Well... I primarily use a Mac at home, although I do have a Windows and Linux box for times when what I want to do can only be done on some other machine. Also I have an old Cobalt Qube 2 running NetBSD that I've all but forgotten about. The worst of all of these by by far is the Windows XP machine that is foisted off on me at work. Between the lack of admin rights, the bizarre lengths they have to go to in order to insure a relatively secure machine, the tiny library of applications we are permitted to ask to be installed, the nearly daily reboots, the complete lack of graceful behavior under load or low memory conditions, and last but not least... mandatory corporate webpage as your startup homepage in MSIE and the mandatory Corporate Agitprop Screen Saver (tm) all add up to worst computing experience I've ever had.
In my experience the loudest fan base is the slashdot Linux crowd, who almost universally assume that their time is free and overlook most of the gyrations they perform while they install Linux on the next insanely great thing.
So sure I prefer my PowerMac, in fact I think it's worth every penny I paid for it.
Quite possibly the failure of the beginning part was the biggest disappointment of my 20's (when I read the book). I used to call the latter part of the book strip mining the solar system for fun and profit, because it wasn't believable but the fist part I thought would be great. Sure they are still trying to do it but the last time I looked their 'research center' looked like it was located in a south Florida trailer park.
So said Cringley a few months ago. Made sense then, makes sense now. Loose Intel, Loose Windows, Keep the profit. First in Servers, Then Workstations, Then Consoles, next stop corporate desktops. Afer all I have two IBM made CPUs in my Mac!
That wasn't a monologue, that was a diatribe! But you're right so let me try again, now that I'm home and have a "Real Beer" (tm)
The GE merger was seen in the EU as not good for the marketplace but honestly I don't much about it, having only vaguely heard about it on the news. However I do have inside information on a gigantic fined levied against the (European) company I work for and knowing what I know, I can honestly say that we didn't loose money on the deal. The fact of the matter is, that many times these large corporations are acting in ways that are contrary to the public benefit (but profitable). So it's not that the EU is anti-US corporations as it is Anti-Large arrogant and predatory corporations who try to tell them to shove off.
As far as the Anti-American sentiment... you are right it does exist, but not all of it comes from the debacle in Iraq, personally I think American Foreign policy is much like the attitude displayed by large corporations that gets them in trouble and given that I also think Americans deserve *much* more criticisms than they get.
On a side note if the dollar continues the way it's going you'll only have to earn around 35K Euros to pay the loan back...
I'd rather take a dead end, minimum wage job here in Austria than go back to the US and work.
And before you say "Just another Eurotrash Dimwit who hates the US". I am a naturalized US citizen, and I lived, went to school, and worked in the US for over 14 years. Quite frankly the US is not what it used to be. Sure some companies lay people off, sure in some areas of Europe unemployment or inflation are high. But things move on, new companies hire workers and people get jobs. I'll take the over 5 dollars per gallon fuel cost and the higher taxes with a huge grin on my face, just to get out of the insanity that the US has become.
Simply put: Incorporation creates a legal entity which by other legal definitions is sociopathic. Corporations can only have one motivation, profit and have no requirements to have remorse.
They are brainwashed into thinking they must consume and therefore must earn a higher wage. A bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger Television, a bigger diamond ring, and it never ends.
Because they have only time for working there is no time for walking or bicycling (and American isn't really designed to to bike to work every day like I do), so if they do twig that exercise is required for wellbeing they sign up with a health club, which is yet another expense!
Worse still: All that time working leaves no time for preparing meals so fast food or preprepared are the order of the day.
Now back to you points about the American work place (which I have worked in for no small time) the whole system is designed to get most out workers for the least salary (AKA market value) so it's really common for less than scrupulous managers (or really under pressure) to resort to unreasonable methods to achieve this. (My experience with this was during 'review' time.
So 6 years ago I began to demand different things... For four years when I went through my review and they said "oh pay raises are capped to 2 or 3 percent I said "No problem I'll take the 2% and the balance as holiday time" for a total of 11 weeks per year. They said we're closing the factory and moving to Europe and I said "No Problem, I'll come with you"... So now I bike 10 minute each way to work (I've lost 35 pounds), I only work 25 hours a week so my family and I spend many times more time together and are much happier, We bike down to the local farmer market 4 or 5 times a week for food and eat healthy meals (which has had the side effect of teaching my girlfriend & daughter to cook), we go on a one or two day hike once a month (another thing that's difficult in the US), and we travel twice a year to somewhere we've never been for holidays.
