Traffic fatalities also vastly outnumber murders. Better just let murderers off with a fine and some community service.
Hang on, I don't think anyone said give terrorists a free pass; rather, we still go after them, but we don't compromise the rights of the entire population in the process.
So to continue the simile, you still prosecute murderers to the fullest extent of the law, but you don't make everyone take off their front doors in case the police needs to go in to their houses looking for a murderer.
> Having Snowden's windfall on a million drives all decrypted and open for all to see wouldn't help, because anyone accessing it at any time from any computer on the net could and would be instantly tracked, and forced to have a computer bashing party in their own basement.
Perhaps the solution is to overwhelm the system. Label the download as, I dunno, The Avengers Director's Cut. Get it on as many computers as possible.
I suspect the keyboard was not included originally to stop people thinking "that's a laptop, but twice as expensive and heavier".
(Is it really heavier? I haven't picked one up yet.) Which as we've said in another thread, is only one of the erroneous assumptions that got Microsoft in trouble -- that the reason the i-pad is considered a high end item is that it sells for a boutique price, therefore, logically, if we charge a boutique price for the surface, it'll be considered a high end item. (??? Profit!)
> I can't tell you how many times I"ve been in meetings where the guy with the apple doesn't have his bag of adapters and can't connect to the projector or big screen. Which these days generally has VGA and HDMI.
I saw that happen just today in a meeting. A guy with a macbook tried to run his presentation on the overhead projector, but hadn't brought the right cable with him, and none of us had a spare. (Don't look at me, I don't do macs.) We ended up huddling around his trendy silver screen.
Yes, because we humans are not animals, and are not part of the natural ecosystem of earth. And we are responsible for every extinction and every problem that the earth has ever had or will ever have. So we humans should just all commit suicide so that beautiful Mother Earth can thrive without our poisonous presence. Since you are clearly her most noble guardian, how about you go first, my hero?
Or, to put it in geek terms, this sysadmin job would be a hell of a lot easier if there were no users.
Since when did government care about the right to privacy?
Wait wait we can use this. Cop helmet cameras should be illegal because they violate the cops' and criminals' privacy. NSA camera drones should be illegal because they, well, violate everyone's privacy. If that's the way they want to play it, we need to grab the ball and run with it.
You know the real reason they banned the cameras is because it might have shown someone tragically screwing up. But if that's the excuse they want to use, fine. It provides a good precedent.
I think Windows 8 would be fabulously useful in a tablet / hybrid form factor. A full blown PC which can be used like a netbook, or like a tablet depending on the circumstances. Atom processors have reached a stage where you get similar battery life and form factor as an ARM based device and would be powerful enough for word processing, light gaming, development, video playback etc.
Problem here is that this is Windows RT we're talking about it which is ARM based and therefore incompatible with all Windows software except metro apps. It's not like there is a huge selection of metro apps either, especially compared to other tablet operating systems.
We have one. It's an ASUS convertable. Turn the screen around and it's a (somewhat clunky) tablet. Turn it the other way and it's a (slightly underpowered) laptop. Originally running Windows 7 "tablet edition", (two thumbs down) later upgraded to Windows 8.
Currently shelfware. Because although 8 has some desktop-y things and some tablet-y things, it's neither fish nor fowl -- you can't use it as a conventional desktop without considerable pain, and you can't use it as a tablet for anything but the most trivial of content consumption. Windows 8 doesn't work well either as a tablet OS, nor as a laptop OS. Had MS made Metro optional, it would at least function reasonably well as a laptop. As it is, the device isn't really useable at all.
So, tablet/hybrid form factor? Not the niche for Windows 8 as it exists today. Although I haven't tried it on a phone, I get the impression from using it on the hybrid that it would do ok in a phone form factor, with a phone's limited functionality. Otherwise, no.
Seems to me that they're not just missing the boat, but they're still trying to figure out a route to the harbour, but can't work out how to use the GPS.
"The GPS has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."
They're still watching the little swirly symbol waiting for a solution.
I'm really not trying to be nit picky, but are you saying that Windows source code is available?
