My keyboard is always most important, it goes center Books tend to be anoying and have cheap spines sometimes, I've found either a paperclip or a heavy pen holds the pages flat on my desk, so I can place the book to my left (where a leftie might put his mouse).
Sometimes if the book is short it's actually easiest to lean it between keyboard and monitor, if you have space to do this, it normally is the best solution.
I should note I just sent a signed letter to my congress critters, you should too. Be sure to mention (R) taking rights from citizens and granting them through goverment intervention to others (D) taking rights from citizens and placing them in the hands of corperations. A brief history of the purpouse of Copyright is normally helpfull also.
Mention this is a Ballot item to you (if that is true)
What exactly does your grandma need to be editing/etc/hosts for?
Is she getting to many popup adds while browsing pr0n or something? Seriously, grandma's don't do anything with/etc/hosts (equiv) on windows, why should they even know it is even possible in linux.
Yes exactly, I was just pointing out he was wrong in stating that all mac users must use the service for them go gain mac's marketshare equal to the mac penetration of pc's.
If I suggested we pick up a market that was going to double our cost, well I wouldn't. OTOH I would have (as I always have done) made sure my minions, I mean developers below me, work in such a way that adding additional markets is cheap. To do otherwise (since this incurs very little inital cost) is similar to designing a brick and mortar franchise that has to be redesigned every time you open a new location. This allows us the option of switching if it became econmical, and more than once I have been in a situation where I have saved significant cash and goten a raise for it.
The fact that more people don't do this shows the general immaturity of the IT profession. IMO we will see more and more people having inital "platform agnostic" development because those who partake in it always beat those who don't.
Your other costs are significant, but at the same time it dosen't take much marketshare for them to be offset (remember it's easier to convince someone who wants a product, but currently cant have it, to buy it than it is to convince someone who has already chosen not to get it to buy it). I would say if you have 0.6% and apple has 7%(this is prety close to thier current marketshare I believe) it would be prety close to break even point for most products on some simple math I just crunched in my head.
You also must realize support etc costs increase mostly because more people are using that platform. If you have currently 19 "wintel" tech support you only need to add 1 "apple" tech support in the presented situation, so none of your costs really "double". (actually this one would probably be greater per customer, but it's all a balance)
To be clear, I'm not supporting everyone using apple products, I'm simply stating to say "only 5% marketshare is worthless" is absurd. In almost every other industry 5% marketshare increase is something to keep a very carefull eye on, and only people with little grasp of buisness would dismiss it offhand.
odd I find so little need for them most of the time on my mac though, I'm not sure if thats because I can navigate everything much more sucesfully with my keyboard or what.
I have no clue what your first paragraph is saying, so I'll ignore it.
You will gain 5% market penetration by supporting apple assuming all other factors are equal (which the are probably not in this case.. but you didn't say that did you)
I seriously doubt they have 100% market penetration in the PC world. In fact I own a PC and I don't have satelite, so I know they do not.
Say they have 10% penetration in the Wintel land, (this is very generous), and lets give Wintel 90% marketshare for consumer PC's (this might be accurate in europe and america, dubious worldwide), now you have 9% marketshare.
Lets add 10% of the Mac users out there, you gain 1/2%.
Now lets calculate the percent change in marketshare. Looks to be 5.5555555..%, seems to me they have gained prety close to the proposed 5% market penetration. This means for every 19 customers you have, you could have one more.
This applies equally well to browser arguments, in fact there it's even more valid, as the cost increases much slower if you develop right to begin with.
I have proven two things to myself here
1: People like you who make claims like "it only has 5% marketshare, so it's obviously worthless to support" definatly do not work in any sort of money-related position, and you are definatly not MBA's.
2: Neither of you have a clue how statistics work to manipluate truth.
I still haven't had caffene, so I might not be completly coherent, but I'll try
Basically Free Market is driven by how much money you make, which works very well especially in a manufacturing type enviroment. One generally sees the "best required" (eg not too good, but not bad either) part arise from a Free Market manufacturing industry. The biggest problem in the free market aproach are companies that do nothing but manipulate data (to some extent accountants, and definatly power/teleco companies), these companies are driven by presenting an illusion of value to the consumer, then overcharing for it. Often times these "pure service" industries would better be serviced through goverment involvment, because as there is no "material product" involved, it is easy to start basically lying.
