Given that I owed one of those early iPods, and you didn't, my recollection is far better than yours.
Apple didn't have to be "bludgeoned" into releasing a Windows iPod. They released the first generation as a Mac peripheral, then once they saw how successful it was, they released the second generation for Windows as well, a mere 9 months after the first generation was launched. That's far from being bludgeoned. In fact the general response was one of surprise when the Windows iPod came out.
You also seem to forget moving into the mp3 arena was outside apples core competency as well.
On the contrary, I said it wasn't impossible for Google, but the odds are against them. Yes Apple did get into a new competency, but in most cases where companies try it, they fail. That's what makes it odds against. Google themselves, even in server based software, which is far closer to their competency, fails most of the time. See all the products which are in long term "beta" status, before being dropped a few years later. e.g. Their "Google Wave" attempt at entry into the groupware market.
Well, I did buy a Mac at what I consider to be a reasonable price. I've had cheaper computers and I've had more expensive computers - but I've never had a better computer.
I can honestly say that it's been 4 years since there was any software I've wanted to run that was Windows only. It was the development system for the Propeller SoC. These days there is a Mac development system for it too. I've had no desire to run anything on Windows since. I know because I've kept an old PC hanging around just in case, and it's not been switched on in years.
As for Linux, there's never been a single piece of software I've wanted to run that's Linux only.
If I'd bought a PC, then, like you, I'd have been pissed off about Mac software I couldn't run. So that makes the Mac a very worthwhile purchase.:-)
There's no such thing as "less-is-more branding". Less is more is an attribute of good design. Brand is an assurance of quality.
Actually the iPod did far more. It had an ecosystem that included software on the PC to manage and sync music files, and soon after to purchase, download and sync to the MP3 player with minimal user intervention. That's all far more than simply mounting the MP3 player as a drive, and leaving the file management as a task for the user to do.
The "less" involved was less for the user to have to do. Less for the user to worry about. That, together with the attractive industrial design were reasons for the iPod to take off. People bought it despite it's higher cost because it was a better value proposition.
Now of course Apple has a brand that assures people of a high quality product. But that brand was (re)made largely by the iPod (after the nadir of the brand in the 1990s.)
As to Google, they have a quality brand in search, for largely the same reasons - they do a lot of quality engineering behind the scenes, but put it behind a simple to use but quality user interface.
But their brand doesn't transfer too well to most other things they do. Except perhaps email. Certainly not to hardware. They'd have to extend the brand into that market. It's not impossible, but the odds are against them.
Hertz (German) showed it was possible, in 1886 Christian Huelsmeyer(German) used it to detect metal objects in 1905 In 1917 Tesla(austrian empire*) created Radar until. In 1922 A. Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Young(US) discovered they could determine range at 60Mhz
Precursors to RADAR. Britain was first with true RADAR.
"On June 17, the first target was detectedâ"a Supermarine Scapa flying boat at 17 mi (27 km) range.[12] It is historically correct that on June 17, 1935, radio-based detection and ranging was first demonstrated in Great Britain. Watson Watt, Wilkins, and Bowen are generally credited with initiating what would later be called radar in this nation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar
Their different thinking is more easily explained by the fact that they left this planet and viewed it from a distance, than because they feel themselves political tools.
I think we have to ask ourselves if a moon colony is worth the cost. Sadly, the answer is "probably not".... The challenges here on earth: global warming, feeding the world population, satisfying our energy needs...
It's because of the challenges here on earth that we need manned space missions. They give the perspective required to take whole earth problems seriously.
Deja vu. The interface that everyone is now missing, they were complaining about when it was new last year. People hate change initially, then get used to the new status quo.
I don't have any posts like those on my newsfeed. Your problem is the people you call your friends, not Facebook.
[Well I did once have someone who posted "Going to the fridge" and another who did nothing but play stupid farmyard games. But they were rapidly hidden. Just like email, the tools are there to improve the signal to noise ratio.]
Hate to break it to you, but most people do have at least a few people who care they exist and are interested in what they do. They call them family and friends.
Your comment doesn't allow for the fact that there are plenty of other things to do with money you have today other than invest it.
It also assumes that virtually all investments go the same way. For example some people believe that gold will increase in value as other investments shrink.
It also doesn't allow for the whole spectrum of possible futures between guaranteed long term growth at one extreme, and complete collapse civilisation on the other.