Are you a university student who wants to do a faculty-sponsored research project that uses Windows? Congratulations, the Windows Research Kernel may be available to you:
"The Windows Research Kernel (WRK) packages core Windows XP x64/Server 2003 SP1 (2005 edition) kernel sources with an environment for building and testing of experiments and projects based on modifying the Windows kernel, enabling advanced teaching and research that promote better understanding of the Windows architecture and implementation."
Doesn't mean that it's open source, because as I and others have pointed out, that requires that the receiver of said source be free to modify and redistribute it.
Well, there are other differences as well. I can buy sheet music for tunes that came out *this year*, (not limited to what came out twelve years ago) and I don't need to be a very special person to qualify. And I can buy music for the entire tune, not just the base line.
They also forgot "Get there at the right time: not too early with a half-baked OS and underpowered hardware, or so late the other players are already entrenched in their market segments"
This is true. If there is a counter argument, it might be that the iPad was fairly entrenched when the Android tablets started to make the scene, and the first ones to market were pretty horrid. (Resistive displays, underpowered, no marketplace, low resolution, stale, buggy versions of Android.) But the OS got better, and the hardware got a *lot* better, and the hardware got a lot better (that bears saying twice) and this year Android tablet sales overtook Apple.
It can be done, but the product needs to be engaging. Surface tablets are ugly. How to do things is not intuitive. There's no reason to pick one up. Therefore, no reason (except for the mistaken impression that it runs applications written for Windows) to buy one.
> No more than windows source code existing makes Windows open source.
I'm really not trying to be nit picky, but are you saying that Windows source code is available? That I could buy a DVD with the source for Windows 7? (If so, cool -- I could fix a couple of stupid bugs.) If you're saying merely that the code exists, full stop, then we're not talking about the same thing. You can buy, for a trivial cost, sheet music which is (if you will) a mathematical representation of the music in question, allowing reproduction, even if not accounting for individual interpretation (which as I've said elsewhere, is *individual*).
I understand; I have composed music myself. But the finished product is still the finished product -- usually available for a pittance. (Sheet music really is cheap by any standard.) Of course, this doesn't take into account individual interpretation, but the key word there is individual. Find your own. Why would you want someone else's?
I guess I don't see the need for all the gadget settings to exactly recreate a performance. If you have the recording, you have the performance. Why would you want to exactly recreate it? As someone who has worked professionally in a band, I can tell you that the objective is to *not* sound exactly like the original, but to take the music and reinterpret it. Perhaps like this. Or even more different. I heard a version once in North Beach (SF) of Talking Heads' "take me to the river" on sax and guitar that I'm almost willing to say was better than the original.
Again, in summary, to sound exactly the same, you already have the original recording -- there's no point. And even if there is, man, it's called "your ears". Start with what you know, and then fine tune settings until you match it up. It's not that hard for the experienced musician.
Just because it's not Free Open Source Music doesn't mean it's not Open Source.
Exactly. The source is freely available, and the cost (my mother is a music teacher and I help with her finances) often borders on trivial. Almost a media cost.
It seems to me that music for which a written score exists is open source by definition, the score being the "source code" for the music. I'm not sure what notes from the original composer is supposed to entail these days. Back in the old days composers would include notes on how the music is to be played, but we have audio recordings for that now.
I suspect that the keyboard was initially not included to (a) make the cost of ownership seem less than it would later prove to be, and (b) give people the impression that Windows 8 could be used in some reasonable fashion entirely via touch.
Its honestly actually perfectly fine as a pure tablet.
But the big feature of RT is MS office. And Office benefits immensely from a keyboard.
You may be right about not including it to bring the perceived cost down. Much like new macs not including adapters to attach it to obscure devices like hdmi or ethernet.;)
Parenthetically, I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot in that regard. It hasn't had as much effect because Apple products have mindshare. The Surface doesn't even have that.
That is all predicated on the faulty assumption that anyone wants to use Windows 8 in the first place.
At first I passed this off as snarky, but there is some insight into what you've written. Microsoft with the Surface RT seems to be trying to replicate the ipad phenomenon, which appears to be, make an engaging product, and people will buy it despite the fact that it's (a) priced at boutique levels, (b) doesn't play well outside its ecosystem, (c) is a walled ecosystem, and (d) is more for content consumption rather than content creation. So:
a) High price, check.
b) Doesn't play well outside its ecosystem, check.
c) Walled ecosystem, check
d) Consumption, yes, creation, not so much. Check.
e) ???
f) Profit!!!
