I guess they will when they're genuinely unhappy with Apple's products and services. Despite missteps and mistakes on Apple's part, it doesn't appear that the vast majority of their customers are anywhere close to unhappy with either.
And out of curiosity, why would you say that the price of the original iPhone was a rip-off? People who spent the $600 didn't have guns pressed to their temples, and obviously it was worth it to them or they wouldn't have bought them. The only early adopters I've heard bitching about the price drop were the ones who had bought a bunch of them in order to resell them, and saw their money-making venture evaporate (I personally know several). Those who found the device useful just shrugged their shoulders, joked about Early Adopters Syndrome, and happily continued using it (I personally know many).
If you think the iPhone is such a rip-off, why are you so upset that you couldn't get one on launch day? Couldn't you have foreseen the possibility of the very problems that you encountered, and put off your purchase until next week, when the bugs were ironed out? Seems to me that you're really upset about the inconveniences you suffered and decided to vent by launching into a rant fest. What does the iPod battery, iPod Touch upgrade fees, and Edge performance have to do with the fact that you didn't get your iPhone today? Your post makes you sound like a frustrated fanboy, lashing out at Apple because you didn't get your toy like Unca Steve promised. There, there, it's not the end of the world.
I don't have any mod points, but that was "Insightful". And I agree, that was a textbook case for Time Machine. What will she do if her PC crashes and she still hasn't backed up?
What are they going to do, hit the hijackers over the head with the aircraft? Firstly, only combat aircrew wear oxygen masks at all times; commercial aircrew only don them during emergencies (and under certain other conditions required by regulations). Any hijackers who manage to breach the flight deck would view with suspicion the flight crew grabbing for their masks. The first option might have some hope of succeeding if the flight crew had ample warning of a hijacking in progress, but the only way to depressurize the cabin quickly enough to incapacitate the hijackers would be to open a window. Not a good idea, especially at cruising altitudes. As for aerobatic maneuvers...boy oh boy. Can you say "structural failure"?. Commercial aircraft are not designed for the stresses of aerobatics, and may well become uncontrollable in unusual attitudes, such as inverted flight or vertical climbs. Besides which, no airliner has the excess thrust available to climb vertically. Just watch a heavily-laden 747 laboring off the runway and you'll realize this.
However....in all fairness to your suggestion, I should mention the bizarre case of FedEx Flight 705 in 1994, during which a soon-to-be-terminated deranged FedEx pilot who was hitching a ride on a FedEx DC-10, attacked the crew minutes after takeoff with a speargun and hammers which he had brought aboard. His intention was to kill the crew and use the aircraft in a kamikaze attack on FedEx headquarters. The captain and flight engineer were able to subdue him after a long and bloody struggle, during which the co-pilot, despite suffering severe head trauma from a hammer attack, threw him off balance with violent maneuvers. All three crew members and the attacker were critically injured during the struggle, and none of the flight crew were able to regain flight status because of the severity of their wounds. They never flew commercially again, and were damned lucky to survive at all. And this was against just one individual. Imagine what would have happened if they had been fighting two or three, armed with blades instead of spearguns and hammers. Violent maneuvers were a desperate last resort, and shouldn't be considered as a strategy. I don't know which pilots told you that they're "confident" of managing hijackers that the passengers couldn't, but they'd be well advised to acquaint themselves with the horrific ordeal that the crew of FedEx 705 suffered before they say any such thing.
Preventing access to the flight deck in the first place is much more effective and realistic than attempting to overcome one or more armed intruders, while maintaining control of the aircraft. As for arming the flight crew...well, even El Al, all of whose pilots are trained, active military personnel, thinks that armed flight crew is a very bad idea.
Microsoft helped drop these cheap little computers into peoples' laps and stick them on the internet.
Microsoft software is no cheaper than it has always been (why the fuck does Office still cost so much?). All these cheap computers exist because of Michael Dell, who turned the manufacturing industry on its ear. He deserves most of the credit for the commoditization of computer hardware.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of biology can tell you: disassemble it and load the components into an autoclave. What the hell kind of nerd are you anyway?
