It's worth noting that Microsoft does indeed try to test patches against installs with many common applications. But as you correctly pointed out, there are so many applications available for Windows (many of them being quite obscure) that it's impossible to test against them all.
It's also worth noting that this patch DOES NOT cause every user who installs it to be knocked off the net. I installed it earlier and nothing happened to my connection. Apparently the problem is only with users of Norton's firewall product. Symantec doesn't seem to think the issue is important enough to post a notice on their web site about it.
"Nobody ever gets fired for making the same game."
No, the company just folds. How many companies ran into trouble because a derivitive RTS or FPS game flopped?
Now the reality is that direct SEQUELS tend to do fairly well (Quake, for example) because they play off the success of the original. Just like in movies. However, you can only milk a series for so long.
The industry is stagnant...sitting on your ass and letting them try and figure that out isn't going to solve crap.
All available evidence leads me to believe that the games industry is evolving to mirror the movie industry in many respects (shock!). There will be lots of derivitive games by the big players (action movies, romantic comedies, etc.), some very innovative and interesting games made by small studios (indie and "art house" film), and a very few "big" games that also break genre conventions and are truly innovative. (The Matrix, etc.)
And it is the latter games that will really make the big money, as they ALWAYS have. Quake was huge because it was the first true 3D RTS, The Sims was huge because it changed the nature of "god games" and virtual pets, GTA3 was huge because of it's openness, etc. The reality is that derivitive games ARE "average", not blockbusters. To get a blockbuster game if you don't have a successful series or license to work off of you HAVE to innovate. And these "innovative blockbusters" ARE inevitable because you can't milk a series forever (though Carmack is certainly trying).
No, that is NOT TRUE. The ATI optimization applies generically to any shader with similar instructions. Futuremark made a CHANGE TO THE SHADER CODE to uncover this.
I should point out that this is NOT what the article from The Register says:
"ATI came a cropper the same way. Futuremark saw an eight per cent decrease in the score of one benchmark, Game Test 4, when it conducted the test with a renamed executable rather than correctly titled code. "
IOW, TheReg is saying that ATI "special cased" the 3DMark03 executable in exactly the same way they special cased Quake.exe a few years back. So either:
A) The Register is misquoting Futuremark and the ATI statement is correct. (Note that I think this is very likely. They report only says that "the test was also detected and somehow altered by the ATI drivers", and this is TheReg we're talking about.)
B) The Futuremark people are lying.
or
C) ATI is cheating on the benchmark and they're lying to The Reg.
I've read through most of the posts up here, and while most or either (a) jokes about the Matrix or (b) actually somewhat reasonable in their tone, a percentage, as always are (c) attempts to justify or moralize piracy. This always bugs me to no end, and now I believe I finally have a real logical argument to make against piracy without resorting to the simplistic "it's just wrong" argument...
No, you're making a moral argument. Morality is totally arbitrary, that's why there is no such thing as a "logical" moral argument.
What service does a movie provide? Well, assuming it's not an utter piece of crap, entertainment is of course the answer. Therefore, to get a copy of the Matrix and watch it and enjoy it is deriving benefit of the service that movie provides without compensating those that should be compensated for creating it.
However, software/movies/etc. are not a service. If they were, their would be provisions of the quality of that service, and there are not. If seeing "The Matrix" was a service provided by the movie company, you should be able to demand your money back if you get "bad service" i.e. the movie was poor. Just like if you recieve a poor meal at a resturant, or get a bad haircut in a salon.
I think the record industry, for example, would be very reluctant to put themselves in a situation where someone could buy a CD and then return it for full price whenever they got bored with it. How could they do this? Well, if you define a CD as a "service", and the "service" is essentially permanent (you can play the CD over and over again) then the "service" is ONGOING. So if at any point during the "service" the customer is dissatisfied, the customer can return the CD for full price. Even YEARS or DECADES later.
Unless you're going to argue that by purchasing the CD you're entering into a non-revokable service agreement with the record label. This is the kind of crap that software companies are pulling with EULAs and it won't fly (contracts require EXPRESS, not implied consent).
THIS is why piracy is wrong. No analogies to stealing a car, no arguments about lost potential profits, nothing like that. Simply put, a service is being stolen, and that is wrong.
And now you've dragged out the moral absolutism. NOTHING is ALWAYS wrong in every situation. Not even stealing. I don't mind using "stealing" to refer to illegal copying because nothing is ever 100% wrong.
Is stealing food to feed your starving family wrong? Most people would say no.
Is stealing a weapon from someone who is about to shoot an innocent person with that weapon wrong? Again, most people would say no.
In the case of the record/movie/software companies, the moral question is simply this:
Is it wrong to steal from evil people? For example, is Robin Hood wrong because he stole from the Sherrif of Nottingham? Again, most people would say no.
The point is that many/.ers feel that the Big 5 record labels and many movie studios and large software companies are evil, so it's not wrong to steal from them (even if we consider illegal copying actual stealing). FWIW, to a large extent I share this point of view.
Now of course I can't "prove" what I'm saying. It's a moral argument, you can't win.
A T1 is composed of several components, the first being the local loop to the CO. You've got two or four copper wires buried in the ground, an NIU on the customer end and some sort of gear in the central office. This costs $285/month for on net to off net termination in my city and that is a pretty typical number.
I see you failed to understand the point the user was making. In a nutshell it was:
The backbone providers are gouging ISPs on bandwith costs.
You've failed to make a significant case against this claim. The question you need to answer is:
What is the profit margin on these services?
How much money does, say, Sprint make on a $1000 a month T1? I've heard that it's almost $500. That's a 100% profit margin, which is obscene.
I don't know the detailed financials of the backbone providers, and I suspect you don't know either. Many of them are losing money, but that's mainly because of mismanagement, not because selling bandwith to ISPs isn't profitable (again, I've heard it's enormously profitable).
So what to do about it? If things stay as they are, all the ISPs will be driven out of business. And not just because of P2P. Broadband gaming (XBox, etc.), streaming media, etc. are all going to eat up more and more bandwith. And if the ISPs are forced to keep paying what they're paying, they're doomed.
I'll go out on a limb here and reccomend the obvious solution: regulation. Backbone providers are effectively public utilities and they should be regulated as such. Caps should be placed on what they can charge ISPs, etc.
Is this going to happen? Hell no. What's going to happen is that the ISPs are going to impose caps, further alienating their customers, as the ISPs continue to choke the life out of them. Eventually the vast majority will fail (mom and pop ISPs are already a dying breed) and we will see massive consolidation in the industry, with almost all the players fully or partially owned by the backbone providers.
And these megaISPs, after a few decades of screwing the consumers, will eventually eup being regulated like publich utilities anyway.
One of the reasons the ISPs are facing this "crisis" is because commercial services selling music and video/movies online has yet to materialize due to paranoia on the part of the RIAA/MPAA. They (at least the RIAA, I have less experience with the latter) see online music (in any form whatsoever, contrary to their claims) as a threat to their physical CD sales because they realize that the profit margins in the CD business are much better and if they introduced a really attractive online service it would kill their CD sales. Hence the token efforts we see now with Pressplay and similar services. I seriously doubt that the RIAA/MPAA are going to change their minds without enormous pressure.
Of course, there is enormous DEMAND for this kind of online content, so users have ended up getting it from the only sources available: each other.
P2P isn't the problem, it's the fact that people want this content and commercial providers CAN'T provide it. And it's not like there aren't lots of companies that would leap at the chance to do so.
