Great examples as to why they SHOULD NOT use CSS
on
CSS for the LDP?
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· Score: -1, Flamebait
I went to all three sites linked.
At http://csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/085/085.css&page =0
the text on the right that starts:
Littering a dark and dreary road lay the past relics of browser...
Runs RIGHT OFF THE END, forcing me to scroll to the right to read it.
Browsers: IE5 on MacOS9.22, IE 5.2 on OSX. (Safari was OK)
You get a D.
NEXT:
http://csszengarden.com/
The text that says: A demonstration can be accomplished...
Loaded ON TOP OF the text that was supposed to load on the right side of the screen, and didn't.
Browser: IE5 on MacOS9.
You get another D.
The page that was supposed to look like/. looked fine. You get a C, because/. is butt ugly. Distinctive, and therefore notable, but still ugly. (Sorry, but it really is)
My opinion is: NEVER EVER use CSS or DHTML or any of that crap if some simple basic HTML will do.
Remember: Kiss. KISS!!!
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
RS
Some Microbes are more equal than others, it seems
on
Mars Terraforming Debate
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The article has this gaseous emission:
'It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars - which I am increasingly confident we will find - we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous lifeforms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong.'
OK.... but pumping your kids full of antibiotics and blasting the kitchen counter with bleach is A-OK... RIGHT?
So, let's look at this: some subzero Martian Microbes are worth much more than some random sample of salmonella from the blue fuzzy biology experiment in the fridge that used to be a pizza a few months ago, correct?
OK. so some Martian people should get all the money and good education and fun toys. And the Earthlings? Send 'em off to extermination camps.
People:microbes - we have more in common with flatworm parasites than we do with viruses, so it's OK to kill viruses, but not flatworms?
My opinion: get over it.
1. by the time we're in ANY position to terraform Mars, we'll probably have been there several times with live human-type people and Bog knows how many R2D2 units scouring the planet for every bit of info we can get. We'll be well informed of what is actually (if anything) there.
2. Terraforming Mars is going to take centuries, and it will take trillions of dollars over that time. In the mean time here on the little green planet of clocks, we will likely be in the middle of our depopulation cycle (through war, disease, environmetal degradation, or some terrorist asshats develolping an airbourne version of HIV or who knows what...) and as the population shrinks, so will the tax base for space exploration. This will only serve to delay the terraforming further.
3. Assuming we gradually depopulate, and we don't have a glaciation in the process, (i.e. all things being roughly the same, but improving) Terraforming Mars will not be a central activity of the species, and we wll be able to monitor the progress of its development closely.
4. There is another possibility: that by terraforming mars we kick off an accelerated evolution of (whatever life there might be) on Mars. Perhaps Martian life will help in the terraforming process.
In anycase, the person who spoke the quoted line needs to get their tinfoil hat loosened. And think a bit more about what they dump on their kitchen counter.
why someone who is too dumb to be a troll (and therefore gets modded up for reasons I *don't* understand) bothered to post:
I don't mean to diss the Mac crowd here, but how much of this shortage is due to the fact that the minis have 4GB microdrives [bensbargains.net] in them, which by themselves cost more than $250 [ebay.com] ?
Ummmm, geeee, I dunno - maybe it's because they're buying them EN MASSE DIRECTLY FROM THE MANUFACTURER IN BULK???
Duuuuhhh. Next time think twice before you type. Of course, once would be an improvement.
What we DO know now with reasonable certainty is that such water could not possibly have been any warmer than near-freezing. Noachian Mars may have been "cold and damp", but we can now rule out the view of some hopeful scientists that it must have been "warm and wet".
Well so much for reasonable certainty, eh?
AN interesting question those articles do pose, though, is - if Mars was so wet for so long (wet enough to make this sedimentary rock) why is there so much Olivine up there? Olivine breaks down when exposed to water - even frozen water.
It's a mystery - so I guess we'll just have to pack up the truck and go check it out.
All the fervor has skeptics talking of a social networking bubble and its inevitable collapse. While such speculation is premature, issues do have to be resolved -- functionality and privacy concerns among them -- before the sector can be judged a safe bet.
Ummm, no. the skeptics are skeptical because we heard all the same hoo haa back around 1999. And investment is not profit something these dot-commies still don't understand.
The article then goes on to blather:
Perhaps the strongest arguments for social networking's success has nothing to do with the bottom-line success of the companies behind the sites. Rather it's one of those unintended consequences that's no less welcome and needed for being unexpected.
First off, that is an atrociously written paragraph. What is IT'S? "Social networking" or the "bottom line success of the companies"? But, never mind...
Secondly, these companies are having millions of dollars poured down their gullet by VCs. That is NOT bottom line success. That is investment on the prediction of bottom line success, but we ALL know where that little train went back around March 2001...
The article is just another rah-rah bit of internet blather - so five minutes ago (actually five years ago) it's kind of sad, really.
The fact is this: if you want to build a network of professional relationships, you have to get off your fat ass and go meet people. There are many organisations for just about every concievable interest. Join one. You have to go out and meet people. And if you're a loser at that, then eventually you'll be a loser online as well, because all the online thing can do is facilitate the development of f2f where the real business goes down.
I think the cancelling of the Hubble is a MASSIVE canary in a coal mine.
1. Things are hunky dory with Hubble. Everybody happy, like a Happy Bernie Polka Party.
2. Then: Dumbo the sock puppet says:
"Live it or live with it: we goin, TO MARS"
Soooo. the little kouklitsas fall in a row, looking at how they're going to put their little muffies through collitch, and sing the song of the pinheaded bird:
Tra - la la la la fuck da big scope- we gonna put a dumb ass flunky for the military class on MARS.
So, faced with major restructering of his budget and under the stress of his testly collection of careerists under his wing, da man of NASA say:
Yaaaaaa JOE! Whooooo won the second world war you so smart?
And CUT the budget for the hubble, because NASA gonns do sumptin better.
So all the little willy science dinks gonna swing around the hubble and miss the big picture:
That it's all about oil and how not to use it.
RS
Will get modded down because the groupthink is too witless to understand the references or the point?
It's all mass. A billion ton rock flying through space at 50,000 miles per hour hitting the earth all at once is mechanically no different from a billion tons of loose sand flying through space at 50,000 miles per hour hitting the earth all at once.
"Oh - we'll blow it up. That'll make it go away."
Wrong. Mass and inertia are mass and inertia. The results might be a bit different - a dense solid object will tend to penetrate the surface a bbit deeper, but the heat generated from a billion tons of sand travelling 14 miles a second would instantly superheat the atmosphere, and the impact on the earth would be incredibley destructive - the silicon, magnesium, sodium, etc. in the stuff isn't going to disappear, and the associated mass has to transfer its inertia into some other form of energy, and a billion tons of inertia is a billion tons of inertia.
The best thing to do is to a solid chunk is to deflect it. If the asteroid is solid metal and valuable metal at that, it might be a good idea to dump it on the moon or Mars, where the metal can be used to make buildings and space craft.
Otherwise, pitch the sucker into the sun. Or Venus. Or someplace else. In fact dumping it into Venus might be cool - see what kind of wreckage develops...
