A counter-example
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Taming the Web
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Here's a brain teaser. Bobby wants to give Sally the DeCSS source code. Jimmy has absolute control over both of their computers, telephones, and the intervening network. Can Jimmy stop Bobby while permitting them to talk about nice safe legal things?
Answer: No.
Here's why: The only way to stop the transferral of "bad" information is to stop all information. Let's see how it would work in real life.
Jimmy scans all of Bobby's e-mail and deletes the e-mail containing DeCSS.
Bobby starts sending DeCSS as a PDF attachment.
Jimmy starts scanning attachments for the source code and deletes all "bad" PDFs.
Bobby sings DeCSS, records it as a.WAV and sends it as an attachment.
Jimmy starts listening to all audio attachments and blocks the offending e-mail.
Bobby sings DeCSS again, this time in Navajo.
Jimmy blocks all attachments altogether.
Bobby e-mails the code in german pig latin.
I think you see where this is going. Bobby will always be able to pass DeCSS off as "safe" traffic. No matter what Jimmy does, Sally will be cracking DVDs in short order. The article brings up some good points, but I think that there's no way to stop the informational tidal wave. Information may not "want to be free", but people do. There will always be a way.
My computer can beat up your computer!
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Mac Rants
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Hemos, please don't feed the trolls. God, let's see if we can take a look at this argument in a slightly more rational light.
Mac guy sez: Mhz don't matter. Look at my Photoshop benchmarks!
PC Guy sez: My 1.8 Gigahertz monster will crush your 866 Mhz weenie machine! Photoshop sucks.
I say: Apple has a point. If Mhz was everything, Sun would be sticking Pentium 4s in all of their boxes instead of sticking with their 900 Mhz UltraSPARC III. The G4 is an awesome processor, but for many functions raw Mhz will carry the day. If you're doing vector calcs all day then use a Mac, but for Linux I'll take a dual Athlon setup any day of the week.
Mac guy sez: My box is pretty! Your box is a boring beige bland POS.
PC guy sez: Your fruity colored box looks like a toy. Behold my case mods!
I say: A pretty case does not necessarily make for a better computer. Yes, the iMacs look like toys. On the other hand, what's wrong with having a good looking machine? The Cube was one of the most elegant computers in ages.
As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. For christ sakes people, let's stop this nonsense and get back to arguing about Linux vs. Windows.
So, let me get this straight... company A spends 5 years and $4.3 billion developing a new technology. They don't (or can't) patent it. Companies B,C and D all come along and "use" this technology to market their own products, creating a competition lowering prices. Great for the consumer! Now company A is only making 1/4th of the profits (probably less than that due to decrease in cost due to competition) then they would have been making and never recover the $4.3 billion they spent developing their technology. Investors then pull out, employees leave the company, and the company goes out of business. Investors will then not see spending money on investments as a lucrative means of making money for themselves and will stop investing in technological advancements and all funding will go out the window... no more R&D because companies won't be able to afford it without their investments. How is this "conducive to encouraging invention?"
Sorry, but you're going to have to back that argument up with some facts. When has this happened? Who were the companies involved? What was the invention? I'd be willing to bet some big money that you can't come up with any solid examples because it doesn't work that way. If you spend over 4 billion dollars on research, I'm willing to bet that you've come up with something so damn fantastic that the competition can't build a competing product without spending a huge amount of money themselves.
Look at the Mach 3 razor: Gillette spent a fortune (over a billion dollars, IIRC) on R&D for that sucker. Razor designs are commonly duplicated, but I still haven't seen any other triple bladed razors on the market. I don't think it's because somebody patented the "three blades on a razor" idea or that nobody can reverse-engineer it. It's because manufacturing something like that is fiendishly hard and requires a substantial investment in both R&D and implementation. Even if someone did come up with a cheap knock-off, Gillette has already made a huge amount of money on the Mach 3 because they had first-mover advantage and brand recognition as "The developer of the Mach 3".
For an even better example, look at the software industry before the advent of software patents. Companies like IBM, AT&T and Xerox spent billions on research and development, yet their ideas were publicly available and by your argument should have gone out of business. Guess what: IBM, AT&T, and Xerox made vast fortunes off of their software and are still giants today. After software patents came in, innovation slowed down and you got things like Apple suing over "look and feel" and the DMCA bullshit that put Dmitry Skylarov in prison.
You're a patent troll apologist and you make me nauseous. Next time, back up your flights of fancy with some real world examples and I'll take you seriously.
I sympathize with all of the people who were disappointed with Steve's keynote this morning. I too was expecting a new iMac. I too was expecting DVD playback for OS X. I too was expecting... well, something interesting and new. The lack of any major announcements is understandable, though.
Remember folks, the economy has crapped out. Consumer spending is down. Corporate spending is way down. People just aren't spending the money to get the latest toys anymore. Just look at SUV sales recently. In a weak macroeconomic environment new product releases are a major risk. They have to do R&D, marketing, retool their manufacturing, etc., all of which cost big money.
Frankly, I'm amazed that Apple has managed to turn a profit over the last two quarters. They've already released several major new products this year (Ti Powerbook, iBook, OS X). They've also just launched their massive retail initiative. Apple has a lot on its' plate right now, and I think that their CFO wants to sit tight and not rock the boat anymore than they have to. When the economy picks up and people have the cash to go get the latest greatest flat-panel iMac (or whatever), then we'll see some big announcements from Apple.