The ISPs can't stop P2P, no more than firewalls can permanently stop hacking/DoS attacks, viruses, or filters can stop spam. The users (the incredibly motivated users) will just develop new programs and spoofing techniques to work around the ISPs restrictions. Bandwith caps will seriously damage adoption, which is very important for the ISPs.
No, the best solution for the ISPs, IMHO, is to trust in their "common carrier" status and throw in their lot COMPLETELY with the pirates. They should pay programmers to develop a better P2P system that uses less bandwith over thier networks, and then set up "routing nodes" to limit the traffic that goes outside the net (I hear rumors that Comcast is already working on something like this). If that isn't enough, they should host companiess that illegally resell pirated content so THEY can soak up the bandwith fees. ISps are already totally dependent on pr0n for revenue, why not take one more step? It's a choice between the pirates and the RIAA/MPAA, and the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to step up.
I could spend around $20 on transport and a day going to Stockholm and searching and probably find a similar deal, yes, but again you're missing the point. A deal like that is still going to need extras before it's sufficient, and cost a little extra for transport and a lot extra in terms of time spent finding it. Time is money, and the xbox I can get in 20 minutes with no fuss, with all the necessary equipment built-in.
I still think you're better off taking the train to Stockholm and buying a bare-bones PC. I also find it difficult to believe that there aren't discount shops or flea markets where you can get an old PC for $150 USD or less. Especially for a nation as tech-friendly as Sweden.
The fact is that an XBox is expensive enough that it isn't worth buying unless you're going to leverage the most expensive parts of the architecture: the 3D graphics engine, TV out, and 5.1 Dolby sound. A router doesn't need any of that crap. You can use a 486, or virtually anything for a router. I've used an I-Opener, a little hardware router, and old 486, a Dreamcast, etc. and they were all cheaper than an XBox.
You're also forgetting the time that you're going to have to spend modding (read: soldering bits off) the XBox, and the $30 USD you'll have to spend on a USB Ethernet adapter, and whatever a mod chip costs (assuming you need one), probably another $50 USD. With an XBox going for $180 USD wer're talking about $260 USD, not including the cost of tools, etc. that you would need, and the possible shipping costs on the modchip. Is it STILL that much cheaper?
You probably didn't realise that I happen to live in Sweden, and the shipping might be more than the purchase price. Not all of us live in San Jose you know.;)
If I watched the classifieds closely for a few months I could probably find such a deal, but I can walk down to the store and get the xbox, a more powerful machine with ethernet and USB already installed, without the wait.
I was in Copenhagen last year and there were a number of small computer stores selling cheap "bare-bones" PCs for about 2000 kroner. I don't imagine the situation is a LOT different in Sweden, but even if it is, Copenhagen is a quick train ride from anywhere in Sweden.
As others have said, I don't think you're really looking very hard.
Problems such as bad weather conditions can be countered by an antenna stabilisation system which would make sure the antenna stays in place regardless of wind, rain or other conditions.
I remain skeptical. Can it handle blizzards, hurricanes, or even just thunderstorms? What about lightning protection? These kinds of things tear weather baloons and small dirigibles apart.
This system really only seems feasible in areas with very mild weather (like California).
Your telling me that the manuals for stun guns tell people to aim for the eyes? Call me crazy but I'd almost rather someone shoot me than zap my eyes.
Yep, and even if you score a direct hit on the eyes (think about how likely this is), stun guns are STILL only moderately effective. Contrary to what most people think, the "white" part of the eye is actually quite durable and can whistand considerable trauma. And an electric shock really isn't that bad. You'd be much better off with a ballpoint pen, because then you would have a chance at inflicting major damage by piercing the eyeball.
Yes, as absurd as it seems, you're probably better off with a ballpoint pen or letter opener for self-defense than a stun gun. Especially if you have ninja-like accuracy with sharp weapons. Normal people are infinitely better off with handguns.
these might be useful for corrections officers. They cannot carry guns in jail anyway... and it might keep them from getting swarmed by a bunch of inmates (build in some protection against shivs/shanks and you'd have yourself a truly useful product).
Except that they would be almost completely ineffective against prison inmates. All "stun guns" can do, even with prolonged contact, is inflict moderate amounts of pain. And we now know that "pain tolerance" is purely the result of culture and training. Due to the often painful and degrading conditions of thier imprisonment, US prisoners effectively get a lot of "pain training". They're tougher than you or I, and most of the guards that watch them. Given all this, it's unlikely that these coats would be effective.
Besides, if you want to inflict pain you're much better off with pepper spray. It's already used for this purpose in Californian prisons.
It's a very bad idea for a company to upset the big boys and this may have been part of the reason that ReplayTV hit the ground hard. So by eliminating these features, you get more support from companies such as Disney and Viacom.
It's not bad for an electronics company to upset the "big boys" of media, why should it be? There are plenty of Korean manufacturers getting rich making region-free DVD players. From a pragmatic standpoint, the interests of ReplayTV customers are the exact opposite from that of media and the media aren't paying the bills.
Let's think back to Diamond Multimedia and the famous Rio case: You may remember that the RIAA and friends failed in a lawsuit to stop production of the Rio, and by extension, ALL MP3 players. Since the ReplayTV case has extremely similar merits, based on the precedent of the Rio case SonicBlue seemed poised to win the case. Ironically enough, they weren't able to finish up the ReplayTV lawsuit because of stiff competition in the MP3 player market (a market that Diamond Multimedia effectively created).
I strongly suspect that this is just a rumor. Denon/Marantz is a very "customer oriented" business, they certainly knew about these features of the ReplayTV product before purchasing the company, and I would be very suprised if they alienated the ReplayTV customer base (which is likely to want a high-end, expensive, feature-laden unit consistent with the Marantz image) when they have little to gain in doing so.
OS 9 sucked for certain reasons, but was still a lot more stable than even Windows 2K with good tuning. OS X is great, though. You are missing out if you have been turned off to them forever.
You're missing the point. I wasn't complaining about the technical merits of OS9 (or lack thereof) but the incredibly poor direct support and overall lack of support resources for Macs. I've only had to call Microsoft support a few times in my life (I'm a professional network enginner and IT manager) and they was usually because a Knowledge Base article told me to (You need to contact support to download certain patches, those calls are free). And just about anything I needed to know I could find in a refrence manual (If I cared to look it up) or, MUCH more often, on the Internet. In 1999 I found a distinct lack of such resources for the Mac.
The notion of the personality behind certain technology isn't stupid. Doug Englebart, Vennevar Bush, Alan Turing and other people including, yes, Steve Jobs and even Bill Gates (but probably not Ballmer) have made their marks on computing as a whole. You are pretty ignorant if you think that a personality can't have an affect on your computer, or toaster for example. Have you ever heard of Tesla or Edison?
Does the fact that Edison backed DC and Tesla backed AC have anything whatsoever to do with the technical merits of DC or AC? NO. Did Edison's and Tesla's personalities have any effect on their business? Hell yes.
Edison was a very shrewed businessman who knew all the dirty tricks. He was the first to hit on the idea of a "skunk works" for new inventions, which he all took credit for. Needless to say, he ended up rich and famous.
Tesla was a loon which didn't know anything about business. What little he had was stolen by Edison. He ended up a footnote in history.
Replace Edison with Gates and Tesla with Jobs.
Personalities can affect computer designs, like everything else, but ultimately we should evaluate products on their own merits. If the best computer in the world is built by neo-Nazis I'd buy from them. Not because they were neo-Nazis, but because they were selling the best comupter in the world. It's called "capitalism". Look into it.
