Depends on where you get your "end-user experiences" from. There are many marketing companies that sell "internet marketing plans" to their customers, complete with fake-or-sponsored "fansites" (particularly true in the video gaming industry, I heard), positive posts about products in random forums / newsgroups, etc...
I personally believe Apple used this tactic here on slashdot. Some time ago (I'd say 2003-2004), lots and lots and lots of posters started raving about how the Powerbook was teh l33t machine, how OS X rocked, how they had bought a Mac or were about to do so, how it was rock solid, etc... While most of these posts are probably authentic (I am myself the happy owner of a powerbook), the sudden avalanche of rave reviews just seemed too awkward, particularly on a website whose readership comprises mostly of linux users and X86 tinkerers.
It would be interesting to run some stats on Slashdot posts: number of times the term "Powerbook" is used in discussions for instance, range of originating IPs, number of posters, etc...
Well, given the fact drivers love to park or drive on bicycle and bus lanes (not even counting scooter-riding-assholes often using these lanes on the opposite direction) I have to shout random insults pretty often.
That's the Parisian style, unfortunately: everybody is an asshole, so you have to be one if you want to fit in.
(oh and in reply to that other post: no, I do not smoke! Not even pot...)
Car fuel is just a part (a big one, but not 100%) of the oil business. Power plants, trains, planes, trucks, house heating, plastics, chemistry, etc, all rely deeply on oil & its differents derivatives.
I'd love to see the combustion engine go away though (I bike in Paris, and I'm afraid I'm inflicting severe damage to my lungs).
1. Replace titanium foil with tin foil (evidently cheaper) 2. Make hat out of it (for charging mobile devices) 3. In Soviet Russia, step 3 questions YOU !!!!! 4. Profit!:D
No, wait, you don't understand what AFP is: it is a news provider, like Reuters, they don't really care if people go to their website or not, it is completely marginal in their business. Their job is to sell news (pictures / text) to other media (newspapers, radios, websites etc), which can then use it directly (reprint it) or use it as a basis for more complete, analytical articles.
So AFP does not really care how much coverage their content gets for free, in fact it is threatening as it "devaluates" the content: now anybody (and more importantly, any media) can have access to most of AFP's content minutes after it is broadcast, without paying for the (probably huge) monthly bill newspapers pay to AFP. (medias pay to get the right to access to AFP's network, through specific software and servers).
The fact is that Google is indexing and displaying that content without paying for it. But Google can (rightfully) argue that they are only indexing other websites (ie the newspapers who have paid for AFP content and displaying it as is on their own websites), and that therefore they're not violating any copyright law. But in the eyes of AFP, Google is using their content in an original form, displaying it on their own website, with their own layout.
I'm currently working on a mod I call the iFlush which uses the mini to automate the process for toilet flushing.
Man now that's fucked up!
El Ganzo Loco
CUPERTINO, California--February 11, 2005--Apple® announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a two-for-one split of the Company's common stock and a proportional increase in the number of Apple common shares authorized from 900 million to 1.8 billion.
About 2-3 years ago I almost convinced myself that I should buy Apple stock. At that time, each share cost about 16 bucks...
I didn't buy any, thinking that I was maybe being a victim of St. Steve Job's reality distortion field (I'm as big an Apple fan as you can get) and that maybe the stock would plunge. After all, we were stuck with that damn G4. (And it kinda feels strange to buy stock when you're still in high school.)
Then iTunes Music store came out of nowhere. The stock litteraly exploded. Still didn't buy, thinking "economics 101: buying when high (the price, not me;) is plain stupid". Then the stock exploded again with the iMac G5's introduction. Still didn't buy, for the exact same reason.
Now the stock is at 81 dollars, that's a 65 $ increase per share, damnit. And yaknowhat? I still won't buy, cause I really don't see how it would rise again?! Maybe if Apple announces OS X for PC (see "Fortune" article). Maybe if they sell half a billion mac minis. Maybe if someone finds out that the iPod shuffle solves cancer, AIDS and world hunger. Maybe.
Anyways, it sort of confirms what I always thought about stock markets: those fucking "analysts" are on crack all the time. I mean, that Apple stock was vastly underrated three years ago. Now it's completely overrated, Apple is in good shape and all, but it's simply not that worth! There's no way in hell Apple is worth 72,9 BILLION dollars (900 million shares @ 81 dollars. I know, I'm vastly oversimplifying, but still...)
