Weeeell... that sounds good at first. Remember though that most people that follow that, the traditional and the new age alike, try to avoid that due to the law of threes: a basic summary being whatever you do is returned threefold to you.
In other words, said witchdoctor would have three times the curse he put on SCO thrown right back at him, and he knows that.
Take into account the fact that a witchdoctor who refills printer cartriges probably reads slashdot and groklaw, and knows SCO doesn't really have much to show in the way of evidence (or SCO wouldn't need to ask IBM for everything they've contributed so they can then look for breaches of IP) and said witchdoctor would be stupid to do this. They'd just bring a load of negative energy straight down on them to accomplish something that the army of IBM lawyers seems to be doing well enough on their own.
...isn't this double taxation? Florida appears to be taxing the sale price, and if I'm reading this properly, taxing again at this same percentage whether you lease or own, based on the lease price or the value of the equipment anually?
There are state and local taxes for using telephone services, but what they're proposing is taxing on the value of the equipment used. If I'm not mistaken and this isn't double taxation, this would be as ass-backwards as taxing annually on the value of the phone you're using. Two people could be using the same phone service, but one would be paying more in taxes because they got a nice 2.4GHz cordless as opposed to the other who got theirs at a dollar store.
Perhaps something more like phone tax system would be better.
Ya know, at times I wonder why people say that computers make no sense. However, it's really moments like these that truly show just how the computer industry on a whole got it's reputation for being baffling to the average Joe and Jane User.
They renamed usb 1.1 to "USB2 Full Speed." Even the name is confusing. "USB2 Full Speed" itself _implies_ that it would run at the FULL SPEED of the USB2 protocol, which would imply the origional standard of 480mbps. Yet it's "high speed" that means this and not "full speed." They could have called it "USB2 Low Speed" and there would be less confusion...
And I'm sure it's been said numerous times already, but this reflects poorly on the tech community on a whole. Consumers aren't going to sit back and blame the one standards commission that approved the name change, they're going to say it's yet another way that the "stupid computer people are making things overly difficult."
After doing a bit of reading, I'd have to say that I think you're right, but only to a point... observe
"[0008] The public key architecture involves writing a private key and a digital certificate into each game console during manufacturing. The certificate contains the public key corresponding to the private key. The certificate is part of a certificate chain that includes a certification authority certificate associated with a certification authority at each manufacturing site and a root certificate from which the certification authority certificate is derived. Whenever a game console goes online for registration, a certificate chain verification process along with proof of knowledge of the private key stored on the game console are used to authenticate the console as genuine."
Many games do this for piracy prevention already, granted. But from everything I'm reading in the patent sofar, it sounds as if Microsoft is patenting a system similar to a CD key schema that would allow for microsoft's online service to check for mod chips or memory hacks. Now, to me, this seems like a good way for the console to be constructed with failsafes against cheating in online games, which is a direction the console gaming market is going.
This IS a useful thing. How many online gaming communities are plagued with cheating? There are numerous games my friends and I stopped playing online because of the aimbots and other cheats that were clogging the servers.
What it looks like Microsoft is proposing is patenting a schema to have the console checked for modifications so that they can prevent "cheaters" (as the Microsoft employee put it during the interview) from going online and ruining every honest player's gaming fun.
Knock it if you will. Call it stiffling innovation if you will. All it appears to me is that Microsoft found a way to build encryption and authentication into their consoles for the purposes of denying people who are potentially hacking their hardware or memory to cheat the system from doing so on thier X-box live or next-gen live system.
Anyone else think this is going to be popular for about a week before it dies? They think they're going to have an advantage becase they're blending all sorts of units together.
Lets compare shall we?
according to Nintendo, The GBA has a 2.9" reflective TFT screen capable of 32,768 colors and a resolution of 240x160. It is powered by a 32bit ARM processor.
This phone has a slightly higher resolution, only 4096 colors, and no mention of how good the gpu unit underneath is. Their main selling point is that you're getting games, a phone, an mp3 player and whatever else they think they can squeeze in there.
No one's going to buy this for the games if the games look only marginally better than game gear games. The game gear can match this new system color for color. If the OLD gameboy beat down the Game Gear, then how is this thing supposed to compete with the GBA as far as games go? Because it's a phone? Because it's an MP3 player? Please... most people are not going to want to carry something that big around with them. This is why phones and mp3 players are being made smaller and smaller all the time.
~shakes head~ I can't see this one going far with crowds outside the teeny-boppers, and even they will probably stick with Nintendo and a better cell phone.
