Ignoring for a second that "different" means "inconsistent", you're still wrong - it was never consistent even within the computer industry.
Of course, all your examples are fairly recent.
It's 1985: How many bytes on a 20MB harddrive? How much bytes can you fit on a 360KB diskette? How long would it take it transfer the contents of said diskette over a 2400baud modem? How many bytes of memory in a Commodore 64?
All of those questions have straitforward answers, because back then, kilo = 2^10, mega = 2^20, etc. when it came to storage (clockspeed has always used the standard definitions AFAIK. 1Khz = 1000Hz, etc.) Different, but consistent. Of course, you can argue that they should have never started doing things that way, but that's the way they did it.
Be careful there, the Core 2 Duo's start at about $300. I'm willing to bet that the under $100 Semprons shred the Core 2 Duo's in the price/performance category.
The problem with this workaround is the same reason that the Mighty Mouse sucks - it's impossible to press both buttons at once. That's something I do all the time for mouse gestures (in Opera), not to mention games. But on a laptop I probably wouldn't miss it as much.
Any decent engineer would loathe ambiguity. You think "mega" should mean different things depending on context? What are you, a Perl programmer?!? DEMONS BE GONE!!
Well, it was different but atleast consistent until the marketing department of the harddisk manufacturers got involved and screwed it all up for the rest of us. And for the most part, they are the only ones still at it. My "512MB" stick of memory contains 536,870,912 bytes of memory, not 512,000,000.
Pretty good, if the user doesn't check up on the back ups. I've heard plenty of stories of people going to recover from their backups, only to find their DVDs unreadable, or that their backup script has been broken for the last 6 months and no one noticed, etc.
Hey coward, don't blame Microsoft for what is clearly Apple's mistake in putting a virus on an iPod. Sure, this particular incident wouldn't have happened if there wasn't this particular dumb behavior in Windows, but lets face it - we are going to be stuck with viruses and malware forever, some more sophiscated than others. It's ultimately the manufacturer's responsibility to make sure that their product doesn't contain malware that is going to infect user's machines. Apple childishly trying to shift the blame onto Microsoft for their mistake is one of the reasons I'll never buy Apple.
Windows default behavior it terms of autorun is pretty stupid, I don't see anyone arguing that. But even still, Apple shouldn't be shipping iPods that give Windows users viruses when they first plug them in, no matter how they have their computer set up. End of story.
I still say it's Microsoft's fault. Their operating system is insecure from the ground up; it's not fit for the purpose for which it is sold.
So I suppose if the tables are turned, and some Microsoft product advertised as Mac compatible, and manufactured with poor quality control ends up breaking a few Macintoshes, it would all be Apple's fault then?
It doesn't really matter how fragile Windows is, if Apple ships a product that is supposed to work with Windows, it shouldn't break Windows upon using the product in the expected manner.
I'm mostly the same way. I've used Windows, Linux, and Mac, and have yet to see any reason to switch from Windows for my main desktop (I do use Linux elsewhere). Windows and the applications I run in Windows do what I want them to do in a satisfactory manner. For that reason, it just doesn't seem worthwhile to switch to something else, just for the sake of switching. Of course, the fact that I have run Windows since the 3.1 days helps a lot, as I have a good feel for how it works, how to run it, and how to avoid the pitfalls of it. Basically, it all sums up to, if it ain't broke, why fix (or repair) it?
Still, the sooner IE6 disappears, the easier things will be.
I don't see IE6 going anywhere anytime soon. IE6 is the end of the line for Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP pre-sp2. A lot of people are running those operating systems and aren't going to be changing anytime soon. Heck, even IE5 still seems to be clinging onto 3-5% of the market, despite the fact that it's over 5 years old.
All you pretty much have to do is get the browser fool the system to execute any old code, and you're pretty much set. Local privilege escalation exploits are a lot easier to do than remote ones (what do you think a lot of Apple's security patches address?) Even if you don't go for the Apple equilivent of root, you can still easily mess with the user's account and their data. On a one user machine (in other words, most of them), spyware running in the user's account is pretty the same as letting it have the entire system anyway.
