Does Best Buy obligate me to respect their encampment and let them buy first?
No, but reverence for the ancient and fundamental Anglo-Saxon concept of the 'queue' obligates you to so do. At least, in this country (that is, the Mother Country), were you to queue-jump, you run the risk of getting shot. Well, you would if we carried guns. I should have thought that was even more likely to be the case in the USA, where everyone is armed to the teeth, no?
Reading through the comments here it seems that no-one has actually yet realised that the review is just a joke. Does it not strike anyone as slightly odd that rather than Microsoft inviting, say, c|net or some other vaguely reputable site to experience the device and produce a review, we have a semi-literate 12 year old trollilng for page views? Again, it's a joke...
Imagine looking at the statistics for a Linux website. The majority there better not be IE.
You'd like to think so, but I'd bet that there'd be not a few wannabe types who talk the Linux talk but haven't the cajones to walk the walk. I've known many people in my time who were often vaunted for their supposed computer literacy, and who would often sing Linux's praises whilst bashing Windows, but when it came to installing it on their own systems, it was a different story. Partitioning too scary I suppose.
Mind you, that was back in the day when to reliably resize a Windows partition (whether FAT32 or NTFS), you needed a copy of PowerQuest's Partition Magic because there was nothing on Linux that'd cut it. These days, partition resizing is a bit more doable, so there's no excuse.
To my knowledge, the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. has never been referred to as Quooey Too.
I've had the misfortune to use two of D-Link's products in my lifetime, and if at all possible, I'd like to avoid ever having to repeat the experience again. First was a USB wireless adapter (I think it was the DWL-122) which claimed Mac OS X compatibility, but delivered an inability to put the machine to sleep and kernel panics instead. Fora suggest that I was not alone. Needless to say I returned it for a refund.
The other is the ongoing saga of a DSL-G604T ADSL router that a friend uses. It is Linux-based, but it sucks beyond belief. From a truly dire web interface for configuration to regular connection drop-outs, it is the worst router I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. If this is how D-Link do Linux, I am petrified to think of what they might try to pull off with this mobile. It's clear already from the specifications (no Bluetooth, a mere 24MB of storage, etc.) that it is not exactly a top-end device. I fear the worst.
Try running XP (or Vista if you're feeling masochistic) on a 500mhz Pentium.
As others have noted, XP on a 500MHz Pentium isn't really that troublesome. But then given XP's age, relative simplicity and general primitiveness (vs. Mac OS X and Vista), it's not really a fair comparison. Vista would be fairer.
And that is where your point has its validity - whereas, given sufficient RAM, Mac OS X runs very nicely on a ~400MHz G4, the same most certainly cannot be said of Vista. Granted, when Mac OS X was first released, it was slow as molasses and Apple have had - what - five years to tighten things up, but tighten up they have. Three or four years down the line, Vista will doubtless run measurably slower on the same hardware.
But it has always been thus. Such is the way of things...
Can't be bothered with the rest of your post, but the bit about RAM is bullshit. You can shell out for Apple-compatible RAM, but you've got to be a bit of a tool (apparently like yourself) to do that. Generic stuff works fine.
No. The first "free" ISP was X-Stream. You downloaded some software onto the computer which would display adverts in a bar at the top whilst surfing. Access was via an 0845 number. That was as free as it got, until everyone got in on the act, got rid of the ad bar and players like Freeserve entered the market. Some time later, X-Stream did a properly free service, with 0800 access. I also remember ic24 and Connect4Free offering similar services, although, of course, the lines were always busy and it was hellishly slow.
But Freeserve was by no means the first. Not, as you say, as an ISP, nor as a "free" one.
Not only does the default interface look like Windows XP, some of the icons look like their Windows equivalents. The IM icon for Gaim, for example, has more than a passing resemblance to the AOL AIM icon.
...and even more of a resemblance to Apple's iChat icon.
You'll be astonished at how little hoop-jumping is necessary on Linux these days.
