That's why I've always maintained correct/proper capitalization and grammar and compete sentences, even in IMs and IRC chats. In fact, it actually slows me down when I have to purposely corrupt a text message in order to reduce its size (such as on Twitter or SMS).
Dang, I thought I was the only one who did this. Over the past couple years, I have even started slipping myself... but when I notice it, I try to correct it in my texting. If I'm on a real keyboard, I always try to use proper spelling, punctuation and grammar... but sometimes I let myself slip on a phone pad. T9 has an effect on my spelling more than anything else, oddly enough. Although, I think T9 has improved my spelling, since it's faster to spell it properly in T9 anyway. God forbid if you get the wrong spelling of something on a learning T9 phone... then it shows up like that until you go through the usually annoying process of getting rid of it.
Except that you understood it, and thus it is perfectly acceptable language. That's the beauty of a living language -- it evolves.
Now if I had wanted to complain about your abuse of the language, I would have told you to put quotes around your first use of This, excuse me, I mean "This".
So your criteria for "Perfectly Acceptable" is that it can be understood? Seriously?
That's not the beauty of a living language, that's the "beauty" of the human cognition system. It has nothing to do with the language, living or dead. Your entire premise is false either way, though. Just because something can be understood does not make it acceptable. l33t sp34k is understandable as well, but that does not make it perfectly acceptable. It's annoying to read and juvenile.
I am not making any comments on the use of "This." as a statement, please keep that in mind. I'm just calling you on your bullshit statement that "anything understandable is perfectly acceptable language."
But we are talking about commodity components, not pre-built systems if we are talking about desktops. You can't buy a good pre-built system - they simply don't make them. You can get boutique built systems that are good, but they tend to be Apple-Expensive.
You can easily compare a Mac desktop to a commodity built system... just pick the same parts. Price = 1/2. You're paying 2x the cost for the OS and the little DRM chip that lets it run. It's an Apple tax, just like the Microsoft tax, just a hell of a lot more.
So I just priced out a Lenovo Thinkpad vs a MacBook Pro. For essentially the same laptop, the Lenovo was about $450 cheaper - no small chunk of change. For the SAME price as the MacBook, I could get a far superior Lenovo in terms of performance and storage. The CPU could be upgraded to a quad core (not even offered on the Mac), the hard drive could be upgraded to a 7200 rpm or a solid state, could add a pantone color sensor and a Wacom digitizing tablet. These options aren't even offered on the Mac, and at a higher price point. If you wanted to go more budget, you could get that price down more than $400, but the Lenovo's are arguably one of the better built laptops on the market today, so going with your assertion that MacBook build quality is top notch (I won't argue with it, they seem decent from the few times I used them) - the Lenovo is comparable.
Now, lets say you want to be safe, lets add AppleCare into the bunch - this gives you 3 years of P/L warranty. For the same coverage on the Lenovo? $101. So now the price difference is $700. Over $3200 for a 17" MacBook or $2500 for a Lenovo. 1/2 the price? No, not in the laptop arena, but $700 can buy you a pretty nice "backup" notebook - however, the extended Warranty on the Lenovo is Next Business day replacement - does Applecare offer that? Or do you have to wait until they fix it at their leisure?
The web is an incredibly huge piece of the internet.
Please tell us about these 65,000 other services that need a properly functioning DNS. Since the only protocol affected here is HTTP, and the only applications that use invalid URLs are either human-driven (browsers) or malware, I suggest that the NX response is fundamentally outdated and useless.
Wow, you are one clueless user. Please don't put fingers to keyboard and start talking authoritatively when you clearly know absolutely nothing about the subject or the problem at hand. Think before you type, next time.
Maybe you've heard of a little thing called "email?" It pretty much takes a huge chunk bandwidth on the net (mostly spam, granted), and then we have P2P stuff, which takes up the bulk of bandwidth I believe - far, far exceeding the HTTP protocol. These are just two of the services that are affected by it, and both exceed web traffic by significant margins. The web bandwidth is indeed a tiny fraction compared to everything else... just because web surfing dominates your life does not make it the dominate service on the internet.
The NX response is everything. It's the foundation of the entire domain resolution system. Saying it's outdated is absolutely and patently ludicrous. There are two proper responses that drive the entire internet, the return of a valid IP address and an NX response. When you start screwing with either one of those, you break the internet. Outdated indeed.
Except that this isn't actually true. You can certainly get a computer for half the price, but it's never the same specs/quality of build, it's always lower. You can spec out comparable Dells, HPs, ThinkPads, whatever, and they always come out to about the same price as the Apple gear. I always used to buy commodity PC stuff, and every time I end up replacing major components (motherboard, ram, power supply, etc) within about three years. True, if I spent more on the PC it would last longer, but then it would cost the same as the Mac.
The problem with Apple isn't that their stuff is overpriced (it isn't) it's that they don't offer any products at lower price points. Of course, Apple is managing pretty well with this strategy, so you can't fault them for sticking with it.
Except that it is actually true. You show me a Mac at a given price point and I will show you a system around 1/2 the cost that will last just as long. I wasn't even talking about Laptops, but if you want to talk laptops, the price difference is may be slightly less drastic.
