.....I'd say installing almost any OS (including Windows) in a computer is a lot simpler than installing an engine in a car.......
For geeks here on/. yes, but not necessarily for Joe user. Say Joe chooses Linux on his Dell. Currently Ubuntu seems to be the flavor of the week. He chooses it because it's "free". Next week he buys a video camera. He tries to connect it to the computer and nothing happens. He takes it to his neighbor who has a Mac or Windows HP and it works right away. How does Joe now feel about his computer and its maker, Dell? Might Dell get an irate phone call from him? His wife comes home with a special recipe program CD. She tries to install it in their new computer. It was written for Windows. A/. person would have noticed that in the store. Since the box has been opened, Joe's wife is stuck and out her money. Next Joe takes his non working computer back to the store, where they tell him that he should have Windows and pay the full retail price for it plus an installation fee. They install it and now the camera works and the wife's program installs and runs. What do you think Joe will tell all his friends about Dell and Linux?
So what do you propose? Should there be a law that no computer may come with an OS and the user is forced to install one or pay someone to install it for them? Should each brand computer be available with every OS on the market pre-installed and the user chooses which to activate? The OS makes a computer run, just like the engine does for a car. Should consumers be allowed to demand Honda engines in their Fords?
....AFAIK you can already buy the OS separately.....
Not yet, but presumably with when they release OSX10.5 in October. It will likely be an upgrade version that will look for an existing 10.4 installation on a Mac.
.... but I do believe that making it illegal to bundle an OS with a computer.......
While we are at it, make it illegal to install engines in automobiles. After all why should I not have the freedom to have a Honda engine in my Ford? Isn't that freedom of choice? Software, especially the OS, is the engine that runs a computer. Without it, a computer is less useful than a car without an engine. A car without an engine will still keep you dry in a storm.
Apple is the ONLY manufacturer who builds a complete computer, like car maker build cars. Why is there is this obsession around here and in certain governmental quarters, to divorce the software from the hardware? The two go together. The better integrated they are, the better the user experience. I don't want some two-bit bureaucrat or paid for politician to take that wholeness of Apple's computer systems away, nor do I think they should force Apple to sell their OSX (engines) to others for installation in foreign hardware.
....Imagine a future version of the same field, but with "MacOS XVIII", "Plan 10" "FreeBeOS", "ReactOS Hurd", "AmigaOS Phoenix", etc, etc in the list. Real choice, in other words......
It seems that there is a general lack of understanding on this here nerd forum that USERS don't give a rats ass what OS their computer runs. Grandma just wants to email the grandkids, who just want to play Halo and their dad wants to run a spreadsheet or other business programs. In real estate they teach you about location, location, locations. In computers is is applications, applications, applications. Most consumer goods are sold complete, not in bits and pieces and they are expected to work for what they were purchased for. A computer is not complete without an OS. If halo will not run because dad picked an OS that would only run his spreadsheet, junior will be unhappy. Windows by default is the one OS that will allow the most people to run the most applications and thus will still be the OS chosen by most consumers, but probably not the/. crowd. So in the end, legislating such folly is not going affect MS all that much. For that reason, the number of applications available for Windows will also not diminish.
Perhaps when, or if the day arrives when computers are so cheap that each computer only runs one application, the OS will be less important, because the distinction between the OS and the applications will disappear. Applications running on the Internet may also make the OS irrelevant in the same way as the OS in a cell phone is irrelevant for simple phone service.
Our Prius, like other modern cars contains a computer with a single purpose -- to run the car. What OS that computer uses is of no interest. All that matters is that it does its job reliably.
.....A car has to run on gas, but that doesn't mean that almost every car should come with a forced purchase (bundle) of 1,500 gallons of Amaco gas........
A car also has an engine. It would be like all cars may no longer have engines. The buyer has to install one first at extra cost. A computer runs on electricity, its fuel. My laptop runs fine on US or European electricity. The OS software in it is a part of a computer and should be included in the price. The reason for an OS is to make the computer be able to run applications which allow the user to do work or play. No OS is an end in and of itself, but only a means to the end of making a computer a useful tool. The reason for an engine is to allow the car to transport me and my stuff.
