last couple of times I was in CC (one to buy a sirius radio, the other car GPS), I knew exactly what I watned, and was more concerned whether they carried it or had it in stock. I did the research on my own, got all the advice I sought, and needed the sales staff to ring it up. how much do they need to nkow to do that?
I feel for the guys that are getting laid-off, but the truth is if it added $$$ to the price, I'd have bought it elsewhere. the real question is do they really help CC sell more? I wonder.
I think the deal was MS couldn't demand windows exclusivity, no dual boot machines, etc. I could be wrong as I am not a lawyer and didn't read every detail of the settlement. In some ways it's not any different than apple shipping OSX on every mac. you can't order a naked mac. they have a monopoly on macs in a way that MS doesn't have a monopoly on PC's. sure it's small, but it is still a monopoly (and I have a household full of macs). It is more akin to a deal with the devil, and Dell chooses to make it. It'd be wholly different if MS said that you can't get windows licenses at all if you sell any other OS. They may have and that they can't do. But the vendor just has to pay more.
I'd wager that there's not enough consumer demand (or business consumers) for naked PC's. but there are other factors as well. one, there is but one windows, and dell, et al., can taylor it to their machines and make it work at least out of the box. no, they don't have the control over it as they would linux, but they have enough. when you screw with the machine, it's you screwing with it. and help is much easier, and cheaper, when there's a single OS. imagine having to figure out the distro, the kernel, etc. it'd be a disaster.
that linux is "free" in all senses for you and me, doesn't make it free for dell, etc. to add an OS would be very expensive and to provide none (for every comptuer), would terribly diminish their product. the OS for dell is a complementary good without which, they couldn't sell their product. not to defend MS or dell, but the truth is, MS is well within their rights to demand that dell sell a copy with every machine to get a volume discount, ability to modify it, etc. but the bottom line is that there just isn't enough interest to justify naked PC's. however, notice Dell's server line. you can get them, which ought to tell you something.
I rarely respond to AC's, and your "moron" response just added proof. you chose not to read what I wrote and instead just oppose my position which you then take to attack me. whatever my personal preferences might be, I don't mine, nor yours, should be turned into public policy regarding marriage. Please show me in the constitution where the government (federal at least) is empowered to take property from one citizen and give it to another. as for the war, freedom isn't free and requries fighting. now, you and I might disagree as to the times and places, but pacifism is, to use your phrasing, moronic.
historically, while vietnam was seen by the abti-war crowd as an isolated incident, it was hardly. communism saw its greatest advances post vietnam, and was viewed then, and even now, by enemies of America as a sign of her weakness. the mistakes we made then, and are making now, is not that we're fighting, but that we're not fighting. it is our meakness of response is what has emboldened our enemies, not our agression.
The assault on the Constitution by the current Administration is cause for real concern by freedom loving Americans as it can be seen as the greatest threat to those freedoms since our Civil War, 150 years ago.
while I am no fan of this administration, this is hyperbole. they have not imprisoned those who protested nor passed a sedition act making anti-war speech a crime as was done under wilson. nor did they intern 120,000 people of foreign ancestry as did FDR. but abuses of power are precisely because we have given the government the power to do so much. even the cinton administration was rather abusive, using the RICO statutes, which were to go after organized crime, to go after anti-abortion groups.
take campaign finance reform for example. the problem will never be solved as long as congress spends $3 trillion a year. get the money out of washington and you'll get the money out of politics. you want a government far less abusive? take the power from the government. we ask it to do all sorts of things for us, but then cringe when the implied powers, such as information collection, as used inappropriately. as homer (simpson that is) say, "DOH!!"
Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.
you obviously know nothing about libertarianism. it is entirely distinct from libertine, which would be people behaving as poorly as they want. libertarians know very much that freedom requires responsibility. and that's the problem today. people want to be able to do whatever they want, yet want none of the responsibility and desire to blame others. and, libertarians know that freedom can only exist when others act with Aristotelian moderation. Libertarianism is based on the belief that people left to their own will be the most prosperous and will be the most successful.
libertarians also want as little government as possible, but nothing close to anarchy. for example, consider the idea of same-sex marriage. it isn't that libertarians naturally support, but rather, oppose state sanctioned marriage. marriage is a private matter and needs no state imprimatur. issues like joint filing of taxes and property ownership are again, big government issues. there shouldn't be joint filing of taxes, and hell, it's your property, do with it as you please. If given the option in a ballot box, I would oppose same sex marriage, but I don't believe it is a public poliscy issue. and that's a huge difference.
libertarians also oppose government welfare because it is unconstitutional for the government to confiscate the property of one and give it to another. it is also crippling to those who recieve as well as it destroys their initiative.
as for the war, libertarians are split. I tend towards an internationalist though many libertarians tend towards isolationism. but internationals not in consistent with libertariansism as being strong and forceful abroad is fully within the consitutional authority of the government and certainly necessary to deal with enemies abroad to preserve freedom at home.
the attitude that libertarians are a "fuck you I've got mine" lot is one of ignorance and stupidity. they are nothing of the sort. socialism tends far more towards this as socialism is basically "this is all you're going to get, fuck you" system.
There is no proof that a rock will fall down when you drop it.
it doesn't drop, it is pulled. huge difference. and yes, you can measure the gravitational pull, and yes, it's constant, which is why objects at the same rate. and yes, it's provable, that objects exert gravitational pull on each other. it's a fact. global warming on the other hand...
that's just it. the problem is that all "data" comes from lab experiments where all variables can be controlled. you can't control all the earth's variables and thus the correlation is invalid. I'm not well versed in climate science, or any science as such, my field is economics. and from what I remember doing all those regression analyses and such is that we tried to isolate a single variable. we always assumed ceteris paribus, but you can't do it in an environemnt as large and diverse as the earth.
the simple fact is that there is no physical proof that we have warmed the earth or that we can alter its course. there is speculation, lab models, and computer simulations, but nothing conclusive. everyone is screaming about the end of the world because it suits their political or financial ends. that doesn't mean we can continue down our fossil fuel smorgasborg. it means we need to drill all the oil we have, but, build nuclear power plants, and research all kinds of alternative energy sources. it's stupid to do otherwise. but it's a problem of national and economic security, not chicken little.
the earth might be warming (well at least since the end of the last ice age in the 19th century) but there is still no credible scientific evidence that we have caused it or can do anything about it. why not offer $25 million to figure out how to deal with what the earth is doing? gee, that'd be too easy and not politically correct. when did we begin to think we are omnipotent godlike creatures?
linux is, and has been ready, for a long time. but it always falls back to Exchange. Well, no, you're not going to get ever much help in connecting to exchange, and in that environment, linux won't work. funny, the guy didn't mention problems with hardware, connecting to the network, etc. nor did he mention the problems with viruses, spyware, etc. no, it's exchange. fair enough, but linux is more than ready for lots and lots of offices, homes, etc. sure, gimp is not photoshop, but OO.org is very capable and powerful, firefox, thunderbird, all the multimedia stuff, etc. except for the ipod connectivity of course.
mabe this is a stupid question, but why microsoft is already working on SP1 for vista? I mean, don't they have a QA department, don't they have people to test the thing? Shouldn't an OS be somewhat working and already have dealt with security issues before they launch it on the public. what makes this so onerous is that you can't get computers with XP, or if you can now, you won't be able to in the near future. they might criticize OSS, but at least a.9 release is a.9. what the hell, I run OS X.
back when Reagan offered a vision for anti-missile defense using lasers he and the program were ridiculed. now, babs (yes, she's my senator, heaven help us!!) thinks they're a good thing.
Microsoft supports creationist scientist, a fomer Haliburton employee, who says global warming and Darwin are hoaxes while linux is guilty of patent infringement using federal money granted by the Bush administration.
