When you actually spell "Vaio" correctly you will see that Google returns around 70,000 hits.
Oops, honest mistake. Still it was just an observation as I pointed out...(daft name IFYAM, just like 'Clie')
Also, the Powerbook in all it's incarnations has a longer production history
True, but then their are a lot more Vaio laptops around than PowerBooks.
Thinking about it I've had (personally, or though work) a Sony, two Compaq's, a Twin Head and a TiBook. The Powerbook was the nicest (also the newest) but had more problems than the rest put together. Enough to make me not want to buy another one again.
Bad argument.
I spent 4,800 USD for purchase on my PowerBook (not couting all the upgrades, or system software, which would bring the total to/over/ 6000 USD).
I've been responsible - in an I.S. capacity - for at least 10 different models of laptop - NONE of which have had as many problems, or cost as much as, a PowerBook G4.
I'd say, as someone who's actually owend one had had to put up with the disappointment of seeing it fall apart, that's a pertty good argument.
Re:Just wait until the rubber feet fall off
on
12" PowerBook Wobble?
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I am ticked off about Apple's seeming lack of desire to resolve these issues. As a early adopter of the first 15" TiBook model (first month it was released) I am really annoyed they still haven't bothered to fix this simple and glaring issue.
They are glued on with something that has all the bonding power of a Pritt Stick. Also, I found the feet were too tiny to be much use for heat disippation in any case - it makes the Powerbook look thinner, but I added my own reasonably sized feet (with Superglue) and it made the system run *much* cooler.
My PowerBook ultimately developed a number of cracks and fell apart on me (it has now been taken apart and modded to be housed in a rack mountable Cisco 2500 chassis as a result).
One of the cracks the poor design developed put strain on the screen, which now has 3 dead pixels. Oh, and the hard drive went on my system in the first 3 months AND the keyboard was badly designed and fell apart AND the DVD firmware was broken which caused the drive to utterly destroy two of my DVD's (at first I thought it was a random fluke until a patched was released). And let's not talk about the paint (but that didn't bother me too much).
They have fixed a lot of these issues, and I don't mind them as an 'early adopter', and I should also add that Apple support is *very* good, despite this I have decided to abandon Apple as a vendor for the time being. I considered getting a 12" or 17" Powerbook as a replacement, but *knew* there would be a whole glut of new issues. Apple had loads of problems like this with the otherwise wonderful Cube too, and many such issues always seem to drag on and never be fully resolved by Apple...
I wish they would learn. Many of the systems look very pretty, but aren't very durable.:(
As it is, I now have a reasonably loaded dual-cpu Sun Ultra 60 based Sun Ray network at home (just waiting for another Sun Ray to arrive this week as it happens) I'm very happy with Gnome 2 and the Sun Hardware, it may run even less games than Mac OS X, but that's why I have an XBox and GameCube.
Anyway...
I think my next laptop with either be a Sony (despite their truly - notoriously - awful customer support, their portable systems are also attractive yet much more durable - the NR70 being amazing for all the crap I put it through) or - if it is sufficiently supported in Linux - a Compaq Tablet. I'd rather have a Compaq Tablet, but I don't want to go through all the pain of running Microsoft Windows.
I can't see it being an Apple again unless I'm able to trawl the web without being flooded by users with problems:
Compare Google searches for the following terms (remove quotes): 'viao problem' (1,990 hits) (Sony) 'armada problem' (61,200 hits) (Compaq) 'powerbook problem' (110,000 hits) (Apple) 'ibook problem' (70,200 hits) (Apple)
I just tried that just now on a random hunch (never done it before). Scary, and it didn't surprise me:( . Most of the Viao's have been well built and durable (with rare exception, the 505 was quite vunerable as it was so thin), and all the Armada's are built (and look like;) Russian tanks. I also think there were a more issues with PowerBooks than with iBooks, so this rings true for me.
I'd definitely say buyer beware - and advise people to research problems first online (and maybe wait until the vendor [Apple] gives firm fixes for the most serious issues). I can live with rubbish feet and poor quality glue, bad case design in a several-thousand-dollar-laptop is a lot more serious though.
One of the benefits of BSDs is that they're coherent systems and not a hodgepodge of kernels and userland apps.
If you mean what I think you mean then that's a bizzare idea. BSD distributions contain the same 'hodgepodge' of userland apps, they are not any more or less 'coherent'.
You'll find quite a bit of GNU software on a default FreeBSD install (and not just gcc and related tools, more basic things like GNU versions of tar too).
AOL block 780 Million messages a day. This is 100 Million messages more than are actually delivered.
AOL spam filtering is a LOT more complex than 'block mail from X server', and it's good at it's job - but like any system it's not infallible.
As many providers have found out, if you make it *really* effective, it starts getting false positives and that irritates some customers far more. As an example, Apple's.mac mail used to be _really_ good at filtering mail, but some users complained and they loosed up Brightmail it seems - and now it's noticeably less effective.
It would be like stopping to deliver snailmail from another city / nation, just because someone living there sends junkmail to your city / nation. Is this something we want?
While I don't think it's something we want in an ideal world, it's actually something quite a few people do already.
A lot of email coming from the APNIC area, particularly Taiwan, Vietnam & Korea (etc.), is filtered completely by quite a number of admins, simply because of the ownership information on the originating IP addresses. The number of poorly managed exploitable sendmail systems (particularly ones owned by universities/educational establishments) in this region of the world is stunning.
I remember there was one women only university in Vietnam (IIRC), that had a mail server that was open as a full anonymous SMTP relay for a year, the site also had no postmaster or abuse address. Sadly, this is not uncommon in areas of the world that don't have adequate numbers of suitably experienced/skilled staff.