In this case, the missing (e), the part they forgot, is of course, make it engaging. The device itself must make you want to pick it up. You should want to operate it, and how to operate it should be intuitively obvious. And I don't mean "intuitively obvious" because someone wrote those words in the brochure, but actually, intuitively obvious to regular people.
In summary, you can't duplicate the success of a product merely by duplicating its major features, especially when many of those features are seen by consumers as disadvantages that people put up with in order to own the product. What's missing in this case is a reason to own one.
That Microsoft commercial that tries to compare the ipad to the surface completely misses the point. Siri is engaging. The ability to play chopsticks on a lifelike piano is engaging. Even though neither of those features were of tremendous use, they made you want to pick up the product and play with it. There's nothing about Windows 8 that makes you want to pick up a Surface. It's flat, unattractive, and you can't just start using it, without first learning the eccentricities of the interface. The only reason to own one is that it runs Windows software. And then you find out that's not true either.
My daughter had a great observation about the Microsoft Surface commercials that are deluging the airwaves and shown in theaters before the movie (which pisses me off to no end, but never mind). She said that each commercial should show us how to do a certain thing on the Surface. Stop with the dancing already. Stop showing "attach the keyboard... detach the keyboard... attach the keyboard..." WE GET IT ALREADY! The keyboard is EXTRA. The commercials should show someone really using the interface, not just sweeping tiles from right to left, but using the hot corners, bringing up "charms", making the machine work. Why don't they do that? Perhaps because if people saw how Win8 actually *worked*, they'd go buy something else?
I suspect that the keyboard was initially not included to (a) make the cost of ownership seem less than it would later prove to be, and (b) give people the impression that Windows 8 could be used in some reasonable fashion entirely via touch. Neither of which is true, of course.
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Traffic fatalities also vastly outnumber murders. Better just let murderers off with a fine and some community service.
Hang on, I don't think anyone said give terrorists a free pass; rather, we still go after them, but we don't compromise the rights of the entire population in the process.
So to continue the simile, you still prosecute murderers to the fullest extent of the law, but you don't make everyone take off their front doors in case the police needs to go in to their houses looking for a murderer.
> Having Snowden's windfall on a million drives all decrypted and open for all to see wouldn't help, because anyone accessing it at any time from any computer on the net could and would be instantly tracked, and forced to have a computer bashing party in their own basement.
Perhaps the solution is to overwhelm the system. Label the download as, I dunno, The Avengers Director's Cut. Get it on as many computers as possible.
I suspect the keyboard was not included originally to stop people thinking "that's a laptop, but twice as expensive and heavier".
(Is it really heavier? I haven't picked one up yet.) Which as we've said in another thread, is only one of the erroneous assumptions that got Microsoft in trouble -- that the reason the i-pad is considered a high end item is that it sells for a boutique price, therefore, logically, if we charge a boutique price for the surface, it'll be considered a high end item. (??? Profit!)
> I can't tell you how many times I"ve been in meetings where the guy with the apple doesn't have his bag of adapters and can't connect to the projector or big screen. Which these days generally has VGA and HDMI.
I saw that happen just today in a meeting. A guy with a macbook tried to run his presentation on the overhead projector, but hadn't brought the right cable with him, and none of us had a spare. (Don't look at me, I don't do macs.) We ended up huddling around his trendy silver screen.
Aww, that's so cute that you think we can exploit a contradiction like this against the government.
In reality, they have our cake and eat it as well.
We, as a society, need to become much (much) more politically active before we can start to effect real change.
Ok, but we have to start somewhere, why not here?
Yes, because we humans are not animals, and are not part of the natural ecosystem of earth. And we are responsible for every extinction and every problem that the earth has ever had or will ever have. So we humans should just all commit suicide so that beautiful Mother Earth can thrive without our poisonous presence. Since you are clearly her most noble guardian, how about you go first, my hero?
Or, to put it in geek terms, this sysadmin job would be a hell of a lot easier if there were no users.
Since when did government care about the right to privacy?
Wait wait we can use this. Cop helmet cameras should be illegal because they violate the cops' and criminals' privacy. NSA camera drones should be illegal because they, well, violate everyone's privacy. If that's the way they want to play it, we need to grab the ball and run with it.
