I have an NEC ND-1100A drive (DVD+R/RW) that I bought for under $200. I bought a stack of 100 Ritek 2.4x DVD+Rs for about $1.30 per disc, which seemed very reasonable to me. I remember when CD-Rs were over a dollar a disc, too, and at the time I thought that was worth it for copying^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacking up music and games.
I've copied^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacked up 35 DVDs since I got the drive. I have a Pioneer set-top player that I'd guess is 4 years old anyway, and a Playstation 2, and both play the movies without a hitch. I've brought them to a friend's place and they played in his player as well, though I didn't note the model. I'm not sure where the impression comes from that DVD+Rs don't work in anything and nobody uses them. I didn't read the article, but before I bought my drive I did what research I could, and there was a site I found that listed hundreds of set top players and the vast majority of them played DVD+Rs fine... if there was any problem, it was with +RW, but -RW wasn't exactly universal either. And why would anybody want to burn DVD movies onto DVD+RW/DVD-RW anyway? Do you burn movies, watch them, delete them, and then record onto the DVD again as if it were a VHS tape? I mean, you're already saving $19-some dollars if you're swiping a buddy's copy to make the disc, why not pony up the extra dollar and change and have copies of all of them? (This is a hypothetical question, as everyone on Slashdot knows that nobody abuses fair use rights.)
I've used my burner for legitimate reasons too. I have ~75gb of legal mp3s that I made from my own cds (I immediately rip and encode every cd I buy and then put the cd in one of my cd books at home. A couple years ago when I was getting ready to come to college, I didn't want to risk someone walking into my dorm room and walking out with 600+ cds just by lifting my three cd books, so I didn't bring them with me) and that I don't share on Kazaa or anything similar, and I would be forced to commit suicide if I were to boot to an unrecoverable fsck error, or my drive were to set fire (did I mention I have four IBM drives? I am a master hardware buyer), or any number of other things were to happen and I was caught without backups.
And as appealing as burning 110+ cds sounds... no thanks. Though I must admit, I anxiously await the day where blank DVD+R/DVD-R (whichever format wins out, I don't care) discs can be had for $.30 a piece in retail stores.
the number pad that NumLock controls has the same layout as a calculator, which is the layout that many of us learned to touch-type numbers with. With large numbers, I'm probably twenty times faster with the number pad than I am with the numbers above the letter keys, and I type large numbers more often than I use arrow keys (and furthermore, the T-shaped arrow key configuration is much more convenient than the number pad arrow keys anyhow).
That does nothing to refute any of his points, which isn't particularly surprising, because he's right.
*shrug*
I hate it when people say "calm down" just because someone else visibly cares about what s/he is talking about and has given the subject some thought, rather than just spewing whatever comes to mind into the comment window and clicking "Submit" and moving on.
Godwin's law and its violation aside, I agree with what he was saying, as I suspect many others do as well... thus illustrating his whole point: People are different, and they always will be. Arguing against his assertion that there are many cases where there are multiple options with none being the clear winner is absurd. One might be the clear winner to *you*, but another may be the clear winner to Joe Sixpack, and Mr. Sixpack's reason may well be "Because I just like it better that way..", and if you're a good software developer you're not going to try to force Joe to bend to your wishes unless you *absolutely must do so* (which is almost never the case), because 9 times out of 10 he won't, and he'll just turn for the very next program that gives him the option yours lacks.
Can't anyone see that this is just an issue of one being easier to say/catchier than the other?
I mean really, think of movies for a moment: How often do directors stick their name at the start of a title? Pretty damn often if you think about it. Steven Spielberg's this-and-that, John Carpenter's this-and-that, such-and-such, a film by James Cameron.
Ever notice how often people actually include that byline while actually talking about the movie?
Oh, just about never, maybe?
It has nothing to do with credit, it has everything to do with the name. It is simply much easier to say one word and refer to a system than to include every developer who had a hand in it in the name. Yes, I realize that the FSF put a lot of work into free operating systems, yes I realize that the OS referred to as "Linux" is comprised of much more FSF software than Linus-written software, but here's the clue train: "Linux" caught on as a name. "Linux" is going to stick. Period. It doesn't help that "The GNU Project" is just a patently stupid name, the general public doesn't appreciate the subtle geek humor in a recursive acronym (oh, wait, I don't either), nevermind the people who insist on pronouncing the hard "G" in every GNU program. It just sounds stupid. And where do you draw the line? What if I use KDE as my primary interface system... GUI is a pretty damn important thing these days, should it now become GNU/KDE/vim/Mozilla/Linux?
That's one thing Microsoft has down better than anyone else. The company is "Microsoft", the OS is "Windows", the version is (insert year here, for most recent products.. I do think "XP" is a mistake, but whatever). Very simple. Very easy to say.
It has nothing to do with credit. Another blow by the clue train for the ego-driven: most people don't give two flying steamed elephant turds who worked on their software, and if they DO care, chances are good that they have enough common sense to know that that Linus guy didn't write millions of lines of code by himself.
Just drop this stupid debate. The mainstream media/populace will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever refer to it as GNU/Linux. Ever. Ever. As in, ever. Never ever. Learn when to just accept "defeat" (if a simple name is really that big an issue to be called a defeat) and stop beating the dead horse. It's becoming tiring to watch.
"Linux" caught on. "Linux" is a good name, easy to say, recognizable, and simple. "Linux" is how it is going to stay.
Re:.4FPS IS NOT 4/10s of a second per frame!!
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Final Fantasy At 2.5FPS
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· Score: 2, Redundant
"4/10s of a frame per second means you can do just over 2 frames per second."
Wouldn't it be 4/10s of a second per frame means you can do just over 2 frames per second?
My comparison to Mercedes was that raising prices can be seen as bad for the consumer, because it puts things out of the consumers reach, but simply because something is bad for the consumer does not make it legally wrong and requiring government change. That's simply a rebuttal to those who piss their pants based on Windows prices and licensing schemes and whatnot. Microsoft can charge whatever they wish, and if you don't want to pay it/can't pay it, then don't. Just like a Mercedes. And Microsoft doesn't need to be "the best" to charge Mercedes-like prices - you don't have to look far to see where corporations capitalize off of brand name/image recognition and not actual quality. Compare sometime the price of two idential cereals, but one with a Kelloggs logo on it and the other with your local supermarket. They taste the same, one is twice as expensive. It doesn't mean the government has to do anything about it.
I said that people require a basic word processor *with formatting*, and stated that this is why Notepad is not adequate. Read my post more carefully. I don't think many people would use WordPad as a primary text editor, nor does it lock anyone in to the MS Office path, because WP and SO can read Docs, as you agree.
And it is rather flimsy to say "It's MS's format therefore they do it best", WP and SO can read a.doc produced by WordPad, a very rudimentary word processor, 100% the same as MS Office can.
So the whole bundled word processor issue isn't really substantial at all in any way. If it's the OEMs job to include a word processor, then explain to me why RedHat, Slackware et al include 129491249219 word processors/editors in their base distribution? The fact is that people expect to see a basic word processor bundled with their operating system. Period, end of story.
I can't really address your "viable alternative" argument as that is so subjective it's not even funny. For a graphic designer, Mac OS 9/X is probably a perfectly viable alternative to Windows. For a programmer, Linux/*BSD is probably a perfectly viable alternative.
You need to give an example of for whom there is no viable alternative to Windows. For the "easy to use" segment, you have Be or any number of KDE/GNOME preconfigured Linux machines. *shrug*
And no, "everyone" does not know "it", which I assume you mean to be that Microsoft is a monopoly.
There are alternatives to Microsoft products. I have machines that do not run any Microsoft software and do exactly what I want them to do. Therefore, they are not a monopoly. There are some things that you can only do with Microsoft products, but that's their right as a company - there are some things you can only do with fast Internet access, some things you can only do with a Ferrari, some things you can only do with Mutt the email reader.
There's this little company called "Apple Computer" that has spent quite a fair amount on advertising over the last few years. It is an alternative to Windows. People know about it. They don't choose to use it.