The problem with American Unions is that they are abused and don't apply to all workers, so that there are a relative few being vastly over paid for what they do. And that in turn reveals a problem with American society and with the concept of "corporations"...
Just my 2 cents as a very, very refugee from the insanity called "The United States of America" And I have to wonder just how many whacked out slashdotters will read this and think I'm some granola hippy who still thinks he's touring with the 'dead. Word to the Wise: High Tech does not mean "unhealthy" or "wage slave" nor is anti-human or anti-nature.
The was a film of Nato soliders spoofing the Beach Boy's song "Kokomo" on big-boys recently and it suddenly disapeared, shame really as it was quite funny.
All the freaks are the most vocal and the moderates just sit back quietly and let the zealots speak for them. The Abrahamics (Christians, Muslims, Jews) are doing it; and the Americans are definitely doing it. Maybe the US won't wind up being the complete totalitarian militant theocracy it looks like they are aiming for but it's not the place it used be 15 to 25 years ago.
I think where Dvorak went wrong was by characterizing all of the hoopla as some how unusual. I think his tittle should been more along the lines of "Failing Journalistic Hack insults pop Linux personality (and invades her & her Mum's privacy) which, of course, brings out legions of Linux fans, which eventually results in the loss of the hack's job and the wacko Linux zealots coming out and annoying everyone"
In other news several apparently reasonable journalists quit their jobs after it became a well known fact that they were working for an essentially unethical web publisher. I guess it was OK as long as that wasn't well known...
This is your best bet, sadly I suspect that the dog is blind because he's old. Sadly they really aren't kidding about the "Can't teach an old dog new tricks" saying, so this won't be easy
I am actually working on something vaguely similar to this. I estimate it would take 5 to 7 years just to validate it and another 2 to 4 to get FDA approval. So don't expect it any time soon.
I think this whole situation has been brewing for quite some time because honestly why would MOG care at all about some blogger? I think this began when SCO sued IBM et. all in an attempt to stop the fall in their stock price and in an apparently vain attempt to get IBM to buy SCO's IP for a vastly inflated price. However the free software community in general and Groklaw specifically did something that has never been done before: They exposed the inconsistencies between SCO"s public statements, like the "I have the offending code in my Briefcase" comment the German VP came up with, They exposed the money trail (and hence motives) between Microsoft, Baystar and SCO. So the plan that the SCO upper management had (become Microsoft's Anti-Linux temporary shrill, while cashing out on an obviously failing stock) was essentially foiled. All the paid "journalists" in the world couldn't prevent the truth from keeping SCO's stock where it belonged, in the barrel. So all these folks that thought they'd cash out did not. No wonder Groklaw has garnered considerable animosity!
I'd like to see just where Sys-con gets their advertising dollars from. Because I have to believe there is a money trail straight from those who benefit from either an artificially high SCO stock price or uncertainty in the Linux marketplace to those 'journalists' who peddle this cheap FUD.
So in summary I think we owe all of these folks a little bit of our time and we should do what we do best. Contact advertisers and tell them what's going on, and why we tell dozens of people a day not to buy their products. To me contacting government officials has been demonstrated to be useless and unmitigated harassment of advertisers shows to yield the best results
Sure! So what's needed is a global clearing house reporting people who have send money to spammers so folks with a clue can stop by and 'reeducate' them.
You know "Do you part... distroy the PC of a spam enabler today!"
WTF!? Please explain how not working when you ought to be somehow matters more if you live in a socialist society as opposed to whatever the US has become of late.
I love my A4 Intuos but I've wanted a Cintiq since the first time I saw one. Then working up the logic to explain to the GF why I needed one, I concluded that if I was going to spend a fair bit of money on the new Wacom product, I'd rather have an iBook tablet than a Cintiq. So now I'm building an iBook tablet loosely based on someone else's ideas http://www.macmod.com/content/view/166/2/. Which is why I have the sig that I do.
