"Dell's 14.1" screens are 1400x1050 by way of comparison.) "
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't offer the possiblity of higher resolution on their 15.2" display, but have you ever used a laptop display at 1280x960 or 1400x1050? Unless you have a magnifying glass handy, all I can say is 'why'?
"The fact that the Sony's puny 12.1" screen has the same vertical resolution as Apple's brings the matter of LCD quality a lot closer than "15.2 vs. 12.1" would seem to indicate"
In theory, i'd agree. In practice, no way. See above.
"a real video card isn't even an *option* on any iMac model, nor on the Cube)."
No option on the iMac, but then it's a stripper model. iMac users will probably be doing some light gaming, but I don't see 3d rendering in their daily activities. I'm pretty sure the Radeon (last I checked it performed respectably in tests (both 2d and 3d) and was considered a "real" competitive 3d video card -- a quote from the Sharky Extreme review: "Despite no longer boasting the fastest 3D on the market, the RADEON should not be scoffed at. Its superior video acceleration, crisp 2D quality, and an aggressively competitive price further add to a sweet slice of 3D gaming pie. " -- see here the aforementioned review: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/vide o/ati_radeon_32mb/ ) is offered as an option in cubes. It is also optional on all G4s, IIRC. They should offer the 64mb variants of both cards, as well as all other models and cards from other manufacturers, but I think Apple's relationship to nVidia is quite new and will take a little ramp up time, as well as their relationship to other vendors. Hopefully OSX's BSD underpinnings will make driver development a little easier and help expand the Mac hardware possibilities.
Don't get me wrong -- i agree with a lot of what you say. It's not hard to see that most Macs are overpriced for what they're offering under the hood. You could make the same argument for most "luxury items".
"Even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms" pretty much kills the idea of straight performance comparisons. There are plenty more reasons but i'm sure we don't have to elaborate on that.
It's not really fair to compare street pricing of a PC notebook to retail pricing of a yet unreleased product. Try it again when the PB has been out for a month or two (though by my guess it will take a while for the price to drop).
Also, as another poster pointed out, LCDs are very expensive, so the 12.1" vs 15.2" difference is not a small one in manufacturing costs, nor is usability (at least in my experience using notebook screens). Unfortunately, it seems there are very few 1" thick full featured, full screen laptops running around to compare the PB to. With the advent of the mobile Duron (you were complaining about Intel cornering the market) that might start to change.
BTW, the current video card in all but the base G4s is a 32mb GeForce2 w/ an optional Radeon.
PS. I use a P3 at work and an Athlon at home, in case you were wondering.
"Apple *will* somehow have to address the price performance issue if they want to gouge market share out of others. But they can keep their core advantages (enumerated above) and keep their core customre base, maybe even grow a little. "
Witness the Powerbook G4. A lot of people think it's a loss leader...
"Apple has constantly been behind the times in I/O standards"
What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board). First to use Firewire. Using 32bit Nubus when PCs where using ISA slots. Yes, in some ways they're late, but in others they're way ahead.
The "laughably inferior video card" may be so for FPS, but actually performs quite well for graphic artists. Makes me wonder why they specced it.
BTW, the only decent 802.11 system out there that can hold a candle to the AirPort system is the Lucent Orinoco system, which is slightly more expensive and a lot harder to set up.
"Mac has been approximately a year behind in adopting most mainstream PC standards"
How many makers right now are putting out machines with DDR RAM? Last I checked, not many. Sure they're ramping up, but Apple would be stupid (and possibly insane) to be on the top of the curve for every trend. Their machines would be even more overpriced and they could end up with a Rambus/Intel fiasco on their hands if they made the wrong choice. Better to let someone like Intel make that mistake and fight the battles worth fighting (i.e the ones pretty much won already like USB, firewire)
One final word re: price/performance -- find a notebook that can compete in that area with the new powerbook. Good luck.
According to the grapevine, Apple retail stores should start opening up soon. I'm surprised no announcements were made at MacWorld SF. Apparently one will be in downtown Palo Alto.
