These are the same people who think having one common title bar that is shared by all people is a good thing...
Sorry, but your statement makes no sense. Are you speaking about the use of one menu bar shared by all windows of an application?
If yes, there are two major advantages to this design: menus are always in the same place, and one menu bar takes up less screen space than multiple menu bars.
... and still refused to admit they were stupid to choose cooperative multitasking instead of premptive multitasking.
Whoa. They didn't choose; the situation was dicatated by the fact the until System 6 there was NO multitasking! Cooperative multitasking was the quickest way to implement multitasking without breaking existing applications. Apple stated very early on that they would eventually implement preemptive multitasking but, alas, it never came to pass. The endeavor died with the failure of Copeland. Then Apple bought NeXT.
And lets not forget the whole mhz myth marketing scheme. I think you should take anything Apple tells you with a block of salt.
Don't you mean the Intel Mhz myth? Where a higher clock speed CPU is automatically faster than a lower clock speed CPU just because one number is bigger than the other?
>>I have a better idea: just don't buy a computer with Intel Inside. Let >>'em incorporate as many DRM gadgets as they want. Then we buy as many >>non-DRM compliant gadgets as we want. > >This will work fine until the next version of the SSSCA/CBDTPA comes out. >Given how interested the industry seems in this type of law, don't be >surprised if they keep pushing for it.
Just because the law says that DRM can't legally be broken doesn't meant that manufacturers and content providers must include DRM. If nobody buys DRM protected products...
I realize this requires a coordinated pattern of behavior from consumers. In other words, it's not likely to work as long as DRM pushers don't put too much vinegar in the honey. Or in other, other words, fat chance.:-/
I have a better idea: just don't buy a computer with Intel Inside. Let 'em incorporate as many DRM gadgets as they want. Then we buy as many non-DRM compliant gadgets as we want.
In other words, let 'em spawn a whole new market and let theirs wither on the corporate cube vine -- the only place you'll find DRM 'puters in large numbers.
The problem is not necesarily WANTING to stay with MacOS 9, but HAVING to stay with MacOS 9. A friend of mind helps a small newspaper with their Mac network and just FINALLY convinced his boss to begin moving to MacOS X as a pilot program. He prepared a plan that has the company taking THREE YEARS to move to MacOS X, with the first computers not going over until January 2003. This move by Apple will be a serious shock to that company.
What shock? New Macs' inability to boot into OS9 won't affect the (obviously) old Macs they already have. Or the software.
I've encountered this "problem" countless times over the years. While it may lead to a problem in the future, whatever they have on their desktops now will continue to work indefinitely. In fact, the major reason for not upgrading is such shops often need the old software to interface with some ancient protocol like, say, an old news wire feed over a hard-wired 1,200 bps line -- something like that; though I forget the details I've seen one of these suckers
Keep in mind that not all apps are MacOS X compliant... even thru the Classic layer (i.e. Quark). And small businesses do not necesarily have the cash to make a jump like this right away. Chances are this initiative will have this small business not buying new Macs, but doing a lot more shopping on eBay for used Macs in the year 2003.
In the short term, perhaps. But "short term" in the computer industry translates to something like "18 months" or less. As the outside world moves on and the old software can't deal with it, that shop will need to buy the news software... which requires new hardware.
not a big deal; this sort of thing has been going on since the industry was born.
Before self-censoring, a researcher should make a sober evaluation of which allegations are likely to stick and show courage by not bowing to spurious threats.
Sober evaluation? I'd say it's easier to get fall down drunk. That's a mighty big burden to put on authors -- who says an author must be a researcher?
Slander and libel are pretty easy to understand, but copy protection? I have no idea how far I can go and remain "legal". The only other similar restriction on speech that comes close would be exposing classified government secrets or private industry trade secrets. Or am I missing something?
DMCA turns everything upside down. Simply examining something something that anyone has access to (i.e., not secret) and saying too much about your discovery breaks the law. The burden falls on the author to essentially avert her gaze; the copyright holder hardly has to expend any effort at all to protect its secrets.
Don't know about you folks but I got a mortgage to pay. Yet, I should just "show courage" and risk everything and that's OK? Riiiight.
The American government will not, indeed cannot, actively monitor the terabytes of data this act will generate.
