I think everyone's missing the real irony in that the iMac was the computer that dealt the first death blow to the floppy to begin with. Its taken Dell until this year to catch up w/ the down-with-floppies trend.
But now it seems that Mr. Jobs and Mr. Dell were both wrong, as this user has proven that with a little imagination, even useless technology can be made into something... okay, well, I can't stretch this. its still useless. But its cool. Gives me hope that people like this aren't milling about the street causing trouble.
some of us drive large TVs with our computers. Still others live in dorms and need a computer but don't have room for a TV. still others don't watch TV but enjoy movies. different strokes for different folks.
G4 450 Desktop-style G3 case painted black w/ silver trim 768 MB RAM 120 + 80 GB drives 32 MB Radeon Dual-Head Graphics (drives a 27" TV and a 14" VGA 800x600 mirrored or separate display at the 'control center' of the couch) DVD-RW External CD-RW Mac OS X (incl. all the goodness of a full install of X) EyeTV VLC (for VideoCDs, DivX, etc) Remote Control via Keyspan Wacom Tablet
Best freakin' PVR etc in the world. Has 2 stereo audio inputs, 2 S-video out, 2 Composite Video out, 1 VGA, 1 DVI, one Mac DB-15, 2 USB, 3 FireWire, 2x DVD-RW, 1 10BaseT Enet, 1 10/100BaseT Enet, SCSI, 2 serial, ADB, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I can burn a VCD while encoding a DVD to DivX while recording live TV to MPEG-1 while acting as a media server to my LAN while... you get the idea. Built on the old and the new and it works flawlessly.
is how they get the thing to vibrate enough to make decent sound without having the screen image vibrate and otherwise cause nausea-inducing eye strain.
This is going to be a joyous thing
on
BusinessWeek on Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
When Centrinos are commonplace and WiFi hotspots are provided and subsidized by Intel and the like around the country, those lucky bastards who bought iBooks and PowerBooks w/ AirPort YEARS ago will have a nice little windfall of free bandwidth as they roam around the landscape.
Being ahead of the curve has always been good for Apple users - sometimes you find that the industry sort of settles around what you've been doing/using for years... for instance, Macs have had built-in ethernet since 1991, and the first true a/v models that features composite and s-video input and output w/a second DSP chip specifically for the heavy a/v lifting, debuted in 1993.
I feel like a Boy Scout w/ my Mac - always prepared. And not in the hot entree type of prepared - I mean the "ready for anything" type of prepared.
The ease of use is a lot easier to speak highly of, even in online purchasing. If you've used iPhoto to order prints or a book, you know what I mean.
First of all, the service would be integrated into an app that Mac users already use - iTunes. No "going" somewhere online and "finding" the song. And they licensed one-click purchasing from Amazon, so you set up your payment into once, and that's it. One-click purchasing. Couldn't be easier. And it gets automatically filed into your music library. Yay. Easy.
I've already gone on about why the "whole CD" argument is stupid and how this is not for replacing current means of entire CD distribution.
Also, the service will not use MP3, but rather AAC, which is a much higher quality compression at even smaller sizes. So until you've had some experience with this codec, please, do keep quiet about its quality.
I'm sick of all this whining about 99 per song=$12-14 per album.
The whole point it, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY THE WHOLE ALBUM! This isn't meant to replace gonig to the store and buying a CD. It is supposed to COMPLIMENT it. Buy one song. If you like it and feel comfortable buying the whole CD, why on earth WOULD you sit there downloading inferior quality files to burn to a generic CD-R without any liner notes? Look, wookies don't live on Endor, OK? IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!
The whole point is to let people choose a few songs here or there. Or to give a band who can't get the $ together to record a whole album a chance to have their music distributed AND receive some money from it. And do you think it'll just be major label music? Let me tell you this - if this whole thing DOES go through, you can rest assured you'll see a "featured.Mac members" or some such thing that highlights tracks recorded by Mac users, not just über-chic stars-of-the-moment.
