I think there are a lot of things wrong with Java, one being the existence of something called JavaScript. Many people don't differentiate the two, even those who are programmers. It's kind of like VB.Net having a bad reputation because of the existence of VBScript, VBA, and even VB6, when VB.Net is just a capable in most respects as C#.
But in the case of the 80 GB iPod video, you aren't going out to spend $400, you're going out to buy the best MP3 player you money can buy, instead of just getting something that would fulfill all your needs just as well (if not better) and spending half as much. It doesn't matter what the price is, because if it did, you wouldn't be buying it in the first place.
My wife works in a daycare, which is all women too, I hear lots of similar stories. I work with all men, and there's generally very few problems. Sure we have our arguments, but we discuss them, finish the argument, and then it's over, we don't hate that person for another 3 weeks and try to ruin their life.
I didn't say that I'd people would be flocking to buy the $800 iPod. I said that the people who would buy the $400 iPod would probably also buy the $800 iPod. With consoles, very few people buy the PS3, because it's too expensive. In the same light, very few people are actually buying the 80 GB iPod Video. Most people opt for the Nano, or the Mini (do they still sell that?) or the shuffle, because it is what is affordable to them. If you're going to go out and spend $400 on a portable music player, then I don't see you really see an $800 price tag stopping you. If you wanted a cheap music player, you'd get a Shuffle, or an MP3 cd Player for $30.
What about the things that women need that men don't? Women have a menstrual cycle which requires supplies that men don't need. You could just as easily send small men as you could send women. Oh, and have you ever worked in an office with lots of women? Fights break out over the stupidest things.
I'm trying to compare it to the number of CDs actually sold. I couldn't get real numbers for that, but even counting the number of CD (any Format) sold, and then assuming that the CDAudio is at least counting for 10% of those sales. Apple would like you to believe that everyone is buying their music via iTunes, and it's the way the world is headed, but really not that many people are buying music off iTunes or any other online retailer. Most people still buy their music on physical media, and that isn't changing in the near future.
But the original 10 Gig ipod was around $700 and it didn't have much problem selling. Most people will just go from some unit with less memory, like the 4 Gig Nano. If you really want to have the iPod video, you're prepared to spend big bucks anyway. I don't think there's that much of a difference between a person willing to pay $400 for a portable music player, and one who wants to spend $800. Either way it's outside the reach of 80% of people.
iTunes isn't really as popular as they would have you believe. As of January 2007, they've sold over 2 billion songs. Britney spears on the other hand has probably sold 100 million songs just as a single artist. However sales of CDS including CDRs,Audio, and other formats are around 30 billion annually. Now, i'm not sure how much of that is accounted for by Audio CDs, but even if it's 1/10 of the sales, and there's 10 tracks on a CD, then you got about 30 billion songs sold per year.
Most female actresses have gotten over the whole male/female gender thing and just started to call themselves actors. They are just as equal as the men, if not more important, so they don't feel the need to differentiate themselves.
Who says you have to watch it on a traditional TV over cable or satellite? Wouldn't it be nice if you could connect to some server over the internet and watch people play a game, maybe have the screen split into 4 where you could switch the screens between different views? maybe have one screen on the view of your favourite player, one screen on each of the flags, or better yet, just run around and watch everything else, without actually participating in the game. This could be fun for RTS games where you could watch players build up their armies, see what they are doing, switch back and forth between the two players. If you're thinking in general watching it on TV, then it might not be that exciting, but if you could control the view yourself, it could get pretty interesting.
It seems that it would be more exciting to watch skilled quake players than to watch a baseball game. But maybe that's just my opinion. I never understood how baseball got so popular as a spectator sport. Even with playing you spend half the time sitting on the bench.
However, when you rent a car, there's reasons that they don't want you doing certain things. It's because they want it back afterwards. They don't want to have to deal with the consequences of having the car sit in an evidence locker because you committed a crime with it. They don't want to have to deal with the laws of different countries if you take the car to another country and get into an accident. They don't want you to exceed the load specs because they don't want to replace the suspension when you bring it back. I'm not going to give my software back to Microsoft after specified period. If other companies can release software with less stringent usage policies, then why can't Microsoft?
But couldn't we modify an open source VM to make it appear to the OS that its running on actual hardware? Instead of telling the OS that it has virtual video cards and ata controllers, why not just pretend we are running real hardware? How is the OS supposed to know any different?
