Why bother? Right now, they get the benefits without the costs or the risks. Let other companies spend their resources on it. Practically free R&D and labor.
I've moved on, though. Rather than assemble fragile but easy prototypes, I'm just a bit more sophisticated. I carve chunks of wood, plastic, and metal for some things. I go to Home Depot and buy chunks of lumber, cut them down, then hammer 'em together. I'll go buy car parts, and put them on my car. I buy small electrical components and make a big electrical component.
The pieces aren't as colorful, or as easy, but it's just as much fun.
Portable video may be useless to you, but that doesn't make it virtually useless. I'll agree that the market for them may not be huge, but I'm part of that market: I fly a lot. Right now, I buy magazines and books to pass the time, and I stuff as much music as I can in my MuVo. On some longer flights, I may go through the trouble of setting up my laptop to watch or do something, but its usually not worth the effort.
I wouldn't mind being able to download a couple of shows/movies while I wait in the airport, so I can watch while I fly. Anything has to be better than the dreck the airlines show. Its not so compelling that I'd spend much time, effort, or money on it, but if the three align well enough, I'd do it. I've considered a portable DVD player, but it doesn't do enough to be slogging it through security.
And yesterday, I would've loved it. I spent all day waiting to find out if I was selected for jury duty. By late afternoon, I wish I'd lugged a 19" TV, an XBox, and a small fridge with me. Put _that_ in a small form factor!
If it's really a bug, the call is free. I agree, it would be nice if they didn't charge you up front, and refund it later, but if you're right they give the money back.
Despite the whining in this thread, I've had good luck with MS support.
Depends on the user. I've done a lot of work that involved doing heavy duty processing at a customer's site. The only time I carry the laptop is to and from the site, and I have enough other associated crap that the laptop isn't the bulk of the weight.
The idea isn't always to be able to work, anywhere. The idea, for me at least, is to get as much horsepower as I can, where I need it. Battery life means little to me, there's plenty of outlets in datacenters and cube farms, and no battery is good enough to last one of _my_ days (12-14 hours). Only meeting-weenies care how much a laptop weighs.
So, just make it a checkbox on the receipt: "This does not match what I voted"
If you get a few of those, there's probably not much too worry about. If you get a lot of those, then you do. It doesn't give any insight into what is wrong, but all that's needed is an indication that _something_ is wrong - then count the paper backups.
Um, a Saturday Night Special is a designation for a poorly-made, thus inexpensive, gun. They're the choice of many low-level criminals because they're virtually disposable.
These are not firearms that a security force is going to use, and I wouldn't recommend one for personal protection. They're too likely to blow up in your hand.
Now, defining what exactly constitutes a SNS would be challenging. Should guns cost at least $X?
While I'm sure MS is gleeful and overjoyed, and even willing to give SCO a stick, the two reasons you cite are more than enough reason for SCO to do what they're doing.
When they're taking a condemned prisoner to be executed, everyone else is warned that there's a dead man walking - even the other murderers, rapists, et al. Why? Because the condemned has nothing to lose, and is incredibly dangerous to _everyone_.
Is it plausible that this is just the corporate version of that? It's a much simpler explanation, and far more likely, IMO.
All because there are so few non-MS machines out there that it makes absolutely no economic sense for a motherboard and/or BIOS manufacturer to provide such a product without such a BIOS (this goes for DRM, too). I guess both Linux users and the single remaining BSD user are just gonna be SOL./sarcasm
Despite my login name, not all things are on or off. Wasn't there an interview not too long ago here where a BIOS manufacturer flat out stated that as long as there was a market for a non-DRM BIOS, they'd make it?
At the same time, if there's enough of a market for computers that _do_ have these capabilities, why shouldn't Microsoft pursue it? Especially if everyone else is willing to leave the field wide open? If there isn't a market for it, then there's nothing to fear.
Re:I don't understand why people trust analysts
on
Merrill Lynch Rips Sun
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
1) You've got to start somewhere. Even if you start out with a million, it takes a few years of _fantastic_ growth to get a 1000% ROI.
