After reading that piece of crap web page I feel like offering Sam a copy of my hot selling "Spellchecker Secrets". For $12.99, you get an easy 1-2-3 how to on unlocking the hidden power of proper English through most modern software like Outlook, Word and Dictionary.com.
But I'm also rolling in laughter at the idiots that got suckered by this dumbass. I recently bought a plasma for 4k off of ebay and everyone told me "ohhh... bad idea." Well.. I never had any doubts because I pay with Money Orders (never had a CC in my life) and there'd be no way this Sal guy would even past my first glance. Hell... with any item over 500.00 I call the seller and speak mano-e-mano before I make any decision, and each seller for an item over 500.00 should have at least 1,000 transactions and a high 90's percentile positive feedback score.
So who's the bigger dipshit? Sal, because yeah... the dudes going down for being a dipshit who couldn't even bother to figure out a proper scam. He's putting the pics of his kids online to gain the "sympathy vote" but that's because he's scared as shit of going to a "Federal Pound Me In the Ass Prison". But the buyers are just a notch below that in dipshit level in my book, I have a feeling that the next time I hear about Justin Spence et al will be how they are fighting back against the evil 419 scammer who took their life savings in an "elaborate online fraud that you should know about".
"One of our freelancers, Stewart Wolpin, did this recently with a Panasonic model, the TH-42PHD6UY, a stripped-down version of the TH-42PX20UP. Wolpin purchased the TH-42PHD6UY for just over $5,000, tax and a stand included"
That freelancer needs a whap on the head because he got ripped off. I recently purchased a brand spanking new TH-42PHD6UY for just over 4k after the addition of a 4yr extended REPLACEMENT warranty an optional DVI Interface board (this version allows the user too swap interface cards) and shipping and handling -- I bought this on ebay to avoid the RETAIL markup, ebay sellers usually order directly from a distributer and markup just enough to pay some bills. Low overhead, few if any employees to feed/insure and no actual inventory make for cheaper prices.
When I went to best buy to find a rackmount system for my AV home theatre rig, I was shocked to see the retail price of the TH-42PX20UP (consumer model) was 5,600.00!!! That's about a 1500.00 difference! And what do you get? Some crappy speakers -- If you have plasma you sure as hell don't need crappy TV speakers because you have a surround sound system! -- an NTSC TV TUNER -- Errrr once again if you have plasma you wont be tuning in off the airial broadcast signal because you'll have HD Satelite/Cable and a TiVo!!!! --- A remote with 100 extra buttons you don't need -- The Commercial version has about 20 buttons and I use all of them -- and a crapload of aerodynamic looking plastic instead of the plain-jane plastic picture frame, which I prefer since it takes up less space.
So you basically end up paying $1500.00 more for a bunch of crap you don't need and adds no real value to the product.
But as everyone else has mentioned, it's just common sense. And if you're going to send 4k of your hard earned cash, you better do some serious reesearch on each brand/model and ALL it's attributes based on what your needs are. Ohh and no, ebay is not all that risky if you use your head. Look for sellers with high transaction numbers (my seller had over 10k trasactions and a 98% satisfaction rating) And be sure to call them before you click that buy now button, ask about warranty options and geet info on the warranty (my seller referred me to the warranty providers website so I could read the details BEFORE buying the product). ebay has become my favorite place to shop for high end electronics because it is usually much cheaper than buying at a store and if you buy form an out of state seller, you avoid sales tax.
I thought it was a little steep, but after reading this:
"Tactile Response Display
Most touch screens are lifeless and inert. It's often hard to know whether or not your command has even registered. The NAVITUS remote is dramatically different. Imagine an LCD screen that actually presses back against your fingertip to confirm each command. With TouchEngine(TM) Technology, you're operating with confidence."
I realised that turning on the Playboy channel will never be the same again. And it runs Linux... sound like a geeks wet dream to me.
Hasn't another project already acheived this and begun interpolation?
And on top of that, we already have another project to visit all those locations, which have have been marked with a retail location by the previous project.
So while some redundancy may be a good thing, this sounds like overkill.
The way around this in the US is to use broadcasts. And no... you don't have to use AM/FM radio broadcasts. Hook up an iBook to your DSL connection and audition some internet radio streams, if you can't find a reliable stream with content you like, you can also use the broadband radio stations on Cable/Satelite TV tuners, I know a couple local restaraunts that use those to get around licensensing and the music can be pretty good. And while I haven't checked it out, XM (satelite) radio might have some good alternatives as well.
Erm no, because though a slashdotting may cripple a site, 10 people will post mirrors, plus it's free publicity -- so why pay when you're basically threatening to advertise them for free and offer the value added service of recruiting 10 people to mirror the site for FREE? That's some threat.:)
Maybe you haven't noticed the rise in advertisements masquerading as articles on/. these days? Well now you know why.