The other area the free market fails at least partialy, is in the Tech industries. Here you pay mostly for the R&D instead of the product itself, which allows a company to become horribly entrenched simply by having more capital. This entrenchment then develops brand loyalty and they can start selling stagnant products, hurting the other Tech players by permanently slowing the bar. I'm really not sure how to solve this, but it is a problem with the free market mantra.
Now for some politics, I personally see Republicans scared, we are finding out the free market has failed for the past 10 years, and the only one getting hurt are consumers. WorldCom/Enron etc etc are really hurting people's confidence in the ability of corperations to police themselves, and with the trust in accountants (remember in accounting class when your teacher said "no one in the world is more trustworthy than an accountant") being all but destroyed recently, one has to come up with an alternative. Bush is obviously forestalling this until after this falls elections because it would hurt the right, but I feel everywhere I go there is a distinct lack of trust in "the market" that I have never felt before. I think some major climate shift in washington is going to happen in the next few elections, as we shift back towards more corperate accounability (not bush's style, real accountability).
I have a few other things to say, but I really can't coherently write them, I might try a little later today and see if my headache is gone.
There is a guy who lived in china the first 19 years of his life sitting next to me (he moved 3 years ago), his summary of how everything is run could be summed up as "It's alot like america, just a lower Per Capita, and slightly higher taxes"
I've specifically asked how he sees the two goverments in comparison, he said "Well, if the Bush regime is indicative, our goverment is years ahead of yours". Just because they don't brainwash every school child with the democratic partyline (this living in a republic.. makes one wonder), dosen't really mean anything. He sees thier leaders as more intelligent and forward thinking, and though censorship is a problem, at least it's open in China.
He feels americans are so placant they would allow military rule by a "benevolent dictator" before they would fight back, he has serious concerns for the long term viability of our country.
I honestly think someone (I'm not sure who) is trying to start another cold war. Lets just hope it leads to mars colonies, because I would hate to see humanity destroyed from some button pushing.
Have you considered taking "Full time" classes (this can often be achieved by at little as 8hr/week if you pick the right classes, and it will all be evening) at your local CC.
When I was a fresh SR I looked down upon CC's as a dead end, but after paying 12k for my first year, and realizing the only thing I really had to show for it was a bucket of credits, I envied all the people who spent just over 2k for the same credits.
Make sure you don't rule this out offhand, it might be the solution your looking for. Often night classes at a CC don't feel anything like "coursework", instead they are closer to an open forum thats lead by an instructor. I've been taking 5h every semester since I got my BS, and I've never regreted it, even when the class was boring.
I forsee a major shift away from the "Free Market" mantra in the next 20 years, bookmark this post and laugh at me in 20 years if I'm wrong.
What you just described is the greatest symtom of the free market, while free market does have (Alot) of virtues, free market should never be considered an end all. If I wanted a free market I'd abolish the goverment, 'nuf said.
My best guess is they stole the "encryption scheme", and we all know copying or reverse engineering a encryption scheme is a more sever crime than assination of an elected official.
I will agree this is valid, but you have to understand some history.
When GUI apples were first released, your keyboard was a very major investment, and they wanted you to buy a mouse also. It was decided that keyboard modifiers of a single mouse button were more than enough, and at this point there was no pressure what so ever to use more than one. Things like CAD programs would have been completly keyboard operated most likley, and your mouse was mailny to navigate the interface.
Since then the need for at least 3 buttons has been conditioned onto us, because other OS's tend to avoid keyboard+mouse combos whenever possible (for ergonomic reaons I'd assume), but it's not a "need" for most users when they can use intelligent modifier keys.
Apple is very resistant to major changes to thier UI, this is one of the things that makes them good as I understand it. On this issue it hasn't been impressed upon them that most users do things that require a 17 button mouse with 5 scroll wheels and 75 lasers tracking movment in 3d space. In fact most users are quite fine with a single mouse button, the only time this really effects anyone is while on a laptop though, as everyone who cares would have a 165 button mouse plugged in to a desktop anyway.