Now, if it's a loose piece of crap, like a semi-shattered dead comet, that would*suck* because deflecting something like that would be pretty difficult. A billion tons of ice and gravel is still a billion tons of ice and gravel.
AC put it fairly well, in another reply, but I'd like to also chime in:
Capn Tux wrote: You have two sides to the zealotry: 1) Linux will never be ready for prime time until grandma can install every package and use it effectively and 2) If you can't install it from the docs and user community then you don't need to use it. Both of these sides are flawed. Consider this:
Point 1 is what I like to call the "grandma whine" and it's nearly totally invalid in both the Windows and Unix worlds. There's a LOT of software that "grandma" can't install and, guess what? It's not marketed or targeted to her because she really wouldn't have much use for it.
You are a bit incorrect here. Almost all Windows Software is wizard install, and completely dead easy. Last time I looked, Apple is a UNIX GUI, and Jebus knows stuff installs on that thing easy enough.
And while a lot of software isn't for the average user, a lot of it is, and it's important that programmers understand that you don't develop dumbass slide presentation software installer the same way you install a security extension to some hyper sophisticated middleware running in cahoots with a select firewall.
And replace Grandma with "Average User" who's IQ hovers around 100 and is working some piddly ass job just to make ends meet. These people are not motivated. They're working a job. And for a classic scenario that happens way too often, imagine some over-worked boss says: "We just laid off the designer. You're an admin - you make documents. You're doing some design work until we can afford to hire someone. Work off the old files. Now: here's Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Premiere. Install them. Learn them."
Now, little Mr 40watt is excited about the challenge of learning these big deep applications, and he REALLY doesn't have the bandwidth to suss out some weird command line nonsense just to install one app in Linux (also pretend that those apps were in Linux)... And his boss CERTAINLY doesn't have the time to either hold his hand or pull some geek out of IT to hold his hand.
I can assure you: It Just won't Happen. It's cheaper to ditch Linux and run Windows, than it is to pay people to learn the casuistry of Linux. It's sad, but way too true. Worse: I Have Seen It Happen.
I knew of a small company here in SF that wanted to go all Linux. So they bought a bunch of bottomfeeder computers, and put some distro on it with free or ultra cheap software. Alls fine until things started to break, which was nearly instantly due to arcane installation issues, and when they broke, the staff (who were all trained on Mac or Windows MAchines) had no idea what to do. Mr Linux IT dude spent WAY too much time helping the staff install and configure software and not enough time doing his job running the server.
So they pulled Linux and installed Win2k on the desktop machines along with expensive but easy to install shrinkwrapped software. The servers were left in Linux. It was easier and cheaper for Linux IT dude to keep the mess confined to the server room, and let others get their work done, even if it was in Windoze.
I tried to tell them that Macs are cheaper than Windows in terms of upkeep, but they had spent some $ on a few dozen bottomfeeders, a Windows License, and licences for the software - they didn't have money for any shiny Mac machines.
I could see Cpn Tux as the IT geek in the back room, cussing the elderly idiots in the front office. But the "Idiots" in the front office were all highly trained and skilled people- just not in the arcanery of command line interfaces, which they equate with computers the size of refrigerators, not their Pentium powered plastic box. When it comes to CLI? Sorry- "We Hire People to Do That Kind Of Work. Our Attention Is Elsewhere."
Which is just as it should be.
Both windows and Mac OS are running ever faster to ever greater ease of operation. Linux is too, but not as fast. Linux programmers need to realise that most
I think that if a core handful of apps ported to Linux, it would make all the difference, and really propel Linux into a MUCH more interesting place.
1. Photoshop. It is God-like. It is Big. It is (too often) Complex. It is the 900 kilo gorilla. If Photoshop abandoned MacOSx, Apple would be in serious straits... get Photoshop going on Linux and you've got something. And no: Gimp doesn't do it. It's a nice try, but it's just not there yet. I've used it and found it seriously wanting in OH so many ways.
2. InDesign / Quark Xpress. this will require ULTRA reliable drop-dead no-excuses perfect printing capabilities in Linux. Which aren't there yet. It's getting there, but again: not ready for prime time at your local service bureau or the random Epson widget you got for free with your $80 rebate. THEN they'll have to migrate the apps over, and doing that to Quark will be something close to HELL freezing over given the patched and scrambled nature of Quarks underlying engines and code.
3. Dreamweaver. Sure, "real coders" do all their html by hand, but the rest of us do some multiple more work in some GUI like Dreamweaver. Supposedly, Macromedia actually is porting this stuff over to Linux, and if that happens, you can expect Adobe et al to follow suit in the next few years, to prevent MM from owning that market segment.
Now, StarOffice is very good and does a VERY large percentage of what MS Office does. I think that you will see StarOffice grow as other major vendors port stuff to Linux.
Then there's video editing, music creation, audio editing and processing, and that's a whole 'nother smoke.
I do think that as Linux grows, more and more vendors will port to it. It's fairly simply math, and why OSx apps exist. Let's say you have 3% of a market. And the market is of 100 machines. And let's say it takes $3 million to make the app. Do the math. Now, say that you have 3% of a market that is 100 million machines, and your app costs $3 million- the math suddenly get s a lot more attractive. It's just a dollar a machine and you break even.
The same is going on with Linux. As more an more desktop machines are running linux all over the world, the numbers will continue to look more attractive, and major vendors will start sniffing around looking to port to that opportunity.
I think continued effort and some patience are in order.
And if you want to make free (as in beer) apps, fine - go for it. As a user, if they do what I need and do it well and competently, I'm there. But if they don't, (and they too often don't) regardless of platform, I'll cheerfully fork over the green stuff to get my work done. But, I'm not a programmer - I use software and when I need something special, I hire (and pay real money to) a programmer to make it for me. Free is nice, but when you need someone to put their neck on the line for a mission critical work, having the kind of responsibility engendered by reified contracted economic relations ($) is extremely efficient.
Something sorely lacking in WAY too much software is decent blackbox QA testing, with QA engineers who can do the tweaky evil stuff (boundary conditions, stress testing) AND
If you can't install it striaght off, and start working (either straight away or doing the tutorials... and YOU DO HAVE TUTORIALS... DON'T YOU?) right then and there, you've just blown thousands of man hours as thousands of users bblow their time trying to puzzle out your spaghetti code - and it doesn't matter if it's running in Linux, Windoze, or OSx or whatever. Either it works straight up or it doesn't.
The problem is, WAY too many shops see QA as a an after thought if it is thought of at all, and given the geek-centered history of Linux, it is (sadly) far too common in Linus ware.
One of the main differences between really stunning software and crapware is that the stunning software has a crack QA team running a tight shop with the engineers, and the engineers accept and respect the opinions and findings of QA, just as QA knows the exigencies and limitations of the coders. The crapware has zero QA or the QA consists of the programmers doing basic unit testing, which is too often close too useless due to external dependencies and doesn't address anytihng about UI design...
