Hmmm I think I understand. You'd rather sit around the water cooler re-hashing the creative genius of other people's ideas... what? afraid yours would never make the cut to begin with?
Let's hope they have episodes about geeky issues such as:
Bender gets a firmware upgrade that includes DRM which can't be uninstalled without breaking the law... ie: circumventing DRM laws
Fry searches for pRon on Google and gets targeted by the Feds in their anti-granny porn investigation because he searched for porn stars from the year 2000.... I have more but I'll leave that up to/. to madlib....
Now that Vista will be consuming CPU and RAM just as if you had a bunch of Spyware and antivirus software running, M$ no longer needs those other 3rd party 'solutions' to help drive new PC purchases...
Look at it. PCs can run SO FAST if you can simply get rid of all those bloated CPU hogs that supposedly protect your system from virii and spyware. Unfortunately most people don't know how to do so securely and end up with the other side of the coin... a bunch of CPU hogging virii and spyware... so either way, normal people don't know how fast their machines really are and eventually decide they need to upgrade to some mind-bogglingly fast system just to get the same performance we used to get from the 486 CPUs
So now M$ has Vista which will do all the CPU hogging for you but to it's credit will take care of the virii and spyware without the need for 3rd party software (and possibly do it better since it's integrated and can take advantage of those wonderful undocumented APIs).
In the end though it's a 'solution' to the problem they've always had... if a PC is fast enough and powerful enough to do everything a person needs it to do, WHY WHY would anyone ever upgrade????? Really the only thing you might want to upgrade today is the GPU for faster graphics drawing for those advanced 3D games.... but that's $200 that goes to ATI or NVIDIA not Intel and M$ so that's not a good 'solution' for M$.
What's really significant here is that these will be practical. Forget 100 times strength. Think 2x or 3x at a weight that the human skeleton can manage without requiring reinforcement in earth gravity. Current exoskeleton type enhancement or even prosthetics are limited by the amount of weight and bulk they bring along to the arrangement, we can only handle so much.
This new tech would allow for very light weight and form fitting systems that could allow for normal range of movement and speed of movement while still providing enhamcement at the human scale... instead of requiring huge bulky robotic looking suits.
Those kids won't ever use the machine unless there's internet... fact is for most people the PC is nothing but an internet appliance, not that it's bad... lot of info on the internet.
also... you will be surprised to find that most of these kids have probably used a computer at the library or school.. so don't assume they know nothing about them...
Something you might consider doing is donating a few hours a week to go and teach them how to build the PC themselves, with donated parts... give a man fish, you know the rest... and they'll have a lot more fun and a lot more respect for the machines when they've put them together themselves.
I seem to remember that Pandas live in the most remote areas of the great bamboo forests of china.. which are very dense and difficult to navigate and that we have had every difficulty in finding them to date. I'm fairly certain that their actual numbers are far from certain.. though still very low (course we can't be certain that this hasn't always been the case since they each require huge amounts of food and therefore territory).
What would be really really nice is if the target browser for real world applications could even get close to passing a standard test. For many years now we've been forced to put the cart before the horse to support IE due to it's dominance on the desktop. Personally I've spent an additional 40 hours in just the last two months hacking around IEs lack of CSS2 support for web projects I've worked on.
Seriously these layouts worked perfectly in Safari, Firefox, Opera the first time around... just based on standards... then I started looking at IE and realized, oh crap! I had to jump through hoop after hoop and ended up having to compromise the design mulitple times which irked my Creative directory to no end (as I'd said "no problem, this design can be done in html + css).
uhhh except that his plan didn't actually get there until 2005 which was of course one year after his potential 8 years of holding office would be up, nevermind that he wasn't re-elected. Who knows how he would have dealt with 9/11 and Katrina, and of course any other initiatives which may have gained popularity during his second term.
I'm not saying that reducing spending on unnecessary programs is bad or that diversifying spending into short and long term profitable programs to bring the budget within a normative mean is an impossible goal.. just that doing so and doing it in a way that maintains a year to year level of stability is very very difficult.
