Extinguishing a whole species that is so low in the food chain seems like a dangerous thing to me.
Even if other insects fill the resulting gap, that is poised to cause more problems, as it is a change in the ecosystem.
I thought we had learned by now that whenever humanity messed around with nature in order to improve something for humans, it usually backfired in some more or less horrible way. I don't believe in god, but I don't believe in people playing god either. The real reason why diseases like dengue are flourishing likely lie with the fact that there are too many humans, changing their environment in a way that benefits the mosquitoes and harms their natural enemies. Killing the mosquitoes is just fighting the symptom and shifting it over to the next species that will benefit from the fact that mosquitoes are on the retreat. Ecosystems are too complex for people to understand, I wonder why we still can't stop messing around with them.
True, as a matter of fact they even explain what a Subscriber is to them.
But that explaination also explains that you're considered a subscriber whether you play or not. As long as you pay, you're a subscriber. That doesn't change their profits from the claimed 10mio users, but it changes the actual player base a bit. Their definition of Internet Game Room players also counting as subscribers is also questionable, especially as that is probably a major portion in the asian market.
actually, I suspect those 10mio subscribers include past subscribers that still have an account on the servers, but are inactive at the moment. So assuming that maybe 20% are passive accounts, they only get money from 8mio people. Which is still way more than the game is worth, of course. And I've played for 1.5 years...
- Windows Vista Virtual Machine edition
- Windows Vista VM edition plus
- Windows Vista VM edition ultimate
- Windows Vista VM home edition
- Windows Vista VM edition OEM
and of course the always popular
- Windows vista VM edition ultra & Solitaire Pro Edition 2008 ultra
Pricing yet to be decided.
Well, all I can tell you, is that Apple uses off-the-shelf drives, just like many other manufacturers too.
What they call "Superdrive" can in fact be different drives, from Panasonic to Matshita.
The iMac G5 for example (the white one with everything in the monitor) uses a Panasonic DVR-K04, my MacBook Pro that I'm using right now has a Matshita UJ-875E. Those are stock drives. I could go out to the next PC store, buy another 875E and it would work without modification.
So if there are slot loading drives that do work, then either Apple has never used those, or it's just pure luck.
That's funny, because Apple is using industry standard slot loading drives that are by no means any different than the ones found in any PC laptop or desktop. So they could just as well state that the discs don't work in any slot-loading drive.
You're wrong still.
That thing in the video DOES project the image from an angle from ABOVE, hence the shadows of the hands. It's not projected from below, unlike the solution of microsoft's table. You might want to rephrase that second paragraph to make it clearer whether you're talking about the MS or the Hitachi solution.
True, I didn't RTFA:) Even better when there already is recording capability. Now all they have to do is offer them for a reasonable price.
As for the X designation: The reason why it wouldn't make sense to use megabytes/sec as a metric is because all optical media with CAV tech (constant angular velocity, ie they always spin at the same speed) have increasing data rate when the read/write lens moves from the center to the outer regions of the disc. Of course most drives today support CAV AND CLV (constant linear velocity), but that is mainly because Audio Discs and Video Discs (or DVDs) require CLV. It wouldn't make sense to limit the drive to the max speeds of the inner circles, when you can be that much faster on the outer ones.
Of course, the X designation also only represents the maximum speed on the outer rings, but since everybody knows that CAV has varying speeds, that seems ok. Designating a drive with 16MB/sec, when really it can only achieve that speed on 5% of a fully recorded medium would probably result in a series of class action lawsuits against the manufacturer.
Gotta agree that it is highly confusing for the customer, though.
I guess that's a bit too late to make an appearance at MWSF in January.
Then again, as long as they don't have a recording function, who needs Blu-Ray in a Laptop anyway.
"So I guess Linux must be really unstable, right? After all, it runs on all kinds of hardware, from cheap to expensive, ancient to cutting edge. By that logic, Linux must be the buggiest operating system around."
No, it's not unstable, but it's the most polyformous OS in the market. They can't even agree on a single common licensing system for open source software. Additionally, it'd be naive to think that you can just transform a closed-platform OS into an open source walhalla over night. I know some people's wet dreams here include such visions, but that is simply utopic.
