"told that they couldn't use the card since it wasn't a Visa or MasterCard check card"
That's called 'steering'. Lots of reasons for that:
- Avoiding higher-cost forms of payment or perfering lower-cost forms; Losts of places that honor American Express try to steer customers to another card, as Amex often has the highest discount rate. Sometimes merchants avoid signatures and ask for the pin number to avoid the slightly higher discount for signature transactions. The issuers like higher discounts, so they run promotions like double points for signing for a purchase, etc. Oh, and rewards cards almost always cost the merchant more. You thought those points were free? All of these tactics are steering, by the merchant or the issuer.
- Some cards are more 'unreliable'. Those 'check cards' are always tied to an account. A 'debit' card might be pre-paid, and if something isn't quite right about the authorizaiton process, a merchant might not get paid if the funds are exhausted before they settle. It's not supposed to happen, but there are situations...
- Some merchants have agreements that kick back fees for certain cards, especially for larger volume or larger dollar-value transactions. That encourages steering, just another reason.
- Some card type are subject to more fraud than others, and merchants that understand that can either avoid those cards or treat them with extra caution. Address verification or matching the signature to another form of ID, for instance.
- It's not impossible that some merchants have agreements that expose them to more risk for certain card types. Online gambling outfits suffer huge losses, and are thrown under the bus by card issuers all the time. It's a dirty business. Any business where they don't have the card there (card-not-present) are usually more exposed and have to take more precautions. Even other fairly normal industries suffer more fraud. Fast-food restaurants for instance, etc. Some of these industries don't even bother to challenge chargebacks, as it's too small a portion to worry about. I'm regularly surprised at how merchants don't handle risk well at all.
Almost all issuers have agreements with merchants that prohibit steering, as well as charging more for card transactions than for cash, or requiring a minimum purchase for a card transaction. It can be hard to prove, but not impossible.
It would be interesting to ask one of these merchants why they don't accept a 'debit' card. I would not be surprised if they concoct some bs story, though the clerks may be told anything by the boss to get his way.
If this was all caused by some commercial software, say, Adobe Reader gaining a bug that hosed Windows Update, we would be all over Adobe for breaking Windows Update and denying us our precious patches.
So far, very little scorn for the rootkit author(s) or their legion of distributors.
I get alerted to malware of various types, from Javascript exploits to out-and-out rootkits, from several interesting websites I visit frequently. I've been reduced to checking them on my phone, cause so far they haven't taken on an advertiser that delivers Android malware. So far. Even my Ubuntu with Firefox sees attacks.
Place the blame where it belongs; Malware distributors and authors, lazy/incompetent/naive users clicking away on pretty stuff, and of course the Windows security community for the abject failure that is Windows 'security', in name only. Windows Update is doing the right thing - alerting users to the potential for serious system failure and the cause. Plowing along and bricking systems is irresponsible.
Rootkits and the ad servers delivering them should be brought up on criminal charges. Surreptitiously installing software on my machine without my permission should be trespass, and punished accordingly, right up the food chain. Yes, that would mean some day a nice man from the FBI coming into a NAP and cutting off fiber connectors. If you run a red light while drunk, you get the full monty. Go all the way and punish malware by shutting down the ad servers that are delivering it, and you will get action.
Of course, if that fails, then you go to the New York times, for example, and explain why you are shutting down their sites - they chose web ad agencies badly. Tough. Accountability.
And the processor manufacturers largely (ARM-makers the exception somewhat) are encouraging this, to our detriment.
Intel plays games with part numbers and designations, so that about all you can be sure of is that an i7 is proably faster than an i5, an i5 is probably faster than an i3, and an i3 may or may not be faster than any Core 2 part. AMD is worse, with various Athlon, Sempron, TF, Phenom, X2, etc. designations.
It is intentional. Most consumers won't bother to figure out if one chip is faster than another. Off to the hardware sites to comb through the benchmark charts. Amd doesn't want to publish benchmarks across product lines, instead showing you a cute chart that says an Athlon II X2 250 is 4.2% faster than an X2 240. Not going to tell you how it compared with a Phenom - you'll have to work this out after some research.
