobody in their right mind who relies on their computers for earning a living would do wireless.
What's the point of your straw man argument? If Hitler had not been born, we might not have had WW2. If John Lennon had taken a minute longer drinking his coffee that fateful day, maybe he wouldn't have been killed. If I had taken that other street, maybe I wouldn't have gotten my car hit. If the planes that hit the World Trade Towers were made out of Jello, many people wouldn't have died. So what? It was a private contract, and it wasn't open source. Hell, there's no reason, whatsoever, for the vendor to even consider OSS in this case. It's a moot point.
Last time I tried a Sunbird supposedly beta release, it was so buggy that is just wasn't useable (at all). It would lose data, scramble it around, crash randomly, use 100% of my processor, etc. I was permanently scared away from Sunbird if that's what they called a beta. I would've loved to use Sunbird, but that was a long time ago, and we've since moved onto Outlook because we 1. were tired of waiting and 2. didn't have anything remotely useable in the meantime.
In this case, open source software is completely irrelevant. Hoboken paid for a company to build the garage, install all of the hardware and the software. Hoboken didn't write software, or buy software from some company other than the one with the tech to set up the garage. They bought the package from this company, and the company uses proprietary software. Hoboken couldn't use their own software even if they wanted to. Saying that "open source" software would help in a situation like this is about as relevant as saying that if the city's citizens only used flying cars, then this situation wouldn't happen.
Compare that with the XBox 360, which is only partically backwards-compatible, and requires jumping through hoops to get old game to play. When I get my PS3, I'll still be able to play my entire library of PS1 and PS2 games. That makes the PS3 1. Cheap 2. User-friendly. I couldn't give a shit about a $10 memory card. But when my GF was looking into an XBox or an XBox 360, and I found out about the lack of backwards compatiblity, I thought, "what a fucking rip off". Then, I got home, put a DVD in her new used Xbox, and I couldn't get the thing to play. Oh yeah... you HAVE to buy a DVD remote to get it to play. My PS2 works fine with just the controller. What kind of people are short-sighted enough to buy an XBox 360?
Nobody I know argues that Ms-Windows is so much better as to be "worth" what it costs. Instead, if they use Windows, they argue that they need it because some software they need runs only there. Or because that is what everyone has. Or because it's the only thing they know. In other words, the entire "value" of Ms-Windows lie in network-effects and not in the actual product.
I use Windows because it's worth the price. Paying $200 for its functionality is well worth it.
These laptops don't exist. They're theoretical, "feel-good" laptops. No company has agreed to make them yet at any price. There's no actual design or working prototype. This really is nothing but a pathetic publicity stunt until somebody actually makes one of these goddamned things.
Somehow, I really doubt that Dell or Apple are shaking in their boots over a hypothetical laptop.
You're right. And most don't do backups to restore their old OS and app setups. They generally have to re-install everything and get it set up again. No big deal to most people. A Mac wouldn't be all that different. But, they're still much too expensive, and they do the same thing. Actually, they'll be a bit harder to use, eh, and who needs a complicated, expensive heat pump when it heats your house just as well (as far as you know) as the last model. Get the cheap one and forget about it again until it breaks.
... doesn't care. A computer is about as exciting as a heat pump. It's a dusty tan box that sits under their $50 pressboard "computer table" from Wal-Mart that they turn on to check email and surf porn, and every so often, open a pirated copy of Word to update their resumes. A car, on the other hand, is one of the biggest status symbols that Americans have. That, and many people rely on cars to do important stuff, like get to work. Computers aren't used for anything more important that a paperclip for most people.
... It is. Windows XP works pretty well, and there's really no more reason to switch PC platforms than there is to change your heat pump. It works. You'd be an idiot (quite literally) to waste time and money for no reason. That's the public attitude.
They suck. Amazon contacted me about adding my retail business (brick and mortar and online) to Amazon. I said, "of course", and started the integration. When I got finished, I did the math, and realized that their fees and their fee structure would make us actually lose money on many purchases through Amazon.
More importantly, what you said holds true from the merchant persepctive. Sure, I may be able to sell a lot of stuff through Amazon, but it does nothing for my business. Why? Because of what you said: there is ZERO brand recognition for the merchant. There's no chance of repeat business or building any kind of brand when selling through Amazon. They put everything under their umbrella except for the biggest of big merchants.
Why would I want to sell stuff for almost no profit, and earn no brand recognition for it? Suffice to say, even after a lot of programming, I told them that my company wasn't interested.
Actually, it's simpler than that. Business school 101, which still holds true today: Any business that competes on price alone is doomed. Amazon doesn't offer anything other than a low price. With a low price, all you do is cut your own throat with non-existent margins. Somebody will ALWAYS be cheaper, anyway.
