I also think that there is a serious naming problem for... for... for this thing that I don't know a name for. I guess "x86 compatibles?"
So, they were "IBM's." Then "IBM compatibles." But now that IBM isn't even in the business anymore, that term is dumb, not to mention dated. Then there was "Wintel," but there's AMD, and there was Cyrix there for a while, and there's Transmeta.
So then there's just "Windows Machines," but what if I am indeed trying to talk about the machine, and not the software? It makes no sense to talk about a "Windows Machine" that's only ever run Linux. So there's "PC," and as the parent points out, many people know what you're talking about, but I also think it's a pretty seriously imperfect and potentially confusing term. My last Mac had "Power PC" printed in large, friendly letters on the front. Surely, Macs are "Personal Computers," so even if we computer people know what we mean by "PC," I wish we had a better word, and one that won't confuse others. (Yes! It does confuse others! I've had the "Macs aren't PC's?" discussion with people before. My step-mother told tech support she was on a PC, because her Mac said "Power PC" on the front, and didn't say "Mac" anywhere.)
Does anyone have anything better than "x86 compatible?" After all, the new Macs are x86 compatible. Of course, the new Macs also run windows. The new Macs are Wintel machines!
"Mac Wintel" or "Non-Mac Wintel?"
"Mac" or "Non-Mac x86 compatible?"
"Mac PC" or "Non-Mac PC?"
I wish there was a good term for what we're calling "PC's." A word for "non-macintosh, x-86 compatible home-level desktop computers that could run Windows or Linux."
Team DAD, two self-funded brothers working on their own, were the leaders in the second Grand Challenge, beating Stanford's Stanley and both CMU vehicles, for a good portion of the race; before it crashed because a bolt came lose. (Man, they must have been kicking themselves over that bolt.)
Anyway, that's quite impressive for two guys with jobs working part time, on their own, out-of-pocket to be in any way competitive with the CMU and Stanford teams. I hope they're up to this urban challenge and get the money. Although the new challenges presented by an urban environment may well be beyond the realm where amateurs can compete.
"Im sure people could live and reproduce there too"
Yeah, except leave out the "could" part.
Lots of people refused to leave the Black Zone, and the government didn't make them. Lots of the ones left behind died of cancer or thyroid problems. But lots didn't. They farm land that's so radioactive the crops have problems, but some of them are still alive. People have children in the black zone, and only 15-20% of them DON"T have serious health problems.
I'm afraid that the post will prove surprisingly accurate. It doesn't say that he's appointed a Civil Liberties Protection Officer in order to prevent the administration from trampling our civil liberties. It doesn't say that he's been appointed to verify that our civil liberties aren't being trampled. He's been appointed to "assuage the public's privacy concerns."
That's interesting. I was recently looking through an old (1920's?) Fanny Farmer, and the thing was stuffed full of ads. The Fanny Farmer sure isn't anymore. It occurred to me that maybe today's paid mediums, like books, will also graduate beyond advertising, presumably based upon consumer demand.
Although I have to admit, it was certainly never the same as DVD's, as it required very little ingenuity to skip the ads in the Fanny Farmer.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that I now find those ads from the 1920's more interesting than most of the recipes.
Another idea I had was to make a WikiEULA, where people (with legal experience or not) would volunteer to read and summarize the EULA's of popular [things with EULA's] and post their summary/analysis. Then others could go there and quickly get the gist of what they're agreeing to rather than each person spending hours trying to figure it out on their own, or, more likely, ignoring it. If there's something particularly objectionable, it could be discussed, people might complain to the company, some people might even decide not-to-buy/to-boycott the software. It might draw attention to the most egregious cases, some of which might even turn into news stories, or at least show up on blogs. The increased awareness and the ability to browse, sort, categorize, and compare software based upon the meaning of their EULA's might pressure companies to make EULA's more reasonable and/or readable.
Apparently the version discussed on adcritic wasn't sexy enough, because the version of the same ad up now on the hitmanforums website is much more explicit.
"*if* it's carbon neutral, all that matters is the cost. It doesn't matter how inefficient it is"
If you have to burn one gallon of ethanol (or equivalent energy) to make.7 gallons of ethanol, then it doesn't matter how inefficient it is?
