When you are using unsupported drivers who's to say the driver didn't screw up the hardware.
So does it void your warranty if you install an unsupported driver in Windows? And supported by whom? If I have an nvidia card, is the driver from Nvidia "supported"? What about the one from Windows Update? Or is it only the driver HP supplies for me? And what if I install a 3rd party piece of hardware or software which results in installing "unsupported drivers"? What if you tried listening to a Sony audio CD and got a rootkit?
Until they provide a list of all "supported" software, or all software which voids your warranty, they should just support the hardware. It's a general assumption that people are going replace software, or at least install additional software, after they buy a computer. If manufacturers are going to start denying warranties because of software installed, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Yeah. I could see someone using more than I do, but if I install my OS and all my apps (full installs, clip-art, etc), it's probably going to be under 10GB. Add the games I'm currently running, and it'll be under 20. Add another 20GB for my music collection, and you're still well under the 64GBs listed here. I'll only break 60 GB when you add TV shows, movies, and my software archive (I have a Mac, and whenever I buy software, I make a DMG of the disc and store that for later installs, treat the disc as a backup). 64 GB flash disks would be mighty useful.
Wait... you think Apple servers are harder to set up than Windows? Maybe you've just used Windows servers for a long time and you know the ins and outs, but Windows installations certainly aren't sensible these days.
It would normally be silly to feel that way over an ISP, but Speakeasy has been the only ISP that felt to me like it was "one of the good guys". They offered naked DSL with static IPs at a reasonable price, and had pretty good support, too. Practically every other ISP has been utterly horrible, unless maybe you step up to the point of having multiple T1s or a T3, and then suddenly they're afraid of losing your business and might give you decent support. *Might*
The regular stores get their merchandise in bulk,most of the time from tractor-trailers, not one package at a time from fedex, so as such, they can weather sudden price increases better.
FedEx and UPS are also transporting merchandise in bulk. When you send a package from NY to LA, do you think there's a FedEx guy who puts your pacakage in his own pickup truck and drives across the country? Of course not. FedEx isn't delivering "one package at a time". So when you're sending a package from NY to LA, they gather all the local packages in NY that are going to LA and they load them into the same sorts of big trucks and airplanes that would be used if they were shipping to stores. Even when they have local routes, they're fairly optimized for time and milage-- when you get your FedEx package, your house is on the way to the FedEx guy's next stop anyway.
If brick-and-morter stores diminished, it might even mean that FedEx could increase their efficiency, since there would be an even greater bulk to ship and the bulk would be more reliable. They's always be delivering all sorts of things all over the place, so fewer trucks would move half-full, and more stops would be "on the way" to somewhere.
What you're saying is true, that is how capitalism works. However, what I'm talking about is more trying to answer the question, "What is the purpose of capitalism?" People ought not look within capitalism for its own purpose.
Anyhow, the purpose of each of the various economic systems is to order the society's activities in some way. We, as a people, get together and determine what kinds of laws we will enact and what kinds of activity we should tolerate. The end of capitalism is not so that companies can survive or profit, but rather so that our activities will satisfy our needs and so that we, as a society, can eliminate waste and inefficiency. Companies, their survival, and their profit are all part of a system created toward that end.
The idea is that, if a company can survive by selling $50 music CDs, then they must be serving some market. Capitalism doesn't dictate that this is "fine", but rather capitalism is a system which allows this to happen. We use capitalism as our system because we want all our various markets, whether they're mainstream or niche, to be served. However, things change a bit when we allow a company to abuse the system in order to artificially create a market for $50 CDs. In this case, the company is probably harming our society, running contrary to our intention when choosing to be a capitalistic society, and is therefore in violation of the ideal capitalistic system.
In other words, capitalism in only a viable system for providing for society so long as the markets can, indeed, make demands on those serving the market. If the market is healthy, if supply and demand are actually determining a price, etc. then capitalism is an efficient system. However, if companies are able to manipulate, bully, and suppress markets, generate artificial markets and artificial demand, etc. then your system is set up wrong and "capitalism", if you can still call it that, is not serving its purpose. Some corrective action would need to be taken.
