It's quite user friendly. It's just developer unfriendly, which is why you hear us/.-ers whining about it. Users understand that they don't have anything to do. Developers want to know why. Users would be confused by an error message that would help a developer fix an issue. Developers could use the info to fix an issue.
"Regular" users and developers (or at least techies) are two different types of people with two different approaches to using a computer. The Mac is very user friendly but not particularly developer friendly. If you want a developer-friendly OS, use Linux or learn how to expose the Mac's developer interfaces.
my recent experience with... users is they are in general, completely incapable of following instructions, know exactly zero about the internet, and couldn't read an error message "what's that? I told you it doesnt work!" even if someone had a gun to their head.
I don't see this as a Mac problem. It's just a sign that clueless users are finally getting systems they can reasonably handle now (i.e. "not Windows").
As for the "FTP" thing you talk about, well, most of the time there isn't an error message, and the program just doesn't do anything. If you can't connect to an FTP server, what does the file list look like? An empty file list. The user's expected action is the same either way. Either there are no files and the user should do nothing, or there is no server to connect to and the user should do nothing. Just because some dumb-and-ugly Windows FTP client throws a cryptic error message in your face when it can't connect doesn't mean that that's the "right way" to do things.
I think you missed my point. The statement about "universal higher education" is a common one, and is inherently flawed for the reasons you give. I was simply suggesting that instead of making more and more "free" (a.k.a. everybody-pays) education levels, why don't we fix the ones we already have (and already have funding for) so that they're actually useful.
It's not a problem with businesses... they have requirements and minimum skill-sets that a worker needs in order to do a particular job. The problem is with an education system that is so horribly broken that there are high-school students that can't read or balance their own checkbook. Those people are unhireable, but not through any fault of any commercial entity. It's entirely a function of a failing education system increasingly bureaucratized and mired in its own legal and cultural idiocy.
It would probably be prudent to fix the existing "lower" education systems we already have so that they are once again adequate training to hold a normal job. We should be fully trained in "general studies" by the end of our 6th or 7th year of school, and ready to take 4 or 5 years of specialized training for a field. The first 4 or 5 year specialist training course should be paid for by the government, any additional ones, well, ka-ching!
The iPhone is lip service. A couple of days ago, that realization hit me.
1) The iPhone is released as a "regular" cell phone. It has a crappy service provider, a sketchy network, and all the lockdowns necessary to satisfy said SP+Network. AT&T takes the bait. 2) Speculation grew over a few days over how much in common parts/software the iPhone shares with iPod. iPod is an established product and brand with no ties to anyone else's product, service, or network. iPhone is "AT&T-locked crap" and even the "iPhone" trademark was disputed with at least 3 other companies. It's not long for the world because... 3) The next iPod is supposedly an iPhone device without the cellular capabilities. This sounds limited, but it's not. It'll still be a phone. Regardless of whether Apple includes an actual "handset" shape to the device, there have been microphone+speaker add-ons for the iPod for years. There's also an iPod SDK. This means... 4) Someone will develop a SIP client for iPod. Hell, Apple will probably make one themselves. It will use the iPod's soon-to-be-added WiFi feature. You will have a "cell phone" anywhere with a hot spot. That leaves you SOL if you're away from WiFi hotspots, though. Unless... 5) Google bought assloads of dark fiber and is talking up the prospect of a nationwide WiFi network.
Apple iPod-with-all-of-iPhone's-capabilities-except-actu al-cell-network-connectivity + Google's no-longer-dark-fiber-network-with-WiFi-access-poin ts-everywhere = no more need for a cell phone.
AT&T just stepped on a land mine and no longer has any legs. It was a land mine shaped like a stylized apple with a bite out of it.
You didn't read Scenario #2. The killer was obviously guilty, and the evidence proved it regardless of the method of acquisition. BUT in Scenario #2, the cops that broke the law had their livelihood stripped from them for the offense. In essence, there were two crimes by two criminals, and there should be two convictions and two punishments to match. The current system is broken and would deliver zero convictions and zero punishments for those same two crimes and criminals.
