Um...right because he should've let the states secede...yeah that would've been great.
The Republican party back then was all about ending slavery. That's why it was formed. After the states seceded, Lincoln thought it might be a good idea to try to keep them from doing so. I think most agree that was a good idea.
When I say "traditional" I mean as far as modern politics since the early 20th century are concerned.
The current government is -not- Republican. Just so you know, I'm not either.
They are neo-cons. Republican's are traditionally small government, and pro states rights. The current administration is anything but. There are many true republicans out there that dislike the current government just as much as liberals do.
I bought the one on Thinkgeek. As someone else mentioned, it doesn't track. It's still cool, but has a big problem. The flicker of flourescent lighting triggers the motion sensor on it.
Rfid is a non starter because of this. it's too expensive, cost for a store to get into it is so high that adoption will not happen (look how long it took stores to get barcode scanners after bacrodes appeared on most products)
It a red-herring. rfid is dead even if walmart adopts it fully.
How is that true? WalMart won't be the only one adopting this. All big chain stores will most likely be able to adopt it (and most likely will). At this point the price for readers will come down and most suppliers will probably print both RFID and barcodes on the packaging (like they do with just barcodes now) meaning you just need the reader.
Mom and pop can buy a nice turnkey system with barcode for less than $800.00 the cheapest rfid reader right now costs more than that, requires you to buy special stickers to put the rfid's on your products that cost 10 times that of the price stickers you use now (and have a nasty high cost for the printer for the stickers.
RFIDs are not a replacement for price stickers, they are a replacement for barcodes. Places that currently use price stickers can continue to do so. What would be replaced would be barcode readers. Once most big chain stores utilize RFID, the price is going to go down on these readers. I'm not so sure they are all that expensive now anwyay.
As as printing the tags is concerned, if a place needs to do that, I don't see that it'll cost a whole lot more than it does to currently print barcodes. Suppliers will be printing these tags directly onto the packaging. This technology will be available to everyone cheaply, just like barcode printing is now.
If not, what's to stop a spammer from sending their advert along with the "click to confirm" email? (I know, they already do.)
Having an ad would define it as SPAM.
In my opinion, tt should be be ok to send confirmation emails. However, the legislation should specify that the email contain no ads, is limited to one per registration request, and include an opt-out from any future registration requests.
What you're glossing over is that once people had their PCs and a significant amount of both time and money invested in their software, they did not want to lose that investment when they bought their next machine.
If the playing field was the same as it was when people were buying PCs for the first time, I'd agree with you. That simply isn't the case now.
The argument that people buy machines because techies encourage them to get things that are convienent for them to fix is wrong too. If that were the case and Macs are so great and problem free, everyone would already own Macs. More appropriately, why do people continue to run Windows which certainly is not convienent or problem free when other alternatives exist?
First my scenario was poking holes in the parent post where they used the same story but in a favorable to Apple way.
Second why would the average person, who in your first point would have too difficult a time buying OS X compatible parts, not just buy a non x86 mac now? I'd estimate most of the people that are chomping at the bit to run OS X on PC are exactly the type who would buy compatible parts. The rest would already just own a mac.
I'm not sure where you're going with the third point. It's a given that Apple wants you to buy the software to use on your old Mac instead of buying a new PC. However, Apple makes most of its money on hardware. Apple will be in deep trouble if people stop buying Apple hardware. This is exactly what would happen if OS X were made available to everyone as indicated by the parent.
Finally my implication about market share is that it doesn't mean anything if people stop buying Apple hardware. That's great if more 3rd party software venders start supporting OS X. It doesn't do Apple much good if people aren't buying Apple hardware. I seriously doubt enough people will switch to make it worth while for Apple to become predominately a software company.
To expect that Apple will somehow topple Microsoft as the market leader, in my opinion, is quite a stretch. This is because aside from being able to try OS X (something most average users will not do) on your current hardware, the main barrier to switching (application support) hasn't changed. To imply that a switch to x86 is somehow going to result in a massive marketshare switch is a bit silly.
Just like the typical PC user is going to just buy IBM for their next computer, right? If OS X were made readily available to everyone as the grandparent poster indicated, people would undercut Apple on the hardware front. If people want a florescent purple case, people will undercut apple on that too.
Apple is only relavent because people like the hardware and the OS.
