Sorry if this is redundant, but I scanned through the posts and didn't find this anywhere else, which is interesting because I've always thought people have put some level of importance on this in getting Joe User off Windows. Anyway, I found this in "Kernel Changes"
PECOFF (Win32 Execution file format) support has been added.
How long has this been true? To what extent is this true? Does this mean faster-than-WINE emulation, or even emulation at all? Will I be able to install and/or run Win32 programs without thinking? I guess I could summarize like this: how much does this do?
If this is somewhere else, then if someone could just call me an idiot and point me to the thread, I'd be greatful. Or, if it's old news, then just ignore this. Thanks.
(this is more of a supplement than a rebuttal to your post)
Yes, it is true that firms price products such that they will maximize profit. However, when a firm has a monopoly on a product, they have market power. Now, in an ideal capitalist society, everyone is a price taker, but that's clearly never going to happen. Everyone, at least in a very small amount, has market power. However, Microsoft has a very large amount of it. That's bad because open competition can't drive software prices towards their equilibrium point. Okay, so lots of non-tech (and even tech) people aren't rational (one of the assumptions made in beginning econ is that they are), but if they were, they wouldn't buy the products at (> equilibrium price). But, since Microsoft is a profit-maximizing firm, they charge (equilibrium price + value of market power) just like everyone else would, and consumers will pay ("normal" equilibrium price + value of Microsoft's market power) because (1) it maximizes their utility and (2) their utility could have been increased even more, but the market power that Microsoft has causes them to pay that extra money. I think.
Now, there's also the problem with utility maximization. If people are going to get more utility out of Windows than another OS, they'll be willing to spend that much more money.
So does the problem of inflated prices lies in market power, consumers' increased utility in buying and using Windows, or simple irrationality? I'd go so far as to say that it's all of that and probably more. But, since I'm not an economist, I can't really explain the gory details.
So, you're right that high profit margins have nothing to do with being a monopoly, but being a monopoly certainly doesn't hurt your profit maximizing decisions about pricing.
One last note: consumers aren't apathetic, they're either ignorant or utility maximizers. Advertising, among other things, can cause ignorance of competitors and consumers will buy something until the marginal benefit is equal to the marginal cost in order to maximize their utility. If buying Windows increases their utility more than the cost, they're going to buy it.
I'd like to be corrected about any of this, if possible -- I have a intro Micro Econ final coming up in a few weeks;)
(No, I don't care if it's redundant. I'm being asked why, so here's my answer. I'm also not trying to be flamebait or a troll, FYI)
Right now, I'm using RH8 to type this message. I've also tried Red Hat 7.3, 7.2, Mandrake 9, 8.2 and 8.1, FreeBSD (something) and OpenBSD (something). A far cry from someone who cares, but I still figure that I can't say anything without personal experience, and besides, if I can get an OS legally for free, why not try it? I might just go back to Win2k for serveral reasons, many of which are also why I don't use a Mac: my hardware just doesn't work on Linux. My Lexmark X83 does not work and my sound card sounds like shit, not to mention I can't even get MIDI out of the card. Also, there are standards in Windows as far as installation is concerned -- there's an add/remove control panel to conveniently add and remove programs. After about three hours I got my video card working so I don't have that evil, strobing 60 Hz. Wine is very imperfect.
Yeah, there's the catch-all "if it's so important, do it yourself and stop whining." I'm not whining. I'm saying that I'd rather pay $100 for a less stable but easy-to-use and perfectly compatible Windows system than nothing for a system that half the time doesn't compile downloaded software right and more than likely won't install my hardware.
By far I can't say that I'm an expert in the field, but I know what I likes and I know what I dislikes. I dislikes people telling me that what I'm using sucks, yet letting me be on my own to figure out why and what I should do about it, and how to deploy it once I've figured out what to do about it.
Windows sucks!
Okay, what should I do about it?
Use (Linux | *BSD | whatever)!
Okay...
(later)
How do I-
(RTFM | Fix it yourself | Ask someone else)!
...so it was a bad idea to take a common word, use it as an AOL email address, then post it on every message board, chat room and newsgroup I've ever used -- particularly pr0n ones? I never would have guessed.
Right, so if, hypothetically speaking (i.e. no research involved), the platters had a total mass of.5 kg, that translates to 500 g, and at 80 gb (grambits) that comes out to about 39 kb.
Imagine the possibilities!
