Well if that is the case i hope they enjoy the smell of fail, because the hardware makers sure as hell isn't gonna give up major business just because MSFT is unhappy about piracy and I can't picture the board manufacturers slitting their own throats and wiping out the VERY lucrative kit market just to make MSFT happy. Hell I wish I still had the link as i remember reading Tigerdirect makes something like over half their money from the kits, which isn't surprising when they were selling an AMD quad kit for $120 just the other day. I think I linked to it in another of my posts, not a bad kit if you need a spare box.
In the end they seem to forget Vista had the nasty DRM and IT BOMBED as its the pirates that learn how to repair their OSes and support them from the pirate editions, its the pirates that recommend to friends and family, and its the pirates that fill the Internet with bad reviews which as we saw from Vista really doesn't take much to swing the tide against a version of Windows.
Final verdict? win 8 bombs, possibly worse than Vista. Win 8 don't gain MSFT shit in the tablet and cell market and instead of taking the blame Ballmer will palm it off on Sinofsky who will end up going to some startup.
Actually I do pretty decently but then again thanks to automation i can keep my prices a hell of a lot lower than the other guys, for example a full wipe and reinstall if you don't need me to back up your stuff is only $75. How do i do that? Simple I have unattended discs for the big three (XP, Vista, 7) so that I only need input their key and its set up with a default user called naturally "user" and I have both the Windows Updates and most of the third party software automated as well. I have also branched off and do home theater setups and sell HTPCs.
So it all comes down to offering the customer a better value, I have found that with the exception of those with large music collections most can back up their personal data on a 16Gb-32gb flash stick which i'm happy to sell them and by letting the customer DIY (I also sell data backup services but naturally that is higher as it takes more time) it allows me to let the machines do most of the work. I hunt down the occasional driver for the weird part, maybe install some third party software they ask for, otherwise its "clicky clicky" and let the machine run in the background while i move on to another.
Even if you CAN find a stand alone package will it be worth it, or will the bundles be a better deal? i ask because i'm on Cox and I take basic cable even though I don't have a TV and haven't even bothered to hook up the capture card because frankly i haven't seen any shows on TV I would care about, but if I buy the phone and net which is all i give a damned about its $15 a month MORE than if I just took the bundle. And before someone says Vonage every byte I used for phone would count against the cap, whereas if I take their VoIP it doesn't.
So frankly it doesn't matter if they offer standalone if they have caps and can offer bundles, as it really isn't hard to "steer' someone with that combo. I know I used to play with Linux distros a lot more before i found out Windows Updates don't count but Linux updates do. When you have caps and the corp doesn't offer any kind of bandwidth tools you'd be surprised how much you try to watch out for the caps, but its that or shitastic 2Mbps AT&T DSL where I live so it ain't like I got a real choice.
Actually if you don't like it you should blame FDR which should have went down in history as the absolute WORST president in the USA. Why? Well can you picture even Nixon having the brass balls to hold SCOTUS hostage? FDR did, threatening to load the court until he got enough judges to get HIS way, which became known as the "stitch in time that saved nine" and it was HE that basically rewrote the commerce clause to mean "anything I say it does" by again threatening the court, the most egregious example being having the courts rule that a man growing wheat on HIS land to feed HIS chickens was covered under interstate commerce. Finally whether you agree it was a just war or not FDR forced the USA into WWII even though the vast majority of the American people had said quite clearly they DID NOT want war, going so far as to make the Japanese ambassador wait outside his office every day for over a week, knowing this would be a GRAVE insult to treat him like that, only to blow him off when he finally allowed him to enter. I would advise everyone to read former pres Hoover's book, which is available free online. He talks about what he saw in the days leading up to WWII, how he and the president's advisers all told him Stalin would use any intervention in EU by the USA as a massive land grab and they were completely ignored while FDR gave Stalin anything he wanted almost without argument, FDR dreaming of a British style influence in a post war world.
So we can only hope now that the next POTUS repeals this insanity, which puts in zero checks or balances on the massive hikes we've been seeing by the insurance companies and big pharma. if you want to have a single payer option? Fine, great, wonderful, i don't have ANY problem with that, but you will HAVE TO HAVE price controls and profit limits on big insurance and big pharma or you'll have just what we have now, drugs with 8000% markups and insurance companies that gouge their asses off and then dump you the second you file a claim. What Obama has done is basically written them a blank check and signed YOUR name to it and expects you to cover it. I have a feeling he is gonna be right up there with Dubya and Nixon under "shittiest presidents the USA ever had" in the history books. i just hope the people wake up come Nov and make him a one termer, even though I'm frankly not a fan of either side and haven't voted R since Reagan, but Obama is just a piss poor POTUS.
Weird... because even my last boss got flirted with a lot and he looked like...well you remember that one on revenge of the nerds, the gross one that always needed a shave and he always had a stained shirt? yeah Doug looked JUST like that.
But of course the wonderful world of Windows PC repair can only take you so far, you DO actually have to talk to them. I find that a few jokes as well as making sure they know it wasn't their fault the PC broke (when of course it was 90% of the time PEBKAC) tends to go a LOOONG way. Many women look at the machine is a big scary black box so as long as you let them know "Well these things happen, with something as complex as an Operating system, with millions of lines of programming code and dozens of services things can just go wonky from time to time" it makes them feel better about themselves which of course makes YOU look good.
Of course since you said back in your Windows days you probably quit before the great Facebook games crack epidemic, which seems to affect females in very large numbers. if you wanna see a happy female friend you give her those FB games back, they are VERY grateful. Not that I understand WTF they see in them, to me they make me think of a hamster smacking a lever to get a food pellet, but if it makes them happy? ALL for it.
I take it you've not watched How NOT to hire an American then? Fraud is RAMPANT in the H1-B program, with BS qualifications like 5 years of Win 8 experience or 15 years of.NET being all too common. Then once they get the "qualified" H1-B they are paid below the market going rate for the ACTUAL job.
But in the end everyone here should be against the H1-B because not only are we looking at nearly a trillion in student loans, with defaults jumping to 12% in the past couple of years, but the simple fact it completely destroys supply and demand and makes sure there will NEVER be an American for those jobs. After all, what idiot is gonna go $50k-$75k in debt for a job they know they'll have to compete for with a guy that paid less than 15K for theirs?
In the end the vast majority of their wages will go overseas, never to return, and the H1-Bs themselves will go overseas with the education and work experience. if you look at the real numbers we are looking at something like 23% unemployment, what are we gonna do with all those people? Do you know how many are going straight from their college graduation to the unemployment lines? When you are in a recession and there aren't enough jobs to go around as it is the LAST thing you want is corps poisoning the system by distorting supply and demand and driving yet more money overseas.
