True Peer-to-Peer networking is two "golden shower" porn stars exchanging business cards.
Re:You /. people really like the word "monopoly"
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 2
What government protection led to Microsoft's monopoly of the desktop OS market? Or the office suite?
The size of the government itself.
The government is the biggest employer in the US. Almost all of those employees are using Windows machines. The US Gov't has the money to pay for all those OS licenses, too, so MS gets a fat wallet from the government's largesse. That fat wallet goes a long, long way towards keeping MS on the top of the mountain.
Although the Gov't used to be exclusively Wordperfect, since Wordperfect imploded some years ago, they all use Word now. There's another fat wallet for MS, and a guaranteed customer.
If you turn those millions of Federal employees into just 535 members of Congress, 9 judges and 1 president, MS gets it in the shorts. Why don't we try that solution, rather than hiring another couple thousand Federal employees to manhandle the Evil Forces of Redmond.
This is a hard lesson for many hackers and programmers too, who remain bewildered that superior systems like Linux aren't on every desktop.
How is Linux superior to Windows or MacOS?
Asked in a more precise way, how is it superior to a normal (non-programmer) user? Because it crashes less? It moves bits around inside the box in better ways?
Linux is not a priori superior: it is a better OS for a segment of the population. Katz is digging for nerd cred. Pffft.
I just find that tired old "taxes are crime" bula bula self-centered (and selfish) "libertarians" spew... well, selfish, ignorant and repulsive
I'm being trolled, I know, but...
Freedoms and liberty can only be taken away from a people by that people's government. McDonald's can't take away your free speech rights: they have to sell you a McGag in order to do that. Enron can't take away your right to peaceably assemble: they'll have to hire armed guards willing to shoot people. And, unless Disney has somehow buried your right to bear arms under Cinderella's tower, you can shoot back.
If you give money to the government, the government has to spend that money. They can't bundle it up and save it a big honkin' mattress: they have to spend it. What government spends money on is more government. More government means approbation of activities and services previously provided by other entities. This will eventually lead to encroachment of your liberties.
It's not hard to understand, but people still do. I suspect its because deep down they think that government would be okay if only they were allowed to run it. This is a common delusion, treatable by several prescription medications. I recommend you taking some.
Are you writing design documentation? Or product documentation? i.e., are you writing for programmers or users?
Programmers almost never should write documentation for users, if that's what you're talking about. Docbook, YODL, AutoGen PodPeople MagicDoc... none are appropriate documentation methods for users.
I see that you have the nerd affliction of Literalism and a woeful sense of humor. I'm afraid I cannot help you. Perhaps if you read the parent and reply again, you'll get it.
As to your statement that "there should be no UI issues": this shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to what a UI does and how you make it more efficient. I cannot help you there, either.
They lack the ability to see beyond their fears and beyond their own problems. They want tax cuts because that $300 will be great for a downpayment on a new tv.
Uhh... so giving the government more money is a way to recapture our liberties?
Good idea. I recommend first that you get everybody to agree to use the same editor.
Free Software's strength is it's greatest weakness. The diversity of it's community and the flatness of its management structure mean it will always be a bit scatterbrained when it comes to standards.
The only way you'll see cohesion is if a single entity (person or corporation) builds a complete system that is overwhelmingly good and allows other entities to copy it without charge. Very difficult proposition, and not likely to occur.
Remember when the iMac was released? It was a >$1000 machine. It s-l-o-w-l-y came down in price as Apple was able to produce them cheaper.
Steve refuses to remove features (that, to his and my thinking would cripple the machine)? Good for him! Apple should stop up their ears when PC-centric magazines hammer them on irrelevant criticisms. Don't like the price? Wait, or save up more money, or go elsewhere. What they all forget (or ignore) is that Apple produces machines to make money, and to enhance the lives of their customers. That has always been the driving force behind Jobs, and I'm for one glad that he's stuck to it.
Any monkey can punch out me-too boxes. Apple makes hardware and software that push the edge and expand the envelope of what people can do with computers. For that ability, you will pay more money. It's a bargain, if you have the wit to see it. If you don't, you can go chain yourself to Redmond and some anonymous Taiwanese clone maker.