Furthermore, Linux has been in the press NONSTOP for the last couple years. You really exhibit typical Slashdot arrogance by suggesting that "normal consumers" are just so stupid that they honestly do not realize that there are alternatives to Microsoft products. Give me a break. That's a happy rationalization for why MS has such a high market share.
The fact is that people are VERY aware of MS alternatives, but simply believe that Microsoft products are *better*. And for the needs of many of those people, they are one hundred percent correct.
"There are altrernatives to Mercedes, and consumers know that. Mercedes is not a monopoly in any market, Same with Photoshop. People actually buy it because it is good, not because it is the only product. Those who buy it know of the alternatives."
I'm sorry friend, I didn't shoot myself in the foot. There are alternatives to Microsoft products, and people know of them. And the alternatives to Microsoft products are MUCH more well known than the alternatives to Photoshop. Actually, I can only name one Photoshop alternative and that is Paint Shop Pro... and that's a rather obscure program.
Mac OS is quite a bit more well known than the GIMP or PSP, sorry to burst your bubble. People buy Microsoft software because their mother has it and their cousin has it and it does what they want it to do - plays their mp3s, reads their email, loads their games. That's it.
They know of alternatives. They don't want them. High market share doesn't make Microsoft a monopoly, nor does it make Adobe a monopoly with Photoshop - it makes them good companies (however much that hurts you to admit).
Blah blah blah, if you really think the government is any better a steward of our freedoms than the corporations, you need to do a bit of a history study.
The definition of "monopoly" is not "the price can go up and down with little effect on their sales".
The definition of "monopoly" is that a company is the only game in town for a service that is somehow necessary for many/most people. I'm sure a good lawyer (I am not one:) can explain it much better than that, but that's the gist of it.
The price can be raised a certain amount without any effect on sales. This is true. This would also be true for countless other things in the marketplace - basketball sneakers, movie tickets, cd prices for top acts, etc etc etc.
The fact is that the price of a pair of Nikes can go from $60 to $120 and sales will not be hurt a bit because PEOPLE WANT NIKES and will pay whatever Nike asks for them *within reason*. If you charge $3,000 for a pair of Nikes, people will stop buying them.
Microsoft software can go from $100 to $400 and people will still buy it because the change is *within reason*. Microsoft COULD NOT CHARGE $3,000 for a Windows license because - pay attention to this part - PEOPLE WOULD STOP BUYING IT.
Do you know what that means? It means Microsoft is operating in a free marketplace. It means there are alternatives. It means people are not *forced* to use MS products. Let Microsoft raise their prices as much as they wish - as long as people keep paying, more power to them! Same with Nike. I do not choose to wear Nike shoes made for 20 cents in some third world country and sold to our materialistic society for over a hundred dollars, NOR do I choose to use many Microsoft products simply because I do not wish to pay that much for most of my software.
There are alternatives. Nike is not a monopoly, Microsoft is not a monopoly. Price raising is not a good indicator of Monopoly status. Period.
Um, if Microsoft was shut down tomorrow, it would be YEARS before other companies could catch up to the level of innovation found in products such as MS Office (I notice nobody answered my challenge to name a better office suite), not to mention the fact that it would be patently unfair.
If you shut down the Church of Scientology and took all of their money, spending it on high-grade rat feces would be a better expenditure of the money than what it was previously spent for, and hell, Good Things(tm) could even be done with it, but you know what? IT WOULD NOT BE FAIR. Corrupt cults like the CoS have a right to make money if people are stupid enough to send it to them, and Microsoft has a right to make money and have whatever market share they wish so long as there are alternatives to Microsoft products and people are still buying up everything they release in droves.
I can easily recoup the $300 or $400 license fee for Windows or Office in one 12 hour day. So there you go.
Nobody says that everyone has a right to use their computers with whatever software they want for free (okay, someone does, but let's not get RMS in this discussion:), so as long as Microsoft software is reasonably priced for its market (ie: as long as people are still buying it), then let them charge as much as they want. It has nothing to do with being bad for consumers.
By pointing out the prices of those items, I was merely trying to illustrate how a company can do things with its products that are not good for all consumers who might be interested. I'd very much like to drive a Mercedes, but I can't. I can't afford it. In the same way, I'd very much like an MSDN Universal subscription, but I can't afford it, either.
Your opinion on Microsoft's pricing is a bit subjective - some would argue that Microsoft's operating systems (I'm talking primarily about Windows 2000 now... Windows 9x/ME were not terribly expensive, and are, I will agree, total garbage) *are* the Mercedes of the OS world. No, they may not be the best servers. No, they may not be the best at all tasks. They are the best at playing games, a case can be made that they are the best development environments (that very much depends on what type of software you are developing), a case can be made that they are the operating systems that strike the best balance between power and usability, etc.
Linux is NOT the Mercedes of the OS world. Nor are any of the *BSDs. If anything, they would be more in the hotrod/car modification camp... a small market share of people comprised mainly of those who like to get under the hood and make things work better. Also people who need a solid, stable workhorse. Hardly luxury automobiles.
Abusing market share is one of the benefits of HAVING market share, as long as the company is not a monopoly (and Microsoft isn't, as there are alternatives, market share != monopoly... if you make by far the best product, in theory you deserve 100% market share even if there are alternatives... note that I am NOT saying MS makes the best product, what I AM saying is that their market share % is not indicative of their monopoly status) it's fine. If you do not use Windows, you cannot use their other products, so their market share abuses are transparent to you.
I do not think that including WordPad on desktops by default is a tricky move to tie in the consumer to Word early on... if Microsoft sold an OS without basic word processing functions (requiring some formatting, therefore *.txt is not adequate) a large segment of the marketplace would be very upset... just the same as people would now be upset if they sold an OS without a browser. People have come to expect certain things as an integral part of the computing experience. Microsoft long ago made the shift from a bare-bones OS provider to a platform provider, and part of being a platform is providing those basic services with the actual OS.
Besides, Word Perfect can read those *.doc files just fine. So can most other word processors.
Monopoly status is not fairly defined as "when a company provides better alternatives to other programs, therefore giving the consumer no reason to buy product XYZ". That's called the free market at work. The fact is that those alternatives do exist, and as long as they do exist, MS is not a monopoly.
They could have 100% market share in every single market, but if there are still alternatives, the reason for this would be that they simply provided the better products. Note that "better products" does not always imply "technical superiority".
You're rather wrong with your opinion of how much it would cost to launch a new os. Here, let me break it down:
Ma Bell = monopoly because they owned the infrastructure, and even to work at all, you needed an infrastructure. If you wanted to use a telephone, you went to Ma Bell. You had no choice. Zero. None. You couldn't build a new phone network because it would cost billions.
A lot of what any major R&D budget "gets us" is going to be transparent. Products are not labelled "NEW! FROM THE MICROSOFT RESEARCH DEPARTMENT!" for easy identification.
I would argue that one of the most recent quality advancements to come out of Microsoft R&D is the optical technology to be found in their recent lines of mice. Granted, someone is going to post now "hey, optical mice were around in 1978!", but not at the consumer level as MS has introduced them.
Maybe also you could count the natural language identification features of MS office, some of the neat features of the Visual C++ line (edit and continue, etc), on and on. They've done a lot of neat things.
I don't think MSR had much to do with BOB, although I think they did do the work on the paperclip... hey, nobody bats 1.000.;)
I am no expert on cars, but from simply driving a Kia for an hour and then driving a Ferrari for an hour, I can tell that the two automobiles are not even in the same league.
Perhaps to do a proper comparison I would need to test every aspect of the automobile and get right down to the metal and do a part-by-part analysis, but I would argue that the Photoshop is like a Ferrari in that you can sit at it for only a few moments and realize that it possesses more power than you could probably ever find legal uses for.:)
ie, people will see the government go after Microsoft and say "hooray! the government is here to protect us!" but as soon as they get involved in the Napster case and shut down the company (for all intents and purposes), the same group of people cry bloody murder about how the government has no place regulating free industry and is removing our rights and handing them to the corporations. Can't have it both ways, as a lot of the people on slashdot seem to want to.
