Yes, I've read your post. Do you have a point except for quoting yourself? Here, maybe this will clear things up:
Well yes, that's why they have to "read you your rights", but the reason those rights include "the right to remain silent" is because the 5th amendment guarantees you the right against self-incrimination.
Yeah, I don't think we're disagreeing in a very big way. I'm just doubtful that you can come up with a metric that allows you to accurately gauge which OS is providing a better value. If your goal is to argue that a particular OS is better than the other, then I'm sure you can make up some kind of metric to support that. However, when a new user asks, "So which OS is better for me?" that metric will be practically useless. Even if a business asks, "Which OS will give me a better return on my investment?" your cost/year number isn't going to be too helpful.
No, I'm saying comparing the version numbers can be confusing. If you own Windows XP, then you don't pay for service pack 3. If you own Windows XP, you do pay to upgrade to Vista. Likewise if you own Mac OSX v4, then you don't have to pay for 10.4.3. If you own OSX v4, then you do have to pay for OSX v5.
Well yes, that's why they have to "read you your rights", but the reason those rights include "the right to remain silent" is because the 5th amendment guarantees you the right against self-incrimination.
I wasn't talking about buying it for my home use. For that, if I wanted to set up OSX server, I'd probably buy a Mac mini. But for my company, I'd love to be able to drop out Exchange in favor of something like "MobileMe Professional", i.e. a good webmail/online storage/contacts/calendar setup that I could run on an internal server. Maybe they don't want to offer it because they want you to pay for MobileMe, but MobileMe isn't well suited for businesses anyhow. I've considered Google Apps since they at least let you use your own domain, but I'm not too keen on putting my company's email and documents on someone else's server.
I'm surprised that 10.5 had so many problems, given that I haven't had many problems with 10.5 on the desktop, though I did have some. The last version I tried of OSX server was 10.3 (I think... I can't remember). It was fairly stable, but pretty slow. I've been hoping things had improved over the years. At least that sort of cut the price (used to be $500 for 5-client license, $1000 for unlimited. Now $500 for unlimited.)
Maybe 10.6 will be good, given that they put more effort into bug-fixes and stability rather than new features. Still, what I'd really *love* to see is for them to use the MobileMe interface for webmail/calendars/contacts, allow you to set up "iDisks" on OSX Sever that allow the same kind of integration and syncing on the client-end as Apple's iDisks, and then integrate an improved version of iWork.com that includes full editing of documents at least on par with Google Docs and Adobe's Acrobat.com (formerly "Buzzword"). If they could throw all of that functionality into OSX Server, it would become one hell of a solution for smaller businesses.
Well it's a bit weird in the wording, but it makes sense. The "right against self-incrimination" is spelled out in the 5th amendment, which includes the text, "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". This is the part that makes it so police have to tell you that you have the right to remain silent. You can, however, waive that right and talk to the police anyhow, thereby "waiving your right against self-incrimination."
Well yes, I did say it would vary from person to person.
My point was that starting to define what a service pack is as opposed to a new version, and which version number group that means what, is a rather pointless exercise.
That was part of what I was originally trying to illustrate.
Yes, and the "upgrade cost per year" gives you the cost part of that equation.
I understand what you're saying, but in a sense the "per year" part doesn't matter because you don't generally have to upgrade at any particular time. If you start from the first release of OSX, going from 10.0 to 10.6 would probably cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 (I don't remember exactly what each upgrade costs). However, you could easily have skipped a few of those upgrades. Meanwhile, going from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 would probably also cost you close to $600, but again you can skip some of those upgrades. Besides, there's a decent chance that you bought a computer sometimes during that span and got the upgrade more or less "for free". So adding up the price of staying up-to-date for the entire span of 9 years probably isn't great.
On the contrary, I would say that more frequent releases, even if more expensive, is more preferable to me. During the wait from XP to Vista, OSX went from 10.2 to 10.5. If you wanted to, you easily could have held on to your current version of 10.2 for the entire time. However, having more releases during that time meant that you had access to newer features earlier, instead of waiting several years. So it might be that you used Windows XP for years and then bought a new computer, getting Vista "for free". Maybe this upgrade actually had a lot of features that were valuable for you, making the upgrade a terrific value.
