Didn't microsoft have IBM build all the cpu's for their Xbox360 platform? Those are powerPC chips in the xbox, so they must have come from IBM.
Seems odd they would partner and claim them as an enemy as the same time.
Does MSFT make chips? No. Does MSFT make most of thier money from XBox? Any, even?
That brings me to another point, shouldn't IBM be suffering pretty hard now that Apple is moving to Intel for its chips? That must have been a large source of income for IBM
Not according to IBM, and it's probably true. They didn't even make all of the chips Apple uses/used... Freescale ( formerly of Motorola ) still makes the G4s that are in all Mac minis, iBooks and Powerbooks. IBM only supplied the desktop iMac and PowerMac G5 chips. IBM screwed up targets for the G5 badly enough ( remember they were supposed to be at 3 GHz *when*??? ) that they might not have been making much at all depending on what the Apple contract looked like. For whatever reason, volume or contracts, IBM by all accounts won't notice Apple is missing, at least not until Apple sells a lot more high-end desktops that might have used IBM chips.
MSFT properly sees IBM's software business as supporting it's chip business, not the other way around, and would be all too happy to see IBM shift toward the chip business... as a client of MSFT. They're not a competitor in that field. MSFT will not, however, be buying consulting services and Linux blade servers from IBM - they compete in the software and services fields. Apple needed a chip supplier motivated to create great laptop and desktop chips; buying from suppliers who are primarily invested in small devices ( like routers ) and room-warming servers ( like Power blades ) wasn't getting them what they wanted. By all accounts, IBM and Freescale lost a difficult customer and a little bit of clout, but not a lot of revenue, when Apple left ( or well, leaves, it hasn't actually happened yet ).
Microsoft is buying processors from IBM for the 360. I never understood why executives would put down their buisness partners. Like in the case of SBC saying Yahoo should pay, because their contents is going over "SBC's pipes". Did they forget one of their products was called "SBC Yahoo DSL"?
MSFT doesn't mind IBM being in the chip fab business. More competition for chips makes hardware prices go down makes more money available to spend on software.
Similarly, SBC doesn't mind having Yahoo help to sell their DSL service. Having Yahoo do the selling is a little bit like Yahoo paying them, see ? Also, SBC doesn't have to come up with it's own portal and search page- they get to offer that service to their customers as well, so Yahoo paid them that way, too...
The long and short of it, though, is that these guys are ordinary human beings, and it's often amusing to see what comes out of their mouths.
Could it be that FOSS is Microsoft's chief competitor?
Given IBM's use of FOSS and policies regarding OSS, if FOSS is the biggest MSFT threat, then IBM might just be their biggest competitor. People are thinking it was Google that was the threat, but they're keeping just enough of what runs Google Mail, Maps and Search private that they're not as big of a threat as a company that's not only constantly improving and adding to FOSS, but also marketing FOSS-based services and solutions to Microsoft's clients.
I think Bill may actually be speaking honestly, here. Possibly downplaying threats and competition from other companies as well, perhaps, though. I mean, think of Sony vs. Xbox ? Apple vs Urge? What business exactly is IBM stealing? Server OS licenses! Oh, I guess that's big, too. Perhaps he's being kind of truthful, but playing up what he wants the CES-centric folks ( read: real tech heads ) to think : that MSFT is focused like a laser on providing you with all of your IT datacenter needs, and that IBM is 'stealing' that market. We should ignore all the other stuff MSFT is involved in, an pretend they've focused their resources on *our* issues.
Because they need to keep selling OS server licenses to help fund their other less-profitable ventures, perhaps.
It's the old "SCOTTIE" trick. They say they need until the 10th to test and patch and make sure it works and then they WOW us by being able to release it early. They had it ready before now, they are just trying to salvage what little they have out of this fiasco.
They had it ready, if by ready you mean a version had been compiled and 'tested' once on the developer's machine.
Trust me, right now in Redmond there's a whole team of Quality Assurance Engineers who are looking at their test plans, scratching their heads, and once again calling into question the actual value of their work, given that some manager can arbitrarily decide when it's time to rush a release regardless of what the schedule said or what the impact of a patch was or which cases remain un-tested. That, and they're really, really tired after pulling a couple of all-nighters.
