There are rumors Steve Jobs has started visiting major special effects houses, etc. Literally approaching the people who work there (and who have said they would love to be able to use a Mac from start to finish) and ask "what do you need from apple to make your work better (assuming that they think it would be done better all on macs, etc.)". From the replies I have seen (again, rumors): Atleast dual processors, quad would be nice, need a 1U rack case, faster bus, memory, etc. These places don't care about cost if it helps them get work done better (and isn't obscene) and actually saves them money.
The power required to run a full 1U rack of dual G4 machines (70 machines) is considerably less than that of dual AMD machines. When you are clustering lots and lots of these machines, that starts to really add up. And less power usage means less heat, so less AC cost. And those are just the rarely considered expenditures.
Apple is moving to make some big splashes in the Highend market. They now have an operating system that can be used in the highend market and the consumer market, at the same time. Which means applications can move from one market to the other easily, cross polinating etc. (iMovie bringing digital video editing to the masses, is something of an example).
I doubt these guys wrote the drivers entirely by themselves. This would require some very low level stuff, and lots of help from apple (because low level stuff is still being tweaked, etc.) meaning that apple had to partake in it. Apple probably initiated them to actually do this. Why? because in a few months, after the drivers have stabilized Apple will announcing products that will use it.
I think it's cool that apple seems to have a balancing point behind keeping a product a secret, but still getting field testing of their more obscure stuff. (Highspeed networking / clustering of this type is a foreign beast to their current hardware, and to the market that would be using them, because macosX has never worked with it before.) the same is true with BlueTooth. They showing you their cards, knowing they still have an ace up their sleeve.
Or how about apple gives em $5 a pop for each OS X system they ship that includes omniweb, and omnigroup doesn't include nagware?
I would take $5 x 100,000 month (im just guessing) compared to $20 x 1,000 a month.
See, the cool thing is, omniweb is free, it just reminds you everyone once in a while that it would be nice if you paid the people who make it. I bought mine with an education discount.
Pay for good software, because then they write more of it (with the exception of microsoft).
Because more people using MS stuff is not a good thing....
Their software becomes exploitive, over time.
Oh moved your entire organizations email system over to Exchange, thats a good idea. Why don't you use are "secure" embedded Win2K firewall to protect? Oh looks like you may have to have an audit, because we think you are using 300 more licenses than you say you are. Oh, well, either you can pay us $25,000 to leave you alone this time, or you can deal with $50,000 with legal fees, millions in man hours doing inventory for you case, and that is not including what would happen if we WON the lawsuit.
Oh wait, you want to upgrade your license? You have to use our normal rates, that was just an introductory rate. Oh, well you want to switch to a compet.. what? Yeah, all your data is stored in our secure format, and it is illegal for you to circumvent it so you can convert your database easily. Oh and this months software license bill is $50,000. But we can work out a nice credit plan that will slowly destroy any possible income you can have.
This is just hypothetical. Some of it has already happened. This is just my take on the current abilities microsoft is starting to develop for itself. (MORE people using MS Products, which use MS only protocols, why may be illegal to circumvent / reverse engineer, means for a legitimate school/business not wanting to face a law suit, that it appears to be a good idea to run all on MS. Which means MORE people using MS Products).
As a graduate of an Unschooling highschool (and now a freshman in college) I can say I felt much more prepared coming into college than my peers.
There were kids on my hall with 3.8+ GPAs who had never read a book completely in 2 years. Product of a public school education.
I wish I spent more time at mine (Only two years). Luckily, my parents were helping me be unschooled before I started there, even if they didn't realize it themselves.
Cause I feel strongly enough about my school, I got to plug it: www.shackleton.org
Actually, extra firewire ports are redundant, unless of course, you mean more firewire controllers... You can have 63 devices on a controller, you can daisy chain them without major performance issues (the only case of it not being the best idea to daisy chain em that I have heard of is when you are doing software raid, each drive on its own controller gives optimum performance).
Considering that USB2.0 is a completely different ball park, which I know nothing about. BTW before people start saying that USB2.0 will kill firewire, remember that it is probably not going to appear in a major market anytime soon: Digital Video Cameras. Sony pretty much leads the pack in this, and the high end stuff has had them for a while (actually, before apple started the whole imovie thing).