If you get the "extra" power you sink into the process from, say, solar, wind, or nuclear, then it's still carbon neutral. But it's still incredibly stupid if the whole process serves only to waste power and subsidize corn farming. So yes, it is about the efficiency.
Even doing something that's marginally really cheap, but losses money every time you do it, is still a stupid thing to do. So cost doesn't matter at all, it's all about the efficiency.
"But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them? In other words, can this technology be used by countries with not so deep pockets as Japan?"
What, rich people should do things that are economically stupid?
It's not about this being stupidly inefficient, yet Japan can afford to do it anyway because they're rich. The question is, which is a more efficient use of electricity (or, more generally,. resources), running an electric train, or running a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell train? Whether you're rich or poor, you should still use the technology that works best for you.
I think it might have occurred to someone in Japan to check and see if this is better than running a conventional electric train in otherwise similar conditions before building it. Although it's quite possible they didn't care. It could be like ethanol in the US, which is used for political reasons, not because it's an efficient way to improve the environment. Depending on who's counting, it generates between.7 and 1.5 times as much power as it consumes to make. We could reduce pollution (including carbon emissions) much more by spending the money we spend on ethanol on nuclear power, solar arrays, or wind power. Ethanol fuel, in it's present state, is government graft to benefit corn farmers and ease the conscience of environmentalists who don't understand it.
I am interested to know if this train really is about a great new technology for saving the environment, or a political ambition.
It's no surprise Microsoft is doing this, because they have some history with making tracing programs.
I remember that years ago Bill Gates got together with Disney to make an email-tracing program. It's great to hear they're working on something similar again, because the people who took part in the beta testing for the email tracing program were supposed to be really handsomely rewarded. I think they got, like, $10,000 for every person they forwarded it to, or something.
I wonder where I can sign up to test this program?
I thought that, among huge companies, the current insane state of the patent system functioned the way the superpowers did in the cold war- under the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. Since they all have thousands of patents covering every inane and obvious aspect of doing anything from writing software to building jets to flipping a hamburger to taking a piss, I thought they couldn't afford to start suing one another, because any suit would be met with a dozen counter-suits, and both companies would be assuring the annihilation of their profits into a bloody cataclysm of endless legal fees.
I understand how little extortion, er, "Property Management" firms can sue the likes of RIM, because they don't make or do anything but leech off anyone successful, so you can't threaten them with anything. Or a company on its last legs can make a crazy last-ditch effort to sue themselves into profitability, like SCO. But what's Lucent really doing here? Isn't Microsoft going to turn around and use it's double-click patent to try to make Lucent stop selling everything they make that involves a GUI at any point? Among thousands of other similar suits they could doubtlessly file covering every aspect of everything Lucent does.
Basically, what's Lucent thinking, and why doesn't MAD work here?
I don't have time to look into this, but I know iRiver has sub-200 euro models with FM, at least in the US. Like the iRiver ifp-990- it plays Ogg, has an FM tuner, has 40-hour battery life, doesn't require any software, and I've used one, and it has decent sound quality. Also, look at the old iRiver G3 line. I know browsing in stores there have been others offering all these features.
With a brief look at Amazon, how about the COBY MP-C941? Or the BoomGear MP-800? Or the RCA Lyra RD2217?
A Yahoo! Shopping search for "mp3 player fm ogg record" under $250 yields over 1,500 results. Surely something in there meets these requirements?
I don't consider any of that "fancy" except for maybe supporting two pairs of headphones. iPod's aren't the only thing on the market. I'm pretty sure the iRiver players do all that stuff. I think IOPS do it to. The Samsung Yepp does that stuff. It looks like the Creative MuVo2 FM does most of that except for the OGG playback. I'm sure there are others.
No kidding. As far as I could tell, there was NOTHING fancy about the player. In fact it only comes with 1 GB of RAM, where Apple's already been selling ones with 4 GB for a while now.
If I were going to get the most expensive MP3 player, I'd want it to start with about 100GB of flash, and then come up with some other innovative features too. Maybe an FM tuner and both XM and Sirius tuners, along with recording/time shifting their content. Video and photo capability. Maybe HD video out? Or really high audio quality and support for some good lossless encoding scheme. Come on, do something impressive.