"Weren't we seeing the ATi cards outperforming nVidia by disgusting margins on HL2 benchmarks?"
Were you referring to these? Those benches are quite old (Sept 2003!!!) and you'll note that different generations of cards were used here. Also, the HL2 benches were run under DX9 and DX8, AFAIK the Doom3 benches were run under openGL.
So no... there is no direct comparison. Different card gens and different rendering tech was used in the benches. Though it does look like nVidia is back on the ball after getting their asses handed to them by the ATI 9800's.
And as far as your speculation that there may be some pro-nVidia fudging... from the article: "Both ATI and NVIDIA were present for the testing and brought their latest driver sets." So no, I don't think there was anything underhanded here.
Ohh and a $600.00 PC system just blows the eMacs out of the water? Maybe you need to head over to the apple store and try on an iBook G4 1Ghz. Hell, the eMac comes with a built in 17" monitor even.
And a 1Ghz G4 is no processor to be sneezing at, unless of course Mhz is all you judge a computer by. "ohhh a 2Ghz Intel is gonna be twice as better than the 1Ghz G4"
Ohh and I don't care how you wintel biggots try to spin it, any kit that costs less than 1k is a piece of crap compared to the pricier systems.
But a full Ghz+ G4 system with built in 17" CRT and a CD/DVD-R???? Actually, I'd take one of those over a 600.00 POS PC any day of the week. Plus the Apple Care protection program will take care of that eMac for three years for a couple hundred more. Who you going to call after your PC takes the crap YOU KNOW it's going to on month 13? Who? No one, you hope you can fix it or buy a new one. Apple will fix it whether it's hardware or software related and ship it back to you -- if and I do mean IF you ever do have a problem. I have a banged up ugly ass 64 800mhz powerbook that's over 2yrs old and even though the case is starting to fall apart, the innards run just fine. And just how many viruses, trojans and spyware apps have I picked up in those two + years? How many times have I had to defrag for a few hours or REFORMAT? Never.
So actually no... you get a far better system and far better service for a very comparable cost with Apple. But, just like a redneck, you'll stick to your prejudices. And no, I'm no mac zealot I own a PC, a x86 RH9 server (need to migrate the OS) and an SGI Octane for shits and giggles. But I use my Macs for all work and fulltime personal use.
There however is one thing I'll say about PC's: Windows does rule for gaming....for the time being of course.
Linux is on the way up and Mac is on the way back in. I'm a consultant for many corporations and more and more execs these days are using OSX, they cite the ease of use, compatability and SECURITY as the main reasons for switching over to OSX. That and the fact that it's aesthectically pleasing and has a sexy factor a Dell could never have.
Switching an exec over to a new Platform/OS is one thing, switching a company or entire depts even is another. But since OSX came out I've been seeing more and more engineering depts using OSX and would expect this trend to continue as the costs of downtime and consulting due to viruses, crashes and just plain old dogfood hardware adds up.
Once OSX and Linux are more common in the Corporate Sector, you'll start seeing the educational sector make that move. Remember, it's the Corps that provide a lot of the bank roll to the schools, and they do speak up when there's something they want/need out of those schools.
" Now that clones cost $600-$800 for a full fledged machine, and Apple still thinks it needs those margins."
Wow you don't say.
Apple has nothing like that. Nope, not at all. Nope, 599.00 will not buy a 1GHz PowerPC G4 256MB DDR333 SDRAM 40GB Ultra ATA drive with 17" CRT display and stereo speakers built in.
And no... 300.00 more wont get you a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 256MB DDR333 SDRAM / 80GB Ultra ATA drive with SuperDrive.
Well, you may have gone to school, but that doesn't mean you've got a clue. I'd get back to manning that deep fat fryer before your 17yr old manager finds you playing on the computer.
Realtor: "This is a modern luxory home built by Home2.0. Pricing for Family Unit Licenses vary based upon geographic location, Regional Demographics, size of Family Unit and estiamted annual income for the course of your License. Base Per Family Unit Licenses start at $750,000.00 in the California Bay Area."
Home Buyer: "Base Per Family Unit License????"
Realtor: "Yes, your mortgage provides you a Family Unit License authorizing you use of the Home2.0 product for 1 Family Unit until transferance of that license to another Family Unit."
Home Buyer: "Use? But I'm here to buy, not rent."
Realtor: "But, you do buy! You buy the Family Unit License to use the Home2.0 product for your Family Unit."
Home Buyer: "So if I'm buying only a license, who owns the home?"