The question isn't How can we do it? but Why would we do it? What is the benefit to a balanced budget..... for a nation as large as the US with a tax base that is growing consistently and an economy that really has no limits as to what sort of programs it can support. Obviously you can't do everything all at once but an ambitious President could and should utilize the resources available rather than simply sitting on the sidelines or partying with the internationals and ignoring future needs.
You're talking semantics just like me... what is debt? It's an obligation arbitrarily created to facilitate an exchange of goods or services so that goals can be achieved in an efficient manner. Sure we could all wait until we've individually accumulated all the assets needed to produce something... or we could take advantage of accumulated wealth within our society to foster our ideas and produce that new thing in the short term... a huge benefit not only to ourselves but also to the community (well the potential is there, YMMV).
Maybe you don't understand economics but I happen to have a good grasp of the concepts and how they can be applied in the real world. That doesn't mean I won't do things that actually work against me at times (like buying a new toy or taking a trip for the pure enjoyment of it)... but hey we're all human and some things are more important that ROI.
Life is a gamble! You make decisions, often big decisions, with very little information, going with instinct and intuition (experience plus creativity/pattern recognition) every day. Each of these could leave you injured, dead, desitute or in jail.
You sound like an absolute pessimist to me... you're probably a Manual reader too... but I won't get personal, only say that one person's "foolish gamble" is another's "stroke of genius", it all depends how you look at it... risk or opportunity.
We need bubbles. Steady may get you where you're going but it doesn't leave any room for exploring along the way... which is what bubbles are really good at.. lots of resources lots of people, all looking at innovative ways to extend the craze. Just don't put all your eggs in and when you earn something during a bubble, stick it away for the burst. Then sit back and enjoy the downtime until the next craze comes along.
that's enough for now... if you're Christian, don't forget to give up something for Lent and donate your savings to charity, but keep the receipt... giving is good AND deductible. (yes I subscribe to benevolent self interest).
I wasn't talking about people who travel... was talking about office workers... those who work in offices 90% of the time. The other 10% they can take a company laptop with them. For those who do travel to various extra office meetings a lot whether long distance or down the street.. of course a desktop replacement is a good choice and with all the peripherals as well...
In many cases debt is actually wealth. IF you buy 20,000 worth of goods that can be sold for 40,000 you have good debt. If you commit to a 200,000 mortgage on a home that will sell for 400,000 in 10 years you have good debt. Borrowing $5 to buy a chocolate bar that you then consume.. you have bad debt... unless you need that chocolate to survive;-p
The US gov can spend trillions and still have good debt if those trillions are an investment in an improved economy, improved export revenues, improved technology, etc. that will return as profits in the long run.. and be trillions in debt for a few years, hundreds of billions a few other years and trillions again... doesn't matter as long as it's invested debt, not consumed debt.
in fact our economy is based on debt and it would fail if we were to ever 'balance the budget' (which Clinton never did, he just showed numbers that proved that it would balance if spending continued the way it was going). Likewise we can never ever pay off the federal deficit... we'd no longer be obligated to anyone and our eocnomy would be floating free with no trade committments either way which would lead to complete chaos and uncertainty in the value of money. Money is backed by debt... it's the IOUs that give it value. Money would be worthless if it didn't represent a colossal promise to pay network.
But you're probably right, change is always right around the corner... especially with an election for a brand new president coming up in 2 years.
This is the scenario for an iMac.... replace a tower + screen with a small footprint all in one. Laptops don't make for great desktop replacements... they are too cramped, not ergonomic... display is too small, etc. etc. for day to day office use. They are even less expandable and upgradeable than an all in one type pc, the list goes on.
iMacs are wonderful for desktop use and relatively portable when it comes down to it... ie: you can move them around by yourself... all the connections are easy to get to, they have built in wireless so no need to rewire or extend the network to a new space.. if you have a wall port for ethernet no problem... built in speakers and headphone jacks for privacy... the new ones have the built in iSight for video conference and all have a built in mic for audio conference. New ones have bluetooth built in for use with wireless input and for synching up your pda with entourage or ical....
