People pay for good software. People pirate good software, too. Some people pirate good software in order to see if it's worth paying for good software. The iPhone is relatively pirate-free, due to it's DRM system, ensuring that more people are paying for apps than ever before. Unfortunately, without a trial-ware market, developers are forced to make lite versions of products, rather than demo-products that retain full functionality for a limited time, or whatnot. I think this actually creates a worse market for the iPhone, since many aren't willing to pay $20 for something that may or may not be decent. Mobile software, in general, is less complex than desktop version, and therefore, I think it's difficult to price any app higher than $20-30. Additionally, legal or not, many people in families buy one copy of a software program at home, and install several copies. Since this is not possible with the iPhone (at least out of the box), people aren't willing to buy an app for $30-50, and go around and buy another copy for the wife. This is really one of the first devices to feature such as large, DRM-hardware platform for developing software, so what we're really seeing is free-market economics and creative solutions for what will and won't sell. I paid $10 for spore, and it was a waste. I paid $10 for monkey ball, and it was a waste. I paid $15 for a voice dialer that was a waste. And then, a free one from Melodis just came out that was superior and free. It's not that I'm not willing to pay for apps. I've bought plenty of "high dollar" apps, and would have gladly paid more for them. But, the model of buy, even though you can't try, is what bugs me. But, more developers have been doing limited versions of apps, which has put me at ease. EA has a trial version of spore, and had I played that, I'd have gotten bored quickly, and not paid for the full version. But, pacman's one level demo rocked, so I bought it. Same thing with Reign of Swords. My point is, people are a lot more willing than you think to pay for apps; but you have to be willing to give away free demos in order to convince people to pony up for more spendy apps.
It's called, charge as much as you can without pushing away your customer base. One carrier raises prices a little, then others follow suit, because they can. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. As text messaging demand is increasing, rates keep climbing, even though supply is limitless. It's a total win situation for the telcos. Once upon a time, when incoming text messages were free, and outgoing cost $.10, I didn't mind having the service, and actually kind of liked getting the free alerts that were available. Then SMS spam showed up, and my carrier started charging me $.10 for incoming / $.25 for outgoing. Then $.25 for incoming/outgoing. So, I vetoed with my pocket book and blocked SMS completely. That is, until just about everyone complained they couldn't SMS me, and wondered why I wouldn't reply. So, I finally started paying for a subscription plan, but I feel like a total sucker. As long as it's a service that people depend on, they can charge whatever they want for it and get away with it. The only thing you can do about it is block the service and ignore it's existence, and just try to get people to email you.
This doesn't jive, though. There are a LOT of conflicting/competing apps out there now in the AppStore. Just look how many FlashLight/Light apps there are out there. Some are free, some aren't. Additionally, there are more To-Do list apps than you can shake a stick at for a whole host of different prices, from free to $20. I'm quite sure Apple is taking a hands-off approach and letting the market figure out which apps will be successful and which will not. TeleNAV is confirmed to be coming for the iPhone. According to news articles all over the web (google TomTom iPhone), TomTom will definitely be releasing their app for the iPhone, but it's not quite ready to go yet. Sure, Apple might make a few more bucks off pay-for apps than free apps, but they make more money by keeping the AppStore market free and open to competition, ensuring a rich variety of Apps that make the iPhone/iPod Touch platform a lot more attractive to businesses, consumers, universities, and other potential customers and selling the underlying hardware. Rumor has it Apple is making $250+ per unit on the iPhone 3G. At 1+ million customers and counting, that's a lot of dough. I sincerely doubt Apple wants to do anything that might upset that revenue stream. They're investing a TON in development for this product/platform, and it shows. How many mobile phones do you know of that have had *EIGHT* firmware releases in 1 year, almost all of which adding significant new features? Additionally, they even have a dedicated support line, separate from Apple's main line for Mac owners. I've talked to tons of people who've had their iPhones swapped with almost no questions asked at the Apple store -- even one who ran over his phone with his car. More than anything, Apple wants this platform to be a success, because they've shown time and time again, they're committed to breaking into the highly lucrative Enterprise market. The $4/copy Apple stands on a French-English app is not worth jeopardizing a HUGE potential market.
Perhaps ironically, most of the people I know living here in Phoenix have much healthier, younger looking skin than people living in Michigan, where I'm originally from. My hypothesis (just a hypothesis -- I'm not a scientist, have done no case study, and am just throwing an explanation out there with no scientific evidence to back it) is that daily, frequent, regulated light exposure makes skin healthier. In Michigan, we tend to hibernate from October to April, so when the sun finally DOES come out, most of us get severe burns. Since moving here, I've been able to keep a perpetual tan just walking to and from my car everyday, and only ever burn if I'm in the sun significantly longer than my usual routine -- and the burns never last as long, and rarely are severe enough to cause peeling, as was frequently the case in Michigan. (I'm very fair skinned.) Another observation: in Michigan, particularly in the winter, my hands would dry out, crack, and occasionally bleed. Lip balm was equally essential to deal with drying. Naturally, you'd think moving to a significantly drier climate would do the same thing, but equally ironic, my skin has gone from normal to oily. The human body has an AMAZING ability to adapt.
