When I was in 3rd grade the (US public) elementary school decided to have an experimental program where they grouped all the gifted kids from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade into the same classroom. We had an excellent teacher who had a curriculum that made it work. After all, most of what you learn in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade isn't all that incremental except for Math, and math was taught by splitting the class into groups... kind of a class within the class.
It was fantastic. Our performance skyrocketed.
Almost as much as the remainder of the schools performance collapsed. It's a tried and true teaching strategy to make group work by combining the poor students with the good ones. That way work still gets done. With no good students left in their classrooms, the rest of the school actually had to work at teaching the poorer students instead of letting the 'smart kid' do all the work and call it good. Additionally, the 'per classroom' test scores plummeted.
It was good for the kids in a million different ways, but the program was scrapped after 2 years because the numbers looked worse.
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
WTF is that? First off, it's wrong. It's very very wrong. Tiger is better than XP now, but did we see 'Apple's remarkable market share gain this year'? No. There is nothing certain about Apple and 'market share gain' no matter how superior their products. Forget 'remarkable'. Second off, it's written so badly I had to go over it three times to make sure it really said what it said.
The thing is, all the conflicting stories come from the same place... You get one guy's perspective. And I don't have any problem believing that somebody would set up multiple myspace accounts after some of these 'donate to the victims' stories out there ended up with people getting 6 digit donations. The sooner they are deactivated, the less time they are up for people to pick apart. Someone put together a fake Jimmy Clausen (Football player committed to Notre Dame) myspace page not long ago in an (obvious) attempt to bring bad press on the kid. I've read a number of 'internet storys' where they were told ILoveBees style through multiple fake myspace, blogger, and livejournal accounts. I don't see how this is any different.
How do you know the girl is 16? She definitely looks young but you only have this guy's word for it. If it's not her, maybe her family, or boyfriend?
I'm not saying that this is what happened, just saying that it appears suspicious.
yes, people have driven by and as stated in one of his updates "The address was a fake." He DOES have a story saying that someone came by with a video camera (because she lived close to the fake address) and got a load from the building super...
I've been following this since the day it happened (not long ago anyway) and I am beginning to suspect that this may be a fake, and even if it isn't, Boy what a great con idea.
Hear me out
The guy continually writes that he's not looking for fame and fortune, but goes on to list all the people who have pointed this out and what news outlets are looking to interview him. Bemoans the fact that he isn't on TV yet, and says he's not looking for fame in the same breath. Hmmm...
He then goes on to state over and over that he's not looking for money. That people suggested putting up a donation link, but he won't do it.... yet he doesn't hesitate to supply information regarding what everything costs over and over. Now, finally, that the number of people viewing has grown large enough he springs the 'Okay, you can donate, but only if you can afford it.'
Maybe I'm too cynical, but what's to stop someone living in corona (maybe it's the girl in the pics!) from pulling something like this? Set up a few phony myspace accounts and boom, good to go. You can make thousands off of the internet donation effect... why not?
Now that was one of my favorites. You had this little advertizement bar that appeared on the bottom of your screen, and got paid for however many hours it was up. Nevermind that you could run it at night while you slept. You also got additional cash for getting others to sign up under you.
My roomate and I put together a little program we called 'TakeAdvantage' that was basically a small gui for breaking what pathetic blocks they put in place to prevent one person from signing themselves up 20 times. hundred dollar checks every month for nothing? Sweet.
Whatshotnow was another great one. You got points for filling out surveys, and you could use those points on free junk at their website. Ghostmouse let you fill out surveys (everything is awesome!) for hours at a time while you slept or were at class.
I'll never understand how they thought these business models could work. Ditto that with the 'new' Napster.
I had a minidisc player, way back in the day, and the article is way off base on a number of points. Where to begin...
First off, durability. I dropped my minidisc player exactly once... and that was the end of it. There is something to be said about all of those mechanical parts, from the ejector mechanism to the laser head reader, etc etc. Thing never played again.
