Remember, he was *AOL's* CEO. From an AOL shareholder's standpoint, the merger was a steal - literally. It's the Timewarner guys and shareholders who really got screwed.
Ah, one of a handful of sensible comments so far. Yes, this is the point - whilst the rest of telecoms and the.com bubble imploded with nothing, Case made sure his shareholders actually had something with value left at the end of it.
There was a time when some net company (I forget - Amazon?) was approaching the market cap. of General Motors and had surpassed that of Boeing. That's ludicrous. Even if those companies shut up shop tomorrow there'd still be a mountain of tangible assets to fall back on. I remember the office I was in at the time saying that if the market was behaving that stupidly, then this net company take advantage and immediately buy something with tangible assets to cement its position.
And then Case did it. He actually stopped just talking about media convergence and actually did something about it. He went with a media firm which, had things panned out as everyone expected then, would have given him the convergence and content control he needed. He also bought a argefirm with a genuine, non-bubble based market cap. thus backing up AOL's share price with a healthy dose of reality.
I usually stay out of discussions like this because it's a sad day when geeks care more about the market than they do technology. However, I did feel that about 90% of the posters in this topic were missing the point completely.
Isn't this the perfect application of Via's fanless Eden platform?
I'd thought of doing something similar myself, except that mine would also be an MP3/DVD player. The Via was the setup I was considering doing this with. Don't think I'll bother now - I have a Shuttle and it's easily transportable from upstairs to the TV. Add a wireless keyboard/controller and you're done.
Just don't turn up. After all, if I receive a letter from Uzbekistan telling me I'm due in their courts (I'm British), there's no reason I have to accept their judgement.
California doesn't rule Australia. There's no reason an Australian has any need whatsoever to listen to what a Californian judge says. He says you should turn up? Fine. Ignore him.
Could be wrong here, but I thought that the Windows Media Video stuff was based on MPEG-4 anyway.
Could this be the reason behind the complaint? The co-opting of standards whereby MS license but then sell at a loss, thus pushing out all other licensees?
...is there some sort of weird pride involved in having a Civic that is faster than a stock 350Z (but slower than a modified one)?
Yes.
I can understand this person's point of view perfectly. It's much more fun achieving something using kit that's not supposed to be able to achieve it. He's chancing his customisation skills against your superior stock performance. If he wins, he's beaten your machine and your skills combined meaning he's thrashed you by quite some margin. If he wins just using a modded powerful car, then he's really not going to get the some satisfaction.
I'm not into modding cars much, but I am into driving them. In the past I've had an original 1977 Mini, an original 1989 Mini, a Jaguar XJ6 Sovereign (XJ40 rev), and currently have a Jaguar XJR (X300 rev), new-style Mini Cooper and my girlfriend's Mazda Eunos Roadster (Miata in the US). Of them all, the XJR is head and shoulders the fastest. Despite that, the ones I've had most fun out of driving quickly are the 1977 Mini and the Eunos - the least powerful cars there. I'm also enjoying the new Mini an awful lot, and that's not powerful compared to the Jags either.
It's just more fun to be the underdog and still win out.
Those shots don't reveal an obvious hand position to me. Where would you hold it? You'd want your left thumb on the direction pad, your right on the buttons...that's quite some contortionist act if you also need to balance the device.
Hmm. Unsure. I think I would've preferred them just adding a decent screen to the current model.
It was announced at Nintendo's anniversary bash (70th anniversary?) recently. Or at least, that's what I remember from reading the UK Gamecube newsgroup.
My fiancee bought an Advance in the first couple of weeks after launch - she took it back the same day as the screen was entirely unusable. Looking forward to this one - GBA seems to be the last refuge of 2D games (besides MAME, of course). And I like 2D games.
Naah - they'd have just turned it into a giant chase film, with rewrites to the plot left right and centre. And that dwarf - he'd have no chance. He'd just be reduced to some sort of comic relief.
Just. It's a corruption of Iain, which makes it a Scottish name. Confusing Scots and English could get you a very bad night in certain areas of Glasgow...
