Way back when, I used to enjoy browsing through CompUsa. This was back when 100 megabytes was a really big harddrive. I forget when I lost interest.
Agressively unpleasant staff can be found everywhere, not just at CompUsa. Prices are about the same anywhere else. I fail to see the big difference between CompUsa, Frys, and Microcenter. I see as similar BestBuy and CircuitCity. One more step back and similar again is Walmart and Target.
The local CompUsa started selling non-computer gimmicks like ipods, cameras, telephones, and large screen televisions. Over time the space for computer stuff shrank and the space for gimmicks enlarged.
What may be overlooked here is the obvious. CompUsa is (was) an outlet for underpriced Chinese manufactured goods. CompUsa and the others have no control over the costs of what they buy. They have no control over the price they apply to what they sell. The price they pay the manufacturer is determined by the manufacturer, and is often below the cost of manufacturing.
All of these big stores are outlets for underpriced Chinese manufactured products. Underpriced means sold at a loss by the Chinese manufacturer.
All stores are selling the same stuff for the same price. All stores routinely insult customers. How will I notice that CompUsa has left the stage?
If the manufacturer can set designer prices, similar to designer buttons and blinking lights, then what market can not be overwhelmed?
Walmart is an outlet for underpriced Chinese manufactured products. Walmart is a building with a parking lot. Could be named anything else.
If a state in the United States started a state-owned manufacturing operation, spent tax dollars to produce the best MP3 Player that money could buy, and spent even more tax dollars to sell the MP3 Player at a lower price than anyone else, then that state would own the MP3 Player market until the tax-payers revolted.
(Revolutions in China are traditionally rather dramatic. The Peasant team usually does not do well against the Army team.)
If other states in the United States got jealous, then these states would start their own state-supported money-losing tax-payer supported manufacturing.
Virtualization May Break Vista DRM
I can not figure out why Microsoft forbids having a Virtual Machine running some versions of Vista, but permits other versions of Vista to indeed be run by a VM.
All of the anti-virus companies ( Symantec, Mcaffee, ZoneAlarm ) are working on VM anti-virus. This is because Microsoft has locked them out of modifiying the "kernel" of "Windows Vista 64-bit" .
The process will be:
turn on machine
boot bios
boot Super Norton Anti-virus Virtual Machine
boot Windows Vista
It is not clear to me that using a VM makes the defeat of DRM any easier than the current approach of defeating DRM. DRM hacks are in the news weekly. The hackers do not need a VM for anything.
The real organized state (with an army and airforce and everything) has more than enough resources to copy and counterfeit any DRM protected software. If this cost is millions of dollars then that is just spent in the research and development budget. DRM only defeats home users in North America and Europe. The rest of the world would find the concept of paying full price for movies (or software) a silly joke.
The obvious use of a Vista VM would be as a sandbox for safe internet browsing. This would be a tremendous benefit to users, from beginners to experts.
Why forbid running some versions of Vista in a Virtual Machine and then not explain the reason?
The original Spin Doctor would strap the patient down in a Barber's chair, and have a nurse spin the patient around and around. This was touted as a miracle cure for many psyciatric ailments.
Ice baths. Frontal lobotomy. Electric shock through the brain. Psychiatric drugs.
Now a pager with a shock prod installed in the brain.
Isn't this the kind of stuff Evil Scientists(tm) do to their victims?
Out of order execution, and also on-chip cache, help in speeding up programs like Windows, and also speeding up other programs that are compiled from high level languages like C or Basic.
Neither feature improves the speed of assembly language programs. Out of order execution does not assist code that has been written to run fast. On-chip cache does not help such code as much as plain old on-chip memory would.
Therefore Intel's and AMD's focus on on-chip complexity is to favor Windows Benchmark programs.
The fastest possible code is sequential with no branches or subroutine calls. This type of code is not practical using a high level language.
When executing assembly language program, some very high speed on-chip memory can be very useful. But very high speed on-chip cache is not nearly so useful.
Computers not running the Windows operating system will benefit from lower complexity and multiple cores. Applications like weather simulation, or making "The Incredibles".