Realtor: "Home2.0 of course. They retain the exclusive right to monitor your home usage and make regular maintenance inspections and install upgrades as needed to insure standards of living compliance."
Home Buyer: "And I always modded those "1984" Posts on/. down as trolls." *sigh*
Well, I got the 40G iPod, a couple G4 powerbooks and an iBook and I live in SF.
But this still doesn't interest me in the slightest, because I already know a few very cool SF internet cafes where gals go to chat up guys and vise versa... ohh and the wifi is $5.00 a day, but I'd rather have the nice scenery and ability to have some very personal offline porn than downloading it for free off one of these guys listed hotspots.
"Anyone know if Doom 3 uses these newly ratified extension? I would imagine it does - but I of course have no facts to back this up"
I had to read that TWICE and I'm still in shock. A/. reader making conjecture and admitting to having no basis in fact to substantiate said conjecture???
A sign of the apocolypse if I ever saw one. Congrats Goyuix, you may now add "Harbinger of the Apocolypse" to your sig.
ohh and you forgot to add ~$8.00 for a bag of popcorn and a coke.
Of course the movie producers don't make money off the pre-feature spot ads or the popcorn/coke, but I would assume that the negative feelings implanted in the audience actually do cause more people to wait for the feature to come to DVD/Cable.
At every major movie I've gone to in the last year or so, the audience has resoundedly booed the projectionist after sitting through 20 minutes of ads and trailers. I feel lucky I live a mere block from the Sony Metreon, I can leave my pad a couple minutes before the stated movie time and by the time I've bought my tickets, grabbed a beverage and a seat, the trailers are just wrapping up. But when I see a movie like F/911 on or near the opening night, I really have no choice but to be assaulted by the rampant advertising since you have to be there at least 20 minutes before the start time if you want a decent seat.
I think if they showed 5 minutes shorts or something sprinkled in with the ads and trailers, the audience reaction would be more favorable and cause people to go to the movies more often.
That 1 billion could have and should have been 2 or 3 billion without the siphoning of profits by pirates and online downloaders!
It's a sad day when the prol^H^H^H err.. people can't grasp the basic fact that a collection of Ferraris and high-class "companionship" cost money. *sigh*
This deal makes absolutely no sense. Why can't retailers get out of the "tangible object" mode and realize that it's bits that are being sold not a product that needs a bunch of packaging.
What I'd like to see is an obitquitous KIOSK equipted with touchscreen, a mag-card reader and USB/USB2/Firewire cables. User walks up, browses the online store via the touchscreen, makes a shopping cart and swipes their credit card to copy songs to a/temp/$user directory. User is prompted that their files are ready and to attach their MP3 player via one of the available cables and transfer their files over. As another option, blank CD's could be available in a handy vending machin for $.50 a pop and the KIOSK equipted with a slotloading CD Burner.
The point is, this is something that makes no sense for bestbuy, but makes perfect sense for a company who wants to build and market a network of KIOSKS that could be installed at 7-11, blockbuster, Kinkos, Malls and well... just about anywhere that you could stick one.
I sure as hell hope Steve Jobs threw in an iPod and a BMW to go with it.:P
The "When Nature Attacks" People Should Be Pleased
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Surfing on a Surfboard
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· Score: 1
All I can think about as far as this tech goes is Real Time Shark Attacks!
This should be a big productivity enhancer for most corporations after the IT pit witnesses one of their buddies getting eaten off the Great Barrier Reef via a streaming webcast.
Boss: "Congrats people, we've beat our release deadline, how about some of that paid vacation time?"
Development team: "For the love of God, Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!"
A Scanner Darkly was the first PKD book I ever read. It's great to hear that this is going to be adapted to film, I thought the premis was so engaging (being sent to spy on ones self) and being from Orange County originally, it held a certain personal sentiment as well.
It is rather sad though that it was not until after PKD's death that his work has such mainstream appeal and revenue associated. But that is typically the case of the eccentric genius who lies a bit ahead of the curve (Van Gogh, Tesla et al)
"And as is, he has forced demand down to near nothing, because how many people have a hundred thousand dollars to spare? It would be funny if nobody bid."
Actually, I think it wuld be funny if someone did bid. Especially if it was one of our own beloved/. trolls who was acting in a glue-sniffing induced frenzy and just happened to bid for shits and giggles only to wake up in the morning to realize that they are now owned by Pokemon and Dance Dance Revolution.
Hell at $100,000.00 US this is quite a bargain. I mean the Hello Kitty LE Dreamcast alone is worth it's weight in Gold. But with the N64 Pikachi-orange Limited Edition!?!?!?!?! Ohhhhhh Man!;)
According to this guy, I don't know how to use a freakin web browser!
Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages - not subpages of the same web site! - in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them...
Yeah, that would be me, but I don't deal in printed works, so no I don't go gluing stuff together.
This more that anything inspires me to never use Gnome ever, Not only do I find his entire diatribe insulting, but rather narrow minded and overall devoid of substance.
Why do I use only one browser window and load everything into tabs? Maybe I will always have at least 10 different apps open and don't like navigating through a sea of windows to find the 'one' I need at that instance. It's bad enough that BBedit on the mac doesn't support tabbing, so I often have 20 BBedit windows open because I am scripting, modeling, writing DB schemas, writing html and CSS all in different documents, so when I need to access a commandline, I don't want to figure out which terminal it's in, I just use "Screen" and tab to the most appropriate prompt -- and when testing/prototyping/debugging, I don't want to hunt down the one browser window out of a swarm, I want to just select Mozilla and have the one and only window pop up and grab my tab.
What is so wrong with this? The author did nothing to illuminate me on why my methodology is wrong nor convince me I'd be better off mucking about in a swarm of windows which he provclaims is "the one true way".
And who is this "author" anyway? Some network admin from poland -- where I can only assume the network admins you.
On the surface this sounds great! I imagine this will be a ligit subscription service with parties lined up to play content provider in order to avoid them being the next Napster.
But how feasible is this? Licensing media for internet is a complete pyrhia as far as the MPAA/RIAA is concerned -- though they have seemed to be a little less rabid towards those who try to play along and pay up as of late.
Also -- what quality can we be expecting. People like me are all about HD content and with new services like Voom who focus on HD and are providing their own integerated tuner/DVR hardware (not yet released should be out within the next 2-3 months, how many devices are we expected to purchase?
Sure, if net-ready TiVo comes out, I'll be one of the first to buy -- but what's to keep the others from bullying them out? If DirecTV does kick TiVo to the curb, what's to prevent them from cross-licensing to the content providers themselves? I mean if BlockBuster or others start streaming, why would they limit themselves to TiVo owners only when any DSL/Cable/Satelite carrier can offer up a clone of the hardware/firmware and offer it to their hundreds of thousands of subscribers?
So while this sounds like a great move for TiVo in the short run, I'm not too optimistic about them not getting swallowed up/beaten to death by the big hitters who'll wait to see how it does in the market and then swoop down for hardball when/if it takes off.
"And who modded up all these quasi art critics anyway? It's art because they say it's art"
Having worked for little known corps such as Atari, and having done illustration most my life I think I might have a little knowledge as to what art is.
If someone hands you a box with some buttons drawn on it and says it's a computer, does that make it a computer?
I understand that a lot of people, especially techies have a real hard time appreciating art. I imagine it can be quite difficult leaving the left-brain for a moment and trying to appreciate abstract forms of thought that I would assume you imagine quite useless and consider impractacle.
Fact is art is substantive and quite practicle when applied. Slopping a bunch of crap together with no rhyme or reason and saying it's art does not make it art.
To help you understand, I'll attempt to take things down to your level. Look at the Original Matrix -- remove the CG elements, the costume design, the models and sets -- would it have been even half as entertaining? The screenplay on it's own while in it's own right a work of literary art was not all that strong nor original, borrowing heavily from concepts found in buddhism, jungism and combined into a sci-fi/cyberpunk setting. It was the culmination of the arts of computer effects, storyboard illustrators, cinemaphotographers, actors, directors, screenwriters, modelors and set/prop and costume designers that made that movie what it was.
The pont being that when ever you watch a movie, see a commercial, play a video game, go online to a website, look at the pretty products at the Apple Store, there is an element of art/design that is to be found anywhere. These elements will either turn you on or off if significant enough. Look at Dell products, they are simple, low on design, but effective and serve their purppose. Now look at Apple products, and just try to tell me that Dell is as artistic as Apple. That's the comparison you make by just shrugging off quality in favor of "it is if they say it is".. truly an argument that I find rather indignant and on the whole ignorant.
After Atari I had the misfortune once of working for a game company as a charactor designer, the company was a start up founded by some stock-optioned engineers from Sierra, I was hired to design their charactors and be the principal animator. I left within 3 months, having been treated like shit by the founders because even though I was the driving force for their art, the art to them did not matter, it was all about the code. On the way out I spoke quite frankly "It doesn't matter how godly your code is, if they graphics look like shit, people will think it's shit." And I to this day refuse to work for any kind of game company ever again, EA, LucasArts be damned, I get their offers and I could give a rats ass... let's just say after the CD-ROM days of the 90's and dealing with left-minded techies, I don't care for that culture.