Personally, I don't know about everyone else here, but i'm sick to damned death of the "just give the corps what they want and things will get better" horseshit. We have been doing that for over 20 years now, are things better? We have practically gutted regulation, the ACTUAL amount of taxes the fortune 500 pay thanks to loopholes has never been lower, with many corps like GE actually getting money out instead of putting any in, are things better? maybe for the 5% at the top but for everyone else it sure as hell ain't. When unemployment is below 4% then and ONLY then should we be talking about importing workers, not when we have many of our young people buried in student loans and working at the Pizza Hut.
I'll tell ya what happened Billy, PCs passed "good enough" and went straight to "insanely overpowered" that's what happened. Frankly for a good 85%-90% of the PC users out there a dual core has more cycles than they know what to do with and with the MHZ wars over there just isn't a reason to get rid of a PC until it dies. Even businesses are starting to keep PCs until they die because for your average worker even a 5 year old Phenom I quad is just total overkill, they just can't keep the chips fed with work.
When tiger was having one of their "Quad cores for $120!" kit sales like they are having right now just for the hell of it I picked up one for my dad, he is about as average as average can get when it comes to users. he IMs, uses Facebook, watches videos, just your bog standard average user. Now what I found when I did my 3 month checkup on his PC? Looking at the logs he had yet to even hit 40% on the chip, and this was one of the 2.1GHz Phenom Is. he just couldn't come up with enough work to stress the CPU.
So if you want to know what happened there you go. A recession didn't help but frankly even before it folks just weren't buying computers because the ones they had worked just fine. I only upgraded my family this year off the Pentium Ds they had because they had just now become a hindrance for the games the boys played, and I had NO problem selling them off for $100 a piece. Last I heard both are purring like kittens and the folks that bought them are quite happy because FB, IMing, and watching videos? just not that stressful.
The problem with that theory is thus: Pirate versions, while not exactly rare, especially with the gamers, frankly are a teeny tiny percentage of the market, most folks get Windows "for free" with their new desktop/laptop/whatever.
Second frankly MSFT already KNOWS how to wipe out piracy in the west, because i'm sure their numbers saw the same thing that I did and that was when Win 7 HP was at $50 and the Family Pack was at $100 frankly piracy disappeared right off the map. i mean i didn't see a single pirated version and believe you me, if there is piracy going around? We little PC shops see it. people are always getting some machine "off a friend/from a yardsale/ off of Craigslist" and bringing it to us, so we know ALL about it. I swear there was a couple of years there where the Razr1911 XP Corp key (you know the one, the one with XP in the middle of the code?) was showing up practically daily in the shop, but when Win 7 HP was $50? Nothing, nada zip zero zilch.
Sadly I'd say the answer is obvious and classic PHB, ready?...Apple. Apple locks iOS, so MSFT locks windows. lets face it folks, Steve "Worst CEO ever" Ballmer has been aping apple so damned long it ain't even funny anymore, its just sad and pathetic. Rebranding the Gigabeat into the Zune, buying Kin, winPhone, Hell the only moves the man seems to know how to make is 1.-See what Apple is doing, 2.-Make a half ass copy or buy a half ass copy from someone else, 3.-Fail.
This is coming from someone whose only Apple product is an old B&W G3 but even I have eyes, and it seems like if Apple does it? then old Ballmer is gonna do it too.
If you really need XP that bad just get XP X64 which CAN boot from UEFI and which let's be honest folks, installing XP on a machine that comes with on average 4-8Gb of RAM is just retarded.
I ran XP X64 right up until Win 7 RTM and can say that most of the bog standard hardware? VERY much supported, same with software. the only thing I ever ran into was a few of the free AVs recognized it as Server 2K3 (which is what it is really) and wouldn't install the free version and a couple of REALLY old programs that had 16 bit installers naturally wouldn't run. Other than that frankly i think that it and Win 7 and probably the best two OSes that MSFT has ever made, solid as a rock, low memory usage, just a damned good OS.
Of course we ALL know the real threat to Win 8 ain't XP, its Win 7. From here at the shop I can tell you that win 7 is quickly becoming the "new XP" in that folks are frankly VERY happy with it and have no desire to change. My customers that played with Win 8 CP not only hated it but those with SMBs simply stepped up their timetables for getting rid of XP so I can make sure they have good hardware and Win 7 so they can skip 8. And who can blame them? Win 7 is solid, easy to use, the built in search is great, its just a nice OS that anybody that has used XP can pick up easily while still having new features like support for more memory and jumplists, Win 8 won't have to fear XP, it'll have to fear Win 7. In a battle between 7 and 8 I have a feeling 8 is gonna lose BIG TIME, its just too different.
Are you kidding? A LOT of people used Win2K, not the least of which they'd use a Win2K machine at the office and find out "Hey! Unlike ME this thing doesn't crash when I look at it funny!" and would end up getting a copy from "somewhere" they could use at home. I knew a lot of folks that hung onto win2K for years simply because of how solid that OS was, just a damned well built OS. Can't say as i blamed 'em, I used XP X64 (aka Win2K3 Workstation) right up to Win 7 RTM because Vista blew chunks for me, i got bit by both the "playing music files slows the network" bug as well as the "file shares just disappear" bug which was irritating as hell.
So if I was doing the list it would be 95/98/NT3 sucks, 98SE/NT4 good, ME sucks, Win2K great, XP pre SP2 sucks, XP post SP2 good, XP64 great, Vista sucks, Win 7 great, Win 8 sucks donkey nuts.
One thing you can get MSFT credit for is the life cycle on their OSes is long enough you can easily skip any suck ass versions without losing updates. i personally went from 2K to XP X64 on my main system thus not dealing with the pre SP2 suckatude, and I was able to go from XP X64 to Win 7 X64 again while skipping Vista as my main OS. Since my current system is a hexacore with 8Gb of RAM I'm sure i'll be able to skip Win 8 and if they rush Win 9 like they did 7 I may even be able to skip it as well, just depends on whether they actually give us the option of getting rid of the "supergigantic smartphone UI" on the desktop or not, because I have no desire to treat my desktop as a giant tweeting twitting FB shitting cell phone.
Well you see, that is your problem, you were using debian!
Me I got laid less than a month ago right before i broke up with my last GF, and I currently have two different women flirting with me! How can that be you ask? why listen to your old pal Hairyfeet and look into the world of Windows PC repair!
Yes Windows PC repair, where the OS sure as hell isn't geek, but then again neither are the women! You want to see a happy female boys you just fix the machine that feeds her FB games crack habit and watch how her face lights up!
Remember boys,you don't need to be handsome as long as you're handy! And thanks to millions of women addicted to FB worse than Charlie Sheen is addicted to coke and whores you'll never have a shortage of cute little things to chat up in the wonderful world of Windows PC repair!
They can't do it, their EOL deadlines are part of the contracts they sign with major corps, not to mention it would cause businesses to turn away from using MSFT Windows if they couldn't figure in the EOL into projections. I know you're trying to be funny but that is actually one of the things I've always liked about windows, in that while they can always extend they have NEVER shortened it.