I used to configure / repair PCs for college pals, + did some "emergency hotline" (that all-important paper for tomorrow they can't print...)
I stopped a few monthes ago: some "friends" would only call me whenever they had a computer problem. I got tired of the hypocrisy and stopped seeing them.
I make one exception: people new to the mac and that want some advice on how to use it / configure it. It's painless, and useful (once it's setup it'll basically work forever).
On the other hand, my part-time job mostly consists in typing word docs / powerpoints / managing email and excel lists & charts. I charge 20 euros (about 25-30 USD) an hour.
If the concept is so simple to explain (and it is, because you just did it), why was that explanation not included in the article? Instead, they introduce this "folksonomies" term, give an eight-word definition that includes two terms (bottom-up and taxonomies) which need further explanation to put them in the proper context, and expect everybody to understand what's being talked about.
It's called "wanting to be hip, even if noone else understands what I say".
When Apple introduced iMovie some "expert" (read : moron) on french TV started bashing Apple's rep for "not seeing that the future was network computers and the internet" (or something along these lines)......To which the rep replied that 5 minutes of DV video weighted about 1 gigabyte, and that therefore, centralized computing (with application + data + processing power on a same computer) would still be the way to go for home users, until some ISP came up with really (as in really) fast connections.
With music, pictures (with 7 megapixels consumer cameras, fear the gigabytes!), and video -> consumers actually use their disk space more intensively (percentagewise) than 10 years ago. It's easier to fill 100 gigs now than it was to fill 1 GB 10 years ago (and 100 gigs now are cheaper than a gig 10 years ago)
You could keep the data locally and rely on remote apps but... what's the point? Also, applications like the Office Suite, iDVD or 3D games easily weight in the gigabytes, so there still will be a dataweight hurdle.
The article (I RTFA'ed!) makes a comparison with online music, (comparing Microsoft to the RIAA in that it would resist the change). But his own comparison shows how his prediction fails: decentralized music (pay-for-streaming, jukebox-on-the-web) has failed, and the commercial (iTunes Music store) and non-commercial (Kazaa & al) services that succeed are the ones which allow to keep the data on YOUR hard drive to do whatever YOU want with it.
Privacy also comes to mind. Nobody would be sane enough to store everything including their sensitive data on some ISP's server. Totally unacceptable for businesses and people working from home, and anybody at least half-concerned about their privacy.
And I would point out that hardware has become so cheap (processing, but also hard drive, optical storage etc) that I don't see one reason to rely on some remote server to store everything. It is also not entirely true that users "don't want to be sysadmins". People are more and more knowledgeable about computers, and computers are easier and easier to use. Mac OS X is brainless-easy, Windows XP is not hard to figure out (though not actually enjoyable to use). Linux tries hard (last tried was mandrake 9) and will one day attain the long-sought nOOb-ready status.
According to the article, the main reason why users would want to be remotely admined is security concerns and virii - trojans. Hell, Microsoft couldn't make a safe OS - do you really think an ISP will be able to provide one that is more secure? (even if it's linux-based, they will totally fuck up the implementation and the protocols. You just know it. We're talking about ISP's after all)
And the security hell we are experiencing now is with only relatively few services relying on internet -email, internet, kazaa, whatever- so imagine what it would be when you rely on the web for every single thing -opening a document, launching an app, etc. Expect the number of virii exploiting poorly secured connections to grow ten-fold. Some superhacker could even reroute the users' PC to a server controlled by him, pretending to be the ISP.
Well, whatever. The PC is popular because it is what it is: a machine you have complete control over, with any app you want on it (and not just the apps your ISP decided you might get). He states that in a world of remote-everything, there is no "lock-in" - mainly because there is no more Microsoft. Well, I for one wouldn't trust ISPs, the most restrictive bitches ever (just read the EULAs of most of them) to give me a world "without lock in". One ISP. One set of applications. One mail adress. One chat program. Proprietary, ISP-specific file formats. No Kazaa or bitorrent.
(And what happens when you decide to change ISP? You lose all your data? - do they charge you an arm and a leg to send the data to your new ISP of choice?)