I can remember when the CueCats were distributed by radio shack. When you got it, it was in a plastic bag with a sealed paper envelope saying not to install the software if you did not agree to the terms, which included not reverse engineering.
However if you didn't accept the license agreement, with the way it was packaged, you could still use the device as a standard barcode reader. At least this is what a couple friends did.
It's not a headcold bud. People are once again hearing rumors and assuming they're true. Nevermind the fact that everyone knows what _ASS_uming does.
The thing I cannot understand at all is this. Don't ALL software companies, not freeware not shareware but actual companies, at some point make you buy the new version if you want to upgrade? There are very few "upgrade only" versions of apps I've seen, and the majority have been multi-hundred dollar windows upgrades, or softwares that have been priced $500.00 and up, making a $250 or even $400 upgrade only version a bit more appealing if you already own the product.
Yet if someone even speculates that apple might charge $50 for not one, not two, but three apps together - furthermore giving you the discs of the full programs - people get all ruffled.
It is a fair comparason when you consider that people with older versions of programs do have to buy the new version to get updates, if they have the older program, when the company no longer provides free updates.
You're forgetting the fact many software companies also charge for upgrades as well. For example, I had version 2.1 of some firewall software for my PC. Wen they went to version 2.6, I was expected to pay for another full version to upgrade my existing software, a $40 expendeture just to upgrade one piece of software.
The companies that I have seen sell upgrade only boxes from my experience charge 50% to 75% of the cost of the program. Some are only $20.00 less. The thing is that $50.00 for three pieces of software is only $16.66 for each (plus a penny if you really want to get technical.) That's not unreasonable.
This is something many companies do. They get to a certain point in a.x release and they charge for the upgrade. Sometimes companies wait until a.0 release. In this case, Apple is hitting that point.
Furthermore, people are forgetting that, until an official announcement is made, all of this is SPECULATION. Yesterday I was reading all about how the 17" Imac was going to be discontinued very soon. The webzine that was saying this also said that The 15" was discontinued and that by 2002q3 the Imacs would all be with either 17" or 19" LCDs. Has anyone ELSE seen 19" LCD iMacs? No. They didn't come out in 2002q3, and the 15" iMacs are still being sold.
These are rumors people. They are no better than the gossip people spread about people - more often than not false. I think many people are getting bent out of shape for nothing. Breathe into a paper bag. Do some yoga. Relax. There's no sense in letting leaked rumors working you into a frenzy. There are more important things you could get upset about just looking around at life.
"So, if Apples strategy is to expect me to pay ~$150/year to upgrade various pieces of software..."
They're not talking $150.00 for the software, they're talking about $50.00. That's $100.00 difference.
And, regardless of what people want to believe or not on Apple being different, they have been time and time again. They've expiremented with various designs of computers and computing devices (both iMac designs, the cube, the iBook, the All-in-One systems dating back to the origional macs and going through the performa and powerPC's and the precursor to the origional iMacs, using PowerPC chips at a time when everyone was going with intel or other x86 designs, the Apple Newton which helped pave the way for modern PDA's, etc...). I've watched through the years as features Apple introduced seeped it's way into the PC world.
They are different in the way that they've done most things. However they are still a company that has employees and bills that need to be paid. You can't forget this.
Do people think that Apple is different? Yes. Is that the only thing that makes them different? No. Does being different always benefit them? Of course not. However, them charging for updates hardly makes them the same as every other company out there.
Lets sit back and ONCE AGAIN remind everyone that rumors are, at best, rumors. Now that we've done this, let's just look at the prices involved...
If the rumors are true, Apple wants to charge users $50.00 to update three pieces of software: iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie. The rumor article even doesn't coroborate if Apple is even considering of doing something similar with it's other applications, just speculating that if the rumor is true it might be the first move toward that.
Now, let's assume the first rumor is true. That the three apps named - iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD - are going to charge for updates. It goes on to state that iPhoto manages your digital photos, where iMovie and iDVD allow you to edit digital videos and burn them to DVD. Now, having worked the retail sector before, this seems like a very good price for this. However, just to be certain, lets look at the prices of a few competitors...
After searching around on CompUSA's website, this is what I found. First, Pinnacle Studio version 8. After checking what software I could find that would actually burn MOVIES onto DVD, I ran across this particular title. This does the job (I'm speculating here, give or take a few features) of iMovie and iDVD. As for Photos, lets just go with Ulead PhotoExplorer Pro 7.0, again with the same disclaimer: based on speculation from knowing the basics of what the applications do, give or take some features.
