In a way I have to agree with ozmanjusri. The Amgia was an incredible machine. The operating system was memory resident and fully multi-tasking (you could start formating a disk and then copy a file across while it was still fromatting. It was dam slow, but it would do it) . It was fast and responsive. The main downside was the lack of memory protection.
While NT and OS/2 could multi-task, back then they felt heaver and less responsive. Certainly they were more advanced, but from a users point of view the Amiga's UI ran like a cat on a hot tin roof.
He can't have been that great. I mean he never made it past captain. If he had been any good he would have eventually become Admiral America (I assume he was in the navy, the camp out fit seems to be a make it likely).
Any way good riddance he was never a match for Admiral Outrageous and his cabin boy Captain Climate.
Yes but unfortunately for Walmart I suspect it is the geeks that will be the first addopters of these types of services. So while to the techno-geeks are a small part of the global market they are probably a huge part of the addopter market for the Walmart's service.
I suspect that Walmart's video services will end up just as successfull as DVD service.
I think that your last statement proves the point.
Engineering at least when I went through the system was about providing students with tools (an understanding physics, mathamatics, chemistry); knowledge as to how these tools are applied to engineering problems; and most importantly an ability to think, mostly like an engineer. While a uni course can benefit for the inclusion of practical experience, it is not essential. Most engineers will never work in the exact field they were trained in, at least according to the Engineering Australia. Employers have a responsibilty to train new engineers in the first couple of years as they do with any other profession. Once an engineer have some experience it is then up to the engineer to maintain skill in their own skills.
At this point in time I think people misuse the term the term engineering when they talk about software develpment. It is really wishfully thinking rather than fact.
Interestingly the reason people talk about software engineering is that engineering methods and practices are well respected. It is hoped that if these methods are sucessfully applied to software development then software development will achieve the same consistantly high level of result that standard engineering has achieved.
Unfortunately this is not yet the case, but the industry is working on it.
An interesting point of comparison is would you trust your life to version 1 of Microsoft's Bridge 2000. Probably not, however I suspect that you almost never consider the safety of the bidge you drive over or the building you are in or the piece of medical equipement...
Last time I looked the GameCube can third to the PS2 and the XBOX, the Dreamcast failed (finishing of Sega as console seller) and the N64 came a second to the wildly successful PS. The Super Nintendo was the only success.
So if you drop the duds (market wise) you get a slightly different picture:
Atari VCS launched in 1977 for $249.99 __________________ $811.21 in 2005
Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1985 for $199.99 _ $354.91 in 2005
SEGA Genesis launched in 1989 for $249.99 ______________ $389.67 in 2005
Super Nintendo launched in 1991 for $199.99 _____________ $282.21 in 2005
PlayStation launched in 1995 for $299.99 _________________ $372.01 in 2005
PlayStation 2 launched in 2000 for $299.99 ________________ $333.15 in 2005
Xbox Launched in 2001 for $299.99 _____________________ $325.34 in 2005
With an average of $409. Hence you could argue that the XBox 360 was released around the average price (the premium box no less).
Interestingly we are also ignoring the other major gaming platforms of the last 2 decades, the Commodore 64 release for around $800AU in 1983 (from memory) and similarly the Amiga around $1000AU in 1985/86.
This would push the average up.
So maybe the Xbox 360 was too cheap. This would tend to suggest that MS was worried that the PS3 would kill it the same way the PS1 killed the Dreamcaster.
If MS had been less concerned then maybe we would have seen the premium pack sold at a higher price and hence better supply.
While I acknowledge that there are some undiscovered uranium deposits, I do not believe that there are significant amounts yet to be discovered. As I understand it uranium occurs with other minerals that we have been actively looking for for the last 50 years or more. So it is a bit miss leading to suggest that just because we haven't been looking for it explicitly then we should be able to find a mother load somewhere when we start to use it.
Regarding running out, I think this is more of an issue for space travel; there are plenty of other energy strategies on Earth. At present nuclear looks to be one of the better power sources for prolonged space travel so why use it all up down here before we can use it in the safety of space.
It is my view that the reason that industry likes nuclear is that it does not go against there broader message "consumption is good". The alternatives are to consume less and use less profitable alternatives (for industry that is). Hence they are simply saying consume more we have clean nuclear, rather than saying consume less ie turn off your lights when you don't need them, catch public transport, ride a bike, and don't buy our crap energy hungry disposable product.
