Wait, are you one of those right-wing nutjobs who thinks that things can actually be solved through market activism rather than crying to the government to hold our hands? You people make me sick.
I don't think the magic gets released until Tiger. Did you see the MacWorld when Tiger was unveiled? One of the improvements was to iChat, to let you video-conference with up to four participants in split-screen. It was pretty crazy.
Why not just get another job or move on and do your own thing, if it's so bad?
1. Noncompetes. Many software development firms make you sign an agreement that says you can't work for a competitor for months or years afterwards. These can be challenged in courts, but if you don't have a job, where do you get the money?
2. Job market. Things are looking up slightly, but still the market for IT jobs is very slim, and EA is darn near the only game in town when it comes to game development.
No, it's far easier to just have someone else fight your battles for you, take your money, tell you when to work and when not to (without pay, of course), etc.
Are you talking about the government? 'Cause that's what it sounds like to me.
When you join a union, you become part of a group that does cooperative negotiation -- in other words, you're fighting your own battle. Or do you honestly think that striking is "having someone else fight your battles"?
Yes, unions charge dues. Massive coordination on workers ain't cheap. Striking is expensive. Poor working conditions, on the other hand, are deadly. Worth it.
Unions are democratically run, at least in principle. (Unsurprisingly, when there's a buck to be made, the union bosses become corrupt. There are no saints.) If you don't want to strike, speak out against it. In the end, if you want to be a scab, be a scab. If you don't want to strike because you feel working conditions are acceptable, it's the best thing you can do, short of graciously licking the shit off the jackboot of your corporate master. Oh, wait, same thing.
I think the difference between Quark and iChat -- which, I agree, was not very well stated -- is that iChat contains some magic that no one has figured out yet. When a new version of Quark is released, competitors might sit up and say: "Hey, that's a neat feature. Let's duplicate it!" There's essentially no advantage to closing the source, since people will clone it anyway.
When iChat was demoed at MacWorld, competitors sat up and said: "J.C. on a pony. How the fuck did they do that?!?" They can't clone it, because there's too much black-box magic, which is maintained by the fact of being closed.
Actually, unpaid overtime is working your ass off for no pay. I don't see how that's hard to understand: you're working above and beyond what is considered normal (thus "your ass off") and not getting reimbursed for it (thus "for no pay"). I could understand if it was paid overtime, but, at best, you could claim that the choice was between sitting on your ass for no pay or working your ass off for gross underpayment, although, in the latter case, the actually divestment of ass comes during the unpaid period.
Hence, I stand by my original comment, although your head was evidently too far up your corporatist ass to understand it.
You've got a point about mindshare. With this move, nobody but sysadmins will be staring at IBM logos all day, which could make some waves in the server market. In spite of this, I don't think anyone really takes Dell or Gateway very seriously in the server market. They've put their emphasis on cheap, commodity PCs, and so we think twice (or more) before buying servers from them. Certainly anything high-end is right out.
That said, there's still an enormous entry-level server market, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. iSeries and zSeries are nice and all, but they aren't where the real growth is, which is in clustering, blade servers, and distributing among a bunch of smaller servers. And you'll note that, in those areas, Intel dominates. IBM is pushing POWER -- and for good reason -- but they're crazy expensive, certainly don't have near the mindshare of Intel, and, perhaps most importantly, don't have near the software library of x86. They can't run Windows, which isn't a big deal to me, but it is to huge numbers of corporations. Even in the Linux world, there's plenty of software that's limited to x86 in the same way that many are limited to RedHat -- I know, I ran Linux on POWER for three years.
Intel may not be where IBM wants to go, but it's absolutely vital if they want to stay in the game long enough to get where they want to go. If they phase out Intel, they'll become irrelevant overnight.
Where did it say they're going to minimize their Intel line?