I'm sorry you didn't have time to reply to the rest of my "drivel".:)
Only on Slashdot can the government/justice system be the savior of humanity in one thread (when it is beating up on Microsoft) and the demon bane of all things good in another (the CDA of days gone by, the SS and SJG, the RIAA/MPAA rulings, etc).
It has been summed up a THOUSAND times before by people with more knowledge of the subject than I have (I am but a student, and though I have followed the personal computer industry for 10 years or so, I have never been involved in any corporate decisionmaking so I can't really speak with authority on why businesses choose one thing over another), notably Dan Heskett, whose posts I read regularly simply because he seems to be one of the few voices of reason in most of these Microsoft threads.
Anyway, here's the deal:
Microsoft is here to stay. That cannot be argued. If the government stepped in and clubbed Microsoft like a baby seal until they were little more than a pool of blood on the floor, it may please the endless drones of "GO LUNIX M$ SUX!" people on/. who post as they do no doubt due to the need to feel like they belong to something (eek, JonKatz alert), it would be a VERY BAD THING for industry.
If you create a company, what do you want, what is the American way: create company from nothing, build it up to huge levels, make $millions. People don't create companies to serve humanity. Microsoft may do things that are bad for consumers.
BOO-FUCKING-HOO.
Listen, it's "bad for consumers" that Adobe charges $500 or $600 or whatever it is these days for Photoshop. It's "bad for consumers" that Mercedes charges $55,000 for an automobile. The NERVE of those companies! It doesn't cost them that much to make the product!
Economics 101: Good things cost money to make. For the *vast, vast, vast* majority of people in the computer industry, writing open source software is good for little more than a warm happy feeling in your belly due to knowing that you did something good to help out other people. There's a reason Adobe Photoshop is 700 times the program that any OSS alternative is (you GIMP weenies can burn in hell, I'm not even an advanced user and even I can tell it crumbles and dies next to Photoshop for advanced tasks) and it's because they charge so much money for the software that they can afford to spend money on real research and top employees.
Look at Microsoft's R&D budget. It is absolutely *outrageous*. They don't use all that money researching new ways to dominate the world, kids: believe it or not, MS has and is doing some great things. I bet half of you out there posting on your l33t linux boxes are using a Microsoft mouse or a Microsoft keyboard. Why? Because when compared to other products in their price point, they absolutely dominate all ass.
Yes, you can buy better keyboards. You can probably buy better mice too (though I've never seen them), but you sure as hell can't for the $40 one will typically run you from MS. And it sure as hell won't be as well supported.
So software companies have a right to make money, have a right to do so however they see fit. Consumers be damned: in a free market, if the consumers get fucked, they fuck the company right back. That's the way the market works.
If I create a company tomorrow and say that I will shine your shoes for $800, that is outrageous, it is bad for consumers, but the market will kick my ass because there are alternate ways to get your shoes shined, and shoe shining isn't even a necessity to begin with.
I'm not claiming to be a deeply entrenched member of either the Microsoft or Open Source/Free Software camps. I'm neither. I use whichever products suit my needs, whichever interest me, whichever prove to be a challenge or a pleasure in ways that I appreciate.
I use Windows 2000 as my primary web browsing/instant messenging platform, as well as for gaming and general computer use, and do you know what? It suits my purposes damn fine. I remember Windows as far back as version 2.0, I remember the hell that was 3.1, I remember the further hell that was original retail Win95. I remember the sham that was 98, I remember the joy of newfound Wintel stability that was NT. It's just a shame it didn't run any of my games.
Win2k, however, is great. I have never had a blue screen. Ever. I run my machines hard, I'm on them 10+ hours a day, every day. I update drivers regularly, I tinker with hardware, I am a general pain in the ass user. It just *works*. I know that's not the cool opinion to have around here, but it's true. At least it is for me.
I first used Linux in early 1996. A friend of mine on Powwow at the time had just discovered Linux and sent me individual diskette images for a distribution which, with the guidance of him in an IRC channel on another computer, I somehow installed.
It has been a fun toy at times, an unbelievably frustrating nuisance at others. There's little that can compare (well, for an extreme geek at least:P) with the joy one feels when he has just solved a problem that has plagued him for weeks. And a problem whose solution was useful and able to be applied to future problems, too; not the typical early windows "Oh, it's just not supported, I see" solutions. I am often blown away by the elegant and simple power of a program like vim, once mastered (everyone remembers the first time they sat at a vi window and just had NO idea what to do), the dedication of some in the Free/Open community to software for which they receive no monetary compensation for developing... on and on and on. It's a fantastic system. It also works well for the purposes I need it - I learned basic ASM, C, Perl, and a few other more arcane but interesting languages on Linux systems. I learned most all that I know of low-level computer functioning from making my Linux systems work.
What's the point of this long-winded ramble?
Linux and Windows are both suited for and geared to DIFFERENT THINGS.
*WHY* is this so hard for Open Source/Free Software advocates to accept? On one hand, we see people in forums such as this flame EVERYTHING that Microsoft does as absolute trash, absolute garbage, absolute filth, "oh haha Windows LOL BSOD 17x per day 20 second max uptime LOLOL WINDOWS SUX! LOL!" posts get modded up to +5, Funny, absolutely asinine hero worship posts about Linus or Tux or ESR or GNU dolls or *whoever* get modded up to +20 Insightful (Maybe Alan Cox Will Respond To My 40th Email If He Sees This)... yet... whenever Microsoft develops or announces a new technology, this same camp - almost without delay - is right on top of things, announcing an exact functional photocopy of the Microsoft product.
People make fun of Microsoft's use of the word "innovate" (asbestos suit defense mechanism: I do not think Microsoft is an innovative company, but that's not the point I'm trying to make) yet when pressed (as they were in a previous thread), can hardly name anything SUBSTANTIAL that has been innovated through the current Open Source/Free Software development system.
Yes, everything in the "early days" was much more open. That's all well and good. I mean what things *recently* that were "Open Source" from day one have been *truly* innovative? What new software has come out that knocks my pants off in a way I've never seen before?
I tried KDE once and it looked so much like Windows it was sickening. Same for GNOME. I remember the first and only time I installed RedHat, the default WM was using a Win95 theme, complete with pseudo-Start button.
I know this post is going to get modded down to -1, and perhaps rightfully so as I really haven't added anything to the conversation (just ranted a bit:), but next time you guys bust out the flamethrowers in an Anti-Windows thread just take a moment to think how much development effort is being put forth in the Linux community to emulate that very thing you hate.
Here's a tip for those who will shout "we're just going after market adoption in the same way the juggernaut is" - you will not beat Microsoft by nipping at their heels and re-implementing (albeit in a slightly different way) every single thing they do.
Create something *new*, create something *innovative*, create something *powerful*, and make it so that the layman can not only operate it but has a legitimate reason besides the intangible "more stable" argument to ACTUALLY USE IT, and you'll have a real battle on your hands.
Until then, I'm going to continue to use everything that suits my needs, and will shake my head when I see legions of the OSS faithful rush to reimplement something Microsoft has recently done when their development efforts would be better focused elsewhere.
Reimplementing a system that seems to be geared towards mass-production of resources (be it code, office documents, whatever) in a networked environment seems to be a bit of a stretch to me for proponents of an operating system that is just starting to come out of the stages where would-be users had to know the scan ranges of their monitors and chipsets of their video cards simply to get a graphical display.
One wonders how Apple couldn't have seen this..
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Apple Dumps the Cube
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· Score: 4
coming.
This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone on the web was in on one big secret that Apple didn't discover until they started looking at quarterly reports and doing the math.
Notice that everyone likes the look of the Cube, the silence of the Cube, and in general the concept of the G4 Cube. I know that I personally have been lusting after an old NeXT Cube for years now, despite the fact that the hardware is so hopelessly out of date and there's really nothing for me to do on OpenStep. The concept of a computer in a Cube form factor is just so appealing to me that I'd be willing to spend the $400 or so that it costs to pick up a decent NeXT Cube used.