Now let's compare the prices.
the Mac iBundle
iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD: $50.00 TOTAL: $50.00 + applicable tax
All in all paying $50.00 for all three apps would not be a horrible fate by any means. Slightly annoying in that it used to be free, but not ripping anyone off either.
Perhaps not just one. But account for the fact that there are many more than just 1 hurricane in any given system. The chance exists that anything resembling a hurricane would be modified by any weather enhancing system.
Now, I've heard years in which the hurricane belt gets many many hurricanes. What would happen if all that water were to simply be rerouted to another area of the globe? Then you ARE talking about areas 200 miles away, because it will lead to less water evaporating into the surrounding skies, which is less water vapor that winds can carry to those farms.
One perhaps not. Many, then your talking impact.
And by the way, with the jobs I work and the people I meet, there isn't a passing hour that I don't want my lart.
Most farms to a great extent really do rely on rainfall. Even if they do pipe in thier "o2" (even though I could go through the wonders of exploding farms when their oxygen pipe bursts into huge flames, I'm going to assume you meant H2O).
You see, there isn't much water to pipe in when there's a huge drought. Why? Because the water is piped in from the ecosystem's water table, and in the scorching heat of the summer, if there is no rain that water table doesn't get replenished.
You know... I have a splitting migraine right now. So you know what? I WILL diagram the sentence in your origional post for you, since obviously you missed this somewhere.
"I am not as concerned with changing wind/rain patterns as I am about reducing the amount of O3 in the atmosphere or ice at the poles."
"I am not as concerned with changing wind/rain patterns..." This suggests to me that you don't really care to change any patterns of wind or rain.
"...as I am with reducing the ammount of o3 in the atmosphere or ice at the poles." This part says that you want to reduce the amount of ozone and polar ice. If you're going to yell at me and inquire if I wanted the sentence diagramed, realize that I already did and that is why I made my joke.
I'm not as concerned with changing wind/rain patterns as I am about reducing the amount of O3 in the atmosphere or ice at the poles.
Ummm... correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't reducing the ozone (o3) cause severe problems with radiation, and wouldn't reducing the ice at the polar caps cause global sclae flooding?????
I was just reading the article, and I am just curious who these "sources" are, because according to the related links at the bottom of the page, Apple was going to release a 19" Imac in the third quarter of 2002.
Somehow, based on thier articles that they have posted, and the related announcements next to the article, by the fact that 15" Imacs and 17" Imacs, NOT 17" and 19" Imacs, that there is a bit of faultiness surrounding the "sources" that give this newspage it's articles concerning Apple.
My $.02, and probably said already at that... but oh well.
The example I was using was using bare minimum statistics I admit, but the principle still remains the same: in those labs it took roughly 10 times as many people to handle the same number of windows machines as unix machines.
Is this true of all labs? It might not be but, just as I said before, based on my personal experience this has been the case.
I think it's a common trend though. When people get angry, they get stupid. Everyone, including myself, does this. I've had to train myself to sit back, calm down, and examine all sides of the situation whenever I get pissed off.
Ya know, I've had to before and I continue to do so simply because in modern day you never know when your next day of work will be your last, especially in the technology field.
But the problem goes beyond places just moving overseas. Companies that did have funding are losing it and just drying up. Companies are terminating branch offices in one area of the country and opening up in another where they can pay workers less. Sitting back and just blaming other countries isn't examining the full picture.
...I've always seen the entire Linux/Free Software/late 90's geek culture as a new kind of social phenomenon unencumbered by the baggage of the past, including racism and nationalistic xenophobia...
You and I both man. I've worked crap job after crap job here in America to educate myself. I didn't turn around and blame others when I wasn't handed a cushy job with no degree just because I knew a couple programming languages and how to run linux.
I don't even know what to really say that I haven't said in my previous post or you haven't said. However, I think I'm adding you to my friends list.
I can't believe what I'm reading today. I really cannot.
From what I can tell this article was origionally put up on slashdot in order to show that Linux and open software were starting to gain some "marketshare" in the global scheme of things with the Indian government maneuvering to deploy the OS.
So what do I find really as I scroll through the comments today? I see people claiming that this is bad because other countries might be using something other than Microsoft, which employs americans. I see racist comment after racist comment. In fact I've seen so much of it in this thread that I am sickened by this.