What you're doing is called "hero worship".
The "botique" look is being copied (2 years late, I might add) by every 2 bit PC manufacturer out there, and do you see their shareholders lining up and filing minority lawsuits? Fuck no, because Apple has been doing great in this fucked economy.
Back when the iMac was first released, and selling quite well to the Mac devotees, within a few months a great number of PC manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon to make clones of the design. Gateway, Futurepower, Sony, etc. Several of thse companies were sued, with some success, by Apple for stealing thier design.
As it turns out, it wasn't necessary because the "clones" were a total failure. People simply didn't want an "all-in-one" PC. Now why was that? Several reasons, but mainly because they were no cheaper than tower PCs and generally less capable.
IMHO, PRICE is the reason the iMacs were popular. Mac devotees bought them because they were relatively cheap Macs, which was a novel idea at the time. That's why I bought a few for QA (see my last post) rather than Powermacs.
But the point remains that unless you want a PC that looks like a desk lamp (I'm certain Apple has patented this design), you can buy a Wintel system in every form factor offered by Apple, and countless others.
PC companies have been having problems due to fierce competition BETWEEN THEMSELVES, notably Dell vs. everyone else. Dell is doing just peachy. I've met Michael Dell and he's a fucking genius. I don't know wether or not he'll make the history books, I guess he'll have to take billions of dollars as a consolation prize.
I would also argue that my 13 month old "botique" powerbook is quite a bit more stable and usable, than my newer, top of the l
Your point, please? So both Macs and PCs break occasionally. With Apple it's usually NOT a hassle to get customer service.
I haven't used Macs since OS9, but back then their support, particularly for developers, was AWFUL.
As an example, a few years back (1999 I think) I was testing our company's audio player on a shiny new iMac and I received a confusing error that was clearly a system error. It wasn't in the thin online manual, nor our developer manuals, nor could I find any reference to it in the incredibly poorly-organized support website so I tried to call Apple. They absolutely refused to offer me any support at first before I began bitching about how we were part of the developer program and were PAYING for support. Eventually, after a week of trying, I got an engineer on the phone who steadfastly refused to admit that the error message existed. By them we had hew builds of the software that didn't generate that error so I forgot about it.
This experience (compined with the general crappiness of OS9) pretty much permanently turned me off Apple.
And why don't PC users balk at the $400 price tag of XP 'pro' (a questionably worse option than the older Win2K) when Mac folks shout and kick and scream at a paltry $129 fee for a vastly improved OS? It's because Windows users are so used to being fucked in the ass by MS!
Because most of us are using free illegal copies. Duh.
Apple's current vision is largely Steve Jobs vision right now. He has had a knack for pursuing and marketing great technology and quite frankly isn't as neurotic as Bill and isn't a has-been frat boy like Ballmer. Apple isn't just motivated by money, they are motivated by the money you can get by having the best computer available. Not the fastest necessarily, because the system is only as good as the weakest component. But the most integrated, capable platform out there(we're talking software and hardware integration here people)! Not just money.
Why should I care one little bit about the "personalities" behind my computer? Do you care about the personal life of the guy who designed your toaster? Of course not. The whole notion is stupid.
And Apple is purely motivated by money, like every other corporation they are REQUIRED to ONLY care about the money BY LAW. Apple has made countless moves (like killing the clones) that screwed their customer base that the expense of making money. This current marketing/design approach of making "boutique" computers was crafted because the folks at Apple thought it would make them more money (considering the company was practically going down in flames before these changes), and snowing people like you to "Think Different" or fight the Great Satan Bill Gates is part of that moneymaking strategy. If you prefer Mac, for whatever reason, that's great. But don't pretend that Apple is somehow morally superior to Windows/Intel because it's less successful.
For what it's worth, everything I've read about x86-64 implies that it is exceptionally well-designed and seamless. Not tacked-on or overextended as I think you're implying. I sincerely doubt that the 64-bit extension is going to be a limiting factor.
Actually, this really isn't true, at least in the case of the Opteron which is basically a hack of the Athlon design. It tends to suffer compared to "clean" 64bit designs like Itanium, Power4, and Alpha. It is extremely unlikely that the Athlon-64 will be significantly different. However this hacked design is the Opteron's greatest strenght, allowing it to have both great 32bit performance and good 64bit performance.
IBM is selling millions of G3 processors a year to Nintendo. In a couple years Nintendo will be looking for a new processor, the G4 won't be viable option, but a Power4/Pentium/Hammer may be.
Unlikely, as Nintendo has already said that the GameCube will be their last console.
Which is a very good move considering how badly the GC is tanking, it's evolving into a glorifed GameBoy accessory (which is also a good move because GB is where all the money is).
Nintendo's next project will be the successor to the GameBoy Advance and it will probably be using ARM.
Lots of work emulating popular stuff like GBA or PSX, little to nothing on Jaguar or Saturn or Dreamcast (the platforms in need of "preservation").
I can't speak for the Jaguar or the Dreamcast (though I think in the case of the DC, speed is a major issue), but there are combination of issues that have prevented much Saturn development, mainly due to the complex nature of the Saturn architecture and the fact that almost all the development is going on in Japan. In fact, there is probably a fairly active community in Japan. Don't make the mistake of thinking the USA is the whole world.
"However, Apple hardware remains quite usable for years after x86 hardware becomes "obsolete and/or end of life".... Hardware that still works is still usable, and can still be usuable at a higher level than the average WIndows drone could possibly imagine.
You made the claim that Mac hardware remains "viable" longer, and Zathrus pointed out that depends entirely on what you mean by "viable". The very latest Windows software doesn't run well on older x86 PCs, the exact same thing is true of Macs. However, if you're willing to run older, or less "intensive" software, older x86 PCs work just fine, same as Macs.
I know why Windows users have to upgrade their software constantly, but then, most Windows users are, perhaps, not quite the brightest of God's creatures
This is demonstrably false. The vast majority of Windows users have little need to constantly upgrade their applications and do not do so. Your prespective is skewed by all the bleeding-edge users hanging around/. They tend to be computer professionals and are far from typical.
You are probably right in thinking that Mac hardware retains it's value a bit better than x86 hardware, but I'm wondering what that is supposed to prove. Maybe if you were planning on reselling your computer this might be an issue, but I fail to see how "worth less" translates directly to "less useful".
You seem happy running older hardware. That's great. But there is really no reason why you couldn't be happy running x86 hardware. If you really hate Windows, you can run Linux, or BSD, or BeOS, or one of the dozens of other operating systems that run on x86 hardware. There are even emulators to run older versions of MacOS on x86 hardware using Basilisk II or another emulator.
Never mind that fact that they offered a seemless transition over the years from 68000 to PowerPC, from MacOS Classic to MacOS X.
If you invested in Apple 15 years ago, they still honor your investment. I can't say that the same is true of MS where different versions of Office don't even like to talk to each other and they are constantly pushing for their customers to spend more money.
I just pulled out an old copy of the DOS version of Wordperfect 5.1 and if worked fine on my Windows XP box. Virtually every program written for Windows 95 can work on Windows XP as well as the vast majority of DOS programs going back to 1981. Windows has backwards-compatibility in spades.
Oh, and the file I created in WordPerfect opened just fine in Word XP.
