Is Apple going by selling ANY PowerMac computers? Seriously, who is going to buy into a platform that will be obsolete in 9 months?
Right, because every *other* computer sold now will still be tip-top in 9 months. How terrible that Apple is selling computers that *get old* and are *surpassed* by newer technology... oh the horror! There should totally be a law against that...
If a company were to start advertising, 'Hey- our laptops cost more but you get the best service.' I bet they wouldn't sell as well as the company beating their prices.
Not always. Dell's prices are usually quite good, but rarely the absolute cheapest. But what has their advertising mantra been over the past few years? "Award winning service and support". They offered impressive -- and industry changing -- service plans on their products, and people started buying Dell over HP, Compaq, Gateway, and others -- even though those companies offered comparable pricing.
So, yeah, advertising that you give amazing service *can* get you more sales.
Usefull? Usefull??!! Dude, it's a Unix OS written in JavaScript that runs on a web browser... the nerdiness is off the charts! Who cares about usefull?!
I agree with your general thrust, except for point 3.
The engineering goals (efficiency @ speed @ altitude) dictate certain design parameters
-- wing shape & area, fuselage size, engine design, etc.
The problem is, an airplane designed to fly for 10,000 miles at mach 1.6 at 50,000
feet is *not* going to fly efficiently at subsonic speeds. So, alas, no, the pilot won't be able to
just "throttle down" for 3000 miles... it would make the plane vastly more expensive to operate.
Well, Apple is quite responsible about patching security flaws *now*, even though there are no immediate threats. I doubt they'd suddenly become irresponsible and careless as their marketshare *increases*. One of their big marketing points is security, for crying out loud!
at any rate, OSX is based on a far more secure and reliable codebase, and it is *very* unlikely that a large number of malicious threats will emerge. Whatever threats do emerge are going to be orders of magnitude less severe than Windows.
And, what about selling a company the software and giving them the GPL (something YOU have to do if you are using the GPL as it sates that the software must come with its license).
I wonder what would they say when they discover that the software they are buying at $5000 can be downloaded from sf.net
Um, the GPL doesn't say that you have to give your code free to everyone on the planet.
It says that you have to give your code free to anyone you sell the binary to... *if* the person ask for the code.
so a company using internal GPL'd code does NOT mean that their code will be avaliable to their competitors, unless they sell their product to their competitors.
would this be the same Europe where, in many states, you can't buy a firearm, period? The same Europe where, in some states, you can go to jail for selling a historical artifact (coughFrancecough)?
Many of these "Superior European freedoms" exist only in the minds of the Europeans.
What does microsoft stand to gain...? hmmm. maybe they can challange patents in competeing products, thus allowing them to legally steal technology from competitors...?
First, the pledge of allegiance doesn't breed "unquestioning obedience". Stupidity and the lack of critical thinking skills of individuals breeds unquestioning obedience.
Secondly, true patriots don't give a shit about "landscapes". True patriots care about the ideals that drive and define their society.
The Pledge of Allegiance and the US Constitution are codifications of those ideals: the ideals of social cooperation, a government chosen from and by the people, clearly defined duties & limits on power for that government, and guaranteed personal freedoms.
If more people cared strongly about those "pretty symbols and words", if children listened to the words they chanted, and if people payed more than lip service to their "love of the constitution", the patriot act wouldn't exist.
The problem is not what is being taught, or how it's being taught. the problem is stupidity and selfishness in the general population.
MATLAB makes most of its money from companies and schools. This contest attracts single people. I don't think they would increase their already sizeable profits much from converting a few hundred individuals.
No, but the people who take this contest will grow up to work for those companies and educational institutions.
They will then wish to use the tools they are familiar with, thus increasing the demand for Matlab.
Also, these people will forever have an image of MathWorks in their minds as a "good", "helpful", "fun", etc. type of company,
which also increases Matlab's mindshare.
On debian, apt-get search octav to see octave and extensions. Don't forget to install the additions octave-forge, etc. to get near-complete matlab equivalence. In some ways, it exceeds matlab, in some ways, it doesn't. And it is very compatible with matlab.
Octave has also been ported to MacOS X, and is available via Fink.
I agree, I have found octave *very* compatible; in my Quantum Mechanics class, we have frequent Matlab assignments, and I am able to cut/paste code directly between the systems, with no errors so far (but there was one Octave rendering bug with multiplot).
I don't know how Octave/Matlab stack up performance-wise for professional use, but for student use, it is ideal.
As a long-time Mac Zealot (11 years and counting), I'm love the recent increase in attention linux-ppc
is receiving! Now that Apple is "cool" again, and now that Apple's OS has "geek cred", it's finally getting
some serious attention from the FOSS world, and that is great news for me.
I'm no big Fedora fan (I'm a Debain/Ubuntu user), but I'm grateful for the work RH is putting in to make Fedora Mac-friendly.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, because every *other* computer sold now will still be tip-top in 9 months. How terrible that Apple is selling computers that *get old* and are *surpassed* by newer technology... oh the horror! There should totally be a law against that...
Because he's all mad that BSD is dying -- after all, Netcraft confirms it!
... a Leonardo Da Quirm replacement name:- web-browser.
Super-fast-and-cross-platform-and-expandable-free
I think that just rolls off the tongue, don't you?