"Yes, but only because they were stupid about it: they were apparently licensing their OS at a price that was too low to be profitable. If they had used a little more sense, they would've been making enough money from software to offset whatever they weren't making from hardware."
So, they should have asked so much for their license, that third party system manufacturers would have had to ask 500$ extra. I can already see how the Linux and open-source crowd would be screaming about having to pay royalties they never use, how software licenses artificially keep hardware prices high etc. I see it with Windows here every day. "Stop bundling Windows, I don't want to pay for an OS that I'm not going to use anyway. Yadayadayada". It would've been that same story all over again. There is no way Apple could have please the Slashdot crowds.
"How strange. You give a justification for crippling the OS -- not even a good one, by the way, since other OSes manage to be successful without being tied to a particular brand of hardware -- and then claim that because it's justified, it isn't really crippled at all? You're robbing the language of all meaning, sir."
Last time I checked the vast majority of OS in the market were absolutely tied to a certain hardware. Only because Intel with BIOS is the dominant hardware platform today doesn't mean it's not a restriction. Or have you tried running Windows on a PowerPC Mac lately? Or on an Atari? Again, notice I'm talking about restrictions, not crippled, even there.
"What I really don't understand is why you're denying this. It's obviously crippled. Many products are. Two cameras use the same software, one just disables fancy features based on a setting. That's legal. Just admit it. Why can't you just admit it?"
Oh I agree that such a camera would be crippled. But that is not the same situation as what were facing with OS X. Because there is no OS X that does NOT have these restrictions you call crippled.
I'm not trying to deny that Apple restricts the functionality, artificially so. I just don't agree to call it crippled.
If the world looked different and we had 95% Macs and 5% Windows machines, you still wouldn't be able to simply stick the harddrive of a dead Windows notebook into a Mac. Not because Windows is crippled, and not because the Mac is crippled either, but simply because Macs run EFI today, while most Windows machines do not and still run legacy BIOS. Most versions of Windows don't even support EFI.
You could as well call that crippled, but since the real world is the opposite of what I have just shown, you choose to call the Mac crippled, because, implicitly, it denies to adapt to Windows and legacy hardware domination.
I'm not arguing about some artificial or changeable restrictions, I simply object to the term crippled, because that implies that something is no longer possible that was possible before the act of crippling occured. And that is simply not the case with OS X. In fact, before the move to Intel platform, you had even less chance of running OS X on any other platform.
Last but not least, you name IBM and their lawyers. Do you think Apple is such a tiny corporation that they have no lawyers who know what they're doing? If you think Apple is doing something illegal with their EULA, why don't you join 10'000s of fellow citizens who think class action lawsuits are a very entertaining modern-age hobby? Sue them, we'll see who is right and who's wrong, then.
Yadayadayada. Every single point you make runs down to your convictions that whatever you feel should be, has to be. You ignore common practice as much as legal facts. You even invent completely new stuff. Nowhere does it say on an OS X box that it will run on commodity hardware. There's no false advertising there.
Just because you can probably use a Cesna airplane to make an excellent mango chutney doesn't mean they have to cover that in their sales contracts. Nor does your insurance have to pay for a broken rotor, after you hit a particularly tough mango.
Just because OS X might technically run fine on commodity hardware doesn't mean they are breaking any laws by not allowing it. They can decide perfectly on their own what they want their product to be capable of. And yes, even if you think otherwise, it's their product, even after you bought it. You just own the disc and the right to use the contained software, according to the EULA.
That's got nothing more to do with DRM than a dishwasher not being designed to cook fish, although it works very well. Still no warranty is going to cover your damages if the fish somehow manages to destroy your dishwasher.
You know, software isn't like a shovel that, once you bought it, is all yours and yours to decide in whatever way you want to abuse it.
And even for a shovel, they are not going to replace it to you, when they realize you intentionally stuck it into a shredder. And if they happen to have a patent on some special function of that shovel, they're also not going to allow you to copy that and affect their sales. Running OS X on commodity hardware certainly is possible, but if everyone did it, it would seriously hurt Apple and thus in the end OS X development itself. Nobody would benefit. That's why they are restricting the level of (ab)use.
