There is a huge problem, though, when there's a trade gap, that is importing more than exporting. It doesn't make sound financial sense. And, unfortunately, that's the overall case right now. Focusing on China, that's the largest trade gap we have.
Not sure the percentage in Apple, but iPod says "Designed in Cupertino, Made in China," but the Flash RAM comes from Samsung, for sure, which is Korean. I certainly know ASUS does their motherboards, which is a pretty reputable, high quality Taiwanese company. Most computers in general get parts from a handful of manufacturers. Memory mostly comes from Korea, Motherboards mostly Taiwan, Hard Drives mostly Japanese (some Korean, though.) And, Apple has had a lot of quality control issues lately, too, for the record. There was a recent/. article about it, too. When it comes to electronics, hardly *anything* is actually manufactured in the US. Processors are about the only exception to that rule, that I'm aware. (Intel fabs here in Phoenix, so does Freescale [spinoff of Motorola]. AMD fabs in Austin, if I'm not mistaken, though I could be wrong about that.)
Your absolutely right, but part of the problem is that manufacturing largely left America ages ago. USA made goods don't sit on store shelves anymore to buy. Most of it is Made in China. And then there's the real effects of globalization, in which parts suppliers get their parts from whoever makes it cheapest. Think that Ford you just bought is American? Well, sure, some of it is. But, the steel might come from Russia, the design done in Turkey (Focus), Assembly in Mexico, and plastics in China. Point is, they put huge pressure on suppliers to make the components as cheaply as possible to stay competitive in the market. Moreover, "platform" sharing has become common, in attempts to commonize parts and design for cheaper mass production, often across brand lines, and in some cases between companies (Hyundai, Chrysler, Mitsubishi all share a 4cyl "world engine" starting with the new Dodge Caliber, for instance). Thanks to ever increasing governmental standards, cars get more and more expensive to make, leading to slimmer and slimmer profits, and putting more and more pressure to cut costs to keep their products affordable, which further fuels globalization. And Ford is not alone. GM, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler... everyone uses suppliers, and often don't have requirements from suppliers on where the part comes from: just get it, and get it to me cheap. Further, some of those suppliers might outsource to Tier 3 suppliers leading to mass confusion who designed what, where X material comes from, or who fabs the part, and all of that might change anyway mid-production cycle if someone can get it cheaper. It's an odd sort of inbreeding. And it's not just cars... Apple computer? Most of the internals are made in either Japan, Taiwan or Korea. Dell? Same thing. The bicycle I just purchased: Marin, designed in Marin County, CA, built in China. SRAM crank built in China. Shimano shifters: China. So, that begs the question: why stay loyal to an "american" company when the products aren't really being built by.. Americans. Heck, often they're not even designed by Americans. And, what consitutes "Made in America" anyway. Does it mean final assembly point? Point of Design? x% of parts and labor involved in final product? Reality is, Globalization already happened to manufacturing a long time ago, and our perceptions of what's american just haven't caught up yet. With service sector jobs disappearing and manufacturing gone, that leads us back to R&D to carry us foward, but R&D budgets aren't there, since profits are too slim or non-existent. So, where *is* the US economy heading, and what will carry financial growth through. God knows, we can't all get rich on tech stocks and housing bubbles. So, what's the real long-term solution and what types of jobs will carry us into the 22nd century and keep us a vital part of the world economy? I'm afraid we just haven't found the answer to that yet, and the longer we go without finding it, the more the US middle class will continue to disappear.
I can only speak from personal experience, in which more than 3/4 of my techie friends have been laid off at some point since 2001, unable to find new employement, in some cases up to 2 years at a time (one even got so deperate as to stock milk at Walmart for $7/hr). One friend needed to leave the state (AZ) in 2001 to find work elsewhere (MI) making less than 1/2 his original pay, and only to have the market in MI fall out just a few years later, ultimately ending up back in the state he came from (AZ). At the company I work now, one of our employees used to do advanced java programming for a San Diego, but was laid off, and unable to find new work. His position: outsourced. So, at 48yo, he went back to school to become a civil engineer (something he thinks stands a reasonably better chance of not getting outsourced.) From my perspective, I've seen plenty of evidence to support what's stated here. No, I don't buy that this article is rhetoric and propoganda. Of course, you can choose to buy into the propaganda that the economy is great, IT is on the comeback, and new jobs are created all the time. But, the only new jobs I see being created are in farmer's fields, now that we've taken to deporting all the illegals and transporting empty trucks across Iraq.