- Slander (It besmirches my good name when they associate themselves with me) - Libel (They wrote it somewhere in their records, and libel is just slander written on paper) - Fraud (They're taking my money and not giving it to me) - Identity theft (They're claiming to represent me, but they really don't) - Wire fraud (I doubt physical checks are involved in every case... if a wire transfer happens, it's wire fraud)
If I play a song and a recording of that song gets played on an internet radio station, I expect to have my payment demands met. And if that means that my payment demands are $0 per play, then that's what it had better be. And if the RIAA starts collecting money in my name I will sue them for identity theft (they != me), fraud (they took money that wasn't owed), slander (I don't want to be associated with them!), libel (they had to put it on paper somewhere...), and anything else I can find against them. And there will be some ambulance-chaser-type lawyer that will take the case, just because the potential for payout is huge. And the RIAA will lose. Big time. Fecal material will be introduced into a mechanical cooling device, and the poo-spray will coat the RIAA and quite possibly members of congress. They could be counted as an accomplice in this sort of thing just for passing a bad law. At the very least, they could be called to testify. It would piss them off and force them to think about what they've done. (Normally, I'd say that pissing them off is a bad idea, but congress doesn't do much useful work anyway, so I'm not so worried. Besides, you'd be pissing them off one-at-a-time rather than en masse.)
The time for whining and petitioning has ended. It's time to fight dirty. And no major assault is worthwhile unless it's done by everyone in parallel. When this sort of attack clogs the legal system, there will be change. Remember, it's not about winning (although that would be nice too), it's about causing so much disruption that nobody in their right mind would pass a law like this again. Oh, and it's also about destroying the RIAA and its member companies in any way necessary or possible. This is war.
It sounds to me like everyone on/. needs to buy one share of each major record label, then attend the shareholder meetings and stage an uprising.
"You're not furthering profit! We demand you make more profit! You keep chasing so-called pirates, wasting money, annoying paying customers, and you don't add anything of value that might increase profit! WE DEMAND HEADS! ON PLATTERS!"
This would get their attention and quite probably darken the pants of all of their board members. Because if you think about it, we might each have a tiny stake in the company, but that many voices would certainly sway the major stakeholders against the board of directors and cause change.
Unfortunately, "price of cable" includes the cable itself, the salary of the guy(s) they have to keep employed to maintain it, the costs of permits and digging (or pole-space leasing, since most "telephone" poles are actually owned by the local electric utility), and probably 5-10 bureaucrats and administrators to keep records and have meetings about that cable.
The "price of cable" is much higher than the $0.50/foot you were probably thinking. Oh, and multiply that times millions of cables in a country the size of the USA, and you have a recipe for charging the customer $100/month for DSL.
Unfortunately, it became legal precedent in the early, formative years of the USA (and probably before) to "undo" the proceedings against a criminal for which the evidence against him was acquired illegally. This is due to a lack of logical understanding and separation of duties. Now we have an entire legal culture built around loopholes and exploitation thereof. Consider a scenario in two different ways:
A murder is discovered, and a suspect is charged. The police illegally search the suspect to find a "smoking gun" piece of evidence. There's no question in anyone's mind that this person is the murderer. The person even admits that they did it.
Scenario #1 - "Reality": The weasel/lawyer defending the suspect gets the case thrown out because the police conducted their search illegally. All evidence against the murderer already presented in this case is considered inadmissable because it may have been affected by the illegal search. The killer goes free.
Scenario #2 - "The Right Way": The "tainted evidence" defense is pure crap and doesn't work. Heck, it's not even attempted. The killer gets what's coming to him. BUT... the police still carried out that illegal search. Bring charges against the officers responsible for the illegal search. Dismiss them (fire them) and fine them, then bar them from ever serving as a police officer ever again. In fact, disallow them from being a security guard, private detective, or even a toll booth operator. They should never be in a position of responsibility for the physical safety or authority to grant access to property in the primary responsibilities of their job ever again. This way, you get a system that properly punishes crime, while deterring counter-criminal-crime in the process.
Bottom line: these FBI agents are criminals and should be prosecuted as such.
