if i hear one more asshole talk about cloud computing, a renamed concept from the 1980s, i'll punch the douchebag in the face
Okay, lets you and me start our own little web-based businesses. I'll use Amazon Web Services for mine. RDS for my database, EC2 to run the web servers, S3 for the images in my product catalog (with CloudFront for content delivery).
You can avoid the cloud because the buzz-words bother you. Run your own server farm, replace your own HDDs when they go bad, handle your own AC and security and wiring.
The fact of the matter is that AWS and other cloud-computing companies are making it far cheaper to start and scale a web-based business than it was a few years ago. That's enough of a game-changer that there ought to be a term for it. Cloud is okay by me, but I guess a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Flash allows developers and users to freely bypass Apple's tollbooth for content.
That would make sense... if HTML5+ Javascript webapps didn't also bypass Apple's tollbooth for content. Flash's problem is that they bypass Apple's hardcore user experience micromanagement.
I am using a 6 yr. old computer, a 6 year old cell phone and a basic flat-screen TV w/ a $99 cheapo surround system.
And I'm just as happy with the results today as I was 6 yrs. ago when I bought most of it.
I just don't understand why people subject themselves to the BULLSHIT these companies impart on their customers just for a few SMALL incremental improvements in service. I won't even get into how much more money it would have cost me to stay "caught up" with so-called "improvements".
There differences in degree, and differences in kind. I'm with you when it comes to increasing download speeds, or hard disk sizes, or megapixels on a camera.
Still, there are a bunch of differences in kind that have come about in the last decade. Having an mp3 player in your pocket isn't a small incremental improvement over having a binder full of cds or a few crates of records. Having an always connected, instantly updating mapbook with gps in your pocket isn't an incremental improvement over a car atlas and road signs. Having a phone+camera+mp3 player is a difference in kind for the sorts of folks who used to carry all three separately.
I think we spend so much time watching the horse-race nature of corporate competition over stats and features that we don't realize how game-changing these devices actually are. Pres, iPhones, G1s, BBs and their ilk are remarkable devices whose capabilities would've been unthinkable even a decade ago. That ordinary folks can have them as cheaply as they do is pretty damn impressive.
What's sad is all sense and reason totally falls away when it comes to Apple.
Everyone bitches about Microsoft, but as soon as Apple does it, ohhh its all okay! Its okay BECAUSE ITS APPLE!
WTF people...
Seriously? Look around you, dude! You're (as of this writing) about 90-95% of the way down the page on a Slashdot comment listing. Pretty much every high-rated comment above yours roundly criticizes apple.
Who are the people at whom your WTF is directed?
~p
Perhaps true road warriors might consider their options and 1) not purchase a 17" laptop which would be way too big to open on a plane, 2) consider that the rigors of travel add sufficient stress that the idea of doing more than 8 hours of actually productive work is lunacy, 3) a much cheaper video iPod would be a superior solution in the Mac stable for video/music entertainment if entertainment is the goal rather than work, or maybe 4) not purchase this device, and instead purchase any of the countless other devices in the world with a replaceable battery.
If we take Apple's claims at face value that they were faced with a design tradeoff between replaceable batteries and battery life, I suggest that most users would rather have the battery life than the replaceable battery. Perhaps there are exceptions to the rule. Perhaps our market economy will fulfill the needs of those exceptional people adequately. One can hope.
Didn't iTunes already offer DRM-free music for the one label that allowed them to?
And didn't Steve Jobs speak out about how DRM sucks and how he'd sell DRM-free stuff as soon as the labels let him?
And didn't he do that as soon as they did?
And didn't the labels intentionally allow Amazon (but not Apple) DRM-free tracks in order to help break Apple's monopoly, then cave when 1) the ploy failed and 2) they were able to use DRM-free as an incentive to reverse Apple's opposition to tiered pricing?
A fan of Steve Jobs is calling ME a prick. Now THAT'S funny.
Oh, get over yourself: we can smell our own. =)
Really though, don't get too zoned in on the Apple part. Everything I said would still apply if it were Linux fanboys you were hating on, or even the kids who have bought the latest Britney album. The root of the problem is that haters have problems parsing positive viewpoints. The cognitive dissonance is relieved by assuming that everyone who likes anything is insane or brainwashed by a cult. Debating a troll in the depths of Slashdot doesn't do wonders for demonstrating my sanity, but I wouldn't think it too controversial to assume that there's room in the world for a sane, un-brainwashed individual to enjoy the products and services provided by Apple. A preference for iPods is a defensible position.
Why is it that, every time I see a true Apple fanboy post here, I always get an image of James Earl Jones in "Conan the Barbarian," beckoning one of his followers to come to him by walking off a cliff?
This is just conjecture given that we've never met, but I'd theorize that it's because you're a cynical prick for whom the entire idea of ceasing one's bitching in favor of actually admitting to an appreciation for a product or service creates such cognitive dissonance that the only way you can reconcile such behavior with your worldview is to shoe-horn all all those who exhibit it into the narrow mold of religious fanaticism.
The default is Windows. If someone's out there using something else, it's because he made a choice. He wouldn't have made the choice if he didn't see value. Dude, say what you want about the tenets of Apple fanboyism. At least it's an ethos.
I think you might be confusing correlation with causation there, buddy. You list a handful of common symptoms of Autism and then blame technological interests for the symptoms. Maybe the symptoms you list and the technological interests have the same root cause, namely Autism?
Do you have any evidence on hand that might support your claim that technical interests cause symptoms such as rocking back and forth, inability to socialize, and general lack of life skills? I ask as a programmer, a gamer, a husband, an athlete (marathon, ultimate frisbee), and a guy who has been known to "wobble back and forth" from time to time.
