get something like a G3 tower on eBay for around $300
Oooooh, woah. Panther on a Beige G3 is like, well, win98 on a 486, if you remember that. Spotty. Not always very responsive. Hardware issues, like PCI video.
The G3's (including Blue and White G3) run various kinds of RAM... but OS 9 isn't very fussy about that, while OS X is. If your G3 tower is willing to run under OS X without you staring at the 'spinning beachball' all the time, you'll need well over 512MB.
Better to get a G4 tower, if you actually care about longevity for the machine. A dual 450 can be had pretty cheap and should have a couple of years left in it.
The price/performance of used Macs is a shocker if you've never looked before. In part it's because the price/usability ratio is still acceptable, and in part it's availability. I hope the miniMac drives those prices down somewhat. Low End Mac is a good place to check out before buying a used Mac, especially if you want to run OS X on it. (Posted from a G3 iMac.)
Pages is the streamlined publishing beauty that MS Word wishes it could be...
Beasts of a different feather, really, though they can be made to work just like each other. Word does everything that can be required in your typical corporate office... much of it poorly (like anchoring text boxes... whooeee!). Pages makes nice looking documents without getting in your way (how very Apple).
Pages has a great mix of publishing-oriented simple features in a merely adequate word processor. What it does really well is basic layout that doesn't need registration marks or heavy control over colour separations etc, or complications like footnotes and endnotes. Pages is great when you need to do a newsletter, poster, or booklet, and this is where it actually smokes MS Publisher, not Word, because that isn't what Word is for (any layout job I've had to use Word for always feels like opening a bottle with a rock while wearing mittens and swatting away bloodsucking paperclips).
Text/Object interaction in Pages actually flows like QuarkXpress and InDesign promised, but never really delivered. I still like InDesign, but after running Pages for a few days, I think InDesign will be superceded by Pages for 95% of my DTP work, as it will save time and hair loss. That said, I think I'll still do most of my text entry in other, more specialized apps, and InDesign for anything complicated.
For users who need some of the office-specific features of Word like versioning and comments/notes, or mail merge (this really is a sucking chest wound in Pages' feature list), then Pages is useless.
We want to make the world a better place for the oppressed.
Ka-wow, did you really just write that? Many of us in other liberal democracies look at the American system of health care, poverty abatement, and prisons, and shudder. We see oppressive systems that are polluted with inequities and indignities, more so than our own considerable problems. We see the way the trade missions turn countries from an emphasis on self-reliance into exporters of commodity goods based on unequal trade--without mitigating corruption in any way. We see the constant global war, using a thin veil of cries of freedom to pave the way for further inequitable commercial opportunity.
Tell me more about how your concern for the oppressed has affected, for example, the status of women in Iraq? The status of children in Angola? Dissidents in your client countries? Saipan? A century of policy towards Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico? Guatemala? How about pollution from your over 700 international military bases? The list goes on ad infinitum. And AC's, do your research before a kneejerk rebuttal on this one, please.
We see you edging ever closer to a cynical theocracy. You have enough WMD to wipe anyone out, and a national sense of manifest destiny linked with a popular myth of imminent armageddon.
Sorry, but if Americans deem to tell the rest of the world what to do (including Canadians!), put military bases in over 100 countries, hijink any trade initiative they near, and play vindictive patriotism games (oh, your country doesn't support our war of agression? ok, burn your flags and deprecate your products) --well, then, they'll just have to put up with people poking fun at them. Frequently.
Power is like that, you open yourself up to ridicule as a matter of fair play. You can't have your Twinkie and eat it too.
Why are a disproportionate number of top hollywood comedians canadian? It might have to do with national outlook.
When will that be? USA has been in continuous active military engagement (public or covert) for over 60 years. Taxpayers support over 700 military bases outside of the USA. Land mines are still exported. Other nations cannot have WMD, but the USA hoards and develops them, with an eye to monopoly and impunity, and a demonstrated willingness to use them. The 'war on terror' is designed to be endless, since it self-generates enemies (a perfect military ecology)--and the Administration has publicly described it as without foreseeable end. The PNAC has stated its support for global hegemony, as have the neo-Straussians and the followers of Rushdoony. It isn't just killing either: 'patriotic' policy makes it impossible for an American to be tried internationally for war crimes, and accusations of torture are shrugged off.