It's all subjective, and opinions are colored by a variety of factors. Here's a great story from the science blog The Frontal Cortex:
In 2001, Frederic Brochet, of the University of Bordeaux, conducted two separate and very mischievous experiments. In the first test, Brochet invited 57 wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn't stop the experts from describing the "red" wine in language typically used to describe red wines. One expert praised its "jamminess," while another enjoyed its "crushed red fruit." Not a single one noticed it was actually a white wine.
The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was "agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded," while the vin du table was "weak, short, light, flat and faulty". Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.
given an infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of keyboards, one will reproduce exactly the entire works of William Shakespeare
The rest will produce "The Wit and Wisdom of George W. Bush".
...as Avie Tevanian pointed out in the piece. Their backs were against the wall, and it was quite literally do or die for them. Microsoft is certainly not in that position by any stretch of the imagination. Their stock price may have hit a plateau, but they're still making shitloads of money despite the relative failure of Vista, and no matter what many here may believe or wish, Microsoft is not in some sort of death-spiral.
Still, the idea of a science-fiction object being realized in the real world is mighty interesting.
Actually, the idea was first proposed by Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. And there are still a lot of basic misconceptions about solar sails and light sails, no doubt because of the word "sail".
Simply put, they don't derive their thrust from the solar wind, the stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, but from the radiation pressure of sunlight (as stated in the summary), which provides vastly greater thrust than the solar wind. They don't tack, or "run before the wind", or perform maneuvers that wind-powered vessels do, they change from one orbit to another (solar or planetary) by using light pressure for minute accelerations or decelerations, doing so by changing the attitude of the main sail with smaller vanes.
Most of what people really dislike about Microsoft is Ballmer's doing, Gates just didn't have the spine to stand up to him and reel him in.
Really? I've heard many anecdotes about Bill Gates, but none about him kowtowing to anyone. In the Time magazine cover story on him some years ago, his father talks about Bill, known as "Trey" in his family, butting heads with his late mother (by all accounts an extremely strong-willed woman) when he was a young teenager, and refusing to give a millimeter. There are also many anecdotes about his own pig-headedness, and numerous variations of something he usually told people with whom found himself working: "I think you'll find we'll get along better once you realize that I'm in charge", or words to that effect. He was notorious for bullying subordinates in meetings, launching long tirades at them at perceived faults, but especially if he thought that they were bullshitting him. Microsoft insiders talk about the culture of paranoia he cultivated inside the company, forcing project managers to compete for his attention in an almost Darwinian struggle, and *EVERYTHING* that Microsoft did as a company, including their most egregious anticompetitive behavior, was either his initiative, or had his explicit approval. Ballmer was only his hatchet man, the loud-mouth bully stalking the corridors, threatening at the top of his lungs to fire everyone if a project didn't ship on time.
Gates may look like the stereotypical nerd, but his is very much a Type A personality, quite similar to Ballmer. Don't believe for a moment that Gates was some kind of dewy-eyed innocent who didn't know what was going on inside Microsoft, or that big, bad Ballmer could tell him what to do, much less bully him. From what I understand, friction between them only arose because Gates insisted on trying to dictate to Ballmer even after he was named CEO, and Ballmer naturally felt that since it was his call, he'd do things his way. Believe me, I don't think there's the person born yet who could bully him. Well, maybe Melinda, but that's the prerogative of wives everywhere.
"Eugenics". But that's basically what this amounts to, and as usual, the science is rapidly outpacing the ethics. I honestly believe that with each breakthrough in biotechnology, we need to pause for breath, so to speak, in order to assimilate the implications. But who decides, and on what basis, when a moratorium is in order? Even that aspect of the debate needs to be debated. Is it even possible for us to decide, as a species, on the future of the species? Can we, should we, deny the technology to those individuals who want it? At the very least, we need a scientifically literate populace in order to have any sort of meaningful discussion, but we're at the mercy of politicians who proudly parade their shocking ignorance of basic science. And worse, the mercenaries among them who cynically pander to the ignorance of their constituents in order to win votes.
Well done, and I'm sorry you can't get more than a score of 5 for your post. That's a beautifully concise summary of the differences among trojan, virus, and worm, as well as pinning the responsibility for most malware infections where it truly belongs, on ignorant or foolish users. Kudos.