Anyway, what I'm really getting at is that cost per year of staying with the latest version just isn't that helpful of a metric. The question is more whether, at the time you do decide to upgrade (however frequent that is) is the upgrade a good value for you? I can't give you an answer because it depends so much on you and which upgrade you're making.
Sure, may larger point was that the versioning notations are different, part one of my smaller points was that the numbering is just different. Windows has been incrementing the main version number, so in the past 9 years, we've gone from version 5 to version 7. Apple has been sticking with the name OSX, which means that they have to keep the version number at 10 (since X is the roman numeral for 10). Therefore, they haven't been incrementing the main version number, but the second number (making them look like "point releases").
All of this is to say that you can't compare them directly, so the point is, Apple releases a new version every couple years, based on the same kernel but with significant improvements, and usually charges around $130.
And XP bugfixes don't ever require new hardware unlike Mac OS X
There are certainly bugfixes between XP and Vista that you can't get without upgrading to Vista, and Vista requires new hardware.
I still think that 10.2 should have been free, because 10.1.8 is so buggy and it will newer be fixed.
I thought 10.2 was free, or maybe was as cheap as $20 (incl. shipping and handling) or something. I remember one of the OSX versions being cheap or free, and I'm pretty sure it was 10.2.
I wish they would split the os from their applications, so the os bugfixes/upgrades were free, but they could charge you if you really wanted the i* software.
They do split their OS from the i* software. The only one that comes with OSX is iTunes, which is free anyway.
Well don't exactly *have to* upgrade either one. Second, any figures about cost will be confused by the fact that there are several editions of Windows for the desktop and several versions for the server, whereas OSX has only one of each. Which do you compare to?
I would instead suggest comparing the amount of benefit per dollar. It would also be a very complicated thing to figure out, but it's probably much more meaningful. You'd have to have some means of calculating how much the benefit of an upgrade is, which would likely vary from person to person, and then compare it to the cost of the upgrade.
So for me (and I'm just saying this goes for me) the improvements between 10.4 and 10.5 was worth at least $150, whereas the improvements between Windows XP and Vista Business were worth approximately $5. So in my way of looking at it, $150/$130 >$5/$200, and so Apple wins that round. The fact that it took longer for Microsoft to product Vista, if anything, counts against it, since it means I was stuck longer with a product that wasn't improving. I given that I can choose to upgrade or not, I wouldn't be bothered if Apple released updates every 6 months. In each case, I would weigh the cost against the benefit I'd get from the new features, and decide whether it was worth it to me.
One of the things I've been trying to find out about are the improvements to OSX Server in 10.6, specifically regarding email and webmail. Can anyone tell me whether they're still using SquirrelMail?
Apple has a very nice webmail/web-calendar system that they use for MobileMe, but so far they haven't used any of that in OSX Server. I'm somewhat baffled, since I would probably buy an Xserve on the day that they offered such a nice webmail solution in OSX server.
OSX upgrades are as free as Windows upgrades are-- which is to say minor updates and bug-fixes are free, but major updates cost you.
Lots of Windows fanatics like to point to the numbering scheme and claim that Apple makes you pay for "service packs", so they'll note that 10.4 to 10.5 is a paid upgrade, even though the version number stays the same. However, in OSX, it's the third version number that's similar to a service pack, i.e. 10.4.1 could be called Mac OSX v4, service pack 1.
And that's not necessarily too different from Windows versioning. Windows 2000 was Windows 5.0, and Windows XP was version 5.1. Windows XP service pack 3, under Apple's versioning number scheme, could be called 5.1.3. Or really, since Apple isn't incrementing the "10" part of their versioning number, it could be 10.5.1.3.
Ultimately I'm just saying that whole side of the argument-- that is, the version numbering-- is a little arbitrary and stupid. The point is that Apple releases small improvements and bug fixes all the time, and those are free. Every two years or so, they release a new version with new features and major improvements, and those can cost as much as $130. However, in the case of Snow Leopard, most of the improvements are under the hood, so the upgrade price is only $30.
I generally agree with you, and therefore don't participate in social networking sites. However, I still think tis is a problem insofar as Facebook claims to keep your information private.
