As an employee of IBM, I'd take the comments from Alliance@IBM with a grain of salt. Alliance@IBM is a group of employees whose agenda it has been to start an IT workers' union. The people Mr. Conrad is likely to be talking to are therefore probably pre-disposed to being very anti-upper management. Mr. Moffat's M.O. is as an axe man, and a pool of employees who's reactionary response is to oppose any kind of reduction in workforce, no matter how necessary from a business standpoint, is hardly likely to have an unbiased opinion as to the sentiment of Poughkeepsie's general population towards Mr. Moffat. Alliance@IBM doesn't even represent a majority of IBM employees, much less the population of people from which a jury would be built.
The thing is, at least in the iPhoneSIMfree case, they're intending to sell the hack in increments of 500 licenses to providers rather than end-users. The buyers' intent, it can be presumed, is to sell end-users iPhones that have already been hacked rather than leaving them to do it themselves. That would be very attractive in Europe, and potentially to a niche market here in the states who have had a bad experience with AT&T (probably not an insignificant number. AT&T is the one that stands to lose here, since Apple will presumably already have gotten their margin out of the hardware purchase.
I recently added HD to my Comcast subscription, and admit to still being a bit confused by the specifics of Comcast's scheme. On their channel listing, they indicate that with their most basic digital cable package, the HD versions of the broadcast networks (NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, and PBS) should be accessible. What they don't tell you in that listing, is that currently the only way for you to decode the HD signal transmitted by Comcast is to get their tuner (either in DVR, or standard tuner models), and presently, the only way to do that is to rent the device from Comcast. Now, as I understand from the Comcast sales rep, the only way to get that device is to upgrade to a more expansive cable package, which includes SDTV channels such as ESPN, MTV, etc, and naturally costs more.
However, the installation technician clued me in to a possible new option. He thought that the tuners would soon be available for sale at Best Buy stores. Now, from Comcast's own channel listing, I'm presuming that I should be able to purchase one of those tuners at a one-time cost, drop back to basic digital cable, and reduce my monthly bill by some $40 a month while still getting at least the broadcast networks in HD. Of the channels currently available to me with my chosen package, the only HD channels that really are of interest to me are the broadcast networks, ESPN (occasionally), and Discovery HD. So it's certainly not worth an additional $40 a month. Were my cable TV subscription not also tied to a lower rate for my cable internet connection, I'd probably just plunk down the cash for an over-the-air tuner and antenna. Come to think of it, at $40 a month, that option might quickly become more cost effective.
Watching NASA TV, mission control just confirmed successful orbital entry of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. One of the scientists quickly said, "Today we really earned our 'O'".
This might be a Mac-only issue, since both Windows and most windowing toolkits in Linux have more obvious visual indicator of what application is currently active, but I'll push forward.
My parents (more often my father) use both Macs and Windows PCs. I'm forever trying (and failing) to explain how Mac OS indicates application context switching. A major problem is that my father doesn't understand that closing a window in Windows kills the application, whereas closing a window in MacOS only closes the window--the application remains running in memory. I see evidence of this same cognitive dissonance with my mother, when a dozen applications are running on her iMac, but only three windows from any of those applications are actually on the desktop or minimized. Naturally performance suffers in this situation. This is especially pertinant on my dad's office computer, because he's running Virtual PC and needs to switch between a PC world and a Mac world. He doesn't really understand that he's changing operating systems, and therefore changing user interface philosophies.
Maybe this concept is a bit too advanced when the average user only has to get used to one environment. It's something I deal with whenever I'm on a service call with my parents though.
I presume this would allow all of the European iTunes stores to unify into a one-stop shop with the catalogues of all combined into one. Great thing for consumer choice.
Unless they're leaving something out about the fuel they're burning with the hyper-compressed air, this engine would be ultra clean too. Since the fuel is hydrogen (as shown by this NASA diagram), and the combustion agent is the oxygen in the compressed air, then the byproduct would simply be water. There would of course be some heat pollution, which is still actually a potentially serious pollutant, but only when the contrails created from such heat become as numerous as those from today's airliners.
I currently work for IBM, and I can tell you that IBM is definitely a player in the server market. We use both PowerPC and Intel-based processors, depending on what type of hardware configuration you're talking about. One segment of our server offerings also runs AIX (called IBM eServer pSeries). To fill in the picture, IBM still sells a machine (today called the eServer iSeries) which used to be called the AS/400, as well as a true mainframe called the eServer zSeries.
IBM continues to produce Wintel PCs, and I believe at least a portion of our Linux offerings also run on Intel architecture, but there has been a PowerPC version of Linux for at least the past 7 years. I'm not certain what SuSE is running on, but I think it could be PowerPC.
