I think that it should be remembered that the internet, at least in its current form, ie open protocols and source (HTML), was something which came out of left field. You use to have things like service providers (like AOL) and BBS's beforehand but these where limited to their own networks, like fidonet.
In the early ninites everyone, thought that the future lay in some kind of "interactive" TV system. A paradigm that still rears its ugly head from time to time (much like virtual reality, that most over hyped of technologies). With the killer app being "downloadable movies on demand". Basically, people in suits "get this" business modal, with installation done by some local company and subsriptions sold to punters. More or less what cable TV is today, or phone services etc. This has been the dream of failed tech like push and its kin.
It stands to reason that companies like to push this along, because, after all, it is all they understand and, over the years, have become very good at making money off this modal.
However, they forget the far greater power of the internet (as a medium). Is in its ablity to provide personal empowerment, I go online because I like to post stories on slashdot (despite getting trolled most of the time), to play interactive games, To download stuff just to see if it will compile, not to be some mindless consumer of some pathetically put together medium pathetic in comparison broadcast TV (which is still the better tech for delivering that kind of crap, for the time being).
To better illustrate my point, even if the perfect copyright scheme was introduced (very unlikly) or that most fascist (and unconsitutional) of laws introduced, The medium would still survive, things like linux and music underground would just become more popular, since the kiddies have to have something to download, and if band's become expensive, smaller for once.
The strength of the net is that it gives you access to some weirdos opinion of 911, and his freedom to post it, with out that the medium would just die. Ardvark fail to expain that, If "evil corps" had surceeded in bending ppp to their ends, then why the hell would the narrator even bother to use it? when all you got was overpriced access to MSN. He could have, just plugged into the local underground wireless LAN, which are sure to be everywhere by then.
I was just trying to demonstrate that the general standard of direction as gone down, Kuburk, sometimes took years to make a movie. The final product had to be just so. With everything being in place, could you imagine if he had an alternative ending where all the people in cryo had survived (as was the original plan), and how that would have changed the context of the movie.
There was a time where the people who made the movies where the ones which where passonate about the movies
Now, movies seem to be glued together without much thought, and normally by people whose interests are not in making a good movie, ie producers. Sometimes only wishing to make a buck.
That it is getting to the point where the fans of these movies, have to correct the mistakes that these people make, I mean, half of that Star Wars should have been on the cutting room floor, and would have been a good movie had that been the case (as the re-edit proves).
Also that these are the same people who will be making movies in the future, sometimes without the cost of having to rent a stdio, or overrated hollywood actor, or crappy over-promotion (unless its made illegal ofcourse).
I never said that there weren't examples of good direction today, or acting or writing. rather that marketing movies just cause of a bunch a extras is a road that hollywood shouldn't be follow. Or, to the extent of forgeting about making decent movies to begin with.
btw, could you name one good movie from today that has been re-edited?, hell, its called the star wars correction.
Rather then taking fan re-edits and a indication of a growth in the interactivity of movies, which this article does. I get the impression, that this current tread should be a warning to hollywood that they simply haven't been doing their job(period). After-all it is now possible that a person with no training and without access to the raw cut of a movie, to do better then the movies own director. This just serves to demonstrate how pathetic the standard of direction has gotten in hollywood, these days. Also, just putting three different alternative endings as extras doesn't count either, the final movie you cut should be the best possible version.
To better illustrate my point, would anyone bother to do a re-edit of a "classic" like, say, 2001. It seems that the only movies which are getting the "interactive" (re-edited) treatment, are those which have been hopeless butchered to appease some market demographic by a director who has always been overrated (like Star Wars EP1).
Perhaps, guys, rather then playing this up as a "feature", you should take some heed now, to lift your game. After all, how long does it take before these same people tire of fixing your crap, To find out that they could do a better job with their cheap-arse Dvd-cam, making your chosen occupation redundant.
However, I feel that with so much money coming in from dvd sales you can always lobby congress, to make any form of creativity, which doesn't directly benefit you, illegal.
Guys this sounds like a old spam which was going around, in fact wired did an article called "The Anatomy of a Spam" here a while ago, more or less claiming the same thing. Normally, with devices called something trak run by a "Mr Benson". Basically people who were dumb enough to buy into the scam got a overpriced black box and a head full of vapour.
