Being a Christian myself, I'll take a crack at this.
My personal belief is that believing the Bible does not preclude belief in other life forms. In my mind, the book of Genesis clearly shows what God's hand did in our world, our solar system, our planet, etc. However, nowhere in the book of Genesis does it specifically say He didn't create life somewhere else. While it does say He created man in his own image, that does not mean it was impossible for Him to create life elsewhere in a different or similar form.
Though I don't think many other Christians share my viewpoint...
I currently use PHP 4.3.3 on a Windows box running IIS. It connects to several SQL Server 2000 boxes. I haven't had too much trouble with it unless the queries get too complex. At one point I had to do a join across physical servers and the script died. (workaround? used COM+ in PHP... it's a nightmare... argh)
My advice is to use it if that's what you have to use. The speed is decent (my speed is hampered by the fact that is running Windows Server 2000 on PII/350 with 256MB) and the relaibility is there. I would say, though, that it probably isn't suited for heavy load mission-critical stuff.
It is important to remember, though, that if you use GLADE you should have it set to Gtk+/Gtk/Gtk#. If you have it set to GLADE, I don't believe it will work in Windows (yet) due to lack of library support.
Is it just me, or is that a little bit...strange? They cost $180 before the price drop, and then they cost $150 afterwards. It's not that much of a difference, is it? Certainly not enough to merit twice as many people rushing out and buying one...what kind of consumer thinks, ooh, I'd always wanted a PS2 but, y'know, they were just thirty dollars too expensive for me? I guess this is the same mentality that wouldn't hesitate to buy something that costs $19.99 but would flinch at anything costing a flat $20, because it's too expensive.
To be honest, I think it's just you. =]
Everyone has a reserve price for a product on the market. Sure, $30 may not seem like much, but I have always had the mentality that I won't pay more than $150 for a gaming system. (Note: I still won't be buying a PS2) If you think $30 isn't much, perhaps it's because you're thinking in absolute terms? $30 is a full 1/6 of the original price. That's a 16.7% off the original price. Look at it that way. If you got 16.7% off the purchase of a car, I'm sure you'd be more likely to purchase it as well!
I had a teacher once who was very adamant on that point. We don't need pennies, he would say. Pennies are a waste of metal. We need to take pennies out of circulation. Someone would invariably ask about things that cost $19.99. Well, we'd raise their price to $20, fool, he would say. This makes sense to me--and it made sense to him, but I imagine that a lot of people wouldn't be able to handle it. The economy would collapse. A very large segment of the population considers $19.99 to be a hell of a lot cheaper than $20. On the PS2 front, these same people are ecstatic about the gigantic price drop and buy twice as many of the things as they bought before.
Is there actual research to back that up? I mean, I don't think there are that many people who think $.01 makes a huge difference. Typically the "xx.99" philosophy only refers to low-cost, low-prestige items, IIRC. I don't think PS2 falls into that category.
This could be a very interesting pricing strategy for video game console manufacturers:
1. Debut the console at a price point of something like $300.
2. Every three to six months thereafter (the timeframe could easily be extended or shortened) drop the price by, say, $10.
3. Laugh as sales nearly double right after doing this.
4. Repeat until console has saturated market.
Except, demand for game consoles is rarely that elastic.
This reminds of the GameCube thing that happened a while ago. I believe it was last summer that Nintendo had a deal going with the Cube:
Buy a $150 GameCube, and you get a free $50 game.
Well, this was quite a deal, but sales were stagnant. Some months later, the marketing geniuses at the big N decided to adopt a new tactic:
Buy a $100 GameCube, and you don't get anything for free.
Lo and behold, sales shot up. Why? Well, obviously, because now it's fifty dollars cheaper!!! Never mind that you have to buy a game to play the stupid thing, it's just a better deal.
There are other things to consider. You could buy a gamecube and rent games. You could use it to run linux. You could buy a used game for $30. All of these are less expensive that the original $150 tag. And $100 is 33% off the original price.
How stupid is the average shopper?
Depends, most are not that intelligent in my experience. However, I don't there is really anything shocking about this drop in price vs. double in sales.
I own a linksys 802.11b router and it came with an 802.11b PCMCIA card. I had no problems getting WEP to work on either the router or my laptop. Linksys did a great job making the process easy with the router's web-based config and the configuration tool software that is provided in the package for the card. I came up with a passphrase and I could easily apply it across the board.