Computers running Windows will be judged by Windows Benchmark scores, and will benefit from higher complexity processors and lower number of cores.
This whole "piracy" subject confuses me every time I read about it.
Yes, I can see where producers are concerned that folks will be copying instead of paying for software, music, and movies.
But this concern only applies to North America and Europe.
Outside of North America and Europe, no one would even THINK of paying full price for American software, music, or movies. The very concept would be absurd.
We are told that there are factories producing exact copies of movie DVD's including the box and bonus coupons. These factories are basically state supported. Counterfeiting American Intellectual Property is not a crime in the country in which it occurs, or at least much of a crime.
The gentle efforts of American producers to coax the ruling class of other countries are not likely to have much impact on the counterfeiting business.
Even were the death penalty applied by oppressive regimes upon peasants for copying "The Incredibles", there would not likely be a reduction in counterfeiting.
The world is awash with exact counterfeit copies of American software, music, and movies. Some of this washes up onto North America and Europe.
A company that I worked for used to purchase bogus copies of Symantec Anti-Virus and PcAnywhere fo $15, and then sell it to customers for full price. ( Go ahead and Google the price for PcAnywhere.) This became a substantial part of their business.
Since the laws protecting intellectual property only apply to the residents of North America and Europe, the remaining above sea level land mass residents are free to produce exact copies of Windows XP at the cost of materials.
The real solution to counterfeiting will be technical, not legal.
If Disney gets the United Nations to produce a ruling fobidding the counterfeiting of "Chicken Little", the result will be chubby bribed UN officials, and no reduction in piracy.
This is about an Intel Virtual machine, which will wrest the PC away from Microsoft.
I wish I could remember where I read the article ( Register, Inquirer, or Tom's Hardware ), but Intel is crafting a root kit virtual machine which snatches control from Microsoft.
The first target is a vitual ethernet that performs network security, including antivirus. Everything else on the PC is also fair game.
With this root kit, Intel makes hardware primary again. No more begging silly Microsoft to clean up their silly legacy x86 code, which inhibits Intel's plans for massive processor improvements.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates still blames Intel for the 286, and thinks that Intel are just a bunch of lucky incompetents riding on Microsoft's success.
An Intel root kit will not require Windows software in any way whatsoever. This will free Intel to completely focus on CPU's and chip sets with related drivers. The code can be written in the most optimal manner, favoring the hardware. It will also, incidently, provide a silent way to patch Intel bugs, should such ever occur.
Intel takes over the hardware plus drivers, and makes Windows into just another application. All software drivers become Intel Certified instead of Microsoft Certified. Apple gets a more fair chance, since the PC is now an Intel desktop.
Linux gets software driver support for all the latest hardware, as soon as Microsoft does, by default.
Your post was right on. Government would benefit from a unified format. I had thought that PDF was that format. PDF is the format of all IRS publication downloads.
Microsoft calls the competition communists to make the competition angry. Microsoft doesn't mean real communists, they mean dirty dirty shizno communists.
Your last line was dumb. For future reference please inspect this short essay on the political spectrum. It is brilliant.
Only in North America and Europe are people prosecuted for file copying.
Here we are mostly honest, and most of us pay full price. I view file-sharing as an eccentric hobby.
Outside of this realm, the rest of the world would find the concept of paying full price INCONCEiVABLE. Buying an American movie DVD, music CDROM, or software program, at full price would be UNTHINKABLE. It is just not done. Cheap copies are available at every convience store.
It is the counterfeits which are sold in NorthAm and Europe that are upsetting the various industries so much. Also, the factories that produce these counterfeits are not acting illegaly in their own country. At least not very illegaly.
In the old days, counterfeits were difficult to make. Now the technology to manufacture exact duplicates, including the box art, is readily accessable.
The solution to the problem is to produce an object that can not be copied. How about a grown peice of diamond whose molecular structure contains giga-bytes of encrypted data, which contains one movie.
Qoute:
There's plenty of global-warming-is-a-lie hysteria (strangely enough among people who are funded by big energy interests, and those who are their supporters), and there's a good deal of global-warming-is-guaranteed-disaster-tomorrow hysteria (typically among people who proclaim several dozen other sources of disaster tomorrow).
end quote
There is no reasoned hysteria.
