Think about it...for three years they've been talking about this amazing.NET thing. And every year the masses go "what the hell is this?" and each year it gets a feature here dropped and a feature there dropped. And yet, after three years, people still talk about it. People still want to develop for it. People are still holding out from developing with any of the other options because of.NET.
So...it may not DO anything just yet, but in terms of stalling development on other platforms and continuing to put MS in the news, I'd say it's a success.
I read this yesterday and thought "whoah! More laptops than desktops!" but after reading the article I became aware that the money brought in from laptop sales was more than the money brought in from desktops. Considering the average laptop costs twice as much as the average desktop, you've still got roughly a 2-1 ratio of desktop units sold over laptops.
Ah...but keep this in mind. In WWII Germany was flying around in jets and the US was behind them there. Yet for the most part, the US has held the premier position in modern jet technology (of course the EuroFighter just rocks).
The USSR was the first with their satelite in space. Again, you could have said "The US is so far behind", yet the US was the first to put someone on the moon. We could list a myriad of examples, from computing, steel-work, gun-powder use, and so forth...
Sadly (or maybe it's just "oddly") enough, I actually do know a bit of SPAM history. I've got the calendar hanging up, a multitude of cans proudly displayed (Tobasco SPAM is quite good actually), etc. I believe you are right about the name. And have you ever had SPAM musubi? It's like SPAM sushi...very good.
Interestingly enough (if I remember correctly), SPAM originally got it's bad connotation during one of the World Wars (I'd do the research but I'm "working" right now). The meat that was sent over with the GIs wasn't really SPAM but I believe it was also produced by Hormel. It obviously tasted like crap and the GIs thought it was SPAM. So SPAM popularity dropped like a rock (it actually WAS very popular back in the day...we're talking over 80% penetration) as a result.
This line alone killed me: He points to the fact that modern state-funded space disasters become national traumas
Ok...well what about national pride. I think there was a lot of pride in the USSR when they put the first satelite up. And in the US when we got on the moon. Let's not focus on the negative here people. "Disasters"...sheesh. I believe there was much more scientific discovery, national security innovations stemming from the race, and other issues that far outweigh the "disasters".
Plus...who cares if Joe Billionaire flies up there? What is he going to bring back? Pictures? Whoopty-freakin-do.
Now THAT is a very good question. I actually stopped working and thought about it all for a minute. I agree, in terms of performance, it would be a good thing to do. Motorola sat on their laurels way too long and figured Apple would stick with them forever. Not wise to upset Mr. Jobs though.
In terms of marketing, I would think that they would rename the chip and have it not be G3 per se. Hm...now I must ponder. What WILL Apple put in the iBooks?
The G3 is still a good, fairly fast, cool-running chip. I've seen plenty of gumdrop iMacs still kickin' butt out there, same with the iBook. But now we have the G5. Apple isn't going to have a spread of three generations of processors in their line-up. We could ramble on and on about technical features, etc, but the simple marketing is that there will be the "low-end" G4s and the pro-level G5s. No more G3.
Times are MUCH different now
on
Bill Gates On Linux
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Ok...it seems a bit silly to say "Well Windows beat out all the other OSes around" when you think about the computing scene then and the computing scene now.
Back then, we had MS already deeply entrenched because of the licensing deal with MS-DOS. Windows was an obvious upgrade. So you buy a PC with MS-DOS, perhaps Windows, or a Mac. This is what the consumers bought. Large institutions were still working on UNIX, mainframes with COBOL, etc.
Now...now you have a computer as common an appliance as a telephone and a toaster. MS is still deeply entrenched, no doubt about it. But this ignorance of "we beat other OSes before" won't last this time. Now we've got 8 year old kids beating the crap out of me with their *NIX coding, with these kids networking their house for their parents, playing with other operating systems. The kids see other alternatives to servers and OSes more suited to programming. So what if Linux isn't on the desktop yet. If it's got THIS much popularity without a pretty desktop face, just wait until it DOES get one. And do you really think...after the Internet bubble burst, companies would be blindly embracing something without a viable reason? IBM, HP going with Linux. Apple with a UNIX core...
