Steve Ballmer: WHAT? XBOX 360 IS COSTING US HOW MUCH? CUT CORNERS!!
engineer: umm... I think...
Steve Ballmer: I'M NOT PAYING YOU FOR THINKING! JUST DO IT!
(throws chair at scurrying engineer)
An old rule of advertising used to be, 'never mention your competitor's name'. So with these 'Linux this' and 'Linux that' attacks Microsoft continues to promote Linux.
Regardless of what the folks who actually use the supercomputer want, there's always this administrator who signs off on the purchase who will say 'Windows, huh? Great. Now we can have one support contract that covers everything!'. The M$ Sales Rep takes him/her out to a couple fancy lunches and comes back with a signed contract.
S'scuse me, but it looks to me like the car makers & dealers make out big on this one. The car makers have more iron to sell and the dealers can make fat profits off high-demand-vehicle markups. And don't think that the dealers haven't pressured the mfr's to keep the supply tight for a while just to help keep the markups high.
meanwhile, after you spent that extra $7,500, what you get is a 'good feeling about the environment'.
My wife's PC got infected with some horrible spyware/adware a couple weeks ago. Norton antivirus cleaned up some things (which the virus rootkit(?) promptly reinstalled), so I tried Hijack This, which removed some things which the virus reinstalled, so I tried MS's solution, same outcome, and a couple other worthless POS packages, same outcome. Loads of fun.
Finally reinstalled the OS from the vendor (Sony, damn them all to hell) package... which wiped the C drive and replaced everything with a pristine copy. That worked. Now spending days reinstalling/reconfiguring all our apps again, and being better about making the effing backup DVD.
Also looking around to see if there's any good real estate software available on the Mac for her to use. Unfortunately, Real Estate lost its balls years ago and ran shrieking straight for MS IE only web sites. Bleah.
Maybe these things will last a long time but the guys here on the ground are still drawing salaries, etc. Surely a mission that was spec'd to last a few months can be a budget item forever?
But some predictions will be possible in any event, that is, the same old ones: No perpetual motion machines, laws of thermodynamics will still hold up, signals won't propagate faster than 'c', etc.
The singularity will not be an infinitely rising curve but a sharply rising curve after which things pretty much flatten out forever - all the best possible solutions to problems will have been found. Any changes after that point will be about fashion, not physical progress.
I'm curious about who's running the bigger risk... While ITMS sells a lot of tracks, it doesn't contribute *that* much to Apple's bottom line (5% of revenues is the last I heard).
The record companies aren't making that much off selling digital tracks either, compared to CD revenues.
So what's going on is not about the current scene but jockeying for the best position in the long run, assuming that downloads will eventually outstrip CD sales.
Cars that can synchronize their motion in relation to nearby traffic could make traffic jams a thing of the past.
Would that work if some cars were not automated? Also, even if all cars were automated, they would have to share common strategies. If some cars were programmed to be more aggressive than others (by design or by chance) then you'd be back to your traffic jams. Also, you'd have to allow for breakdowns & erratic behavior in the automated paradigm.
I did (still doing) consulting with a 3-man co in the Chicago area, and saw my salary zoom then implode. We lost client after client after client and no amount of faith and hard work ever brought things back to the good old days.
My working conditions & lifestyle were very good - working at home etc.
Now I'm a physics lab manager at a local University making a fraction of my peak but it's a lot more fun, and doing what little consulting is left to us on the side. It was a real heartbreak working my effing ass off for less and less money, seeing my peers going to work as Real Estate Agents, Home Depot clerks, etc.
I don't give a shirt what you pay me, I won't spend my life in a cramped cube, wearing what somebody else thinks I should wear, fighting traffic 2x a day. Even a long life is too short.
Capitalism is about healthy competition that follows rules.
yeah, but companies are people and people still have the baggage that makes them want to kill competitors, their own children, and helicopter pilots who want to rescue somebody else.
I hope that Jobs doesn't cave in to this, but Apple already gives perks to labels that indies like me don't have.
Tracks on itunes from a major label can be browsed by genre, but indies aren't. The only way an indie track comes up is if you search it by name. ITMS has other positioning-perks for labels too, and these count for a LOT when you're competing for cyberspace. I don't think the perks would exist unless Jobs wanted to curry the labels' favor.
Slashdot Mirror
Steve Ballmer: WHAT? XBOX 360 IS COSTING US HOW MUCH? CUT CORNERS!! engineer: umm... I think... Steve Ballmer: I'M NOT PAYING YOU FOR THINKING! JUST DO IT! (throws chair at scurrying engineer)
The shipping container is full of christmas presents, that's all....
An old rule of advertising used to be, 'never mention your competitor's name'. So with these 'Linux this' and 'Linux that' attacks Microsoft continues to promote Linux.