An angry mob of global-warming enthusists attracts an angry mob of anti-global-warming enthusists, because angry people are in agreement with each other. They like being angry and hysterical.
The resoned response to global warming fears are not fairly described as hysterical.
quote: Are We on the Brink of a New Little Ice Age?... They are of a magnitude comparable to the Little Ice Age, which had profound effects on human settlements in Europe and North America during the 16th through 18th centuries.
end quote
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ climatechange_wef_faq_en4.html quote: Abrupt Climate Change... The Little Ice Age --The Norse abandoned their Greenland settlements when the climate turned abruptly colder 700 years ago. Between 1300 and 1850, severe winters had profound agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe. end quote
Alas poor Slashdot, I knew thee...
I long ago gave up hope that the slashdoters would detect a difference between right and wrong, class or crass, hot or not.
But I had hoped that there would still be perception of correct or incorrect.
An angry and excited mob does not prove the existance of global warming. It does not matter how angry or how large the mob might be.
A proof would consist of accurate data, and reasoned theory. The data would be expected to be fairly questioned, and the theory fairly argued.
Correct or incorrect is not a democratic process.
The earth's climate and temperature is always changing.
At one time Greenland was farmland, and not covered in snow.
At one time, during the US Revolutionary War, cannons were rolled accross the frozen Delaware River, a freezing which has not occured in living memory.
There was a "mini" ice age in Europe in (I think) the 1300's AD.
Ocean and Climate Change Institute:
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ ct_abruptclimate.htm
A quote from this refereshingly reasonable website:
"While strong trends, such as those associated with global warming, can often be seen in the modern record, the record is too short to decipher other important changes that occur over decades or longer."
No amount of excitement will substitute for reason in scientific learning.
There is no reason that un-reason should be substituted.
If one joins an angry mob, then one should sensibly expect an equal and opposite angry mob to occur. The eventual result of joining the angry are guilt and shame proportional to one's angry activities.
If you can not reason, then why are you reading slashdot?
And the United Kingdom must, and certainly will, respond to it.
The US response was to invade Afganistan and prevent Afganistan from being a threat. The US response was to invade Iraq, and prevent Iraq from being a threat. These were sucessful actions.
These targets were not precise. But they were arguably well chosen.
The next target will face the attention of a larger coalition of civilized countries, including Russia.
---- It is possible to find fanatics anywhere. Here in the US, someone has not too long ago set fire to new automobiles in order to protest air pollution. I, of course, believe that these people just like starting fires.
If it were wanted, the US could recruit many suicide bombers. That is not civilized, and is not likely to happen.
The wealthy fanatics that finance these atrocities enjoy blowing things and people up. They themselves are not dying in suicide attacks. Like Saddam Hussien, they imagine themselves to be invulnerable.
It is apparant to all that the wealthy fanatics must be shown that they are not invulnerable.
The real question is which would you buy, Windows or Mac OS ?
Assume identical hardware, just like your desktop right now. Assume identical price for Windows or Mac OS.
Which would you want to use?
Can little Apple really compete with Microsoft on a level playing field?
I don't use Apple, I study Microsoft and all things Microsoft. So I just can't believe that Apple is a contender.
So tell me the truth. Which would you use if you had an easy choice? Would your customers choose Mac OS if they had a choice? If all those Dell PC's could run MAc OS, would users consider switching?
If the answer to the above is, yes, Mac OS is the choice, then the Cringly article is 100% correct, and Steve Jobs has conquered the world. At the last minute. In overtime.
I have always wondered why Windows does not take advantage of descriptors. In the Intel processor, a Stack only, non-executable, descriptor type was provided. I am guessing that descriptors require overhead that slow down Windows. As far as I know, Windows does not use descriptors (well just one) to this day. Probably a decision made in 386 days, haunting Msft ever since.
Of course, buffer overflows are software problems anyway. The basic issue with buffer overflow is not checking the buffer limits in code, as data is being received. This non-checking is built into the "c" libraries. For speed. I also always wondedered why Microsoft doesn't just upgrade the libraries and fix all potential buffer overuns in one fell swoop of a recompile.