Meanwhile, I'll be content with continued refinements on a kick-ass product line. The SteveNote wasn't so bad. Warcraft III on a dual 800 G4 running a superfast OS X seems pretty darn cool to me.
Interesting idea, but I don't think it will ever happen. Microsoft makes billions of dollars annually off of the sale of Windows. Giving Windows away would be an unacceptable hit to the bottom line for the stockholders. In fact, I think that the fact that M$ is a publicly traded company will eventually destroy them.
Stockholders these days care only about one thing: revenue growth. If a company doesn't increase their profits from year to year (or even quarter to quarter), then the stock price drops and shareholders do silly things like fire the CEO. All very well and good, but Microsoft is in the strange position of already selling near 100% of the operating systems sold with desktop machines these days. With over 90% market share (desktop machines, not servers), the only way Microsoft can grow their business is to squeeze even more money out of their existing customers. This is why they're doing things like "subscription" software licenses that actually reduce value and cost more in the long run.
That's why Linux is such a fantastic competitor for Windows. Linux can't be bought. Linux can't be bribed. Linux can't be sued. Linux can't be undersold. Linux will never run out of money. Plus, as Microsoft is forced to make Windows more expensive (gotta keep those shareholders happy!), Linux will look more and more attractive to purchasing managers.
Actually, giving Windows away would probably be their best move in the long run. The shortsighted nature of their business makes it impossible, though.
Historically, proprietary vendors eventually lose to vendors selling products available from multiple sources, even when their proprietary technology is (at the moment) better. Sony's Betamax format lost to VHS in the videotape market, and IBM's microchannel architecture lost to ISA in the PC architecture market, because customers prefer the reduced risk (and eventually reduced costs) of non-proprietary products.
IMHO, price is the reason that Open Source is kicking ass. Betamax, Microchannel, the Amiga, and a hundred others lost to inferior competitors that were simply less expensive but good enough. Consumers are almost universally concerned with getting the best "bang for the buck", and nothing delivers that better than Free Software(tm).
That's why Microsoft is so paranoid about Linux and the GPL. There's absolutely no way that they can compete with a superior product that's free (as in beer). People only buy Microsoft stuff because it's perceived as having value. As Windows licenses get more and more expensive, that value proposition gets shakier and something like Linux that's free (as in beer) looks a heck of a lot more attractive. The fact that Linux is faster, more reliable, and more scalable is just sweetener that helps seal the deal.
Thanks to Mr. Wheeler for this beautiful progress report. It's news like this that keep us Open Source advocates going.
People here seem to be forgetting that Apple has been producing their own Office competitor for some time. It's called AppleWorks, and the latest version (6.2) is an OS X native application. Sure, it may not have all of the bells and whistles that Office has, but it does everything that I need it to, including:
Open MS Word and Excel files.
WYSIWYG word processing with all of the standard gizmos (spell check, mail merge, etc.).
OLE style drag-and-drop functionality for video clips\sound files\whatever.
PowerPointish presentation software.
A decent spreadsheet and database.
Plus it integrates super-well with all of Apple's other software, such as iMovie and Quicktime. All that, for a third (or less) of the cost of M$ Office. I got my copy yesterday, and I'm very pleased with it.
While I would love to see OpenOffice for my platform, I don't feel that I'm without options. One of the beautiful things about OS X is that it's still a free-for-all and there are no dominant applications. Without a stranglehold on the OS, Microsoft has to compete just like everyone else.
Disclaimer: This is a blatant anti-MS pro-Linux rant. People who think I'm full of it are encouraged to e-mail me or reply instead of moderating down without explanation.
One thing I see a lot on Slashdot is people bitching about Linux "trying to be like Windows". At first glance, it seems like a valid complaint. Surely the efforts being put into Samba/Wine/etc. could be used for better things than trying to be compatible with MS's weird-ass proprietary standards? Now why should we work on Mono and quite possibly encourage the widespread adoption of.NET tools? Why, indeed? I think we should back these projects because we want to castrate Microsoft once and for all.
Think about it. Say these projects succeed and you're shopping for a new operating system in 2003. Windows XXXP plays all of your games, runs all of your apps, is.NET compatible, and costs 120 dollars. Red Hat Linux version 19.3 plays all of your games, runs all of your apps, is.NET compatible and FREE (as in beer). Which one are you going to choose? Hmm... Tough. There's only two ways that products can compete in the marketplace: features and price. There's no way MS can compete on price, so if we match them on features (compatibility is a feature, folks!) then Windows is good as buried. It's the classic "embrace and extend" strategy that we're all too familiar with.
Even better, once OSS gains control of the desktop, then MS loses the ability to push Hailstorm authentication. MSN will go down the tubes. MS.NET dies a sad and lonely death and.GNU inherits the Web Services world. At the very least MS will be forced to compete for once, instead of simply throwing their weight around.
Mono (coupled with WINE, Samba, and a few others) enables us to play this scenario out. Microsoft knows this. That's why they're so panicky and their executives keep making all of these ridiculous "GPL is Satan" speeches. No matter what anyone says, this is a fight. Let's back the good people at Ximian and make sure we win.
Absolutely right. In fact, Microsoft has already declared the XBOX as an integral part of their.NET strategy. I think Sony knows it too, and that's why they're trying beat MS to the punch. Why else do you think that they're announcing the Hard Drive (with NIC, according to some reports), keyboard, and mouse at the same time?