To look at it another way, I don't have grounds to complain that my posts on Slashdot are being made public. I also don't think I have a lot of grounds to complain if Google wants to have automated systems reading my emails enough to feed me a relevant ad, since I know that's roughly their business model for providing free email. However, if I found out Google was allowing their advertisers to read my email, that I would be pretty upset about that. Whether or not it's wise of me to trust Google, they've given me the impression that my emails are private and they aren't going to allow other people to read them.
Similarly, I have limited sympathy for these people who post their drunken antics on social networking sites and expect that their coworkers and employers simply won't ever bother to look at the site. However, if Facebook is offering you to let you have private pages that are only visible to friends which you select, but they are then allowing others to view those pages, that seems like a problem.
Corporate taxes are a joke. They just get passed on to the consumer anyway
Right, instead the government should just be giving them money, because surely that benefit will just be passed on to the consumer anyway. After all, economics is a zero-sum game and corporations always just charge consumers the cost of production.
Unfortunately, Theora will stay irrelevant where it matters most. In sites like Youtube, h264 will prevail. And this time, h264 is the (much) better tech as well.
I'm surprised I haven't seen any posts talking about Google's plan to acquire On2. Admittedly this is speculation on my part, but I suspect that h264 may not prevail, because Google might very well release On2's more recent codecs as open source patent-free codecs. Since Theora is based on a previous version of On2's codec, these newer codecs could form the basis of something like Theora v2, providing better quality. With Google's support, the codecs may even get hardware support from manufacturers.
On the other hand, maybe Google won't do anything of the sort, or maybe the pressure of an open source codec will just force the patent licensing costs of h264 toward $0, and h264 will still prevail.
You say this, but nowhere do you say why it needs hardware acceleration
What about mobile or embedded devices? Think about what a company like Apple has to consider when deciding what video standard to support. Can you play HD Theora videos on an AppleTV? On an iPhone? How quickly will it drain an iPhone's battery life? How hot will an AppleTV run?
I don't really know the answers to those questions, but I would guess that hardware support makes a big difference.
He should have stuck to the physical aspects of the universe like noise in space and being able to see laser shots from the side... oh, that's right, we've been over this before on Slashdot, with our friends, in popular mechanics, everywhere. My grandfather commented on the "wings" of ships that seemed to spend all their time in space.
Well is all of that stuff any more useless to complain about? I mean it may be fun and interesting to think about these things, pick them apart, and note that they don't make sense, but either the movie is successful in getting you to suspend your disbelief or it isn't. Sound in space isn't really more dumb than the idea of translation android that hobbles around even in ideal circumstances because his joins are too rigid but can somehow walk around in the desert too.
I mean there's really tons of things that don't make sense. A civilization that's technologically advanced enough to be adept at FTL space travel and cloning, but their fanciest androids have exposed wires all over the place? With all the wealth of the Empire, their best technological solution to Vadar being horrible injured is to dress him up in a life-support helmet that makes him look like a giant black dildo and put a series of lights and switches on his chest? That stuff is crazy.
But, you know, it works. The aesthetics are coherent, and even with today's technology it has a nice retro-futuristic feel to it.
I'm not saying I'm approved, but it seems to be the case in my family. Maybe they'll outgrow it, but I have some cousins in their early twenties who barely even read their email. If you want to talk to them, you need to go through AIM or Facebook.
DSL
My security alarm needs it
The sound quality is far better than any cell I've ever had
During my 5 day power outage, my landline still worked
Well it depends a bit on how you define "landline", but it seems to me that each of these is a problem with our infrastructure not being good enough, and not an inherent superiority of POTS. Do you mean POTS by "landline", or just a wired connection. Sound quality problems, for example, is a function of the bandwidth on cell phones being so limited. If the wireless network were more robust, they could provide better quality.
I can only speak for myself here, but I don't typically have two-hour-long calls to family scattered throughout the country. I have a family forum, email, IM, and if I want something personal rather than plain text, there's video chat (though not everyone in the family has that capability... yet).