The church is trying to aggressively protect its copyrights. This means that everything they have can only be published by them. So they are suing anyone that posts a copy on the internet, and also anyone that posts a link to that copy. This is similar to Disney protecting Mickey Mouse, or music producers protecting music.
But, somewhere along the line, things went astray. The church now is attacking critics of the church. This is similar to Disney suing a Mickey Mouse parody (been done) or the Eagles suing a harsh critic of their music (not been done as far as I know).
Most folks would support the church's effort to protect its copyrights. Most would also support the freedom of speech of the critics.
Good point. Dell does not do its own research and development. Instead Dell's R&D is subsidized by the governments of Tiawan and Korea.
Dell is not the competition in R&D. For HP (and Dell) to perform their own development, they would have to compete with nation-states. The average US company does not have the resources of even the small nations of Japan, Korea, and Tiewan.
Almost all dynamic ram is made in these countries. As are laptop/portables, and Dell PC's. At some point these countries will get tired of waring with each other, and will notice that they have an oligarchy.
On that day, Dell will vanish in a puff of smoke. All that will remain of HP will be it's own researched and developed products.
The cost of labor in a wicker basket is very high. The cost of labor in a microwave oven is very low. It is all relative.
Real honest-to-gosh slave labor would not reduce the cost of the notebook further.
My bet is that these are factory closeouts and rejects from Taiwanese factories. A profit of some sort is being made from getting rid of unwanted inventory.
I am interested in world-wide pricing.
Particularly Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe.
To start:
Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
http://www.bestbuy.com
MAG 17" CRT Monitor - Silver Model: 771FS-s
Our Price: $99.99
We can handle the currency exchange rates.
http://money.cnn.com/markets/currencies/
My guess, at this moment, is that it would be cheaper for Asian readers to purchase in the USA, and pay for shipping to their doorstep.
If one is manufacturing wicker baskets, T-shirts, or tennis shoes, by hand, then the cost of labor is a significant percentage of total cost.
Make that wicker basket by machine, and labor costs go way down. Productivity goes up.
Near-slave labor does not provide the cheap goods that are sold to us. Real and true slave labor would not provide enough cost savings either. The labor costs are not a signigficant part of a Dell Laptop.
The real cost is paid by the tax-payers of the country of manufacture.
The Chinese, Korean, Tiwanese, Japanese, etc, peasant is paying for your fun stuff, with their taxes.
The example of DRAM is a good one. A recent headline reported that a major manufacturer of DRAM in Japan was going to pay a $100megabuck fine for "dumping". Selling in the US at below the cost of manufacture.
That Dell Laptop that costs a so unbelievably small amount of money to you, actually cost more to manufacture than it was sold for. Same with cell-phones and all the electronic fluff.
One point I feel is lost when discussing the cost of these fancy gagets:
They are sold in the US at below the cost of manufacture.
Whether it be CRT, Plasma, LCD, dram, or even notebook PC's, the cost to manufacture exceeds the cost to buy.
None of these items are manufactured in the US, or in Euro democracies. The countries that sell these things are ruled by oligarchies that result in government support of the manufacturing.
The Asian countries are in a war of sorts amongst themselves. Each draws upon the resources of their populace to support money losing gaget factories. A $2bln LCD factory is an investment in the war.
At some point the citizens of these countries will cease to be willing to support the current setup. At another point, the participating countries may negociate a cease fire, and agree to raise prices.
In any case, the actual cost effectiveness of various technologies should take into consideration the manufacturing cost, not the price seen at CompUSA.
Slashdot Mirror
Way back when, I used to enjoy browsing through CompUsa. This was back when 100 megabytes was a really big harddrive. I forget when I lost interest.
Agressively unpleasant staff can be found everywhere, not just at CompUsa. Prices are about the same anywhere else. I fail to see the big difference between CompUsa, Frys, and Microcenter. I see as similar BestBuy and CircuitCity. One more step back and similar again is Walmart and Target.
The local CompUsa started selling non-computer gimmicks like ipods, cameras, telephones, and large screen televisions. Over time the space for computer stuff shrank and the space for gimmicks enlarged.