Still astonished that I would ever hear a pc review magazine say that 3 pci slots is not enough (after hearing them lambast apple for making machines with only 3. BTW, they have 4, 64bit, 33mhz pci slots now)
monitors what files the./configure file probes for, and will install the packages that contains them (makes it easier than hunting for libraries, or you are uncertain of the deb name, etc.)
really quite spiffy.
http://qref.sourceforge.net/quick/index.en.html Needs to be listed more clearly, is an awesome reference, took me a while to find it through their page. (Also needs more people to contribute, since I believe it is just one guys experience)
If Warcraft III is just Warcraft II with omre units and 3D, I will be disappointed. It will be like starcraft.
I'm sorry, the Myth series ruined the whole Real Time Strategy genre for me. Having a game where the combat, which is in the end how the game is decided, under your control is just awesome. Things like terrain height, distance, etc. all affected how effective combat was. The fact that archers missed their targets was awesome.
Does Warcraft III have any semblance of a physics engine at all? Or is it just 3D artwork with pre-defined strike damage, etc. ?
Yes, it's called ammonium nitrate. Add water and you get an endothermic reaction. You remember those little instant ice packets? Same deal. Gets really cold. Pure ammonium nitrate + water will create ice at room temperature, so chilling a beverage shouldn't be much harder.
Re:RESIDENT EVIL!#$&!#()$&
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Actually I wouldn't consider the ending as something which just lays the ground for a sequel. I have not played resident evil, but according to the friends who saw it with me who have played the game, the end of the movie leaves you at exactly where the game starts. (or where RE2 the game starts).
The ending reminds me of the original "dark" Army of Darkness ending. The one too depressing for american audiences.
And if they are planning to make a sequel, fine with me. They could make 3 movies in total from it, and in the end, have the equiv of Night,Dawn,Day of the Dead for a new millenium. It even has something of a social commentary in it (evil corporations).
Re:Almost all Apples SILENT (Apple 2,Mac+,IIfx,iMa
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PC Fan of the Future?
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Well, to give you an idea, a 3 foot high chimney, which was a 2 inches a side smaller than the size of the original mac, gave what was considered optimum cooling. So i don't think it would be possible to do it and not have something visible.
But having something that ensures a flow of cooler air onto the processor would probably be more effective, allowing for fans that aren't as loud. Apple actually does something similar in the current powermac G4s (there is a hood over the cooling fan for the processor that allows the fan to pull air in from outside the computer).
For a totally quiet computing experience (and a high powered computer) a simple water cooling solution on an un-overclocked system would allow one to remove all fans from the various areas around their case (cpu(s), various chipsets, hard drives) and inside give one single surface that would need to be cooled (the radiator). Actually, I guess if you got a large enough radiator, you could use a chimney on it, inside your case, but it would have to be really big (the radiator) which means more water to move, which means a bigger pump which could make more noise.
Re:Almost all Apples SILENT (Apple 2,Mac+,IIfx,iMa
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PC Fan of the Future?
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Yeah, apple had some problems with the first Macs, especially after one upgraded them to scsi, gave em an internal drive, etc. There were guides on how to install fans in them back then. I actually have the original Mac Bible, and it talks of building a chimney on top of the Macs, to increase airflow (since the hot air would rise up the chimney faster than it would if it just had to rise from the top of the computer, and in rising faster, pull in cold air faster, etc.) for those people who didn't want to put a fan in their computer. Quite a spiffy idea really.
My girlfriend built herself her own computer, but the smell of the chemical cleaners used on the case were really strong, so she hung an air freshner inside the case. It worked.
For anyone in the position where they are managing a bunch of Macs, but don't know what to do:
I would suggest you somehow get yourself a mac, and just play with it. Break it, have to reinstall, etc. Whatever, just get an feel on how things interact with each other.
http://www.macsurfer.com/ is a great website that tracks multiple mac news websites. Pretty much a twice a day visit for me.