He quotes unlimited storage space... in case 60 gigs isn't enough for you. This same argument could be made for MP3 CDs, which hold almost as much as the 1 gig minidiscs, and are a whole hell of a lot cheaper and easier to find. Either case, nobody wants to carry the stupid things around all over the place.
He comments on how MD users expect high quality but that they put up with SonicStage (and ATRAC/MP3 only recordings)
The author obviously has an illogical bias towards this particular media. To be honest I think the whole thing reeks of fanboy-ism.
Fair enough. I think I have not been successful in defining exactly what my point is, and people are using that to take it to the extreme. Would I be against mandatory intelligence/DNA testing required by some big brother government used to determine whether or not I could be a citizen or vote? Of course I would. Do I care that they are looking into someone who is on trial's email for evidence? Not a bit.
Additionally, I think there is a very strong division between the private sector and the legal sector. I don't mind evidence gathering. Remember, these emails were searched because the man is under investigation for a crime. They can't go in there for no reason, they have to prove to a judge that they have probable cause. Allow me to clarify. I am not so simple to actually believe that they don't look at things they shouldn't, but they certainly can't use anything they find unless they've already obtained permission.
Try looking at it from the viewpoint of the people who lost money because of this man. What if someone stole hundreds of thousands from you. He is being brought to trial. There is good evidence all around, but particularly damning stuff in email history, and the guy was dumb enough to allow it to fly around on web-hosted servers. I'd certainly want it used.
I'm afraid we may just have to agree to disagree. I am not scared of the police investigating me because there are so many rules out there and so many judges looking out for themselves that anything brought against me legitimately won't be used.
I'm not worried about harassment of the kind you talk about because I'm a big boy with a good lawyer and I am willing to fight back. I think it's a simple difference of attitudes. Taxes for example. My accountant operates under the assumption that I don't mind getting audited so long as I win. I have teeth and anybody who wants to fire me for my personal life, or deface my property over racial issues will be doing me a favor. I'll live easy the rest of my life on their money. If people respond to my legal activity illegally they will pay. I'm not worried about this.
All of this is beside the point however. We are talking private individuals. Am I going to stand on my rooftop spouting all the family history? No. Of course not. But it doesn't really bother me that the US legal system is looking into someone's background to prosecute them. I think there is a difference. I think there is a difference between being forced to divulge my entire sexual history to my boss and having relavent emails involving criminal activity pulled out of some archives to be used against me in court.
Identity theft is different. I've been the victim of that too. Charges on the credit cards and everything. Total pain in the ass. What makes it different is that this is the government we're talking about here. I don't trust them for much but I do trust they're not about to use my identity to buy stereo equipment in San Diego you know?
Now, can the government be trusted to keep the information they gather from you out of the hands of people who would do such a thing? That's a different and much more interesting question.
Honestly? Because post cards cost more than paper and have less room. Personally, I don't write letters often, but I've never had problems with things like post cards unless it contains information like social security numbers (which is a situation when I have something to hide). What do I care if the mailman knows I wish you a happy birthday or that mom is sick?
A few differences: Everything you mention, outside of the police, is a private institution. As for them, as long as what I do is legal, they can keep tabs on me all they like. The only thing that bothers me about it is that they'll be wasting my tax money doing so.
Perhaps my initial argument wasn't clear enough. I do see the issue keeping certain things (though not really email) out of public knowledge. What I was trying to point out is that companies like supermarkets and credit companies already find out so much about us (by methods that have always been legal), we're really fooling ourselves that we have much privacy anyway. Maybe your landlord doens't know what is in your bank account, but he sure as hell knows how much you make a year, what your debts are, and what your credit history is. What difference does a balance make at that point?
To be honest, the only example you bring up that bothers me at all is the DNA issue. As for the rest... let them know. I don't care. I'll rally when Peta tries to make eating a burger illegal, but in the meantime, what can they do with that knowledge? What do I care what my racist neighbor thinks/does? Until he does something illegal against me or my friends, it's his right to be a racist bastard as much as it is mine not to be. I am my own man. If my parents have a problem with what I do, that's tough sh*t. Do you see what I'm getting at? None of these people can do anything with that knowledge because none of it is illegal/wrong. I'm not saying I agree with this (I don't) but the arguement could be made that if we all knew more about what we do in private life, there would be fewer taboos. That's kind of what Kinsey tried to do with his sexual studies.