If you bought commodity PC stuff and replace major components in three years, you're buying the wrong stuff. I've been buying commodity components for the better part of 25+ years and very rarely do I have a part fail before it becomes obsolete, and even then I have cards sitting in a bin in the closet that are 15+ years old and still work (An S3 graphics card comes immediately to mind).
Lets talk about laptops, since that seems to be what you focused on. I will partially agree that commodity laptops fail before their time on occasions beyond what's reasonable, at least in my experience. However, for half the cost, I wouldn't really complain. If you spend an equivalent amount on a laptop, the cost is slightly cheaper with the same build quality. So yes, your argument carries a little more weight in the laptop arena, but then again, why would I spend extra on a Mac just to put another OS on it? Sorry, but OSX as a selling point is a non-starter for so many reasons.
So again, you're back to the fact that equivalent hardware costs less (not 1/2 in the case of laptops) as the Mac version for no valid reason.
As much as I hate them, their warranty replacement is ridiculously simple and fast. Anytime I've had an issue with Dell components under warranty they ship a replacement out without arguing. They don't even require me to ship the item back first, they just ship out the replacement and include a return label that I put the broken part in and ship it back for free.
I can fault Dell for many things, but warranty replacement is not one of them.
The problem with your methodology in determining that they are a good company from your experience is the fact that you paid twice as much for the computer. Of course they are going to be "nice" to you for paying 2x the cost, they love people like you. You could have gotten a similar experience (except without the wait or multiple returns) by purchasing TWO of the same non-Apple computer. When the first one started to go tits up, just swap it out for the second one and you've a) fixed the problem yourself, b) not had to wait for the repair.
Alternately, you could have put 1/2 the cost in a savings account for those 2.5 years, earned some interest, and then purchased a new non-Apple computer that is 4x the speed as your previous one with 8x the RAM and 4x the hard drive space for the same or less than what you put in your savings.
So yeah... just because they "treated you real nice like" doesn't mean they didn't rape you.
Umm? I don't suppose this statistic is anyway affected by the fact that maybe they (Microsoft) give UP TO 35 FREAKING % cashback on items?
I mean... of course you're going to get a higher click through rate when you're offering a 35% discount for clicking through on Bing vs clicking through on Google.
I've gotten close to $1000 back for using Live search aka Bing. Of course I check there first... if I find an ad with the Microsoft cashback option, you better believe I snap it up. Then I go back to Google to do my real searching.
This statistic is completely meaningless since it's blatantly obvious that people are going to use a service that GIVES THEM MONEY vs a service that is just plain free. Gee, imagine that.
We aren't talking around each other. I was commenting on your inappropriate use of the term "bricked."
It's simply not bricked. You can try to talk logic circles or add special qualifiers all day long to try to shoehorn your claim that it's bricked into fitting the common definition of bricked. The problem is, though, it doesn't work.
A trashed OS does not brick a machine. Does it make it effectively useless to a computer illiterate person? Yes, perhaps it does... that point has never been in dispute. But it's still not bricked. Don't use a word improperly and then try to give it a new definition... doing that just makes words useless. Use the proper word to describe the situation to begin with.
It's like saying "My door is open" when really it's closed but unlocked. So your door is unlocked, not open. You're trying to redefine the word open when there's already a word to describe the state of your door accurately.
In this case, there's already a word to describe the state of the computer with a trashed OS (to the person who is possession of it at the time) - that word is "unusable." That word is NOT, by any stretch of the definition, "bricked."
I understand what you are saying, but it's still not bricked.
Since this is Slashdot, I will use a car analogy. It's like saying a brand new BMW is totaled because there's a hole in the gas tank and the car won't go anymore. Most people probably don't know how to replace or patch a gas tank, but no one is going to say it's totaled. Most people may not know how to reinstall an operating system, but no one with common sense would say it's bricked.
Calling a person an "amateur astronomer" truly minimizes the effort and dedication that "professional astronomers" put into learning their craft. Sometimes PhDs seem a little bit arrogant when they demand to be called "Doctor" rather than "Mister", but if you think about how much of their life they dedicated to studying and becoming a true expert in a field, it is quite reasonable to treat them with deference.
Today's "amateurs" are mostly hobbyists, and shouldn't be conflated with actual professionals. Amateur means someone who does something without pay, but it also implies a certain level of skill on par or slightly below professionals. Once upon a time Olympic athletes were all amateurs, but they were setting world records and competing at the very top tier. Nowadays, anyone with a 50 dollar telescope from Tasco can call themselves an "amateur astronomer" without any training whatsoever.
Are you an idiot or just a troll? Amateur does not imply a certain level of skill... in fact, it implies a certain LACK of skill. How the hell you can conflate the definition "amateur" with someone who is "on par or slight below professionals" is mind boggling. That word you're looking for to describe that already exists, and it's not "amateur." It's "Journeyman" or perhaps another word... but "amateur" is exactly the descriptive word to use for someone who does it as a "hobby." Lets take you for example... you are an amateur troll and/or internet user. You have no idea what you're doing, you're just here for fun and lulz. You are not a professional nor a journeyman. You are an AMATEUR.