OS X never was open source, it's not crippled, because there never was a retail version of it that did more than it does today.
I don't care about some obsure beta. Beta is beta.
I'm not a mac fanboy, as you call it, I'm just pointing out to you the facts that you seem to have a very hard time understanding.
This is not some proprietary Linux distro were talking about, you'd have every right to complain about restrictions there.
Never mind, I'm wasting my time here. It's like trying to convince Lenin that capitalism isn't all that bad.
It still runs down to the fact that this restriction ultimately benefits OS X and thus also the average OS X user, because:
- it makes QA easier, providing a more solid OS experience
- it helps Apple remain profitable, which results in sustained OS support and platform availability & health
We've seen what happens when Apple starts losing hardware sales to competition. They almost went belly up.
That wouldn't help anyone who wanted to run OS X, neither those who own a real Mac, nor those who run it on commodity hardware.
Therefore it isn't crippled, because it's for the greater good of the OS as a whole and over time.
If you fail to see that, I'm afraid I can't help you guys.
Merry Xmas.
Still not quite fitting, your analogy.
If someone came and crippled your legs to keep you from crossing the street, that would imply that, until then, you had been perfectly able to cross the street.
OS X however never was designed to run on commodity hardware. So to speak, it never was intended to walk, and just because you can put it in a wheelchair and roll it over the street, doesn't mean it should have been able to do it on its own in the first place.
Therefore it's not crippled, because there is nothing compareable that is not crippled (ie. there is no other OS X that is designed to run on commodity hardware). It's restricted, maybe even disabled, but it is not crippled. Restriction by design is not crippling.
Then again, this is a purely linguistic debate by now.
Apart from your insulting and immature rant, have you ever stopped to think about the fact that no matter what commercial software you are looking at, you do almost never own it? You own a license to use it, under the terms given in the license agreement. You don't own the software. And therefore any company has their perfect rights to include in their license whatever they like and to leave out of the license, whatever they do not like. This is the same with Apple, Microsoft, Blizzard, id Software, Adobe, basically any software that costs something to buy. And a lot of free software too.
If anyone is retarded here, it's those people who still think just because they paid for something also means they own it and with it every right on earth to do whatever they please. Even back in the dark age that wasn't the case, time to get used to it.
If you truly want to be creative, as you claim, you should probably start thinking about creating your own IP, instead of whining about not being allowed to use someone elses in a way that these people do not want you to.
If you think OS X is junk, that is your right, and you have every right to not use or like it. Nobody forces you to do so. Unless of course you think you can only be creative if you have access to OS X.
By the way, when was the last time you tried installing Windows 95 on a current machine?
Or Linux Kernel 2.0, for that matter?
The only junk I see around here is your collection of baseless arguments.
I wouldn't call that "crippled". Restricted is more on the point and also less wrongfully negative.
Is your car crippled, because you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed limit? Are you crippled, because you're not allowed to cross the street when the light is red? You certainly are not. A restriction for the good of things is not crippling, it's a restriction, and nothing more or less.
And that is why Microsoft is so extremely well respected around the industry, for having a stable, easy to use, secure and hassle free OS experience, right? Oh wait, I'm in the wrong parallel universe again...
Because OS X Leopard CAN access 4GB of RAM.
Let's see if Apple also joins the fray.
Then again, 4GB is way too much, because after all 640KB should be enough for everyone.
to solve two prominent US problems: Too much CO2 output due to excessive energy consumption and a lot of overweight people.
Solution: have them power something by pedaling for a little longer than 20 minutes, though.
is a Toyota Yaris Verso, anno 1996 or 1997 as far as I remember.
It's big enough to transport pretty much everything that isn't a cow or a horse, yet it averages at 5.2l/100km according to the factory and more like 4.4l/100km on the highway and driving economically.
If the entire US population had bought a comparable car in 1997, we could have saved several dozen billions of gas in the US alone.
Instead, thesy go on selling and buying gas-guzzlers, now officially legal into 2020.
Oh my...
Slashdot Mirror
We're used to that. Being surrounded. Not much of a problem.