I can understand the bit about not being able to start a revolution if King George had stationed soldiers in their homes, but the rest of what you say doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't see anything in the constitution involving privacy, not of this sort anyway, and fail to see how it is relavent. Also, I would hope that whoever plans the next revolution is smart enough to keep their email off of someone else's server, be it google or whatever.
More over, your arguemnt of "if the government is doing such a good job of protecting us and not oppressing anyone, why should they fear their citizens having a lot of privacy?" makes no sense at all. Ignoring privacy entirely, someone (or some government) can only protect you from what they know about right? I could erect a fence around my house, have attack dogs and security guards attack anything that even thinks of coming inside. While this goes on I could take perfect care of my family, providing everything they ever could want, and give them the freedom to do whatever they please. None of that prevents my sister from attacking my mother in her sleep.
Am I the only one who doesn't care about privacy? I mean hell, I don't really have any to begin with. The grocery stores know what I eat, you can find out how much I make online easily enough, and anybody can find out what I buy / where I buy it / pay in rent / pay in loans / what I make in salary via a quick and easy credit check. I'm sure if you want it you can find my SNN easily enough
Maybe I'm just boring, but there's nothing in my email they'd find worth reading anyway. I never understood what the big deal is with privacy.
You know what? Fuck you. Seriously. If you really believe that even 1% of Americans accept, condone, or approve of what the IRA is and does then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Yes we have some nuts here who funded the IRA. We have some nuts who funded Bin Ladin too. We have citizens who helped them carry out the attack.
I know you're trying to be funny, but I resent the fact that you dare lump me in with those bastards (or in some cases fools) who's money went toward the deaths of innocent British civilians.
Nintendo has been pretty honest in the past as to their actual performance specs... and if what they say about being roughly 2 to 3 times more powerful than the cube is true, that puts them neck and neck with the XBOX360 and PS3.
That along with the ability to download old games makes me, if anything, more excited for Nintendo's new offering than the phony specs for XBOX and PS3 ever did.
now we just have to hope that they don't pull.. well a Nintendo and do something totally freaky with their controller. To be honest, I have high hopes.
I've given it as much a shot as I can... but in the end it's too slow, still has tons of default features I don't want (I should be turning these on, not finding them to turn them off) and isn't compatible enough with office types. Fair or not it IS industry standard and if you're going to compete you better support.doc properly.
It has potential but I'm just not ready to replace ms office with this yet.
There are other differences...
on
Longhorn Preview
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The most important of which is compatibility. Windows will run on an endless combination of different vendor's processors, motherboards, etc etc. Windows has the whole PC thing going for it. With Tiger you are locked into Apple hardware.
now before you dismiss this as a simple scoff, I am (attempting) to make a valid point here. What is the number one reason people stay away from Mac? I submit that it is price. Not price of the OS Tiger, but price of "The Comptuer" you have to buy. Imagine the ability to have something as solid, feature rich, and protected as Tiger, that you can run on a relatively powerful system you made from parts you bought off of newegg for $600. Personally, I believe that's worth waiting for.
Basically what I'm saying, I guess, is if Longhorn can be ALMOST as good as Tiger it will be:
1. A vast vast VAST improvement over the windows we currently have
and 2. Will be more appealing due to the cost factor.
I don't use it now, but I'd run OSX in a heartbeat if I could do it on a PC.
and I'm a game nut. It's taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but I really just don't like either of the new handhelds.
The DS is just plain too gimicky for my blood. I don't WANT to use a stylus or reach my thumb all the way over to play a game. Cute idea, could result in a handful of fun games like Wario Ware, but we're talking glorified palm pilot games here, not console hand held quality. You end up with a handful of refreshingly different games that lack any substance whatsoever. What about Metroid Prime Hunters you ask? Well it only works because you use the touchpad as an analog controller. Can you really look at it? do you even look at what you're touching? No.. your eyes are fixed on the one action screen while you control with your thumb extended across the device uncomfortably.