First, I agree with you 100%. But, I think you missed the point of all this in your statement:
What is it with Republicans and their extreme views? The world isn't black and white. You can't tell me that by fearing for my civil rights I'm less able to combat terrorism. And what the hell is up with this tunnel vision of one and only one option on nearly every issue? Stop being selective about revealing consequences! This might help you fight terrorism but it's also going to give you powers that the wrong government officials could abuse! You cannot deny this so stop sidestepping it.
First, let me say the Republican party of pre-Reagan no longer exists. They were replaced some time back with some wacko cultist facists and the masses haven't even seemed to notice. Of course they have extreme views, and everything is black and white. For all this talk about muslim extremists, we have Christian extremists (not real Christians in my book!) running this country. This administration doesn't give a shit about you, or your civil rights. As heard direct from the dictators mouth, "It'd be a whole lot easier if this were a dictatorship.. heh.. At least so long as I'm the dictator." What we're witnessing is a complete failure of the system of checks and balances as we gradually slide toward a regime that looks a lot more like Hitler, and a lot less like the U.S.A. I was born in and grew to love. What amazes me about the whole thing is how little we seem to care, and how Bush supporters have completely turned a blind eye to evidence upon evidence of the absolute horror of abuse, torture, violations of virtually all war conventions and treaties since World War I, and even the mis-handling of Katrina and 9/11 (which might have been prevented if they'd even bothered to have a single security meeting before 9/4/2001, when even Clinton's administration met 3 times a week, and had detailed reports on how to handle Al Qaeda.) Warrentless wire-tapping is just another string in a long rubber stamp in a 6 year history of the failure of checks and balances and the further dimished rights of US citizens. Did we really elect him twice, or did the wool just get pulled over our eyes again? Personally, in talking to masses around the country and seeing poll after poll of disapproval even JUST AFTER THE ELECTION at 60-65% consistently for years now, I tend to think the later. Just how long will it be before its World War 3 with the rest of the world against us, rather than our allies? Call me crazy, but I think even Hugo Chavez has a point. God save us all...
You're right.. Dems don't get a pass, either. God knows I'm pissed off at them, too. But, at this point, I'm willing to settle for ANYTHING that doesn't resemble our current state of disaster.
They need to dump their lawyers. This is like trying to sue people for calling facial tissue Kleenex. So, they developed the most successful portable digital music device in the world... Of course people are going to start coining the term "pod" to mean all things MP3/digital media related. Get over it, Apple.
Hasn't the term "podcasting" officially been added to the dictionary already? If so, they haven't got a leg to stand on. You're suing people for using a term that's been coined and used by the general masses and can no longer be considered a trademark.
Of course, you realize, this will only compell DVR manufactures to put a 31 second skip forward button in their units. My old VCR had a "commercial skip" feature that would fast forward 30 seconds at a time, but ultimately with digital, now you don't even have to wait for it to jump forward. I say 31 seconds cause anything over 30 will at least force the commercial makers to move into the more costly 1 minute segments...
Clearly you're speaking hypothetically and have not actually used OLE much? Seamless is just about the last word that comes to mind. Basically, it attempts to load an application within an application, and switching between objects causes massive system lag, bizarre display habits, and a very rough user experience. It's all fine and well in theory, but in practice there's a good reason why M$FT has discontinued OLE development.
Numbers yes, but not numeric. They *could* be represented in decimal, too, but never are. I was meaning anything outside 0-9 (numeric) aren't really numbers you can easily represent on a cell phone, as per topic of discussion.
MAc addresses are usually addressed in Hex, which are more than numbers, but letters, too. Clearly, you mean/.ers only get a girl's number when it's her IP address, which is as prone to change as her mood.
Lest we forget, Microsoft still has a 10% stake in Apple. Think of it as kind of like the Republicans having a 10% stake in the Democratic party. They may look like enemies on the surface, but there's still a fair amount of bedsharing going on behind the scenes, I'm quite sure. Sucess for Apple, ultimately, still means success for Microsoft. On the other hand, if Apple dies, Microsoft is only out it's initial $100,000 investment. Ultimately, Microsoft still has the upper hand, no matter how much Apple acts like a bastard step-child toward them.