Except the market isn't random. It goes up, long term.
Maybe. That's what we've experienced so far.
Then again, if you look at oil production figures, then you could say that they go up long term. That also is what we've experienced so far. Yet with oil, we know that that can't possibly be the case, because oil is finite.*
The question is: is the long term growth that you've become accustomed to tied in to the ever increasing extraction of finite resources?
Was the debt mountain, now collapsing, just covering over the cracks of unsustainable growth?
Take your guess, and place your money. But don't assume you know where the road ahead goes from looking in the rear view mirror.
We live in interesting times.
( * Well of course the proceses which create oil continue to happen, but we've used millions of years of the stuff in just a handful of generations. It's effectively finite.)
There isn't a healthcare organisation anywhere in the world the size and complexity of the NHS. Perhaps those off the shelf solutions don't do what is required or aren't scalable enough.
Developing a bespoke system isn't necessarily a bad decision. But where the UK government go wrong time and time again is getting in private sector consultants and contractors to do the project. The UK gov is big enough that they can employ there own permanent development staff, who would end up with far more experience of large scale public records systems than any of these outside consultants, at a far lower cost. Where they lack an expert in a particular technology, they could recruit one.
Everybody has a theory. When the randomness of the markets benefit them, they feel the theory is proven. When it goes against them they look for another theory.
Pigeons do much the same thing in laboratory tests when they are fed randomly. They develop series of movements that they repeat, believing it makes the food come.
Slashdot Mirror
oh, how soon people forget.
Given that I owed one of those early iPods, and you didn't, my recollection is far better than yours.
Apple didn't have to be "bludgeoned" into releasing a Windows iPod. They released the first generation as a Mac peripheral, then once they saw how successful it was, they released the second generation for Windows as well, a mere 9 months after the first generation was launched. That's far from being bludgeoned. In fact the general response was one of surprise when the Windows iPod came out.
You also seem to forget moving into the mp3 arena was outside apples core competency as well.
On the contrary, I said it wasn't impossible for Google, but the odds are against them. Yes Apple did get into a new competency, but in most cases where companies try it, they fail. That's what makes it odds against. Google themselves, even in server based software, which is far closer to their competency, fails most of the time. See all the products which are in long term "beta" status, before being dropped a few years later. e.g. Their "Google Wave" attempt at entry into the groupware market.
Yay for you. Its been 10 minutes since I logged out of Steam on my Mac and booted up windows because the selection of Mac software is abysmal.
Examples of what's missing please. Other than the already mentioned category of games.
Well, I did buy a Mac at what I consider to be a reasonable price. I've had cheaper computers and I've had more expensive computers - but I've never had a better computer.
I can honestly say that it's been 4 years since there was any software I've wanted to run that was Windows only. It was the development system for the Propeller SoC. These days there is a Mac development system for it too. I've had no desire to run anything on Windows since. I know because I've kept an old PC hanging around just in case, and it's not been switched on in years.
As for Linux, there's never been a single piece of software I've wanted to run that's Linux only.
If I'd bought a PC, then, like you, I'd have been pissed off about Mac software I couldn't run. So that makes the Mac a very worthwhile purchase. :-)
That's obviously an issue for people who run Linux as their primary OS. It's obviously not an issue for people that run Windows as their primary OS.
There's no such thing as "less-is-more branding". Less is more is an attribute of good design. Brand is an assurance of quality.
Actually the iPod did far more. It had an ecosystem that included software on the PC to manage and sync music files, and soon after to purchase, download and sync to the MP3 player with minimal user intervention. That's all far more than simply mounting the MP3 player as a drive, and leaving the file management as a task for the user to do.
The "less" involved was less for the user to have to do. Less for the user to worry about. That, together with the attractive industrial design were reasons for the iPod to take off. People bought it despite it's higher cost because it was a better value proposition.
Now of course Apple has a brand that assures people of a high quality product. But that brand was (re)made largely by the iPod (after the nadir of the brand in the 1990s.)
As to Google, they have a quality brand in search, for largely the same reasons - they do a lot of quality engineering behind the scenes, but put it behind a simple to use but quality user interface.
But their brand doesn't transfer too well to most other things they do. Except perhaps email. Certainly not to hardware. They'd have to extend the brand into that market. It's not impossible, but the odds are against them.