I did blackbox QA for a very long time, (and still occassionaly do with a good offer) and I have Zero Patience for software that isn't properly tested. Unfortunately, it seems that blackbox is striaght up ignored or sent to India for "chimp testing" (blackbox done to testcases and matrices only) or automated versions thereof, is never brought into the specification process, and in the meantime, it's all gone to whitebox or greybox - which rarely addresses more obvious and critical issues that question basic assumptions in a program, as the lead programmers are too often thin skinned, under served in the social skills dept, and overly identified with the project.
And it has nothing to do with Linux: but the workers in Linux too often have a variable sense of what is an appropriate amount of effort a user should put forth in using a given application or system.
1. for windows: Scenarist if you have $ is simply the poop. Most ordinary citizens don't have the $, though, and if that's the case:
2. for windows: Adobe Encore. It's fairly simple - more complex than iDVD, but somewhat easier than DVDSP2, and - it's WINDOWS ONLY. This does not bode well for Apple, as Adobe is carpet bombing all those "advertise on Daytime TV Art Schools" with the Adobe Video Solution, but that's a discussion for another day.
There are other apps, but they're not as good as the two abbove. The above will cost you $, Scenarist more than Encore (by a lot). Deal with it.
For Linux? Nemmind that stuff. None of it is as competent as Scenarist, and none of it is as easy to use as Encore. Sure: you save a few hundred dollars, but when you're sitting there QA testing your XML scripts and praying that the new DVD urner drivers work, your time will be worth MUCH more money than what you saved.
By a similar argument, the Apple Way of Working is great and cheap. For $50 you can get iLife with the latest rev of iDVD, which is more than most people need for some stupid DVD of their cousin's sister's daughter's wedding that was shot on some cheeezy Canon ZR10. 9 times out of 10, you can get away with iMovie and iDVD and *no one* will notice or care. Now, you'll need to get an Apple computer, but most anything built in the past year or two will do fine, and you can pick 'em up at somewhat less than extortionate prices these days...
I've been doing DVD authoring for years, and back around 2002 I figured that I wasn't going to beat my head against the wall anymore - it was faster, cheaper, and easier to get a mac and get it done than try and get my Windoze machine to jump the hoops at a reasonable price.
Oddly, and contrary to what some people have posted, this really is a situation where the OS matters.
So, in short:
Windows:
1. Scenarist if you can afford it. It does everything, but it's really complicated.
2. Encore if you can't or won't do Scenarist.
Windows isn't the optimal solution for this, so consider a Macintosh.
1. iLife w/ iDVD is supercheap and very very good.
2. If you need to do more advanced work, DVD Studio Pro does the job.
Linux:
Simply: it's not ready for prime time, and given the complexity of the problem it may never be. Yes, there are solutions out there, but you'll burn a lot of creative time dorking around with code when you could be getting work done. I would LOVE IT if there was an adequate solution out there, though - free or cheap software on a free OS on a cheap computer? Floats my boat. But I'm not holding my breath.
First: I think String theory is probably correct HOWEVER:
Second: I can't see how you can possibly test any of this.
If you can't test it, then it's just a likely story. It might be a more likely story than saying little green elves did it all, but in essence, it;s not that different.
Tangles of strings - Suuuure.
As I said, it probably is true, and string theory is a lot cleaner, but damn - what are you going to do? Crack open a black hole to find out?
We. don't. think. so.
It strikes me as what Horgan calls "Ironic Science".
RS
Tech Support? We don't need no steenkeen...
on
Orwellian Tech Support
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· Score: 4, Funny
I used to do tech support back in the day when it wasn't off-shored and quality mattered quite a bit. I worked for a Major Graphics Software Company, (not MS or Adobe) and it was a trip.
I disliked that job. I didn't hate it, like the Two Guys stint I wrote about last month, but it was not a great experience.
The management was bumbling and just on the edge of mean - always sitting on us to get times down. But, it was Back In The Day, so I had GREAT stock options, so I put up with it for THREE YEARS.
The worst part were the customers, for me. Some were nice, and I liked them, but some were complete IDIOTS.
Here's a few conversations I remember:
Me: So, you're getting a what error?
Caller: Ah got me a tap negative ONE error, and then nuthin happens.
Me: Type one? Sounds like it's a problem with your extensions - some kind of conflict.
Caller: Oh? Wull, lemme check that out raaaht now...
(The sound of the reciever clattering on the table and footsteps across a wooden floor. The sound of furniture moving. The sound of more furniture moving. Fottsteps coming back tothe phone)
Caller: Why it CAIN'T be an extensheeyuns problem.
Me: Really? How do you figure?
Caller: Wull, ever-thang's plugged in JES' FINE!!!
Another fine user of our product:
Caller: Hi! My name's JIM! Who're YOU?
Me: Ralph. How can I help you Jim?
Caller: Well, my (program) won't fucking WORK! (puffs from a cigarette)
Me: Bummer. You're using it for what purpose there Jim?
Caller: I'm the webmaster of the Bluebird Trailer Court. I'm tryin to set up a way that we call all get onto the web and order supplies for our, ummm, homes without any kind of time wastin' - so like if someone runs out of Propane, they just get on the web and bingo: everything is done all automatic like.
Me: That's a pretty sophisticated job, Jim.
Caller: DAMN FUCKIN STRAIGHT! AND YOUR GODDAMN SOFTWARE AIN'T FUCKIN' WORKIN! (swills something from a bottle, and smokes some more.)
Me: I understand Jim, and I'm here to help you. Where you located? What's your serial number? (We do the business part of the call) Wow. Texas? You must be hot there this time of year.
Jim: It ain't the heat, it's the damn humidity (slap of skin. Truck roars by... I'm getting the impression he's sitting there crushing mosquitoes, drinking whiskey -his speech is beginning to slur as he gets louder and louder; in his underwear - because it's an oven where he is, and lives in the trailer next to the Highway - judging by all the traffic noise. A vision of HELL - a trailer park in southern Texas...)
and DAMN it's humid here today!
Me: Bummer Jim. so, let's see... how does it not work?
Jim: It doesn't do what I want it to.
Me: Are you in front of it now?
Jim: YEP! AND IT'S DOING IT AGAIN!!!!
Me: What? I thought it didn't work...
Jim: It works - IT JUST DON'T WORK RIGHT! DAMMIT! (swills more booze smokes more cigarette...)
Me: OK OK - quit the app and do EXACTLY as I tell you...
Of course, he didn't and all he did was get completely shitfaced drunk and go through a pack of Merits. Eventually he started hitting his computer. At that point, I couldn't stop stifling my laughter, and put him on hold. I conference called him in with another tech, because Jim was a LOSER beyond loser. We were both hitting the mute button because we were laughing hysterically at this nincompoop. It devolved to something like this:
Jim: SEE? THERE!!! IT DID IT AGAIN! I'm tellin ya this fucking thing is CURSED!!!!
Me: I'm sorry Jim, I didn't see anything - we're on the telephone. Tell me what you saw.
Jim: OH RIGHT! uuuuh Well, IT' DIDN'T WORK AGAIN! DAMMIT! And (hits computer) this damned Compaq is a piece of CRAP. I friggin HATE this thing.