As the first poster said "Walk a mile in his shoes". This is something that obviously have caused him great distress. It is impossible to tell how you would have felt or reacted in this situation. Maybe you would have sued to simply cover the counseling costs or maybe you would have tried to make money as a temporary celebrate. Fortunately you will probably never have to find out.
Personally find the argument that there was no malice in the act hard to believe. I do accept that the kids did not thing through the implications of their actions before they posted the video (their mistake not his).
Finally just because you found it funny, doesn't make it OK. To take an extreme example, who know maybe one day there may be a snuff video of you on the Internet where a gorilla rips of your arm and then beats you to death with the wet end. Just because a number of people liked it doesn't mean it is cool, OK or legal.
I am not sure this is really an issue for Apple. With iTunes you can already format switch m4p -> CD - > mp3...
While I acknowledge this is not perfect, I suspect that this would satify a general requirement to allow format switching. Interestingly WMA based music stores may have more of an issues as they do not universally allow a song to be burnt to CDs for all songs.
Subscription services may also have problem.
In truth the devil will be in the detail. They may specify that the process has to be lossless, or the a minimum allowable spec for loss of quality in the conversion process...
Great. Just take a pill. Don't worry why your are fat. Don't change your life style. Don't eat less food. Just take a pill.
Remember it has nothing to do with what or how much you eat. You have a desease, slow metabolism, rare condition... just like every other fat person. Just take a pill.
What the fuck is wrong with the world. Why is big Pharma always trying to sell us a pill.
My take
Gates is buying his way out of hell.
In truth he only needs a billion or so to live comfortably. I am sure you would agree that anyone can get by on a billion or so. He has $60 billion so he can easily look good by giving most of it away. The payback is that he improves his image and gets the thing he really wants.
That is to be a man of power and influence in the world.
Gates is basically a old school geek who was much better at being a business man than a geek. Until he started giving his money away he was generally considered by the rest of the geeks (including me) to be a bit of a loser at technology and a ruthless arsehole in business.
Give away some cash and how he has world dignatories fawning over him and hanging on his every word. While it has been a high price. I suspect he is happy with the result.
Remember you local drug dealer is still a drug dealer even if he throws a good Christmas party each year.
On Jobs, I don't think he needs to buy his way out of or into anything yet. People already listen to him and treat him like a genius. Finally Jobs until a couple of days ago only had a couple of billion, it is pretty hard to give away $40 billion if it is 10x your current wealth.
In Australia desktop all in one luggables are all the rage mainly due to a quirk in our tax law.
"Laptop" computer can be "salary sacraficed" (paid for by your employer out of your pre tax wage in higher purchase style arrangement) and can also be written off in two years for tax purposes. Desktop are treated differently and don't get as favourable tax treatment. As a result of these differences a large number of people are buying laptops who really want desktops (my boss is a good example), hence in Australia atleast there is a very health market in laptops that are actually desktops. I have seen some 6+Kg monsters floating around.
I would not be supprised is happening elsewere in the world.
It is unlikely to happen that way. Imagine what the other labels would do if Apple gets into bed with a Label. The labels are not dumb. If this happend they would simple pull all their music from the Apple's store as soon as their contracts allowed it.
Personally what I suspect all Apple is going to do is make it very easy for bands to setup their own labels, particularly if they want to deal with ITMS. Hence Apple can say we are just a store, it the bands breaking away and it is nothing to do with us.
Personally I see this as more of a problem for the labels than if Apple was to become a label. Who does the label fight, the bands? If Apple goes away they still have all these bands that have wised up and realise that they can do it themselves. The labels could try and force all of the online music sites to not deal with smaller labels. However once this got out that would be the end of the labels for sure. Just imagine the law suits, the PR and the political attention.
Just my 2 cents. We will have to wait and see how it all pans out.
In Australia, we have much higher UV levels than you do in the northern hemisphere. Skin cancer is a real concern. I have several friends that have had cancerous growth removed while they were in their twenties. Certainly vitamin D deficiencies can be a problem, however this can easily fixed with very low exposure levels. If you ever visit Australia use sunscrean or become a lobster in 15 minutes.
The reason none of these resellers hit the magic formula for world domination is that they are in my experience (in Australia) usually incompetent or just plain old rip-off merchants.
They often try and sell outdates stuff to unsuspecting customers. For example apparently apart from the cosmetic differences there is no difference between a 4g and a 3g iPod. Who needs those extra MHz...