Then there's the PSP... It looks beautiful, really does. And it has a ton of features like MP3 and video playback... but the battery life is an absolute KILLER for me. 2.5 hours of gameplay? You have to be kidding me. As a person who flys a lot I find the fact that this thing won't make a typical flight greatly disturbing. I don't need 20 hours like the SP gives me, but less than 8 or 9 and I get uncomfortable. less than 3 is simply unacceptable. The features aren't really a selling point either since I can't see using this large thing as an MP3 player, and dropping the big bucks for a big sony mem card for video doesn't appeal to me either. 50 dollar games for a handheld is pushing it, but I could swallow that pill if only I could play them for more than a couple hours at a time.
I really wanted to like one of these... I've been spending time trying to find a system seller... but both of them have drawbacks that seem far too severe to drop big money on.
I've seen those consumer incentive places and they look pretty sleezy to me, but I DID get an ipod for free from freeipods.com. And it really was free.... with the possible exception of some junk mail to my house (easy enough to throw away) and some spam to an email account I don't use, and some telemarketing to a phone number that isn't really mine (When forced, I give out numbers that are a few digits off).
Seriously people I don't get the "They're going to spam me under" argument. Who doesn't have access to a 'spam account' now a days? If not, get a free one from google. As to the 'deals' they make you do, if you're careful you and your friends won't have to pay a dime. The key is be CAREFUL...
oh and avoid that consumer incentive one... but just looking at that site should be evidence enough
Slashdot Mirror
When I was in 3rd grade the (US public) elementary school decided to have an experimental program where they grouped all the gifted kids from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade into the same classroom. We had an excellent teacher who had a curriculum that made it work. After all, most of what you learn in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade isn't all that incremental except for Math, and math was taught by splitting the class into groups... kind of a class within the class. It was fantastic. Our performance skyrocketed. Almost as much as the remainder of the schools performance collapsed. It's a tried and true teaching strategy to make group work by combining the poor students with the good ones. That way work still gets done. With no good students left in their classrooms, the rest of the school actually had to work at teaching the poorer students instead of letting the 'smart kid' do all the work and call it good. Additionally, the 'per classroom' test scores plummeted. It was good for the kids in a million different ways, but the program was scrapped after 2 years because the numbers looked worse.
Did the submitter even READ what he wrote?
If "Leopard" is really what it claims to be, i.e. fast and efficient in sharp contrast to slow and resource hungry Windows Vista, we certainly would see Apple's remarkable market share gain next year."
WTF is that? First off, it's wrong. It's very very wrong. Tiger is better than XP now, but did we see 'Apple's remarkable market share gain this year'? No. There is nothing certain about Apple and 'market share gain' no matter how superior their products. Forget 'remarkable'. Second off, it's written so badly I had to go over it three times to make sure it really said what it said.
The thing is, all the conflicting stories come from the same place... You get one guy's perspective. And I don't have any problem believing that somebody would set up multiple myspace accounts after some of these 'donate to the victims' stories out there ended up with people getting 6 digit donations. The sooner they are deactivated, the less time they are up for people to pick apart. Someone put together a fake Jimmy Clausen (Football player committed to Notre Dame) myspace page not long ago in an (obvious) attempt to bring bad press on the kid. I've read a number of 'internet storys' where they were told ILoveBees style through multiple fake myspace, blogger, and livejournal accounts. I don't see how this is any different.
How do you know the girl is 16? She definitely looks young but you only have this guy's word for it. If it's not her, maybe her family, or boyfriend?
I'm not saying that this is what happened, just saying that it appears suspicious.
yes, people have driven by and as stated in one of his updates "The address was a fake." He DOES have a story saying that someone came by with a video camera (because she lived close to the fake address) and got a load from the building super...
The guy just seems to protest too much to me.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who might be a little too cynical
I smell a phony
I've been following this since the day it happened (not long ago anyway) and I am beginning to suspect that this may be a fake, and even if it isn't, Boy what a great con idea.