That there is still any hoop-jumping is a problem. And that there is now little hoop-jumping should not be cause for astonishment. I know the Linux user mindset - the kind of macho need to hack around in the terminal just to do something trivial like getting wireless working, converting WEP keys to hex with my bare hands - because I have been there myself, but now I just want to get on with my work (and my life) - Linux wastes too much of my time. Now, I should say that Ubuntu is making real progress and demonstrating that there is a recognition that 95% of the computer-using population see a computer likewise - as a tool to get things done - but it's not there yet. And for those of us that don't want to wait (because, again, we actually have stuff to get on with, or, say, want to use software that other people use, like Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver), Mac OS X is the better choice.
It sounded less & less like I was paying for music... and more & more like I was paying for the right to listen to the music...
It has always been so - indeed, you say as much later on ("We pay for the rights to listen to that music"). When you buy a CD, you are purchasing a licence which grants you the right to listen to the music contained on that CD, nothing more. Fair use legislation in the USA may give you additional rights (I am English and am not fully versed in US copyright law), but in essence, you are only afforded the right to listen.
Of course, in the real world, the practicality of enforcing such restrictions is limited, so people are generally allowed to do certain things, but they do not necessarily have any basis in law. Indeed, in the UK, the seemingly innocent act of format-shifting (i.e. ripping one's vinyl to the computer and burning a CD, or ripping one's CDs to the computer and putting them on the iPod) is, the record companies and royalties collection organisations would certainly like to have you believe, illegal. In reality, no-one cares but them.
Truth is that all DRM is doing is enforcing restrictions that have always been there, but that have hitherto been unenforceable, and that's where DRM falls down - digital, binary, cold and emotionless as it is, it sees only wrong and right. There are no shades of grey, but it is the great expanse of grey in which we find the "rights" to which we believe we are entitled, and which we have been afforded because it is rare that the law is followed to the letter. At least over here, the key term is "reasonableness", a term of which computers have no understanding and which no algorithm can replace.
Oh well. One day we will look back on the glory days of the 20th century when information really was more-or-less free.
OK, it's a word. But it's not a word. It's a vile creation, the product of a deficient intellect, and its existence is prolonged by induhviduals of similarly deficient intellects. Your phrasing may be different, but I am sure we agree.
But just a point on my choice of reference - I used the Oxford American Dictionary, whatever that is. Given that it lists all my spellings as "chiefly British", and, in my experience, omits certain British turns of phrase, does that make it American enough?
Anyway, I have a beef with Webster - I think he is a cunt.* I can't remember why I am so minded - something to do with spelling simplifications he proposed (other than, say, "color" and "traveled", which I believe were his), I think - but a cunt in my mind he is. Thus, by association, the MW too is...not a good book.** It's not really anything more than a silly prejudice that I like to nurture, but this is Slashdot, so I feel that it's only right to come out guns blazing with a swathe of unfounded assertions, rather than to, say, check my facts. Or something like that...
Yes, and it's still not a word.* Even if one were to allow it as an adverb, as the sites you link to suggest - and I cannot begin to think how one would use it - one cannot use it here. It comes from the same school of people who think "irregardless" is an acceptable word. In the latter case, both the Oxford American and MW have entries, but neither consider it particularly acceptable (it contains two negatives, after all), and both recommend "regardless" instead.
But I digress...
iqu:|
(I used a proper dictionary - the Oxford American. I would prefer a full 20 volume printed Oxford English, but we can't have everything, can we?)
This article is truly pisspoor, but still, one cannot help but wonder - what on earth have Microsoft been doing for the past five years? Really? What? This is appalling. They've added the sidebar, which just uses up screen space and, er, that's it. Great.
Man, if they didn't have a monopoly, they would be so fucked.
You vastly overestimate the boycott. I am no fan of Sony - I loathe their computers, audio players, the not-made-here attitude, the PlayStation controller, etc. - but there is no excuse for being blind to the reality of the situation. Granted, in the tech press, Sony was demonised (and rightfully so) for the rootkit thing, but the tech community have harboured a dislike for Sony for a long while now, chiefly because of their recording arm's assault on this community's supposed "right" to freeload music. Whilst this fiasco was reported in the mainstream press, it hasn't garnered the kind of attention you might like to think it has.