The OS X improvements in leapord are great, but nothing revolutionary. CoreAnimation seems to be the most important new piece, IMHO. Other new features, like Time Machine, just point to the OS's growing maturity. In some ways, the OS is just now becoming as usable mature as old OS9, as archaic as that OS is from an underpinning standpoint. On the hardware front, it's not suprising they released a desktop MacPro, but I'm a tad disappointed about what still seems missing from the Apple lineup. Considering the Core2 Duo is now released, with non-extreme editions only days away (8/15), I'm shocked, frankly, Apple didn't announce its immediate use/replacement for the MacBook and MacBook Pro lineup, as well as use a Core2 based Xeon, rather than the kludgy, power-hungry Netburst architecture.
Also, and I'm sure everyone will point to the iMac for entry OSX desktops, I'm still disappointed Apple hasn't appealed to the non-workstation, build-it-yourself crowd. Plenty of people in the PC world, and particularly here on/., like to express creative effort when building PCs. Interesting and bizarre cases have shown up over the years in direct violation of the "beige box" phenomenon, thanks in large part to a high availability of commodity PC parts. Apple should, IMHO, sell Motherboards (or at least barebones systems) (heck, they could just slap a 90 warranty on it and make the OS unsupported for tech calls on configurations built using Apple boards) to the PC tuner market who like to build giant Lara (Tomb Raider) cases or other novel concepts that have flourished for years on the PC side of things. Sure, you don't necessarily make as much profit as high-end workstations, but there's something to be said for attracting creative types - the type of users Apple has touted it claims to have held on to all these years. Sure, you could buy a high end MacPro, but at $2500 for an entry price, budget for creativity pretty much goes over the way-side. To ensure Apple makes a healthy profit, though, they could charge basically the cost for an ASUS board (who manufactures them in the first place) plus the price of OS X and include it. (MB+$130=$300-350). That way they'd already get around OS X pirates - they'll have already paid the entry fee. Just my 2 cents.
Exactly my point. I'll consider the technology when it becomes too cheap and compelling to ignore. If the prices on the players come down to around the $100 mark and the media is just as cheap as DVDs, it'd be worth it, but to spend $1000 on a player with discs that are hard to find and pricey is just dumb. It's one of the reasons LaserDisc failed. Sure - it had better quality, but cost and convenience are important too.
I'm as anti-microshaft as anyone, but I fail to see the big stir here. To this day, even though Windows XP SP1 will be unsupported as of October 10th, they *still* don't force you to update. I'm sure anyone with Automatic Updates enabled will receive it automatically, but for those users who prefer to live in an unsupported world, Microsoft seems to allow it.
Having used the beta, I have no plans to "upgrade" as the biggest advantage (besides running activeX for those occasional sites that need it) over FireFox is its integration with Windows Explorer when it comes to FTP. Not being able to download entire directories drives me nuts, and for the first time since IE4, it's back to a simple web-page type interface with only single file downloads. No thanks. No plans to buy CuteFTP here... I'll just stick with what works, is free, and legal. FireFox will continue to be my primary browser, with IE6 being there when I'm absolutely forced to use it.
Based on the increased price of the PS3 by about 30% over the PS2 when adjusted for inflation, and the average console being released every 5 years, I suspect the PS4 will be released Christmas 2011 for a retail price around $899, based on consumer price inflation of roughly 3 percent per year. Based on this, if you start saving now, it'll cost you $15/mo in savings to pony up for the PS4. Good luck!
Or better, that one of the GPU cores (SLI/Crossfire ensures they'll be more GPUs in the future...) could be used an additional CPU on demand. GPUs are MUCH better at math operations than CPUs, and could be great for supplimenting MMX type vector instructions.
I don't know that I would really agree with that. I think people who have the common sense to look at AMD as a viable cost-effective, performance orientated alternative to Intel also look at Linux as a cost-effective, sercurity orientated alternative to Windows. I run Windows... and Linux. They each serve a purpose. I also run AMD and Intel. My desktop is AMD, because it gave the best price/performance at the time of purchase. My laptop is Intel, because it gives the best performance/battery life at the time of purchase. If the tables flip, I'm apt to change. I have no loyalty to Intel or AMD specifically. I'm not sure it's that AMD-fans/nerds are more Linux-minded than Intel, but rather than people who haven't just gone with the default (Intel/Dell/Windows) are more apt to be Linux-minded.