Now Im not saying the tech isn't possible, or that you will not see devices like this in the future, along with the moral and social implecations of such technology blah blah blah.
Rather that it sounds close enough to that scam to insure that one should run to the hills as fast as you can. Just as you would if they were trying to sell you broadband over powerlines or tiled LCD screens.
The thing is Alien is a remake of the classic "Dark Star" by John Carpentar, If you were to watch that movie and then Alien you would realise how much has been lifted from the earlier movie. These include, the uniforms, the whole truckers in space theme, the interface's on the computers, The alien in that movie (although that was more comical) and (if you count Aliens) the knife between the fingers scean (there are loads more but that part of the fun of watching that movie so I wont ruin it for you). I believe that one of the writers on that movie worked on the orignal Alien and has said in interviews that " I just whated to do a straght version of Dark Star". Although to be fair Alien was the first to use Gregor's art as an inspiration.
This goes along way into explaining why there have been a lot of disappointing sequals to that movie and tie in's (vs anyone?). For some reason t seems ok to do a remake of a remake to absolute death (like Alien has). Although Dark Star has also been a great influence on things like Red Drawf.
Btw, I can understand how peeved JC must have been in the 80's when he did his first and only commerical movie "the thing" (which to be fair was also a remake) that was thrown to the wolves by critics for just being *cough* a Alien remake *cough*. For some reason noone at the time seemed to remember that he had invented to whole thing to begin with in the first place. In the same way that he had invented slasher movies. Although, it was released in the same year as ET so I guess nasty Aliens were just out of fashion (he went on to release the forgetable "Starman").
JC is really a genius, and deserves more credit for making highly influentual movies outside of the hollywood scean, unlike some old pom who's lasted claim to fame is a stinker like "Hannibal" (which really ruined to book for me).
A "-1 my cats breath smells like cat food option" would be better. I can't remember what the hell I was thinking when I posted that one, I must have been too stoned at the time.
I don't think that the windows UI is as good as what you make out, that it is more a case of what you are use to. For example I know people who use windows 3.11 because they are use to that UI. Although your right that OSX is overrated.
I think that the main problem is that people have to learn how to use UI's rather then UI's conforming to how people use them (which is the way that it should be) and all the mainstream GUI's are guilty of this crime.
Anyway... everyone knows that real hackers use the command line anyway, and couldn't give a hoot about how the GUI looks.
Yeah that sound's like the best solution, Although when I posted the questions I was expecting some highly technical answer on why we used dotfiles to begin with instead of a ~/etc or ~/config, something along the lines of why arrays in C start at zero and not one. It seems a pity that I haven't gotten a proper answer to that apart from "it has always been so" (a ~/.config dir would be a good idea IMHO).
Would it be possible to get rid of dotfiles? While alot of people like them I don't know why you couldn't have a ~/etc in the home dir. I get lot's of weird looks when I say, you keep all the configurations in/etc but user config's in dotfiles. There's must be a good reason for this could someone please explain
On that thread what the hell is/usr/etc used for, or/usr/local/etc? won't it make more sense to move/etc here instead?
Do we really need a central registry type file like the article proposes, surly isn't a front end enough, I can't understand what difference this would make. Having a central file which contain's everything like System.dat seem's to be a major security floor in windows since if you can crack that file you pretty much have root on the machine. Not being able to set different permissions for something like fstab or shadow would be pain. Although to be fair the article proposes it as a backup. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Apart from these questions I think that this was a pretty good/fair article, although I thought that it was a bit unfair to compare linux to windows/OSX since they are completely different OS and something like creating a central config app might work to make linux less customisable IMHO. Most distro's tend to have app's along these lines anyway, what the hells wrong with DrakConf?.
Why did this get marked as "troll". Some of the stuff he says is true. There seems to be this myth that OSX has a great interface, while it is better then anything from MS(I mean what's with the new start button) it does have it's own problems
To be fair you can turn off the luna theme in winXP if you what, something you can't really do in OSX. Personally, I can't stand the way that any version of windows comes out of the box and normally hack the reg to how I what it to act (ie, set everything to single click, like kde) and uninstall all the shit they bundle (Messanger is a work of pure evil, as well as Outlook).