Okay, I totally agree with you and I'm definitely not telling that anyone rigged this election (and I'm not even american, so I could care less), but here is the question that I can't keep asking myself:
With systems such as the Diebold machines, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CHECK IF THERE WAS, OR WASN'T, A FRAUD?
Look, I can think of many, many ways to scam that kind of system. Just add 50 votes for one of the candidates in each diebold machines (more than 46 000 used in this election) and you've just added 2,300,000 votes to that candidate.
These votes could be added prior to the election (database starts with 50 votes built-in), added randomly during the election process, or manually added later (it's a fsking Microsoft Access database), or when the machine "phones home" to send the results.
This is double-edged: on one hand, nobody will ever be able to prove that there was a fraud. But on the other hand, nobody will ever be able to prove that there was NO fraud either. How are you supposed to get a recount? The database will give you the same result over and over again... What's best is, all the counties who bought Diebold machines signed a deal with Diebold stating that in case of a recount, the county officials won't be able to even touch the machine, and Diebold staff will be responsible for "recounting"
So get ready for 20+ years of consipracy theories claiming that bush stole the election: nobody will EVER be able to prove the tinfoil-hat-and-not-so-tinfoil-hats theories wrong. It's funny when it's about Roswell and the moon landings; much less when it's about the American presidential election.
Then they should do it all the way and and add the possibility to read Keynote and Powerpoint files on the iPod (I could export my Keynote to jpg and project these, but then I lose the animations + the soundtrack, and it's an unelegant solution).
Slashdot Mirror
Forget functionality or general benefit to the user - profit, not excellence, is what drives things.
As much as I hate to say this...: Welcome to the real world!
Ah, but the phone operators would probably be too happy to charge you in some fashion to download the antivirus updates. Too tempting to resist :)
Depends on where you get your "end-user experiences" from. There are many marketing companies that sell "internet marketing plans" to their customers, complete with fake-or-sponsored "fansites" (particularly true in the video gaming industry, I heard), positive posts about products in random forums / newsgroups, etc...
I personally believe Apple used this tactic here on slashdot. Some time ago (I'd say 2003-2004), lots and lots and lots of posters started raving about how the Powerbook was teh l33t machine, how OS X rocked, how they had bought a Mac or were about to do so, how it was rock solid, etc... While most of these posts are probably authentic (I am myself the happy owner of a powerbook), the sudden avalanche of rave reviews just seemed too awkward, particularly on a website whose readership comprises mostly of linux users and X86 tinkerers.
It would be interesting to run some stats on Slashdot posts: number of times the term "Powerbook" is used in discussions for instance, range of originating IPs, number of posters, etc...
Nerdiest. Ask. Slashdot. Ever.
(and most scary too)
Well, given the fact drivers love to park or drive on bicycle and bus lanes (not even counting scooter-riding-assholes often using these lanes on the opposite direction) I have to shout random insults pretty often.
That's the Parisian style, unfortunately: everybody is an asshole, so you have to be one if you want to fit in.
(oh and in reply to that other post: no, I do not smoke! Not even pot...)
Car fuel is just a part (a big one, but not 100%) of the oil business. Power plants, trains, planes, trucks, house heating, plastics, chemistry, etc, all rely deeply on oil & its differents derivatives.
I'd love to see the combustion engine go away though (I bike in Paris, and I'm afraid I'm inflicting severe damage to my lungs).
Next logical developments for this:
:D
1. Replace titanium foil with tin foil (evidently cheaper)
2. Make hat out of it (for charging mobile devices)
3. In Soviet Russia, step 3 questions YOU !!!!!
4. Profit!
No, wait, you don't understand what AFP is: it is a news provider, like Reuters, they don't really care if people go to their website or not, it is completely marginal in their business. Their job is to sell news (pictures / text) to other media (newspapers, radios, websites etc), which can then use it directly (reprint it) or use it as a basis for more complete, analytical articles.
So AFP does not really care how much coverage their content gets for free, in fact it is threatening as it "devaluates" the content: now anybody (and more importantly, any media) can have access to most of AFP's content minutes after it is broadcast, without paying for the (probably huge) monthly bill newspapers pay to AFP. (medias pay to get the right to access to AFP's network, through specific software and servers).