Well, with x86 many people can produce the hardware, and Apple just doesn't make that much money from their software. I also seriously doubt they'll have any more success getting people to switch in the future than they have now.
What huge opportunity? If OSX was really so good as to be capable of overthrowing Microsoft, why hasn't everyone started buying Macs?
It's not like having OSX on PC is all the sudden going to make all your Windows Apps work. Apple serves a niche market, providing an all in one solution. That is you pay a premium, you have to deal with not having all the Windows apps available to you, and in exchange you get a computer that just works (tm).
Moving to PC won't change that. What it will effectively do, however, is bring back the same problems Apple had with the clones. That is people being able to purchase lower priced hardware from other venders, and running their prefered OS on it. This is not a good thing for Apple, as demonstrated by them killing off the clones in the first place. Apple realizes that they have a niche group of people who use their OS...some are loyal...some are not. Those that are not will run OS X on cheaper non-Apple hardware, and Apple will lose that sale.
As to why Microsoft won, it's fairly obvious. The IBM PC was the first widely successful PC. Microsoft provided the operating system for that PC. There was a natural upgrade path from the first IBM PCs to what have today. That is why, despite being such crap, Microsoft continues to dominate the market place. Now tell me, what happened to IBM's marketshare in the PC market when lower priced (but compatible) alternatives started popping up?
With no such logical upgrade path for Apple software, what do you think is going to happen to them if people stop buying Apple hardware? Is OS X so good that people will be willing to fork over the price of OSX plus the price of a Mac for just the software?
No...you already admit to pirating the OS and building the PCs. I'm not sure how you can recommend buying stock PCs if you build them...but...whatever. It's a lot more likely that it goes like this:
Next month your parents decide they want to upgrade their PC and come to you for advice (because you built their last PC). You tell them to order OS X compatible parts, and you install your pirated copy of the OS on the machine after you build it. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Your grandfather, a year later, decides to upgrade his PC. He comes to you for advice because you built his last PC. You tell him he should run OS X. He talks to your parents, they tell him they love their OS X compatible PC. He orders OS X compatible parts, and you build the machine and install your pirated copy of OS X. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Soon your aunt wants to upgrade, repeat above story. Market share continues to grow, but people aren't actually purchasing any Apple products. Rinse and repeat for your entire family. I doubt you build your friend's computers, but if you do...or your friends are similar to you (i.e. technically savy and have copies of OS X) rinse and repeat for them. In 5 years listen to all of the "Apple is DYING" trolls on slashdot because Apple is a hardware company and isn't selling any hardware. In 10 years your son asks you, "What is Apple?" and you tell him, "Oh we're running the last version of their OS on our Dell. Great company, too bad they went under."
This is true, but I think it's more logical to compare the ebook that expires in 5 months to a paper book bought at the bookstore and then sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.
There really isn't much difference here. Either way you don't have the book anymore.
If you anticipate needing the book after the course, then it would be pretty dumb to buy the ebook version knowing it will expire in 5 months. Likewise it would be pretty dumb to sell the book back to the bookstore.
The ebooks themselves aren't that bad...granted the grandparent's post is valid, however ebooks offer certain advantages.
1. They're a lot easier to carry (if you have a nice light laptop). 2. They can be searchable. 3. They could have interactive content such as audio clips and movies. 4. Errata for the book could easily be distributed (i.e. the book could be patched).
As long as people have the choice between ebooks and paper books everything is great.
However, I know the publishers won't play nice and if the ebook market takes hold, they'd leverage it to kill the paper/used book market. Once they did that, they'd jack the prices up and boom...everyone has to pay a gajillion dollars for the books, we wouldn't be able to sell them back later or at all because of DRM, and we wouldn't be able to keep them either.
Things like making sure your desk and chair are the right height? Also it might make sense for you to not just change the layout, but change the keyboard. Either use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard or something like this: Maltron Keyboard
If a person isn't willing to take the time to write a hand written letter, how important could the issue possibly be to them?
This has nothing to do with whether or not a representative is e-aware.
Hand writing a letter clearly demonstrates that you are a lot more concerned then sending a fax or email does. This is because hand written letters are inherently more personal. They take longer to write, are harder to send, etc...thus they show a much higher level of concern. After all, when was the last time you sent a fax for Valentines Day?