2) That was damn good advice at the _beginning_ of the bubble. There were voices that urged selling before the bubble popped, but they were mostly drowned out by the cries of "The old rules don't apply!"
3) Over the long term, I agree. On the short term, they can be quite accurate. Additionally, it doesn't take any kind of genius to see that a company that is losing a lot of money with no immediate prospects of reversing the trend will go out of business. The wildcard is whether or not Sun can turn it around - they've got a huge chunk of cash to work through while they figure things out. Or not.
How different is this from the investigative reporters on your local news broadcast
It's not different at all.
If an investigative reporter breaks a law doing it, they can still go to jail. Remember those reporters who tried to sneak weapons past airport security as part of a story?
I went through the same thing (only procrastinating rather than protesting). Eventually, I started getting a nag at the bottom of my screen on all channels telling me to use the new card if I wanted to keep watching. That ran for about two weeks before I switched it over.
Would it have turned off? I don't know, but I did get sick of that stupid nag...
Been there for over three years. Other than a few minor glitches, its been fine. While the glitches were definitely annoying, they were far less frequent and frustrating than when I was trying to do it all inhouse.
I've never had a billing problem, and I got a couple months free for the above glitches, with no arguments or complaints from them.
No, I'm happy enough that I'm considering buying additional services from them soon.
The store now that you only ever buy during the sale, you have a bad credit payment history and that you wareing your wife's underware.
Does that mean that they won't try to sell me anything expensive, or anything that's not on sale? It would sure beat trying to explain to salespeople everytime that I'm a cheap ass bastard. No, I don't want the just released Mr. Major Sports figure brand, I want the cheap stuff on sale over there, and you're less interested in giving me a credit card than I am in having one, thank you.
And if I'm wearing them, they're no longer my wife's underwear, they're mine.
Oh there's use for it. Just not as an input device - that's where they went stupid.
Now, if they tried to sell me a normal-sized and -looking watch, that would sync up with my calendar and tasks, and maybe even contacts, with no more than the standard number of buttons, I'd buy it. While my PDA is portable, it's not as transparently portable as a watch (I've never left a watch in someone's car). There's plenty of times in life when I just need to be reminded - which is 80% of my PDA's job.
But the idea of being able to _input_ anything is just stupid. Let me input and manage the data on my big-ass machine (or even my PDA), and download the useful bits to my watch. Put the data where it makes the most sense, not all the data indescriminately.
Its not that this is a bad idea, but they're trying to get too much out of it. Which is kinda funny, because part of the original appeal of the Palm was that it didn't try to do too much, leaving bigger stuff to bigger computers, so it was good at what it did.
Right now, it's hard to track a P2P user, therefore there's little risk of being sued.
If the laws are clarified to the point where it's not so easy to hide (ie, Verizon loses), then the risk goes up.
Given the choice of "free, but there's a good chance of getting caught and paying huge fines" and "pay 99 cents and stay out of trouble", which would you prefer? What if it were 49 cents, or a higher degree of risk?
At some point, it comes down to the same reason why you don't steal stuff left outside of Home Depot. It may have nothing to do with morality, and just plain fear of jail.
I've worked in more than one office that did not allow personal memorabalia of any kind, and bought chairs that weren't adjustable.
Yes, it sucked, and I'm sure everyone will go off about how it's a bad way to retain employees (and it is), but the fact remains - it is the company's policies and rules. If you don't like them, work someplace else.
As an IT "drone", it is your job to do what the boss (presumably the System Administrator) tells you to do. If he's a jerk, he's a jerk - but his (or her) decisions are not yours to make.
Slashdot Mirror
Why bother? Right now, they get the benefits without the costs or the risks. Let other companies spend their resources on it. Practically free R&D and labor.
If you're interested in music around the house, might I suggest a low-power FM transmitter?
;-)
Then you can buy cheap receivers, and put them all over the place, and listen to the music that's on your server.
Virtually no server configuration required! And if you time it right, you can have it play your theme music while you pull into the driveway
I used to play with Legos.
