That, now more than ever, the best processor for a person's needs depends on what they are going to do with their machine. The large number of choices in CPUs means that if your needs are simple, you can put together a fast machine with relatively few dollars. Ditto for video cards really. If you aren't married to the fastest cards, there are a lot of cards for around $100 give or take that will give great performance in most things, and even run a few games decently.
The hype that CPU makers love to throw out there and the cost of high end parts belies that you can put together a machine cheaper now for most needs than ever before.
Way to show up late to the party. At 9:38 am when I posted, my comment was relevant, but by the time you showed up at 1:53 pm the discussion migrated. I notice you didn't add to that discussion.
I stand by what I said at the time for what was being said at the time.
That is the typical Linux community response whenever someone suggest MS might have down something right. To listen to the wails you'd think that taking a pc loaded with a fully patched XP onto the net is walking into a pit bull farm with meat hanging off you. Vista, well, it's just awful, the worst thing in the world. OSX, well it's better -because it is not MS. Google, well bless us all. If anyone can make Linux popular, it's them. None of that is true really. XP is not a jalopy about to fly apart, nor is Vista Hitler's OS.
Does Linux have vulnerabilities, sure it does, it was made by humans. It gets patched occasionally as required, when the community does it. Does XP or Vista have vulnerabilities, yes, and that's why patch Tuesday exists. Apple too does fixes.
I am getting as tired of the Vista is bad hype as much as the iPhone hype.
Reality is, the OS is only as secure as the user. If the user is a dummy, they will screw up anything. Linux is dangerous to some of these people because they will dick with stuff they don't understand and bugger the system sideways. OSX is more secure because Apple does all it can to make you colour inside the lines. XP began going down that path after SP2, but still isn't that bad.
Vista is MS further down that path. I don't doubt it is more secure. Not because of the UAC (which is a non-issue about a week after ownership and you've set your permission), but because they have locked down the kernel. Screw Google and Symantec about the lock down. People wanted security and that is how you do it. No other way. Try getting Jobs to open Apple's. You'll see how cool Gramps Jobs gets them. Symantec, if anyone can put hooks into a system to bugger it up, it's them. Google, see how evil they are in five years. They are heading towards being the next MS that way. The "don't be evil" thing reminds me of commercials that say banks are your friend.
That all said, I don't doubt Vista is highly secure, it is new, and out there in relatively low numbers. I hope it stay secure. Time will tell. For now, there is no compelling reason to go there. XP is just as good if not better.
In the meantime, some of the Linux community better grow up and start selling the OS on it's merits and not selling it on the basis that it is not MS. To most people out there, MS really is a selling point.
Security, that ultimately lies in the users hands in a consumer OS.
All they now have to do is wait for some good games to come out for vista and they are all set to run them on XP. Really Halo 2 is a how many years old xbox game? And Shadowrun benefits from being vista-only how?
Good for the hackers. There is no compelling reason to move to vista from an existing set-up, and neither of these games would compel anyone either. Stupid that you have to go to these lengths to run software. Stupid that MS would not catch on to the notion that it takes more than gloss like aero to get people to upgrade.
There was no massacre in the square. That is just a theory like evolution. Many say it was a rave by drunk students. They don't know what happened to their friends because they were drunk. Pay no attention to the lies! Especially since now HD-DVD players that cost $20 will come soon due to the efficiencies of Chinese labor! You want this, and to help your ailing relatives, a new crop of prisoners are eager to repent for their crimes by offering their organs to you and yours at very low cost.
"The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope." - Karl Marx
See your business pages for examples. We no longer liberate people, we liberate markets. It's why the threat to oil in Iraq is met with guns and why almost 20 years after Tiananmen so many companies are moving into China. Lip service outrage is paid to things like harvesting Falun Gong prisoners organ because the market is safe for Wal-Mart and McDicks. Ditto that immolation of women is ignored in India (when they marry outside their caste etc) because it is a good market that can be moved into by companies. A few dissidents in China doing time or being executed is peanuts next to the profit to be made.