Or any other OS? I want a car without an engine! Silly!! A computer without an OS is like a car without an engine nor brakes or even less. You can sit in such a car to get out of the rain, but it won't go anywhere. A computer without software is even less useful. An OS is still only software, like all other software. It makes the computer a computer rather than a door stop. So do these super wise regulators propose that all computers must be sold without software and all cars come without engines? It seems that sometimes, or maybe often, when what used to be intelligent people get into government positions, they lose their common sense somewhere along the way. No particular country or form of government seems to have a corner on the market of stupidity.
Does that mean that consumers, some of which barely know how to push a button on a mouse, will be required to install their an OS? Does it mean that Dell and all other Computer makers will have to stock and sell computers with all possible OS installed? Does it mean that Apple will have to pre-install or at least offer any other OS besides OSX on their hardware and offer their OSX to all others that build computer hardware? Is a computer without an OS even a computer? Honda makes good car engines. Why can't I have a Honda engine in my Ford?
Is a supplier of a commodity no longer to be allowed to specify conditional pricing, provided the conditions are the same for all customers? Are these government types REALLY advocating requirements for the computer industry that applies to no other?
....However, that would have been long before humans would have been to name it such......
Not so! Greenland was named that by humans exactly because it WAS green, not covered with ice. When trying to determine the age of ice, the layers found are assumed to be annual deposits. This is an assumption. All the layers show is alternate periods of colder and warmer. There can be many such warmer and colder alternations in one year. Vikings colonized the coastal areas about 1000 years ago and later left as it got colder again. Global warming is a fact of the past and the present. The human causation of warming or cooling is a myth. We humans want to be in control and lie to ourselves that we are. However, we are not in control of our lives nor of the weather, short term or long term.
.....Still, how much more will a typical electric grid tack on?...........
They detail that on our bill at $.036/Kw/hr for the delivery charge, as per most recent bill. The actual electric energy charge is $.0328 for the first 526KW-hr, $.0393 for the next 526 and $.0491 for any amount above that. In most items you buy, you'll get a discount if you buy a larger quantity. However the socialist engineers in Government have mandated the opposite for electricity, at least for the consumer. Those who use HUGE quantities of power, such as the recently built Google data center near The Dalles, by the Columbia River, get their power MUCH cheaper still. As always, the large companies have political clout (money) with politicians to arrange laws and regulations in their favor.
They raised our rates here in Oregon substantially recently. We get to help pay Californians for their energy fiasco which resulted in the impeachment of their Governor and got Arnold, the governator, into office. The Columbia River and the other hydro sources don't charge any more for their water and the dams have long since been paid off. I'm sure that maintaining them and the wires hasn't gone up that much either. The price also includes another socialistic charge of $.03 labeled "public purpose", such as low income energy assistance.
That Greenland is still called that because it was once GREEN, like covered with forests. That wasn't millions of years ago, but within human historical memory, such that it is still called GREENland today. So maybe, with ultimate global warming, Greenland and other frigid wastes will no longer be covered with thousands of feet of ice, but be productive lands again?
.....that the government impose a special tax......
Any TAX, no matter what is always akin to the overhead of a business. So who gets to spend this tax and for what? Spending money on overhead is good only if it makes the business more efficient in the long term. So how will this tax make the business of the USA more profitable to its inhabitants?
Very expensive indeed when compared to our RESIDENTIAL rate of.07-.08/KW we currently pay. Of course we do get a large percentage of our electricity from hydro, since we live in the Pacific Northwest. It must mean that such a solar plant must be much more costly to build and operate, since the energy itself is free.
.....Someone living on a mountain that just got cell service........
Maybe living on a mountain could be an advantage. It all depends who lives in the valley below. Do you have any friends with DSL a few miles away, down in that valley?
We had a 12 foot satellite dish we used to use for TV before the little DirecTV type dishes came into use. We have a barn/workshop about 1000 feet from the house. I wanted to have a link to the shop for a test. One day I mounted a wireless access point (linksys) on the focal point of that long dead 12 ft monster and pointed it at our barn.