However, if you're going to create a silent cube computer, you have to realize that those are perks. Those are "neat things". Those are *not* important enough issues to justify a purchase at full new retail price for 99% of customers.
Sure, you read here about how Joe Sixpack bought it for his wife and she loves it, or how Fred Smith bought it to add to his stereo as a digital computer component and thinks it's pretty fantastic. Most of us do not have $1800 or $2000 or whatever a decent Cube costs these days (or did cost, heh heh) just to throw away on a whim based on a cutesy design.
Someone here mentioned Rolex and Bentley. These products are *extremely* high priced within their markets, but they are also the acknowledged *BEST* at what they do. The layman thinks "high-end watch", he thinks ROLEX. That makes a Rolex watch 1) a quality piece of equipment and 2) a status symbol.
Any Apple based computer these days is only a status symbol for a small subset of the community. I think Apple had starry-eyed visions of Dot-Com millionaires eating up Cubes like chocolate to put on their glasstop desks right next to their expensive LCD panels and stack of $400 motivational tapes. It just didn't happen. Within the computing industry, Mac owners are more often reviled than revered. Macs are seen as a toy, or at best, as a tool for an artist or graphics designer.
There aren't enough image-conscious artists or graphics designers to buy Cubes. Most of them are still probably holding onto their 9600s for the 6 PCI slots.:)
Which is the other issue - the Cube is NOT the best in its class. No, it is not "in a class of its own", it's a personal computer. There are much better machines in terms of functionality and quality of components than the Cube - even within Apple's own product line!
That's the one-two punch. The bonuses of the machine are not worth enough to most people in and of themselves, and the machine does not contain amazing whiz-bang hardware to drive the purchases. If the Cube had been the fastest piece of hardware Apple manufactured by a measurable amount and been delivered at a cost of only a few hundred dollars more than the G4 Tower (to make up for the lack of expandabiltiy, etc... even though it'd be the fastest, it would be a static configuration), I think it would have sold very well.
If the G4 Cube was delivered as-is but at a price point closer to the iMac than the G4 Towers, I think it also would have sold.
It was neither. It didn't sell.
In 10 years I'll probably buy one on eBay for $400 to sit next to my (at that point) 20 year old NeXT cube in the museam of cool machines that could've been.
I think there's a big difference between someone selecting a common dictionary word or, worse, an easily identifiable word with associations to them (ie, a girlfriend's name) as a password for an account or system, and someone taking an active role to convince someone that it is in their best interests to use the priveledges related to that password for evil intent.
One is simply a case of asking more of Joe User than can be reasonably expected of him (maintain a database of GOOD passwords, often changed, in his head), the other is a case of someone manipulating Joe User's lack of common sense for their own benefit.
Though choosing a bad password COULD be indicative of a lack of common sense, it isn't always. In fact, it isn't usually. Choosing a bad password is the majority of the time a case of Joe User simply selecting something he will be able to easily remember, not taking into account the fact that if it pops to his mind as second nature, it will probably be able to be discovered without TOO much prying by an outside source.
Make sense what I'm saying?
There's a technological cure for one (not depending on one's mnemonic abilities for authentication), there is no technological cure for the other (a user abusing the priveledges the password gives him).
Wasting your time burning up cycles for some moronic activity?
????
The difference between Joe User and yourself, or myself for that matter, is that we often use our computers for nothing other than the actual use of them. Tweaking our operating system, working on new programming projects, and just general geekotry.
Joe User uses his machine as a tool. I really can't help but think that you're a troll (despite your current modded up status) if you're saying that we should just forget about Joe User and return computers back to the "One, True, and Rightful User, namely ME and those just like me". Sorry bub, ain't gonna happen.
Your choice is either:
A) Continue with the current password scheme and have Joe Users forever abuse it, for Joe User will never, as a whole body of Joe Users, learn better practice. Never ever.
B) Think up a better scheme for Joe User to identify himself to his machine so that he can get his work done. Whether that be check up on medical records, enter standard secretarial work, or do research for a paper. You know, typical Joe User things for which the actual operation of the computer and its security paradigms should be invisible.
Man in Lab Coat: I just got this great new idea. We're going to take commodity hardware, we're going to make it really small, we're going to put it in a nice looking package, and we're going to install Linux and Apache on it since everyone knows that Linux = SUCCESS!
Man in Suit: Who will buy this?
Man in Lab Coat: We'll get front page coverage on Slashdot, and countless Linux geeks and wannabe Linux geeks (because it's cool to be a Linux geek and it allows you to make fun of people who use other operating systems that, although they work fine for their purposes, are clearly inferior and evil and STUPID!) will load our page, admire our design, perhaps post a comment or two, and continue about their daily work.
Man in Suit: Who will buy this, again?
Man in Lab Coat: I'm not really sure, as most people who have a need for lower end hardware like this already have old 486's or first-gen Pentiums on their desktop and probably didn't pay much more than $50-$100 for them, but DAMN is this COOL... and besides, we'll get on Slashdot!
It's amazing to me that people in such an intellectually demanding field as programming computers have for YEARS relied upon what could possibly be the most inefficient form of personal security available: a secret word. I mean really.
Complaints aside of "stupid users!" and "idiots deserved to have their account cracked with a foolish password like that!", what do you expect? It's the same thing as the whole "Well duh, to use Linux well you need to LEARN it, it's not my fault if you're too STUPID to learn something NEW!" argument; it just doesn't hold water when applied to the general populace.
You or I may be capable of mastering every arcane command our operating system affords us, memorizing every minor inconsistancy between BSD flavor or Linux distribution, programming in fixes when we need them, etc, but JOE USER NEVER, EVER WILL. It's the same with passwords. You or I may realize the importance of a unique alpha-numeric password for each of our important sites, and have a nice table of "xreF249sfj2r43's" and "248sT358ugtds's" memorized in our head, but JOE USER NEVER EVER WILL.
So when confronted with that box that says "Choose a password, and CHOOSE ONE YOU WILL REMEMBER, PASSWORD RETRIEVAL IS VERY DIFFICULT, please enter in your password hint in case you forget it", Joe User is not only inclined, but DIRECTED to select an easily-rememberable password.
Someone please tell me how the fsck you have a "hint" to remind you the password you selected is "24885sfjsfsjf82's"?
So Joe User sees that box, thinks "oh cool" and types in for the hint "Mom's maiden name" and his password ends up being "johnson", and that's that. It works for him, he remembers it, and even if he does forget it, it's right there for him to retrieve via his hint. Joe User doesn't realize that someone with half a brain will probably guess his mother's maiden name as his password within the first ten attempts to break into his account/machine/whatever.
Also notice Microsoft and countless third parties developing programs to auto-remember and auto-insert passwords on sites you've visited before. One wonders why they don't just tie access to a unique browser hash if it's going to be that straightforward.
An example of the type of thing I'm referring to: One time I had a few friends over spending the night with me, and when we got up the next morning we all had logged onto our messengers of choice to talk to friends and see what the plans were for that day. One friend had logged off of his AOL IM account to go to the bathroom (for he knew that if he left it up, we all would've lunged at his machine to enter the standard requisite "Sup, slut?" messages to his girlfriend and mother and etc etc;), well, just to be a nuisance I told another friend of mine to try a password to see if we could log in when he was away.
To my astonishment, it worked. My FIRST GUESS. It just goes to show that most "regular people" pick a password that is so easily rememberable (a word? is now.) by them and so related to who they are that those who know them well can probably pick it out just as easily. Another one of my friend's passwords, discovered via the same method, is simply his girlfriend's name with an "i" replaced with a "1".
(btw, the password for the aformentioned friend was "bigblack", he'd been a fan of that character on the Howard Stern show)
So please, someone more intelligent than I, come along and invent a better personal identification system that doesn't rely on the good practices or intelligence of the end user.
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I have an NEC ND-1100A drive (DVD+R/RW) that I bought for under $200. I bought a stack of 100 Ritek 2.4x DVD+Rs for about $1.30 per disc, which seemed very reasonable to me. I remember when CD-Rs were over a dollar a disc, too, and at the time I thought that was worth it for copying^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacking up music and games.