Really, the problem with the government running everything is not that the government is more evil than companies, but that the government then has an artifical monopoly that cannot be overturned by normal capitalistic forces. The result is horrible inefficiency and a failure to reconcile supply and demand. You get excess supplies of things that are unnecessary and insufficient supplies of what's needed.
In the extreme example, imagine you discovered someone was poisoning our water supplies and selling antidotes for $10,000 a pop. Would you step back and say, "Well, that's capitalism. If the market will bear that price, capitalism will allow it." Of course not. So even within a capitalistic system, you should still ask about businesses, "Is what they are doing legal? Is it moral? Is it good for our society?" If not, perhaps corrective action needs to be taken.
In my previous example, it's obvious that you'd want to make sure it's illegal to poison water supply, and then you'd want to make sure those laws were enforced. What happens too often, instead, is that the company selling antidotes will lobby the government to make the poisoning a mandatory part of water treatment, simply in order to secure their ability to abuse the market. That is not any kind of capitalism.
Poor Microsoft. Lots of people bought new PCs that came with Vista and aren't using it. Poor, poor Microsoft. All that money without having even provided anyone with anything of value. And you know what really sucks for them? A whole lot of those people who bought their computer with Vista and installed XP instead? They'll probably end up buying another copy of Vista in a couple years because they don't realize or remember that they have the right to a license of Vista.
Oh, but to explain, what I sort of had in mind is something like getting all the various brands to make Walmart-only models and things that could be priced independently of any other store. Not that I have any idea what they'd actually do, but come hell or high water, Walmart will get their opportunity to screw us all.
I understand all that and I was somewhat joking, but that's what's been scary about Walmart: they have so much power right now that they can strong-arm distributers, suppliers, and whole industries. I sometimes imagine they have enough of a lobby to make sure Congress does something to ensure their business model. Like, if it took a constitutional amendment, they'd get it done.
And how do you think the brick-and-morter stores get their inventory? If it gets expensive to ship things, prices will hop on everything that isn't produced locally, no matter what kind of store is selling it.
I'm not entirely sure that online retailers undercutting brick-and-morter is a horrible thing. I'll think about this one for a while, but for the most part, this seems to be a case where the free market is preferable.
For one thing, it seems to me that price-fixing might harm brick-and-morter stores. If you set it so online stores necessarily make a much larger profit margin, it seems to me that many people might be more likely to try to push business online for those higher profit-margins. Since their costs are lower, the prices are the same, investors would then get a better return on online business and so they might try to figure out ways to close brick-and-morter shops in order to push the purchases to their online store.
I'm not saying that it will happen this way, but rather that there's room for this to backfire. On the other hand, I have a clear division between what I buy at the store vs. online. Do I want it today, in 2 hours, or now? Then I'll have to go to the store. Am I going to want to see the product, try it out, talk to a salesman? The store. Do I want to have a physical location where I can go and talk to people if I have a problem with the product? Store. The only things I buy online are general commodity parts where I'm getting a predictable product that I don't need within the next few days.
In this sense, it seems to me that it's perfectly possible for many brick-and-morter stores to keep on going without price-fixing. In fact, in those instances where brick-and-morter is just completely, flat out, no question, less efficient than online, and inefficient without any benefit that customers aren't willing to spend an extra dollar or two, then why not let those products/services move online? What's wrong with efficiency? What's wrong with obsolete business models going out of business, so long as they're truly obsolete.
Why would Walmart worry? Apparently, Walmart can strong-arm their suppliers to do whatever they want.
Re:The golden age
on
TextMate
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, honestly, I'm not sure everything always has to be open source. I am a bit of an open source advocate at times (though I'm not a developer). I believe everything needs to use open standards to that different programs can interoperate, and I believe that many things benefit greatly from being open source. However, I don't see why people want to refuse all other models.
Let me put it this way: the developer of TextMate is not abusing any market. He's not trying to force people into proprietary formats or protocols. Textmate is a very good piece of software at a reasonable price. It's relatively simple, and it does what it does well without a whole lot of bloat.