I was able to pick up the signal, not only from the corresponding link in the workshop, but also (surprisingly) a number of miscellaneous signals from other wifi devices many miles away. Some of them were not encrypted and allowed me to get Internet connectivity at high speed, after adjusting the dish for maximum signal.
A 12 foot dish antenna has a very high gain, but is unwieldy and hard to come by these days. However it can be a means of communicating with very low powered devices rather far away. I have read of amateur radio hobbyists using such dishes to bounce signals off the moon. We recently took the unsightly monster apart and sent it to a metal recycler. We now have DSL service, as a package phone deal. Nobody gets any sort of cell phone service right where we live. Our visitors are mostly bummed by this, but some like the peace it gives them.
That's exactly what I said. Government always and only takes away rights, they never can and never have given rights to people. I this case, the government has taken inalienable, God given rights away, depending on the criteria of citizenship. SCOTUS at one time took away the God given rights of certain people to be human, rather than someone's property, based on the color of their skin.
Governments take away rights based on many criteria. The Nazis took away the right to live based on race. The Moslems take away the right to live based on religion. It doesn't really matter what the criteria are. My point is that humans can never GIVE rights, they can and do only take them from other humans by force.
.....Since when does the definition of "citizen" have anything at all to do with the Constitution......
The founders of the USA understood from the beginning, that human rights are exactly that, HUMAN rights, given to all people by their Creator. From the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.....
They also knew and expressed it succinctly, that the main reason to have any government, rather than anarchy is to ensure that these God given rights are not taken away by anyone, including the government, even of a majority. That's why they wrote the Constitution. Thus the rights spelled out in that document belong to ALL humans, no matter where they live. It's just that many governments on earth are not bound by this or similar documents. It seems that there are some in our Government that do not wish to be bound by these rules either.
....So where it says "the people" generally applies to citizens......
People are humans, everywhere. Inalienable human rights are not given by governments or constitutions, but by the Creator, regardless where on this planet they happen to be. There has never been and there will never be a government that gives rights to anyone. All governments always have and always will only take away rights from humans that their Creator has given them. The ultimate take-awy is that of life itself. A basic function of government is to ensure that my God given rights are not taken away by some other person, who happens to be bigger, stronger than me or has a better weapon.
....Both parties are working for the same ends......
And those ends are what? Furthering the goals of those who pay for the re-election of the incumbents? If not that what?
True reform would be to give all bona-fide candidates a fixed amount to spend and not allow anyone more. Then, perhaps, some people could get into office that are not on the payroll of the wealthy sponsors. Fat chance that would ever happen!
.....is only a matter of increasing the data rate.......
That's basically what I said. For regular DVD video the present Internet data rate is marginal for most people and unusable for Hi-def TV. Storage capacity is ahead of delivery capacity. That will change only when someone with money is willing to invest some of that in order to make even more money. The technology to do so is available today.
The holy grail for entertainment companies is to have a system like for movie theaters. Every single set of eyeballs and ears pays for every viewing or listening, no matter where and on what.
.....ditching my DSL account in favor of satellite.......
Investigate that move carefully! We had satellite until the phone co. installed DSL Download speed for sat. was almost as fast as the DSL, but the delay (latency) of the 24,000 mile round trips of the signal made for slow surfing and no online games. Sat. was also more expensive than the combination phone/DSL deal we got from the phone company. We get no cell service of any kind at home. We use a cheap prepaid phone when we travel.
.....You realize in 10 years DVD's maybe won't even be published anymore......
This will only happen if "the next great thing" is as much better than normal DVD's as these are to VHS tapes. Nothing of such a quantum leap is on the horizon. The new HD systems are nice, but are not nearly as compelling over normal DVDs as these are over VHS tapes.
Maybe all DVDs will be gone when 90%+ of all households have 100Mb/s or faster network connections.
.....features of which the older OS cannot take advantage........