Personally, while severe Autism is pretty uncontroversially considered a "mental disability," those afflicted with more moderate symptoms/Asperger's can actually be quite successful. Take for example Bill Gates.
or we can ask questions that have a hope of receiving an enlightening response from the representative of Microsoft.
Not that I'm in favor of antagonism or anything, but I'd argue that it's sheer lunacy to expect anything remotely enlightening out of the MS IE team. Read the IEBlog for a while and it will become abundantly clear that the IE group has circled its wagons in the face of 1) little resources coming from the mothership and 2) overwhelming web developer antipathy.
I would generally expect that all answers will be scrubbed for potentially informative content by PR flacks. Either that or the Fearless Leader of IE is himself adequately trained in useless response generation. In neither case would a carefully worded question add any information to the system.
When the day is done, you can join the rest of us in the comments section of IEBlog wailing "this is it?" and pleading hopelessly for a continued effort on their part to not suck.
When you say "you," do you mean *me*, or the group in your head containing me and one or more other MS-detractors, real or stereotyped? If the former, what is your reference? If the latter, aren't you being unfair? The mere fact that my views are inconsistent with your stereotypes is insufficient to brand me personally as inconsistent.
Apparently he wanted to get out as cheaply as possible in order to ease the burden on his parents and siblings. Pity that he didn't take your advice and party at their expense. He can party in grad school while riding free on grant money. Props to him for setting a lofty goal and achieving it. If he's as motivated in real life as he was in school, I'm sure he'll find something fulfilling and challenging to occupy his remaining days. What about this guy's ambition suggests that he'll settle for an unsatisfying career?
I went to the guy's high school (class of 2000, way before he ever got there) - and had the same guidance counselor - and was in the bridge club. It's a pretty geeky HS and the bridge club was actually pretty popular. I'd say that we were about 20-30 strong when I was there. Just FYI. =)
I own an iPod, I love it, I would buy another. I own PCs and Macs and use iTunes on both platforms. However I am not religious about music players or operating systems.
You're not religious over music players or OS's? In the same way that you're not cogent in your use of metaphors? Not to blame you specifically, but the comparison of decisions like Mac vs PC, iPod vs $IPODKILLER, vegetarian vs meateater, GOP vs DEM, vi vs emacs, tastes great vs less filling, yaddayadda to religion is just plain brainless. I see it all the time and I'm afraid that the time has come for a rant...
Folks choose sides in these "battles" for any number of reasons, some technical, some practical and some moral/ethical. Spirituality, faith and higher deities are not involved. So you feel some mental fatigue when confronted by complicated decisions and simply respond with defensive apathy. That's nothing to be proud of but it's fine by me I guess - there are more decisions out there to make than folks have time to commit to researching options. Something has to give. It's not ideal, but we all have to choose what we have time to care about.
What gets me is the need to move from reflexive apathy into the realm of mindless assault on those who do hold informed opinions. Does it threaten you that much that some of us might have looked into the matter and decided that Macs are more practical for security/usability reasons? Or that being a vegetarian (I'm not, but I respect those who are) is healthier, better for animals and the environment? An attempt to fight back against those who actually care about things by conflating product and lifestyle choice with religion is twice pitiful. Once because the comparison is witless, twice because it is employed as a defense of witless apathy. You do rational discourse and the worthwhile capitalist economic endeavor of choosing between products a great disservice.
Obviously you consider it a good thing that you aren't religious* about your OS decision. If you're still reading, could you perhaps explain why you think that's a good thing? Do you really think that those of us who feel differently than you do so out of some sort of faith-based commitment? Don't you feel that your characterization is hostile to the extent that it diminishes the rational thought process that we go through in order to reach a conclusion? I might be over-reacting, but I'm rather disgusted by the routine ridicule in popular culture (and even/.) of people who have strong feelings on contentious issues. Is it I or you who is really the anti-intellectual here?
end_of_rant
*I generally translate the denial of "religious" involvement in $DEBATE as "I don't know, I don't intend to find out, I'm proud of not knowing and I'm threatened by those that know."** Is that an unfair characterization?
** Ironically, GW Bush, a stellar example of this attitude, is also highly religious...
XP is a perfectly fine operating system. I haven't had any of my boxes crash...
Statements like this really do suggest the negative effect that Microsoft has had on computing. Users now are "perfectly" satisfied if their OS doesn't routinely crash. What should be a basic assumption has become a lauded feat.
My linux and mac installs don't crash either. Nor do they have a spyware virus problem (or even need for software to prevent such). But that's just what they do to not suck. From usable CLI to functional least-rights users to better software (no Quicksilver, Textmate or iLife for PC) and on ad infinitum, they also do a tons of things that MS just can't offer.
If you're happy with the "accomplishment" of not crashing, good for you. I've experienced more and I've come to expect more.
5. Look for some useful apps.
6. Get fed up with arcane '70s unix technology that should have been put to death in the '80s.
7. ???
8. Go back to Windows.
Careful there bucko. Like you, your heroes in Redmond fail to understand Unix. Those who fail to understand Unix are of course doomed to reimplement it. Remember when you got Windows 95 and discovered a home (My Documents) directory? Have you ever found Window's/etc/hosts file? Google around a bit and I'm sure you can hunt it down in the labyrinthine corridors of your WinXP install. Did you think that MS's just "innovated" user-mode access out of nowhere just for Vista? This isn't even a "standing on the shoulders of giants" situation. MS has been slowly, unevenly and somewhat haphazardly reimplementing UNIX features in Windows for years...
As for useful software, the following is a list of really useful software that doesn't come with Windows:
rsync. It's how I do my automated backups to an external drive every night. How do you do yours?
A compiler.
ssh client or server. Great way to securely administer machines remotely. Combines with rsync for greatness.
