The larger pattern this fits into is one that's seen lots of research recently: we don't like other people getting what we perceive to be "better" deals, even if their deals come at no marginal cost to us. The social disapproval at these "cheaters" who don't "pay their share" is pretty strong.
So consumers get pissed when Amazon tries differential pricing, and people will moan about how they should have bought a Powerbook this month, and not last month. Combine this with the "all MP3s and software should be free" crowd, and that will generate a lot of/. posts!
Higher resolution, Firewire 800, more memory, and ability to burn DVDs are the reasons I'd pay more for a PB...but I agree that the 12" PB in particular becomes hard to justify, unless you REALLY need one of those features and REALLY need the 12" form factor.
One of the main benefits is that I can debug rendering code much easier because I don't have to switch back and forth between the editor and the application (triggering extra repaints that screw up the codepath I'm trying to debug).
Amen and exactly! If you're trying to debug any code involved in repainting (or that is triggered by a refresh) you will quickly lose your mind without two monitors. With only one screen, the act of going in and out of the debugger triggers your faulty refresh code. Which breaks into the debugger. Which triggers your code, which breaks into the debugger...
>they somehow had to bring Neo down from being all powerful
It's the classic mistake, isn't it? DC Comics did it with Superman, Lucas did it with Luke, fantasy writers do it all the time. Once the hero becomes too powerful, once they can employ "magic" (flying, etc.) that violates physics, how do we as readers/viewers maintain any interest? In Matrix Reloaded, the Smith/Reeves fight scenes were boring, whereas in the first movie they were enthralling. Similarly, now that we know Neo can reach inside someone and pull out bullets, who gives a shit, now, if a good guy is in danger?
At least they're not time traveling. Yet. That truly is the narrative kiss of death (see Terminator movies).
I guess the obvious answer to all your what-ifs is to go record your own soundtrack and make a professional-quality CD. It's their content, and they have the right to distribute it how they like. (But maybe lots of people share your feelings, and will complain, and not buy through the iTMS, and it will blow up in their faces...)
Why did the parent comment get modded insightful?? What's insightful about it? And where exactly is the rampant anti-Apple sentiment in these comments? Good lord, most of them just consist of people asking about, and drooling over, Panther.
I have no idea about this "G5." But most of your reasons aren't particularly compelling:
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts.
One's a marketing term, the other technical. Apple can label as "G5" anything it wants.
Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005
Overclocking?
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Exactly half 2 GHz; why impossible? Even Intel can be leapfrogged.
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used.
Vague. Who knows?
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Lack of USB2 has been a big complaint. And presumably the graphic was a draft--no final copyediting done yet.
Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
I assume there's a cost difference between 400 and 800? If significant, doesn't seem crazy to provide one *very* high-speed port, and others moderate.
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
Fine--I agree--but my point is still valid. Of the many things that keep Gates, Ballmer et al awake at night, worry about pissing off Mac users is not high on the list.
Pissing off the Mac users is not, by itself, much of a problem. We're talking about 3-5% of the installed base, and a crowd that's generally suspicious of MS anyway. No one at Redmond is going to lose much sleep over that. Pissing off the DOJ might be another story.
OK, I have to ask: what's so bad about these two things? You want more time to use your illegal copy of QXP before registering it? Do you anticipate changing your hardware configuration more than five times during the life of your machine? (I don't.)
I don't use Quark, and I'm sure the company and product have lots of problems--that's obvious, from the postings here and elsewhere. But these two antipiracy measures don't seem particularly onerous, for most people, most of the time.
>Apple may not have a monopoly on desktops, but they do >have a monopoly on Apple products. By selling their >products both in their own storefronts and to competing >storefronts, they need to be treating both as equal stores. >Otherwise, there could be legal repercussions, like this one.
What?!? By this definition of "monopoly," every company has a monopoly on all its own products. This makes no sense. What legal repercussions? Unless Apple signed an explicit contract with these guys, promising equal access to their products, why shouldn't they be able to ship first to their stores, for example? I'd certainly like to know about the grounds of Thomas Armes' "unfair competition" suit.