Even the oldest generation still alive (in their 80s) have email, and in the next generation down (50s and 60s) you start to see video chat. With the 20-somethings, they'll get annoyed if you try to engage them in a long phone conversation because they're more comfortable with IM.
I guess my point is, I don't know if it's really much harder for them to patrol now. The Internet in general is considered as public and the highway system as-is.
But don't they already police the Internet? They shut down child porn and have the DMCA and everything. It doesn't seem to me like the fact that the traffic is going over Verizon's line has restrained them.
So, the primitive for Google Wave is a document that can be simultaneously edited by a number of people, with scriptability and version control. The implications, I don't fully grok yet, but they look damned impressive.
I don't think any of us grok what the Internet will become yet, and this is just a sign of that. If you'd asked me to name one Internet technology that was likely to stick around in its current form for a long time, it's likely that I would have said "email". Google Wave challenges that for me.
It makes me wonder, because... I hadn't thought much about it before, but there's something about email, for example, that forces a sort of linearity of conversation. That is, its structure is fairly limiting, even when you put threads into the process. And everything is an attachment instead of being part of the communication. I know, that sounds like a strange critique, but what I mean is, think about all the semantic information you can put into HTML and all the information we want in HTML but don't necessarily put in. Emails, even when HTML-based and fully formatted, usually have very little of that.
So really all I'm trying to suggest is that the great thing about the Internet is that it allows us to leave media behind. When we distribute music on a CD, for example, there are limits. You generally need to meet all the specs that make it a CD, which limits what you can put on it. Distribution over the Internet gives us much more freedom, but what I hadn't considered until the past couple years was how much the particular standard we follow or file format we use also imposes the same limits. You can only put into your web page what HTML supports, and you can only put into emails what the clients will support.
What has me excited about Google Wave is not so much this exact approach, but that people are trying to figure out how we could change the entire paradigm of our current interaction with the Internet, changing the distinctions between IM, email, and documents. Maybe there are some other ways of looking at these things and other ways of working that we just haven't thought about before.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I've read your post. Do you have a point except for quoting yourself? Here, maybe this will clear things up:
Well yes, that's why they have to "read you your rights", but the reason those rights include "the right to remain silent" is because the 5th amendment guarantees you the right against self-incrimination.
What's the problem?
Yeah, I don't think we're disagreeing in a very big way. I'm just doubtful that you can come up with a metric that allows you to accurately gauge which OS is providing a better value. If your goal is to argue that a particular OS is better than the other, then I'm sure you can make up some kind of metric to support that. However, when a new user asks, "So which OS is better for me?" that metric will be practically useless. Even if a business asks, "Which OS will give me a better return on my investment?" your cost/year number isn't going to be too helpful.
No, I'm saying comparing the version numbers can be confusing. If you own Windows XP, then you don't pay for service pack 3. If you own Windows XP, you do pay to upgrade to Vista. Likewise if you own Mac OSX v4, then you don't have to pay for 10.4.3. If you own OSX v4, then you do have to pay for OSX v5.
Well yes, that's why they have to "read you your rights", but the reason those rights include "the right to remain silent" is because the 5th amendment guarantees you the right against self-incrimination.
Thanks for the information. It's very helpful.
I wasn't talking about buying it for my home use. For that, if I wanted to set up OSX server, I'd probably buy a Mac mini. But for my company, I'd love to be able to drop out Exchange in favor of something like "MobileMe Professional", i.e. a good webmail/online storage/contacts/calendar setup that I could run on an internal server. Maybe they don't want to offer it because they want you to pay for MobileMe, but MobileMe isn't well suited for businesses anyhow. I've considered Google Apps since they at least let you use your own domain, but I'm not too keen on putting my company's email and documents on someone else's server.
I'm surprised that 10.5 had so many problems, given that I haven't had many problems with 10.5 on the desktop, though I did have some. The last version I tried of OSX server was 10.3 (I think... I can't remember). It was fairly stable, but pretty slow. I've been hoping things had improved over the years. At least that sort of cut the price (used to be $500 for 5-client license, $1000 for unlimited. Now $500 for unlimited.)
