Use a prot replicator (for extra cash) or firewire - they key for me is portability; a jump drive would allow file transfer and conencting camera memory as needed.
Wasn't the point of not putting an optical drive in the machine to save money, in the original poster's estimation? Why not just buy a tablet with an optical drive in it? Of course, I know you can attach an external device, but that's not the point. If you spent more money the tablet could be another device altogether now couldn't it?
And yes, something more Newton-ish (I owned one) would definitely be more of what the $599 price point would get you. But, PDAs (even souped up tablet-esque ones) that aren't cell phones these days are slowly dying out.
Bottom line... we'll have to wait and see. I don't think Apple will get into the tablet market. It would be nice if they did, given the niche markets they thrive in, but I don't think it's going to happen. I am human. I've been wrong before, but seems highly unlikely given the current general landscape and the specific product focus of Apple.
Drop the optical drive? How will you install the OS?
Use a slower processor? Who would buy it?
The whole reason that Windows-based tablets are starting to sell better is that they are now more comparable in performance and features to regular laptops. They have the pen functionality as a bonus. You will notice that there are no major manufacturers making slate-type Tablet PCs anymore, because they were too expensive and lacked the performance capabilities of a convertible-type tablet. The niche is just too small for a very application specific device; similar to the one you describe. Plus, how many tablets have sold to date? I went looking and from what I could find the 1 millionth one was sold in February of 2005, and we may be up to 3 million by now. That's not a lot of machines when you consider Apple sold over a million Macs in the last quarter.
So, to answer your question, it will compete for sales because it will need to be just as capable a device with the added pen functionality. If the numbers (sales and dollars) won't support the product in the mix, there won't be a product from Apple.
If the device is visibly installed on the property and can be identified as this "Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent", then local noise ordinances can be enforced by the police. Just because they can't hear it doesn't prove it's not operating and disturbing the f**k out of everyone else.
Another option is to form a homeowner's association in the neighborhood and draft by-laws that prohibit the installation of such devices, thereby creating civil recourse for its removal.
The final option I'll suggest is to get a quorum of your neighbors to meet with this guy and talk this whole mess out! Stop playing stupid juvenile games and start having an adult reaction to this. If there are many people in the neighborhood that this guy is aggravating, or if you and other neighbors are truly aggravating him, then agree to compromise on issues. I thought modern society had evolved beyond this sort of juvenile behavior, but it seems not.
Amen. And real men call it XML, JavaScript, and HTML, not AJAX. I heard that term for the first time about six months ago and laughed my ass off when I found out what it was. I thought it was something new, not something old (that most web developers have been doing for at least three or four years now) given some new name to make it sound cool to people who could only remember one name instead of three. I think AJAX is a cleaning product, and somebody used it to describe what they do to dupe someone else into giving them a job. Either that, or some stupid HR person made it up!
I would also like to know how long-term UV exposure affects the structural properties of this material. Most plastics and polymers break down over time with prolonged UV exposure. Of course, it is being built in England, not known for its overly sunny climate.
I'm sorry, but the more interviews I watch and read with Ballmer the more I think that guy is a complete idiot. I think he truly is the dumbest successful person I've *EVER* seen. He talks with the vocabulary of a high school drop out. "{W}e're one of the highest payers in our industry." Payers?!?! WTF! Moron.
Actually, his argument about power generation and the average internal combustion engine driven car is only made spurious by a poor choice in power generation technologies. Nuclear power is an alternative that most people seem to be overlooking. There has to be some more emphasis placed on researching the next generation of nuclear power. We have to make it cleaner and more economically viable. I would also suggest that it be commercialized for use on heavy freight vessels, and all large transport ships that currently use diesel fuel.
Folks, transport vessels use A LOT of petroleum to move goods across large bodies of water. Think of how much petroleum we could save if those vessels ran on nuclear power instead? I know, the whole, "What if the vessel gets hijacked and the nuclear fuel falls into the wrong hands?" Well, that's what the Navies of the world are for. Protecting merchant vessels and national interests abroad.
Stock prices are based on speculation and large shifts in investments coming from institutional players. Apple's stock price has declined in line with overall market forces and institutional investors hedging during the Intel transition. If you look at Apple's stock price compared to Dell, HP and Gateway you'll see that Apple is clearly pulling away, especially over the last two years. I think that once the Intel transition is over Apple's stock price is going to start soaring again.