Could someone with more legal knowledge than I comment on this?
The author (on NPR today) basically said that himself: no, this won't work exactly as laid out. It's a thought experiment, attempting to get scientists as interested in exploring down (Earth) as up (space).
As for "worst idea ever," well, that just sounds like envy.
Well, let's just say you have a lot more faith in the "goodness" of people that I do...IMO it's a lot easier to find examples of people wanting something for nothing, than of voluntarily giving money for something they can have for free.
>Guess what happens if you hard drive crashes? You loose all your music!
And if your house gets broken into, you lose all your music too. Why should the merchant assume unlimited liability (how do I *prove* that my HD crashed?) for something they sell you?
"Steve Jobs is a multi-billionaire in his own right. If he wanted to spend $6,000,000,000 on Universal Music then he - Steve Jobs - easily could"
No offense, but that is so much bullshit. Stop the caffeine and go to sleep. If Jobs reads this, he's laughing his ass off.
Forbes.com lists Jobs' net worth as 1.1 billion dollars (#413 on their list). And that's just on paper--who knows if he could actually realize that in the open market. A six billion dollar company is pretty much just as far out of reach for him as it is for me.
I think there's a big speedup with WebCore--no, it's not as fast (or rendering as correctly) as Safari, but a lot better than OW4.2. OmniWeb has always had a beautiful interface, great preferences, but been s-l-o-w.
Side note: the "prevent JavaScript from opening new windows" preference appears to be broken in this beta, so be prepared for site ads to reappear.
Slashdot Mirror
The larger pattern this fits into is one that's seen lots of research recently: we don't like other people getting what we perceive to be "better" deals, even if their deals come at no marginal cost to us. The social disapproval at these "cheaters" who don't "pay their share" is pretty strong.
/. posts!
So consumers get pissed when Amazon tries differential pricing, and people will moan about how they should have bought a Powerbook this month, and not last month. Combine this with the "all MP3s and software should be free" crowd, and that will generate a lot of
The ability to burn DVDs is also a big difference.
Higher resolution, Firewire 800, more memory, and ability to burn DVDs are the reasons I'd pay more for a PB...but I agree that the 12" PB in particular becomes hard to justify, unless you REALLY need one of those features and REALLY need the 12" form factor.
One of the main benefits is that I can debug rendering code much easier because I don't have to switch back and forth between the editor and the application (triggering extra repaints that screw up the codepath I'm trying to debug).
Amen and exactly! If you're trying to debug any code involved in repainting (or that is triggered by a refresh) you will quickly lose your mind without two monitors. With only one screen, the act of going in and out of the debugger triggers your faulty refresh code. Which breaks into the debugger. Which triggers your code, which breaks into the debugger...
>they somehow had to bring Neo down from being all powerful
It's the classic mistake, isn't it? DC Comics did it with Superman, Lucas did it with Luke, fantasy writers do it all the time. Once the hero becomes too powerful, once they can employ "magic" (flying, etc.) that violates physics, how do we as readers/viewers maintain any interest? In Matrix Reloaded, the Smith/Reeves fight scenes were boring, whereas in the first movie they were enthralling. Similarly, now that we know Neo can reach inside someone and pull out bullets, who gives a shit, now, if a good guy is in danger?
At least they're not time traveling. Yet. That truly is the narrative kiss of death (see Terminator movies).
>You can add memory, but at a higher price when compared to PC.
BS. Same memory--go to crucial or anyplace you want.
I guess the obvious answer to all your what-ifs is to go record your own soundtrack and make a professional-quality CD. It's their content, and they have the right to distribute it how they like. (But maybe lots of people share your feelings, and will complain, and not buy through the iTMS, and it will blow up in their faces...)
Why did the parent comment get modded insightful?? What's insightful about it? And where exactly is the rampant anti-Apple sentiment in these comments? Good lord, most of them just consist of people asking about, and drooling over, Panther.