If this is the case, you might ask why I'm responding or why I even bothered to continue reading. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, or maybe rather than get sickened and let things bother me it gives me the fuel to give a constructive criticism. Either way I'm compelled to speak my mind. Mod me in any direction that seems appropriate.
First of all, I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is costing any american jobs. From everything that I'm gathering here, the Indian government is, by and large, an undeveloped market in computing. No one is losing their job because linux is being used. No market is shrinking over this. The only thing that can be said is that Microsoft is not EXPANDING it's influence into India further. Microsoft still has all the lucritive markets it had before.
Secondly, I've seen many comments about the level of filth or inferiority of the people living over there. Perhaps people have had it too easy for a while to really see one point. In a country like the US, with a relatively strong economy and relatively low unemployment, it is much easier for a person to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. It is much easier to use programs provided by either public or private institutions to train in a field and get a job. What if that was taken away? What if you were born into an environment that wasn't as cushioned? You'd be struggling just as much as anyone there, or anywhere else where life is hard.
Are jobs being lost in the US? Absolutely. Wal-Mart is killing off Mom-and-Pop shops. American companies are killing off other american companies all the time. American companies are even doing things like moving to other spots in the country where employment is low. I can remember the day that the factory in my hometown shut it's doors because the local union employees refused to work for less than $20.00 an hour. They went somewhere more viable for employment. In the case I gave, South Carolina... where people were more than willing to bottle beer for $8.00 an hour. Just because jobs are being lost in America doesn't mean they're being relocated overseas. It's ignorant and just plain fucking stupid to think so.
I do agree with one of the posters I saw here... Americans really do need to learn to tighten their belts if they want to stay competetive. You can't keep on earning a salary that allows you to buy/lease a new car every year, computer upgrades every 6 months, eating out every night, and living like a king to produce a product in a global economy where people with the same skill set are starving and willing to do the same job for much less. It's the reason that a Gibson Les Paul will cost $2000 while the Epiphone Les Paul is $600.
~shakes head~ Okay. I'm done ranting. I'll get off my soap box now. But it's like one poster said... people should be open about thier opinions.
Do you think they're really looking at using MS software for critical systems...
No. That part was a joke. I _AM_ a bit familiar with computers in expiremental labs enough to know this... well... at least enough to know that they don't use anything us normal people have access to.
As far as studies that compare TCO's between Microsoft and Linux, the only one's I've seen that place Microsoft on top are either Microsoft sponsored studies or by the occasional company that bends their knee and kisses the ring of the Gates. Are there others out there? Perhaps. I admit that the studies I'm talking about are only the ones I've seen. What do I know though?
In the computer labs I've visited, one trained unix admin can take on 200 systems, whereas MCSE's will handle about 20 - at most.
Now lets use this information to do a little hypothetical planning. Lets say, for the sake of arguement, that we're going to implement 1000 systems and that the standard wage for the Windows admin is 1 Economic unit (just a fake term for a yearly salary for a windows admin). At the rate of 1 admin to every 20 systems, this means that there will need to be 50 admins. Each earning 1 economic unit, the total expenditure for admins is 50 economical units. Now, if they went with linux/unix, they would only need 5 admins. Now, lets even account for the fact that unix guys earn... lets say 4x the salary of an MCSE, realize if Unix admins aren't paid nearly that much it only strengthens my arguement. 5 employees earning 4 economical units each is still only 20 economical units - a savings of 30 economical units. If Unix admins aren't paid that much more than MCSE's, then you save even more in budget.
It's not just the support over time, you also have to think about how many people would need to be hired to run things.
But now that I've ranted about ALL of this, realize that I don't know much about the TCO market, and the examples I've used to construct my arguements are based on trends I have observed and therefore could be inaccurate.
Frankly I disagree about Microsoft being the logical choice. With all the problems that people have with Microsoft and the control it weilds, I think the logical choice is choosing something that is stable and doesn't force you to pay out the nose every time you wish to upgrade software. But like you say... personal beliefs don't have much place in buisness decisions.
There are quite a few things I'm seeing going on here that I do have to point out.
It has been voiced that India is foolish for going with open source which "at most will be half done" as opposed to Microsoft.
Think about this: India is a nuclear power, and they can hit major cities. Do we REALLY want a microsoft product running this? Think about it... this would bring entirely new meaning to the term blue screen of death.