As for the other poster that likes Win 8? I'd like it too...on a smartphone or a tablet but NOT on a desktop. think I'm joking? Look up any of the talks Sinofsky has given on Win 8 and count how many times the man says "touchscreen". last one I saw I quit counting at 30. Now what is wrong with that? well touchscreen desktops and laptops are less than 4% of the X86 market and when you remove non user applications such as kiosks and POS you are looking at less than 2% of the market.
So here you have the guy in charge of Windows 8, one of MSFT's two cash cows, and he has based his entire premise on forcing a UI that is designed for touch onto a market where less than 2% of the units sold HAVE TOUCH. Think about that for a minute...do you HONESTLY think MSFT has THAT kind of clout anymore? That they can force the entire industry to switch, when a 17 inch touchscreen costs $300 and a 27 inch non touch costs $189?
Without touch Win 8 sucks, and the consumer is gonna be faced with units that are smaller or more expensive WITH touch or larger or less expensive WITHOUT, no where do YOU think they'll go?
The gamers? They are a decent if small niche. Sure you have the "ePeen" types that must have MOAR so they can stay on the leaderboards but frankly i've got customers that are playing FEAR 3 and the new Deus Ex on 3 year old Athlon triple cores with HD4850s or HD5770s, thanks to the consoles having such long legs they really don't replace like they used to. hell I'll probably have this hexacore i game on until Win 7 goes EOL in 2020 unless something causes a breakthrough because otherwise i can just toss in a new GPU in another year and keep right on going, so no sale there.
As for office workers? Frankly with the downturn in business due to this never ending recession I'm seeing more and more offices with 5 years or older machines. the big corps may still replace every 3 years but most of the SMBs are still running Pentium Ds and Athlon X2s because frankly office work really doesn't require that much power. I've seen a slight uptick as they slowly phase out WinXP for Win 7 but frankly I have a feeling that those new Athlon quads I've been selling them will stay on win 7 until it EOLs, there just isn't any office apps that even stress the bottom of the line Athlons anymore.
so they can waste their mod points ALL THEY WANT, it doesn't change the fact the guy's entire post was 'M$ is teh evilz ZOMFG!" when its a company that is in a flatline market. I doubt we'll ever see X86 go away but its never gonna be the big growth market again, that's cell phones and tablets although even then i think we're gonna hit a wall with them just as we did with X86, where you end up with insanely overpowered devices that nobody tosses until they are dead. there is simply not enough work to stress these multicore monsters and while the FOSSies may like to pretend its still 1998 the simple fact is the world has moved on and it'll be locked down tablets and smartphones, not the "Ebil M$" that will be the future.
I don't think it was a case of them "destroying each other" as much as it was the clones and ISA giving everyone a stable platform on which to build, combined with some serious disasters such as the 7800 at Atari and of course the big crash of 83.
I know that I hung onto my VIC for longer than most but in the end it was the abundance of ISA cards and software for IBM PC compatible that ended up getting me to take my first Compaq all those years ago, there really wasn't anything at either Commodore or Atari that got supported as well as ISA or X86. With both Commodore and Atari basically you got what was in the box and that was it, sure there were a few add ons but nothing like the huge explosion of ISA cards, not to mention the flood of games that came out for DOS. Anybody else remember those shareware discs? man those were fun, dozens of games on a floppy, later CDs with over 100, man you just can't pack 'em away like that anymore.
So happy BDay Atari, its really a shame your gone but between the 7800 and the Jaguar not really surprising. Like Sega who came after you you had a hell of a run and gave many of us some great times, I can still remember trying to sleep with a pillow over my head because when i was done gaming and had to get some sleep before school my mom would plop down in the living room for some Yar's Revenge until the wee hours. Even the Wii never got the whole family involved like the old 2600 did, hell of a machine.
I would like to say thanks to MSFT for Windows 8, because thanks to the Win 8 CP I've had set up in the shop for people to try I've had more people wanting to buy Win 7 so they won't have to take Windows 8! So thanks MSFT! Oh and I'm sure i'll have plenty of work for a year afterwards as i wipe it off people's computers for 7 like I did Vista for XP, thanks again!
Seriously i'd like to just bitchslap the moron that thought turning windows desktops into "supergigantic smartphones" was a good idea, because i can tell you this is the typical user reaction to Win 8 only with more cursing and frustration. I thought they were going for the teener/tweener market but all of those that have tried it in my shop said the same thing "Uhhh...I already have a phone duh! this is just dumb" and walked off so if that is the market they were going for they failed BIG time, and the actual users that use Windows for work were frankly horrified and were quick to buy an upgraded Win 7 machine so they wouldn't have to switch.
Final verdict? win 8 makes MS Bob look like a hit, surpassing even Vista on the "Get this damned thing off of here!" scale of pissed off users.
Oh please, insightful? For a "MSFT burns babies ZOMFG!" post? They are an old guard monopoly that got passed by, no different than IBM and like IBM they'll have their niche that just like big iron won't be the big deal anymore.
If you think anybody gives a flying shit about desktops i have some magic beans you might be interested in. PCs passed good enough and went into insanely overpowered half a decade ago and nobody replaces them until they die. Ask any retailer (like say me) and we'll tell you desktops are as dead as disco, other than gamers and office workers they don't get replaced until they croak which is why many of us have branched out into other services, in my case HTPCs and setting up home theaters.
But bitching about MSFT and desktops is like bitching IBM has a monopoly on big iron...so fucking what? Who cares? Everyone is portable now, its all cell phones and tablets which is why MSFT is gonna let Sinofsky take a giant dump on the desktop in a Hail Mary pass on a market that doesn't give a wet fart nor care about MSFT. Apple owns the high end, Android everything else, MSFT doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting even 15% so who cares?
Seriously get over it already, it ain't 1998 and gates isn't stomping Linux anymore, in fact MSFT has been selling SUSE licenses with their server products for years now. its over, its done, the fat lady is down the street having a ham on rye, if the EU wants some bailout money that is their business but nobody really gives a shit about desktops as everyone has 3 and won't be replacing until they kick the bucket. there is simply no growth in that market and crying because MSFT has control of a flatline market is just fucking dumb.
Oh dead God no! Whereas Ballmer is a buffon old Snickerdouche is just that, an arrogant douchebag. Watch his last talks on Win 8 and see how mant times the man says "touchscreen". i swear he is so damned arrogant he thinks he can get the ENTIRE X86 MARKET to suddenly shell out premium prices for touchscreens, why? because his shit is so damned good, that's why.
if they hand the big chair over to Sinofsky you might as well hang onto every copy you can get of Win 7 and start looking at alternatives because MSFT will be going the way of AOL, Snickerdouche will NEVER admit he is wrong and instead of righting the ship he will keep on plowing it into the iceberg screaming 'touchscreens!" as the whole thing sinks to the bottom. the man is the only person I've seen even more of a PHB and more clueless than the sweaty monkey, talk about a match made in hell.
