Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC
All items of which MOST users, particularly anyone buying a "budget" PC, simply don't need. Hell I'm a programmer and aside from the two video ports (more like $50 to add to the Dell), which I only played with briefly (dual monitor just wasn't all it was made out to be), I've never used any of those features.
Also, the Mini and Dell's budget lines simply aren't comparable. The mini is $599 at it's lowest cost. Dell's basic PC starts at $269. That's a 122% increase in price. Not to mention that the Dell at less than half the cost includes twice as much RAM and nearly 3 times as much hard drive space, but we'll call that a wash since the Mini does include a faster processor (though the Dell comes with about all the processor a home user would need - indeed I'd argue that the hard drive and ram are better places to put funds than the processor). Not to mention that if the notion does strike me that I want to play some games on the machine, tossing in a $100 video card and a $50 processor means I'm in business on the Dell. With the Mac? Be ready to replace the machine.
Now personally, I'll not argue that the Mini IS in fact a very good machine for most people's needs. It's just that at what they charge it's overpriced. Compared to similar level PC's, that machine is worth $300-350.
"Worded exactly as intended"? Does that also include maligned tags?
Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.
Perhaps that's the problem right there. The devices you mention are not smartphones, but instead dedicated handhelds. Things like trackers and those receipt thingies that all waitstaff now use don't really need a full smartphone OS, and the sales number of those devices are simply dwarfed by the number of phones out there. Note also that the manufacturer isn't selling to the individual deliveryman or waiter, but to the company's IT purchasing department or the restaurant manager.
And yes, even here I see Microsoft's grip potentially slipping, if complaints from employees about how the device is unreliable, crash-prone and so on percolate back up to the purchasers. They want devices that save the company time and money, not devices that harm morale and end up only slightly better than the old paper pad. Microsoft's advantage here lies mostly in how Linux may be cheaper on a per-license basis, but lacks the sort of inexpensive and simple tools to build reliable and user friendly apps that Microsoft offers. It does not have an advantage in offering the Windows experience, since these devices are not intended to be general purpose handhelds - they just have one job to do, and need to do that one job well.
(Apple isn't even interested in this market, but I suppose someone could pound out an app for the iPod Touch. Besides, I don't consider Apple a competitor to Microsoft in the phone business; Apple isn't trying to sell its OS to Motorola, Intermec, LG, HTC, etc....)
I know nothing about Windows Phone 7 (formerly Windows Mobile, and also distinct from Windows 7), so I can't comment on it. But the review seems to paint a bleak picture of how Microsoft treats end users. By the time WinPhone 7 hits the market, many manufacturers could already be committed to Android or Symbian, leaving Microsoft an also-ran.
What the review doesn't mention is the schizophrenic strategy Microsoft is following on the handheld market: Windows Phone, the Zune, and now Project Pink all overlap, yet none of the devices interoperate with one another. This also doesn't help Microsoft sell its OS to phone manufacturers.
...then Microsoft is headed towards irrelevance in this field.
The most damning part is how it claims it is less for private users and geared towards businesses. That's just another way of admitting that they were driven by bullet points and not by how people would actually use the devices. They only expect IT departments to buy them, and not the people who actually use them.
Windows Mobile has become a Terry Schaivo. The only reason it's not dead is because Microsoft refuses to pull the plug on the poor thing.
I understand your concerns, but from the description the sound is supposed to be a hint to pedestrians that the vehicle is beginning to roll. Once the car reaches normal travel speeds, then the sound is turned off. The sound level on the street should still be lower than with current gasoline engines. Only when leaving a parking space and at traffic crossings would you hear the sound.
A little of both, really. They take stories like "The Little Mermaid" or Notre Dame de Paris and aggressively try to prevent others from telling their own versions.
Well, by that line of reasoning, the word "Literally" has also shifted in meaning. It is slowly shifting from meaning that the statement is not a metaphor to simply adding emphasis. Why can one word shift in meaning and the other not?
Perhaps I should also point out that in other languages, the word for "rape" is still tied more closely to "taken by force in a way that causes trauma": "Vergewaltigung" in German, "Violence" in French are two examples.
Actually, I suspect the problem lies in how accustomed we've become to cars making a noise when being driven, and assume a silent car is driverless, as if some idiot forgot to set the hand brake. The noise is less "watch out!" and more "relax, I am in control".
My guess is that experience with your Mazda played a role. My personal theory is that the noise is to reassure that the vehicle is being operated and not just rolling because the handbrake wasn't set. The whole "omigod it's an out of control car!" feeling.