No better way to sell a sequestered OS and hardware to sequestered customers than through a sequestered store (read: no competition).
"You could take a train from any where on the planet to anywhere else"
Well, you're forgetting Australia:)
You could, but it would still take damn near forever, even if it was high speed. Do you have any idea how FAR most populous centers in the US are from those in Europe, going by way of the Bering strait? I once drove from California to the Queen Charlotte Islands and I started to get an idea...
This thing would only be worthwhile for commercial shipping or military purposes.
My wife and I visited the Annapolis power facility about a month ago during our vacation. Just to add to the comment:
They'll give you a tour if you ask nicely, though it's warm down there. You can see the turbine and the gates, plus a lot of expensive looking old-school computer equipment that wouldn't be out of place in an early bond movie. The turbine was made in Switzerland, and is the largest of its kind (i seem to remember). It only generates power in one direction.
There are at least two other stations like this one -- one in france with multiple smaller turbines and one in china. I also heard about a Norwegian station that used the air blown through a bore in a cliff next to the ocean to drive a turbine -- interesting idea.
If you want to really feel the bay of fundy's tides, go "brownwater" rafting down the Shubenacadie river. 10 foot tidal waves. Gotta love em.
Finally, all you Silicon Valley types (like me), Nova Scotia is an amazing place to visit (and you'll drool at the housing prices:)
People listen to $the bottom line$ before anything else, so discourage them financially, and they'll listen immediately.
If you think enough about the aforementioned "sin taxes", in most cases there is a social cost involved (second hand smoke, drunk driving); the "sin taxes" help cover the cost of dealing with these problems without out and out criminalizing rightfully non-criminal activities.
Now, as to how these social costs are dealt with, that's another story....
Just for a laugh, i'm going to post a "babelfished" article from "Le Monde" (the largest circulation French newspaper). Perhaps the viewpoint of an international source would be interesting. I made a few corrections in the name of readability, and if you doubt that the original link is: http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0, 2320,89273,00.html and you can run it thru babelfish yourself and compare.
Here goes:
Gore counters Bush, a true choice
Updated Monday August 28 2000
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The two principal candidates of the American presidential election of November 7, the republican George W Bush and the democrat Albert Gore, are, at the current moment, more or less equal in the surveys taken at the end of conventions of their respective parties; they both come out of it reinforced, more definite and more combative, ready for the long autumn stretch, which is the final playing field. In the two camps, one envisages a very tight election and no judicious political expert risks a forecast. For the voters, the landscape was cleared up considerably : they have in front of them a true choice. A choice, initially, between two men of the same generation, both sons of political leaders and of a centrist leaning but with the basically different personality. A choice, especially, between two visions of prosperity and of how to get there.
In Philadelphia, George W Bush, governor of Texas, made the republican convention swallow his " conservatism of the compassion " , a sort of human right which, while granting to richest a privileged role, does not want to leave anybody stranded.
In this vision, the role of the State inevitably is very limited since it is not him but the private sector which is at the origin of the longest cycle of growth of the American history ; in other words the private sector will make it possible not to neglect anybody, through the promotion of private teaching and the devotion of caritatives and religious works. All the aspiring members of the republican party were gelled together in Philadelphia to emphasize this message of optimism and fraternity ; the right wing faction was hidden and Mr. Bush succeeded in low presenting his plan of tax reductions like a plan favorable to the incomes, omitting to specify that it was definitely more favorable to the highest incomes.
George W. Bush proposes to devote a good part of the budget surplus, fruit of this prosperity of the Nineties, with tax cuts : it is the centre piece of its electoral device.
Another part of the "kitty" would be used to refund the national debt and to refinance the social security, of which a part would be privatized.