Periodic flooding? That hasn't happened anywhere heavily populated in almost 15 years (and 15 years ago, the area that flooded wasn't heavily populated). They built big-ass levees to keep that from happening anywhere that it matters. Nobody gives a damn if it floods the bean fields.
The earthquake thing is huge though. Nothing here is built for it. Northern St. Louis County will become the lake at the meeting of two rivers. Mid-county will be a war zone. South county might survive largely intact, since it's on more solid rock (the last of the Ozark foothills). Unfortunately, south county is fricking expensive compared to the soon-to-be-awash-in-the-nearest-river areas like north and west county.
Note that I don't mention downtown. St. Louis city represents a small fraction of the population, and is mostly ghetto. The sooner it collapses (by earthquake or whatever), the sooner we can reclaim it and build something decent. There are small, decent neighborhoods surrounded by urban wasteland. Parts of north city can be described as "Beiruit-like", but I fear I may be insulting the city of Beiruit.
Nobody here worries about earthquakes, though. We're far more likely to die on the front bumper of some idiot's SUV than in an earthquake. Besides, some whackjob "scientist" predicted an earthquake of 6.x magnitude to happen on December 3, 1990. Here's a rather humorous write-up about it. Not to say it can't happen, just that it's not anything to get worked up about.
Nah, St. Louis has none of that. Nor does its surrounding metro area. It has less social annoyance, but much greater for police abuse.
- You can buy for less than $.50/sq.ft/mo. BYORoaches if you're that into them, but the neighbors might complain.
- Wehrenberg charges $7.50 for a ticket at their prime theaters, and there are always seats for even the big shows. The only planning-ahead needed is if you want to see a major release on opening weekend on an Imax or other gigantic screen.
- You pay a bit extra up front for a car (unless it's a Dodge truck or minivan) due to shipping costs. Other than that, it's all sales tax, property tax, and insurance and maintenance. Gas is cheaper here than most places because there are refineries nearby.
- Ok, so you're screwed on this one. There isn't a decent beach within 1500 miles. But there are lots of swimming pools, several water parks, and many, many lakes (with rocky shores). They're good boating lakes, too.
- No subway. Minimal light-rail service (stadium, airport, a couple of college campuses, and not much else). Metro-wide bus service, but poor coverage and crap routes and timing. Lots of interstates clogged with traffic, though.
- There are some good "nightlife" spots, but not many. Don't come here looking for it.
- There would be hell to pay if some jackass dared to try to put up toll booths here. It's political suicide in this area, and no one does it (duh).
- The police here are bored. This is not a good thing.
- They're warming up their spy gear here, too. But the police are bored and will have plenty of time to nitpick. Again, this is not a good thing.
I tend to agree with the GP here, and I write in these "newfangled" languages a lot. Mostly C#, in fact (ooh... MS... evil...). A typical code block goes like this:
Customer c = new Customer(); c.Active = true; c.FirstName = txtFName.Text; c.LastName = txtLName.Text;
Obviously, there are some inefficiencies in there. I usually don't create connections on a local level in a GC'ed language, for starters. No nitpicking on example code.:) But my point is that it's obvious what c and dbt represent. Short variable names are exactly what's needed in an instance like this.
On the original topic, I typically allow my comments to reach the 100th column before I forcibly wrap them, but comments are indented like everything else, so they might lose 8 or 12 characters at the left side. I also like block comments instead of inline or end-of-line, since it prevents my comments from getting chopped at the 100th column as much.
#1 seems like it would be horribly cost-prohibitive. Too many redundant systems that cost money, for little-to-no payback for most people. You won't ever see this on commodity hardware.
#2 and #3 seem to be happening even on PC's now. Give it 5 years and they'll be widespread. I know that #2 sounds remarkably similar to what's going on in Mac OS X's new "Time Machine" feature as well as ZFS. I give them both a couple of years before they're stable enough for everyday use. #3 is partially already there in Mac OS X, and no doubt other systems. Apple calls it Xgrid. There's gotta be someone else out there with the same thing for Linux or Windows. The necessary underlying technology is Zeroconf (a.k.a. Bonjour) and a network connection.
