I'm typing this up on a W7 i7 desktop I built myself. I don't wanna be accused of Apple fanboiism. Like most here, probably, I assemble my computers -- in my case mostly because my PSU is rocksolid and I can reuse certain components like my video card (not a gamer), SSD, harddrives, Blu-ray reader, and cardreader my from the last computer. But more than any of that, so I don't have to put up with the shitton of crapware that comes on a new computer. Last time I bought an Acer for someone (2007, not sure how it's these days), it was a fucking nightmare and next to impossible to remove (not to mention no recovery CD - that was $20 extra + s/h).
I think your post a bit ridiculous. Apple is selling better than before, sales slowed due to size. It's easy to grow 1000% when starting from next to nothing (smartphone market, not the company itself).
Don't mistake an expanding market/dropping market share as Apple failing. It's inevitable in every market: there are luxury manufacturers and and those that sell to the masses. Rarely can a company do both well. Even among car makers, like Honda and Toyota, they eventually had to make up a new marque (Acura and Lexus) to bridge that gap semi-successfully.
Japanese companies used to be all about marketshare too and by chasing every sale, even at a loss, they gained little but the weatherwave loyalty of people who now buy chinese products because they are 10 cents cheaper.
Apple already went the marketshare route in the 90s. They licensed out their OS and it was a disaster for them. Now it probably would be even worse - they are not a hardware company in the traditional sense and tehy will get trounced playing that game.
Apple is all about comfortable margins. They still have one advantage others don't, which they sell. Ecosystem and integration. Someone that buys an iPhone is likely to spring for an iPad sometime, more than any other tablet. After they get a tablet, they might go for notebook. It all works together rather seamlessly for the average bullshit that average people do. Developers of both physically accessories and software like it since there are few major models to target.
Apple has it's customers and they pay the premium and are apparently happy more or less. Since it's no longer the early 90s, marketshare doesn't matter that much anymore in terms of program availabilty except for video games (which has largely gone to the console market anyway - Apple is notebooks more than desktops and it's unlikely hardcore gamers are going to rely on those anytime soon anyway).
Or like my parents. They got an Apple notebook (completely devoid of the bullshit crapware mentioned above), it's been way more rock solid software wise than their windows PCs (admittedly pre-W7), the notebook never fucks up/hangs in standby/hibernate or whatever and they bought the rest of the Apple stuff as they went along. I didn't have to babysit their computer while visiting. Win/win.
Apple is never going to be dell, and emulating Dell was never the reason why they got so big.
"No power"? An Atom could do everything that a comparably clocked P4 could do. I use mine for lightweight Python programming. I bought a 10" because it fits in a bag that isn't an obvious "mug me" magnet.
The average user doesn't program shit. They want to play their youtube videos and facebook. I don't have first hand experience, but I read that the early/mid atoms had problems with HD video.
Also,/. is absolutely fucking terrible when it comes to market trends. By the talk around here in late 2009\early 2010, the iPad was going to be a colossal failure simply because it wasn't the geeks here wanted (or so they said). Before that, the iPhone wasn't as poo-pooed but holyshit was the lack of a "real keyboard" ever going to hobble the living shit out of it. iPod: No wifi. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
The simple fact is that netbooks cater to a segment that went elsewhere. Real notebooks are cheaper than ever (by real, I mean with an adequate processor - I see a 15" on costco now for $400, sure there are even cheaper ones) and people who bought for size now have a myriad of phones and tablets that are even better in that direction.
And how many generations back makes you purely US roots? And since you mention thousands of years, I guess it's not just to the founding of the United States.
In the end, we all come the same basic area, and everyone emigrated here. Some, just earlier than others.
Just imagine the contributions he might have made if he had lived. Such a shame.
It's just a hunch, but I have a feeling, unlike say technology, that mathematics is one of those fields where discoveries aren't always inevitable. Either someone thinks up of some things or they don't.