I've read several glowing reviews of Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer (this one is from Ars Technica), and I'm deeply intrigued by what I've heard of it. Reviewers agree that Zimmer does a wonderful job of explaining the science, as well as the attendant politics (stem cells, intelligent design), rendering it understandable to the layman, while not insulting the more knowledgeable. Would anyone here who has read it care to comment?
That's why I said "balance". And you're preaching to the choir: I also despise "journalists" who attempt to play on emotions. They should be kneecapped.
Here he is in this vault of cool stuff, and all he can talk about his his "feelings" and how life is all so hard.
Remember journalists! The first rule of journalism is "Nobody cares about you and your life. If you are really lucky, they might just be interested in your subject, but they certainly aren't interested in you!"
Are you disappointed that he didn't just present an illustrated list of all 4,720 sets? This wasn't scientific reporting, or a dry treatise on new mathematical discoveries, and even then the very best journalists do include a subjective element in order for other humans to connect to the story. The journalist was attempting to express how the tour took him back to his childhood, and judging from many of the comments here, he succeeded in evoking the same feeling in others. The best journalism has a human reference, and strikes a fine balance between being too removed and being too involved. Maybe he strayed too far over the line, but it's not true that the journalist's feelings about a subject don't matter or are unimportant to the story.
Why should anyone take the reviews of a site that is obviously willing to break the law to do what it wants. I can't believe there are actually people defending the review site.
Hoo boy. Right now it's Atari's word against that of the various sites. No facts have been established, but it's "obvious" to you that the sites are willing to "break the law."
wait, so you're saying a copy designated as being for review came from Atari, and then Atari sued them for using it, saying it was pirated?
Let me get this straight: in you first post you rendered judgement that the sites were "obviously willing to break the law", then in your second post you're asking what happened? I don't know about where you come from, but in this universe the usual order of inquiry is to find out what happened, then come to a conclusion. What's obvious to me from your second comment is that you haven't even read the fucking articles, but you're more than willing to call this entire discussion "a pathetic joke", and bitch about "Slashdot's fluid moral code". Don't tell me that you just read the summary and made up your mind that the sites are guilty of piracy. Great. Fucking Miss Cleo is back trolling Slashdot. The pathetic joke is that your neck-farts were modded "Insightful".
I don't know who said that originally, but it's a load of horseshit. Let's say you were a struggling actor trying to get your name out there, then you were falsely accused of child molestation. Let's say that you were then completely exonerated, received damages, public apology etc. Would you then say that you got a lot of free publicity, therefore it's good? And make no mistake, it's not free. You'd pay for it for a long, long time. Your career is still finished, because you're radioactive as far as the industry is concerned. The general public are morons willing to believe the worst about people, and as far as they're concerned, the mere fact that the accusation was brought is enough for them. It doesn't help that there are publicity whores like Nancy Grace convicting people on CNN. Sure you heard about Alone in the Dark when you might not have before, but how do you think most people will feel about Atari as a company now, regardless of the facts? I don't know the facts of the case, but I do know that even if Atari are vindicated, they've already lost in the court of public opinion. Their PR people have a huge headache to deal with right now.
I was just wondering if the submitter had any DIY experience whatsoever. Slashdot reader or not, intelligence has nothing to do with whether someone is adept at the practical stuff. My brother is one of the most remarkable intellects I have ever encountered, and he's absolutely baffled by a screwdriver. Thanks much for the Home Power info, by the way.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess they will when they're genuinely unhappy with Apple's products and services. Despite missteps and mistakes on Apple's part, it doesn't appear that the vast majority of their customers are anywhere close to unhappy with either.
And out of curiosity, why would you say that the price of the original iPhone was a rip-off? People who spent the $600 didn't have guns pressed to their temples, and obviously it was worth it to them or they wouldn't have bought them. The only early adopters I've heard bitching about the price drop were the ones who had bought a bunch of them in order to resell them, and saw their money-making venture evaporate (I personally know several). Those who found the device useful just shrugged their shoulders, joked about Early Adopters Syndrome, and happily continued using it (I personally know many).
If you think the iPhone is such a rip-off, why are you so upset that you couldn't get one on launch day? Couldn't you have foreseen the possibility of the very problems that you encountered, and put off your purchase until next week, when the bugs were ironed out? Seems to me that you're really upset about the inconveniences you suffered and decided to vent by launching into a rant fest. What does the iPod battery, iPod Touch upgrade fees, and Edge performance have to do with the fact that you didn't get your iPhone today? Your post makes you sound like a frustrated fanboy, lashing out at Apple because you didn't get your toy like Unca Steve promised. There, there, it's not the end of the world.