And 'faster' is becoming more and less meaningful. Faster at what? For real performance freaks, the goal is usually gaming, and the graphics card is key. But what about grandma? Does she care about 'faster' to check her grandkids' emails and check Facebook?
Apple might be able to upset things by bringing ARM into general use. I would much prefer a netbook with ARM than Atom, but the OS support is lacking. Apple won't drive that, but Microsoft might give in.
It's been my experience that when I see some organization naming itself as the "... Human Rights Commission", human rights are not what it's about preserving. This is especially true in the U.N. and many third-world countries, and I pray Canada hasn't gone down that road.
There's a fair amount of Canada that traces its hearitage not to England, but France. And not just the Quebecois. The Maritimes are infested with some interesting nationalities also.
And then there's the indigenous populations, who are regularly ignored there as well as here, on both coasts and up North.
And he can say that because he's the chief investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
What freedom of speech we have here in America is paid for dearly. Canada pretty much retained the British definitions and conditions. They've made their bed.
"Talk to Cheney about torture and the warcrimes tribunal. Let's get Albright, Kissinger, Bzhezinsky and talk about imperialism. And don't forget the fine folks from Arthur Anderson and Enron. The list goes on. Why don't you get THOSE people and hold THEM to account, you self-righteous prig!"
Probably because he is a judge in ANOTHER COUNTRY.
...one of my friends was proud of running Warp on his Thinkpad long after everyone else had moved on and were struggling with the onslaught of worms and such on their Windows machines. He was a bit of a snob.
Then out of the blue he gave up and installed Gentoo. I get a call from nearly every time he gets major patches, as he recompiles everything - he's a source snob also. Compiling on anything normal people use is a nontrivial amount of time lost from his life.
He is extatic. Warp or Presentation Manager or whatever it is, he's looking forward to compiling on the weekends, so he can bask in the glory that is OS/2.
Of course, when I show him something interesting in NetWare services running on SUSE, he gets sleepy. Yeah, fine, I get it, not very sexy. Uptime is somehow not so interesting to him any more. Something about "giving up and buying a hosted server" has stolen his soul.
From the NHTSA notes in a FAQ found at the National Center for Statistics and Analysis:
"In order to perform complete-data analysis of FARS data with respect to alcohol involvement, the missing BACs need to be simulated (imputation!)"
And to explain Multiple Imputation (MI):
"Multiple Imputation is the state-of-the-art technique to impute missing values. Each missing BAC value is replaced by ten simulated values of BAC using rigorous statistical techniques that consider the interaction of all the characteristics of the case. MI allows for the computation of Standard Errors and Confidence Intervals."
Sorry, but it sounds like they just make up the missing data using really, really good techniques. But not any actual data, of course. Just other data that they think would indicate what the missing data wouldhave been, assumimg their asssumptions are correct.
That would be funny if it weren't serious. I think they just stated that to perform a complete data analysis, they have to 'make up' any missing data. How they do it doesn't impress me. If they use correlating data to make what they consider to be valid assumptions, then why bother to input the 'missing' data at all, indeed, just don't bother to use any of that value - just use the correlations and let the assumptions drive your analysis.
Which is, of course, untenable. That's no longer a valid study. It's guesswork.
But given the ferocity of the jihad against drunk driving, this is not entirely unexpected.
Alas. Bad things done in the name of noble purposes. Surely no harm is done, right?
I know what it sounds like, that's all that matters. It's not long enough.
No, I used this years ago. Nowadays, all my passwords are unpronouncable.
If I were looking for a new one now, I would use ME1357ln*9, which means something to me but not to too many other people. It seems moderately adequate, just one special character and a common one. ME1357ln)( is much more interesting to me.
"At the time, Jobs was still smarter than Gates. Still is. Just different games. Gates went for world domination, and got all the headaches an emperor hates. Jobs went for market domination, and is still leading in pretty much every area they care to develop in.
Except the PC market. According to Gartner's January 13 press release, the top five companies in PC sales worldwide in Q4 2009 were HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba. The top five companies in PC sales the US in Q4 2009 were HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba, and Apple."