It's a known fact that Sony hates Microsoft. Ken Kutaragi, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment has been trash talking about the XBOX for a while now and Nobuyuki Idei, the big boss himself, has done all but declare open warfare. They've probably got a good idea of what Microsoft is up to, and want to nip it in the bud.
Here's another fact to chew on. Be has been trying to remake themselves into an imbedded OS provider. Rumour has it that there's been a lot of hush-hush discussion between Be and Sony, and Sony has already released a BeOS device. Maybe I'm smoking crack, but combine all those facts together and it's not a big leap of logic to predict a BeIA based web client for the PS2 this fall. The XBOX might have some real competition on it's hands.
...or is Microsoft being incredibly stupid? Let's see... According to this article, they've managed to piss off:
The DOJ. A thick, plodding, but huge and relentless adversary with the legal power to carve up the company like a turkey if they are ever found guilty.
The EU. I don't think that they have the legal authority over Microsoft that the US courts do, but they can effectively create a "Microsoft-Free" zone named Europe where rival tech companies can flourish.
Sun. One of the biggest server and workstation manufacturers in the world. No big loss on immediate sales (Windows on SPARC? Thank God, no!), but Sun has a lot of clout with standards committees and governments like the EU.
IBM. The 800 pound gorilla. Lord of the mainframes. One BILLION dollar investment in Linux. Army of lawyers. Need we say more?
The Wall Street Journal. This kills me. The most respected newspaper in America says not to upgrade to Windows XP. Unmitigated PR disaster.
The Open Source Movement(TM). You know, this isn't as stupid as it sounds. I still think they could make a ton of money with an MS branded Linux distro and Office for Linux. Heck, I'd buy it.
Consumers. This "registration" bulls**t is going to piss off a lot of ordinary people. It's not like they don't have alternatives, too. *Cough*Apple!*Cough* *Cough*
The truly mind-blowing thing is that Microsoft hasn't tried to mitigate any of this damage. No olive branches, no buyoffs, no positive spin, no nothing. With their blind arrogance and greed they are slowly turning the entire world against them. Good work, guys! Keep it up!
Hmm... True that the iMac was fanless before, but I still think the implementation in the Cube is pretty novel. As for the "mess", it sounds like a lot of tangled stuff, but in reality it's pretty darn tidy. It's a heck of a lot cleaner than my PC used to be.
Actually, I don't blame you for not wanting a Cube. There's a lot of things it sucks at. It's just irritating to see so many people bashing the Cube needlessly. It was designed as a niche product from the start. That niche (which I fit into) happened to be a lot smaller than Steve anticipated. That doesn't make it a bad product, just a poor business decision.
Actually, the convection cooling works remarkably well. I can use my cube for hours, pull out the core, stick my hand inside, and it's only warm to the touch. If you block the bottom opening or top vent, though, then I can see how it would get a little toasty.
As the proud owner of a G4 Cube, I think your analysis has some flaws. Let's address them:
The cube idea is not new. (nextcube, cobalt servers, etc.) No, it's not new. However, Apple's is the prettiest, most elegant implementation of the idea that I've ever seen. Dammit, it's just plain cool.
The ONLY innovation on the machine, the ultra-cool touch power button, but unfortunately is susceptible to RF glitching. that sucks! Innovation? What about the fact that it's totally fanless? What about the fact that it's darn tiny? What about the ceramic wireless antennas that are an integral part of the case? What about the ease of access to the internals? With a single handle, you can pull out the whole core of the machine so that everything's accessible. No screws, no latches, just a handle that you push down (to unlock it) and then pull. Can your computer do that? Oh, and I have no idea what "RF glitching" you're talking about. I've never had any problems.
The main appeal of the machine, it's 'look', was marred by poor manufacturing quality (many of the cubes had visible, highly refractive seams) Ah, the infamous cracks. My Cube happens to have all of them. You know what? You can't see them. Even when I'm sitting right next to it and staring at it I can't see them. The light has to catch them just right while you're looking really closely. Berating such a minor cosmetic flaw seems like nitpicking in my book. It's still the most beautiful computer I've ever seen.
To have a complete system, you had to have a huge mass of cabling going into a very small opening at the bottom and then steeply angling into the machines ports... just bad design. Simply not true. I've only got two cables going into my cube. Power with a really slick angled connector, and monitor with a nifty hinged connector for that steep angle. Everything else is internal or daisy-chained off of my monitor. It's definitely a complete system, too. I've got a DVD drive (internal), flat panel monitor (connected to the cube), ethernet (via internal AirPort), speakers (off of the monitor), keyboard (off of the monitor), mouse (MS Intellimouse Explorer off of the keyboard), and a CD-RW (off of the keyboard). If I want to add a printer/webcam/whatever, I just attach a USB hub to the monitor. There's still only two cords going into the cube. Heck, there's not even a power cable for the monitor. The display gets the DVI signal, USB, and power via that single cord.
As for your "improvements", they'd ruin the machine. Adding the power supply and fan would make it larger and noisy. As for the speakers, they rock. Small footprint with great sound. Personally, I think the Cube failed due to overinflated expectations for it. Everybody wanted a superbox and missed the point.
As I write this, I'm sitting at a small uncluttered desk looking at an incredibly vivid LCD screen. The tiny Cube sits off by my right hand, glowing gently. The only sound I hear is the click of the keys and the sound of my own breathing. It's the most serene and transparent computing experience I've ever had. That's why I love my Cube.