Me: I'm not sure it's the computer, and while I know you're using a very old PC, we do make the same software for Macintosh, if you do cross over to Mac. So either way, you can use this program and not lose your work.
Our daughter, Elizabeth, age 6, tied a string to either side of a piece of buttered toast and then tied them together so the toast was on one of our cats (Felix the Slinky Puppy Cat) backs, butter side up.
She then picked the oozy furball up, stood on a chair and dumped him.
He spun around a bit and landed on his feet. The buttered toast ws still attached, but was now on his belly, butterside down.
No perpetual motion, but proof that cats always land on their feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down.
...not to be a total grouch, but all of this is assuming that Hawking is correct. We have no proof this is so.
There is a non-zero probability that one of these blackholes could eat a particle, then another and another and the next thing you know: poof. In a few weeks the moon will orbit a black hole.
Now, let's see - we have no tests for evaporating black holes, and some geek in Switzerland thinks it's a good idea to do it here on earth. It is likely that Hawking is *probably* correct. But if he's not, we could be TOTALLY fucked. Personally, I'm putting my money on Hawking, but frankly I find this kind of work a bit unnerving. The only justice would be that the first to get ripped into quantal goo would be the dorks at CERN.
All the more reason for a moon base, IMHO.
The moonbased atomsmasher could be powered by He3 fusion - right on site. although, if the moon disappeared into a blackhole, we'd get fried by the radiation anyway. Hmmmm.
All the more reason for a Mars Base, IMHO...
This way, if Mars gets eaten by a homegrown Blackhole, we'll be less likely to be nuked by the results. Maybe. Aaaaah - nemmind. When the ring gets vapourised by an errant blackhole, the Swiss geeks will say "MEIN GOTT!" just as they are vapourised. Good 'nuff. This sentient life thing was such a crap shoot from the start, anyway.
I just think that the influence of Office on Mac is very very big, especially when there is no really suitable alternative.
Open Office? I've never used it - it may be suitable, but I have my doubts. My experiences with Linux were not positive, which is why I stay on the Mac side of things.
I just don't see the future as something stable, and one where Apple's place in things is guaranteed. I think 2004 - 2005 is going to be the most crucial time for Apple.
The G6 (and up) will be the critical point for them. If they can get into that, and keep 3rd party apps on it, it'll live well. If not, it will live, just not so well.
No matter how many usability and feature benefits it has over its Windows counterpart, the Mac version of MS Office is "second rate" because it lacks -- of all things -- Access? A product which you admittedly call "nasty" and "a pig?" While the Mac could certainly use a solid GUI-based relational database -- and please resist the urge to even think about tossing up FileMaker as falling in this category -- Access is hardly the solution we need.
Filemaker is a toy. A useful toy, but a toy. Yes, there are Many Other GUI DBs out there, and most of them are likely better than Access, BUT: Access is the one that comes with Office, and it is the one that benefits from that kind of integration.
Therefore, Office is not truly crossplatform until they get all the apps migrated over, and considering how long Access has been around, I am convinced that they keep it on the windows side as an incentive to do the Wintel Heroin, much like His Steveness pulled the plug on the Windows Version of Final Cut Pro
(yes, there was a Windows version - I worked on it... and it was in better shape than the Mac version until Steve pulled the plug on it and a dozen integraph dual processor workstations wer estripped and put out in the hall...)
to bring people over to the side goodness and light.
First of all, please explain to me and the rest of the folks here how Moore's Law is going to kill the Mac.
Not Moore's Law alone: a combo of MS abandoning the Mac platform and Moore's Law.
Let's say his Steveness decides that it's time to make Apple works something other than a bad joke. and they really turn the app around - make it world class, like FCP or DVDSP, etc.
The Prince of Darkness pulls the plug on OfficeX in retaliation, much as he killed IE when Safari came out. What happens then?
People who only use Mac for Office Apps and some Mac Apps (which is a very large number of people) hold onto their Macs and don't upgrade, because eventually the upgrade will break OfficeX.
Moore's Law says faster and better every 2 years or so. the machines that are the "OfficeX" machines will eventually breakdown or get replaced with Wintel Iron in order to do Office. this process will accellerate at Moore's Law speed, and withing 6 years, you have Mac's occupying less than.5% of the market.
They may be BLAZING fast, but hwo cares? They don;'t run Office, and that's what people are hooked on like Demerol on IV drip.
Secondly, if Microsoft were to drop Office for the Mac, it would only incentivize Apple to put its support behind OpenOffice.
No, OficeX will get dumped depending on when AppleWorks actually works. If AppleWOrks works, then there is no need for Open Office.
As odd as it may seem, millions of Linux users worldwide manage to use OpenOffice to exchange office documents with their Windows colleagues. Why couldn't Mac users do the same?
Because most Linux users are usually very smart. Most Mac and windows users are idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H not so sophisticated. Linux users can figure things out. Most Windows and MAc users (not all, but a huge number of them) just want an appliance, not a way of life.
Things may or may not be as cool as they seem, but they are certainly not as bleak as you portray.
If Apple continues on it's present path, I have one TLA that describes its future:
Sure: Access is a pig and it's nasty, but it's still a vital part of Office on Windows, and in the past what: SIX YEARS that Office has been on Mac they haven't puzzled out how to port that thang over to Mac?
MS feeds the Mac community the barest minimum to keep stringing the Mac People along and buy their junk^H^H^H^H software.
It's like that line by Godley and Creme, from Business is Business:
"Throw him them the bones
But freeze the meat
Cuz the meat comes off
but the beat goes on
Business is business..."
I think MS would just LOVE to dump the Mac, and I believe they will do so when... (pull the curtain, Fred)...
Apple Turns Apple works into a useful, efficient, and worthwhile app. (Right now it's OK for my daughter, but useless in any business sense. And it has a long way to go before it gets there.)
Once that happens, they'll ditch Mac like a hot potato and THAT is the reason why Apple Works sucx and will ALWAYS suck, because as soon as MS pulls Office off the Mac, the MAc's future will die a death at the hands of Moore's Law.
Things are not as cool as they seem, or as nifty as the article prtrays.
The scary part about this is it is an electronic form of Newspeak. If you can't FIND something on the web through a search engine, then it technically DOESN'T EXIST. Sure: you might know intuitively of other articles on (subject), but if the wealthy powers that be who are impacted by (subject) buy all the possible references to (subject) then it makes it nearly impossible to research (subject) in any rational manner.
This Is Bad.
Very extra special bad.
Logically extend it. Microsoft (or any other transnational pigfucker) buys all references to Microsoft, Windows, etc. (orwhatever the transnational pigfucker's upset about) and routes all inquiries to their website.
This is NOT a good thing.
Google should be prevented from doing this in the interest of the common good. they may be "just a corporation looking at the bottom line" but their decisions have political impact, and being typical geeks, they don't want to "go there". But they really need ot take responsibility for their actions and remove this feature of their system. The implications are stupefying.
RS
Support iTunes because it gives back to the artists.
No it doesn't. It gives those 8 cents to the RIGHTS HOLDERS. Until the musician pays off the enormous advance and other loans the record company gives them to sign and get a record going, the musician doesn't get jackshit. Until the record company gets paid back, they are the rights holder to the music and collect all the green stuff.