Why doesn't MS write out in plain English what they really mean by the statements in the EULA? Just so we can be sure that we aren't breaking the license, can we just ask MS? Or do we have to hire a bunch of lawyers and hope that they interpret it right? If you wrote an Email to MS, wouldn't they just answer the question with a simple, Yes, you can run it in a VM, but you need a separate license for the host machine, and a separate license for each of the Virtual machines you are running. Or No, you can not run it in a VM under any circumstance? Is it that hard to get down to what the licence restrictions actually mean? If it's that hard to tell whether your breaking the licence or not, then why would any business be using it?
But nobody sells you a car, and forbids you to drive on dirt roads with it. Sure you may get a better experience with the upgraded suspension package, but the car company has no right telling you where you can and can not drive your car. In the same manner, MS should have no business telling you that you can't install their OS on a virtual computer. What about software developers who want to test on these platforms? Are they required to buy a bunch of computers just to test on the operating system that they aren't supposed to install on a VM? Has anybody tried installing home basic or home premium on VMWare? Does it stop you from doing this in any way? How about more under-the-radar VMs like QEMU?
A picked up a PCI slot Fan for one of my old graphics cards (Voodoo 3500) that didn't come with a fan but got extremely hot. It never caused a crash, but I didn't think that the silicon would last very long without a little extra cooling. When playing games, it often got too hot to touch.
Personally I wasn't a PS2 fan, I was a GC fan, but I really couldn't use sales to back up that argument, just personal preference. Anyway, I definitely would say that according to general public opinion that the PS2 was the best system of last generation, based purely on numbers. I happened to be one of the people who didn't like the system that others thought was the best, but as a whole, the world thought the PS2 was the best. This time around we'll see what the world thinks is the best system. It will probably be the Wii.
Ok, how about this. Each library who wants to make this service available to its patrons pays a fee to one organization so that they can handle all the logistics such as setting up server and all that other junk. This way all the funding is still local and still comes from the local libraries budgets, but they don't have to manage the system themselves. Just because it's a national system does not mean the funding would have to come from federal tax dollars. The library of congress in a national library. What if they wanted to start lending out content this way?
Why would individual libraries be doing this? Wouldn't make more sense from a power by numbers point of view to have 1 online library that holds and distributes all the content? Kind of like the library exchange program. If my library doesn't have a book, then I can get to have it shipped from another library that does have the book. There's no reason why each library should have to have their own system. There should be at least a state level (province level cause I'm in Canada) if not national level program. If they really got their act together they could have 1 huge international digital library. With ebooks and everything.
Meanwhile, the Wii is continuing to sell like hotcakes. Current numbers that i've seen show Wii sales way higher than PS3, and about on par with Xbox 360, which is pretty good considering you can't just walk into a store and buy a Wii like you can with a 360. If they had enough Wiis they would surely eclipse 360 sales.
An old roommate of mine had a laptop which would crash playing 3D games unless the CD drive was left open. If the CD drive was left open, no crash would happen. He downloaded a lot of NOCD cracks. Anyway, it basically turned out that having the CD drive open provided just enough extra airflow.
Like I said, It's a nice feature, but I wouldn't buy a phone solely for this feature. Sometimes it's even a non-feature. My camera figures out if I took a picture with the camera turned, and the proceeds to show the image rotated so that it's upright. However, because the pictures and screen aren't square, the picture now only takes up half the area of the screen. Which means I don't get a very good view of the picture. I would rather they left the picture to be viewed as normal. You can turn this feature off, but then when you download the pictures, you have to rotate them all yourself. I just wish the camera would show them full screen, and still put them on the computer properly rotated.
You could just make a backup of the DVD and watch that. Take out the menus and everything if you want. Just have the feature. Works great for kids movies. They don't have to sit through FBI warnings, or figure out how to work the menus. And if the disc gets scratched, you can just make another backup.
Why would you need to flip the screen? I can read stuff just fine upside down or mirrored, or whatever orientation. However, it would be a nice feature, but I'd stick with my current phone and read upside-down instead. Even if I was shopping for a new phone then I wouldn't specifically look for this feature. If the phone I wanted had this, then that's a plus, but I wouldn't consider getting a phone specifically for this reason, when reading upside down is just as easy.
