With hardware people tend to play the price vs features game and optimize from there. With software, people just tend to install the best software in the general way and go on from there.
I'd hate to do prices vs features game on software.
So, if you are serious about legitimizing software, do a cost vs features analysis, and see what is the cheapest one to get. For example, choose between the various versions of Windows, various versions of Office and buy the one that is needed by which person. Also, look into site licenses etc.
Adamo. It's like a MacBook Air, but crappier.
Adamo. Apple's price, Dell's quality.
Adamo. Because we saw Vista running on a MacBook Air once.
Adamo. Because "Adammit" probably wouldn't sell well.
Adamo. If we really knew Latin, we wouldn't be working for Dell now would we?
Unlike Apple's list price, Dell's list price is not very meaningful as Dell has these sales (up to 30% off routinely and higher sometimes).
One of the versions of Vista, Vista business is XP. You choose that and they put in XP for you. It costs more though but that's not Dell's fault. It's the best they can do. When I see people using Macbooks, more than half the time they're using XP.
I think the Dell XPS laptops are pretty good looking. I don't really like the Apple notebooks except for the MacBook Pro. All the others look like eeePC cheap plastic toy laptops. But, MacBook pros are $2000+.
I think Lenovo completed messed up their Thinkpad brand name. Hopefully, Dell keeps the quality up and I think it'd be nice to have an Adamo.
The other reason I don't like MacBooks is that it seems that people who use them seem have fallen in love with their laptop. They always want to have it on and in front of them at all times - always claketing around this or that. I hate to be behind someone with a MacBook in class or in a meeting with someone with one. I want to scream put that thing away. Maybe it's the just the people who like to spend a lot of time with on their laptops get Macbooks.
The point isn't if it would help person 1 and person 2. The road to nowhere of course some guy to get somewhere.
The fact is, we have Microsoft, who has billions of dollars, wants the government to half pay for a bridge. They can just pay for it themselves and let the government worry about other places where there is more need.
In other words, I'd like for the government to half fund my driveway and it would benefit me, and all the residents who come visit me. In fact, I estimate at least 20 people to benefit every week.
5 hours after the first sale, it appeared on the warez sites. Man that's got to suck. It's a shame the thieving cunts don't realise that with most of the App Store stuff they pirate that it's usually only a one man band behind it.
As the title summary says, "everyone is familiar with the story of the iPhone developer who spends two weeks of spare time making a game that goes on to make them hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The developer writes software to make money, the pirate pirates for whatever reason. As a software developer, I wish it was a straightforward path of writing software to making money but it's not.
Any other industry, it's the same thing. For any one thing that is right, there are a thousand things that can go wrong. You can't just waltz in and expect to make money. There are pirates, there are contracts, there are barriers, there are always something.
Maybe the pirates give the developer the benefit of the doubt and think they wrote it to make the world a better place. Maybe the pirates are just filling in the unspoken role of getting the work out there.
. It was another 3ft cable, but it was different than the others and had no price on it. After looking around for someone for about 10 minutes, I found one of the sales dudes and he told me it was $18, but that he had been hoping to pick that one up for himself.
You paid $18 for an HDMI cable and you didn't think you got screwed.
And, you fell for I want to get it for myself trick?
I managed to pull 30% off, which actually is a pretty good deal on something like a game console, which usually will have a very strict price set by the manufacturer and is constant at any place you try to shop for it (including online).
XBox has holiday bundle, 20GB or 60GB bundles, jasper and other chipsets etc etc. Buying a new xbox isn't that straightforward.
The other thing about PC games is the non-standard large packaging. XBox games all come in DVD sized green cases and PS3 games come in the transparent cases. PC games come in big bloated boxes and in different shapes and sizes. So, they are very hard to collect and display.
I know a lot of people buy physical games to collect them as well as to play them. I think XBL system will probably replace the game collection shelf but a lot of people I know buy more and more games to have more of the green boxes in their library.
This brings up a very interesting topic for debate...thinking about digital libraries, that is. Why, legally, can a dead-tree library exist, but a digital one cannot? Why can I not get digitized books for free on my Kindle?
Because not everyone has a Kindle and people would probably print the book otherwise.
So, maybe a completely locked up device like Kindle would encourage publishers to create digital libraries (and charge a lot of money, esp. to universities for students to access them).
But, the guy who wrote the article had no intention of actually getting a job in India or China. He was just trying to get somebody to say something stupid at the consulate.
Actually, if you work for a Chinese company, they will put out a press release to the local media that their company is so great that even American want to work for them (it did happen! though it was for a student who was working at a Chinese factory - not really for wages but for experience).