Personally I see linux right now being stuck in this trap. They don't have the marketshare because there isn't the development, and they don't have the development because there is no marketshare. One of these things has to be fixed for the other one to be fixed. India is a HUGE populous. If this becomes the OS of choice over in India, it WILL lead to more development of Linux in general of which the entire linux community will benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
Weeeell... that sounds good at first. Remember though that most people that follow that, the traditional and the new age alike, try to avoid that due to the law of threes: a basic summary being whatever you do is returned threefold to you. In other words, said witchdoctor would have three times the curse he put on SCO thrown right back at him, and he knows that. Take into account the fact that a witchdoctor who refills printer cartriges probably reads slashdot and groklaw, and knows SCO doesn't really have much to show in the way of evidence (or SCO wouldn't need to ask IBM for everything they've contributed so they can then look for breaches of IP) and said witchdoctor would be stupid to do this. They'd just bring a load of negative energy straight down on them to accomplish something that the army of IBM lawyers seems to be doing well enough on their own.
...isn't this double taxation? Florida appears to be taxing the sale price, and if I'm reading this properly, taxing again at this same percentage whether you lease or own, based on the lease price or the value of the equipment anually? There are state and local taxes for using telephone services, but what they're proposing is taxing on the value of the equipment used. If I'm not mistaken and this isn't double taxation, this would be as ass-backwards as taxing annually on the value of the phone you're using. Two people could be using the same phone service, but one would be paying more in taxes because they got a nice 2.4GHz cordless as opposed to the other who got theirs at a dollar store. Perhaps something more like phone tax system would be better.
Ya know, at times I wonder why people say that computers make no sense. However, it's really moments like these that truly show just how the computer industry on a whole got it's reputation for being baffling to the average Joe and Jane User.
They renamed usb 1.1 to "USB2 Full Speed." Even the name is confusing. "USB2 Full Speed" itself _implies_ that it would run at the FULL SPEED of the USB2 protocol, which would imply the origional standard of 480mbps. Yet it's "high speed" that means this and not "full speed." They could have called it "USB2 Low Speed" and there would be less confusion...
And I'm sure it's been said numerous times already, but this reflects poorly on the tech community on a whole. Consumers aren't going to sit back and blame the one standards commission that approved the name change, they're going to say it's yet another way that the "stupid computer people are making things overly difficult."
After doing a bit of reading, I'd have to say that I think you're right, but only to a point... observe
"[0008] The public key architecture involves writing a private key and a digital certificate into each game console during manufacturing. The certificate contains the public key corresponding to the private key. The certificate is part of a certificate chain that includes a certification authority certificate associated with a certification authority at each manufacturing site and a root certificate from which the certification authority certificate is derived. Whenever a game console goes online for registration, a certificate chain verification process along with proof of knowledge of the private key stored on the game console are used to authenticate the console as genuine."
Many games do this for piracy prevention already, granted. But from everything I'm reading in the patent sofar, it sounds as if Microsoft is patenting a system similar to a CD key schema that would allow for microsoft's online service to check for mod chips or memory hacks. Now, to me, this seems like a good way for the console to be constructed with failsafes against cheating in online games, which is a direction the console gaming market is going.
This IS a useful thing. How many online gaming communities are plagued with cheating? There are numerous games my friends and I stopped playing online because of the aimbots and other cheats that were clogging the servers.
What it looks like Microsoft is proposing is patenting a schema to have the console checked for modifications so that they can prevent "cheaters" (as the Microsoft employee put it during the interview) from going online and ruining every honest player's gaming fun.
Knock it if you will. Call it stiffling innovation if you will. All it appears to me is that Microsoft found a way to build encryption and authentication into their consoles for the purposes of denying people who are potentially hacking their hardware or memory to cheat the system from doing so on thier X-box live or next-gen live system.
Anyone else think this is going to be popular for about a week before it dies? They think they're going to have an advantage becase they're blending all sorts of units together.
Lets compare shall we?
according to Nintendo, The GBA has a 2.9" reflective TFT screen capable of 32,768 colors and a resolution of 240x160. It is powered by a 32bit ARM processor.
This phone has a slightly higher resolution, only 4096 colors, and no mention of how good the gpu unit underneath is. Their main selling point is that you're getting games, a phone, an mp3 player and whatever else they think they can squeeze in there.
No one's going to buy this for the games if the games look only marginally better than game gear games. The game gear can match this new system color for color. If the OLD gameboy beat down the Game Gear, then how is this thing supposed to compete with the GBA as far as games go? Because it's a phone? Because it's an MP3 player? Please... most people are not going to want to carry something that big around with them. This is why phones and mp3 players are being made smaller and smaller all the time.