Slashdot Mirror
After reading that piece of crap web page I feel like offering Sam a copy of my hot selling "Spellchecker Secrets". For $12.99, you get an easy 1-2-3 how to on unlocking the hidden power of proper English through most modern software like Outlook, Word and Dictionary.com.
But I'm also rolling in laughter at the idiots that got suckered by this dumbass. I recently bought a plasma for 4k off of ebay and everyone told me "ohhh... bad idea." Well.. I never had any doubts because I pay with Money Orders (never had a CC in my life) and there'd be no way this Sal guy would even past my first glance. Hell... with any item over 500.00 I call the seller and speak mano-e-mano before I make any decision, and each seller for an item over 500.00 should have at least 1,000 transactions and a high 90's percentile positive feedback score.
So who's the bigger dipshit? Sal, because yeah... the dudes going down for being a dipshit who couldn't even bother to figure out a proper scam. He's putting the pics of his kids online to gain the "sympathy vote" but that's because he's scared as shit of going to a "Federal Pound Me In the Ass Prison". But the buyers are just a notch below that in dipshit level in my book, I have a feeling that the next time I hear about Justin Spence et al will be how they are fighting back against the evil 419 scammer who took their life savings in an "elaborate online fraud that you should know about".
"One of our freelancers, Stewart Wolpin, did this recently with a Panasonic model, the TH-42PHD6UY, a stripped-down version of the TH-42PX20UP. Wolpin purchased the TH-42PHD6UY for just over $5,000, tax and a stand included"
That freelancer needs a whap on the head because he got ripped off. I recently purchased a brand spanking new TH-42PHD6UY for just over 4k after the addition of a 4yr extended REPLACEMENT warranty an optional DVI Interface board (this version allows the user too swap interface cards) and shipping and handling -- I bought this on ebay to avoid the RETAIL markup, ebay sellers usually order directly from a distributer and markup just enough to pay some bills. Low overhead, few if any employees to feed/insure and no actual inventory make for cheaper prices.
When I went to best buy to find a rackmount system for my AV home theatre rig, I was shocked to see the retail price of the TH-42PX20UP (consumer model) was 5,600.00!!!
That's about a 1500.00 difference! And what do you get? Some crappy speakers -- If you have plasma you sure as hell don't need crappy TV speakers because you have a surround sound system! -- an NTSC TV TUNER -- Errrr once again if you have plasma you wont be tuning in off the airial broadcast signal because you'll have HD Satelite/Cable and a TiVo!!!! --- A remote with 100 extra buttons you don't need -- The Commercial version has about 20 buttons and I use all of them -- and a crapload of aerodynamic looking plastic instead of the plain-jane plastic picture frame, which I prefer since it takes up less space.
So you basically end up paying $1500.00 more for a bunch of crap you don't need and adds no real value to the product.
But as everyone else has mentioned, it's just common sense. And if you're going to send 4k of your hard earned cash, you better do some serious reesearch on each brand/model and ALL it's attributes based on what your needs are.
Ohh and no, ebay is not all that risky if you use your head.
Look for sellers with high transaction numbers (my seller had over 10k trasactions and a 98% satisfaction rating)
And be sure to call them before you click that buy now button, ask about warranty options and geet info on the warranty (my seller referred me to the warranty providers website so I could read the details BEFORE buying the product). ebay has become my favorite place to shop for high end electronics because it is usually much cheaper than buying at a store and if you buy form an out of state seller, you avoid sales tax.
I thought it was a little steep, but after reading this:
"Tactile Response Display
Most touch screens are lifeless and inert. It's often hard to know whether or not your command has even registered. The NAVITUS remote is dramatically different. Imagine an LCD screen that actually presses back against your fingertip to confirm each command. With TouchEngine(TM) Technology, you're operating with confidence."
I realised that turning on the Playboy channel will never be the same again. And it runs Linux... sound like a geeks wet dream to me.
Hasn't another project already acheived this and begun interpolation?
And on top of that, we already have another project to visit all those locations, which have have been marked with a retail location by the previous project.
So while some redundancy may be a good thing, this sounds like overkill.
The way around this in the US is to use broadcasts.
And no... you don't have to use AM/FM radio broadcasts.
Hook up an iBook to your DSL connection and audition some internet radio streams, if you can't find a reliable stream with content you like, you can also use the broadband radio stations on Cable/Satelite TV tuners, I know a couple local restaraunts that use those to get around licensensing and the music can be pretty good. And while I haven't checked it out, XM (satelite) radio might have some good alternatives as well.
Erm no, because though a slashdotting may cripple a site, 10 people will post mirrors, plus it's free publicity -- so why pay when you're basically threatening to advertise them for free and offer the value added service of recruiting 10 people to mirror the site for FREE? That's some threat. :)
/. these days? Well now you know why.