Right. So the Patriot (sic) Act requires private industry to do this for them. Scary. Our financial institutions now work for law enforcement on a near real time basis.
Do you remember the mid 90s when several U.S. congressmen questioned whether we even needed the CIA and other intelligence organizations?
Looks like they those congress critters were correct. Remember the Chinese embasy getting bombed in Serbia? That was CIA intelligence (sic) in action.
This kind of trade-off between increasing security at the price of privacy is a good one, IMO...
Security? What security? Terrorsim cannot be "defeated" in a straight-up fight... well, not without destruction on a genocidal scale. Check the literature from Biblical times; it's filled with tales of terrorism. If terrorsim is still around after 2,000+ years, what are the chances anyone will be able to "defeat" it using what are essentially the same tools, i.e., we'll kill you before you can kill us?
My idea of security is to make sure our government's actions don't incite sufficient number of people to hate us to the point they want to hurt, mame, and kill us. I'd bet it'd be a lot cheaper too. Some large corporations may see lowered profits though...
I'm setting aside idealogical and religious motivation for the most part, but the such fringe movements tend to become effective only with a sufficient base of disaffected people.
In brief, we'd do better by using a lot of carrots... and as few sticks as possible. This requirment of the Patriot (sic) Act is... a stick of questionable effectiveness yet has the force of law. Scary.
While this is an oldish story (1998) it is not the pathetic self congratulatory lame princeton story.
What I would like to know is (a) why the Princeton story is pathetic and lame and (b) how we are supposed to evaluate such a claim with nothing but a link to Amazon.com.
As far as I can tell, the Harper's story is pretty smarmy. Note all the claims that he was a "normal" kid by all appearances (as if that matters)... but all the time he was playing with evil nucular materials! Bwahahahahaha!
If superstring theory is correct, then they've been known to be equivalent since the 1920s. The Kaluza-Klein equations show that in a 5-dimensional space-time (4xspace + 1xtime) or higher, Einstein's equations and Maxwell's equations both come out.
It's funny- the publicity photos of the 15 inch macs really make it look a lot nicer then it is. I finally saw one up close a few weeks ago- the arm and screen is super smooth, but the base looks like a cheap toy.
It's funny -- whenever I see a PC case at a computer shop it looks cheap. An then when I see cases on sale (having cut a few knuckles servicing said cases) I know why.
I've been listening to this for quite a while, and I must say it's been a good change from the usual stuff labelled 'electronic'.
thats what I thought anyway, until I realised my headphones were broken...
I would have found it funny... except I'm not using headphones, my speakers are not broken but I still can't hear anything.
From the article:
Created largely by scientists, techies and experimental musicians, lowercase recordings are frequently based on the magnification of minute sounds through a computer, typically a Macintosh.
Oh, and I've been a Mac user since 1984. Imagine all of the kids today who boast about how many fans they have cooling their Pentium boxes... 18 years from now...
Compatibility with the Classic Environment; there's no way Classic can work with UFS without rewriting OS 9. Of course, OS X exists so that Apple doesn't have to rewrite OS 9. Get it?
I don't see any support from apple regarding UFS at all, and if they'll only be supporting HFS+, then well... I guess I'm stuck with it.
Perhaps later when OS X is faster and more stable for the other 98% of Apple's customers.:-j I expect Apple will get around to it... unless they create a new file system. Hmmm...
That sucks, OS 9 was the greatest OS apple released ever,...
There's nothing that Apple is doing that will make Mac OS 9 any less great than it is now. Unless Apple has created new technology in their underground bunkers that can seek out and destroy all installations of Mac OS 9...
I recall hearing similar sentiments in the bad old days when Apple had stopped hemorrhaging red ink but there was still uncertainty whether the patient would live. People would ask me whether it would be "safe" to buy a Mac. I answered that even if Apple did go belly up it wouldn't mean that all Macs would suddenly stop working!
The situation for Mac OS 9 is much better. Apple will continue to make fixes to OS 9 for a while yet; just no new features.
Excuse me while I go fish my Amiga 4000 out of the basement...
I applaud AT&T for thier resolute stand in this matter.
I was a Northpoint customer and went without DSL service for nearly two months. Nothing to applaud there.
I hope those greedy bond holders get what they deserve.