Apple freely provides a tool similar to Ghost, you can read up on it here;
http://developer.apple.com/testing/docs/TNasr.ht ml
http://www.macmgr.org/ includes a ton of resources when it comes to managing a bunch of macs on a network.
http://www.versiontracker.com/ is great for keeping your software up to date (it now also has a windows and palm section, even a subscription type program that will moniter software versions across multiple computers)
I haven't read any of the "missing manuals" by David Pogue, but he is a great mac writer, and O'Reilly makes good books, so they should be a good place to start.
I know it may seem obvious, but I wish I discovered the plethra of information that apple's knowledge base archive provided, and their discussion boards (you need to create an account to access them).
http://www.apple.com/support/
From my experience, being a Mac geek, it usually isn't because Mac OS is flawed that people can't get any work done, but more of the fact that people try to use it like a windows computer. I work at the tech desk at my college, we have a bunch of blue and white G3s in a "public use" area. They continually crash / freeze, etc. The dells running win2k don't. Why?
Because most of the people running the area have no idea how to maintain a Mac computer lab. They don't realize that there are things called extensions (under OS x) that can cause conflicts. They don't know how to setup the machines so people can't install software, move the contents of the system folder to the desktop. In general they don't know how to maintain the machines. Same problem within a business environment. I worked for an Apple Authorized Service Provider (we did warranties, etc.) and most of the businesses revenue came in from service contracts. As in companies with 200 pcs and 10 macs realized that their MCSE knew jack shit about keeping the Macs running for the graphics department. So they hired us to take care of the machines.
Let me say again: Macs in most "pc only" environment are not examples of macs on a whole. especially since most still aren't running OS X. Most of those places don't have anyone who actually uses a Mac at home running the network. Let alone someone who has taken a course, or read a book, or even some basic websites on managing a mac network.
But one has to remember that we are in a society (most of us anyway) that emphasizes different things based on ones sex.
The way our society starts pushing upon children gender roles (pink, fluffy things are for girls, blue, GI joes are for guys), makes it hard to actually test aptitude and relate it to a specific sex. (Gender != sex). How old are the people in the study. It is like saying that people from X country are not good at math, and it must be genetic, because everyone from X country does horrible on standardized test scores. Of course, if one looks into the social aspects of X country, maybe math isn't emphasized, or used at anything higher than basic addition / subtraction.
One can say that the brain is like a group of muscles. In western society, guys are given more exercise of the parts of their mind related to spatial ability, and girls given more exercise of the memory storage and recollection parts of their mind. How can one sex is better at math or science, when it isn't even the sex of the person that is being tested, it is the role that our society has put upon someone based on their sex. So, in our society, the someone who is male is socialized in such a way that they have different use of their brain than someone who is female.
Deciding that it is just biological, and that women are naturally more capable at some things, and men aren't, etc. and leaving the issue at that, just continues the cycle. Because all it does is strengthen the notion that there is a biological difference, when there isn't (because of the idea of the biological difference, people don't realize that is there actions that are actually creating the discrepancy that they see linked to a biological base).
A lot of things. Being a male CS geek, I've continually noticed the lack of women in the field (and lack of diversity in general) and have thought that there is a lot about our culture (North American, main stream) that pushes women towards artistic / expressive goals, while us guys get pushed towards math / science / engineering. The whole idea of tracking a student's process, especially using biased systems of analysis (SATs, for example) may have led to some of this.
I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, but if most of the open source developers are ones who are working at programming full time in some tech oriented field. Maybe it is ok for the men in the field to spend all their spare time (and work time in some cases) hacking away on open source projects, but for women, it may be expected for them to be more of a social networker, so her time is limited and little left for open source work. The survey also points out the independent nature of the work, the whole striking out on one's own and doing something never done before (which is stereotypically a masculine trait).
It would be something to look into. I think taking a look at what women Open Source participants view on it, and compare that with men's view point (there is also no female open source Leader/ Speaker, or that I know of). Maybe a lot of CS women view the whole open source thing as a hobby or a guys only club or something.
I feel that if the open source movement is really going to gain strength, it has to increase in diversity (it is very accepting, but there may be some walls it is creating unknowingly, limiting the varity of participants). I believe most people have realized that having alternative view points on a problem usually leads to a better solution in the long run, so this is something that needs to be considered as the movement goes forward (and I don't see it as being as Ask Slashdot, either).
