For a short while people were willing to forgo Windows for the form factor and price of a netbook. Then Moore's law ticked over and Microsoft was able to enter that market - same price for the machine but with the specs that XP needs. Next iteration they'll be selling units with Vista on them. The only way to keep Microsoft out is to race to the bottom and there's no economic incentive for the hardware manufacturers to do that.
I'm thinking Linux is down because the offerings are. I'm one of those people who want a linux eeePC and can't get the model I want. I don't want a 1000HA, I want the upgraded chipsets from a 1000HE or 1004DN, but right now both only come with Windows. One nice thing the 1000HA did was if you went with Linux, they upgraded your harddrive from a mechanical 80GB to a 64GB SSD. Not too bad.
It has a really nice 15 hour battery life, which for a true portable one of the top considerations. Even if you can get real Windows on ARM (not Windows Mobile), good luck with finding any programs. With netbooks, my entire family wants linux. They don't want to run A/V for a thing they'll only browse/email with 99% of the time.
Um, what's your point? The reviewer did something illegal. Whether or not you think the movie's worth your money and regardless of what you think of the MPAA, it's not exactly legal to go download it. Admitting you did so is dumb. Admitting you did so when you work for a company that makes movies is idiotic.
Um, what are yu talking about? Downloading IS legal.
It's the distribution that's illegal. It's not even "illegal", copyright infringement may just be a civil matter depending where you are. Someone recently got off because they proved their torrent was set so it wouldn't upload anything, I wish I could find the story again.
It depends on the area you are in and how oversold the cable is. I have experience cable that is pretty fast (3,000kb/s downloads 5 years ago). Even though I'm only 1.5 miles from the local central office, I was too far away in the way they snaked those lines to get any DSL.
Now, with Fios, it doesn't matter so much. But cable internet was the first decent internet I had. It was a way big step-up and much cheaper than the ISDN we had previously, which itself, was only marginally faster than dialup at times, but was the first always on internet we had.
I believe AT&T already got big-ass tax breaks in return for promises of wiring up much of America with fiber optic. I wish they followed through. I don't see why most of the country can't get it. Over 99% of people get electric service and those thick wires are probably much more expensive. I don't think wireless is the way to go except for the remotest regions.
The FCC can't regulate what apps Apple makes available in their store. However, they might be able to force Apple to open the platform to other stores. Then again, Apple is free to kill the platform to prevent that (would they? could they be forced to if AT&T's contract demands of restrictions can't be met?).
If AT&T forced Apple to close the app store, they would just kill their own golden egg. They're greedy, but I don't think AT&T are that stupid. Going for a few extra bucks here and there isn't worth alienating the entire userbase who signed onto AT&T just for the iPhone.
The difference being the market. One is a server market, the other is a cult.
You mean a religion. A cult is a religion that just started out and has yet to garner success.
Besides, Apple can claim to be a derivative of Christianity and/or Judaism, giving it instant credibility. One has the Book of Job, and I'm sure the other has the book of Jobs. And every other products is sold as the second coming.
Had a mind blowing $7,000/mo of revenue coming in the door to pay three people and keep the lights on the worlds crappiest office.
Doesn't seem like much. 7000/mo*12month/3employees (yourself included?) = $28,000 a year. Of course, less than that, once the rent, electricity, ect. is figured in. However, I'm not sure what a good salary was when you're talking about.
Calling MacOSX a 'commercial unix' just doesn't taste right coming out of the mouth. It's like calling Microsoft Windows a 'Server Operating System' or an 'Enterprise Solution'.
OS X is a unix. It is commercial in that it's being sold and to a large market. I don't see the problem.
Star Trek will always do well at the box office; there's enough die hard trekkies that will go & watch regardless of quality.
I never watched one in the theatre (haven't watched that many at all, actually) even though I lived through some trailers of them over a while.