However, when I bought a new laptop with 802.11g wireless built-in (not from Linksys) I started having all sorts of problems trying to get the new laptop connected. I have to use the default Windows XP configuration tool (which sucks, IMO) and even when I do get connected with WEP enabled, the speed is horrible. And I'm of much higher technical aptitude than those mentioned in the article.
My point? I think the ease of configuring wireless depends totally on the manufacturer, and whether or not you have all your products from the same manufacturer. And none of them do a very good job of telling the consumer how to protect themselves.
This is not true. Canada and the US have an agreement that Canadians entering the US and Americans entering Canada are still subject to the draft of either country.
The ever-popular "dodge the draft by fleeing to Canada" no longer works.
My point wasn't that M$ has absolutely no guilt in the matter. You bring up a good point by comparing the issue to driving. BOTH parties are responsible for using the product correctly and safely.
The manufacturer should make every effort they can to ensure the product works 100% out of the box. If you know full well that your Ford Explorer has tires that blow up on impact, you should not sell the product with those tires. In the event that you did so accidentally, you should make the public very aware of the situation and attempt to rectify the problem. Now, Microsoft has done reasonably well on the second account (a patch was/is available) but not so much the first. I think that having something similar to a "recall notice" for Windows OS that is very public could be a step in the right direction.
However, it is also the job of the consumer to be educated in their use of the product. A Ford Explorer is perfectly capable of towing a boat, but Ford does not necessarily include the right tools to do so. It may have the hook thingy in the back of the body (pardon my lack of vocabulary) but if you try to tow the boat behind with a rubber band, it is not Ford's fault you were uneducated about that decision. In the same way, Windows is perfectly capable of being an OS that can be connected to a network to transfer data. But if you decide to do so with a DSL modem that has no firewall, that is not Microsoft's problem. In that regard, MS has made the attempt to educate their user base (link) , but it is up to the consumer to read and educate themselves at that point.
When this worm could have been stopped very easily with a properly configured (and inexpensive no less!) firewall, I find it hard to pin all the blame on MS.
I still am of the opinion that it doesn't matter how many patches M$ releases. The fact is, we need an educated user base. So many people continue to use computers without knowing the full risks associated with them.
The Internet is great, broadband is great, computers are great. But as long as people are willing to give up their passwords for chocolate and have no clue what a firewall is or what it does, this problem will continue to plague everyone.
Anyone want to get in with me on a company that writes "apology/explanation" letters for subscribers that get this notice? I figure it would be pretty easy to set up a nice template in Word or such and just fill-in-the-blanks.
Really, though, I'm constantly asking myself when this craziness will end? More importantly, when will the USPTO finally start to do some hard research on these patent requests and reject them?
It's painful to see the system that was designed to encourage innovation so often abused as a tool to stymie it.
... I haven't done the reformat thing in a few years. I use Windows XP (yeah yeah, go ahead and laugh).
I would say the first 10 programs I install are:
- Service Pack 1 (does that count?)
- my Via 4-in-1 set
- MS Office 2003
- MS VS.Net 2003
- Firefox
- WinZip
- Winamp
- Desktop Sidebar (b/c it pwnz)
- Half-Life
- Warcraft 3
On my Slack 9 box (which pretty much gets nstalled with next to nothing to start)
- Apache 2
- PHP 4
- MySQL
- Samba 3
- firehol
- Python
- Berkely DB
- Half-Life dedicated server + HLstats
Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla ActiveX Plugin
Why stop at pointing out that he mentioned "gay"? What about drunk or fat? Nowadays people are saying that is just as genetic as being a homosexual.
I thought the parent was just fine.
Is it African or European?
It's not necessary, we can already have 802.11b/a/n/g compatible. =]
Being a Christian myself, I'll take a crack at this.
My personal belief is that believing the Bible does not preclude belief in other life forms. In my mind, the book of Genesis clearly shows what God's hand did in our world, our solar system, our planet, etc. However, nowhere in the book of Genesis does it specifically say He didn't create life somewhere else. While it does say He created man in his own image, that does not mean it was impossible for Him to create life elsewhere in a different or similar form.