And what's wrong with that? Especially for those of us who aren't going to want to rewrite our text editor, and who are willing to reward developers for good work, what is wrong with that?
In this case, are we running a risk of our text files being rendered unreadable if TextMate development stops? Are we possibly not going to be able to edit those text files anymore?
And really, honestly, I'm sorry, but if you're an open source developer who believes everyone must use open source software at all time, then by all means, develop a replacement to TextMate. A native Aqua GUI text editors for OSX with all the features of TextMate released with a GPL license-- I'd love to see it. But lets not begrudge a developer who's doing a good job just because he's trying to see a reasonable return for his work.
If Apple released a video iPod with all the iPhone features, except the phone, who in the hell would buy the iPhone?
Depends. Would I be able to get wireless internet access on that iPod, fast enough to check e-mail, with coverage as wide as Cingular's cellphone network? If not, then I would buy an iPhone.
To be honest, if I could get an Apple PDA phone with all the nice interface goodness of the iPhone, but without an MP3 player, I might buy that. And then I might buy an iPod nano. And I'd probably carry them both around everywhere. So the idea that I can get both in the same device does have some attraction for me.
Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Right. In fact, IIRC, there's even something like "THE God", which doesn't interfere in the conflict between the various gods. It's clear from the stories that God (upper-case, THE god) has planned the conflicts to have a purpose which no one but himself can see.
And this is part of why Gandalf holds back his full power. He is acknowledging that he can't just go around solving other people's problems for them, since the problems, conflicts, fighting, and resolution all play a part in this unknown plan. He doesn't know what the plan is, but he knows it exists. This is part of the reason he doesn't stop Gollum, for example. He knows Gollum still has a part to play. It's also very related to the metaphor of the ring, and why Gandalf can't take possession of the ring. He must restrain himself from abuse of power in order to play his proper role. The ring represents undue power and the thirst for undue power, and so taking possession of it would represent the sort of abuse of power many characters in the story are trying to avoid.
When Bombadil fails to be affected by the ring or tempted by it, he is displaying a closeness to God which would be impossible were he not a greater being than he seems. This is also relevant in terms of Hobbits, since they show a remarkable resistance to the ring, indicating that they, too, are greater than they appear.
Right now Dell forces you to buy a premium system, usually with some extra markup and the title 'workstation' or 'server' to get Linux or No OS. We want to be able to buy Grandma the same $299 special, minus $40 because we don't want Vista and load Ubuntu on it.
What I bought was the same Dimension C521 without Windows, saving $40. Not $299, but the cheapest I could find on the Dell website.
Or, if you don't want Windows, buy an N-series desktop or laptop. People keep complaining that you can't buy a naked PC from Dell, but there it is.
Now, whether it's much cheaper (or even cheaper at all) to buy a naked PC than the same PC with Windows is a different issue. I've heard plenty of speculation that, with the discounts Microsoft gives Dell and the money crapware vendors pay Dell to install their stuff, installing Windows on a machine costs Dell pretty close to nothing. I don't really know. I bought an N-series desktop a while back and only saved about $40, but I would have done it on principle even if it didn't save me a single dollar. I wouldn't use Windows on that machine even if it were free, and I'd like Dell to know that some of us simply don't want Windows.
A lot of the art of persuasion requires the persuader to apply some form of pressure (usually non-physical) onto their intended victim.
Yes, and I believe the appropriate form of communication depends on which kind of "pressure" you're able to apply. Sometimes the pressure is intellectual: a good argument. In this case, the form of communication should just be whichever form helps you make the argument better. Sometimes e-mail lets you think things out better.
You mention CCing the boss of the recipient, and that's a more political form of pressure. I find that they key thing is (obviously) that their boss will be on your side. Whether it's an intellectual or emotional argument, it's that you know the boss's position. In fact, I'm most likely to CC the boss when I'm e-mailing the person because they simply aren't doing their job, or if I'm requesting something I know the recipient won't give but that the boss would think the recipient will give.