Check what's happening on Ebay. Early on, Xbox units were selling at high premiums. That's over. Core systems sold for $330 today. At $355, core systems don't sell. That's an unopened price; used systems are down to $200 or so. Many speculators who bought systems for resale are still trying to unload them, and they're not making money when they do.
Oh man, how can I give you +1 Insightful when I have no mod points!? Argh, it's so frustrating, that's the single most insightful comment in this discussion! What does it matter what MSFT has planned for the Xbox when everyone is looking at it and thinking "well, maybe I should save my money for something else"...
Subscription-based music is the way to go. This, combined with the Windows "Plays for Sure" [playsforsure.com] initiative will ultimately give MS the upper hand over Apple in the music arena, unless Apple comes out with a subscription option.
Um, why exactly ? Napster and several other online music services have all-you-can-eat monthly plans. Why aren't these already beating the iTunes music store ? You already have been able to buy for quite some time now "Plays for Sure" devices, they're advertised in all sorts of Best Buy and Circuit City adds... but wasn't everyone asking for iPods this Christmas?
How is Microsoft striking a deal with MTV and marketing it's own music store going to change things and suddenly beat the iTMS ?
You are right, you sound like a commercial for Yahoo Music Unlimited. Don't get me wrong, it's great that it works for you, but... based on market numbers, I'm going to guess there are a lot of reasons why the vast majority of people aren't going for that type of service, and all MSFT entering the market currently owned my Napster and Yahoo is going to do is fragment *that* market, it isn't likely to impact the iTMS much. It'll wound Yahoo, not iTMS.
Disclaimer : I have never bought music online, excepting physical CDs.
The real question is "If I unsubsrcibe to the service, does every song in my collection just disappear?" If the answer is "yes" then my answer is "no thanks."
I'm sure you are aware that ( unless you pay an extra time to buy a permanent copy ), the answer is "yes, your music will no longer be available when your subscription expires".
Since Napster et al have had such a stunning success with this model ( er, that's sarcasm, they've had marginal success at best ), why does Microsoft think they're going to be successful with it ? Maybe they have some secret plan to prevent everyone from using iPods and force us to buy one of the "Plays for sure" devices that are clearly so popular? For their sake, I hope it doesn't depend on leveraging the music service to get us to do it... unless the Xbox 360 becomes the way everyone gets their music, which somehow I don't see yet...
I think MSFT would switch. I read an interesting article about how MSFT tried to convince apple to let them license fairplay for use on the 360 and apple said no way...
Uh, if you read the same article I did, that's not what it said. It quoted some MSFT spokesperson as saying "we'd like to work with Apple" which isn't really the same as saying "we asked Apple if we could license their DRM tech and they said no".
Really, the Xbox thing was pretty different- they're talking about being able to have an Xbox play music directly off of an iPod. There's a big difference between that ( just using the iPod as a storage device off of an Xbox 360 ) and licensing FairPlay DRM for use on a Windows computer.
Just for reference, here's register article on the topic. It's not the same one I remember reading, but covers the basic issues. Key being that, according to the article "Anecdotal evidence suggests Apple isn't unwilling to license its FairPlay DRM technology, but it's very picky about how it will consider. Our sources indicate well-established hi-fi brands might be in with a chance.
Whatever, clearly the Xbox 360 isn't in the right league. Enabling base-line iPod compatibility is easy enough - they're essentially standard USB mass storage devices, the AAC audio format is part of the MPEG 4 standard, there are open source Apple Lossless decoders available, and numerous third-party utilities have figured out how the tracks are stored on the player - and so that's what Microsoft has done."
No where have I seen any MSFT employee quoted as saying that they had actually attempted to license FairPlay DRM from Apple. I'd be very interested in any reference that shows MSFT tried to license FairPlay from Apple. Do you have one?
I don't think they asked what you think they asked... if they really asked Apple anything at all. Publicly, all they've said is they'd like to work with Apple.
Really, the big problem in iPod compatibility ( so MSFT will say ) is that they require a DRM scheme that includes a duration restriction, so your music, er sorry, your license to listen to their music can expire. I've never bought anything which uses FairPlay DRM, and yet I'm still all for Apple never including that ability.
Meh, why all this chatter about car crash physics and no references to the Burnout video games? Just fire up one of the Crash mode games and you can check out the danger larger rigs pose to small cars... duh, the large car wins all of the time. No car is safe, and any passenger vehicle is a loser when faced with a semi truck.
By the way, since when is the well-known fact that SUVs present an extreme roll over danger news?
