2k isn't being sold anymore either, and it was expensive and AFAIK there aren't all that many copies out there among consumers, and then there's the question of how many of those that have it would want to part with it. Most people haven't even heard about linux, and most of those that did probably think of it as "something only for crazy nerds" or something along those lines.
Yes, recycling computers is definitly doable, the problem isn't how hard it is for someone who actually wants to do it, the problem is that it's not being done much.
...or at least a big part of it, they have such a stranglehold on the OS market and they don't make any operating systems designed for reusing old PCs, and the prices they charge for their OS's make them impractical for installing on PC's of such low worth. Yes, there are leftover copies of windows 98, but it's unstable, unsuported and a hassle to set up.
Because the reasons that this is happening are rather complex. Why is there such high demand for outrageously expensive PS3s? At least partially because we don't have as good competition from other platforms as we should. If you need to blame someone for this, how about: -microsoft, for making PC gamers use windows, partially through illegal business practices -starforce -intel, for netburst -3dfx, for screwing up, and thus no longer being a competitor in the video card market -creative labs, for killing aureal -all the people behind software patents, for any patents on video cards that hold back competitors to nvidia and ati -sega, for having footshot themselves out of the market
And along that line of thought, what does the lack of inclusion of linux in these ads, and in most of the parodies too, say? IMO, that apple does not want you to know about it, and that a lot of people are very quick to dismiss it as not worth pay any attention to.
It's too bad linux isn't in any of them, that would lead to all sorts of interesting situations. For example:
... ... ... PC: At least I run faster. Mac: What are you talking about? I run faster. PC: Want to race? Mac: Anytime. PC: Let's go then. Hey... how about we include a linux computer too, at least we can both be sure to beat him.*calls linux box* Mac: Sure, why not. ... ... ... *PC and mac laugh at and mock linux box(who is very short) amongst each other* *Linux box gets angry, detaches his legs, and attaches a set of centaur legs* Linux box:So, you ready, punks?
They'd also be losing the MP3 player vendor lockin advantage if they allowed other music players to access iTunes, and they make their money from selling iPods.
No, they'd be letting other companies temporarily make use of their lock in for however many players they licennse, but whenever they decided to stop licensing itunes, they'd have their lock in back completely.
No, they'd be losing iPod sales.
No, they'd be gaining revenue from big license fees from each player, then when those players break down, they'd be making extra ipod sales.
Frankly, they could piss iTunes sales up the wall if they carried on selling iPods. They won't, but iTunes sales aren't important to their business model compared to iPod sales.
Itunes sales are very important, they're crucial for lock in. Compare someone who spent $500 on on ipods to someone who spent $500 on itunes content, who has more incentive to keep buying ipods?
They'll never do either while they're leading the market
Are you crazy? Creative or iRiver could then offer the world's first iTunes-and-Windows Media DRM player - they'd make a mint.
I said for sale in markets in which apple is not the leader, why would they want to pay huge license fees and help apple push their way into korea, singapore, etc? Even if the license fee was as low as $30, they still wouldn't want to do it.
Hah! No way. That'd push the production-cost of a third-party iTunes-compatible music player up by 25%-50%, making them massively more expensive even than iPods. It would be completely pointless for any company to sign on to this agreement, because Apple would effectively be pricing the third-party players out of the market.
50%? A 30 gig zen vision w, which is relatively cheap for a large screen mp3 player, is $300, an original zen vision and most archos players are more than that. Some of these are already massively more expensive than ipods, or at least they were until recently. What do you mean by "the third party players", that market is entirely companies other than apple.
Buy a third-party player to work with Apple's system for $X, or buy branded (and generally better) Apple hardware to work with Apple's branded online service for half the price. That's a no-brainer.
Tell me, how is a player with a 320x240 screen made by apple better than a player with a much bigger 480*272 screen, for the functions the big screen player is intended for?
That wouldn't happen, if it did, there'd be no going back for apple, and they'd be reducing the vendor lock in advantage. If they made ipods compatible with other music buying services, they'd have to keep doing that from then on or risk loosing lots of customers that have purchased a significant amount of music from those services, or at least loosing them partially.
On the other hand, if they licensed itunes to a few players, they'd be gaining locked in customers. This would probably work best in markets where apple doesn't have a huge foothold, like singapore and korea. Of course, there the big obstacle to this would be that creative labs and iriver would be unwilling to do this. But, perhaps cowon might be willing to to try to gain an advantage over iriver. And apple would be to back out of this if it doesn't go well.
And I bet they could charge $100+ licence fees for large screen mp3 players. Besides testing the water, that could let them make sure that the zune doesn't become a threat by gaining a foothold among customers who find video functionality very important.