See the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. Pretty much designed to appeal straight to the Mac mentality, which is why they greatly annoy people on the other side of the fence.
You sir, are a moron. If you looked into it at all, you'd know that the earth is projected to max out its population at something like 10 or 12 billion people later this century, then stabilize or slowly decline.
And why do you suppose that is? Everyone will spontanously decide one day to stop having so many kids, and that will be that? Or do you suppose that the a ceiling of 10 to 12 billion people will be reached because there is a lack of critical resource(s) needed to sustain further growth?
And let's see... 5 seconds for turning on a PC, figure I do that a minimum of 3 times per day, 300 days per year. That's 75 minutes (1.25 hours) per year. At my current billing rate that equates to $75 per year. So I'm supposed to give up $75 of my time to save $25?
No, what you do is jiggle the mouse or whack a key as you sit down. By the time you've gotten comfortable in your chair, the computer is all woken up and is ready to go.
I've found that for most inkjets, the cost of the ink wasted by the power on cleaning cycle far outweighs the cost of the electricity just to leave it on 24/7 (even if the computer itself is shut off when not in use).
Also, I found the biggest offender according to the watt-meter was the fridge. Try it. Mine draws a pretty continous 130W or so. Not so much - the computer uses more when it's on. But the fridge draws it pretty close to 24/7/365.
The same for Socket 7 really, the later "Super 7" boards did not support the 50Mhz and 60Mhz bus speeds to run many of the sub-166Mhz chips, nor did they put out the right voltages. Most of the early Socket 7 boards did not support anything with the dual voltages, meaning that they basically were only good for 200Mhz or less.
However, while I haven't tried it, the nForce2 Ultra 400 board I have here running a Sempron 3000 supports the 100Mhz bus speed that would be needed to run an old Duron 750Mhz chip I have laying around. Dunno about other last generation Socket A stuff though.
Fans draw very little power compared to processor, screen, and harddrive in the laptop. I would actually be more concerned about the excessive heat shortening the battery's (not to mention the other components) lifetime than the extra few watts the fans are going to draw at full speed.
If you have a flatbed, you can usually haul the hulk to a scrap metal place and get money for it. That is, unless all that was left was the seat and dash.
I'm not sure if diamonds are a good example. Diamonds* are very much a luxury item, and if they cost too much, people would simply stop buying them. It seems that the diamond cartel likes to keep diamonds priced at a level that can be described as "expensive, but still within reach" for most people. Keep in mind that that if the economy is weaker, this maximum price isn't going to be as high. The diamond cartel has more than enough diamonds, they simply price them where they feel they can get the most money.
*I assume you mean the diamonds dug up from the ground, as opposed to man-made diamonds.
The average fuel economy of the American fleet of vehicles has been on a decline since 1988. It's true that the most fuel efficient vehicles now are better than past fuel efficient vehicles, and cars over all have been getting slightly better in the economy category despite the fact they are getting heavier and more and more loaded with power equipment.
But those overall gains have been totally crushed by all the oversized SUVs and light trucks out there on the road. I don't know where you live, but in the midwest SUVs are everywhere, I would say roughly 1 in 2 vehicles is a SUV, truck, or van. That's why our overall fuel economy sucks, even despite the fact the Prius gets 45MPG.
I say it's about time to end the exceptions for "light trucks" and let the SUVs compete on a more even playing field. That would go a long ways towards reducing our dependence on oil right there.
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Ignoring for a second that "different" means "inconsistent", you're still wrong - it was never consistent even within the computer industry.
Of course, all your examples are fairly recent.
It's 1985:
How many bytes on a 20MB harddrive?
How much bytes can you fit on a 360KB diskette?
How long would it take it transfer the contents of said diskette over a 2400baud modem?
How many bytes of memory in a Commodore 64?