On a side note... The guy that came up the idea says that the touch screen vendor Troll Touch was a "pleasure to work with" and I have had the exact opposite experience. Their business model is selling completely assembled apple iBooks or LCD screens and it is not selling kits or parts. This being the case; my communications with them have been short and churlish. Owing to European VAT I was planning on having it shipped to a place inside the US and pick it up on my next business trip, all the while having the sincere hope that I find an alternative before then.
This patent is ancient history, as Apple applied for it a couple of years ago and it hit the rumor site then.
There is a guy that made a tablet from one functioning and one non-functioning iBook. It's really do-able I'm in the process of doing it myself, which is why I have the sig I have.
Slashdot Mirror
In my experience the loudest fan base is the slashdot Linux crowd, who almost universally assume that their time is free and overlook most of the gyrations they perform while they install Linux on the next insanely great thing.
So sure I prefer my PowerMac, in fact I think it's worth every penny I paid for it.
Hey! You there, quite laughing!
Quite possibly the failure of the beginning part was the biggest disappointment of my 20's (when I read the book). I used to call the latter part of the book strip mining the solar system for fun and profit, because it wasn't believable but the fist part I thought would be great. Sure they are still trying to do it but the last time I looked their 'research center' looked like it was located in a south Florida trailer park.
Go hiking in Europe, then ask.
So said Cringley a few months ago. Made sense then, makes sense now. Loose Intel, Loose Windows, Keep the profit. First in Servers, Then Workstations, Then Consoles, next stop corporate desktops. Afer all I have two IBM made CPUs in my Mac!
The GE merger was seen in the EU as not good for the marketplace but honestly I don't much about it, having only vaguely heard about it on the news. However I do have inside information on a gigantic fined levied against the (European) company I work for and knowing what I know, I can honestly say that we didn't loose money on the deal. The fact of the matter is, that many times these large corporations are acting in ways that are contrary to the public benefit (but profitable). So it's not that the EU is anti-US corporations as it is Anti-Large arrogant and predatory corporations who try to tell them to shove off.
As far as the Anti-American sentiment... you are right it does exist, but not all of it comes from the debacle in Iraq, personally I think American Foreign policy is much like the attitude displayed by large corporations that gets them in trouble and given that I also think Americans deserve *much* more criticisms than they get.
On a side note if the dollar continues the way it's going you'll only have to earn around 35K Euros to pay the loan back...
And before you say "Just another Eurotrash Dimwit who hates the US". I am a naturalized US citizen, and I lived, went to school, and worked in the US for over 14 years. Quite frankly the US is not what it used to be. Sure some companies lay people off, sure in some areas of Europe unemployment or inflation are high. But things move on, new companies hire workers and people get jobs. I'll take the over 5 dollars per gallon fuel cost and the higher taxes with a huge grin on my face, just to get out of the insanity that the US has become.
Simply put: Incorporation creates a legal entity which by other legal definitions is sociopathic. Corporations can only have one motivation, profit and have no requirements to have remorse.
POWER is IBM's CPU archtecture. Hope that helps
They are brainwashed into thinking they must consume and therefore must earn a higher wage. A bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger Television, a bigger diamond ring, and it never ends.
Because they have only time for working there is no time for walking or bicycling (and American isn't really designed to to bike to work every day like I do), so if they do twig that exercise is required for wellbeing they sign up with a health club, which is yet another expense!
Worse still: All that time working leaves no time for preparing meals so fast food or preprepared are the order of the day.
Now back to you points about the American work place (which I have worked in for no small time) the whole system is designed to get most out workers for the least salary (AKA market value) so it's really common for less than scrupulous managers (or really under pressure) to resort to unreasonable methods to achieve this. (My experience with this was during 'review' time.
So 6 years ago I began to demand different things... For four years when I went through my review and they said "oh pay raises are capped to 2 or 3 percent I said "No problem I'll take the 2% and the balance as holiday time" for a total of 11 weeks per year. They said we're closing the factory and moving to Europe and I said "No Problem, I'll come with you"... So now I bike 10 minute each way to work (I've lost 35 pounds), I only work 25 hours a week so my family and I spend many times more time together and are much happier, We bike down to the local farmer market 4 or 5 times a week for food and eat healthy meals (which has had the side effect of teaching my girlfriend & daughter to cook), we go on a one or two day hike once a month (another thing that's difficult in the US), and we travel twice a year to somewhere we've never been for holidays.