P.S. Yes, I'm aware that that's if it was bits per gram, and it's not, but frankly, I couldn't care less. Live with it.:p
In a bid to protect new domains from cybersquatters, the FID set a $15,000 price tag on registering a dot-su domain.
If you're a cybersquatter such as Microsoft or PETA, price isn't a problem, now is it?
Now, there's the matter of actually wanting a domain like that. I don't even think either of them are capable of such wasteful spending... then again...
Okay, I'm going to sleep. Having no sleep is hazardous to your health, and causes you to make posts like this one.
One more from Dev-C++ and then I'm going to sleep.
on
Gnarly Error Messages
·
· Score: 1
[General error] Too many error messages; abort.
There must be something terribly wrong with your code. Please fix it.
In my Senior year at my high school, we had a "wall of shame" of Dev-C++ error messages (our high school had all Win98 machines, and Visual Studio hadn't been upgraded since VS4, so some of the simplified things in Dev-C++ were handy). I wish I could post them all here... they were great.
Error in E:\APCS\Chapter_8\lalalalalalalalalalalalalala...
I swear it said that. I have no idea where that came from, either. I wish I could have saved all those error messages, though. Ah, well, there are always the memories...
No, just the opposite -- publishers won't want to ship XBox games to a country where the console's no longer being sold, and consumers wouldn't want to buy a console that might have that happen. Besides that, if Microsoft would be making no effort to push the console there, even trying to hault it, wtf would be the reason for paying royalties to MS for whenever they sell a game in Australia?
The problem is that that's expected, at least by me. Win98 is considered primitive and crappy but it doesn't take more than a quarter second to load a window on my computer, in general (yeah, if icons are screwed up or you're accessing the CD-ROM drives, it takes longer, but still). I might have a link on my desktop that goes directly to a whole bunch of oggs/mp3s, for example. I wanna open it now and listen to some, then close the window.
I'm not saying that it's essential or anything, but instant gratification, in something even so small as that, is always very nice.
I'm just stating my personal preference. I like windows coming up when I click on them -- as opposed to a few seconds later -- because it simply feels nicer. That's just me, though.
I do agree with him that s-video is MUCH better than composite in every case I've seen. Edges are sharper, the picture's clearer, the colors are more vibrant. All this for $8 or (usually) less; a very worthy "investment," I believe, as long as you're going to spend >$200 on gaming anyway. Actually, that's only true for new gaming systems that I've tried, since I'm not researching this but just going based off of what I've seen. So that means I can't vouch for the rest of his argument, because it seems silly to spend as much for a cable as a console. If I ever actually EXPERIENCE this, I'll come back to you.
Yeah, it's ITT. "I'm self-employed in a computer detailing service." I've looked through some web pages and none of them offer any clues. I figured/. has the most educated people in computer professions, and so could tell me what this is. Afaict, everyone's just as clueless. "Shine your computer, sir?" I forget who said that, but I think I'll update my sig with that.
Didn't we have all kinds of doomtalk about the climate change and a mini-ice age happening?
I wouldn't deny it. I mean, I live in southern California and it's less than 100 right now. As a matter of fact, it's less than 70 right now -- even the daytime high wasn't much warmer. THAT is scary.:p
According to the article, use of the feature more than 15 times voids the warranty in Eurpoe.
Good thing I don't live in Eurpoe.
Seriously, though, that sounds kind of cool... except it doesn't apply to me. All I care about is getting to 65 by the time I reach the end of an onramp.
Newsgroups are thought of as archaic, so that really isn't taken into consideration. But don't mention that; some Congressman -- or the RIAA (same thing, basically) -- may find out!
Doesn't Gnucleus LAN do that? I mean, just have Gnucleus LAN running, and if that doesn't turn up anything, resort to something else. I wouldn't know, since I'm not in a LAN nor have I tried that, but it would seem like it would work...
Maybe I'll ask my friend at UCI... except she's not a computer geek...
What can this actually do for me? I read the article (read: advertisement) and I'm still lost on what this does. It's a shortwave radio. Great. Can I get local radio stations with it?
I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm just curious of to whom this is relevant and why.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry if this is redundant, but I scanned through the posts and didn't find this anywhere else, which is interesting because I've always thought people have put some level of importance on this in getting Joe User off Windows. Anyway, I found this in "Kernel Changes"
PECOFF (Win32 Execution file format) support has been added.
How long has this been true? To what extent is this true? Does this mean faster-than-WINE emulation, or even emulation at all? Will I be able to install and/or run Win32 programs without thinking? I guess I could summarize like this: how much does this do?