I got the sense from the article that the whole point is still a "we are better than them" pat on the back. Look at all the freedom we have, we can make a self powered balancing unicycle, and then use it to control weapons. We have the freedom of email to communicate information that is publicly available to another group of people to get their ideas on it.
Yes, it is amazing what some freedom of speech can do for a country, imagine what would happen if there was more. Because, most of the sources listed in there are all centered around either war or business. Both things our country seems to be good at. It makes no mention of any protesters or activists showing up at the world bank's Bazaar. Did they? Did they get money, or were they just ignored.
It touches on the fact that in an open society, it is really hard to keep secrets (the fact that Boston was/is a no fly zone, hmmmm, maybe because of the big dig, any terrorist setting off a biochemical weapon would be extremely successful because of the cities horribly transportation system. And the boston T could be a wicked way to spread it).
If having an open society is so key to our ability as a nation to defend itself, wouldn't that mean that anything that inhibits the free flow of information (the basis of an open society in the article, the idea of the AI email list) should be considered a threat to open society? Of course, that shouldn't be a problem as long as the media conglomerates and mega corporations are on our side. But wait! Didn't the author mention that news one person wouldn't think as important, another person would be able to get some vital information from? So they are still a problem, even if they are on our side, they could be ignoring information that is vital to our survival!
If you look at a CD tray, you will notice two notches on both sides. My school just got a bulk cd copier, and it has two little flappers that pick up the cd from there, then has the tray retract, and just drops them onto a moving sled, to be shot out one side (burn successful) or the other (burn failure). Really quite cool, cause it uses standard CDR drive.
And that again is the same reason those content creators will go out and buy the dual G4 system instead of a dual athlon system. They will probably bump down the 500mp or 800mp system to the next highest person in their 10 person firm, and take the 1,000mp system for themselves. Or possibly by an lab a new set of them. Because they are tools, and they get their work done faster, even better. Or to summarize, the audience is "not us" or "us" when we want to get the fastest machines on the earth for under a grand, built from spare parts and duct tape. Because the times when I start seeing people to do amazing things with computers (creating some of the coolest short movies / documentaries) they really don't get envious over specs. They get envious when they sit down in front of the machine and realize that they can spend more timing doing things, less time waiting for the machine to catch up with them. Hence real time video effects on a powerbook G4.
Just by raw benchmark scores? Ok, it is useful for the cross platform tests. But practically, I would got for the "how fast will it take to render X job" and X being a job containing common tasks for a large part of the market. Because that is what the consumers, end users, care about for their machines. Apple sells computers to them. That is why Apple uses Photoshop time trials, etc. I doubt anyone would want to sit down and calculate various other ways to benchmark machines (operating systems, also). Apple is selling a complete box, so they use benchmarks that reflect that in most cases. They also use them because they can't (as AMD has found out with the real world processor ratings) just boast MHz to MHz. Hence the MHz Myth page on Apple now.
It is the same argument for SGI machines now, if it helps me get my work done faster, with as little hassle as possible (not having to learn another environment, if the engineering Profs at my college are any sign of typical SGI users, they are smart, and they use computers as tools more than toys) then I like it. My CS advisor wants to get a Dual G4 right now, since she does a lot of work in Maya on her O2 at the school, and having a system to do it at home would be useful. Don't forget that a lot of people just see computers as tools, to get a job done. And if the tool doesn't help the job, they don't use it.
Video editing groups. There is a serious following of apple in the multimedia area. Final Cut Pro has dragged in tons more video editing people. Guess what? Apple still has the attention of tons of desktop publishers, a lot of smaller, independent editing houses, and graphics departments inside larger corporations. They are apple's market. My college would be buying them for a digital editing lab, a highschool doing video editing may get a bunch of iMacs and a few G4s to do the high end rendering, for the kids who want to do work that iMovie can't. And the machines are also possible servers for all of the above people.
And these machines are just something to keep the iMac from undermining the Power Mac G4 sales, supposedly the G5's will be out soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Not Just Because...