I don't know what it is, but this one actually seems compelling. Perhaps it's just because there doesn't seem to be anything worth watching until May when this and then T4 comes out, but I'm plannng on seeing it.
Whats more impressive is the fact that there is someone on/. still using fax.
I don't personally, my company does.
The latest generation has an arrogance that everything already is or should be on the internet, but the vast majority of transactions, while transistioning, is done in real life still and many of our clientele is older, therefore knows the older tech fairly well. They know email, but if they have an existing piece of paper they want to send you, it's far easier for them to reach for the fax machine than to go to the scanner, adjust the settings, get it on the computer, and then email as an attachment.
I know it's illegal, by the TCPA from 1991, although the amendments from 2005 turned it into a nightmare (political and prior business association exemptions). It just seems they loophole around or ignore court orders/judgements because they are out of state, out of jurisdiction: http://www.junkfax.org/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/fax/action/stop.html
Like email spammers, they just find ways around every discovered solution. One day, a version 2.0 has to come out and they have to be addressed on a technological level, perhaps protocol. I know that someone probably wants to reply with "Your solution will not work because..." list, but all it requires is critical mass on the part of companies tired of spending money and resources on this crap. Even a legislative solution of no caller id blocking would help tremendously (if you're going to communicate with the person, what's the legitimate use of hiding the number right up to the call/fax?)
Spam effects me in real life. My fax machine gets an offer nearly everyday. Considering the toner to this combo color scanner/fax/printer is rather expensive, it's downright insulting. I wish I knew how to get rid of these idiots, or at least find a cheap, real life digital service or device where I could log into and view the faxes and retain my existing fax number.
Despite the fact that my mail email address is not published online anywhere and I'm very careful who I give it to (I use different addresses for completing forms online) the amount of spam that Google filters out is still amazing.
The problem here are the retard acquaintances that put you on their mailing list along with 200 other of their acquaintances and then send every stupid little lolcat they find, latest joke they heard, or latest outrage in the news to everyone on that list and then your name is carried adinfinitum as it gets forwarded down the line. I'm sure those chain emails find their way to someone who loves to compile lists and gets a nice treasure trove one comes his way, with all the past recipients. Perhaps they even start those emails (shrugs)?
I don't know if bcc would fix this, rather than putting it in the "To:" or "CC:" line, from what I read it's very implementation specific but perhaps someone can tell me. The only other way I found to limit email is to have several accouts I can just kill on a whim and one close friends/immediate_family account. Truly unimportant sign-ups go straight to mailinator.
I know it doesn't affects us geeks, but it'll give Grandma a heart attack.
No she won't. Grandma would likely stick with the default system and anyone close enough to suggest it to her would likely buy it 3rd party and install it for her.
I'm sure people buy extra ram from Apple (and I wish they lowered their prices overall), but I would venture a guess a big percentage of people have a semi-technical savvy person in the family that steers them otherwise anyway.
Even for the premium, I know I prefer extended family to have Macs when I come home for the holidays and such. I don't have to deal with Windows bullshit anymore. Namely sitting there and fixing BS, or protecting the thing with a bundle of software which whereby you might as well by a lowerspecced mac because the speed would be the same. It would be nice to give them eeePC with linux, but Mac has the advantage to have some software made for it (Rosetta Stone, Quickbooks, etc) so they just look at software boxes requirement instead of hunting a linux repository for something "close" to it. They can also add their iPods and the like without hacks. (Once they have to do hacks like that, they just call up to complain.)
Right now, we are dealing with: Windows Shitty Security OS X Program Availability > Linux Program Availability (usually everything that can run on Linux can run on the other two, not the other way around). OS X Price > Window's Price > Linux Price (well, with OS X, it would be lower than Windows if you just make a Hackintosh)
OS X is a nice middle choice from this perspective for many people. With Wine and general growth, Linux Program Availability is getting better while remaining unacceptable, while Window's security has grown from absolute shit to just shitty (but acceptable 99% of the time with a router and normal user account).