Apple dosen't see a reason to change the layout of thier laptop, as for most NORMAL tasks, a single button is easily as efficent as a 3 button trackpad, and in many ways is actually better.
I think it is the perfect combination and I am becoming on of those Mac freaks i used to not understand.
heh, I had the exact same experience. When I first got my iBook it was more for the features it provided than because I really wanted a apple computer (one has to understand, I only have one windows machine in my entire house, and thats for guests that can't figure out what a textured X on the titlebar means, so jumping from one non-windows operating system to another wasn't a risk at all).
After a month, I found it hard to use any of my other computers. All of a suddent I realized I took every opportunity to promote Mac's (this is coming from a sys admin who kept his linux passion in the closet), because it's just so much easier, and at the same time so much more powerfull if you want it to be
I finally found a computer I can really recomend for my great parents, not just say "well I'm sure it will work well enough for your needs". And the really funny part, it's the exact same computer I'd recomend for a hardcore computer nerd.
The only audience I don't think really should get a mac atm is PC gamers, but then the statment "I realized my windows machine was just a console" could be accurate for most people that actually have a need for windows. For them I suggest trying out a xbox. Everyone else should be considering Mac for thier next purchase, even if they decide against it, they need to seriously give it some thought before they get something else.
Slashdot Mirror
Statan called, he said he might need a new heating system.
Pigs are now flying outside my window.
I might actually get a sun box at home.
Question
What happens do the DECSS case now? Is it still illegal, or would it become instantly legal when this passed until it went to court again?
My keyboard is always most important, it goes center
Books tend to be anoying and have cheap spines sometimes, I've found either a paperclip or a heavy pen holds the pages flat on my desk, so I can place the book to my left (where a leftie might put his mouse).
Sometimes if the book is short it's actually easiest to lean it between keyboard and monitor, if you have space to do this, it normally is the best solution.
on this article fairly well.
I should note I just sent a signed letter to my congress critters, you should too. Be sure to mention (R) taking rights from citizens and granting them through goverment intervention to others (D) taking rights from citizens and placing them in the hands of corperations. A brief history of the purpouse of Copyright is normally helpfull also.
Mention this is a Ballot item to you (if that is true)
Question:
/etc/hosts for?
/etc/hosts (equiv) on windows, why should they even know it is even possible in linux.
What exactly does your grandma need to be editing
Is she getting to many popup adds while browsing pr0n or something? Seriously, grandma's don't do anything with
Nothing is intuitive.
Word isn't intuitive, if it was they wouldn't need a god damned helper app to explain everything you can do.
Windows 95 interface isn't intuitive, it's just been on every pc for 8 years. I was actually confused the first time I sat down at one.
Intuitive is over rated way to much, how functional something is normally is a direct relation to how "easy to pick up" it is.
Yes exactly, I was just pointing out he was wrong in stating that all mac users must use the service for them go gain mac's marketshare equal to the mac penetration of pc's.
If I suggested we pick up a market that was going to double our cost, well I wouldn't. OTOH I would have (as I always have done) made sure my minions, I mean developers below me, work in such a way that adding additional markets is cheap. To do otherwise (since this incurs very little inital cost) is similar to designing a brick and mortar franchise that has to be redesigned every time you open a new location. This allows us the option of switching if it became econmical, and more than once I have been in a situation where I have saved significant cash and goten a raise for it.
The fact that more people don't do this shows the general immaturity of the IT profession. IMO we will see more and more people having inital "platform agnostic" development because those who partake in it always beat those who don't.
Your other costs are significant, but at the same time it dosen't take much marketshare for them to be offset (remember it's easier to convince someone who wants a product, but currently cant have it, to buy it than it is to convince someone who has already chosen not to get it to buy it). I would say if you have 0.6% and apple has 7%(this is prety close to thier current marketshare I believe) it would be prety close to break even point for most products on some simple math I just crunched in my head.