The sad truth is that boycotts rarely work because people are so easily bought. What price principles, you might ask. Evidently the shapely tits on the latest Shakira CD (or whatever - I have not the inclination to check) are enough to dissuade people from voting with their wallets.
But there, American spelling simplification lets you down. As I am sure you are aware, elsewhere it is spelt paedophile, from the Greek paido; the pedo in pedometer comes from the Latin for foot.
Unlike M$ and nintendo, Sony does not have any other significantly profitable ventures to sustain them.
Record company? Sony Pictures? Granted, their MP3 player market is pretty dead, but I'm sure they still sell a telly and a hifi or two.
Otherwise, I'm totally with you. But don't underestimate the Sony fanboy - I was talking to a couple of guys at work about the whole new console thing, and both of them tried to defend the design of the PS1/PS2 controller. Being a fan of ergonomics and thus the N64 and GameCube controllers, I could only manage a hollow laugh. Anyway, I'm rambling, but what I'm saying is that these people will go for anything. As someone else said on here, Sony could shit in a box, label it PS3 and there would still be a rabid fanboy contingent lining up on eBay to pay $1,000 plus for it. If I'm minted at the time, I might buy a few and try flogging 'em...could be quite a profitable venture:D
But my money's on the Wii. Fuckin' glorious, and fun too!
I know you're being facetious, but I don't understand why. Apple did make a little headway in the HPC market with the G5, because it is a genuinely good chip at the top end (as is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the Power Mac G5 still hasn't seen an Intel replacement). And that was the reason - it wasn't about recompiling kernels. Had it been, places like Virginia Tech would have plumped for cheapo Dell boxen running, say, FreeBSD.
The mistake you (and thousands of others) make is to assume that you are indicative of everyone else. You are right when you believe that Mac OS X would sell like hotcakes if it were made available for generic boxen...well, everything except the "selling" part. Piracy is rampant and, well, it involves competing with Microsoft.
Hardware is a much safer arena to do battle in, which is why Apple wants to restrict Mac OS X to their hardware only. Not only are margins on hardware* much higher, but consider the piracy implications - whilst it is very easy to copy a Mac OS X DVD (at a cost of, say, 50p for a blank DVD), copying a piece of hardware is a somewhat more challenging (and expensive) task, i.e. it can't really be done.
There are also countless compatibility issues - people would expect their weird old graphics cards, sound cards, network cards and scanners, etc. to work...but they wouldn't. Likewise, they would expect to be able to run their Windows software on it...and can't...
In short, the commoditisation of Mac OS X would be a bad thing for all concerned, not the path to profitability that some hope it would be.
iqu:)
(* Premium hardware, anyway, i.e. nice design, etc. The commodity PC market à la Dell is worlds away.)
Wow... is it REALLY that hard to distinguish between when to use 'to' and 'too'?
You're preaching to someone who spells it "immidiatly" and manages "symphatethic" and "symphatitic" in the same sentence.*
iqu:|
(* It may not actually be just the one sentence; it might merit a semicolon. But for someone this backward, such concepts are clearly far too advanced.)
Slashdot Mirror
English lesson:
:|
We have 10+ dedicated Exchange servers that handle mailboxes for many thousands of users.
We have 10+ dedicated Exchange servers that each handle mailboxes for many thousands of users.
Does Best Buy obligate me to respect their encampment and let them buy first?
:P
No, but reverence for the ancient and fundamental Anglo-Saxon concept of the 'queue' obligates you to so do. At least, in this country (that is, the Mother Country), were you to queue-jump, you run the risk of getting shot. Well, you would if we carried guns. I should have thought that was even more likely to be the case in the USA, where everyone is armed to the teeth, no?
iqu
Reading through the comments here it seems that no-one has actually yet realised that the review is just a joke. Does it not strike anyone as slightly odd that rather than Microsoft inviting, say, c|net or some other vaguely reputable site to experience the device and produce a review, we have a semi-literate 12 year old trollilng for page views? Again, it's a joke...