As one user points out, it's all in moderation. Most researchers point out that 15 minutes of intense, mid-day light exposure is enough to produce sufficient vitamin D. I'd say, if you live in a significantly sunny climate, just going about your daily routine is probably sufficient. If you don't, particularly in the winter months, it's important to spend as much time as humanly possibly outdoors to get sufficient sun rays, particularly in cloudy environments. But, when the sun DOES start to shine, make sure your exposure is minimal, and you slowly work up your body's ability to handle the sun, so you don't burn to a crisp, like most of us do.
I hear you, but I think your fears are unfounded. If you even consider Pan's Labyrinth, for example, I think he did an excellent job of balancing whimsical and frightening, and even managed to make horrific appearing creatures look positively delightful. There was an immeasurable amount of beauty to the film. If you've seen some of his other work, he really has managed to tread a delicate balance. I, personally, am THRILLED to see it fall into the hands of someone like Del Toro rather than the likes of Speilberg, where all the scenes are overly "delightful" and the dark stuff in the book falls by the way-side, or comes across trivialized. This is a masterful work of literature being put in a masterful artist's hands. Just sit back, and watch his magic happen.:-)
Free of pollution? Maybe so, but certainly NOT free of charge - you'd end up paying for it somehow, whether it's a per ride charge or a subscription service or out of your taxes depends, but just like 'free' healthcare in nations with nationalized healthcare services, you still end up paying for it.
Perhaps. But, when a government is working efficiently, it employs sanctions to encourage people to do things that are in the public's best interest and discourage things that are not. For instance, whether or not you utilize the system, you pay for it in taxes. Yet, you pay a lot more taxes and fees if you're not using it to use you own personal transportation that pollutes our airs (is bad for society at large.) Not to get too much into the national health care debate, but since you brought it up, if you believe it's in the interest of a society to have a healthy working class, with all members having access to some level of adequate health care, it would seem that the advisable course of action for any government to take would be to impose it upon the people. Those who do not want to utilize the public system could still have private sector alternatives, but they'd end up paying twice -- once for the public system they don't use, and once for the private system they prefer. Seems perfectly logical to me.
Maybe in the general masses that pretty much just use their computers for web browsing, email, and word processing, you're right. But, in the business and development world, there's a real need to move to 64-bit, like.. yesterday. Many types of apps, such as CAD (our drawings are typically addressing very near the 2GB mark, and are growing all the time, leading to software crashes with "Out of Memory" errors becoming increasingly common), gaming, image/video processing, etc. take up HUGE amounts of memory, and current limitations are hitting a brick wall on performance. Rather than needing more processors, we're left needing more RAM with software that can't address it, even though the hardware can support it.
Unfortunately, the software vendors just aren't there yet, at *least* in the Microsoft side of things (and not just Microsoft, but 3rd party Windows apps). Partly to blame is Microsoft's implementation of 64-bit. They've taken away support for 16-bit apps completely, and required that all drivers go through a certification process in order to function with the new OS. Software vendors that require drivers to be installed in the system, such as VMware, Antivirus vendors, etc. must pony up for the certification process. This virtually insures a lockout of certain open source software projects, which often don't have financial backing (or incentive) to pony up to get Microsoft's blessing. The good in this is that, theoretically at least, Windows 64-bit should be a really stable, more secure platform. In practice, I'm sure plenty of bugs will make it through the cracks, and hackers will find security holes, as they always do. Confusing to customers, too, who expect things will be like the 16-bit to 32-bit upgrade, where 16-bit binaries run side by side seamlessly, Windows has a totally separate space for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of all of their apps. The Windows install ends up with a Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories, with two versions of Internet Explorer, two versions of Notepad, two versions of... well -- you get the the point.
While Microsoft support for 64-bit Windows tends to be better than 3rd parties, even they don't have complete support among the apps they develop. On the 3rd party side of things, the world is even grimmer. Vista complicates things plenty, with it's new security model, but add lack of 16-bit binaries, and some of our really old, legacy product we still use which haven't been developed in 20 years, and have no other peer that does the same function, will now need to be run in emulators, eating up more space, and complicating matters for the end user. And, for modern apps that we used to have scripts to tie in and run the old legacy apps for output, there will no longer be the option of direct interoperability. And then there's the modern 32-bit apps that just don't run or install correctly on 64-bit Windows. It's a really complicated, delicate, and frustrating rollout for IT departments, who are left struggling to work around the implementation. We're currently beta testing 64-bit environments of both Vista and XP-64. To say the least, it's been a huge headache. I have no doubt we'll eventually be able to find workarounds for our problems, but this is definitely going to be a time consuming, costly, training intensive, and very difficult rollout. And, trust me, if there were no need to move to 64-bit platforms at this time, it wouldn't even be on the table for discussion.
Actually, no. It's kind of a toss up. The only advantage Vista has is a *slightly* more stable NT kernel. Otherwise, I've had far more problems and issues with Vista than even Me. Vista truly is utter crap.
AT&T has a very simple solution to prevent future sold iPhones from being hacked/re-sold. The answer is blindingly obvious. Make it financially difficult to do so. Since the iPhone has exclusive rate plans, they can simply increase the early termination fees to levels which make it stifling to unlockers. And, they can simply change the sales arrangement such that iPhones cannot be sold without a service plan in place before the purchaser leaves the store. That way, all iPhones sold would fall under the early termination fee, which would be too high for most people to want to pay.