Not always. Dell's prices are usually quite good, but rarely the absolute cheapest. But what has their advertising mantra been over the past few years? "Award winning service and support". They offered impressive -- and industry changing -- service plans on their products, and people started buying Dell over HP, Compaq, Gateway, and others -- even though those companies offered comparable pricing.
So, yeah, advertising that you give amazing service *can* get you more sales.
Shoot it. Stab it. Burn it. chop it into millions of pieces. stomp it into the ground. Irradiate the ground with a hundred megaton nuclear explosive.
Then go postal on it.
that's what we have to do about Access.
Usefull? Usefull??!! Dude, it's a Unix OS written in JavaScript that runs on a web browser... the nerdiness is off the charts! Who cares about usefull?!
I agree with your general thrust, except for point 3.
The engineering goals (efficiency @ speed @ altitude) dictate certain design parameters -- wing shape & area, fuselage size, engine design, etc. The problem is, an airplane designed to fly for 10,000 miles at mach 1.6 at 50,000 feet is *not* going to fly efficiently at subsonic speeds. So, alas, no, the pilot won't be able to just "throttle down" for 3000 miles... it would make the plane vastly more expensive to operate.
Yes. I think so because microsoft DOES threaten hardware companies. It's been proven, in court, that microsoft does this sort of thing.n d_legal_issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Monopoly_a
In short, thinking that MS doesn't use its monopoly to intimidate PC & PC hardware makers is like believeing the world is still flat.
Well, Apple is quite responsible about patching security flaws *now*, even though there are no immediate threats. I doubt they'd suddenly become irresponsible and careless as their marketshare *increases*. One of their big marketing points is security, for crying out loud!
at any rate, OSX is based on a far more secure and reliable codebase, and it is *very* unlikely that a large number of malicious threats will emerge. Whatever threats do emerge are going to be orders of magnitude less severe than Windows.
I don't know of any "Free VPN services", but maybe set up a computer off campus and set up a VPN service on that...
Um, the GPL doesn't say that you have to give your code free to everyone on the planet.
It says that you have to give your code free to anyone you sell the binary to... *if* the person ask for the code.
so a company using internal GPL'd code does NOT mean that their code will be avaliable to their competitors, unless they sell their product to their competitors.
would this be the same Europe where, in many states, you can't buy a firearm, period? The same Europe where, in some states, you can go to jail for selling a historical artifact (coughFrancecough)?
Many of these "Superior European freedoms" exist only in the minds of the Europeans.
What does microsoft stand to gain...? hmmm. maybe they can challange patents in competeing products, thus allowing them to legally steal technology from competitors...?
Let's keep cause and effect straight.
First, the pledge of allegiance doesn't breed "unquestioning obedience". Stupidity and the lack of critical thinking skills of individuals breeds unquestioning obedience.
Secondly, true patriots don't give a shit about "landscapes". True patriots care about the ideals that drive and define their society.
The Pledge of Allegiance and the US Constitution are codifications of those ideals: the ideals of social cooperation, a government chosen from and by the people, clearly defined duties & limits on power for that government, and guaranteed personal freedoms.
If more people cared strongly about those "pretty symbols and words", if children listened to the words they chanted, and if people payed more than lip service to their "love of the constitution", the patriot act wouldn't exist.
The problem is not what is being taught, or how it's being taught. the problem is stupidity and selfishness in the general population.
er, I meant to say, "yes, they can."
doh, I was answering the mental question, "chinese can still access outside websites."
um, I guess you're not familiar with the "Great Firewall of China."
Wikipedia is down right now, but:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Chinese+Firewall
So, no, they can't.
Anonymous.
Yeah, John Dvorak was right about something!
As if Windows didn't have to deal with enough computer viruses, now it has to deal with computer bacteria as well.
Or someone just needed to dump a lot of Intel stock, and started a rumor to keep the price high while he dumped...
It's too cynical not to be true...
MATLAB makes most of its money from companies and schools. This contest attracts single people. I don't think they would increase their already sizeable profits much from converting a few hundred individuals.
No, but the people who take this contest will grow up to work for those companies and educational institutions.
They will then wish to use the tools they are familiar with, thus increasing the demand for Matlab.
Also, these people will forever have an image of MathWorks in their minds as a "good", "helpful", "fun", etc. type of company, which also increases Matlab's mindshare.
Being nice is good business.
On debian, apt-get search octav to see octave and extensions. Don't forget to install the additions octave-forge, etc. to get near-complete matlab equivalence. In some ways, it exceeds matlab, in some ways, it doesn't. And it is very compatible with matlab.
Octave has also been ported to MacOS X, and is available via Fink.
I agree, I have found octave *very* compatible; in my Quantum Mechanics class, we have frequent Matlab assignments, and I am able to cut/paste code directly between the systems, with no errors so far (but there was one Octave rendering bug with multiplot).
I don't know how Octave/Matlab stack up performance-wise for professional use, but for student use, it is ideal.
I'm SURE I saw a B-rated horror flick about this.
Well, Virgin Galactic may be the first company *founded*, but this will be the first one to *operate*, if all goes as planned.
As a long-time Mac Zealot (11 years and counting), I'm love the recent increase in attention linux-ppc is receiving! Now that Apple is "cool" again, and now that Apple's OS has "geek cred", it's finally getting some serious attention from the FOSS world, and that is great news for me.
I'm no big Fedora fan (I'm a Debain/Ubuntu user), but I'm grateful for the work RH is putting in to make Fedora Mac-friendly.
Thanks, guys.