There are more than one problem here, but something which must not be ignored is that a large number of the listed 'vulnerabilities' are very application-specific.
Want one example? The CM Cyrus IMAP server sure as heck isn't installed on my Mac OS X system, and I doubt I'd ever install it. I don't think I'd install it on my Linux box, either. If I did install it, and there was a bug in it, I sure as hell wouldn't consider that bug an "OS" problem, would you ?
And I'd be willing to make the same distinction for Microsoft, as well, at least so long as the application error isn't in a default-installed DLL or in an always-installed application, like... oh, Internet Explorer, for example. I'm not so sure I should fault Windows because the Eternal Lines web server has some sort of issue. There's the OS, then there are the apps that run on top of the OS.
So really, the counting and analysis are so broken that it's hard to even discuss. Call me back when individual distros and specific OS kernel builds are broken out into separate counts. Call me back when non-default-installed or at least not-commonly-used applications are broken out ( i.e. I'll give you web servers and browsers normally used with any platform as part of the OS ), but I don't think Linux in general is less secure because Joe's Custom Server has a bug in it. I'd like to see some *useful* summary of this information, please...
Perhaps if this had a Fark-like "Unlikely" or "Dumbass" tag it would be appropriate,
Congratulations, you've found the one problem with this story being listed on slashdot - it should have been filed in "humor"!
Really, it's hilarious to see Infinium Phantom stuff, but the story should provide contextual links ( so nobody who bothers to look takes the story to seriously ) and it should at this point, in all fairness, be labeled as "humor", not "hardware", not "games"... we all know it's "humor".
Or, at least, we *should* all know it's humor until product is shipped... and if product is shipped from this company, it should be really, really big news. Not that the product is great, but that the company actually made something real.
Anyone wanna bet that this is the only piece of hardware that Infinium ever ships?
Boy, are you optimistic ! I was going to start taking bets on this one *ever* shipping! Didn't they say that it'd be available in six months... if they can get funding?!? Isn't that exactly what they've been saying about their console for years ? Wow.
Maybe I'm missing something. If I start a business that never creates anything other than press releases or lawsuits, and never takes in any money from anyone other than venture capitalists, do I get to keep the millions of dollars I paid myself as CEO over the years when the company finally fails to attract more investors? If that's the case, who'd like to form a nice little tech company with me? We'll make... uh... a portable game console thingy. Or maybe a keyboard or something to watch TV on. It'll be cool. Anyone want in on the ground floor? Just send me your money.
Oh, man, that's gotta hurt the Mac zealots even more than the switch to intel. Apple hiring *PC laptop designers* to build the next Powerbook.
Nothing new there, actually. You hire motherboard designers who have experience... guess what type of chipset they last designed around ? Making the decision to hire former PC laptop designers was even easier this time around...
Frankly, I guess I don't count as a zealot since I don't care who designs my hardware, as long as it doesn't suck.
The parent has a really, really good point. Plenty of people who live in apartment buildings in SF and Oakland are going to end up being able to get fewer channels, since they won't have the ability to set up outdoor antenna. Especially if they end up with older or poor quality receivers, plenty of folks just won't get coverage as predicted.
This is in part due to some overly generous predictions made by the FCC and equipment manufacturers as to what signal levels are needed to get a viewable picture, but it's also just because they also assume you have a nice outdoor antenna, which few do.
We're talking about poor people who don't have cable or satellite, though. I mean, does congress really care that much? Do those folks even vote? How many people really get their signal off-air anymore?
If they really cared, those vouchers would cover more that $40. Even after the transition, most set-top DTV receivers are going to be more than $100... plenty of them right now are still $300...
Your hyperbole isn't necessary, though. This isn't censorship. It's a tv channel choosing their lineup.
Even if it's a company that decides to restrict art, it's still censorship. Even if it's self censorship, it's still censorsip.
Why is it that every time some company or country decides to restrict access to information or art, somebody comes up with this messed up line of reasoning to say "that's not censorship" ? You don't have to burn books, throw people in prison or black things out to censor. You just have to restrict access to information ( or art ), as is done in this case.
THIS is censorship, plain and simple, EVEN if it is the companie's choice to censor... it is NOT simply "choosing their lineup", *especially* if the episode is never released on any other medium, which is what I've read.