What may be overlooked here is the obvious. CompUsa is (was) an outlet for underpriced Chinese manufactured goods. CompUsa and the others have no control over the costs of what they buy. They have no control over the price they apply to what they sell. The price they pay the manufacturer is determined by the manufacturer, and is often below the cost of manufacturing.
All of these big stores are outlets for underpriced Chinese manufactured products. Underpriced means sold at a loss by the Chinese manufacturer.
All stores are selling the same stuff for the same price. All stores routinely insult customers. How will I notice that CompUsa has left the stage?
If the manufacturer can set designer prices, similar to designer buttons and blinking lights, then what market can not be overwhelmed?
Walmart is an outlet for underpriced Chinese manufactured products. Walmart is a building with a parking lot. Could be named anything else.
If a state in the United States started a state-owned manufacturing operation, spent tax dollars to produce the best MP3 Player that money could buy, and spent even more tax dollars to sell the MP3 Player at a lower price than anyone else, then that state would own the MP3 Player market until the tax-payers revolted.
(Revolutions in China are traditionally rather dramatic. The Peasant team usually does not do well against the Army team.)
If other states in the United States got jealous, then these states would start their own state-supported money-losing tax-payer supported manufacturing.
More big-box stores are going to vanish.
Virtualization May Break Vista DRM I can not figure out why Microsoft forbids having a Virtual Machine running some versions of Vista, but permits other versions of Vista to indeed be run by a VM. All of the anti-virus companies ( Symantec, Mcaffee, ZoneAlarm ) are working on VM anti-virus. This is because Microsoft has locked them out of modifiying the "kernel" of "Windows Vista 64-bit" . The process will be: turn on machine boot bios boot Super Norton Anti-virus Virtual Machine boot Windows Vista It is not clear to me that using a VM makes the defeat of DRM any easier than the current approach of defeating DRM. DRM hacks are in the news weekly. The hackers do not need a VM for anything. The real organized state (with an army and airforce and everything) has more than enough resources to copy and counterfeit any DRM protected software. If this cost is millions of dollars then that is just spent in the research and development budget. DRM only defeats home users in North America and Europe. The rest of the world would find the concept of paying full price for movies (or software) a silly joke. The obvious use of a Vista VM would be as a sandbox for safe internet browsing. This would be a tremendous benefit to users, from beginners to experts. Why forbid running some versions of Vista in a Virtual Machine and then not explain the reason?
You are absolutly correct.
No one out side of North America and Europe would even _think_ of paying full price for software.
But what if all these mini-payment plans are just setting the stage for a hardware lock on Windows?
The original Spin Doctor would strap the patient down in a Barber's chair, and have a nurse spin the patient around and around.
This was touted as a miracle cure for many psyciatric ailments.
Ice baths.
Frontal lobotomy.
Electric shock through the brain.
Psychiatric drugs.
Now a pager with a shock prod installed in the brain.
Isn't this the kind of stuff Evil Scientists(tm) do to their victims?
Out of order execution, and also on-chip cache, help in speeding up programs like Windows, and also speeding up other programs that are compiled from high level languages like C or Basic.
Neither feature improves the speed of assembly language programs. Out of order execution does not assist code that has been written to run fast.
On-chip cache does not help such code as much as plain old on-chip memory would.
Therefore Intel's and AMD's focus on on-chip complexity is to favor Windows Benchmark programs.
The fastest possible code is sequential with no branches or subroutine calls. This type of code is not practical using a high level language.
When executing assembly language program, some very high speed on-chip memory can be very useful. But very high speed on-chip cache is not nearly so useful.
Computers not running the Windows operating system will benefit from lower complexity and multiple cores.
Applications like weather simulation, or making "The Incredibles".
Computers running Windows will be judged by Windows Benchmark scores, and will benefit from higher complexity processors and lower number of cores.
I agree that IP protection is a top priority at Microsoft.
.Net Assemblies, if you have sufficient money and time.
However, decompiling Windows services is just as easy as decompiling
Entities that have plenty of money and time ( and labor ) are known as Nation/States. They have armies also.