Now, personally, I'm all for unlocked iPhones, but I fail to see how this can't be prevented in the future. Apple/AT&T had to know that at some point, the iPhone would be/could be cracked. If they didn't, they'd have been blind to HUGE market of phone unlockers out there who've been doing this for over a decade.
How did Bill Clinton have anything to do with 9/11? Upon handing over the white house to Bush, Clinton's advisers had prepared meetings and given *detailed* reports that Al Qaeda attack on US imminent. Bush's cabinet had refused to attend meetings and discarded the report. Meanwhile, celebrating his appointment to office by the Supreme Court, Bush spent much of his first months on vacation. In fact, our president was mysteriously absent from television and media -- almost no mention of him, his agenda, or what was happening in the white house whatsoever until 9/11 happened. Yet, within HOURS of the attack, we already knew who did it. And, for 6 years since, we haven't been able to touch the man behind the attacks, and their organization has more than doubled in size, adding presence to nations, such as Iraq, where no presence had previously existed. How is Clinton responsible for this again?
Simple reason. The name Windows was more appropriate. Strangers are just as likely to break in through windows as they are doors, so both represent an accurate picture of the Microsoft security model, however Windows break a lot easier when people throw bricks at them, or the weather shifts too quickly.
I couldn't agree more. Heck, I've been known to use Wine to run IE6 on my load of OSX from time to time, since there's occasionally sites that don't display in other browsers, and it's faster than booting parallels. It identifies as IE6 on Windows 2000. Additionally, Opera has had the ability to use false browser reporting for years, to try and trick some sites into allowing it to open when sites check for what browser and os version. While one could argue this shouldn't change statistics considerably, one has to agree that the numbers are probably not 100% accurate.
Additionally, since Mac sales are still doing well (though admittedly slowed in recent months), one figures that with it's "shrinking marketshare," New PC sales growth must be outpacing New Mac sales growth. Not surprising, considering how many people held off on new PC purchases for months waiting for Vista's release. Likewise, with the imminent release of Leopard, many in the Mac community are holding off on their purchases until the new OS release. (Waiting saves money on a new OS.) We'll likely see a *slight* reversal in the trend come November, when October's sales figures are released. You have to look at the big picture: long term trends. Considering Apple was at only 4% two years ago, and less than 2% when everyone thought death was certain, I'd say 6% is a pretty solid sign that they have an increasing share of the market. But, does it even matter? Even if Apple somehow managed to squeeze 20% of the market, Apple would still be a niche player, with a total different market than Microsoft. Forgive the pun, but comparing Apple and Microsoft is often like comparing Apples to... well.. Oranges. They fall into the same family (hardware/software companies), but target completely different audiences. This is totally *not* news.
Actually, I think it's a GREAT idea to patent this. New adware makers could be sued by Microsoft for patent breach, forcing them to license the patent from Microsoft, for which they could refuse, effectively stopping the spread of a certain type of adware. Unfortunately, this is Microsoft owning this patent, so I just don't trust them or their intent to actually do some good here.
It was the fact that Nintendo hit the market with far fewer units than the demand required, and that production capacity didn't manage to even catch up for nearly 6 months after the unit shipped. Additionally, Nintendo themselves admitted they were overwhelmed at the success of the Wii. Just because your item is the hot ticket in town doesn't mean you planned it that way.
I wasn't bashing Nintendo at all -- I was merely pointing out the fact that no one had even thought Nintendo would be much in the running with the Wii, let alone the champs in the market for the current generation console, including Nintendo themselves. The product introduction of the Revolution (renamed Wii) was very niche marketed and the presenter from Nintendo of America looked positively nervous about the product introduction. The Wii was a gamble -- one that paid off. But I think the pay off even caught Nintendo by surprise.
I disagree completely that Nintendo did a better job at judging their market. Nintendo intended to be the niche player of the video game market, looking for a fun product that will sell to people looking for an original experience -- just enough to keep them in the game. They were completely unprepared for the reaction of the public -- the completely positive reaction of the market. As it turns out, the market was begging for something new and original, and the Wii turned out to be a huge hit no one saw coming. Long before the Wii came out, billions of fanboys were all "Sony this" and "360 that," but when they hit the shelves and actually looked at the market, everyone lined up to score a Wii. In a sense, Sony should have judged better from prior experience, looking at the failed 3DO that the real niche market is the high end. Personally, I think the 360 is fairly priced and more exactly where this generation of consoles should be in terms of power -- but the originality of Nintendo prooved that sometimes you have to hit a moving, invisible target in order to win the game.
This study tends to lend credence to the theory that the speed of light is the Maximum Velocity. It doesn't prove anything, per se, but matter moving at *nearly* the speed of light (not quite, but not over) at least makes it seem as if there's a speed limit of "c".
This is really true. In a good classical music recording, the recording instruments need to be very sensitive and precise. If you can't hear chairs adjust, people wheezing from breathing, and the reverb of the walls of the room with great resonance, you're just not going to get the dynamic range that the music requires. Either the recording sucks, your playback setup (speakers/playback unit) sucks, or the volume is set too low. Strings, in particular, are very acoustically sensitive to dynamic volume ranges. On the other hand, when you're listening to pop and other types of music, generally the more the studio's muted/padded room sound, the "cleaner" the overall sound is considered. Two drastically different musical forms, to be sure.