It seem's to me that Apple's policy of non-customisablity, is something that will come back to haunt them. However, you could argue over that point (or maybe it's just me being too lazy to learn how to tweak that OS, at least well).
However, I can not really understand this article. While you could argue that a OSX port for x86 would be a good thing, (I hoping for something to that effect at the last mac world, that really would have gone beyound the rumour sites), because it really would change everything. It seems, that some of his arguements are really iffy.
Warning this part repeats a lot of stuff said in other posts
Firstly, he states that the greatest problem M$ have now is a general lack of competation on the desktop, true, but every company who has taken on M$ has gone broke, even when they produce a unbeliveable OS like BEOS (this he points out). Could it be that apple doesn't what to compete with M$ casue they don't play fair. He also ignores that M$ hold 40% of the shares of Apple, and that they would stop ports of Explorier and Office to the platform.
Secondly, He states that rather then introducing a software bundle they should go the OEM route, This would be utter madness, not only are people like gateway and dell losing money at the moment, It would undermine the market of PPC as a alternative platform to i86. Althought, I think he's right that people would still buy Apples regardless.
Thirdly, He claims that OSX is a great OS, while this is slightly true, there are points of contension, notably the register who recently tried to bribe one of the main developiers to kill the dock. Loads of mac fans seem to dislike the new UI. Also, PC fans would hate the lack of options to customise their OS.
Finally, I think that a OSX port would not be as easy to do as he makes it out as being. He ignores a lot of the problems alternative OS's have, things like the lack of support from third parties something which the open source nature of Linux let's it get away with, and Apple get away with right now by being a alternate platform.
This article seem's to be just wishful thinking, to me. It would just be a hell of a gamble to make. Not something that Apple would make unless they got desperate. What Cringely seem's to be asking is for apple to repeat a lot of the old mistakes that they have done in the past, mostly the same that Palm seem to be doing now.
Ok here's the meat
What apple should do is port their development environment to windows as an alternative to the windows API, Which, thanks to.NET seems to be turning into a JAVA knockoff. Objective C really is a joy to use. This action would be a nice compromise to porting the whole OS and gesture, it would insure greater cross compatablity between OS's, something which really should exist today, but doesn't. It is also something more likely to happen, since things like quicktime already work in windows (and sorta in Linux) and Openstep (which is basically OSX anyway, albert sans the window manager). It would also test the water for a full OSX port someday.
However, that said, I do think that there is the possibility that we will see a port of OSX to i86, though a leaked version, or a free software clone. But not something which will be marketed by Apple.
It should also be noted, that we are starting to see a lot of influence of OSX on non Apple platforms, in fact linux could end up as being the OSX for x86 in a few months, at least from a desktop perspective, also the OSX theme has been knocked off by everyone including M$ now.
It's like asking coca cola to realease their recipe
Man.. why is it that people keep repeating this. Coca cola have to release their secret recipe or they would not be able to be approved by the FDA . They also have to list the contents of product on the side of the can. It's not really a secret just some marketing bs, like 11 herb's and spices anyway.
Do you really think that fashion magazines know that far in advance that the color of the season will be puce?
Ok I ran this by my girlfriend and she laughed her head off ("yeah right" are the words she used), basically things in the "rag trade" tend to follow trend's that if you've been around a while you know what's about to come in and what's about to go out. Also that things like Cleo tend to be more life style magazines anyway, with articles on how to get a perfect perm. Although she went on to say that there are fashion victims who would buy a puce skirts if it was on the fount cover.
I think the problem is the computer mag's tend to have too narrow a readership since objective journalism tends to come based on how many people read the mag.
I think that the issue here is that you are having the rating system used to express what is, at the end of the day, just some interest groups opinion. This is not in line with reality or representative of the interests of the people who, actually, buy the things.
Ratings are, bout what is in the things and not meant to reflect someone opinion.