The next 5 years will be interesting. Linux will attack from the ground up, it's starting to take on Windows in a serious fashion in the netbooks arena. Apple will likely to stay a 20%, unless they figure out a low cost strategy (personally, I think they should pull a Lexus/Toyota strategy - keep Apple as the premium brand, launch a low cost brand - plastic cases, no frills keyboard, no multitouch, etc. - to fill the role that competing third parties would usually provide. Assuming they are at all interested in dominant marketshare).
Out of the 3, the only loser I see longterm is Windows.
The not-so-good news is that in a "compromise," the board also voted to require that students "in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate and critique scientific explanations... including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to encourage critical thinking by the student." Score one for the Discovery Institute.
Everyone knows that scientific theory is not scientific fact. A better theory may come along and frequently does in the the sciences. Especially if this criticism examines scientific evidence as the amendment requests and not "biblical evidence" which a lot of creationism is based upon. (Lots of circular arguements that basically end with the bible said so and it's correct because it's the word of god, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)
Hopefully it would be interpreted that way and not just be a vehicle to introduce creationism. Afterall, scientific dogma is still dogma.
You probably had to tweak it though? I bought a lower-midend Acer Desktop ($450-500, without monitor, with some dual core AMD chip) about a year ago and it was nasty even with 2GB ram. It was just meant for the wife to browse on, but out of the box, you would start it up and you could hear the harddrive, CPU, and fans working the entire time even though it was advertised as a quiet system.
They did absolutely no optimizations at all at the factory, and the problem corrected itself once I turned all the graphics bling off, which was cranked up to maximum to choke the integrated graphics, as well as tediously uninstalling Acer's recovery bloatware which was just obnoxious. It's not a particularly demanding skillset, but I'm not sure most computer illerate people could do it, and would otherwise be stuck with a computer that freezes every few minutes while it's cranking away and takes 5 minutes or more to boot up.
The only thing that stopped me from installing Ubuntu on the spot was that it came with no Windows Recovery disk and if murphy's law struck and she wanted some windows program, I didn't want to have to buy that at some outrageous price because the recovery partition got mucked somehow. Of course, in the meantime, out of the blue, Vista refused to boot up (and she was always on a normal, not administrator account) so Ubuntu went on it eventually anyway.
Its time wasting experiences like those that remind me why I prefer macs for the parents and linux for myself.
Arguably, income tax is preferable over spending tax, because if you reward saving too much you end up with a deflationary death spiral which is what caused the great depression and would still punish people who saved their money because they'd probably be unemployed and have to spend those savings.
Umm... Arguably, without taxes and nothing backing the US dollar, inflation would spiral out of control and that would really punish savers.
He did not mention all taxes, just income tax, which existed federally in the US only since 1913.
Also, the federal reserve came into being since 1913. That's when sustained inflation also came in. If you look at most inflation calculators, a $1 from 1840 is worth pretty much the same in 1910. You can change the dates and it would change slightly, because of the variance in gold price, but it was mostly a small cycle.
However, since 1913, a $1 has lost 95% of its value. So savers have been punished. You are forced to "invest" now. Some people think all this capital "invested" is a good thing. Ask my parents who wanted to retire up to last August and others near their age about the last 15 years, what the majority have thought about their "investments."
No, business would almost treat it like a sale tax in terms of collection and sending it off. While normal people should pay it, they are neglible compared to business that do million dollar deals that don't pay a cent (but will under this system).
And it's so low, it's not worth cheating. Even if you blow $1,000,000; it cost $3,000 in tax. Or for someone that blows $100,000; $300. Who'll cheat on that? The penalties are too big for that.
Loophole are just avenues of abuse by which the well structured, well-to-do (read: corporations) with lawyers get away with paying less than their fair share.
there will be naysayers. You could listen to them forever and be paralyzed and always do nothing.
