I agree that Apple should have a cheap netbook. That would be really cool. But to say their lineup sucks because they don't have one and a midrange PC between the mini and the mac pro is going a little overboard, don't you think?
My wife got me an iPod touch last chrismahannukwanza, and while it's not a netbook, it's a "good enough" solution that allows me to do *a lot* of my daily stuff (checking emails, looking sh*t up on the web, updating facebook) without hauling out my laptop.
Point taken. Any brush as wide as I have used is bound to make some inaccurate strokes. Obviously not all avid gamers are maladjusted troglodytes. But I've known plenty who are. I've known plenty of people who have disappeared into their favorite games--maybe even becoming part of a different community on-line--and allowing all of their IRL social contacts suffer.
And as far as StepMania and the whole Wii Fit line, those things are great, but they are, for the most part, appealing to a whole new audience. There are still plenty of avid gamers who are in their 30s, still sitting at home in a dark basement playing Halo against a bunch of teeny boppers over the net, while their dog is upstairs wondering when he's going to get fed.
Hee hee. I must have really struck a chord with that AC. I'm surprised he took time out from his marathon session of WOW to write that note. It was probably so short because he had to make sure to get back on line to be married to his on-line bride Shebala, Princess of Xahlta, who is, in real life, a 42 year old man who never gets out of the house due to the tracking bracelet on his ankle.
Productive doesn't mean just working in a factory. Productive could be fostering a better relationship with your family, helping a friend move, reading a book, writing a poem, planting a garden, painting a picture. Sleeping, exercise, a walk in the park; all leisure activities which actually make the world a better place.
Leisure time does not need to be wasteful. Productive time does not need to be a postmodern nightmare such as you describe.
I'm not saying that people should never play video games. I'm just saying that the fact that there are thousands of video games available on Windows vs. fewer on other platforms, and the fact that they typically come out first on Windows, is a dubious argument when there are so many other good things to do with your time, money and energy.
Games are fun and all, but if we're talking about waste in our economy, there's three things wrong with your argument:
Most games have no productive output or result.
Most games sap significant time, which could have been used to earn money or add something productive to the world.
I'm guessing the games you're talking about cost you money.
Please note: the following comments are not about you personally; I do not know you. The comments are a broad-strokes response to anyone who makes this argument.
So, congratulations. You saved $100 for the privilege of spending $600 on games in the life of the OS installation, wasting 1000 hours in the interim, severely limiting your social life and development of your social skills, increasing your later-life health-care costs due to lack of exercise and poor nutrition, adding another $75 to your electric bill and 600 pounds of carbon emissions to the environment due to the energy usage while you're playing those games on your high-powered gaming system.
If you love games, great. But from a more holistic perspective, it's a dubious argument.
What exactly was the puck mouse supposed to do? For me, it did the following:
Cause frustration.
Convince me to buy a logitech mouse.
Encourage me to ignore any future announcements about Apple-made mice.
If their aim was to ensure that people did not take their mouse technology seriously, then I guess I have to agree with you. However, if they were actually trying to build a useful human interface device, they failed.
Too bad Rockbox has "by techies, for techies" approach to the user interface.
The same could be said of KDE. Hasn't stopped it's adoption has it?
Well, it hasn't stopped the adoption of KDE by techies. How many non-techies do you know of who would go into a BestBuy and say, "But does it run KDE or some derivative thereof?"
True, true, although your point about ubiquity is more related to my point than contrary to it. Part of the reason for the SM57's ubiquity may indeed be cost and reliability, but part of it is also because people like the way it sounds. Unless there's a game-changer somewhere, ubiquity always begets ubiquity, but the question is, why does something get its ubiquitous status in the first place? I'd suggest the answer lies somewhere between--or across--our answers.
Correct. Same reason that recording artists worldwide use the Shure SM-57 for recording snare drum beats and other microphones for different drums or other intstruments. If they wanted purity, they'd use mics with much flatter response, but instead, they go with the mic that seems to have the most widely-liked colorizing effect on a given instrument.
Time shifting does not dictate what mechanism is used to shift. Get over it.
Should not, yes. I am in complete agreement. However, your statement is an interpretation of the law which the media companies interpret differently. But if the law were as absolute as your statement, then we wouldn't be seeing a lot of the controversy that we are.
Take this example: X rents a DVD from Blockbuster. Under their new rules, he can hold onto it for weeks without late fees. He finally gets around to watching it and returns it, and BB can then re-rent it, or sell it as used.
In the same time, Y rents another copy of the same DVD from BB, rips it and returns it the next day. two weeks later, they watch it and delete it. BB has since re-rented the same DVD twice.
The latter scenario is effectively time-shifting, and it's arguably better for BB, and likely better for the studios, which I presume get a cut of rental fees. However, although it's better for everyone, it's officially considered a no-no.
I know that this is not exactly what you're talking about, as it's rented physical media rather than broadcast, but it's another case of media companies using poorly written laws to limit time shifting and help prop up their outdated revenue models.