That also being said, I found the episode to be only watchable. In my opinion it ranks up there as one of the worst two South Park episodes (I've seen every one), right up there with the Cartman/J.Lo-hand-puppet-masturbates-Ben-Affleck episode.
Jennifer Lopez (aka Eric Cartman's left hand)]
Burrito. Taco taco. Burrito. Taco. Taco taco.
Don't think just because I got a lot of money,
I'll give you taco-flavored kisses, honey.
Fulfill all your wishes
with my taco-flavored kisses.
Taco taco. Burrito burrito. Taco taco.
Fulfill all your wishes
with my taco-flavored kisses! Taco taco.
It's just sad to think you could find that not funny...
It wasn't "religious conservatives" that got offended (I'm a religious conservative), it was Catholics who got offended. There is a difference.
You think there is a difference. In reality, Catholics are just one variety of religious conservative... a particularly powerful, common variety.
It is all about not being able to mess with Mary, though, you're right about that. I mean, they didn't get all crazy about the priest child molestation episode, it's interesting that *this* one made them mad.
Whether you end up with the best tool for the job is another story.
He doesn't need the best tool, and he certainly doesn't need the cheapest. He's working for an outrageously successful, well-funded company. He needs a solution that gets the job done with a minimum amount of headache; for that set of requirements, his gut feeling probably did him well.
He picked a pretty much turn-key solution from a company famous for support, and a platform that fulfills all of his known requirements. Do you think he make the wrong choice ? If so, for what reason ?
On the other hand, after several years of writing code in mostly python and other similar languages, the thought of going back to something like C (pointers!) doesn't really motivate me to write code for my mac. It's a good thing there are bridges like py-objc and such.
Yet, if you do it 'right', exactly when in your Cocoa-based program do you end up directly dealing with pointers and dereferencing object references? Sure, I can use pointers directly, but... I don't. There's no need to use linked lists when NSArray objects are handy. I use accessors to get a object members, and almost never used structs directly, so there's no foo->bar where bar is uninitialized.
Long and short, Objective-C does seem a bit barbaric coming from Java or Python, but it's nothing like a jump back to C or even C++.
have used IB/etc on Openstep -- on a NeXT slab
did picking up the whole retain/release/autorelease memory-management thing throw you for a loop? depending on where you picked up your NeXTStep programming, it was a little different back in the day, and I think that's what gave me the most issues picking up Objective-C again... that and the shock of learning that I had to think about memory management so much... it's not pointers per se that give me grief in Objective-C, it's using retain, release and autorelease properly. Not that it's that hard, it's just something that GC removes almost completely.
At least I'm not alone in thinking so; I don't care how geeky you are, this does not approximate "style", unless your style is "ugly". At the very least, for $400, I expect brushed metal, if not something better. That plastic look just has to go.
Geeky, yes, but it's not stylish at all, not even to a bunch of geeks on Slashdot. Sorry, but it's true.
we've just recently had the regional engineering association going after software companies which are not using Enigineering Professionals (aka P.Eng/P.E.) to check the accuracy of engineering programs and calculations
Frankly, even though I'm a Software Engineer ( sure, call me Computer Programmer, i'm not going to care ), such a check is a reasonable requirement for software that a P.E. is going to use in their work. We certainly have our P.E.s check the output of our software programs before they are put into production use. Software Quality in engineering applications is extremely important, and, sadly due to a number of factors ( like market size ) is often not given the attention it requires.
, I believe that the use of software which contained unknown flaws has not been suitable defence for due dilligence in tort law cases
If you have some expensive engineering project, and you screw it up because you didn't double-check important data provided by a computer program, nobody is going to care that the program was at fault... you won't get the job the next time a contract comes up. Completely trusting software in such cases can be a problem even if you somehow avoid being dragged into court.
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Does MSFT make chips? No. Does MSFT make most of thier money from XBox? Any, even?
That brings me to another point, shouldn't IBM be suffering pretty hard now that Apple is moving to Intel for its chips? That must have been a large source of income for IBM
Not according to IBM, and it's probably true. They didn't even make all of the chips Apple uses/used... Freescale ( formerly of Motorola ) still makes the G4s that are in all Mac minis, iBooks and Powerbooks. IBM only supplied the desktop iMac and PowerMac G5 chips. IBM screwed up targets for the G5 badly enough ( remember they were supposed to be at 3 GHz *when*??? ) that they might not have been making much at all depending on what the Apple contract looked like. For whatever reason, volume or contracts, IBM by all accounts won't notice Apple is missing, at least not until Apple sells a lot more high-end desktops that might have used IBM chips.