Don't forget that IBM builds servers with three different processors and three different OSes -- their server line is incredibly diverse, which is a huge advantage for them. And while you might want an xSeries on your home desktop, mere mortals don't. IBM can continue trying to sell $800 PCs to n00bs, or they can sell $8000 PCs to corporations. As long as IBM stays in the Windows server market -- and getting out would be suicide -- we'll see plenty of Intel servers. Heck, even as long as they want to remain in the mainstream Linux market, we'll see plenty of Intel servers.
I do not consider this in any way a de-emphasis of the Intel architecture. You might see fewer single-processor Intel boxes, but that's about it.
Wow, not only did you not RTFA, I don't think you even RTFS'd. The summary clearly states that IBM is selling their PC division, NOT their server division. TFA goes on to explain that this move will allow them to focus more on servers and corporate consulting.
Oh, and "shit" is spelled "shit," without any dollar signs or ones.
The period during which prisons were places of rehabilitation was very short. It basically took place in the brief period between monarchy and the religious takeover of democracy.
Other than that, I agree with you mostly. What you describe in the end is generally characteristic of the entire American political system right now, not just vis-a-vis drug policy. Parents aren't diligent enough to refuse to buy Codeine-coated Landmine Pops for their kids? Outlaw 'em! Consumers aren't conscientious enough to patronize only smoke-free bars? Ban smoking there!
I'd actually one-up you: Drugs are only one (relatively minor) symptom; prisons are the symptom. The degree to which a society needs a police force and a prison system correlates directly to the degree to which a society is dysfunctional.
Actually, the concept of prison as punishment is relatively recent. They used to be places of rehabilitation, and before that testaments to the power of the sovereign. That they are used by the people to punish other people is an innovation from past few hundred years. The modern prison is not designed to rehabilitate, or to deter. It, like the modern judicial system, is designed to ensure that the same minorities who currently populate it will continue to populate it for years to come.
I highly recommend reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish if you're interested in an illuminating discussion of the history of the prison system and a detailed account of how we arrived at a society of surveillance. Given all the tinfoil-hattery on/., it should be required reading.
Dude! He hung on for 75 freaking episodes! My bet would be that they had to bring in the fleet of guardians and devourers to finish him off. Without enough golaiths, he was toast.
Actually, my girlfriend, who uses her computer to check email, write papers, and read Harry Potter fanfic, thinks its kinda neat that she clicks on a chameleon instead of a boring "Start" for her menu, and a cute little fox instead of a big ugly "e" for the Internet. Not to the point of bragging to her friends, of course, but she adapted quite well to it. Also, SuSE puts OpenOffice under the "Office" menu with the simple name "Office Suite, and it's called just "Office" on the desktop, so the learning curve for that is pretty darn shallow. (Not trying to start SuSE vs. Ubuntu vs. Debian vs. your-fav-distro holy wars here, just mentioning what I'm familiar with.)
Other than learning a few new icons, the Linux learning curve for basic tasks is very shallow. As a previous poster pointed out, not so much for more advanced tasks, but we aren't talking about power users here.
Slashdot Mirror
My sig seems quite appropriate right now.
Or RTF, (no, that doesn't mean "Read the Fucking Comma") if you need to edit.
Wait, are you one of those right-wing nutjobs who thinks that things can actually be solved through market activism rather than crying to the government to hold our hands? You people make me sick.
I'd like to see those pictures; can you email the link to me?
I don't think the magic gets released until Tiger. Did you see the MacWorld when Tiger was unveiled? One of the improvements was to iChat, to let you video-conference with up to four participants in split-screen. It was pretty crazy.
1. Noncompetes. Many software development firms make you sign an agreement that says you can't work for a competitor for months or years afterwards. These can be challenged in courts, but if you don't have a job, where do you get the money?
2. Job market. Things are looking up slightly, but still the market for IT jobs is very slim, and EA is darn near the only game in town when it comes to game development.
No, it's far easier to just have someone else fight your battles for you, take your money, tell you when to work and when not to (without pay, of course), etc.
Are you talking about the government? 'Cause that's what it sounds like to me.
When you join a union, you become part of a group that does cooperative negotiation -- in other words, you're fighting your own battle. Or do you honestly think that striking is "having someone else fight your battles"?