:|
If this is what Slashdot has come to...
iqu
Imagine looking at the statistics for a Linux website. The majority there better not be IE.
:|
You'd like to think so, but I'd bet that there'd be not a few wannabe types who talk the Linux talk but haven't the cajones to walk the walk. I've known many people in my time who were often vaunted for their supposed computer literacy, and who would often sing Linux's praises whilst bashing Windows, but when it came to installing it on their own systems, it was a different story. Partitioning too scary I suppose.
Mind you, that was back in the day when to reliably resize a Windows partition (whether FAT32 or NTFS), you needed a copy of PowerQuest's Partition Magic because there was nothing on Linux that'd cut it. These days, partition resizing is a bit more doable, so there's no excuse.
Bet those types are still around though.
iqu
To my knowledge, the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. has never been referred to as Quooey Too.
:P
Those in the know, however, call her Brenda.
iqu
I've had the misfortune to use two of D-Link's products in my lifetime, and if at all possible, I'd like to avoid ever having to repeat the experience again. First was a USB wireless adapter (I think it was the DWL-122) which claimed Mac OS X compatibility, but delivered an inability to put the machine to sleep and kernel panics instead. Fora suggest that I was not alone. Needless to say I returned it for a refund.
:|
The other is the ongoing saga of a DSL-G604T ADSL router that a friend uses. It is Linux-based, but it sucks beyond belief. From a truly dire web interface for configuration to regular connection drop-outs, it is the worst router I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. If this is how D-Link do Linux, I am petrified to think of what they might try to pull off with this mobile. It's clear already from the specifications (no Bluetooth, a mere 24MB of storage, etc.) that it is not exactly a top-end device. I fear the worst.
iqu
Try running XP (or Vista if you're feeling masochistic) on a 500mhz Pentium.
:|
As others have noted, XP on a 500MHz Pentium isn't really that troublesome. But then given XP's age, relative simplicity and general primitiveness (vs. Mac OS X and Vista), it's not really a fair comparison. Vista would be fairer.
And that is where your point has its validity - whereas, given sufficient RAM, Mac OS X runs very nicely on a ~400MHz G4, the same most certainly cannot be said of Vista. Granted, when Mac OS X was first released, it was slow as molasses and Apple have had - what - five years to tighten things up, but tighten up they have. Three or four years down the line, Vista will doubtless run measurably slower on the same hardware.
But it has always been thus. Such is the way of things...
iqu
The English is a bit too good for a proper Nigerian spam, but otherwise you did good. I actually managed a chortle.
:D
iqu
Of course it will. This is Apple we're talking about.
:D
iqu
Can't be bothered with the rest of your post, but the bit about RAM is bullshit. You can shell out for Apple-compatible RAM, but you've got to be a bit of a tool (apparently like yourself) to do that. Generic stuff works fine.
:|
iqu
No. The first "free" ISP was X-Stream. You downloaded some software onto the computer which would display adverts in a bar at the top whilst surfing. Access was via an 0845 number. That was as free as it got, until everyone got in on the act, got rid of the ad bar and players like Freeserve entered the market. Some time later, X-Stream did a properly free service, with 0800 access. I also remember ic24 and Connect4Free offering similar services, although, of course, the lines were always busy and it was hellishly slow.
:|
But Freeserve was by no means the first. Not, as you say, as an ISP, nor as a "free" one.
iqu
Not only does the default interface look like Windows XP, some of the icons look like their Windows equivalents. The IM icon for Gaim, for example, has more than a passing resemblance to the AOL AIM icon.
...and even more of a resemblance to Apple's iChat icon.
:|
Hmmm.
iqu
You'll be astonished at how little hoop-jumping is necessary on Linux these days.