I think it could happen, but only to a very limited degree. Assuming that apple makes a very solid profit on each ipod, they definitly won't license it cheap, which would make it unfeasible for putting on, for example, all zen vision M's, or all Zen V's, even if apple was willing to license it.
So, sticking with creative labs as an example, they could sell just a limited number of itunes compatible zen vision M's. There would be a hidden advantage for apple in allowing this: since ipods are so common, batteries for them are relatively easy to find, even though they're not supposed to be user replaceable, but since zens are much less common, I don't think you can find replacement batteries for them; so someone who bought a itunes-zen would be more likely to buy a new ipod or a new itunes licensed device when it dies. But since, AFAIK, ipod nanos have the battery soldered in, that's not so much of an issue anymore.
Or, the expensive license fee could be made easier to stomach by only licensing itunes for much higher end devices, like those players with the bigger screens that are more geared for video. By doing so, they'd also be able to test the water to see if it would by any chance be a good idea to make such a product themselves.
I don't think the chances of it happeing are very high, especially of the first scenario. It could be a good PR move though.
The only thing a computer case is conducting is sound, the heat is removed by air convection(or alternatively water convection can do most, but not all of the work), that's why wood or acrylic are actually more efficient materials for a case to be made out of in terms of cooling per noise, see: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?p=1 00913#100913
The claim that a case needs to be made out of a conductive material is basically a hoax perpetuated to sell aluminum cases.
Trips to the moon and extraatmospheric telescopes are not neccessarily at odds to each other, if we could put a telescope on the moon, that would also be not be inside an atmosphere, and it wouldn't need gyroscopes to stabilise itself.
No, microsoft is not infallible. But they do have experience with tilt controllers, and they probably also have a good bit of user feedback from the sidewinder freestyle, and they must have considered making a follow up, so their opinion on whether this is a good idea should be a bit better informed. And while they aren't a stellar controller maker, they are at an advantage with these kinds of features because they can further test them in their PC gamepad line.
On the other hand, sony could be working together with logitech on this.
Okay then. So that means that you can't just shift most of the power to one CPU to make it much more efficient at single threaded tasks, but also that it still should be quite beneficial to run multiple cores at different speeds.
Assuming that each core is like an individual CPU, odds are, one core is better than the other. That would mean that for both cores to run at the same speed, the better one would have to be getting more voltage than it requires, or be running slower than it could be(those two things are basically equivalent). So the optimal solution would be to link the state of the cores, but for each state, set each CPU to the maximum it can go at that particular voltage.
In that case, why do they run at the same maximum speed anyway? Throtling only reduces the power usage, it does not reduce TDP, ie. the amount of heat the heatsink has to be capable of disipating. If the second core had a maximum voltage that was a bit lower, that could allow the heatsink to be cheaper or quieter, or for the first core to use more power. And then there's the question of whether both cores have the same speed limits at a certain voltage, maybe most current 2x2.6ghz cpu's are capable of doing 2.8&2.6 at the currently used voltage.
One core running at full speed and three cores at one third of their maximum clock speed...
That's possible? Since when? I though it was called symetrical multi proccesing for a reason(with some exceptions, like different cache sizes being okay). If it doesn't have to, then does the second core actually have any good reason to be able to run at same speed as the first?
Should we limit everyone's ability to view it to avoid the few people who are on the border from going across the line and becoming a violent felon is the question.
No, that is not the question. You're completely overlooking the potential for this to backfire, just what do you think will be the reactions from people who would like to access things that may be deemed a bad influence, do you think it'll be something like "oh thank you mighty omnipotent omniscient government for saving me from corruption and temptetion!"? Hell no. And that's assuming it's even enforcable. How would it be enforced anyway, by throwing these people who posses it in jail? Yeah, turning them into hardened convicts is sure going to make them less dangerous.
Maybe the whole reason microsoft is doing this is to hurt the profitability of the ipod, in order to hurt apple, in order to weaken OSX, in order to enable themselves to make more money off windows?
It does a horrible job of overriding webpage colors, unlike other browsers, it does not give the option of assigning a certain color to visited links, and a different color to unvisited links. For me that makes it unusable as a primary browser.
Sony's arrogance isn't limited to just pissing people off, they're also likely to be shooting themselves in the foot with extravagant hardware, just like sega did, and sega managed to screw themselves far more thoroughly than nintendo.
But it's not entirely arrogance, it's a massive gamble that they can piggyback blu ray in together with the PS3, and if they luck out it could pay off big.
Why don't they at the very least use something that doesn't get left in countless places so easily, like maybe knuckleprints or handprints(preferably of the back of the hand)? There'd also be a lot more area and presumably detail to work with in the later case.