Hear me out
The guy continually writes that he's not looking for fame and fortune, but goes on to list all the people who have pointed this out and what news outlets are looking to interview him. Bemoans the fact that he isn't on TV yet, and says he's not looking for fame in the same breath. Hmmm...
He then goes on to state over and over that he's not looking for money. That people suggested putting up a donation link, but he won't do it.... yet he doesn't hesitate to supply information regarding what everything costs over and over. Now, finally, that the number of people viewing has grown large enough he springs the 'Okay, you can donate, but only if you can afford it.'
Maybe I'm too cynical, but what's to stop someone living in corona (maybe it's the girl in the pics!) from pulling something like this? Set up a few phony myspace accounts and boom, good to go. You can make thousands off of the internet donation effect... why not?
Now that was one of my favorites. You had this little advertizement bar that appeared on the bottom of your screen, and got paid for however many hours it was up. Nevermind that you could run it at night while you slept. You also got additional cash for getting others to sign up under you. My roomate and I put together a little program we called 'TakeAdvantage' that was basically a small gui for breaking what pathetic blocks they put in place to prevent one person from signing themselves up 20 times. hundred dollar checks every month for nothing? Sweet. Whatshotnow was another great one. You got points for filling out surveys, and you could use those points on free junk at their website. Ghostmouse let you fill out surveys (everything is awesome!) for hours at a time while you slept or were at class. I'll never understand how they thought these business models could work. Ditto that with the 'new' Napster.
I had a minidisc player, way back in the day, and the article is way off base on a number of points. Where to begin...
First off, durability. I dropped my minidisc player exactly once... and that was the end of it. There is something to be said about all of those mechanical parts, from the ejector mechanism to the laser head reader, etc etc. Thing never played again.
He quotes unlimited storage space... in case 60 gigs isn't enough for you. This same argument could be made for MP3 CDs, which hold almost as much as the 1 gig minidiscs, and are a whole hell of a lot cheaper and easier to find. Either case, nobody wants to carry the stupid things around all over the place.
He comments on how MD users expect high quality but that they put up with SonicStage (and ATRAC/MP3 only recordings)
The author obviously has an illogical bias towards this particular media. To be honest I think the whole thing reeks of fanboy-ism.
Fair enough. I think I have not been successful in defining exactly what my point is, and people are using that to take it to the extreme. Would I be against mandatory intelligence/DNA testing required by some big brother government used to determine whether or not I could be a citizen or vote? Of course I would. Do I care that they are looking into someone who is on trial's email for evidence? Not a bit.
Additionally, I think there is a very strong division between the private sector and the legal sector. I don't mind evidence gathering. Remember, these emails were searched because the man is under investigation for a crime. They can't go in there for no reason, they have to prove to a judge that they have probable cause. Allow me to clarify. I am not so simple to actually believe that they don't look at things they shouldn't, but they certainly can't use anything they find unless they've already obtained permission.
Try looking at it from the viewpoint of the people who lost money because of this man. What if someone stole hundreds of thousands from you. He is being brought to trial. There is good evidence all around, but particularly damning stuff in email history, and the guy was dumb enough to allow it to fly around on web-hosted servers. I'd certainly want it used.
I'm afraid we may just have to agree to disagree. I am not scared of the police investigating me because there are so many rules out there and so many judges looking out for themselves that anything brought against me legitimately won't be used.
I'm not worried about harassment of the kind you talk about because I'm a big boy with a good lawyer and I am willing to fight back. I think it's a simple difference of attitudes. Taxes for example. My accountant operates under the assumption that I don't mind getting audited so long as I win. I have teeth and anybody who wants to fire me for my personal life, or deface my property over racial issues will be doing me a favor. I'll live easy the rest of my life on their money. If people respond to my legal activity illegally they will pay. I'm not worried about this.
All of this is beside the point however. We are talking private individuals. Am I going to stand on my rooftop spouting all the family history? No. Of course not. But it doesn't really bother me that the US legal system is looking into someone's background to prosecute them. I think there is a difference. I think there is a difference between being forced to divulge my entire sexual history to my boss and having relavent emails involving criminal activity pulled out of some archives to be used against me in court.