Maybe you haven't noticed the rise in advertisements masquerading as articles on
"Weren't we seeing the ATi cards outperforming nVidia by disgusting margins on HL2 benchmarks?"
... from the article: "Both ATI and NVIDIA were present for the testing and brought their latest driver sets." So no, I don't think there was anything underhanded here.
Were you referring to these?
Those benches are quite old (Sept 2003!!!) and you'll note that different generations of cards were used here. Also, the HL2 benches were run under DX9 and DX8, AFAIK the Doom3 benches were run under openGL.
So no... there is no direct comparison. Different card gens and different rendering tech was used in the benches. Though it does look like nVidia is back on the ball after getting their asses handed to them by the ATI 9800's.
And as far as your speculation that there may be some pro-nVidia fudging
Ohh and a $600.00 PC system just blows the eMacs out of the water? Maybe you need to head over to the apple store and try on an iBook G4 1Ghz. Hell, the eMac comes with a built in 17" monitor even.
...for the time being of course.
And a 1Ghz G4 is no processor to be sneezing at, unless of course Mhz is all you judge a computer by. "ohhh a 2Ghz Intel is gonna be twice as better than the 1Ghz G4"
Ohh and I don't care how you wintel biggots try to spin it, any kit that costs less than 1k is a piece of crap compared to the pricier systems.
But a full Ghz+ G4 system with built in 17" CRT and a CD/DVD-R???? Actually, I'd take one of those over a 600.00 POS PC any day of the week. Plus the Apple Care protection program will take care of that eMac for three years for a couple hundred more. Who you going to call after your PC takes the crap YOU KNOW it's going to on month 13? Who? No one, you hope you can fix it or buy a new one. Apple will fix it whether it's hardware or software related and ship it back to you -- if and I do mean IF you ever do have a problem. I have a banged up ugly ass 64 800mhz powerbook that's over 2yrs old and even though the case is starting to fall apart, the innards run just fine. And just how many viruses, trojans and spyware apps have I picked up in those two + years? How many times have I had to defrag for a few hours or REFORMAT?
Never.
So actually no... you get a far better system and far better service for a very comparable cost with Apple.
But, just like a redneck, you'll stick to your prejudices.
And no, I'm no mac zealot I own a PC, a x86 RH9 server (need to migrate the OS) and an SGI Octane for shits and giggles. But I use my Macs for all work and fulltime personal use.
There however is one thing I'll say about PC's: Windows does rule for gaming.
Linux is on the way up and Mac is on the way back in.
I'm a consultant for many corporations and more and more execs these days are using OSX, they cite the ease of use, compatability and SECURITY as the main reasons for switching over to OSX. That and the fact that it's aesthectically pleasing and has a sexy factor a Dell could never have.
Switching an exec over to a new Platform/OS is one thing, switching a company or entire depts even is another.
But since OSX came out I've been seeing more and more engineering depts using OSX and would expect this trend to continue as the costs of downtime and consulting due to viruses, crashes and just plain old dogfood hardware adds up.
Once OSX and Linux are more common in the Corporate Sector, you'll start seeing the educational sector make that move. Remember, it's the Corps that provide a lot of the bank roll to the schools, and they do speak up when there's something they want/need out of those schools.
" Now that clones cost $600-$800 for a full fledged machine, and Apple still thinks it needs those margins. "
Wow you don't say.
Apple has nothing like that. Nope, not at all. Nope, 599.00 will not buy a 1GHz PowerPC G4 256MB DDR333 SDRAM 40GB Ultra ATA drive with 17" CRT display and stereo speakers built in.
And no... 300.00 more wont get you a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
256MB DDR333 SDRAM / 80GB Ultra ATA drive with SuperDrive.
Well, you may have gone to school, but that doesn't mean you've got a clue. I'd get back to manning that deep fat fryer before your 17yr old manager finds you playing on the computer.
Realtor: "This is a modern luxory home built by Home2.0. Pricing for Family Unit Licenses vary based upon geographic location, Regional Demographics, size of Family Unit and estiamted annual income for the course of your License. Base Per Family Unit Licenses start at $750,000.00 in the California Bay Area."
/. down as trolls." *sigh*
Home Buyer: "Base Per Family Unit License????"
Realtor: "Yes, your mortgage provides you a Family Unit License authorizing you use of the Home2.0 product for 1 Family Unit until transferance of that license to another Family Unit."
Home Buyer: "Use? But I'm here to buy, not rent."
Realtor: "But, you do buy! You buy the Family Unit License to use the Home2.0 product for your Family Unit."