It is greatly in the interest of some countries to decompile Windows.
This makes compiled code only somewhat more obfuscated than MSIL Assemblies.
Microsoft's real hope for IP protection will be Digital Rights Management.
And RealDRM(tm) will be hardware based.
This whole "piracy" subject confuses me every time I read about it.
Yes, I can see where producers are concerned that folks will be copying instead of paying for software, music, and movies.
But this concern only applies to North America and Europe.
Outside of North America and Europe, no one would even THINK of paying full price for American software, music, or movies. The very concept would be absurd.
We are told that there are factories producing exact copies of movie DVD's including the box and bonus coupons. These factories are basically state supported.
Counterfeiting American Intellectual Property is not a crime in the country in which it occurs, or at least much of a crime.
The gentle efforts of American producers to coax the ruling class of other countries are not likely to have much impact on the counterfeiting business.
Even were the death penalty applied by oppressive regimes upon peasants for copying "The Incredibles", there would not likely be a reduction in counterfeiting.
The world is awash with exact counterfeit copies of American software, music, and movies.
Some of this washes up onto North America and Europe.
A company that I worked for used to purchase bogus copies of Symantec Anti-Virus and PcAnywhere fo $15, and then sell it to customers for full price. ( Go ahead and Google the price for PcAnywhere.) This became a substantial part of their business.
Since the laws protecting intellectual property only apply to the residents of North America and Europe, the remaining above sea level land mass residents are free to produce exact copies of Windows XP at the cost of materials.
The real solution to counterfeiting will be technical, not legal.
If Disney gets the United Nations to produce a ruling fobidding the counterfeiting of "Chicken Little", the result will be chubby bribed UN officials, and no reduction in piracy.
This is about an Intel Virtual machine, which will wrest the PC away from Microsoft.
I wish I could remember where I read the article ( Register, Inquirer, or Tom's Hardware ), but
Intel is crafting a root kit virtual machine which snatches control from Microsoft.
The first target is a vitual ethernet that performs network security, including antivirus.
Everything else on the PC is also fair game.
With this root kit, Intel makes hardware primary again. No more begging silly Microsoft to clean
up their silly legacy x86 code, which inhibits Intel's plans for massive processor improvements.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates still blames Intel for the 286, and thinks that Intel are just a bunch of
lucky incompetents riding on Microsoft's success.
An Intel root kit will not require Windows software in any way whatsoever. This will free Intel to completely focus on CPU's and chip sets with related drivers. The code can be written in the most optimal manner, favoring the hardware.
It will also, incidently, provide a silent way to patch Intel bugs, should such ever occur.
Intel takes over the hardware plus drivers, and makes Windows into just another application.
All software drivers become Intel Certified instead of Microsoft Certified.
Apple gets a more fair chance, since the PC is now an Intel desktop.
Linux gets software driver support for all the latest hardware, as soon as Microsoft does, by
default.
Your post was right on. Government would benefit from a unified format. I had thought that PDF was that format. PDF is the format of all IRS publication downloads.
Microsoft calls the competition communists to make the competition angry. Microsoft doesn't mean real communists, they mean dirty dirty shizno communists.
Your last line was dumb. For future reference please inspect this short essay on the political spectrum. It is brilliant.
http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm
ALL ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM by Jerry Pournelle
Only in North America and Europe are people prosecuted for file copying.
Here we are mostly honest, and most of us pay full price. I view file-sharing as an eccentric hobby.
Outside of this realm, the rest of the world would find the concept of paying full price INCONCEiVABLE.
Buying an American movie DVD, music CDROM, or software program, at full price would be UNTHINKABLE.
It is just not done. Cheap copies are available at every convience store.
It is the counterfeits which are sold in NorthAm and Europe that are upsetting the various industries so much.
Also, the factories that produce these counterfeits are not acting illegaly in their own country. At least not very illegaly.
In the old days, counterfeits were difficult to make. Now the technology to manufacture exact duplicates, including the box art, is readily accessable.
The solution to the problem is to produce an object that can not be copied.
How about a grown peice of diamond whose molecular structure contains giga-bytes of encrypted data, which contains one movie.