A quick look at a Mac OS 7 screenshot [emuunlim.com], convinces me more than the dissimilarity between Nextstep and windows 95 that you are full of shit. It's obvious that windoze 95 borrowed heavily from MacOS. Well, perphaps not from 7 as it came out in 1996, durring the deep darkness under the former Pepsi Lord. The tiny application bar at the bottom of the screen, combined with the tinny horizontal pannel at the top of the screen and bad taste make up the Windoze 95 GUI. That horizontal pannel has been a feature of the apple GUI at least since 1984 and the first Macs but is not found in Nextstep which simply puts the icons at the bottm of the screen, or wherever you want. Nextstep has a verticle docking station, which can be thought of as a pannel with much more flexibilty than Microsoft or Apple's
Twitter, you seem to be a bit confused.
Among other things:
System 7 was released in 1991. The current version of MacOS when Windows95 was released was 7.5.1.
This isn't a screenshot of MacOS. It's a screenshot of a PC running WindowBlinds to emulate MacOS 7, that's why all the screen elements are terribly confused. Notice how the open window is "C:" and has it's own menu bar? Here is an actual screenshot, though it's for 7.5.5 it's close enough.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tinny horizontal pannel at the top of the screen", presumably what you're talking about is the menu bar, a feature that can be reliably traced back to GUIs as early as 1968. MacOS 7.x and Win9x implemented this feature differently, with MacOS keeping the menu bar on the top of the screen wheras Win98 has a menu bar for each window. There is general consensous that the Win9x approach is better on larger desktops.
The "tiny application bar" in Win9x is called the Taskbar, and also includes the Start Menu and System Tray. While the Start Menu is very similar to the Apple Menu (an idea almost certainly taken from MacOS) the Taskbar, which is basically an "icon panel" of the currently running programs, and the System Tray, which was originally intended for system alerts and such. The Taskbar was a real innovation, AFAIK. Nothing similar was present in either NextSTEP or MacOS (the NextSTEP toolbar was just that, a more primitive version of the Apple/Start Menu).
The major GUI innovation of Win95 was context-senstive popup menus you could get through right-clicking. For example, you could rename a file by right-clicking on it and selecting "Rename". In MacOS this required highlighting the file then moving the cursor to the menu bar to rename, the Win985 was was easier. (Yes, there were hotkeys on MacOS, but Win95 has them too).
Asthetically, I think Win95 is closer to NextSTEP due to the similarity of the 'Close' and 'Full Screen' icons, the Recycle bin, the overall grey tone and appearance. In any event, it's simply not possible that Microsoft's design team was not aware of both MacOS AND NextSTEP. If nothing else, the "Close" and "Full Screen" icons are direct ripoffs of the NextSTEP icons.
What MacOS 7.5.1 GUI had over Win95 at the time were generally better asthetics (a soft grey and blue combo rather than the harsh grey of Win95), the Finder, and many OS features were represented by files and folders (which was more consistent than the Win95 approach). That's about it.
And Apple can hardly claim the moral high ground in GUI design. They tried to sue MS and failed, largely because Apple stole most of their "innovations" from Xerox PARC.
Many old religions still have some followers here and there, and some people looking for answers turn to them as well.
A lot of people like to believe this, particularly neo-pagans, but for the most part it isn't true. European pagan religions that existed during the Common Era were essentially completely wiped out. Their clergy was persecuted, shrines destroyed, followers converted or killed, etc. After 1000 years of this, little trace of these religious have survived. (For example, we know almost nothing about the Celtic faith. And it certianly hasn't been practiced by anyone in centuries.)
An analogy can be made to black slaves that crossed the Atlantic to the USA. Very few of them were Christians before they were enslaved, but they were all converted to Christianity and elements of the native faiths were ruthlessly crushed. In other places, such as Haiti, the native faiths survived in a somewhat syncrenistic form, but this isn't what happened in Europe.
While your view is intetresting, it really is just a thinly-disguised Marxist conspiracy. With "multinational corporations and thier friends" fulfilling the role of the bourguise. The reality is a lot more complicated.
You're implying that somehow product markets are shrinking, when exactly the opposite is true. As other nations become wealthy (the Asian tigers, Middle East, etc.) consumers in those nations show more interest in higher-priced consumer goods, like electronics and appliances.
Are markets in the U.S.A. shrinking? Maybe. I'd say "probaby less", but that's entirely due to the economic slump. You're also implying that the slump is a lot worse than it really is, the stock market (for example) is still above pre-1998 levels.
And finally, you're right in thinking that the USA has transitioned from being a primarily manufacturing economy to an information and finace economy.
I'd like to echo your statement because I'm in exactly the same position. In the early 90's I bought lots of comics, many of wich used obvious scam tactics to attract "collectors" like variant and special covers, multiple covers, "special issues", etc. The industry likes to blame the "speculators" but they deliberately encouraged this speculation, quite blatantly. They are ENTIRELY to blame for the collapse of the comic book industry. (It's similar to what happened with Magic: The Gathering, the speculation was clearly BY DESIGN.)
But the big thing was the price. When I started most comics were between $0.75 and $1 and now a great many comics are between $3 and $4. And that's for NORMAL 32-page monthlies. Special issues and mini-series can be even more. I've seen comics with a COVER PRICE exceeding $10. In fact it was the Rune/Warlock crossover (I'm a huge fan of Adam Warlock) with a cover price of $8 for each issue of a TERRIBLE limited series that finally drove me away. Despite claims to the contrary, higher printing costs simply do not justify the higher prices.
The big problem is that the American comic book industry seems content to stay in an increasingly niche market. Most kids no longer buy comic books. Let's say that again, MOST KIDS NO LONGER BUY COMIC BOOKS. That the main reasons are price, competition from other media (movies, tv, video games, etc.), and the fact that comic books aren't marketed to kids. Most comic books are sold at speciality comic book stores that sell mostly to teenage and young adult males. Marvel and DC seem content to stick to this small audience (despite the obvious mainstream appeal of superheroes). While many independents would like to branch out, they don't have any money so they'll ALWAYS be niche.
Like an increasing number of comic book fans, I only buy trades nowadays, mostly of older comics. Frankly, I think the entire industry should move to trades, in a manner similar to the manga industry in Japan.
"So Ms. Sachs, tell me, what kind of "legitimate business" necessitates hiding the true sender of those email?"
To be fair to Ms. Sachs, she's right about this one. This legislation wouldn't affect the policies of ISPs, who uniformly ban ALL spam in their Terms of Service. If she were forced to identify her REAL email address, people would complain to her REAL ISP and get her kicked off even faster. If she was forced to put ADV: in her subject line most end users would never even see the mail because ISPs would block it at the servers, etc.
Of course, she's making the assumption that any business based on spamming, junk mail, junk faxes, etc. is "legitimate".
Israel's and our official policy is to not torture anyone, even if there's a hidden ticking bomb somewhere.
This is the only bit that I would disagree with. It is the OFFICAL policy of the Israel that the security forces may use "moderate torture", which includes beating, electric shock, etc. Assassination and certain forms of collective punishment are also official Israeli policy. Isreal also legally holds people for indefinite periods without charge. It also should be noted that there aren're really any age limits on those arrested either. As I type, there are 10 year old boys being legally tortured in adult prisons in Isreal.
UNofficially, the Israelis do pretty much everything you could think of. Torture, murder, rape, etc. It is not unknown for Isreali security to threaten or abduct the families of prisoners. Isreali security also assassinates peace advocates, humans rights workers, etc.
IOW, I think it's somewhat inappropriate to compare US and Israeli actions because, in general, what the Israelis is doing is much worse.