I am a person who likes to make his own mind up about things. The problem I see today is that, now, a device that was indented to help me in that regard, is just being pushed by every lobby group to implement their own point of view. Perverting the whole point of these things to begin with
For example, in my country the both "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" have supernatual themes as part of the rating (what kind of person considers wizards and elves as supernatual, anyway), clearly something put in to please some conservative group somewhere. Hell, perhaps they could put in, we think this movie sux's cause Julia Roberts got paid 11 million dollars and is hardly in it, If they what to put in stuff that is just someone's opinion.
Worst, is that ratings are starting to be used as a marketing device, for example, Black Hawk Down was given a R rating in my country, later to be downgraded, giving the it free spill on the news since it was now a "controversial" new movie (How dumb do they think we are).
Perhaps, in the future video games could have labels like, playing this during your SAT will stop you going to the university of your choice, or comic books "Collecting these will make you end up a forty year old virgin living in your parents basement", bibles "reading this will make you stand out side clinics acting like a dickhead", Perhaps the best one, Big Macs could have "eating these will make you fat".
At the end of the day do we really want/need a nanny state.
"And i'm sorry, what were the video games that Hitler used to play, you know? You know, before he went out and... what were the video games he gave to the entire German republic?
Actually, The nazi's banned any form of expression which did not fit into their view of the world. This included a lot of modern art. As well as scientists like Einstein.
If you didn't like Wagner or pictures of naked women then you wouldn't have have like living in Germany in the 30's or 40's.
I hope this serves to illustrate your point better.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
The irony is that sounds exactly like the last rave I went to.
Trust the Germans to be there before the rest of us (bastards). I think that things like this will be hugh, I just hope we don't end up with something like M$/Aol Tv, that would really, really sux.
Re:I was somewhat disappointed, with the article
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Inside Intel
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· Score: 1
Companies set up factories in low wage areas because they want to lower costs. With a lot of industries I'm sure there is some desire to sell to the citizens of the country (e.g. comparatively low cost goods such as Cigarettes) but mainly it's about costs.
I dunno bout that one, true labour costs can be lower, but most manufactoring deals tend to work by the factory, ie you have a factory of around 200 ppl rather then a factory of 20 like you would in America or England things tending to equal themselves out,
You also have shipping costs and more importantly time considerations to factor in as well as the possiblity of having your stock rot on the pier due to a strike.
There are also currency considerations to factor in with most stuff being priced in American dollars.
In short, things never turn out to be as simple as what people make them out to be. I think that selling to the natives to be a better argument then dealing with the headache of importation. After all you set up your factory as close to your punters as you can get away with.
I'm quite glad that this thread isn't turning into a globalization flamefest, where dude's say stuff like "we don't like what nike does to its workers" when what they really mean is "we don't what Indians wearing trainers, they should stay in the stoneage just cause we say so".
Your right I could have put the argument better, I still think he had the right idea, though teachers tend to take pretty weird views, like that, just to prove how clever they are.
I look at this article and feel slightly dismayed, The reason for this is because I really would like to have a small/quite PC or my lounge room to plug into my TV set and clearly we are there with the technology of the hardware.
This seem's be the only practical application for this, rather then a small server to take to lan parties, from reading the what's the point thread anyway, (fav quote, "It's so kewl I wish I could think of something to do with it""
However, nobody seems that interested in making one, which is funny since the only thing you would need to do is create a new GUI like that used on DVD's like Nox, For example.(not something lame like Interactive TV or WebTV). Esp considering the millions that have been wasted on things like Webpads or WAP.
It's like there is a truck load of money sitting on the curb and all someone has to do is drive it off.
I think that there would be a demand for this type of thing based on the number of people who brought the XBOX thinking that they could turn it into a 3vix/Mp3 Player, open Tivo, or MAME terminal (The thing seem's to be proving a right bastard to hack).
The only thing on the horizon is M$ vapourious Homestation, and some project's like the Nokia's media terminal.
Could someone please try to market a alternative before the end of the year, based on linux. with a simple DVD interface and NIC for my LAN, just so I don't have to buy a Homestation, (Sony might with the PS2 or PS3).
Re:I was somewhat disappointed, with the article
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Inside Intel
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· Score: 1
Do you have any food? I am so hungry! No please
don't beat me, not the stick, i work harder!