This is why the US is falling behind faster than we think. We are more governmentally encumbered and less capitalist than China in many ways!
Why is it that with China the first reflex is always "us vs them" like the parent post?
The Chinese will innovate with the resources that the Chinese have while the US will innovate with the resources that the Americans have (note no us and they).
I don't understand why people feel that it would be better if the Chinese were deprived of this opportunity. I would be more inclined to say "join the party", the "more the merrier" in the engineer's club.
Out of curiosity, why did the quality of the product go down when moving to China? Lack of skills of the workers there? Through time it would go up and they will produce high quality stuff?
Reminds of the made in Mexico fender story. When Fender started making guitars in Mexico - the cheaper Fender standard line, they were terrible. After about 5-6 years, the Mexican guitarsmiths became skilled enough that it was quality guitars and the good guitars from Mexico was better than the average ones in the US for half to one third the price. Of course, MIM Fenders weren't allowed to have the full 22 frets of the US Fenders and also weren't allowed to use the same finishing chemicals so it always was inferior and weren't allowed to use the high quality electronics.
Also, similar stories of Fender in the 80s with Japan and Gibson with Epiphone in Korea. While I always aimed to get the US guitars, you always had to settle for the foreign guitars while you worked your way up there. So, the whole quality aspect always intrigued me. Though, I hear Japan guitars are higher quality than US guitars and you can't buy a new MIJ guitar anymore. I knew lots of guitar players who were looking for Japanese speakers who could order from a Japanese website (all in Japanese) some models that were only Fender custom shop models that were so much better in quality.
Capitalism doesn't require the poor to thrive. Chasing profit doesn't always lead to poor people and their creation and exploitation.
If we were ideal capitalist and the information and free and opportunity was fair, the poor factory worker would figure out that his boss is making too much profit. He would go to the local bank, create a proposal to start his own factory with and offer lower prices for a smaller profit. Then, the rich factory owner would lose revenue and become poorer while the factory worker got richer.
The poor are poor because they are restricted in information and opportunity, which I don't think is capitalism.
I live in the rust belt states, and hear stories from middleaged people who were teenagers in the 60s and 70s and how they used to work in factories. Factory jobs were the McJobs of today. They don't recall the jobs fondly, just the people they worked with.
You essentially have the "made in usa" stuff made by the same people who make the "made in usa" burgers at your local fast food joint. The quality stuff that people seek on eBay and parts stores is the quality stuff that has survived. There was plenty of crap then but people only remember the good stuff and seek out the good stuff.
The stories of Chinese sweatshops have existed for at least 2 decades - from the Nike shoes 15 years ago to the iPods of today. You probably own a Nike and an iPod.
So, I think the notion of quality just by being made in the USA is false. Chinese also make quality products among the not so quality products. The Chinese factories can really exploit their labor and the reaction of the US manufacturing to run to China for the cheap labor gold rush and the US consumer to consume more and more. I doubt embargo would work, would you want every other country to get $10 keyboards while we pay $50 for ours? Computer prices would skyrocket and we'd lose productivity trying to make the old keyboards last a lot longer.
If they wanted to avoid criminal charges for treason, they should be forced to do that. Unfortunately it's not defined that way in the US, although perhaps "aid and comfort to our enemies" might entail employing them and moving our industrial base to their countries.
Great thinking. Why don't we create a blanket law when you can charge anyone, any company on vague reasons as "aiding and comforting enemies"?
This country is an expensive place to live and work because, as a democratic society, we've voted ourselves a lot of cruft. Some of it is good, some of it is excess. There is a price however, and the price is wages.
It's "democracy" now that has to do with the wage differentials. A company will hire someone if the wage they pay is less than the benefit to the company. Here it was the case since the our engineers were the best and the workers the most productive. When did that change?
Corporations want to circumvent this cruft by simply moving away from the problem (while simultaneously leeching the benefits of it, by maintaining themselves in the US). They leech on our society, using it to protect them while they grow their businesses, taking full advantage of what the country has to offer...while simultaneously selling it out. If it isn't stopped, we'll bleed dry.
Yes, vague patriotic remarks, booming us and them rhetoric and "bleed us dry", a physical pain equivalent. Don't let realism get in the way of all that.
Then ask why it is that IBM, who is based in Armonk, NY, should be able to make a profit by undermining our democracy - bypassing laws our government created to benefit us, because they don't really want to pay for it.
