I want to run a more expandable system, with the ports I want, with the case I want, with the processor selection I want, and be able to dual boot with other operating systems without major headaches. Gee, that's just like a PC, isn't it?
If I want an SLI system, I should be able to get it. If I want dual LAN ports on the motherboard for a server box, I should be able to get it. Apple's hardware selection is puny compared to what I can assemble for a standard Windows or Linux PC. There are too many constraints with Apple's hardware offerings.
What if I want to run a backplane server with 12 PCI slots for a custom server? Windows, Linux, BSD, not a problem. OSX? Good luck.
Remember that if someone is going to RTFM, someone else needs to WTFM first....
Yeah isn't that true. Don't you just love searching for documentation or at minimum a FAQ or HowTo for an application, then posting to the list for the location of the documentation only to get no useful reply, then follow up asking for specifics on how to do (n) with the tool, then you get blasted and told to RTFM. Then, post back that if there WERE a FM to R, that you'd have RTFMed already and wouldn't be posting a question for some wiseass to post a snarky RTFM reply. At that, you'll be told to WTFM, which is senseless because you don't know how to DO (n) because there is no FM to R, so telling you to WTFM is fruitless, or they point you at a wiki which is nothing but a skeleton consisting of Feature (N) : To be written later.
Thankfully most OSS development teams are not so snotty and will at least point you at a mailing list archive, FAQ, or an abstract on the application. Take Quanta for example: the folks developing Quanta are downright friendly.
But then again it's just like the Windows free software "community" - there are very nice and helpful folks developing some tools, and there are some developing very useful tools but who seemingly go out of their way to be assholes to users. It's not a Linux phenomenon, it's a human nature thing. The few jerks make everyone as a whole look bad.
Sometimes an RTFM or GIYF (Google Is Your Friend) is the appropriate answer, e.g., if you ask "how do I play DVDs on SuSE/Ubuntu/etc." you should get "read the fucking stickies" or "GIYF" as a reply, because the question gets asked DAILY and you shouldn't be a lazy sod.
On the other hand, if you're running into a crash (say, trying to play a Real Media file in Xine) the answer should not automatically be "try the latest CVS" or "RTFM." First of all, the user may be a n00b and totally unfamiliar with what CVS even is, the documentation is inadequate, and you haven't really helped the user, but brushed them off Microsoft Windows Support-style. You have also not helped to identify what the problem is so that it can be captured and documented in a FAQ for the next umpteen-dozen users who run into the same exact bug. Nothing against the xine folks here The folks I ran into THIS kind of issue with was actually one of the asterisk-related projects where a feature just plain did not work so I asked if anyone else could reproduce so that I could know if it was something I misconfigured or if it's broken code since log files turned up nothing and I had no proper debug environment set up (plus I haven't dug into the asterisk projects and could not afford the time to learn the project, I just want to be an asterisk user, not a developer or QA member).
Depending on what you're doing, using open source solutions may be just too much work, or the people involved may be too much of a PITA to make the savings worthwhile. On the other hand, for most routine desktop and server applications, Linux and other OSS projects can be a choice which is superior to commercial alternatives.
Fewer technical folks will switch to OS X, but on the other hand the typical Mac user could not care less either way. Open source, closed source, or even lose the shell prompt again, they'll be totally unaffected.
As an aside: I still want OS X, but I do not want Apple hardware. Open up the licensing, Jobs!
If you don't have a static IP, You go to say, hostmysite or dreamhost, get your own virtual server, and install Gallery2 then you can post anything from nudie pics to screenshots to landscapes, or even copyrighted videos and you won't get shut down. You might get an angry letter if you post copyrighted material you do not own then the courts might order you to shut down, but at least no one else will have any say in what you post.
All in all, the real point is: what on earth has to do the OSS dispute with political, or worse, religious issues?
The original post was obviously intended to be a funny.
Have you been online long? If you have, remember the "unix is god" vs. "no windows is god" vs. "no macintosh is god" flamewars that come up repeatedly here, Usenet, and just about any other tech board? Some people carry the OS to a whole new level, and rather than looking at an operating system as a tool for problem solving, but almost seem to absolutely worship the software?
Mac users are notorious for this BTW: my graphic designer loves, LOVES everything Apple puts out, and refuses to believe statistics on early G5 tower failures and on powerbook or iMac failures. Why? Because Apple computers are cool - they're "beautiful" and even though something may take 3x as many clicks to accomplish, it's pleasing to the eyes. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that his old Mac could not boot from a HDD without Apple's own firmware. He thinks it's good for Apple that they did that. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but he leaves all objectivity behind when it comes to picking a product. With that said, Apple does make some incredible products, but they have also made some real duds, and some diehard Mac fans (like him) refuse to admit that. In fact it's become a bit of a running joke at the office - "If it's not Apple, it's CRAP."
