For my old Windows machine I spent $200 on the Windows home version Office (2002, I think?) because my wife insisted on having Excel (for basic household budgeting).
When I bought my Mac, I tried the pre-installed eval version of iWork '09 and got my wife to play with the Numbers spreadsheet and we have not looked back.
iWork makes Office look *decidedly* dated in most respects. And iWork '09 only costs $79.
Me too. I bought a MacBook after Christmas, and since then I bought CSSEdit, Espresso, the recent MacHeist3 bundle, iWork, and I'm that close to buying OmniGraffle (except that one's a little too expensive and I'm getting by fine with the free eval version).
I can't remember the last time I actually *bought* software for my old Windows machine.
Mac OS X gets lots of press, but the people who build these great little software apps for Mac should get more praise.
Also, the point was a get multiple Windows vendors. To get two companies both developing and marketing Windows independently of each other. How much better could the product have been if this was going on for the past 10 years.
The first thing I do on a new Windows installation is open IE and download Firefox. How would I get Firefox without IE? That is truly marvelous insight!
Surely this decision is about 10 years too late and such a change would no longer be relevant to the industry.
IE was a massive money pit for Microsoft, and its only purpose was to protect Windows as the dominant application platform. It worked.
But with the rise of Web 2.0 and hand helds like Blackberry and iPhone, Windows is no longer the dominant application platform -- no one is actually building applications for Windows anymore, as far as startups are concerned, it's a "dead" platform.
Therefore whether Windows ships with IE or not is now moot. No one (with the exception of Opera) is trying to make money that way anymore. That ship has sailed.
I like the approach of casually rating the performance of common tasks (copying files, zipping files, installing Office, and so on).
But what I'd like to see is the tasks rated with the time it took, not just ranked 1, 2, 3. I mean, is the difference from #1 to #3 just a couple seconds, or it is minutes? 10 seconds versus 13 seconds to copy 100 megs is negligible, but if it's 10 seconds versus 110 seconds, then that's something care about!
Also, do all the tests on the same hardware. And so the tests for Mac Leopard and Snow Leopard too. NOW that would be a cool article!
It's the exact same plot as Jurassic Park, only substitute dinosaurs with robots. Exact same plot.
This is a stupid comment. GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, SURVIOR, CAST AWAY, LOST -- "exact same plot". JURASSIC PARK is about genetic science, DNA, dinosaurs, some Chaos Theory and a little bit of computer engineering. WESTWORLD is about grown men wanting to live out a wild west fantasy.
The second and third books after Jurassic Park were so bad that I don't think I even finished them, that's the second point, it was obvious he was writing books to get made into Spielberg movies.
You don't know what you are talking about.
There was only one sequel to the novel JURASSIC PARK. It was called LOST WORLD, and LOST WORLD the movie bares little resemblance to the novel. JURASSIC PARK 3 was a movie, not a book.
Besides, Crichton was as much about movies as he was about novels. Crichton wrote the screenplay for WESTWORLD and TWISTER, he wrote and directed COMA and THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, and he created ER. It's no wonder his written work has appeal as movie and tv projects.
Focusing on whether the consensus view is necessarily correct or not has nothing to do
Crichton's point is it doesn't matter how many people *think* he's is wrong about climate change, it only takes one person to *prove* him wrong. Science isn't consensus, and nothing has been proven. Every computer model has been shown inaccurate, and now the environmental lobby are explaining away our years of stable weather and record low hurricanes as the result of lack of sunspots.
with the irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing and the likely probability that humans are causing it completely or contributing to it.
I've been around for a while, and I've seen this happen before. Now that the Republicans are out of the White House, expect the climate change crisis to conveniently fade away from the public consciousness. Everything will be hunky dory for about eight years until another Republican gets elected and then the next great fabricated crisis will raise its head -- maybe they'll say we're running out of clean water, or that the rubber we use in tires is evil or something, and those damn Republicans won't spend the billions of dollars needed to make the problem go away! -- and it'll get pounded into the minds of young people and the environmentally sensitive until the next Democrat gets elected and everyone will breath another big sigh of relief and move on.
