I'm stating the obvious, and this comment is probably redundant, but/. has gotten so damned crammed-up that I feel obliged to register this thouhght, ***just to be sure***:
I think you're seeing migration because it runs on Nontel processors and OSX actually has a marginally decent UI.
There's plenty of documentary evidence showing that construction was severely delayed and the scope scaled back considerably due to all kinds of catastrophic events, including fires. The Soviets kept working on it though, despite these setbacks. A 3 kiloton explosion at an isolated section of the pipeline would certainly be a signifcant setback, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily abandon the project altogether.
Yeah, obviously Saffire's piece is a complete fabrication. It's obviously the product of a disinformation campaign or of an age-addled "neocon" brain.
Whatever. Say what you want about Saffire, but he gets some cool scoops every once in a while, no doubt. As for the allegation that Saffire's article is a response to recent criticism of intelligence services regarding the issue of Iraq's weapons programs, I say yes, it probably is, at least to some degree. And why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't we stick up for the brave hard-working men and women who devote their lives to these noble challenges?
Who knows if the details of the dramatic pipeline explosion are true, but there's plenty of evidence suggesting it is. We know with near certainty that Saffire's exposition of the context is dead-on. The story doesn't even need the explosion to still be damned interesting.
No, this is not the same incident. The one mentioned on the cited (really ugly:-)) page occurred in 1987. The page doesn't give the date, but plenty of other sources do. Just google it.
Whether the report is true or not, it's certainly evident after a little googling that the Russians had some serious QC issues constructing this pipeline. Which smells suspiciously like sabotage of SOME sort, given the cash cow this thing was supposed to become. I.e., you'd think the incentive would be there to really try to get this thing right.
As for the previous posts doubting the lack technological advancement (or even doubting the Soviet's troubles effectively implementing stolen tech), I say go there and see for yourself. Things may be a little better now, but I was in Moscow and then St. Petersburg in March of 1993. What a sad, sad place.
In our "luxurious" Moscow hotel (The Cosmo), I saw what sort of looked like a TRS-80 clone at a concierge desk on my floor, and I asked the girl sitting behind it all about it. She said they didn't actually use it for anything. "But it looks cool, doesn't it?" she asked.
The sad state of technology I witnessed was almost as depressing as the piles of dirt, curtains of cobwebs, and virtually non-existent security for or basic protection of the treasure trove at the world-famous Hermitage art and antiquities museum in St. Petersburg.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from an interesting article by Warren Norquist appearing in a 2003 issue of the Intelligencer (you can find the complete article here):
SPOILING SOVIET OIL PLANS
After martial law was instituted in Poland, "President Reagan on December 29, 1981 ordered all U.S. firms to break any contracts involving the Siberian dual pipeline and not to enter any new ones." (Shultz, 1993, p. 5) This order also halted a Japanese Soviet oil and gas venture. Gone were four billion dollars in hard currency the Soviets had counted on from 1986 onward. (Schweizer, 1994, p.72).
After first agreeing to honor U.S. sanctions, the Europeans bypassed them with a new interpretation. The U.S. responded in June by "extending the sanctions to include European firms operating under American licenses." The French "minister of industry...threatened to 'requisition' any French companies that did not ship...." (Ibid., p.111)
Reagan responded: any company that used "U.S.-licensed [pipeline] technologies" would be denied U.S. markets. (Ibid., p.124, interview with Robert McFarlane) This led to a compromise by November 13, 1982: "...no new contracts for Soviet gas...strengthen...controls on transfer of strategic items...[start] monitoring financial relations with the Soviet Union and work to harmonize our export credit policies." (Shultz, 1993, p.142)
The pipeline reduced to only one pipe suffered further delays from turbine breakdowns and fires. The two-year delay cost the Soviets over $15 billion and a projected loss from plan of $15 billion in hard currency per year in the 1990's. (Schweizer, 1994, p.216, interview with Roger Robinson) The Siberian Pipeline delay and reduction was a critical turning point in the Cold War because it reduced the currency desperately needed to buy and borrow from the West.