Yes, unions charge dues. Massive coordination on workers ain't cheap. Striking is expensive. Poor working conditions, on the other hand, are deadly. Worth it.
Unions are democratically run, at least in principle. (Unsurprisingly, when there's a buck to be made, the union bosses become corrupt. There are no saints.) If you don't want to strike, speak out against it. In the end, if you want to be a scab, be a scab. If you don't want to strike because you feel working conditions are acceptable, it's the best thing you can do, short of graciously licking the shit off the jackboot of your corporate master. Oh, wait, same thing.
When iChat was demoed at MacWorld, competitors sat up and said: "J.C. on a pony. How the fuck did they do that?!?" They can't clone it, because there's too much black-box magic, which is maintained by the fact of being closed.
That's how I understand it, at least.
Hence, I stand by my original comment, although your head was evidently too far up your corporatist ass to understand it.
Isn't there some other country that sharply regulates Internet access?
I think you meant to say "smoking." What is this man smoking? And that's a rather stupid question; it's clearly crack.
More like a choice between unpaid overtime and unionization. Workers aren't the powerless peons your comment makes them out to be.
Except that there are special exemptions from said law for people in IT.
That said, there's still an enormous entry-level server market, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. iSeries and zSeries are nice and all, but they aren't where the real growth is, which is in clustering, blade servers, and distributing among a bunch of smaller servers. And you'll note that, in those areas, Intel dominates. IBM is pushing POWER -- and for good reason -- but they're crazy expensive, certainly don't have near the mindshare of Intel, and, perhaps most importantly, don't have near the software library of x86. They can't run Windows, which isn't a big deal to me, but it is to huge numbers of corporations. Even in the Linux world, there's plenty of software that's limited to x86 in the same way that many are limited to RedHat -- I know, I ran Linux on POWER for three years.
Intel may not be where IBM wants to go, but it's absolutely vital if they want to stay in the game long enough to get where they want to go. If they phase out Intel, they'll become irrelevant overnight.
Don't forget that IBM builds servers with three different processors and three different OSes -- their server line is incredibly diverse, which is a huge advantage for them. And while you might want an xSeries on your home desktop, mere mortals don't. IBM can continue trying to sell $800 PCs to n00bs, or they can sell $8000 PCs to corporations. As long as IBM stays in the Windows server market -- and getting out would be suicide -- we'll see plenty of Intel servers. Heck, even as long as they want to remain in the mainstream Linux market, we'll see plenty of Intel servers.
I do not consider this in any way a de-emphasis of the Intel architecture. You might see fewer single-processor Intel boxes, but that's about it.
Oh, and "shit" is spelled "shit," without any dollar signs or ones.
Other than that, I agree with you mostly. What you describe in the end is generally characteristic of the entire American political system right now, not just vis-a-vis drug policy. Parents aren't diligent enough to refuse to buy Codeine-coated Landmine Pops for their kids? Outlaw 'em! Consumers aren't conscientious enough to patronize only smoke-free bars? Ban smoking there!
I'd actually one-up you: Drugs are only one (relatively minor) symptom; prisons are the symptom. The degree to which a society needs a police force and a prison system correlates directly to the degree to which a society is dysfunctional.
...can I run it on a Phantom?
I highly recommend reading Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish if you're interested in an illuminating discussion of the history of the prison system and a detailed account of how we arrived at a society of surveillance. Given all the tinfoil-hattery on /., it should be required reading.
But then how would we oppress Black people!?!?!?
OMG! You played Doom with a girl???? Lucky bastard.
Dude! He hung on for 75 freaking episodes! My bet would be that they had to bring in the fleet of guardians and devourers to finish him off. Without enough golaiths, he was toast.
And Mac users are obviously the only rabid elitists on /., too....
Other than learning a few new icons, the Linux learning curve for basic tasks is very shallow. As a previous poster pointed out, not so much for more advanced tasks, but we aren't talking about power users here.