A VCS. It's not just for programmers - I use the CVS install that came with my Mac to implement versioning on my documents folder and other important files. See also: OS X's Time Machine implementation.
The list might be a tad geeky, but this is slashdot. The lack of a capable CLI in Windows combined with a lack of useful utilities that have been around for generations is a severe enough weakness that I don't mess with the platform at all. Perhaps you're in an industry that just *has* to have that Windows-only killer app, but most of us do "useful" things with an office package, an email app and a web browser. MS takes the first with OpenOffice coming in at "usable, but not there yet." The Unix world has more than enough email and web alternatives.
Perhaps by "useful" you meant games? Viruses? Virus scanners? Spyware? Spyware scanners?
More like someone who is realistic and knows that all browsers have their quirks I would say personally.
Not all quirks are created equal. IE is so far behind the modern browsers in implementing standards like CSS that they're no longer even in the ballpark. With the newer browsers rev'ing so much faster than IE, I don't think they'll even be in the same league for long.
The argument here isn't idealistic or puritanical or religious - it's practical. CSS allows web developers to effectively separate content and presentation, which in turn allows for more efficient development. It's not about laziness either. We web developers have finite time. We either spend that time working on new features/content/layouts/whatever, or chasing down 4 year old bugs in IE.
Take as an example a group of mechanical engineers plotting designs for a car. Group A favors one brand of mechanical pencils. Group B favors another. An astute engineer might attempt to settle the matter as you do: "all mechanical pencils have their quirks." Unfortunately, group C is using crayons that are worn nearly to the nub. IE is a crayon that is worn quite to the nub.
To write off the pitiful state of IE's HTML, CSS and javascript support as "quirks" is to let MS off the hook. They leveraged their monopoly and "won" the browser wars. Having done so, it appears that they intend to use their dominant browser in order to defend their Big Two products by retarding the progress of web technologies indefinitely.
As a side note, why does "realist" now refer to people who give up on ethics (and other such long term concerns) for short-run gains?
And your uname is "Recovering Hater." How delightful.
As to your question, there are differences of technology that come from a decade of progress. Things like embedded video/music/whatever. That's not the big deal though.
The big deal is the actual structural organization of the community. Myspace is built around the concept of linking friends together for social purposes. Depending on your desired level of involvement, you needn't even get into HTML at all. It started out as a place where bands could let people know what they were up to. Now it's basically a place where ordinary folks can let their friends know what they've been up to, and find out what their friends have been up to. It's a social thing, not a web page thing per se.
Perhaps a more relevant difference? When I was on Geocities back in the day, I knew a couple fellow male geeks who also maintained pages. I got into Myspace however at a request from my wife and a supermajority of my friends list is female. Myspace seems to command a great deal of time attention and respect from the fairer sex in a way that I never noticed the web doing before. As most folks on this site already know, there are very few (far too few for my taste...) women who show much interest in computers. In my personal experience, it has appeared that the computers just weren't offering the kinds of things that women were interested in having. Online social interaction (see also "The Sims") might just be the killer app for 20 something ladies that FPS's and RPG's were for males.
Scoffing at the HTML is kind of beside the point, now isn't it? I'm a professional web developer, but I don't for a minute confuse what I do on my 15.4" widescreen Macbook Pro with what my wife is does on her 12" iBook. Even if we both end up with a web page, that doesn't make our actual purposes any more similar. I offer our machines of choice as further example of this distinction.
Privacy of course is even further from the point. Excluding e-commerce, what exactly is the point of privacy on the web? The entire point of a web site is to make information publicly available. Don't you think that we're trying to tell you something when we call the folder "public_html?"
I'll agree with you that running off and adopting $FRAMEWORK as the Next Big Thing without first understanding the pros/cons/tradeoffs involved is haughty. HOWEVER...
It would appear that you have taken your elementary and incomplete understanding of RoR and created an assumption that RoR is elementary and incomplete.
Not only is does RoR support validation and testing, it practically forces them down your throat. After years of C++, Perl, Java and the like, I've never seen a framework that elevated unit testing to such a prominent level. One of the more famous of the 'demos' that you refer to is the creation of a weblog in 15 minutes. Within those 15 minutes, the author demonstrates the basic unit testing, validation and error handling code that RoR *does for you*. Scaffold, rake and 'validates_*' won't take you everywhere you need to go in order to be robust, but they sure do give you a hefty shove in the right direction.
Still, unit testing and input validation aren't even among the top benefits of RoR specifically, or the RAD scheme in general. The framework and the community that supports it actively guide developers in the direction of numerous other good habits. MVC and DRY are acronyms that every dev has heard and most have ignored, to the peril of their apps' maintainability. RoR encourages these techniques and demonstrates their effectiveness.
To be over-blunt about it, the point of RAD is that no matter how long you plan, you still might as well be going off half-cocked. Requirements tend to be ill-defined and rapidly evolving for most projects. RAD operates from the assumption that reducing the time between requirements collection and release gives you a better aproximation of the real-life requirements *at the time of release*. If you spend twice the time finalizing the spec and twice the time implementing it, you're just giving the requirements a head start - they will outrun you. What unit tests, MVC and DRY all have in common is that they combine to make refactoring as easy as possible, simplifying the development cycle and allowing for releases early and often.
No framework or project management scheme is a substitute for good coders and forethought, but if I had to choose a methodology for today's small-medium sized project, RAD/Agile would be it. You can have your waterfall, your SAP, your XML configuration files and your weeks of Requirements Analysis meetings with PHBs who don't have the perspective to know what they want until you've shown them what can be done.