Extinguishing a whole species that is so low in the food chain seems like a dangerous thing to me. Even if other insects fill the resulting gap, that is poised to cause more problems, as it is a change in the ecosystem. I thought we had learned by now that whenever humanity messed around with nature in order to improve something for humans, it usually backfired in some more or less horrible way.
I don't believe in god, but I don't believe in people playing god either. The real reason why diseases like dengue are flourishing likely lie with the fact that there are too many humans, changing their environment in a way that benefits the mosquitoes and harms their natural enemies. Killing the mosquitoes is just fighting the symptom and shifting it over to the next species that will benefit from the fact that mosquitoes are on the retreat.
Ecosystems are too complex for people to understand, I wonder why we still can't stop messing around with them.
I'm retarded AND illiterate, that's why I read news on Slashdot. ;)
True, as a matter of fact they even explain what a Subscriber is to them. But that explaination also explains that you're considered a subscriber whether you play or not. As long as you pay, you're a subscriber. That doesn't change their profits from the claimed 10mio users, but it changes the actual player base a bit. Their definition of Internet Game Room players also counting as subscribers is also questionable, especially as that is probably a major portion in the asian market.
actually, I suspect those 10mio subscribers include past subscribers that still have an account on the servers, but are inactive at the moment. So assuming that maybe 20% are passive accounts, they only get money from 8mio people. Which is still way more than the game is worth, of course. And I've played for 1.5 years...
I could imagine that dtracing iTunes actually is a violation of the iTunes EULA. I don't know, I have never read it, but have you?
- Windows Vista Virtual Machine edition - Windows Vista VM edition plus - Windows Vista VM edition ultimate - Windows Vista VM home edition - Windows Vista VM edition OEM and of course the always popular - Windows vista VM edition ultra & Solitaire Pro Edition 2008 ultra Pricing yet to be decided.
Well, all I can tell you, is that Apple uses off-the-shelf drives, just like many other manufacturers too. What they call "Superdrive" can in fact be different drives, from Panasonic to Matshita. The iMac G5 for example (the white one with everything in the monitor) uses a Panasonic DVR-K04, my MacBook Pro that I'm using right now has a Matshita UJ-875E. Those are stock drives. I could go out to the next PC store, buy another 875E and it would work without modification. So if there are slot loading drives that do work, then either Apple has never used those, or it's just pure luck.
That's funny, because Apple is using industry standard slot loading drives that are by no means any different than the ones found in any PC laptop or desktop. So they could just as well state that the discs don't work in any slot-loading drive.
You're wrong still. That thing in the video DOES project the image from an angle from ABOVE, hence the shadows of the hands. It's not projected from below, unlike the solution of microsoft's table. You might want to rephrase that second paragraph to make it clearer whether you're talking about the MS or the Hitachi solution.
True, I didn't RTFA:) Even better when there already is recording capability. Now all they have to do is offer them for a reasonable price. As for the X designation: The reason why it wouldn't make sense to use megabytes/sec as a metric is because all optical media with CAV tech (constant angular velocity, ie they always spin at the same speed) have increasing data rate when the read/write lens moves from the center to the outer regions of the disc. Of course most drives today support CAV AND CLV (constant linear velocity), but that is mainly because Audio Discs and Video Discs (or DVDs) require CLV. It wouldn't make sense to limit the drive to the max speeds of the inner circles, when you can be that much faster on the outer ones.
Of course, the X designation also only represents the maximum speed on the outer rings, but since everybody knows that CAV has varying speeds, that seems ok. Designating a drive with 16MB/sec, when really it can only achieve that speed on 5% of a fully recorded medium would probably result in a series of class action lawsuits against the manufacturer.
Gotta agree that it is highly confusing for the customer, though.
I guess that's a bit too late to make an appearance at MWSF in January. Then again, as long as they don't have a recording function, who needs Blu-Ray in a Laptop anyway.