All of those questions have straitforward answers, because back then, kilo = 2^10, mega = 2^20, etc. when it came to storage (clockspeed has always used the standard definitions AFAIK. 1Khz = 1000Hz, etc.) Different, but consistent. Of course, you can argue that they should have never started doing things that way, but that's the way they did it.
I'm pretty sure he was talking laptops. Besides, I just bought a $330 Samsung flatpanel that has more pixels than your iMac.
This includes price/performance also.
Be careful there, the Core 2 Duo's start at about $300. I'm willing to bet that the under $100 Semprons shred the Core 2 Duo's in the price/performance category.
The problem with this workaround is the same reason that the Mighty Mouse sucks - it's impossible to press both buttons at once. That's something I do all the time for mouse gestures (in Opera), not to mention games. But on a laptop I probably wouldn't miss it as much.
Any decent engineer would loathe ambiguity. You think "mega" should mean different things depending on context? What are you, a Perl programmer?!? DEMONS BE GONE!!
Well, it was different but atleast consistent until the marketing department of the harddisk manufacturers got involved and screwed it all up for the rest of us. And for the most part, they are the only ones still at it. My "512MB" stick of memory contains 536,870,912 bytes of memory, not 512,000,000.
Pretty good, if the user doesn't check up on the back ups. I've heard plenty of stories of people going to recover from their backups, only to find their DVDs unreadable, or that their backup script has been broken for the last 6 months and no one noticed, etc.
Hey coward, don't blame Microsoft for what is clearly Apple's mistake in putting a virus on an iPod. Sure, this particular incident wouldn't have happened if there wasn't this particular dumb behavior in Windows, but lets face it - we are going to be stuck with viruses and malware forever, some more sophiscated than others. It's ultimately the manufacturer's responsibility to make sure that their product doesn't contain malware that is going to infect user's machines. Apple childishly trying to shift the blame onto Microsoft for their mistake is one of the reasons I'll never buy Apple.
Windows default behavior it terms of autorun is pretty stupid, I don't see anyone arguing that. But even still, Apple shouldn't be shipping iPods that give Windows users viruses when they first plug them in, no matter how they have their computer set up. End of story.
I still say it's Microsoft's fault. Their operating system is insecure from the ground up; it's not fit for the purpose for which it is sold.
So I suppose if the tables are turned, and some Microsoft product advertised as Mac compatible, and manufactured with poor quality control ends up breaking a few Macintoshes, it would all be Apple's fault then?
It doesn't really matter how fragile Windows is, if Apple ships a product that is supposed to work with Windows, it shouldn't break Windows upon using the product in the expected manner.
Why is everyone missing the fact that Apple did actually fess up to this?
It would seem that the reason is everyone is focused on the fact that Apple took the opportunity to take a cheap shot at Microsoft in the process.
I'm mostly the same way. I've used Windows, Linux, and Mac, and have yet to see any reason to switch from Windows for my main desktop (I do use Linux elsewhere). Windows and the applications I run in Windows do what I want them to do in a satisfactory manner. For that reason, it just doesn't seem worthwhile to switch to something else, just for the sake of switching. Of course, the fact that I have run Windows since the 3.1 days helps a lot, as I have a good feel for how it works, how to run it, and how to avoid the pitfalls of it. Basically, it all sums up to, if it ain't broke, why fix (or repair) it?
Still, the sooner IE6 disappears, the easier things will be.
I don't see IE6 going anywhere anytime soon. IE6 is the end of the line for Windows 98, ME, 2000 and XP pre-sp2. A lot of people are running those operating systems and aren't going to be changing anytime soon. Heck, even IE5 still seems to be clinging onto 3-5% of the market, despite the fact that it's over 5 years old.
All you pretty much have to do is get the browser fool the system to execute any old code, and you're pretty much set. Local privilege escalation exploits are a lot easier to do than remote ones (what do you think a lot of Apple's security patches address?) Even if you don't go for the Apple equilivent of root, you can still easily mess with the user's account and their data. On a one user machine (in other words, most of them), spyware running in the user's account is pretty the same as letting it have the entire system anyway.