Which would just show how delusional they are not to simply accept they like a design or brand and are willing to pay more for it. i personally like the Asus EEEs and Asrock motherboards and Ford Ranger trucks. Are they "better" than the other brands? Nope, I simply like the layout of the Asrock boards, the EEE design, especially the 12 inchers, are appealing to me and the Ranger is the perfect size for my body, with every control being the perfect distance for me to reach everything easily and the seats are just right, not too large or too small. My oldest prefers HP business laptops and the Chevy S10 because he likes the feel of the larger HP 17 inchers and even though the S10 feels like a low rider to me it fits him like a glove.
That is why I don't understand the logic hoops or the inevitable "ur an Apple hater!" bullshit. I don't hate Apple anymore than i hate Gucci or Prada, while the brand doesn't personally appeal to me I can see why it would to some and have NO problem with those willing to pay more for that brand. But to kid themselves into thinking a brand somehow makes them "hip" or "cooler' or just superior to anyone else? Well that's marketing bullshit and not reality. IRL Apple is no different than any other upscale brand and the only thing that should matter to the buyer is if they like it and think its worth the money, if so? then please do buy it and be happy.
That is why I don't see why this is shocking, anymore than that study we saw awhile back that said those that are heavily Mac buyers on average make $100k a year.
Look folks, its a fashion brand. there is NOTHING wrong with that, anymore than there is something wrong with you if you buy Gucci or Prada, and if you want it? Please do buy it. You don't have to jump through logic hoops or try to "sell" us that Apple is somehow "better" or everyone else is "worse" because we've seen Apple has just as many defects and repairs as the other big name brands. I mean you don't see Ferrari owners trying to give us bullet points on why Ferrari is a "better value" than the Mustang do you? of course not.
So please, if you like Apple fashion? Just accept you like it and be happy. there is NOTHING wrong with liking a look, a design aesthetic, or a style and to be willing to pay more for that. TFA is simply acknowledging what we already know, that Apple users have no problem paying more for things. Is that REALLY so surprising?
Riiiight, you mean they can choose between clear channel and...clear channel? I guess you didn't get the memo but mainstream radio is now owned by a couple of corps that simply play the RIAA playlists in permanent rotation. hell the DJs aren't even allowed to deviate from those playlists anymore, at least from what I've been told by the ones I've met. Ever since they struck down that law that said a corp could only own a certain percentage of any single market you've seen the megacorps gobble up all the stations so good luck hearing anything but the RIAA playlists on any mainstream stations.
As for TFA, as a musician allow me to say yay! One of the nice things about going the indie route is not seeing your music crapped upon and one thing i'll give the local studios credit for is they are all run by guys that actually care about how a song sounds and not how LOUD it is. Personally I've never liked over compression and can't stand listening to over compressed music for any length of time without it just feeling draining so if this means we'll actually have dynamics in songs again i'm all for it.
Because while i'm all for having some compression on my bass to even string response having the whole song compressed? Yuck.. Compression like any other effect can be overdone and having every instrument compressed as hell just so they can get the signal as close to redline as possible just makes the whole thing sound like crap to me.
Hell I like several of MSFT's products and I'll be the first to say that anyone who doesn't think Forbes was right on the money calling Ballmer the worst CEO needs to reread TFA a few times. I mean does anyone seriously believe Yammer is worth 1.2 BILLION dollars?
It is THIS kind of shit, this right here, which is why he deserves worst CEO. Instead of actually hiring good people and more importantly giving them the freedom to innovate Ballmer simply blows through money like Charlie Sheen at a porn convention on a coke binge, which will take years to pay off as you point out but I would point out instead the likelihood it'll never pay off at all, ala Kin. This is the yahoo deal all over again on the WTF scale.
Seriously is there NO hope of getting rid of this clown? Frankly the longer he is CEO the more the pepsi guy at Apple just looks misunderstood. The longer Ballmer is CEO the more MSFT looks like AOL, a once giant company that is so bogged down in PHB bullshit and the desire to tie everything to their core product that they couldn't innovate or have an original thought if their lives depended on it. Gates may have been an evil bastard but at least he was an evil bastard that knew WTF he was doing, Ballmer is just a buffoon.
And which part of "It has an MD5 dumbass" are you not able to comprehend? Groups like Razr wouldn't put out a bug because it would destroy their cred on the scene and make damned sure their inside sources dried right up.
So unless you have something other than the BSA and MSFT I call bullshit, frankly i haven't even SEEN an infected.ISO or game in over half a decade, because the ratings system quickly causes anything that has a bug to simply drop off the map. download it yourself, check the MD5 in the NFO, and then scan it until you drop, you won't find a damned thing because there simply isn't anything to find.
Its obviously been years since you've ever dealt with malware, if you ever have, because if it had been anytime in the last 5 years you'd know it all comes from social engineering like Security Tool and AV20xx, or by using out of date third party software like Adobe and Java. Frankly nobody has done it by spreading malware infected discs in years, ratings killed that shit ages ago.
Notice how quickly they marked me flamebait but NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU, not one mind you, said even the tiniest bit about the dead Americans i linked to, not even a "sorry they are dead" just horseshit about how we should only care about the illegals.
Well I say COUNT THE DEAD and then go tell THEIR families that its all just fine, i dare you. Frankly you can take your conservatism and shove it friend, you obviously don't give a damned about anyone else or you would care about all the LEGALS that are getting fucked as well as your dead fellow Americans. May I just say that the way BOTH SIDES are pandering frankly makes me sick, its just disgusting.
As i'm sure you've read it doesn't actually just spin on top of the CPU but on a baseplate, and I doubt it would just "drop" but rather just float down as the RPMs slowed.
My questions would be thus: How much will it cost, and how does it compare to heatpipes? Because as it is now you can slap something like a Hyper N520 into even your average midtower and frankly get pretty insane cooling for like $30. I have one on top of an AMD Thuban Hexa and it idles between 95f and 105f and under full load, just slamming the living hell out of the CPU, I can barely get the thing up to 124f. So while I can see a market for the server rack how does its cooling stack up to the modern heatpipe units and more importantly how high are they gonna be?
Ya know, that is one thing that has always bugged me about organized religion. I mean how in the hell could anybody read Job and not think "What a sorry asshole!". I mean you are telling me a fricking God couldn't hit the reset button and just give the guy his family back? Or would let his loyal follower be the butt monkey in the first place just to win a stupid bet?
At least the pre Christian religions like Zoroastrianism at least followed a basic logic, you didn't have God creating evil just for shits and giggles, you have evil as chaos and good as order and there was struggle as each tried to bring things more to their way of thinking, but the modern religions? They are just royally fucked up.
Let me do say though I'm glad its LA, I was kinda starting to feel sorry for Florida, what with every batshit thing seeming to come from Florida so its nice to see another state go for the batshit of the week instead of Florida for once.
