These are the prices for two separate channels, apples and oranges, different discount rates etc.
If M$ has made a deal with ASUS on this to get the lower price think about the message they are sending to other manufacturers: "If you are succesful selling a Linux computer we will give you a better deal". If I'm Dell I'm thinking how I can ramp up the number of linux boxes out the door.
I have been extraordinarily hard on laptop bags, but I have had this Samsonite backpack i picked up at Fry's for a couple years now. it looks well worn but nothing is even close to being worn out, it is a well made piece.
Looks like an average backpack, doesn't even remotely scream laptop. Solid support, comfortable to wear for long periods, sizeable laptop sleave, lots of well designed pockets for accesories. The newest models have a rather cool mp3 player pocket with a headphone cable pass through hole.
I am fulltime techie for a California election office, and one who fully supports the measures taken today. I attended all three days of hearings the last couple of weeks, felt like i had fallen into watergate.
There were many conspiracy nuts there, however as one who is closer to the situation I can tell you that it is a lot simpler than that. It is a story that most people in the high tech industry have seen played out many times.
Diebold bought a company a couple of years ago that was on the verge of bankruptcy. This company (Global election Systems) was a typical high tech startup, they spent a tiny bit on engineering a product, a little more on making it LOOK good, a little more on sneaking it past certification, a little on marketing it to election officials, and a LOT on trying to sell investors. And then the Vancouver stock market scandal hit. And took some of the founders to jail.
Diebold released that the product stank, but also that the timeline for getting a better product certified would cost them big in the marketplace. So they shuffled the unfinished, untested, uncertified, glamourous new product with the kludgy, limited, but certified old product. Always answering a question by referring to the product that would give the best answer. It was an elaborate shell game of trying to misdirect the responsible agencies until they could finish the new product. And in an old high tech story, product delays left them high and dry, with all of their marketing lies exposed. The engineers just could not keep up with the marketing peoples card tricks.
They will almost certainly be prosecuted, and almost certainly will be out tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in California alone, just in false claim lawsuits.
All of this was almost a given on March 2nd, when their untested tech crashed and burned on them.
The bigger news is that it looks like most of the other Counties that used an Electronic Voting System in March will opt to NOT use one in November, as the requirements to use the DRE voting systems are so onerous as to be impossible in this day of tight budgets and tight deadlines.
For a very good, balanced, view of this from the election officials point of view look at:
http://www.electionline.org/site/docs/pdf/EB7_ne w. pdf
What i think is neglected in the article and arguement is that downloading does not so much decrease CD sales though there is a small element of that, as it changes the way people shop for CD's. People who download CD's tend to be the people who also buy the most CD's, and they buy based on what they have heard through downloads as opposed to advertising and hype.
Try before you buy is the motto and it scares the record companies to death because artists are extremely unpredictable. Just ask how much it cost to eat Cline Dion's recording contract that was signed after titanic.
The consolidation of Radio ownership and formats and the new Satelite radio are the tools the record companies hope to use to force their chosen hits down our throat, and peer to peer, try before you buy is what allows people to counteract that.
As a longtime customer of several used book stores, and a longtime computer geek as well. I have watched with some pleasure as the internet revolution has provided the better used book stores with all the advantages that the chain new book stores have. It allows them to serve their customers better and to take better advantage of their knowledge of books. This article missed the point that the good storefront used bookstores get a large percentage of their "found" money books in over the counter transactions. And they also make a fair amount of money in markup from finding books over the internet. So those people coming through the door fuel the high profit internet business.
I think it has to do both with playing to the Oscar voters, but more significantly it is about cashing in on the Oscar buzz while still in release. If you release at the end of year the nominations come in while you are still in theaters.
I work for a local elections department, who are the people that actually check the signatures under the present system. Before electronic signatures would be valid for signing petitions or any other vote related process all local and state agencies would have to be able to verify those signatures. Given the somewhat transitory nature of current security mechanisms I see little chance of there being any way to sign petitions electronically for several years.
i.e. under current proposals for electronic voting you would have an electronic id assigned to you for a particular election. If they were to allow electronic signing of petitions you would have to first get a valid id from your local or state agency verifying your eligibility, this ID for securty purposes being only usable for a specific petition, and then "cash" that ID in on the signature site.
All of this of course dependent on state laws enabling it, state bureaucracy validating methods, and state and local agencies moving forward with technology. A process that will take years at least. However once it happens it will make some of our jobs easier.
I am sure it will increase the number of measures on the ballot, and by the time this all happens we may be able to vote on the internet as well, truly making for a digital democracy.
Slashdot Mirror
two things...