Furthermore, because the record companies are a bunch of theivbing bastards, they usually rig the books so they NEVER get paid back, and collect ALL the money made by the record, forever.
iTunes is lame. It will matter when ANYONE can sell music through it, and artists can bypass record companies altogether. As it is, it is just a shill for the record companies and the RIAA.
Slashdot Mirror
At http://csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/085/085.css&page =0
the text on the right that starts:
Littering a dark and dreary road lay the past relics of browser...
Runs RIGHT OFF THE END, forcing me to scroll to the right to read it.
Browsers: IE5 on MacOS9.22, IE 5.2 on OSX. (Safari was OK)
You get a D.
NEXT:
http://csszengarden.com/
The text that says: A demonstration can be accomplished...
Loaded ON TOP OF the text that was supposed to load on the right side of the screen, and didn't.
Browser: IE5 on MacOS9.
You get another D.
The page that was supposed to look like /. looked fine. You get a C, because /. is butt ugly. Distinctive, and therefore notable, but still ugly. (Sorry, but it really is)
My opinion is: NEVER EVER use CSS or DHTML or any of that crap if some simple basic HTML will do.
Remember: Kiss. KISS!!!
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
RS
'It is very depressing. Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars - which I am increasingly confident we will find - we are talking about undertaking massive projects that would wipe out all these indigenous lifeforms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the Martian soil. It is simply ethically wrong.'
OK.... but pumping your kids full of antibiotics and blasting the kitchen counter with bleach is A-OK... RIGHT?
So, let's look at this: some subzero Martian Microbes are worth much more than some random sample of salmonella from the blue fuzzy biology experiment in the fridge that used to be a pizza a few months ago, correct?
OK. so some Martian people should get all the money and good education and fun toys. And the Earthlings? Send 'em off to extermination camps.
People:microbes - we have more in common with flatworm parasites than we do with viruses, so it's OK to kill viruses, but not flatworms?
My opinion: get over it.
1. by the time we're in ANY position to terraform Mars, we'll probably have been there several times with live human-type people and Bog knows how many R2D2 units scouring the planet for every bit of info we can get. We'll be well informed of what is actually (if anything) there.
2. Terraforming Mars is going to take centuries, and it will take trillions of dollars over that time. In the mean time here on the little green planet of clocks, we will likely be in the middle of our depopulation cycle (through war, disease, environmetal degradation, or some terrorist asshats develolping an airbourne version of HIV or who knows what...) and as the population shrinks, so will the tax base for space exploration. This will only serve to delay the terraforming further.
3. Assuming we gradually depopulate, and we don't have a glaciation in the process, (i.e. all things being roughly the same, but improving) Terraforming Mars will not be a central activity of the species, and we wll be able to monitor the progress of its development closely.
4. There is another possibility: that by terraforming mars we kick off an accelerated evolution of (whatever life there might be) on Mars. Perhaps Martian life will help in the terraforming process.
In anycase, the person who spoke the quoted line needs to get their tinfoil hat loosened. And think a bit more about what they dump on their kitchen counter.
RS
Excellent!
Seriously: op00to gets extra points for digging that up.
Good on ya mate! Somebody buy him a beer!
RS
I don't mean to diss the Mac crowd here, but how much of this shortage is due to the fact that the minis have 4GB microdrives [bensbargains.net] in them, which by themselves cost more than $250 [ebay.com] ?
Ummmm, geeee, I dunno - maybe it's because they're buying them EN MASSE DIRECTLY FROM THE MANUFACTURER IN BULK???
Duuuuhhh. Next time think twice before you type. Of course, once would be an improvement.
RS
What we DO know now with reasonable certainty is that such water could not possibly have been any warmer than near-freezing. Noachian Mars may have been "cold and damp", but we can now rule out the view of some hopeful scientists that it must have been "warm and wet".
Well so much for reasonable certainty, eh?
AN interesting question those articles do pose, though, is - if Mars was so wet for so long (wet enough to make this sedimentary rock) why is there so much Olivine up there? Olivine breaks down when exposed to water - even frozen water.
It's a mystery - so I guess we'll just have to pack up the truck and go check it out.
Swimmin' pools, movie stars...
RS
RS
The flayrod's gone askew on the treadle!"
All the fervor has skeptics talking of a social networking bubble and its inevitable collapse. While such speculation is premature, issues do have to be resolved -- functionality and privacy concerns among them -- before the sector can be judged a safe bet.
Ummm, no. the skeptics are skeptical because we heard all the same hoo haa back around 1999. And investment is not profit something these dot-commies still don't understand.
The article then goes on to blather:
Perhaps the strongest arguments for social networking's success has nothing to do with the bottom-line success of the companies behind the sites. Rather it's one of those unintended consequences that's no less welcome and needed for being unexpected.
First off, that is an atrociously written paragraph. What is IT'S? "Social networking" or the "bottom line success of the companies"? But, never mind...
Secondly, these companies are having millions of dollars poured down their gullet by VCs. That is NOT bottom line success. That is investment on the prediction of bottom line success, but we ALL know where that little train went back around March 2001...
The article is just another rah-rah bit of internet blather - so five minutes ago (actually five years ago) it's kind of sad, really.
The fact is this: if you want to build a network of professional relationships, you have to get off your fat ass and go meet people. There are many organisations for just about every concievable interest. Join one. You have to go out and meet people. And if you're a loser at that, then eventually you'll be a loser online as well, because all the online thing can do is facilitate the development of f2f where the real business goes down.
RS
1. Things are hunky dory with Hubble. Everybody happy, like a Happy Bernie Polka Party.
2. Then: Dumbo the sock puppet says:
"Live it or live with it: we goin, TO MARS"
Soooo. the little kouklitsas fall in a row, looking at how they're going to put their little muffies through collitch, and sing the song of the pinheaded bird:
Tra - la la la la fuck da big scope- we gonna put a dumb ass flunky for the military class on MARS.
So, faced with major restructering of his budget and under the stress of his testly collection of careerists under his wing, da man of NASA say:
Yaaaaaa JOE! Whooooo won the second world war you so smart?
And CUT the budget for the hubble, because NASA gonns do sumptin better.
So all the little willy science dinks gonna swing around the hubble and miss the big picture:
That it's all about oil and how not to use it.
RS
Will get modded down because the groupthink is too witless to understand the references or the point?
"Oh - we'll blow it up. That'll make it go away."
Wrong. Mass and inertia are mass and inertia. The results might be a bit different - a dense solid object will tend to penetrate the surface a bbit deeper, but the heat generated from a billion tons of sand travelling 14 miles a second would instantly superheat the atmosphere, and the impact on the earth would be incredibley destructive - the silicon, magnesium, sodium, etc. in the stuff isn't going to disappear, and the associated mass has to transfer its inertia into some other form of energy, and a billion tons of inertia is a billion tons of inertia.
The best thing to do is to a solid chunk is to deflect it. If the asteroid is solid metal and valuable metal at that, it might be a good idea to dump it on the moon or Mars, where the metal can be used to make buildings and space craft.