But many times, if you want to convince someone, a good communicator will want to go face-to-face. If you have good people-skills, you know that you can persuade more easily when you can see your audience, gauge their reactions, and let them see you. However, if you're bad at people-skills and tend to put people off, you might want to stay hidden in your cubicle as much as possible and fire off strategic e-mails to the most responsive people with influence.
Basically, face-to-face is more powerful, so it can be much more persuasive, but if you mess up it will be more powerful at turning people off, offending people, intimidating people (not always good for persuasion!), etc.
I don't know about that. It seems to my that Apple is implying that Macs are easier for certain sorts of things (creative things, whereas it acknowledges that Windows machines are good for business purposes). Also, they don't really claim that they're immune to security problems. They just say Macs don't have as many security problems. (True!)
I think part of the problem is that people mistake "Star Wars" and other sci-fi as being in the same genre. It's not that Star Wars is somehow "bad" or "superficial" science fiction, but that it's not really science fiction at all. There are no scientific principles at play. Star Wars is more in the same genre as LoTR. It's fantasy, set in spaceships.
"Just use whatever configuration Microsoft shipped it with" is dangerous thinking.
What I find really silly (and annoying) is the amount of customization required to get Microsoft stuff set up properly. It's very deceptive, because you can install everything and get it working very easily with very little customization. However, if you go through and do a lot of research, you'll find that the default settings are often not even recommended by Microsoft. The worst part is that (AFAIK) there isn't a single Microsoft document anywhere that really tells you how you're supposed to set this stuff up.
What I mean is, even if you just want to follow Microsoft's "best practices" for server/desktop/network/application setup, you should be editing the registry, group policies, and changing several hidden settings all over the place. Worse yet, you might encounter a problem and discover only after the fact that there's a knowledge-base article that recommends that you change a particular registry key or disable a particular service as a "best practice".
So it's struck me many times, "Why doesn't Microsoft set these things by default?" There may be reasons, but I feel that if you're a developer and you can't roll your software out with the "best practice" settings as the defaults, you're doing something wrong. Additionally, once the "best practice" settings are the default, it'd be nice if you could generate a report detailing where you're deviating from the defaults, when those changes were made, descriptions of the effects of those deviations, and the option to fix those deviations ('restore to default', if desired).
Some of my big complaints about administering Windows (and other operating systems are also guilty of this, to a lesser degree): there are so many hidden options with no clear "best" and the default is often wrong; many options don't have clear descriptors of their effects; when something suddenly stops working, it's not clear what setting has changed, nor how is there any obvious method to find the control to change it back.
Why can't Sun do the same thing with servers on its own without government interference???
...well I'm not sure I agree with this argument. In the larger context of what happened, it seems to me you're argument goes something like:
Microsoft tried to do bad things before, and the government interfered a little because people were predicting Microsoft's bad behavior would have many negative ramifications. Microsoft was still allowed to continue with their bad behavior, and the predicted negative consequences manifested. Luckily there were other forces that mitigated the negative impact and it wasn't a total disaster, and we're now recovering, though problems persist. Microsoft's bad behavior wasn't a total disaster in this one case, why shouldn't we allow Microsoft to commit similar acts?
It just doesn't quite make sense to me. IE's total dominance of the browser market was a bad thing that could have and should have been prevented. It's not over. Firefox still doesn't have a huge market share, and it's still a fight to get Microsoft to adhere to web standards.
But to answer your question more specifically, there's a reason why Sun can't really do "the same thing with servers": HTML is an open standard that other people could build browsers against. Microsoft's SMB/CIFS/Active Directory/Exchange are not open standards, and people are forced to reverse-engineer ways to interface with these things. And let's not forget that Microsoft can change these things on a whim, push updates out, and screw up anyone trying to reverse engineer things.
...and why isn't Europe actually standing up to them? It's all well and good to say, "Your behavior is unacceptable!" but what is going to happen when Microsoft asks, "What are you going to do about it?"
Well, yeah, it's not as though I'm unaware of the term "fascism". What I was really saying was, you could debate all you want about what you want to call it, but no matter what you call it, it seems bad.