I think the author was merely pointing out that loss of life from terrorism is inconsequential when compared to loss of life from natural disaster, which is often times more predictable. For instance, had we spent the kind of money preparing for hurricane Katrina along the entire Gulf Coast that we have in the name of a "war on terrorism", we probably could have saved more lives than those lost during the hurricane. Now, I know you'll probably something to the effect of "impossible to predict" and "act of God" or something, but I'll come back and say that (1) hurricanes happen along the gulf every year. It's predictable. Where they strike is anyone's guess, but we should focus on protecting the whole region, especially more vulnerable and populace areas such as New Orleans, Houston, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, and South Carolina. (2) we can no more prevent terrorism than we can mother nature from happening. We can, however, study weather patterns and geothermic events and get a pretty good idea when, where and how mother nature will strike. Terrorism could happen in any big city on the planet. The more people, the more the target. We can't really prepare well, because most likely a terrorist is not going to use the same methodology twice.
FYI, I have a Sirius receiver, and use it in my car. At home, I stream it on my computer, and when I'm not in the car, like at the gym, I stream it over my cell phone. Far better than having those time-delayed devices, since it's always live. Only unfortunate part is most of the entertainment channels are restricted from web access...
I've had 5 bills in a row now with two devices, both with in excess of 450MB per device. The plan clearly states "Unlimited." I've seen no evidence of SoftCaps that you suggest.
My rep seemed to know a bit about it, but I was definitely more a tech-head than he was. Anyway, here in Phoenix, I get about 45-50KB/s on downstream transfers. Latency is notably less so than EDGE on Cingular (my prior data service.) According to the article, it's against the terms of service to stream/download/upload music, movies, or games, and it's also a violation to use VoiP services, such as Skype. That said, I have the Skype client running on my PDA phone and have successfully used it to make phone calls. I also stream Sirius over EVDO all the time, with no problem. I've even used it paired to my laptop via a readily available hack and web conferenced with family from the tops of mountains and such, so it clearly appears that whatever their actual terms of service are, they don't actually block ports or such to utilize such services. It's positively addicting to have broadband like performance everywhere you go. The only part that sucks is leaving down, when you drop to regular 1xRTT speeds, which is marginally better than EDGE.
Perhaps I'm wrong in this, but I haven't seen the mach source in any of the prior releases, nor do I find it shocking that there hasn't been a binary build of OS X in a while. If you look at the same link you provided, you'll notice that Apple has only published binary builds of the OS every 10.X.0 release. Subsequent 10.X.X releases have never included binary as a downloadable option. Unless I see some announcment from Apple themselves, I'll take this article with a grain of salt. Macworld has been wrong before about some major things. Many years back, they published a 12 page article talking about how Apple was buying Be, and BeOS would be the next Mac OS, since Copland was officially dead. That didn't happen, and in the end, Apple bought next instead, 2 months later. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing has changed, and probably won't. Until Apple takes down the Darwin page, or posts an official announcment, I'll consider this artical merely speculative and spiteful.
Linking to the manual on your website is an infringement of Apple's copyrights.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought there was a supreme court case that said there was nothing wrong with linking to another source. I haven't been to the website, but this being the case, Apple wouldn't have a legal foot to stand on, since they're not hosting the file - merely pointing to how it could be found from Apple. Heck, all Apple needs do is remove the document or change the URL every few days and make it annoying to be found if they want to prevent this sort of thing.
They renamed the Nintendo Ultra 64 to just Nintendo 64. The name stuck for a long time. Many titles picked up the "ultra" name, and emulators that came out later also used Ultra. I suspect that Revolution/Wii will be refered to as Revolution for a long time coming, despite what Nintendo wants to call it. My biggest question though is "what the heck does it mean?" It seems like they went from a cool name that had purpose to a name that seems about as mysterious and awkward as the concept of the system itself. I love Nintendo. Really, I do. But personally, I'm kind of thinking this round is gonna be another Virtual Boy. Great system, great concept, poor marketing, and will live a short life. I could be wrong though.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a huge problem, though, when there's a trade gap, that is importing more than exporting. It doesn't make sound financial sense. And, unfortunately, that's the overall case right now. Focusing on China, that's the largest trade gap we have.