What, a better deal? More than 30 cents on the dollar? How about this: what kind of company buy equipment and leaves customers to fend for themselves? No applause here, dude. It would take a lot for me to ever pay AT&T for anything in the future.
Of course one of the questions I've asked that's never been
answered...
Where's the damages?
I've yet to see any valid numbers that show customers have been
harmed by Microsoft's monopoly.
You want numbers?
price of red-hot Linux: $50
price of Mac OS X: $130
price of Win XP: $300
Number of word processors returned for a search at
microwarehouse.com: uh... one? maybe 2 (is Endnote a word processor?
I never heard of it). Note that Quark is not a word processor.
Number of word processors viable available for the Mac: two or
three.
Number of word processors for the Mac most people heard of: one
Yet you can build quite a substantial case for exactly the
opposite, that customers have benefited over the past several years
as a result.
Uh... I can't. Highly paid lawyers hired by Microsoft couldn't
either.
A penalty should fit the crime.
The only punishment I'm aware of that has been applied to
antitrust violators has been breaking up the corporation. There may
be other remedies but not that I can recall. How about you? How about Chris six pack?
>As if anybody hasn't noticed, given the choice between paying
one price
>for something or paying more for the same thing, which is the
typical
>consumer going to pick?
So by your flawed logic, everyone in the United States uses
Linux as their operating system since after all, it's much cheaper
than buying a copy of Windows.
I'm saying that given identical boxes running
identical OSs the cost to the OEM should be virtually
identical (assuming OEMs of similar size and thus operating at
similar economies of scale). The OEM that does what Microsoft wants
gets a price break, the other does not. I am not comparing Windows to
Linux or Intel to AMD. Got that?
Given the situation presented above, what is an OEM be more likely
to do assuming that the OEM wants to maximize profits? Which would be
more likely to be put out of business in the highly commoditixed PC
market approaching saturation?
There's nothing wrong with my logic. As for your reading
comprehension...
-Letting Microsoft add new features into its flagship Windows
software, but requiring the company also to offer a version that
doesn't include those additions.
A very reasonable restriction but is this a penalty? No.
-Banning restrictive contracts but allow financial incentives
such as discounts to make those versions more enticing.
Gee, that's what I thought they were doing before the trial. Bill said "you can do
it our way or you can't do it at all". Instead he'll say "you can do
it our way or pay more". As if anybody hasn't noticed, given the
choice between paying one price for something or paying more for the
same thing, which is the typical consumer going to pick? PC vendors
have a choice of doing it Microsoft way or coming up with a great
song and dance routine to make the exact same box running the exact
same software appear to be worth more money. Is this a
penalty? Hell no!
-Forcing Microsoft to reveal parts of its Windows source for
its Internet browser, but not Windows.
Huh? Who the hell wants the source to IE? What good is it going to
do since Microsoft already illegally monopolized the market? Is this
a penalty?
Found guilty by the trial court with that verdict upheld by the
appeals court I ask for the last time, where's the penalty?
It's impossible to say (not that it'll stop your typical slashdot reader) what's reasonable because your don't giver us enough information.
What's in your lab? Anthrax? Small pox? Ebolla?
What's in your building?
Why do you bring anything larger than a lunchbox when you know it's going to be searched?
POP3is a lovely protocol but it has one terrible disadvantage: It's a download only process. Oh sure email can be left on the server but there's no flagging, folders, etc. possible.
Sure it's possible, it's just not done on the server. Those features can be mimicked with Rules (or Actions or whatever they're called on a particular client).
The only difficult part is that the client has to be configured on each machine with the same (or similar) folders and Rules.
How do I know it works? I've been doing it for over five years with my POP client, Claris Emailer.
The right to choose your email client. Using your [ahem] logic, denying black people mortgages is perfectly OK since they can just go another lender, right? Feh to your [scoff] logic.
And then it dawned on Seyk why the software and support were sobad: That's the way vendors make money.
As it has dawned on geeks as soon as they enter the labor force:tech management (often/usually) doesn't kn ow what the hell they'redoing. CIO? An excuse for a big salary and hectic work schedule.
In this example the first thing Seyk did was pay money for a piece of software that didn't work. And he got paid to do that?