You are right though - I am English.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Desperate for silent machines
on
Computer Room Hot?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I won't deny that that's possible, but in all my reading I don't recall ever seeing it until about two years ago - here online.
Your parent poster was right - I'm British, and that's standard usage here.
It is just a matter of buying the right brand of fan.
Well yes, that's what I meant. Apple do buy the right brand and most PC manufacturers don't. Mind you, more current Mac owners are bringing me up to date on the fact that apparently even Apple has now abandoned this. Disappointing.
I happen to have one of the newest G4's sitting under my desk, and believe that it's code name 'Windtunnel' is an understatement.
That's a disappointment. They always used to be near silent (I'm an ex-Mac user myself). Mind you, the G4 is their professional line - perhaps they've kept their old philosophy going in the consumer iMac/iBook line? Hope so.
Cheers,
Ian
Desperate for silent machines
on
Computer Room Hot?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I rate ambient noise as being important to me when buying a machine, and I usually pay extra for after-market fans to keep the noise down.
I would love manufacturers to start taking this issue more seriously. Choice of fans is important, but also the hard drives as well. Apple fans can look smug here I think - Apple do take this stuff seriously. The PC world? Not so much, and it's a real shame.
This geek girl would rather die than get rid of her beloved Mac SE.
Taste. I have a Mac Plus, upgraded to 4Mb RAM with a 10Mb external hard drive. It will never be thrown away since it is, if you'll excuse the pun, an absolute icon of a machine.
I'm occassionally tempted to mount the hard drive internally, but even then I shy back because it would be messing with an original too much.
Oh, and luckily my fiancee has never once asked me to shift it.
of the running gag in Real Genius which ends with an empty classroom and the teacher's tape recorder talking to the students' tape recorders.
I shall act as if I have no sense of humour (debatable anyway...) and pick on the nugget of truth ingrained in the joke.
When I was at University (90/92) I used to leave a dictaphone running in some of the lectures. This wasn't so that I could snooze however - quite the opposite. It was so that I could listen and follow what was being said, rather than getting bogged down in just copying everything that was said to paper.
Tape recorders can be useful, so long as your intent is good.
Granted the job of a Sysadmin is to keep the machines running so that the user can do their job, but to say they are "unimportant" is absolutly stupid
I didn't. I said I rated them fourth in importance, behind the user, the analyst and the developer.
I had Programmers who activly tried to root production boxes
The more technically accurate term for these people is 'cretins'. You have cretins in all jobs and all walks of life.
Sorry, but face it, if you ARE on my System...
And here we run into the over-inflated opinion problem again. I am not on your system. I am on the end-user's system. You are to help me do whatever the end-user requires.
in all honesty I believe the job of the system administrator in IT to be one of the most important, if not the most important. System administrators must design, implement, and maintain computer systems.
Why did you buy the computer? To run programs. And so step forward the programmer...
Why did the programmer write the program? Because it performed the task needed. And so step forward the analyst...
Who needed the task performed? And so step forward the end-user...
I've always thought Syadmins to have an over-inflated importance in the world. As I show above, I put them third or fourth in the pecking order (depending on whether the end-user and the analyst are not the same people). Many admins forget that the point isn't to have lots of wonderfully run locked-down computers that don't do anything (damned users! get in the way of my policies...). A computer is a tool - a beautifully polished tool that doesn't do anything is worthless.
I remember "black", but not just the color, I remember being suspended in a dark, tangible blackness....and I remember giving up struggling and a vague sense of peace.
Yes. The quip I make to people is that special effects fans are going to be desperately disappointed...
I had no mat, and no really dark blackness. It was more a fade-out kind of thing for me - as I said I had a near-death experience of floating, and from that floating things sort of faded out. Your comment about it being tangible mirrors my feeling of being isolated - set apart from everything else.
I'm trying hard to describe this in literal terms rather than religious or even just spiritual terms - from the description you gave, particularly about the vague sense of peace, I think you will understand what I mean.
I'm extremely interested to hear this. I 'died' of polyneuritus, aged 10 months. I can remember that perfectly too. See my post here.