Home Buyer: "So if I'm buying only a license, who owns the home?"
Realtor: "Home2.0 of course. They retain the exclusive right to monitor your home usage and make regular maintenance inspections and install upgrades as needed to insure standards of living compliance."
Home Buyer: "And I always modded those "1984" Posts on
Sure, an artichoke is a thistle and might make for a good subwoofer.
Well, I got the 40G iPod, a couple G4 powerbooks and an iBook and I live in SF.
But this still doesn't interest me in the slightest, because I already know a few very cool SF internet cafes where gals go to chat up guys and vise versa... ohh and the wifi is $5.00 a day, but I'd rather have the nice scenery and ability to have some very personal offline porn than downloading it for free off one of these guys listed hotspots.
"Anyone know if Doom 3 uses these newly ratified extension? I would imagine it does - but I of course have no facts to back this up"
/. reader making conjecture and admitting to having no basis in fact to substantiate said conjecture???
I had to read that TWICE and I'm still in shock.
A
A sign of the apocolypse if I ever saw one.
Congrats Goyuix, you may now add "Harbinger of the Apocolypse" to your sig.
ohh and you forgot to add ~$8.00 for a bag of popcorn and a coke.
Of course the movie producers don't make money off the pre-feature spot ads or the popcorn/coke, but I would assume that the negative feelings implanted in the audience actually do cause more people to wait for the feature to come to DVD/Cable.
At every major movie I've gone to in the last year or so, the audience has resoundedly booed the projectionist after sitting through 20 minutes of ads and trailers. I feel lucky I live a mere block from the Sony Metreon, I can leave my pad a couple minutes before the stated movie time and by the time I've bought my tickets, grabbed a beverage and a seat, the trailers are just wrapping up. But when I see a movie like F/911 on or near the opening night, I really have no choice but to be assaulted by the rampant advertising since you have to be there at least 20 minutes before the start time if you want a decent seat.
I think if they showed 5 minutes shorts or something sprinkled in with the ads and trailers, the audience reaction would be more favorable and cause people to go to the movies more often.
That 1 billion could have and should have been 2 or 3 billion without the siphoning of profits by pirates and online downloaders!
.. people can't grasp the basic fact that a collection of Ferraris and high-class "companionship" cost money. *sigh*
It's a sad day when the prol^H^H^H err
This deal makes absolutely no sense.
/temp/$user directory. User is prompted that their files are ready and to attach their MP3 player via one of the available cables and transfer their files over. As another option, blank CD's could be available in a handy vending machin for $.50 a pop and the KIOSK equipted with a slotloading CD Burner.
Why can't retailers get out of the "tangible object" mode and realize that it's bits that are being sold not a product that needs a bunch of packaging.
What I'd like to see is an obitquitous KIOSK equipted with touchscreen, a mag-card reader and USB/USB2/Firewire cables.
User walks up, browses the online store via the touchscreen, makes a shopping cart and swipes their credit card to copy songs to a
The point is, this is something that makes no sense for bestbuy, but makes perfect sense for a company who wants to build and market a network of KIOSKS that could be installed at 7-11, blockbuster, Kinkos, Malls and well... just about anywhere that you could stick one.
...But only one mouse button.
:P
I sure as hell hope Steve Jobs threw in an iPod and a BMW to go with it.
All I can think about as far as this tech goes is Real Time Shark Attacks!
This should be a big productivity enhancer for most corporations after the IT pit witnesses one of their buddies getting eaten off the Great Barrier Reef via a streaming webcast.
Boss: "Congrats people, we've beat our release deadline, how about some of that paid vacation time?"
Development team: "For the love of God, Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!"
A Scanner Darkly was the first PKD book I ever read.
It's great to hear that this is going to be adapted to film, I thought the premis was so engaging (being sent to spy on ones self) and being from Orange County originally, it held a certain personal sentiment as well.
It is rather sad though that it was not until after PKD's death that his work has such mainstream appeal and revenue associated.
But that is typically the case of the eccentric genius who lies a bit ahead of the curve (Van Gogh, Tesla et al)
"And as is, he has forced demand down to near nothing, because how many people have a hundred thousand dollars to spare? It would be funny if nobody bid."
/. trolls who was acting in a glue-sniffing induced frenzy and just happened to bid for shits and giggles only to wake up in the morning to realize that they are now owned by Pokemon and Dance Dance Revolution.
Actually, I think it wuld be funny if someone did bid.
Especially if it was one of our own beloved
Hell at $100,000.00 US this is quite a bargain. ;)
I mean the Hello Kitty LE Dreamcast alone is worth it's weight in Gold. But with the N64 Pikachi-orange Limited Edition!?!?!?!?!