The technology has persisted, but it hasn't been feasible against the trade-offs typically found in the commodity/PC market. Size has always been a major limiting factor. Nobody wants a washing-machine-sized computer in their house (much less that plus some refrigerator-sized peripherals), and fewer and fewer people are tolerating traditional PC-sized computers. Smaller is better for everyday personal computing as well as datacenters (rack space is limited), and that leaves little room for the features you mentioned (especially #1). DEC, et al were just ahead of their time.
Who the hell needs a freakin' manual for RPG/400? Good god. It's just COBOL with all the logic removed and a template to fill out. Like Crystal Reports is for SQL databases, only 20 years older.
"Hmm... let's see... I want this EMPNUM, EMPNAM, EMPDAT, EMPSAL, and EMPTRM... Now I want EMPDAT and EMPTRM compared to give me EMPEMP... and go! Yaaaaay! Reports!" - pointy-haired bosses everywhere, circa 1975
40's - Frank Sinatra 50's - Buddy Holly 60's - The Beatles 70's - Led Zeppelin 80's - Prince 90's - Nirvana 2000's - ??? (live in fear... history isn't always kind to a decade)
For this much hype, you'd think it came with 3 5-star hookers and a brick of cocaine straight from colombia
And even if it did, there would be anti-fanbois that complain that it lacked the necessary rolled c-note to snort the coke and that the Treo 576Whatever843 comes with 5 hookers and certificates guaranteeing them to be disease-free. And the Crackberry has crack instead, and a server that sends you more over a proprietary protocol without the need to go to a dealer to get refills.
I do agree that the post rate for iPhone stories is getting absurd, though. Only 2 more days and the wait will be over... the wait for everyone to stop posting their random idiotic speculation about how good/bad/shiny it's going to be!
An authorized developer must have demonstrated the ability to develop and program excellent software for Nintendo video game systems or for other video game or computer systems
That tells me that they still want to see some prior work before allowing you to do even Tier 2 development. Note that the requirement only requires excellent software, not necessarily entertainment software (i.e. games).
Slashdot Mirror
It's quite user friendly. It's just developer unfriendly, which is why you hear us /.-ers whining about it. Users understand that they don't have anything to do. Developers want to know why. Users would be confused by an error message that would help a developer fix an issue. Developers could use the info to fix an issue.
"Regular" users and developers (or at least techies) are two different types of people with two different approaches to using a computer. The Mac is very user friendly but not particularly developer friendly. If you want a developer-friendly OS, use Linux or learn how to expose the Mac's developer interfaces.
my recent experience with... users is they are in general, completely incapable of following instructions, know exactly zero about the internet, and couldn't read an error message "what's that? I told you it doesnt work!" even if someone had a gun to their head.
I don't see this as a Mac problem. It's just a sign that clueless users are finally getting systems they can reasonably handle now (i.e. "not Windows").
As for the "FTP" thing you talk about, well, most of the time there isn't an error message, and the program just doesn't do anything. If you can't connect to an FTP server, what does the file list look like? An empty file list. The user's expected action is the same either way. Either there are no files and the user should do nothing, or there is no server to connect to and the user should do nothing. Just because some dumb-and-ugly Windows FTP client throws a cryptic error message in your face when it can't connect doesn't mean that that's the "right way" to do things.
Seriously, WTF is wrong with you Windows users?
I think you missed my point. The statement about "universal higher education" is a common one, and is inherently flawed for the reasons you give. I was simply suggesting that instead of making more and more "free" (a.k.a. everybody-pays) education levels, why don't we fix the ones we already have (and already have funding for) so that they're actually useful.
It's not a problem with businesses... they have requirements and minimum skill-sets that a worker needs in order to do a particular job. The problem is with an education system that is so horribly broken that there are high-school students that can't read or balance their own checkbook. Those people are unhireable, but not through any fault of any commercial entity. It's entirely a function of a failing education system increasingly bureaucratized and mired in its own legal and cultural idiocy.
free universal higher education
It would probably be prudent to fix the existing "lower" education systems we already have so that they are once again adequate training to hold a normal job. We should be fully trained in "general studies" by the end of our 6th or 7th year of school, and ready to take 4 or 5 years of specialized training for a field. The first 4 or 5 year specialist training course should be paid for by the government, any additional ones, well, ka-ching!