The vice-president Al Gore, intends to carry out tax cuts much more modest, whose principal recipients would be the incomes of the middle class, and to devote the major part of the budget surplus to the refunding of the national debt and the reform of social security. Mr. Gore is presented thus in the form of a guard of the budgetary policy of discipline which, since 1993, became the creed of the American Democratic Party and which it very largely contributed to benefit president Clinton. It is this policy, affirm the Democrats, who, while allowing to reduce the public loan, opened the way with the fall in the interest rates and supported the economic growth : to change policy would be likely to call into question all the dynamics of the current boom. The program that Al Gore envisages, in addition, has roles and appropriations more significant for the federal State than that of Mr. Bush, in particular in the areas of health and the environment.
Paradoxically, it is the candidate of the opposition, George W. Bush, who makes his campaign on the topic of prosperity ( " prosperity with a goal " , proclaims one of its slogans) whereas the candidate of the outgoing team, Al Gore, has all the evil of the world to capitalize on the eight last years expansion. In Los Angeles where the democratic convention was held , Al Gore even created a surprise while launching out in a populist flight on the topic " they are for the powerful ones, we are for the people " .
Can one reasonably make a left-wing speech in a country which is the middle of an unprecedented economic boom? Yes, answers Karlyn Bowman, of American Enterprise Institute, if the objective of Al Gore were to mobilize the democratic base, which showed lately worrying signs of undulation. Because a disenchantment of the democratic traditional voters presents a double danger to Mr. Gore : that of the abstention the day from the vote and that of a transfer of those voices to Ralph Nader, the candidate supported by the Green party whose campaign is against large corporations. Mr. Nader gathers for the moment only 2 % to 5 % of the possible voters, according to the States and surveys', but in such an open election, a hundred thousand voices can make the difference.
A CLEAN PROGRESSIVE
Al Gore must at the same time differ himself from George W Bush and leave the shadow of Bill Clinton. To counter the smooth and " light " image of the governor of Texas, he reintroduced policy into the debate, being presented in the form of a defender of the " hard hit families " . To come out from under the shadow of Bill Clinton, he refuses to be satisfied with this assessment of its two mandates and proposes to go further. (? -- dolanh)
For the moment, the strategy seems to pay : the increase of Al Gore in the surveys is striking in the female vote, which had deserted him these last months. But outside of these famous independent voters, are the moderates supposed to decide final victory ? Can they be allured by attacks against " the large oil companies, the giants of the tobacco and the pharmaceutical groups " ? All depends on the reading which one makes of the new tone of Al Gore. " the details count more than rhetoric , underlines a Democratic New-York banker . If Al Gore promised 400 billion dollars for such federal program, 400 billion for such other, one could worry, but it is not the case. It is its vision which counts, and it is a centrist vision. " Sociologist at the university of Boston and specialist in the middle class, Alan Wolfe also notes that in spite of the tone each word of the speech " was carefully calculated to stick to the ideas of the democratic Party. There was for example no criticism of globalization " : Mr. Gore even reaffirmed his support for free trade.
It remains to Gore to adjust this rhetoric not to give reason for " W ", who accuses him of again starting " the war of the classes " . Because the mood of the country hardly lends itself to it : " There are few indices, in the studies of opinion, of resentment with regard to the rich person " , notes Karlyn Bowman. With this nuance, introduced by Alan Wolfe : " What shocks people, it is that the money can buy the legislators through the financing of the campaigns. In other words, nobody has anything against the rich being rich, but people find it fundamentally unjust that they use their wealth to buy politicians. There is a real movement in favour of the reform of the financing of the election campaigns " - reform whose Al Gore promised to make a priority.
Other axis of the redefinition of Al Gore : the stress laid at the convention on morality and family values . Contrary to George W Bush, Al Gore had an exemplary youth, married and father of very young family, engaged in Vietnam in spite of his doubts. And contrary to Bill Clinton, he will not make a extraprofessionnel use of the oval Office. Didn't the Lewinski business thus form part of the past ? " It is interesting , note Alan Wolfe, that Republican convention hid the leaders of impeachment, whereas the Democrats left Joe Lieberman " , famous for his criticism of presidential control. That confirms the double assessment of this episode : the Americans rebelled against the inquisitor role of the process of impeachment , but they inevitably did not forgive Bill Clinton to have put them in the embarrassment. In the same way, Joe Lieberman, running mate of Mr. Gore, is a very religious man, which flatters the mood of the country, but it belongs to a minority religion, which draws aside the threat of interference of the religion in the public life. Savage partisan of the right to the abortion, the non-discrimination, the rights of homosexual and the separation of the Church and the State, Al Gore thus remains a progressive. But a clean progressive.
