That's why Microsoft is seriously looking at VIA for both the processor and graphics for the XBox II (which from what I can tell is just going to be a new form factor for the XBox, not a whole new platoform). The Register has also been following reports that MS is investing heavily in chip design personel. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do the entire Xbox in house.
Phase 1: use off the shelf shit to get the Box to market quickly
Phase 2: reduce the number of outside suppliers needed (i.e. graphics and processor supplier the same) to help reduce costs.
Phase 3: do it all in house for maximum savings.
Interesting strategy if its true, but unless they start getting some compelling games out there it'll all be moot.
You don't (and frankly neither do I) but I can see quite a few people who do. I don't think the hardware is going to be the selling issue here (although they'll want it to be solid and somewhat competitive) but the administration tools. I can only speculate from what has been written and past remote admin software from Apple, but I bet the selling point will be how easy it is to administer the things. With any luck they'll do to server administration what they did to the Unix desktop, i.e. make it easy.
A cheaper 1U AMD based server box with FreeBSD or Slackware may be cheaper and just as easy to administer for you and I (and most of the/. crowd) but for things like schools, graphics departments, etc. this could *potentially* free up administration costs since you don't have to have a unix propeller head around part or all of the time.
Maybe because Apple isn't playing hardball with Schools (and maybe they are and we just don't hear about it).
Of course, MS is trying to finally put Apple away on the school level with their new licensing structure: i.e. you pay MS for every machine you have in school, no matter what it is or what software it runs. Reminds me of the deals that MS had with builders in the 80s and 90s: i.e. you pay me for every box you ship regardless of what you ship it with. I wonder if Apple will sue them over that as uncompetitive behavior?
Yup... they used their overvalued stock to diversify. A damn smart move by case. Of course it sucks balls if you own their stock (and I do). But if I were in the same situation I would have done the same thing. Case was savvy enough to know AOL's valuation wouldn't be that sky high for long. You might as well take advantage of it.
It's the other end of PA from where you're at. You're in civilization...
I'm going to have to disagree, but -- at the risk of sounding like a complete asshole -- once you drive about 10 feet beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh its just as bad. I love the City of Pittsburgh, but SWPA is a shithole.
Re:Out of the woodwork :)
on
Worst Buy
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Spread the word far and wide (and honestly). Nothing will hurt more than the bad press Best Buy will recieve. Also, try taking the matter up to corporate. Chances are they'll be none too happy with what was done (and if they don't care then you've only lost some time and effort).
Yucko. Spreadsheets are fine for certain types of dataset, but a real pain in the ass in terms of useability all but the most rudimentry statistical analysis. Give me a Stata command line any day, even if just calculating simple means and standard deviations. For calculating statistics on subsets of data a spreadsheet is going to be an excersize in torture.
Burning CDs is really no different that making mixed tapes (culturally, at least for me). Only the technology has changed. I'm not going to get into the legality of the issue, but its not like this type of activity is now somehow new. I make tapes (and burn CDs) for other people for much the same way I lend out books I like: because I want to share with them something I like, give them something that makes them happy (or impress them enough to let me get into their pants).
What's the upshot of all of this (other than trying to get laid)? I've discovered a whole lot of new music from tapes others have given me. Sure, a huge chuck of it gets listened to once or twice, but a lot of the time I end up discovering something special. And I figure the same thing happens to people to whom I give tapes to.
Now, the record companies can do their best to squash this, and in a very abstract way I can see their point of view (lets ignore the fact that they screw over artists and want to destroy fair use in the country), but in the end they're just going to hurt themselves. Casual sharing of music (as opposed to outright, high volume piracy) I think is a bigger marketing tool than radio and MTV combined. How did Metallica (or the vast majority of bands who aren't marketed to the hilt the second they're signed) get so big in the 80s/90s? They had little to no radio airplay, no presence on MTV, and as far as I can remember no huge push from their record company? I'd wager mostly from social sharing, whether it be listening to it in your bud's car, or a tape your friend threw at you that he made. I know I've bought just as much (if not more) music due to stuff I've heard on small webcasts, friends apartments and mixed tapes as I've ever heard from commercial radio and marketing.