"So I guess Linux must be really unstable, right? After all, it runs on all kinds of hardware, from cheap to expensive, ancient to cutting edge. By that logic, Linux must be the buggiest operating system around." No, it's not unstable, but it's the most polyformous OS in the market. They can't even agree on a single common licensing system for open source software. Additionally, it'd be naive to think that you can just transform a closed-platform OS into an open source walhalla over night. I know some people's wet dreams here include such visions, but that is simply utopic. "Yes, but only because they were stupid about it: they were apparently licensing their OS at a price that was too low to be profitable. If they had used a little more sense, they would've been making enough money from software to offset whatever they weren't making from hardware." So, they should have asked so much for their license, that third party system manufacturers would have had to ask 500$ extra. I can already see how the Linux and open-source crowd would be screaming about having to pay royalties they never use, how software licenses artificially keep hardware prices high etc. I see it with Windows here every day. "Stop bundling Windows, I don't want to pay for an OS that I'm not going to use anyway. Yadayadayada". It would've been that same story all over again. There is no way Apple could have please the Slashdot crowds. "How strange. You give a justification for crippling the OS -- not even a good one, by the way, since other OSes manage to be successful without being tied to a particular brand of hardware -- and then claim that because it's justified, it isn't really crippled at all? You're robbing the language of all meaning, sir." Last time I checked the vast majority of OS in the market were absolutely tied to a certain hardware. Only because Intel with BIOS is the dominant hardware platform today doesn't mean it's not a restriction. Or have you tried running Windows on a PowerPC Mac lately? Or on an Atari? Again, notice I'm talking about restrictions, not crippled, even there.
"What I really don't understand is why you're denying this. It's obviously crippled. Many products are. Two cameras use the same software, one just disables fancy features based on a setting. That's legal. Just admit it. Why can't you just admit it?" Oh I agree that such a camera would be crippled. But that is not the same situation as what were facing with OS X. Because there is no OS X that does NOT have these restrictions you call crippled. I'm not trying to deny that Apple restricts the functionality, artificially so. I just don't agree to call it crippled. If the world looked different and we had 95% Macs and 5% Windows machines, you still wouldn't be able to simply stick the harddrive of a dead Windows notebook into a Mac. Not because Windows is crippled, and not because the Mac is crippled either, but simply because Macs run EFI today, while most Windows machines do not and still run legacy BIOS. Most versions of Windows don't even support EFI. You could as well call that crippled, but since the real world is the opposite of what I have just shown, you choose to call the Mac crippled, because, implicitly, it denies to adapt to Windows and legacy hardware domination. I'm not arguing about some artificial or changeable restrictions, I simply object to the term crippled, because that implies that something is no longer possible that was possible before the act of crippling occured. And that is simply not the case with OS X. In fact, before the move to Intel platform, you had even less chance of running OS X on any other platform. Last but not least, you name IBM and their lawyers. Do you think Apple is such a tiny corporation that they have no lawyers who know what they're doing? If you think Apple is doing something illegal with their EULA, why don't you join 10'000s of fellow citizens who think class action lawsuits are a very entertaining modern-age hobby? Sue them, we'll see who is right and who's wrong, then.
Yadayadayada. Every single point you make runs down to your convictions that whatever you feel should be, has to be. You ignore common practice as much as legal facts. You even invent completely new stuff. Nowhere does it say on an OS X box that it will run on commodity hardware. There's no false advertising there. Just because you can probably use a Cesna airplane to make an excellent mango chutney doesn't mean they have to cover that in their sales contracts. Nor does your insurance have to pay for a broken rotor, after you hit a particularly tough mango. Just because OS X might technically run fine on commodity hardware doesn't mean they are breaking any laws by not allowing it. They can decide perfectly on their own what they want their product to be capable of. And yes, even if you think otherwise, it's their product, even after you bought it. You just own the disc and the right to use the contained software, according to the EULA. That's got nothing more to do with DRM than a dishwasher not being designed to cook fish, although it works very well. Still no warranty is going to cover your damages if the fish somehow manages to destroy your dishwasher. You know, software isn't like a shovel that, once you bought it, is all yours and yours to decide in whatever way you want to abuse it. And even for a shovel, they are not going to replace it to you, when they realize you intentionally stuck it into a shredder. And if they happen to have a patent on some special function of that shovel, they're also not going to allow you to copy that and affect their sales. Running OS X on commodity hardware certainly is possible, but if everyone did it, it would seriously hurt Apple and thus in the end OS X development itself. Nobody would benefit. That's why they are restricting the level of (ab)use. OS X never was open source, it's not crippled, because there never was a retail version of it that did more than it does today. I don't care about some obsure beta. Beta is beta. I'm not a mac fanboy, as you call it, I'm just pointing out to you the facts that you seem to have a very hard time understanding. This is not some proprietary Linux distro were talking about, you'd have every right to complain about restrictions there. Never mind, I'm wasting my time here. It's like trying to convince Lenin that capitalism isn't all that bad.
