It is bringing ease of use and intelligence to the system. The whole goal should be as invisible as possible. If we are not making things more simple with all this CPU power then what is the point of that power?
Computers are a tool, as such they should be as simple and safe to use as possible. If Linux developers want to take down the Windows dominance then Linux will need to be easier to use by the average person than Windows.
That means to install a new piece of software all you need to do is put it in the drive or find it on a website. Then the OS takes it from there. Antivirus and such would be assumed as well.
Windows gets it mostly right, it is easy to use. The problem is that it is not always safe to use. Linux should strive to be both. Look to Apple for an example, not everything has to be supported. It makes programming the OS a lot easier if you don't try to take into account every single little video card, sound card, and etc into consideration. Sure some of the geeks will be annoyed because their favorite pez-style barcode reader isn't supported but they are not the ones who will make the system popular.
why should it be a surprise than an organization that serves them would not seek to serve us?
Congress has long left the public interest behind, its probably been a good 50 years since they were accountable or felt accountable to the people. They have their own retirement programs so it not be surprising they have created other government groups just to service themselves.
Now, one way to start fixing this is to make the public aware of it. The problem to overcome is the lack of interest the public has.
The reliance on fossil fuels does put limits on our energy expenditures. If we do succeed in producing fusion power cheaply we will have a new form of pollution; heat. Even if we move to non-polluting forms of energy production other than nuclear we will still be left with heat. In my opinion once you remove the spectre of visible pollution that we have with today's fossil plants many people will be hard convinced that there is any pollution left, after all its "green power".
While we all can agree mankind affects his global environment we cannot agree to what extent he does. Everyday something new comes up that throws a wrench into every argument made pro and con. Understanding more about how other planets work may lead to better insights here.
There are just as many people on both sides of the fence. While I would never accept the low quality of a cell-phone camera I would not mind it keeping notes, emails, or playing music.
Why?
Because I don't need 2 or more devices with me at all times that I need to lug around. Worse on trips each manufacturer seems intent on using their own AC adapter.
Last trip I took was just with the cell phone, iPod, and a digital camera. Now as before I do not want the junk cameras they are using but I could have done well without two separate adaptors, and that includes carrying a pair for "car use" only.
The only outstanding issues are size and battery life. A flash based mp3 player would be fine as well as handle the misuse that phones commoningly get. A HDD based one is asking for trouble.
Dedicated, Check. No Time for Movies, Check. No Time for Books, Check. No Time for Girls, DUH, uh, Check. The Company is run by others, meaning Mom's house, Check.
Got two at work, they are buying their last MACs this year. Neither will touch Intel for reasons either right or wrong - I don't care.
So there is still appeal in the Power line to some of the more fanatical buyers out there.
As for the transition destroying Apple's market share I think it was done for the exact opposite reason - to generate marketshare. The switch to Intel will generate a lot of interest among both Apple and non-Apple users. However what its real focus is is to make existing owners of older Apple products upgrade in fear of being left out and ignored. Will it work? Who knows, but I suspect you will see press releases heralding the surge in buying of MACs that completely ignore the fact tha most of them are former Power based MAC owners not wanting to be left behind. Emulators will not keep Power Macs around long.
While I agree that software patents should not exist I disagree wholeheartedly with your statement that software innovations without considerable investment.
It is all a matter of scale. An innovation isn't necessarily one component or snippet of code. It can be the who application or system and the manpower and costs are not insigificant at those scales.
As I see it Apple had a problem, there just wasn't a real reason for owners of current G4+ systems to upgrade. They were adequate for their needs. Same with the notebook users.
With a switch to the Intel platform Apple has provided a major reason to switch. Platform support. Either buy into the new hardware or face the possibility of being left behind - a possibility I suspect will be very much in force within a few years.
As a threat to Linux on the desktop? How could it be? Linux itself doesn't have a big enough share of the desktop to worry about. Windows already has all the ease of use that it needs and corporate pentration to keep its dominance. Where does Apple threaten anyone but current Power-Mac users?
Was the Republic that Lucas portrayed truly any different for the average citizen than the Empire that replaced it?
I do agree that I would prefer a free society but Lucas went out of his way to portray a system which was so inept and so bound by tradition that there was essentially no freedom. You might appear to be free but the government could do nothing to insure that; witness Naboo.
If one thing I found was that I was more bound to side with the Empire simply after seeing how inept the Republic truly was.
The new perspective gained from watching the first three puts the whole series in a new light. The Empire really became what it was simply because the Republic and Jedi had become so egocentric and inept they had to be replaced to move forward.