They're not trying very hard to win over ipod users by insulting them. Something they definitly are trying is to seize the rest of the market(even if they are also trying to win over a small number of ipod users), the ads are intended to appeal to all those who already think ipod users are sheep.
Other mp3 player manufacturers should retaliate against this and mock sandisk's campaign, especially considering that sandisk already has the second largest mp3 player marketshare. Something along the lines of "note to sandisk, you're not 'the alternative' to apple, we've been making mp3 players long before you, or apple, jumped on the bandwaggon. Where'd you get the retarded idea that there's one alternative that's for everyone anyway?" Ipod users would probably like that, the ads would be insulting the company that's insulting them.
How is this astroturfing? It's the exact opposite, they're taking existing anti apple sentiment and turning it into ads, which likely will be mistaken for original apple bashing. If you need to call it something, how about trollparroting?
Slashdot Mirror
2k isn't being sold anymore either, and it was expensive and AFAIK there aren't all that many copies out there among consumers, and then there's the question of how many of those that have it would want to part with it. Most people haven't even heard about linux, and most of those that did probably think of it as "something only for crazy nerds" or something along those lines.
Yes, recycling computers is definitly doable, the problem isn't how hard it is for someone who actually wants to do it, the problem is that it's not being done much.
...or at least a big part of it, they have such a stranglehold on the OS market and they don't make any operating systems designed for reusing old PCs, and the prices they charge for their OS's make them impractical for installing on PC's of such low worth. Yes, there are leftover copies of windows 98, but it's unstable, unsuported and a hassle to set up.
-microsoft, for making PC gamers use windows, partially through illegal business practices
-starforce
-intel, for netburst
-3dfx, for screwing up, and thus no longer being a competitor in the video card market
-creative labs, for killing aureal
-all the people behind software patents, for any patents on video cards that hold back competitors to nvidia and ati
-sega, for having footshot themselves out of the market
They're not going to throw away all those CPUs just because they're considered unacceptable for PS3s. There's other uses for them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_CPU#Possible_app lications
And along that line of thought, what does the lack of inclusion of linux in these ads, and in most of the parodies too, say? IMO, that apple does not want you to know about it, and that a lot of people are very quick to dismiss it as not worth pay any attention to.
...
...
... ... how about we include a linux computer too, at least we can both be sure to beat him.*calls linux box*
...
...
...
It's too bad linux isn't in any of them, that would lead to all sorts of interesting situations. For example:
PC: At least I run faster.
Mac: What are you talking about? I run faster.
PC: Want to race?
Mac: Anytime.
PC: Let's go then. Hey
Mac: Sure, why not.
*PC and mac laugh at and mock linux box(who is very short) amongst each other*
*Linux box gets angry, detaches his legs, and attaches a set of centaur legs*
Linux box:So, you ready, punks?
No, they'd be gaining revenue from big license fees from each player, then when those players break down, they'd be making extra ipod sales.
Itunes sales are very important, they're crucial for lock in. Compare someone who spent $500 on on ipods to someone who spent $500 on itunes content, who has more incentive to keep buying ipods?
I said for sale in markets in which apple is not the leader, why would they want to pay huge license fees and help apple push their way into korea, singapore, etc? Even if the license fee was as low as $30, they still wouldn't want to do it.
50%? A 30 gig zen vision w, which is relatively cheap for a large screen mp3 player, is $300, an original zen vision and most archos players are more than that. Some of these are already massively more expensive than ipods, or at least they were until recently. What do you mean by "the third party players", that market is entirely companies other than apple.
Tell me, how is a player with a 320x240 screen made by apple better than a player with a much bigger 480*272 screen, for the functions the big screen player is intended for?
That wouldn't happen, if it did, there'd be no going back for apple, and they'd be reducing the vendor lock in advantage. If they made ipods compatible with other music buying services, they'd have to keep doing that from then on or risk loosing lots of customers that have purchased a significant amount of music from those services, or at least loosing them partially.
On the other hand, if they licensed itunes to a few players, they'd be gaining locked in customers. This would probably work best in markets where apple doesn't have a huge foothold, like singapore and korea. Of course, there the big obstacle to this would be that creative labs and iriver would be unwilling to do this. But, perhaps cowon might be willing to to try to gain an advantage over iriver. And apple would be to back out of this if it doesn't go well.
And I bet they could charge $100+ licence fees for large screen mp3 players. Besides testing the water, that could let them make sure that the zune doesn't become a threat by gaining a foothold among customers who find video functionality very important.
I think it could happen, but only to a very limited degree. Assuming that apple makes a very solid profit on each ipod, they definitly won't license it cheap, which would make it unfeasible for putting on, for example, all zen vision M's, or all Zen V's, even if apple was willing to license it.