Not sure the percentage in Apple, but iPod says "Designed in Cupertino, Made in China," but the Flash RAM comes from Samsung, for sure, which is Korean. I certainly know ASUS does their motherboards, which is a pretty reputable, high quality Taiwanese company. Most computers in general get parts from a handful of manufacturers. Memory mostly comes from Korea, Motherboards mostly Taiwan, Hard Drives mostly Japanese (some Korean, though.) And, Apple has had a lot of quality control issues lately, too, for the record. There was a recent /. article about it, too. When it comes to electronics, hardly *anything* is actually manufactured in the US. Processors are about the only exception to that rule, that I'm aware. (Intel fabs here in Phoenix, so does Freescale [spinoff of Motorola]. AMD fabs in Austin, if I'm not mistaken, though I could be wrong about that.)
Your absolutely right, but part of the problem is that manufacturing largely left America ages ago. USA made goods don't sit on store shelves anymore to buy. Most of it is Made in China. And then there's the real effects of globalization, in which parts suppliers get their parts from whoever makes it cheapest. Think that Ford you just bought is American? Well, sure, some of it is. But, the steel might come from Russia, the design done in Turkey (Focus), Assembly in Mexico, and plastics in China. Point is, they put huge pressure on suppliers to make the components as cheaply as possible to stay competitive in the market. Moreover, "platform" sharing has become common, in attempts to commonize parts and design for cheaper mass production, often across brand lines, and in some cases between companies (Hyundai, Chrysler, Mitsubishi all share a 4cyl "world engine" starting with the new Dodge Caliber, for instance). Thanks to ever increasing governmental standards, cars get more and more expensive to make, leading to slimmer and slimmer profits, and putting more and more pressure to cut costs to keep their products affordable, which further fuels globalization. And Ford is not alone. GM, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler... everyone uses suppliers, and often don't have requirements from suppliers on where the part comes from: just get it, and get it to me cheap. Further, some of those suppliers might outsource to Tier 3 suppliers leading to mass confusion who designed what, where X material comes from, or who fabs the part, and all of that might change anyway mid-production cycle if someone can get it cheaper. It's an odd sort of inbreeding. And it's not just cars... Apple computer? Most of the internals are made in either Japan, Taiwan or Korea. Dell? Same thing. The bicycle I just purchased: Marin, designed in Marin County, CA, built in China. SRAM crank built in China. Shimano shifters: China. So, that begs the question: why stay loyal to an "american" company when the products aren't really being built by.. Americans. Heck, often they're not even designed by Americans. And, what consitutes "Made in America" anyway. Does it mean final assembly point? Point of Design? x% of parts and labor involved in final product? Reality is, Globalization already happened to manufacturing a long time ago, and our perceptions of what's american just haven't caught up yet. With service sector jobs disappearing and manufacturing gone, that leads us back to R&D to carry us foward, but R&D budgets aren't there, since profits are too slim or non-existent. So, where *is* the US economy heading, and what will carry financial growth through. God knows, we can't all get rich on tech stocks and housing bubbles. So, what's the real long-term solution and what types of jobs will carry us into the 22nd century and keep us a vital part of the world economy? I'm afraid we just haven't found the answer to that yet, and the longer we go without finding it, the more the US middle class will continue to disappear.
I can only speak from personal experience, in which more than 3/4 of my techie friends have been laid off at some point since 2001, unable to find new employement, in some cases up to 2 years at a time (one even got so deperate as to stock milk at Walmart for $7/hr). One friend needed to leave the state (AZ) in 2001 to find work elsewhere (MI) making less than 1/2 his original pay, and only to have the market in MI fall out just a few years later, ultimately ending up back in the state he came from (AZ). At the company I work now, one of our employees used to do advanced java programming for a San Diego, but was laid off, and unable to find new work. His position: outsourced. So, at 48yo, he went back to school to become a civil engineer (something he thinks stands a reasonably better chance of not getting outsourced.) From my perspective, I've seen plenty of evidence to support what's stated here. No, I don't buy that this article is rhetoric and propoganda. Of course, you can choose to buy into the propaganda that the economy is great, IT is on the comeback, and new jobs are created all the time. But, the only new jobs I see being created are in farmer's fields, now that we've taken to deporting all the illegals and transporting empty trucks across Iraq.