Would we have In Design if no one thought Quark could be improved upon or replaced?
Would we have FireFox?
Either the market is big enough to support the possibility of multiple players brings them on or someone gets torqued enough at the market leader to try and show them how to do it.
People would have said you were insane if you suggested they leave Quark just a few short years ago, many would have laughed in your face. Innovation sometimes requires competition.
The P/E is already 111. So they think it can bear getting even higher? This sounds like investment house pump and dump, stuff we saw at the end of the 90s with the Internet boom.
Google would be foolish NOT to buy out companies using stock. Companies would be foolish to accept that type of buyout though.
As someone else said, some people think it is worth that much. Once the honeymoon ends we might see realistic values which I suspect are a third of what it is now.
This sounds more like a worst case scenario of judges legislating from the bench. Worse we have a group of them obviously conspiring to do so.
How much of the public are the judges willing to put at risk to stroke their own egos? I would love to see these judges SUED and jailed if one of the people whose case they dismiss subsequently kill someone on their next DUI.
If they have a problem with the manufacturer then take it up with the state. If the state does not have a requirement of disclosure then by what basis do the judges operate?
How can they not apply this to speeding tickets, parking meters, or are items of revenue enhancement strictly excluded from this test?
It is an unfortunate reality that unless the US and other countries of similar mindset must be able to militarize space when needed.
Now the reason I like GW's listed goal is that we have been parked in orbit for 40+ years and haven't budged except once to the moon. Sure we send probes out there but probes are not going to advanced space exploration in any meaningful array other than to say "hey, neat rocks here".
Establishing a presence on the moon will do much more than parking ourselves in a tincan in orbit. First off it implies more permanence. Also the moon provides many unique benefits to maintaining a presence in space that an orbital cannot.
Done right, and with luck it might be, private enterprise can use it as a stepping stone to further exploration and yes, exploitation of space.
We are getting no where concentrating on unmanned probes and orbital tin cans. We have three choices. Abandon space. Stick with orbit which doesn't fire the imagination much, or finally stake a spot off this rock. The moon is far enough and "exotic" enough to fire the imagination and marketing. That "baby step" will get us moving in the right direction.
the first rule of class action lawsuits is you hit something that is popular. This does two things. First it insures that jurors will know something about what your talking about. Second and most importantly these same jurors are bound to remember even the most bull ridden rumor about the same and recall it as near fact.
The iPod is making big money for Apple and there are enough Apple haters to make any lawyer salivate over the prospects of a good payoff without a lot of work.
On a side note, I have a less than 2 month old iPod that has NEVER managed to last to its "advertised" battery life. The most I have ever gotten is 7 hours and I use massive playlists.
LEO should be left to private, NASA needs moon/mar
on
White Knight Testing X-37
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree that LEO is best left to the private concerns. However I disagree about your view of what setting a Mars mission does to NASA.
NASA should be about advancing our capabilities many fold. This does not mean doing the same damn thing we have been doing for nearly 50 years which is playing around in orbit of our own planet.
NASA should be about goals outside the capabilites (read monetary concerns) of privates/corporations. This means setting up on the moon and eventually getting to Mars.
Scenario. Use NASA to setup a PERMANENT facility on the Moon. Then by the design and policy have that open to private interests. The big expense is setting up a launching point that others can use. NASA (read:government) could charge a nominal fee for usage and set some ground rules. However this makes it open to ANYONE.
NASA isn't hobbled by looking to Mars, NASA has been hobbled for the last 20 years simply because they WERE NOT looking beyond the Earth. (let alone public imagination - I am pretty sure orbital excursions are and have been ho-hum for sometime)
If they want that capability then create an add-on for the device.
Sirius must be getting really desperate. They have been tossing money like a drunken sailor trying to get people to pay attention to them. Instead of innovation they appear willing to buy themselves out of the hole they are in.
I like some of the exclusive content they have but see XM as the better of the two.
Pure Software seems to be a very very strict definition. Would it catch things like JPG compression which isn't software? After all GIF issues were a royal pain. What about one-click? That could be a business process. Are those patentable in the EU?
I can see many patents getting allowed as weasel speak can turn something into "hardware" or similar quite easily.
I mean, why bother publishing the request. Any thinking adult already understands the situation. If anything the request is nothing more than "going through the motions".
Why it is newsworthy is beyond me? Perhaps to say "Hey we really really really don't have these things yet" Or perhaps it is too alert the not so bright that yeah, someone is bound to do it so lets make sure we are there and ready.