Sylvie Kauffmann
Le Monde dated *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE *** du mardi 29 aoû t 2000
--sorry that the translation wasn't better, but my French is a bit rusty and Babelfish is even rustier:)
First of all, where are your citations? Yes, the article definitely had a leftist bias, but what gives you the right to denounce it as any more "propoganda" than anything else. At least it had the journalistic integrity to cite its sources, something I notice lacking in your criticism (though in all fairness, I shouldn't expect you to have the time to gather these sources for a/. post:)
Second of all, and more importantly, why does everyone in the United States expect some kind of political neutrality in the press? God knows every other country *admits* (and has for some time) the political bias of their media outlets! Most European countries have their libDem papers, their Conservative papers, their Green papers, and so on. For some reason we think this doesn't apply in the States -- that somehow papers (or sites for that matter) aren't "left" or "right" -- and that we have a right to "objective journalism". Wake up! In theory, everyone would have enough journalistic integrity to remain nonpartisan, in in the real world money and bias exist. The sooner we recognize this and choose our sources accordingly, the better. If you really want a non-partisan view, read at least two sources on the same subject. Otherwise, don't bother complaining; you're not going to change anyone's mind.
..is that they rate the Ericsson T-28 world the top phone in their "world phones" article as well as the top emitter in the cell phone emissions article!
Well, it seems that the product name either be a competely forgettable alphanumeric designation (STR-1011) or, more likely, something with four letters.
Actually, IIRC, carver mead was the guy talking about building a camera that split the image into three seperate CCDs, each one optimized to read a seperate color spectrum, using a prism. In this way you could theoretically have a 50.4 megapixel image.
Keep in mind that the D30 (prosumer) is not a direct competitor to the D1 (pro). Canon has hinted that they will bring out a pro-model (EOS 1 based) digital SLR shortly. Whether or not it is CCD or CMOS remains to be seen, but it would be a large embarrasment to them if it was anything but the latter.
The name of the game seems to be comparison shopping. Why hasn't anyone started a service on the web that, for a small fee (or advertising revenue) will find you the best possible price on the web (given your profile, which would be independently tracked by this service)? I know services like pricescan and streetprices are available, but they are limited and don't take advantage of any customization, the use by retailers of which people are freaking out about.
I think this "two-click" approach would work - one click for the best price, another to buy. It would hopefully end up being a web middleman that would be worth using if it consistently got you lower prices.
>But looking at the Wintel market, where Altivec and 128 bit register are unheard off, Speech Recognition software is much further ahead of anything available on the Mac
True, but I think that has more to do with the historical apple-version-lag than the usefulness of Altivec in speech recognition.
I looked for my thesis as well as those from people in my Masters program (UCL Linguistics - class of 1998) and couldn't find any of the titles or authors. Seems to be only a US thing; almost makes me glad I went to the UK for my degree:)
>The easy way around the Quark sniffer is to simply turn off file sharing as it uses Appletalk rather than TCP/IP to detect other copies (on a Mac of course)...
Which is great if you're *not* on a network where file sharing is needed. I guess you could all use cracked copies of DAVE or Hotline to share files to avoid it:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Dell's 14.1" screens are 1400x1050 by way of comparison.) "
e o/ati_radeon_32mb/ ) is offered as an option in cubes. It is also optional on all G4s, IIRC. They should offer the 64mb variants of both cards, as well as all other models and cards from other manufacturers, but I think Apple's relationship to nVidia is quite new and will take a little ramp up time, as well as their relationship to other vendors. Hopefully OSX's BSD underpinnings will make driver development a little easier and help expand the Mac hardware possibilities.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't offer the possiblity of higher resolution on their 15.2" display, but have you ever used a laptop display at 1280x960 or 1400x1050? Unless you have a magnifying glass handy, all I can say is 'why'?