This is really one of my points. Truth is, in computing, Apple doesn't really compete with HP, Dell, Lonovo, Acer, or Toshiba. They do their own thing, and it's the Apple experience. If they keep on, they are virtually immune to competition for their desktop business, and I think the Macbook business is also soundly locked up.
And while every other manufacturer is trying to out-netbook their competition, Apple may have nailed it with the iPad. I don't see a viable competitor yet - processors need to become super power-efficient, the OS needs to exploit that, and the interface will need be superb. Until then, Apple has re-defined the tablet into something fairly useful, and created a whole new market niche. I have a Lenovo X41 Tablet, and the shortcomings are glaring. I'm not buying an iPad, though, cause I am one of the few who won't be jumping on the bandwagon and paying even more money on content and connectivity. Just not worth it to me, and I AM a minority.
Or to put it another way, Apple has probably 7-10% of the U.S. personal computing market for the forseeable future, though they will have to exert themselves for that last 3%. As a friend once told me, he would be happy with.03% of the U.S. toothpaste market, and he got it. Apple has a great position - 'just 7%' that they pretty much have out to the horizon, or until Jobs retires for real. That's their weakness - their real product is Job's vision. Without him, they will struggle. But who know who runs Toshiba's PC business? Who cares?
Back then it was System 6? Let's not reconsider any Mac system Os before that, OK?
I think Jobs had outmaneuvered Gates even then.
The Apple ][ had pretty much thrived on Visicalc until Lotus gave us 1-2-3, and then it was MS-DOS/PC-DOS and IBM clones. Looked like Gates had won the battle, as Apple didn't get it right with Lisa.
Just when Gates was seeing the world as his oyster with DOS, 1-2-3, and WordPerfect bringing in constant revenue, Apple got the Mac right, and, well, Gates wished users loved Microsoft as much as they loved Apple.
And Jobs already understood that there was more to the game than just market share. The Mac brogut us desktop publishing. Microsoft had to compete. They struggled.
Around the time of Windows NT, though more like Windows 2000, Micrisoft had picked fights with everyone: In networking, Novell; in servers, with the *nix world, then mostly Xenix/SCO/the rest; on the desktop, with Apple. You could make a case that they were winning with Windows 95 and then 98. But Apple was laboring through a period of mediocre software, average-to-poor hardware, and the beginnings of questions. Jobs came back and remade them into a consumer electronics company pretty quickly. Microsoft couldn't resist trying to compete. Fail.
It really started back then. Different visions, different companies. I propose that Jobs is in top of his world, and Gates (really Microsoft now, he is supposed to be retired) is mired in the muck of a difficult market. Witness the competition with Linux. No body much proposed converting from Mac to Linux for obvious reasons. Jobs knows that controlling the hardware solves a lot of problems. He's just smarter. And better at execution.
"Bill Gates was just smarter at the time than Steve Jobs"
How's that working out nowadays?
- Microsoft is clinging to market share like a rat to the last scrap of cheese on the trap. How are they gonna fare over the next decade? Struggling against more and more competitors? New markets? Autosound? Set-top boxes? Doesn't sound like many game-changers our there for Microsoft.
- Apple is INVENTING new markets. How do you compete with a player that doesn't just change fields when you've finally figured out the rules, they essentially change planets...? Sony used to be good at this, but they lost their vision somewhere after the Walkman, probably right around CD players. Apple redefined the portable music market after Diamond and the bunch failed to 'get it right'. And iTunes is genius.
At the time, Jobs was still smarter than Gates. Still is. Just different games. Gates went for world domination, and got all the headaches an emperor hates. Jobs went for market domination, and is still leading in pretty much every area they care to develop in. Apple TV is the only loser I can think of, and the iPad will own that market soon enough.
"except then you get into Windows-only p*ssing matches regarding what is or isn't an acceptable solution."
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over which distro is 'best' for your purpose/skill set/relationship/age/residence.
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over which Window Manager is best for your purpose/skillset/artistic taste/comfort level/graphics hardware.