2. ITMS and the iPod will be targeted heavily by Microsoft. Eventually the iPod will be replaced just as sony list the Walkman/Discman fame of the 80s and 90s.
it wasn't so much the ipod replaced the walkman, but the.mp3 replaced the cd. apple was late to the mp3 player party, and the first ipods weren't even that good. but when they finally got a great product, it took over the market. as long as.mp3 is the preferred format, the ipod will always be successful. microsoft is determined to make their.wmv (or whatever it is) the standard and they are too focused on implementing their own special brand of DRM. ITMS is so popular because it "just works". and of course it does, ITMS, iTunes, and the ipod all come from the same people. microsoft will have to have their own store, their own program, and their own player. that will take a few years to get mind as well as market share. and even then, their size can't help them like it did in the office suite market. I think apple's biggest concern is not microsoft but current ipod users not upgrading.
perhaps we can rethink our blind devotion to global warming and man's supposed virulent impact. I have never understood why is it accepted completely that we're somehow responsible for supposed "global warming" and that we think we can do anything about it. There is still much scientific debate (unless looking for government research funding) and (yes, I RTFA) much information still coming in and I'm sure more will come in the future. The truth is probably more troublesome, in that we simply don't know. We live in a world of perfect access to information, and we expect to be able to know everything, and we assume we have complete control as well. So much for post-modern, secular humanism, eh? We are not omnipotent and omniscient.
The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge. And now we're to believe that somehow earth's perfect harmonial environemntal equilibirum, which never ever existed in the first place, is being upset by man? When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.
it was a prototype female that was attracted to long hair, lonely, coders who spend their nights writing open source software, planning to overthrow the evil empire, and have enough computing power to siumultaneously recompile their kernel while playing Quake 3. And she was supposed to be eager to watch the entire Star Wars collection on DVD, but only if he got it to play on his linux box.
more choices are great for certain things. and competition makes everything better. however, there shouldn't be "choices" for data. there should be standardized formats and they should be open. we're all familiar with the.doc issue. however, my schosl district has been using Novell Groupwise for email for a few years. what if we wanted to migrate to another platform, or Novell crashes, or whatever. What are we going to do with the 1 billion emails stored there. or what if we wanted to use a different email client (group wise isn't the best). of course, who needs choices, vim rules and emacs sucks.
but Dwight Eisenhower's exclusion from your list casts serious doubts on its worth.
exactly what war did Eisenhower lead us through as president. yes, he finished/resolved the Korean War, but it was one he hardly had a leadership role in. and it is fair to argue the resolution of said war has left us lingering problems today.
though I don't usually respond to AC's, being a decorated veteran is respectable and honorable, but doesn't imply that he understands the nature of the enemy or how to combat it. when kerry made the prostitition analogy, he lost me. and, our two greatest war presidents, FDR and Lincoln, never saw combat. LBJ, who was a decorated veteran, was in charge of our largest military fiasco ever.
I find it odd that somehow, those who protested the vietnam war are now putting so much faith in generals, the same group they despised so much in their day. and I find it odd that suddenly military service is the necessary imprimatur for the presidency, when it mattered not at all when Clinton ran. And I find it amusing that Hillary now has standard which she will be unable to meet. I am sure that it will be curiously overlooked though. It is an historically dangerous standard I might add, one that goes back to the Romans. in fact, read the constitution, the part about the president being a resident. That was put in there to ensure that a conquering general would not "cross the Rubicon" in America.
If you check polls from 2004, you will find that Bush voters were more likely than Kerry voters to be wrong about Bush's positions, and that independent voters were often wrong but wrong less often than Bush supporters. There's no reason to assume the uniform distribution.
well, alot of us held our noses and voted for him because we didn't think kerry got it regarding the war. we also hoped and prayed that he would leave his big spending, federal takeover of everything, ruinous trade and immigration policies. but alas, we've been hoodwinked. and now he's not even fighting an agressive war. I want my money back!!!
maybe some skepticism regarding the religion of global warming is in order. And even if the earth is warming, perhaps we've nothing to do with it, nor can we have anything to do with halting it. where is king canute when you need him?!?!
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french soldiers retreating from the german army or French Jews towards Germany?
last couple of times I was in CC (one to buy a sirius radio, the other car GPS), I knew exactly what I watned, and was more concerned whether they carried it or had it in stock. I did the research on my own, got all the advice I sought, and needed the sales staff to ring it up. how much do they need to nkow to do that?
I feel for the guys that are getting laid-off, but the truth is if it added $$$ to the price, I'd have bought it elsewhere. the real question is do they really help CC sell more? I wonder.
oh wait, he didn't have anything to do with this?