I resent your proseletyzing on here. I ought to be free to worship however I please. If I prefer to worship the golden calf that Microsoft is rather than the the cute little penguin that is Tux, then I should be free to do so.
Hey! That gives me an idea! Let's start a religion worshipping Microsoft, and then sue the government to get religious icons (Windows, Office) off of government property!;)
Meh. Reading it back it's not as funny as I first thought but I'm submitting anyhoo.
Where is the misuse of then? Personally I'd have put "then" before "check all the 1984 reference" however either way you phrase it, "than" is inappropriate, while "then" is quite correct.
Nice troll though, but a piece of advice? When you troll and attempt to be Grammar Nazi, at least make sure you're correct first.
This type of reasoning is what is at the core of Marxism
No, it's not. Communism is actually the ideal system until you add the human factor. Once human nature is introduced you'll end up with what became the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, the best system in the real world is a capitalist society which is a republic or democracy. A pure democracy stinks in some ways because you can never come to a consensus to get things done, but perhaps the world would be better off because you wouldn't see a massive government with a tax-and-spend mentality like we have here in America today.
Is it Apple's responsibility to make sure that Foxconn conducts business in china morally and ethically? Certainly not, no more so than I'm obligated to make sure that the board of directors of a supermarket I shop at are not running a child porn ring. If I happen to learn that they are doing that, I'd vote with my wallet and not shop at the store because of their actions, and likewise Apple can choose to change the way Foxconn does business by hiring another vendor to manufacture the iPods if they so desire (I'd suggest Asus, actually). Should Apple take steps (based on morality) to effect a change at Foxconn? Certainly. Are they obligated to? Absolutely not.
Do you investigate labor practices at the local service station where you take your car for maintenance and repairs? Do you shop at Wal-Mart and if so is that particular store demanding employees remain on call at all times without paying for them for sacrificing their family/social lives to be available to work? Did you investigate the local body shop you had paint your car to make sure they don't buy parts from chop shops?
Would you do business with those companies if you find they pull any of that crap? Now, did Apple know before contracting Foxconn that this is going on at that plant? If they did: what is the norm in that local community, and how does the Foxconn employees' quality of life compare to that of other people in that community?
Think locally: if you make $45K in say, the northern Florida area, or in Alabama, you're doing fairly well. $60K and you're doing really well.
$45K in Boston, New York, or San Francisco? You'll be stretching your dollars as far as you can to get by. You'll need to earn about twice as much money to maintain the same lifestyle you enjoyed in Tampa or Alabama.
Commodore did not WANT Tramiel to step in, to begin with. The parting of the ways was mutual.
The owners at the end did not care about the company, about growth, or technology, and would not have even considered bringing Tramiel's genious back in. They were far too busy engaging in insider trading and embezzlement than caring about their employees, stockholders, and the industry at large.
Because this behavior is totally undetectable and it wouldn't cause a single issue in corporate America.
You're not thinking like a PHB:
- Vendor lockin - switchinng to alternatives is too much work
- PHBs swallow FUD hook, line, and sinker, and don't realize that when microsoft advertises TCO, downtime, etc. they redefine those terms without really explaining how they define those terms
- Swag (T-shirts, gadgets, trips to Hawaii)
Microsoft Windows is going to be locked into the corporate world for a long, long time. It may gradually lose to Linux, BSD, OS X, etc. but it will not happen overnight. First off on the Linux front, you NEED more commercial application availability ( Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quickbooks, BETTER PIMs than kontact and Evolution, video editing apps, etc. ). Commercial apps for BSD are pretty much nonexistent. Although their explosive growth is at an end, Microsoft will be enjoying their reign for a good while longer.
As an aside: I thought pornographers embraced piracy for viral marketing and uploaded the "pirated" content themselves? "Hey, this DivX is crap. I want to see Jenna's boobs in high resolution! Where can I buy the DVD?"
. . . when the phone is shut off so that Mommy and Daddy does not know that little 11-yr-old Bobby went with Sally to see the foo boy band's concert in the next county? "Uh, yeah mom, see, the battery in my phone went dead, and I, uh, popped my bicyle tire? Yeah, that's it. My bicycle tire popped, and, uh, because my phone was dead I couldn't call home, and, uh, I had to make like the professor and rig up a tube patch kit and a tire pump from bamboo and a couple of coconuts."
I'll stick with keeping spreadsheets on my own hard drive and servers, created with OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Excel.
Thanks, but no thanks Google. I do use gmail for personal stuff but I do not and will not use hosted office suites. I have no desire for you to know how much I weigh, what my client lists are, how much I spend, my DVD and CD collections, or anything else I might use a spreadsheet for.