The snugee is the only product I've ever bought from an infomercial. My wife loves the little reading lamps that came with it. The product itself is less comfy and cute than it appears to be on the commercial.
I absolutely agree with everything you said. And based on my experience with such things, you are absolutely right that the Government could get essentially whatever terms it wants.
Now, with regards to pedantry, let me go ahead and show you some because I think your initial charge was not deserved.
Depends on -how- precisely it's outsourced.
There. Fixed that for you; you had an its/it's issue. Now I'm right in a pedantic sense, which once again, is, well, right.
No, I'm merely right. The only reason that MS hasn't developed their cloud infrastructure to the level that Google has is because they're terrified of losing the money that comes from selling boxed software. If they did not have that legacy around, they'd be doing the same thing.
And as scads of other people have (also correctly) pointed out, the Federal Gov't uses the services of many private companies for the storage of data. As such, outsourcing like this is not without precedent, and so it is not a question of Google vs. Microsoft. If you accept that outsourcing apps and data can be done with acceptable levels of security, then the choice of Google is no less rational than the choice of MS apps on the desktop.
There are other choices for cloud apps, and one day, even MS Live's services might be competitive, and I'm sure that'll be an article here as well.
The important word was sells not software. He likes the fact that after a transaction with Microsoft, their employees have no ongoing access to what you bought.
I must not be making myself clear; the only reason I'm applying economics is that the parent poster to my original post was doing so, and I am taking it a step farther to show how wrong it was.
The original quote I took umbrage with was this: Expecting your date to put out because you bought her a nice dinner is OK... The bold emphasis here is mine because the implication of that expectation is that the sex is being paid for by the dinner. Even if the guy acted like a true gentleman, a real romantic, did all sorts of non-economic things to impress his date, the expectation of sex in return is debasing it to a commodity for exchange.
It's not to say that people don't do it. I just don't choose to feel that it's acceptable behavior. I'm just about to have a son, and I'm going to do my best to teach him that he should never feel that he's entitled to get sex from someone regardless of what he's done, said or spent.
That certainly wasn't my intention. I was just illustrating that if the gentleman's value-add was just that he bought a nice dinner, he's no different from anyone else who might be able to afford a dinner.
It's one thing if there's sex because both parties desire it. But if one is expecting it because he bought dinner and the other is doing it because of the dinner, well, that doesn't say much about either party.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that Apple should have a cheap netbook. That would be really cool. But to say their lineup sucks because they don't have one and a midrange PC between the mini and the mac pro is going a little overboard, don't you think?
My wife got me an iPod touch last chrismahannukwanza, and while it's not a netbook, it's a "good enough" solution that allows me to do *a lot* of my daily stuff (checking emails, looking sh*t up on the web, updating facebook) without hauling out my laptop.
Point taken. Any brush as wide as I have used is bound to make some inaccurate strokes. Obviously not all avid gamers are maladjusted troglodytes. But I've known plenty who are. I've known plenty of people who have disappeared into their favorite games--maybe even becoming part of a different community on-line--and allowing all of their IRL social contacts suffer.
And as far as StepMania and the whole Wii Fit line, those things are great, but they are, for the most part, appealing to a whole new audience. There are still plenty of avid gamers who are in their 30s, still sitting at home in a dark basement playing Halo against a bunch of teeny boppers over the net, while their dog is upstairs wondering when he's going to get fed.
Hee hee. I must have really struck a chord with that AC. I'm surprised he took time out from his marathon session of WOW to write that note. It was probably so short because he had to make sure to get back on line to be married to his on-line bride Shebala, Princess of Xahlta, who is, in real life, a 42 year old man who never gets out of the house due to the tracking bracelet on his ankle.
Productive doesn't mean just working in a factory. Productive could be fostering a better relationship with your family, helping a friend move, reading a book, writing a poem, planting a garden, painting a picture. Sleeping, exercise, a walk in the park; all leisure activities which actually make the world a better place.
Leisure time does not need to be wasteful. Productive time does not need to be a postmodern nightmare such as you describe.
I'm not saying that people should never play video games. I'm just saying that the fact that there are thousands of video games available on Windows vs. fewer on other platforms, and the fact that they typically come out first on Windows, is a dubious argument when there are so many other good things to do with your time, money and energy.
Please note: the following comments are not about you personally; I do not know you. The comments are a broad-strokes response to anyone who makes this argument.
So, congratulations. You saved $100 for the privilege of spending $600 on games in the life of the OS installation, wasting 1000 hours in the interim, severely limiting your social life and development of your social skills, increasing your later-life health-care costs due to lack of exercise and poor nutrition, adding another $75 to your electric bill and 600 pounds of carbon emissions to the environment due to the energy usage while you're playing those games on your high-powered gaming system.
If you love games, great. But from a more holistic perspective, it's a dubious argument.
How much is it really worth to have a white laptop for instance?
It's an especially interesting question when there are people who will then pay an additional $200 to get a black MacBook.
Wow... clever invocation of Godwin's Law.
I didn't say they haven't come a long way, but only techies *request* any Linux installation. Ease of adoption != actual adoption.