Regardless of what the folks who actually use the supercomputer want, there's always this administrator who signs off on the purchase who will say 'Windows, huh? Great. Now we can have one support contract that covers everything!'. The M$ Sales Rep takes him/her out to a couple fancy lunches and comes back with a signed contract.
S'scuse me, but it looks to me like the car makers & dealers make out big on this one. The car makers have more iron to sell and the dealers can make fat profits off high-demand-vehicle markups. And don't think that the dealers haven't pressured the mfr's to keep the supply tight for a while just to help keep the markups high.
meanwhile, after you spent that extra $7,500, what you get is a 'good feeling about the environment'.
My wife's PC got infected with some horrible spyware/adware a couple weeks ago. Norton antivirus cleaned up some things (which the virus rootkit(?) promptly reinstalled), so I tried Hijack This, which removed some things which the virus reinstalled, so I tried MS's solution, same outcome, and a couple other worthless POS packages, same outcome. Loads of fun.
Finally reinstalled the OS from the vendor (Sony, damn them all to hell) package... which wiped the C drive and replaced everything with a pristine copy. That worked. Now spending days reinstalling/reconfiguring all our apps again, and being better about making the effing backup DVD.
Also looking around to see if there's any good real estate software available on the Mac for her to use. Unfortunately, Real Estate lost its balls years ago and ran shrieking straight for MS IE only web sites. Bleah.
Smoking is not about safety, it's about fantasies of romance and rebellion.
Crikey, just sell it to Michael Jackson.
I always wondered why, if most of 'em don't have anything to eat, why they don't just slow down/pass out after a few hours? What makes 'em go?
Maybe these things will last a long time but the guys here on the ground are still drawing salaries, etc. Surely a mission that was spec'd to last a few months can be a budget item forever?
.. that there's money in TV but not in Space Exploration?????
-New iMac with built-in Firewire camera
finally, easy out-of-the-box setup for sexcam bunnies....
will it be used in a more gentile fashion
Jews want to put robots into space?
Most hollywood movies belong in the trash anyway.
But some predictions will be possible in any event, that is, the same old ones: No perpetual motion machines, laws of thermodynamics will still hold up, signals won't propagate faster than 'c', etc.
The singularity will not be an infinitely rising curve but a sharply rising curve after which things pretty much flatten out forever - all the best possible solutions to problems will have been found. Any changes after that point will be about fashion, not physical progress.
They're confident that nothing good will be introduced in October , November or December?
I'm curious about who's running the bigger risk... While ITMS sells a lot of tracks, it doesn't contribute *that* much to Apple's bottom line (5% of revenues is the last I heard).
The record companies aren't making that much off selling digital tracks either, compared to CD revenues.
So what's going on is not about the current scene but jockeying for the best position in the long run, assuming that downloads will eventually outstrip CD sales.
Cars that can synchronize their motion in relation to nearby traffic could make traffic jams a thing of the past.
Would that work if some cars were not automated? Also, even if all cars were automated, they would have to share common strategies. If some cars were programmed to be more aggressive than others (by design or by chance) then you'd be back to your traffic jams. Also, you'd have to allow for breakdowns & erratic behavior in the automated paradigm.
for christ's sake don't.
Algorithmic composition is old hat. Intellectually interesting but soul-less music, more math-turbation.
I did (still doing) consulting with a 3-man co in the Chicago area, and saw my salary zoom then implode. We lost client after client after client and no amount of faith and hard work ever brought things back to the good old days.
My working conditions & lifestyle were very good - working at home etc.
Now I'm a physics lab manager at a local University making a fraction of my peak but it's a lot more fun, and doing what little consulting is left to us on the side. It was a real heartbreak working my effing ass off for less and less money, seeing my peers going to work as Real Estate Agents, Home Depot clerks, etc.
I don't give a shirt what you pay me, I won't spend my life in a cramped cube, wearing what somebody else thinks I should wear, fighting traffic 2x a day. Even a long life is too short.
My salary would be a lot higher if I could convince McDonalds to value my MCSE.
as an employee or as a customer?
CDbaby is hosting thousands of indie musicians (including me) who are donating 100% of their sales to the Red Cross.
This is not going thru Paypal and it is 100% legit. We get no money from these sales, just the satisfaction of helping out:
http://www.cdbaby.com/mnmlm/n/m/l electronic music
http://www.cdbaby.com/redcrossAll Music
Capitalism is about healthy competition that follows rules.
yeah, but companies are people and people still have the baggage that makes them want to kill competitors, their own children, and helicopter pilots who want to rescue somebody else.
I hope that Jobs doesn't cave in to this, but Apple already gives perks to labels that indies like me don't have.
Tracks on itunes from a major label can be browsed by genre, but indies aren't. The only way an indie track comes up is if you search it by name. ITMS has other positioning-perks for labels too, and these count for a LOT when you're competing for cyberspace. I don't think the perks would exist unless Jobs wanted to curry the labels' favor.