As in, requires the receiver to "fix" the machine to use it. (In this case, an OS re-install is the way it would be fixed, but the average computer user doesn't really know for software or hardware.
So then, you're saying it's not bricked with this method? Bricking very specifically implies that the machine literally becomes as useful as brick. That's why it's called "bricking." If it still boots and can be reinstalled, it's not bricked.
Encrypt the entire drive with TrueCrypt or something. Use a strong cipher and a very strong passphrase. The laptop is as good as bricked to anyone who gets it.
I'm really curious as to how it's "as good as bricked" to anyone who gets it? Seems to me, with this solution, a simple reformat/reinstall of the OS would make the computer 100% usable. Is this not the case? I'm not familiar with the netbook in question, so maybe it's impossible to reinstall the OS on it... but if it's like a normal computer, trashing the drive does not in any way, shape or form brick the computer.
Care to enlighten us as to how a scrambled hard drive bricks a computer?
> There is a reason why L-A-W-Y-E-R sounds like L-I-A-R.
Lawyer and Liar sound nothing alike. That is, unless you are unable to pronounce the words properly. I've found that the people who pronounce Liar and Lawyer similarly are usually the uneducated or poorly educated type of people. People with higher education or that come from a less poor background typically pronounce the words correctly - which sound nothing alike, aside from sharing two letters.
LIE - ER LAW - YER
There is nothing similar about them. Only uneducated folk make them sound similar. I guess we know where you come into the picture.:)
I am going to address the salient points in one post, instead of responding individually, since most of the responses are from clueless people - it's kind of pointless to engage in direct conversation with people so out of touch from reality.
1. As has already been explained, at least in minor detail, is that multi-part RARs are for media distributed over the internet. Pirated, not pirated... it doesn't matter. The fact is that the media is there, it's popular and it's not going away. The file size limit of the distribution mechanism that shall not be named (according to rule #1) prevents large media files from being posted. So yes, it's partly a file size issue, see number 2.
2. BitTorrent is not the only distribution mechanism, nor is it the most efficient in many instances. However, even IF you are using BitTorrent, having multi-part RARs is extremely handy when only ONE or FEW of the RARs are corrupted - you only have to download a small chunk of data, perhaps from another provider, to complete the media in question. If it's distributed as a monolithic file, you have to then download another 12 GB (or more!) to get the complete file. So yes, it still serves a purpose, even with BT. See #3
3. I think multi-part RARs are fucking annoying as hell and I wish they would go away, even with their benefits. I am willing to download another 4, 8, 12 GB on the rare occasions I get corrupted files if it means getting rid of the fucking RARs. However, I accept the fact that RARs are here and they are here to stay for the immediate future... therefore I work with them and do not cover my hears and shout that multi-part RARs don't exist and hope they go away. They won't. They are here, we have to deal with it.
4. Yes, several media players exist that play multi-part RARs just fine. Personally, I use XBMC - it is FAR, FAR, FAR away superior to VLC when it comes to playing media of any kind. It plays everything I've ever seen - There is no other media player on the face of the planet, except mPlayer (which is what XBMC uses) that is as versatile and complete as XBMC. VLC is a joke compared to the formats mPlayer/XBMC plays out of the box.
5. Now this point always gets peoples feathers ruffled, and I always get a good laugh out of it, because it's so easy to test yourself... but no one bothers to do it. I have bothered to do it, a number of times, just to be sure I'm not smoking crack: A RAR'd media file is smaller than the original. Yes, you read that right and yes, it goes against conventional wisdom, but the fact remains that a typical 60 minute show, weighing in at around 350 MB in size (SD) will be about 20 MB (give or take 10 MB or so) smaller in multi-part RAR's than when it's unrar'd, depending on your CODEC. While 20MB in savings in this day and age of 2 TB drives seems like a drop in the bucket (and in fact is a drop in the bucket), if you measure that 20 MB out over thousands of files, it becomes a more significant number. Is it worth RARing all your media? Probably not - but since the media already comes that way, why unrar it to play it and incur the small but measurable space penalty in addition to using up time and CPU cycles for absolutely no gain at all?
6. One poster seems to misunderstand what a serious media center is. It's not uncompressed video; It is a media center than can play back anything you throw at it. VLC is not it (or at least hasn't been it up until now?). XBMC, however, is. Either way, my point is (and this addresses the AC comment who is supposedly "close to the dev community," lol - whatever that means.) I offered to submit a patch to VLC upwards of 2 years ago that was rejected because they disagreed with the fact that VLC should not play files in such a format. I happily went on my way and used other media players. I've never said it wasn't VLC developers perogative to not include that functionality - because it most certainly is... but the fact that they abjectly refuse to accept the fact
I can't seem to find any additional information on the zipped file playback stated in the summary. Can anyone elaborate on that? Do they literally mean it will only play files that are zipped, or will it finally play back multi-part RAR files? I (and many others) have been asking for this functionality for years now - I even went so far as to submit a patch for this functionality... however, the developers (at least at the time) were whiny little princesses and refused to implement a feature like that because it compromises the integrity of VLC (no seriously, that was the reason).