Maybe 10.6 will be good, given that they put more effort into bug-fixes and stability rather than new features. Still, what I'd really *love* to see is for them to use the MobileMe interface for webmail/calendars/contacts, allow you to set up "iDisks" on OSX Sever that allow the same kind of integration and syncing on the client-end as Apple's iDisks, and then integrate an improved version of iWork.com that includes full editing of documents at least on par with Google Docs and Adobe's Acrobat.com (formerly "Buzzword"). If they could throw all of that functionality into OSX Server, it would become one hell of a solution for smaller businesses.
Well it's a bit weird in the wording, but it makes sense. The "right against self-incrimination" is spelled out in the 5th amendment, which includes the text, "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". This is the part that makes it so police have to tell you that you have the right to remain silent. You can, however, waive that right and talk to the police anyhow, thereby "waiving your right against self-incrimination."
Not to mention entirely subjective.
Well yes, I did say it would vary from person to person.
My point was that starting to define what a service pack is as opposed to a new version, and which version number group that means what, is a rather pointless exercise.
That was part of what I was originally trying to illustrate.
Yes, and the "upgrade cost per year" gives you the cost part of that equation.
I understand what you're saying, but in a sense the "per year" part doesn't matter because you don't generally have to upgrade at any particular time. If you start from the first release of OSX, going from 10.0 to 10.6 would probably cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 (I don't remember exactly what each upgrade costs). However, you could easily have skipped a few of those upgrades. Meanwhile, going from Windows 2000 to Windows 7 would probably also cost you close to $600, but again you can skip some of those upgrades. Besides, there's a decent chance that you bought a computer sometimes during that span and got the upgrade more or less "for free". So adding up the price of staying up-to-date for the entire span of 9 years probably isn't great.
On the contrary, I would say that more frequent releases, even if more expensive, is more preferable to me. During the wait from XP to Vista, OSX went from 10.2 to 10.5. If you wanted to, you easily could have held on to your current version of 10.2 for the entire time. However, having more releases during that time meant that you had access to newer features earlier, instead of waiting several years. So it might be that you used Windows XP for years and then bought a new computer, getting Vista "for free". Maybe this upgrade actually had a lot of features that were valuable for you, making the upgrade a terrific value.
Anyway, what I'm really getting at is that cost per year of staying with the latest version just isn't that helpful of a metric. The question is more whether, at the time you do decide to upgrade (however frequent that is) is the upgrade a good value for you? I can't give you an answer because it depends so much on you and which upgrade you're making.
Sure, may larger point was that the versioning notations are different, part one of my smaller points was that the numbering is just different. Windows has been incrementing the main version number, so in the past 9 years, we've gone from version 5 to version 7. Apple has been sticking with the name OSX, which means that they have to keep the version number at 10 (since X is the roman numeral for 10). Therefore, they haven't been incrementing the main version number, but the second number (making them look like "point releases").
All of this is to say that you can't compare them directly, so the point is, Apple releases a new version every couple years, based on the same kernel but with significant improvements, and usually charges around $130.
And XP bugfixes don't ever require new hardware unlike Mac OS X
There are certainly bugfixes between XP and Vista that you can't get without upgrading to Vista, and Vista requires new hardware.
I still think that 10.2 should have been free, because 10.1.8 is so buggy and it will newer be fixed.
I thought 10.2 was free, or maybe was as cheap as $20 (incl. shipping and handling) or something. I remember one of the OSX versions being cheap or free, and I'm pretty sure it was 10.2.
I wish they would split the os from their applications, so the os bugfixes/upgrades were free, but they could charge you if you really wanted the i* software.
They do split their OS from the i* software. The only one that comes with OSX is iTunes, which is free anyway.
Well don't exactly *have to* upgrade either one. Second, any figures about cost will be confused by the fact that there are several editions of Windows for the desktop and several versions for the server, whereas OSX has only one of each. Which do you compare to?
I would instead suggest comparing the amount of benefit per dollar. It would also be a very complicated thing to figure out, but it's probably much more meaningful. You'd have to have some means of calculating how much the benefit of an upgrade is, which would likely vary from person to person, and then compare it to the cost of the upgrade.