MSFT properly sees IBM's software business as supporting it's chip business, not the other way around, and would be all too happy to see IBM shift toward the chip business... as a client of MSFT. They're not a competitor in that field. MSFT will not, however, be buying consulting services and Linux blade servers from IBM - they compete in the software and services fields. Apple needed a chip supplier motivated to create great laptop and desktop chips; buying from suppliers who are primarily invested in small devices ( like routers ) and room-warming servers ( like Power blades ) wasn't getting them what they wanted. By all accounts, IBM and Freescale lost a difficult customer and a little bit of clout, but not a lot of revenue, when Apple left ( or well, leaves, it hasn't actually happened yet ).
MSFT doesn't mind IBM being in the chip fab business. More competition for chips makes hardware prices go down makes more money available to spend on software.
Similarly, SBC doesn't mind having Yahoo help to sell their DSL service. Having Yahoo do the selling is a little bit like Yahoo paying them, see ? Also, SBC doesn't have to come up with it's own portal and search page- they get to offer that service to their customers as well, so Yahoo paid them that way, too...
The long and short of it, though, is that these guys are ordinary human beings, and it's often amusing to see what comes out of their mouths.
Given IBM's use of FOSS and policies regarding OSS, if FOSS is the biggest MSFT threat, then IBM might just be their biggest competitor. People are thinking it was Google that was the threat, but they're keeping just enough of what runs Google Mail, Maps and Search private that they're not as big of a threat as a company that's not only constantly improving and adding to FOSS, but also marketing FOSS-based services and solutions to Microsoft's clients.
I think Bill may actually be speaking honestly, here. Possibly downplaying threats and competition from other companies as well, perhaps, though. I mean, think of Sony vs. Xbox ? Apple vs Urge? What business exactly is IBM stealing? Server OS licenses! Oh, I guess that's big, too. Perhaps he's being kind of truthful, but playing up what he wants the CES-centric folks ( read: real tech heads ) to think : that MSFT is focused like a laser on providing you with all of your IT datacenter needs, and that IBM is 'stealing' that market. We should ignore all the other stuff MSFT is involved in, an pretend they've focused their resources on *our* issues.
Because they need to keep selling OS server licenses to help fund their other less-profitable ventures, perhaps.
They had it ready, if by ready you mean a version had been compiled and 'tested' once on the developer's machine.
Trust me, right now in Redmond there's a whole team of Quality Assurance Engineers who are looking at their test plans, scratching their heads, and once again calling into question the actual value of their work, given that some manager can arbitrarily decide when it's time to rush a release regardless of what the schedule said or what the impact of a patch was or which cases remain un-tested. That, and they're really, really tired after pulling a couple of all-nighters.
Have fun testing that patch.
Oh man, how can I give you +1 Insightful when I have no mod points!? Argh, it's so frustrating, that's the single most insightful comment in this discussion! What does it matter what MSFT has planned for the Xbox when everyone is looking at it and thinking "well, maybe I should save my money for something else"...
You forgot "iTunes Music Store: buy a song today, and you won't have to pay to listen to it again next month".
Um, why exactly ? Napster and several other online music services have all-you-can-eat monthly plans. Why aren't these already beating the iTunes music store ? You already have been able to buy for quite some time now "Plays for Sure" devices, they're advertised in all sorts of Best Buy and Circuit City adds... but wasn't everyone asking for iPods this Christmas?
How is Microsoft striking a deal with MTV and marketing it's own music store going to change things and suddenly beat the iTMS ?
You are right, you sound like a commercial for Yahoo Music Unlimited. Don't get me wrong, it's great that it works for you, but... based on market numbers, I'm going to guess there are a lot of reasons why the vast majority of people aren't going for that type of service, and all MSFT entering the market currently owned my Napster and Yahoo is going to do is fragment *that* market, it isn't likely to impact the iTMS much. It'll wound Yahoo, not iTMS.
Disclaimer : I have never bought music online, excepting physical CDs.
I'm sure you are aware that ( unless you pay an extra time to buy a permanent copy ), the answer is "yes, your music will no longer be available when your subscription expires".