As such, the lack of multi-part RAR playback has made VLC pretty much useless for serious media centers. If they've finally backpeddled and implemented this feature, my hat is off to them for manning up and accepting the fact that multipart RARs are a standard (however unfortunate that is) and the ability to play back media that is in that "format" is a necessity for a good player.
If they have still not implemented this functionality, however, VLC is still fairly useless for true universal media players, since other software is capable of it and works just as well if not better.
SSDs are set to replace rotational media. That was what I stated. So... to make it more clear to the people with reading comprehension issues:
Flash memory is set to replace rotational media.
This article indicates that Flash Memory (AKA SSDs) are only going to be an intermediary between rotational media and RAM. This is clearly not going to be the case going forward... this is WHY I wrote the GP post and pointed out that it's invalid.
WTF. Seriously. Are people that incapable of reading what I wrote or is it really that unclear? Going back over what I wrote, it still seems pretty clear, but maybe not.
I'm somewhat curious as to why people would moderate the original post off topic? It's specifically addresses the article and is ABOUT the article. How is it off topic?
Given the fact that every other post in the article is modded offtopic, I suspect someone has gone through and just modded everything off topic.
Either way, the point still stands. The article fails to recognize or address SSDs in any way, shape or form. As such, the article is basically mostly irrelevant in 2009 and going forward. It's interesting to see show how technology has changed in a mere two years between when the article was written and now, but as a useful prediction tool, it's been completely obliterated by the SSD future. As my original post pointed out as well, the convergence of persistent storage and temporary storage will further invalidate the article.
As for the post by Argent, I wasn't sure if that was addressed to me or not - if so, I have no idea what you're talking about. Your post has absolutely nothing to do to with my original response.
I couldn't quite figure out if the article willfully ignored the advent of SSDs or was written before they were available and not updated to include them (but it appears the article was updated to include other current technology).
Given the fact that SSDs are likely going to replace rotational media for most applications in the future, it makes this article basically meaningless, at least insofar as the fact that flash memory and the disk are/will be synonymous. As the article is basically predicated around the entire fact that flash memory will change the 5 minute rule to a degree, it invalidates the entire article.
To be relevant, the article really needs to include the current state of SSDs and a likely projection (10 year) of where the state of the art in SSDs.
I do, however, suspect we may see a shift from drives all together at some point (perhaps more than 10 years, but perhaps not) and the computer will just have persistent storage for everything in MRAM or some other technology that obliterates the line between RAM (for speed) and drives (for storage) - it's just one big pool that's hyper fast and persistent.
So really, I don't think this article has held up in even the intervening two years since 2007, and it certainly won't hold up for another 10 years.
Holy shit, SPEWS. I had forgotten about that... the guy was worse than SORBS. Wasn't he the creator of Courier as well? How can someone that messed up create something like Courier? Or maybe I am thinking of someone else...
But yeah, SPEWS was a giant bag of shit. Thanks for reminding me there was something worse than SORBS.
SORBS is a blight on the anti-spam effort front and should have been run out of town on a rail years ago. It has done more damage to the perception of anti-spam lists than any other single entity on the internet. Hell, some spammers are better behaved and have better morals than the operator(s) of SORBS. I would literally turn to Microsoft or McAffee for anti-spam solutions before I'd even consider SORBS.
I hope the dirtbags that ran SORBS end up destitute in a gutter somewhere.
I've never understood why anyone buys the Smart car. It gets worse gas milage than a used Jetta TDI, has basically zero cargo room and looks ridiculous. For $7000 or less you can get a 50mpg FULL SIZED sedan that will last you to 500k miles.
Or you can spend $15k+ to a Smart car, have no room to haul anything around (much less 5 people if you're so inclined) and get substandard gas milage. The only possible reason I can see to buy a smart car vs a used (or even new) diesel car is because you live somewhere that parking spaces are at a premium and you can somehow shoehorn the Smart into a space that you can't fit a normal sized car into.
Either way, the Smart is a joke. Expensive, too small for real use and crappy gas milage for the size.
What the heck do you mean you don't agree the definition of cybersquatting? Cybersquatting is very clearly defined. If you buy a domain you have no intention of using, other than to resell at a higher price, you are cybersquatting. You are buying domains with the intention of reselling them at a higher price, ergo you are a cybersquatter.
Don't try to dodge the ball here, you are a cybersquatter plain and simple. Whether or not that makes you scum is left up to the reader - for the record I think you are a dirt bag. Others may not. Even though I think you are a dirt bag, I understand your logic (and the logic of the rest of the cybersquatting world) and appreciate it, even if I don't agree with it. Cybersquatters are bottom feeders, plain and simple... but the bottom feeders exist because the system allows them to exist. The system needs to be fixed and the problem of dirt bags like you goes away. I don't blame you for being a dirt bag, it's just who you are. We, as keepers of the internet, need to make it so you can't survive. Ultimately, it is our fault for designing a system that allows bottom feeders like you to exist, when we have the control and capability to make your environment hostile to your sort of life.
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I don't suppose there's any chance in getting this phone in a flavor that supports TMobile's 3G network?