On the Mac, OSX10.4 is FASTER on the same old hardware than OS10.2. In Windows this is NOT the case. The newer version is ALWAYS slower on the same old hardware, if it will even run at all. For VISTA this difference is especially dramatic. VISTA is essentially unusable on a 4 year old, 512Meg RAM box. OSX10.4 runs MUCH faster on a Mac of similar age. There is very little that VISTA does that OSX10.4 hasn't had for all this time. I have a 2001 G4 Laptop upgraded to 512M and 80G. It came with 256M and OSX 10.1 and old OS9 installed. Even now, it runs faster with OSX10.4 than it did with OSX10.2 which it had at the time of the upgrade.
For Windows, XP is really the only viable option at this time, even for a new machine. Maybe this will change when the first service pack comes out. I sure hope so, because VISTA is nice in many ways.
..... is clearly going to be the best way to get accurate performance benchmarks.......
VISTA is also MUCH slower on an older (3yrs) "normal" PC than either XP or Win2K. It is well known that Windows has *always* slower with each "upgrade" on any given hardware, whereas the opposite has been the case. This is not even counting the glacial OSX10.0 "beta" but from 10.2 onwards.
Running the three Windows versions side by side on the exact same hardware gives a good comparison. I cannot do this on the old PC, but had to test them one OS at a time.
True, just dog slow. I have VISTA, XP and Win2K all installed under Parallels on a Macbook Pro. VISTA is far slower in everything it does, from booting to starting Internet Explorer to other software. It also takes much longer to shut down the VM that the two older Windows. It does look pretty nice and is reasonably well organized. It offers nothing significant that OSX10.49 doesn't except constantly nagging me about the fact that I don't have automatic updates turned on nor any anti-virus protection installed. After I got VISTA installed, activated and updated, about a month ago, I have never allowed VISTA nor the other Windows versions to access the Internet.
That's because it's not needed. To get rid of a Mac program, you just drag it to the trash, as you would with any other data file. For many programs you don't need an installer either. All you do is drag the program file from the install disk or disk image to the Applications folder and start the program. It sounds like you are not a Mac users.
Slashdot Mirror
.....I'd say installing almost any OS (including Windows) in a computer is a lot simpler than installing an engine in a car.......
/. yes, but not necessarily for Joe user. Say Joe chooses Linux on his Dell. Currently Ubuntu seems to be the flavor of the week. He chooses it because it's "free". Next week he buys a video camera. He tries to connect it to the computer and nothing happens. He takes it to his neighbor who has a Mac or Windows HP and it works right away. How does Joe now feel about his computer and its maker, Dell? Might Dell get an irate phone call from him? His wife comes home with a special recipe program CD. She tries to install it in their new computer. It was written for Windows. A /. person would have noticed that in the store. Since the box has been opened, Joe's wife is stuck and out her money. Next Joe takes his non working computer back to the store, where they tell him that he should have Windows and pay the full retail price for it plus an installation fee. They install it and now the camera works and the wife's program installs and runs. What do you think Joe will tell all his friends about Dell and Linux?
For geeks here on
.....why not let them have it?.......
So what do you propose? Should there be a law that no computer may come with an OS and the user is forced to install one or pay someone to install it for them? Should each brand computer be available with every OS on the market pre-installed and the user chooses which to activate? The OS makes a computer run, just like the engine does for a car. Should consumers be allowed to demand Honda engines in their Fords?
....AFAIK you can already buy the OS separately.....
Not yet, but presumably with when they release OSX10.5 in October. It will likely be an upgrade version that will look for an existing 10.4 installation on a Mac.
.... but I do believe that making it illegal to bundle an OS with a computer .......
While we are at it, make it illegal to install engines in automobiles. After all why should I not have the freedom to have a Honda engine in my Ford? Isn't that freedom of choice? Software, especially the OS, is the engine that runs a computer. Without it, a computer is less useful than a car without an engine. A car without an engine will still keep you dry in a storm.
Apple is the ONLY manufacturer who builds a complete computer, like car maker build cars. Why is there is this obsession around here and in certain governmental quarters, to divorce the software from the hardware? The two go together. The better integrated they are, the better the user experience. I don't want some two-bit bureaucrat or paid for politician to take that wholeness of Apple's computer systems away, nor do I think they should force Apple to sell their OSX (engines) to others for installation in foreign hardware.