A purely commercial construct is Britney. Manufactured under strict quality controls from the ground up according to exacting formulas developed by industry professionals.
While I'm no particular fan of Ms. Spears (nor non-fan, I don't really listen to her stuff) this attitude always makes me chuckle.
You've just described most Golden Era Motown bands, everyone who was ever on the Philes label (The Crystals, The Ronnets, etc) and a whole swath of music throughout the ages, some of which are considered to be the greats of the industry.
Manufactured and Good are orthogonal concepts. I'd put "Phil Spector's A Christmas Present For You" (as "manufactured" an album as you will ever find) up against any album, be it from a group who writes thier own stuff to the latest Transcontinental Media creation.
MiniDisc format does have benefits, though I only see them in the portable models
Exactly. I'm a bit of a minidisc nut, but I never saw the media as a CD killer, but as a Tape killer. As a replacement for making mixed tapes / portability I think the Minidisc is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I use it in conjunction with my CD collection, not as a replacement for.
This is great news for the big game houses, but could spell a problem for the smaller game houses that specialize in Mac games. There are quite a few wonderful games that are unavailable on PC in the shareware space, and these programmers have found an audiance due to the lower number of commercial games available.
Boy, there's some faulty logic. Since when has the quantity of games available ever effected purchasing decisions? If a game is good and available then it will sell on its own merits, plain and simple. Or do you assume that the population in general are a bunch of lobotomized drooling idiots that can't make a decision for themselves and simply buy the first "shiny" thing they come across?
I want to be able to have as large of a pool of games for the Mac to choose from. This looks like it will help in that regard.
I'm going to say something snarly here. Have they actually given serious thought to the possibility that the reason sales are down is because the fanatical followers of bubblegum pop have started to grow up?
STOP THE PRESSES: You mean music tastes move in cycles? Say it isn't so! I was so damn sure that all music was crap before my formative years, was brilliant during my formative years, then because crap again once I grew up.
That songwriter written, star producer, studio manufactured, pretty boy/girl sung stuff nSync and Ms. Spears puts out is downright crap, while the songwriter written, start produced, studio manufactured, pretty boy/girl sung Wall of Sound goodness of the Philles Stable (The Ronnetts, The Crystals, Gene Pitney...) is classic man. CLASSIC.
Arguably, this was already valid 10 years ago (many would say even 20-25, but I'm not that drastic)
That's because people tend to equate "what's good" with what they grew up with. Music today is no better or worse than music 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 200 years ago. Its just different.
(For the record, IPR sounds more like an Apple licenesing idea, what with the iMac, iPod, and tons of iSoftware.)
I think it sounds very Microsoft. They are the kings of Newspeak. They make damn sure everyone who deals with the public drop the same phrases over and over again to push their point. Remember these gems:
"Freedom to innovate"
"Intellectual Property Destroying"
and now
"Software Ecosystem"
Microsoft buy into the whole "manage the message" theory. It seems that everyone who deals with the press has been briefed on what "phrase of the month" they must try to get across.
So that means that the shutdown of Napster is responsible for the current economic situation.
Nope. I was saying that it was coincidence, and that the economy going tankola is probably a better explanation for record sales going into the toilet.
As much as I'd like to say that that is indeed the causation I'm very skeptical. I'd say that at the same time Napster was flying high the economy was bouncing around quite nicely, and the same time Napster got shut down the economy went tankola. Record sales I would think mirror economic conditions fairly consistently. Now, that's not to say the record industry's take is correct either.
I think Microsoft has begun to learn a little about high end computing. Remember a few years ago when all the trade rags were writing Unix obit, claiming MS was going to eat their lunch with cheap high end WinTel boxes (of course, MS [like any other company] were feeding this line of bull to everyone).