I've copied^H^H^H^H^H^Hbacked up 35 DVDs since I got the drive. I have a Pioneer set-top player that I'd guess is 4 years old anyway, and a Playstation 2, and both play the movies without a hitch. I've brought them to a friend's place and they played in his player as well, though I didn't note the model. I'm not sure where the impression comes from that DVD+Rs don't work in anything and nobody uses them. I didn't read the article, but before I bought my drive I did what research I could, and there was a site I found that listed hundreds of set top players and the vast majority of them played DVD+Rs fine... if there was any problem, it was with +RW, but -RW wasn't exactly universal either. And why would anybody want to burn DVD movies onto DVD+RW/DVD-RW anyway? Do you burn movies, watch them, delete them, and then record onto the DVD again as if it were a VHS tape? I mean, you're already saving $19-some dollars if you're swiping a buddy's copy to make the disc, why not pony up the extra dollar and change and have copies of all of them? (This is a hypothetical question, as everyone on Slashdot knows that nobody abuses fair use rights.)
I've used my burner for legitimate reasons too. I have ~75gb of legal mp3s that I made from my own cds (I immediately rip and encode every cd I buy and then put the cd in one of my cd books at home. A couple years ago when I was getting ready to come to college, I didn't want to risk someone walking into my dorm room and walking out with 600+ cds just by lifting my three cd books, so I didn't bring them with me) and that I don't share on Kazaa or anything similar, and I would be forced to commit suicide if I were to boot to an unrecoverable fsck error, or my drive were to set fire (did I mention I have four IBM drives? I am a master hardware buyer), or any number of other things were to happen and I was caught without backups.
And as appealing as burning 110+ cds sounds... no thanks. Though I must admit, I anxiously await the day where blank DVD+R/DVD-R (whichever format wins out, I don't care) discs can be had for $.30 a piece in retail stores.
the number pad that NumLock controls has the same layout as a calculator, which is the layout that many of us learned to touch-type numbers with. With large numbers, I'm probably twenty times faster with the number pad than I am with the numbers above the letter keys, and I type large numbers more often than I use arrow keys (and furthermore, the T-shaped arrow key configuration is much more convenient than the number pad arrow keys anyhow).
That does nothing to refute any of his points, which isn't particularly surprising, because he's right.
*shrug*
I hate it when people say "calm down" just because someone else visibly cares about what s/he is talking about and has given the subject some thought, rather than just spewing whatever comes to mind into the comment window and clicking "Submit" and moving on.
Godwin's law and its violation aside, I agree with what he was saying, as I suspect many others do as well... thus illustrating his whole point: People are different, and they always will be. Arguing against his assertion that there are many cases where there are multiple options with none being the clear winner is absurd. One might be the clear winner to *you*, but another may be the clear winner to Joe Sixpack, and Mr. Sixpack's reason may well be "Because I just like it better that way..", and if you're a good software developer you're not going to try to force Joe to bend to your wishes unless you *absolutely must do so* (which is almost never the case), because 9 times out of 10 he won't, and he'll just turn for the very next program that gives him the option yours lacks.
Can't anyone see that this is just an issue of one being easier to say/catchier than the other?
I mean really, think of movies for a moment: How often do directors stick their name at the start of a title? Pretty damn often if you think about it. Steven Spielberg's this-and-that, John Carpenter's this-and-that, such-and-such, a film by James Cameron.
Ever notice how often people actually include that byline while actually talking about the movie?
Oh, just about never, maybe?
It has nothing to do with credit, it has everything to do with the name. It is simply much easier to say one word and refer to a system than to include every developer who had a hand in it in the name. Yes, I realize that the FSF put a lot of work into free operating systems, yes I realize that the OS referred to as "Linux" is comprised of much more FSF software than Linus-written software, but here's the clue train: "Linux" caught on as a name. "Linux" is going to stick. Period. It doesn't help that "The GNU Project" is just a patently stupid name, the general public doesn't appreciate the subtle geek humor in a recursive acronym (oh, wait, I don't either), nevermind the people who insist on pronouncing the hard "G" in every GNU program. It just sounds stupid. And where do you draw the line? What if I use KDE as my primary interface system... GUI is a pretty damn important thing these days, should it now become GNU/KDE/vim/Mozilla/Linux?
That's one thing Microsoft has down better than anyone else. The company is "Microsoft", the OS is "Windows", the version is (insert year here, for most recent products.. I do think "XP" is a mistake, but whatever). Very simple. Very easy to say.
It has nothing to do with credit. Another blow by the clue train for the ego-driven: most people don't give two flying steamed elephant turds who worked on their software, and if they DO care, chances are good that they have enough common sense to know that that Linus guy didn't write millions of lines of code by himself.
Just drop this stupid debate. The mainstream media/populace will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever refer to it as GNU/Linux. Ever. Ever. As in, ever. Never ever. Learn when to just accept "defeat" (if a simple name is really that big an issue to be called a defeat) and stop beating the dead horse. It's becoming tiring to watch.
"Linux" caught on. "Linux" is a good name, easy to say, recognizable, and simple. "Linux" is how it is going to stay.
"4/10s of a frame per second means you can do just over 2 frames per second."
Wouldn't it be 4/10s of a second per frame means you can do just over 2 frames per second?
you can find a copy of "A Modest Proposal" online at the following url: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
My comparison to Mercedes was that raising prices can be seen as bad for the consumer, because it puts things out of the consumers reach, but simply because something is bad for the consumer does not make it legally wrong and requiring government change. That's simply a rebuttal to those who piss their pants based on Windows prices and licensing schemes and whatnot. Microsoft can charge whatever they wish, and if you don't want to pay it/can't pay it, then don't. Just like a Mercedes. And Microsoft doesn't need to be "the best" to charge Mercedes-like prices - you don't have to look far to see where corporations capitalize off of brand name/image recognition and not actual quality. Compare sometime the price of two idential cereals, but one with a Kelloggs logo on it and the other with your local supermarket. They taste the same, one is twice as expensive. It doesn't mean the government has to do anything about it.
.doc produced by WordPad, a very rudimentary word processor, 100% the same as MS Office can.
I said that people require a basic word processor *with formatting*, and stated that this is why Notepad is not adequate. Read my post more carefully. I don't think many people would use WordPad as a primary text editor, nor does it lock anyone in to the MS Office path, because WP and SO can read Docs, as you agree.
And it is rather flimsy to say "It's MS's format therefore they do it best", WP and SO can read a
So the whole bundled word processor issue isn't really substantial at all in any way. If it's the OEMs job to include a word processor, then explain to me why RedHat, Slackware et al include 129491249219 word processors/editors in their base distribution? The fact is that people expect to see a basic word processor bundled with their operating system. Period, end of story.
I can't really address your "viable alternative" argument as that is so subjective it's not even funny. For a graphic designer, Mac OS 9/X is probably a perfectly viable alternative to Windows. For a programmer, Linux/*BSD is probably a perfectly viable alternative.
You need to give an example of for whom there is no viable alternative to Windows. For the "easy to use" segment, you have Be or any number of KDE/GNOME preconfigured Linux machines. *shrug*
And no, "everyone" does not know "it", which I assume you mean to be that Microsoft is a monopoly.
There are alternatives to Microsoft products. I have machines that do not run any Microsoft software and do exactly what I want them to do. Therefore, they are not a monopoly. There are some things that you can only do with Microsoft products, but that's their right as a company - there are some things you can only do with fast Internet access, some things you can only do with a Ferrari, some things you can only do with Mutt the email reader.
There's this little company called "Apple Computer" that has spent quite a fair amount on advertising over the last few years. It is an alternative to Windows. People know about it. They don't choose to use it.
Furthermore, Linux has been in the press NONSTOP for the last couple years. You really exhibit typical Slashdot arrogance by suggesting that "normal consumers" are just so stupid that they honestly do not realize that there are alternatives to Microsoft products. Give me a break. That's a happy rationalization for why MS has such a high market share.
The fact is that people are VERY aware of MS alternatives, but simply believe that Microsoft products are *better*. And for the needs of many of those people, they are one hundred percent correct.