Oh dear, you fail to grasp the myriad ways we humans have grown accustomed to the sounds cars make. How often have you revved the engine as a way to signal impatience? The noise of an engine also indicates that the vehicle is moving under power and not rolling because some idiot forgot the handbrake.
I see the proposed sound as a reassurance, not a warning. Considering the low speeds at which it is audible, it signals that the driver wants the car to move. A silent car that begins to roll triggers apprehension.
Oh, and your second paragraph is unnecessarily aggressive. In most countries and in most states of the USA, a pedestrian who steps onto a motorway without looking is often at fault as well, but the legal argument isn't the point. It's that adding a sound reduces the risk of an accident, that the cost of the sound effect is lower than the sum costs of accidents were it not in place. Sure, the pedestrian may have been an idiot, but isn't it better to avoid the damage to your car and the lengthy distraction of an accident claim in the first place?
And yes, the GP was a little too glib, but you don't have to fly off the handle (although this is par for Slashdot, I know). The truth is that operating a motor vehicle demands more responsibility, since it has more potential to harm others. All participants in traffic have to follow the rules, even pedestrians, but having a bigger car does not make you superior.
I think it qualifies, as I can't recall a single current descendant of AppleDOS or ProDOS still being sold. At least the Commodore KERNAL is still available in various emulators and game devices ("23 of your favourite Commodore 64 games on one joystick!"), but there are no available sources for the Apple II OS around for new hardware. You have to take a ROM from an older computer.
Seriously, it would be cool if Apple would release the source for the old Apple II kernel and OS, so that hobbyists could play with it. I think it's safe enough now for Apple(i.e. it won't eat into current sales).
... except that the Macintosh/Lisa operating system predates Amiga OS, and both come from different codebases. Both in turn took their cues from the Xerox Star operating system and its GUI. Apple made different choices than Commodore did in their OS, paring out multitasking and not adding it until the MultiFinder in System 6.5. The Amiga OS was amazing in many ways, but it was geared more to animation and video work whilst Apple concentrated on print, pioneering the use of PostScript and the tools of the DTP revolution.
You may know and love your Amiga, but you seem to be unaware of the actual history of computing and the GUI.
Actually, I get the impression that Apple's site is smaller through this level of consistency. Hardware pages for the iPhone, the iPod as well as things like the XServe are all consistent. The store maintains the same look and feel. The developer pages and the in-depth documentation. Apple really does offer about the same amount of information as Microsoft does, but the more uniform look and feel of the website makes it feel less sprawling.
I think that's what makes the biggest difference. Since Apple has more sense of identity and more self-confidence, they maintain a more disciplined appearance. Microsoft's lack of focus is reflected in the way their website rambles.
No, no, no you miss the point of the article completely! It's about which company is better to look to for inspiration when making a corporate web site for a client, and WHY one works better than the other.
Re:The Improbability of Improbability
on
The Magicians
·
· Score: 1
I think Professor Tolkein considered The Silmarillion his greatest work because it was a foundation to be built upon and not really seen. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stand so well because the foundation provided is solid and deep enough to support them. His academic background meant he was acutely aware of how many layers were involved in the old tales (indeed, I recall Prof. Tolkein once wrote in a letter that LOTR was an anti-Ring der Nibelungen due to his anger at Wagner mangling the message of how power corrupts!).
The difference is between storytelling and myth-building. One emphasises how much the hero is "one of us", the other emphasises how distant the hero is.
Re:The Improbability of Improbability
on
The Magicians
·
· Score: 1
Note that the existence of Slytherin is not inconsistent with the idea of Rowling being ham-handed. After all, there are many, many things in her novels that really were poorly thought out. If you ask me, the whole series is a fluke that reached critical mass, helped along by some celebrity preachers pulling a corollary of the Streisand Effect (the whole "Harry Potter books promote devil worship!" brouhaha).
I think I should clarify in where the harm lies, namely in the damage done to the system rather than to the company in particular. Also you are right in that in my haste, I wrote "short traders" when referring to "short term traders".
The difference in opinion comes in whether one sees short term traders as the equivalent of used car dealerships (well, a better analog would be real estate agents since cars depreciate in value so quickly, but I digress). Does the short term trader aid in transfer of the property from the current owner to the future owner, working as a middleman or is he a gambler, injecting himself into the middle of a transaction that would have happened nevertheless? Does the buyer go to him in search of a property, or did the trader rush over to snatch up the property before the buyer could arrive at the seller?