IBM should look to be as profitable as possible, as innovative as possible and as much a market leader as possible without breaking any laws. If the government wants to be protectionist and say no import of labor for production of IBM products, I'm sure they'll agree. It might mean that foreign companies will then be able to produce the items that IBM produces for a fraction of the price and kill IBM. (*example the auto industry and the UAW*)
See this is part of the problem with people on slashdot. We want protectionism when it comes to our jobs. We want to be paid highly and all foreign competition that would potentially lower wages should be taken off the market. But, we don't care when all the factories move overseas where we can potentially buy a dozen computer off each paycheck, or buy all sorts of "toys". We want protectionism in what we produce and free market in what we consume.
I may agree with them that there's a lot of inefficiencies and excess in some of the things that drive our wages up. But the proper solution is to work within the system, not erode it.
I say let the wages be worth it. If a third world person in a third world university with the crippling infrastructure and education system can get a good enough education to do the same work at the same quality, then it's kinda silly to ask the government to protect my job. I'd like to think that I'm worth every penny that I'm being paid.
I know people are scared and I felt scared a lot. But, I just feel we have to be worth it and IBM will have no problems hiring Americans since they're worth every penny they pay. We have first worth infrastructure - fast internet, great libraries, great pool of engineers, scientists etc and to be threatened by a foreigner who has to study in an under-funded university with inept professors and out of date hardware and knowledge is crazy.
Yes, SSDs are phenomenal. SSDs are fast. SSDs are awesome. It's like describing detergent or something. Soon they'll be 120GB for $100, real soon.
When we have real facts and real numbers of what they can do and what they cost and all that sorted out, there will be industry buzz. Right now, it's just vague abstract words that people sprout out about SSDs.
Yes--there has. AIG (the company that got the biggest bailout) tried to lay off almost 90% of their I.T. people back in the early 1990s--and outsource all of their jobs to an Indian company. The backlash was fast and furious--Maurice Greenberg, then the CEO, spent major time in front of Congress explaining.
Outsourcing has nothing to do with H1B. I'm talking about hiring staff on H1Bs at half the salary that you'd give to a US citizen.
Though, outsourcing is what happens when you don't allow H1B. Instead of bringing the people here, they send the work to the people.
An American doesn't so much as have a right to enter the building without the corporation's permission. On a bulletin board in a hallway doesn't mean visible to outside people who don't work for the company and would be applying for the job otherwise, if the hiring process for the position hadn't been specifically tainted so only a H1B applicant would ever satisfy them.
It says something like a public place I believe. Ours was in our reception waiting area where the secretary was. Lots of people would read up our H1Bs info while they waited for someone. Every company has a reception.
Yes, companies can cheat but they can cheat in other areas as well. From my knowledge, most H1Bs are college graduates or phds from the US universities who were international students. They are a good fit for a job description and they get hired, file for H1B and become US citizens 8 years down the road. I'm sure some companies engage in shady H1B stuff, but like any other law, it has to be enforced.
What they had him do was write down every skill he had at any level at all which could be even slightly construed as related to the job. We obviously never interviewed anyone for the position, and I doubt my supervisor ever read any responses to the ad - unless there was some legal reason to do so.
Which is pointless since if someone has been doing a job for a certain amount of time, it's not like you can just replace them and train the new one in 1 week.
The initial hiring requires that you absolutely cannot find any local employee with the skills. If you post a job and an American citizen and a foreign national applies, the foreign national is immediately out of contention.
Slashdot Mirror
With hardware people tend to play the price vs features game and optimize from there. With software, people just tend to install the best software in the general way and go on from there.
I'd hate to do prices vs features game on software.
So, if you are serious about legitimizing software, do a cost vs features analysis, and see what is the cheapest one to get. For example, choose between the various versions of Windows, various versions of Office and buy the one that is needed by which person. Also, look into site licenses etc.
Unlike Apple's list price, Dell's list price is not very meaningful as Dell has these sales (up to 30% off routinely and higher sometimes).
One of the versions of Vista, Vista business is XP. You choose that and they put in XP for you. It costs more though but that's not Dell's fault. It's the best they can do. When I see people using Macbooks, more than half the time they're using XP.
I think the Dell XPS laptops are pretty good looking. I don't really like the Apple notebooks except for the MacBook Pro. All the others look like eeePC cheap plastic toy laptops. But, MacBook pros are $2000+.
I think Lenovo completed messed up their Thinkpad brand name. Hopefully, Dell keeps the quality up and I think it'd be nice to have an Adamo.
The other reason I don't like MacBooks is that it seems that people who use them seem have fallen in love with their laptop. They always want to have it on and in front of them at all times - always claketing around this or that. I hate to be behind someone with a MacBook in class or in a meeting with someone with one. I want to scream put that thing away. Maybe it's the just the people who like to spend a lot of time with on their laptops get Macbooks.
I think one of the Vista versions is a codename for XP.