That's no planet. It's a space station.
Hertz (German) showed it was possible, in 1886
Christian Huelsmeyer(German) used it to detect metal objects in 1905
In 1917 Tesla(austrian empire*) created Radar until.
In 1922 A. Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Young(US) discovered they could determine range at 60Mhz
Precursors to RADAR. Britain was first with true RADAR.
"On June 17, the first target was detectedâ"a Supermarine Scapa flying boat at 17 mi (27 km) range.[12] It is historically correct that on June 17, 1935, radio-based detection and ranging was first demonstrated in Great Britain. Watson Watt, Wilkins, and Bowen are generally credited with initiating what would later be called radar in this nation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar
Their different thinking is more easily explained by the fact that they left this planet and viewed it from a distance, than because they feel themselves political tools.
There was also the British invention of RADAR, which was a huge technological lead for the allies.
I think we have to ask ourselves if a moon colony is worth the cost. Sadly, the answer is "probably not".... The challenges here on earth: global warming, feeding the world population, satisfying our energy needs...
Did you know that the popular environmentalist movement was largely kicked off by a single image? This one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg
It's because of the challenges here on earth that we need manned space missions. They give the perspective required to take whole earth problems seriously.
The other side is better funded.
Your example proves my point. According to Wikipedia, The VA is "providing care to over 4 million veterans, employing 180,000 medical personnel".
The NHS on the other hand provides care to 51 million people, and has a workforce of 1.8 million full time employees.
The NHS is an order of magnitude bigger than your example.
Whether that means that VistA is unsuitable or not I don't know. But it's certainly a consideration.
I don't see anything to do with chats there.
Trouble is very few of my friends are on Google+. Where people hang out is far more important than features of the site.
Deja vu. The interface that everyone is now missing, they were complaining about when it was new last year. People hate change initially, then get used to the new status quo.
I don't have any posts like those on my newsfeed. Your problem is the people you call your friends, not Facebook.
[Well I did once have someone who posted "Going to the fridge" and another who did nothing but play stupid farmyard games. But they were rapidly hidden. Just like email, the tools are there to improve the signal to noise ratio.]
How do you do that then?
Hate to break it to you, but most people do have at least a few people who care they exist and are interested in what they do. They call them family and friends.
Your comment doesn't allow for the fact that there are plenty of other things to do with money you have today other than invest it.
It also assumes that virtually all investments go the same way. For example some people believe that gold will increase in value as other investments shrink.
It also doesn't allow for the whole spectrum of possible futures between guaranteed long term growth at one extreme, and complete collapse civilisation on the other.
Nothing is certain.
Except the market isn't random. It goes up, long term.
Maybe. That's what we've experienced so far.
Then again, if you look at oil production figures, then you could say that they go up long term. That also is what we've experienced so far. Yet with oil, we know that that can't possibly be the case, because oil is finite.*
The question is: is the long term growth that you've become accustomed to tied in to the ever increasing extraction of finite resources?
Was the debt mountain, now collapsing, just covering over the cracks of unsustainable growth?
Take your guess, and place your money. But don't assume you know where the road ahead goes from looking in the rear view mirror.
We live in interesting times.
( * Well of course the proceses which create oil continue to happen, but we've used millions of years of the stuff in just a handful of generations. It's effectively finite.)
There isn't a healthcare organisation anywhere in the world the size and complexity of the NHS. Perhaps those off the shelf solutions don't do what is required or aren't scalable enough.
Developing a bespoke system isn't necessarily a bad decision. But where the UK government go wrong time and time again is getting in private sector consultants and contractors to do the project. The UK gov is big enough that they can employ there own permanent development staff, who would end up with far more experience of large scale public records systems than any of these outside consultants, at a far lower cost. Where they lack an expert in a particular technology, they could recruit one.
Maybe. Another school of thought says we've just passed the peak of the age of abundance. Place your money and take your chances.
If you're going to spend iPhone amounts of money, one might as well get a real iPhone, rather than an imitation.
Everybody has a theory. When the randomness of the markets benefit them, they feel the theory is proven. When it goes against them they look for another theory.
Pigeons do much the same thing in laboratory tests when they are fed randomly. They develop series of movements that they repeat, believing it makes the food come.
If you had invested in the DOW in Apr 2009, you would have made money
Everybody can make money in hindsight.