Even if there were real 3D, how would you make use of this properly? Current story telling only works because you can limit and control what people see. How will a horror movie work if half the audience can already see the guy hiding behind the rock before he leaps out?
I guess I was misinformed and all magicians only exist in 2 dimensions.
The motivation for the rules basically is "Yeah, Google, Microsoft, etc, you can put your experimental cars on the road but don't let a human's hand off the wheel for a second." And I don't disagree.
Because, let's get real, that's the stage driverless cars are at still. About the most automated thing you will see driving right now is a self-parallel parking car that's not even deciding where to park, just how to do it once the driver selects it.
Otherwise, it's not a burning issue. The tech companies still get to put their prototype toys on the road, and someone still has to put their life on the line to be in them, and hopefully, stop any accidents before they happen.
Like Apple, currently shopping around for another chip manufacturer after Samsung raised prices, (to earn back billion dollar fine which will most likely be overturned on appeal).
Re:It's just training for future geekery
on
Has Lego Sold Out?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I have been told there is a reason for the expense. Legos are built to extremely tight tolerances, something up to 10 micrometers. Tight tolerances means everything is more expensive (the dies have to be swapped out more, quality control, etc).
The reason for tight tolerances is that it has to be backwards compatible with all the other lego sets out there. They just have to fit.
You could buy the alternatives, like mega bloks, but the creations often fall easily apart and don't have quite the same fit, even if the pieces are from the same tub.
Ubuntu is a tough enough sale and that's with some proprietary stuff added on. Don't even want to know if Trisquel can play DVDs out of the box or not.
An honest question: how many years of no temperature rise would it take for the catastrophic CAGW thesis to be rejected? We've had about 15 years of near stasis, and recent results show that the heat isn't 'hiding' in the ocean - it simply doesn't exist, though CO2 continues to rise. So just how many more years are needed for the IPCC to let go of the millenialist thermageddon fantasy and bring the temperature rise predictions back to a more realistic level (seems likely to be about 1-2C rise for a CO2 doubling).
Just because little kids can use it doesn't make it a good idea.
Most kids are happy to get their blinkenlights and playing their games, they aren't demanding or advanced users in lots of ways. (Note: I fixed my nephews' and niece's computers more than once or set shit up. The old truism that all kids are prodigies at technology is annoying. Some of those computers were truly malware-infested-from-free-hello-kitty crapware shit boxes.)
by a single metric, what use is doing to the human brain, other than to have another pointless number to have people boast about. (Nearly every person I met who bought up their IQ almost always claims to have 130+ points.... and I'm too polite to say it to them, but apparently underapplying themselves like crazy).
I almost never see a car rated just by it's mpg nor do I ever see CPUs rated just by their GHz.
I think one of the highest designated IQs belonged to Goethe and couldn't do math beyond some trig iirc for shit. Great writing though. Obviously a different type of intelligence than Einstein.
When we have the last three Presidents widely known for smoking/taking marijuana and way harsher drugs, doesn't that undermine the entire propaganda about drugs being a dead end once someone takes them? Or hypocritical for all of them to persecute others?
I agree with you, although I would use total credit market debt (which is around $55 trillion) putting us around 367% gdp. IIRC, no country ever came back from more than 250%, which was Britain from Napoleonic era to Late Victorian era (they had the benefit of shrinking a Navy and going through the industrial revolution).
You can't both simultaneously predict that technology would rise in all areas and predict that technology will not have risen in regards to food production.
Nearly all our advancements the last 200 years is tied to oil and/or cheap energy.
Compared to Greece, the saving grace of American debt is that it is denominated in paper backed by nothing that the nation can print.