So, remind me: when will the celebrations start? I'll be there.
1. Crippling of social development. It is an understatement to say that the regular social activities of homsechooling just don't cut it.
Neither do the regular social activities in a public school. I don't intend to be "regular" about it.
2. Nutcases. Many, if not most homeschoolers are homeschooled because by brainwashing religious nutcase parents.
You didn't really read my post, did you?
3. Networking. Lifelong friends are made during school years. Homeschoolers I know have a vastly smaller pool of friends and acquaintances than schoolkids, and those friends are often of a lesser quality - selected by necessity simply for being of similar age, rather than for good character or complementary personality.
My kids' best and truest friends are not from school, they're affiliated through other learning activities, the "extracurricular" stuff. Friends can come from anywhere, but it is my observation that true conviviality often arises from working on common projects. Often the friendships that arise in schools have more to do with the social ordering of the system, such as finding yourself in a particular clique through peer pressure, seating arrangements, locker assignments, detentions, etc. Worse, it is religiously and nearly universally self-organized into brutal hierarchies of peers. I believe this is a natural outcome of a socially stressed environment, and similar to prisons. Google "herbert dosadi" for a novelistic exploration of this. The social conditioning in a Taylorized school is one of the main reasons to homeschool (cf. prev. post - J.T. Gatto).
The world is full of opportunities to socialize, it's what happens during public collaboration--an important part of any education. I think you may've befriended nutbar/recluse homeschoolers.
4. Inevitablity. Assuming you want the kids to go to university, they're going to have to sit highschool exams (or whatever the institution requires), so they have the learn the public school curriculam anyway.
I think they'll manage the curriculum pretty easily as an ongoing side project. I'm pretty confident because I know my kids, and have worked in education for quite a while, like my spouse.
5. Life. To do a serious job of educating your kids, you will have to sacrifice years that you could be working,
WTF? Like teaching your own kids is a freakin' sacrifice to someone who wants to?
or developing yourself as a person,
OK, now I know you're not an educator. If you were, you'd know that education is a two-way process, and a good educator is always 'developing'--you are merely the most advanced student in the room.
or doing all those things that you're still young enough to be able to do.
Maybe I was wise and had a wild and bountiful youth, then settled down to career/kids/mortgage with few regrets. Just maybe. Thanks for the advice, though.
That's a very real, and very high price, for a gamble - there is no guarentee that your efforts will result in better adjusted kids, but you will absolutely lose a huge chunk of your life.
Like, duuuuh, if you don't want to teach your kids, get someone else to do it.:-/
(You're presumably not so naive as to think spending most of each day with your kids is going to be nothing but bonding moments:-)
You're right, I am not naive, but thanks for presuming. I have some useful experience with community-building, and I know a few excellent examples of 'healthy' families. I think we'll get on with these particular kids just fine.
We have accomplished and sensible friends with a wide range of skills, who like children. Who told you that homeschooling involved spending all your time with the kids, anyway? Maybe people who think they can teach their kids on their own.
Sounds like 'the homeschooling that you see' isn't working. Are they doing it on principles of faith, perhaps? Maybe they're good parents but not really into 'pedagogy?' Just a guess.
John Taylor Gatto (the link in the parent post) is one of the only reasonable voices on public education systems that I've heard in a long long time. For the record, my S.O. is an elementary school teacher, and I work in post-secondary education.
The Canadian (and American) system is Hegelian (think leviathan), Taylorized (think Henry Ford), and hegemonic (think corporation and nation-state partnering). I'm saving up money to be able to homeschool the kids... and no, not to protect any ideological or religious belief, unless "curious skepticism" and "attention stamina" and "critical thinking" can be called ideologies.
I worry about the kids growing up surrounded by intelligent, energetic, overnourished sheeple, in a society that is trying to redefine freedom away from ethics and into centralized and delusional moral codes.
Grandma doesn't care if it takes 10 seconds to load the email app
That will happen on the mini only if 1) permissions are hosed 2) apps need prebinding for some reason 3) there are tens of thousands of emails in granny's account (or it's a bad imap connection etc.) or 4) granny's doing some heavy multitasking with only 256MB, like running azureus and watching divx video while surfing and ripping a cd with a bunch of dormant apps open. You go, grans!