It's not just APNIC areas that are sources of Spam of course, there is quite a bit from South America, and from Africa (which I think will be the next biggest source in the years to come, as the network infrastructure increases while general poverty and the desperate need to make a living remain). There are even a couple of companies in Spain and France that are also major sources of Spam, due to utter incompetence and inadequate AUP enforcement by up streams and peers.
This is all unfortunate, but with AOL filtering 780 million spam messages a day (which is ~100 million more than they deliver) it's really necessary, the only other immediately available alternative for ISP's being to use additional more advanced - and more expensive - filtering methods (such as Brightmail) and pass those costs on to the consumer, and a lot of customers would sooner they went for the cheap, quick and dirty approach.
So in short, yes this is what we want.
It's not just a case of 'one person in a city sending us mail we don't want' it's a case of 'thousands of people in a country sending us mail we don't want' - and/we/ have to pay postage.
While the costs are smaller, the charges still add up - and if, like me, you have a roaming GPRS or 3G service a single spam can cost the same to receive as it costs to post a 1st class letter (as these services are typically billed by the kilobyte, and have quite high charges).
I think your missing the point of why people complain about article rejection here on Slashdot...
Slashdot editors regularly and frequently (not just 'now and then', but frequently) reject interesting stories by many people, then, days, weeks or months later repost the same story (often with a worse writeup) *several times*.
I've seen it happen many times, and read other people's write ups that they got rejected, as well as have it happen to me.
*That's* what pisses people off. It's illogical and annoying. Frankly I don't submit stories to/. any more because of it.
(relevant as most/.'ers will of course be white males).
Bleh, what makes you say that?
You mean apart from because it's true?
Besides, 5.1% isn't that much better then 5.8%
Actually it's a big deal when talking about unemployment figures. A 0.7% difference in unemployment has a huge impact on the US economy - it is the difference between billions of dollars of tax revenues collected and billions of dollars spent on benifit and support schemes. It represents a difference of ~1 million people.
That's to say nothing of the effect such a difference has on the private sector (e.g. on lending rates, consumer spending, retail revenue).
If your unemployed for a long period there is a reason for that. That reason is not 'your skills are dazzlingly bright', nor is it 'you're trying too hard'.
The unemployment rate is currently 5.8% in the US (as of March 2003). It's notably less if you male, or, for that matter white - in which case it's more like 5.1% (relevant as most/.'ers will of course be white males).
Even 5.8% is low, it's one of the lowest in the world. This table for example, maybe a little out of date, being as it is from last year, but it's still useful at putting everything in perspective.
Compared to unemployment rates of 50, 60 or 70% in Africa (and double-digit dates in the last century in the US) the current whinging about unemployment is a-something-about-nothing that's been blown largely out of proportion by media and public opinion.
Certain factions of the public find it easier to believe that they are a victim of a weak economy rather than admit responsibility for their own circumstance. My own father, who I haven't seen in years, has not been in full time employment in a regular job for a decade due entirely to his own inadequacy - and he regularly blames the current government, the previous government (going back 20 years) and the state of the economy (but oddly enough, not himself).
Here in the states the economics of being a programmer or anything in the IT industry is pretty bad, but from the article it seems Africa is much worse. We take most of their problems for granted here. I think this is a large problem for Americans, we don't really realize how good we have. The same thing can be said for gasoline, in Europe they are paying double, triple or more then what we are paying, even when we think its so "expensive".
While I quite agree with the rest of this paragraph I take strong issue with your opening sentence.
Specifically with:
Here in the states the economics of being a programmer or anything in the IT industry is pretty bad
Workers in the IT industry are still earning above the national average, for a job that's really not that demanding (your actual milage may vary of course, but by and large it's not that taxing if you know what your doing).
I think the IT industry is a great one to be in - certainly as far a salarys & formal prerequisites to employment go, especially for a job that requires almost zero physical labour and has almost endless scope for career development (by which I mean there are so many roles you could do you couldn't possibly hope to do them all in one lifetime).
The only problem this sector ever had was the influx of mid 90's 'get rich quick' lusers turned sysadmins/developers/web designers who wouldn't know a clue-by-four if they were larted on the head with it.
Most of them are still unemployed now, but if your a *real* sysadmin/developer/etc - and your reasonably flexible - then your simply not going to be unemployed for huge length of time (>6 months) unless you live in an area where there is amazingly stiff competion (like say, the bay area).
But the device has not yet attained its total usefulness. Trust me, when it does, I'm so there
'Total usefulness'? Once you start asking for other features like a DVD recorder, there is no such finite thing as far as device like this goes!
If we go down that road then 'Total usefulness' could be only achived if it was some sort of chocolate dispensing, time and space travelling, video game platform & orgasamatron (with built-in Tea's Maid).
What you should have said was 'until it has this other feature I also want'. Which is fine, and it would be useful, but in reality your in for a long wait. You also could have said 'when it makes tea as well', which would be a longer wait, and an equally fruitless one.
The sad reality is it's going to be a long time before home multimedia systems reach a decent stage of convergeance - and when they do they are going to be *really* expensive initially. They are also going be a bit crap initially until vendors get their heads around the idea and get their act's together (I think Microsoft have the best chance of pulling this off first, it's certainly the future market they are aiming at).
While you've been bemoaning the lack of DVD-writer functionaly I've been enjoying my TiVo for the last 2 years, and as has already been pointed out, you can already save to VHS/Betamax/DVD/PC from PVR's (like TiVo) - quite elgantly already via a dedicated SCART Socket.
Look at it this way: If you buy a seperate DVD recoder and PVR today, by the time a decent combined box that you REALLY want comes out, you'll have gotten serveral years out of them both, and you'll still, at the very least, have a seperate DVD/player recoder you can use in another room/sell/give away.