Otherwise, pitch the sucker into the sun. Or Venus. Or someplace else. In fact dumping it into Venus might be cool - see what kind of wreckage develops...
Now, if it's a loose piece of crap, like a semi-shattered dead comet, that would*suck* because deflecting something like that would be pretty difficult. A billion tons of ice and gravel is still a billion tons of ice and gravel.
RS
Capn Tux wrote:
You have two sides to the zealotry: 1) Linux will never be ready for prime time until grandma can install every package and use it effectively and 2) If you can't install it from the docs and user community then you don't need to use it. Both of these sides are flawed. Consider this:
Point 1 is what I like to call the "grandma whine" and it's nearly totally invalid in both the Windows and Unix worlds. There's a LOT of software that "grandma" can't install and, guess what? It's not marketed or targeted to her because she really wouldn't have much use for it.
You are a bit incorrect here. Almost all Windows Software is wizard install, and completely dead easy. Last time I looked, Apple is a UNIX GUI, and Jebus knows stuff installs on that thing easy enough.
And while a lot of software isn't for the average user, a lot of it is, and it's important that programmers understand that you don't develop dumbass slide presentation software installer the same way you install a security extension to some hyper sophisticated middleware running in cahoots with a select firewall.
And replace Grandma with "Average User" who's IQ hovers around 100 and is working some piddly ass job just to make ends meet. These people are not motivated. They're working a job. And for a classic scenario that happens way too often, imagine some over-worked boss says: "We just laid off the designer. You're an admin - you make documents. You're doing some design work until we can afford to hire someone. Work off the old files. Now: here's Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Premiere. Install them. Learn them."
Now, little Mr 40watt is excited about the challenge of learning these big deep applications, and he REALLY doesn't have the bandwidth to suss out some weird command line nonsense just to install one app in Linux (also pretend that those apps were in Linux)... And his boss CERTAINLY doesn't have the time to either hold his hand or pull some geek out of IT to hold his hand.
I can assure you: It Just won't Happen. It's cheaper to ditch Linux and run Windows, than it is to pay people to learn the casuistry of Linux. It's sad, but way too true. Worse: I Have Seen It Happen.
I knew of a small company here in SF that wanted to go all Linux. So they bought a bunch of bottomfeeder computers, and put some distro on it with free or ultra cheap software. Alls fine until things started to break, which was nearly instantly due to arcane installation issues, and when they broke, the staff (who were all trained on Mac or Windows MAchines) had no idea what to do. Mr Linux IT dude spent WAY too much time helping the staff install and configure software and not enough time doing his job running the server.
So they pulled Linux and installed Win2k on the desktop machines along with expensive but easy to install shrinkwrapped software. The servers were left in Linux. It was easier and cheaper for Linux IT dude to keep the mess confined to the server room, and let others get their work done, even if it was in Windoze.
I tried to tell them that Macs are cheaper than Windows in terms of upkeep, but they had spent some $ on a few dozen bottomfeeders, a Windows License, and licences for the software - they didn't have money for any shiny Mac machines.
I could see Cpn Tux as the IT geek in the back room, cussing the elderly idiots in the front office. But the "Idiots" in the front office were all highly trained and skilled people- just not in the arcanery of command line interfaces, which they equate with computers the size of refrigerators, not their Pentium powered plastic box. When it comes to CLI? Sorry- "We Hire People to Do That Kind Of Work. Our Attention Is Elsewhere."
Which is just as it should be.
Both windows and Mac OS are running ever faster to ever greater ease of operation. Linux is too, but not as fast. Linux programmers need to realise that most
1. Photoshop. It is God-like. It is Big. It is (too often) Complex. It is the 900 kilo gorilla. If Photoshop abandoned MacOSx, Apple would be in serious straits... get Photoshop going on Linux and you've got something. And no: Gimp doesn't do it. It's a nice try, but it's just not there yet. I've used it and found it seriously wanting in OH so many ways.
2. InDesign / Quark Xpress. this will require ULTRA reliable drop-dead no-excuses perfect printing capabilities in Linux. Which aren't there yet. It's getting there, but again: not ready for prime time at your local service bureau or the random Epson widget you got for free with your $80 rebate. THEN they'll have to migrate the apps over, and doing that to Quark will be something close to HELL freezing over given the patched and scrambled nature of Quarks underlying engines and code.
3. Dreamweaver. Sure, "real coders" do all their html by hand, but the rest of us do some multiple more work in some GUI like Dreamweaver. Supposedly, Macromedia actually is porting this stuff over to Linux, and if that happens, you can expect Adobe et al to follow suit in the next few years, to prevent MM from owning that market segment.
Now, StarOffice is very good and does a VERY large percentage of what MS Office does. I think that you will see StarOffice grow as other major vendors port stuff to Linux.
Then there's video editing, music creation, audio editing and processing, and that's a whole 'nother smoke.
I do think that as Linux grows, more and more vendors will port to it. It's fairly simply math, and why OSx apps exist. Let's say you have 3% of a market. And the market is of 100 machines. And let's say it takes $3 million to make the app. Do the math. Now, say that you have 3% of a market that is 100 million machines, and your app costs $3 million- the math suddenly get s a lot more attractive. It's just a dollar a machine and you break even.
The same is going on with Linux. As more an more desktop machines are running linux all over the world, the numbers will continue to look more attractive, and major vendors will start sniffing around looking to port to that opportunity.
I think continued effort and some patience are in order.
And if you want to make free (as in beer) apps, fine - go for it. As a user, if they do what I need and do it well and competently, I'm there. But if they don't, (and they too often don't) regardless of platform, I'll cheerfully fork over the green stuff to get my work done. But, I'm not a programmer - I use software and when I need something special, I hire (and pay real money to) a programmer to make it for me. Free is nice, but when you need someone to put their neck on the line for a mission critical work, having the kind of responsibility engendered by reified contracted economic relations ($) is extremely efficient.
RS
I'll emphasize
A N D
the dopey stuff of Basics:
Installation Testing
Feature Testing
Usage Testing
If you can't install it striaght off, and start working (either straight away or doing the tutorials... and YOU DO HAVE TUTORIALS... DON'T YOU?) right then and there, you've just blown thousands of man hours as thousands of users bblow their time trying to puzzle out your spaghetti code - and it doesn't matter if it's running in Linux, Windoze, or OSx or whatever. Either it works straight up or it doesn't.
The problem is, WAY too many shops see QA as a an after thought if it is thought of at all, and given the geek-centered history of Linux, it is (sadly) far too common in Linus ware.
One of the main differences between really stunning software and crapware is that the stunning software has a crack QA team running a tight shop with the engineers, and the engineers accept and respect the opinions and findings of QA, just as QA knows the exigencies and limitations of the coders. The crapware has zero QA or the QA consists of the programmers doing basic unit testing, which is too often close too useless due to external dependencies and doesn't address anytihng about UI design...