Well it looks like MS have learned there's a reason that high end, rock solid industrial strength computing isn't cheap. You can't just bung Windows on commodity hardware and expect it to 24/7. So the advantage that MS had at the departmental level in the past (cheaper and easier to use than its competitors, lest we forget that that was a major selling point of Windows in the 90s) it doesn't have on the high end. Unix is entrentched and competative price wise. MS are going to have a VERY HARD time eeking out market share at the high end. They'll have some successes, but the world will not be running on MS Big Iron any time soon (if ever)
Is not only about free trade and freedom of choice.
But it should be (in my honest opinion).
Maybe you don't like it, but that's how it works when you have a goverment. That's what it should do.
Of course folks love the gov't to interfere in situations where its benefitial to them. By your logic its perfectly OK for Disney and Fox to back Hollings new law and the DMCA since its going to benefit their economics.
The other problem with the gov't running infrastructure is they now have the moral high ground to regulate it above and beyond what they could do by law anyway. For example, you live in gov't funded housing and someone (not yourself) gets cought doing drugs, you get kicked out. How much howling would we hear the first time an administration came into power and ruled that "offensive material" had to be blocked from gov't subsidised internet access? They already do such things to private schools that accept gov't funding.
Power is going the same way, as can be evidenced by the collapse of the California power grid. How long will the state pay for the power companies to stay solvent until the state becomes the primary power-provider? Phone will go too, IMHO.
Power went haywire in Calif. not because of de-regulation in general, but California's "de-regulation" specifically.
I love proof by single (usually simplified and incorrect) example.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why Microsoft is seriously looking at VIA for both the processor and graphics for the XBox II (which from what I can tell is just going to be a new form factor for the XBox, not a whole new platoform). The Register has also been following reports that MS is investing heavily in chip design personel. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do the entire Xbox in house.
Phase 1: use off the shelf shit to get the Box to market quickly
Phase 2: reduce the number of outside suppliers needed (i.e. graphics and processor supplier the same) to help reduce costs.
Phase 3: do it all in house for maximum savings.
Interesting strategy if its true, but unless they start getting some compelling games out there it'll all be moot.
I have a sneaking feeling that it'll ship with Darwin and without Aqua. That should take out most of the speed bottleneck.
You don't (and frankly neither do I) but I can see quite a few people who do. I don't think the hardware is going to be the selling issue here (although they'll want it to be solid and somewhat competitive) but the administration tools. I can only speculate from what has been written and past remote admin software from Apple, but I bet the selling point will be how easy it is to administer the things. With any luck they'll do to server administration what they did to the Unix desktop, i.e. make it easy.
/. crowd) but for things like schools, graphics departments, etc. this could *potentially* free up administration costs since you don't have to have a unix propeller head around part or all of the time.
A cheaper 1U AMD based server box with FreeBSD or Slackware may be cheaper and just as easy to administer for you and I (and most of the
Maybe because Apple isn't playing hardball with Schools (and maybe they are and we just don't hear about it).
Of course, MS is trying to finally put Apple away on the school level with their new licensing structure: i.e. you pay MS for every machine you have in school, no matter what it is or what software it runs. Reminds me of the deals that MS had with builders in the 80s and 90s: i.e. you pay me for every box you ship regardless of what you ship it with. I wonder if Apple will sue them over that as uncompetitive behavior?
I'd say it's not that rare to have both. I will say that UNIX is a hell of a lot easier to master though. My sig other didn't come with man pages.
Not only that, but removing respective Browsers from KDE and Gnome doesn't kill either Windowing environment. He was wrong on so many accounts.
Yup... they used their overvalued stock to diversify. A damn smart move by case. Of course it sucks balls if you own their stock (and I do). But if I were in the same situation I would have done the same thing. Case was savvy enough to know AOL's valuation wouldn't be that sky high for long. You might as well take advantage of it.