"The fact that the Sony's puny 12.1" screen has the same vertical resolution as Apple's brings the matter of LCD quality a lot closer than "15.2 vs. 12.1" would seem to indicate"
In theory, i'd agree. In practice, no way. See above.
"a real video card isn't even an *option* on any iMac model, nor on the Cube)."
No option on the iMac, but then it's a stripper model. iMac users will probably be doing some light gaming, but I don't see 3d rendering in their daily activities. I'm pretty sure the Radeon (last I checked it performed respectably in tests (both 2d and 3d) and was considered a "real" competitive 3d video card -- a quote from the Sharky Extreme review: "Despite no longer boasting the fastest 3D on the market, the RADEON should not be scoffed at. Its superior video acceleration, crisp 2D quality, and an aggressively competitive price further add to a sweet slice of 3D gaming pie. " -- see here the aforementioned review: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/reviews/vid
Don't get me wrong -- i agree with a lot of what you say. It's not hard to see that most Macs are overpriced for what they're offering under the hood. You could make the same argument for most "luxury items".
"Even if there were a good way to compare performance across the two platforms" pretty much kills the idea of straight performance comparisons. There are plenty more reasons but i'm sure we don't have to elaborate on that.
It's not really fair to compare street pricing of a PC notebook to retail pricing of a yet unreleased product. Try it again when the PB has been out for a month or two (though by my guess it will take a while for the price to drop).
Also, as another poster pointed out, LCDs are very expensive, so the 12.1" vs 15.2" difference is not a small one in manufacturing costs, nor is usability (at least in my experience using notebook screens). Unfortunately, it seems there are very few 1" thick full featured, full screen laptops running around to compare the PB to. With the advent of the mobile Duron (you were complaining about Intel cornering the market) that might start to change.
BTW, the current video card in all but the base G4s is a 32mb GeForce2 w/ an optional Radeon.
PS. I use a P3 at work and an Athlon at home, in case you were wondering.
"Apple *will* somehow have to address the price performance issue if they want to gouge market share out of others. But they can keep their core advantages (enumerated above) and keep their core customre base, maybe even grow a little. "
Witness the Powerbook G4. A lot of people think it's a loss leader...
"Apple has constantly been behind the times in I/O standards"
What? First to *use* USB (not just put it on the board). First to use Firewire. Using 32bit Nubus when PCs where using ISA slots. Yes, in some ways they're late, but in others they're way ahead.
The "laughably inferior video card" may be so for FPS, but actually performs quite well for graphic artists. Makes me wonder why they specced it.
BTW, the only decent 802.11 system out there that can hold a candle to the AirPort system is the Lucent Orinoco system, which is slightly more expensive and a lot harder to set up.
"Mac has been approximately a year behind in adopting most mainstream PC standards"
How many makers right now are putting out machines with DDR RAM? Last I checked, not many. Sure they're ramping up, but Apple would be stupid (and possibly insane) to be on the top of the curve for every trend. Their machines would be even more overpriced and they could end up with a Rambus/Intel fiasco on their hands if they made the wrong choice. Better to let someone like Intel make that mistake and fight the battles worth fighting (i.e the ones pretty much won already like USB, firewire)
One final word re: price/performance -- find a notebook that can compete in that area with the new powerbook. Good luck.
According to the grapevine, Apple retail stores should start opening up soon. I'm surprised no announcements were made at MacWorld SF. Apparently one will be in downtown Palo Alto.
No better way to sell a sequestered OS and hardware to sequestered customers than through a sequestered store (read: no competition).
"You could take a train from any where on the planet to anywhere else"
:)
Well, you're forgetting Australia
You could, but it would still take damn near forever, even if it was high speed. Do you have any idea how FAR most populous centers in the US are from those in Europe, going by way of the Bering strait? I once drove from California to the Queen Charlotte Islands and I started to get an idea...