You also must realize support etc costs increase mostly because more people are using that platform. If you have currently 19 "wintel" tech support you only need to add 1 "apple" tech support in the presented situation, so none of your costs really "double". (actually this one would probably be greater per customer, but it's all a balance)
To be clear, I'm not supporting everyone using apple products, I'm simply stating to say "only 5% marketshare is worthless" is absurd. In almost every other industry 5% marketshare increase is something to keep a very carefull eye on, and only people with little grasp of buisness would dismiss it offhand.
hm, apple+click seems to bring some up
so does my right mouse button
odd I find so little need for them most of the time on my mac though, I'm not sure if thats because I can navigate everything much more sucesfully with my keyboard or what.
I have no clue what your first paragraph is saying, so I'll ignore it.
You will gain 5% market penetration by supporting apple assuming all other factors are equal (which the are probably not in this case.. but you didn't say that did you)
I seriously doubt they have 100% market penetration in the PC world. In fact I own a PC and I don't have satelite, so I know they do not.
Say they have 10% penetration in the Wintel land, (this is very generous), and lets give Wintel 90% marketshare for consumer PC's (this might be accurate in europe and america, dubious worldwide), now you have 9% marketshare.
Lets add 10% of the Mac users out there, you gain 1/2%.
Now lets calculate the percent change in marketshare. Looks to be 5.5555555..%, seems to me they have gained prety close to the proposed 5% market penetration. This means for every 19 customers you have, you could have one more.
This applies equally well to browser arguments, in fact there it's even more valid, as the cost increases much slower if you develop right to begin with.
I have proven two things to myself here
1: People like you who make claims like "it only has 5% marketshare, so it's obviously worthless to support" definatly do not work in any sort of money-related position, and you are definatly not MBA's.
2: Neither of you have a clue how statistics work to manipluate truth.
In most markets people would kill for 5% market penetration.
Seems sort of odd to me, ah well.
Next from apple:
iAnal, the legal advice firm that gets so hung up on details it never gets it right.
With some simple hacking yes it could
I doubt it would take me more than 10 hours to rig up a "incorperated" digital recording device from my phone.
But I have some questions
From who? What service can I get? Where can I get coverage? Why something? When can I get it?
I'll use a dragon chip running linux in that case...
sad times are coming when chineese have more freedom than us
When the RIAA asks for anything else from the goverment to protect it's IP, the goverment will say "uh yeah, go away please..."
One can always wish...
It's really hard to come up with something else when your article trolling. Most of the actual articles are particularly boring by themselves.
using as many 10 watt bulbs as that thing would light...
Seriously, is efficency no longer even considered?
I still haven't had caffene, so I might not be completly coherent, but I'll try
Basically Free Market is driven by how much money you make, which works very well especially in a manufacturing type enviroment. One generally sees the "best required" (eg not too good, but not bad either) part arise from a Free Market manufacturing industry. The biggest problem in the free market aproach are companies that do nothing but manipulate data (to some extent accountants, and definatly power/teleco companies), these companies are driven by presenting an illusion of value to the consumer, then overcharing for it. Often times these "pure service" industries would better be serviced through goverment involvment, because as there is no "material product" involved, it is easy to start basically lying.
The other area the free market fails at least partialy, is in the Tech industries. Here you pay mostly for the R&D instead of the product itself, which allows a company to become horribly entrenched simply by having more capital. This entrenchment then develops brand loyalty and they can start selling stagnant products, hurting the other Tech players by permanently slowing the bar. I'm really not sure how to solve this, but it is a problem with the free market mantra.
Now for some politics, I personally see Republicans scared, we are finding out the free market has failed for the past 10 years, and the only one getting hurt are consumers. WorldCom/Enron etc etc are really hurting people's confidence in the ability of corperations to police themselves, and with the trust in accountants (remember in accounting class when your teacher said "no one in the world is more trustworthy than an accountant") being all but destroyed recently, one has to come up with an alternative. Bush is obviously forestalling this until after this falls elections because it would hurt the right, but I feel everywhere I go there is a distinct lack of trust in "the market" that I have never felt before. I think some major climate shift in washington is going to happen in the next few elections, as we shift back towards more corperate accounability (not bush's style, real accountability).
I have a few other things to say, but I really can't coherently write them, I might try a little later today and see if my headache is gone.
I'll take answer 1 please.