Yeah, I know that companies who outsource their labour have a rep for this kind of stuff. However, I think that people in those countries are a lot better off then they would be (The alternative being nothing). You have to remember that countries like America started off this way themselves. Like I said, I wish it was something that the article had looked into and didn't.
This is not to discount companies like Nike who have a really, really bad rep for policies like this. If you don't like it then don't buy their product.
Although, I think that people in these countries have a lot more power then they do in America due to one simple fact: People. If you close a plant in America, you know that all the people who worked there can always get other jobs or go on welfare. Do the same thing over there and you have thousands of desperate people who you are denying their sole means of income with nothing to lose.
If you don't believe me then consider this: Run Amoke is a Indonesian saying.
BTW, In economics, my teacher said "The reason companies set up factories in third world countries is because they wish to sell to the people in those countries someday" I think he would know what he's talking about.
I was somewhat disappointed, with the article
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Inside Intel
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For an article that promised to show the inner working of how Intel makes chips, I disliked that they seemed to ignore the actual constuction of the products themselves. I got the impression that the article only wished to show how intel designed chips.
Mostly the article seemed to run like the following, well we met some real cool guys in a lab in oregon who research all the new stuff, then we followed all the production to the guy's who QC the design at some other lab somewhere. While trying not to break a NDA
I thought this was a bit like going to Nike and just interviewing the guy who made the prototype for the new gel heel. Or Ford and interviewing the guy who made the new concept Focus while ignoring everyone from Detroit
Not that am trying to troll, I just wanted some interviews with the average workers at their Indonesian fab plant, maybe finding out how what kewl shit they suppy to their employees. I heard that one plant had a fully working video parlor for instance, and that intel had helped to setup schools in the local area (although this is prob marketing BS). Also, rumour has it that people who work there are all closet overclocking freak's since the price of the chips themselves are so low.
I also thought that it might be interesting to see the who hugh some of these factories have become, that in some cases they are as large as small cities, with entire regions depending on there income.
Throw, in some interesting facts like, most of the chinese in indonesia are not normal chinese but rather Hacka, or chinese gypsies who moved to the country due to persecution on the mainland.
Things like that, together with reports from the labs, would have made a much more interesting article IMHO.
I think some scientist type dude's did a study and showed that if you can't decide on a question then you should always go for C since it is normally the most common answer.
Slashdot Mirror
In the early ninites everyone, thought that the future lay in some kind of "interactive" TV system. A paradigm that still rears its ugly head from time to time (much like virtual reality, that most over hyped of technologies). With the killer app being "downloadable movies on demand". Basically, people in suits "get this" business modal, with installation done by some local company and subsriptions sold to punters. More or less what cable TV is today, or phone services etc. This has been the dream of failed tech like push and its kin.
It stands to reason that companies like to push this along, because, after all, it is all they understand and, over the years, have become very good at making money off this modal.
However, they forget the far greater power of the internet (as a medium). Is in its ablity to provide personal empowerment, I go online because I like to post stories on slashdot (despite getting trolled most of the time), to play interactive games, To download stuff just to see if it will compile, not to be some mindless consumer of some pathetically put together medium pathetic in comparison broadcast TV (which is still the better tech for delivering that kind of crap, for the time being).
To better illustrate my point, even if the perfect copyright scheme was introduced (very unlikly) or that most fascist (and unconsitutional) of laws introduced, The medium would still survive, things like linux and music underground would just become more popular, since the kiddies have to have something to download, and if band's become expensive, smaller for once.
The strength of the net is that it gives you access to some weirdos opinion of 911, and his freedom to post it, with out that the medium would just die. Ardvark fail to expain that, If "evil corps" had surceeded in bending ppp to their ends, then why the hell would the narrator even bother to use it? when all you got was overpriced access to MSN. He could have, just plugged into the local underground wireless LAN, which are sure to be everywhere by then.
There was a time where the people who made the movies where the ones which where passonate about the movies Now, movies seem to be glued together without much thought, and normally by people whose interests are not in making a good movie, ie producers. Sometimes only wishing to make a buck.
That it is getting to the point where the fans of these movies, have to correct the mistakes that these people make, I mean, half of that Star Wars should have been on the cutting room floor, and would have been a good movie had that been the case (as the re-edit proves).