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Well if that is the case i hope they enjoy the smell of fail, because the hardware makers sure as hell isn't gonna give up major business just because MSFT is unhappy about piracy and I can't picture the board manufacturers slitting their own throats and wiping out the VERY lucrative kit market just to make MSFT happy. Hell I wish I still had the link as i remember reading Tigerdirect makes something like over half their money from the kits, which isn't surprising when they were selling an AMD quad kit for $120 just the other day. I think I linked to it in another of my posts, not a bad kit if you need a spare box.
In the end they seem to forget Vista had the nasty DRM and IT BOMBED as its the pirates that learn how to repair their OSes and support them from the pirate editions, its the pirates that recommend to friends and family, and its the pirates that fill the Internet with bad reviews which as we saw from Vista really doesn't take much to swing the tide against a version of Windows.
Final verdict? win 8 bombs, possibly worse than Vista. Win 8 don't gain MSFT shit in the tablet and cell market and instead of taking the blame Ballmer will palm it off on Sinofsky who will end up going to some startup.
Actually I do pretty decently but then again thanks to automation i can keep my prices a hell of a lot lower than the other guys, for example a full wipe and reinstall if you don't need me to back up your stuff is only $75. How do i do that? Simple I have unattended discs for the big three (XP, Vista, 7) so that I only need input their key and its set up with a default user called naturally "user" and I have both the Windows Updates and most of the third party software automated as well. I have also branched off and do home theater setups and sell HTPCs.
So it all comes down to offering the customer a better value, I have found that with the exception of those with large music collections most can back up their personal data on a 16Gb-32gb flash stick which i'm happy to sell them and by letting the customer DIY (I also sell data backup services but naturally that is higher as it takes more time) it allows me to let the machines do most of the work. I hunt down the occasional driver for the weird part, maybe install some third party software they ask for, otherwise its "clicky clicky" and let the machine run in the background while i move on to another.
Even if you CAN find a stand alone package will it be worth it, or will the bundles be a better deal? i ask because i'm on Cox and I take basic cable even though I don't have a TV and haven't even bothered to hook up the capture card because frankly i haven't seen any shows on TV I would care about, but if I buy the phone and net which is all i give a damned about its $15 a month MORE than if I just took the bundle. And before someone says Vonage every byte I used for phone would count against the cap, whereas if I take their VoIP it doesn't.
So frankly it doesn't matter if they offer standalone if they have caps and can offer bundles, as it really isn't hard to "steer' someone with that combo. I know I used to play with Linux distros a lot more before i found out Windows Updates don't count but Linux updates do. When you have caps and the corp doesn't offer any kind of bandwidth tools you'd be surprised how much you try to watch out for the caps, but its that or shitastic 2Mbps AT&T DSL where I live so it ain't like I got a real choice.
Actually if you don't like it you should blame FDR which should have went down in history as the absolute WORST president in the USA. Why? Well can you picture even Nixon having the brass balls to hold SCOTUS hostage? FDR did, threatening to load the court until he got enough judges to get HIS way, which became known as the "stitch in time that saved nine" and it was HE that basically rewrote the commerce clause to mean "anything I say it does" by again threatening the court, the most egregious example being having the courts rule that a man growing wheat on HIS land to feed HIS chickens was covered under interstate commerce. Finally whether you agree it was a just war or not FDR forced the USA into WWII even though the vast majority of the American people had said quite clearly they DID NOT want war, going so far as to make the Japanese ambassador wait outside his office every day for over a week, knowing this would be a GRAVE insult to treat him like that, only to blow him off when he finally allowed him to enter. I would advise everyone to read former pres Hoover's book, which is available free online. He talks about what he saw in the days leading up to WWII, how he and the president's advisers all told him Stalin would use any intervention in EU by the USA as a massive land grab and they were completely ignored while FDR gave Stalin anything he wanted almost without argument, FDR dreaming of a British style influence in a post war world.
So we can only hope now that the next POTUS repeals this insanity, which puts in zero checks or balances on the massive hikes we've been seeing by the insurance companies and big pharma. if you want to have a single payer option? Fine, great, wonderful, i don't have ANY problem with that, but you will HAVE TO HAVE price controls and profit limits on big insurance and big pharma or you'll have just what we have now, drugs with 8000% markups and insurance companies that gouge their asses off and then dump you the second you file a claim. What Obama has done is basically written them a blank check and signed YOUR name to it and expects you to cover it. I have a feeling he is gonna be right up there with Dubya and Nixon under "shittiest presidents the USA ever had" in the history books. i just hope the people wake up come Nov and make him a one termer, even though I'm frankly not a fan of either side and haven't voted R since Reagan, but Obama is just a piss poor POTUS.
Weird... because even my last boss got flirted with a lot and he looked like...well you remember that one on revenge of the nerds, the gross one that always needed a shave and he always had a stained shirt? yeah Doug looked JUST like that.
But of course the wonderful world of Windows PC repair can only take you so far, you DO actually have to talk to them. I find that a few jokes as well as making sure they know it wasn't their fault the PC broke (when of course it was 90% of the time PEBKAC) tends to go a LOOONG way. Many women look at the machine is a big scary black box so as long as you let them know "Well these things happen, with something as complex as an Operating system, with millions of lines of programming code and dozens of services things can just go wonky from time to time" it makes them feel better about themselves which of course makes YOU look good.
Of course since you said back in your Windows days you probably quit before the great Facebook games crack epidemic, which seems to affect females in very large numbers. if you wanna see a happy female friend you give her those FB games back, they are VERY grateful. Not that I understand WTF they see in them, to me they make me think of a hamster smacking a lever to get a food pellet, but if it makes them happy? ALL for it.
I take it you've not watched How NOT to hire an American then? Fraud is RAMPANT in the H1-B program, with BS qualifications like 5 years of Win 8 experience or 15 years of .NET being all too common. Then once they get the "qualified" H1-B they are paid below the market going rate for the ACTUAL job.
But in the end everyone here should be against the H1-B because not only are we looking at nearly a trillion in student loans, with defaults jumping to 12% in the past couple of years, but the simple fact it completely destroys supply and demand and makes sure there will NEVER be an American for those jobs. After all, what idiot is gonna go $50k-$75k in debt for a job they know they'll have to compete for with a guy that paid less than 15K for theirs?
In the end the vast majority of their wages will go overseas, never to return, and the H1-Bs themselves will go overseas with the education and work experience. if you look at the real numbers we are looking at something like 23% unemployment, what are we gonna do with all those people? Do you know how many are going straight from their college graduation to the unemployment lines? When you are in a recession and there aren't enough jobs to go around as it is the LAST thing you want is corps poisoning the system by distorting supply and demand and driving yet more money overseas.