While you're wrong about HP (well, OK, they don't 'invent' much in the consumer space, but elsewhere...), you raise an interesting point about what Apple may have learned from Newton/Cube/iPod sales--timing.
I wondered why it took Apple so long to do the Mini; I don't think it was because of design challenges alone. I suspect that they were waiting for a number of factors to line up first: iPod market saturation, cheap laptop HD's & G4's, and the market momentum shift towards computers as an appliance... a shift that is in its early but not infant stages. The trick, I suspect, is in hitting the market at the right angle, like orbital re-entry. I was wondering why Jobs didn't make more fanfare about the Mini when he introduced it, but 'got it' when he held up the packaging--it would fit in a large purse. This thing will sell itself, through positioning and word of mouth, and it will have a long run as a product; watch for some interesting iterations and really interesting hacks.
Hear, hear. I get a frequent chuckle out of/.'ers complaining about a 'beleaguered' corp like Apple who try to design computers for beginners. We aren't beginners here, we're pros and hobbyists, which means we can bloody well buy a scroll mouse and then marvel at how it just plugs in and the scroll click opens new browser tabs in the background, without any reboot or drivers or configuration; we can take the miniMac, a consumer appliance that isn't designed for upgrading or user tinkering, and figure out how to mount it under our motorcycle seats for GPS and mp3's on the road.
Here's the crux: Apple packages for and markets to noobs and artists, but they didn't forget the nerds. They expect the nerds to go ahead and DIY--not to build the base product, that's their job--but to work with the product as a whole, not sum-of-cheap-parts. If you're a roadwarrior without a mouse, just freakin' ignore the trackpad and turn on full keyboard access and open a shell window, it's faster anyway.
I would like to see a hardware hack involving a two-button upgrade for Apple laptops, but it should come from the bitch'n'moan crowd, not from Apple.
I never understand how, on a show that was produced weeks before it was aired, the captions are often messed up, or missing key words.
Most people don't realize that captioning is done in near-real-time, and considering that, the captioners do an AMAzing job, you should watch them in action.
He made that money, that money was paid to him. It is his money. He can do whatever the hell he wants to with it. If you could make 50 Billion dollars would you pass up that opportunity?
You just agreed with the gp, while attempting an ad hominem attack. Well done!
Also more than the entire US population gave in private donations for that same disaster.
O vaunted noble baron, we bow before thee! Thy generosity is like the Sun!
At one point (about 5 years ago), Bill(zebub) had a net worth equivalent to the net worth of the poorest half of the USA. I gave $50 out of a net surplus of about $300 last month.
Don't forget where that money he has came from: our pockets (either directly, through MS tax, or indirectly, through the costs of all the companies and agencies we buy goods and services from). In a sense, I'm giving twice, since Bill took more than his fair share. I'm not being anti-capitalist here, just anti-feudalist--to the extent that capitalists like Bill(zebub) and the Rockefellers retain the traces of feudalism they purport to replace.
OK, I Am Not A Psychologist, but I used to live and work with street kids, you know, being a pseudo-peer / house-parent to 12 year-old prostitutes, junkies, car thieves, and badass homeless survivors. They ALL had a history of sexual abuse, with a few exceptions; the exceptions had been severely traumatized in other ways. All of the trauma had this in common: 1) a complete breach of trust and 2) extreme emotional contradictions. In nearly all cases, the emotional development of that person with respect to trust issues had more or less stalled at the age of abuse, seemingly caught in a holding pattern that was developed to deal with the extreme cognitive dissonance of the abuse. It got so I could get to know the 'kid' (some of these 13-year-olds reminded me of 50-year-olds) and take a guess at the age of trauma, with fair accuracy.
Kids pick up the taboo nature of their situation, and deal with the responsibility by reorganizing their behaviour in response, which means introducing severe bugs into the code of developing maturity. It isn't just about the acts of molestation themselves (kids experiment w/ each other all the time w/out trauma), but about the power relations. I think that only a few associate the 'attention' of abuse with self esteem; most are just messed up by it right from the beginning, struggling to resolve unresolvable contradictions, the emotional equivalent of dividing by zero.
Prostitution comes easy to so many of them because they've had to dissociate their sense of self from their personal boundaries, and sex is something they've had experience with already.