Otherwise, I think anyone with that much money to waste on an MP3 player and jewelry would do a lot better buying a gorgeous watch and an iPod Nano. I mean, why get something gold plated and jeweled that's going to be obsolete in a few years anyway?
Of course, maybe that's the whole point- to really show off your wealth, you need to not only indulge in conspicuous consumption, but stupid conspicuous consumption. You don't buy fancy expensive stuff that's high quality and will last, you buy fancy, expensive stuff that's low quality and disposable. That'll really show off how rich you are.
Ford thinks Toyota should import less cars. Kelloggs thinks General Mills should make less cereal. Telecoms want Google to pay them money (OK, that one is news, bad example). Anyway, the point is, of course Movie Theaters want an advantage over their competition, but who cares? There must be a hundred times a day that some consortium tries to change some aspect of their industry to their advantage.
Just out of curiosity, when Americans are spending billions of dollars a year on stuff called "Home Theater," what did theaters think was going to happen to revenue?
NASA doesn't have that much control over their money. There have been plenty of articles in recent news showing that NASA administrators want nothing more than to ditch the shuttle, it's an albatross around their necks. But they can't, because they've made promises to the international community to keep the International Space Station going, whether it's a waste of resources or not. They can't develop a new program quickly enough to meet our immediate needs for future launches. Beyond that, the shuttle program's been rife with problems, and they can't launch more shuttles without fixing them up, which is expensive. They're forced to dump huge amounts of additional funding into something they're trying to get rid of entirely.
Additionally, they've got this mandate from Bush to try to get to Mars ASAP, building a moon base first, which could use up their entire budget right there.
Beyond all of that, they feel they have to be careful to keep the public interested, or that their funding will be cut. Surveys have shown that most people are primarily impressed with human space flight, and I'm sure there's pressure on NASA to maintain manned missions even if they're just bread a circuses, and they could get a lot more science done for the money without them.
So I agree that $13 billion should be enough for NASA to accomplish an incredible amount more than they do, but not "should be enough" and isn't because they're all incompetent, but "should be enough" and isn't because they can't spend it on the important things for one reason or another.
Well, I can see who the OS religious warrior is, since you need to put words in my mouth and make up things about me and, with absolutely zero evidence, proclaim I'm a religious zealot to defend your precious OS. No, I didn't know if XP ran old DOS programs, hence the question "How many circa 1985 DOS programs run under XP?" I didn't change ground in my second post, both posts were about software backwards compatibility, you're trying to make it look like my entire first post was about this one question you pulled out and twisted around.
I'm a graphics professional, so yeah, I prefer Macs and that's what I've generally owned, but I've also had to use Windows at work for years and help support friend's Windows machines. When asked for advice on what computer to buy, I've recommended PC's to people, although I've also switched other people to Macs. Apple has tons of problems and bugs and Windows does plenty of things right, and had you known anything at all about me, you'd have known that I frequently post to Slashdot criticizing Apple, and on some occasions point out how Windows does things better.
Instead, knowing nothing at all about me, you fabricate personal attacks, when my arguments just stuck to a discussion of facts and impressions regarding the issue we were discussing. The real irony is that the personal attacks claim I'm a zealot, while your last post makes it perfectly clear which one of us likes to discuss and learn about technical topics on Slashdot, and which one of us needs to fabricate things and make personal attacks on people to try to make their side win.
Well, there are five free Apple ][ emulators for OSX, but I haven't time right now to "try the same experiment," although I'm pretty sure it would go just fine. I'd also like to point out that, if XP runs those DOS applications, then you can run them on the MacBook Pro too, since it runs XP, and will probably soon run it windowed under OSX. Can you run any of the old Apple programs or old Mac programs or new Mac programs on a PC?