How do you remember it happening? For me I can remember no sound, just the events. The events also seemed to be slowed down a little. Also, if you don't mind me asking, did you have a near death experience? I did - I didn't get the tunnel-of-light stuff, I got the feeling I was floating out of my body stuff instead. And no, I'm not religious.
Very interested to hear that this has happened to someone else so young, and that they remembered it too.
I was clinically dead aged 10 months (from polyneuritus). I remember the 'dying' perfectly - from the colour of the walls and ceiling to the time on the clock above the door. Obviously I was too young to tell the time - I mean I can remember the image and I can -now- say what time it was.
Can't rememeber anything else for years and years and years...
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, one of a handful of sensible comments so far. Yes, this is the point - whilst the rest of telecoms and the .com bubble imploded with nothing, Case made sure his shareholders actually had something with value left at the end of it.
There was a time when some net company (I forget - Amazon?) was approaching the market cap. of General Motors and had surpassed that of Boeing. That's ludicrous. Even if those companies shut up shop tomorrow there'd still be a mountain of tangible assets to fall back on. I remember the office I was in at the time saying that if the market was behaving that stupidly, then this net company take advantage and immediately buy something with tangible assets to cement its position.
And then Case did it. He actually stopped just talking about media convergence and actually did something about it. He went with a media firm which, had things panned out as everyone expected then, would have given him the convergence and content control he needed. He also bought a argefirm with a genuine, non-bubble based market cap. thus backing up AOL's share price with a healthy dose of reality.
I usually stay out of discussions like this because it's a sad day when geeks care more about the market than they do technology. However, I did feel that about 90% of the posters in this topic were missing the point completely.
Cheers,
Ian
I believe such a cluster is known as an 'arcade'...
Cheers,
Ian
I'd thought of doing something similar myself, except that mine would also be an MP3/DVD player. The Via was the setup I was considering doing this with. Don't think I'll bother now - I have a Shuttle and it's easily transportable from upstairs to the TV. Add a wireless keyboard/controller and you're done.
Cheers,
Ian
Yep. And how many people noticed The Legend of Deng Xiaoping? Deng Xiaoping? Err...you mean the key Chinese revolutionary figure and former leader?
Cheers,
Ian
California doesn't rule Australia. There's no reason an Australian has any need whatsoever to listen to what a Californian judge says. He says you should turn up? Fine. Ignore him.
Cheers,
Ian
Could this be the reason behind the complaint? The co-opting of standards whereby MS license but then sell at a loss, thus pushing out all other licensees?
Cheers,
Ian
Yes.
I can understand this person's point of view perfectly. It's much more fun achieving something using kit that's not supposed to be able to achieve it. He's chancing his customisation skills against your superior stock performance. If he wins, he's beaten your machine and your skills combined meaning he's thrashed you by quite some margin. If he wins just using a modded powerful car, then he's really not going to get the some satisfaction.
I'm not into modding cars much, but I am into driving them. In the past I've had an original 1977 Mini, an original 1989 Mini, a Jaguar XJ6 Sovereign (XJ40 rev), and currently have a Jaguar XJR (X300 rev), new-style Mini Cooper and my girlfriend's Mazda Eunos Roadster (Miata in the US). Of them all, the XJR is head and shoulders the fastest. Despite that, the ones I've had most fun out of driving quickly are the 1977 Mini and the Eunos - the least powerful cars there. I'm also enjoying the new Mini an awful lot, and that's not powerful compared to the Jags either.
It's just more fun to be the underdog and still win out.
Cheers,
Ian
Those shots don't reveal an obvious hand position to me. Where would you hold it? You'd want your left thumb on the direction pad, your right on the buttons...that's quite some contortionist act if you also need to balance the device.
Hmm. Unsure. I think I would've preferred them just adding a decent screen to the current model.
Cheers,
Ian
It was announced at Nintendo's anniversary bash (70th anniversary?) recently. Or at least, that's what I remember from reading the UK Gamecube newsgroup.
My fiancee bought an Advance in the first couple of weeks after launch - she took it back the same day as the screen was entirely unusable. Looking forward to this one - GBA seems to be the last refuge of 2D games (besides MAME, of course). And I like 2D games.