The fact is that Google is indexing and displaying that content without paying for it. But Google can (rightfully) argue that they are only indexing other websites (ie the newspapers who have paid for AFP content and displaying it as is on their own websites), and that therefore they're not violating any copyright law. But in the eyes of AFP, Google is using their content in an original form, displaying it on their own website, with their own layout.
So both companies have mostly valid arguments.
Over a million zombie PCs
not
Over a zillion mombie PCs!
I came to a slightly different conclusion: Maybe they feel "cornered"... Alas, I think your interpretation is probably more accurate :(
Exchanged my "Windtunnel" Powermac G4 for a powerbook 12" last week.
:)
SO QUIET ! SO DAMN SMALL! SO DAMN CUTE!
El Ganzo Loco
I'm currently working on a mod I call the iFlush which uses the mini to automate the process for toilet flushing. Man now that's fucked up! El Ganzo Loco
No, no, there already are 900 million Apple shares on the market right now. After the split, there will be 1,8 billion shares.
Apple Announcement:
CUPERTINO, California--February 11, 2005--Apple® announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a two-for-one split of the Company's common stock and a proportional increase in the number of Apple common shares authorized from 900 million to 1.8 billion.
(IANASME: I Am Not A Stock Market Expert)
About 2-3 years ago I almost convinced myself that I should buy Apple stock. At that time, each share cost about 16 bucks...
I didn't buy any, thinking that I was maybe being a victim of St. Steve Job's reality distortion field (I'm as big an Apple fan as you can get) and that maybe the stock would plunge. After all, we were stuck with that damn G4. (And it kinda feels strange to buy stock when you're still in high school.)
Then iTunes Music store came out of nowhere. The stock litteraly exploded. Still didn't buy, thinking "economics 101: buying when high (the price, not me
Now the stock is at 81 dollars, that's a 65 $ increase per share, damnit. And yaknowhat? I still won't buy, cause I really don't see how it would rise again?! Maybe if Apple announces OS X for PC (see "Fortune" article). Maybe if they sell half a billion mac minis. Maybe if someone finds out that the iPod shuffle solves cancer, AIDS and world hunger. Maybe.
Anyways, it sort of confirms what I always thought about stock markets: those fucking "analysts" are on crack all the time. I mean, that Apple stock was vastly underrated three years ago. Now it's completely overrated, Apple is in good shape and all, but it's simply not that worth! There's no way in hell Apple is worth 72,9 BILLION dollars (900 million shares @ 81 dollars. I know, I'm vastly oversimplifying, but still...)
Quit posting on slashdot on company time? (Argh! I was just kiddiiiiing!! ;) )
I used to configure / repair PCs for college pals, + did some "emergency hotline" (that all-important paper for tomorrow they can't print...)
I stopped a few monthes ago: some "friends" would only call me whenever they had a computer problem. I got tired of the hypocrisy and stopped seeing them.
I make one exception: people new to the mac and that want some advice on how to use it / configure it. It's painless, and useful (once it's setup it'll basically work forever).
On the other hand, my part-time job mostly consists in typing word docs / powerpoints / managing email and excel lists & charts. I charge 20 euros (about 25-30 USD) an hour.
If the concept is so simple to explain (and it is, because you just did it), why was that explanation not included in the article? Instead, they introduce this "folksonomies" term, give an eight-word definition that includes two terms (bottom-up and taxonomies) which need further explanation to put them in the proper context, and expect everybody to understand what's being talked about.
It's called "wanting to be hip, even if noone else understands what I say".
When Apple introduced iMovie some "expert" (read : moron) on french TV started bashing Apple's rep for "not seeing that the future was network computers and the internet" (or something along these lines)...
With music, pictures (with 7 megapixels consumer cameras, fear the gigabytes!), and video -> consumers actually use their disk space more intensively (percentagewise) than 10 years ago. It's easier to fill 100 gigs now than it was to fill 1 GB 10 years ago (and 100 gigs now are cheaper than a gig 10 years ago)
You could keep the data locally and rely on remote apps but... what's the point? Also, applications like the Office Suite, iDVD or 3D games easily weight in the gigabytes, so there still will be a dataweight hurdle.