It's the other end of PA from where you're at. You're in civilization...
I'm going to have to disagree, but -- at the risk of sounding like a complete asshole -- once you drive about 10 feet beyond the city limits of Pittsburgh its just as bad. I love the City of Pittsburgh, but SWPA is a shithole.
Spread the word far and wide (and honestly). Nothing will hurt more than the bad press Best Buy will recieve. Also, try taking the matter up to corporate. Chances are they'll be none too happy with what was done (and if they don't care then you've only lost some time and effort).
Yucko. Spreadsheets are fine for certain types of dataset, but a real pain in the ass in terms of useability all but the most rudimentry statistical analysis. Give me a Stata command line any day, even if just calculating simple means and standard deviations. For calculating statistics on subsets of data a spreadsheet is going to be an excersize in torture.
I wasn't talking about the transfer of media as much as the social aspect of sharing.
Burning CDs is really no different that making mixed tapes (culturally, at least for me). Only the technology has changed. I'm not going to get into the legality of the issue, but its not like this type of activity is now somehow new. I make tapes (and burn CDs) for other people for much the same way I lend out books I like: because I want to share with them something I like, give them something that makes them happy (or impress them enough to let me get into their pants).
What's the upshot of all of this (other than trying to get laid)? I've discovered a whole lot of new music from tapes others have given me. Sure, a huge chuck of it gets listened to once or twice, but a lot of the time I end up discovering something special. And I figure the same thing happens to people to whom I give tapes to.
Now, the record companies can do their best to squash this, and in a very abstract way I can see their point of view (lets ignore the fact that they screw over artists and want to destroy fair use in the country), but in the end they're just going to hurt themselves. Casual sharing of music (as opposed to outright, high volume piracy) I think is a bigger marketing tool than radio and MTV combined. How did Metallica (or the vast majority of bands who aren't marketed to the hilt the second they're signed) get so big in the 80s/90s? They had little to no radio airplay, no presence on MTV, and as far as I can remember no huge push from their record company? I'd wager mostly from social sharing, whether it be listening to it in your bud's car, or a tape your friend threw at you that he made. I know I've bought just as much (if not more) music due to stuff I've heard on small webcasts, friends apartments and mixed tapes as I've ever heard from commercial radio and marketing.
A purely commercial construct is Britney. Manufactured under strict quality controls from the ground up according to exacting formulas developed by industry professionals.
While I'm no particular fan of Ms. Spears (nor non-fan, I don't really listen to her stuff) this attitude always makes me chuckle.
You've just described most Golden Era Motown bands, everyone who was ever on the Philes label (The Crystals, The Ronnets, etc) and a whole swath of music throughout the ages, some of which are considered to be the greats of the industry.
Manufactured and Good are orthogonal concepts. I'd put "Phil Spector's A Christmas Present For You" (as "manufactured" an album as you will ever find) up against any album, be it from a group who writes thier own stuff to the latest Transcontinental Media creation.
MiniDisc format does have benefits, though I only see them in the portable models
Exactly. I'm a bit of a minidisc nut, but I never saw the media as a CD killer, but as a Tape killer. As a replacement for making mixed tapes / portability I think the Minidisc is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I use it in conjunction with my CD collection, not as a replacement for.
Actually, I think its a brilliant troll. Demonstrating exactly what the book/review was talking about. The name tipped me off.
This is great news for the big game houses, but could spell a problem for the smaller game houses that specialize in Mac games. There are quite a few wonderful games that are unavailable on PC in the shareware space, and these programmers have found an audiance due to the lower number of commercial games available.
Boy, there's some faulty logic. Since when has the quantity of games available ever effected purchasing decisions? If a game is good and available then it will sell on its own merits, plain and simple. Or do you assume that the population in general are a bunch of lobotomized drooling idiots that can't make a decision for themselves and simply buy the first "shiny" thing they come across?
I want to be able to have as large of a pool of games for the Mac to choose from. This looks like it will help in that regard.