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It's worth noting that Microsoft does indeed try to test patches against installs with many common applications. But as you correctly pointed out, there are so many applications available for Windows (many of them being quite obscure) that it's impossible to test against them all.
It's also worth noting that this patch DOES NOT cause every user who installs it to be knocked off the net. I installed it earlier and nothing happened to my connection. Apparently the problem is only with users of Norton's firewall product. Symantec doesn't seem to think the issue is important enough to post a notice on their web site about it.
"Nobody ever gets fired for making the same game."
No, the company just folds. How many companies ran into trouble because a derivitive RTS or FPS game flopped?
Now the reality is that direct SEQUELS tend to do fairly well (Quake, for example) because they play off the success of the original. Just like in movies. However, you can only milk a series for so long.
The industry is stagnant...sitting on your ass and letting them try and figure that out isn't going to solve crap.
All available evidence leads me to believe that the games industry is evolving to mirror the movie industry in many respects (shock!). There will be lots of derivitive games by the big players (action movies, romantic comedies, etc.), some very innovative and interesting games made by small studios (indie and "art house" film), and a very few "big" games that also break genre conventions and are truly innovative. (The Matrix, etc.)
And it is the latter games that will really make the big money, as they ALWAYS have. Quake was huge because it was the first true 3D RTS, The Sims was huge because it changed the nature of "god games" and virtual pets, GTA3 was huge because of it's openness, etc. The reality is that derivitive games ARE "average", not blockbusters. To get a blockbuster game if you don't have a successful series or license to work off of you HAVE to innovate. And these "innovative blockbusters" ARE inevitable because you can't milk a series forever (though Carmack is certainly trying).
No, that is NOT TRUE. The ATI optimization applies generically to any shader with similar instructions. Futuremark made a CHANGE TO THE SHADER CODE to uncover this.
I should point out that this is NOT what the article from The Register says:
"ATI came a cropper the same way. Futuremark saw an eight per cent decrease in the score of one benchmark, Game Test 4, when it conducted the test with a renamed executable rather than correctly titled code. "
IOW, TheReg is saying that ATI "special cased" the 3DMark03 executable in exactly the same way they special cased Quake.exe a few years back. So either:
A) The Register is misquoting Futuremark and the ATI statement is correct. (Note that I think this is very likely. They report only says that "the test was also detected and somehow altered by the ATI drivers", and this is TheReg we're talking about.)
B) The Futuremark people are lying.
or
C) ATI is cheating on the benchmark and they're lying to The Reg.
I've read through most of the posts up here, and while most or either (a) jokes about the Matrix or (b) actually somewhat reasonable in their tone, a percentage, as always are (c) attempts to justify or moralize piracy. This always bugs me to no end, and now I believe I finally have a real logical argument to make against piracy without resorting to the simplistic "it's just wrong" argument...
/.ers feel that the Big 5 record labels and many movie studios and large software companies are evil, so it's not wrong to steal from them (even if we consider illegal copying actual stealing). FWIW, to a large extent I share this point of view.
No, you're making a moral argument. Morality is totally arbitrary, that's why there is no such thing as a "logical" moral argument.
What service does a movie provide? Well, assuming it's not an utter piece of crap, entertainment is of course the answer. Therefore, to get a copy of the Matrix and watch it and enjoy it is deriving benefit of the service that movie provides without compensating those that should be compensated for creating it.
However, software/movies/etc. are not a service. If they were, their would be provisions of the quality of that service, and there are not. If seeing "The Matrix" was a service provided by the movie company, you should be able to demand your money back if you get "bad service" i.e. the movie was poor. Just like if you recieve a poor meal at a resturant, or get a bad haircut in a salon.
I think the record industry, for example, would be very reluctant to put themselves in a situation where someone could buy a CD and then return it for full price whenever they got bored with it. How could they do this? Well, if you define a CD as a "service", and the "service" is essentially permanent (you can play the CD over and over again) then the "service" is ONGOING. So if at any point during the "service" the customer is dissatisfied, the customer can return the CD for full price. Even YEARS or DECADES later.
Unless you're going to argue that by purchasing the CD you're entering into a non-revokable service agreement with the record label. This is the kind of crap that software companies are pulling with EULAs and it won't fly (contracts require EXPRESS, not implied consent).
THIS is why piracy is wrong. No analogies to stealing a car, no arguments about lost potential profits, nothing like that. Simply put, a service is being stolen, and that is wrong.
And now you've dragged out the moral absolutism. NOTHING is ALWAYS wrong in every situation. Not even stealing. I don't mind using "stealing" to refer to illegal copying because nothing is ever 100% wrong.
Is stealing food to feed your starving family wrong? Most people would say no.
Is stealing a weapon from someone who is about to shoot an innocent person with that weapon wrong? Again, most people would say no.
In the case of the record/movie/software companies, the moral question is simply this:
Is it wrong to steal from evil people? For example, is Robin Hood wrong because he stole from the Sherrif of Nottingham? Again, most people would say no.
The point is that many
Now of course I can't "prove" what I'm saying. It's a moral argument, you can't win.
A T1 is composed of several components, the first being the local loop to the CO. You've got two or four copper wires buried in the ground, an NIU on the customer end and some sort of gear in the central office. This costs $285/month for on net to off net termination in my city and that is a pretty typical number.
I see you failed to understand the point the user was making. In a nutshell it was:
The backbone providers are gouging ISPs on bandwith costs.
You've failed to make a significant case against this claim. The question you need to answer is:
What is the profit margin on these services?
How much money does, say, Sprint make on a $1000 a month T1? I've heard that it's almost $500. That's a 100% profit margin, which is obscene.
I don't know the detailed financials of the backbone providers, and I suspect you don't know either. Many of them are losing money, but that's mainly because of mismanagement, not because selling bandwith to ISPs isn't profitable (again, I've heard it's enormously profitable).
So what to do about it? If things stay as they are, all the ISPs will be driven out of business. And not just because of P2P. Broadband gaming (XBox, etc.), streaming media, etc. are all going to eat up more and more bandwith. And if the ISPs are forced to keep paying what they're paying, they're doomed.
I'll go out on a limb here and reccomend the obvious solution: regulation. Backbone providers are effectively public utilities and they should be regulated as such. Caps should be placed on what they can charge ISPs, etc.
Is this going to happen? Hell no. What's going to happen is that the ISPs are going to impose caps, further alienating their customers, as the ISPs continue to choke the life out of them. Eventually the vast majority will fail (mom and pop ISPs are already a dying breed) and we will see massive consolidation in the industry, with almost all the players fully or partially owned by the backbone providers.
And these megaISPs, after a few decades of screwing the consumers, will eventually eup being regulated like publich utilities anyway.
One of the reasons the ISPs are facing this "crisis" is because commercial services selling music and video/movies online has yet to materialize due to paranoia on the part of the RIAA/MPAA. They (at least the RIAA, I have less experience with the latter) see online music (in any form whatsoever, contrary to their claims) as a threat to their physical CD sales because they realize that the profit margins in the CD business are much better and if they introduced a really attractive online service it would kill their CD sales. Hence the token efforts we see now with Pressplay and similar services. I seriously doubt that the RIAA/MPAA are going to change their minds without enormous pressure.
Of course, there is enormous DEMAND for this kind of online content, so users have ended up getting it from the only sources available: each other.
P2P isn't the problem, it's the fact that people want this content and commercial providers CAN'T provide it. And it's not like there aren't lots of companies that would leap at the chance to do so.