Oh yeah, I've networked Macs with firewire before and it was very easy and seemed to work well... but those machines had two firewire ports each, and I wasn't trying anything like clustering. Go off and try a cluster of minimacs over fw, then tell me it works. Don't forget, one port each = hub of some kind.
Yeah, it would be nice if one could get them networked via firewire, too, since they don't have 1000bT. Just... don't stack them--use a simple little shelf (only 3lb ea.) to give each one airspace.
Do you mean flakey creative types? Or ravenous slavering fanboi types? Or fuddyduddy old overpensioned retirees?
I know all of the above, Mac users, x100. The only people who've tried to pass those goofy miniCD's off to me in the last 15 years are nearly-creative-but-not-quite-gettin-it wintel users. Every. Time.
FWIW, Firewire is still underutilized and underappreciated. FW800 is very fast, and unlike the USB bus doesn't steal CPU cycles. It can be used for networking (Apple PLEASE finish this feature) and another Mac can be loaded as a simple external HD using Firewire (known as 'Target Disk Mode). It's an IEEE standard, so can be cheap and ubiquitous. It provides decent power to peripherals and with repeaters can be used over distances. I think there is a wireless implementation in the works too (someone correct me).
You can't tell me they are saving any size on that box by making it slot loading
Yes I can. The alternative, to keep the same 2" high form factor, would be one of those dollar-store style laptop tray loaders, which would just create all kinds of quality-perception and support problems for Apple. If you've never seen a slot-loader uncovered before, there's one on the miniMac design page. It's very slim.
How long before the name changes in popular vernacular to miniMac? (Let the austin powers jokes begin.)
They finally caved in to Dell-style 'a la carte' bait-n-switch pricing: get the basics for the advertised price, but start tacking on the accessories to get full function. Looks like the rumours were right, it's aimed at/. cranks and windows iPodders. Check out the accessories page; this is definitely a switcher box, with a kvm and Move2Mac front and centre.
First prediction for big complaints: one RAM slot, so upgrade from crucial then sell your spare on ebay. 2nd: 32MB VRAM, gaming will suck. 3rd, user-serviceable access will be unlikely. Hey, I say, it's the appliance plus they've been hinting at for a while, and its expandability will be primarily USB/1393/bluetooth.
Slashdot Mirror
Oooooh, woah. Panther on a Beige G3 is like, well, win98 on a 486, if you remember that. Spotty. Not always very responsive. Hardware issues, like PCI video.
The G3's (including Blue and White G3) run various kinds of RAM... but OS 9 isn't very fussy about that, while OS X is. If your G3 tower is willing to run under OS X without you staring at the 'spinning beachball' all the time, you'll need well over 512MB.
Better to get a G4 tower, if you actually care about longevity for the machine. A dual 450 can be had pretty cheap and should have a couple of years left in it.
The price/performance of used Macs is a shocker if you've never looked before. In part it's because the price/usability ratio is still acceptable, and in part it's availability. I hope the miniMac drives those prices down somewhat. Low End Mac is a good place to check out before buying a used Mac, especially if you want to run OS X on it. (Posted from a G3 iMac.)
Beasts of a different feather, really, though they can be made to work just like each other. Word does everything that can be required in your typical corporate office... much of it poorly (like anchoring text boxes... whooeee!). Pages makes nice looking documents without getting in your way (how very Apple).
Pages has a great mix of publishing-oriented simple features in a merely adequate word processor. What it does really well is basic layout that doesn't need registration marks or heavy control over colour separations etc, or complications like footnotes and endnotes. Pages is great when you need to do a newsletter, poster, or booklet, and this is where it actually smokes MS Publisher, not Word, because that isn't what Word is for (any layout job I've had to use Word for always feels like opening a bottle with a rock while wearing mittens and swatting away bloodsucking paperclips).
Text/Object interaction in Pages actually flows like QuarkXpress and InDesign promised, but never really delivered. I still like InDesign, but after running Pages for a few days, I think InDesign will be superceded by Pages for 95% of my DTP work, as it will save time and hair loss. That said, I think I'll still do most of my text entry in other, more specialized apps, and InDesign for anything complicated.