....Imagine a future version of the same field, but with "MacOS XVIII", "Plan 10" "FreeBeOS", "ReactOS Hurd", "AmigaOS Phoenix", etc, etc in the list. Real choice, in other words......
/. crowd. So in the end, legislating such folly is not going affect MS all that much. For that reason, the number of applications available for Windows will also not diminish.
It seems that there is a general lack of understanding on this here nerd forum that USERS don't give a rats ass what OS their computer runs. Grandma just wants to email the grandkids, who just want to play Halo and their dad wants to run a spreadsheet or other business programs. In real estate they teach you about location, location, locations. In computers is is applications, applications, applications. Most consumer goods are sold complete, not in bits and pieces and they are expected to work for what they were purchased for. A computer is not complete without an OS. If halo will not run because dad picked an OS that would only run his spreadsheet, junior will be unhappy. Windows by default is the one OS that will allow the most people to run the most applications and thus will still be the OS chosen by most consumers, but probably not the
Perhaps when, or if the day arrives when computers are so cheap that each computer only runs one application, the OS will be less important, because the distinction between the OS and the applications will disappear. Applications running on the Internet may also make the OS irrelevant in the same way as the OS in a cell phone is irrelevant for simple phone service.
Our Prius, like other modern cars contains a computer with a single purpose -- to run the car. What OS that computer uses is of no interest. All that matters is that it does its job reliably.
.....A car has to run on gas, but that doesn't mean that almost every car should come with a forced purchase (bundle) of 1,500 gallons of Amaco gas ........
A car also has an engine. It would be like all cars may no longer have engines. The buyer has to install one first at extra cost. A computer runs on electricity, its fuel. My laptop runs fine on US or European electricity. The OS software in it is a part of a computer and should be included in the price. The reason for an OS is to make the computer be able to run applications which allow the user to do work or play. No OS is an end in and of itself, but only a means to the end of making a computer a useful tool. The reason for an engine is to allow the car to transport me and my stuff.
....I want a computer without Windows.....
Or any other OS? I want a car without an engine! Silly!! A computer without an OS is like a car without an engine nor brakes or even less. You can sit in such a car to get out of the rain, but it won't go anywhere. A computer without software is even less useful. An OS is still only software, like all other software. It makes the computer a computer rather than a door stop. So do these super wise regulators propose that all computers must be sold without software and all cars come without engines? It seems that sometimes, or maybe often, when what used to be intelligent people get into government positions, they lose their common sense somewhere along the way. No particular country or form of government seems to have a corner on the market of stupidity.
Does that mean that consumers, some of which barely know how to push a button on a mouse, will be required to install their an OS? Does it mean that Dell and all other Computer makers will have to stock and sell computers with all possible OS installed? Does it mean that Apple will have to pre-install or at least offer any other OS besides OSX on their hardware and offer their OSX to all others that build computer hardware? Is a computer without an OS even a computer? Honda makes good car engines. Why can't I have a Honda engine in my Ford?
Is a supplier of a commodity no longer to be allowed to specify conditional pricing, provided the conditions are the same for all customers? Are these government types REALLY advocating requirements for the computer industry that applies to no other?
....However, that would have been long before humans would have been to name it such......
Not so! Greenland was named that by humans exactly because it WAS green, not covered with ice. When trying to determine the age of ice, the layers found are assumed to be annual deposits. This is an assumption. All the layers show is alternate periods of colder and warmer. There can be many such warmer and colder alternations in one year. Vikings colonized the coastal areas about 1000 years ago and later left as it got colder again. Global warming is a fact of the past and the present. The human causation of warming or cooling is a myth. We humans want to be in control and lie to ourselves that we are. However, we are not in control of our lives nor of the weather, short term or long term.
.....Still, how much more will a typical electric grid tack on?...........
They detail that on our bill at $.036/Kw/hr for the delivery charge, as per most recent bill. The actual electric energy charge is $.0328 for the first 526KW-hr, $.0393 for the next 526 and $.0491 for any amount above that. In most items you buy, you'll get a discount if you buy a larger quantity. However the socialist engineers in Government have mandated the opposite for electricity, at least for the consumer. Those who use HUGE quantities of power, such as the recently built Google data center near The Dalles, by the Columbia River, get their power MUCH cheaper still. As always, the large companies have political clout (money) with politicians to arrange laws and regulations in their favor.