If you have any friends in the U.S. who wouldn't mind getting some credit card mail on your behalf, all you actually need to use iTunes is a credit card for which you applied with a U.S. address. I've been living in Germany now for about 5 months, also have an iPod, and get new music through iTunes all the time. In fact, I have my credit card set to autopay. Since I don't use it here in Germany, and I buy my music from iTunes a few songs at a time, I don't worry about overdrafting my bank account. I would imagine that a large German bank with branches in the U.S. would also be able to set up this kind of automatic transfer. Bingo! iTunes for Europe.
Nothing against geekness. But I think most geeks really wish, from time to time, that they were just a bit more adaptable to the proverbial in-crowd. I'd suggest getting him something that makes him feel less like a geek, even if only for Valentines' Day. A bottle of new cologne, maybe some trendy pants and a shirt.... Help him get all spiffed up, then take him out somewhere trendy, and make him feel like he belongs there. With you at his side, looking fantastic, he'll be the guy who's got the girl. I can't think of a better lead-in to a more intimate romantic evening/night afterwards either.
I can imagine an application for this hack that might be really useful with version control systems. Consider this hypothetical scenario....
You're called in on a weekend to make a hot fix to some code you own, only to discover that someone else has checked your code out of a library to do some tinkering, and happened to leave the file open in an editor in his development environment. This person is on vacation and unreachable, as are any administrators that could unlock the file. I know CVS allows concurrant versioning (simultaneous edits that are resolved when checked back into the library), but with Rendezvous, you could check out the file make your changes, and not have to worry about merging them later.
I can see some significant benefits to an integrated development environment (like Eclipse perhaps) which has code editing, version control, and concurrent development management built in.
My brother also has an iBook. we were waiting in line for tickets to Episode II earlier this spring, and tried watching Episode I (it was pretty cool--we connected the audio output to his car stereo speakers, and put his iBook on top of the hood). We likewise only got through about an hour. His computer was about as old at the time. I wonder if it's a difference with the power consumption between the two motherboard architectures.
There might also be issues with how the video card handles DVD playback in an iBook. I think iBooks from a year ago have a Rage Mobility 128, which isn't terribly beefy, and doesn't take advantage of some of the DVD playback efficiencies of DVD Player or the video efficiencies of Jaguar.
macosrumors might not be that far off. If you look at the likely shipping times, 4-6 weeks for the superdrive model, macosrumors was just about right on in terms of availability. It's just that marketing must have figured it would be advantageous to announce before the Christmas season.
This is the computer I've been waiting for--everything I want all in one tight little package. My only question is with regard to that quoted battery life. I'd expect that's an extreme limit, with the lowest possible power consumption configuration. So can I watch an entire DVD on a single battery charge? I'm expecting to be doing some trans-Pacific flights in the near future, and those 18 hours would go by a whole lot faster if I could watch my own movies.
For you double-E's out there, I've seen rumors that Apple is working on a new battery, but that it probably wouldn't find it's way into Apple's portables for at least another 6 months (and I presume that's optimistic). What's the likelihood that a new battery would be compatible with the current hardware architecture?
if you do decide to buy, wait a few more weeks
on
Flirting With Mac OS X
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Rumors coming out of several Mac rumor mills suggest that Apple is going to release a new version of the Titanium PowerBook in early-mid October. It will sport updated CPUs (of course) a beefier video card and (what I've personally been waiting for) a "portable Superdrive" (DVD-R and CD-RW). Not exactly sure yet what "portable" means in this context, but I'm hoping the slimmed down the form factor far enough on the Superdrive to be able to fit it into one of those amazingly thin machines.
Hope you switch!
frostycellnex
When/. posted the story about Best Buy's announcement that they would be carrying the CDs, I went in to investigate the claims--I didn't intend on supporting Best Buy if it was true. I found the new Celine Dion CD prominently featured in a New Releases endcap, and unless they manufacture both disabled and fully CD-standards-compliant versions, there was nothing on the CD which indicated it was not a CD. I don't recall there being the standard Compact Disc icon from Phillips either. In any case, there wasn't anything to suggest to me that the Celine Dion disc was any different than any other standard CD.
So maybe this issue is really dead-on-arrival. Tech industry advocates don't like the Hollings bill because they've said it would stifle innovation. That's probably fair to say when framed in the near-term, but maybe there's a lesson from the DVD vs. DivX battle. Consumers just didn't like the limitations of DivX, despite the industry's feeble attempts to market it as an innovative way to provide new convenience. Consumers chose the product with more freedom, even if it propped up an older and "less convenient" business model.