Ohhhhhh Man!
Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages - not subpages of the same web site! - in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them...
Yeah, that would be me, but I don't deal in printed works, so no I don't go gluing stuff together.
This more that anything inspires me to never use Gnome ever,
Not only do I find his entire diatribe insulting, but rather narrow minded and overall devoid of substance.
Why do I use only one browser window and load everything into tabs? Maybe I will always have at least 10 different apps open and don't like navigating through a sea of windows to find the 'one' I need at that instance. It's bad enough that BBedit on the mac doesn't support tabbing, so I often have 20 BBedit windows open because I am scripting, modeling, writing DB schemas, writing html and CSS all in different documents, so when I need to access a commandline, I don't want to figure out which terminal it's in, I just use "Screen" and tab to the most appropriate prompt -- and when testing/prototyping/debugging, I don't want to hunt down the one browser window out of a swarm, I want to just select Mozilla and have the one and only window pop up and grab my tab.
What is so wrong with this? The author did nothing to illuminate me on why my methodology is wrong nor convince me I'd be better off mucking about in a swarm of windows which he provclaims is "the one true way".
And who is this "author" anyway?
Some network admin from poland -- where I can only assume the network admins you.
On the surface this sounds great! I imagine this will be a ligit subscription service with parties lined up to play content provider in order to avoid them being the next Napster.
But how feasible is this?
Licensing media for internet is a complete pyrhia as far as the MPAA/RIAA is concerned -- though they have seemed to be a little less rabid towards those who try to play along and pay up as of late.
Also -- what quality can we be expecting.
People like me are all about HD content and with new services like Voom who focus on HD and are providing their own integerated tuner/DVR hardware (not yet released should be out within the next 2-3 months, how many devices are we expected to purchase?
Sure, if net-ready TiVo comes out, I'll be one of the first to buy -- but what's to keep the others from bullying them out? If DirecTV does kick TiVo to the curb, what's to prevent them from cross-licensing to the content providers themselves? I mean if BlockBuster or others start streaming, why would they limit themselves to TiVo owners only when any DSL/Cable/Satelite carrier can offer up a clone of the hardware/firmware and offer it to their hundreds of thousands of subscribers?
So while this sounds like a great move for TiVo in the short run, I'm not too optimistic about them not getting swallowed up/beaten to death by the big hitters who'll wait to see how it does in the market and then swoop down for hardball when/if it takes off.
"And who modded up all these quasi art critics anyway? It's art because they say it's art"
.. truly an argument that I find rather indignant and on the whole ignorant.
Having worked for little known corps such as Atari, and having done illustration most my life I think I might have a little knowledge as to what art is.
If someone hands you a box with some buttons drawn on it and says it's a computer, does that make it a computer?
I understand that a lot of people, especially techies have a real hard time appreciating art. I imagine it can be quite difficult leaving the left-brain for a moment and trying to appreciate abstract forms of thought that I would assume you imagine quite useless and consider impractacle.
Fact is art is substantive and quite practicle when applied.
Slopping a bunch of crap together with no rhyme or reason and saying it's art does not make it art.
To help you understand, I'll attempt to take things down to your level. Look at the Original Matrix -- remove the CG elements, the costume design, the models and sets -- would it have been even half as entertaining? The screenplay on it's own while in it's own right a work of literary art was not all that strong nor original, borrowing heavily from concepts found in buddhism, jungism and combined into a sci-fi/cyberpunk setting.
It was the culmination of the arts of computer effects, storyboard illustrators, cinemaphotographers, actors, directors, screenwriters, modelors and set/prop and costume designers that made that movie what it was.
The pont being that when ever you watch a movie, see a commercial, play a video game, go online to a website, look at the pretty products at the Apple Store, there is an element of art/design that is to be found anywhere.
These elements will either turn you on or off if significant enough. Look at Dell products, they are simple, low on design, but effective and serve their purppose. Now look at Apple products, and just try to tell me that Dell is as artistic as Apple. That's the comparison you make by just shrugging off quality in favor of "it is if they say it is"
After Atari I had the misfortune once of working for a game company as a charactor designer, the company was a start up founded by some stock-optioned engineers from Sierra, I was hired to design their charactors and be the principal animator. I left within 3 months, having been treated like shit by the founders because even though I was the driving force for their art, the art to them did not matter, it was all about the code. On the way out I spoke quite frankly "It doesn't matter how godly your code is, if they graphics look like shit, people will think it's shit." And I to this day refuse to work for any kind of game company ever again, EA, LucasArts be damned, I get their offers and I could give a rats ass... let's just say after the CD-ROM days of the 90's and dealing with left-minded techies, I don't care for that culture.