...who had the balls to stand up to an oppressive king and give him the ol' finger Just one adjustment for magnitude.
They didn't give the finger to "a king"...kings were nearly a dime a dozen. They gave finger to the largest empire the world had ever seen. And in spite of our finger in 1776, that Empire continued to grow and peaked in its power around 1921.
This is important, because as your opening indicates: This will happen again if we're not more careful than we've been to avoid repeating history.
You'll recall that "tight regulation" has been gone for some decades now. Re-remember the newspeak: Deregulation. The S&L scandal in the 80's was the tip of that iceberg.
I reformatted several months ago for dual booting XP and Ubuntu. To get XP running (including normal graphics) I had to tour the expected websites for drivers. Ubuntu 6.06LTS installed with everything working "out of the box".
-Matt
P.S. I've since reinstalled again, using Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop and just run Windows in VMware server when needed. (If corporate hadn't "upgraded" to Office 2007, Crossover would obviate even this need for a Windows install.). Regarding 6.06LTS vs 7.10 Desktop: Installation is a really easy experience, even on a laptop. The additional features and integration/slickness of 7.10 are very nice. It does seem a bit less stable with some apps (having issues with Freemind presently) compared to 6.06. If I felt like doing it over *again* (I don't so far) I might restinall the LTS edition.
In large measure, this is also what drove enrollment in many if not all of the crusades. The church offered that if you go and kill muslims in the holy land that you would still get into heaven even if you'd been a sinner at home.
Technically, the biggest difference between Netflix streaming and AppleTV is that Netflix is Windows only and AppleTV is cross-platform with the Mac. (Apple TV can also play other non-DRM content, of course.) Oh, no WGA cert needed for AppleTV either.
Sure, but bit torrent has one huge drawback... it can't stream.
True, but that really seems like a surmountable technicality. Even with bittorrent clients on the market today, you can prioritize a stream to get the parts in sequence. At least with well-seeded torrents it works OK. Can it be that much of a stretch to imagine those parts being played "on-delivery" much like streaming content?*
I'm pretty sure the first of those two could compete at a low price point for a VERY long time...
Agreed. In fact, through the 80's and particularly through the 90's (and most likely to a significant degree today) MSFT literally thrived on piracy of its OS. (Better to prevent the sale than to let it go to 'the other side' after all.)
BTW, concerning Apple... Supposedly they are up to >$15 Billion in cash. According to my calculations, even at full retail that would be a LOT of 'free' copies of OS X.;) 'Course that doesn't make it a good idea...
It's a very ironic example due to its close proximity to some of the richest folks in the country and even ivy league colleges.
So no, you don't need to go South to find big groups of poor people (aka high crime, low education) in the USA. Just don't think about that too long or it gets uncomfortable.
Once again you seem to be hating the gov't you vote for (and which is supposed to have your interests at heart) and loving the businesses (colluders that they are...not sure where your love for them comes from) that clearly do not have your interests (or even their customer's interests) at heart.
You should consider loving your democracy (and caring for it) instead of hating it -- people fought long and hard to get it, and there's no guarantee it'll be around forever.
This implies that all ways of organization are equal or that there aren't any common denominators in humans.
I think you've misunderstood.
My point was that the organizational methods do matter (not that there is no difference) and that the common denominators of the actual problem are the people. (The nasty, grafty, corrupt, etc people we all are at heart.)
I'm not sure, but I think maybe we actually agree?:)
If a business did any of these things, their CEOs would be some combination of fired and arrested!
You're living a myth if you think similar things don't happen in non-government work.
The only reason you know of these things in government (notice the contractors are the ones charging $400 for the hammer...this is not the gov't) is because there is oversight as I mentioned.
If the continuum of communication went from rolling over to get a doggy treat to writing a sonnet.
The percentage of humans who can actaully pen a sonnet may be so low as to un-making your own point. (...or possibly making it on what amounts to a technicality.)
AT&T doesn't have a monopoly per se. Per the anti-trust case, the monopoly businesses were set up as the Bell telephone companies.
Qwest, AT&T and maybe one or two others have bought up all those monopolies.
They do have monopoly control over those defined areas, but that would be a monopoly for local access only....and that only when considering areas that don't also have service by any other entity.
It's all so grey!:)
-Matt
P.S. AT&T are still bastards, no matter how grey it is.
To me this story says more about the sorry state of the "OS market" than it does about anything else.
The main idea being that there really *isn't* an OS market anymore.
MS has their OEM monopoly so they have little to no need for a market. Apple only sells to their own hardware buyers (for now) but they have no monopoly to prop them up. So their need for a market is greater, but who else is there besides them?
There isn't much point in talking about it as it's mostly a point of history now, not something that is likely to change.
I guess it's still useful for marketing purposes tho.
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...who had the balls to stand up to an oppressive king and give him the ol' finger Just one adjustment for magnitude.They didn't give the finger to "a king"...kings were nearly a dime a dozen. They gave finger to the largest empire the world had ever seen. And in spite of our finger in 1776, that Empire continued to grow and peaked in its power around 1921.
This is important, because as your opening indicates: This will happen again if we're not more careful than we've been to avoid repeating history.
-Matt
I bet freezing to death rocks whether you're in inner- or outer-space.
You'll recall that "tight regulation" has been gone for some decades now. Re-remember the newspeak: Deregulation. The S&L scandal in the 80's was the tip of that iceberg.
Good day.
-Matt
P.S. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_Loan_crisis
My Dell Latitude D600.
I reformatted several months ago for dual booting XP and Ubuntu. To get XP running (including normal graphics) I had to tour the expected websites for drivers. Ubuntu 6.06LTS installed with everything working "out of the box".