If people are educated enough on what these crippled CDs really represent--a limitation of fair use--maybe they'll veto them the way they vetoed DivX. And that education is probably where/.ers can help.
I have a good friend who works for Best Buy corporate. She's hardly in a position to change things, but she may eventually have the ear of someone who can. When I can confirm that Best Buy is actually stocking impaired CDs, I intend to stop shopping there--not just for CDs, but for DVDs, stereo components, computer software, anything they carry. I wish enough other people cared about this issue to show them a real decline in sales that can be directly attributed to this shortsighted decision.
Slashdot Mirror
As an employee of IBM, I'd take the comments from Alliance@IBM with a grain of salt. Alliance@IBM is a group of employees whose agenda it has been to start an IT workers' union. The people Mr. Conrad is likely to be talking to are therefore probably pre-disposed to being very anti-upper management. Mr. Moffat's M.O. is as an axe man, and a pool of employees who's reactionary response is to oppose any kind of reduction in workforce, no matter how necessary from a business standpoint, is hardly likely to have an unbiased opinion as to the sentiment of Poughkeepsie's general population towards Mr. Moffat. Alliance@IBM doesn't even represent a majority of IBM employees, much less the population of people from which a jury would be built.
The thing is, at least in the iPhoneSIMfree case, they're intending to sell the hack in increments of 500 licenses to providers rather than end-users. The buyers' intent, it can be presumed, is to sell end-users iPhones that have already been hacked rather than leaving them to do it themselves. That would be very attractive in Europe, and potentially to a niche market here in the states who have had a bad experience with AT&T (probably not an insignificant number. AT&T is the one that stands to lose here, since Apple will presumably already have gotten their margin out of the hardware purchase.
I recently added HD to my Comcast subscription, and admit to still being a bit confused by the specifics of Comcast's scheme. On their channel listing, they indicate that with their most basic digital cable package, the HD versions of the broadcast networks (NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, and PBS) should be accessible. What they don't tell you in that listing, is that currently the only way for you to decode the HD signal transmitted by Comcast is to get their tuner (either in DVR, or standard tuner models), and presently, the only way to do that is to rent the device from Comcast. Now, as I understand from the Comcast sales rep, the only way to get that device is to upgrade to a more expansive cable package, which includes SDTV channels such as ESPN, MTV, etc, and naturally costs more.
However, the installation technician clued me in to a possible new option. He thought that the tuners would soon be available for sale at Best Buy stores. Now, from Comcast's own channel listing, I'm presuming that I should be able to purchase one of those tuners at a one-time cost, drop back to basic digital cable, and reduce my monthly bill by some $40 a month while still getting at least the broadcast networks in HD. Of the channels currently available to me with my chosen package, the only HD channels that really are of interest to me are the broadcast networks, ESPN (occasionally), and Discovery HD. So it's certainly not worth an additional $40 a month. Were my cable TV subscription not also tied to a lower rate for my cable internet connection, I'd probably just plunk down the cash for an over-the-air tuner and antenna. Come to think of it, at $40 a month, that option might quickly become more cost effective.
Watching NASA TV, mission control just confirmed successful orbital entry of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. One of the scientists quickly said, "Today we really earned our 'O'".
My parents (more often my father) use both Macs and Windows PCs. I'm forever trying (and failing) to explain how Mac OS indicates application context switching. A major problem is that my father doesn't understand that closing a window in Windows kills the application, whereas closing a window in MacOS only closes the window--the application remains running in memory. I see evidence of this same cognitive dissonance with my mother, when a dozen applications are running on her iMac, but only three windows from any of those applications are actually on the desktop or minimized. Naturally performance suffers in this situation. This is especially pertinant on my dad's office computer, because he's running Virtual PC and needs to switch between a PC world and a Mac world. He doesn't really understand that he's changing operating systems, and therefore changing user interface philosophies.
Maybe this concept is a bit too advanced when the average user only has to get used to one environment. It's something I deal with whenever I'm on a service call with my parents though.
frostycellnex
I presume this would allow all of the European iTunes stores to unify into a one-stop shop with the catalogues of all combined into one. Great thing for consumer choice.
Unless they're leaving something out about the fuel they're burning with the hyper-compressed air, this engine would be ultra clean too. Since the fuel is hydrogen (as shown by this NASA diagram), and the combustion agent is the oxygen in the compressed air, then the byproduct would simply be water. There would of course be some heat pollution, which is still actually a potentially serious pollutant, but only when the contrails created from such heat become as numerous as those from today's airliners.