And as far as the whole "I can get it for free on KaZaa" argument - well, have it then. When the DOJ comes knocking on your door after the RIAA's spyware tracked u down after downloading a bugged file, let me know how that free prison food is. Besides, the kind of music I like generally isn't available on KaZaa, because KaZaa reflects, for the most part, a large portion of society that listens to really bad pop music. If I were to trust any company to make cool, obscure music available to the masses, its Apple.
So before you start bitching and whining about price and convenience, please know what you're talking about. They're not trying to replace going to your local record shop to buy a new album. They're trying to offer a NEW service that will be easy to use, fun to explore, and relatively inexpensive considering the years of joy that a single song can bring.
I am a latecomer to the Buffy fanbase, but that makes me no less ardent. For years I held disdain for the show, specifically because of SMG. Its the same reason I hated Led Zepplin for so long, because I hated Robert Plant. But I learned to appreciate Led Zep and tune out that godforsaken racket they passed for vocals, and as such I learned to appreciate Buffy. What surprised me however, is that for the first time I didn't hate SMG. In fact, I was quite impressed by her.
I could go on about the writing, the depth of character and plotline, the deft self-awareness and irony, the throwaway quips that were gems of pop culture gone wrong, but I'd just be rehashing what everyone else has already said. Whoops, I did too.
But seriously, check out the Buffy listings on TV Guide or TitanTV or something. Buffy is on in full effect, y0, and y00z bitchez b3tta b3 sh0\/\/in' r3sP3ct!
and the DVDs will keep on coming... I wish Joss Whedon good in all he does, because I know I can trust that I'll enjoy it. Beyond the great acting and the intensely detailed characters brought to life by the entire cast, Buffy is really more of a vibe. I feel it. Do you feel it? Come on, you know you feel it.
I've become too long winded. But rest assured that Buffy isn't going away any time soon. Even Knight Rider is back on the air. Even if Buffy goes away, she'll ALWAYS be back! That's the great part about retro. And the retro cycle is getting shorter and shorter. Pretty soon, all of society will have witnessed the drama, comedy, learning, and healing that Buffy brings. And, like Bill and Ted before them, become icons for the future, building generations on sound morals, excellent taste, and a penchant for witty banter to be reckoned with.
I completely agree - I far prefer having a real, printed copy of what I'm reading. I guess I didn't make that clear enough, but it really does sadden me to see it starting to fade away; which eventually it will. natural resources will not be able to continually sustain that type of industry. maybe not anytime soon, but on a scale of infinity...
print is dead. and not in the irrelevant way; its just not as viable anymore, especially with delivery mediums like the, ahem, internet cropping up everywhere.
i am a print designer. i own TONS (if stacked and weighed) of LPs. I love the feel of magazines and books and the album jackets and small stapled indie mags... there is a realness to it, an ingrained sense of accomplishment. something that humans have not yet developed for a sterile medium such as the internet. although we can recognize accomplishments in these new digital mediums, it has not yet garnered that "coziness" that makes people sit under reading lamps, excitedly turning pages in a worn out copy of The Dharma Bumbs. nobody who curls up next to a fireplace with an e-Book on your Palm can deny that it is a wholly different experience even though the text is identical.
so there's the dilema. print has been made unreasonable in terms of cost vs. distribution capability - it is now a luxury, one supported by twice the contents' length in advertisements. but we just don't want to let print, in all its kinky and enticing forms, go.
if you don't believe me, ask joe somebody whether they want a printed computer manual or a manual stored in the OS via Help, etc. Even though the digitized version would be easier to update, with audio and video descriptions or tutorials, a highly integrated/linked system, etc. - most average people will tell you they want a nice big indexed print copy.
its going to be a while before this is bred out of us:)
but does it run OS X? if it doesn't run Jaguar, it's useless. Besides, have you seen the new PowerBooks? both the smallest and largest full-featured laptops in the world?
¥ sixteen million sex shots teeming with sordid adolescent sluts ¥ miltary master plans, plundering millions, manipulating masses, and propogating misinformation ¥ generous amounts of analyticaly sound gibberish, astonishing gutters awash with grandiose anachronisms ¥ secret unions of sectarian uninationalists, celebrating unique sentience unmatched by similar eunochs ¥ incredibly perverse and incendiary propoganda, penetrating inside persons' innermost ponderances ¥ tablature tracking ten thousand teen tantalizing titles ¥ and a partridge in a pear tree
shut up. this is very cool. stop finding something to be angry about you nicknamed nincompoop.