Bonjour is a god send for IT... just buy a printer that uses zeroconf and you'll never have label another ip address on it again just 'add printer' and pick bonjour , voila.. the printer shows up and will work without special drivers, though you may want to download them for extra features for special people...
So many nice things to say about the combo of OS X and iMac for office use.
in fact with OS X you have to turn it on... it's a Sharing preference called Remote Login... hello, yes I'd like people to remotely login to my machine.. I'll just start this right up. OTH there should be a little more help info on what SSH is for those who think being able to remotely login is a good idea even though they really don't know how to do it.
I reserve the right to Troll from whichever point in time seems appropriate... but I'm stealing your comment to use as my new sig!!!!!
Internet Explorer... what is there to say. A 6+ years old browser which barely supported the rendering standards of it's own time... It still isn't CSS1 compliant and doesn't support SSL beyond 128bit.... I won't even get into the crimes against humanity MS has perpetrated with it's security issues... GAWD!!!!
As for the rest... well PlugnPlay right? It will all work right out of the box... as long as you don't actually want to use it the way it was intended. For that you'll have to go through Driver Install Hell...
i could go on... but the future is calling, my new MacBook Pro and 30in. Cinema display are telling me to stop whining about other peoples problems and just bask in their glory;-p
Re:Head to head against Winders and *nix
on
MacBook Pro Reviewed
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
This is good. I'm replying on my brand new MacBook just came yesterday and wondering where I lost you... X for me is OS X... X-Windows would be the other X;-p or X-W, I just don't feel like typing out OS X every time... sorry for the confusion... and I'm also trying to popularize the meme of using Win'r (as in oooohhh you're such a Win'r) for Windows user, LUSER (short for Linux User - from the prior LUG or Linux User Group) and of course the rest of us who use OS X (we don't get to make up our own label... though I've heard Zealot is popular and machead and X'r would fit)
oh well, it was pretty late my time when I replied so probably wasn't the most lucid thought process happening.
"The U.S. is the world's largest donor of official development assistance (ODA).
U.S. ODA disbursements increased from $10 billion in 2000 to an estimated $19 billion in 2004 and comprised 34% of total ODA assistance by G-7 countries in 2004, according to the OECD's preliminary data on development assistance released in April 2005."
I'm thinking we could probably improve our own national stats in a number of areas if we weren't sending Billions of taxpayers money to developing countries... some you may argue are counterproductive in general (Iraq) but the rest of it is hard to reprise as anything other than charitable.
Re:Head to head against Winders and *nix
on
MacBook Pro Reviewed
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
such a dork... you must be a LUSER. Enjoy your hobby...
Well look we've begun bridging the gap already... I too say that same thing for Win users... "Hmmm sorry can't help you figure out how to install new fonts on Windows... I think there's a couple of control panels somewhere with an advanced tab that you have to get an admin to log in to edit for you (*grins* knowing they can just drag and drop fonts into the font folder on the C drive....) really I'm not sure, I'm a Mac user.... we just use our Fontbook app to do it all for us.. look it's got a shiny icon with a big typographical F on it... BTW.. does Windows not crash every 5 minutes anymore? heard that SP2 thingy did the trick, oh you've got a virus? oh and that's making you crash every 5 min. now, oh that's too bad... well at least it's not the blue screen thingy again.. hmmm, well it's a good thing my Mac can't access those network mapped drives (of course they can) or else we might start getting viruses tooo....
What's beautiful about your comment is that it points out the relative nature of resource economies. Before the age of 'economics' people did what needed to be done and used what resources they had available to do it. In this modern era, people don't even start planning the actual project until the 'economics' are worked out regardless of whether the project can be achieved if the people involved can have their needs met... and are willing to exchange their time for the benefit of working on a grand project......in fact the only surviving example of this old-fashioned agreement is our military. People sign up knowing that they will be taken care of to a relatively high standard, with excellent health care, benefits, housing, etc. and after proving their dedication they receive allotments of each in greater and greater amounts, with review processes and status bumps for exemplary performance. This works. Great Achievements are made.