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over so much else in the FOSS world.
HA! P*ssing matches are the sole domain of the Windows world? That's rich. Don't even bother to try to escape by claiming the *nix world is a kinder, gentler place. Cross a developer and see what I mean. In the Windows world, you don't get *near* an OS developer. In the FOSS world, a few kernel devs eat each others' babies for the sake of a single patch. Fortunately, very few, but it ain't easy in the kernel world.
If you can re-write what they spit out as a support function, you are working too cheap. And of course the company's accounting system is worse than the State of Arizona's. Which is bad.
What you just said was also 'I can do it as well as they can, all by myself, within a support timeline'. So you and/or your boss are not selling your abilities either. But that's another topic - how do you sell to management what they aready have? Imagine the hilarity when they realize they paid twice for the project, and one of the costs is already in the house...
How about car exhaust. Real useful on your morning commute.
Diesel exhaust? Your rail commute will also be more entertaining.
Let's hope they don't go off in the gym locker room when the deodorant and hair spray comes out.
Honestly, this is pretty weak to me. But I didn't RTFA, so perhaps this is just a case of drumming up demand by a manufacturer. Like that never happens...
These will, however, sell well in Europe, I bet. Especially the U.K. Sad lot there. Watney's will set 'em off, you'll see.
"I have a question for all of the "The Big Bang is a lie because it doesn't account for T(universe) 0" folks."
- I do not and did not intend to state that the Big Bang theory is unworkable and false. In fact, I can tolerate it as the method God used. At the very least, it could be what we can percieve of His creation effort. But it works. I just ask about before.
"`I have a question for this theory. Where did God come from? If God has always been, then why can you not say the same of the Universe?"
God says He has always been. Not me. But to your point, it is Science that states there was a Big Bang. Ask them where the Big Bang came from.
"How can you know that the universe is NOT eternal?"
I dunno. Ask Science. I am stuck with God declaring He is our Creator. This would imply two things:
1- God existed before our Universe. 2- Our Universe was created, so at one time it did not exist.
If I do not accept Genesis as God's word, I can discard all of His word. Well, I just don't.
God is not invisible, though He only showed himself directly to one man, and that a long time ago. But I see His work, and have seen His effect.
Of course, if you're claiming Jesus did not live and say what He said, and did not die and rise again, well, there is ample evidence to support that He did. Just not enough for you, apparently.
I would not follow an invisible God. I trust you will find solace in Science.
Ordinarily, I don't respond to ACs, but you have good points, and your stand is rational and sound.
If you don't believe in God, then you will obviously be reluctant to consider a supernatural eternal being. God solves the question of 'before' the Big Bang, but not satisfactorily to you, and I understand that.
But I do not attempt to discredit Science, far from it, Science is in large part indebted to Religion, for many religious people asked 'why?', and Science is the result of those questions.
I just ask greater questions, I think. A 'before' the Big Bang is a legitimate question. ATime for us may have started at the moment of the Big Bang, but I can't yet conceive of a nothing before. And I know, I am limited, both by a lack of scientific knowledge to frame the question, and by human experience.
I disagree with Augustine creation theory, specifically that he taught that God created everything instantaneously, though that does correspond well with our physical sciences. But Augustine did propose understanding Creation as a practical event, and so taught that the story in Genesis could be understood as a framework, not a literal story.
And the problem is, once you take plain scriptural statements and treat them as 'framework', or suggestion, well, you can manipulate scripture into pretty much whatever you want. Some scripture is well-known as figurative or illustrative, much of Revelation fitting that mold. Christ's words quoted in the New Testament, not so much, but to be taken as His literal word.
Slashdot Mirror
"told that they couldn't use the card since it wasn't a Visa or MasterCard check card"
That's called 'steering'. Lots of reasons for that:
- Avoiding higher-cost forms of payment or perfering lower-cost forms; Losts of places that honor American Express try to steer customers to another card, as Amex often has the highest discount rate. Sometimes merchants avoid signatures and ask for the pin number to avoid the slightly higher discount for signature transactions. The issuers like higher discounts, so they run promotions like double points for signing for a purchase, etc. Oh, and rewards cards almost always cost the merchant more. You thought those points were free? All of these tactics are steering, by the merchant or the issuer.