Lack of sensible CLI? Inability to enforce a sensible user permissions system without jumping through hoops? Dependence on NTFS? The Registry? Lettered drive names (maybe just a peeve of mine...)? Vendor that can't seem to release security updates, service packs or full-blown updates on time? That's the tip of the ice berg. After that you have the massive combination of (1) whacky behavior that MS left in place to support earlier versions and (2) complete inability to provide a consistent, usable interface. Tons of individual little problems there
OS X has limitations too, it'd be senseless to argue otherwise. I use both for hours each day though and I've found that Windows isn't even in the same league yet. Based on the Vista reports I don't think they'll be joining any time soon.
Same reason(s) folks work in jobs they don't like, live in towns they don't like, eat food that's making them fat and unhealthy, complain about the politicians they themselves elect,... ad nauseum.
What are those reasons? Laziness, fear of change, just plain not knowing what you *do* want? Never underestimate the power of inertia. I posit that the only reason most folks use windows is that most folks use windows.
1) It just works.
That's nice, so does my WinXP box. It's poorly-written applications that crash 99% of the time, NOT the OS
My mother just purchased a Mac. I expected questions from her. It appears that she has, all on her own, imported a number of CDs into iTunes, imported her most recent digital camera photos into iPhoto, emailed me some of said photos, and discovered how to use tabbed browsing to have gmail in one tab and links from gmail in other tabs. There is no earthly chance that she would ever manage all of that on a Wintel box. I know because that's what she had before and she never did...
2) You can make amazing stuff.
You can do the same with a PC. The problem is that Microsoft can't bundle all that nifty stuff with their OS without getting sued, and OEMs aren't bundling it.
MS can't bundle because they're a convicted, predatory monopolist. Tough cookies for them. OEM's might not be bundling useful things, but they sure bundle a lot of crap. Why is a Dell PC cheaper with Windows than without? Kickbacks from AOL, Earthlink, $DEMO_PROVIDING_COMPANY_3-20? Ever bought a retail PC? Go to your local Best Buy and you'll see bundled stuff. Sony has their own suite, HP has theirs. Problem is, they suck.. Apple has hit a home run for home users with iLife.
3) Design that turns heads.
The first iMac looked like crap. The desk lamp model wasn't much better. The current iMac *does* look better than a comparably-priced PC, but looks are low on my list of important factors.
Apparently they all turned your head though. =)
4) 114,000 Viruses? Not on a Mac.
Nope. For some reason, the people who write viruses have chosen to write them for the 90+% of PCs on the internet that run some version of Windows. Go figure.
How many of those 114,000 have infected my PC? None.
Who cares why the Wintel world has all the viruses? I'll opt out thank you, whatever the reason. As for your personal experience, it's not typical and you know it. All those botnets sending all that spam are coming from somewhere. (hint: it begins with "residential" and ends with "Wintel broadband users")
5) Next Year's OS today.
Umm...this makes no sense. Wouldn't that make it this year's? Yay for marketing crap.
Not-so-subtle dig at Windows. Mac's marketeers are referring to the substantial overlap between new features in Vista and features that were rolled out in Mac OS X, especially Tiger (indexed search, widgets, eye candy, etc). Longhorn is out next year. The OS it's copying (Tiger, per the Mac marketeers) is out now. Glad I could help you out there.
6) The latest Intel chips.
Oh well let me just put down my PC with the latest Intel chip and...oh, wait.
You have an Core Duo? From whom? The overwhelming majority of currently available Wintel PC offerings are still set up for Centrino, Pentium IV or Celeron. There are only a handful of retail offerings that join Mac in the Core Duo camp.
7,8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
Again, MS would probably get sued if they bundled such software.
Again, no sympathy from me. They wouldn't be in trouble if they weren't abusing their monopoly to begin with. A paltry punishment for their severe damage to the tech marketplace.
14. Awesome out of the box.
The same could be said about any well-made PC.
First, I read that as them saying that Macs are well configured from the start. This is pretty well true. Built in wireless support with built in management software that works without fuss, no need for virus/spyware/other protection before connecting, iLife setting up the home user, and so on. A new Mac is good to go as soon as you plug it in.
As for the more literal reading, I've bought retail PCs/laptops, built a number of my own, and bought Macs. Nothing beats the attention to detail and presentation that goes into Mac packaging. Not a reason to buy, but it's some icing on the cake.
....that the NYT is _out_of_touch_ with the american public.
WTF does that have to do with ANYTHING? The function of the NYT as a newspaper is to report on those things that it considers news. The hope would be that sufficient consumers are interested in what they've found that they can afford to remain in business. At what point did journalism become "ask the american public what it thinks, clean out the typos and roll presses?" While I'll concede that such a model is prevalent, I won't concede that it's journalism. 1 point for the NYT, 0 points for whatever rag you read...
I am *confident* that most americans don't mind people who are taking calls to and from the middle east are being monitored.
Straw man. I'm not upset that the government might spy on communications from the Middle East. I'm concerned that (1) Even if that's all they're doing, that doesn't explain their need to do it without judicial review (even of the secret variety) and (2) I am disinclined to believe their account on face value. The NYT is trying to help us out with (2). Why do you trust the Bush administration so implicitly that you're offended by an attempt to figure out what it's doing? What have they done to convince you so thoroughly of their trusworthiness?
WE ARE AT WAR!!!
Legally we aren't, and this is in many ways a legal matter. That said, even if we take your statement within the context you intended, what does that mean? Bush lied to us and sent troops into a foreign country. How does it follow that him doing that also gives him the right to unchecked surveillance powers? Is this the old "if we give up on freedom, maybe the enemy won't hate us for it" defense again?
I know you're naught but a simple troll, but I had to say my piece. Little fascists like you and the neo-cons can always grow up into big fascists, and I'm *confident* that most of us don't want that.
And before anyone gets on my case, this is apolitical - both parties have kowtowed to the Chinese in the interests of American businesses.