For users who need some of the office-specific features of Word like versioning and comments/notes, or mail merge (this really is a sucking chest wound in Pages' feature list), then Pages is useless.
Ka-wow, did you really just write that? Many of us in other liberal democracies look at the American system of health care, poverty abatement, and prisons, and shudder. We see oppressive systems that are polluted with inequities and indignities, more so than our own considerable problems. We see the way the trade missions turn countries from an emphasis on self-reliance into exporters of commodity goods based on unequal trade--without mitigating corruption in any way. We see the constant global war, using a thin veil of cries of freedom to pave the way for further inequitable commercial opportunity.
Tell me more about how your concern for the oppressed has affected, for example, the status of women in Iraq? The status of children in Angola? Dissidents in your client countries? Saipan? A century of policy towards Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico? Guatemala? How about pollution from your over 700 international military bases? The list goes on ad infinitum. And AC's, do your research before a kneejerk rebuttal on this one, please.
We see you edging ever closer to a cynical theocracy. You have enough WMD to wipe anyone out, and a national sense of manifest destiny linked with a popular myth of imminent armageddon.
Sorry, but if Americans deem to tell the rest of the world what to do (including Canadians!), put military bases in over 100 countries, hijink any trade initiative they near, and play vindictive patriotism games (oh, your country doesn't support our war of agression? ok, burn your flags and deprecate your products) --well, then, they'll just have to put up with people poking fun at them. Frequently.
Power is like that, you open yourself up to ridicule as a matter of fair play. You can't have your Twinkie and eat it too.
Why are a disproportionate number of top hollywood comedians canadian? It might have to do with national outlook.
When will that be? USA has been in continuous active military engagement (public or covert) for over 60 years. Taxpayers support over 700 military bases outside of the USA. Land mines are still exported. Other nations cannot have WMD, but the USA hoards and develops them, with an eye to monopoly and impunity, and a demonstrated willingness to use them. The 'war on terror' is designed to be endless, since it self-generates enemies (a perfect military ecology)--and the Administration has publicly described it as without foreseeable end. The PNAC has stated its support for global hegemony, as have the neo-Straussians and the followers of Rushdoony. It isn't just killing either: 'patriotic' policy makes it impossible for an American to be tried internationally for war crimes, and accusations of torture are shrugged off.
So, remind me: when will the celebrations start? I'll be there.
Neither do the regular social activities in a public school. I don't intend to be "regular" about it.
2. Nutcases. Many, if not most homeschoolers are homeschooled because by brainwashing religious nutcase parents.
You didn't really read my post, did you?
3. Networking. Lifelong friends are made during school years. Homeschoolers I know have a vastly smaller pool of friends and acquaintances than schoolkids, and those friends are often of a lesser quality - selected by necessity simply for being of similar age, rather than for good character or complementary personality.
My kids' best and truest friends are not from school, they're affiliated through other learning activities, the "extracurricular" stuff. Friends can come from anywhere, but it is my observation that true conviviality often arises from working on common projects. Often the friendships that arise in schools have more to do with the social ordering of the system, such as finding yourself in a particular clique through peer pressure, seating arrangements, locker assignments, detentions, etc. Worse, it is religiously and nearly universally self-organized into brutal hierarchies of peers. I believe this is a natural outcome of a socially stressed environment, and similar to prisons. Google "herbert dosadi" for a novelistic exploration of this. The social conditioning in a Taylorized school is one of the main reasons to homeschool (cf. prev. post - J.T. Gatto).
The world is full of opportunities to socialize, it's what happens during public collaboration--an important part of any education. I think you may've befriended nutbar/recluse homeschoolers.
4. Inevitablity. Assuming you want the kids to go to university, they're going to have to sit highschool exams (or whatever the institution requires), so they have the learn the public school curriculam anyway.
I think they'll manage the curriculum pretty easily as an ongoing side project. I'm pretty confident because I know my kids, and have worked in education for quite a while, like my spouse.
5. Life. To do a serious job of educating your kids, you will have to sacrifice years that you could be working,
WTF? Like teaching your own kids is a freakin' sacrifice to someone who wants to?
or developing yourself as a person,
OK, now I know you're not an educator. If you were, you'd know that education is a two-way process, and a good educator is always 'developing'--you are merely the most advanced student in the room.
or doing all those things that you're still young enough to be able to do.
