Well, I don't think Negroponte "sold out" but essentially was rudely awakened to the reality of being in a business where windows is the big dog.
Without even considering direct MS pressures, I can see a ton of governments turning down the OLPC project simply because they have no conception of computers without windows. They do not see Windows on the XO and they think that it is not a "real computer" and think these people are basically selling them an underpowered toy.
Besides that, there are sure to be normal (not illegal or evil) attempts by MS to protect their markets, such as the drop in price of Windows in China, which are thwarting the OLPC's attempts at reaching its goals.
Really, it will be much easier for the project to be successful if it had MS behind it, rather than against it, even if that might increase costs, or be a worse technological solution.
Considering that they had trouble manufacturing and delivering the small amount of laptops they sold to the general public (through the G1G1 program) I dont see how opening it up to everyone would have helped.
The program is not being run by Apple or Nintendo who have tons of experience in dealing with the massive initial ramp up associated with a desired product.
Once they are able to deliver the laptops to their intended market, they will surely open it up to everyone.
Its possible this will hurt people who solely distribute free apps. However, you ignore the large contingent of free apps (especially in the mac world) that come from developers who also develop paid for apps. You will see a ton of these, especially since it will be at no additional cost to the developer, and will be a good way for him/her to put their name out there.
How about 40%?
http://developer.handango.com/DeveloperInformation.jsp?siteId=1&CKey=DEV_FAQ#new2.
Also, not everyone has heard of Handango, but EVERYONE has an App Store on their iphone, and so know the location. This is a tremendous deal for developers, and there is no denying that.
However, what is an issue, is the fact that it is the only channel to get to the iphone. Maybe if Apple allowed people to download apps from elsewhere, but provided no guarantees, that might be a better model.
Ummm...
Maybe because like slashdotters have been moaning all these days, they decided to cut off from a label, and do not have the facilities, or the knowledge, or the numbers, to manufacture, ship and distribute $15 CDs. They dont have a network of retailers in their pockets who will readly accept what they are providing, at a reasonable price.
It just goes to show how much ever people try to improve things, cheap fucks will continue bitching.
I am not sure about the new UI. It is really nothing more than graphical menus.
I really liked it starting off, but as my usage of it increased, it has started getting on my nerves. The main problem for me has been that it distracts me from my data. I generally keep it in the closed state, but it is this overload of information everytime i display it to pick an option that hurts my thought process.
While I thought that it was a major improvement over the old system, I think the law of unforeseen consequences is coming to bite me in the behind...
Agreed.
However, I would not be too quick to point Apple out as an example. There are a couple of problems with that.
a) Apple is using iWork as a way to protect sales of Mac OS X if MS decides to abandon office for it (or at least make it completely suck, like they did when they removed VBA from Office 08). They do not need to recover money from sales of iWork to make it worth it. So the cost of figuring out OOXML could be too great to make a profitable product, which would prevent any 3rd party that does not sell its own OS from deciphering OOXML.
b) Apple has all sorts of patent and information sharing agreements with MS, that no other company in the world does. They could very well have got inside information and documents from them (not saying that it happened, but it is a possibility, which is why I would not read too much about the ease of implementing OOXML from the fact that Apple implemented it).
Apple is not arguing against the reform of the process. In fact they are asking precisely for that, and they believe the reform must happen at the courts. Whether you agree with their assessment is a different issue altogether.
What they are arguing against is a revolutionary change, which will unsettle what undeniably is the best (not perfect, maybe not even good) system in the world. Without lack of precedence of a better system, its probably better to take small steps than a revolutionary change.
While I disagree with Elton, you guys are completely missing the point of his statements. Its like you never even read what he purportedly said.
He is not talking about the market, or sales, etc. He is claiming that with the rise of the internet, people have stopped (reduced) communicating in person. And that will theoretically prevent good bands from forming, because music is created best in groups jamming out together.
He is not saying that the internet is killing music because bands cant make money. He is saying that the internet is killing music because there wont be too many bands and/or they wont communicate with each other personally (which would help raise the quality of music) because they are too busy sitting on their computer blogging or creating music alone.