What exactly is the or a Mac mentality?
See the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. Pretty much designed to appeal straight to the Mac mentality, which is why they greatly annoy people on the other side of the fence.
You sir, are a moron. If you looked into it at all, you'd know that the earth is projected to max out its population at something like 10 or 12 billion people later this century, then stabilize or slowly decline.
And why do you suppose that is? Everyone will spontanously decide one day to stop having so many kids, and that will be that? Or do you suppose that the a ceiling of 10 to 12 billion people will be reached because there is a lack of critical resource(s) needed to sustain further growth?
And let's see... 5 seconds for turning on a PC, figure I do that a minimum of 3 times per day, 300 days per year. That's 75 minutes (1.25 hours) per year. At my current billing rate that equates to $75 per year. So I'm supposed to give up $75 of my time to save $25?
No, what you do is jiggle the mouse or whack a key as you sit down. By the time you've gotten comfortable in your chair, the computer is all woken up and is ready to go.
I've found that for most inkjets, the cost of the ink wasted by the power on cleaning cycle far outweighs the cost of the electricity just to leave it on 24/7 (even if the computer itself is shut off when not in use).
Also, I found the biggest offender according to the watt-meter was the fridge. Try it. Mine draws a pretty continous 130W or so. Not so much - the computer uses more when it's on. But the fridge draws it pretty close to 24/7/365.
The same for Socket 7 really, the later "Super 7" boards did not support the 50Mhz and 60Mhz bus speeds to run many of the sub-166Mhz chips, nor did they put out the right voltages. Most of the early Socket 7 boards did not support anything with the dual voltages, meaning that they basically were only good for 200Mhz or less.
However, while I haven't tried it, the nForce2 Ultra 400 board I have here running a Sempron 3000 supports the 100Mhz bus speed that would be needed to run an old Duron 750Mhz chip I have laying around. Dunno about other last generation Socket A stuff though.
Whoopy-doo. A whole *five*, eh? Only one of which is even remotely a household name? In my book, that approximates to "no manufacturer support".
Actually, it's quite easy to find OGG support, once you move beyond Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and the other big pushers of DRM.
Fans draw very little power compared to processor, screen, and harddrive in the laptop. I would actually be more concerned about the excessive heat shortening the battery's (not to mention the other components) lifetime than the extra few watts the fans are going to draw at full speed.
If you have a flatbed, you can usually haul the hulk to a scrap metal place and get money for it. That is, unless all that was left was the seat and dash.
I'm not sure if diamonds are a good example. Diamonds* are very much a luxury item, and if they cost too much, people would simply stop buying them. It seems that the diamond cartel likes to keep diamonds priced at a level that can be described as "expensive, but still within reach" for most people. Keep in mind that that if the economy is weaker, this maximum price isn't going to be as high. The diamond cartel has more than enough diamonds, they simply price them where they feel they can get the most money.
*I assume you mean the diamonds dug up from the ground, as opposed to man-made diamonds.
I'm no expert, but I would say metals themselves are no more scarce, but the real reason is simply inflation making the dollar worth less and less.
The average fuel economy of the American fleet of vehicles has been on a decline since 1988. It's true that the most fuel efficient vehicles now are better than past fuel efficient vehicles, and cars over all have been getting slightly better in the economy category despite the fact they are getting heavier and more and more loaded with power equipment.
But those overall gains have been totally crushed by all the oversized SUVs and light trucks out there on the road. I don't know where you live, but in the midwest SUVs are everywhere, I would say roughly 1 in 2 vehicles is a SUV, truck, or van. That's why our overall fuel economy sucks, even despite the fact the Prius gets 45MPG.
I say it's about time to end the exceptions for "light trucks" and let the SUVs compete on a more even playing field. That would go a long ways towards reducing our dependence on oil right there.