I did blackbox QA for a very long time, (and still occassionaly do with a good offer) and I have Zero Patience for software that isn't properly tested. Unfortunately, it seems that blackbox is striaght up ignored or sent to India for "chimp testing" (blackbox done to testcases and matrices only) or automated versions thereof, is never brought into the specification process, and in the meantime, it's all gone to whitebox or greybox - which rarely addresses more obvious and critical issues that question basic assumptions in a program, as the lead programmers are too often thin skinned, under served in the social skills dept, and overly identified with the project.
And it has nothing to do with Linux: but the workers in Linux too often have a variable sense of what is an appropriate amount of effort a user should put forth in using a given application or system.
RS
1. for windows: Scenarist if you have $ is simply the poop. Most ordinary citizens don't have the $, though, and if that's the case:
2. for windows: Adobe Encore. It's fairly simple - more complex than iDVD, but somewhat easier than DVDSP2, and - it's WINDOWS ONLY. This does not bode well for Apple, as Adobe is carpet bombing all those "advertise on Daytime TV Art Schools" with the Adobe Video Solution, but that's a discussion for another day.
There are other apps, but they're not as good as the two abbove. The above will cost you $, Scenarist more than Encore (by a lot). Deal with it.
For Linux? Nemmind that stuff. None of it is as competent as Scenarist, and none of it is as easy to use as Encore. Sure: you save a few hundred dollars, but when you're sitting there QA testing your XML scripts and praying that the new DVD urner drivers work, your time will be worth MUCH more money than what you saved.
By a similar argument, the Apple Way of Working is great and cheap. For $50 you can get iLife with the latest rev of iDVD, which is more than most people need for some stupid DVD of their cousin's sister's daughter's wedding that was shot on some cheeezy Canon ZR10. 9 times out of 10, you can get away with iMovie and iDVD and *no one* will notice or care. Now, you'll need to get an Apple computer, but most anything built in the past year or two will do fine, and you can pick 'em up at somewhat less than extortionate prices these days...
I've been doing DVD authoring for years, and back around 2002 I figured that I wasn't going to beat my head against the wall anymore - it was faster, cheaper, and easier to get a mac and get it done than try and get my Windoze machine to jump the hoops at a reasonable price.
Oddly, and contrary to what some people have posted, this really is a situation where the OS matters.
So, in short:
Windows:
1. Scenarist if you can afford it. It does everything, but it's really complicated.
2. Encore if you can't or won't do Scenarist.
Windows isn't the optimal solution for this, so consider a Macintosh.
1. iLife w/ iDVD is supercheap and very very good.
2. If you need to do more advanced work, DVD Studio Pro does the job.
Linux:
Simply: it's not ready for prime time, and given the complexity of the problem it may never be. Yes, there are solutions out there, but you'll burn a lot of creative time dorking around with code when you could be getting work done. I would LOVE IT if there was an adequate solution out there, though - free or cheap software on a free OS on a cheap computer? Floats my boat. But I'm not holding my breath.
RS
Second: I can't see how you can possibly test any of this.
If you can't test it, then it's just a likely story. It might be a more likely story than saying little green elves did it all, but in essence, it;s not that different.
Tangles of strings - Suuuure.
As I said, it probably is true, and string theory is a lot cleaner, but damn - what are you going to do? Crack open a black hole to find out?
We. don't. think. so.
It strikes me as what Horgan calls "Ironic Science".
RS
I disliked that job. I didn't hate it, like the Two Guys stint I wrote about last month, but it was not a great experience.
The management was bumbling and just on the edge of mean - always sitting on us to get times down. But, it was Back In The Day, so I had GREAT stock options, so I put up with it for THREE YEARS.
The worst part were the customers, for me. Some were nice, and I liked them, but some were complete IDIOTS.
Here's a few conversations I remember:
Me: So, you're getting a what error?
Caller: Ah got me a tap negative ONE error, and then nuthin happens.
Me: Type one? Sounds like it's a problem with your extensions - some kind of conflict.
Caller: Oh? Wull, lemme check that out raaaht now...
(The sound of the reciever clattering on the table and footsteps across a wooden floor. The sound of furniture moving. The sound of more furniture moving. Fottsteps coming back tothe phone)
Caller: Why it CAIN'T be an extensheeyuns problem.
Me: Really? How do you figure?
Caller: Wull, ever-thang's plugged in JES' FINE!!!
Another fine user of our product:
Caller: Hi! My name's JIM! Who're YOU? ... how does it not work?
Me: Ralph. How can I help you Jim?
Caller: Well, my (program) won't fucking WORK! (puffs from a cigarette)
Me: Bummer. You're using it for what purpose there Jim?
Caller: I'm the webmaster of the Bluebird Trailer Court. I'm tryin to set up a way that we call all get onto the web and order supplies for our, ummm, homes without any kind of time wastin' - so like if someone runs out of Propane, they just get on the web and bingo: everything is done all automatic like.
Me: That's a pretty sophisticated job, Jim.
Caller: DAMN FUCKIN STRAIGHT! AND YOUR GODDAMN SOFTWARE AIN'T FUCKIN' WORKIN! (swills something from a bottle, and smokes some more.)
Me: I understand Jim, and I'm here to help you. Where you located? What's your serial number? (We do the business part of the call) Wow. Texas? You must be hot there this time of year.
Jim: It ain't the heat, it's the damn humidity (slap of skin. Truck roars by... I'm getting the impression he's sitting there crushing mosquitoes, drinking whiskey -his speech is beginning to slur as he gets louder and louder; in his underwear - because it's an oven where he is, and lives in the trailer next to the Highway - judging by all the traffic noise. A vision of HELL - a trailer park in southern Texas...)
and DAMN it's humid here today!
Me: Bummer Jim. so, let's see
Jim: It doesn't do what I want it to.
Me: Are you in front of it now?
Jim: YEP! AND IT'S DOING IT AGAIN!!!!
Me: What? I thought it didn't work...
Jim: It works - IT JUST DON'T WORK RIGHT! DAMMIT! (swills more booze smokes more cigarette...)
Me: OK OK - quit the app and do EXACTLY as I tell you...
Of course, he didn't and all he did was get completely shitfaced drunk and go through a pack of Merits. Eventually he started hitting his computer. At that point, I couldn't stop stifling my laughter, and put him on hold. I conference called him in with another tech, because Jim was a LOSER beyond loser. We were both hitting the mute button because we were laughing hysterically at this nincompoop. It devolved to something like this:
Jim: SEE? THERE!!! IT DID IT AGAIN! I'm tellin ya this fucking thing is CURSED!!!!
Me: I'm sorry Jim, I didn't see anything - we're on the telephone. Tell me what you saw.
Jim: OH RIGHT! uuuuh Well, IT' DIDN'T WORK AGAIN! DAMMIT! And (hits computer) this damned Compaq is a piece of CRAP. I friggin HATE this thing.
Me: I'm not sure it's the computer, and while I know you're using a very old PC, we do make the same software for Macintosh, if you do cross over to Mac. So either way, you can use this program and not lose your work.
She then picked the oozy furball up, stood on a chair and dumped him.
He spun around a bit and landed on his feet. The buttered toast ws still attached, but was now on his belly, butterside down.
No perpetual motion, but proof that cats always land on their feet, and buttered toast always lands buttered side down.