I now recommend friends purchase stuff off of Apples web site. Personally I don't care if most of the resellers die, they did little for Apple apart from screw users.
If my memory serves me correctly it was actually quick draw code and it was back in 1992 or so. Apple sued. Microsoft lost the case and had to pay Apple some were around $100m (could have been $10m) and rewrite the code. When the code was examined at the time it was reported to contain around 90% Apple code. This was during the days of windows 3 or so. I don't have a link, however I remember reading about the case in the IT section in the Australian.
I think one of the biggest problems is that people actually think this stuff (IP) is property that they can own when in actual fact what we are talking about is infringing on someone's Copyrights and Patents (CP) rights.
If I (or my crappy dictionary) am not mistaken Copyright is "the sole right to reproduce, publish , and sell a literary or artistic work." and a Patent is "a document securing to an inventor for a term of years exclusive right to his or her invention". There is no mention of ownership in either definition or possibly any other definition that you might find.
All we are talking about is having the right to control the use of an intangible thing for a short period of time. There is no ownership, I can not steal anything. All I can do is infringe upon someone's 'CP' rights when I reproduce some information or minic is invention.
Lets stop calling this stuff 'Intellectual property'. Its only 'CP' Copy and Patents rights.
You know the real ironically is CP is now being used by all and sundry to hurt the very people they were intended to protect - the inventors, writers and creators of new works.
I am not sure about the US situation, however successive governments have been "favorably" changing the definition of unemployment in Australia since at least the 70s. If my memory serves me correctly you are considered to be employed if you work more than 1.5 hours a fortnight (this includes charity work). Interestingly you can still get unemployment benefits and classed as fully employed by the system.
This is considerable economic debate regarding the actual level of unemployment and underemployment in Australia. Again from memory I believe that the unemployment figure is typically assumed to be 3 or 4 % higher that the official rate. More interestingly the underemployed rate (people who want more work than they can get) generally consider to now be around 20%. This in part is a result of the increasing conversion of full time positions to part time positions.
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In a way I have to agree with ozmanjusri. The Amgia was an incredible machine. The operating system was memory resident and fully multi-tasking (you could start formating a disk and then copy a file across while it was still fromatting. It was dam slow, but it would do it) . It was fast and responsive. The main downside was the lack of memory protection.
While NT and OS/2 could multi-task, back then they felt heaver and less responsive. Certainly they were more advanced, but from a users point of view the Amiga's UI ran like a cat on a hot tin roof.
He can't have been that great. I mean he never made it past captain. If he had been any good he would have eventually become Admiral America (I assume he was in the navy, the camp out fit seems to be a make it likely). Any way good riddance he was never a match for Admiral Outrageous and his cabin boy Captain Climate.
Yes but unfortunately for Walmart I suspect it is the geeks that will be the first addopters of these types of services. So while to the techno-geeks are a small part of the global market they are probably a huge part of the addopter market for the Walmart's service. I suspect that Walmart's video services will end up just as successfull as DVD service.
I think that your last statement proves the point. Engineering at least when I went through the system was about providing students with tools (an understanding physics, mathamatics, chemistry); knowledge as to how these tools are applied to engineering problems; and most importantly an ability to think, mostly like an engineer. While a uni course can benefit for the inclusion of practical experience, it is not essential. Most engineers will never work in the exact field they were trained in, at least according to the Engineering Australia. Employers have a responsibilty to train new engineers in the first couple of years as they do with any other profession. Once an engineer have some experience it is then up to the engineer to maintain skill in their own skills.
At this point in time I think people misuse the term the term engineering when they talk about software develpment. It is really wishfully thinking rather than fact. Interestingly the reason people talk about software engineering is that engineering methods and practices are well respected. It is hoped that if these methods are sucessfully applied to software development then software development will achieve the same consistantly high level of result that standard engineering has achieved. Unfortunately this is not yet the case, but the industry is working on it. An interesting point of comparison is would you trust your life to version 1 of Microsoft's Bridge 2000. Probably not, however I suspect that you almost never consider the safety of the bidge you drive over or the building you are in or the piece of medical equipement ...
Last time I looked the GameCube can third to the PS2 and the XBOX, the Dreamcast failed (finishing of Sega as console seller) and the N64 came a second to the wildly successful PS. The Super Nintendo was the only success.