In a perfect world this type of waste would not be needed, unfortunately a few nutjobs out there are trying to get nuclear weapons or have them and they have very few moral reasons to not use them except self preservation. With the current idiocy of allowing Iran to become a fully fledged nuclear power just how long before they try to become a spaceborne power?
I don't think the Chinese would tell anyone either until after they threaten to use such capability on Taiwan.
As for the UN, I figure on some good old bashing of America for doing something that so obviously is going to be done by anyone who can lob it up there.
Hell now that I think of it it almost seems as if it were bait.
At the price point Yahoo is hitting I don't see how Napster and Rhapsody can compete. The only way for those two to survive Yahoo would be to have more music than Yahoo.
However iTunes is defintely not threatened. About the only way that that could happen is if the paid per song downloads (burnables) could be transformed into a form that iTunes can understand EASILY. If so you could sample any number of songs from Yahoo then burn those you want for.79 each. It really depends on how far the plug ins will be allowed to go. I would like that solution simply because the 30 second snippets from iTunes are not enough for some songs.
Yahoo is claiming over 1 million songs... this could be interesting. With a 7 day trial
OK reading further it appears that burnable music can be transfered to your iPod. Even more intersting
Obviously this investment wasn't based on Turbines track record of producing and delivering MMORPGs. They have pushed D&D and MEO back many times, the latter falling all the way back to 06.
This is an investment based on the perceived viability of these two titles regardless of who produces them. Considering that Turbine raised this money indicates they blew through the previous 25m received less than two years ago.
Apparently Turbine has a very good package they show VCs, most likely relying on some ignorance on the VCs part. It is very easy to lay claim to two "acclaimed" MMORPGs as there are more than enough review sites to get praise from - meaning someone out there will kiss your ass for the right payment.
Turbine is supposed to deliver D&DO this year. It will be an instanced based system. The problem they now face is that Guild Wars, also instanced based, is already released. So, not only do they have to overcome a released game that does not charge a monthly fee they also have to overcome their reputation among gamers.
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It is bringing ease of use and intelligence to the system. The whole goal should be as invisible as possible. If we are not making things more simple with all this CPU power then what is the point of that power?
Computers are a tool, as such they should be as simple and safe to use as possible. If Linux developers want to take down the Windows dominance then Linux will need to be easier to use by the average person than Windows.
That means to install a new piece of software all you need to do is put it in the drive or find it on a website. Then the OS takes it from there. Antivirus and such would be assumed as well.
Windows gets it mostly right, it is easy to use. The problem is that it is not always safe to use. Linux should strive to be both. Look to Apple for an example, not everything has to be supported. It makes programming the OS a lot easier if you don't try to take into account every single little video card, sound card, and etc into consideration. Sure some of the geeks will be annoyed because their favorite pez-style barcode reader isn't supported but they are not the ones who will make the system popular.
why should it be a surprise than an organization that serves them would not seek to serve us?
Congress has long left the public interest behind, its probably been a good 50 years since they were accountable or felt accountable to the people. They have their own retirement programs so it not be surprising they have created other government groups just to service themselves.
Now, one way to start fixing this is to make the public aware of it. The problem to overcome is the lack of interest the public has.
The reliance on fossil fuels does put limits on our energy expenditures. If we do succeed in producing fusion power cheaply we will have a new form of pollution; heat. Even if we move to non-polluting forms of energy production other than nuclear we will still be left with heat. In my opinion once you remove the spectre of visible pollution that we have with today's fossil plants many people will be hard convinced that there is any pollution left, after all its "green power".
While we all can agree mankind affects his global environment we cannot agree to what extent he does. Everyday something new comes up that throws a wrench into every argument made pro and con. Understanding more about how other planets work may lead to better insights here.
There are just as many people on both sides of the fence. While I would never accept the low quality of a cell-phone camera I would not mind it keeping notes, emails, or playing music.
Why?
Because I don't need 2 or more devices with me at all times that I need to lug around. Worse on trips each manufacturer seems intent on using their own AC adapter.
Last trip I took was just with the cell phone, iPod, and a digital camera. Now as before I do not want the junk cameras they are using but I could have done well without two separate adaptors, and that includes carrying a pair for "car use" only.
The only outstanding issues are size and battery life. A flash based mp3 player would be fine as well as handle the misuse that phones commoningly get. A HDD based one is asking for trouble.
The rich will get the most benefit but this is an example where the government has one. They have successfully stolen a right of ours.
Dedicated, Check.
No Time for Movies, Check.
No Time for Books, Check.
No Time for Girls, DUH, uh, Check.