That's why I've always maintained correct/proper capitalization and grammar and compete sentences, even in IMs and IRC chats. In fact, it actually slows me down when I have to purposely corrupt a text message in order to reduce its size (such as on Twitter or SMS).
Dang, I thought I was the only one who did this. Over the past couple years, I have even started slipping myself... but when I notice it, I try to correct it in my texting. If I'm on a real keyboard, I always try to use proper spelling, punctuation and grammar... but sometimes I let myself slip on a phone pad. T9 has an effect on my spelling more than anything else, oddly enough. Although, I think T9 has improved my spelling, since it's faster to spell it properly in T9 anyway. God forbid if you get the wrong spelling of something on a learning T9 phone... then it shows up like that until you go through the usually annoying process of getting rid of it.
Except that you understood it, and thus it is perfectly acceptable language. That's the beauty of a living language -- it evolves.
Now if I had wanted to complain about your abuse of the language, I would have told you to put quotes around your first use of This, excuse me, I mean "This".
So your criteria for "Perfectly Acceptable" is that it can be understood? Seriously?
That's not the beauty of a living language, that's the "beauty" of the human cognition system. It has nothing to do with the language, living or dead. Your entire premise is false either way, though. Just because something can be understood does not make it acceptable. l33t sp34k is understandable as well, but that does not make it perfectly acceptable. It's annoying to read and juvenile.
I am not making any comments on the use of "This." as a statement, please keep that in mind. I'm just calling you on your bullshit statement that "anything understandable is perfectly acceptable language."
But we are talking about commodity components, not pre-built systems if we are talking about desktops. You can't buy a good pre-built system - they simply don't make them. You can get boutique built systems that are good, but they tend to be Apple-Expensive.
You can easily compare a Mac desktop to a commodity built system... just pick the same parts. Price = 1/2. You're paying 2x the cost for the OS and the little DRM chip that lets it run. It's an Apple tax, just like the Microsoft tax, just a hell of a lot more.
So I just priced out a Lenovo Thinkpad vs a MacBook Pro. For essentially the same laptop, the Lenovo was about $450 cheaper - no small chunk of change. For the SAME price as the MacBook, I could get a far superior Lenovo in terms of performance and storage. The CPU could be upgraded to a quad core (not even offered on the Mac), the hard drive could be upgraded to a 7200 rpm or a solid state, could add a pantone color sensor and a Wacom digitizing tablet. These options aren't even offered on the Mac, and at a higher price point. If you wanted to go more budget, you could get that price down more than $400, but the Lenovo's are arguably one of the better built laptops on the market today, so going with your assertion that MacBook build quality is top notch (I won't argue with it, they seem decent from the few times I used them) - the Lenovo is comparable.
Now, lets say you want to be safe, lets add AppleCare into the bunch - this gives you 3 years of P/L warranty. For the same coverage on the Lenovo? $101. So now the price difference is $700. Over $3200 for a 17" MacBook or $2500 for a Lenovo. 1/2 the price? No, not in the laptop arena, but $700 can buy you a pretty nice "backup" notebook - however, the extended Warranty on the Lenovo is Next Business day replacement - does Applecare offer that? Or do you have to wait until they fix it at their leisure?
The web is an incredibly huge piece of the internet.
Please tell us about these 65,000 other services that need a properly functioning DNS. Since the only protocol affected here is HTTP, and the only applications that use invalid URLs are either human-driven (browsers) or malware, I suggest that the NX response is fundamentally outdated and useless.
Wow, you are one clueless user. Please don't put fingers to keyboard and start talking authoritatively when you clearly know absolutely nothing about the subject or the problem at hand. Think before you type, next time.
Maybe you've heard of a little thing called "email?" It pretty much takes a huge chunk bandwidth on the net (mostly spam, granted), and then we have P2P stuff, which takes up the bulk of bandwidth I believe - far, far exceeding the HTTP protocol. These are just two of the services that are affected by it, and both exceed web traffic by significant margins. The web bandwidth is indeed a tiny fraction compared to everything else... just because web surfing dominates your life does not make it the dominate service on the internet.
The NX response is everything. It's the foundation of the entire domain resolution system. Saying it's outdated is absolutely and patently ludicrous. There are two proper responses that drive the entire internet, the return of a valid IP address and an NX response. When you start screwing with either one of those, you break the internet. Outdated indeed.
Except that this isn't actually true. You can certainly get a computer for half the price, but it's never the same specs/quality of build, it's always lower. You can spec out comparable Dells, HPs, ThinkPads, whatever, and they always come out to about the same price as the Apple gear. I always used to buy commodity PC stuff, and every time I end up replacing major components (motherboard, ram, power supply, etc) within about three years. True, if I spent more on the PC it would last longer, but then it would cost the same as the Mac.
The problem with Apple isn't that their stuff is overpriced (it isn't) it's that they don't offer any products at lower price points. Of course, Apple is managing pretty well with this strategy, so you can't fault them for sticking with it.
Except that it is actually true. You show me a Mac at a given price point and I will show you a system around 1/2 the cost that will last just as long. I wasn't even talking about Laptops, but if you want to talk laptops, the price difference is may be slightly less drastic.