A return to this method was briefly seen during the dotcom days of old, in a limited fashion... and some really great things were created. Can't we find a sweet spot between the perceived totalitarianism of the military, the too-far to the hedonistic dotcom variation and the common salary and benefits of Joes Corporation down the street?
Let's see a company that sets out to mine an asteroid and does what is needed to do so.... hires dedicated and skilled people with a passion for the project, provides them with both a modest salary they can put towards savings for the future and a high standard of day-to-day living through 'economies of scale' and astute purchases of relevant assets (housing, land to build on, rec rooms, theaters, etc. like a university campus... even vehicles and vacations... with enough benefits to attract young skilled individuals)... and just sets out to achieve their goal with a timeline that is sensible (start at ten years).
It may fail miserably but it would be an interesting ride... and learning experience for doing such things as operating an outpost on another planet... where you must operate in such a manner due to the time commitments involved.
us Macheads will undoubtably...regardless of the good or bad outcome, begin touting the usability or our most Superior OS. Now that the hardware is on an even footing we can really begin looking at the software differences, which of course is the real issue of note.
We'll complain that Adobe is shorting us on performance if the Win version is faster that the X version on the same hardware specs.
We'll crow about the OS performance if the X version is faster than the Win....
We'll tell you how in real world use, X is more efficient and we get more done, even if our system doesn't measure up in the *marks.
In short, Windows will still have Games and Macheads will buy Xboxen or PS3s and doff their caps saying "I bought a game system to play games, my Mac is for 'productivity' and 'creativity'" and who amongst the Windows crowd will be able to respond?
Newer LCD TVs come standard with VGA, DVI, S-Video and Ypb...
I'll be getting one of these for exactly this reason....
BTW are you looking for a WMV player? Flip4Mac is a Quicktime component that provides WMV playback inside QT... in fact MS stopped distributing Media Player for Mac in lieu of this...
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm I think I understand. You'd rather sit around the water cooler re-hashing the creative genius of other people's ideas... what? afraid yours would never make the cut to begin with?
Let's hope they have episodes about geeky issues such as:
... I have more but I'll leave that up to /. to madlib....
Bender gets a firmware upgrade that includes DRM which can't be uninstalled without breaking the law... ie: circumventing DRM laws
Fry searches for pRon on Google and gets targeted by the Feds in their anti-granny porn investigation because he searched for porn stars from the year 2000.
Now that Vista will be consuming CPU and RAM just as if you had a bunch of Spyware and antivirus software running, M$ no longer needs those other 3rd party 'solutions' to help drive new PC purchases...
Look at it. PCs can run SO FAST if you can simply get rid of all those bloated CPU hogs that supposedly protect your system from virii and spyware. Unfortunately most people don't know how to do so securely and end up with the other side of the coin... a bunch of CPU hogging virii and spyware... so either way, normal people don't know how fast their machines really are and eventually decide they need to upgrade to some mind-bogglingly fast system just to get the same performance we used to get from the 486 CPUs
So now M$ has Vista which will do all the CPU hogging for you but to it's credit will take care of the virii and spyware without the need for 3rd party software (and possibly do it better since it's integrated and can take advantage of those wonderful undocumented APIs).
In the end though it's a 'solution' to the problem they've always had... if a PC is fast enough and powerful enough to do everything a person needs it to do, WHY WHY would anyone ever upgrade????? Really the only thing you might want to upgrade today is the GPU for faster graphics drawing for those advanced 3D games.... but that's $200 that goes to ATI or NVIDIA not Intel and M$ so that's not a good 'solution' for M$.
What's really significant here is that these will be practical. Forget 100 times strength. Think 2x or 3x at a weight that the human skeleton can manage without requiring reinforcement in earth gravity. Current exoskeleton type enhancement or even prosthetics are limited by the amount of weight and bulk they bring along to the arrangement, we can only handle so much.
This new tech would allow for very light weight and form fitting systems that could allow for normal range of movement and speed of movement while still providing enhamcement at the human scale... instead of requiring huge bulky robotic looking suits.