I had the extreme pleasure of being surprised by an original Bondi Blue iMac.
A friend was trying to get his cable modem to work with the iMac, and Comcast told him his Enet port was broken. So he came to my house to have it checked out, because I use Comcast too.
This is an ORIGINAL iMac people. 233 MHz G3, only 192 MB of RAM. I booted it up expecting at the very latest 9, more likely 8.6, but lo and behold, there was OS 10.2.3. And let's be clear about this: this was NOT a speed demon of a machine. However, all basic user actions were almost instantaneous, app launch times were very reasonable, and it could handle quite a bit of activity without slowing down.
I was shocked and amazed. This model came out in '97 for crying out loud. Anyway, his Enet port was fine, Comcast just had their heads up their butts.
thank you. i felt that the "jimmy hat" allusion was particularly funny myself:)
"Slashdot Reaches A New Low" - slightly off topic
on
The 1991 "X-Box"
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
"Slashdot Reaches A New Low"
Okay, for the past few months, I've seen this posted many times over, possibly by the same people, and it got me wondering...
theoretically, if we can keep lowering the bar, we'll eventually have discovered an area of human interaction that was previously unknown and unexplored, a sort of cess pool of geek afterthought. and isn't that a scientific and worthy cause in and of itself?
perhaps slashdot could keep a running counter on the front page, letting all the users know exactly how low things have gotten, with exhuberant cheers as we plummet below the levels of the Republican Party, past the sewers of the American Christian Right Taliban, through the sludge and detritus of slashdot... oh, wait.
if my calculations are correct, we have achieved absolute zero, people. SLASHDOT CANNOT OFFICIALLY GO ANY LOWER!!!!
so can we PLEASE stop seeing "Slashdot Reaches A New Low" every goddamn day? if you don't like a discussion, shut the hell up. nobody forced you read about some lame idea for a shitty game system running on an outdated OS that some dude jotted down on a napkin at the bar after a girl turned him down. Cheers!
your way is a a qauint fad of the past. all will be electronic. all will be assimilated. you too shall reap the digital harvest and succumb to the rhythm of the hi-hat.
with large ATA hard drives and digital interfaces for various applications to drive real-world mixers and soundboards becoming cheaper and cheaper, the actual cost of recording, in a real sense is very minimal. A whole setup can be had for $20,000.
Then there's studio time. And paying the engineers, artists, producer, and the entourages of all the above mentioned people. Plus food, limos, champagne, jimmy hats, mini hot dogs, whipped cream, broken instruments, bail, hush money, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and there's about $980,000.
I wonder who lined the pockets of Økokrim to get them to put Jon in retrial. I mean the facts in the case haven't changed, he was found not guilty, and he's too freaking young to be facing these kinds of penalties for doing what he thought (and in my opinion is) a community service.
apple's rendezvous implementation will be tons better and is probably around the corner as it was demoed over 6 months ago. everyone knew apple was working on this, the iCommune people just got tired of waiting, like a lot of us did. The iCommune setup was a b*tch as it didn't use rendezvous, but provided somewhat similar functionality, a functionality that many users have been craving.
Personally, iCommune in a very real way could DETRACT from the iTunes experience for a person that didn't understand how it worked or what it did or that it was an EXTENSION to iTunes as opposed to a part of iTunes itself. So Apple really is justified in getting them to pull it, especially if it is detailed in the dev docs that only HARDWARE plugs be made.
And anyone who has wanted this functionality will still be able to find iCommune on P2P anyway until Apple releases theirs.
Slashdot Mirror
I think everyone's missing the real irony in that the iMac was the computer that dealt the first death blow to the floppy to begin with. Its taken Dell until this year to catch up w/ the down-with-floppies trend.
... okay, well, I can't stretch this. its still useless. But its cool. Gives me hope that people like this aren't milling about the street causing trouble.