What is it with Republicans and their extreme views? The world isn't black and white. You can't tell me that by fearing for my civil rights I'm less able to combat terrorism. And what the hell is up with this tunnel vision of one and only one option on nearly every issue? Stop being selective about revealing consequences! This might help you fight terrorism but it's also going to give you powers that the wrong government officials could abuse! You cannot deny this so stop sidestepping it.
First, let me say the Republican party of pre-Reagan no longer exists. They were replaced some time back with some wacko cultist facists and the masses haven't even seemed to notice. Of course they have extreme views, and everything is black and white. For all this talk about muslim extremists, we have Christian extremists (not real Christians in my book!) running this country. This administration doesn't give a shit about you, or your civil rights. As heard direct from the dictators mouth, "It'd be a whole lot easier if this were a dictatorship.. heh.. At least so long as I'm the dictator." What we're witnessing is a complete failure of the system of checks and balances as we gradually slide toward a regime that looks a lot more like Hitler, and a lot less like the U.S.A. I was born in and grew to love. What amazes me about the whole thing is how little we seem to care, and how Bush supporters have completely turned a blind eye to evidence upon evidence of the absolute horror of abuse, torture, violations of virtually all war conventions and treaties since World War I, and even the mis-handling of Katrina and 9/11 (which might have been prevented if they'd even bothered to have a single security meeting before 9/4/2001, when even Clinton's administration met 3 times a week, and had detailed reports on how to handle Al Qaeda.) Warrentless wire-tapping is just another string in a long rubber stamp in a 6 year history of the failure of checks and balances and the further dimished rights of US citizens. Did we really elect him twice, or did the wool just get pulled over our eyes again? Personally, in talking to masses around the country and seeing poll after poll of disapproval even JUST AFTER THE ELECTION at 60-65% consistently for years now, I tend to think the later. Just how long will it be before its World War 3 with the rest of the world against us, rather than our allies? Call me crazy, but I think even Hugo Chavez has a point. God save us all...
You're right.. Dems don't get a pass, either. God knows I'm pissed off at them, too. But, at this point, I'm willing to settle for ANYTHING that doesn't resemble our current state of disaster.
They need to dump their lawyers. This is like trying to sue people for calling facial tissue Kleenex. So, they developed the most successful portable digital music device in the world... Of course people are going to start coining the term "pod" to mean all things MP3/digital media related. Get over it, Apple.
Hasn't the term "podcasting" officially been added to the dictionary already? If so, they haven't got a leg to stand on. You're suing people for using a term that's been coined and used by the general masses and can no longer be considered a trademark.
Of course, you realize, this will only compell DVR manufactures to put a 31 second skip forward button in their units. My old VCR had a "commercial skip" feature that would fast forward 30 seconds at a time, but ultimately with digital, now you don't even have to wait for it to jump forward. I say 31 seconds cause anything over 30 will at least force the commercial makers to move into the more costly 1 minute segments...
Clearly you're speaking hypothetically and have not actually used OLE much? Seamless is just about the last word that comes to mind. Basically, it attempts to load an application within an application, and switching between objects causes massive system lag, bizarre display habits, and a very rough user experience. It's all fine and well in theory, but in practice there's a good reason why M$FT has discontinued OLE development.
Numbers yes, but not numeric. They *could* be represented in decimal, too, but never are. I was meaning anything outside 0-9 (numeric) aren't really numbers you can easily represent on a cell phone, as per topic of discussion.
MAc addresses are usually addressed in Hex, which are more than numbers, but letters, too. Clearly, you mean /.ers only get a girl's number when it's her IP address, which is as prone to change as her mood.
Lest we forget, Microsoft still has a 10% stake in Apple. Think of it as kind of like the Republicans having a 10% stake in the Democratic party. They may look like enemies on the surface, but there's still a fair amount of bedsharing going on behind the scenes, I'm quite sure. Sucess for Apple, ultimately, still means success for Microsoft. On the other hand, if Apple dies, Microsoft is only out it's initial $100,000 investment. Ultimately, Microsoft still has the upper hand, no matter how much Apple acts like a bastard step-child toward them.