Actually, if you were to buy both today, I think the truth would be that one of them will long since have broken down before you see a decent hybrid device (and of course if your hesitating over buying a PVR now you certainly shouldn't want to buy the first wave of hybrid devices either (which would be sensible) - because they will be nowhere near a good as we'd like them to be).
only real usefulness of the PVR is to basically watch stuff when you want to until the shows get recorded over.
I don't think that's true - certainly no more than saying 'the only real usefulness of cars is to backwards and forward in'.
PVRs can do a *lot* more than simply record shows on user demand. They record entire series of shows, learn what shows you like, suggest/record similar shows, record shows in certain genre's, record shows with given directors/actors/writers, record shows filmed in certain years, or even based on kewords in the description or title - or combinations of the above.
It's difficult to appreciate until you've tried it - an example might be getting home from holiday to find a new season of 'foo' has started while you were away, and that it's recorded all the episodes thus far, plus a new spin off series on another channel and when you sit down to watch TV later that evening have it suggest 'hey there is a new series starting on another channel that it looks like you might like, do you want to change over?' hitting 'Okay' and discovering a great new show.
And then there are the 'pause & rewind live TV' & 'rewind to the begging of current show' features, as well as the integrated channel guide (which you can use to get film & tv listings in a format that let's you identify shows you'll like from lists that are relevant to you).
In short: I can see your point, but I think your in for such a long wait that your far better off getting two seperate systems now (or at the very least a PVR, then hacking it or getting a DVD writer seperately if you really decide you want to archive stuff).
Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker?
on
Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I agree with your sentiments entirely.
The poster could as well have said "I won't bother to try it until it can play MP3's, Ogg Vorbis, DivX's and VCD's".
I don't think market is yet ready to support such a device (PVR manufacturers are having a hard enough job convicing consumers to purchase a PVR as it is). The added resources required to add DVD burning functionality, in relation the likely level of adoption of such a costly device, would mean this unit would end up costing the same as - and, after a short period, due to the falling prices of DVD writers, ultimately more than - a seperate DVD writer & a TiVo.
It should be pointed out that TiVo has quite an elgant interface for saving to an external recording mechanisim (tape, DVD, or video-in card in a PC), and even has an extra SCART socket for this very purpose.
As for the article, it can be summed up by saying 'people harp on about TiVo because it's really great and want other people to try it because they know they'll like it too'. And I don't think anyone needed an NYT article to spell that out.
I'm a bit dissapointed with TiVo in the UK as of late. My major niggles being slow speed of updates, UI issues (poor UI design in a few key of places force minor but regular menu furstration) and - of course - the fact that TiVo sold out to the BBC with regard to preferences. The latter nearly enough to make me cancel my subscription, though I do relish the oppertinuty to mark all the crap on the BBC as three thumbs down (hopefully they are getting some useful feedback - the show they pulled the 'spam all the TiVo users' trick with was so dire and unanimously dispised it's never seen the light of day again).
The other thing that really gets me is that it's not nearly as good at finding similar shows with terrestrial TV (Freeview) as it is when you have Sky channels. I've gone through a couple of periods of having Sky, and not having Sky (moving, On Digital going bust, etc). When I have Sky, it's been really good at finding other stuff I might like, when I have only Freeview it find's not nearly as many matches and doesn't record stuff I have 3 thumbs up for (the maximum) unless I specifically tell it too.
I think this may have something to do with the program data - the BBC (and other non-Sky) channel data is often not right, of course the company who handle the UK channel data - and who you actually pay our monthly subscription to in the UK - is of course Sky. I assume it's a case of Sky trying a bit harder to get their own stuff right (and the BBC not being nearly as arsed to provide them with correct data or to ensure they use the correct data). A tech support rep informed me once they have another company provide some of the BBC-and-non-Sky-related channel data (during a period when BBC 1 was without channel data for a couple of weeks).
Don't let that put you off though (unless you are both (a) in the UK and (b) don't have Sky). If you watch around around 6 or more hours of televison a week you should really get a PVR. You'll watch MUCH less crap TV and get to see loads of cool new shows you've never seen. The only downside is you'll find yourself staying in more to watch all the neat stuff it's recorded.
Which of course will end up making you even more, antisocial, braindead and even more of a sad git than you are already;-) 'Get out less' indeed:-)
It's really quite a simple concept to grasp (though evidently not as simple as you).
I am not a concept, I am a person.
I was infering that you are simple, not that you are a concept.
Now do you see how simple you are?
Christ-on-a-bike....
It's more fun to play games on a big screen with a good surround sound setup on a comfy sofa. Keyboards and mice are just shit in the context of sitting on a sofa. Joypads are very good in this context. VERY SIMPLE.
It's not about 'how big your recticle is' it's about HOW MUCH FUN YOU HAVE and there is WAAAY more fun to gained from a huge projected/back projected image, backed by a decent home cinema sound setup.
No I meant what I said. That's why I said it. Halo has had top-quality reviews in every main stream independant cross platform gaming journal (for example, magazines such as Edge).
'PS2 Fanboys Monthly' may say 'well you know it's alright, but it's not great, there are better PS2 games' but that sort of propoganda has been going on since the early 80's Atari/Intellivision/etc and is just as transparent.
I prefer to read mature gaming magazines with *honest* reviews that don't simply pander to the readership and tell them how smart and cool they are for buying their chosen console.
It's a good game. It would still have been a good game if it was released on SGI Indy only. I have 3 consoles, Halo is the best FPS game on all of them.
The only truly comparable game is Half Life (DN3D was very innovative, but a little frustrating in places due the big-explosions-and-isane-nubmer-of-bad-guys-that-g ot-you-killed-just-when-you-were-doing-so-well so I don't include it for that reason).