"There are altrernatives to Mercedes, and consumers know that. Mercedes is not a monopoly in any market, Same with Photoshop. People actually buy it because it is good, not because it is the only product. Those who buy it know of the alternatives."
I'm sorry friend, I didn't shoot myself in the foot. There are alternatives to Microsoft products, and people know of them. And the alternatives to Microsoft products are MUCH more well known than the alternatives to Photoshop. Actually, I can only name one Photoshop alternative and that is Paint Shop Pro... and that's a rather obscure program.
Mac OS is quite a bit more well known than the GIMP or PSP, sorry to burst your bubble. People buy Microsoft software because their mother has it and their cousin has it and it does what they want it to do - plays their mp3s, reads their email, loads their games. That's it.
They know of alternatives. They don't want them. High market share doesn't make Microsoft a monopoly, nor does it make Adobe a monopoly with Photoshop - it makes them good companies (however much that hurts you to admit).
Blah blah blah, if you really think the government is any better a steward of our freedoms than the corporations, you need to do a bit of a history study.
The definition of "monopoly" is not "the price can go up and down with little effect on their sales".
:) can explain it much better than that, but that's the gist of it.
The definition of "monopoly" is that a company is the only game in town for a service that is somehow necessary for many/most people. I'm sure a good lawyer (I am not one
The price can be raised a certain amount without any effect on sales. This is true. This would also be true for countless other things in the marketplace - basketball sneakers, movie tickets, cd prices for top acts, etc etc etc.
The fact is that the price of a pair of Nikes can go from $60 to $120 and sales will not be hurt a bit because PEOPLE WANT NIKES and will pay whatever Nike asks for them *within reason*. If you charge $3,000 for a pair of Nikes, people will stop buying them.
Microsoft software can go from $100 to $400 and people will still buy it because the change is *within reason*. Microsoft COULD NOT CHARGE $3,000 for a Windows license because - pay attention to this part - PEOPLE WOULD STOP BUYING IT.
Do you know what that means? It means Microsoft is operating in a free marketplace. It means there are alternatives. It means people are not *forced* to use MS products. Let Microsoft raise their prices as much as they wish - as long as people keep paying, more power to them! Same with Nike. I do not choose to wear Nike shoes made for 20 cents in some third world country and sold to our materialistic society for over a hundred dollars, NOR do I choose to use many Microsoft products simply because I do not wish to pay that much for most of my software.
There are alternatives. Nike is not a monopoly, Microsoft is not a monopoly. Price raising is not a good indicator of Monopoly status. Period.
Um, if Microsoft was shut down tomorrow, it would be YEARS before other companies could catch up to the level of innovation found in products such as MS Office (I notice nobody answered my challenge to name a better office suite), not to mention the fact that it would be patently unfair.
If you shut down the Church of Scientology and took all of their money, spending it on high-grade rat feces would be a better expenditure of the money than what it was previously spent for, and hell, Good Things(tm) could even be done with it, but you know what? IT WOULD NOT BE FAIR. Corrupt cults like the CoS have a right to make money if people are stupid enough to send it to them, and Microsoft has a right to make money and have whatever market share they wish so long as there are alternatives to Microsoft products and people are still buying up everything they release in droves.
It's not very difficult to understand.
I can easily recoup the $300 or $400 license fee for Windows or Office in one 12 hour day. So there you go.
:), so as long as Microsoft software is reasonably priced for its market (ie: as long as people are still buying it), then let them charge as much as they want. It has nothing to do with being bad for consumers.
Nobody says that everyone has a right to use their computers with whatever software they want for free (okay, someone does, but let's not get RMS in this discussion
By pointing out the prices of those items, I was merely trying to illustrate how a company can do things with its products that are not good for all consumers who might be interested. I'd very much like to drive a Mercedes, but I can't. I can't afford it. In the same way, I'd very much like an MSDN Universal subscription, but I can't afford it, either.
Your opinion on Microsoft's pricing is a bit subjective - some would argue that Microsoft's operating systems (I'm talking primarily about Windows 2000 now... Windows 9x/ME were not terribly expensive, and are, I will agree, total garbage) *are* the Mercedes of the OS world. No, they may not be the best servers. No, they may not be the best at all tasks. They are the best at playing games, a case can be made that they are the best development environments (that very much depends on what type of software you are developing), a case can be made that they are the operating systems that strike the best balance between power and usability, etc.
Linux is NOT the Mercedes of the OS world. Nor are any of the *BSDs. If anything, they would be more in the hotrod/car modification camp... a small market share of people comprised mainly of those who like to get under the hood and make things work better. Also people who need a solid, stable workhorse. Hardly luxury automobiles.
Abusing market share is one of the benefits of HAVING market share, as long as the company is not a monopoly (and Microsoft isn't, as there are alternatives, market share != monopoly... if you make by far the best product, in theory you deserve 100% market share even if there are alternatives... note that I am NOT saying MS makes the best product, what I AM saying is that their market share % is not indicative of their monopoly status) it's fine. If you do not use Windows, you cannot use their other products, so their market share abuses are transparent to you.
I do not think that including WordPad on desktops by default is a tricky move to tie in the consumer to Word early on... if Microsoft sold an OS without basic word processing functions (requiring some formatting, therefore *.txt is not adequate) a large segment of the marketplace would be very upset... just the same as people would now be upset if they sold an OS without a browser. People have come to expect certain things as an integral part of the computing experience. Microsoft long ago made the shift from a bare-bones OS provider to a platform provider, and part of being a platform is providing those basic services with the actual OS.
Besides, Word Perfect can read those *.doc files just fine. So can most other word processors.
Monopoly status is not fairly defined as "when a company provides better alternatives to other programs, therefore giving the consumer no reason to buy product XYZ". That's called the free market at work. The fact is that those alternatives do exist, and as long as they do exist, MS is not a monopoly.
They could have 100% market share in every single market, but if there are still alternatives, the reason for this would be that they simply provided the better products. Note that "better products" does not always imply "technical superiority".
You're rather wrong with your opinion of how much it would cost to launch a new os. Here, let me break it down:
Ma Bell = monopoly because they owned the infrastructure, and even to work at all, you needed an infrastructure. If you wanted to use a telephone, you went to Ma Bell. You had no choice. Zero. None. You couldn't build a new phone network because it would cost billions.
A lot of what any major R&D budget "gets us" is going to be transparent. Products are not labelled "NEW! FROM THE MICROSOFT RESEARCH DEPARTMENT!" for easy identification.
;)
I would argue that one of the most recent quality advancements to come out of Microsoft R&D is the optical technology to be found in their recent lines of mice. Granted, someone is going to post now "hey, optical mice were around in 1978!", but not at the consumer level as MS has introduced them.
Maybe also you could count the natural language identification features of MS office, some of the neat features of the Visual C++ line (edit and continue, etc), on and on. They've done a lot of neat things.
I don't think MSR had much to do with BOB, although I think they did do the work on the paperclip... hey, nobody bats 1.000.
I am no expert on cars, but from simply driving a Kia for an hour and then driving a Ferrari for an hour, I can tell that the two automobiles are not even in the same league.
:)
Perhaps to do a proper comparison I would need to test every aspect of the automobile and get right down to the metal and do a part-by-part analysis, but I would argue that the Photoshop is like a Ferrari in that you can sit at it for only a few moments and realize that it possesses more power than you could probably ever find legal uses for.
ie, people will see the government go after Microsoft and say "hooray! the government is here to protect us!" but as soon as they get involved in the Napster case and shut down the company (for all intents and purposes), the same group of people cry bloody murder about how the government has no place regulating free industry and is removing our rights and handing them to the corporations. Can't have it both ways, as a lot of the people on slashdot seem to want to.
:)
I'm sorry you didn't have time to reply to the rest of my "drivel".
Only on Slashdot can the government/justice system be the savior of humanity in one thread (when it is beating up on Microsoft) and the demon bane of all things good in another (the CDA of days gone by, the SS and SJG, the RIAA/MPAA rulings, etc).