I used to care. Then I realized I don't need to, mostly. Instead, the Windows partition of boot camp is feeling like this 40GB boat anchor partition eating up space on my hard drive. As a recent "switcher," I can definitely say I would not have switched if Boot Camp wasn't an option. And, for the first week or so, while I was dipping my feet in the water, I probably spent more time in Windows than OS X. Then came my install of Parallels, which let me only use Windows when I needed it. Finally, it just took up so much time to boot and resources, I ended up using Mac OS X native apps. At this point, about the only thing I have left I really keep Windows around for is for installation of apps on my Windows Mobile phone & for Streets & Trips for weekend road trips, for which I've not found a good substitute. And, the more I use Mac OS X, the more I'm realizing how subtle and brilliant many of the features are. There are some grips I have about the OS, but in general, I find it really polished. (Too few view options in Finder, no "snap to grid" feature to keep icons organized.) Then, there are some features I find so useful, it drives me crazy when I have to use my PC laptop at work, now. Particularly, the trackpad gestures. For windows users looking for a solid piece of hardware, Apple makes a great piece of hardware. And, once you start to actually use OS X, you'll realize how little you actually need Windows, and how much better (overall) the OS X experience is. I feel like one of those annoying zealots now. Meh.
The internet has been around for decades. Email has been around just as long. With billions of free email providers out there, who sign up users with bogus information every millisecond of the day, it'd be impossible to discover who to actually tax if email were sent. Additionally, people in the US would likely look for foreign email providers in order to avoid bogus email taxes. The bill would collapse on its own, without every collecting a red cent from any even slightly savvy internet user.
Furthermore, spam creates over 99% of all the world's email at this point. I, certainly, would protest, even if it meant prison time for tax evasion, if I were being taxed for items received. Nor would any senator, who suddenly owed $1500 in taxes every month for the spam he received. Additionally, as one user stated, if email were taxed for outgoing mail, every computer out there in the US that's "o3n3d" out there would suddenly cost the end consumer a great deal.
The idea of an internet tax isn't necessarily a horrible thing everyone here makes it out to be, but an email tax would be impossible to enforce. A flat % tax on the ISP fee would fit the bill. For those who "can't afford it" (Even at 10%, on my $45/mo connection at home, it'd still be less than a meal at McDonald's every month), most cities offer free dial up service through the local library systems. That said, I'm strongly opposed to even paying my existing taxes, because of government waste on an illegal war. As a citizen, the government just decided I owe another $333,333 in taxes to fund the remainder of the budget year for wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. That just ain't right. The credit card is maxed, boys -- time to come home and pay off the debt.
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"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
The reality is, with a two party system, there can only be two possibly outcomes -- action, or inaction -- based largely upon the line up of legislature and executive branches. It's not the democrat's fault completely for not yet having ended the war in Iraq -- there's simply not enough votes from Republicans in order to overrule the executive branch out there. They tried, twice, to set a time table to leave, were twice vetoed, and neither time were there enough votes to end the war. The unfortunate reality is, candidates can make all the promises they want about change, but unless they control the whole process, they can't guarantee delivery.
If we had a multi-party system with, say, 6 or 7 parties all representing us, we might stand a better chance of a more balenced outcome. We'd eliminate a lot of the pandering and concessions in order to comprimise on important issues. The representatives in congress might actually -- *GASP* -- REPRESENT us. Alas, with a two party system, we have what we have. The all Republican controlled system led to a LOT of action, even if it was the wrong kind of action. The split democrat/republican control can only lead to inaction, as there are few issues both republicans and democrats see eye to eye on. The point here is, supporting any one particular candidate for president isn't going to amount to much in the way of change. The only way to truly fix the system is to start voting for other minority parties and making the big guys (democrats and republicans) start to have to cooperate with the little guys on issues. *THAT'S* the way to fix this.
This has got to be the most absurd lawsuit in recent years. The Apple displays are some of the best and brightest on the market and look absolutely fantastic, and they're suing for something no human being can possibly differentiate, only because it might not technically be correct? What a crock. I hope Apple can somehow take some sort of legal recourse against the users. Apple controls fairly tightly where you can buy these things. I'm sure many people bought these from the Apple stores, where the laptops are displayed in all their glory. And, if not, there's always the return the product option. If they didn't like it, why not exercise one of those options instead of suing. Stupid users. MEH.
What you fail to see here is that perfectly competent IT organizations sometimes don't have a choice in the matter. In many industries, it's a matter of software availability and ability to inter operate with customers. If software found on Linux doesn't have a Microsoft equivalent and vice versa, it creates compatibility problems that can prevent business from moving forward (the later being more generally true -- but also a good reason to support Win32 versions of apps like GIMP.) ReactOS and WINE are VERY important projects, IMHO, because what they represent is a *real* challenge to Microsoft -- the ability for companies to actually shop alternatives.
But, for companies such as mine in our particular industry, many of the applications we use are ONLY written for Windows, and we must use Windows in order to develop products for our customers as well as have the ability to share data. So, in our case Linux *does* cost too much -- in lost business. Given a choice, and having done support for both (3 years on the Windows side, 5 on the Unix/Linux side), I'd choose Unix/Linux any day of the week. But, for us, it's not an option.