I use them on OS X and having a terminal/vi and a IDE (e.g. Project Builder) visible at the same time (terminal over source editor) is _really_ useful.
It's also useful when Googling to fix system problems (web browser underneath, term on top) or to diganose system problems on multiple hosts (with a large number of overlapping x terms).
I have no problem seeing though 3 levels of terms, or reading translucent terminals. The exact level of translucency, the color scheme and not having a very distracting desktop background are quite important factors though.
I'd take a minute to re-assess that "self evident truth".
Halo is currently regarded by the majority of gamers as the best FPS game at this time. It is currently avalible only on XBox, and is played WITHOUT A MOUSE.
Ergo, it's possible for them to work well on a console without a mouse.
It's really quite a simple concept to grasp (though evidently not as simple as you).
FPS are mouse games, pure and simple
No - they are games played from a first person perspective (HINT: That's what the 'FPS' bit stands for).
A 'mouse' is an input device, *not* a gaming genre. And, incidentally, it's fucking useless for FPS games without a keyboard.
Playing an FPS on a large screen, such as a widescreen TV, or projector is great - using a mouse on your lap or on you sofa while also juggling a keyboard is *not*.
That's why consoles have joypad's, it's much more convenient for playing games from a sofa, which people do because they like playing on a large screen, with beefy speakers.
I hate dupe posts more :)
on
AOL Sues Spammers
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Who do we hate more?/. editors who post dupes!
I waste _way_ more time on them that I do on SPAM:)
As you said to build a better machine costs considerably more (it's utterly obvious and simple really).
130 UKP is not a lot to pay for this spec of system, in fact you won't find any other new similary capeable system this cheap in any other retail outlet.
Don't underestimate the speed of the system, the optimisations to processor and memeory mean you'd need to spend twice that to get a system which can deliver the same frame rate in something like Unreal Tournament - and the speed is not simply due to the raw power of graphics card, it comes from the other design elements which are noticeable when running main stream productivity applications.
That's why people want to run Linux on it - it's cheaper than buying a similar PC simly because it's more efficient.
(Also: Don't pay 40 USD for a memory card - that's way too much, and for 007 - you can get it for less than 20 UKP, so I'm sure you can get it for less than 20 USD.)
Unless the other drowing man has a reasource you can use to avoid drowning, like large pants (which you could make into an air float), that he is is not ingenious enough to use to save himself.
This of course, would mean you have to make sure the other drowning man dies first (i.e. kill him, so you can steal his pants) and then blow into it's pants then hold on to them and use them to float to safety (would could be unpleasent, especially as in this configuration, your head/face would lay in the crotch area, which could be quite messy, if he's just died while wearing them).
So you can save yourself with this method, but you'll have to screw someone over to do it and you may still have to float around in shit for a while until you've used what they had to save yourself.
[Note: Replace 'other man' with 'other company' and 'pants'(as the valueable reasource) with 'back catalogue of music' and this almost makes a little sense. ]
I, for one, think we should not shirk from our duty as consumers, for if we do not act in the most efficent and natural manner possible, a free market will not be able to sustain itself.
Distributing information that allows people to abuse such a badly broken system is a legitimate way of putting market pressure on a corporate entity for the good of the majority.
It's using market forces to correct the market when it fails. In this case, the act of failure is an exceptionally poor product, and the correction is imposed by a potential loss of revenue. The possibility that it can be so easily, and untraceably, abused is enough to force the company to improve the quality of it's product/service - that is, it would be if the state had not interfered with the situation through superfluous legislation and protectionism.
Not allowing this entirely natural correction could lead to a potentially catastrophic failure of the system in future.
If we take the view that companies should be left open to free market forces as much as possible, and protected by the state only when there is over riding public interest (such as, classically, in the case of 'merit goods' or 'public goods'), then it's clear there is no such overriding public interest, and no natural monopoly in this product, and as such there is no need for government to protect the company.
Copyright has found a useful place in our vision of a mixed economy, but the DMCA - and similar such legislation - has no place in a free, mixed or planned economy and, so quite simply, makes no economic sense in any context.
I am not an American, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking, are there any major US political proponents of a (largely) free economy who feel similarly about this type of government protectionism?
Can't agree more! (Well, if you swore a bit more and were more insulting about the frigging muppets who do this kind of nonsense then I might;).
Web designers who INSIST on using fixed width for news sites (while wasting screen real estate) should be bloody well fired.
It's really quite simply wank - C|net do it, CNN do it, the BBC do it - and Wired do it too (with the actual articles). It's MORONIC and the ONLY justification they have is that they are too lazy/stupid to work out how to make things scale properly.
I've talked to several designers about this, and it stems from a mixture of them coming from traditional (magazine layout) based media (this is still what is taught at college's too, so many new designers still have this mentality) but also because of a lack of understanding of tables and no idea about how to use them creatively.
The only thing more wank that that is The Register's nonsense front page with articles all over they place. AND they are fixed width too the twats.:/
Note to moron web desginers: If you ARE going to do this sort of crap, at least center the page like C|Net do. It's still wank of course, but less so. AND there is NO excuse not do to do that... (other than being a lazy twat).
Slashdot Mirror
When you actually spell "Vaio" correctly you will see that Google returns around 70,000 hits.
/over/ 6000 USD).
Oops, honest mistake. Still it was just an observation as I pointed out...(daft name IFYAM, just like 'Clie')
Also, the Powerbook in all it's incarnations has a longer production history
True, but then their are a lot more Vaio laptops around than PowerBooks.
Thinking about it I've had (personally, or though work) a Sony, two Compaq's, a Twin Head and a TiBook. The Powerbook was the nicest (also the newest) but had more problems than the rest put together. Enough to make me not want to buy another one again.
Bad argument.