I do drink coffee but it's because I like it. I like either caffe mocha or hazelnut (not the flavor shot crap either). If neither of those are available, 99 times out of 100 I'll skip coffee. It's just not that important to me because I don't drink it for the caffiene. I also cut most cola out of my diet (I went from drinking nearly 2L of diet coke every day to drinking about 1L of coca cola classic after I identified aspartame as one of the causes of my migraines, down to 1 12oz coke every few weeks). I wouldn't say it's made me less tired but it certainly has helped me to lose at least some of the weight I've lost. When I do drink things like cola, I make up for it elsewhere in my diet (I built a spreadsheet to track intake vs. calories burned and it's been quite accurate in predicting weight loss/gain).
If you keep it to moderation and don't drink it for the caffiene "pick me up, " but as a treat because you LIKE it, you won't end up with headaches if you go without coffee (or cola) for a day or a week.:) I avoid decaf because I don't believe that they don't still use benzene in the process, plus caffiene in very moderate amounts has been reputed to be beneficial.
I once tried caffiene tablets to keep going at the office (working 12-16 hours a day for months at a stretch because an employer is too fucking cheap and shortsighted to let a QA director hire ample qualified staff takes its toll) but it didn't help. I felt better for an hour or two then I'd crash harder. I can only imagine that it would be a harder, more painful crash with stronger (and illegal) stimulants.
What does work is exercise and getting more sleep. I've been trying to burn both ends of the candle at my own business, but lately I've been eating fruits for breakfast and bicycling to and from work, so now when I do work long days I still feel tired, but not to the point where I feel totally exhausted. Soon I'll be bringing in more help and knocking back to 5 days a week. I still make sure I get at absolute minimum 6-1/2 hours or so of sleep per night, and I try really hard to get between 7 and eight (any more than that and I end up either groggy or get a migraine).
Do yourself a favor if you need to work long hours: MAKE a way to get exercise into your routine, and lay off refined foods. You'll find yourself able to work longer before you feel tired, and you'll feel better overall, and will probably lose any extra weight you're carrying at the same time.
Drugs (legal or otherwise) might give you a temporary lift, but there is no subtitute for sleep, eating right, and actually getting working your muscles from time to time. If there were a magic bullet, America wouldn't be full of fatties. I'm glad to say I'm no longer a fatty, and while I still have some more weight to lose, the first 25 pounds has made a huge difference and I only have a few more to go.:)
Need a lift? Eat a banana or drink some herbal tea, or just drink plenty of water.
You're not the typical user, nor is any slashdotter here. It's Just. Not. That. Easy. for the average user who can barely comprehend the difference between a data disc containing audio files and a redbook audio CD.
There is ALWAYS something faster coming out. Anyone who has ever bought a computer can tell you this.
It's been happening for years.
Intel is in the lead, AMD leapfrogs Intel. Intel races past AMD. Mhz is everything. No, instructions-per-Mhz is everything. AMD is faster again. Oops, Intel just released the Super-extreme-hyper-overclocked-needs-a-2-ton-air- conditioner CPU to take the lead. Wait, AMD has a brand-new architecture that uses less power and benchmarks 50% faster at an equivalent clock speed. Oh-oh, Intel has a new chip coming out, AMD gonna die? No, AMD gonna release another CPU which will leapfrog Intel.
It's been going on ever since AMD came out with their 386DX40 and later their 486DX4. They're in a constant game of leapfrog, and I don't think that is going to change any time soon. The difference here is that not only is AMD able to produce their own designs, but they can bring them to market fairly quickly and maintain longer leads without resorting to massive overclocking to do it.
Buy Intel or buy AMD? Buy whatever the best bang-for-the-buck at the moment is, if you OS will run on it, or just flip a coin. In a month or two a faster processor will be out. It's not like 1991 where the CPU you bought was already out for four years and hasn't gotten any faster. New CPUs come out by the month, or at least the quarter, and they're only getting faster more rapidly. Personally, I'm partial to AMD, but frankly Linux support for bleeding edge AMD chipsets lags slightly behind bleeding edge Intel chipsets so I haven't bought AMD in a while.:(
One problem I do see with both architectures: they're turning to multiprocessing to increase performance. This is great because I love the responsiveness of SMP systems (my latest machine was a downgrade in responsiveness- went from a dual Pentium III to a Pentium 4) because it is less likely for a single CPU-intensive app to tie up the GUI, but if you need to run a single-threaded app faster, having 16 processor crammed into one box won't help one iota (aside from handling other tasks). They need to make absolute increases in performance in addition to bringing SMP into the mainstream desktop and notebook. Besides, while many apps are already multithreaded, you still need each thread to be executed as quickly as possible.
No. The slashdot hive mind shall now regard Hillary Rosen is good. Get your doublethink straight.
Hillary Rosen is good, therefore she has always been good. She is our ally, and always has been our ally.