It still runs down to the fact that this restriction ultimately benefits OS X and thus also the average OS X user, because: - it makes QA easier, providing a more solid OS experience - it helps Apple remain profitable, which results in sustained OS support and platform availability & health We've seen what happens when Apple starts losing hardware sales to competition. They almost went belly up. That wouldn't help anyone who wanted to run OS X, neither those who own a real Mac, nor those who run it on commodity hardware. Therefore it isn't crippled, because it's for the greater good of the OS as a whole and over time. If you fail to see that, I'm afraid I can't help you guys. Merry Xmas.
Still not quite fitting, your analogy. If someone came and crippled your legs to keep you from crossing the street, that would imply that, until then, you had been perfectly able to cross the street. OS X however never was designed to run on commodity hardware. So to speak, it never was intended to walk, and just because you can put it in a wheelchair and roll it over the street, doesn't mean it should have been able to do it on its own in the first place. Therefore it's not crippled, because there is nothing compareable that is not crippled (ie. there is no other OS X that is designed to run on commodity hardware). It's restricted, maybe even disabled, but it is not crippled. Restriction by design is not crippling. Then again, this is a purely linguistic debate by now.
Apart from your insulting and immature rant, have you ever stopped to think about the fact that no matter what commercial software you are looking at, you do almost never own it? You own a license to use it, under the terms given in the license agreement. You don't own the software. And therefore any company has their perfect rights to include in their license whatever they like and to leave out of the license, whatever they do not like. This is the same with Apple, Microsoft, Blizzard, id Software, Adobe, basically any software that costs something to buy. And a lot of free software too. If anyone is retarded here, it's those people who still think just because they paid for something also means they own it and with it every right on earth to do whatever they please. Even back in the dark age that wasn't the case, time to get used to it. If you truly want to be creative, as you claim, you should probably start thinking about creating your own IP, instead of whining about not being allowed to use someone elses in a way that these people do not want you to. If you think OS X is junk, that is your right, and you have every right to not use or like it. Nobody forces you to do so. Unless of course you think you can only be creative if you have access to OS X. By the way, when was the last time you tried installing Windows 95 on a current machine? Or Linux Kernel 2.0, for that matter? The only junk I see around here is your collection of baseless arguments.
I wouldn't call that "crippled". Restricted is more on the point and also less wrongfully negative. Is your car crippled, because you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed limit? Are you crippled, because you're not allowed to cross the street when the light is red? You certainly are not. A restriction for the good of things is not crippling, it's a restriction, and nothing more or less.
And that is why Microsoft is so extremely well respected around the industry, for having a stable, easy to use, secure and hassle free OS experience, right? Oh wait, I'm in the wrong parallel universe again...
Yes, max, but not standard. Standard for MBPs is still 2GB.
Because OS X Leopard CAN access 4GB of RAM. Let's see if Apple also joins the fray. Then again, 4GB is way too much, because after all 640KB should be enough for everyone.
to solve two prominent US problems: Too much CO2 output due to excessive energy consumption and a lot of overweight people. Solution: have them power something by pedaling for a little longer than 20 minutes, though.
is a Toyota Yaris Verso, anno 1996 or 1997 as far as I remember. It's big enough to transport pretty much everything that isn't a cow or a horse, yet it averages at 5.2l/100km according to the factory and more like 4.4l/100km on the highway and driving economically. If the entire US population had bought a comparable car in 1997, we could have saved several dozen billions of gas in the US alone. Instead, thesy go on selling and buying gas-guzzlers, now officially legal into 2020. Oh my...
Not only "oppressive regimes" do this. So does the US. All the time.