Finally, the primary market for cheap computers are whiny magazine columnists, not purchasers of multiple PCs. The standard way for multiple PCs to show up in a home is for the primary computer to be upgraded, and the older computer relegated to the kids, or grandma, or something similar. You are the exception, not the rule. The people who buy $699 Internet Specials are those who think that they have to get on this Interway Supernet thing like the Jones have next door. This is not a prime market: indeed, it's a huge drain on support services. There aren't that many people in that segment of the population, but they take a disproportionate ammount of support to keep happy. These are the same people who set their 28.8 modem to 56K in their control panel and yell at the tech support desk that their modem isn't any faster.
You're comparing laptops. I'm talking desktops. (does that laptop have Firewire ports and come with software to make use of it?)
Discuss this with me again in 2008. I'm still using a Powerbook 180c from 1993--a fine piece of hardware--and a Powerbook 5300ce.
My point still stands: nobody makes money from making cheap cars or cheap computers. It's a nearly non-existant market. Apple makes good computers and software, and they shouldn't have to apologize for it, nor ruin their advantage by catering to a market that basically doesn't exist.
Well, we have it. It's done. Consumer oriented flat-panel computers are here. CRTs will be relegated to pre-press shops and collectors.
If you look at LCD monitors in the light of Apple's success with pushing USB, expect to see imitators abounding in a few months.
To those who pooh-pooh the price, I ask to you show me a comparable machine by any competitor that fulfills the same criteria:
Fast machine
CD-RW
LCD monitor
Small footprint
Full complement of ports
Equipped with software that allows you to:
Easily make movies
Easily manage your digital music
Easily manage your digital photos
Easily allows you to get a printed and bound book for $30 (Christmas gifts ahoy)
And do all this for $1300. Show me the comparables, please. And, consider the inevitability of production ramp-up. LCDs are cheaper now than a year ago. With Apple's push towards commoditizing the LCD market, imagine what the economies of scale can bring!
Will this significantly alter Apple's market share? Not likely. There are too many people who look at a problem and readily come to the wrong solution, i.e. "Let's go buy a computer based solely on the price, rather than what we want to accomplish with it". This is not Apple's market, just as they are not GNU/Linux's market. Apple is selling to a group of people who want the computer to be a part of their lifestyle, not as a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism.
Bravo, Apple. I look forward to the future devices you have in store.
Re:Another key feature: cost
on
New iMac Announced
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· Score: 3, Insightful
... and after all, all those companies making Super El-Cheapo "$699 Internet Specials" are doing so well. Witness eMachines. Witness Joe Bob's PC-o-Rama.
Making Yugos does not make money for a company. Making Hondas does make money. Get over it.
And, if you're not posting to/. from a $699 Internet Special, what do you know about the "market" that Apple is "cutting themselves off from"?
...and a fair price to you means... what? $100? $50? $1?
It's not the price of the software that causes these guys to make illegal copies. I doubt any of them even run the software they have.
Don't misunderstand--the Feds knocking down these guys doors, while not neccessarily wrong, is, however, a bit of a red herring. These guys don't represent a lost sale--they'll *never* buy a copy of Maya, or Director, or any such thing.
I'm not sick of it, but I'm beginning to wonder about his job. Does he work anymore? He has enough time to play FF, watch anime like a fiend, and go see every slightly nerdy movie as it comes out.
I'm no workaholic, but I barely have time to play a quick game on the occasional Saturday morning between writing code, fixing websites, making clients happy, keeping the house in shape and spending time with my wife.
Humor is lost on the humorless... I don't even know why I try.
But, to answer your question: when I ask a question, it's because it isn't answered in the FAQ, man page, or HOWTO, or it is answered incompletely. However, the nerds whom I ask only hear "I'm having a problem with ipfilter..." and they immediate jump off with "RTFM" and close their ears to the rest of the question.
I should probably contrast the current mindset with the mindset of the IRC/Newsgrop help I got with kernel 1.2.8--which was fantastic (never had to ask a question on Usenet--somebody almost always had asked the question, and I just had to find the thread). Not only were they helpful, they were full of excitement and joy at using GNU/Linux, and their enthusiasm spread to me and kept me going while trying to get Slackware installed on a turdly little 386.