While I have very fond memories of how cool it was to read Jurassic Park the first time
JURASSIC PARK is still a very strong novel. Probably one of the best techno-thrillers ever. It holds up. As does A CASE OF NEED, DISCLOSURE, SPHERE, PREY, and TRAVELS was a fascinating autobiography.
my opinion is that the guy was a hack, a very very clever one, but a hack nonetheless.
A HACK? Your opinion is wrong. Crichton was thought-provoking and insightful, and he was a gifted story-teller
He won't be remembered as one of the "great authors", in my opinion.
Dubya isn't a psychopath, he's a decisive determined leader who is doing exactly what he thinks is the right thing. He may be wrong, but he's not a psychopath.
I'm a conservative and my main criticism with Dubya since the beginning is he's *not* a good conservative, fiscally speaking. He's spending was outrageous, and that's obviously come home to roost.
Personally, I still think history will be kinder to Dubya 20 years for now when Iraq is a free, prosperous, democratic nation -- like South Korea and Russia are now thanks for the Korean War and the Cold War.
That was always the McCain camp's argument, and not a bad one, either. But with the selection of Palin, McCain really shot himself in the foot, or perhaps the face. First, it negates his ability to attack Obama on experience.
Please mod up -- I totally agree. (Personally, I would've selected Condi.) I think the selection of Palin was the beginning of the end for McCain.
I have heard that argument a lot from the republicans, and I don't get it... Does [Palin] not suffer from the same lack of experience as Barack Obama?
I'm not pimping for Palin, because I think she was the wrong choice for McCain. (If it was me, I would've selected Condi.) But in her defense, Palin has more executive experience than any of the other three candidates.
Barack lacks experience. I think that's a fact, but hopefully he'll have the wisdom to surround himself with smart experienced people. I would've prefered to vote for Barack after he's had, say, 4 years as Illinois governor, for example.
I'm a Republican, but I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that Obama may be the appropriate choice.
My concerns are still:
- Obama's lack of experience -- if he is elected, the 4 year presidential term will be the longest job he's ever held -- he's a talented Senator, but he's never actually run anything
- I'm quite certain America's enemies in the middle east will be routing for an Obama victory -- say what you like about Dubya, but those bad guys are scared pissly of him because he's a cowboy that'll bomb the crap out them without blinking -- Obama appears to be more of a lefty peace-nik. I hope him winning doesn't rally the spirits of the bad guys for another attack; and if they do attack, I hope Obama's up to it (maybe he'll make Powell his secretary of defence?)
All that being said, it may be time for a change of the guard. McCain probably should have been President in 2000.
Last Christmas I bought a 46" Sony LCD that came with a Blu-Ray player. I think I have rented maybe 2 Blu-Ray movies over the course of the year.
I few months back, I bought an Apple TV, and I've probably rented about 5 HD movies on it. Since the Apple TV, the only time I used the Blu-Ray player was to watch a free copy of Flight Of The Phoenix that someone gave to me.
It's nice to see some innovation in software (or in this vaporware stage, at least). desktop software hasn't changed much in the last 10 years. I mean, OS X is a better looky feely version of Windows, and Vista is trying to be OS X. Firefox and Safari are trying to be a better IE. And web 2.0 apps and chat clients are basically better versions of Usenet and IRC.
But there hasn't been anything truly revolutionary in the world of desktop software in a long time.
This sounds like a typical "we have to re-write everything" attitude I hear from a lot of programmers who have to work with legacy code.
They have an application that calculates the salary. They don't need to change anything in the existing application, all they need is to "decorate" the app with an additional wrapper that rolls back the salary the appropriate amount.
There is however a line to draw, and Crichton, in that video, passed it after five minutes, when he said that Chernobyl was not really that much of a disaster because only "50 people died". Such a claim indicates a spectacular level of intellectual dishonesty
You are apparently extremely talented at taking people's statements out of context.
1) It's not having access to the information, it's how it's being interpreted. These climatologists you speak of think they understand and can control a complex system like the world's climate. Crichton is correct that complex systems are not simple and cannot controlled.
2) Yes.
3) Watch the video, he explains it better than I can:
> I'm not saying Paris Hilton is a genius, but I've yet to find any evidence that she's an idiot.
I watch talk shows so I've seen her be interviewed by Letterman, Leno, Conan, and Larry King about everything from her TV show, her movies, her album, and her jail sentence.