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People pay for good software. People pirate good software, too. Some people pirate good software in order to see if it's worth paying for good software. The iPhone is relatively pirate-free, due to it's DRM system, ensuring that more people are paying for apps than ever before. Unfortunately, without a trial-ware market, developers are forced to make lite versions of products, rather than demo-products that retain full functionality for a limited time, or whatnot. I think this actually creates a worse market for the iPhone, since many aren't willing to pay $20 for something that may or may not be decent. Mobile software, in general, is less complex than desktop version, and therefore, I think it's difficult to price any app higher than $20-30. Additionally, legal or not, many people in families buy one copy of a software program at home, and install several copies. Since this is not possible with the iPhone (at least out of the box), people aren't willing to buy an app for $30-50, and go around and buy another copy for the wife. This is really one of the first devices to feature such as large, DRM-hardware platform for developing software, so what we're really seeing is free-market economics and creative solutions for what will and won't sell. I paid $10 for spore, and it was a waste. I paid $10 for monkey ball, and it was a waste. I paid $15 for a voice dialer that was a waste. And then, a free one from Melodis just came out that was superior and free. It's not that I'm not willing to pay for apps. I've bought plenty of "high dollar" apps, and would have gladly paid more for them. But, the model of buy, even though you can't try, is what bugs me. But, more developers have been doing limited versions of apps, which has put me at ease. EA has a trial version of spore, and had I played that, I'd have gotten bored quickly, and not paid for the full version. But, pacman's one level demo rocked, so I bought it. Same thing with Reign of Swords. My point is, people are a lot more willing than you think to pay for apps; but you have to be willing to give away free demos in order to convince people to pony up for more spendy apps.
It's called, charge as much as you can without pushing away your customer base. One carrier raises prices a little, then others follow suit, because they can. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. As text messaging demand is increasing, rates keep climbing, even though supply is limitless. It's a total win situation for the telcos. Once upon a time, when incoming text messages were free, and outgoing cost $.10, I didn't mind having the service, and actually kind of liked getting the free alerts that were available. Then SMS spam showed up, and my carrier started charging me $.10 for incoming / $.25 for outgoing. Then $.25 for incoming/outgoing. So, I vetoed with my pocket book and blocked SMS completely. That is, until just about everyone complained they couldn't SMS me, and wondered why I wouldn't reply. So, I finally started paying for a subscription plan, but I feel like a total sucker. As long as it's a service that people depend on, they can charge whatever they want for it and get away with it. The only thing you can do about it is block the service and ignore it's existence, and just try to get people to email you.
This doesn't jive, though. There are a LOT of conflicting/competing apps out there now in the AppStore. Just look how many FlashLight/Light apps there are out there. Some are free, some aren't. Additionally, there are more To-Do list apps than you can shake a stick at for a whole host of different prices, from free to $20. I'm quite sure Apple is taking a hands-off approach and letting the market figure out which apps will be successful and which will not. TeleNAV is confirmed to be coming for the iPhone. According to news articles all over the web (google TomTom iPhone), TomTom will definitely be releasing their app for the iPhone, but it's not quite ready to go yet. Sure, Apple might make a few more bucks off pay-for apps than free apps, but they make more money by keeping the AppStore market free and open to competition, ensuring a rich variety of Apps that make the iPhone/iPod Touch platform a lot more attractive to businesses, consumers, universities, and other potential customers and selling the underlying hardware. Rumor has it Apple is making $250+ per unit on the iPhone 3G. At 1+ million customers and counting, that's a lot of dough. I sincerely doubt Apple wants to do anything that might upset that revenue stream. They're investing a TON in development for this product/platform, and it shows. How many mobile phones do you know of that have had *EIGHT* firmware releases in 1 year, almost all of which adding significant new features? Additionally, they even have a dedicated support line, separate from Apple's main line for Mac owners. I've talked to tons of people who've had their iPhones swapped with almost no questions asked at the Apple store -- even one who ran over his phone with his car. More than anything, Apple wants this platform to be a success, because they've shown time and time again, they're committed to breaking into the highly lucrative Enterprise market. The $4/copy Apple stands on a French-English app is not worth jeopardizing a HUGE potential market.
It would have to be open...
Perhaps ironically, most of the people I know living here in Phoenix have much healthier, younger looking skin than people living in Michigan, where I'm originally from. My hypothesis (just a hypothesis -- I'm not a scientist, have done no case study, and am just throwing an explanation out there with no scientific evidence to back it) is that daily, frequent, regulated light exposure makes skin healthier. In Michigan, we tend to hibernate from October to April, so when the sun finally DOES come out, most of us get severe burns. Since moving here, I've been able to keep a perpetual tan just walking to and from my car everyday, and only ever burn if I'm in the sun significantly longer than my usual routine -- and the burns never last as long, and rarely are severe enough to cause peeling, as was frequently the case in Michigan. (I'm very fair skinned.) Another observation: in Michigan, particularly in the winter, my hands would dry out, crack, and occasionally bleed. Lip balm was equally essential to deal with drying. Naturally, you'd think moving to a significantly drier climate would do the same thing, but equally ironic, my skin has gone from normal to oily. The human body has an AMAZING ability to adapt. As one user points out, it's all in moderation. Most researchers point out that 15 minutes of intense, mid-day light exposure is enough to produce sufficient vitamin D. I'd say, if you live in a significantly sunny climate, just going about your daily routine is probably sufficient. If you don't, particularly in the winter months, it's important to spend as much time as humanly possibly outdoors to get sufficient sun rays, particularly in cloudy environments. But, when the sun DOES start to shine, make sure your exposure is minimal, and you slowly work up your body's ability to handle the sun, so you don't burn to a crisp, like most of us do.