I don't have any mod points, but that was "Insightful". And I agree, that was a textbook case for Time Machine. What will she do if her PC crashes and she still hasn't backed up?
What are they going to do, hit the hijackers over the head with the aircraft? Firstly, only combat aircrew wear oxygen masks at all times; commercial aircrew only don them during emergencies (and under certain other conditions required by regulations). Any hijackers who manage to breach the flight deck would view with suspicion the flight crew grabbing for their masks. The first option might have some hope of succeeding if the flight crew had ample warning of a hijacking in progress, but the only way to depressurize the cabin quickly enough to incapacitate the hijackers would be to open a window. Not a good idea, especially at cruising altitudes. As for aerobatic maneuvers...boy oh boy. Can you say "structural failure"?. Commercial aircraft are not designed for the stresses of aerobatics, and may well become uncontrollable in unusual attitudes, such as inverted flight or vertical climbs. Besides which, no airliner has the excess thrust available to climb vertically. Just watch a heavily-laden 747 laboring off the runway and you'll realize this.
However....in all fairness to your suggestion, I should mention the bizarre case of FedEx Flight 705 in 1994, during which a soon-to-be-terminated deranged FedEx pilot who was hitching a ride on a FedEx DC-10, attacked the crew minutes after takeoff with a speargun and hammers which he had brought aboard. His intention was to kill the crew and use the aircraft in a kamikaze attack on FedEx headquarters. The captain and flight engineer were able to subdue him after a long and bloody struggle, during which the co-pilot, despite suffering severe head trauma from a hammer attack, threw him off balance with violent maneuvers. All three crew members and the attacker were critically injured during the struggle, and none of the flight crew were able to regain flight status because of the severity of their wounds. They never flew commercially again, and were damned lucky to survive at all. And this was against just one individual. Imagine what would have happened if they had been fighting two or three, armed with blades instead of spearguns and hammers. Violent maneuvers were a desperate last resort, and shouldn't be considered as a strategy. I don't know which pilots told you that they're "confident" of managing hijackers that the passengers couldn't, but they'd be well advised to acquaint themselves with the horrific ordeal that the crew of FedEx 705 suffered before they say any such thing.
Preventing access to the flight deck in the first place is much more effective and realistic than attempting to overcome one or more armed intruders, while maintaining control of the aircraft. As for arming the flight crew...well, even El Al, all of whose pilots are trained, active military personnel, thinks that armed flight crew is a very bad idea.
I found the problem with your post.
Microsoft software is no cheaper than it has always been (why the fuck does Office still cost so much?). All these cheap computers exist because of Michael Dell, who turned the manufacturing industry on its ear. He deserves most of the credit for the commoditization of computer hardware.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of biology can tell you: disassemble it and load the components into an autoclave. What the hell kind of nerd are you anyway?
Read the complete article here.
Is that the number of cores or how much heat it dissipates?
The rest will produce "The Wit and Wisdom of George W. Bush".
There's no need to read the piece; the URL provides the perfect summary. Genius, I tell you!
...as Avie Tevanian pointed out in the piece. Their backs were against the wall, and it was quite literally do or die for them. Microsoft is certainly not in that position by any stretch of the imagination. Their stock price may have hit a plateau, but they're still making shitloads of money despite the relative failure of Vista, and no matter what many here may believe or wish, Microsoft is not in some sort of death-spiral.
Actually, the idea was first proposed by Johannes Kepler in the 17th century. And there are still a lot of basic misconceptions about solar sails and light sails, no doubt because of the word "sail".
Simply put, they don't derive their thrust from the solar wind, the stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, but from the radiation pressure of sunlight (as stated in the summary), which provides vastly greater thrust than the solar wind. They don't tack, or "run before the wind", or perform maneuvers that wind-powered vessels do, they change from one orbit to another (solar or planetary) by using light pressure for minute accelerations or decelerations, doing so by changing the attitude of the main sail with smaller vanes.
Allow me to amend my original statement: The rapid advance of science is introducing ethical conundrums faster than we can address them.