I've moved on, though. Rather than assemble fragile but easy prototypes, I'm just a bit more sophisticated. I carve chunks of wood, plastic, and metal for some things. I go to Home Depot and buy chunks of lumber, cut them down, then hammer 'em together. I'll go buy car parts, and put them on my car. I buy small electrical components and make a big electrical component.
The pieces aren't as colorful, or as easy, but it's just as much fun.
Portable video may be useless to you, but that doesn't make it virtually useless. I'll agree that the market for them may not be huge, but I'm part of that market: I fly a lot. Right now, I buy magazines and books to pass the time, and I stuff as much music as I can in my MuVo. On some longer flights, I may go through the trouble of setting up my laptop to watch or do something, but its usually not worth the effort.
I wouldn't mind being able to download a couple of shows/movies while I wait in the airport, so I can watch while I fly. Anything has to be better than the dreck the airlines show. Its not so compelling that I'd spend much time, effort, or money on it, but if the three align well enough, I'd do it. I've considered a portable DVD player, but it doesn't do enough to be slogging it through security.
And yesterday, I would've loved it. I spent all day waiting to find out if I was selected for jury duty. By late afternoon, I wish I'd lugged a 19" TV, an XBox, and a small fridge with me. Put _that_ in a small form factor!
The apple ][gs from 1986 is capable of doing everything the average person does with their pc
Yeah, but it takes six months to rip a CD.
If it's really a bug, the call is free. I agree, it would be nice if they didn't charge you up front, and refund it later, but if you're right they give the money back.
;-)
Despite the whining in this thread, I've had good luck with MS support.
And no, I don't work for Microsoft
Depends on the user. I've done a lot of work that involved doing heavy duty processing at a customer's site. The only time I carry the laptop is to and from the site, and I have enough other associated crap that the laptop isn't the bulk of the weight.
The idea isn't always to be able to work, anywhere. The idea, for me at least, is to get as much horsepower as I can, where I need it. Battery life means little to me, there's plenty of outlets in datacenters and cube farms, and no battery is good enough to last one of _my_ days (12-14 hours). Only meeting-weenies care how much a laptop weighs.
So, just make it a checkbox on the receipt: "This does not match what I voted"
If you get a few of those, there's probably not much too worry about. If you get a lot of those, then you do. It doesn't give any insight into what is wrong, but all that's needed is an indication that _something_ is wrong - then count the paper backups.
Um, a Saturday Night Special is a designation for a poorly-made, thus inexpensive, gun. They're the choice of many low-level criminals because they're virtually disposable.
These are not firearms that a security force is going to use, and I wouldn't recommend one for personal protection. They're too likely to blow up in your hand.
Now, defining what exactly constitutes a SNS would be challenging. Should guns cost at least $X?
If it's really an ad (I don't see it that way), then I hope its paid for.
/. all of a sudden sucks.
If so, then great! It's an innovative way to earn income, with only marginal (IMO) impact on the quality of the site.
It's not like
Yeah, but a headline like that won't generate 500 comments, and who knows how many page views.
While I'm sure MS is gleeful and overjoyed, and even willing to give SCO a stick, the two reasons you cite are more than enough reason for SCO to do what they're doing.
When they're taking a condemned prisoner to be executed, everyone else is warned that there's a dead man walking - even the other murderers, rapists, et al. Why? Because the condemned has nothing to lose, and is incredibly dangerous to _everyone_.
Is it plausible that this is just the corporate version of that? It's a much simpler explanation, and far more likely, IMO.
All because there are so few non-MS machines out there that it makes absolutely no economic sense for a motherboard and/or BIOS manufacturer to provide such a product without such a BIOS (this goes for DRM, too). I guess both Linux users and the single remaining BSD user are just gonna be SOL. /sarcasm
Despite my login name, not all things are on or off. Wasn't there an interview not too long ago here where a BIOS manufacturer flat out stated that as long as there was a market for a non-DRM BIOS, they'd make it?
At the same time, if there's enough of a market for computers that _do_ have these capabilities, why shouldn't Microsoft pursue it? Especially if everyone else is willing to leave the field wide open? If there isn't a market for it, then there's nothing to fear.