And she always comes across as the bubbly empty-headed bimbo -- when she's "in character" or not. She's ain't smart, bud.
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“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.” -- Michael Crichton
why do i feel more sorry for the pigs who catch it than the people?
For my old Windows machine I spent $200 on the Windows home version Office (2002, I think?) because my wife insisted on having Excel (for basic household budgeting).
When I bought my Mac, I tried the pre-installed eval version of iWork '09 and got my wife to play with the Numbers spreadsheet and we have not looked back.
iWork makes Office look *decidedly* dated in most respects. And iWork '09 only costs $79.
Me too. I bought a MacBook after Christmas, and since then I bought CSSEdit, Espresso, the recent MacHeist3 bundle, iWork, and I'm that close to buying OmniGraffle (except that one's a little too expensive and I'm getting by fine with the free eval version).
I can't remember the last time I actually *bought* software for my old Windows machine.
Mac OS X gets lots of press, but the people who build these great little software apps for Mac should get more praise.
Also, the point was a get multiple Windows vendors. To get two companies both developing and marketing Windows independently of each other. How much better could the product have been if this was going on for the past 10 years.
The first thing I do on a new Windows installation is open IE and download Firefox. How would I get Firefox without IE? That is truly marvelous insight!
IE was a massive money pit for Microsoft, and its only purpose was to protect Windows as the dominant application platform. It worked.
But with the rise of Web 2.0 and hand helds like Blackberry and iPhone, Windows is no longer the dominant application platform -- no one is actually building applications for Windows anymore, as far as startups are concerned, it's a "dead" platform.
Therefore whether Windows ships with IE or not is now moot. No one (with the exception of Opera) is trying to make money that way anymore. That ship has sailed.
But what I'd like to see is the tasks rated with the time it took, not just ranked 1, 2, 3. I mean, is the difference from #1 to #3 just a couple seconds, or it is minutes? 10 seconds versus 13 seconds to copy 100 megs is negligible, but if it's 10 seconds versus 110 seconds, then that's something care about!
Also, do all the tests on the same hardware. And so the tests for Mac Leopard and Snow Leopard too. NOW that would be a cool article!
It's the exact same plot as Jurassic Park, only substitute dinosaurs with robots. Exact same plot.
This is a stupid comment. GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, SURVIOR, CAST AWAY, LOST -- "exact same plot". JURASSIC PARK is about genetic science, DNA, dinosaurs, some Chaos Theory and a little bit of computer engineering. WESTWORLD is about grown men wanting to live out a wild west fantasy.
The second and third books after Jurassic Park were so bad that I don't think I even finished them, that's the second point, it was obvious he was writing books to get made into Spielberg movies.
You don't know what you are talking about.
There was only one sequel to the novel JURASSIC PARK. It was called LOST WORLD, and LOST WORLD the movie bares little resemblance to the novel. JURASSIC PARK 3 was a movie, not a book.
Besides, Crichton was as much about movies as he was about novels. Crichton wrote the screenplay for WESTWORLD and TWISTER, he wrote and directed COMA and THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, and he created ER. It's no wonder his written work has appeal as movie and tv projects.
Focusing on whether the consensus view is necessarily correct or not has nothing to do
Crichton's point is it doesn't matter how many people *think* he's is wrong about climate change, it only takes one person to *prove* him wrong. Science isn't consensus, and nothing has been proven. Every computer model has been shown inaccurate, and now the environmental lobby are explaining away our years of stable weather and record low hurricanes as the result of lack of sunspots.
with the irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing and the likely probability that humans are causing it completely or contributing to it.
I've been around for a while, and I've seen this happen before. Now that the Republicans are out of the White House, expect the climate change crisis to conveniently fade away from the public consciousness. Everything will be hunky dory for about eight years until another Republican gets elected and then the next great fabricated crisis will raise its head -- maybe they'll say we're running out of clean water, or that the rubber we use in tires is evil or something, and those damn Republicans won't spend the billions of dollars needed to make the problem go away! -- and it'll get pounded into the minds of young people and the environmentally sensitive until the next Democrat gets elected and everyone will breath another big sigh of relief and move on.