Personally, I don't know about everyone else here, but i'm sick to damned death of the "just give the corps what they want and things will get better" horseshit. We have been doing that for over 20 years now, are things better? We have practically gutted regulation, the ACTUAL amount of taxes the fortune 500 pay thanks to loopholes has never been lower, with many corps like GE actually getting money out instead of putting any in, are things better? maybe for the 5% at the top but for everyone else it sure as hell ain't. When unemployment is below 4% then and ONLY then should we be talking about importing workers, not when we have many of our young people buried in student loans and working at the Pizza Hut.
I'll tell ya what happened Billy, PCs passed "good enough" and went straight to "insanely overpowered" that's what happened. Frankly for a good 85%-90% of the PC users out there a dual core has more cycles than they know what to do with and with the MHZ wars over there just isn't a reason to get rid of a PC until it dies. Even businesses are starting to keep PCs until they die because for your average worker even a 5 year old Phenom I quad is just total overkill, they just can't keep the chips fed with work.
When tiger was having one of their "Quad cores for $120!" kit sales like they are having right now just for the hell of it I picked up one for my dad, he is about as average as average can get when it comes to users. he IMs, uses Facebook, watches videos, just your bog standard average user. Now what I found when I did my 3 month checkup on his PC? Looking at the logs he had yet to even hit 40% on the chip, and this was one of the 2.1GHz Phenom Is. he just couldn't come up with enough work to stress the CPU.
So if you want to know what happened there you go. A recession didn't help but frankly even before it folks just weren't buying computers because the ones they had worked just fine. I only upgraded my family this year off the Pentium Ds they had because they had just now become a hindrance for the games the boys played, and I had NO problem selling them off for $100 a piece. Last I heard both are purring like kittens and the folks that bought them are quite happy because FB, IMing, and watching videos? just not that stressful.
The problem with that theory is thus: Pirate versions, while not exactly rare, especially with the gamers, frankly are a teeny tiny percentage of the market, most folks get Windows "for free" with their new desktop/laptop/whatever.
Second frankly MSFT already KNOWS how to wipe out piracy in the west, because i'm sure their numbers saw the same thing that I did and that was when Win 7 HP was at $50 and the Family Pack was at $100 frankly piracy disappeared right off the map. i mean i didn't see a single pirated version and believe you me, if there is piracy going around? We little PC shops see it. people are always getting some machine "off a friend/from a yardsale/ off of Craigslist" and bringing it to us, so we know ALL about it. I swear there was a couple of years there where the Razr1911 XP Corp key (you know the one, the one with XP in the middle of the code?) was showing up practically daily in the shop, but when Win 7 HP was $50? Nothing, nada zip zero zilch.
Sadly I'd say the answer is obvious and classic PHB, ready?...Apple. Apple locks iOS, so MSFT locks windows. lets face it folks, Steve "Worst CEO ever" Ballmer has been aping apple so damned long it ain't even funny anymore, its just sad and pathetic. Rebranding the Gigabeat into the Zune, buying Kin, winPhone, Hell the only moves the man seems to know how to make is 1.-See what Apple is doing, 2.-Make a half ass copy or buy a half ass copy from someone else, 3.-Fail.
This is coming from someone whose only Apple product is an old B&W G3 but even I have eyes, and it seems like if Apple does it? then old Ballmer is gonna do it too.
If you really need XP that bad just get XP X64 which CAN boot from UEFI and which let's be honest folks, installing XP on a machine that comes with on average 4-8Gb of RAM is just retarded.
I ran XP X64 right up until Win 7 RTM and can say that most of the bog standard hardware? VERY much supported, same with software. the only thing I ever ran into was a few of the free AVs recognized it as Server 2K3 (which is what it is really) and wouldn't install the free version and a couple of REALLY old programs that had 16 bit installers naturally wouldn't run. Other than that frankly i think that it and Win 7 and probably the best two OSes that MSFT has ever made, solid as a rock, low memory usage, just a damned good OS.
Of course we ALL know the real threat to Win 8 ain't XP, its Win 7. From here at the shop I can tell you that win 7 is quickly becoming the "new XP" in that folks are frankly VERY happy with it and have no desire to change. My customers that played with Win 8 CP not only hated it but those with SMBs simply stepped up their timetables for getting rid of XP so I can make sure they have good hardware and Win 7 so they can skip 8. And who can blame them? Win 7 is solid, easy to use, the built in search is great, its just a nice OS that anybody that has used XP can pick up easily while still having new features like support for more memory and jumplists, Win 8 won't have to fear XP, it'll have to fear Win 7. In a battle between 7 and 8 I have a feeling 8 is gonna lose BIG TIME, its just too different.
Are you kidding? A LOT of people used Win2K, not the least of which they'd use a Win2K machine at the office and find out "Hey! Unlike ME this thing doesn't crash when I look at it funny!" and would end up getting a copy from "somewhere" they could use at home. I knew a lot of folks that hung onto win2K for years simply because of how solid that OS was, just a damned well built OS. Can't say as i blamed 'em, I used XP X64 (aka Win2K3 Workstation) right up to Win 7 RTM because Vista blew chunks for me, i got bit by both the "playing music files slows the network" bug as well as the "file shares just disappear" bug which was irritating as hell.
So if I was doing the list it would be 95/98/NT3 sucks, 98SE/NT4 good, ME sucks, Win2K great, XP pre SP2 sucks, XP post SP2 good, XP64 great, Vista sucks, Win 7 great, Win 8 sucks donkey nuts.
One thing you can get MSFT credit for is the life cycle on their OSes is long enough you can easily skip any suck ass versions without losing updates. i personally went from 2K to XP X64 on my main system thus not dealing with the pre SP2 suckatude, and I was able to go from XP X64 to Win 7 X64 again while skipping Vista as my main OS. Since my current system is a hexacore with 8Gb of RAM I'm sure i'll be able to skip Win 8 and if they rush Win 9 like they did 7 I may even be able to skip it as well, just depends on whether they actually give us the option of getting rid of the "supergigantic smartphone UI" on the desktop or not, because I have no desire to treat my desktop as a giant tweeting twitting FB shitting cell phone.
Well you see, that is your problem, you were using debian!
Me I got laid less than a month ago right before i broke up with my last GF, and I currently have two different women flirting with me! How can that be you ask? why listen to your old pal Hairyfeet and look into the world of Windows PC repair!
Yes Windows PC repair, where the OS sure as hell isn't geek, but then again neither are the women! You want to see a happy female boys you just fix the machine that feeds her FB games crack habit and watch how her face lights up!
Remember boys,you don't need to be handsome as long as you're handy! And thanks to millions of women addicted to FB worse than Charlie Sheen is addicted to coke and whores you'll never have a shortage of cute little things to chat up in the wonderful world of Windows PC repair!
They can't do it, their EOL deadlines are part of the contracts they sign with major corps, not to mention it would cause businesses to turn away from using MSFT Windows if they couldn't figure in the EOL into projections. I know you're trying to be funny but that is actually one of the things I've always liked about windows, in that while they can always extend they have NEVER shortened it.
