Trying to see whether an ad campaign has succeeded or failed based on the number of sales versus what was predicted in a given quarter is kind of like trying to infer causal effects for a graph showing correlation between two independently measured variables with no other data--a big mistake.
Whether an ad succeeds or fails often cannot be measured based on sales in a fluctuating economy with a variable product interest. The critical question is would they have sold 206k G5 computers if they had not run the ad campaign? There is also the corollary question of would they could have sold more with a different ad campaign?
The first of these questions is nontrivial to answer and requires good, well researched data on why your customers are buying the product. Apple may have that data--you most certainly do not. The latter is almost impossible to infer even with good data on people's purchasing.
0) It is a 1U Rackmount. Significantly smaller. 1) *Dual* onboard gigabit ethernet on an independent bus. 2) 3 SATA drive channels w/ *hardware* RAID 0, 1, 3, and 5. This is opposed to the Tower's support for Software RAID 0 and 1. 3) ECC RAM. 4) Lower heat and possibly power. This is (strictly) a guess based on them using a newer revision of the processor. 5) A DB-9 serial port. 6) Blinkenlights:-) 7) Yes, OS X Server.
>Hardly any digital music players will play it. In fact, I went to a >store recently and saw a dozen or so different MP3 players. >None of them played AAC.
Yet the vast majority of digital media players that are sold will play it.
>No, they used AAC solely because it was more amenable to >digital-rights-denial.
You do realize that you could strap FairPlay onto just about any codec, including Ogg Vorbis, right?
Put up with what? I'd rather the compiler make much ado about nothing than have the build silently fail. And even the most pedantic of compiler crud can be useful.
Now close your eyes and listen to it and determine all of that from your ears alone without going crazy.
The full compile output from that run has 190,613 characters (not including spaces), which can be loosely separated into 12,888 words. I don't argue that it is useful, but I can visually filter it and pick out the information that is important. Sorting through that when you don't have your eyes (which is the topic of discussion here) is a somewhat more difficult.
In short, the argument that "text terminals are automatically better for those who can't see" is specious. A spoken interface can be much more friendly than anything CLI oriented, depending on exactly what the task at hand is.
This is exactly why it's much easier for screen-readers to handle a linux environment than a windows/mac one. You can read text. It's rather more difficult to read graphics, images, buttons and the like.
Obviously you've never installed something on a linux box using the command line. If it doesn't work on the first go (for whatever reason) you are going to be doing a lot of prowling through less-than-helpful text, line at a time. When some of it reads along the lines of:
Oh No! It's integrated! I think we better contact the European government on this one, and maybe the US DoJ too. We can't let these blatent acts of integrating features in to operating systems continue! Sue! Sue! For the love of all that is good and holy and competative, sue!
What competition would they be driving out, exactly? The only providers of this feature closed up shop in 2003.
...and until 10.3 IE was the default on the Mac. Not to mention that if you just upgraded your system and had it as the default before it is *still* the default.
No, seriously, how will this help? This can go wrong in so many ways that it isn't even funny, is an enormous violation of privacy, but I can't for the life of me see how this will improve security.
Never mind we are focusing too much on front end security to begin with...
They got it a long time ago--that's why their OS natively supports clicks from three mouse buttons + a scroll wheel and can be programmed for more by people who make mice with more buttons. Safari even supports the middle-click as opening a new tab and Expose can be connected to any of the mouse buttons from the control panel.
If you don't like the single button mouse then buy your own. I have a kensington studio mouse and have been very happy with it.
The players are expected to sell for between about $700 to $800. They will play MP3s as well as audio and video recorded in Microsoft's digital format. The player will be significantly larger than the iPod in order to accomodate a video screen.
These things appeal to a different market (entirely!). Apple decided to make the iPod mini to take aim at the market that wanted a player even smaller than the iPod. They want an mp3 player--not something that will slice bread. This thing is huge and expensive when compared to other mp3 players--which is the only market that the iPod attempts to compete in.
Call this a "portable movie player" that's "aiming to repeat the iPod's success in a different market," but calling it an "iPod Killer" is a horrible misnomer. I seriously doubt that anyone would consider one of these things in lieu of an iPod.
Re:Europa is already highly radioactive!
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
The surface of Europa is heavily irradiated, but not the underlying ocean. As far as I know no one is suggesting that there is life on the Europan surface.
...and water is an excellent radiation shield--one of the best there is. I am not exactly worried about 5 kg of radioactive material on a planet massing 4.8E+22 kg and is entirely covered by water and ice.
My experience has been that the people who are saying "C is dying/dead" don't do any low-level or back end programming.