Seriously though - it is great to see that she admits it. One thing I would like to criticize is her implying that sharing on P2P networks is not legitimate. The legitimacy of P2P networks and the file sharing is not in question in the slightest, really. What is in question is how the people use it. If you download music and burn it to a music CD-R, the RIAA gets their royalties, which is divvied up among publishers and artists based on percentage of average sales over the latest period (I don't know if it's weekly, monthly, or quarterly - I never bothered to check that). I'd say that if a user downloads a music file and burns it to audio CD-R, that copy is fully legitimate and paid for, legally. Now, whether it is ethical or moral is debatable, because download activities may actually not line up with sales averages over a certain period, or the CD-R purchase may be way out of line (in terms of time) with the time period the CDs were actually burned, so artists and publishers may actually not be getting paid what they are entitled to out of those royalties.
The fairest method is to collect states of completed downloads (not failed, partial, or aborted downloads) per royalty period - WORKING with folks like The Pirate Bay to obtain those stats - then they will know how to slice that blank media royalty pie. Hell if they did something reasonable and fair like that, I would actually support an increase in levies on the CD-AUDIO blank media. Yes, I know most slashdotters would buy the data CDs to avoid the levy, but the majority of people are convinced that you NEED the CD Audio discs in order to make music CDs from MP3 files. Even many computer-literate people - people WORKING in technology, think that you need CD-audio discs, so this could be a workable solution.
Even if folks don't buy, and are happy burning 64kbps files to CD, they're not the target market anyway. They're the type who would be just as happy with recording songs off the radio, and are the type who will be swooning over HD-Radio despite the fact that it's lower fidelity than analog FM radio. No loss for the RIAA there, because those are the folks who would not purchase it ANYHOW. Let them have their free, low-fidelity music and at least carry out viral marketing for RIAA members by word of mouth. Eventually they will tell friends who WILL want to buy the CD, or share their download with a friend who is not happy with the fidelity and changes their mind and buys the CD.
I'd also argue that downloading live bootlegs is legitimate. Many bands openly encourage trading of recordings of live performances. That is the only audio I download lately because I do not want to be exposed to new acts until the RIAA gets their collective act together.
Lastly: RIAA (AND MPAA) members need to embrace the idea of try-before-you-buy, FULLY legitimize FREE downloads of low-bitrate (say, 64kbps or so) files, and look the other way for 128kbps files (unless a site is charging for them without paying the respective parties their dues). Higher bitrates should be cracked down on, but it ought to be to be PROVEN beyond reasonable doubt that an infraction is taken place by specific, identifiable persons. That means no suing gramma who has never owned a computer other than webtv, and no suing 7-yr-olds who may have happened to download the wrong file. Also, the settlement has got to be FAIR. Like, say, Oh I don't know, the person(s) involved MUST buy the infringing works at the average retail price, or at worst, since the RIAA may be entitled to damages, triple the average retail price. NOT thousands per track, because there has been NO damage. A sale they did not make is NOT lost money; it is monies they never possessed or had right to in the first place.
There has to be a happy medium workable for all in this whole
Call back when he can easily retain all of the track info.
(not all CD/DVD drives support CD-text. Not all CD rippers support CD-text.)
Also, call back when this inconvenience can be eliminated.
yes, it's a pain in the ass, even though it takes just a few minutes. You either have to waste a CD-R when all you wanted was to move the itunes-centric file to a more portable format, or you need to use up one of the limited rewrites of a CD-RW (or fool around with ISO9660 drivers and image files for a while to "fake" a CD) - wasted media in other words, PLUS, yes, there is a loss in quality. If listening on a subway or aircraft, I'd agree with you, it is unlikely the loss would be noticed. On a high end system in a car with a low noise floor? It can be very noticeable. You wouldn't want to take a jpeg file and recompress it several times and then use that image in a web design, would you? Same exact thing here. Sound quality is lost every time it is recompressed.
I won't argue that Apple's scheme is not the fairest DRM going - aside from lack of Linux and FreeBSD support, I'd say it's pretty darn reasonable. However they need to expand that support, AND they need to switch to a lossless compression scheme, preferably one which will allow for 24bit or 32bit audio to be comparable to DVD audio. Then, they can have MORE of a reason for folks to buy from them rather than buying the CDs - by offering a clearly superior product offering.
I'd also like to see them bump the sampling rate to 48khz.:) A nice addition would be giving users the ability to burn DVD Audio discs - unencumbered of course.
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I want to run a more expandable system, with the ports I want, with the case I want, with the processor selection I want, and be able to dual boot with other operating systems without major headaches. Gee, that's just like a PC, isn't it?
If I want an SLI system, I should be able to get it. If I want dual LAN ports on the motherboard for a server box, I should be able to get it. Apple's hardware selection is puny compared to what I can assemble for a standard Windows or Linux PC. There are too many constraints with Apple's hardware offerings.