As for the other poster that likes Win 8? I'd like it too...on a smartphone or a tablet but NOT on a desktop. think I'm joking? Look up any of the talks Sinofsky has given on Win 8 and count how many times the man says "touchscreen". last one I saw I quit counting at 30. Now what is wrong with that? well touchscreen desktops and laptops are less than 4% of the X86 market and when you remove non user applications such as kiosks and POS you are looking at less than 2% of the market.
So here you have the guy in charge of Windows 8, one of MSFT's two cash cows, and he has based his entire premise on forcing a UI that is designed for touch onto a market where less than 2% of the units sold HAVE TOUCH. Think about that for a minute...do you HONESTLY think MSFT has THAT kind of clout anymore? That they can force the entire industry to switch, when a 17 inch touchscreen costs $300 and a 27 inch non touch costs $189?
Without touch Win 8 sucks, and the consumer is gonna be faced with units that are smaller or more expensive WITH touch or larger or less expensive WITHOUT, no where do YOU think they'll go?
The gamers? They are a decent if small niche. Sure you have the "ePeen" types that must have MOAR so they can stay on the leaderboards but frankly i've got customers that are playing FEAR 3 and the new Deus Ex on 3 year old Athlon triple cores with HD4850s or HD5770s, thanks to the consoles having such long legs they really don't replace like they used to. hell I'll probably have this hexacore i game on until Win 7 goes EOL in 2020 unless something causes a breakthrough because otherwise i can just toss in a new GPU in another year and keep right on going, so no sale there.
As for office workers? Frankly with the downturn in business due to this never ending recession I'm seeing more and more offices with 5 years or older machines. the big corps may still replace every 3 years but most of the SMBs are still running Pentium Ds and Athlon X2s because frankly office work really doesn't require that much power. I've seen a slight uptick as they slowly phase out WinXP for Win 7 but frankly I have a feeling that those new Athlon quads I've been selling them will stay on win 7 until it EOLs, there just isn't any office apps that even stress the bottom of the line Athlons anymore.
so they can waste their mod points ALL THEY WANT, it doesn't change the fact the guy's entire post was 'M$ is teh evilz ZOMFG!" when its a company that is in a flatline market. I doubt we'll ever see X86 go away but its never gonna be the big growth market again, that's cell phones and tablets although even then i think we're gonna hit a wall with them just as we did with X86, where you end up with insanely overpowered devices that nobody tosses until they are dead. there is simply not enough work to stress these multicore monsters and while the FOSSies may like to pretend its still 1998 the simple fact is the world has moved on and it'll be locked down tablets and smartphones, not the "Ebil M$" that will be the future.
I don't think it was a case of them "destroying each other" as much as it was the clones and ISA giving everyone a stable platform on which to build, combined with some serious disasters such as the 7800 at Atari and of course the big crash of 83.
I know that I hung onto my VIC for longer than most but in the end it was the abundance of ISA cards and software for IBM PC compatible that ended up getting me to take my first Compaq all those years ago, there really wasn't anything at either Commodore or Atari that got supported as well as ISA or X86. With both Commodore and Atari basically you got what was in the box and that was it, sure there were a few add ons but nothing like the huge explosion of ISA cards, not to mention the flood of games that came out for DOS. Anybody else remember those shareware discs? man those were fun, dozens of games on a floppy, later CDs with over 100, man you just can't pack 'em away like that anymore.
So happy BDay Atari, its really a shame your gone but between the 7800 and the Jaguar not really surprising. Like Sega who came after you you had a hell of a run and gave many of us some great times, I can still remember trying to sleep with a pillow over my head because when i was done gaming and had to get some sleep before school my mom would plop down in the living room for some Yar's Revenge until the wee hours. Even the Wii never got the whole family involved like the old 2600 did, hell of a machine.
I would like to say thanks to MSFT for Windows 8, because thanks to the Win 8 CP I've had set up in the shop for people to try I've had more people wanting to buy Win 7 so they won't have to take Windows 8! So thanks MSFT! Oh and I'm sure i'll have plenty of work for a year afterwards as i wipe it off people's computers for 7 like I did Vista for XP, thanks again!
Seriously i'd like to just bitchslap the moron that thought turning windows desktops into "supergigantic smartphones" was a good idea, because i can tell you this is the typical user reaction to Win 8 only with more cursing and frustration. I thought they were going for the teener/tweener market but all of those that have tried it in my shop said the same thing "Uhhh...I already have a phone duh! this is just dumb" and walked off so if that is the market they were going for they failed BIG time, and the actual users that use Windows for work were frankly horrified and were quick to buy an upgraded Win 7 machine so they wouldn't have to switch.
Final verdict? win 8 makes MS Bob look like a hit, surpassing even Vista on the "Get this damned thing off of here!" scale of pissed off users.
Oh please, insightful? For a "MSFT burns babies ZOMFG!" post? They are an old guard monopoly that got passed by, no different than IBM and like IBM they'll have their niche that just like big iron won't be the big deal anymore.
If you think anybody gives a flying shit about desktops i have some magic beans you might be interested in. PCs passed good enough and went into insanely overpowered half a decade ago and nobody replaces them until they die. Ask any retailer (like say me) and we'll tell you desktops are as dead as disco, other than gamers and office workers they don't get replaced until they croak which is why many of us have branched out into other services, in my case HTPCs and setting up home theaters.
But bitching about MSFT and desktops is like bitching IBM has a monopoly on big iron...so fucking what? Who cares? Everyone is portable now, its all cell phones and tablets which is why MSFT is gonna let Sinofsky take a giant dump on the desktop in a Hail Mary pass on a market that doesn't give a wet fart nor care about MSFT. Apple owns the high end, Android everything else, MSFT doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting even 15% so who cares?
Seriously get over it already, it ain't 1998 and gates isn't stomping Linux anymore, in fact MSFT has been selling SUSE licenses with their server products for years now. its over, its done, the fat lady is down the street having a ham on rye, if the EU wants some bailout money that is their business but nobody really gives a shit about desktops as everyone has 3 and won't be replacing until they kick the bucket. there is simply no growth in that market and crying because MSFT has control of a flatline market is just fucking dumb.
Oh dead God no! Whereas Ballmer is a buffon old Snickerdouche is just that, an arrogant douchebag. Watch his last talks on Win 8 and see how mant times the man says "touchscreen". i swear he is so damned arrogant he thinks he can get the ENTIRE X86 MARKET to suddenly shell out premium prices for touchscreens, why? because his shit is so damned good, that's why.
if they hand the big chair over to Sinofsky you might as well hang onto every copy you can get of Win 7 and start looking at alternatives because MSFT will be going the way of AOL, Snickerdouche will NEVER admit he is wrong and instead of righting the ship he will keep on plowing it into the iceberg screaming 'touchscreens!" as the whole thing sinks to the bottom. the man is the only person I've seen even more of a PHB and more clueless than the sweaty monkey, talk about a match made in hell.