The problem with American Unions is that they are abused and don't apply to all workers, so that there are a relative few being vastly over paid for what they do. And that in turn reveals a problem with American society and with the concept of "corporations"...
Just my 2 cents as a very, very refugee from the insanity called "The United States of America" And I have to wonder just how many whacked out slashdotters will read this and think I'm some granola hippy who still thinks he's touring with the 'dead. Word to the Wise: High Tech does not mean "unhealthy" or "wage slave" nor is anti-human or anti-nature.
Yoda! Do you use Bit Torrent too?
The was a film of Nato soliders spoofing the Beach Boy's song "Kokomo" on big-boys recently and it suddenly disapeared, shame really as it was quite funny.
And I couldn't say it better!
All the freaks are the most vocal and the moderates just sit back quietly and let the zealots speak for them. The Abrahamics (Christians, Muslims, Jews) are doing it; and the Americans are definitely doing it. Maybe the US won't wind up being the complete totalitarian militant theocracy it looks like they are aiming for but it's not the place it used be 15 to 25 years ago.
I think where Dvorak went wrong was by characterizing all of the hoopla as some how unusual. I think his tittle should been more along the lines of "Failing Journalistic Hack insults pop Linux personality (and invades her & her Mum's privacy) which, of course, brings out legions of Linux fans, which eventually results in the loss of the hack's job and the wacko Linux zealots coming out and annoying everyone"
In other news several apparently reasonable journalists quit their jobs after it became a well known fact that they were working for an essentially unethical web publisher. I guess it was OK as long as that wasn't well known...
I think it would be "Testes"
This is your best bet, sadly I suspect that the dog is blind because he's old. Sadly they really aren't kidding about the "Can't teach an old dog new tricks" saying, so this won't be easy
I am actually working on something vaguely similar to this. I estimate it would take 5 to 7 years just to validate it and another 2 to 4 to get FDA approval. So don't expect it any time soon.
I think this whole situation has been brewing for quite some time because honestly why would MOG care at all about some blogger? I think this began when SCO sued IBM et. all in an attempt to stop the fall in their stock price and in an apparently vain attempt to get IBM to buy SCO's IP for a vastly inflated price. However the free software community in general and Groklaw specifically did something that has never been done before: They exposed the inconsistencies between SCO"s public statements, like the "I have the offending code in my Briefcase" comment the German VP came up with, They exposed the money trail (and hence motives) between Microsoft, Baystar and SCO. So the plan that the SCO upper management had (become Microsoft's Anti-Linux temporary shrill, while cashing out on an obviously failing stock) was essentially foiled. All the paid "journalists" in the world couldn't prevent the truth from keeping SCO's stock where it belonged, in the barrel. So all these folks that thought they'd cash out did not. No wonder Groklaw has garnered considerable animosity!
I'd like to see just where Sys-con gets their advertising dollars from. Because I have to believe there is a money trail straight from those who benefit from either an artificially high SCO stock price or uncertainty in the Linux marketplace to those 'journalists' who peddle this cheap FUD.
So in summary I think we owe all of these folks a little bit of our time and we should do what we do best. Contact advertisers and tell them what's going on, and why we tell dozens of people a day not to buy their products. To me contacting government officials has been demonstrated to be useless and unmitigated harassment of advertisers shows to yield the best results
You know "Do you part... distroy the PC of a spam enabler today!"
OK I read your posting history and you deserve it. Obviously it's not the mods... it's you.
WTF!? Please explain how not working when you ought to be somehow matters more if you live in a socialist society as opposed to whatever the US has become of late.
RTFA Bruce answers your question
On a side note... The guy that came up the idea says that the touch screen vendor Troll Touch was a "pleasure to work with" and I have had the exact opposite experience. Their business model is selling completely assembled apple iBooks or LCD screens and it is not selling kits or parts. This being the case; my communications with them have been short and churlish. Owing to European VAT I was planning on having it shipped to a place inside the US and pick it up on my next business trip, all the while having the sincere hope that I find an alternative before then.
It's doubtful that Apple currently has any real intention to follow through with this.
So Please! Encourage them a bit http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/tablet_mac/.
There is a guy that made a tablet from one functioning and one non-functioning iBook. It's really do-able I'm in the process of doing it myself, which is why I have the sig I have.
If you're really serious though you should sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/tablet_mac/.