So for me (and I'm just saying this goes for me) the improvements between 10.4 and 10.5 was worth at least $150, whereas the improvements between Windows XP and Vista Business were worth approximately $5. So in my way of looking at it, $150/$130 >$5/$200, and so Apple wins that round. The fact that it took longer for Microsoft to product Vista, if anything, counts against it, since it means I was stuck longer with a product that wasn't improving. I given that I can choose to upgrade or not, I wouldn't be bothered if Apple released updates every 6 months. In each case, I would weigh the cost against the benefit I'd get from the new features, and decide whether it was worth it to me.
However, it does seem faster and even more stable, and I think that's worth $30 to me. YMMV.
One of the things I've been trying to find out about are the improvements to OSX Server in 10.6, specifically regarding email and webmail. Can anyone tell me whether they're still using SquirrelMail?
Apple has a very nice webmail/web-calendar system that they use for MobileMe, but so far they haven't used any of that in OSX Server. I'm somewhat baffled, since I would probably buy an Xserve on the day that they offered such a nice webmail solution in OSX server.
OSX upgrades are as free as Windows upgrades are-- which is to say minor updates and bug-fixes are free, but major updates cost you.
Lots of Windows fanatics like to point to the numbering scheme and claim that Apple makes you pay for "service packs", so they'll note that 10.4 to 10.5 is a paid upgrade, even though the version number stays the same. However, in OSX, it's the third version number that's similar to a service pack, i.e. 10.4.1 could be called Mac OSX v4, service pack 1.
And that's not necessarily too different from Windows versioning. Windows 2000 was Windows 5.0, and Windows XP was version 5.1. Windows XP service pack 3, under Apple's versioning number scheme, could be called 5.1.3. Or really, since Apple isn't incrementing the "10" part of their versioning number, it could be 10.5.1.3.
Ultimately I'm just saying that whole side of the argument-- that is, the version numbering-- is a little arbitrary and stupid. The point is that Apple releases small improvements and bug fixes all the time, and those are free. Every two years or so, they release a new version with new features and major improvements, and those can cost as much as $130. However, in the case of Snow Leopard, most of the improvements are under the hood, so the upgrade price is only $30.
I generally agree with you, and therefore don't participate in social networking sites. However, I still think tis is a problem insofar as Facebook claims to keep your information private.
To look at it another way, I don't have grounds to complain that my posts on Slashdot are being made public. I also don't think I have a lot of grounds to complain if Google wants to have automated systems reading my emails enough to feed me a relevant ad, since I know that's roughly their business model for providing free email. However, if I found out Google was allowing their advertisers to read my email, that I would be pretty upset about that. Whether or not it's wise of me to trust Google, they've given me the impression that my emails are private and they aren't going to allow other people to read them.
Similarly, I have limited sympathy for these people who post their drunken antics on social networking sites and expect that their coworkers and employers simply won't ever bother to look at the site. However, if Facebook is offering you to let you have private pages that are only visible to friends which you select, but they are then allowing others to view those pages, that seems like a problem.
Corporate taxes are a joke. They just get passed on to the consumer anyway
Right, instead the government should just be giving them money, because surely that benefit will just be passed on to the consumer anyway. After all, economics is a zero-sum game and corporations always just charge consumers the cost of production.
Unfortunately, Theora will stay irrelevant where it matters most. In sites like Youtube, h264 will prevail. And this time, h264 is the (much) better tech as well.
I'm surprised I haven't seen any posts talking about Google's plan to acquire On2. Admittedly this is speculation on my part, but I suspect that h264 may not prevail, because Google might very well release On2's more recent codecs as open source patent-free codecs. Since Theora is based on a previous version of On2's codec, these newer codecs could form the basis of something like Theora v2, providing better quality. With Google's support, the codecs may even get hardware support from manufacturers.
On the other hand, maybe Google won't do anything of the sort, or maybe the pressure of an open source codec will just force the patent licensing costs of h264 toward $0, and h264 will still prevail.
You say this, but nowhere do you say why it needs hardware acceleration
What about mobile or embedded devices? Think about what a company like Apple has to consider when deciding what video standard to support. Can you play HD Theora videos on an AppleTV? On an iPhone? How quickly will it drain an iPhone's battery life? How hot will an AppleTV run?