I spent 4,800 USD for purchase on my PowerBook (not couting all the upgrades, or system software, which would bring the total to
I've been responsible - in an I.S. capacity - for at least 10 different models of laptop - NONE of which have had as many problems, or cost as much as, a PowerBook G4.
I'd say, as someone who's actually owend one had had to put up with the disappointment of seeing it fall apart, that's a pertty good argument.
I am ticked off about Apple's seeming lack of desire to resolve these issues. As a early adopter of the first 15" TiBook model (first month it was released) I am really annoyed they still haven't bothered to fix this simple and glaring issue.
:(
:( . Most of the Viao's have been well built and durable (with rare exception, the 505 was quite vunerable as it was so thin), and all the Armada's are built (and look like ;) Russian tanks. I also think there were a more issues with PowerBooks than with iBooks, so this rings true for me.
They are glued on with something that has all the bonding power of a Pritt Stick. Also, I found the feet were too tiny to be much use for heat disippation in any case - it makes the Powerbook look thinner, but I added my own reasonably sized feet (with Superglue) and it made the system run *much* cooler.
My PowerBook ultimately developed a number of cracks and fell apart on me (it has now been taken apart and modded to be housed in a rack mountable Cisco 2500 chassis as a result).
One of the cracks the poor design developed put strain on the screen, which now has 3 dead pixels. Oh, and the hard drive went on my system in the first 3 months AND the keyboard was badly designed and fell apart AND the DVD firmware was broken which caused the drive to utterly destroy two of my DVD's (at first I thought it was a random fluke until a patched was released). And let's not talk about the paint (but that didn't bother me too much).
They have fixed a lot of these issues, and I don't mind them as an 'early adopter', and I should also add that Apple support is *very* good, despite this I have decided to abandon Apple as a vendor for the time being. I considered getting a 12" or 17" Powerbook as a replacement, but *knew* there would be a whole glut of new issues. Apple had loads of problems like this with the otherwise wonderful Cube too, and many such issues always seem to drag on and never be fully resolved by Apple...
I wish they would learn. Many of the systems look very pretty, but aren't very durable.
As it is, I now have a reasonably loaded dual-cpu Sun Ultra 60 based Sun Ray network at home (just waiting for another Sun Ray to arrive this week as it happens) I'm very happy with Gnome 2 and the Sun Hardware, it may run even less games than Mac OS X, but that's why I have an XBox and GameCube.
Anyway...
I think my next laptop with either be a Sony (despite their truly - notoriously - awful customer support, their portable systems are also attractive yet much more durable - the NR70 being amazing for all the crap I put it through) or - if it is sufficiently supported in Linux - a Compaq Tablet. I'd rather have a Compaq Tablet, but I don't want to go through all the pain of running Microsoft Windows.
I can't see it being an Apple again unless I'm able to trawl the web without being flooded by users with problems:
Compare Google searches for the following terms (remove quotes):
'viao problem' (1,990 hits) (Sony)
'armada problem' (61,200 hits) (Compaq)
'powerbook problem' (110,000 hits) (Apple)
'ibook problem' (70,200 hits) (Apple)
I just tried that just now on a random hunch (never done it before). Scary, and it didn't surprise me
I'd definitely say buyer beware - and advise people to research problems first online (and maybe wait until the vendor [Apple] gives firm fixes for the most serious issues). I can live with rubbish feet and poor quality glue, bad case design in a several-thousand-dollar-laptop is a lot more serious though.
One of the benefits of BSDs is that they're coherent systems and not a hodgepodge of kernels and userland apps.
.
If you mean what I think you mean then that's a bizzare idea. BSD distributions contain the same 'hodgepodge' of userland apps, they are not any more or less 'coherent'
You'll find quite a bit of GNU software on a default FreeBSD install (and not just gcc and related tools, more basic things like GNU versions of tar too).
AOL block 780 Million messages a day. This is 100 Million messages more than are actually delivered.
.mac mail used to be _really_ good at filtering mail, but some users complained and they loosed up Brightmail it seems - and now it's noticeably less effective.
AOL spam filtering is a LOT more complex than 'block mail from X server', and it's good at it's job - but like any system it's not infallible.
As many providers have found out, if you make it *really* effective, it starts getting false positives and that irritates some customers far more. As an example, Apple's
It would be like stopping to deliver snailmail from another city / nation, just because someone living there sends junkmail to your city / nation. Is this something we want?
/we/ have to pay postage.
While I don't think it's something we want in an ideal world, it's actually something quite a few people do already.
A lot of email coming from the APNIC area, particularly Taiwan, Vietnam & Korea (etc.), is filtered completely by quite a number of admins, simply because of the ownership information on the originating IP addresses. The number of poorly managed exploitable sendmail systems (particularly ones owned by universities/educational establishments) in this region of the world is stunning.
I remember there was one women only university in Vietnam (IIRC), that had a mail server that was open as a full anonymous SMTP relay for a year, the site also had no postmaster or abuse address. Sadly, this is not uncommon in areas of the world that don't have adequate numbers of suitably experienced/skilled staff.
It's not just APNIC areas that are sources of Spam of course, there is quite a bit from South America, and from Africa (which I think will be the next biggest source in the years to come, as the network infrastructure increases while general poverty and the desperate need to make a living remain). There are even a couple of companies in Spain and France that are also major sources of Spam, due to utter incompetence and inadequate AUP enforcement by up streams and peers.
This is all unfortunate, but with AOL filtering 780 million spam messages a day (which is ~100 million more than they deliver) it's really necessary, the only other immediately available alternative for ISP's being to use additional more advanced - and more expensive - filtering methods (such as Brightmail) and pass those costs on to the consumer, and a lot of customers would sooner they went for the cheap, quick and dirty approach.
So in short, yes this is what we want.