The point is, more people are actually willing to try other OSes right now, not just the select few that could afford a $3,000 286 Leading Edge Model D.
I like the fact there have been three decent downloads in the past week...Mozilla, Netscape, and Safari. It kind of kills the argument "well of course Mozilla is faster, it was just released and Netscape has been around for the past few months". It'll make it easier to actual performance tests for similar products released all around the same time.
Good googly I have a lot of downloading to do tonight when I get home...
Netscape is still very relevant. Sure, IE has the market and most developers code just for that (it's bad practice, but we all know it happens). Sure, it's not as small or fast as other, lesser-known browsers (that geeks or other brave souls keep and eye on and use). It's traditionally been big and slow. BUT...it's an important part of browser history. It started the movement. But more importantly, it follows most of the standards that are set. It forces you to write good HTML code whereas IE lets you slide. Do we really want IE to be the only big player left? No. I admit I hardly USE Netscape (I use Safari for everything, IE when I have to, and test using Netscape) as a browser, but it still has a spot firmly planted on my dock.
It's got a bit more technological, yes. Checking out what we skip through. What ramifications will this have? Who knows. Maybe better commercials, maybe less ill-placed commercials, who knows. Only time will tell.
It's still an art though. I sometimes just let the TiVo go while I make a run for the bathroom. Ha! I showed them. So while they think I'm I'm watching the commercial for depends, I'm actually easing the tension on my bladder. So they still have to figure out of those commercials we're not skipping, which ones are being watched. Still a tough game to play for them.
From the article: However, the group believes that it's time to make it easier for users to take the steps necessary to run Linux on the console. Because the claimed chain of exploits is independent of any game, they could prove to become very popular. Users could download them from the Internet and load them into the Xbox through a memory card.
Does anyone else find this kinda funny? Isn't Microsoft losing billions of dollars a year on Xbox sales? They're pricing so low and using their deep pockets to try to gain the market share and unseat PS2. In a way, this may actually help sales and have more people buying the hardware, thus gaining market share, then they can jack up the prices again and break even or even make a profit on each unit sold.
We already give up "privacy" at stores
on
RFID Explained
·
· Score: 1
C'mon people...how many of you have the "frequent buyers" cards for different stores? The supermarkets with their club cards. They're tracking our purchases...they even TELL us they are tracking them "so we can send you updates on sales of items you regularly purchase". Yeah we get good deals every now and then (buy one get one free) but they do it for tracking.
And that's just one level of tracking. It also makes it more efficient for the stores to track inventory. Hm...wouldn't it be nice to go to the store and not see the empty section of toilet paper that you need?
I guess the issue here is if we choose to be tracked or not. I honestly don't care if they know I buy Dial soap. Could this lead to something bigger? Probably. I'm still trying to figure out what though.
I find it odd that the initial success of iTMS here in the US isn't good enough for the EU to say "ok, they were a good test bed. We let them take the risk, now we'll jump on". What exactly are they waiting for (aside from what the article says...which I think is just a bunch of sad excuses).
I also find it ironic that in that very article, they're talking about how the P2P networks are trading thousands of tracks per day, thus people aren't buying CDs. Um...hello...doesn't it just seem like common sense to hurry up and get this set up so you can get SOME money?
I wonder how many people will actually DO THIS. Some people actually ENJOY getting "good deals" and
such. Maybe it's the lonely housewives that enjoy the calls too. Who knows.
Then you've also got the people who don't even know about it. I've been
tracking the "Do Not Call" list (and the related "Do Not Spam" list they've
been talking about) for quite a while. In my experience, it's only been a
small percentage of the population that actually knows about this. And then
you have to actually CALL someone (or go to the site). Let's face
it...people are lazy and they won't "have time" to do it.
And there's my social commentary for the day.