My personal standpoint is that speculative trading of this nature cannot be eliminated, but it should be discouraged. Little things like mandatory waiting periods before resale make speculative trading of this sort less attractive.
Ah, but to use your analogy, the Ford you want to buy is suddenly bought up from the original owner by the short trader, who sells it to you for a few dollars more than what you would have paid simply because he beat you to the street corner by a few minutes. The short trader brings nothing to the transaction other than forcing himself into a middleman position. Unlike a person selling a used car, he does not use the the car, bring it to your door or perform any other service.
Please note that many of these flash ROM solutions decay over time as the charge is lost. Ten years is often stated as the maximum.
The CD format seems to be the most durable, as I have ten year old CD-R's that are still readable. Many of my data DVD's, though, tend to be more sensitive to data loss.
Magnetic tape drives boasted that the information could survive over a century, but even today you can't find any commodity drives.
My advice would be to plan for a durable medium, and also that the medium will have to be brought to a special company to be transferred onto "modern" media.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he suckered GS into a Streisand Effect. Suckering them into filing suit in such a way that draws gobs of media attention to their unethical business practice.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is why the software was leaked (I hesitate to call it stolen): the self-appointed Masters of the Universe kept abusing their programmers like this, and this guy was looking for a way to expose them. I think he baited them into a Streisand Effect.
I'm going to call "Streisand Effect" here, and that Goldman Sachs is going to regret the whole thing coming to light in the first place.
Come to think of it, this may have been the purpose of the (alleged) theft: to expose the whole practice, a sort of whistleblowing through Xanatos Speed Chess...
I believe fast traders are malignant as they do not add to the health of the company being traded, and instead siphon off capital that could have been invested in that company. They are gamblers, not investors. Your concentrating on the investors ignores the fact that the market is supposed to promote a healthy investment climate for businesses, not be a get rich quick scheme.
Assume that an unregulated marked does spring up, though: how would it be different from an unlicensed betting parlour? Normal investors would shy away from it as it would be a real shark pool with no protections. The whole point of a regulated exchange market is to ensure that the trade is fair.
Slashdot Mirror
Mozart's fifth symphony was unremarkable, since he cranked out so many of them, and also because he was so young when he wrote it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Mozart)
Even the maligned Mac Mini is a pretty good machine for MOST sub $700 machine buyers. The majority of PC users don't open their computers over the life of the machine. The majority don't even add ram or video cards. They pay $600 for Last Year's parts in an empty plastic box that makes them feel good. A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC
All items of which MOST users, particularly anyone buying a "budget" PC, simply don't need. Hell I'm a programmer and aside from the two video ports (more like $50 to add to the Dell), which I only played with briefly (dual monitor just wasn't all it was made out to be), I've never used any of those features.
Also, the Mini and Dell's budget lines simply aren't comparable. The mini is $599 at it's lowest cost. Dell's basic PC starts at $269. That's a 122% increase in price. Not to mention that the Dell at less than half the cost includes twice as much RAM and nearly 3 times as much hard drive space, but we'll call that a wash since the Mini does include a faster processor (though the Dell comes with about all the processor a home user would need - indeed I'd argue that the hard drive and ram are better places to put funds than the processor). Not to mention that if the notion does strike me that I want to play some games on the machine, tossing in a $100 video card and a $50 processor means I'm in business on the Dell. With the Mac? Be ready to replace the machine.
Now personally, I'll not argue that the Mini IS in fact a very good machine for most people's needs. It's just that at what they charge it's overpriced. Compared to similar level PC's, that machine is worth $300-350.
"Worded exactly as intended"? Does that also include maligned tags?
Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.
Perhaps that's the problem right there. The devices you mention are not smartphones, but instead dedicated handhelds. Things like trackers and those receipt thingies that all waitstaff now use don't really need a full smartphone OS, and the sales number of those devices are simply dwarfed by the number of phones out there. Note also that the manufacturer isn't selling to the individual deliveryman or waiter, but to the company's IT purchasing department or the restaurant manager.
And yes, even here I see Microsoft's grip potentially slipping, if complaints from employees about how the device is unreliable, crash-prone and so on percolate back up to the purchasers. They want devices that save the company time and money, not devices that harm morale and end up only slightly better than the old paper pad. Microsoft's advantage here lies mostly in how Linux may be cheaper on a per-license basis, but lacks the sort of inexpensive and simple tools to build reliable and user friendly apps that Microsoft offers. It does not have an advantage in offering the Windows experience, since these devices are not intended to be general purpose handhelds - they just have one job to do, and need to do that one job well.