It's not just a case of 'one person in a city sending us mail we don't want' it's a case of 'thousands of people in a country sending us mail we don't want' - and
While the costs are smaller, the charges still add up - and if, like me, you have a roaming GPRS or 3G service a single spam can cost the same to receive as it costs to post a 1st class letter (as these services are typically billed by the kilobyte, and have quite high charges).
I think your missing the point of why people complain about article rejection here on Slashdot...
/. any more because of it.
Slashdot editors regularly and frequently (not just 'now and then', but frequently) reject interesting stories by many people, then, days, weeks or months later repost the same story (often with a worse writeup) *several times*.
I've seen it happen many times, and read other people's write ups that they got rejected, as well as have it happen to me.
*That's* what pisses people off. It's illogical and annoying. Frankly I don't submit stories to
Okay, somewhat at the prompting of another /. reader, I apologise for being a grumpy bastard.[0]
[0] This time (not in general). [1]
[1] Everybody get's one. [2]
[2] Unless they at Nat. Portman I think that additional apologies will get me nearer her hot grits.
Yes your right :)
:)
*Definately* more coffee!
Must have had a temporary SOH failer (had a run in at work with an Apostophe Enforcer recently).
(relevant as most /.'ers will of course be white males).
Bleh, what makes you say that?
You mean apart from because it's true?
Besides, 5.1% isn't that much better then 5.8%
Actually it's a big deal when talking about unemployment figures. A 0.7% difference in unemployment has a huge impact on the US economy - it is the difference between billions of dollars of tax revenues collected and billions of dollars spent on benifit and support schemes. It represents a difference of ~1 million people.
That's to say nothing of the effect such a difference has on the private sector (e.g. on lending rates, consumer spending, retail revenue).
The unemployment rate is the percentage of people actively looking for work, which is not equal to the number of people who do not have jobs.
Oooh you really do sound like a bitter luser (and an AC - what surprise!).
What's the matter - can't get a job because you posses no skills society attaches any usefulness to?
Would you like a big shiny L to attach to your forehead?
As for your loser father: an apple never falls far from the tree.
Well _that's_ *obviously* true because there is no such thing a 'self made man!'.
Oh, and just to make it clear (it seems your not too bright) people != apples (people not being fruit, except possibly in your case).
If your unemployed for a long period there is a reason for that. That reason is not 'your skills are dazzlingly bright', nor is it 'you're trying too hard'.
/.'ers will of course be white males).
The unemployment rate is currently 5.8% in the US (as of March 2003). It's notably less if you male, or, for that matter white - in which case it's more like 5.1% (relevant as most
Even 5.8% is low, it's one of the lowest in the world. This table for example, maybe a little out of date, being as it is from last year, but it's still useful at putting everything in perspective.
Compared to unemployment rates of 50, 60 or 70% in Africa (and double-digit dates in the last century in the US) the current whinging about unemployment is a-something-about-nothing that's been blown largely out of proportion by media and public opinion.
Certain factions of the public find it easier to believe that they are a victim of a weak economy rather than admit responsibility for their own circumstance. My own father, who I haven't seen in years, has not been in full time employment in a regular job for a decade due entirely to his own inadequacy - and he regularly blames the current government, the previous government (going back 20 years) and the state of the economy (but oddly enough, not himself).
Just a little career advice: learn to spell "you're," and watch your salary double!
Oh good greif.
Man accidentally uses apostrophe inappropriately (at ~6 am in the morning) - news at 11.
Here in the states the economics of being a programmer or anything in the IT industry is pretty bad, but from the article it seems Africa is much worse. We take most of their problems for granted here. I think this is a large problem for Americans, we don't really realize how good we have. The same thing can be said for gasoline, in Europe they are paying double, triple or more then what we are paying, even when we think its so "expensive".
While I quite agree with the rest of this paragraph I take strong issue with your opening sentence.
Specifically with:
Here in the states the economics of being a programmer or anything in the IT industry is pretty bad
Workers in the IT industry are still earning above the national average, for a job that's really not that demanding (your actual milage may vary of course, but by and large it's not that taxing if you know what your doing).
I think the IT industry is a great one to be in - certainly as far a salarys & formal prerequisites to employment go, especially for a job that requires almost zero physical labour and has almost endless scope for career development (by which I mean there are so many roles you could do you couldn't possibly hope to do them all in one lifetime).
The only problem this sector ever had was the influx of mid 90's 'get rich quick' lusers turned sysadmins/developers/web designers who wouldn't know a clue-by-four if they were larted on the head with it.
Most of them are still unemployed now, but if your a *real* sysadmin/developer/etc - and your reasonably flexible - then your simply not going to be unemployed for huge length of time (>6 months) unless you live in an area where there is amazingly stiff competion (like say, the bay area).
But the device has not yet attained its total usefulness. Trust me, when it does, I'm so there
'Total usefulness'? Once you start asking for other features like a DVD recorder, there is no such finite thing as far as device like this goes!
If we go down that road then 'Total usefulness' could be only achived if it was some sort of chocolate dispensing, time and space travelling, video game platform & orgasamatron (with built-in Tea's Maid).
What you should have said was 'until it has this other feature I also want'. Which is fine, and it would be useful, but in reality your in for a long wait. You also could have said 'when it makes tea as well', which would be a longer wait, and an equally fruitless one.
The sad reality is it's going to be a long time before home multimedia systems reach a decent stage of convergeance - and when they do they are going to be *really* expensive initially. They are also going be a bit crap initially until vendors get their heads around the idea and get their act's together (I think Microsoft have the best chance of pulling this off first, it's certainly the future market they are aiming at).