~shakes head~ I can't see this one going far with crowds outside the teeny-boppers, and even they will probably stick with Nintendo and a better cell phone.
I can remember when the CueCats were distributed by radio shack. When you got it, it was in a plastic bag with a sealed paper envelope saying not to install the software if you did not agree to the terms, which included not reverse engineering. However if you didn't accept the license agreement, with the way it was packaged, you could still use the device as a standard barcode reader. At least this is what a couple friends did.
It's not a headcold bud. People are once again hearing rumors and assuming they're true. Nevermind the fact that everyone knows what _ASS_uming does.
The thing I cannot understand at all is this. Don't ALL software companies, not freeware not shareware but actual companies, at some point make you buy the new version if you want to upgrade? There are very few "upgrade only" versions of apps I've seen, and the majority have been multi-hundred dollar windows upgrades, or softwares that have been priced $500.00 and up, making a $250 or even $400 upgrade only version a bit more appealing if you already own the product.
Yet if someone even speculates that apple might charge $50 for not one, not two, but three apps together - furthermore giving you the discs of the full programs - people get all ruffled.
It is a fair comparason when you consider that people with older versions of programs do have to buy the new version to get updates, if they have the older program, when the company no longer provides free updates.
You're forgetting the fact many software companies also charge for upgrades as well. For example, I had version 2.1 of some firewall software for my PC. Wen they went to version 2.6, I was expected to pay for another full version to upgrade my existing software, a $40 expendeture just to upgrade one piece of software.
.x release and they charge for the upgrade. Sometimes companies wait until a .0 release. In this case, Apple is hitting that point.
The companies that I have seen sell upgrade only boxes from my experience charge 50% to 75% of the cost of the program. Some are only $20.00 less. The thing is that $50.00 for three pieces of software is only $16.66 for each (plus a penny if you really want to get technical.) That's not unreasonable.
This is something many companies do. They get to a certain point in a
Furthermore, people are forgetting that, until an official announcement is made, all of this is SPECULATION. Yesterday I was reading all about how the 17" Imac was going to be discontinued very soon. The webzine that was saying this also said that The 15" was discontinued and that by 2002q3 the Imacs would all be with either 17" or 19" LCDs. Has anyone ELSE seen 19" LCD iMacs? No. They didn't come out in 2002q3, and the 15" iMacs are still being sold.
These are rumors people. They are no better than the gossip people spread about people - more often than not false. I think many people are getting bent out of shape for nothing. Breathe into a paper bag. Do some yoga. Relax. There's no sense in letting leaked rumors working you into a frenzy. There are more important things you could get upset about just looking around at life.
And, regardless of what people want to believe or not on Apple being different, they have been time and time again. They've expiremented with various designs of computers and computing devices (both iMac designs, the cube, the iBook, the All-in-One systems dating back to the origional macs and going through the performa and powerPC's and the precursor to the origional iMacs, using PowerPC chips at a time when everyone was going with intel or other x86 designs, the Apple Newton which helped pave the way for modern PDA's, etc...). I've watched through the years as features Apple introduced seeped it's way into the PC world.
They are different in the way that they've done most things. However they are still a company that has employees and bills that need to be paid. You can't forget this.
Do people think that Apple is different? Yes. Is that the only thing that makes them different? No. Does being different always benefit them? Of course not. However, them charging for updates hardly makes them the same as every other company out there.
Lets sit back and ONCE AGAIN remind everyone that rumors are, at best, rumors. Now that we've done this, let's just look at the prices involved...
If the rumors are true, Apple wants to charge users $50.00 to update three pieces of software: iPhoto, iDVD, and iMovie. The rumor article even doesn't coroborate if Apple is even considering of doing something similar with it's other applications, just speculating that if the rumor is true it might be the first move toward that.
Now, let's assume the first rumor is true. That the three apps named - iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD - are going to charge for updates. It goes on to state that iPhoto manages your digital photos, where iMovie and iDVD allow you to edit digital videos and burn them to DVD. Now, having worked the retail sector before, this seems like a very good price for this. However, just to be certain, lets look at the prices of a few competitors...
After searching around on CompUSA's website, this is what I found. First, Pinnacle Studio version 8. After checking what software I could find that would actually burn MOVIES onto DVD, I ran across this particular title. This does the job (I'm speculating here, give or take a few features) of iMovie and iDVD. As for Photos, lets just go with Ulead PhotoExplorer Pro 7.0, again with the same disclaimer: based on speculation from knowing the basics of what the applications do, give or take some features.