There are rumors Steve Jobs has started visiting major special effects houses, etc. Literally approaching the people who work there (and who have said they would love to be able to use a Mac from start to finish) and ask "what do you need from apple to make your work better (assuming that they think it would be done better all on macs, etc.)". From the replies I have seen (again, rumors): Atleast dual processors, quad would be nice, need a 1U rack case, faster bus, memory, etc. These places don't care about cost if it helps them get work done better (and isn't obscene) and actually saves them money.
The power required to run a full 1U rack of dual G4 machines (70 machines) is considerably less than that of dual AMD machines. When you are clustering lots and lots of these machines, that starts to really add up. And less power usage means less heat, so less AC cost. And those are just the rarely considered expenditures.
Apple is moving to make some big splashes in the Highend market. They now have an operating system that can be used in the highend market and the consumer market, at the same time. Which means applications can move from one market to the other easily, cross polinating etc. (iMovie bringing digital video editing to the masses, is something of an example).
I doubt these guys wrote the drivers entirely by themselves. This would require some very low level stuff, and lots of help from apple (because low level stuff is still being tweaked, etc.) meaning that apple had to partake in it. Apple probably initiated them to actually do this. Why? because in a few months, after the drivers have stabilized Apple will announcing products that will use it.
I think it's cool that apple seems to have a balancing point behind keeping a product a secret, but still getting field testing of their more obscure stuff. (Highspeed networking / clustering of this type is a foreign beast to their current hardware, and to the market that would be using them, because macosX has never worked with it before.) the same is true with BlueTooth. They showing you their cards, knowing they still have an ace up their sleeve.
Or how about apple gives em $5 a pop for each OS X system they ship that includes omniweb, and omnigroup doesn't include nagware?
I would take $5 x 100,000 month (im just guessing) compared to $20 x 1,000 a month.
See, the cool thing is, omniweb is free, it just reminds you everyone once in a while that it would be nice if you paid the people who make it. I bought mine with an education discount.
Pay for good software, because then they write more of it (with the exception of microsoft).
Because more people using MS stuff is not a good thing....
Their software becomes exploitive, over time.
Oh moved your entire organizations email system over to Exchange, thats a good idea. Why don't you use are "secure" embedded Win2K firewall to protect? Oh looks like you may have to have an audit, because we think you are using 300 more licenses than you say you are. Oh, well, either you can pay us $25,000 to leave you alone this time, or you can deal with $50,000 with legal fees, millions in man hours doing inventory for you case, and that is not including what would happen if we WON the lawsuit.
Oh wait, you want to upgrade your license? You have to use our normal rates, that was just an introductory rate. Oh, well you want to switch to a compet.. what? Yeah, all your data is stored in our secure format, and it is illegal for you to circumvent it so you can convert your database easily. Oh and this months software license bill is $50,000. But we can work out a nice credit plan that will slowly destroy any possible income you can have.
This is just hypothetical. Some of it has already happened. This is just my take on the current abilities microsoft is starting to develop for itself. (MORE people using MS Products, which use MS only protocols, why may be illegal to circumvent / reverse engineer, means for a legitimate school/business not wanting to face a law suit, that it appears to be a good idea to run all on MS. Which means MORE people using MS Products).
And don't let my poor writing skills dissuade you, I believe my horrible writing ability is genetic.
Now something for the lameness filter.
Exactly
As a graduate of an Unschooling highschool (and now a freshman in college) I can say I felt much more prepared coming into college than my peers.
There were kids on my hall with 3.8+ GPAs who had never read a book completely in 2 years. Product of a public school education.
I wish I spent more time at mine (Only two years). Luckily, my parents were helping me be unschooled before I started there, even if they didn't realize it themselves.
Cause I feel strongly enough about my school, I got to plug it: www.shackleton.org
Actually, extra firewire ports are redundant, unless of course, you mean more firewire controllers... You can have 63 devices on a controller, you can daisy chain them without major performance issues (the only case of it not being the best idea to daisy chain em that I have heard of is when you are doing software raid, each drive on its own controller gives optimum performance).
Considering that USB2.0 is a completely different ball park, which I know nothing about. BTW before people start saying that USB2.0 will kill firewire, remember that it is probably not going to appear in a major market anytime soon: Digital Video Cameras. Sony pretty much leads the pack in this, and the high end stuff has had them for a while (actually, before apple started the whole imovie thing).