As for the iPod comment, well, others more qualified than you have said the same, but the market doesn't seem to be drying up anytime soon. 8.11 million iPods in a quarter (worldwide) is an insane number when you consider how many (total) have already been sold. Obviously, people with older iPods are buying new, or second iPods. I can't go fifteen feet on the Virginia Tech campus without seeing a student with an iPod, and those numbers keep growing year-to-year. I think it's going to be a long time before Apple has to worry about diminishing iPod sales.
There isn't any payoff, that's the whole stupid thing about this. Charging for lyrics? Come on. This isn't something the artists are pushing for, they want their songs played (music and lyrics). There aren't many artists out there writing meaningful poetry that you'd even CONSIDER paying for it. This is clearly an excessive use of copyright as a means of revenue; something it was NEVER intended to do. I think the next dumbass thing the MPAA will try is to charge bands to cover songs at any live performance. You want to see the music biz come to grinding halt, that will certainly do it. No one will want to create music if they can't learn from what came before. 99.999999% of all musicians started off listening to their favorite bands and then trying to play their songs, LONG before they ever wrote a song of their own. Now the record companies want to nickel and dime people to death and completely kill their power base. Good for them. They can be the cause of their own overly late demise.
No, why don't they keep their goddamn hands off my personal record-playback device. Period. This practice of fast-forwarding through commercials during playback of recorded television broadcasts has been around since the VCR was commercialized. You could then program your VCR to record things when you were away shortly there after. We're talking the late-1970s when it started to hit middle-class homes in the United States. The networks were pissed about it then, and they're pissed about it now. Only difference is, we have a very corporation-friendly administration AND Congress right now in Washington. They might actually succeed in removing the fast-forward button from every video recording and playback device known to man. How ridiculous would that be?
That's quite an understatement when you do the math: Avg. movie length of 100 minutes * frame rate 24 fps = 144,000 screen caps
Who would even consider doing that? You'd have carpal tunnel in no time and pay more in medical bills than you would if you just bought used copies of the movies.
FYI, doing the full extended editions of LoTR would be 982,080 screen caps!!!! Nope, not worth it.
I'm a Mac OS X / Linux guy, so programming PHP makes me feel dirty. I avoid that other dirty thing (Windows) as much as possible. Too dirty for me. Just as quick, though.
I don't know....look at Windows code and tell me it's ANY different from PHP in being a "quick-and-dirty" hack? It's amazingly popular, people CONSTANTLY complain about it, but people KEEP FUCKING USING IT!!!!! PHP. Same thing.
I wonder... if you're standing in front of a surveilliance camera, on someone's front porch next to the street, and there are signs pointing out the camera... are you really justified in believing that the camera couldn't possibly be recording you?
Video yes, but this guy's camera got audio too. That's not typical, and that's a nuance that the courts will have to decide. I'm not siding with the police in this case, personally. I think some shenanigans are going on. I've dealt with "crafty" cops and even FBI agents that presumed to be above the law until I had a higher official (magistrate in the case of the cop, and a Federal Circuit judge in the case of the FBI agents) ratchet them down a couple of notches to reality. The good thing in this case is the guy that is being charged was smart enough to bring it to the attention of the media, and thereby the public. That's REALLY important in a case like this where law enforcement misconduct is possibly at play. Got to put it out in the open and see if there are any others that have had similar experiences in the community. Again, the courts will decide the outcome. Not knowing all the facts we really can't say who was in the wrong. I certainly will be following the case, though.
Actually, if you read the statute the letter of the law was violated, but the spirit of the law may not have been. It's really going to be up to the courts to decide this one and may result in portions of the statute being revoked, or emended. IMHO, the law was meant to protect people from having their rights violated by recording devices or intercepts/wiretaps. But, there are many states where things like internal video surveillance cameras in businesses are illegal, or must be clearly marked to the outside as being present. It would seem, from the statute, that NH is one of the ones that prohibits such things except under very specific circumstances. The statute clearly states that *any* recording or intercept of telecommunication or oral communication without the express consent of all parties is at least a misdemeanor.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
You know, the last guy to say that got impaled by cannibals?
But, yeah, duh. I'd like to have an aircraft standing by off the coast of America to delivery me Snickers bars on a whim at supersonic speed. Screw the leaf on the wind crap, but those defenders of freedom in Washington have "better" plans for such an aircraft; like we don't need Snickers bars as much. More's the pity.
Well, I'm glad others found more current and correct information. Now, HD-DVD sucks a little less than I thought. The DRM and Microsoft parts still sucking.