(Apple isn't even interested in this market, but I suppose someone could pound out an app for the iPod Touch. Besides, I don't consider Apple a competitor to Microsoft in the phone business; Apple isn't trying to sell its OS to Motorola, Intermec, LG, HTC, etc. ...)
I know nothing about Windows Phone 7 (formerly Windows Mobile, and also distinct from Windows 7), so I can't comment on it. But the review seems to paint a bleak picture of how Microsoft treats end users. By the time WinPhone 7 hits the market, many manufacturers could already be committed to Android or Symbian, leaving Microsoft an also-ran.
What the review doesn't mention is the schizophrenic strategy Microsoft is following on the handheld market: Windows Phone, the Zune, and now Project Pink all overlap, yet none of the devices interoperate with one another. This also doesn't help Microsoft sell its OS to phone manufacturers.
...then Microsoft is headed towards irrelevance in this field.
The most damning part is how it claims it is less for private users and geared towards businesses. That's just another way of admitting that they were driven by bullet points and not by how people would actually use the devices. They only expect IT departments to buy them, and not the people who actually use them.
Windows Mobile has become a Terry Schaivo. The only reason it's not dead is because Microsoft refuses to pull the plug on the poor thing.
It's the "drawing a border" style of winning. What Apple wants is to have the borders drawn now rather than later, and remove uncertainty.
At least, that's my take on it, giving both sides the benefit of doubt.
I understand your concerns, but from the description the sound is supposed to be a hint to pedestrians that the vehicle is beginning to roll. Once the car reaches normal travel speeds, then the sound is turned off. The sound level on the street should still be lower than with current gasoline engines. Only when leaving a parking space and at traffic crossings would you hear the sound.
A little of both, really. They take stories like "The Little Mermaid" or Notre Dame de Paris and aggressively try to prevent others from telling their own versions.
Well, by that line of reasoning, the word "Literally" has also shifted in meaning. It is slowly shifting from meaning that the statement is not a metaphor to simply adding emphasis. Why can one word shift in meaning and the other not?
Perhaps I should also point out that in other languages, the word for "rape" is still tied more closely to "taken by force in a way that causes trauma": "Vergewaltigung" in German, "Violence" in French are two examples.
Actually, I suspect the problem lies in how accustomed we've become to cars making a noise when being driven, and assume a silent car is driverless, as if some idiot forgot to set the hand brake. The noise is less "watch out!" and more "relax, I am in control".
My guess is that experience with your Mazda played a role. My personal theory is that the noise is to reassure that the vehicle is being operated and not just rolling because the handbrake wasn't set. The whole "omigod it's an out of control car!" feeling.
Oh dear, you fail to grasp the myriad ways we humans have grown accustomed to the sounds cars make. How often have you revved the engine as a way to signal impatience? The noise of an engine also indicates that the vehicle is moving under power and not rolling because some idiot forgot the handbrake.
I see the proposed sound as a reassurance, not a warning. Considering the low speeds at which it is audible, it signals that the driver wants the car to move. A silent car that begins to roll triggers apprehension.
Oh, and your second paragraph is unnecessarily aggressive. In most countries and in most states of the USA, a pedestrian who steps onto a motorway without looking is often at fault as well, but the legal argument isn't the point. It's that adding a sound reduces the risk of an accident, that the cost of the sound effect is lower than the sum costs of accidents were it not in place. Sure, the pedestrian may have been an idiot, but isn't it better to avoid the damage to your car and the lengthy distraction of an accident claim in the first place?
And yes, the GP was a little too glib, but you don't have to fly off the handle (although this is par for Slashdot, I know). The truth is that operating a motor vehicle demands more responsibility, since it has more potential to harm others. All participants in traffic have to follow the rules, even pedestrians, but having a bigger car does not make you superior.
I think it qualifies, as I can't recall a single current descendant of AppleDOS or ProDOS still being sold. At least the Commodore KERNAL is still available in various emulators and game devices ("23 of your favourite Commodore 64 games on one joystick!"), but there are no available sources for the Apple II OS around for new hardware. You have to take a ROM from an older computer.
Seriously, it would be cool if Apple would release the source for the old Apple II kernel and OS, so that hobbyists could play with it. I think it's safe enough now for Apple(i.e. it won't eat into current sales).
... except that the Macintosh/Lisa operating system predates Amiga OS, and both come from different codebases. Both in turn took their cues from the Xerox Star operating system and its GUI. Apple made different choices than Commodore did in their OS, paring out multitasking and not adding it until the MultiFinder in System 6.5. The Amiga OS was amazing in many ways, but it was geared more to animation and video work whilst Apple concentrated on print, pioneering the use of PostScript and the tools of the DTP revolution.
