"I originally thought the Macbook Air was a good traveling laptop until I realised it had no LAN port..."
But, if you wanted to, you could get an Airport Express (small and compact for a radio to copper bridge) to connect your MacBook Air to a wired LAN. I'm not saying this is ideal and I'd don't think I'd rely a newly released laptop for his purpose.
"And that's why the rest of us wait for format wars to end."
I don't think you have to wait any longer. Come June, ~70% of movies will be released BD for a HD format and price reductions on 4th gen BD players are expected. And for the remaining movies that won't be available on BD, the upscaling capabilities of an HD player make for watching DVD fine too.
"...all the pages that expect Internet Explorer to deviate from the specifications will break if Internet Explorer starts following the specifications."
Is this really a problem? I've been surfing without IE for years. I rarely run into a site that is IE only these days. And if it is IE only, BFD. I just don't come back. What better motivation for a webmaster to update their page than have people stop visiting.
"I know almost no one who's really interested in either format, or purchasing all their movies AGAIN..."
I think most people with a HD setup will just purchase subsequent movies in HD content as apposed to replacing their existing collection. Most standalone HD players have upscaling capabilities for 480i DVD that helps improve their current DVD collections.
Movies, unlike music, is something that you generally don't watch over and over again like you listen to a song. Maybe you watch the same movie once a year or so. And I think that is reason enough for the average person to not fork over the cash to replace their current content. But, of course, there are exceptions.
"Wait... couldn't you just add something to the random number? Or perhaps shift the digits over?"
You can do what TFA said:
"It's possible to implement Dual_EC_DRBG in such a way as to protect it against this backdoor, by generating new constants with another secure random-number generator and then publishing the seed. This method is even in the NIST document, in Appendix A."
"I think even if MS switched to ODF by default, they would still sell just as many copies of Office. "
Me too. So why in the Hell does MS fight ODF tooth and nail at every turn? They just can't wrap their head around the concept of winning their customer based on the merit of their product. The user has choice? OMG, the sky is falling!
"I just don't know how much computers had a firm grip (or no grip at all) on the public zeitgeist in the pre-Internet (or at least pre-Reagan-80's) days."
Rent this movie for a popular culture view of computers in 1969.
"Steve Jobs is trying to make customers pay more for the right to do something that's already a right."
It costs any US company extra money to create software for copying an encrypted DVD in the form of a license to do it; otherwise, I'm sure they would find their butt in court. Maybe this extra charge is for covering the costs that Apple has to pay the MPAA for the right to make a copy of a DVD?
"So do you agree with them in their belief that their stockholders are more important than their paying customers?"
There is no belief to it. It is a legal requirement that a corporation must put the interest of its shareholders above all else. The question that should be asked is who is #2. The company or its customers?
"DOCSIS 3.0 roll-outs, which are already started in test areas and expected to hit 25%+ in competitive Comcast markets in 2008, allows 450+ Mbps download and 125+ Mbps upload per channel in a node."
Comcast emailed me back in August and asked for my feedback. I vented! One thing I said was FIOS was available to me so I wanted a price reduction on their service or a speed boost or I'll see ya later. Here is their response:
"We will also be offering 16/2 Mbps in your area early next year."
"Honestly, it sounds to me like you're looking for something to complain about."
No, it should be my choice what my security policy is. And I had that with 10.4. I could, with a few clicks of check box, reconfigure my policy. Now what do I get?
Slashdot Mirror
There is another BSD distro that makes a good desktop. I've been using it with excellent results. It's OSX.
An even better example:
"Woz is very well-off and I don't think any future earnings will have much impact on his standard of living."
Well, if Woz makes public statements on the record like this in TFA:
'"I don't think it's [Air] going to be a hit." He said he liked to burn a lot of DVDs for friends and watched movies on planes...'
I think is future earnings will be less when he finds himself in litigation with the MPAA for pirating and legal violations of the DMCA.
"How about running Firefox for Windows under Wine ?"
A simpler solution is to just not use a Hotmail account, duh. If they don't want your business, no problem. There are plenty of other options.
"I originally thought the Macbook Air was a good traveling laptop until I realised it had no LAN port..."
But, if you wanted to, you could get an Airport Express (small and compact for a radio to copper bridge) to connect your MacBook Air to a wired LAN. I'm not saying this is ideal and I'd don't think I'd rely a newly released laptop for his purpose.
"I think Python has a small enough user base that they could actually pull it off."