If you get to old enough stuff, you can run just about anything fine on a Mac or a PC, as long as there's an emulator, because as systems keep getting faster, even the emulation speed is faster than the old hardware ever was. What you need vendor software support for is relatively recent stuff. I'm just saying that I've come across more software that wouldn't run on different versions of Windows than I've ever come across that wouldn't run on different versions of Mac OS, yet I've used a lot more total Mac software. Given all the times I've heard someone complaining that they can't run such-and-such because it's for a different version of Windows than they have, I can't see why Microsoft wins the compatibility war.
Why is it a fact that "the compatibility issue is nowhere as good as Windows?" Can you back this fact up with any facts?
A new quad 2.5 ghz G5 with 16 GB of RAM and running Tiger does a great job of running Tetris, from 1987, and Macwrite II, from 1988. And if I use a processor-reducing utility, I can even play Snake and Shuffle Puck from 1985. That's over 20 years of backwards compatibility going on a brand new machine. Even running games, which are notoriously incompatible.
It's true they're making a break now. Apple's timeline, which may have been accelerated since, said they'd phase out PPC in about a year and a half. So that's seven years of compatibility for programs that haven't been carbonized or rewritten in cocoa. I bet there will be an emulator released soon for this stuff, but not as official support from Apple, so I suppose that doesn't count.
I'm sure people here will argue with me, and I have fairly limited experience. But I haven't had the best of luck with Windows application compatibility. Approximately none of my cousin's games for Windows 95 would run on Windows NT. Move2Mac didn't have NT compatibility either. One Windows 95 game wouldn't run on Windows 98. How many circa 1985 DOS programs run under XP? Because that's the kind of compatibility Apple's offering today. And if we want to look at what runs on Intel, let's wait and see what runs under Longhorn.
I suspect it's true that, with Intel breaking Classic, Apple is introducing a more significant lack of backwards compatibility than MS generally does, at 5-7 years. But this is the first time they've done this, through all the transitions they've been through. So until just now, I don't think the "compatibility issue is nowhere as good as Windows." I think it's much better. And I want to see how good it is with Longhorn before we beat up Apple too much in comparison.
"We are planning to put both in. We don't take a stand in that fight"
While including both isn't supporting one over the other, if they really don't want to influence the outcome, they should offer PC's with neither, either, and both, and let consumers decide.
By standardizing on both, they can affect the format war by pushing us towards a permanent lock-in on both standards. If people's PC's have both players anyway (without an option to save money and only get one), they might as well buy disks of either type, right? They can play them. Then they're never going to want to upgrade to new equipment that won't play all the disks they already own...
Supporting both is not an entirely neutral position. There are a lot of comments here about people waiting for someone to win the format wars before they buy. No one's ever going to win if consumers end up forced to support both formats if they want to support either.
There's not much left for the robots to do
on
Robots to Help Farmers
·
· Score: 3, Informative
In most modern American agribusiness, there's not much left for robots to do. Tilling, planting, harvesting, and all aspects of milling the final product are already mechanized. Even driving the tractor/combine is automated in many cases now- combines and such are often piloted by GPS.
It's true there are still labor-intensive things like fruit picking where advanced robots may one day replace illegal immigrants, but a lot of agriculture already takes place with a bare minimum of human involvement to farm hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans.
Everyone jokes about British food, and that includes me. Yet, London's one of my favorite places to eat.
Is this odd? No, it makes perfect sense. Because British food is so bad, London has the most exquisite collection of foreign restaurants of any great city. The Italian, French, Chinese, Irish, and Thai food in London is world class. I am not the least surprised that London has many of the best restaurants in the world. Anyone in their right mind in London would eat foreign food, thus providing a large clientele and lots of healthy competition.
But look at the article you linked to: most of the restaurants, and practically every dish they mention, is not traditional British cuisine. Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons? Admittedly, "Best End of Lamb" might be British, but I'll guarantee you that most of the menus at the restaurants run more along the lines of the "crab with roast foie gras, oyster ravioli with goats cheese and truffle" than fish and chips or any of the combinations of separate servings of a chunk of dry, overcooked meat, a small mound of bland vegetables, and a flavorless white-bread that seems to constitute many British meals.
Slashdot Mirror
I also think that there is a serious naming problem for... for... for this thing that I don't know a name for. I guess "x86 compatibles?"