Ummm...no, it's really not like DVD-R and DVD+R. The only difference there is spindle speed, 1.2:1 difference to be exact, DVD+R to DVD-R. The underlying technology and interface are exactly the same beyond that. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are totally different technologies. HD-DVD uses a standard red laser operating at a much lower wavelength of light, yielding a much larger focal point of light. Blu-Ray uses a blue laser with a higher wavelength and smaller focal point of light. The more highly focused, tighter blue laser can read red laser burned, or imprinted media, but the red laser cannot read the blue laser burned or imprinted media. Beyond the cost for a blue laser system, you then have to support two dual chip sets for processing HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs because of the completely different DRM standards being used. And yes, this is hardware decoded in consumer devices so you're talking about quite a cost if you wanted to build custom ASICs to do both in one chipset, in licensing fees alone! So, I really don't see a dual format drive hitting the market any time soon. It would be too costly to build right now. Maybe when one has a clear lead we'll see one, but then it will be too late for one of the formats and you'll be paying a high price so you can play the discs you bought from the losing side.
I'd say wait for a Blu-Ray enabled PC or laptop to come out, followed by a software decoder for the other format, HD-DVD. I'm sure a computer-based playback device will be fast enough to support an HD-DVD decoder so you could play HD-DVDs on your internal (or external) Blu-Ray drive.
Umm...no, the BlueGene system does not run Suse, the head nodes (which are IBM eServer or xServer nodes) run Suse. The BlueGene racks themselves run a stripped down Linux that is more like an embedded Linux with HPC support.
Ok, having reviewed the following document, IBM Redbook BlueGene/L: Application Development I'll lighten my "it's no easy task to bring apps to [this] platform" statement. It does appear that IBM has done some considerable work on the APIs and MPI support. Like any big beasty, there's always something you have to do to code before it will run well. I'd say from having another look, that it's probably no harder to bring apps to BlueGene than it is to bring them to System X running Mac OS X. It ain't a picnic, but it's certainly doable for a lot of community and homegrown code bases.
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Use a prot replicator (for extra cash) or firewire - they key for me is portability; a jump drive would allow file transfer and conencting camera memory as needed.
... we'll have to wait and see. I don't think Apple will get into the tablet market. It would be nice if they did, given the niche markets they thrive in, but I don't think it's going to happen. I am human. I've been wrong before, but seems highly unlikely given the current general landscape and the specific product focus of Apple.
Wasn't the point of not putting an optical drive in the machine to save money, in the original poster's estimation? Why not just buy a tablet with an optical drive in it? Of course, I know you can attach an external device, but that's not the point. If you spent more money the tablet could be another device altogether now couldn't it?
And yes, something more Newton-ish (I owned one) would definitely be more of what the $599 price point would get you. But, PDAs (even souped up tablet-esque ones) that aren't cell phones these days are slowly dying out.
Bottom line
Drop the optical drive? How will you install the OS?
Use a slower processor? Who would buy it?
The whole reason that Windows-based tablets are starting to sell better is that they are now more comparable in performance and features to regular laptops. They have the pen functionality as a bonus. You will notice that there are no major manufacturers making slate-type Tablet PCs anymore, because they were too expensive and lacked the performance capabilities of a convertible-type tablet. The niche is just too small for a very application specific device; similar to the one you describe. Plus, how many tablets have sold to date? I went looking and from what I could find the 1 millionth one was sold in February of 2005, and we may be up to 3 million by now. That's not a lot of machines when you consider Apple sold over a million Macs in the last quarter.
So, to answer your question, it will compete for sales because it will need to be just as capable a device with the added pen functionality. If the numbers (sales and dollars) won't support the product in the mix, there won't be a product from Apple.
Don't cross the road, if you can't get out of the kitchen. Oh, and, people in glass houses sink ships!
If the device is visibly installed on the property and can be identified as this "Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent", then local noise ordinances can be enforced by the police. Just because they can't hear it doesn't prove it's not operating and disturbing the f**k out of everyone else.
Another option is to form a homeowner's association in the neighborhood and draft by-laws that prohibit the installation of such devices, thereby creating civil recourse for its removal.
The final option I'll suggest is to get a quorum of your neighbors to meet with this guy and talk this whole mess out! Stop playing stupid juvenile games and start having an adult reaction to this. If there are many people in the neighborhood that this guy is aggravating, or if you and other neighbors are truly aggravating him, then agree to compromise on issues. I thought modern society had evolved beyond this sort of juvenile behavior, but it seems not.