-Matt
P.S. I've since reinstalled again, using Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop and just run Windows in VMware server when needed. (If corporate hadn't "upgraded" to Office 2007, Crossover would obviate even this need for a Windows install.). Regarding 6.06LTS vs 7.10 Desktop: Installation is a really easy experience, even on a laptop. The additional features and integration/slickness of 7.10 are very nice. It does seem a bit less stable with some apps (having issues with Freemind presently) compared to 6.06. If I felt like doing it over *again* (I don't so far) I might restinall the LTS edition.
Sorry, but I must take exception. DOS was never neato. Ever.
Before this question has a chance to wander even further, people here are trippin. D&D "wizards"? WTF?
Magic users were limited to using daggers or darts as far as pointy/sharp weapons go.
Swords are for non-D&D "wizards" as far as I can tell.
Now go play!
-Matt
In large measure, this is also what drove enrollment in many if not all of the crusades. The church offered that if you go and kill muslims in the holy land that you would still get into heaven even if you'd been a sinner at home.
Church is awesome.
-Matt
The Rainmaker
I have played it, but it's been a long, long time.
(At the time we preferred the Marvel Superheroes pen-n-paper game. Neither seemed bad though.)
-Matt
Skype even runs on the older Nokia 770 with a slight bit of hacking. It's apparently not a hardware limit. :-)
See here for more info:
http://maemogeek.blogspot.com/2007/12/skype-on-n770-using-os2007-he.html
-Matt
Technically, the biggest difference between Netflix streaming and AppleTV is that Netflix is Windows only and AppleTV is cross-platform with the Mac. (Apple TV can also play other non-DRM content, of course.) Oh, no WGA cert needed for AppleTV either.
Both are DRM laden for their own content.
Enjoy!
-Matt
True, but that really seems like a surmountable technicality. Even with bittorrent clients on the market today, you can prioritize a stream to get the parts in sequence. At least with well-seeded torrents it works OK. Can it be that much of a stretch to imagine those parts being played "on-delivery" much like streaming content?*
-Matt
*IANASG. (I am not a streaming guru.)
Agreed. In fact, through the 80's and particularly through the 90's (and most likely to a significant degree today) MSFT literally thrived on piracy of its OS. (Better to prevent the sale than to let it go to 'the other side' after all.)
BTW, concerning Apple... Supposedly they are up to >$15 Billion in cash. According to my calculations, even at full retail that would be a LOT of 'free' copies of OS X.
Perhaps it wasn't your intent, but that smells like FUD.
With references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy#Disadvantages
I side with the OP - definitely not worth arguing about.
(Yes, worth being aware of tho.)
-Matt
*You* won't get to build your universe...Mr. Anderson!
At best you're going to get something like cellphone quality from compression like he mentioned. Full "voice qualty" VoIP is still about 64kb/s.
G.711 is the standard.
Regarding the 8k reference: maybe it was a reference to the 8k sampling rate? That, or G.729 maybe....but again, that's more like cell-phone quality.
The example I've heard others use is Camden, NJ.
http://www.bestplaces.net/City/Camden_NJ-OVERVIEW-53410000000.aspx
It's a very ironic example due to its close proximity to some of the richest folks in the country and even ivy league colleges.
So no, you don't need to go South to find big groups of poor people (aka high crime, low education) in the USA. Just don't think about that too long or it gets uncomfortable.
Once again you seem to be hating the gov't you vote for (and which is supposed to have your interests at heart) and loving the businesses (colluders that they are...not sure where your love for them comes from) that clearly do not have your interests (or even their customer's interests) at heart.
You should consider loving your democracy (and caring for it) instead of hating it -- people fought long and hard to get it, and there's no guarantee it'll be around forever.
I'm not going to run a Google search for you.
:-)
Easy enough to see how attitudes like this (anti-teacher, anti-gov't) spread though!
Good luck!
-Matt
I think you've misunderstood.
My point was that the organizational methods do matter (not that there is no difference) and that the common denominators of the actual problem are the people. (The nasty, grafty, corrupt, etc people we all are at heart.)
I'm not sure, but I think maybe we actually agree?
Thanks!
-Matt
You're living a myth if you think similar things don't happen in non-government work.
The only reason you know of these things in government (notice the contractors are the ones charging $400 for the hammer...this is not the gov't) is because there is oversight as I mentioned.
Thank you for helping to make my point.
The percentage of humans who can actaully pen a sonnet may be so low as to un-making your own point. (...or possibly making it on what amounts to a technicality.)
Good luck!
-Matt
(Check this for a related hoot: http://iacs5.ucsd.edu/~pbang/dance_monkeys.htm)
((Yes, it's old.))
AT&T doesn't have a monopoly per se. Per the anti-trust case, the monopoly businesses were set up as the Bell telephone companies.
:)
Qwest, AT&T and maybe one or two others have bought up all those monopolies.
They do have monopoly control over those defined areas, but that would be a monopoly for local access only....and that only when considering areas that don't also have service by any other entity.
It's all so grey!
-Matt
P.S. AT&T are still bastards, no matter how grey it is.
To me this story says more about the sorry state of the "OS market" than it does about anything else.
The main idea being that there really *isn't* an OS market anymore.
MS has their OEM monopoly so they have little to no need for a market. Apple only sells to their own hardware buyers (for now) but they have no monopoly to prop them up. So their need for a market is greater, but who else is there besides them?
There isn't much point in talking about it as it's mostly a point of history now, not something that is likely to change.
I guess it's still useful for marketing purposes tho.