So, they were "IBM's." Then "IBM compatibles." But now that IBM isn't even in the business anymore, that term is dumb, not to mention dated. Then there was "Wintel," but there's AMD, and there was Cyrix there for a while, and there's Transmeta.
So then there's just "Windows Machines," but what if I am indeed trying to talk about the machine, and not the software? It makes no sense to talk about a "Windows Machine" that's only ever run Linux. So there's "PC," and as the parent points out, many people know what you're talking about, but I also think it's a pretty seriously imperfect and potentially confusing term. My last Mac had "Power PC" printed in large, friendly letters on the front. Surely, Macs are "Personal Computers," so even if we computer people know what we mean by "PC," I wish we had a better word, and one that won't confuse others. (Yes! It does confuse others! I've had the "Macs aren't PC's?" discussion with people before. My step-mother told tech support she was on a PC, because her Mac said "Power PC" on the front, and didn't say "Mac" anywhere.)
Does anyone have anything better than "x86 compatible?" After all, the new Macs are x86 compatible. Of course, the new Macs also run windows. The new Macs are Wintel machines!
"Mac Wintel" or "Non-Mac Wintel?"
"Mac" or "Non-Mac x86 compatible?"
"Mac PC" or "Non-Mac PC?"
I wish there was a good term for what we're calling "PC's." A word for "non-macintosh, x-86 compatible home-level desktop computers that could run Windows or Linux."
Anyway, that's quite impressive for two guys with jobs working part time, on their own, out-of-pocket to be in any way competitive with the CMU and Stanford teams. I hope they're up to this urban challenge and get the money. Although the new challenges presented by an urban environment may well be beyond the realm where amateurs can compete.
I've been referring to the next upcoming release as "American Shorthair" ever since 10.1.
Yeah, except leave out the "could" part.
Lots of people refused to leave the Black Zone, and the government didn't make them. Lots of the ones left behind died of cancer or thyroid problems. But lots didn't. They farm land that's so radioactive the crops have problems, but some of them are still alive. People have children in the black zone, and only 15-20% of them DON"T have serious health problems.
I'm afraid that the post will prove surprisingly accurate. It doesn't say that he's appointed a Civil Liberties Protection Officer in order to prevent the administration from trampling our civil liberties. It doesn't say that he's been appointed to verify that our civil liberties aren't being trampled. He's been appointed to "assuage the public's privacy concerns."
Although I have to admit, it was certainly never the same as DVD's, as it required very little ingenuity to skip the ads in the Fanny Farmer.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that I now find those ads from the 1920's more interesting than most of the recipes.
Another idea I had was to make a WikiEULA, where people (with legal experience or not) would volunteer to read and summarize the EULA's of popular [things with EULA's] and post their summary/analysis. Then others could go there and quickly get the gist of what they're agreeing to rather than each person spending hours trying to figure it out on their own, or, more likely, ignoring it. If there's something particularly objectionable, it could be discussed, people might complain to the company, some people might even decide not-to-buy/to-boycott the software. It might draw attention to the most egregious cases, some of which might even turn into news stories, or at least show up on blogs. The increased awareness and the ability to browse, sort, categorize, and compare software based upon the meaning of their EULA's might pressure companies to make EULA's more reasonable and/or readable.
Apparently the version discussed on adcritic wasn't sexy enough, because the version of the same ad up now on the hitmanforums website is much more explicit.
If you have to burn one gallon of ethanol (or equivalent energy) to make .7 gallons of ethanol, then it doesn't matter how inefficient it is?
If you get the "extra" power you sink into the process from, say, solar, wind, or nuclear, then it's still carbon neutral. But it's still incredibly stupid if the whole process serves only to waste power and subsidize corn farming. So yes, it is about the efficiency.
Even doing something that's marginally really cheap, but losses money every time you do it, is still a stupid thing to do. So cost doesn't matter at all, it's all about the efficiency.
What, rich people should do things that are economically stupid?
It's not about this being stupidly inefficient, yet Japan can afford to do it anyway because they're rich. The question is, which is a more efficient use of electricity (or, more generally,. resources), running an electric train, or running a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell train? Whether you're rich or poor, you should still use the technology that works best for you.