But, the growing arrogance and irritability of the GNU/Linux community finally ticked me off enough to jump ship to BSD--where they are arrogant and irritable, but at least I knew that going in.
And that's why I poke fun at free GNU/Linux "tech support".
Alan Cooper says that programmers can't design good programs but he is wrong. Programmers can learn to design programs as well as anyone else
It's a comment like that that makes me wonder if you really read the book.
It's not a question of "learning to design programs". It's an attitude adjustment that the majority of programmers are incapable of making: what makes them good programmers makes them bad designers.
Again, "design" does not mean "graphic design". Design is a process, a way of breaking down the user's requirements, tasks, and desires to build a plan from which the programmers can implement in code. It is thinking, testing, prototyping, and in the end, even a bit of graphic design.
A programmer's typical method of making something "easy to use" is to provide an "Options" dialog box with several dozen checkbox options. If you're lucky, it's divided into tabs with semi-appropriate groupings.
Al Programmer now things he's made the program "easy to use". Why? It isn't easy to use! He's put a smiley face on a dotfile, nothing more. It might be a bit easier when tech support is leading the unfortunate user through the steps to turn off the damn paperclip--"Click on File, then Options, the the Annoying Eye Candy tab, then uncheck the "Smarmy Paper Clip" checkbox"--this isn't significantly easier or "better" than opening up a.MicrosoftOfficeOptions file and adding a "StupidPaperClip = 0" line.
The better solution is to spend the time to find out that every user in the world turns the stupid thing off, and not spend any more time programming the damn thing.
(And you nerd literalists can just piss off--I use Clippy as a generic example, not a specific example. Don't reply saying "MS did do user testing and they found that people like Clippy, nyah nyah nyah!", or I'll mock you openly)
Slashdot Mirror
True Peer-to-Peer networking is two "golden shower" porn stars exchanging business cards.
The size of the government itself.
The government is the biggest employer in the US. Almost all of those employees are using Windows machines. The US Gov't has the money to pay for all those OS licenses, too, so MS gets a fat wallet from the government's largesse. That fat wallet goes a long, long way towards keeping MS on the top of the mountain.
Although the Gov't used to be exclusively Wordperfect, since Wordperfect imploded some years ago, they all use Word now. There's another fat wallet for MS, and a guaranteed customer.
If you turn those millions of Federal employees into just 535 members of Congress, 9 judges and 1 president, MS gets it in the shorts. Why don't we try that solution, rather than hiring another couple thousand Federal employees to manhandle the Evil Forces of Redmond.
How is Linux superior to Windows or MacOS?
Asked in a more precise way, how is it superior to a normal (non-programmer) user? Because it crashes less? It moves bits around inside the box in better ways?
Linux is not a priori superior: it is a better OS for a segment of the population. Katz is digging for nerd cred. Pffft.
Since Linuxwatch.org has blown chunks, and it appears Linuxhardware.org is still Slashdotted from yesterday, I don't have much to say.
This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not a hacker.
I would *so* buy a used iMac from eBay before I'd go to all that trouble to make a $400 mp3 player work (sort of) on GNU/Linux.
How many hours will be burned in getting it to work? 5? 10? 50? As long as my time is worth at least $20/hour, I'd just buy a damned computer.
I'm being trolled, I know, but...
Freedoms and liberty can only be taken away from a people by that people's government. McDonald's can't take away your free speech rights: they have to sell you a McGag in order to do that. Enron can't take away your right to peaceably assemble: they'll have to hire armed guards willing to shoot people. And, unless Disney has somehow buried your right to bear arms under Cinderella's tower, you can shoot back.
If you give money to the government, the government has to spend that money. They can't bundle it up and save it a big honkin' mattress: they have to spend it. What government spends money on is more government. More government means approbation of activities and services previously provided by other entities. This will eventually lead to encroachment of your liberties.
It's not hard to understand, but people still do. I suspect its because deep down they think that government would be okay if only they were allowed to run it. This is a common delusion, treatable by several prescription medications. I recommend you taking some.
Are you writing design documentation? Or product documentation? i.e., are you writing for programmers or users?