While I would not go so far as to say that Canada will never get an overhauled electronic copyright law, I doubt it is high on the list of priorities for the present government. They are more focused on trying to improve their image and gain ground. In that they are fighting a losing battle. The latest fiasco with the Atlantic provinces is an example. They cannot afford to lose members considering they are hanging by the skin of their teeth and the tricky co-operation of the Bloc. I doubt, therefore, that we will see the rise of such legislation. If they were to gain a majority in the next election (highly unlikely based on present numbers), perhaps such a thing could gain traction during the third or fourth year of such a mandate.
If the liberals gain a majority next time out (also unlikely), then they will be too busy trying to build up good will with the population and such a bill would be down the list. If another minority government arises, then such a bill would fall even farther down the priority list. Appeasing Hollywood will also likely be less of an issue as more US production work goes back south of the border or elsewhere due to the rising dollar. That is the big reason they came in the first place. The dollar too will continue to climb as long as the price of oil goes up and Bush continues to bungle the US economy.
For those who responded to my original post with by getting into a feud over whether the Bloc should exist or not, get over it, they exist. Frankly a western bloc could also arise and would be legal. Better than having people take guns to the streets and putting bombs in mailboxes. It also has nothing to do with the original point.
Frankly, I don't blame MS for locking up the kernel. We all wanted that right? Security, remember that? At the same time as Google has grown it has shown all the earmarks of becoming what they said they wouldn't be, and it started with the desktop search. Now they are being accused of poor privacy protection, collaborating with censors...
I don't want google or yahoo or anyone else searching my hard drive.
Really. What the industry wanted was a DCMA type act in Canada. They didn't get that and they won't get that. Instead they settled for an anti-camcording law. Not many people will argue that camcording in the theatre is good. Not even the pirates like it, makes for lousy copies. In the end the industry gets a sop, and the government says, okay, we did our bit. It will make no difference to piracy in the end (Canada is not the major source of pirated movies in the world).
No, cops won't stop doing policing over it. They are certainly not going to drop a car chase or a stakeout to go pick up a kid with a camcorder. That's just silly.
As for the thin edge of the wedge, the conservatives are not doing well in the polls, and they only managed a minority government last time after catching the liberals in what they billed the scandal of the century. They are not going to be around for much longer anyway. Then we will get the do-nothing liberals, and that's what htey wil do - nothing.
While the ending was wholly unsatisfying, it was typical of Chase. He refused to just give the audience what they wanted (the Russian, return of Furio etc). It's what made it a great show in not pandering to the viewer, and at the same time a frustrating one for the same reason. Hard to end it any other way. Real life works like that. Similar how in the Wire (better than the Sopranos (IMHO) how the main bad guy of the first couple of seasons goes to jail while the new bad guy is sitting in the back of the court room ready to take it place. As the song at the end of the Sopranos last night goes, "it goes on and on , and on and on". Tony will always be paranoid, Carmela will always be focused on trivia and AJ and Meadow will remain vacuous.
I read in an illustrated book how this big guy with an S on his shirt turned coal into a diamond by holding the coal and merely pressing his hands together. That took seconds. So maybe coal could be made in weeks. I think too in a similar book, there was this guy who lived with dinosaurs on a hidden island. So maybe man did, or does live with dinosaurs. I mean, I saw these things in print. they must be true.
Really, the answer as to why DRM (and such things) are doomed to failure lie in the hacker to security programmer ratio, which is probably something like 1000:1. Simple attrition overwhelms the code eventually. Not to discount either that some of the hackers are very good.
Only pirates use P2P, only communists use Linux and only hippies use OSX. All of these are gateways to the terrorist lifestyle and the destruction of western civilization.
The response shows that a lot of mac users should get a thicker skin. If this were about a windows pc, pc users would largely just shrug and say "I like what I got, so who cares". I have never understood the mac user penchant for taking such things so personally.
It's a computer, that all, regarldess of hype etc.
Once they found earth the jig was up. If it was a more primitive earth, the cylons would pound them into the ground and it would all be over, a technologically equal earth and they would likely be outnumbered by the cylons and pounded again (thanks guys for coming and bringing all your enemies along!), a more techologically advanced earth would have pounded the cylons and then assimilated the newcomers onto their society. Trying to drag it out after any of these scenarios would have dragged down the series and alas, it would have sucked.