These are the prices for two separate channels, apples and oranges, different discount rates etc.
If M$ has made a deal with ASUS on this to get the lower price think about the message they are sending to other manufacturers: "If you are succesful selling a Linux computer we will give you a better deal". If I'm Dell I'm thinking how I can ramp up the number of linux boxes out the door.
I have been extraordinarily hard on laptop bags, but I have had this Samsonite backpack i picked up at Fry's for a couple years now. it looks well worn but nothing is even close to being worn out, it is a well made piece.
Looks like an average backpack, doesn't even remotely scream laptop. Solid support, comfortable to wear for long periods, sizeable laptop sleave, lots of well designed pockets for accesories. The newest models have a rather cool mp3 player pocket with a headphone cable pass through hole.
I am fulltime techie for a California election office, and one who fully supports the measures taken today. I attended all three days of hearings the last couple of weeks, felt like i had fallen into watergate.
e w. pdf
There were many conspiracy nuts there, however as one who is closer to the situation I can tell you that it is a lot simpler than that. It is a story that most people in the high tech industry have seen played out many times.
Diebold bought a company a couple of years ago that was on the verge of bankruptcy. This company (Global election Systems) was a typical high tech startup, they spent a tiny bit on engineering a product, a little more on making it LOOK good, a little more on sneaking it past certification, a little on marketing it to election officials, and a LOT on trying to sell investors. And then the Vancouver stock market scandal hit. And took some of the founders to jail.
Diebold released that the product stank, but also that the timeline for getting a better product certified would cost them big in the marketplace.
So they shuffled the unfinished, untested, uncertified, glamourous new product with the kludgy, limited, but certified old product. Always answering a question by referring to the product that would give the best answer. It was an elaborate shell game of trying to misdirect the responsible agencies until they could finish the new product. And in an old high tech story, product delays left them high and dry, with all of their marketing lies exposed. The engineers just could not keep up with the marketing peoples card tricks.
They will almost certainly be prosecuted, and almost certainly will be out tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in California alone, just in false claim lawsuits.
All of this was almost a given on March 2nd, when their untested tech crashed and burned on them.
The bigger news is that it looks like most of the other Counties that used an Electronic Voting System in March will opt to NOT use one in November, as the requirements to use the DRE voting systems are so onerous as to be impossible in this day of tight budgets and tight deadlines.
For a very good, balanced, view of this from the election officials point of view look at:
http://www.electionline.org/site/docs/pdf/EB7_n
of course the Iron Maiden stuff has nothing to do with the Heinlein Novel
What i think is neglected in the article and arguement is that downloading does not so much decrease CD sales though there is a small element of that, as it changes the way people shop for CD's. People who download CD's tend to be the people who also buy the most CD's, and they buy based on what they have heard through downloads as opposed to advertising and hype.
Try before you buy is the motto and it scares the record companies to death because artists are extremely unpredictable. Just ask how much it cost to eat Cline Dion's recording contract that was signed after titanic.
The consolidation of Radio ownership and formats and the new Satelite radio are the tools the record companies hope to use to force their chosen hits down our throat, and peer to peer, try before you buy is what allows people to counteract that.
As a longtime customer of several used book stores, and a longtime computer geek as well. I have watched with some pleasure as the internet revolution has provided the better used book stores with all the advantages that the chain new book stores have. It allows them to serve their customers better and to take better advantage of their knowledge of books. This article missed the point that the good storefront used bookstores get a large percentage of their "found" money books in over the counter transactions. And they also make a fair amount of money in markup from finding books over the internet. So those people coming through the door fuel the high profit internet business.
I think it has to do both with playing to the Oscar voters, but more significantly it is about cashing in on the Oscar buzz while still in release. If you release at the end of year the nominations come in while you are still in theaters.
I work for a local elections department, who are the people that actually check the signatures under the present system. Before electronic signatures would be valid for signing petitions or any other vote related process all local and state agencies would have to be able to verify those signatures. Given the somewhat transitory nature of current security mechanisms I see little chance of there being any way to sign petitions electronically for several years.
i.e. under current proposals for electronic voting you would have an electronic id assigned to you for a particular election. If they were to allow electronic signing of petitions you would have to first get a valid id from your local or state agency verifying your eligibility, this ID for securty purposes being only usable for a specific petition, and then "cash" that ID in on the signature site.
All of this of course dependent on state laws enabling it, state bureaucracy validating methods, and state and local agencies moving forward with technology. A process that will take years at least. However once it happens it will make some of our jobs easier.
I am sure it will increase the number of measures on the ballot, and by the time this all happens we may be able to vote on the internet as well, truly making for a digital democracy.