To hyperinflate will be no fun, for people with savings, and people trying to buy goods (what country will sell to you if your money is getting drastically worth less all the time), but we are not quite Greece.... America has an option, for lack of a better term, to reboot for no initial cost, other than building up it's credit from scratch again.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm typing this up on a W7 i7 desktop I built myself. I don't wanna be accused of Apple fanboiism. Like most here, probably, I assemble my computers -- in my case mostly because my PSU is rocksolid and I can reuse certain components like my video card (not a gamer), SSD, harddrives, Blu-ray reader, and cardreader my from the last computer. But more than any of that, so I don't have to put up with the shitton of crapware that comes on a new computer. Last time I bought an Acer for someone (2007, not sure how it's these days), it was a fucking nightmare and next to impossible to remove (not to mention no recovery CD - that was $20 extra + s/h).
I think your post a bit ridiculous. Apple is selling better than before, sales slowed due to size. It's easy to grow 1000% when starting from next to nothing (smartphone market, not the company itself).
Don't mistake an expanding market/dropping market share as Apple failing. It's inevitable in every market: there are luxury manufacturers and and those that sell to the masses. Rarely can a company do both well. Even among car makers, like Honda and Toyota, they eventually had to make up a new marque (Acura and Lexus) to bridge that gap semi-successfully.
Japanese companies used to be all about marketshare too and by chasing every sale, even at a loss, they gained little but the weatherwave loyalty of people who now buy chinese products because they are 10 cents cheaper.
Apple already went the marketshare route in the 90s. They licensed out their OS and it was a disaster for them. Now it probably would be even worse - they are not a hardware company in the traditional sense and tehy will get trounced playing that game.
Apple is all about comfortable margins. They still have one advantage others don't, which they sell. Ecosystem and integration. Someone that buys an iPhone is likely to spring for an iPad sometime, more than any other tablet. After they get a tablet, they might go for notebook. It all works together rather seamlessly for the average bullshit that average people do. Developers of both physically accessories and software like it since there are few major models to target.
Apple has it's customers and they pay the premium and are apparently happy more or less. Since it's no longer the early 90s, marketshare doesn't matter that much anymore in terms of program availabilty except for video games (which has largely gone to the console market anyway - Apple is notebooks more than desktops and it's unlikely hardcore gamers are going to rely on those anytime soon anyway).
Or like my parents. They got an Apple notebook (completely devoid of the bullshit crapware mentioned above), it's been way more rock solid software wise than their windows PCs (admittedly pre-W7), the notebook never fucks up/hangs in standby/hibernate or whatever and they bought the rest of the Apple stuff as they went along. I didn't have to babysit their computer while visiting. Win/win.
Apple is never going to be dell, and emulating Dell was never the reason why they got so big.
The average user doesn't program shit. They want to play their youtube videos and facebook. I don't have first hand experience, but I read that the early/mid atoms had problems with HD video.
Also, /. is absolutely fucking terrible when it comes to market trends. By the talk around here in late 2009\early 2010, the iPad was going to be a colossal failure simply because it wasn't the geeks here wanted (or so they said). Before that, the iPhone wasn't as poo-pooed but holyshit was the lack of a "real keyboard" ever going to hobble the living shit out of it. iPod: No wifi. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
The simple fact is that netbooks cater to a segment that went elsewhere. Real notebooks are cheaper than ever (by real, I mean with an adequate processor - I see a 15" on costco now for $400, sure there are even cheaper ones) and people who bought for size now have a myriad of phones and tablets that are even better in that direction.
And how many generations back makes you purely US roots? And since you mention thousands of years, I guess it's not just to the founding of the United States.
In the end, we all come the same basic area, and everyone emigrated here. Some, just earlier than others.
Perhaps liability reasons. No good deed goes unpunished, especially in litigous America.
Just imagine the contributions he might have made if he had lived. Such a shame.
It's just a hunch, but I have a feeling, unlike say technology, that mathematics is one of those fields where discoveries aren't always inevitable. Either someone thinks up of some things or they don't.
Why are they entitled to a return? I invested in a number of things without a return.
Do we design entire systems where people are entitle to returns just because they invested in something?
Imo, it will probably be more likely to become a fixture in video games than in movies. Just the nature of the beast.