You know the real reason they banned the cameras is because it might have shown someone tragically screwing up. But if that's the excuse they want to use, fine. It provides a good precedent.
Next thing you know, consumer dash cams will be illegal because they violate cops privacy.
I think Windows 8 would be fabulously useful in a tablet / hybrid form factor. A full blown PC which can be used like a netbook, or like a tablet depending on the circumstances. Atom processors have reached a stage where you get similar battery life and form factor as an ARM based device and would be powerful enough for word processing, light gaming, development, video playback etc.
Problem here is that this is Windows RT we're talking about it which is ARM based and therefore incompatible with all Windows software except metro apps. It's not like there is a huge selection of metro apps either, especially compared to other tablet operating systems.
We have one. It's an ASUS convertable. Turn the screen around and it's a (somewhat clunky) tablet. Turn it the other way and it's a (slightly underpowered) laptop. Originally running Windows 7 "tablet edition", (two thumbs down) later upgraded to Windows 8.
Currently shelfware. Because although 8 has some desktop-y things and some tablet-y things, it's neither fish nor fowl -- you can't use it as a conventional desktop without considerable pain, and you can't use it as a tablet for anything but the most trivial of content consumption. Windows 8 doesn't work well either as a tablet OS, nor as a laptop OS. Had MS made Metro optional, it would at least function reasonably well as a laptop. As it is, the device isn't really useable at all.
So, tablet/hybrid form factor? Not the niche for Windows 8 as it exists today. Although I haven't tried it on a phone, I get the impression from using it on the hybrid that it would do ok in a phone form factor, with a phone's limited functionality. Otherwise, no.
Seems to me that they're not just missing the boat, but they're still trying to figure out a route to the harbour, but can't work out how to use the GPS.
"The GPS has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available."
They're still watching the little swirly symbol waiting for a solution.
I think "mega evil rats nest of doom" is my new favorite saying.
Are you a university student who wants to do a faculty-sponsored research project that uses Windows? Congratulations, the Windows Research Kernel may be available to you:
"The Windows Research Kernel (WRK) packages core Windows XP x64/Server 2003 SP1 (2005 edition) kernel sources with an environment for building and testing of experiments and projects based on modifying the Windows kernel, enabling advanced teaching and research that promote better understanding of the Windows architecture and implementation."
Doesn't mean that it's open source, because as I and others have pointed out, that requires that the receiver of said source be free to modify and redistribute it.
Well, there are other differences as well. I can buy sheet music for tunes that came out *this year*, (not limited to what came out twelve years ago) and I don't need to be a very special person to qualify. And I can buy music for the entire tune, not just the base line.
They also forgot "Get there at the right time: not too early with a half-baked OS and underpowered hardware, or so late the other players are already entrenched in their market segments"
This is true. If there is a counter argument, it might be that the iPad was fairly entrenched when the Android tablets started to make the scene, and the first ones to market were pretty horrid. (Resistive displays, underpowered, no marketplace, low resolution, stale, buggy versions of Android.) But the OS got better, and the hardware got a *lot* better, and the hardware got a lot better (that bears saying twice) and this year Android tablet sales overtook Apple.
It can be done, but the product needs to be engaging. Surface tablets are ugly. How to do things is not intuitive. There's no reason to pick one up. Therefore, no reason (except for the mistaken impression that it runs applications written for Windows) to buy one.
> No more than windows source code existing makes Windows open source.
I'm really not trying to be nit picky, but are you saying that Windows source code is available? That I could buy a DVD with the source for Windows 7? (If so, cool -- I could fix a couple of stupid bugs.) If you're saying merely that the code exists, full stop, then we're not talking about the same thing. You can buy, for a trivial cost, sheet music which is (if you will) a mathematical representation of the music in question, allowing reproduction, even if not accounting for individual interpretation (which as I've said elsewhere, is *individual*).
> What's really interesting is that part of the safety rating may be because the car is electric.
Yes, but probably not in the way you mean.
I understand; I have composed music myself. But the finished product is still the finished product -- usually available for a pittance. (Sheet music really is cheap by any standard.) Of course, this doesn't take into account individual interpretation, but the key word there is individual. Find your own. Why would you want someone else's?