1) You've got to start somewhere. Even if you start out with a million, it takes a few years of _fantastic_ growth to get a 1000% ROI.
2) That was damn good advice at the _beginning_ of the bubble. There were voices that urged selling before the bubble popped, but they were mostly drowned out by the cries of "The old rules don't apply!"
3) Over the long term, I agree. On the short term, they can be quite accurate. Additionally, it doesn't take any kind of genius to see that a company that is losing a lot of money with no immediate prospects of reversing the trend will go out of business. The wildcard is whether or not Sun can turn it around - they've got a huge chunk of cash to work through while they figure things out. Or not.
I call BS, at least for network adapters. I've replaced my Xircom dongle at Fry's.
How different is this from the investigative reporters on your local news broadcast
It's not different at all.
If an investigative reporter breaks a law doing it, they can still go to jail. Remember those reporters who tried to sneak weapons past airport security as part of a story?
I went through the same thing (only procrastinating rather than protesting). Eventually, I started getting a nag at the bottom of my screen on all channels telling me to use the new card if I wanted to keep watching. That ran for about two weeks before I switched it over.
Would it have turned off? I don't know, but I did get sick of that stupid nag...
But we're on slashdot, so we don't.
"empty barrels roll the loudest"
(grandma had her smart moments)
Been there for over three years. Other than a few minor glitches, its been fine. While the glitches were definitely annoying, they were far less frequent and frustrating than when I was trying to do it all inhouse.
I've never had a billing problem, and I got a couple months free for the above glitches, with no arguments or complaints from them.
No, I'm happy enough that I'm considering buying additional services from them soon.
The store now that you only ever buy during the sale, you have a bad credit payment history and that you wareing your wife's underware.
Does that mean that they won't try to sell me anything expensive, or anything that's not on sale? It would sure beat trying to explain to salespeople everytime that I'm a cheap ass bastard. No, I don't want the just released Mr. Major Sports figure brand, I want the cheap stuff on sale over there, and you're less interested in giving me a credit card than I am in having one, thank you.
And if I'm wearing them, they're no longer my wife's underwear, they're mine.
Oh there's use for it. Just not as an input device - that's where they went stupid.
Now, if they tried to sell me a normal-sized and -looking watch, that would sync up with my calendar and tasks, and maybe even contacts, with no more than the standard number of buttons, I'd buy it. While my PDA is portable, it's not as transparently portable as a watch (I've never left a watch in someone's car). There's plenty of times in life when I just need to be reminded - which is 80% of my PDA's job.
But the idea of being able to _input_ anything is just stupid. Let me input and manage the data on my big-ass machine (or even my PDA), and download the useful bits to my watch. Put the data where it makes the most sense, not all the data indescriminately.
Its not that this is a bad idea, but they're trying to get too much out of it. Which is kinda funny, because part of the original appeal of the Palm was that it didn't try to do too much, leaving bigger stuff to bigger computers, so it was good at what it did.
Why did SCO just pop into my head?
Risk v. Reward.
Right now, it's hard to track a P2P user, therefore there's little risk of being sued.
If the laws are clarified to the point where it's not so easy to hide (ie, Verizon loses), then the risk goes up.
Given the choice of "free, but there's a good chance of getting caught and paying huge fines" and "pay 99 cents and stay out of trouble", which would you prefer? What if it were 49 cents, or a higher degree of risk?
At some point, it comes down to the same reason why you don't steal stuff left outside of Home Depot. It may have nothing to do with morality, and just plain fear of jail.
I've worked in more than one office that did not allow personal memorabalia of any kind, and bought chairs that weren't adjustable.
Yes, it sucked, and I'm sure everyone will go off about how it's a bad way to retain employees (and it is), but the fact remains - it is the company's policies and rules. If you don't like them, work someplace else.
As an IT "drone", it is your job to do what the boss (presumably the System Administrator) tells you to do. If he's a jerk, he's a jerk - but his (or her) decisions are not yours to make.