I think it might have occurred to someone in Japan to check and see if this is better than running a conventional electric train in otherwise similar conditions before building it. Although it's quite possible they didn't care. It could be like ethanol in the US, which is used for political reasons, not because it's an efficient way to improve the environment. Depending on who's counting, it generates between .7 and 1.5 times as much power as it consumes to make. We could reduce pollution (including carbon emissions) much more by spending the money we spend on ethanol on nuclear power, solar arrays, or wind power. Ethanol fuel, in it's present state, is government graft to benefit corn farmers and ease the conscience of environmentalists who don't understand it.
I am interested to know if this train really is about a great new technology for saving the environment, or a political ambition.
Maybe they were trying to be funny?
I remember that years ago Bill Gates got together with Disney to make an email-tracing program. It's great to hear they're working on something similar again, because the people who took part in the beta testing for the email tracing program were supposed to be really handsomely rewarded. I think they got, like, $10,000 for every person they forwarded it to, or something.
I wonder where I can sign up to test this program?
I understand how little extortion, er, "Property Management" firms can sue the likes of RIM, because they don't make or do anything but leech off anyone successful, so you can't threaten them with anything. Or a company on its last legs can make a crazy last-ditch effort to sue themselves into profitability, like SCO. But what's Lucent really doing here? Isn't Microsoft going to turn around and use it's double-click patent to try to make Lucent stop selling everything they make that involves a GUI at any point? Among thousands of other similar suits they could doubtlessly file covering every aspect of everything Lucent does.
Basically, what's Lucent thinking, and why doesn't MAD work here?
But Shhhh! They'll fire you if you tell anyone. At least, they did before this announcement.
With a brief look at Amazon, how about the COBY MP-C941? Or the BoomGear MP-800? Or the RCA Lyra RD2217? A Yahoo! Shopping search for "mp3 player fm ogg record" under $250 yields over 1,500 results. Surely something in there meets these requirements?
I don't consider any of that "fancy" except for maybe supporting two pairs of headphones. iPod's aren't the only thing on the market. I'm pretty sure the iRiver players do all that stuff. I think IOPS do it to. The Samsung Yepp does that stuff. It looks like the Creative MuVo2 FM does most of that except for the OGG playback. I'm sure there are others.
If I were going to get the most expensive MP3 player, I'd want it to start with about 100GB of flash, and then come up with some other innovative features too. Maybe an FM tuner and both XM and Sirius tuners, along with recording/time shifting their content. Video and photo capability. Maybe HD video out? Or really high audio quality and support for some good lossless encoding scheme. Come on, do something impressive.
Otherwise, I think anyone with that much money to waste on an MP3 player and jewelry would do a lot better buying a gorgeous watch and an iPod Nano. I mean, why get something gold plated and jeweled that's going to be obsolete in a few years anyway?
Of course, maybe that's the whole point- to really show off your wealth, you need to not only indulge in conspicuous consumption, but stupid conspicuous consumption. You don't buy fancy expensive stuff that's high quality and will last, you buy fancy, expensive stuff that's low quality and disposable. That'll really show off how rich you are.
Just out of curiosity, when Americans are spending billions of dollars a year on stuff called "Home Theater," what did theaters think was going to happen to revenue?
Additionally, they've got this mandate from Bush to try to get to Mars ASAP, building a moon base first, which could use up their entire budget right there.
Beyond all of that, they feel they have to be careful to keep the public interested, or that their funding will be cut. Surveys have shown that most people are primarily impressed with human space flight, and I'm sure there's pressure on NASA to maintain manned missions even if they're just bread a circuses, and they could get a lot more science done for the money without them.
So I agree that $13 billion should be enough for NASA to accomplish an incredible amount more than they do, but not "should be enough" and isn't because they're all incompetent, but "should be enough" and isn't because they can't spend it on the important things for one reason or another.
I'm a graphics professional, so yeah, I prefer Macs and that's what I've generally owned, but I've also had to use Windows at work for years and help support friend's Windows machines. When asked for advice on what computer to buy, I've recommended PC's to people, although I've also switched other people to Macs. Apple has tons of problems and bugs and Windows does plenty of things right, and had you known anything at all about me, you'd have known that I frequently post to Slashdot criticizing Apple, and on some occasions point out how Windows does things better.