Maybe I was wise and had a wild and bountiful youth, then settled down to career/kids/mortgage with few regrets. Just maybe. Thanks for the advice, though.
That's a very real, and very high price, for a gamble - there is no guarentee that your efforts will result in better adjusted kids, but you will absolutely lose a huge chunk of your life.
Like, duuuuh, if you don't want to teach your kids, get someone else to do it. :-/
(You're presumably not so naive as to think spending most of each day with your kids is going to be nothing but bonding moments :-)
You're right, I am not naive, but thanks for presuming. I have some useful experience with community-building, and I know a few excellent examples of 'healthy' families. I think we'll get on with these particular kids just fine.
We have accomplished and sensible friends with a wide range of skills, who like children. Who told you that homeschooling involved spending all your time with the kids, anyway? Maybe people who think they can teach their kids on their own.
Sounds like 'the homeschooling that you see' isn't working. Are they doing it on principles of faith, perhaps? Maybe they're good parents but not really into 'pedagogy?' Just a guess.
John Taylor Gatto (the link in the parent post) is one of the only reasonable voices on public education systems that I've heard in a long long time. For the record, my S.O. is an elementary school teacher, and I work in post-secondary education.
The Canadian (and American) system is Hegelian (think leviathan), Taylorized (think Henry Ford), and hegemonic (think corporation and nation-state partnering). I'm saving up money to be able to homeschool the kids... and no, not to protect any ideological or religious belief, unless "curious skepticism" and "attention stamina" and "critical thinking" can be called ideologies.
I worry about the kids growing up surrounded by intelligent, energetic, overnourished sheeple, in a society that is trying to redefine freedom away from ethics and into centralized and delusional moral codes.
That will happen on the mini only if 1) permissions are hosed 2) apps need prebinding for some reason 3) there are tens of thousands of emails in granny's account (or it's a bad imap connection etc.) or 4) granny's doing some heavy multitasking with only 256MB, like running azureus and watching divx video while surfing and ripping a cd with a bunch of dormant apps open. You go, grans!
While you're wrong about HP (well, OK, they don't 'invent' much in the consumer space, but elsewhere...), you raise an interesting point about what Apple may have learned from Newton/Cube/iPod sales--timing.
I wondered why it took Apple so long to do the Mini; I don't think it was because of design challenges alone. I suspect that they were waiting for a number of factors to line up first: iPod market saturation, cheap laptop HD's & G4's, and the market momentum shift towards computers as an appliance... a shift that is in its early but not infant stages. The trick, I suspect, is in hitting the market at the right angle, like orbital re-entry. I was wondering why Jobs didn't make more fanfare about the Mini when he introduced it, but 'got it' when he held up the packaging--it would fit in a large purse. This thing will sell itself, through positioning and word of mouth, and it will have a long run as a product; watch for some interesting iterations and really interesting hacks.
Hear, hear. I get a frequent chuckle out of /.'ers complaining about a 'beleaguered' corp like Apple who try to design computers for beginners. We aren't beginners here, we're pros and hobbyists, which means we can bloody well buy a scroll mouse and then marvel at how it just plugs in and the scroll click opens new browser tabs in the background, without any reboot or drivers or configuration; we can take the miniMac, a consumer appliance that isn't designed for upgrading or user tinkering, and figure out how to mount it under our motorcycle seats for GPS and mp3's on the road.
Here's the crux: Apple packages for and markets to noobs and artists, but they didn't forget the nerds. They expect the nerds to go ahead and DIY--not to build the base product, that's their job--but to work with the product as a whole, not sum-of-cheap-parts. If you're a roadwarrior without a mouse, just freakin' ignore the trackpad and turn on full keyboard access and open a shell window, it's faster anyway.
I would like to see a hardware hack involving a two-button upgrade for Apple laptops, but it should come from the bitch'n'moan crowd, not from Apple.
Money.
Most people don't realize that captioning is done in near-real-time, and considering that, the captioners do an AMAzing job, you should watch them in action.
For crying out loud, can /. use fully literate editors please? I'm really embarassed by this, as I just referred an academic to this site. Pfft.
Or maybe I'll just loose my elitism, and start speling like everyone else, and call it the slashdot affect.
You just agreed with the gp, while attempting an ad hominem attack. Well done!