IBM continues to produce Wintel PCs, and I believe at least a portion of our Linux offerings also run on Intel architecture, but there has been a PowerPC version of Linux for at least the past 7 years. I'm not certain what SuSE is running on, but I think it could be PowerPC.
Nothing against geekness. But I think most geeks really wish, from time to time, that they were just a bit more adaptable to the proverbial in-crowd. I'd suggest getting him something that makes him feel less like a geek, even if only for Valentines' Day. A bottle of new cologne, maybe some trendy pants and a shirt.... Help him get all spiffed up, then take him out somewhere trendy, and make him feel like he belongs there. With you at his side, looking fantastic, he'll be the guy who's got the girl. I can't think of a better lead-in to a more intimate romantic evening/night afterwards either.
I can imagine an application for this hack that might be really useful with version control systems. Consider this hypothetical scenario....
You're called in on a weekend to make a hot fix to some code you own, only to discover that someone else has checked your code out of a library to do some tinkering, and happened to leave the file open in an editor in his development environment. This person is on vacation and unreachable, as are any administrators that could unlock the file. I know CVS allows concurrant versioning (simultaneous edits that are resolved when checked back into the library), but with Rendezvous, you could check out the file make your changes, and not have to worry about merging them later.
I can see some significant benefits to an integrated development environment (like Eclipse perhaps) which has code editing, version control, and concurrent development management built in.
My brother also has an iBook. we were waiting in line for tickets to Episode II earlier this spring, and tried watching Episode I (it was pretty cool--we connected the audio output to his car stereo speakers, and put his iBook on top of the hood). We likewise only got through about an hour. His computer was about as old at the time. I wonder if it's a difference with the power consumption between the two motherboard architectures.
There might also be issues with how the video card handles DVD playback in an iBook. I think iBooks from a year ago have a Rage Mobility 128, which isn't terribly beefy, and doesn't take advantage of some of the DVD playback efficiencies of DVD Player or the video efficiencies of Jaguar.
:)
macosrumors might not be that far off. If you look at the likely shipping times, 4-6 weeks for the superdrive model, macosrumors was just about right on in terms of availability. It's just that marketing must have figured it would be advantageous to announce before the Christmas season.
This is the computer I've been waiting for--everything I want all in one tight little package. My only question is with regard to that quoted battery life. I'd expect that's an extreme limit, with the lowest possible power consumption configuration. So can I watch an entire DVD on a single battery charge? I'm expecting to be doing some trans-Pacific flights in the near future, and those 18 hours would go by a whole lot faster if I could watch my own movies. For you double-E's out there, I've seen rumors that Apple is working on a new battery, but that it probably wouldn't find it's way into Apple's portables for at least another 6 months (and I presume that's optimistic). What's the likelihood that a new battery would be compatible with the current hardware architecture?
Rumors coming out of several Mac rumor mills suggest that Apple is going to release a new version of the Titanium PowerBook in early-mid October. It will sport updated CPUs (of course) a beefier video card and (what I've personally been waiting for) a "portable Superdrive" (DVD-R and CD-RW). Not exactly sure yet what "portable" means in this context, but I'm hoping the slimmed down the form factor far enough on the Superdrive to be able to fit it into one of those amazingly thin machines. Hope you switch! frostycellnex
When /. posted the story about Best Buy's announcement that they would be carrying the CDs, I went in to investigate the claims--I didn't intend on supporting Best Buy if it was true. I found the new Celine Dion CD prominently featured in a New Releases endcap, and unless they manufacture both disabled and fully CD-standards-compliant versions, there was nothing on the CD which indicated it was not a CD. I don't recall there being the standard Compact Disc icon from Phillips either. In any case, there wasn't anything to suggest to me that the Celine Dion disc was any different than any other standard CD.
So maybe this issue is really dead-on-arrival. Tech industry advocates don't like the Hollings bill because they've said it would stifle innovation. That's probably fair to say when framed in the near-term, but maybe there's a lesson from the DVD vs. DivX battle. Consumers just didn't like the limitations of DivX, despite the industry's feeble attempts to market it as an innovative way to provide new convenience. Consumers chose the product with more freedom, even if it propped up an older and "less convenient" business model. If people are educated enough on what these crippled CDs really represent--a limitation of fair use--maybe they'll veto them the way they vetoed DivX. And that education is probably where /.ers can help.
I have a good friend who works for Best Buy corporate. She's hardly in a position to change things, but she may eventually have the ear of someone who can. When I can confirm that Best Buy is actually stocking impaired CDs, I intend to stop shopping there--not just for CDs, but for DVDs, stereo components, computer software, anything they carry. I wish enough other people cared about this issue to show them a real decline in sales that can be directly attributed to this shortsighted decision.