- Some cards are more 'unreliable'. Those 'check cards' are always tied to an account. A 'debit' card might be pre-paid, and if something isn't quite right about the authorizaiton process, a merchant might not get paid if the funds are exhausted before they settle. It's not supposed to happen, but there are situations...
- Some merchants have agreements that kick back fees for certain cards, especially for larger volume or larger dollar-value transactions. That encourages steering, just another reason.
- Some card type are subject to more fraud than others, and merchants that understand that can either avoid those cards or treat them with extra caution. Address verification or matching the signature to another form of ID, for instance.
- It's not impossible that some merchants have agreements that expose them to more risk for certain card types. Online gambling outfits suffer huge losses, and are thrown under the bus by card issuers all the time. It's a dirty business. Any business where they don't have the card there (card-not-present) are usually more exposed and have to take more precautions. Even other fairly normal industries suffer more fraud. Fast-food restaurants for instance, etc. Some of these industries don't even bother to challenge chargebacks, as it's too small a portion to worry about. I'm regularly surprised at how merchants don't handle risk well at all.
Almost all issuers have agreements with merchants that prohibit steering, as well as charging more for card transactions than for cash, or requiring a minimum purchase for a card transaction. It can be hard to prove, but not impossible.
It would be interesting to ask one of these merchants why they don't accept a 'debit' card. I would not be surprised if they concoct some bs story, though the clerks may be told anything by the boss to get his way.
No, NO! They're tubes, you noobs.
Sheesh. Get it right, eh?
If this was all caused by some commercial software, say, Adobe Reader gaining a bug that hosed Windows Update, we would be all over Adobe for breaking Windows Update and denying us our precious patches.
So far, very little scorn for the rootkit author(s) or their legion of distributors.
I get alerted to malware of various types, from Javascript exploits to out-and-out rootkits, from several interesting websites I visit frequently. I've been reduced to checking them on my phone, cause so far they haven't taken on an advertiser that delivers Android malware. So far. Even my Ubuntu with Firefox sees attacks.
Place the blame where it belongs; Malware distributors and authors, lazy/incompetent/naive users clicking away on pretty stuff, and of course the Windows security community for the abject failure that is Windows 'security', in name only. Windows Update is doing the right thing - alerting users to the potential for serious system failure and the cause. Plowing along and bricking systems is irresponsible.
Rootkits and the ad servers delivering them should be brought up on criminal charges. Surreptitiously installing software on my machine without my permission should be trespass, and punished accordingly, right up the food chain. Yes, that would mean some day a nice man from the FBI coming into a NAP and cutting off fiber connectors. If you run a red light while drunk, you get the full monty. Go all the way and punish malware by shutting down the ad servers that are delivering it, and you will get action.
Of course, if that fails, then you go to the New York times, for example, and explain why you are shutting down their sites - they chose web ad agencies badly. Tough. Accountability.
And the processor manufacturers largely (ARM-makers the exception somewhat) are encouraging this, to our detriment.
Intel plays games with part numbers and designations, so that about all you can be sure of is that an i7 is proably faster than an i5, an i5 is probably faster than an i3, and an i3 may or may not be faster than any Core 2 part. AMD is worse, with various Athlon, Sempron, TF, Phenom, X2, etc. designations.
It is intentional. Most consumers won't bother to figure out if one chip is faster than another. Off to the hardware sites to comb through the benchmark charts. Amd doesn't want to publish benchmarks across product lines, instead showing you a cute chart that says an Athlon II X2 250 is 4.2% faster than an X2 240. Not going to tell you how it compared with a Phenom - you'll have to work this out after some research.
And 'faster' is becoming more and less meaningful. Faster at what? For real performance freaks, the goal is usually gaming, and the graphics card is key. But what about grandma? Does she care about 'faster' to check her grandkids' emails and check Facebook?