This thing would only be worthwhile for commercial shipping or military purposes.
"by the fan's, for the fan's" what?
Obviously the apostrobphe has taken on new meaning since I last used it.
Whats up folk's!
There, now I have it right...
My wife and I visited the Annapolis power facility about a month ago during our vacation. Just to add to the comment:
:)
They'll give you a tour if you ask nicely, though it's warm down there. You can see the turbine and the gates, plus a lot of expensive looking old-school computer equipment that wouldn't be out of place in an early bond movie. The turbine was made in Switzerland, and is the largest of its kind (i seem to remember). It only generates power in one direction.
There are at least two other stations like this one -- one in france with multiple smaller turbines and one in china. I also heard about a Norwegian station that used the air blown through a bore in a cliff next to the ocean to drive a turbine -- interesting idea.
If you want to really feel the bay of fundy's tides, go "brownwater" rafting down the Shubenacadie river. 10 foot tidal waves. Gotta love em.
Finally, all you Silicon Valley types (like me), Nova Scotia is an amazing place to visit (and you'll drool at the housing prices
People listen to $the bottom line$ before anything else, so discourage them financially, and they'll listen immediately.
If you think enough about the aforementioned "sin taxes", in most cases there is a social cost involved (second hand smoke, drunk driving); the "sin taxes" help cover the cost of dealing with these problems without out and out criminalizing rightfully non-criminal activities.
Now, as to how these social costs are dealt with, that's another story....
Because the last time we thought of bouncing probes, it was to kill eachother and blow up things...
http://ravecentral.com/dambusters.html
Just for a laugh, i'm going to post a "babelfished" article from "Le Monde" (the largest circulation French newspaper). Perhaps the viewpoint of an international source would be interesting. I made a few corrections in the name of readability, and if you doubt that the original link is: http://www.lemonde.fr/article /0, 2320,89273,00.html
:)
and you can run it thru babelfish yourself and compare.
Here goes:
Gore counters Bush, a true choice
Updated Monday August 28 2000
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The two principal candidates of the American presidential election of November 7, the republican George W Bush and the democrat Albert Gore, are, at the current moment, more or less equal in the surveys taken at the end of conventions of their respective parties; they both come out of it reinforced, more definite and more combative, ready for the long autumn stretch, which is the final playing field. In the two camps, one envisages a very tight election and no judicious political expert risks a forecast. For the voters, the landscape was cleared up considerably : they have in front of them a true choice. A choice, initially, between two men of the same generation, both sons of political leaders and of a centrist leaning but with the basically different personality. A choice, especially, between two visions of prosperity and of how to get there.
In Philadelphia, George W Bush, governor of Texas, made the republican convention swallow his " conservatism of the compassion " , a sort of human right which, while granting to richest a privileged role, does not want to leave anybody stranded.
In this vision, the role of the State inevitably is very limited since it is not him but the private sector which is at the origin of the longest cycle of growth of the American history ; in other words the private sector will make it possible not to neglect anybody, through the promotion of private teaching and the devotion of caritatives and religious works. All the aspiring members of the republican party were gelled together in Philadelphia to emphasize this message of optimism and fraternity ; the right wing faction was hidden and Mr. Bush succeeded in low presenting his plan of tax reductions like a plan favorable to the incomes, omitting to specify that it was definitely more favorable to the highest incomes.
George W. Bush proposes to devote a good part of the budget surplus, fruit of this prosperity of the Nineties, with tax cuts : it is the centre piece of its electoral device.
Another part of the "kitty" would be used to refund the national debt and to refinance the social security, of which a part would be privatized.
The vice-president Al Gore, intends to carry out tax cuts much more modest, whose principal recipients would be the incomes of the middle class, and to devote the major part of the budget surplus to the refunding of the national debt and the reform of social security. Mr. Gore is presented thus in the form of a guard of the budgetary policy of discipline which, since 1993, became the creed of the American Democratic Party and which it very largely contributed to benefit president Clinton. It is this policy, affirm the Democrats, who, while allowing to reduce the public loan, opened the way with the fall in the interest rates and supported the economic growth : to change policy would be likely to call into question all the dynamics of the current boom. The program that Al Gore envisages, in addition, has roles and appropriations more significant for the federal State than that of Mr. Bush, in particular in the areas of health and the environment.