Programmers almost never should write documentation for users, if that's what you're talking about. Docbook, YODL, AutoGen PodPeople MagicDoc... none are appropriate documentation methods for users.
Design documentation, however, is different.
I see that you have the nerd affliction of Literalism and a woeful sense of humor. I'm afraid I cannot help you. Perhaps if you read the parent and reply again, you'll get it.
As to your statement that "there should be no UI issues": this shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to what a UI does and how you make it more efficient. I cannot help you there, either.
Uhh... so giving the government more money is a way to recapture our liberties?
Good idea. I recommend first that you get everybody to agree to use the same editor.
Free Software's strength is it's greatest weakness. The diversity of it's community and the flatness of its management structure mean it will always be a bit scatterbrained when it comes to standards.
The only way you'll see cohesion is if a single entity (person or corporation) builds a complete system that is overwhelmingly good and allows other entities to copy it without charge. Very difficult proposition, and not likely to occur.
Umm... It's at the top of the screen. All the time, everytime, without fail.
You reveal yourself as being so Windows-centric you can't see around Bill's butt. Either that, or you must be an impossible student.
Personally, I would like the government to deliver horny Victoria's Secret models to my house. C'est la vie.
Remember when the iMac was released? It was a >$1000 machine. It s-l-o-w-l-y came down in price as Apple was able to produce them cheaper.
Steve refuses to remove features (that, to his and my thinking would cripple the machine)? Good for him! Apple should stop up their ears when PC-centric magazines hammer them on irrelevant criticisms. Don't like the price? Wait, or save up more money, or go elsewhere. What they all forget (or ignore) is that Apple produces machines to make money, and to enhance the lives of their customers. That has always been the driving force behind Jobs, and I'm for one glad that he's stuck to it.
Any monkey can punch out me-too boxes. Apple makes hardware and software that push the edge and expand the envelope of what people can do with computers. For that ability, you will pay more money. It's a bargain, if you have the wit to see it. If you don't, you can go chain yourself to Redmond and some anonymous Taiwanese clone maker.
Finally, the primary market for cheap computers are whiny magazine columnists, not purchasers of multiple PCs. The standard way for multiple PCs to show up in a home is for the primary computer to be upgraded, and the older computer relegated to the kids, or grandma, or something similar. You are the exception, not the rule. The people who buy $699 Internet Specials are those who think that they have to get on this Interway Supernet thing like the Jones have next door. This is not a prime market: indeed, it's a huge drain on support services. There aren't that many people in that segment of the population, but they take a disproportionate ammount of support to keep happy. These are the same people who set their 28.8 modem to 56K in their control panel and yell at the tech support desk that their modem isn't any faster.
GM and Ford do not make money on those cheap cars. They only produce them to bring their average MPG rating down as required by law.
Hyundai does do fairly well, I think, but they also have more expensive cars along with their cheaper cars.
Yugo was the only company to make nothing but cheap cars. They are out of business.
for he is the Kwisatz Haderach
You're comparing laptops. I'm talking desktops. (does that laptop have Firewire ports and come with software to make use of it?)
Discuss this with me again in 2008. I'm still using a Powerbook 180c from 1993--a fine piece of hardware--and a Powerbook 5300ce.
My point still stands: nobody makes money from making cheap cars or cheap computers. It's a nearly non-existant market. Apple makes good computers and software, and they shouldn't have to apologize for it, nor ruin their advantage by catering to a market that basically doesn't exist.
Well, we have it. It's done. Consumer oriented flat-panel computers are here. CRTs will be relegated to pre-press shops and collectors.
If you look at LCD monitors in the light of Apple's success with pushing USB, expect to see imitators abounding in a few months.
To those who pooh-pooh the price, I ask to you show me a comparable machine by any competitor that fulfills the same criteria:
And do all this for $1300. Show me the comparables, please. And, consider the inevitability of production ramp-up. LCDs are cheaper now than a year ago. With Apple's push towards commoditizing the LCD market, imagine what the economies of scale can bring!
Will this significantly alter Apple's market share? Not likely. There are too many people who look at a problem and readily come to the wrong solution, i.e. "Let's go buy a computer based solely on the price, rather than what we want to accomplish with it". This is not Apple's market, just as they are not GNU/Linux's market. Apple is selling to a group of people who want the computer to be a part of their lifestyle, not as a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism.