It's still political. The list of political issues actually exceeds the list of things where the Reps and Dems in the US disagree. If what you say were true, corruption wouldn't be a political issue either...
That's like saying "security isn't an OS issue - both XP and Server 2K3 suck at it."
Slashdot Mirror
if i hear one more asshole talk about cloud computing, a renamed concept from the 1980s, i'll punch the douchebag in the face
Okay, lets you and me start our own little web-based businesses. I'll use Amazon Web Services for mine. RDS for my database, EC2 to run the web servers, S3 for the images in my product catalog (with CloudFront for content delivery). You can avoid the cloud because the buzz-words bother you. Run your own server farm, replace your own HDDs when they go bad, handle your own AC and security and wiring. The fact of the matter is that AWS and other cloud-computing companies are making it far cheaper to start and scale a web-based business than it was a few years ago. That's enough of a game-changer that there ought to be a term for it. Cloud is okay by me, but I guess a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Flash allows developers and users to freely bypass Apple's tollbooth for content.
That would make sense... if HTML5+ Javascript webapps didn't also bypass Apple's tollbooth for content. Flash's problem is that they bypass Apple's hardcore user experience micromanagement.
I am using a 6 yr. old computer, a 6 year old cell phone and a basic flat-screen TV w/ a $99 cheapo surround system.
And I'm just as happy with the results today as I was 6 yrs. ago when I bought most of it.
I just don't understand why people subject themselves to the BULLSHIT these companies impart on their customers just for a few SMALL incremental improvements in service. I won't even get into how much more money it would have cost me to stay "caught up" with so-called "improvements".
There differences in degree, and differences in kind. I'm with you when it comes to increasing download speeds, or hard disk sizes, or megapixels on a camera. Still, there are a bunch of differences in kind that have come about in the last decade. Having an mp3 player in your pocket isn't a small incremental improvement over having a binder full of cds or a few crates of records. Having an always connected, instantly updating mapbook with gps in your pocket isn't an incremental improvement over a car atlas and road signs. Having a phone+camera+mp3 player is a difference in kind for the sorts of folks who used to carry all three separately. I think we spend so much time watching the horse-race nature of corporate competition over stats and features that we don't realize how game-changing these devices actually are. Pres, iPhones, G1s, BBs and their ilk are remarkable devices whose capabilities would've been unthinkable even a decade ago. That ordinary folks can have them as cheaply as they do is pretty damn impressive.
Apple is truly evil these days.
What's sad is all sense and reason totally falls away when it comes to Apple.
Everyone bitches about Microsoft, but as soon as Apple does it, ohhh its all okay! Its okay BECAUSE ITS APPLE!
WTF people...
Seriously? Look around you, dude! You're (as of this writing) about 90-95% of the way down the page on a Slashdot comment listing. Pretty much every high-rated comment above yours roundly criticizes apple. Who are the people at whom your WTF is directed? ~p
Perhaps true road warriors might consider their options and 1) not purchase a 17" laptop which would be way too big to open on a plane, 2) consider that the rigors of travel add sufficient stress that the idea of doing more than 8 hours of actually productive work is lunacy, 3) a much cheaper video iPod would be a superior solution in the Mac stable for video/music entertainment if entertainment is the goal rather than work, or maybe 4) not purchase this device, and instead purchase any of the countless other devices in the world with a replaceable battery.
If we take Apple's claims at face value that they were faced with a design tradeoff between replaceable batteries and battery life, I suggest that most users would rather have the battery life than the replaceable battery. Perhaps there are exceptions to the rule. Perhaps our market economy will fulfill the needs of those exceptional people adequately. One can hope.
Didn't iTunes already offer DRM-free music for the one label that allowed them to?
And didn't Steve Jobs speak out about how DRM sucks and how he'd sell DRM-free stuff as soon as the labels let him?
And didn't he do that as soon as they did?
And didn't the labels intentionally allow Amazon (but not Apple) DRM-free tracks in order to help break Apple's monopoly, then cave when 1) the ploy failed and 2) they were able to use DRM-free as an incentive to reverse Apple's opposition to tiered pricing?
Just wonderin'.
Oh, get over yourself: we can smell our own. =)
Really though, don't get too zoned in on the Apple part. Everything I said would still apply if it were Linux fanboys you were hating on, or even the kids who have bought the latest Britney album. The root of the problem is that haters have problems parsing positive viewpoints. The cognitive dissonance is relieved by assuming that everyone who likes anything is insane or brainwashed by a cult. Debating a troll in the depths of Slashdot doesn't do wonders for demonstrating my sanity, but I wouldn't think it too controversial to assume that there's room in the world for a sane, un-brainwashed individual to enjoy the products and services provided by Apple. A preference for iPods is a defensible position.
~p
This is just conjecture given that we've never met, but I'd theorize that it's because you're a cynical prick for whom the entire idea of ceasing one's bitching in favor of actually admitting to an appreciation for a product or service creates such cognitive dissonance that the only way you can reconcile such behavior with your worldview is to shoe-horn all all those who exhibit it into the narrow mold of religious fanaticism.
The default is Windows. If someone's out there using something else, it's because he made a choice. He wouldn't have made the choice if he didn't see value. Dude, say what you want about the tenets of Apple fanboyism. At least it's an ethos.
I think you might be confusing correlation with causation there, buddy. You list a handful of common symptoms of Autism and then blame technological interests for the symptoms. Maybe the symptoms you list and the technological interests have the same root cause, namely Autism?
Do you have any evidence on hand that might support your claim that technical interests cause symptoms such as rocking back and forth, inability to socialize, and general lack of life skills? I ask as a programmer, a gamer, a husband, an athlete (marathon, ultimate frisbee), and a guy who has been known to "wobble back and forth" from time to time.