According to this index, anyway, Python has a respectable base and is slightly ahead of Perl. But, yeah, they could pull it off at this point.
You're right. The END of June is 5 months away. Is that a long time?
"And that's why the rest of us wait for format wars to end."
I don't think you have to wait any longer. Come June, ~70% of movies will be released BD for a HD format and price reductions on 4th gen BD players are expected. And for the remaining movies that won't be available on BD, the upscaling capabilities of an HD player make for watching DVD fine too.
"...all the pages that expect Internet Explorer to deviate from the specifications will break if Internet Explorer starts following the specifications."
Is this really a problem? I've been surfing without IE for years. I rarely run into a site that is IE only these days. And if it is IE only, BFD. I just don't come back. What better motivation for a webmaster to update their page than have people stop visiting.
Luxury! We played Tennis for Two on an oscilloscope back in 1958. And we liked it!
"E. ??? (Change default name and password, set WPA, Turn off SSID etc....)"
Turning off SSID is pointless. It is easy to discover it for those that would want to know.
Not a problem. I have a powered USB hub. And if the one on the keyboard is powered, then it is a push.
Thanks a bunch. I almost lost all hope of ever finding one. I'm ordering it!
"I know almost no one who's really interested in either format, or purchasing all their movies AGAIN..."
I think most people with a HD setup will just purchase subsequent movies in HD content as apposed to replacing their existing collection. Most standalone HD players have upscaling capabilities for 480i DVD that helps improve their current DVD collections.
Movies, unlike music, is something that you generally don't watch over and over again like you listen to a song. Maybe you watch the same movie once a year or so. And I think that is reason enough for the average person to not fork over the cash to replace their current content. But, of course, there are exceptions.
"I don't understand ... what happened to the weeder courses that the CS majors went through when I was in Uni in the 80s?"
I don't understand either. I wasn't even a CS major and had to learn Assembly and Fortran as weeder courses for an ME degree.
"30 f/s x 30 sec x 1000 w/p (words per picture)=???"
I don't want to pick the fly shit out of the pepper, but...
That equals 900,000 frame words per picture
How about: 30 frame/sec x 30 sec x 1000 words/frame?
"Something tells me that if someone was having sex with you... that they would be upset. Why? After all nothing was taken..."
Oh, yes, something was taken indeed. His virginity!
"Officially released web browsers that pass there is only Konqueror, Safari 2.02"
Well, I have Safari 3.0.4 and it doesn't pass the Acid2 test. Who has v2.02 anymore?
"Wait... couldn't you just add something to the random number? Or perhaps shift the digits over?"
You can do what TFA said:
"It's possible to implement Dual_EC_DRBG in such a way as to protect it against this backdoor, by generating new constants with another secure random-number generator and then publishing the seed. This method is even in the NIST document, in Appendix A."
"I think even if MS switched to ODF by default, they would still sell just as many copies of Office. "
Me too. So why in the Hell does MS fight ODF tooth and nail at every turn? They just can't wrap their head around the concept of winning their customer based on the merit of their product. The user has choice? OMG, the sky is falling!
"I just don't know how much computers had a firm grip (or no grip at all) on the public zeitgeist in the pre-Internet (or at least pre-Reagan-80's) days."
Rent this movie for a popular culture view of computers in 1969.
"Steve Jobs is trying to make customers pay more for the right to do something that's already a right."
It costs any US company extra money to create software for copying an encrypted DVD in the form of a license to do it; otherwise, I'm sure they would find their butt in court. Maybe this extra charge is for covering the costs that Apple has to pay the MPAA for the right to make a copy of a DVD?
"So do you agree with them in their belief that their stockholders are more important than their paying customers?"
There is no belief to it. It is a legal requirement that a corporation must put the interest of its shareholders above all else. The question that should be asked is who is #2. The company or its customers?
"DOCSIS 3.0 roll-outs, which are already started in test areas and expected to hit 25%+ in competitive Comcast markets in 2008, allows 450+ Mbps download and 125+ Mbps upload per channel in a node."
Comcast emailed me back in August and asked for my feedback. I vented! One thing I said was FIOS was available to me so I wanted a price reduction on their service or a speed boost or I'll see ya later. Here is their response:
"We will also be offering 16/2 Mbps in your area early next year."
So I'll wait and see if that becomes a reality.
"Honestly, it sounds to me like you're looking for something to complain about."
No, it should be my choice what my security policy is. And I had that with 10.4. I could, with a few clicks of check box, reconfigure my policy. Now what do I get?