Apple might be able to upset things by bringing ARM into general use. I would much prefer a netbook with ARM than Atom, but the OS support is lacking. Apple won't drive that, but Microsoft might give in.
It's been my experience that when I see some organization naming itself as the "... Human Rights Commission", human rights are not what it's about preserving. This is especially true in the U.N. and many third-world countries, and I pray Canada hasn't gone down that road.
No, you'd be right. He IS the chief investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Say it out, say it proud!
There's a fair amount of Canada that traces its hearitage not to England, but France. And not just the Quebecois. The Maritimes are infested with some interesting nationalities also.
And then there's the indigenous populations, who are regularly ignored there as well as here, on both coasts and up North.
Well said!
And he can say that because he's the chief investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
What freedom of speech we have here in America is paid for dearly. Canada pretty much retained the British definitions and conditions. They've made their bed.
"Talk to Cheney about torture and the warcrimes tribunal. Let's get Albright, Kissinger, Bzhezinsky and talk about imperialism. And don't forget the fine folks from Arthur Anderson and Enron. The list goes on. Why don't you get THOSE people and hold THEM to account, you self-righteous prig!"
Probably because he is a judge in ANOTHER COUNTRY.
Sheesh. RTFA much? Even the writeup?
...one of my friends was proud of running Warp on his Thinkpad long after everyone else had moved on and were struggling with the onslaught of worms and such on their Windows machines. He was a bit of a snob.
Then out of the blue he gave up and installed Gentoo. I get a call from nearly every time he gets major patches, as he recompiles everything - he's a source snob also. Compiling on anything normal people use is a nontrivial amount of time lost from his life.
He is extatic. Warp or Presentation Manager or whatever it is, he's looking forward to compiling on the weekends, so he can bask in the glory that is OS/2.
Of course, when I show him something interesting in NetWare services running on SUSE, he gets sleepy. Yeah, fine, I get it, not very sexy. Uptime is somehow not so interesting to him any more. Something about "giving up and buying a hosted server" has stolen his soul.
From the NHTSA notes in a FAQ found at the National Center for Statistics and Analysis:
"In order to perform complete-data analysis of FARS data with respect to alcohol involvement, the missing BACs need to be simulated (imputation!)"
And to explain Multiple Imputation (MI):
"Multiple Imputation is the state-of-the-art technique to impute missing values. Each missing BAC value is replaced by ten simulated values of BAC using rigorous statistical techniques that consider the interaction of all the characteristics of the case. MI allows for the computation of Standard Errors and Confidence Intervals."
Sorry, but it sounds like they just make up the missing data using really, really good techniques. But not any actual data, of course. Just other data that they think would indicate what the missing data wouldhave been, assumimg their asssumptions are correct.
That would be funny if it weren't serious. I think they just stated that to perform a complete data analysis, they have to 'make up' any missing data. How they do it doesn't impress me. If they use correlating data to make what they consider to be valid assumptions, then why bother to input the 'missing' data at all, indeed, just don't bother to use any of that value - just use the correlations and let the assumptions drive your analysis.
Which is, of course, untenable. That's no longer a valid study. It's guesswork.
But given the ferocity of the jihad against drunk driving, this is not entirely unexpected.
Alas. Bad things done in the name of noble purposes. Surely no harm is done, right?
Halfway to completing the suite, and offering a tool to detect and READ USB storage devices on networks.
NSA is nothing if not ambitious. Good job, guys!
c@330t!
I know what it sounds like, that's all that matters. It's not long enough.
No, I used this years ago. Nowadays, all my passwords are unpronouncable.
If I were looking for a new one now, I would use ME1357ln*9, which means something to me but not to too many other people. It seems moderately adequate, just one special character and a common one. ME1357ln)( is much more interesting to me.
"At the time, Jobs was still smarter than Gates. Still is. Just different games. Gates went for world domination, and got all the headaches an emperor hates. Jobs went for market domination, and is still leading in pretty much every area they care to develop in.
Except the PC market. According to Gartner's January 13 press release, the top five companies in PC sales worldwide in Q4 2009 were HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba.