They raised our rates here in Oregon substantially recently. We get to help pay Californians for their energy fiasco which resulted in the impeachment of their Governor and got Arnold, the governator, into office. The Columbia River and the other hydro sources don't charge any more for their water and the dams have long since been paid off. I'm sure that maintaining them and the wires hasn't gone up that much either. The price also includes another socialistic charge of $.03 labeled "public purpose", such as low income energy assistance.
....And don't point out to them either......
That Greenland is still called that because it was once GREEN, like covered with forests. That wasn't millions of years ago, but within human historical memory, such that it is still called GREENland today. So maybe, with ultimate global warming, Greenland and other frigid wastes will no longer be covered with thousands of feet of ice, but be productive lands again?
.....that the government impose a special tax ......
Any TAX, no matter what is always akin to the overhead of a business. So who gets to spend this tax and for what? Spending money on overhead is good only if it makes the business more efficient in the long term. So how will this tax make the business of the USA more profitable to its inhabitants?
....so .17/kW, declining to .10/kW seems expensive.......
.07-.08/KW we currently pay. Of course we do get a large percentage of our electricity from hydro, since we live in the Pacific Northwest. It must mean that such a solar plant must be much more costly to build and operate, since the energy itself is free.
Very expensive indeed when compared to our RESIDENTIAL rate of
.....Someone living on a mountain that just got cell service ........
Maybe living on a mountain could be an advantage. It all depends who lives in the valley below. Do you have any friends with DSL a few miles away, down in that valley?
We had a 12 foot satellite dish we used to use for TV before the little DirecTV type dishes came into use. We have a barn/workshop about 1000 feet from the house. I wanted to have a link to the shop for a test. One day I mounted a wireless access point (linksys) on the focal point of that long dead 12 ft monster and pointed it at our barn.
I was able to pick up the signal, not only from the corresponding link in the workshop, but also (surprisingly) a number of miscellaneous signals from other wifi devices many miles away. Some of them were not encrypted and allowed me to get Internet connectivity at high speed, after adjusting the dish for maximum signal.
A 12 foot dish antenna has a very high gain, but is unwieldy and hard to come by these days. However it can be a means of communicating with very low powered devices rather far away. I have read of amateur radio hobbyists using such dishes to bounce signals off the moon. We recently took the unsightly monster apart and sent it to a metal recycler. We now have DSL service, as a package phone deal. Nobody gets any sort of cell phone service right where we live. Our visitors are mostly bummed by this, but some like the peace it gives them.
.....It's a fact that SCOTUS has decided ......
That's exactly what I said. Government always and only takes away rights, they never can and never have given rights to people. I this case, the government has taken inalienable, God given rights away, depending on the criteria of citizenship. SCOTUS at one time took away the God given rights of certain people to be human, rather than someone's property, based on the color of their skin.
Governments take away rights based on many criteria. The Nazis took away the right to live based on race. The Moslems take away the right to live based on religion. It doesn't really matter what the criteria are. My point is that humans can never GIVE rights, they can and do only take them from other humans by force.
The founders of the USA understood from the beginning, that human rights are exactly that, HUMAN rights, given to all people by their Creator. From the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.....
They also knew and expressed it succinctly, that the main reason to have any government, rather than anarchy is to ensure that these God given rights are not taken away by anyone, including the government, even of a majority. That's why they wrote the Constitution. Thus the rights spelled out in that document belong to ALL humans, no matter where they live. It's just that many governments on earth are not bound by this or similar documents. It seems that there are some in our Government that do not wish to be bound by these rules either.
....As a Christian, it wouldn't bother me one bit....
The Bible is the Word of God. As such it must travel from the printed page into the heart and mind of the reader and then be acted upon.
Psalm 199:11 I have hidden Your word in my heart, so that I might not sin against You.
Destroying the printed word by any means therefore has no effect on a true Christian.
....So where it says "the people" generally applies to citizens......