Really? I've heard many anecdotes about Bill Gates, but none about him kowtowing to anyone. In the Time magazine cover story on him some years ago, his father talks about Bill, known as "Trey" in his family, butting heads with his late mother (by all accounts an extremely strong-willed woman) when he was a young teenager, and refusing to give a millimeter. There are also many anecdotes about his own pig-headedness, and numerous variations of something he usually told people with whom found himself working: "I think you'll find we'll get along better once you realize that I'm in charge", or words to that effect. He was notorious for bullying subordinates in meetings, launching long tirades at them at perceived faults, but especially if he thought that they were bullshitting him. Microsoft insiders talk about the culture of paranoia he cultivated inside the company, forcing project managers to compete for his attention in an almost Darwinian struggle, and *EVERYTHING* that Microsoft did as a company, including their most egregious anticompetitive behavior, was either his initiative, or had his explicit approval. Ballmer was only his hatchet man, the loud-mouth bully stalking the corridors, threatening at the top of his lungs to fire everyone if a project didn't ship on time.
Gates may look like the stereotypical nerd, but his is very much a Type A personality, quite similar to Ballmer. Don't believe for a moment that Gates was some kind of dewy-eyed innocent who didn't know what was going on inside Microsoft, or that big, bad Ballmer could tell him what to do, much less bully him. From what I understand, friction between them only arose because Gates insisted on trying to dictate to Ballmer even after he was named CEO, and Ballmer naturally felt that since it was his call, he'd do things his way. Believe me, I don't think there's the person born yet who could bully him. Well, maybe Melinda, but that's the prerogative of wives everywhere.
"Eugenics". But that's basically what this amounts to, and as usual, the science is rapidly outpacing the ethics. I honestly believe that with each breakthrough in biotechnology, we need to pause for breath, so to speak, in order to assimilate the implications. But who decides, and on what basis, when a moratorium is in order? Even that aspect of the debate needs to be debated. Is it even possible for us to decide, as a species, on the future of the species? Can we, should we, deny the technology to those individuals who want it? At the very least, we need a scientifically literate populace in order to have any sort of meaningful discussion, but we're at the mercy of politicians who proudly parade their shocking ignorance of basic science. And worse, the mercenaries among them who cynically pander to the ignorance of their constituents in order to win votes.
Well done, and I'm sorry you can't get more than a score of 5 for your post. That's a beautifully concise summary of the differences among trojan, virus, and worm, as well as pinning the responsibility for most malware infections where it truly belongs, on ignorant or foolish users. Kudos.
I've read several glowing reviews of Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer (this one is from Ars Technica), and I'm deeply intrigued by what I've heard of it. Reviewers agree that Zimmer does a wonderful job of explaining the science, as well as the attendant politics (stem cells, intelligent design), rendering it understandable to the layman, while not insulting the more knowledgeable. Would anyone here who has read it care to comment?
That's why I said "balance". And you're preaching to the choir: I also despise "journalists" who attempt to play on emotions. They should be kneecapped.
I don't know who said that originally, but it's a load of horseshit. Let's say you were a struggling actor trying to get your name out there, then you were falsely accused of child molestation. Let's say that you were then completely exonerated, received damages, public apology etc. Would you then say that you got a lot of free publicity, therefore it's good? And make no mistake, it's not free. You'd pay for it for a long, long time. Your career is still finished, because you're radioactive as far as the industry is concerned. The general public are morons willing to believe the worst about people, and as far as they're concerned, the mere fact that the accusation was brought is enough for them. It doesn't help that there are publicity whores like Nancy Grace convicting people on CNN. Sure you heard about Alone in the Dark when you might not have before, but how do you think most people will feel about Atari as a company now, regardless of the facts? I don't know the facts of the case, but I do know that even if Atari are vindicated, they've already lost in the court of public opinion. Their PR people have a huge headache to deal with right now.
I was just wondering if the submitter had any DIY experience whatsoever. Slashdot reader or not, intelligence has nothing to do with whether someone is adept at the practical stuff. My brother is one of the most remarkable intellects I have ever encountered, and he's absolutely baffled by a screwdriver. Thanks much for the Home Power info, by the way.
Are you absolutely positive that you want to do it yourself? Personally, I'd strongly suggest that you get someone who knows what they're doing.