Those kids won't ever use the machine unless there's internet... fact is for most people the PC is nothing but an internet appliance, not that it's bad... lot of info on the internet.
also... you will be surprised to find that most of these kids have probably used a computer at the library or school.. so don't assume they know nothing about them...
Something you might consider doing is donating a few hours a week to go and teach them how to build the PC themselves, with donated parts... give a man fish, you know the rest... and they'll have a lot more fun and a lot more respect for the machines when they've put them together themselves.
I seem to remember that Pandas live in the most remote areas of the great bamboo forests of china.. which are very dense and difficult to navigate and that we have had every difficulty in finding them to date. I'm fairly certain that their actual numbers are far from certain.. though still very low (course we can't be certain that this hasn't always been the case since they each require huge amounts of food and therefore territory).
Fossil is better known for their industrial design...
What would be really really nice is if the target browser for real world applications could even get close to passing a standard test. For many years now we've been forced to put the cart before the horse to support IE due to it's dominance on the desktop. Personally I've spent an additional 40 hours in just the last two months hacking around IEs lack of CSS2 support for web projects I've worked on.
Seriously these layouts worked perfectly in Safari, Firefox, Opera the first time around... just based on standards... then I started looking at IE and realized, oh crap! I had to jump through hoop after hoop and ended up having to compromise the design mulitple times which irked my Creative directory to no end (as I'd said "no problem, this design can be done in html + css).
my bad. nothing like ignoring the facts and just going with what feels true.
uhhh except that his plan didn't actually get there until 2005 which was of course one year after his potential 8 years of holding office would be up, nevermind that he wasn't re-elected. Who knows how he would have dealt with 9/11 and Katrina, and of course any other initiatives which may have gained popularity during his second term.
I'm not saying that reducing spending on unnecessary programs is bad or that diversifying spending into short and long term profitable programs to bring the budget within a normative mean is an impossible goal.. just that doing so and doing it in a way that maintains a year to year level of stability is very very difficult.
The question isn't How can we do it? but Why would we do it? What is the benefit to a balanced budget..... for a nation as large as the US with a tax base that is growing consistently and an economy that really has no limits as to what sort of programs it can support. Obviously you can't do everything all at once but an ambitious President could and should utilize the resources available rather than simply sitting on the sidelines or partying with the internationals and ignoring future needs.
You're talking semantics just like me... what is debt? It's an obligation arbitrarily created to facilitate an exchange of goods or services so that goals can be achieved in an efficient manner. Sure we could all wait until we've individually accumulated all the assets needed to produce something... or we could take advantage of accumulated wealth within our society to foster our ideas and produce that new thing in the short term... a huge benefit not only to ourselves but also to the community (well the potential is there, YMMV).
Maybe you don't understand economics but I happen to have a good grasp of the concepts and how they can be applied in the real world. That doesn't mean I won't do things that actually work against me at times (like buying a new toy or taking a trip for the pure enjoyment of it)... but hey we're all human and some things are more important that ROI.
Life is a gamble! You make decisions, often big decisions, with very little information, going with instinct and intuition (experience plus creativity/pattern recognition) every day. Each of these could leave you injured, dead, desitute or in jail.
You sound like an absolute pessimist to me... you're probably a Manual reader too... but I won't get personal, only say that one person's "foolish gamble" is another's "stroke of genius", it all depends how you look at it... risk or opportunity.
We need bubbles. Steady may get you where you're going but it doesn't leave any room for exploring along the way... which is what bubbles are really good at.. lots of resources lots of people, all looking at innovative ways to extend the craze. Just don't put all your eggs in and when you earn something during a bubble, stick it away for the burst. Then sit back and enjoy the downtime until the next craze comes along.
that's enough for now... if you're Christian, don't forget to give up something for Lent and donate your savings to charity, but keep the receipt... giving is good AND deductible. (yes I subscribe to benevolent self interest).
Do they also dock them into a display as well?