I hear you, but I think your fears are unfounded. If you even consider Pan's Labyrinth, for example, I think he did an excellent job of balancing whimsical and frightening, and even managed to make horrific appearing creatures look positively delightful. There was an immeasurable amount of beauty to the film. If you've seen some of his other work, he really has managed to tread a delicate balance. I, personally, am THRILLED to see it fall into the hands of someone like Del Toro rather than the likes of Speilberg, where all the scenes are overly "delightful" and the dark stuff in the book falls by the way-side, or comes across trivialized. This is a masterful work of literature being put in a masterful artist's hands. Just sit back, and watch his magic happen. :-)
Free of pollution? Maybe so, but certainly NOT free of charge - you'd end up paying for it somehow, whether it's a per ride charge or a subscription service or out of your taxes depends, but just like 'free' healthcare in nations with nationalized healthcare services, you still end up paying for it.
Perhaps. But, when a government is working efficiently, it employs sanctions to encourage people to do things that are in the public's best interest and discourage things that are not. For instance, whether or not you utilize the system, you pay for it in taxes. Yet, you pay a lot more taxes and fees if you're not using it to use you own personal transportation that pollutes our airs (is bad for society at large.) Not to get too much into the national health care debate, but since you brought it up, if you believe it's in the interest of a society to have a healthy working class, with all members having access to some level of adequate health care, it would seem that the advisable course of action for any government to take would be to impose it upon the people. Those who do not want to utilize the public system could still have private sector alternatives, but they'd end up paying twice -- once for the public system they don't use, and once for the private system they prefer. Seems perfectly logical to me.
Maybe in the general masses that pretty much just use their computers for web browsing, email, and word processing, you're right. But, in the business and development world, there's a real need to move to 64-bit, like.. yesterday. Many types of apps, such as CAD (our drawings are typically addressing very near the 2GB mark, and are growing all the time, leading to software crashes with "Out of Memory" errors becoming increasingly common), gaming, image/video processing, etc. take up HUGE amounts of memory, and current limitations are hitting a brick wall on performance. Rather than needing more processors, we're left needing more RAM with software that can't address it, even though the hardware can support it.
Unfortunately, the software vendors just aren't there yet, at *least* in the Microsoft side of things (and not just Microsoft, but 3rd party Windows apps). Partly to blame is Microsoft's implementation of 64-bit. They've taken away support for 16-bit apps completely, and required that all drivers go through a certification process in order to function with the new OS. Software vendors that require drivers to be installed in the system, such as VMware, Antivirus vendors, etc. must pony up for the certification process. This virtually insures a lockout of certain open source software projects, which often don't have financial backing (or incentive) to pony up to get Microsoft's blessing. The good in this is that, theoretically at least, Windows 64-bit should be a really stable, more secure platform. In practice, I'm sure plenty of bugs will make it through the cracks, and hackers will find security holes, as they always do. Confusing to customers, too, who expect things will be like the 16-bit to 32-bit upgrade, where 16-bit binaries run side by side seamlessly, Windows has a totally separate space for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of all of their apps. The Windows install ends up with a Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories, with two versions of Internet Explorer, two versions of Notepad, two versions of... well -- you get the the point.
While Microsoft support for 64-bit Windows tends to be better than 3rd parties, even they don't have complete support among the apps they develop. On the 3rd party side of things, the world is even grimmer. Vista complicates things plenty, with it's new security model, but add lack of 16-bit binaries, and some of our really old, legacy product we still use which haven't been developed in 20 years, and have no other peer that does the same function, will now need to be run in emulators, eating up more space, and complicating matters for the end user. And, for modern apps that we used to have scripts to tie in and run the old legacy apps for output, there will no longer be the option of direct interoperability. And then there's the modern 32-bit apps that just don't run or install correctly on 64-bit Windows. It's a really complicated, delicate, and frustrating rollout for IT departments, who are left struggling to work around the implementation. We're currently beta testing 64-bit environments of both Vista and XP-64. To say the least, it's been a huge headache. I have no doubt we'll eventually be able to find workarounds for our problems, but this is definitely going to be a time consuming, costly, training intensive, and very difficult rollout. And, trust me, if there were no need to move to 64-bit platforms at this time, it wouldn't even be on the table for discussion.
Actually, no. It's kind of a toss up. The only advantage Vista has is a *slightly* more stable NT kernel. Otherwise, I've had far more problems and issues with Vista than even Me. Vista truly is utter crap.