What if I want to run a backplane server with 12 PCI slots for a custom server? Windows, Linux, BSD, not a problem. OSX? Good luck.
Yeah isn't that true. Don't you just love searching for documentation or at minimum a FAQ or HowTo for an application, then posting to the list for the location of the documentation only to get no useful reply, then follow up asking for specifics on how to do (n) with the tool, then you get blasted and told to RTFM. Then, post back that if there WERE a FM to R, that you'd have RTFMed already and wouldn't be posting a question for some wiseass to post a snarky RTFM reply. At that, you'll be told to WTFM, which is senseless because you don't know how to DO (n) because there is no FM to R, so telling you to WTFM is fruitless, or they point you at a wiki which is nothing but a skeleton consisting of Feature (N) : To be written later.
Thankfully most OSS development teams are not so snotty and will at least point you at a mailing list archive, FAQ, or an abstract on the application. Take Quanta for example: the folks developing Quanta are downright friendly.
But then again it's just like the Windows free software "community" - there are very nice and helpful folks developing some tools, and there are some developing very useful tools but who seemingly go out of their way to be assholes to users. It's not a Linux phenomenon, it's a human nature thing. The few jerks make everyone as a whole look bad.
Sometimes an RTFM or GIYF (Google Is Your Friend) is the appropriate answer, e.g., if you ask "how do I play DVDs on SuSE/Ubuntu/etc." you should get "read the fucking stickies" or "GIYF" as a reply, because the question gets asked DAILY and you shouldn't be a lazy sod.
On the other hand, if you're running into a crash (say, trying to play a Real Media file in Xine) the answer should not automatically be "try the latest CVS" or "RTFM." First of all, the user may be a n00b and totally unfamiliar with what CVS even is, the documentation is inadequate, and you haven't really helped the user, but brushed them off Microsoft Windows Support-style. You have also not helped to identify what the problem is so that it can be captured and documented in a FAQ for the next umpteen-dozen users who run into the same exact bug. Nothing against the xine folks here The folks I ran into THIS kind of issue with was actually one of the asterisk-related projects where a feature just plain did not work so I asked if anyone else could reproduce so that I could know if it was something I misconfigured or if it's broken code since log files turned up nothing and I had no proper debug environment set up (plus I haven't dug into the asterisk projects and could not afford the time to learn the project, I just want to be an asterisk user, not a developer or QA member).
Depending on what you're doing, using open source solutions may be just too much work, or the people involved may be too much of a PITA to make the savings worthwhile. On the other hand, for most routine desktop and server applications, Linux and other OSS projects can be a choice which is superior to commercial alternatives.
What exactly?
Fewer technical folks will switch to OS X, but on the other hand the typical Mac user could not care less either way. Open source, closed source, or even lose the shell prompt again, they'll be totally unaffected.
As an aside: I still want OS X, but I do not want Apple hardware. Open up the licensing, Jobs!
If you don't have a static IP, You go to say, hostmysite or dreamhost, get your own virtual server, and install Gallery2 then you can post anything from nudie pics to screenshots to landscapes, or even copyrighted videos and you won't get shut down. You might get an angry letter if you post copyrighted material you do not own then the courts might order you to shut down, but at least no one else will have any say in what you post.
The original post was obviously intended to be a funny.
Have you been online long? If you have, remember the "unix is god" vs. "no windows is god" vs. "no macintosh is god" flamewars that come up repeatedly here, Usenet, and just about any other tech board? Some people carry the OS to a whole new level, and rather than looking at an operating system as a tool for problem solving, but almost seem to absolutely worship the software?
Mac users are notorious for this BTW: my graphic designer loves, LOVES everything Apple puts out, and refuses to believe statistics on early G5 tower failures and on powerbook or iMac failures. Why? Because Apple computers are cool - they're "beautiful" and even though something may take 3x as many clicks to accomplish, it's pleasing to the eyes. He sees nothing wrong with the fact that his old Mac could not boot from a HDD without Apple's own firmware. He thinks it's good for Apple that they did that. He's certainly entitled to his opinion, but he leaves all objectivity behind when it comes to picking a product. With that said, Apple does make some incredible products, but they have also made some real duds, and some diehard Mac fans (like him) refuse to admit that. In fact it's become a bit of a running joke at the office - "If it's not Apple, it's CRAP."
I resent your proseletyzing on here. I ought to be free to worship however I please. If I prefer to worship the golden calf that Microsoft is rather than the the cute little penguin that is Tux, then I should be free to do so.
;)
Hey! That gives me an idea! Let's start a religion worshipping Microsoft, and then sue the government to get religious icons (Windows, Office) off of government property!