Amen. And real men call it XML, JavaScript, and HTML, not AJAX. I heard that term for the first time about six months ago and laughed my ass off when I found out what it was. I thought it was something new, not something old (that most web developers have been doing for at least three or four years now) given some new name to make it sound cool to people who could only remember one name instead of three. I think AJAX is a cleaning product, and somebody used it to describe what they do to dupe someone else into giving them a job. Either that, or some stupid HR person made it up!
I would also like to know how long-term UV exposure affects the structural properties of this material. Most plastics and polymers break down over time with prolonged UV exposure. Of course, it is being built in England, not known for its overly sunny climate.
I'm sorry, but the more interviews I watch and read with Ballmer the more I think that guy is a complete idiot. I think he truly is the dumbest successful person I've *EVER* seen. He talks with the vocabulary of a high school drop out. "{W}e're one of the highest payers in our industry." Payers?!?! WTF! Moron.
Actually, his argument about power generation and the average internal combustion engine driven car is only made spurious by a poor choice in power generation technologies. Nuclear power is an alternative that most people seem to be overlooking. There has to be some more emphasis placed on researching the next generation of nuclear power. We have to make it cleaner and more economically viable. I would also suggest that it be commercialized for use on heavy freight vessels, and all large transport ships that currently use diesel fuel.
Folks, transport vessels use A LOT of petroleum to move goods across large bodies of water. Think of how much petroleum we could save if those vessels ran on nuclear power instead? I know, the whole, "What if the vessel gets hijacked and the nuclear fuel falls into the wrong hands?" Well, that's what the Navies of the world are for. Protecting merchant vessels and national interests abroad.
Stock prices are based on speculation and large shifts in investments coming from institutional players. Apple's stock price has declined in line with overall market forces and institutional investors hedging during the Intel transition. If you look at Apple's stock price compared to Dell, HP and Gateway you'll see that Apple is clearly pulling away, especially over the last two years. I think that once the Intel transition is over Apple's stock price is going to start soaring again.
As for the iPod comment, well, others more qualified than you have said the same, but the market doesn't seem to be drying up anytime soon. 8.11 million iPods in a quarter (worldwide) is an insane number when you consider how many (total) have already been sold. Obviously, people with older iPods are buying new, or second iPods. I can't go fifteen feet on the Virginia Tech campus without seeing a student with an iPod, and those numbers keep growing year-to-year. I think it's going to be a long time before Apple has to worry about diminishing iPod sales.
1. Fuck CNet and News.com
2. Fuck Symantec
3. ROFLMFAO @ Microsoft for rewriting Windows as Vista and STILL not getting it right...
There isn't any payoff, that's the whole stupid thing about this. Charging for lyrics? Come on. This isn't something the artists are pushing for, they want their songs played (music and lyrics). There aren't many artists out there writing meaningful poetry that you'd even CONSIDER paying for it. This is clearly an excessive use of copyright as a means of revenue; something it was NEVER intended to do. I think the next dumbass thing the MPAA will try is to charge bands to cover songs at any live performance. You want to see the music biz come to grinding halt, that will certainly do it. No one will want to create music if they can't learn from what came before. 99.999999% of all musicians started off listening to their favorite bands and then trying to play their songs, LONG before they ever wrote a song of their own. Now the record companies want to nickel and dime people to death and completely kill their power base. Good for them. They can be the cause of their own overly late demise.
No, why don't they keep their goddamn hands off my personal record-playback device. Period. This practice of fast-forwarding through commercials during playback of recorded television broadcasts has been around since the VCR was commercialized. You could then program your VCR to record things when you were away shortly there after. We're talking the late-1970s when it started to hit middle-class homes in the United States. The networks were pissed about it then, and they're pissed about it now. Only difference is, we have a very corporation-friendly administration AND Congress right now in Washington. They might actually succeed in removing the fast-forward button from every video recording and playback device known to man. How ridiculous would that be?
thats quite a bit of work to copy a movie
That's quite an understatement when you do the math: Avg. movie length of 100 minutes * frame rate 24 fps = 144,000 screen caps
Who would even consider doing that? You'd have carpal tunnel in no time and pay more in medical bills than you would if you just bought used copies of the movies.
FYI, doing the full extended editions of LoTR would be 982,080 screen caps!!!! Nope, not worth it.
I'm a Mac OS X / Linux guy, so programming PHP makes me feel dirty. I avoid that other dirty thing (Windows) as much as possible. Too dirty for me. Just as quick, though.