I can't believe that I'm responding to an AC. Oh well...
I'm open minded. It's entirely possible that I just suck at finding work. On the other hand, are you currently looking for work? In California? The IT market right now is totally saturated with mid-level techs. Nobody's hiring, and every day there's another dot-com closing its' doors.
You can always snatch up a job if you're a Unix god or C wizard, but that wasn't my point. The point is that an MCSE isn't enough to make your resume float to the top of the stack. IT managers right now can afford to be choosy about who they interview, and an MCSE doesn't have much prestige with most of them.
I can't even get an interview right now, but it's possible that I might have my head screwed on backwards. I'd like to hear from other people. Is anyone else having problems finding IT work right now? If so, what's your story? If not, then maybe you can give me a few pointers.
Us "freshly shat" MCSEs should be so lucky. The sad truth is that the majority of IT managers these days share your low opinion of Microsoft certifications. Sysadmin? I wish. I'm struggling to get a support position right now, despite my cert AND five years of experience.
I don't have a degree, but I know my stuff. I thought an MCSE might give me an edge. Nope. Thanks to the "Internet gold rush", the popular perception is that all MCPs come from these damn cram schools and can't find their asses with two hands and a flashlight. I got laid off, and without a college degree I'm back where I started. Now I'm studying (on my own) for a Cisco cert in the hopes that that might still have some credibility.
IMO, if done correctly, a BG movie would trump Star Wars.
Trump it in quality? Do-able. Episode I was garbage. That's not the problem, though. What's been killing Battlestar Galactica is the studios' perception that it's a money loser. To do a BG movie right would cost a lot and be fairly long. That's a big risk. Plus, ABC lost millions of dollars on the original series and that kind of thing sticks in the memory of studio execs.
In contrast, Star Wars is a guaranteed cash machine. Even Episode I made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Remember, Hollywood is a business. Unless you can make a case for profitability, it won't get made.
Ricochet's primary appeal is internet access on the go. As 802.11 gets more pervasive at homes and businesses, proprietary wireless networks like Ricochet don't make a lot of sense. A few people will still want coverage everywhere, but as Iridium proved, that's a pretty darn small market.
Think about it. Where do people usually use their laptops? Home, work, coffee shops, the park, the airport, etc. I imagine all of those places will have 802.11 connectivity within the next five years. AirPort access is already widely available at coffee shops in the Bay Area, and Starbucks is working to add wireless networking to all of their shops.
In the meantime though, this is really a shame. I have friends whose primary connection is Ricochet because they can't get DSL or cable. They're going to be pissed if they have to go back to dialup.
It used to be that speed was everything in a computer. If that meant stuffing your case full of noisy fans, so be it. Now that computers are way faster than we really need them to be, people's priorities for their boxen are changing.
I was able to buy a G4 Cube recently because I don't really NEED more than 450 mhz right now. It was more important to me that my box was small, sleek, and silent (no fans! w00t!). I think in the future we can expect a lot more computers being easier to live with rather than being performance beasts.
It's like my old dad used to say...
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Fortune on Rambus
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· Score: 1
The bulls survive, and the bears survive, but the pigs get eaten.
Call me sappy, but I'm happy that Tycho and Scott came to an understanding. It's always irritating to me when two creative people that I respect start squabbling.
I'm sorry that Mr. McCloud took it so hard, though. Tycho has a habit of flying off the handle and then calming down and talking rationally afterwards. Remember when he blew up at Scott Kurtz? Everyone ended up friends in the end. I think we could all take a lesson from this, though. Watch what you say in anger. The damage can't always be repaired.
Microsoft may not be very responsive to public opinion, but the British Government sure is. Democratic governments have to provide equal access to government services or they risk having a large group of pissed off voters on election day. Blair wants 100% of all government services online by 2005. As a Mac user (IE for Mac doesn't work either), I know I'd be pretty angry if I got left out in the cold.
Not only that, but the standard browser on the upcoming Symbian 3G cell phones will be Opera, not IE. Symbian looks to be a leader in that arena, so the majority of wireless users wouldn't be able to access government sites if this continued. Microsoft is going to have to buckle on this one and use open standards, guaranteed.
Good call. This is an argument that I've had with the anti-WTO/NAFTA/Globalization folks for some time now. Multinational corporations are shaping up to be the most powerful entities on earth, true. It's also true that there is absolutely no controls on these fantastically powerful corporations. I'll even grant you that many governments are or will be in the pockets of these corporations. However, there's one important fact that's impossible to argue with, and that's that dead people make poor consumers.
Real world example: Say that I'm Steve Case, running AOL/Time Warner/Turner/Etc. I've just gained a foothold in China and I'm looking forward to selling my crappy product to a new market of over a billion people, making untold billions of dollars. What do you think my stance on war with China is going to be? The moment that the Bush administration starts talking about taking military action against China, I'm going to be on the phone to remind him of my large campaign contribution and ask him to back off.
Admittedly, Multinationals are responsible for some heinous shit. Shell Oil has mercenaries in Africa clearing out villages to make way for oil pipelines. Globalization is not without its problems. However, if McDonald's in China means that I don't have to worry about San Francisco becoming a smoldering crater, then I'm all for it.