Bravo, Apple. I look forward to the future devices you have in store.
... and after all, all those companies making Super El-Cheapo "$699 Internet Specials" are doing so well. Witness eMachines. Witness Joe Bob's PC-o-Rama.
Making Yugos does not make money for a company. Making Hondas does make money. Get over it.
And, if you're not posting to /. from a $699 Internet Special, what do you know about the "market" that Apple is "cutting themselves off from"?
...and a fair price to you means... what? $100? $50? $1?
It's not the price of the software that causes these guys to make illegal copies. I doubt any of them even run the software they have.
Don't misunderstand--the Feds knocking down these guys doors, while not neccessarily wrong, is, however, a bit of a red herring. These guys don't represent a lost sale--they'll *never* buy a copy of Maya, or Director, or any such thing.
Sad sad sad... is that supposed to be a flame?
When I was a wee lad, flaming involved actual insults; cutting reparté and creative bombast.
Now all we have are these flaccid little twinkletoes playing slap-fight. Run home, little one.
I'm not sick of it, but I'm beginning to wonder about his job. Does he work anymore? He has enough time to play FF, watch anime like a fiend, and go see every slightly nerdy movie as it comes out.
I'm no workaholic, but I barely have time to play a quick game on the occasional Saturday morning between writing code, fixing websites, making clients happy, keeping the house in shape and spending time with my wife.
Does Malda even write code anymore?
Well, you still fell into the Nerd Literalist trap. So I'll mock you.
Mock mock mock mock!
I wonder, if somebody told you to "go fuck yourself", what in the world do you do?
Humor is lost on the humorless... I don't even know why I try.
But, to answer your question: when I ask a question, it's because it isn't answered in the FAQ, man page, or HOWTO, or it is answered incompletely. However, the nerds whom I ask only hear "I'm having a problem with ipfilter..." and they immediate jump off with "RTFM" and close their ears to the rest of the question.
I should probably contrast the current mindset with the mindset of the IRC/Newsgrop help I got with kernel 1.2.8--which was fantastic (never had to ask a question on Usenet--somebody almost always had asked the question, and I just had to find the thread). Not only were they helpful, they were full of excitement and joy at using GNU/Linux, and their enthusiasm spread to me and kept me going while trying to get Slackware installed on a turdly little 386.
But, the growing arrogance and irritability of the GNU/Linux community finally ticked me off enough to jump ship to BSD--where they are arrogant and irritable, but at least I knew that going in.
And that's why I poke fun at free GNU/Linux "tech support".
It's a comment like that that makes me wonder if you really read the book.
It's not a question of "learning to design programs". It's an attitude adjustment that the majority of programmers are incapable of making: what makes them good programmers makes them bad designers.
Again, "design" does not mean "graphic design". Design is a process, a way of breaking down the user's requirements, tasks, and desires to build a plan from which the programmers can implement in code. It is thinking, testing, prototyping, and in the end, even a bit of graphic design.
A programmer's typical method of making something "easy to use" is to provide an "Options" dialog box with several dozen checkbox options. If you're lucky, it's divided into tabs with semi-appropriate groupings.
Al Programmer now things he's made the program "easy to use". Why? It isn't easy to use! He's put a smiley face on a dotfile, nothing more. It might be a bit easier when tech support is leading the unfortunate user through the steps to turn off the damn paperclip--"Click on File, then Options, the the Annoying Eye Candy tab, then uncheck the "Smarmy Paper Clip" checkbox"--this isn't significantly easier or "better" than opening up a .MicrosoftOfficeOptions file and adding a "StupidPaperClip = 0" line.
The better solution is to spend the time to find out that every user in the world turns the stupid thing off, and not spend any more time programming the damn thing.
(And you nerd literalists can just piss off--I use Clippy as a generic example, not a specific example. Don't reply saying "MS did do user testing and they found that people like Clippy, nyah nyah nyah!", or I'll mock you openly)
I like it when I ask a question (almost any question), and I get "RTFM" in response (sometimes with "luser" appended).