OK, maybe Seyk is a good 'ol geek who got burned but for every good geek there's a dozen dim bulbs and two dozen sleazy companies to take advantage of all of them.
Finally, Mac OS X takes a different tack. From what I
understand, all created accounts are user level accounts in the Unix
sense. To access the admin-level account, you have to explicitly
enable root.
Yes, root must explicitly be enabled. There's an added layer of
security in that when various admin type tasks need to be performed
-- typically installations -- a dialog pops up asking for an admin
level passsword. Other settings can be locked with admin level
access. Some installations require the user to logout and login again
as root though one may argue it's better to simply require root
password a la sudo.
For what it's worth, I avoid using Microsoft products on my Mac
whenever possible -- even on my Win2000 at work. While the rest of
the office -- including our file server! -- got infected by the Nimda
virus I didn't notice a thing since I get my email on my Mac.;-)
i find it hard to belive the doctors wouldn't notice a mistake
such as that....
Oh, that's easy enough. If the results were simply presented as
"Yes/No" there's no way to tell. The source for the patient's age
could have been correct but the age used in the determination was,
obviously, wrong. What the programmer should have done is display the
patient age as used in the calculation. It is still possible
that the programmer attempted to do so yet... made an error. No way
to tell without more information.
Though I'm not a doctor and I haven't played one on TV, I do
program OB/GYN databases and have done Y2K updates on them. I always
tried to make sure that a screwy result would stare the user in the
face.
From the Libertarian tract (which some may call the article):
The politicians are missing something in their proposals: faith
in the human spirit of innovation and creativity. Where there is a
demand the market tends to supply.
Tendency is all well and good... except when you live in an area
where the you wind up either ponying up a lot of money or do without.
Our family was living in a rural area where the only residential high
speed internet options were ISDN at $120/month or some sort of of
dedicated line (the telco wasn't clear on this) at $400/month. One
other option was one way cable modem; upstream used a modem. DSL
service was not available.
Now we live in a major metro area. Not only is DSL available, we
have... well, did... have a choice of DSL providers. We orginally
signed up with Flashcom which was an ISP using NorthPoint networks.
NorthPoint and Flashcom parted ways so we got transfered to Telocity
(with a rate increase and change of email address). Then we all know
what happened to NorthPoint. Our service was disconnected for about
two months before Verizon (nee ATT&T/Bell Atlantic) became our
network provider. Then Telocity was bought out by Direct TV which is
now it seems going to be bought out by either Murdoc's News Corp or
EchoStar.
We've been DSL customers for less than one year. Without lifting a
finger we've bcome subject to the whims of five different
coporations. Excuse me if I'm less than thrilled with the power of
the market.
The best way to foster this type of innovation is to get the
government out and let the free market work its magic.
Sorry, but I don't believe in magic. It's difficult to tell before
hand whether regulation will help or hinder in any given
situation. I have no reason to believe that the author's crystal ball
is better than my raisin bran reading.
Weakening the property rights of existing networks and
requiring them to share their systems with competitors will quash
innovation.
Unsupported assertion. It may or may not. Just as nature abhors a
vacuum, business craves monoply.
Milliron's photo ran in the St. Petersburg Times June 30. A caption under the photo read, "The man in this image was not identified as wanted."
The Times later sold the photo to U.S. News and World Report.
Folks, the surveillance cameras' involvement is coincidental. The Times sold his picture without getting his permission!
Re:Mac Users
on
Mac Rants
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The Mac will still continue to sell as long as it retains its appearance.
Speaking as an Amiga owner (though not a user anymore), I can say that Macs will sell as long as Apple stays in business to sell them.
I've met many Mac users who did not care that the performance was lower, they just liked the thing because it looked cool.
I've met zillions of Windo... er, make that... Intel based PC users who didn't care that the machine they were using couldn't even run Windows 95. My next door neighbor finally replaced her old computer. A Mac classic.
I'd be surprised if as much as 15% of computer users care enough about their computer's performance if it means buying a new computer. That's just the way it is; I've learned it takes two or three generations of new computer hardware to come and obsolesce before most people even consider buying a new computer.
... It's true that the Apple's computers run slowly,...
Well, it's not true that Macs run slowly; that's a sweeping generalization. It's not even true that the fastest Intel running Windows can run Photoshop faster than the fastest Mac.