So what you're saying is the only way I should be able to make money off my music is to somehow travel your town, perform for you, and hopefully sell you a T-Shirt? So my method of making income as a musician should be limited to what 19th century musicians did?
What, you haven't heard of this? It's called "going on tour", and yes, a lot of bands do it. In fact, it's already the case that most bands make more money from touring than record sales.
And what if I would like to be able to sell my recordings so I don't have to travel? Maybe so I could raise my son, or have a family or social life in general. Or maybe I have a job I can't take major time off of.
Yeah, well, most of us here on Earth need to work for a living and do things we don't entirely love in order to get by. What makes you so special that you think you're exempt?
Slashdot Mirror
So does it void your warranty if you install an unsupported driver in Windows? And supported by whom? If I have an nvidia card, is the driver from Nvidia "supported"? What about the one from Windows Update? Or is it only the driver HP supplies for me? And what if I install a 3rd party piece of hardware or software which results in installing "unsupported drivers"? What if you tried listening to a Sony audio CD and got a rootkit?
Until they provide a list of all "supported" software, or all software which voids your warranty, they should just support the hardware. It's a general assumption that people are going replace software, or at least install additional software, after they buy a computer. If manufacturers are going to start denying warranties because of software installed, it sets a dangerous precedent.
Yeah. I could see someone using more than I do, but if I install my OS and all my apps (full installs, clip-art, etc), it's probably going to be under 10GB. Add the games I'm currently running, and it'll be under 20. Add another 20GB for my music collection, and you're still well under the 64GBs listed here. I'll only break 60 GB when you add TV shows, movies, and my software archive (I have a Mac, and whenever I buy software, I make a DMG of the disc and store that for later installs, treat the disc as a backup). 64 GB flash disks would be mighty useful.
Wait... you think Apple servers are harder to set up than Windows? Maybe you've just used Windows servers for a long time and you know the ins and outs, but Windows installations certainly aren't sensible these days.
It would normally be silly to feel that way over an ISP, but Speakeasy has been the only ISP that felt to me like it was "one of the good guys". They offered naked DSL with static IPs at a reasonable price, and had pretty good support, too. Practically every other ISP has been utterly horrible, unless maybe you step up to the point of having multiple T1s or a T3, and then suddenly they're afraid of losing your business and might give you decent support. *Might*
FedEx and UPS are also transporting merchandise in bulk. When you send a package from NY to LA, do you think there's a FedEx guy who puts your pacakage in his own pickup truck and drives across the country? Of course not. FedEx isn't delivering "one package at a time". So when you're sending a package from NY to LA, they gather all the local packages in NY that are going to LA and they load them into the same sorts of big trucks and airplanes that would be used if they were shipping to stores. Even when they have local routes, they're fairly optimized for time and milage-- when you get your FedEx package, your house is on the way to the FedEx guy's next stop anyway.
If brick-and-morter stores diminished, it might even mean that FedEx could increase their efficiency, since there would be an even greater bulk to ship and the bulk would be more reliable. They's always be delivering all sorts of things all over the place, so fewer trucks would move half-full, and more stops would be "on the way" to somewhere.
What you're saying is true, that is how capitalism works. However, what I'm talking about is more trying to answer the question, "What is the purpose of capitalism?" People ought not look within capitalism for its own purpose.
Anyhow, the purpose of each of the various economic systems is to order the society's activities in some way. We, as a people, get together and determine what kinds of laws we will enact and what kinds of activity we should tolerate. The end of capitalism is not so that companies can survive or profit, but rather so that our activities will satisfy our needs and so that we, as a society, can eliminate waste and inefficiency. Companies, their survival, and their profit are all part of a system created toward that end.
The idea is that, if a company can survive by selling $50 music CDs, then they must be serving some market. Capitalism doesn't dictate that this is "fine", but rather capitalism is a system which allows this to happen. We use capitalism as our system because we want all our various markets, whether they're mainstream or niche, to be served. However, things change a bit when we allow a company to abuse the system in order to artificially create a market for $50 CDs. In this case, the company is probably harming our society, running contrary to our intention when choosing to be a capitalistic society, and is therefore in violation of the ideal capitalistic system.