O vaunted noble baron, we bow before thee! Thy generosity is like the Sun!
At one point (about 5 years ago), Bill(zebub) had a net worth equivalent to the net worth of the poorest half of the USA. I gave $50 out of a net surplus of about $300 last month.
Don't forget where that money he has came from: our pockets (either directly, through MS tax, or indirectly, through the costs of all the companies and agencies we buy goods and services from). In a sense, I'm giving twice, since Bill took more than his fair share. I'm not being anti-capitalist here, just anti-feudalist--to the extent that capitalists like Bill(zebub) and the Rockefellers retain the traces of feudalism they purport to replace.
OK, I Am Not A Psychologist, but I used to live and work with street kids, you know, being a pseudo-peer / house-parent to 12 year-old prostitutes, junkies, car thieves, and badass homeless survivors. They ALL had a history of sexual abuse, with a few exceptions; the exceptions had been severely traumatized in other ways. All of the trauma had this in common: 1) a complete breach of trust and 2) extreme emotional contradictions. In nearly all cases, the emotional development of that person with respect to trust issues had more or less stalled at the age of abuse, seemingly caught in a holding pattern that was developed to deal with the extreme cognitive dissonance of the abuse. It got so I could get to know the 'kid' (some of these 13-year-olds reminded me of 50-year-olds) and take a guess at the age of trauma, with fair accuracy.
Kids pick up the taboo nature of their situation, and deal with the responsibility by reorganizing their behaviour in response, which means introducing severe bugs into the code of developing maturity. It isn't just about the acts of molestation themselves (kids experiment w/ each other all the time w/out trauma), but about the power relations. I think that only a few associate the 'attention' of abuse with self esteem; most are just messed up by it right from the beginning, struggling to resolve unresolvable contradictions, the emotional equivalent of dividing by zero.
Prostitution comes easy to so many of them because they've had to dissociate their sense of self from their personal boundaries, and sex is something they've had experience with already.
Oh yeah, I've networked Macs with firewire before and it was very easy and seemed to work well... but those machines had two firewire ports each, and I wasn't trying anything like clustering. Go off and try a cluster of minimacs over fw, then tell me it works. Don't forget, one port each = hub of some kind.
Yeah, it would be nice if one could get them networked via firewire, too, since they don't have 1000bT. Just... don't stack them--use a simple little shelf (only 3lb ea.) to give each one airspace.
Yes. Preview button, preview button!
Do you mean flakey creative types? Or ravenous slavering fanboi types? Or fuddyduddy old overpensioned retirees?
I know all of the above, Mac users, x100. The only people who've tried to pass those goofy miniCD's off to me in the last 15 years are nearly-creative-but-not-quite-gettin-it wintel users. Every. Time.
d'oh! wakey wakey... I just dialed 252-1394 to order some gear not 15 minutes earlier!
Also Known As Firewire (Apple) and iLink (Sony).
FWIW, Firewire is still underutilized and underappreciated. FW800 is very fast, and unlike the USB bus doesn't steal CPU cycles. It can be used for networking (Apple PLEASE finish this feature) and another Mac can be loaded as a simple external HD using Firewire (known as 'Target Disk Mode). It's an IEEE standard, so can be cheap and ubiquitous. It provides decent power to peripherals and with repeaters can be used over distances. I think there is a wireless implementation in the works too (someone correct me).
Yes I can. The alternative, to keep the same 2" high form factor, would be one of those dollar-store style laptop tray loaders, which would just create all kinds of quality-perception and support problems for Apple. If you've never seen a slot-loader uncovered before, there's one on the miniMac design page. It's very slim.
They finally caved in to Dell-style 'a la carte' bait-n-switch pricing: get the basics for the advertised price, but start tacking on the accessories to get full function. Looks like the rumours were right, it's aimed at /. cranks and windows iPodders. Check out the accessories page; this is definitely a switcher box, with a kvm and Move2Mac front and centre.
First prediction for big complaints: one RAM slot, so upgrade from crucial then sell your spare on ebay. 2nd: 32MB VRAM, gaming will suck. 3rd, user-serviceable access will be unlikely. Hey, I say, it's the appliance plus they've been hinting at for a while, and its expandability will be primarily USB/1393/bluetooth.