I'm not sure what your deal is. First you turn a comment about how sending bulk faxes isn't all that effective into a semi rant about doing nothing. Then you turn my comment about sending a hand written letter as opposed to bulk faxing into pandering to them.
Hand written letters are far more persuasive. If the goal is to persuade your representative, and you actually care about the issue it makes more sense to hand write a letter. If you only kind of care about the issue, well send an email or fax from a website. You can expect your representative to only kind of care about your point of view as well.
Where did the parent poster advocate doing nothing?
How about sending a handwritten letter instead? Lots of uniquely phrased, hand written letters from different people is a lot more persuasive than bulk faxes.
Um...maybe I missed something there, but no where in that article does it say that rates have gone up. That is the amount they can charge per ad.
It just says that more people are spending more money on ads. I seriously doubt the people who host forums are seeing a whole lot of increase...now google or yahoo, sure.
The "payment" for making the movie was the enjoyment they got from dressing up as other people and having fake sex in front of a camera.
These people have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
The "payment" for making the song was the enjoyment they got from singing and dancing on stage.
Actually this often the case, but again most people that do this have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
The "payment" for writing that video game was the enjoyment they got from bending the computer to their will and the thrill of bringing lines of code to brilliant life on a computer screen.
Again, in many cases this is true. OSS thrives on the fact that there are a lot of people out there who enjoy writing code. At anyrate, again those that do it for money have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
Oh wait, you mean its different when people take companies' content without asking than when companies take people's content?
What the hell are you talking about? The companies aren't taking anything by asking that forum users pay. They aren't charging for the material, they are charging for the service. Feel free to make a copy of the material and host your own forum.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not certain, but I believe mass produced DVDs are pressed or "stamped" like CDs are. I don't think production would be too much of an issue.
But to purchase the same DVD again and again and again and again seems just a little silly.
For a rental business sure. Makes a lot of sense for Hollywood though.
slow + no fan != innovation
fast + no fan == innovation
Um...right because he should've let the states secede...yeah that would've been great.
The Republican party back then was all about ending slavery. That's why it was formed. After the states seceded, Lincoln thought it might be a good idea to try to keep them from doing so. I think most agree that was a good idea.
When I say "traditional" I mean as far as modern politics since the early 20th century are concerned.
The current government is -not- Republican. Just so you know, I'm not either.
They are neo-cons. Republican's are traditionally small government, and pro states rights. The current administration is anything but. There are many true republicans out there that dislike the current government just as much as liberals do.
I bought the one on Thinkgeek. As someone else mentioned, it doesn't track. It's still cool, but has a big problem. The flicker of flourescent lighting triggers the motion sensor on it.
Makes it kind of lame in an office environment.
So what's the verdict? Will it make Vanilla Ice?
Rfid is a non starter because of this. it's too expensive, cost for a store to get into it is so high that adoption will not happen (look how long it took stores to get barcode scanners after bacrodes appeared on most products)
It a red-herring. rfid is dead even if walmart adopts it fully.
How is that true? WalMart won't be the only one adopting this. All big chain stores will most likely be able to adopt it (and most likely will). At this point the price for readers will come down and most suppliers will probably print both RFID and barcodes on the packaging (like they do with just barcodes now) meaning you just need the reader.
Mom and pop can buy a nice turnkey system with barcode for less than $800.00 the cheapest rfid reader right now costs more than that, requires you to buy special stickers to put the rfid's on your products that cost 10 times that of the price stickers you use now (and have a nasty high cost for the printer for the stickers.
RFIDs are not a replacement for price stickers, they are a replacement for barcodes. Places that currently use price stickers can continue to do so. What would be replaced would be barcode readers. Once most big chain stores utilize RFID, the price is going to go down on these readers. I'm not so sure they are all that expensive now anwyay.
As as printing the tags is concerned, if a place needs to do that, I don't see that it'll cost a whole lot more than it does to currently print barcodes. Suppliers will be printing these tags directly onto the packaging. This technology will be available to everyone cheaply, just like barcode printing is now.
True...but why would you assume this is a list of odd prime numbers?
1 is not prime.
Um yeah I think that was the point.
If not, what's to stop a spammer from sending their advert along with the "click to confirm" email? (I know, they already do.)
Having an ad would define it as SPAM.