I have never, ever, known a single person that has read even part of a book on a computer. Nobody. The market for eBooks flopped because people simply won't read books on a computer for lots of reasons... it's hundreds of times more expensive, it's many magnitudes more complicated, it gives most people a headache to stare at a monitor for hours on end, it uses a ton more energy... do I have to go on?
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Question: Why does it feel like everything "new" in software is a rewrite of stuff that has already been done in UNIX?
Because it is. Unix did it, but in a way that regular people couldn't figure out. It's still being re-written, except this time, it's being done in a much more useable way. The DVD is a re-write of VHS. The both do the same thing, but DVD does it better. Same thing.
You're right. Stick it to them! Show them what you think about them by giving them more money! They only have your name, address, phone number, email address, credit card number, purchasing history, etc.
The problem is that most geeks are just consumer whores like everybody else, and often worse. As long as you can pinch those precious pennies, it really doesn't matter what the big companies do, huh? Just keep giving them your money for more worthless Chinese plastic trinkets. Smart. Real smart.
I don't see what the point is. PC's are dirt cheap. Internet connections are slowly getting cheaper. Hell, the game I play almost 24/7 (see sig) requires only a browser. I can play it on a Pentium 1 with dial up just fine. What are you offering that the average personal doesn't already have?
You're right. But I'll go one step further. Import it into SQL Server, the use Toad.
That's not true. Spammers are paid a percentage or flat fee based on what is sold with their referrer ID. Nobody is paid just to spam. Google is the last major advertising company/industry on the web that actually pays people just to advertise, with no results. Porn and spam both figured out that per impression or per click or per email doesn't work, and there haven't been any of those programs available in either industry for at least the past 6 years (yes, they figured this out while all of the "straight" people were jerking themselves off during the dot-com bust).
Like I said, there was never any support contract for RH9, and by that time if you wanted guaranteed support you should have picked a RHEL product.
That's a crock. What if you were to buy a shiny new car, and the next year, the manufacturer stopped selling replacement parts for it. "Hey, you only had a one year warranty!" Hell, I play the same games for longer than a year. Red Hat really blew it on this one, and that move made me positive that I wasn't going to trust any of my business stuff to Red Hat.
I like the general theme of your idea, but it wouldn't work. The US government would continue doing what it's doing now: lying the the US populace in order to start wars so that they can keep the military/industrial complex chugging along, making money. There's -zero- reason to be in Iraq just like there was -zero- reason to be in most of the wars (conflicts) since WW2. The government just lies, covers up, and potentially creates their own "terrorist attack" (9/11/2001) in order to rally the sheeple behind them and keep re-electing them.
Watch "Why We Fight". It's an excellent film documenting the history of the US military/military industry since Eisenhower. It's in no way a documentary like Fahrenheit 9/11 or Loose Change or any of those. Just the facts about what happened, and when you are reminded of all of these facts in context, it all makes perfect sense.
Most of them are not from or connected Washington DC.
Where do you get your information from, exactly?
No connection, my ass.
I don't think that the company is particularly high profile. What I am surprised by is Apple's poor quality, when considering the price of their systems. Supposedly, part of the ridiculously high prices that Apple charges is for "quality" hardware. If I paid that much for a computer, I would certainly not expect the high level of defects that they have. Sure, they can fix it for ya', but that's a moot point when you end up relying on one for your job and it raps out on you (repeatedly).
No, I'm not interested at all in wireless. I'm wired at home, and wired at my business. Why? I'm a big fan of speed and reliability, both of which are always sacrificed with wireless anything. Wireless may be cute if all you're doing is checking your MySpace account and shopping and doing other such trivial things. Nobody in their right mind who relies on their computers for earning a living would do wireless.
Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer."
Could somebody please tell me why this is "interesting"?
I'm kind of surprised that the article summary didn't read, "Interestingly, the UF team assembled the SubjuGator using Phillips head screws."
What's the point of your straw man argument? If Hitler had not been born, we might not have had WW2. If John Lennon had taken a minute longer drinking his coffee that fateful day, maybe he wouldn't have been killed. If I had taken that other street, maybe I wouldn't have gotten my car hit. If the planes that hit the World Trade Towers were made out of Jello, many people wouldn't have died. So what? It was a private contract, and it wasn't open source. Hell, there's no reason, whatsoever, for the vendor to even consider OSS in this case. It's a moot point.