What's happening is that languages such as Java, C#, and Python are taking over the front-end design because they can be quickly prototypes, but there are still areas where you need speed and efficiency--that's where C comes in.
Starting many projects in C is premature optimization, but there are some where C is just the Right Language(TM) and I don't think that will change in the near future.
Then, of course, we could discuss how Objective-C is alive and well, or how the optimization step for Python is to write the code in C...
Some people are refusing to call Pluto a planet, saying that they stop at Neptune, and are using other terms to describe it. Frankly the entire argument is worthless.
>but why should engineers need hardcore math theory?
The same reason 3rd graders don't need to be using calculators. The more advanced the mathematics you use on a daily basis, the more theory you need to substantiate it.
When you are sitting around a table doing back-of-the-envelope calculations you won't necessarily have a calculator or a computer and that is one of the foundations of engineering.
>If you know that a given situation is modeled by a given >equation, and it can be solved using a fairly mechanical >technique, why should you care how the technique works?...because all models are wrong, but some are useful. You need to know the limitations on those models and often how to adapt them to get around those limitations. It also tells you what parts you can throw out--which speeds field calculations dramatically.
> It's not "depending on something else to think for us," its >taking advantage of the tools at hand.
So is a third grader using a calculator. Just because you *can* doesn't mean that you *should* when you are first learning it. If you become dependent on the tools they become a crux that you can't even approximate your way out of, if you understand your tools then those "back of the envelope" calculations become that much easier.
Any monkey can plug i^i into a calculator and see the result.
The "Techniques of Integration" have gone out of vogue since the advent of programs that are highly efficient at doing advanced integration have become popular in school. My calculus courses even had a lab section devoted to learning how to use Mathematica.
The problem is that it breeds students who are completely incapable of actually *doing* or *understanding*, but who have memorized those tables. If you run into something that doesn't fit the mold of those tables you have memorized you have to look it up and make something else fit that pattern, and this can be a fairly nontrivial thing.
Also, if your memory is even slightly rusty you have no one of double checking to see if you are right without resorting to a book or a program. No thanks.
We let people off the hook far too easily. We let them use calculators on tests before they are even capable of having a grasp on the theory. This results in students who panic when they see something that doesn't fit with their preconceived set of molds. I remember sitting through a lecture before a test in Advanced Engineering Math and watching the students (all engineering students who had math through Diff Eq) around me *literally shake* as the professor went over a Laplacian PDE that involved recognizing a Fourier transform.
The (two) math people in the class had no issues with it because we weren't dependent on something else to think for us.
I'm not so sure on this. The Mac version had languished behind at 6.0 (remember how much that sucked? I claim the last good version of MS Word was 5.1a) and MS had made no noise about updating it for a long time when that deal was made.
That said, what Apple primarily got was a public acknowledgment that they were going to be there in 3 years and a new version of office that was *much* improved. It gave the public confidence in Apple, something that isn't precisely measurable in price.
Slashdot Mirror
Trying to see whether an ad campaign has succeeded or failed based on the number of sales versus what was predicted in a given quarter is kind of like trying to infer causal effects for a graph showing correlation between two independently measured variables with no other data--a big mistake.
Whether an ad succeeds or fails often cannot be measured based on sales in a fluctuating economy with a variable product interest. The critical question is would they have sold 206k G5 computers if they had not run the ad campaign? There is also the corollary question of would they could have sold more with a different ad campaign?
The first of these questions is nontrivial to answer and requires good, well researched data on why your customers are buying the product. Apple may have that data--you most certainly do not. The latter is almost impossible to infer even with good data on people's purchasing.
Simple. That is what people are used to and it is emulating what they have seen before.
It isn't because it is "better" on any level, it is because that is what people use.
0) It is a 1U Rackmount. Significantly smaller. :-)
1) *Dual* onboard gigabit ethernet on an independent bus.
2) 3 SATA drive channels w/ *hardware* RAID 0, 1, 3, and 5. This is opposed to the Tower's support for Software RAID 0 and 1.
3) ECC RAM.
4) Lower heat and possibly power. This is (strictly) a guess based on them using a newer revision of the processor.
5) A DB-9 serial port.
6) Blinkenlights
7) Yes, OS X Server.
No GUI layout, as far as I know
Lyx comes to mind.
A pain to learn and use.
No more difficult than HTML for most tasks. Significantly easier for some and a bit more finicky for others.
>Hardly any digital music players will play it. In fact, I went to a
>store recently and saw a dozen or so different MP3 players.
>None of them played AAC.