Still astonished that I would ever hear a pc review magazine say that 3 pci slots is not enough (after hearing them lambast apple for making machines with only 3. BTW, they have 4, 64bit, 33mhz pci slots now)
auto-apt run ./configure
./configure file probes for, and will install the packages that contains them (makes it easier than hunting for libraries, or you are uncertain of the deb name, etc.)
monitors what files the
really quite spiffy.
http://qref.sourceforge.net/quick/index.en.html
Needs to be listed more clearly, is an awesome reference, took me a while to find it through their page. (Also needs more people to contribute, since I believe it is just one guys experience)
Build Build Build, Resource management, Kill, Build Build Build.
If Warcraft III is just Warcraft II with omre units and 3D, I will be disappointed. It will be like starcraft.
I'm sorry, the Myth series ruined the whole Real Time Strategy genre for me. Having a game where the combat, which is in the end how the game is decided, under your control is just awesome. Things like terrain height, distance, etc. all affected how effective combat was. The fact that archers missed their targets was awesome.
Does Warcraft III have any semblance of a physics engine at all? Or is it just 3D artwork with pre-defined strike damage, etc. ?
Yes, it's called ammonium nitrate. Add water and you get an endothermic reaction. You remember those little instant ice packets? Same deal. Gets really cold. Pure ammonium nitrate + water will create ice at room temperature, so chilling a beverage shouldn't be much harder.
Actually I wouldn't consider the ending as something which just lays the ground for a sequel. I have not played resident evil, but according to the friends who saw it with me who have played the game, the end of the movie leaves you at exactly where the game starts. (or where RE2 the game starts).
The ending reminds me of the original "dark" Army of Darkness ending. The one too depressing for american audiences.
And if they are planning to make a sequel, fine with me. They could make 3 movies in total from it, and in the end, have the equiv of Night,Dawn,Day of the Dead for a new millenium. It even has something of a social commentary in it (evil corporations).
Well, to give you an idea, a 3 foot high chimney, which was a 2 inches a side smaller than the size of the original mac, gave what was considered optimum cooling. So i don't think it would be possible to do it and not have something visible.
But having something that ensures a flow of cooler air onto the processor would probably be more effective, allowing for fans that aren't as loud. Apple actually does something similar in the current powermac G4s (there is a hood over the cooling fan for the processor that allows the fan to pull air in from outside the computer).
For a totally quiet computing experience (and a high powered computer) a simple water cooling solution on an un-overclocked system would allow one to remove all fans from the various areas around their case (cpu(s), various chipsets, hard drives) and inside give one single surface that would need to be cooled (the radiator). Actually, I guess if you got a large enough radiator, you could use a chimney on it, inside your case, but it would have to be really big (the radiator) which means more water to move, which means a bigger pump which could make more noise.
Yeah, apple had some problems with the first Macs, especially after one upgraded them to scsi, gave em an internal drive, etc. There were guides on how to install fans in them back then. I actually have the original Mac Bible, and it talks of building a chimney on top of the Macs, to increase airflow (since the hot air would rise up the chimney faster than it would if it just had to rise from the top of the computer, and in rising faster, pull in cold air faster, etc.) for those people who didn't want to put a fan in their computer. Quite a spiffy idea really.
My girlfriend built herself her own computer, but the smell of the chemical cleaners used on the case were really strong, so she hung an air freshner inside the case. It worked.
I was more of a SPNKR fan myself.
But then again, I was also notorious for killing too many BOBs that way.....
For anyone in the position where they are managing a bunch of Macs, but don't know what to do:
t ml
I would suggest you somehow get yourself a mac, and just play with it. Break it, have to reinstall, etc. Whatever, just get an feel on how things interact with each other.
http://www.macsurfer.com/ is a great website that tracks multiple mac news websites. Pretty much a twice a day visit for me.