AT&T has a very simple solution to prevent future sold iPhones from being hacked/re-sold. The answer is blindingly obvious. Make it financially difficult to do so. Since the iPhone has exclusive rate plans, they can simply increase the early termination fees to levels which make it stifling to unlockers. And, they can simply change the sales arrangement such that iPhones cannot be sold without a service plan in place before the purchaser leaves the store. That way, all iPhones sold would fall under the early termination fee, which would be too high for most people to want to pay.
Now, personally, I'm all for unlocked iPhones, but I fail to see how this can't be prevented in the future. Apple/AT&T had to know that at some point, the iPhone would be/could be cracked. If they didn't, they'd have been blind to HUGE market of phone unlockers out there who've been doing this for over a decade.
Or Windows Vista!
How did Bill Clinton have anything to do with 9/11? Upon handing over the white house to Bush, Clinton's advisers had prepared meetings and given *detailed* reports that Al Qaeda attack on US imminent. Bush's cabinet had refused to attend meetings and discarded the report. Meanwhile, celebrating his appointment to office by the Supreme Court, Bush spent much of his first months on vacation. In fact, our president was mysteriously absent from television and media -- almost no mention of him, his agenda, or what was happening in the white house whatsoever until 9/11 happened. Yet, within HOURS of the attack, we already knew who did it. And, for 6 years since, we haven't been able to touch the man behind the attacks, and their organization has more than doubled in size, adding presence to nations, such as Iraq, where no presence had previously existed. How is Clinton responsible for this again?
As a previous poster pointed out Linn records is offering just that, FYI.
Simple reason. The name Windows was more appropriate. Strangers are just as likely to break in through windows as they are doors, so both represent an accurate picture of the Microsoft security model, however Windows break a lot easier when people throw bricks at them, or the weather shifts too quickly.
Additionally, since Mac sales are still doing well (though admittedly slowed in recent months), one figures that with it's "shrinking marketshare," New PC sales growth must be outpacing New Mac sales growth. Not surprising, considering how many people held off on new PC purchases for months waiting for Vista's release. Likewise, with the imminent release of Leopard, many in the Mac community are holding off on their purchases until the new OS release. (Waiting saves money on a new OS.) We'll likely see a *slight* reversal in the trend come November, when October's sales figures are released. You have to look at the big picture: long term trends. Considering Apple was at only 4% two years ago, and less than 2% when everyone thought death was certain, I'd say 6% is a pretty solid sign that they have an increasing share of the market. But, does it even matter? Even if Apple somehow managed to squeeze 20% of the market, Apple would still be a niche player, with a total different market than Microsoft. Forgive the pun, but comparing Apple and Microsoft is often like comparing Apples to... well.. Oranges. They fall into the same family (hardware/software companies), but target completely different audiences. This is totally *not* news.
Actually, I think it's a GREAT idea to patent this. New adware makers could be sued by Microsoft for patent breach, forcing them to license the patent from Microsoft, for which they could refuse, effectively stopping the spread of a certain type of adware. Unfortunately, this is Microsoft owning this patent, so I just don't trust them or their intent to actually do some good here.
It was the fact that Nintendo hit the market with far fewer units than the demand required, and that production capacity didn't manage to even catch up for nearly 6 months after the unit shipped. Additionally, Nintendo themselves admitted they were overwhelmed at the success of the Wii. Just because your item is the hot ticket in town doesn't mean you planned it that way.
I wasn't bashing Nintendo at all -- I was merely pointing out the fact that no one had even thought Nintendo would be much in the running with the Wii, let alone the champs in the market for the current generation console, including Nintendo themselves. The product introduction of the Revolution (renamed Wii) was very niche marketed and the presenter from Nintendo of America looked positively nervous about the product introduction. The Wii was a gamble -- one that paid off. But I think the pay off even caught Nintendo by surprise.
I disagree completely that Nintendo did a better job at judging their market. Nintendo intended to be the niche player of the video game market, looking for a fun product that will sell to people looking for an original experience -- just enough to keep them in the game. They were completely unprepared for the reaction of the public -- the completely positive reaction of the market. As it turns out, the market was begging for something new and original, and the Wii turned out to be a huge hit no one saw coming. Long before the Wii came out, billions of fanboys were all "Sony this" and "360 that," but when they hit the shelves and actually looked at the market, everyone lined up to score a Wii. In a sense, Sony should have judged better from prior experience, looking at the failed 3DO that the real niche market is the high end. Personally, I think the 360 is fairly priced and more exactly where this generation of consoles should be in terms of power -- but the originality of Nintendo prooved that sometimes you have to hit a moving, invisible target in order to win the game.
This study tends to lend credence to the theory that the speed of light is the Maximum Velocity. It doesn't prove anything, per se, but matter moving at *nearly* the speed of light (not quite, but not over) at least makes it seem as if there's a speed limit of "c".
This is really true. In a good classical music recording, the recording instruments need to be very sensitive and precise. If you can't hear chairs adjust, people wheezing from breathing, and the reverb of the walls of the room with great resonance, you're just not going to get the dynamic range that the music requires. Either the recording sucks, your playback setup (speakers/playback unit) sucks, or the volume is set too low. Strings, in particular, are very acoustically sensitive to dynamic volume ranges. On the other hand, when you're listening to pop and other types of music, generally the more the studio's muted/padded room sound, the "cleaner" the overall sound is considered. Two drastically different musical forms, to be sure.