Yet the vast majority of digital media players that are sold will play it.
>No, they used AAC solely because it was more amenable to
>digital-rights-denial.
You do realize that you could strap FairPlay onto just about any codec, including Ogg Vorbis, right?
Put up with what? I'd rather the compiler make much ado about nothing than have the build silently fail. And even the most pedantic of compiler crud can be useful.
Now close your eyes and listen to it and determine all of that from your ears alone without going crazy.
The full compile output from that run has 190,613 characters (not including spaces), which can be loosely separated into 12,888 words. I don't argue that it is useful, but I can visually filter it and pick out the information that is important. Sorting through that when you don't have your eyes (which is the topic of discussion here) is a somewhat more difficult.
In short, the argument that "text terminals are automatically better for those who can't see" is specious. A spoken interface can be much more friendly than anything CLI oriented, depending on exactly what the task at hand is.
This is exactly why it's much easier for screen-readers to handle a linux environment than a windows/mac one. You can read text. It's rather more difficult to read graphics, images, buttons and the like.
Obviously you've never installed something on a linux box using the command line. If it doesn't work on the first go (for whatever reason) you are going to be doing a lot of prowling through less-than-helpful text, line at a time. When some of it reads along the lines of:
gcc -c -ggdb -O2 -mcpu=7450 -malign-natural -Wno-long-double -fgnu-runtime -fno-strict-aliasing -Wall -Wno-import -Wno-protocol -Wno-long-long -DAPPVERSION=1.0d5 -I/usr/local/swarm2.2p/include ModelSwarm.m /bin/sh /usr/local/swarm2.2p/bin/libtool-swarm --mode link gcc -ggdb -O2 -mcpu=7450 -malign-natural -Wno-long-double -L/usr/local/swarm2.2p/lib -rpath /usr/local/swarm2.2p/lib -o armyants ArmyAnt.o GridCell.o main.o ObserverSwarm.o BatchSwarm.o ModelSwarm.o FoodWorld.o Parameters.o Output.o -lswarm
gcc -ggdb -O2 -mcpu=7450 -malign-natural -Wno-long-double -o armyants ArmyAnt.o GridCell.o main.o ObserverSwarm.o BatchSwarm.o ModelSwarm.o FoodWorld.o Parameters.o Output.o -L/usr/local/swarm2.2p/lib /usr/local/swarm2.2p/lib/libswarm.dylib -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/space -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/analysis -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/simtoolsg ui -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/simtools -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/random -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/tkobjc -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/tclobjc -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/objectbas e -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/activity -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/defobj -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/collectio ns -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/src/misc -L/Users/raven/Documents/Swarm/swarm/libobjc -L/usr/local/hdf5_1.4.5p2/lib -L/usr/local/png_1.2.5/lib -L/usr/lib -L/usr/local/blt2.4z/lib -L/usr/local/tcl8.4.4/lib -L/usr/X11R6/lib -L/usr/local/tk8.4.4/lib -lBLT24 -ltk8.4 -ltcl8.4 -lXpm -lpng /usr/local/hdf5_1.4.5p2/lib/libhdf5.dylib -lpthread -lz -lX11 -lm -ldl
ld: warning multiple definitions of symbol _deflate /usr/lib/libz.1.1.3.dylib(deflate.o) definition of _deflate /usr/lib/libz.dylib(deflate.o) definition of _deflate
ld: warning multiple definitions of symbol _deflateCopy
Hell, you have to put up with that (x20) on a successful compile, much less an unsuccessful one.
Incidentally, your comment on the mac is pure FUD. Just about everything, with very very few exceptions, can be done through the command line.
Oh No! It's integrated! I think we better contact the European government on this one, and maybe the US DoJ too. We can't let these blatent acts of integrating features in to operating systems continue! Sue! Sue! For the love of all that is good and holy and competative, sue!
What competition would they be driving out, exactly? The only providers of this feature closed up shop in 2003.Mozilla's not the default on any of those
...and until 10.3 IE was the default on the Mac. Not to mention that if you just upgraded your system and had it as the default before it is *still* the default.
How exactly will this improve security?
No, seriously, how will this help? This can go wrong in so many ways that it isn't even funny, is an enormous violation of privacy, but I can't for the life of me see how this will improve security.
Never mind we are focusing too much on front end security to begin with...
Must... not... feed... troll..
Argh!
They got it a long time ago--that's why their OS natively supports clicks from three mouse buttons + a scroll wheel and can be programmed for more by people who make mice with more buttons. Safari even supports the middle-click as opening a new tab and Expose can be connected to any of the mouse buttons from the control panel.