But now it seems that Mr. Jobs and Mr. Dell were both wrong, as this user has proven that with a little imagination, even useless technology can be made into something
some of us drive large TVs with our computers. Still others live in dorms and need a computer but don't have room for a TV. still others don't watch TV but enjoy movies. different strokes for different folks.
Built from parts:
... you get the idea. Built on the old and the new and it works flawlessly.
G4 450
Desktop-style G3 case painted black w/ silver trim
768 MB RAM
120 + 80 GB drives
32 MB Radeon Dual-Head Graphics (drives a 27" TV and a 14" VGA 800x600 mirrored or separate display at the 'control center' of the couch)
DVD-RW
External CD-RW
Mac OS X (incl. all the goodness of a full install of X)
EyeTV
VLC (for VideoCDs, DivX, etc)
Remote Control via Keyspan
Wacom Tablet
Best freakin' PVR etc in the world. Has 2 stereo audio inputs, 2 S-video out, 2 Composite Video out, 1 VGA, 1 DVI, one Mac DB-15, 2 USB, 3 FireWire, 2x DVD-RW, 1 10BaseT Enet, 1 10/100BaseT Enet, SCSI, 2 serial, ADB, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I can burn a VCD while encoding a DVD to DivX while recording live TV to MPEG-1 while acting as a media server to my LAN while
is how they get the thing to vibrate enough to make decent sound without having the screen image vibrate and otherwise cause nausea-inducing eye strain.
When Centrinos are commonplace and WiFi hotspots are provided and subsidized by Intel and the like around the country, those lucky bastards who bought iBooks and PowerBooks w/ AirPort YEARS ago will have a nice little windfall of free bandwidth as they roam around the landscape.
... for instance, Macs have had built-in ethernet since 1991, and the first true a/v models that features composite and s-video input and output w/a second DSP chip specifically for the heavy a/v lifting, debuted in 1993.
Being ahead of the curve has always been good for Apple users - sometimes you find that the industry sort of settles around what you've been doing/using for years
I feel like a Boy Scout w/ my Mac - always prepared. And not in the hot entree type of prepared - I mean the "ready for anything" type of prepared.
Obviously you've never used an Apple product :)
The ease of use is a lot easier to speak highly of, even in online purchasing. If you've used iPhoto to order prints or a book, you know what I mean.
First of all, the service would be integrated into an app that Mac users already use - iTunes. No "going" somewhere online and "finding" the song. And they licensed one-click purchasing from Amazon, so you set up your payment into once, and that's it. One-click purchasing. Couldn't be easier. And it gets automatically filed into your music library. Yay. Easy.
I've already gone on about why the "whole CD" argument is stupid and how this is not for replacing current means of entire CD distribution.
Also, the service will not use MP3, but rather AAC, which is a much higher quality compression at even smaller sizes. So until you've had some experience with this codec, please, do keep quiet about its quality.
I'm sick of all this whining about 99 per song=$12-14 per album.
.Mac members" or some such thing that highlights tracks recorded by Mac users, not just über-chic stars-of-the-moment.
The whole point it, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY THE WHOLE ALBUM! This isn't meant to replace gonig to the store and buying a CD. It is supposed to COMPLIMENT it. Buy one song. If you like it and feel comfortable buying the whole CD, why on earth WOULD you sit there downloading inferior quality files to burn to a generic CD-R without any liner notes? Look, wookies don't live on Endor, OK? IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!
The whole point is to let people choose a few songs here or there. Or to give a band who can't get the $ together to record a whole album a chance to have their music distributed AND receive some money from it. And do you think it'll just be major label music? Let me tell you this - if this whole thing DOES go through, you can rest assured you'll see a "featured
And as far as the whole "I can get it for free on KaZaa" argument - well, have it then. When the DOJ comes knocking on your door after the RIAA's spyware tracked u down after downloading a bugged file, let me know how that free prison food is. Besides, the kind of music I like generally isn't available on KaZaa, because KaZaa reflects, for the most part, a large portion of society that listens to really bad pop music. If I were to trust any company to make cool, obscure music available to the masses, its Apple.
So before you start bitching and whining about price and convenience, please know what you're talking about. They're not trying to replace going to your local record shop to buy a new album. They're trying to offer a NEW service that will be easy to use, fun to explore, and relatively inexpensive considering the years of joy that a single song can bring.