... but there are other factors that some users consider to be more important.
Slashdot Mirror
These are the same people who think having one common title bar that is shared by all people is a good thing ...
Sorry, but your statement makes no sense. Are you speaking about the use of one menu bar shared by all windows of an application?
If yes, there are two major advantages to this design: menus are always in the same place, and one menu bar takes up less screen space than multiple menu bars.Whoa. They didn't choose; the situation was dicatated by the fact the until System 6 there was NO multitasking! Cooperative multitasking was the quickest way to implement multitasking without breaking existing applications. Apple stated very early on that they would eventually implement preemptive multitasking but, alas, it never came to pass. The endeavor died with the failure of Copeland. Then Apple bought NeXT.
And lets not forget the whole mhz myth marketing scheme. I think you should take anything Apple tells you with a block of salt.
Don't you mean the Intel Mhz myth? Where a higher clock speed CPU is automatically faster than a lower clock speed CPU just because one number is bigger than the other?
>>I have a better idea: just don't buy a computer with Intel Inside. Let
...
:-/
>>'em incorporate as many DRM gadgets as they want. Then we buy as many
>>non-DRM compliant gadgets as we want.
>
>This will work fine until the next version of the SSSCA/CBDTPA comes out.
>Given how interested the industry seems in this type of law, don't be
>surprised if they keep pushing for it.
Just because the law says that DRM can't legally be broken doesn't meant that manufacturers and content providers must include DRM. If nobody buys DRM protected products
I realize this requires a coordinated pattern of behavior from consumers. In other words, it's not likely to work as long as DRM pushers don't put too much vinegar in the honey. Or in other, other words, fat chance.
Let's all just keep our current computers.
I have a better idea: just don't buy a computer with Intel Inside. Let 'em incorporate as many DRM gadgets as they want. Then we buy as many non-DRM compliant gadgets as we want.
In other words, let 'em spawn a whole new market and let theirs wither on the corporate cube vine -- the only place you'll find DRM 'puters in large numbers.
The problem is not necesarily WANTING to stay with MacOS 9, but HAVING to stay with MacOS 9. A friend of mind helps a small newspaper with their Mac network and just FINALLY convinced his boss to begin moving to MacOS X as a pilot program. He prepared a plan that has the company taking THREE YEARS to move to MacOS X, with the first computers not going over until January 2003. This move by Apple will be a serious shock to that company.
What shock? New Macs' inability to boot into OS9 won't affect the (obviously) old Macs they already have. Or the software.
I've encountered this "problem" countless times over the years. While it may lead to a problem in the future, whatever they have on their desktops now will continue to work indefinitely. In fact, the major reason for not upgrading is such shops often need the old software to interface with some ancient protocol like, say, an old news wire feed over a hard-wired 1,200 bps line -- something like that; though I forget the details I've seen one of these suckers
Keep in mind that not all apps are MacOS X compliant... even thru the Classic layer (i.e. Quark). And small businesses do not necesarily have the cash to make a jump like this right away. Chances are this initiative will have this small business not buying new Macs, but doing a lot more shopping on eBay for used Macs in the year 2003.
In the short term, perhaps. But "short term" in the computer industry translates to something like "18 months" or less. As the outside world moves on and the old software can't deal with it, that shop will need to buy the news software ... which requires new hardware.
not a big deal; this sort of thing has been going on since the industry was born.Before self-censoring, a researcher should make a sober evaluation of which allegations are likely to stick and show courage by not bowing to spurious threats.
Sober evaluation? I'd say it's easier to get fall down drunk. That's a mighty big burden to put on authors -- who says an author must be a researcher?
Slander and libel are pretty easy to understand, but copy protection? I have no idea how far I can go and remain "legal". The only other similar restriction on speech that comes close would be exposing classified government secrets or private industry trade secrets. Or am I missing something?
DMCA turns everything upside down. Simply examining something something that anyone has access to (i.e., not secret) and saying too much about your discovery breaks the law. The burden falls on the author to essentially avert her gaze; the copyright holder hardly has to expend any effort at all to protect its secrets.
Don't know about you folks but I got a mortgage to pay. Yet, I should just "show courage" and risk everything and that's OK? Riiiight.