Meh. Reading it back it's not as funny as I first thought but I'm submitting anyhoo.
Where is the misuse of then? Personally I'd have put "then" before "check all the 1984 reference" however either way you phrase it, "than" is inappropriate, while "then" is quite correct.
:-p
Nice troll though, but a piece of advice? When you troll and attempt to be Grammar Nazi, at least make sure you're correct first.
Hope this helps!
No, it's not. Communism is actually the ideal system until you add the human factor. Once human nature is introduced you'll end up with what became the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, the best system in the real world is a capitalist society which is a republic or democracy. A pure democracy stinks in some ways because you can never come to a consensus to get things done, but perhaps the world would be better off because you wouldn't see a massive government with a tax-and-spend mentality like we have here in America today.
Is it Apple's responsibility to make sure that Foxconn conducts business in china morally and ethically? Certainly not, no more so than I'm obligated to make sure that the board of directors of a supermarket I shop at are not running a child porn ring. If I happen to learn that they are doing that, I'd vote with my wallet and not shop at the store because of their actions, and likewise Apple can choose to change the way Foxconn does business by hiring another vendor to manufacture the iPods if they so desire (I'd suggest Asus, actually). Should Apple take steps (based on morality) to effect a change at Foxconn? Certainly. Are they obligated to? Absolutely not.
Do you investigate labor practices at the local service station where you take your car for maintenance and repairs? Do you shop at Wal-Mart and if so is that particular store demanding employees remain on call at all times without paying for them for sacrificing their family/social lives to be available to work? Did you investigate the local body shop you had paint your car to make sure they don't buy parts from chop shops?
Would you do business with those companies if you find they pull any of that crap? Now, did Apple know before contracting Foxconn that this is going on at that plant? If they did: what is the norm in that local community, and how does the Foxconn employees' quality of life compare to that of other people in that community?
Think locally: if you make $45K in say, the northern Florida area, or in Alabama, you're doing fairly well. $60K and you're doing really well.
$45K in Boston, New York, or San Francisco? You'll be stretching your dollars as far as you can to get by. You'll need to earn about twice as much money to maintain the same lifestyle you enjoyed in Tampa or Alabama.
Commodore did not WANT Tramiel to step in, to begin with. The parting of the ways was mutual.
The owners at the end did not care about the company, about growth, or technology, and would not have even considered bringing Tramiel's genious back in. They were far too busy engaging in insider trading and embezzlement than caring about their employees, stockholders, and the industry at large.
kim@kimp4:~> wuauclt.exe /detectnow
bash: wuauclt.exe: command not found
kim@kimp4:~>
Damn it, that just won't work for me!
You're not thinking like a PHB:
- Vendor lockin - switchinng to alternatives is too much work
- PHBs swallow FUD hook, line, and sinker, and don't realize that when microsoft advertises TCO, downtime, etc. they redefine those terms without really explaining how they define those terms
- Swag (T-shirts, gadgets, trips to Hawaii)
Microsoft Windows is going to be locked into the corporate world for a long, long time. It may gradually lose to Linux, BSD, OS X, etc. but it will not happen overnight. First off on the Linux front, you NEED more commercial application availability ( Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quickbooks, BETTER PIMs than kontact and Evolution, video editing apps, etc. ). Commercial apps for BSD are pretty much nonexistent. Although their explosive growth is at an end, Microsoft will be enjoying their reign for a good while longer.
Funny? Who the hell modded that funny?
;)
Try Sad/Insightful.
(I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Chill.)
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&wo rd1=pornographers&word2=pirates
Not even a contest.
As an aside: I thought pornographers embraced piracy for viral marketing and uploaded the "pirated" content themselves? "Hey, this DivX is crap. I want to see Jenna's boobs in high resolution! Where can I buy the DVD?"
. . . when the phone is shut off so that Mommy and Daddy does not know that little 11-yr-old Bobby went with Sally to see the foo boy band's concert in the next county? "Uh, yeah mom, see, the battery in my phone went dead, and I, uh, popped my bicyle tire? Yeah, that's it. My bicycle tire popped, and, uh, because my phone was dead I couldn't call home, and, uh, I had to make like the professor and rig up a tube patch kit and a tire pump from bamboo and a couple of coconuts."
At first glance I mis-read the headline as "French PM unreceptive to PMS" and my first thought was he must not get along well with his wife. *chuckle*
Newsflash: spreadsheets are used for more than math. Spreadsheets are appropriate for all tabular data.
(wow, fancy that!)
I'll stick with keeping spreadsheets on my own hard drive and servers, created with OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Excel.
Thanks, but no thanks Google. I do use gmail for personal stuff but I do not and will not use hosted office suites. I have no desire for you to know how much I weigh, what my client lists are, how much I spend, my DVD and CD collections, or anything else I might use a spreadsheet for.