The iPhone is lip service. A couple of days ago, that realization hit me.
u al-cell-network-connectivity + Google's no-longer-dark-fiber-network-with-WiFi-access-poin ts-everywhere = no more need for a cell phone.
1) The iPhone is released as a "regular" cell phone. It has a crappy service provider, a sketchy network, and all the lockdowns necessary to satisfy said SP+Network. AT&T takes the bait.
2) Speculation grew over a few days over how much in common parts/software the iPhone shares with iPod. iPod is an established product and brand with no ties to anyone else's product, service, or network. iPhone is "AT&T-locked crap" and even the "iPhone" trademark was disputed with at least 3 other companies. It's not long for the world because...
3) The next iPod is supposedly an iPhone device without the cellular capabilities. This sounds limited, but it's not. It'll still be a phone. Regardless of whether Apple includes an actual "handset" shape to the device, there have been microphone+speaker add-ons for the iPod for years. There's also an iPod SDK. This means...
4) Someone will develop a SIP client for iPod. Hell, Apple will probably make one themselves. It will use the iPod's soon-to-be-added WiFi feature. You will have a "cell phone" anywhere with a hot spot. That leaves you SOL if you're away from WiFi hotspots, though. Unless...
5) Google bought assloads of dark fiber and is talking up the prospect of a nationwide WiFi network.
Apple iPod-with-all-of-iPhone's-capabilities-except-act
AT&T just stepped on a land mine and no longer has any legs. It was a land mine shaped like a stylized apple with a bite out of it.
You didn't read Scenario #2. The killer was obviously guilty, and the evidence proved it regardless of the method of acquisition. BUT in Scenario #2, the cops that broke the law had their livelihood stripped from them for the offense. In essence, there were two crimes by two criminals, and there should be two convictions and two punishments to match. The current system is broken and would deliver zero convictions and zero punishments for those same two crimes and criminals.
This is ripe for charges of:
- Slander (It besmirches my good name when they associate themselves with me)
- Libel (They wrote it somewhere in their records, and libel is just slander written on paper)
- Fraud (They're taking my money and not giving it to me)
- Identity theft (They're claiming to represent me, but they really don't)
- Wire fraud (I doubt physical checks are involved in every case... if a wire transfer happens, it's wire fraud)
See how many more you can think of!
If I play a song and a recording of that song gets played on an internet radio station, I expect to have my payment demands met. And if that means that my payment demands are $0 per play, then that's what it had better be. And if the RIAA starts collecting money in my name I will sue them for identity theft (they != me), fraud (they took money that wasn't owed), slander (I don't want to be associated with them!), libel (they had to put it on paper somewhere...), and anything else I can find against them. And there will be some ambulance-chaser-type lawyer that will take the case, just because the potential for payout is huge. And the RIAA will lose. Big time. Fecal material will be introduced into a mechanical cooling device, and the poo-spray will coat the RIAA and quite possibly members of congress. They could be counted as an accomplice in this sort of thing just for passing a bad law. At the very least, they could be called to testify. It would piss them off and force them to think about what they've done. (Normally, I'd say that pissing them off is a bad idea, but congress doesn't do much useful work anyway, so I'm not so worried. Besides, you'd be pissing them off one-at-a-time rather than en masse.)
The time for whining and petitioning has ended. It's time to fight dirty. And no major assault is worthwhile unless it's done by everyone in parallel. When this sort of attack clogs the legal system, there will be change. Remember, it's not about winning (although that would be nice too), it's about causing so much disruption that nobody in their right mind would pass a law like this again. Oh, and it's also about destroying the RIAA and its member companies in any way necessary or possible. This is war.
It sounds to me like everyone on /. needs to buy one share of each major record label, then attend the shareholder meetings and stage an uprising.
"You're not furthering profit! We demand you make more profit! You keep chasing so-called pirates, wasting money, annoying paying customers, and you don't add anything of value that might increase profit! WE DEMAND HEADS! ON PLATTERS!"
This would get their attention and quite probably darken the pants of all of their board members. Because if you think about it, we might each have a tiny stake in the company, but that many voices would certainly sway the major stakeholders against the board of directors and cause change.