The article (I RTFA'ed!) makes a comparison with online music, (comparing Microsoft to the RIAA in that it would resist the change). But his own comparison shows how his prediction fails: decentralized music (pay-for-streaming, jukebox-on-the-web) has failed, and the commercial (iTunes Music store) and non-commercial (Kazaa & al) services that succeed are the ones which allow to keep the data on YOUR hard drive to do whatever YOU want with it.
Privacy also comes to mind. Nobody would be sane enough to store everything including their sensitive data on some ISP's server. Totally unacceptable for businesses and people working from home, and anybody at least half-concerned about their privacy.
And I would point out that hardware has become so cheap (processing, but also hard drive, optical storage etc) that I don't see one reason to rely on some remote server to store everything.
It is also not entirely true that users "don't want to be sysadmins". People are more and more knowledgeable about computers, and computers are easier and easier to use. Mac OS X is brainless-easy, Windows XP is not hard to figure out (though not actually enjoyable to use). Linux tries hard (last tried was mandrake 9) and will one day attain the long-sought nOOb-ready status.
According to the article, the main reason why users would want to be remotely admined is security concerns and virii - trojans. Hell, Microsoft couldn't make a safe OS - do you really think an ISP will be able to provide one that is more secure? (even if it's linux-based, they will totally fuck up the implementation and the protocols. You just know it. We're talking about ISP's after all)
And the security hell we are experiencing now is with only relatively few services relying on internet -email, internet, kazaa, whatever- so imagine what it would be when you rely on the web for every single thing -opening a document, launching an app, etc. Expect the number of virii exploiting poorly secured connections to grow ten-fold. Some superhacker could even reroute the users' PC to a server controlled by him, pretending to be the ISP.
Well, whatever. The PC is popular because it is what it is: a machine you have complete control over, with any app you want on it (and not just the apps your ISP decided you might get). He states that in a world of remote-everything, there is no "lock-in" - mainly because there is no more Microsoft. Well, I for one wouldn't trust ISPs, the most restrictive bitches ever (just read the EULAs of most of them) to give me a world "without lock in". One ISP. One set of applications. One mail adress. One chat program. Proprietary, ISP-specific file formats. No Kazaa or bitorrent.
(And what happens when you decide to change ISP? You lose all your data? - do they charge you an arm and a leg to send the data to your new ISP of choice?)
They're a business that is out to make money. Never forget that about any company. Even Apple.
Right on. That's what I always say about Apple, when someone tells me how "we only have friends at Apple, right?":
"We might only have friends at Apple, but they only have customers"
(dislaimer yada yada typed on powermac yada yada OS X rocks yada yada)
So what happens when you accidently cross the link between 2 receivers?
Does your head blow up (buffer overflow!) or something?
Link?
Okay, I totally agree with you and I'm definitely not telling that anyone rigged this election (and I'm not even american, so I could care less), but here is the question that I can't keep asking myself:
With systems such as the Diebold machines, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CHECK IF THERE WAS, OR WASN'T, A FRAUD?
Look, I can think of many, many ways to scam that kind of system. Just add 50 votes for one of the candidates in each diebold machines (more than 46 000 used in this election) and you've just added 2,300,000 votes to that candidate.
These votes could be added prior to the election (database starts with 50 votes built-in), added randomly during the election process, or manually added later (it's a fsking Microsoft Access database), or when the machine "phones home" to send the results.
This is double-edged: on one hand, nobody will ever be able to prove that there was a fraud. But on the other hand, nobody will ever be able to prove that there was NO fraud either. How are you supposed to get a recount? The database will give you the same result over and over again... What's best is, all the counties who bought Diebold machines signed a deal with Diebold stating that in case of a recount, the county officials won't be able to even touch the machine, and Diebold staff will be responsible for "recounting"
So get ready for 20+ years of consipracy theories claiming that bush stole the election: nobody will EVER be able to prove the tinfoil-hat-and-not-so-tinfoil-hats theories wrong. It's funny when it's about Roswell and the moon landings; much less when it's about the American presidential election.
Then they should do it all the way and and add the possibility to read Keynote and Powerpoint files on the iPod (I could export my Keynote to jpg and project these, but then I lose the animations + the soundtrack, and it's an unelegant solution).
We really, really need a "-1; Bullshit" moderation option.
Chinese soldiers in Mexico?! Haha!
Just for information: Carrara 3 has a similar renderer, which is quite customizable and gives you extremely good results