The ISPs can't stop P2P, no more than firewalls can permanently stop hacking/DoS attacks, viruses, or filters can stop spam. The users (the incredibly motivated users) will just develop new programs and spoofing techniques to work around the ISPs restrictions. Bandwith caps will seriously damage adoption, which is very important for the ISPs.
No, the best solution for the ISPs, IMHO, is to trust in their "common carrier" status and throw in their lot COMPLETELY with the pirates. They should pay programmers to develop a better P2P system that uses less bandwith over thier networks, and then set up "routing nodes" to limit the traffic that goes outside the net (I hear rumors that Comcast is already working on something like this). If that isn't enough, they should host companiess that illegally resell pirated content so THEY can soak up the bandwith fees. ISps are already totally dependent on pr0n for revenue, why not take one more step? It's a choice between the pirates and the RIAA/MPAA, and the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to step up.
I could spend around $20 on transport and a day going to Stockholm and searching and probably find a similar deal, yes, but again you're missing the point. A deal like that is still going to need extras before it's sufficient, and cost a little extra for transport and a lot extra in terms of time spent finding it. Time is money, and the xbox I can get in 20 minutes with no fuss, with all the necessary equipment built-in.
I still think you're better off taking the train to Stockholm and buying a bare-bones PC. I also find it difficult to believe that there aren't discount shops or flea markets where you can get an old PC for $150 USD or less. Especially for a nation as tech-friendly as Sweden.
The fact is that an XBox is expensive enough that it isn't worth buying unless you're going to leverage the most expensive parts of the architecture: the 3D graphics engine, TV out, and 5.1 Dolby sound. A router doesn't need any of that crap. You can use a 486, or virtually anything for a router. I've used an I-Opener, a little hardware router, and old 486, a Dreamcast, etc. and they were all cheaper than an XBox.
You're also forgetting the time that you're going to have to spend modding (read: soldering bits off) the XBox, and the $30 USD you'll have to spend on a USB Ethernet adapter, and whatever a mod chip costs (assuming you need one), probably another $50 USD. With an XBox going for $180 USD wer're talking about $260 USD, not including the cost of tools, etc. that you would need, and the possible shipping costs on the modchip. Is it STILL that much cheaper?
You probably didn't realise that I happen to live in Sweden, and the shipping might be more than the purchase price. Not all of us live in San Jose you know. ;)
If I watched the classifieds closely for a few months I could probably find such a deal, but I can walk down to the store and get the xbox, a more powerful machine with ethernet and USB already installed, without the wait.
I was in Copenhagen last year and there were a number of small computer stores selling cheap "bare-bones" PCs for about 2000 kroner. I don't imagine the situation is a LOT different in Sweden, but even if it is, Copenhagen is a quick train ride from anywhere in Sweden.
As others have said, I don't think you're really looking very hard.
Problems such as bad weather conditions can be countered by an antenna stabilisation system which would make sure the antenna stays in place regardless of wind, rain or other conditions.
I remain skeptical. Can it handle blizzards, hurricanes, or even just thunderstorms? What about lightning protection? These kinds of things tear weather baloons and small dirigibles apart.
This system really only seems feasible in areas with very mild weather (like California).
Your telling me that the manuals for stun guns tell people to aim for the eyes? Call me crazy but I'd almost rather someone shoot me than zap my eyes.
Yep, and even if you score a direct hit on the eyes (think about how likely this is), stun guns are STILL only moderately effective. Contrary to what most people think, the "white" part of the eye is actually quite durable and can whistand considerable trauma. And an electric shock really isn't that bad. You'd be much better off with a ballpoint pen, because then you would have a chance at inflicting major damage by piercing the eyeball.
Yes, as absurd as it seems, you're probably better off with a ballpoint pen or letter opener for self-defense than a stun gun. Especially if you have ninja-like accuracy with sharp weapons. Normal people are infinitely better off with handguns.
these might be useful for corrections officers. They cannot carry guns in jail anyway... and it might keep them from getting swarmed by a bunch of inmates (build in some protection against shivs/shanks and you'd have yourself a truly useful product).
Except that they would be almost completely ineffective against prison inmates. All "stun guns" can do, even with prolonged contact, is inflict moderate amounts of pain. And we now know that "pain tolerance" is purely the result of culture and training. Due to the often painful and degrading conditions of thier imprisonment, US prisoners effectively get a lot of "pain training". They're tougher than you or I, and most of the guards that watch them. Given all this, it's unlikely that these coats would be effective.
Besides, if you want to inflict pain you're much better off with pepper spray. It's already used for this purpose in Californian prisons.
It's a very bad idea for a company to upset the big boys and this may have been part of the reason that ReplayTV hit the ground hard. So by eliminating these features, you get more support from companies such as Disney and Viacom.
It's not bad for an electronics company to upset the "big boys" of media, why should it be? There are plenty of Korean manufacturers getting rich making region-free DVD players. From a pragmatic standpoint, the interests of ReplayTV customers are the exact opposite from that of media and the media aren't paying the bills.
Let's think back to Diamond Multimedia and the famous Rio case: You may remember that the RIAA and friends failed in a lawsuit to stop production of the Rio, and by extension, ALL MP3 players. Since the ReplayTV case has extremely similar merits, based on the precedent of the Rio case SonicBlue seemed poised to win the case. Ironically enough, they weren't able to finish up the ReplayTV lawsuit because of stiff competition in the MP3 player market (a market that Diamond Multimedia effectively created).
I strongly suspect that this is just a rumor. Denon/Marantz is a very "customer oriented" business, they certainly knew about these features of the ReplayTV product before purchasing the company, and I would be very suprised if they alienated the ReplayTV customer base (which is likely to want a high-end, expensive, feature-laden unit consistent with the Marantz image) when they have little to gain in doing so.
OS 9 sucked for certain reasons, but was still a lot more stable than even Windows 2K with good tuning. OS X is great, though. You are missing out if you have been turned off to them forever.
You're missing the point. I wasn't complaining about the technical merits of OS9 (or lack thereof) but the incredibly poor direct support and overall lack of support resources for Macs. I've only had to call Microsoft support a few times in my life (I'm a professional network enginner and IT manager) and they was usually because a Knowledge Base article told me to (You need to contact support to download certain patches, those calls are free). And just about anything I needed to know I could find in a refrence manual (If I cared to look it up) or, MUCH more often, on the Internet. In 1999 I found a distinct lack of such resources for the Mac.
The notion of the personality behind certain technology isn't stupid. Doug Englebart, Vennevar Bush, Alan Turing and other people including, yes, Steve Jobs and even Bill Gates (but probably not Ballmer) have made their marks on computing as a whole. You are pretty ignorant if you think that a personality can't have an affect on your computer, or toaster for example. Have you ever heard of Tesla or Edison?
Does the fact that Edison backed DC and Tesla backed AC have anything whatsoever to do with the technical merits of DC or AC? NO. Did Edison's and Tesla's personalities have any effect on their business? Hell yes.
Edison was a very shrewed businessman who knew all the dirty tricks. He was the first to hit on the idea of a "skunk works" for new inventions, which he all took credit for. Needless to say, he ended up rich and famous.
Tesla was a loon which didn't know anything about business. What little he had was stolen by Edison. He ended up a footnote in history.
Replace Edison with Gates and Tesla with Jobs.
Personalities can affect computer designs, like everything else, but ultimately we should evaluate products on their own merits. If the best computer in the world is built by neo-Nazis I'd buy from them. Not because they were neo-Nazis, but because they were selling the best comupter in the world. It's called "capitalism". Look into it.