If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em then beat 'em.
Unfortunately, "price of cable" includes the cable itself, the salary of the guy(s) they have to keep employed to maintain it, the costs of permits and digging (or pole-space leasing, since most "telephone" poles are actually owned by the local electric utility), and probably 5-10 bureaucrats and administrators to keep records and have meetings about that cable.
The "price of cable" is much higher than the $0.50/foot you were probably thinking. Oh, and multiply that times millions of cables in a country the size of the USA, and you have a recipe for charging the customer $100/month for DSL.
Unfortunately, it became legal precedent in the early, formative years of the USA (and probably before) to "undo" the proceedings against a criminal for which the evidence against him was acquired illegally. This is due to a lack of logical understanding and separation of duties. Now we have an entire legal culture built around loopholes and exploitation thereof. Consider a scenario in two different ways:
A murder is discovered, and a suspect is charged. The police illegally search the suspect to find a "smoking gun" piece of evidence. There's no question in anyone's mind that this person is the murderer. The person even admits that they did it.
Scenario #1 - "Reality": The weasel/lawyer defending the suspect gets the case thrown out because the police conducted their search illegally. All evidence against the murderer already presented in this case is considered inadmissable because it may have been affected by the illegal search. The killer goes free.
Scenario #2 - "The Right Way": The "tainted evidence" defense is pure crap and doesn't work. Heck, it's not even attempted. The killer gets what's coming to him. BUT... the police still carried out that illegal search. Bring charges against the officers responsible for the illegal search. Dismiss them (fire them) and fine them, then bar them from ever serving as a police officer ever again. In fact, disallow them from being a security guard, private detective, or even a toll booth operator. They should never be in a position of responsibility for the physical safety or authority to grant access to property in the primary responsibilities of their job ever again. This way, you get a system that properly punishes crime, while deterring counter-criminal-crime in the process.
Bottom line: these FBI agents are criminals and should be prosecuted as such.
Periodic flooding? That hasn't happened anywhere heavily populated in almost 15 years (and 15 years ago, the area that flooded wasn't heavily populated). They built big-ass levees to keep that from happening anywhere that it matters. Nobody gives a damn if it floods the bean fields.
The earthquake thing is huge though. Nothing here is built for it. Northern St. Louis County will become the lake at the meeting of two rivers. Mid-county will be a war zone. South county might survive largely intact, since it's on more solid rock (the last of the Ozark foothills). Unfortunately, south county is fricking expensive compared to the soon-to-be-awash-in-the-nearest-river areas like north and west county.
Note that I don't mention downtown. St. Louis city represents a small fraction of the population, and is mostly ghetto. The sooner it collapses (by earthquake or whatever), the sooner we can reclaim it and build something decent. There are small, decent neighborhoods surrounded by urban wasteland. Parts of north city can be described as "Beiruit-like", but I fear I may be insulting the city of Beiruit.
Nobody here worries about earthquakes, though. We're far more likely to die on the front bumper of some idiot's SUV than in an earthquake. Besides, some whackjob "scientist" predicted an earthquake of 6.x magnitude to happen on December 3, 1990. Here's a rather humorous write-up about it. Not to say it can't happen, just that it's not anything to get worked up about.
Nah, St. Louis has none of that. Nor does its surrounding metro area. It has less social annoyance, but much greater for police abuse.
- You can buy for less than $.50/sq.ft/mo. BYORoaches if you're that into them, but the neighbors might complain.
- Wehrenberg charges $7.50 for a ticket at their prime theaters, and there are always seats for even the big shows. The only planning-ahead needed is if you want to see a major release on opening weekend on an Imax or other gigantic screen.
- You pay a bit extra up front for a car (unless it's a Dodge truck or minivan) due to shipping costs. Other than that, it's all sales tax, property tax, and insurance and maintenance. Gas is cheaper here than most places because there are refineries nearby.
- Ok, so you're screwed on this one. There isn't a decent beach within 1500 miles. But there are lots of swimming pools, several water parks, and many, many lakes (with rocky shores). They're good boating lakes, too.