The funny thing about it is how corporations never seem to really plan for the future. I also worked for a rather large multi-national corporation earlier in my career. Our tiny web team had a $5 million budget. Nuts I tell ya. "I need a new chair". Done. "I need a new optical mouse". Done. "I need Flash training." Done (I've never used it...I just wanted to go). Let's not forget all the free coffee and everything else (not that I'm complaining...I needed it)
Uh oh! Economy slows down. Curb the spending? Nahhh. We'll just lay people off. We could have maintained a nice robust team had we not blown all that money on other things. I've since left the company and look at the site every now and then. Sad...
It comes down to policies, wherever you are. I'm still stinging from that one article I read about the school not able to receive FREE Macs because the policy was to buy MS products...
I don't really see this as a way to stop people from trading. It took a geek to set up the p2p network in the first place. Files traded, it got popular, it went mainstream, it got abused. Now the RIAA will come in and sue individual users. It may deter a few users for a while, but I'm sure another geek will come along and find a way to mask this, circumvent that, etc etc.
And that's just the technological side of things. Then we deal with ethics, business, money, law, and so forth. But I think those are all small insignificant issues (maybe not insignificant, but in terms of stopping the trading or not it is) and it is ultimately the technology that will change and the file swapping will continue, no matter how many people get sued.
Ok...how many people actually DO have the 400-in-1 cell phones that include the garage door opener, TV remote, phone, PDA, camera, MP3 player, GPS, 802.11g router, video game system? Yeah these are cool, but I'm not going to go running with my cell phone so I can use the MP3 player. I'm not going to base my entire network in my house on my phone. I (and a multitude of others) want a device for each purpose. My network will have my WiFi router. My phone will place calls. I'm not going to be screwed when one thing breaks, or when Verizon goes down, or when Verizon decides to jack up the prices, or when...
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it...for three years they've been talking about this amazing .NET thing. And every year the masses go "what the hell is this?" and each year it gets a feature here dropped and a feature there dropped. And yet, after three years, people still talk about it. People still want to develop for it. People are still holding out from developing with any of the other options because of .NET.
So...it may not DO anything just yet, but in terms of stalling development on other platforms and continuing to put MS in the news, I'd say it's a success.
I read this yesterday and thought "whoah! More laptops than desktops!" but after reading the article I became aware that the money brought in from laptop sales was more than the money brought in from desktops. Considering the average laptop costs twice as much as the average desktop, you've still got roughly a 2-1 ratio of desktop units sold over laptops.
I wonder if ;) will get translated as "bite me".
Or what about the one sticking your tongue out? Isn't that VERY offensive in some cultures? Great...we're going to start WWIII because of this.
Ah...but keep this in mind. In WWII Germany was flying around in jets and the US was behind them there. Yet for the most part, the US has held the premier position in modern jet technology (of course the EuroFighter just rocks).
The USSR was the first with their satelite in space. Again, you could have said "The US is so far behind", yet the US was the first to put someone on the moon. We could list a myriad of examples, from computing, steel-work, gun-powder use, and so forth...
Here I was thinking we were cool with our particle accelerators. Now China comes along with their Mars accelerator program. Damnit.
Sadly (or maybe it's just "oddly") enough, I actually do know a bit of SPAM history. I've got the calendar hanging up, a multitude of cans proudly displayed (Tobasco SPAM is quite good actually), etc. I believe you are right about the name. And have you ever had SPAM musubi? It's like SPAM sushi...very good.
Interestingly enough (if I remember correctly), SPAM originally got it's bad connotation during one of the World Wars (I'd do the research but I'm "working" right now). The meat that was sent over with the GIs wasn't really SPAM but I believe it was also produced by Hormel. It obviously tasted like crap and the GIs thought it was SPAM. So SPAM popularity dropped like a rock (it actually WAS very popular back in the day...we're talking over 80% penetration) as a result.
Doesn't it stand for:
Super
Premium
Anti
Meat
OK, so you could lug around a TEN pound Toshiba or a 6.8 pound Apple.
Or even better yet, you could carry TWO iBooks (4.9 lbs) and it would STILL be lighter. Have your two monitor setup...heh heh.