I think if you order vista business, then it's an automatic downgrade/upgrade to XP. It costs more though.
The point isn't if it would help person 1 and person 2. The road to nowhere of course some guy to get somewhere.
The fact is, we have Microsoft, who has billions of dollars, wants the government to half pay for a bridge. They can just pay for it themselves and let the government worry about other places where there is more need.
In other words, I'd like for the government to half fund my driveway and it would benefit me, and all the residents who come visit me. In fact, I estimate at least 20 people to benefit every week.
There is always one like you. But, then they try to write it Word and become evangelists at using latex over Word.
Maybe you got through because your thesis didn't require much mathematical equations.
Yeah, if only there was a place where the apes would be able live a happy life without imprisonment.
As the title summary says, "everyone is familiar with the story of the iPhone developer who spends two weeks of spare time making a game that goes on to make them hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The developer writes software to make money, the pirate pirates for whatever reason. As a software developer, I wish it was a straightforward path of writing software to making money but it's not.
Any other industry, it's the same thing. For any one thing that is right, there are a thousand things that can go wrong. You can't just waltz in and expect to make money. There are pirates, there are contracts, there are barriers, there are always something.
Maybe the pirates give the developer the benefit of the doubt and think they wrote it to make the world a better place. Maybe the pirates are just filling in the unspoken role of getting the work out there.
I think the iPod touch keyboard is really bad. Trying to enter an search string in iPod touch would be a nightmare.
I think one of those slide phones with querty keyboard would be much better. I'm sure there are ones with wifi.
You paid $18 for an HDMI cable and you didn't think you got screwed.
Have you heard of Monoprice?
And, you fell for I want to get it for myself trick?
XBox has holiday bundle, 20GB or 60GB bundles, jasper and other chipsets etc etc. Buying a new xbox isn't that straightforward.
The other thing about PC games is the non-standard large packaging. XBox games all come in DVD sized green cases and PS3 games come in the transparent cases. PC games come in big bloated boxes and in different shapes and sizes. So, they are very hard to collect and display.
I know a lot of people buy physical games to collect them as well as to play them. I think XBL system will probably replace the game collection shelf but a lot of people I know buy more and more games to have more of the green boxes in their library.
Because not everyone has a Kindle and people would probably print the book otherwise.
So, maybe a completely locked up device like Kindle would encourage publishers to create digital libraries (and charge a lot of money, esp. to universities for students to access them).
I remember that slashdot article.
But, the guy who wrote the article had no intention of actually getting a job in India or China. He was just trying to get somebody to say something stupid at the consulate.
Actually, if you work for a Chinese company, they will put out a press release to the local media that their company is so great that even American want to work for them (it did happen! though it was for a student who was working at a Chinese factory - not really for wages but for experience).
Why is it that with China the first reflex is always "us vs them" like the parent post?
The Chinese will innovate with the resources that the Chinese have while the US will innovate with the resources that the Americans have (note no us and they).
I don't understand why people feel that it would be better if the Chinese were deprived of this opportunity. I would be more inclined to say "join the party", the "more the merrier" in the engineer's club.
Out of curiosity, why did the quality of the product go down when moving to China? Lack of skills of the workers there? Through time it would go up and they will produce high quality stuff?
Reminds of the made in Mexico fender story. When Fender started making guitars in Mexico - the cheaper Fender standard line, they were terrible. After about 5-6 years, the Mexican guitarsmiths became skilled enough that it was quality guitars and the good guitars from Mexico was better than the average ones in the US for half to one third the price. Of course, MIM Fenders weren't allowed to have the full 22 frets of the US Fenders and also weren't allowed to use the same finishing chemicals so it always was inferior and weren't allowed to use the high quality electronics.
Also, similar stories of Fender in the 80s with Japan and Gibson with Epiphone in Korea. While I always aimed to get the US guitars, you always had to settle for the foreign guitars while you worked your way up there. So, the whole quality aspect always intrigued me. Though, I hear Japan guitars are higher quality than US guitars and you can't buy a new MIJ guitar anymore. I knew lots of guitar players who were looking for Japanese speakers who could order from a Japanese website (all in Japanese) some models that were only Fender custom shop models that were so much better in quality.
Capitalism doesn't require the poor to thrive. Chasing profit doesn't always lead to poor people and their creation and exploitation.
If we were ideal capitalist and the information and free and opportunity was fair, the poor factory worker would figure out that his boss is making too much profit. He would go to the local bank, create a proposal to start his own factory with and offer lower prices for a smaller profit. Then, the rich factory owner would lose revenue and become poorer while the factory worker got richer.
The poor are poor because they are restricted in information and opportunity, which I don't think is capitalism.