If this is somewhere else, then if someone could just call me an idiot and point me to the thread, I'd be greatful. Or, if it's old news, then just ignore this. Thanks.
(this is more of a supplement than a rebuttal to your post)
;)
Yes, it is true that firms price products such that they will maximize profit. However, when a firm has a monopoly on a product, they have market power. Now, in an ideal capitalist society, everyone is a price taker, but that's clearly never going to happen. Everyone, at least in a very small amount, has market power. However, Microsoft has a very large amount of it. That's bad because open competition can't drive software prices towards their equilibrium point. Okay, so lots of non-tech (and even tech) people aren't rational (one of the assumptions made in beginning econ is that they are), but if they were, they wouldn't buy the products at (> equilibrium price). But, since Microsoft is a profit-maximizing firm, they charge (equilibrium price + value of market power) just like everyone else would, and consumers will pay ("normal" equilibrium price + value of Microsoft's market power) because (1) it maximizes their utility and (2) their utility could have been increased even more, but the market power that Microsoft has causes them to pay that extra money. I think.
Now, there's also the problem with utility maximization. If people are going to get more utility out of Windows than another OS, they'll be willing to spend that much more money.
So does the problem of inflated prices lies in market power, consumers' increased utility in buying and using Windows, or simple irrationality? I'd go so far as to say that it's all of that and probably more. But, since I'm not an economist, I can't really explain the gory details.
So, you're right that high profit margins have nothing to do with being a monopoly, but being a monopoly certainly doesn't hurt your profit maximizing decisions about pricing. One last note: consumers aren't apathetic, they're either ignorant or utility maximizers. Advertising, among other things, can cause ignorance of competitors and consumers will buy something until the marginal benefit is equal to the marginal cost in order to maximize their utility. If buying Windows increases their utility more than the cost, they're going to buy it.
I'd like to be corrected about any of this, if possible -- I have a intro Micro Econ final coming up in a few weeks
(No, I don't care if it's redundant. I'm being asked why, so here's my answer. I'm also not trying to be flamebait or a troll, FYI)
Right now, I'm using RH8 to type this message. I've also tried Red Hat 7.3, 7.2, Mandrake 9, 8.2 and 8.1, FreeBSD (something) and OpenBSD (something). A far cry from someone who cares, but I still figure that I can't say anything without personal experience, and besides, if I can get an OS legally for free, why not try it? I might just go back to Win2k for serveral reasons, many of which are also why I don't use a Mac: my hardware just doesn't work on Linux. My Lexmark X83 does not work and my sound card sounds like shit, not to mention I can't even get MIDI out of the card. Also, there are standards in Windows as far as installation is concerned -- there's an add/remove control panel to conveniently add and remove programs. After about three hours I got my video card working so I don't have that evil, strobing 60 Hz. Wine is very imperfect. Yeah, there's the catch-all "if it's so important, do it yourself and stop whining." I'm not whining. I'm saying that I'd rather pay $100 for a less stable but easy-to-use and perfectly compatible Windows system than nothing for a system that half the time doesn't compile downloaded software right and more than likely won't install my hardware.
By far I can't say that I'm an expert in the field, but I know what I likes and I know what I dislikes. I dislikes people telling me that what I'm using sucks, yet letting me be on my own to figure out why and what I should do about it, and how to deploy it once I've figured out what to do about it.
Windows sucks!
Okay, what should I do about it?
Use (Linux | *BSD | whatever)!
Okay...
(later)
How do I-
(RTFM | Fix it yourself | Ask someone else)!
So that's why I use Windows.
- Dane
...so it was a bad idea to take a common word, use it as an AOL email address, then post it on every message board, chat room and newsgroup I've ever used -- particularly pr0n ones? I never would have guessed.
...that's it, I'm changing my sig.
What? And miss out on Homestar Runner, and, more importantly, Strong Bad e-mails? You're nuts.
Personally, the last time I tried to install Mozilla, I had a harder time getting Flash ON it.
No, I have nothing useful to contribute to this discussion. Carry on.
Right, so if, hypothetically speaking (i.e. no research involved), the platters had a total mass of .5 kg, that translates to 500 g, and at 80 gb (grambits) that comes out to about 39 kb.
:p
Imagine the possibilities!
P.S. Yes, I'm aware that that's if it was bits per gram, and it's not, but frankly, I couldn't care less. Live with it.
Yeah, they do.