I think the deal was MS couldn't demand windows exclusivity, no dual boot machines, etc. I could be wrong as I am not a lawyer and didn't read every detail of the settlement. In some ways it's not any different than apple shipping OSX on every mac. you can't order a naked mac. they have a monopoly on macs in a way that MS doesn't have a monopoly on PC's. sure it's small, but it is still a monopoly (and I have a household full of macs). It is more akin to a deal with the devil, and Dell chooses to make it. It'd be wholly different if MS said that you can't get windows licenses at all if you sell any other OS. They may have and that they can't do. But the vendor just has to pay more.
I'd wager that there's not enough consumer demand (or business consumers) for naked PC's. but there are other factors as well. one, there is but one windows, and dell, et al., can taylor it to their machines and make it work at least out of the box. no, they don't have the control over it as they would linux, but they have enough. when you screw with the machine, it's you screwing with it. and help is much easier, and cheaper, when there's a single OS. imagine having to figure out the distro, the kernel, etc. it'd be a disaster.
that linux is "free" in all senses for you and me, doesn't make it free for dell, etc. to add an OS would be very expensive and to provide none (for every comptuer), would terribly diminish their product. the OS for dell is a complementary good without which, they couldn't sell their product. not to defend MS or dell, but the truth is, MS is well within their rights to demand that dell sell a copy with every machine to get a volume discount, ability to modify it, etc. but the bottom line is that there just isn't enough interest to justify naked PC's. however, notice Dell's server line. you can get them, which ought to tell you something.
I rarely respond to AC's, and your "moron" response just added proof. you chose not to read what I wrote and instead just oppose my position which you then take to attack me. whatever my personal preferences might be, I don't mine, nor yours, should be turned into public policy regarding marriage. Please show me in the constitution where the government (federal at least) is empowered to take property from one citizen and give it to another. as for the war, freedom isn't free and requries fighting. now, you and I might disagree as to the times and places, but pacifism is, to use your phrasing, moronic.
historically, while vietnam was seen by the abti-war crowd as an isolated incident, it was hardly. communism saw its greatest advances post vietnam, and was viewed then, and even now, by enemies of America as a sign of her weakness. the mistakes we made then, and are making now, is not that we're fighting, but that we're not fighting. it is our meakness of response is what has emboldened our enemies, not our agression.
The assault on the Constitution by the current Administration is cause for real concern by freedom loving Americans as it can be seen as the greatest threat to those freedoms since our Civil War, 150 years ago.
while I am no fan of this administration, this is hyperbole. they have not imprisoned those who protested nor passed a sedition act making anti-war speech a crime as was done under wilson. nor did they intern 120,000 people of foreign ancestry as did FDR. but abuses of power are precisely because we have given the government the power to do so much. even the cinton administration was rather abusive, using the RICO statutes, which were to go after organized crime, to go after anti-abortion groups.
take campaign finance reform for example. the problem will never be solved as long as congress spends $3 trillion a year. get the money out of washington and you'll get the money out of politics. you want a government far less abusive? take the power from the government. we ask it to do all sorts of things for us, but then cringe when the implied powers, such as information collection, as used inappropriately. as homer (simpson that is) say, "DOH!!"
Libertarians are awful humans, I'm surprised to have been labelled one twice already from the original question. I view Libertarians as people who desire freedom so that they can behave as poorly as possible without being called to account. The word is pregnant with a sort of ego-driven, selfish fuck-you, I've got mine attitude that I don't want to claim.
you obviously know nothing about libertarianism. it is entirely distinct from libertine, which would be people behaving as poorly as they want. libertarians know very much that freedom requires responsibility. and that's the problem today. people want to be able to do whatever they want, yet want none of the responsibility and desire to blame others. and, libertarians know that freedom can only exist when others act with Aristotelian moderation. Libertarianism is based on the belief that people left to their own will be the most prosperous and will be the most successful.