If you bought commodity PC stuff and replace major components in three years, you're buying the wrong stuff. I've been buying commodity components for the better part of 25+ years and very rarely do I have a part fail before it becomes obsolete, and even then I have cards sitting in a bin in the closet that are 15+ years old and still work (An S3 graphics card comes immediately to mind).
Lets talk about laptops, since that seems to be what you focused on. I will partially agree that commodity laptops fail before their time on occasions beyond what's reasonable, at least in my experience. However, for half the cost, I wouldn't really complain. If you spend an equivalent amount on a laptop, the cost is slightly cheaper with the same build quality. So yes, your argument carries a little more weight in the laptop arena, but then again, why would I spend extra on a Mac just to put another OS on it? Sorry, but OSX as a selling point is a non-starter for so many reasons.
So again, you're back to the fact that equivalent hardware costs less (not 1/2 in the case of laptops) as the Mac version for no valid reason.
Dell.
As much as I hate them, their warranty replacement is ridiculously simple and fast. Anytime I've had an issue with Dell components under warranty they ship a replacement out without arguing. They don't even require me to ship the item back first, they just ship out the replacement and include a return label that I put the broken part in and ship it back for free.
I can fault Dell for many things, but warranty replacement is not one of them.
The problem with your methodology in determining that they are a good company from your experience is the fact that you paid twice as much for the computer. Of course they are going to be "nice" to you for paying 2x the cost, they love people like you. You could have gotten a similar experience (except without the wait or multiple returns) by purchasing TWO of the same non-Apple computer. When the first one started to go tits up, just swap it out for the second one and you've a) fixed the problem yourself, b) not had to wait for the repair.
Alternately, you could have put 1/2 the cost in a savings account for those 2.5 years, earned some interest, and then purchased a new non-Apple computer that is 4x the speed as your previous one with 8x the RAM and 4x the hard drive space for the same or less than what you put in your savings.
So yeah... just because they "treated you real nice like" doesn't mean they didn't rape you.
Umm? I don't suppose this statistic is anyway affected by the fact that maybe they (Microsoft) give UP TO 35 FREAKING % cashback on items?
I mean... of course you're going to get a higher click through rate when you're offering a 35% discount for clicking through on Bing vs clicking through on Google.
I've gotten close to $1000 back for using Live search aka Bing. Of course I check there first... if I find an ad with the Microsoft cashback option, you better believe I snap it up. Then I go back to Google to do my real searching.
This statistic is completely meaningless since it's blatantly obvious that people are going to use a service that GIVES THEM MONEY vs a service that is just plain free. Gee, imagine that.
We aren't talking around each other. I was commenting on your inappropriate use of the term "bricked."
It's simply not bricked. You can try to talk logic circles or add special qualifiers all day long to try to shoehorn your claim that it's bricked into fitting the common definition of bricked. The problem is, though, it doesn't work.
A trashed OS does not brick a machine. Does it make it effectively useless to a computer illiterate person? Yes, perhaps it does... that point has never been in dispute. But it's still not bricked. Don't use a word improperly and then try to give it a new definition... doing that just makes words useless. Use the proper word to describe the situation to begin with.
It's like saying "My door is open" when really it's closed but unlocked. So your door is unlocked, not open. You're trying to redefine the word open when there's already a word to describe the state of your door accurately.
In this case, there's already a word to describe the state of the computer with a trashed OS (to the person who is possession of it at the time) - that word is "unusable." That word is NOT, by any stretch of the definition, "bricked."
I understand what you are saying, but it's still not bricked.
Since this is Slashdot, I will use a car analogy. It's like saying a brand new BMW is totaled because there's a hole in the gas tank and the car won't go anymore. Most people probably don't know how to replace or patch a gas tank, but no one is going to say it's totaled. Most people may not know how to reinstall an operating system, but no one with common sense would say it's bricked.
Calling a person an "amateur astronomer" truly minimizes the effort and dedication that "professional astronomers" put into learning their craft. Sometimes PhDs seem a little bit arrogant when they demand to be called "Doctor" rather than "Mister", but if you think about how much of their life they dedicated to studying and becoming a true expert in a field, it is quite reasonable to treat them with deference.
Today's "amateurs" are mostly hobbyists, and shouldn't be conflated with actual professionals. Amateur means someone who does something without pay, but it also implies a certain level of skill on par or slightly below professionals. Once upon a time Olympic athletes were all amateurs, but they were setting world records and competing at the very top tier. Nowadays, anyone with a 50 dollar telescope from Tasco can call themselves an "amateur astronomer" without any training whatsoever.
Are you an idiot or just a troll? Amateur does not imply a certain level of skill... in fact, it implies a certain LACK of skill. How the hell you can conflate the definition "amateur" with someone who is "on par or slight below professionals" is mind boggling. That word you're looking for to describe that already exists, and it's not "amateur." It's "Journeyman" or perhaps another word... but "amateur" is exactly the descriptive word to use for someone who does it as a "hobby." Lets take you for example... you are an amateur troll and/or internet user. You have no idea what you're doing, you're just here for fun and lulz. You are not a professional nor a journeyman. You are an AMATEUR.