Now let's compare the prices.
the Mac iBundle
iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD: $50.00
TOTAL: $50.00 + applicable tax
Ulead + Pinnacle Studio
Pinnacle: $99.99
Ulead: $24.99
TOTAL: $124.98 + applicable tax
All in all paying $50.00 for all three apps would not be a horrible fate by any means. Slightly annoying in that it used to be free, but not ripping anyone off either.
Perhaps not just one. But account for the fact that there are many more than just 1 hurricane in any given system. The chance exists that anything resembling a hurricane would be modified by any weather enhancing system.
Now, I've heard years in which the hurricane belt gets many many hurricanes. What would happen if all that water were to simply be rerouted to another area of the globe? Then you ARE talking about areas 200 miles away, because it will lead to less water evaporating into the surrounding skies, which is less water vapor that winds can carry to those farms.
One perhaps not. Many, then your talking impact.
And by the way, with the jobs I work and the people I meet, there isn't a passing hour that I don't want my lart.
Most farms to a great extent really do rely on rainfall. Even if they do pipe in thier "o2" (even though I could go through the wonders of exploding farms when their oxygen pipe bursts into huge flames, I'm going to assume you meant H2O).
You see, there isn't much water to pipe in when there's a huge drought. Why? Because the water is piped in from the ecosystem's water table, and in the scorching heat of the summer, if there is no rain that water table doesn't get replenished.
"I am not as concerned with changing wind/rain patterns..." This suggests to me that you don't really care to change any patterns of wind or rain.
"...as I am with reducing the ammount of o3 in the atmosphere or ice at the poles." This part says that you want to reduce the amount of ozone and polar ice. If you're going to yell at me and inquire if I wanted the sentence diagramed, realize that I already did and that is why I made my joke.
Ummm... correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't reducing the ozone (o3) cause severe problems with radiation, and wouldn't reducing the ice at the polar caps cause global sclae flooding?????
Wow. Are you a Bush by any chance?
I was just reading the article, and I am just curious who these "sources" are, because according to the related links at the bottom of the page, Apple was going to release a 19" Imac in the third quarter of 2002.
Somehow, based on thier articles that they have posted, and the related announcements next to the article, by the fact that 15" Imacs and 17" Imacs, NOT 17" and 19" Imacs, that there is a bit of faultiness surrounding the "sources" that give this newspage it's articles concerning Apple.
My $.02, and probably said already at that... but oh well.
My downtime is constantly plagued with the joys of beta-testing distros. :-) Then again, I don't really run servers on my boxes anymore.
The example I was using was using bare minimum statistics I admit, but the principle still remains the same: in those labs it took roughly 10 times as many people to handle the same number of windows machines as unix machines.
Is this true of all labs? It might not be but, just as I said before, based on my personal experience this has been the case.
I agree whole-heartedly.
I think it's a common trend though. When people get angry, they get stupid. Everyone, including myself, does this. I've had to train myself to sit back, calm down, and examine all sides of the situation whenever I get pissed off.
Ya know, I've had to before and I continue to do so simply because in modern day you never know when your next day of work will be your last, especially in the technology field. But the problem goes beyond places just moving overseas. Companies that did have funding are losing it and just drying up. Companies are terminating branch offices in one area of the country and opening up in another where they can pay workers less. Sitting back and just blaming other countries isn't examining the full picture.
There is quite the difference between talking about being worried about jobs and saying "those dot-heads are taking all our jobs."
The former is understandable. I spent quite a few years between tech jobs working wherever I could find work. It can be rather tough.
The latter is racist praddle.
I don't even know what to really say that I haven't said in my previous post or you haven't said. However, I think I'm adding you to my friends list.
I can't believe what I'm reading today. I really cannot.
From what I can tell this article was origionally put up on slashdot in order to show that Linux and open software were starting to gain some "marketshare" in the global scheme of things with the Indian government maneuvering to deploy the OS.
So what do I find really as I scroll through the comments today? I see people claiming that this is bad because other countries might be using something other than Microsoft, which employs americans. I see racist comment after racist comment. In fact I've seen so much of it in this thread that I am sickened by this.
If this is the case, you might ask why I'm responding or why I even bothered to continue reading. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, or maybe rather than get sickened and let things bother me it gives me the fuel to give a constructive criticism. Either way I'm compelled to speak my mind. Mod me in any direction that seems appropriate.