Cheers,
Ian
Oh.
Err...never mind.
Cheers,
Ian
They are, but you're correct in noticing the inconsistency. You'd normally pick one and stick with it through the paragraph.
Cheers,
Ian
Just. It's a corruption of Iain, which makes it a Scottish name. Confusing Scots and English could get you a very bad night in certain areas of Glasgow...
You are right though - I am English.
Cheers,
Ian
Your parent poster was right - I'm British, and that's standard usage here.
Cheers,
Ian
Well yes, that's what I meant. Apple do buy the right brand and most PC manufacturers don't. Mind you, more current Mac owners are bringing me up to date on the fact that apparently even Apple has now abandoned this. Disappointing.
Cheers,
Ian
That's a disappointment. They always used to be near silent (I'm an ex-Mac user myself). Mind you, the G4 is their professional line - perhaps they've kept their old philosophy going in the consumer iMac/iBook line? Hope so.
Cheers,
Ian
I would love manufacturers to start taking this issue more seriously. Choice of fans is important, but also the hard drives as well. Apple fans can look smug here I think - Apple do take this stuff seriously. The PC world? Not so much, and it's a real shame.
Cheers,
Ian
Taste. I have a Mac Plus, upgraded to 4Mb RAM with a 10Mb external hard drive. It will never be thrown away since it is, if you'll excuse the pun, an absolute icon of a machine.
I'm occassionally tempted to mount the hard drive internally, but even then I shy back because it would be messing with an original too much.
Oh, and luckily my fiancee has never once asked me to shift it.
Cheers,
Ian
Cheers,
Ian
I shall act as if I have no sense of humour (debatable anyway...) and pick on the nugget of truth ingrained in the joke.
When I was at University (90/92) I used to leave a dictaphone running in some of the lectures. This wasn't so that I could snooze however - quite the opposite. It was so that I could listen and follow what was being said, rather than getting bogged down in just copying everything that was said to paper.
Tape recorders can be useful, so long as your intent is good.
Cheers,
Ian
It is not owned by the company admins. It is owned by the company. Admins are just people doing a job which the company requires.
We agree on most of the rest of the post.
Cheers,
Ian
I didn't. I said I rated them fourth in importance, behind the user, the analyst and the developer.
I had Programmers who activly tried to root production boxes
The more technically accurate term for these people is 'cretins'. You have cretins in all jobs and all walks of life.
Sorry, but face it, if you ARE on my System...
And here we run into the over-inflated opinion problem again. I am not on your system. I am on the end-user's system. You are to help me do whatever the end-user requires.
Cheers,
Ian
Why did you buy the computer? To run programs. And so step forward the programmer...
Why did the programmer write the program? Because it performed the task needed. And so step forward the analyst...
Who needed the task performed? And so step forward the end-user...
I've always thought Syadmins to have an over-inflated importance in the world. As I show above, I put them third or fourth in the pecking order (depending on whether the end-user and the analyst are not the same people). Many admins forget that the point isn't to have lots of wonderfully run locked-down computers that don't do anything (damned users! get in the way of my policies...). A computer is a tool - a beautifully polished tool that doesn't do anything is worthless.
Cheers,
Ian
Yes. The quip I make to people is that special effects fans are going to be desperately disappointed...
I had no mat, and no really dark blackness. It was more a fade-out kind of thing for me - as I said I had a near-death experience of floating, and from that floating things sort of faded out. Your comment about it being tangible mirrors my feeling of being isolated - set apart from everything else.
I'm trying hard to describe this in literal terms rather than religious or even just spiritual terms - from the description you gave, particularly about the vague sense of peace, I think you will understand what I mean.
Cheers,
Ian
How do you remember it happening? For me I can remember no sound, just the events. The events also seemed to be slowed down a little. Also, if you don't mind me asking, did you have a near death experience? I did - I didn't get the tunnel-of-light stuff, I got the feeling I was floating out of my body stuff instead. And no, I'm not religious.
Very interested to hear that this has happened to someone else so young, and that they remembered it too.
Cheers,
Ian
Can't rememeber anything else for years and years and years...
Cheers,
Iab