libertarians also want as little government as possible, but nothing close to anarchy. for example, consider the idea of same-sex marriage. it isn't that libertarians naturally support, but rather, oppose state sanctioned marriage. marriage is a private matter and needs no state imprimatur. issues like joint filing of taxes and property ownership are again, big government issues. there shouldn't be joint filing of taxes, and hell, it's your property, do with it as you please. If given the option in a ballot box, I would oppose same sex marriage, but I don't believe it is a public poliscy issue. and that's a huge difference.
libertarians also oppose government welfare because it is unconstitutional for the government to confiscate the property of one and give it to another. it is also crippling to those who recieve as well as it destroys their initiative.
as for the war, libertarians are split. I tend towards an internationalist though many libertarians tend towards isolationism. but internationals not in consistent with libertariansism as being strong and forceful abroad is fully within the consitutional authority of the government and certainly necessary to deal with enemies abroad to preserve freedom at home.
the attitude that libertarians are a "fuck you I've got mine" lot is one of ignorance and stupidity. they are nothing of the sort. socialism tends far more towards this as socialism is basically "this is all you're going to get, fuck you" system.
There is no proof that a rock will fall down when you drop it.
it doesn't drop, it is pulled. huge difference. and yes, you can measure the gravitational pull, and yes, it's constant, which is why objects at the same rate. and yes, it's provable, that objects exert gravitational pull on each other. it's a fact. global warming on the other hand...
(you can reproduce it in a simple lab experiment)
that's just it. the problem is that all "data" comes from lab experiments where all variables can be controlled. you can't control all the earth's variables and thus the correlation is invalid. I'm not well versed in climate science, or any science as such, my field is economics. and from what I remember doing all those regression analyses and such is that we tried to isolate a single variable. we always assumed ceteris paribus, but you can't do it in an environemnt as large and diverse as the earth.
the simple fact is that there is no physical proof that we have warmed the earth or that we can alter its course. there is speculation, lab models, and computer simulations, but nothing conclusive. everyone is screaming about the end of the world because it suits their political or financial ends. that doesn't mean we can continue down our fossil fuel smorgasborg. it means we need to drill all the oil we have, but, build nuclear power plants, and research all kinds of alternative energy sources. it's stupid to do otherwise. but it's a problem of national and economic security, not chicken little.
the earth might be warming (well at least since the end of the last ice age in the 19th century) but there is still no credible scientific evidence that we have caused it or can do anything about it. why not offer $25 million to figure out how to deal with what the earth is doing? gee, that'd be too easy and not politically correct. when did we begin to think we are omnipotent godlike creatures?
grammar joke...
linux is, and has been ready, for a long time. but it always falls back to Exchange. Well, no, you're not going to get ever much help in connecting to exchange, and in that environment, linux won't work. funny, the guy didn't mention problems with hardware, connecting to the network, etc. nor did he mention the problems with viruses, spyware, etc. no, it's exchange. fair enough, but linux is more than ready for lots and lots of offices, homes, etc. sure, gimp is not photoshop, but OO.org is very capable and powerful, firefox, thunderbird, all the multimedia stuff, etc. except for the ipod connectivity of course.
mabe this is a stupid question, but why microsoft is already working on SP1 for vista? I mean, don't they have a QA department, don't they have people to test the thing? Shouldn't an OS be somewhat working and already have dealt with security issues before they launch it on the public. what makes this so onerous is that you can't get computers with XP, or if you can now, you won't be able to in the near future. they might criticize OSS, but at least a .9 release is a .9. what the hell, I run OS X.
back when Reagan offered a vision for anti-missile defense using lasers he and the program were ridiculed. now, babs (yes, she's my senator, heaven help us!!) thinks they're a good thing.
better title:
Microsoft supports creationist scientist, a fomer Haliburton employee, who says global warming and Darwin are hoaxes while linux is guilty of patent infringement using federal money granted by the Bush administration.
2. ITMS and the iPod will be targeted heavily by Microsoft. Eventually the iPod will be replaced just as sony list the Walkman/Discman fame of the 80s and 90s.