In a bid to protect new domains from cybersquatters, the FID set a $15,000 price tag on registering a dot-su domain.
If you're a cybersquatter such as Microsoft or PETA, price isn't a problem, now is it?
Now, there's the matter of actually wanting a domain like that. I don't even think either of them are capable of such wasteful spending... then again...
Okay, I'm going to sleep. Having no sleep is hazardous to your health, and causes you to make posts like this one.
[General error] Too many error messages; abort.
There must be something terribly wrong with your code. Please fix it.
In my Senior year at my high school, we had a "wall of shame" of Dev-C++ error messages (our high school had all Win98 machines, and Visual Studio hadn't been upgraded since VS4, so some of the simplified things in Dev-C++ were handy). I wish I could post them all here... they were great.
Error in E:\APCS\Chapter_8\lalalalalalalalalalalalalala...
I swear it said that. I have no idea where that came from, either. I wish I could have saved all those error messages, though. Ah, well, there are always the memories...
No, just the opposite -- publishers won't want to ship XBox games to a country where the console's no longer being sold, and consumers wouldn't want to buy a console that might have that happen. Besides that, if Microsoft would be making no effort to push the console there, even trying to hault it, wtf would be the reason for paying royalties to MS for whenever they sell a game in Australia?
I didn't mean it to be flamebait. I knew it would happen, but I still didn't mean it like that. I'm just stating my mind.
The problem is that that's expected, at least by me. Win98 is considered primitive and crappy but it doesn't take more than a quarter second to load a window on my computer, in general (yeah, if icons are screwed up or you're accessing the CD-ROM drives, it takes longer, but still). I might have a link on my desktop that goes directly to a whole bunch of oggs/mp3s, for example. I wanna open it now and listen to some, then close the window.
I'm not saying that it's essential or anything, but instant gratification, in something even so small as that, is always very nice.
I'm just stating my personal preference. I like windows coming up when I click on them -- as opposed to a few seconds later -- because it simply feels nicer. That's just me, though.
Is there a box physically capable of opening a window in less than ten seconds in KDE now? More importantly, can MY box?
Wishful thinking, but I can always dream.
I do agree with him that s-video is MUCH better than composite in every case I've seen. Edges are sharper, the picture's clearer, the colors are more vibrant. All this for $8 or (usually) less; a very worthy "investment," I believe, as long as you're going to spend >$200 on gaming anyway. Actually, that's only true for new gaming systems that I've tried, since I'm not researching this but just going based off of what I've seen. So that means I can't vouch for the rest of his argument, because it seems silly to spend as much for a cable as a console. If I ever actually EXPERIENCE this, I'll come back to you.
And thus ends my happy ramblings.
Yeah, it's ITT. "I'm self-employed in a computer detailing service." I've looked through some web pages and none of them offer any clues. I figured /. has the most educated people in computer professions, and so could tell me what this is. Afaict, everyone's just as clueless. "Shine your computer, sir?" I forget who said that, but I think I'll update my sig with that.
Didn't we have all kinds of doomtalk about the climate change and a mini-ice age happening?
:p
I wouldn't deny it. I mean, I live in southern California and it's less than 100 right now. As a matter of fact, it's less than 70 right now -- even the daytime high wasn't much warmer. THAT is scary.
According to the article, use of the feature more than 15 times voids the warranty in Eurpoe.
Good thing I don't live in Eurpoe.
Seriously, though, that sounds kind of cool... except it doesn't apply to me. All I care about is getting to 65 by the time I reach the end of an onramp.
Did you appeal the citation? If it's legit (Linux is, I'm sure), they should've let you.
Newsgroups are thought of as archaic, so that really isn't taken into consideration. But don't mention that; some Congressman -- or the RIAA (same thing, basically) -- may find out!
Doesn't Gnucleus LAN do that? I mean, just have Gnucleus LAN running, and if that doesn't turn up anything, resort to something else. I wouldn't know, since I'm not in a LAN nor have I tried that, but it would seem like it would work...
Maybe I'll ask my friend at UCI... except she's not a computer geek...
Oh, cool, thanks. Maybe I'll get one, then.
Well, according to the link:
Additional demodulator types are planned as further options, including a DRM...demodulator.
Sorry, had to say it.
What can this actually do for me? I read the article (read: advertisement) and I'm still lost on what this does. It's a shortwave radio. Great. Can I get local radio stations with it?
I'm not being sarcastic or anything, I'm just curious of to whom this is relevant and why.