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Comment Re: Which is why I always put my car in [P]ark (Score 1) 1440

That won't work in all countries though.

For example in many European countries it's not 'driving' but the intention to drive. So to be able to call in your car for example you would have to be parked on the side, key NOT in the ignition (if applicable), engine must not be running, seatbelt must not be worn (wearing it would mean you're "going to drive").

Yes, yes, it's ridiculous.

Comment Re:Yes, Yes and Yes. (Score 1) 474

...because the existing demographic(sic) has nothing to do with the future of computing. Android is set to overtake Windows this year as the dominant OS. Right now coding a Windows[Direct X] only game shuts out half of your potential audience, and Windows market share is set to decline further.

There's a flaw in your reasoning there. It's not Windows _or_ Android. People have both a smartphone and a computer you know. And yes, of course, not all people do and some don't etc, but the gamers, the target group, do.

Comment Play nice (Score 0) 268

I use Windows at work, OS X at home and no longer have a Linux box. To be honest, I couldn't care less. I organize/customize every machines I own to do exactly what it needs to be doing. If it's a different OS, so be it, hardly changes anything.

If you're even slightly computer savvy, this shouldn't be a problem.

Then why all this hate? All that trash to soft through with people who are shocked about MS (or ANY big company for that matter) lying? Are you SERIOUS? EVERYBODY lies. Discounts happen ALL the time. And as with all statisticsn, it's how you ask the question and how you state your answer. The actual figures don't matter as much.

Many if not all companies selling their products (be it an Office, a PC, an ERP system, a middleware, a broswer) will lie (it's called "(pre)sales") and give sick discounts. You'll be hard pressed to find a company supplying ERP software that doesn't give 50% discount both on initial price and licensing fees for large accounts, or new/risky products ...

That aside ... about that study

- Licenses? Payed? How much discount? Coves all?
- User frustration? You realize a large chunk of the user base (the largest chunk in my opinion) will rage against the new system. Why? Because it's a new system, it's always difficult as IT to sell sth new to the business. EVEN if it's better. You have to take this into account, it can seriously drive up costs (even in sth as simple as XP -> 7 migration)
- Hardware?
- New software/scripts/network settings because of different protocols or whatever used
- 20% overhead for managing such a large project by default
- etc.

Let's at least analyze before shooting it down. That figure must be coming from SOMEWHERE, some analyst was probably wrong, but the data is there and hopfully/probably correct. The calculations he did with it of course are sth else completely. I've seen stated licenses were not included, and that's a huge cost but other than that we don't know a lot ...

Comment Fond memories (Score 1) 171

I have fond memories of the Apple II. It, among many other things, had some very low entry level programming tools (basically no GUI means this is the case whatever you try to do on it) which was my very first experience with programming as a child. When at 10 I got my first computer, an Apple Classic though... It had HyperCard on it... Oh HyperCard, why did you have to go... It'll never be the same without you.

There's just something that's different now. Computers used to be, I don't know, more like *our* stuff. Now that's it gone from enthousiasts to the whole world it feels... different. Not worse per se, just different, like something was lost. My childhood memories are full of afternoons/weekends with dad on the Apple II or if some friend of his, a fellow enthousiast, came over to experiment on stuff. Those were the best days, ending with stacks of floppys of new stuff! Not that you had that much new stuff, it was just stuffitted :)

Comment Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score 4, Informative) 488

Where you getting your figures?

http://investor.apple.com/results.cfm

2011 - The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

2012 - The Company posted quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.3 billion and net profit of $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Quarterly figures you compare to the same quarter, x years ago. Not Q4 to Q3, but Q4-2012 to Q4-2011. Holiday sales, summer slacking, start of school sales, etc. All those have an impact.

On the iPads, as previously stated. Market share is not important here. You don't aim for max market share, you aim for max profit.

2011 - The Company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.62 million iPods, a 27 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

2012 - The Company sold 26.9 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 58 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 14.0 million iPads during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.9 million Macs during the quarter, a 1 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 5.3 million iPods, a 19 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

The market is bound to grow as a whole, how can it not? iPad sales have gone up 26%, and that was in the quarter just before the release of the new iPad which is bound to have an influence.

Comment Re:Why not? It worked so well in Germany in 1939 (Score 1) 439

There's a difference between having verbal consent from the patient, the family, the doctors in the hospital and the hospital management (which is often the case (all of the previous)) instead of doing the paperwork. I remember this on the news a couple of years ago, the 'against' group was acusing people of murder, the 'for' group was just stating the law is black or white, while reality is very grey indeed.

Comment Re:some sense at last (Score 1) 439

On the contrary, this spread from many countries to America.

The list on Wikipedia is sadly incomplete, but in Belgium for example this has been normal for quite a while (by law since 2002). Either by stopping treatment (breathing apparatus, kidney apparatus, etc.) or intravenously giving the patient a lethal dose of x (not entirely sure it's a poison or the like, it could be just a high dose of salt or whatever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_and_the_Law

Well and good too.

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