I do drink coffee but it's because I like it. I like either caffe mocha or hazelnut (not the flavor shot crap either). If neither of those are available, 99 times out of 100 I'll skip coffee. It's just not that important to me because I don't drink it for the caffiene. I also cut most cola out of my diet (I went from drinking nearly 2L of diet coke every day to drinking about 1L of coca cola classic after I identified aspartame as one of the causes of my migraines, down to 1 12oz coke every few weeks). I wouldn't say it's made me less tired but it certainly has helped me to lose at least some of the weight I've lost. When I do drink things like cola, I make up for it elsewhere in my diet (I built a spreadsheet to track intake vs. calories burned and it's been quite accurate in predicting weight loss/gain).
:) I avoid decaf because I don't believe that they don't still use benzene in the process, plus caffiene in very moderate amounts has been reputed to be beneficial.
If you keep it to moderation and don't drink it for the caffiene "pick me up, " but as a treat because you LIKE it, you won't end up with headaches if you go without coffee (or cola) for a day or a week.
ONLY legitimate users care. Pirates don't have to deal with the bullshit to begin with so they are unaffected.
I once tried caffiene tablets to keep going at the office (working 12-16 hours a day for months at a stretch because an employer is too fucking cheap and shortsighted to let a QA director hire ample qualified staff takes its toll) but it didn't help. I felt better for an hour or two then I'd crash harder. I can only imagine that it would be a harder, more painful crash with stronger (and illegal) stimulants.
:)
What does work is exercise and getting more sleep. I've been trying to burn both ends of the candle at my own business, but lately I've been eating fruits for breakfast and bicycling to and from work, so now when I do work long days I still feel tired, but not to the point where I feel totally exhausted. Soon I'll be bringing in more help and knocking back to 5 days a week. I still make sure I get at absolute minimum 6-1/2 hours or so of sleep per night, and I try really hard to get between 7 and eight (any more than that and I end up either groggy or get a migraine).
Do yourself a favor if you need to work long hours: MAKE a way to get exercise into your routine, and lay off refined foods. You'll find yourself able to work longer before you feel tired, and you'll feel better overall, and will probably lose any extra weight you're carrying at the same time.
Drugs (legal or otherwise) might give you a temporary lift, but there is no subtitute for sleep, eating right, and actually getting working your muscles from time to time. If there were a magic bullet, America wouldn't be full of fatties. I'm glad to say I'm no longer a fatty, and while I still have some more weight to lose, the first 25 pounds has made a huge difference and I only have a few more to go.
Need a lift? Eat a banana or drink some herbal tea, or just drink plenty of water.
You're not the typical user, nor is any slashdotter here. It's Just. Not. That. Easy. for the average user who can barely comprehend the difference between a data disc containing audio files and a redbook audio CD.
I don't think so.
- conditioner CPU to take the lead. Wait, AMD has a brand-new architecture that uses less power and benchmarks 50% faster at an equivalent clock speed. Oh-oh, Intel has a new chip coming out, AMD gonna die? No, AMD gonna release another CPU which will leapfrog Intel.
:(
There is ALWAYS something faster coming out. Anyone who has ever bought a computer can tell you this.
It's been happening for years.
Intel is in the lead, AMD leapfrogs Intel. Intel races past AMD. Mhz is everything. No, instructions-per-Mhz is everything. AMD is faster again. Oops, Intel just released the Super-extreme-hyper-overclocked-needs-a-2-ton-air
It's been going on ever since AMD came out with their 386DX40 and later their 486DX4. They're in a constant game of leapfrog, and I don't think that is going to change any time soon. The difference here is that not only is AMD able to produce their own designs, but they can bring them to market fairly quickly and maintain longer leads without resorting to massive overclocking to do it.
Buy Intel or buy AMD? Buy whatever the best bang-for-the-buck at the moment is, if you OS will run on it, or just flip a coin. In a month or two a faster processor will be out. It's not like 1991 where the CPU you bought was already out for four years and hasn't gotten any faster. New CPUs come out by the month, or at least the quarter, and they're only getting faster more rapidly. Personally, I'm partial to AMD, but frankly Linux support for bleeding edge AMD chipsets lags slightly behind bleeding edge Intel chipsets so I haven't bought AMD in a while.
One problem I do see with both architectures: they're turning to multiprocessing to increase performance. This is great because I love the responsiveness of SMP systems (my latest machine was a downgrade in responsiveness- went from a dual Pentium III to a Pentium 4) because it is less likely for a single CPU-intensive app to tie up the GUI, but if you need to run a single-threaded app faster, having 16 processor crammed into one box won't help one iota (aside from handling other tasks). They need to make absolute increases in performance in addition to bringing SMP into the mainstream desktop and notebook. Besides, while many apps are already multithreaded, you still need each thread to be executed as quickly as possible.