Identity theft is different. I've been the victim of that too. Charges on the credit cards and everything. Total pain in the ass. What makes it different is that this is the government we're talking about here. I don't trust them for much but I do trust they're not about to use my identity to buy stereo equipment in San Diego you know?
Now, can the government be trusted to keep the information they gather from you out of the hands of people who would do such a thing? That's a different and much more interesting question.
Honestly? Because post cards cost more than paper and have less room. Personally, I don't write letters often, but I've never had problems with things like post cards unless it contains information like social security numbers (which is a situation when I have something to hide). What do I care if the mailman knows I wish you a happy birthday or that mom is sick?
Do you really think unencrypted email is anything BUT a postcard?
A few differences: Everything you mention, outside of the police, is a private institution. As for them, as long as what I do is legal, they can keep tabs on me all they like. The only thing that bothers me about it is that they'll be wasting my tax money doing so.
Perhaps my initial argument wasn't clear enough. I do see the issue keeping certain things (though not really email) out of public knowledge. What I was trying to point out is that companies like supermarkets and credit companies already find out so much about us (by methods that have always been legal), we're really fooling ourselves that we have much privacy anyway. Maybe your landlord doens't know what is in your bank account, but he sure as hell knows how much you make a year, what your debts are, and what your credit history is. What difference does a balance make at that point?
To be honest, the only example you bring up that bothers me at all is the DNA issue. As for the rest... let them know. I don't care. I'll rally when Peta tries to make eating a burger illegal, but in the meantime, what can they do with that knowledge? What do I care what my racist neighbor thinks/does? Until he does something illegal against me or my friends, it's his right to be a racist bastard as much as it is mine not to be. I am my own man. If my parents have a problem with what I do, that's tough sh*t. Do you see what I'm getting at? None of these people can do anything with that knowledge because none of it is illegal/wrong. I'm not saying I agree with this (I don't) but the arguement could be made that if we all knew more about what we do in private life, there would be fewer taboos. That's kind of what Kinsey tried to do with his sexual studies.
I can understand the bit about not being able to start a revolution if King George had stationed soldiers in their homes, but the rest of what you say doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't see anything in the constitution involving privacy, not of this sort anyway, and fail to see how it is relavent. Also, I would hope that whoever plans the next revolution is smart enough to keep their email off of someone else's server, be it google or whatever.
More over, your arguemnt of "if the government is doing such a good job of protecting us and not oppressing anyone, why should they fear their citizens having a lot of privacy?" makes no sense at all. Ignoring privacy entirely, someone (or some government) can only protect you from what they know about right? I could erect a fence around my house, have attack dogs and security guards attack anything that even thinks of coming inside. While this goes on I could take perfect care of my family, providing everything they ever could want, and give them the freedom to do whatever they please. None of that prevents my sister from attacking my mother in her sleep.
Am I the only one who doesn't care about privacy? I mean hell, I don't really have any to begin with. The grocery stores know what I eat, you can find out how much I make online easily enough, and anybody can find out what I buy / where I buy it / pay in rent / pay in loans / what I make in salary via a quick and easy credit check. I'm sure if you want it you can find my SNN easily enough
Maybe I'm just boring, but there's nothing in my email they'd find worth reading anyway. I never understood what the big deal is with privacy.
The florida bar association
D 1C9D5551885256B61000B58D2/AE11AE39767C4F8685256B74 00523C2E?OpenDocument
Center for Professionalism:
Carl J. Zahner
czahner@flabar.org
Terri Anderson
tanderso@flabar.org
Paula Stephenson
psteph@flabar.org
from http://www.floridabar.org/TFB/TFBOrgan.nsf/54E05C
You know what? Fuck you. Seriously. If you really believe that even 1% of Americans accept, condone, or approve of what the IRA is and does then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Yes we have some nuts here who funded the IRA. We have some nuts who funded Bin Ladin too. We have citizens who helped them carry out the attack.