I'm going to say something snarly here. Have they actually given serious thought to the possibility that the reason sales are down is because the fanatical followers of bubblegum pop have started to grow up?
STOP THE PRESSES: You mean music tastes move in cycles? Say it isn't so! I was so damn sure that all music was crap before my formative years, was brilliant during my formative years, then because crap again once I grew up.
That songwriter written, star producer, studio manufactured, pretty boy/girl sung stuff nSync and Ms. Spears puts out is downright crap, while the songwriter written, start produced, studio manufactured, pretty boy/girl sung Wall of Sound goodness of the Philles Stable (The Ronnetts, The Crystals, Gene Pitney...) is classic man. CLASSIC.
Arguably, this was already valid 10 years ago (many would say even 20-25, but I'm not that drastic)
That's because people tend to equate "what's good" with what they grew up with. Music today is no better or worse than music 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 200 years ago. Its just different.
(For the record, IPR sounds more like an Apple licenesing idea, what with the iMac, iPod, and tons of iSoftware.)
I think it sounds very Microsoft. They are the kings of Newspeak. They make damn sure everyone who deals with the public drop the same phrases over and over again to push their point. Remember these gems:
"Freedom to innovate"
"Intellectual Property Destroying"
and now
"Software Ecosystem"
Microsoft buy into the whole "manage the message" theory. It seems that everyone who deals with the press has been briefed on what "phrase of the month" they must try to get across.
So that means that the shutdown of Napster is responsible for the current economic situation.
Nope. I was saying that it was coincidence, and that the economy going tankola is probably a better explanation for record sales going into the toilet.
As much as I'd like to say that that is indeed the causation I'm very skeptical. I'd say that at the same time Napster was flying high the economy was bouncing around quite nicely, and the same time Napster got shut down the economy went tankola. Record sales I would think mirror economic conditions fairly consistently. Now, that's not to say the record industry's take is correct either.
Except the Reliant Robin at least gave us a laugh with Only Fools and Horses.
"Rodney, you're such a plonker..."
Trotter's Independent Trading 'New York, Paris, Peckham'
I think Microsoft has begun to learn a little about high end computing. Remember a few years ago when all the trade rags were writing Unix obit, claiming MS was going to eat their lunch with cheap high end WinTel boxes (of course, MS [like any other company] were feeding this line of bull to everyone).
Well it looks like MS have learned there's a reason that high end, rock solid industrial strength computing isn't cheap. You can't just bung Windows on commodity hardware and expect it to 24/7. So the advantage that MS had at the departmental level in the past (cheaper and easier to use than its competitors, lest we forget that that was a major selling point of Windows in the 90s) it doesn't have on the high end. Unix is entrentched and competative price wise. MS are going to have a VERY HARD time eeking out market share at the high end. They'll have some successes, but the world will not be running on MS Big Iron any time soon (if ever)
Is not only about free trade and freedom of choice.
But it should be (in my honest opinion).
Maybe you don't like it, but that's how it works when you have a goverment. That's what it should do.
Of course folks love the gov't to interfere in situations where its benefitial to them. By your logic its perfectly OK for Disney and Fox to back Hollings new law and the DMCA since its going to benefit their economics.
The other problem with the gov't running infrastructure is they now have the moral high ground to regulate it above and beyond what they could do by law anyway. For example, you live in gov't funded housing and someone (not yourself) gets cought doing drugs, you get kicked out. How much howling would we hear the first time an administration came into power and ruled that "offensive material" had to be blocked from gov't subsidised internet access? They already do such things to private schools that accept gov't funding.
Power is going the same way, as can be evidenced by the collapse of the California power grid. How long will the state pay for the power companies to stay solvent until the state becomes the primary power-provider? Phone will go too, IMHO.
Power went haywire in Calif. not because of de-regulation in general, but California's "de-regulation" specifically.
I love proof by single (usually simplified and incorrect) example.