You may know and love your Amiga, but you seem to be unaware of the actual history of computing and the GUI.
Actually, I get the impression that Apple's site is smaller through this level of consistency. Hardware pages for the iPhone, the iPod as well as things like the XServe are all consistent. The store maintains the same look and feel. The developer pages and the in-depth documentation. Apple really does offer about the same amount of information as Microsoft does, but the more uniform look and feel of the website makes it feel less sprawling.
I think that's what makes the biggest difference. Since Apple has more sense of identity and more self-confidence, they maintain a more disciplined appearance. Microsoft's lack of focus is reflected in the way their website rambles.
No, no, no you miss the point of the article completely! It's about which company is better to look to for inspiration when making a corporate web site for a client, and WHY one works better than the other.
I think Professor Tolkein considered The Silmarillion his greatest work because it was a foundation to be built upon and not really seen. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stand so well because the foundation provided is solid and deep enough to support them. His academic background meant he was acutely aware of how many layers were involved in the old tales (indeed, I recall Prof. Tolkein once wrote in a letter that LOTR was an anti-Ring der Nibelungen due to his anger at Wagner mangling the message of how power corrupts!).
The difference is between storytelling and myth-building. One emphasises how much the hero is "one of us", the other emphasises how distant the hero is.
Note that the existence of Slytherin is not inconsistent with the idea of Rowling being ham-handed. After all, there are many, many things in her novels that really were poorly thought out. If you ask me, the whole series is a fluke that reached critical mass, helped along by some celebrity preachers pulling a corollary of the Streisand Effect (the whole "Harry Potter books promote devil worship!" brouhaha).
I think I should clarify in where the harm lies, namely in the damage done to the system rather than to the company in particular. Also you are right in that in my haste, I wrote "short traders" when referring to "short term traders".
The difference in opinion comes in whether one sees short term traders as the equivalent of used car dealerships (well, a better analog would be real estate agents since cars depreciate in value so quickly, but I digress). Does the short term trader aid in transfer of the property from the current owner to the future owner, working as a middleman or is he a gambler, injecting himself into the middle of a transaction that would have happened nevertheless? Does the buyer go to him in search of a property, or did the trader rush over to snatch up the property before the buyer could arrive at the seller?
My personal standpoint is that speculative trading of this nature cannot be eliminated, but it should be discouraged. Little things like mandatory waiting periods before resale make speculative trading of this sort less attractive.
Ah, but to use your analogy, the Ford you want to buy is suddenly bought up from the original owner by the short trader, who sells it to you for a few dollars more than what you would have paid simply because he beat you to the street corner by a few minutes. The short trader brings nothing to the transaction other than forcing himself into a middleman position. Unlike a person selling a used car, he does not use the the car, bring it to your door or perform any other service.
Tell me again that this is fair.
Please note that many of these flash ROM solutions decay over time as the charge is lost. Ten years is often stated as the maximum.
The CD format seems to be the most durable, as I have ten year old CD-R's that are still readable. Many of my data DVD's, though, tend to be more sensitive to data loss.
Magnetic tape drives boasted that the information could survive over a century, but even today you can't find any commodity drives.
My advice would be to plan for a durable medium, and also that the medium will have to be brought to a special company to be transferred onto "modern" media.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he suckered GS into a Streisand Effect. Suckering them into filing suit in such a way that draws gobs of media attention to their unethical business practice.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is why the software was leaked (I hesitate to call it stolen): the self-appointed Masters of the Universe kept abusing their programmers like this, and this guy was looking for a way to expose them. I think he baited them into a Streisand Effect.
I'm going to call "Streisand Effect" here, and that Goldman Sachs is going to regret the whole thing coming to light in the first place.
Come to think of it, this may have been the purpose of the (alleged) theft: to expose the whole practice, a sort of whistleblowing through Xanatos Speed Chess...
I believe fast traders are malignant as they do not add to the health of the company being traded, and instead siphon off capital that could have been invested in that company. They are gamblers, not investors. Your concentrating on the investors ignores the fact that the market is supposed to promote a healthy investment climate for businesses, not be a get rich quick scheme.
Assume that an unregulated marked does spring up, though: how would it be different from an unlicensed betting parlour? Normal investors would shy away from it as it would be a real shark pool with no protections. The whole point of a regulated exchange market is to ensure that the trade is fair.