:|
That there is still any hoop-jumping is a problem. And that there is now little hoop-jumping should not be cause for astonishment. I know the Linux user mindset - the kind of macho need to hack around in the terminal just to do something trivial like getting wireless working, converting WEP keys to hex with my bare hands - because I have been there myself, but now I just want to get on with my work (and my life) - Linux wastes too much of my time. Now, I should say that Ubuntu is making real progress and demonstrating that there is a recognition that 95% of the computer-using population see a computer likewise - as a tool to get things done - but it's not there yet. And for those of us that don't want to wait (because, again, we actually have stuff to get on with, or, say, want to use software that other people use, like Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver), Mac OS X is the better choice.
Don't even get me started on Windows, mind...
iqu
...is a really, really shit paper. Really shit. In some ways worse than The Sun, which Slashdot has in fact linked to in the past.
:|
So pay no heed. When this appears in a respectable organ (no, Slashdot is not respectable), it might carry some weight. Until then...
iqu
It sounded less & less like I was paying for music ... and more & more like I was paying for the right to listen to the music...
:|
It has always been so - indeed, you say as much later on ("We pay for the rights to listen to that music"). When you buy a CD, you are purchasing a licence which grants you the right to listen to the music contained on that CD, nothing more. Fair use legislation in the USA may give you additional rights (I am English and am not fully versed in US copyright law), but in essence, you are only afforded the right to listen.
Of course, in the real world, the practicality of enforcing such restrictions is limited, so people are generally allowed to do certain things, but they do not necessarily have any basis in law. Indeed, in the UK, the seemingly innocent act of format-shifting (i.e. ripping one's vinyl to the computer and burning a CD, or ripping one's CDs to the computer and putting them on the iPod) is, the record companies and royalties collection organisations would certainly like to have you believe, illegal. In reality, no-one cares but them.
Truth is that all DRM is doing is enforcing restrictions that have always been there, but that have hitherto been unenforceable, and that's where DRM falls down - digital, binary, cold and emotionless as it is, it sees only wrong and right. There are no shades of grey, but it is the great expanse of grey in which we find the "rights" to which we believe we are entitled, and which we have been afforded because it is rare that the law is followed to the letter. At least over here, the key term is "reasonableness", a term of which computers have no understanding and which no algorithm can replace.
Oh well. One day we will look back on the glory days of the 20th century when information really was more-or-less free.
iqu
OK, it's a word. But it's not a word. It's a vile creation, the product of a deficient intellect, and its existence is prolonged by induhviduals of similarly deficient intellects. Your phrasing may be different, but I am sure we agree.
:P
But just a point on my choice of reference - I used the Oxford American Dictionary, whatever that is. Given that it lists all my spellings as "chiefly British", and, in my experience, omits certain British turns of phrase, does that make it American enough?
Anyway, I have a beef with Webster - I think he is a cunt.* I can't remember why I am so minded - something to do with spelling simplifications he proposed (other than, say, "color" and "traveled", which I believe were his), I think - but a cunt in my mind he is. Thus, by association, the MW too is...not a good book.** It's not really anything more than a silly prejudice that I like to nurture, but this is Slashdot, so I feel that it's only right to come out guns blazing with a swathe of unfounded assertions, rather than to, say, check my facts. Or something like that...
iqu
* Good Anglo-Saxon, Chaucerian word there.
** Note my restraint. I could have used, say, "cuntish" which, if Google is anything to go by, is a remarkably well-used term. (Alas, by that measure, "relatedly" is rather more so.)
Yes, and it's still not a word.* Even if one were to allow it as an adverb, as the sites you link to suggest - and I cannot begin to think how one would use it - one cannot use it here. It comes from the same school of people who think "irregardless" is an acceptable word. In the latter case, both the Oxford American and MW have entries, but neither consider it particularly acceptable (it contains two negatives, after all), and both recommend "regardless" instead.
:|
But I digress...
iqu
(I used a proper dictionary - the Oxford American. I would prefer a full 20 volume printed Oxford English, but we can't have everything, can we?)
"Relatedly" is not a word. "Belatedly" is.
:|
Consider "In other news", "In related news"...