In my opinion, tt should be be ok to send confirmation emails. However, the legislation should specify that the email contain no ads, is limited to one per registration request, and include an opt-out from any future registration requests.
What you're glossing over is that once people had their PCs and a significant amount of both time and money invested in their software, they did not want to lose that investment when they bought their next machine.
If the playing field was the same as it was when people were buying PCs for the first time, I'd agree with you. That simply isn't the case now.
The argument that people buy machines because techies encourage them to get things that are convienent for them to fix is wrong too. If that were the case and Macs are so great and problem free, everyone would already own Macs. More appropriately, why do people continue to run Windows which certainly is not convienent or problem free when other alternatives exist?
First my scenario was poking holes in the parent post where they used the same story but in a favorable to Apple way.
Second why would the average person, who in your first point would have too difficult a time buying OS X compatible parts, not just buy a non x86 mac now? I'd estimate most of the people that are chomping at the bit to run OS X on PC are exactly the type who would buy compatible parts. The rest would already just own a mac.
I'm not sure where you're going with the third point. It's a given that Apple wants you to buy the software to use on your old Mac instead of buying a new PC. However, Apple makes most of its money on hardware. Apple will be in deep trouble if people stop buying Apple hardware. This is exactly what would happen if OS X were made available to everyone as indicated by the parent.
Finally my implication about market share is that it doesn't mean anything if people stop buying Apple hardware. That's great if more 3rd party software venders start supporting OS X. It doesn't do Apple much good if people aren't buying Apple hardware. I seriously doubt enough people will switch to make it worth while for Apple to become predominately a software company.
To expect that Apple will somehow topple Microsoft as the market leader, in my opinion, is quite a stretch. This is because aside from being able to try OS X (something most average users will not do) on your current hardware, the main barrier to switching (application support) hasn't changed. To imply that a switch to x86 is somehow going to result in a massive marketshare switch is a bit silly.
Just like the typical PC user is going to just buy IBM for their next computer, right? If OS X were made readily available to everyone as the grandparent poster indicated, people would undercut Apple on the hardware front. If people want a florescent purple case, people will undercut apple on that too.
Apple is only relavent because people like the hardware and the OS.
Well, with x86 many people can produce the hardware, and Apple just doesn't make that much money from their software. I also seriously doubt they'll have any more success getting people to switch in the future than they have now.
What huge opportunity? If OSX was really so good as to be capable of overthrowing Microsoft, why hasn't everyone started buying Macs?
It's not like having OSX on PC is all the sudden going to make all your Windows Apps work. Apple serves a niche market, providing an all in one solution. That is you pay a premium, you have to deal with not having all the Windows apps available to you, and in exchange you get a computer that just works (tm).
Moving to PC won't change that. What it will effectively do, however, is bring back the same problems Apple had with the clones. That is people being able to purchase lower priced hardware from other venders, and running their prefered OS on it. This is not a good thing for Apple, as demonstrated by them killing off the clones in the first place. Apple realizes that they have a niche group of people who use their OS...some are loyal...some are not. Those that are not will run OS X on cheaper non-Apple hardware, and Apple will lose that sale.
As to why Microsoft won, it's fairly obvious. The IBM PC was the first widely successful PC. Microsoft provided the operating system for that PC. There was a natural upgrade path from the first IBM PCs to what have today. That is why, despite being such crap, Microsoft continues to dominate the market place. Now tell me, what happened to IBM's marketshare in the PC market when lower priced (but compatible) alternatives started popping up?
With no such logical upgrade path for Apple software, what do you think is going to happen to them if people stop buying Apple hardware? Is OS X so good that people will be willing to fork over the price of OSX plus the price of a Mac for just the software?
No...you already admit to pirating the OS and building the PCs. I'm not sure how you can recommend buying stock PCs if you build them...but...whatever. It's a lot more likely that it goes like this:
Next month your parents decide they want to upgrade their PC and come to you for advice (because you built their last PC). You tell them to order OS X compatible parts, and you install your pirated copy of the OS on the machine after you build it. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Your grandfather, a year later, decides to upgrade his PC. He comes to you for advice because you built his last PC. You tell him he should run OS X. He talks to your parents, they tell him they love their OS X compatible PC. He orders OS X compatible parts, and you build the machine and install your pirated copy of OS X. Apple gains market share and makes no money.