It blows my mind that we're actually discussing putting a man (or woman) on Mars using an anti-matter propelled craft that will be assembled and launched from an orbiting space station. The fact that we're capable of such a thing absolutely amazes me. It's even more amazing when you realize that space exploration is less than fifty years old.
To put things in perspective, my father remembers Sputnik. My grandfather got around town in a horse and buggy. I wonder what my kids will get to see...
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a brain teaser. Bobby wants to give Sally the DeCSS source code. Jimmy has absolute control over both of their computers, telephones, and the intervening network. Can Jimmy stop Bobby while permitting them to talk about nice safe legal things?
Answer: No.
Here's why: The only way to stop the transferral of "bad" information is to stop all information. Let's see how it would work in real life.
I think you see where this is going. Bobby will always be able to pass DeCSS off as "safe" traffic. No matter what Jimmy does, Sally will be cracking DVDs in short order. The article brings up some good points, but I think that there's no way to stop the informational tidal wave. Information may not "want to be free", but people do. There will always be a way.
Hemos, please don't feed the trolls. God, let's see if we can take a look at this argument in a slightly more rational light.
Mac guy sez: Mhz don't matter. Look at my Photoshop benchmarks!
PC Guy sez: My 1.8 Gigahertz monster will crush your 866 Mhz weenie machine! Photoshop sucks.
I say: Apple has a point. If Mhz was everything, Sun would be sticking Pentium 4s in all of their boxes instead of sticking with their 900 Mhz UltraSPARC III. The G4 is an awesome processor, but for many functions raw Mhz will carry the day. If you're doing vector calcs all day then use a Mac, but for Linux I'll take a dual Athlon setup any day of the week.
Mac guy sez: My box is pretty! Your box is a boring beige bland POS.
PC guy sez: Your fruity colored box looks like a toy. Behold my case mods!
I say: A pretty case does not necessarily make for a better computer. Yes, the iMacs look like toys. On the other hand, what's wrong with having a good looking machine? The Cube was one of the most elegant computers in ages.
As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. For christ sakes people, let's stop this nonsense and get back to arguing about Linux vs. Windows.
Watch me pull a scenario out of my ass!
So, let me get this straight... company A spends 5 years and $4.3 billion developing a new technology. They don't (or can't) patent it. Companies B,C and D all come along and "use" this technology to market their own products, creating a competition lowering prices. Great for the consumer! Now company A is only making 1/4th of the profits (probably less than that due to decrease in cost due to competition) then they would have been making and never recover the $4.3 billion they spent developing their technology. Investors then pull out, employees leave the company, and the company goes out of business. Investors will then not see spending money on investments as a lucrative means of making money for themselves and will stop investing in technological advancements and all funding will go out the window... no more R&D because companies won't be able to afford it without their investments. How is this "conducive to encouraging invention?"
Sorry, but you're going to have to back that argument up with some facts. When has this happened? Who were the companies involved? What was the invention? I'd be willing to bet some big money that you can't come up with any solid examples because it doesn't work that way. If you spend over 4 billion dollars on research, I'm willing to bet that you've come up with something so damn fantastic that the competition can't build a competing product without spending a huge amount of money themselves.
Look at the Mach 3 razor: Gillette spent a fortune (over a billion dollars, IIRC) on R&D for that sucker. Razor designs are commonly duplicated, but I still haven't seen any other triple bladed razors on the market. I don't think it's because somebody patented the "three blades on a razor" idea or that nobody can reverse-engineer it. It's because manufacturing something like that is fiendishly hard and requires a substantial investment in both R&D and implementation. Even if someone did come up with a cheap knock-off, Gillette has already made a huge amount of money on the Mach 3 because they had first-mover advantage and brand recognition as "The developer of the Mach 3".
For an even better example, look at the software industry before the advent of software patents. Companies like IBM, AT&T and Xerox spent billions on research and development, yet their ideas were publicly available and by your argument should have gone out of business. Guess what: IBM, AT&T, and Xerox made vast fortunes off of their software and are still giants today. After software patents came in, innovation slowed down and you got things like Apple suing over "look and feel" and the DMCA bullshit that put Dmitry Skylarov in prison.
You're a patent troll apologist and you make me nauseous. Next time, back up your flights of fancy with some real world examples and I'll take you seriously.
Why the heck is this article in the "Internet" category? If this doesn't deserve to be labeled "humor", nothing does.
I sympathize with all of the people who were disappointed with Steve's keynote this morning. I too was expecting a new iMac. I too was expecting DVD playback for OS X. I too was expecting... well, something interesting and new. The lack of any major announcements is understandable, though.
Remember folks, the economy has crapped out. Consumer spending is down. Corporate spending is way down. People just aren't spending the money to get the latest toys anymore. Just look at SUV sales recently. In a weak macroeconomic environment new product releases are a major risk. They have to do R&D, marketing, retool their manufacturing, etc., all of which cost big money.
Frankly, I'm amazed that Apple has managed to turn a profit over the last two quarters. They've already released several major new products this year (Ti Powerbook, iBook, OS X). They've also just launched their massive retail initiative. Apple has a lot on its' plate right now, and I think that their CFO wants to sit tight and not rock the boat anymore than they have to. When the economy picks up and people have the cash to go get the latest greatest flat-panel iMac (or whatever), then we'll see some big announcements from Apple.