Paradoxically, it is the candidate of the opposition, George W. Bush, who makes his campaign on the topic of prosperity ( " prosperity with a goal " , proclaims one of its slogans) whereas the candidate of the outgoing team, Al Gore, has all the evil of the world to capitalize on the eight last years expansion. In Los Angeles where the democratic convention was held , Al Gore even created a surprise while launching out in a populist flight on the topic " they are for the powerful ones, we are for the people " .
Can one reasonably make a left-wing speech in a country which is the middle of an unprecedented economic boom? Yes, answers Karlyn Bowman, of American Enterprise Institute, if the objective of Al Gore were to mobilize the democratic base, which showed lately worrying signs of undulation. Because a disenchantment of the democratic traditional voters presents a double danger to Mr. Gore : that of the abstention the day from the vote and that of a transfer of those voices to Ralph Nader, the candidate supported by the Green party whose campaign is against large corporations. Mr. Nader gathers for the moment only 2 % to 5 % of the possible voters, according to the States and surveys', but in such an open election, a hundred thousand voices can make the difference.
A CLEAN PROGRESSIVE
Al Gore must at the same time differ himself from George W Bush and leave the shadow of Bill Clinton. To counter the smooth and " light " image of the governor of Texas, he reintroduced policy into the debate, being presented in the form of a defender of the " hard hit families " . To come out from under the shadow of Bill Clinton, he refuses to be satisfied with this assessment of its two mandates and proposes to go further. (? -- dolanh)
For the moment, the strategy seems to pay : the increase of Al Gore in the surveys is striking in the female vote, which had deserted him these last months. But outside of these famous independent voters, are the moderates supposed to decide final victory ? Can they be allured by attacks against " the large oil companies, the giants of the tobacco and the pharmaceutical groups " ? All depends on the reading which one makes of the new tone of Al Gore. " the details count more than rhetoric , underlines a Democratic New-York banker . If Al Gore promised 400 billion dollars for such federal program, 400 billion for such other, one could worry, but it is not the case. It is its vision which counts, and it is a centrist vision. " Sociologist at the university of Boston and specialist in the middle class, Alan Wolfe also notes that in spite of the tone each word of the speech " was carefully calculated to stick to the ideas of the democratic Party. There was for example no criticism of globalization " : Mr. Gore even reaffirmed his support for free trade.
It remains to Gore to adjust this rhetoric not to give reason for " W ", who accuses him of again starting " the war of the classes " . Because the mood of the country hardly lends itself to it : " There are few indices, in the studies of opinion, of resentment with regard to the rich person " , notes Karlyn Bowman. With this nuance, introduced by Alan Wolfe : " What shocks people, it is that the money can buy the legislators through the financing of the campaigns. In other words, nobody has anything against the rich being rich, but people find it fundamentally unjust that they use their wealth to buy politicians. There is a real movement in favour of the reform of the financing of the election campaigns " - reform whose Al Gore promised to make a priority.
Other axis of the redefinition of Al Gore : the stress laid at the convention on morality and family values . Contrary to George W Bush, Al Gore had an exemplary youth, married and father of very young family, engaged in Vietnam in spite of his doubts. And contrary to Bill Clinton, he will not make a extraprofessionnel use of the oval Office. Didn't the Lewinski business thus form part of the past ? " It is interesting , note Alan Wolfe, that Republican convention hid the leaders of impeachment, whereas the Democrats left Joe Lieberman " , famous for his criticism of presidential control. That confirms the double assessment of this episode : the Americans rebelled against the inquisitor role of the process of impeachment , but they inevitably did not forgive Bill Clinton to have put them in the embarrassment. In the same way, Joe Lieberman, running mate of Mr. Gore, is a very religious man, which flatters the mood of the country, but it belongs to a minority religion, which draws aside the threat of interference of the religion in the public life. Savage partisan of the right to the abortion, the non-discrimination, the rights of homosexual and the separation of the Church and the State, Al Gore thus remains a progressive. But a clean progressive.