Soon your aunt wants to upgrade, repeat above story. Market share continues to grow, but people aren't actually purchasing any Apple products. Rinse and repeat for your entire family. I doubt you build your friend's computers, but if you do...or your friends are similar to you (i.e. technically savy and have copies of OS X) rinse and repeat for them. In 5 years listen to all of the "Apple is DYING" trolls on slashdot because Apple is a hardware company and isn't selling any hardware. In 10 years your son asks you, "What is Apple?" and you tell him, "Oh we're running the last version of their OS on our Dell. Great company, too bad they went under."
This is true, but I think it's more logical to compare the ebook that expires in 5 months to a paper book bought at the bookstore and then sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.
There really isn't much difference here. Either way you don't have the book anymore.
If you anticipate needing the book after the course, then it would be pretty dumb to buy the ebook version knowing it will expire in 5 months. Likewise it would be pretty dumb to sell the book back to the bookstore.
The ebooks themselves aren't that bad...granted the grandparent's post is valid, however ebooks offer certain advantages.
1. They're a lot easier to carry (if you have a nice light laptop).
2. They can be searchable.
3. They could have interactive content such as audio clips and movies.
4. Errata for the book could easily be distributed (i.e. the book could be patched).
As long as people have the choice between ebooks and paper books everything is great.
However, I know the publishers won't play nice and if the ebook market takes hold, they'd leverage it to kill the paper/used book market. Once they did that, they'd jack the prices up and boom...everyone has to pay a gajillion dollars for the books, we wouldn't be able to sell them back later or at all because of DRM, and we wouldn't be able to keep them either.
That, of course, would really suck.
Have you done other things to prevent RSI?
Things like making sure your desk and chair are the right height? Also it might make sense for you to not just change the layout, but change the keyboard. Either use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard or something like this: Maltron Keyboard
NEW BREAKING NEWS!!!
It turns out Holand Piquepaille is actually infamous slashdot whore Roland Piquepaille.
Discuss.
Actually, a hard drive in the console with a modded PS2 or XBOX and gamefly is kinda nice.
Perhaps by paying more attention to what Congress is up to. It's not like this thing just appeared out of no where. The House passed it in March.
Oh wait, did I just suggest that people actually check to see what their representatives are doing? Woops.
If a person isn't willing to take the time to write a hand written letter, how important could the issue possibly be to them?
This has nothing to do with whether or not a representative is e-aware.
Hand writing a letter clearly demonstrates that you are a lot more concerned then sending a fax or email does. This is because hand written letters are inherently more personal. They take longer to write, are harder to send, etc...thus they show a much higher level of concern. After all, when was the last time you sent a fax for Valentines Day?
I'm not sure what your deal is. First you turn a comment about how sending bulk faxes isn't all that effective into a semi rant about doing nothing. Then you turn my comment about sending a hand written letter as opposed to bulk faxing into pandering to them.
Hand written letters are far more persuasive. If the goal is to persuade your representative, and you actually care about the issue it makes more sense to hand write a letter. If you only kind of care about the issue, well send an email or fax from a website. You can expect your representative to only kind of care about your point of view as well.
Where did the parent poster advocate doing nothing?
How about sending a handwritten letter instead? Lots of uniquely phrased, hand written letters from different people is a lot more persuasive than bulk faxes.
Um...maybe I missed something there, but no where in that article does it say that rates have gone up. That is the amount they can charge per ad.
It just says that more people are spending more money on ads. I seriously doubt the people who host forums are seeing a whole lot of increase...now google or yahoo, sure.
The "payment" for making the movie was the enjoyment they got from dressing up as other people and having fake sex in front of a camera.
These people have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
The "payment" for making the song was the enjoyment they got from singing and dancing on stage.
Actually this often the case, but again most people that do this have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
The "payment" for writing that video game was the enjoyment they got from bending the computer to their will and the thrill of bringing lines of code to brilliant life on a computer screen.
Again, in many cases this is true. OSS thrives on the fact that there are a lot of people out there who enjoy writing code. At anyrate, again those that do it for money have a contract with regards to this service that states they will be paid X ammount for this service.
Oh wait, you mean its different when people take companies' content without asking than when companies take people's content?
What the hell are you talking about? The companies aren't taking anything by asking that forum users pay. They aren't charging for the material, they are charging for the service. Feel free to make a copy of the material and host your own forum.