I live in the rust belt states, and hear stories from middleaged people who were teenagers in the 60s and 70s and how they used to work in factories. Factory jobs were the McJobs of today. They don't recall the jobs fondly, just the people they worked with.
You essentially have the "made in usa" stuff made by the same people who make the "made in usa" burgers at your local fast food joint. The quality stuff that people seek on eBay and parts stores is the quality stuff that has survived. There was plenty of crap then but people only remember the good stuff and seek out the good stuff.
The stories of Chinese sweatshops have existed for at least 2 decades - from the Nike shoes 15 years ago to the iPods of today. You probably own a Nike and an iPod.
So, I think the notion of quality just by being made in the USA is false. Chinese also make quality products among the not so quality products. The Chinese factories can really exploit their labor and the reaction of the US manufacturing to run to China for the cheap labor gold rush and the US consumer to consume more and more. I doubt embargo would work, would you want every other country to get $10 keyboards while we pay $50 for ours? Computer prices would skyrocket and we'd lose productivity trying to make the old keyboards last a lot longer.
I was wondering, would this defeat this scheme?
Let bittorrent deliberately make errors in the data transmitted. Hashing is very sensitive to small changes.
Also, transmit it with error correcting codes so that it can be put back together by the receiver but the hasher gets garbage.
Finally, so that the hasher doesn't do the error correcting themselves, send the parity encrypted with the keys exchanged beforehand.
I suppose it's still open to man in the middle attack though.
Trovalds isn't the only Linus in the world.
That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!
And change the combination on my luggage!
Great thinking. Why don't we create a blanket law when you can charge anyone, any company on vague reasons as "aiding and comforting enemies"?
It's "democracy" now that has to do with the wage differentials. A company will hire someone if the wage they pay is less than the benefit to the company. Here it was the case since the our engineers were the best and the workers the most productive. When did that change?
Yes, vague patriotic remarks, booming us and them rhetoric and "bleed us dry", a physical pain equivalent. Don't let realism get in the way of all that.
IBM should look to be as profitable as possible, as innovative as possible and as much a market leader as possible without breaking any laws. If the government wants to be protectionist and say no import of labor for production of IBM products, I'm sure they'll agree. It might mean that foreign companies will then be able to produce the items that IBM produces for a fraction of the price and kill IBM. (*example the auto industry and the UAW*)
See this is part of the problem with people on slashdot. We want protectionism when it comes to our jobs. We want to be paid highly and all foreign competition that would potentially lower wages should be taken off the market. But, we don't care when all the factories move overseas where we can potentially buy a dozen computer off each paycheck, or buy all sorts of "toys". We want protectionism in what we produce and free market in what we consume.
I say let the wages be worth it. If a third world person in a third world university with the crippling infrastructure and education system can get a good enough education to do the same work at the same quality, then it's kinda silly to ask the government to protect my job. I'd like to think that I'm worth every penny that I'm being paid.
I know people are scared and I felt scared a lot. But, I just feel we have to be worth it and IBM will have no problems hiring Americans since they're worth every penny they pay. We have first worth infrastructure - fast internet, great libraries, great pool of engineers, scientists etc and to be threatened by a foreigner who has to study in an under-funded university with inept professors and out of date hardware and knowledge is crazy.
The startup is on SSDs only. Look up their products page. products
So, you're in the wrong ring, though the same building.
Yes, SSDs are phenomenal. SSDs are fast. SSDs are awesome. It's like describing detergent or something. Soon they'll be 120GB for $100, real soon.
When we have real facts and real numbers of what they can do and what they cost and all that sorted out, there will be industry buzz. Right now, it's just vague abstract words that people sprout out about SSDs.
Outsourcing has nothing to do with H1B. I'm talking about hiring staff on H1Bs at half the salary that you'd give to a US citizen.
Though, outsourcing is what happens when you don't allow H1B. Instead of bringing the people here, they send the work to the people.
It says something like a public place I believe. Ours was in our reception waiting area where the secretary was. Lots of people would read up our H1Bs info while they waited for someone. Every company has a reception.
Yes, companies can cheat but they can cheat in other areas as well. From my knowledge, most H1Bs are college graduates or phds from the US universities who were international students. They are a good fit for a job description and they get hired, file for H1B and become US citizens 8 years down the road. I'm sure some companies engage in shady H1B stuff, but like any other law, it has to be enforced.
Which is pointless since if someone has been doing a job for a certain amount of time, it's not like you can just replace them and train the new one in 1 week.
The initial hiring requires that you absolutely cannot find any local employee with the skills. If you post a job and an American citizen and a foreign national applies, the foreign national is immediately out of contention.