So, sticking with creative labs as an example, they could sell just a limited number of itunes compatible zen vision M's. There would be a hidden advantage for apple in allowing this: since ipods are so common, batteries for them are relatively easy to find, even though they're not supposed to be user replaceable, but since zens are much less common, I don't think you can find replacement batteries for them; so someone who bought a itunes-zen would be more likely to buy a new ipod or a new itunes licensed device when it dies. But since, AFAIK, ipod nanos have the battery soldered in, that's not so much of an issue anymore.
Or, the expensive license fee could be made easier to stomach by only licensing itunes for much higher end devices, like those players with the bigger screens that are more geared for video. By doing so, they'd also be able to test the water to see if it would by any chance be a good idea to make such a product themselves.
I don't think the chances of it happeing are very high, especially of the first scenario. It could be a good PR move though.
The only thing a computer case is conducting is sound, the heat is removed by air convection(or alternatively water convection can do most, but not all of the work), that's why wood or acrylic are actually more efficient materials for a case to be made out of in terms of cooling per noise, see: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?p=1 00913#100913
The claim that a case needs to be made out of a conductive material is basically a hoax perpetuated to sell aluminum cases.
Trips to the moon and extraatmospheric telescopes are not neccessarily at odds to each other, if we could put a telescope on the moon, that would also be not be inside an atmosphere, and it wouldn't need gyroscopes to stabilise itself.
No, microsoft is not infallible. But they do have experience with tilt controllers, and they probably also have a good bit of user feedback from the sidewinder freestyle, and they must have considered making a follow up, so their opinion on whether this is a good idea should be a bit better informed. And while they aren't a stellar controller maker, they are at an advantage with these kinds of features because they can further test them in their PC gamepad line.
On the other hand, sony could be working together with logitech on this.
It's funny that sony's using tilt while microsoft, who made one of the first two tilt gamepads, didn't use it. That's not a good sign for sony.
Okay then. So that means that you can't just shift most of the power to one CPU to make it much more efficient at single threaded tasks, but also that it still should be quite beneficial to run multiple cores at different speeds.
Assuming that each core is like an individual CPU, odds are, one core is better than the other. That would mean that for both cores to run at the same speed, the better one would have to be getting more voltage than it requires, or be running slower than it could be(those two things are basically equivalent). So the optimal solution would be to link the state of the cores, but for each state, set each CPU to the maximum it can go at that particular voltage.
In that case, why do they run at the same maximum speed anyway? Throtling only reduces the power usage, it does not reduce TDP, ie. the amount of heat the heatsink has to be capable of disipating. If the second core had a maximum voltage that was a bit lower, that could allow the heatsink to be cheaper or quieter, or for the first core to use more power. And then there's the question of whether both cores have the same speed limits at a certain voltage, maybe most current 2x2.6ghz cpu's are capable of doing 2.8&2.6 at the currently used voltage.
Maybe the whole reason microsoft is doing this is to hurt the profitability of the ipod, in order to hurt apple, in order to weaken OSX, in order to enable themselves to make more money off windows?
It does a horrible job of overriding webpage colors, unlike other browsers, it does not give the option of assigning a certain color to visited links, and a different color to unvisited links. For me that makes it unusable as a primary browser.
IANAPhysicist, but, a machine that turns heat into usable energy, isn't even that too good to be true?
Sony's arrogance isn't limited to just pissing people off, they're also likely to be shooting themselves in the foot with extravagant hardware, just like sega did, and sega managed to screw themselves far more thoroughly than nintendo.
But it's not entirely arrogance, it's a massive gamble that they can piggyback blu ray in together with the PS3, and if they luck out it could pay off big.
But.. do they run linux?
In soviet russia, linux runs your friends!
Imagine how much less real friends people will have when that will actually be possible.
Why don't they at the very least use something that doesn't get left in countless places so easily, like maybe knuckleprints or handprints(preferably of the back of the hand)? There'd also be a lot more area and presumably detail to work with in the later case.
They're not trying very hard to win over ipod users by insulting them. Something they definitly are trying is to seize the rest of the market(even if they are also trying to win over a small number of ipod users), the ads are intended to appeal to all those who already think ipod users are sheep.
Other mp3 player manufacturers should retaliate against this and mock sandisk's campaign, especially considering that sandisk already has the second largest mp3 player marketshare. Something along the lines of "note to sandisk, you're not 'the alternative' to apple, we've been making mp3 players long before you, or apple, jumped on the bandwaggon. Where'd you get the retarded idea that there's one alternative that's for everyone anyway?" Ipod users would probably like that, the ads would be insulting the company that's insulting them.
How is this astroturfing? It's the exact opposite, they're taking existing anti apple sentiment and turning it into ads, which likely will be mistaken for original apple bashing. If you need to call it something, how about trollparroting?