Qoute: There's plenty of global-warming-is-a-lie hysteria (strangely enough among people who are funded by big energy interests, and those who are their supporters), and there's a good deal of global-warming-is-guaranteed-disaster-tomorrow hysteria (typically among people who proclaim several dozen other sources of disaster tomorrow). end quote There is no reasoned hysteria. An angry mob of global-warming enthusists attracts an angry mob of anti-global-warming enthusists, because angry people are in agreement with each other. They like being angry and hysterical. The resoned response to global warming fears are not fairly described as hysterical.
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ abruptclimate_joyce_keigwin.html
...
/ climatechange_wef_faq_en4.html ...
quote:
Are We on the Brink of a New Little Ice Age?
They are of a magnitude comparable to the Little Ice Age, which had profound effects on human settlements in Europe and North America during the 16th through 18th centuries.
end quote
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics
quote:
Abrupt Climate Change
The Little Ice Age --The Norse abandoned their Greenland settlements when the climate turned abruptly colder 700 years ago. Between 1300 and 1850, severe winters had profound agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe.
end quote
Alas poor Slashdot, I knew thee... I long ago gave up hope that the slashdoters would detect a difference between right and wrong, class or crass, hot or not. But I had hoped that there would still be perception of correct or incorrect. An angry and excited mob does not prove the existance of global warming. It does not matter how angry or how large the mob might be. A proof would consist of accurate data, and reasoned theory. The data would be expected to be fairly questioned, and the theory fairly argued. Correct or incorrect is not a democratic process. The earth's climate and temperature is always changing. At one time Greenland was farmland, and not covered in snow. At one time, during the US Revolutionary War, cannons were rolled accross the frozen Delaware River, a freezing which has not occured in living memory. There was a "mini" ice age in Europe in (I think) the 1300's AD. Ocean and Climate Change Institute: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ ct_abruptclimate.htm
A quote from this refereshingly reasonable website:
"While strong trends, such as those associated with global warming, can often be seen in the modern record, the record is too short to decipher other important changes that occur over decades or longer."
No amount of excitement will substitute for reason in scientific learning.
There is no reason that un-reason should be substituted.
If one joins an angry mob, then one should sensibly expect an equal and opposite angry mob to occur. The eventual result of joining the angry are guilt and shame proportional to one's angry activities.
If you can not reason, then why are you reading slashdot?
This is indeed an act of war.
And the United Kingdom must, and certainly will, respond to it.
The US response was to invade Afganistan and prevent Afganistan from being a threat.
The US response was to invade Iraq, and prevent Iraq from being a threat.
These were sucessful actions.
These targets were not precise. But they were arguably well chosen.
The next target will face the attention of a larger coalition of civilized countries, including Russia.
----
It is possible to find fanatics anywhere.
Here in the US, someone has not too long ago set fire to new automobiles in order to protest air pollution.
I, of course, believe that these people just like starting fires.
If it were wanted, the US could recruit many suicide bombers. That is not civilized, and is not likely to happen.
The wealthy fanatics that finance these atrocities enjoy blowing things and people up. They themselves are not dying in suicide attacks.
Like Saddam Hussien, they imagine themselves to be invulnerable.
It is apparant to all that the wealthy fanatics must be shown that they are not invulnerable.
subject: The Real Question
The real question is which would you buy, Windows or Mac OS ?
Assume identical hardware, just like your desktop right now.
Assume identical price for Windows or Mac OS.
Which would you want to use?
Can little Apple really compete with Microsoft on a level playing field?
I don't use Apple, I study Microsoft and all things Microsoft.
So I just can't believe that Apple is a contender.
So tell me the truth.
Which would you use if you had an easy choice?
Would your customers choose Mac OS if they had a choice?
If all those Dell PC's could run MAc OS, would users consider switching?
If the answer to the above is, yes, Mac OS is the choice, then the Cringly article is 100% correct, and Steve Jobs has conquered the world. At the last minute. In overtime.
I have always wondered why Windows does not take advantage of descriptors.
In the Intel processor, a Stack only, non-executable, descriptor type was provided.
I am guessing that descriptors require overhead that slow down Windows.