/. who post as they do no doubt due to the need to feel like they belong to something (eek, JonKatz alert), it would be a VERY BAD THING for industry.
It has been summed up a THOUSAND times before by people with more knowledge of the subject than I have (I am but a student, and though I have followed the personal computer industry for 10 years or so, I have never been involved in any corporate decisionmaking so I can't really speak with authority on why businesses choose one thing over another), notably Dan Heskett, whose posts I read regularly simply because he seems to be one of the few voices of reason in most of these Microsoft threads.
Anyway, here's the deal:
Microsoft is here to stay. That cannot be argued. If the government stepped in and clubbed Microsoft like a baby seal until they were little more than a pool of blood on the floor, it may please the endless drones of "GO LUNIX M$ SUX!" people on
If you create a company, what do you want, what is the American way: create company from nothing, build it up to huge levels, make $millions. People don't create companies to serve humanity. Microsoft may do things that are bad for consumers.
BOO-FUCKING-HOO.
Listen, it's "bad for consumers" that Adobe charges $500 or $600 or whatever it is these days for Photoshop. It's "bad for consumers" that Mercedes charges $55,000 for an automobile. The NERVE of those companies! It doesn't cost them that much to make the product!
Economics 101: Good things cost money to make. For the *vast, vast, vast* majority of people in the computer industry, writing open source software is good for little more than a warm happy feeling in your belly due to knowing that you did something good to help out other people. There's a reason Adobe Photoshop is 700 times the program that any OSS alternative is (you GIMP weenies can burn in hell, I'm not even an advanced user and even I can tell it crumbles and dies next to Photoshop for advanced tasks) and it's because they charge so much money for the software that they can afford to spend money on real research and top employees.
Look at Microsoft's R&D budget. It is absolutely *outrageous*. They don't use all that money researching new ways to dominate the world, kids: believe it or not, MS has and is doing some great things. I bet half of you out there posting on your l33t linux boxes are using a Microsoft mouse or a Microsoft keyboard. Why? Because when compared to other products in their price point, they absolutely dominate all ass.
Yes, you can buy better keyboards. You can probably buy better mice too (though I've never seen them), but you sure as hell can't for the $40 one will typically run you from MS. And it sure as hell won't be as well supported.
So software companies have a right to make money, have a right to do so however they see fit. Consumers be damned: in a free market, if the consumers get fucked, they fuck the company right back. That's the way the market works.
ANTITRUST = MONOPOLY PROTECTION, **NOT** blanket consumer protection!
If I create a company tomorrow and say that I will shine your shoes for $800, that is outrageous, it is bad for consumers, but the market will kick my ass because there are alternate ways to get your shoes shined, and shoe shining isn't even a necessity to begin with.
I wish I hadn't used all my mod points earlier this morning..
hehehe, nice post ac.
details, man. Details.
How far and how high can you fly? And also, how fast?
When you're invisible, does that also imply that you are silent?
And does the strength of 100 men bit carry over into all parts of the male anatomy?
You can't ask such a relevant and important question without providing the necessary details to enable us to make an informed decision.
I'm not claiming to be a deeply entrenched member of either the Microsoft or Open Source/Free Software camps. I'm neither. I use whichever products suit my needs, whichever interest me, whichever prove to be a challenge or a pleasure in ways that I appreciate.
:P) with the joy one feels when he has just solved a problem that has plagued him for weeks. And a problem whose solution was useful and able to be applied to future problems, too; not the typical early windows "Oh, it's just not supported, I see" solutions. I am often blown away by the elegant and simple power of a program like vim, once mastered (everyone remembers the first time they sat at a vi window and just had NO idea what to do), the dedication of some in the Free/Open community to software for which they receive no monetary compensation for developing... on and on and on. It's a fantastic system. It also works well for the purposes I need it - I learned basic ASM, C, Perl, and a few other more arcane but interesting languages on Linux systems. I learned most all that I know of low-level computer functioning from making my Linux systems work.
:), but next time you guys bust out the flamethrowers in an Anti-Windows thread just take a moment to think how much development effort is being put forth in the Linux community to emulate that very thing you hate.
I use Windows 2000 as my primary web browsing/instant messenging platform, as well as for gaming and general computer use, and do you know what? It suits my purposes damn fine. I remember Windows as far back as version 2.0, I remember the hell that was 3.1, I remember the further hell that was original retail Win95. I remember the sham that was 98, I remember the joy of newfound Wintel stability that was NT. It's just a shame it didn't run any of my games.
Win2k, however, is great. I have never had a blue screen. Ever. I run my machines hard, I'm on them 10+ hours a day, every day. I update drivers regularly, I tinker with hardware, I am a general pain in the ass user. It just *works*. I know that's not the cool opinion to have around here, but it's true. At least it is for me.
I first used Linux in early 1996. A friend of mine on Powwow at the time had just discovered Linux and sent me individual diskette images for a distribution which, with the guidance of him in an IRC channel on another computer, I somehow installed.
It has been a fun toy at times, an unbelievably frustrating nuisance at others. There's little that can compare (well, for an extreme geek at least
What's the point of this long-winded ramble?
Linux and Windows are both suited for and geared to DIFFERENT THINGS.
*WHY* is this so hard for Open Source/Free Software advocates to accept? On one hand, we see people in forums such as this flame EVERYTHING that Microsoft does as absolute trash, absolute garbage, absolute filth, "oh haha Windows LOL BSOD 17x per day 20 second max uptime LOLOL WINDOWS SUX! LOL!" posts get modded up to +5, Funny, absolutely asinine hero worship posts about Linus or Tux or ESR or GNU dolls or *whoever* get modded up to +20 Insightful (Maybe Alan Cox Will Respond To My 40th Email If He Sees This)... yet... whenever Microsoft develops or announces a new technology, this same camp - almost without delay - is right on top of things, announcing an exact functional photocopy of the Microsoft product.
People make fun of Microsoft's use of the word "innovate" (asbestos suit defense mechanism: I do not think Microsoft is an innovative company, but that's not the point I'm trying to make) yet when pressed (as they were in a previous thread), can hardly name anything SUBSTANTIAL that has been innovated through the current Open Source/Free Software development system.
Yes, everything in the "early days" was much more open. That's all well and good. I mean what things *recently* that were "Open Source" from day one have been *truly* innovative? What new software has come out that knocks my pants off in a way I've never seen before?
I tried KDE once and it looked so much like Windows it was sickening. Same for GNOME. I remember the first and only time I installed RedHat, the default WM was using a Win95 theme, complete with pseudo-Start button.
I know this post is going to get modded down to -1, and perhaps rightfully so as I really haven't added anything to the conversation (just ranted a bit
Here's a tip for those who will shout "we're just going after market adoption in the same way the juggernaut is" - you will not beat Microsoft by nipping at their heels and re-implementing (albeit in a slightly different way) every single thing they do.
Create something *new*, create something *innovative*, create something *powerful*, and make it so that the layman can not only operate it but has a legitimate reason besides the intangible "more stable" argument to ACTUALLY USE IT, and you'll have a real battle on your hands.
Until then, I'm going to continue to use everything that suits my needs, and will shake my head when I see legions of the OSS faithful rush to reimplement something Microsoft has recently done when their development efforts would be better focused elsewhere.
Reimplementing a system that seems to be geared towards mass-production of resources (be it code, office documents, whatever) in a networked environment seems to be a bit of a stretch to me for proponents of an operating system that is just starting to come out of the stages where would-be users had to know the scan ranges of their monitors and chipsets of their video cards simply to get a graphical display.
coming.
:)
This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone on the web was in on one big secret that Apple didn't discover until they started looking at quarterly reports and doing the math.
Notice that everyone likes the look of the Cube, the silence of the Cube, and in general the concept of the G4 Cube. I know that I personally have been lusting after an old NeXT Cube for years now, despite the fact that the hardware is so hopelessly out of date and there's really nothing for me to do on OpenStep. The concept of a computer in a Cube form factor is just so appealing to me that I'd be willing to spend the $400 or so that it costs to pick up a decent NeXT Cube used.