People are humans, everywhere. Inalienable human rights are not given by governments or constitutions, but by the Creator, regardless where on this planet they happen to be. There has never been and there will never be a government that gives rights to anyone. All governments always have and always will only take away rights from humans that their Creator has given them. The ultimate take-awy is that of life itself. A basic function of government is to ensure that my God given rights are not taken away by some other person, who happens to be bigger, stronger than me or has a better weapon.
....Both parties are working for the same ends......
And those ends are what? Furthering the goals of those who pay for the re-election of the incumbents? If not that what?
True reform would be to give all bona-fide candidates a fixed amount to spend and not allow anyone more. Then, perhaps, some people could get into office that are not on the payroll of the wealthy sponsors. Fat chance that would ever happen!
.....is only a matter of increasing the data rate .......
That's basically what I said. For regular DVD video the present Internet data rate is marginal for most people and unusable for Hi-def TV. Storage capacity is ahead of delivery capacity. That will change only when someone with money is willing to invest some of that in order to make even more money. The technology to do so is available today.
The holy grail for entertainment companies is to have a system like for movie theaters. Every single set of eyeballs and ears pays for every viewing or listening, no matter where and on what.
.....ditching my DSL account in favor of satellite.......
Investigate that move carefully! We had satellite until the phone co. installed DSL Download speed for sat. was almost as fast as the DSL, but the delay (latency) of the 24,000 mile round trips of the signal made for slow surfing and no online games. Sat. was also more expensive than the combination phone/DSL deal we got from the phone company. We get no cell service of any kind at home. We use a cheap prepaid phone when we travel.
.....You realize in 10 years DVD's maybe won't even be published anymore......
This will only happen if "the next great thing" is as much better than normal DVD's as these are to VHS tapes. Nothing of such a quantum leap is on the horizon. The new HD systems are nice, but are not nearly as compelling over normal DVDs as these are over VHS tapes.
Maybe all DVDs will be gone when 90%+ of all households have 100Mb/s or faster network connections.
.....features of which the older OS cannot take advantage........
On the Mac, OSX10.4 is FASTER on the same old hardware than OS10.2. In Windows this is NOT the case. The newer version is ALWAYS slower on the same old hardware, if it will even run at all. For VISTA this difference is especially dramatic. VISTA is essentially unusable on a 4 year old, 512Meg RAM box. OSX10.4 runs MUCH faster on a Mac of similar age. There is very little that VISTA does that OSX10.4 hasn't had for all this time. I have a 2001 G4 Laptop upgraded to 512M and 80G. It came with 256M and OSX 10.1 and old OS9 installed. Even now, it runs faster with OSX10.4 than it did with OSX10.2 which it had at the time of the upgrade.
For Windows, XP is really the only viable option at this time, even for a new machine. Maybe this will change when the first service pack comes out. I sure hope so, because VISTA is nice in many ways.
..... is clearly going to be the best way to get accurate performance benchmarks.......
VISTA is also MUCH slower on an older (3yrs) "normal" PC than either XP or Win2K. It is well known that Windows has *always* slower with each "upgrade" on any given hardware, whereas the opposite has been the case. This is not even counting the glacial OSX10.0 "beta" but from 10.2 onwards.
Running the three Windows versions side by side on the exact same hardware gives a good comparison. I cannot do this on the old PC, but had to test them one OS at a time.
.....Vista isn't bad.....
True, just dog slow. I have VISTA, XP and Win2K all installed under Parallels on a Macbook Pro. VISTA is far slower in everything it does, from booting to starting Internet Explorer to other software. It also takes much longer to shut down the VM that the two older Windows. It does look pretty nice and is reasonably well organized. It offers nothing significant that OSX10.49 doesn't except constantly nagging me about the fact that I don't have automatic updates turned on nor any anti-virus protection installed. After I got VISTA installed, activated and updated, about a month ago, I have never allowed VISTA nor the other Windows versions to access the Internet.
.....No uninstaller!.....
That's because it's not needed. To get rid of a Mac program, you just drag it to the trash, as you would with any other data file. For many programs you don't need an installer either. All you do is drag the program file from the install disk or disk image to the Applications folder and start the program. It sounds like you are not a Mac users.