Aw, that's so cute ? you sound just like Giles chastising the Scoobies!
Spikes been through a lot. Cut a brother some slack, man.
I am a latecomer to the Buffy fanbase, but that makes me no less ardent. For years I held disdain for the show, specifically because of SMG. Its the same reason I hated Led Zepplin for so long, because I hated Robert Plant. But I learned to appreciate Led Zep and tune out that godforsaken racket they passed for vocals, and as such I learned to appreciate Buffy. What surprised me however, is that for the first time I didn't hate SMG. In fact, I was quite impressed by her.
... I wish Joss Whedon good in all he does, because I know I can trust that I'll enjoy it. Beyond the great acting and the intensely detailed characters brought to life by the entire cast, Buffy is really more of a vibe. I feel it. Do you feel it? Come on, you know you feel it.
I could go on about the writing, the depth of character and plotline, the deft self-awareness and irony, the throwaway quips that were gems of pop culture gone wrong, but I'd just be rehashing what everyone else has already said. Whoops, I did too.
But seriously, check out the Buffy listings on TV Guide or TitanTV or something. Buffy is on in full effect, y0, and y00z bitchez b3tta b3 sh0\/\/in' r3sP3ct!
and the DVDs will keep on coming
I've become too long winded. But rest assured that Buffy isn't going away any time soon. Even Knight Rider is back on the air. Even if Buffy goes away, she'll ALWAYS be back! That's the great part about retro. And the retro cycle is getting shorter and shorter. Pretty soon, all of society will have witnessed the drama, comedy, learning, and healing that Buffy brings. And, like Bill and Ted before them, become icons for the future, building generations on sound morals, excellent taste, and a penchant for witty banter to be reckoned with.
You just wait.
I completely agree - I far prefer having a real, printed copy of what I'm reading. I guess I didn't make that clear enough, but it really does sadden me to see it starting to fade away; which eventually it will. natural resources will not be able to continually sustain that type of industry. maybe not anytime soon, but on a scale of infinity ...
print is dead. and not in the irrelevant way; its just not as viable anymore, especially with delivery mediums like the, ahem, internet cropping up everywhere.
... there is a realness to it, an ingrained sense of accomplishment. something that humans have not yet developed for a sterile medium such as the internet. although we can recognize accomplishments in these new digital mediums, it has not yet garnered that "coziness" that makes people sit under reading lamps, excitedly turning pages in a worn out copy of The Dharma Bumbs. nobody who curls up next to a fireplace with an e-Book on your Palm can deny that it is a wholly different experience even though the text is identical.
:)
i am a print designer. i own TONS (if stacked and weighed) of LPs. I love the feel of magazines and books and the album jackets and small stapled indie mags
so there's the dilema. print has been made unreasonable in terms of cost vs. distribution capability - it is now a luxury, one supported by twice the contents' length in advertisements. but we just don't want to let print, in all its kinky and enticing forms, go.
if you don't believe me, ask joe somebody whether they want a printed computer manual or a manual stored in the OS via Help, etc. Even though the digitized version would be easier to update, with audio and video descriptions or tutorials, a highly integrated/linked system, etc. - most average people will tell you they want a nice big indexed print copy.
its going to be a while before this is bred out of us
check out the specs on iBooks and Powerbooks:
www.apple.com/ibook
www.apple.com/powerbook
VERY powerful, VERY portable, and the best battery life in the industry.
but does it run OS X? if it doesn't run Jaguar, it's useless. Besides, have you seen the new PowerBooks? both the smallest and largest full-featured laptops in the world?
keep playing catchup guys. its cute.