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I think there are a lot of things wrong with Java, one being the existence of something called JavaScript. Many people don't differentiate the two, even those who are programmers. It's kind of like VB.Net having a bad reputation because of the existence of VBScript, VBA, and even VB6, when VB.Net is just a capable in most respects as C#.
But in the case of the 80 GB iPod video, you aren't going out to spend $400, you're going out to buy the best MP3 player you money can buy, instead of just getting something that would fulfill all your needs just as well (if not better) and spending half as much. It doesn't matter what the price is, because if it did, you wouldn't be buying it in the first place.
My wife works in a daycare, which is all women too, I hear lots of similar stories. I work with all men, and there's generally very few problems. Sure we have our arguments, but we discuss them, finish the argument, and then it's over, we don't hate that person for another 3 weeks and try to ruin their life.
I didn't say that I'd people would be flocking to buy the $800 iPod. I said that the people who would buy the $400 iPod would probably also buy the $800 iPod. With consoles, very few people buy the PS3, because it's too expensive. In the same light, very few people are actually buying the 80 GB iPod Video. Most people opt for the Nano, or the Mini (do they still sell that?) or the shuffle, because it is what is affordable to them. If you're going to go out and spend $400 on a portable music player, then I don't see you really see an $800 price tag stopping you. If you wanted a cheap music player, you'd get a Shuffle, or an MP3 cd Player for $30.
What about the things that women need that men don't? Women have a menstrual cycle which requires supplies that men don't need. You could just as easily send small men as you could send women. Oh, and have you ever worked in an office with lots of women? Fights break out over the stupidest things.
I'm trying to compare it to the number of CDs actually sold. I couldn't get real numbers for that, but even counting the number of CD (any Format) sold, and then assuming that the CDAudio is at least counting for 10% of those sales. Apple would like you to believe that everyone is buying their music via iTunes, and it's the way the world is headed, but really not that many people are buying music off iTunes or any other online retailer. Most people still buy their music on physical media, and that isn't changing in the near future.
But the original 10 Gig ipod was around $700 and it didn't have much problem selling. Most people will just go from some unit with less memory, like the 4 Gig Nano. If you really want to have the iPod video, you're prepared to spend big bucks anyway. I don't think there's that much of a difference between a person willing to pay $400 for a portable music player, and one who wants to spend $800. Either way it's outside the reach of 80% of people.
iTunes isn't really as popular as they would have you believe. As of January 2007, they've sold over 2 billion songs. Britney spears on the other hand has probably sold 100 million songs just as a single artist. However sales of CDS including CDRs,Audio, and other formats are around 30 billion annually. Now, i'm not sure how much of that is accounted for by Audio CDs, but even if it's 1/10 of the sales, and there's 10 tracks on a CD, then you got about 30 billion songs sold per year.
Most female actresses have gotten over the whole male/female gender thing and just started to call themselves actors. They are just as equal as the men, if not more important, so they don't feel the need to differentiate themselves.
Who says you have to watch it on a traditional TV over cable or satellite? Wouldn't it be nice if you could connect to some server over the internet and watch people play a game, maybe have the screen split into 4 where you could switch the screens between different views? maybe have one screen on the view of your favourite player, one screen on each of the flags, or better yet, just run around and watch everything else, without actually participating in the game. This could be fun for RTS games where you could watch players build up their armies, see what they are doing, switch back and forth between the two players. If you're thinking in general watching it on TV, then it might not be that exciting, but if you could control the view yourself, it could get pretty interesting.
It seems that it would be more exciting to watch skilled quake players than to watch a baseball game. But maybe that's just my opinion. I never understood how baseball got so popular as a spectator sport. Even with playing you spend half the time sitting on the bench.
However, when you rent a car, there's reasons that they don't want you doing certain things. It's because they want it back afterwards. They don't want to have to deal with the consequences of having the car sit in an evidence locker because you committed a crime with it. They don't want to have to deal with the laws of different countries if you take the car to another country and get into an accident. They don't want you to exceed the load specs because they don't want to replace the suspension when you bring it back. I'm not going to give my software back to Microsoft after specified period. If other companies can release software with less stringent usage policies, then why can't Microsoft?
Is this anything like Tubes?
But couldn't we modify an open source VM to make it appear to the OS that its running on actual hardware? Instead of telling the OS that it has virtual video cards and ata controllers, why not just pretend we are running real hardware? How is the OS supposed to know any different?