I guess that lead case is good for Toshiba, protecting the guts from all those horrible X-rays.
Don't worry...
It's an ill-tempered sea monster...
This line alone killed me:
He points to the fact that modern state-funded space disasters become national traumas
Ok...well what about national pride. I think there was a lot of pride in the USSR when they put the first satelite up. And in the US when we got on the moon. Let's not focus on the negative here people. "Disasters"...sheesh. I believe there was much more scientific discovery, national security innovations stemming from the race, and other issues that far outweigh the "disasters".
Plus...who cares if Joe Billionaire flies up there? What is he going to bring back? Pictures? Whoopty-freakin-do.
Now THAT is a very good question. I actually stopped working and thought about it all for a minute. I agree, in terms of performance, it would be a good thing to do. Motorola sat on their laurels way too long and figured Apple would stick with them forever. Not wise to upset Mr. Jobs though.
In terms of marketing, I would think that they would rename the chip and have it not be G3 per se. Hm...now I must ponder. What WILL Apple put in the iBooks?
The G3 is still a good, fairly fast, cool-running chip. I've seen plenty of gumdrop iMacs still kickin' butt out there, same with the iBook. But now we have the G5. Apple isn't going to have a spread of three generations of processors in their line-up. We could ramble on and on about technical features, etc, but the simple marketing is that there will be the "low-end" G4s and the pro-level G5s. No more G3.
Ok...it seems a bit silly to say "Well Windows beat out all the other OSes around" when you think about the computing scene then and the computing scene now.
Back then, we had MS already deeply entrenched because of the licensing deal with MS-DOS. Windows was an obvious upgrade. So you buy a PC with MS-DOS, perhaps Windows, or a Mac. This is what the consumers bought. Large institutions were still working on UNIX, mainframes with COBOL, etc.
Now...now you have a computer as common an appliance as a telephone and a toaster. MS is still deeply entrenched, no doubt about it. But this ignorance of "we beat other OSes before" won't last this time. Now we've got 8 year old kids beating the crap out of me with their *NIX coding, with these kids networking their house for their parents, playing with other operating systems. The kids see other alternatives to servers and OSes more suited to programming. So what if Linux isn't on the desktop yet. If it's got THIS much popularity without a pretty desktop face, just wait until it DOES get one. And do you really think...after the Internet bubble burst, companies would be blindly embracing something without a viable reason? IBM, HP going with Linux. Apple with a UNIX core...
The point is, more people are actually willing to try other OSes right now, not just the select few that could afford a $3,000 286 Leading Edge Model D.
I like the fact there have been three decent downloads in the past week...Mozilla, Netscape, and Safari. It kind of kills the argument "well of course Mozilla is faster, it was just released and Netscape has been around for the past few months". It'll make it easier to actual performance tests for similar products released all around the same time.
Good googly I have a lot of downloading to do tonight when I get home...
Netscape is still very relevant. Sure, IE has the market and most developers code just for that (it's bad practice, but we all know it happens). Sure, it's not as small or fast as other, lesser-known browsers (that geeks or other brave souls keep and eye on and use). It's traditionally been big and slow. BUT...it's an important part of browser history. It started the movement. But more importantly, it follows most of the standards that are set. It forces you to write good HTML code whereas IE lets you slide. Do we really want IE to be the only big player left? No. I admit I hardly USE Netscape (I use Safari for everything, IE when I have to, and test using Netscape) as a browser, but it still has a spot firmly planted on my dock.
Wouldn't that be an amazing demonstration of nanotechnology? One would think...
It's got a bit more technological, yes. Checking out what we skip through. What ramifications will this have? Who knows. Maybe better commercials, maybe less ill-placed commercials, who knows. Only time will tell.
It's still an art though. I sometimes just let the TiVo go while I make a run for the bathroom. Ha! I showed them. So while they think I'm I'm watching the commercial for depends, I'm actually easing the tension on my bladder. So they still have to figure out of those commercials we're not skipping, which ones are being watched. Still a tough game to play for them.