They have a chance to go out on a high note and I am glad to see they are taking it. Sad, but I was p.o.ed that Deadwood and Rome ended too. There is precious little quality TV out there and the best series are winding down. I will be sad to see the Wire go too. Hopefully all these guys will give us some new quality series.
The fanbois might wish they did but they don't. MS actually has actually helped Apple more than once. They even gave them a much needed cash infusion at one point in the 90's. And back in 83, at a meeting of my local apple users group, there was a MS shill talking up the apple and the software ms was making for it. Any bad blood is more between the basement dwellers of the world than these two. They have both contributed to the other being very rich. There are other examples, but the apple/ms rivalry is more of a media/fanboi concoction
This is all very nice they are doing this, but the need is now. Not just for windows, but all the apps have to become multi-core aware. Right now having a dual or quad core for most apps is like having a care with an extra engine or two in the trunk not connected to any drivelines. CPUs have hit a wall in terms of speed because of heat, so the manufacturers are giving us mulit-core. Very nice, but consumer-level apps that use them would be nice. Some professional apps are multi-core aware, but at the consumer level...
And that the Wii peters out in four years. A new console will be introduced with HD capability etc. So, you use your 250 buck console for four years and get a new one. By contrast, will the 360 and PS3 be relevant in 8 years? How about 6? In terms of bang for the buck, even if the Wii doesn't last as long as the other two, it is still a better buy. It costs much less so in the end, it doesn't have to have the staying power anyway.
The real question is how much fun do you have with it? The games are coming, especially with the growing installled base.
People lie regularly on the net when answering surveys, filling out forms etc. They can still track you, but other than that, they can only have the information you give them. Survey after survey has found people lie when talking about themselves on-line etc. Not a surprise even if it really isn't all that effective. If you are really concerned, there are things like TOR that can help you be anonymous. Ultimately, people have to accept the web is not a private place. If you can see them, they can see you. Act accordingly.
I would like to see a FTC stipulation that after infromation has been "aged", it should be deleted. I doubt though that in these paranoid times it will happen though, so I can only say keep on lying and use TOR etc if you don't like the prying eyes.
As far as google not being evil. They are a business.
The thing is one million may sound like a lot to us, but it is really a drop in the bucket compared to mow many mp3 players there are out there. iPods have sold how many million? I still see more generic players (Sansas etc) around my area than genuine iPods. MS is trying to establish the Zune as a brand which may or may not happen. To do so they will have to sell 10's of millions and then you might see one. MS does have the staying power to wait. If the thing fails, at least they have a tax write-off. In the meantime, the reason they want in is the sheer size of the market. Not unlike the iPhone which Apple figures will make a go of it with single digit market penetration. A million is probably true, but in percentage of the market it is insignificant.
Even your eyes process colours through a small spectrum into what we see as a full vibrant spectrum. Functionally, for a computer display (don't get all philosophical on me), what is the difference between dithered and actually displayed if all the colours are present and rendered faithfully. All monitors do this, or rather all monitors and video cards. Do they sue the video card manufacturers as that's the other half of the equation...
This is just another symptom of an overly-litigious society with an over-population of lawyers.
Probably the reason MS was pissed at Google buying doubleclick was that they were negotiating with these guys at the time. Buying a company for millions, billions in this case, isn't like buying detergent. This deal was probably in the works for months, if not a year or more. Google buying doubleclick may have driven MS to the price they paid out of competitive necessity. MS has lots of cash, the seller knows it... profit! Google also moving first gave them a kick in the pants in the stock market, MS is likely to get less if a reaction. Whether planned or coincidence, the Google move pushed MS into the situation where they plopped down the sum. Lucky or smart of Google, unfortunate though nowhere near crippling for MS. It's just business. MS has larger cash reserves than some countries, they'll get by and continue to do well. Google is growing and I kick myself for not getting any stock.