Which would just show how delusional they are not to simply accept they like a design or brand and are willing to pay more for it. i personally like the Asus EEEs and Asrock motherboards and Ford Ranger trucks. Are they "better" than the other brands? Nope, I simply like the layout of the Asrock boards, the EEE design, especially the 12 inchers, are appealing to me and the Ranger is the perfect size for my body, with every control being the perfect distance for me to reach everything easily and the seats are just right, not too large or too small. My oldest prefers HP business laptops and the Chevy S10 because he likes the feel of the larger HP 17 inchers and even though the S10 feels like a low rider to me it fits him like a glove.
That is why I don't understand the logic hoops or the inevitable "ur an Apple hater!" bullshit. I don't hate Apple anymore than i hate Gucci or Prada, while the brand doesn't personally appeal to me I can see why it would to some and have NO problem with those willing to pay more for that brand. But to kid themselves into thinking a brand somehow makes them "hip" or "cooler' or just superior to anyone else? Well that's marketing bullshit and not reality. IRL Apple is no different than any other upscale brand and the only thing that should matter to the buyer is if they like it and think its worth the money, if so? then please do buy it and be happy.
That is why I don't see why this is shocking, anymore than that study we saw awhile back that said those that are heavily Mac buyers on average make $100k a year.
Look folks, its a fashion brand. there is NOTHING wrong with that, anymore than there is something wrong with you if you buy Gucci or Prada, and if you want it? Please do buy it. You don't have to jump through logic hoops or try to "sell" us that Apple is somehow "better" or everyone else is "worse" because we've seen Apple has just as many defects and repairs as the other big name brands. I mean you don't see Ferrari owners trying to give us bullet points on why Ferrari is a "better value" than the Mustang do you? of course not.
So please, if you like Apple fashion? Just accept you like it and be happy. there is NOTHING wrong with liking a look, a design aesthetic, or a style and to be willing to pay more for that. TFA is simply acknowledging what we already know, that Apple users have no problem paying more for things. Is that REALLY so surprising?
Riiiight, you mean they can choose between clear channel and...clear channel? I guess you didn't get the memo but mainstream radio is now owned by a couple of corps that simply play the RIAA playlists in permanent rotation. hell the DJs aren't even allowed to deviate from those playlists anymore, at least from what I've been told by the ones I've met. Ever since they struck down that law that said a corp could only own a certain percentage of any single market you've seen the megacorps gobble up all the stations so good luck hearing anything but the RIAA playlists on any mainstream stations.
As for TFA, as a musician allow me to say yay! One of the nice things about going the indie route is not seeing your music crapped upon and one thing i'll give the local studios credit for is they are all run by guys that actually care about how a song sounds and not how LOUD it is. Personally I've never liked over compression and can't stand listening to over compressed music for any length of time without it just feeling draining so if this means we'll actually have dynamics in songs again i'm all for it.
Because while i'm all for having some compression on my bass to even string response having the whole song compressed? Yuck.. Compression like any other effect can be overdone and having every instrument compressed as hell just so they can get the signal as close to redline as possible just makes the whole thing sound like crap to me.
Hell I like several of MSFT's products and I'll be the first to say that anyone who doesn't think Forbes was right on the money calling Ballmer the worst CEO needs to reread TFA a few times. I mean does anyone seriously believe Yammer is worth 1.2 BILLION dollars?
It is THIS kind of shit, this right here, which is why he deserves worst CEO. Instead of actually hiring good people and more importantly giving them the freedom to innovate Ballmer simply blows through money like Charlie Sheen at a porn convention on a coke binge, which will take years to pay off as you point out but I would point out instead the likelihood it'll never pay off at all, ala Kin. This is the yahoo deal all over again on the WTF scale.
Seriously is there NO hope of getting rid of this clown? Frankly the longer he is CEO the more the pepsi guy at Apple just looks misunderstood. The longer Ballmer is CEO the more MSFT looks like AOL, a once giant company that is so bogged down in PHB bullshit and the desire to tie everything to their core product that they couldn't innovate or have an original thought if their lives depended on it. Gates may have been an evil bastard but at least he was an evil bastard that knew WTF he was doing, Ballmer is just a buffoon.
And which part of "It has an MD5 dumbass" are you not able to comprehend? Groups like Razr wouldn't put out a bug because it would destroy their cred on the scene and make damned sure their inside sources dried right up.
So unless you have something other than the BSA and MSFT I call bullshit, frankly i haven't even SEEN an infected .ISO or game in over half a decade, because the ratings system quickly causes anything that has a bug to simply drop off the map. download it yourself, check the MD5 in the NFO, and then scan it until you drop, you won't find a damned thing because there simply isn't anything to find.
Its obviously been years since you've ever dealt with malware, if you ever have, because if it had been anytime in the last 5 years you'd know it all comes from social engineering like Security Tool and AV20xx, or by using out of date third party software like Adobe and Java. Frankly nobody has done it by spreading malware infected discs in years, ratings killed that shit ages ago.
Notice how quickly they marked me flamebait but NOT A SINGLE ONE OF YOU, not one mind you, said even the tiniest bit about the dead Americans i linked to, not even a "sorry they are dead" just horseshit about how we should only care about the illegals.
Well I say COUNT THE DEAD and then go tell THEIR families that its all just fine, i dare you. Frankly you can take your conservatism and shove it friend, you obviously don't give a damned about anyone else or you would care about all the LEGALS that are getting fucked as well as your dead fellow Americans. May I just say that the way BOTH SIDES are pandering frankly makes me sick, its just disgusting.
As i'm sure you've read it doesn't actually just spin on top of the CPU but on a baseplate, and I doubt it would just "drop" but rather just float down as the RPMs slowed.
My questions would be thus: How much will it cost, and how does it compare to heatpipes? Because as it is now you can slap something like a Hyper N520 into even your average midtower and frankly get pretty insane cooling for like $30. I have one on top of an AMD Thuban Hexa and it idles between 95f and 105f and under full load, just slamming the living hell out of the CPU, I can barely get the thing up to 124f. So while I can see a market for the server rack how does its cooling stack up to the modern heatpipe units and more importantly how high are they gonna be?
Ya know, that is one thing that has always bugged me about organized religion. I mean how in the hell could anybody read Job and not think "What a sorry asshole!". I mean you are telling me a fricking God couldn't hit the reset button and just give the guy his family back? Or would let his loyal follower be the butt monkey in the first place just to win a stupid bet?
At least the pre Christian religions like Zoroastrianism at least followed a basic logic, you didn't have God creating evil just for shits and giggles, you have evil as chaos and good as order and there was struggle as each tried to bring things more to their way of thinking, but the modern religions? They are just royally fucked up.
Let me do say though I'm glad its LA, I was kinda starting to feel sorry for Florida, what with every batshit thing seeming to come from Florida so its nice to see another state go for the batshit of the week instead of Florida for once.