What you're doing is called "hero worship".
The "botique" look is being copied (2 years late, I might add) by every 2 bit PC manufacturer out there, and do you see their shareholders lining up and filing minority lawsuits? Fuck no, because Apple has been doing great in this fucked economy.
Back when the iMac was first released, and selling quite well to the Mac devotees, within a few months a great number of PC manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon to make clones of the design. Gateway, Futurepower, Sony, etc. Several of thse companies were sued, with some success, by Apple for stealing thier design.
As it turns out, it wasn't necessary because the "clones" were a total failure. People simply didn't want an "all-in-one" PC. Now why was that? Several reasons, but mainly because they were no cheaper than tower PCs and generally less capable.
IMHO, PRICE is the reason the iMacs were popular. Mac devotees bought them because they were relatively cheap Macs, which was a novel idea at the time. That's why I bought a few for QA (see my last post) rather than Powermacs.
But the point remains that unless you want a PC that looks like a desk lamp (I'm certain Apple has patented this design), you can buy a Wintel system in every form factor offered by Apple, and countless others.
PC companies have been having problems due to fierce competition BETWEEN THEMSELVES, notably Dell vs. everyone else. Dell is doing just peachy. I've met Michael Dell and he's a fucking genius. I don't know wether or not he'll make the history books, I guess he'll have to take billions of dollars as a consolation prize.
I would also argue that my 13 month old "botique" powerbook is quite a bit more stable and usable, than my newer, top of the l
Your point, please? So both Macs and PCs break occasionally. With Apple it's usually NOT a hassle to get customer service.
I haven't used Macs since OS9, but back then their support, particularly for developers, was AWFUL.
As an example, a few years back (1999 I think) I was testing our company's audio player on a shiny new iMac and I received a confusing error that was clearly a system error. It wasn't in the thin online manual, nor our developer manuals, nor could I find any reference to it in the incredibly poorly-organized support website so I tried to call Apple. They absolutely refused to offer me any support at first before I began bitching about how we were part of the developer program and were PAYING for support. Eventually, after a week of trying, I got an engineer on the phone who steadfastly refused to admit that the error message existed. By them we had hew builds of the software that didn't generate that error so I forgot about it.
This experience (compined with the general crappiness of OS9) pretty much permanently turned me off Apple.
And why don't PC users balk at the $400 price tag of XP 'pro' (a questionably worse option than the older Win2K) when Mac folks shout and kick and scream at a paltry $129 fee for a vastly improved OS? It's because Windows users are so used to being fucked in the ass by MS!
Because most of us are using free illegal copies. Duh.
Apple's current vision is largely Steve Jobs vision right now. He has had a knack for pursuing and marketing great technology and quite frankly isn't as neurotic as Bill and isn't a has-been frat boy like Ballmer. Apple isn't just motivated by money, they are motivated by the money you can get by having the best computer available. Not the fastest necessarily, because the system is only as good as the weakest component. But the most integrated, capable platform out there(we're talking software and hardware integration here people)! Not just money.
Why should I care one little bit about the "personalities" behind my computer? Do you care about the personal life of the guy who designed your toaster? Of course not. The whole notion is stupid.
And Apple is purely motivated by money, like every other corporation they are REQUIRED to ONLY care about the money BY LAW. Apple has made countless moves (like killing the clones) that screwed their customer base that the expense of making money. This current marketing/design approach of making "boutique" computers was crafted because the folks at Apple thought it would make them more money (considering the company was practically going down in flames before these changes), and snowing people like you to "Think Different" or fight the Great Satan Bill Gates is part of that moneymaking strategy. If you prefer Mac, for whatever reason, that's great. But don't pretend that Apple is somehow morally superior to Windows/Intel because it's less successful.
I find your naivete rather amusing actually.
For what it's worth, everything I've read about x86-64 implies that it is exceptionally well-designed and seamless. Not tacked-on or overextended as I think you're implying. I sincerely doubt that the 64-bit extension is going to be a limiting factor.
Actually, this really isn't true, at least in the case of the Opteron which is basically a hack of the Athlon design. It tends to suffer compared to "clean" 64bit designs like Itanium, Power4, and Alpha. It is extremely unlikely that the Athlon-64 will be significantly different. However this hacked design is the Opteron's greatest strenght, allowing it to have both great 32bit performance and good 64bit performance.
IBM is selling millions of G3 processors a year to Nintendo. In a couple years Nintendo will be looking for a new processor, the G4 won't be viable option, but a Power4/Pentium/Hammer may be.
Unlikely, as Nintendo has already said that the GameCube will be their last console.
Which is a very good move considering how badly the GC is tanking, it's evolving into a glorifed GameBoy accessory (which is also a good move because GB is where all the money is).
Nintendo's next project will be the successor to the GameBoy Advance and it will probably be using ARM.
Lots of work emulating popular stuff like GBA or PSX, little to nothing on Jaguar or Saturn or Dreamcast (the platforms in need of "preservation").
I can't speak for the Jaguar or the Dreamcast (though I think in the case of the DC, speed is a major issue), but there are combination of issues that have prevented much Saturn development, mainly due to the complex nature of the Saturn architecture and the fact that almost all the development is going on in Japan. In fact, there is probably a fairly active community in Japan. Don't make the mistake of thinking the USA is the whole world.
"However, Apple hardware remains quite usable for years after x86 hardware becomes "obsolete and/or end of life". ...
/. They tend to be computer professionals and are far from typical.
Hardware that still works is still usable, and can still be usuable at a higher level than the average WIndows drone could possibly imagine.
You made the claim that Mac hardware remains "viable" longer, and Zathrus pointed out that depends entirely on what you mean by "viable". The very latest Windows software doesn't run well on older x86 PCs, the exact same thing is true of Macs. However, if you're willing to run older, or less "intensive" software, older x86 PCs work just fine, same as Macs.
I know why Windows users have to upgrade their software constantly, but then, most Windows users are, perhaps, not quite the brightest of God's creatures
This is demonstrably false. The vast majority of Windows users have little need to constantly upgrade their applications and do not do so. Your prespective is skewed by all the bleeding-edge users hanging around
You are probably right in thinking that Mac hardware retains it's value a bit better than x86 hardware, but I'm wondering what that is supposed to prove. Maybe if you were planning on reselling your computer this might be an issue, but I fail to see how "worth less" translates directly to "less useful".
You seem happy running older hardware. That's great. But there is really no reason why you couldn't be happy running x86 hardware. If you really hate Windows, you can run Linux, or BSD, or BeOS, or one of the dozens of other operating systems that run on x86 hardware. There are even emulators to run older versions of MacOS on x86 hardware using Basilisk II or another emulator.
Never mind that fact that they offered a seemless transition over the years from 68000 to PowerPC, from MacOS Classic to MacOS X.
If you invested in Apple 15 years ago, they still honor your investment. I can't say that the same is true of MS where different versions of Office don't even like to talk to each other and they are constantly pushing for their customers to spend more money.
I just pulled out an old copy of the DOS version of Wordperfect 5.1 and if worked fine on my Windows XP box. Virtually every program written for Windows 95 can work on Windows XP as well as the vast majority of DOS programs going back to 1981. Windows has backwards-compatibility in spades.
Oh, and the file I created in WordPerfect opened just fine in Word XP.