So there are rules of thumb. There are always exceptions, work on being an exception. The shelves of libraries are littered with biographies of successful people, almost none of them achieved it "by the book" or had the ideal life, pedigree, grades, what not.
Perhaps something like Napoleon Hill's Lessons of Success may be an inspiring read, although if you understand "I think I can" story, it gets you as much content.
Look at it this way: you'll only be 35. With 30 more years to retirement ON AN OPTIMISTIC note, assuming SS hasn't forced everyone to work till their 70th birthday.
Do what you want. Invest the hours to get good at it and stop having regrets. Having read numerous times about how it takes 10,000 hours to get world class great at something, I'm more convinced now that many of the great people are the ones that started young are because they're the ones without responsibilities and have the time. Not their youth alone. So it isn't too late, just start it and stick with it.
Slashdot Mirror
In June, already taking preorders. Since I never was at a fries, I can't comment on that part.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-from-always-innovating-harbors-removable-tablet-netb/
I'm thinking Linux is down because the offerings are. I'm one of those people who want a linux eeePC and can't get the model I want. I don't want a 1000HA, I want the upgraded chipsets from a 1000HE or 1004DN, but right now both only come with Windows. One nice thing the 1000HA did was if you went with Linux, they upgraded your harddrive from a mechanical 80GB to a 64GB SSD. Not too bad.
As it stands, I would almost have gone with a Windows netbook simply for the hardware I want and be forced to install linux on it. But I decided on the ARM based Always Innovating and it will undoubtedly run some type of linux:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-from-always-innovating-harbors-removable-tablet-netb/
It has a really nice 15 hour battery life, which for a true portable one of the top considerations. Even if you can get real Windows on ARM (not Windows Mobile), good luck with finding any programs. With netbooks, my entire family wants linux. They don't want to run A/V for a thing they'll only browse/email with 99% of the time.
Conficker? Or just some programmers/administrator's Easter Egg?
Um, what are yu talking about? Downloading IS legal.
It's the distribution that's illegal. It's not even "illegal", copyright infringement may just be a civil matter depending where you are. Someone recently got off because they proved their torrent was set so it wouldn't upload anything, I wish I could find the story again.
It depends on the area you are in and how oversold the cable is. I have experience cable that is pretty fast (3,000kb/s downloads 5 years ago). Even though I'm only 1.5 miles from the local central office, I was too far away in the way they snaked those lines to get any DSL.
Now, with Fios, it doesn't matter so much. But cable internet was the first decent internet I had. It was a way big step-up and much cheaper than the ISDN we had previously, which itself, was only marginally faster than dialup at times, but was the first always on internet we had.
I believe AT&T already got big-ass tax breaks in return for promises of wiring up much of America with fiber optic. I wish they followed through. I don't see why most of the country can't get it. Over 99% of people get electric service and those thick wires are probably much more expensive. I don't think wireless is the way to go except for the remotest regions.
If AT&T forced Apple to close the app store, they would just kill their own golden egg. They're greedy, but I don't think AT&T are that stupid. Going for a few extra bucks here and there isn't worth alienating the entire userbase who signed onto AT&T just for the iPhone.
Doesn't seem like much. 7000/mo*12month/3employees (yourself included?) = $28,000 a year. Of course, less than that, once the rent, electricity, ect. is figured in. However, I'm not sure what a good salary was when you're talking about.
I never watched one in the theatre (haven't watched that many at all, actually) even though I lived through some trailers of them over a while.
I don't know what it is, but this one actually seems compelling. Perhaps it's just because there doesn't seem to be anything worth watching until May when this and then T4 comes out, but I'm plannng on seeing it.
We need to fire the retards in our government. Bush was a first good step. This prosecutor would be a good second.
I don't personally, my company does.
The latest generation has an arrogance that everything already is or should be on the internet, but the vast majority of transactions, while transistioning, is done in real life still and many of our clientele is older, therefore knows the older tech fairly well. They know email, but if they have an existing piece of paper they want to send you, it's far easier for them to reach for the fax machine than to go to the scanner, adjust the settings, get it on the computer, and then email as an attachment.