The Company is run by others, meaning Mom's house, Check.
Got two at work, they are buying their last MACs this year. Neither will touch Intel for reasons either right or wrong - I don't care.
So there is still appeal in the Power line to some of the more fanatical buyers out there.
As for the transition destroying Apple's market share I think it was done for the exact opposite reason - to generate marketshare. The switch to Intel will generate a lot of interest among both Apple and non-Apple users. However what its real focus is is to make existing owners of older Apple products upgrade in fear of being left out and ignored. Will it work? Who knows, but I suspect you will see press releases heralding the surge in buying of MACs that completely ignore the fact tha most of them are former Power based MAC owners not wanting to be left behind. Emulators will not keep Power Macs around long.
While I agree that software patents should not exist I disagree wholeheartedly with your statement that software innovations without considerable investment.
It is all a matter of scale. An innovation isn't necessarily one component or snippet of code. It can be the who application or system and the manpower and costs are not insigificant at those scales.
As I see it Apple had a problem, there just wasn't a real reason for owners of current G4+ systems to upgrade. They were adequate for their needs. Same with the notebook users.
With a switch to the Intel platform Apple has provided a major reason to switch. Platform support. Either buy into the new hardware or face the possibility of being left behind - a possibility I suspect will be very much in force within a few years.
As a threat to Linux on the desktop? How could it be? Linux itself doesn't have a big enough share of the desktop to worry about. Windows already has all the ease of use that it needs and corporate pentration to keep its dominance. Where does Apple threaten anyone but current Power-Mac users?
Was the Republic that Lucas portrayed truly any different for the average citizen than the Empire that replaced it?
I do agree that I would prefer a free society but Lucas went out of his way to portray a system which was so inept and so bound by tradition that there was essentially no freedom. You might appear to be free but the government could do nothing to insure that; witness Naboo.
If one thing I found was that I was more bound to side with the Empire simply after seeing how inept the Republic truly was.
The new perspective gained from watching the first three puts the whole series in a new light. The Empire really became what it was simply because the Republic and Jedi had become so egocentric and inept they had to be replaced to move forward.
Would we have In Design if no one thought Quark could be improved upon or replaced?
Would we have FireFox?
Either the market is big enough to support the possibility of multiple players brings them on or someone gets torqued enough at the market leader to try and show them how to do it.
People would have said you were insane if you suggested they leave Quark just a few short years ago, many would have laughed in your face. Innovation sometimes requires competition.
The P/E is already 111. So they think it can bear getting even higher? This sounds like investment house pump and dump, stuff we saw at the end of the 90s with the Internet boom.
Google would be foolish NOT to buy out companies using stock. Companies would be foolish to accept that type of buyout though.
As someone else said, some people think it is worth that much. Once the honeymoon ends we might see realistic values which I suspect are a third of what it is now.
This sounds more like a worst case scenario of judges legislating from the bench. Worse we have a group of them obviously conspiring to do so.
How much of the public are the judges willing to put at risk to stroke their own egos? I would love to see these judges SUED and jailed if one of the people whose case they dismiss subsequently kill someone on their next DUI.
If they have a problem with the manufacturer then take it up with the state. If the state does not have a requirement of disclosure then by what basis do the judges operate?
How can they not apply this to speeding tickets, parking meters, or are items of revenue enhancement strictly excluded from this test?
It is an unfortunate reality that unless the US and other countries of similar mindset must be able to militarize space when needed.
Now the reason I like GW's listed goal is that we have been parked in orbit for 40+ years and haven't budged except once to the moon. Sure we send probes out there but probes are not going to advanced space exploration in any meaningful array other than to say "hey, neat rocks here".
Establishing a presence on the moon will do much more than parking ourselves in a tincan in orbit. First off it implies more permanence. Also the moon provides many unique benefits to maintaining a presence in space that an orbital cannot.
Done right, and with luck it might be, private enterprise can use it as a stepping stone to further exploration and yes, exploitation of space.
We are getting no where concentrating on unmanned probes and orbital tin cans. We have three choices. Abandon space. Stick with orbit which doesn't fire the imagination much, or finally stake a spot off this rock. The moon is far enough and "exotic" enough to fire the imagination and marketing. That "baby step" will get us moving in the right direction.
the first rule of class action lawsuits is you hit something that is popular. This does two things. First it insures that jurors will know something about what your talking about. Second and most importantly these same jurors are bound to remember even the most bull ridden rumor about the same and recall it as near fact.