The American government will not, indeed cannot, actively monitor the terabytes of data this act will generate.
Right. So the Patriot (sic) Act requires private industry to do this for them. Scary. Our financial institutions now work for law enforcement on a near real time basis.
Do you remember the mid 90s when several U.S. congressmen questioned whether we even needed the CIA and other intelligence organizations?
Looks like they those congress critters were correct. Remember the Chinese embasy getting bombed in Serbia? That was CIA intelligence (sic) in action.
This kind of trade-off between increasing security at the price of privacy is a good one, IMO...
Security? What security? Terrorsim cannot be "defeated" in a straight-up fight ... well, not without destruction on a genocidal scale. Check the literature from Biblical times; it's filled with tales of terrorism. If terrorsim is still around after 2,000+ years, what are the chances anyone will be able to "defeat" it using what are essentially the same tools, i.e., we'll kill you before you can kill us?
My idea of security is to make sure our government's actions don't incite sufficient number of people to hate us to the point they want to hurt, mame, and kill us. I'd bet it'd be a lot cheaper too. Some large corporations may see lowered profits though ...
I'm setting aside idealogical and religious motivation for the most part, but the such fringe movements tend to become effective only with a sufficient base of disaffected people.
In brief, we'd do better by using a lot of carrots ... and as few sticks as possible. This requirment of the Patriot (sic) Act is ... a stick of questionable effectiveness yet has the force of law. Scary.
While this is an oldish story (1998) it is not the pathetic self congratulatory lame princeton story.
What I would like to know is (a) why the Princeton story is pathetic and lame and (b) how we are supposed to evaluate such a claim with nothing but a link to Amazon.com.
As far as I can tell, the Harper's story is pretty smarmy. Note all the claims that he was a "normal" kid by all appearances (as if that matters) ... but all the time he was playing with evil nucular materials! Bwahahahahaha!
Blech.
If superstring theory is correct, then they've been known to be equivalent since the 1920s. The Kaluza-Klein equations show that in a 5-dimensional space-time (4xspace + 1xtime) or higher, Einstein's equations and Maxwell's equations both come out.
What, gay theories?
It's funny- the publicity photos of the 15 inch macs really make it look a lot nicer then it is. I finally saw one up close a few weeks ago- the arm and screen is super smooth, but the base looks like a cheap toy.
It's funny -- whenever I see a PC case at a computer shop it looks cheap. An then when I see cases on sale (having cut a few knuckles servicing said cases) I know why.
I've been listening to this for quite a while, and I must say it's been a good change from the usual stuff labelled 'electronic'.
thats what I thought anyway, until I realised my headphones were broken...
I would have found it funny ... except I'm not using headphones, my speakers are not broken but I still can't hear anything.
From the article:
Created largely by scientists, techies and experimental musicians, lowercase recordings are frequently based on the magnification of minute sounds through a computer, typically a Macintosh.
Oh, and I've been a Mac user since 1984. Imagine all of the kids today who boast about how many fans they have cooling their Pentium boxes ... 18 years from now ...
Why not use UFS?
Compatibility with the Classic Environment; there's no way Classic can work with UFS without rewriting OS 9. Of course, OS X exists so that Apple doesn't have to rewrite OS 9. Get it?
I don't see any support from apple regarding UFS at all, and if they'll only be supporting HFS+, then well... I guess I'm stuck with it.
Perhaps later when OS X is faster and more stable for the other 98% of Apple's customers. :-j I expect Apple will get around to it ... unless they create a new file system. Hmmm ...
That sucks, OS 9 was the greatest OS apple released ever, ...
There's nothing that Apple is doing that will make Mac OS 9 any less great than it is now. Unless Apple has created new technology in their underground bunkers that can seek out and destroy all installations of Mac OS 9 ...
I recall hearing similar sentiments in the bad old days when Apple had stopped hemorrhaging red ink but there was still uncertainty whether the patient would live. People would ask me whether it would be "safe" to buy a Mac. I answered that even if Apple did go belly up it wouldn't mean that all Macs would suddenly stop working!
The situation for Mac OS 9 is much better. Apple will continue to make fixes to OS 9 for a while yet; just no new features.
Excuse me while I go fish my Amiga 4000 out of the basement ...
I applaud AT&T for thier resolute stand in this matter.