*sigh*
iqu
This article is truly pisspoor, but still, one cannot help but wonder - what on earth have Microsoft been doing for the past five years? Really? What? This is appalling. They've added the sidebar, which just uses up screen space and, er, that's it. Great.
:)
Man, if they didn't have a monopoly, they would be so fucked.
iqu
You vastly overestimate the boycott. I am no fan of Sony - I loathe their computers, audio players, the not-made-here attitude, the PlayStation controller, etc. - but there is no excuse for being blind to the reality of the situation. Granted, in the tech press, Sony was demonised (and rightfully so) for the rootkit thing, but the tech community have harboured a dislike for Sony for a long while now, chiefly because of their recording arm's assault on this community's supposed "right" to freeload music. Whilst this fiasco was reported in the mainstream press, it hasn't garnered the kind of attention you might like to think it has.
:|
The sad truth is that boycotts rarely work because people are so easily bought. What price principles, you might ask. Evidently the shapely tits on the latest Shakira CD (or whatever - I have not the inclination to check) are enough to dissuade people from voting with their wallets.
iqu
hehe
:P
But there, American spelling simplification lets you down. As I am sure you are aware, elsewhere it is spelt paedophile, from the Greek paido; the pedo in pedometer comes from the Latin for foot.
But still, I managed a chortle.
iqu
You were going well until...
:D
:)
Unlike M$ and nintendo, Sony does not have any other significantly profitable ventures to sustain them.
Record company? Sony Pictures? Granted, their MP3 player market is pretty dead, but I'm sure they still sell a telly and a hifi or two.
Otherwise, I'm totally with you. But don't underestimate the Sony fanboy - I was talking to a couple of guys at work about the whole new console thing, and both of them tried to defend the design of the PS1/PS2 controller. Being a fan of ergonomics and thus the N64 and GameCube controllers, I could only manage a hollow laugh. Anyway, I'm rambling, but what I'm saying is that these people will go for anything. As someone else said on here, Sony could shit in a box, label it PS3 and there would still be a rabid fanboy contingent lining up on eBay to pay $1,000 plus for it. If I'm minted at the time, I might buy a few and try flogging 'em...could be quite a profitable venture
But my money's on the Wii. Fuckin' glorious, and fun too!
iqu
I know you're being facetious, but I don't understand why. Apple did make a little headway in the HPC market with the G5, because it is a genuinely good chip at the top end (as is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the Power Mac G5 still hasn't seen an Intel replacement). And that was the reason - it wasn't about recompiling kernels. Had it been, places like Virginia Tech would have plumped for cheapo Dell boxen running, say, FreeBSD.
:|
So please clarify - what are you on about?
iqu
The mistake you (and thousands of others) make is to assume that you are indicative of everyone else. You are right when you believe that Mac OS X would sell like hotcakes if it were made available for generic boxen...well, everything except the "selling" part. Piracy is rampant and, well, it involves competing with Microsoft.
:)
Hardware is a much safer arena to do battle in, which is why Apple wants to restrict Mac OS X to their hardware only. Not only are margins on hardware* much higher, but consider the piracy implications - whilst it is very easy to copy a Mac OS X DVD (at a cost of, say, 50p for a blank DVD), copying a piece of hardware is a somewhat more challenging (and expensive) task, i.e. it can't really be done.
There are also countless compatibility issues - people would expect their weird old graphics cards, sound cards, network cards and scanners, etc. to work...but they wouldn't. Likewise, they would expect to be able to run their Windows software on it...and can't...
In short, the commoditisation of Mac OS X would be a bad thing for all concerned, not the path to profitability that some hope it would be.
iqu
(* Premium hardware, anyway, i.e. nice design, etc. The commodity PC market à la Dell is worlds away.)
Wow... is it REALLY that hard to distinguish between when to use 'to' and 'too'?
:|
You're preaching to someone who spells it "immidiatly" and manages "symphatethic" and "symphatitic" in the same sentence.*
iqu
(* It may not actually be just the one sentence; it might merit a semicolon. But for someone this backward, such concepts are clearly far too advanced.)