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That, now more than ever, the best processor for a person's needs depends on what they are going to do with their machine. The large number of choices in CPUs means that if your needs are simple, you can put together a fast machine with relatively few dollars. Ditto for video cards really. If you aren't married to the fastest cards, there are a lot of cards for around $100 give or take that will give great performance in most things, and even run a few games decently. The hype that CPU makers love to throw out there and the cost of high end parts belies that you can put together a machine cheaper now for most needs than ever before.
Way to show up late to the party. At 9:38 am when I posted, my comment was relevant, but by the time you showed up at 1:53 pm the discussion migrated. I notice you didn't add to that discussion.
I stand by what I said at the time for what was being said at the time.
That is the typical Linux community response whenever someone suggest MS might have down something right. To listen to the wails you'd think that taking a pc loaded with a fully patched XP onto the net is walking into a pit bull farm with meat hanging off you. Vista, well, it's just awful, the worst thing in the world. OSX, well it's better -because it is not MS. Google, well bless us all. If anyone can make Linux popular, it's them. None of that is true really. XP is not a jalopy about to fly apart, nor is Vista Hitler's OS.
Does Linux have vulnerabilities, sure it does, it was made by humans. It gets patched occasionally as required, when the community does it. Does XP or Vista have vulnerabilities, yes, and that's why patch Tuesday exists. Apple too does fixes.
I am getting as tired of the Vista is bad hype as much as the iPhone hype.
Reality is, the OS is only as secure as the user. If the user is a dummy, they will screw up anything. Linux is dangerous to some of these people because they will dick with stuff they don't understand and bugger the system sideways. OSX is more secure because Apple does all it can to make you colour inside the lines. XP began going down that path after SP2, but still isn't that bad.
Vista is MS further down that path. I don't doubt it is more secure. Not because of the UAC (which is a non-issue about a week after ownership and you've set your permission), but because they have locked down the kernel. Screw Google and Symantec about the lock down. People wanted security and that is how you do it. No other way. Try getting Jobs to open Apple's. You'll see how cool Gramps Jobs gets them. Symantec, if anyone can put hooks into a system to bugger it up, it's them. Google, see how evil they are in five years. They are heading towards being the next MS that way. The "don't be evil" thing reminds me of commercials that say banks are your friend.
That all said, I don't doubt Vista is highly secure, it is new, and out there in relatively low numbers. I hope it stay secure. Time will tell. For now, there is no compelling reason to go there. XP is just as good if not better.
In the meantime, some of the Linux community better grow up and start selling the OS on it's merits and not selling it on the basis that it is not MS. To most people out there, MS really is a selling point.
Security, that ultimately lies in the users hands in a consumer OS.
All they now have to do is wait for some good games to come out for vista and they are all set to run them on XP. Really Halo 2 is a how many years old xbox game? And Shadowrun benefits from being vista-only how?
Good for the hackers. There is no compelling reason to move to vista from an existing set-up, and neither of these games would compel anyone either. Stupid that you have to go to these lengths to run software. Stupid that MS would not catch on to the notion that it takes more than gloss like aero to get people to upgrade.
A show of support (or confidence) is what you give a coach right before you fire him.
God is very good at photoshop!
There was no massacre in the square. That is just a theory like evolution. Many say it was a rave by drunk students. They don't know what happened to their friends because they were drunk. Pay no attention to the lies! Especially since now HD-DVD players that cost $20 will come soon due to the efficiencies of Chinese labor! You want this, and to help your ailing relatives, a new crop of prisoners are eager to repent for their crimes by offering their organs to you and yours at very low cost.
"The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope." - Karl Marx
See your business pages for examples. We no longer liberate people, we liberate markets. It's why the threat to oil in Iraq is met with guns and why almost 20 years after Tiananmen so many companies are moving into China. Lip service outrage is paid to things like harvesting Falun Gong prisoners organ because the market is safe for Wal-Mart and McDicks. Ditto that immolation of women is ignored in India (when they marry outside their caste etc) because it is a good market that can be moved into by companies. A few dissidents in China doing time or being executed is peanuts next to the profit to be made.