I know it's illegal, by the TCPA from 1991, although the amendments from 2005 turned it into a nightmare (political and prior business association exemptions). It just seems they loophole around or ignore court orders/judgements because they are out of state, out of jurisdiction:
http://www.junkfax.org/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/fax/action/stop.html
Like email spammers, they just find ways around every discovered solution. One day, a version 2.0 has to come out and they have to be addressed on a technological level, perhaps protocol. I know that someone probably wants to reply with "Your solution will not work because..." list, but all it requires is critical mass on the part of companies tired of spending money and resources on this crap. Even a legislative solution of no caller id blocking would help tremendously (if you're going to communicate with the person, what's the legitimate use of hiding the number right up to the call/fax?)
Spam effects me in real life. My fax machine gets an offer nearly everyday. Considering the toner to this combo color scanner/fax/printer is rather expensive, it's downright insulting. I wish I knew how to get rid of these idiots, or at least find a cheap, real life digital service or device where I could log into and view the faxes and retain my existing fax number.
The problem here are the retard acquaintances that put you on their mailing list along with 200 other of their acquaintances and then send every stupid little lolcat they find, latest joke they heard, or latest outrage in the news to everyone on that list and then your name is carried adinfinitum as it gets forwarded down the line. I'm sure those chain emails find their way to someone who loves to compile lists and gets a nice treasure trove one comes his way, with all the past recipients. Perhaps they even start those emails (shrugs)?
I don't know if bcc would fix this, rather than putting it in the "To:" or "CC:" line, from what I read it's very implementation specific but perhaps someone can tell me. The only other way I found to limit email is to have several accouts I can just kill on a whim and one close friends/immediate_family account. Truly unimportant sign-ups go straight to mailinator.
No she won't. Grandma would likely stick with the default system and anyone close enough to suggest it to her would likely buy it 3rd party and install it for her.
I'm sure people buy extra ram from Apple (and I wish they lowered their prices overall), but I would venture a guess a big percentage of people have a semi-technical savvy person in the family that steers them otherwise anyway.
Even for the premium, I know I prefer extended family to have Macs when I come home for the holidays and such. I don't have to deal with Windows bullshit anymore. Namely sitting there and fixing BS, or protecting the thing with a bundle of software which whereby you might as well by a lowerspecced mac because the speed would be the same. It would be nice to give them eeePC with linux, but Mac has the advantage to have some software made for it (Rosetta Stone, Quickbooks, etc) so they just look at software boxes requirement instead of hunting a linux repository for something "close" to it. They can also add their iPods and the like without hacks. (Once they have to do hacks like that, they just call up to complain.)
Right now, we are dealing with:
Windows Shitty Security OS X Program Availability > Linux Program Availability (usually everything that can run on Linux can run on the other two, not the other way around).
OS X Price > Window's Price > Linux Price (well, with OS X, it would be lower than Windows if you just make a Hackintosh)
OS X is a nice middle choice from this perspective for many people. With Wine and general growth, Linux Program Availability is getting better while remaining unacceptable, while Window's security has grown from absolute shit to just shitty (but acceptable 99% of the time with a router and normal user account).
The next 5 years will be interesting. Linux will attack from the ground up, it's starting to take on Windows in a serious fashion in the netbooks arena. Apple will likely to stay a 20%, unless they figure out a low cost strategy (personally, I think they should pull a Lexus/Toyota strategy - keep Apple as the premium brand, launch a low cost brand - plastic cases, no frills keyboard, no multitouch, etc. - to fill the role that competing third parties would usually provide. Assuming they are at all interested in dominant marketshare).
Out of the 3, the only loser I see longterm is Windows.