SCIENCE!
RS
There is a non-zero probability that one of these blackholes could eat a particle, then another and another and the next thing you know: poof. In a few weeks the moon will orbit a black hole.
Now, let's see - we have no tests for evaporating black holes, and some geek in Switzerland thinks it's a good idea to do it here on earth. It is likely that Hawking is *probably* correct. But if he's not, we could be TOTALLY fucked. Personally, I'm putting my money on Hawking, but frankly I find this kind of work a bit unnerving. The only justice would be that the first to get ripped into quantal goo would be the dorks at CERN.
All the more reason for a moon base, IMHO.
The moonbased atomsmasher could be powered by He3 fusion - right on site. although, if the moon disappeared into a blackhole, we'd get fried by the radiation anyway. Hmmmm.
All the more reason for a Mars Base, IMHO...
This way, if Mars gets eaten by a homegrown Blackhole, we'll be less likely to be nuked by the results. Maybe. Aaaaah - nemmind. When the ring gets vapourised by an errant blackhole, the Swiss geeks will say "MEIN GOTT!" just as they are vapourised. Good 'nuff. This sentient life thing was such a crap shoot from the start, anyway.
RS
CPL 5938 (from Remake-Remodel by Roxy Music)
RS
It sounds extremely familiar....
RS
I just think that the influence of Office on Mac is very very big, especially when there is no really suitable alternative.
Open Office? I've never used it - it may be suitable, but I have my doubts. My experiences with Linux were not positive, which is why I stay on the Mac side of things.
I just don't see the future as something stable, and one where Apple's place in things is guaranteed. I think 2004 - 2005 is going to be the most crucial time for Apple.
The G6 (and up) will be the critical point for them. If they can get into that, and keep 3rd party apps on it, it'll live well. If not, it will live, just not so well.
RS
Let me get this straight.
No matter how many usability and feature benefits it has over its Windows counterpart, the Mac version of MS Office is "second rate" because it lacks -- of all things -- Access? A product which you admittedly call "nasty" and "a pig?" While the Mac could certainly use a solid GUI-based relational database -- and please resist the urge to even think about tossing up FileMaker as falling in this category -- Access is hardly the solution we need.
Filemaker is a toy. A useful toy, but a toy. Yes, there are Many Other GUI DBs out there, and most of them are likely better than Access, BUT: Access is the one that comes with Office, and it is the one that benefits from that kind of integration.
Therefore, Office is not truly crossplatform until they get all the apps migrated over, and considering how long Access has been around, I am convinced that they keep it on the windows side as an incentive to do the Wintel Heroin, much like His Steveness pulled the plug on the Windows Version of Final Cut Pro
(yes, there was a Windows version - I worked on it... and it was in better shape than the Mac version until Steve pulled the plug on it and a dozen integraph dual processor workstations wer estripped and put out in the hall...)
to bring people over to the side goodness and light.
First of all, please explain to me and the rest of the folks here how Moore's Law is going to kill the Mac. Not Moore's Law alone: a combo of MS abandoning the Mac platform and Moore's Law.
Let's say his Steveness decides that it's time to make Apple works something other than a bad joke. and they really turn the app around - make it world class, like FCP or DVDSP, etc.
The Prince of Darkness pulls the plug on OfficeX in retaliation, much as he killed IE when Safari came out. What happens then?
People who only use Mac for Office Apps and some Mac Apps (which is a very large number of people) hold onto their Macs and don't upgrade, because eventually the upgrade will break OfficeX.
Moore's Law says faster and better every 2 years or so. the machines that are the "OfficeX" machines will eventually breakdown or get replaced with Wintel Iron in order to do Office. this process will accellerate at Moore's Law speed, and withing 6 years, you have Mac's occupying less than .5% of the market.
They may be BLAZING fast, but hwo cares? They don;'t run Office, and that's what people are hooked on like Demerol on IV drip.
Secondly, if Microsoft were to drop Office for the Mac, it would only incentivize Apple to put its support behind OpenOffice.
No, OficeX will get dumped depending on when AppleWorks actually works. If AppleWOrks works, then there is no need for Open Office.
As odd as it may seem, millions of Linux users worldwide manage to use OpenOffice to exchange office documents with their Windows colleagues. Why couldn't Mac users do the same?
Because most Linux users are usually very smart. Most Mac and windows users are idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H not so sophisticated. Linux users can figure things out. Most Windows and MAc users (not all, but a huge number of them) just want an appliance, not a way of life.
Things may or may not be as cool as they seem, but they are certainly not as bleak as you portray.
If Apple continues on it's present path, I have one TLA that describes its future:
SGI
RS
Sure: Access is a pig and it's nasty, but it's still a vital part of Office on Windows, and in the past what: SIX YEARS that Office has been on Mac they haven't puzzled out how to port that thang over to Mac?
MS feeds the Mac community the barest minimum to keep stringing the Mac People along and buy their junk^H^H^H^H software.
It's like that line by Godley and Creme, from Business is Business:
"Throw him them the bones
But freeze the meat
Cuz the meat comes off
but the beat goes on
Business is business..."
I think MS would just LOVE to dump the Mac, and I believe they will do so when... (pull the curtain, Fred)...
Apple Turns Apple works into a useful, efficient, and worthwhile app. (Right now it's OK for my daughter, but useless in any business sense. And it has a long way to go before it gets there.)
Once that happens, they'll ditch Mac like a hot potato and THAT is the reason why Apple Works sucx and will ALWAYS suck, because as soon as MS pulls Office off the Mac, the MAc's future will die a death at the hands of Moore's Law.
Things are not as cool as they seem, or as nifty as the article prtrays.
RS
The scary part about this is it is an electronic form of Newspeak. If you can't FIND something on the web through a search engine, then it technically DOESN'T EXIST. Sure: you might know intuitively of other articles on (subject), but if the wealthy powers that be who are impacted by (subject) buy all the possible references to (subject) then it makes it nearly impossible to research (subject) in any rational manner. This Is Bad. Very extra special bad. Logically extend it. Microsoft (or any other transnational pigfucker) buys all references to Microsoft, Windows, etc. (orwhatever the transnational pigfucker's upset about) and routes all inquiries to their website. This is NOT a good thing. Google should be prevented from doing this in the interest of the common good. they may be "just a corporation looking at the bottom line" but their decisions have political impact, and being typical geeks, they don't want to "go there". But they really need ot take responsibility for their actions and remove this feature of their system. The implications are stupefying. RS
Support iTunes because it gives back to the artists.
No it doesn't. It gives those 8 cents to the RIGHTS HOLDERS. Until the musician pays off the enormous advance and other loans the record company gives them to sign and get a record going, the musician doesn't get jackshit. Until the record company gets paid back, they are the rights holder to the music and collect all the green stuff.
Furthermore, because the record companies are a bunch of theivbing bastards, they usually rig the books so they NEVER get paid back, and collect ALL the money made by the record, forever.
iTunes is lame. It will matter when ANYONE can sell music through it, and artists can bypass record companies altogether. As it is, it is just a shill for the record companies and the RIAA.
RS
RS