While I would not go so far as to say that Canada will never get an overhauled electronic copyright law, I doubt it is high on the list of priorities for the present government. They are more focused on trying to improve their image and gain ground. In that they are fighting a losing battle. The latest fiasco with the Atlantic provinces is an example. They cannot afford to lose members considering they are hanging by the skin of their teeth and the tricky co-operation of the Bloc. I doubt, therefore, that we will see the rise of such legislation. If they were to gain a majority in the next election (highly unlikely based on present numbers), perhaps such a thing could gain traction during the third or fourth year of such a mandate.
If the liberals gain a majority next time out (also unlikely), then they will be too busy trying to build up good will with the population and such a bill would be down the list. If another minority government arises, then such a bill would fall even farther down the priority list. Appeasing Hollywood will also likely be less of an issue as more US production work goes back south of the border or elsewhere due to the rising dollar. That is the big reason they came in the first place. The dollar too will continue to climb as long as the price of oil goes up and Bush continues to bungle the US economy.
For those who responded to my original post with by getting into a feud over whether the Bloc should exist or not, get over it, they exist. Frankly a western bloc could also arise and would be legal. Better than having people take guns to the streets and putting bombs in mailboxes. It also has nothing to do with the original point.
Frankly, I don't blame MS for locking up the kernel. We all wanted that right? Security, remember that? At the same time as Google has grown it has shown all the earmarks of becoming what they said they wouldn't be, and it started with the desktop search. Now they are being accused of poor privacy protection, collaborating with censors...
I don't want google or yahoo or anyone else searching my hard drive.
Really. What the industry wanted was a DCMA type act in Canada. They didn't get that and they won't get that. Instead they settled for an anti-camcording law. Not many people will argue that camcording in the theatre is good. Not even the pirates like it, makes for lousy copies. In the end the industry gets a sop, and the government says, okay, we did our bit. It will make no difference to piracy in the end (Canada is not the major source of pirated movies in the world).
No, cops won't stop doing policing over it. They are certainly not going to drop a car chase or a stakeout to go pick up a kid with a camcorder. That's just silly.
As for the thin edge of the wedge, the conservatives are not doing well in the polls, and they only managed a minority government last time after catching the liberals in what they billed the scandal of the century. They are not going to be around for much longer anyway. Then we will get the do-nothing liberals, and that's what htey wil do - nothing.
While the ending was wholly unsatisfying, it was typical of Chase. He refused to just give the audience what they wanted (the Russian, return of Furio etc). It's what made it a great show in not pandering to the viewer, and at the same time a frustrating one for the same reason. Hard to end it any other way. Real life works like that. Similar how in the Wire (better than the Sopranos (IMHO) how the main bad guy of the first couple of seasons goes to jail while the new bad guy is sitting in the back of the court room ready to take it place. As the song at the end of the Sopranos last night goes, "it goes on and on , and on and on". Tony will always be paranoid, Carmela will always be focused on trivia and AJ and Meadow will remain vacuous.
I read in an illustrated book how this big guy with an S on his shirt turned coal into a diamond by holding the coal and merely pressing his hands together. That took seconds. So maybe coal could be made in weeks. I think too in a similar book, there was this guy who lived with dinosaurs on a hidden island. So maybe man did, or does live with dinosaurs. I mean, I saw these things in print. they must be true.
Really, the answer as to why DRM (and such things) are doomed to failure lie in the hacker to security programmer ratio, which is probably something like 1000:1. Simple attrition overwhelms the code eventually. Not to discount either that some of the hackers are very good.
Only pirates use P2P, only communists use Linux and only hippies use OSX. All of these are gateways to the terrorist lifestyle and the destruction of western civilization.
The response shows that a lot of mac users should get a thicker skin. If this were about a windows pc, pc users would largely just shrug and say "I like what I got, so who cares". I have never understood the mac user penchant for taking such things so personally.
It's a computer, that all, regarldess of hype etc.
Once they found earth the jig was up. If it was a more primitive earth, the cylons would pound them into the ground and it would all be over, a technologically equal earth and they would likely be outnumbered by the cylons and pounded again (thanks guys for coming and bringing all your enemies along!), a more techologically advanced earth would have pounded the cylons and then assimilated the newcomers onto their society. Trying to drag it out after any of these scenarios would have dragged down the series and alas, it would have sucked.