Personally, while severe Autism is pretty uncontroversially considered a "mental disability," those afflicted with more moderate symptoms/Asperger's can actually be quite successful. Take for example Bill Gates.
Not that I'm in favor of antagonism or anything, but I'd argue that it's sheer lunacy to expect anything remotely enlightening out of the MS IE team. Read the IEBlog for a while and it will become abundantly clear that the IE group has circled its wagons in the face of 1) little resources coming from the mothership and 2) overwhelming web developer antipathy.
I would generally expect that all answers will be scrubbed for potentially informative content by PR flacks. Either that or the Fearless Leader of IE is himself adequately trained in useless response generation. In neither case would a carefully worded question add any information to the system.
When the day is done, you can join the rest of us in the comments section of IEBlog wailing "this is it?" and pleading hopelessly for a continued effort on their part to not suck.
And... end rant.When you say "you," do you mean *me*, or the group in your head containing me and one or more other MS-detractors, real or stereotyped? If the former, what is your reference? If the latter, aren't you being unfair? The mere fact that my views are inconsistent with your stereotypes is insufficient to brand me personally as inconsistent.
Apparently he wanted to get out as cheaply as possible in order to ease the burden on his parents and siblings. Pity that he didn't take your advice and party at their expense. He can party in grad school while riding free on grant money. Props to him for setting a lofty goal and achieving it. If he's as motivated in real life as he was in school, I'm sure he'll find something fulfilling and challenging to occupy his remaining days. What about this guy's ambition suggests that he'll settle for an unsatisfying career?
I went to the guy's high school (class of 2000, way before he ever got there) - and had the same guidance counselor - and was in the bridge club. It's a pretty geeky HS and the bridge club was actually pretty popular. I'd say that we were about 20-30 strong when I was there. Just FYI. =)
I own an iPod, I love it, I would buy another. I own PCs and Macs and use iTunes on both platforms. However I am not religious about music players or operating systems.
/.) of people who have strong feelings on contentious issues. Is it I or you who is really the anti-intellectual here?
You're not religious over music players or OS's? In the same way that you're not cogent in your use of metaphors? Not to blame you specifically, but the comparison of decisions like Mac vs PC, iPod vs $IPODKILLER, vegetarian vs meateater, GOP vs DEM, vi vs emacs, tastes great vs less filling, yaddayadda to religion is just plain brainless. I see it all the time and I'm afraid that the time has come for a rant...
Folks choose sides in these "battles" for any number of reasons, some technical, some practical and some moral/ethical. Spirituality, faith and higher deities are not involved. So you feel some mental fatigue when confronted by complicated decisions and simply respond with defensive apathy. That's nothing to be proud of but it's fine by me I guess - there are more decisions out there to make than folks have time to commit to researching options. Something has to give. It's not ideal, but we all have to choose what we have time to care about.
What gets me is the need to move from reflexive apathy into the realm of mindless assault on those who do hold informed opinions. Does it threaten you that much that some of us might have looked into the matter and decided that Macs are more practical for security/usability reasons? Or that being a vegetarian (I'm not, but I respect those who are) is healthier, better for animals and the environment? An attempt to fight back against those who actually care about things by conflating product and lifestyle choice with religion is twice pitiful. Once because the comparison is witless, twice because it is employed as a defense of witless apathy. You do rational discourse and the worthwhile capitalist economic endeavor of choosing between products a great disservice.
Obviously you consider it a good thing that you aren't religious* about your OS decision. If you're still reading, could you perhaps explain why you think that's a good thing? Do you really think that those of us who feel differently than you do so out of some sort of faith-based commitment? Don't you feel that your characterization is hostile to the extent that it diminishes the rational thought process that we go through in order to reach a conclusion? I might be over-reacting, but I'm rather disgusted by the routine ridicule in popular culture (and even
end_of_rant
*I generally translate the denial of "religious" involvement in $DEBATE as "I don't know, I don't intend to find out, I'm proud of not knowing and I'm threatened by those that know."** Is that an unfair characterization? ** Ironically, GW Bush, a stellar example of this attitude, is also highly religious...
XP is a perfectly fine operating system. I haven't had any of my boxes crash...
Statements like this really do suggest the negative effect that Microsoft has had on computing. Users now are "perfectly" satisfied if their OS doesn't routinely crash. What should be a basic assumption has become a lauded feat.
My linux and mac installs don't crash either. Nor do they have a spyware virus problem (or even need for software to prevent such). But that's just what they do to not suck. From usable CLI to functional least-rights users to better software (no Quicksilver, Textmate or iLife for PC) and on ad infinitum, they also do a tons of things that MS just can't offer.
If you're happy with the "accomplishment" of not crashing, good for you. I've experienced more and I've come to expect more.
~p
6. Get fed up with arcane '70s unix technology that should have been put to death in the '80s.
7. ???
8. Go back to Windows.
Careful there bucko. Like you, your heroes in Redmond fail to understand Unix. Those who fail to understand Unix are of course doomed to reimplement it. Remember when you got Windows 95 and discovered a home (My Documents) directory? Have you ever found Window's
As for useful software, the following is a list of really useful software that doesn't come with Windows:
- rsync. It's how I do my automated backups to an external drive every night. How do you do yours?
- A compiler.
- ssh client or server. Great way to securely administer machines remotely. Combines with rsync for greatness.
- A VCS. It's not just for programmers - I use the CVS install that came with my Mac to implement versioning on my documents folder and other important files. See also: OS X's Time Machine implementation.