Meanwhile, I'll be content with continued refinements on a kick-ass product line. The SteveNote wasn't so bad. Warcraft III on a dual 800 G4 running a superfast OS X seems pretty darn cool to me.
Stockholders these days care only about one thing: revenue growth. If a company doesn't increase their profits from year to year (or even quarter to quarter), then the stock price drops and shareholders do silly things like fire the CEO. All very well and good, but Microsoft is in the strange position of already selling near 100% of the operating systems sold with desktop machines these days. With over 90% market share (desktop machines, not servers), the only way Microsoft can grow their business is to squeeze even more money out of their existing customers. This is why they're doing things like "subscription" software licenses that actually reduce value and cost more in the long run.
That's why Linux is such a fantastic competitor for Windows. Linux can't be bought. Linux can't be bribed. Linux can't be sued. Linux can't be undersold. Linux will never run out of money. Plus, as Microsoft is forced to make Windows more expensive (gotta keep those shareholders happy!), Linux will look more and more attractive to purchasing managers.
Actually, giving Windows away would probably be their best move in the long run. The shortsighted nature of their business makes it impossible, though.
Historically, proprietary vendors eventually lose to vendors selling products available from multiple sources, even when their proprietary technology is (at the moment) better. Sony's Betamax format lost to VHS in the videotape market, and IBM's microchannel architecture lost to ISA in the PC architecture market, because customers prefer the reduced risk (and eventually reduced costs) of non-proprietary products.
IMHO, price is the reason that Open Source is kicking ass. Betamax, Microchannel, the Amiga, and a hundred others lost to inferior competitors that were simply less expensive but good enough. Consumers are almost universally concerned with getting the best "bang for the buck", and nothing delivers that better than Free Software(tm).
That's why Microsoft is so paranoid about Linux and the GPL. There's absolutely no way that they can compete with a superior product that's free (as in beer). People only buy Microsoft stuff because it's perceived as having value. As Windows licenses get more and more expensive, that value proposition gets shakier and something like Linux that's free (as in beer) looks a heck of a lot more attractive. The fact that Linux is faster, more reliable, and more scalable is just sweetener that helps seal the deal.
Thanks to Mr. Wheeler for this beautiful progress report. It's news like this that keep us Open Source advocates going.
People here seem to be forgetting that Apple has been producing their own Office competitor for some time. It's called AppleWorks, and the latest version (6.2) is an OS X native application. Sure, it may not have all of the bells and whistles that Office has, but it does everything that I need it to, including:
Open MS Word and Excel files.
WYSIWYG word processing with all of the standard gizmos (spell check, mail merge, etc.).
OLE style drag-and-drop functionality for video clips\sound files\whatever.
PowerPointish presentation software.
A decent spreadsheet and database.
Plus it integrates super-well with all of Apple's other software, such as iMovie and Quicktime. All that, for a third (or less) of the cost of M$ Office. I got my copy yesterday, and I'm very pleased with it.
While I would love to see OpenOffice for my platform, I don't feel that I'm without options. One of the beautiful things about OS X is that it's still a free-for-all and there are no dominant applications. Without a stranglehold on the OS, Microsoft has to compete just like everyone else.
Disclaimer: This is a blatant anti-MS pro-Linux rant. People who think I'm full of it are encouraged to e-mail me or reply instead of moderating down without explanation.
One thing I see a lot on Slashdot is people bitching about Linux "trying to be like Windows". At first glance, it seems like a valid complaint. Surely the efforts being put into Samba/Wine/etc. could be used for better things than trying to be compatible with MS's weird-ass proprietary standards? Now why should we work on Mono and quite possibly encourage the widespread adoption of .NET tools? Why, indeed? I think we should back these projects because we want to castrate Microsoft once and for all.
Think about it. Say these projects succeed and you're shopping for a new operating system in 2003. Windows XXXP plays all of your games, runs all of your apps, is .NET compatible, and costs 120 dollars. Red Hat Linux version 19.3 plays all of your games, runs all of your apps, is .NET compatible and FREE (as in beer). Which one are you going to choose? Hmm... Tough. There's only two ways that products can compete in the marketplace: features and price. There's no way MS can compete on price, so if we match them on features (compatibility is a feature, folks!) then Windows is good as buried. It's the classic "embrace and extend" strategy that we're all too familiar with.
Even better, once OSS gains control of the desktop, then MS loses the ability to push Hailstorm authentication. MSN will go down the tubes. MS .NET dies a sad and lonely death and .GNU inherits the Web Services world. At the very least MS will be forced to compete for once, instead of simply throwing their weight around.
Mono (coupled with WINE, Samba, and a few others) enables us to play this scenario out. Microsoft knows this. That's why they're so panicky and their executives keep making all of these ridiculous "GPL is Satan" speeches. No matter what anyone says, this is a fight. Let's back the good people at Ximian and make sure we win.
That is the funniest handle I've ever seen on Slashdot, bar none.
Absolutely right. In fact, Microsoft has already declared the XBOX as an integral part of their .NET strategy. I think Sony knows it too, and that's why they're trying beat MS to the punch. Why else do you think that they're announcing the Hard Drive (with NIC, according to some reports), keyboard, and mouse at the same time?
It's a known fact that Sony hates Microsoft. Ken Kutaragi, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment has been trash talking about the XBOX for a while now and Nobuyuki Idei, the big boss himself, has done all but declare open warfare. They've probably got a good idea of what Microsoft is up to, and want to nip it in the bud.