I guess I was misinformed and all magicians only exist in 2 dimensions.
The motivation for the rules basically is "Yeah, Google, Microsoft, etc, you can put your experimental cars on the road but don't let a human's hand off the wheel for a second." And I don't disagree.
Because, let's get real, that's the stage driverless cars are at still. About the most automated thing you will see driving right now is a self-parallel parking car that's not even deciding where to park, just how to do it once the driver selects it.
Otherwise, it's not a burning issue. The tech companies still get to put their prototype toys on the road, and someone still has to put their life on the line to be in them, and hopefully, stop any accidents before they happen.
That reported story, sourced from a single Korean newspaper article, has been denied:
http://www.zdnet.com/samsung-wont-increase-the-price-of-apple-processors-report-7000007412/
As they are in contract, I find it hard to believe that a supplier could arbitrarily raise prices.
What the hell. Since 2008?
Who the hell does their versioning? That's just pathetic.
Whoosh.
I have been told there is a reason for the expense. Legos are built to extremely tight tolerances, something up to 10 micrometers. Tight tolerances means everything is more expensive (the dies have to be swapped out more, quality control, etc).
The reason for tight tolerances is that it has to be backwards compatible with all the other lego sets out there. They just have to fit.
You could buy the alternatives, like mega bloks, but the creations often fall easily apart and don't have quite the same fit, even if the pieces are from the same tub.
Ubuntu is a tough enough sale and that's with some proprietary stuff added on. Don't even want to know if Trisquel can play DVDs out of the box or not.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
Click on the intermediate tab after finishing beginner.
Just because little kids can use it doesn't make it a good idea.
Most kids are happy to get their blinkenlights and playing their games, they aren't demanding or advanced users in lots of ways. (Note: I fixed my nephews' and niece's computers more than once or set shit up. The old truism that all kids are prodigies at technology is annoying. Some of those computers were truly malware-infested-from-free-hello-kitty crapware shit boxes.)
by a single metric, what use is doing to the human brain, other than to have another pointless number to have people boast about. (Nearly every person I met who bought up their IQ almost always claims to have 130+ points.... and I'm too polite to say it to them, but apparently underapplying themselves like crazy).
I almost never see a car rated just by it's mpg nor do I ever see CPUs rated just by their GHz.
I think one of the highest designated IQs belonged to Goethe and couldn't do math beyond some trig iirc for shit. Great writing though. Obviously a different type of intelligence than Einstein.
Who do you think pushed to get Wikileaks payments blocked? The US Government.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875
Not just Obama, but Bush2 and Clinton as well.
When we have the last three Presidents widely known for smoking/taking marijuana and way harsher drugs, doesn't that undermine the entire propaganda about drugs being a dead end once someone takes them? Or hypocritical for all of them to persecute others?
Giant?! Heretic! True believers only believe in the FLYING Spaghetti Monster!
We must engage in battle, for I will not let this blasphemy stand!
Fuck that, time to push back, eliminate the taxes, and start implementing a sane copyright law.
I agree with you, although I would use total credit market debt (which is around $55 trillion) putting us around 367% gdp. IIRC, no country ever came back from more than 250%, which was Britain from Napoleonic era to Late Victorian era (they had the benefit of shrinking a Navy and going through the industrial revolution).
Ever watch the Chris Martenson talk in Madrid? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBiTnBwSWc
Our food supply is highly dependent on oil, from the machines plowing/harvesting to the fertilizer made from petroleum byproducts.
Nearly all our advancements the last 200 years is tied to oil and/or cheap energy.
Compared to Greece, the saving grace of American debt is that it is denominated in paper backed by nothing that the nation can print.
To hyperinflate will be no fun, for people with savings, and people trying to buy goods (what country will sell to you if your money is getting drastically worth less all the time), but we are not quite Greece.... America has an option, for lack of a better term, to reboot for no initial cost, other than building up it's credit from scratch again.