What three gigs could hold:
¥ sixteen million sex shots teeming with sordid adolescent sluts
¥ miltary master plans, plundering millions, manipulating masses, and propogating misinformation
¥ generous amounts of analyticaly sound gibberish, astonishing gutters awash with grandiose anachronisms
¥ secret unions of sectarian uninationalists, celebrating unique sentience unmatched by similar eunochs
¥ incredibly perverse and incendiary propoganda, penetrating inside persons' innermost ponderances
¥ tablature tracking ten thousand teen tantalizing titles
¥ and a partridge in a pear tree
shut up. this is very cool. stop finding something to be angry about you nicknamed nincompoop.
y'know, if you're trying to keep your warez on the down low, its not a good idea to post a slashdot story about it.
the format war shall never die, its children scarred by the myriad media of data retention and the chaos that unraveled continuously.
nay, the light shall not come Ð a future of agreeance is shrouded like the chunky thighs of an overweight nun.
when, peace, when? when shall both be valid choices and the need for absolue superiority fade away into a tepid pool of lukewarm gellato?
I had the extreme pleasure of being surprised by an original Bondi Blue iMac.
A friend was trying to get his cable modem to work with the iMac, and Comcast told him his Enet port was broken. So he came to my house to have it checked out, because I use Comcast too.
This is an ORIGINAL iMac people. 233 MHz G3, only 192 MB of RAM. I booted it up expecting at the very latest 9, more likely 8.6, but lo and behold, there was OS 10.2.3. And let's be clear about this: this was NOT a speed demon of a machine. However, all basic user actions were almost instantaneous, app launch times were very reasonable, and it could handle quite a bit of activity without slowing down.
I was shocked and amazed. This model came out in '97 for crying out loud. Anyway, his Enet port was fine, Comcast just had their heads up their butts.
thank you. i felt that the "jimmy hat" allusion was particularly funny myself :)
"Slashdot Reaches A New Low"
...
... oh, wait.
Okay, for the past few months, I've seen this posted many times over, possibly by the same people, and it got me wondering
theoretically, if we can keep lowering the bar, we'll eventually have discovered an area of human interaction that was previously unknown and unexplored, a sort of cess pool of geek afterthought. and isn't that a scientific and worthy cause in and of itself?
perhaps slashdot could keep a running counter on the front page, letting all the users know exactly how low things have gotten, with exhuberant cheers as we plummet below the levels of the Republican Party, past the sewers of the American Christian Right Taliban, through the sludge and detritus of slashdot
if my calculations are correct, we have achieved absolute zero, people. SLASHDOT CANNOT OFFICIALLY GO ANY LOWER!!!!
so can we PLEASE stop seeing
"Slashdot Reaches A New Low"
every goddamn day? if you don't like a discussion, shut the hell up. nobody forced you read about some lame idea for a shitty game system running on an outdated OS that some dude jotted down on a napkin at the bar after a girl turned him down.
Cheers!
your way is a a qauint fad of the past. all will be electronic. all will be assimilated. you too shall reap the digital harvest and succumb to the rhythm of the hi-hat.
with large ATA hard drives and digital interfaces for various applications to drive real-world mixers and soundboards becoming cheaper and cheaper, the actual cost of recording, in a real sense is very minimal. A whole setup can be had for $20,000.
Then there's studio time. And paying the engineers, artists, producer, and the entourages of all the above mentioned people. Plus food, limos, champagne, jimmy hats, mini hot dogs, whipped cream, broken instruments, bail, hush money, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and there's about $980,000.
So you can see how these things add up.
she's my special one-of-a-kind sweetie cat :)
I wonder who lined the pockets of Økokrim to get them to put Jon in retrial. I mean the facts in the case haven't changed, he was found not guilty, and he's too freaking young to be facing these kinds of penalties for doing what he thought (and in my opinion is) a community service.
Let's burn down the Økokrim office buildings.
apple's rendezvous implementation will be tons better and is probably around the corner as it was demoed over 6 months ago. everyone knew apple was working on this, the iCommune people just got tired of waiting, like a lot of us did. The iCommune setup was a b*tch as it didn't use rendezvous, but provided somewhat similar functionality, a functionality that many users have been craving.
Personally, iCommune in a very real way could DETRACT from the iTunes experience for a person that didn't understand how it worked or what it did or that it was an EXTENSION to iTunes as opposed to a part of iTunes itself. So Apple really is justified in getting them to pull it, especially if it is detailed in the dev docs that only HARDWARE plugs be made.
And anyone who has wanted this functionality will still be able to find iCommune on P2P anyway until Apple releases theirs.