Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Makes sense (Score 1) 153

The United States federal government just stopped subsidizing food purchases to the tune of 93 million dollars a month, possibly lowering demand. A potential recession also may put downward pressure on prices. So, there is reason to believe food prices may not be higher in six months.

Good luck to us all.

Comment Not a Bellweather This Time (Score 3, Insightful) 59

Q: When the pandemic hit and demand for work-from-home and home entertainment electronics skyrocketed, did this indicate a booming economy?

A: No.

Q: Now that: the pandemic is under control, people already have their gear for at home, and some people are returning to the office, does this indicate an economy in collapse?

A: No, this is one sector going through an entirely predictable correction.

Q: Do the above answers exclude the possibility of a broad-based economic downturn?

A: No, that is still a possibility.

Do me a favor. The next time we have a shortage of something and you are wondering why the producers of those products don't invest in greater production than is normally required to meet demand, remember this moment.

Comment Expectations from where? (Score 2) 223

When I entered college in 1997 our C.S. department was graduating twelve people a year. One in the last batch had secured a $70,000 starting salary and the department head couldn't stop talking about it. "If our graduates can demand $70,000 now, just imagine what that number will be in four years!" Fast forward four years and I had graduated, the dot com bubble had already burst, and September 11th was about to make life tougher on just about everyone. After thirteen months of trying to secure a programming position, I finally lowered the bar on what I was applying for and took an IT job (primarily doing what I did my senior year of high school) for $36,500.

So, just where are these young adults getting these expectations from?

Comment Other Factors (Score 4, Interesting) 32

the pandemic began to force people to work and learn from home

Other Factors:

  • AMD CPUs sometimes beating Intel's in performance
  • Intel finally on 10nm (for 2021, primarily in laptops)
  • Nvidia's huge (roughly 2x) leap in GPU performance
  • AMD almost catching up with Nvidia in raw GPU performance (but not features)
  • Apple switching architectures (and doing it as well as I have ever seen)
  • A crypto currency renaissance
  • People needing to play from home

It has been a great two years of computer products,if you could get your hands on them. After a decade of just using hand-me-downs from work, I've bought two macs and built a PC.

Comment Re:People forget... (Score 1) 130

That and Service Pack 2 was a mixed bag. Some computers worked fine after installation and were much more secure. However others would slow to a craw and it wasn't always obvious why! Many you would drop a bigger RAM kit in and they ran okay again. Some just didn't like something about the motherboard used and that leads me to a story or two.

The most frustrating part was people who had bought a computer with/for Windows XP and then wound up with a nearly incompatible computer as soon as they went to SP2. At the time I had a co-worker that built custom computers on the side. One client insisted he had been coned, and my coworker wound up doing a full motherboard swap and system reinstall for him under warranty (parts and labor). Another insisted he move him back to Windows 98SE, because, "You sold me the wrong thing and you should have known better." That was much harder than it sounded, because Microsoft had doped Windows 98SE two years earlier and my coworker had run out of Windows 98SE copies and license. So he was stuck, with his reputation on the line.

I just happened to have a full retail boxed copy of Windows 98SE, but I didn't want to part with it. Conversely my coworker was strapped for cash from having so many warranty "repairs" coming out of his pocket. So when he tried to buy it off me his best offer was way less than both what I paid for it and what the current market demanded. I wanted to help the guy, but I knew if I felt taken advantage of that would sour a solid working relationship. Then it dawned on me, this guy is sitting on a pile rejected but nearly new computer parts and I need a basic Linux box. So we struck a deal, I'd supply him with full retail Windows 98SE new in the box tomorrow and once his clients were happy he'd built me a current entry level computer filled with computer parts Windows XP SP2 hated. He even agreed to cram as much reject RAM as he could in it. It took some time, but he followed through with a computer that would have cost me about $600 at the time and I got a lot of use out of it. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Comment Re:Heyday already past (Score 2) 106

It unfortunately has attracted a lot of me-too ... with useless answers.

I have noticed recently that often the top voted answer is not the one that works out for me. Often the second or even third highest is what sends me down the best or even correct path (at-least for my situation and based on my judgement).

Weird!

Comment Re:Worth their 30% cut? (Score 1) 198

The devs need to take Apple's cut into consideration when determining their price. Just like any other cost. Then you pay that price and Apple pays the dev. The dev pays nothing more or less when you make a purchase. They do have to pay $99 upfront to Apple and have a bunch of stuff in place before you can purchase their app off the app store. But if Apple sells 1 or 1 million copies of their software, the dev never pays Apple as a result. Money just comes out of the check, like a tax. Money the dev knew upfront, they would never see.

Comment Re:More companies should do the same. (Score 1) 126

Largely true, really it should be on a sliding scale. The most onerous thing Apple does is the 30% cut of IAP, that's impossible to justify no matter how you frame it.

Challenge accepted!

Without the same charge for In App Purchases (IAPs) all I would have to do is put a free app on the store, then require an IAP to unlock (a decent feature set of) it and I bypass the 30% charge. Yet, I would have gotten all the benefits of Apples ecosystem, which are significant.

But I am sure you are saying, "No one would do that!" Let's consider Fortnite, its initial cost is $0. All of its revenue, comes from IAPs. So how does Apple get compensated for the massive amount of tools and services it provides to app developers on the Apple App Store?

I can see arguing that 30% is too high, but not that IAPs should have a different rate.

Comment Re:Intel Sponsorship (Score 1) 71

No it is not.

https://mlq.me/download/takeaway.pdf

From the Acknowledgments:

Additional funding was provided by generous gifts from Intel. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding parties.

Slashdot Top Deals

It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

Working...