As in, requires the receiver to "fix" the machine to use it. (In this case, an OS re-install is the way it would be fixed, but the average computer user doesn't really know for software or hardware.
So then, you're saying it's not bricked with this method? Bricking very specifically implies that the machine literally becomes as useful as brick. That's why it's called "bricking." If it still boots and can be reinstalled, it's not bricked.
Encrypt the entire drive with TrueCrypt or something. Use a strong cipher and a very strong passphrase. The laptop is as good as bricked to anyone who gets it.
I'm really curious as to how it's "as good as bricked" to anyone who gets it? Seems to me, with this solution, a simple reformat/reinstall of the OS would make the computer 100% usable. Is this not the case? I'm not familiar with the netbook in question, so maybe it's impossible to reinstall the OS on it... but if it's like a normal computer, trashing the drive does not in any way, shape or form brick the computer.
Care to enlighten us as to how a scrambled hard drive bricks a computer?
> There is a reason why L-A-W-Y-E-R sounds like L-I-A-R.
Lawyer and Liar sound nothing alike. That is, unless you are unable to pronounce the words properly. I've found that the people who pronounce Liar and Lawyer similarly are usually the uneducated or poorly educated type of people. People with higher education or that come from a less poor background typically pronounce the words correctly - which sound nothing alike, aside from sharing two letters.
LIE - ER
LAW - YER
There is nothing similar about them. Only uneducated folk make them sound similar. I guess we know where you come into the picture. :)
I am going to address the salient points in one post, instead of responding individually, since most of the responses are from clueless people - it's kind of pointless to engage in direct conversation with people so out of touch from reality.
1. As has already been explained, at least in minor detail, is that multi-part RARs are for media distributed over the internet. Pirated, not pirated ... it doesn't matter. The fact is that the media is there, it's popular and it's not going away. The file size limit of the distribution mechanism that shall not be named (according to rule #1) prevents large media files from being posted. So yes, it's partly a file size issue, see number 2.
2. BitTorrent is not the only distribution mechanism, nor is it the most efficient in many instances. However, even IF you are using BitTorrent, having multi-part RARs is extremely handy when only ONE or FEW of the RARs are corrupted - you only have to download a small chunk of data, perhaps from another provider, to complete the media in question. If it's distributed as a monolithic file, you have to then download another 12 GB (or more!) to get the complete file. So yes, it still serves a purpose, even with BT. See #3
3. I think multi-part RARs are fucking annoying as hell and I wish they would go away, even with their benefits. I am willing to download another 4, 8, 12 GB on the rare occasions I get corrupted files if it means getting rid of the fucking RARs. However, I accept the fact that RARs are here and they are here to stay for the immediate future ... therefore I work with them and do not cover my hears and shout that multi-part RARs don't exist and hope they go away. They won't. They are here, we have to deal with it.
4. Yes, several media players exist that play multi-part RARs just fine. Personally, I use XBMC - it is FAR, FAR, FAR away superior to VLC when it comes to playing media of any kind. It plays everything I've ever seen - There is no other media player on the face of the planet, except mPlayer (which is what XBMC uses) that is as versatile and complete as XBMC. VLC is a joke compared to the formats mPlayer/XBMC plays out of the box.
5. Now this point always gets peoples feathers ruffled, and I always get a good laugh out of it, because it's so easy to test yourself... but no one bothers to do it. I have bothered to do it, a number of times, just to be sure I'm not smoking crack: A RAR'd media file is smaller than the original. Yes, you read that right and yes, it goes against conventional wisdom, but the fact remains that a typical 60 minute show, weighing in at around 350 MB in size (SD) will be about 20 MB (give or take 10 MB or so) smaller in multi-part RAR's than when it's unrar'd, depending on your CODEC. While 20MB in savings in this day and age of 2 TB drives seems like a drop in the bucket (and in fact is a drop in the bucket), if you measure that 20 MB out over thousands of files, it becomes a more significant number. Is it worth RARing all your media? Probably not - but since the media already comes that way, why unrar it to play it and incur the small but measurable space penalty in addition to using up time and CPU cycles for absolutely no gain at all?
6. One poster seems to misunderstand what a serious media center is. It's not uncompressed video; It is a media center than can play back anything you throw at it. VLC is not it (or at least hasn't been it up until now?). XBMC, however, is. Either way, my point is (and this addresses the AC comment who is supposedly "close to the dev community," lol - whatever that means.) I offered to submit a patch to VLC upwards of 2 years ago that was rejected because they disagreed with the fact that VLC should not play files in such a format. I happily went on my way and used other media players. I've never said it wasn't VLC developers perogative to not include that functionality - because it most certainly is... but the fact that they abjectly refuse to accept the fact
I can't seem to find any additional information on the zipped file playback stated in the summary. Can anyone elaborate on that? Do they literally mean it will only play files that are zipped, or will it finally play back multi-part RAR files? I (and many others) have been asking for this functionality for years now - I even went so far as to submit a patch for this functionality... however, the developers (at least at the time) were whiny little princesses and refused to implement a feature like that because it compromises the integrity of VLC (no seriously, that was the reason).