So if you drop the duds (market wise) you get a slightly different picture:
Atari VCS launched in 1977 for $249.99 __________________ $811.21 in 2005
Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1985 for $199.99 _ $354.91 in 2005
SEGA Genesis launched in 1989 for $249.99 ______________ $389.67 in 2005
Super Nintendo launched in 1991 for $199.99 _____________ $282.21 in 2005
PlayStation launched in 1995 for $299.99 _________________ $372.01 in 2005
PlayStation 2 launched in 2000 for $299.99 ________________ $333.15 in 2005
Xbox Launched in 2001 for $299.99 _____________________ $325.34 in 2005
With an average of $409. Hence you could argue that the XBox 360 was released around the average price (the premium box no less).
Interestingly we are also ignoring the other major gaming platforms of the last 2 decades, the Commodore 64 release for around $800AU in 1983 (from memory) and similarly the Amiga around $1000AU in 1985/86.
This would push the average up.
So maybe the Xbox 360 was too cheap. This would tend to suggest that MS was worried that the PS3 would kill it the same way the PS1 killed the Dreamcaster.
If MS had been less concerned then maybe we would have seen the premium pack sold at a higher price and hence better supply.
While I acknowledge that there are some undiscovered uranium deposits, I do not believe that there are significant amounts yet to be discovered. As I understand it uranium occurs with other minerals that we have been actively looking for for the last 50 years or more. So it is a bit miss leading to suggest that just because we haven't been looking for it explicitly then we should be able to find a mother load somewhere when we start to use it. Regarding running out, I think this is more of an issue for space travel; there are plenty of other energy strategies on Earth. At present nuclear looks to be one of the better power sources for prolonged space travel so why use it all up down here before we can use it in the safety of space. It is my view that the reason that industry likes nuclear is that it does not go against there broader message "consumption is good". The alternatives are to consume less and use less profitable alternatives (for industry that is). Hence they are simply saying consume more we have clean nuclear, rather than saying consume less ie turn off your lights when you don't need them, catch public transport, ride a bike, and don't buy our crap energy hungry disposable product.
As the first poster said "Walk a mile in his shoes". This is something that obviously have caused him great distress. It is impossible to tell how you would have felt or reacted in this situation. Maybe you would have sued to simply cover the counseling costs or maybe you would have tried to make money as a temporary celebrate. Fortunately you will probably never have to find out.
Personally find the argument that there was no malice in the act hard to believe. I do accept that the kids did not thing through the implications of their actions before they posted the video (their mistake not his).
Finally just because you found it funny, doesn't make it OK. To take an extreme example, who know maybe one day there may be a snuff video of you on the Internet where a gorilla rips of your arm and then beats you to death with the wet end. Just because a number of people liked it doesn't mean it is cool, OK or legal.
I am not sure this is really an issue for Apple. With iTunes you can already format switch m4p -> CD - > mp3 ...
...
While I acknowledge this is not perfect, I suspect that this would satify a general requirement to allow format switching. Interestingly WMA based music stores may have more of an issues as they do not universally allow a song to be burnt to CDs for all songs.
Subscription services may also have problem.
In truth the devil will be in the detail. They may specify that the process has to be lossless, or the a minimum allowable spec for loss of quality in the conversion process
Only time will tel how this pans out.
Great. Just take a pill. Don't worry why your are fat. Don't change your life style. Don't eat less food. Just take a pill.
... just like every other fat person. Just take a pill.
Remember it has nothing to do with what or how much you eat. You have a desease, slow metabolism, rare condition
What the fuck is wrong with the world. Why is big Pharma always trying to sell us a pill.
My take Gates is buying his way out of hell. In truth he only needs a billion or so to live comfortably. I am sure you would agree that anyone can get by on a billion or so. He has $60 billion so he can easily look good by giving most of it away. The payback is that he improves his image and gets the thing he really wants. That is to be a man of power and influence in the world. Gates is basically a old school geek who was much better at being a business man than a geek. Until he started giving his money away he was generally considered by the rest of the geeks (including me) to be a bit of a loser at technology and a ruthless arsehole in business. Give away some cash and how he has world dignatories fawning over him and hanging on his every word. While it has been a high price. I suspect he is happy with the result. Remember you local drug dealer is still a drug dealer even if he throws a good Christmas party each year. On Jobs, I don't think he needs to buy his way out of or into anything yet. People already listen to him and treat him like a genius. Finally Jobs until a couple of days ago only had a couple of billion, it is pretty hard to give away $40 billion if it is 10x your current wealth.