Since Napster et al have had such a stunning success with this model ( er, that's sarcasm, they've had marginal success at best ), why does Microsoft think they're going to be successful with it ? Maybe they have some secret plan to prevent everyone from using iPods and force us to buy one of the "Plays for sure" devices that are clearly so popular? For their sake, I hope it doesn't depend on leveraging the music service to get us to do it... unless the Xbox 360 becomes the way everyone gets their music, which somehow I don't see yet...
Uh, if you read the same article I did, that's not what it said. It quoted some MSFT spokesperson as saying "we'd like to work with Apple" which isn't really the same as saying "we asked Apple if we could license their DRM tech and they said no".
Really, the Xbox thing was pretty different- they're talking about being able to have an Xbox play music directly off of an iPod. There's a big difference between that ( just using the iPod as a storage device off of an Xbox 360 ) and licensing FairPlay DRM for use on a Windows computer.
Just for reference, here's register article on the topic. It's not the same one I remember reading, but covers the basic issues. Key being that, according to the article "Anecdotal evidence suggests Apple isn't unwilling to license its FairPlay DRM technology, but it's very picky about how it will consider. Our sources indicate well-established hi-fi brands might be in with a chance. Whatever, clearly the Xbox 360 isn't in the right league. Enabling base-line iPod compatibility is easy enough - they're essentially standard USB mass storage devices, the AAC audio format is part of the MPEG 4 standard, there are open source Apple Lossless decoders available, and numerous third-party utilities have figured out how the tracks are stored on the player - and so that's what Microsoft has done."
No where have I seen any MSFT employee quoted as saying that they had actually attempted to license FairPlay DRM from Apple. I'd be very interested in any reference that shows MSFT tried to license FairPlay from Apple. Do you have one?
I don't think they asked what you think they asked... if they really asked Apple anything at all. Publicly, all they've said is they'd like to work with Apple.
Really, the big problem in iPod compatibility ( so MSFT will say ) is that they require a DRM scheme that includes a duration restriction, so your music, er sorry, your license to listen to their music can expire. I've never bought anything which uses FairPlay DRM, and yet I'm still all for Apple never including that ability.
By the way, since when is the well-known fact that SUVs present an extreme roll over danger news?
Want one example? The CM Cyrus IMAP server sure as heck isn't installed on my Mac OS X system, and I doubt I'd ever install it. I don't think I'd install it on my Linux box, either. If I did install it, and there was a bug in it, I sure as hell wouldn't consider that bug an "OS" problem, would you ?
And I'd be willing to make the same distinction for Microsoft, as well, at least so long as the application error isn't in a default-installed DLL or in an always-installed application, like... oh, Internet Explorer, for example. I'm not so sure I should fault Windows because the Eternal Lines web server has some sort of issue. There's the OS, then there are the apps that run on top of the OS.
So really, the counting and analysis are so broken that it's hard to even discuss. Call me back when individual distros and specific OS kernel builds are broken out into separate counts. Call me back when non-default-installed or at least not-commonly-used applications are broken out ( i.e. I'll give you web servers and browsers normally used with any platform as part of the OS ), but I don't think Linux in general is less secure because Joe's Custom Server has a bug in it. I'd like to see some *useful* summary of this information, please...
Congratulations, you've found the one problem with this story being listed on slashdot - it should have been filed in "humor"!
Really, it's hilarious to see Infinium Phantom stuff, but the story should provide contextual links ( so nobody who bothers to look takes the story to seriously ) and it should at this point, in all fairness, be labeled as "humor", not "hardware", not "games"... we all know it's "humor".
Or, at least, we *should* all know it's humor until product is shipped... and if product is shipped from this company, it should be really, really big news. Not that the product is great, but that the company actually made something real.
Boy, are you optimistic !
I was going to start taking bets on this one *ever* shipping! Didn't they say that it'd be available in six months... if they can get funding?!?
Isn't that exactly what they've been saying about their console for years ? Wow.
Maybe I'm missing something. If I start a business that never creates anything other than press releases or lawsuits, and never takes in any money from anyone other than venture capitalists, do I get to keep the millions of dollars I paid myself as CEO over the years when the company finally fails to attract more investors? If that's the case, who'd like to form a nice little tech company with me? We'll make... uh... a portable game console thingy. Or maybe a keyboard or something to watch TV on. It'll be cool. Anyone want in on the ground floor? Just send me your money.