Everyone knows that scientific theory is not scientific fact. A better theory may come along and frequently does in the the sciences. Especially if this criticism examines scientific evidence as the amendment requests and not "biblical evidence" which a lot of creationism is based upon. (Lots of circular arguements that basically end with the bible said so and it's correct because it's the word of god, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)
Hopefully it would be interpreted that way and not just be a vehicle to introduce creationism. Afterall, scientific dogma is still dogma.
You probably had to tweak it though? I bought a lower-midend Acer Desktop ($450-500, without monitor, with some dual core AMD chip) about a year ago and it was nasty even with 2GB ram. It was just meant for the wife to browse on, but out of the box, you would start it up and you could hear the harddrive, CPU, and fans working the entire time even though it was advertised as a quiet system.
They did absolutely no optimizations at all at the factory, and the problem corrected itself once I turned all the graphics bling off, which was cranked up to maximum to choke the integrated graphics, as well as tediously uninstalling Acer's recovery bloatware which was just obnoxious. It's not a particularly demanding skillset, but I'm not sure most computer illerate people could do it, and would otherwise be stuck with a computer that freezes every few minutes while it's cranking away and takes 5 minutes or more to boot up.
The only thing that stopped me from installing Ubuntu on the spot was that it came with no Windows Recovery disk and if murphy's law struck and she wanted some windows program, I didn't want to have to buy that at some outrageous price because the recovery partition got mucked somehow. Of course, in the meantime, out of the blue, Vista refused to boot up (and she was always on a normal, not administrator account) so Ubuntu went on it eventually anyway.
Its time wasting experiences like those that remind me why I prefer macs for the parents and linux for myself.
Redbox. Can't beat $1 rental at the grocery store. (Between that, netflix, and gamefly - blockbuster will probably go out of business in 5 years).
http://mises.org/story/1583
He did not mention all taxes, just income tax, which existed federally in the US only since 1913.
Also, the federal reserve came into being since 1913. That's when sustained inflation also came in. If you look at most inflation calculators, a $1 from 1840 is worth pretty much the same in 1910. You can change the dates and it would change slightly, because of the variance in gold price, but it was mostly a small cycle.
However, since 1913, a $1 has lost 95% of its value. So savers have been punished. You are forced to "invest" now. Some people think all this capital "invested" is a good thing. Ask my parents who wanted to retire up to last August and others near their age about the last 15 years, what the majority have thought about their "investments."
I heard you have to give the phone back if you break the contract within so many months of purchase.
No, business would almost treat it like a sale tax in terms of collection and sending it off. While normal people should pay it, they are neglible compared to business that do million dollar deals that don't pay a cent (but will under this system).
And it's so low, it's not worth cheating. Even if you blow $1,000,000; it cost $3,000 in tax. Or for someone that blows $100,000; $300. Who'll cheat on that? The penalties are too big for that.
Indivuduals should be equal in the eyes of the law. No special groups, no nonprofits. The "churches" already scam this all way too much.
If you want a low tax, go with this:
http://www.apttax.com/
Loophole are just avenues of abuse by which the well structured, well-to-do (read: corporations) with lawyers get away with paying less than their fair share.
there will be naysayers. You could listen to them forever and be paralyzed and always do nothing.
So there are rules of thumb. There are always exceptions, work on being an exception. The shelves of libraries are littered with biographies of successful people, almost none of them achieved it "by the book" or had the ideal life, pedigree, grades, what not.
Perhaps something like Napoleon Hill's Lessons of Success may be an inspiring read, although if you understand "I think I can" story, it gets you as much content.
Look at it this way: you'll only be 35. With 30 more years to retirement ON AN OPTIMISTIC note, assuming SS hasn't forced everyone to work till their 70th birthday.
Do what you want. Invest the hours to get good at it and stop having regrets. Having read numerous times about how it takes 10,000 hours to get world class great at something, I'm more convinced now that many of the great people are the ones that started young are because they're the ones without responsibilities and have the time. Not their youth alone. So it isn't too late, just start it and stick with it.