Though I don't think many other Christians share my viewpoint...
Looking at the size of the typical MS OS, I think the impressive part is that both the OS AND the application are capable of fitting in 1GB of space.
While this is not impressive compared to other embedded solutions, it IS impressive relative to your typical Microsoft offering.
I only wish I had thought of it myself! The bumper sticker can be purchased at this link.
... how is Darl McBride involved? I mean come on, doesn't he *really* own the trademark to penguins?
Mandrake is publicly traded, just not in the major US markets.
My bathroom? Does that count?
SCO??? Going to court? Impossible! That never happens.... go buy your lottery tickets today!
I currently use PHP 4.3.3 on a Windows box running IIS. It connects to several SQL Server 2000 boxes. I haven't had too much trouble with it unless the queries get too complex. At one point I had to do a join across physical servers and the script died. (workaround? used COM+ in PHP... it's a nightmare... argh)
My advice is to use it if that's what you have to use. The speed is decent (my speed is hampered by the fact that is running Windows Server 2000 on PII/350 with 256MB) and the relaibility is there. I would say, though, that it probably isn't suited for heavy load mission-critical stuff.
It is important to remember, though, that if you use GLADE you should have it set to Gtk+/Gtk/Gtk#. If you have it set to GLADE, I don't believe it will work in Windows (yet) due to lack of library support.
Better word:
"ignorance"
Not necessarily ignorant of computers, but ignorant of acceptible substitutes.
Is it just me, or is that a little bit...strange? They cost $180 before the price drop, and then they cost $150 afterwards. It's not that much of a difference, is it? Certainly not enough to merit twice as many people rushing out and buying one...what kind of consumer thinks, ooh, I'd always wanted a PS2 but, y'know, they were just thirty dollars too expensive for me? I guess this is the same mentality that wouldn't hesitate to buy something that costs $19.99 but would flinch at anything costing a flat $20, because it's too expensive.
To be honest, I think it's just you. =]
Everyone has a reserve price for a product on the market. Sure, $30 may not seem like much, but I have always had the mentality that I won't pay more than $150 for a gaming system. (Note: I still won't be buying a PS2) If you think $30 isn't much, perhaps it's because you're thinking in absolute terms? $30 is a full 1/6 of the original price. That's a 16.7% off the original price. Look at it that way. If you got 16.7% off the purchase of a car, I'm sure you'd be more likely to purchase it as well!
I had a teacher once who was very adamant on that point. We don't need pennies, he would say. Pennies are a waste of metal. We need to take pennies out of circulation. Someone would invariably ask about things that cost $19.99. Well, we'd raise their price to $20, fool, he would say. This makes sense to me--and it made sense to him, but I imagine that a lot of people wouldn't be able to handle it. The economy would collapse. A very large segment of the population considers $19.99 to be a hell of a lot cheaper than $20. On the PS2 front, these same people are ecstatic about the gigantic price drop and buy twice as many of the things as they bought before.
Is there actual research to back that up? I mean, I don't think there are that many people who think $.01 makes a huge difference. Typically the "xx.99" philosophy only refers to low-cost, low-prestige items, IIRC. I don't think PS2 falls into that category.
This could be a very interesting pricing strategy for video game console manufacturers: 1. Debut the console at a price point of something like $300. 2. Every three to six months thereafter (the timeframe could easily be extended or shortened) drop the price by, say, $10. 3. Laugh as sales nearly double right after doing this. 4. Repeat until console has saturated market.
Except, demand for game consoles is rarely that elastic.
This reminds of the GameCube thing that happened a while ago. I believe it was last summer that Nintendo had a deal going with the Cube: Buy a $150 GameCube, and you get a free $50 game. Well, this was quite a deal, but sales were stagnant. Some months later, the marketing geniuses at the big N decided to adopt a new tactic: Buy a $100 GameCube, and you don't get anything for free. Lo and behold, sales shot up. Why? Well, obviously, because now it's fifty dollars cheaper!!! Never mind that you have to buy a game to play the stupid thing, it's just a better deal.
There are other things to consider. You could buy a gamecube and rent games. You could use it to run linux. You could buy a used game for $30. All of these are less expensive that the original $150 tag. And $100 is 33% off the original price.
How stupid is the average shopper?