I guess I don't see the need for all the gadget settings to exactly recreate a performance. If you have the recording, you have the performance. Why would you want to exactly recreate it? As someone who has worked professionally in a band, I can tell you that the objective is to *not* sound exactly like the original, but to take the music and reinterpret it. Perhaps like this. Or even more different. I heard a version once in North Beach (SF) of Talking Heads' "take me to the river" on sax and guitar that I'm almost willing to say was better than the original.
Again, in summary, to sound exactly the same, you already have the original recording -- there's no point. And even if there is, man, it's called "your ears". Start with what you know, and then fine tune settings until you match it up. It's not that hard for the experienced musician.
Just because it's not Free Open Source Music doesn't mean it's not Open Source.
Exactly. The source is freely available, and the cost (my mother is a music teacher and I help with her finances) often borders on trivial. Almost a media cost.
It seems to me that music for which a written score exists is open source by definition, the score being the "source code" for the music. I'm not sure what notes from the original composer is supposed to entail these days. Back in the old days composers would include notes on how the music is to be played, but we have audio recordings for that now.
I suspect that the keyboard was initially not included to (a) make the cost of ownership seem less than it would later prove to be, and (b) give people the impression that Windows 8 could be used in some reasonable fashion entirely via touch.
Its honestly actually perfectly fine as a pure tablet.
But the big feature of RT is MS office. And Office benefits immensely from a keyboard.
You may be right about not including it to bring the perceived cost down. Much like new macs not including adapters to attach it to obscure devices like hdmi or ethernet. ;)
Parenthetically, I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot in that regard. It hasn't had as much effect because Apple products have mindshare. The Surface doesn't even have that.
That is all predicated on the faulty assumption that anyone wants to use Windows 8 in the first place.
At first I passed this off as snarky, but there is some insight into what you've written. Microsoft with the Surface RT seems to be trying to replicate the ipad phenomenon, which appears to be, make an engaging product, and people will buy it despite the fact that it's (a) priced at boutique levels, (b) doesn't play well outside its ecosystem, (c) is a walled ecosystem, and (d) is more for content consumption rather than content creation. So:
a) High price, check.
b) Doesn't play well outside its ecosystem, check.
c) Walled ecosystem, check
d) Consumption, yes, creation, not so much. Check.
e) ???
f) Profit!!!
In this case, the missing (e), the part they forgot, is of course, make it engaging. The device itself must make you want to pick it up. You should want to operate it, and how to operate it should be intuitively obvious. And I don't mean "intuitively obvious" because someone wrote those words in the brochure, but actually, intuitively obvious to regular people.
In summary, you can't duplicate the success of a product merely by duplicating its major features, especially when many of those features are seen by consumers as disadvantages that people put up with in order to own the product. What's missing in this case is a reason to own one.
That Microsoft commercial that tries to compare the ipad to the surface completely misses the point. Siri is engaging. The ability to play chopsticks on a lifelike piano is engaging. Even though neither of those features were of tremendous use, they made you want to pick up the product and play with it. There's nothing about Windows 8 that makes you want to pick up a Surface. It's flat, unattractive, and you can't just start using it, without first learning the eccentricities of the interface. The only reason to own one is that it runs Windows software. And then you find out that's not true either.
My daughter had a great observation about the Microsoft Surface commercials that are deluging the airwaves and shown in theaters before the movie (which pisses me off to no end, but never mind). She said that each commercial should show us how to do a certain thing on the Surface. Stop with the dancing already. Stop showing "attach the keyboard... detach the keyboard... attach the keyboard..." WE GET IT ALREADY! The keyboard is EXTRA. The commercials should show someone really using the interface, not just sweeping tiles from right to left, but using the hot corners, bringing up "charms", making the machine work. Why don't they do that? Perhaps because if people saw how Win8 actually *worked*, they'd go buy something else?
I see your point. Life finds a way.
I suspect that the keyboard was initially not included to (a) make the cost of ownership seem less than it would later prove to be, and (b) give people the impression that Windows 8 could be used in some reasonable fashion entirely via touch. Neither of which is true, of course.
sell those silly things for $100 and people will be able to put a real OS on them to be useful
Before I buy one even for $100 I'd need proof that this could be done.
If Facebook won't pay him the $500, we should pass the hat around. Such chutzpa should be encouraged.
See, it works.