They have a chance to go out on a high note and I am glad to see they are taking it. Sad, but I was p.o.ed that Deadwood and Rome ended too. There is precious little quality TV out there and the best series are winding down. I will be sad to see the Wire go too. Hopefully all these guys will give us some new quality series.
The fanbois might wish they did but they don't. MS actually has actually helped Apple more than once. They even gave them a much needed cash infusion at one point in the 90's. And back in 83, at a meeting of my local apple users group, there was a MS shill talking up the apple and the software ms was making for it. Any bad blood is more between the basement dwellers of the world than these two. They have both contributed to the other being very rich. There are other examples, but the apple/ms rivalry is more of a media/fanboi concoction
This is all very nice they are doing this, but the need is now. Not just for windows, but all the apps have to become multi-core aware. Right now having a dual or quad core for most apps is like having a care with an extra engine or two in the trunk not connected to any drivelines. CPUs have hit a wall in terms of speed because of heat, so the manufacturers are giving us mulit-core. Very nice, but consumer-level apps that use them would be nice. Some professional apps are multi-core aware, but at the consumer level...
And preferably this year, not 2009
And that the Wii peters out in four years. A new console will be introduced with HD capability etc. So, you use your 250 buck console for four years and get a new one. By contrast, will the 360 and PS3 be relevant in 8 years? How about 6? In terms of bang for the buck, even if the Wii doesn't last as long as the other two, it is still a better buy. It costs much less so in the end, it doesn't have to have the staying power anyway.
The real question is how much fun do you have with it? The games are coming, especially with the growing installled base.
People lie regularly on the net when answering surveys, filling out forms etc. They can still track you, but other than that, they can only have the information you give them. Survey after survey has found people lie when talking about themselves on-line etc. Not a surprise even if it really isn't all that effective. If you are really concerned, there are things like TOR that can help you be anonymous. Ultimately, people have to accept the web is not a private place. If you can see them, they can see you. Act accordingly.
I would like to see a FTC stipulation that after infromation has been "aged", it should be deleted. I doubt though that in these paranoid times it will happen though, so I can only say keep on lying and use TOR etc if you don't like the prying eyes.
As far as google not being evil. They are a business.
The thing is one million may sound like a lot to us, but it is really a drop in the bucket compared to mow many mp3 players there are out there. iPods have sold how many million? I still see more generic players (Sansas etc) around my area than genuine iPods. MS is trying to establish the Zune as a brand which may or may not happen. To do so they will have to sell 10's of millions and then you might see one. MS does have the staying power to wait. If the thing fails, at least they have a tax write-off. In the meantime, the reason they want in is the sheer size of the market. Not unlike the iPhone which Apple figures will make a go of it with single digit market penetration. A million is probably true, but in percentage of the market it is insignificant.
Even your eyes process colours through a small spectrum into what we see as a full vibrant spectrum. Functionally, for a computer display (don't get all philosophical on me), what is the difference between dithered and actually displayed if all the colours are present and rendered faithfully. All monitors do this, or rather all monitors and video cards. Do they sue the video card manufacturers as that's the other half of the equation...
This is just another symptom of an overly-litigious society with an over-population of lawyers.
Probably the reason MS was pissed at Google buying doubleclick was that they were negotiating with these guys at the time. Buying a company for millions, billions in this case, isn't like buying detergent. This deal was probably in the works for months, if not a year or more. Google buying doubleclick may have driven MS to the price they paid out of competitive necessity. MS has lots of cash, the seller knows it... profit! Google also moving first gave them a kick in the pants in the stock market, MS is likely to get less if a reaction. Whether planned or coincidence, the Google move pushed MS into the situation where they plopped down the sum. Lucky or smart of Google, unfortunate though nowhere near crippling for MS. It's just business. MS has larger cash reserves than some countries, they'll get by and continue to do well. Google is growing and I kick myself for not getting any stock.
Just died in a nursing home at 93