Why doesn't MS write out in plain English what they really mean by the statements in the EULA? Just so we can be sure that we aren't breaking the license, can we just ask MS? Or do we have to hire a bunch of lawyers and hope that they interpret it right? If you wrote an Email to MS, wouldn't they just answer the question with a simple, Yes, you can run it in a VM, but you need a separate license for the host machine, and a separate license for each of the Virtual machines you are running. Or No, you can not run it in a VM under any circumstance? Is it that hard to get down to what the licence restrictions actually mean? If it's that hard to tell whether your breaking the licence or not, then why would any business be using it?
But nobody sells you a car, and forbids you to drive on dirt roads with it. Sure you may get a better experience with the upgraded suspension package, but the car company has no right telling you where you can and can not drive your car. In the same manner, MS should have no business telling you that you can't install their OS on a virtual computer. What about software developers who want to test on these platforms? Are they required to buy a bunch of computers just to test on the operating system that they aren't supposed to install on a VM? Has anybody tried installing home basic or home premium on VMWare? Does it stop you from doing this in any way? How about more under-the-radar VMs like QEMU?
A picked up a PCI slot Fan for one of my old graphics cards (Voodoo 3500) that didn't come with a fan but got extremely hot. It never caused a crash, but I didn't think that the silicon would last very long without a little extra cooling. When playing games, it often got too hot to touch.
Personally I wasn't a PS2 fan, I was a GC fan, but I really couldn't use sales to back up that argument, just personal preference. Anyway, I definitely would say that according to general public opinion that the PS2 was the best system of last generation, based purely on numbers. I happened to be one of the people who didn't like the system that others thought was the best, but as a whole, the world thought the PS2 was the best. This time around we'll see what the world thinks is the best system. It will probably be the Wii.
Ok, how about this. Each library who wants to make this service available to its patrons pays a fee to one organization so that they can handle all the logistics such as setting up server and all that other junk. This way all the funding is still local and still comes from the local libraries budgets, but they don't have to manage the system themselves. Just because it's a national system does not mean the funding would have to come from federal tax dollars. The library of congress in a national library. What if they wanted to start lending out content this way?
Why would individual libraries be doing this? Wouldn't make more sense from a power by numbers point of view to have 1 online library that holds and distributes all the content? Kind of like the library exchange program. If my library doesn't have a book, then I can get to have it shipped from another library that does have the book. There's no reason why each library should have to have their own system. There should be at least a state level (province level cause I'm in Canada) if not national level program. If they really got their act together they could have 1 huge international digital library. With ebooks and everything.
Meanwhile, the Wii is continuing to sell like hotcakes. Current numbers that i've seen show Wii sales way higher than PS3, and about on par with Xbox 360, which is pretty good considering you can't just walk into a store and buy a Wii like you can with a 360. If they had enough Wiis they would surely eclipse 360 sales.
An old roommate of mine had a laptop which would crash playing 3D games unless the CD drive was left open. If the CD drive was left open, no crash would happen. He downloaded a lot of NOCD cracks. Anyway, it basically turned out that having the CD drive open provided just enough extra airflow.
Like I said, It's a nice feature, but I wouldn't buy a phone solely for this feature. Sometimes it's even a non-feature. My camera figures out if I took a picture with the camera turned, and the proceeds to show the image rotated so that it's upright. However, because the pictures and screen aren't square, the picture now only takes up half the area of the screen. Which means I don't get a very good view of the picture. I would rather they left the picture to be viewed as normal. You can turn this feature off, but then when you download the pictures, you have to rotate them all yourself. I just wish the camera would show them full screen, and still put them on the computer properly rotated.
You could just make a backup of the DVD and watch that. Take out the menus and everything if you want. Just have the feature. Works great for kids movies. They don't have to sit through FBI warnings, or figure out how to work the menus. And if the disc gets scratched, you can just make another backup.
Why would you need to flip the screen? I can read stuff just fine upside down or mirrored, or whatever orientation. However, it would be a nice feature, but I'd stick with my current phone and read upside-down instead. Even if I was shopping for a new phone then I wouldn't specifically look for this feature. If the phone I wanted had this, then that's a plus, but I wouldn't consider getting a phone specifically for this reason, when reading upside down is just as easy.