Nothing new there, actually. You hire motherboard designers who have experience... guess what type of chipset they last designed around ? Making the decision to hire former PC laptop designers was even easier this time around...
Frankly, I guess I don't count as a zealot since I don't care who designs my hardware, as long as it doesn't suck.
I'm still getting over the fact that Ligers are real. I was not prepared for that.
absolutely not. If owning any sort of computer ever does get you laid, get the woman's number and ask her to marry you... I guess...
Most likely, your new Mac will get laid, and thing will pretty well stay the same for you.
This is in part due to some overly generous predictions made by the FCC and equipment manufacturers as to what signal levels are needed to get a viewable picture, but it's also just because they also assume you have a nice outdoor antenna, which few do.
We're talking about poor people who don't have cable or satellite, though. I mean, does congress really care that much? Do those folks even vote? How many people really get their signal off-air anymore?
If they really cared, those vouchers would cover more that $40. Even after the transition, most set-top DTV receivers are going to be more than $100... plenty of them right now are still $300...
Even if it's a company that decides to restrict art, it's still censorship. Even if it's self censorship, it's still censorsip.
Why is it that every time some company or country decides to restrict access to information or art, somebody comes up with this messed up line of reasoning to say "that's not censorship" ? You don't have to burn books, throw people in prison or black things out to censor. You just have to restrict access to information ( or art ), as is done in this case.
THIS is censorship, plain and simple, EVEN if it is the companie's choice to censor... it is NOT simply "choosing their lineup", *especially* if the episode is never released on any other medium, which is what I've read.
Dude, Fat Butt And Pancake Head was one of the funniest episodes ever!
It's just sad to think you could find that not funny...
You think there is a difference. In reality, Catholics are just one variety of religious conservative... a particularly powerful, common variety.
It is all about not being able to mess with Mary, though, you're right about that. I mean, they didn't get all crazy about the priest child molestation episode, it's interesting that *this* one made them mad.
Well, I guess it depends on your definition of "cool".
For most folks, though, even here on slashdot... there are few things anywhere near as cool as South Park.
He doesn't need the best tool, and he certainly doesn't need the cheapest. He's working for an outrageously successful, well-funded company. He needs a solution that gets the job done with a minimum amount of headache; for that set of requirements, his gut feeling probably did him well.
He picked a pretty much turn-key solution from a company famous for support, and a platform that fulfills all of his known requirements. Do you think he make the wrong choice ? If so, for what reason ?
Yet, if you do it 'right', exactly when in your Cocoa-based program do you end up directly dealing with pointers and dereferencing object references? Sure, I can use pointers directly, but... I don't. There's no need to use linked lists when NSArray objects are handy. I use accessors to get a object members, and almost never used structs directly, so there's no foo->bar where bar is uninitialized.
Long and short, Objective-C does seem a bit barbaric coming from Java or Python, but it's nothing like a jump back to C or even C++.
have used IB/etc on Openstep -- on a NeXT slab
did picking up the whole retain/release/autorelease memory-management thing throw you for a loop? depending on where you picked up your NeXTStep programming, it was a little different back in the day, and I think that's what gave me the most issues picking up Objective-C again... that and the shock of learning that I had to think about memory management so much... it's not pointers per se that give me grief in Objective-C, it's using retain, release and autorelease properly. Not that it's that hard, it's just something that GC removes almost completely.
At least I'm not alone in thinking so; I don't care how geeky you are, this does not approximate "style", unless your style is "ugly". At the very least, for $400, I expect brushed metal, if not something better. That plastic look just has to go.
Geeky, yes, but it's not stylish at all, not even to a bunch of geeks on Slashdot. Sorry, but it's true.
Frankly, even though I'm a Software Engineer ( sure, call me Computer Programmer, i'm not going to care ), such a check is a reasonable requirement for software that a P.E. is going to use in their work. We certainly have our P.E.s check the output of our software programs before they are put into production use. Software Quality in engineering applications is extremely important, and, sadly due to a number of factors ( like market size ) is often not given the attention it requires.
, I believe that the use of software which contained unknown flaws has not been suitable defence for due dilligence in tort law cases
If you have some expensive engineering project, and you screw it up because you didn't double-check important data provided by a computer program, nobody is going to care that the program was at fault... you won't get the job the next time a contract comes up. Completely trusting software in such cases can be a problem even if you somehow avoid being dragged into court.