While you've been bemoaning the lack of DVD-writer functionaly I've been enjoying my TiVo for the last 2 years, and as has already been pointed out, you can already save to VHS/Betamax/DVD/PC from PVR's (like TiVo) - quite elgantly already via a dedicated SCART Socket.
Look at it this way: If you buy a seperate DVD recoder and PVR today, by the time a decent combined box that you REALLY want comes out, you'll have gotten serveral years out of them both, and you'll still, at the very least, have a seperate DVD/player recoder you can use in another room/sell/give away.
Actually, if you were to buy both today, I think the truth would be that one of them will long since have broken down before you see a decent hybrid device (and of course if your hesitating over buying a PVR now you certainly shouldn't want to buy the first wave of hybrid devices either (which would be sensible) - because they will be nowhere near a good as we'd like them to be).
only real usefulness of the PVR is to basically watch stuff when you want to until the shows get recorded over.
I don't think that's true - certainly no more than saying 'the only real usefulness of cars is to backwards and forward in'.
PVRs can do a *lot* more than simply record shows on user demand. They record entire series of shows, learn what shows you like, suggest/record similar shows, record shows in certain genre's, record shows with given directors/actors/writers, record shows filmed in certain years, or even based on kewords in the description or title - or combinations of the above.
It's difficult to appreciate until you've tried it - an example might be getting home from holiday to find a new season of 'foo' has started while you were away, and that it's recorded all the episodes thus far, plus a new spin off series on another channel and when you sit down to watch TV later that evening have it suggest 'hey there is a new series starting on another channel that it looks like you might like, do you want to change over?' hitting 'Okay' and discovering a great new show.
And then there are the 'pause & rewind live TV' & 'rewind to the begging of current show' features, as well as the integrated channel guide (which you can use to get film & tv listings in a format that let's you identify shows you'll like from lists that are relevant to you).
In short: I can see your point, but I think your in for such a long wait that your far better off getting two seperate systems now (or at the very least a PVR, then hacking it or getting a DVD writer seperately if you really decide you want to archive stuff).
I agree with your sentiments entirely.
;-) 'Get out less' indeed :-)
The poster could as well have said "I won't bother to try it until it can play MP3's, Ogg Vorbis, DivX's and VCD's".
I don't think market is yet ready to support such a device (PVR manufacturers are having a hard enough job convicing consumers to purchase a PVR as it is). The added resources required to add DVD burning functionality, in relation the likely level of adoption of such a costly device, would mean this unit would end up costing the same as - and, after a short period, due to the falling prices of DVD writers, ultimately more than - a seperate DVD writer & a TiVo.
It should be pointed out that TiVo has quite an elgant interface for saving to an external recording mechanisim (tape, DVD, or video-in card in a PC), and even has an extra SCART socket for this very purpose.
As for the article, it can be summed up by saying 'people harp on about TiVo because it's really great and want other people to try it because they know they'll like it too'. And I don't think anyone needed an NYT article to spell that out.
I'm a bit dissapointed with TiVo in the UK as of late. My major niggles being slow speed of updates, UI issues (poor UI design in a few key of places force minor but regular menu furstration) and - of course - the fact that TiVo sold out to the BBC with regard to preferences. The latter nearly enough to make me cancel my subscription, though I do relish the oppertinuty to mark all the crap on the BBC as three thumbs down (hopefully they are getting some useful feedback - the show they pulled the 'spam all the TiVo users' trick with was so dire and unanimously dispised it's never seen the light of day again).
The other thing that really gets me is that it's not nearly as good at finding similar shows with terrestrial TV (Freeview) as it is when you have Sky channels. I've gone through a couple of periods of having Sky, and not having Sky (moving, On Digital going bust, etc). When I have Sky, it's been really good at finding other stuff I might like, when I have only Freeview it find's not nearly as many matches and doesn't record stuff I have 3 thumbs up for (the maximum) unless I specifically tell it too.
I think this may have something to do with the program data - the BBC (and other non-Sky) channel data is often not right, of course the company who handle the UK channel data - and who you actually pay our monthly subscription to in the UK - is of course Sky. I assume it's a case of Sky trying a bit harder to get their own stuff right (and the BBC not being nearly as arsed to provide them with correct data or to ensure they use the correct data). A tech support rep informed me once they have another company provide some of the BBC-and-non-Sky-related channel data (during a period when BBC 1 was without channel data for a couple of weeks).
Don't let that put you off though (unless you are both (a) in the UK and (b) don't have Sky). If you watch around around 6 or more hours of televison a week you should really get a PVR. You'll watch MUCH less crap TV and get to see loads of cool new shows you've never seen. The only downside is you'll find yourself staying in more to watch all the neat stuff it's recorded.
Which of course will end up making you even more, antisocial, braindead and even more of a sad git than you are already
Most of the player-made doom wads were pathetic
Not true. Most of the publish ones were much better than 'pathetic' by any rational judgement.
And there were at least a couple of hundred really GOOD ones that were even better than origional DOOM levels.
Aliens TC, for example, is in my top 10 of BEST FPS experiences EVER. It's _STILL_ great.
It's really quite a simple concept to grasp (though evidently not as simple as you).
I am not a concept, I am a person.
I was infering that you are simple, not that you are a concept.
Now do you see how simple you are?
Christ-on-a-bike....
It's more fun to play games on a big screen with a good surround sound setup on a comfy sofa. Keyboards and mice are just shit in the context of sitting on a sofa. Joypads are very good in this context. VERY SIMPLE.
It's not about 'how big your recticle is' it's about HOW MUCH FUN YOU HAVE and there is WAAAY more fun to gained from a huge projected/back projected image, backed by a decent home cinema sound setup.
No I meant what I said. That's why I said it. Halo has had top-quality reviews in every main stream independant cross platform gaming journal (for example, magazines such as Edge).
g ot-you-killed-just-when-you-were-doing-so-well so I don't include it for that reason).