Umm, if you'd read the article, you would've learned that first the Russians bid on the software openly, then stole the software from a Canadian vendor after the US refused to sell it to them. RTFA.
"Internalization" usually denotes what amounts to learning something "by wrote." "Internalization" is post-modernist consultant-speak for "memorization."
I usually hear it in the context of sales and product awareness. For example, a sales person is often encouraged to "internalize" the benefits of his products, so that he will theoretically come across with a little more sincerity and apparent acumen, and discussions with prospects should be more fluid and seem more naturally like advocacy, as opposed to a big schmooze. Again, this is sugar-coated double-talk for "memorize your product line."
Anyone who read The Great Brain books as a kid has known this to be gospel truth all along. No surprise to me:-). It's amazing what you learn from reading fiction. Even juvenile fiction.
Yeah, I have to concur that backlit keyboards are nice. My Sony Z1A doesn't have one. It'd be nice if it did. My Treo 600does have a backlit keyboard. It's a necessity on a handheld. I've got a little Targus USB-powered clip-on light for my Z1A.
I don't understand. Oh, are you saying that's the default setting on other laptops? OK. I hadn't noticed it before I got the VAIO. And don't get me wrong, I love the Z1A. It's a great machine. I would *highly* recommend it for anyone who needs a slimmer, lighter, but powerful laptop.
It seems to be fixed on the Z1 series. I have a first-generation Z1A that I got new about 6 or 7 months ago. Touchpad works fine. Gets used a ton.
Now, I did (as mentioned in an earlier post) have an issue with the default configuration of the touchpad. But I found the setting and disabled the "feature" in question (it would close the current window if you dragged your finger back-and-forth in the upper-left corner).
Weird. I've never seen this. I've had a Z1A for six or seven months now. I type plenty fast.
One annoyance though was that the touchpad is configured by default such that a quick track horizontally back-and-forth in the upper left corner closes the window with the current focus. This made browsing very frustrating. I found the setting pretty quickly and disabled that nonsense.
No, as long as it's useful, a laptop can never be too thin or too small. Or too battery-conservinge.
Obviously you don't have to fly regularly with a computer. There are **THOUSANDS** of us who do. 5 to 7 pounds is a nasty backache waiting to happen, especially when compared to something like the Sony Z1A I have. It's got everything (2 USB ports, firewire, sound in and out, PCMCIA, built-in RJ45 Ethernet and 802.11b), sacrifices no drives (built-in CDRW/DVD, USB floppy), great keyboard, great screen, touchpad, it's speedy as hell, and it only cost like $2200.
Oh yeah, and it ways 4 1/2 pounds and is less than 1 inch thick. And has *awesome* battery life (6 1/2 hour regular battery, 8 hour "long-life" accessory battery).
But you have to consider, the Sony Z1A (which has been out for what, nearly a year now?) is thinner than any Powerbook, has waaay longer battery life, a built-in CDRW/DVD drive, two USB ports, firewire, headphone and mic ports, Memory Stick port, built-in 802.11b, built-in RJ45 ethernet port, and a PCMCIA slot. Oh, and a touchpad, beautiful screen (1400x1050 native), and an excellent keyboard. I think I paid like $2200 for it, maybe six or seven months ago?
As far as it being flimsy or whatever--PSHAW! I abuse the hell out of this thing. So does airport security.
The 1.5 GHz low-power Centrino processor drives Windows XP significantly faster than Powerbooks drive OSX.
Powerbooks certainly have their good points. They don't seem as durable as they used to be, but they're still pretty solid. But price/feature comparison? No comparison, as far as I'm concerned.
Well I'm on Comcast in Richmond, Virginia. The company was formerly Media One, then AT&T before Comcast bought them. Our UI for our digital cable has been excellent since it was first made available (maybe 2 and a half years ago?).