I used to care. Then I realized I don't need to, mostly. Instead, the Windows partition of boot camp is feeling like this 40GB boat anchor partition eating up space on my hard drive. As a recent "switcher," I can definitely say I would not have switched if Boot Camp wasn't an option. And, for the first week or so, while I was dipping my feet in the water, I probably spent more time in Windows than OS X. Then came my install of Parallels, which let me only use Windows when I needed it. Finally, it just took up so much time to boot and resources, I ended up using Mac OS X native apps. At this point, about the only thing I have left I really keep Windows around for is for installation of apps on my Windows Mobile phone & for Streets & Trips for weekend road trips, for which I've not found a good substitute. And, the more I use Mac OS X, the more I'm realizing how subtle and brilliant many of the features are. There are some grips I have about the OS, but in general, I find it really polished. (Too few view options in Finder, no "snap to grid" feature to keep icons organized.) Then, there are some features I find so useful, it drives me crazy when I have to use my PC laptop at work, now. Particularly, the trackpad gestures. For windows users looking for a solid piece of hardware, Apple makes a great piece of hardware. And, once you start to actually use OS X, you'll realize how little you actually need Windows, and how much better (overall) the OS X experience is. I feel like one of those annoying zealots now. Meh.
The internet has been around for decades. Email has been around just as long. With billions of free email providers out there, who sign up users with bogus information every millisecond of the day, it'd be impossible to discover who to actually tax if email were sent. Additionally, people in the US would likely look for foreign email providers in order to avoid bogus email taxes. The bill would collapse on its own, without every collecting a red cent from any even slightly savvy internet user. Furthermore, spam creates over 99% of all the world's email at this point. I, certainly, would protest, even if it meant prison time for tax evasion, if I were being taxed for items received. Nor would any senator, who suddenly owed $1500 in taxes every month for the spam he received. Additionally, as one user stated, if email were taxed for outgoing mail, every computer out there in the US that's "o3n3d" out there would suddenly cost the end consumer a great deal. The idea of an internet tax isn't necessarily a horrible thing everyone here makes it out to be, but an email tax would be impossible to enforce. A flat % tax on the ISP fee would fit the bill. For those who "can't afford it" (Even at 10%, on my $45/mo connection at home, it'd still be less than a meal at McDonald's every month), most cities offer free dial up service through the local library systems. That said, I'm strongly opposed to even paying my existing taxes, because of government waste on an illegal war. As a citizen, the government just decided I owe another $333,333 in taxes to fund the remainder of the budget year for wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. That just ain't right. The credit card is maxed, boys -- time to come home and pay off the debt. -- "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
The reality is, with a two party system, there can only be two possibly outcomes -- action, or inaction -- based largely upon the line up of legislature and executive branches. It's not the democrat's fault completely for not yet having ended the war in Iraq -- there's simply not enough votes from Republicans in order to overrule the executive branch out there. They tried, twice, to set a time table to leave, were twice vetoed, and neither time were there enough votes to end the war. The unfortunate reality is, candidates can make all the promises they want about change, but unless they control the whole process, they can't guarantee delivery.
If we had a multi-party system with, say, 6 or 7 parties all representing us, we might stand a better chance of a more balenced outcome. We'd eliminate a lot of the pandering and concessions in order to comprimise on important issues. The representatives in congress might actually -- *GASP* -- REPRESENT us. Alas, with a two party system, we have what we have. The all Republican controlled system led to a LOT of action, even if it was the wrong kind of action. The split democrat/republican control can only lead to inaction, as there are few issues both republicans and democrats see eye to eye on. The point here is, supporting any one particular candidate for president isn't going to amount to much in the way of change. The only way to truly fix the system is to start voting for other minority parties and making the big guys (democrats and republicans) start to have to cooperate with the little guys on issues. *THAT'S* the way to fix this.
This has got to be the most absurd lawsuit in recent years. The Apple displays are some of the best and brightest on the market and look absolutely fantastic, and they're suing for something no human being can possibly differentiate, only because it might not technically be correct? What a crock. I hope Apple can somehow take some sort of legal recourse against the users. Apple controls fairly tightly where you can buy these things. I'm sure many people bought these from the Apple stores, where the laptops are displayed in all their glory. And, if not, there's always the return the product option. If they didn't like it, why not exercise one of those options instead of suing. Stupid users. MEH.
What you fail to see here is that perfectly competent IT organizations sometimes don't have a choice in the matter. In many industries, it's a matter of software availability and ability to inter operate with customers. If software found on Linux doesn't have a Microsoft equivalent and vice versa, it creates compatibility problems that can prevent business from moving forward (the later being more generally true -- but also a good reason to support Win32 versions of apps like GIMP.) ReactOS and WINE are VERY important projects, IMHO, because what they represent is a *real* challenge to Microsoft -- the ability for companies to actually shop alternatives.
But, for companies such as mine in our particular industry, many of the applications we use are ONLY written for Windows, and we must use Windows in order to develop products for our customers as well as have the ability to share data. So, in our case Linux *does* cost too much -- in lost business. Given a choice, and having done support for both (3 years on the Windows side, 5 on the Unix/Linux side), I'd choose Unix/Linux any day of the week. But, for us, it's not an option.