Personally, while he may be right in a couple of cases, there are far more cases where a band has improved because of some obscure music they listened to on iTunes which they would never had access to earlier. I agree with other commenters here that the lack of quality music in the airwaves (TV or radio) is the real discouragement for new good music. I personally believe that the internet will actually help music get better for the many reasons stated in this thread.
But dont dismiss Elton's (supposedly) comments as a selfish artist's greedy rants, because it is not that at all.
Well, its more ephemeral. There is no way you can organize and file IM's to look at later (You can read history, but you cant mark files as important, file in different folders, etc). While people could come up with ways to do this, I dont think it will happen, simply because that is not what PM is best at.
Basically, email is still useful for official/important information.
I think the poster you replied to was talking about the fact that Apple likes to change their battery technology etc. quite frequently. Mainly, I think the only reason Apple likes going with integrated batteries is so they can pack in a whole lot of technology, and still keep the form factor really small. Batteries need to be replaced once every couple of years. Mobile phones are replaced far sooner than that, even in countries like India, where we pay 500 dollars on average for phones (since Carriers rarely ever subsidize, and users prefer buying their own phones). Also, if Apple institutes a battery exchange program, like the one they have for the ipod, this will be a complete non issue.
The only issue is that you cannot carry multiple batteries, but I am sure there will be accessories to provide extended battery life soon enough.
The writer of the article is twisting facts. The 1/5th children dying in the world comment is bandied about by him, but it is quite meaningless, considering that India has 1/5th of the world's population, so it is quite average. Actually, it is even better than that, since India's population is rising faster than other parts of the world (population rise means more children), so less children are dying in India than the rest of the world when you adjust for the number of children born.
1$ in India can take you a very long way. I have a few friends (middle class college students, the kinds who come to the US to get their graduate degrees), surviving through college (including rent etc) for less than 50$ a month. This is in a city, while villages are way cheaper than that. And the numbers the author gives are averages mixing both city and village earnings.
There are problems, howver, such as the farmer suicides. However, those are not a result of a fundamental economic or societal problem, but rather the result of a money-lending system, inherited from before independence, that still unfortunately survives. Because of rather draconian money-lenders in some rural parts, a single failed crop can mean ruin for farmers leading to suicides. There are many other problems, like unhygienic conditions etc, however, none are nationwide, and are local, and none are deeply entrenched, but rather, a single willing individual can eradicate them.
About the disparities, that is a result of capitalism, in fact capitalism requires such disparities to survive. For example, economists claim that a good capitalist society needs somewhere between 4 - 8 % unemplyoment to flourish. While disparity in India might be a little greater than that, capitalism has been in place there for not long enough for the money to trickle down to the poorer sections. The Lakshmi Mittal case is a classic example. Why hasnt he invested in India all these years? Obviously, because it did not make economic sense to him. But now with more money in the country (although slightly concentrated) he has made an investment, which will basically benefit the poorer classes, since they will be getting the most jobs.
The author states good facts, but makes terrible conclusions from them. Rather, makes the conclusions he wants, from them. Nothing hurts India more than Indians such as him, who love hating the country. Criticism is good, but only when based on facts and logical reasoning, not wishful thinking, like the author's reasoning seems.
Almost everyone here wants a relational FS, and there is no doubt that such a system would be extremely powerful. However, most users are not geeks, and are not very good at using computers. There is a reason that the hierarchal structure is so popular, and appeals so much to most users.
1) People are used to such a system from real life. When they want a knife, they dont go to a central database and say i want a knife. They go to a kitchen, then look in the closet that holds cutlery, and then look in the section that has knives, and then pick up the knife they want. A folder structure works in a similar fashion so people are comfortable with it.
2) Most relational FS need you to use the keyboard. Most people just like to point and click and folder based file systems do that very well.