First of all, I'm having a little trouble seeing how this is costing any american jobs. From everything that I'm gathering here, the Indian government is, by and large, an undeveloped market in computing. No one is losing their job because linux is being used. No market is shrinking over this. The only thing that can be said is that Microsoft is not EXPANDING it's influence into India further. Microsoft still has all the lucritive markets it had before.
Secondly, I've seen many comments about the level of filth or inferiority of the people living over there. Perhaps people have had it too easy for a while to really see one point. In a country like the US, with a relatively strong economy and relatively low unemployment, it is much easier for a person to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. It is much easier to use programs provided by either public or private institutions to train in a field and get a job. What if that was taken away? What if you were born into an environment that wasn't as cushioned? You'd be struggling just as much as anyone there, or anywhere else where life is hard.
Are jobs being lost in the US? Absolutely. Wal-Mart is killing off Mom-and-Pop shops. American companies are killing off other american companies all the time. American companies are even doing things like moving to other spots in the country where employment is low. I can remember the day that the factory in my hometown shut it's doors because the local union employees refused to work for less than $20.00 an hour. They went somewhere more viable for employment. In the case I gave, South Carolina... where people were more than willing to bottle beer for $8.00 an hour. Just because jobs are being lost in America doesn't mean they're being relocated overseas. It's ignorant and just plain fucking stupid to think so.
I do agree with one of the posters I saw here... Americans really do need to learn to tighten their belts if they want to stay competetive. You can't keep on earning a salary that allows you to buy/lease a new car every year, computer upgrades every 6 months, eating out every night, and living like a king to produce a product in a global economy where people with the same skill set are starving and willing to do the same job for much less. It's the reason that a Gibson Les Paul will cost $2000 while the Epiphone Les Paul is $600.
~shakes head~ Okay. I'm done ranting. I'll get off my soap box now. But it's like one poster said... people should be open about thier opinions.
Do you think they're really looking at using MS software for critical systems... No. That part was a joke. I _AM_ a bit familiar with computers in expiremental labs enough to know this... well... at least enough to know that they don't use anything us normal people have access to.
As far as studies that compare TCO's between Microsoft and Linux, the only one's I've seen that place Microsoft on top are either Microsoft sponsored studies or by the occasional company that bends their knee and kisses the ring of the Gates. Are there others out there? Perhaps. I admit that the studies I'm talking about are only the ones I've seen. What do I know though?
In the computer labs I've visited, one trained unix admin can take on 200 systems, whereas MCSE's will handle about 20 - at most.
Now lets use this information to do a little hypothetical planning. Lets say, for the sake of arguement, that we're going to implement 1000 systems and that the standard wage for the Windows admin is 1 Economic unit (just a fake term for a yearly salary for a windows admin). At the rate of 1 admin to every 20 systems, this means that there will need to be 50 admins. Each earning 1 economic unit, the total expenditure for admins is 50 economical units. Now, if they went with linux/unix, they would only need 5 admins. Now, lets even account for the fact that unix guys earn... lets say 4x the salary of an MCSE, realize if Unix admins aren't paid nearly that much it only strengthens my arguement. 5 employees earning 4 economical units each is still only 20 economical units - a savings of 30 economical units. If Unix admins aren't paid that much more than MCSE's, then you save even more in budget.
It's not just the support over time, you also have to think about how many people would need to be hired to run things.
But now that I've ranted about ALL of this, realize that I don't know much about the TCO market, and the examples I've used to construct my arguements are based on trends I have observed and therefore could be inaccurate.
Frankly I disagree about Microsoft being the logical choice. With all the problems that people have with Microsoft and the control it weilds, I think the logical choice is choosing something that is stable and doesn't force you to pay out the nose every time you wish to upgrade software. But like you say... personal beliefs don't have much place in buisness decisions.
There are quite a few things I'm seeing going on here that I do have to point out.
It has been voiced that India is foolish for going with open source which "at most will be half done" as opposed to Microsoft.
Think about this: India is a nuclear power, and they can hit major cities. Do we REALLY want a microsoft product running this? Think about it... this would bring entirely new meaning to the term blue screen of death.
Personally I see linux right now being stuck in this trap. They don't have the marketshare because there isn't the development, and they don't have the development because there is no marketshare. One of these things has to be fixed for the other one to be fixed. India is a HUGE populous. If this becomes the OS of choice over in India, it WILL lead to more development of Linux in general of which the entire linux community will benefit.