For example, Fox continually rearranges their Sunday night lineup. Sometimes shows are skipped. Sometimes they show multiple episodes of one show. But I don't care. I told my Tivo to record the Simpsons, and it does. If they stick a bonus episode in there, it gets that one too. If they move it back a half-hour, it finds it. If they skip it that weekend, it doesn't record anything. If they put a bonus episode on in the middle of the week, it finds it.
This is child's play for the PC-based software I've used. See my other post. I wasn't clear about the fact that I really meant "big whoop" in the sense that the season pass concept only scratches the surface of the capability of PC PVR software.
SORRY. Sheesh. I wasn't clear in my original post, I meant "big whoop" in the sense that the season pass feature is no-brainer given for a PC-basd PVR solution. And they don't call it out with a special name like "season pass."
In fact, the searching and selection features in both myHTPC and the ATI software (just two of the many solutions available nowadays) are much more comprehensive than those on TiVo.
> I could probably build my own mountain bike. I have the tools.
Mr. Techno Testicles: My point is that nowadays you don't HAVE to "build your own mountain bike." Better mountain bikes are coming out of the stores that threaten to render the TiVo brand obsolete, or at least less ubiquitous.
Jeesh. Your tangential non sequitur belies the position of your head. As in it's likely stuck up into the ass-end of one of your creations or something.
Read my post again, THEN revist your "arguments" please.
> And you seem to be forgetting that 98% of the population is NOT > as savvy as a typical/. user.
No genius, I'm not forgetting this. That was a key foundation point of my post. Doy.
Slashdot Mirror
The original poster writes, "Macs seem to have this area down pretty well, with little in the way of vulnerabilities."
That's because the exposure of Macs is sooooo limited, no one bothers to exploit its many vulnerabilities. Zeitgeist doesn't lie.
I'm stating the obvious, and this comment is probably redundant, but /. has gotten so damned crammed-up that I feel obliged to register this thouhght, ***just to be sure***:
I think you're seeing migration because it runs on Nontel processors and OSX actually has a marginally decent UI.
Sorry. Typo. Actually was '89.
Global Thermonuclear War and Game Boy Color.
There's plenty of documentary evidence showing that construction was severely delayed and the scope scaled back considerably due to all kinds of catastrophic events, including fires. The Soviets kept working on it though, despite these setbacks. A 3 kiloton explosion at an isolated section of the pipeline would certainly be a signifcant setback, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily abandon the project altogether.
Yeah, obviously Saffire's piece is a complete fabrication. It's obviously the product of a disinformation campaign or of an age-addled "neocon" brain.
Whatever. Say what you want about Saffire, but he gets some cool scoops every once in a while, no doubt. As for the allegation that Saffire's article is a response to recent criticism of intelligence services regarding the issue of Iraq's weapons programs, I say yes, it probably is, at least to some degree. And why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't we stick up for the brave hard-working men and women who devote their lives to these noble challenges?
Who knows if the details of the dramatic pipeline explosion are true, but there's plenty of evidence suggesting it is. We know with near certainty that Saffire's exposition of the context is dead-on. The story doesn't even need the explosion to still be damned interesting.
No, this is not the same incident. The one mentioned on the cited (really ugly :-)) page occurred in 1987. The page doesn't give the date, but plenty of other sources do. Just google it.
Whether the report is true or not, it's certainly evident after a little googling that the Russians had some serious QC issues constructing this pipeline. Which smells suspiciously like sabotage of SOME sort, given the cash cow this thing was supposed to become. I.e., you'd think the incentive would be there to really try to get this thing right.
As for the previous posts doubting the lack technological advancement (or even doubting the Soviet's troubles effectively implementing stolen tech), I say go there and see for yourself. Things may be a little better now, but I was in Moscow and then St. Petersburg in March of 1993. What a sad, sad place.