From the article: However, the group believes that it's time to make it easier for users to take the steps necessary to run Linux on the console. Because the claimed chain of exploits is independent of any game, they could prove to become very popular. Users could download them from the Internet and load them into the Xbox through a memory card.
Does anyone else find this kinda funny? Isn't Microsoft losing billions of dollars a year on Xbox sales? They're pricing so low and using their deep pockets to try to gain the market share and unseat PS2. In a way, this may actually help sales and have more people buying the hardware, thus gaining market share, then they can jack up the prices again and break even or even make a profit on each unit sold.
C'mon people...how many of you have the "frequent buyers" cards for different stores? The supermarkets with their club cards. They're tracking our purchases...they even TELL us they are tracking them "so we can send you updates on sales of items you regularly purchase". Yeah we get good deals every now and then (buy one get one free) but they do it for tracking.
And that's just one level of tracking. It also makes it more efficient for the stores to track inventory. Hm...wouldn't it be nice to go to the store and not see the empty section of toilet paper that you need?
I guess the issue here is if we choose to be tracked or not. I honestly don't care if they know I buy Dial soap. Could this lead to something bigger? Probably. I'm still trying to figure out what though.
I find it odd that the initial success of iTMS here in the US isn't good enough for the EU to say "ok, they were a good test bed. We let them take the risk, now we'll jump on". What exactly are they waiting for (aside from what the article says...which I think is just a bunch of sad excuses).
I also find it ironic that in that very article, they're talking about how the P2P networks are trading thousands of tracks per day, thus people aren't buying CDs. Um...hello...doesn't it just seem like common sense to hurry up and get this set up so you can get SOME money?
I wonder how many people will actually DO THIS. Some people actually ENJOY getting "good deals" and such. Maybe it's the lonely housewives that enjoy the calls too. Who knows.
Then you've also got the people who don't even know about it. I've been tracking the "Do Not Call" list (and the related "Do Not Spam" list they've been talking about) for quite a while. In my experience, it's only been a small percentage of the population that actually knows about this. And then you have to actually CALL someone (or go to the site). Let's face it...people are lazy and they won't "have time" to do it. And there's my social commentary for the day.
I am!
I rate pi at 3.14159
The funny thing about it is how corporations never seem to really plan for the future. I also worked for a rather large multi-national corporation earlier in my career. Our tiny web team had a $5 million budget. Nuts I tell ya. "I need a new chair". Done. "I need a new optical mouse". Done. "I need Flash training." Done (I've never used it...I just wanted to go). Let's not forget all the free coffee and everything else (not that I'm complaining...I needed it)
Uh oh! Economy slows down. Curb the spending? Nahhh. We'll just lay people off. We could have maintained a nice robust team had we not blown all that money on other things. I've since left the company and look at the site every now and then. Sad...
It comes down to policies, wherever you are. I'm still stinging from that one article I read about the school not able to receive FREE Macs because the policy was to buy MS products...
I don't really see this as a way to stop people from trading. It took a geek to set up the p2p network in the first place. Files traded, it got popular, it went mainstream, it got abused. Now the RIAA will come in and sue individual users. It may deter a few users for a while, but I'm sure another geek will come along and find a way to mask this, circumvent that, etc etc.
And that's just the technological side of things. Then we deal with ethics, business, money, law, and so forth. But I think those are all small insignificant issues (maybe not insignificant, but in terms of stopping the trading or not it is) and it is ultimately the technology that will change and the file swapping will continue, no matter how many people get sued.
Ok...how many people actually DO have the 400-in-1 cell phones that include the garage door opener, TV remote, phone, PDA, camera, MP3 player, GPS, 802.11g router, video game system? Yeah these are cool, but I'm not going to go running with my cell phone so I can use the MP3 player. I'm not going to base my entire network in my house on my phone. I (and a multitude of others) want a device for each purpose. My network will have my WiFi router. My phone will place calls. I'm not going to be screwed when one thing breaks, or when Verizon goes down, or when Verizon decides to jack up the prices, or when...