The list might be a tad geeky, but this is slashdot. The lack of a capable CLI in Windows combined with a lack of useful utilities that have been around for generations is a severe enough weakness that I don't mess with the platform at all. Perhaps you're in an industry that just *has* to have that Windows-only killer app, but most of us do "useful" things with an office package, an email app and a web browser. MS takes the first with OpenOffice coming in at "usable, but not there yet." The Unix world has more than enough email and web alternatives.Perhaps by "useful" you meant games? Viruses? Virus scanners? Spyware? Spyware scanners?
More like someone who is realistic and knows that all browsers have their quirks I would say personally. Not all quirks are created equal. IE is so far behind the modern browsers in implementing standards like CSS that they're no longer even in the ballpark. With the newer browsers rev'ing so much faster than IE, I don't think they'll even be in the same league for long.
The argument here isn't idealistic or puritanical or religious - it's practical. CSS allows web developers to effectively separate content and presentation, which in turn allows for more efficient development. It's not about laziness either. We web developers have finite time. We either spend that time working on new features/content/layouts/whatever, or chasing down 4 year old bugs in IE.
Take as an example a group of mechanical engineers plotting designs for a car. Group A favors one brand of mechanical pencils. Group B favors another. An astute engineer might attempt to settle the matter as you do: "all mechanical pencils have their quirks." Unfortunately, group C is using crayons that are worn nearly to the nub. IE is a crayon that is worn quite to the nub.
To write off the pitiful state of IE's HTML, CSS and javascript support as "quirks" is to let MS off the hook. They leveraged their monopoly and "won" the browser wars. Having done so, it appears that they intend to use their dominant browser in order to defend their Big Two products by retarding the progress of web technologies indefinitely.
As a side note, why does "realist" now refer to people who give up on ethics (and other such long term concerns) for short-run gains?
And your uname is "Recovering Hater." How delightful.
As to your question, there are differences of technology that come from a decade of progress. Things like embedded video/music/whatever. That's not the big deal though.
The big deal is the actual structural organization of the community. Myspace is built around the concept of linking friends together for social purposes. Depending on your desired level of involvement, you needn't even get into HTML at all. It started out as a place where bands could let people know what they were up to. Now it's basically a place where ordinary folks can let their friends know what they've been up to, and find out what their friends have been up to. It's a social thing, not a web page thing per se.
Perhaps a more relevant difference? When I was on Geocities back in the day, I knew a couple fellow male geeks who also maintained pages. I got into Myspace however at a request from my wife and a supermajority of my friends list is female. Myspace seems to command a great deal of time attention and respect from the fairer sex in a way that I never noticed the web doing before. As most folks on this site already know, there are very few (far too few for my taste...) women who show much interest in computers. In my personal experience, it has appeared that the computers just weren't offering the kinds of things that women were interested in having. Online social interaction (see also "The Sims") might just be the killer app for 20 something ladies that FPS's and RPG's were for males.
Scoffing at the HTML is kind of beside the point, now isn't it? I'm a professional web developer, but I don't for a minute confuse what I do on my 15.4" widescreen Macbook Pro with what my wife is does on her 12" iBook. Even if we both end up with a web page, that doesn't make our actual purposes any more similar. I offer our machines of choice as further example of this distinction.
Privacy of course is even further from the point. Excluding e-commerce, what exactly is the point of privacy on the web? The entire point of a web site is to make information publicly available. Don't you think that we're trying to tell you something when we call the folder "public_html?"
I'll agree with you that running off and adopting $FRAMEWORK as the Next Big Thing without first understanding the pros/cons/tradeoffs involved is haughty. HOWEVER...
It would appear that you have taken your elementary and incomplete understanding of RoR and created an assumption that RoR is elementary and incomplete.
Not only is does RoR support validation and testing, it practically forces them down your throat. After years of C++, Perl, Java and the like, I've never seen a framework that elevated unit testing to such a prominent level. One of the more famous of the 'demos' that you refer to is the creation of a weblog in 15 minutes. Within those 15 minutes, the author demonstrates the basic unit testing, validation and error handling code that RoR *does for you*. Scaffold, rake and 'validates_*' won't take you everywhere you need to go in order to be robust, but they sure do give you a hefty shove in the right direction.
Still, unit testing and input validation aren't even among the top benefits of RoR specifically, or the RAD scheme in general. The framework and the community that supports it actively guide developers in the direction of numerous other good habits. MVC and DRY are acronyms that every dev has heard and most have ignored, to the peril of their apps' maintainability. RoR encourages these techniques and demonstrates their effectiveness.
To be over-blunt about it, the point of RAD is that no matter how long you plan, you still might as well be going off half-cocked. Requirements tend to be ill-defined and rapidly evolving for most projects. RAD operates from the assumption that reducing the time between requirements collection and release gives you a better aproximation of the real-life requirements *at the time of release*. If you spend twice the time finalizing the spec and twice the time implementing it, you're just giving the requirements a head start - they will outrun you. What unit tests, MVC and DRY all have in common is that they combine to make refactoring as easy as possible, simplifying the development cycle and allowing for releases early and often.
No framework or project management scheme is a substitute for good coders and forethought, but if I had to choose a methodology for today's small-medium sized project, RAD/Agile would be it. You can have your waterfall, your SAP, your XML configuration files and your weeks of Requirements Analysis meetings with PHBs who don't have the perspective to know what they want until you've shown them what can be done.
Lack of sensible CLI? Inability to enforce a sensible user permissions system without jumping through hoops? Dependence on NTFS? The Registry? Lettered drive names (maybe just a peeve of mine...)? Vendor that can't seem to release security updates, service packs or full-blown updates on time? That's the tip of the ice berg. After that you have the massive combination of (1) whacky behavior that MS left in place to support earlier versions and (2) complete inability to provide a consistent, usable interface. Tons of individual little problems there
OS X has limitations too, it'd be senseless to argue otherwise. I use both for hours each day though and I've found that Windows isn't even in the same league yet. Based on the Vista reports I don't think they'll be joining any time soon.