If you don't like the single button mouse then buy your own. I have a kensington studio mouse and have been very happy with it.
I thought the official N-Gage killer was N-Gage...
The players are expected to sell for between about $700 to $800. They will play MP3s as well as audio and video recorded in Microsoft's digital format. The player will be significantly larger than the iPod in order to accomodate a video screen.
These things appeal to a different market (entirely!). Apple decided to make the iPod mini to take aim at the market that wanted a player even smaller than the iPod. They want an mp3 player--not something that will slice bread. This thing is huge and expensive when compared to other mp3 players--which is the only market that the iPod attempts to compete in.
Call this a "portable movie player" that's "aiming to repeat the iPod's success in a different market," but calling it an "iPod Killer" is a horrible misnomer. I seriously doubt that anyone would consider one of these things in lieu of an iPod.
The surface of Europa is heavily irradiated, but not the underlying ocean. As far as I know no one is suggesting that there is life on the Europan surface.
Exactly.
My experience has been that the people who are saying "C is dying/dead" don't do any low-level or back end programming.
What's happening is that languages such as Java, C#, and Python are taking over the front-end design because they can be quickly prototypes, but there are still areas where you need speed and efficiency--that's where C comes in.
Starting many projects in C is premature optimization, but there are some where C is just the Right Language(TM) and I don't think that will change in the near future.
Then, of course, we could discuss how Objective-C is alive and well, or how the optimization step for Python is to write the code in C...
Some people get way too hung up on semantics.
Some people are refusing to call Pluto a planet, saying that they stop at Neptune, and are using other terms to describe it. Frankly the entire argument is worthless.
There is no comparison of an 8way ANYTHING to a Dual G5.
In terms of speed and price...You only use a 10 gauge if you are compensating for something.
Of course it is! Everyone I know got an iPod just to play with the bricks...
No extra functionality, MP3 only, not an iPod, and it only runs on top of MS software. Lame.
>but why should engineers need hardcore math theory?
...because all models are wrong, but some are useful. You need to know the limitations on those models and often how to adapt them to get around those limitations. It also tells you what parts you can throw out--which speeds field calculations dramatically.
The same reason 3rd graders don't need to be using calculators. The more advanced the mathematics you use on a daily basis, the more theory you need to substantiate it.
When you are sitting around a table doing back-of-the-envelope calculations you won't necessarily have a calculator or a computer and that is one of the foundations of engineering.
>If you know that a given situation is modeled by a given
>equation, and it can be solved using a fairly mechanical
>technique, why should you care how the technique works?
> It's not "depending on something else to think for us," its
>taking advantage of the tools at hand.
So is a third grader using a calculator. Just because you *can* doesn't mean that you *should* when you are first learning it. If you become dependent on the tools they become a crux that you can't even approximate your way out of, if you understand your tools then those "back of the envelope" calculations become that much easier.
Any monkey can plug i^i into a calculator and see the result.
The "Techniques of Integration" have gone out of vogue since the advent of programs that are highly efficient at doing advanced integration have become popular in school. My calculus courses even had a lab section devoted to learning how to use Mathematica.
The problem is that it breeds students who are completely incapable of actually *doing* or *understanding*, but who have memorized those tables. If you run into something that doesn't fit the mold of those tables you have memorized you have to look it up and make something else fit that pattern, and this can be a fairly nontrivial thing.
Also, if your memory is even slightly rusty you have no one of double checking to see if you are right without resorting to a book or a program. No thanks.
We let people off the hook far too easily. We let them use calculators on tests before they are even capable of having a grasp on the theory. This results in students who panic when they see something that doesn't fit with their preconceived set of molds. I remember sitting through a lecture before a test in Advanced Engineering Math and watching the students (all engineering students who had math through Diff Eq) around me *literally shake* as the professor went over a Laplacian PDE that involved recognizing a Fourier transform.
The (two) math people in the class had no issues with it because we weren't dependent on something else to think for us.
"The price is about $18,000, but you can choose between five colors."
the Apple strategy.
Reading Comprehension is a Good Thing(TM)
Try "replace the battery" not "throw it away."
>MS clearly had no plans to drop Office.
I'm not so sure on this. The Mac version had languished behind at 6.0 (remember how much that sucked? I claim the last good version of MS Word was 5.1a) and MS had made no noise about updating it for a long time when that deal was made.
That said, what Apple primarily got was a public acknowledgment that they were going to be there in 3 years and a new version of office that was *much* improved. It gave the public confidence in Apple, something that isn't precisely measurable in price.