I am not saying that we should not have relational FS'es, just that they should be added to traditional FS'es and not replace them, because most people prefer the traditional way.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I don't think Negroponte "sold out" but essentially was rudely awakened to the reality of being in a business where windows is the big dog. Without even considering direct MS pressures, I can see a ton of governments turning down the OLPC project simply because they have no conception of computers without windows. They do not see Windows on the XO and they think that it is not a "real computer" and think these people are basically selling them an underpowered toy. Besides that, there are sure to be normal (not illegal or evil) attempts by MS to protect their markets, such as the drop in price of Windows in China, which are thwarting the OLPC's attempts at reaching its goals. Really, it will be much easier for the project to be successful if it had MS behind it, rather than against it, even if that might increase costs, or be a worse technological solution.
Considering that they had trouble manufacturing and delivering the small amount of laptops they sold to the general public (through the G1G1 program) I dont see how opening it up to everyone would have helped. The program is not being run by Apple or Nintendo who have tons of experience in dealing with the massive initial ramp up associated with a desired product. Once they are able to deliver the laptops to their intended market, they will surely open it up to everyone.
Its possible this will hurt people who solely distribute free apps. However, you ignore the large contingent of free apps (especially in the mac world) that come from developers who also develop paid for apps. You will see a ton of these, especially since it will be at no additional cost to the developer, and will be a good way for him/her to put their name out there.
How about 40%? http://developer.handango.com/DeveloperInformation.jsp?siteId=1&CKey=DEV_FAQ#new2. Also, not everyone has heard of Handango, but EVERYONE has an App Store on their iphone, and so know the location. This is a tremendous deal for developers, and there is no denying that. However, what is an issue, is the fact that it is the only channel to get to the iphone. Maybe if Apple allowed people to download apps from elsewhere, but provided no guarantees, that might be a better model.
Sony is not an American Company. They dont follow the same rules.
Can I do a search for an older version of the file in Vista?
Ummm... Maybe because like slashdotters have been moaning all these days, they decided to cut off from a label, and do not have the facilities, or the knowledge, or the numbers, to manufacture, ship and distribute $15 CDs. They dont have a network of retailers in their pockets who will readly accept what they are providing, at a reasonable price. It just goes to show how much ever people try to improve things, cheap fucks will continue bitching.
I am not sure about the new UI. It is really nothing more than graphical menus. I really liked it starting off, but as my usage of it increased, it has started getting on my nerves. The main problem for me has been that it distracts me from my data. I generally keep it in the closed state, but it is this overload of information everytime i display it to pick an option that hurts my thought process. While I thought that it was a major improvement over the old system, I think the law of unforeseen consequences is coming to bite me in the behind...
Agreed. However, I would not be too quick to point Apple out as an example. There are a couple of problems with that. a) Apple is using iWork as a way to protect sales of Mac OS X if MS decides to abandon office for it (or at least make it completely suck, like they did when they removed VBA from Office 08). They do not need to recover money from sales of iWork to make it worth it. So the cost of figuring out OOXML could be too great to make a profitable product, which would prevent any 3rd party that does not sell its own OS from deciphering OOXML. b) Apple has all sorts of patent and information sharing agreements with MS, that no other company in the world does. They could very well have got inside information and documents from them (not saying that it happened, but it is a possibility, which is why I would not read too much about the ease of implementing OOXML from the fact that Apple implemented it).
Apple is not arguing against the reform of the process. In fact they are asking precisely for that, and they believe the reform must happen at the courts. Whether you agree with their assessment is a different issue altogether. What they are arguing against is a revolutionary change, which will unsettle what undeniably is the best (not perfect, maybe not even good) system in the world. Without lack of precedence of a better system, its probably better to take small steps than a revolutionary change.
While I disagree with Elton, you guys are completely missing the point of his statements. Its like you never even read what he purportedly said. He is not talking about the market, or sales, etc. He is claiming that with the rise of the internet, people have stopped (reduced) communicating in person. And that will theoretically prevent good bands from forming, because music is created best in groups jamming out together. He is not saying that the internet is killing music because bands cant make money. He is saying that the internet is killing music because there wont be too many bands and/or they wont communicate with each other personally (which would help raise the quality of music) because they are too busy sitting on their computer blogging or creating music alone. Personally, while he may be right in a couple of cases, there are far more cases where a band has improved because of some obscure music they listened to on iTunes which they would never had access to earlier. I agree with other commenters here that the lack of quality music in the airwaves (TV or radio) is the real discouragement for new good music. I personally believe that the internet will actually help music get better for the many reasons stated in this thread. But dont dismiss Elton's (supposedly) comments as a selfish artist's greedy rants, because it is not that at all.