The OS X improvements in leapord are great, but nothing revolutionary. CoreAnimation seems to be the most important new piece, IMHO. Other new features, like Time Machine, just point to the OS's growing maturity. In some ways, the OS is just now becoming as usable mature as old OS9, as archaic as that OS is from an underpinning standpoint. On the hardware front, it's not suprising they released a desktop MacPro, but I'm a tad disappointed about what still seems missing from the Apple lineup. Considering the Core2 Duo is now released, with non-extreme editions only days away (8/15), I'm shocked, frankly, Apple didn't announce its immediate use/replacement for the MacBook and MacBook Pro lineup, as well as use a Core2 based Xeon, rather than the kludgy, power-hungry Netburst architecture. Also, and I'm sure everyone will point to the iMac for entry OSX desktops, I'm still disappointed Apple hasn't appealed to the non-workstation, build-it-yourself crowd. Plenty of people in the PC world, and particularly here on /., like to express creative effort when building PCs. Interesting and bizarre cases have shown up over the years in direct violation of the "beige box" phenomenon, thanks in large part to a high availability of commodity PC parts. Apple should, IMHO, sell Motherboards (or at least barebones systems) (heck, they could just slap a 90 warranty on it and make the OS unsupported for tech calls on configurations built using Apple boards) to the PC tuner market who like to build giant Lara (Tomb Raider) cases or other novel concepts that have flourished for years on the PC side of things. Sure, you don't necessarily make as much profit as high-end workstations, but there's something to be said for attracting creative types - the type of users Apple has touted it claims to have held on to all these years. Sure, you could buy a high end MacPro, but at $2500 for an entry price, budget for creativity pretty much goes over the way-side. To ensure Apple makes a healthy profit, though, they could charge basically the cost for an ASUS board (who manufactures them in the first place) plus the price of OS X and include it. (MB+$130=$300-350). That way they'd already get around OS X pirates - they'll have already paid the entry fee. Just my 2 cents.
Exactly my point. I'll consider the technology when it becomes too cheap and compelling to ignore. If the prices on the players come down to around the $100 mark and the media is just as cheap as DVDs, it'd be worth it, but to spend $1000 on a player with discs that are hard to find and pricey is just dumb. It's one of the reasons LaserDisc failed. Sure - it had better quality, but cost and convenience are important too.
I'm as anti-microshaft as anyone, but I fail to see the big stir here. To this day, even though Windows XP SP1 will be unsupported as of October 10th, they *still* don't force you to update. I'm sure anyone with Automatic Updates enabled will receive it automatically, but for those users who prefer to live in an unsupported world, Microsoft seems to allow it. Having used the beta, I have no plans to "upgrade" as the biggest advantage (besides running activeX for those occasional sites that need it) over FireFox is its integration with Windows Explorer when it comes to FTP. Not being able to download entire directories drives me nuts, and for the first time since IE4, it's back to a simple web-page type interface with only single file downloads. No thanks. No plans to buy CuteFTP here... I'll just stick with what works, is free, and legal. FireFox will continue to be my primary browser, with IE6 being there when I'm absolutely forced to use it.
Based on the increased price of the PS3 by about 30% over the PS2 when adjusted for inflation, and the average console being released every 5 years, I suspect the PS4 will be released Christmas 2011 for a retail price around $899, based on consumer price inflation of roughly 3 percent per year. Based on this, if you start saving now, it'll cost you $15/mo in savings to pony up for the PS4. Good luck!
Or better, that one of the GPU cores (SLI/Crossfire ensures they'll be more GPUs in the future...) could be used an additional CPU on demand. GPUs are MUCH better at math operations than CPUs, and could be great for supplimenting MMX type vector instructions.
I don't know that I would really agree with that. I think people who have the common sense to look at AMD as a viable cost-effective, performance orientated alternative to Intel also look at Linux as a cost-effective, sercurity orientated alternative to Windows. I run Windows... and Linux. They each serve a purpose. I also run AMD and Intel. My desktop is AMD, because it gave the best price/performance at the time of purchase. My laptop is Intel, because it gives the best performance/battery life at the time of purchase. If the tables flip, I'm apt to change. I have no loyalty to Intel or AMD specifically. I'm not sure it's that AMD-fans/nerds are more Linux-minded than Intel, but rather than people who haven't just gone with the default (Intel/Dell/Windows) are more apt to be Linux-minded.