Here's another fact to chew on. Be has been trying to remake themselves into an imbedded OS provider. Rumour has it that there's been a lot of hush-hush discussion between Be and Sony, and Sony has already released a BeOS device. Maybe I'm smoking crack, but combine all those facts together and it's not a big leap of logic to predict a BeIA based web client for the PS2 this fall. The XBOX might have some real competition on it's hands.
...or is Microsoft being incredibly stupid? Let's see... According to this article, they've managed to piss off:
The DOJ. A thick, plodding, but huge and relentless adversary with the legal power to carve up the company like a turkey if they are ever found guilty.
The EU. I don't think that they have the legal authority over Microsoft that the US courts do, but they can effectively create a "Microsoft-Free" zone named Europe where rival tech companies can flourish.
Sun. One of the biggest server and workstation manufacturers in the world. No big loss on immediate sales (Windows on SPARC? Thank God, no!), but Sun has a lot of clout with standards committees and governments like the EU.
IBM. The 800 pound gorilla. Lord of the mainframes. One BILLION dollar investment in Linux. Army of lawyers. Need we say more?
The Wall Street Journal. This kills me. The most respected newspaper in America says not to upgrade to Windows XP. Unmitigated PR disaster.
The Open Source Movement(TM). You know, this isn't as stupid as it sounds. I still think they could make a ton of money with an MS branded Linux distro and Office for Linux. Heck, I'd buy it.
Consumers. This "registration" bulls**t is going to piss off a lot of ordinary people. It's not like they don't have alternatives, too. *Cough*Apple!*Cough* *Cough*
The truly mind-blowing thing is that Microsoft hasn't tried to mitigate any of this damage. No olive branches, no buyoffs, no positive spin, no nothing. With their blind arrogance and greed they are slowly turning the entire world against them. Good work, guys! Keep it up!
Hmm... True that the iMac was fanless before, but I still think the implementation in the Cube is pretty novel. As for the "mess", it sounds like a lot of tangled stuff, but in reality it's pretty darn tidy. It's a heck of a lot cleaner than my PC used to be.
Actually, I don't blame you for not wanting a Cube. There's a lot of things it sucks at. It's just irritating to see so many people bashing the Cube needlessly. It was designed as a niche product from the start. That niche (which I fit into) happened to be a lot smaller than Steve anticipated. That doesn't make it a bad product, just a poor business decision.
I also heard that the thing got hotter than fuck
Actually, the convection cooling works remarkably well. I can use my cube for hours, pull out the core, stick my hand inside, and it's only warm to the touch. If you block the bottom opening or top vent, though, then I can see how it would get a little toasty.
As the proud owner of a G4 Cube, I think your analysis has some flaws. Let's address them:
The cube idea is not new. (nextcube, cobalt servers, etc.)
No, it's not new. However, Apple's is the prettiest, most elegant implementation of the idea that I've ever seen. Dammit, it's just plain cool.
The ONLY innovation on the machine, the ultra-cool touch power button, but unfortunately is susceptible to RF glitching. that sucks!
Innovation? What about the fact that it's totally fanless? What about the fact that it's darn tiny? What about the ceramic wireless antennas that are an integral part of the case? What about the ease of access to the internals? With a single handle, you can pull out the whole core of the machine so that everything's accessible. No screws, no latches, just a handle that you push down (to unlock it) and then pull. Can your computer do that? Oh, and I have no idea what "RF glitching" you're talking about. I've never had any problems.
The main appeal of the machine, it's 'look', was marred by poor manufacturing quality (many of the cubes had visible, highly refractive seams)
Ah, the infamous cracks. My Cube happens to have all of them. You know what? You can't see them. Even when I'm sitting right next to it and staring at it I can't see them. The light has to catch them just right while you're looking really closely. Berating such a minor cosmetic flaw seems like nitpicking in my book. It's still the most beautiful computer I've ever seen.
To have a complete system, you had to have a huge mass of cabling going into a very small opening at the bottom and then steeply angling into the machines ports... just bad design.
Simply not true. I've only got two cables going into my cube. Power with a really slick angled connector, and monitor with a nifty hinged connector for that steep angle. Everything else is internal or daisy-chained off of my monitor. It's definitely a complete system, too. I've got a DVD drive (internal), flat panel monitor (connected to the cube), ethernet (via internal AirPort), speakers (off of the monitor), keyboard (off of the monitor), mouse (MS Intellimouse Explorer off of the keyboard), and a CD-RW (off of the keyboard). If I want to add a printer/webcam/whatever, I just attach a USB hub to the monitor. There's still only two cords going into the cube. Heck, there's not even a power cable for the monitor. The display gets the DVI signal, USB, and power via that single cord.
As for your "improvements", they'd ruin the machine. Adding the power supply and fan would make it larger and noisy. As for the speakers, they rock. Small footprint with great sound. Personally, I think the Cube failed due to overinflated expectations for it. Everybody wanted a superbox and missed the point.
As I write this, I'm sitting at a small uncluttered desk looking at an incredibly vivid LCD screen. The tiny Cube sits off by my right hand, glowing gently. The only sound I hear is the click of the keys and the sound of my own breathing. It's the most serene and transparent computing experience I've ever had. That's why I love my Cube.
I can't believe that I'm responding to an AC. Oh well...