I was a Northpoint customer and went without DSL service for nearly two months. Nothing to applaud there.
I hope those greedy bond holders get what they deserve.
What, a better deal? More than 30 cents on the dollar? How about this: what kind of company buy equipment and leaves customers to fend for themselves? No applause here, dude. It would take a lot for me to ever pay AT&T for anything in the future.
Of course one of the questions I've asked that's never been answered...
Where's the damages?
I've yet to see any valid numbers that show customers have been harmed by Microsoft's monopoly.
You want numbers?
price of red-hot Linux: $50
price of Mac OS X: $130
price of Win XP: $300
Number of word processors returned for a search at microwarehouse.com: uh ... one? maybe 2 (is Endnote a word processor?
I never heard of it). Note that Quark is not a word processor.
Number of word processors viable available for the Mac: two or three.
Number of word processors for the Mac most people heard of: one
Yet you can build quite a substantial case for exactly the opposite, that customers have benefited over the past several years as a result.
Uh ... I can't. Highly paid lawyers hired by Microsoft couldn't
either.
A penalty should fit the crime.
The only punishment I'm aware of that has been applied to antitrust violators has been breaking up the corporation. There may be other remedies but not that I can recall. How about you? How about Chris six pack?
>As if anybody hasn't noticed, given the choice between paying one price
>for something or paying more for the same thing, which is the typical
>consumer going to pick?
So by your flawed logic, everyone in the United States uses Linux as their operating system since after all, it's much cheaper than buying a copy of Windows.
I'm saying that given identical boxes running identical OSs the cost to the OEM should be virtually identical (assuming OEMs of similar size and thus operating at similar economies of scale). The OEM that does what Microsoft wants gets a price break, the other does not. I am not comparing Windows to Linux or Intel to AMD. Got that?
Given the situation presented above, what is an OEM be more likely to do assuming that the OEM wants to maximize profits? Which would be more likely to be put out of business in the highly commoditixed PC market approaching saturation?
There's nothing wrong with my logic. As for your reading comprehension ...
From the AP story (paraphrased):
-Letting Microsoft add new features into its flagship Windows software, but requiring the company also to offer a version that doesn't include those additions.
A very reasonable restriction but is this a penalty? No.
-Banning restrictive contracts but allow financial incentives such as discounts to make those versions more enticing.
Gee, that's what I thought they were doing before the trial. Bill said "you can do it our way or you can't do it at all". Instead he'll say "you can do it our way or pay more". As if anybody hasn't noticed, given the choice between paying one price for something or paying more for the same thing, which is the typical consumer going to pick? PC vendors have a choice of doing it Microsoft way or coming up with a great song and dance routine to make the exact same box running the exact same software appear to be worth more money. Is this a penalty? Hell no!
-Forcing Microsoft to reveal parts of its Windows source for its Internet browser, but not Windows.
Huh? Who the hell wants the source to IE? What good is it going to do since Microsoft already illegally monopolized the market? Is this a penalty?
Found guilty by the trial court with that verdict upheld by the appeals court I ask for the last time, where's the penalty?
It's impossible to say (not that it'll stop your typical slashdot reader) what's reasonable because your don't giver us enough information.
What's in your lab? Anthrax? Small pox? Ebolla?
What's in your building?
Why do you bring anything larger than a lunchbox when you know it's going to be searched?
Get back to us at your convenience
POP3is a lovely protocol but it has one terrible disadvantage: It's a download only process. Oh sure email can be left on the server but there's no flagging, folders, etc. possible.
Sure it's possible, it's just not done on the server. Those features can be mimicked with Rules (or Actions or whatever they're called on a particular client).
The only difficult part is that the client has to be configured on each machine with the same (or similar) folders and Rules.
How do I know it works? I've been doing it for over five years with my POP client, Claris Emailer.
Troll fodder.
The right to choose your email client. Using your [ahem] logic, denying black people mortgages is perfectly OK since they can just go another lender, right? Feh to your [scoff] logic.
And then it dawned on Seyk why the software and support were sobad: That's the way vendors make money.
As it has dawned on geeks as soon as they enter the labor force:tech management (often/usually) doesn't kn ow what the hell they'redoing. CIO? An excuse for a big salary and hectic work schedule.