'PS2 Fanboys Monthly' may say 'well you know it's alright, but it's not great, there are better PS2 games' but that sort of propoganda has been going on since the early 80's Atari/Intellivision/etc and is just as transparent.
I prefer to read mature gaming magazines with *honest* reviews that don't simply pander to the readership and tell them how smart and cool they are for buying their chosen console.
It's a good game. It would still have been a good game if it was released on SGI Indy only. I have 3 consoles, Halo is the best FPS game on all of them.
The only truly comparable game is Half Life (DN3D was very innovative, but a little frustrating in places due the big-explosions-and-isane-nubmer-of-bad-guys-that-
I use them on OS X and having a terminal/vi and a IDE (e.g. Project Builder) visible at the same time (terminal over source editor) is _really_ useful.
It's also useful when Googling to fix system problems (web browser underneath, term on top) or to diganose system problems on multiple hosts (with a large number of overlapping x terms).
I have no problem seeing though 3 levels of terms, or reading translucent terminals. The exact level of translucency, the color scheme and not having a very distracting desktop background are quite important factors though.
I'd take a minute to re-assess that "self evident truth".
Halo is currently regarded by the majority of gamers as the best FPS game at this time. It is currently avalible only on XBox, and is played WITHOUT A MOUSE.
Ergo, it's possible for them to work well on a console without a mouse.
It's really quite a simple concept to grasp (though evidently not as simple as you).
FPS are mouse games, pure and simple
No - they are games played from a first person perspective (HINT: That's what the 'FPS' bit stands for).
A 'mouse' is an input device, *not* a gaming genre. And, incidentally, it's fucking useless for FPS games without a keyboard.
Playing an FPS on a large screen, such as a widescreen TV, or projector is great - using a mouse on your lap or on you sofa while also juggling a keyboard is *not*.
That's why consoles have joypad's, it's much more convenient for playing games from a sofa, which people do because they like playing on a large screen, with beefy speakers.
Who do we hate more? /. editors who post dupes!
:)
I waste _way_ more time on them that I do on SPAM
As you said to build a better machine costs considerably more (it's utterly obvious and simple really).
130 UKP is not a lot to pay for this spec of system, in fact you won't find any other new similary capeable system this cheap in any other retail outlet.
Don't underestimate the speed of the system, the optimisations to processor and memeory mean you'd need to spend twice that to get a system which can deliver the same frame rate in something like Unreal Tournament - and the speed is not simply due to the raw power of graphics card, it comes from the other design elements which are noticeable when running main stream productivity applications.
That's why people want to run Linux on it - it's cheaper than buying a similar PC simly because it's more efficient.
(Also: Don't pay 40 USD for a memory card - that's way too much, and for 007 - you can get it for less than 20 UKP, so I'm sure you can get it for less than 20 USD.)
Unless the other drowing man has a reasource you can use to avoid drowning, like large pants (which you could make into an air float), that he is is not ingenious enough to use to save himself.
This of course, would mean you have to make sure the other drowning man dies first (i.e. kill him, so you can steal his pants) and then blow into it's pants then hold on to them and use them to float to safety (would could be unpleasent, especially as in this configuration, your head/face would lay in the crotch area, which could be quite messy, if he's just died while wearing them).
So you can save yourself with this method, but you'll have to screw someone over to do it and you may still have to float around in shit for a while until you've used what they had to save yourself.
[Note: Replace 'other man' with 'other company' and 'pants'(as the valueable reasource) with 'back catalogue of music' and this almost makes a little sense. ]
I, for one, think we should not shirk from our duty as consumers, for if we do not act in the most efficent and natural manner possible, a free market will not be able to sustain itself.
Distributing information that allows people to abuse such a badly broken system is a legitimate way of putting market pressure on a corporate entity for the good of the majority.
It's using market forces to correct the market when it fails. In this case, the act of failure is an exceptionally poor product, and the correction is imposed by a potential loss of revenue. The possibility that it can be so easily, and untraceably, abused is enough to force the company to improve the quality of it's product/service - that is, it would be if the state had not interfered with the situation through superfluous legislation and protectionism.
Not allowing this entirely natural correction could lead to a potentially catastrophic failure of the system in future.
If we take the view that companies should be left open to free market forces as much as possible, and protected by the state only when there is over riding public interest (such as, classically, in the case of 'merit goods' or 'public goods'), then it's clear there is no such overriding public interest, and no natural monopoly in this product, and as such there is no need for government to protect the company.
Copyright has found a useful place in our vision of a mixed economy, but the DMCA - and similar such legislation - has no place in a free, mixed or planned economy and, so quite simply, makes no economic sense in any context.
I am not an American, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking, are there any major US political proponents of a (largely) free economy who feel similarly about this type of government protectionism?
Can't agree more! (Well, if you swore a bit more and were more insulting about the frigging muppets who do this kind of nonsense then I might ;).
:/
Web designers who INSIST on using fixed width for news sites (while wasting screen real estate) should be bloody well fired.
It's really quite simply wank - C|net do it, CNN do it, the BBC do it - and Wired do it too (with the actual articles). It's MORONIC and the ONLY justification they have is that they are too lazy/stupid to work out how to make things scale properly.
I've talked to several designers about this, and it stems from a mixture of them coming from traditional (magazine layout) based media (this is still what is taught at college's too, so many new designers still have this mentality) but also because of a lack of understanding of tables and no idea about how to use them creatively.
The only thing more wank that that is The Register's nonsense front page with articles all over they place. AND they are fixed width too the twats.
Note to moron web desginers: If you ARE going to do this sort of crap, at least center the page like C|Net do. It's still wank of course, but less so. AND there is NO excuse not do to do that... (other than being a lazy twat).