I know you're trying to be funny, but I resent the fact that you dare lump me in with those bastards (or in some cases fools) who's money went toward the deaths of innocent British civilians.
Nintendo has been pretty honest in the past as to their actual performance specs... and if what they say about being roughly 2 to 3 times more powerful than the cube is true, that puts them neck and neck with the XBOX360 and PS3.
That along with the ability to download old games makes me, if anything, more excited for Nintendo's new offering than the phony specs for XBOX and PS3 ever did.
now we just have to hope that they don't pull.. well a Nintendo and do something totally freaky with their controller. To be honest, I have high hopes.
I've given it as much a shot as I can... but in the end it's too slow, still has tons of default features I don't want (I should be turning these on, not finding them to turn them off) and isn't compatible enough with office types. Fair or not it IS industry standard and if you're going to compete you better support .doc properly.
It has potential but I'm just not ready to replace ms office with this yet.
The most important of which is compatibility. Windows will run on an endless combination of different vendor's processors, motherboards, etc etc. Windows has the whole PC thing going for it. With Tiger you are locked into Apple hardware.
now before you dismiss this as a simple scoff, I am (attempting) to make a valid point here. What is the number one reason people stay away from Mac? I submit that it is price. Not price of the OS Tiger, but price of "The Comptuer" you have to buy. Imagine the ability to have something as solid, feature rich, and protected as Tiger, that you can run on a relatively powerful system you made from parts you bought off of newegg for $600. Personally, I believe that's worth waiting for.
Basically what I'm saying, I guess, is if Longhorn can be ALMOST as good as Tiger it will be:
1. A vast vast VAST improvement over the windows we currently have
and 2. Will be more appealing due to the cost factor.
I don't use it now, but I'd run OSX in a heartbeat if I could do it on a PC.
"Count on getting a little less than three hours of 3D game playtime from one charge."
_ vs_Nintendo_DS.html/
http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/51343/Sony_PSP
That one, and one from IGN as well. What games are you playing? the IGN one wore out using Ridge Racer.
and I'm a game nut. It's taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but I really just don't like either of the new handhelds.
The DS is just plain too gimicky for my blood. I don't WANT to use a stylus or reach my thumb all the way over to play a game. Cute idea, could result in a handful of fun games like Wario Ware, but we're talking glorified palm pilot games here, not console hand held quality. You end up with a handful of refreshingly different games that lack any substance whatsoever. What about Metroid Prime Hunters you ask? Well it only works because you use the touchpad as an analog controller. Can you really look at it? do you even look at what you're touching? No.. your eyes are fixed on the one action screen while you control with your thumb extended across the device uncomfortably.
Then there's the PSP... It looks beautiful, really does. And it has a ton of features like MP3 and video playback... but the battery life is an absolute KILLER for me. 2.5 hours of gameplay? You have to be kidding me. As a person who flys a lot I find the fact that this thing won't make a typical flight greatly disturbing. I don't need 20 hours like the SP gives me, but less than 8 or 9 and I get uncomfortable. less than 3 is simply unacceptable. The features aren't really a selling point either since I can't see using this large thing as an MP3 player, and dropping the big bucks for a big sony mem card for video doesn't appeal to me either. 50 dollar games for a handheld is pushing it, but I could swallow that pill if only I could play them for more than a couple hours at a time.
I really wanted to like one of these... I've been spending time trying to find a system seller... but both of them have drawbacks that seem far too severe to drop big money on.
I've seen those consumer incentive places and they look pretty sleezy to me, but I DID get an ipod for free from freeipods.com. And it really was free.... with the possible exception of some junk mail to my house (easy enough to throw away) and some spam to an email account I don't use, and some telemarketing to a phone number that isn't really mine (When forced, I give out numbers that are a few digits off).
Seriously people I don't get the "They're going to spam me under" argument. Who doesn't have access to a 'spam account' now a days? If not, get a free one from google. As to the 'deals' they make you do, if you're careful you and your friends won't have to pay a dime. The key is be CAREFUL...
oh and avoid that consumer incentive one... but just looking at that site should be evidence enough