.mp3 replaced the cd. apple was late to the mp3 player party, and the first ipods weren't even that good. but when they finally got a great product, it took over the market. as long as .mp3 is the preferred format, the ipod will always be successful. microsoft is determined to make their .wmv (or whatever it is) the standard and they are too focused on implementing their own special brand of DRM. ITMS is so popular because it "just works". and of course it does, ITMS, iTunes, and the ipod all come from the same people. microsoft will have to have their own store, their own program, and their own player. that will take a few years to get mind as well as market share. and even then, their size can't help them like it did in the office suite market. I think apple's biggest concern is not microsoft but current ipod users not upgrading.
it wasn't so much the ipod replaced the walkman, but the
perhaps we can rethink our blind devotion to global warming and man's supposed virulent impact. I have never understood why is it accepted completely that we're somehow responsible for supposed "global warming" and that we think we can do anything about it. There is still much scientific debate (unless looking for government research funding) and (yes, I RTFA) much information still coming in and I'm sure more will come in the future. The truth is probably more troublesome, in that we simply don't know. We live in a world of perfect access to information, and we expect to be able to know everything, and we assume we have complete control as well. So much for post-modern, secular humanism, eh? We are not omnipotent and omniscient.
The earth has been around 6 billion years, give or take, and it's gone through more violent and extreme changes long before a single human emerged from the primordial sludge. And now we're to believe that somehow earth's perfect harmonial environemntal equilibirum, which never ever existed in the first place, is being upset by man? When I see a Monday night football game in Seattle in November, and there's snow on the ground, I can only conclude "global warming" is causing it. Sure.
it was a prototype female that was attracted to long hair, lonely, coders who spend their nights writing open source software, planning to overthrow the evil empire, and have enough computing power to siumultaneously recompile their kernel while playing Quake 3. And she was supposed to be eager to watch the entire Star Wars collection on DVD, but only if he got it to play on his linux box.
Didn't work. Even Steve Jobs can only do so much.
more choices are great for certain things. and competition makes everything better. however, there shouldn't be "choices" for data. there should be standardized formats and they should be open. we're all familiar with the .doc issue. however, my schosl district has been using Novell Groupwise for email for a few years. what if we wanted to migrate to another platform, or Novell crashes, or whatever. What are we going to do with the 1 billion emails stored there. or what if we wanted to use a different email client (group wise isn't the best). of course, who needs choices, vim rules and emacs sucks.
Really? I guess my MDPhD in Molecular Oncology is not gonna fair that well after all...
/.
I'm sorry, but I someone that smart would not be hanging around
but Dwight Eisenhower's exclusion from your list casts serious doubts on its worth.
exactly what war did Eisenhower lead us through as president. yes, he finished/resolved the Korean War, but it was one he hardly had a leadership role in. and it is fair to argue the resolution of said war has left us lingering problems today.
though I don't usually respond to AC's, being a decorated veteran is respectable and honorable, but doesn't imply that he understands the nature of the enemy or how to combat it. when kerry made the prostitition analogy, he lost me. and, our two greatest war presidents, FDR and Lincoln, never saw combat. LBJ, who was a decorated veteran, was in charge of our largest military fiasco ever.
I find it odd that somehow, those who protested the vietnam war are now putting so much faith in generals, the same group they despised so much in their day. and I find it odd that suddenly military service is the necessary imprimatur for the presidency, when it mattered not at all when Clinton ran. And I find it amusing that Hillary now has standard which she will be unable to meet. I am sure that it will be curiously overlooked though. It is an historically dangerous standard I might add, one that goes back to the Romans. in fact, read the constitution, the part about the president being a resident. That was put in there to ensure that a conquering general would not "cross the Rubicon" in America.
If you check polls from 2004, you will find that Bush voters were more likely than Kerry voters to be wrong about Bush's positions, and that independent voters were often wrong but wrong less often than Bush supporters. There's no reason to assume the uniform distribution.
well, alot of us held our noses and voted for him because we didn't think kerry got it regarding the war. we also hoped and prayed that he would leave his big spending, federal takeover of everything, ruinous trade and immigration policies. but alas, we've been hoodwinked. and now he's not even fighting an agressive war. I want my money back!!!
maybe some skepticism regarding the religion of global warming is in order. And even if the earth is warming, perhaps we've nothing to do with it, nor can we have anything to do with halting it. where is king canute when you need him?!?!