Last time I tried a Sunbird supposedly beta release, it was so buggy that is just wasn't useable (at all). It would lose data, scramble it around, crash randomly, use 100% of my processor, etc. I was permanently scared away from Sunbird if that's what they called a beta. I would've loved to use Sunbird, but that was a long time ago, and we've since moved onto Outlook because we 1. were tired of waiting and 2. didn't have anything remotely useable in the meantime.
In this case, open source software is completely irrelevant. Hoboken paid for a company to build the garage, install all of the hardware and the software. Hoboken didn't write software, or buy software from some company other than the one with the tech to set up the garage. They bought the package from this company, and the company uses proprietary software. Hoboken couldn't use their own software even if they wanted to. Saying that "open source" software would help in a situation like this is about as relevant as saying that if the city's citizens only used flying cars, then this situation wouldn't happen.
Compare that with the XBox 360, which is only partically backwards-compatible, and requires jumping through hoops to get old game to play. When I get my PS3, I'll still be able to play my entire library of PS1 and PS2 games. That makes the PS3 1. Cheap 2. User-friendly. I couldn't give a shit about a $10 memory card. But when my GF was looking into an XBox or an XBox 360, and I found out about the lack of backwards compatiblity, I thought, "what a fucking rip off". Then, I got home, put a DVD in her new used Xbox, and I couldn't get the thing to play. Oh yeah... you HAVE to buy a DVD remote to get it to play. My PS2 works fine with just the controller. What kind of people are short-sighted enough to buy an XBox 360?
Nobody I know argues that Ms-Windows is so much better as to be "worth" what it costs. Instead, if they use Windows, they argue that they need it because some software they need runs only there. Or because that is what everyone has. Or because it's the only thing they know. In other words, the entire "value" of Ms-Windows lie in network-effects and not in the actual product.
I use Windows because it's worth the price. Paying $200 for its functionality is well worth it.
These laptops don't exist. They're theoretical, "feel-good" laptops. No company has agreed to make them yet at any price. There's no actual design or working prototype. This really is nothing but a pathetic publicity stunt until somebody actually makes one of these goddamned things.
Somehow, I really doubt that Dell or Apple are shaking in their boots over a hypothetical laptop.
Why can't I pay $200 for one and have $100 of that go towards subsidizing a laptop for some other kid?
Because they don't actually exist (yet?). They haven't even made a working prototype yet.
Honestly, I don't remember. I guess because even if we could, it still wouldn't make sense for us, financially.
You're right. And most don't do backups to restore their old OS and app setups. They generally have to re-install everything and get it set up again. No big deal to most people. A Mac wouldn't be all that different. But, they're still much too expensive, and they do the same thing. Actually, they'll be a bit harder to use, eh, and who needs a complicated, expensive heat pump when it heats your house just as well (as far as you know) as the last model. Get the cheap one and forget about it again until it breaks.
... doesn't care. A computer is about as exciting as a heat pump. It's a dusty tan box that sits under their $50 pressboard "computer table" from Wal-Mart that they turn on to check email and surf porn, and every so often, open a pirated copy of Word to update their resumes. A car, on the other hand, is one of the biggest status symbols that Americans have. That, and many people rely on cars to do important stuff, like get to work. Computers aren't used for anything more important that a paperclip for most people.
... It is. Windows XP works pretty well, and there's really no more reason to switch PC platforms than there is to change your heat pump. It works. You'd be an idiot (quite literally) to waste time and money for no reason. That's the public attitude.
Sorry to upset you. Mod me down.
They suck. Amazon contacted me about adding my retail business (brick and mortar and online) to Amazon. I said, "of course", and started the integration. When I got finished, I did the math, and realized that their fees and their fee structure would make us actually lose money on many purchases through Amazon.
More importantly, what you said holds true from the merchant persepctive. Sure, I may be able to sell a lot of stuff through Amazon, but it does nothing for my business. Why? Because of what you said: there is ZERO brand recognition for the merchant. There's no chance of repeat business or building any kind of brand when selling through Amazon. They put everything under their umbrella except for the biggest of big merchants.
Why would I want to sell stuff for almost no profit, and earn no brand recognition for it? Suffice to say, even after a lot of programming, I told them that my company wasn't interested.
Actually, it's simpler than that. Business school 101, which still holds true today: Any business that competes on price alone is doomed. Amazon doesn't offer anything other than a low price. With a low price, all you do is cut your own throat with non-existent margins. Somebody will ALWAYS be cheaper, anyway.
I have never, ever, known a single person that has read even part of a book on a computer. Nobody. The market for eBooks flopped because people simply won't read books on a computer for lots of reasons... it's hundreds of times more expensive, it's many magnitudes more complicated, it gives most people a headache to stare at a monitor for hours on end, it uses a ton more energy... do I have to go on?