No. The slashdot hive mind shall now regard Hillary Rosen is good. Get your doublethink straight.
Hillary Rosen is good, therefore she has always been good. She is our ally, and always has been our ally.
Seriously though - it is great to see that she admits it. One thing I would like to criticize is her implying that sharing on P2P networks is not legitimate. The legitimacy of P2P networks and the file sharing is not in question in the slightest, really. What is in question is how the people use it. If you download music and burn it to a music CD-R, the RIAA gets their royalties, which is divvied up among publishers and artists based on percentage of average sales over the latest period (I don't know if it's weekly, monthly, or quarterly - I never bothered to check that). I'd say that if a user downloads a music file and burns it to audio CD-R, that copy is fully legitimate and paid for, legally. Now, whether it is ethical or moral is debatable, because download activities may actually not line up with sales averages over a certain period, or the CD-R purchase may be way out of line (in terms of time) with the time period the CDs were actually burned, so artists and publishers may actually not be getting paid what they are entitled to out of those royalties.
The fairest method is to collect states of completed downloads (not failed, partial, or aborted downloads) per royalty period - WORKING with folks like The Pirate Bay to obtain those stats - then they will know how to slice that blank media royalty pie. Hell if they did something reasonable and fair like that, I would actually support an increase in levies on the CD-AUDIO blank media. Yes, I know most slashdotters would buy the data CDs to avoid the levy, but the majority of people are convinced that you NEED the CD Audio discs in order to make music CDs from MP3 files. Even many computer-literate people - people WORKING in technology, think that you need CD-audio discs, so this could be a workable solution.
Even if folks don't buy, and are happy burning 64kbps files to CD, they're not the target market anyway. They're the type who would be just as happy with recording songs off the radio, and are the type who will be swooning over HD-Radio despite the fact that it's lower fidelity than analog FM radio. No loss for the RIAA there, because those are the folks who would not purchase it ANYHOW. Let them have their free, low-fidelity music and at least carry out viral marketing for RIAA members by word of mouth. Eventually they will tell friends who WILL want to buy the CD, or share their download with a friend who is not happy with the fidelity and changes their mind and buys the CD.
I'd also argue that downloading live bootlegs is legitimate. Many bands openly encourage trading of recordings of live performances. That is the only audio I download lately because I do not want to be exposed to new acts until the RIAA gets their collective act together.
Lastly: RIAA (AND MPAA) members need to embrace the idea of try-before-you-buy, FULLY legitimize FREE downloads of low-bitrate (say, 64kbps or so) files, and look the other way for 128kbps files (unless a site is charging for them without paying the respective parties their dues). Higher bitrates should be cracked down on, but it ought to be to be PROVEN beyond reasonable doubt that an infraction is taken place by specific, identifiable persons. That means no suing gramma who has never owned a computer other than webtv, and no suing 7-yr-olds who may have happened to download the wrong file. Also, the settlement has got to be FAIR. Like, say, Oh I don't know, the person(s) involved MUST buy the infringing works at the average retail price, or at worst, since the RIAA may be entitled to damages, triple the average retail price. NOT thousands per track, because there has been NO damage. A sale they did not make is NOT lost money; it is monies they never possessed or had right to in the first place.
There has to be a happy medium workable for all in this whole
Call back when he can easily retain all of the track info.
:) A nice addition would be giving users the ability to burn DVD Audio discs - unencumbered of course.
(not all CD/DVD drives support CD-text. Not all CD rippers support CD-text.)
Also, call back when this inconvenience can be eliminated.
yes, it's a pain in the ass, even though it takes just a few minutes. You either have to waste a CD-R when all you wanted was to move the itunes-centric file to a more portable format, or you need to use up one of the limited rewrites of a CD-RW (or fool around with ISO9660 drivers and image files for a while to "fake" a CD) - wasted media in other words, PLUS, yes, there is a loss in quality. If listening on a subway or aircraft, I'd agree with you, it is unlikely the loss would be noticed. On a high end system in a car with a low noise floor? It can be very noticeable. You wouldn't want to take a jpeg file and recompress it several times and then use that image in a web design, would you? Same exact thing here. Sound quality is lost every time it is recompressed.
I won't argue that Apple's scheme is not the fairest DRM going - aside from lack of Linux and FreeBSD support, I'd say it's pretty darn reasonable. However they need to expand that support, AND they need to switch to a lossless compression scheme, preferably one which will allow for 24bit or 32bit audio to be comparable to DVD audio. Then, they can have MORE of a reason for folks to buy from them rather than buying the CDs - by offering a clearly superior product offering.
I'd also like to see them bump the sampling rate to 48khz.
I was drinking water when I came across your post. You owe me a new monitor and keyboard! :-D