In our "luxurious" Moscow hotel (The Cosmo), I saw what sort of looked like a TRS-80 clone at a concierge desk on my floor, and I asked the girl sitting behind it all about it. She said they didn't actually use it for anything. "But it looks cool, doesn't it?" she asked.
The sad state of technology I witnessed was almost as depressing as the piles of dirt, curtains of cobwebs, and virtually non-existent security for or basic protection of the treasure trove at the world-famous Hermitage art and antiquities museum in St. Petersburg.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from an interesting article by Warren Norquist appearing in a 2003 issue of the Intelligencer (you can find the complete article here):
SPOILING SOVIET OIL PLANS
After martial law was instituted in Poland, "President Reagan on December 29, 1981 ordered all U.S. firms to break any contracts involving the Siberian dual pipeline and not to enter any new ones." (Shultz, 1993, p. 5) This order also halted a Japanese Soviet oil and gas venture. Gone were four billion dollars in hard currency the Soviets had counted on from 1986 onward. (Schweizer, 1994, p.72).
After first agreeing to honor U.S. sanctions, the Europeans bypassed them with a new interpretation. The U.S. responded in June by "extending the sanctions to include European firms operating under American licenses." The French "minister of industry...threatened to 'requisition' any French companies that did not ship...." (Ibid., p.111)
Reagan responded: any company that used "U.S.-licensed [pipeline] technologies" would be denied U.S. markets. (Ibid., p.124, interview with Robert McFarlane) This led to a compromise by November 13, 1982: "...no new contracts for Soviet gas...strengthen...controls on transfer of strategic items...[start] monitoring financial relations with the Soviet Union and work to harmonize our export credit policies." (Shultz, 1993, p.142)
The pipeline reduced to only one pipe suffered further delays from turbine breakdowns and fires. The two-year delay cost the Soviets over $15 billion and a projected loss from plan of $15 billion in hard currency per year in the 1990's. (Schweizer, 1994, p.216, interview with Roger Robinson) The Siberian Pipeline delay and reduction was a critical turning point in the Cold War because it reduced the currency desperately needed to buy and borrow from the West.
Umm, if you'd read the article, you would've learned that first the Russians bid on the software openly, then stole the software from a Canadian vendor after the US refused to sell it to them. RTFA.
Sorry. That should've been "by rote." Need a nap.
"Internalization" usually denotes what amounts to learning something "by wrote." "Internalization" is post-modernist consultant-speak for "memorization."
I usually hear it in the context of sales and product awareness. For example, a sales person is often encouraged to "internalize" the benefits of his products, so that he will theoretically come across with a little more sincerity and apparent acumen, and discussions with prospects should be more fluid and seem more naturally like advocacy, as opposed to a big schmooze. Again, this is sugar-coated double-talk for "memorize your product line."
Anyone who read The Great Brain books as a kid has known this to be gospel truth all along. No surprise to me :-). It's amazing what you learn from reading fiction. Even juvenile fiction.
Yeah, I have to concur that backlit keyboards are nice. My Sony Z1A doesn't have one. It'd be nice if it did. My Treo 600 does have a backlit keyboard. It's a necessity on a handheld. I've got a little Targus USB-powered clip-on light for my Z1A.
I don't understand. Oh, are you saying that's the default setting on other laptops? OK. I hadn't noticed it before I got the VAIO. And don't get me wrong, I love the Z1A. It's a great machine. I would *highly* recommend it for anyone who needs a slimmer, lighter, but powerful laptop.
> It wouldn't be any less than $2500 for sure.
I would have to concur. The Z1s (which are the next size up; still pretty small though) are at $2199, MSRP.
But they definitely won't be $4000, assuming they're making a decent quantity of them.
SD doesn't have a controller on the card? Well how do they make SD wi-fi cards and whatnot?
It seems to be fixed on the Z1 series. I have a first-generation Z1A that I got new about 6 or 7 months ago. Touchpad works fine. Gets used a ton.