A quick look at a Mac OS 7 screenshot [emuunlim.com], convinces me more than the dissimilarity between Nextstep and windows 95 that you are full of shit. It's obvious that windoze 95 borrowed heavily from MacOS. Well, perphaps not from 7 as it came out in 1996, durring the deep darkness under the former Pepsi Lord. The tiny application bar at the bottom of the screen, combined with the tinny horizontal pannel at the top of the screen and bad taste make up the Windoze 95 GUI. That horizontal pannel has been a feature of the apple GUI at least since 1984 and the first Macs but is not found in Nextstep which simply puts the icons at the bottm of the screen, or wherever you want. Nextstep has a verticle docking station, which can be thought of as a pannel with much more flexibilty than Microsoft or Apple's
Twitter, you seem to be a bit confused.
Among other things:
System 7 was released in 1991. The current version of MacOS when Windows95 was released was 7.5.1.
This isn't a screenshot of MacOS. It's a screenshot of a PC running WindowBlinds to emulate MacOS 7, that's why all the screen elements are terribly confused. Notice how the open window is "C:" and has it's own menu bar? Here is an actual screenshot, though it's for 7.5.5 it's close enough.
I'm not sure what you mean by "tinny horizontal pannel at the top of the screen", presumably what you're talking about is the menu bar, a feature that can be reliably traced back to GUIs as early as 1968. MacOS 7.x and Win9x implemented this feature differently, with MacOS keeping the menu bar on the top of the screen wheras Win98 has a menu bar for each window. There is general consensous that the Win9x approach is better on larger desktops.
The "tiny application bar" in Win9x is called the Taskbar, and also includes the Start Menu and System Tray. While the Start Menu is very similar to the Apple Menu (an idea almost certainly taken from MacOS) the Taskbar, which is basically an "icon panel" of the currently running programs, and the System Tray, which was originally intended for system alerts and such. The Taskbar was a real innovation, AFAIK. Nothing similar was present in either NextSTEP or MacOS (the NextSTEP toolbar was just that, a more primitive version of the Apple/Start Menu).
The major GUI innovation of Win95 was context-senstive popup menus you could get through right-clicking. For example, you could rename a file by right-clicking on it and selecting "Rename". In MacOS this required highlighting the file then moving the cursor to the menu bar to rename, the Win985 was was easier. (Yes, there were hotkeys on MacOS, but Win95 has them too).
Asthetically, I think Win95 is closer to NextSTEP due to the similarity of the 'Close' and 'Full Screen' icons, the Recycle bin, the overall grey tone and appearance. In any event, it's simply not possible that Microsoft's design team was not aware of both MacOS AND NextSTEP. If nothing else, the "Close" and "Full Screen" icons are direct ripoffs of the NextSTEP icons.
What MacOS 7.5.1 GUI had over Win95 at the time were generally better asthetics (a soft grey and blue combo rather than the harsh grey of Win95), the Finder, and many OS features were represented by files and folders (which was more consistent than the Win95 approach). That's about it.
And Apple can hardly claim the moral high ground in GUI design. They tried to sue MS and failed, largely because Apple stole most of their "innovations" from Xerox PARC.
Many old religions still have some followers here and there, and some people looking for answers turn to them as well.
A lot of people like to believe this, particularly neo-pagans, but for the most part it isn't true. European pagan religions that existed during the Common Era were essentially completely wiped out. Their clergy was persecuted, shrines destroyed, followers converted or killed, etc. After 1000 years of this, little trace of these religious have survived. (For example, we know almost nothing about the Celtic faith. And it certianly hasn't been practiced by anyone in centuries.)
An analogy can be made to black slaves that crossed the Atlantic to the USA. Very few of them were Christians before they were enslaved, but they were all converted to Christianity and elements of the native faiths were ruthlessly crushed. In other places, such as Haiti, the native faiths survived in a somewhat syncrenistic form, but this isn't what happened in Europe.
While your view is intetresting, it really is just a thinly-disguised Marxist conspiracy. With "multinational corporations and thier friends" fulfilling the role of the bourguise. The reality is a lot more complicated.
You're implying that somehow product markets are shrinking, when exactly the opposite is true. As other nations become wealthy (the Asian tigers, Middle East, etc.) consumers in those nations show more interest in higher-priced consumer goods, like electronics and appliances.
Are markets in the U.S.A. shrinking? Maybe. I'd say "probaby less", but that's entirely due to the economic slump. You're also implying that the slump is a lot worse than it really is, the stock market (for example) is still above pre-1998 levels.
And finally, you're right in thinking that the USA has transitioned from being a primarily manufacturing economy to an information and finace economy.
I'd like to echo your statement because I'm in exactly the same position. In the early 90's I bought lots of comics, many of wich used obvious scam tactics to attract "collectors" like variant and special covers, multiple covers, "special issues", etc. The industry likes to blame the "speculators" but they deliberately encouraged this speculation, quite blatantly. They are ENTIRELY to blame for the collapse of the comic book industry. (It's similar to what happened with Magic: The Gathering, the speculation was clearly BY DESIGN.)
But the big thing was the price. When I started most comics were between $0.75 and $1 and now a great many comics are between $3 and $4. And that's for NORMAL 32-page monthlies. Special issues and mini-series can be even more. I've seen comics with a COVER PRICE exceeding $10. In fact it was the Rune/Warlock crossover (I'm a huge fan of Adam Warlock) with a cover price of $8 for each issue of a TERRIBLE limited series that finally drove me away. Despite claims to the contrary, higher printing costs simply do not justify the higher prices.
The big problem is that the American comic book industry seems content to stay in an increasingly niche market. Most kids no longer buy comic books. Let's say that again, MOST KIDS NO LONGER BUY COMIC BOOKS. That the main reasons are price, competition from other media (movies, tv, video games, etc.), and the fact that comic books aren't marketed to kids. Most comic books are sold at speciality comic book stores that sell mostly to teenage and young adult males. Marvel and DC seem content to stick to this small audience (despite the obvious mainstream appeal of superheroes). While many independents would like to branch out, they don't have any money so they'll ALWAYS be niche.
Like an increasing number of comic book fans, I only buy trades nowadays, mostly of older comics. Frankly, I think the entire industry should move to trades, in a manner similar to the manga industry in Japan.
"So Ms. Sachs, tell me, what kind of "legitimate business" necessitates hiding the true sender of those email?"
To be fair to Ms. Sachs, she's right about this one. This legislation wouldn't affect the policies of ISPs, who uniformly ban ALL spam in their Terms of Service. If she were forced to identify her REAL email address, people would complain to her REAL ISP and get her kicked off even faster. If she was forced to put ADV: in her subject line most end users would never even see the mail because ISPs would block it at the servers, etc.
Of course, she's making the assumption that any business based on spamming, junk mail, junk faxes, etc. is "legitimate".
Israel's and our official policy is to not torture anyone, even if there's a hidden ticking bomb somewhere.
This is the only bit that I would disagree with. It is the OFFICAL policy of the Israel that the security forces may use "moderate torture", which includes beating, electric shock, etc. Assassination and certain forms of collective punishment are also official Israeli policy. Isreal also legally holds people for indefinite periods without charge. It also should be noted that there aren're really any age limits on those arrested either. As I type, there are 10 year old boys being legally tortured in adult prisons in Isreal.
UNofficially, the Israelis do pretty much everything you could think of. Torture, murder, rape, etc. It is not unknown for Isreali security to threaten or abduct the families of prisoners. Isreali security also assassinates peace advocates, humans rights workers, etc.
IOW, I think it's somewhat inappropriate to compare US and Israeli actions because, in general, what the Israelis is doing is much worse.