As far as I know, Windows does not use descriptors (well just one) to this day.
Probably a decision made in 386 days, haunting Msft ever since.
Of course, buffer overflows are software problems anyway.
The basic issue with buffer overflow is not checking the buffer limits in code, as data is being received. This non-checking is built into the "c" libraries. For speed.
I also always wondedered why Microsoft doesn't just upgrade the libraries and fix all potential buffer overuns in one fell swoop of a recompile.
The church is trying to aggressively protect its copyrights.
This means that everything they have can only be published by them.
So they are suing anyone that posts a copy on the internet, and also anyone that posts a link to that copy.
This is similar to Disney protecting Mickey Mouse, or music producers protecting music.
But, somewhere along the line, things went astray. The church now is attacking critics of the church.
This is similar to Disney suing a Mickey Mouse parody (been done) or the Eagles suing a harsh critic of their music (not been done as far as I know).
Most folks would support the church's effort to protect its copyrights.
Most would also support the freedom of speech of the critics.
Good point. Dell does not do its own research and development.
Instead Dell's R&D is subsidized by the governments of Tiawan and Korea.
Dell is not the competition in R&D. For HP (and Dell) to perform their own development, they would have to compete with nation-states.
The average US company does not have the resources of even the small nations of Japan, Korea, and Tiewan.
Almost all dynamic ram is made in these countries. As are laptop/portables, and Dell PC's. At some point these countries will get tired of waring with each other, and will notice that they have an oligarchy.
On that day, Dell will vanish in a puff of smoke.
All that will remain of HP will be it's own researched and developed products.
The cost of labor in a wicker basket is very high.
The cost of labor in a microwave oven is very low.
It is all relative.
Real honest-to-gosh slave labor would not reduce the cost of the notebook further.
My bet is that these are factory closeouts and rejects from Taiwanese factories. A profit of some sort is being made from getting rid of unwanted inventory.
Wow. Default of HTML Formatting with no clue provided in preview, sure is irritating.
I am interested in world-wide pricing. Particularly Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe. To start: Atlanta, Georgia, USA. http://www.bestbuy.com MAG 17" CRT Monitor - Silver Model: 771FS-s Our Price: $99.99 We can handle the currency exchange rates. http://money.cnn.com/markets/currencies/ My guess, at this moment, is that it would be cheaper for Asian readers to purchase in the USA, and pay for shipping to their doorstep.
Something does not compute.
You guys don't get it.
If one is manufacturing wicker baskets, T-shirts, or tennis shoes, by hand, then the cost of labor is a significant percentage of total cost.
Make that wicker basket by machine, and labor costs go way down. Productivity goes up.
Near-slave labor does not provide the cheap goods that are sold to us. Real and true slave labor would not provide enough cost savings either.
The labor costs are not a signigficant part of a Dell Laptop.
The real cost is paid by the tax-payers of the country of manufacture.
The Chinese, Korean, Tiwanese, Japanese, etc, peasant is paying for your fun stuff, with their taxes.
The example of DRAM is a good one. A recent headline reported that a major manufacturer of DRAM in Japan was going to pay a $100megabuck fine for "dumping". Selling in the US at below the cost of manufacture.
That Dell Laptop that costs a so unbelievably small amount of money to you, actually cost more to manufacture than it was sold for. Same with cell-phones and all the electronic fluff.
One point I feel is lost when discussing the cost of these fancy gagets:
They are sold in the US at below the cost of manufacture.
Whether it be CRT, Plasma, LCD, dram, or even notebook PC's, the cost to manufacture exceeds the cost to buy.
None of these items are manufactured in the US, or in Euro democracies. The countries that sell these things are ruled by oligarchies that result in government support of the manufacturing.
The Asian countries are in a war of sorts amongst themselves. Each draws upon the resources of their populace to support money losing gaget factories. A $2bln LCD factory is an investment in the war.
At some point the citizens of these countries will cease to be willing to support the current setup.
At another point, the participating countries may negociate a cease fire, and agree to raise prices.
In any case, the actual cost effectiveness of various technologies should take into consideration the manufacturing cost, not the price seen at CompUSA.