Also that these are the same people who will be making movies in the future, sometimes without the cost of having to rent a stdio, or overrated hollywood actor, or crappy over-promotion (unless its made illegal ofcourse).
I never said that there weren't examples of good direction today, or acting or writing. rather that marketing movies just cause of a bunch a extras is a road that hollywood shouldn't be follow. Or, to the extent of forgeting about making decent movies to begin with.
btw, could you name one good movie from today that has been re-edited?, hell, its called the star wars correction.
To better illustrate my point, would anyone bother to do a re-edit of a "classic" like, say, 2001. It seems that the only movies which are getting the "interactive" (re-edited) treatment, are those which have been hopeless butchered to appease some market demographic by a director who has always been overrated (like Star Wars EP1).
Perhaps, guys, rather then playing this up as a "feature", you should take some heed now, to lift your game. After all, how long does it take before these same people tire of fixing your crap, To find out that they could do a better job with their cheap-arse Dvd-cam, making your chosen occupation redundant.
However, I feel that with so much money coming in from dvd sales you can always lobby congress, to make any form of creativity, which doesn't directly benefit you, illegal.
Now Im not saying the tech isn't possible, or that you will not see devices like this in the future, along with the moral and social implecations of such technology blah blah blah.
Rather that it sounds close enough to that scam to insure that one should run to the hills as fast as you can. Just as you would if they were trying to sell you broadband over powerlines or tiled LCD screens.
This goes along way into explaining why there have been a lot of disappointing sequals to that movie and tie in's (vs anyone?). For some reason t seems ok to do a remake of a remake to absolute death (like Alien has). Although Dark Star has also been a great influence on things like Red Drawf.
Btw, I can understand how peeved JC must have been in the 80's when he did his first and only commerical movie "the thing" (which to be fair was also a remake) that was thrown to the wolves by critics for just being *cough* a Alien remake *cough*. For some reason noone at the time seemed to remember that he had invented to whole thing to begin with in the first place. In the same way that he had invented slasher movies. Although, it was released in the same year as ET so I guess nasty Aliens were just out of fashion (he went on to release the forgetable "Starman").
JC is really a genius, and deserves more credit for making highly influentual movies outside of the hollywood scean, unlike some old pom who's lasted claim to fame is a stinker like "Hannibal" (which really ruined to book for me).
I think that the main problem is that people have to learn how to use UI's rather then UI's conforming to how people use them (which is the way that it should be) and all the mainstream GUI's are guilty of this crime.
Anyway... everyone knows that real hackers use the command line anyway, and couldn't give a hoot about how the GUI looks.
Sorry me bad.
On that thread what the hell is /usr/etc used for, or /usr/local/etc? won't it make more sense to move /etc here instead?
Do we really need a central registry type file like the article proposes, surly isn't a front end enough, I can't understand what difference this would make. Having a central file which contain's everything like System.dat seem's to be a major security floor in windows since if you can crack that file you pretty much have root on the machine. Not being able to set different permissions for something like fstab or shadow would be pain. Although to be fair the article proposes it as a backup. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Apart from these questions I think that this was a pretty good/fair article, although I thought that it was a bit unfair to compare linux to windows/OSX since they are completely different OS and something like creating a central config app might work to make linux less customisable IMHO. Most distro's tend to have app's along these lines anyway, what the hells wrong with DrakConf?.
This is a opinion not a troll.
To be fair you can turn off the luna theme in winXP if you what, something you can't really do in OSX. Personally, I can't stand the way that any version of windows comes out of the box and normally hack the reg to how I what it to act (ie, set everything to single click, like kde) and uninstall all the shit they bundle (Messanger is a work of pure evil, as well as Outlook).
It seem's to me that Apple's policy of non-customisablity, is something that will come back to haunt them. However, you could argue over that point (or maybe it's just me being too lazy to learn how to tweak that OS, at least well).
Warning this part repeats a lot of stuff said in other posts
Firstly, he states that the greatest problem M$ have now is a general lack of competation on the desktop, true, but every company who has taken on M$ has gone broke, even when they produce a unbeliveable OS like BEOS (this he points out). Could it be that apple doesn't what to compete with M$ casue they don't play fair. He also ignores that M$ hold 40% of the shares of Apple, and that they would stop ports of Explorier and Office to the platform.