I wasn't talking about people who travel... was talking about office workers... those who work in offices 90% of the time. The other 10% they can take a company laptop with them. For those who do travel to various extra office meetings a lot whether long distance or down the street.. of course a desktop replacement is a good choice and with all the peripherals as well...
In many cases debt is actually wealth. IF you buy 20,000 worth of goods that can be sold for 40,000 you have good debt. If you commit to a 200,000 mortgage on a home that will sell for 400,000 in 10 years you have good debt. Borrowing $5 to buy a chocolate bar that you then consume.. you have bad debt... unless you need that chocolate to survive ;-p
The US gov can spend trillions and still have good debt if those trillions are an investment in an improved economy, improved export revenues, improved technology, etc. that will return as profits in the long run.. and be trillions in debt for a few years, hundreds of billions a few other years and trillions again... doesn't matter as long as it's invested debt, not consumed debt.
in fact our economy is based on debt and it would fail if we were to ever 'balance the budget' (which Clinton never did, he just showed numbers that proved that it would balance if spending continued the way it was going). Likewise we can never ever pay off the federal deficit... we'd no longer be obligated to anyone and our eocnomy would be floating free with no trade committments either way which would lead to complete chaos and uncertainty in the value of money. Money is backed by debt... it's the IOUs that give it value. Money would be worthless if it didn't represent a colossal promise to pay network.
But you're probably right, change is always right around the corner... especially with an election for a brand new president coming up in 2 years.
This is the scenario for an iMac.... replace a tower + screen with a small footprint all in one. Laptops don't make for great desktop replacements... they are too cramped, not ergonomic... display is too small, etc. etc. for day to day office use. They are even less expandable and upgradeable than an all in one type pc, the list goes on.
iMacs are wonderful for desktop use and relatively portable when it comes down to it... ie: you can move them around by yourself... all the connections are easy to get to, they have built in wireless so no need to rewire or extend the network to a new space.. if you have a wall port for ethernet no problem... built in speakers and headphone jacks for privacy... the new ones have the built in iSight for video conference and all have a built in mic for audio conference. New ones have bluetooth built in for use with wireless input and for synching up your pda with entourage or ical....
Bonjour is a god send for IT... just buy a printer that uses zeroconf and you'll never have label another ip address on it again just 'add printer' and pick bonjour , voila.. the printer shows up and will work without special drivers, though you may want to download them for extra features for special people...
So many nice things to say about the combo of OS X and iMac for office use.
in fact with OS X you have to turn it on... it's a Sharing preference called Remote Login... hello, yes I'd like people to remotely login to my machine.. I'll just start this right up. OTH there should be a little more help info on what SSH is for those who think being able to remotely login is a good idea even though they really don't know how to do it.
I reserve the right to Troll from whichever point in time seems appropriate... but I'm stealing your comment to use as my new sig!!!!!
;-p
Internet Explorer... what is there to say. A 6+ years old browser which barely supported the rendering standards of it's own time... It still isn't CSS1 compliant and doesn't support SSL beyond 128bit.... I won't even get into the crimes against humanity MS has perpetrated with it's security issues... GAWD!!!!
As for the rest... well PlugnPlay right? It will all work right out of the box... as long as you don't actually want to use it the way it was intended. For that you'll have to go through Driver Install Hell...
i could go on... but the future is calling, my new MacBook Pro and 30in. Cinema display are telling me to stop whining about other peoples problems and just bask in their glory
An informative response.... well done.
This is good. I'm replying on my brand new MacBook just came yesterday and wondering where I lost you... X for me is OS X... X-Windows would be the other X ;-p or X-W, I just don't feel like typing out OS X every time... sorry for the confusion... and I'm also trying to popularize the meme of using Win'r (as in oooohhh you're such a Win'r) for Windows user, LUSER (short for Linux User - from the prior LUG or Linux User Group) and of course the rest of us who use OS X (we don't get to make up our own label... though I've heard Zealot is popular and machead and X'r would fit)
oh well, it was pretty late my time when I replied so probably wasn't the most lucid thought process happening.