The iPod is making big money for Apple and there are enough Apple haters to make any lawyer salivate over the prospects of a good payoff without a lot of work.
On a side note, I have a less than 2 month old iPod that has NEVER managed to last to its "advertised" battery life. The most I have ever gotten is 7 hours and I use massive playlists.
I agree that LEO is best left to the private concerns. However I disagree about your view of what setting a Mars mission does to NASA.
NASA should be about advancing our capabilities many fold. This does not mean doing the same damn thing we have been doing for nearly 50 years which is playing around in orbit of our own planet.
NASA should be about goals outside the capabilites (read monetary concerns) of privates/corporations. This means setting up on the moon and eventually getting to Mars.
Scenario. Use NASA to setup a PERMANENT facility on the Moon. Then by the design and policy have that open to private interests. The big expense is setting up a launching point that others can use. NASA (read:government) could charge a nominal fee for usage and set some ground rules. However this makes it open to ANYONE.
NASA isn't hobbled by looking to Mars, NASA has been hobbled for the last 20 years simply because they WERE NOT looking beyond the Earth. (let alone public imagination - I am pretty sure orbital excursions are and have been ho-hum for sometime)
Locking us into Sirius or XM would be a mistake.
If they want that capability then create an add-on for the device.
Sirius must be getting really desperate. They have been tossing money like a drunken sailor trying to get people to pay attention to them. Instead of innovation they appear willing to buy themselves out of the hole they are in.
I like some of the exclusive content they have but see XM as the better of the two.
Pure Software seems to be a very very strict definition. Would it catch things like JPG compression which isn't software? After all GIF issues were a royal pain. What about one-click? That could be a business process. Are those patentable in the EU?
I can see many patents getting allowed as weasel speak can turn something into "hardware" or similar quite easily.
I mean, why bother publishing the request. Any thinking adult already understands the situation. If anything the request is nothing more than "going through the motions".
Why it is newsworthy is beyond me? Perhaps to say "Hey we really really really don't have these things yet" Or perhaps it is too alert the not so bright that yeah, someone is bound to do it so lets make sure we are there and ready.
In a perfect world this type of waste would not be needed, unfortunately a few nutjobs out there are trying to get nuclear weapons or have them and they have very few moral reasons to not use them except self preservation. With the current idiocy of allowing Iran to become a fully fledged nuclear power just how long before they try to become a spaceborne power?
I don't think the Chinese would tell anyone either until after they threaten to use such capability on Taiwan.
As for the UN, I figure on some good old bashing of America for doing something that so obviously is going to be done by anyone who can lob it up there.
Hell now that I think of it it almost seems as if it were bait.
Didn't the "hollywoodization" start then?
Planet Death?
The Killing Ball?
Death Moon?
Giant Hurt Ball?
The Deathdicle?
PC (read:Windows) have not had much success with alternative form factors whereas Apple has done pretty well.
So, with a 17" and now a 19" version perhaps this is how the PC market emulates the iMac.
I could see leaving one of these on the desk without having ANY intention of taking it anywhere.
With USB thumb drives getting bigger and bigger it won't be long before I can take my desktop home without lugging the PC!
At the price point Yahoo is hitting I don't see how Napster and Rhapsody can compete. The only way for those two to survive Yahoo would be to have more music than Yahoo.
.79 each. It really depends on how far the plug ins will be allowed to go. I would like that solution simply because the 30 second snippets from iTunes are not enough for some songs.
However iTunes is defintely not threatened. About the only way that that could happen is if the paid per song downloads (burnables) could be transformed into a form that iTunes can understand EASILY. If so you could sample any number of songs from Yahoo then burn those you want for
Yahoo is claiming over 1 million songs... this could be interesting. With a 7 day trial
OK reading further it appears that burnable music can be transfered to your iPod. Even more intersting
Obviously this investment wasn't based on Turbines track record of producing and delivering MMORPGs. They have pushed D&D and MEO back many times, the latter falling all the way back to 06.
This is an investment based on the perceived viability of these two titles regardless of who produces them. Considering that Turbine raised this money indicates they blew through the previous 25m received less than two years ago.
Apparently Turbine has a very good package they show VCs, most likely relying on some ignorance on the VCs part. It is very easy to lay claim to two "acclaimed" MMORPGs as there are more than enough review sites to get praise from - meaning someone out there will kiss your ass for the right payment.
Turbine is supposed to deliver D&DO this year. It will be an instanced based system. The problem they now face is that Guild Wars, also instanced based, is already released. So, not only do they have to overcome a released game that does not charge a monthly fee they also have to overcome their reputation among gamers.