Secondly, He states that rather then introducing a software bundle they should go the OEM route, This would be utter madness, not only are people like gateway and dell losing money at the moment, It would undermine the market of PPC as a alternative platform to i86. Althought, I think he's right that people would still buy Apples regardless.
Thirdly, He claims that OSX is a great OS, while this is slightly true, there are points of contension, notably the register who recently tried to bribe one of the main developiers to kill the dock. Loads of mac fans seem to dislike the new UI. Also, PC fans would hate the lack of options to customise their OS.
Finally, I think that a OSX port would not be as easy to do as he makes it out as being. He ignores a lot of the problems alternative OS's have, things like the lack of support from third parties something which the open source nature of Linux let's it get away with, and Apple get away with right now by being a alternate platform.
This article seem's to be just wishful thinking, to me. It would just be a hell of a gamble to make. Not something that Apple would make unless they got desperate. What Cringely seem's to be asking is for apple to repeat a lot of the old mistakes that they have done in the past, mostly the same that Palm seem to be doing now.
Ok here's the meat
What apple should do is port their development environment to windows as an alternative to the windows API, Which, thanks to .NET seems to be turning into a JAVA knockoff. Objective C really is a joy to use. This action would be a nice compromise to porting the whole OS and gesture, it would insure greater cross compatablity between OS's, something which really should exist today, but doesn't. It is also something more likely to happen, since things like quicktime already work in windows (and sorta in Linux) and Openstep (which is basically OSX anyway, albert sans the window manager). It would also test the water for a full OSX port someday.
However, that said, I do think that there is the possibility that we will see a port of OSX to i86, though a leaked version, or a free software clone. But not something which will be marketed by Apple.
It should also be noted, that we are starting to see a lot of influence of OSX on non Apple platforms, in fact linux could end up as being the OSX for x86 in a few months, at least from a desktop perspective, also the OSX theme has been knocked off by everyone including M$ now.
Man.. why is it that people keep repeating this. Coca cola have to release their secret recipe or they would not be able to be approved by the FDA . They also have to list the contents of product on the side of the can. It's not really a secret just some marketing bs, like 11 herb's and spices anyway.
Ok I ran this by my girlfriend and she laughed her head off ("yeah right" are the words she used), basically things in the "rag trade" tend to follow trend's that if you've been around a while you know what's about to come in and what's about to go out. Also that things like Cleo tend to be more life style magazines anyway, with articles on how to get a perfect perm. Although she went on to say that there are fashion victims who would buy a puce skirts if it was on the fount cover.
I think the problem is the computer mag's tend to have too narrow a readership since objective journalism tends to come based on how many people read the mag.
Ratings are, bout what is in the things and not meant to reflect someone opinion.
For example, in my country the both "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" have supernatual themes as part of the rating (what kind of person considers wizards and elves as supernatual, anyway), clearly something put in to please some conservative group somewhere. Hell, perhaps they could put in, we think this movie sux's cause Julia Roberts got paid 11 million dollars and is hardly in it, If they what to put in stuff that is just someone's opinion.
Worst, is that ratings are starting to be used as a marketing device, for example, Black Hawk Down was given a R rating in my country, later to be downgraded, giving the it free spill on the news since it was now a "controversial" new movie (How dumb do they think we are).
Perhaps, in the future video games could have labels like, playing this during your SAT will stop you going to the university of your choice, or comic books "Collecting these will make you end up a forty year old virgin living in your parents basement", bibles "reading this will make you stand out side clinics acting like a dickhead", Perhaps the best one, Big Macs could have "eating these will make you fat".
At the end of the day do we really want/need a nanny state.
Actually, The nazi's banned any form of expression which did not fit into their view of the world. This included a lot of modern art. As well as scientists like Einstein.
If you didn't like Wagner or pictures of naked women then you wouldn't have have like living in Germany in the 30's or 40's.
I hope this serves to illustrate your point better.
The irony is that sounds exactly like the last rave I went to.