- No subway. Minimal light-rail service (stadium, airport, a couple of college campuses, and not much else). Metro-wide bus service, but poor coverage and crap routes and timing. Lots of interstates clogged with traffic, though.
- There are some good "nightlife" spots, but not many. Don't come here looking for it.
- There would be hell to pay if some jackass dared to try to put up toll booths here. It's political suicide in this area, and no one does it (duh).
- The police here are bored. This is not a good thing.
- They're warming up their spy gear here, too. But the police are bored and will have plenty of time to nitpick. Again, this is not a good thing.
On the original topic, I typically allow my comments to reach the 100th column before I forcibly wrap them, but comments are indented like everything else, so they might lose 8 or 12 characters at the left side. I also like block comments instead of inline or end-of-line, since it prevents my comments from getting chopped at the 100th column as much.
but why mention OS X and not it?
Didn't know about it. "Slashdot wisdom" had led me to believe that that particular feature was nixed from Vista when WinFS vanished (again).
#1 seems like it would be horribly cost-prohibitive. Too many redundant systems that cost money, for little-to-no payback for most people. You won't ever see this on commodity hardware.
#2 and #3 seem to be happening even on PC's now. Give it 5 years and they'll be widespread. I know that #2 sounds remarkably similar to what's going on in Mac OS X's new "Time Machine" feature as well as ZFS. I give them both a couple of years before they're stable enough for everyday use. #3 is partially already there in Mac OS X, and no doubt other systems. Apple calls it Xgrid. There's gotta be someone else out there with the same thing for Linux or Windows. The necessary underlying technology is Zeroconf (a.k.a. Bonjour) and a network connection.
The technology has persisted, but it hasn't been feasible against the trade-offs typically found in the commodity/PC market. Size has always been a major limiting factor. Nobody wants a washing-machine-sized computer in their house (much less that plus some refrigerator-sized peripherals), and fewer and fewer people are tolerating traditional PC-sized computers. Smaller is better for everyday personal computing as well as datacenters (rack space is limited), and that leaves little room for the features you mentioned (especially #1). DEC, et al were just ahead of their time.
Who the hell needs a freakin' manual for RPG/400? Good god. It's just COBOL with all the logic removed and a template to fill out. Like Crystal Reports is for SQL databases, only 20 years older.
"Hmm... let's see... I want this EMPNUM, EMPNAM, EMPDAT, EMPSAL, and EMPTRM... Now I want EMPDAT and EMPTRM compared to give me EMPEMP... and go! Yaaaaay! Reports!" - pointy-haired bosses everywhere, circa 1975
Jobs was getting kinda pudgy until he got cancer. A year later, the cancer was gone and so was his flab.
Go back to the golf course and work on your movie quotes. The code from Spaceballs was "1-2-3-4-5", not "1-2-3-4-5-6".
May the schwartz be with you.
Only let them get a bite... It works better if you're poisonous. "Poison, poison, poison... Tastyfish!"
Every decade has one.
40's - Frank Sinatra
50's - Buddy Holly
60's - The Beatles
70's - Led Zeppelin
80's - Prince
90's - Nirvana
2000's - ??? (live in fear... history isn't always kind to a decade)
I agree that Prince should start his own label and do whatever the hell he wants to with his music.
Again? He's already done that at least twice. Both times, Warner Bros. screwed him. I'm pretty sure he's done with that.
without the Apple lock-in, and (hopefully), without the Apple price
Instead, you have Microsoft lock-in and a Microsoft price.
For this much hype, you'd think it came with 3 5-star hookers and a brick of cocaine straight from colombia
And even if it did, there would be anti-fanbois that complain that it lacked the necessary rolled c-note to snort the coke and that the Treo 576Whatever843 comes with 5 hookers and certificates guaranteeing them to be disease-free. And the Crackberry has crack instead, and a server that sends you more over a proprietary protocol without the need to go to a dealer to get refills.
I do agree that the post rate for iPhone stories is getting absurd, though. Only 2 more days and the wait will be over... the wait for everyone to stop posting their random idiotic speculation about how good/bad/shiny it's going to be!
Can I get an "Amen"?