However, if you're going to create a silent cube computer, you have to realize that those are perks. Those are "neat things". Those are *not* important enough issues to justify a purchase at full new retail price for 99% of customers.
Sure, you read here about how Joe Sixpack bought it for his wife and she loves it, or how Fred Smith bought it to add to his stereo as a digital computer component and thinks it's pretty fantastic. Most of us do not have $1800 or $2000 or whatever a decent Cube costs these days (or did cost, heh heh) just to throw away on a whim based on a cutesy design.
Someone here mentioned Rolex and Bentley. These products are *extremely* high priced within their markets, but they are also the acknowledged *BEST* at what they do. The layman thinks "high-end watch", he thinks ROLEX. That makes a Rolex watch 1) a quality piece of equipment and 2) a status symbol.
Any Apple based computer these days is only a status symbol for a small subset of the community. I think Apple had starry-eyed visions of Dot-Com millionaires eating up Cubes like chocolate to put on their glasstop desks right next to their expensive LCD panels and stack of $400 motivational tapes. It just didn't happen. Within the computing industry, Mac owners are more often reviled than revered. Macs are seen as a toy, or at best, as a tool for an artist or graphics designer.
There aren't enough image-conscious artists or graphics designers to buy Cubes. Most of them are still probably holding onto their 9600s for the 6 PCI slots.
Which is the other issue - the Cube is NOT the best in its class. No, it is not "in a class of its own", it's a personal computer. There are much better machines in terms of functionality and quality of components than the Cube - even within Apple's own product line!
That's the one-two punch. The bonuses of the machine are not worth enough to most people in and of themselves, and the machine does not contain amazing whiz-bang hardware to drive the purchases. If the Cube had been the fastest piece of hardware Apple manufactured by a measurable amount and been delivered at a cost of only a few hundred dollars more than the G4 Tower (to make up for the lack of expandabiltiy, etc... even though it'd be the fastest, it would be a static configuration), I think it would have sold very well.
If the G4 Cube was delivered as-is but at a price point closer to the iMac than the G4 Towers, I think it also would have sold.
It was neither. It didn't sell.
In 10 years I'll probably buy one on eBay for $400 to sit next to my (at that point) 20 year old NeXT cube in the museam of cool machines that could've been.
I think there's a big difference between someone selecting a common dictionary word or, worse, an easily identifiable word with associations to them (ie, a girlfriend's name) as a password for an account or system, and someone taking an active role to convince someone that it is in their best interests to use the priveledges related to that password for evil intent.
One is simply a case of asking more of Joe User than can be reasonably expected of him (maintain a database of GOOD passwords, often changed, in his head), the other is a case of someone manipulating Joe User's lack of common sense for their own benefit.
Though choosing a bad password COULD be indicative of a lack of common sense, it isn't always. In fact, it isn't usually. Choosing a bad password is the majority of the time a case of Joe User simply selecting something he will be able to easily remember, not taking into account the fact that if it pops to his mind as second nature, it will probably be able to be discovered without TOO much prying by an outside source.
Make sense what I'm saying?
There's a technological cure for one (not depending on one's mnemonic abilities for authentication), there is no technological cure for the other (a user abusing the priveledges the password gives him).
Not the same issue.
Wasting your time burning up cycles for some moronic activity?
????
The difference between Joe User and yourself, or myself for that matter, is that we often use our computers for nothing other than the actual use of them. Tweaking our operating system, working on new programming projects, and just general geekotry.
Joe User uses his machine as a tool. I really can't help but think that you're a troll (despite your current modded up status) if you're saying that we should just forget about Joe User and return computers back to the "One, True, and Rightful User, namely ME and those just like me". Sorry bub, ain't gonna happen.
Your choice is either:
A) Continue with the current password scheme and have Joe Users forever abuse it, for Joe User will never, as a whole body of Joe Users, learn better practice. Never ever.
B) Think up a better scheme for Joe User to identify himself to his machine so that he can get his work done. Whether that be check up on medical records, enter standard secretarial work, or do research for a paper. You know, typical Joe User things for which the actual operation of the computer and its security paradigms should be invisible.
Man in Lab Coat: I just got this great new idea. We're going to take commodity hardware, we're going to make it really small, we're going to put it in a nice looking package, and we're going to install Linux and Apache on it since everyone knows that Linux = SUCCESS!
Man in Suit: Who will buy this?
Man in Lab Coat: We'll get front page coverage on Slashdot, and countless Linux geeks and wannabe Linux geeks (because it's cool to be a Linux geek and it allows you to make fun of people who use other operating systems that, although they work fine for their purposes, are clearly inferior and evil and STUPID!) will load our page, admire our design, perhaps post a comment or two, and continue about their daily work.
Man in Suit: Who will buy this, again?
Man in Lab Coat: I'm not really sure, as most people who have a need for lower end hardware like this already have old 486's or first-gen Pentiums on their desktop and probably didn't pay much more than $50-$100 for them, but DAMN is this COOL... and besides, we'll get on Slashdot!
Down with DVD! Distribute DeCSS on tshirts, televisions, and toilet tissue!
BOYCOTT AMAZON.COM!
BURN DOWN THE PATENT OFFICE!
FREE KEVIN MITNICK!
Wa.. wait a minute.
FreeB... oh. Nevermind.
if you ask me.
;), well, just to be a nuisance I told another friend of mine to try a password to see if we could log in when he was away.
It's amazing to me that people in such an intellectually demanding field as programming computers have for YEARS relied upon what could possibly be the most inefficient form of personal security available: a secret word. I mean really.
Complaints aside of "stupid users!" and "idiots deserved to have their account cracked with a foolish password like that!", what do you expect? It's the same thing as the whole "Well duh, to use Linux well you need to LEARN it, it's not my fault if you're too STUPID to learn something NEW!" argument; it just doesn't hold water when applied to the general populace.
You or I may be capable of mastering every arcane command our operating system affords us, memorizing every minor inconsistancy between BSD flavor or Linux distribution, programming in fixes when we need them, etc, but JOE USER NEVER, EVER WILL. It's the same with passwords. You or I may realize the importance of a unique alpha-numeric password for each of our important sites, and have a nice table of "xreF249sfj2r43's" and "248sT358ugtds's" memorized in our head, but JOE USER NEVER EVER WILL.
So when confronted with that box that says "Choose a password, and CHOOSE ONE YOU WILL REMEMBER, PASSWORD RETRIEVAL IS VERY DIFFICULT, please enter in your password hint in case you forget it", Joe User is not only inclined, but DIRECTED to select an easily-rememberable password.
Someone please tell me how the fsck you have a "hint" to remind you the password you selected is "24885sfjsfsjf82's"?
So Joe User sees that box, thinks "oh cool" and types in for the hint "Mom's maiden name" and his password ends up being "johnson", and that's that. It works for him, he remembers it, and even if he does forget it, it's right there for him to retrieve via his hint. Joe User doesn't realize that someone with half a brain will probably guess his mother's maiden name as his password within the first ten attempts to break into his account/machine/whatever.
Also notice Microsoft and countless third parties developing programs to auto-remember and auto-insert passwords on sites you've visited before. One wonders why they don't just tie access to a unique browser hash if it's going to be that straightforward.
An example of the type of thing I'm referring to: One time I had a few friends over spending the night with me, and when we got up the next morning we all had logged onto our messengers of choice to talk to friends and see what the plans were for that day. One friend had logged off of his AOL IM account to go to the bathroom (for he knew that if he left it up, we all would've lunged at his machine to enter the standard requisite "Sup, slut?" messages to his girlfriend and mother and etc etc
To my astonishment, it worked. My FIRST GUESS. It just goes to show that most "regular people" pick a password that is so easily rememberable (a word? is now.) by them and so related to who they are that those who know them well can probably pick it out just as easily. Another one of my friend's passwords, discovered via the same method, is simply his girlfriend's name with an "i" replaced with a "1".
(btw, the password for the aformentioned friend was "bigblack", he'd been a fan of that character on the Howard Stern show)
So please, someone more intelligent than I, come along and invent a better personal identification system that doesn't rely on the good practices or intelligence of the end user.
-Chris