Trust the Germans to be there before the rest of us (bastards). I think that things like this will be hugh, I just hope we don't end up with something like M$/Aol Tv, that would really, really sux.
I dunno bout that one, true labour costs can be lower, but most manufactoring deals tend to work by the factory, ie you have a factory of around 200 ppl rather then a factory of 20 like you would in America or England things tending to equal themselves out,
You also have shipping costs and more importantly time considerations to factor in as well as the possiblity of having your stock rot on the pier due to a strike.
There are also currency considerations to factor in with most stuff being priced in American dollars.
In short, things never turn out to be as simple as what people make them out to be. I think that selling to the natives to be a better argument then dealing with the headache of importation. After all you set up your factory as close to your punters as you can get away with.
I'm quite glad that this thread isn't turning into a globalization flamefest, where dude's say stuff like "we don't like what nike does to its workers" when what they really mean is "we don't what Indians wearing trainers, they should stay in the stoneage just cause we say so".
Your right I could have put the argument better, I still think he had the right idea, though teachers tend to take pretty weird views, like that, just to prove how clever they are.
This seem's be the only practical application for this, rather then a small server to take to lan parties, from reading the what's the point thread anyway, (fav quote, "It's so kewl I wish I could think of something to do with it""
However, nobody seems that interested in making one, which is funny since the only thing you would need to do is create a new GUI like that used on DVD's like Nox, For example.(not something lame like Interactive TV or WebTV). Esp considering the millions that have been wasted on things like Webpads or WAP.
It's like there is a truck load of money sitting on the curb and all someone has to do is drive it off.
I think that there would be a demand for this type of thing based on the number of people who brought the XBOX thinking that they could turn it into a 3vix/Mp3 Player, open Tivo, or MAME terminal (The thing seem's to be proving a right bastard to hack).
The only thing on the horizon is M$ vapourious Homestation, and some project's like the Nokia's media terminal.
Could someone please try to market a alternative before the end of the year, based on linux. with a simple DVD interface and NIC for my LAN, just so I don't have to buy a Homestation, (Sony might with the PS2 or PS3).
Yeah, I know that companies who outsource their labour have a rep for this kind of stuff. However, I think that people in those countries are a lot better off then they would be (The alternative being nothing). You have to remember that countries like America started off this way themselves. Like I said, I wish it was something that the article had looked into and didn't.
This is not to discount companies like Nike who have a really, really bad rep for policies like this. If you don't like it then don't buy their product.
Although, I think that people in these countries have a lot more power then they do in America due to one simple fact: People. If you close a plant in America, you know that all the people who worked there can always get other jobs or go on welfare. Do the same thing over there and you have thousands of desperate people who you are denying their sole means of income with nothing to lose.
If you don't believe me then consider this: Run Amoke is a Indonesian saying.
BTW, In economics, my teacher said "The reason companies set up factories in third world countries is because they wish to sell to the people in those countries someday" I think he would know what he's talking about.
Mostly the article seemed to run like the following, well we met some real cool guys in a lab in oregon who research all the new stuff, then we followed all the production to the guy's who QC the design at some other lab somewhere. While trying not to break a NDA
I thought this was a bit like going to Nike and just interviewing the guy who made the prototype for the new gel heel. Or Ford and interviewing the guy who made the new concept Focus while ignoring everyone from Detroit
Not that am trying to troll, I just wanted some interviews with the average workers at their Indonesian fab plant, maybe finding out how what kewl shit they suppy to their employees. I heard that one plant had a fully working video parlor for instance, and that intel had helped to setup schools in the local area (although this is prob marketing BS). Also, rumour has it that people who work there are all closet overclocking freak's since the price of the chips themselves are so low.
I also thought that it might be interesting to see the who hugh some of these factories have become, that in some cases they are as large as small cities, with entire regions depending on there income.
Throw, in some interesting facts like, most of the chinese in indonesia are not normal chinese but rather Hacka, or chinese gypsies who moved to the country due to persecution on the mainland.
Things like that, together with reports from the labs, would have made a much more interesting article IMHO.
I think some scientist type dude's did a study and showed that if you can't decide on a question then you should always go for C since it is normally the most common answer.
Hope this helps someone out with their SAT's