I have no idea about this "G5." But most of your reasons aren't particularly compelling:
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts.
One's a marketing term, the other technical. Apple can label as "G5" anything it wants.
Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005
Overclocking?
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Exactly half 2 GHz; why impossible? Even Intel can be leapfrogged.
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used.
Vague. Who knows?
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Lack of USB2 has been a big complaint. And presumably the graphic was a draft--no final copyediting done yet.
Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
I assume there's a cost difference between 400 and 800? If significant, doesn't seem crazy to provide one *very* high-speed port, and others moderate.
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
This one is a little weird, I agree.
B
Fine--I agree--but my point is still valid. Of the many things that keep Gates, Ballmer et al awake at night, worry about pissing off Mac users is not high on the list.
Pissing off the Mac users is not, by itself, much of a problem. We're talking about 3-5% of the installed base, and a crowd that's generally suspicious of MS anyway. No one at Redmond is going to lose much sleep over that. Pissing off the DOJ might be another story.
OK, I have to ask: what's so bad about these two things? You want more time to use your illegal copy of QXP before registering it? Do you anticipate changing your hardware configuration more than five times during the life of your machine? (I don't.)
I don't use Quark, and I'm sure the company and product have lots of problems--that's obvious, from the postings here and elsewhere. But these two antipiracy measures don't seem particularly onerous, for most people, most of the time.
>Apple may not have a monopoly on desktops, but they do
>have a monopoly on Apple products. By selling their
>products both in their own storefronts and to competing
>storefronts, they need to be treating both as equal stores.
>Otherwise, there could be legal repercussions, like this one.
What?!? By this definition of "monopoly," every company has a monopoly on all its own products. This makes no sense. What legal repercussions? Unless Apple signed an explicit contract with these guys, promising equal access to their products, why shouldn't they be able to ship first to their stores, for example? I'd certainly like to know about the grounds of Thomas Armes' "unfair competition" suit.
Could someone with more legal knowledge than I comment on this?
The author (on NPR today) basically said that himself: no, this won't work exactly as laid out. It's a thought experiment, attempting to get scientists as interested in exploring down (Earth) as up (space).
As for "worst idea ever," well, that just sounds like envy.
Thunderous applause! Very nice.
"I think it was about fifteen seconds after Steve started talking that I decided to license our entire library to him."
./, the man is a damn good salesman.
Like him or not, and many don't here on
1) FireWire
2) If you need USB2-type speed, Apple wants you to buy a better machine anyway.
Well, let's just say you have a lot more faith in the "goodness" of people that I do...IMO it's a lot easier to find examples of people wanting something for nothing, than of voluntarily giving money for something they can have for free.
>Guess what happens if you hard drive crashes? You loose all your music!
And if your house gets broken into, you lose all your music too. Why should the merchant assume unlimited liability (how do I *prove* that my HD crashed?) for something they sell you?
It's hard because:
7. Non-DRM track distributed endlessly on net
8. No one else buys track
9. Artist refuses to offer music anymore.
test.
How are you?
How
- are
you?"Steve Jobs is a multi-billionaire in his own right. If he wanted to spend $6,000,000,000 on Universal Music then he - Steve Jobs - easily could"
No offense, but that is so much bullshit. Stop the caffeine and go to sleep. If Jobs reads this, he's laughing his ass off.
Forbes.com lists Jobs' net worth as 1.1 billion dollars (#413 on their list). And that's just on paper--who knows if he could actually realize that in the open market. A six billion dollar company is pretty much just as far out of reach for him as it is for me.
I think there's a big speedup with WebCore--no, it's not as fast (or rendering as correctly) as Safari, but a lot better than OW4.2. OmniWeb has always had a beautiful interface, great preferences, but been s-l-o-w.
Side note: the "prevent JavaScript from opening new windows" preference appears to be broken in this beta, so be prepared for site ads to reappear.
Um, Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; Apple isn't. That's a difference.
The parent post is excellent, but the book's title is actually "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information."