Apple freely provides a tool similar to Ghost, you can read up on it here;
http://developer.apple.com/testing/docs/TNasr.h
http://www.macmgr.org/ includes a ton of resources when it comes to managing a bunch of macs on a network.
http://www.versiontracker.com/ is great for keeping your software up to date (it now also has a windows and palm section, even a subscription type program that will moniter software versions across multiple computers)
I haven't read any of the "missing manuals" by David Pogue, but he is a great mac writer, and O'Reilly makes good books, so they should be a good place to start.
I know it may seem obvious, but I wish I discovered the plethra of information that apple's knowledge base archive provided, and their discussion boards (you need to create an account to access them).
http://www.apple.com/support/
From my experience, being a Mac geek, it usually isn't because Mac OS is flawed that people can't get any work done, but more of the fact that people try to use it like a windows computer. I work at the tech desk at my college, we have a bunch of blue and white G3s in a "public use" area. They continually crash / freeze, etc. The dells running win2k don't. Why?
Because most of the people running the area have no idea how to maintain a Mac computer lab. They don't realize that there are things called extensions (under OS x) that can cause conflicts. They don't know how to setup the machines so people can't install software, move the contents of the system folder to the desktop. In general they don't know how to maintain the machines. Same problem within a business environment. I worked for an Apple Authorized Service Provider (we did warranties, etc.) and most of the businesses revenue came in from service contracts. As in companies with 200 pcs and 10 macs realized that their MCSE knew jack shit about keeping the Macs running for the graphics department. So they hired us to take care of the machines.
Let me say again: Macs in most "pc only" environment are not examples of macs on a whole. especially since most still aren't running OS X. Most of those places don't have anyone who actually uses a Mac at home running the network. Let alone someone who has taken a course, or read a book, or even some basic websites on managing a mac network.
MS Notice:t in /MS02-002.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulle
And a thread talking about it on macintouch:
http://www.macintouch.com/officevx3.html#feb08
But one has to remember that we are in a society (most of us anyway) that emphasizes different things based on ones sex.
The way our society starts pushing upon children gender roles (pink, fluffy things are for girls, blue, GI joes are for guys), makes it hard to actually test aptitude and relate it to a specific sex. (Gender != sex). How old are the people in the study. It is like saying that people from X country are not good at math, and it must be genetic, because everyone from X country does horrible on standardized test scores. Of course, if one looks into the social aspects of X country, maybe math isn't emphasized, or used at anything higher than basic addition / subtraction.
One can say that the brain is like a group of muscles. In western society, guys are given more exercise of the parts of their mind related to spatial ability, and girls given more exercise of the memory storage and recollection parts of their mind. How can one sex is better at math or science, when it isn't even the sex of the person that is being tested, it is the role that our society has put upon someone based on their sex. So, in our society, the someone who is male is socialized in such a way that they have different use of their brain than someone who is female.
Deciding that it is just biological, and that women are naturally more capable at some things, and men aren't, etc. and leaving the issue at that, just continues the cycle. Because all it does is strengthen the notion that there is a biological difference, when there isn't (because of the idea of the biological difference, people don't realize that is there actions that are actually creating the discrepancy that they see linked to a biological base).
A lot of things. Being a male CS geek, I've continually noticed the lack of women in the field (and lack of diversity in general) and have thought that there is a lot about our culture (North American, main stream) that pushes women towards artistic / expressive goals, while us guys get pushed towards math / science / engineering. The whole idea of tracking a student's process, especially using biased systems of analysis (SATs, for example) may have led to some of this.
I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, but if most of the open source developers are ones who are working at programming full time in some tech oriented field. Maybe it is ok for the men in the field to spend all their spare time (and work time in some cases) hacking away on open source projects, but for women, it may be expected for them to be more of a social networker, so her time is limited and little left for open source work. The survey also points out the independent nature of the work, the whole striking out on one's own and doing something never done before (which is stereotypically a masculine trait).
It would be something to look into. I think taking a look at what women Open Source participants view on it, and compare that with men's view point (there is also no female open source Leader/ Speaker, or that I know of). Maybe a lot of CS women view the whole open source thing as a hobby or a guys only club or something.
I feel that if the open source movement is really going to gain strength, it has to increase in diversity (it is very accepting, but there may be some walls it is creating unknowingly, limiting the varity of participants). I believe most people have realized that having alternative view points on a problem usually leads to a better solution in the long run, so this is something that needs to be considered as the movement goes forward (and I don't see it as being as Ask Slashdot, either).