Same reason(s) folks work in jobs they don't like, live in towns they don't like, eat food that's making them fat and unhealthy, complain about the politicians they themselves elect, ... ad nauseum.
What are those reasons? Laziness, fear of change, just plain not knowing what you *do* want? Never underestimate the power of inertia. I posit that the only reason most folks use windows is that most folks use windows.
1) It just works.
That's nice, so does my WinXP box. It's poorly-written applications that crash 99% of the time, NOT the OS
My mother just purchased a Mac. I expected questions from her. It appears that she has, all on her own, imported a number of CDs into iTunes, imported her most recent digital camera photos into iPhoto, emailed me some of said photos, and discovered how to use tabbed browsing to have gmail in one tab and links from gmail in other tabs. There is no earthly chance that she would ever manage all of that on a Wintel box. I know because that's what she had before and she never did...
2) You can make amazing stuff.
You can do the same with a PC. The problem is that Microsoft can't bundle all that nifty stuff with their OS without getting sued, and OEMs aren't bundling it.
MS can't bundle because they're a convicted, predatory monopolist. Tough cookies for them. OEM's might not be bundling useful things, but they sure bundle a lot of crap. Why is a Dell PC cheaper with Windows than without? Kickbacks from AOL, Earthlink, $DEMO_PROVIDING_COMPANY_3-20? Ever bought a retail PC? Go to your local Best Buy and you'll see bundled stuff. Sony has their own suite, HP has theirs. Problem is, they suck.. Apple has hit a home run for home users with iLife.
3) Design that turns heads.
The first iMac looked like crap. The desk lamp model wasn't much better. The current iMac *does* look better than a comparably-priced PC, but looks are low on my list of important factors.
Apparently they all turned your head though. =)
4) 114,000 Viruses? Not on a Mac.
Nope. For some reason, the people who write viruses have chosen to write them for the 90+% of PCs on the internet that run some version of Windows. Go figure. How many of those 114,000 have infected my PC? None.
Who cares why the Wintel world has all the viruses? I'll opt out thank you, whatever the reason. As for your personal experience, it's not typical and you know it. All those botnets sending all that spam are coming from somewhere. (hint: it begins with "residential" and ends with "Wintel broadband users")
5) Next Year's OS today.
Umm...this makes no sense. Wouldn't that make it this year's? Yay for marketing crap.
Not-so-subtle dig at Windows. Mac's marketeers are referring to the substantial overlap between new features in Vista and features that were rolled out in Mac OS X, especially Tiger (indexed search, widgets, eye candy, etc). Longhorn is out next year. The OS it's copying (Tiger, per the Mac marketeers) is out now. Glad I could help you out there.
6) The latest Intel chips.
Oh well let me just put down my PC with the latest Intel chip and...oh, wait.
You have an Core Duo? From whom? The overwhelming majority of currently available Wintel PC offerings are still set up for Centrino, Pentium IV or Celeron. There are only a handful of retail offerings that join Mac in the Core Duo camp.
7,8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
Again, MS would probably get sued if they bundled such software.
Again, no sympathy from me. They wouldn't be in trouble if they weren't abusing their monopoly to begin with. A paltry punishment for their severe damage to the tech marketplace.
14. Awesome out of the box.
The same could be said about any well-made PC.
First, I read that as them saying that Macs are well configured from the start. This is pretty well true. Built in wireless support with built in management software that works without fuss, no need for virus/spyware/other protection before connecting, iLife setting up the home user, and so on. A new Mac is good to go as soon as you plug it in.
As for the more literal reading, I've bought retail PCs/laptops, built a number of my own, and bought Macs. Nothing beats the attention to detail and presentation that goes into Mac packaging. Not a reason to buy, but it's some icing on the cake.
Thank god I am not on the windows development team.
That's like feeling sorry for contractors on the Death Star (appologies to Kevin Smith). They deserve what they get. =)
~p
....that the NYT is _out_of_touch_ with the american public.
WTF does that have to do with ANYTHING? The function of the NYT as a newspaper is to report on those things that it considers news. The hope would be that sufficient consumers are interested in what they've found that they can afford to remain in business. At what point did journalism become "ask the american public what it thinks, clean out the typos and roll presses?" While I'll concede that such a model is prevalent, I won't concede that it's journalism. 1 point for the NYT, 0 points for whatever rag you read...
I am *confident* that most americans don't mind people who are taking calls to and from the middle east are being monitored.
Straw man. I'm not upset that the government might spy on communications from the Middle East. I'm concerned that (1) Even if that's all they're doing, that doesn't explain their need to do it without judicial review (even of the secret variety) and (2) I am disinclined to believe their account on face value. The NYT is trying to help us out with (2). Why do you trust the Bush administration so implicitly that you're offended by an attempt to figure out what it's doing? What have they done to convince you so thoroughly of their trusworthiness?
WE ARE AT WAR!!!
Legally we aren't, and this is in many ways a legal matter. That said, even if we take your statement within the context you intended, what does that mean? Bush lied to us and sent troops into a foreign country. How does it follow that him doing that also gives him the right to unchecked surveillance powers? Is this the old "if we give up on freedom, maybe the enemy won't hate us for it" defense again?
I know you're naught but a simple troll, but I had to say my piece. Little fascists like you and the neo-cons can always grow up into big fascists, and I'm *confident* that most of us don't want that.
And before anyone gets on my case, this is apolitical - both parties have kowtowed to the Chinese in the interests of American businesses.
It's still political. The list of political issues actually exceeds the list of things where the Reps and Dems in the US disagree. If what you say were true, corruption wouldn't be a political issue either...
That's like saying "security isn't an OS issue - both XP and Server 2K3 suck at it."
~p