Instead, knowing nothing at all about me, you fabricate personal attacks, when my arguments just stuck to a discussion of facts and impressions regarding the issue we were discussing. The real irony is that the personal attacks claim I'm a zealot, while your last post makes it perfectly clear which one of us likes to discuss and learn about technical topics on Slashdot, and which one of us needs to fabricate things and make personal attacks on people to try to make their side win.
If you get to old enough stuff, you can run just about anything fine on a Mac or a PC, as long as there's an emulator, because as systems keep getting faster, even the emulation speed is faster than the old hardware ever was. What you need vendor software support for is relatively recent stuff. I'm just saying that I've come across more software that wouldn't run on different versions of Windows than I've ever come across that wouldn't run on different versions of Mac OS, yet I've used a lot more total Mac software. Given all the times I've heard someone complaining that they can't run such-and-such because it's for a different version of Windows than they have, I can't see why Microsoft wins the compatibility war.
A new quad 2.5 ghz G5 with 16 GB of RAM and running Tiger does a great job of running Tetris, from 1987, and Macwrite II, from 1988. And if I use a processor-reducing utility, I can even play Snake and Shuffle Puck from 1985. That's over 20 years of backwards compatibility going on a brand new machine. Even running games, which are notoriously incompatible.
It's true they're making a break now. Apple's timeline, which may have been accelerated since, said they'd phase out PPC in about a year and a half. So that's seven years of compatibility for programs that haven't been carbonized or rewritten in cocoa. I bet there will be an emulator released soon for this stuff, but not as official support from Apple, so I suppose that doesn't count.
I'm sure people here will argue with me, and I have fairly limited experience. But I haven't had the best of luck with Windows application compatibility. Approximately none of my cousin's games for Windows 95 would run on Windows NT. Move2Mac didn't have NT compatibility either. One Windows 95 game wouldn't run on Windows 98. How many circa 1985 DOS programs run under XP? Because that's the kind of compatibility Apple's offering today. And if we want to look at what runs on Intel, let's wait and see what runs under Longhorn.
I suspect it's true that, with Intel breaking Classic, Apple is introducing a more significant lack of backwards compatibility than MS generally does, at 5-7 years. But this is the first time they've done this, through all the transitions they've been through. So until just now, I don't think the "compatibility issue is nowhere as good as Windows." I think it's much better. And I want to see how good it is with Longhorn before we beat up Apple too much in comparison.
While including both isn't supporting one over the other, if they really don't want to influence the outcome, they should offer PC's with neither, either, and both, and let consumers decide.
By standardizing on both, they can affect the format war by pushing us towards a permanent lock-in on both standards. If people's PC's have both players anyway (without an option to save money and only get one), they might as well buy disks of either type, right? They can play them. Then they're never going to want to upgrade to new equipment that won't play all the disks they already own...
Supporting both is not an entirely neutral position. There are a lot of comments here about people waiting for someone to win the format wars before they buy. No one's ever going to win if consumers end up forced to support both formats if they want to support either.
It's true there are still labor-intensive things like fruit picking where advanced robots may one day replace illegal immigrants, but a lot of agriculture already takes place with a bare minimum of human involvement to farm hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans.
Is this odd? No, it makes perfect sense. Because British food is so bad, London has the most exquisite collection of foreign restaurants of any great city. The Italian, French, Chinese, Irish, and Thai food in London is world class. I am not the least surprised that London has many of the best restaurants in the world. Anyone in their right mind in London would eat foreign food, thus providing a large clientele and lots of healthy competition.
But look at the article you linked to: most of the restaurants, and practically every dish they mention, is not traditional British cuisine. Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons? Admittedly, "Best End of Lamb" might be British, but I'll guarantee you that most of the menus at the restaurants run more along the lines of the "crab with roast foie gras, oyster ravioli with goats cheese and truffle" than fish and chips or any of the combinations of separate servings of a chunk of dry, overcooked meat, a small mound of bland vegetables, and a flavorless white-bread that seems to constitute many British meals.