Good.
I don't know....look at Windows code and tell me it's ANY different from PHP in being a "quick-and-dirty" hack? It's amazingly popular, people CONSTANTLY complain about it, but people KEEP FUCKING USING IT!!!!! PHP. Same thing.
I wonder... if you're standing in front of a surveilliance camera, on someone's front porch next to the street, and there are signs pointing out the camera... are you really justified in believing that the camera couldn't possibly be recording you?
Video yes, but this guy's camera got audio too. That's not typical, and that's a nuance that the courts will have to decide. I'm not siding with the police in this case, personally. I think some shenanigans are going on. I've dealt with "crafty" cops and even FBI agents that presumed to be above the law until I had a higher official (magistrate in the case of the cop, and a Federal Circuit judge in the case of the FBI agents) ratchet them down a couple of notches to reality. The good thing in this case is the guy that is being charged was smart enough to bring it to the attention of the media, and thereby the public. That's REALLY important in a case like this where law enforcement misconduct is possibly at play. Got to put it out in the open and see if there are any others that have had similar experiences in the community. Again, the courts will decide the outcome. Not knowing all the facts we really can't say who was in the wrong. I certainly will be following the case, though.
Actually, if you read the statute the letter of the law was violated, but the spirit of the law may not have been. It's really going to be up to the courts to decide this one and may result in portions of the statute being revoked, or emended. IMHO, the law was meant to protect people from having their rights violated by recording devices or intercepts/wiretaps. But, there are many states where things like internal video surveillance cameras in businesses are illegal, or must be clearly marked to the outside as being present. It would seem, from the statute, that NH is one of the ones that prohibits such things except under very specific circumstances. The statute clearly states that *any* recording or intercept of telecommunication or oral communication without the express consent of all parties is at least a misdemeanor.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar." -Hoban Washburn
You know, the last guy to say that got impaled by cannibals?
But, yeah, duh. I'd like to have an aircraft standing by off the coast of America to delivery me Snickers bars on a whim at supersonic speed. Screw the leaf on the wind crap, but those defenders of freedom in Washington have "better" plans for such an aircraft; like we don't need Snickers bars as much. More's the pity.
That's what they should call that. The leafy bug.
Well, I'm glad others found more current and correct information. Now, HD-DVD sucks a little less than I thought. The DRM and Microsoft parts still sucking.
Ummm...no, it's really not like DVD-R and DVD+R. The only difference there is spindle speed, 1.2:1 difference to be exact, DVD+R to DVD-R. The underlying technology and interface are exactly the same beyond that. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are totally different technologies. HD-DVD uses a standard red laser operating at a much lower wavelength of light, yielding a much larger focal point of light. Blu-Ray uses a blue laser with a higher wavelength and smaller focal point of light. The more highly focused, tighter blue laser can read red laser burned, or imprinted media, but the red laser cannot read the blue laser burned or imprinted media. Beyond the cost for a blue laser system, you then have to support two dual chip sets for processing HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs because of the completely different DRM standards being used. And yes, this is hardware decoded in consumer devices so you're talking about quite a cost if you wanted to build custom ASICs to do both in one chipset, in licensing fees alone! So, I really don't see a dual format drive hitting the market any time soon. It would be too costly to build right now. Maybe when one has a clear lead we'll see one, but then it will be too late for one of the formats and you'll be paying a high price so you can play the discs you bought from the losing side.
I'd say wait for a Blu-Ray enabled PC or laptop to come out, followed by a software decoder for the other format, HD-DVD. I'm sure a computer-based playback device will be fast enough to support an HD-DVD decoder so you could play HD-DVDs on your internal (or external) Blu-Ray drive.
I hope that was supposed to be funny, cuz i can't stop laughing. That was great! Makes me think of UVA. lol
Umm...no, the BlueGene system does not run Suse, the head nodes (which are IBM eServer or xServer nodes) run Suse. The BlueGene racks themselves run a stripped down Linux that is more like an embedded Linux with HPC support.
Ok, having reviewed the following document, IBM Redbook BlueGene/L: Application Development I'll lighten my "it's no easy task to bring apps to [this] platform" statement. It does appear that IBM has done some considerable work on the APIs and MPI support. Like any big beasty, there's always something you have to do to code before it will run well. I'd say from having another look, that it's probably no harder to bring apps to BlueGene than it is to bring them to System X running Mac OS X. It ain't a picnic, but it's certainly doable for a lot of community and homegrown code bases.