Depends, most are not that intelligent in my experience. However, I don't there is really anything shocking about this drop in price vs. double in sales.
I own a linksys 802.11b router and it came with an 802.11b PCMCIA card. I had no problems getting WEP to work on either the router or my laptop. Linksys did a great job making the process easy with the router's web-based config and the configuration tool software that is provided in the package for the card. I came up with a passphrase and I could easily apply it across the board.
However, when I bought a new laptop with 802.11g wireless built-in (not from Linksys) I started having all sorts of problems trying to get the new laptop connected. I have to use the default Windows XP configuration tool (which sucks, IMO) and even when I do get connected with WEP enabled, the speed is horrible. And I'm of much higher technical aptitude than those mentioned in the article.
My point? I think the ease of configuring wireless depends totally on the manufacturer, and whether or not you have all your products from the same manufacturer. And none of them do a very good job of telling the consumer how to protect themselves.
This is not true. Canada and the US have an agreement that Canadians entering the US and Americans entering Canada are still subject to the draft of either country.
The ever-popular "dodge the draft by fleeing to Canada" no longer works.
Now if only there were a simple way to download music and select what music you wanted to listen to during various scenes of a video game.
*imagines listening to Linkin Park's "Faint" during a final battle scene in an FF game*
My point wasn't that M$ has absolutely no guilt in the matter. You bring up a good point by comparing the issue to driving. BOTH parties are responsible for using the product correctly and safely.
The manufacturer should make every effort they can to ensure the product works 100% out of the box. If you know full well that your Ford Explorer has tires that blow up on impact, you should not sell the product with those tires. In the event that you did so accidentally, you should make the public very aware of the situation and attempt to rectify the problem. Now, Microsoft has done reasonably well on the second account (a patch was/is available) but not so much the first. I think that having something similar to a "recall notice" for Windows OS that is very public could be a step in the right direction.
However, it is also the job of the consumer to be educated in their use of the product. A Ford Explorer is perfectly capable of towing a boat, but Ford does not necessarily include the right tools to do so. It may have the hook thingy in the back of the body (pardon my lack of vocabulary) but if you try to tow the boat behind with a rubber band, it is not Ford's fault you were uneducated about that decision. In the same way, Windows is perfectly capable of being an OS that can be connected to a network to transfer data. But if you decide to do so with a DSL modem that has no firewall, that is not Microsoft's problem. In that regard, MS has made the attempt to educate their user base (link) , but it is up to the consumer to read and educate themselves at that point.
When this worm could have been stopped very easily with a properly configured (and inexpensive no less!) firewall, I find it hard to pin all the blame on MS.
I still am of the opinion that it doesn't matter how many patches M$ releases. The fact is, we need an educated user base. So many people continue to use computers without knowing the full risks associated with them.
The Internet is great, broadband is great, computers are great. But as long as people are willing to give up their passwords for chocolate and have no clue what a firewall is or what it does, this problem will continue to plague everyone.
Nothing beats a good educated user.
Anyone want to get in with me on a company that writes "apology/explanation" letters for subscribers that get this notice? I figure it would be pretty easy to set up a nice template in Word or such and just fill-in-the-blanks.
Think I could get $5 per person for it? =]
... a special [Asinine] header on fark.com.
Really, though, I'm constantly asking myself when this craziness will end? More importantly, when will the USPTO finally start to do some hard research on these patent requests and reject them?
It's painful to see the system that was designed to encourage innovation so often abused as a tool to stymie it.
... I haven't done the reformat thing in a few years. I use Windows XP (yeah yeah, go ahead and laugh).
I would say the first 10 programs I install are:
- Service Pack 1 (does that count?)
- my Via 4-in-1 set
- MS Office 2003
- MS VS.Net 2003
- Firefox
- WinZip
- Winamp
- Desktop Sidebar (b/c it pwnz)
- Half-Life
- Warcraft 3
On my Slack 9 box (which pretty much gets nstalled with next to nothing to start)
- Apache 2
- PHP 4
- MySQL
- Samba 3
- firehol
- Python
- Berkely DB
- Half-Life dedicated server + HLstats
I think that wraps it up... =]
"All your searchlights are belong to us"
... can this be done without impacting the speed of currently existing GBA games? Do GBA games naturally have speed throttling in them to handle this?