I'm open minded. It's entirely possible that I just suck at finding work. On the other hand, are you currently looking for work? In California? The IT market right now is totally saturated with mid-level techs. Nobody's hiring, and every day there's another dot-com closing its' doors.
You can always snatch up a job if you're a Unix god or C wizard, but that wasn't my point. The point is that an MCSE isn't enough to make your resume float to the top of the stack. IT managers right now can afford to be choosy about who they interview, and an MCSE doesn't have much prestige with most of them.
I can't even get an interview right now, but it's possible that I might have my head screwed on backwards. I'd like to hear from other people. Is anyone else having problems finding IT work right now? If so, what's your story? If not, then maybe you can give me a few pointers.
Ouch.
Us "freshly shat" MCSEs should be so lucky. The sad truth is that the majority of IT managers these days share your low opinion of Microsoft certifications. Sysadmin? I wish. I'm struggling to get a support position right now, despite my cert AND five years of experience.
I don't have a degree, but I know my stuff. I thought an MCSE might give me an edge. Nope. Thanks to the "Internet gold rush", the popular perception is that all MCPs come from these damn cram schools and can't find their asses with two hands and a flashlight. I got laid off, and without a college degree I'm back where I started. Now I'm studying (on my own) for a Cisco cert in the hopes that that might still have some credibility.
IMO, if done correctly, a BG movie would trump Star Wars.
Trump it in quality? Do-able. Episode I was garbage. That's not the problem, though. What's been killing Battlestar Galactica is the studios' perception that it's a money loser. To do a BG movie right would cost a lot and be fairly long. That's a big risk. Plus, ABC lost millions of dollars on the original series and that kind of thing sticks in the memory of studio execs.
In contrast, Star Wars is a guaranteed cash machine. Even Episode I made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. Remember, Hollywood is a business. Unless you can make a case for profitability, it won't get made.
Ricochet's primary appeal is internet access on the go. As 802.11 gets more pervasive at homes and businesses, proprietary wireless networks like Ricochet don't make a lot of sense. A few people will still want coverage everywhere, but as Iridium proved, that's a pretty darn small market.
Think about it. Where do people usually use their laptops? Home, work, coffee shops, the park, the airport, etc. I imagine all of those places will have 802.11 connectivity within the next five years. AirPort access is already widely available at coffee shops in the Bay Area, and Starbucks is working to add wireless networking to all of their shops.
In the meantime though, this is really a shame. I have friends whose primary connection is Ricochet because they can't get DSL or cable. They're going to be pissed if they have to go back to dialup.
It used to be that speed was everything in a computer. If that meant stuffing your case full of noisy fans, so be it. Now that computers are way faster than we really need them to be, people's priorities for their boxen are changing.
I was able to buy a G4 Cube recently because I don't really NEED more than 450 mhz right now. It was more important to me that my box was small, sleek, and silent (no fans! w00t!). I think in the future we can expect a lot more computers being easier to live with rather than being performance beasts.
The bulls survive, and the bears survive, but the pigs get eaten.
Call me sappy, but I'm happy that Tycho and Scott came to an understanding. It's always irritating to me when two creative people that I respect start squabbling.
I'm sorry that Mr. McCloud took it so hard, though. Tycho has a habit of flying off the handle and then calming down and talking rationally afterwards. Remember when he blew up at Scott Kurtz? Everyone ended up friends in the end. I think we could all take a lesson from this, though. Watch what you say in anger. The damage can't always be repaired.
Microsoft may not be very responsive to public opinion, but the British Government sure is. Democratic governments have to provide equal access to government services or they risk having a large group of pissed off voters on election day. Blair wants 100% of all government services online by 2005. As a Mac user (IE for Mac doesn't work either), I know I'd be pretty angry if I got left out in the cold.
Not only that, but the standard browser on the upcoming Symbian 3G cell phones will be Opera, not IE. Symbian looks to be a leader in that arena, so the majority of wireless users wouldn't be able to access government sites if this continued. Microsoft is going to have to buckle on this one and use open standards, guaranteed.
Good call. This is an argument that I've had with the anti-WTO/NAFTA/Globalization folks for some time now. Multinational corporations are shaping up to be the most powerful entities on earth, true. It's also true that there is absolutely no controls on these fantastically powerful corporations. I'll even grant you that many governments are or will be in the pockets of these corporations. However, there's one important fact that's impossible to argue with, and that's that dead people make poor consumers.
Real world example: Say that I'm Steve Case, running AOL/Time Warner/Turner/Etc. I've just gained a foothold in China and I'm looking forward to selling my crappy product to a new market of over a billion people, making untold billions of dollars. What do you think my stance on war with China is going to be? The moment that the Bush administration starts talking about taking military action against China, I'm going to be on the phone to remind him of my large campaign contribution and ask him to back off.
Admittedly, Multinationals are responsible for some heinous shit. Shell Oil has mercenaries in Africa clearing out villages to make way for oil pipelines. Globalization is not without its problems. However, if McDonald's in China means that I don't have to worry about San Francisco becoming a smoldering crater, then I'm all for it.
It blows my mind that we're actually discussing putting a man (or woman) on Mars using an anti-matter propelled craft that will be assembled and launched from an orbiting space station. The fact that we're capable of such a thing absolutely amazes me. It's even more amazing when you realize that space exploration is less than fifty years old.
To put things in perspective, my father remembers Sputnik. My grandfather got around town in a horse and buggy. I wonder what my kids will get to see...