In other words, capitalism in only a viable system for providing for society so long as the markets can, indeed, make demands on those serving the market. If the market is healthy, if supply and demand are actually determining a price, etc. then capitalism is an efficient system. However, if companies are able to manipulate, bully, and suppress markets, generate artificial markets and artificial demand, etc. then your system is set up wrong and "capitalism", if you can still call it that, is not serving its purpose. Some corrective action would need to be taken.
Really, the problem with the government running everything is not that the government is more evil than companies, but that the government then has an artifical monopoly that cannot be overturned by normal capitalistic forces. The result is horrible inefficiency and a failure to reconcile supply and demand. You get excess supplies of things that are unnecessary and insufficient supplies of what's needed.
In the extreme example, imagine you discovered someone was poisoning our water supplies and selling antidotes for $10,000 a pop. Would you step back and say, "Well, that's capitalism. If the market will bear that price, capitalism will allow it." Of course not. So even within a capitalistic system, you should still ask about businesses, "Is what they are doing legal? Is it moral? Is it good for our society?" If not, perhaps corrective action needs to be taken.
In my previous example, it's obvious that you'd want to make sure it's illegal to poison water supply, and then you'd want to make sure those laws were enforced. What happens too often, instead, is that the company selling antidotes will lobby the government to make the poisoning a mandatory part of water treatment, simply in order to secure their ability to abuse the market. That is not any kind of capitalism.
Poor Microsoft. Lots of people bought new PCs that came with Vista and aren't using it. Poor, poor Microsoft. All that money without having even provided anyone with anything of value. And you know what really sucks for them? A whole lot of those people who bought their computer with Vista and installed XP instead? They'll probably end up buying another copy of Vista in a couple years because they don't realize or remember that they have the right to a license of Vista.
Poor, poor Microsoft.
Oh, but to explain, what I sort of had in mind is something like getting all the various brands to make Walmart-only models and things that could be priced independently of any other store. Not that I have any idea what they'd actually do, but come hell or high water, Walmart will get their opportunity to screw us all.
I understand all that and I was somewhat joking, but that's what's been scary about Walmart: they have so much power right now that they can strong-arm distributers, suppliers, and whole industries. I sometimes imagine they have enough of a lobby to make sure Congress does something to ensure their business model. Like, if it took a constitutional amendment, they'd get it done.
And how do you think the brick-and-morter stores get their inventory? If it gets expensive to ship things, prices will hop on everything that isn't produced locally, no matter what kind of store is selling it.
I'm not entirely sure that online retailers undercutting brick-and-morter is a horrible thing. I'll think about this one for a while, but for the most part, this seems to be a case where the free market is preferable.
For one thing, it seems to me that price-fixing might harm brick-and-morter stores. If you set it so online stores necessarily make a much larger profit margin, it seems to me that many people might be more likely to try to push business online for those higher profit-margins. Since their costs are lower, the prices are the same, investors would then get a better return on online business and so they might try to figure out ways to close brick-and-morter shops in order to push the purchases to their online store.
I'm not saying that it will happen this way, but rather that there's room for this to backfire. On the other hand, I have a clear division between what I buy at the store vs. online. Do I want it today, in 2 hours, or now? Then I'll have to go to the store. Am I going to want to see the product, try it out, talk to a salesman? The store. Do I want to have a physical location where I can go and talk to people if I have a problem with the product? Store. The only things I buy online are general commodity parts where I'm getting a predictable product that I don't need within the next few days.
In this sense, it seems to me that it's perfectly possible for many brick-and-morter stores to keep on going without price-fixing. In fact, in those instances where brick-and-morter is just completely, flat out, no question, less efficient than online, and inefficient without any benefit that customers aren't willing to spend an extra dollar or two, then why not let those products/services move online? What's wrong with efficiency? What's wrong with obsolete business models going out of business, so long as they're truly obsolete.
Why would Walmart worry? Apparently, Walmart can strong-arm their suppliers to do whatever they want.