While I have very fond memories of how cool it was to read Jurassic Park the first time
JURASSIC PARK is still a very strong novel. Probably one of the best techno-thrillers ever. It holds up. As does A CASE OF NEED, DISCLOSURE, SPHERE, PREY, and TRAVELS was a fascinating autobiography.
my opinion is that the guy was a hack, a very very clever one, but a hack nonetheless.
A HACK? Your opinion is wrong. Crichton was thought-provoking and insightful, and he was a gifted story-teller
He won't be remembered as one of the "great authors", in my opinion.
Do tell.
Dubya isn't a psychopath, he's a decisive determined leader who is doing exactly what he thinks is the right thing. He may be wrong, but he's not a psychopath.
I'm a conservative and my main criticism with Dubya since the beginning is he's *not* a good conservative, fiscally speaking. He's spending was outrageous, and that's obviously come home to roost.
Personally, I still think history will be kinder to Dubya 20 years for now when Iraq is a free, prosperous, democratic nation -- like South Korea and Russia are now thanks for the Korean War and the Cold War.
That was always the McCain camp's argument, and not a bad one, either. But with the selection of Palin, McCain really shot himself in the foot, or perhaps the face. First, it negates his ability to attack Obama on experience.
Please mod up -- I totally agree. (Personally, I would've selected Condi.) I think the selection of Palin was the beginning of the end for McCain.
I'm not pimping for Palin, because I think she was the wrong choice for McCain. (If it was me, I would've selected Condi.) But in her defense, Palin has more executive experience than any of the other three candidates.
Barack lacks experience. I think that's a fact, but hopefully he'll have the wisdom to surround himself with smart experienced people. I would've prefered to vote for Barack after he's had, say, 4 years as Illinois governor, for example.
My concerns are still:
- Obama's lack of experience -- if he is elected, the 4 year presidential term will be the longest job he's ever held -- he's a talented Senator, but he's never actually run anything
- I'm quite certain America's enemies in the middle east will be routing for an Obama victory -- say what you like about Dubya, but those bad guys are scared pissly of him because he's a cowboy that'll bomb the crap out them without blinking -- Obama appears to be more of a lefty peace-nik. I hope him winning doesn't rally the spirits of the bad guys for another attack; and if they do attack, I hope Obama's up to it (maybe he'll make Powell his secretary of defence?)
All that being said, it may be time for a change of the guard. McCain probably should have been President in 2000.
outstanding ideas -- in fact, i thought of some of these in the early nineties -- i should have patented them
Instead, maybe Blu-ray turns out to be the next Laserdisc.
"iTunes ain't done 'til Vista won't run"
Last Christmas I bought a 46" Sony LCD that came with a Blu-Ray player. I think I have rented maybe 2 Blu-Ray movies over the course of the year.
I few months back, I bought an Apple TV, and I've probably rented about 5 HD movies on it. Since the Apple TV, the only time I used the Blu-Ray player was to watch a free copy of Flight Of The Phoenix that someone gave to me.
Have you browsed the variety of desktop concepts available in X window managers alone?
Links please?
Implying the universe is limited to variations on the Windows theme is more an admission of ignorance than a statement of fact.
"Windows" == dominant OS on 90%+ of desktop computers
Therefore, alternative OS competing for desktop market share == trying to be a better "Windows".
But there hasn't been anything truly revolutionary in the world of desktop software in a long time.
They have an application that calculates the salary. They don't need to change anything in the existing application, all they need is to "decorate" the app with an additional wrapper that rolls back the salary the appropriate amount.
Done.
There is however a line to draw, and Crichton, in that video, passed it after five minutes, when he said that Chernobyl was not really that much of a disaster because only "50 people died". Such a claim indicates a spectacular level of intellectual dishonesty
You are apparently extremely talented at taking people's statements out of context.
2) Yes.
3) Watch the video, he explains it better than I can:
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/video-speeches-independent.html
and also this: http://www.michaelcrichton.com/video-charlierose-2-17-07.html
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/video-speeches-independent.html
I watch talk shows so I've seen her be interviewed by Letterman, Leno, Conan, and Larry King about everything from her TV show, her movies, her album, and her jail sentence.
And she always comes across as the bubbly empty-headed bimbo -- when she's "in character" or not. She's ain't smart, bud.
PSEU. DO. NYM.