If their aim was to ensure that people did not take their mouse technology seriously, then I guess I have to agree with you. However, if they were actually trying to build a useful human interface device, they failed.
Too bad Rockbox has "by techies, for techies" approach to the user interface.
The same could be said of KDE. Hasn't stopped it's adoption has it?
Well, it hasn't stopped the adoption of KDE by techies. How many non-techies do you know of who would go into a BestBuy and say, "But does it run KDE or some derivative thereof?"
True, true, although your point about ubiquity is more related to my point than contrary to it. Part of the reason for the SM57's ubiquity may indeed be cost and reliability, but part of it is also because people like the way it sounds. Unless there's a game-changer somewhere, ubiquity always begets ubiquity, but the question is, why does something get its ubiquitous status in the first place? I'd suggest the answer lies somewhere between--or across--our answers.
Don't forget the snap and crackle of wax cylinders.
I assume "this" means "there's no accounting for tastes," right?
Forget air filtering... I only listen to my music in a perfect vacuum, so that the air itself can not color the sound.
oh, wait.
No, no, I've got it. I listen to it in a room full of pure helium, so that everything sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Correct. Same reason that recording artists worldwide use the Shure SM-57 for recording snare drum beats and other microphones for different drums or other intstruments. If they wanted purity, they'd use mics with much flatter response, but instead, they go with the mic that seems to have the most widely-liked colorizing effect on a given instrument.
Alternately: they can't tell the difference between what is "good" and what they like.
And the reason is pretty clear: there is no single objective metric for "good" when dealing with something as complex as human tastes.
Time shifting does not dictate what mechanism is used to shift. Get over it.
Should not, yes. I am in complete agreement. However, your statement is an interpretation of the law which the media companies interpret differently. But if the law were as absolute as your statement, then we wouldn't be seeing a lot of the controversy that we are.
Take this example: X rents a DVD from Blockbuster. Under their new rules, he can hold onto it for weeks without late fees. He finally gets around to watching it and returns it, and BB can then re-rent it, or sell it as used.
In the same time, Y rents another copy of the same DVD from BB, rips it and returns it the next day. two weeks later, they watch it and delete it. BB has since re-rented the same DVD twice.
The latter scenario is effectively time-shifting, and it's arguably better for BB, and likely better for the studios, which I presume get a cut of rental fees. However, although it's better for everyone, it's officially considered a no-no.
I know that this is not exactly what you're talking about, as it's rented physical media rather than broadcast, but it's another case of media companies using poorly written laws to limit time shifting and help prop up their outdated revenue models.
30 years from now, people will think how stupid it was that you had to wait for your favorite TV show to come on at a specific time
My friends refer to this as "appointment television".
The snugee is the only product I've ever bought from an infomercial. My wife loves the little reading lamps that came with it. The product itself is less comfy and cute than it appears to be on the commercial.
That is indeed the term I was trying to think of. Thank you.
Now, with regards to pedantry, let me go ahead and show you some because I think your initial charge was not deserved.
Depends on -how- precisely it's outsourced.
There. Fixed that for you; you had an its/it's issue. Now I'm right in a pedantic sense, which once again, is, well, right.
Sure, ok, you are right in a pedantic sense.
No, I'm merely right. The only reason that MS hasn't developed their cloud infrastructure to the level that Google has is because they're terrified of losing the money that comes from selling boxed software. If they did not have that legacy around, they'd be doing the same thing.
And as scads of other people have (also correctly) pointed out, the Federal Gov't uses the services of many private companies for the storage of data. As such, outsourcing like this is not without precedent, and so it is not a question of Google vs. Microsoft. If you accept that outsourcing apps and data can be done with acceptable levels of security, then the choice of Google is no less rational than the choice of MS apps on the desktop.
There are other choices for cloud apps, and one day, even MS Live's services might be competitive, and I'm sure that'll be an article here as well.
Xbox
The important word was sells not software. He likes the fact that after a transaction with Microsoft, their employees have no ongoing access to what you bought.
OK, how about this one: Office Live
I must not be making myself clear; the only reason I'm applying economics is that the parent poster to my original post was doing so, and I am taking it a step farther to show how wrong it was.
The original quote I took umbrage with was this: Expecting your date to put out because you bought her a nice dinner is OK... The bold emphasis here is mine because the implication of that expectation is that the sex is being paid for by the dinner. Even if the guy acted like a true gentleman, a real romantic, did all sorts of non-economic things to impress his date, the expectation of sex in return is debasing it to a commodity for exchange.
It's not to say that people don't do it. I just don't choose to feel that it's acceptable behavior. I'm just about to have a son, and I'm going to do my best to teach him that he should never feel that he's entitled to get sex from someone regardless of what he's done, said or spent.
That certainly wasn't my intention. I was just illustrating that if the gentleman's value-add was just that he bought a nice dinner, he's no different from anyone else who might be able to afford a dinner.
It's one thing if there's sex because both parties desire it. But if one is expecting it because he bought dinner and the other is doing it because of the dinner, well, that doesn't say much about either party.