Yes, honestly, I'm not sure everything always has to be open source. I am a bit of an open source advocate at times (though I'm not a developer). I believe everything needs to use open standards to that different programs can interoperate, and I believe that many things benefit greatly from being open source. However, I don't see why people want to refuse all other models.
Let me put it this way: the developer of TextMate is not abusing any market. He's not trying to force people into proprietary formats or protocols. Textmate is a very good piece of software at a reasonable price. It's relatively simple, and it does what it does well without a whole lot of bloat.
And what's wrong with that? Especially for those of us who aren't going to want to rewrite our text editor, and who are willing to reward developers for good work, what is wrong with that?
In this case, are we running a risk of our text files being rendered unreadable if TextMate development stops? Are we possibly not going to be able to edit those text files anymore?
And really, honestly, I'm sorry, but if you're an open source developer who believes everyone must use open source software at all time, then by all means, develop a replacement to TextMate. A native Aqua GUI text editors for OSX with all the features of TextMate released with a GPL license-- I'd love to see it. But lets not begrudge a developer who's doing a good job just because he's trying to see a reasonable return for his work.
If Apple released a video iPod with all the iPhone features, except the phone, who in the hell would buy the iPhone?
Depends. Would I be able to get wireless internet access on that iPod, fast enough to check e-mail, with coverage as wide as Cingular's cellphone network? If not, then I would buy an iPhone.
To be honest, if I could get an Apple PDA phone with all the nice interface goodness of the iPhone, but without an MP3 player, I might buy that. And then I might buy an iPod nano. And I'd probably carry them both around everywhere. So the idea that I can get both in the same device does have some attraction for me.
Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Right. In fact, IIRC, there's even something like "THE God", which doesn't interfere in the conflict between the various gods. It's clear from the stories that God (upper-case, THE god) has planned the conflicts to have a purpose which no one but himself can see.
And this is part of why Gandalf holds back his full power. He is acknowledging that he can't just go around solving other people's problems for them, since the problems, conflicts, fighting, and resolution all play a part in this unknown plan. He doesn't know what the plan is, but he knows it exists. This is part of the reason he doesn't stop Gollum, for example. He knows Gollum still has a part to play. It's also very related to the metaphor of the ring, and why Gandalf can't take possession of the ring. He must restrain himself from abuse of power in order to play his proper role. The ring represents undue power and the thirst for undue power, and so taking possession of it would represent the sort of abuse of power many characters in the story are trying to avoid.
When Bombadil fails to be affected by the ring or tempted by it, he is displaying a closeness to God which would be impossible were he not a greater being than he seems. This is also relevant in terms of Hobbits, since they show a remarkable resistance to the ring, indicating that they, too, are greater than they appear.
(Sorry. Geeking out.)
What I bought was the same Dimension C521 without Windows, saving $40. Not $299, but the cheapest I could find on the Dell website.
Or, if you don't want Windows, buy an N-series desktop or laptop. People keep complaining that you can't buy a naked PC from Dell, but there it is.
Now, whether it's much cheaper (or even cheaper at all) to buy a naked PC than the same PC with Windows is a different issue. I've heard plenty of speculation that, with the discounts Microsoft gives Dell and the money crapware vendors pay Dell to install their stuff, installing Windows on a machine costs Dell pretty close to nothing. I don't really know. I bought an N-series desktop a while back and only saved about $40, but I would have done it on principle even if it didn't save me a single dollar. I wouldn't use Windows on that machine even if it were free, and I'd like Dell to know that some of us simply don't want Windows.
Yes, and I believe the appropriate form of communication depends on which kind of "pressure" you're able to apply. Sometimes the pressure is intellectual: a good argument. In this case, the form of communication should just be whichever form helps you make the argument better. Sometimes e-mail lets you think things out better.
You mention CCing the boss of the recipient, and that's a more political form of pressure. I find that they key thing is (obviously) that their boss will be on your side. Whether it's an intellectual or emotional argument, it's that you know the boss's position. In fact, I'm most likely to CC the boss when I'm e-mailing the person because they simply aren't doing their job, or if I'm requesting something I know the recipient won't give but that the boss would think the recipient will give.