I got the sense from the article that the whole point is still a "we are better than them" pat on the back. Look at all the freedom we have, we can make a self powered balancing unicycle, and then use it to control weapons. We have the freedom of email to communicate information that is publicly available to another group of people to get their ideas on it.
Yes, it is amazing what some freedom of speech can do for a country, imagine what would happen if there was more. Because, most of the sources listed in there are all centered around either war or business. Both things our country seems to be good at. It makes no mention of any protesters or activists showing up at the world bank's Bazaar. Did they? Did they get money, or were they just ignored.
It touches on the fact that in an open society, it is really hard to keep secrets (the fact that Boston was/is a no fly zone, hmmmm, maybe because of the big dig, any terrorist setting off a biochemical weapon would be extremely successful because of the cities horribly transportation system. And the boston T could be a wicked way to spread it).
If having an open society is so key to our ability as a nation to defend itself, wouldn't that mean that anything that inhibits the free flow of information (the basis of an open society in the article, the idea of the AI email list) should be considered a threat to open society? Of course, that shouldn't be a problem as long as the media conglomerates and mega corporations are on our side. But wait! Didn't the author mention that news one person wouldn't think as important, another person would be able to get some vital information from? So they are still a problem, even if they are on our side, they could be ignoring information that is vital to our survival!
Something to chew on.
If you look at a CD tray, you will notice two notches on both sides. My school just got a bulk cd copier, and it has two little flappers that pick up the cd from there, then has the tray retract, and just drops them onto a moving sled, to be shot out one side (burn successful) or the other (burn failure). Really quite cool, cause it uses standard CDR drive.
Depends on the size of the battery.
Very true.
And that again is the same reason those content creators will go out and buy the dual G4 system instead of a dual athlon system. They will probably bump down the 500mp or 800mp system to the next highest person in their 10 person firm, and take the 1,000mp system for themselves. Or possibly by an lab a new set of them. Because they are tools, and they get their work done faster, even better. Or to summarize, the audience is "not us" or "us" when we want to get the fastest machines on the earth for under a grand, built from spare parts and duct tape. Because the times when I start seeing people to do amazing things with computers (creating some of the coolest short movies / documentaries) they really don't get envious over specs. They get envious when they sit down in front of the machine and realize that they can spend more timing doing things, less time waiting for the machine to catch up with them. Hence real time video effects on a powerbook G4.
Just by raw benchmark scores? Ok, it is useful for the cross platform tests. But practically, I would got for the "how fast will it take to render X job" and X being a job containing common tasks for a large part of the market. Because that is what the consumers, end users, care about for their machines. Apple sells computers to them. That is why Apple uses Photoshop time trials, etc. I doubt anyone would want to sit down and calculate various other ways to benchmark machines (operating systems, also). Apple is selling a complete box, so they use benchmarks that reflect that in most cases. They also use them because they can't (as AMD has found out with the real world processor ratings) just boast MHz to MHz. Hence the MHz Myth page on Apple now.
It is the same argument for SGI machines now, if it helps me get my work done faster, with as little hassle as possible (not having to learn another environment, if the engineering Profs at my college are any sign of typical SGI users, they are smart, and they use computers as tools more than toys) then I like it. My CS advisor wants to get a Dual G4 right now, since she does a lot of work in Maya on her O2 at the school, and having a system to do it at home would be useful. Don't forget that a lot of people just see computers as tools, to get a job done. And if the tool doesn't help the job, they don't use it.
Video editing groups. There is a serious following of apple in the multimedia area. Final Cut Pro has dragged in tons more video editing people. Guess what? Apple still has the attention of tons of desktop publishers, a lot of smaller, independent editing houses, and graphics departments inside larger corporations. They are apple's market. My college would be buying them for a digital editing lab, a highschool doing video editing may get a bunch of iMacs and a few G4s to do the high end rendering, for the kids who want to do work that iMovie can't. And the machines are also possible servers for all of the above people.
And these machines are just something to keep the iMac from undermining the Power Mac G4 sales, supposedly the G5's will be out soon.