Well, its more ephemeral. There is no way you can organize and file IM's to look at later (You can read history, but you cant mark files as important, file in different folders, etc). While people could come up with ways to do this, I dont think it will happen, simply because that is not what PM is best at. Basically, email is still useful for official/important information.
Last man standing gets to keep the name!
A result of the different expectations of a consumer electronics device, and a general purpose computer.
I think the poster you replied to was talking about the fact that Apple likes to change their battery technology etc. quite frequently. Mainly, I think the only reason Apple likes going with integrated batteries is so they can pack in a whole lot of technology, and still keep the form factor really small. Batteries need to be replaced once every couple of years. Mobile phones are replaced far sooner than that, even in countries like India, where we pay 500 dollars on average for phones (since Carriers rarely ever subsidize, and users prefer buying their own phones). Also, if Apple institutes a battery exchange program, like the one they have for the ipod, this will be a complete non issue.
The only issue is that you cannot carry multiple batteries, but I am sure there will be accessories to provide extended battery life soon enough.
The writer of the article is twisting facts. The 1/5th children dying in the world comment is bandied about by him, but it is quite meaningless, considering that India has 1/5th of the world's population, so it is quite average. Actually, it is even better than that, since India's population is rising faster than other parts of the world (population rise means more children), so less children are dying in India than the rest of the world when you adjust for the number of children born. 1$ in India can take you a very long way. I have a few friends (middle class college students, the kinds who come to the US to get their graduate degrees), surviving through college (including rent etc) for less than 50$ a month. This is in a city, while villages are way cheaper than that. And the numbers the author gives are averages mixing both city and village earnings. There are problems, howver, such as the farmer suicides. However, those are not a result of a fundamental economic or societal problem, but rather the result of a money-lending system, inherited from before independence, that still unfortunately survives. Because of rather draconian money-lenders in some rural parts, a single failed crop can mean ruin for farmers leading to suicides. There are many other problems, like unhygienic conditions etc, however, none are nationwide, and are local, and none are deeply entrenched, but rather, a single willing individual can eradicate them. About the disparities, that is a result of capitalism, in fact capitalism requires such disparities to survive. For example, economists claim that a good capitalist society needs somewhere between 4 - 8 % unemplyoment to flourish. While disparity in India might be a little greater than that, capitalism has been in place there for not long enough for the money to trickle down to the poorer sections. The Lakshmi Mittal case is a classic example. Why hasnt he invested in India all these years? Obviously, because it did not make economic sense to him. But now with more money in the country (although slightly concentrated) he has made an investment, which will basically benefit the poorer classes, since they will be getting the most jobs. The author states good facts, but makes terrible conclusions from them. Rather, makes the conclusions he wants, from them. Nothing hurts India more than Indians such as him, who love hating the country. Criticism is good, but only when based on facts and logical reasoning, not wishful thinking, like the author's reasoning seems.
Almost everyone here wants a relational FS, and there is no doubt that such a system would be extremely powerful. However, most users are not geeks, and are not very good at using computers. There is a reason that the hierarchal structure is so popular, and appeals so much to most users. 1) People are used to such a system from real life. When they want a knife, they dont go to a central database and say i want a knife. They go to a kitchen, then look in the closet that holds cutlery, and then look in the section that has knives, and then pick up the knife they want. A folder structure works in a similar fashion so people are comfortable with it. 2) Most relational FS need you to use the keyboard. Most people just like to point and click and folder based file systems do that very well. I am not saying that we should not have relational FS'es, just that they should be added to traditional FS'es and not replace them, because most people prefer the traditional way.