Here's a nice fact for you:
"The U.S. is the world's largest donor of official development assistance (ODA).
U.S. ODA disbursements increased from $10 billion in 2000 to an estimated $19 billion in 2004 and comprised 34% of total ODA assistance by G-7 countries in 2004, according to the OECD's preliminary data on development assistance released in April 2005."
I'm thinking we could probably improve our own national stats in a number of areas if we weren't sending Billions of taxpayers money to developing countries... some you may argue are counterproductive in general (Iraq) but the rest of it is hard to reprise as anything other than charitable.
such a dork... you must be a LUSER. Enjoy your hobby...
Well look we've begun bridging the gap already... I too say that same thing for Win users... "Hmmm sorry can't help you figure out how to install new fonts on Windows... I think there's a couple of control panels somewhere with an advanced tab that you have to get an admin to log in to edit for you (*grins* knowing they can just drag and drop fonts into the font folder on the C drive....) really I'm not sure, I'm a Mac user.... we just use our Fontbook app to do it all for us.. look it's got a shiny icon with a big typographical F on it... BTW.. does Windows not crash every 5 minutes anymore? heard that SP2 thingy did the trick, oh you've got a virus? oh and that's making you crash every 5 min. now, oh that's too bad... well at least it's not the blue screen thingy again.. hmmm, well it's a good thing my Mac can't access those network mapped drives (of course they can) or else we might start getting viruses tooo....
What's beautiful about your comment is that it points out the relative nature of resource economies. Before the age of 'economics' people did what needed to be done and used what resources they had available to do it. In this modern era, people don't even start planning the actual project until the 'economics' are worked out regardless of whether the project can be achieved if the people involved can have their needs met... and are willing to exchange their time for the benefit of working on a grand project... ...in fact the only surviving example of this old-fashioned agreement is our military. People sign up knowing that they will be taken care of to a relatively high standard, with excellent health care, benefits, housing, etc. and after proving their dedication they receive allotments of each in greater and greater amounts, with review processes and status bumps for exemplary performance. This works. Great Achievements are made.
A return to this method was briefly seen during the dotcom days of old, in a limited fashion... and some really great things were created. Can't we find a sweet spot between the perceived totalitarianism of the military, the too-far to the hedonistic dotcom variation and the common salary and benefits of Joes Corporation down the street?
Let's see a company that sets out to mine an asteroid and does what is needed to do so.... hires dedicated and skilled people with a passion for the project, provides them with both a modest salary they can put towards savings for the future and a high standard of day-to-day living through 'economies of scale' and astute purchases of relevant assets (housing, land to build on, rec rooms, theaters, etc. like a university campus... even vehicles and vacations... with enough benefits to attract young skilled individuals)... and just sets out to achieve their goal with a timeline that is sensible (start at ten years).
It may fail miserably but it would be an interesting ride... and learning experience for doing such things as operating an outpost on another planet... where you must operate in such a manner due to the time commitments involved.
Hahahahaha... they should buy the name and put their search engine there... "AltaVista" indeed!
Ah yes, but you see....
us Macheads will undoubtably...regardless of the good or bad outcome, begin touting the usability or our most Superior OS. Now that the hardware is on an even footing we can really begin looking at the software differences, which of course is the real issue of note.
We'll complain that Adobe is shorting us on performance if the Win version is faster that the X version on the same hardware specs.
We'll crow about the OS performance if the X version is faster than the Win....
We'll tell you how in real world use, X is more efficient and we get more done, even if our system doesn't measure up in the *marks.
In short, Windows will still have Games and Macheads will buy Xboxen or PS3s and doff their caps saying "I bought a game system to play games, my Mac is for 'productivity' and 'creativity'" and who amongst the Windows crowd will be able to respond?
Newer LCD TVs come standard with VGA, DVI, S-Video and Ypb...
I'll be getting one of these for exactly this reason....
BTW are you looking for a WMV player? Flip4Mac is a Quicktime component that provides WMV playback inside QT... in fact MS stopped distributing Media Player for Mac in lieu of this...