In Australia desktop all in one luggables are all the rage mainly due to a quirk in our tax law. "Laptop" computer can be "salary sacraficed" (paid for by your employer out of your pre tax wage in higher purchase style arrangement) and can also be written off in two years for tax purposes. Desktop are treated differently and don't get as favourable tax treatment. As a result of these differences a large number of people are buying laptops who really want desktops (my boss is a good example), hence in Australia atleast there is a very health market in laptops that are actually desktops. I have seen some 6+Kg monsters floating around. I would not be supprised is happening elsewere in the world.
It is unlikely to happen that way. Imagine what the other labels would do if Apple gets into bed with a Label. The labels are not dumb. If this happend they would simple pull all their music from the Apple's store as soon as their contracts allowed it.
Personally what I suspect all Apple is going to do is make it very easy for bands to setup their own labels, particularly if they want to deal with ITMS. Hence Apple can say we are just a store, it the bands breaking away and it is nothing to do with us.
Personally I see this as more of a problem for the labels than if Apple was to become a label. Who does the label fight, the bands? If Apple goes away they still have all these bands that have wised up and realise that they can do it themselves. The labels could try and force all of the online music sites to not deal with smaller labels. However once this got out that would be the end of the labels for sure. Just imagine the law suits, the PR and the political attention.
Just my 2 cents. We will have to wait and see how it all pans out.
In Australia, we have much higher UV levels than you do in the northern hemisphere. Skin cancer is a real concern. I have several friends that have had cancerous growth removed while they were in their twenties. Certainly vitamin D deficiencies can be a problem, however this can easily fixed with very low exposure levels. If you ever visit Australia use sunscrean or become a lobster in 15 minutes.
The reason none of these resellers hit the magic formula for world domination is that they are in my experience (in Australia) usually incompetent or just plain old rip-off merchants.
...
They often try and sell outdates stuff to unsuspecting customers. For example apparently apart from the cosmetic differences there is no difference between a 4g and a 3g iPod. Who needs those extra MHz
I now recommend friends purchase stuff off of Apples web site. Personally I don't care if most of the resellers die, they did little for Apple apart from screw users.
If my memory serves me correctly it was actually quick draw code and it was back in 1992 or so. Apple sued. Microsoft lost the case and had to pay Apple some were around $100m (could have been $10m) and rewrite the code. When the code was examined at the time it was reported to contain around 90% Apple code. This was during the days of windows 3 or so. I don't have a link, however I remember reading about the case in the IT section in the Australian.
Could not agree more.
I think one of the biggest problems is that people actually think this stuff (IP) is property that they can own when in actual fact what we are talking about is infringing on someone's Copyrights and Patents (CP) rights.
If I (or my crappy dictionary) am not mistaken Copyright is "the sole right to reproduce, publish , and sell a literary or artistic work." and a Patent is "a document securing to an inventor for a term of years exclusive right to his or her invention". There is no mention of ownership in either definition or possibly any other definition that you might find.
All we are talking about is having the right to control the use of an intangible thing for a short period of time. There is no ownership, I can not steal anything. All I can do is infringe upon someone's 'CP' rights when I reproduce some information or minic is invention.
Lets stop calling this stuff 'Intellectual property'. Its only 'CP' Copy and Patents rights.
You know the real ironically is CP is now being used by all and sundry to hurt the very people they were intended to protect - the inventors, writers and creators of new works.
More creatively why not pioneer IP over voice. Then you could do IP over Voice over Voice over IP ... :)
In fact I suspect it sounds like a good RFC that could be released early next April. It would have to be an improvement over IP over Avain Carrier.
I am not sure about the US situation, however successive governments have been "favorably" changing the definition of unemployment in Australia since at least the 70s. If my memory serves me correctly you are considered to be employed if you work more than 1.5 hours a fortnight (this includes charity work). Interestingly you can still get unemployment benefits and classed as fully employed by the system. This is considerable economic debate regarding the actual level of unemployment and underemployment in Australia. Again from memory I believe that the unemployment figure is typically assumed to be 3 or 4 % higher that the official rate. More interestingly the underemployed rate (people who want more work than they can get) generally consider to now be around 20%. This in part is a result of the increasing conversion of full time positions to part time positions.