Why is this post tagged "hotgaysexnow"? I mean, I laughed, but still... :-)
I think the author was merely pointing out that loss of life from terrorism is inconsequential when compared to loss of life from natural disaster, which is often times more predictable. For instance, had we spent the kind of money preparing for hurricane Katrina along the entire Gulf Coast that we have in the name of a "war on terrorism", we probably could have saved more lives than those lost during the hurricane. Now, I know you'll probably something to the effect of "impossible to predict" and "act of God" or something, but I'll come back and say that (1) hurricanes happen along the gulf every year. It's predictable. Where they strike is anyone's guess, but we should focus on protecting the whole region, especially more vulnerable and populace areas such as New Orleans, Houston, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, and South Carolina. (2) we can no more prevent terrorism than we can mother nature from happening. We can, however, study weather patterns and geothermic events and get a pretty good idea when, where and how mother nature will strike. Terrorism could happen in any big city on the planet. The more people, the more the target. We can't really prepare well, because most likely a terrorist is not going to use the same methodology twice.
FYI, I have a Sirius receiver, and use it in my car. At home, I stream it on my computer, and when I'm not in the car, like at the gym, I stream it over my cell phone. Far better than having those time-delayed devices, since it's always live. Only unfortunate part is most of the entertainment channels are restricted from web access...
I've had 5 bills in a row now with two devices, both with in excess of 450MB per device. The plan clearly states "Unlimited." I've seen no evidence of SoftCaps that you suggest.
My rep seemed to know a bit about it, but I was definitely more a tech-head than he was. Anyway, here in Phoenix, I get about 45-50KB/s on downstream transfers. Latency is notably less so than EDGE on Cingular (my prior data service.) According to the article, it's against the terms of service to stream/download/upload music, movies, or games, and it's also a violation to use VoiP services, such as Skype. That said, I have the Skype client running on my PDA phone and have successfully used it to make phone calls. I also stream Sirius over EVDO all the time, with no problem. I've even used it paired to my laptop via a readily available hack and web conferenced with family from the tops of mountains and such, so it clearly appears that whatever their actual terms of service are, they don't actually block ports or such to utilize such services. It's positively addicting to have broadband like performance everywhere you go. The only part that sucks is leaving down, when you drop to regular 1xRTT speeds, which is marginally better than EDGE.
Perhaps I'm wrong in this, but I haven't seen the mach source in any of the prior releases, nor do I find it shocking that there hasn't been a binary build of OS X in a while. If you look at the same link you provided, you'll notice that Apple has only published binary builds of the OS every 10.X.0 release. Subsequent 10.X.X releases have never included binary as a downloadable option. Unless I see some announcment from Apple themselves, I'll take this article with a grain of salt. Macworld has been wrong before about some major things. Many years back, they published a 12 page article talking about how Apple was buying Be, and BeOS would be the next Mac OS, since Copland was officially dead. That didn't happen, and in the end, Apple bought next instead, 2 months later. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing has changed, and probably won't. Until Apple takes down the Darwin page, or posts an official announcment, I'll consider this artical merely speculative and spiteful.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought there was a supreme court case that said there was nothing wrong with linking to another source. I haven't been to the website, but this being the case, Apple wouldn't have a legal foot to stand on, since they're not hosting the file - merely pointing to how it could be found from Apple. Heck, all Apple needs do is remove the document or change the URL every few days and make it annoying to be found if they want to prevent this sort of thing.
They renamed the Nintendo Ultra 64 to just Nintendo 64. The name stuck for a long time. Many titles picked up the "ultra" name, and emulators that came out later also used Ultra. I suspect that Revolution/Wii will be refered to as Revolution for a long time coming, despite what Nintendo wants to call it. My biggest question though is "what the heck does it mean?" It seems like they went from a cool name that had purpose to a name that seems about as mysterious and awkward as the concept of the system itself. I love Nintendo. Really, I do. But personally, I'm kind of thinking this round is gonna be another Virtual Boy. Great system, great concept, poor marketing, and will live a short life. I could be wrong though.