But many times, if you want to convince someone, a good communicator will want to go face-to-face. If you have good people-skills, you know that you can persuade more easily when you can see your audience, gauge their reactions, and let them see you. However, if you're bad at people-skills and tend to put people off, you might want to stay hidden in your cubicle as much as possible and fire off strategic e-mails to the most responsive people with influence.
Basically, face-to-face is more powerful, so it can be much more persuasive, but if you mess up it will be more powerful at turning people off, offending people, intimidating people (not always good for persuasion!), etc.
I don't know about that. It seems to my that Apple is implying that Macs are easier for certain sorts of things (creative things, whereas it acknowledges that Windows machines are good for business purposes). Also, they don't really claim that they're immune to security problems. They just say Macs don't have as many security problems. (True!)
I think part of the problem is that people mistake "Star Wars" and other sci-fi as being in the same genre. It's not that Star Wars is somehow "bad" or "superficial" science fiction, but that it's not really science fiction at all. There are no scientific principles at play. Star Wars is more in the same genre as LoTR. It's fantasy, set in spaceships.
"Just use whatever configuration Microsoft shipped it with" is dangerous thinking.
What I find really silly (and annoying) is the amount of customization required to get Microsoft stuff set up properly. It's very deceptive, because you can install everything and get it working very easily with very little customization. However, if you go through and do a lot of research, you'll find that the default settings are often not even recommended by Microsoft. The worst part is that (AFAIK) there isn't a single Microsoft document anywhere that really tells you how you're supposed to set this stuff up.
What I mean is, even if you just want to follow Microsoft's "best practices" for server/desktop/network/application setup, you should be editing the registry, group policies, and changing several hidden settings all over the place. Worse yet, you might encounter a problem and discover only after the fact that there's a knowledge-base article that recommends that you change a particular registry key or disable a particular service as a "best practice".
So it's struck me many times, "Why doesn't Microsoft set these things by default?" There may be reasons, but I feel that if you're a developer and you can't roll your software out with the "best practice" settings as the defaults, you're doing something wrong. Additionally, once the "best practice" settings are the default, it'd be nice if you could generate a report detailing where you're deviating from the defaults, when those changes were made, descriptions of the effects of those deviations, and the option to fix those deviations ('restore to default', if desired).
Some of my big complaints about administering Windows (and other operating systems are also guilty of this, to a lesser degree): there are so many hidden options with no clear "best" and the default is often wrong; many options don't have clear descriptors of their effects; when something suddenly stops working, it's not clear what setting has changed, nor how is there any obvious method to find the control to change it back.
Why can't Sun do the same thing with servers on its own without government interference???
...well I'm not sure I agree with this argument. In the larger context of what happened, it seems to me you're argument goes something like:
It just doesn't quite make sense to me. IE's total dominance of the browser market was a bad thing that could have and should have been prevented. It's not over. Firefox still doesn't have a huge market share, and it's still a fight to get Microsoft to adhere to web standards.
But to answer your question more specifically, there's a reason why Sun can't really do "the same thing with servers": HTML is an open standard that other people could build browsers against. Microsoft's SMB/CIFS/Active Directory/Exchange are not open standards, and people are forced to reverse-engineer ways to interface with these things. And let's not forget that Microsoft can change these things on a whim, push updates out, and screw up anyone trying to reverse engineer things.
...and why isn't Europe actually standing up to them? It's all well and good to say, "Your behavior is unacceptable!" but what is going to happen when Microsoft asks, "What are you going to do about it?"
Well, yeah, it's not as though I'm unaware of the term "fascism". What I was really saying was, you could debate all you want about what you want to call it, but no matter what you call it, it seems bad.
What, you haven't heard of this? It's called "going on tour", and yes, a lot of bands do it. In fact, it's already the case that most bands make more money from touring than record sales.
Yeah, well, most of us here on Earth need to work for a living and do things we don't entirely love in order to get by. What makes you so special that you think you're exempt?