In this example the first thing Seyk did was pay money for a piece of software that didn't work. And he got paid to do that?
OK, maybe Seyk is a good 'ol geek who got burned but for every good geek there's a dozen dim bulbs and two dozen sleazy companies to take advantage of all of them.
Finally, Mac OS X takes a different tack. From what I understand, all created accounts are user level accounts in the Unix sense. To access the admin-level account, you have to explicitly enable root.
Yes, root must explicitly be enabled. There's an added layer of security in that when various admin type tasks need to be performed -- typically installations -- a dialog pops up asking for an admin level passsword. Other settings can be locked with admin level access. Some installations require the user to logout and login again as root though one may argue it's better to simply require root password a la sudo.
For what it's worth, I avoid using Microsoft products on my Mac whenever possible -- even on my Win2000 at work. While the rest of the office -- including our file server! -- got infected by the Nimda virus I didn't notice a thing since I get my email on my Mac. ;-)
i find it hard to belive the doctors wouldn't notice a mistake such as that....
Oh, that's easy enough. If the results were simply presented as "Yes/No" there's no way to tell. The source for the patient's age could have been correct but the age used in the determination was, obviously, wrong. What the programmer should have done is display the patient age as used in the calculation. It is still possible that the programmer attempted to do so yet ... made an error. No way
to tell without more information.
Though I'm not a doctor and I haven't played one on TV, I do program OB/GYN databases and have done Y2K updates on them. I always tried to make sure that a screwy result would stare the user in the face.
--
From the Libertarian tract (which some may call the article):
The politicians are missing something in their proposals: faith in the human spirit of innovation and creativity. Where there is a demand the market tends to supply.
Tendency is all well and good ... except when you live in an area
where the you wind up either ponying up a lot of money or do without.
Our family was living in a rural area where the only residential high
speed internet options were ISDN at $120/month or some sort of of
dedicated line (the telco wasn't clear on this) at $400/month. One
other option was one way cable modem; upstream used a modem. DSL
service was not available.
Now we live in a major metro area. Not only is DSL available, we have ... well, did ... have a choice of DSL providers. We orginally
signed up with Flashcom which was an ISP using NorthPoint networks.
NorthPoint and Flashcom parted ways so we got transfered to Telocity
(with a rate increase and change of email address). Then we all know
what happened to NorthPoint. Our service was disconnected for about
two months before Verizon (nee ATT&T/Bell Atlantic) became our
network provider. Then Telocity was bought out by Direct TV which is
now it seems going to be bought out by either Murdoc's News Corp or
EchoStar.
We've been DSL customers for less than one year. Without lifting a finger we've bcome subject to the whims of five different coporations. Excuse me if I'm less than thrilled with the power of the market.
The best way to foster this type of innovation is to get the government out and let the free market work its magic.
Sorry, but I don't believe in magic. It's difficult to tell before hand whether regulation will help or hinder in any given situation. I have no reason to believe that the author's crystal ball is better than my raisin bran reading.
Weakening the property rights of existing networks and requiring them to share their systems with competitors will quash innovation.
Unsupported assertion. It may or may not. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, business craves monoply.
From the article:
Milliron's photo ran in the St. Petersburg Times June 30. A caption under the photo read, "The man in this image was not identified as wanted."
The Times later sold the photo to U.S. News and World Report.
Folks, the surveillance cameras' involvement is coincidental. The Times sold his picture without getting his permission!
The Mac will still continue to sell as long as it retains its appearance.
Speaking as an Amiga owner (though not a user anymore), I can say that Macs will sell as long as Apple stays in business to sell them.
I've met many Mac users who did not care that the performance was lower, they just liked the thing because it looked cool.
I've met zillions of Windo... er, make that ... Intel based PC users who didn't care that the machine they were using couldn't even run Windows 95. My next door neighbor finally replaced her old computer. A Mac classic.
I'd be surprised if as much as 15% of computer users care enough about their computer's performance if it means buying a new computer. That's just the way it is; I've learned it takes two or three generations of new computer hardware to come and obsolesce before most people even consider buying a new computer.
Well, it's not true that Macs run slowly; that's a sweeping generalization. It's not even true that the fastest Intel running Windows can run Photoshop faster than the fastest Mac.
Now that is the truth.