The top five companies in PC sales the US in Q4 2009 were HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba, and Apple."
This is really one of my points. Truth is, in computing, Apple doesn't really compete with HP, Dell, Lonovo, Acer, or Toshiba. They do their own thing, and it's the Apple experience. If they keep on, they are virtually immune to competition for their desktop business, and I think the Macbook business is also soundly locked up.
And while every other manufacturer is trying to out-netbook their competition, Apple may have nailed it with the iPad. I don't see a viable competitor yet - processors need to become super power-efficient, the OS needs to exploit that, and the interface will need be superb. Until then, Apple has re-defined the tablet into something fairly useful, and created a whole new market niche. I have a Lenovo X41 Tablet, and the shortcomings are glaring. I'm not buying an iPad, though, cause I am one of the few who won't be jumping on the bandwagon and paying even more money on content and connectivity. Just not worth it to me, and I AM a minority.
Or to put it another way, Apple has probably 7-10% of the U.S. personal computing market for the forseeable future, though they will have to exert themselves for that last 3%. As a friend once told me, he would be happy with .03% of the U.S. toothpaste market, and he got it. Apple has a great position - 'just 7%' that they pretty much have out to the horizon, or until Jobs retires for real. That's their weakness - their real product is Job's vision. Without him, they will struggle. But who know who runs Toshiba's PC business? Who cares?
Grow up. I haven't USED a Mac since 1996, don't own an iANYTHING, just making statements I believe in. I don't have Zune either.
Having an honest opinion about someone doesn't make you their butt boy. Reducing everything to a simple popularity contest makes you a moron.
Back then it was System 6? Let's not reconsider any Mac system Os before that, OK?
I think Jobs had outmaneuvered Gates even then.
The Apple ][ had pretty much thrived on Visicalc until Lotus gave us 1-2-3, and then it was MS-DOS/PC-DOS and IBM clones. Looked like Gates had won the battle, as Apple didn't get it right with Lisa.
Just when Gates was seeing the world as his oyster with DOS, 1-2-3, and WordPerfect bringing in constant revenue, Apple got the Mac right, and, well, Gates wished users loved Microsoft as much as they loved Apple.
And Jobs already understood that there was more to the game than just market share. The Mac brogut us desktop publishing. Microsoft had to compete. They struggled.
Around the time of Windows NT, though more like Windows 2000, Micrisoft had picked fights with everyone: In networking, Novell; in servers, with the *nix world, then mostly Xenix/SCO/the rest; on the desktop, with Apple. You could make a case that they were winning with Windows 95 and then 98. But Apple was laboring through a period of mediocre software, average-to-poor hardware, and the beginnings of questions. Jobs came back and remade them into a consumer electronics company pretty quickly. Microsoft couldn't resist trying to compete. Fail.
It really started back then. Different visions, different companies. I propose that Jobs is in top of his world, and Gates (really Microsoft now, he is supposed to be retired) is mired in the muck of a difficult market. Witness the competition with Linux. No body much proposed converting from Mac to Linux for obvious reasons. Jobs knows that controlling the hardware solves a lot of problems. He's just smarter. And better at execution.
"Bill Gates was just smarter at the time than Steve Jobs"
How's that working out nowadays?
- Microsoft is clinging to market share like a rat to the last scrap of cheese on the trap. How are they gonna fare over the next decade? Struggling against more and more competitors? New markets? Autosound? Set-top boxes? Doesn't sound like many game-changers our there for Microsoft.
- Apple is INVENTING new markets. How do you compete with a player that doesn't just change fields when you've finally figured out the rules, they essentially change planets...? Sony used to be good at this, but they lost their vision somewhere after the Walkman, probably right around CD players. Apple redefined the portable music market after Diamond and the bunch failed to 'get it right'. And iTunes is genius.
At the time, Jobs was still smarter than Gates. Still is. Just different games. Gates went for world domination, and got all the headaches an emperor hates. Jobs went for market domination, and is still leading in pretty much every area they care to develop in. Apple TV is the only loser I can think of, and the iPad will own that market soon enough.