There is a guy who lived in china the first 19 years of his life sitting next to me (he moved 3 years ago), his summary of how everything is run could be summed up as "It's alot like america, just a lower Per Capita, and slightly higher taxes"
I've specifically asked how he sees the two goverments in comparison, he said "Well, if the Bush regime is indicative, our goverment is years ahead of yours". Just because they don't brainwash every school child with the democratic partyline (this living in a republic.. makes one wonder), dosen't really mean anything. He sees thier leaders as more intelligent and forward thinking, and though censorship is a problem, at least it's open in China.
He feels americans are so placant they would allow military rule by a "benevolent dictator" before they would fight back, he has serious concerns for the long term viability of our country.
I honestly think someone (I'm not sure who) is trying to start another cold war. Lets just hope it leads to mars colonies, because I would hate to see humanity destroyed from some button pushing.
Have you considered taking "Full time" classes (this can often be achieved by at little as 8hr/week if you pick the right classes, and it will all be evening) at your local CC.
When I was a fresh SR I looked down upon CC's as a dead end, but after paying 12k for my first year, and realizing the only thing I really had to show for it was a bucket of credits, I envied all the people who spent just over 2k for the same credits.
Make sure you don't rule this out offhand, it might be the solution your looking for. Often night classes at a CC don't feel anything like "coursework", instead they are closer to an open forum thats lead by an instructor. I've been taking 5h every semester since I got my BS, and I've never regreted it, even when the class was boring.
I forsee a major shift away from the "Free Market" mantra in the next 20 years, bookmark this post and laugh at me in 20 years if I'm wrong.
What you just described is the greatest symtom of the free market, while free market does have (Alot) of virtues, free market should never be considered an end all. If I wanted a free market I'd abolish the goverment, 'nuf said.
My best guess is they stole the "encryption scheme", and we all know copying or reverse engineering a encryption scheme is a more sever crime than assination of an elected official.
I will agree this is valid, but you have to understand some history.
When GUI apples were first released, your keyboard was a very major investment, and they wanted you to buy a mouse also. It was decided that keyboard modifiers of a single mouse button were more than enough, and at this point there was no pressure what so ever to use more than one. Things like CAD programs would have been completly keyboard operated most likley, and your mouse was mailny to navigate the interface.
Since then the need for at least 3 buttons has been conditioned onto us, because other OS's tend to avoid keyboard+mouse combos whenever possible (for ergonomic reaons I'd assume), but it's not a "need" for most users when they can use intelligent modifier keys.
Apple is very resistant to major changes to thier UI, this is one of the things that makes them good as I understand it. On this issue it hasn't been impressed upon them that most users do things that require a 17 button mouse with 5 scroll wheels and 75 lasers tracking movment in 3d space. In fact most users are quite fine with a single mouse button, the only time this really effects anyone is while on a laptop though, as everyone who cares would have a 165 button mouse plugged in to a desktop anyway.
Apple dosen't see a reason to change the layout of thier laptop, as for most NORMAL tasks, a single button is easily as efficent as a 3 button trackpad, and in many ways is actually better.
I think it is the perfect combination and I am becoming on of those Mac freaks i used to not understand.
heh, I had the exact same experience. When I first got my iBook it was more for the features it provided than because I really wanted a apple computer (one has to understand, I only have one windows machine in my entire house, and thats for guests that can't figure out what a textured X on the titlebar means, so jumping from one non-windows operating system to another wasn't a risk at all).
After a month, I found it hard to use any of my other computers. All of a suddent I realized I took every opportunity to promote Mac's (this is coming from a sys admin who kept his linux passion in the closet), because it's just so much easier, and at the same time so much more powerfull if you want it to be
I finally found a computer I can really recomend for my great parents, not just say "well I'm sure it will work well enough for your needs". And the really funny part, it's the exact same computer I'd recomend for a hardcore computer nerd.
The only audience I don't think really should get a mac atm is PC gamers, but then the statment "I realized my windows machine was just a console" could be accurate for most people that actually have a need for windows. For them I suggest trying out a xbox. Everyone else should be considering Mac for thier next purchase, even if they decide against it, they need to seriously give it some thought before they get something else.
You forgot to add "My name is eparkin, and I'm a computer geek" at the end
all posts praising "switch" must do so, it is the law!!
you have been warned