Sylvie Kauffmann
Le Monde dated *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE *** du mardi 29 aoû t 2000
--sorry that the translation wasn't better, but my French is a bit rusty and Babelfish is even rustier
did you read *any* of the article that this post talks about?
7 208&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/19/144
You're proving the author absolutely correct by perpetuating your "facts". Where are your sources, praytell?
http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.as p
Ask MSN where they got the quote from.
BTW, arguing that the press is left or right is like arguing Yin OR Yang. You figure it out.
First of all, where are your citations? Yes, the article definitely had a leftist bias, but what gives you the right to denounce it as any more "propoganda" than anything else. At least it had the journalistic integrity to cite its sources, something I notice lacking in your criticism (though in all fairness, I shouldn't expect you to have the time to gather these sources for a /. post :)
Second of all, and more importantly, why does everyone in the United States expect some kind of political neutrality in the press? God knows every other country *admits* (and has for some time) the political bias of their media outlets! Most European countries have their libDem papers, their Conservative papers, their Green papers, and so on. For some reason we think this doesn't apply in the States -- that somehow papers (or sites for that matter) aren't "left" or "right" -- and that we have a right to "objective journalism". Wake up! In theory, everyone would have enough journalistic integrity to remain nonpartisan, in in the real world money and bias exist. The sooner we recognize this and choose our sources accordingly, the better. If you really want a non-partisan view, read at least two sources on the same subject. Otherwise, don't bother complaining; you're not going to change anyone's mind.
..is that they rate the Ericsson T-28 world the top phone in their "world phones" article as well as the top emitter in the cell phone emissions article!
That's the model of my stereo receiver. :)
Guess it wasn't so forgettable after all.
Well, it seems that the product name either be a competely forgettable alphanumeric designation (STR-1011) or, more likely, something with four letters.
I can guess three of them -- "a", "i", and "o"
:)
Jules Verne predicted submarines and fax machines, among other things...
Actually, IIRC, carver mead was the guy talking about building a camera that split the image into three seperate CCDs, each one optimized to read a seperate color spectrum, using a prism. In this way you could theoretically have a 50.4 megapixel image.
according to today's DP review, the Euro prices for the D30 are more like $2500 (I say, as I eye my checking account)... :)
Keep in mind that the D30 (prosumer) is not a direct competitor to the D1 (pro). Canon has hinted that they will bring out a pro-model (EOS 1 based) digital SLR shortly. Whether or not it is CCD or CMOS remains to be seen, but it would be a large embarrasment to them if it was anything but the latter.
The name of the game seems to be comparison shopping. Why hasn't anyone started a service on the web that, for a small fee (or advertising revenue) will find you the best possible price on the web (given your profile, which would be independently tracked by this service)? I know services like pricescan and streetprices are available, but they are limited and don't take advantage of any customization, the use by retailers of which people are freaking out about.
I think this "two-click" approach would work - one click for the best price, another to buy. It would hopefully end up being a web middleman that would be worth using if it consistently got you lower prices.
>But looking at the Wintel market, where Altivec and 128 bit register are unheard off, Speech Recognition software is much further ahead of anything available on the Mac
True, but I think that has more to do with the historical apple-version-lag than the usefulness of Altivec in speech recognition.
I looked for my thesis as well as those from people in my Masters program (UCL Linguistics - class of 1998) and couldn't find any of the titles or authors. Seems to be only a US thing; almost makes me glad I went to the UK for my degree :)
>The easy way around the Quark sniffer is to simply turn off file sharing as it uses Appletalk rather than TCP/IP to detect other copies (on a Mac of course)...
:)
Which is great if you're *not* on a network where file sharing is needed. I guess you could all use cracked copies of DAVE or Hotline to share files to avoid it