Now, I did (as mentioned in an earlier post) have an issue with the default configuration of the touchpad. But I found the setting and disabled the "feature" in question (it would close the current window if you dragged your finger back-and-forth in the upper-left corner).
Weird. I've never seen this. I've had a Z1A for six or seven months now. I type plenty fast.
One annoyance though was that the touchpad is configured by default such that a quick track horizontally back-and-forth in the upper left corner closes the window with the current focus. This made browsing very frustrating. I found the setting pretty quickly and disabled that nonsense.
No, as long as it's useful, a laptop can never be too thin or too small. Or too battery-conservinge.
Obviously you don't have to fly regularly with a computer. There are **THOUSANDS** of us who do. 5 to 7 pounds is a nasty backache waiting to happen, especially when compared to something like the Sony Z1A I have. It's got everything (2 USB ports, firewire, sound in and out, PCMCIA, built-in RJ45 Ethernet and 802.11b), sacrifices no drives (built-in CDRW/DVD, USB floppy), great keyboard, great screen, touchpad, it's speedy as hell, and it only cost like $2200.
Oh yeah, and it ways 4 1/2 pounds and is less than 1 inch thick. And has *awesome* battery life (6 1/2 hour regular battery, 8 hour "long-life" accessory battery).
But you have to consider, the Sony Z1A (which has been out for what, nearly a year now?) is thinner than any Powerbook, has waaay longer battery life, a built-in CDRW/DVD drive, two USB ports, firewire, headphone and mic ports, Memory Stick port, built-in 802.11b, built-in RJ45 ethernet port, and a PCMCIA slot. Oh, and a touchpad, beautiful screen (1400x1050 native), and an excellent keyboard. I think I paid like $2200 for it, maybe six or seven months ago?
As far as it being flimsy or whatever--PSHAW! I abuse the hell out of this thing. So does airport security.
The 1.5 GHz low-power Centrino processor drives Windows XP significantly faster than Powerbooks drive OSX.
Powerbooks certainly have their good points. They don't seem as durable as they used to be, but they're still pretty solid. But price/feature comparison? No comparison, as far as I'm concerned.
This should have been modded down as a troll. Or maybe even spam. "I dropped it and it broke?" That's interesting. Come on.
> My old Comcast digital cable box...
Well I'm on Comcast in Richmond, Virginia. The company was formerly Media One, then AT&T before Comcast bought them. Our UI for our digital cable has been excellent since it was first made available (maybe 2 and a half years ago?).
For example, Fox continually rearranges their Sunday night lineup. Sometimes shows are skipped. Sometimes they show multiple episodes of one show. But I don't care. I told my Tivo to record the Simpsons, and it does. If they stick a bonus episode in there, it gets that one too. If they move it back a half-hour, it finds it. If they skip it that weekend, it doesn't record anything. If they put a bonus episode on in the middle of the week, it finds it.
This is child's play for the PC-based software I've used. See my other post. I wasn't clear about the fact that I really meant "big whoop" in the sense that the season pass concept only scratches the surface of the capability of PC PVR software.
SORRY. Sheesh. I wasn't clear in my original post, I meant "big whoop" in the sense that the season pass feature is no-brainer given for a PC-basd PVR solution. And they don't call it out with a special name like "season pass."
In fact, the searching and selection features in both myHTPC and the ATI software (just two of the many solutions available nowadays) are much more comprehensive than those on TiVo.
> I could probably build my own mountain bike. I have the tools.
/. user.
Mr. Techno Testicles: My point is that nowadays you don't HAVE to "build your own mountain bike." Better mountain bikes are coming out of the stores that threaten to render the TiVo brand obsolete, or at least less ubiquitous.
Jeesh. Your tangential non sequitur belies the position of your head. As in it's likely stuck up into the ass-end of one of your creations or something.
Read my post again, THEN revist your "arguments" please.
> And you seem to be forgetting that 98% of the population is NOT
> as savvy as a typical
No genius, I'm not forgetting this. That was a key foundation point of my post. Doy.