"except then you get into Windows-only p*ssing matches regarding what is or isn't an acceptable solution."
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over which distro is 'best' for your purpose/skill set/relationship/age/residence.
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over which Window Manager is best for your purpose/skillset/artistic taste/comfort level/graphics hardware.
As if there aren't still some p*ssing matches over so much else in the FOSS world.
HA! P*ssing matches are the sole domain of the Windows world? That's rich. Don't even bother to try to escape by claiming the *nix world is a kinder, gentler place. Cross a developer and see what I mean. In the Windows world, you don't get *near* an OS developer. In the FOSS world, a few kernel devs eat each others' babies for the sake of a single patch. Fortunately, very few, but it ain't easy in the kernel world.
And it probably shouldn't be.
If you can re-write what they spit out as a support function, you are working too cheap. And of course the company's accounting system is worse than the State of Arizona's. Which is bad.
What you just said was also 'I can do it as well as they can, all by myself, within a support timeline'. So you and/or your boss are not selling your abilities either. But that's another topic - how do you sell to management what they aready have? Imagine the hilarity when they realize they paid twice for the project, and one of the costs is already in the house...
.. suppose these will detect window cleaner?
How about car exhaust. Real useful on your morning commute.
Diesel exhaust? Your rail commute will also be more entertaining.
Let's hope they don't go off in the gym locker room when the deodorant and hair spray comes out.
Honestly, this is pretty weak to me. But I didn't RTFA, so perhaps this is just a case of drumming up demand by a manufacturer. Like that never happens...
These will, however, sell well in Europe, I bet. Especially the U.K. Sad lot there. Watney's will set 'em off, you'll see.
"I have a question for all of the "The Big Bang is a lie because it doesn't account for T(universe) 0" folks."
- I do not and did not intend to state that the Big Bang theory is unworkable and false. In fact, I can tolerate it as the method God used. At the very least, it could be what we can percieve of His creation effort. But it works. I just ask about before.
"`I have a question for this theory. Where did God come from? If God has always been, then why can you not say the same of the Universe?"
God says He has always been. Not me. But to your point, it is Science that states there was a Big Bang. Ask them where the Big Bang came from.
"How can you know that the universe is NOT eternal?"
I dunno. Ask Science. I am stuck with God declaring He is our Creator. This would imply two things:
1- God existed before our Universe.
2- Our Universe was created, so at one time it did not exist.
If I do not accept Genesis as God's word, I can discard all of His word. Well, I just don't.
God is not invisible, though He only showed himself directly to one man, and that a long time ago. But I see His work, and have seen His effect.
Of course, if you're claiming Jesus did not live and say what He said, and did not die and rise again, well, there is ample evidence to support that He did. Just not enough for you, apparently.
I would not follow an invisible God. I trust you will find solace in Science.
Ordinarily, I don't respond to ACs, but you have good points, and your stand is rational and sound.
If you don't believe in God, then you will obviously be reluctant to consider a supernatural eternal being. God solves the question of 'before' the Big Bang, but not satisfactorily to you, and I understand that.
But I do not attempt to discredit Science, far from it, Science is in large part indebted to Religion, for many religious people asked 'why?', and Science is the result of those questions.
I just ask greater questions, I think. A 'before' the Big Bang is a legitimate question. ATime for us may have started at the moment of the Big Bang, but I can't yet conceive of a nothing before. And I know, I am limited, both by a lack of scientific knowledge to frame the question, and by human experience.
I disagree with Augustine creation theory, specifically that he taught that God created everything instantaneously, though that does correspond well with our physical sciences. But Augustine did propose understanding Creation as a practical event, and so taught that the story in Genesis could be understood as a framework, not a literal story.
And the problem is, once you take plain scriptural statements and treat them as 'framework', or suggestion, well, you can manipulate scripture into pretty much whatever you want. Some scripture is well-known as figurative or illustrative, much of Revelation fitting that mold. Christ's words quoted in the New Testament, not so much, but to be taken as His literal word.
Don't assume I agree entirely with Augustine.
What, you have a theory that's testable and observable?
And is that the standard we should be using?