I don't really know the answers to those questions, but I would guess that hardware support makes a big difference.
He should have stuck to the physical aspects of the universe like noise in space and being able to see laser shots from the side ... oh, that's right, we've been over this before on Slashdot, with our friends, in popular mechanics, everywhere. My grandfather commented on the "wings" of ships that seemed to spend all their time in space.
Well is all of that stuff any more useless to complain about? I mean it may be fun and interesting to think about these things, pick them apart, and note that they don't make sense, but either the movie is successful in getting you to suspend your disbelief or it isn't. Sound in space isn't really more dumb than the idea of translation android that hobbles around even in ideal circumstances because his joins are too rigid but can somehow walk around in the desert too.
I mean there's really tons of things that don't make sense. A civilization that's technologically advanced enough to be adept at FTL space travel and cloning, but their fanciest androids have exposed wires all over the place? With all the wealth of the Empire, their best technological solution to Vadar being horrible injured is to dress him up in a life-support helmet that makes him look like a giant black dildo and put a series of lights and switches on his chest? That stuff is crazy.
But, you know, it works. The aesthetics are coherent, and even with today's technology it has a nice retro-futuristic feel to it.
I'm not saying I'm approved, but it seems to be the case in my family. Maybe they'll outgrow it, but I have some cousins in their early twenties who barely even read their email. If you want to talk to them, you need to go through AIM or Facebook.
Why do I keep my landline?
DSL My security alarm needs it The sound quality is far better than any cell I've ever had During my 5 day power outage, my landline still worked
Well it depends a bit on how you define "landline", but it seems to me that each of these is a problem with our infrastructure not being good enough, and not an inherent superiority of POTS. Do you mean POTS by "landline", or just a wired connection. Sound quality problems, for example, is a function of the bandwidth on cell phones being so limited. If the wireless network were more robust, they could provide better quality.
I can only speak for myself here, but I don't typically have two-hour-long calls to family scattered throughout the country. I have a family forum, email, IM, and if I want something personal rather than plain text, there's video chat (though not everyone in the family has that capability... yet).
Even the oldest generation still alive (in their 80s) have email, and in the next generation down (50s and 60s) you start to see video chat. With the 20-somethings, they'll get annoyed if you try to engage them in a long phone conversation because they're more comfortable with IM.
I guess my point is, I don't know if it's really much harder for them to patrol now. The Internet in general is considered as public and the highway system as-is.
But don't they already police the Internet? They shut down child porn and have the DMCA and everything. It doesn't seem to me like the fact that the traffic is going over Verizon's line has restrained them.
So, the primitive for Google Wave is a document that can be simultaneously edited by a number of people, with scriptability and version control. The implications, I don't fully grok yet, but they look damned impressive.
I don't think any of us grok what the Internet will become yet, and this is just a sign of that. If you'd asked me to name one Internet technology that was likely to stick around in its current form for a long time, it's likely that I would have said "email". Google Wave challenges that for me.
It makes me wonder, because... I hadn't thought much about it before, but there's something about email, for example, that forces a sort of linearity of conversation. That is, its structure is fairly limiting, even when you put threads into the process. And everything is an attachment instead of being part of the communication. I know, that sounds like a strange critique, but what I mean is, think about all the semantic information you can put into HTML and all the information we want in HTML but don't necessarily put in. Emails, even when HTML-based and fully formatted, usually have very little of that.
So really all I'm trying to suggest is that the great thing about the Internet is that it allows us to leave media behind. When we distribute music on a CD, for example, there are limits. You generally need to meet all the specs that make it a CD, which limits what you can put on it. Distribution over the Internet gives us much more freedom, but what I hadn't considered until the past couple years was how much the particular standard we follow or file format we use also imposes the same limits. You can only put into your web page what HTML supports, and you can only put into emails what the clients will support.
What has me excited about Google Wave is not so much this exact approach, but that people are trying to figure out how we could change the entire paradigm of our current interaction with the Internet, changing the distinctions between IM, email, and documents. Maybe there are some other ways of looking at these things and other ways of working that we just haven't thought about before.
Awesome. It's nice to know that, even though its run was short, the geeks of the world will bravely carry on the Firefly torch.