As such, the lack of multi-part RAR playback has made VLC pretty much useless for serious media centers. If they've finally backpeddled and implemented this feature, my hat is off to them for manning up and accepting the fact that multipart RARs are a standard (however unfortunate that is) and the ability to play back media that is in that "format" is a necessity for a good player.
If they have still not implemented this functionality, however, VLC is still fairly useless for true universal media players, since other software is capable of it and works just as well if not better.
So - can anyone elaborate on that?
No shit, that is exactly my point.
SSDs are set to replace rotational media. That was what I stated.
So... to make it more clear to the people with reading comprehension issues:
Flash memory is set to replace rotational media.
This article indicates that Flash Memory (AKA SSDs) are only going to be an intermediary between rotational media and RAM. This is clearly not going to be the case going forward... this is WHY I wrote the GP post and pointed out that it's invalid.
WTF. Seriously. Are people that incapable of reading what I wrote or is it really that unclear? Going back over what I wrote, it still seems pretty clear, but maybe not.
I'm somewhat curious as to why people would moderate the original post off topic? It's specifically addresses the article and is ABOUT the article. How is it off topic?
Given the fact that every other post in the article is modded offtopic, I suspect someone has gone through and just modded everything off topic.
Either way, the point still stands. The article fails to recognize or address SSDs in any way, shape or form. As such, the article is basically mostly irrelevant in 2009 and going forward. It's interesting to see show how technology has changed in a mere two years between when the article was written and now, but as a useful prediction tool, it's been completely obliterated by the SSD future. As my original post pointed out as well, the convergence of persistent storage and temporary storage will further invalidate the article.
As for the post by Argent, I wasn't sure if that was addressed to me or not - if so, I have no idea what you're talking about. Your post has absolutely nothing to do to with my original response.
I couldn't quite figure out if the article willfully ignored the advent of SSDs or was written before they were available and not updated to include them (but it appears the article was updated to include other current technology).
Given the fact that SSDs are likely going to replace rotational media for most applications in the future, it makes this article basically meaningless, at least insofar as the fact that flash memory and the disk are/will be synonymous. As the article is basically predicated around the entire fact that flash memory will change the 5 minute rule to a degree, it invalidates the entire article.
To be relevant, the article really needs to include the current state of SSDs and a likely projection (10 year) of where the state of the art in SSDs.
I do, however, suspect we may see a shift from drives all together at some point (perhaps more than 10 years, but perhaps not) and the computer will just have persistent storage for everything in MRAM or some other technology that obliterates the line between RAM (for speed) and drives (for storage) - it's just one big pool that's hyper fast and persistent.
So really, I don't think this article has held up in even the intervening two years since 2007, and it certainly won't hold up for another 10 years.
Holy shit, SPEWS. I had forgotten about that... the guy was worse than SORBS. Wasn't he the creator of Courier as well? How can someone that messed up create something like Courier? Or maybe I am thinking of someone else...
But yeah, SPEWS was a giant bag of shit. Thanks for reminding me there was something worse than SORBS.
I, too, would like to know what company he works for so I can avoid them and direct the companies I deal with away from them as well.
What a dirtbag.
This is the best news I've heard all week!
SORBS is a blight on the anti-spam effort front and should have been run out of town on a rail years ago. It has done more damage to the perception of anti-spam lists than any other single entity on the internet. Hell, some spammers are better behaved and have better morals than the operator(s) of SORBS. I would literally turn to Microsoft or McAffee for anti-spam solutions before I'd even consider SORBS.
I hope the dirtbags that ran SORBS end up destitute in a gutter somewhere.
I've never understood why anyone buys the Smart car. It gets worse gas milage than a used Jetta TDI, has basically zero cargo room and looks ridiculous. For $7000 or less you can get a 50mpg FULL SIZED sedan that will last you to 500k miles.
Or you can spend $15k+ to a Smart car, have no room to haul anything around (much less 5 people if you're so inclined) and get substandard gas milage. The only possible reason I can see to buy a smart car vs a used (or even new) diesel car is because you live somewhere that parking spaces are at a premium and you can somehow shoehorn the Smart into a space that you can't fit a normal sized car into.
Either way, the Smart is a joke. Expensive, too small for real use and crappy gas milage for the size.
What the heck do you mean you don't agree the definition of cybersquatting? Cybersquatting is very clearly defined. If you buy a domain you have no intention of using, other than to resell at a higher price, you are cybersquatting. You are buying domains with the intention of reselling them at a higher price, ergo you are a cybersquatter.
Don't try to dodge the ball here, you are a cybersquatter plain and simple. Whether or not that makes you scum is left up to the reader - for the record I think you are a dirt bag. Others may not. Even though I think you are a dirt bag, I understand your logic (and the logic of the rest of the cybersquatting world) and appreciate it, even if I don't agree with it. Cybersquatters are bottom feeders, plain and simple ... but the bottom feeders exist because the system allows them to exist. The system needs to be fixed and the problem of dirt bags like you goes away. I don't blame you for being a dirt bag, it's just who you are. We, as keepers of the internet, need to make it so you can't survive. Ultimately, it is our fault for designing a system that allows bottom feeders like you to exist, when we have the control and capability to make your environment hostile to your sort of life.